Question: “And when will it finally be possible to start living endlessly without improving yourself?”
Many people live this way, and through this lens, through this perception, they look at the world.
When do you need to improve yourself? When deep down you are convinced that you are not the way you should be, that you don’t measure up, that you are not perfect, not ideal, that you always need to strive for something.
In other words, a time bomb is built in from the start — you are not the way you should be, you will never be the way you should be, you must work endlessly, atone, dig around, improve.
And on top of that, scenarios and programs from childhood are simply added, that same carrot dangling in front of your nose — be spiritual, be advanced, be rich. Sound familiar?
Read on to learn what the principle of “improvement-ism” is and why the pursuit of endless self-perfection can prevent you from being yourself.
The Principle of Improvement-ism
Improvement-ism is a matrix approach. And the 3D matrix has certain parameters: opposition, rivalry, and a focus on results.
Here is the entire principle of improvement-ism: the premise is “you are not the way you should be.” There is no way out of this, you will never be perfect.
I might disappoint someone, but you were born on a planet of imperfection. Period. Perfect beings, upon arriving here, instantly turn into imperfect ones at the moment of birth.
This might deeply sadden and upset some people, but it turns out you spend your whole life striving for some unattainable ideal.
Does Your Soul Need Improvement?
Let me give you an example that starts the new version of our course “Dance with the Shadow.”
There, we begin a conversation about the authentic Self, which we move toward in the course. There are steps that, when followed, lead you out of the limited version of yourself that you are currently in.
Imagine the moment of birth. A vast being, an entity, a spirit, a soul with the richest wisdom, with enormous accumulated experience, made of light, of love, constantly drawing on the experiences of tens of thousands of incarnations. There is bottomless wisdom, unconditional love on all levels, a clear understanding of itself.
And this immense soul incarnates into a tiny body. It’s clear there are tasks and skills it wants to learn in this life. There is already a certain portion of stories and situations in which you must understand something to gain the experience the soul is missing.
And this boundless, limitless, all-encompassing soul squeezes itself into a tiny body.
For those who have had little children or younger siblings, remember, a baby can’t even move its arms and legs properly when it’s born. The eyes are adult and meaningful, that wisdom is visible in them, but you simply cannot control your body.
Remember the movie “Avatar,” when a person was connected to the consciousness of an avatar and learned to move its arms and legs. The same thing happens with us.
And then it begins: lack of touch, scheduled feedings, punishments (you didn’t behave properly, earn your parents’ love).
And this vast, boundless thing you are in constant contact with at that moment gradually gets cut off. A clamp here, a spring there, something blocked here, something severed there, you got spanked for peeing in the wrong place at the wrong time, a cruel caregiver in kindergarten. And time and time again, parts of you are cut away.
That’s why in the “Dance with the Shadow” course, we work with the concepts of the “authentic Self” and the “limited Self.”
You were limited — all of this happens without your direct participation, you only react.
Then come the teenage years, then adult life, falling in love, traumas, getting fired from work, scammers, “I’m worthless without money.”
But the principle here is the opposite — there was something big, all-encompassing, and then they start cutting it down, cutting it down, cutting it down. And as a result, today we are truncated versions of ourselves.
Each of you, including me, is currently a truncated version of yourself.
And what do we do on the path forward? We reclaim those cut-off, rejected, discarded parts of ourselves that we abandoned in order to earn the love of others.
Try to feel the difference.
Here, I’m tormenting myself with self-improvement because I don’t measure up, I don’t fit in, I want to reach some ideal. Again, the question: whose ideal is it?
And on the other hand, I am reclaiming what I lost before the moment of birth, in childhood, during teenage rebellions, in periods of abandonment, unhappy love, in an unstable environment in the country.
But this is a global process. That’s why we’re not chasing a 3D carrot — a result, run somewhere, make it in time — but step by step, while doing everyday things, working, raising children, we reclaim those parts of ourselves that we lost along the way. This is the path of spiritual development.
See also: How to Return to Your Authentic Self in Your Adult Version of Yourself
The Process of Reclaiming Yourself
Question: “But isn’t contact with the soul also a reclaiming of yourself?”
When you consider yourself cut off — “I’m a little, miserable victim, nothing depends on me, I’m worthless” — and then you realize you are so much bigger, you feel it, you wake up with it, drive appears, a desire to move forward, these are completely incomparable states.
But the most important thing is that this process is expansive, releasing tensions, limitations, blocks, so you can be yourself.
You’re not artificially slogging away at it because someone said you need to work through your lineage or do something else.
Today you encountered a specific situation, you exploded emotionally when someone made a remark or started lecturing you, you open your toolbox — in this case, it will be a shadow aspect — you work with it, you reclaim that part of yourself that is signaling to you: “Pay attention, come get me, I want to go back to mama.”
No way! Many people, with the stubbornness of oxen, spend their entire lives stewing in their own resentments towards themselves, because it’s a mirror. And others have nothing to do with it at all.
This is the revelation on the “Dance with the Shadow” course: it’s not about them, they have nothing to do with it at all, I see myself, I see myself in everything, in all situations, in all the people I encounter.
And if I need this today, I will encounter it today without any striving to improve something just for the sake of it, from the mind.
This is painstaking work, but it is not connected to self-improvement; it is connected to freeing yourself from those shackles, from that burden that you have loaded onto yourself.
Your soul is in direct contact with you, but not as a teacher with a whip who wants to scold you for not finishing something or not reaching your potential, but because it can no longer bear to watch you try to be someone else instead of yourself.
Take the Meditation of Returning to Yourself, which will help you regain the lost sense of unity with your spiritual essence and wholeness.
The reverse trend of self-improvement
There is also a reverse trend, where an unwillingness to change is encouraged, along with a refusal to take responsibility for your life, your choices, and your decisions.
We live in a society with a skewed aim.
A skewed aim means that what is not normal, what is not healthy, is presented as if it were. Moreover, you look at those around you and try to match their unhealthiness.
For example, the promotion of body positivity. Perhaps the original message was different — you are just like everyone else, no worse and no better, you also have the right to exist. But it all got twisted in the wrong direction — you don’t need to take care of your health, your nutrition, you don’t need to exercise, just accept yourself as you are.
And people with the most severe forms of obesity began to appear in all sorts of contests, on runways, and at performances.
The same goes for non-traditional orientation. Suddenly, those who are in the minority start dictating to everyone else what, where, and how.
This also extends to our everyday life: you don’t need to step out of the victim role, you don’t need to work on yourself, you don’t need to forgive — they don’t deserve it.
There are so many specialists out there now; sometimes they are good in their field, but everyone’s mentality and perception of life are different, and their opinions on what they consider right, wrong, fair, or unfair are also different.
This article is based on a broadcast from the #couch_conversation series “Stepping Out of Roles”
P.S. We invite you to the basic course “Dance with the Shadow 4.0” to learn how to see your Shadow’s signals and stop reacting on autopilot to stressful situations.
View the course program and register >>