Understanding self-development depends wholly on how you approach the ‘Self’ part of the equation. (HINT: Self is capitalised for a reason.)
You might want to be musclier or skinnier. Be more successful and have higher status. Being richer, smarter, less anxious or healthier might top your list. But where do these desires originate?
Some people approach self-development as a way to be accepted and loved by others. It might be an unconscious response to childhood pain. In particular cases, a person might harbour a secret desire to prove an abusive and dismissive parent wrong. The idea is that by becoming more, by elevating higher than others, they become immune to harsh judgement. Many people pursue self-development as a way to outrun their demons. If short, you can ask yourself: Are you chasing after something, or running away from something?
Yet this is all self with a lowercase s.
Carl Jung spoke of the Self as a doorway; a psychological tunnel which runs all the way into the heart of the soul. It has nothing to do with your thoughts, your beliefs or your map of how the world should be. It is a realm beyond the mind, and beyond the world.
Within the Self is the seed of all your power, ready to grow out and manifest into the world. Within this seed lies everything you can be. It is the blueprint of who you truly are, rather than who you should be.
The world carries countless mixed messages about the should of life. It tells us the ‘right’ way to develop. It dangles above us beauty standards, ideas of masculinity, concepts of success, and pathways to happiness.
How many of us chase these things for years, and finally conclude that we feel empty and further away from these things than ever?
The Self is the divine child within you. Pure, perfect and wise beyond imagination. It is at once nothing and everything. It knows all. It feels all. It sees all. There is no going around the Self. No matter how many self-development books you read, no matter how hard you chase a blueprint you found in the outer world — you will never attain it. You will always have that inkling feeling that something is missing. You know exactly what I mean by this, and even if not, it knows.
The Self is always accessible to you, and it always has the right answers. Never the right answer, but the right answer for you. After all, the Self is you, and nobody knows what is right for you but you. How could they?
So what to do about Self-development?
For one, let go of everything you have been chasing. Pause. Take time in solitude. Go deep into nature if you must. And let go.
Surrender.
Breathe deep. Let yourself relax down into your lower body. Notice your surroundings. The colours. The details. Feel the breeze on your skin. The coldness or warmth of the air. The sounds in the distance. Let go further. And finally, invite the Self to come out of its hiding hole.
This will be a journey of a lifetime. A relationship which you will build painstakingly over the days, months and years. The Self is entrenched deep inside that psychological tunnel. If you are receptive to it, if you have faith, it will communicate with you.
The Self has no voice. It speaks through feelings, impulses, images, symbols and above all, gut feelings. The Self, when you allow it to, injects you with knowings. You sense, you feel, you somehow know what you want, when you want it, and how to go about getting it. The Self will gift you these impulses constantly, allowing you to make adjustments in the outer world.
It is a process of trial and error. Trying something, listening within, and learning to decode the signals. When something does not resonate, you feel into the Self and use what it provides to make adjustments. If you get it right, the Self will let you know.
Your mind, your world and your trauma will all try to obstruct this process and sidetrack you. Therefore, Self-development, at its purest, is about centering yourself within, over and over and over again.
The Self is a lighthouse which you sail towards every single day of your life, until your death. And as you do, layer by layer, experience by experience, you develop more and more into who you are, rather than what the world says you should be.
