3P Random Reflections Blog

One of the paradoxes in life is that "trying" to feel better, in the long run, actually makes us feel worse... It's not so much what we choose to do in life, but the underlying (sometimes not so obvious to us) reasons for doing it.

If we do self-help or self-care mostly to quell all the negative judgments we have about ourselves, or to sate our never-ending list of shoulds, then the negative judgments and shoulds will never end.

Instead, there's something beautifully profound in discovering 1) the illusory nature of our negative thinking, and 2) the realization of where our judgments and shoulds come from.

In the moments when we happen to be in touch with the calmer/peaceful/connected part of ourselves (our true nature), our actions come without much thought and are naturally more self-caring.

In the moments when we are disconnected, and giving significance to our thinking, our actions and thoughts become focused on how to fix or change or improve whatever we think is not enough or broken in some way.

And the fixing never ends... We think that "life will be better once this is fixed", not realizing that if/when it gets fixed, more things keep getting added to the list.

Instead of continually exploring all the self-care measures and gadgets and programs designed to "fix" us, some gentle self-reflection may be the better direction to look in first.

Discovering and living from the space of deeply KNOWING that we don't need fixing, is paradoxically what allows us to give ourselves the best self-care.

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