Beyond Self-Help Contents

Body: The Real Work

People on a spiritual path or those striving for better mental health often think, as I once did, that they need to work on their mind – thinking better, living with a certain mindset and convincing the mind to have a certain understanding of life. But when you face real situations in life, it is your body that betrays you, your ideas and your vision.

You are about to have an important conversation, and suddenly your heartbeat rises, pounding as if you are going to die. Your throat chokes up before you can clearly express yourself.
You want to complete some important work, but out of nowhere your body becomes stressed and eventually, you give up. 
You want to get healthy, yet your body craves unhealthy food. 
Your body feels attracted to people who may not be good for you or might even hurt you.

Most of our problems in life are more related to the body than our thoughts or mindset. Yet, most self-help encourages you to forcefully control your body through the mind. This required an immense amount of energy, leading to constant internal battles. For example: “Your body starts to crave unhealthy food,  and you start to forcefully control it by your mind telling yourself not to eat it. But for how long can you keep this control? In my experience, not very long.” 

Working on your body is a bit different from reading books, affirmations, journaling, or mental exercises. Focus on your body through exercise and proper food—it does far more for your mental health than just working on your thoughts.

Final Words

Sometimes self-help content programs you that you have to fix yourself before living your life. This is the reason we get addicted to self-help content. The real progress is such a slow slow process that it will take decades. 

I was once addicted to self-help content, philosophy and spiritual knowledge. I searched a lot trying to find answers to my questions about love, loneliness, connections, life, meaning and purpose. I was really serious about it actually, that I really really wanted to find answers.  The more I kept exploring the more I got frustrated. Because I was getting nowhere close to answers.   I remember one day I was watching a video, and I threw my phone aside, tearful, sitting alone with myself. It became very clear to me that I could never figure life out. It was a defeat, but a very sweet defeat for me. Now all that was left for me was, accept my defeat and surrender. Somehow I did that. I think that was really the last time in my life, I ever looked up to self-help content, philosophies and ideas so seriously. That was the end of a journey for me, to see and realize that books, videos, and self-help content, are not going to help me.

I am not going to suggest that you accept what I have realised. And even if you try to,  you won’t be able to do it. In fact, this is the problem with most self-help is to say, “I will give you in 10 minutes what I have learned in 10 years.” This is such a stupidity. Because my realization cannot be yours.  You have to go on your journey of exploration of self-help content, and philosophies. You have to come to your own conclusions.

If you are reading this,  you are already on such a journey. My suggestion is to use this series of posts as a way to bring more awareness to your path—be honest about it, make it more intense, and take it more seriously. I am confident that something wonderful will definitely come out of it.