By Celeste Smucker
To open ourselves to transformation, we need only to open ourselves to life as it presents itself to us in every moment. –MC Cannon
A desire for self-transformation often starts with feeling discomfort or pain. Something in your life is off, sometimes a lot off.
Self-transformation, in contrast, promises relief from this pain and discomfort.
If you feel motivated to find relief, you may look around for answers.
Sometimes a quick online search or consulting a trusted friend is all it takes to find just what you need.
Other times, though, nothing seems to work, leaving you feeling frustrated and a little angry. "What's wrong with me," you may ask.
Could it be resistance to change?
What's the solution?
Let's take a look.
What Is Self-Transformation Anyway?
What does self-transformation mean to you?
If you are like many people, you view it as a means to being a better person defined as more success in work and relationships. Or maybe what you want is more time for hobbies or to be free from depression or anxiety.
Additional training or education may pop up as answers. Finding a good therapist or a coach to help you increase your productivity or learn how to communicate better with others may get your attention as well. It all depends on your particular needs.
If you are looking for a job or business opportunity, you may be drawn to possibilities that look potentially lucrative even if you aren't sure you would enjoy the day to day work.
If you go for it anyway, you may wonder why your work isn't fun or why your income is nothing like you expected.
On the other hand, even if you are wildly successful bringing in lots of money, you may still have that nagging suspicion that something important is missing.
Once again you may ask "What's wrong with me?"
Maybe the answer is nothing.
Wait. What?
Could You Already Be Perfect?
True transformation comes from first accepting yourself as you are and fully accepting where you find yourself. –MC Cannon
There's nothing wrong with educating yourself, having better interpersonal relationships or becoming more productive. And it is often a good idea to work with a life coach.
However, consider the possibility that your original premise, the one about needing to be a better person, is flawed.
Perhaps instead there's nothing wrong with you, the authentic you.
Unfortunately, you don't recognize your perfection or believe in it because you don't see yourself as you really are. It's like you're looking in a mirror covered in fog. No way can you see yourself clearly. However, the problem is not you. It's the fog.
And removing it requires you to understand where it comes from and your role in creating it.
This shifts your focus from changing you, to changing your erroneous view of yourself.
How do you do this?
The above quote provides clues. Start by:
- Accepting yourself as you are.
- Accepting where you find yourself.
To do so it helps to understand the role your ego plays.
Your Pesky Ego
The greatest obstacle to transformation is often not ignorance, but the subtle fear of losing the person we've spent a lifetime becoming. –Mark Samuel
A spiritual journey of self-transformation is all about uncovering the authentic part of you that hides behind your ego. It is sometimes also called illusion or maya.
As you search for answers you may find some influencers telling you that you must first abolish your ego.
However, while this sounds good, it not only isn't practical, it will never work.
Your ego gives you an identity, a sense of self that sets you apart from others. This identity starts forming very early, some say it may be mostly formed as early as age four.
Part of its job is to keep you safe. It may warn you if you're about to do something risky like clicking on a scammy link.
It may also warn you not to speak up for yourself if you are about to violate a family approved value.
Look to your ego also if what you want is stability and predictability.
While you can't live without it, recognize that its scope is limited.
Your ego is made up of a conglomeration of past experiences and belief systems that you pick up (consciously or unconsciously) from others.
The source may be family, friends, teachers, your church, the internet, or society in general.
Your ego's wisdom, then, is necessarily limited by your unique set of experiences.
Maybe you learned growing up that real security requires you to be wealthy. If so, your ego may direct you on a career path that has good earning potential.
This might keep you financially safe. However, you may endanger your happiness, personal fulfillment and health if you don't enjoy your work.
Or maybe you learn early on the importance of keeping the peace (at all costs) in your interpersonal relationships.
In that case your ego may help you develop a sensitivity that allows you to quickly take the temperature of a roomful of people.
As you circulate around the room you remain acutely aware of your role. You don't want to offend others and, at the same time, you want to keep everyone happy even if it means repressing your own needs.
While this behavior may help protect you from the anxiety associated with conflict, it also comes with big costs.
These examples are the ego at work. It helps you keep order and stability in your life, yet its limitations hinder you.
Over time it's easy for you to become invested in the identity your ego helps you create. After all, it feels familiar and safe. And the more it takes root in your mind, the more you identify with it as the real you.
If you love your life as it is, this is good news.
If you are searching for what's missing in your life, you will need to look beyond your ego for advice.
Unfortunately, the changes you may make as part of this process are a threat to your ego's carefully constructed identity, the person you have spent a lifetime becoming.
What's the solution?
Who Are You Really?
If we truly want to deal with the problems of the mind, we must turn within and awaken our own inner power. –Swami Muktananda
To find your authentic self you must move beyond your ego to a source that is holistic and experiential.
Called your inner power or essential self, it communicates as a knowing or as an intuition, rather than a thought, although a thought can trigger it.
However, you can't think yourself into that knowing because it is a concept that exists beyond your mind, which is the home of your ego.
Rather it speaks to you through (often subtle) hunches. A hunch may show up as a flash of insight, a coincidence, an unexpected meeting with an old friend, the title of a book, article or advice columns that arrive unasked in your newsfeed.
An inner voice that quietly reminds you of your purpose in life when you are in the midst of making an important decision is another way your intuition may speak.
It also encourages you to view yourself as part of a larger whole or collective consciousness. A subtle urge to choose a cardboard egg carton rather than a plastic one, or to donate what you can afford to your favorite non-profit, are two examples.
Since intuitive advice may or may not seem logical according to the values of your family or society at large, your ego may encourage you to ignore it.
If you do so, though, you risk an increase in the discomfort and pain that started you on your spiritual path in the first place.
The Risk of Staying Stuck
Think of your current life as a story.
In your desire for self-transformation you decide to change the story to produce different outcomes.
This almost always means leaving old habits and beliefs behind and substituting new ones.
Unfortunately, no matter how well you plan or how appealing the future looks after the changes, you can never fully predict what will happen.
And this can feel scary.
For example, you may fear outcomes such as some of the following:
- Disappointment if things don't turn out exactly as you had hoped.
- Letting others down. Maybe your friends or family won't agree with your choices. They may be unhappy if you decide to change careers, travel more, or take a cut in pay to pursue something you love.
- Feelings of rejection if others don't continue to respect you. Some may back away or even cut you off completely.
- Loneliness associated with the possible loss of or due to changes in relationships.
- Increased responsibility that is more than you are comfortable with because you fear you are not up to the task. (Even if you are fully qualified.)
- And perhaps the biggest fear of all: what happens if, to protect yourself, you say "No" more often when other people make demands that compromise you.
If they are accustomed to and fully expect you to continue to say "yes" as you always have in the past, they may feel let down or even angry.
As scary as change sometimes is, staying stuck can be even more so.
In his famous book When the Body Says No, Gabor Maté, MD, explains that regularly saying "yes" when you mean "no" can seriously stress your body and compromise your immune system.
Over time this limits its ability to protect you from conditions such as:
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Auto-immune diseases
- PTSD
If you are willing to choose self-transformation in spite of the risks, what is your first step?
Your Journey To Self-Transformation
Even the smallest steps can be profound. – MC Cannon
Start small. But start.
Careful evaluation of your situation (plus small steps forward) signals to your essential self that you are moving in a positive direction, regardless of your fear.
This in turn motivates you to do a little more and then a little more after that.
A terrific first step is to commit to a simple daily practice. You can always add to it later based on your experience.
Then put time for your practice in your schedule and commit to doing it daily. Find a friend to act as an accountability partner if that helps.
Your daily practice is a powerful reminder to you to look within for the help you need to balance limiting advice from your ego.
It does this by uplifting your spirit, clearing away negativity and keeping you focused on your spiritual path with its holistic focus.
An essential element of any daily practice is meditation. It has much to recommend it including:
- Increased feelings of well-being, self-love, joy and happiness.
- Expanded ability to access intuitive insights for creative and productive activities.
- Greater tranquility, patience and composure, even in the face of life's ups and downs.
- Expanded awareness and the courage to live holistically.
To support your meditative practice choose options such as physical exercise (including yoga, tai chi or walking) time in nature, journaling or chanting.
A diet appropriate to your constitution helps support your journey as well.
Just as important, though, is reading uplifting literature or self-help books, watching inspiring movies or listening to holistic and truthful podcasts.
What goes into your mind is as important as what goes into your mouth. Just as your body assimilates your food, your mind digests what you read, watch, or listen to.
Excessive violence, negative news and talk shows can be as hard on your health as eating processed and difficult to digest foods.
Are You Ready to Get Started?
When choosing what to include in your daily practice, first ask yourself this question: Will these activities uplift and inspire me to greater self-awareness? Or will they keep me stuck?
Then decide if you are prepared to make significant changes in your life.
If the answer is "yes," why not choose one small step and get started?