Self-improvement: Escaping From Our Default Settings

A lot of people engage in "self-improvement," and it's a business they take very seriously.

Of course that makes perfect sense, because who doesn't want to be a better person, right?

But what is it that we are really trying to do, when we say we want to improve ourselves?

In general, it seems to be about a process of change, and it often involves a substantial change of direction, in terms of how you approach things. We might day that we learn to become responsive, instead of reactive.

Cruise Control Zombieland!

One of the things that often holds true is the fact that many people start wandering their way through life pretty much on "cruise control." They don't pause to think about why they do what they are doing, or why that doesn't feel fulfilling. Things may not feel exactly the way they ideally should, but we dismiss that as just being "how life is." We don't question. We just move forward.

But then we wake up one day or maybe we grow a gradual awareness of un-ease and think to ourselves "you know, this just doesn't feel good and this doesn't feel right and it doesn't feel like me but I don't understand WHY that is."

What I refer to as our "default setting" is usually what we came into adulthood with — partially learned from our family of origin, or our caretakers, and subsequently from messages from society around us and we were probably also influenced by what our friends were doing.

If you take apart that very long sentence you'll notice that all the references within that sentence is to people outside yourself and influences outside yourself.

The thing about seriously getting down inside self-improvement is that it is often the very first time many people get to sit down and truly be with themselves, and try to consider what it is they're doing and what they want to do... without being terribly wrapped up in external influences.

For some people that statement might sound terribly selfish, but it really isn't. There's nothing selfish about wanting to be happy or satisfied to some degree, and there is no selfishness in wanting to figure out how that comes about.

A lot of people don't actually ever reach the point of wanting to seek out the deeper reasons for their troubles. And — to some extent — that is understandable because it can be very hard to look at the truth of your quirks and foibles and prejudices. Or the facts of our life, because "truth" is somewhat subjective.

And what is hidden within can sometimes be very difficult to unearth, then deal with and process.

One of the marvels of the human psyche is that we have a remarkable ability to create neural pathways around things that really hurt us in such a way that those wounds — and their effect on our choices — are buried very deep in our mind. This can be abuse, failure, lack of love from parents or whatever other trauma might have been eating us. But we steadfastly pretend it's not there by saying things like "well, I don't really need that anyway" and "that was not a big deal."

We put ourselves forward with a brave face, because we have been taught that being a victim of anything is a sign of weakness, and that blaming your parents or some family member for some part of your past.. well, it's just a wrong thing to do. We "have no right" to do so.

Truth is that we do.

And we definitely have the "right" to recognize and remove ourselves from old programming and those "default settings" that are actually not serving our highest and best self!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great rest of your week!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

---

Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!

Proud member of the Silver Bloggers Community on Hive!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT posted anywhere else!)
Created at 2023-11-09 02:13 PDT
0985/2240