I was scrolling through my Instagram when suddenly I was hit with an influx of quotes on a plethora of topics regarding self-healing, breaking “generational traumas,” and learning to “love yourself.”

You get the idea…

Someone has to say it… this shit is getting old. It’s so boring!

We have to start living our lives instead of overanalyzing all the time.

Maybe I am part of the problem. I think I shared one of these lame quotes the other day on my Facebook. They often appear in my most vulnerable moments, and I find they soothe some emptiness that appears inside me.

I’d love to believe that I’m breaking some “generational trauma,” whatever that heck that means… I don’t even want children!

I’d also love to believe that I’m “raising my standards” or “seeing my self-worth” when in reality, I’m just reading quotes on social media that make me feel like I am making progress. But the most progress I’ve made is when I’ve stepped away from all of that.

Sometimes we have to stop analyzing and just live. Growth can’t happen when we are obsessed with exploring the depth of every single decision we have made or diving too deep into our childhoods.

It’s not healthy to constantly try and figure out why we love the way we love or breathe the way we breathe. I suppose some of that is useful, but it can really get obsessive. We live in a culture that glorifies this hyper-analyzation of self.

Some of us do need to seek therapy. The lack of access to professional help is why this self-help content is alluring to so many people. But that’s another blog! No time for my political banter today…

Anyway…

At one point, I found myself salivating over quotes that validated myself as an “empath.” It made me feel good because they fed some narrative in my mind. Even if others did me wrong, it does not make me better than them! I don’t really care what a narcissist is anymore!

What if we do not need to fix ourselves OR see our worth? What if we just need to BE? Just be who we are? Improve naturally. It’s good to learn from our mistakes, but digging too deep can get us on a long ride to nowhere.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I don’t want to neglect the fact that some of the self-help stuff is incredibly valuable! It has honestly helped me in some ways. But lately, I’ve started to ponder how useful consuming that content is regularly.

I’m just saying it is so important to just LIVE rather than overanalyze our traumas and tendencies. We don’t have to think about loving ourselves. Sometimes that love just COMES from DOING.
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Today, I realized I want to read more books. More fiction books.

I used to feel shame about reading fiction when I got older. I think I subconsciously believed I had to learn something or grow from every book I read. It stopped me from reading altogether, but honestly, I love stories! I love characters. I love how I feel when I escape into another world. I want to escape in fiction.

And that has nothing to do with loving myself or learning something (although reading fiction can be quite transformative!)

That’s what I mean when I say joy can be found outside of analysis! You can find something that literally has NOTHING to do with self-help or healing and gain all of those qualities just by finding joy in your own interests.

At this point, I have no regrets. I don’t need to constantly analyze ways to improve myself. I don’t have to “be better.”

Maybe I’ll just take it a day at a time…

I choose to love myself TODAY.

I don’t need to fix anything…

& that’s the truth.

Sher