SELF-IMPROVEMENT
How Can You Avoid Becoming Addicted to Changing Yourself?
Day 49, 50 questions for deep self-reflection
Trigger Warning: Psychological exploration and personal growth — everything here is a reflection of self only. If you are triggered, please stop reading immediately. Always put your own mental health first!
Do you fear change or do you chase it down, grapple it, and roll in it until it becomes a part of who you are? And in what ways do you change yourself? Is it physical? Mental? Emotional?
This is day 49 of the 50 Questions for Deep Self-Reflection challenge from Know Thyself Heal Thyself created by Diana C.
DAY FORTY-NINE: How can you avoid becoming addicted to changing yourself?
Stumbling over the penultimate question!
You may (or may not) be aware that I verbalized and transcribe these responses rather than physically writing them because I like to just listen to and trust myself knowing that what I need from the question will come through. So, the fact that this is my third attempt means I’m blocking myself from some truth. I think the first two times I was trying to logic the question which I should know by now (on day 49!!!) gets me nowhere. I guess that means the little beast puppy is loose again.
OK. Let me take a deep breath. Let me sit back. Let me ask the question to myself and see what comes out…
How can you avoid becoming addicted to changing yourself?
You can’t!
Oh! So for the first time, the short answer that came to me was simply, “You can’t.” The explanation behind that is obviously the more important component here as is the perception of addiction.
Dictionary.com describes addiction as:
The state of being compulsively committed to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
If we look at changing ourselves as a positive, ceasing that may cause severe trauma. Perhaps that’s the meter with which we can measure when we’ve stalled in life. If we talk about changing ourselves…
Oops, I did it again
I almost did it again. I almost started to logic it again. But I stopped myself. Good job me! Still, every time, every way I try to spin this in my head, I keep coming back to addiction to change being a good thing. Because addiction to change is (in my mind) an addiction to finding self. Ah! Maybe this is why I’m being dragged along this particular path with this question.
I’m addicted to finding me
I grew up behind a mask. I grew up being who I was supposed to be and who I was told I was supposed to be. I did it well becoming the family black sheep in chameleon’s clothing. It was only a couple of years ago that I took steps to allow myself to come out from under that external pressure and to just play in the components of self as they arose.
I was the family black sheep in chameleon’s clothing.
I am addicted to changing from who I pretended to be (the mask) into who I am. I am addicted to not destroying the mask, but to understanding it and knowing it’s there and being OK with putting it on for safety, but doing it with volition and being able to take it off. I’m addicted to finding all the wonderful elements of self that have been drowned for so long. And yes, I do call it an addiction because if I cease doing this, it will cause me severe trauma.
I’m addicted to finding all the wonderful elements of self
I don’t want to avoid being addicted to changing myself.
I couldn’t stop changing even if I did want to, and I don’t. I have a very specific change that I’m addicted to and I love it. I know there are potentially so many other elements of this question and so many different possible interpretations but that’s what I was trying to explore the first two times I attempted to record my response.
This time, I’ve just spoken about me.
Is that your final answer?
How can you avoid becoming addicted to changing yourself?
I don’t know and I don’t care because I don’t want to. And that’s pretty cool.
Change is inevitable and changing ourselves with intent is a natural part of self-reflection and understanding. So can an addiction to changing self be something you would actively want to avoid? It depends on what you believe about the word addiction and what you perceive to be changing yourself.
If you are interested in the journey so far — all the days that came before, I’ve collected all the article links here: