In order to truly improve oneself, I had to learn what I did/didn't do that stood in the way of growth... and face it. Not what others did to stand in my way. Not what my environment was doing to hold me back. I had to learn the underlying structure of my own coping mechanisms and dismantle each individual gear/cog/bolt until the whole thing could tumble. And that was scary... because those were my emotional support coping mechanisms that withstood the test of the traumas that built them. Also, I'm sentimental and a magpie, so I'll hold onto the things that work, even if I only use them once (or I used to, anyway; it's gotten better-ish). Taking them apart seemed to go against all instinct... except I didn't need them anymore. Once, they were beautiful, protective strategies that aided my survival and helped me through truly heinous experiences. Now, they were rusty structures gumming up the works, because I outgrew their necessity.
Old me would venture into "self-improvement" journeys often, and always meet the first real obstacle with avoidance rather than courage. I had to learn the hard way that the rough patches and dark legs were to be endured if I were to move forward. Instead, I would loop, burying fear and grief underneath the conviction [denial] that "Healthy = Easy". Except I had to get to Healthy, and my foot was nowhere near the first step into that state. The once-beautiful guardians of my soul were now rusting piles of illness blocking forward progression. Clearing the path to improvement meant sitting down and learning how to undo what I built on self-preservation instinct in a massive hurry. It brought up memories of why I built it in the first place and what it protected me from. It made those memories feel like active threats to my psyche even though I was physically so far removed from those environments.
The hardest lesson I needed to learn from looping through the self-improvement track over and over again...:
I could not move forward until I unburied my grievances and came to terms with their sources. I could not go anywhere until I dismantled what I had built because of traumas. I could not become that "best version of self" until I realized the cage I built around myself for protection was now a self-imposed prison I needed to let myself out of in order to feel the sunlight on my face.
Make sure that your journey to self-improvement is not, in fact, a burial of your grief. That graveyard will come to life and haunt you every time you try to move forward, and you have to truly lay it to rest in order to move on.
