The spectacularization of the recent techniques to keep you motivated that circulate in collective talks and YouTube videos seems to have made us fall into the fallacy of "Obligation to excel" or of "Right to personal growth": magicians and illusionists who motivate and defy the laws of physics, the public forgetting that they are "tricks", people with irreversible handicaps who achieve sports results that seem "supernatural" for those who are in full capacity, groups that walk on burning coals, broken glass or that split arrowheads with the throat without sticking them, etc..
Watching these videos and witnessing such spectacular sessions Who does not want to grow personally? Who does not dare to believe that what he believes is impossible in his life, can also be achieved?
Coupled with this new wave of arguments and motivational content, the need to set and achieve amazing goals, run marathons, triathlons, ironman, parachute, learn to drive small planes, point or base jump, is usually associated with the concept of “personal growth”. all for the sake of proving to yourself that you can, sometimes on an escalation of self-demand that is a long way from health, balance and well-being.
And here comes the powerful question: Can one prove that he can what?
Why prove yourself capable of so many achievements?
What feelings of lack and needs move us towards all this?
Increase self-esteem? Feeling more self-confident? Being able to waver to friends or show off socially? Plain and simple fun? (I only create the latter for those who dedicate themselves to these challenges professionally).
If this were true, the reality would be that a person with healthy self-esteem, self-confident, and without the need to attract the social recognition of others, would not need all this. He would live in peace within its limits without believing himself trapped in the much denigrated "Comfort Zone".
And at this moment of reflection, the question arises as to where is the real balance and health of a person: In compulsively aspiring to consume challenges to feed your “personal growth” or in accepting your own limits and living in peace??
Perhaps our nonconformity with ourselves is leading us as a society to a progressive difficulty in accepting ourselves as people as we are. From this perspective, perhaps the greatest sign of "personal growth" is the ability to accept oneself, rather than constantly demanding goals and achievements to feel capable..
And this is well known by psychologists who, depending on the type of case we deal with with the client, we propose intervention approaches based on the achievement of objectives (when we observe that the client claims to have the means and skills necessary to face a situation), or in the acceptance of unfavorable realities and grief (when you have to deal with a situation whose change and overcoming is not under your own control and possibilities).
The first approach, typical of positive psychology, strategic problem solving, and coaching, focuses on awakening and developing "positive" emotions to achieve goals..
The second typical approach to therapies based on the acceptance, existential logotherapy and resilience, focuses on alleviating negative emotions through a re-evaluation or restructuring of the meanings associated with the experiences that generate them.
The problem arises when, from the need to alleviate negative emotions, I get into personal growth programs that what they do is awaken positive emotions, thus blocking the cognitive process necessary to process, re-elaborate and assume one of their own. "Duels".
The result of this dynamic is similar to a “Emotional digestion cut-off” in which unresolved emotional problems and blocks may reappear in the person's life and lead to the need to constantly demonstrate that they are resolved when deep down they are not, in a compulsive attempt that distracts him from his real "undigested" problem and that the only thing that shows him is that he is not accepting what is happening to him, he does not want to see it head on, and does not you are accepting yourself as a person with that limitation.
At this point the greatest possible personal growth turns out to be having the courage to face one's own ghosts and look in the mirror to resolve.
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