Go Fix Yourself

Others in my life have this attitude that whatever is wrong with me – I need to fix myself.  They repeatedly say to me, “I can’t help you.  I don’t know how to help you.”  I do and have done everything I know to fix myself.  It hasn’t fixed me.

In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book, “The Power Of The Other,” he explains why not, “The things we always try to do to get better— which includes working on our abilities, thinking styles, initiative, strategy, communication, accountability, perseverance, adaptability, and so forth— are certainly valid, but insufficient.  The problem is that you can’t just change them on your own.  You are already at your limits with the equipment you have. But your abilities will be changed, and your equipment will grow, as these capacities are developed in certain kinds of relationships.  To get to the next level of performance, you certainly do have to think differently, but to think differently, you have to have a different mind, and your brain has to fire differently. To develop these differences in your mind and brain, the equipment in which thoughts and feelings and behaviors are embodied, you need to connect in ways that rewire you.  The way that growth, getting to the next level, works— it’s not something we can control, or will into being, or just choose . . . even though you would like to be able to do that, right?  Getting better is not about just ‘willing’ better performance.”

It happens through relationship.  Relationship builds into a person extra components that round out a person.  It’s like adding add-ons to a machine.  The machine can only do certain things unless you add-on something extra.  Then, the machine can do more than it did before.  I came to get help from others first, because I know I need their help to be better.  All humans need help from other humans to be better than we are.  My wife, primarily, has the ability to make me into a truly wonderful and remarkable person.  I am more than willing to admit that the goodness that she saw in me when we were going out is totally due to her adding to me what was lacking in me that propelled me into that goodness state that she so loved.  She helped create that which she loved - dare I say adored?