Help Me!: How Self-Help Has Not Changed My Life

by Marianne Power

come . . . Oh yes, there it was . . . That tidal wave of anxiety and self-loathing that washes over you after a big night. That certainty that you have done something very bad, that you are a bad person and nothing but bad things are going to happen to you for the rest of your pathetic life, because this is what you deserve.

Pretty much me, all the time.

I was suffering from what my friends call The Fear but it wasn’t just a hangover making me feel this way. The feelings of dread, anxiety and failure were always there, humming in the background. The hangover just turned up the volume.

These books acknowledged the insecurities and anxieties I felt but was always to ashamed to talk about. They made my personal angst seem like a normal part of being human. Reading them made me feel less alone.

cope. Every time we avoid doing something it makes us feel weaker, while facing a fear, even if it’s a small one, makes us feel strong, empowered and in control. And that’s

Susan says that we are only fooling ourselves when we put things off. She calls it the ‘when/then’ game – we tell ourselves we’ll approach the guy we like when we’re slimmer or we’ll apply for the promotion when we have more experience. We think that fear will go if we just wait for the right time but when we get to the right time we find more excuses. Doing something new is always going to be scary. The only way for it to stop being scary is to do it.

Yes, it was embarrassing but so what? Embarrassment doesn’t kill you, it turns out!

‘But it’s all in our heads, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Cos, if I make myself go, it’s all right and I wonder what I was worrying about.’

Psychologists say that there are two sources to all our fears. The first involves our physical safety – so people are scared of heights, snakes and fire because they can kill us. The second source of fear is of social isolation, which is why we are so scared of looking stupid in front of people or of being rejected.

with ourselves’. She argues that if you love yourself you look after your money. People who don’t look after their money – either by spending too much, getting into debt, or keeping themselves in the dark about how much they have – are not ‘free spirits’; they are actually self-sabotaging. Oh.

We’re hard-wired to fear rejection because in our caveman days we needed to be accepted by the group to survive. Rejection in those days meant death and it still feels that way even if it’s just two girls who don’t want to play with you or a boss not emailing you back.

1) Rejection Therapy is easy when you’re drunk. 2) People are lovely. It is our own fears that make us think they are not. I told myself the guys in the band were stuck up and the woman behind the bar was scary. Neither was true. 3) It’s much easier to stay safe in your pub (life) corner but the second you do something silly, like ask to join the band or pull a pint, life becomes more fun – it feels like an exciting game rather than an endurance sport. 4) Embarrassment doesn’t kill you. It passes quite quickly, actually. 5) I now loved Rejection Therapy.

‘If you’re feeling stressed about something, say “Fuck It” and you will feel instantly better.’

He says that the more we observe our thoughts – rather than get caught up in them – the more they will lose their power. They’ll still pop up occasionally but they won’t take hold like they used to. You’ll be able to dismiss them the way you would a dottering old uncle.

After a week of breathing, talking to trees, feeling my feet, the volume of my negative thoughts had not really gone down. In fact, I discovered something interesting: I was quite attached to them.

I LOVED MY PROBLEMS. I MEAN, I REALLY REALLY LOVED MY PROBLEMS. EVEN THOUGH ACTUALLY, TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, I DIDN’T REALLY HAVE ANY PROBLEMS AT ALL, APART FROM THOSE MADE UP IN MY HEAD. Tolle says that at any moment, if we are worrying, we should ask ourselves, ‘Is there a problem right now?’ and ninety-nine per cent of the time there isn’t.

I would rather stay in my negative thoughts, no matter how unhappy they made me, because they were who I thought I was.

The idea of losing my problems didn’t feel good – it actually felt terrifying. Like taking a step off a cliff. As I did my daily walk around the park, pondering these deep existential questions, it dawned on me that maybe this is why self-help books often don’t help in the long term. We think we want to change but we don’t really. We keep going back to our old ways, our old selves, our old stories because it’s too scary not to. Because to really change means to lose ourselves completely.

Brené writes a lot about friends. ‘I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles . . . You have to love and respect that I’m totally uncool.’ She calls these her ‘move the body’ friends – people she could call in the middle of the night and they would come and do whatever she asked, no questions asked.