Help Me!: One Woman's Quest to Find Out If Self-Help Really Can Change Your Life

by Marianne Power

‘Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry and hard-done-by person. You will then deny or sabotage the positive in your life,’ writes Tolle.

insecure people will find constant affirmations that nobody likes them and will even seek relationships with people who are not interested in them, just to confirm the feelings of their pain body.

‘You would rather be in pain,’ Tolle writes, ‘than take a leap into the unknown and risk losing the familiar unhappy self.’

‘The pain body is this: an addiction to unhappiness.’

I woke up still stunned by this realization. Who would I be if I lost all my stories about being fat and ugly, and bad with money, and always getting sick? Those stories were my identity. Would I still be me? Or would I be … well, nothing?

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.

Wanting is the opposite of being in the Now.

Tolle describes stress as ‘being “here” but wanting to be “there”’. He says that it’s natural for all of us to plan things for the future but that we must never prioritize the future over today. You can set goals and work towards them but you must give the most attention to the step you are taking now, not the end destination.

Tolle argues that actually our best work and inspiration come from a place of calm and peace, not striving and stressing.

He paused. ‘Nah, it’s nice when someone is comfortable with themselves.’

‘Sometimes the guy you are interested in will give you the cold shoulder or be into someone else … it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you tried. That’s the success story here.’

Hussey says that women think that men don’t approach us because they don’t like us – but that’s not the case. Most are so scared of looking stupid in front of their friends, they don’t make a move, even if they think you’re the hottest woman in the room. So it’s our job to try to make it easier by positioning our group close to his.

‘I totally understand work taking over but I’m a bit old-fashioned on the manners front. It would have been nice to hear from you, even if it was to postpone. To be honest I’m probably juggling too many dates at the moment, so let’s leave it altogether. Best of luck with everything and thanks for the funny texts. I really enjoyed them.’

This is true in the earliest stages of meeting guys as well – if the man she is talking to is boring the hell out of her, or a boaster, a woman of certainty will politely extricate herself, instead of wasting her time.’

It all started to feel like a game; it was easy to forget I was dealing with real people.

According to Hussey, even in the twenty-first century, ‘I could really use your help with something’ are a woman’s most attractive words.

This is another big No-No, says Hussey, who explains that women are too quick to meet someone and find a way of making him into ‘Mr Right’ in their heads. By doing that we’re allowing ourselves to fall for someone before he’s even proved himself, and our keenness makes us look like we are of ‘low value’. He says we have to remember, even when we like someone, that they still have to prove themselves to us.

‘Women who aren’t comfortable with this will often deflect a man’s affections and immediately change the subject when he tries to communicate his sexual desires. Sometimes she’ll deflate the tension by closing down when the conversation veers into more intimate territory. This is fine if you are not interested in pursuing something more with him. If you are interested, it can stop momentum cold.’

‘We’re all afraid we’re not enough,’ Tony Robbins says. ‘At the core, there’s a place where people feel they’re not smart enough, young enough, old enough, rich enough, funny enough, something enough. And it’s the worst feeling because, underneath that, our fear is then, “I won’t be loved.”’

It was about shame – something she defines as that ‘intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging’.

Brené says that when we feel shame we do several things. First, we try to be perfect. We think that if we can just get thinner, smarter, more successful, then we’ll feel OK and people will love us and we won’t get hurt. When that doesn’t work – and it never does – we try another approach: we numb our feelings of shame. We watch television. We drink. We eat too much. We take drugs. Brown thinks that numbing is why obesity, addiction and depression are so rife. Then when the numbing and the perfectionism doesn’t work, we go down the third route: we cut ourselves off, shut down our feelings, decide to go it alone.

Brené says is the only one that works: connecting with others. Showing our real selves to people who will love and accept us – warts and all. Being vulnerable. Brené writes: ‘If we share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.’

To this end, Brené is not a fan of the term ‘self-help’. ‘I don’t know what it means,’ she said in an interview. ‘I don’t think we’re meant to do it alone. Healing comes from sharing your story with someone worthy of hearing it.’

And even though I didn’t realize it, that is all human beings ever really want. Not new jeans, new job, new house, new boyfriend, new car – but the feeling that we love and belong.

‘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. I missed Sarah. More than anything I wanted to be back in a sticky-floored pub drinking too much and giggling with her. She loved me as I was. She made me laugh at my flaws. She made me feel like a million dollars even when I was spotty and hungover.

She knew me. Really, really knew me. And I knew her too. I knew that she was much more sensitive than she ever let on. That she believed in God and was kind to everyone. I knew that she thought that one of the worst things anyone could do was leave people out. She was always the one making friends with the girl in the coatroom or the awkward colleague standing alone at a party. She’d melt them with her love and humour ...

I’d thought I had to improve myself on my own – but the truth was the opposite. You can only grow with other people.

‘I disappeared up my own arse, became a self-obsessed nightmare and basically imploded from thinking about myself too much.’

And he did. From the first time we met he had been nothing but open and honest. He’d kept in touch with me even when I tried to shake him off. He didn’t hide that he liked me or pretend that his life was perfect. He’d shown me his real self all along. I had been the one who had been playing games.

Brené Brown writes:

‘Joy comes to us in moments – ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.’

‘Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.’

love and approve of myself.’ She believes that all our problems – from money to poor relationships – come from two things: holding on to resentment from the past and the fact that we don’t love ourselves.

In order to ‘heal our lives’, Hay says we must forgive everyone who has done us wrong, especially our parents.

but because even with the best of intentions from all concerned, tiny moments can have a huge impact and it’s invaluable to start identifying these moments that have been invisibly driving us for years. And I realized I could not do this digging on my own. Since my first appointment in January my therapist had become a steadfast partner and support, helping me reach parts of myself I didn’t know existed.

Self-love is about caring for yourself, being compassionate with yourself, accepting all your little quirks.

I’d once read someone describing success as being able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and be OK with what you see. And I had got there.

In self-help land the news is frowned upon. It’s a source of negativity and misery. It will bring you down. Better to walk around the block repeating affirmations or read about the power of positive thinking than engage in the ugly, cruel world. And for more than a year I’d followed this advice. I’d gone from someone who read the papers every day to someone who read motivational posts on Facebook. And in some ways it was nice. Life felt simpler, cleaner. But as I neared the end of my challenge, denying the real world – in all its messiness and tragedy – no longer felt enlightened. It felt like selfishness.

‘Well, yes, OK, a bit but I also think what you’ve done is very brave. You have faced up to things that people spend their whole lives avoiding and that takes courage. I–I–I, I never thought about things or questioned life the way you have. I just accepted what was happening. I never had any ambitions. I wish I had done a bit more thinking like you have been doing. I am very proud of you. I could not be prouder.’

I hadn’t changed myself in any of the ways I’d wanted to at the beginning, but I’d done something better. I hadn’t fixed myself – I had become myself. Now it was time to stop thinking about myself, to look out rather than in. To live life rather than analyse it.

We tend to forget that life can only be defined in the present tense … Below my window, for example … the blossom is out in full now … and instead of saying ‘Oh that’s nice blossom’ … I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be … the fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.

But I see now that perfection does not exist and happiness comes not from getting what you think you want but from opening your eyes and recognizing that you have everything you could possibly need right now.

trying to find happiness might seem like a selfish endeavour but it really isn’t. When you are as unhappy as I was for years, your unhappiness leaches into the air and affects everyone around you. You are not patient, you are snappy. You are not truly kind, you are cut off from others, locked in your own prison of misery. You are also, quite often, a worry to those who love you.

And yet I keep thinking about The Greek. Not because I think that he’s the man of my dreams, or because I think that I am the girl of his – but because for whatever reason, out of all the men in London, I walked up to him that day. And for whatever reason, he let me. And even though we only spent a few hours together, a year later we were still talking.

Be honest. Be kind. See the funny side. Exercise. Laugh. Lighten up. Have the difficult conversations and do the difficult jobs. Don’t run away. Speak your mind quietly, clearly and respectfully. People are not mind-readers. Spit it out. Work hard and enjoy it. Take pride and satisfaction in your abilities, they are greater than you think. Have confidence. Go for the big things – why not? What’s the worst that can happen? Failure won’t kill you. Say no. Say yes. See the good in people, don’t judge. Listen, understand, forgive. Have fun. Be patient. Nothing is forever. Cherish the day and cherish the people in your life – you are so lucky to have them. Be humble: you’re no better than anyone else and no worse either. We’re all trying our best, we’re all the same, really. Love with all your heart and learn from everything. When things are hard, know that it will pass and none of it matters that much anyway. You’re just a little dot passing through, so make the most of it. Sing, dance, look at the sky and be grateful. If in doubt, tidy up and make a plan – sometimes it helps to get out of your head and get practical. Most importantly, though, have a cup of tea (or glass of wine) and remember this: You’re doing great. You really are.