WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "SELF IMPROVE?"
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Self Improvement has become mainstream. In the last few
years, since I have been writing articles and submitting
them to article sites, I've noticed that the category of
"Self Improvement" has been showing up lately when it was
never there before. To me, this is very good news.

But what does it really mean to "Self Improve?" What are we
really improving when we self improve? And what "self" are
we improving?

We each have two "selves" – our wounded self and our core
Self. Our core Self is our true self, our natural soul self
– our essence. Our core Self is our passion, our joy, our
gifts and talents, our ability to love, our creativity. We
come into this life as our core Self, and when this Self is
loved and valued by our parents, we continue to naturally
grow our God-given gifts and talents and manifest the
fullness of our beings. This Self wants to improve by
learning the skills necessary to fully express itself.

But when this Self is not seen and valued in the way we
needed, we create an alternative self, a self we hope will
have control over getting the love we need and avoiding the
pain we can't handle – a self to help us feel safe. This is
our false self, our wounded self, our ego self. This self is
filled with the false beliefs that we absorbed as we were
growing up – beliefs that end up limiting our true, core
Self. This self does not needs improving – it needs healing.

The term "self improvement" can sometimes be a bit
misleading, because we do not want to improve our wounded
self. We do not want to improve on the ways we lie,
manipulate, and avoid in our attempts to have control over
getting love and avoiding pain. We don't want to improve on
our many addictions to substance and processes. We don't
want to improve on our anger, our compliance, our withdrawal
and our resistance.

We want to heal it.

Healing and improving are not the same thing.

We can certainly self-improve when it comes to skills. We
can improve in sports, in art, music, writing, cooking. We
can improve our health and wellbeing by improving our diet
and exercise program. We can improve in the knowledge we
need to be more successful regarding work and money. We
might be able to improve our relationships by learning new
communication skills. But what if acquiring new knowledge
and skills does not improve our health, or our ability to
earn money, or our relationships? And what if learning new
skills does not bring us more joy and inner peace? It may
mean that we need to heal the underlying fears and false
beliefs that cause us to be anxious, depressed, stressed,
guilt-ridden, shamed, withdrawn, angry, blaming, or sad.

Sometimes Self Improvement just means practicing a skill,
and others times it means that we need to participate in a
deep healing process. For example, many people try to
improve their health by losing weight and exercising. But if
their food addictions are covering over unhealed pain, they
might not be able to just change their diet. They might need
to open to a healing process in order to eventually improve.

If you are really trying to self improve but find yourself
stuck and unable to progress, or find that you have no joy
or inner peace, you might want to open to the possibility
that unhealed pain and beliefs are blocking your progress
and causing your pain. It is easy to improve yourself when
there is nothing blocking the way. But if you have old false
beliefs about your adequacy and worth, these beliefs may be
blocking your ability to take loving action in your own
behalf. All your efforts to self improve will not bring you
the satisfaction you are seeking if you have beliefs that
are keeping you limited in fully expressing your true, core
Self. If you are stuck, then you need to seek out a healing
process, such as the Inner Bonding process we teach, that
will move you out of the fears and beliefs that limit you.
Healing these fears and limiting beliefs will open the door
to improving your life in all ways!

About The Author:

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and
co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me
To Be Loved By You?" and "Healing Your Aloneness." She is
the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing
process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a
FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or
email her at mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone
Sessions Available.