Your “Higher Self” is Lying to You | Hot Takes

Why I ditched the new age, self-care, self-help, and manifestation practices altogether, and became happier, and why you should too.

Infatuation with the idea of my higher self struck me immediately.

The idea that a better, more glamorous, warm, kind, easy going verison of myself existed somewhere already within me (or maybe above me?) was all I needed to hear. To think that perfection was so close that I could taste it was too enticing to gloss over. To achieve that sweet, comfortable benchmark of a successful life, all I had to do was think like her and act like her. All I needed to do was to put out more effort, to try harder. And I would simply become her, or even better, just find her? I was hooked. This was the answer I had been searching for. Or so I thought.

Perfection felt warm, and safe, and easy and comfortable. Maybe you’re like me, notoriously stubborn, and unwilling to give up on something you can see right in front of you, and I could see perfection. She was less than arm’s distance away and came with a lot of promises: Everyone encouraged her. Maybe even was inspired by her? She had it together and was always happy, capable, confident. Everything was good, all the time. She could get everything she ever wanted. She became my idol.

Quickly, my nights were filled with journal prompts (I’m sure you’ve seen them floating online) asking questions like: What do her routines look like? What does she eat? How does she talk? What does her home look like? Where does she work? Who are her friends? How do people feel when they are around her?

I spent hours jotting down every detail. Without warning, the chase to become my higher self and do everything through my own understanding left me burntout, fired, and it would be the most depressing period of my life. All the sacrifice, effort, and care to end up being a doormat was devastating. 

After years of consulting my higher self on my ambitions for life, it was enough to start slowly peeling back. I was so wired for external validation, a “Okay! You deserve xyz thing because you sacrificed so much and went so above and beyond for me!” kind of praise or justification or acknowledgement that it was the only thing that would fill up my cup. After a particularly sobering year of committing to people and places that my “higher self” was determined to be at, I realized that the praise, break, or benchmark that I was desperately trying to get at didn’t exist. What did was a bunch of people, I couldn’t trust, and unfortunately, one of them was me. 

Every time I consulted my “higher self,” I felt less than. She was adaptable in ways that weren’t sustainable, and absorbed people’s opinions of me, my life, my happiness, and my ambitions like water. But people are finicky. They rarely have a solidified opinion of you. Which means that goal posts were moving with every changing opinion. Resulting in becoming an endless project.

Chasing my higher self left no room for mistakes, but being at fault was much more double than things naturally falling apart without any clear reason. There’s something really nice about being the issue. If you’re the issue, you can fix it. If you’re the problem, you can change. There’s a solution, and it’s in your control. 

Believing that I was the issue was enough to convince me to give up friendships, events, gatherings, meals, sleep, and moments of peace. And yet, no matter how much success I had, the people around me refused to see it. In return, I obsessively cared about what they thought. Instead of holding true to my values, finding my own real pillars for success, or knowing my own needs, I doubled and tripled down on the work I gave. I tried to figure out why things weren’t working, and in the meantime, trading away the things that truly matter to me. Truly believing that I could “manifest” anything I wanted by simply wanting, believing, and doing it better.

The pursuit of “become my higher self” only led me to doubt myself more. Was I making the decisions that “She would make?” Or was I still acting as “current me” (lesser me)? The truth that no one is sharing is that there is no lesser version of you. We aren’t becoming anything, or trying, searching, or stretching. It is by design that things fall apart, that we are naturally flawed, and that we cannot will anything in or out of our lives. It is by design that we rely on God. Once we do, the places where we are weak, we become strong. 

Instead of skipping on your values, and the moments that matter most (think dinners with your family, a walk outside, an outfit that feels so “you”), we’re doubling down on them. Taking that focus, drive, and energy away from “becoming” someone or something and instead putting it into who you already are - who God made you to be. Because who you are is really great. And I have a feeling that things are going to start to fall into place. 

Welcome to Homecoming.