The Exhaustion of “Fixing”
It’s so common to feel like something is “wrong” with you.
The idea that we aren’t good enough has been marketed to us our whole lives.
Other people project their insecurities onto you and make you question yourself. Someone who doesn’t know how to express themselves makes you think you are lacking in some way. There are a lot of things that separate us from who we are – from infancy all the way until now.
Self-development is great. I would say it’s actually quite important. However, there is a difference between growing as a person versus constantly trying to fix something about yourself.
If you look on any social media, in most ads, or even at a lot of folks you may know, there is likely a pressure to be a certain way – or at least appear to.
There are entire industries based on the idea that you need to fix yourself. Do you need to be more beautiful? Do you need to live at a certain standard or have specific things? You can pay money to do all of it, and nothing is ever really good enough.
The things that you buy, the skincare you use, the clothes that you wear – none of it satisfies you for very long, because something new is always around the corner telling you that you aren’t good enough.
When you look outside yourself for validation, for your sense of value, or for your direction, what you’re most likely to find is confusion. Check out: Understanding Validation and How to Cultivate it for Yourself
It can feel like you’re not attached to anything, or like you’re just floating around. Not having your own sense of self feels empty – not always in a sad way, but always in an uncomfortable way. Then looking to others for what’s already within you adds to your need to keep buying more and doing more and searching and reaching for more.
You don’t need to be anything “more” than who you are.
The same idea applies to self-development. Do you constantly feel the need to improve who you are? Are you asking yourself things like: How do I become more confident? How do I feel more attractive? How do I lose weight?
While overall growth and improvement are an important part of taking care of yourself, be aware of balance. In the event that you’re disconnected from yourself after years and years of messages telling you to doubt yourself, the answer isn’t anything outside of you.
You don’t need to be better. You don’t need to be fitter. You don’t need to be more attractive.
You don’t need to be more enough.
What if all the answers you need are already inside you? What if you already know – you just don’t remember?
You don’t need to fix yourself. You need to return to yourself.
Why “Return” – Not Improve, Optimize, or Heal
What do I mean, you don’t remember? What does it mean to return to yourself?
In this context, returning to yourself means remembering truths about yourself that may have gotten lost along the way. When you return to yourself, you put yourself first and prioritize your own feelings and well-being above less important things like people-pleasing. It means coming back to an awareness of how you feel in your body and what you need at any given moment. It means being in constant conversation with your body, because your body is always talking to you and telling you what it needs.
Returning to yourself means coming back into relationship with yourself and falling more and more in love with yourself.
When you are open to listening to your body, sitting with your emotions, and listening to what they are telling you, you open the door to a closer relationship with yourself. The more you practice taking a pause for yourself to tune in and consider what you actually want in the moment, the stronger your relationship becomes. Check out: Your Most Important Relationship: The One You Have With Yourself
The more you listen, the more information you will get.
This idea comes in contrast to the idea of constant improvement. With improvement, the idea is that you need to become something else. Perhaps you need to be more positive or open, or you need to say “yes” more often. There are always things you can do or buy to “improve” yourself.
Returning to yourself is also different from the idea of self-optimization. It’s not about performing better. There’s no way to be “better” at being you; there are only different ways of expressing yourself. We aren’t comparing here. We aren’t trying to optimize anything.
What we want to do is find a way to get past all of the garbage in our minds that we’ve picked up over the years that says we need to get our validation from over here, put our faith over there, and get our sense of value from something outside ourselves. We need to move past that to the place where we can remember what we are aligned with. Check out: Being in Alignment and Aware of Our Worth
It’s not about being broken or being fixed. It’s not about improvement or catching up.
Returning to yourself is about choosing yourself and living from that place.
What the RETURN Method Is (and What It Isn’t)
RETURN is an acronym that I’ve put together to help you regulate yourself in times of overthinking and anxiety. It is the actual method that I used on my journey of figuring myself out and asking tough questions.
It can help you solve problems in many areas of your life. You can use the RETURN Method to check in with yourself and make sense of things.
RETURN is a practice. It’s something that you do again and again and again. Eventually it becomes part of how you approach problem-solving. It’s also a way of relating to yourself. When you RETURN, you tune in with yourself, and each time this happens you strengthen your relationship with yourself. You get closer to yourself.
There is no end to this method. It will be used over and over as a tool, as many times as you need it.
It’s not a rigid framework or a step-by-step program. It’s something you can keep in mind during times of stress or if you need to calm down. You can RETURN to yourself anytime you need to- as many times as you need to.
The Five Movements of RETURN (High-Level Overview)
So what is the RETURN Method? How does it work?
RETURN stands for:
R – Recognize what feels off
E – Explore the facts with curiosity
T – Truth: be honest with yourself
U – Understand your needs, patterns, and boundaries
R – Reclaim the narrative of your own story
N – Navigate forward in alignment
These small movements don’t take a lot of time. They require awareness and a willingness to show up with honesty.
The RETURN Method acts as a guide to help you find your way back to yourself. If you follow these steps, a few things will likely happen:
- You will slow down in your daily life when it comes to responding, moving, and making decisions. You’ll be able to do these things more consciously and with more presence.
- You start to learn which emotions you are feeling in your body. By pausing to check in with yourself and see what you’re thinking and how you feel, you become more and more aware of yourself.
- Looking at the facts of a situation helps you separate the event from your emotions.
- Being honest with yourself allows you to hold the truth about the situation alongside your feelings, thoughts, and opinions – and sit with all of that information.
- The RETURN Method lends itself to emotional maturity.
- When you take control of your own narrative and choose how you feel about a situation, that brings empowerment.
The RETURN Method always ends with empowerment – moving forward in your life in alignment.
Overall, the steps involved in the RETURN Method are simple. They flow naturally one after the other, and they help you lead a more authentic life. Like anything, it takes practice. It takes a willingness to try, to learn, and to move forward.
This method is beneficial for anyone who wants to improve their relationship with themselves, be honest with themselves, and grow.
The steps themselves are not new. In fact, you probably already do many elements of them instinctively. Putting them together like this gives language to feelings you may have been having or would like to understand more deeply.
When and Why RETURN Is Useful
So when do you need to return to yourself? You might need to return to yourself multiple times a day. You can use this method anytime you need to.
It can be especially helpful in times of stress and overwhelm. Maybe you’re under a time deadline or something happens out of the blue. Those rushes of emotion can flood your system. Returning to yourself helps you regulate, get grounded, and move forward.
You might want to return to yourself during moments of self-doubt and indecision. If you need to make a choice or understand a difficult truth, these steps – tuning in, understanding the facts, accepting your truth, and then choosing – provide an empowering way to move through difficulty.
This method can also help when you decide to set boundaries or have conversations that might otherwise feel very difficult. You can return to yourself and figure out how you feel and what you need from that situation, conversation, or boundary. Being aware of your needs and boundaries and how you want to handle things gives you a clearer path to a solution.
RETURN is a way to make a conscious and thoughtful choice. It helps you pause and tune in rather than react. It allows you to take a moment, see how you feel, and choose how you want to respond and move through your life.
Being clear and grounded in what you want and need helps you respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.
Moving through RETURN is not a straight line. It’s not a linear process, and you will likely revisit steps again and again. Some days you may only recognize how you’re feeling. Some days you may be able to do more. What matters is your willingness and your openness.
What Returning Actually Feels Like
When you finally RETURN to yourself – after you’ve put in time, effort, and intention to get to know yourself – you’ll notice everything feels different. Understanding your emotions, boundaries, and feelings is like having a fully charged GPS designed specifically for you.
You’ll notice that you move through your day with less urgency. The things that once made you feel uncomfortable, anxious, or scared will have lost some of their sting. You’ll notice that you see people, their words, their actions, and the circumstances around you with more clarity. You may understand what things mean from a different perspective and develop follow-up questions for yourself. Check out: How Healing Sparks Clarity: Learning to See People with Discernment
There’s a confidence that comes from returning to yourself. When you know who you are, you don’t need other people to tell you anything about yourself. When you validate and understand yourself, you don’t need anyone else to do those things for you. It’s nice when they do – but you already have everything you need, and you embody that.
You may even notice that during times of stress, panic, or triggering events, those things affect you less. You might still be upset, but external sources that once had power over you will have much less effect once you’ve returned to yourself. You’ll be able to stay with your emotions and learn from them. Eventually you won’t have to remind yourself to do it – you’ll just feel your emotions as data and listen to what they’re saying.
An Invitation to RETURN
You don’t need to fix yourself. You need to return to yourself.
You are already enough, and you already have everything you need inside you. You don’t need to look elsewhere for validation or enoughness – you only need to look within yourself.
Returning to yourself means staying with yourself even when things feel uncomfortable, and when emotions speak to you. It’s a path that helps you find your way back to yourself, even in the darkest of times.
In the posts to follow, I’ll break down each step of The RETURN Method in more detail. We’ll take a deeper look at every part of this method and see how we can truly benefit when we return to ourselves.
Related Reads:
Four Reasons Why Your Confidence Can Unsettle Others,
Accepting the Moment – Own it and Keep Going
Letting It Go: The Power of Forgiveness,
Give Yourself the Right Conditions to Grow,
Emotional Boundaries: How to Create Healthy, Sustainable Connections
Stay Connected
The RETURN Method isn’t something you read only once – it’s something you practice.
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