Very tempting is the idea, promoted by the verbal community, social programming and even (horror!) part of the psychotherapy community - that you are somehow broken and need to be “fixed”. How can you understand when exactly this “correction” will happen? Either when you are filled with great love for yourself and all that exists, or when you no longer have any problems, or something else idealistic and fantastic. But this will never happen... because being in the flow of life you will feel different things, experience different things and also face difficulties. But this is an unpopular idea, and a popular one is to make sure that there is only pleasant things and no unpleasant things.. .and here, a person who has been in a problem for quite a long time will say: “you are saying something strange, all I do is remain in some kind of discomfort and unpleasantness, I’m already tired of this!” Yes! And that's because you're stuck! You do the same thing, as you always did, and expect a new result. But it doesn’t and won’t happen because you’re doing things that don’t work (otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck, right?). And in fact, if we dig deeper, we will see that things that work (or are different than usual) for you to do, for example, are scary, unpleasant, uncomfortable, anxious, awkward, etc. Simply put, this ongoing discomfort is caused by the fact that you are not looking towards a solution, which is also associated with discomfort. The decision is associated with discomfort - wow news! And now you’re probably reading all this and thinking: “oh, there are people who do everything right, don’t avoid, they’re all so trained and aware,” but I hasten to reassure you - no, all people face the same difficulties, at the process level. This means that there is not something wrong with you and you are “broken,” but that you are using strategies that do not work well inside (although they can work well outside). We are all designed to automatically run away from unpleasant. We all don't want to feel anxious, afraid, or enslaved by oppressive thoughts. We all face self-criticism, vulnerability, and emotional pain. It's not that there's anything wrong with you. The fact is that it means to be a person - a sentient being, but our mind, which has an idea of ​​\u200b\u200b"right" and "wrong" - wants to put everything into categories and drives us into a trap. And our task is not to “fix” ourselves. Our task is to learn to get out of the traps of the mind, immerse ourselves in life, accept its discomforts and comforts, establish contact with ourselves and move in the direction of important, meaning-forming vectors. Yes, each such process has its own tools, but these are just processes, and not a point when you can stop and say “that’s it, I’ve improved now.” Because, perhaps, in the next moment life will throw you a new challenge, in which it will test how ready you are to be in contact with it and with yourself. If you need help specifically for your situation, sign up for consultations. Psychologist Kirill Kryzhanovsky