I'm a sucker for a clever meme, and I recently started seeing this guy's posts appearing in my feed (Anton Guzim, a Kazakh artist). This one hit the outside-in misunderstanding so on the mark, I kept hold of it for you:
The difference between ‘additive’ and ‘subtractive’ approaches is something I first heard Jamie Smart talking about in his book Results.
He calls out this very practice: the world constantly bombarding us with images and messages that we are not enough, that there's something missing, that if only we do these five things, or remember these ten top tips, or use this product or supplement or commit to this daily routine or…
Adding, adding, adding. Adding to what?
Something that is already whole! Who you really are. Your TRUE NATURE.
Which is why the additive model doesn't (can't!) ever work and why they can keep selling you the next thing to ‘improve yourself’ … because they know you have a mind and it gets insecure and it too believes in the outside-in misunderstanding (it's the source of it!) and is an absolute sucker for ‘self’-improvement.
Resist! ✊🏻
The answers, of course, are subtractive: removing all the misunderstanding and muddled thinking the world has filled our minds with, so we can spend more time present, connected and clear-minded.
It's where I often start off in my 6 Week RECONNECT course, as we begin the process of looking towards what's true and seeing through what's not:
So by all means ‘BE YOURSELF’ … and don't feel there's any more to that statement.
💟
Giles