Today, a guest article from transformational coach and visual storyteller Gabriel Beyer, shared with permission.
The Day I Stopped Fixing Myself
For years, I had carried a huge and heavy toolbox through life.
Not a real one.
An invisible one.
Appearing solid.
Inside were many instruments of personal improvement:
A rusty hammer called I should be further by now.
A measuring tape called Look how much better everyone else is doing.
A screwdriver called Maybe one more course will finally fix me.
And, of course, the emergency drill called Why am I still like this?
Every morning, I opened the toolbox and got to work.
I tightened my personality.
Repainted my confidence.
Adjusted my past.
Polished my future.
Repaired my mood.
Updated my identity.
And still, somehow, something felt unfinished.
So I searched.
In books.
In podcasts.
In deep conversations.
In spiritual concepts.
In very serious notebooks with extremely motivated bullet points.
Until one day, tired from all the inner construction work, I sat down.
No method.
No plan.
No self-optimization playlist.
Just being.
And for one strange, quiet moment, the machinery stopped.
The past was not shouting.
The future was not demanding.
The old stories were not running Season 114 on the inner Netflix screen.
There was only THIS moment.
Life in its purest form.
Without a form!
And then a simple thought appeared.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Not wearing a seminar badge.
Just clear:
Nothing is wrong with me at core.
Nothing is missing in my real self.
I do not need improvement, only a clearer seeing of who I already am.
I laughed.
Not because life was suddenly perfect.
But because I saw the joke.
I had spent years trying to improve the sky because of the passing weather.
Trying to repair the screen because of the movie.
Trying to fix myself because thought had temporarily made “broken” look real.
But I was not broken.
I have never been broken.
I had only believed in very convincing special effects.
And from that day on, I still had thoughts.
Of course.
Old ones.
Loud ones.
Ridiculous ones.
Occasionally, even the deluxe big package, packed with fear, comparison, hate, and an overwhelming orchestra of 700 men and women playing all at once.
But now I knew:
A thought is not a verdict.
A feeling is not a life sentence.
The past is not a prison.
And the self I was trying so hard to become…
was quietly here all along.
waiting till the noise settles to just be.
If you enjoyed this article, join my Daily Dragon emails list here for more playful and provocative musings on business, being gloriously human and changing the world.
