When Self-Improvement Becomes Self-Abandonment

A couple of years ago, I got lost in the personal development world.

Not because it was all bullshit…
But because I gave my power away to people who sounded more sure than me.

I was consuming everything like it was gospel:

• Red pill YouTubers yelling about how to “reclaim your balls”
• Mainstream psychologists diagnose every human emotion as a disorder
• Spiritual influencers who claim to haven’t been angry since 2016
• Productivity gurus say that if I don’t wake up at 4:00 AM, I’m lazy
• Biohackers stacking cold plunges, blue-light blockers, and 17 different supplements like it’s a damn video game

And look, I thought I was doing the right thing…
Stacking more “tools.”

Adding more “awareness.”

Becoming more “optimized.”

But quietly, I was falling apart.

Not externally, internally.

I wasn’t becoming powerful.
I was becoming fragmented.
Disconnected from myself.

Always performing.

Always improving.

Never arriving.

Eventually, I started resenting the very space I used to be obsessed with.

Not because it’s all fake.
But because I could see through the projection.

Most of the people I was following weren’t teaching the truth.

They were just telling others how they have to be in order to become “powerful, successful, loving, wealthy, lady magnet, etc.”

Here’s the truth bomb no one ever wants to say out loud:

Everyone is a walking contradiction.

Even the most spiritual.

Even the most masculine.

Even the most “healed.”
Even me.

No one has it all figured out.

The game of life always involves learning.

And there is no “one true way.”

And the moment I stopped trying to contort myself into someone else’s version of truth…

It was the moment I finally started to trust my own.

I don’t need to be perfectly optimized.
I don’t need to cold plunge, journal, sage my room, or microdose my trauma just to be “enough.”

I need to feel safe in my own nervous system.
I need to trust my inner compass, not the guy with 500K followers and a six-pack.

That’s real self-leadership.

And it’s what I help my clients reclaim inside Divine Alchemy.

Not a new identity.
Not another performance.
But the original self that got buried under all the noise.

Much love,

Shawn “Sheshn” Heshmatpour