Did you know that a lot of goals in therapy revolve around helping people become their more "authentic selves"? In fact, the idea of self-actualization as explained by the great humanistic psychologist and theorist Carl Rogers is nothing more than "to be that self which one truly is." So while it might seem like making it to the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is about becoming someone different, someone "better," or someone society thinks you "should" be, it's actually about a deep sense of self-understanding, authentic living, and peeling away all the layers of conditioning that have been added over time so that you can be more uniquely and authentically YOU.
Sitting with uncertainty
Comparative suffering
Your struggle doesn’t have to be worse than someone else’s in order for it to be valid.
A lot of times we stop ourselves from feeling what we're feeling because we don't think we should be "allowed" to feel that way. We feel guilty for our emotions because "it shouldn't be a big deal," or "somebody else has it worse"…