Many of us on a “personal development” or “spiritual” path harbor the secret hope that, one day, we’ll be “fixed.”  If we work hard enough at visualizing what we want, pushing our comfort zone, saying affirmations, or whatever we normally do, one day we’ll get rid of all the parts of ourselves we don’t want.  [...]

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – C.G. Jung
There’s a lot of personal development writing about how it’s important to avoid “toxic people” and “energy vampires”—people who criticize us, make fun of us, tell us we can’t achieve our goals, and so on.  I actually have the [...]