Are You Running Away From Yourself?

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By Gay Hendricks

Did you know that some of the things you do to feel good could actually be making you unhappy?

Katie and I have worked with people who seem to have everything – a luxury home (often more than one), vacations at incredible destinations, coveted awards, and legions of fans.

And these are some of the unhappiest people you’ll meet.

Even if you’re not rich and famous – and most people aren’t – there are many things in your life which you’d think should make you happy, but don’t.

For example:

Have you ever scarfed down a carton of ice cream – in the hopes of drowning a heartbreak – only to feel even worse after?

What about getting a quick "happiness hit" on Amazon Prime? You momentarily distract yourself with a purchase you don’t really need, but next week you’re doing it again.

If you’ve been unhappily single for a while and finally meet "someone," then you know how good it feels to be infatuated at first only to get a dose of reality when the person you thought was perfect for you starts to look like the worst mistake ever.

In each of these cases, you’re hoping that something outside you is going to change how you’re feeling on the inside. If you have a gnawing feeling of emptiness – a sadness you can’t quite put your finger on – read on. We’re going to get to look at how you might be making things worse – and get to the bottom of how to create real happiness for good.

I remember working with a star runner – a woman who was so good and so fast at her sport, that she competed very successfully with men in elite races.

Her dedication to running was impressive, and her long, lean body showcased her efforts. Yet her seemingly impressive running was really masking a huge problem:

She was running away from herself rather than toward herself.

Running had become an addiction – an escape from the difficult feelings she had long buried within. When she ran, she didn’t have to focus on the pain, and she didn’t have to deal with it.

What’s more, because she was doing exercise – which is worthwhile – she had the built-in excuse that she was doing something really good for her health.

And she was… except her unresolved emotions and inner criticism were eating away at her.

Physically, she was in top shape. Emotionally, she couldn’t run a mile.

She had pushed away difficult emotions and painful experiences she was still holding from her past. But in doing so, she was essentially pushing away her very self.

On the surface, it looked like she loved herself enough to take care of her body and to strive for the best in her sport.

But true self love is not about this. It’s about embracing and accepting everything you feel and experience inside. Whenever you are using one thing to escape from your own experience, you are essentially trying to escape from yourself, which is impossible. The more you resist a feeling or sensation – like sadness and emptiness – the more it will clamor for your attention and beg you to accept it.

While it may feel natural to want to push aside difficult body sensations, the only thing that will make them dissolve is actually turning towards them.

Think of a small child who feels upset. If you ignore the child or dismiss her experience, she will only become more upset. All she wants is for you to put your arms around her and stay with her.

Exercise is wonderful and critical to your wellbeing – whether you do yoga, take a walk, or do something more strenuous. But exercise alone cannot give you total well being – which is dependant on being in the right mental, emotional, and energetic shape.

A lot of people use exercise as a way to keep a feeling of wellbeing going, but that’s very different from the experience of loving themselves, which takes place at a much deeper level.

How do you know if you don’t have total wellbeing? You’ll feel a sense of emptiness – a gnawing sadness within your heart or chest.

The emptiness might go away momentarily – like when you get an exercise high or buy something you’ve been wanting. But if your inner self isn’t in shape, you will return to the feeling of emptiness.

And you will keep chasing happiness where you can’t get it – on the outside.

People who go from one project to another or from one car to another or from one diet to another are chasing happiness on the outside.

And yes, people who go from one partner to another are doing the same thing.

To put it crudely, all of these things are ways of satisfying a hole in your body. But they will never address the hole in your heart.

The hole in your heart can only be filled from within, not without.

The emptiness or sadness you feel cannot be permanently placated by buying things, fixing your body, or being in a relationship. A new car and a new partner may temporarily make you feel excited and forget your inner pain, but these things do not provide lasting happiness.

I know, because before I learned to love myself, nothing truly took away the emptiness I carried within. Even though I had a PhD from Stanford and was teaching people how to be counselors, I still had that nagging sadness inside. I KNEW there was more to life than that, and in a moment of desperation I asked myself some serious questions that led to my experience of loving myself.

I wanted to know how people could truly create lasting change – I wanted to know how to be happy.

Truly happy.

Up until that point, I had tried to silence certain feelings within me, including anger, sadness, and regret. I thought there must be something deeply wrong with me, and that I lacked the ability to feel truly happy in a relationship, or fulfilled in my life and career.

After searching high and low, my answers and my happiness finally came from learning to love all of myself.

If you can relate to any of the feelings I had – if there’s dissatisfaction and disillusionment lurking within you, then I want to teach you how to learn to love yourself.

I want to help you stop running away from the unresolved issues and unloved feelings that are causing you pain. Most of all, I want to help permanently shift that underlying emptiness – that hole in your heart nothing has been able to fill.

(You can read my whole story, and see how I finally got rid of that persistent empty feeling inside, in my eBook Learning to Love Yourself)

But in case you don’t, let me summarize it for you: Learning to love yourself doesn’t mean you have to give up the things you enjoy. On the contrary, once you learn to love yourself – and fill the emptiness the only way it can be filled – the things you enjoy give you even more pleasure.

My woman runner was already operating at a pretty high level in her sport, but learning to love herself improved her enjoyment of running, and her ability to do it longer. Her endurance soared, and she found enduring happiness.

My own journey was also full of discoveries. It wasn’t until I had a major breakthrough in my life where I finally learned how to love myself that all that changed: I met and fell in love with Katie, lost 100 pounds and exploded in my career.

That’s why everything that Katie and I teach is rooted in the fundamental concept of loving yourself first.

And when you subscribe to our free relationship e-newsletter, you’ll understand exactly why so many problems – even stubborn, long-standing ones – can finally be resolved when you learn to identify the underlying issues within yourself.

You’ll learn:

• The surefire way to know if you’re subconsciously perpetuating a pattern — and what to do to dismantle it for good
• How to feel completely appreciated for all that you are (your relationships will become a constant source of rejuvenation and inspiration)
• The two big yet often hidden fears that can cause you to keep experiencing pain and disappointment in life
• The real reason you feel run-down and overextended in life and love—and how 10 minutes a week can help you feel recharged and in love again
• How to share even the trickiest feelings in a way that won’t make your partner defensive — instead, they’ll want to listen more deeply to you

We hope you join us by subscribing to our newsletters and reading the messages we’ve prepared to help you identify and resolve the difficult emotions that you may have been pushing away for years…

Our wish is for you to change negative beliefs into positive ones, that will fuel your future with possibility and positivity.

Today might be the day when everything changes: Get off the treadmill of looking for happiness and love outside yourself, and start loving yourself today.

When you love all of yourself, as if by magic, you will find yourself being completely loved by others.

Start here: