The Self-Made lie
From religion to self-help culture, we’ve been sold the illusion of self-reliance and divine reward. Success, love, and healing don't happen in isolation.
Have you ever seen the documentary ‘Arnold’ on Netflix? As obnoxious as I found Arnold Schwarzenegger and his privileged white male account of the “American dream”, I recommend watching it if you feel so inclined because what I did like about it, is how much he talks about the importance of his friendships throughout the documentary. In the very last episode at the very end, he says:
”You can call me Arnie, you can call me Schnitzel, you can call me Kraut - but don’t ever call me a self-made man. I had motivation but there were endless amounts of people that were helping me.”
When I used to believe in god, failure was always my fault. It was the ‘old flesh’, the sinful nature in me, or, of course, the devils fault, who somehow is always out to sabotage gods perfect plan and creation. Either way, there was always a scapegoat, so god was never held accountable. When things went right, god got the credit though.
How convenient.
Then I found out god was dead and left the church. Naturally, losing what was the biggest part of myself, at first, I felt like I had to replace god with something else. Because if there isn’t something ‘higher’, then… then what?
So I looked to other things, as one does. The coaches, the gurus, the wellness world, the “spirituality” crew, you know the type. At first, it seemed like they had better answers.
Until I realised they were the same as religion. These systems are all related, just dressed up in different clothes.
I will get into why that is another time, because this letter isn’t about that.
I dived into the world of ‘inner work’, ‘healing’ and ‘manifesting’ , the world of ‘selfs’ and all the other buzzwords we all know so well by now.
And there, I was told the same thing I had heard all my life, just phrased differently:
If you aren’t manifesting the thing, it’s your fault. You don’t believe it enough. You are on the wrong frequency. If you can’t find love, it’s because you don’t love yourself enough. You need to love yourself first before others can love you. You need to save yourself, nobody is coming to save you. Depend only on yourself, do not rely on others. You are the most important person in your life. Self-reliance. self-care. self-respect. self-worth. self-esteem. self. self. self. self.
Let’s start with one of the biggest lies:
Self-love.
How often have we heard it by now?
”You have to love yourself first, before anyone else can love you.”
The gurus might tell me that - but reality tells me differently. Cue, developing cognitive dissonance skills to make reality fit the belief. This is how I had grown up. So again, I believed it at first.
But reality showed me this:
At times, when I loathed myself the most, at times when I was not able to love myself well at all - there were people who showed me how to love myself through their love for me.
Being self-made is a lie. A self-made millionaire. A self-made success. Creating self-love from the inside.
There is no self-love without being loved by others. Having self-esteem is not something that happens on our own, by magic.
Being strong doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We don’t just make self-love out of nowhere. And there are certainly no self-made success stories.
None of us are self-made. Sometimes it is a village. Sometimes it is just one person that is by your side. But for every visible or invisible success there is always at least one person holding a torch for someone else.
I grew up in a home with two parents - some might say that was lucky. But there was so much lack in this childhood of mine. I was explicitly told I was stupid and that I wouldn’t achieve anything. I was explicitly told to shut up. I was explicitly told nobody wanted to hear me talk. I was explicitly told I wasn’t smart. I was explicitly told that my voice didn’t matter. Therefore, I did not develop confidence, self-esteem or self-trust. I was dorment for many many many years.
Some of you reading this will know how much harder it is to achieve things and get anything done in life when this is your starting point.
I have friends who grew up being told the polar opposite by their caregivers. And it makes all the difference in how they approach their life. When things are tough, they have much more resilience, trust and faith that they will be ok. They have more energy to attack the hard times. Because someone gifted them that confidence when they were younger.
And it doesn’t make one a victim to acknowledge this - those are just facts.
In our world, people with low self-esteem are treated worse, respected less - almost as if they’re not worthy of someone else’s love. Shouldn’t we be loving these people more?
Why do we have it all wrong?
The people who truly only “rely” on SELF, who are truly alone (often not through a choice of their own) - guess what: they don’t achieve anything. The ones who don’t have love, don’t have any support, don’t have anyone believing in them - are the ones who lose their jobs, their homes, their lives. That is what it means to really rely just on yourself.
Actually being self - made means being on the fringes of society. Alone with nobody to turn to. It’s a terrifying place to be.
If that’s not you - guess what, you are not really “self-made”. Stop being delusional. Even if you never reach out to anyone for help, even if you think of yourself as the most independent person, even if you are a high-achieving career person who believes they’re just relying on themselves - you still are where you are because someone gave you a job. Someone gave you a chance. And over your lifetime, there have probably been multiple someones.
You are not self-made.
Having no self-love, no self-esteem is not a personal failure. It’s a societal failure. Self-love is community work. It’s something we do together. Nobody is self made. We are all people-made. In good and bad. We break through people. And we heal through people.
If someone has low self-esteem it’s because someone told them that they were unworthy. If someone has high self-esteem it’s because someone taught them that they were worthy. Confidence is not self-made - but it is home-made.
As a 39 year old grown woman, I have more confidence now, I have more self-love, I have more self-esteem than once upon a time - but is it self-made?
Absolutely not.
Even in times where there wasn’t anyone in my close proximity that I could have looked to for advice or support, I found it online.
And if I look closely and I am honest, there was always someone to help if I called them. I am sick and tired of the gurus who perpetuate the narrative of individualism. Stop feeding the lie. Self - anything is only possible because of who surrounds us. Don’t get it twisted.
If you have low self-esteem and struggle to like yourself - it is NOT your fault.
You and me, we are community projects. Your self-love is team work. So is mine.
I learned self-love from people who loved me. I learned it from people who loved themselves and modelled it to me. I learned it from people who crossed my boundaries. I learned confidence from making my own decisions and making mistakes. I was able to make those decisions, because I learned it from people who modelled confidence to me (as someone else had modelled it to them). I learned confidence from people telling me that they believed in me when I didn’t. I learned it from people encouraging me and cheering me on. This applies to all the ‘self-s’ in my life. I didn’t just know. I learned them from others and through others.
Another one of my ‘favourite’ lies, is the self that manifests a great life for themselves or prays and boom, god gave them the answer to their prayer because they had more faith than someone else.
You know me, I always say the quiet part out loud.
We have too much reverence for the wrong things and not enough questions. Question your god. Question your gurus. Question your podcast bros. Question your thoughts and beliefs.
How is it we still promote self so much? How do we still talk about "manifesting blessings into my life"? Are we blind to what’s going on?
Can we stop promoting manifesting already? Stop selling it. Stop buying it. It's really the blind leading the blind. True leaders don't sell you plastic platitudes. They pursue connection, not clicks.
Your magical "Manifesting" strategy is not proof of your self-love and all your self-work: it is the result of effort + circumstances, it can't be packaged and sold as a template to follow.
Wake the fuck up. What people call blessings from god or the universe are not magical handouts and they’re certainly not self-made - they're a product of environment, circumstances, connections, action etc.
If manifesting blessings out of the blue was possible, Palestinians should have been able to manifest liberation by now, no?
If god was real why have they not been able to pray their way to freedom?
Have they maybe not read the right book on manifesting yet?
Do they not believe enough?
Do they have the wrong mindset?
Do they need more faith?
What a strange coincidence that someone in this part of the world is able to "manifest" their dream holiday, like your favourite neighbourhood influencer and a person in Congo can't eat tonight. Almost as if magical manifesting and prayer is BS, but what we have is a consequence of where we're at in the world and in life.
What a strange coincidence that someone in this part of the world was able to win an award or land their dream job because of all the self-discipline they have. Because of the self-respect they have. Because they wake up at 4 am to start their work day. As if they magically created these circumstances and skills all by themselves!
The dissonance and disingenuousness of manifesting messages make me sick at the best of times but especially now. My whole body wants to scream.
Why are you not questioning your beliefs?
Why are you not questioning the people you chose to follow?
If you're a healthy human, you should be breaking right now. Your world should change. You should be inconvenienced. You should be questioning your values and beliefs big time. You should be shifting from the usual bla bla bla to something better.
For crying out loud, BE HERE. Choose different. Choose better. Use your discernment. See the dissonance. You DO NOT need a guru, an authority or a book on manifesting.
You need to BE HERE. FULLY. "Enlightenment" is nothing if not getting your hands dirty. Get to work.
The life you have, your achievements - they are not a reward for your self-work. They are not a reward for your faith.
It’s all a consequence of circumstance. People have helped you get to where you are. In good or bad. It’s community. It’s always us.
I received jobs because of people who recommended me to someone. I received money at the right time because I asked for help. I got opportunities because of connections. I got them because I had the confidence to ask for them - the confidence was gifted to me through the help of others. I experienced provision because I have built a community of support and a network of care.
The love I have, the inner healing I have done and the life I get to live - none of it is self-made and / or a reward from a higher power.
It’s all through others, by others and with others.
We are each others saviours and so much more powerful than we think we are - if we stopped looking to the sky for help.
It’s right here, on earth.
What if we went the distance? What if we became better community members, treated each other better? What if we gifted each other the love, confidence, empathy and respect that makes humans thrive and bloom?
What if we stopped focusing on self so much, take off the blinders and stopped thinking some invisible force is distributing blessings to whoever is worthy and is doing enough work?
Earning and deserving are pillars of capitalism. And they have infiltrated our humanity.
You don’t have to be deserving of love by loving yourself first.
You don’t have to be deserving of ‘blessings’ by having enough faith first.
You don’t have to be deserving of community by respecting yourself first.
You don’t have to earn these things.
We can gift each other the love we all so desperately need and want.
We can live inside the love we built for each other.
Have you ever seen the back of a rug or a woven tapestry? It’s a total mess and it doesn’t make any sense with all its loose ends and knots and uneven weavings. But looking at the flip side, there is a beautiful, logical pattern. The messy human connections, the imperfect compassion we have for each other is necessary to build our self-love.
Self- love is a tapestry. It’s made of many many many threads. Self-love is community love.
Anything our ‘self’ has, is a result of community, handed to us by people.
I don’t believe in god(s) and spirits anymore. I believe in people. Period.
We are the ones we have been waiting for. We need each other. We cannot ever exist as an island.
How can we help each other heal?
Allow me to start by thanking you for sharing your experiences. I found it relatable in many ways.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about religion and psychology. I strongly believe that religion is often misused by people who actually need therapy, and I completely agree that gurus who use shame as a tool—especially when your inner child has already been silenced and put down, are cruel. They may think that it will make you stronger or resilient but they don’t take into account that it has a counter effect on people that were raised the way you described.
I really loved the connection you made about community and support being the most valuable aspects of growth. When you don’t know how to love yourself, seeing it modeled by others can be a powerful way to learn. Humans aren’t meant to be alone, and this idea of extreme self-reliance as a badge of pride feels counterintuitive.
I do want to add that throughout your entire text, one thing stood out to me; it all started with “self”. You made the choice to improve, to question, to evaluate your needs, to notice, and to receive. From experience, I understand what it’s like to live with a mind wired for negativity because of what it’s been taught. And yet, the fact that you were able to reflect on all of this and put it into words shows that, somewhere inside you, there is a small, brave self that you have given a voice to.
This deeply resonates with me as both a writer and a human being. You've beautifully dismantled the toxic individualism that permeates our culture - from religious doctrine to self-help manifestos. The truth you've illuminated is profound: we are all interconnected tapestries of human connection, support, and circumstance.
Your metaphor of the rug's underside perfectly captures how our "self-made" successes are actually beautiful patterns woven from countless interactions, helping hands, and moments of grace from others. The Palestinian example powerfully exposes the privileged delusion of manifestation culture.
You're absolutely right - healing, growth, and love aren't solo journeys. They're community efforts. Every bit of confidence we possess was planted by someone else's belief in us. Every achievement rests on shoulders we may not even see.
This piece is a vital wake-up call to recognize our interdependence and invest in each other rather than chasing individual enlightenment. We don't need more gurus selling self-reliance - we need more humans brave enough to love each other through our brokenness.
Thank you for speaking this truth with such clarity and compassion. May it inspire us all to be better weavers of community and care.