What if you’re not broken? – Portugal Resident

Somewhere, if we can just find the right tool, expert, diagnosis, supplement, app, routine or explanation, we might finally become the version of ourselves we think we are supposed to be.

It is easy to mock this, but I do not think the longing underneath it is foolish. Most people are not trying to become perfect because they are vain. They are trying to feel less ashamed, less anxious, less tired, less confused, less alone. When life feels unmanageable, the idea of a fix is deeply comforting.

Once I worked with a plumber. I remember being struck by the way he talked about his work. There was such satisfaction in finding the leak, understanding where the pressure had built up, knowing which tool to reach for and leaving something working better than it had before.

I understood the appeal immediately. I even recognised it in myself. Perhaps part of me wanted to be a psychological plumber. Find the leak, clear the blockage, release the pressure, send the person home repaired. There is nothing wrong with wanting to help. But there is a danger when help becomes another form of fixing, because people are not pipes.

We are not simply leaks to be found, blockages to be cleared or pressure systems to be managed. We are not apps waiting for an upgrade. We are not system errors. We are not just nervous systems that need regulating.

And yet, at the moment, nervous system regulation is everywhere. We talk about trauma responses, cortisol, vagus nerves, breathwork, fight, flight, freeze and somatic healing. Some of this is useful. We are bodies, not just minds. Anxiety, grief, shame and fear are not abstract ideas floating around above the neck. They live in the jaw, the stomach, the throat, the chest, the back. For many people, learning this is a relief. Their body is responding to pressure, memory, threat and exhaustion.

But the moment a compassionate idea becomes a trend, it risks becoming another demand. Now we are not only expected to be successful, attractive, productive, emotionally intelligent, well rested, hydrated, boundaried and vaguely glowing. We are also expected to be regulated. Even calm becomes something to achieve. Even healing becomes something to perform. The language that was meant to free us can quietly turn into another way to ask, “Why am I not better yet?”

Carl Rogers wrote, “When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” I think that is the part modern self-help often forgets. Acceptance is not the same as giving up. It is not saying everything is fine when it is not fine. It is beginning with less violence towards ourselves. It is the difference between asking, “What is wrong with me?” and asking, “What is happening in me?”

That is a very different conversation.

Artificial intelligence sits neatly inside this culture because it speaks the language of fixing so fluently. Ask the question, get the answer. Describe the problem, receive the steps. Input, output, optimise, improve, try again. There can be real comfort in that. A tool can help us organise our thoughts, find words, calm down, make a plan. I am not against tools. A breathing exercise can help. A diagnosis can bring relief. A conversation with technology can give us words when we have none. A walk can steady us. A cup of tea can sometimes do more than a webinar.

But a tool is not the same as feeling understood.

This distinction matters. To be fixed is to be treated as a problem. To be understood is to be met as a person. A fix asks, “What is wrong and how do we remove it?” Understanding asks, “What has happened? What is being carried? What is trying to be said?” A fix can be useful when the boiler breaks. A human being usually needs something more patient.

This is where conversation matters. Not just therapy, but any honest conversation between two people. The best conversations do not always rush to repair. They do not immediately offer a plan, a technique, a label, a link or a breathing exercise. They make room. They say, in one way or another, help me understand. And sometimes, when another person wants to understand us, we begin to understand ourselves.

Perhaps that is also the conversation we need to have inwardly. Not immediately, “What is wrong with me?” Not, “How do I fix this?” Not, “Why am I like this again?” But something quieter and more curious.

What am I feeling? What am I carrying? What have I not admitted to myself? What would I say to someone I loved if they felt like this?

Sometimes even that is too much, so we begin smaller. I am tired. I am upset. I am tense. I am lonely. I am trying. I do not know what I need yet. I am still here.

This is not a technique in the shiny sense. It is not a hack. It is not another performance of healing. It is a way of turning towards ourselves instead of turning on ourselves. Mary Oliver begins one of her best-known poems with the line, “You do not have to be good.” Perhaps that is why so many people love her. It is such a relief. Not because goodness does not matter, but because so many of us are exhausted by the private sense that we are failing at some invisible test. Failing to cope. Failing to age correctly. Failing to heal quickly. Failing to be calm, attractive, productive and grateful at the same time.

Leonard Cohen sang, “Forget your perfect offering.” That feels like a sentence for this age of constant self-improvement. Forget the perfect morning routine. Forget the perfectly regulated nervous system. Forget the fantasy that one day you will arrive as a finished, polished, untroubled version of yourself.

Maybe the part of us asking to be fixed is really asking to be understood. Maybe the tiredness is asking to be believed. Maybe the anxiety is asking what has become too much. Maybe the anger is asking what boundary was crossed. Maybe the sadness is asking for tenderness. Maybe the shame is asking for company.

Understanding is not doing nothing. Sometimes it is where change begins. But it is a different kind of beginning. It does not start with the assumption that we are faulty. It does not speak to us as if we are machines, pipes, projects or problems. It asks us to come a little closer to the truth of our own experience.

We are not broken because we cannot be calm on command. We are not faulty because we are tired, frightened, ageing, grieving, distracted or overwhelmed. We are people living in bodies, in families, in histories, in a noisy and demanding world. Sometimes things do need to change. Sometimes we do need help. But not every feeling is a defect, and not every difficult day is evidence that we have failed at being human.

Perhaps the fix, if there is one, is not another method of self-improvement. Perhaps it is to stop speaking to ourselves as if we are faulty things. To notice more honestly. To listen more kindly. To seek understanding from others and offer some of it back to ourselves.

Not because understanding solves everything. But because without it, even our healing can become another way of abandoning ourselves. People are not pipes. We are not apps. We are not broken things waiting for the right tool.

We are people.

And sometimes what people need most is not fixing.

Sometimes we need to be understood.

Also read Farah Naz’s last month’s article: Why the future feels dangerous