I Don’t Need to Be Fixed

Meeting the Obstacles to Healing From Trauma Where I Live

Endless red earth and a volcanic ridge under shifting clouds — the silent vastness of Sal Island, Cape Verde Photo: Jay Siegmann.

From emotional overwhelm to embodied insight, this essay explores how Buddhist psychology and systemic reflection reveal not what's wrong with us—but what's human.

Navigating the Shifting Sands of Self

I never learned the great truths of life in a monastery, or by memorizing Pāli phrases. I learned them from falling apart. From holding things together too long and then blaming myself when I couldn’t anymore. From being told to let go before anyone ever asked what I was holding onto.

So when I came across the idea of five inner obstacles—five predictable ways the mind gets tangled—I didn’t hear dogma. I heard recognition. These aren’t abstract defects. They’re well-worn grooves I’ve slipped into a thousand times. Not because I’m flawed, but because I’m human. And because this world doesn’t exactly encourage clarity, presence, or integration.

In the Yoga tradition, these five are called kleshas, yet I come from a different current: Theravāda-informed Buddhist psychology, enriched by systemic thinking and the kind of psychology that doesn’t pathologize what it means to be alive. I’m not a coach, and I’m not a therapist.

I’m a person who listens—to patterns, to silence, to tension under words—and who has learned to listen, slowly, to myself.

Let’s take this seriously. Not to fix ourselves, yet to see us as clearly as possible.

That’s the first act of liberation: sight.

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1. Ignorance — Mistaking the Temporary for the True

This isn’t ignorance in the way it’s thrown around in arguments. This is about misperception. It’s the kind of not-knowing that comes from wanting something solid in a world that never stops shifting. I’ve mistaken permanence in jobs, in relationships, in moods. I’ve confused comfort with safety. I’ve taken roles and names and identities and worn them like armor—until they outgrew me or I outgrew them.

What does this look like on an ordinary Tuesday? It’s me believing that today’s pain means forever-pain. It’s forgetting how much I’ve already survived. It’s scrolling through things I don’t even want just to avoid being with what is.

Buddhist psychology says ignorance is the root. That when we can’t see clearly, we suffer. Systemic thinking adds: we often don’t see clearly because we were trained not to. Families, institutions, religions—they all have stories we’re meant to adopt. "This is who you are." "This is how life works." "This is what matters." And even when those stories don’t fit, we hold on—because the alternative feels like exile.

So I ask myself:

• What am I assuming won’t change?

• What would I do differently if I believed this discomfort is temporary?

• What story am I living in right now—and whose voice does it carry?

The work here isn’t to be “enlightened.” It’s to come back to reality, again and again. A reality where change isn’t betrayal, but nature.

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2. Egoism — Mistaking the Performance for the Person

I was raised, like many of us, to be “somebody.” Preferably a useful somebody. Preferably admired. Egoism isn’t arrogance. It’s over-identification. It’s clinging to roles we learned would keep us safe: The Helpful One. The Smart One. The Strong One. The One Who Never Asks Too Much.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the tighter I cling to a role, the more brittle I become.

Egoism, in this frame, isn’t just self-centeredness—it’s self-fragmentation. It’s that voice that says, “If I stop being who they expect me to be, I’ll disappear.” It’s the fear that I won’t be loved if I stop performing the part.

How do I know when ego is driving? I feel urgency. I feel defended. I feel the impulse to prove.

Here’s what I do when I notice it:

• I ask, “Who am I trying to be right now?”

• I ask, “If no one were watching, what would I choose?”

• I check for shame—is my effort driven by fear of being found lacking?

And in my body? It feels like tightness behind my eyes. Like my shoulders are pulling toward my ears. Like I’m trying to hold a mask in place that keeps sliding.

When I let go, even briefly, I remember: I am not the mask. I am the one who notices it slipping.

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3. Attachment — The Grip That Feels Like Safety

Let’s be clear: wanting is not the problem. Desire is not sin. Attachment becomes the problem when the thing I want starts owning me.

I’ve been attached to beliefs, routines, people, habits, pain, and even to healing itself. To the idea that if I just do enough inner work, I’ll finally be okay. That if I get the job, the response, the message, the clarity—I’ll finally rest.

That’s the trap.

So here’s a process I use—not borrowed from a spiritual text, but built from necessity:

• I pause and ask: What is my mind drawn to right now?

• I check where I feel it in my body. Tight stomach? Forward-leaning energy?

• I give the desire a name. Not judgment. Just identification.

• Then I create space between me and the thing.

For a moment, I let myself imagine: What if I didn’t act on this? Who would I be without needing this to resolve?

Sometimes the answer feels terrifying. Sometimes it feels like freedom.

The work isn’t to deny desire. It’s to loosen the grip. To realize that the thing I think will save me probably won’t. That my longing is not a problem—but if I can’t step back from it, it might become one.

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4. Aversion — The Fast “No” That Hides a Wound

Aversion isn’t just dislike. It’s rejection before contact. It’s shutting a door before I’ve even seen who’s standing there. It’s reflex. “I can’t.” “I won’t.” “Not that.”

In myself, it’s the tightening in my throat when someone asks something vulnerable. It’s the scroll past discomfort. It’s the distraction in the moment I could have leaned in.

The truth is, most of my aversions trace back to past overwhelm. To moments when I didn’t have the capacity, the protection, or the context to stay present. So now my body remembers: avoid that.

In systemic work, we look at how aversion is often inherited—passed down like an allergy. “We don’t talk about that.” “We don’t do those kinds of feelings.” “We don’t go there.”

So I challenge myself:

• If I usually avoid something, can I stay five seconds longer?

• If I usually push through, can I pause instead?

• If I recoil, can I ask: What does this remind me of?

This isn’t about forcing myself to like what I dislike. It’s about seeing what’s underneath. Aversion isn’t a wall—it’s a signal. And if I ignore it, I miss the information it’s trying to give me.

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5. Clinging to Life — The Fear Beneath the Surface

This is the most invisible one. The most existential. The fear that if I loosen my grip—on control, on planning, on understanding—I’ll be overwhelmed. That if I relax, I’ll unravel. That if I don’t manage every detail, everything might fall apart.

It doesn’t feel like fear. It feels like tension. Hypervigilance. Constant low-level scanning. Even in joy, there’s a holding on. A “what if this ends?”

And of course it will. Everything ends. That’s not morbid. It’s reality.

Buddhist psychology names this as the root clinging: the refusal to accept impermanence. Systemically, I see it as the intergenerational fear of dissolution. Families that survived war, displacement, erasure—we carry their grip in our nervous systems.

What I practice here isn’t surrender in some spiritual sense. It’s simple permission.

• To stop mid-sentence.

• To rest before I’m exhausted.

• To not know what happens next.

Clinging only loosens when safety expands. So my real work is resourcing myself—body, heart, and context—so that letting go doesn’t feel like dying.

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Integration — This Is Not a Self-Improvement Project

These five obstacles are not errors. They are the architecture of being alive in a complex, uncertain world. They don’t mean I’m broken. They mean I’m functioning as I was shaped to.

But I don’t want to live as a reaction. I want to live in relationship.

That means I don’t aim to overcome these tendencies—I aim to know them. To see them coming. To feel their familiar hands tugging at my sleeve. And then, to choose with awareness.

Sometimes that choice is rest. Sometimes it’s a breath. Sometimes it’s a word spoken out loud, even if my voice shakes.

Systemically, personally, relationally—this is liberation: not escape, but engagement. Not transcendence, but turning toward what is.

And in the middle of all this, a quiet promise: I do not have to earn my way back to worth. I never left it.

Conclusion — The Practice of Meeting, Not Mastery

Each of these five obstacles—ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging—is part of a pattern I’ve lived through, not just read about. They are not foreign invaders. They are internal responses, shaped by what I’ve inherited, adapted to, resisted, and—at times—mistaken for truth.

What they share isn’t malice. It’s momentum.

They arise in conditioned systems: family, culture, trauma, economy. They form protective strategies, not personal flaws. Systemically, they reflect the ways we learn to preserve belonging, shield against loss, and guard our sense of coherence. Psychologically, they show up as habits—of attention, interpretation, and control.

So the work is not to defeat them.It’s to see them early, understand their function, and interrupt the loop—not with force, but with contact. The kind of contact that says: I see you. I know what you're trying to do. And I have more options now.

This isn’t about liberation as escape. It’s about liberation as presence.

Because every time I pause instead of perform, stay instead of shut down, soften instead of grip—I reclaim a piece of myself.

Not perfectly. Not forever. Enough to remember that I am not the obstacle. I am the one meeting it.

That’s not transcendence. That’s practice.

And practice, in a world like this, is a quiet form of rebellion.

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