How can I be at peace with myself when I'm full of contradictions?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “the only way to live peacefully with yourself is to let your contradictions live side by side with you.” Your dignity has to coexist with your shame, and your positivity and negativity have to “fit in the same room.”

He explains that we are built with ten contradicting qualities, in the image of God. Every emotional problem, he says, starts the same way: “You try to get rid of one side. You can't. So you spend your whole life fighting yourself and you keep calling it self-improvement.”

The verse tells us to serve Hashem with joy and with trembling, ivdu es Hashem b'simcha, v'gilu bir'ada. “It's in the same time,” he says. “Sounds like a contradiction, but that's the point. That's the only way to do it.”

His advice is short: “Don't heal yourself by deleting yourself. All parts of you is a part of the design.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Inner peace comes from letting your contradictions live side by side, not from erasing one side.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Why does trying to improve sometimes feel like a war?

Rabbi Landau says that when you try to get rid of one side and can't, you spend your life fighting yourself and call it self-improvement.

What may be behind it

A person is built in the image of God with contradicting qualities. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that these ten qualities form one balanced whole, where opposites exist at the very same time.

Deepest human truth

Joy and trembling belong together. Every part of you is part of the design.

More questions from this teaching

• Why does self-improvement sometimes feel like a war with myself?