What if nothing is missing?

This question sits quietly at the heart of my work:

What if nothing is missing?

It’s not a claim that everything feels good, works smoothly, or is complete. It doesn’t deny pain, confusion, longing, or struggle. Instead, it invites a different way of relating to our experience.

Many of us have learned—explicitly or implicitly—to see being human as a problem to solve. When something feels uncomfortable or unclear, the reflex is often to fix it, override it, or move past it as quickly as possible. Growth becomes synonymous with improvement. Healing becomes something we pursue by correcting what’s “wrong.”

But what if our experience isn’t evidence of deficiency?

What if restlessness, tension, or uncertainty aren’t signs that something is broken, but signals that something meaningful is asking for attention?

From this perspective, growth doesn’t begin with fixing. It begins with relationship.

This question—What if nothing is missing?—comes from the Aletheia approach to human development, articulated by Steve March. I name that here not as a doctrine to adopt, but as an orientation that has deeply informed how I listen, work, and relate. What drew me to it wasn’t the language itself, but how consistently this stance proves true in lived experience—both my own and in the lives of people I work with.

When we slow down and turn toward what we’re experiencing—sensations, emotions, impulses, hesitations—we often discover an underlying intelligence already at work. Not an intelligence that rushes or optimizes, but one that unfolds in response to care, attention, and time.

You can see this clearly in the natural world. Bodies don’t heal through effort alone. Plants don’t grow by force. Development happens through responsiveness to conditions: nourishment, safety, rhythm, and relationship.

Human inner life works much the same way. Many contemporary psychological and somatic approaches now begin from this same non-deficit orientation—not because it sounds comforting, but because it aligns with how living systems change.

When we meet our experience with curiosity rather than judgment, something begins to reorganize on its own. Tension softens. Clarity emerges. Energy becomes available. Not because we made it happen, but because we stopped interfering with what was already trying to happen.

This doesn’t mean we never take action. It means action arises after listening, not before.

The question “What if nothing is missing?” offers a gentler starting point—one where growth is not about becoming someone else, but about restoring contact with who you already are.

You don’t need to believe this idea for it to be useful.
You only need to experiment with it.

The next time something in you feels uncomfortable, unfinished, or unclear, you might ask—not to get an answer, but to orient your attention:

What might be asking to be met here?

And then see what happens when you listen.

Further reading (optional):

What is unfolding? — Aletheia founder, Steve March