What If Nothing Is Missing?
A quiet question that changes how you relate to yourself
“What if nothing is missing?”
This question sits quietly at the heart of my work, and comes to me from the Aletheia approach to human development, articulated by Steve March.
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 human experience—one grounded in innate sufficiency rather than deficiency. This is a stance I’ve found to be more true and more supportive in direct experience, both my own and in the lives of people I work with.
Many of us have learned—explicitly or implicitly—to see being human as a problem we need 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 we sense is “wrong.”
What if restlessness, tension, or uncertainty aren’t signs that something is broken, but signals that life wants our attention and support?
From this perspective, growth doesn’t begin with fixing. It begins with relationship.
You can see this clearly in the natural world. Bodies don’t heal through effort alone. Plants don’t grow by force. Development and growth happen 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’s comforting, but because it reflects how living systems actually change.
When we slow down and turn toward what we’re experiencing—sensations, emotions, impulses, hesitations—we often discover an intelligence already at work. Not one that rushes or optimizes, but one that unfolds in response to care, attention, and time. When experience is met with curiosity rather than judgment, something begins to reorganize on its own. Tension softens. Clarity emerges. Energy becomes available again—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 something we’re not, but about restoring contact with who we 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 simply notice what happens when you slow down and listen.
Further reading (optional):
What is unfolding? — Aletheia founder, Steve March
