You must learn to see things outside of the perspective of your ego. Your brain is smarter than you know, and it will engage in the most elaborate and irrational gymnastics to avoid self-incrimination. In order to consider things that might grant you greater joy, you have to navigate a maze of automatic subconscious reactions, any one of which is sufficient to completely shut down any chance for improvement. Your subconscious will generate thoughts such as, “if this is true, I am a far worse person than I thought,” or “what would this mean about all those sacrifices I made on a false pretense?” or “if this is true, then those bad things I’ve gone through (or done) are my fault.”
Learn to think about things as if you were an impartial observer. Don’t allow your subconscious to interpret things through the filter of what you consider impermissible. View things for what they really are without thinking about the implications.
Self-implication is always a good thing. If you implicate yourself, that’s a good thing, because you are identifying something you can improve, and improvement always leads to joy.