Why Understanding Yourself Hasn't Changed You (And What Will)
It is painful showing up as someone you don’t actually want to be.
You know who you’d be if you weren’t doing it. You catch glimpses. The version of you that says what you actually think. That says no when you mean no. That walks out of the conversation without rehearsing it later. That person is right there.
You haven’t been able to be them.
It hasn’t been for lack of effort. You’ve read about it. You’ve named it. You’ve tried what was supposed to work.
What you’ve been chasing is more understanding. What you’ve been missing is the feeling on the other side of it. Of saying what you actually think and the room not ending. Of a life that gets to be a little messy. Of love that doesn’t audit itself. Of the inside of you finally matching the outside.
What you need is to know what has been stopping you. And what knowing hasn’t been able to fix.
The fear that holds you back lives on a spectrum and you sit somewhere on it. At the extreme end live two people. The dismissive-avoidant: fiercely independent, hard to reach. The fawner: endlessly accommodating, hard to know.
Both versions are the same person.
The answer you need is in their foundation.
“It’s the same thing, only different.”
- The Big Lebowski
Learning who you are is not a problem unique to you. It is the work of being a person. But some of us find that process more painful than others. At the painful end of the spectrum live the dismissive-avoidant and the fawner.
The fawner (of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) has spent their whole conscious life scanning the emotional weather of a room before they sit down. They dream of being able to rush in and solve other people’s problems before anyone asks. They are exceptionally accommodating and are often praised for their sacrifice in doing so. They connect with people, but they have trouble disconnecting from them.
The dismissive-avoidant has spent their whole conscious life standing slightly outside the room they’re in. The calm one. The unflappable one. They take a quiet pride in not needing — in being the one others rely on rather than the one who reaches. Their greatest strength is handling whatever the world puts in front of them, alone. They are often praised for their composure and they earn it. They connect to ideas and to work. But they have trouble connecting to people.
But they are two sides of the same coin.
They both share a similar childhood trauma: growing up in an environment where authentic emotional expression was discouraged or unsafe. And they traded their identity for safe caregiving.
Today, they use survival strategies to avoid the same terror of abandonment and vulnerability. And both are running a fantasy belief.
The fawner’s: if I am perfectly accommodating and fix everything for everyone, I will finally be loved and safe.
The dismissive-avoidant’s: if I remain completely self-sufficient and never rely on anyone, I will never be hurt or abandoned again.
Different directions and a single bargain: trade who you really are for the love and safety of others.
“The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”
- James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Living an Examined Life.
Most of us live on the spectrum between there and internal security. Don’t get stuck trying to figure out which one you are. You’re probably some of both, like most people.
You learned the same thing they did — that love, approval, and safety were conditional. You feel the same disconnect they do, between the life you lead and the version of you that you’re too afraid to sit with. But want desperately.
The endless demand of perfection on yourself.
Constantly keeping the peace and silencing yourself.
Masking and resorting to conformity and safe scripts.
I used to be very, very good at not being a problem in rooms I’m in.
Some of these are more intense than others. But they’re all ways to secure approval and avoid rejection. All based on managing what happens outside of you rather than what you can actually control.
Some of you have been performing some version of this for so long it doesn’t feel like performing.
It feels like you.
It isn’t.
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
Einstein
When you’re a kid you want the freedom of authentic expression, and connection with parents or whoever is taking care of you. But that doesn’t always happen.
You can be punished or rejected for expressing natural emotions. When you’re angry, or sad, or just being yourself.
So if it’s not safe to have emotions, what happens?
You sacrifice them.
When the people you rely on to take care of you aren’t accepting of your emotions, you learn your feelings are a threat to your survival. And to adapt the brain chooses to protect your younger self by “turning off” or numbing those physical sensations.
From here on out the survival strategy has one central function: severing the person and their sensations from their own body.
In order to regulate themselves, they regulate the people around them. And to do so, they must detach from their own inner world. Effectively abandoning the only things they power to control: their own boundaries, choices, and emotional responses.
“The False Self has one positive and very important function: to hide the True Self, which it does by compliance with environmental demands.”
- Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self (1960)
When feeling uncomfortable or upset, there’s a tendency to turn to self-help or psychological reasoning to solve it. Why am I so upset? Did I do something wrong, or did they? What is this called, and how do I wrangle it in?
For every emotion that rises. Every discomfort. Every sensation that feels misplaced. It all looks toward one final, ultimate process:
How do I solve it.
You embrace intellect and understanding to manage your feelings and discomfort. And once you can manage the emotion that way, put it into a descriptive little box, the discomfort eases away. You feel like you’ve processed it.
Waking up feeling heavy or depressed or angry but unable to point to anything wrong that makes logical sense, you disregard yourself. That you’re being ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong. And so you discount your own sensations.
You feel like a chameleon. Your body speaking to you becomes the most untrustworthy thing.
Stretches of childhood can feel blank. There’s an absence of attunement, of meaning, of validation. If you are completely disconnected from your own internal experience, you are not actually there to remember your own life.
You can be brilliant, successful, articulate, exceptionally functional, and have no idea what you actually want or feel.
And yet the end of the day, alone in a hotel room, with every external demand met and no one left to perform around, there is no relief. Instead, it is terrifying internal blankness. Loneliness. That they don’t know who they are beneath their survival strategy.
But that isn’t how it was supposed to go at all.
“Which way? Which way?”
Alice in Wonderland
If you can’t rely on what is inside, you look to what is outside.
Your internal compass goes out the window.
What replaces it is logical sequencing. To manage uncertainty, one way to survive is pattern matching. Predictability.
“If I put my toys away, my parents won’t get angry.”
“If Dad comes home extra quiet, I shouldn’t bother him.”
“If I don’t get upset, my parents don’t get upset. So I won’t.”
Your reactive habits persist into your adult lives. My own personal favorite is that I am very, very good at walking around the house silently.
And your habit to solve whenever an intense or threatening emotional situation arises:
“If I can figure out why this is going on and what led to this, then I can prevent it from ever happening in the future.”
And that’s what happens. Safety becomes understanding.
How flawless you can get at this cannot be overstated.
You can read the emotional weather of a room the moment you walk in; or in equal skill, completely detach from the group around you as an intently calm, stoic observer.
Skilled in managing your own presentation: at being low-maintenance, at being the calm one who never seems to need anything, at fixing any problem around you, at reading a friend’s bandwidth — not even asking — before talking to them about anything real.
You get good at taking your own discomfort apart — naming what’s happening, finding the angle; you become a miniature psychologist in your own right.
Even your vulnerability got skilled. You can name your fears. You can communicate your embarrassments. You know what to say. You know how to approach a situation. You can disclose with the right register for the room.
You become praised for these things.
You praise yourself too.
And yet.
The ability to understand all of this. To describe it with precision. To name where it came from, what it does, what it’s costing you.
That’s not normal. You know it isn’t normal.
But the most painful, frustrating part of it all?
You’re still. Not. Moving.
Your flawlessness becomes your greatest obstacle to healing.
The therapy, logic, prevention, understanding, remains a role of performance — a substitute for actual, messy human connection.
It’s all external management.
Eventually the armor that has been protecting you for your entire life becomes a prison.
For a dismissive-avoidant, endless self-reliance results in a profound sense of emptiness and isolation. For a fawner, endless appeasement turns into deep, unexpressed resentment and contempt for the people they serve.
It becomes suffocating. An endless demand of perfection. It’s painful watching yourself from the outside.
From now on, your skill can no longer be about how well you pay attention to the people around you, and instead becomes your ability to stop.
Because the better you get at this, the further from yourself you go.
“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
Jessica Rabbit
The self that should have formed didn’t.
Rather than letting internal signals provide a sense of direction, intellectualized strategy became the layer between the outside and internal world. And that strategy became the personality.
It occupies the space where self-formation would have happened.
This is what’s known as the unbuilt self.
Only those at the most severe end of the spectrum sit here, such as trauma-driven fawners and dismissive-avoidants, because all of their developmental energy was diverted towards basic survival.
Not everyone lives there.
At the opposing end lives the solid-self — the most honest and potent version of who you actually are. You can still put up a mask of performance, but crucially, are still able to get in touch with your true preferences when you’re away from a stressful environment.
And in between are individuals like high-functioning perfectionists, chronic caretakers, and learned people-pleasers who were able to build partial structures growing up, but still rely heavily on external expectations.
Our temptation to help by saying “just be authentic” falls short because that assumes there is a self inside that is buried. That it just needs to be uncovered and freed to finally be allowed to express what was already there.
But the parts that would have made one, like the ability to notice what you want, the felt sense of what’s yours, the part that tells your preferences from anyone else’s, were never built.
For an unbuilt-self, underneath their survival strategy is a sense of, “I don’t know what I want, what I like, or who I’d be if I weren’t constantly managing.”
The one collective foundation between them all is self-silencing — to avoid disappointing a partner or surviving some emotional threat, you put a lid on yourself to cope.
It is never too late, though.
I described my own life as having been built by everyone else’s building blocks, until I decided to build it with my own. Now look at me. The belle of the ball.
Starting from zero, although I don’t ever believe in that — more like, starting the next chapter of your life in this way is lonely, sad, filled with grief, and also the most beautiful gift you will give yourself.
But there are barriers along the way. And it isn’t just internal.
Not everyone around you will be ready and accepting of a different version of you. Some have known you for a long time and prefer the version that has been comfortable for them. Regardless of the direction you wish to move.
There are people in the world that actively benefit from your lack of boundaries or from conflict avoidance or your calm, stoic demeanor. It isn’t easy changing your personality around those you’ve known forever.
The world you walk through every day rewards the strategy you’re trying to let go of. The hyper-independent get promoted. The self-sacrificing get praised. Silencing yourself isn’t just permitted out there. It’s the thing you get thanked for.
Change is difficult when the environment doesn’t mirror you back. It is easier to express yourself in a place where you don’t have to work against the grain to be understood.
All of that during an internal war of holding a strategy as a personality, while wanting to face the parts of you that were never built.
In this moment a painful reminder: what’s good for you isn’t always good for everyone else.
That doesn’t mean you have to be alone. It means being around people that bolster your own connection with yourself.
It may seem right now that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. But at a crucial point in your life, it no longer will. You have understood your way to this exact spot, and understanding has nothing left to give you.
Now, what do you do to heal from this?
I’m so glad you asked.
“It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found.”
Winnicott, Communicating and Not Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites (1963)
The life we seek is the most honest version of ourselves. Where we no longer feel wrapped in a blanket of fraudulence, but where our freedom and independence lives alongside safety and closeness with others.
And before you can build, you must let go.
This is where you learn how to let the emotions and sensations in your body exist rather than hide them, be rid of them, or treat them as your shame.
True healing, rather than understanding, lives entirely within behavior and taking action that is contrary to your survival strategy and the mask you wear.
There is no single universal action here. It will vary for you depending on which direction your strategy runs. But let’s look at this in two halves: changing your environment, then changing your behavior inside it.
This first half is the environment.
For a dismissive-avoidant, the strategy relies on emotional withdrawal and extreme self-reliance. So the environment that disrupts the strategy is the opposite: connection and vulnerability. Be around the people you have a desire to connect with. Not the bullshitters who don’t want to know more about you and you feel safe to be around because it’ll never get that deep.
The environment should be with people you have an opportunity to be open with. Where you can, effectively, practice relying on them for something rather than yourself.
This can even be with a group of strangers who you have no personal ties to. Like traveling on a plane or at the airport where you can practice listening to someone else, or open up about something small yourself.
What you do in those environments comes in the second half, but regardless, this is your time to be present. Stay in the room. Don’t disappear into the project, the book, the headphones.
For a fawner, the strategy depends on having people in the room to read and accommodate.
This is where we have to address the fawner differently. Because the environment that disrupts them is solitude.
But not necessarily Superman’s fortress of solitude.
The places you go and the people you hang around with weave a familiar social web — a script to follow.
The restaurant you’ve been to with your family is the place you have an existing script you can follow.
The park you went to on a date has a familiar path you can already fall in place with.
Novelty is the name of the game. Go somewhere new.
It doesn’t have to be far. Near where you live is fine, but be conscious of your social web. Find somewhere near or far where you haven’t explored yourself and by yourself.
But critically, this is not the time for journaling and self-reflection.
Here’s why.
The common advice is to reflect on yourself, or journal or meditate; to consider and think and uncover your way to what is underneath.
Which is excellent. For someone else.
These are tools to uncover buried parts of you, not to build them.
Instead of insight, this tactic is often met with blankness. Or decision paralysis and an endless search.
Maybe you’ve hit this same frustrating wall I did: “This is supposed to work.” And then I threw my sixth and fanciest untouched batch of pen and pad aside.
Rather than digging deep, make new and different choices within these novel environments.
What you get for lunch. What you do for the afternoon or in the morning. Exploring one new location, then another, and then maybe, maybe, don’t check out this other place you thought about.
These seemingly trivial decisions start to teach you something critical.
What you don’t like, and what you do.
And with repetition, you learn that you’re ok with whatever end you land on.
Don’t abandon journaling or reflection. I have had to grieve with myself many, many times. Just realize that’s not the catalyst for change like you thought it was supposed to be. In this instance.
And this isn’t about being literally alone. You can go somewhere with strangers, but note that if you feel a compulsion to make your preferences small and accommodate for cashiers, and passersby, and people you’ll never see again, then a time of true solitude is worth considering.
When I took my solo camping trip to Washington, it became about making small choices. What to eat. Where to turn. When to stop. Whether to stay. And all the human lifts and pains that come from making them.
I picked a new campsite every night to cover as much ground as possible. I hated it.
One night I slept in a hammock because that’s where the trees allowed it. Even though I ended up with a cold ass on the ground, it turns out I love sleeping that way.
All of those preferences were allowed to register because nobody was with me to base my decision off of them.
This solitude is a training ground. It is where you locate your voice and where your survival strategy can stop running so your own preferences get a chance to come forward.
But you cannot stay there. Solitude is where the work begins. It isn’t where the work ends.
For both groups, it is easy to mistake more thinking for healing. To sit alone and try to logically think through the problems you’re afraid to face.
It is also easy to be physically alone or physically in the room and entirely disconnected from your body. Scrolling. Watching. Drinking. Anything that lets the time pass without you having to feel anything specific. Avoid numbing yourself.
The second half is about the behaviors you change in your relationships. Again, take action contrary to what you normally want to do.
For a fawner, it is asserting separation and your preferences. Disagreeing about the movie. Stating your preference for the different restaurant. Saying you cannot help with the project. Letting awkward silence exist without rushing to fix it.
For a dismissive-avoidant, it is direct connection. Making eye contact when your partner is crying instead of looking away or offering to solve it. Or sharing an emotional feeling without explaining it away — I feel angry right now.
You’ll find the right examples for you and you’ll understand which ones work in a moment.
But the action has to be small.
The instinct here will be to go big. To finally have the conversation. To spiral into your most suppressed emotions. To set the real boundary.
Go too big and your body treats it like a real threat. Then you panic. And then you feel the survival threat you always fear and retreat back into the safety of your process.
Keep the stakes tiny.
But please, please don’t think too hard about this. In my previous life, I would have spent a day or more looking up as many ways to do this properly or examples or options and then, inevitably, I would be latching on to whatever understanding made this process feel safe to me.
If you do that, you will take longer to heal.
For yourself, take a small dive. That’s all you have to know before moving forward.
That’s all.
In the moment of action, here’s how we approach it.
When the initial wave of discomfort arises, the immediate reaction is for your nervous system to scream at you to escape that feeling.
You’ve felt this before and maybe just discount it now.
This can come and go quickly; it doesn’t always lead into holding intense muscle tension, or a rapid heart rate, and quickened breathing.
It is in this moment you must pause.
For enough time to realize you had a sensation. For enough time to realize you wanted to react to it.
First you sit with it. Intentionally pull the rising energy into your body instead of pushing it away. Instead of succumbing to the compulsion to get rid of it.
You must sit in the discomfort before you attempt to solve it.
Release your muscles. And slow your breathing.
Realize that in this moment, your search to solve this the ‘right way’ is what is keeping you from healing.
There is no real, honest, and flawless version of this experience.
Surrender your need to do this perfectly. And allow yourself to make a messy mistake, while acting anyway. You are not trying to make your fear disappear. You are holding it at the same time.
The difficult part is not trying to solve this right now. But there’s good news. Great news.
By staying present in the discomfort, you cross the finish line.
The change you want isn’t with more understanding. It’s by choosing to heal by staying.
And by doing so you teach your body it has a new way it can survive.
It is reps after this. I’m sorry, I wish it just took a couple of times. The rest of the beginning of your life can look different now, if you let it.
But at this stage, a kindness for yourself. Remember that your entire life’s survival was built on a particular kind of process and you are working to undo that. As with any habit old and new, you will certainly slip back, and the new one will be your struggle. But then it becomes second nature. And what a blessing that is.
How do you know if you are just going through the motions and using logic to solve the problem, rather than truly healing?
The answer lies in the friction you feel.
If your action or decision feels safe, secure, and frictionless — if you took your action flawlessly, then you are probably going through the motions.
If you are genuinely changing, you will feel clumsy, unsure of yourself, and emotionally dysregulated, because you are operating without your armor.
The discomfort is not a sign you are doing it wrong. The discomfort is what tells you you are doing it for real.
Your original wound was relational. And your armor was built around the relationships in your life.
The healing has to return there.
That energy you feel rising into your chest is your voice. Practice expressing it. Try relying on a friend. Hold a preference at a family dinner. And then you learn through practice that what you’ve been afraid of this whole time isn’t world ending; it is survivable and your ability to thrive is on the other side.
"Are we there yet?"
kid-in-the-car
None of this is fast. You’re going to slip back into the strategy. You spent thirty years building it; you’re allowed to take longer than a weekend to set it down.
It will require making mistakes, the fight-and-fuss of old habits, and patiently weaving in your new behaviors over time. It’s frustrating. When you just want to heal.
It’s really a lifetime process, as all growing becomes.
But it’s worth it. It’s always worth it.
Since rebuilding, I’ve come to think of vulnerability as something close to a superpower.
It isn’t the vulnerability I used to know. I would share parts of my life I knew were embarrassing, or a lesson learned, or where I failed and found the heart the inspire myself to go on. I didn’t know that wasn’t the deepest kind of vulnerability.
I’m talking about what I’m afraid to share. What I still hold as shame.
But now, with friends, with acquaintances, with people who have earned or deserve it. I’ll hand them what I’ve been carrying.
Here is my shame. I don’t know how you’ll hold it. But I believe it’s relating to you.
And to my surprise those people in turn open up. Guarded people. They share things with me and others they’ve been too afraid to share before. They find their own bravery through whatever they saw me do.
We keep things to ourselves because we hang so much on whether the other person will hold it properly.
But the answer was always whether I trusted myself enough to hold it on my own. Whether I could bear in myself to share something messy, and imperfect, and human.
That connection is worth the risk.
The true measure of your efforts from here on out will not be flawless authenticity, but how you treat yourself when you put the mask back on.
You can survive messing up without having to be flawless.
You can be messy.
You can be you.