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Three years into my healing journey, I was still having the same breakdowns, still catching myself people-pleasing, and still wondering why nothing was actually changing. Turns out, I was doing everything I only thought was possible. After getting sober and diving headfirst into the healing rabbit hole, I discovered why most approaches fail – and found the simple 3-stage framework that actually works.
Healing your mental state of being has become such a hot topic in the last few years. Personal development has soared and continues to rise according to statistics. Yet with so many self-proclaimed coaches and social media gurus, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s just someone’s opinion.
Between being in a rush after getting sober and then spiraling down the rabbit hole, my approach wasn’t the healthiest – but I know I’m not the only one in this boat. When you’re used to being independent and taking care of yourself, the necessity of actually speaking with someone else feels foreign.
Why Most Healing Approaches Leave You More Confused Than Before
The ‘guidance’ thrown in your face when your algorithm matches this genre will have your head spinning in all directions, almost bringing more fear of how fucked up you are than what’s actually worth addressing. Of course there are books, of course there are people who study and share the process they believe is best, but with the easy access of dopamine-filling social media swipes, it’s easy to get caught up in ‘learning’ while you unwind.
This is why many people find that combining self-directed healing with professional support creates the most sustainable results – you get the personalized guidance while maintaining your independence.
The Hidden Dangers of DIY Healing
There’s nothing wrong with self-help, and in most cases, whoever’s sharing what they’re thinking is probably doing so hoping to help someone else in need.
The funny thing about the ‘healing journey’ is that we’re all on our own version, spiraling in our own lane. What may seem simple and a quick fix for one person may be the holy grail of shadows for another. And when you connect, even through just a screen, there becomes pressure to get yourself up to par by comparing your progress to someone else’s.
For me, I’m super competitive and super passionate when it comes to learning how to live differently. I got caught up in the instant gratification of the learning process and forgot that real work comes with time and effort.
Things that I read interested me, yet to actually follow through with the steps was just another step I failed to take. Half gaslighting myself into believing because I read it I had taken care of the issue, and half being too scared to take the time to commit to practicing what I had learned.
The Framework That Changed Everything: Ego, Emotions & Intuition
There’s no right or wrong way, but I did come across something that made total sense. With my failure to fully follow through, I found myself backtracking to steps that, had I taken the initiative in the beginning, would probably have gotten me farther than where I currently am. It’s neither here nor there – I’m exactly where I’m meant to be – but for anyone in their own process who’s unsure of what comes next, let me share a simple framework that gives a little light at the end of the tunnel.
This process is never-ending. Each ‘level up’ that occurs will bring on its own side of shadow work that seems daunting; yet with each level you gain more tools to battle the issues that come up next, each being a stepping stone dwindling the challenge of the test.
When they say you are where you’re supposed to be, I believe this is part of that truth. If you sat on the couch as a potato for most of your life but dreamed of being a nationally awarded bull rider, jumping on the back of the burliest, meanest bull tomorrow would more than likely be a death wish.
But with each time in the arena, the experience that comes with each creature you work with and the flexibility of knowing what to expect, the more prepared you are when the day comes that you’re invited to ride at your closest PBR event.
Same goes for jumping from how you’ve always believed things to be, to suddenly being the top dog in your fantasy. It doesn’t have to take forever, but learning what’s holding you back and how to work through it still requires the experience of your inner work to fully change the outcome.
Stage 1: Ego Awareness (Why You Keep Reacting the Same Way)
Our ego is a part of us – it gives us our uniqueness along with being a staple to our daily intent. According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the ego helps us make rational decisions, manage emotions, and stay grounded. It can also be associated with self-importance or the constructed sense of self that seeks validation.
The ego is what drives us unconsciously from previous events. Every experience we have gets filed away within ourselves, and the ego takes the wheel on what it deems appropriate. When we’re unaware there’s any other way to live, the ego draws from the emotions of our younger self.
The key role of the subconscious – when the ego has the wheel – is to keep us safe according to our internal standards. That’s different for everyone, along with the areas where it excels. The ego is part of us no matter what, and while there’s a stigma that people should drop their egos, the real goal should be to meet it where it’s at.
Learning that the ego is driven by emotions, the better approach to having a say over yourself is shadow work that reveals why certain things make us upset.
Quick Ego Awareness Check:
Notice your automatic reactions this week. When you get triggered, ask: “What story from my past is playing right now?” This simple question starts the awareness process.
Stage 2: Emotional Processing (Where the Real Work Happens)
Our emotions are created from our childhood experiences and our perception of the stories attached to what things mean. This is that inner child work so many speak about. All we really know is what we’ve been told and what we’ve lived through, so the fact that our emotions are our own is where we get to learn how to control ourselves.
This is where things get uncomfortable, messy, and a lot of us can become unhinged. Between comparing our story with someone else’s, brushing off what we don’t deem important, and/or repressing things we may not even know we went through, our emotions create the foundation for how we see things as they arise in the present.
I’m in my late 30s, and the more I connect with others my age, the more I realize just how fearless we were when we were younger compared to how homebodied and fearful we are now. That doesn’t mean everyone, but I’ve noticed it in myself and I’ve seen others speak of it too.
But we’re not dead yet. We still have a whole life waiting ahead of us. So that’s where shadow work becomes beneficial. Not to fall down a rabbit hole of trauma and regret, shame and guilt, but to recognize the patterns that emerge and locate the underlying event. We are stronger than we give ourselves credit for, we tend to just get stuck in loops.
Shadow work, as Carl Jung originally described, involves integrating the hidden or repressed parts of ourselves. The goal isn’t to eliminate these aspects but to understand and work with them.
Awareness of emotions – understanding there’s an option to respond rather than react – is just a new step in creating a foundation for a different way to live. Combining self-realization with emotional control creates a new bridge to the subconscious, giving the ego new directions for where to go next.
When the ego and emotions start working together, it’s a process that feels at times like it’s never going to end. Just when you think you’re getting somewhere, a crashout moment happens because we are human, and the question arises: “What’s even the purpose?” But this is only a portion of the process, this is where I got stuck thinking it was the end…
Emotional Processing Practice:
When triggered, pause and ask: “What age do I feel right now?” Usually, you’ll discover it’s your inner child reacting, not your adult self. This awareness creates space for a different response.
Stage 3: Intuitive Integration (Where Your Superpowers Emerge)
The harmonizing and recreating new pathways with the ego and the inner child emotions has been where I’ve spent a majority of my time. Not knowing there was another step, and getting frustrated that I felt like I was just on a wheel of constant torment and regret.
Yet there is another step, another piece of the puzzle that when combined with the others gives a full circle effect. The intuition is like your soul calling – you can think of it like the oldest version of you giving you direction.
If your inner child is your emotions, and your intuition is your oldest self, do you see and understand why it’s important to come to terms with your little self before blindly following your oldest self?
If you don’t know what you don’t know, then how can your oldest self direct you in the best direction if the little self was never aware?
Spending time getting to know your inner child and becoming familiar with your emotions – understanding why things test your limits or trigger you – is the step that gives you the opportunity to reassess whether your typical outcome is still for the best.
Our free will allows us to do and be however we see fit, but if you’re tired of the same old same old and know there’s something more to this life, then taking these steps is one way to find a new perspective.
Once you start getting curious and paying attention to your personal patterns, and working on changing them to be more aligned with your new desires, it opens the door for your intuition to ignite and use those same lessons from early on with a different perspective.
The intuition is always there, whether you know you use it or not, and by combining new habits of working with your emotions and the new connection they’ve built with your ego, intuition can bring new insights. It starts to evolve, expanding from the known and curating things from the unknown.
New ideas, new thoughts and patterns that you would have never allowed to enter your ego, giving you a new perspective to how things could be. This is where what you once thought were your failures, your downfalls of yourself, have the opportunity to become your superpowers moving forward.
I think of the quote from Pablo Picasso: “You must learn the rules, in order to break the rules,” and in this instance I think of it as you’ve had tons of practice on one side of the coin, so if you choose more, this is where you take that knowledge and flip it and use it to your advantage while you work on living on the other side.
My Transformation: From People Pleaser to Confident Decision-Maker
For me it’s the people pleasing, low confidence, and low self-worth that for a while I thought would be my downfall. The shame it brought, the guilt I felt once I became aware – it all felt like I had so much work to do to become the best version of myself.
Before this framework: I would cancel plans due to anxiety, say yes when I meant no, and constantly worry about what others thought. I was exhausted from living for everyone else’s approval.
Now while working through the stages: I’m setting boundaries without guilt, making decisions based on my values rather than others’ expectations, and trusting my gut when something doesn’t feel right.
The Turning Point: Acceptance
It wasn’t until I started working on accepting and loving all parts of myself that it finally clicked. Like I said before, it wasn’t just a 1-2-3 process – there were a lot of backward steps, getting distracted by life, falling back into old patterns, and self-pity that took its toll along the way.
But here I am, understanding that I’m not done yet; that it’s not over because these issues will continue to rise in different aspects of life. But it’s also not over because now I get to reframe my thought process and use what I know as an asset to my advantage.
The weakness of being a people pleaser has been something my mind continues to loop back to and get me stuck in distress. But having all the experience I do from all my years of playing that part is actually one of my biggest strengths.
Flipping Your Weakness Into Your Superpower
This strength comes from living through it – not in the most ideal way, but nonetheless. For me, these last few years I’ve learned more about the cause and effects, the signs and patterns I can see in myself, and have learned quite a lot about the whole process.
So as Missy Elliott sings, it’s time to flip it and reverse it. Now that I know the rules of what defines a ‘people pleaser,’ I get to play while breaking those rules. Because for me, that chapter is complete, so the best way to move forward is by highlighting and using my strengths to my benefit.
By accepting my old habits, I accept that I trust myself to catch myself if I fall back into old patterns; and by playing with the broken rules (of people pleasing), it’s the flip of the coin, choosing to take the opposite direction from what I’ve always known.
“But it can’t be so black and white to know what exactly the opposite choice would be,” you may say, and that’s where I say a person’s values and priorities come into play. None of the healing journey is a one-and-done, everything-is-okay situation. It’s combining all the different pieces of life together and building them step by step to rise above the old patterns and what feels right for you to display.
When you commit to closing a chapter that no longer serves you in your desires to come, that version of you dies, and the death is what reminds you to keep pushing for a different outcome.
Research from the American Psychological Association shows that people who actively engage in personal growth practices report higher life satisfaction and emotional resilience over time.
Your Next Steps: Which Stage Are You In?
Stage 1 (Ego Awareness): You’re still reacting automatically to triggers and don’t understand why certain situations set you off. Start here: Begin noticing your patterns without judgment.
Stage 2 (Emotional Processing): You recognize your triggers but feel stuck in old emotional responses. Focus on:Shadow work and inner child healing practices.
Stage 3 (Intuitive Integration): You’ve done the emotional work and are ready to trust your inner guidance. Next level:Start making decisions from intuition rather than fear.
Remember, this isn’t a linear process. You’ll cycle through these stages throughout your life, each time with more tools and wisdom than before. The goal isn’t perfection – it’s progress and self-compassion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How long does it take to see real changes using this framework?
A: Everyone’s timeline is different, but most people notice shifts in awareness within the first few weeks. Significant behavioral changes typically emerge after 2-3 months of consistent practice. Remember, healing isn’t linear – you might have breakthrough moments followed by what feels like steps backward, but it’s always your choice how you continue to move forward.
Q: What if I keep getting stuck in Stage 1 (Ego Awareness) and can’t move forward?
A: This is completely normal! Many people spend months just learning to recognize their patterns. Don’t rush the process. Sometimes working with a therapist can help you identify blind spots you can’t see on your own. Online therapy platforms make it easier to get support while maintaining your independence.
Q: Can this framework help with specific issues like anxiety, depression, or addiction?
A: While this framework supports overall emotional health, it’s not a replacement for professional treatment of clinical conditions. Many people find it works beautifully alongside therapy, medication, or recovery programs. Always consult healthcare professionals for serious mental health concerns.
Q: What’s the difference between shadow work and therapy?
A: Shadow work is a specific practice of exploring hidden aspects of yourself, while therapy provides professional guidance and support for mental health. They complement each other beautifully – therapy can provide safety and structure while you do shadow work.
Q: How do I know if I’m in Stage 3 (Intuitive Integration) or just making impulsive decisions?
A: Intuitive decisions feel calm and aligned, even if they’re scary. Impulsive decisions usually come from emotional reactivity or urgency. If you’ve done the work in Stages 1 and 2, you’ll have better discernment. Trust builds over time as you see the results of following your intuition.
Ready to Start Your Transformation? Get Your Free 7-Day “Say Yes” Starter Pack
The hardest part of any healing journey is knowing where to begin. That’s why I’ve created something to help you take that first crucial step.
Your free 7-Day “Say Yes” Starter Pack includes:
✓ Daily Journal Prompts designed to uncover your specific patterns and triggers
✓ Nervous System Regulation Techniques to help you stay grounded when emotions get intense
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✓ Identity Rebuilding Framework to start creating the new you from a place of intention
This isn’t just another workbook – it’s your roadmap for the next seven days of real, tangible change. Hundreds of people have used this exact system to break free from old patterns and start living from their authentic self.
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No spam, no endless emails. Just practical tools you can start using today to transform your life from the inside out.
Ready to dive deeper into your healing journey? Each stage requires different tools and approaches. The key is meeting yourself exactly where you are and trusting the process, even when it gets messy.
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