The Ache of Not Knowing Who You Are
- Fabienne
- Sep 13
- 5 min read
When People-Pleasing Hides Your True Self
There comes a moment — for many in midlife — when the ground shifts. You’ve poured years into caring for others, building careers, raising families, holding relationships together. Then one day (or sometimes slowly, like a drip over time), you realize the roles you’ve played have become second nature… but when you strip them away, a quiet question stirs: Who am I, really?
It often hits hardest when life slows down just enough for you to hear the ache underneath. You notice it in the smallest things. When someone asks, What do you want? — and no answer comes. Or in the bigger questions: What’s my purpose now? What actually brings me joy? Instead of clarity, there’s fog.
I’ve been there, too.
How People-Pleasing Hides Your True Self
You find yourself both longing and dreading to know. Longing, because you want to feel your own aliveness again. Dreading, because somewhere inside you carry the quiet beliefs that your needs don’t matter (I, at first, wasn’t even aware I had needs), that it’s safer not to have preferences, that who you are must always fit into what others need you to be.
This is what happens when the survival strategy of people-pleasing becomes a way of being. Somewhere along the way you learned that your needs didn’t matter much, that safety lay in being useful, agreeable, invisible, not too much (but also, somehow, not enough). These beliefs formed a protective shell. They once kept you safe in environments where it wasn’t safe to express yourself. But in midlife, as external roles begin to shift, the shell cracks. And with it, the emptiness or ache of not knowing who you are rises to the surface.
With that cracking shell comes a swirl of feelings. For some, it’s numbness — a blank page where desire should be. For others, a sharp grief, almost unbearable, for all the years spent silencing what was true inside. Sometimes it’s anger, sudden and hot, at the roles you were forced into and the ones you chose because they felt safer than the unknown.
There can also be shame (oh, I know this one!), that quiet voice whispering, I should know myself by now. As if identity were something we were meant to master once and for all, instead of something alive, shifting, waiting to be rediscovered again and again.
And underneath it all, a tender longing: to feel your own heartbeat again, to know what lights you up without checking first if it’s acceptable, to take up space in your own life.
At the heart of this pattern lives a looping question: Is it safe to be myself?
If the answer were a clear yes, life would open in front of you. But for many, as soon as that yes arises, another sting follows: But who am I, even? After years, sometimes decades, of moulding yourself to the needs of others, the map back to yourself can feel blurred.
Do you see the loop?
Why Healing Starts in the Body
This is why healing isn’t just about thinking our way to clarity. The body has to learn first that it’s safe to be me. When your nervous system anchors into that truth, the mind can soften, curiosity can emerge, and space opens to rediscover yourself. Not as the chameleon who adjusts to belong, but as the authentic self who belongs simply by being.
I know that ache intimately. For years, I moved through life as though I were an echo of those around me. I could sense their moods, their desires, their unspoken needs — but when it came to my own, there was often blankness. A tight chest. A foggy mind. A nervous system always braced to adjust.
The cost isn’t just tiredness or self-doubt. It’s the loss of joy, the loss of your inner compass, the feeling of being absent from your own life.
And yet — this story doesn’t have to end in loss.
Small Steps Back Home
The path forward isn’t about forcing clarity with your mind. It begins in the body, in relearning safety. Because when your nervous system knows it’s safe to be me, space opens for desire, curiosity, and identity to return.
For me, this looked like small, gentle practices: placing a hand on my heart and asking, What do I want, right now? Not the big life purpose question, not the ten-year plan. Just the next sip of whatever drink I choose, the music I want to hear, the food that feels nourishing. At first, the answers came slow and hesitant. But over time, they grew clearer, like a voice I’d forgotten learning to speak again.
Herbal allies can support this return, too: hawthorn to steady and strengthen the heart, ginger to spark vitality and awaken inner warmth, lemon balm to soothe the nervous system so the whispers of self can be heard. And my favorite herbal ally I want you to know about: rosemary — to remember and to reclaim yourself within your ancestral line.
Where plants root us back into memory, animals show us how to live it out loud.
Think about this: They don’t question their right to be. A cat doesn’t wonder if it’s “too much” for wanting affection. It also doesn’t hesitate to walk away when it’s had enough. A dog doesn’t apologize for being excited at the door (and mine certainly doesn’t for wanting yet another treat). They remind us that being ourselves isn’t something to earn. It’s something we already are.
Belonging to Yourself
Tending to this healing cycle has a ripple effect of benefits. When we anchor in that inner safety of being ourselves, boundaries become natural edges instead of walls. Choices emerge from within, not from others’ expectations. And life slowly shifts from performing to belonging — belonging first to yourself.
I still have moments where the old loop returns. Yes, there are times I hesitate, go blank, or feel myself bending toward someone else’s needs without even noticing at first. But now, I catch it sooner. I breathe into my body, remind myself: It’s safe to be me. From that place, the answers come. Not all at once, but step by step, like a trail back home.
This is the heart of the work I share: helping you unwind old survival patterns so your body can finally rest in safety. Through Root Cause Therapy and the gentle wisdom of plants and animals, we create space for you to meet yourself again. Not as who the world told you to be, but as who you truly are.
Because you don’t have to shrink, fawn, or disappear to belong. You are allowed to stand rooted in your own truth, tender and strong. And when you do, the relationships around you shift, and life begins to feel like your own again.
With warmth and possibility,
Fabienne 🩷
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