07/08/2025
**Stop Trying to Fix Yourself: You Were Never Broken**
Here's my Inner Alchemy blog post for this week - come and find me on Substack if you want to dive deeper! I'll include the link in the comments!
What if your behaviours were protectors; not problems?
There’s an entire industry built on convincing you that you’re broken. That if you just buy this book, follow that plan, re-mortgage your house for that course, say these affirmations, do the tapping or stick to that routine, you’ll finally be… what? Healed? Whole? Worthy? No, often you end up broke, disillusioned and with repetitive strain injury.
Here’s the truth: you were never broken.
Most of what you think are your flaws, blocks or “bad habits” are actually intelligent adaptations. Your system, your psyche, did what it needed to do to survive at that time. And those behaviours you're trying so hard to fix? They're often protectors. Not problems. They’re like red socks that have been put back in the yellow sock row. They just need to be reunited with their fellow reds.
The Self-Help Industry is Built on Your Perceived Deficit
The wellness world is full of “solutions” for people who aren’t asking the right questions.
You may have tried to “self-help” yourself into confidence, calm, success or control. You may have seen improvement for a while - until something triggered you again. Then the shame cycle kicks in:
I should know better. I thought I’d dealt with this. Why am I back here again? I’m just useless.
“Here" was never the problem.
If you’ve ever wondered why you feel like you’re constantly “working on yourself” but never quite arriving, it might be because you’re chasing the wrong target.
Behaviours Are Messengers - Not Enemies
As a therapist and coach, I’ve trained in several modalities: CBT, ACT, Transactional Analysis, Human Givens, Parts Work, Hypnotherapy and more. Each one brings valuable tools to the table. CBT helps us challenge distorted thinking. ACT reminds us to accept what we can’t change. TA offers brilliant insights into relational dynamics.
But Internal Family Systems (IFS) is the model I reach for when someone sits down and says:
"I don’t know why I keep doing this. I know better, but I can't stop. Part of me wants to change, and part of me doesn't."
IFS doesn’t pathologise. It doesn’t label you as disordered. Instead, it assumes that all your behaviours - even the messy, “shameful” ones - make sense when you understand the role they play.
Internal Family Systems therapy reframes what many of us have internalised about pain, coping, and the parts of us we’re told to silence.
In IFS, there are no bad parts.
That inner critic that hounds you to do better, look sharper, or try harder? It’s a protector trying to keep you from rejection or failure.
The part that numbs out with scrolling, wine, or work? It’s a firefighter trying to soothe the pain when things feel overwhelming.
Even your anxiety isn’t “the problem”. It’s often a flare sent up by an inner system trying to keep you alert to threat.
And it’s important to note that not everything is a buried trauma response. Sometimes we work hard because life demands it. Because bills are real. Because we’re building something that matters. I’m in a season like that right now - not overworking from a part that feels I “should”, but because I need to. Not all urgency is dysfunction. Some of it is strategy. And survival.
The difference is: can you feel the difference? Between pushing from fear and choosing from clarity. Between being driven by a frantic protector part… and being led by your Self, even in the middle of challenge.
In the case of the parts surfacing, when you see each response as a loyal, if outdated, strategy for safety, something shifts. You stop pathologising your experience. You get curious instead of critical. And that curiosity is where healing begins.
Why We Don’t Do What We Know
Sometimes, yes - we are avoiding. We scroll instead of starting. We procrastinate. We wait for someone else to do the job for us or to make the hard decision, take the first step, or carry the load. Some of us were conditioned to believe that someone else would do it for us. That life would just “work out.”
But more often than not, what looks like laziness or lack of willpower is something deeper: a system of inner parts that aren’t yet aligned.
These parts - shaped by trauma, survival, patriarchy, and shame - are trying to protect us. From failure. From exposure. From collapse. From rejection. Even from joy, if joy once felt unsafe.
This doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. Taking responsibility for our lives - even when it's uncomfortable - is part of the work. But we can do it with understanding rather than self-punishment.
I just want to add a quick reference to the word “patriarchy” as it’s a term that is banded around a lot, but it’s important we understand it through a lived lens:
Most of us - as women - have grown up with an undercurrent of fear or shame that we didn’t consciously sign up for.
- Maybe it was the dumb blonde jokes (I've had a few of those in my day!)
- The s*xist remarks in the office or around the dinner party table we laughed off to stay included or to survive.
- The fear of walking alone at night.
- The instinct to hold keys in your hand, just in case.
- The concern when your daughter meets her friends for a night out.
This is not about being “anti-men”. But it does mean that many of us carry internalised beliefs shaped by a world that hasn’t always felt emotionally or physically safe for women. And this goes way back - even in religious texts, like the Bible, we see early stories that place the burden of downfall on the woman. Eve is portrayed as the one who led Adam astray - and then we’re told woman was created from his rib. Whether or not you read that story literally, it reveals a cultural narrative that’s echoed for generations: women as second, or suspect.
Today, it continues in more insidious ways. P**n culture has shaped collective ideas of s*x that are far removed from mutuality, connection, or reality. It teaches performance, objectification, and dominance - and whether or not you watch it, its influence trickles into society’s norms. Women are often portrayed as bodies to be consumed, shaped by algorithms to be ever more perfect, submissive, and compliant.
This matters. Because even if we know better intellectually, many of the parts within us were shaped under these influences - and they’ve absorbed messages about worth, safety, desirability, and power.
This is the work now:
- To name it.
- To question it.
- To heal from it.
- And to reclaim who we are beneath it.
Back to IFS ….
That’s why IFS is so powerful. Because it doesn’t just treat symptoms or end-result behaviours. It goes into the subconscious, the nervous system, the parts of us that learned to stay small, stay quiet, stay watchful.
IFS gives those parts a voice.
IFS teaches us that we aren’t one fixed identity. We’re a system of “parts” - inner voices or roles - each with its own history, agenda, and emotion.
These parts aren’t bad. They’ve just become extreme. They took on jobs they were never meant to hold.
“Healing” Isn’t About Deleting Parts of Yourself
Many of the women I work with carry an unconscious belief that healing means becoming someone else: more confident, less emotional, more resilient, less reactive.
But what if it’s not about replacing who you are but about integrating what’s already here?
When a protector part (like perfectionism, emotional eating, or overthinking) is met with compassion and curiosity, it begins to soften. Not because you “got rid” of it, but because it finally felt seen and safe.
That’s where the real change happens.
A Simple (But Not Easy) Step You Can Take Today
Here’s something you can try right now - a practice drawn directly from IFS:
Notice the behaviour or feeling that’s causing you distress.
It might be procrastination, snacking at night, self-criticism, overworking, freezing up in social settings.
Pause and ask yourself: What part of me is doing this? What is it trying to protect me from?
Let the answer come without analysing it. Just listen.
Speak to that part like you would to a child or a friend.
“Thank you for trying to protect me. I see you. I’m here.”
Ask: What does this part need right now?
Often, what it needs is your presence, not a plan.
This is not a one-off fix. It’s a practice. And the more often you do it, the more internal trust you build. The more awareness you develop, the more you can integrate more functional behaviours.
Real-World Examples of Protector Behaviour
Here are real-world ways protectors show up in women’s lives - especially in midlife:
The woman who never rests because the minute she stops, the feelings come flooding in or she feels guilty.
The one who knows how to nourish herself but binge eats alone at night because that part believes it’s safer to feel numb than to feel.
The one who judges everyone but is terrified of being rejected herself.
The one who puts herself last because her inner Rescuer believes her worth comes from being needed.
The woman who overprepares, overdelivers, overachieves - not from drive, but from a young part that learned safety came from being “the good girl.”
The one who lies to herself and others because the alternative would mean facing unbearable truth.
Some parts get so protective, they will distort reality. They’ll lie to you. They’ll lie as you. Because to face the truth - illness, grief, unravelling identity - would feel like death to the system. We see this with diseases like anorexia. The individual will rarely recognise their own lies and will often pay the ultimate price in protecting the cocoon that is slowly killing them off. Not every advocate or “influencer” is an authority. And not every story is honest.
What To Do Instead:
Stop pathologising your patterns.
Assume they’re protectors. Start from compassion, not critique.
Get curious, not compliant.
Before you “follow the plan,” ask: Which part of me doesn’t want to do this? What is it afraid of?
Don’t override - invite.
Instead of powering through resistance, dialogue with it. This may sound woo, but it’s deeply effective.
Name the roles you play.
Are you stuck in the Drama Triangle?
Do you find yourself rescuing everyone - being the fixer, the helper, the one who holds it all together - but secretly feeling exhausted, unseen, or resentful
Are you mothering everyone else while your own inner child goes ignored?
Do you flip between rescuing and snapping - trying to be everything for everyone until you hit your limit, then becoming sharp, cold, or withdrawn
Or maybe you drop into victim mode - feeling powerless, stuck, overwhelmed - waiting for someone to come and rescue you for a change?
This is the dance of the Drama Triangle (Karpman Triangle): Rescuer, Persecutor, Victim.
Take small experiments, not massive overhauls.
Most of us struggle with big change. But we can handle 5%. Try it. Reflect. Adjust.
See the loop as information, not failure.
If you're looping again, it means something needs attention - not punishment.
Journal Prompts: From Self-Sabotage to Self-Understanding
Try these - but don’t just ask. Answer them as if your part is speaking back to you. Let the conversation happen.
- What pattern am I stuck in right now? What behaviour do I keep repeating?
- If this pattern had a voice, what would it say? What does it fear?
- When did this part first emerge? What was happening in my life?
- What is this part trying to protect me from?
- What does it need to feel safe enough to relax its grip?
- What’s one action I can take that honours both my growth and my protector?
Midlife Reckoning in a Fractured World
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. We’re living through chaos: political unrest, institutional betrayal, global trauma, ecological collapse. The old systems are crumbling. The centre doesn’t hold. This is serious stuff and it has an impact on every single one of us.
Layered on top of this collective decay are our personal lives, which we’re trying to navigate with as much grace and intention as we can - often while trying to honour the very values we see being dismantled around us: integrity, compassion, truth, justice.
Midlife is not just a hormonal shift - it’s a spiritual collision with reality.
Like a personal implosion.
One that doesn’t make headlines.
One that leaves no mushroom cloud… but still levels everything you thought was solid.
And as the world toys with nuclear posturing – nations puffing chests, spinning fear – you start to see the mirror:
This is what collapse looks like, internally.
Power games, outdated systems, illusions of control - all crumbling.
You realise that no one is coming to save you. And also - that maybe, for the first time - you don’t need saving.
You need truth. You need tools. You need to reclaim your inner authority and lead yourself through the fog.
This is not the time for “high vibe only.” This is the time for radical clarity, grounded compassion, and personal sovereignty.
You’re Not Behind. You’re Just Tired of Fighting Yourself
So much of what we call “healing” is really just the act of ending the war inside. Calling a truce with the parts of you that have been trying to get your attention for years.
You’re not a project.
You’re a human - layered, nuanced, contradictory, and wise.
You’re not failing. You’re adapting. And sometimes, the system that kept you alive is the same system that’s now holding you back.
This isn’t passive. It’s the hardest and most courageous thing you can do.
Not rush to fix.
Not turn away from your pain.
But stay with yourself. Listen. Learn. Integrate.
Because you’re not broken. You’re complex. And your complexity is not a flaw - it’s your humanity.
The parts of you you’ve been trying to silence?
They’re not the problem.
They’re waiting for your attention, not your punishment.
🤍🤍🤍
