How to Find Your True Self
By Kerry Biskelonis, LPC, RYT
Last Updated 03/10/2026
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The Inner Conflicts of a Therapist
The deepest contradiction in this work is one I’ve stopped trying to resolve: I want to be of service, and yet true service - the kind that actually frees people - means pointing you so firmly back toward yourself that eventually you don’t need me, or anyone like me, at all. The moment you hand your discernment over to another person, another teacher, another framework, you’ve quietly given away the very thing you came here to reclaim.
My job isn’t to guide you. It’s to remind you that you were never lost.
When you find yourself seeking guidance, I hope you find the kind that points you back toward your clearest, most authentic, most sovereign self. That quiets the parts, the noise, the “shoulds” - and creates space for your own inner wisdom to lead. Not your strategies and fear driving the bus, but a true, felt connection to your own presence.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with how to best show up in this space. Personally, I’ve felt fatigued by the wellness industry’s constant stream of “how to” messages - from what to eat as we age to how to process our grief to the best way to keep my vegetable garden thriving. Therapy talk is also really tiring. I’m exhausted by all the pathologizing and social media diagnosing of attachment styles, trauma, empaths, ADHD - as if any one label is all that you are.
What is stopping you from living your most aligned and authentic life?
Understanding the Victim Mindset
I think this is part of why the victim mindset is so seductive. When self-esteem has been chipped away over a lifetime, it’s easy to stay in a state of disempowerment - casting blame, sitting in self-pity, never quite holding ourselves accountable.
How does fear impact how we live?
The institutions many of us participate in are wonderful at keeping us in a state of scarcity. Media, current events, social media, politics - you can feel it when you’re paying attention. It’s all designed to keep us afraid. Fear of aging, fear of others, fear of our parents, fear of our childhoods, fear of our futures, fear for our children, fear for our lives.
When fear holds the power, we are not living in connection with our true nature — we are living in reaction to our strategies. Strategies, or identities, are built to keep us safe, protected, special, loved, attractive, and seen.
What a Therapist Learned from Changing Her Mindset
Many times over, I find myself facing what feels like overwhelming rejection. I have a story around this - one that builds on a “never enough” belief system. Maybe I could trace it back to my childhood. That can feel helpful at first, to know the origin story. But to go there is to risk landing in blame and victimhood, and you have to be determined not to stay there. I did stay there, for some years - unknowingly, even - until a plant medicine journey revealed how embedded my “why me?” storyline really was.
I find myself tired of the parts I’ve played, the roles I’ve carried, in order to feel safe and special. How many times have I unconsciously made decisions to stay just outside the “norm” - to avoid comparison, to sidestep the fear of not belonging? If I never try to belong in the first place, the rejection won’t hurt as badly, right?
Wrong.
My rebellious parts attempt to control the narrative, my ego still fighting for certainty and enoughness. But each reaction, each strategy, moves me further and further out of alignment.
So when the rejection comes - or the shove, or the big disruption blows everything up - I feel immense pain. Because I had been trying so hard to avoid exactly this. I was being a good person, doing the “right” things, striving, proving, protecting. And none of it works. The pain still comes. Disappointment showers down. Anger boils. I fall to my knees. Again and again and again.
Understand Your Patterns, Find Peace
Why does this keep happening? It’s not a question held in victimhood - it’s one that actually has an answer. It’s because of attachments. Attachments to identities, to stories, to ideas, to ideals, to people, to futures, and to promises.
Release to reset your nervous system.
I find, over and over again, that therapy, spirituality, trauma healing, repair — it’s all pointing to one thing: letting go. Letting go of who we think we are, who we wanted to be, and who we tried to be. Letting go of our expectations of others, our ideas about the future, our need for control, our judgments, our disappointments, our anger, our pain, our hatred, our blame.
Who are you when your strategies leave?
Who are we when we carry no judgment? Who are we when we hold everything in curiosity — without naming, without labeling, without over-attaching? Who are we when I am you, and you are me, and we are all together?
I am nothing. I am everything. I am all of that in between. I am here. I am breathing. I am alive. I am not my habits, my past, or my future. I am not my job, my marital status, my zip code, or my body. I am a vessel. I am energy.
I am here to learn and grow my capacity for love, forgiveness, and service.
How do I know who am I supposed to be?
Only you know what you are. Only you know what that feels like from the inside. And the path to really knowing yourself — truly revealing yourself to yourself — runs straight through the practice of letting go of who you think you are.
What can I do to get to know myself better?
I know this is esoteric, but for me, the practices that have opened that door most powerfully are the ones that quiet the ego — deep trance meditation, and at times, plant medicine or ketamine-assisted therapy. Though none of that is required.
If something in this is calling to you, our Intensive Reset program exists as one possible container for that exploration. But only you know if it’s yours to answer.
Where can I find a therapist near me?
At Reset Brain and Body, we support clients through foundational and holistic wellness, nervous system regulation, and more. If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Our team is here to walk with you—through the overwhelm and into presence.
Ready to begin your healing journey?
Explore our unique approach to foundational wellness or fill out a new client inquiry form.
Conscious Transparency: This newsletter was edited by AI for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, but every idea, tone of voice, perspective, and word choice was my own. This newsletter is imperfect because a human wrote it. Thank you for your graciousness.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: I recently heard an amazing group describe despair as: "What can I be or do?" “That despair is a failure of imagination.” “The inability to see beyond the catastrophe” and hope, then, is the ability to still somehow see beyond “it”, to be present-moment-focused, action-oriented, of being with the possibility of this moment. Holding this tension is how we manage this season of despair, any season of despair.
Gratitude: Often cynic mindsets reign in distressing times. But this is your generous reminder that you have permission to pay attention to the beautiful with the same intensity as you do to the brutal.
Innovation: Just leaving this quote right here -
“You might think justice is a form of choosing sides, choosing whom to stand behind. In a way, maybe it is. But justice doesn't choose whose dignity is superior. It upholds the dignity of all those involved, no matter whom it offends or what it costs. Even when demanding retribution, justice does not demean the offender's dignity; it affirms it. It communicates that what has been done is not what the offender was made for.
They, too, were made for beauty. In justice, everyone becomes more human, everyone bears the image of the divine. Justice does not ask us to choose.”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Feels: Art, poetry, nature, children. These are my antidotes. Beauty. May you look for it, breathe it in, feel it.
