“Feeling something is wrong with me is the toxic gas I am always breathing.” – Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance ​As a therapist, I hear this question (or the quiet ache beneath it) all the time. If you’re here, chances are you know that feeling—the one that whispers, or sometimes screams, that you’re broken, defective, or not enough. To cope, many of us numb out  with food, alcohol, or scrolling. Others work themselves to exhaustion  chasing scraps of worthiness, cling to relat

What if our compulsive need to help everyone, to fix everyone, isn’t actually love at all — but a form of interference?

We don’t actually need to defend ourselves at all — because what we’re defending isn’t the truth of who we are, but the idea of who we are. The self that gets defensive is not our authentic self — it’s the conditioned self, built from old stories, survival strategies, and identities we’ve carried to stay safe in the world.