You’re Not Who You Think
How hidden childhood stories hijack your adult life—and the method to finally rewrite them
You’re not who you think you are.
You’re a museum of moments.
A patchwork of four-year-old tantrums, misunderstood glances, and childhood shame that never left.
You’re walking through life as an adult—but the ones holding the wheel are younger versions of you, trapped in stories you didn’t even know you wrote.
And until you meet them again—feel them, not just remember them—you’ll keep reacting from places you thought you outgrew.
The Lie of the “Grown Self”
The biggest lie we believe is that we’re fully grown.
But you?
You’re not one person. You’re an entire ensemble cast of former selves.
Each of them shaped by stories, sensations, and split-second meanings your nervous system wrote long before you could understand the alphabet.
Imagine your identity as a courtroom.
Your “adult self” sits at the front… but every decision, every reaction, every outburst has a dozen child-like jurors weighing in—some scared, some defiant, some still clutching a memory like it’s the only truth.
This is the real reason you can’t “just stop” being triggered.
It’s not you.
It’s them.
Let’s Rewind
Picture this:
You’re five. You fall off your bike.
You feel pain. You see blood.
Your chest tightens, your breath locks up.
Your mom rushes over—frantic, overwhelmed, maybe even angry.
That moment becomes more than a skinned knee.
It becomes a story.
Not one with words.
One made of nervous system fireworks and felt meanings.
“I’m not safe.”
“I did something wrong.”
“I have to be hurt to be seen.”
“I’m stupid.”
“I’m too much.”
The story burns in.
Sympathetic nervous system + emotional judgment = identity branding.
Neurons fire. Associations wire.
You’ve just written a core belief—not with logic, but with sensation.
And guess what?
That belief doesn’t die.
It just waits.
Years later, when someone ignores your message, criticizes your work, or raises their voice, that same belief gets triggered.
You’re not 30 anymore—you’re 5 again. Reacting. Protecting. Hiding. Or lashing out.
You’re not overreacting.
You’re time-traveling.
The Airplane Meltdown (AKA: A 6-Year-Old in a 38-Year-Old Body)
You’ve seen it before.
Someone on an airplane loses it. Maybe they were asked to switch seats or told to stow their bag. Suddenly, they’re screaming, flailing, filming the flight attendant, and demanding to speak to a supervisor.
We roll our eyes and call them a “Karen” or a “Todd.”
But let’s get something straight:
That’s not an adult having a bad day.
That is a fully activated younger self, living out a well-worn pattern written decades ago.
Maybe that person was emotionally neglected. Maybe they had to fight for attention, for control, for acknowledgment. Maybe they grew up in chaos, and any perceived restriction now feels like abandonment, oppression, or danger.
When that nervous system flares, it doesn't just remember the old wound. It becomes the wounded one.
You’re not watching a grown-up anymore. You’re watching a neurological reenactment.
The voice tone, the tantrum, the helplessness, the entitlement—it’s all coming from a deeply embedded emotional memory track that got activated like a landmine.
And this is the heart of it:
Our parts don’t just influence us. They inhabit us.
When triggered, we don’t remember—we become.
Why This Happens: Hebb’s Law + MUD
Hebb’s Law tells us: neurons that fire together wire together.
Every time a strong emotion and a meaning happen at the same time, they create a pattern—a connection between brain, body, and belief.
Sometimes this happens suddenly, in a traumatic event.
Other times it happens slowly, through subtle repetition:
A child repeatedly hears they’re “too sensitive,” so they learn to suppress emotion.
Another is praised only when they win or perform, so they associate love with achievement.
Another only feels seen when they’re sick or in crisis, so their nervous system equates pain with connection.
These are what we call MUD—Misguided Unconscious Decisions.
They’re not logical. They’re not verbal. And they don’t live in your adult awareness.
They live in the nonverbal, symbolic world of the nervous system—coded in sensation, story, and metaphor.
This is why traditional methods fall short.
You can’t outtalk a trauma.
You can’t logic your way out of a MUD.
You have to go back to where it lives—in the body. In breath. In feeling.
Emotional First Aid: Feel. Deal. Heal.
Think about what happens when you cut your hand.
You feel the pain, so you stop what you’re doing.
You clean the wound, maybe apply pressure or a bandage.
Then you rest. You let it heal.
But even after it’s scabbed over, there’s a lesson left behind:
Go slower with the knife. Watch where you’re stepping. Be more aware.
We treat physical wounds with care and presence.
We feel, we deal, we heal—and we learn.
But emotional wounds?
We were never taught what to do with those.
The equivalent of feeling is noticing where it lives in your body.
Not with vague labels like “anxiety,” but with specificity: tight chest, hot face, heavy shoulders, clenching jaw.
Then you give it shape—texture, temperature, maybe even a personality.
That’s the deal phase. You're tending to the wound instead of bypassing it.
And then comes the heal—the moment when that part learns the lesson it was never allowed to understand:
It’s safe to say no.
You don’t have to please everyone.
You are worthy even when you’re not productive.
You’re allowed to rest.
You’re allowed to feel.
That’s not affirmation. That’s integration.
What Actually Works
In our work, we use a process called BEEP (Breath-Enhanced Emotional Processing) to reach these emotional parts—not through talk, but through breath, sensation, and altered states of consciousness.
We then deepen that access through DEEP, a full emotional restructuring process that uses somatic cues, guided inner dialogue, and narrative rewriting to meet the subconscious directly.
These aren’t just breathwork sessions.
They’re identity interventions—designed to give your body and mind a new story that finally makes sense.
Because until the body understands, the mind will keep spinning.
The Final Unlearning
So next time you’re triggered, frozen, or spiraling—pause.
You’re not broken.
You’re remembering.
You’re reliving a story your nervous system never got to finish.
And the only way out isn’t logic, discipline, or pretending to be “better.”
It’s going back. Feeling. Rewriting.
Because healing isn’t about becoming someone new.
It’s about finally freeing the ones you used to be.
PS
If you’re done reacting from wounds you don’t remember and stories you never chose, this is your invitation.
The DEEP Process was built for this exact work.
It doesn’t talk at your trauma—it talks to the parts beneath it.
And when you’re ready to stop negotiating with your triggers and start rewriting your identity, we’re here.
👉 Join the Next Level Human coaching experience
References:
Hebb's Law (Neurons that fire together, wire together): Hebb, D. O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. Wiley.BioMed Central+3The Decision Lab+3Wikipedia+3
Implicit Memory: Schacter, D. L. (1987). Implicit memory: History and current status. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13(3), 501–518. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.13.3.501
Somatic Experiencing and Trauma Therapy: Payne, P., Levine, P. A., & Crane-Godreau, M. A. (2015). Somatic experiencing: Using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 93. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00093
These latest articles resonate deeply with me, I can feel the truth in them and they have helped to put words against the emotions I've been feeling while I've been working on myself. Thank you
Thank you for the continued teaching and love!