It’s strangely common to feel like you don’t know how to be yourself—like you can’t quite settle into your own life without adjusting something first.
Maybe it shows up as shame. Maybe it’s self-doubt, or a vague sense that you can’t trust your experience, or that you’re somehow apart from yourself.
What’s striking is that people can feel this and still have a strong instinct that it’s possible to rest as yourself—not as an achievement, but as something simple and immediate.
The practice here doesn’t try to fix you. It helps you see what the barrier is—and it does that by feeling, not by thinking.
The Feeling: “I Don’t Know How to Just Be Myself”
It may not seem like it would be common, but I find—and from what people tell me—it’s rather common to have this feeling: I don’t know how to just be myself.
I don’t know how to relax into myself.
I don’t know how to inhabit my own life, my own experience, without having to try to make adjustments.
Without having to project a certain persona. Without having to fix something—some quality or attribute about myself.
And yet, people have the instinct that it’s possible to rest as yourself—rest as your conventional self.
A Simple Approach That Reveals the Barrier
Here’s a very simple approach that can help. It takes a bit of time, but it can help if you find yourself in this position.
However you interpret it—too much shame, too much self-doubt, not knowing how to trust yourself, feeling apart from yourself—if it’s presenting as “I don’t know how to settle into who I am,” this can help you see what the barrier is.
I’m going to keep this super simple: two parts. You can do both. You can alternate them.
Step 1: Feel Where You Are
The first part is a simple practice you can do any time. Without analyzing, without trying to figure something out conceptually, just feel into wherever it feels like you are. Just feel it—for a second.
Alternatively, if that seems hard or too obscure: notice what it feels like to feel like you right now—however that feels. Not the thought, but the feeling.
Here’s a third way: feel what it feels like to be at the absolute center of your experience right now—wherever that feels like it is.
[Possible clarification needed: “absolute center” is a felt-sense pointer, not a claim about a physical location.]
It might feel like it’s in the center of your head, or the center of your chest. Not close to where you are, but where you are. Feel—just for one second. For half a second.
Understand: just touching into this is valuable, even if you didn’t notice anything change or anything happening.
Reminding yourself to do it periodically can also be helpful.
Step 2: Turn Toward What Says “I Can’t”
The other approach is: when you have the sense that you can’t relax or can’t rest into yourself—however that comes up—turn toward that.
It may feel like: “There’s too much shame. I can’t accept myself.”
Or: “There’s some dark part of myself I don’t want to look at.”
Whatever it is for you that seems like the obstruction or the barrier, be okay with the fact that in this moment there is some kind of seeming obstruction. Just notice it.
It may be clear as a thought: “I can’t forgive myself for XYZ.”
Or: “I feel so much shame. I can’t relax.”
Or: “I don’t know where to look.”
Just notice it in its clarity, in its distinctness, however it’s appearing. Turn toward it and be with it for a moment.
It’s like telling it: “You can be here. It’s okay.”
Another way is to say: “You have my attention.”
A Small Reframe: Not a Problem, But Something to Meet
Instead of treating “I can’t rest in myself” as a problem, we reframe it. If something is saying “I can’t rest,” we give that our attention.
We accept the fact that it’s here—totally.
And we feel into it: what does it feel like to be in that space of “I don’t know what to do,” or “I don’t know how to love myself”?
Can you just be in the space of that recognition? Feel into it. Feel its nature. Feel the truth of it—its intrinsic truth.
It might not be extrinsically true—it may not point to anything objective—but itself, it has a right to be here.
How to Work With the Two Steps
With both of these, you may touch in and it may not feel like anything remarkable happened—but something happened.
Practice with curiosity. Don’t force anything.
Alternate: spend some time feeling “Where am I? Where is that feeling of being me?”
Then alternate with feeling into the part that says: “I can’t do this. I can’t be me. I can’t settle in. I don’t know how to be with myself.”
Turn toward it. Accept that it’s here. Accept that it’s okay that it’s here.
You can alternate between the two. Spend one day with one, the next day with the other. Touch in periodically when you remember.
Don’t overly structure this. Don’t structure it rigidly. Let it move on a natural cadence, then dial into that cadence.
If Wordlessness Happens, Stay There
You may find yourself dropping deep into something. If you do, just stay there.
If you feel yourself dropping deep into either of these—into some kind of wordlessness—that’s it. That’s great. Stay there.
Don’t look for anything to happen. Don’t try to conclude anything. Just stay.
Stay with that depth. That’s doing a lot of work.
You may not see it right now. You may not see it for three years. But it’s doing work. Something’s happening.
And with time, you can and will inhabit yourself fully.