Letter 17: Jennifer - Wired to Please, Born to Be Free
“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you.”
— Rachel Naomi Remen
Dear Future Human,
Deep down beneath the sedimentary layers of the psyche lies the true self, a vital essence, connected to and informed by the greater wisdom of nature—a unique facet of Nature’s ever-unfolding exploration of itself.
By the time most of us reach adulthood, our authentic core is often buried under layers of protection—numbness, defensiveness, and false selves shaped by our early environments. What once helped us survive slowly turns into walls, cutting us off from what we want, need, and truly believe.
Jennifer’s story, which I began in my last letter, is really the story of these layers. It is the account of how a brilliant, sensitive, truth-seeking child learned to bury her authentic nature so completely that she forgot it existed. And it is the story of how, through courage, community, and countless small acts of rebellion against her own conditioning, she excavated her way back to herself.
The same protections that shielded Jennifer from pain also pulled her away from herself, making it hard to even know what she liked, disliked, or needed. When I met her at twenty-six, she was warm and energetic but carried a kind of youthful naivete that hinted at how early her development had been interrupted.
As we began working together, I noticed that Jennifer frequently spent weekends at her family’s farm in upstate New York. Jennifer loved going to the farm, believing—no, insisting that the farm and that time with her family was nourishing and fun. She experienced these trips as “sanctuaries.”
What struck me was that every time she returned from the farm, she came back with a sinking feeling in her stomach, a sense that something was off. When I questioned her about it, she quickly dismissed it, insisting she loved going to the farm. She never noticed these feelings when she was present with her family, only after she returned home. Over time, she began to share how distant and dismissive her mother is with her. Sometimes she would call me in tears after calling her mother, only to be told she did not have time to speak with her.
Little by little she began to notice that after these visits she would come home feeling sad and worn down. But she kept returning, believing that she belonged there. Jennifer’s attachment to the farm shows how old survival instincts can distort how we experience reality as adults. It’s like the person who reaches for a drink while their life is falling apart because of it. Or a woman staying with someone she says she loves, even while they keep hurting and twisting her sense of what’s real. The attachment feels safe, even when it causes pain.1
Jennifer’s mind learned to edit what she took in. Her natural optimism and warmth made it easier to believe the stories that once helped her survive as a child. Like all children who can’t change their environment, she adjusted to the unspoken rules around her.2
As an adult, this meant she couldn’t easily see or feel the parts of her life that left her disconnected and disappointed. Anything that didn’t fit her positive story did not register, leaving her cut off from what she was really feeling.3
This is the greatest cost of a fraudulent life: we lose our ability to perceive and feel reality as it arises. When we stop trusting what we feel, we lose touch with ourselves.
My first intervention with Jennifer was a simple one: stop going to the farm. She resisted. She hated me. She fought tooth and nail against this challenge, accusing me of trying to strip her of something she loved.
Her resistance wasn’t irrational; it was about attachment.4 She had learned how to stay close to her family by being a certain way—helpful, positive, not asking for much. What I suggested put that at risk. To her nervous system, it felt simple and terrifying: If I stop going, if I stop performing, I’ll lose them. I’ll be alone. And for a child’s wiring, that kind of loss feels like life or death.
But something inside of her resonated as truth, and she agreed to try. Almost immediately she felt a deep sense of relief. Her family attempted to pull her back to their comfort zone, but she remained determined. Free from the pressures of needing to perform, Jennifer’s nervous system began to relax in a way it hadn’t in years. She was finally able to register the gap between what her body was telling her and her belief. She began to feel the difference between obligation and what she actually needed. She described the first weekend home this way: “The first weekend that I stayed in my own home instead of going to the farm I actually felt a freedom to listen to my own needs, take a slow weekend to relax, and create experiences for myself that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I gone.”
This is what Dr. Becky Kennedy calls learning to “gaze inward” rather than constantly “gazing outward.”5 For most of her life, Jennifer’s attention had been externally focused: What do they need? What will make them happy? What’s expected of me? Staying home gave her a chance to ask herself: What do I need? What makes me happy? What do I actually want? Her nervous system was learning it was safe to turn her attention to herself.
Moments like these are like small windows where something new can be seen. They are easy to miss at first, unless you’re actively looking for them. Like tiny needles of light, they begin to pierce the layers of numbness and dissociation that disconnect us from the direct experience of life—from reality itself.
Make enough pinpricks, and the light starts to expand.
Jennifer had taken her first step toward a new way of perceiving.
My work with her began with changing her environment. Remember our brains adapt to what we are surrounded by. Every step we took was designed to interrupt the habits—the automatic neural patterns that had been running her life for decades.6 Jennifer stopped entering the family system that required her to perform. She limited phone calls with her mother. She left a relationship that seemed stable from the outside but did not nourish her. She moved away from the home that felt safe and comfortable and started over in a new state.
Each of these changes touched a different part of her life—and together, they began to shift how she felt about herself. Slowly, she started to see herself not as someone reacting to life, but as someone rooted, choosing, and capable of directing her own path.
Each boundary felt terrifying, but her nervous system naturally began to regulate itself.
Gordon Neufeld would say this is what it looks like when the conditions for maturation return. Maturation needs secure attachment, freedom from premature responsibility, and space to emerge.7 By leaving environments that required her to perform in order to stay connected, Jennifer created space for something more vulnerable and alive to emerge. Free from the pressure to hold everything together, parts of her that had been paused since childhood were finally able to begin to unfold again—first in relationship with herself, and eventually with others.
Then came reclaiming her voice. Jennifer began the terrifying work of speaking truth. She surrounded herself with people committed to honesty and helped her notice when she was performing instead of speaking truthfully. She learned to say NO. She called her mother less frequently. She cut her long blond hair to shift the image of herself. She spoke publicly in front of influential groups. She began taking on leadership roles in various projects and rigorously embarked on a path to discover her many innate gifts.
Learning to say NO was monumental for Jennifer. As Dr. Becky Kennedy points out, boundaries aren’t about pushing others away—they’re about knowing where you end and someone else begins.8 Jennifer had to learn: “I can care about your disappointment AND still hold my boundary. I can love you AND say no. Your upset doesn’t mean my needs are wrong.” This is frame separation—recognizing that she and her mother were distinct entities with distinct needs, neither responsible for managing the other.
She returned to her body through meditation and dance. Slowly, she discovered an internal space, the Witness Space—a place of paying attention, of listening, rather than reaction.9 From there, she could ask: What am I actually feeling? What story am I telling? What’s true right now?
From this space, Jennifer could hold both her Flailing Child and her Fraudulent Adult with awareness. She could observe her protective mechanisms, and the projections of her irrational thoughts, when, in reality, there was no apparent threat. She learned to intercept her Fraudulent Adult’s bravado reactions, and admit when she was feeling insecure or angry, so that she could rewire her emotional responses in the moment. Over time, she became better at telling the difference between old, habitual reactions and what was actually happening in the moment.10
She learned to pause. To choose.
Neufeld calls this developing “the alpha brain”—the internalized capacity to be one’s own secure attachment figure. Jennifer was becoming sturdy for herself. She could now hold her own big feelings without collapsing or needing others to regulate her. This is psychological maturation: the movement from dependence to interdependence.11
Jennifer had to face a great deal of pain. Change felt like a series of small deaths.12 Her body struggled to let go of what had once felt familiar and safe. Her determination to discover her Authentic Integrated Self drove her to discover that she can be comfortable being with herself. She slowly developed a greater capacity to face challenging situations. As she became more resilient every day, she took on more challenges. Her newfound connection to her body imbued her with a wondrous sense of vitality and a deeper connection to the natural world. She grew more curious about the world—politically, geographically, economically—reading more and stepping into conversations she once stayed out of. She also began to see herself as a leader, aware of the skills and talents she brings, and wanting to contribute in a meaningful way.
What Jennifer was developing was real confidence—not needing to be the best but feeling okay being herself even when she wasn’t. She learned she could try new things, be awkward, not know the answer, and show uncertainty and still be worthy. Her sense of worth was no longer tied to performance.
Most of all, Jennifer’s greatest transformation occurred around her relationship with people—most importantly her mother. Before she could enter into a new relationship with her mother, the old relationship had to die; for a time, Jennifer’s mother mourned and grieved the daughter she thought she knew and railed against Jennifer’s desires to evolve and assert herself. But after a while, her mother began to reach out to Jennifer, developing a curiosity and openness to participating in Jennifer’s adventurous life. Over time, they found their way into a deeper, more authentic relationship—one Jennifer had wanted all her life.
What Jennifer has uncovered not only through a deeper relationship with her mother, but a renewed and much deepened relationship with herself. She is grounded and confident, full of that exuberant energy and curiosity that kept her constantly on the go as a little girl—but with an adult’s ability, a maturity that enables her to stay rooted in the present even when she experiences the pull of old patterns of reactivity and defensiveness (her Fraudulent Adult), or the urge to collapse and withdraw in woundedness (her Flailing Child).
The pain and fear that comes along with this transformation is normal. Change has ripple effects. As a living system begins to shift, whether it’s a family, a community, or a role we’ve long inhabited, resistance will emerge. When we begin to change, we disturb the balance in our environments, and the systems push back. It takes time for homeostasis to return and where we can be healthier and more whole.
That’s why change demands so much of us. It takes courage, persistence, and often a leap of faith to move forward before we can fully see where we are headed.
The challenge, for most people, is that they can’t perceive the cost associated with failing to change. Most of us aren’t aware of the Flailing Child buried beneath our defenses—and we’re even less aware that beneath that pain there is a primal life-force waiting to be released, wishing to guide us toward a truer way of living. Instead, we identify almost entirely with our Fraudulent Adult. Most of the time, we only realize something’s off when anxiety, depression, or bursts of anger push their way to the surface—and even then, we often misplace the blame.
The numbing effect of the Liminal Space keeps this hidden. It dulls our awareness of the terrified child beneath our adaptations and mutes the deeper signal still trying to reach us. So we end up identifying with our Fraudulent Adult, believing that’s who we are, while feelings of restlessness, discontent, or anger take over, never correctly attributing these phenomena to their true cause.
It is almost impossible to recognize that we are Fraudulent until we have already begun to move back toward our authentic and integrated selves. And yet without seeing the cost, without fully experiencing the cost, we won’t walk through the pain required to change.
In my next letters, I’ll explore how we begin to see that cost—not just within ourselves, but in our relationships, our work, and the world we are building together.
With humility and determination,
Ronit
Hame Park et al., “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex,” Nature Communications, June 2025.
Martinez-Escudero, S. Villarejo, O. Garcia, and F. Garcia, “Parental Socialization and Its Impact across the Lifespan,” Behavioral Sciences 10, 2020.
J. Habicht, A. Bowler, M. Moses-Payne, and T. Hauser, “Children Are Full of Optimism, but Those Rose-Tinted Glasses Are Fading,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, August 2022.
Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, Chapter 2, “A Matter of Attachment,” Ballantine Books, 2013.
Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, Chapter 25, “Building Confidence,” Harper Wave, 2022.
Wyatt, Zoe, “The Neuroscience of Habit Formation,” Neurology and Neuroscience, March 2024.
Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers, Chapter 9, “Stuck in Immaturity,” Ballantine Books, 2013.
Dr. Becky Kennedy, How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty, YouTube, uploaded by Tim Ferriss, April, 2025.
Gregg Henriques, “What Is the Difference Between the Self and the Witness?,” Psychology Today, August 2023.
Kerry Komine, “Unleashing the Extraordinary Potential of the Brain’s Adaptive Rewiring Mechanisms for Lifelong Development, Cognitive Enhancement, and Personal Transformation: Unlocking the Power of Neuroplasticity,” Neuroscience and Psychiatry, June 2023.
Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers, Part Three, “The Nature of Attachment,” Ballantine Books, 2013.
Travers, Mark. “Have You Experienced an Ego Death?” Forbes, April 2024.