Rebuilding Self-Love and Trust: The Journey to Knowing Yourself

She didn’t know what trust was. Not the deep, inner trust you have in yourself—the kind that grounds you in your decisions and guides you forward. No, she had spent her life living to please. People-pleasing—it's something you’ve likely heard of. It’s when you live your life for everyone else, never pausing long enough to know what's for you and what’s for others. It’s a familiar story for many adults, often rooted in childhood patterns where love or attention seemed conditional.

For this girl, exceptional behavior became her way of being. She was always ready, always on time, always perfect. She didn’t ask for much because hearing "no" was unbearable. So, she learned to perform, paying close attention to what was needed and doing her best to fill the gaps. She learned early on that to be noticed, to be loved, meant being useful. 

When her mom would yell at her dad, she figured out quickly that doing what her mom wanted her dad to do could bring some semblance of attention her way. She excelled in school, always striving to be more—to be enough. But all the while, she was slowly losing herself. She was self-soothing her abandonment, not realizing she was creating a pattern that would follow her into adulthood.

Fast forward, and now, she feels lost—disconnected from herself. She wants love but doesn’t know how to receive it. Trust? That concept is foreign. She doesn’t trust herself, and how could she? She’s never known what trust looks like. Growing up as the “good girl,” the pleaser, she spent her life trying to meet others' expectations while never asking herself what she wanted, or what she needed.

This story is part of me. It’s also part of the women I serve. Women who feel anxious, depressed, confused—stuck in the never-ending cycle of doing for others and not knowing who they are or what they want. They come to me exhausted, having carried the emotional burden of trying to fix everything for everyone around them. And when we start working together, there’s always a moment where I ask them, “Do you know yourself? If you didn’t have to do all of these things for everyone else, what would you do? How would you spend your time?”

More often than not, the answer is, “I don’t know.”

You see, love and trust go hand in hand. To build self-love and self-trust, we have to start with self-awareness. We have to begin listening to ourselves again, tuning into those gut instincts we learned to silence. It’s not glamorous work. It’s not always easy. But this is why we do it: because we are healing. We are breaking cycles, and in doing so, we are saying, “I deserve better.” We get better when we know what we need. When we don’t know who we are, it leaves us feeling disconnected, uneasy and lost.

Here are my top three tips to start your self-love and self-trust journey:

1. Get quiet enough to hear the discord.

You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge. Pay attention to what makes you uncomfortable, even the smallest signals. These discomforts tell us where we need healing and offer us the opportunity to befriend our emotions. The more comfortable you get with discomfort, the more you learn about yourself.

2. Slow down.

Filling your days with distractions is a way to avoid feeling. But to truly understand yourself, you have to allow space to feel. Ask yourself: what are you avoiding? When you slow down and give yourself room to just be, you’ll start to see what’s for you and what isn’t.

 3. Stop ignoring your gut.

Your body is always speaking to you—through your aches, your nerves, your exhaustion. That knot in your stomach or that tightness in your chest? That’s your body trying to get your attention. Start paying attention to how you feel, and begin trusting those signals. They are your guideposts.

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If you're still unsure where to begin or need support navigating this journey, I’d love to chat. Coaching offers a safe space to explore who you are, learn how to love yourself, and trust yourself again. Together, we can uncover what’s been hiding beneath the surface and help you live a radical, empowered life.

You are worthy of this, 

Karissa Dean

Life Business & Beyond LLC

PS. The photo above is a picture I took in Morocco. A trip I took in May, to really ground myself. It was one of the most healing gifts. Time away- to know myself. 

Ready to take a break of your own? Join me for the Reset Retreat in upstate NY this November.