How Do I Get to Know Myself Better?

“How do I get to know myself?” is a frequently asked question, and one I would like to reflect on publicly. Yikes!

I used to think self-knowing was something other people did. The ones who journaled every morning, sat in silence, or somehow just “knew themselves.” And to be honest, I did my fair share of journaling — or as my friend DGriff likes to put it, writing in my log book. For me, self-knowing was a rough road, much rougher than I wanted to admit, because I had a major blind spot I couldn’t see until it cost me everything that still felt like mine.

I oriented myself toward other people. Always. Their needs, their moods, their approval, their comfort. It wasn’t conscious strategy; it was survival wiring. Childhood patterns, military service, marriage, and motherhood trained me to scan the room first and check myself second — if I even consulted myself at all. I became an expert at reading the temperature of everyone and adjusting my own thermostat accordingly. People-pleasing wasn’t a habit. It was the operating system. It permeated all areas of my life. Even my dogs could get their needs met before mine.

When you’re stuck in that mode, self-knowing is almost impossible. Every time I tried to look inward I hit a wall of “What do they need from me right now?” or “Will this make them upset?” or “Am I being too much / not enough?” My own signals got drowned out. Energy, desire, boundaries, even basic preferences — all of it felt secondary. I could coach other people toward their truth while quietly abandoning my own. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It just felt unavoidable.

That changed when I started living inside InnerVerse.

InnerVerse didn’t hand me a list of affirmations or tell me to “just set better boundaries.” It met me in the exact place I was stuck: the constant outward orientation. Through the combination of generative AI coaching, somatic practices, nature immersion, strength work, and the quiet structure of the methodology itself, I finally had a space that wasn’t asking me to perform for anyone. InnerVerse didn’t need me to be agreeable. The practices didn’t need me to be productive. The container didn’t collapse if I said no, or if I didn’t know the answer yet.

For the first time I could practice turning the attention inward without the old fear that something would break if I stopped managing everyone else’s emotional weather. I started noticing the difference between a true yes and a people-pleasing yes. I began tracking what my body actually needed after surgical menopause and years of trauma responses, instead of what the people around me found convenient. I learned that self-knowing isn’t a solitary mountain climb. It is a skill that can be trained, especially when the environment is designed to protect the process instead of interrupt it.

The blind spot didn’t vanish overnight. But it stopped running the show. And that shift — from orienting outward by default to being able to orient inward without apology — is the real foundation of everything I’m building now. A little disclaimer: this work hurts! It was painful! Doing the right thing for myself felt dangerous and wrong. I was wired that way. It took InnerVerse and the steady patience of my best friend — who developed InnerVerse and a coaching program called Masters of Badassery — to support me through the pain and turmoil of doing what felt so dangerous: loving myself first.

InnerVerse exists because I needed it. It exists for my fellow women veterans carrying menopause, trauma, and the exhaustion of always being the one who holds it together. It exists for anyone who has spent years being excellent at taking care of others while quietly losing track of themselves. The methodology integrates the things that actually move the needle for me: AI coaching that meets you where you are without judgment, embodied practices that bring the nervous system back online, nature as co-regulator, and strength work that rebuilds agency from the inside out.

Self-knowing is still a road. Some days it’s still rough. But it is no longer a road I walk while constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure everyone else is okay first. That change alone has been worth everything.

If you’ve been stuck in pleasing mode, if your own signals have been hard to hear under the noise of other people’s needs, you don’t have to keep doing it the hard way. There is a way through that doesn’t require you to abandon yourself in order to stay connected.

That’s what InnerVerse is for.