View this post on Instagram

 

For years, I asked myself the same question whenever I felt stuck.

What’s wrong with me?

I asked it when I couldn’t follow through. When motivation disappeared. When I procrastinated or avoided things I genuinely cared about. The question felt reasonable, even responsible. If something wasn’t working in my life, then the answer had to be inside me—a flaw, a mindset problem, a lack of discipline.

So I tried to fix myself.

I read books. I worked on my habits. I paid close attention to my thoughts, believing that if I could just identify what was broken, I could correct it and finally move forward.

But every time I asked what was wrong with me, my body reacted before my mind could respond.

My chest tightened. My shoulders lifted. My breath became shallow. My thoughts sped up, scrambling for an explanation, as if I were being tested and needed to answer quickly.

I didn’t recognize it then, but I was interrogating myself.

The question assumed guilt.

It assumed something needed correcting.

It assumed that my struggle was evidence of failure.

Over time, I began to notice that the more I asked that question, the more guarded I became. Instead of opening me to understanding, it made me defensive. Instead of helping me feel safe enough to change, it kept me in a constant state of self-monitoring.

I was trying to heal myself through suspicion.

The shift didn’t come through insight or effort. It came through exhaustion.

One day, I realized I could no longer keep treating myself like a problem to be solved. I was tired of analyzing every pause, every delay, every moment of resistance as proof that I wasn’t doing life correctly.

And in that tiredness, another question surfaced—not intentionally, not strategically, but naturally.

What happened to me?

The difference was immediate and physical.

My body softened. My breath slowed. I wasn’t bracing anymore. I wasn’t preparing a defense or trying to explain myself.

That question didn’t demand improvement.

It invited context.

Instead of asking myself to justify my reactions, I began to notice them. Instead of labeling my patterns as self-sabotage, I started wondering what they had once protected me from.

I began to see that responses don’t arise in isolation. That behaviors form for reasons. That what we often call laziness or avoidance is sometimes a nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do in order to stay safe.

I started paying attention to how often I moved through my days braced against myself—judging my energy, criticizing my capacity, pushing when what I actually needed was rest or reassurance.

When I noticed myself doing that, I tried something different.

I paused.

Before correcting myself, I checked in with my body. I asked whether I was overwhelmed rather than unmotivated. Whether I was tired rather than resistant. Whether what I needed was safety rather than pressure.

I didn’t always get answers. Sometimes all I could do was acknowledge that something felt hard.

But that alone changed the relationship I had with myself.

Instead of interrogating my struggles, I started listening to them. Instead of treating them as defects, I began to see them as signals.

Slowly, a new understanding emerged.

What I had called failure was often fatigue.

What I had called resistance was often protection.

What I had called self-sabotage was frequently a system that had learned to stay alert in order to survive.

Nothing was wrong with me.

I was responding to my life.

That realization didn’t erase old habits or make everything easy. But it changed the tone of my inner world. I stopped approaching myself like an adversary and started meeting myself with curiosity.

And that made change possible.

If you find yourself stuck in the same loop—constantly asking what’s wrong with you—it may be worth noticing how that question lands in your body.

Does it soften you, or does it make you brace?

You don’t need to diagnose yourself.

You don’t need to fix everything at once.

You might begin by offering yourself a different question—one that makes room for understanding instead of judgment.

Sometimes, that’s where real healing begins.

~