Your intellect tells you how to be good. Your instinct tells you how to be real.
I’m Hailey, and I help people outgrowing identities built on approval, achievement, and others’ expectations step into a more vital and self-trusting life. Join me on May 27 at From Outgrowing to Becoming: Finding Meaning and Clarity when You’re Outgrowing a Chapter of Life.
The other morning—at a spot Seattle calls a “diner,” but my Jersey-born heart calls an over-priced breakfast restaurant—my nails clacked anxiously against the side of my mug as I sat across the table from a dear friend.
Tension crept up my neck as he told me about his heartache; his frustrations; challenges in his partnership and his job. Over time, we’ve built a connection where we both feel comfortable sharing from the trenches of our struggles.
But this time, my heart felt energetically unavailable—stuck monochrome in a conversation that, before, would’ve elicited colorful swaths of compassion and empathy.
As I’ve focused more on cultivating community and chosen family, I’ve wanted to be the person my friends can call when they need a hand. An ear. A cabinet moved. A cup of sugar.
Along the way, I’ve learned that many people in my life need quite a lot of care.
My intellect tells me how lucky I am to have fewer emotional and physical hardships than my loved ones. It tells me that emotional mutual aid looks like giving, and holding, more. It tells me, “You are someone who has—who has always had—great capacity for others’ suffering.”
But lately—as my own life moves steadily away from a protracted chapter of heartache—I’ve felt fatigue at the emotional heavy lifting I’ve agreed to. I’ve felt aversion, like a hand that’s touched a hot stove, retreating.
It’s not just the aversion that’s unfamiliar: it’s the desire. Like a candle to a flame, I’ve been drawn to unfamiliar social spaces: ones that center dance, creativity, and whimsy. I’ve been treasuring the way laughter fills the hollow of my body; the soothing pressure of a hula hoop circumnavigating my hips; conversations that linger as much in playfulness as in heaviness.
My instinct—in the subtle language of body sensations, aversion, and relief—tells me, “You are someone who has always had great capacity for others’ suffering—and that capacity is decreasing, at least for now.” It tells me, “There’s a lot of pain in this world, and still, you are someone for whom happiness is a priority.”
It tells me, “You are someone who wants to focus on yourself.”
Truthfully, I’m not sure I like the messages I’m hearing. These parts of me—the ones that need space, lightness, and play—are unfamiliar. As a parentified child and a recovering people-pleaser, they’re parts that I’ve rarely given myself permission to live from before.
They don’t feel, particularly, like me.
But what happens when your ideas about who you are blind you to who you actually are?
Romantic life brings unexpected confrontations with my instinct, too. As the rhododendrons have finally blossomed, I’ve gone on a handful of dates: tacos at La Fondita, a midafternoon stroll around Gasworks Park.
It’s been over a year since my breakup with the man I thought would be my life partner. It’s been nearly seven months since I learned that for the entirety of our relationship, he was living a double life, and unbeknownst to me, I was the other woman. (Betrayal; a topic for another newsletter.)
Since then, I’ve done oodles of EMDR and cried myself empty. I’ve slowly rebuilt my life with community at its center; took better care of my body; wrote a few songs.
The arrival of summer after this long emotional winter feels symbolic. My intellect says: “It’s been long enough. You’re going on dates with good, trustworthy men; caring men who go to therapy and ask you questions. You want kids; don’t fall behind.”
But my instinct says, Not yet.
Not yet.
Kisses goodbye feel pleasant without feeling pleasurable. I hesitate before reaching to respond to text messages. These days, I don’t daydream about a future romance; I daydream about camping trips with friends, playing music, and finding deeper quiet in my meditation practice.
This part of me that fiercely self-protects is unfamiliar: this part that not only chooses, but truly prefers, an extended homecoming instead of new love.
I’m sure that these instinctual “revelations” don’t seem particularly revelatory to you. They probably seem healthy—or at the very least, sensical—in the context of my story.
But when we’re wedded to an idea of who we are—of what it means to be good, to belong, of what our lives “should look like”—instincts that suggest otherwise feel threatening.
It’s easy to whistle loudly over the sound of them, wishing them away.
I know this because, for the longest time, I ignored my instincts in order to keep alive the things I’d outgrown:
A failing relationship.
A definition of success that necessitated burnout.
My default role in my social circles as the “easy one.”
But following your intellect at the expense of your instinct isn’t a sustainable method for living. It will fall apart.
It’s just a matter of when.
Depth psychology says that in the first half of life, we build a persona: a socially acceptable identity. We learn how to follow the rules—how to be liked—which behaviors create acceptance, and which create rejection.
This developmental task is important. We need a persona to function well in a social, civilized world.
But by necessity, this process excludes parts of us, too: parts that get banished from our lives and our own psyches. Our animal self. Our selfishness, anger, creativity, rebelliousness, sensitivity.
These parts, sometimes called the shadow, become repressed, but never fully disappear. Eventually, they demand our expression—often in moments that look like a midlife crisis, an identity crisis, or the feeling that we’re outgrowing who we’ve been.
Moments like depression.
A sense of loss of meaning.
A sudden disidentification with roles, relationships, or jobs that once worked.
Unfamiliar aversions.
Strange longings.
Depth psychology sees these moments not as a crisis, but a summons from the unlived self—from the parts that have been excluded. It sees these moments of outgrowing as our wholeness demanding our expression. Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, “Beneath every life of conformity, something wild waits to return.”
So what does it mean—to let the wild back in? To trust your instinct? To be open to becoming whole?
It means listening for what boosts and drains your energy throughout the day.
It means noticing how your body responds to environments and to people.
It means noticing when you ignore an impulse because it feels “selfish,” “rude,” “lazy,” or otherwise doesn’t align with who you think you are.
Our intellect speaks the language of logic and shoulds: of pros and cons lists, spreadsheets, and rumination. But our instinct speaks the language of longing, immediacy, relief, and aversion.
When we honor our intellect at the expense of our instinct, we’ll likely become successful in the world’s eyes. We’ll belong, climb the ladder, and reach the milestones that the world deems important.
But this ascension will likely come at the cost of our wholeness. Eventually, it will lead to that gnawing dissatisfaction; that feeling that we’re outgrowing a chapter of our lives. And if we want to move beyond that feeling, we can’t move forward by following the same map that got us stuck.
We need to invite our instinct to the table—even when we’re not sure we like what it has to say about us. We need to be vigilant that our ideas of who we are don’t prevent us from embracing who we actually are.
If you’re outgrowing a chapter of your life—realizing that your instinct may be calling you somewhere new—join me at my new workshop, From Outgrowing to Becoming, on May 27.
Wednesday, May 27 | 5-7pm PT
Can’t attend live? A ticket gets you access to the recording.
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What if the end of this chapter wasn’t a disruption to your life’s path—but a necessary part of it? From Outgrowing to Becoming is a two-hour, interactive workshop designed to help you find meaning, clarity, and direction in this time of change. At this workshop, you will:
💡 Understand what you’re going through in a new way.
The places you once found a sense of self and meaning—your career, relationship, community—no longer feel like home. We’ll explore the psychological importance of outgrowing a chapter of life—reframing this moment not as a random free-falls, but a necessary disruption that occurs when aspects of the self that have been suppressed, forgotten, or neglected beg to come forward.
📚 Find the meaning in this part of your story.
We’ll help you make sense of why you’re going through this transition at this moment in your life. Your new chapter grows directly from the ashes of what you went through, and together, we’ll gather wisdom from what’s ending: the lessons and boundaries it left you with, the old ways of being that are no longer working, and the new ways of being that are emerging in their place.
🌱 Create structure for the in-between.
These periods of transition tend to follow recognizable phases and patterns. We’ll walk you through what to expect from each stage—particularly the “in-between,” when your old chapter is over, but the next doesn’t feel clear. Here, it’s normal to feel stuck and directionless, and we’ll help you build a trellis: a grounding structure that supports you as you slowly grow into your next chapter.
🧭 Shift from forcing certainty to following instinct.
Our world rewards certainty and control—but times like this call for curiosity and receptivity. New directions often come to life slowly beneath the surface, and they can appear as glimmers of desire, unexpected interests, or unfamiliar ways of being that suddenly appeal. We’ll help you reorient toward curiosity and listen for the unexpected signposts that may point toward your next direction.