At a Crossroads in Life
Are you in that stage of life where you realize you’ve spent years putting others’ needs first, and now you find yourself at the bottom of your own list? You’ve always felt like you had to do it all or be the strong one. Now you’re at a crossroads—feeling stuck, wrestling with questions of identity, self-worth, and purpose. These struggles can cloud your ability to make decisions that truly serve you.
Longstanding patterns of people-pleasing and overworking may have led to burnout—or even depression. Despite your success in life and career, it’s come at a cost: your needs, well-being, interests, and desires have taken a back seat. You may find yourself relentlessly self-critical, especially when you fall short of impossible standards. And when you pause to reflect, you notice that your relationships don’t carry the depth of connection you long for.
It might be time to turn inward and address some long-standing emotional wounds—to begin healing from the past. You can prioritize your well-being and reclaim the life you were meant to live. You can discover what brings you peace—and maybe even joy.
So, how do you begin?
As the saying goes, the first step is recognizing that there’s a problem. Becoming aware of where you are now is essential for moving forward. It’s not easy to admit that you’re miserable, but the truth is—you don’t want to stay in this place. So what now?
Start by making sense of the past and how you arrived at this point. That reflection can bring clarity to your current struggles. Maybe when you look back, you tell yourself your childhood was “fine”—better than many, nothing terrible or dramatic. And that’s exactly why it can feel confusing. You might think, How could I feel this way when nothing obvious happened?
Sometimes, it’s about what didn’t happen.
Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) is when your emotional needs weren’t noticed, acknowledged, or validated enough. Over time, this teaches you that your feelings and needs don’t matter. That can lead to a quiet but profound disconnection from yourself—making it hard to identify what you need, trust your instincts, or feel confident in your decisions. It often shows up later in life as low self-esteem, anxiety, or depression.
From the outside, everything may look good. But internally, you struggle to understand why you feel the way you do—and you may even conclude that something is wrong with you. That conclusion feels logical, but it’s not true. You are not broken.
Understanding that your emotional needs went unnoticed can reveal how you internalized the belief that you are unimportant. This belief affects every area of life—career choices, relationships, and how you treat yourself. So how do you begin to heal and get back on the path that feels aligned with who you really are?
Healing starts with reconnecting to yourself—reclaiming your identity, your self-worth, and your sense of purpose. This might include learning to accept and have compassion for parts of yourself you’ve ignored, disliked, or disowned. Those parts often developed for a reason—to protect you from pain or vulnerability. With self-reflection (and possibly therapy), you can get to know these parts and understand what they’ve been trying to do for you.
The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, describes this internal dynamic beautifully. IFS helps us see that we are made up of many parts, and healing comes when we create harmony among them.
The ultimate goal is to cultivate a new relationship with yourself—one that’s balanced, compassionate, and even loving. This is your most authentic state. It’s the foundation for living a life that’s emotionally intelligent, values-driven, and aligned with your deepest truths.
So, when you find yourself at a crossroads, you’ll have the tools to make decisions that reflect who you really are, what you truly want, and the life you’re ready to create.