You Are Not Who You Think You Are

Trish Heitz
Oct 13
3 min read

***Stories from my and/or my clients experiences***

There comes a moment when survival isn’t enough.When the version of you that worked so hard to hold everything together becomes too heavy for your body to carry. When holding it all together starts breaking you apart.

That’s the moment when life whispers: You are not who you think you are; you are who you were before the world told you otherwise.

Don’t wait for a diagnosis, heartbreak, or life-altering crisis to remind you.Your body will always speak the truth your mind tries to ignore.

For most of my life, I thought I knew who I was.I was the strong one, the fixer, the doer; the person who kept going no matter what. I was proud of my resilience, but I eventually realized it wasn’t resilience; it was survival.

I wasn’t moving forward; I was dragging everything with me. All the old fears, the old beliefs, the old stories that had once helped me cope were now not just weighing me down, but dragging me back down, when I was able to build myself up.

It took me years, and a cancer diagnosis, to understand that the identity I thought was “me” was actually built around beliefs formed by a frightened child trying to feel safe in a world that didn’t feel loved.

How False Beliefs Become Our Identity

As children, we don’t have the brain development to make sense of emotional complexity.When love feels conditional or approval depends on performance, we draw simple, painful conclusions:

“If I’m perfect, I’ll be loved.”
“If I please everyone, I’ll be safe.”
“If I stay small, I won’t be rejected.”

Those conclusions become core beliefs, and those beliefs quietly shape our entire adult lives.We make decisions from them. We form relationships through them. We define our worth by them.

I did all of this — without even knowing I was doing it, and many of you are doing this too.

The Wake-Up Call

My wake-up call came when I was diagnosed with kidney cancer.I had spent years helping others, pushing through exhaustion, believing that if I just kept proving my value, I would finally feel worthy.

But my body had other plans.It was carrying the emotional weight of unhealed beliefs, the stress, self-judgment, and suppression that I had mistaken for strength.

That diagnosis didn’t destroy me. It revealed me.It forced me to finally ask:Who am I without the story that I have to earn love?

Reclaiming the Authentic Self

Through years of belief work, neuroscience, and spiritual practice, I’ve learned that our Authentic Self isn’t something we become; it’s who we already are, beneath all the conditioning.

Our authentic self is the calm, clear, compassionate version of us that lives underneath fear.It’s the part that knows our gifts, our intuition, our value, even when we’ve forgotten.

When we transform our beliefs, we stop performing and start becoming.We no longer chase validation or approval because we’re aligned with truth, not trauma.

That’s how my D.A.R.E. Your Beliefs™ method was born; through my own discovery and transformation:

D – Discover the false beliefs that have kept you in survival mode.
A – Assess where they came from and how they’ve shaped your identity.
R – Recreate beliefs that reflect your worth and authenticity.
E – Expand those beliefs until they become your new default way of living.

The Courage to Be Who You Truly Are

What I’ve learned is that authenticity takes courage.It’s not about finding yourself; it’s about allowing yourself to be who you have always been meant to be.

It’s having the courage to live as the person you were before fear took over; before you learned to hide your brilliance, your magnificence, your truth.It’s allowing yourself to express your gifts, share your voice, and live from your deepest strengths, even when it feels unfamiliar, your inner self; your soul knows who you authentically are.

If you haven’t yet discovered who that is; it’s time.Because your Authentic Self has been waiting for you for a long time.

Don’t wait for a diagnosis, heartbreak, or breakdown to wake you up.Let awareness be your turning point. Let curiosity, not crisis, be the catalyst for your freedom.