You Are Not Broken; You Are Adapting To Survive

Your mind won’t stop replaying the same worries, mistakes, and “what ifs” and you keep wondering what’s wrong with you. I start Held and Becoming into Your Power with a poem called “Rumination,” because that looping mental noise is often the first clue that something deeper is asking for your attention, not your punishment. 

I’m Michele Gorman, a writer who spent years looking like I had it all together while privately carrying shame, self-criticism, and the belief that love had to be earned. We talk about the patterns so many of us know too well: overachieving, perfectionism, people pleasing, and giving away our power in exchange for acceptance. Then we slow down and ask a more honest question: what if those aren’t personality traits at all? What if they’re survival strategies shaped by early relationships and a nervous system that learned to scan for safety? 

You’ll hear a clear, accessible breakdown of attachment theory and how the nervous system learns “Is it safe here?” from the very start, plus what changes when love feels inconsistent, conditional, or absent. I also share another poem, “Old,” and offer one reflection question to sit with after you press stop: where in your life might you be searching for acceptance outside of yourself? 

If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation on the nervous system and relationship patterns, and if you know someone stuck in the overworking loop, share this episode and leave a review so more people can find their way back to themselves.

Transcript

Welcome And The Space We Hold

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Held and Becoming into Your Power. A space where you hold yourself in love, accountability, grace, and compassion. A space of becoming. A space of fully stepping into your power.

Finding Your Voice Begins Here

SPEAKER_00 0:22

This is episode one, finding your voice.

Poem: Rumination

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Before we begin today, I'd like to start off with a poem that I wrote from my book Finding My Power. The poem is titled Rumination. Rumination. Rumination still shows its face. I embrace and protect my space. I see you, I set you aside, compartmentalize, until I can be calm and clearly see what is underneath that keeps bugging me. Power of healing, power of skill, choosing a different path at my own will.

Shame, Overachieving, And Losing Power

SPEAKER_00 1:15

This poem was written at a time where my mind never stopped. Thoughts moved constantly between worry, self-criticism, shame, and I was just starting to tap into my therapy of recognizing that there was a pattern, that there was something underneath the ruminating thoughts, and that I had to do something with it. From the outside, I looked like I had everything together. I assimilated perfectly. But internally, I was stuck in patterns I did not yet understand. My name is Michelle Gorman, and this podcast is about the journey of understanding those patterns. I'm a writer and I'm someone who has spent years learning how to understand the patterns that shape our lives. The ones that we inherit, the ones that we adapt to, and the ones that we choose to change. This podcast is a space for open conversation, for honest conversation about healing, self-awareness, and what it truly means to connect and come home to yourself. When I began this journey, I didn't have self-love. I didn't have grace for myself either. What I had, I had shame. I had shame for who I was. Love felt very distant, almost very unattainable, because my entire life I had been searching for it outside of myself. I became the best overachiever, the best perfectionist, the best people pleaser. All because I was searching for love and acceptance externally. I gave everyone my power. I gave everyone my energy because I truly believed that was what I was supposed to do. Understanding the pattern for me that took a long time, a long time to recognize and to understand where the patterns were coming from.

Attachment Theory And Survival Strategies

SPEAKER_00 4:27

For many of us, our nervous system develops in response to our early relationships, especially with our parents, especially with our mothers. We share a womb, we share DNA. This is what psychology calls attachment theory. From the moment we enter the world, our nervous system is learning. It is asking one fundamental question. Is it safe here? When a caregiver responds to us with warmth, consistency, and presence, the nervous system learns, yes, the world is safe. People can be trusted, and needs matter. Our needs matter. But when that consistency is missing, when love feels unpredictable or absent or conditional, the nervous system learns something very different. It learns to adapt. And those adaptations become the behaviors that we carry into adulthood. The overachieving, the people-pleasing, the perfectionism. These are not personality flaws, these are survival strategies. Strategies that were truly the intelligent, creative ways that a young nervous system found to navigate an environment that didn't always feel safe or maybe even wasn't safe.

Choosing Healing And Real Accountability

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Healing for me began the moment I recognized I could no longer stay stuck in the endless loop of chasing broken people or pouring myself into overworking perfectionism just to earn love, just to earn safety, just to earn acceptance. And at some point, I made a very conscious decision. I had to stop repeating the behaviors that were created by emotionally limited parenting. And I had to begin holding everyone accountable for their own behaviors. Not just my parents, not just my friends, not just my colleagues, but also myself. I had to learn to separate what was mine and what was mine never to carry. In that process, the process of therapy, something unexpected, unknown began to happen. I started giving myself grace. I started acknowledging my strength. I began giving myself credit for the decisions I had to make in order to simply survive. And slowly I began to understand and discover something very powerful. I was never broken. I was adapting. And once I understood that, I began to see how strong I really was.

Poem: Old

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I'd like to share another poem, and this poem is from Finding My Voice, and it's titled Old. Mind is whirling, too many thoughts, shades of old shame and paralyzing blame. Will I ever get out of this muck? Because I am tired, tired of being stuck.

You Are Not Broken

SPEAKER_00 9:10

And maybe as you're listening to this right now, you recognize parts of this story in your own life. The overworking, the people pleasing, the feeling that your worth is tied to how much you give. If any of that resonates with you, I want you to know something very important. You are not broken. Your nervous system adapted to survive in the environment that it was in. And healing doesn't begin when everything in life becomes perfect. Healing begins the moment you stop abandoning yourself and finally decide to stay.

The Reflection Question

SPEAKER_00 10:05

So taking just a small deep breath in and releasing, I ask you to just reflect on one question. Where in your life might you be searching for acceptance outside of yourself?

Next Episode Tease And Closing

SPEAKER_00 10:27

In the next episode, we'll explore something that shapes nearly every relationship in our lives, the nervous system, and how the patterns we learned early on quietly influence the way we connect, the way we react, and the way we protect ourselves. Thank you for listening to Health and Becoming, a space for reflection, healing, and the courage to become who you truly are. Until next time, much love.