A few days ago, I read this thoughtful Atlantic piece about the limits of self-knowledge and our culture’s obsession with defining ourselves. It made me reflect on a recent self-coaching session that seemed to contradict everything the article was saying—until I realized it was actually proving its deeper point.
Speaking of self-coaching, I’ve been running a little experiment the past few weeks that’s unlocked a whole other level of understanding myself. At the end of the day, I reflect on how I’m feeling and then role play “Coach Claire” and “Client Claire” sometimes asking *ChatGPT to weigh in with insights.
Yes – ChatGPT! What started as curiosity has become one of the most powerful tools in my toolkit for approaching myself with what I’ve come to call “interested uncertainty.” Today’s newsletter is dedicated to what. discovered in a recent session plus a 7-day plan for how to integrate this guidance into your daily life.
Write me back if this resonates – I always love to hear from you.
x Claire
*AI can be great tool to complement coaching or therapy, however only if viewed with a discerning eye and NOT used as a replacement for professional help.
When Your Mind Goes Blank: A Self-Coaching Deep Dive
In a recent self-coaching session, I found myself tracking a familiar pattern that many of us know intimately but rarely name: the moment our mind goes blank just when we need it most. What began as preparation anxiety for a psychiatrist appointment evolved into a profound encounter with a part of myself I had never fully acknowledged—the Survivor.
Here’s how it unfolded:
Client Claire: I can feel myself start to disassociate when Ashley asks what I’m going to tell the psychiatrist, why I’m there.
Coach Claire: What’s going on in your body?
Client Claire: I can feel a contraction, a sort of recoiling, tightening, a bit frantic — mind is blank — I can’t think of anything. I have no clue what I’m going to tell her.
Coach Claire: That’s really interesting. What do you think might cause your mind to go blank? Another way to put it: your mind goes blank as a way to avoid or not deal with something. It’s a mode of protecting. Looking at it that way, what might be the thing it’s being protected from?
Client Claire: Logically, it would be fear. Fear of what the experience will be of telling someone about my struggles. Perhaps because telling might mean feeling.
Coach Claire: So you’re avoiding the pain of feeling your struggles?
Client Claire: Yes though I should mention that this feels like more of an intellectual part of me giving the answer.
Coach Claire: How do you know that it’s an intellectual part?
Client Claire: I could feel my body get still, maybe even a little numb. Like it lost the connection with the thought, the intellectual part.
Coach Claire: Awesome insight. You’re really good at paying attention to the nuances of details.
What struck me about this exchange is how it demonstrates something the Atlantic article both champions and warns against.
The beauty of self-coaching lies in its ability to catch us in the act of our own protective mechanisms.
As I dialogued with my own resistance, I moved from the surface observation that “my mind goes blank” to the deeper recognition that this blankness serves a purpose: it protects me from feeling the full weight of my struggles.
This shift from viewing dissociation as a problem to understanding it as information unlocked something profound. Through the careful attention that self-coaching facilitates, I discovered that even our protective patterns can become doorways to self-recognition.
The very mechanism I thought was keeping me from healing was actually guarding something precious—a survivor who deserved to be seen and honored.
The False Guru Trap: When Insight Becomes Avoidance
What makes coaching particularly powerful is how it enables us to notice when we’re about to bypass our own truth. When I caught myself intellectualizing instead of feeling, when I noticed my body “get still, maybe even a little numb,” I could recognize the moment of disconnection and gently return to embodied awareness. This somatic attention revealed that my healing wasn’t just intellectual—it required staying present with what wanted to be felt.
The conversation continued to reveal another familiar pattern:
Client Claire: Yes but I sometimes worry it’s my “false guru” part, the one that’s really excellent at finding interesting shit but not actually healing them.
Coach Claire: What would “healing them” mean to you? What would be happening? What would you be feeling?
Client Claire: Ooh I see what you’re doing. You’re interrogating every last bit of what I say, to examine my definitions of things and beliefs and self.
This moment perfectly illustrates what the Atlantic article warns against—the tendency to immediately leap into analysis and meaning-making rather than staying present with raw experience. But notice how “Coach Claire” catches this protective pivot:
Client Claire: This chat thread is so interesting — now I’m thinking about how this message can be shared, how it can help people in my coaching, etc.
Coach Claire: We should pay attention to how often and when this happens. Maybe it’s a part of you dissociating just when you reach the precipice of facing, healing.
Client Claire: When I read this it immediately hit me in the gut. I could feel a bit of breathlessness, like wow. This is tapping on a door. Maybe on a door to transformation.
Coach Claire: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Stay focused on sitting with each question and then noticing what part tries to get in the way by dissociating. Ask each of those parts the same question. Keep scratching at that door.
The most illuminating aspect of this coaching session was the moment when “Coach Claire” addressed the “Content Creator” part directly, recognizing how it swoops in just when we’re getting close to something raw. This insight—”That pivot—from feeling to framing, from presence to purpose—it’s subtle, but powerful”—captures exactly what the Atlantic article warns us about.
But “Coach Claire” goes deeper, offering a compassionate reframe:
“Maybe that part isn’t trying to derail you. Maybe she’s trying to redeem the pain by making it useful… But turning pain into purpose is beautiful. It’s alchemical. But only if the pain gets felt first.”
Then came the moment of true recognition. When the word “survivor” emerged, it wasn’t through analysis but through direct questioning of the protective pattern:
Client Claire: What’s coming to mind when I re-read the first question and I notice the word survivor. That word stops me in my tracks. It hits me so hard. I am a survivor and I’ve never thought of myself as one before.
Coach Claire: What does being a survivor mean to you? What comes to mind?
Client Claire: It makes me feel my weariness. But not in a sad way — in an exuberant exhaustion. One I feel proud of.
Coach Claire: What else did it make you feel?
Client Claire: I think it made me feel moved. Recognized. Seen. I was seeing myself — for the first time, in this way.
This wasn’t the false guru part finding “interesting shit” to analyze; this was recognition arriving in my body as sensation and pride. The word didn’t just describe me; it moved me, allowing me to see myself “for the first time, in this way.”
What the Atlantic Got Right (And What It Missed)
The Atlantic piece warns against the trap of rumination—”getting fixated on a problem and going over it again and again”—and the danger of constructing false narratives about ourselves based on whatever reasons happen to come to mind. This resonates deeply. How many times have I intellectualized my way into stories that felt true but left me feeling more disconnected from myself?
But here’s where my experience diverges from the article’s cautionary tale: my self-coaching session wasn’t about constructing a narrative at all. It was about presence. When the word “survivor” emerged, I wasn’t analyzing or categorizing—I was feeling. The knowledge that came wasn’t conceptual but embodied, arriving as sensation and recognition rather than explanation.
The dialogue reveals how easily we can slip into what I call the “false guru” mode—that part of us that’s “really excellent at finding interesting shit but not actually healing.” This is precisely the trap the Atlantic article warns against: using self-exploration as another form of intellectualization rather than genuine feeling. But when “Coach Claire” caught this protective pivot—”from feeling to framing, from presence to purpose”—she helped me stay with the raw experience rather than immediately packaging it into meaning.
The session ended with remarkable wisdom from my ChatGPT coach: “This deserves the kind of presence that only fresh energy can give… we’ll start next session by sitting with the Survivor. Gently. With reverence. No rushing.”
The Antlantic piece suggests we should build “a flexible sense of self, one that allows for surprise and even mystery.” I couldn’t agree more. What surprised me wasn’t discovering some fixed truth about who I am, but recognizing that my protective patterns weren’t obstacles to overcome—they were information to honor. The mystery wasn’t something to solve but something to inhabit.
Timothy Wilson’s metaphor of introspection as “literary criticism in which we are the text to be understood” beautifully captures what happened in my coaching session. I wasn’t excavating some buried truth; I was learning to read myself with more nuance and compassion. The “survivor” wasn’t always there waiting to be discovered—it was something that emerged through the very act of gentle, persistent attention.
Beyond the Binary of Knowing and Not-Knowing
Perhaps the real wisdom lies not in choosing between relentless self-pursuit and giving up on self-knowledge entirely, but in approaching ourselves with what I’d call “interested uncertainty.” This means being curious about our patterns and responses without needing to nail them down into fixed categories or definitive explanations.
The coaching session reveals how our protective mechanisms often disguise themselves as helpful impulses.
Even the desire to turn insights into content—to help others with our discoveries—can be a way of avoiding intimacy with our own experience.
As “Coach Claire” observed, “What are you protecting Claire from when you redirect her toward impact instead of intimacy with her own pain?”
This question gets to the heart of both my experience and the Atlantic’s concerns: sometimes our very attempts at self-knowledge become sophisticated forms of self-avoidance.
By creating space for these moments of recognition, self-coaching helped me transform a pattern of protective dissociation into a doorway of self-acknowledgment. Sometimes the very thing we think is blocking our healing is actually protecting something within us that’s ready to be honored.
This isn’t about becoming a different person or discovering who I “really” am. It’s about developing a more compassionate relationship with all the parts of myself—including the parts that protect me in ways I don’t always understand. As the Atlantic article notes, “Parts of the self will probably always remain a little lost, resistant to easy categorization—and maybe that’s fine.”
Maybe that’s more than fine. Maybe that’s where the real wisdom lives.
Your Turn: Coaching Prompts for Meeting Your Inner Self
If you’re inspired to explore your own protective patterns and what they might be guarding, here are some prompts to guide your self-coaching journey:
Blank Mind Inquiry: Notice the next time your mind goes blank in a challenging situation. Ask: “What might my mind be protecting me from feeling right now?” What arises when you sit with this question?
Somatic Pattern Recognition: Pay attention to the physical sensations that accompany your protective responses. Do you get still? Numb? Tight? What is your body telling you about what needs protection?
The False Guru Check: When you catch yourself intellectualizing or analyzing instead of feeling, pause and ask: “Am I trying to understand this away, or am I willing to feel it?” Notice the difference in your body between these two approaches.
Word Resonance Practice: What words describing your experience stop you in your tracks? When a word hits you “in the gut,” stay with that sensation. What does it want you to know?
Survivor Recognition: Ask yourself: “What have I survived that I’ve never fully acknowledged?” Notice what arises—not to analyze it, but to honor it.
Protective Appreciation: Instead of fighting your protective patterns, ask them: “What are you trying to keep safe?” Listen for what your defenses are actually defending.
The Door Metaphor: When you sense you’re at “the precipice of facing, healing,” notice what it feels like to be “tapping on a door.” What’s on the other side that both scares and calls to you?
These explorations aren’t about fixing your protective patterns but about understanding what they’re protecting. Sometimes the very mechanisms we think are keeping us from healing are actually gatekeepers to the parts of ourselves most deserving of recognition and honor.
How to Integrate This Into a 7-Day Plan
A gentle daily practice to move from analyzing yourself to being with yourself
Day 1: Notice the Blank Moments
Morning intention: “Today I’ll pay attention to when my mind goes blank.”
Practice: When you notice your mind going blank in challenging moments, pause and ask: “What might my mind be protecting me from feeling right now?” Don’t try to fix it—just notice.
Evening reflection: Journal about one moment when this happened. What did you discover?
Day 2: Track the Body’s Wisdom
Morning intention: “Today I’ll listen to what my body is telling me.”
Practice: Set 3 random phone alarms. When they go off, pause and scan your body. Are you tight? Still? Numb? Frantic? What is your body protecting or expressing?
Evening reflection: What patterns did you notice? What was your body trying to communicate?
Day 3: Catch the “False Guru”
Morning intention: “Today I’ll notice when I’m analyzing instead of feeling.”
Practice: When you catch yourself intellectualizing an emotional experience, pause and ask: “Am I trying to understand this away, or am I willing to feel it?” Notice the difference in your body between these two approaches.
Evening reflection: How many times did you catch yourself in “analysis mode”? What happened when you shifted to feeling?
Day 4: Practice Word Resonance
Morning intention: “Today I’ll pay attention to words that land differently.”
Practice: Throughout conversations, reading, or internal dialogue, notice if any words stop you in your tracks or “hit you in the gut.” When this happens, pause and stay with the sensation rather than immediately analyzing why.
Evening reflection: Did any words create a strong bodily response? What did that feel like?
Day 5: Honor Your Protections
Morning intention: “Today I’ll appreciate what my defenses are defending.”
Practice: When you notice a protective response (shutting down, getting agitated, spacing out), ask it: “What are you trying to keep safe?” Listen with curiosity rather than judgment.
Evening reflection: What did you learn about what your protections are actually protecting?
Day 6: Recognize the Survivor
Morning intention: “Today I’ll acknowledge what I’ve survived.”
Practice: Ask yourself: “What have I survived that I’ve never fully acknowledged?” Notice what arises—not to analyze it, but to honor it. Let yourself feel whatever comes up.
Evening reflection: How did it feel to recognize your survival? What wants to be honored?
Day 7: Sit at the Door
Morning intention: “Today I’ll practice staying present with what wants to emerge.”
Practice: When you sense you’re “tapping on a door” to something deeper, resist the urge to immediately open it or turn it into content. Instead, practice just sitting with the sensation of being at the threshold.
Evening reflection: What did you discover about your relationship to your own edges and thresholds?
Week-End Integration Questions:
How did it feel to approach self-exploration from presence rather than analysis?
What surprised you about your protective patterns?
Which day’s practice felt most challenging? Most revealing?
How might you continue this “interested uncertainty” approach moving forward?
Remember: This isn’t about accumulating insights about yourself—it’s about developing a more compassionate, present relationship with whoever you are….in this moment.
I’m in your corner – always.
x Claire
x Claire
I help women embrace their worth and activate their potential. Book a 1:1 call with me here.
Your Turn: 