You’ve Had 100 Breakthroughs. So why Are You Still Living the Same Story?

I grew up in a family that swept everything under the rug because with emotionally unavailable parents, they can’t handle their own feelings, let alone yours.

Whenever Little Angie needed to cry, which was often, I would retreat into the sanctuary of my bedroom and let it out. But I couldn’t stand feeling alone while wallowing in my sadness and shame.

Early in life, the numbing of my feelings came through school. I became obsessively focused on the game of the school system and earning good grades. Being laser-focused on something outside of myself, even if I wasn’t interested in the subject matter, was an easy distraction.

I worked so hard to be an honor student in high school, and my grades earned me a rank of 20th in a graduating class of almost five hundred. But just like that, as soon as the ceremony ended, my status was gone, and I had to start all over again in college.

College was torture. Every class brought another textbook full of facts wrapped in writing so painfully dry that I became convinced the authors were paid by the word. It felt like they were writing to impress other academics instead of teaching actual human beings.

So, I turned to alcohol in college to numb it all out.

After graduating, drinking didn’t fit well in my 9–5 life, so I turned to excessive exercise and disordered eating to anesthetize my feelings. I ran marathons to dissociate from everything. This is the dark side of distance running. A lot of people are literally running away from something. Most of us were trying to run away from ourselves.

And in hindsight, I starved myself because feeling hunger felt better than feeling unworthiness and self-loathing.

For decades, I was very successful at numbing and repressing away my feelings. I logically knew it wasn’t the best idea, but there was no way in hell I was going to wallow in the hopelessness and despair of life.

My survival strategy came to a halt in 2017.

My boyfriend left me for someone else, and my dad passed away unexpectedly, which sent me into a grief tornado that I didn’t know how to take shelter from.

The first few months, I felt my feelings because they were so overwhelming that it was impossible not to feel them.

And because we live in a just-get-over-it society, after a few months everyone expects you to be better. Because I was a people-pleaser and didn’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable about my deep inner pain that I needed support with, I decided to pretend that I was fine.

But I wasn’t fine. And worst of all, my usual numbing techniques were not working. I couldn’t stop feeling my grief. And on top of the grief, all the feelings that I had been repressing for years started to come up, and trying to stop them was like trying to stop water from coming out of a fire hose.

This was completely unacceptable to me because how dare my heart feel like a black hole love void, even though Marc* and my dad abandoned me at the same time, and it was so painful and unfair that I couldn’t stand it.

I frantically sought out other ways to get rid of the emotional pain.

Looking back, I wasn’t looking for healing. I was looking for another distraction that sounded more enlightened.

I journaled, manifested with the new moon, released with the full moon, drank full moon-charged water, bought crystals, smudged my home with sage and palo santo, downloaded countless self-help books to my Kindle, and I even went to a healer.

This was 2017 when woo-woo wasn’t as mainstream, at least not in Chicago. So going to her brick-and-mortar Healer was embarrassing. I parked on a shady side street 8 blocks away out of fear that I might run into someone that I knew.

She had Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure Madame Ruby vibes and conducted an elaborate healing ceremony with sound bowls, frankincense, and chanting.

The sound bowls were right by my head, and I don’t think she knew how to use them because it sounded like noise, not like a rhythmic dance of sound.

And while the frankincense burned my nose in a way that seemed to burn a hole right through my brain, she chanted about how f*$ked up my lineage was and how she was working extra hard to clear the toxic energy of my family tree.

I left with more shame than healing.

In 2018, I went to a 3-day healing intensive that changed the trajectory of my life.

We didn’t sunbathe our perineums. We didn’t take mushrooms and dance naked around a blazing bonfire under the full moon. We didn’t spend the weekend snorting cacao and ugly crying while finally meeting our inner goddess.

We reflected on our childhoods. We started questioning everything we do and why we do it. We talked about strategies for embodying behaviors and responses that reflected our adult selves and not regressing to Little Us.

For the first time in my life, I was asked to feel my feelings as a healing strategy.

I left feeling more pain than I had gone in with, yet more hopeful about my healing than ever before.

And that’s exactly why so many people avoid doing the inner work with spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity, because those things feel good in the moment. We’re trying to feel better instead of being better. And the harsh truth is, doing the inner work doesn’t always feel like rainbows and unicorns. But the good news is, it’s always worth it.

It’s like breaking your arm. Pain medication is only a short-term solution. Setting your arm in the cast is the long-term solution. And that can be inconvenient and uncomfortable in the short term.

And the reason why this is important is because so almost every single woman who comes to me says, “I’ve tried everything” to stop these painful behaviors, meaning they’ve journaled their way around it in a million circles, decoded angel numbers for every life decision, activated their DNA, build an altar, burned the candles, and yet nothing every changes because they have done everything except the one thing that actually changes the story.

That’s because insight addiction is a thing, and I think it’s the sneakiest, even the most acceptable addiction in the personal growth space.

But nobody’s talking about it, so let’s talk about it.

Because we all know how good it feels to have that moment when you realize, “Oh my God, that’s why I do that!” And when you have that hit of self-awareness, your nervous system is literally getting a hit of dopamine, because it feels like relief.

Suddenly the chaos makes sense. All the behaviors that you’ve been doing make sense.

Trust me, I get it. But this is the problem. Insight is only half of the equation.

And this is the scary part that nobody wants to hear: Nobody is coming to rescue you. Your therapist doesn’t heal you. Self-help books don’t heal you. Shit, your healer doesn’t even heal you.

You heal you.

Taking accountability for your own healing is the scary shit that people are too afraid to do, because in doing that, you have to face how you have played a part in the pain that you are experiencing.

It was scary to look at every single toxic dynamic I had ever had and take accountability for the role I played in the dysfunction.

It was scary to realize that I wasn’t actually close to my Mom, like I had believed for most of my life. I was enmeshed with her because I was a codependent people-pleaser who believed love had to be earned. And I replayed that with every other relationship in my life because I thought that’s how connection worked.

It was scary to face that even though my parents may have loved me, they never really treated me like they liked me. And as lonely and unfair as it felt, I had to give the love I never got from them to myself.

It was scary to see how scared 6-year-old Angie had been running my entire life, and that was the real reason I had debilitating, soul-crushing anxiety.

Insight addiction is easy because it is absolutely the safest way to feel like you’re doing the work without ever actually doing the work.

And I know I’m saying this with Chicago edge, but I’m also saying this with so much love because I have been there. Knowing the story but still living inside it isn’t healing. It’s a very expensive form of self-awareness.

Because to be in that much emotional pain and frustration for so much of your life is exhausting, and it’s costing you emotionally and financially.

Sometimes healing looks like admitting you’ve spent decades letting a six-year-old make your adult decisions.

Sometimes it looks like grieving the parents you wish you’d had.

Sometimes it looks like taking responsibility for patterns you didn’t create but now have the power to change.

That’s the work.

And despite bungee jumping, skydiving, and jumping out of a helicopter into the ocean, it’s still the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

*Names have been changed

Glow Tip:

This is something simple you can start implementing in your day-to-day life.

The next time you have one of those, “Ohhhh… that’s why I do that!” moments, don’t stop there.

Ask yourself:

“What’s one different choice my Adult Self can make today?”

OR

The next time you finish a podcast, close a self-help book, leave therapy, or have a massive breakthrough, ask:

“What am I going to do differently because of it?”

OR

Every time you catch yourself looking for another answer in a podcast, book, or another journal prompt, ask yourself:

“Am I looking for another breakthrough, or am I avoiding the work I already know I need to do?”

Be honest.

Every behavior leads to a story. And stories can be rewritten.

Healing is hard. Doing it alone is harder. The Overflow Society is five women calling each other forward, celebrating every win, and lovingly calling each other out when six-year-old survival mode grabs the steering wheel again.

Enough $88 gilded manifestation journals, scavenger hunting angel numbers for a sign, hiring an Etsy witch, and convincing yourself that one more epiphany is going to magically change your life.

You don’t need another insight. You need to start making different decisions.

Knowing why you people-please isn’t the same as saying “No” even if it feels terrifying to disappoint someone else.

Knowing why you undercharge isn’t the same as charging the damn price or asking for a raise, even if you feel nervous about speaking up for yourself.

Knowing why you’re terrified of being seen isn’t the same as using your full voice anyway, even if you feel like hiding.

Bold action is where the magic happens.

That’s exactly why I created The Overflow Society.

Not to give you more things to journal about, hand you another workbook you’ll finish feeling inspired and never open again, and definitely not to convince you that you’re broken.

The Overflow Society is where we stop collecting insights and start rewriting the stories that have quietly been making your decisions for decades.

The stories that convinced you love had to be earned, making more money meant being selfish, using your voice would make people leave, or something good like success always comes with the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Imagine:

• raising your prices or asking for a raise without apologizing because you know in your soul that you deserve it

• walking into a room without wondering whether everyone likes you because you know that you are a big f*&king deal

• hearing, “Can we talk later?” without planning the breakup because you know that even if it is a breakup talk, you can handle whatever comes next

• making decisions as the woman you are today instead of the six-year-old who learned to survive by staying small.

That’s what overflow feels like.

If you’re done trying to out-journal it, out-manifest it, out-affirm it, out-therapy it, out-boundary it, or out-willpower it, I’d love to invite you to join the waitlist.

Because your next breakthrough isn’t another realization.

It’s becoming the woman who finally lives like she believes it.

Join the waitlist: https://www.runninginslippers.com/theoverflowsociety

I’m intentionally keeping this founding group to just five women because this is real life, not Instagram.

And I want to watch you discover what life feels like when inherited stories are no longer making your decisions.

We don’t let our inherited beliefs run our lives on autopilot anymore.

PS: Need some help right now? Here’s a link to a helpful YouTube playlist that will help you make progress right now! Because what else are you doing with the end of summer?

https://youtu.be/cSEXt8KxxH8

With Love & Fire,

Angie

https://www.innerglowbyangie.com/

I help you rewrite the subconscious money stories behind overworking, undercharging, and impulse shopping, so you stop letting childhood beliefs make you adult decisions, know your worth, say what you effing mean, ask for what you want, make more money, and create a life that feels as good as it looks.

Because you deserve to feel excited about your own life.

Through my signature GLOW Method, I combine money story rewriting, identity work, practical money strategy, and real-time action to help women stop playing small, use their voice with confidence, and become the kind of woman who naturally attracts more money, opportunities, visibility, and fulfillment.

I’m the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about life kicking me in the a$$, and, in hindsight, I needed it to.

I have moved from Chicago to Hawaii on my own, jumped out of a helicopter and into the ocean Navy SEAL-style, bungee jumped, skydived, and cliff jumped, yet I am still terrified about allowing myself to be seen.