Coming Home to MySelf: How Thought Work Helped Me Heal and Reclaim My Power

There was a time in my life when I truly believed others were the source of my suffering.

He hurt me.

She betrayed me.

They took something from me.

I told these stories with certainty. I collected evidence to prove them. I replayed conversations. I rehearsed what I should have said. I argued in my head and carried those arguments into the shower, the car, and my dreams.

I was in pain, but I believed the pain was coming from outside of me.

Eventually, I found my way to thought work. At first, it was confronting. I didn’t want to believe I was the one responsible for my suffering. That felt harsh. That felt unfair. Why should I have to do the work when someone else caused the pain?

I believed others had the power to hurt me. I thought someone else’s choices could decide my worth. That their anger could break me. That their silence could define me.

For a while, I lived like that was true.

I spent years blaming, absorbing, and reacting. If someone betrayed me, I let it steal my joy. If someone owed me something and didn’t honor it, I let it shape my sense of safety. If someone spoke ill of me, I carried it as truth. I gave my power away in a thousand small ways because I didn’t know how to come home to myself.

And with the gift of new knowledge, everything began to shift.

It didn’t happen all at once. It came through quiet moments of reflection, through unraveling old patterns, through sitting with thoughts I had followed for years without question. And I am still learning. I am still peeling layers away and catching these thoughts in my mind. I ask myself: Who can I forgive so I can forgive myself?

Who did I say was harming me, when it was my own mind doing the harming over and over again?

I began working with the mind. I started to look closely at the stories I was repeating. I learned to question the thoughts that brought me pain. I sat with them and asked, “Is this true?”

This practice, rooted in the teachings of Byron Katie and paired with my own STEAR coaching model, has completely changed my life. It shifted how I see myself, how I respond to life, and most importantly, how I show up for mySelf.

I saw how often my suffering was rooted in belief, not in fact. I believed I had been abandoned. I believed I was owed. I believed I was unseen, unloved, or disrespected. And every time I believed it, I felt it in my body. I carried the weight. I built a case. I replayed the same scenes again and again in my mind.

But when I slowed down and questioned those beliefs, I saw something else. I saw that the pain wasn’t coming from the person. It was coming from my interpretation, my attachment, my focus.

That’s when I started to return home.

I began to see every interaction as a mirror. Every conflict, every judgment, every trigger became a beautiful reflection. A chance to witness what was still asking to be seen inside of me. It was never really about them. It was always about the part of me still waiting for healing, honesty, and love.

One of the biggest shifts I recently made was finally being able to heal from my ex. I realized I was suffering in a whole story of what he had taken from me, what was being done to me, until I was able to finally say, “No more. I am abusing myself with these thoughts. He isn't doing it to me. It doesn’t matter what he does or says, even if it’s about me. That’s none of my business. My business, my mind, is here and now with me.”

I couldn’t keep letting stories harm me. I couldn’t say with certainty that any of it was true from everyone’s perspective, so why was I making it my truth? It hurt. And when I withheld love from his soul, I was withholding love from myself. That does not align with The Way of the I AM.

So I reflected. I worked. I got frustrated and cried. I walked away from my journaled writings as I was putting everything on paper to figure out how to release it. I had broken up with him almost a year ago, but mentally, he was still living in my mind. Why would I want to keep someone a prisoner there? That wasn’t aligned with my beliefs. It was keeping me out of my own integrity. I am not an abuser, so why abuse my mind?

This is the power of returning to yourSelf.

You learn what is yours and what is not. You learn to stop carrying the weight of what others think, say, or do. You learn to meet your pain with curiosity.

You begin to live as the Creator you are.

There is a beautiful freedom in realizing you don’t have to take on someone else’s words as your truth. You don’t have to believe every thought that crosses your mind. You don’t have to stay in the story just because it’s familiar.

You can pause. You can breathe. You can ask: Who would I be without this belief?

And you can begin to find out.

The more I live this way, the more peace I experience. It’s not because life became easier or people changed. It’s because I stopped handing over my power and started taking radical responsibility for how I respond.

I know what is mine. I know what is not. And I know that everything and everyone is always bringing me back to mySelf.

This path of remembering my wholeness and reclaiming my creative authority has changed everything. The more I practice, the more peace I find. The more I return to what is mine, the freer I become.

Byron Katie says there are three kinds of business: my business, your business, and God’s business. I remind myself often: stay in your own. I cannot control what another thinks, says, or does. I cannot predict their path or their lessons. But I can witness what is showing up in me. I can witness how my thoughts are creating the energy I live in. I can choose again.

I am still human. I still get hooked. I still feel frustration, sadness, and fear. I meet them. I speak to them. Sometimes I have to navigate a little more before I can soften. Before I can pause and say, “Now, Shea, that’s just a story you’re telling from your persona. What is true? What does the I AM say about this? Where is the truth?” I ask, “What thought is driving this?” And always, the answer lives within.

This is where true healing begins. This is the return to presence. This is the peace that lives inside self-responsibility.

If this path of remembering speaks to something in you—if you’re ready to reclaim the peace, power, and presence that have always been yours—you’re invited to walk it with us.

The Way of the I AM: Community Gathering

Every Sunday at 10:00 am PST on Zoom

(Optional quiet meditation begins at 9:40)

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We meet in presence, in honesty, and in love. This is a steady invitation to remember who you are and live from that place with grace and clarity.

Love always,

Shea