How therapy can help you find yourself and be yourself

In the brightness of the May sunshine recently, I wandered through the Meadows in Edinburgh. The park was full of people sprawled on the grass, children laughing, dogs running, couples sharing quiet moments, and groups of friends basking in the light. As I felt the sun on my face and the hum of life all around me, I wrote a post on my Instagram that reads: “May you find your way back to yourself in the midst of life’s chaos, noise and endless thoughts.”

But later on, I found myself wondering - what does it actually mean to “find yourself”? And more than that - what does it mean to "be yourself"?

What does it mean to "find yourself and "be yourself"?

We often speak of “being yourself” as though it’s a ight-filled and joyful place, a place where you will be "happy". As though our true self should always be something bright, positive, and certain. But in my work as a therapist, and through my own therapy, I’ve come to realise that being yourself is far more complex and fluid. Sometimes, being yourself means facing the parts that don’t feel so lovable - our demons and shadows, the struggles, the pain, and echoes from the past that haunt us.

A client once shared with me how she carried the weight of a painful past - something so heavy and painful that she had spent years trying to forget: "I thought if I didn't talk about it, it would just go away. But it's always there - in the back of my mind, in my nightmares, in the way I can't relax around people, in how much I second-guess myself, and in how I don't trust anyone. I'm scared that if I show you this horrible messy part of me, you'll hate me."

Meeting our shadows makes them less scary.

We sat in silence for a while, just letting those words settle. I gently replied, “Maybe that’s the part that most needs to be seen.”

Week by week, she began to share the pieces of her story - the fear, the shame, the pain and hurt that had been locked away for so long. Over time, she started to see herself not just as someone broken by her past, but as someone who had survived. She found her own voice, her own strength, and she realised that healing wasn’t about erasing the trauma, but about allowing it to be acknowledged without shame. She began to understand that being "whole" didn’t mean being untouched by pain - it meant bringing light into the darkest corners so that we could face the shadows. In this way, the shadows didn’t hold so much power.

So perhaps this is what finding oneself means - meeting our shared human struggles with compassion, knowing that you don't need to be fixed or perfect, and simply being present with all that we are. It allows us to look calmly into the dark corners of our mind and stay connected with ourselves, even when we are afraid of what we may find. And maybe that’s what it means to be yourself: to be at peace with the whole of you.

May you be at peace with the whole of you.

And here is the thing - we can’t change the past, but we can change our relationship with it. We can remember our light when we see our darkness. We grow not by denying our past, but by knowing it, learning about ourselves from it. In doing so, we stop being controlled by the ghosts and our shadows, and we can start making conscious choices about who we want to become.

You may feel you have no choice, or that you're trapped in patterns of shame, pain or fear. If that’s you, please hear this: that in itself is meaningful. Exploring why you feel you don’t have a choice can open the door to freedom. You don’t have to have all the answers right now. Just the willingness to begin.

So may you find yourself - not only in the sunshine and laughter, but also in the doubt, the confusion, the shame, the fear, the pain, and the struggles. May you be able to sit with and be at peace with the parts of you that you are proud of and the parts you wish you could hide. You are not one or the other. You are both. And all.

If you’re ready to begin this journey with me, you’re welcome to get in touch.

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