Are You Self-Aware....Or Self Obsessed? When You've Gotten Lost Inside Personal Development

🚨 Warning: If you’re addicted to shadow work, deep-diving into your own psyche, or forever waiting for “one more mindset shift” before you take action...this might sting a little. But it might also be exactly what you need to hear.

We love personal growth. 

The breakthroughs, the clarity, the aha! moments that make us feel like we’re leveling up in life. 

But what happens when all that self-awareness turns into self-obsession? When the “inner work” starts feeling like an emotional treadmill, constantly analysing, questioning, and dissecting… but never really living?

In this episode, we’re calling it out. 👀 

The fine line between self-discovery and self-destruction, why overanalysing can actually hold you back, and the sneaky way personal development can isolate you instead of connecting you deeper to your life and the people in it.

What You’ll Learn:

✨ How self-awareness can turn into self-absorption (yep, it’s a thing)

✨ Why too much introspection can make you feel stuck & disconnected

✨ The importance of setting big, juicy, real-life goals that actually matter

✨ Signs that it’s time to stop analysing and start experiencing

🎧 Hit play now, because this episode might just be the wake-up call you didn’t know you needed.

 🔗 Click the link in my bio to listen! And don’t forget to follow for more. 🎙🔥

As always, please don't forget to hit Subscribe! xxx

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Music. Welcome to the mind school, the classroom for your mind and soul, where we design our lives from the inside out. Here you will find a human first approach to life, business and relationships, to create freedom, growth and constant evolution through mindset, emotional intelligence, leadership and connection to self. I'm your host, Breanna may educator, CEO mindset and business mentor, and my mission is to teach the things we were never taught at school so that no dream is left on the pillow and no purpose left unfulfilled. Here, you can expect a lot of laughs and thought provoking conversations as we squeeze every drop of juice from this beautiful, precious, crazy thing called life. Welcome to the mind school podcast. I am Breanna May, and I'm very excited to have this conversation. I've got myself my bone broth. I think that my dog's probably about to start barking because he gets massively jealous. It's the weirdest thing. As soon as I start talking to a client on WhatsApp or recording a podcast, it's like, he has to be near me and he has to bark and he has to get attention. He's like this needy little child. So we might hear from Simba in a moment life update. How am I feeling? Well, I'm gonna be really honest, because that's what this podcast is. I am feeling flat. And what else? Impatient? Flat and impatient, and I have a post that I'm writing about this at the moment, because I'm in that really interesting time where I know so many of people had will probably resonate, where you're really having to work on. I'm really having to work on balancing being extremely grateful for where I am at and being very happy with my current reality, but also yearning desperately for something else, something different, something more. And I've been in this place for two years now with trying to have a baby, and I just, I think it's actually given me this whole new level of empathy for clients, because, you know, I, I have clients who, maybe they, they really, really, really want their business to blow up, and it just hasn't yet, or they've been really wanting to attract their soul mate or their person like their their love, their lover, and they just haven't found them yet. And it's so frustrating. I know it's so frustrating, and to be completely honest, without sounding like a complete flog, it's been a while since I've felt this way because my business did well by my own metrics pretty quickly. I loved the dating life. I loved dating when I was single, and things have always sort of, I've always been able to make things happen when I want something, because I'm a ambitious, little stubborn bitch like that, but this has been completely different, and so I'm really empathizing with people, clients, students, who are in this season, because I'm just in it too, where it's like, Yes, I love my life, yes, things are good, yes, I can be grateful. Yes, I can have a really abundant mindset. And I can also be feeling really fucking disheartened, flat and desperately wanting something else at the same time. So that's kind of how I've been feeling for quite a while, like business is fucking amazing. I'm obsessed with the mind school. I'm obsessed with level up. I'm obsessed with my students. I'm obsessed with my team. I love my business. I love my husband. We love our dog. We just got back from Japan. We're traveling. My friends and I are having so much fun, like it's a gorgeous season of life, and I I've been spending a lot of time at home, like things are fucking good, and I'm not complaining, but I'm also just being honest and real, like it's been really hard, I'd say, the last six months, where I just feel like I'm doing everything I can to keep you know have this beautiful, juicy life and just enjoy the process and surrender to whatever will happen. But I'm also it's hard. It's really hard. I i love my business, like I said, I love it all, but it feels like it's my second option right now, my first option just hasn't happened yet, and it will like I know it will. I actually have never felt so certain. I really feel like it's happening soon. So I should come back to this podcast in a few months and be like I said it. I knew it. I've been having dreams about my stubborn. Little fetus, and I've had all these psychics and spiritual humans that just stopped me. And they're like, far out, you've got a kid like me. And I'm like, Yes, I know it is so stubborn. So anyway, I will probably do a whole episode when I'm ready, when I feel I've got the capacity, and when I'm on the other side. I will definitely do a lot more episodes for people listening, or people who are interested or going through their own fertility struggles. I will do a lot more in depth about what I've done, how I've managed to get pregnant, because I know that that will be an exciting thing, that I get to share mindset, things, all of that, like, I'll share that and funny. I've actually been really, really feeling like I'm getting really bored on Instagram. I don't know if anyone else is feeling that, and I love Instagram. It's always been my favorite place. I've built my whole business off Instagram. But recently I've been like, far out. It's boring and it's a bit too I don't know. I just haven't felt inspired. So I've actually been playing around with Tiktok, and I think I might go on tick tock for more of my behind the scenes, trying to conceive, fertility journey, all of that, just the real non businessy stuff. So anyway, that's been, that's my life update. That's what's been on my mind, and that's how I'm feeling. But, uh, today's episode is a bit of a juicy one, and one that I'm really excited to delve into, because I think this is something that happens for everyone who goes down, let's call it a healing path, an awakening, a self development path, who gets into mindset, work, personal development, all of that, and that is there is a time where personal development really starts to Have a bit of a murky line between self awareness and just complete self obsession. And I know that this has happened when I hear someone, for example, saying that they've gone on one date with someone, one date, and they're already analyzing his attachment style, their attachment style, they're going to consult their human design chart, their astrology chart, like the smallest things in life become this huge, big thing to unpack. So this episode is for you. If you've ever found yourself completely diagnosing your whole personality based off one or two tick tocks that you've watched, or you feel like you need to fix yourself and your you even find yourself in that language of saying like, Oh, I just need to do some more healing. I need to fix this. I need to clear this. I need to consult this person before I take action. Or you struggle to make any decisions without consulting an astrology chart, a therapist, a journal, a coach, like I said, small things become these big things to unpack. This episode will also be really relevant for you. If your friends, you might not even notice this has happened. You might think of someone who you know this relates to friends avoid asking you how you're feeling, because they don't have an hour to unpack your latest breakthrough. Because everything's a big breakthrough, everything's this theatric thing that you've discovered or unpacked or gone on to trauma, Treasure Hunt, to, you know, uncover, and maybe it's also just that you're wondering. You've found yourself wondering, has all of this personal development work actually changed me? Have I actually am I better off? Am I actually better off? Or am I not? Am I actually growing, or do I just spend a lot of time thinking about growing? And so this is where we've got to ask the question, where's the line between self awareness and self obsession? Because what I've discovered is that there's a pattern that I see happen in personal development world, and it's it happens because it has to happen, and that is when you first get into personal development, or you first get into your healing, or your awakening, or whatever you want to call it, whatever your language is. And I, actually, I remember this so clearly. I the way I used to explain, it was like, it's like I had been asleep my whole life, and at 29 I woke up and I was like, Oh, my God, I'm responsible for my whole life. Everything is up to me. I get to choose and create my reality. I get to choose and create my thoughts. I get to actually decide if my thoughts and beliefs serve me, I get to design everything I want. But also what the hell like I've been living on autopilot, and I didn't even know it, and it's this huge awakening. And so at that moment, self awareness is the most important thing, and self awareness, like far out, basically any of the programs that I teach, and any of like when you do the level up, when you do the mind school, most people, they'll walk away with a whole new level of consciousness that is awareness about how they've been showing up, how they've been contributing to their lives, their patterns, all of those things, and self awareness is the most important thing for growth, for change. Change for evolving, because it helps us to recognize our patterns. It helps us to improve relationships. It helps us in business, self awareness helps us step into leadership. There's so many examples of how positive self awareness is life changing. You recognize where your limiting beliefs are. You recognize where you're not regulating your emotions properly, or where you're not showing up in business, where you're dimming down your light, where you're not standing up for yourself, where you're not taking up space. And so when you start, when you get to this place, you do inherently become very me centric, very me focused, very what is coming up for me? Why am I playing out this? Where did this come from? Where did this belief originate? What happened for me? What's coming up for me? How am I showing up? It is very me, me, me. Because you're in this season of radical responsibility, like, oh my gosh, I'm in control of my life. I don't have to believe every thought. I don't have to believe every feeling. I get to control my destiny. I get to heal my things. Break through limiting beliefs, change my state. It's very me, me, me, and that's okay. It does have to be it's called self awareness, because you need to be self aware. But I would say there is a very, very, very big difference between self awareness and self absorption, and that is, if you cannot exist in your world without making everything about you, and this is a huge distinction, if your self awareness is only ever focused on you, and you don't also have the ability to go, how am I impacting others around me? Okay, if I've got a story and a narrative right now, in this scenario, I wonder how this person's story is playing out for them, what's going on for them, like it's a lot. You've got to sort of expand it from self to others and to see how you're impacting others, how your story is just your story and your narrative. But there is a lot of other people in your world who have got their own narrative, and maybe you're the villain in their narrative, while you're going on this trauma treasure hunt and trying to figure out why you are the way you are, and who said this to you, and unpack something that happened when you're seven and La, la, la, if you've gone into self absorption to the point where a you also forget that other people have got their own stories, their own narratives, their own emotions, their own journeys, and you can't actually co exist with them. If you have gotten to a point where you actually can't just navigate simple things in life without it becoming this blown up theater, or needing to unpack it, or needing to intellectualize it, needing it to be this huge thing. It's like, are you actually using self awareness as a growth tool? And that is, if you are using self awareness as a growth tool, if and when something actually does come up for you, you have the ability to almost create a little bit of distance, to take on the observer effect and go, Oh, this is really interesting. I'm noticing that I'm getting a little bit activated right now under what that's about. And to go into that third person observer when something comes up, that's how it's used as a tool. It's a tool for when things come up, for you, you notice that there is some sabotage going on, or a huge emotional response, or you're getting in your own way. That's when you can use your self awareness tool to go, Oh, I see the way I played that out. I see the way I'm doing this thing. I see how I'm actually becoming passive aggressive or shutting down. This is really interesting. Let me look into this a little bit. That's how it can be used as a tool when needed. But when it is your 24/7, life that sounds tiring, that is exhausting, that is tiring, and it really is. And so there is a downside, and this is some of the signs that your personal development has actually become a trap, and it's no longer being used as a self awareness tool, but a trap to keep you in the same place. So if you find that you are always in analysis paralysis. That is, you are constantly questioning every decision. You're waiting for the right energy, the right sign you need a sign from the universe. You need to consult people. You actually just can't go through life without me, like I said, making everything this huge big deal, then it might have actually stopped you from growing. It's no longer a growth tool. It's actually hindering growth. If it has put you this isn't a huge one. If it has put you into that fix it mentality of you always feel like there's something more for you to heal. You always feel like you're not enough. You need one more course, one more coach, one more modality, one more tool, one more breakthrough, and then you'll be good enough to take action again. This is where the personal development world has become a trap that is making people believe they're not ever quite enough, and they need this one other thing before they can. And be good enough, take action, get the result. The truth is, all of us are always on some form of healing. I've never met anyone, anyone who doesn't still have some shadowy shit play out, who isn't still working on something. But these people move with it, move in spite of it, and they're aware of it, but they don't let it stop them. So when you become a little bit more in the self obsessed or personal development trap, you will just be like, no, no, I need to fix this. I'm not enough. I'm not enough. I need this thing. I need this thing. I'm still healing. I'm in this season of healing. I can't yet move well. Now you're actually again, it's not a personal development tool. It's a trap. Hyper self focus is another one, and that is like I've already mentioned, where every single conversation, every interaction, becomes about you and your inner work. What's coming up for me? How am I feeling? What is this bringing up for me? What is this doing for me? And it's about me, me, me instead of connection, and that's where self awareness is no longer a tool. Self awareness can make you more able to engage with people. Very, very self aware people are usually also very, very aware of others, because when you're aware of how you feel, you're also very empathetic to how others might feel. And so self aware people can often be really, really, really good at connecting, at empathizing, at connection and intimacy, because they've done a lot of self awareness work that now they just exist as someone who really understands people and empathizes with people and connects with people. But when you're in a phase where your personal development is actually still in the I, me, me, me, something's coming up for me. Something's coming up for me. I've got this big thing that now everyone needs to know about. That's when it's still in the self phase and it hasn't been integrated into connection, because that's what we want. It's for growth and connection. The other downside, or where personal development is actually a trap that is no longer helping you is when it's actually just avoidance that's disguised as healing. And so it will sound like, Oh, I'm just currently working on myself. So I'll do that after this course. Or I just need to clear this thing, remove this block, and then I'll be able to take bold action, or I need to remove myself. And this is just a, this is a huge one, and I don't know, oh gosh, I've seen this before, and I'm like, this is actually just avoidance. And, of course, there is definitely nuance and and you can't make a blanket rule, but sometimes when people just go, I'm removing myself from this drama, or this person isn't an expander for me, or something's coming up for me, so I'm just removing myself sometimes what has been labeled as, you know, honor yourself, self care era. I'm in my me era. You know all of this. This is my healthy boundary. This is my boundary, and there is no conversation to be had that is actually sometimes a avoidance and B, it can be actually really rude and detrimental to what is required of meaningful relationships. Relationships are need to be built, of having hard conversations, of having those confronting conversations that feel Yuck, that feel icky, where people get to talk about how they're feeling and be heard on both sides. And so sometimes we're using all of this like self help, self healing language, but it's actually just avoidance. If you are saying I'm sorry, I'm working on myself, or I'm sorry, this is something I'm not willing to talk about, or whatever, it's just asking yourself, okay, cool, but is this avoidance? Are you actually just avoiding hard conversations? Are you using your work as an excuse to stay stuck? Are you using your work or your healing as an excuse to not take action, not actually have hard conversations, not do the icky things, because sometimes, again, this is when the self awareness piece is actually contributing to staying stuck. And so these are some more. I've got four signs here that you've gone a little too far and it's time to bring the pendulum back and to start just living again. And so let me give you a few signs that maybe you've gone a little too far down one side of the personal development pendulum, and that's okay. Like I said, you do need to blow things up in order to really see yourself. You do need to give a lot of time and attention to looking at how you're doing things and to building the skill of being self aware. But here are some signs that you've maybe been in a little bit too long, and it's no longer helpful. First one is that you massively over identify with labels, and so you will be someone, or you'll hear someone saying things like, oh, because of my anxious attachment style, XYZ, or because I'm a manifesting generator, XYZ, or it's just my eight. HD, blah, and again, there can be some strength. There can be some benefit to knowing these things, to knowing about your attachment styles, to knowing about your human design. But as soon as you over identify and it becomes who you are, and the reason you can and can't do things, it's actually just being used as a limitation, and you're letting a label define you. And so that, to me, is always a sign that you've just gone a little bit too far into this space, another thing, every single problem in your life, is over analyzed instead of just lived through. So instead of having, like I said, going and having the conversations, doing the scary thing, living it, taking action, noticing that something's coming up, and going, Oh, how do I actually want to live through this? Instead, you live in your head and everything is actually feeling almost like I said before, analysis paralysis, because you've spent so long in the pattern of analyzing that you don't actually take any action or do anything. So if every problem in your life is being over analyzed and very me centric, I would ask the question, how can you just live through this? The other one is that, and this is huge. This is a big one, and honestly, I feel like I definitely resonate with this one, because I definitely went down the pendulum, and I've in the last few years, really brought it back to balance. But for me, it was that I noticed I'd lost the ability almost to have fun, light conversations and funny, dark, sarcastic, like almost politically incorrect conversations, because everything became this, like, deep dive into self work, and that actually, for me personally, I was like, This is not me. Like, this is not me at all. I am generally not. I don't take much too seriously. I like to have a joke. I like to have a laugh. I'm a bit of a larrikin. I can be a bit of a hooligan, and I found that because I'd been in the personal development industry for so many years, and, you know, I'm coaching clients, and we're analyzing behavior, and we're looking at their beliefs, and we're we're doing all of that self awareness work. And when it becomes your pattern, it actually becomes a pattern that makes it really hard to go back to, like, put that to the side for now, and let's not be personally developing like Not everything has to be about progress and growth and what's coming up for me. And this is this big thing. And why am I like this? Can you just have a light, fun conversation, if you've lost the ability to do that, if you're in every social setting, going, Oh, am I enjoying this? How is this person responding? Oh, I can see their shadow. Oh my gosh. This is coming up for me. If you cannot be present anymore, absolutely, it's gone too far. And if you got into personal development world, usually it's because you wanted more life. You started because you wanted more life, you wanted more presence, you wanted more joy, you wanted to be more lit up. And so you're like, oh my gosh, you get into this world. And then couple years, or however long, down the track, you've forgotten how to live so it hasn't suited. The outcome, if the tool is no longer doing its purpose, it's time to put the tool down for a minute. It's time to at least go, Hey, is this tool still serving its purpose? Maybe not. The other thing, the last thing is that you are consuming way more than applying. You consume all the podcasts you do, all the courses you listen, you follow, all these coaches you go to, all the seminars. You consume, consume, consume, but how much have you actually applied it? And a really gnarly question to ask yourself, is okay? How much have I either in my emotional regulation, my ability to handle triggers, my my actual life, my income, my parenting style, my relationship ability, my ability to be intimate, like whatever your metrics are, how much have I actually changed since I started to get into this space? Look at your life and ask yourself, have I actually changed anything, or am I just addicted to the idea of change? Because that's a huge distinction. A lot of people love the idea and the constant dopamine of, oh, it's going to be so good when I when I and that's where the excitement and the chase comes from. But if you've never actually changed, and if you look at your life and it's actually pretty much the exact same, then you probably are in this trap of consuming more than applying it. So what do we do to come back to balance? What do we do to come back to balance. The goal is integration, not endless self analysis. So what do I mean by that? I mean the goal is to integrate the tools that you've learned that is to know how to use self awareness tools, when and if they come up as you are just. Living your life, and that is a key distinction, live your life first and use the tools as they come up. So let me put this into an example. If a client comes to me, which this used to happen in the past, clients would come and because I was a mindset coach, it was like, Okay, I want to find my blocks. I want to find them. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't need to find them. We need to create meaningful goals that get you excited, that are aligned with your values. And trust me, as we move toward them, through taking action, they will present themselves. You don't need to find them. You need to live. You need to live your life. Set the goal, create the goal, move toward it, and that's when your shadows appear. That's when your blocks appear, that's when your sabotage appears. So you do not need to go find your stuff. It will come as you live your life and you integrate it by going, oh, when something does come up. Now I've got the tools of self awareness. Now I've got the tools of knowing what to do, but it's not something that needs to be front of mind all the time. Life is front of mind, and self analysis only really comes up in the moments that it is required, not when you are just, I don't know, having drinks with friends, if you're analyzing every situation and you can't be present again. Like I said, That's a massive red flag, and so we've got to remember that self awareness should be there to help you live more fully, not restrict you and take you out of presence. If you truly are self aware, you'll be self aware enough to notice in a moment, oh my gosh, I'm not even being present right now. My husband's talking to me, and I'm somewhere else. I'm elsewhere, or I'm out with friends and I'm analyzing how I'm feeling. If you've actually got true self awareness, you'll be able to pull yourself out of that loop and bring yourself back to the present moment, and that self awareness that maybe you just learned in that moment will be something for you to think about. Okay, my work to do here is actually to be more present, and that is the work for you to do. That is the real personal development work. It's coming back to presence. And so the other thing to remember is that to integrate real, true, embodied self awareness. It's also, is it helping you to feel more connected to people, or is it making you feel more isolated, because everything's about you, and everything's become something that you're moving through and something that's coming up for you and something that you need to another breakthrough you need, and it's very it's very me, me, me. If you feel like it's being used, or it has been used up to this point, but it's made you feel isolated. It's made you feel like you can't connect with people because you're the only one moving through this, or you're dealing with so much, you're holding so much, you're experiencing so much, then I would ask, is it really being used as a tool to help you connect more, or is it being used in the opposite way? Because, like I said in the beginning, there is a very big difference between self awareness and self absorption. People who have healthy levels of self awareness are very, very aware of other people as well, and they co exist and just live their life. And when things come up, they're aware of themselves and the impact they have on others. It's not always just about ourselves and so, like I said in the beginning, when you start personal development work, and when you've done this work for quite some time, you do become self aware. And that is a skill that is beautiful, but there is a point where it also can become a trap. And so those are the things to look out for. And like I said, the goal is to live. And my takeaway for you is to set yourself a big fat, juicy goal that aligns with what you want, that aligns with your values, and as you move toward it, use self awareness as it needs to happen. Stuff will come up for you then, but go live in the meantime. So I would love to know, and like I said, I can talk on this, not only because I've seen it happen with lots of people in this space, but it definitely happened to me. I definitely woke up one day and was like, fuck, you know what? I just want to go and have some old fashioned drinks and be politically incorrect and not psychoanalyze myself and psychoanalyze everyone else. And it got exhausting. So if you're feeling exhausted, my thing for you right now is go and do something totally unproductive today. Go and do something fun. Go and have a laugh. Go and fucking live and just be very aware of when this pendulum of self awareness can move too far into self absorption. And that's your reminder to go connect, go live, go do something that isn't personal development that isn't analytical, that isn't in your head, goes dip in the ocean, connect with people, live your life, because that's what this work was for in the first place. This work was for you to live more fully, to love more fully, to be in your life, more presently. So if it's not helping you in that way, that is what I am. Invite you to do today. I would love to hear from you if you feel like you may have fallen into the self self development, self obsession trap. You're not alone, because I've had these conversations with lots and lots of people, but I hope this gave you something to think about. Let me know. DM me. Share this, if it, if it really would help me. If you do share this, tag me. I would love to know if you resonated with this, and I will see you back here next week. Thank you for tuning in to the mind school podcast. It is a massive intention of mine to continue to grow this show, because the more the show grows, the better the guests get, and I know that is going to be so powerful for you listening. So if I could ask this massive favor, it would mean the world if you could please leave a review, hit the Follow button, or leave a rating on Spotify, so that we can continue to grow this show and bring you the juiciest, most thought provoking and expansive conversations through incredible guests. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. You.