LEARN TO UNLEARN:

At some point, most of us realise we’re not living fully as ourselves. We’re living as the version of us that made it through school, family life, awkward teenage years, the job interview, the breakup, the expectations. Somewhere along the way, we picked up rules. Unspoken ones. Invisible ones. Ones that shaped everything.

Be useful. Be quick. Be good. Be nice. Be strong.

Never be too loud. Never be too emotional. Never be too needy. Never be too much.

These messages did not arrive with a warning label. No one said, “This is an unhelpful belief you’ll carry into adulthood.” But they stuck. And without realising, we built entire lives around them.

At Stable Minds, I see this all the time. People of all ages, all backgrounds, turning up with the same tired story playing in their head. Not because they chose it, but because it was handed to them before they were old enough to decide who they wanted to be.

You might recognise the voice. The one that says, “You’re not doing enough.” Or, “You’re too slow. Everyone else has figured this out.” Maybe it says, “You’re too sensitive. You should have thicker skin by now.” These voices don’t come from nowhere. They come from years of being measured against someone else’s standard. Someone else's idea of who you should be.

This is where unlearning begins.

Unlearning is not about forgetting. It’s about noticing. It’s asking yourself where that voice came from. Who taught you to be suspicious of rest. Who made you feel like crying was a weakness. Who implied that your value was in your output, not your presence.

In my work, I use Transactional Analysis. It helps us understand the different parts of ourselves that show up in everyday life. The Parent, the Adult and the Child. But deeper than that, it helps us identify the scripts we have internalised. The drivers. The injunctions. The quiet rules that live under the surface and shape how we show up in the world.

You might be carrying the driver that says “Be perfect.” You might be stuck in “Hurry up” or “Try harder” or “Don’t feel.” And here’s the thing. These strategies probably helped you once. They kept you safe, liked, accepted, praised. But what helped you survive at ten years old might be stopping you from thriving at thirty-five.

Imagine someone who is always rushing. Always doing. Always slightly breathless with the pressure to keep going. They look like they’re managing.

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On paper, they are. But emotionally, they are the drowning man. Kicking furiously under the surface, terrified of what will happen if they stop.

This is often where unhealthy coping strategies creep in. Overworking. Avoidance. Snapping at the people we care about. Struggling to sleep. Turning to anything that helps take the edge off, even if it’s only temporary. It’s not because we are weak. It’s because we were never taught another way to feel safe.

With the Be Quick driver, the intention is to be efficient, to stay ahead, to not waste time. But if it goes unchecked, it becomes counterproductive. We move so fast we stop thinking clearly. We skim through our days but never feel satisfied. We become reactive instead of intentional. And sometimes, slowing down is the very thing that brings us back to ourselves. The truth is, when we pause, we can prioritise properly. We can respond with more clarity. We make better decisions. We spot opportunities we would have missed if we were still rushing from one thing to the next. Learning to slow down, even just slightly, can create space for deeper growth and sustainable progress.

That is why unlearning is not optional. Because if we do not question the messages we have absorbed, we end up building our future around someone else’s idea of what a good life looks like. We stay small to make other people comfortable. We avoid success because we were taught not to take up too much space. We burn out trying to earn the right to rest.

The most radical thing you can do is stop and ask yourself, “Do I believe this, or was I just taught to?”

Unlearning asks you to get honest. It asks you to sit in the discomfort of not knowing who you are without all the rules. And it asks you to trust that there is something true and strong underneath all of it.

You might be the first in your family to question these things. You might feel guilty for doing life differently. But that guilt is not truth. It is just a sign you are breaking a rule that was never yours to begin with. You do not have to be perfect to be worthy. You do not have to be useful to be valuable. You do not have to be liked by everyone to be enough.

So if you are tired of performing a life that does not feel real, if you are ready to quiet the noise and finally hear your own voice, if you are starting to wonder who you might be without all the pressure to be good, fast, or perfect, then this is where the work begins. The most important work you may ever do is not learning who to become, but unlearning who you were told to be. Because buried beneath the rules and roles and expectations is a version of you that is already enough. A version of you that is capable of more than you have ever been allowed to imagine. And maybe it is time to stop surviving the life you were handed and start creating the one that fits. One that is shaped by your values, your truth, and your voice which is fully, finally, yours.

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