You snap back or shut down or spiral. And every time, the voice in your head says, something is wrong with you. But that voice is lying. Those reactions aren’t a reflection of who you are. They’re the brain doing exactly what brains do—protecting you from rejection, loss or hurt it learned, often from things long before you had any say. Your mind stored it, and now it fires before you think. But that’s not the real you. The real you is new, right and whole. And nothing you feel changes that.