The Terrified Part · Goal: Safety
"If I leave, I won't be able to pay the bills."
A deep guide to hearing your calling — through journaling, identity integration, and radical truth-telling.
Read time: 29 minutes
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This isn’t going to be another 5-step process to find your purpose. You’ve googled those. You know they didn’t lead anywhere.
The proof? You’re still searching.
If you’ve been Googling “how to find my purpose in life” and landing on quizzes that tell you to become a florist? You’re in the right place. This is different.
This blog is about the seemingly arduous journey one needs to take to hear one’s own calling. It’s not quick. It’s not glamorous. But it’s real.
And it works.
There are two practices at the heart of it: Unload (clear the noise drowning out your inner voice through journaling) and Listen to yourself & tell the truth (reconnect with what you actually want). They’re backed by decades of research. From Freud’s free association to Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages to Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems.
They’re not sequential steps you complete and move on from. They’re ongoing. You do them over and over. And as you do, something shifts.
This guide explains both practices, why they work, and gives you two exercises (SPOT and LIST) you can start today.
But before I get into the how, I need to explain the why.
Because the reason you’re stuck isn’t that you lack direction. It’s that something inside you has been trying to speak. And you haven’t had the conditions to hear it.
TL;DR: Your calling is the voice of your essence, the you without labels, thoughts, or fear. It tries to speak to you constantly but gets drowned out by daily life.
You have an essence. Call it your soul, your true nature, the superconscious self. The you without any labels, thoughts, emotions (fear, anxiety, doubt, shame) or identities.
It tries to speak to you all the time. It leads a secret life.
We’re not able to hear it very often because we’re so busy with life. Thinking about how to pay the bills. How to achieve something that will make others see us in a better light. Where to go on holiday. How to lose weight. And so on.
This part is here nonetheless. Trying to speak to us.
It’s unique. Each of us came to this planet with a slightly different quality. Some babies are calmer. Some are more curious.
That part of us knows what we came here to do.
— Silviu Cojocaru, career and purpose coach at The Aha! Moment Academy
TL;DR: Since childhood, you’ve been looking outward at what others think you should be. This external focus has drowned out your internal voice.
Since the moment we were born we started looking outside. What are others doing? What do they want us to be?
We’re social creatures. We need to fit in. And as a result of looking externally, we stopped paying attention to our essence.
At every stage, the same trade-off is happening beneath the surface. Gabor Maté explains it better than anyone:
Gabor Maté on the conflict every child faces: attachment (the need to belong) vs. authenticity (the need to be yourself).
— Dr Gabor Maté, physician and author of When the Body Says No
Throughout this journey, we fall. We hurt ourselves. We create scars.
Some are created by us. Others are created by parents, school, friends, teachers, managers, colleagues, or society.
Some examples.
Your parents seem to give more attention to your sister. As a result you see yourself as insignificant, not worthy of attention. You end up doing things not because you love them but because you constantly seek the attention of others.
For some, their parents left a scar that made them believe they’re not capable enough. They put themselves down for most of their lives.
For others it’s about not being likeable or loveable enough. For some it’s about not having security. So they keep earning more and more. They chase opportunities that make money rather than what their soul is yearning for. They end up feeling stuck in a dead-end job that pays well but feels hollow.
In all these cases, the voice of “you’re insignificant” or “you’re incapable” or “you’re unloveable” is so loud. It drowns out their essence’s calling.
So when they sit down to figure out what they should do with their life, it’s not their soul typing those words. It’s their insecurity. Their wounds answering those questions.
TL;DR: Stream-of-consciousness journaling clears emotional material so you can hear your essence. The most powerful, accessible method to start unloading.
Unloading is the practice of clearing stored emotional material so you can hear your essence. The simplest way to start is stream-of-consciousness journaling.
This might take you one day, one month, one year. It’s an ongoing process. It never ends.
It’s not sexy. It might be perceived as a time-wasting activity.
When I don’t do it, I tend to hate myself for it. When I do it, I’m calm, collected, and in touch with myself.
There are a number of ways to unload. I’ll share the ones I know, from the more intensive to the simpler.
Not free. Some therapists are better than others. There are a multitude of approaches and some may work better for you than others. You need to research. Test different therapists, test different methods. Not against it, but there’s something easier to start with. Keep reading.
I haven’t done it myself. But research suggests it can be powerful for processing deep emotional material. A 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found significant reductions in depression and anxiety after ceremonial use. It’s not for everyone. And it’s not where I’d start.
An 8-day residential retreat where you do the equivalent of a year’s therapy in a week. It’s experiential, not talk therapy. Powerful. Expensive (around $6,200 in the US, £3,500+ in the UK). Founded by Bob Hoffman in 1967 and used by over 125,000 people worldwide. It’s my preferred way to unload, but I don’t recommend starting here. Because there’s a simpler way. (hoffmaninstitute.org)
One of the best meditation practices I’ve encountered. Again pricey, but useful. I wouldn’t start with it though. If you’re stuck in a lot of pain and mind chatter, it can be easy to get derailed. It’s nonetheless a good method of unloading temporarily.
John Whiting’s Bulletproof Entrepreneur programme focuses on removing mental blocks. Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. Or my own approach, Emotional and Mental Clearing, which is adapted from Vladimir Stojakovic’s Integra Protocol. These are helpful. They can also be expensive, and they take effort to learn.
But I want you to learn a method that’s so simple you have no option but to do it.
Which is…
Dhuuhhh… what the f*** Silviu? You kept me reading this just to hear journaling?
Yes.
I could have come up with a more technical name that makes me look smarter. But this works.
There is a specific way of journaling. It’s called stream-of-consciousness journaling. Stream-of-consciousness journaling means writing everything that comes to mind, without filtering, for a set period. No editing. No judgement. Just writing.
It reminds me of the free association technique from psychoanalysis. A method Sigmund Freud developed between 1892 and 1898 (Studies on Hysteria, 1895). A way to bypass our defences and access what’s hidden beneath.
According to psychologist James Pennebaker at the University of Texas, expressive writing has been replicated in over 200 studies since 1986. The findings are consistent: writing about your thoughts and feelings improves emotional processing. (Opening Up, Pennebaker, 1990.)
In this practice you start writing everything that comes to mind for a set period of time. Whether you write digitally on a Google Doc like me, or physically with pen and paper.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour. The longer the better.
This practice was made well known by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way (1992). She calls it “Morning Pages,” three pages of longhand writing, done first thing in the morning. The book has sold over 5 million copies and been translated into 40+ languages. (Not bad for a practice that sounds boring.)
She describes it as going on a date with yourself daily.
Every experience is different and I don’t want to create expectations. Yours might be different to mine or to people you’ll read about in that book.
Most people when starting encounter thoughts that aren’t always positive. Thoughts about themselves.
According to research from Queen’s University in Canada, the average person has around 6,200 thoughts per day, and up to 80% of them are repetitive. So when you first sit down to journal, expect a lot of the same noise on repeat.
Because for the first time they give the mic and the stage to the parts of themselves that have unmet needs. So those parts speak about all the stuff they don’t have. The judgement they carry.
But as you continue this practice, clarity comes.
Think of it like climbing a mountain. At the bottom you experience fog. As you continue to climb, you start to see the sun.
This daily practice works the same way. Initially it might feel like a never-ending wave of negativity and suffering. In the first week, month, or year (depending on how much you had stored inside).
Then it settles into a more peaceful state. With time, that peace becomes normal.
And at that point, you’re clear enough that you start to get glimpses of the real self. Your essence.
For as long as it takes.
When you were a kid, did your parents ask “how long do I have to endure this baby not being able to walk?” No. They waited until you could walk.
This isn’t easy. But it’s what it takes.
Now, you can make it easier by choosing how you perceive this exercise. You can see it as hard or useful. As boring or revelatory. That’s your choice.
A few things that might help.
You can buddy up with an accountability partner. The best service I’ve found for this is Flown, a virtual co-working platform built around focus sessions and body doubling.
You can use apps that hold you financially accountable. stickK, created by Yale behavioural economists, lets you pledge money towards a cause you don’t support if you fail to follow through. (Nothing like the threat of funding something you disagree with to get you writing.)
You can hire an accountability coach. For instance Commit Action, who offer weekly check-in calls designed around the science of productivity.
But in my experience, none of these external motivators are as powerful as tapping into that internal desire we all have to peel the onion and unload.
External motivators tend to get in the way most often.
The beautiful part is: as you start to unload, you will get insight into what you’re meant to be doing next.
Each of us has a different “weight” (if I can call it that). How long it takes depends on how often you do it. How long you’ve been “loading.” How much you need to clear before you can listen to your essence.
It’s when you have a balanced perspective on a specific topic without attachments.
For instance, when thinking about making money, you have no compulsion towards “I will make no money this year” or “I will make £1 million.” No charge either way.
Or when thinking about never knowing what to do with your career, or failing miserably. Rather than having fear, doubt, insecurity, or any strong emotion, you have neutrality.
You’re fine finding something meaningful to do with your life AND you’re fine if the exact thing takes time to reveal itself.
If you haven’t experienced this before, you might think it’s impossible. But it isn’t. I’ve experienced it. I’ve helped clients experience it through the EMC process I teach.
But you need to start with journaling first. If you stick to journaling, you’ll build the muscle for deeper work. And this habit of writing will transform your life. (If you’re dreading work every morning, this is where to begin.)
But only if you listen.
TL;DR: Identify the different parts within you and their beliefs, then have the courage to share what you find with others. This creates alignment between your inner world and outer life.
Listening to yourself means identifying the different parts within you, their goals and beliefs, and then having the courage to share what you find with others.
Here’s the hypothesis: by learning to listen to yourself and communicate more truthfully, you gain a quality that enables you to accept yourself. And no longer care about what others think.
When you care about what others think, you’re clay in other people’s hands. You become what they think you should be. You speak, dress, think, and behave as others expect.
Two examples.
Your wife tells you “you no longer love me.” And you immediately jump to convince her otherwise.
Without listening to the part of you that thinks you actually fell out of love because you didn’t invest enough time. Or the part that stopped caring since that big fight. Or the part that thinks you’re underachieving as a partner.
All these parts can live inside you at the same time and feel true, even when they contradict each other.
And beneath all of them is the real you, who loves this woman unconditionally. Who is love.
Listening to yourself in this example means becoming aware of these parts, hearing them, and then communicating this to her.
Your manager asks for a volunteer to take on a different project. There’s a part of you that thinks you’ll fail. A part that wants the project just for visibility but hates the work. A part that wants to please him because you see him as the father you never had at home.
And beneath all that is the essence. The real you, eagerly seeing this challenge as an opportunity to finally make your work an expression of who you are.
The examples are infinite. But it takes deep listening to become aware of these parts. And then courage to share your truth in a way that doesn’t hurt you or others.
I’ve learnt a great deal from Dr Will Schutz. He was a leading figure in the Human Potential Movement in the 1960s, working at the Esalen Institute.
He created FIRO theory and a body of work used in organisations today through The Human Element (The Human Element, Schutz, 1994). In his body of work, he also wrote about listening to others and listening to oneself, which leads to self-awareness.
In my view, it all starts with the intention of being open with yourself.
What does that mean? It’s the ability to accept anything that comes up (emotions, body sensations, images, memories, or thoughts) as you think about a specific topic.
When I think about what I should be doing next with my life, negative thoughts and emotions often come up. About how I’m failing my parents. How I’m not good enough. (The stuff we need to unload.)
But some of this content is too painful for our conscious mind. So we repress it. Or suppress it.
Openness towards yourself starts with accepting those negative thoughts and emotions so you can process them.
Unless you’re willing to accept the negative aspects of yourself (what Carl Jung called the “shadow self”) you end up playing the game of unloading only with the parts you already accept and like.
Once you accept what comes up, the next step is to listen and name it.
You might discover there are different parts of yourself with different goals and points of view. Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems therapy, calls these “parts.” Like members of a family who each have their own perspective.
Naming their goals and beliefs creates space in your mind.
Think of a pole stuck in the ground. You loosen it by moving it left and right, creating space around it. Identifying these parts and naming them does the same thing. It creates space for your essence to arise.
Let me show you what this looks like in practice.
Say you’ve been in your job for five years. You hate it. But every time you think about leaving, you freeze. You don’t know why. You just… can’t.
So you sit with it. You listen. And you start to notice:
Three parts. Three goals. Three beliefs. All pulling you in different directions. No wonder you’re stuck.
But as you name each one and hear what it’s really saying, something loosens. Like that pole. You’re no longer frozen in one position. You’ve created space.
And in that space, a calmer quality starts to emerge. One that can hold all three truths at once without panicking.
Now here’s the important bit. This listening isn’t just an internal exercise. It becomes the foundation for telling the truth to others.
Because once you’ve heard those three parts, you can say to your partner: “I want to leave my job. And I’m terrified about the money. And I feel guilty towards my parents.” Rather than the usual: “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”
That’s the bridge between listening and truth-telling. You can’t share what you haven’t first heard.
It takes courage. Because we can’t control what others understand or how they react when we speak up.
And we’ve been trained to avoid truth for good reason.
You might be fired, or at least think you’ll create tensions at work. You may lose friends, family, or your marriage. Telling the truth in a loan application or job interview might cost you the opportunity.
We’ve been conditioned to avoid telling the truth to get through life. According to a 2002 study by Robert Feldman at the University of Massachusetts, 60% of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation. We have names for it (white lies, being “business-like”) but that’s cover for lying or withholding.
And if you’re reading this, chances are you’re doing it right now. In ways you don’t even notice anymore.
You’re not fine. You sit in meetings thinking “why am I here?” but you smile and nod because the salary is good and you don’t want to seem ungrateful.
Then you close the tab because nothing feels right.
But by Wednesday you’re already counting down to Friday. And there’s a voice inside that whispers “is this really it?” that you’ve learnt to mute so well it barely registers anymore.
What you actually mean is “I think I need to change everything about my career and I’m terrified of what that means for us.”
Because explaining that your well-paid, respectable job makes you feel empty would break their hearts. They sacrificed so much for you to get here. How could you possibly say it’s not enough?
Knowing full well that you don’t want to be here in two years. But you say nothing. Because what would you even say? “I don’t know what I want but it’s not this?”
And then there’s the deeper stuff. The lies by omission that sit heavier.
You know that project you got praised for? You know it wasn’t your best work. But no one noticed, so you let it slide.
You know that colleague who got passed over for the promotion? You could have spoken up. You didn’t.
You know that the reason you keep saying “yes” to things you hate is because there’s a part of you that’s terrified of being seen as a failure. And admitting that out loud feels like pulling a thread that might unravel everything.
According to a 2012 study from the University of Notre Dame, people who told fewer lies over a 10-week period reported fewer mental and physical health complaints.
Telling the truth isn’t just a moral stance. It’s a health one.
It’s one of the hardest things to do. Tell the truth in a world where everyone seems to be performing. Where Instagram lives look curated, LinkedIn profiles read like press releases, and “I’m good, how are you?” has replaced actual conversation.
When we lie or withhold the truth, we don’t just hurt others. We hurt our own connection with our essence. We make the signal even fainter.
We need to tell the truth.
In my life I’ve learnt to appreciate the value of listening to myself and telling the truth. When I stop doing either, I end up overthinking, anxious, and misaligned. A quality I refuse to tolerate.
What is identity integration? It’s the practice of seeing and integrating parts of yourself you’ve been hiding from. Carl Jung coined the term in the 1930s, noting that we all have aspects of ourselves we deny or reject. Identity integration brings these hidden parts into conscious awareness so we can integrate them-not judge them, but understand and accept them. This integration is essential to becoming whole and authentic.
These aren’t rigid scripts. They’re starting points. If you find yourself doing them in a different order, or skipping a step because another one feels more alive, good. That means you’re listening. Which is the whole point.
This exercise helps you see the parts of yourself you’ve been hiding from. The acronym SPOT guides you through: See it, Personalise it, Own it, Tell it.
Think of a recent situation where someone really irritated you. Not a mild annoyance. A proper reaction. The kind where your jaw tightened or your chest got hot.
Maybe a colleague delivered sloppy work and you thought “how can they not care about quality?” Maybe a friend kept cancelling plans and you thought “they clearly don’t respect my time.”
Write it down. Be specific. Name the person, the situation, and the quality that bothered you.
Here’s the uncomfortable part. The reason that quality triggered you so strongly
is because you carry it too.
Not identically. But somewhere in your life, you’ve done something similar. You’ve been sloppy. You’ve cancelled on someone. You’ve not cared enough.
Your job here is to find that example. And it won’t come easily, because this is exactly the stuff we bury. Sit with it. Let it surface.
Write that example down too.
Now look at both sides. The anger towards them AND the recognition that you’ve done it too. Notice how different parts of you respond.
There might be a part that’s defensive (“that’s different, I had a good reason”). A part that feels ashamed. A part that wants to move on quickly.
Let each part speak. Write down what each one says. Their goal, their belief. Don’t judge any of them.
Stay with it until something settles. Until you feel less charge and more understanding. That’s the adult arriving home to settle the argument between the five-year-olds.
Once you’ve processed it internally, address the person. Not from anger. From honesty.
“I was frustrated by the quality of your work. And the truth is I was also frustrated with myself, because I’ve let things slip before too. What I’d like is for us to agree on a standard going forward.”
You’re not dumping your shadow on them. You’re sharing what’s true. The full picture.
(Will this feel awkward the first time? Absolutely. Do it anyway.)
This exercise is about truth-telling in your own life. The places where you’ve withheld, lied, or avoided. The acronym LIST guides you: Log it, Investigate the parts, Settle internally, Take action.
Open your journal. Write down times you didn’t tell the truth. Big or small.
Did you exaggerate your experience in a job interview? Did you let someone believe something about you that isn’t true? Did you promise something and not follow through? Did you avoid a conversation you know you need to have?
Don’t filter. Don’t rank them by severity. Just list them.
(This step alone can take an entire journaling session. That’s fine. It’s meant to.)
Pick one item from your list. The one that creates the most discomfort when you read it.
Now sit with it and notice what comes up. There will be parts of you with different reactions.
Maybe a part that justifies it (“I had no choice”). A part that feels guilt. A part that’s afraid of what happens if the truth comes out.
Write each part’s perspective down. Ask each one: what is your goal? What do you believe?
Don’t try to resolve the conflict between them. Just listen. One by one.
As you listen to each part without taking sides, something shifts. A calmer quality starts to emerge. One that can hold the guilt AND the justification AND the fear at the same time.
You’ll know you’ve arrived there when you can think about the situation without your stomach tightening. When you can see what happened clearly, without needing to defend it or punish yourself for it.
That’s your essence holding the room.
This is where most people stop. Don’t.
Once you’ve settled internally, act. The action depends on the debt.
If you lied, tell the truth. If you owe someone something, pay it back. If you’ve been avoiding a conversation, have it. If you broke a promise, acknowledge it.
Not from guilt. From clarity. There’s a difference.
Guilt says “I’m bad and I need to fix this.” Clarity says “this is what happened, and this is what I want to do about it.”
One debt at a time. There’s no rush. But there needs to be movement.
A note on both exercises. These are frameworks, not formulas. Some people find that Exercise 2 naturally leads them into Exercise 1. Some skip straight to the “Tell” step because they’ve already done the internal work through journaling. Some need to sit with “Investigate the parts” for a week before anything settles. All of that is fine. The only wrong way to do this is to not do it at all.
40 minutes. No fluff. I walk you through the exact process I use with clients
to cut through the fog and hear what’s actually trying to get your attention.
Not knowing what you want to do with your life isn’t a problem you need to solve. It’s a signal.
A signal that you’ve stopped listening to yourself and knowing the truth about yourself.
Most people are afraid of learning what they should be doing next. They’re afraid of the implications. What if I have to change careers and start from scratch? What if I don’t earn enough? What if I’m not as respected as my school friends?
When you learn to accept who you are and tell the truth, clarity comes. You stop chasing someone else’s version of finding your career passion. You allow yourself to become aware of a new career direction you didn’t know existed.
You could do that right now. But you, like me at times, are so full of noise that you can’t hear the calling towards the adventure you’re meant to embark on. That’s what I call the aha moment in career change. The instant the fog lifts and you see clearly.
I don’t know any better process for making space and bringing clarity to your life and career.
When you do Practice 1 and Practice 2 over and over again (journal until you learn your own truth, listen and share the truth, make amends by taking real action) you’ll notice a difference you can’t even imagine right now.
A quality of being light.
Of being spacious.
Of being aligned.
Words that might have a completely different meaning for you today.
And at that point, you start to answer the question: what should I do with my life?
Silviu Cojocaru is a Romanian-born, UK-based career and purpose coach. He helps mid-career professionals in their 30s and 40s who are stuck in well-paying jobs that feel meaningless. His approach blends deep psychological and spiritual frameworks (Jung, Maslow, Schutz, Campbell) with practical career strategy. He’s not a guru standing on a mountaintop. He’s a sherpa, a few steps ahead on the same climb.
The process I use with clients who can’t hear themselves anymore.
If this article resonated, this workshop is the next step. In 40 minutes, I’ll walk you through:
"If I leave, I won't be able to pay the bills."
"I'm wasting my life in this place."
"My parents sacrificed everything. Leaving means I'm ungrateful."
"I'm scared AND I want more AND I love my parents. All of that is true."
I write about that quiet voice telling you when something’s off track. The career fog, the transitions, and the terrifying bit where you start telling the truth. And how to align your work with your Self. Subscribe and I’ll keep going.
I read every single one (yes, really). No wrong answers (except 'great post').
I write about that quiet voice telling you when something’s off track, plus: the career fog, the transitions, and the terrifying bit where you start telling the truth. And how to align your work with your Self.
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Massive, as I've come to expect. I am taking my next step after loving working in advocating roles for 25 years, coming to grips with PTSD. I can't wait. Your work has been crazy helpful in that process. You rock a lot. Hell Yeah.
Warm regs,
Steve Pearce