What If “Fixing” Yourself Is Keeping You Broken?
The quiet crisis that birthed a 3-million-copy journal and the shadow truth changing how I see myself.
I was staring at my blank journal the other morning, coffee cooling, holiday lights still twinkling, when it hit me: I’ve spent years “fixing” myself, chasing the next habit, the next goal, the next version that would finally feel whole.
But what if the pieces aren’t missing? What if they’ve just been tucked away in the shadows, waiting for me to stop running and start seeing?
That’s the quiet revelation that changed everything for Keila Shaheen.
In her early 20s, lost in post-college fog amid COVID, she turned to journaling to honestly meet the confusion, pain, and buried questions about who she really was.
Those private pages introduced her to shadow work: the gentle, brave practice of bringing light to the parts we repress: the talents we quieted, the emotions we deemed “too much,” the authenticity we hid to fit in.
What started as her personal lifeline became The Shadow Work Journal: a guided workbook she self-published, shared vulnerably on social media, and watched explode into over 3 million copies sold.
No big marketing machine. Just raw truth resonating with millions craving the same wholeness.
In our Passion Struck conversation, Keila’s voice, calm, wise beyond her years, cut straight through the noise. She reminded me (and now you) that real becoming isn’t about adding more layers or fixing what’s “wrong.”
It’s about reclaiming what’s already yours.
As Keila said:
"Shadow work isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about finally seeing yourself fully. That’s where the real healing starts."
That hit me harder than I expected.
A few months ago, I was in the middle of a hectic travel stretch—back-to-back interviews, writing deadlines, the constant treadmill of content and conversations. I got back to my hotel one night, completely wired and exhausted, and I reached for my journal. I hadn’t opened it in weeks.
I wrote: “Why am I doing all this?”
And immediately, the voice came up: “Because if you stop, people will forget you.”
That was my shadow speaking. The one driven by fear of invisibility. The same fear Keila and I talked about—the fear that if you’re not constantly proving, performing, producing... then maybe you don’t matter.
Shadow work asks you to sit with that voice, not to silence it, but to listen to it, understand it, and integrate it. That moment with my journal didn’t fix everything, but it cracked open a window I didn’t even know was locked.
Since then, I’ve been working with those shadows. Some are loud. Some are sneaky. But all of them, I now see, have something to teach me…
That’s why Keila’s work is so important. In a world obsessed with “leveling up” and hacking your life, she reminds us that the real growth happens in the dark corners of ourselves, the places we’ve been told to ignore.
Don’t Run From the Glimmers
There’s something else Keila said that has stuck with me: the idea of glimmers.
We talk a lot about triggers. What activates us, what sends us spiraling. But how often do we talk about what soothes us?
Keila defines glimmers as those tiny, fleeting moments that calm the nervous system and bring us back to center. The smell of rain. A warm mug between your hands. A glance from someone who sees you. A favorite song that finds you just in time.
I had one of those glimmers the other day. I was walking through my neighborhood early in the morning, and for once, I wasn’t on a call or drafting an email in my head. I looked up and saw the light coming through the trees—gold, soft, steady. And for a second, I was just... there. Present. Breathing.
It reminded me that healing doesn’t always look like a breakthrough. Sometimes, it appears to be a pause.
In Keila’s new app, ZenfulNote, there’s a space to track those glimmers—to start paying attention to the good moments that so often slip by unnoticed. And that might be the most radical act of all in today’s attention economy: to notice. To reclaim your awareness. To give yourself back to you.
Keila has generously offered a free month code/link to our listeners for Apple and Android users; enter SOULCREATORFREEMONTH at checkout for one free month.
If you’re ready to reconnect with the parts of yourself you’ve buried, masked, or forgotten, this episode and its companion tools are for you.
Listen to the full conversation below!
I very much like the idea of glimmers, John.
I’ve been reading and practicing some of the concepts from non-duality and the direct path, and they suggest that we keep looking for what needs change or fixing in the wrong place.
So I wondered what that means — and came to the conclusion that we keep insisting on changing our personality: shadow work, personal development, healing, becoming, and so on.
If our personality is "the wrong place", then what’s the right one?
When we experience unity, we realize that even our personality is a story — an interpretation of reality seen from a limited perspective. Unfortunately, we identify with that story and can’t see that reality is different from the description of it.
If we ever experience that glimmer of unity, we realize there’s nothing that truly needs fixing.