Facing Fear, Finding Freedom
I want to start with a movie.
On the plane home from London — two incredible dinners, one Michelin star open fire restaurant, one incredibly dope Japanese spot — my husband put on The Substance. I reluctantly watched it. And I couldn't stop thinking about it for days.
If you haven't seen it — it's a psychological thriller, part satire, part gore, very David Lynch. Demi Moore is extraordinary in it. And at its core it's about one thing: what happens when you chase external validation at the expense of who you actually are.
That's what we're talking about today.
The Engine Analogy
Think of your body as an engine. A Porsche. Something brilliant and powerful and built to perform.
That engine needs consistent maintenance. Not just the obvious stuff — the inspection, the registration, the oil changes. But also the wash. The garage. The care that keeps it worth something over time.
Here's the thing about engines though: they can run gimpy for a long time before they break down. You can be operating at 60% and not even know it. The limp isn't always visible — until suddenly the whole thing stops.
Physical and mental health are the inspection and the registration. Emotional and spiritual health are how you garage it. How you protect it. How you make sure it's actually worth something in the long run.
You have to tend to all of it. Consistently. That's the work.
The Adderall Story — And What It Really Cost Me
I need to get personal here because I think it matters.
When I first moved to the city I joined Equinox in Murray Hill. Huge studio. Floor to ceiling windows overlooking the park. Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry playing during stretching. And I had this vision — I needed to be super skinny. Ferraris. Model thin. That was the only version of cool I could imagine for myself at the time.
So I got prescribed Adderall. 30 milligrams extended release. It worked — in the most destructive way possible.
Because every single time I took that pill I felt a piece of my soul die. Not dramatically. Quietly. Like a slow leak. I knew it was eating at me. I kept taking it anyway because the external result felt like the point.
That was the beginning of driving myself into the ground until I got sick. Until my life changed in ways I couldn't have predicted.
The Substance is literally about this. That desperate reach for external validation in spite of where you actually are inside. And it never works. It can't work. Because you cannot override your own foundation. You have to build it.
What Emotional Maturity Actually Looks Like
Emotional maturity isn't about having it all figured out. It's about being willing to look.
It's sitting down to journal and hitting a wall — I have nothing to say. I'm so boring. I have no independent thoughts — and staying there anyway. Because that wall is exactly where the real stuff starts to show up.
It's voice memoing in your car when you can't write. Just talking. Rambling. Until you get to the thing that actually makes you cry. That's where it is. Not in the polished version. In the ramble.
It's understanding that emotional health requires you to experience the full spectrum — joy and grief, passion and numbness, inspiration and the total absence of it. You have to be okay with the ride. All of it.
And when you're in a season where everything feels heavy — medication might be part of the answer. I'm not here to tell you otherwise. But medication is a bridge. It's meant to get you stable enough to do the deeper work. Not to replace the deeper work.
The deeper work is still yours to do.
External Validation Is a Dead End
Here's the emotional energetics truth that I keep coming back to:
We have an emotional need that makes us feel separate. And that separateness creates a hunger for acceptance. Approval. Appreciation. We start seeking it outside ourselves — in the mirror, in other people's opinions, in status and achievement and all the things.
And it never fills the hole. Because the only validation that actually lands is the kind that comes from your original self. From who you actually are underneath everything you've built on top of it.
That's the part we have to get back to.
Where is the part of you that you refuse to love? Where is the part you hide — from others, from yourself? Where does it show up physically — as tension, as pain, as a pattern that keeps repeating?
That's where you start. Not with shadow work as a concept. With honest, uncomfortable, nobody-sees-it looking.
What You're Willing to See
I've been to the darkest levels of my own psyche. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. And I want to say this clearly: you are not alone if you've been there too. It's real. It exists. And it manifests — physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even in your dreams. You cannot compartmentalize it forever.
But here's what I also know: the darker it gets internally — the more necessary the foundational work becomes. Not optional. Necessary.
Physical health. Mental resilience. Emotional honesty. Spiritual connection. These aren't luxuries. They are the infrastructure that keeps you from going somewhere you don't want to go.
I'm not here to instill fear. I'm here to be honest: take care of yourself at the fundamental level. Comb through your stuff consistently. Tend to the engine before it breaks down.
Because it can always get harder if you don't.
The Work
Start a voice memo journal. Just talk. Don't edit. Keep going until you get to the real thing.
Ask yourself: where am I seeking external validation right now? What need is underneath that?
Identify one part of yourself you've been refusing to look at. Just look. You don't have to fix it today.
Check in on your engine: which pillar needs the most maintenance right now — physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual?
If you're using anything to override how you feel — a substance, a behavior, a pattern — get honest about what it's actually costing you.
Freedom doesn't come from achieving the external thing.
It comes from finally being okay with who you are without it.
That's the work. That's always been the work.
Lindsay Trimarchi Richter is a life coach, speaker, and host of the How to Heal Podcast. She works with high-achieving women ready to stop performing and start living. Find her on Instagram @howtoheal