For most of my life, I thought adulthood just happened.

You hit a certain age, check off the boxes—move out, get a job, maybe fall in love—and that’s it. You’re grown. Right?

But that’s not how it was for me.

I don’t think I fully decided I was an adult until I turned 29.

And honestly? I didn’t actually step into that role—mentally, emotionally, energetically—until 33.

What Adulthood

Really

Means

In our society, people often “grow up” on paper. They buy houses, get married, and have kids.

But those external milestones don’t always reflect emotional maturity.

True adulthood is when you evolve into someone who can support, protect, and nurture—not just others, but yourself.

You become the one who holds the container.

You show up even when it’s uncomfortable.

You build the structure that holds your life, and other people’s lives too.

The clearest sign you’ve crossed that threshold?

You realize no one is coming to save you.

Why That Truth Matters

That realization is a portal.

And most of us avoid it—because so much of our upbringing told us otherwise.

From religion to media to fairytales, we’ve been fed a steady message:

Someone else will fix it. Someone else will save you.

• In religion, it might be God, Jesus, or a higher power stepping in.
• In childhood movies, especially for women, it was always Prince Charming.

I still love Disney movies.

But let’s be honest—they trained us to believe in a savior.

The Little Mermaid gives up her voice. Sleeping Beauty lies in a coma. Cinderella is trapped until rescued. And the answer is always the same: a man arrives and saves her.

This programming runs deep, especially for women.

But real adulthood is realizing:

There is no prince.

There is no divine intervention coming to scoop you out of the pain.

There is no perfect parent returning to make things right.

You’re the one.

You’re Not Here to Be Saved—You’re Here to Lead

This matters deeply if you’re a woman.

We carry the role of nurturer, teacher, healer, and future ancestor.

We grow and guide the next generation.

We are not here to be saved.

We are here to lead.

And leadership requires inner strength—emotional, physical, and energetic.

Not just for us, but for those we love and raise and hold.

When Psychology Keeps Us Stuck

I’ve also noticed how a lot of modern psychology encourages us to live in the past.

We’re taught to dig and analyze and re-analyze our wounds.

If someone dropped us as a baby, or our parents divorced when we were 16, we’re told to make that our starting point for healing.

And yes, reflection has value.

We need to understand our inner child. To validate her pain. To witness her fully.

But at some point, we have to move forward.

There’s a Taoist teaching:

“What you relive in your mind, you continue to create.”

If you stay trapped in a narrative of trauma, even with the best intentions, you can unconsciously start feeding it, over and over again.

Your Thoughts Shape Your Body

This isn’t just spiritual—it’s scientific.

In epigenetics, we now know that thoughts influence emotions, and emotions influence the physical state of your body.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, each emotion is linked to an organ system.

Grief sits in the lungs.

Anger lives in the liver.

Fear impacts the kidneys.

If your mind is looping on being a victim, your body starts to store that message.

And if your thoughts are still saying, “someone else has to fix this,”

Then your nervous system never learns that you can be the one to bring calm.

You’re giving away your power—again and again.

The Inner Parent and Inner Child

That’s why the work is not just “become an adult and forget the child.”

It’s about building a healthy relationship between your child self and your parent self.

Your child self—the one who was scared, unseen, hurt—is still inside you.

But now?

You’re the parent.

You get to be the one who creates structure, safety, and stability.

You get to hold space for joy and grief, tantrums and creativity.

You get to offer the support they always wanted—and never received.

How I Do It in Real Life

I talk to myself like a parent would.

I let both voices—the child and the adult—have space.

The child says:

“I don’t want to do anything today. I feel sad and overwhelmed.”

The adult says:

“I know. You can rest. And then we’re going to make a nourishing meal and take a walk.”

They’re both real.

And neither one runs the show alone.

If I let only my child self lead, I stay in emotional loops. I don’t get anything done.

If I let only my adult self take over, I become rigid, robotic, and disconnected from joy.

But when they’re in dialogue?

That’s when I’m in balance.

The Child Self Fuels My Creativity

My child self is the part of me that:

• Writes these words
• Dances barefoot by the river
• Skydives
• Learns new languages
• Paints, cries, dreams, loves wildly

She’s the one who takes risks.

She’s the one who lives in awe.

And she needs to be protected—but also structured.

Why the Adult Self Matters Just as Much

When my adult self doesn’t show up—when I don’t hold discipline, consistency, nourishment—the child inside me can’t thrive.

Because children need structure.

They need routines. They need support. They need someone to tell them it’s time to go to bed, or say no to alcohol, or stick to those three workouts a week.

Without that structure, the child stays in chaos.

That’s why stepping into the role of the parent is so essential for healing.

The Peter Pan Syndrome in Tech Culture

There’s even a phenomenon around this, often called Peter Pan Syndrome.

I saw it firsthand in San Francisco tech culture.

You’d walk into campuses like Facebook and feel like you were in a playground for adults: unlimited snacks, laundry service, ice cream machines, nap pods, ping pong, beer on tap.

It catered beautifully to the inner child. And I loved it too.

But part of me wondered…

What happens when we never build the adult muscles?

What happens when our environments give us comfort, but never responsibility?

Comfort doesn’t grow you.

Structure does.

The Moment I Realized I Had to Save Myself

After a 22-day medicine hike through Ausangate in Peru, where I’d done plant work, eaten very little, and been deeply connected to the elements, I came home feeling clear.

And then I got the call.

My partner—the one I lived with—told me he wanted to see other people.

Everything dropped.

The child in me was devastated.

And I noticed something: I started looking for someone to come save me.

I thought maybe my grandparents, my friends, someone would rescue me from the pain.

The last time this happened, I’d gone from one relationship to another.

I even realized my current partner had kind of “saved” me from the previous one.

But this time, it was different.

The Inner Warrior Emerged

I was alone in a hotel room, crying, overwhelmed.

It almost felt like a panic attack. My nervous system was spiraling.

And then something shifted.

Something inside me rose up—like a warrior.

I heard this clear voice say:

“Okay, love. I’m going to let you cry. That’s what kids do.

But I’m not going to let you stay lost in this.

I’m here. I’ve got you. We’re going to pack. We’re going to move.

We’re going to rebuild.”

I sat up.

Took deep breaths.

And within ten minutes, I calmed down.

The pain didn’t disappear. It took almost a year to fully process everything.

But something essential changed in that moment.

I didn’t abandon myself.

The Final Realization

Healing doesn’t mean you never cry.

It means you don’t leave yourself while you’re crying.

You give your inner child space to express, to feel, rest, paint, and talk to a friend.

And you let your inner parent hold it all with strength.

Maybe that voice was my higher self.

Maybe it was ancestral.

Maybe it was something spiritual.

But more than anything, it was me.

This Is What It Means to Be Grown

Being an adult doesn’t mean cutting off your inner child.

It means becoming the one who finally knows how to care for them.

You can’t expect someone else to come do it for you.

You can’t expect your partner to carry it.

You can’t expect God or the universe to take away what you’re unwilling to face.

You are the one.

And the sooner you realize that,

the sooner your healing begins.

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