Becoming your true self is something most of us are never taught. We learn early in life how to perform, how to achieve, how to please, how to earn our worth by proving something. What almost no one teaches us is how to let go. How to slow down. How to become who we actually are rather than who we were shaped to be.
That is why Jane Marie Chen’s memoir Like a Wave We Break feels so urgent and so deeply human. It is not the story many expected from the woman who co-founded Embrace, the low-cost infant warmer that has saved more than one million premature babies around the world. It is something quieter, more vulnerable, and far more universal. It is the story of a woman who built a life around achieving and saving others, only to discover that the person she most needed to save was herself.
It is a book about letting go. It is a book about becoming your true self.
And it is a book that reveals one of the most overlooked truths in modern life. You cannot heal by holding everything together. You heal by finally allowing the wave to break.
The Moment Everything Breaks
Like a Wave We Break opens with Jane surfing in Hawaii. A massive wave rises behind her. She tries to outrun it, then realizes she will not win. The wave swallows her whole. She is tossed, held under, and spit out onto the sand.
This moment becomes the metaphor for her entire life.
For decades, Jane used achievement as armor. A childhood shaped by trauma taught her that love was conditional and perfection was protection. Her father drilled math problems into her as a child. Approval was something earned. Mistakes were punished. In that environment, becoming exceptional felt like the only way to stay safe.
Many high achievers will recognize themselves in her story. You learn to run fast, take on more, push yourself harder, and control every detail. But waves are not controllable. And neither are the parts of us we have spent years avoiding.
Jane had built an extraordinary career. She had won global awards, received praise from President Obama, and traveled the world to save infants who would never know her name. But the wave was building underneath everything she tried to hold together. Burnout. Exhaustion. Identity collapse. There was a quiet sense that something inside her did not belong to her at all.
The wave finally broke. And that is where her real story begins.
Letting Go Is Not Weakness. It Is Wisdom.
One of the core themes of Like a Wave We Break is that letting go does not mean giving up. It means stopping the endless performance. It means examining what you are holding that was never yours. It means reclaiming the parts of you that success cannot reach.
For Jane, letting go meant slowing down long enough to feel. It meant peeling back the emotional armor she had spent a lifetime building. It meant asking who she was when she was not saving anyone or achieving anything.
Her healing journey took her through meditation, Internal Family Systems, therapy, spiritual exploration, and even psychedelic-assisted healing. Each step helped her meet the younger versions of herself she had ignored for years. Each step helped her come home.
Letting go became the way she rebuilt her life.
And in the process, she discovered one of the most powerful insights in the entire book. We are not the wave. We are the ocean beneath it.
We are not the chaos, the fear, the burnout, the expectations, or the pressure. We are the awareness underneath all of it. And when we learn to see ourselves as the ocean, we stop being afraid of the waves that rise and fall.
Becoming Your True Self Is the Real Work
The culture rewards achievement. It celebrates results. It rarely asks whether you belong to yourself in the process.
Jane Chen’s story is a reminder that your true self is not something you manufacture. It is something you remember. It is the person you were before you learned to perform. Before you learned to be perfect. Before you equated worth with usefulness.
Becoming your true self is not a forward journey. It is a return.
It is the courage to see the parts of you you abandoned. It is the honesty to walk away from identities that no longer fit. It is the willingness to let the wave break so you can finally breathe.
Your Wave Will Break Too
And when it does, you have a choice. You can fight it. Or you can let it carry you back to yourself.
Like a Wave We Break is more than Jane Chen’s memoir. It is a guide for anyone who has ever lost themselves in achievement, obligation, or expectation. It is a map for every person who has felt the quiet ache of living a life that looks admirable from the outside but feels empty on the inside.
Letting go is how you start. Becoming your true self is what comes next.
And once the wave breaks, you do not go back to who you were. You go back to who you always were.
Why This Episode Matters Right Now
Because for the first time in human history, we are collectively confronting the emotional cost of always being “on.” We are waking up to a deeper truth: people don’t just want to succeed, they want to feel whole. They want to feel like themselves again.
This conversation with Jane Marie Chen arrives at a moment when identity, mental health, and belonging are under unprecedented pressure. As many quietly battle burnout, childhood wounds, and the weight of constant comparison, Jane offers something rare: a model for healing that is honest, grounded, and deeply human.
Her journey in Like a Wave We Break reminds us that becoming your true self is not a straight line. It is a process of unlearning, releasing, and returning. It is the courage to face the parts of your story you’ve avoided and the willingness to let old identities dissolve so a more authentic life can emerge.
This episode matters now because it points to something we all feel but rarely name:
We cannot keep living split between who we are and who the world expects us to be.
Jane’s story gives us permission to reunite those parts. To slow down. To breathe. To let the wave break so something truer can rise in its place.
A Special Invitation: Pre-Order You Matter, Luma
If you’ve connected with this conversation and with Jane Marie Chen’s journey in Like a Wave We Break, then you already understand the heart of Passion Struck: helping people rediscover their worth, their wholeness, and their true selves.
That same mission lives at the center of my upcoming children’s book, You Matter, Luma.
It is a story designed to give children what so many of us didn’t receive early enough: the language of self-worth, the safety of belonging, and the courage to be exactly who they are.
Luma the bunny and her friend Zin guide kids through fear, doubt, friendship, and the universal longing to feel seen. Though written for children, the message echoes the same truth Jane reminds us of in her own journey:
We cannot wait until adulthood to learn that our lives matter.
When we teach children worthiness early, we give them what so many adults spend years trying to reclaim.
We give them themselves.
You can now pre-order You Matter, Luma, and help put this message into the hands and hearts of families, classrooms, and young readers who need it most.
Together, we can raise a generation that doesn’t have to break before they believe they are enough.
Meet Our Guest – Jane Marie Chen
Jane Marie Chen is a globally recognized entrepreneur, inventor, speaker, and the bestselling author of Like a Wave We Break. She is the co-founder and former CEO of Embrace Global, the organization behind a groundbreaking infant incubator that has helped to save over one million babies worldwide. Her work has earned international acclaim, including honors from The Economist Innovation Awards, Forbes Impact 30, Echoing Green, and the World Economic Forum, where she was named a Young Global Leader and Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
A graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jane is known for transforming complex human experiences into powerful, actionable leadership insights. Her work blends storytelling, behavioral science, and deep emotional intelligence to help people reconnect with their most authentic selves.
Today, Jane is a sought-after keynote speaker and leadership coach, guiding individuals and organizations to lead with awareness, alignment, and compassion. Her memoir, Like a Wave We Break, chronicles her journey through burnout, trauma healing, and inner transformation. Jane’s mission is to ensure that we live in a world where every person feels safe, worthy, and whole.
Learn More and Connect
👉Links to Jane’s Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Articles, and book can be found here.
👉 All episode links, my books You Matter, Luma, and Passion Struck, The Ignited Life newsletter, and the Start Mattering store are here: linktr.ee/John_R_Miles