The Curious Practice of Being ‘Fine’

I’ve been thinking lately about the distance that can open up between how we appear on the outside and how we actually feel within ourselves. I’m not talking about those regular moments where we might not feel enthusiastic about the weekly grocery shop but we know we need to get it done. Most of us know something about putting on a brave face, just getting on with it, finding ways to manage feeling completely uninspired, overwhelmed or just… blah inside, while still having to show up for work, present in the meeting, pick up the kids from school and juggle the million things that keep the wheels turning at home and in our careers.

To some extent, this is simply part of being human. We can’t always stop what we’re doing because we’re tired or anxious or having a difficult day, and there are times when our capacity to keep going is genuinely useful. I’m talking about something with deeper roots. I’m interested in what happens when the distance between our internal experience and the version of ourselves we present to the world becomes less of an occasional necessity and more of a way of life.

My curiosity stems not just from working with clients, but from my own experience. For many years I was stuck in this loop, with ways of being in the world that I developed out of necessity to survive an abusive marriage, but that didn’t reflect who I really was or what really makes me happy. And while I was in that place I didn’t even realise what was happening, I just lived with the effects - anxiety, lack of confidence, seeking external validation, poor self-image - and all the coping mechanisms you can think of that stem from the misdirection. It got to a point where I just thought, this is life. And there was a snowball effect. I made choices that were rooted in these misaligned states. It was akin to being lost in a labyrinth with nothing but dead-ends.

We can become remarkably good at appearing fine. We push through exhaustion, say yes when something in us wants to say no, keep everyone else happy, overthink, override our own responses and perform competence even when we feel anything but competent inside. I don’t think these behaviours should automatically be treated as problems. Often they have served us very well. They may have helped us belong, achieve, care for other people, manage uncertainty, avoid conflict or get through periods when there simply wasn’t much room for our own needs.

The difficulty comes when we have been living this way for so long that we’re no longer quite sure what we actually feel, need or want. On top of which we might have picked up unhealthy habits to help soothe the symptoms. There can be a loss of congruence between our internal experience and the way we are moving through the world. Perhaps this is one way of thinking about integrity, not in the moral sense of being a “good” or honest person, but as a sense of wholeness, where what is happening within us has some relationship to the way we are actually living.

There is another curious thing that can happen when we have been getting through life in the same way for a long time: we become practised at it. Experts even. If I repeatedly push through exhaustion, put everyone else’s needs before my own, overthink difficult decisions or present myself as completely capable regardless of what is happening internally, these responses become increasingly familiar. Eventually I don’t have to consciously decide to do them. They are simply the paths I know how to take. And familiarity can feel remarkably like safety. Confusingly, these things mean we are doing our duties well. Self-sacrifice. We might even wear it as a badge of honour. Our exhaustion and lack of self-care becomes evidence of our worth.

This is one of the things I find most interesting about change. We can genuinely want something different and still find ourselves returning to the very patterns we say we want to leave behind. We might finally set a boundary and then spend the afternoon wondering whether we were unreasonable, or say what we really think and immediately feel the urge to soften it. We might take an afternoon off and find that instead of enjoying the rest, we feel guilty for not being productive. We can mistakenly feel that honouring what we need is wrong, when in reality it simply feels unfamiliar.

There is a mind-body dimension to all of this that gets overlooked. We often speak about the mind and body as though they are two separate parts of us that somehow need to be reconnected, or tended to separately. We can certainly distinguish between them, but they don’t operate independently. They are different dimensions of one interconnected human experience, continually influencing and responding to one another. What we can lose is our awareness of that wholeness.

When we are anxious, overwhelmed or navigating significant change, it is very easy to retreat almost entirely into thought. We analyse what has happened, anticipate what might happen next, rehearse conversations, question our decisions and try very hard to think our way towards an answer. Meanwhile, the experience is occurring throughout us. Our breathing changes, our muscles tighten, our sleep is affected, our energy shifts. We can be sitting in a meeting looking perfectly composed while our internal experience tells an entirely different story.

One of the things I have always appreciated about Vedic and yogic philosophy is that this integrated understanding of being human is built into the philosophy. Human experience is described through progressively subtler dimensions, from the physical body through breath and vital energy, the senses, mind and intellect, to our sense of individual identity and, ultimately, awareness itself. They can be distinguished from one another, but they are not understood as independent systems.

This has very practical implications. If my experience is not occurring only in my thinking mind, then thinking is not my only way of working with it. I can work through the breath. I can move my body. I can rest. I can meditate. I can become more attentive to physical sensation. And, of course, I can talk, reflect, question and make meaning of what I am experiencing. This is one of the reasons I value bringing these approaches together in my life and in how I help others, rather than assuming that every difficulty can be reasoned away.

There is a further idea within the Vedic tradition that I find particularly useful, even without going deeply into the philosophy. If I can notice that my thoughts are racing, recognise tension in my body or know that I am feeling anxious, sad or overwhelmed, then there is also an awareness of what I am experiencing. My thoughts are real and they matter, but they are not the totality of me. The same is true of my emotions, my physical sensations and even the season of life I happen to be moving through.

There can be something quite freeing in recognising, this is happening within me, but it is not the totality of me. For me, this is one of the gifts of meditation. It doesn’t require us to deny what we are experiencing or somehow rise above the messiness of being human. It simply gives us a little more room around the experience, and within that room we may begin to see that there is a choice available to us.

This brings me back to change, because I think we often imagine it as something much more insurmountable than it usually is. An impossible mountain to climb when we are already energy-depleted. If we have been living in a particular way for years, we can assume that becoming more confident, setting better boundaries, changing direction or learning to trust ourselves will require an equally dramatic internal transformation. We have already defined ourselves: that’s just how I am. In practice, meaningful change is often built through a collection of rather ordinary moments in which we do something slightly differently.

We speak when we would usually remain quiet. We hold a boundary that previously would have disappeared at the first sign of someone else’s disappointment. We notice that we are overwhelmed and choose not to push through. We make a decision based on what actually matters to us. Importantly, we notice that we did it. That noticing matters because we are beginning to gather evidence. If our old patterns became familiar through repetition, we can also practise new ways of responding. Over time there is a growing body of lived experience that says: I handled that differently. I listened to myself. I survived someone being disappointed with me. I made a decision and trusted it. I can do this.

Eventually we may look back and realise that we are no longer simply thinking about changing. Our life feels different on the inside, and the evidence is starting to show on the outside too. We need enough space to notice what is actually happening, and sometimes enough physiological steadiness to be able to explore it without becoming overwhelmed. From there we can become curious about the patterns, beliefs and experiences that have shaped us, see ourselves and our circumstances more clearly, and begin to translate that understanding into the way we actually live.

Perhaps the question, then, is not only what do I want to change? I think there is a more interesting question underneath it: Who is the person I want to be, and where can I see proof of that in my life? Because insight matters, but at some point what we are discovering internally needs to find expression in our lives. In the conversation we finally have, the bad habit we stop, the boundary we keep, the rest we allow ourselves, the decision we make or the thing we admit that we want. Over time, the distance between our internal and external worlds can begin to narrow. We are not performing a misaligned version of ourselves. We are becoming more able to live from what we know to be true within us. Our sense of living with integrity is restored.

Here is the heart of the matter: it is important to understand that we deserve, and can have, far more than a life that is a practise of just being ‘fine’. That starts with believing it is possible, and knowing that one small step at a time, change for the better is within reach.

If you’d like to work with me, please email me: jen@innervisioncounselling.com.au or book via the website.