A Little Note on Certainty

"I just wake up in the middle of the night and I can't fall back asleep for a while, sometimes for hours," she began to tell me. "I'm constantly tormented by the laundry list of sh*t to do, work to catch up on, not to mention the countless kid-related things I have to complete. I feel trapped. I feel trapped everywhere I go. Because as soon as I finish something, there's more for me to do elsewhere." She's an executive in a creative space, and typically has a no-nonsense approach when it comes to accomplishing her goals. She's also a mom, and a wife, and a yoga enthusiast. She works hard so she can play hard, but lately has been feeling worn out and tortured by constant demands from all areas, with no "payoff" in sight.

I know to an outsider, it's easy to say, "Well that's life. It doesn't stop or pause whenever you feel like it." But then, what are you doing all of this for?

I find myself dispelling this for my clients on a near daily basis. The big elephant-in-the-room questions of "Well why even bother? What is this all for? Will it ever get better? What's the point?" A few components go into this line of thinking. We're all overstimulated. We're all perfectionists (in a sense). And most of all, none of us are okay with being or feeling mediocre.

The science tends to agree with this as well. When the vagus nerve is constantly in overdrive, it wreaks havoc on your nervous system as well as hormonal balance. This constant stimulation, coupled with a lack of actual coping skills, is the perfect combo for feeling anxious, depressed, and plagued by guilty thoughts of never being enough…in perpetuity.

What's missing for them is the certainty that they are worthy of living the dream and the hope that things will eventually get better, easier, less demanding. While the outside pressure may seem endless, it's mostly the pressure we place on ourselves that takes us out of being truly happy.

So what does certainty actually look like?

Certainty looks like getting out of your head and back into your body. Without this, all of your thoughts ruminate around the things you haven't done or accomplished. Certainty is giving yourself the permission to think a little about your day right before you doze off to sleep and appreciating yourself for all of the small wins. Certainty is knowing that you are already enough and that you are the world to the people who surround you. It's a deep understanding that you are crafting the future you've always dreamed of and that even though you may mess up occasionally, you are going to be okay.

Once you practice repeating ideas like this to yourself regularly, you will notice where in your body you feel comfort. For some people, it's a release in the shoulders. For me, it's in my stomach. It feels like a lightness or a release of tension. For others, it's a release of tension between the brows.

This works because it connects you to your intuition, which will always steer you in the right direction. But practically, it takes you out of your head and back into the present. This allows you to be softer with yourself, and trickles down into your relationships, your energy levels, and your motivation.

Most importantly, it makes the answers to all of those questions clear.

Hope this helps.

X, Yana

This piece was originally published in Little Notes from Your Therapist.

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A note on privacy: this is not about one specific person. It is a composite drawn from patterns I have seen across many years and many rooms. No real client, session, or otherwise identifying markers.

This post is written for educational purposes and is not medical or mental health advice, nor a substitute for care from a licensed provider. Reading it does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you are in crisis or need urgent support, call or text 988 in the United States, or call 911.