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Why Do I Feel Unsettled When Everything Is Fine?

You wake up, get out of bed, move through your morning routine, and nothing is technically wrong.

Your life is functioning.
Your calendar is full.
You are doing what needs to be done.

And yet, somewhere beneath the surface, there is a faint sense of unease.
Not dramatic.
Not urgent.
Just there.

You might not even have words for it. Only the feeling that something does not quite land the way it used to.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. And it does not mean anything is wrong with you.

When “Fine” Stops Feeling Fine

Many people reach a point where life looks good from the outside, yet feels strangely flat or unsettled on the inside.

There is no obvious problem to solve, which can make the experience even more confusing. You may tell yourself you should be grateful. You may dismiss the feeling or stay busy so you do not have to sit with it for long.

Still, the unsettled feeling lingers.

What is often happening is not that something is wrong, but that something inside you is asking for attention.

The Inner Dynamic at Play

Most of us are taught how to manage life far better than we are taught how to inhabit it.

We learn to meet expectations, fulfill roles, and keep things moving. Over time, this creates momentum. Momentum can carry us surprisingly far without requiring us to pause and check in with ourselves.

When external demands ease, or when we slow down enough to notice, the inner world finally speaks. That unsettled feeling is often the first signal that you have been living more from habit than from presence.

It is not a failure. It is awareness beginning to come online.

Three Insights That Can Shift How You See This Feeling

First, feeling unsettled does not mean something is wrong with you.

It often means something is becoming conscious. Awareness rarely arrives as clarity. It usually arrives as discomfort first.

Second, this feeling often appears at a growth edge.

When who you have been no longer fits, but what is next has not yet taken shape, the in-between can feel uneasy. That does not mean you are lost. It means you are in transition.

Third, trying to get rid of the feeling usually intensifies it.

When discomfort is labeled as a problem, the mind quickly shifts into fixing mode. Ironically, this is what keeps us disconnected. What this feeling usually needs is not correction, but curiosity.

A Story From Real Life

I have sat with many people who begin by saying some version of, “I do not know why I am here. Nothing is really wrong.”

And yet, as they speak, something softens when they finally allow themselves to name what they have been feeling. Relief does not come from solving anything. It comes from being met with understanding.

I have experienced this myself. There have been seasons when everything in my life looked stable and settled, yet I felt quietly off balance. Looking back, those moments marked important turning points. Not because I forced change, but because I stopped dismissing what I felt.

A Simple Next Step

If you recognize yourself in this, here is a simple practice to try over the coming week.

When that unsettled feeling shows up, pause.
Name it silently.
Instead of asking, “How do I make this go away?” ask, “What might this be inviting me to notice?”

No answers are required. Just attention.

Often, that alone begins to shift how we experience our lives.

A Closing Thought

You do not need to fix yourself to feel more at home in your life. What is often missing is attention, not improvement.

If this reflection resonated, you may enjoy exploring other posts in the Consciousness / Thriving section of my blog. And if you would like a deeper exploration of how inner awareness shapes our experience, you can also download my free guide, The Real Secret to True Happiness Lies Within.

Take what resonates. Leave the rest.
Judith

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Leaving the Past Behind

Are you keeping your past alive in the present? Or have you harvested its lessons and learned from it? We all have scars from our past. But what do we do with them now? That’s a really important question.

In mentoring clients, I typically find that their current distress mirrors unresolved upsets from the past. For example, Ellen who was never able to feel loved by her father. She has now been repeatedly drawing men into her with whom she also failed to experience love. Why did this happen? Think of it as a karmic pattern that is seeking healing.

Your life will continue to replicate an unresolved situation until you are able to neutralize the state of consciousness from which you relate to it.

Ellen was caught in a pattern in which she had convinced herself that she was fundamentally unlovable. As I observed her, I noticed that she was turned off by men who liked her. Instead, she was attracted to those who gave her no encouragement and treated her badly.

Could it be that she was simply staying in her comfort zone? This is counter-intuitive but typical. She knew herself as a woman who was rejected by the men whose affection she wanted. That became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

She didn’t know how to be a woman loved by men. Through her eyes as a child, she recognized that her father didn’t show her love. But she had falsely concluded that the reason was because she was unlovable. As a child, she could not see that he had difficulty expressing his caring for others. She carried that unchallenged belief forward into adulthood until we were able to expose it and release it together.

She came to see that the faulty conclusion of her past was inhibiting her from experiencing love in the present. It was wonderful to watch her realize that she had the power to change how she saw herself. She began taking pride in herself and replacing her old, self-rejecting belief with appreciation for her own goodness. As a result the affection of good men became desirable to her.

She stepped out of the belief that she was unlovable. She left the past behind. I asked her what life lesson this had taught her. She told me she learned to pay attention to her own beliefs about herself when in situations that were difficult for her to see if she was sabotaging herself.

I had a similar situation during a recent weight loss journey. I reached a plateau and couldn’t get the scale to move despite following all the rules. In observing myself, I realized the issue was emotional. In listening to my self-talk, I kept hearing, “I don’t know her.” When I explored this, I recognized that I was afraid to go past that particular number on the scale. In my mind it represented a level of success with which I was not comfortable. I knew how to be almost successful, but I didn’t know how to go for and get the brass ring of success. It took several months before I was able to break through this barrier. Now I am learning new life skills and a level of self-trust that was not apparent and therefore not available to me before.

When we become too familiar with failure, we have to push through our own resistance to the unfamiliar territory of success.

Leaving the past behind often requires that we recognize the ways we sabotage ourselves out of fear of moving into the unknown. Being good at failing and being disappointed doesn’t mean you can’t also be really good at success and exceeding your dreams. It simply requires a new point of view.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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Practicing Soul Awareness

What does it mean to be a soul? Conceptually, in its most general definition, being a soul has to do with living in part as a non-physical being. In other words, part of our “self” is beyond time and space and, according to some religious traditions, is divine in nature.

On a practical level, what does it mean to exist in a body with a personality, mind, and emotions and yet to exist beyond all that on a dimension that cannot be adequately captured in language? How can I be something I cannot even talk about? 

I find myself most aware of being a soul or spiritual being when I experience a sense of oneness with another person, my cat, a tree, a flower, or a butterfly. In other words, for a fleeting or lingering moment I merge with the other, and all the definitive ways in which we are different are of no consequence. They disappear from my awareness while I experience a sweet oneness with the other. Sometimes I practice this walking down the street and intentionally make eye contact with another and smiling, invite them in. Some come, some do not. Yet, we all have that capacity. 

I have discovered that practicing soul awareness is a great way to break free of my judgments of myself and others. When someone really gets on my last nerve, for example, I could go on and on, telling myself all the things I don’t like about that person and how wrong they are for behaving as they do. I have that choice, but I have come to realize that only makes me increasingly unhappy. I have another choice. I can lift into the oneness that joins me together with this person and feed that awareness instead of building up my unhappiness. I may find myself continuously allergic to this person’s personality. However, every time I am bothered by that dimension of their expression, I have the option of shifting dimensions and focusing instead into that non-physical dimension where we are all one. The mere act of shifting my focus reminds me that I have a choice and that either choice has consequences. If I can be conscious enough to see this option I can save myself a lot of heartache. I can also be part of the solution of greater kindness I choose to participate in rather than allowing myself to fall back into creating more negative vibes. 

Each choice each of us makes like this is like casting a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. So, what we are doing within our own inner awareness really does have an impact on our collective consciousness. Each of us in our own inner worlds is contributing to the quality of consciousness we share. Imagine the upside potential of each of us choosing to strengthen our soul awareness instead of judging and rejecting each other. Are you willing to practice soul awareness by being a mental and emotional ecologist? 

For further insight into mastering the art of being you, read more here.  If you’re feeling social, I also provide daily wisdom and tidbits on my Instagram account. Give me a follow so we can thrive together!

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The Trouble with Assumptions and Expectations

Assumptions and expectations carry the same fatal flaw – they create a preconceived notion about the future that we relate to as if it should become reality.

When life unfolds and doesn’t match our assumption or expectation we can be caught off-guard and unprepared for what has happened. Here is a simple demonstration I use to help clients reconcile their disappointments caused by holding preconceived notions.

On a blank sheet of paper, put a dot in the bottom left corner representing reality. Then a dot in the top right corner denotes your preconceived expectations and assumptions. When reality doesn’t turn out as you expect or want it to, you connect these dots with negative emotional reactions in an effort to resolve the tension.

The insidious part of this is that it is usually happening without our awareness. We end up blaming and judging others for not measuring up to our imagined reality.

By setting up preconceived notions about how we want our experiences to be, we plant the seeds of our own unhappiness. 

Consider the following scenario: Jane and Nash are on their third date. He picked her up in his car, and they had a nice time together at dinner. They went to a comedy club, and then to a bar for drinks. He invited her to come home with him away from the city where she lives. She was caught off-guard, and wasn’t on the same page in terms of where they are in the relationship. She paniced, and said no. He was annoyed and sarcastically suggested she pay for their drinks. He cut the evening short, and sent her home in an Uber.

Nash had an agenda. He assumed that they would have sex on their third date and expected her to say yes. When she didn’t, he was mad and acted that out by having her pay for the drinks and go home in a cab. His preconceived reality did not have room in it for her to behave any differently than he wanted her to.

How might this have looked if he wasn’t operating out of expectations and assumptions? Here are two possibilities. Had Nash been more tuned in to Jane’s reality he might have realized she wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the next level. Instead of inviting her home, he could have affirmed his affection for her and asked her how she was feeling about their relationship. Or, he might have gone ahead with his invitation but been open-minded about her response. In either of these two alternate scenarios, Nash would have been staying present in the moment and emotionally open and free in relationship to Jane’s experience. His focus would be more on wanting to know her better than demanding that she want what he wants when he wants it.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself:

  • Where do expectations and assumptions get in my way? 
  • Do I, or someone I know, behave in a way that is “my way or the highway”? 
  • Do I have any personal or professional relationships that repeatedly get snagged in misunderstandings, judgements, or a lack of cooperation? Do I see patterns of assumptions and expectations on either side that are preventing a healthy flow in the relationship?
  • In what ways do I demand that reality be the way I want it to be rather than the way it is?
  • What can I do to be more trusting of my ability to adapt to the realities of my life?

 

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 
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