A lot of high functioning ppl struggle healing bc they end up just sedating themselves. They stay moving & focused on goals so they don’t have to feel. The nervous system learns this pattern. In neuroscience this is called maladaptive regulation. 

You’re not regulating your emotions. You’re outrunning it. The body can’t forget what the mind avoids. So you become functional but emotionally unavailable, successful but internally hollow. Disciplined but deeply disconnected. 

This is why so many ppl struggle to understand the emotions of others, they’ve never even been honest with their own inner world.   Self honesty is the first vulnerability & for many ppl it’s always been unsafe. 

You’ll notice it in the subtleties: they don’t compliment easily, they don’t initiate emotionally, they keep everyone at arms length. They expect you to bend, soften, accommodate… while they stay rigid and protected.

They call it independence but it’s often emotional avoidance wearing a crown. Inside there’s an ongoing war. One part of them wants connection, intimacy, softness, love. Another part is terrified that slowing down will open a door they have spent a lifetime barricading. 

 So the inner wounds keep knocking & if they are not answered, they leak into work, relationships, ambition and into detachment.   Eventually into avoidance of everyone & everything. This is where the void forms, an unfelt life. 

 A sense that something is missing but the can’t really name it. So people try to fill it with more goals, more money, more validation & more external distractions.   The issue is that the void isn’t asking to be filled, it’s asking to be felt. 

 Healing is about sitting still without abandoning yourself. Let the discomfort speak without immediately silencing it. It’s about telling the truth internally before you can ever tell it to another person. This is why honest feels faster than effort.

When you confront yourself head on & allow grief to exist without trying to fix it, the nervous system recalibrates. The body releases stored emotions & the attachment systems soften.   Suddenly intimacy doesn’t feel like danger. 

Compliments won’t feel so exposing and initiating won’t feel like a loss of power. You stop letting others carry the emotions weight you refuse to touch. You see the life you are running towards can only meet you once you stop running from yourself. 

When you choose presence over distraction, that void begins to close on its own.

 Conversation Your Emotional Healing Coach @AfsaRosette