Sometimes you are tired, stressed, exhausted and your batteries are at zero. However, no matter how hard you try, you cannot relax because your mind flies and you think continuously about what you have to do, to solve and how late you are with some tasks. You feel like you’re in a rut. It is not a war of yours, but of the parts of you that fight for supremacy: one of these is the one that does not leave you and raises you to a stake, not satisfied by anything, while the other would only want a moment of respite. And what do you think, which is the winner? This rarely happens to have a winner. Most often one sabotages the other: no matter how hard you try to relax, your energy does not regenerate and no matter how much you try to do more – you actually end up delaying, procrastinating and becoming frustrated and angry. Or on the contrary – you do so much that it never seems enough and you are perpetually dissatisfied. How could you harmonise these two parts of you that are in conflict and that generate tension?

First of all, is it important to know them better, to understand where this pressure comes from in order to do various things without stopping? What are you trying to solve or why are you trying to run away when you are in action? Freud spoke of human nature as seeking pleasure and avoiding the pain, and bearing in mind this principle, we can conclude that you have some secondary benefits from the fact that you are always concerned, that you do not wait a moment, being always restless. Maybe it keeps you away from some emotions that are painful or from a reality that you do not want to see. Or maybe by doing something, by reaching one goal after another, you manage to secure yourself temporarily, to think that you are more in control and you reduce your anxiety.

One of the most common ways to survive after painful, traumatic experiences is to always be in a movement, that gives us the impression that we are alive, that we live only if we do something. Maybe that’s why we are in a constant rush. But this rush, although it helps us survive and although it apparently gives us the impression that we are surpassing ourselves, comes with enormous costs. In the end we end up feeling exhausted, living an inner emptiness that we struggle to fill with something. This is why we need to make friends with this emptiness, before filling it with anything else, leaving aside the inner voices that make us guilty of relaxing.

Paradoxically, filling this inner void often means doing nothing, taking time to rest, to take care of our body – because often this inner void is felt most acutely in the body. We need to be consistent with our sensations, pay attention to them and feel them to the fullest. This will make us more and more attentive to what we need, starting from the simple and basic need: rest and food and continuing with the most complex ones related to belonging and connecting with others. Only if we follow this path will we know that we are on the right path that contributes to our development. Otherwise we are only in a way of survival, as a form of response to the painful and traumatic events in our lives.

And maybe that voice that doesn’t let you relax or take a break is the one you need to understand the most. To see what her needs and fears really are and what drives her to sound so strong in your mind, to be so imperative. What you need to understand is that this voice only wants to target you in some way. It is important to see where it comes from and what it is related to: maybe it is the internalization of an important relationship in your life (maybe one of your parents) or maybe it is the expression of the child or adolescent in you who went through a difficult event. By ceasing to feel anger towards her, to put aside resentments, you come to accept and understand her and to be able to give her a lower intensity. Assure it that the context is different now and that its fears are no longer justified. Maybe beyond you, this inner voice needs the most to be calm and assured.