Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / The Cost of "I'm Fine": Healing the Disconnect
Transcript
- Voiceover: [00:00:00] Rise Up Live Joy Your Way from emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness. Coach Kamini Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit. Through these small bites of self visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live, Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. Joy your way. Kamini Wood: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for taking some time to spend here with me. And today I wanna start with a sentence that many of us have said so often it feels automatic, it just rolls off our tongue. And that sentence is. I'm fine. It does roll off our tongue. Why? Because it doesn't make anyone worry. It keeps, you know the conversation going. It keeps the day moving. And so when somebody says, how are [00:01:00] you? We quickly say, I am fine. But beneath those two words, many of us are caring complex stories. We're carrying stress, grief, anxiety, emotional fatigue, overwhelm, uncertainty, or decisions that have actually stretched us really thin. And over the last few years, and especially in the work that I do with high achievers and teens and parents and professionals, I've noticed something. People are pretending to be okay at a level that's costing them their peace, their energy, and their connection to themselves and the people in their lives pretending has become this cultural norm. High performers pretend parents, pretend teens, pretend leaders, pretend. Survivors pretend, and the problem isn't that we pretend occasionally. The problem is that we are pretending daily. We're pretending moment by moment. Reflexively and silently. So today I really wanna explore the emotional, psychological, and physiological cost of pretending you're okay when you're not. I wanna take a look at why pretending [00:02:00] developed as a survival strategy, the toll it takes on our mind, our body, how it disconnects us from ourself and others. And most importantly, how to begin to shift out of that pattern and into a safe, compassionate way to to be with ourselves. So if you've been caring more than you let people see this conversation might be for you today. Now pretending to to be okay. I wanna be very clear. I'm not saying it's a character flaw, I'll own it. I absolutely do the same thing. I'll say I am fine. It's not a sign of weakness, it's not a lack of self-awareness. It's a learned strategy. It's a learned survival strategy. Most people didn't wake up one day and decide to hide their feelings. Pretending was shaped by our environment's, expectations and emotional conditioning for some pretending began in childhood. Maybe emotions weren't welcomed or maybe they were. Called dramatic. Maybe the adults around you didn't know how to regulate themselves, so there was no space for your emotional needs. Maybe you grew up in a home where stability was fragile and you learned that your sadness or your fear might tip [00:03:00] things over or stir the pot, so you learned to swallow it. You smiled, you performed, you said everything was fine for others pretending developed in adolescence. You know that period of time when. We're trying so hard to fit in where being different feels so scary and dangerous. Where being vulnerable is just risky, and where social belonging depends on appearing unbothered and confident and always emotionally steady. Well, and then there's of course, there's adulthood. Workplaces reward, composure, relationships, reward, predictability, parenting demands, presence, no matter what you're actually going through as the parent. And society still struggles with emotional literacy. So. I'm fine becomes the shield. It becomes the buffer. A way to avoid being misunderstood or judged. A way to keep the peace a way not to rock the boat. A way to stay functional when you don't feel functional and pretending begins as protection, but patterns that protect you in one time of your life can actually become [00:04:00] cages of a sort in another time of your life. When you pretend to be okay, there's this split a separation between your outer presentation and what's happening inside of you. Psychologists call this emotional incongruence. It means that the self you show the world is not in alignment. It doesn't match the self that you're feeling internally. And when that gap. Happens that gap creates self-doubt. It creates internal conflict. There's emotional suppression. Resentment can start to build difficulty trusting or even naming your own needs, difficulty asking for support, and also a sense of being unseen or not accepted. So the more you disconnect from your internal world, it actually becomes harder for you to recognize what you truly feel. And pretending often leads to an internal voice that says. You know what? I'm being overly sensitive, or maybe my feelings don't matter, or I should be able to handle this. Some people will even catch themselves thinking, other people have it worse. [00:05:00] I know I've often thought to myself, no one really wants to hear this, or even I don't have time to fall apart. And over time, the body absorbs this message. It starts to reinterpret your emotional signals as inconvenient, unnecessary, or unsafe. And this is how people lose touch with their intuition. They lose touch with their emotional needs, their boundaries, and that internal compass. Because pretending leads to something researchers call emotional loneliness. It's not the loneliness of being alone. It's the loneliness of feeling unseen, and even when you're surrounded by people yet emotionally invisible. So functioning externally, while struggling internally, and that's where burnout actually starts to begin. Now your nervous system feels the truth. Even when out outwardly, you're denying it even when you say that you're fine. So pretending you're okay when you're not forces your body to operate in a heightened state, your heart rate you'll notice might increase. Your muscles tighten, your breathing becomes shallow. You might recognize that your breathing from like your chest area instead of your belly, your stress hormones [00:06:00] rise, your sleep quality might decrease. Digestion slows indigestion issues happen. Your immune system starts to weaken. And this happens because pretending activates the same physiological pathways as a threat would. So when you say I'm fine, but your body is overwhelmed, your nervous system enters hypervigilant. It has to monitor your visual expression, your tone, your behavior, because it's constantly managing this performance of okayness. And this internal monitoring drains your energy. Emotional suppression is metabolically very expensive, and research even shows that suppressing your emotions increases tiredness and fatigue, increases the cognitive load. So some people will say, I just, I feel like I've brain fog. Mistakes happen, irritability, physical pain happens. Um, you'll start to notice. Burnout symptoms, eye twitches, risk of anxiety pretending pulls you out of this authentic emotional rhythm. And instead of moving through your feelings, right, 'cause you're pretending that you're okay, so they don't move through, you [00:07:00] actually hold onto them, you store them. And what ends up happening is you're continually bracing against them. The body isn't designed to hold this emotional tension indefinitely. So eventually it sends signals like tight shoulders. Headaches, stomach aches. Uh, as I mentioned, a lot of people will talk about having brain fog or forgetfulness, insomnia, racing thoughts, numbness, sudden irritability or emotional dysregulation. You know, one minute you're fine, and then you're just exploding and feeling overwhelmed by most, the smallest things that are happening, and that's your body's saying. You need to start telling the truth like we're not, okay. We've got some things going on now. Pretending happens in subtle ways. Often we're not intending to pretend, but we, it just happens in these very subtle ways. So as an example, the high achiever at work. You're overwhelmed, you're overloaded, you're anxious, but you continue to meet deadlines, so you take on more because saying [00:08:00] no feels unsafe on the outside. You're appealing, you're appearing calm, but inside you're absolutely exhausted and your coworkers rely on you because you're consistent. And then you fear, you start to fear that you're gonna let them down. The parent in survival mode, your child needs something, whether it's dinner, homework, uh, homework help, emotional reassurance, and you continue to show up, but inside you're stressed or you're grieving, or you have your own emotional pain and you quietly push those feelings down because. You gotta be the parent. You gotta show up the teenager who wears the mask, right? You ask them how they're doing and they say, I'm good. But their eyes and their body language and their energy are communicating a different story. But they've learned to mask really early. They don't wanna be different. They don't wanna be dramatic, they don't wanna be a burden. The partner, he keeps the peace. Something's bothering you, but bringing it up feels like it might cause tension. So you pretend everything is fine, and over time that unspoken truth becomes resentment. Or maybe the survivor who learned to stay silent. You've lived through something hard, [00:09:00] heartbreak, betrayal, abuse, trauma, and you learn that showing your emotion could be used against you. So you shut it down, you appear strong, but internally you are exhausted. You're exhausted from carrying the emotional weight alone. Now, in each of those different scenarios, one thing is common pretending temporarily. Protects the relationship or the environment that you're in, but it quietly starts to deplete you and harm you. So I wanna invite you into a gentle reflection if any of this is resonating for you and that it's one of no judgment, no shame, it's just about curiosity and awareness, I want you to to think about and ask yourself, is there a place in my life that I do say I'm fine even when I'm not? Then who or how was I taught that my emotions were too much or they were inconvenient or unwanted? And what fears come up when I think about telling the truth? [00:10:00] What emotions am I currently suppressing to keep the peace? Where does pretending show up in your body? And what would it feel like to be honest with yourself, just for a moment, what do I need? That I keep ignoring and who feels safe enough in my world to even share a small piece of my truth. And when was the last time I allowed myself to just not be okay for a minute? Reflection does create space. And in that space we have an invitation to the truth. And in with the truth, we have the invitation to regulation. And you can't heal these things if we continue to hide these things, right? We have to bring them to the awareness that we can take some action. So stopping the pattern of pretending doesn't mean sharing everything with everyone. It just means that you're gonna live with some internal honesty. So. First you start with yourself, acknowledge it to yourself privately, you know, recognize I'm feeling overwhelmed, or I'm tired, or I'm feeling really stressed out, you know, and then [00:11:00] start to practice some micro honesty. So instead of saying, I'm fine, maybe saying to somebody, well, it's, it's been a day, or, you know, what? I'm managing or I'm navigating some things, right? Those are small micro truths that shift us slightly away from, I'm fine without totally exposing everything all at once, and then allow some small releases. Crying in the car, crying in the shower, journaling for a few minutes. Not a long time, just a few minutes. Stepping outside for fresh air. Your body needs outlets, and then identify one emotionally safe person. Not everybody gets access to you, but someone can and give your body what it's asking for. Sometimes it is asking for rest. Give it to it, give it to your body. Sometimes it wants stillness, sometimes it wants movement. And stop measuring your worth. By your composure. You are allowed to be a human being. You don't have to be perfect all the time. And notice when you shift into [00:12:00] performance mode, right? Again, awareness breaks that pattern of autopilot and start building a new narrative and inner narrative replace. I should be able to handle this with, you know what? This makes sense that this is really hard. This work isn't about, you know, uh, abandoning a strength. It's about expanding your strengths to include honesty. I just wanna hear, I want you to hear this clearly today. You do not have to be fine to be worthy. You do not have to be composed a hundred percent of the time to be loved. You do not have to be strong in order to be safe, and you do not have to perform okayness to belong or to be accepted. The cost of pretending actually is too high. Pretending drains your energy. It disconnects you from your needs, pretending, isolates you emotionally, and it also teaches your body that your feelings are problems instead of using them as signals and data packets. Honesty, even quiet, small moments of honesty. Create that space for your own internal healing, and you deserve the truth of your own experience. You [00:13:00] deserve the truth. To stop, you know, carrying all of these, the I'm okay. You deserve support. You deserve softness, you deserve rest. And maybe the next time someone asks you. You know, you can just be 1% more honest because that's where healing begins. If you'd like to discuss with me how coaching can maybe help you get into this place of experiencing, you know, and being honest with your own self first and starting to re-identify what those needs are, feel free to book a time to discuss how coaching could help you anytime at coachwithkamini.com and until next time stay well. Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Rise Up Live, joy your way. For more information, Book a chat with Kamini at www.chatwithKamini.com, or visit her website at www.kaminiwood.com. You can also find Kamini on Facebook or Instagram. Username, it's authentic me. [00:14:00] Thank you for listening!