I Don't Want to Go Out Anymore

Individuation, Consciousness Fatigue, and What Happens When the Life You Once Lived No Longer Fits

I don't really want to go anywhere anymore. 

There.

I said it.

And I don't mean that in the cute, introverted, I'd rather be home in my pajamas kind of way.

I mean there are days when I barely want to leave my apartment door, let alone step out into the world.

For a while, I wondered whether that should concern me.

Am I isolating?

Am I depressed?

Have I become too comfortable being alone?

Have years of trauma work, clinical work, illness, disappointment and simply watching human beings be human made me cynical?

Have I built myself a sanctuary?

Or have I built myself a fortress?

Those are questions I'm willing to ask.

Because one of the greatest mistakes we can make in healing is finding a beautiful explanation for ourselves and using it to stop asking questions.

And recently, I found a beautiful explanation.

Consciousness fatigue.

The phrase immediately made sense to me.

The exhaustion that can accompany becoming increasingly aware of yourself, your patterns, your shadow, other people, relationships, systems, incongruence, conditioning and all the shit you once participated in without even realizing you were participating in it.

It sounded Jungian.

But when I looked more closely, I discovered something important.

Carl Jung didn't actually create a formal theory called Consciousness Fatigue.

Jung gave us language for individuation, persona, shadow, projection, psychic energy and the difficult process of differentiating ourselves from collective identities. Individuation, in Jungian psychology, is much closer to a lifelong process of becoming more fully who we are—not simply becoming increasingly “conscious” until everyone around us becomes intolerable.  

Jung also used the concept abaissement du niveau mental, a term originating with French psychologist Pierre Janet. Broadly, it describes a lowering of the intensity or energy of consciousness. Jung associated abaissement with states that can include physical and mental fatigue, bodily illness, powerful emotion and shock. In Jung's formulation, this lowering of conscious energy can also allow material normally outside ordinary conscious awareness to become more prominent.  

That isn't the same thing as what I'm calling consciousness fatigue here.

And I don't want to force a century-old psychological concept into an explanation for my own experience simply because the language sounds beautiful.

So I don't need Jung to have named my experience in order for me to examine it.

Maybe sometimes consciousness is simply fucking exhausting.

But exhaustion is not automatically enlightenment.

And staying home doesn't automatically mean I've transcended the world.

So I decided to turn the mirror around.

Not onto society.

Not onto Northeast Ohio.

Not onto everyone I think isn't doing “the work.”

Onto me.

Why don't I want to go out anymore?

 

This Didn't Start With COVID

When I really trace it backward, I started noticing the shift around 2018 or 2019.

I was building Thee Tree House, a metaphysical shop that grew out of my private practice and represented something much bigger to me.

I wasn't withdrawing from life.

I was building one.

I was trying to create the kind of community I had struggled to find.

Even then, though, my relationship with socializing was changing.

I might want to go out, but I wanted it short.

Good food.

Good conversation.

Not too crowded.

Not surrounded by a bunch of drunk people.

Two hours?

Perfect.

Then I wanted to go home.

If my daughter wasn't home, I was perfectly content getting takeout, watching a movie, going to bed early, getting up early, hitting the gym and getting back to work building whatever I was creating.

I didn't experience that as loneliness.

I liked my life.

Then 2020 happened.

The world shut down.

I got COVID at the end of that year.

And my body never returned to the body I knew before it.

Long COVID and the cascade of health problems that followed changed my relationship with almost everything.

Energy.

Movement.

Work.

Exercise.

Food.

Sleep.

Crowds.

Heat.

Stress.

Recovery.

Time.

My own body.

And eventually, the outside world itself.

COVID didn't create all of this.

But it changed the trajectory.

 

Somewhere Along the Way, the World Started Feeling Ugly to Me

That's difficult to write because it sounds dramatic.

But it's true.

Over time, I became increasingly disillusioned by what I experienced around me.

Trying to build community brought me face-to-face with dynamics I found exhausting: competition where I wanted collaboration, judgment where I wanted curiosity, people wanting quick answers without necessarily wanting the work that came with them, and a lot of wanting what someone else had without understanding what it took to build it.

After more than twenty years specializing in severe trauma, mental health, addiction and co-occurring disorders, I have also spent an enormous portion of my professional life sitting very close to human suffering.

That matters.

Maybe some of what I see is accurate observation.

Maybe some is professional fatigue.

Some grief.

Some disappointment.

Some nervous-system exhaustion.

Some pattern recognition.

And maybe some of it is projection.

I need to leave room for all of those possibilities.

Because individuation cannot mean becoming conscious enough to identify everyone else's unconsciousness.

Eventually the gaze has to come home.

 

Before I Say Yes, I Ask Who

When someone asks me to go somewhere now, my first thought isn't where.

It isn't even when.

It's who.

Who am I spending this energy on?

Are they a negative thinker?

Do they gossip?

Can they have a conversation that goes somewhere deeper than the surface?

Can they listen with their heart instead of sitting inside their own head preparing the next thing they're going to say?

Can they take ownership of their thoughts, feelings and behavior?

Do they practice what they preach when nobody is watching?

Do they actually want me there?

Or do they want what I can give them?

My wisdom.

My knowledge.

My compassion.

My kindness.

That motherly unconditional love people have often experienced from me.

I have become exhausted by the dance around the ask.

If you need something from me, just fucking ask me.

I would much rather someone say:

Cathy, I need your help with something. Can I talk to you about it?

At least then I know what room I'm walking into.

I am much less interested in relationships where I discover halfway through dinner that I wasn't invited to dinner. I was invited to work.

And then there are the practical questions.

How crowded is it?

Where are we parking?

How far do I have to walk?

Will alcohol be the entire social activity?

Can I leave when my body tells me I'm done without somebody trying to guilt me into staying?

Will I get home before traffic becomes intolerable?

Will my physical needs be treated as legitimate?

Because for someone else, another hour may simply be another hour.

For me, another hour can have a cost.

I am rarely doing as well as I may look.

There is an enormous difference between appearing functional and actually having capacity.

A younger version of me might have asked:

Will this be fun?

The woman I am now asks:

What will this cost me—and is what is waiting on the other side worth the expenditure?

 

But Maybe the Evaluation Is Exhausting Too

That's where I have to challenge myself.

Some of that checklist is discernment.

Some of it is physical necessity.

Some is boundary.

Some comes from having been used, depleted or disappointed enough times to pay attention sooner.

But is some of it anticipatory vigilance?

Have I become so accustomed to evaluating people and environments that I begin managing the experience before I've even entered it?

Maybe part of my exhaustion isn't simply that I see so much when I enter the world.

Maybe I'm exhausted because I have learned to evaluate so much before I ever enter it.

Seeing more does not necessarily mean seeing clearly.

Hypervigilance notices a lot too.

Projection can feel like intuition.

Fear can feel like discernment.

Pattern recognition can become pattern imposition.

I don't want to throw away my intuition.

I also don't want to make it infallible.

 

I Always Look for the Booth

When I do go out, I scan.

The room.

The people.

The exits.

The environment.

At restaurants, if there's a booth available, I want it.

I do better contained.

A booth gives me edges.

Put me in a chair in the middle of a loud restaurant, especially with my back toward everything happening behind me, and my entire experience changes.

I want to see what's going on.

I want some kind of boundary between myself and everything moving around me.

Crowds drain me remarkably quickly.

I use the practices that work for me.

Sometimes that's mindfulness.

Sometimes I intentionally narrow my attention:

This table.
This person.
This conversation.
This moment.

Sometimes I use spiritual practices meaningful to me—visualizing an energetic boundary around myself and setting intentions about what I allow into my space.

I have spiritual language for some of what I experience.

I also have clinical language for some of it.

Scanning an environment and wanting visual access to exits can overlap with learned threat monitoring and hypervigilance.

I don't need one language to destroy the other.

And I don't need to diagnose every preference as trauma any more than I need to spiritualize every discomfort as heightened consciousness.

Maybe both frameworks can teach me something.

 

Regulation Doesn't Mean I Have to Stay

For years, I approached experiences like this by asking:

What skill can I use to tolerate this better?

Ground.

Breathe.

Focus.

Regulate.

Challenge the thought.

Stay present.

Use the skill.

But another question has started emerging:

Why am I working this hard to remain somewhere my entire system is telling me it has had enough of?

There is a difference between:

I'm dysregulated, therefore I must escape.

and:

I can regulate myself, remain conscious, assess what's actually happening—and still decide I don't want to fucking be here.

At some point, healing has to stop being exclusively about increasing my capacity to tolerate environments that deplete me.

It also has to include becoming discerning about which environments deserve my capacity in the first place.

 

My Life Is Actually Happening in Here

If I tell someone I rarely want to leave my apartment anymore, they could construct an entire story around that.

Is she isolating?

Is she depressed?

Has her world become too small?

Maybe.

Those questions deserve consideration.

But they aren't the whole story.

Because when I look honestly at my life inside these walls:

I am not doing nothing. I'm living.

I work remotely.

I see patients through telehealth.

I make calls.

I build Soma Alchemy.

I develop classes.

I work on the website.

I write.

I brainstorm.

I create.

I move between my office, bedroom, living room and balcony depending upon what my body and mind need.

I try to wake up an hour or two before my professional day begins because I don't like opening my eyes and immediately belonging to everyone else.

I need time to arrive inside myself first.

Some mornings I have it.

Some mornings my body feels like shit, I hit snooze, everything gets rushed and I hate it.

That's life now.

 

Sometimes Creativity Wakes Me Up

My creativity doesn't follow business hours.

Sometimes I wake up at three or four in the morning with an enormous burst of energy and clarity.

Ideas.

Writing.

Something I experience spiritually as guidance or a message about what I should create next.

I know there are different ways people might understand experiences like that.

I'm not particularly interested in convincing anyone to understand them the way I do.

I know what they mean to me.

So sometimes I get up and write.

Then I may become tired earlier.

Maybe I nap.

My life has increasingly become less about forcing my body and mind into a predetermined rhythm and more about listening for the rhythm that is actually there.

 

The Little Catholic Girl Still Says Her Prayers

Every night, while preparing for sleep, I say the Our Father.

That ritual reaches much further backward than my current spiritual practice.

I grew up Roman Catholic.

Catholic school.

Sunday Mass.

And every night, our family prayed together.

So somewhere inside the woman who now speaks about energy, consciousness, transpersonal psychology and spiritual realms is still that little Catholic girl saying her prayers before bed.

And I kind of love that.

My spiritual understanding has expanded enormously since childhood.

Apparently, I didn't need to burn down everything that came before it to become who I am.

Some things came with me.

The Our Father is one of them.

I experience it as one of my strongest prayers of spiritual protection, particularly while preparing for sleep.

Then I often pray for other people.

My children.

My grandchildren.

Family.

Friends.

Someone struggling.

Sometimes someone I don't even know.

Protection.

Health.

Healing.

Whatever prayer, positive intention or good energy I feel called to send outward.

I let what I understand as my Highest Self guide me through that process.

Who comes to mind?

Where does my heart go?

Who feels like they could use some love tonight?

Then I let it go.

There is something important in recognizing that.

Because solitude has not made me stop caring about humanity.

I may not want to be surrounded by people.

But some of the final moments of my conscious day are often spent thinking about other human beings and wishing them well.

Maybe withdrawal and disconnection aren't necessarily the same thing.

And maybe becoming myself was never about rejecting everything I inherited.

Maybe it was becoming conscious enough to decide what I wanted to carry forward.

Somebody has to stop the inheritance.

But stopping the inheritance doesn't mean destroying all inheritance.

Some things deserve to stop.

Some things deserve to be carried.

 

The Drill Sergeant Doesn't Run My Life Anymore

There was another ritual in my old life.

The gym.

I fucking loved it.

Seven days a week.

Two hours minimum.

Sometimes twice a day.

Hard-core.

And my body looked amazing.

I could wake up, get ready in fifteen minutes and head out the door alert, refreshed and ready to train.

I could see patients back-to-back for eight or nine hours without lunch, often fasted while living a ketogenic lifestyle, leave the office, go directly to the gym for two hours, then go home.

Children.

Dinner.

Single-mother responsibilities.

Whatever needed done.

Then wake up and do some version of it again.

I thought that's just who I was.

Superwoman.

 

She Really Did Think She Was Superwoman

And Superwoman wasn't merely a metaphor I invented afterward.

During one of my internships with The Wellness Institute, while I was assisting with teaching, we had a shadow party.

I dressed as Superwoman.

Then I behaved like her.

And boy, did that teach me some shit.

Because embodying that shadow showed me that Superwoman wasn't only harming me.

My speed.

My forcefulness.

My expectations.

My ability to push.

My no excuses mentality.

Those things could affect other people too.

If I could do it, why couldn't you?

If I could push through, why couldn't you?

If I could find a way, why were you still making excuses?

The internal drill sergeant wasn't always confined to my own head.

Sometimes she leaked.

My strength had a shadow.

That doesn't mean my discipline was fake.

That woman got me here.

She accomplished an extraordinary amount.

She raised children.

Built a career.

Treated patients.

Built businesses.

Studied.

Trained.

Survived.

She could carry an enormous amount.

And because she could, there wasn't much reason to ask whether she should.

That's one of the problems with survival strategies that produce socially desirable outcomes.

Nobody stages an intervention because you're too productive.

People congratulate you.

They admire your discipline.

They ask how you do it all.

Sometimes they want to become you.

Meanwhile, nobody asks:

What does being her require?

I wasn't asking either.

 

The Persona Worked—Until It Didn't

This is where Jung's concept of the persona becomes personal for me.

The persona isn't simply some fake personality we put on for the world.

In Jungian psychology, it is the socially adapted aspect of personality—the interface between the individual and the expectations of the surrounding world. Problems can emerge when we become rigidly identified with that social identity and mistake it for the whole person.  

Superwoman wasn't fake.

She was me.

But she was never all of me.

The achiever.

The producer.

The dependable one.

The woman who didn't cancel.

The woman who pushed through.

The woman who got shit done.

The woman whose value could be demonstrated through output.

Old Cathy operated like a drill sergeant dictating every move.

Get up.

Push through.

Do the work.

Don't cancel.

Don't disappoint anyone.

Don't look weak.

Don't fail.

And whatever you do:

don't let anyone see that you're struggling.

Success became one of the ways I protected myself from failure.

And sometimes achievement itself became the way I avoided having to feel what stopping might reveal.

If I was producing, accomplishing, helping, building and appearing capable, perhaps nobody—including me—had to look too closely at what it was costing.

My body doesn't let me live that way anymore.

And strangely enough?

Neither does my consciousness.

 

I Miss Her. A Fucking Lot.

I don't want to romanticize what happened next.

Long COVID and the health problems that followed did not hand me some beautiful spiritual gift wrapped in a fucking bow.

There are losses here.

Real ones.

And I miss old Cathy.

A FUCKING LOT.

Mostly, I miss her energy.

Jesus Christ, I miss her energy.

I miss waking up feeling good.

I miss opening my eyes and being ready to move.

I miss having a body that seemed to say yes before I even finished asking the question.

I miss physical freedom.

I miss capacity.

I miss not having to calculate the energetic cost of ordinary things.

I can radically accept what is without pretending I don't grieve what was.

Acceptance does not cancel grief.

If someone offered me her energy tomorrow?

I'll take it.

Her physical capacity?

Absolutely.

Her ability to recover?

Hand it the fuck over.

But if the price were taking back the internal drill sergeant?

The perfectionism?

The belief that rest was weakness?

The obsession with output?

The fear of failure?

The public eye?

The need to prove I could carry everything?

No.

I want her energy without needing her armor.

 

I Don't Want My Old Body at the Cost of My New Relationship With It

There was a time when seven days at the gym looked healthier than three.

My body certainly looked the part.

Today, I know differently.

Three days can represent a healthier relationship with my body than seven ever did.

Not because three is inherently healthier than seven.

Because my relationship with the three is different.

I usually go between one and three in the afternoon because the gym is less crowded.

I don't get extra points for going at five o'clock.

The workout is still the workout.

My body doesn't become healthier because I made getting there unnecessarily harder.

I am no longer trying to force my body into submission.

After everything it has been through, I have had to learn something old Cathy absolutely fucking hated:

radical acceptance.

Not resignation.

Not giving up.

Acceptance.

This is the body I have today.

This is its capacity today.

What would caring for this body look like today?

The answer may change tomorrow.

Apparently that's allowed.

I used to think strength meant making my body comply with my mind.

Now I'm learning another kind of strength:

letting my body have a fucking vote.

Sometimes it gets the deciding one.

 

I No Longer Need to Look Perfect While Teaching People How to Be Human

Some days I have to move appointments.

Sometimes I need to reschedule.

Sometimes my schedule has to change based on what my body can actually do.

Old Cathy would have fucking hated that.

Today, I care deeply about the needs of the people I work with.

Clinical responsibility matters to me.

But professionalism does not require pretending I'm a machine.

I don't need to construct some flawless clinical persona in which the therapist never gets sick, never becomes tired, never struggles, never needs rest and never has a body that changes the plan.

That's bullshit.

More importantly:

it isn't what I teach.

I ask other people to listen to their bodies.

Challenge perfectionism.

Stop organizing their lives around judgment.

Understand the difference between accountability and self-punishment.

Practice self-compassion without abandoning responsibility.

So eventually I have to ask myself the same question I ask of other people:

Do I actually practice what I preach when nobody is watching?

I no longer care nearly as much about what people think.

Not in some rebellious fuck everybody way.

Rebellion still requires an audience.

The public eye simply has less authority over me.

I don't want to kill Superwoman.

I want to integrate her.

She's welcome to advise.

She can remind me what I'm capable of.

She can help me finish difficult things.

But she doesn't get command authority anymore.

The drill sergeant has been relieved of command.

Ambition doesn't get to hold a gun to my head.

 

And Then the House Became Mine

On April 1, 2026, another chapter ended.

I officially entered my empty-nest years.

All three of my children were out of the house.

Three grown children.

Three grandchildren so far.

And after decades of motherhood organizing so much of my existence, my life literally looked different.

There were no little ones in the house whose needs automatically dictated the architecture of my day.

School.

Meals.

Transportation.

Schedules.

Appointments.

Activities.

The endless mental inventory of who needed what next.

I will always be their mother.

That didn't end.

But the job description changed.

For most of my adult life, there was always someone who needed something from me.

Then suddenly there was space.

Not metaphorical space.

Actual fucking space.

Time.

Quiet.

Rooms.

Decisions that primarily belonged to me.

And for perhaps the first time in my adult life, I could ask:

What do I want my days to look like when they no longer have to be organized around raising someone else?

 

Freedom Arrived Before the Money Did

And here comes reality.

In some ways, I have more freedom now than I've ever had.

In another very practical way, I don't.

I don't currently have the financial freedom to live the life I'm imagining.

I went through my life savings during one of the most serious health crises of my life before my hysterectomy.

I haven't rebuilt it.

Right now, I have zero savings.

That matters when I talk about traveling the world.

Relocating.

Working from different places.

Exploring.

Creating.

Airfare costs money.

Housing costs money.

Moving costs money.

Building businesses costs money.

Freedom may be a spiritual concept.

But Delta still wants a credit card.

I'm not interested in spiritually bypassing that reality.

 

The Strange Gift Inside Having Less Work

I currently have fewer psychotherapy patients than I've had during other periods of my career despite having openings and availability.

Financially?

That's uncomfortable.

Old Cathy knows exactly what to do with an empty clinical calendar.

Fill the fucker.

Market harder.

See more people.

Work more.

Make more money.

Fix it.

Survive.

But I am trying not to let her run this transition.

Because those openings have also given me something I desperately needed.

Time.

Time to heal from major surgery.

Time to rest.

Time to write.

Time to build classes.

Time to develop the website.

Time to think.

Time to create The Soma Alchemy Institute.

Time to begin building what I hope becomes both a new income source and the work I spend the rest of my life embodying.

For most of my adult life, necessity made an enormous number of decisions for me.

Single motherhood doesn't particularly care whether you're individuating.

The bills still come.

Children still need food.

Someone needs shoes.

Someone needs driven somewhere.

You do what needs done.

Survive first.

Dream when there's room.

Now I am trying to do something I've rarely allowed myself to do:

build what I want instead of only what is necessary to survive.

 

I Am Learning to Build Without the Emergency

That may be one of the hardest lessons of all.

Not everything needs to happen immediately.

I am still healing.

I am slowly returning to my new physical normal.

I am working clinically.

I am building Soma Alchemy.

I'm writing.

Creating.

Imagining where I might live.

Imagining where I might travel.

Imagining how I want the rest of my life to feel.

And for once, I'm trying not to turn the vision into another emergency.

I don't have to build the entire fucking thing tomorrow.

I need to be financially responsible.

Absolutely.

But responsibility and urgency are not the same thing.

I can move slowly without standing still.

Maybe the empty space isn't actually empty.

Maybe something is gestating inside it.

 

There Is a Difference Between a Small Life and a Quiet One

Home gives me something I rarely had before.

Peace.

I meal prep.

I work.

I create.

I rest.

I watch movies.

I find a series and watch an episode or two with dinner.

I order takeout toward the end of the week when the meal prep is gone.

Sometimes I have it delivered because I don't want the crowds or traffic.

Sometimes I want some air and take a drive to pick it up.

I avoid rush hour at all cost.

I wind down before bed.

I pray.

I use the spiritual practices meaningful to me to release the day and prepare for sleep.

My life didn't disappear when I started staying home.

In some ways, I became more present for it.

But there is still an uncomfortable question.

A life designed around my needs can be deeply self-honoring.

A life designed around never encountering anything uncomfortable could eventually become a cage.

The architecture might look remarkably similar.

Have I built myself a sanctuary?

Or have I built myself a fortress?

Maybe some rooms are sanctuary.

Maybe some walls were built from fear.

That doesn't mean I need to tear the whole fucking thing down.

It means I need to know the difference.

 

Even Superwoman Wasn't a Social Butterfly

There is another problem with blaming my withdrawal entirely on illness.

Even old Cathy was reserved.

I could go to the gym seven days a week and still avoid eye contact.

I could walk through a grocery store hoping nobody recognized me.

I became remarkably skilled at pretending I was invisible because sometimes I simply did not want to fucking talk.

Even then, I struggled to find my people.

I wanted depth.

Psychology.

Human behavior.

Spirituality.

Consciousness.

Trauma.

Meaning.

The things underneath the things.

I often felt that ordinary social interaction stopped several floors above where I wanted to live.

So I participated without necessarily revealing all of myself.

Smile.

Small talk.

Be polite.

Keep moving.

And sometimes I made assumptions.

They wouldn't understand me.

This would make them uncomfortable.

They don't want to go that deep.

Maybe sometimes I was right.

But I couldn't possibly have been right every time.

Maybe sometimes I decided someone couldn't meet me before giving them an opportunity to show me whether they could.

That's harder to admit.

Which probably means it belongs here.

Depth Can Become a Defense Too

I value depth.

I don't want to change that.

But even something beautiful can develop a shadow.

Depth can become a gatekeeping mechanism.

If someone has to demonstrate a particular level of consciousness before I allow myself to connect with them, I may successfully protect myself from superficial relationships.

I may also protect myself from surprise.

From vulnerability.

From discovering depth in someone whose language doesn't sound anything like mine.

From allowing another person to unfold slowly rather than requiring them to arrive already fluent in things I've spent decades studying.

I don't have to make myself smaller to belong.

But other people don't have to become more like me to be worthy of knowing either.

And perhaps that's part of individuation too.

 

Maybe I'm Not Tired of Connection

When I imagine my people, I don't actually imagine copies of myself.

I imagine people who mirror certain things I deeply value.

Integrity.

Reciprocity.

Curiosity.

Accountability.

Compassion.

Authenticity.

Purpose.

Depth.

People who do the work.

Not people who have achieved some imaginary state of enlightenment.

People willing to continue looking at themselves.

People who fuck up and own it.

Repair.

Remain curious about their shadow.

People who aren't simply collecting the language of healing while behaving exactly as they always have.

I want people who practice what they preach when nobody is watching.

And underneath that desire is something vulnerable.

I want to receive what I have spent a lifetime giving.

I want kindness.

Compassion.

Love.

Wisdom.

Emotional depth.

High emotional intelligence.

I want to experience connection that doesn't have to be coached into existence.

People who know how to return to love, truth and accountability when the human mess inevitably arrives.

Maybe I'm not hungry for more people.

Maybe I'm hungry for reciprocity.

 

I Want People Who Know Why They're Here

Purpose matters to me.

I am drawn to people who have wrestled with the question of why they're here and are actually doing something with the answer.

That doesn't require a huge career.

A platform.

Money.

A title.

Purpose doesn't need to be performative.

But I want to feel that someone is participating in their own life.

That they aren't handing authorship of their existence entirely to their parents, partner, trauma, circumstances or the opinions of everyone around them.

I want people who can hear:

That's impossible.

You're too much.

Why would you do that?

Who do you think you are?

and still ask themselves:

What do I know is mine to do?

 

And Apparently I Want the Adult Version of a Really Fucking Good Fort

When I imagine those people together, I don't picture a nightclub.

No fucking thank you.

I picture warmth.

Natural surroundings.

Healthy food.

Comfort.

Different seating.

Different lighting.

Different rooms.

Maybe we start around a table.

Then somebody ends up curled into a chair.

Someone moves to the couch.

Maybe eventually we're outside.

Music.

Food.

Laughter.

Conversation.

Silence that doesn't need filling.

Depth doesn't have to mean heaviness.

I don't want to sit around dissecting trauma all fucking night.

I want playfulness.

Humor.

Beauty.

Ideas.

Movement.

Conversation that can move from ridiculous to profound and back again.

Serious when seriousness is required.

Light when it isn't.

I want somewhere I can move and still belong.

And with the right people?

Two hours might become an entire evening.

 

My Soul Can Say Yes While My Body Still Says, “That Was A Lot.”

Here's the complication.

I could have the most beautiful evening imaginable.

No gossip.

No superficial bullshit.

No rescuing.

No performing.

No violated boundaries.

Just genuine reciprocal connection.

I could come home thinking:

That was exactly what I needed.

And wake up the next morning completely fucking exhausted.

Like I'm coming down from some enormous high.

That matters.

Because I cannot explain all of my fatigue through psychology.

And I cannot explain all of my withdrawal through consciousness.

My body has a story too.

Maybe the right people change the quality of the expenditure without eliminating the expenditure itself.

Some experiences leave me depleted and empty.

Others may leave me exhausted and full.

Those are not the same state.

Maybe I need to stop asking:

Will this cost me energy?

Because right now, almost everything costs me energy.

Maybe the better question is:

What is worthy of the energy I actually have?

 

What I'm Afraid of Isn't Being Alone

After all of this, I arrive at the question I thought would be hardest.

What am I actually afraid might be true about my withdrawal?

Am I hiding?

Have I made my standards impossible?

Have I been disappointed enough times that staying home became easier than risking connection?

Have I built a sanctuary or a fortress?

Those questions deserve my attention.

But they aren't what scares me most.

I'm not particularly afraid anymore that I won't find my people.

I believe my people will find me as I find my way through the world.

As I travel.

Create.

Teach.

Build.

Explore.

As Soma Alchemy becomes whatever it is becoming.

I don't feel the same need to chase belonging anymore.

What scares me is something else entirely.

 

What If I Finally Understand Myself and Still Don't Fucking Live?

What if I spend years learning all of these lessons...

breaking patterns...

examining my shadow...

understanding trauma...

learning boundaries...

stopping the rescuing...

questioning the persona...

listening to my body...

becoming more conscious of what belongs to me and what doesn't...

and then never actually live what I learned?

What if I keep preparing for the life I want until there isn't enough life left to live it?

That's what scares me.

Since I was a little girl, some version of another life has existed inside me.

Travel.

Exploration.

Creation.

Different environments.

Different cultures.

Work that could move with me instead of geographically imprisoning me.

Freedom.

Not freedom from responsibility.

Freedom to live authentically within it.

I want to wake up somewhere I've never been.

Create somewhere beautiful.

Follow curiosity.

Stay somewhere because I love it.

Leave because something else calls me.

Discover what happens when the environment around me changes.

Discover what happens when I change inside it.

 

Maybe My Greatest Fear Is Wasted Aliveness

Old Superwoman was terrified of wasted productivity.

The woman I am becoming fears something else.

Wasted aliveness.

There are things inside me I haven't created yet.

Places I haven't seen.

People I haven't met.

Things I haven't taught.

Experiences I haven't had.

Parts of myself I suspect I won't meet until I place myself somewhere unfamiliar enough for them to emerge.

That's the capacity I care about now.

Not:

How much can I accomplish before I die?

But:

How fully can I inhabit the life I have while I'm here?

Interestingly, contemporary Jungian writing about individuation describes later-life development as involving greater attention to meaning, spirituality and deeper creativity, rather than remaining organized primarily around achievement and social position. That doesn't prove anything about my life. But I can understand why this particular Jungian framework speaks to me now.  

 

And Then There Is the Question of Coming Back

My spiritual beliefs inevitably enter this conversation.

I understand consciousness as extending beyond this single physical lifetime.

I believe lessons, patterns and experiences may extend across lifetimes.

I can't prove that.

I'm not asking anyone else to believe it.

But it shapes how I understand my own existence.

And sometimes I think:

What if I die without actually doing what I came here to do and have to come back and take the fucking class again?

Absolutely not.

I've done enough homework.

I'm joking.

Kind of.

Because underneath the humor is something serious.

What if becoming conscious isn't simply about understanding the lesson?

What if eventually we're supposed to embody it?

Maybe knowing isn't completion.

Maybe living is.

 

I Don't Want Healing to Become the Next Reason I Postpone My Life

There will always be another layer.

Another wound.

Another trigger.

Another insight.

Another health issue.

Another practical problem.

Another reason to wait.

I'll travel when I feel better.

I'll move when everything is stable.

I'll build it when I have more money.

I'll explore when I have more energy.

I'll live when my body becomes predictable again.

But what if it doesn't?

I can continue working toward health without making perfect health the admission price for my own life.

I don't want to wait until I'm completely healed to give myself permission to live.

I don't know that such a finish line exists.

Maybe the universe isn't eventually going to hand me a certificate:

Congratulations, Cathy. You have completed healing. You may now proceed with your life.

Maybe this is it.

Not the life I planned.

The life that's here.

 

Maybe “No Regrets” Means Something Different Now

I used to plan everything.

Planning helped me succeed.

Planning made me productive.

Planning helped me survive.

There's still a place for planning.

I'm not throwing away my calendar and wandering barefoot through the airport waiting for my Highest Self to tell me which fucking plane to board.

But I want something different now.

A no-regrets mentality without turning “no regrets” into another performance standard.

I don't need to maximize every day.

Every trip doesn't need to transform me.

Every experience doesn't need spiritual significance.

Some days my best life might mean exploring another country.

Some days it might mean teaching something I've spent decades learning.

Some days it might mean sitting across from someone I love having a four-hour conversation.

Some days it might be the gym.

Some days my balcony.

Some days it might be canceling everything, ordering takeout and going back to fucking bed.

Mindfulness means I get to find out which day this is while I'm actually living it.

 

Maybe the Door Isn't Supposed to Stay Closed

I needed this sanctuary.

I still do.

I needed somewhere quiet enough to hear myself.

Somewhere I could stop performing.

Somewhere the drill sergeant could lose her authority.

Somewhere my body could have a vote.

Somewhere I could recover.

Somewhere I could create.

Somewhere I could become.

But perhaps a sanctuary serves a different purpose than a fortress.

A sanctuary restores you so you can return to life.

A fortress exists to keep life out.

Maybe the question isn't whether I should stay home or go into the world.

Maybe the question is whether I remain capable of opening the door.

Not because somebody expects me to.

Not because staying home means I've failed.

Not because going out proves I'm healed.

But because something on the other side genuinely calls me.

A place.

A person.

An experience.

An idea.

A country I've never seen.

A version of myself I haven't met yet.

And when it calls?

I want to go.

 

Maybe My People Aren't Waiting in One Place

I spent years thinking about finding my people.

Then I tried building places where they could gather.

Now I think about community differently.

Maybe my people aren't waiting in one geographic location.

Maybe the room moves.

Maybe some are in places I haven't visited yet.

Maybe I'll meet them professionally.

Personally.

Through Soma Alchemy.

Across a dinner table in another country.

Maybe someone will read something I write from halfway around the world and recognize something in themselves.

Maybe we'll know each other for twenty years.

Maybe twenty minutes.

I don't know.

I don't need to know anymore.

I simply have to participate enough in my own life for our paths to have a chance to cross.

 

I Don't Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Preparing to Live

I started this exploration asking:

Why don't I want to go out anymore?

I thought perhaps the answer was consciousness fatigue.

Maybe Jung could explain it.

Maybe individuation could explain it.

Maybe the persona.

Shadow work.

My nervous system.

Long COVID.

Physical capacity.

Disillusionment.

The world changing.

Me changing.

And perhaps every one of those things holds a piece.

But none gets to become the entire answer.

Because the deeper question isn't:

Why have I withdrawn?

I understand enough about that now.

The question becoming more important is:

What am I going to do with the life that remains?

I don't want my awareness to become another cage.

I don't want discernment to become paralysis.

I don't want healing to become preparation.

I don't want spirituality to become explanation without embodiment.

I don't want my health to become the only story my body gets to tell.

I don't want my financial circumstances today to become a permanent prophecy about tomorrow.

I don't want the empty nest to simply become an empty house.

And I don't want to spend the remainder of this lifetime becoming myself without ever giving that self a fucking life to live.

Maybe consciousness fatigue isn't telling me to disappear.

Maybe it is telling me that the way I used to participate has expired.

Maybe I'm not tired of life.

Maybe I'm tired of the version of myself I had to become in order to participate in it.

And perhaps the answer isn't returning to the old world.

Maybe it's building the next one.

Slowly.

Intentionally.

Without the emergency.

Then opening the door.

Traveling.

Exploring.

Creating.

Meeting whoever I'm meant to meet along the way.

Not trying to recreate Superwoman.

Not waiting to become perfectly healed.

Not demanding certainty before I move.

Not healed.

Not finished.

Not enlightened.

Becoming.

But this time, becoming isn't enough by itself.

I want to live her.

Somebody has to stop the inheritance.

Sometimes that means putting down what was never ours to carry.

Sometimes it means consciously choosing what deserves to come with us.

And sometimes it means realizing that after spending years learning how to survive, heal, understand and become...

we still have to walk out the fucking door and live.

Maybe that's why we're here.

— Soma Alchemy

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Jungian References

Jungian concepts discussed in this essay—including individuation, persona, and abaissement du niveau mental—are informed by the work of C.G. Jung and contemporary resources from the International Association for Analytical Psychology. The term abaissement du niveau mental originated with French psychologist Pierre Janet and was later incorporated into Jung's analytical psychology. “Consciousness fatigue,” as used in this essay, is a contemporary descriptive phrase rather than a formal Jungian theory.

International Association for Analytical Psychology — Individuation 

International Association for Analytical Psychology — Persona

C.G. Jung Center of Boulder — Abaissement