Smiling Through It When You're Running On Empty

You don’t want anyone to ask if you’re ok, because you’re just about holding the tears in, so you keep that painted smile on your face in case everything spills over. You keep going because if you stop it feels like everything will fall apart.

Your nervous system can’t heal when you’re pretending you’re fine. It needs honesty, gentleness, and space to breathe.

Smiling through it isn’t strength. It’s you holding yourself together the only way you know how. It’s the part of you that wakes up, gets dressed, and moves through the day because you feel you have to. You show up, you reply to messages, you make small talk, you even laugh at the right moments. From the outside it looks like you’re coping. Inside, you’re running on fumes.

It’s a tiredness that doesn’t shift, no matter how much you rest. That numbness where you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do, but you don’t feel connected to any of it. It’s being there, but not really there. When you've been carrying too much, your body whispers before it shouts.

Calm isn’t something you think your way into. It’s something your body feels. And calm isn’t the only way your body recognises safety.

Safety can be found in small glimmers, a moment of connection, a breath that softens your chest, a walk outside, a gentle touch, a quiet pause.

A healthy nervous system isn’t one that stays calm all the time. It’s one that can move between states with more ease, softening when it can, grounding when it needs to, rising when life asks for it.

But when you’re overwhelmed, you put the mask on because you don’t feel like you have another choice. You keep functioning even when your whole body is whispering please stop. Not because you’re unbreakable, but because slowing down feels like everything might fall apart. So you keep going. You keep smiling. And people assume you’re fine because you’re good at hiding the cracks.

And then there’s the pressure, to be pleasant, patient, kind, composed — even when you’re barely holding yourself together.

So you stay in survival mode, even when your body is quietly asking for a moment of softness.

And sometimes you feel off because you’re carrying things that didn’t start with you.

On the days you have only forty percent, and you give forty percent, you gave one hundred percent.

Here’s the truth you lose sight of when you’re in that place. You’re a human being. Not super human. You’re allowed to feel tired. You’re allowed to feel fragile. You’re allowed to rest without guilt. You’re allowed to meet yourself exactly where you are, without forcing yourself to be anywhere else.

You don’t have to wait until you’re at breaking point.

You don’t have to wait until you’re falling apart to deserve support.

You don’t need a reason. Feeling overwhelmed is reason enough. Feeling disconnected is reason enough. Wanting to feel more like yourself again is reason enough.

And if you’ve been holding everything in for so long that even a simple “Are you okay” could undo you, that isn’t weakness. It’s a sign you’ve been carrying too much alone.

You don’t have to keep doing that. You’re allowed to put the mask down. You’re allowed to breathe. You’re allowed to let someone meet you gently, at your pace, in a way that helps your system soften instead of brace.

At Serenities Path in Shrewsbury, the space I offer is held with the same gentleness. I meet you where you're at.

Nikki