When Trying to Feel Better Starts to Feel Like Pressure
There’s a strange irony in midlife:
You start trying to take care of yourself just at the moment you feel most disconnected from yourself.
You read the books. You save the Instagram posts. You sign up for the newsletters, download the meditation apps and promise yourself that this week you’ll really do it.
You’ll stretch. Journal. Eat better. Rest more. Be present. Meditate. Cut out caffeine. Maybe even finally take those supplements you bought months ago and keep forgetting to open.
You try.
But somehow, even the trying feels heavy. Like it’s yet another thing you’re not doing quite right.
You start to wonder if self-care is just another version of self-judgment — a performance you’re meant to keep up, while secretly wondering if you’ve missed some essential instruction manual that everyone else seems to have read.
And maybe, beneath all the pressure, you start to feel something even harder to admit:
> That trying to feel better is making you feel worse.
I remember a moment — not so long ago — when I stood in the kitchen staring at half-opened supplements and wondering if I even had the energy, or time, to blend that green smoothie I believed would help. I was tired. Not just physically, but soul-tired. And somewhere in me, a voice whispered: What are you doing this for, really? Who are you trying to be right now?
Because the truth was — I didn’t want a smoothie (even though I really love them).
I wanted stillness.
I wanted to feel something again that didn’t feel like a task.
I wanted to feel myself again — not the version of me who ticked all the boxes, but the one who could sit down in the quiet and still recognize her own thoughts.
And that’s what I’ve come to believe:
Wellbeing isn’t something we’re meant to achieve.
It’s something we can tend to. Gently. Kindly. Imperfectly.
Not through someone else’s morning routine or a podcast’s list of non-negotiables. But through our own noticing. Our own honest relationship with ourselves. Our own tiny, ordinary acts of kindness — not as a means to optimize ourselves, but simply to meet ourselves where we actually are.
Some days that might look like journaling.
Some days it might look like making toast and sitting down for five minutes while it’s still warm.
Some days it might look like doing nothing at all.
And that’s enough. Truly.
Because you don’t need the perfect wellness plan.
You need more permission to be human in your own life.
You’re not failing at self-care.
You’re just exhausted from trying to do it in a way that was never designed for your actual days.
So here’s a suggestion, if you need one today:
> What if well-being didn’t need to be a routine you follow, but a relationship you build — slowly, kindly, intuitively?
One that’s shaped by your own rhythm. Your own energy. Your own life as it actually is — not the life you wish you were living.
Maybe it starts with making a really great coffee before you check your email.
Or choosing that latest fiction blockbuster over one more scroll.
Or simply asking yourself: What do I need today — not in theory, but in reality?
Maybe you don’t need more effort.
Maybe you just need less pressure.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s the beginning of feeling better — not as something you achieve, but something just to keep you connected to yourself even in the most wobbly of days.
Well-being Prescriptions for Midlife
We don’t believe that well-being is one thing to all people. We’ve found that we all need something different from it — some of us to feel calmer, others more energized; some to deal with the overwhelm, others with the disconnection; and some of us to reach for our purpose, others for a paintbrush.
Learn more about our well-being prescriptions here. Find out more about what you need it to be, and do, for you.
Midlife can look different for each of us. Write your own plan for a way through it that works for you.
Curious how to find your own way to well during these midlife days? Subscribe to our newsletter here.
