You Have Everything You Wanted, So Why Are You Still Anxious?
“Navigating change with awareness, vulnerability, and purpose.”
SOMA | The ARC-G Well
The Story
Over the years, I’ve noticed a familiar story emerge among high-achieving women in midlife.
They’ve built the career, the family, the home. They’ve worked hard to create stability, and finally, they can slow down.
Friends tell them to “just relax.” Partners remind them to “enjoy what you’ve worked so hard for.”
But when they try, something unexpected happens: unease sets in.
They find themselves wondering, Why do I feel restless when my life looks exactly the way I wanted it to?
The Pattern Beneath the Surface
To illustrate what I often see in my work, here are two composite stories, fictionalized examples that represent patterns shared by many of the women I work with.
Maya’s Story
Maya grew up being rewarded for excellence, straight A’s, leadership roles, scholarships. Doing well didn’t just bring praise; it brought connection.
Somewhere along the way, her nervous system wrote a quiet equation:
Achievement = worth.
Productivity = love.
Now, in her 40s, with so much of what she’d worked for finally stable, her system didn’t know how to rest.
The part of her that had spent a lifetime earning approval through doing didn’t understand how to feel valuable in the stillness.
So even when everything was fine on the outside, she stayed busy on the inside; second-guessing, planning, mentally editing her day because motion felt more familiar than calm.
Sarah’s Story
Sarah’s life looked different but held a similar undercurrent.
She grew up in a home where the mood could shift without warning. Some days light and affectionate, others tense and unpredictable. She learned to read the room before she spoke, to anticipate and prevent conflict.
That vigilance became second nature.
Chaos wasn’t comfortable, but it was familiar.
Calm, on the other hand, felt fragile, like it could break at any moment.
Now, as an adult, when life finally felt steady, her body didn’t know how to trust it.
When the external world grew quiet, her mind filled the silence, scanning for what might go wrong.
Noise, even internal noise, felt safer than the quiet.
What the Nervous System Is Trying to Tell Us
When we’ve lived through prolonged stress or instability, our nervous system learns to equate familiarity with safety, even when that familiarity comes from chaos or constant striving.
For some, stillness feels threatening because it means they’re not earning their worth.
For others, stillness feels fragile because quiet once signaled that something bad might be coming.
Different origins. Same conclusion:
Ease = vulnerability.
Calm can feel foreign.
The absence of momentum or tension can feel like something’s wrong.
But it’s not danger, it’s simply your system doing what it learned to do. It just hasn’t caught up to the fact that the rules have changed.
The Reframe
The work isn’t about forcing yourself to “relax.”
It’s about updating those old internal contracts, thanking the parts of you that worked so hard to protect you, and letting them know they can rest now.
You’re not in danger anymore.
You’re just not used to peace yet.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Change happens through small, consistent experiments.
If your pattern comes from achievement:
Start with tiny doses of “uselessness.”
Try sitting with your morning coffee for fifteen minutes, no to-do list, no mental planning, no optimizing.
Notice what comes up.
That restlessness or guilt? It’s just your body’s alarm system saying, If you’re not producing, you’re not valuable.
Respond differently:
“I am enough even when I’m not achieving.
This discomfort means I’m unlearning an old rule.”
Celebrate the discomfort as progress, it’s proof your system is learning something new.
If your pattern comes from unpredictability:
Notice when vigilance kicks in, maybe on quiet evenings or slow weekends.
The calm might trigger anxiety, and your mind starts searching for what’s wrong.
Pause and name it:
“Oh, this is my old protection system. It thinks calm equals danger. It’s trying to keep me safe.”
Then offer reassurance:
“Thank you for protecting me. But I’m safe now. This is what steady actually feels like, its just unfamiliar.”
Even five minutes of staying present with ease can begin to rewire what safety feels like.
The Deeper Truth
We spend the first half of life building safety through external means; achieving goals, managing chaos, earning approval, proving our worth. Midlife is often the moment we realize: I have the life I worked for. So why don’t I feel at ease?
Because ease doesn’t come from what you do.
It comes from who you are, beneath all the striving and proving.
This is what I mean when I talk about fueling the return to self.
It’s not about becoming someone new; it’s about remembering who you were before you learned you had to earn your place in the world.
Reflection “The Work”
Where in your life does calm feel uncomfortable?
What protective patterns might still be running the show, long after the crisis has passed?
Does your unease come from learning that achievement kept you safe, or from surviving unpredictability?
What would it feel like to give yourself permission to rest without needing to earn it first?
What’s one small way you could practice staying present with ease this week?
Author’s Note
This reflection is inspired by themes from my upcoming book, Fueling the Return to Self , a guide to evolving through midlife with more Awareness, Resilience, Connection, and Growth, the pillars of SOMA.
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