I think some people become so used to trying to understand everyone that they don’t even realize how much they’re carrying mentally all the time. You’re constantly thinking about: how somebody meant something, how somebody took something, how to explain something better, how to avoid misunderstandings, how to keep things from turning into bigger problems… and after a while it’s like your brain never fully shuts off because you’re always trying to hold every perspective in the room at the same time. And honestly, I didn’t even realize this is what I was doing for the longest because it just felt normal. Then one day I finally stopped and realized I’d spent so much time trying to understand everyone else that I stopped paying attention to myself too. #selfawareness #emotionalpatterns #peoplepleasing #innerwork #mentaloverload