Navigating Pressure, Overwhelm, and Becoming Yourself
2025 was a year of pressure. Cornered, stretched, facing battles I couldn’t name. A year of untangling my relationship with effort, energy, obligation, martyrdom, and love. Where I am now, and where I feel called to go, are very different places—but much of the tension came from me resisting life unfolding naturally.
Pressure shows up in every part of life. Family. Work. Money. Desire to connect, to start dating again. And when it gets too much, I freeze. Not because I’m weak. Not because I’ve failed. But because pressure, when misunderstood, overwhelms the nervous system and buries the part of us that needs attention.
Most of us react to pressure the same way: we perform, we over-give, we over-plan, we distract ourselves from the uncomfortable feeling inside. We tell ourselves, “I just have to get on with it.” But underneath that compulsion is an emotion too tender to sit with. Fear. Grief. Loneliness. Shame. That’s the pressure speaking—and it’s pointing to something deeper.
The first step is learning to recognize where pressure comes from. External pressures are obvious: family demands, work obligations, taxes. Internal pressure is trickier. It shows up as a story about who you are if you don’t measure up: “I’m a failure. I’m not enough. If I don’t make everyone happy, I’ll be abandoned.” That’s where the real work begins—meeting the part of yourself carrying that wound.
I had to become intimate with my inner child, the part that feared abandonment. Not to fix it. Not to make it go away. Just to sit with it, witness it, and build a slow, steady trust between the adult-sovereign part of me and that vulnerable, tender part. I began to notice how much of my life—my boundaries, my energy, my work, my relationships—had been organized around keeping this inner child “safe.” People-pleasing, soft boundaries, overgiving. And I realized how exhausting it was, and how misaligned with my truth.
Pressure isn’t meant to disappear. It’s a signal. It’s asking you to expand your capacity to feel. To hold grief and love in the same space. To sit with discomfort without shrinking. To meet the tender parts of yourself instead of ignoring them. When approached this way, pressure becomes a teacher, not a taskmaster.
If you’re in this place—overwhelmed, cornered, unsure—you’re not broken. You’re not failing. You’re alive. You’re learning to belong to yourself while still loving others. You’re learning that some relationships will deepen, some will dissolve, and both are part of the same process.
Slow down. Breathe. Feel it. Make space for the ache, the tenderness, the grief. This is what it means to meet life fully, to navigate pressure without collapsing, and to step into your own sovereignty. The fog will lift in time. Not perfectly, not all at once, but enough to see the path ahead—alive, open, and aligned with the fullness of who you are becoming.
If you’re ready to stop spinning in circles, navigate life’s pressure with clarity, and reconnect with yourself and the Divine on your own terms, I work with people like you—helping you step into truth, love, and wisdom so you can move through confusion, grief, and overwhelm with presence and sovereignty. If that feels like the next step for you, reach out and let’s walk through it together.
Matthew :)
The Sovereign Alchemist
