A Life Without Emergency Exits
For a long time, relief felt temporary. Peace was something I chased, rescued, or scheduled. Life’s magic only appeared in bursts, through escapes, through “emergency” exits. Working just for vacations is a familiar version of this, not for love of travel, but for the need to get away. Vacations should be a treat, a breath, but too often they were a necessity, because returning meant going back to a life I didn’t fully live or enjoy.
The irony is that even travel, with all its planning and organizing, can throw you off. I love the beach, warm weather, good sleep, coffee, a book, meditation. But a lot of trips demand far more than that. Some leave me recovering for days. Though I’m confident it will not always be that way.
The truth is, magic isn’t in the escape, it’s in the living. It’s in the space we create for ourselves. I’ve cried on the last morning of vacations I didn’t want to leave, yet didn’t want to go home to a job or situation that drained me. So much of my healing was built on escape, moments of peace because I didn’t have peace inside myself, chasing relief while trying to live a “normal” life that, in retrospect, was a lot of “shoulds”.
Somewhere along the way, I also lost my ability to discern what was truly mine and what belonged to others or what I even really wanted. Their expectations. Their timelines. Their nervous systems. Their definitions of success and “good.” I became so practiced at adapting, accommodating, and keeping up that my own signals grew quiet. When you lose that line, even well-intentioned choices can feel confusing. You start saying yes to things that look right, sound right, and still leave you depleted.
Life is an environment: what you consume, where you live, who you surround yourself with, the choices you make daily. Work takes up hours, energy, and attention. And still, we count the days, until the weekend, until the next vacation, until we find something that feels like relief.
Here’s the nuance that changed everything for me: it’s not that life, or a choice, is inherently good or bad. Everything has its time and its place. What nourishes you in one season may deplete you in another. What looks “good” on paper can quietly pull you away from yourself. Life was never meant to be built on a series of shoulds.
I was asked recently, “can you build a life you don’t need an emergency exit from?”. Can you learn to discern, not through pressure or perfection, but through the body, through energy, through truth? To feel what raises your vibration and what doesn’t. To recognize when even “good” things cost more than they give.
It isn’t always easy to discern, especially when you’ve spent years disconnected from your own signals. But over time, the body remembers. And when you start listening, life becomes less about escape and more about alignment. Less about chasing moments of magic, and more about creating a life that actually fits.
I am building a life I don’t need an emergency exit from and that feels really good.
If this resonates, I invite you to pause and ask yourself, gently, honestly, where am I still carrying what isn’t mine? Where am I saying yes out of habit, obligation, or expectation? And what would it feel like to listen a little more closely to my own body and energy? You don’t have to change everything at once. Discernment begins with noticing. With listening. With giving yourself permission to choose what truly supports you in this season.
That’s where the real work begins.
Namasté