Why Your Healthy Routine Can’t Fix That Constant “Blah” Feeling

In the spring of last year, a driven executive came to me having decided to overhaul his life. 

He had started exercising daily, was eating clean, stuck to a strict sleep schedule, and even booked weekly breathwork sessions. 

Yet every morning he woke up feeling empty, drained and uninspired. He was just getting through on autopilot—jogging, eating well, resting. 

But that “blah” feeling never left.

What do most people who feel “blah” want?

Imagine this:

You wake up feeling rested. Not wired. Not heavy. Just clear.

Your mind is quieter. You are not drowning in overthinking or self-criticism. You move through the day without second-guessing every decision or forcing yourself to power through.

You enjoy your downtime again. You laugh more. You speak more honestly. You feel more like yourself, not the version that is coping or holding it together, but the one that is grounded, focused and alive.

Motivation returns without needing to chase it. You stop dragging your body through a life that feels flat and start moving toward something that feels real.

Most people who feel that sense of existential numbness just want to not feel it. They don’t really think about what they do want to feel, and that in itself is kind of an issue.

I’ve mapped out what happened for the executive I mentioned above, to help you imagine what could be on the other side of this feeling.

Why don’t standard productivity tactics don’t fix existential numbness or “blah”?

Coffee, workouts, time blocks, meditations on YouTube, positivity books, massage, breathwork, acupuncture…this guy was trying so hard, and although he had a superficial uplift from all these activities, something still felt seriously off.

When we finally spoke, he was restless and irritated – “I’m trying harder than anyone I know,” he said, “but nothing works for me. I feel broken”

“So you have no problems at all, and you still don’t feel OK?” I asked.

At first, he said he was basically OK, but I used some techniques to dig down a bit into what “OK” really meant.

It turned out he actually felt bored as hell at work and disconnected at home, and between his self-help activities, he was binge-watching YouTube content and scrolling to try to distract himself from it.

“Isn’t it very normal and very human,” I asked him, “to feel bad when you don’t feel connected or purposeful in life?”

He agreed.

I imagined it like this: if you twisted your ankle, but rather than rest the ankle, you decided to keep running every day and compensate with some yoga and breathwork, would you feel better?

“I’m doing everything, why is my ankle not getting better?”

If you closed your eyes at this moment and actually listened, it’s likely your body would just tell you to take a rest…

To sum up the issue the simplest way I know how: when the “blah” won’t go away, the problem isn’t green tea or gym frequency. It’s that parts of you are being ignored, and those parts are screaming in the background.

You can numb those parts out with alcohol, over-exercise, obsessive health routines, socialising non-stop, but eventually, those inner screams get louder.

Your parts: the internal tug-of-war that’s draining you

See if you can imagine in your mind’s eye and bickering family living inside you. 

There’s an overprotective dad watching TV, maybe he’d kinda grumpy, telling you not to take too many risks at work. Then there’s a mean aunt who always criticises you and makes you feel small. There are also more uplifting parts like a cousin who builds you up no matter what, and so on.

All these parts were created in your brain and nervous system at different moments based on what you thought would work in the world at that time.

If you were 4 and had a very critical parent, for example, that 4-year-old brain could very reasonably assume that being criticised was very useful to its well-being. That voice would then be used for a while until it was just part of that kid’s “personality”.

We have many different voices or modes of thought we adopt at different times, even in the same day. Feeling good? A young, joyful part is happy, but the critical part is still humming in the background, saying there’s work that needs to get done.

These internal family systems, as they’re called in psychology, can take as many intricate forms as real human social groups, and your configuration is unique.

When one part is dominant – often the “sensible” part – then the other parts get suppressed and become “exiles”. This means they don’t get much say in your decision making or thought processes, so they often make themselves felt unconsciously with weird feelings or physical issues- like bloating, fatigue or pain.

A lot of us have been numbing out these feelings of “not okayness” for many decades before we decide it’s time to turn inwards and see what’s happening with that bickering family inside.

What you really need is to listen—not push harder

The first step is not ramping up your routine. It’s pausing. Get still. Breathe. Ask: “What am I shutting down here?” That may come through quiet reflection or a guided nervous system approach. When you give those neglected parts a voice, their demand stops screaming through shutdown.

The client I mentioned above had this secret desire to quit his job and move to the middle of nowhere to start a farm. It’s a common dream these days. So was that what it took to be OK?

Fortunately not.

If we needed revolution to be OK, we’d be outsourcing our happiness entirely to following our wildest dreams. It simply isn’t necessary.

My client didn’t even need to quit his secure job, or consume more self-help books or motivational podcasts. 

What worked for him was so simple it almost seems insignificant (like many of the biggest things in life). He needed to acknowledge that his “creative spark” existed and deserved attention. He also had some anger to release, quite a bit of it directed at himself for not listening, but also at others in his life. Once that passed, this looked a lot different.

One important note here is that anger doesn’t just grow when you truly feel it, contrary to what many of us fear, it moves through and passes on.

This guy then found small ways he could listen to these inner parts and allow them to be heard, even when they weren’t convenient or sensible. At first, it was kind of unnatural, but like anything, it then became a reflex until people started saying things like “creativity” was just part of his personality.

If you want help to break the cycle of blah…

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