by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Ache is a Signal From Your Realness Asking You to Course Correct
There’s a persistent feeling that many of us know all too well:
It’s not quite sadness and it’s not exactly boredom but it follows us through life like a shadow as a kind of ache deep in the chest or a restless stirring in the mind.
It gives us the vague sense that something is ‘missing’ and that whatever this ‘something’ is awaits just beyond our reach:
We chase jobs, relationships, experiences, accomplishments, and even hobbies, hoping that one of them will finally make us feel complete…yet, somehow, the Ache persists and we always seem to find ourselves back at square one.
What’s ‘funny’ (depending on your definition) is that we’ve been taught, implicitly or explicitly, that this restless yearning is just part of the human condition and a fact of life we must learn to accept:
“Seeking is what makes us human”, we tell ourselves, “It’s normal to want ‘more‘” – and, on the surface, this seems reasonable because – after all, ambition, curiosity, and desire are undeniably human traits.
Here’s the thing, though:
This popular explanation is entirely misleading because the truth that the Ache isn’t simply a quirk of our species but a signal: a kind of internal feedback that – if we learn to listen carefully – can reveal the path out of restlessness and into realness.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
The Ache: What We'll Cover in this Article
- The Ache is a Signal From Your Realness Asking You to Course Correct
- What the Ache Really Is & Where it Comes From
- The Ache and The Void
- The Pattern of the Chase
- Zhuangzi and The Taoist Perspective
- Why Seeking Never Does the Job
- Practical Steps to Face The Ache
- The Final Word: Living Beyond The Ache
What the Ache Really Is & Where it Comes From
The Ache is that constant, restless longing that seems to shadow our lives from youth to old age:
It commonly gets romanticised as a poetic part of existence itself – for example, as “the pursuit of something more”, “the hunger for meaning”, or “the search for purpose”.
It’s so common that we collectively tend to admire those who seem to forever chase the horizon – thinking they’re somehow more alive or even virtuous because they never settle.
What we often fail to notice, though, is the cost:
When we experience The Ache, our typical instinct is to soothe it with action and so we end up picking something ‘good’ like a new career, a romantic partner, a promotion, wealth, or adventure and then treat it as the ULTIMATE thing in our lives.
What this means is that we put it on a pedestal and imagine that achieving it will fill the void inside – and, for a brief moment, perhaps, we feel relief, or even joy.
Inevitably, though, the empty feeling returns, sometimes stronger than before, nudging us toward the next goal or the next distraction and off we go again.
Many spend their whole lives like this, chasing “the next thing” and believing that one day, it will all make sense:
They achieve great accomplishments, even build enviable lives, but despite all this greatness and achievement, the Ache persists. and so they never really reach the point where they feel fully alive in the process of living.
Instead, their energy is consumed by perpetual striving as the subtle pleasures of simply BEING are left unexplored and they distract themselves with all that DOING so that burnout, disillusionment, and a sense of incompletion become the natural result.
The Ache and The Void
What’s really happening here and why does this Ache feel so unrelenting?
To really understand it, we need to take a quick look at The Void:
The Void is the fragmented inner landscape we start to inhabit when we become disconnected from the truth about ourselves, the world, and reality.
This disconnection often arises from shame, guilt, and/or trauma (the Unholy Trinity), or other experiences that convince us that we’re incomplete, broken, or unsafe if we show up in our REALNESS.
To survive in the Void, we create a kind of character – the ego – to navigate a world that feels fragmented as a projection of our own inner state of disconnection.
This ego acts, performs, achieves, and constructs a self-image that we end up filtering all of our experiences through but here’s the unfortunate catch:
Every time we rely on the ego to navigate life, we push our realness into hiding a little bit more.
What emerges once the ego has taken hold of us is the Shadow Self – our unfragmented essence in hiding and all of the ‘parts’ of us that are whole, unguarded, and real.
The Shadow Self is naturally in conflict with the ego because the ego depends on fragmentation to exist which means that it fears wholeness which is exactly what the Shadow naturally embodies.
In this context, The Ache is the Shadow speaking to us and trying to call us back home:
It’s the internal signal that tells us “You are not aligned with reality – you’re filtering yourself and life through a fractured lens“.
What this means is that when we misinterpret The Ache as just “human desire”, we end up externalising everything and chasing things in the world, hoping they’ll have the power to rescue us from this feeling (spoiler: they won’t).
The Pattern of the Chase
Most people follow a pretty predictable trajectory once The Ache shows up.
It goes like this:
- Awareness of the Ache: You feel restless, dissatisfied, or incomplete.
- Externalise: You identify a ‘good’ thing in the world that seems capable of ‘fixing’ this feeling – for example, a promotion, a new relationship, a bigger house, or a hobby (it could literally be anything).
- Chase it: You pursue it with energy, creativity, and focus because you don’t just see it as a ‘good’ thing but THE ULTIMATE thing.
- Momentary satisfaction: Perhaps you attain it, perhaps not – either way, the relief or disappointment is temporary as nothing has fundamentally changed and so you return to your baseline.
- Return of the Ache: The feeling reappears, sometimes more intensely than before but either way you’re back at square one.
- Repeat: You move on to next pursuit of the next ULTIMATE thing – often at the expense of your inner peace.
The irony of all of this is pretty spectacular:
The Ache, which is a signal trying to guide us toward slowing down and facing ourselves, often drives us to move faster and further away from realness because we mistake restlessness as a call to action, when in reality, it’s a call to awareness.
Zhuangzi and The Taoist Perspective
A classical Taoist parable that was written about 2500 years ago (showing that humans haven’t really changed that much, if at all) captures this dynamic perfectly.
In Zhuangzi, we read:
“There was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died.
If he had stayed in the shade, his shadow would disappear; if he had remained still, there would be no footprints.”
This story is a potent metaphor for The Ache as we’ve discussed it so far:
- The shadow represents our relationship with reality and truth and all of the ‘parts’ we instinctively try to avoid to protect the ego.
- The footprints signify the consequences of our actions – in particular, the unreal consequences that arise when we act from ego rather than essence (realness).
- The man’s frantic running mirrors our habitual response to The Ache: more striving, more chasing, more doing – all in an attempt to escape what we can’t avoid: the realness of ourselves and life.
The lesson is simple yet profound:
The Ache arises because we resist what is and so the more we run, the more the Void expands, and the more we chase, the heavier the burden becomes.
Why Seeking Never Does the Job
One of the most common traps is treating something external as the ‘ultimate’ because the truth is that no external achievement, possession, or relationship can serve this function in your life because the ultimate isn’t ‘out there’ because it’s in your connection with life itself.
The Ache is calling you to stop seeking outside and start seeking within – not in a vague and ‘introspective’ sense, but in a practical, engaged way because the only way to overcome The Ache is to recognise that what you’re truly looking for is already with you: your realness.
When we act from realness rather than ego, our decisions, behaviours, and interactions align naturally with reality and so our energy is no longer spent resisting life because it can flow freely instead.
In this state, the Shadow is no longer feared and the footprints of our actions become evidence of authentic engagement rather than indicators of ‘failure’ or extensions of an unreal self.
If you’re ready to overcome the Ache and tap into your realness then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.
Practical Steps to Face The Ache
We can start shifting from seeking and searching to being by engaging with some concrete steps to overcome the Ache:
1. Stop the Running
The first step is simple in theory, difficult in practice:
Pause.
When The Ache arises, notice your instinct to move, to act for the sake of acting (ego), or to ‘fix’ something, and, instead, take a moment to stop and breathe so that you can recalibrate your relationship with yourself and life.
Exercise: Each morning, sit quietly for five minutes and notice where your body feels tension or restlessness. Let yourself feel into the Ache and let it expand without needing to change it or ‘do’ anything with it.
2. Identify the Shadows
The Shadow is not something ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ – it’s just your unexpressed realness:
Begin noticing the areas in your life where you feel resistance, guilt, shame, or disconnection because these are often windows into the parts of yourself that have been hidden.
Exercise: Write down three areas where you feel tension or dissatisfaction and ask yourself: “What part of me is hiding here?”
3. Recognise Unreal Patterns
Take stock of where you habitually chase external goals to soothe discomfort and observe how these patterns play out in your life.
The key isn’t to eliminate desire but to distinguish between unreal seeking or striving versus expressing something from you realness.
Exercise: For one week, track moments when you feel restless and then note what you are chasing and why: “Am I chasing this because it will serve life or because it will soothe my ego?”
4. Cultivate Calm and Regulation
The more we can regulate our nervous system, the less the Ache drives compulsive action:
Simple practices like slow breathing, gentle movement, or grounding exercises allow us to return to a state where we can discern real from unreal and put ourselves back on our true path.
Exercise: Give yourself five minutes every day to practice box breathing (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4) and feel the tension in your body release with each breath.
5. Engage with Reality, Not Illusions
Face what’s real in your life – the ‘good’, the ‘bad’, the ordinary, and the challenging.
Reality isn’t something to escape from – it’s what allows you to finally stop running.
Exercise: Choose one area of life where you’ve been resisting reality and then take one small, real action today to engage with it authentically, without expectation of outcome.
6. Act from Realness, Not Ego
When your actions emerge from your realness, you no longer need to chase life to soothe inner friction – instead, you participate in life fully, and the Ache loses its grip.
Exercise: Before acting on a desire or impulse, ask: “Am I acting from realness or from ego?” – notice the difference in energy and how it feels in your body.
The Final Word: Living Beyond The Ache
The Ache is not a curse nor is it a part of the human condition that you just have to deal with:
It’s FEEDBACK and a compass pointing toward wholeness.
Each moment of restlessness, each pang of longing, is an invitation to slow down, face reality, and reclaim your realness and – once we accept this – a profound shift occurs:
The Shadow is no longer feared but embraced, the consequences of our actions are no longer a source of dread but an opportunity to act in alignment with truth, and the Ache that once drove frantic striving becomes a subtle guide, showing us where we can reconnect with life, fully and deeply.
To live beyond The Ache is to live in realness which is to move through life with authenticity, presence, and clarity so that we can step out of The Void and into a life where longing no longer drives us into exhaustion, but points us back to the one place where we have always belonged: within ourselves, aligned with reality, and whole.
The Ache isn’t a problem to fix; it’s a message to heed.
Stop running, face your shadow, observe your footprints, and you’ll discover there is no Ache: just life and your own capacity to make it either unreal or REAL.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to overcome the Ache and start living your real life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you find a solid foundation to build on.
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