Not What Makes You Happy — What Sets You on Fire
“The body knows the difference. Let alignment—not adrenaline—be your compass.”
TL;DR – The Heart of It:
Happiness is fleeting and often performative — your nervous system craves safety, coherence, and embodied truth instead.
Chasing the wrong kind of “fire” can lead to burnout and emotional disconnection; real purpose feels steady, sacred, and sustainable.
The body knows the difference. Let alignment—not adrenaline—be your compass.
Why This Question Matters
Everyone says they want to be happy. It’s one of those things people throw out easily — “I just want to be happy” — like it’s the natural end goal of healing, success, or life itself.
But I’ve started to wonder: What if happiness isn’t what the body actually wants?
I’ve felt it in myself — and I’ve seen it in clients too. The moment when someone realizes they’ve been chasing the feeling of happiness like a finish line, only to arrive… and still feel empty. Or disoriented. Or more anxious than before. It’s like the nervous system doesn’t know what to do with “happy” when it’s been running on survival mode for years.
I remember a time when everything on the surface looked good — I had work, a relationship, a little more space to breathe than usual. And I kept telling myself, You should be happy. But underneath, I was numb. I was untethered. I wasn’t in crisis anymore… but I also wasn’t lit up.
That was the wake-up call: happiness wasn’t lighting me up. It was just distracting me from the fact that I was still disconnected.
For those of us healing from trauma, living in a state of burnout, or navigating life in a sensitive body, the pursuit of happiness can start to feel hollow. Even violent, in its own quiet way — like trying to force a smile on a nervous system that just wants rest, or truth, or permission to feel something real.
What I’ve learned — and what I keep learning — is that there’s something more sustainable than happiness. Something more embodied. It doesn’t always look joyful from the outside, but it feels honest in the body. It’s purpose. Devotion. Truth. It’s that inner fire that doesn’t burn you out — it just keeps calling you forward.
This post is about that fire. It’s about the difference between what makes you happy and what makes you whole. It’s about the nervous system, and how it responds differently to performance than it does to alignment. And it’s about how to start listening — not just to your mind or your goals — but to the subtle signals of your body that are asking for something deeper.
Let’s talk about what really lights you up — from the inside out.
What’s the Problem With Chasing Happiness?
The problem isn’t happiness itself — it’s what we’ve turned it into.
We’ve made it a measuring stick. A performance. A moving target that you’re somehow supposed to hit and hold onto — even when life is anything but light. Mainstream wellness, especially in the West, has fed us a narrative that sounds like this: If you’re not happy, you’re doing something wrong. If you're anxious, sad, angry, or unmotivated — you must be blocked, unhealed, or failing.
But here’s the truth no one talks about enough:
Happiness is not a baseline — it’s a byproduct.
When your nervous system is safe, when your body feels steady, when your life has meaning — then moments of happiness might show up. But trying to chase happiness directly often just adds pressure. Especially if your body is already carrying trauma, burnout, or unresolved grief.
Why This Feels So Confusing in a Dysregulated Body
If you’ve been in survival mode — whether from trauma, chronic stress, loss, or just years of pretending everything's fine — your body doesn’t interpret “happy” the way a regulated body does. It might not trust it. It might flinch when something feels good, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It might get overstimulated. It might even shut down.
There’s a kind of whiplash that happens when you try to force joy into a system that hasn't had the space to process sadness, fear, or fatigue. The smile becomes a mask — not a sign of healing, but a sign you’re trying to pass as okay. Especially in wellness spaces, there’s a subtle but toxic pressure to “vibrate higher” instead of tell the truth.
And this isn’t just emotional — it’s physiological.
According to Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, our nervous system’s sense of safety is not cognitive — it’s felt. You can tell yourself you're fine a thousand times, but if your vagus nerve hasn’t received the signal that it’s safe to soften, your body won’t register joy as real. It’ll see it as unfamiliar… and possibly unsafe.
That’s why for some people, joy feels threatening. Stillness feels overwhelming. Connection feels suspicious. It’s not a flaw — it’s a trauma-informed response.
How Does Chasing Happiness Impact the Nervous System?
It’s easy to assume that if something makes you happy, it must be good for you — right? But here’s where things get tricky: what your mind labels as “happy” isn’t always what your nervous system recognizes as safe. And those two things — happiness and safety — are not the same.
So many people come to bodywork or somatic healing thinking the goal is to “feel better.” But often, “better” is code for “happier.” And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting joy, it becomes a problem when we try to skip the body’s actual process to get there.
Your nervous system’s job isn’t to create joy — it’s to protect you. Constantly. Even when you're not aware of it. The nervous system is always asking:
Am I safe? Am I supported? Can I let go?
Not: Am I happy?
When the answer to those first questions is no — even subtly — your body may stay in fight, flight, or freeze mode… even in moments that look joyful on the outside. This is why you can be laughing with friends and still feel frozen inside. If your body isn’t congruent with your environment, joy becomes a performance, not an experience.
“If your body isn’t congruent with your environment, joy becomes a performance—not an experience.”
When “Happy” Feels Unsafe
Sometimes joy, connection, stillness, or love can feel dangerous — not because they are, but because they’re unfamiliar. If your nervous system has associated closeness with betrayal, or pleasure with pain, or calm with collapse, those things can register as threats — even when your conscious mind knows they’re good.
So when someone says, “Just do what makes you happy,” it can feel like a trap.
You might want to… but your body might say: No. Not yet. Not like this.
This doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means your body is wise. It’s protecting you the only way it knows how.
And sometimes — more often than people realize — the body regulates in places that happiness can’t reach. Grief. Devotion. Ritual. Even rage. These states feel real. They don’t require you to pretend.
Grief can be grounding. Ritual gives rhythm. Devotion offers a deeper kind of safety — one rooted in meaning, not mood. When you’re healing from trauma or emotional depletion, your nervous system often prefers truth over comfort.
What Does It Actually Feel Like to Be Lit Up From Within?
It’s easy to confuse being “on fire” with being hyped up. Especially in a world that equates intensity with passion, and adrenaline with purpose. But when I say lit up, I don’t mean overstimulated. I mean the kind of fire that burns steady. Quietly. From deep inside your body — not your brain.
There’s a big difference between feeling lit up and being lit up from within.
One feels like urgency. The other feels like clarity.
One feels like a caffeine high. The other feels like dropping into something sacred.
One collapses you after. The other carries you through.
True fire doesn’t fry your nervous system — it steadies it.
We’ve all had moments where something felt exciting — a new idea, a bold move, a big opportunity — and it sparked energy. But if that spark came from fear, people-pleasing, or pressure to prove… it likely burned hot and fast and left you exhausted.
That’s not devotion. That’s a trauma response dressed up as momentum.
How Can You Tell the Difference Between a True Fire and a False High?
It’s easy to mistake a rush for a revelation — especially when you’ve been disconnected for a while. But not everything that feels big is real. And not everything real needs to feel big.
A false high usually feels euphoric, dramatic, or addictive. It spikes your nervous system, often driven by validation, proving something, or trying to escape discomfort. You crash afterward — physically, emotionally, or both.
A true fire is quieter. It feels like devotion. It pulls you in slowly, then sustains you — even when it’s hard. It doesn’t depend on applause. You return to it because something deep in you says yes.
Ask your body:
Does this soften or tighten my breath?
Do I feel grounded or unglued?
Would I still do this if no one praised it?
How do I feel after — calm and clear, or spun out and empty?
This is the emotional afterglow test. A false high leaves you unsteady. A true fire leaves you more you.
“A false high leaves you unsteady. A true fire leaves you more you.”
What Happens When You Follow the Wrong Flame?
Sometimes we think we’re following purpose — but we’re really following pressure. Fear of being invisible. Fear of falling behind. Fear of losing the version of ourselves others admire.
The wrong flame can look impressive. It might even feel powerful at first. But it depletes you instead of anchoring you. You start noticing signs:
Burnout that rest doesn’t fix
Resentment toward the work you used to love
Emotional numbness
Physical symptoms — tightness, fatigue, insomnia
That quiet ache that whispers: This isn’t it.
This is your body speaking. Not to punish you — but to redirect you. Misalignment isn’t failure. It’s feedback.
What Should You Be Listening for Instead?
So what’s worth listening to, if not happiness? What lights you up in a way that doesn’t burn you out?
Not what makes you smile in the moment — but what you’re willing to return to. What makes you stay. What helps you feel whole.
Purpose isn’t always pleasant — but it’s always alive.
It might feel like:
A quiet pull in your chest
A deep breath when you’re afraid but clear
The moment after doing something hard — when you feel like yourself again
The willingness to return, not out of obligation, but truth
This is what your nervous system actually craves. Not intensity. Not approval. Just coherence. Integrity. Alignment.
And most of all — safety to be honest.
What Lights You on Fire?
Here are some gentle prompts to explore your own fire — not through thinking, but through feeling:
🕯 When do I feel most alive — not just excited, but settled in my aliveness?
🔥 What kind of discomfort am I willing to move through, because it matters to me?
🌙 What’s the slow-burning yes I keep ignoring?
🕊 What does my body actually want to feel — and have I made space for that?
🌿 What would devotion look like in my body today — not as a concept, but as a ritual?
Let these answers rise slowly. The truth doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it hums.
“What would devotion look like in my body today—not as a concept, but as a ritual?”
Let the Fire Stay Lit
Healing isn’t about “feeling good.” Not all the time. Not even most of the time.
Real healing is about feeling honest. Letting your body tell the truth — even when it’s quiet, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s about no longer chasing joy like a prize, or squeezing yourself into a version of happiness that doesn’t fit.
Because happiness flickers.
But purpose stays.
It won’t always look exciting. Sometimes it will look like stillness. Like grief. Like devotion no one sees.
But if it steadies your breath, if it brings you home to yourself, if it keeps you from abandoning your truth again — that’s the fire worth tending.
So let this be the reminder:
You don’t need a bigger spark.
You just need to stop pouring energy into flames that were never yours.
Come back. Reignite what’s true.
Let it burn — slow, steady, sacred.
That’s enough.
Ready to Work Together?
If you’re craving a healing experience that honors your body’s truth — not just a quick-fix massage — I’d love to hold space for you.
Veluna Wellness™ opens later this fall in Santa Fe, New Mexico, offering nervous system–centered bodywork and sacred somatic ritual.
✨ Spots will be limited. You can join the waitlist now to be the first to know when booking opens.
