When Restlessness Has Something to Say
Aug 31, 2026 09:00AM ● By Deb Beroset
photo Unsplash.com
There are times when the first sign of change is almost embarrassingly ordinary.
A room that has been perfectly acceptable for years suddenly feels unbearable. Nothing is broken. Still, there is a startlingly clear thought: I cannot spend another year of my life in here.
Or a webpage for an acting class keeps getting reopened, despite no theatrical ambitions and no sensible explanation for the interest. A calendar that once felt satisfying begins to feel oppressive. Someone hears themselves say, “I want a quieter life,” and notices the relief that arrives before the mind has time to object.
These moments are easy to dismiss. Restlessness is inconvenient. Desire can seem indulgent, especially when life is, by most measures, good.
So the instinct is often to smooth the feeling over. Get more sleep. Take a vacation. Practice gratitude.
Sometimes that’s exactly what’s called for.
And sometimes the feeling keeps returning because something in life is no longer willing to be ignored.
We tend to think of inner balance as calm: a settled nervous system, a manageable schedule, enough time for exercise and sleep.
All of that matters. But balance in a living system is not the same thing as stillness.
Think about walking. Human beings are built to move. Walking keeps us healthy not despite all that shifting and adjusting, but in part because of it. Movement is part of how the body stays well.
Our inner lives may need movement, too.
The job can still be respectable while the thought of doing it for five more years produces a sinking feeling. A relationship can be loving while the conversation about whether both people still want the same kind of life has been postponed for months. A calendar can be manageable while its owner no longer wants their days to look like that.
Nothing dramatic has to be wrong. Sometimes the discomfort is pointing toward something that has become true.
One question I have been returning to lately is: What am I no longer available for?
Not what should I stop doing? “Should” invites the whole committee into the room: family expectations, cultural rules, self-improvement advice, your best friend’s opinion.
Then comes the companion question: What am I becoming available for?
Recently, one woman wrote to me about wanting to take an acting class at 65. Another, after years of career demands and caretaking, described wanting a quieter life—and dancing. “The only grind I now want,” she wrote, “is from coffee.”
That’s what I call heat: the place where something has energy.
Heat can show up as desire, curiosity, irritation, relief or a subject that keeps returning. It does not mean do this immediately. If Lisbon has heat; nobody needs to sell the house and move to Portugal before lunch.
It means there is something worth noticing.
Inner balance is not about obeying every impulse. Nor is it about becoming so competent at managing life that every inconvenient feeling gets managed out of existence.
Sometimes what unsettles us is precisely what deserves attention.
The mind often wants certainty before movement. What does this mean? Where is it going? Is this really what I want?
That’s a lot to ask of a flicker.
A small move can reveal more than another month of thinking. Take the acting class once. Visit the city for an ordinary weekend, with a grocery store and morning coffee instead of a tourist itinerary. Turn the conversation rehearsed in the shower into five minutes of the real one.
Something becomes clearer. Energy rises or falls. The next move changes.
That, too, is balance: not holding life perfectly still, but staying in an honest relationship with what is changing.
So when restlessness, longing or irritation keeps returning, perhaps the first question is not, How do I get rid of this feeling?
What am I no longer available for?
What am I becoming available for?
What has heat?
The thing disturbing the peace may not be the problem. It may be the part of life asking to be heard.
Deb Beroset is a writer, creative catalyst and founder of Moxie, where she creates experiences and tools for people who want to live with more aliveness, courage and creative agency. Her free 10-minute Heat Check helps people notice what has energy now—and choose one true move toward it. Visit ItsTimeForMoxie.com/heat. See ad, page 7.
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