Do Less Robotic. Do Human Better.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was proud of myself on paper.
 I worked eight hours straight on the computer.
 I solved five major problems in my life.
 I ate well.
 I forced in a two-hour workout.
 I completed every task, every responsibility, every expectation.

And then my body shut down.

A migraine so heavy it pulled me into bed — the same kind I had in 10th grade that lasted three days. Back then my mother didn’t know what to do with me. Back then it was the first time I learned the cost of pushing myself past my emotional, physical, and mental bandwidth.

What I didn’t know then — and what I forget now — is that I wasn’t built to operate like a machine.

I learned to obey young.
I learned to take instructions.
I learned to shut off my inner world because it was too big, too deep, too misunderstood.

At 14, 15, I had opinions I didn’t know how to speak aloud.
 Thoughts I didn’t know where to place.
 So I did what so many of us do — I turned off the human and became the operator.

A system.
A performer.
A problem-solver.
A worker.

And it worked — until it didn’t.

The Human I Lost Track Of

The truth is: this is the first time in my adult life that all my kids are out of the house.

For years, my personal life was layered between care-taking, responsibility, survival, and rebuilding.
And somewhere underneath that, a young version of me was still waiting.
Not frozen — just ignored.

Now, as I peel back physical weight, as I confront emotional weight, as I try to heal the patterns that were never mine to begin with, she finally has room.

That inner teenager.
 The one who saw the world clearly.
 The one who was deep before she had language for depth.
 The one who was thoughtful, observant, intuitive.

She’s here again.

But I didn’t know what to do with her.
 So I did what my nervous system has always done:

I suppressed her with responsibility.
I structured myself into silence.
I replaced her with systems.
I made myself useful instead of truthful.

And that’s when the headaches return.
Like a body alarm saying: you’ve left yourself again.

The Body as a Messenger, Not a Machine

This morning I woke up with the migraine still there — loud, heavy, pulsing behind my eye.

But something in me didn’t want to repeat the pattern.

So I went outside.
 Into sunlight.
 Into grass.
 Into warmth.
 Into nature — which speaks in frequencies the body recognizes immediately.

It wasn’t blue light from a screen.
 It wasn’t artificial brightness.
 It wasn’t the cold glow of a robotic world.

It was infrared, warmth, softness — human light.

I sat on the grass with no phone.
 I closed some tabs in my mind — the emotional ones, the hidden ones, the things that clutter the human experience when we ignore ourselves for too long.

I breathed.
 I listened to wind.
 I listened to birds.
 I let myself feel the sun on my face.

And I realized something so simple it hurt:

I am not a machine.
 I am not meant to run without rest.
 I am not designed for constant output.

I am human.
 And humans need softness.
 They need rhythm.
 They need pauses.
 They need space to feel.
 They need time to recalibrate, not just produce.

The relief I felt wasn’t just physical.
 It was emotional regulation.
 It was nervous system exhale.
 It was a reminder of who I am when I stop long enough to hear myself.

Do Less Robotic.

Do Human Better.**

Do less obeying.
Do better listening — to yourself.

Do less rushing.
 Do better pacing.

Do less functioning.
 Do better feeling.

Do less grinding.
 Do better grounding.

Do less noise.
 Do better noticing.

Do less suppression.
 Do better surrender.

Do less pushing.
 Do better supporting — your body, your energy, your nervous system.

Do less disconnecting.
 Do better returning — to the place inside you that’s asking for presence.

The Fear Behind the Robot

So many of us learned to survive by becoming efficient.
 Becoming responsible.
 Becoming strong.
 Becoming independent.
 Becoming un-needy.

The danger is that efficiency becomes identity.
 Responsibility becomes personality.
 Overperformance becomes normal.

And humanity — the softness, the curiosity, the inner voice, the inner child — gets pushed aside.

Because feeling human requires slowing down enough to feel yourself again.
 And that, for many of us, is terrifying.

Robotic behavior is not coldness.
 It’s protection.
 It’s survival.
 It’s a shield against vulnerability.

The problem?

A shield becomes a cage.

Reclaiming the Human Experience

Every headache, every moment of burnout, every day where the body collapses is not a failure — it is a message.

A reminder that you are not meant to live disconnected from yourself.

Your body doesn’t ask you to be perfect.
 It asks you to be present.

Your nervous system doesn’t need intensity.
 It needs rhythm.

Your soul doesn’t need more doing.
 It needs more being.

And the moment you return to sunlight, breath, grass, nature — you remember:

You are not here to perform life.
 You are here to live it.

And that, my friends, is where the light of light is enlightened. 

Happy Chanuka!

• Esther