{"id":245,"date":"2026-09-15T13:04:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/?p=245"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:04:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:04:46","slug":"the-hollowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/?p=245","title":{"rendered":"The Hollowing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Part One<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right, so can we talk about burnout for a minute? Not the Instagram version where someone posts a sunset and says they\u2019re \u201ctaking space to fill their cup.\u201d The actual thing. The thing that makes you stand in the kitchen holding a mug of tea you forgot to drink, staring at nothing in particular, wondering how you got here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because everyone keeps treating it like you\u2019re an old laptop that just needs a restart. Have a bath. Go for a walk. Drink more water, apparently. And off you go, good as new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m sat here thinking \u2014 that\u2019s not what this is, is it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I keep seeing \u2014 in myself, in people I talk to, in the strange hollow look that\u2019s basically just going around now like it\u2019s contagious \u2014 isn\u2019t really exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s more like… you\u2019ve lost the plot on who you actually are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those are very different problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhaustion says: I need a rest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identity collapse says: I don\u2019t know who I am anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those you can fix with a long weekend. The other one you cannot. And no amount of magnesium tablets is going to touch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing. We\u2019re expected to perform about six different versions of ourselves on any given Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professional you. Relationship you. Spiritual you. Functional-adult-who-does-the-bins you. The one who shows up well on social media. The one who\u2019s healing. The one who\u2019s got it together enough that nobody worries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point your actual self \u2014 the real one, underneath all of that \u2014 quietly taps you on the shoulder and goes: which one of these is actually me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you don\u2019t have a good answer, and most of us don\u2019t, things start to go a bit sideways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not always in a dramatic way, either. Sometimes it looks really boring from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You just… stop caring about things you used to care about. You can\u2019t concentrate. Everything feels a bit grey and flat. Answering a text feels like moving furniture. You start finding people you love genuinely irritating, for no reason you can name. You feel weirdly separate from your own life, like you\u2019re watching it through a steamed-up window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body goes slow because some part of you has basically downed tools and is waiting to have a conversation you keep avoiding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what does the world say to that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Optimise harder, love. Have you tried journaling? Have you tried waking up at five? Have you tried this planner? This app? This coach who\u2019ll charge you four hundred quid to tell you your morning routine is the problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly. No wonder everyone\u2019s knackered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a particular version of this that I don\u2019t think gets talked about enough, and it\u2019s the one where nobody notices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because you\u2019re still showing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still doing the work. Still answering the emails. Still saying the right things at the right moments. Still functioning, technically, by any external measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is probably the loneliest way to fall apart, because there\u2019s no obvious signal. You can\u2019t really ring someone and say \u201cI\u2019m managing fine on the outside but I think I\u2019ve gone a bit missing on the inside\u201d without getting a slightly puzzled silence and possibly some advice about vitamin D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one sends flowers when your sense of self quietly nips off and you\u2019re not sure where it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You just keep going. A bit hollow. Waiting for the weekend, then the weekend comes and that doesn\u2019t realy fix it either. Waiting for a holiday. Waiting for something to shift. And all the while getting better and better at performing okayness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until your body, which has been taking notes this whole time, eventually decides enough is enough and starts expressing its opinions through your nervous system in ways you cannot ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here\u2019s something a bit uncomfortable that I think deserves a proper look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people haven\u2019t just lost themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve been sold themselves back. In instalments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about how much of the self-help world runs on this. Become your authentic self.<\/em> Find your true identity.<\/em> Unlock who you were always meant to be.<\/em> And here\u2019s the course that\u2019ll help you do it, four easy payments, results may vary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People bought into it \u2014 completely understandably, because they were genuinely struggling and genuinely looking for something \u2014 and ended up spending years constructing a self out of other people\u2019s frameworks. Other people\u2019s language. Other people\u2019s idea of what healed and whole is supposed to look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then they wonder why they\u2019re exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maintaining a borrowed identity is hard work, as it turns out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The return on that investment has been, shall we say, variable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now here\u2019s the bit that really gets me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes burnout isn\u2019t a malfnction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it\u2019s the most honest thing your system has done in years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s your deeper self \u2014 the actual you, underneath all the performing \u2014 putting its foot down and saying: I am not doing this anymore.<\/em>….fukc that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is why you can sleep for a week and still feel hollow. Because the problem isn\u2019t that you\u2019re tired. The problem is that the life you\u2019re resting up to return to still requires you to leave half of yourself at the door to function in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s a different conversation entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the kindest, most sensitive people I know have fallen into this particular hole. The helpers. The healers. The ones everyone rings when things go wrong. They get so good at being useful \u2014 to their clients, their families, their constantly-struggling friends, their workplaces \u2014 that they gradually disappear underneath the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strong one. The wise one. The one who always knows what to say. The endlessly patient woman. The calm, sorted man. The spiritual friend who\u2019s definitely<\/em> fine, they\u2019ve done the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are all masks. And masks get heavy. Doesn\u2019t matter how noble the reason you put one on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jung was writing about this a hundred years ago \u2014 the persona, the face we wear for the world. Necessary, he said. Just don\u2019t mistake it for the whole of you. Because the bits you\u2019ve shoved into the dark don\u2019t go away just because you\u2019re not looking at them. They sit there. Gathering energy. Waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The angry part. The grieving part. The frightened bit you haven\u2019t got round to acknowledging. The part that wants things just for itself and feels guilty about it. The wild part. The part that is absolutely sick to the back teeth of being inspirational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that is still in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is where modern spirituality does something a bit unhelpful, bless it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because a lot of people haven\u2019t healed. They\u2019ve learned to perform healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calm, centred, high-vibe, compassionate, spiritually evolved \u2014 all of it curated and presented beautifully while their nervous system is basically a raccoon trapped in an air vent somewhere in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You cannot sage-bundle your shadow into submission. It doesn\u2019t work like that. The shadow doesn\u2019t care about your ascension timeline. It just waits until you\u2019re too tired to keep a lid on it, and then it knocks the lid clean off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not failure, by the way. That\u2019s the system working. It\u2019s just uncomfortable timing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part One Right, so can we talk about burnout for a minute? Not the Instagram…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-things-that-i-write-about"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phpTHk-3X","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkmoonrocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}