What if your exhaustion isn’t weakness?
What if the cake cravings, the late-night spirals, the tension in your chest — aren’t failures, but messages?

In Chapter 21 of Living an Examined Life, Hollis invites us to stop seeing symptoms as things to eliminate — and start listening to them as signals from the soul.

“The symptom is the psyche’s way of alerting us that something is out of alignment.”
— James Hollis

So often I try to power through:

  • Eat better.
  • Sleep earlier.
  • Stop the scrolling.
  • Push away the loneliness.

But what if those very symptoms are my soul saying:

“Please don’t abandon me. Something here needs your attention.”

Hollis says the psyche will find a way to speak — even if it has to do it through discomfort.

That means:

  • Anxiety isn’t just stress — it’s often a sign I’m betraying some deeper truth.
  • Overeating might be grief that hasn’t found language.
  • Fatigue could be the body’s protest against a life that’s out of sync.

Instead of asking “How do I fix this?” — I’m learning to ask:
“What is this trying to tell me?”

This changes everything.

It turns self-care from a chore into a conversation.
It turns shame into curiosity.
It turns symptoms into sacred messengers.

So I’m listening now — not trying to silence or override.
And in that listening, I’m building a life that doesn’t need symptoms to speak for me.

I’m learning the language of my soul.
And I’m finally ready to hear it.