If ordinary life carries a low ache no one names, you are not alone. A somatic therapist on existential pain, the cost of the deal everyone seems to have signed, and the older reframe that actually helps.
By Abi Beri | Integrative Therapist & Nervous System Specialist · Dublin & Online
TL;DR. Many people carry a low, persistent ache running underneath ordinary life that has no clean clinical or spiritual name. Philosophers like Kierkegaard called it angst; the existentialists who came after called it absurdity. In our time it shows up as “meaning crisis,” “modern malaise,” or simply the quiet bewilderment of someone who has done all the right things and finds, privately, that the deal is not adding up. The mainstream wellness response — gratitude journaling, “manifest a better attitude,” quit your job and move to Goa — usually misses the actual problem. The older contemplative traditions did not. Their counsel was specific: do not leave the deal; relocate inside it. Find the part of yourself the deal cannot touch and take up residence there, while continuing — with grace and good humour — to do the laundry. That is what this article and the companion long-form somatic talk are about.
Key facts at a glance
- The “pain of being here” is sometimes called existential pain, existential ache, modern malaise, or the meaning crisis.
- Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) called the underlying experience angst; the existentialists who followed him used absurdity, dread, and the “sickness unto death.”
- It is distinct from clinical depression, though they can co-occur and often look similar from the outside.
- Modern wellness culture frequently confuses the issue by turning a profound contemplative challenge into a personal optimisation problem.
- The contemplative traditions — Christian mystics, Buddhist teachers, Sufi poets, Stoic philosophers — have addressed this specific territory for thousands of years.
- Their counsel is not to leave the world, but to find an inner ground that does not depend on it.
- From a somatic therapy perspective, the body can be supported in holding the ache without becoming destabilised by it.
- Available in person in Dublin, Naas and Newbridge, and online worldwide.
What is the “pain of being here”?
Quick answer: It is the low, persistent ache that often runs underneath ordinary modern life — present even when nothing visibly bad has happened. It is structural rather than circumstantial, and it has been recognised across cultures and centuries, though our culture is unusually bad at naming it.
Let me name it properly, because part of why it is so heavy is that it has no language. The ache has been with humans almost certainly for as long as humans have been conscious enough to be sad about being conscious. But it does not have a clean clinical word, and it does not have a clean spiritual word either, so people who feel it tend to assume they have invented it personally — which adds, on top of the ache, a layer of mild shame for inventing it.
The closest the field has come is the phrase existential pain. The philosophers got there first — Kierkegaard, who was rather a moody Dane, called it angst; the existentialists who came after him called it absurdity, dread, the sickness unto death. The Buddhists called it dukkha, often translated as “suffering” but more accurately rendered as “the unsatisfactoriness of the constructed self.” The mystics, across traditions, called it something like the dark night — the quiet pain of an awakened life that still has to be lived inside a world.
Is this depression?
Quick answer: Not necessarily, though they can overlap. Existential pain is structural — it arises from being a conscious creature inside an arrangement you can see through. Clinical depression has additional features (sustained low mood, anhedonia, vegetative symptoms) and benefits from clinical treatment. The honest answer is: if low mood is persistent, please consult a clinician; existential pain can still be present alongside it.
Existential pain and clinical depression can look very similar from the outside, but they often feel different from the inside. Depression typically narrows the world — colour drains, motivation flattens, the body becomes heavy. Existential pain is more like a quiet, lucid grief about an arrangement you have begun to see through. Many people who carry the ache function very competently in their lives; they are not unable to enjoy things; they are simply, underneath, faintly bewildered by the whole business.
Both can co-occur. If your low mood is persistent, please do consult a clinician — depression responds well to good treatment, and untreated depression makes everything (including existential reckoning) considerably harder.
The deal nobody signed but everyone seems to have signed
Quick answer: Most adults find themselves operating inside an unspoken cultural deal: work the job, get the identity from the job, hold the relationships, take the small joys, do not look too hard at the whole arrangement. The pain often begins when you start to see the deal as a deal rather than as reality.
You have begun to notice something that, once you see it, you cannot quite unsee. The deal everyone seems to have signed — the deal you signed when you were too young to read the small print — is not a particularly honest deal. Work the job. Get the identity from the job. Build the security. Hold the relationships. Get the identity from those, too. Take the small joys. Don’t look too hard at the whole arrangement. Definitely don’t ask the big questions; and if you do, ask them in approved formats — a gym membership, a retreat in Bali, a podcast about purpose, a journal with a soft cover. And under no circumstances notice that the whole edifice is, on close inspection, made of cardboard.
You have noticed. That is, in some sense, the whole problem. And it is the specific, terrible problem of the person who has seen through the construction but who still has to pay the rent. You cannot fully believe in the deal any more. You also cannot, with any responsibility, simply walk out of it. The bills are real. The mortgage is real. The people who depend on you are real. So you are caught.
Why the standard wellness response misses the point
| The wellness response | What it misses |
| “Manifest a better attitude.” | Treats a structural ache as a personal motivation problem. |
| Gratitude journaling. | Turns a profound contemplative practice into a kind of cheerful denial. |
| “Quit your job and move to Goa.” | Confuses geographic escape with the actual inner relocation the traditions teach. Also tends to be advice from the wealthy or about-to-be-destitute. |
| Optimisation protocols (cold plunge, supplements, hacks). | Tries to solve a meaning problem with a performance solution. |
| “This too shall pass.” | It will not, necessarily. The ache is structural, not a phase. |
| “You just need to find your purpose.” | Substitutes a productivity narrative for an actual contemplative engagement. |
What the actual contemplative traditions teach
Quick answer: Across traditions, the mature counsel is not to leave the world, but to find an inner ground that does not depend on it. The Christian phrase is “in the world but not of it.” The Buddhist phrase is non-attachment. The Stoic phrase is to live according to nature. All point at the same practical move: you do not need to dismantle the constructed self; you only need to stop being entirely identified with it.
The proper mystics — not the Instagram ones — did not, as a rule, leave their lives. They relocated within them. The Christian phrase for this is being in the world but not of it. The Buddhist teaching of non-attachment makes the same essential move from a different angle. The Stoic practice of living according to nature points at it too. The traditions disagree about much, but they converge on one quietly radical observation: the constructed self — the role, the costume, the identity — is not the whole of you. Underneath the participation in the deal there is something quieter, ungoverned, and untouched by any of the deal’s reversals.
That underneath self is not mystical in the elaborate sense. It is not a soul-spark you have to earn or a state you have to reach. It is simply the part of you that is here, attending, before the constructed self gets going. The work is to notice it, learn to recognise it, and slowly take up residence there — while continuing to wear the costume the deal requires.
Wear the costume; stop being the costume
Quick answer: The contemplative move is not to renounce the role you are playing in your life. It is to stop confusing the role with who you are. You wear the costume — you do the job, raise the children, pay the bills — but you no longer disappear inside it.
Be in the world. Do not be of it. Wear the costume. Stop being the costume. Take the deal. Refuse to become the deal. Underneath all of it — quietly, patiently, with no fuss — be the one who is simply here. That is who you are. That is who you always were.
This is not a renunciation of ordinary life. It is the opposite. It is what allows ordinary life to become bearable again, because the parts that were unbearable — the bewilderment, the ache, the sense that something is missing — were largely the consequence of having mistaken the costume for the self. Once that mistake is gently undone, the costume is just a costume. You can wear it well, with grace and good humour. You can even enjoy it. You just no longer believe it is who you are.
How somatic therapy supports this
Somatic therapy is not a substitute for the contemplative traditions, but it is a remarkably useful complement to them. The traditions describe the inner ground; the somatic work helps the body actually settle there. Because the ache is not only philosophical — it is also held in the chest, in the breath, in the small chronic bracing the body does in a life it cannot fully consent to — the body needs support, not only the mind.
In practical terms this means polyvagal-informed pacing, attention to interoception, gentle work with the nervous system’s long-standing patterns of holding. Over time, what changes is not the world, and often not even the ache itself. What changes is the place from which the ache is held. The constructed self continues to feel the wave. The underneath self holds it the way an ocean holds a wave — the wave is real, the ocean is not destabilised by it. That, in the end, is the whole of what the traditions were trying to point at.
Practical first steps to begin relocating
- Notice the difference between attention and identification.When you are paying attention to your life, who is the one paying attention? That noticer is closer to who you are than the role being noticed.
- Stop trying to feel differently about the ache.The ache is not the problem. The war on the ache is. Let it be present without immediate management.
- Cultivate small, daily contact with the underneath self.A few minutes of unfilled silence. A walk without a podcast. A cup of tea without a phone. Not as a productivity hack — as a deliberate refusal to be the costume for that small window.
- Be cautious of advice that ends in a product.If the path out of your existential ache ends with a purchase, an upsell, or a five-step framework, it is probably not the path.
- Read the proper traditions, not just the content about the traditions.A short primary text — a few pages of Marcus Aurelius, the Tao Te Ching, the desert fathers — is worth more than a year of podcasts about them.
- Find a witness who has done the relocation, not just read about it.A contemplative teacher, a quietly seasoned therapist, an older friend who clearly lives a bit underneath their own life.
Frequently asked questions
Is existential pain a mental illness? Not in itself. It is a recognised feature of human consciousness, described across philosophy and contemplative traditions for thousands of years. It can co-occur with mental health conditions and benefits from clinical care when those are present, but the ache itself is structural, not pathological.
Why does ordinary life feel so heavy even when nothing is wrong? Often because you are operating inside an unspoken cultural arrangement that asks more of the constructed self than it can actually deliver. The heaviness is the body’s honest registration of a deal that is not, on close inspection, a good deal — held alone, without language, by someone who assumes the heaviness is theirs alone.
What is the meaning crisis? A contemporary term for a widespread experience of meaninglessness in modern life, associated particularly with the philosopher and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke. It overlaps significantly with what older traditions called existential ache, dukkha, or the dark night.
Is gratitude journaling a bad practice? Not in itself. The practice has ancient and serious roots. But its modern packaging often turns it into cheerful denial — gratitude weaponised against honest feeling. Genuine gratitude includes the ache; it does not paper over it.
Should I quit my job and travel? Sometimes that is right. Often it is the wrong solution to the right problem — geographic escape mistaken for the inner relocation the traditions teach. Be honest about which you are doing.
Can somatic therapy help with existential pain? It can complement the contemplative work very effectively. The traditions describe the inner ground; somatic work helps the body actually settle there. Many people find that the combination is what makes the relocation durable.
Is this just for spiritual people? No. The inner ground is not a religious claim. It is a human one. Plenty of secular and agnostic people have done this work, often with great peace, using entirely non-religious language.
Where can I learn more? Short primary texts from the traditions are the best starting point: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada, the desert fathers. Modern bridges include the work of John Vervaeke, Stephen Batchelor, and the older essays of Iris Murdoch. The companion somatic talk — The Pain of Being Here — is on Insight Timer and wherever you listen.
Working with a Somatic Therapist for Existential Exhaustion & Modern Malaise in Dublin, Naas, Newbridge & Online
If you are looking for a somatic therapist who can hold the contemplative dimension of this work in Dublin, Naas, Newbridge or anywhere in Kildare and Ireland — or you would like to work online from wherever you are in the world — I see clients in person and online. My approach is integrative: somatic practice rooted in Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing, polyvagal-informed nervous system work, inner child work, and Family Constellations (the Hellinger method). I am IPHM-accredited.
Existential exhaustion, modern malaise and the meaning crisis are among the quietly common reasons people come to this kind of work — often after years in conventional talk therapy that did not quite know what to do with the ache. The sessions tend to be slow, paced and respectful of how old the question is. We are not trying to fix you. We are trying to help your body settle into the inner ground the traditions point at — so that the ache can be held, and the costume can be worn well, without you continuing to disappear inside it.
If you would like to find out whether we would be a good fit, the easiest next step is to book a short, no-pressure intro at somatictherapyireland.com. And if you would like a long audio companion to this article, the somatic talk — The Pain of Being Here — is on Insight Timer and wherever you listen. Be in the world. Do not be of it. Welcome home.
