Meaning isn’t necessary. I’m never quite sure whether I’m tired or sad. They feel similar to me. Not identical, but close enough that without some kind of additional context I might not recognize what’s going on.

Feelings and emotions don’t necessarily need to have any meaning. They don’t need a backstory or intellectual reason to exist. They can be, and often are, simply a response to something that my body is telling me. It’s only my brain that assigns meaning, That meaning has little to do with how I should fix the issue at hand.

And that’s the problem. I act on what my mind is telling me more often than what my body is telling me. This ends up with me in a loop of coping mechanisms that never actually solve the problem, and often make them worse.

So, don’t hunting for context or a backstory, listen to your body first.

You’re probably just tired.

Turn off your brain, take a nap.