Too Many Open Tabs

For a long time, I gave other people’s opinions about me a lot of authority.

I think that contributed significantly to the burnout I experienced in corporate. If someone was critical of me, I assumed there was probably something I needed to look at. Otherwise, why would they be pointing it out?

I was often told I was too sensitive, too emotional, too difficult, and somehow not enough.

And I believed them.

Not always outwardly. Sometimes I defended myself. Sometimes I argued. But underneath it, one thing was true:

I was absorbing it. And I didn’t know I was absorbing it.

Back then, I didn’t realize how firmly people-pleasing was running in the background of my life. On paper, I was a successful top performer making good money. What I didn’t understand was how often other people’s insecurities, expectations, and judgments were being placed on me, and how readily I was accepting them as truth.

Eventually, I reached a point where I changed almost everything at once.

I wanted relief.

I stopped drinking. I left a toxic relationship. And I walked away from a corporate career I had spent years building.

I gave myself a full year to heal.

During that year, I hired a coach named Neha. I wasn’t prepared for how deep the work would go, but she could tell I was ready.

She zeroed in on my people-pleasing pretty quickly, which I had become extremely good at over the years. We worked through old beliefs, childhood experiences, insecurities, and the hidden scripts I had been carrying around without realizing it.

Some of that work was uncomfortable because it challenged things I had accepted as fact for a very long time.

The biggest one was the belief that I was too sensitive.

That belief had explained so much for me. Why things affected me deeply. Why conflict felt so intense. Why I noticed things other people seemed able to ignore. Why I struggled in environments others appeared to tolerate just fine.

I had spent years assuming my sensitivity was a flaw I needed to manage or fix.

Neha helped me question that.

And once I started questioning one belief I had treated as absolute truth, I began looking at everything else I had accepted about myself.

Which thoughts were actually mine? Which beliefs had I picked up from someone else and simply never put down?

Was I actually too sensitive?

Was I responsible for keeping everyone else comfortable? Did someone else’s disappointment automatically mean I had done something wrong?

The more I questioned those beliefs, the more I noticed how much was still running in the background.

Like too many open tabs.

Some were obvious. A decision I hadn’t made. A conversation I was avoiding. A situation I hadn’t fully processed.

Others were harder to spot because they had been open for so long they felt like part of who I was.

A belief that I was too much. A belief that I wasn’t enough. A need to keep everyone happy. An old story about what rejection meant. These were the tabs I had forgotten were even open.

Seeing them was not immediately freeing.

In many ways, it was uncomfortable. I had to look back at how long I had been doing this. How often I had abandoned what I actually wanted to keep someone else comfortable. How often I took responsibility for another person’s reaction. How much energy I had spent managing things outside my control.

Awareness and actually interrupting a pattern are two very different things.

But awareness gave me something I didn’t have before:

A choice.

I could notice when an old belief was influencing me. I could question it. I could decide not to automatically follow it.

Over time, some of those tabs began to close.

And as they did, my capacity came back.

For me, that looked like more confidence. Less fear around disappointing people. More trust in my own perception. More freedom in how I connected with others.

I had room to think again. Room for creativity.

Room to figure out what I actually wanted instead of constantly reacting to everything around me.

I used to assume that becoming more capable meant learning how to carry more.

What I finally understood is that capacity comes from carrying less.

The fewer things I had quietly running in the background, the more available I became for my actual life.

That realization became part of the foundation for Alternative Solutions.

When we’re overloaded with old beliefs, unresolved experiences, and patterns we don’t even realize are operating, clarity is difficult to reach. It’s hard to see a new path when so much of our energy is going toward managing what’s already open.

Sometimes the work isn’t about adding another tool or another strategy.

Sometimes it’s about noticing what’s already open and deciding, one tab at a time, what you’re ready to close.