I'm Ellen Nguyen, a content creator, writer, author, podcast host, and currently a Director in Financial Services based in London. This newsletter is my space to explore and express depth, featuring personal essays written entirely by me, with no AI. But I do use it as a thinking partner that helps critique my writing.
At 31, I have gained a unique perspective of maturing and building a life that works for me, as someone who is high intensity, self-observant, self-honest and willing to go deep emotionally. These qualities oftentimes were the very ones that scared, overwhelmed, confused, and hurt me as a younger woman. But now it’s a very different world.
Back then, my external life was thin while my inner life was constantly on the verge of exploding. I felt so much. I felt everything so deeply, so thoroughly. I often oscillated between thinking it was a curse and a superpower. Most of the time, I felt helpless towards it. Dating was never just having fun, getting to know a new person, and a breakup was never just ending a relationship, even when the relationship lasted for one month. It would be an erupting volcano of a life-shattering event that stabbed open every childhood wound, caused daily physical pain in my chest, drowned me in spiraling shame and anxiety, and made me want to disappear forever.
How did I deal with that? Frankly? Terribly messy. I had no internal tools, no reliable life structure to absorb the intensity. So I panicked and turned outward chaotically. I looked for escapes. I sought answers and closure from the person I was dating - or done dating, the very person who had hurt me and shown me they had no capacity to make space for my volcano eruption. It was like shouting desperately into a void, or worse, banging your head against a brick wall, in the dark, bleeding out, begging and getting nothing but a cracked skull.
When I imagined the most mature, self-actualised version of myself, I saw someone who would have the ability to contain these ground-shaking, soul-wrecking emotional impacts while remaining calm. She wouldn’t be so destabilised and lost and send so many long unacknowledged texts that would cut deep into her fear of being too much and abandoned. I didn’t know how to get there, but it was a soothing fantasy then. Now I know it isn’t just a fantasy. It is happening through a very specific way, and it’s fascinating to experience.
First of all, said ability isn’t only internal. It’s a structural effort. It’s about building support pillars in your life that could help ground you in the event of tragedy, heartbreak, reckoning, or any unraveling episode. At 31, I’m no longer an early-career minority professional on a work visa, living paycheck after paycheck, doubting my place in the world. I have an established career, a body of creative work that affirms my skills and sense of self, a meaningful community I’ve built, a British passport that lifted the anxiety of losing a job and being deported, my marriage that is my foundation, my extended families, my home, my money, my fitness, and a wealth of self-knowledge and earned wisdom.
When another volcano erupts, I wouldn’t just be standing at its feet and getting destroyed by it; I would be on high ground with a clear view. I wouldn’t need to look for an escape or lose myself in panic. I could lean on these support pillars and feel rooted again, gradually filling myself back up from the inside. On a high-speed rollercoaster, my seatbelt would be fastened; even when my head feels dizzy, and my body is lifted off the seat, I’m anchored and will eventually settle.
Secondly, it’s about building frameworks to process your experiences and channel your intensity in a way that allows you to move on and grow. So the lava doesn’t just spill out and destroy everything around it; it is metabolised into something useful and enriching. I’ve realised that my internal skills are indeed my superpowers. I don’t just introspect; I also observe and analyse myself in real-time and come up with mental models that allow me to understand my inner workings and find a way forward. My intensity is accompanied by another powerful system - my analytical mind.
I can tell, in real time, whether I’m sending a message to someone because I want to communicate with them or I actually need to regulate myself. I will probably do it anyway, but I don’t shame myself afterward; I give myself compassion. I can name the mechanisms behind my behaviours towards someone - why I feel drawn to them, why I did what I did - while I’m still inside the dynamic. I also catch, sometimes, me being analytical is just a way to maintain the attachment to someone who is no longer healthy to be attached to. I know the difference between what my nervous system wants and what’s good for me.
I used to describe myself as highly emotional, and that might be true for my younger years. But along this journey, it dawns on me that it’s the thinking that runs the show and pulls me out of every emotional wreckage into a stable, thriving structure. Once upon a time, I invested in building self-trust by showing myself consistently that I could deliver every promise I made to myself, I could parent my inner child, and I could make self-serving decisions.
And today, it means I could go to cloud nine and let myself free fall in ecstasy, knowing my analytical system will catch me afterward. I might suffer the impact from the fall, but I will be able to heal, grieve, integrate - to the extent I need - and become a more self-aware, evolved self. I will not need to shut down, avoid, escape, manage, hollow out, and feel dead inside later, paying a hefty cost for the rest of my life. It means I can take bigger risks and have the confidence that I can handle anything coming my way.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it - it can be lonely and challenging. Being high-intensity and analytical at the same time means the experiences I’m looking for are often rare and costly. They require the right conditions to come together. They take work to create intentionally inside the life I’ve already built, rather than through destructive shortcuts. It also means I’m not pulled by cheap, obvious thrills, and I can’t sit still in a safe yet stagnant environment for too long; I need movement and growth.
At this stage of life, with this much self-knowledge, the questions become: how to design a robust structure that allows for maximum intensity in a healthy way, how to build an expansive external life that matches my sky-high internal voltage, how to pick the careers, the connections, the lifestyle that makes me feel truly fulfilled and met. It’s such a privilege to be able to entertain these questions and utilise my resources to live however I choose. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’ve very much enjoyed the journey itself. I’ve done right and wrong and could have done better at times, but I have no regrets. Because all roads lead me back to me.
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section. It would mean a lot to me.