Festivals are occasions to relax and enjoy. But isn’t it amazing that even relaxing and enjoying becomes exhausting? I know exactly what this is and have experienced it all my life. Diwali is one good example. On the one hand there used to be the excitement of the firecrackers and delicious sweets. On the other hand, there would be so much to do! So many rituals and practices. Do you know, one was expected to wake up at 4 am and have an oil bath!! Who wakes up before 8 am (for children it is 11 am) on holidays? But until a particular age it was just fun and not exhausting or fatigue causing. A bit tiring maybe, but an afternoon nap would be enough to bring the spring back to our footsteps. But then somewhere along the life, it changed. Now the fatigue comes and never goes away!
For me also it changed that way when I grew out of childhood into adulthood. And then unexpectedly a few years ago my life took another turn and then it changed again. I no longer get exhausted or fatigued.
Do you want to know what exactly it is that causes the fatigue? It is not all the rituals or all the many things we do. It is also not the too many delicious sweets we eat. It is because of our lack of presence in what we do. It is the pull and urgency of next thing that needs to be done. “I have to finish this work, I need to deal with this first and that next”. Our mind is always in the next thing that needs to be done and we do everything only to get is done. “Be done with this and rush on to that”. It is impossible to relax and enjoy doing anything just for the sake of the love of doing it. Even when there is utter fatigue, we now have to do something to deal with it, even now we cannot simply let go and relax!
It is not our fault that we are like this. It is the times in which we live in. Everyone is a roadrunner. The digitally connected environment around us keeps encouraging us to stay ahead of ourselves and it has now become a universal habit. We are never here in the now, we are always out there in the next thing that needs to get done. I have written an article on this, which may be an interesting eye opener.
The problem with “I have to finish…” stance. When we think or plan or talk about our tasks, we use the term “I have to finish this and then that”. Other similar phrases are – “I got to do this and then…”, “I need to get this done and…”. This is a fast paced world and we are always focused on the end point of whatever we do or plan to do. It is so deeply ingrained as the default way of thinking and focusing that it seems the only right way that exists. We call it “result oriented” approach and we want to be recognized as a “go getter” or an achiever. Let us sit back and look at this approach and consider the alternative. Focusing on the end result takes the presence to the end point. Effectively you are absent during the process because you are present in the future when the process ends. You will derive satisfaction and happiness when the desired result is obtained. And when you reach that point the resultant happiness is momentary because the next “I have to finish….” Task is already waiting for you there. In fact you might have latched on to the next task with your presence even before you could savour or celebrate the completion of previous task. You may notice that the entire life moves on and you are never present in the here and now moment. Productivity and effectiveness would be mediocre, stress would be very high, life would be full of hits and misses, stumbling from one hurdle to the next. All these are likely to occur due to lack of presence in the now moment. Alternatively you could choose to take your focus away from the result and come back to the here and now moment and focus on the process. You can express this by saying “I want to do this task” rather than “I have to finish this task”. You can do this by being aware of your breath and your body as you work and focusing on the minute and intricate processes as you go through your task. You may use the tools of “Focus” and “Grounding” (refer to the previous posts for details) to assist in forming this new habit. Watch yourself with amusement each time you lose presence from the here and now and go off to the future and gently remind yourself to come back, with or without the help of the tools. Merely coming back to being present in your body and being grounded will bring you to a happy state. You will have high energy levels because you are already happy. Your productivity and effectiveness would skyrocket, needless to say that the results would be faster and more often positive. You will not rush through life as before, you can relish and savour each moment. You will become slower and more deliberate in your actions but the results will come in faster because the misses will be fewer than the hits. It takes conscious practice until the habit of “I have to finish….” Is replaced by the habit of “I want to do”. When this new habit becomes your default state, you would have boarded the express highway to success and growth. I mentor a six month online program called “Awareness Journey” designed to gently guide you in cultivating healthy habits and routines for living a wholesome life. To read more about this unique offering and to enrol click here.
The body doesn’t want us to deal with its fatigue. It just wants us to switch off our mental activity and be quiet and rest. But we no longer know how to switch off, the switch got lost as we grew up into a modern digitally connected compellingly engaging world. Another term for switching off the mind and quietly resting to release fatigue is meditation. We used to do it without knowing what it is when we were little children. We would simply enjoy this moment while sitting quietly or while playing and laughing. It used to happen spontaneously. You can learn it again, it is very easy because all of us were born with this ability. Read the article linked below and practice the few things suggested to experience instant relief.

Selvan Srinivasan · 1y
Can someone who has never been able to meditate learn how to do it and get results from it?
Yes you can, it is quiet simple actually. You only need to learn when you have to do something. Meditation is a practice of non-doing being. You just need to choose not to do anything. But here the activity is mental activity not physical activity. Just do the following for one to three minutes and see what happens. This is FGCB or Fixed Gazing and Conscious Breathing. Simply take a few minutes to be with this practice several times during the day for a few days. It would be even more helpful if you can practice three minutes of gentle body movements called Deep crossing after the FGCB and continue with the FGCB while doing this. It is demonstrated in the below link for the YouTube video. Selvans Deep crossing: https://youtu.be/qq6iKZquuVI After several days of the above practice, listen to the following guided meditation audio and sit with the practice of 5 minutes short open eyes meditation. Sit for the meditation after doing deep crossing. Selvans Guided Meditation – Witnessing the four simultaneous activities: If you want to go further, you may use the other longer closed eyes meditation audios in my SoundCloud profile to progressively practice with meditation. Another option is to enroll for my online mentoring program called Awareness Journey. Read about it in the link below.