Emotional Tiredness

I had heard about body getting tired, but the concept of emotional tiredness was completely new to me. I was clueless that this ignorance was keeping me away from being ever hopeful and enthusiastic. Life feels so beautiful when we are living it with zeal and enthusiasm. The body might be physically tired, relationships might not be perfect, and there might be lot of challenges at work. Nothing can deter a person that is filled with spirit and passion. Emotional tiredness takes away the spirit, passion, and enthusiasm from life. Let's understand it fully and curb it so that our life blossoms like a flower and inspires others to become light.

What causes emotional tiredness?

Physical tiredness is caused by overworking of the body or when it is not in its natural healthy state. Sometimes even after intense body workout, we are not tired because we know that our efforts to work the body will bring results of good health. In a way, the tiredness is not experienced when we know the benefits of working out.

Emotional tiredness is caused when we are trying to change others or situations that are beyond our control and are not seeing any results. Most people might say that we are not control freaks. It is important to do a very refined check on the self as this control is very subtle. We do not try to control at the word or action level. Instead, we are constantly creating thoughts that are trying to change others by saying, ‘they should have not behaved like this, why would they such mean things to me, how come they never thank me for anything’. Our mind is working very hard when it creates many thoughts. If these thoughts bear no results, then it is like a factory producing many useless goods that are thrown in a dustbin. Such a factory would have to file for a bankruptcy. Indeed we feel emotionally bankrupt when our mind creates so many wasteful thoughts that bear no fruits.

What are the side effects of emotional tiredness?

A person who is emotionally exhausted will lose zeal and enthusiasm from life. Life feels like so colorless and burdensome when we have lost hope for a bright future. They will feel powerless because their intense efforts of trying to change the outside world did not bear any fruits. Slowly, interest in life, creativity, and work reduces because everything seems pointless to them. The extreme side effects of emotional tiredness is depression.
The worst part is that emotional tiredness does not stay with the self, it spreads to every sphere of our life. We get tired of relationships because our constant thoughts of wanting others to be a certain way brought no results. The spirit gets tired of fulfilling work related responsibilities because it did not receive the outcome it desired through its gazillion thoughts about future. The body feels exhausted even without working out when a spirit creates many wasteful thoughts.

How do we cure the emotional deficiency, tiredness?

Wasteful thoughts lead to emotional tiredness, and hence we need to stop these thoughts to cure it. Wasteful thinking can be finished by stopping these thoughts as soon as we observe them or by steering them to positive thinking. Few thoughts below act as powerful brakes and help in steering waste thoughts to more positive thoughts. A person has to practice driving a car in calmer areas before they can drive in heavy traffic zones. Similarly, we have to rehearse these positive thoughts in our mind early in the morning in our meditation. Then when we get into our busy day to day life the early morning practice will automatically help us apply brake to our waste thoughts.

1. Thoughts about past - ‘Why did this happen to me? Why did they say such mean things to me? Why do only bad things happen to me?’
• ‘Past has passed and cannot be changed, let me accept it and move on. Why waste time and energy on something that is unchangeable?’
• ‘Present is still in my control, let me see what can be done to fix what broke in the past.’
2. Thoughts about future - ‘What if this happens to me or my dear ones? What will I do if I or my dear ones fail? Who will take care of me in my old age?’
• ‘Past was good, present is better, and future will be the best’. This helps in maintaining faith that if we are performing positive actions, the laws of universe will ensure beautiful future.
• ‘I am a fortunate, hardworking, and capable soul, so nothing is beyond my reach’. Maintain full faith that we can cross any hurdle that comes our way.
3. Thoughts about others - ‘They should be more organized and disciplined, she should be more grateful, he should be an extrovert and entertaining’
• ‘Every being has specialities and weaknesses, I am a noble being who focuses on positive’, this thought will enhance others specialities further and finish their weaknesses
• ‘Observing others weaknesses over time cause that weakness to develop in me’. We are wise souls who understand this rule and takes advantage of it. We only see specialities in others so that those develop in us too.

How do we ensure that our mind does not create wasteful thoughts?

Wasteful thoughts lead to emotional tiredness, and hence we need to stop these thoughts to cure it. Wasteful thinking can be finished by stopping these thoughts as soon as we observe them or by steering them to positive thinking. Few thoughts below act as powerful brakes and help in steering waste thoughts to more positive thoughts. A person has to practice driving a car in calmer areas before they can drive in heavy traffic zones. Similarly, we have to rehearse these positive thoughts in our mind early in the morning in our meditation. Then when we get into our busy day to day life the early morning practice will automatically help us apply brake to our waste thoughts.

• Sending good wishes to people and nature is also another avenue to stay busy in noble thinking. We can one by one emerge our close ones, friends, and colleague in our intellect and send them positive vibrations.
• Reading positive knowledge and churning its depth also keeps our mind busy in creating quality thoughts. Churning helps in imbibing the knowledge practically in our life, else it just remains in our intellect unused. Monotonous jobs like laundry, cooking, and cleaning do not require our intellect and are great opportunities to engage in exercising the mind in healthy thoughts.

To sum up, we human beings are the only species that have been given a sharp and elevated intellect that can discern. We can use our intellect to understand that life can be meaningful and elevated only when our thoughts are useful and positive. We can lead a tiresome life by trying to change things that are beyond our control. An option to live a super productive and useful life is available if we shift our efforts from changing the outside world to changing the inner world of thoughts.