People and Work Make Me Feel Tense and Drained

If your health care provider says that you are physically okay, then it could be that you are trying too hard.

Somewhere in your past, someone tricked you into trying and exerting will. Perhaps it was to please mother or to avoid her wrath. Perhaps it was to prove something to someone or to avoid criticism.

By making it too important, you were forced to use effort. What could and should have come naturally and effortlessly became a willful struggle, leading to tension, fatigue, anger (when it didn't work out), disappointment, and even exhaustion.

But once your ego got involved, concentrating and trying became the only way you knew to do things. You forgot the graceful way. And when things make you tired and frustrated, yo might have just thrown in in the towel and quit. Many a failure in life became that way because he or she tried to hard to please others, and just could not bear another round of pain, guilt, and fatigue.

Concentrating, studying, and setting goals have to do with making something too important. Even though the thing concentrated on may seem technically proper, the motive is usually selfish or egotistical. Making anything more important than what is right in our hearts is sin.

Thus it leads to enslavement. Therefore it is not surprising that we then become fascinated and fixated—a sure sign that our attention has been captured. Through our captured attention, various suggestions are funneled, and soon we find ourselves doing the will of the motivator.

Because the motivator wills that we exert effort, and because any egoistical action required effort (whereas realizing and flowing from grace is effortless), we strain, try, and exert effort. This leads to tension, fatigue, and sooner or later frustration. We soon become drained. And when we are tense and drained, it puts a stress on our glands and organs.

Soon our adrenals or other glands become exhausted. No wonder we feel fatigued and tired all the time. And soon physical problems may result from our run down state, such as we become more susceptible to germs. Our overworked body becomes more susceptible by being overworked.

There is a direct link between being ambitious and willful and our eventual deterioration and debilitation. That is why you must learn to meditate for mental distance. Learn to stand back, realize and flow from realization. From the neutral zone, you will begin to be able to see what things capture your attention.

You will also see where you are struggling, straining, and applying effort--when graceful ease is all that is needed. You will also see activities that you will find you are no longer interested in doing. Some of them were programmed into you. Others are just no longer needed. But you became locked into them through resentment and struggle.

Some will still be necessary (such as work, for example) but you will be able to learn how to work without strain. If the work is not for you, you might change your work. Or perhaps stay where you are while saving money to make a change.

Other work or work environments are just not right for you, and you will be able to leave and find something else. If the work is okay, then all you need do is change your motivation—learn to flow gracefully instead of straining out of resentment. If you see what I am saying, you might just put the book down and go and meditate.

The proper meditation is the antidote to fixating and concentrating. When you learn to calm down, slow down, and stop straining; your body will have a chance to rest and recuperate.

Watch out for resentment. It is perhaps the worst form of willful struggle, where another person upset you into struggling resentfully. The meditation that we offer at the Center for Common Sense Counseling is very spiritual and practical. it teaches you how to de-fixate, how to stand back and see the big picture. It permits you to become re-centered and to begin living your own life, flowing from within instead of reacting to everything.

The above is an excerpt from my new book Healing From Within. Read another excerpt at our virtual homepage