Take a break, my friends

Has it happened to you?

Someday you get extremely frustrated, just with everything.

With You.

Things around you.

People around you.

Just everything!

Well, you are not alone; we all do at times.

We all crib.

This country has no future.

The government isn’t doing enough.

My wife will never get me.

My kids are on the phone all the time.

My office sucks.

Etc. Etc.

These are some of the manifestations of something which are built up internally for a long that are either suppressed or unattended.

These are only symptoms; the reasons are somewhere else.

You may not be happy with yourself off late.

You are missing out on something which you have been looking for.

You feel life has been particularly harsh and unfair with you recently.

Maybe, you are going through a dilemma, self-doubt and have not been able to share it with anybody.

Etc etc.

You have become more irritable, grumpier, and temperamental.

Or, sometimes, you have just become quiet and disengaged.

Not a good place to be in at all.

Sign of you getting burnt out, depleted.

Like our physical energy gets depleted and we get tired, we get depleted mentally as well.

We carry the unseen baggage silently.

We go through a slow burn.

The worst that can happen is to deny.

I am strong; I can handle it.

Then also, the evil does not go away.

It lingers.

So, what do you do?

Wait a minute.

No hurry, take a deep breath.

Take a pause, leave whatever you were doing now, do something else.

If your overwhelm situation is gone.

Peel the onion.

Start reflecting and looking back.

Sure some unresolved emotions and anxiety must be working in the background.

Some unpleasant, annoying background noise is constantly playing up, yet you cannot recognize what it is.

Or,

You have some idea, but it is hard to acknowledge the same.

Do not be in denial.

I am fine; I am strong, things will be alright.

I vaguely remember a story by Leo Tolstoy.

The character in the story was trying to clean a dirty table with a dirty piece of cloth.

Every time he tries to clean the table, the dirty cloth keeps a mark.

Similarly, if the mind has become irritable, denial and avoidance will not help; neither becoming more irritable, forceful will also not do any good.

Most of the time, we carry life’s dirt along with us, anger, frustration, resentment, grudge, victimhood feeling, envy, and whatnot.

We litter our mind space with emotional garbage.

And we expect our life to manifest with love, joy, happiness, prosperity, etc.

What a paradox.

We get into a vicious cycle.

We need to break the cycle.

Put the garbage in the bin.

Now the obvious thing you will ask, how do I do it.

Quite frankly, I do not have a little genie to send it to you who can deliver you an inexhaustible source of happiness.

Nor do I have, I a pot of elixir.

You will have to find your little genie.

Also, it depends on your emotional architecture.

I get bothered by very small things, and it sometimes lingers very long and takes me to almost a state of melancholy.

Looking inside and fixing it seems more exciting for me than looking outside and fixing it with external interventions.

Different strokes for different folks.

Some even think that if you are in intense break-free mode for three days, it will have a tremendously positive effect.

If you are an outgoing person, go for a walk, go hiking, go to the pub with friends, hit the dance floor, whatever you can.

If you are not an outgoing person and brood a lot, dump everything you are doing.

Put a loud piece of music, go to the kitchen and try some new culinary skill, open the cork of the wine bottle, watch a movie, call up someone: just do something.

A physical workout always helps.

There are physiological reasons for that; there is a happiness hormone ( endorphin ) that gets into action.

If the depletion is too deep then obviously rejuvenation has also to be very strong.

Mediation always works; people who have never done meditation might think about how to start and get overwhelmed initially; actually, it is not a big deal.

You can find some good guided mediation videos and straightway start as the first step.

Relaxation techniques and Yoga also helps.

Like any good treatment, you do not want to treat the symptoms but the cause.

If you feel you need a little deeper work, reach out to people whom you can confide in and share and take help.

You may even need changes or adjustments in life.

Now your rational argumentative mind must be telling you.

Well, we do not live in la-la land.

The world is actually unfair, uneven; problems are real, people could be troublesome, relationships are intricate.

Ya Ya, I get that.

That is why you may not be permanently in a blissful situation eternally after a delightful break.

You may hit the state of equanimity for some time.

That state will be disrupted again.

You will have to find it again.

Basically, this is a dynamic process.

You learn the art of balancing it every time, like the young girl on the rope walk.

This is why life is also interesting; when we keep coping and thriving.