Enjoyment Vs Enduring: Returning To Self | SFTS Ep 10

In this gentle reflection, I explore the subtle shift between enduring your life and truly enjoying it. It’s a line we cross without noticing — until the absence of joy becomes familiar. Through science, presence, and simple practices, I share how small choices can bring you back to Self.

This is an invitation to soften, to breathe, and to enjoy your moments again.

Transcript

Good morning,

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Wherever you may be,

Whatever you may be doing,

Hello and welcome back to Stories from the Soul.

Thank you very much for joining,

My name is Taru Romundawarara and today I want to talk to something which might be hitting home to you right now.

Coming into the tail end of 2025 I found myself really not being able to complete tasks like I was doing so earlier on in the year.

I found myself not having the same kind of drive,

The same kind of conviction and determination around what I was doing.

In the workspace,

In this space,

I was just dragging,

That's probably the most accurate word for it,

And I just couldn't really figure it out and the word that kept popping up was procrastination,

Procrastination,

Procrastination.

And I actually had a conversation with a good friend of mine,

A couple of weeks ago,

We went for a walk and he was saying something not too dissimilar.

And if you are feeling or sensing or going through that at this time,

Well perhaps this podcast might be for you and hopefully it's speaking to you and hopefully you find a couple of nuggets of use in it.

What I want to talk today about is something very subtle,

Something that doesn't arrive loudly,

Doesn't create chaos,

It doesn't bring dramatic warning signs,

But can quietly reshape the way we're living.

And it can seem foreign once we start to notice it.

And I want to talk about enjoyment versus enduring and how there's such a thin,

Delicate line between the two that often we don't realize that we've crossed it.

So,

For me the realization hit on the back of a conversation and the conversation was about enjoyment.

And I was speaking with someone and she was telling me about,

She was asking,

What is it that you enjoy doing?

And I stopped and I paused and I thought,

And then I listed off a handful of things.

Sitting,

Watching the rugby with a friend,

Nothing deliberate,

Just watching,

Talking,

Enjoying.

And that word enjoying came up.

And she then asked another question,

She said,

Well,

What have you been doing?

When did you last do that?

And it's been a while.

You know,

There was a time when we used to have people over,

Having lunch,

Talking,

Laughing,

Enjoying.

And again,

I thought to myself,

Wow,

It's not been months since that's happened,

It's been years.

And it hit me.

I'd also been using the word procrastination at that time.

I said,

Oh man,

Why am I procrastinating so much?

Why am I procrastinating so much?

And,

You know,

I was,

My days were full.

I had a,

I was timeboxing,

I had lists of things to do.

I was being productive,

Quote unquote.

But inside,

I wasn't smiling as much.

I wasn't breathing as deeply.

I was living through lists,

Not through moments.

And we started talking about the word should versus want.

And it was quite interesting because she picked up when I was talking about the words,

About what it was that I actually wanted.

I was using the word want,

Not the word should.

It was there that I realized that in some aspects of life,

I'd shifted and drifted from want to should without really noticing when that had happened.

And it was then that I realized that enduring often looks like functioning,

But it's the quietest form of self-abandonment.

We often confuse speed with efficiency.

We confuse busyness with progress,

Obligation with purpose,

External approval for inner worth.

But if we talk nervous system,

Nervous system doesn't lie.

And the science is quite clear.

When you endure,

Cortisol rises,

The breath shortens,

Attention splinters.

And I spoke a couple of episodes ago about the default mode network,

Which in essence is our meaning-making center.

And in times like that,

The default mode network shuts down and the body ever so slightly remains braced.

However,

Again,

With science,

When we enjoy dopamine increases,

Interoception strengthens,

Creativity returns,

And the energy replenishes and the nervous system settles.

Enjoyment isn't frivolous,

It's biological alignment and enduring isn't weakness,

It's a signal,

A message,

A quiet call from the inner world saying,

You've drifted from yourself.

I hadn't really realized how often I was living from obligation,

From self-imposed pressure.

I hadn't noticed how automatic it had become,

How normal it felt,

How invisible it was.

You know,

Obligation or even the word procrastination doesn't walk into your life loudly,

Doesn't announce itself,

It creeps in quietly through sentences like,

I should do this,

I have to do that,

I must get through this list,

I have to record this podcast.

And without noticing your entire day becomes a series of tasks that are technically yours but emotionally completely disconnected.

You're doing the thing,

You're just not in the thing.

Let me say that again,

You're doing the thing,

You're just not in it.

And what's wild is how neat,

Disciplined,

Productive it can look from the outside.

People might even praise you for it.

Oh my gosh,

Look how much work he's doing,

His calendar is so full.

And equally on the opposite,

People might actually be confirming your insecurities.

Jeez,

What do these guys do all day?

They're always available for a meeting.

But inside there's no color,

No softness,

No desire.

And somewhere in the last probably couple of years,

Somewhere along the way I stopped asking myself,

Do I want this?

Does this matter to me?

Is this aligned with who I'm becoming?

And right now I'd like you to ask yourself those three questions.

Write them down,

Pause this and ask yourself,

Do I want this?

Where I am right now,

How I'm operating,

How I'm doing things,

The things that I'm doing,

Do they matter to me?

Is it aligned with who I am and wanting to become?

Just stop for a moment and think.

I had begun to move through the day like someone fulfilling a contract.

Efficient,

Reliable,

But not connected,

Not expressed,

Not alive.

And this is also key.

Obligation disconnects you from yourself.

Choice reconnects you.

I've been speaking a lot about choice.

Choice matters.

Choice is important.

And choice doesn't always mean pleasure.

It doesn't mean we avoid difficulty.

It doesn't mean we don't have to get up at five in the morning.

Simply means we return to the part of ourselves that wants the outcome instead of the part that fears the consequence.

A small example,

I have to cook.

It's not that.

It's not I have to cook.

It's I want to enjoy and feed myself and my family.

I want to nourish them.

It's not I have to exercise.

It's I want to feel healthy.

I want to feel awake.

I want to feel alive.

It's not I have to get up in the morning.

It's I want to lean into my routine.

Because in leaning in my routine,

I get order,

Structure.

They're the same actions,

But they come with a very different relationship.

The nervous system operates in a very different way.

We have a very different life when we approach things from that different one from that different mindset.

And I spoke earlier about self abandonment.

Living from obligation,

Enduring life is a slow form of self abandonment,

In my opinion.

And when we start to choose purpose,

Enjoyment,

We begin a very slow,

Gentle return.

And every moment you shift from I should to I choose,

Or from I have to I want.

From that self imposed pressure to presence,

From enduring to enjoyment,

You strengthen the relationship that you have with self.

And this is how enjoyment begins.

This is how alignment begins.

I spoke previously about stopping and enjoying or asking yourself the question how you can enjoy this moment just 5% better.

Not 30%,

Not 50%,

Not 70%,

Just 5%.

And if you haven't heard that episode,

Have a look,

Go back,

Find it.

And I ask you to listen to it again.

And in that episode,

Basically,

I talk about that.

I talk about getting yourself into that habit of enjoying and living in the present moment.

Not future focusing,

Not ruminating and dwelling on the past.

Not setting yourself endless goals that fill up and clog up your week,

Just bringing it and making it simple.

You know,

I'd started to believe that enjoyment required big changes.

That I found myself not really enjoying doing certain things,

Because I'd started to put this pressure.

Because one simple task was now surrounded by a plethora of other micro tasks.

And what I realized that is enjoyment lives in small shifts,

Not big changes.

It enters often through small shifts in what we do.

Not in big movements,

Not in big changes.

You know,

The times when we soften our breath and slow our pace,

Bring our attention back into the body.

The brain transitions from exteroception,

Attention being pulled outward,

To interoception,

Attention returning inward.

And this is where everything recalibrates,

The nervous system recalibrates.

This is why when you take that pause to sit and think and ask yourself,

How can I make this moment,

Not the next,

Not this week,

This moment 5% better.

A small change in the present moment.

And it might be something as simply as,

I want to take a deep breath.

And in doing that,

You can make that moment feel completely different.

You didn't leave the moment,

You simply reentered it yourself.

It was self that was inside the moment.

And enjoyment isn't about pleasure.

And it's not about avoiding effort,

It's about shifting the quality of your presence,

Shifting the quality of your presence.

It's the difference between rushing and arriving,

Forcing and allowing,

Bracing and breathing,

Performing and participating,

Doing and experiencing.

Enjoyment isn't something that the world gives you,

It's something you give to the moment,

Something you give back to yourself.

And lastly,

Enduring often looks like functioning.

You don't often know you're doing it.

It's quiet and it's subtle.

Masquerades is being responsible,

Keeping up,

Doing what I need to be doing,

Doing what I should be doing.

And it doesn't announce itself as a burnout or a breakdown,

It creeps in quietly and in the guise of efficiency,

Order,

Progress.

As I said earlier,

Cortisol,

That stress hormone,

What it does over time,

The more it flows through the body,

What it does with time comes stress and it stiffens and hardens the arteries.

And with that,

Come heart attacks,

Come strokes.

Enduring,

Again,

Is not dramatic,

It's not loud,

It's not chaos.

It's that simple absence of joy,

The absence of inner yes,

The absence of you in your own life.

So what am I saying?

I'm saying try these simple things.

Ask yourself those three questions from earlier on.

Ask yourself,

Do I want this?

Does this matter to me?

Is this aligned with who I am becoming,

Who I want to become?

And secondly,

Just for the next seven days,

A handful of times a day,

Just take a pause in your day and ask yourself,

How can I enjoy this moment five percent better?

And lastly,

Write down the things that you enjoy doing and really look at them and see,

Are you still doing them?

And if you're not doing them,

Why not?

How can you bring them back into your life again?

And as part of that,

Be conscious of and be deliberate around bringing and feeding enjoyment back into your day,

Back into your tasks,

Back into what you're doing.

Ask yourself that question because the answer will show itself up.

How can I approach this with more enjoyment?

What am I going to enjoy about this?

And it is about reframing.

What do I enjoy about doing emails?

And it could be something as simple as,

Well,

I enjoy the opportunity that once they're done,

I'm going to get to connect with my family.

I hope that helps.

Allow the answers to all of those questions to come quietly,

Without judgment,

Without pressure.

When they do,

Just allow yourself to soften into enjoyment.

Thank you very much.

As ever,

I hope this has helped.

And if you feel called to,

Please do share some of those answers with me.

Tell me where did you shift today?

Where did you shift from enduring to enjoying the most in your day today?

I'd truly love to hear it.

Thank you.

Reviews

Soooo guilty of this, I admit. Masterfully spoken, words fell right into place. ..”simple absence of inner joy” .. this hit me. One would think that such an easy simple change in our way of thinking that can make a world of difference in our lives, would be one that was kept in the forefront used as a daily tool but we don’t - we allow the cortisol to spike- to get the best of us. This is a very inspiring talk and a new tool in which I (scratched out “need” to “wanting” to get into the habit of doing. See what I did there? ☺️I know it will take time but practice makes perfect. This was my first attempt today in making this change! ❤️