Why You Feel Exhausted All The Time

If you've been feeling unmotivated lately and nothing has helped, this video is for you!
A lot of us are exhausted by a kind of pressure that doesn’t even look like pressure. It sounds normal. It’s the quiet voice that keeps stacking rules on your life until everything starts to feel heavy, even the stuff you used to enjoy.

In this video, I break down what’s actually draining your energy, and I’ll guide you through a short somatic check-in you can do in real time to feel the shift in your body.

Transcript

Do you wonder why you feel exhausted all the time? To an extent that you really feel motivated to do things, Let alone enjoying them? Or you feel numb, Like you don't care. You watch videos like this, Maybe too many of them, And hoping that something will shift inside you. You read books or even hire coaches to help you figure this out, But nothing has been working out for you. This video is for you. In this video, I shared the reason for your exhaustion. And not only that, I will also take you through a somatic practice to work through this exhaustion and gain a new understanding of why you're feeling the way you're feeling. Hey, My name is Hedy Shah. I am a body worker and a mindfulness teacher and I teach those who've tried everything to finally move beyond what keeps them stuck and in pain. You are not exhausted because you're doing too much. You're exhausted because you've been told you should do this or you should want to do this. And sometimes this should get so loud. That you almost cannot hear what you actually want. I've been in this work for nearly 10 years and I've seen so many people struggle with this should exhaustion. You should be doing this, You should be doing that. Previously, A lot of should pressure came from our family, Our culture, The little town and the local area that we are from. Or our religions, Or even maybe our workplaces. But the rules were clear, Our circle of influence was smaller, And it was usually one main set of expectation for us to navigate. Obviously, I'm in no way trying to glamorize what we had in the past, But what we know for sure is our circle of influence and the amount of information that used to come at us was significantly less than what we have right now. In the age of media, The pressure doesn't just come from our circle anymore. It comes from everywhere all at once. Now we're not just carrying the family shirts, We're also carrying the shirt from the wellness culture, Productivity culture, Beauty culture, Relationship experts, Parenting expert, Political expert, Spiritual expert, And I can go on and on and on and on. The wildest part of all of this is a lot of these expectations are also contradicting each other. You should dress, But you should hustle. You should rest, But you should want more. You should be authentic, But you should be impressive. You should be disciplined, But you should be soft. We move through our days with a lot of chatter in the back of our head, Repeating a should menu. Sometimes it gets so loud that it feels like a should attack. The louder it gets, The more awake we become about our deeper want. What do you actually want? Do you actually want what you want or do you want it because you think you should want it? And oftentimes the pressure is coming from the outside. Rather than being initiated from the inside. But because we don't have any break from that outside information, Sometimes we think that's actually coming from the inside. No wonder some of us enter this state of paralysis and we're unable to move forward. And then some of us run around constantly without moving forward. And the most important part of all of this is We lose our sovereignty along the way. We lose our sense of self. We lose our ability to want. We lose our ability to become the director of our life and cultivate the pattern recognition. What do I mean by that? For example, When I feel this deeper desire, This deeper want for something, And then I create that plan to achieve it, I find a way to filter out the information that are coming at me so I can pick and create a pattern from that chaos that is coming at me. But when our ability to connect to our deeper why or deeper want gets all tainted with the number of information that is coming out, Coming at us, We are unable to maintain that sense of self with a clear vision to be able to filter through that. And that creates a massive level of overwhelm in our system. And we have too many options and too little clarity. And because the should list is so long, We never get to win with ourselves. Because whatever you do, It's not enough. You should be doing more, Right? There is no definition of enoughness. So take a moment and ground yourself wherever you are. Find your feet on the ground, Maybe soften your gaze for a moment, And just notice your body in this space. I'm going to start by a practice that I call the posture of neutrality. And if you've been around here, You probably know this practice already. So find your feet on the ground, Feel the weight of your body going down towards the ground. And then imagine there's a string attached right in the middle of your head, Pulling you gently up towards the ceiling. And find that length. So subtle. And then when you find that little length in the system, Can you relax? Can you surrender and allow this length to hold you? For those of you overachievers, This is so subtle. This is so gentle. And this is a position that we tend to be a little bit more comfortable in. We can find a little bit more ease and a little bit more space in this place. Now from this place, I want you to think about the next thing you'll be doing after watching this video. The next thing that you believe you should be doing. And just take a moment and notice what's happening in your body. Do you feel a sense of ease or do you feel a contraction? Sometimes it can feel like a heaviness on the shoulder, A punch in the gut. I can't feel like an anxiety. Or it can be any other ranges of sensations. Just take a moment. To sit with that, To sense that. And then imagine I know exactly how you're shooting yourself, Right? I tell you, I use your name and I say, You. Should do X. And notice what's happening in your body. Once again. Now I'm telling you, You should want to do exercise. And notice what is coming up for you. And then I told you. . . That you don't want X. What's happening in your body, Notice that. And with whatever of those experiences, If you felt a sense of expansion, Sit with that sense of expansion and see what's coming up for you. Sometimes what you don't want It's been. Coming at you very strongly that you should want it, You should do it. Because naturally when I tell you you should do something or you should want to do something, It often carries an element of I don't want to. It naturally takes away your choice. Or it feels like it's taking away your choice. So now that you are exploring what it could feel like to have a choice to say I don't want it. What's coming up for you. And now, Say to yourself, I want X. And see what's coming up for you. And notice any sensation that is present, Whether it's contraction or Just let yourself sit with that. So now we want to travel on between the spectrum of I want to do X, I don't want to do X. And letting yourself to travel between the two and allowing your body to teach you how you can make a choice. And there's no threat. You are allowed to make a choice. Now think about the phrase that you want to access. And once again, Notice the sensation that is alive within you. And then now go into you don't want X and experience what's coming up within your body. What are you sensing? What are you experiencing? Now, Allow yourself to travel between the two. Go to the sensations of the first statement that you want to access. And tap into that sensation. Experience that sensation. Now we're moving a little bit quicker. Go to the sensation of you don't want this. You don't want X. And tap into that sensation. What is coming up for you? And let's repeat that. Three more times, This time you're traveling a little bit quicker between the two choices. And notice how quickly. . . And how swiftly can you move between the two sensations. And then can you find somewhere in the middle, Or maybe return to that posture of neutrality, And just see if you can allow yourself from that place of being an observer, Being neutral, To witness these two choices in front of you. No matter how numb you feel or how exhausted you feel, In my work I found that the more you can find this ability to move with ease between options and not get wrapped up in one choice over the other, You're able to navigate life a lot more effortlessly. Because a healthy nervous system, A healthy posture moves with ease and spontaneity rather than constantly fighting against something. It's a whole body, Whole brain response. And there's that clarity and coherence in it. But when you're constantly under that should attack, We are stealing our ability to be in the moment and be in the flow and truly experience life. Moving us. And obviously a lot of it has to do with our culture of optimization, Right? Like we need to be optimizing everything. And oftentimes when I get into a head space, I feel like I'm actually optimizing nothing. Like nothing feels like it's moving forward with ease and effortlessness. I hope this simple somatic practice allowed you to understand your pattern just a little bit more. And then being able to come out of that state of fight, Flight, Or freeze. When you are under that shit attack. So you no longer need exhaustion as a way of coping with this. Rather, You can take a moment to come back to that sense of choice, Sense of agency.