Dear Swastika,
I used to be an ambitious, optimistic 21-year-old girl. Fast forward 10 years and I feel so “stuck” in my life. I find my job boring, regret getting married, and I’m not too excited about my future. Talking to my friends who feel likewise makes me believe this is just a phase. But how long can this phase last? To be exact, I’ve been feeling this way for a little over a year now.
— Sanyukta

As we grow up and add years to our life, there’s a sense of something increasing, something accumulating. As we grow, we add more academic degrees to our name. We move from grade one to two to three and with it, again, comes a sense of something being added to our life. We build new relationships, we know more people and life seems to be becoming fuller and richer. The way we count our life, it deludes the fact that we’re in fact depleting. Our energy, our spirit and our soul are actually being spent mostly on moments that were hurtful, painful and disappointing. Eventually, there comes a time when we realize that we’re all spent. There’s no energy, spirit and soul left to live. We realize we’re a walking, talking empty vessel.

Normally, the joys of our life should give us that life force and energy to feel alive. When we do something that we truly love, it lifts up our spirit. But sometimes when we’re completely depleted, it’s like a hole in a vessel, and no matter how much joy we try to fill it up with, it just simply leaks.

We all get to this phase at some point in our lives I guess. But life doesn’t have to be like this and it shouldn’t be like this. One can come out of it. We all don’t have to turn into middle-aged bitter women. We can take the steering wheel in our hand and turn into the direction of our desire. At 30, life can begin again.

I’m big on healing therapies. I’ve tried quite a few of them and found couple of them that actually have been very helpful. There isn’t one therapy that works for all and the energy that has been depleting for over three decades takes a while to come back to its fullness. I’ve tried meditation and some serious self-reflection. I’ve also sought medical attentions because sometimes something as simple as low iron can drain us physically and emotionally. Instead of relying on one therapy or medical help, I’ve tried and tested what works for me.

Trust me, we aren’t designed to be life-less, bitter middle-aged women. We all are designed for a long, fulfilling, joyful life. We just have to recharge batteries every now and then.

Swastika Shrestha is theco-founder and head of training and support at Teach for Nepal. She has several years of experience training and mentoring youth leaders. She can be reached at swastika@teachfornepal.org.

 
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