The energy left unspent

Artur tried to mount my cleaning lady.

And every time he goes out and sees a female dog, he tries to jump on her.

But Artur is a conditioned animal. He has impulses and no choice about them.

Most people have no choice either. They get carried away by the impulse, possessed by it, and react on automatic, even knowing it will have consequences. In that context you cannot say a person is free. They are a slave to those impulses.

I would say freedom is what you get when you build the space between impulse and action. That is what makes us more than conditioned animals, and gives us a say in the experiences we want to live.

That space does not appear out of nowhere. It needs physical, emotional and mental stability. And that starts with something simple: spending the energy you have well.

You spend the day sitting, stressed, dealing with a thousand things. You wore yourself out on the inside, emotionally and mentally, but your body spent nothing. You end up drained and charged at the same time. You get home and one of three things happens.

You blow up at whoever crosses your path. Your kid, your husband, your wife, a friend.

You eat without hunger, in front of the TV, to discharge the day's agitation.

You cannot switch your head off. The mind keeps working and you cannot fall asleep, precisely because the body was never used.

If it were real tiredness, you would sleep like a rock.

That is why training after a stressful day is the best thing you can do. It will not leave you more tired. It will spend what was left unspent, and give you back the choice.

Many of my clients come to me to change what they see in the mirror. And then, without noticing, they stop blowing up at home, they sleep better, they reach the end of the day with room to choose.

I wrote a book about this, looking at it through my own experience, through yoga and through science. It is free here on the site.