The Ache of Effort
I used to think life was a matter of effort — that if I just tried hard enough, wanted it badly enough, pushed past enough resistance, things would eventually open.
And sometimes, they did. But often, they didn’t.
And that’s where the ache began — not just disappointment, but confusion.
Why do some things arrive with barely a whisper… while others fight you at every turn?
For years, I didn’t question the wanting itself. I just moved the goalpost.
One achievement became the new baseline. On to the next.
It was normal — even noble — to be driven. As an Indian girl with an ambitious father, I was taught to dream big and never stop climbing.
But no one taught me how to pause. Or how to listen.
Or how to tell the difference between a soul’s whisper and the noise of the world.
Gratitude Isn’t Just Politeness – Its an Energetic Shift
Gratitude wasn’t something I knew deeply then.
It came later — slowly — as I began to notice how much I already had.
Not just possessions, but peace.
Moments. Breath. The quiet richness of a morning with no urgency.
And somewhere in that slowing down, I began to see it clearly:
Sometimes life doesn’t give you what you want — not because you’re unworthy, but because that desire was never truly yours.
When Life Gives Without Force
I saw this most clearly when I returned to Australia.
Years earlier, I’d left — even though I could’ve stayed on a Covid visa. I was done.
Done with the second-class citizen feeling. Done with jobs that sucked the life out of me.
I didn’t want to survive anymore. I wanted to feel alive.
So I came back to India.
And almost without trying, I got a job in pharma — the very job I’d been running after in Australia for years and never got.
It came to me. Easily.
Like life was saying, “See? You don’t always have to push, learn what you have to learn now, and when it’s time, you shall receive.”
I kept growing in that job too. It gave me stability, confidence, a sense of movement.
But just when I’d settled into that rhythm, life knocked again — quietly, curiously — through an unexpected visa.
A replacement visa from Australia.
Three years. An open door. A soft nudge back.
It felt like the universe was saying, “Come. There’s something else for you here.”
So I followed it.
The Silence of Misalignment
But this time, the story didn’t repeat.
I tried again — for the same pharma roles, even for simpler positions.
No calls. No clarity. Just resistance.
Instead, life handed me admin jobs — draining, dull, dead-end. It made no sense.
Why would life bring me all the way back, only to shut every door I thought I was meant to walk through?
I remember dropping into silence again — I had done everything “right.” I’d returned. I’d applied. I’d waited. I’d prayed.
And yet… nothing.
So I surrendered, in prostration to the universe. I knelt, in my own way.
“What is it then? What am I not seeing?”
And the answer came — not loud, not dramatic — just a steady echo:
Yoga. Yoga. Yoga.
Deep Unmet Needs & Misaligned Desires
We often mistake complaining for ingratitude, but at its core, it’s usually something else — a quiet hunger we haven’t named. A deep unmet need. A misaligned desire pulling at us from underneath the surface.
I’ve learned that not all longing is wrong — but some of it is misplaced.
Some of it isn’t even ours. It belongs to our parents’ dreams. Society’s rules. The version of us that learned to perform for love.
So no wonder we ache.
No wonder we chase things that don’t fill us.
We’re trying to solve spiritual hunger with material rewards.
The Boy Who Drove an Hour
It wasn’t new. I’d done my yoga teacher training. I’d loved it. But I’d never taught.
Never really stepped into it. It was a seed I had shelved.
So I reached for it.
I put up a quiet little offering on Airtasker — a class. No expectation, no noise.
Just: Here I am, if you need me.
And then came the boy.
He drove from an hour away. Needed yoga. Meditation. Guidance.
He needed what I had — and I needed him to remind me I still had it.
That first class was simple. But it broke something open.
After that, things started to move again.
He pushed me to make a business page — something I wouldn’t have done on my own.
But I did. Just a small step. And somehow, that one step began to ripple.
Gyms started reaching out. People found me. Clients came through.
My classes filled just enough — not too many, not too few. Enough to sustain me, to steady me.
It wasn’t flashy. It didn’t look like a big success story from the outside.
But inside, it felt like breath. Like I could finally exhale.
Desires are tricky. They wear disguises.
Some look like dreams but are just noise.
Others arrive quietly, without sparkle — but turn out to be holy.
When I Chose The Wrong “Yes”
Life doesn’t just let you rest forever.
It watches. Waits. And then it asks, “Are you really clear now?”
Around this time, two things arrived almost at once.
One of my clients — someone who truly saw the value in what I was offering — offered to help me market my yoga business. It would mean committing more time, more presence, more of myself. But it felt alive. It felt like growth in the right direction.
And then came the second offer: a team lead role at a disability centre.
More money. A title. Something respectable to put on paper.
In that moment, it looked easier — more straightforward. Less vulnerable. So I took it.
I chose the safer path. The shinier one. The one I thought I should want.
Because old habits run deep.
The girl who was raised to keep climbing — she still lives in me.
And she saw this offer and thought,
“Yes, this is success. This is stability. This is the right kind of growth.”
But almost immediately, I knew.
I had made the wrong choice — again.
What looked like less responsibility ended up costing me more.
Stress, confusion, a kind of soul-noise I couldn’t quiet down.
More money, yes. More status, yes.
But also more weight.
And suddenly I was back where I started — restless, disconnected, tired.
The Wisdom In The Body
That experience taught me something I couldn’t unsee.
Just because something offers you more… doesn’t mean it gives you what you need.
It was the first time I truly saw how easy it is to mistake a conditioned desire for a true one.
I said yes to that role not because it lit me up, but because it ticked all the old boxes.
The boxes I’d inherited.
More money. A leadership title. A version of success that could be measured, admired, explained.
But that’s not the same as alignment. That’s not the same as peace. And the body knows.
Even when the mind is spinning convincing stories, the body never lies.
Listening for the Quiet Yes
Now I have a deeper discernment between aligned desire and conditioned desire.
Between force and flow.
Between noise and knowing.
Now, I’ve started paying attention to the feeling behind the wanting.
When something’s truly right for me, I feel a quiet yes in my chest.
My shoulders drop. My breath softens. I expand.
When something is not right — even if it’s impressive, even if everyone else claps — I feel a slight clench.
A narrowing. A part of me pulls away. And that’s the difference.
Not everything you want is truly yours. Some of it was programmed. Some of it is noise.
The work is learning to tell the difference.
A Simple Discernment Practice
This is how I now learn to discern desire:
- Does it bring peace in the wanting?
- Would I choose it even if no one ever praised me for it?
- Does it make my body soften… or tense?
- Do I feel expanded, or subtly shrunken by it?
What If You Already Know?
So many of us walk through life chasing what we were taught to want — the job, the title, the praise, the bigger number in our bank account.
But what if the soul wants something else?
What if every time life blocks your efforts, it’s not rejection, but redirection?
And what if the things you’re meant to want… come with a different feeling altogether —
a kind of clarity without effort, a quiet but certain yes?
That’s what I’m learning. Desires don’t just live in the mind.
The real ones — the soul ones — live in the body. In your breath.
In that flicker of aliveness you can’t explain. And when they come… you don’t need to push.
So I’ll leave you with this:
- What are you working so hard for that still isn’t flowing?
- And what’s been quietly trying to find you, that you haven’t made space to receive?
- What if the things that come easy… aren’t always distractions — but directions?