Hello Peri, Congratulations on coming this far away from your toxic relationships to a life closer to peace and positivity! It is possible that once you overcame your negativity, and created your place of positivity, that you lost your sense of purpose. That may be why you don’t have the energy to do the asanas or meditation. And it’s very natural. No one goes through life at the same speed all the time.

My suggestion would be to try and figure out what your purpose for life and living is. Each person’s overall life purpose could in fact be a series of several smaller purposes. When you’re in alignment with your true purpose, everything in your being is excited and alive, you don’t burn out, you have an inner fire, but you’re not in a hurry. Every choice, step and direction will be in service of your soul purpose.

Do you feel like this could be you?

Yes, it certainly can get overwhelming sometimes! Especially when there are so many paths, all ultimately leading to the same goal, but can get confusing until you find your path. And your path is always your own – no gurus, ashrams or institutions can claim that theirs is the best way. For you – yours is the only, best way. And it’s your responsibility to find it, create it, and follow it.

So how can I help you? 🙂

If you’re interested, you can check out my website (you’ll find the link under my profile if you click on my picture) – see if you can relate to what you’re going through at this time.

Thanks Peri – I’m glad the foundations of a life of Peace, Presence and Purpose resonate with you! And I know EXACTLY what you mean about the disconnect between a life of inner wisdom and reality with the 21st century anywhere 🙂 I myself haven’t found a culture and geography where I could fit into well, despite my early leanings – as you saw, I ended up creating my own version of the life I want to live at the Nest In The Forest.

But of course, how you fit into such a culture is completely personal – and probably worth trying, even if it means learning lessons along the way. However, do not go against your gut instinct when it comes to any culture, guru or institution. This has always been my touchstone – to only follow what feels right within myself. That is the absolute criteria for anything I do.

Hi Peri
What a wonderful post you have written. You have achieved a lot for yourself. Interestingly I was watching some videos on youtube by Helen Mia Harris about why people get stuck in toxic relationships and its causes are firmly rooted in one or both of the parties, projecting their needs of love and fulfilment on to the other, and looking for reciprocated love to maintain the fulfilment and personal happiness. The relationship, the other person, is all of them. Ultimately lacking is the self love, the identity of self and so on.

But that aside, what struck me about your post was this…. If I were an artist and I wanted to paint a world class painting, how would I know when to stop tearing up canvas after canvas and submit my painting to the art gallery? I would have to know what “my” world class painting would look like, what feeling would it give me when I looked at it? If I didn’t take the time to think about these simple things, time after time I would keep ripping up the canvas and searching for my masterpiece.

You are the masterpiece. How will you know when you have reached the nirvana or peace within you? What will it look like, sound like, feel like? What’s the very last thing that would need to happen before you achieved it?

Answer this for yourself and you will find your search directed, simpler, shorter or no longer required at all. Then you can allow yourself permission to just be you as you are right now because that’s just fine isn’t it? and then live and love your life knowing that you are ready to receive great things from the journey ahead.

I’m not so sure this is the place to interject a scientific perspective but my story has been dramatic and my changes have been radical so I feel the need to share this with you. I experienced a slump similar to yours in my pursuit of peace, happiness, fitness and relief from social anxiety and couldn’t figure out the reason behind the sudden onset of my lethargy and lack of motivation.

Before this point, for 4 months I was a machine moving toward my goals and my days were designed for output. Running shoes and outfit laid out, alarm at 7, sprints until 7:30, protein shake for breakfast, research til lunch, write, go lift weights, dinner, meditate, then bed. 5 days a week.

Then, everything came to a grinding halt and it was like my brakes locked up. Everything was suffering and my writing went to crap. My professors even noticed. I had zero energy or determination like never before so I asked a friend that was in the Exercise Science program about it and she emailed me stacks of literature which was awesome. I assessed my “healthy lifestyle” and realized I was feeding my muscles but not my brain. I had zero sources of DHA in my diet and found that our brains are actually made up of 30% DHA and that deficiencies can severely inhibit performance on cognitive ability tests. I also had no sources of Magnesium in my diet and, for how much I exercised, I should have been intaking a great amount of it.

So I got serious about it once I saw the evidence published in reputable journals. And my life has been remarkably different in terms of energy and thinking ability. Coming up on 4 years now I eat fish often or take krill oil when I can’t, I start my day with a kale/spinach/tomato/protein smoothie and I get 7 1/2 of sleep every night.

It is incredible and I feel a world of difference and would implore you to look into feeding your brain in order to get you through that negative energy. I’d also say cancel cable but that’s up to you 😛