Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism - Why Am I So Emotionally Tired? - Daily Wisdom #22

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

Welcome back to Daily Wisdom.This week, we are staying close to the world of emotions. Yesterday, we looked at the idea that an emotion is not an enemy to suppress, and not a master to obey. It is a signal to read. Today, I would like to look at what happens when too many signals remain unread, when too many feelings are carried quietly, and when the inner life has had no real place to exhale.More resources:Free resources, books and more on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wordsoftaoism.com/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My blog⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://taoismteachings.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music I use, as a playlist:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome back to daily wisdom. There is a tiredness that sleep does not always repair. It does not always come from the body. The body may not have done very much. It does not always come from the mind. The mind may not have solved anything especially difficult. And yet, some evenings it weighs more heavily than physical labor. We recognize it by its strange shape.

We have not run, lifted, built, or crossed any great distance, and still we arrive at the end of the day emptied. One more conversation feels like too much. One more message asks more from us than we seem able to give. Even a simple act of attention can feel costly. We call it being drained, being worn thin, being done. And because nothing visible has happened to us, We often add a quiet reproach.

I have no reason to be this tired. But perhaps we do. This week, we are staying close to the world of emotions. Yesterday, we looked at the idea that an emotion is not an enemy to suppress and not a master to obey. It is a signal to read. Today, I would like to look at what happens when too many signals remain unread. when too many feelings are carried quietly,

and when the inner life has had no real place to exhale. There is an old story that speaks to this better than any explanation. Two monks were walking back to their monastery when they came to a river swollen by rain. At the edge of the water, a young woman stood waiting, unable to cross. The elder monk, without saying much, lifted her onto his back, carried her through the river, placed her safely on the far bank, and continued walking. The younger monk said nothing, but inside him something began to churn. For hours he walked in silence.

He turned the scene over in his mind again and again. He was troubled, indignant, unable to let it rest. At last, when they were near the monastery, he could no longer hold it in. How could you carry that woman, he said, when our rule forbids it? The elder monk looked at him calmly and answered, I set her down the river. You've been carrying her all afternoon. I think this is the secret geography of emotional tiredness.

It is rarely only the only the thing. the river that exhausts us. It is what we keep carrying long after the crossing is done. The conversation ends, but we continue it inside ourselves. A moment passes, but the body keeps holding the tension. Someone's mood enters the room, and hours later, we still feel responsible for it. A small disappointment happens in the morning, and by evening, it has mixed with everything else we did not have time to feel. Nothing dramatic may have occurred, but we have been carrying.

We carry what we absorb. The tension of a colleague. The sadness of someone we love. The anxiety that floats through a household, a workplace, a news feed. Human beings are not sealed containers. We take in atmospheres before we decide to. Sometimes we walk through a day and collect emotional weather that was never ours to keep.

We also carry what we withhold. The irritation we swallow because the moment is inconvenient. The grief we postpone because there is no time. The worry we silence so that no one else becomes worried. The words we do not say because, because we want to keep the peace. None of this disappears simply because we remain composed.

Holding is an activity. It continues beneath the surface, like a hand kept clenched for so long that we forget it is clenched and only notice the ache. And then there is the tiredness of performing, smiling when we are elsewhere, sounding calm when something in us is unsettled,

appearing available when we are already empty. This gap between what we feel and what we show may look small from the outside, but maintaining it costs energy. The face stays kind, the voice stays measured, the body stays functional, but something inside is working hard to keep the distance hidden. psychology and neuroscience can help us understand this without making it cold. Regulating an emotion, suppressing a reaction, masking what we feel, choosing words carefully

when the body wants to do something else, all of this draws from our limited energy. The effort may be invisible, but it is still effort. So the question is not always. Why am I tired when I've done nothing? Perhaps the question is, what have I been carrying without counting it as work? This changes something. Because many of us believe we are tired

because we feel too much. So we imagine the solution is to feel less, to harden, to become less porous, less affected, less open. But I wonder if the opposite is often true. Maybe it is not feeling that exhausts us. Maybe it is preventing feeling from moving. An emotion, by its nature, is a movement.

It rises, asks for attention, changes, and if it's allowed to pass through with some dignity, it often transforms. Sadness may need to be wept, spoken, or quietly acknowledged. Anger may need to be named clearly enough to reveal the boundary beneath it. Fear may need steadiness, not endless mental rehearsal.

Even joy needs to move. It dims when it is kept in a drawer. A feeling that moves through us may be intense, but it is alive. A feeling that is blocked begins to stagnate. And stagnation is exhausting. There is a line from the Tao Te Ching that asks, in different translations,

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? I've always found this image very close to emotional life. Take a jar of muddy water. You cannot make it clear by shaking it. You cannot force clarity by gripping it harder. The more you interfere, the cloudier it becomes. At some point the jar must be set down. Stillness does what effort cannot.

The mud sinks slowly. The water remembers its clarity. Our inner life often obeys the same patient law. When we are emotionally tired, we may try to solve everything at once. We analyze the whole day, replay every conversation, judge every reaction, ask ourselves why we are like this, and then wonder why we feel even more tired. But maybe the first need is not more analysis. Maybe the first need is to set the jar down. To let what has been stirred all day begin to settle.

The younger monk in the story was not tired because a woman needed help crossing a river. He was tired because his trouble had nowhere to go. He did not speak it. He did not release it. He did not understand it. So it walked with him, mile after mile, growing heavier in silence. And this is often what happens inside us. What is not given a place to move becomes something we carry.

So what might it mean this evening to set something down? It may not mean a grand ritual. It may not mean solving the relationship, changing the whole rhythm of life or understanding every feeling perfectly. It may begin much more simply by admitting that the day has entered us, by noticing what we absorb that was not ours to keep, by recognizing what we held back because there was no space for it, by seeing where we performed calm, enthusiasm or strength, while something in us quietly asked for rest. This kind of noticing already changed.

the weight. A feeling named honestly no longer has to hide inside the body. A worry returned to its proper place no longer has to occupy the whole room. A sadness, given a few quiet moments, no longer has to knock through exhaustion. Sometimes emotional rest is not the absence of feeling. It is the return of movement. It is letting the inner life exhale. It is saying this belongs to that conversation. And I do not need to keep rehearsing it all night. This belongs to someone else's fear.

And I can care without absorbing it completely. This belongs to my own heart. And I can sit with it gently instead of carrying it as tension. We do not need many places where nothing has to be carried or performed. But we need at least one. A walk, a page, a quiet room, a few honest minutes before sleep, some small, far bank where the day can be set down. And perhaps, above all, we need to revise the quiet reproach with which we began.

You're not tired for no reason. You may have been doing the heart's work all day, the unpaid, uncounted, unwitnessed work of absorbing, withholding, adjusting, caring, interpreting, and remaining composed in a demanding world. That work deserves what every labor deserves an ending. The river will be there again tomorrow. There will be crossings, and some of them will ask something

from you. But perhaps you can learn the wisdom of the old monk. Carry what the moment truly asks, and when the crossing is done, do not keep carrying it for the rest of the road. Set it down on the far bank. Let the jar become still. Let the inner life exhale, and walk on lighter into the rest of your life.