The Beauty of the Lows: When Doing Stops, Being Begins
A friend recently left me a voice note. In it, she said she was feeling off. Not quite sad. Not quite overwhelming. Just ….foggy. Unmotivated. Low. Like she couldn’t bring herself to do anything, not even the things she usually enjoys. And as I was listening to her, a strange yet familiar thought came to me — a parallel that made everything click in a quiet, subtle way.
You see, I’ve been fasting. And the discomfort she described reminded me of what I often feel during a fast. It’s not exactly pain. It’s not illness. It’s this restless discomfort, the kind that makes you want to fix it, eat something, do something. But I’ve learned to sit with it. Because when we fast, something very important is happening beneath the surface — not just a lack of food, but a redirection of energy. A shift. A reset.
And maybe — just maybe — that’s exactly what our emotional “lows” are too.
We often think something’s wrong when we feel down. We're conditioned to associate low energy with negativity. Laziness. Depression. A dip that needs fixing.
But what if that discomfort is not something to escape from... but something to lean into?
Just like fasting gives our digestive system a break, emotional lows may be our mind and soul asking for a similar pause. A break from digesting life, people, noise, action, effort, expectations. A moment of quiet — not because we are failing, but because we are recalibrating.
We live in a world that glorifies doing. Productivity. Progress. Purpose. Even the things we love — our passions, our children, our daily rituals — become tasks to perform, things to achieve, something to “do.”
But doing, even the beautiful kind, consumes energy.
So what happens when the soul is depleted — not of joy, but of space? When there’s no room left for being?
I believe these “down” days, these strange and silent inner pauses, are sacred. They are not a sign that we’re broken — but a sign that something inside us is working. Restoring. Resetting. Realigning.
When you fast, the body stops using energy to break down food and begins to use it for healing. Cellular repair. Detoxification. It’s uncomfortable — but it’s purposeful.
Likewise, when we stop “doing,” when we feel stripped of the will or energy to engage, we often feel guilt. We feel pressure to snap out of it. To push through. To get back to ourselves.
But what if we’re not supposed to get “back”?
What if these moments are part of our natural rhythm? What if this is ourselves — the version of us that doesn’t perform, doesn’t produce, doesn’t entertain?
The one that simply is.
Stillness isn’t empty. It’s full of truth — we’ve just forgotten how to listen.
If you’re in one of those phases now, where you feel like pulling back, not answering, not engaging, not showing up... maybe this is your fast. Maybe this is your body, your heart, your spirit saying:
“Enough. I need to just be.”
We spend so much of our lives doing things — even things we believe we do for ourselves — that sometimes the only real form of self-love is to stop. To be with ourselves without distraction. Without output. Without expectations.
Not forever. Just long enough to remember who we are when we’re not trying to be anything at all.
So next time you feel down, instead of asking, “How do I get out of this?”
Try asking, “What is resetting within me right now?”
Let the silence speak. Let the stillness cleanse you.
Trust that your lows have as much value as your highs.
You are not falling behind.
You are redistributing your energy.
You are not doing nothing.
You are becoming.
