3 Things You Should Do When Your Feel Nothing Inside
Emotional numbness can affect your life in more ways than you can imagine.
Do you ever wake up and just feel kind of blocked. You feel like you are going through life’s emotions, but you can’t point out what exactly is making you moody and weak.
I woke up this morning feeling really down. I have no interest in doing any of the activities I planned for today. I’m just lying in my bed feeling numb.
In fact, I’m actually typing this post on my phone cause I have no desire to get off this bed. This is one of those days I feel like shutting down for a whole week — no exercises, no writing, no friends, no trading, no business duties, just stay in sleeping.
I have absolutely no interest in doing anything today. I’m not depressed. I’m not frustrated. I just feel nothing.
We all go through these days sometimes. We feel apathetic.
Apathy is the absence or suppression of passion, emotions, or excitement. Essentially, it is a conscious state of not caring.
There are many reasons why people fail to take action when they are apathetic.
Mostly because apathy makes you believe that nothing is worth doing. You feel you have no autonomy over your life.
Maybe you feel worthless because you are unable to exchange your labour for wages, or you feel worthless for not attracting a partner who understands you.
It could be you feel worthless because you live in a culture that does not include you in it’s narratives.
Much of the tension that comes from feeling apathy is the awakening and recognition that our system isn’t working for them, and we feel frustrated that meaningful changes are not offered.
Ways being apathetic can ruin your relationship
Compassion fatigue, where people care initially but become overwhelmed and feel physically and emotionally exhausted, can lead to a decreased ability to feel compassion and empathy for others.
When apathy becomes persistent and affects many different aspects of life, it turns into a significant problem.
Some conditions that may cause apathy include depression, anxiety, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke.
When apathy is chronic, it can interfere with your daily life. It will hinder your performance at work, in your personal relationship, and even in your personal care practices.
One thing an apathetic person doesn’t do is show his/her emotions. They avoid having to say what they feel and try to keep it to themselves.
This doesn’t mean they don’t respect or identify their emotions. They just don’t share them. You can ask an apathetic person what he wants to eat, and he says he doesn’t care, and frankly he doesn’t.
These types of people deal with their emotions inside. They will not yell loudly or argue. They just want to deal with their emotions on their own.
Apathetic people do not like to commit to others. They like to stay connected to people, but they feel that emotions make things messy and hard.
If you are not feeling that spark in your relationship or you have lost interest in being intimate with your partner, here is what you can do to overcome feeling apathetic.
Steps to overcome feeling apathetic
The reason I am writing this article is because I know and acknowledge that I am apathetic in my life right now. I hope to reach someone as I would like to be reached.
Apathy is not laziness, but it’s actually one of the root causes of depression, and it can be easily cured in three simple steps.
Give yourself a break
Taking a break for a week will help you find the courage to not give up.
If you feel stuck right now, or you’re in a place where you don’t know people, you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t like being around certain people, changing your place of residence can help.
While it’s true that you can’t always overcome your problems by running, it can be a spark that some people need.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a permanent move. Maybe going on a vacation accompanied by your friends is what you need to reconnect with yourself again.
Identify what triggered this feeling
Apathy arises from deep psychological problems like continuous defeats or rejections.
Maybe you think you have given too much of yourself to work or your relationship and now you feel disconnected from yourself.
Start by assessing your environment and identifying the negative habits that triggered this feeling.
What made you lose the enthusiasm to believe in yourself? Whether at work or at home, something caused your apathy, and you need to find its source.
Create an engagement plan
Right now, you lost all confidence in your actions.
To get out of feeling apathy, you must prove that your actions have merit.
Be specific about what you need and want to accomplish. For example, if you have isolated yourself for a while, you might enjoy having coffee or watching movies with a friend.
Scheduling a pleasant activity — eating dinner with a friend, going to the gym, or playing a round of golf might help you feel better.
Parting words
When you’re apathetic, motivating yourself to do something new can be extremely challenging.
During rough times like this, especially if you’ve already experienced failure time and time again, if you see your actions having no value in the long run, you lose sight of what matters.
You retreat and ask, “What’s the point?”. You end up not investing in yourself or the situation to protect yourself from more disappointment.
Over time this leaves you bare of any emotional attachment, both positive and negative.
The problem with all of this is that you have to act contrary to your belief.
A good place to start feeling motivated is to reflect on your negative self-talk and limiting beliefs.
By changing your thoughts, you will begin to change your attitude towards the situation that is causing your apathy.
Set your mind on the things that would come as a result of your change in attitude, and you will feel motivated again to do the things you want to do.
Life offers many opportunities to happiness. And the beauty is that some of them are free, but we often ignore these free gifts in search of expensive greener pastures. Thankfully, Dr. Preeti Singh is always there to remind us that most of what we seek is right in front of us. I hope you find joy and inspiration from these stories that moved my heart.
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