Soul feels dormant

I was thinking about this some days ago, the fact that everything feels so miserable to a lot of people, I do not understand the reason behind it.

 

That feeling you describe is something that I’ve felt before. I think it comes from lack of having meaning in your life. If you ask yourself “why?” And you dont know the answer then you can start there. It could be as simple as asking “why am I waking up and going to work (school)? The answer to that question is the meaning you give to your life. Something that helped me realize that was watching youtube videos from a canadian psychologist named Dr. Jordan Peterson. That guy is a genius!

 

I never walked home with friends as I barely made any real friends while being at school. In fact, in most of the happy moments of my life, technology was involved in some way. I want a robot dog.

 

Do you do things in life and have people in your life that energizes you?

I enjoy where I am today way more than I did as a child. Childhood was fun because it was mindless and didn't have much responsibilities, but you can do the same with alcohol / escapism. As an adult I get to choose the life that I want to live and the people that I want to be around or at the very least work towards it.

Feeling numb / dull / bored / empty is a pattern. You're DOING numb / dull / bored / empty. Usually it's a coping mechanism to stop worries / stress / doubt / fear. Expressing less / feeling less / doing less / taking less risks is a way to feel more safe and comfortable. A way to keep things more simplistic (solitude / self centered). Protecting / coping / conserving rather than sharing / thriving / overflowing.

Do more bold / daring / expressive / spontaneous things that might not work if you want to feel more alive. You didn't know any better as a child so you did whatever you wanted, but if you can do the same thing despite knowing better (you think you know better, but it's really just limiting assumptions) as an adult then you can have a life that you enjoy way more than your childhood because it's fully intended rather than something you just randomly did for fun without responsibilities.

 

Yes. Being more aware of what you're actually doing and having more intention with what you're doing helps a lot. If you don't have much intention in life, then you will default to sleep walking and just reacting to random things like a leaf in the wind.

 

If you don't know what energizes you, try a lot of different things. Find something you can really contribute towards, immerse yourself in, grow as a person by its challenges, and be a part of its community.

Mediocrity / emptiness / boredom / depression are basically coping methods to protect yourself from anxiety / stress / worry / doubt / fear. Over time repeating the patterns makes it seem like it's a normal thing. Like it's your default state. To protect yourself from emotional volatility. Traumatic or hurtful past events built up over time and caused you to be this way. This is how it was for me anyways.

The opposite of depression is expression. Being honest with myself and others. Being honest with what I desire and acting towards those desires. Getting in touch with how I feel more. I searched for what energized me. What made me curious and full of wonder. I trained myself to feel emotions more intensely. Be more human again. Be more child like. Before I tried to hide and silence it all so that I could stay safe.

So find a way to drop the emotional guards / walls of self preservation that are also walls of self imprisonment. To stop feeling trapped. Smile, laugh, shout, sing, cry, move your body, and feel more. People are afraid of doing that because it's risky. You might get criticized / hurt / fail / you might feel pain and have negative experiences. Basically you can't have the highs without the lows. Most adults tried to get rid of the lows, but in turn also got rid of the highs... so they're left with the comfortable, safe, boring, lame, dull, and mediocrity emptiness.

Yes. Take risks and be more spontaneous. Do something that might not work. Feel something. Stop holding on to safety. There's really nothing to hold on to and it's never safe. So learn to handle the lows if you want to experience the highs.

 

Adulthood is amazing because it’s apart of LIFE. Childhood is amazing for the same reason. It may sound cliche but life is a journey and nothing in life stays the same forever.

I had similar feelings like this until I started to understand what life was all about, at least my interpretation. I was addicted to PMO I was depressed, I also longed to go back in time and live my childhood again where all I cared about was playing outside on my bike and running around. But then I realized that my childhood was also the greatest time of life for my parents too.

The only way you’ll be able to recapture that joy from your childhood is to create a family of your own and experience childhood once more but this time with your son/daughter and from the other side as a parent. When you see your flesh & blood play and laugh and run around it’s like watching what you used to be like as a kid.

 

Life can have as much or as little meaning as you attach to it.

Look at people who are passionate about something, they are the ones who are truly alive. You can see it in their eyes, their body language etc. Be it Ronaldo or David Goggins, passion for your goals is everything in life.

 

Most of the time it's not really anything other than a person's own need for comfort and certainty that holds them back.

Usually it's the people who have the audacity to even try things that gets what they want. Simply because they showed up when nobody else would.

What do you think happens when people see that you don't have the emotional guards that everyone else has? It makes you very attractive and strong. The people who succeed the most are the ones that are okay with the fact that they will inevitably fail sometimes. They don't avoid it which in turn avoids having success. No risks, no failures, but also no success. The people who are most successful with relationships are those that are willing to experience emotional volatility. This is what it means to live and thrive in reality. You have to learn how to handle negative experiences if you want to experience the positive ones. Solitude and escapism erases the possibilities of the negative experiences, but also erases the positive ones as well.

 

Yes. At the very least, I'm more attractive to myself.

Like I always say... I'm amazing with people that resonate with my honest self expression and terrible with people that don't resonate with who I really am. Being genuine with who I am and what I want is a risk all in itself.

It's something you have to work on and develop. It takes repeated courage to gain competence and repeated competence to gain confidence with anything in life. Eventually it becomes a part of your life, but of course it's going to be hard and unfamiliar in the beginning. It's delayed gratification. The bigger the obstacles the bigger the rewards. Sacrifice short term emotions for the sake of long term outcomes.

 

It's just the unwillingness to feel negative emotions. People cling so hard to safety, comfort, certainty, what's familiar, easy, instant gratification, etc. The second any sort of emotions pop up, they don't want to deal with it and find a way to numb it. Instead of learning how to deal with it, they neglect and avoid it.

You should be developing and conditioning yourself to be able to stay with pain, problems, negative experiences, emotional volatility, uncertainty, unideal, awkward, difficult situations longer. Long enough to be able to turn them into higher quality pleasure, solutions, and positive experiences. Sacrifice short term "I want to feel good all the time" emotions for the sake of long term outcomes, but most people always choose the short term over the long term. So they never learn. They never get stronger or better to handle those various situations. They always dabble and tip toe their way to safety.

Let go of the entitlement to feel comfortable, safe, and good all the time. That mindset leads to escapism and mediocrity.