There is nothing inside

[bringa]

Hey everyone. I would like to believe that I'm a well read person. I have studied almost about all the sub topics in this forum and on top of it technology and math to a decent extent. Now the problem is, due to my parental trauma which had a negative impact on my life has put me in a stage where i don't feel excited about anything. Meaning, I'm dead inside.

This has manifested in dangerous ways; such as, deliberately not wanting to have a career, not caring (I cannot feel from inside) about self, I'm not bothered if my life turns upside down. I might survive (or choose not to) just by being a daily wage labor despite of having an Engineering degree and having a skill and so on.

On the face of it, it might look like a discipline of some eastern spirituality (detachment from the worldly), but for a fact, I know that I lack love and I understand it and accept it.

Even with all these things going on, a few days back, I re-found a purpose (not a spiritual one, but more of a career in a way, but it requires total devotion, determination and dedication) and I thought let me try and just focus on pursuing that. So I restarted all my physical activities (daily exercise, running, meditation, yoga etc), my mind can only function if I do these things.

But still I don't feel anything inside. Sometimes, I lose seriousness of my goal, which could be a make or break in a way in terms of career choice. I have that potential, but still due to my issues I can't seem to accept that I want to be something.

I would love to hear your advice. Help me!

[Ulax]

Can try IFS therapy, Somatic experiencing, ideal parent figure protocol, gestalt therapy, TRE. Would recommend ifs therapy the most.

Can also work on loving-kindness/ metta-medtitation. Here is a book for that I recently came across: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, by Sharon Salzbe

Also, would recommend Patrick Teahan's youtube channel

Edited April 9 by Ulax
spelling

[bringa]

Thanks @Ulax

[Ulax]

@bringa Also, https://integralguide.com/

[Princess Arabia]

That's because there isn't. But please take the advices and get help if needed. 

[BlueOak]

@bringa I lived my life like that. I psyched myself up out of my depression, and then, when the effort didn't get me what I wanted, I went back into hiding in my room. That was my longest-running pattern because it was transactional, it was expecting a result for the action I was doing. The way not to have that problem is to keep finding out who you are, so when you do something, it's because you want to do that thing itself. 

If the thing itself has 500 conditions before you can feel anything, maybe you are putting too many conditions in the way? Could you do a less perfect version of it right now, and would that bring you some joy? Let's say I wanted to be a surgeon, and I knew it was because I wanted to help heal people. Well while on the long journey to being a surgeon, I could still help heal people by giving dietary advice. It would not be my dream job, but it would be what I enjoyed and why I was training to be a surgeon. 

A lot of us with parental trauma never got the guidance necessary to know ourselves in our formative years. We spent so long hiding ourselves so as not to get abused, so we have to put the work in to learn ourselves now. It sucks, but that's the reality, often with a lot of behaviors covering it that we used to hide away, fight, freeze, or manipulate and survive. 

You talked about love, so let's give you a step.

Gratitude is easier than love to start with. 
You can be grateful for the food, for the shelter, for the air and water, and for the simple things we all take for granted. Really sit there and feel gratitude, take a moment, no rush whatever happens, happens. Tell yourself you are thankful for the things that matter in life, be kind to yourself, learn to feel.

In your analogy of feeling empty: when you are doing this, you are placing that gratitude inside yourself.
You are the thing you are experiencing.
Placing your hands together can help put the body in that state.

Practice that, so you can begin to see you are what you focus on.
Then people go through a similar process with joy and love. 

You will feel empty and depressed if you are doing something that isn't you. 
You will feel in love if you love something. 

You can put yourself in any emotional state, but if you've never felt love, that might take guidance and patience. It will need you being unconditional with yourself. I just did it by closing my eyes, and taking a posture that I consider the best way to express love. Gentle, caring, and nurturing. No conditional result or thing I had to do. Whatever happened, happened.

Your body posture goes a long way to assisting your emotional state. This also goes for depression and sadness. It's only a temporary thing, but it's there. To fill that emptiness day to day takes understanding yourself, and then doing something that lines up with who and what you are, not the result you want out of it. Fame, money, attention, praise, acceptance, etc.

Edited April 10 by BlueOak

[bringa]

Thanks @BlueOak 

 

Quote

Well while on the long journey to being a surgeon, I could still help heal people by giving dietary advice. It would not be my dream job, but it would be what I enjoyed and why I was training to be a surgeon. 

I need a bit more help with understanding this. I have many talents, which I can do tirelessly. I'm not saying this just on the fly, it's tried and tested. But, whenever I accomplished any tasks and got a bit of appreciation, my mind didn't know how to take them. I didn't feel proud or joyful or any other feeling.

So it's a feeling where I can't feel anything about anything. Whatever job I do, I don't wish to grow, because I know for a fact it does not make me happy or unhappy. Finding purpose would be a charade to convince myself (my mind) that I'm doing something about it.

 

[BlueOak]

2 hours ago, bringa said:

Thanks @BlueOak 

 

I need a bit more help with understanding this. I have many talents, which I can do tirelessly. I'm not saying this just on the fly, it's tried and tested. But, whenever I accomplished any tasks and got a bit of appreciation, my mind didn't know how to take them. I didn't feel proud or joyful or any other feeling.

So it's a feeling where I can't feel anything about anything. Whatever job I do, I don't wish to grow, because I know for a fact it does not make me happy or unhappy. Finding purpose would be a charade to convince myself (my mind) that I'm doing something about it.

 

 You are describing someone who doesn't know what most emotions are, or how to process or experience them. It could also be you are doing things so far out of alignment with yourself that you feel nothing at all from them, or both of these things.

I was like that at one point, aside from anger or depression, I'd switched off my emotions so I could survive. It's a common thing in trauma. I still find recognizing things like love difficult, or not overthinking things, as examples.

Back then, all I knew how to do was try to survive, all I did was toward that end. Without the emotions inside of us to let us feel the richness and depth of life, we are like husks of ourselves just surviving.

I am still overly focused on survival, but I fought to get my emotions back. To feel everything, it took work on myself, understanding what had happened to me, and why I did what I did, to begin to realize what normal emotions were. I had no money for a therapist so I used people like Teal Swan's videos on emotions to begin to identify them. She's got some really good beginner content on emotions, just search under an emotion name on her channel to find them. Joy, Happiness, Fear, anger, etc. I slowly worked through these and spent time with myself to correct what I'd done to survive as a kid.

Another way is to listen to songs and try to feel the words, to connect with the singer. Play music, write, do art, express yourself, and try to put those emotions onto something or somewhere. Processing these emotions when I'd just evaded them all my life was difficult. However, they give life depth and meaning, so it was worth it. It was also quite addictive at first, like getting legs to walk on for the first time.

Emotions are very helpful in understanding yourself. Not relying on the logical construct in your mind that you've created to describe yourself, which has altered itself every day you've been alive. 

When you can feel what makes you happy, then finding the core of that is what you look for in your career. Same for pride, or other emotions you want to experience in life. The negatives you use to avoid what you don't want to do. When you have that core emotion and you know what triggers it, then you look for a way it can earn you income, survive, and prosper from it.

At least, living happily is the dream for many of us, but first, you need to know what happiness feels like and what triggers it in you.

I hope it helps. @bringa


 

[Yimpa]

@BlueOak Thank you 

[bringa]

@BlueOak I'll try to work on it. Thanks once again.