Emotional flatness

[ZenAlex]

Hey guys, as time has gone on throughout my adulthood, I noticed myself becoming more emotionally flat.

I noticed in my early adulthood lacking strong preference in most things, being apathetic and not caring.

Then around my early twenties I started to notice myself feeling more flat, and then by default more discontent. 

I've done a lot over the last few years to combat this - No regular alcohol consumption, healthy diet, better sleep, given up video games/tv regularly, trying new things.

I'm grateful for my issues for forcing me into self awareness and helping me discover new things, but despite feeling better than I did a few years ago, It still doesn't feel like it once did before. It's like around 23 years old I noticed something flip inside of me and all of a sudden I became a lot more neurotic and lacked the same enjoyment from things.

I'm over the worst of it, because I can take some satisfaction from things now, but things have never felt the same.

I've gone to a psychologist, but she didn't really have much of an answer, and just told me to socialise more, and that I may have Autism. 

I tried socialising more with people, and even though I did enjoy it a bit, it didn't change my default feeling. 

I used to be an emotional kid, but now I feel mostly apathetic and uncaring. 

Anyone ever overcome this?

[Osaid]

You ever take antidepressants like SSRI's? Do you feel anything when listening to music?

[puporing]

8 minutes ago, ZenAlex said:

It's like around 23 years old I noticed something flip inside of me and all of a sudden I became a lot more neurotic and lacked the same enjoyment from things.

Maybe mild depression hit you? Do you have a clue as to what triggered the "flip"?

10 minutes ago, ZenAlex said:

I used to be an emotional kid, but now I feel mostly apathetic and uncaring. 

Anyone ever overcome this?

Something happened.. or a series of things, that caused you to "give up" so to speak.  

[Loba]

I have this problem, too - and am not sure how to bring the full joy back into life - I almost feel like I will feel more alive in the next life.
Summer here is just around the corner, so at least there will be more peace.  That's fantastic.  Sitting in the sunshine... it will bring some vitality back.
 

[JonasVE12]

I had been in apathy for a long time and what got me out of it was learning to feel my body from within, and to release repressed energies that came up when sitting with the body long enough. All what apathy really is is the unconscious repression of energy. There is usually a lot of limiting beliefs and stories you have about yourself and so you feel a sense of powerlessness. Have you experienced emotions of fear, grief or shame in your life? Usually the apathy is defending you from feeling those.

I can recommend to just let go of everything for a while, and to go sit on a bench in a nice park for a month or more, and then learning to welcome what is. What will happen initially is that there will be a lot of confusion inside your mind, especially in apathy, but after learning to observe all of that without becoming too reactive, you will have these moments where you are going to sink into your body and feel energies inside of you that you have been repressing. This can be fear, anger, shame, sadness, really any lower emotion. Then when sitting with those for long enough, you will go into lighter states of feeling. And each time you are able to welcome your experience, the heaviness and confusion of it, the more you will have releases and gradually you will begin to feel lighter. 

You also learn to feel contractions inside your body, and to move your energy towards those contractions in order to release them. 

What really get me out of apathy was making these 3 hour walks through the city, taking my headphones with me, sometimes meditating on benches during the walk, sometimes playing music and feeling my heart open to the environment, to the objects around me, the people, the sounds. I slowly began to feel these warm sensations in my body. I could sense beauty in the environment. And then after doing the walks for a couple of weeks, I began feeling this energy radiating from my lower body, my legs, stomach and sexual organs. There was this distinct feeling of courage, desire and just this pull of energy to create and confront my lower emotions. I felt so good just walking around my city that I didn't want to go home.

It felt so amazing to feel, especially because I was so numb. I never understood 'feeling'. Some therapist I went to in the past asked me 'How do you feel, do you feel good?' I responded 'What do you mean? Isn't feeling good just serotonine and dopamine in your brain?'  

Eventually, you start to feel energy of objects, people, environments and you literally feel that it affects you in the body. Especially people have an intense energy field that you can learn to feel in your body. When you become good at feeling your own body through this process, you start to feel the emotions of other people. Such as anger, sadness, fear and A LOT of apathy. But also a lot of lighter feelings. Or you feel your turn on when you walk past a beautiful woman, and you notice how she feels to you in your body. 

After I began feeling that courageous energy down my body,  I started to seek out tension in the environment that forced me to feel repressed emotions such as fear and shame. I began to use this energy to confront my deeper emotions. And that's when I started to get out of apathy fully. You always need to release to welcome more lighter feelings. But you have to go through your other higher repressed stuff. The emotional scale used in the books by David Hawkins is a good reference scale. Through doing these walks you will get an intuitive understanding of all the different energies that exist on the scale. All the way from apathy to freedom. 

Also, you need to put your focus 80% on your body. You need to consciously focus on the body. And after a while, you become one with it. This process works through small consistent releases. You don't need to understand the process intellectually, you just need to go on walks and learn to feel your body. Walk slowly, feel all that enjoyment inside your body when you walk. Walk with feeling. And if you are confused during the first weeks or so, welcome all of that feeling confused. It's about learning to welcome, and let go. 

This process is really powerful. You may ask how it relates to your situation and how it helps you finding deeper enjoyment. It's really simple, once you learn to feel during your walks, your consciousness begins to operate from a feeling-energy based center, and if you can transmute your lower emotions through vulnerability within the walks, then your mind will expand beyond those limitations and you will effortlessly enjoy life and create whatever you want. 

 

[ZenAlex]

On 10/05/2022 at 8:30 AM, Osaid said:

You ever take antidepressants like SSRI's? Do you feel anything when listening to music?

No anti-depressants. 

I do feel things when listening to some music, yes. I can feel some satisfaction from some things.

[StarStruck]

The body is the portal to your feelings so if you can't feel emotions

1. that doesn't mean you don't have emotions, you just can't feel them because you pushed them in your unconscious
2. the solution is to get to the physical sensations, get out of your head and into your body (root chakra) and stay with the bodily sensation

As a rule of thumb: give more attention to your bodily sensations than to your mental activity

[Gianna]

What is your relationship with Disappointment? Did you have any major disappointments around the time you started to get more apathetic? 
 

Your apathy might be a subconscious strategy to avoid disappointment, “If I never care, I can never be disappointed.” 
 

Also, although apathy can come with a lot of numbness (which may be the same as what you’re calling emotional flatness) we can recognize that numbness and apathy are still emotions in and of themself. So if you feel the apathy as an emotion more and more— deeply and more deeply— you can explore around the feeling to feel more and trigger yourself to invite more feeling. This will help especially if your body is using the apathy to protect yourself against feeling (like disappointment) because it is signaling to it that it is okay/invited. 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Gianna

[ZenAlex]

On 15/05/2022 at 2:39 AM, Gianna said:

What is your relationship with Disappointment? Did you have any major disappointments around the time you started to get more apathetic? 
 

Your apathy might be a subconscious strategy to avoid disappointment, “If I never care, I can never be disappointed.” 
 

Also, although apathy can come with a lot of numbness (which may be the same as what you’re calling emotional flatness) we can recognize that numbness and apathy are still emotions in and of themself. So if you feel the apathy as an emotion more and more— deeply and more deeply— you can explore around the feeling to feel more and trigger yourself to invite more feeling. This will help especially if your body is using the apathy to protect yourself against feeling (like disappointment) because it is signaling to it that it is okay/invited. 

I don't really want anything enough to be disappointed really. I'd be disappointed if I could never walk again and hike I guess.

I always just try and find away around obstacles, I don't complain.

[TheWatcher]

watch Leos videos on emotion, maybe its an unconscious trauma that you've faced leading you to bottle up emotions rather then letting them out.

 

Emotions stem from Reacting to stimulus, if you lack opinion go out and experience new things, maybe that can give you larger perspective

also watch out for what your eating, certain foods numb you emotionally. 

[Matt23]

Perhaps part of the cause:

One school of thought about emotions says that when you avoid, shut down, suppress, don't express, and deny emotions you dislike ("negative" emotions), you simultaneously shut down the better emotions.  

It's like, you may think you're making yourself feel better by shutting down the really negative emotions, but the "shutting down" works on both ends of the spectrum at the same time.  Thus shutting down the really good emotions as well.  

Maybe try working on and feeling those emotions you dislike.

I'd also recommend paying attention to areas in your life (particular emotions, thoughts, circumstances, and especially places in your body) where you find there's not much going on.  Places that are numb, don't have feeling, etc..  Numbness and the absence of feelings can be a cover for really big feelings your denying.

For example, if you notice you have lots of feelings in your belly area and pelvic area but don't seem to notice much in your throat and chest, try just putting your attention more on the throat and chest area and just search these areas with your awareness more and more and see if something happens.  Maybe you notice a little tension somewhere, which upon further concentration on it, becomes something bigger and an emotional release happens or some sort of shift.  

Something like this happened to me.  I've often tried to focus my awareness on my belly and chest.  But then realized I've never really focused on my throat and just treated it like "Well... why would I focus on my throat.  Emotions and nothing important happens there.  It's just physical."  -- But then I did and noticed it felt all "congested" emotionally, and then I noticed I was able to speak and express a lot better.

Good luck chuck

[ShardMare]

Lots of people here share the same stuff. 

Few ideas:

Reduce your screentime

Go to gym 4times a week. Do heavylifting or run a lot

Quit social media, porn

Go to nature a lot, please

Emotional vipassana, just notice ur body more.

Develop small goals, try lots of new things(it doesnt matter what, just try them) 

Go out in the sun

And yeah its very important go out socializing. It doesnt matter what again. This is the most important imo. 

It doesnt matter u dont go to party, although thats very good. But then go outside just walk, clubs, sport groups, cbt group or any kinda psycjology group. Do volunteering. 

 

I think most of us messed up how ur brain works by the internet. 

Also. Feel your numbness. 

Everyday make sure u track ur feelings 3times!!!please