From apathy to drive-
Have you ever been repeatedly beaten down by a certain proverbial ceiling so much that you’ve just resolved to stay at your current level of the proverbial structure rather than continue to waste time and energy only to have your heart broken yet again by the seemingly incessant stiff arm from above? After a while in this situation, it's easy to forget all about the next level and consider the current walls and ceiling around you as the limits to your very reality. Before you know it, you’re so occupied with your sun lamp that when offered a magic fire escape-producing wand, you tell it to stop blocking your artificial rays. How do we avoid getting sucked into such a state of settling that we miss and even push away ideal fulfillment of our core desires?
6 steps from apathy to drive
Accept the S factor: As yucky as it is to consider that mishaps happen, they’re a significant part of life, whether we like it or not. It's a part of our (every person’s) existence that we often can’t predict and have no control over. Freak and unpredictable accidents are going to happen on this earth, plenty of times within everyone’s lifetime. The secret is that none of them, in isolation, say anything about our value as a human being or predict anything about our future. It's all about how we respond to them that counts. So, the more we allow for their existence, independent of our self-worth, the better prepared we are to pivot when we need to.
Name your view- The next thing is, as soon as we are broken hearted, turned down, or feel like we fall completely on your face after reaching for something we truly want is to name as much as we can about what happened. What was the most sucky thing about what happened? What happened right before and right after? How did any of your actions at any point in those sequence of events work out for you? What emotions do you notice? If they had a color, shape, texture, temperature, texture, and a place within your vicinity, where would they be?
Send Self Compassion- If you could send your own self a gesture of compassion for the emotional pain you were or are experiencing as a result of the unexpected miss, what form of compassion would this particular pain most need? Imagine offering this specific gesture towards the emotional pain you’re experiencing, taking time for mindfulness toward any and each inner, cognitive, or emotional shift you notice as a result.
Flip it- If your illustration of your uncomfortable feelings regarding this event could be flipped on their heads, what would they be telling you about what you want to happen instead of what ended up happening? Once you name the answer to this as specifically as possible, you suddenly have something to allow yourself toward and to work with rather than waste your energy pushing away from something.
Brainstorm- What would help what you want to happen? Go wild with this one! Right down any and everything that comes to mind, whether it's possible or not. You can even challenge yourself to come up with forty different ideas.
Sort and choose: After making a comprehensive list, sort out the items according to them being within your control and outside your control. Then, choose, from the items within your control, the item that seems like the best fit. Try it out and see what happens. You can always start again from the top, using your original answers as a springboard this time, if it doesn’t quite work out like you were hoping. Either way, you are one step closer to finding the perfect fit, even if it ends up being by a process of elimination and shaping.
To wrap up, apathy can be quite the invisible trickster and can keep us from recognizing our dreams even when they’re staring us in the face. However, the above steps have hopefully challenged you to mindfully consider, reawaken, and perhaps freshly pursue long forgotten desires that may be lurking right under your nose.