Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion or passion. It can be experienced as listlessness or fatigue. This can also feel similar to depression. Sometimes, without warning, I will hit a wall where I become low energy for days, weeks even, and the normal routines of life becoming a challenge. Just making it from one day to the next can be difficult.
As I’m self-employed and have to create my own structure for achieving goals, if I’m unmotivated, it causes a cascade of problems that can bring on apathy. A day might begin with me waking up with a stiff back, not pain necessarily, but discomfort. After dropping the kids at school, I tell myself that I’ll drink my coffee sitting on the couch and give myself some time to space out and watch YouTube. The insidious nature of those videos can keep me on that app for an hour, or longer. I have time to go to the climbing gym to work out, but my back is still tight, (from sitting on the sofa), so I tell myself, you should take the day off. I have one client today, so I pull it together to get to my office, give a good treatment which slightly uplifts me, then head straight back home. I reward myself with a little more YouTube, (another hour flies by.) I write in my journal. I look at the clock. Just enough time to clean the kitchen before going to fetch the kids from school. When my partner asks me later about my day, I can’t give a wholly true answer as I feel ashamed by my inactivity and annoyed with myself. I promise to do better. But the next day, the cycle continues.
Exercise, such as swinging kettlebells, capoeira mobility and climbing really help. But, if I’m feeling really apathetic, it can be hard to get started. I almost have to trick myself into getting going with something like the yoga movements of cat/cows on all fours, or low (air) squats, or even rolling around on the floor. Sometimes, putting on music and dancing unselfconsciously helps loosen up my body. Often, once I get started it’s easier to keep going. 5 minutes turns into 15 and then into 45 and my mood is altered.
One of the keys, that I have to keep reminding myself of, is that mood follows action. Waiting to be in the right mood to start a project, or exercise, or a slightly unpleasant task, leads to procrastination. Procrastination leads to inaction and the use of distraction (such as YouTube). Since emotion follows action, one needs to get started and allow the process to create the shift in feeling, rather than waiting to be in the right mood to begin.
To make distractions less tempting, I keep my phone on grey scale (black and white) and I’ve removed the YouTube app. If I want to watch it, I have to take the extra step of watching on my laptop, making me a lot less inclined to mindlessly open it. I deleted instagram from my phone at the end of last year and I’ve found that useful and liberating. I’m sure there are things I’m missing, but it’s definitely not the wasted time of endless scrolling.
I know these things and yet, I forget and sometimes allow my mood to dictate my action. So, each time I feel the grip of apathy pulling me down, I try to remember to move, to dance, to roll around on the floor, to start with five minutes of whatever, positive action and see where it leads. Break the spell, subvert the dominant paradigm, engage with the magical world around me.
Exercise: If you’re under the spell of apathy, put on some fun uplifting music and dance around. Jump up and down. If you’re sore, when you jump, just go up onto your toes and back down. Shake out your shoulders, roll your hips from side to side. Lift one leg high, then the other. Twist left and right. If you’re off rhythm, who cares? Get a little out of breath, laugh, yell, mess up your hair. Within five minutes you may feel like a different person. It certainly helps me.