Doldrums and Currents

 I often find myself thinking at random points "so when does my life start?". I guess I'm already living it, and have lived it. For some reason I just don't feel complete, like there's just this huge void I need to fill that is making it hard to function at my fullest capacity. Perhaps I already have what I need, or maybe there's something out there to find. Today I feel lonely and isolated, kind of numb in a lot of ways. Not sad, not happy, just existing with an overall sense of hopelessness and lack of direction. My emotional state has always been in flux, its strange because if my whole life has been a series of rapid fluctuations and movement, the rapids, then right now I'd say I'm stuck in the doldrums waiting for an oar, or motor, wind or current or all of the above or some combination thereof to carry me somewhere. 

In the middle of last year I went through the most horrible and emotionally scarring breakups of my life, it took a serious toll on me and I lost all motivation and focus. I was absolutely devastated. It's been over a year since, there's a lot less emotional intensity now, less depressive sadness, manic bouts of happiness, and flareups of anger. Now its just a general apathetic sense of numbness that has settled in. Maybe its a skill we have to cultivate in order to love easily, maybe the problem with locking up your heart is sometimes you can forget where you put the key.

 I often wonder how the words we think affects how our brain operates. By repeatedly having negative self-talk perhaps we then find ourselves with a dim perspective, but maybe if we just repeat the same affirming positive statements, no matter how detached from reality, perhaps it can help change our perspective. For instance, every time the thought "I hate myself" or something similar pops up instead of just having that thought and leaving it, repeat "I love myself" five or so times. This applies to any negative headspace, just being mindful of when these thoughts arise and no matter how nonsensical or detached from reality they are and just affirming the opposite. 

Whatever part of our brain is responsible for language, it clearly is attached to our feelings and autonomic nervous system in some way. Perhaps by merely repeating affirming phrases in our brain whenever a negative phrase pops up, it rewrites neural pathways to whatever association these words have for us. Is it really that simple? Probably not, but I've been experimenting with the concept and it might take some time to "re-wire" my brain this way, a sort of repeated reinforcement learning. The main trick to this is being mindful of whenever a negative thought comes up, and merely transmuting it to something else. 

  One danger with this of course is the toxic positivity aspect. I'm labeling some thought processes as "negative" and some "positive". There might be actual reasons why we think certain thoughts that should be addressed, and perhaps the positive thoughts actually are from another perspective negative, maybe its all relative and its better instead to let go of all attachment. On that matter, if repeating the thoughts that are affirming and positive repeatedly with no context, but only when a negative thought arises, does it change the association with these supposedly positive thoughts in a bad way? Do the positive thoughts lose meaning and intensity if we use them too loosely? 

The older I get, the more I realize that special connections I make with other people are more rare than I used to think. In a sense this is undesirable because there are less people in my life I am truly connected to, and it feels lonely. On the other hand however, when there is a connection it becomes that much more meaningful, it makes letting go of people hard but it also means that when I do have a connection with someone its much more intense. 

Easily being able to let go and discarding people merely because their "energy" no longer serves you to me seems to breed superficial behavior patterns. Most people haven't explored themselves enough to really know who they really are on a deep and fundamental level enough to make this judgement effectively. This sidesteps the main issue I have with this philosophy which is that its treating people, human beings with infinitely complex stories and seemingly boundless potential, like objects or commodities.

That being said, sometimes for my own or another persons sake sometimes you have to stop being connected and associate with certain people at certain points in their lives. Letting go of people I've connected with deeply and care about is difficult for me, the times I've had to do this have been incredibly emotionally taxing. In any case, I always try to leave the door open a crack for them to come back into my life but prepared to slam it shut again, and sometimes it stays closed.

I hope to make more meaningful connections with new people soon, and hopefully rekindle some old connections as well. I've been stuck in the doldrums for awhile now, I'm ready to grab an oar, and whenever it comes see where the winds and currents of life take me. For now though, I'm forced to wait in this numbness and emptiness. Maybe it will never go away, and I'll be stuck in this numb apathy until I die. It seems a little hopeless but the universe works in mysterious ways. I guess I just have to hold onto some kind of hope no matter how stupid or nonsensical it seems.