In today’s world of look-at-me-ism, how perfect is my life? It can feel lonely and extra exhausting to be in a rut when everything feels mediocre. For me, a rut is when I’m going through the motions but not experiencing much pleasure or joy. Most things tire me quickly and there is often a bit of anhedonia and apathy fused in.
Disclaimer: I am not trained in mental health. I am sharing from my own energetics and unraveling of ego aspects, people pleasing, burnout, living out of alignment, and how I am slowly but surely finding my energy and deeper purpose after veering too far from my authenticity.
Why am I talking about this? Because it can also feel very isolating. Why can everyone else show up, and find their joy, their passion, but I can’t seem to figure it out? Why doesn’t anything excite me and why is it hard to find meaning? Things start to feel like a what’s the point energy. Not as in what’s the point of my life (professional help is needed in this case). It’s more so of a, “yeah, sure, I can take it or leave it,” mentality. Things that used to excite you have become mediocre.
When Things Feel Mediocre
This often happens when we are living out of alignment for too long. In my case, this is reflected through running on ego aspects of self such as seeking approval. People pleasing and worrying about what others think, from strangers to my close friends and family.
There is often auto-pilot life happening as we fall into these rutty cycles so it may take some digging to start getting real. If you’re worried about how others will think or react in any way to your life choices, then it’s time to start digging. I didn’t even realize how much of a people pleaser I was until I started deeply examining why I was so exhausted all the time.
From an entrepreneurial lens, I went on way too long believing that working through resistance is normal. I thought that being exhausted and having no creativity was normal. It’s “normal” for an entrepreneur to feel exhausted all the time, have to “pay my dues” “nothing comes without struggle” “but at least I’ve come this far.”
There is some truth to these statements, as there is no light without dark, but when these cycles turn from exhilarating challenges to resentments, burnout and numbness, you’re in the danger zone. So how do we figure out the difference?
There is a big difference in being challenged vs pushing beyond our limits into unalignment. This looks like rising up to challenges to reach a satisfying goal vs living in resistance, ignoring your intuition and doing what looks good on paper while becoming numb and apathetic to all of it.
A good metaphor for this is working out.
If I’m a bit tired, a little sore or not fully in the mood, I’ll still workout. I always feel better after and it motivates me to keep at it. However, if we workout on an injury, we’ll make it worse. It takes us longer to heal and it will lead us further from our goals. We might even stop working out all together because it becomes too painful.
We may also subconsciously ignore intuitive hits around resistance, exhaustion and auto-pilot due to the collective shadow energy of lack that runs through the undercurrents of society. Especially if we are in any way privileged, we are condemned without a right to feel sad, down, or experience deep loss, purposelessness, confusion, or express that we may be experiencing a challenging cycle in life.
These conditioned societal aspects of “how dare I not be living in gratitude 24/7 with my gratitude journal and my gratitude quotes” with everything all figured out, will have you gaslighting yourself. This will continue to lead you further from your truth, purpose and joy.
I’m not saying not to have gratitude. I live in a daily deep gratitude for my life because I do know how very privileged I am, I have many blessings in life. However, that does not mean I or anyone should settle and pretend things such as relationships, careers, etc are fulfilling when they indeed no longer are or never were to begin with.
When everything feels mediocre, the only way out is through
The only way we can each serve the world is through the deepest embodiment of our purpose(s). And to live in truth during both the light and dark cycles of life. Playing pretend with our lives and suppressing how we feel because we are concerned about what society or others will think serves no-one. It will however cultivate guilt, shame, and more resistance that we then have to spend time unraveling and alchemizing.
Other ways ruts, apathy, and things feeling mediocre in life can manifest would be staying in a mediocre marriage because “some people don’t have anyone at all so I better be thankful.” Same as staying in a mediocre career because “some people don’t have a job so I better be thankful.” Whatever these stories are that we tell ourselves must be deeply examined if we want anything to shift.
What all of these aspects boil down to is suppression, repression and resistance. We’ve been living in either one, both, or all for too long. We’ve numbed our innate knowing and now we are frozen. We don’t know what to do next and our intuitive signal is extremely clouded. We focus on external vs. internal and on the more heightened end of the spectrum, we can wake up one day to an entire life that we built through ego, comfort, approval, and conformity.
To navigate these cycles, we must get real with ourselves
During this type of cycle, our energy becomes full of resistance. This is why we get fatigued and the truth is that somewhere, we are doing to please others before ourselves. We are experiencing feelings of guilt or shame around something we are doing or not doing. And, we may be living from comfort vs. joy. We are participating in things because we don’t believe we can do anything else or have a choice to do otherwise.
“I love my x,y,z.” But do you really?
“I’m happy.” But are you really?
I was not able express my truth about either of these aspects until I started meditating regularly. I had to get out of my head and into my body to FEEL instead of think. And I had to start trusting my initial intuitive knowings and stopped second guessing myself. It is a layered process and you must commit to a new way of being and a new trusting of yourself.
I had to shed everything that was no longer serving me and begin the rebuilding process. Which is “I am unavailable unless it speaks to my soul.” Because I was living out of alignment for so long, which was reflected through my energy levels, eating habits, partners I was attracting in dating, and imbalances in my business, I personally had to embody an all or none frequency and my wishy-washy energy had to go.
Wishy-washy looks like well, maybe, I guess, if, but….saying yes when I wanted to say no. Smiling on the surface while upset underneath and jumping through hoops to navigate my own life.
I won’t bore you with the details but I had to step fully into the unknown, trusting myself and intuition. Also, I had to go against everything that looked good on paper and get comfortable with discomfort. I had to heal resentments, shed the guilt and shame around certain decisions I was making and liberate myself from fathoming what anyone would think about my choices. If you are feeling stuck but know you want more out of your life, I encourage you to do the same.
Don’t believe you’re not here to live your most fulfilling life. You are. Surround yourself with people that feel the same way. There is no light without dark and the only way out is through. Radiance is living in truth. Living in truth is our birthright.
