Apathy: emotional and spiritual meaning

What apathy is

Apathy is a form of insensibility or nonchalance. You give up on life. You become indifferent. You have no motivation to change anything. A quiet day is not this. This is the loss of interest that stays.

If it comes with a very low mood, with hopelessness, or with thoughts of not wanting to be here, it needs a doctor. Numbness can be depression wearing a flat face.

The reading below looks at the distance you took in order not to suffer again.

The emotional meaning of apathy

You live in a constant morass. You have no interest in life. Apathy can follow events that question your reason for being in the world. You revolt at so much injustice. You want to take your distance so you will not suffer again. You live in the anguish that it could happen again. You may want to leave a situation by fleeing it, from lack of motivation or of joy, or from fear of being disappointed.

You resist. You refuse to see and feel what is happening inside you and around you, which leads to a degree of insensibility, in order to protect yourself. Apathy can also be linked to deep shame and to guilt. You try to become insensitive to your inner being. You are like a robot, finding no meaning in your life. You live according to other people's norms. In that way you can stay disconnected from your deep self.

The entry does not name one organ. The way back it offers is to let the heart guide you, in spontaneity, and to let the senses enjoy a moment again.

A gentler way to hold it

The aim is not to jolt you out of a real grief. The emotional perspective invites you to see the numbness as protection, and then to let one pleasant thing in and keep it.

• Name the event that shook your reason for being. Distance often starts there.
• Hear the fear that it could happen again. That anguish is part of the flatness.
• Ask whether shame or guilt is what you are numbing. Insensibility to yourself is the method the source describes.
• Keep one pleasant experience going. A new aim needs an attitude, not only a wish.
• If you feel like a robot and life has no meaning, talk to someone. Protection is allowed. Disappearance is a reason for care.