Losing Focus

[LastThursday]

Before I started to learn about spirituality I had been depressed for quite a number of years. Despite the depression I've always been able to do one thing very well, and that was program computers - it's my profession. As you might imagine this takes prolonged periods of focus and a certain amount of motivation.

One of the reasons I stumbled into spirituality was to stop the suffering of my depression and to understand myself better. I realised at some point that what was causing me a lot of suffering was negative self talk, and I set out to kill it - it took an immense amount of daily practice. Another problem was an almost constant level of anxiety about almost everything. One way or another I've come out of my depression and conquered both problems.

In the past few months however I'm having the exact opposite problem. I often go for long periods without any self talk whatsoever, and I'm not anxious about anything at all, not even being fired from work.  This seems to have affected my ability to both think in a focussed way (my mind goes blank regularly or I loose the thread of my thoughts), and I have no particular motivation from fear of losing my job. Result: no productivity at work.

Any thoughts on what's going on here? If I keep on the spiritual path, I feel it's only going to get worse!

[aurum]

Could be time to find a new job.

5 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I have no particular motivation from fear of losing my job. Result: no productivity at work.

If that was truly your only motivation, the spiritual path is going to kill that part of your life.

It's inauthentic. And nothing inauthentic survives this process.

You'll be happier in the end for it.  But this is partially why the spiritual path can seem so chaotic.

Old pieces of your life constantly being ripped away as you evolve.

Is there something else you would, ideally, like to be doing for work?

[LastThursday]

20 hours ago, aurum said:

It's inauthentic. And nothing inauthentic survives this process.

Thank you. I guess that's the fear that I know deep down I'm going to have to face. I will need to be both authentic and true to myself and survive too, otherwise life carries on being mediocre.  However I'm in a deep tar pit of inertia: well paid job, easy commute, mastery in my field, no debt, no ties and so on. Pulling myself out of the tar pit is going to take suffering and lots of time, naturally it's difficult to engage meaningfully with this.

20 hours ago, aurum said:

Is there something else you would, ideally, like to be doing for work?

Good question! Nothing that involves being subject to the whims of anyone else. In other words would I have to completely own my work, ideas, way of working, without interferrence.  As to the 'what' thats wide open, in fact so wide I can't get a mental handle on it.

My hope in some way, is if I can dissolve my ego enough, I can get past the inertia by just flowing or gravitating into my preferred way of living.

Anyway, thanks, it's good to splurge it out in writing. Maybe that's the trick?

[aurum]

7 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Pulling myself out of the tar pit is going to take suffering and lots of time, naturally it's difficult to engage meaningfully with this.

It sounds like you have some good self-awareness on this.

You may be on a collision course for a serious system shock. Meaning, something is going to happen so that the pain of not changing is finally going to become greater than the pain of changing.

If that happens, roll with it. Have a breakdown, punch a wall, cry, do whatever you gotta do. And then message me again when it all turns out for the best anyway