I woke up to a life I hated. And then I left.

I've honestly never been good at taking a break that's not to say that I'm a workaholic but more like I'm really good at procrastinating from one thing I don't want to do by replacing it with another in college if I didn't want to write a report I would work on a Capstone video in the Working World if I don't want to write a social media report maybe I'll just make some assets that I'll post tomorrow instead when I finally hit a wall where doing anything more will make my head explode hav forbid I actually take a nap or play a video game for fun no if I'm not doing something productive then I'm drowning out the thoughts in any way I can think of they say that we spend 46 to 60% of Our Lives on autopilot but the ways in which we spend our autopilot time are as varied as the percentage points in that quote one study claims that we spend 46.9% of our time mind wandering and during that percentage of time we are overwhelmingly unhappy honestly when I first heard that statistic I was cynically unsurprised we are constantly being told to live in the present and that it'll make us happier but hearing that sentence over and over again doesn't make it happen and being told that I should just rely on my senses and feel the wind on my cheek and taste good food just makes me roll my eyes at this point when it comes to advice author and motivational speaker Mel Robins speaks on Switching your brain to direct mode in an even more alarming way stating that when we are in autopilot mode we are constantly engaging in self-deprecating thoughts and negativity I only stumbled upon her Her speech because I was looking for autopilot videos on YouTube curious about what's out there and Her speech was featured on a YouTube channel with 8.9 million subscribers called be inspired and when I was watching SL listening to the video I did feel a little bit inspired if not quite shamed for having negative thoughts all the time or often with my anxious depressed brain but overall the channel feels very keyword stuffed and once again akin to the advice of just do better just think more positively and in the moment and you'll be good Dr K has a video out about living on autopilot as well and it definitely takes a step back from shame thankfully and talks about why it's so easy to fall into autopilot in your life he's referencing a few studies about living on autopilot as a trauma response and exploring how past environments where you didn't have any say in what you did with your life can result in you later on having initiation paralysis or a very hard time to just change something active in your life cuz you were denied so many times living your life on autopilot to me sounds like it's an unwilling state of being and I think that's why I decided to dive so deeply into this topic because a little over a year ago I was living my life on autopilot but I did so in more of an active state of denial a few months ago my default way to make myself happy was to work more all of this together resulted in me living my life kind of on autopilot if I wasn't doing something because someone invited me to it I was making content because being productive gave me that hit of dopamine that tricked me into thinking that I was happy I wasn't happy in my environment I wasn't happy around the people who said they were the closest to me but I didn't want to think about that I didn't want to actually acknowledge that I was unhappy and so I flooded my time with anything and everything that could keep myself from my own thoughts what made me dive so deeply into this topic is the idea that living on autopilot could be a subconscious state of being but it could also be an active state of denial binging TV shows and internet drama helped me drown out the guilt I felt for not being happy with my life and maybe more importantly drowned out the inescapable question as to what I was going to do about it a research article in Frontiers and psychology aptly named failure to see money on a tree did a study in how people will appropriately avoid an obstacle say while they're on their cell phone but at the same time later on be unable to identify what that obstacle was this specific study literally had people texting on their cell phone and had them walk by/ have to avoid a tri with literal money on its branches with the participants being able to avoid the tree but not be able to tell you that there was literally a money tree in front of them and I feel like that was me a little over a year ago I was actively distracting myself with anything familiar and actively not trying to observe anything new even though I knew I needed something new and I needed to get rid of the living life on autopilot is a great idea if you have the perfect life but I think it's good to to check in on that and see if your defaults are actually serving you there were many branches above me with money on it or even just Greenery that didn't have on it that I actively chose to not look at because going to that Greenery meeting new people moving to a new state meant I would have to get over the guilt of leaving the life I led it's so weird the number of things I can trace back to guilt I still feel guilty for lying to my mom about eating Ramen instead of practicing violin as a kid and now as a 27-year-old I'm realizing that I didn't move to the state or meet new people for the longest time because I just felt like that would be admitting that something's wrong with the people I knew and that something's wrong with the choices I made before and that's not healthy you're not meant to be everybody's friend and you're certainly not meant to be everybody's significant other and I know that logically but I'm not quite good enough yet to be able to be proud of myself all the time for finding a new life that isn't perfect yet but is one that I'm actively seeking and being awaken and having Hope for not quite good at being proud of that versus feeling guilty for waiting so long it's like I hated my life over a year ago but I felt guilty for hating it and now that I'm in a new place where I like life a lot more I feel guilty for not leaving that sooner but you know we're working on that I'm not perfect I never will be perfect I am hot-tempered I spiral into anxiety and guilt more often than I like to admit randomly I'll compare myself to others and and sometimes cuz I think I deserve to feel bad I compare myself to others but now I'm choosing to acknowledge when I fail myself I'm choosing to try again I'm choosing to do my best to believe that my next attempt will be better than the last and I'm doing my best to forgive myself when I do slip up oh my God I didn't take my allergy meds how am I still breathing that's impressive life is a journey and and I'm choosing to believe that every waking moment is a step in the right direction for me living on autopilot is willfully or unwillfully avoiding the hard thoughts but I'm choosing to let myself think and maybe strong arming myself into giving myself second chances to thanks for watching my name is Monique dear past Monique you're okay maybe not maybe you're not okay now but you will be [Music]

Channel: Monique | Faithful Fool

Views: 276

Keywords: living life on autopilot, how to stop living on autopilot, aesthetic vlogs, why you are not happy, healthy gamer gg autopilot, mel robbins autopilot, why youre not happy, how to get unstuck in life, leaving a long term relationship, hating life, how to stop hating life, romanticizing life, romanticizing your life, how to get the most out of your life

Id: 2BcyOBYY8h4

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024