Feeling Like You’re Just Going Through the Motions: The Psychology of Dissociation at Work | E85

Gino Cordone [00:00:12]:
Welcome to episode 85 of Working Towards Our Purpose. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the feeling of just going through the motions. But before we get into that, I’m going to take a moment and to just check in with ourselves. See where we’re at, see how we’re feeling today. So just take a second. All right, hopefully you got a second to see where you’re at. Um, for me today, uh, I’m a little, a little behind my schedule that I had for myself. Um, feeling a little imposter syndrome-y, not valuable enough, unworthy, those sorts of feelings.

Gino Cordone [00:01:06]:
And then I took a moment and my brain switched and I was super inspired and came up with a bunch of ideas and stuff. So yeah, kind of feeling both of those right now a little bit. So yeah, it’s interesting how you know, you could take a turn and, you know, acknowledging certain feelings can like kind of help set them free, I guess, which is why we do these check-ins. So, you know, hopefully you got a second to check in and yeah, so let’s get into today’s episode. Today I want to talk about the feeling of just going through the motions, especially, you know, when it comes to working at your job and This is a feeling that I’m pretty familiar with. I haven’t really felt it in a long time, which I’m grateful for. But I remember when I was working my corporate jobs, feeling it all the time and just kind of trying to close my eyes and hope that the weeks go by and get me to a place where I wasn’t inside of my cubicle. I think it’s a familiar feeling for a lot of us who are doing jobs that maybe they don’t feel connected to.

Gino Cordone [00:02:22]:
It’s just this feeling of going through the motions that you just have to do this thing because somebody else is requiring you of doing it. And you kind of just maybe feel like you’re on autopilot or maybe your emotions could be muted. Maybe you feel trouble having happy emotions or feeling excited about something. And also another thing that I think goes with it too, for me anyways, was the feeling of time just going by and then being regretful of it. Because time always goes by kind of fast, I guess. But I remember years going by and me being like, oh, I’m not doing anything. I’m only doing things that I don’t want to be doing, and I feel like time’s slipping away sort of feeling. So I have a story, and I think that this kind of paints a picture of the opposite of this feeling of just going through the motions.

Gino Cordone [00:03:25]:
So there was this one time, and hopefully it’ll make sense and you can stay with me here. I was on a train one time, and we pulled up to some random train stop that I wasn’t getting off of. And I remember, I don’t know what kind of mood I was in or where I was at, but I remember like seeing somebody get off the train and it was like, I don’t know, this woman probably in her like 20s or something. And there was somebody waiting on the platform for her. And like when they saw each other, they just like got so excited and it seemed to be her mother. I’m assuming here, didn’t know the people, but they just got really excited and hugged each other. And I remember being kind of struck by it because it was memorable for me. And I still remember to this day, this was a long time ago, but I remember thinking to myself, like, huh, why can’t we always feel like that? Why can’t we always be like that appreciative of a person in the moment? And why can’t we sort of always— and I think where I was coming from was like, perhaps feeling like I was going through the motions and then seeing this event that was like the opposite of how I was feeling and just wondering like, how come we always can’t feel— and of course you can’t always feel good or super present or whatever.

Gino Cordone [00:04:47]:
But I remember thinking like, that I want to feel like that more often. I’d like to be more grateful and appreciative more often and to experience those feelings instead of just kind of going through the motions. So I say that to paint the picture that that’s the opposite of going through the motions. So I don’t know if that made any sense at all, but it’s weird that I still— I don’t know. I feel like it’s weird that I still remember that. It was just like a small little moment, but it made me want to try to be more like that, to try to be more present and just engaged with life. That moment was a specific visualization of somebody being engaged in their life, and I may not have been in that moment, and I was just kind of craving more of that and being like, how can I do that more often? So that’s what we’re talking about today. And why do we feel like we’re just going through the motions? And for me, and in my experience, you know, I think we kind of get to this place where we are numbing ourselves.

Gino Cordone [00:06:00]:
And, you know, another word for that is just disassociation. And you’ve probably heard that word before, but when you disassociate, you’re basically trying to like protect yourself from a negative experience, and, you know, maybe it’s a painful experience or, you know, just something that you don’t want to be doing, you disassociate and you numb yourself with maybe your phone or a substance or anything that kind of like makes you feel a little bit better or, you know, brings you out of the present. And I think that this is common in the workplace to kind of disassociate and maybe Maybe you think of dissociation as like a different thing, but I think when we are feeling like we’re just kind of going through the motions, we’re feeling like that because we’re numbing our feelings and we’re dissociating from our present. And I think there could be many reasons, you know, why you’re dissociating at work. It could be because you’re bored or you’re disengaged. You’re not like feeling like you’re doing anything. Like for me, that was a lot of it. I was just always bored.

Gino Cordone [00:07:09]:
Another one is just like, you could maybe have to be doing something that you don’t want to be doing. Maybe somebody’s forcing you to do like a presentation or something, or acting in a way that doesn’t feel like you want to be acting. It’s not true to yourself. And I think the biggest one is to just not be acting in an authentic way. I think that we can disassociate from ourselves when we’re feeling like we have to be a certain person that we’re not. And this disassociation is kind of what creates the feeling like you’re just going through the motions. And when you disassociate, you also are sort of suppressing your own feelings. And it’s exactly why you can’t, or you normally don’t feel like you can experience joy, or because you’re trying to not feel like the negative experience And while you’re muting your negative emotions, you also mute your positive emotions.

Gino Cordone [00:08:05]:
And so I have another story to explain this. So this, to bring it back to, like, something that’s maybe a little more grounded. When I went to go do my first open mic night, I kind of forced myself to do it. I was, like, really nervous, really scared to do it. And I went up and I did it. And then I was all done and I, like, I went and sat back down again. And I remember, like, feeling afterwards, like, I don’t really feel anything. Like, I don’t feel proud of myself.

Gino Cordone [00:08:33]:
I don’t feel like good. I kind of just feel like nothing. And it confused me for a bit. And then I talked about it in therapy. And as soon as I brought it up, I like figured out why I didn’t feel good about doing that hard thing. And it was because I was dissociating. I was— I didn’t want to experience the negative emotions. So I kind of just shut my feelings off.

Gino Cordone [00:08:58]:
And I didn’t experience any of the negative emotions, but I also couldn’t feel the positive emotions. And my therapist was like, you can’t just shut your negative emotions off. You have to, if you’re shutting your emotion system off, then you’re shutting them all off. So because I didn’t want to feel negative emotions, I also wasn’t able to feel positive emotions. And again, I think that this is kind of a good example of why we have this going through the motions feelings. Because we’re trying to avoid the negative feelings, we also avoid all the positive stuff. So hopefully that makes sense. And I also want to talk about, especially in the work setting, why are we doing this? And I also want to validate that it makes sense that we’re doing this.

Gino Cordone [00:09:54]:
I think the corporate system itself is a hard place to be in, and it asks you to not be authentic to yourself. It asks you to do things that you don’t believe in, to do things that you don’t want to do, and it asks you to be bored for long periods of time and to be okay with that and to pretend like you’re busy. And to, yeah, just feel disconnected from things. So because it’s a hard place to be in, it makes sense that you are trying to avoid that. You don’t want to feel negative, so you end up numbing yourself with your phone. Maybe you’re searching the web or you’re kind of just like small talking with other people trying to waste time. And I think that when engaging in those activities, it helps to keep you dissociated and helps to keep you numb. And for doing that for long periods of time, you can become very disconnected to yourself.

Gino Cordone [00:10:51]:
And I think that this is like the major contributing factor to feeling like we are just going through the motions because we’re in such a habit of numbing ourselves and numbing how we feel when we’re there that we like sometimes can’t even get back to feeling because we’re so used to it. So First thing is, like, it makes sense that we’re dissociating, you know? So I think the second thing would be like to not be hard on yourself because of that. Because like I said, for a lot of us, it’s a very challenging place to be in and to use this coping mechanism of dissociating, it makes sense that we’re doing that. So I did want to like sort of validate that feeling, ’cause I think that for me, that would’ve been really helpful back when I was in that setting. ‘Cause I always used to just get really angry at myself and be like, what are you doing? You’re wasting your time. And I didn’t have any kindness towards myself. So I think being kind to yourself and realizing that this makes sense that I’m having this reaction to this environment because it’s a challenging environment. And I think once you can notice and be aware that you’re doing it, then you can take a step forward.

Gino Cordone [00:12:10]:
Then you can try to maybe not do it as much or try to get back to yourself. So if you’re still following me and you’re still with me here, I think that a next step after being aware that you are in this state of disassociating is for me, what was helpful, and you know, take it if it’s helpful, don’t if it’s not, but for me, what was helpful to get myself out of that place where I just felt stuck and I just, yeah, feeling stuck, feeling like you’re just going through the motions, something that I did that like changed everything for me was I replaced the disassociating with something that felt authentic to me. And for me, that was reading books on stuff that I was interested in. So at my desk, I had a lot of time where I was just trying to kill time and get through the day. And I always felt really terrible about myself when I would just pretend to work and stare at my screen or just listen to music or flip through Instagram on my phone or TikTok or whatever you do. I just— it didn’t make me feel good. So I don’t know how I came to this idea, but one day I was like, I can download Audible to my phone and I could read books. And I was in the midst of trying to make a side business work.

Gino Cordone [00:13:35]:
So I was reading a lot of books about business and that was really empowering for me to not feel like I have to just disassociate and sit there until my day was over, but to take some of that time and make it a piece of time that like what felt good to me, that felt authentic to me. So I was able to, in my downtime, just read books on business and learn different things. And I truly think that that was like some sort of tipping point for me to be able to have confidence to leave, have more ownership over like my decisions and my time. ‘Cause that’s what corporate does to you. It just, it takes your ownership away from you. And I think like doing this one little thing for me, like reading books on my phone, gave me a little sense of like, wait, I have a decision here. I can choose to do something with it. And yeah, just gave me the confidence to try to keep continuing that and to keep following, you know, the ideas that I had in my head and to get out of a place that I felt like I did not want to be in.

Gino Cordone [00:14:43]:
So yeah, to recap, you know, this feeling of just going through the motions, being on autopilot stems from disassociating because you’re in, you know, an environment that is hard. And so it makes sense that we’re disassociating, but if we can realize that we’re doing it and sort of replace those moments instead of trying to numb yourself with your phone, replace even just a little bit of, you know, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, replace a little bit of that time with reading that I think it can be really helpful to get some of our own ownership back and our own authenticity back. So that way we can move forward and be in a problem-solving mindset versus a feeling helpless mindset. And yeah. I just had another thought, another memory come to me, even though I’m recapping here, because when I said, like, even if it’s 5 minutes, it made me remember that, like, when I first downloaded that app on my phone and started reading books, that I only used it when I was in the bathroom at corporate at first. And sorry for the graphic details if this is too much for you, but I would only use it when I was in the bathroom and I’d be in there for like 10 minutes and I’d just read on my phone because I thought, like, I wasn’t allowed to do that, so I didn’t want to get caught doing it. So I would only do it in the bathroom and I would read like 10, 15 minutes a day. And I started making a lot of progress on my books.

Gino Cordone [00:16:14]:
But then once I did that, I was like, wait, I can do this at my desk. If somebody comes up to me, I’ll just put my phone away and everybody’s on their phones anyways. So then I started doing it more and I would do it more on my desk. And then I started just burning through books because I was doing it as much as I could. So, so I think that there’s something to that. Like, just take 5 minutes, just take the 5 minutes and, and then build from there. So I’ll leave you with, you know, if you, if you’re in a job or, or you’re somewhere where you feel like you’re kind of just going through the motions, can you take 5 minutes and do something that feels authentic to you, that feels good to you? And can you use that as a stepping stone to, to make a change and to, to take some ownership back in your life. So hopefully this episode was helpful.

Gino Cordone [00:17:02]:
I did feel a little all over the place, but I feel like I always do. So, you know, maybe you’re used to it at this point, but thank you for listening as always. If you would like some help with being kinder to yourself, I have a free guide, 7 Days to Softening Your Inner Critic. There’s a link in the show notes for every episode and it’s a free downloadable guide. To help you be kinder to yourself. So if that’s helpful, it’s there for you. And thanks for listening. Thanks for being here. I will see you on another episode soon.