Apathy is essentially the absence or suppression of enthusiasm, excitement, passion and inspiration. Even though apathy is seen as a lack of emotion, it is anything but. People, who are apathetic, have plenty of emotion. It’s just that early on in life, they learned that emotions (both positive and negative) are not valid and are not ok and as a result; they rejected their entire emotional side. They disowned, suppressed and denied their emotional self entirely.

When we are young, we have no problem following our feelings and thus intrinsic motivation to the ends of the earth. But when someone our survival depends on, makes that selfish or otherwise wrong, we suppress those emotions as well as the motivation. Basically the person who struggles with apathy has learned that it is not safe to want. Pretty soon, we have no motivation to speak of. We don’t know what we want.

In this episode, Teal explains what causes apathy and how to cure apathy.

Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel - used by permission http://www.sacreddream.com