Living on Autopilot and Calling It Functioning

Andrea McTague (00:00)
Welcome to episode 41 of the Shift Show. I'm Andrea McTague. I'm the founder and a registered psychologist at ShiftGrit Psychology & Counselling. And today I am joined again by Kai Ongaro, who is one of our client experience team members and a student of psychology herself. Kai, welcome to the show. We're going to be chatting a little bit today about something really, really common for our clients, which is basically that they come on and they're saying, like,

Kai (00:19)
Thank you.

Andrea McTague (00:28)
There's nothing really, really terrible, but there's nothing really good either. I'm just living on kind of autopilot, calling it functioning, a case of the life meh's and that sort of thing. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what causes that and what it is and then how we deal with it here at Shift Crit. So okay, let's take it away. What are you seeing?

Kai (00:47)
Yeah.

So my first question is how can you tell if you're living on autopilot or if you're just executing your routine?

Andrea McTague (00:53)
I'd say that it generally comes with this pattern of kind of moving through life mechanically. You're feeling very like emotionally flat, staying like functional. So everything is fine, yourself, your time management, your work, your other people, but it almost has that hamster wheel. So there's ⁓ a lack of joy or passion, sometimes a lack of purpose. And it's something that we kind of develop when we're feeling too stressed, right? Or too much change makes us feel that there's too much in.

uncertainty. So our cortisol levels are a little bit too high up and we're just trying to keep all the balls in the air, essentially. And we don't have any part of our thing that's like desire based or want-based or passion oriented. It's just like almost a general disengagement with your life. Kind of like solid five out of ten mood constantly. And that feeling that you're just gonna get up the next day and just like do it all again. And it starts to also entertain this whole like why am I doing this? Like why am I in this relationship?

Why am I just like a a sort of apathy is present. That's generally how we would tell that people are in that mode of just like kind of an autopilot numb and avoidance.

Kai (02:01)
Okay. And

do you have any examples of how this can show up in everyday life, whether that be in your relationships, in parenting, work, hobbies?

Andrea McTague (02:11)
Hundred percent. So in relationship, we actually see it coming up in the feeling of emotional disengagement. So they are like either we get people saying a lot of times they just feel like they're roommates with their partner, they've lost that spark. They're maybe their sex life and intimacy is re demonstrating that as well, where it's kind of like you're into like chore sex mode. So maybe it happens, but it's not like that feeling is gone. And then with parenting, it's just a lot of like focusing on the stressors.

Right. So that they've got, you know, you're taking the kids to daycare or school and then you're picking them up and you're making the food, but you don't feel like fully present. You're not enjoying the experience of parenting. And that same sort of thing goes into the realm of work where it's like, okay, I have a job, I go to the job, it's kind of tedious, or it's kind of like whatever, maybe it's not a fit for me. They're not getting anything out of it.

And then that's what we see also in the social realm where they're like maybe going into their social relationships and they exist and there's some friends, but we also start to see that declining because we when we get into this autopilot mode, we don't seek out positive experiences either. So we're not trying new hobbies, we're not really enjoying it when we're with our friends. It's just kind of almost mechanical, just like I'm doing the thing because I should do it, not because there's any sort of like

thing that I'm getting from it and that lack of desire. And the desire going down means that we engage less with people as well. So we'll see some social impact often where it's like maybe I would have gotten together with the friends, but that just seems like a lot of work. So now I'm just gonna skip that one. So I'd say a thinning of the social life and absence of like fill your cup up stuff like hobbies and things like that start to kind of decline. And so we're seeing that

Kai (03:49)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea McTague (03:58)
People that are in this mode, they've got a lot of things that empty their cup, right? So there's a lot of work demands, parenting demands, social demands, relationship demands, appearance demands, but it's just it's just emptying that cup and we're not seeing the balance of the things that like fill it up. And it might be just like, and a common, common, common line that I hear from my clients is I I don't even know what's fun anymore. I don't even know what I like. I don't even know what I enjoy.

So that that's a big indicator of like what it looks like. And that might be in all of those domains and other things as well, right? It's like a lack of passion.

Kai (04:33)
Yeah. And do you think there's a reason that people who are experiencing this just going through the motions or living on autopilot, do you think there's a reason for a barrier to entry when seeking out treatment or making the decision to come to therapy?

Andrea McTague (04:46)
100%. I think it's because they get stuck sometimes in that trap of like, well, nothing's really that bad. Like it's fine. Everything is just kind of like fine. Like it's that five out of ten. So sometimes people think that they have to have some like acute trauma or major stressor or some mental health diagnosis or whatever. So it's like my problems aren't big enough to come to therapy is a big one. And the other one is it just creates a sense of apathy, which kind of is from that whole thing of, well, this is just life.

almost like an acceptance that you're like, this is just how it is, and this is what everybody else is doing. So I'm just gonna do that. So a lack of seeing possibility that they could even get into a more passionate realm or a a more connected realm and kind of not be on autopilot, like be guiding their life. And it's from that chronic stress, right? When we have too many of those inputs. So it's not stress like I said, like from a specific big trauma, but it can be stress that's like just chronic

Like little pieces of stress across multiple domains that just start to layer on and layer on and layer on until we've got so many things taking from us. And then we of course, to make room for all of those things taking from us, we stop adding things that give to us. And then it starts to get really, really out of balance. And that's what

kind of seeing in that regard of like why it would be a barrier. Because you're like, well, if I go to therapy, it still doesn't take away the fact that I've got to like parent these kids that I had or go to this job or pay this mortgage and all of these like I should do this kind of things. Mm-hmm. I'd say those are two big ones.

Kai (06:17)
Mm-hmm. Definitely. And how do you

think therapy with ShiftGrit can help reignite that passion or zest for life and ⁓ respark that interest?

Andrea McTague (06:27)
Yes. And I get to see it re-sparked in people all the time. And I think our method is a great fit for this, because like I said, it's a really, really common client complaint, that like meh sort of thing. ⁓ and basically what we do is we want to look at the root cause of this problem. So the root cause of this autopilot hamster wheel thing is going to be certain limiting beliefs that create more of a should structure or more of a stress structure.

So we're activating the walnut brain. So the walnut brain, aka our threat brain. When we get that one activated, that one is going to really, really, really focus on initiating these patterns and running these like patterns that come from early. So if we have a limiting belief, it bins things as a stressor, that's going to wake up the walnut brain. And the walnut is really, really focused on keeping life stressors at bay. So we're meeting dysfunctional needs. Where the dysfunctional needs come from.

are limiting beliefs. So what we want to do is look at somebody's early non-nurturing elements. So what's happened early on to set these patterns that then encode these limiting beliefs that then create us driving these programs and patterns. Because the thing about it is the walnut brain is where all of the like should stuff and pain avoidance lives. And when you get when you start to drive your life on these patterns, if you move your hand away from a hot stove

You're not feeling your hand's not feeling joy or pleasure or any sort of positive experience. It's just the absence of pain. So this is a life that is driven by limiting beliefs, and you're meeting the dysfunctional needs or you're doing the opt-ets or whatever that the whole point of which is just to remove the pain of touching that limiting belief. So kind of like that hot stove moment. We move our hand away from the limiting belief, but we're not feeling any joy because all of our wants and our desires, our values,

Our joy-filled experience ingredients, they live over in the cognitive mind. So what our thing is, is we'll go in, look at the NNEs, we'll look at the limiting beliefs, we identify them, and then we use a counterconditioning modality to create extinction of the limiting beliefs. And that's like all the psyche words for it. But basically, what we're doing is we're taking those limiting beliefs and we're just blasting them out. So a really, really common one that's related to this, like.

autopilot sort of thing is the limiting belief of I'm irresponsible because I'm irresponsible has the dysfunctional need of I need to be responsible for everything and everyone, which is why it turns into that taking things on and taking things on. All the responsibility first. It's like work before play kind of mentality. The problem with that work before play mentality is if there's so much work that there's no time for play, well then we just get this like off balance lifestyle going on, which is just draining.

Which is kind of the general sentiment with the autopilot thing, right? And another really common one that we see, and it sounds like a really nasty one, is I'm worthless. And people aren't going around necessarily with that thought, I'm worthless in their minds, but it's often because they're managing it through their dysfunctional need, which for I'm worthless is I need to provide value. So I need to be constantly outputting and giving and giving and giving. And then that will take away from, well, I can't go and join that hockey team that I want to.

Or I can't go out for a nice dinner with my friends because I have all of these things to do and I just have to keep doing and doing and doing and giving and giving, which then erodes the sense of self and then we're out of the cognitive mind where we can find those things that we are passionate about and it takes away our ability to live. So a little bit of self-erasure involved in that as well, like living for other people, living for other things. And then so we'll usually play with those two patterns.

But there might be other ones that are specific to the client, right? So like I'm not good enough, that limiting belief will create a constant sense of striving where you're just like on that hamster wheel. And the other thing that that one does is it takes away the ability to feel success. So, you know, normally if you have an accomplishment that your cognitive mind has decided on, you can feel that, and then you can be like, okay, well, this is good. This gives a bit of feeling of like,

You know, being lifted up or like not distant, being connected to things. Well, sometimes it goes into, especially if it's playing a lot on the social in the social realm, a feeling of not belonging. So I have to do all of these things to belong. And then that drives it rather than having these more authentic exchanges where people aren't interacting with your masked self. They're interacting with like

Who you are, and that's what makes it really like fun, because then you can exist and be seen, even if it's for your own like quirky little weirdo self or whatever, right? So creating space and stuff. We need to get rid of that hyper responsibility. We need to get rid of that constant sense of striving, and we need to also get rid of sometimes some social comparisons of well, I should do all of these things, where they make all of these really, really high expectations for themselves.

So I need to be more, I need to look like this, I need to, you know, where whatever, act like this in social interactions, et cetera, et cetera. I need to do these things, ⁓ to the point again where they've just loaded up their life with all of these chores and everything becomes a chore task and nothing is a joy task anymore. So that's definitely something that we see in that regard.

Kai (11:44)
Yeah, and when you start challenging this autopilot tendency, do you have any examples of how this might show up in their lives? Like which areas might they see relief or notice some change?

Andrea McTague (11:56)
I think that we do it, and one of the interesting things about Shift Grits method is that because we're pulling limiting beliefs, and the interesting characteristic about limiting beliefs is that they're global. So even if we're working on it with a specific focus, say in social, that all social stuff just feels kind of like meh, we're also gonna see change across other domains like work or hobbies or just their ability to be connected with themselves and their world.

And be a bit more mindful. So we will generally see change across multiple domains. And it will look like choosing things. It will look like choosing to exist, like speaking up authentically. It will look like doing some edits to your life as well, right? So maybe I don't need to be all responsible for like all of these things. Maybe I can put my responsibility and perfectionism just on these few things that I really, really value because the cognitive mind will let you prioritize different.

value sets. You're like, okay, this really matters to me, or this friendship really matters to me. And I feel really connected here, but maybe not this one. So maybe this one can be kind of downgraded or it can go away. And so then they're resorting their life out in terms of priorities, in terms of what really, really matters to them, rather than just trying to be like excellent all the time at everything or at all of society's predetermined things.

So that's how we kind of see it moving the needle. And it might just be like choosing to have fun or choosing to take a rest or choosing to say no to certain things. And we'll see it show up in these tiny little ways. But when all of those tiny little ways pile up, it means that you're able to carve out space in your capacity and your mental real estate is just donated to what you actually value and what you act what actually brings you joy. So there's definitely some of an editing process that occurs.

Kai (13:21)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea McTague (13:41)
And then the next step is that we like fill it in. So we have to remove the stuff first. So we get rid of the limiting beliefs. We start saying no. We start putting some boundaries in. We start like doing some reprioritization of things, downgrading certain things. And then we gotta fill it in with things that do bring joy. Because generally those have been almost completely, if not completely, edited out of somebody's life. So we'll see these little things of starting to put in stuff that's just for fun.

Or that is the plate version, right?

Kai (14:10)
Yeah. So it sounds like learning to set boundaries and stick to your boundaries, choosing joy, choosing to let things sort themselves out a bit, whether that be allowing certain relationships to go through their ebbs and flows rather than trying to maintain all of them to the same level, those are kind of ways that it'll show up.

Andrea McTague (14:29)
Hundred percent because it basically just means if we look at it from a you just have too much stuff on your plate and people are like, Yeah, but I got all this stuff on my plate, how do I take it off? Well, we take it off by removing the limiting beliefs. And so that way we give a little bit more space for the individual to exist so then they can feel present in in it and not just be like stuck there all the time. And also when you start to move the limiting beliefs out, you're also moving some of that mental real estate that gets donated.

To the maintenance of those things and the emotional stuff that goes into it too, right? Because if you've got something that's bothered you, it tends to pop in, you know, you ruminate, spend a lot of like your mental real estate managing it or being fearful of it or whatever, whatever. And all of that stuff contributes to filling up our capacity. So once we get that pressure cooker down and then we get it gone, right? We'll eventually remove it via the extinction of the limiting beliefs. When they slow down, they notice that.

Everything can come together and it's fine. And there can be successes that can be felt and enjoyed. And then you get your positive emotions instead. Because if you if you have all of your mental real estate donated to maintaining these limiting beliefs that then create this really burnout kind of life structure, we just use up all our juice basically. And we need to get more of that juice back, right? So clear it out, get the demands lower, and then put more things in later.

that ⁓ do feel fun. So it is a stress reaction and generally a chronic stress reaction. So this is different than an acute thing like I'm worried about failing this one exam versus the whole burden of just being in university and having so much stuff to do and then working part-time jobs and then you know having to be a good daughter and a good girlfriend and da da da across the board because everybody in this society I think they want to be good and perfect and responsible for so much.

that it means that they're like not responsible to themselves. So it's a failure to self, I think. A little bit of that. And you must have seen this with the with friends and stuff like that as well.

Kai (16:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

absolutely. It can be really easy to fall into that habit of just going through the motions to protect yourself, to protect what you feel you have going for you and to keep your options open in a sense. When you're trying to maintain everything, you're keeping all these different doors open rather than just trusting yourself and your intuition and your decision making and letting things fall into place.

Andrea McTague (16:55)
Exactly. Like picking certain things and then just like not having that death grip. I remember once I have f had a friend and he's a professional golfer and he kind of said he was using putting as ⁓ an example. And he's like, The thing is you will never make the putt if you're holding on too tight. So it's getting people to relax a little bit, to give up a little bit of that control.

That's well, that's a really common and common limiting belief. I'm not in control that's related to this, because if you feel like I gotta control everything, I have to everything has to go exactly this way. So I have to be on top of it to make it that way. And it's almost got this urgency of managing and hypermanaging. And it ends up being that like same with the putter thing, we're just holding on a little bit too tight, and we don't, you know, have that relaxation part, the rest and connect, but we also just mean it means that.

our involvement is like almost a little bit too high, right? Across all the areas. And it just ends up using up all of our emotions in the negative sense. Cause we don't get to see the positive expression of them. You know, that's where we were talking about joy and you know satisfaction with life and just peace and calm as well, I think it goes with it a little bit. Because you're just living in a burnout stress thing. Not to mention there's some

neuro effects of it and then there's some hormonal effects because when we're driving our cortisol so high, things like our libido and stuff are going to go down because from an evolutionary perspective, we're not going to want to mate if there's a whole bunch of tigers around, right? So we're stressed about these things. But the nature of stressors now is that they are looped. So before we could see the tiger and we are like run away from the tiger. So we're away from the tiger, stress levels return to normal.

But now cortisol levels stay up because there's so many different inputs. And it could be just watching really, you know, scary news stories. And then you hear a breakup story from your friend, and then you've got to go do this thing at work, and then you've got to do it again, and then you've got to get this mark on your course, and then you've got to do it again. So everything becomes like a loop now where our fight, flight, or freeze brain doesn't really work. It's not really calibrated for the modern world and all of these inputs that we have. So we do that by creating.

space by removing some of the inputs, but we have to move out the limiting beliefs first, because that's what creates this urgency to continually be in this loop of input, input, input, input ad nauseum that like just essentially burns people out. I think also there's a little bit of a people see it as emotionally numbing as just like you don't care, which is not what it is. It's like you lack the capacity to care.

Kai (19:28)
Well no.

Andrea McTague (19:33)
to the level you want to anymore. Cause it just creates that apathy structure of used up all the juice and I just don't have any more emotional or mental real estate in order to care about things. And then like I said, the limiting beliefs are global. So it spreads globally across somebody's life. And then, you know, it's not having fun anymore. It's just not fun. So it is very fun because once we get the limiting beliefs out of the way and we create extinction in some of those, we get people back to being able to have fun, being able to

⁓ reduce the amount of inputs and be really, really present again in their life. And I think people know what that feels like. For a moment they might have it here and there, but they don't know how to sustain it. And it's just because of that activation of the threat brain. And just say that.

Kai (20:15)
Yeah. And you know,

it's funny that you gave the example of ⁓ putting before because I was thinking the same thing. I was just in golf lessons and the golf pro is kind of saying, you know, you can make a really good shot onto the green and there can be so much pressure to just make a one putt and just get it in the hole. But it's better to almost try and get it within, let's say, a two foot, three foot radius of the hole and just get it in the right direction, because you can correct it from there.

So when you have all this pressure like, I've done something really good, I've made a good shot onto the green, and now I have to make this perfect putt.

Andrea McTague (20:45)
And this is where we see the limiting belief of I'm not in control coming in. Like I have to control the outcome and it has to be the exact specific outcome that I want. It has to be that one shot putt. And you're like, okay, but maybe we could also be a little bit gentle on ourselves and have a little bit more self-compassion and give yourself two or three to get to where you're going as long as you're progressing in direction, right? And I think golf is a good ⁓

Kai (21:06)
Yeah, exactly.

Andrea McTague (21:09)
metaphor for that because and it it applies to a lot of different things, right? When we kind of try to control the outcome too much, or the outcome has to be this like exceptional thing, especially when it has to be on all these things. So not only do I have to like have a perfect golf game, but I also have to be perfect at work. And then I also have to show up and do that thing that makes me look like a social media influencer instead of makes it you know, and it's just taking that care level down. And I really like that book. ⁓

why can't I think about it right now? But basically it's about dialing down the fucks given a little bit. Yes. I think Mark Manson. ⁓ so that we can care a lot about the things that we care about and then just be alleviated a little bit and then bring in those like joy factors as well. And just remember, hey, you're still just playing a game, right? Like you're still just playing a game. Not everything has to be like super high stakes in every moment.

Kai (21:58)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea McTague (22:03)
The other thing I think is the limiting beliefs. So whenever that walnut brain is activated, which it's activated through the presence of limiting beliefs, it zooms in on everything, right? So it's looking at everything in this like hyper close way. And when we zoom out, we go like, well, is that really gonna matter? Like a week from now, a month from now, a year from now? And sometimes it's related to really, really big things. Like if I break up with that guy that I know I'm not a good fit with.

Is it really, really gonna matter? Am I really gonna remember this? Is it gonna feel this terrible like a month from now or a year from now? Or that bad mark that I got in my class? Is that really gonna determine my entire future forever? Or could we look at it as gives me a bit of information about like maybe I don't love this topic or maybe I should study a bit harder next time or whatever, whatever? So it takes people back into that zoomed out thing because I think their cognitive mind is really capable of seeing like big picture.

Kai (22:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Andrea McTague (22:59)
And

we need to see big picture because if we get too zoomed in, everything feels like a life or death fail, right? Like it's intensely painful. So we want to move that out of the way. It is one of the ⁓ indicators that your walnut brain is activated and making your decisions versus your cognitive mind. And there's another fun little like trick you can play with yourself to see if your cognitive mind is active or your walnut brain is active.

Because your walnut will always feel things. It will feel like a physical sensation, like an ugh. So if that's coming up too much and there's too much of that like ugh feeling, it means that that's what's driving your patterns and driving your like life choices. So we want to get that gone because if you do cognitive and I ask you to like, I don't know, remember what you had for breakfast today, it doesn't have that same physical internal sensation. And it's way more equipped to deal with modern life because of that zoomed out lens.

And like a little bit of long term and a little bit of acceptance that I don't have to be good at everything. Everything doesn't have to be like completely on track. And it there doesn't have to be so much of everything in order to have a passionate life worth living as well. ⁓ Kai, thank you for joining us today and to talk about this like very, very, very, very common thing that we deal with very, very, very well at ShiftGrit. It has been nice chatting with you, and we will chat more on the next topic. Bye guy.

Kai (24:17)
All right, see ya.