Have you ever felt like you're moving through life in a haze of repetition? Life becomes a blur of chores, to-do's, monotonous habits… eat, complete daily duties, sleep, repeat. You're caught in the moment and yet you're numb to its presence. Always needing to react to the next demand or to-do. It's as if someone's clicked the 'zoom in' button on your life a few too many times and now all you can see is what's directly in front of your face. While there's comfort in routine, your soul craves something more. But you're so caught up in reacting to life that it feels like you're not really living it. This is life on autopilot. Keep reading if you'd like to know more about what it means to be stuck on autopilot and why we're all on autopilot... until we're not.

“If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.”

— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

What it means to live life on autopilot—from a practical perspective, a psychological perspective, and a spiritual perspective.
Why all humans end up on autopilot mode.
Why the dominant brainwave states in childhood allow us to be easily programmed.
The emotional and spiritual shortcomings of the education system.
What life looks like once we’ve broken free from the matrix.

🎙 If you prefer to listen instead, click here to access the podcast episode.

The feeling beneath your burnout

Have you ever felt like you're moving through life in a haze of repetition? Monday turns to Friday, the weekend passes, and then Monday's back again... only to turn back into Friday before you even had a chance to process that it was already Monday again?

Life becomes a blur of chores, to-do's, monotonous habits...

Eat, complete daily duties, sleep, repeat.

You're caught in the moment and yet you're numb to its presence. Always needing to react to the next demand or to-do. It's as if someone's clicked the 'zoom in' button on your life a few too many times and now all you can see is what's directly in front of your face.

Life's become a haze of three-dimensional distractions. And while there's comfort in routine, your soul craves something more.

You've got dreams, aspirations, and a vision of the you you plan to be in the future. But you're so caught up in reacting to life that it feels like you're not really living it.

And you're dead last on your mile-long list of priorities... the to-do that never gets done and is always being bumped to tomorrow's too-full list.

What's more is that beneath the burnout there's another feeling.

There's a knowing... a sensing that there is so much more to life than meets the eye. An undercurrent of existential questioning.

Yet the always growing mountain of everyday demands keeps you from questioning too much... keeps you from contemplating beyond that which you can see with your eyes.

This is life on autopilot.

What is life on autopilot?

Practical perspective

Living on autopilot is when we're living in reactive mode. Most of our actions, behaviors, and thoughts are in reaction to life.

Because of this, we feel as if life is happening to us instead of for us.

We're sitting shotgun instead of being in the driver's seat. Life on autopilot is life as we we've been trained or programmed to know it.

From this limited vantage point, life unfolds in a fairly predictable manner:

We're born, we go to school, we go to school some more, we get a job, we get a significant other... or maybe not, we have kids... or maybe not, we have a midlife crisis... or maybe not, we work some more, we get old... maybe even crotchety, and we die.

If this is the extent of what we believe about the nature of reality, then our existence and our consciousness is confined to the finite time we spend on this planet, wearing our particular human suit that we call our body.

Psychological perspective

Autopilot is groupthink so massive, so all-encompassing we don't even know to question it. It's everything we think we know about life until we realize that most of it is mass delusion.

This is a painful but reassuring truth.

Reassuring because it's not our fault. Had we been offered the truth from the start, we'd never have switched into autopilot. It’s also reassuring because it means there's so much more to this existence that we've been told.

In other words, reality is truly far more miraculous and divine that it's ever been given popular credit for.

Autopilot living is also heavily rooted in fear. When we're stuck on autopilot, fear controls us. Even if we think it doesn’t.

Even if we think we're brave, when we're in autopilot mode the majority of our choices are motivated by an undercurrent of fear even if we're not consciously aware of it.

Fear dictates our decisions, choices, habits, words, and actions.

We do or don’t do, say or don’t say things out of the fear of:

Being rejected, cancelled, left out.
Being judged or ridiculed.
Not being enough... not smart enough, pretty enough, kind enough, likable enough.
Losing what we love most.
Missing out.
Not having enough or having too much.
How other people perceive us.

Spiritual perspective

We're caught in the three-dimensional matrix. We're so immersed in the physical aspects of reality that we're unable to think about much of anything that isn't directly affecting the day-to-day grind.

When we’re trapped in the matrix, we:

Don't stop to question the nature of reality.
Take reality at face value. If we can't see it, touch it, feel it, or directly experience it, we don't have time for it.
Succumb to mass illusion. A collective ego identity so all-encompassing and pervasive that we don't realize it exists... until, of course, we do.
Remain compliant, unquestioning.

The matrix keeps us in line, in order. Sometimes it has such a grip on us that we'll behave in cruel and punishing ways towards others* in the name of doing good on behalf of another group.

*Listen to The Soul Horizon podcast episode titled Outrage as Entertainment if you'd like to know more about this phenomenon.

Why do we need to recognize that we’re on autopilot?

The world needs us to recognize that we've been on autopilot so that we can awaken from the illusion... for our own benefit and for the benefit of the collective.

Knowledge and truth are light, and when we awaken to the truth, our frequency raises.

Our individual frequency affects the collective frequency. This is why I say that it starts with you. Because it does. Your light affects the world... the universe, really.

And my goodness, do we need more light.

There's been a mass awakening unfolding for the last decade or so. If you're here right now… reading this, you have an important part to play in this awakening process.

Trust that you're here at this moment in time for a reason.

How do we end up on autopilot?

The simple answer:

We're all on autopilot mode... until we're not.

But why do we default to autopilot?

Autopilot is merely what we've been programmed to know by the world and systems that surround us. One generation passes autopilot to the next and without questioning, we're fed this story about life on a spoon and we eat it up without stopping to question where the story came from.

Our perception of the world is a blank slate when we're born. Of course, there are inherent characteristics and personality traits defined by our DNA, but our perception of the world is predominantly formed through nurture and external input.

What we know about life is inherited through stories, experiences, and surroundings. It's formed as we move through the early years of life, gathering and collecting external tidbits.

If we look at the mind as a computer—which it essentially is—then autopilot is merely the mode of functioning that's been programmed into us during the first many years of life.

It’s the narrow, limited story that we’re told about life before we have the ability to question the story’s validity.

On this note, let’s explore brain wave states for a moment…

Dominant brain wave states in childhood

There are five brain wave states. In order of speed (cycles per second) from fastest to slowest, these states are Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta

As adults, we're predominantly operating in a beta brain wave state. But for the sake of this conversation, let’s take a look at the predominating brain wave states at various ages throughout childhood.

0–2 years old: Delta waves

From conception through the first year of life, delta is the dominant brain wave state.

Delta is the wave state associated with deep restorative sleep. It involves little to no critical thinking or judgment.

2–6 years old: Theta waves

From ages two to six-ish years old, theta is the dominant brain wave state.

Theta is associated with imagination and hypnosis. When the brain is in a theta wave state, it's highly suggestible.

While in theta, the brain:

Is in a highly suggestible super-learning state.
Records vast amounts of information but doesn’t have the capacity to consciously evaluate the information it's receiving.
Readily absorbs information in this state and accepts it as truth without question.

If the mind is a computer, theta is a state of unquestioning downloading. The malware scanners and virus detectors are off, and the brain is downloading everything that's coming at it without question.

This is why what we learn and experience in this small window of childhood has such a profound impact on our lives.

5–8 years old: Alpha waves

From ages five-ish to eight years old, alpha begins to move in alongside theta.

Alpha is a more analytical state than Theta, but it's still deeply relaxed and calm.

A state of light meditation is a good example of an alpha wave state—the brain is relaxed and yet alert and capable of thinking in creative ways.

In this age range, the brain straddles the states of alpha and theta—bouncing back and forth between the two.

There's still not much analytical reasoning taking place even in the relatively more alert state of alpha, which means that what’s experienced tends to be mostly accepted as truth rather than challenged or questioned.

8–12 years old and beyond: Beta waves

From the ages of eight to twelve and beyond, beta moves in and becomes the dominant brain wave state. Beta is the state of conscious, analytical thinking.

The brain is awake, focused, alert, and logical while in a beta wave state.

As adults, we spend more of our time in this cycle.

What does this all mean?

Because our brains are so impressionable in the first eight or so years of life, what goes in sticks like superglue.

And once that subconscious interpretation of reality has been formed, it's very difficult to modify it.

The question then becomes:

Are we certain that's what gone in has been the most accurate representation of reality?

There are both micro and macro levels of influence that shape our perception of reality in those impressionable early years of life.

Micro influences: Parents, siblings, teachers, individual factors and life experiences. These are the nuanced external aspects and circumstances that shape us into the unique humans that we grow up to be.

Macro influences: Large systems—cultures, education, governing bodies. These are the broader, bigger, more systematized influences that shape our reality.

There is more nuance and individuality in the micro influences, but the macro influences tend to lay the foundation for autopilot mode.

We could spend days dissecting all of the various macro influences, but for the sake of time let's take a look at one of the macro influences that many of us have experienced...

The Education System

This is a bit of a hot take, so I want to preface it by noting that what I'm about to say is about the intent of the system at large... not about the individuals that form the various parts of school systems. There are plenty of teachers, administrators, etc. that move to the beat of their own drum and teach far beyond the system whenever they can.

But...

Much of the current education system is outdated and clunky. It was built for an industrial revolution, not a spiritual or emotional one. And we're in the early days of a sort of spiritual revolution.

In school, we're taught, ad nauseam, about the external world; the physical, three-dimensional world that we can see with our eyes.

And yet we're taught so little, if anything, about ourselves and what it means to be conscious beings on this planet. Our emotions, our existence, our consciousness... the things that matter most practically speaking, matter the least to the system that governs education.

Unless we have a brave teacher who's willing to diverge from the test-driven curriculum, we're easily molded into little more than an animated figurine within the matrix during those highly impressionable years.

Trimmed, tailored, and formed to fit into the illusion. Taught to value conformity over individuality. And praised for falling in line rather than standing out.

Those who conform the most are rewarded with A's and praise. Those who are too spirited to conform or don't have the innate capacities to do so, are considered to be failures of some form or another.

But the only thing they've failed is some arbitrary system... a game of fitting in. A system that teaches about what we can see but not what we can feel.

Even for those who win at this game, are they really better off in the future?

When I worked as a school psychologist, it wasn't at all uncommon for the brightest, highest-achieving students on paper to have some of the deepest, darkest struggles behind the scenes.

When we lift the veil on the education system, it's easy to see that students aren't failing the system, the system is failing them.

In an effort to uphold the value of intellect, we've neglected all else.

And as we grow up and move on from school, we're then left to navigate this intricate and complex internal world all by ourselves. Many of us choose never to do so, and for those of us who do, we're left to go it alone.

We're made to feel that our internal battles and struggles are uncommon or unusual.

And yet our struggles are absolutely ordinary and regular—a byproduct of a society that denies the existence of a soul so that it can keep the mind on a pedestal.

We've found ourselves in a world that favors intellect over the exploration of self. And as we begin to step out into the roles we've been expertly trained to complete, many of us end up feeling as if some major piece of the life puzzle is missing.

We've done it all right... followed all the rules and yet we're left wondering, "Is this it?"

I promise you it isn't.

We've just been programmed to believe it is.

But that question—the 'is this all there is' feeling—is your soul calling out to you.

Hoping to wake you up.

Hoping that you flick your eyes open from the illusion... the slumber that your young, impressionable mind eagerly embraced before it ever had the chance to question it. Because once you do, you can turn off autopilot and wake up to the greater reality that surrounds you.

This is your call to step out of the matrix.