Unmessing Up My Mind, Heart, and Spirit - EPHRA 5.11G

[Ampersnd]

Let's get this one started!
I've run Money Magnet for nearly 5 months, and noticed that I didn't want to do any of the things related to getting money.
Noticed back in June/July that the runway was clear for me to work on a few projects that I thought that I was "passionate" about, but when it came time to it, I just did not pull the trigger. I paid for a business program back in September, and had some initial enthusiasm that quickly waned; I later dropped the course because I dreaded every step and did not look forward to attaining success. I believe that there are deeper reasons to this, that I hope to address in this program.

This is one of the last notes I left in my Money Magnet journal:
"I'm noticing myself backing down, fear building over me, becoming more timid. Backing down from the fun challenges of life. I'm losing my interest in being a social butterfly or of exploring the world around me. My world is very routine, and I am a portion of what I was five years ago.
I think that my experiences these past few years have [revealed] 'downsides' to the things I want, and so it's no longer [as] worth it to me."

In the fall of 2019, I took a trip to Germany. I haven't taken a vacation since then; I'm not sure if it's the economy, or my curiosity was satisfied, but I don't have that wanderlust. I don't have that passion for starting businesses like I did when I was young; but then again, did I ever, because I would stop dead in my tracks when I finally got to the point of promoting myself.

I went to the chiropractor today to straighten out my neck from a mild martial arts injury; she got me sorted, but it's been recommended that I take one week away from BJJ. (She trains it too, so I trust her judgment)
I ran my first loop this morning, and I can feel things moving; either that, or it's the new looseness from the appointment.
It had me napping for over an hour after work.
Having the realization that I try to avoid feeling like a fuck up, so I work a ton to get my skills up, but don't push myself enough to actually progress, because then I risk fucking up more.
While growing up, my parents were quick to criticize, rarely giving me encouragement; I think that I've protected myself by existing in that grey middle zone of "not fucking up".

More to come. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow.

[Ampersnd]

I actually got annoyed about my job today; felt the need to not only move on and get the next job, but I need to increase my income and to handle higher-level tasks.
This might be the fuel I need to propel my life forward.

[Ampersnd]

Day 6,

Finished my first cycle, and managed the 15 minute loops just fine; wasn't sure why the tracks weren't made to be 15 minutes if overloading was as much of an issue as it was.
I just get my phone's assistant to set an alarm for 15 minutes and 10 seconds, then start the track after a moment.

I started a cold on Day 1, so my experience might have been tainted from that.
It started to clear yesterday (Day 5), and I began to have the growing desire to clean up my apartment. Deep cleaning type shit.
I attempted to start up my car on Friday to grab some groceries down the road and neither the starter motor or the engine crank would move, but the electronics worked fine.
I'm basically stuck car-less over this long weekend; what was interesting was that I observed it failing to work, and I went 'huh', then adjusted my choice in clothes, and walked to the grocery store instead, about 10 minutes each way. Simply accepting what I must do.

I want to learn to cut my own hair, get back to learning some homesteading things. Build up more hands-on skills.

[Shannon]

The difference between the play length and the build length for these files is what it is for two reasons:
1. Because building it to 15 minutes would force a serious compromise in certain important steps, and
2. Chopping it down to 15 minutes removes any possibility of using it longer if someone ends up needing that.

I cannot know the future perfectly, so I leave room for my inability to know everything.

[Ampersnd]

Any chance you could put in a 15-minute version of the 60 minute track for the sake of easier access and to make it easier to adhere to the basic recommendations?
I could understand that there are some limits to how many tracks there are to an offering.

[Shannon]

Any chance you could put in a 15-minute version of the 60 minute track for the sake of easier access and to make it easier to adhere to the basic recommendations?
I could understand that there are some limits to how many tracks there are to an offering.

Let me consider the pros and cons of doing that first.  It sounds doable to have both, but I need to look for cons first.

[Ampersnd]

Day 8,

There have been tangible differences to my behavior and inner experience.
* When I used to go out for walks in my neighborhood, I'd feel - deep down - that I didn't belong. I had missed a bunch of days. Since starting, I've been going out, and wanting to get out, and I've made some good eye contact and a passing word with some people.
* Was a bit more conversational at the gym. Needed to get there with the bus, but I made it work. It kind of sucks, logistically, but I could manage it one more time if I have to.

[Ampersnd]

Day 16,

There are tangible benefits to my day-to-day life:
* Not as many interceding beliefs preventing me from doing something that I want to do.
* Going out for my walks, and having a desire to do longer and longer walks.
* Looking at houses on the Realtor website and feeling really good about the idea of living in one of those houses.
* Feeling like the main character from Red Dead Redemption 2, who has the option to 'Greet' people passing by. I occasionally do it, and it's totally fine.
* Easy to feel a positive outlook about things.
* Sleep habits are locked in.

Some drawbacks:
* Still having a numbness towards my goals; lack of direct desire.
* A substantial drop in my cardio output; came down with some form of sickness in October, December, and early February. December was COVID. Each time, I did not fully recover my peak capacity on the rowing machine.
* Today, having the lingering feeling that I'm doing something wrong, imposing onto other people, just by going about my life. I know that it's irrational, but the feeling is here for now.
* Some ADHD loss of focus towards my many interests; I'll short-circuit and do 20 seconds of everything, sometimes. No longer tracking my goals at this point.

[Ampersnd]

Day 21,

Noticing that my priorities have really narrowed in the previous year or two.

I was offered to take a low-price trip to Mexico. It sounded nice at first, but quickly soured when I considered it.
Maybe I'm getting wiser to the opportunity cost; five days in a nice country, but I'd be third wheel to a couple - and I know the dramas of that couple - in a foreign country where I half-speak the language. Was at a party yesterday where they spoke the language quickly and fluently over loud music, and I couldn't really get by. Imagine five days of that, PLUS the stresses of travel, PLUS the lost vacation time.

If I've already been there - or have done something similar - I know what to expect, and I don't want to live out those expectations. If there's an upside, I'm not willing to go through the downside to experience the upside, or maybe the upside isn't that great (or the upside is predictable because, as I said, I've been there before).

In a similar vein, women don't really excite me like they used to. If you've haven't met them yet, and they're interested in you, it seems like they don't show it.
In fact, it seems like I need to initiate or re-initiate a ton, even when they're very friendly and nice in person.
I've gotten burnt out on needing to lean in first, using up a lot of time and energy, for the potential of a result. If I don't lean in, they don't do it.
A few years ago, it would feel like the end of the world if I didn't have a woman in my life, and that the time between one woman and the next was spent with some psychic misery.

Now, I can understand the societal pulls and pushes that explain why women are as they are.
There's also simple economics to it; women are pursued all the live long day, so they can pick the offer that is best to them. I, on the other hand, don't want to exert much effort.
There's also the biological aspect, where our mentalities can be very different based on our goals.

I also understand myself, and that I probably wanted the sexual validation to prove that I could "get girls".
Now, I think that the hole is plugged; I've hit big enough numbers to where my ability is not in question.
I've also gotten with a quality of woman I wanted to get with.
Still, like a freshly caught fish, they can slip out of your grasp at any point, trying to return to the water.
That's fine, but what motivation do I have to pour time and energy into people who can leave at any point?

There's also a lot of risk and vulnerability involved in starting a new relationship; a certain degree of vetting is needed, otherwise she can blow your shit up from the inside with little effort.
Features that I used to not care about - because I only considered short-term relationships - are now red flags, and deflate me of any motivation to pursue even that.

So, no dating apps, approaches, or real thought towards dating since October.

I've been grinding at my martial art, exercise, have been tilling and curating three different book ideas, and I'm planning out a technological solution for how to better analyze politics.
Maybe I should brush up on my Spanish, too.

[Frosted]

What you’re saying in this post really resonates with a lot of where I’ve been headed mentally as well. With the low energy/effort for things especially. I think it could be due to our whole internal structure being changed completely. For example no longer being fueled by fear. It seems we might need to pass a certain threshold of healing/clearing, or maybe like with NOMAD we could use something like US 5.11 in the future. I’d rather heal a bit more though, since my brief UMS2 run basically ended with good internal results, but ultimately didn’t result in any action. I want to avoid wasting my time as much as possible so I want to make sure I really put my back into healing/clearing before trying anything without healing/clearing in it.

[Ampersnd]

Day 26,

I have a conversational and political tracking framework - that I've been working on, that's been coming together.
I'm also rekindling my desire to up-level my coding skills, specifically in doing live graphical work, so relating to data analytics and data visualization. Have been following a tutorial where he's building out a virtual "world" - maps of streets - with no libraries, which means that all of the mathematics are done from scratch. It's cool that people have the analytical understanding to create such things!

Yesterday, I noticed moments at work when I catch people overstepping lines. Have a foreign developer on my team who will plop URL links in our chat and say something to the effect of "please review", tagging me as the required reviewer (peer review is common in development). However, there's no consideration for how busy I am before "asking" me to do it. It really bothered me as something rude, and I wrote a firm message saying that they ought to ask before assuming that I'll take that up.

Another new teammate in QA, long-time employee but new to our team, is starting to call shots at our review meetings for how the meeting is supposed to go. Not directly, but by asking a question, getting a response, saying something like: "well, that's not how we've done it in XYZ team" I honestly don't care how they do it there; we're not there. If I had slammed my foot down, she would have probably
She also has a tendency of getting a response that addresses her question, but then asks the question again, as though she is shopping for the answer she really wants. It's as though I hadn't spoken; very undermining.

It's also super passive-aggressive, and it really bothered me yesterday. Since it was her, me, no one more senior than me, and the Project Manager or DBA not present, AND the other developers were English second language, I felt a compunction to push back in real-time without really checking her.
I've gotten familiar with the idea that if we let a change in process happen one week, she will protest with "well, last week, we did <change> and there was no problem!" if we attempt to return to the process we've been doing for the past year.

I also brought it up to the attention of my project manager, as he would never know about this dynamic, since I think she is trying to change the process when there is no one senior to put her in check. I don't like snitching like that, but it will spare our team a lot of chaos and confusion.

It's like I have new vision towards identifying petty, manipulative games. The new framework that I've been building is helping, because I can put it in those terms and notice trends that are in-line with it.

[Ampersnd]

Day 35,

I find myself not in a terrible rush to push strongly on my goals. I phone these things in, then I'm happy to move things along for the day as I look at the next thing. Sometimes, I find myself losing time watching videos.

A few years ago, I was on a mad hunt for my goals. In 2020, I wrote a 500-600 page book, with hundreds of references, in about 9 months. I also kept up a running routine, guitar practice and video posting, and a full-time job at the time.

Now, I keep up some guitar practice. I do my martial arts. I do my exercise. I take notes for my books. I also code when the mood strikes. But it's not the same as it used to be.
To be fair, my mind used to always be in a sense of urgency; as if it were screaming: "If I don't get my goals done by the end of the year, I will actually EXPLODE!"
I knew that this statement was not true, but I liked how it made me get up and go. Get out of bed after 6 hours of sleep and get to the gym before 6 AM sort of drive.
I've lost that touch, and I've certainly lost that touch since about July of last year.

Maybe it was my insecurities doing all of the pushing and driving forward.
Maybe it's me realizing that all of this pushing and driving forward does not bring me closer to the Promised Land.
Or now, I'm fueled by what's left over?

[Ampersnd]

Day 41,

This program is quite good, but it's so smooth that I can't tell just how good.
It's got me noticing when people are violating the 'gentleman' rules, and gently but firmly calling it out.
Things like unwarranted impositions on my time, or other things like that.
Have had a colleague try to type me a vague opening question to the likes "I was wondering if you have time" where I responded something like "I have no way of knowing what you're asking from me. Do you want to call? About a specific issue? Will it take long"

I'm also finding the sniveling, half-formed requests (from other people to other people) of "maybe stay on the call an extra minute to help me?" to be quite pathetic.
It's vague, and incredibly dishonest, and it's approached in a cowardly indirect way.
Not to mention the people who message only "call?" in a text chat, which I find to be quite rude.
I do try to audit myself to not slingshot in the other direction, because I used to let things slide.

Despite dropping some emotional bonds; I still don't want to go to clubs or bars, and I'm wondering if it's just a force of habit. Because I had assumed that it was things like shame and fear that would hold me back. But now, I lack a desire to pursue dating, sex, or romance; I have plenty of other interests and hobbies, however.

[Ampersnd]

Day 46,

I've turned some corners, but these are double-edged swords.
I'm realizing that I might have overvalued the importance of my martial arts.
Yes, make yourself sharp and prepared, but beyond an effective dose, there's no use in dumping in dozens of hours for the sake of competition and being 'the best', especially when I have other priorities and don't want to potentially spend months recovering from a single-day event; I've resisted those feelings and made excuses, but I think that this realization was probably the real reason.

I see guys in their 30s heavy into Jiu Jitsu training and competitions, and while that's cool, I wonder what inner glory they're fighting for. One of them was a high-school wrestler, so it might relate to reliving that high. Sure, it's fun, but what does it culminate to? A tougher opponent in a further place, who is younger and hungrier than you? If that's the point, I don't see the point. I'm considering taking a couple of months off of BJJ to focus on writing some books, but that might also be the blue belt blues talking, and four hours of weekly mat time is not too much trouble.

That's my other point; I've been evaluating: what is the thing that I am uniquely equipped to do? Something that few other people on this planet have the unique skillset and willingness to fulfill?
I could do 20 weekly hours of BJJ practice and wreck my body (since 5-6 weekly is often too much) and be middle of the pack for some obscure BJJ division.
OR, I could pursue computational analysis (and data visualization) of political rhetoric; though it's a mouthful of a title, I could dedicate the next two decades towards that and not get too bored about it. Heck, I've already written books about it.

Furthermore, the source of my sense of urgency for getting all of my projects done was probably deep insecurity; I don't feel that same urgency anymore. The need to achieve by a certain timeline so that I could display my successes, and probably all of that just to indicate to my peers - especially high school peers - that I wasn't just some big loser after all.

Haven't posted my music/guitar playing on social media for about 6 months; haven't even practiced guitar with any fervor for the previous month. No real motivation to pursue my decade long music goal involving singing. Also lost that motivation to work on a half-decade long potential project involving music and athleticism.

I will probably required something positive such as Ultra Success to regain that internal motivation after all of those entangled feelings (of fear/shame mixed in with my goals) have been disentangled.

I'm even beyond the need for women to like me or validate me. I'm 32 now and there's a reasonable window for finding a spouse and having kids; any later and kids are tough on your energy levels/long-term money planning.
I hadn't really considered the long-term relationships, and just focused on hooking up. I was quite detached, in part because I've seen today's marriage as an easy way to transfer your money and assets to one's ex-wife when it inevitably (statistically) goes south.

Overall, these things - martial arts, musical skill, women - were mechanisms to fulfil something in me. Ultimately, I believe that I've chosen to validate myself with my own self.

I do still get satisfaction from my career, but that's because it's very relevant to my purpose and long-term goals, which are not as much related to validation.