Alpha 5.0

[Shannon]

I would recommend 8+8, but if you can't do it, 6+1 is better than nothing. But don't use it before stage 4.

[mat422]

Stage 2. This is a very familiar feeling. My life feels like it's turned upside down right now. And I'm a little on edge. If running through this alpha version is anything like the other times I'm guessing things won't smooth out until later stages. Or it's gonna take a few weeks for stage 2 not to be as rough.

I don't really have a desire to do anything lately. Just work and trying to relax. It's not really laziness, more like it's a lack of enjoyment/frustration when doing things. Right now I'm telling myself that things feel bad now, but it's just because I'm going through the changes. Trying not to have an attitude of these feelings being permanent. Which is hard because I feel like I've dealt with it for most of my life. The sub is definitely poking around in an open wound so to speak. For the time being I'm just gonna grit my teeth and take the bad days as they come.

Just wish I could put my life on pause for a while. It's hard to make it through the day sometimes.

Actually just realized I recently ran out of this supplement I was taking. Now that I ran out I realized how it helped my mood a lot. This isn't just mental, I'm pretty sure. I have to keep on top of the physical too. It's hard though, stress wears me out so my mood drops and once that happens it gets harder to take care of myself properly.

[mat422]

So I've been asking myself what's preventing myself from being happy? Is it fear? Is it an obsession with holding onto the negative? Maybe it's just I'm not where I want to be yet. Honestly it's probably still fear. I've beaten a lot of fear, I've pushed past it and done things I didn't think I could do. But despite most the external things being accomplished, I'm still filled with it. I don't want to say I'm agoraphobic, it's not that severe. But I have a strong aversion to going out into the world unless I absolutely have to. And most people think if you keep going out more you get used to it or overcome it. That hasn't been the case for me. Sure I got used to doing it, I got better at it, but becoming comfortable with it? Not yet. And because it's not disabling, it becomes this thing that just gnaws at me all the time, 24/7. No wonder I'm depressed a lot of the time.

I guess that's it. It's still the fear. Maybe it's just been hard to come to terms with that. I held onto the idea of not knowing where it comes from because I guess it's easier to feel like things are out of your control. I mean you tell anyone that you're afraid of something and they tell you to face it. But it's not one specific thing, it's just this huge blanket of fear that just smothers my life. Maybe that's what I've been ashamed of over the years. Just having this fear and not being like everyone else.

So I guess from today forward I'm gonna try to be more honest with why I feel a certain way. Acknowledging that I've got all this fear honestly makes me feel weak. I feel weak for not being able to overcome this. And it's bigger than I thought, but at least I've got a focus now on why I feel a certain way instead of being angry and frustrated for no reason.

[mat422]

Still chipping away at things. I honestly don't have much to update. Lately I'm perceiving small changes in how I react to things or think about stuff. I've taken on an attitude of feeling more in control, like my head isn't playing mind games with me. The best way I can put it is that my mind is working for me rather than against me, which means I can use up my energy more efficiently.

I'm still trying to let go of expectations about what it's gonna be like when I finish all the stages. I have no doubt the power behind alpha 5.0, what I worry about is whether or not my mind is going to be accepting of these changes. I know I need to change and I want to change, but chances are there is a part of me that doesn't. Whether or not it's fear or just a sincere lack of belief in myself to change anything, I don't know. But I do know this. Throughout my life tackling huge projects has always filled me with doubt. This self improvement thing is no different. I can't bully myself into accepting these things. I have to work in small chunks that make up the whole picture. But I'm just tired of a lot of it. I do believe that my resistance to the sub is manifesting itself in some way. Emotional turmoil mostly, I'm riding out the storm but it's a long way before things calm down.

[mat422]

Something troublesome is happening in stage 2. I'm becoming very withdrawn from people. I've always been somewhat of a loner, but now it's increased. I still live with my parents. It hasn't been easy finding a way to support myself at the moment and I'm kind of stuck in this location anyway.

Anyway I feel like my emotion towards my parents has been dulled along with my friends and brothers. I still care about them. If any of them died I'd be devastated. But I just don't know what to think of this new feeling. If I'm detaching from their influences and it's a healthy thing or if something is wrong. In my family I'm mostly the go to guy. I do as much as I can to help out, but sometimes I feel like I'm this pillar in my family that has always carried way more responsibility than I should have. As a kid I just felt responsible for making sure nobody ever yelled at someone else, that nobody took "sides", that my parents received enough love from me. My house could be a warzone at times, but really what family's isn't? The thing is it was always me, I hated everything that happened and I felt like it was my duty to stop it. Truth be told I feel like I've been less close with my family as I've gotten older. But we were a happy family as kids and everything, I don't know what happened. I don't know if it's just part of growing up or what. But lately I'm just sad that I can't be as close with my parents or brothers anymore. I guess as a kid you're fairly naive and life hasn't thrown a ton of stuff your way. My experiences must have changed me, not for the better either. I became more closed off, afraid, avoidant.

I've always been wary of the whole "growing apart" thing. It's true. But sometimes it's less about me growing and more about me falling into that habit of isolating myself. I have to be careful that I don't close off relationships without first understanding why.

[Sean]

Good growth is happening here, Mat. You're doing fine, man.

[mat422]

So I've noticed I'm always trying to figure out this one thing that I feel is interfering with my life. But it's kind of a mix of things. Perfectionism is a recurring problem in my life. I've realized that it's a large contributor to my depression. The other thing would be my social anxiety.

Now obviously nobody can be perfect. I'm not entirely sure it's a self esteem thing. It feels more like it's on the OCD spectrum. I've got an obsession with doing things "right", anything less than that and I get anxiety. The problem is it's a very irrational feeling that is incredibly difficult to reason myself out of.

It sounds like something you can just snap out of or that I'm being ridiculous. Believe me, if anyone sees how ridiculous it is, it's me. I've made similar realizations in the past, but I never took it that seriously and I was very dismissive about the possibility. You see because I tend to be very perfectionist oriented my mind tends to ignore problems or issues and deny the authenticity of them.

Anyway. I'm finished up stage 2 soon. I think there has been a lot being processed. Today I woke up and felt like I kind of have a target to focus on with regards to what I'm dealing with instead of a huge overwhelming problem.

[Sean]

Perfectionism and depression are two parts of a bad positive feedback cycle. They increase each other's energy, increasing the bad effects of each.

A key factor to overcoming these in myself has been forgiveness, which became easier for me under AM5. Forgiving my own faults, the faults of others, and lowering my standards from "perfection" to "achievable" were critical.

I hope this helps you find your way.

[mat422]

Perfectionism and depression are two parts of a bad positive feedback cycle. They increase each other's energy, increasing the bad effects of each.

A key factor to overcoming these in myself has been forgiveness, which became easier for me under AM5. Forgiving my own faults, the faults of others, and lowering my standards from "perfection" to "achievable" were critical.

I hope this helps you find your way.

Thanks Sean. It was definitely brought up because I'm running through AM5. I think I'm moving towards the changes instead of general awareness now. I think I need to practice A LOT more forgiveness. But also I'm working on breaking this bad habit. Just constant reminders that I don't need to be perfect or get everything perfect. I guess my fear is if I don't strive for perfection then I'll never be good enough. But I'm starting to see how I can have high achievement without that endless anxiety from needing to have it perfect. Part of me doesn't like the idea of forgiveness because in a way I feel like I don't deserve it. Most of my life was based around fear and I ran from it most of the time. I should have stood up and fought. After all I created all that fear in my head and it was all my doing. But I can see now how holding onto that attitude has done nothing but make things worse.

I think this has effected my social anxiety a lot too. I've improved a lot, but where I came from was a very rough place for me. When I was younger I think I might have set that bar way too high and I wanted to move as far away as possible from what I dealt with. The problem was setting that bar so high made me feel like any faults made me a complete failure, like less of a person than others. Then that developed into avoidant behavior because it was easier to run away from that threat of not being perfect.

Maybe I'm just not as healed as much as I thought and I've still got old wounds. Maybe I'm just trying to prove something so I can finally look at myself and not be upset with the problems I face. I feel like I've lived most of my life saying "one day when it all comes together". I was waiting for perfection, perfection that could never come.

[mat422]

On to stage 3. Going through alpha is pretty rough. If I'd have to wager a guess after my last run through of 2011 there was a pretty big gap. During that time I might have reverted a lot because the changes weren't all that solid to begin with.

I've probably said this before, but I'm pretty sure I'm the resistant type. Consciously, yeah I definitely want to change. But deep down I know there is something that sabotages that a lot.

That's been most my life though. Me telling myself I'm being irrational and seeing it, but feeling unable to actually change it. Well I am doing something about it, it's just taking time. I tend to get frustrated a lot of the time. I've changed a lot of external things and while it's made a difference I just know that internally more work has to be done.

[mat422]

Just thought I'd write about something real quick. I've always struggled figuring out what I want to do in my life. So I've had a few paths, mostly taking them because I felt like I needed to. I was at a family bbq and my uncle was telling me I needed to go back to college. Here's the thing, college is fantastic if you go for something you want and if you go there to learn. I just can't justify putting myself into debt when I don't even know what I want to do. Getting a four year degree in a major that I might be interested in, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. And yet all around me people keep telling me I won't get hired without a 4 year degree. I feel like everyone just keeps parroting everyone else and it's that fear that keeps being perpetuated. I can't stand it. I can't stand feeling like I'm being bullied into making a "good" decision.

I've seen what happens when you let fear control your life and you end up making "safe" decisions. The individuals who are living lives that they enjoy are the ones that refused to give in to that fear and find their own paths. I'm still working on it. So much subtle pressure from everywhere, it's like trying to attain freedom and this huge vortex just wants to suck you back in.

[SargeMaximus]

Just thought I'd write about something real quick. I've always struggled figuring out what I want to do in my life. So I've had a few paths, mostly taking them because I felt like I needed to. I was at a family bbq and my uncle was telling me I needed to go back to college. Here's the thing, college is fantastic if you go for something you want and if you go there to learn. I just can't justify putting myself into debt when I don't even know what I want to do. Getting a four year degree in a major that I might be interested in, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. And yet all around me people keep telling me I won't get hired without a 4 year degree. I feel like everyone just keeps parroting everyone else and it's that fear that keeps being perpetuated. I can't stand it. I can't stand feeling like I'm being bullied into making a "good" decision.

I've seen what happens when you let fear control your life and you end up making "safe" decisions. The individuals who are living lives that they enjoy are the ones that refused to give in to that fear and find their own paths. I'm still working on it. So much subtle pressure from everywhere, it's like trying to attain freedom and this huge vortex just wants to suck you back in.

Wow. I totally identify with this. It's like living in a cage but you don't know how far away the bars are so you don't know how far before you can get to freedom. Just keep pushing, like you said. Possibly get away from the familiar influences (something I plan to do soon as well), and I'm sure it'll be easier to change. Good luck.

[mat422]

Things are still rough. I think I'm at that mid way point again, like limbo. I feel a little better. Stage 2 I think was exceptionally rough for me.

I've noticed that I'm a little more at ease. I'm more productive. I've been able to work on my music without that crippling fear of doing something wrong or not good enough.

But other than that, results so far aren't too obvious. Change is just slow for me and maybe sometimes I have to look back on stuff to realize I have changed. So the combination of being slow plus not being entirely aware of it makes it hard to gauge progress. I guess the upside to that would not as much resistance because it doesn't come as a shock.

Shannon if you get a chance to read this I've got a question about alpha 5.0 and being incredibly tired all the time. Recently I've moved back to 8 to 9 hours of sleep which is a hell of a lot better than the 6 I was getting before. But I'm so damn tired. I can barely make it through the day without a cup of coffee. I can't tell if it's depression or fatigue, they can mimic each other really well. But I'm so spent. Every day has been so hard to get through and the stress just makes it even harder. It's like a bad feedback cycle where I'm tired, stressed because I'm tired, more stress more tiredness. Fridays are quite honestly the happiest days for me because I have the weekend where I don't have to work. I just don't feel as functional as everyone else around me.

[mat422]

I'm thinking about this whole alpha journey. I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this. Yeah it's self improvement, but is it really a positive thing for me? I don't think so, I think I'm operating out of fear instead of genuine desire for growth and improvement.

I was reading about this thing called survival strategies from a website.

We discovered that people have two basic ways of dealing with the unpleasant feelings that are caused by negative self-esteem beliefs: First, they use alcohol, drugs, food, or other substances to try to cover up the feelings and numb themselves, or to make themselves feel good. Second, they develop survival strategies that help them deal with the anxiety that stems from their negative beliefs. As a survival strategy is formed, the child also forms a belief about that strategy. For example: I'm good enough because... What makes me worthwhile is... The way to deal with a dangerous world is... The way to survive is ...

See that's me. I'm striving to become more alpha because I feel like I have to in order to get by. If I take away that anxiety then would I really feel the need to improve? If my life was ok and I was happy, then maybe I'd have no desire to continue this alpha program. I'm just wondering if this really is the right path for me. If there is any actual desire for me to grow that isn't rooted in this negative self esteem.

Maybe it's just resistance from the alpha program. But I'm going crazy trying to figure it all out. If all I want is freedom, then wouldn't that mean tossing aside the idea of actually attempting to reach some kind of alpha male traits?

I keep making the same mistakes, I think. For some reason I never feel like these subliminals can destroy these perfectionist habits. I want to get to a point where I'm ok with myself, but I'm also ok with getting better. Not this, not ok with myself until I reach xyz. I'm currently doing some of the lefkoe belief stuff to accelerate eliminating the perfectionist habits. Anything at this point, I'm going crazy.