Disconnect from negativity within

[mat422]

I'm starting to really try to focus on controlling my mind lately. So far I've noticed that the obsessive thinking is for the most part unnecessary. I think for a while I've been like this, even as a kid I was a bit obsessive.

But what I've realized is that the thinking is very much like a compulsion. I feel like I have to do it, but in reality I don't. The funny thing is that the anxiety that tells me I should think about something more fades if I just let it go. However if I decide to give into that compulsion I get caught up in thought loops which actually cause anxiety.

It's definitely a liberating feeling to not feel like I have to engage those thoughts, that I have a choice. The more I do this, the weaker the compulsions get. One thing is for sure this takes a lot of discipline on my part. The thing about it is, relaxing just was never enough. And for a long time I thought this was relatively normal behavior, but I've realized just how much stress it was causing me in my life.

[mat422]

Hmmm, maybe 24/7 exposure isn't the best for me. That's what I've been doing mostly. Yesterday I got out of my house for pretty much the whole day, so I didn't listen to the sub at all. So last night I probably got about 9 hours of exposure.

Anyway today I feel really good. Maybe it's just the exercise I've been doing and that's just making me feel better. But I feel less crowded up in my head. Maybe that was just my brain being given time to process everything yesterday.

Shannon if you get a chance to read this, do you think 24/7 exposure can potentially cause worse results in a sub? Maybe I'm giving the subconscious too much credit here, but I know when I'm exposed to a lot of information over a lengthy period of time I tend to start tuning out. This happened to me a lot when I had a close to 4 hour class while I was going to college. Maybe, and this is just a theory. Keeping it at a max of 8 or 9 hours helps my subconscious not get bored so to speak.

Makes me think of working out too. If you don't have time to rest you start overtraining. I wonder if it's possible to "burn out" from using the subs too much. While listening 24/7 could possibly cause a catch up effect after I'm done listening, during the process it leaves me quite drained physically and emotionally at times. I'd rather feel good while using the sub over the long term, than bombard it with too much and feel out of it until the day I can stop listening.

[Shannon]

Mat, why do you suppose I always suggest against using subs 24 hours a day? It's because your brain needs time to process the input, especially when it's coming in at the maximum possible rate, as it is with 5G stuff. Boredom is usually not a problem unless you do the same program for more than 3 months. But if you look at the instructions I posted for 5G it should say that 21 hours a day is the absolute maximum suggested exposure time for a 5G program. If that's too much, drop it an hour per day until you find what works for you.

And... feel free to experiment with 2 days on, one day off, or three days on, one day off. I have a feeling that the optimal exposure is going to be something like 12-16 hours a day, three days on, one day off, for three months on a single stage 5G program.

[mat422]

Alright thanks Shannon. I think I'm just gonna stick to playing the sub at night. That always seemed to work well for me, it was a nice balance. If I decide to experiment with days off I'll be sure to post it.

[Shannon]

That should say... boredom is not usually a problem unless you have one specific personality type, and you use the same single stage program for more than three months...

[Yuri]

I have been playing the subs close to what i think is 24/7 not on purpose but my day is night and my night is day so im not sure how to track how long im playing it e.x i sleep at 8 am so its considered the next day for me so i must have +12 more now and then i only sleep for 4-5 hours and worry that i didnt get enough exposure so i just keep it playing and then later on i sleep and the cycle keeps going at least for now.

[mat422]

For the past few days I've just been really analyzing my life. I'm trying to get to a point where I'm honest with myself, but at the same time don't cling onto something so tightly that I'm reluctant to change.

My life has never been easy. I only have my perspective of life to go off of, so sometimes I really wonder how other people feel. Some people just never experience depression, trying to explain how I feel to them is incredibly difficult because I can't even understand myself sometimes. And if I try to explain how I'm hyper sensitive and have this fear of people, it's really easy to minimize that if they aren't in my shoes. It's definitely all in my head, but it's a very real aspect of my life that makes it hard to live.

The best way I can describe it is I've got an invisible barrier between me and the outside world. I've gotten a lot better over the years, and I've noticed lately there's a lot less anxiety. But something still feels off.

Then I read more about psychology and people with these various issues. It's always the cause being unknown. Nature vs nurture or a combination. And then it's the same method of treatment talk therapy and maybe medication. What's past is past, I don't believe uncovering those events will do anything. Although my mom has told me that when I was a kid she felt bad that she ignored me a lot of the time. I don't blame her for anything. Sometimes I just really wonder how much those years shaped me as an individual.

So an update on the ASC sub. The euphoric effect has faded, things have definitely leveled out. I am more confident. I speak my mind more and I feel more comfortable just being myself. But I'm not sure if confidence is what I need at this point or not. I feel like if you took away my fear I'd be able to show off more of this confidence. I'm not sure if building more confidence will necessarily lead to the eradication of fear. I feel like there's a lot going on and even though I feel like I'm becoming more confident, I also feel that something else is holding me back.

I really don't know anymore. The more I start breaking stuff down, the more complicated it gets. It seems like I'm hyper sensitive, which makes me very wary of other peoples motives. This in turn causes me to have excessive fear in order to protect myself. But there is also a lot of guilt for having a very difficult time overcoming that fear, which I believe is the cause of a lot of the depression I've experienced in my life. I know the most common advice is to just get out there and push through the fear, which I try to do. But I've felt in my life I've never really acclimated to the fear, I feel like most people push past it and then are able to tackle similar situations in the future. The more I put myself in these situations the more I have a subconscious habit of withdrawing and potentially sabotaging my efforts.

I think another hard part is being misunderstood. There are some people out there that really are blessed with the ability to do whatever they want and live their life the way they want. They look at other people struggling and just don't get it, because it is simple to them, it's so obvious what to do. I'm doing what I can to overcome my shortcomings, but I don't appreciate how society generally regards people struggling as weak. I feel like I'm pretty strong for the amount of stuff in my life I have to deal with on a regular basis. It's just I've felt shackled to a boulder I've been dragging around for a lot of my life.

[Sean]

So an update on the ASC sub. The euphoric effect has faded, things have definitely leveled out. I am more confident. I speak my mind more and I feel more comfortable just being myself. But I'm not sure if confidence is what I need at this point or not. I feel like if you took away my fear I'd be able to show off more of this confidence. I'm not sure if building more confidence will necessarily lead to the eradication of fear. I feel like there's a lot going on and even though I feel like I'm becoming more confident, I also feel that something else is holding me back.

Mat, that's great news that ASC is working so well for you! Keep at it a while longer, to see what happens. I am also rather intimately familiar with depression, and I know that under AM5 I go through minicycles of emotional highs and lows. During the lows, the key for me has been to recognize the source (depression is a monkey on my back) and keep going. Now I know that AM5 is very different from ASC, but in my journey, these lows have come to represent an obstacle to be overcome before a breakthrough of some sort. I don't write about them in my journal, typically, because my life has been full of times when it has been unsafe to share such vulnerabilities.

I think another hard part is being misunderstood. There are some people out there that really are blessed with the ability to do whatever they want and live their life the way they want.

I deeply and sincerely believe that we have all been blessed with this ability, but many of us hide from it. A wise person once said that success is our greatest fear, way moreso than fear of failure. Depression is one method through which we humans sabotage our own birthright. I struggle with depression, and I've had to turn to pharmaceutical assistance to manage it due to events in my life that made it too dangerous to fight on my own. What I'm finding now is that there are many possibilities opening up to me now that I am getting rid of the influences in my life that were using my own depression and poor self esteem against me. In swim rescue training, students are taught to rescue the victim by surprise, because in many cases they will push the rescuer under the water as they struggle to stay above water. There were people in my life who were doing much the same, emotionally.

If you have the space and clarity, take a look at your life and see if you're trying to tread water while holding onto a boat anchor.

[mat422]

So an update on the ASC sub. The euphoric effect has faded, things have definitely leveled out. I am more confident. I speak my mind more and I feel more comfortable just being myself. But I'm not sure if confidence is what I need at this point or not. I feel like if you took away my fear I'd be able to show off more of this confidence. I'm not sure if building more confidence will necessarily lead to the eradication of fear. I feel like there's a lot going on and even though I feel like I'm becoming more confident, I also feel that something else is holding me back.

Mat, that's great news that ASC is working so well for you! Keep at it a while longer, to see what happens. I am also rather intimately familiar with depression, and I know that under AM5 I go through minicycles of emotional highs and lows. During the lows, the key for me has been to recognize the source (depression is a monkey on my back) and keep going. Now I know that AM5 is very different from ASC, but in my journey, these lows have come to represent an obstacle to be overcome before a breakthrough of some sort. I don't write about them in my journal, typically, because my life has been full of times when it has been unsafe to share such vulnerabilities.

I think another hard part is being misunderstood. There are some people out there that really are blessed with the ability to do whatever they want and live their life the way they want.

I deeply and sincerely believe that we have all been blessed with this ability, but many of us hide from it. A wise person once said that success is our greatest fear, way moreso than fear of failure. Depression is one method through which we humans sabotage our own birthright. I struggle with depression, and I've had to turn to pharmaceutical assistance to manage it due to events in my life that made it too dangerous to fight on my own. What I'm finding now is that there are many possibilities opening up to me now that I am getting rid of the influences in my life that were using my own depression and poor self esteem against me. In swim rescue training, students are taught to rescue the victim by surprise, because in many cases they will push the rescuer under the water as they struggle to stay above water. There were people in my life who were doing much the same, emotionally.

If you have the space and clarity, take a look at your life and see if you're trying to tread water while holding onto a boat anchor.

Thanks man. I've always been able to stay strong because I know things do get better. When you're in the depression though, it's hard but not impossible to hold onto that strength.

I agree that we all have been blessed. It's just a matter of overcoming those limitations. I've considered on numerous occasions to maybe start looking towards the use of antidepressants. I'm very glad that others can be helped with those drugs and in no way do I believe that they aren't helpful to a lot of people. But I've decided that I can't trust the science behind them and I'm trying to fix things on my own. They are a last resort for me.

I'll be sure to take a good look at my life when I experience more clarity. For the most part I believe my limitations have been imposed upon myself and those around me have been nothing but supportive. I can't hold others accountable for my own shortcomings, too many people already do that in the world.

[Sean]

I agree that we all have been blessed. It's just a matter of overcoming those limitations. I've considered on numerous occasions to maybe start looking towards the use of antidepressants. I'm very glad that others can be helped with those drugs and in no way do I believe that they aren't helpful to a lot of people. But I've decided that I can't trust the science behind them and I'm trying to fix things on my own. They are a last resort for me.

I'll be sure to take a good look at my life when I experience more clarity. For the most part I believe my limitations have been imposed upon myself and those around me have been nothing but supportive. I can't hold others accountable for my own shortcomings, too many people already do that in the world.

I agree that pills are and should remain a last resort. I hate the side effects and am looking forward to quitting them. The science behind them is more like voodoo than what we think of as science.

My own limitations were self-inflicted, and I allowed myself to be treated as I was. Now that I have rejected emotional abuse and removed it from my life, my outlook is improving. I'm glad to hear you'll be taking a good look at things when you have better clarity: that's exactly why I shared what I did.

Stay strong.

[mat422]

Just a little update. I'm kind of breaking out of a slump I was in. What I'm realizing is I'm a certain type of person and I've always been worried about not fitting into the world. But everyone is so different, and to just compare myself to others is just going to stress me out.

But growing up my dad had a lot of anger issues and he was very short tempered. He was a great father and I have two other brothers. I'm the middle child. Out of all of us I feel like I'm the most sensitive. I feel like I was impacted a lot by him in that I moved towards my mother as a role model instead of my father. And now I believe I have a very very poor perception of masculinity. I believe I've talked about this before, but I've noticed I do my best to steer myself clear of the stereotypical image of a man.

I don't like the clean cut look, never really have. I don't care for suits. I've just got a really relaxed style and lately I've just been growing my hair out longer. What bothers me is I have strong anxiety about presenting more like what society expects a man to look like. And I'm not sure if that's due to me internalizing a lot of the bad traits that go along with that or it's anxiety because I hate being told what to do or who to be.

I think a lot of it might be symbolism. When the media tends to portray men in suits as power hungry, greedy, corrupt individuals it's like why would I want to be like that? For me the negative stands out more and even though you can be a great guy in a suit, my immediate thoughts aren't too positive. And symbols are a really powerful thing in society.

[Sean]

Good job returning to what you know of yourself. Question your own symbology. Keep doing it. Some of these things contribute to the depression.

[mat422]

I feel like I have a mental virus that I'm just trying to move on from. I get into these moods where I just can't even describe how I feel. It's unpleasant, like my whole body wants to purge, but I have no idea what to do. It's not restlessness, it's just more like intense confusion and a feeling of just not being in reality.

I'm guessing that this is the in between phase of changing your beliefs. It's almost like I'm stuck in a game of tug of war, one side pulling one way and another pulling the other. I know which side I want to move towards, but the other side is adamant on not allowing that to happen. Every so often I get glimpses into the person I can be, but then kind of fall back into familiar behaviors.

Overall I'm seeing changes. They are definitely there. It's just very gradual steps, very subtle shifts in how I deal with things in life. I've also returned to making electronic music, which is something I've always wanted to get better at, but I had the worst aversion to it because if I failed to make a decent song I took it pretty hard. But now it's just an attitude of, this stuff isn't going to be easy and it's not the end of the world if you aren't that good. But every time I dedicate time to practicing, I get better. Small and gradual, but I've learned a lot and there is still more to learn.

I'm definitely a perfectionist. Part of that is due to me having a strong desire to excel at something and when I put my mind to it I go 100%. But there doesn't seem to be enough compromise in my own head and very frequently I'm quick to zero in on my shortcomings instead of acknowledging the positive. So when I think about it my perfectionism stems from not wanting to fail, because if I fail that reflects to me as a person. And I think subconsciously I hold onto that because I think if I let go of fear of failing I'll lose my drive for doing something and won't have that ability to focus on succeeding.

But this is very faulty thinking. I'd rather be motivated and encouraged to do something because of being overwhelmingly positive instead of trying to avoid failure. I think it's similar to being an artist. There's no doubt in my mind that some artists tend to have dark outlooks and a grim view of reality that is reflected in art. So if an individual becomes very good at these pieces of art, it becomes close to ones own identity. They may be reluctant to change their outlook because they fear they will lose the essence of their art.

This just makes me think of people who struggle in life and then say they were glad it happened because it made them a stronger person. I can commend such positivity, but let's be honest. Given the choice to go through those hardships vs not having to, why would an individual choose to struggle? It seems in life we have dualities, but I'm starting to question these dualities.

But maybe I am looking at it the wrong way. It seems a lot of the things in life are a careful balance. This seems to be the natural order of the world. Unfortunately I feel as if my balance weighs heavily towards the struggle. A certain amount of hardship or challenge does forge character, but too much and you just feel like you are being kicked while you're down. After a certain point it's not beneficial anymore and it needs to change.

[Sean]

Perfectionism and depression seem to go together. I think it's outstanding that you are seeing the depression and its tools for what they are. It's also good that you've returned to artistic expression, which will give you a safe medium for venting your emotions.

Keep up the good work.