EHPRA Journal

[Spiral]

Mat, nice track. I can't give you much criticism because I don't compose myself yet, which is something I plan to save time for in the coming years. However, I do have some things I could suggest for you while you are on your path to becoming a recognized composer in the video game industry.

Also, how do you feel after running EPRHA for the last 2 months? You have feelings of welcoming others into your life? The genuine desire to try to grow relationships? Are you better towards yourself?

[mat422]

Mat, nice track. I can't give you much criticism because I don't compose myself yet, which is something I plan to save time for in the coming years. However, I do have some things I could suggest for you while you are on your path to becoming a recognized composer in the video game industry.

Also, how do you feel after running EPRHA for the last 2 months? You have feelings of welcoming others into your life? The genuine desire to try to grow relationships? Are you better towards yourself?

Thanks. I'm open to any and all suggestions so feel free to let me know.

There's been progress. It just seems like the deeper I go I uncover darker parts of myself that I kept hidden. So it feels a bit like getting worse at times. I'm definitely better towards myself and it's become a lot easier to see all the negative perceptions about myself as just negativity that needs to be released. But there's just some days where I slip up and fall into self loathing and isolation. It's those days where I can't really pull myself out of it that really make me feel worse about myself.

My interpersonal relationships are still my weakest point. Part of that is the fear that once people get to really know me they'll get tired of me and leave me. I guess you could say I've gotten really good at surface level interactions with people, but deep down I still think there's something seriously wrong with me.

Sometimes it feels like I'm not making a dent in this stuff. But then I realize I have changed for the better, just not in drastic life changing ways. I consistently remind myself every day that I'm still moving forward because it's way too easy to get caught up in the hopelessness mindset and ruminate endlessly.

[Spiral]

I feel a bit silly, because I forgot what I was going to suggest to you. Maybe it will come to me another day. For now, sounds like you've done some intense introspection over the last couple years. I think anything I suggest to you now you already have thought about.

[mat422]

I feel a bit silly, because I forgot what I was going to suggest to you. Maybe it will come to me another day. For now, sounds like you've done some intense introspection over the last couple years. I think anything I suggest to you now you already have thought about.

Ok, no worries. Yeah, I feel like it's the only way to be free. I've always felt my inner world is infinitely more important than what goes on the outside because the outside is a reflection of that inner world.

[mat422]

A spark of insight shot through my head this morning. I've always worried what other people think of me. And when you do that for a long time eventually you start losing who you are because your head has been filled up with a rule book for what not to do or what to do instead of natural expression of your true self. That's pretty much left me living up in my head constantly monitoring my own actions when interacting with people.

I guess this next part kind of links in to that. Despite constantly looking to improve my situation, the fear of exposing myself to the outside world is still strong. I keep reading about 6G and how strong it's going to be and it made me realize if it could really pull my life into a complete 180, it would scare the crap out of me. I don't know what it is, but for some reason deep down I feel like I'm not deserving or capable of being a successful person.

I mean for years I always said people make me anxious, but it's not the people. It's me, it's always been me. A deep internalized type of shame which I ironically pushed away and ignored out of shame. But I no longer see it as an identity, I just see it as another hurdle to overcome.

When I think about where I came from I realize that I didn't have minor problems. And now more than ever I realize that change does take time. Especially when you have a lot underneath the surface. Even more so when almost half of that is outside your conscious awareness. I tend to blame myself a lot for not pushing myself enough, but what I really need is to stop feeling guilty and ashamed for something that developed in my life that was mostly out of my control. All I can do now is continue to work on myself and keep my mind focused on what I want.

[mat422]

I've actually been feeling really better. One of the most noticeable things is I'm starting to feel good about the small progress I make instead of criticizing myself for not working hard enough or being good enough. I've been so abusive to myself over the years. Constantly comparing myself to people better than me. For some reason I thought it was important to constantly measure myself up to people and work on improving myself to be better. I wasn't running my own race and every day I wasn't as good as someone else I felt awful. Also by constantly putting myself down I was able to avoid perceived failure, by not really striving for anything.

And something else I've realized. The difference between hard work and emotional stress. Hard work means being consistent, following through, and evaluating yourself objectively to see what needs to be improved. Emotional stress is telling yourself you're not good enough, you suck, you'll fail, you should quit, etc. The two overlapped in my case and I came to view hard work as all those emotionally stressful things. Once I understood the separation between them I realized working hard at something didn't have to be the incredibly stressful thing I perceived it to be.

I'm not completely free of that negative internal dialogue yet, but it's been getting easier to not listen to what it has to say. Like it doesn't hold as much weight as before which I think is a good sign of progress for me.

[mat422]

Wow I can really recognize myself in your two latest posts. Good self awareness and job on the thought pattern! Inspiring.

Thanks!

To show that I've stayed true to my word about making a track a week, here's my latest one from last week. This one is less video game, more regular music.

https://soundcloud.com/hconscious/memories

So far writing music has gotten a little easier, but I still get caught up in fear based thinking that blocks my progress. I'll expand on that a bit. There's music producers and there are listeners. The listeners just want to hear good music. Some producers evaluate you solely on your technical ability or complexity of your music. I hung around a lot of forums in the beginning of my journey for making music and the animosity towards "simple" tracks is overwhelming at times.

So where that leaves me. Well my instincts are kind of off when it comes to writing because I'm constantly feeling like I should be doing more. This leads to fear based decisions like trying to make a completely unique chord progression when a simple one would work much better or designing an overly complex sound. To give you a good idea of what that's like, you know when you used to take tests in school and you circled an answer first, then changed it, then got the test back and your first answer was correct? That's a bit like music at times. Great artists understand that intuition and follow it, but when you haven't honed that relationship with your intuition yet you'll probably doubt yourself every step of the way.

Anyway I notice this is pretty heavily correlated with my social anxiety problems. It's no different than going to a party and getting so caught up in your head about making a good impression you aren't yourself. Just another way my limiting beliefs tend to manifest themselves.

[mat422]

Been rediscovering the value of the present moment. It's amazing how letting go and allowing whatever is to be can actually help you resolve the issues you may face. If you're like me and constantly trying to "let go" or "release" emotions, you probably fall into the trap of trying too hard. Artificial control of emotions seems to be viewed as desirable in western society. People think they need to control emotions more when really they just have to relearn to allow them. To let them flow through their body like blood without interruption. I think our minds know through instinct how to let go of these things, we just have to make space to allow it to do it's thing.

I never got the whole "don't label your emotions" thing. But I think I get it now. By labeling your emotions, your focus is shifted onto the label itself and your mind creates feelings and stories associated with that. You lose touch with what you're actually feeling. When you don't label them you fully feel what the emotion actually is. You understand it on an emotional level and can process it. A label like fear seems strong, powerful, impenetrable. But if you just feel the energy of fear, you realize it might be something entirely different than what you had believed it to be. Also by not putting a label on them, they are free to expand and you experience the subtleties of emotions that are often lost by the limiting nature of putting them in a box.

Despite having this strong realization I still have my sticking points. But at least now I feel like I'm actually dealing with the true emotions vs the ones generated by using a label.

[mat422]

So today I got a haircut and I realized that I still have a lot of trouble with it. I don't know if it's talking to the stylist, not really knowing how it'll turn out, or the fact that my hair has been receding on top and I'm really self conscious about it. The whole thing just has a tendency to stress me out. But I made sure I stayed present with however I was feeling to show myself it was just feelings, nothing bad was going to happen. And I felt a little better, no miracle breakthrough but it was better than dwelling on the anxiety.

I don't know if I mentioned this but I've always struggled with my self image. Since I have a natural inclination to look for flaws first in almost everything, the same happened with my own face. Using EHPRA has helped out a lot, but I still notice discomfort when I see myself in the mirror or see pictures of myself sometimes. The difference is now I don't get obsessive about it and worry. It's not an external validation thing either, I've had girls compliment me, didn't really do much. It's just all that internal bullshit that needs to be cleaned out. I've got so many distorted views about myself that just plummeted my self esteem a lot.

[mat422]

Seems like things came to a screeching halt as far as progress goes, which means I must be working through something. But I'm noticing these down periods aren't as horrible as they used to be and instead of beating myself up about them I treat myself with more kindness. I've realized I have a bad habit of motivating myself through guilt, shame, and fear which just makes me feel worse.

Despite that I'm feeling more stable. My car was acting up and I took it to the mechanic thinking it was just a simple timing belt problem. Turns out a wheel bearing was shot too. The whole thing cost me 552, which is a large chunk of my money and I'm still not working at the moment. In the past this would have freaked me out and I would have been worrying about not having enough money, but I kind of have this feeling that everything is going to work out. Lately it seems like opportunities have been finding me and keeping me afloat, no doubt due to EHPRA. So I'm not perfectly calm, but I'm also not a nervous wreck like I usually am.

But I'm still not at that point of freedom that I want. I know things are still holding me back. I'm trying to break out of the system here in the U.S. I have the awareness, I just don't have the courage and lack of fear to take advantage of it. More than ever I see how people are manipulated day to day through fear and lies and I just don't want to be part of it. There's a huge storm going on here and I'm just trying to find some shelter. I don't want to go off the grid and live like a nomad, I like this country, but I hate the people in power that are destroying it.

[ArcticFox]

Seems like things came to a screeching halt as far as progress goes, which means I must be working through something. But I'm noticing these down periods aren't as horrible as they used to be and instead of beating myself up about them I treat myself with more kindness. I've realized I have a bad habit of motivating myself through guilt, shame, and fear which just makes me feel worse.

Despite that I'm feeling more stable. My car was acting up and I took it to the mechanic thinking it was just a simple timing belt problem. Turns out a wheel bearing was shot too. The whole thing cost me 552, which is a large chunk of my money and I'm still not working at the moment. In the past this would have freaked me out and I would have been worrying about not having enough money, but I kind of have this feeling that everything is going to work out. Lately it seems like opportunities have been finding me and keeping me afloat, no doubt due to EHPRA. So I'm not perfectly calm, but I'm also not a nervous wreck like I usually am.

But I'm still not at that point of freedom that I want. I know things are still holding me back. I'm trying to break out of the system here in the U.S. I have the awareness, I just don't have the courage and lack of fear to take advantage of it. More than ever I see how people are manipulated day to day through fear and lies and I just don't want to be part of it. There's a huge storm going on here and I'm just trying to find some shelter. I don't want to go off the grid and live like a nomad, I like this country, but I hate the people in power that are destroying it.

From what I read online (e.g. zerohedge) the US really does sound like its getting quite bad, but then the UK is not much better.

I'm always hitting resistance in my EPRHA run, proper roller coaster. Really surprised myself last week, and not in a good way!

[mat422]

Seems like things came to a screeching halt as far as progress goes, which means I must be working through something. But I'm noticing these down periods aren't as horrible as they used to be and instead of beating myself up about them I treat myself with more kindness. I've realized I have a bad habit of motivating myself through guilt, shame, and fear which just makes me feel worse.

Despite that I'm feeling more stable. My car was acting up and I took it to the mechanic thinking it was just a simple timing belt problem. Turns out a wheel bearing was shot too. The whole thing cost me 552, which is a large chunk of my money and I'm still not working at the moment. In the past this would have freaked me out and I would have been worrying about not having enough money, but I kind of have this feeling that everything is going to work out. Lately it seems like opportunities have been finding me and keeping me afloat, no doubt due to EHPRA. So I'm not perfectly calm, but I'm also not a nervous wreck like I usually am.

But I'm still not at that point of freedom that I want. I know things are still holding me back. I'm trying to break out of the system here in the U.S. I have the awareness, I just don't have the courage and lack of fear to take advantage of it. More than ever I see how people are manipulated day to day through fear and lies and I just don't want to be part of it. There's a huge storm going on here and I'm just trying to find some shelter. I don't want to go off the grid and live like a nomad, I like this country, but I hate the people in power that are destroying it.

From what I read online (e.g. zerohedge) the US really does sound like its getting quite bad, but then the UK is not much better.

I'm always hitting resistance in my EPRHA run, proper roller coaster. Really surprised myself last week, and not in a good way!

Yeah, it all depends where you live in the US too. I'm in NY state and you need to make a decent amount of money here to maintain an ok standard of living. Everything is just so damn expensive.

Definitely. I honestly never can tell which way this sub is going to take me at times. Sometimes it's great, sometimes I feel like I've been thrown back into 2012 with all the issues that pop up.

---

Been kind of bummed these past few days. I can't get into a creative flow with my music. I think it's because I've still got money issues and I'm feeling suffocated. Even if I apply for jobs then do my music, I still can't relax because I don't feel safe. That's pretty much the bottom line. My survival is threatened and I'm not as able to tap into that high consciousness state where creativity flows from.

To be honest every time I listen to a famous artist I feel so envious. They can fully focus on their music, without worrying about the bills as much. It must feel so free being able to do that. I've also learned that my best work comes from me putting a little piece of myself in it, just being myself. But the nature of my anxiety makes that hard at times. I wish it wasn't the case, but my work is an extension of me like another limb. When somebody criticizes it or I show it to people, I feel it as a part of me. I've tried remaining objective about it, but it's hard to do and most of the time it just results in suppressing or trying not to feel a certain way. Which pours over into the creative process and then I censor myself too much and try to be something I'm not.

I do see a lot of potential in myself at times, but I have trouble tapping into it. I guess that's better than where I was a couple years ago thinking I was a complete waste of space. Through the years I never really nurtured my strengths, only emphasized my weaknesses which caused me to be very blind to any of my strengths.

I was originally intending to purchase EHPRA 2.0 but after getting slammed with that 552 car repair bill, I'm not sure if it would be wise for me to buy it. It's a bit of a gamble really. On one hand it could help me deal with the anxiety and solve my job problem. On the other hand I might be out money that could be used on food and bills. It seems like an amazing program, but so far even with the most powerful stuff change comes rather slow for me and with a lot of resistance.

[mat422]

Today I got some music done. But I really learned how difficult I make it for myself at times.

Arguably the most important thing when writing music is listening. If you don't listen carefully, you end up cluttering up your music with unnecessary stuff out of fear. And that's what I've been trying to get rid of. Because when I worry too much about things like my track being too simple, not complex enough, not being unique enough, etc. it just takes me away from the present moment and the ability to focus on the actual music in front of me.

Take away the fear and anxiety and I know I'd get so much more enjoyment out of music because I wouldn't be worried about all these stupid things that are just a product of fear.

[mat422]

I've been avoiding listening to EHPRA during the day. For now the emotional strain it puts on me makes it hard to accomplish anything during the day. I learned that the hard way. It's tempting to want to go full tilt and listen as much as possible but I've realized sometimes you just have to take it easy. I'm more productive and focused when I only keep it to 8 hours at night, for me more doesn't equal better.

That being said I notice that one of my biggest fears in life is never being happy. Just stuck in this rat race of life constantly struggling. Most of the time I push away this fear and I've learned that it's sort of like living in denial about it actually being there. When I listen to EHRPA it's like it rips it out from the deepest part of my mind and shows it to me, and it feels terrible. It feels like a combination of dread and hopelessness, something I thought I left behind from my earlier years of struggling with depression.

The thing is I've always been an all or nothing kind of guy. And you just can't do this with emotions. There's a certain limit and if you push beyond it, you're just making it harder for yourself. I failed to realize that and didn't listen to my body or mind to cut back on the subliminal. Breaking it up into smaller chunks over a longer period of time seems to be working better than trying to overcome all that emotional pain in one afternoon. It's tempting to want to go all out, but the problem is if you sink all that energy into overcoming something you don't have anything to spare for other tasks in life.