Findingme's E5 journal

[findingme]

March 14, 2023
2nd rest day

I'd not planned on writing tonight, and I'd not given much thought to why.  About 30 minutes ago I knew I wanted to write so I could expose the shame which was pushing me to hide.

I was showering, and I wondered why I don't put myself around more women.  I suddenly remembered being pinged by shame nearly every time.  I'd imagine a beautiful woman, see the vibrancy in her eyes.......and I'd feel my own shame.  This would halt anything ever moving from there. 

I want to write now, and despite my fear, the tears peaking out encourage me to write more.

Shame seems connected to everything in my life.  Well, I've lived in some very negative beliefs.  I sometimes feel like "I am shame".  Too much identifying with it, but it's ominously steered my life, promoting a negative belief about my life.  It's in my earliest memories.  It's like that internal ass-kicker, kicking my own ass.  And as I've grown older, life has become very small and very limited.  Few fun things happen or are sought out, new opportunities are routinely dismissed, and I'm seeing myself living in a self-made prison.  I'd not want to give my worst enemy this experience, honestly.  It's a very cruel experience.  

And it's still here, in me.  I'll go ahead and request Shannon empower E6 with more focus on GSF so we realize it's truly not that powerful.

Connected to memories and imaginations about women, I see fear and shame working hand in hand.  I'll sense shame around beautiful, loving women, and it yells to fear to keep everyone away.  Like my prior imagination, I sensed strong fear immediately when I felt shame.  Fear promoted anger, which overpowered shame, and suddenly I'm fighting for my life emotionally.  However, this battle's all in my head.  But my face would be saying "Get the F away from me!"  It doesn't foster safe and healthy relationships at all.

That's been how I've lived and what I've experienced.  But while writing that last paragraph, something within me had NO desire to think of myself as defeated.  Not even a thought of accepting defeat.  I imagined people reading this like it's a regular sap story, and I refused to accept this in me.  

E5 is working on why I hold back, why I isolate, why I sink smaller, and shame is often my why.  I mentioned earlier that it kept me from writing earlier, and damn, shame is my biggest writer's block.  It always has been.  But from many years in 12-step Al-Anon, AA, and other groups, I found sharing my shame helped me tremendously, so that's partly why I went to meetings for so long.  Even 5 minutes of freedom in one meeting would make my whole week seem easier.   And honestly, I know that's why I write here so often.  Telling my truth is infinitely easier than trying to dance around trying to ignore the shame I feel.  In 12 step meetings, it's obvious (giving very short answers, passing up a share when they're obviously troubled, not looking in people's eyes, etc).  In the forum, I have to just spit it out.  E5 is really helping me do that.

[findingme]

March 15, 2023
3rd rest day

I'm writing in defiance of the habitual shame which tried to keep me quiet this morning. I just feel good right now. Not ridiculously positivem living on cloud 9. I just felt safer to be me. I feel less inhibited, less restrained. Freer. Nice.

[findingme]

March 16, 2023
1st listening day

I'll admit shame and fear have kept me from writing.  Even seconds ago, I quickly found a reason to just hit the computer's power button to try to forget I wrote here.  I realized this, and didn't.

All I can safely say is it's the thinking of a very scared child.  Rather, a traumatized boy.  When I began E5, I felt young, and I even welcomed feelings and memories to surface.  Right now, I swear this child is running me, and being honest seems the most dangerous thing I could do.  For some reason, he (I) am living with that imagined terror.  But growing up both in and out of the home was a full-time job of hiding and pretending.  I feared abandonment and a powerful shame if the secret was exposed.   I learned to hide it from myself, which is why I returned to EHPRA.  

On an encouraging note, I did have elements of E5 pop up to spur me on recently.  Yesterday I felt a need to be responsible for myself---which isn't normal for me.  I kept looking for some feel-good escape in my mind, and I couldn't hang on to any which actually came up.  I even submitted to not escaping into something harmful since I also was aware of how I'd feel after.

And I'm writing here to hear my truth.  To be truthful to myself.  Even the thought or act of hiding makes any minute suffering 10 times worse.  That's why I write, why I share this.  

Lastly,  I'm feeling bad writing since my attention is on no one else here.  To explain what I mean, I'll share what happened today.  I jumped into some small dirty jobs since I felt useful and needed--I was excited since no one else wanted to do this.  In contrast, I have no connections here in this community, but fear in me has been quite constant since I've been here.  I've always sought a need to fill (not really healthy thinking, I'll admit), but...... I don't know where I'm going or who I am.  I keep looking for old patterns and templates I've used, but I feel out of my norm.  Not helpless.  In fact, me owning my shit would help me tremendously.  That would encourage the heck out of me. 

Today I even had this 15-minute imagination of me having a conversation with my subconscious.  I found him being VERY supportive and attentive.  I imagined me writing it out here, and that felt real good.  Just admitting the truths I'm always trying to hide was something that felt incredibly refreshing.

Out for now.

And wow.  Slowly, I am owning my stuff.  Small steps, but steps just the same.

[findingme]

March 17, 2023
2nd listening day

Shame is active. I've been online over half an hour, didn't plan on posting, but a part does. It feels like a young part of me doesn't believe the adult me can handle this--and I'm following a nudge (just like old days) to essentially seek someone else to step in and cover for me.

It's noone else's job, but damn, I've never admitted that so easily. That's my old habit. I still seek this at work too, and I've been aware of this recently. That's why I've been avoiding eye contact, well at least when the young part of me isn't feeling so fearful.

Gotta get up for work. All sorts of emotions are bubbling up.

[findingme]

March 18, 2023
3rd listening day

Considering I've been dealing with a lot of GSF lately, I spent some time in OGSF journals to see how guys were transitioning.  One positive thing stuck with me, and that was seeing how some are actively freeing themselves from long-held negative patterns and associations with people who brought them down.

Also for me, the need to step out of those patterns, however uncomfortable it was. 

I'm not fantasizing about jumping.  I just wished to be reminded that all the struggle to move out of self-created hell isn't in vain.  It helped me feel connected again.

I also had a different thinking this morning.  Normally when I consider growth, I'll have this lump in my throat along with a repressed anger.  I'll desire growth, but reminders of failure tag on to it, so major growth is not my aim most of the time. 

But this morning that fear and pain was not so prominent.  I considered who I am now and liked roaming through possibilities.  I honestly felt like I was thinking like an adult rather than a scared kid. 

So E5 definitely has some gold.  Seems like I should be looking for more.

[findingme]

March 18, 2023 (cont.)

Comparing myself to others hurts, mostly since I'm noticing a constant truth in me. 

I've been feeling some sadness today, and I believe I tasted some of that inner defeat since my old ways, some which I thought were good, aren't pointing me towards freedom.  I felt sad since I'm having to let some of them go.  Strangely enough, a part of me has great appreciation for what I'm experiencing--I always learned something true and powerful in my life when I've felt low.

Something just came to my awareness.  I stepped back into me being around 8 years old, mom wasn't working, and me and my brothers constantly combed our inner-city neighborhood for glass bottles to recycle (it was the late 1970's and they paid 25 cents for a bottle) and wood to burn in our fireplace.  No electricity or water in our home for many months.  

I felt guilty and responsible for this situation.  I did.  And I still do.  In present day, I find myself regularly picking up speed at work due to both the guilt and the fear of repeating this "personal failure".  ----and I just saw my connection: mom wasn't happy in this time, and I thought it was my fault.  She'd lost her job working for a college, and she coped by drinking heavily and coiling up in self pity and shame.  Unhealed pain seemed to dominate my mom's world, and I could only witness it.  It was close to a year our lights were out, and my reality preference was going to school.  Some kids were obviously loved, and some liked me, so school was my main reprieve from do-nothing survival at home.  

I wonder.  Some shame rises up here, but I wonder if my guilt is from me mentally escaping and leaving my brothers to fix this.  They did, and I actually played helpless to (manipulate) them to take up my responsibility.  F***.  Yep.  I did this.    

And that guilt has been hanging on me since I'm still using these survival strategies when under pressure.  That's one major fallback I'm not wanting to face.  I've been feeling some defeat in this "feel good, take no responsibility" mindset which I hide from everybody, myself included.  And part of me is afraid I can't handle it.  Or worse---I won't.  

So, F***!!!  What am I doing?  What am I avoiding?  What I wrote above.  Just that.  A little self-forgiveness feels needed here.  (Thank you for putting self-forgiveness in the script Shannon.)  Gonna breathe now. And rest.

[findingme]

March 19, 2023
1st rest day

I'm feeling both torn to feel/admit my truths to myself along with a scared part of me seeking some hideout from it.  E5 is unsettling me.  It's seeking resolution. 

I realized early on in the day that my latter admission yesterday IS what's causing me pain.  I've buried it forever.  But as I've grown on E5, this "useless" truth is one major hangup to actually growing up.  I admitted I've hid behind my brother's efforts while I essentially weaselled out of responsiblity.  And yes, I still eye some males in my life with an intent to hide behind their efforts, to let them be the "responsible" ones.  I find no pride or courage in that stance; it just feels wrong to me.

Very simply, I'm trying to be and stay irresponsible.  And that has made me feel pained.  Avoiding responsibility means I stay in a child's mentality.  It means I don't change.  And that hurts me as I look forward, like I'm driving forward mashing my foot on the brake due to all-imagined terrors.  

I found some hope in my day today, and I've got to give the sub credit.  I began making and cooking a meal last night, and it was late.  Last night, and all through today, I've faced the choice of cleaning behind myself--or not.  But not doing so had me feel like I was running from responsibility again.  So I've not left anything behind--at all--either last night or today.  It seems like my smaller choices may guide my bigger choices, and that feels right.

Almost my whole life I've hid behind others so they'd bear the most weight in a mistake.  it was familiar and safer for me, so I thought it was good for me.  E5 is making me consistently aware how playing safe like this keeps me in a very uncomfortable spot since I'm over 50......and living in a painful past always keeps me in some old memories and past realities.  I'm not 8, 10, or 13, and I'll never be again. 

Yeah, i just did it while reading this.  I blanked out attempting to not feel the pain (and grief) coming on.  Like it's been my life's goals to avoid such pain.  The EHPRA series is quite an underrated lifesaver.  It works.  It's making me want to work with it.  And that's why I wrote this out today.

[findingme]

March 21, 2023
3rd rest day

It might be Universal Detox. 

Something powerful has been building in me.  I barely know how to describe it.  All I know is I'm being affected by it.  I've not had a compulsion to keep writing lately, and I know why.  I keep looking for some recognizable and acceptable mold to comply with.  However, in every way I've done life pre-E5, I've been willing to accept non-truths just to fall in line and be acceptable.  And something (likely UD) is not accepting this old practice. 

I barely want to write.  More writing equals me vying and fighting for other's acceptance.  And it's all based on "if I do this, say this, perform for you, will you love me?" 

Yesterday, I was working with a driver and he had a radio station playing upbeat, encouraging music.  I began allowing myself to be really soft, and I began getting weepy.  Not loud, and not noticeable.  But minutes later we went to a gas station for lunch.  Like E2 experiences, I realized the image, the me I presented to everyone else, was all a front and a lie.  I didn't sob, but my heart was on my sleeve.

This is what I've been waiting for.  The inability to bullshit myself.  That's what I desire.

[findingme]

March 22, 2023
1st listening day

Hey guys,

I'm feeling scared right now, and I'm writing about it since ...... damn...... I don't have an answer not tied to fear.

Something broke through last night.  Like a part of me senses I'm heading toward some major shift in life.  My life.  Me hiding behind fronts seems secondary at the moment.  I've already had imaginations of me crying while driving for work today.  All our work vehicles have drive cameras to record us and other drivers in an accident, but I've had 2 situations where I was let known they were watching, and both times I was parked.  If I cry, this is good.  I cried some yesterday while driving.  I allowed songs to make me soft.

And now, while I sit, some fear and emotion is wanting to get out.  Fear is a result of the emotion wanting to get out.  This feels like a big journey I'm on

However, it's completely new and unscripted.  I keep looking for familar things, and each time I realize I'm looking to hide.  Fears are still running me. 
And hope is felt right in the middle of this confusion, and that gives me some courage.  I was late to work yesterday and before, and I looked at this, and work's been where I practiced keeping shields up.  I just don't want to live like that anymore.

[findingme]

March 22, 2023 (cont.)

I've been adamantly avoiding and resenting dealing with my present, so I'm writing to get some out of my head. My head never stops, good or bad, but the fear working through this latest uncovering is trying HARD to keep me from change. And that little writing popped me out of "unreality".

I'm trying to focus on what is true since fears warp my reality constantly. Things needing done are either quietly dismissed, or the opposite happens, where a panic and a frenzy pop up, filling me with fear and nothing else. Little or no sanity (as in "sense") seems to occupy my thoughts. It's literally ALLLLL!!!!!! and tunnel vision takes over with excessive aggression or "nothing" where timid thoughts steer me, and I feel helpless.

I called out this morning, a first in over a year. I couldn't/wouldn't/didn't want to feel the pain of living behind shields, and calling out was a choice, not a need. Slept in, going to do laundry now, and am going to visit a possible new landlord later. My norm of avoiding changes is definitely challenged. And this is just a part of the journey.


I'll admit this. I touched on the relational part here when I was writing. I've been feeling so low about me and my heart's choices, so I've very often kept myself out of relationships. I've thought "who would want to know me with all the lying I've lived behind?" That belief is being worked on and....challenged. I'll go out and see what I face.

[findingme]

March 23, 2023
2nd listening day

I'm listening to hybrid trickling stream since I realized fear is steering me right and left. I'm almost finished with the 3rd loop, and I'll see how it affects me more tomorrow.

For now, I'm getting sleepy. I've also felt like some fear chains are loosening.

Also since over a month ago, I've been listening while sleeping. My listening times usually start in the PM and go into the very early morning hours. For example, yesterday's loops started on March 21st in the PM. So when I wrote (the 22nd), I said it was listening day 1. My point in saying this scheduling is it's messing with my head.

I just realized my original issue and why I've been using masked. My refurbished PC I bought over a year ago has some defective part (a motor of some sort) which starts buzzing after a few hours, so I've been listening to masked on my phone. I always enjoyed ultrasonic, but listening from my phone speaker (a Galaxy) causes some earaches even at reasonable volumes, so I've been using masked.

I bought a "renewed" computer off of Amazon an hour ago since I'd like to listen to ultra or hybrid on my PC speakers, as I've never had earaches using them. I'm not having any trouble here while listening to hybrid, and hybrid has always worked well with me.

My main reason for using hybrid now: fears seem to be growing more, and I'm seeking a little more power. So, I skipped to hybrid. I remember some very positive times and experiences using hybrid (UD and LTU5). LTU5 on hybrid essentially rescued me in 2019. On my first day of vacation, I arrived in KY where my ex lived, and I learned within the first hour there that my mom had died back home. I shared this in my journal, and Shannon seriously advised me to do more loops. I did, and I found myself having a lot of joy around my ex and my daughter. I did a LOT of laughing with them while up there. Yeah, running a lot of hybrid loops while under serious stress literally rescued me.

[findingme]

March 24, 2023
3rd listening day

Simply put, it's working.  I have been whittling down what and how I've wanted to say it, while constantly feeling guarded.  No.  Not guarded.  I felt afraid. 

I'd thought E5 was finding a threshold it couldn't pass.  But every time I found myself sitting in fear (which was often), I grew disappointed.  I was seeing myself choosing old hideouts constantly.  I've not even cried in about 3 days (which is a long spell running E5, for me). 

Know what's strange?  As old parts of me desire my old reality (which is all fantasy and fear), I actually chose to start hybrid yesterday because it works.  And today, the first thing I did when I got home was turn on my computer and start my loops.  As my day at work wore on, I knew I wanted to feel safe and stable once again, and my heart and mind kept going back to listening to loops alone.  Being good to myself.  I know tooooooo well how to not love myself.  This feels better.  I deserve to love myself.  Listening to hybrid loops now. 

Rest days start tomorrow.

[findingme]

March 25, 2023
1st rest day

First rest days often bring some inner turbulance, and today brought up stuff.  Nothing loud and traumatic.  More like a steady uncomfortableness along with roaming thoughts seeking some sense.

My biggest truth that popped up happened while I was at work alone.  As time has gone on using E5, I've attempted to lower my guard some when it seems like it's a possibility, if only for minutes.  I felt slightly tender and made use of my anxiety at work putting in some physical labor.  I enjoy my job for that reason, as it's an outlet.

Workers were returning to the yard midday (Saturday is only a half-day), and I began imagining talking and joking with a few.  A strange mix of feelings rose in me, and in my mind I was suddenly with my brother when young.  What became very obvious, very quickly, was a truth I'd never owned.

I realized whenever I'm in a relationship with a person, I take responsiblity for their comfort and happiness.  With guys, that's pretty uncomfortable since the vast majority of males seek to make their own happiness and be independent, and my approach is very similar to a coddling, codependent soul seeking peace by being on the same page continuously.  In short, if I take responsiblity for your happiness, that leaves you with no responsiblity and no way to see me as an equal.  F***ed up.  And guys in general don't want that. I wouldn't.

I'm going to leave what I wrote for now.  I'm unsure if I was clear.

My reason: I was raised by an unhappy alcoholic mom who I learned to do this with.  She never gave me feedback or correction, so I never learned "this doesn't work in real life".  I have blamed myself for her perpetual unhappiness my whole life, even though I buried it.  However, my guilt has been surfacing with E5.  This subtle but powerful belief has been untested and unresolved, and I thank my rule 4 character it's finally being worked on. 

Associated with this has been a belief that I was "good" if I succeeded in making her (and now others) happy--but "bad" if I failed.  I've been "bad" (or unlovable) in my self-beliefs since childhood.  I've even imagined failing often before going deeper with any relationship.  That's a major reason I don't try to build friendships or romantic relationships.  (I could stop there, because that's been my life norm).  Digging deeper, I remember the pain of "not succeeding", and for a long time I've submitted to this.  I only guarded myself by not trying to succeed in real life, as trying and failing pointed back to childhood beliefs I repeatedly attempted to bury.  No wonder I've accepted such low goals in real life.

Sidenote: I remember gaining some hope of succeeding while on LTU5.  It has USLM, and this really was an exciting blend combined with my negative self-beliefs.  I'd love to see how even a small bit of USLM would affect EPHRA.

Those errant beliefs: fueled by fear and confusion.  I'm grateful E5 is kicking this up.  Cuz ignored pain never really goes away.

[findingme]

March 26, 2023
2nd rest day

I know others may think this at times on subliminals, and it's hitting me today. I'm wondering "are there things I can do to help the subliminal along?" I realized I'm receiving impulses, but I'm also aware I often ignore them.

I remember writing about this weeks back. I'm finishing here because I have to get out of here. You know, "blah blah, blah blah, and blah blah blah blah.

I'm out.