LTU 5 yeah, I did it too.

[Paul1131]

Ok, so I pulled the trigger on LTU5 yesterday, and I’m currently on loop three of my second set.  I listened to my first while I was sleeping last night through bedphones, and I’m listening through standard apple corded earbuds at work now.  
I don’t have a whole lot to report yet.  I can tell something s going on, but its hard to put my finger on at this point.  I felt really good when I woke up this morning.  Usually I wake up slowly and have some pretty severe aches and pains.  I had none of that this morning.  I got out of bed and got right on doing what I’d planned on doing today.  I had a very productive day, Andy then felt some odd physical sensations while I was going to sleep for my pre work nap (switching from days off to working nights).  I was thinking of something that might cause me an emotional reaction and felt an odd feeling in my chest and down the center of my body.  There was kind of a sense of the wall I keep my emotions behind thinning.
I am running my loops while awake this week just to see what I feel while it’s running.  So far, it’s real smooth and mellow.

[Benjamin]

Interesting reactions. Sounds like a good start, especially waking up without the aches and pains.

[Paul1131]

If today is anything to judge from, it’s got the productivity push that USLM2 did, but it doesn’t feel as frantic about it.

[Paul1131]

Currently in the middle of my third day’s loops. So far I have noticed:

- I woke up faster, feeling a lot better emotionally, less sluggish, and more motivated than I have in a long time.  

-  I woke up both days without the aches and pains that I had been accustomed to for a long time.

-  Both day’s I got up and got right on the things I had been planning to do.

- when I am getting ready for work, I usually have a moment where I have a hitting the wall feeling.  You know where I REALLY don’t want to go.  This doesn’t make much sense with my current job, there’s nothing seriously unpleasant about it.  It’s more of a holdover from working in a prison for years.  Anyway, I had my usual thought of “I don’t want to” but then I realized that the feeling that I had to drag myself through a wall of dread was entirely absent this evening.

-  For many years, I think since I was a kid, I have had an annoying twitch in some part of my body.  It’s moved around, but for the last few years it’s been a tightening of my an muscles.  This isn’t an involuntary movement, but it’s a strong compulsion which is especially bad when I’m stressed.  I often have this problem when I drive to and from work.  I realized halfway to work that that was gone.  It did happen once after that, but just once and it was light. The USLMs did a lot for me, but they didn’t even touch this.

-  My wife was very angry and critical of me when she got home.  I stayed outwardly calm and felt much less anger than usual.

-  I felt compelled to bring fresh fruit for my work snack instead of junk food.

-  Toward the end of my loops last night, everything felt kind of surreal and dream like.  Not in an unpleasant way, I just felt a bit detached from reality and just floating and watching.  It was a relaxing feeling.

-  While running loops I felt some Chi moving out from my body especially around my head.  I know how to make an auric shield consciously, so I recognize this.  Felt much more solid than what I can do without a lot of concentration.  (I’m rusty)

Not bad for two days in.
-

[geotrouvetout]

 -  While running loops I felt some Chi moving out from my body especially around my head.  I know how to make an auric shield consciously, so I recognize this.  Felt much more solid than what I can do without a lot of concentration.  (I’m rusty)

I feel also sometimes a kind of energy in my head when I listen to LTU 5 but it is not a good feeling. It is not painful though.

[Paul1131]

I’m on my first night off after my first four days. I’ve continued to wake up feeling better than I did before and am getting out of bed faster each day.

- I have a couple of things that I plan to do each day, and I do them. Today one of them was pretty ambitious, but the task seemed easy, and I got it done much faster than I thought I could. This feels a lot less forced than it did on USLM2.

- I continue to take fresh fruit for my work snack rather than junk food, and today I chose sparkeling water over soda both with dinner and to take to work. Both of these things seemed perfectly natural and don’t seem like a big decision. I am drinking a LOT of sparkling water, more liquid than I’ve chosen to drink in a day for a long time.

- I ran into one of the line level supervisors at work who is the type who likes to make others look and feel stupid to build himself up. It’s hard to describe, but every time I talk to this guy I can sense that he’s looking for something to get on me about. He rarely finds anything legitimate, so he often makes up rules that don’t exist to get on me and others about. It didn’t bother me much before because I’m one of the more competent people here and in order to actually do I do anything, he’d have to tell his supervisor what rule I violated. Since I didn’t, I’m fine, he’s just a bit annoying. Today we had a normal conversation and I had no sense of that at all.

- I am less tired from working nights. Many days I used to feel like I was falling asleep. That doesn’t happen since starting LTU.

-

[Paul1131]

I’m getting kind of an odd effect. I don’t usually remember dreams, in fact every dream I recall in the last six months is documented in my USLM journal. It’s not many, and even that is an unusually high number due to the sub. I haven’t remembered a full dream yet on LTU, but every night I have one or two snapshot memories from my dreams. These things are either a single image or just a few seconds of dream. The odd thing is that it’s all perfectly normal stuff.. I remember an image of someone I know standing there, and a few seconds of discussing something to do with my telescope with our roommate. All stuff that could actually happen. Usually my dreams are weird.

Other than that I had another day of getting right out of bed and getting stuff done. I notice that I still start to get stressed about stuff, but now I’m able to think my way out of it within a few seconds. My nervous twitch is still gone, and I still wake up feeling good every morning.

[Paul1131]

We went to WallMart today. It was crowded. This usually causes me to be so hyper vigilant and parinoid that I have a really miserable time and manage to make my wife miserable at the same time. I was still vigilant, but this time I was a lot calmer about it. I still don’t like crowded shopping areas, but it’s a lot more normal dislike than it was, and causes a lot less stress and exhaustion.
I start my second set of four days tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing what that has in store.

[Paul1131]

I’m currently listening to day three of my second set, and I’ve forgotten to mention something.  There was absolutely no lessening of the effects during my days off.  That twitch that I mentioned didn’t come back at all and neither did the aches and pains.  I’ve read that some people are having that happen, and I did on USLM so I kind of put it down to having been on USLM for so long before starting LTU.  
I had a really productive weekend.  I got two problem areas of the house cleaned.  I haven’t had this much focus since USLM 2, but this doesn’t feel like I’m going to work myself to death.  Today I applied for two jobs.  I have been really hesitant to apply for this type of job since I have failed the OJT for them twice in the past, but it’s what I really want to do.  I was able to get through what I now reciognize as fear, not being sensible enough to actually apply.  That’s forward progress.
I have also noticed:

-  I read in someone else’s journal that they were grinding their teeth.  That made me think about it, and I’m doing that a lot less than I used to.  I think I still do it when I’m actively angry,but not nearly as much.

-  I had waves of anger randomly surface today.  I hadn’t thought about it much, but where that used to be a multiple times a day occurrence, this was the first time in a while.

-  I seem to be smiling a lot more, and a lot more genuinely.

-  I feel better and happier in general.

-  I have almost completely replaced soda and energy drinks with sparkling water, and I am drinking a LOT of it.  This was causing me quite a bit of discomfort at work last week.  I have to have someone give me a break.  This week I seem to be getting more used to it.  

-  I used to have frequent horrible indigestion.  That’s stopped.  I don’t know if that’s from diet change, less stress or what, but I feel better.

[Paul1131]

I’m on the first day of my second break.  I have to say that this one is hitting some real deep issues that I have been living with for so long that I didn’t even realize were issues, or at least didn’t think about that often.  I dare say I am becoming more mentally healthy by the day, and it really feels good.  It’s not that I was a mental mess before, at least not outwardly, but a lot of the time I was holding things together by force of will and discipline.  Now I seem to be heading into a genuinely calmer place.  
New things I’ve noticed since my last post:
-  I have certain, call them, lines of thought which come over me and throw me into a very angry state.  Some of the things I think about have to do with things that happened to me as a kid, some have to do with conflicts that I’ve never been in but I suppose might, and some are just things that really tick me off.  It’s weird, for a few seconds anyway, I’m “there” and I’m just as angry as I would be if I were really experiencingthe thing.  It’s kind of like how a PTSD flashback has been described to me by some veterans I know.  I show outward signs like odd body movements and facial expressions, and I can tell it’s happening because I clench my teeth in a certain way.   This has been happening since I was a kid.  
Well, suddenly, today I realized I have some control over it.  Before I was too far in it to stop it.  It started to happen a few times today, and I just said no, unclenched my jaw, and the negative emotions drained away in a few seconds.  This is a pretty big breakthrough.
-  I wanted to write fiction when I was in high school and college.  I made some tries at it back then, some of them were pretty good starts, but I lacked follow through so nothing ever came of it.  I haven’t even tried in the last decade or so.  I’ve had stories and chericters in my head, just never sat down at a keyboard to try to let them out.  Today, I started to have a coherent (much more coherent than before) plan for a story I’ve tried to write before forming, and a sense that I’m going to sit down and write it.  
-  I am now thinking of my main goals as if I already have them.  It’s just a matter of time before they become a physical reality, and all doubt in the matter is gone.  
-  I am really getting active on finding the type of job I want.  Fear was holding me back before, not so much now.
-  I think I’m starting to loose weight.  My pants are fitting looser anyway.

[ncbeareatingman]

" Yeah I did.too" - as in NO you didnt? yeah I did too" or "Yes I too,bought and am now utilizing,LTU 5? ? ? or both? none of thee abouve?

[Paul1131]

I originally meant it as “yes, I bought it as well”. But I guess all of those work. Heck of a ride so far.

[Paul1131]

Weird dream. I was in a car with some other people. I don’t remember who they were or if it was anyone I actually know. I don’t recall if I was driving or a passenger. This other car full of guys pulled along side us and started insulting us (i think it was directed at one of the other people in my car mostly) and threatening to kill us. They were swerving over and trying to run us over. I leaned out of the car while it was at speed, grabbed the guy who seemed to be leading it threw him out of the car and into the traffic behind us. Then I climbed into their car (I certainly hope someone grabbed the wheel in ours. Said something like “Anybody else want to say anything?” And I guess I climbed back into my car.
When I got home, I found out that someone had taken a video of the whole thing and it had gone viral. I got a lot of support from people who were against “bullying” but I was also getting hate and death threats because the guy had been a member of some group (I don’t recall if it was his race, or if he was a member of some organization or what). I found that someone had fired three rounds into my house because of this and decided that I needed to start carrying a gun. I was putting it (this is not THAT abnormal for me) in a holster and on my hip when my roommate woke me. I was concerned what the publicity would do to my job search, and thought my wife would be pissed when she got home too. Any thoughts on this one anybody?

[Shannon]

Exploring the consequences of being fearlessly aggressive. Fantasy of what you want to do, which still has consequences. You obviously don't have to go that far IRL to accomplish your goals.