Overcoming Social Anxiety/Love and Appreciate Yourself - Journal of Jay

[Jay]

Tried those a few years back, but didn't do anything for me. But thanks for suggesting it nonetheless.

[ronatello]

perhaps I was expecting her to be more supportive of my decisions (taking a break from school, using subs, reading up on alternative books, conducting small social experiments, getting myself sorted out in my own way) but for the most part she has only been giving me criticism, and she acts like I’m some idiot throwing my life away.

It's funny when one seeks to improve oneself, others like to keep you in place. It's a combination of a control / sh*t test thing going on. And by being less reactive, you're pretty much thwarting her caustic comments. It's kinda like the bully. Ignore the bully and he will go away.

[Spiral]

What I find myself doing now is bullying back people who bully me. Such as "come backs" or something of the nature. I'm getting much better with those. When I come up with them I just say that shit like in your face f**k off kind of thing. Thats the type of vibe it gives out and I leave with a smile on my face lol. If I can't think of anything I just chuckle and say yea ok. That gives off the vibe of "you are retarted." Of course find it easier now to let go of the ego and not let it interfere in my interactoins. This is an on going process.

[Jay]

Lol, has AM some sort of anti-gaming protocol built in? Haven't gamed a lot the last few months (used to be an avid gamer, this definitely changed after starting using subs), but felt like starting up Borderlands and after playing it for about 30 minutes I started feeling really terrible, similar to what I've experienced with my first run of Alpha Male. After 5-10 minutes it cleared up again.

Continuing on ignoring my sister btw, although the word ignoring implies putting energy behind it. The funny thing is that I do it without any effort. Didn't think it would be this easy.

[Jay]

Even though this isn’t particularly sub related, I do see this as a major setback towards the progress I made. I think I’ve lost my spiritual connection (even though I wasn’t really aware I had one). The insights and theories I gained for the past few years have lost its intuitive notion. Even though I know them theoretically, I can’t apply them anymore because I don’t know how to anymore. And to be honest, nothing makes much sense any more, everything I say and do is off, everything I used daily to keep myself positive and rational have taken a backseat. I’ve been spending the last few days getting back at where I was, re-tracing my past sources I used to gain certain insights and writing them down, using #3 of the meditation set for grounding and some other frequency programs and I’m slowly but surely starting to see progress, but it’s going to take a while before I’m starting to feel as controlled and reserved about my emotions as I was before, let alone being able to continue where I left off.

The past few days I’ve been very susceptible to anger, the warm burning sensation I had in my chest was replaced with coldness and it really seemed that something was missing there. Accompanied with feeling weakness in my elbows (hard to describe) and stabbing pain in my lungs and lower back pain. All that was rational was replaced by emotional thinking. It was like dunking your brain into a vat of thick, muddy water. I’m glad that I'm much calmer now. Since a few hours my chest doesn’t have that cold sensation anymore.

This happened after I had a pretty serious fight with my mother; I still live at home, and my mother has a tendency to get in my room and move or get rid of things of mine without my consent. I already told her for the umpteenth time that she has no ****ing business there and have had numerous other fights over this previously. Yet again, I found something of mine that she threw in the trash and as I confronted her and asked her why she did it she became mad (literally) and started with the same barrage of going through the house screaming how wonderful I was, and how many things I did right in my life, this for over an hour. Even though I haven’t had any fights with her for a long time, I did notice I could handle her remarks and distance myself emotionally against her pretty effectively at first and continued on with my business. But after an hour of hearing her throughout the house something in me snapped, she had built up too much anxiety/stress in me.

I’ve never felt so much built up rage inside of me, and I completely screamed my lungs out about why she had the ****ing idea why she could touch my stuff in the first place (along with a few other things). I still had control over myself, but I could see that she was afraid of me since she winced back and shutted up. This was a first, and I’m pretty sure that she isn’t going to touch my stuff ever again. My throat however has been sore for two days. In the aftermath it only left me with serious bouts of anxiety, depression, feeling empty and miserable, along with the things described above. It's great building yourself up, so that someone else can tear it down again. :@ ****ing Pyrrhic victory.

I also had a serious breakthrough the day before this all happened; I confronted the daughter of my neighbors after she had parked her car at our driveway, my mother asked her why she would do such a thing (since it’s pretty weird) and she started yelling at her that my car was blocking their driveway. I already had an agreement with the neighbor (even though it’s a public parking place) that I wouldn’t block his pathway along with his driveway and I always make sure that they have enough room. After my mother told me what happened I immediately headed towards them (something I wouldn’t have dreamed off, since I pretty much have avoided conflict for the majority of my life) wanting to know what the hell was going on since I had parked my car as good as possible.

The daughter immediately came storming out of the house after she saw me (she was pretty emotional), and started apologizing for her behavior. Turns out that she wasn’t that secure in her driving and she saw my car as an obstacle even though she had all the room in the world to park her car (she was mad at herself since she didn't trust herself enough, and since I was the "cause" of her "problem" she thought it was wise to park the car on our driveway). I was so incredibly calm and confident the whole time, and told her there was no problem and just heard her out, I only wanted to know if there was a problem with the arrangement we had. After we briefly talked it through she parked her car where it belonged. I was really amazed that I was able to take action on this, because a year or perhaps a few months ago I would've cowered and did nothing about it. I hope to get at this level soon again.

[ronatello]

A setback? I wouldn't think so. You stood up for yourself and you did NOT back down. If anything you have made great progress and are still making progress.

[Jay]

I’m currently undergoing a crash course in spirituality, which is basically practicing stillness and accepting my current position, and see what questions/answers/garbage comes drifting up along with exposing myself to as many familiar concepts as possible. But I do realize that it’s something that takes a lot of time. Like I already mentioned in my previous post it also means re-tracing the steps I used to have a spiritual connection for the first time, but it goes way back and it’s easy to overlook something. I think I’ve localized the binding thought that brings it all together, but there is something still missing. It comes and goes. It doesn’t gain any momentum.

Over the past year I’ve also undeliberately built a concept in my mind which I used to distance myself from my emotions and it’s pretty unwelcoming that it’s no longer there, the bits and pieces are still floating around and I’m jotting them down but the binding intuitive mechanism that was used to gain insight in most situations isn’t there. It just draws a blank now. Along with all the Alpha, spiritual, gratitude and self help theory, rational/emotional thinking. I also had a pretty good sense of who I was and what I stood for, and I was still busy deciphering the past in a more constructive way to be done with that once and for all. For the most part all those concepts stopped making sense, how weird this may sound.
What I noticed so far is that the things I’m relearning miss that intuitive click. It has already been addressed, so the novelty of that thought or concept has somewhat died down. I had the same experience when I stopped smoking, I already knew the information so I looked for sources that basically told the same thing, but in a different way. Some things do resonate with me, but where it used to resonate on the surface, it feels it’s a mile away now. I’m also noticing that I’m more prone to victim thinking, like “someone should help me”, or “I can’t do this”, “I don’t enough time” etc. Luckily I still do have the triggers that identify those thoughts, it just hard distancing myself from them.

My self-confidence and self-worth also seems to have taken a serious plunge, it’s really hard for me to find any positive traits about myself. I do practice it but with effort. My mind also still feels a bit muddy, low energy, low frequency. I really believe that this was how I felt before I started working on myself. What seems contradictory is that I don't have much social anxiety. It doesn't make sense.

Even though this may seem strange, whenever I’m listening to the AM program, it seems flat now. Like I better could put up stage 2, I’m not going to do that, but it’s just what I’m thinking.

[Jay]

Even though I’m not completely sure, I think I’ve experienced selective amnesia or stress induced amnesia. It really feels like a small portion of my mind was wiped out in a Paycheck (movie) kind of way. Even though the main thought that kept it together is gone, I still do have notions of the corresponding thoughts or concepts that went with it, about 4 pages of keywords, guidelines and small explanations, perhaps more. This will be my last post regarding this subject, since it isn’t subliminal related.

I personally will only continue on cultivating an ‘attitude of gratitude’, inner wisdom, how to be an alpha, depression/social anxiety related and getting a better sense of who I am for the coming 2-3 months. And I hope that I’ll be ready when the next semester of school starts. I’m also thinking about extending the period of the first stage to 40 days (but keeping the other stages 32 days) since I have the feeling that I now have some catching up to do.

In my experience I do believe that Shannon has put some chakra opening affirmations in AM, after reading about the symptoms it came across as rather familiar. Perhaps it’s the driving force behind clearing up the garbage programming in stage 1 and 2. Anyways it’s only speculation.

[Jay]

I think the worst of this rut is over now, I’m noticing that the subliminals are taking hold again. The effects are in most cases subtle, but overall I’m becoming more positive and more focused. For the last three days I’m also using a couple of mirror affirmations regarding self confidence, self worth and gaining a sense of purpose again and to see every situation as a learning experience, and I’m noticing more progress than the previous days. The most notable effects from the subliminals are experiencing a lot of activity around my chest and head. Personally I think it’s (re-)opening my crown and heart chakra, but I wonder what Shannon has to say about that. I noticed cold jabs along with a compressed warm sensation in my chest, this sensation has stopped since two days and has been replaced with a feeling of neutrality and in some cases a sense of calmness. What I’m particularly noticing in my head is a tingling sensation, and something else but it's pretty hard to describe. Practicing gratitude when you're feeling like ****, not recommended. It only makes you more aggravated and points towards lack. Will practice this again, when the time is ready for it. Otherwise it helps to set an even better mood.

Still have issues dealing with self-confidence and self worth in public places and social situations, it varies throughout the day, I think this is caused by still being affected by what other people may think of me, along with comparing myself with others, but I’m slowly starting to notice I’m more capable of distancing myself from this again. In the previous days I have also been pretty angry at my mother for putting me into this rut, but have come to the realization that it wasn’t her behavior that put me here, it was my reaction towards it. I did stood up for myself (Thanks for reminding me, Ronatello), and I was in my right for speaking my mind. Her going on a temper tantrum was only her inability to cope with the situation, and I didn't had any reason to take it personal and lose my control over this. I also could go on and continue blaming her, but it only would get me stuck; Even if she had the ability to feel guilt for what she had done, it wouldn’t have solved a thing.

A couple days ago it felt like my sense of self worth was back at where it was about 3-4 years, this became clear when I noticed that my motor functions seemed stiff and awkward in public places and that I had become self conscious again. It wasn’t nice to going from feeling self-assured, confident about my decisions, having good eye contact and being content with myself and my appearance to feeling scared, anxious, not knowing how to present and wanting to hide myself.

What particularly annoyed me was that whenever I had the notion that someone was looking at me, I immediately began questioning myself, and stopped thinking calmly about my decisions and immediately started thinking negatively about myself. if I wanted to grab something in the supermarket or at a gas station I instantly started thinking that they thought that I was doing it wrong or choosing the wrong things, and actually chose some wrong things for myself because I chose their silly opinions over my own, which I later on used to belittle myself some more. Great downward spiral you have there, chief.

Even though I jotted a lot of things down that I forgot, it was pretty exhilarating to remember things again in a lot of “A-ha! Oh yeah now I remember again” moments, for the past week my mind was a brick, but it was easily forgotten again. Everything I read, remembered, listened to or watched was forgotten in a couple of hours, a couple of things do stick but not much. I’ll just have things come to me when I’m ready, instead of trying to remember everything in a sense of desperation. It also surprised me that when I’m thinking of my past it seems less alive, like somebody turned down the contrast. Also learning moments in past relationships are gone, along with my reasons for stopping smoking... (not that I'm gonna start again, but it was nice knowing that you have the knowledge to quit effectively).

I’m glad to have a small sense of intuition again, being able to read into social situations a little bit better, and that it doesn’t take that long to recover from this. I’m still doubting about using Stage 1 for 40 days, but will decide in two days since I’m currently on day 30.

[Jay]

Making the switch to Stage 2.

[Spiral]

So you decided to do 32 days? That good because it is what's suggested. If you can't help it though like my case.. I'm doing stage 2 an extra 2 weeks since last week on my trip I only got 15 hours of exposure.

[Jay]

Yeah, 32 days it is. This was already my second run with the first Stage of the AM, and even though I'm still not where I was a few weeks ago, I think that the normalizing process should be complete by now. I'm still having bouts of anxiety and self doubt, but I do notice an underlying positive sense underneath which wasn't there before, and it's only going to be a matter of time when I get back where I was, whether I would continue to listen to the first stage of AM or not.

If I still have a lot of negative self-talk in a week or so I'll add Love and Appreciate Yourself to the mix (2xAM 1xLAY). But rather not of course.

Doing twice the time that you've missed is also suggested, so I hope your little interval doesn't tend to bring up any old habits. Even though you didn't stop using AM, did you notice a surge of effects in that week? A few times I noticed that the effects of a sub were amplified whenever I stopped using it.

On a side note for whoever is reading; If you haven't seen the movie Revolver, go see it. It's a bit flawed, but it should be an interesting viewing since it gives some nice insights regarding ego (and letting go of outcome). Watched it few years ago, helped me with seeing things more as it is, instead of just good and bad, got remembered of it today as part of my refresher course. Do watch the extended version though (hint: bluelady).

[Spiral]

Yes, I posted a little about it in my journal. As for you I would have just made sure to get plenty of exposure.. I'm not sure running through the first stage of AM twice was necessary.

I did notice however I was thinking a little too much in the moment. I noticed that after starting it back up again with the normal hours things are just relatively the same except there is still some anxiety going on. I must say my neediness issue was a huge issue in times past but now I can actually feel this slipping away as I continue the set. I am so happy about this. Everything is pretty damn good right now.. I just need to be patient (less needy) for the results. I'm sure stage 2 and 3 will clear this up and by the time I'm done with the whole six stage set it won't exist anymore.

[Benjamin]

Yes Revolver was a cool movie. It would go over the head of most people, but i'm sure you guys would appreciate it.

Jason Stratham is one of my favourite actors. Crank was awesome. And he was the best character on the expendables.

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Talking about anxiety. I'm noticing a bit of that too, but interestingly it doesn't matter too much and isn't stopping me from doing stuff as much as it used to.