DARWIN LTU-6

[Darwin]

An interesting thing that keeps coming up for me is meeting with fears and being able to find a rational, acceptable way through. A huge fear of mine is being judged negatively at work, it's so bad i'm often silent in meetings, and when I do speak - despite often being 'the only person in the room who knows what they're talking about and who everyone needs to listen to' (recent feedback I received from a very senior person) I speak in a way which undermines others confidence in me.

I constantly apologise, belittle and negate myself in the work place and its exhausting. Recently though I had a crazy challenge where I had to produce some work at short notice; instead of my normal fear based procrastination I decided that my primary goal was to work with some self respect, to not apologise and to be ok with myself even if it does get f'd up. Instead of my normal routine of working late nights, pushing everything to the last minute and then sending something with a tonne of apologies for its insufficiency I consciously put all that nonsense to one side and told myself it's better to f up and have some self respect than to burn yourself like this. This allowed me to grapple hard, take breaks when I needed and send what i'd done with the comfort of knowing i'd done what I could - it suffices to say it was received with a lot of respect and plaudits.

After I sent it I had a well deserved rest and chilled tf out.

[London1]

Whats your listening setup?

[Darwin]

I have the ultimate ears boom 2 speaker, Ultra Sonic MP3 and playlist running over night from my S9.

Last couple of days have been wiped out with tiredness and listlessness. I missed the deadlines for several job applications because I was out of it.

[Darwin]

Third cycle of four days done.

I'm choosing actively to be unafraid more, consciously making small goals for facing issues I have with poise. Have had some rip roaring incidents at work with people getting angry at me whilst i've held my grouund. Similarly in my family i'm finding i'm having conflict but it's not hurting me like it used to. My boundaries are stronger. I've made it a rule to stop saying sorry unnecessarily which is surprisingly hard, but is necessary to end this focus on social acceptance.

I have a belief that I'm slow but that's just a fear which allows me to go slow so i don't have to face criticism. So I've started addressing this as well. I know there is a state in which my mental skills come to the fore - with information linkage, quick reasoning and analysis becoming very easy - so i'm consciously trying to activate it. The problem is belief and fear. This was all active when I was on MLS so i don't see any reason why i shouldn't be able to activate it without - it's my mind after all!

[Darwin]

First day off after my third cycle. Had a really deep sleep and found it hard to wake up - could still easily go back to sleep. Have a headache and feel a bit listless BUT this is good. I'm actively practicing having fortitude and being ok with this sort of suffering - it's not a big deal when I think about it.

Yesterday I had a number of hard arguments, dealing with people coming at me. I kept my calm throughout and managed to maintain good composure, however by the end of the day I was spent after my boss, someone very close to me and my partner were popping off at me for various things. The simple reason for this (apart from from my partner) is that I'm maintaining boundaries and saying no when it needs to be said, to people who deem themselves (and honestly who I have permitted to be) authorities in my life. They are very used to compliance from me and when it doesn't come it triggers something very harsh and nasty. I got called some nasty names and a mask came off someone close to me where they really revealed they counted on an idea that I was entirely beneath them.

So several interesting things come out of this on reflection.

(1) the real pain and stress wasn't from my boss or the 'close former-authority figure', it came really from my partners upset at having much of the pressure of domestic life loaded onto her, her lashing out because of that pressure and me actually feeling guilty for missing things which could have made things better for her. I couldn't shake that unhappiness and feeling of inadequacy guilt and shame - and with that I self medicated with food. (some context for that, i'm on a strict diet at the moment so avoiding certain things like sugar like the plague).

(2) I forgave the person who verbally attacked me, and didn't feel much anger. In fact I felt relieved - I've been gaslit on this issue for years - when I say years I mean MY WHOLE LIFE! with them subtly demeaning, belittling and asserting power and removing mine then acting like it wasn't happening and it was my own complex/paranoia when I called it out. This came out their mouths and it was like - nice, gotcha, its out of your mouth now and I can chill. What happened next was cool because I managed to forgive them for being so broken, but consciously decided that I wasn't letting them off the hook, not because of vengeance but because I won't tolerate such behaviour in my life from anyone. So I very calmly told them to F*CK off with that BS, it wasn't happening anymore and to know their place. This silenced them but theyre bruised and resentful and will possibly seek revenge in some passive aggressive way or another - so I don't see this problem going away.

(3) I'm probably in trouble at work for pushing back on some important things and saying they can't be done rather than cowtowing. This provokes a big but kind of a slow burning low lying fear that's always there that I'll get sidelined, bullied, suffer reputational damage or whatever BUT again this is somewhat of a relief. I get to face it clearly and deal with. The way I'm putting these boundaries up is inartful at the moment, I'm behaving in a bit of a brutish rather than political manner but it's early days of living like this so I'm giving myself time to work out the kinks of navigating interpersonal power dynamics. I'm not at personal risk from this from losing my job I think. All feedback has been that I'm essential for much of the things that happen and my record for going above and beyond makes me a problem if they want to try to so much as give me a negative performance review. Seems like I'm learning to accept my own power and my own agency and being less of a victim.

(4) In all of this the underlying theme is that I'm consciously restructuring myself, my emotional reactions and my reactions to my emotional reactions around my own principles - effectively to develop a proper moral character.

So that's good.

[Darwin]

I'm at the end of stage 1 and have ordered stage 2.

I notice from this month a huge desire to better myself, coupled with a lot of frustration. Generally feeling safe from harm and maturity in dealing with others. Procrastination has been terrible and i've lost a couple of important opportunties because of it. I'm really hoping stage 2 helps with this.

[Darwin]

I'm frustrated by one issue. I don't seem to be respected, or viewed with any degree of respect by people. I notice that i'm not listened to, ignored at times avoided. It's something I've wanted to ignore but it's just there. I don't know if this is normal though.

When I was on AM6 people would often talk about me having a 'presence'. People would ask me to come to places, desire that I'm around. I remember friends contacting me out of the blue and asking me to go places and work colleagues valuing having me around. I had a boss who I rarely spoke to and was very aggressive actually say 'I missed having you arouund' when I'd returned from a week break.

Right now there's nothing of the sort. I feel no real power in my belly, no particular strength of character or purpose. Instead I feel kind of weak and frail in the presence of a lot of pressure and very important people.

I need a new job and the jobs that are being presented to me are ones with a lot of power and status relative to where I am, I feel intimidated at the prospect of dealing with those people. Even right now, my mind is constantly preoccupied with what people might be thinking about me in my current job. I was having some positive self talk but the weeds of self doubt are still there and they keep growing.

One thing I keep having to consciously remind myself of is that time and time again, the authority I give people and credit I give to people with authority turns out to be misplaced, they are more often than not good at portraying an image of authority and playing a frame game but underneath are petty, poor at judgment and lacking in any real virtue which would make their judgment in the interest of bettering the world.

I think the crux of the issue is I want to find a way to strengthen my personal character and self belief in the face of dealing with other people that doesn't mean I entirely disconnect with people. The other thing on AM6 was that I had zero interest in others, but this won't do in my current world. I have to navigate interactions well, learn from people , decide whether they're full of shit or not, listen to them and fascilitate their actions if they're good folks - that's what a leader is - but I can't do that when i'm so weak in resolve and so easily shaken by anyone with a strong frame/opinion.

LTU stage 2 seems to be doing some good on the motivation front but I've been very ill this last week which has left me trailing behind others at work Now I have to catch up.

The goal right now is to try and maintain some integrity with myself, better attention to my inner voice and some fealty to it (@Shannon is this something you can help with perhaps in one of the stages?). I'm also going to see if there are any energy exercises I can use to power up my own sense of personal authority which is very weak right now.

[Darwin]

Just a couple of thoughts to add. The strongest I have ever been on these subs were when (1) I was on AM6 and there was a clear authority that came from my aura and body language and (2) I was on SE and I had a powerful commitment to an inner purpose of manifesting truth. LTU is probably too broad to help me with either of these without them being conscious goals so i think that's what I'll need to have them as.

[Darwin]

Not much happening apart from a lot of procrastination. Trying to move forward though and begin to play a long game with work and life and beginning to see success as a by product of habits (of which I have very few good ones)

I've had some pretty intense dreams of late though - that's something. One I had of a bear we were keeping in my house, it was getting bigger and harder to control. I tried to lock itin the bathroom but it managed to break the door by pulling it so hard all the wood bent and splintered - so I ran to a next door which was stronger but had no key I was holding it shut by pulling it with all my weight but the bear started pulling in the opposite direction and it was too strong - I was screaming at my family who were standing around just looking at me apathetically to get the key but no one was responding or they were just moving really slowly, not realising the gravity of the situation.

Another dream I had was of an hold high school friend - he was always incredibly loyal and cool, and when I got bullied/excluded he always had my back. Then we both moved schools and I fell in with a kind of cool crowd and he was in another class so we didn't really speak and i'm pretty sure he was deeply hurt that I never spoke to him really. Years later he's a very cool successful guy and I've bumped into him a couple of times and he's been polite but cold and dismissive. Anyway in this dream I was talking to him and feeling a deep hatred and resentment he had toward me - I mean it was very harsh and unforgiving. I just felt guilty and like I really didn't want to have ignored him, it kind of just happened.

I awoke feeling really shaken - I've never experienced so much hate from someone, particularly someone who I quite cared for. It made me wonder about the resentment I've had toward people who I feel have failed me in some way.

[Darwin]

I don't know if it's LTU, but personally i'm feeling very disgusted by how I live my life. I'm motivated to move passed a lot of bad habits but this comes with facing an old foe which is my laziness. Going to the gym for example is such an effort, i'm almost physically restraining myself and saying out loud 'I don't want to' as I put on my gym wear and step outside the door. I really don't know what LTU has to do with this, I can't seem to feel anything particularly out of the ordinary and I've been in this place before - pre subs.

It's a weird place to be. It's pretty miserable, but at the same time I feel a kind of sick satisfaction from the suffering.