The saga continues: AM 6

[mat422]

Been doing my best to handle my anger in a mature and productive manner. I suck at it. I don't know how to handle my anger. I don't fly off the handle, but I'm also not dealing with it in a healthy way. I notice my jaw is clenched a lot, then I relax, then a couple minutes later I'm clenching again. It's all the anger that's built up inside of me. I don't like acknowledging I'm angry for whatever reason, so I push it down thinking I'm managing it. But it's always there and if it's always there I might as well allow it and stop trying to fight it.

It just feels like I want to break free of something. But I can't tell what it is. It's like this pressure that still weighs down on me, like society expects me to do certain things. But that's not true, it's really just me and I'm externalizing that to make me feel better about myself. It's all fear, all self imposed. I stop myself and I get pissed because I see that and it still gets the better of me. I'm fed up with the life circumstances I've brought on myself, but at the same time I struggle with making huge changes. I think I'm making some progress though because before this I was convinced I couldn't achieve anything. Now at least I see it's not me, just my mindset that holds me back.

[mat422]

Number 9 on the AM6 sales page that I feel I've been neglecting.

Supply your own love, affection and attention.

I fell into the trap again of basing my self worth on my perceived value as an alpha male. There's no real benefit to being alpha if you can't love yourself.

All this resistance and procrastination I've been feeling is just me being afraid. And instead of showing myself compassion and figuring out how to get past it, I've just been verbally abusing myself for not being tough enough. The separating of me and my subconscious is also a factor in not taking responsibility for my own fears. By telling myself my fear has to do with my subconscious, it made me feel like I wasn't responsible for what was going on. But I am because it's my mind and it's stupid to use the subconscious as some kind of scapegoat to avoid owning up to my own fears.

[mat422]

You guys ever make a journal entry and delete it like 5 times as you pour through the constant stream of thoughts? That's me right now. As I've run this program my desire to be perceived as alpha has diminished. Which is a good thing. I still get self conscious at times or anxious around other people. But it's getting better. Overall I feel like I'm getting closer to being able to just be myself and not care what others think. I guess that's always been my goal, I just want to live my life free from the influences of other's opinions.

Where I'm still struggling. Finding some way to support myself financially. I still need to make the leap into an actual career. But I don't want to start pursuing some career just out of fear. For now I'm just going to keep looking for opportunities and meditating on something coming about. At least now it's not a question of I can't, but more when it'll happen for me. So in that regard I've definitely become more optimistic about getting this area of my life sorted out.

[mat422]

Is it just me, or is it incredibly difficult to break away and find happiness? If I'm being vague it's because I don't know how to describe this feeling accurately. Basically it's like knowing there's more out there, you've seen people living the lifestyle you want, but for some reason it seems like it's not a possibility for you. And if you were ever as much of a self-help junkie as I was, the advice would be to tell yourself it is possible and you can do anything. But let's be honest here, I tell myself that and I don't believe it.

Why is it some people learn a few positive thinking and visualization techniques and fly away into success land and others try the same thing and just sink like a rock? I don't think it's a matter of hard work or dedication only. I just think some people are more receptive to changing their beliefs and that's it. It's that stupidly simple, but for whatever reason my own mind doesn't want to cooperate.

I'm just utterly sick of settling or bargaining with life. I want to go from "eh I guess this alright" to "this is awesome". And my biggest realization is it's not out there that needs to change. A nice job, a lot of money, hot girls, nice cars, etc. none of that shit is going to make me happy. The only thing that will is changing what's in my own head so I can actually live my life instead of feeling like I'm a prisoner to it.

[Blink]

I relate to the self help comments. The issue is that these people have tried stuff that worked for their personality type and now they're trying to give the advice away thinking that it'll work for everyone.

You seem to be an INFP. I'm and INFJ and I have tried a lot of self help stuff as well, although I wouldn't say I'm a junkie, but none of it seems to work well for me. I feel it drains so much energy that it becomes a chore rather than helping yourself. Same goes to pick up advice. It's kinda self help anyway...

In the end, probably most self help material belong to extroverts and most pick up artists are so as well. To be honest, I can't stand to that much extroversion Take Tony Robbins or Dale Carnegie for example. I already feel tired just by reading their advice... Having said that, I'm sure introverts have a lot of inputs in the field as well and you'll have to exhaust everything to see what fits your personality. I haven't found any yet. Or I'm such a stubborn one

Oh, Sarge is an INFP as well and I remember him saying that self help hasn't done much for him either... Maybe it's something to do with the INFx types?

EDIT: Turns out Mystery is an INFJ. No wonder I could at least follow what he said and liked his enthusiasm about what he presented Not that I've tried any of his stuff...

[mat422]

I relate to the self help comments. The issue is that these people have tried stuff that worked for their personality type and now they're trying to give the advice away thinking that it'll work for everyone.

You seem to be an INFP. I'm and INFJ and I have tried a lot of self help stuff as well, although I wouldn't say I'm a junkie, but none of it seems to work well for me. I feel it drains so much energy that it becomes a chore rather than helping yourself. Same goes to pick up advice. It's kinda self help anyway...

In the end, probably most self help material belong to extroverts and most pick up artists are so as well. To be honest, I can't stand to that much extroversion Take Tony Robbins or Dale Carnegie for example. I already feel tired just by reading their advice... Having said that, I'm sure introverts have a lot of inputs in the field as well and you'll have to exhaust everything to see what fits your personality. I haven't found any yet. Or I'm such a stubborn one

Oh, Sarge is an INFP as well and I remember him saying that self help hasn't done much for him either... Maybe it's something to do with the INFx types?

EDIT: Turns out Mystery is an INFJ. No wonder I could at least follow what he said and liked his enthusiasm about what he presented Not that I've tried any of his stuff...

I am indeed an INFP. It might have something to do with the INFx types. Just in general INFx types seem to have more complicated or complex things going on in their heads. They don't seem to be as straightforward as some other types if that makes any sense.

[mat422]

Had a major breakthrough yesterday. Anyone familiar with spiritual bypassing? This may be relevant to some people here on this forum.

Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated
 detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, 
anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous 
boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead
 of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s
 negativity or shadow side, devaluation of the personal relative to the
 spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.

This has been me the past few years. The irony of pursuing a spiritual path above all else is that you actually take yourself further away from yourself and the lessons you're supposed to learn. I would have been better off finding a psychologist when I was suffering with depression when I was a teenager than thinking I could find the answers in a book on spirituality. And this is what's so damn awful about books like the Secret and Abraham Hicks and all that other pop-spirituality garbage. It completely neglects the importance of the so called "negative" in ones life. Claiming people with lower vibrations should be avoided and to only think positively. NO! Absolutely not. I find myself more interested in people who have difficulties in life and struggle because half the time those people are neglected already in life. This forced positivity is cancerous and I'm sick of it. I never liked their teachings, something always felt wrong about them. And it hit me the other day that all these teachings are going through the filter of the human mind which naturally seeks to avoid or resist pain or discomfort. It's really no surprise that 90% of the books out there on spirituality are really just a display of not being comfortable with aspects of negativity.

So what this means for me. I began this alpha journey to grow. But along the way I was blind to the fact that my perceived growth doesn't actually match up to my actual growth. Or maybe I did and I didn't like it, so I repressed it and tried to ignore whatever deeper emotions or feelings came up. I wanted to so desperately believe I was so far ahead in growth that I actually neglected where I needed to grow. There's a strong appeal to being a badass self sufficient man that doesn't need validation from people, but it's important to understand when you're really there vs trying to be there. Until you are there, there are aspects of yourself you have to come to terms with. Loneliness, feeling abandoned, wanting to be loved, etc. You can't shun these away because if you do, you don't grow.

I'll be honest when I started this sub my goal was to make my life easier. I've always looked to make my life easier somehow, I've avoided conflict and perceived difficulties in my life. But now I see that I've been given these difficulties to learn how to face them instead of trying to circumvent them through other means.

[Kol]

Yes this hits home for me.

[mat422]

More insight. Realized I've been having such a difficult time with AM because I haven't been releasing my emotions. I was listening earlier and I just watched my internal dialogue. Whenever things like sadness, frustration, or hopelesness came about I noticed I told myself "I shouldn't feel this, this is bad". I wasn't allowing myself to fully process my deeper emotions because I had learned through the years to stuff them down. Maybe I never got enough emotional validation as a kid, who knows. All I know is it's like things would be brought up just enough for me to become aware of them, but then something stopped like a plugged up drain. I felt super critical of having these emotions and judged them harshly. In doing so, I judged myself harshly and didn't give myself the compassion I need.

I think my biggest difficulty is just being so at odds with the world. And I think growing up I wanted to express that or get validation from other people, just something so I didn't feel so alone in the world. But I never got it because either people were so entrenched in their own limiting beliefs or they just fit in fine and didn't see the issue I had. It builds up after a while and it's been driving me insane. As much as I try to convince myself I don't need validation from others, it's not true. I mean, I'm posting this on a public forum for other people to read. Of course I want validation for what I'm experiencing, otherwise I'd keep this in a private journal on my computer.

I guess what I'm learning with this run of AM is it's not about toughening up. It's about really digging deep into yourself and being honest and accepting yourself and to try your best to improve yourself. You don't grow by throwing more armor over your body.

[Artaxes]

More insight. Realized I've been having such a difficult time with AM because I haven't been releasing my emotions. I was listening earlier and I just watched my internal dialogue. Whenever things like sadness, frustration, or hopelesness came about I noticed I told myself "I shouldn't feel this, this is bad". I wasn't allowing myself to fully process my deeper emotions because I had learned through the years to stuff them down. Maybe I never got enough emotional validation as a kid, who knows. All I know is it's like things would be brought up just enough for me to become aware of them, but then something stopped like a plugged up drain. I felt super critical of having these emotions and judged them harshly. In doing so, I judged myself harshly and didn't give myself the compassion I need.

I think my biggest difficulty is just being so at odds with the world. And I think growing up I wanted to express that or get validation from other people, just something so I didn't feel so alone in the world. But I never got it because either people were so entrenched in their own limiting beliefs or they just fit in fine and didn't see the issue I had. It builds up after a while and it's been driving me insane. As much as I try to convince myself I don't need validation from others, it's not true. I mean, I'm posting this on a public forum for other people to read. Of course I want validation for what I'm experiencing, otherwise I'd keep this in a private journal on my computer.

I guess what I'm learning with this run of AM is it's not about toughening up. It's about really digging deep into yourself and being honest and accepting yourself and to try your best to improve yourself. You don't grow by throwing more armor over your body.

This is big, man. It resonates with me. I'm feeling grateful for reading this in just the middle of stage 1 this run

[mat422]

Man, I just realized I'm still held back by fear

But with my last post I've been tuning into more of my emotional state instead of rationalizing the crap out of it. I've determined my thought process is going something like this: Think about making changes with sub ---> experience fear ----> consciously construct some rationalization to make it seem like it's not fear ex. (Not being my personality type, just needing to remove more negative beliefs about myself, pushing too hard, not being "authentic", needing to relax more, avoid stress, the list goes on and on).

Basically I see now where I've been going wrong giving into the fear and not pushing myself enough. You don't know where the limit is until you've hit it and I think fear has imposed an artificial limit that I've been afraid to push past. So I make up all these convoluted excuses that makes myself feel better.

All of this is really really simple, but also incredibly complex at the same time. To be honest I can't even tell if I have any negative opinions about myself anymore deep down in my subconscious or if I generate those as a result of fear as a way to avoid taking action. I can't really know.

And I've realized with all of my posts they are just really lengthy roundabout ways of describing what's going on inside of me. There's no real insight or applicable strategies or anything. It's like watching a fire burn down a house and sitting down and crafting a 500 word essay on the fire itself instead of putting out the fire. Then you run over to someone and tell them about it and they're just like "why the hell didn't you call the fire department?". So I guess from now on my posts are going to be reserved for major changes really because discussing that fire in depth doesn't really do much to change it. I guess this is growth?

[mat422]

Man, I just realized I'm still held back by fear

But with my last post I've been tuning into more of my emotional state instead of rationalizing the crap out of it. I've determined my thought process is going something like this: Think about making changes with sub ---> experience fear ----> consciously construct some rationalization to make it seem like it's not fear ex. (Not being my personality type, just needing to remove more negative beliefs about myself, pushing too hard, not being "authentic", needing to relax more, avoid stress, the list goes on and on).

Basically I see now where I've been going wrong giving into the fear and not pushing myself enough. You don't know where the limit is until you've hit it and I think fear has imposed an artificial limit that I've been afraid to push past. So I make up all these convoluted excuses that makes myself feel better.

All of this is really really simple, but also incredibly complex at the same time. To be honest I can't even tell if I have any negative opinions about myself anymore deep down in my subconscious or if I generate those as a result of fear as a way to avoid taking action. I can't really know.

And I've realized with all of my posts they are just really lengthy roundabout ways of describing what's going on inside of me. There's no real insight or applicable strategies or anything. It's like watching a fire burn down a house and sitting down and crafting a 500 word essay on the fire itself instead of putting out the fire. Then you run over to someone and tell them about it and they're just like "why the hell didn't you call the fire department?". So I guess from now on my posts are going to be reserved for major changes really because discussing that fire in depth doesn't really do much to change it. I guess this is growth?

what r ur dreams like?

Don't remember a lot of my dreams to be honest. Nothing really memorable at least. Bits and pieces come to me, but mostly they are centered around standing up for myself or being in control.

[mat422]

I know I've said this before, but too much thinking and not enough doing. That's been my major downfall with a lot of this subliminal. But it's in my nature to be highly introspective, so trying to suppress that doesn't work and I just end up thinking about thinking too much. It's just a huge mess.

My goal now is really just to commit to doing things and make any amount of progress. If that's reading half a chapter in my programming book, that's better than nothing. My mistake is when I create a list of priorities and I overwhelm myself with what needs to get done and how far I am from the goal. That always hangs over my head and makes it hard to focus. Then there's that need like I HAVE to get more done in the day than I am currently and I feel like a failure if I'm not super productive. The thing is, as long as I have these types of thoughts I'm not going to be productive because I'll be so caught up in anxiety I won't focus on the actual material I'm reading or working on.

[mat422]

Screw it, trying to keep this journal productive is utterly pointless so I'm just going to go back to saying whatever is on my mind.

I'm just really distraught right now. I thought I was doing so well and growing and getting better. But it just seems like I'm still in a goddamn bubble insulated from the harsh aspects of reality. I owe 8,000 dollars in student loans and while that's not too much I still hate the fact I haven't paid it off.

I'm sure there's something in AM about being able to take care of oneself. Right now I can't do that and it's making me feel like crap. I don't want to let my dreams die, but at the same time for a long time I've been entirely unrealistic about how I want life to be. I don't plan, I don't execute, I don't follow through on shit. It seems like I give everything a half-hearted attempt then give up and then tell myself I did my best which is a load of crap. I meander and drift through life hoping things will work out for me instead of making a dedicated effort to make them work out.

I'm dealing with a lot of anger, but it doesn't seem to be targeted towards anything in particular. Just life and how bullshit it can be at times and the fact that I'm having trouble finding happiness. Just utterly sick of the feeling of being afraid to move forward or try new things. Trying to break away from a life that's going to make me miserable in the long run.