UMS. Let’s get at it

[Paul1131]

ME: The wife woke ticked off at the universe this morning. I had asked her to clear out some things of hers in the bedroom, and she’d done it, but went off at me mildly for something related to that. I realized a couple of things. First off, it wasn’t us. We saw some of the worst driving while we were out yesterday that I have ever seen. Several people blew through lights, one turned across traffic and missed the car which had right of way by inches, people were cutting each other off, the road rage was palpable all day. There was some kind of frustrated, aggressive energy in the whole area yesterday and today, and it effected us.
Second. The anti clutter module is really working on me, and this is causing the wife some problems. I am starting to really see my living space as a metaphor for my life, and part of building an ordered life is imposing order on it. It’s currently a chaotic mess and whatever I considered to be my space has always been.
My wife used to be pretty neat and organized, but after a while of living with me, she gave up and stopped trying to keep things neat and clean.
She has another problem though. She gets emotionally attached to stuff. She’s not a full on hoarder, but she collects stuff which makes finding places for all of it difficult. Then she gets upset when I suggest getting rid of any of it.
Also, looking at this job makes me feel extremely overwhelmed. That’s the price I pay for neglecting it for so long.

[Paul1131]

ME: I’m back to work and back to running loops. I think I’m through that mountain range that I was so scared of going through a few weeks ago because I am catching glimpses of my goal on the horizon again, and generally being more focused on things in the outside world. I actually thought about my goal and felt a bit euphoric earlier, and that hasn’t happened since I really got focused on the internal stuff. I don’t know if that was all of my internal stuff, but it was what comprised that barrier I was sensing to getting on with it and executing the program to get to the next level in life.
Short synopsis of what I found: I was telling myself a story in my head (taking it as truth) that imposed severe limitations on my success in life. The story was melodramatic horse hockey (isn’t that called polo?). I blamed my mother for just about every issue I had in my life. I had set her up as this powerful, evil Bond Villain in my mind who destroyed my father and tried her best to destroy me and almost succeeded. I had cast myself as a tragic hero who had struggled against a more powerful foe and escaped with crippling scars. That way I could see myself living a life of mediocrity as a great and glorious victory of sorts. From that story sprang self imposed boundaries imposed by fear of success, failure, women, a tendency to take responsibility for “saving” others, and try to control circumstances over which I could not possibly exert the slightest amount of control. You see the tragic hero made a valiant effort to rescue his father, and suffered more mental wounds as a result. How ;$king cheesy is all that? (I seriously need to hire a better screen writer). It also made it so I held an eternal grudge against my mother, and perpetually saw her as some kind of menace looming over my life. My subconscious, in obfuscating all of this from me kindly extended that to all women being a potential menace. (Thanks subC really).
The knot came untied when I realized what my mother’s deal really was. I can’t see a terrified helpless little girl as an evil overlord, so the whole damn narrative came unraveled which was what I was really afraid of and saw as a massive mountain range of fear that this program was pushing me toward. That’s it, the story I’ve been telling myself that defined my life was a lie even if parts of it are true. What the program did for me was shove me into the outer boundary of success that I could accept within my story, the point at which I would have to admit that the story was false if I proceeded any further, and opened the door so I could as Frank Herbert put it “turn with the inner eye and see fear’s path”. Once I did that, I saw how flimsy the foundation of that imposing barrier was, and it collapsed with a shove. I remain.
Having my self concept lies turn to dust wasn’t painful at all, and I feel a lot better about life now. There is no need to spend a long time “healing” or “processing”. That happened in a moment when I realized that my wounds weren’t real.
The next step is to write a new story. One about a guy who woke up from a delusional daydream, realized that he could achieve unlimited success at anything he bloody well pleased, and went on to achieve it. That’s a better movie to star in.
The first thing to do with that is impose order on my physical living space. The prospect of cleaning the house was kind of feeling overwhelming this morning because we’ve let it go so much and we have so much CRAP. But it really isn’t that bad, so I will get it under control in the next couple of weeks. That leads to the refi, which leads us to a stable financial/mental/emotional position where I can actually focus on leveling up to a higher place than I’ve ever been.

[findingme]

Wow Paul, I read and am sitting here thinking of my own past. I love stories, and I've created a lot in my years. Mine aren't true either, they were just (seemingly) easier to accept and deal with.

When I finished reading this, I thought of my own hurdles in front of me I've dodged, and fear began building. They seem unsurmountable. Thank you for sharing how it's all just an illusion, and how it wasn't nearly as powerful as it appeared.

I enjoyed the reading this morning. My head is in my 2nd year of college presently; my paper was about a tragic hero.

[Shannon]

Bravo, man! This is beautiful and encouraging to witness. Now I just have to figure out why you executed, and those on the forum who don't, don't. This is obviously you executing the FRM and achieving the intended results. Hopefully, 4.9 will be what we need to get (almost?) everybody onboard like this.

[Paul1131]

Bravo, man!  This is beautiful and encouraging to witness.  Now I just have to figure out why you executed, and those on the forum who don't, don't.  This is obviously you executing the FRM and achieving the intended results.  Hopefully, 4.9 will be what we need to get (almost?) everybody onboard like this.

I think that there are a couple of factors.  First, I have a very verbal imagination.  Normal visualization techniques don’t work for me, but if I want to see hear and feel something all I have to do is read, hear, or write about it and I’m there.  That’s actually something I just figured out and plan on incorporating into achieving my goals.
Second, I went into this with the attitude that this is GOING to work.  I wasn’t wondering if it would.
Third.  I did the work.  The sub opened the door, but I walked through it and took a long hard look at myself, spent several weeks pretty much in my head 24/7 figuring out what whatever I found meant and coming to terms with the least flattering parts of myself. It was amazingly easy, but it still took effort and I still had to consciously take a few steps out of my comfort zone.

[Paul1131]

ME: I said that EP should find something awesome about himself, and I think it’s time for me to do the same. I just tore down a personal narrative that I had been defining myself by for decades. As I stand in the wreckage I have a unique opportunity to write a new one.
The previous narrative focused on my weaknesses, placing myself in the victim role, giving myself an excuse for my self imposed limitations, and giving me someone to blame for letting life happen to me rather than taking control and making it the life I want to live.
I want to internalize a story that makes it clear that I can do nothing but succeed in all of the important areas of my life from here on in. If I can believe that with the same rock solid ring of truth that I felt in the old tale, then I cannot help but act accordingly and the universe will deliver the success that I expect.
I can’t change the base facts of my life. The past is the past, and I’m not sure that altering major swaths of my memory would be the hottest idea even if it is possible. Changing the past may be possible as well, but that discussion is pretty much academic at this point.
The first thing I think I need to do is identify the strengths that I’ve been holding myself back from using. This might take a similar digging process to uncovering my fears and self lies, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it will be more pleasant.
(Folks, please don’t take any of what I’m about to say as me saying I’m better than anyone. I’m not. What I’m doing here is talking these things into my subconscious forcefully enough that they stick)
The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that I am a STRONG person. I spent twenty years stuck between two people who were terrified of the world and psychotically angry at it. Neither had any other way of taking out their grudge against the universe than to use me as an emotional punching bag. To make things even tougher on me my peers in school, and even the adults there showed a similar level of cruelty on a daily basis because I was “weird” and didn’t fit in in a very conformist small town school. I know now that both of these things were the result of other people’s insecurities and had precisely jack squat to do with me, but I didn’t at the time. This started at age five or six and lasted until at least sixteen. I had some friends along the way, but they had an alarming tendency of turning on me when it suited them. I had at least a decade where someone tried to destroy me as a person every single day of my life and I had absolutely no refuge or respite. Please note. I’m still standing.
People have been driven to suicide, alcoholism, drugs, and spent their lives as emotional cripples from much less, and not only am I still standing tall, I’ve done a fairly good job of building a functional life even before addressing these problems. Throughout all this, even though on the surface I had really low self esteem, there was always a small, powerful core of ME that held me in very high regard. I don’t know where it came from, maybe my parents showed me enough love before five, or maybe I just entered this plane as a strong soul, but there was always this tough, stubborn, powerful warrior spirit at the core of me that said “F...k NO, I will not let you destroy me.” And defiantly pushed through every shot thrown at me. I didn’t let the hurt that was thrown at me penetrate to my core, so the damage was superficial. Not many people could have done that.
I allowed my inner strength to remain focused on passive defense for a long time after the constant attacks faded into memory, and it had a few dysfunctional expressions even then (the whole considering the school system the enemy thing), but now it’s a pretty damn good foundation on which to build the “new me” who can build a better life. All I have to do is turn it toward my goals and I can’t be stopped.

I am also extremely determined. When I really want something, I go after it and keep going until I get it. I haven’t really used this much as an adult because I had convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed to want things for myself and that I could never get it if I did. As a kid, this manifested as no not working on me when I really wanted something. I’ve covered Mom’s behavior on this, but I haven’t covered mine.
The first time I really remember doing this was when the first Nintendo came out (who else is old enough to remember that?). Well, everyone had one in the mid to late eighties, it was just a thing that you had in the house if you had kids. Mom of course refused, because she could. I kept at her pretty much daily for the next (I think) three years, and she finally relented. Probably because I’d driven her even further nuts, but that’s an example.
As an adult, I displayed similar dedication to getting the job I want. It took me from 2003 to 2015 to finally get hired. During this time, I put in dozens of apps and sat for dozens of interviews. Each time I got the same answer. Each time it was a crushing blow to my sense of self worth. And each time I got up, set it in my mind as fact that I would get the next one, and put all the effort in.
That’s another one that not many people could have done. I maintained focus on the goal for that long, and through that many failures I was hurting myself by getting my ego so involved in every single result, but I took the pain and kept going. Now with a few tweaks, this trait can really get me places. I no longer have the ego involvement, each time I try, it’s fire and forget, and I can focus on more than one thing and not let it become an unhealthy obsession. Also, I do believe that the self sabotage factor that caused it to take so many tries is out of the way.

There’s a lot more, but that’s enough for one night.

[Paul1131]

Hey Shannon, since you want to know why I’m executing, would my DOB help? I know you’ve asked others for that. If so, I would rather not put it on the public forum.
Question, am I supposed to be this conscious of this process?

[Paul1131]

ME: I had an argument with my mother in my head while I was in the shower this morning. This was somewhat concerning at first because, well, I thought that since I’d found the source of the fear that had lead to these things, seen the lies behind them and shifted my thinking, they’d vanish immediately. It doesn’t quite work that way. I think my subconscious is needs some time to fully align itself with the new way of thinking and being. What I don’t feel happening is the old pattern really fighting to re establish itself. This one was a little different, and it bears looking at closely.
This one was something that actually happened. It was an argument that happened between us during my senior year of high school about wether I was going to request a single dorm room in college or have a roommate. I wanted a single because I’m a private person, and I don’t like sharing space. I was an only child, and that’s not something I cared to get used to.
I’ve had this mental tape run in my head before. It’s one of the many times that she made me feel powerless because she had to demonstrate her dominance. Usually, this scenario plays out in my head one of two ways. Either it goes the way it did and she wins leaving me feeling angry and powerless, or I win by somehow angrily escalating things and somehow exacting vengeance on her while getting my way. Both leave me feeling powerless having lost to her again, or to my own mental rage.
This one was different though. I just told her that it was my choice, and I was going to do what I thought was best, and went ahead and filled out the form for a single. I still felt a bit worked up but not seriously angry. Here’s what’s different. I didn’t let her win, but I didn’t allow her to take undue power over my life. What I did there was mentally take back my own power over me (from the Mom in my head) without having a major anger episode, or trying to assert dominance over her. Maybe these things aren’t as unhealthy or as bad of a sign as I thought if they’re directed correctly.
And you know what? I could have, possibly should have responded that way in real life. Nothing was stopping me except for my own sense of powerlessness at her dry threats about not paying for college if I didn’t do as I was told and I don’t remember what else. I just realized that I had the power in that situation. I just chose to give it away. Glad my mind decided to bring that to my attention.

[Paul1131]

ME: I had been thinking of those episodes where I have a vivid spontaneous fantasy about conflict with someone from my past with an intense burst of negative emotions as being bad things. I was concerned about them because they made me lose control for a few seconds and were generally uncomfortable. I always tried to interrupt the thought pattern and make them go away. I was expecting and hoping that FRM bearing subs would make them go away. LTU pretty much did.
That was the wrong way of thinking about it. Those things are messages that my deep subconscious is sending me about things that I need to resolve. That last one made it clear. They’re kind of puzzles. As soon as I can pull back and figure it out and have whatever realization they’re trying to give me, that particular head movie will stop coming up. Duh! I really should have figured that out years ago. There are a few general themes with a few people. I will slow down, and take a closer look next time as well.

[Paul1131]

ME: During my loops tonight I got a strong, call it visualization of receiving a significant amount of money. That was accompanied by euphoria and a certainty that something like that was happening (notice that I don’t say will happen) I felt extremely energized in my body and very happy. It’s hard to describe what my energy field feels like other than highly charged. That euphoria effect, and visualizations of succeeding at the main thrust of the program have been absent since a few weeks in, and completely gone since I perceived that mountain range of fear. Now they are back. To extend the metaphor, I’ve made it through the mountains and now I can see the goals on the horizon again. They don’t look too far off either.

[Paul1131]

ME: Good day. My mind has been clear and there have been no episodes of internal anger or anything else really. The really strange thing that I mentioned once before happened a couple more times. It’s about ex number three. The one I tortured myself about for many years but realized I was never in love with in the first place. I have a mental voice start yelling her name, and it comes with a strong, sharp stab of emotion. That lasts for a split second, not even all the way through the first syllable, then it just entirely vanished between one nanosecond and the next. I said it was like a bubble popping, but it’s really more sudden than that. I don’t even have time to identify the emotion. This is weird. I don’t feel anything for her anymore, especially after realizing that it was never about her in the first place, I was just using her (in my mind) to avoid the real source of the pain. Anybody have any thoughts on this? Could it be just kind of a residue or an echo of a pattern that is been running for so many years?

[Paul1131]

I’m running loops again tonight. I had a strong urge to which I think is my subconscious telling me what I need. I might also be trying to recapture the euphoria I felt last night. That is a very productive state of mind to be in and the more I can be in it, the more good stuff I can attract.
I think that my mind is now in a more successful state than I would ever have allowed it to be in before. I’ve pushed past what was my self imposed upper limit before, It’s only a matter of time before my actions and energy make my external life match.
I think what I need to do from here is:

Finish rewriting my mental story, which I’ll do presently. I started it above, but with more thought, the goal there is to take the same basic facts of my past and reframe them from things that caused me fear and dysfunction to something that is the basis of great confidence and leads to success. It’ll be a more honest story too.

Get my life organized. This will start with my living space, but also needs to include my thinking and tracking of important things. Finances for instance. I need to get and keep an accurate picture of what we have, what we need to pay and when, anything that might be an issue, and any opportunities that can arise. I’ve been afraid to do this before, because it might be a bad picture, but I have to know what the situation is before I can gain any real control over it.
Probably the biggest way that fear of success/fear of failure complex had of hamstringing me is disorganization on all levels. My personal space has always been a cluttered mess, and my thinking matched it. I didn’t pay attention, didn’t prioritize, forgot to do things, and as I’ve said before, I just let life happen to me. While the root cause may have been taken care of, but I have not yet developed good organizational habits to replace the self sabotaging ones. That’s not going to happen on its own. I am going to have to be very disciplined for a while until it becomes second nature.

Get the refi done. That will accomplish my first goal for UMS and USLM. I can pick a loftier one afterwards, though I think I might take a time out to get my career back on track before I worry too much about the raw money numbers. The next USLM should be just what the doctor ordered for that.

[Paul1131]

I find myself getting increasingly stressed by disorder in my environment. Cleaning this place is not that hard of a task really, but looking around at the clutter as I work is making me feel overwhelmed and angry. I am focusing it on my wife, but that’s not fair. She was pretty neat and ordered when we got together, and tried to clean up after my massive messiness for years before she just gave up. My resentment is misplaced, and it’s not very productive. My stress comes from having to look at the disorder that I’ve allowed to dominate my life for so long, and the sense of overwhelm at the effort it’s taking to correct the situation. One step at a time Paul.

[Paul1131]

ME: yesterday was interesting. I got a lot done on the house. A pretty amazing amount really. After that that we went to pick up dinner. They had changed how they do a couple of things, and the wife was kind of upset about it, and started a low key argument with the hostess which soon involved the general manager. She thought we should get what we used to get what we used to get, or something for free. No yelling or screaming or anything, she was just very insistent with a superior attitude and vaguely snotty.
I was embarrassed. I’ve worked in food service and she was acting like one of THOSE customers. I didn’t do much to intervene at the time because that would very likely make the scene worse, but when we were on our way home, I calmly brought it up. I told her that she was acting like one of THOSE customers. I fully expected her to turn into a fire breathing banshee on me. A while ago I wouldn’t have said anything just to avoid that. Now, I thought it needed to be said and stated it calmly and directly, with no fear or avoidance of her reaction. It needed to be done, and I was confident doing it. That’s genuine growth in me.

WIFE: She didn’t go off. She didn’t make a display of butthurt. She went silent for a minute during which I could tell she was angry at first, but consciously choosing a better reaction. Then she said “I’m sorry for embarrassing you.”. I hadn’t even mentioned being embarrassed, so she figured out why I was so bothered by the incident on her own. Then I realized that she hadn’t turned that “I’m better than you and I have to win every little conflict at all costs” attitude on me in a really long time. That’s genuine growth in her.