(07-07-2019, 07:46 AM)mat422 Wrote: [ -> ]What meditations are you doing? I used to do chakra meditations, but never saw much benefit. Felt like imaginary stuff I was doing vs actual energy work.
I have done this for a longer while. It takes some time to get a hold of it and get the chanting and breathing to connect with your root chakra so have patience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTqktSAmG30
Also Trauma releasing exercises have helped me release tension in that area.
Got hit with a migraine yesterday. Slept near 15 hours and then took the day off today because I'm not 100% better. Learned about the postdrome stage of migraines which is essentially the pain being gone but the complete lack of cognitive functioning. Along with it can come anxiety and depression which I'm feeling a ton of today. I was supposed to go back to ltu yesterday, but couldn't handle it with the pounding headache. Debating if I should listen tonight or not, I don't want to overdo it and trigger another migraine.
It's been really difficult listening to LTU as the sense of internal fear rises. A lot of tension and conflicting interests. When I went into work yesterday I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I didn't want to be there. I don't know if it was me being worn out or LTU really pushing me to get out of there. But I find it difficult to remain focused.
Aside from that I've been practicing gratitude. I notice it definitely makes me feel good. The key for me is getting into a calm mental state first. What I've been doing is just visualizing before I drift off to sleep at night. Sometimes I hit these moments where my visualization is more real and I'm in it. But as soon as that realness hits it's almost like a shock or disruption and I'm pulled back. Possibly a fearful part of me that activates.
Was lying in bed today thinking about this whole fear thing. And I really do let fear stop me from doing stuff and then I'm miserable. Take for example the fact I've been wanting to learn how to play piano. I keep putting off the videos for learning because I get overwhelmed at everything I have to learn, memorize, and get better at. I get so worked up I just don't even bother doing it. I think more than anything my anticipation of stuff is what stops me. Once I'm in the moment and doing it it's not as bad. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to carry over or my subconscious doesn't quite get it. So the next time I have to revisit that activity it's like starting from square one and forcing myself to do it. Depending on my energy level and willpower for the day I may or may not be able to do it.
Is this how it is for everyone? It can't be. There's no way people have to battle themselves this much just to do simple stuff. Might be my subconscious rebelling even more due to LTU. So frustrating.
(07-09-2019, 05:19 PM)mat422 Wrote: [ -> ]Was lying in bed today thinking about this whole fear thing. And I really do let fear stop me from doing stuff and then I'm miserable. Take for example the fact I've been wanting to learn how to play piano. I keep putting off the videos for learning because I get overwhelmed at everything I have to learn, memorize, and get better at. I get so worked up I just don't even bother doing it. I think more than anything my anticipation of stuff is what stops me. Once I'm in the moment and doing it it's not as bad. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to carry over or my subconscious doesn't quite get it. So the next time I have to revisit that activity it's like starting from square one and forcing myself to do it. Depending on my energy level and willpower for the day I may or may not be able to do it.
Is this how it is for everyone? It can't be. There's no way people have to battle themselves this much just to do simple stuff. Might be my subconscious rebelling even more due to LTU. So frustrating.
It was like that for me for a long time, actually. I managed to outgrow it. You can too.
I suspect those migraines may be a desperate last ditch effort to get you to stop using the sub.
That's good to hear Shannon. I've definitely improved in this area, that's for certain. About 5 years back when I first started making music I'd find it anxiety inducing just being in the same room as my computer. And when I went to write stuff I'd make it about 5 minutes before the panic set in and I moved to something easier like video games or something.
I also suspected the migraine being an attempt at derailing me. I noticed on that day my body was processing a lot of fear. My theory at least was this was on a second rest day so maybe there was full execution there and part of me freaked out or couldn't handle it. Or because it was a rest day that resistant part had more influence than days I did listen. In any case it worked, I definitely didn't listen on that day. But I immediately started again as soon as I could.
This growth though definitely feels like a full time job in and of itself. I'm hoping when all is said and done this has a snowball effect and things get better and better for me. I've invested a lot of energy and time into myself, I just hope the result is what I imagine in my head.
Feels like last night I was clawing through a lot of fear. Woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night feeling distressed.
I realized today thinking about my whole mentality around making music, I do a lot of stuff out of fear. For a while now I've been trying to get better. My sole motivation seemed to be the fear of not being good enough or having my music be mediocre in some way. But I held onto that fear. I held onto it because I was worried if I let go of that fear, would I just start trying less? Working less hard? End up making stuff that sucks because I'd be less focused on the finer details?
I guess for me I failed to separate my attention to the craft vs my obsessive need to be good at it as a way to validate myself. But I think it was less of a validation thing and more of a fear based avoidance thing. I'm so terrified of making crap, being a crap musician, never making what I want, never being satisfied with what I create. I feel like if I let go of that unrelenting standard all that will come to be. But I see now it's just a distorted way of thinking. And ultimately even if I wrote garbage or never got better I shouldn't be basing my self worth on that. Better to live without the fear and make art vs live in fear and constantly procrastinate on things.
On the other hand I shouldn't be expecting myself to write garbage. I should be positive and believe in myself. It seems I still have a habit of preparing for worst case scenarios to soften the blow of failure. But in doing so I inevitably set myself up for failure because it's what I subconsciously expect from myself. I have to break that habit too.
I'm thinking about just looping LTU all night when I sleep. Going to keep the two day rest, but I can't do these baby steps anymore. I need to drive this stuff home, I need to break out of this prison I've created for myself. It hit me today, my room being a mess, and thinking to myself why can't I stay on top of this? Because I don't have energy. Why don't I have energy? Because I keep giving it away to something I don't care about. I'm at a very turbulent point where my desire for growth and moving on and doing things drastically different is held back by fear. So it feels like I'm being held captive while being subjected to a life I don't want.
I keep waiting and waiting. Waiting until I'm ready after using LTU enough to make these big changes and break away. I can't wait anymore. Maybe I haven't been focusing on removing the fear enough or I've been running from it. It feels like every time I face my fears a part of me seems to think they aren't as big of a deal as I make it out to be. Not in a good way either. What I mean is I'll feel my fear being worked on and then another part is like "ok that should do it and stop focusing on fear, you're just creating more of it". But the reality is the fear is still there, I just haven't cleared out all of it. I thought it was all about mentality you know and thinking positive and visualizing. It's definitely part of it, but I was trying to bypass fear or push my life forward in a way where I ignored the underlying fear thinking it's just a concept or something.
I pushed on and keep pushing on, but it got to a point where I realized ok this fear needs to go. Because as logical and rational I WANT to be, I've learned it doesn't work like that. I don't just get to say "no more fear because xyz". It doesn't work, it's never worked. And it's not a belief, I'm convinced this is a fundamental truth about my personal subconscious. This is my framework and I have to operate within the rules of it otherwise I'm shooting myself in the foot. That being said I've experienced the core fears being worked at, but it's beyond language or reasoning. It's just raw emotional feedback that I have to sit with and move past.
I honestly feel so much doubt about all this, all the time. It's like I am getting better, but I'm continually feeling like this is a never ending pit of fear that I keep digging and digging into. The doubt comes in as wondering "am I doing this right or in the most efficient way possible? Or do I just keep making the same mistakes over and over again and running on this hamster wheel of fear. I can't tell".
Part of it is how deep my issues go. How much I have improved. As I grow more I attain more awareness of how much I struggle with some things. It's like the obstacle was invisible before, but now it's made visible. But they keep coming. And the more I face, the more I realize how important these subliminals are for me. To the point where it genuinely upsets me that had I not found them nobody else would be willing or able to create a product that tackles the more complex issues facing the human psyche of some individuals. Terrible tropes and advice saying "more exposure", "just get over it", "just think positive", "fake it till you make it". "say these affirmations". What happens when it all doesn't work? People get blamed. Instead of failing to realize solutions aren't always as simple as people want them to be. So you have the outliers, the troubled ones who fall through the cracks because of terrible misguidance.
That's me. That's been my entire life. Facing these complex and confusing issues about myself as a human being and person. Like I said doubt. Thinking to myself, maybe I'm overthinking this? Maybe I'm over exaggerating? Feeling like a failure when I couldn't just "get over it". Trying to ignore it in hopes it just magically goes away on it's own. It can drive me insane at times. Feeling this fundamentally wrong feeling and not knowing what it is. Not something as simple as a career choice, oh no not at all. it always went much deeper. I had an almost painful awareness of this feeling and didn't know how to alleviate it. Iit's amazing how very well adjusted people are damn near blind to some of the hardships some people can face in their own heads. When everything lines up properly in your life, why would you think of stuff like that?
I just had to get that out. LTU is working on me, that I'm sure of. But I feel like I'm in a never ending dark corridor and I keep heading towards some exit or freedom that may or may not be there. I can't see the light, I don't feel any guarantee that I'm going to move past all this stuff, and it honestly scares me. And I'm in this alone because nobody in my life understands this. They are all very focused on the material world, failing to realize that the real change is in your own mind and it's projected outwards towards that. So advice/support is tailored on that front which doesn't help because I established long ago that it's something within, not the outside that needs to change.
Eeesh, that was a lot I unloaded last night. I'll leave it up, but it's a mess. A lot of conflicting emotions in that post.
I'm not going to loop LTU all night like I had originally planned. I think that was another attempt to derail me. I'm currently playing an as needed loop right now and it's stabilizing my mind. I'm seeing that this fear is not a hard "push through at all costs" type of situation. No it benefits me to go deeper, explore these fears, see what stops me. Because I keep thinking of LTU as this really far off distant goal, but it's not. It's here, I just keep running because of fear. It's working and it's going to work even better and as Shannon has said a few times, that level of power is what scares the part of me that's afraid of change.
I've been working around the fear. That one day mentality. Not that I don't believe it's possible, but rather I am putting it off. If I were to live the reality I want right now, I could have it. It's like tiny improvements here and there, but there's this massive chunk that is being left out. Frustrations at things not coming together, but the fact is I haven't assembled all the pieces yet. It's a strange feeling, being fully conscious of your unlimited capacity but a small part says "no" and it halts. My first reaction is to push harder, but as I've come to realize that small part has a surprising amount of strength for reversing progress. So I need to address that part.
After a few days of going through some really rough stuff I've had some clarity regarding my overall situation here. I've been seeing this fear inside me as this huge monster. Something big, insurmountable, terrifying. So big and overwhelming it reduced me to panic. But then today I realized it's just an obstacle or a problem I need to figure out. Like anything in life, it has a solution. What I realized is running head first into trying to overcome all of it at once was causing me to panic and get nowhere. Of course it was the fear driving me to try to get it all in one go because I'm terrified of losing anymore time in my life than I already have. The irony is the more I let that fear grow, the more I panicked and the more I did lose time because I was so preoccupied about the future I couldn't enjoy the present moment.
I'll take chipping away at the fear consistently until I reach my goal vs essentially throwing myself into panic attacks because I need to change now.
The other insight I had was how I perceive who I am and how it's wrong and not accurate at all. For the longest time I've walked around with this recurring theme that I'm a loner, different, basically destined to never have the kind of life most people live. But I realized that was a limitation I put on myself. I am who I am, but that doesn't mean I have to be alone. I've always had strong thoughts like "nobody likes me" or "they are just being friendly". But I decided today that I can start embracing that people genuinely like me for who I am. I'm even embracing the fact that my value I place on authenticity and being true to myself makes me stand out even more. It's never been the fact that people don't like who I am, it's that I never really liked myself and that's what everyone picked up on.
I know I can change my life for the better now. It's just a matter of moving forward and to keep working at it. It may take some time but it'll happen. But the important thing to remember is that I don't have to wait to reach my goals to be happy. It's important to find happiness in every little thing in day to day life on my way to those goals.
Great progress and insight, man!
(07-09-2019, 06:46 PM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ] (07-09-2019, 05:19 PM)mat422 Wrote: [ -> ]Was lying in bed today thinking about this whole fear thing. And I really do let fear stop me from doing stuff and then I'm miserable. Take for example the fact I've been wanting to learn how to play piano. I keep putting off the videos for learning because I get overwhelmed at everything I have to learn, memorize, and get better at. I get so worked up I just don't even bother doing it. I think more than anything my anticipation of stuff is what stops me. Once I'm in the moment and doing it it's not as bad. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to carry over or my subconscious doesn't quite get it. So the next time I have to revisit that activity it's like starting from square one and forcing myself to do it. Depending on my energy level and willpower for the day I may or may not be able to do it.
Is this how it is for everyone? It can't be. There's no way people have to battle themselves this much just to do simple stuff. Might be my subconscious rebelling even more due to LTU. So frustrating.
It was like that for me for a long time, actually. I managed to outgrow it. You can too.
I suspect those migraines may be a desperate last ditch effort to get you to stop using the sub.
I would also like to add that i am finally overcoming this too. My procrastination has considerably declined and im finding more joy in learning new things. Im sure this will happen to you also!
Thanks Shannon. To be honest I've been coming on this forum lately looking for answers. But once I slowed down a bit and started really taking the time to understand my sticking points, I started understanding what would work best for me.
On that note, my exposure to LTU has gone up a lot. Before when I listened to it I'd find myself feeling this sort of tug of war or struggle between two competing parts. It was draining, so I kept exposure down. But now when I listen it's almost like an internal massage that's clearing away emotional blockages and at the same time generating strong feelings of determination and hope. I find myself listening as much as possible now because it makes me feel stronger and sort of gives me a boost.
There's still some resistance there, but the shift is quite obvious and how the immediate state shifting effects of LTU can now influence me more easily. I actually might try looping LTU all night tonight and see how that goes. If I'm too exhausted I'll go back to 5 loops a night, but if I wake up even more energized I think that would be a good sign. I'll see what happens. Right now it feels like listening more will help me push past these sticking points and breakthrough to what I want. I can feel this internal power in me, it's getting stronger and more dominant as the negativity and fears shrink away more. The difference is now I feel like I'm letting go and allowing this power to grow. I honestly feel like I have a bit of an aura going on right now. Like energy is being pushed out and around me, positive energy that's going to attract what I want to me like a magnet.
I'm excited to see how this develops because right now I feel like anything I want is possible and the only thing holding me back from attaining it is the leftover fear that's been slowly dissolving. It's losing it's "pull", even if it pops up I notice it doesn't drag me down into that negative hopeless state I used to experience all the time.
I'll post this because I ended up looping it last night. I did wake up tired, but I think that's more due to something that occured while I was falling asleep. Last night it was like I was internally screaming in my head, not out of fear but anger. This fear, even though it is attached to a younger part of myself, was still perceived as some evil entity outside myself. I think it's because among both parts of myself it's hard to conceptualize fear. It's this largely imaginary thing that can and will stomp all over your life if it grows out of control. We know who experiences fear, but we don't know what fear is. I guess at it's core it is a survival thing and it's linked to death in some way. Even so, when it feels that irrational it's almost like my mind has to form some type of symbolic representation of it so I have something tangible to work with. Otherwise it's like it slips through my fingers as I try to clear it.
I'm starting to think these new breakthroughs are from LTU6. As great as LTU5 has been, it feels very different in it's execution right now. Not sure if that's due to my own growth or not.
Gonna keep on with the nonstop loop at night. Wasn't any more tired than usual today and I felt like I was more unshakeable with regards to everything going on. Feels like I'm not fighting for control or trying hard to make myself execute. Starting to wonder if a lot of my difficulty and overthinking as well as trying to figure out the best way to execute was really just because I didn't have enough exposure to just GET me to execute. When LTU is working I'm not thinking, I'm being, my head is a lot less cluttered and it's like I'm in the zone vs the usual fog it feels like. It's like having an epiphany, but I was trying to conceptualize it before and understand it an integrate it somehow but couldn't. As bizarre as this sounds I didn't even realize how much I overanalyze the most basic things. Like I was tying my shoes this morning and it felt different because I trusted myself more to get it right without having to follow each step of the way. I know how ridiculous that seems, but that mentality is universal. Trusting my own mind to guide me to the most efficient way possible with everything without getting in the way out of some fear of making a mistake. I'm feeling this in my music as well, making the right decisions without second guessing and trusting those decisions.