Subliminal Talk

I’ve noticed a few more thing.
- That nervous tic where I tightened my abs is all the way gone. At first, I still had the impulse to do it, but it kind of canceled. Now, even that is gone.

- I used to make self deprecating jokes all the time. Since I was a kid really. I was actually ripping on myself and being really mean about it. It occurred to me that I don’t remember the last time I did that. I’m not sure if that ended sometime during my USLM run or on LTU, but I don’t do that anymore. Now, if I joke about myself it’s about how awesome I am. You know, sounding more arrogant than I actually am. Because not only am I awesome, but I’m awesomely humble too.

- The default setting on most of my thoughts that rose to the surface of my consciousness used to be negative. Positive thinking used to take effort. I’d have to constantly catch the bad thoughts and turn them into positive ones, and it felt like I was pushing something each time. The negative thoughts (imaginings, visualizations, etc) popped up instantly and fully formed. The positive ones had to be formed, and even when I did that, they lacked some kind of power. Now it’s mostly reversed. (I don’t know that exactly, why would I bother to painstakingly form negative thoughts?). I still have a negative thought now and then, of course, but they are fleeting and don’t make much of an impact.

- I feel genuinely good about the future. Whichever way things go with my wife, or anything else, the rest of my life is going to be much better than the past. I can see both things happening and being great. I can see things getting better, and is living harmoniously for the rest of our lives.
I can also see that myself having a great time moving on. Maybe I’ll ahem.... test out DAMSI without restriction. Not that I need it, I did really well with women as a teen and young adult with dog crap self esteem, and no clue,. I’ve gotten enough blatant offers since then to let me know I’ve still “got it”. I wonder what I could do now. DAMSI might make it truly epic though. Then I’m sure I’d eventually meet someone else to have a better relationship with if I go that route. Both paths look great to me in the long run. Which one I go down depends on both her and me.

- I take it for granted that I will meet my goals.

- my internal critic seems to be dead. Good riddance, he was a mean bastard.

Edit: As I wrote that, I got that euphoria feeling again. Really powerful. I’ve read a couple people call it a morphine drip. It feels a lot more like I’ve heard a cocane high described. Damn, I feel on top of the world.

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve been having an odd recurring daydream. I can go back to when I was in my late teens or early twenties knowing what I know now, and with a supply of IML subs. I think a lot about how things would have been different if I could start making these changes when I was eighteen or so, and where that could put me now. I noticed before that USLM2 seemed to have a kind of past editing function (by that I mean memory editing) I wonder if this is by design. I also wonder if my life can catch up to where I would be if I had had these tools available back then. I think maybe it can.

(04-19-2019, 12:00 AM)Paul1131 Wrote: [ -> ]She got pretty degrading, and an odd thing happened. I started to find it funny. She said something which was hugely insulting, but actually was pretty funny, and I genuinely laughed. I don’t mean in a derisive way, I mean just because it WAS funny (I must admit she is very good at being snarky). She wasn’t getting to me at ALL.

Paul, I had my brother blow up at me 2 weeks back in public, and I stood there, eyeing him, with a big smile on my face. I was smiling since I, too, was not affected, and I couldn't even pretend to take him seriously. He can be a jerk at any moment he decides, but he's only trying to grab onto control. It didn't work that day

I love the quote " MY personality is part of who I AM,MY attitude,depends on You!". yer progress and journal postings Paul are incredible Man. YOU Know this right? Ha! Keep rockin' dude.

This thing just keeps on giving.
- The wife and I have gotten on very well since my last entry.

- I was really productive yesterday. Got a crap load done in the house and yard, but I hurt my knee so I took today to rest. Ok, I mean I went out to rake the thatch out of the yard until it hurt too bad to continue. I took a nap, and woke up when she was on her way home. Now, not two sentences in, she paused mid sentence to yell at another driver. Then she told me exactly what he/she had done. She does this a lot, and usually I find it extremely annoying. Today, I thought that it was like talking to someone who has torrents syndrome, and I started laughing. I told her that, and she didn’t get insulted or upset, a little defensive, but amused too. She kept defending what she was saying, I kept joking and genuinely laughing. I think she’s confused that she can’t get a rise out of me or bring me down. She told me that Jeep drivers are entitled. I drive a Jeep. At some point, I said that I had a plan to make myself easier to live with, I have to trade my Jeep in for an F150 raptor edition. (Which I am in no position to do, and wouldn’t anyway, too expensive).
- I noticed how patient I am with my son. I used to act patient, because my parents weren’t at all, but I felt angry. Now that’s gone, and I am really enjoying fatherhood. This is perhaps the most important effect I’ve noticed so far.

- I noticed that I actually feel happy a lot of the time now. I was just shooting for not feeling bad, now I feel actively good. I noticed that while laughing during that conversation.

- I’ve never been a violent person, but I was very angry. When people (especially the wife) were doing things that I felt angry about, I would envision myself doing all kinds of violence to them. I never did any of it, or even came close, but I’d see it in my mind’s eye. This doesn’t happen anymore. I’m not sure when it stopped, but I’m glad it did.

I'm really happy for you, Paul! You're doing awesome! Keep it up

Today was an interesting experience.  My wife laid into me about something that I don’t think is a real valid complaint.  I had called the guy who had handled our first refinance about the second one which we’ll be able to start on in a few weeks here.  For those who hadn’t read my USLM journal,   We were in a ridiculous amount of debt last year, partly our own fault, and partly from her being diagnosed with MS, our son being born, his needing heart surgery at two months, and my needing to go th the ER once (I have crappy insurance).  Last September, shortly after I started USLM, we were able to refinance our house, but because of her credit score, they were only able to use my income and were only able to get us enough to pay off my debts but not hers.  It helped a little, but in order to get our monthly bills under control, we have to do it again.  Her credit is somewhat better, so we will be able to solve most of our problems now.  
I was telling her about the call and I said that we should be able to pay “your” debts, meaning the debts that were in her name.  She got mad about that.  She said that much of the debt was accrued on my behalf when I had very poor credit.  (This is partly true). So she took offense at my referring to it as her debt.  She said that she had been screwed over in the last refinance, and she always gets screwed over.  This started things, but it was different this time.  She was clearly upset about it, but she was a lot calmer than usual.  She never raised her voice, and every time she started to lose her temper she left the room briefly and came back and continued the conversation.  She DID get a bit insulting and pedantic.  She said that my use of the English language is “incompetent” and went on to list a few of my other faults and a couple of other turns of phrase that I’m using “wrong”. (IE saying we are in survival mode which we are we’ve only been able to pay our bills through windfalls, I may be on luck maximized, but that doesn’t mean continuing to push said luck is a great idea). I stayed calm, and kept discussing how we are going to get out of trouble, and calling her out on how ‘‘twas treating me.  I called her out on micro analyzing every thing I said in order to find something to take offense to (She was a master debater in high school and college, so verbal arguments with her are difficult and if you aren’t careful, she can make you feel really stupid). I held my own this time.  At one point I turned something back on her and she got a bit flustered and told me I was just “hiding behind logic”.  That got a full throated belly laugh from me, and she actually laughed too.  I asked if she just did these things for entertainment.  She smirked and kind of nodded.  I’m not sure that she’s aware she did that.
Here are my take always from this (plus why this is sub related enough to write here)

-  I don’t know if this can be called an improvement exactly as she is still being a jerk to me, I really don’t know what to make of it.  but something is changing in the dynamic between us.

-  I not only remained calm during the argument but stayed and felt somewhat cheerful.  Often during these things I feel like I’m fighting for some kind of survival (persumedly of my ego). I laughed a few times, and was able to see the humor in the situation.  Granted a few of those were AT her, beginning with how stupid I thought the original complaint was.  In a weird way I was almost enjoying being able to hold my own and watching her try to get a rise out of me, or make me feel bad about myself and failing.

-  I gained some insight into why she acts like this, she has a real need to feel superior and not be made to feel inferior.  This isn’t a good thing, though everyone has it to some extent.  At least some of this is something she does deliberately and not due to a lack of control. 

-  she did make an effort.  She left the room when she hit the point where she’d usually get really nasty and really start going for blood, so there’s an improvement there.  

-  After the argument, I calmly called her out on trying to belittle and degrade me, and she took it pretty well.

Paul...to say that yer making a helluva lotta progress and change in 5 to 6 weeks is a gross understatement man. your change is faulkin' Phe-nominal Man,I Mean honestly. its ass kickin. LTU5 is a Monster!!

I just read the conversation that NCbeareating man reposted where Shannon was talking about attuning to the reality I want. Great stuff, and it made me think about a few things. First, things hadn’t gone right because my negative “daydreams” were fully encompassing. When I thought about something not going right, I was THERE in the experience fully engaged and in the moment I was visualizing to the point that the outside world was blocked out of my consciousness. In other words in the state that Shannon was saying you want to be in relating to what you do want. It happened spontaneously and every time I let my guard down, and it was really difficult to realize what was happening and pull myself out. What this sub and USLM have done for me is stop these things from happening so much and with that level of intensity. What I still have trouble with is getting myself into that state in any kind of directed manner regarding things that I do want to have happen. I get there sometimes, but it’s kind of by accident. I just lightly daydream and I go there. When I’m telling myself to get there, I get a forced visualization with no life to it.
I am going to try to do as Shannon recommends, and take five minutes to get into that state every morning and night. I have observed that I have an easier time with this when I imagine I’m talking to someone in my head and telling them about the great thing that’s happened, so I’ll start there.

That is actually a great way to do it. Imagine yourself telling someone else all about your whatever-you-want, and how much you enjoy it, etc. That's a common way to do it.

(04-28-2019, 10:13 AM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]That is actually a great way to do it. Imagine yourself telling someone else all about your whatever-you-want, and how much you enjoy it, etc. That's a common way to do it.

I am SO GLAD I came across this. This oughtta help me with my goal. I'm imagining a very specific type of GF for myself, and this might help me establish a lot of things. I'm kinda mad at myself for not thinking of it, but whatever. I have the idea now!

I talked to my Dad yesterday, and it gave me some insight about the negative voices That ruled my life for so many years, my self limiting beliefs, and why I’m not where I could be in my life. Now, don’t get me wrong, my father is a good man, and he was the best father he could be, but he has been a mess since I can remember almost. That, I am convinced is because my mother had all the warmth of a Komodo Dragon in a liquid nitrogen bath. She treated him like crap throughout their marriage. When I was five, he lost his executive level job, and she divorced him in the same month (that is of course right after he got done paying for her grad school). He’s never recovered from that. I suspect he had low self esteem from his childhood and didn’t have the tools available to him that I do.
After the divorce and job loss, he gave up on himself. He decided that he was a “failure”. he had a completely negative attitude all of the time, no ability to manage stress, ran himself down constantly, and had anger problems. He never physically abused me, but his patience level was zero. He was also desperate to prevent me from becoming a “failure” like he was, so he drove me to be perfect in all things. At the same time, he was the “good” parent in that he was the only one to show me any warmth so I grew up idealizing him dispute his flaws. That was such an integral part of my thinking that when he ran me down, I really took it to heart.
He also fell apart at the slightest stress, and threw the responsibility for making everything turn out ok off on me (mind you, I’m talking at six or seven years old here. And maybe HE didn’t throw it off so much as I took it on mentally). While this was happening he started talking about suicide all the time, and this became a constant fear for me. So, at a very young age, I had taken on the responsibility for making the life of a full adult turn out OK, and blamed myself when it didn’t (dispute the fact that his negative attitude was sabotaging the hell out of him), and couldn’t come around to thinking that he ever could be wrong, and lived in constant terror that he was going to kill himself.
My mother also said (she was just saying that to hurt him, but I don’t think she was totally wrong) that I was such a “loser” because I didn’t want to make him feel inferior by surpassing him.
That’s where my vicious internal critic came from, and where my negative self image came from. It’s his words and voice I heard running myself down.
I certainly hope this was a useful realization, because I’m not usually one to spend time on this type of introspection or dwell on the past. I would much rather my issues just got the hell out of my way without too much conscious thought so I can focus on building the future I want. However if it’s necessary, then it is.
It wasn’t all bad in the long run. Being forced to be the one who could manage stress at such a young age gave me the ability to handle a crisis like a boss, and that’s gotten me through situations that ranged from very stressful and potentially disastrous, to potentially fatal. I can detach from the stress of the mont and think and act cooly no matter what’s going on.
None of these things are news to me, I already knew them. The new thing is that now I can look at them with detachment and accept them as a part of my life.

Wow! Your mother sounds like a real wiyatch. I'm sorry you and your dad have been through all that. I really hope the best for both of you. It's really good you're using Shannon's s LTU5 sub. If only your dad were using it, cause it sounds like he needs it too. I'm rooting for both of you man.

I am consistently amazed by the realizations you guys are making with LTU5!