Subliminal Talk

New to the forums, and not sure if I have the full lay of the land yet, but since I purchased LTU 3.1 yesterday and wanted to put it to use right away, figured I'd start a journal.

I have many little issues, across various topics, some I mentioned in my introduction to the forums post. I solicited and got good advice but then I happened upon a couple LTU journals and that got me excited as this sub seems to cover a broad range of issues.

I listened to the sub for about 3 hours yesterday as I worked, and then I played it for 8 hours while my wife and I slept. She's on board with me playing this one for us, though she doesn't completely understand all the things it does...nor do I yet.

I don't think I slept very well, even now as I type this, I've been groggy all day. My wife has been in a spectacular mood for most of the day, which is unusual as we're both usually grumping and bickering with each other.

What got me recently is my daughter said to my wife, right in front of me, "Daddy never smiles." And she's right, I don't.

I'm 40 years old and I've gotten crankier every year as I've let life pass me by. I am dearly hoping this sub will help me smile and enjoy life more. I don't want that to be how my daughter remembers her father. There are other goals, too, that I hope to achieve on this Sub. Will detail down the line. Hoping to do this sub for 100 days, and then decide whether to keep going.

Anyway, I don't know if this is technically Day 1 or Day 2, since I started yesterday and listened into this morning, but I will say that I felt more calm at work today. I had a project go into production this past weekend that was two years in the making. It was not without problems which can be stressful, but I handled the stress very well today as we reviewed problem reports.

I also had to meet with the US Head of Such-and-Such to give her a detailed account of the work we've done over the past two years. This person can be very difficult and often uses her power to make others miserable. I had myself pretty psyched-out about this meeting till today. I felt pretty calm today. Kept telling myself to not get attached emotionally to the outcome of this meeting. Turns out she sent two delegates to the meeting without informing me prior, and I impressed the two delegates with my presentation. So all good there. I don't think I would normally be as calm and I am thinking perhaps the Sub had something to do with that.

Noticed that people were more open and friendlier at work today. Even got a smile from the woman who works at the gym and she was chatty with me. Not looking to hook up with anyone, not one of my goals, but it was still unusual and nice.

I guess we'll call this Day 1.

Day 2/3

One of the areas that I want to focus and fix for my life is the fact that I've accumulated massive amounts of consumer debt, to the toon of over 40K on cards and personal loans, and another 150K+ in mortgage loans. The mortgages don't bother me as much, though I don't like being shackled to any debt, but that 40K plus is straight stupidity.

The debt's been bothering me for awhile but in Days 2 and 3 I decided to tackle it straight on. I spent several hours collecting the information on the debts and setting up a plan for paying them. Then today, I paid off the two smaller credit cards and the auto loan so that I shaved off about 9k of that debt. Now, this involved selling some underperforming stock (actually all of the stock I own that is not in a retirement account), as I didn't just magically pull 9k out of thin air. However, I do attribute LTU to exerting some desire in me to exhibit self-control and start taking the steps to pay this debt down.

I've also decided, after re-reading the LTU product page, to give this Sub a full six months, instead of the 100 days I mentioned in the first post. In that 6 months, I hope to extinguish all of the remaining painful debt.

Some other things I hope to transform over 6 months:

- I'm kinda fat, in a forty-year-old, pot belly way. I'd like to drop forty pounds so I can see my dick again without looking in a mirror. I signed up for the local Marathon which will be the last weekend in May, so right around the time I would be close to wrapping up my six months of LTU. I'm not a runner and I don't know if I can even jog one mile at this stage, but I want to cross this one off my bucket list.

- Going on a 6-month no-personal-spending diet. Can't go on a complete no-spend because I am the sole contributor to the family's finances, but I can take my personal spending out of the equation. I am only allowed to replace consumables (toiletries, etc.) or if something breaks that I deem I can't bear without significant inconvenience.

- No fappage. Hoping again that the self-control portions of LTU will help here. Before you ask, this does not include f*cking my wife.

- Creating a 5k/month author income. Right now I make $5 a month. Given the reported drop in income by many prominent self pub'd authors lately due to amazon's payout structure changes, I am not so confident at this stage, but I am eager to try.

- Get control of my possessions. I'm pretty burnt out by the rag-tag mess around my house. I can't always control young kids' mess, but I can control mine. I will go through everything I own and make a decision on Toss/Donate/Keep.

There may be more still. I think this is a lot and I really have to think through the goal on writing. I can't control what I make, so I may re-quantify that as a number of books I will publish during the six months.

Today is technically the beginning of Day 6. I am playing the Ultrasonic's over night, every night, but am having a real hard time sleeping. It feels like I am waking up several times per hour and so I feel tired all day.

A few updates...while I don't necessarily feel different in my mindset day-to-day, yet, I have made some small progress on my goals.

Fatitude - So my starting weight was 200.2lbs. Not terribly fat, though I am short, at about 5'8" and the extra weight seems to be all in my belly so it looks bad. I am down about 4.5 lbs. These are likely the fast gains that many experience the first week or two. I am predominantly watching my portion sizes right now, no seconds or thirds, and being sensible regarding junk food. I went walking/jogging on Saturday (day 3) and will go again today. I jogged about five minutes and walked briskly the rest of the way which was 16 minutes and I also did 10 minutes on a Stationary bike. Today I wlll aim to up the jogging portion to a minimum of 6 minutes, and exceed that if I feel ok. In between I did an upper body workout on Friday, similar to the Body for Life plan in structure. Yesterday I was sore so I took the day off. Today, feeling kinda weak in the legs still but I don't want to miss two days in a row.

Writing - I'm still having resistance. One of the issues is that I check in with a couple writer's boards and reddits and the story is almost overwhelmingly how difficult it is now to get traction and make some money. Then I start the "why, bother?" talk in my mind. My quantifiable goal is to release two novels in the next six months. Quarterly is a decent pace, I think.

My Possessions - Oh how they possess me. I was lamenting this morning that I don't think I've been organized for more than a couple days at a time in my entire life. It's always been a battle. I setting an hour today to go through paper and stuff in my office. I have about a month to clean up as I scheduled a Vietnam Veterans Association donation pickup for January 13 (soonest I could get them out here).

Fappage - sigh...the bane of my existence. Unfortunately, the clock started over again, yesterday.

I will check in every few days. I think checking in every day to say "hey I lost 2 ounces and threw out my childhood underoos" does not make exciting reading.

For a workout, I highly recommend the 90-day "The New Rules of Lifting for Abs" by Lou Schuler workout. It really made the difference for me when I did it; dropped 30 lbs and 6-8 inches from waist (5'7", now 170 lbs and 30 inch waist) and a couple of months ago saw abs for the first time in my life.