I've noticed when I use more of my conscious mind to get my subconscious on board, my subconscious doesn't really like that. So in the past I stopped because I thought I was doing something wrong and there was a better way. I can't really describe it, I don't really talk to myself or anything. But it's like this focus I can bring up and I consciously make the decision to move past the fear or whatever it is that is holding me back. I notice when I do focus like this, the fear elevates, but it's more of a fight than a flight reaction.
Where I've fell off in the past is the more I did this and the closer I got to achieving my goals, there was always a piece of me that somehow convinced me that what I was doing was somehow bad and I should stop. Or that I was only temporarily overriding things vs making deep changes. Just all sorts of trickery from my mind to convince me not to keep moving forward.
I've decided I'm going to write down some solid goals for what I want to work towards in my life. "Be better" is way too broad and vague. This goes for a lot of things but in the past I used to avoid planning or making solid concrete goals. Why? Well it's like a commitment and once they are out there I'm responsible for them. Whereas having vague goals and floating through life gives me the freedom to "accidentally" fall off track or take unneeded detours. Also if I don't have anything planned or that I'm striving for, I can't fail.
But these are going to be MY goals and I don't care how different they are than mainstream society. I won't let the opinion of others destroy my ability to live my life how I want to live it.
I've always taken the path of least resistance. This led me to drifting about aimlessly. But it kept the fear low, which encouraged me to keep doing it.
Also stumbled upon this motivational speech. It's straight and to the point with no fluff.
Had a dream last night. I was sitting around a table with greedy/sociopathic business types of individuals. A few of the guys had to watch what they said and were just brown nosers. Reminded me a bit of American Psycho. For some reason I was at this table. But then someone showed up and told me to follow them and I left. I ended up on this deck overlooking a huge waterfall surrounded by nature. I started tearing up. Then I woke up and I was still crying at the beauty of it.
If I had to guess I'm sick of my work environment and the obsession with money and profit. Even though I just do IT work, I get roped into that a lot because when things are down or not working right they lose money. And I don't feel like being in that high pressure environment anymore. The dream was symbolic of two different lifestyles. The one I'm leading now and the one I could be leading. It doesn't necessarily mean I need to move to some remote location in the woods, it's more like it represents what really matters in my world and the type of things I want to surround myself with.
More stuff. I'm realizing more and more I'm not happy. But I deny it out of guilt? I see so many other people struggling in life who have it much worse than me, but I'm just not happy with my life in general. In life you're told to go down certain paths, do certain things, live certain ways by influences in your life, then when you do those things and you aren't happy people are confused.
I think there's a fine balance. You have to appreciate what you have. But you can't use that as a way to deny what you really want. I was trying to use gratitude as a way to get rid of the gnawing sensation that something isn't right with my life.
I don't know, I've always been different. But not in a special sort of look at me way. More like not fitting in, not having the same ideas, not particularly fond of the status quo and conformity. I didn't have to try, that's just how I was and still am. I know I need to do something with this, that's my only option at this point. Trying to contort myself to fit into the more popular definition of life people seem to uphold isn't making me feel very good. Makes me feel sick actually, like nausea. In general putting myself in the wrong environments just feels like poisoning my body energetically speaking. Needless to say E2 is still doing some digging and it's making me realize all this negative self talk over the years was due to being different and not knowing how to handle that when the outside world disapproves.
Either E2 is doing a really good job or I'm getting the effects of the FRM module in 3.3. Either way things feel like they are looking up. This might get long, it's one of my stream of consciousness type posts.
For as long as I can remember fear has been a part of my life. As a kid, its invisible. The adults I interacted with all the time didn't get it. This assumption that I'd grow out of it or that I just needed to be exposed more. Pushed outside my comfort zone. The message I felt I got was "it's not a big deal, why is this so hard for you?" That's been my entire life, no exaggeration. Just fighting all the time, pushing, battling this fear. Even when I did face it, sometimes it just felt like exposing myself to unneeded stress for no real gain. There was such a fundamental misunderstanding of what I struggled with as a kid and it just grew into something uglier as I reached adulthood. It was never a matter of needing to be pushed more or to keep facing my fears. If you face your fear, just get more afraid, then leave that experience being afraid of it happening again you haven't overcome anything. You've just conditioned yourself to experience more fear.
These past two days I feel like I'm being shown an alternative. One where I don't face or fight fear, fear is just something that's in the way and can be removed. Not struggling to move past it or battle with it. I can't emphasize enough how strong of a reality that was for me. Literally everything I did was overshadowed by this fearful feeling. You absolutely can do things in spite of fear, but it sucks. It's draining, it's harder than it needs to be, and it just makes life in general absolutely miserable. It just puts you into this survival mentality where you're constantly on edge, being afraid of stuff in the future that may not even happen.
The funny thing is I couldn't even imagine what living without fear would be like. Even when I thought of overcoming it completely, it was still from this perspective of having it be a battle. Like keeping it at bay or being stronger than it. A lot of tension in my body, a sort of alert feeling. But now I'm getting these moments of calm where it feels like it's not a big deal. Even if I have problems, unknown stuff, unsure direction, it doesn't put me into that tailspin panicked feeling like my life is never going to get better.
That sounds an awful lot like what FRM is designed to do...
Weird dreams. One dream I was doing a ton of cocaine behind my families back at a large event? And I felt guilty about it. I've never had a drug addiction, so maybe it's symbolism for some other addiction.
The other dream. Apparently dead bodies were being dumped into the ocean. Like a ton of people died and they needed to figure out a way to get rid of them. But then all the bodies decomposing in the ocean caused massive environmental issues. Weird.
Aside from that I hit a point today where I just decided I'm not gonna take crap from people anymore. But not in a confrontational way, just pretty much stop caring what they think. I don't care if they think I'm incompetent, dumb, too quiet, etc. I just don't care because the only important thing for me is to enjoy my own life. I wasn't put on Earth to bend myself to the whims of what everyone wants me to be. I noticed some anger popping up with this, but a good anger. It's an anger that says, "yeah I don't have to put up with anyone's crap".
Let me say something else. The word entitled gets thrown out a lot by people today. But if entitled means living my life fully, not settling, and not accepting any circumstances that decrease my quality of life then yeah consider me entitled. Consider me entitled because I want to do more with my life than save up for retirement and then die. I have no tolerance for people anymore that shame people as being "entitled" because they want to live a better life or explore different ways of living that don't involve slaving away at a job making someone else money. Worst line that I hate hearing, "that's the way the world works, get used to it". What I hear. "I'm too afraid to change my circumstances so I'm just going to drag you down into my misery as well".
In the grand scheme of things none of this really matters. So if I suck at a job, make a mistake, disappoint someone, make a fool of myself ,etc. it's laughable how serious some people take it. I won't be part of that anymore. I've lived a good portion of my life too seriously and it stressed me out. And why did I? I'm not a heart surgeon, nothing in my environment honestly deserved that amount of seriousness directed towards it. There's a time and a place to be serious, but all the time is definitely the wrong approach.
Entitlement is a term for people who don't want to take personal responsibility, and have their hand out. They expect everyone else to take care of them, pay for everything, bow to their wishes. You don't strike me as entitled.
I hate it when people tell you you're selfish because you live your life your way. But what's more selfish? To me, someone telling you how to live YOUR LIFE is being selfish, especially if they're manipulating you to get something they want for themselves, or so you fit into their worldview.
E2 seems to be really good for you.
Been dead tired every morning this week. It's been really tough getting up for work. Work in general has been stressful and I just feel this lack of focus. I think what's happening is I'm currently dealing with the old reality and the new. The old reality is security, safety, limitations and the new reality is exploration, following my heart, doing things different. It's like I'm getting bored, outgrowing this job I've put myself in. Not the fact that I want more responsibility and to challenge myself,more like getting tired of the whole paradigm of it.
I can feel myself really wanting to do things differently in my life, but at the same time I'm afraid. And I find myself wishing that someone else would step in and take control. I'm not taking the reigns so to speak and I should be.
I think in general E2 is just digging out all this surface level crap that I've held about life in general. It's getting to that core question of "what do you really want to do?" And it's pushing me to do that vs taking the safe routes. It's not really easy for me. It took me a good few years even to land a job and establish some sense of financially secure. Going back to square one is scary because I've been there before and I'm afraid all my old habits will come back and I'll screw up my life.
Also noticing I'm not going into my self defeating spirals when I start comparing myself to others. Those thoughts like "man they have more friends than me, are in relationships, have good jobs, more talented, doing what they actually want to do, are lucky, etc." Basically my mind is like "yeah well that's them, focus on yourself and do your best, forget about them".
I went out last night to a barcade to chill with some friends. There was a DJ there and he was playing some good music, stuff I'd actually groove to. So nothing eventful, gonna say that right now. But there was this one girl just dancing enjoying herself, when the dance floor was empty and when it was crowded. I was just watching her, a couple times we locked eyes. I still have issues with eye contact because I try not to be that leering creepy guy you know? Probably limiting beliefs and stuff. I really just wanted to go up to her and tell her I thought she was sexy and that I liked her free spirited energy. But I stopped myself.
Anyway eventually I did go dance which I've never done before. I've always been the type to sit and watch, but it looked like fun and the music was good. It made me realize if I could find the right club with some good music I could have a good time by myself. Something to do in the future to get myself out more.
Just in general I've been too closed off and kept to myself. It's weird but I've always enjoyed meeting new people, but I suck at developing closer relationships. I'm definitely introverted, but there's always been a desire there to meet other people and explore new situations. Just a lot of the time fear would get in the way and it wasn't enjoyable. When going out and having fun seems like a challenge or work it kinda kills the vibe. I get in that situation where I'm like "well I could force myself to do this and not have a good time or do something I know will be enjoyable".
I'm seeing that life has a lot to offer and for the past 10 years I've only explored about 5% of it. The upside to struggling for years and being alone a lot is that I really appreciate moments with genuine connections with others.
Anyway last night was the most fun I've had in a while and I'd love for my life to be filled with more of it. I've realized for a while now I haven't really had 100% autonomy in my decision making for stuff. Fear really holds me back from exploring, it fills my head with that thought like "nah you wouldn't really have fun from that". Then I just go to my default behavior that keeps me in a cycle of fear based isolation.
I'm going to be working on implementing reality transurfing principles right now. Work has been really stressful with one problem after the next. But I've been focusing on that and creating more of it. I'm going to be holding the intention that everything will be figured out and things will run smooth this week.
Same goes with women. Whenever I don't get the outcome I want I hyper focus on everything wrong and create more of it. Others may not believe it, but I do. What you focus on you become. And I've been focusing on the wrong things.
I've felt myself spiraling out into negativity a bit. With emotional healing it's important not to focus on what's brought up and to just allow it to pass. Otherwise you dwell on stuff and it spreads like a virus. I think again fear is at the root of being more content to go with what's familiar. In this case my overwhelmingly negative thought patterns I've become accustomed to. A lot of triggers exist in my day to day life so I just have to be more mindful of them
Ha, my day went the complete opposite of what I wanted but I learned something. You can't control everything. I know that seems obvious, but I try to control circumstances a lot. It gets to the point where I sometimes blame myself for "manifesting" it. But what I learned today is the importance of calm in the eye of the storm so to speak. "This too shall pass". I've been bringing up the fears within me and facing them, not running. Reminding myself that it will pass, the fear is temporary, but sometimes we have to face it and go through it.
I'm letting all my emotions come to the surface. I've realized I've been suppressing them, trying to push them away, trying to achieve a "better" state of mind. But I wasn't actually addressing them. Being able to sit with these emotions without being sucked into them or acting on them. That's the eye of the storm I was talking about. It's like I'm in a hurricane of strong emotions, but I'm practicing being calm and centered and unfazed by them. Compare this to my previous attitude of trying to push them away and move past them without actually moving past them. Hard to describe, but there was a definite fear that if I let go into these emotions they would consume me. I have no doubt that this fear prevented me from touching the more deep core issues that have troubled me for a lot of my life.
I'm still learning a lot. It's making me realize the limits I set for myself are based on nothing but subjective views of reality itself. It's just a matter of changing them without the fear interfering.
Another side note. One of the hardest things when growing up with something like mental illness, people claim it can't be changed. That you have to live with it. That the best you're ever going to get is learning to manage it better. Deep down I always knew that was a crappy answer, but I always had doubts. I see now this is one more limitation I place on myself, what's truly possible when it comes to my well being. As a society I don't think people get it yet, instead of looking out there for confirmation I'll just explore myself and discover the real truths vs limiting beliefs. I don't have doubts anymore, I've witnessed the changes myself, I know what's possible. Now it's just a matter of committing fully to it.
Had a dream that felt significant. The theme was light vs dark. There were a group of individuals who were "good" and represented the light. Then there were the "bad" individuals who were part of the dark. I saw the light and the dark differences. The light wanted to destroy things like demons out of fear, but the demons only attacked because they were hunted. Both sides seek to eliminate one another due to fear of being eliminated themselves.
I think this might be symbolic of my lifelong struggle with trying to be compassionate towards others, but at the same time not be taken advantage of or abused. The overly compassionate side would stomp out the more "dark" side that had to do with expressing anger or being more aggressive. But sometimes the "dark" side would cancel out the compassion as it was easier than trying to juggle two ideologies at once. I think what I'm really getting at is that it feels like there is a lack of integration of my whole being. Certain emotions and feelings still get categorized as bad, but they still come from within me.
In my last post I talked about being in the eye of the storm and letting these things pass. But now I'm seeing they aren't roadblocks that can be overcome by merely ignoring them. It's not the emotions themselves, it's the underlying piece of myself that generates these emotions. I was still addressing things from a shallower depth. Constantly clearing and letting go of emotions, but the source was largely untouched. It's like baling out water in a sinking boat, without fixing the hole the water will keep flooding in.
I thought if I just rode out the emotions, I'd eventually reach a clear state. But I'm starting to think that's not how this works. Emotional trauma isn't queued up in your body like some storage you release from. You have to find the source that generates it and fix that.