(12-07-2013, 06:56 PM)mat422 Wrote: This is just me, but sometimes you can't control what happens. We're only human, we aren't gods. I am very controlling and it's a habit I've been trying to break. It may sound like giving myself over to chance/fate, but I see it more as accepting things for what they are and addressing them instead of being so in denial I make no progress. Similar to the scene in Fight Club where he tells him to let go of the wheel. But it could just be me swinging to the other extreme, maybe I just haven't reached equilibrium yet.

I know what you're saying. Unfortunately my goals aren't as simple as just getting more women. I'm struggling with living in this world. I feel like I'm behind all the time and I can't catch up. I don't know how to describe it, but it's become a chore to live life. The negatives seem to be outweighing the positives. I'm working on this, but like I said it's getting serious. Every day I've been waking up with anxiety because I'm worried that I won't be able to support myself or I'm one step away from a complete mental breakdown.

(12-07-2013, 08:39 PM)SargeMaximus Wrote:

(12-07-2013, 06:56 PM)mat422 Wrote: This is just me, but sometimes you can't control what happens. We're only human, we aren't gods. I am very controlling and it's a habit I've been trying to break. It may sound like giving myself over to chance/fate, but I see it more as accepting things for what they are and addressing them instead of being so in denial I make no progress. Similar to the scene in Fight Club where he tells him to let go of the wheel. But it could just be me swinging to the other extreme, maybe I just haven't reached equilibrium yet.

I know what you're saying. Unfortunately my goals aren't as simple as just getting more women. I'm struggling with living in this world. I feel like I'm behind all the time and I can't catch up. I don't know how to describe it, but it's become a chore to live life. The negatives seem to be outweighing the positives. I'm working on this, but like I said it's getting serious. Every day I've been waking up with anxiety because I'm worried that I won't be able to support myself or I'm one step away from a complete mental breakdown.

I love that scene in Fight Club, but I find it empowering rather than "letting go".

Have you tried FEFT at all or read Geodude's posts?

I gotta say, unless you are imprisoned against your will or something else beyond your control, EVERYTHING you experience IS in your control, and is a direct result of your beliefs/mindset.

I myself used to have depression. I was given anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, all manner of drugs for it. I even went to a psychologist for my depression that I had for well over 10 years (can't remember the exact amount of time, it started after a near-death experience/traumatic experience I had when I was 8 years old, and got worse with time) so, believe me when I say that I KNOW when things are bad and we have no control over them.

My response was much the same as yours, I feared losing control again so I became controlling, closed off, and isolate. Depression sank in hard and I became suicidal. This all happened from ages 8-12.

When I decided suicide was not an option (because I felt no one would care about losing me, and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of having me out of their lives. Yes, it was THAT bad) I lived life as a brainless delinquent. Worked at a fast-food place instead of going to university, and had no ambition nor care to ever move on with my life.

Over the next few years, after my uncle brought me into his company, I slowly made the changes till it hit me one day that I was SICK of being depressed, sick of being a victim, and wanted a GOOD life.

I didn't see any proof or hope that my life could get better, but I decided it WOULD because I was not going to let it control me anymore.

As time went on, I learned about things that helped put me back in control of my life, and here I am now.

So, unless you have a story worse than mine (and EVEN if you do) there is no reason you can't have EVERYTHING you want. You just have to look for ways to achieve it.

Heck, I've even heard of Jews who survived death camps who come back to lead productive and happy lives. If they can do it, so can we, especially with subliminals, FEFT and all this other stuff that no one knew about back then.

It's ALL in your mind dude, seriously. Learn how to effect the change, there's nothing else.

The whole reason you post on here is because, deep down, you believe there is a way out of this, or you wouldn't still be searching. Don't use your searching as a road block, use it as a force to drive you to excel.

There's nothing to be ashamed of, we all have our demons, but demons exist so that we can overcome them, NOT to keep us down.

Depression exists because of something WRONG, not because it wants to keep you from doing right.

It's a SIGNAL to action, not a muzzle.

Hope this helps.


EDIT: Here's a video from an FEFT practitioner about how people dwell on what they say they don't like.

If you have no understanding of FEFT it's ok, I think just what he says about how people focus on what they say they hate is enough to maybe show you a different way to look at your issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wr_gMVIeuI

(12-08-2013, 10:01 AM)mat422 Wrote: Haven't tried it. Honestly I'm really put off by a lot of self help techniques these days. But I watched that video and it seems like something I can actually get behind. So I'll look into it more.

Don't get me wrong I'm not giving up. I'm just trying something different. This stuff has gotten too out of hand for me to manage on my own. I've been at this self help thing since I was 14 and I'm 22 now. Clearly something isn't working and I'd be a fool not to take a different approach.

I've never once doubted that there was a way out of this, I've always had hope for a better life. The problem has always been just reaching that. Even when things are bad I know there's an answer and that keeps me going.

(12-09-2013, 12:19 PM)mat422 Wrote: Well I'm unemployed now and today instead of dealing with all that anxiety and feelings of hopelessness, I took action with FEFT. For pretty much 3 hours straight.

I gotta say my primary coping mechanism is distraction. TV, music, internet, food, whatever. Anything to distance myself from my emotions. And I realized today I've been in heavy denial. The most common advice I got growing up was to just take action, have a plan, keep pushing, face the fear, etc. You get the picture. Eventually I locked up every single painful memory I had and just ran from them. Anytime something popped up and bothered me I'd just focus on the future instead, which unsurprisingly caused me a lot of anxiety and depression. At first I thought it was the future itself. But I realized today it's my past being projected into the future and living through that filter.

So one by one I went back to these memories. And it was painful. I just wanted to quit mid session because I felt going any deeper I'd start uprooting a lot worse stuff. It's crazy how detached you can become to your emotions and not even realize their effect on you.

I cleared out a lot of stuff today. I'm by no means cured, but when I look to the future and notice negativity, I know to go into my past again and clear out more stuff. Honestly, nothing traumatic happened to me compared to other individuals. But I've always been incredibly sensitive and I believe that I've been impacted by these past memories more than I think.

As far as FEFT goes. I'm a harsh critic and this is the first healing tool I've come across that actually makes sense to me. I've been watching Robert's videos and it's amazing to watch him in action because he knows what he's doing. I'll continue exploring FEFT.

(12-10-2013, 12:02 PM)mat422 Wrote: Thanks guys.

On a side note I came across something that really made sense. It has to do with trauma. I haven't read too in depth yet, but the gist of it is that we humans get stuck in trauma. From there we operate out of really really basic instinct. That good ol fight or flight response. When you get stuck in trauma it makes life infinitely difficult because your logical brain is telling you to move forward while your more reptillian brain is telling you to either run, freeze, or fight.

And it got me thinking about anxiety. The common belief is that anxiety is caused by negative beliefs. But I'm not so sure about that. It is a component, but I think it's really just a manifestation of that deeper primitive response. I remember reading that we make decisions based on instinct and later rationalize with logic. So it makes sense that humans might put words to a very deep unsettling feeling in order to rationalize why we must avoid it.

Also depression, despite how it sounds, is actually a highly aroused state. It's almost like being stuck in fight or flight 24/7. Maybe it's just the body stuck in trauma.

I'm gonna be reading a book about this more. I think this is something I really overlooked. I think this might be the key to getting my life back on track. This is pre-beliefs, that gut level response that shouldn't be ignored.

(12-10-2013, 06:07 PM)SargeMaximus Wrote:

(12-10-2013, 12:02 PM)mat422 Wrote: Thanks guys.

On a side note I came across something that really made sense. It has to do with trauma. I haven't read too in depth yet, but the gist of it is that we humans get stuck in trauma. From there we operate out of really really basic instinct. That good ol fight or flight response. When you get stuck in trauma it makes life infinitely difficult because your logical brain is telling you to move forward while your more reptillian brain is telling you to either run, freeze, or fight.

And it got me thinking about anxiety. The common belief is that anxiety is caused by negative beliefs. But I'm not so sure about that. It is a component, but I think it's really just a manifestation of that deeper primitive response. I remember reading that we make decisions based on instinct and later rationalize with logic. So it makes sense that humans might put words to a very deep unsettling feeling in order to rationalize why we must avoid it.

Also depression, despite how it sounds, is actually a highly aroused state. It's almost like being stuck in fight or flight 24/7. Maybe it's just the body stuck in trauma.

I'm gonna be reading a book about this more. I think this is something I really overlooked. I think this might be the key to getting my life back on track. This is pre-beliefs, that gut level response that shouldn't be ignored.

Trauma is a BIG one.

If you have trauma, you definitely should work on it.

For myself, the way I started approaching my development was to recognize that my trauma was a very real component of my cognitive experience. The key, then, became dealing with the trauma itself.

Tapping is proving very useful in that regard.

I've been able to "tap my way out" of traumatic states simply by being firm. It's never easy, nor is it very clean (when dealing with an un-tapped trauma, sometimes I can only tap the points once, and each point may take me 5 or 10 minutes, because I'm often frozen in my mind. Think "shell shock".), but the improvements are very noticeable.

I think tapping breaks the cycle somehow, whereas if you never tapped, you'd keep doing the same thing over and over, forever.

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: For me my anxiety was NOT caused by negative beliefs.

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: deep down I believed that people were a threat to me and SA kept me safe.

(12-11-2013, 08:57 PM)SargeMaximus Wrote:

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: For me my anxiety was NOT caused by negative beliefs.

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: deep down I believed that people were a threat to me and SA kept me safe.

Interesting.

(12-12-2013, 06:59 AM)mat422 Wrote:

(12-11-2013, 08:57 PM)SargeMaximus Wrote:

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: For me my anxiety was NOT caused by negative beliefs.

(12-11-2013, 08:14 PM)mat422 Wrote: deep down I believed that people were a threat to me and SA kept me safe.

Interesting.

Haha. You got me. But like you said beliefs are just beliefs, good or bad. Technically it wasn't a negative belief for me, I perceived it as a negative belief, but it's really just learned behavior to keep me out of danger.

My biggest issue was my survival instinct being in disagreement with my conscious mind. Until I got both of them in agreement I wasn't able to make a change.