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+--- Thread: EHPRA Journal (/Thread-EHPRA-Journal)
RE: EHPRA Journal - Why So Serious? - 09-12-2016
(09-12-2016, 01:58 AM)Natious Wrote:I have noticed but I still feel the tiredness. Maybe I haven't been as positive as I could have in those moments? Now that I think about it I think I'm holding myself back from that for some odd reason.(09-11-2016, 06:19 PM)Why So Serious? Wrote: I listen at night. Sometimes during the day as well.
I'm always tired, have been for years, but maybe a break at night might help a little.
I can relate to the being tired bit. Have you noticed that whenever you feel and think positive your energy levels are very high? Whenever I get into a negative spiral of thoughts it takes all of my energy. It has been a challenge to think positive when the habit of doing the exact opposite is all I seem to know.
I have also observed that when I am upbeat, positive and in a high vibration then nothing seems too tough to deal with. I wish meditation didn't intervene with E2's function because it seems like E2 is guiding me to do exactly that in order to gain more awareness around my thought patterns.
Maybe you can relate
I'm dealing with some of that right now. I'm starting to feel like certain things are possible.
I hope you can find something else to do besides meditation. Are you sure the sub is leading you to meditate?
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-13-2016
(09-12-2016, 10:08 AM)kalmah0804 Wrote:(09-11-2016, 02:15 PM)mat422 Wrote:(09-11-2016, 11:04 AM)kalmah0804 Wrote: Man, 7 months on E2! Good for you, great dedication!
How many subs had you ran before you started E2? I am a long ways into my healing path, but I didn't start with E2. I'm just entering my 4th month of it and hoping with all of my other sub listening I won't have to run any longer than 6 months.
Thanks. Quite a few. I ran AM 2011 then AM 5.0, EHPRA 1.0, overcome guilt shame and fear twice I think, Absolute self confidence, and I think that's about it. I'm a bit of a veteran with these subs haha. I'm also one of the people on this forum that had A LOT of stuff to deal with. Most guys on this forum are a bit ahead of me in terms of growth.
Yep, I've had a **** ton to deal with, as well. Been on 2+years of various subs and while I'm definitely in a way better place than I was when I started, I still feel like I have ages to go. Definitely getting really frustrated with my lack of results when so many other people on the boards are having way more success with me, way faster, without listening nearly as much as I do. But I guess the only thing guys like us can do is keep on pushing through and hope that our extra doses of adversity make us even stronger once we finally overcome them.
I know the feeling. I'm about to write something that might apply to you, it might not. It's just what I've noticed after running this sub for a bit and how self defeating I act at times.
Anyway here goes. There's a tendency for me to want the sub to do everything, so when negative thinking pops up I usually tell myself I'll just let E2 take care of it. This has been the wrong attitude to take. Lately staying vigilant, turning my thoughts around, refusing to think negative has helped me a lot. I guess it's that conscious and subconscious alignment that's in the program. Basically I've been being more responsible with my habits and thinking instead of waiting for E2 to one day clear everything out and I'm happy. If I'm feeling miserable one day I don't wallow in it anymore, I see what I can do to improve it. It's gotten to the point where I'm realizing emotional catharsis is overrated. Sometimes it feels good to sink back into a depression or anger, like it's justified or something, but it's not healthy. It's just the mind slipping back into old familiar habits and getting comfy again.
It's been particularly rough for me because I don't go out a lot, even though I should. Only because I start building up really bad associations with being at home. This is especially true if you have a tendency to feel like home is a safe place for you and you obsessively ruminate on the negative things in your life. I've had these moments where I'm out and about and feeling good and as soon as I get home I feel this pull to fall back into my negative ways. It gets difficult at times to know what's a need for rest vs a defense mechanism that makes me go to sleep just to shut out the world. It's that kind of stuff you really have to be mindful, one thing leads to the next and you're caught back in old ways.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-14-2016
After my newfound realization about responsibility and taking control of my own mind I've had a change of heart about how much to listen to this sub daily. I know I've been back and forth with this, but I've been using E2 too much like a crutch to do everything for me. For example, lets say I was procrastinating hard and I realized this so I'd listen to E2 in hopes that the procrastination would go away. Instead of just forcing myself to do whatever it was I needed to do, I kept thinking if I just cleared out some more stuff I'd be all good. The problem with this is I definitely think I'm over listening to the sub for my rate of growth and it's hurting me more than helping me at this point. So I'm strictly limiting myself to night hours only. I think part of it is definitely fear. The "I'm worried I'm not getting enough hours" effect. But I know in my day to day life when people push me to do something I'm not ready for I shut down, can't take criticism, at times twist everything in my head to make them seem like a bad person so I don't take their advice, and anything else that gets me to avoid the thing I fear the most. My reaction to this sub I've noticed is very similar, which leads me to believe the solution isn't to hammer away at my mind and push past resistance, but to take it slower and re-adjust to a speed where I'm having constant growth instead of these large spikes of productivity and dips of inactivity. I swear at times I feel like I'm in the body of a man, with the mind of a frightened kid. You know when a parent pushes a kid to do something and they get scared and their reaction is to hide under a bed or something? That's pretty much the equivalent of what my mind does. I need to stop being so polarized and seeing my subconscious as the enemy and fighting it all the time and start showing more compassion and understanding. It's not self-sabotage it's self-preservation, but my conscious mind perceives it as self-sabotage.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-15-2016
Giving Reality Transurfing another read. Felt drawn to it for some reason. I think the first time I read it I just focused on finishing it and didn't take the time to actually digest what I was reading. That happens with a lot of things in my life, thinking that if I finish something it will magically sit there in my head rather than taking however long it takes to fully comprehend it.
I notice I have a habit of looking outward for confirmation of how reality is. But the truth is it's different for everyone isn't it? If you talk to a guy who hates his job and struggles to find purpose and passion in his life, that's just one reality for someone. Another guy loves his job or has achieved his dreams. It seems to me I stuck with the mentality of everything being impossible or not achievable because it made me feel better because it hid that fear of failure. So when people achieve what they want in life I used to consider them lucky or that I was just too far gone to ever be as good as them.
You know I used to get really pissed when people would say that you choose happiness in life or choose to be successful. It seemed to oversimplify everything. But the more I've grown I've realized that's all life really is, a series of choices you make. Even though there are negative events that are thrown your way or circumstances you can't control, you can still choose how you respond to them.
Which made me realize, this whole healing business. It's really just about choosing not to engage in those self destructive patterns anymore and letting them go. It's really simple to solve all our problems, but hard to follow through with it. I've been feeling like I'm able to let go of some of this stuff more lately instead of getting stuck in it. It's made me realize my whole concept of what healing involves was wrong and that's what caused all the painful stuff being brought to the surface.
RE: EHPRA Journal - Chris P. Bacon - 09-16-2016
(09-15-2016, 10:09 AM)mat422 Wrote: Giving Reality Transurfing another read.
Thank you for mentioning it!!! After I looked the book up on Amazon I bought it on my kindle and was blown away by the first chapter. I felt like this book and I were born for eachother.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-17-2016
(09-16-2016, 07:12 AM)Wharrgarbl Wrote:(09-15-2016, 10:09 AM)mat422 Wrote: Giving Reality Transurfing another read.
Thank you for mentioning it!!! After I looked the book up on Amazon I bought it on my kindle and was blown away by the first chapter. I felt like this book and I were born for eachother.
I love it, it's one of my favorite books. The guy is just so honest and down to earth and it doesn't suffer from that new age vagueness that plagues a lot of other books in a similar category.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-17-2016
My god, just when I think I'm over the hump with E2 there's still stuff coming to the surface. I'm just thinking to myself when does it end? I notice there's a lot of avoidance surrounding whatever unpleasant emotion that comes up. Ironically it's when I resist it that it causes me the most discomfort. When I allow it to pass through and stop fighting it I notice it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
Overall I'd say I still have an incredibly bad habit of resisting stuff. Then I try to intellectualize my way out of it instead of facing whatever it is that troubles me.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-19-2016
Trying to stay more present with things lately. I notice I've been having this need to sleep or rest or lie down or whatever and thought I should listen to my body, but nope it's just another way of avoiding making changes in my life. It seems if I actively procrastinate and do stuff I actually enjoy I'll be able to pull myself back to more important tasks that need to be taken care of. Mostly because I know what needs to be done and I know the procrastination activities aren't good. But when my body sends me signals to get up, go lay down, get something to eat, etc. Anything to avoid the task at hand, it's easier to give into it because it seems like an actual need.
Still working on my music. It's been going kind of poorly. I'll have a tendency to want to finish a track as fast as possible because the longer I spend on it the more I lose my enjoyment. But at the same time I hate how I feel like my music isn't complex enough. I'll either end up doing one of two things. Keep editing it to the point where I lose my original idea and ultimately lose that creative vibe that got me started writing the piece. Or I'll keep adding stuff for the sake of making it more complex and none of it is necessary. I just never know when to let it go because every piece of music I make never feels finished. But at the same time if I spend all this extra time attempting to finish it, it's a tremendous waste of time because it never goes anywhere. It's like I don't know what's actually missing to consider the track finished. I'm pretty sure this is just my skill gap and the only way I'll get past it is to keep working on it.
I've gone from "wow look how much better I've gotten" to "I haven't gotten better at all and I'm still struggling with the same stuff I always do". Kind of mirrors my experience with other stuff in my life too. Nothing to do really but keep moving forward and to stop dwelling on it. Still nothing stings quite like thinking you've gotten a lot better and the same issues still slap you in the face.
Also I've had a headache these past few days. It's either E2 and resistance or it's the barometric pressure. The days before a bunch of rain I tend to get slightly more agitated and develop a mild headache which can turn into a full blown migraine if I don't watch my stress levels.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-20-2016
Nevermind, just over did it with E2. I can usually tell when I've gotten too much exposure because I can't focus at all. Sentences don't make sense, concepts don't stick, just really frustrating because I want to learn but I physically can't. Feels like I'm in a fog too. So despite wanting to get past this stuff, I'm probably just going to stick to listening at night. I can't make a good enough judgement during the day if I should listen, hence the back and forth with my posts. At this point I think it's better that I'm dealing with less listening hours than too many. We'll see how this goes.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-21-2016
I think what's holding me back with E2 the most is I'm not letting go. I've started giving myself permission to feel anything that comes up and not judge myself for it. I've been trying to heal emotionally without actually connecting with my emotions. I guess I still have shame associated with things like being sad or feeling ovewhelmed or just not as put together as I'd like to be.
If I'm honest I've been barely getting by lately. I've been pushing, but it feels like the pushing hasn't gotten me anywhere. It really just feels like making it through one more day and savoring the things that make me happy as much as possible. Like one of my favorite TV shows is on and I'll watch it and I'll be content for a bit. But when it's over it feels like this massive void in my life. And I'd rather not feel that anymore. Because it's almost like this abyss of sadness/anxiety that I distract myself from by engaging in things I enjoy. I guess I needed to post about that because I've been pretending it wasn't there or that I just need to get over it. And it seems like whenever I express these deep feelings to anyone close to me the answer is to just keep moving forward.
I know this void is the emotional pain I've been avoiding for most of my life. If you can't be ok with being yourself you're screwed because anywhere you go you are there. First step to getting past this is to start being ok with expressing how I really feel inside and being ok with not being ok. There's a lot I've stuffed down over the years for the sake of having the appearance of someone who has their life together. It's probably equal parts shame and fear, yeah a lot of fear I'd say. Fear that unless you're emotionally healthy, you won't be loved by anyone.
RE: EHPRA Journal - Blink - 09-21-2016
Have you read The Presence Process by Michael Brown? Some of the things you write on here are almost verbatim what he says in the book. He doesn't like the word "healing", but that's pretty much what the book is about. Emotional healing. He also talks about a 10 week meditation process in there, which would interfere with E2, but you might really connect to the text, and I think you'd benefit a lot from it while on this sub. I'd say check it out!
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-22-2016
(09-21-2016, 02:35 PM)Blink Wrote: Have you read The Presence Process by Michael Brown? Some of the things you write on here are almost verbatim what he says in the book. He doesn't like the word "healing", but that's pretty much what the book is about. Emotional healing. He also talks about a 10 week meditation process in there, which would interfere with E2, but you might really connect to the text, and I think you'd benefit a lot from it while on this sub. I'd say check it out!
Interesting. Never heard of it, I'll definitely look into it. I've found that most people know intuitively what they have to do to heal, it's just all the bs programming we get fed over the years that keeps us down.
RE: EHPRA Journal - mat422 - 09-22-2016
More confessions from me lol. Screw it, I'm gonna be open from here on out because I think recognizing the flaws in your thinking is just as important as being optimistic or positive.
I've stated numerous times how my avoidance screws me over at times. I'm realizing it's the same for learning. Right now I'm teaching myself music theory. I'm also starting from scratch with my approach to producing music. Learning the real basics, the ones I thought I learned but really just glossed over. It got me thinking about my unrealistic thinking in the past that since music is a creative outlet you don't need to understand much, just follow your intuition and create. But a lot of that was really just a cover up for my deep insecurity when I attempted to learn something and felt that shame of not being good enough at something.
When I first stumbled upon making music I thought that maybe I had some special talent or uniqueness that separated me from other people, that maybe because I was so screwed up in every other aspect of my life maybe this one thing I'd be good at. I held onto that for a while and anything that threatened that illusion was thrown out the window. In a lot of ways my self worth was linked to being a creative person. As I've grown as a person and a music maker I've had to swallow some bitter truths about myself that were a serious blow to my ego. A lot of this stuff I just outright refused to accept, I'd rather live in my make believe land of narcissism than see how things really were.
And then there's a weird combination of guilt and shame that a lot of the stuff I'm learning is practically handed to me. I think of guys in the past who didn't have this easily accessible information and learned through trial and error. It makes me feel like I'm taking the easy way and cheating somehow. I know attitudes like this are what mess me up the most. I'm constantly comparing myself to other people and measuring up my abilities compared to theirs.
All in all one of the things I hate to admit about myself is if someone does something better than me I'll try to find any flaw that I can expose in them and use that to make myself feel better. It's just a bad coping mechanism because I never learned to be ok with just being myself and not basing my self worth on my abilities and achievements.
RE: EHPRA Journal - DisneylandUSA - 09-22-2016
(09-22-2016, 08:12 AM)mat422 Wrote: More confessions from me lol. Screw it, I'm gonna be open from here on out because I think recognizing the flaws in your thinking is just as important as being optimistic or positive.
I've stated numerous times how my avoidance screws me over at times. I'm realizing it's the same for learning. Right now I'm teaching myself music theory. I'm also starting from scratch with my approach to producing music. Learning the real basics, the ones I thought I learned but really just glossed over. It got me thinking about my unrealistic thinking in the past that since music is a creative outlet you don't need to understand much, just follow your intuition and create. But a lot of that was really just a cover up for my deep insecurity when I attempted to learn something and felt that shame of not being good enough at something.
When I first stumbled upon making music I thought that maybe I had some special talent or uniqueness that separated me from other people, that maybe because I was so screwed up in every other aspect of my life maybe this one thing I'd be good at. I held onto that for a while and anything that threatened that illusion was thrown out the window. In a lot of ways my self worth was linked to being a creative person. As I've grown as a person and a music maker I've had to swallow some bitter truths about myself that were a serious blow to my ego. A lot of this stuff I just outright refused to accept, I'd rather live in my make believe land of narcissism than see how things really were.
And then there's a weird combination of guilt and shame that a lot of the stuff I'm learning is practically handed to me. I think of guys in the past who didn't have this easily accessible information and learned through trial and error. It makes me feel like I'm taking the easy way and cheating somehow. I know attitudes like this are what mess me up the most. I'm constantly comparing myself to other people and measuring up my abilities compared to theirs.
All in all one of the things I hate to admit about myself is if someone does something better than me I'll try to find any flaw that I can expose in them and use that to make myself feel better. It's just a bad coping mechanism because I never learned to be ok with just being myself and not basing my self worth on my abilities and achievements.
Musicians and Artists: The EHPRA will address the 'Ego' for both the creativity of the Artist and the Musician; Perhaps, you are feeling it's effects. :angel: