The saga continues: AM 6

[mat422]

Bought a journal for practicing gratitude, realized I haven't been doing enough of that and writing it down will help a lot more than just telling myself throughout the day.

What I've realized is when you've grown up in relatively stable living conditions, you lose sight of how fortunate you are. I was away from my place for a couple days staying overnight at someone's house to watch their dogs. When I came home and realized I had a warm room and a bed to sleep in when others are cold on the street it made me realize I need to stop over inflating my own problems. It's good to have aspirations, but sometimes you have to take a step back and realize even things that you consider undesirable or unwanted as far as jobs go are highly valued by other people.

I've been chasing this music idea for a while now and kept thinking to myself if I don't get somewhere with it eventually I'll be terribly unhappy. But that was so shortsighted of me. I thought that unhappiness was a good fuel or motivator, like somehow my suffering being away from my music made me a true artist and unsuitable for a "normal" life. But I think the nature of humans is we compare and we always want more. More and more, never happy with what we've got unless we stop every once and a while and really look.

So with that insight into myself I've been trying harder to get my shit together. Get up on my own two feet and land some kind of stable job. Something that pays well and I don't feel completely drained by, but it doesn't need to be a dream job or fulfill me in every way possible. Looking back my attitude was incredibly immature, spoken as someone who's never faced the harshness life can bring at times. In a way I envy guys who have grown up with harder lives and forged a stronger mentality. I've crumbled at such little things throughout my life that it makes me feel pathetic to be honest.

[mat422]

Also I recently realized something. For a while now one of my dreams has been to do something with my music, but I thought about it more and it just seems to be born out of validation. All I really care about is the music, not what surrounds it. I kept thinking to myself I had to make something good, I had to be somebody special. All this pressure was causing this anxiety and depression because I was worried about failing and not achieving these goals. But they were such horrible goals, they didn't make me happy. I'm hoping once all this validation seeking is stripped back I can see where my true motivations in life lie and not the ones based out of insecurity/fear.

Holy crap, these realizations just keep flooding in. I don't stand up for myself because as a kid when my dad got angry I just took it all in. It was safer to just absorb it all than stand up to him because if I stood up to him it made things worse. I've carried this habit into adulthood

[mat422]

All that stuff about the music is bullshit. I'm just afraid of failing that's it. That's what I do, I have a bad habit of writing off stuff before I've even tried. I think I know the outcome of everything before I even go for it. The fact is if someone gave me a button to push that guaranteed making some kind of career out of music, I'd push it in a heartbeat. That just shows it's all my fears surrounding the goal and not the goal itself.

On that note gratitude is still great. But I was using gratitude to escape the responsibilities of what would really make me happy in life. It's ok to want more, nothing wrong with that as long as you acknowledge what you have as well.

[mat422]

Too much time on this forum really does my head in, so I stepped back for a couple of days.

Right now what I'm working on is my anxiety. I always knew I struggled with social anxiety, but never realized that I had regular generalized anxiety as well. That sense of impending doom that hovers over me isn't normal for people. So I'm taking steps to calming myself down and not getting ahead of myself. The funny thing about my anxiety is the more I tried to figure out where it was coming from and how to fix it, the more anxiety I caused myself. Obsessing over how to get the sub to work better, if I'll be alpha at the end of it, if I should be further along, etc. A lot of needless worrying that didn't resolve everything. Too much analyzing that went nowhere.

I'm back to basics. Whenever I find myself getting anxious I just take a step back, focus on my breathing, and calmly assess what it is I'm anxious about. My mind has a tendency to race and I never did anything to catch it and calm it down. Always too far into the future worrying about the what ifs. Instead of holding the mentality of things causing my anxiety I'm beginning to grasp more on an instinctual level how I cause my anxiety because of the thoughts I bombard myself with.

[mat422]

This have definitely smoothed out in these later stages. I had my doubts, but it's a lot better now. In general I just feel more able to be myself, regardless of how I appear. Feels more freeing, like I don't have to try so hard to get by.

I'm still running E2 after I'm done. Something I'm really starting to see is how I'll self sabotage if people are nice to me or I'm given opportunities that I don't deem myself worthy of. I know for some people they'll lash out or be negative and push others away. I'm more like I'll slowly withdraw until the person gives up on me.

To be honest at this point being alpha is less and less important to me. Mostly because all I really desire is to stop caring what others think. During some of the stages of this program I'd find myself thinking what I was doing was alpha behavior but it was really just me putting up more walls and creating a favorable image of myself. If I could fully embody that I'd probably be happy. That and to just think better of myself naturally and to stop putting myself down.

I know AM6 was supposed to take care a lot of this, but it kind of feels like a direct approach would give me more success and then come back to AM6 again. Obviously I'm going to see this thing out to the end and there's no doubt I've grown. But I've grown in such a way it's showed me there's still a lot of more growing to do, especially with regards to self acceptance and self worth.

I think there was a lot of self hatred for who I am. I've always been more on the quiet and sensitive side. Not exactly fitting the stereotypical male image and part of me started AM6 to see if maybe I could outgrow that and just be this badass alpha guy. But the more I focused on that goal to distance myself from my core self, the worse I felt. The strongest shift I felt is when I stopped denying my core self and just worked to improve on aspects instead of trying to outright replace it.

[ffaux]

Authenticity and accepting myself as being a sensitive person has been a big theme for me too!

[mat422]

Authenticity and accepting myself as being a sensitive person has been a big theme for me too!

That's awesome man. I'm glad we both had that breakthrough. Life is too short to constantly be in an internal fight with yourself.

[mat422]

I'm so sick of limiting myself. I'm sick of the mind games I play with myself. Telling myself I don't want something but really just being afraid of failing. Constantly having to be vigilant to get my mind on track so I don't screw myself over.

My concept of life is screwed up. I'm just operating out of fear and making poor decisions. I want to be done with this limiting lifestyle.

[mat422]

Woke up at 8am this morning. Couldn't get out of bed until 10:30. I felt paralyzed. Not physically, mentally. It's like all the crap I've been putting up with for weeks now has finally reached it's threshold and I couldn't ignore it anymore. I've been trying to relax and calm my anxiety for weeks now, but now I see I have to go through my issues to reach that calm. I can't just take some shortcut. Nothing out there is every going to change what's in my own head. So even if I got a better job, I'd still be operating under the same self defeating beliefs that hold me back from every aspect of my life.

I guess as far as progress goes at least now I recognize that a lot of my feelings of hopelessness are a product of my own mind and not reflective of how life really is. I just need to target my mind towards success and happiness. These past few weeks have really shown me how self destructive I can be and how going up against that is an enormous battle that kills my energy. The smart thing to do is tackle it at the root instead of trying to fight off all the unwanted behavior and getting nowhere. Despite feeling tremendously crappy right now, I'm able to understand that it's temporary and it will pass and I'll come out the other side a little better.

Which reminds me. Apparently I was a 100 dollars short at my job the other day. Maybe my subconscious attempting to screw things up so I get fired and escape that job.

[mat422]

Thinking about doing MLS after this run. It's between that and E2. Although E2 is definitely good for me, I worry that I won't move as fast as I need to get myself out of my current financial instability. If I ran MLS I could build up my skillset more and become more valuable to employers. I have a lot of hang ups around learning in general. It's always incredibly stressful for me and I find it hard to focus. I think mostly due to the fact that I have some underlying anxiety about learning in general.

Just trying to figure out my best route from here to get my life together.

[mat422]

I've realized as long as I hold onto the identity of someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, I'll always have it. That goes for shame as well. If I hold onto the identity of being an undesirable person, that's what I'll get. My constant identification with the struggles I face is what keeps me stuck the most. And I think part of my issue that keeps me from fully embracing AM is a fear of loss of my identity.

A lot of my posts over the progress with this sub are the ramblings of my mind trying to rationalize in the best way possible why I should hold onto my old identity. I'd have excuses as to why change just wasn't that easy for me or how I needed to heal a lot of more deeply held core issues. But it was never about the healing. Healing, although not always painless, goes when you need it to go. But getting up to that point of being ready to heal, being ready to let go of the old self and bring in the new is the most important step. I recognize that AM did make some growth in me. But the fear of loss is what held me back the most, like stepping on the gas while holding down the brake at the same time. And there were certain gaps where I eased up on the brakes and moved a bit, but slammed back down.

And fear makes for some damn good compelling arguments, I'll tell you that much. Part of my difficulty with growth on this sub is not being able to distinguish those thoughts and beliefs that held me back the most. At the time they seem accurate or realistic, until you start moving past them then you think what the hell was I thinking?

[mat422]

I've been slipping into my habit of going into that false sense of peace. I've been telling myself for weeks now that I have this control over my emotions, but it was just me avoiding them again. Not gonna drag out this post because I've been over this in the past. But basically I need to stop judging what I feel and just accept it and let it go. Somewhere along the way I've developed the habit of pushing away uncomfortable things and convincing myself it was emotional control instead of active suppression.

I think if I'm still afraid of slipping back into depression and anxiety then that means on some level I still have those feelings within me. That means it's better to clear it out fully than just continually trying to assert that it no longer effects me. It's like a dormant virus almost, I feel it lingering there. There's a lot to the mind I still don't get, but I at least know the most important thing is to pull out the roots of the weeds.

[mat422]

Rant incoming.

I hate retail. I hate poor management. I bust my ass at the store I work for because I'm good with the manager there. But recently he left and a new one came in. This new guy has been taking advantage of me. All the crap workers slack off and I get slammed with the workload and pick it up because I'm a responsible person. I know he's not doing it deliberately to mess with me, but it's poor management because he's burning me out. I hate being the go to guy because everyone starts thinking you're invincible and you can tackle anything instead of being a goddamn human being with limits. Yesterday was my breaking point. I came in at 4:45 and immediately my manager tells me he needs me to stay till 10 when I originally get out at 8:45. No big deal right? Yeah except yesterday was my birthday and I had plans with some friends after. Why the hell did I stay? I don't know, I'm not one to kick up a fuss over stuff like birthdays. There's probably still a lot of low self worth I carry because I'm constantly putting down the importance of myself. We live in a narcissistic society at times and I have a tendency to swing to the opposite extreme because I'm uncomfortable with being like that. I should have just fucking said no. But a voice in the back of my head said "it's just your birthday, grow up, start being more of an adult and make sacrifices you immature child".

I think what really pissed me off about all this is the fact that all the stuff you're told growing up is a lie. The jerks of the world get ahead, the slackers leave the workload for everyone else, and the reliable trusting people get fucked.

But an opportunity presented itself for me along the lines of music production. Gonna see where it goes. More of a office work type of thing in a guys small home studio, but I'm grateful for any opportunity that can push me in the right direction. If this doesn't pan out, I'll just move onto the next thing. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, even if things don't turn out like how I anticipated. People keep telling me this music business is hard, but from what I've seen it's all about who you know. And if that's all there is to it then all I have to do is keep using these subliminals and manifest opportunities into my life and just go for them.

[mat422]

Screw it. I did all this to myself. I need to stop blaming everyone else for my life. I need to stop accepting crappy life circumstances and claim the life I want to live. That means no more backtracking, no more second guessing myself, no more doubts. I actively choose who I want to be every second of the day and I need to remember that more.

Something I'm seeing now is what I call "clearing purgatory". It's when you become obsessed with clearing out old subconscious issues to arrive at a certain level of growth. But what happens is the clearing becomes a part of your reality and instead of growing you actively manifest more issues to clear. Instead of being, you're becoming. If you're perpetually becoming, you never actually arrive at your destination. Instead of taking on the reality of what you desire, you take on the reality of a person wanting that reality but never getting it or always having it someplace in the nonexistent future. In this way your mind is perfectly executing your instructions, but they aren't desirable results.