The saga continues: AM 6

[ffaux]

I used to use the release technique the same way you're describing to escape the subliminal. This round I've consciously avoided it for the same reason you describe. What I'm curious about is how you've handled it when you've had these negative feelings, I've always felt a little bit helpless and like I don't know what todo.

[mat422]

I used to use the release technique the same way you're describing to escape the subliminal. This round I've consciously avoided it for the same reason you describe. What I'm curious about is how you've handled it when you've had these negative feelings, I've always felt a little bit helpless and like I don't know what todo.

Have you ever heard of the enneagram? Certain personalities gravitate towards certain coping methods for stress. Look up enneagram 9 and see if you relate. Anyway, it's tough but the solution I've found is you have to just be present with the feelings. It's the exact opposite of what you've probably been doing. You'll know you're doing it right if you find it incredibly difficult or uncomfortable. The biggest issue I had was the release technique, which I also practiced in the past, reinforced my unhealthy coping strategy of detaching from emotions without processing them.

It's very abstract and hard to describe what to do because it's literally about strengthening the part of your mind that regulates your emotions. My best advice is to just breathe deep and let go into the emotion or feeling. Sometimes I'll get this feeling of intense fear or it'll feel like an internal shutter. This is why E2 works a lot better than E1. Think of this process as a valve. E1 is like turning it on and it keeps going. Sometimes your mind just doesn't have the capacity to keep going and it shuts down and reverts to old coping methods. E2 is more like little bursts of what you can tolerate, which is slower process but more consistent. In my experience if you have a personality like mine, the E1 way of going about things requires a lot of conscious intervention to stay out of that dissociation or detachment coping method. When Shannon made E2 he used a few of these points in the creation of it, so I know objectively speaking E2 is superior for me. The biggest issue you have to deal with is these old coping methods are very sneaky and you'll fall into them without realizing it. You have to be very vigilant.

[mat422]

Well things got rough for me. Work scheduling really fucked me over this week and I'm feeling taken advantage of in general at my job. I was heading down a really bad negative spiral so I figured I'd post about it to catch myself before it got worse. It seems like I've gotten a lot better at preventing myself from descending into rumination, but I'm still really easily knocked off whatever happy feeling I had. It's like I'm making progress in life and improving, but it never feels good or big enough. So I hold onto this small sliver of happiness and think that maybe things aren't so bad and then a whole bunch of shit happens and knocks me off whatever cloud I was floating on. I know that it's my responsibility to regulate my emotions and not be stirred up by negative events, but I'll be honest it just doesn't work for me sometimes and there's only so much I can do. This job is really taxing on me and it's probably because I'm an introvert in an extrovert oriented position and I'm not respecting the demands it puts on me.

I know I should get a different job and move on from this toxic place. But somehow I always find myself procrastinating and being too afraid to move on. It's killing me how I'm pretty much forcing myself to stay in this terrible situation instead of actively seeking a way out. Maybe it's because I feel like I don't have the skills for anything else. Everything is just so overwhelming and I feel trapped with nowhere to go. I want to believe life is more than all this bullshit, but I've yet to have an experience that shows me anything more than just grinding it out and trying to make the best of things in your free time. I hate that attitude towards life so much. I don't know if I'm being naive or if AM6 is pushing me to not accept any subpar living bullshit, but the fact remains it doesn't sit right with me. The problem is, what the hell am I gonna do that's going to be different that will take me away from lifestyle?

[ffaux]

When I read your first paragraph it sounds to me like you're sliding in and out of victim mentality. The back and forth would be disconcerting. The post overall points to a lot of growth brewing. This won't be easy buddy but you're going to be on a completely different life trajectory when AM6 is done with you.

[mat422]

When I read your first paragraph it sounds to me like you're sliding in and out of victim mentality. The back and forth would be disconcerting. The post overall points to a lot of growth brewing. This won't be easy buddy but you're going to be on a completely different life trajectory when AM6 is done with you.

Yeah I've always had a bit of a victim mentality, especially when I was younger. The world sucked to me and I wanted to kill myself instead of fighting for a better future. The hardest part of dealing with a victim mentality is when someone points it out to you the knee jerk reaction is to say you're not being a victim, which is pretty much just playing the victim.

[ffaux]

When I read your first paragraph it sounds to me like you're sliding in and out of victim mentality. The back and forth would be disconcerting. The post overall points to a lot of growth brewing. This won't be easy buddy but you're going to be on a completely different life trajectory when AM6 is done with you.

Yeah I've always had a bit of a victim mentality, especially when I was younger. The world sucked to me and I wanted to kill myself instead of fighting for a better future. The hardest part of dealing with a victim mentality is when someone points it out to you the knee jerk reaction is to say you're not being a victim, which is pretty much just playing the victim.

I only pointed it out because I've been through it and I often found that seeing through the mist and understanding what the subliminal was doing to me would help me go along with the process.

[mat422]

Looking back on things I'm so critical of everyone, but it's all just a reflection of me. When someone has been upset and gets angry, I feel fear, when someone expresses sadness or vulnerability I feel shame, and when someone express how they want something and how they are deserving of good things in their life I feel guilt. For some reason I cannot fathom, I am an emotionally unhealthy individual because I don't even consider my emotional needs as a person. I just demand myself to be perfect and just shrug things off and to not feel. As a consequence of this I'm easily manipulated by others.

I just don't get it anymore really. Like I don't understand what I have to do in my life. For these past few months I've just been obsessing over finding a steady career financially. I've just been focusing on outside goals thinking that's what was making me feel awful. But I don't know anymore. I've had this feeling before in AM6, it feels like finding myself but then realizing that my true self is wounded and needs to heal and the outward self I've been presenting has been a sort of shield for this wounded self.

It just makes me think. Is everyone secretly battling with this? Or are they oblivious? Or am I just kind of messed up and my assumption that everyone is like this has caused me to be far too harsh with myself over the years?

Definitely looking towards dmsi version a to clear these things up. I feel like these issues were pretty much the bottleneck for AM6 when I ran it.

[mat422]

Desire to bail on stage 7 and move to dmsi is at an all time high. You guys might think I'm crazy, but I'm like 90% certain my external reality has been shaken up to get me to move on from this toxic job because I won't take the initiative to do it. I'm going to stick it out with stage 7 until 32 days, hopefully something breaks and I start moving on.

But anyway with the job. I've got my availability in the afternoons only during the week. Mornings I walk dogs and do job searching. Today I got a call at 5:50 am asking if I could cover a stock persons shift because they called out. I looked at the phone when it rang and said fuck it and went back to sleep. I called up later when they were open and I had to explain to my manager how I'm absolutely not available any mornings/early afternoons during the week. The fact that I had to do this irritated me. He's struggling, I get that. He pretty much took on a role with impossible demands with the limited amount of resources he has. But I'm done apologizing for not being available because the whole retail part time system is terrible to employees. You have an erratic schedule, you're expected to dedicate your life to the store for minimum wage, and they have you on call all the time. I answer the phone out of courtesy, but it's really stressful knowing that I'll almost always get some kind of call on my day off asking me to come in.

Here's my biggest issue, I have a tendency to take on the burdens of other people. When I see someone struggling I want to help. The problem is most of the time they drag you down too. It's like when someone is drowning and you go to help, they'll pull you under and drown you too if you're not careful. In situations like these I feel like people are metaphorically drowning in crappy situations and you want to help, but you have to help in a safe way that isn't going to compromise your own life as well.

Like I said, boundaries. Often times what happens is in these situations I have trouble dealing with the fact that the person is both good and bad in certain ways so it'll go one of two ways. Overlook all the bad stuff and compromise my own mental health or make them out to be a bad person so I can more easily say no and avoid being influenced by them. Neither of which is particularly healthy.

[mat422]

Just realized I've been resisting again. Resistance is weird for me. Some guys get depressed or angry or other things. For me it's like I just become completely detached from everything. I stop feeling, it's like pulling back more and more until there's nothing left of me.

Anyway, no more pulling away. I'm just going to sit with the feelings that come up instead of running. I'm also not going to try to do anything because I realize now consciously trying to manage my emotions is what's been stunting my growth. I have to just observe and let the subconscious work without interfering with the process. That means allowing the darker thoughts and visuals that come to me at times. I used to get those a lot when I was younger and I was afraid it meant I was a terrible person and I tried to stop it, but I think I just made it worse. A lot of those thoughts and visions are probably an outlet for suppressed anger. I'm starting to see I have a legitimate fear of the deeper parts of my mind and that's why I've always been intervening with the sub. But I have to let go and start exploring those parts of me or I'll never grow.

[kalmah0804]

Desire to bail on stage 7 and move to dmsi is at an all time high. You guys might think I'm crazy, but I'm like 90% certain my external reality has been shaken up to get me to move on from this toxic job because I won't take the initiative to do it. I'm going to stick it out with stage 7 until 32 days, hopefully something breaks and I start moving on.

But anyway with the job. I've got my availability in the afternoons only during the week. Mornings I walk dogs and do job searching. Today I got a call at 5:50 am asking if I could cover a stock persons shift because they called out. I looked at the phone when it rang and said **** it and went back to sleep. I called up later when they were open and I had to explain to my manager how I'm absolutely not available any mornings/early afternoons during the week. The fact that I had to do this irritated me. He's struggling, I get that. He pretty much took on a role with impossible demands with the limited amount of resources he has. But I'm done apologizing for not being available because the whole retail part time system is terrible to employees. You have an erratic schedule, you're expected to dedicate your life to the store for minimum wage, and they have you on call all the time. I answer the phone out of courtesy, but it's really stressful knowing that I'll almost always get some kind of call on my day off asking me to come in.

Here's my biggest issue, I have a tendency to take on the burdens of other people. When I see someone struggling I want to help. The problem is most of the time they drag you down too. It's like when someone is drowning and you go to help, they'll pull you under and drown you too if you're not careful. In situations like these I feel like people are metaphorically drowning in crappy situations and you want to help, but you have to help in a safe way that isn't going to compromise your own life as well.

Like I said, boundaries. Often times what happens is in these situations I have trouble dealing with the fact that the person is both good and bad in certain ways so it'll go one of two ways. Overlook all the bad stuff and compromise my own mental health or make them out to be a bad person so I can more easily say no and avoid being influenced by them. Neither of which is particularly healthy.

While running AM Stage 7 I had more and more thoughts brewing about quitting my job. I bailed on Stage 7 about 20 days in or so, and a few days later I had enough and quit my job. It actually ended far better than I could have hoped for, and now that I'm away from my stress-inducing scenario (my job) I have the urge to continue and this time finish my run of the refresher stage.

If you have to quit your job then you have to quit your job, but speaking as someone who quit his job and also bailed on the refresher stage, I would trust these new feelings and thoughts that AM is instilling into you, and if things are so bad that you have to quit, then yeah, you have to quit.

[mat422]

Desire to bail on stage 7 and move to dmsi is at an all time high. You guys might think I'm crazy, but I'm like 90% certain my external reality has been shaken up to get me to move on from this toxic job because I won't take the initiative to do it. I'm going to stick it out with stage 7 until 32 days, hopefully something breaks and I start moving on.

But anyway with the job. I've got my availability in the afternoons only during the week. Mornings I walk dogs and do job searching. Today I got a call at 5:50 am asking if I could cover a stock persons shift because they called out. I looked at the phone when it rang and said **** it and went back to sleep. I called up later when they were open and I had to explain to my manager how I'm absolutely not available any mornings/early afternoons during the week. The fact that I had to do this irritated me. He's struggling, I get that. He pretty much took on a role with impossible demands with the limited amount of resources he has. But I'm done apologizing for not being available because the whole retail part time system is terrible to employees. You have an erratic schedule, you're expected to dedicate your life to the store for minimum wage, and they have you on call all the time. I answer the phone out of courtesy, but it's really stressful knowing that I'll almost always get some kind of call on my day off asking me to come in.

Here's my biggest issue, I have a tendency to take on the burdens of other people. When I see someone struggling I want to help. The problem is most of the time they drag you down too. It's like when someone is drowning and you go to help, they'll pull you under and drown you too if you're not careful. In situations like these I feel like people are metaphorically drowning in crappy situations and you want to help, but you have to help in a safe way that isn't going to compromise your own life as well.

Like I said, boundaries. Often times what happens is in these situations I have trouble dealing with the fact that the person is both good and bad in certain ways so it'll go one of two ways. Overlook all the bad stuff and compromise my own mental health or make them out to be a bad person so I can more easily say no and avoid being influenced by them. Neither of which is particularly healthy.

While running AM Stage 7 I had more and more thoughts brewing about quitting my job. I bailed on Stage 7 about 20 days in or so, and a few days later I had enough and quit my job. It actually ended far better than I could have hoped for, and now that I'm away from my stress-inducing scenario (my job) I have the urge to continue and this time finish my run of the refresher stage.

If you have to quit your job then you have to quit your job, but speaking as someone who quit his job and also bailed on the refresher stage, I would trust these new feelings and thoughts that AM is instilling into you, and if things are so bad that you have to quit, then yeah, you have to quit.

I definitely intend on leaving this job. But I want to find something before I quit. I've quit before without having anything lined up and the only thing more stressful than being in a shitty job is not having a job and barely getting by financially. So far it feels like stage 7 is strengthening my ability to tolerate whatever crap comes my way at this job. And I've always run away from things in my life as a solution. Maybe this time it's important for me to learn how to set boundaries and be more dominant and strong and not let people push me around. If it really gets so bad I have to leave, I will. But right now I feel like I'm getting more courage to say no and stop feeling guilty about putting my own needs above everyone else.

[mat422]

Things have been turbulent lately, but I understand why now. I keep thinking I need more healing, but I don't. What I need is to accept that I no longer need to think negatively of myself and my life. The negative is comfortable, it's what I know. When I try to be positive it feels wrong or like I'm lying to myself, but that's just me clinging onto the old ways of thinking. And the simple answer is that yes I'm afraid of change. But instead of telling myself that, getting over it and doing things anyway, I've created these elaborate stories and reasons why it's something deeper that I haven't gotten to yet or that I'm still emotionally damaged in some way and I need more time to heal. It's this false illusion that I'm working towards something, but really it's just me avoiding the fear. Maybe I'm not 100 percent cleared of past negative emotions, but I'm pretty sure I've been magnifying whatever they are in an attempt to avoid real growth and change. Clever? Yes. Productive? Absolutely not.

[mat422]

So I got in touch with my subconscious briefly and I think I'm going to continue asking questions and having little sit downs with it. Shannon mentioned it's like an inner child and it totally is. A lot of us who run these subs get irritated when we experience resistance. But resistance comes from somewhere. If you're like me saying "fuck you, we're doing this my way" actually makes things worse. The goal isn't to push, I see that now. It's to coerce, to find what's holding back and why. For me I can tell when the two sides are pulling in opposite directions. My conscious decision is to get out and find a good job, get financially stable, and do something with my music. My subconscious pulls back, makes it difficult to focus, runs and hides, tries everything to get me not to venture out into the dangerous world. My mind is not in alignment, I see that now. And the exhaustion I feel every day is a result of constantly having to exert willpower in order to get anything done instead of having these two sides in unison working together. With enough hard work, yeah I'm sure I could get there. But I wouldn't be solving the underlying problem and it would be the equivalent of using only half of a computer processor to take care of all the tasks I want to accomplish. There's so much more power in there, I just need to figure out how to release it.

[mat422]

I don't know if AM stage 7 is too much for me and I'm stuck right now or battling through something. I thought I was doing ok with it, but I just realized I've been cherry picking the stuff that makes me feel good and avoiding the real growth. I don't know what this would be called, selective resistance? It's like I've been focusing on all the flash of being alpha without the substance if that makes any sense. At this point I don't know where this is going to go. I'm sitting here right now and realizing I've somehow been mentally checking out and finding a way to avoid the subs influence. Right now I'm just focusing on sitting with the feelings AM6 is bringing up and the fear is really intense. Like I said, I don't know if this is going to end up with me pushing through the fear or I'm just running into a brickwall here. I find myself dissociating a lot from the subs influence which is no good for growth and it happens without me realizing it a lot of the time until I catch myself again. I'll be done July 1st with stage 7, but at this point I don't think there's much growth left on this stage because a lot of what I'm running across seems better suited for some deep targeted healing.