LTU: Moving forward

[mat422]

Do you wonder why they want to be your friend because you don't trust them?

That's part of it yeah. Sort of a suspicion about them. But I feel like that really just stems from me having those feelings of low self worth.

[Infinite]

If you think that it stems from low self worth, then you're probably right. I once heard a psychologist, I think it was Dr. Phil, say that one of the things you have to be the most careful about is about who you allow into your life.

[EvolvingPhoenix]

Very tired. Even though this is supposed to be an all around life tune up, I still find myself intensely focused on my music. I've been analyzing different artists, seeing how they execute stuff, how I can improve my own stuff etc. I can't tell if I'm still under the influence of perfectionism or if this drive to make things as good as possible is healthy. Since I work with electronic music there's a lot more to it than just learning chords and scales. Whereas a person playing guitar just has to focus on their one instrument, I'm composing all the instruments and have to consciously keep in mind how they interact with each other. In addition to that I'm crafting the timbre of them and manipulating it throughout the song to effect overall tension/release.

I don't want to sound like aweeweehere, but I've heard a lot of music from other artists that is very flat, formulaic, and seems like low effort was put into it. Yet some of them are very popular. Part of me wishes I could just say screw it and not care about the finer aspects of music production. But another part of me is driven to push myself to go above and beyond what's already out there. I can't say at this point in time my music reflects this attitude, it's nothing special or unique. However, I feel like I'm rarely content with what I make. I used to see that as a bad thing, but now I feel it's probably good because it pushes me to grow. I'd hate to be a person that stops being able to see when their art needs improvement and stagnates.

I found myself avoiding working on my track today. These past few days I hit quite a few walls with regards to music making. It gets to the point where my mind starts associating it with stress because I can't figure out what's not working in it. But sitting on my couch I realized it's a problem and it will be solved, so I'm better off trying vs just avoiding it.

Overall still trying to determine if these attitudes help or hurt me.

Just consider yourself blessed that you can play and realize that it's not about perfection, but sincere self-expression. 

Right now, I'm learning to play the guitar. Wish I'd started sooner, but I let people discourage me and allowed myself to get lazy. Better late than never right?

[mat422]

Hit a really low point last night. Having thoughts like why am I so messed up and why is everything so hard for me? Then I realized it's because I'm sensitive. I'm sensitive and I try not to be, but it's an inborn trait. I'm about 95% certain it is. I didn't have any control over it when I was younger and instead of acknowledging how it may have caused me to experience more distress with minor things, I just took the man up route. Trying to be tough or ignoring the things that always had a profound impact on me is dumb. I felt that last night with LTU, it was digging into my past where that sensitivity predisposed me towards greater emotional damage. It always seems like exaggerating or blowing things out of proportion, but that's because I have an adult awareness now. Unfortunately I've realized those past hurts that have been locked away exist in a realm where part of my mind still is that highly sensitive kid and doesn't have the adult awareness. It just feels the pain. So no it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't matter.

Also had a dream last night where this corruption spread on my body. There was some corporate CEO executive type that was causing it. So I rebelled and tried punching him in the face a couple of times. But my punches were weak and I was losing the fight. The corruption spread to my face and it felt like I was slowly losing my identity and being consumed by something outside of me. I took off the uniform in my closet and the corruption died down. But then the CEO started choking me and trying to kill me.

Woke up really angry/determined not to let these jobs in my life rule me. My current one feels like a soul sucking parasite. I haven't acknowledged it for the longest time because I thought I was exaggerating. But with this realization about sensitivity and that dream, it feels like my energy is leeched off of me. It feels like my job is a sentient energy structure that preys on me as crazy as that sounds. What transurfing would call a pendulum.

[mat422]

Things have been really rough. I haven't been sleeping well. I keep waking up at random intervals in the night. Also consistently waking up before my alarm. But not really waking up, more like leaving sleep then going back into it for 15 minutes and then dragged out. I feel this soul crushing weight in my chest every morning when I first wake up. I hope it goes away soon because this is getting really hard to deal with in the morning.

Overall I don't know if I can take one more dissapointment of having hopes of things changing or being different and I stay in the same place. I've stood by Shannon's subliminals for a while now and they are effective. But if LTU doesn't get me to where I need to be I have to look at other options outside of this stuff. I know it's on me to change, but I've screwed that up a lot in the past and continue to make the same mistakes. I'm taking responsibility for it, but at the same time if something that's supposed to help causes this much psychological distress I have to look into other options. I can't be tied to one solution and hoping that maybe one day it'll work for me.

[Have at ye]

The sleep disturbance is probably FRM hard at work. This should be temporary, all things considered.

Here's what I believe to be the deal with "other options" outside of subliminal programming: on one hand, you run the risk of it being an attempt to escape the program you are running. On the other hand, it might actually be your subC informing you of your needs - if that is the case, you should smoothly find something that fulfills them. When you hit option two, you can, I believe, pretty safely keep running the program while proceeding with the other thing (as long as it is not a different subliminal program - the new gen Shannon subs probably blow pretty much everything else out of the water as far as I can tell; haven't really been keeping up with his competition TBH; but I'd wager that those who actually have a pretty decent idea of how to make an effective subliminal program, are still probably ~10+ years behind in tech).

[DarkTempatation]

Things have been really rough. I haven't been sleeping well. I keep waking up at random intervals in the night. Also consistently waking up before my alarm. But not really waking up, more like leaving sleep then going back into it for 15 minutes and then dragged out. I feel this soul crushing weight in my chest every morning when I first wake up. I hope it goes away soon because this is getting really hard to deal with in the morning.

Overall I don't know if I can take one more dissapointment of having hopes of things changing or being different and I stay in the same place. I've stood by Shannon's subliminals for a while now and they are effective. But if LTU doesn't get me to where I need to be I have to look at other options outside of this stuff. I know it's on me to change, but I've screwed that up a lot in the past and continue to make the same mistakes. I'm taking responsibility for it, but at the same time if something that's supposed to help causes this much psychological distress I have to look into other options. I can't be tied to one solution and hoping that maybe one day it'll work for me.

 @mat422 let me tell you something my friend, you are not the only one! I have been running LTU since the start of February, I've had my ups and downs, and what you are talking about not sleeping well I am sleeping even more! I start to fall asleep at work lol, nevertheless I am going through aches and pains all over my body, at this minute as I am talking. Moreover, I have been getting 'SEVERE' headaches and Extreme Itchiness around my whole body which I've actually never had before. the best bet is to keep going, are you using masked? or hybrid, play around with the loops, see what works best for you. something might work best for me doesn't result in its best for you, as we are all different, different minds.! 

My backache went really bad, where I wanted to switch to MHS that's how excruciating it went after speaking to shannon on the forum which motivated me to keep going and so i did! :

All the best my Friend! 

[mat422]

Thanks guys. Thinking about bailing on this sub was definitely self sabotage. I had one of my rest days today and it's still quite abrupt with that transition. Hoping as I stay on this sub longer those gaps don't cause me to nose dive as much.

I think one of the things that really caused my mood to plummet is I've been hitting lots of dead ends with my music. Trying my hardest to still work on it despite that feeling of wanting to give up. But at the same time getting frustrated because I feel like I can't put as much time and energy into it as I want. That and I'm trying to get rid of a lot of bad habits I've picked up that cripple my workflow. But overall I still fall back into old perfectionist ways that cause me stress.

[Paul1131]

Man, if there's one thing I need to learn is to not second guess myself. This song I've been working on for a bit now has gone through so many changes. Finally I ended up right back where I started. All the in between stuff where I thought I was improving it was just the fear. There's a certain clarity I have when I start a song that gets lost along the process. This is probably why it takes me so long to finish. Not because I'm being super attentive and refining fine details, but rather I spend most of that time second guessing everything and changing and adding too much.

On a non music related thing. I'm having these weird sort of flashbacks to my time in school. School was always rough for me. I don't think I've let go of those emotions, simply buried them. I've done that with a lot in my life actually. Despite all the anxiety I faced at times, I pushed on. But it had a sort of build up effect on me. I've got so much stuff I pushed myself through, but it never really felt like I conquered it. I've been really restless lately, definitely feels like the emotional healing process. There's a part of me that developed with a very strong will to push myself past all these things, but another part that's still there weighed down by it all. I've very strongly denied that part of myself for a while now because I always wanted to move past it. But by ignoring it, it just continued to influence me in the background.

Question, are you getting flashbacks to stuff that happened in school where you have some control and can make it come out differently?  I’ve been getting those, though I’m not sure it’s an entirely good thing.  I sometimes feel the anger that I suppressed at the time and ...... overreact a bit.

[mat422]

Can't say I have. But given how Shannon scripted this stuff it's probably your way of processing it. I will say that I've had moments where old emotions still grip me. I think if you're experiencing similar it's a sign of things being healed.

[Have at ye]

Man, if there's one thing I need to learn is to not second guess myself. This song I've been working on for a bit now has gone through so many changes. Finally I ended up right back where I started. All the in between stuff where I thought I was improving it was just the fear. There's a certain clarity I have when I start a song that gets lost along the process. This is probably why it takes me so long to finish. Not because I'm being super attentive and refining fine details, but rather I spend most of that time second guessing everything and changing and adding too much.

On a non music related thing. I'm having these weird sort of flashbacks to my time in school. School was always rough for me. I don't think I've let go of those emotions, simply buried them. I've done that with a lot in my life actually. Despite all the anxiety I faced at times, I pushed on. But it had a sort of build up effect on me. I've got so much stuff I pushed myself through, but it never really felt like I conquered it. I've been really restless lately, definitely feels like the emotional healing process. There's a part of me that developed with a very strong will to push myself past all these things, but another part that's still there weighed down by it all. I've very strongly denied that part of myself for a while now because I always wanted to move past it. But by ignoring it, it just continued to influence me in the background.

Question, are you getting flashbacks to stuff that happened in school where you have some control and can make it come out differently?  I’ve been getting those, though I’m not sure it’s an entirely good thing.  I sometimes feel the anger that I suppressed at the time and ...... overreact a bit.

I vividly remember having had some of those when I was running USLM in one of its earlier iterations, the one with FRM 1.0 or 2.0, I think? What you consider an overreaction may actually be what you truly wanted to do in that given situation absent fear, lol (I remember in my case it being about my old piano teacher when I was a younglin', ages 6-10 IIRC, in that flashback I was punching her in the face, lol).

Don't be worried about these, they're a good sign I think. Stuff is getting resolved and you're going to start feeling better in the long run.

[mat422]

Feels like there are certain aspects to LTU I really resist. Most notably the self esteem and self worth stuff. Confidence has gotten a little better, discipline and follow through on projects, but when it comes to treating myself better? I noticed a very strong sensation of resistance. I'm only noticing this now. I think for me my self worth has been so bottom of the barrel all my life, when I'm shown kindness I immediately reject it. It's odd but when I start to feel that programming kicking in to generate self worth my mind goes "this isn't right, you're not supposed to feel this way". Fear of the unknown? Either way, I think I've identified the sticking point I've had over the past few weeks.

[Benjamin]

Man, if there's one thing I need to learn is to not second guess myself. This song I've been working on for a bit now has gone through so many changes. Finally I ended up right back where I started. All the in between stuff where I thought I was improving it was just the fear. There's a certain clarity I have when I start a song that gets lost along the process. This is probably why it takes me so long to finish. Not because I'm being super attentive and refining fine details, but rather I spend most of that time second guessing everything and changing and adding too much.

On a non music related thing. I'm having these weird sort of flashbacks to my time in school. School was always rough for me. I don't think I've let go of those emotions, simply buried them. I've done that with a lot in my life actually. Despite all the anxiety I faced at times, I pushed on. But it had a sort of build up effect on me. I've got so much stuff I pushed myself through, but it never really felt like I conquered it. I've been really restless lately, definitely feels like the emotional healing process. There's a part of me that developed with a very strong will to push myself past all these things, but another part that's still there weighed down by it all. I've very strongly denied that part of myself for a while now because I always wanted to move past it. But by ignoring it, it just continued to influence me in the background.

Question, are you getting flashbacks to stuff that happened in school where you have some control and can make it come out differently?  I’ve been getting those, though I’m not sure it’s an entirely good thing.  I sometimes feel the anger that I suppressed at the time and ...... overreact a bit.

Sounds like some healing going on, and not necessarily negative like you think. It sounds more like you're expressing/letting out that anger that you weren't able to do so back then instead of holding it in.

I remember doing brainspotting (like EMDR) and she suggested I can change the situation to something that empowers me, and if that's yelling and letting out the anger in that memory, then that's fine.

Especially when you're saying 'I feel the anger I suppressed at the time' that sounds like progress if before it was numbed.

[mat422]

Damn, this is tough. Back on LTU yesterday. While listening I felt that self worth building and simultaneously the pushback from subconscious. But instead of going along with that negative view of myself I just kept enforcing self compassion and kindness. After that I noticed a lot of guilt pop up.

Where I'm at now with my job, I'm not all that happy. Some of the challenges I have to face I really have no drive for. So it becomes something I really have to force myself through and if I don't keep on top of myself I slack off. That's been a thing in my life, if I have no interest it's damn near impossible for me to focus. And here's where the guilt sets in. I feel like I should be trying harder to learn this stuff and that I have a great opportunity others would kill for. I mean I have a job, a lot of others don't even have that. But I just don't feel happy. I know I should be grateful for these things but in the grand scheme of things I don't. I could be in a far worse off situation like in a warzone, homelessness, terrible poverty, etc. But for some reason acknowledging that doesn't really offset the amount of discontent I feel in my own life. I've felt like I've been on autopilot for the last year just grinding this out. It's incredibly 1st world problems I have, but it just feels like mental torture getting up every day knowing I've just traded 8 hours of my life I'll never get back.

I've never really fit in. So it's no surprise that the common approach to life makes me deeply unhappy. I've always felt guilty about that.