EHPRA Journal

[mat422]

We have a high number of Armchair experts everywhere. It's up to the individual to discern the quality of the advice given by the person giving it.

Would you take swimming advice from a man who's drowning? Would you take weight loss advice from someone who is obese?

People give advice with the best of intentions. It's not intended to hurt. But there's a saying "the road to prison is paved with good intentions".

True. It's hard to discern the quality of advice sometimes though. Well it used to be for me anyway. Being filled with a bunch of guilt, shame, and fear pretty much caused me to doubt my every thought.

This is a quick update because I felt I should mention it in case anyone else can relate to it when running this sub. A lot of the time the emotions I feel are felt in layers of intensity. For a while I've been stuck on the surface level, where it feels like it's all over my body. Sort of stuck in what I'm feeling and not moving beyond it. But lately when I go much deeper inside myself, don't really know how to describe it, I feel these small concentrated dense feelings throughout my body. The ones that are the most prominent are in my chest and my stomach. Occasionally I'll feel it in my throat as well. It's almost like getting to the source of those more surface level emotions I feel. It's also bringing awareness to how the real problem isn't the story tied to these feelings, it's just the energy of the feeling itself. It's like diving even deeper into my internal world.

I'm wondering if this is just areas of my body where the emotions are stored and I'm just starting to release them now. Sort of like getting a deep tissue massage and these are emotional knots of balled up energy.

Anyway it just made me realize how much deeper all this goes than where I was putting my attention at before. Words can't describe what these feelings are, but they are there. Just one of those things that's an experience that makes you realize language only touches the tip of what we feel as beings.

Believe it or not emotions,traumas etc. get stuck in the body. Doing yoga exercise,meditation and getting massages. Can help clear these things. As your running and clearing these things while using these subs.

I've read about this. I find it really interesting. E2 seems to take care of it a bit though. I've found after my usage of this sub that I've stopped making a habit of tensing up all the time.

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I've been going through hell these past few days and not because of the sub. Apparently I can't even drink decaf coffee without getting nasty side effects. Coffee in general just messes me up bad. I have to find some alternative to drink in the morning. Caffeine free, I don't do well with caffeine either.

But there has been stuff popping up while running this sub that has got me kind of bothered. I've noticed when people express affection I feel this sense of guilt or something inside me. I have a really hard time accepting love directed towards me. For whatever reason I feel like I'm not good enough for that. I used to think it was just because I was unemployed and struggling to be on some kind of path. But even if I imagine myself on the right path achieving things and being self sufficient, I still feel like I'd have that closed off feeling when it comes to other people.

I feel there's nothing really I can do but just keep on listening to the sub and trying to heal whatever it is. There's probably a whole slew of things causing this, but I honestly wouldn't know where to begin. All I know is that forcing myself to accept love isn't really going to work. If anything it'll probably make me feel worse that I'm so closed off, so I'm just going to keep chipping away at this until something happens.

Also I feel like my perfectionism is slowly decreasing in intensity. I was watching a video of a producer in his studio and he was making some music. But he was just fiddling around with stuff and just doing whatever he wanted without really caring what happened. Pretty much entire genres of music were born out of just doing whatever you want without fear of consequences. At that point I realized just how ridiculous I was being with trying to always get everything right and worrying about doing things right. I was so paralyzed by doing things potentially wrong I just never seemed to actually progress at all. And what I'm really starting to realize is all that anxiety is far worse than actually doing something wrong. Simple life lesson, I know. But understanding that intellectually vs on an emotional level that actually allows you to feel that way are worlds apart.

All in all I feel like I'm starting to see patterns that point towards deeper things. And the surface level problems I encounter in my life are really just a symptom of stuff that's much deeper.