11-27-2016, 09:37 AM
I've been on stage 1 for a bit now and I find myself still having a great deal of discomfort while listening. To be honest I have no idea what it is at this point. It feels like a mixture between intense sadness and hopelessness. Like I know there's a better life for me in the future, but at the same time I feel like I'm going to be struggling for the rest of my life. Like living a life I actually enjoy is just a pipe dream. I feel like it's an intense reaction to whatever life affirming or direction oriented goals are in Alpha. That's how my mind generally works. When I used to do affirmations my mind would immediately interject with the most negative self hating kind of comments. I'd imagine this hopelessness and sadness is just a similar reaction.
But as an aside, for a while now I've been going above and beyond at my job. Being the go to guy, staying later, etc. I realized a lot of that was fueled by people pleasing behavior and shame. I was burning myself out fast and the anxiety was way too high. I'm slowly beginning to be more comfortable with setting boundaries and limits and not feeling bad about it. People pleasing behavior has nothing to do with wanting to help people as I often deluded myself into believing. It was this fear that if I wasn't constantly being nice to people and bending over backwards for everyone else than I wasn't a good person. It was also this sort of weird self punishment. I'd turn myself into this emotional slave providing for everyone else because I felt like I was such a terrible person this was the only way to redeem myself. The most messed up part about all this is it's actually very selfish, despite appearing to be kind on the outside. It's an ugliness that was masked as niceness.
To be honest that's been one of my fears throughout my life. That if you took away this sense of validation, I'd be a cold sociopath. That my kindness to others is only fueled through self gratification. That's a huge debate among philosophers I won't get into. But the thing I fear the most is secretly being like the very people I dislike and who use and hurt others. I don't know, maybe that's been a major stumbling block for me to move forward in life and let go of some of this stuff.
But as an aside, for a while now I've been going above and beyond at my job. Being the go to guy, staying later, etc. I realized a lot of that was fueled by people pleasing behavior and shame. I was burning myself out fast and the anxiety was way too high. I'm slowly beginning to be more comfortable with setting boundaries and limits and not feeling bad about it. People pleasing behavior has nothing to do with wanting to help people as I often deluded myself into believing. It was this fear that if I wasn't constantly being nice to people and bending over backwards for everyone else than I wasn't a good person. It was also this sort of weird self punishment. I'd turn myself into this emotional slave providing for everyone else because I felt like I was such a terrible person this was the only way to redeem myself. The most messed up part about all this is it's actually very selfish, despite appearing to be kind on the outside. It's an ugliness that was masked as niceness.
To be honest that's been one of my fears throughout my life. That if you took away this sense of validation, I'd be a cold sociopath. That my kindness to others is only fueled through self gratification. That's a huge debate among philosophers I won't get into. But the thing I fear the most is secretly being like the very people I dislike and who use and hurt others. I don't know, maybe that's been a major stumbling block for me to move forward in life and let go of some of this stuff.
