My EPHRA 2.0 Journal

[JCasterlin]

I read somewhere in the forum how running E2 can be addicting. That would be an interesting experience. I will see how I feel as time goes by if I decide to go beyond the 180 days. I grew up with incredibly toxic as well as mentally & emotionally unhealthy parents & step parents. I never really understood why I had so many of the same issues over & over again in my life until I started reading about narcissism & the traits & characteristics of emotionally unhealthy people. One of my earliest memories is watching my Mother & Father fight. I recall this endless back & forth blame game especially on my fathers end. Guy had been remarried for several years & was still blaming my mother for various wrongs in his life. I saw my father & step mother spend money they didn't have & listened to the sound of the telephone endlessly ringing usually with a bill collector calling or the electric company knocking on the door to either get a past due payment or as in two cases , temporarily shut off the power.
I saw & heard my parents & step parents say & do some of the most toxic , hateful, self sabotaging things . My step father always acted like I was a problem to be gotten rid of. He used to beat on me for the smallest of issues . Usually something related to me somehow being a bad influence on his children from a previous marriage. He tried twice to have me sent to a foster home. Both my parents & step parents seemed to have no problem questioning my intelligence growing up. I was told I would be lucky to graduate high school. Never mind I was the first kid in the family to do so on time & with extra credits. I could go on but as you can see I've got quite a bit inside me I wish to eliminate before I take the journey towards AM.

You sir seemed to have been an unfortunate example of how emotionally damaged people turn around and damage others. Emotionally healing is important, you’ll probably find that you’ll be done healing sooner than you think. Remember though that E2 is designed to go at your pace so the greater the effort you put into emotionally healing yourself, the faster E2 will work. E2 is an aid in self healing, and what I found is that although it seems to clear things by itself it’s better when you take the opportunities it attracts to you to face and heal what is brought your way. Best of luck.

I posted yesterday how I fight myself about the need to use & stick with E2. Then I read what I wrote about what happened to me growing up & it's so obvious that E2 is what I need. I completely agree about the need to take steps to heal myself. I've questioned how much I can heal from a toxic person when I am at present moment forced to deal with them every day. Thankfully for my & my Wife's sanity & emotional health that will end July 1st. Oddly enough my 50th Birthday. It's scary as fuck to realize how much of my unhealthy behavior & way of thinking in the past is so obvious now & why or how it created endless problems & drama for me. I've said in the past that my whole reason for wanting to run AM is to be mentally & emotionally healthy . When I say I'm aiming to be a Sigma male I'm using the definition of the " Ascending Alpha " that Shannon described. This:

"The Alpha Male program is based on the understanding that every male has the potential within him to be what his genetic heritage is pushing him to be, which is a leader.

This potential is innate in us all, but there are often issues which develop through no fault of our own as we grow up which conspire to set us on the path to something less than our fullest potential. We are frequently taught by experience, society, and other control mechanisms etc. to surrender, instead of be what our genes are telling us to be."

Like a lot of folks I have not been on the path I wanted to be on. My only regret is that I didn't start E2 a couple of years ago when I first purchased it. Yet like a couple of other situations in my life I don't think I was ready. Yeah I have resistance but I know in my heart that this is what I need