Shannon's Journal Discussion Thread, Vol. 8

[Shannon]

Shannon,

Its been great using Maverick, but I realized I have more work to work on, I am still not there yet in many areas like finance, fear, and other things


I want your advice on something,


I realized that when my face is fully relaxed and unconscious ( at least the way I feel it) it looks as if I am angry or mad or upset even tho I am not so sometimes I have to very slightly adjust my expression to appear happy or neutral, so that people dont mistake my emotions, I was even asked many times why I am mad…just because of this expressions

in addition I realized whenever I do adjust my expression , there is an immediate shift in emotion inside me, I feel better, happier but I cant maintain the facial expressions all the time especially when no one is around,

When I am alone, my guards leaves me which relaxes my face and turn it that way, please note the adjustment is very slight,

To explain it better, when I am unconscious, my face fully relax its position heavily towards my lips, which enlarges my lips and make it appear puff as if I am upset (as if my face relax all its muscles into my lips area)

So when I am conscious of this, I simply return the expression to the balanced position equally across my face (I draw the relaxation back from lips to entire face)


My only theory of this is that when I was a child I developed heavy anger or shame or whatever negative emotions that made me shape that expression most of the time. But now, I dont know how to solve it,

My younger brother is 1 year younger than me, and my mother told me that when I was a child I was very jealous of him, and I used to get very angry at him for taking my spot, she even expressed how my facial expressions was which was similar to what I highlighted above.

But my thinking is back then, as a child, the expression needed energy for me to shape it that way, but now its a default expression?




I am currently using OF v4


Do you have any suggestions? Should I use overcome fear guilt shame


I am also looking into the inner smile meditation. Not sure it will fix the root issue tho


Please help

If this is what you think it is, then you need to disengage the "default pattern" you created as a young man.  This may be done by meditating on contacting that part of you who is/was upset with your brother and getting it to let go of those feelings and forgive/accept him fully.  Then the default should shift - if that is the issue.

It may not be possible to do with meditation if you're not experienced with how, but give it a good solid try.

Aside from that you may find that OGSF or EHPRA is helpful.