Joshe

@trenton Just curious. If someone handed you over a gig that brings in $50k/yr, and you were plenty capable of handling it, would that change your entire outlook or would you still feel stuck?

Thanks @Indra Rachmaditya! I'm glad you liked it. Yes, I forgot all about that book. Seems like I read it about 10 years ago.

Yes, but environment still isn’t sufficient. Distraction and submersion into something else is far superior. Willpower is fleeting and it’s not always available. All it takes is one very unstable day and willpower is nowhere to be found. When the system is stressed, that’s when it wants the addiction the most. So I think the best way out of addiction is energy management, good sleep, get enough vitamin d and magnesium, set environment up to make access to the addiction difficult to reach, and either dive into something deep and/or distract yourself with something for long enough that the addiction loses its power. A hobby or even TV shows can distract. You’ve gotta go through the initial acclimation phase - where the addiction is strongest - then you enter into maintenance where it is a background hum but not as strong. If you make it through acclimation, backsliding usually occurs when energy is chaotic, so energy management becomes crucial. In the interim, be reinforcing ideas that the addiction is not what you want and that it’s harmful. It’s always a messy process and most attempts fail at first but as long as you keep at it, you’ll overcome.

You're right. Sorry about that. My intention was to sketch out how the position might arise. It was my best guess. Feed me data and I'll update. lol

Lol. You tryna pull rank on me bro? Leo rubbing off on you? 😂 Does "additional context" = your pre-existing lens? Here's my read: I think you successfully operationalized courage, Kaizen, tiny actions, mindset shifts, etc., and after ample effort, they worked for you, so you concluded they're universal tools. But they worked because you had the base and circumstances. The tools didn't create your stability, they optimized it. Now, you're trying to give OP optimization tools when they need foundation tools. And when the tools don't fit, you don't question the tools, you question OP (maybe it's chemical, maybe they need a professional). The tools can't be the problem, right? And external reality can't be the problem, right? It MUST BE internal, and if it can't be overcame internally, it must need a professional. If you've never been trapped in serious survival mode, it's hard to grasp how much it dominates your experience. It's not just a stressor, it's THE stressor that makes everything else much harder. The solution is to fix it, not optimize around it. We've had a good joust. Time to pop a bottle and watch some fireworks. Happy New Year! 😁

Clinical support can be useful. But OP's distress appears to map cleanly onto their environment. Not that mental health should be ignored, just that fixing structure appears to be the lowest hanging fruit with the highest potential leverage. It's possible this alone solves the current problems.

That's interesting. Did you believe this before 5meo? I've never done 5meo, so not sure what all it reveals, but I'm not sure how you get to "highest state of consciousness is what happens after death". Why must it be the highest state? Why can't it just be an unknowable transition? Also, does that "highest state" persist forever until it decides it wants another dream? If so, interesting implications here. I'm having a hard time making sense of it but without 5meo experience, maybe I can't.

Yeah, and the cruel irony of it is repeated effort without relief teaches the nervous system effort is dangerous because it leads to dissapointment and depletion. So over time, the brain learns avoidance. The biggest lie of self-help: that internal work is sufficient to change external circumstances. Self-help says: fix the inside and the outside will follow. Reality says: secure the outside first, and the inside will calm down on its own.

@Natasha Tori Maru If this were an inertia problem, how do you explain all the action OP is already taking? Going to work, making spreadsheets, taking courses, and they seem like the type that's already brushing their teeth and taking showers. lol. So, if behavioral inertia isn't the sticking point, what is? Gotta be something else, right? You seem to be resisting the chronic threat part. It's possible to be under so much ongoing threat and anxiety that the only thing that matters is knowing there's a path to safety, and the system can't truly relax until it sees one. The thing is, no perspective shift or behavioral change on their own can solve the threat, and people under these conditions intuit this, which makes them panic even more. Real threats have to be addressed directly, not with some indirect mechanism that requires a major change that may or may not work. Anything else just makes it worse.