Venus

You have control, start using it! If we're honest, I've spent the last 2 years properly fixated with personal development and learning all the different tricks to solve internal problems that the problem at the moment isn't that I need to look just a little more to finally find the perfect method to get out. Let's be real, I know pretty well now, well enough, to get the results I want in the right places, but I think the reason I'm not getting them is because I feel like I have no control. I don't try at habits because I feel doomed from the beginning. I don't even consider asking her out because I'm already sure she'll say no. I feel that trying is pointless. Of course it's not though. So just go out there and do small things and look at the results to show yourself that you do have control, because you really do, so much more than you think.

I am so fucking desperate for a purpose and this stupid perfectionism makes me, every single fucking thing that I love, it makes me tell it off so it's not good enough, I find reason to never persue. I'm left lost with no drive other than to be perfect. But that's a fucking dead end loop. Perfectionism is ruining my life. I can't be the man I need to be if I'm chasing this idea of perfect. It's a trap. Everyday is spent focusing on how imperfect I am because that is my only purpose but there is no way I can fulfill it. So much drive goes into this virus of a "purpose". If only it were something meaningful and rich.

I want you to run as fucking far away from perfect as you can. Be the shittest, most terrible thing you can, stay the fuck away from this idea of perfect, fucking do the worst you can, be the worst you can. Everything that points towards the perfect self, fuck it, run away from it, twist it up making mess only. The only fucking thing in the world that isn't beautiful is perfection so fucking leg it.

Being vulnerable and surrendering I realised something pretty major yesturday when talking to mum about being defensive. It's this whole idea that we have these defenses that we put up inside of us with the intention of blocking out pain and hurtful things in the world, but in turn actually block out a ton of other stuff too. We put up defenses because we are scared and fearful. But see, the thing is that there is so much love everywhere that when we put up defenses to not let certain things in, it means love can't get in, it means we don't experience life fully because we're so tight resisting it that it can't come in. Our defenses are a resistance to letting in certain experiences that we assume will hurt or damage us. We can do this physically as well of course: I was just having a shower and I decided to turn it all the way down to it's coldest temperature. When I did that, naturally I wanted to resist and my body was going tense and freaking out, jumping about trying to escape this freezing cold. But then I realised that this was my body's defense against what it was scared of. It doesn't necessarily matter why it was scared, it's the fact that reality was happening to my body and my body was trying to resist it. But nothing really got better when I resisted. Yeah I experienced the cold a tiny fraction less because of the resistance, but I also missed the experience of so much more. So I then decided to surrender into the cold, letting down my defense and resistance to it so that I wasn't trying to turn it away but instead let myself be vulnerable and feel it fully. Suddenly it wasn't so painful. The sharp stabbing horridness of it had gone but I still felt the exact same cold as I did before. But this time I wasn't fighting it. It It was so much more peaceful. The one word that keeps coming to mind is "vulnerable". We don't want to be vulnerable because it's scary. We could get hurt. Being vulnerable means opening your heart so that every emotion and feeling is allowed to come in and penetrate you fully with nothing trying to stop or turn any of it away. It's a full acceptance of experience. But being vulnerable has one more aspect to it than opening you heart to let stuff in: it also means letting stuff out. When you open your heart you are showing who you are completely. Your authentic self. It means you express yourself exactly as the real, loving you deep down wants to. But at the moment that's cringy. That means telling your gran you love her, or giving a little attention and listening to that annoying person you know who goes on about how sad their life is. These sort of things, depending on your context, we all sometimes want to resist because it means opening up our soft, squidgy parts to the world for everyone to see, and potentially reject. Now that's scary. This is where for some people it's really easy to be vulnerable and for others not. It really depends the amount of love they feel in their life I think. A person who feels a strong sense of love in their life, maybe they had a superb upbringing and know how to love themselves well, or maybe they're connected with God and are really in touch with his unconditional love, or both, these people tend to find it easier to be vulnerable and authentic because they're used to being loved unconditionally and not being hurt ("hurt"meaning love taken away, or hate shown) when they have had all their defenses down. So they learn that it's okay to be vulnerable and show who they are because they've seen that love is there when they do so. Yeah rejection might shake them a little, but love was there initially and that will hold them stronger. But for those other people who maybe didn't have the best upbringing, and I will say, were emotionally abused, then this is the opposite. And by emotionally abused, I mean any upbringing where unconditional love wasn't there for more than the majority of the time, and first of all, allowing the child to fully be themselves without feeling they are inadequate or worthless. These people learn that being open and vulnerable is bad because they get hurt and rejected. They might not actually learn this first hand but from a parent who had a childhood where they were constantly not loved when expressing themselves authentically. So they grew up building strong barriers and defenses, stopping them from being hurt in those same ways again. Then they live their life defensively because they're always on the look out for anything that could be an attack because of how scared they are of getting hurt again. But this backfires and everything seems like an attack, so they defend against everything, trying the push away the "attack" but actually push away everything that is trying to love them in life. They don't even recognise love. And of course, because of their defenses, it means their heart is not on show and they cannot let out true authentic, unconditional love, because that's what the heart does: the true heart loves unconditionally. So when these people have children then those children only learn how to be defensive and resist life. Their role model is someone who doesn't know love, so they never learn love properly themselves and become the same person their parent was, creating a viscious cycle. I emphasize how important childhood is because I believe that as children we are only born with the basic defenses to keep us alive and survive. The obvious one being physical pain: we resist the experience of damage to our body because we want to stay preserved as our separate human self for as long as possible; we want to live forever. But quickly through rejection and lack of love we start to learn places to put up defenses else where, emotional defenses mostly. But I believe this is partly the reason why you see babies and young children as so much more expressive and happy than non young people: they haven't learnt to put up defenses to the world yet that also stop their authenticity from glowing outwards. It's a two way door. And I'm sure this is why children cry and get upset more: because they let themselves feel the pain that they are struck with. Their extra happiness would then come from the fact they are letting in love from all around them, they are allowing themselves to experience the full joy of life by having no emotional defenses that would block it out. Do you know how much joy you can get from staring at a dead daisy? Your 2 year old cousin does. But you've forgotten. You've also become desensitized to it but that's something else. Fairly linked though. If we want to feel the true extent of the love in this universe, we have to let go of our defenses and surrender to being vulnerable. There is no greater feeling than that which comes from being truly yourself. To surrender means let go of resistance; to let yourself fully experience; to do the very thing your fears tell you not to do; to not think*; to not listen to your worries; to accept fully; to let yourself be vulnerable to the existence of; to give yourself to; to let in; to let go. I thought of some things that are commonly resisted in life (my life at least) and if we want to feel love more fully then we should practice surrendering to them: To surrender to what my fears are To surrender to exactly who I am right now, whether I like it or not To surrender to all my wants and desires To surrender to what I dislike about myself To surrender to all my insecurities To surrender to the facts of reality in this moment, whether or not they are how I want them to be To surrender to who other people are To surrender to the sensations I am feeling at this very moment To surrender to the past To surrender to the present moment To surrender to do the right thing To surrender to the existance of the emotions I am feeling I don't fully understand this yet but I know this is the source of love I've been trying to figure out. I needed to make these notes because it's really been on my mind over the last day and I can't just let it fade. *thinking is one of our natural defenses we are born with. Thinking is what has kept us alive as a species; it's our greatest survival mechanism. So it's only expected that when there is any threat in life that we think about it and create fears and worries of what could happen and "what if"s to keep us "safe". We spend so long in our heads fixated on our fears that they can hold us back so much from doing the things we authentically want to do. Fear prohibits our authentic self from expressing itself. Our authentic self is fearless and fully loving. Fear and love are opposites.

"Look at the evidence. But not through the emotional lenses"

Self acceptance and authenticity Sometimes self acceptance means accepting parts of you that are the opposite to which you want to be. Often actually. It means acknowledging and being friends with the you that you currently say you don't want to be. But when you do accept it fully and take a greater more deep look at who you are already, you realise that loving you is actually much easier than you thought. Some examples for me of things that I have to accept that I often don't want to be, include: That I do care about what people think I am emotionally affected by other people I do want love from others I do get shy I do want relationships I'm not always happy and feeling at the top of my game I'm not perfect Sometimes I am just tired There are more but these were the main ones on my mind. Accepting yourself is much easier than you let yourself believe at times. Sometimes I feel bad and I think it's because I'm not accepting myself enough so I try accepting myself more to make me feel better, but no matter how hard I try, I don't stop feeling miserable until I accept that actually, yes, I feel miserable, and stop telling myself off for being miserable, because when I was trying super hard to not be miserable, I was denying and trying to block out that part of me that was miserable, therefore not accepting a large part of me. Imagine you are existence and see yourself the same, unbiased way existence sees you. Only through accepting myself can I be properly authentic because that means being myself and it's difficult to be myself if I'm trying to stop being the person I am.

Thoughts squared When we have a "problem" our natural human response is generally to think our way to a solution because thinking is what's kept us alive for thousands of years; thinking works for surviving, (so does following your emotions). Our mind will constantly worry on the subject if it's something we feel is of threat to us. But what if our problem is worry? What if we realise that our biggest cause of unhappiness is when we're stuck thinking and worrying, so our goal is to stop? Then naturally our heads will start to think it through and go something like "okay, let's think about this... How do I stop thinking? I need a solution". And our head won't stop worrying until it feels comfortable that the problem is on its way to being solved and there is a solution. This is why when you come up with another method of how to make yourself feel good, then you seem to stop worrying so much. Your brain sees hope so stops trying to solve the problem. But again as I've said before: there is no solid solution; no concept or tool. You just have to let go, don't latch on. Your thoughts will always worry so don't try too hard to control their content. If anything, just add to them. When you feel good it's not because you're thinking all the right thoughts , it's because you're relaxed and feel like everything is fine and "there's a solution", so AS A RESULT, you stop worrying and your thoughts calm down so you feel more in control.

Consider that you might be moody just because you're tired and need some rest. It might not actually be some really deep problem that you need to figure out and solve. Stop trying to think so much. It never helps.

Answers for the other me Because I'm not stuck in my head. It's the thinking worrying mind that tells you life is hopeless. When you start to accept yourself and be your own friend then life becomes playful, it becomes fun. What you've written all seems to be stuff that comes from being stuck in your thoughts too much. All I did to not feel like that was have a nap really. When I woke up my head was cleared, I wasn't stuck at the bottom of a spiral that I'd been fixated on for the last few hours, because I lost it when I slept. When I woke up I noticed that yeah my head was worrying, but I didn't super push away and try and deny my thoughts because my mind is part of me and it would be a massive sin to try and reject it I didn't focus on my worry/thoughts, but I didn't push them away. I let my attention flow, I didn't force it. There was no pushing or rejecting. Rejecting and denying your own feelings, thoughts and self is the biggest disservice you can do to yourself. When your head is worrying, the last thing you need to be doing is telling yourself off for it because that won't help. It's your worrying mind that WORRIES that you are "depressed" or "hopeless". Don't confuse this with identity. I understand that you genuinely feel hopeless and that anything you try wont do anything, but please please realise that you do have control, so much more than you're telling yourself at the moment. You are not a victim, but you're making yourself believe you are. Cummon, you're the one who yourself realised how much pretending to be a victim is a massive cause of struggle and problem so take your own advise and take responsibility bitch. Don't lie to yourself, you know exactly what to do. DON'T GET MAD AND SAY THAT THESE NOTES ARENT HELPFUL,THEY ARE. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, YOU KNOW YOU HAVE CONTROL OVER YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. Just slow down, breath and try to be the thing you're telling yourself off for being. I have questions: what do you think you're doing wrong? Who do you want to be, what would you change about yourself? What are you scared of? What don't you want to happen? Could you be turning away a part of yourself? Are you thinking too much? Do you need to let yourself be vulnerable? Do you need to let yourself do the things that yourself wants to do instead of denying yourself that pleasure (accepting yourself can be more than just saying "yes okay I thought that". Sometimes you need to act on your feelings, otherwise, yeah wtf is the point? So actually, accepting yourself is about doing most of the things that yourself wants to do in life otherwise what the heck are you living for if it's not to go and do the things that will make you happy)? What do you need to get up and do to show yourself acceptance of your impulses, desires and wants? What do you want to do right now that you know you shouldn't? Is it really such a problem to go do that thing? Acceptance is key and more than just saying "yep okay I thought that but I'm trying not to anymore". Here's some notes I made earlier:

You don't have to be anybody.

As much as that feeling of hopelessness says "there's no point in trying to find a way to feel better", there's that equal force in me from the other, higher direction that's always saying "let's come up with different methods and routes for happiness... Here's one; I can see how this would work; wow look and the potential in this". The hopelessness is wonderfully smart since it can always find convincing reasons as to why everything the higher self says won't work. So whenever the higher self comes out with good content, it's often rejected, despite it's good content. Sometimes this can actually simply be because I just wouldn't be able to do all the things it comes up with at once. But either way, none of it should be rejected. Even if I'm not using the advise my self comes up with yet/atm, I should still make note of it all for the future. One habit at a time. That's a big point too. I come up with so many different ways I could improve myself but often I've tried to start them all at the time I think of them but then they fail because I'm trying too many at once and can't keep up or grow fast enough, which really doesnt help the hopeless feeling. We wanna see results Jerry. Quality not quantity. So self acceptance is my main habit I'm practicing at the moment. So for self actualising methods I come up with, but for future use I'll use the code of (FSAM) (future self actualising method... Original I know). So yeah. I had one in my head which is why I started writing this, but now it's gone. Oh yeah I got it. (FSAM): - yeah you don't need to let go of her at the moment to improve yourself. Use your passion for her as a motivator to get your ass off the floor and commit to the practices and work you know you laze away from and half ass. If you feel super motivated to becoming a better person when you think you're doing it for her, then heck, allow yourself that. You don't need to tell yourself off all the time if a big part of you desires her. Telling yourself off is getting nowhere and you know it bub. You don't need to say yes to a genuine chase but hey ho, if you're feeling something, allow yourself the pleasure of it, because you're gonna die one day pretty soon and I'm hella sure you wanna go out saying "you could've ignored it, me, but I'm so wacko happy that you chose to give yourself to me and let my happiness be what it had to be. Yolo amiright?" Don't tell yourself off for your love. Especially if it's trying to be one of the main driving forces. It'll become a greater burden if you don't let don't the gates of resistance and surrender.

Questions for the other me What keeps you motivated? Why don't you just feel like there's no point? What stops you from feeling hopeless? What makes you not feel inadequate? What stops you from feeling like you're not gonna fuck up and whatever you try just won't work because that's what happens every time? What gives you hope and stops you from being depressed?

Removing limiting beliefs http://goalbuddy.io/limiting-beliefs/

You are a gateway to the whole universe. Never ever ever ever ever doubt your greatness or ability, or assume yourself inferior. You don't even understand the greatness that you hold, so don't ever fucking assume you are a piece of shit because at least, you are so much more rich and amazing than you can even imagine. Never forget that. You are worth nothing less than anyone else and so much more than anyone assumes of them or you. Lest we forget

Yes. What to?

For a long time I've been always feeling down and like I'm not good enough because of what I've just been realising lately, that I irrationally believe basically that I'm unworthy of happiness or I can't achieve the things I truly want to blah blah blah: negative thought patterns. I find when I let go of holding onto conscious thoughts; when I let go of the part that reminds me of these beliefs and worries, then of course it feels so much more relieving. But it's a practice and I wonder if I can just suddenly always keep that level of consciousness. The one thing I keep feeling is necessary is that I create positive thought habits before I choose to let go of those thoughts and to try and just focus on keeping that consciousness at that high level so I'll be okay for when I inevitably fall back into relying on thoughts sometimes. Part of me says "just jump for consciousness, don't worry" but another part says "don't and instead build yourself the best habitual thought responses to be safe." What's the danger in just jumping? Is the worry justified, or is it just worrying for the sake of worrying?

The only convincing reason I actually have for being depressed is that in the pastI have been depressed so "I must be depressed in the future because that's just who I am". But hang on...why was I depressed in the past? Oh yeah, because before that I thought I was depressed so I believed that at thAt moment then, I should also be depressed; the past me was depressed because the past me of the past me was depressed so my past me thought it was his identity to be depressed because his past self was too. And my only "convincing" argument for being depressed is that my past self was, so my present self should be too, because if my past self had reason to, and nothing has changed since then, then for sure I should be depressed now? No. Depression can cause depression. We can get so caught up in being hopeless that we feel like there is no hope for stopping our hopeless feeling and any original reason for our hopelessness is lost and forgotten and we just begin to feel hopeless for the sake of feeling hopeless. We think it's who we are and should be because we felt the same yesterday and nothing obvious has changed since then. That's why hope helps so much: because something has changed since then. It doesn't actually matter what it is that has changed but we know something has and that we shouldn't feel so hopeless anymore because "something" will supposedly make it better. But the only thing that is actually making it better is the fact that now you aren't telling yourself that you should be hopeless. It's just a bloody loop! The only thing you need to do to get out of this depression loop is picture yourself as happy because then you begin to believe that you should feel happy instead, and in turn will feel happy. It's the law of attraction.

Can you transcend the need for approval when you presently feel no love from anywhere?-

One big belief that just keeps popping up and I'm noticing having a massive influence is "If I'm not the best then I'm no good at all; I'm worthless"

I wrote this up yesterday about my beliefs. I've been realising how helpful it was writing these out so I'm just copying and pasting here:

I don't follow a religion but hang around with many Christians. It's not like they go very deep into it like actualized.org does (just the conventional church every sunday and friends with the same views) but to me, it seems they have a greater satisfaction with life and are more at ease than I feel; the sort of comfort in life that I feel I'm aiming for with personal development, yet they aren't doing any personal development really. So why do they seem to have these results without putting in the work? Could it just be it seems this way because I can't see what they're like on the inside, or is there there actually a few key things that happen to be in just the right place because of how religion works and what it does for someone? (This is assuming there isn't a/the God they believe in)

I'm really starting to think that meditation and self acceptance are the two main things I need to focus on right now to help get out of this rut

What is conscious thought actually good for other than being sure of stuff? It seems that intuition (if I've got it by the right name) is really good enough to lead you all the way through life and all conscious thought seems to do is slow us down and worry. I suppose that's what it could be then: it keeps us alive through fear... Maybe. Let's just start a discussion.

I understand (at least some of) how much beliefs effect a person's life and realise how important it is to question your own beliefs. But I feel like I've had a strong lack of commitment to properly questioning my own since I don't understand how. I see there are so many and I don't know where to start or how to dig them all out, so this is me asking where and how?

Okay. A lot of what I'll right will probably be really irrational but I'll write what I'm aware I believe just off the top of my head. The bold one are the stronger beliefs. I believe... My beliefs hold me back I have low self esteem I'm almost depressed My mum's low self esteem and negativity is the main cause for mine and my depression There's a powerful force in me that is for me and striving to help my well being. I feel like this force is greater than most people's. It's the same force that stops me from giving up when feeling low I'm a really possitive person under my low self esteem That my low self esteem has ruined many friendships and holds me back from the bigger relationships I want I'm needy That raising my self esteem will fix everything I'm a really funny person underneath my low self esteem My low self esteem is a lie I tell myself and really I just have a problem with believing I'm not worthy of happiness Happiness is difficult to acquire I make PD too complicated I'm nothing special I have a lot of talents I'm emotionally not very healthy all the time. More so at the moment If I talked to someone and vented my feelings more then I'd feel a lot better I don't have anyone close to talk to I used to have close friends Im lost with PD at the moment because I'm confused on what to do first because I'm too perfectionist I'm a perfectionist I must be perfect I'm focusing on the negative stuff here That humour is the best way to create good relationships I don't stand much of a chance of creating good relationships or making anyone like me if I can't be funny I must be funny I have to take lots of time to build the habits that will make me feel better eg humour, positivity, non-perfectionism, happiness habit etc I'll give up on trying to create these habit after a few days because I'll feel hopeless and that it's pointless Me feeling really down at the moment is good for me as I'll be able to help people in the future with their really low emotions because I'll be able to relate. It's also good because it is a big drive towards me becoming the great person that PD will develop me to be I need to be perfect Perfection is a thing I can't be perfect... Therefore I'm not good enough I'll only be liked when I'm perfect I used to be really popular because I was pretty much perfect but now factors have caused me not to be That^ is super irrational but i believe it strongly and it holds me back I don't know what is is keeping me in this low mood and rut That my beliefs are quite likely keeping me back from improving my mood and progressing with my PD My crush likes me My crush would be happy to get with me but the only thing that is stopping it from happening is my low mood and low self esteem stopping me from gaining the confidence I need to be more of the person that will be more attractive I will always fail to become the person I feel I have to be to attract my crush That I put getting with my crush as priority number 1 and that's holding me back in life That I need to get over my crush (because she's also my ex but we're still close) That there's no way of getting over my crush/ex I'll be so distraught if my crush/ex got with someone else Lack of love is causing my low self esteem/low mood/hopeless feelings in life Achieving the things I want in life isn't difficult but it is for me because I create irrational beliefs that hold me back I'll never be happy There is hope and I could be super happy I won't become happy if I keep trying to get there on my own; I need guidance from others I don't need school There's plenty of ways to make a living in the world today and the formal education route is actually a really inefficient route unless you genuinely have dreams in those higher education jobs Most people are too scared or just to dumb to do the things they want to do in life but I'm special because I realise I can just go for them People might get offended by that^ and not help me on this post because of it Depressed people can fix their own depression and shouldn't make such a fuss about it I really need to work on self acceptance Reading is really good I will feel quite contempt reading more and gaining knowledge I'm a little bit bipolar in the fact sometimes I feel really really down and others I see so much hope I don't know where to start to feel at a comfortable level of emotional well being This^ is the main reason I'm stuck I keep thinking I know why I'm stuck, so I go on to fix that but then think it's actually another reason so stop the first one and go onto the other one. So I never actually create a proper habit because I stop too early. I believe this is why I'm stuck Consciousness will help a lot in making my life wonderful Self acceptance will help a lot in making my life wonderful Feeling I have purpose will help a lot in making my life wonderful If I faked to myself that there was actually a God that unconditionally loved me then it could get me out of this rut I'll always fail at actually obtaining the mindsets that will get me out of this rut Having a girlfriend would really help me feel better Having a girlfriend would be bad for me as I would be tricking myself into thinking I'm better but actually just covering up the fact I can't deal with having to lean on myself to think I'm good enough I should be able to be perfectly happy without anyone liking me I shouldn't be effected by people's negative opinions of me This girl that I have been getting with for the last 2 years (not my crush but someone who I was just having fun with ? but we got quite close but I didn't actually get into a proper relationship with because I still wanted to be available for my crush) this girl is the only person who actually properly loved me The fact that this^ girl just got with someone else (a week ago) and I think doesn't love me like that anymore, is what's caused me to be in this deeper rut For the last 2 years I've been covering up having to rely on myself for acceptance because I had this girl who looked up to me and really loved me 2 years is an unhealthy amount of time to not be able to get over someone I only still like my crush/ex because I'm needy I tell myself it could be genuine love because I don't want to let go of her (Like I said earlier) I can't let go of her I'm not interesting People will start to dislike me when I try to argue how I feel about anything No one will like me because I'm not perfect There's a lot of positive things in my life but I'm focusing on the negative because of this rut I'm annoying when I talk about myself for more than just one sentence I should change how I talk because I could try and make it funny and if I did it right I would make people actually interested in listening to me At default, I'm not interesting to listen to; my authentic self is boring and annoying and not special I will be happier if more people liked me I should make everyone like me I can't make everyone like me I should be okay with no one liking me. Wanting people to like me is weak I shouldn't want a lot of the things I want I shouldn't believe a lot of the things I believe I need to be more conscious I need to be more self accepting I need to do a lot more things to be an adequate human being I need to charge my phone I need to meditate more Moving to the Himalayas and becoming a monk for a bit is probably one of my best options for my emotional well being I am really interesting but I don't believe it I'm more interesting than most but have irrational beliefs that hold me back so much I have irrational beliefs about how to get rid of or stop being held back by my irrational beliefs These irrational beliefs about getting rid of my irrational beliefs are holding me back from getting rid of my irrational beliefs and really keep me in a rut Maybe I can get out of this rut but I feel like I've been in it all my life and that my mum and brother are in it so it's something we've learnt off my mum and it's going to be really hard to get out of but it's possible although I have irrational beliefs about it not being possible Im starting to realise why I'm in this rut My irrational beliefs and lower self will make me feel hopeless again in 10 minutes like always I'm very smart My intelligence is held back by my emotions So much of my potential is held back by my emotions If I could control my emotions just a little more I'd go so so far in life My goals are much bigger than most's but that's good because I can achieve them, even though I know I'm holding myself back at the moment Hating myself is what's holding me back