greenleafx

@Sharpadox Hey there. Just saw your post. Maybe this can still be helpful to you. So, you're definitely hard on yourself. It shows up in the way you write. Try to hear your own self-judgment. Meaning, becoming self-aware. Resistance in my exploration comes up AFTER you pass a criticism or judgment onto yourself. But it can be subtle, and that's why awareness is king. So here's how it usually happens: - You do something, and your well trained mind passes some sort of self-judgment onto yourself. This part is usually unconscious until you get good at catching yourself - Pretty soon, you'd get some sort of ill feeling, or you'd find yourself behaving in some familiar unproductive way that you can't seem to break out of. This stage is pretty easy to catch. As soon as you catch it, go to the next step... - You help yourself by releasing the ill feeling or the thought that drive it. Use the Sedona method, meditation, or at least give yourself a internal hug. Or, if that's too much to handle in the moment, then first break up your state by: take a walk, relax yourself, or do a little exercise. When state breaking is done, come back and re-conjure up the ill feeling or try to hear the self-judgment you had passed onto yourself in step 1 and 2, and employ Sedona method, Meditation or whatever other techniques to gently release the underlying conditioning. You probably have multiple negative patterns that need deprogramming. But if you are diligent, you should be able to deprogram yourself to the point of "normalcy" within in a few months. Diligence meaning to be aware and work on yourself everyday. "Normalcy" means things are easier to handle and you have a way of handling that's more productive. And all this is to get you to become kinder to yourself. Because that's where resistance come from. Think of a parent and child. The child may misbehave, but it only truly began to resist the parent AFTER the parent shows impatience or a critical response. That's effectively what you are doing to yourself internally. So you have to get the parental part of you in line first. And then you can get the child part of you to deprogram. That's pretty much the map. You can do it.

I think personality is a combination of something intrinsic about you and the current state of development for you. So for example, I tend to be service-oriented. That element is in me and manifests in a lot of what I do or say. But I could go through a period of depression where that service orientation is expressed differently from when I go through a period of calm. And outside observer may evaluate me as needy or helpful depending on when they observed me, but the personality is neither nor both. They are the intrinsic elements (at least in this lifetime) filtered through the conditions I am engaged in. The consistency of the personality is a reflection of the consistency of the filters I use. In this sense, I agree that personality can appear to change. But if you observe closely, that same intrinsic value is always and still there no matter what.

The list grows longer as my intention about the depth of relationship/interaction gets more serious. Here are some big landmarks in progressive order: Physical attraction. This is the first sorter for putting a person in a friend zone or potentially more than friend zone. Kindness. Decency and values are important. Shared reality. Awareness, intelligence and capability. Left brain and right brain prowess needed. Also need to make money and stand up in the world. Open-mindedness. To grow together, this is a requirement. Forgiveness and letting go. It's a given that we will piss each other off. What do you do then is the big question.

@Martin123 Great line. Props!

@Arman Thanks for the fantastically insightful reply. I can tell that you are someone who has spent the time on this journey with a great eye for detail and introspection. I would say that I fall into the same camp and has been whipsawing my way around for a couple of decades. I think your point about "packaging" and the ultimate individual mystery is spot on. Yes. Totally agree, and it's quite good to hear you making this observation. Everyone's starting point is different. Each of our core challenge, temperament, timing, whereabouts in the journey... are all different and it necessitates different degrees of tackling. Also, as we dive into different levels of unraveling, different techniques may resonate better. While ultimately I believe each of us will arrive at the same integration, each path is going to look different. But for each author that puts out a technique or method, it necessarily is based on the context of that person/type of person's unique set of circumstances. So the answer isn't so much in exactitude as much as it is in taking in pieces that work at the right time. For me personally, I've found that I have the same core challenge throughout my journey so far. The inner child thing didn't work so well for me for the same reasons I was very attracted to the concept. But I can see that it could work really well for someone else with a different orientation. This is a fascinating topic to me as well. No worries on the length of the post. As you can clearly see, I'm in the same boat. And I think that that is the point after all. No one truly has all the answers nor the particular answer for any one individual. That's what makes it so fascinating if not at times laborious.

@Arman Great description. Really appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. I want to share my experience, and would like hear your take. For context, I've heard of the concept of "being with" for a long time, and it was basically my go-to tool. However, truth be told, what I've found was a lot of effort, temporary relief, and not super stellar results. The Sedona Method is something I just started with, and so far it seems to work faster. So I asked myself, what is the biggest difference? In "being with", I was more or less taught to "hold the uneasy feeling". Soften the feeling. Hold it as though holding a baby, as though I am the good parent that I never had. I am essentially asking myself to withstand the ill feeling in an attempt to to have the ill feeling feel accepted and thereby stop acting up. In this modality, the ill feeling is a representation of my inner child. And the inner child needs to feel not neglected but accepted to quiet down. Using the Sedona Method, because the language is more focused on "letting go." I dissolve the ill feeling by simply allowing it to leave. In this modality, the ill feeling is simply reacting to something I said or believe in. I find the thought or belief that's causing this unease, and letting that go. There's no holding or coddling. The acceptance is the overall understanding that in my ignorance I am hurting myself. So I let go of the hand that's doing the hurting. The biggest difference in my internal perspective is that, whereas in "being with" I saw the pain as the inner child, in Sedona Method, the inner child doesn't come into play. If anything, when I am in pain, I am more in touch with the inner child, the vulnerable part of me that cannot easily let go of the stimulation. So I help myself by letting go the stimulation. It's a much more direct approach. And it's more self-validating too. because the underlying assumption here is -- yes, I feel the pain, and yes, I will help myself out of it. That's my perspective so far. I'd love to hear whatever thoughts you may have on this.

@Wilm I like you. Can I make an observation? Are you a bit of a closet perfectionist? I'm noticing that you tend to use sweeping language on yourself. For Examples: "I'm totally not creative." "I'm 35 and not that gifted, so a professional career is out of the picture." "I'm not good at working with people, so no option." You're being a too hard on yourself. Might I suggest you become more aware of how you evaluate yourself? A little kindness goes a long way. Another reason to be softer on yourself is because these evaluations are the very self-imposing limitations that are preventing you from seeing the full you. For example, if you don't see yourself as creative, you'll likely not create, potentially missing out on an LP. If you don't see yourself as a people person, you are likely not try to work with people. Not that you won't ever attempt, but that setbacks can kick you out quicker than it would someone else who is perhaps less gifted than you. This is the trickery of self-limitations. These lines jump out at me because I suffer from it too. It started out as a coping mechanism as a kid who felt very put upon. And in turn, I am also familiar with that feeling that something is "missing" in me. Over the years, at least cognitively, I've come to accept that this is not the case. Still working on the emotional part. So onto solutions. What I've found works better for me is to not look for a singular answer -- perfectionism gets in the way here. Instead, try to view things in terms of trade-offs. So rather than looking for one absolute passion, I accept that passions are developed more often than love at first sight. In the beginning stages, all you've got is an "interest." You might be looking for it in a silver bullet sort of way. The reality is more often: you like something, you investigate it, you really get into it, and you become fully immersed in it, and eventually it becomes your life's work. But in the beginning, it doesn't look like that often. For a few lucky ones, it could. But those people have other challenges, so don't worry about it. Just focus on what interests you. The last thing I want to say is regarding releasing these self-limiting beliefs. I am pretty interested in investigating the Sedona Method. I'll let you know if I find it helpful.