Fear of happiness

[SaynotoKlaus]

  After a long time of having no idea what i want to do with my life , i figured out what are the things that bring me the highest satisfaction , and i truly think that pursuing these things will bring me more happiness than i can imagine.

But i found out while starting to do them that i am terrified of happiness. When i practice , with joy also comes anxiety , that is so strong i feel the urge to stop and distract myself with things that make me feel comfortable. Sometimes i freeze and i feel like there is some invisible force that makes me powerless and unable to break free from it. If i try to fight this feeling is like i'm trying to move a mountain. 

I am aware of how i sabotage myself bigtime by giving in to fear , but all my logical thinking doesn't make me stronger.

I thought about about this , and the only solution that comes to my mind is meditation and enlightenment work , but so it happens that this is one of the things that make me terrified. I can't get any good results with this stuff , because i soon as i feel that i'm going deep in a meditation session for example , i need to stop. 

I don't know what to do.

 

[Enactment]

I´m not sure if what I wanna talk about is exactly the same feeling as yours but I also had the experience that I just could not make myself do the things I was convinced would be good for me. Sometimes I would be very, very scared. So much that I could not possibly make myself do the things that I thought would do good to me. I guess this is the point where we need a little self-acceptance and unconditional self-love and allow us those seemingly "strange" reactions. Maybe the thing we are pursuing is - for some reason we don´t know yet - really not good for us or we are somehow not yet "ready" to do it. Or our minds and bodies just need some time to shift - and we have to be patient and try the thing we want again and again until we stop "backsliding" and the limits of what we can bear extend. 

[exaviusx]

Hello there fellow self actualizer,

 

I know what you're talking about, cause i've felt the same before. That's kind of a byproduct of self actualizing, from what i understand about it up to now. What you're doing with self actualization and enlightenment work etc. is basically fighting against the grain of your comfortable ego.

As leo explaines in his ´homeostasis´-video, your psyche is just as well a homeostatic system as basically any other system. And shaking up this static state can sometimes be very horrifying.

In his book ´Spiritual Enlightenment - The most damdest thing´Jed mckenna calls this the 'autolysis' of the ego. You're burning your ´self´to the ground, basically comitting suicide. And thats f***ing hard.

What I found helpful is changing your perspective a bit, in how you look at life and your ego all together. When were saying ego, were talking about this thing that doesn't exist. So that means that anything that is coming from something that doesn't exist, basically doesn't mean anything, so CAN not have any effect on our reality... if you are commited to apply this Idea.

When it comes to life itself, when I think about life, it's usually in a very simple way. Life is meaningless. And life being meaningless is also meaningless, which kind of gives the whole thing an eary but cool touch. Like Leo sais 'life is meaningless and saying life is meaningless  is also meaningless, so you can basically do anything you want'...

I know im beating around the bush. What im trying to say is take it easy, what is of the future is of the future. So you don't know. I imaginge being happy/fullfilled must be pretty f***ing awesome. Don't get yourself caught up with worry about what may be or what may not be.

what you know, you know and what you don't know, you don't know!

[Cynthia]

I used to have this resistance too.  I always thought it was a fear of disappointment or leaving my comfort zone, but eventually I realized it was actually because of my low self worth and believing that I don't deserve happiness or success.  I am over coming this through meditation (with a special focus on self love), unconditional self acceptance/ love/ care/ forgiveness, and surrounding myself with people who make me feel worthy.  Reflect on what caused you to feel guilty or worthless and then try to accept it.  We all want you to be happy!  

[Leo Gura]

Yes, this is called the Upper Limiting problem. You actually do have an upper limit for how much happiness you allow yourself to feel in a given day/week. Anything over that limit feels uncomfortable and even scary. Because fundamentally you haven't developed your psyche enough to open yourself up to being penetrated by love. Deep down the ego FEARS love and it fears life.

What to do?

Gradually practice expanding your ability to feel love and joy. Be very mindful of those moments when you have more love than you can handle. And stretch yourself a bit to stomach just a little bit more than the last time. Tell yourself, "I have the courage to open myself to more joy and more love."

Being happy is actually like a muscle. If you haven't used it for a long time, it's very weak. You gotta flex it gradually over the weeks and months and years to build it up to the point where you can wear a shit-eating grin on your face all day long for absolutely no reason. << That's not easy to develop to. You gotta really work out many of our inner demons.