Eager to evolve - Getting my shit handled journal

[LoveandPurpose]

@flowboy Hmmmm sounds great How much was it exactly, if I may ask? And are there chances that it won't work?

[flowboy]

I pm'ed you

[flowboy]

Why I'm Not Motivated Today

A few weeks ago, there were >40 items on my to-do list. Then I started weekly scheduling and accomplishing a lot of the little items.

Now, I have 62 items on the list.

I'm stuck and really, really fed up with the always-busy never-done way of life. I don't feel like I will ever get through the list. I don't remember ever having been through my list.

So... I will make a NOT DOING list, where I put everything I will CUT.

I'm going to have to cut... a lot.

Let's see if I can get it down to 15 items! That's 5 per card. Maybe that will make me feel better.

[flowboy]

I did it!!!

So painful to sideline important stuff, and admit you're not doing the important stuff.

But, if I didn't, I would just be lying to myself and not doing anything. I have to be ruthless here.

Tomorrow I will make new weekly schedules and update my habit tracker...

[flowboy]

Last week only 6% of my weekly schedule got accomplished. I didn't even look at it.

[flowboy]

Last week 33% of my schedule got done, and most of that was because of fixed appointments.

Factors:

• RSD workshop triggered me and caused huge ego backlash
• Working on something for a friend I felt a lot of pressure, and procrastinated for two whole days, watching TV. Finally, I skipped the entire night of sleep, only to work on it for 2 hours. I have a problem.

I'm thinking maybe I should get to the root of these procrastination habits. I really went into a mode where I didn't wash myself, have contact with anyone, eat healthy, brush my teeth, or sleep properly until my task was done. But I didn't do my task, I couldn't bring myself to stop watching TV.

Considering a 30 day no-procrastination challenge next.

No Smoking Day 11

It's going pretty good. The fact that I made a commitment in front of the circle of men is helping a lot.

[Zigzag Idiot]

@flowboy You can do this!

Good honest, objective self observation!

I used the 3 minute rule a lot in the first few days in quitting smoking. Primarily when a strong craving to smoke came about to not look beyond the next three minutes and to just stay with the breath for the next 60 seconds x3. Not to get overwhelmed by looking into the future and also knowing that life can be experienced again one day with zero craving for nicotine. Craving subsides. 

[flowboy]

@Zigzag Idiot  Thank you sir for the kind words! I too believe that I can do this. I don't feel like I ever really seriously started again. It's just a matter of focus for a few more weeks.

[flowboy]

Triggers around Abandonment, Approval, Rejection and Control Issues

As blissful as I felt last week is as shitty and tense I feel now. I even have trouble making sentences, that's how much my mind is twitching.

I can't enjoy food or coffee. I can't seem to focus on work even a little bit, even though I keep closing my tabs and going back to it.

I feel angry and sad, and am reminded a bit of when I was a bit depressed. This scares me. I thought I had made great progress. And now I feel more neurotic than ever. I feel dirty and worthless. I'm not wearing clean clothes and don't want to. I didn't brush my teeth or shower, because I didn't feel like it.

I woke up on time, but slept in anyway because I didn't feel like being awake.

 

Last weekend I did a workshop that pointed me towards some trauma I clearly have not processed. It didn't come up during Primal. I'm pissed that there is so much more. I thought I was fixed completely and forever!

It seems foolish now, but if everything is light and bliss and works perfectly in your favor for two weeks straight, that can be pretty convincing.

For the past days I've been tracking down issues I think I have, approval seeking, fear of abandonment, being controlling in some situations. I have asked many people for examples. And now, I feel like shit. I hope it was good for something. Am I supposed to be journaling now? Or working out? Expressing my feelings in some way?

Unfortunately, I'm also under stress to complete a task.

What was even the reason to go digging so deep, when I haven't even processed my notes from Primal yet?

 

There is an irrational fear that I've just set myself back 2 years and I will now be depressed and without self esteem again. Probably this is just a temporary state caused by bringing so many painful memories to the surface all at once.

 

Also, a friend who also did Primal earlier, reached out to me and said it was normal to be very sensitive some time after, and asked how I was doing and suggested to have contact and offered her support. I am grateful to that. I don't feel like I know who I am right now.

 

[tsuki]

I definitely do not know the extents of your suffering right now, but when I feel like shit I do my best to avoid feeding it to my mind.
Whatever I think when I'm in such a state only serves to spiral me down to oblivion.

My favorite way of dealing with emotional pain is to hug myself by placing my palms on the opposite shoulders like this:

This will pass. You're a good flow boy. I love you.

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

@flowboy I'ts good that you still journal especially when things aren't going well. I agree with what Tsuki shared. (For some reason the picture creeps me out a little though. ?‍♂️ I must have a bit of a shadow issue here.Just sayin.) If we become overtaken and consumed with self criticism, it's possible to get lost and flounder in a state of deficiency for a long time. Self acceptance and self love are crucial.

 Leo has Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book Flow on the reading list. I could do to read it again. Jonathon Zap wrote an article called dealing with psychic entropy a few years ago and references Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his article.  He talks about negative feedback loops. His practices of focusing attention in numbers games didn't do anything for me but he touches on other things I found value in. 

For a time I practiced drawing his Oracle cards on his website -- its free and links with some of his writing.

https://zaporacle.com/card/dealing-with-psychic-entropy-2/

Stay strong in letting go of judgements  ?

[flowboy]

@Zigzag Idiot @tsuki  thank you guys so much, it really means a lot to me.

 

The wind is very stormy and very warm. All night it was blowing right into my room, and it felt very personal. I had a very weird dream, like the wind was washing through me, flushing the tension through all parts of my body, infusing it with sadness. Unclear whether that was well-intentioned, but I decided to surrender to it anyway.

I'm very busy with this sudden sadness I feel. It's impossible to have conversations with me.

It's like the universe is fucking with me: I decided to dig into my fear of abandonment, and now this same week 2 girls I'm dating are out of the blue messaging me that they don't want to see me anymore!

It hurts. Something is different though: I'm letting it hurt. I'm admitting that I feel sad about it, and I do ask for an explanation. But I remain open, I don't blame her, I don't lash out and I don't reject parts of her.

I'm just letting the sadness fill me up and consume me. For awhile.

My thoughts are racing. Toxic masculinity, I'm lashing out, I'm mean, I'm lazy, I'm damaged

I know it will pass, though.

[tsuki]

   

[flowboy]

I remember the wind dream better now. It was like a stream of water was seeking its path through the body, stopping at every joint, asking permission, and I said yes and let it infuse me. And every time I took a breath and let it relax me. Feeling accepting and sad.

It keeps coming back to me how personal it felt. This wind had entire conversations with me, in which he wordlessly answered many questions of mine.

While writing this, my core muscles are spasming, creating shocking bending motions in the spine, similar to the "kundalini shakes" I've witnessed in people who are experienced with Tantric sex. The ego wants to believe that something magical is happening to me. But that's just stories.

 

Results Orientedness

I'm slipping:

• giving myself points for having a schedule, even though I'm not even trying to follow it
• giving myself points for closing all the distracting tabs every once in a while and looking at work. But still spending most of the time in distraction.
• Spending most of my free evening in distraction (porn is making a comeback! no pun intended), and then squeezing in a few minutes of what I was actually supposed to do, at the end of it, when it's bedtime.

A part of me (internalized mother and similar resonance in my ex girlfriend) are saying I shouldn't be so hard on myself here.

But I know: it will be the ultimate freedom to be able to work on a task no matter how I feel.

That I would keep promises to myself even when sad. Or when wanting a sandwich. Or attention.

A better relationship with myself. Very empowering. That is what I'm going for.

Edited June 6, 2019 by flowboy

[flowboy]

Primal Is Still Going

So, as my loving friend and Primal graduate pointed out to me: The lid is off, Pandora's Box is open now!

It is normal to be super sensitive afterwards. Which explains the ups and downs.

I am supposed to keep doing the meditations they taught me, and keep processing what comes up. And more shit will come up.

It's an ongoing process that's started now.

Darn. I thought I did the workshop and now everything is amazing forever

[dharma-shishyah]

It does sound like you're being very hard on yourself. For one thing: I do not think a person has a moral obligation to rid himself of all his past trauma. For the most part, this kind of trauma was inflicted when self-consciousness was either absent or in statu nascendi, so where exactly is the personal responsibility? But then one could also argue* that there is in our culture a tremendous over-focus on the idea that we are shaped in negative ways by our past. Whatever happened to the idea of "living in the moment"? If one should constantly monitor oneself for behavioral or thought patters that emanate from our personal past (in ways that can only be conjectural, dependent on some kind of theory about how the psyche evolves), then that seems a giant recipe for distraction. You're then basically always dragging your own past behind you. I would advocate for the idea that "One is already perfect the way one is" as an antidote for excessive preoccupation with past trauma.

[* These are not weasel words by the way: I do in fact think this, but I don't need to persuade you. If the idea strikes a chord with you, fine, if not, equally fine.]

Edited June 7, 2019 by dharma-shishyah

[dharma-shishyah]

By the way, it is interesting to me that, although you tell yourself to be less hard on yourself, you immediately qualify these words by attributing them to an internalized female voice. Can't a man legitimately tell himself to be less hard on himself? Or a man to another man? Could the reason for this be that we really want a woman to tell us this, because it is ultimately her judgment that we are afraid of? Just thinking aloud... (Although in my experience, if I find myself wanting reassurance that I should take things a little easier, I take that as a sign that I should do just that. Because in such circumstances, we tend to accept it when someone else tells us to take it easier -- again, especially when it's a woman -- so instead of trying to find a friend to talk to and elicit words of sympathy from them, why not just short-circuit the process and just listen to ourselves?)

[Zigzag Idiot]

24 minutes ago, dharma-shishyah said:

although you tell yourself to be less hard on yourself, you immediately qualify these words by attributing them to an internalized female voice. Can't a man legitimately tell himself to be less hard on himself? Or a man to another man?

Good honest questions you ask but more important is flowboy's right to let his subjectivity express itself in however he chooses within his Journal. If this begins to be shutdown by others assertions or questions, then often the process of inquiry is hampered. Most especially in times of inner turmoil.

[dharma-shishyah]

53 minutes ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

Good honest questions you ask but more important is flowboy's right to let his subjectivity express itself in however he chooses within his Journal. If this begins to be shutdown by others assertions or questions, then often the process of inquiry is hampered. Most especially in times of inner turmoil.

Flowboy is completely free to either take or leave my little suggestion. Or do something in between even. But that should already have been clear from the way I wrote it.

[studentofthegame]

On ‎05‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 5:12 PM, flowboy said:

Triggers around Abandonment, Approval, Rejection and Control Issues

As blissful as I felt last week is as shitty and tense I feel now. I even have trouble making sentences, that's how much my mind is twitching.

I can't enjoy food or coffee. I can't seem to focus on work even a little bit, even though I keep closing my tabs and going back to it.

I feel angry and sad, and am reminded a bit of when I was a bit depressed. This scares me. I thought I had made great progress. And now I feel more neurotic than ever. I feel dirty and worthless. I'm not wearing clean clothes and don't want to. I didn't brush my teeth or shower, because I didn't feel like it.

I woke up on time, but slept in anyway because I didn't feel like being awake.

 

Last weekend I did a workshop that pointed me towards some trauma I clearly have not processed. It didn't come up during Primal. I'm pissed that there is so much more. I thought I was fixed completely and forever!

It seems foolish now, but if everything is light and bliss and works perfectly in your favor for two weeks straight, that can be pretty convincing.

For the past days I've been tracking down issues I think I have, approval seeking, fear of abandonment, being controlling in some situations. I have asked many people for examples. And now, I feel like shit. I hope it was good for something. Am I supposed to be journaling now? Or working out

your 'relapse' sounds entirely normal to me.

it's a journey that doesn't end when a workshop finishes.

I've had feelings arise in the last 6 weeks that I haven't felt for 15 years, triggered unexpectedly. I thought I was past this. they too are around attachment, loss and abandonment. 

I've had some amazing highs and lows in the last 6 weeks actually. i'm still dealing with it. still learning. still scared