Failure to Launch

[Nahm]

7 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

Yeah i can see how toxic my thinking is, i'm harsh, and i focus on all the negative things going on in my life. But to me it seems like it's an accurate reflection of my reality. Also, i don't know how to change it.

Appreciation. Gratitude. 

7 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

Like i can "I love you" as a thought, but i don't FEEL the love when i say it. I don't know if i'm just too disconnected from my feelings to feel the subtly or what.

Momentum is actual. Appreciate. 

7 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

There are times when it seems like i'm not thinking anything, but still i don't feel good. Also, if the focusing on negative thoughts is producing the suffering, how come positive thoughts don't produce good feeling. 

Try em, you’ll find they actually do. 

7 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

I am definitely caught up repeating the same old narrative, focusing on all the shit wrong with my life. But it's just automatic at this point, it's like i'm in a hellscape. You always said thoughts arise one a time, but for me no positive thoughts are arising. And if something feels better, like a song or something it doesn't last and eventually it doesn't feel good anymore. 

Do you really think all of this is just the thoughts i'm focusing on. Like being a man child, that's not just focusing on the thoughts i have so much evidence in my reality.

Everyone has ‘evidence in their reality’ which matches perfectly what thoughts they believe and focus on. The fundamentals of daily morning meditation, utilizing a dreamboard, eating clean, exercising, and choosing better feeling thoughts & perspectives is still liberation. The choice is still, and always in every moment, yours. 

[LarryW]

@Raptorsin7   you passed your Biology degree, that's a big achievement. You put in what, 3 years of dedication, organisation, self-discipline and focus to accomplish it?  What has changed since that time to lose your sense of purpose? Why did you do the degree, was it a dream and ambition for your future? I'm curious because in my family and school, going to University was expected and I ended up doing a science degree because I was indoctrinated it was the right thing to do, and I've never used it since.  Or could it be the structure of the University which helped to keep you on track, gave you that scaffolding to organise yourself, which is now missing?   I know Leo promotes people starting their own businesses but I'm pretty sure I'd be lost without the structure and hierarchy of the organisation I work for, I guess I'm institutionalised like that   Perhaps like me, you need some stage blue-ish organisation to belong to, at least temporarily until you find your own way. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by LarryW

[Raptorsin7]

@Nahm What can i do when i don't have the discipline, will power, drive, or want to do the basics? When i'm this deep in the hell of my own mind, or is the answer always going to be mastery of the basics or suffer and whither until I do?

I really don't feel grateful for anything, it's all just negative and pessimism.  

Also, question about autsim and Asperger's. Growing up i had a lot of these signs and symptoms, but was never really diagnosed. Does that change the calculus on any of this stuff, or is that just another negative perspective i'm focusing on and believing? 

[Raptorsin7]

6 hours ago, LarryW said:

ou passed your Biology degree, that's a big achievement. You put in what, 3 years of dedication, organisation, self-discipline and focus to accomplish it?  What has changed since that time to lose your sense of purpose? Why did you do the degree, was it a dream and ambition for your future? I'm curious because in my family and school, going to University was expected and I ended up doing a science degree because I was indoctrinated it was the right thing to do, and I've never used it since.

It took me 6 years to get the 4 year degree. When i first started college i was very motivated, all i would do was study and i did really well. But i didn't form friendships or form connections, and i wasn't even really enjoying the course work. I was just incredibly motivated to not be a loser and get into a pharmacy program. I was using school and academic success as a way to deal with feelings of inferiority and envy, with the hope that if i achieved success i would be able to turn myself into a good and happy person, and finally be able to be normal and happy like the people i envied.

But before my 2nd semester of 2nd year i freaked out because i thought my hair was falling out, and i basically just failed a year of classes because i was so pre-occupied with the thought of me being a bald loser, and my plan to work myself into being not a being a loser basically crashed. I actually overcame this depression and made some big improvements at the time in my feelings of happiness and satisfaction. I was still kinda messed up, i was still akward and odd, only now i had more energy and was less inward and withdrawn and more shamless and just open doing stuff. 

Idk part of me feels like i'm just defective. I think the next step in my development is to find a solid structure and routine, but i also have a ton of emotional stuff to deal with. Like i have an incredibly fragile psyche. I feel like a little kid in a man's body, and idk if this will get better with getting a routine or something. 

At this point i've kinda given up on life, i'm basically a recluse, and hopefully things change in the future but right now it's kinda hopeless and i'm just out of it mentally and phyisically.

[Nahm]

11 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@Nahm What can i do when i don't have the discipline, will power, drive, or want to do the basics?

You could remember that you do. You’ve had times in your life where you felt absolutely amazing, and it was precisely due to the fundamentals, exactly what you mentioned there. Right now, you’re playing a role, similar to the guy in Hoosiers who was initially ‘too good’ for the fundamentals. It is what he really wants, and the suffering of suppressing that desire, which led him humbly back to participating in the fundamentals. You can choose to create it, to go in that direction, whenever you want. You can realize you’re on ‘team humans’ with the rest of us anytime. Your question contains within it the statement, that you currently, do not want to do the basics. That’s fine. Don’t beat up on yourself for it. It truly does not matter. Other humans will indeed continue to support you. Be comforted by this, again, don’t beat up on yourself. You can take the healing time you need, and see that you have desire to be part of something bigger than ‘yourself’. All in due time. Heal up, let negative self talk go (like what you said about yourself above).

Go one inch at a time. Every morning, wether you actually intend to do any of the fundamentals or not, just say aloud “I can do it, I have the discipline, I have the will power, I have the drive, I will do the basics”. The turn around starts there, intimately at ‘home’, within you. Change the inner-monologue, the self talk, and the world does very literally begin to change right before your eyes. 

The key imo, for you, is when feeling begins to empty out, when the emotional misunderstandings and negative beliefs about yourself begin to come up & out - (no offense saying this to point to opportunity of healing & progress) you rather immediately not only jump to believing the arising thought story about ‘yourself’, but you spider web it into the biggest worst case scenario ‘my entire life’ picture you possibly can, and you reinforce negative false beliefs about yourself. This is indicative of self-refusal. As a personal example, I went through a self-refusal around introversion and being recluse a good while back. I didn’t realize I was using it as an excuse, and that that was the basis, or root of much misunderstanding emotions and drive. Once I accepted it, all that misunderstanding came up and out. I loved that I am that way, and therefore got to experience that love is not like the ‘things’ of the world, it is magical. Hard to explain, but nowadays, being introverted and recluse pairs perfectly with being social and extroverted. None of these describe me, they never actually did. I had pigeoned holed myself by the thinking the way I, in the personhood sense was, was “wrong”, that this was “something which is wrong with me”. Self-love and acceptance changes reality and how we interact with it. It is transcendent of stuff like “introverted or extroverted”, and any other dualities that might come to mind.  

Quote

When i'm this deep in the hell of my own mind, or is the answer always going to be mastery of the basics or suffer and whither until I do?

Suffering is something you create. Suffering is not the default, which you ‘need’ to escape from. 

You create your own suffering with what you say and think of yourself. 

You do this now  - or you don’t do this now. 

Even the thought story “hell of my own mind”, is a cover up which perpetuates the suppression & avoidance of feeling. There is not a ‘you’, a ‘hell’, and a ‘mind’ in direct experience, by which that statement could be true. It’s one thought, which arises, which you believe and share, in a victim mindset. (“I” am the victim of “my mind”). Holding negative beliefs about yourself, and suppressing & avoiding feeling, feels so bad - that you literally make up that story and blame a “my mind”, just to try to make sense of it. But ‘making sense’ simply means feeling. If you were to feel more, you would face the fact that what’s behind all of this, is your belief something’s wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong with you to begin with. I love you exactly as you are, and this is something you can do too. Judgement is a stickler, but it can be purified / let go. 

Quote

I really don't feel grateful for anything, it's all just negative and pessimism.  

Feeling wise, there is an obviousness there which seems to go right over your head. If that were true you’d feel great. Notice your life is sustained, that is to say - notice in this very moment you are living - not because of your own efforts & independence, but because other people are taking care of you. Sort of a must in the single digit ages, but it gets old the older we get. No one will ever force you to appreciate anything per se, with the exception of reality experienced as suffering. If you don’t want to thank someone, express appreciation & gratitude for anything, you certainly don’t have to. But, it won’t feel good, because of who you really are ‘inside’ you might say. 

Quote

Also, question about autsim and Asperger's. Growing up i had a lot of these signs and symptoms, but was never really diagnosed. Does that change the calculus on any of this stuff, or is that just another negative perspective i'm focusing on and believing? 

There is a somewhat (and more each day) defined criteria and distinction behind that particular diagnosis, and many varying degrees therein. That has been established by the medical profession / industry. If so and to what degree would be a measurement of adjacency to that diagnosis as it has so far been defined. So you would have to go to a doctor, and compare, to see if and to what extent you meet that diagnosis. I would only caution not to go down any thought paths of it being ‘something wrong with you’ or someone else. In my personal estimate so to speak, it is just another indication of the extent to which we truly are ‘all in this together’, as ‘no man is an island’, and no finite mind is in actuality individual.