I feel like shit after 6 months of self-actualizing

[raytvor]

I've been dealing with mild depression (or dysthymia) and  moderate anxiety for many years and I've spent last 6 months self-actualizaing and I feel like shit, my mind is in total disarray. During the time, I've made TON of satisfying changes for the better - 150+ hours of meditation (including self-inquiry), mindfulness (I seem to be able to register almost all conscious thoughts), a lot of introspection and false belief hunting,  finding the bright side in anything, qutting most of bad stuff (reducing alcohol, masturbation, tons of mindless/meaningless activities), some excercise, embracing unitasking, and devouring loads of self-help books. I enjoyed the process very much.

But I have led a soulless life self-actualization. I still hate almost everything about myself, the life I created and everything I experience in the moment. Most of my previous superficial values died off in the process of self-actualizaing and now I feel like nothing good is waiting for me and nothing in this world comforts me, nothing excites me, almost nothing brings me relief or joy.  I feel some sort of relief during meditation because I forget who I am. 

Objectively, I am a successful person - I am financially well off, I have a job as a doctor that I quite like and I am good at it. But this doesn't help of course. I don't have a decent hobby and I have little human interractions I enjoy in my life.

I'll take any advice how to go further.

Edited October 30, 2020 by raytvor

[arlin]

Hey, i am on this journey like 1,5 years and i understand you completely.

I have gone to the point where i was so depressed and mentally damaged that i depersonalized basically. Or had an awakening or experience of no self (dont know yet).

But trust me, if you keep going you wont regret it. You have to think that you are doing what nobody does. You are going straight to the pain you are working to improving youself. And if you are open minded, you will find a solution to the problem of feeling depressed and being damaged mentally. 

BUT, i have to say. This process is constant, i know how you feel. You probably work everyday on yourself and it is even lonely. 

I have learned many things on this journey. One of them, through experience, is that it will fucking suck when you do this at the beginning. You will fail, i myself have been ashamed and regratefull to the point where i wanted to just kill myself for starting this path. I have also learned that it is fucking important to keep your mental sanity and NOT GO TOO FAR.

LOOK, if you can't take a break from this work there is a problem. Take breakes, stop doing everything, take time to reflect and to be lazy sometimes. 

I know now, why so tiny fraction of humans do this work. It's fucking tough. Fucking tough.

The question you have to ask yourself is: Does your heart feel? Does your heart believe in your future? Does your hart know???? YES OR NO?? ASNWER. DOES IT KNOW YES OR NO!?!?

No matter ur shitty circumstances. Or whan your brain says. If your heart knows, you are on the right path.

1 hour ago, raytvor said:

But I still hate almost everything about myself,

Look, you have to develop self love. You have pushed enough on the journey. Ask yourself: If i stopped working on myself what would happen? What would i feel? Would i feel like something is missing?

Ask yourself again, what do i really want?

Now i am going to share with you, something that if you listen it will change your life but you have to answer first and then i will answer.

Do you have friendships?

[Someone here]

Try therapy and antidepressants. Also consider taking a break from self-actualization work. 

[Nahm]

 

17 hours ago, raytvor said:

I've been dealing with mild depression (or dysthymia) and  moderate anxiety for many years and I've spent last 6 months self-actualizaing and I feel like shit, my mind is in total disarray. During the time, I've made TON of satisfying changes for the better - 150+ hours of meditation (including self-inquiry), mindfulness (I seem to be able to register almost all conscious thoughts), a lot of introspection and false belief hunting,  finding the bright side in anything, qutting most of bad stuff (reducing alcohol, masturbation, tons of mindless/meaningless activities), some excercise, embracing unitasking, and devouring loads of self-help books. I enjoyed the process very much.

But I have led a soulless life self-actualization. I still hate almost everything about myself, the life I created and everything I experience in the moment. Most of my previous superficial values died off in the process of self-actualizaing and now I feel like nothing good is waiting for me and nothing in this world comforts me, nothing excites me, almost nothing brings me relief or joy.  

You’ve got some things backwards which hasn’t been realized yet. 

“Now I feel like.....Nothing good is waiting for me and nothing in this world comforts me, nothing excites me, almost nothing brings me relief or joy”. 

The crux of your suffering is misinterpreting experience. That (above) is not what you feel, it’s what you think. How that perspective feels, is discord, or, suffering. 

It can be recognized that is a thought story about a you, and that thought story is the product of aversion to feeling. 

 

 “I still hate almost everything about myself, the life I created and everything I experience in the moment.”

If that perspective were accurate, it’d feel great. It’d resonate. Obviously that perspective is not resonating, and it is not actually accurate of you. (It’s of the “you” of the thought story.)

17 hours ago, raytvor said:

I feel some sort of relief during meditation because I forget who I am. 

The relief experienced in meditation is not because you forget who you are, it’s because you get a break from the activity of the mind, specifically from the beliefs & story about who you are, and a break from the over exertion required to keep the story about yourself going, and to suppress feeling. 

17 hours ago, raytvor said:

Objectively, I am a successful person - I am financially well off, I have a job as a doctor that I quite like and I am good at it. But this doesn't help of course. I don't have a decent hobby and I have little human interractions I enjoy in my life.

I'll take any advice how to go further.

This is likely going to initially be upsetting to hear, but if you can breathe from your stomach and relax, you’ll see the sensation comes & goes, and you’ll be glad you did. You can also recognize you are already upset and have nothing to lose. 

There is Truth, and therefore, there is the experience of suffering - experiential discord with Truth. 

“Objectively, I am a successful person”...”I am well off”...

Very relatable & understandable. I believed that once too. I understand you mean to convey such that you are not in a position of dire need, and so the suffering is not in regard to the fundamental ‘level’ of survival. Do you understand what I am saying when I say there is no objective perspective and it is delusional to continue believing that there is, and to utilize it to define yourself as a successful person who is well off? There is a certain obviousness to this, in that you are admittedly miserable. If I too held your beliefs about what it is to be a successful person, I would be miserable. What you believe to be an objective perspective is your subjective perspective, and the fact that you presently don’t know & see the difference, is indicative of the root of the suffering. This is not success, this is not being well off. This is obvious, isn’t it? 

It is quite possible the holding of yourself in mind in that regard spills over to also believing an “objective perspective” that you are a good doctor. If I hold the belief that a subjective perspective is objective, there would be two fall outs from this. First I would inevitably realize that I defined “good” based on what I think other people think, and or by holding myself to be the ultimate objective authority on what is good - via my own thinking. The second repercussion would be that of my wife slapping my face and telling me to wake up, God bless her. 

What is desired, and readily available & accessible, is the actual clarity, peace & love and that which is absolute. What is “blocking” you, is the light this clarity will shine on the facets of life you have mentioned. There can be a sense of a house of cards about to collapse, and that - through improper understanding & interpretation, such as looping through thought stories about yourself and feeling, can be nightmare-ish. But it doesn’t need to be at all.  

 

[ivory]

On 10/30/2020 at 11:03 AM, raytvor said:

I'll take any advice how to go further.

First of all it sounds like you're missing out on play and relationships, but it also sounds like you're in some sort of existential crisis or spiritual transformation. Shit like this is very difficult to diagnose because there are human factors as well as spiritual factors that aren't well understood. You need to get real clear on what it is that you want, and what it is that you need. But you're also going to need to temper those expectations with reality. Life is devoid of meaning and inherently unsatisfactory so no matter what you do or where you go you will feel like something is missing. But, you do need a reason to get out of bed in the morning so don't think you can go live in a cave and be mentally healthy. As things become clearer to you you will understand the necessity of balancing responsibility and acceptance.

[Michael569]

Maybe in the process of self-actualizing, you have turned your life into too vanilla & mechanical. I think this can be a trap of pursuing highest consciousness living that a lot of things one would have previously enjoyed are now abandoned because (add your own reason). But actually, there are benefits of still having some entertainment and even shallow-type of fun in life. Maybe you need to experiment with a bunch of relationships, not restrain from all pleasures of life, watch a few comedies and play a bunch of video games. I am not saying you become a shallow-living dweller but that you don;t strip your life of all materialistic pleasures...unless you see that becoming your path which it certainly can. Maybe you need to take few steps back before you are ready to move on. 

Also as a doctor, you know that depression & anxieties could very much have a physiological cause linked to your digestive health, monoamine balance, chronic inflammation, toxicity etc. In my practice, I have seen these work for people who were extremely spiritual. A bit of gut work & blood sugar balance went a long way in improving their mood & outlook of life. It may be worth your time investigating causes like these as well. 

[LeoX8]

@raytvor you are hitting the wall of "success doesn' bring happiness" my friend. Your self actualizzation lead you to one of the limits of materialism: it doesn't bring you happiness.

Start researching about self-love even if you don't buy into it, be open minded about it. You can also start to grasp spirituality, non-duality and LOVE. 

Love will bring you to another level, trust me. It may sound cringy to you but if you want to address this problem those things will help you a lot.

hope that this has helped<3

[Darlisto]

First of all thank you for sharing so openly and vulnerably. I can truly sense your intention to turn things around and make a positive shift in your life.

From what I sense from your message is that you have a very strong negative relationship with your inner child. You say that you hate yourself and your life, but I feel it's important that this pain, frustration and overall suffering you are experiencing is stemming from childhood conditioning. The more you say you hate yourself, the more you deny those subtle emotional signals from your inner child and past, creating a stronger gap between your current conscious experience and your past. Try to approach the situation from a loving, compassionate perspective and see that your inner child has certain needs and may truly be anxious about certain things. 

Definition of anxiety: feeling or showing worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.

Anxiety is okay. Life is inherently uncertain, chaotic and unpredictable and it can be scary at times. Trying to acknowledge those fears, being specific where they really stem from and then transmuting those step by step always worked for me.

Life and self-actualization is not measurable in months, years or even lifetimes. It's an eternal journey so you better embrace it and make the best of it. Balance life, seriousness, work and 'self-actualization' with play, joy, finding meaning and humor in the juxtapositions and details of life and I'll think you'll do just great, because you strike me as a responsible, successful and wise person.

Lastly, about the mind being disarray. Yes, I can truly relate to this, also due to the fact that we are deeply conditioned. This conditioning of our mind is our prison from the perspective of a victim, or your School of Life from the perspective of a warrior. The choice is yours. The subtle message from your intuitive knowing and impulses from your higher self are often much stronger and much more harmonious than the endless black and white thinking of your analytical mind, trying to figure life out. Trust your response, trust your inner child, trust to play and surrender to the magical surprises that life has in store for you once you start to trust, love and have faith in the endless powers and potentials of your brave, creative and ingenious inner child.

 

 

[raytvor]

I've been researching my problems deeply and I believe I must become more open, vulnerable and playful. I was mentally mistreated as a child by my parents and I still have millions of deep-rooted false beliefs that keep blocking me on and on, like:

***

I don't deserve a place in this world - I'm no good 

my life can't be good and fulfilling however hard I try

the reality is nothing but disapointment

I'm broken inside, I'm a fraud, I'm a joke

everything MUST happen exactly how I imagined it 

I'm nothing more than negativity

I can't break out of my mental limits

I can't have fun

there are only traps and dangers waiting for me at large

I need to punish myself to change

I don't trust my mind and my comprehension

Life is difficult

I don't matter

I can't meet my own expectations

I deserve more than I get at any moment

I must be better/perfect all the time

etc. etc.

***

I need more self-love, I can't express my love towards myself (except trying hard to change for the better). Moreover, I absolutely have no idea what I like and what I need - I must explore that more.  Meditation and mindfulness keep unraveling my true negative feelings I wasn't aware before. Neverthless, I'm on the right track to salvation, just need more time. 

Thank you for your advice which led me to some new ideas and conclusions. 

Edited November 10, 2020 by raytvor

[Nivsch]

Can it be that you feel disconnected to other people?

Also, What is your nutrition?

 

[zorenbu]

it is very common what you describing, our society are all into success and not into love.  i think you need to see a therapist, find someone that you connecting to, for me its the only thing that i feel that is touching the root of the problem.