Nothing Seems to Work as I'm Striving To Become More Conscious. Why?

[EnRoute]

Hi.

The mind is tricky and self-deceptive but my mental health issues are beyond deceptiveness and trickery.

Bad parenting, severe childhood trauma [harsh beatings, violence, lack of love, lack of financial support, lack of nutrients, shame, and emotional neglect], no discipline, and nihilism; all these issues are bubbling up as I become more conscious and they seem persistent. They're so intense! These coping, survival mechanisms are embedded into my nervous system. They're part of my identity, although I refuse to identify myself with them.

As they appear from time to time, I struggle to let go of their influence and do my best to remain fully conscious of them.

It has been three years since I'm intensely exercising "The Power of Letting Go" a few times a day.

Why am I not healed? Is there any hope left?

Is it possible to develop mastery over my own mind and think clearly?

[BipolarGrowth]

Maybe the suppression (“refusing to identify with them”) of your mental health issues is what is making this so hard. Ultimately these types of mental health issues are trying to get your individual needs met, typically related to what you were lacking as a child. The mental health issues are quite likely acting as what now feels like a sort of overcorrection. The potential truth is that you could still feel yourself to be missing out on those things you mentioned you lacked as a child. If you created a checklist based on each individual thing you needed as a child but did not receive, how many of them can you honestly say you have now? Raising in consciousness to transcend suffering is great, but you might see more success in first approaching each of these needs that you still lack in more practical or typical ways while still continuing some spiritual practices. 
 

For example, if you’re still lacking love, having some ridiculously powerful love awakening will certainly heal you in profound ways, but it might be the case that finding loving and authentic relationships with people where you can truly feel safe will have a more permanent effect on your foundation or simply life satisfaction and happiness. This more solid foundation might be what can allow your spirituality to truly flourish. 
 

Hope this helps. You’re going in the right direction. Trust in the process. 

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, EnRoute said:

Nothing Seems to Work as I'm Striving To Become More Conscious. Why?

Because nothing, you, and consciousness aren’t separate things such that nothing could work in making you more conscious. 

[mandyjw]

I've always been pretty much the same weight my whole life, but every once in a while in the past I've decide I want to lose weight and get optimally skinny or whatever. So to have the motivation to not eat what I want and be hungry, I have to motivate myself so I start pinching fat and looking for problem areas and motivating myself that these need attention. Then I constantly think about food, is this the right food or the wrong food? And then I get fatter. 

If however, I put out a loose intention to lose a few pounds and eat a bit better and then focus on all the unrelated amazing projects and activities I have going in life, I get slim and trim. 

This is how law of attraction works, awareness of the problem or the desire gives birth to the solution, (having a rough start like you describe means that in your case, this is very powerful and it's a very Good thing potentially) but if you continually focus on what's going wrong or what you don't want, you get more of it. You have to focus on the honest feeling of already being whole and fulfilled to allow in the feeling of it, which is directly what you're looking for. You want to be more conscious because it feels good. Thoughts about oneself as more conscious miss the mark, because what you really want is the experience of the feeling. 

Forgive the thoughts that you think are old programming and just focus on choosing one that feels better. Resisting or beating ourselves up for thinking a thought we didn't want to think is another thought we don't want to think. Just pick one that feels better. 

Mindfulness sort of turns you into the biggest ADD "oh, look there's a squirrel!" kind of person, but when you're on some crappy repetitive subject there's nothing better you can do than break focus of it. 

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by mandyjw

[Mu_]

14 hours ago, EnRoute said:

Hi.

The mind is tricky and self-deceptive but my mental health issues are beyond deceptiveness and trickery.

Bad parenting, severe childhood trauma [harsh beatings, violence, lack of love, lack of financial support, lack of nutrients, shame, and emotional neglect], no discipline, and nihilism; all these issues are bubbling up as I become more conscious and they seem persistent. They're so intense! These coping, survival mechanisms are embedded into my nervous system. They're part of my identity, although I refuse to identify myself with them.

As they appear from time to time, I struggle to let go of their influence and do my best to remain fully conscious of them.

It has been three years since I'm intensely exercising "The Power of Letting Go" a few times a day.

Why am I not healed? Is there any hope left?

Is it possible to develop mastery over my own mind and think clearly?

Sounds like you may be approaching this from the point of view that if you do certain things, like "the power of letting go" or remaining conscious and aware of them they will shift/integrate/move/change.  And while this may appear to work for some, it may not do anything or even make things stick around longer approaching it this way.  Ask yourself what are some positives that have come from this approach, say thank you and try a new approach.

This one may be one to try out, maybe I'll make a video and post it here.  basically its about "you become more of what you focus on".  For example, if you start to feel and experience these uncomfortable things you do during these times you describe, instead of focusing on them/remaining fully conscious of them/figuring out why they are there or how they got there, shift your attention.  You see from a certain perspective you are actually magnifying them like a magnifier glass just by the nature of your interest/attention.

So what do I mean by shift or how do you do it.  Well I bet the next time you are going through one of the above mention discomfort, if your are honest and slightly scanning or aware, you will notice in that moment there is a VAST variety of subtle experiences going on at the same time that unpleasantness is happening, and not all of them are uncomfortable.  Some might be warm, some might be bright, some might be soothing, some might be blurry, some might pleasant, some might be odd, some might be happy and yes some might even be more unpleasant..  Now once you can see this for yourself, your half way there.  Now with this attention you seem to have, focus it on any one of the experiences in your awareness/magnifier glass and just hold it there.  I'd recommend focusing on a more pleasant one then the one that has been bothering you so much.  Now don't put to much attention of though on this process, just focus on the new sensation and what you may find starts to happen is your systemic experience may start to shift and match the experience your awareness is focusing.  You will start to become more pleasant.  This is going to take practice, but like a muscle and soon muscle memory, you will be able to do this freely/it will start to happen on its own.  Now one temptation that will arise in the mind is, "hey what about those old experiences that are uncomfortable, are they still happening", resist this temptation, following them will literally recreate them and they will appear and magnify again. 

This is the simplistic description, but it did wonders for me.  yes there will be days where it won't work, it may feel like you failed since things got good/great for a while but then the old stuff came back, but keep coming back to the new practice, its all part of the process.  Ego backlash is real and does happen, so just don't linger/focus on it, just shift your attention to something positive.  This can also work by instead of focusing on the negative, just smile. 

Some questions that may come up or try to take you away from the practice, such as "hey, aren't I avoiding my emotions or whats going on".  Nope, your just focusing on something else going on in your own experience, whether or not the old stuff is there or what it means is not of concern, it never actually was "inherently, written in a bible" important, you just happen to find yourself in it and focusing on it.

[neovox]

16 hours ago, EnRoute said:

Why am I not healed? Is there any hope left?

Let go of this expectation. Embrace the process at whatever pace.