Breaking free of the prison of negativity and self hate.

[Dabidoe]

ENTRY NO. 1 - Seeing the prison for what it is and hatching my escape plan

After years of watching, listening and reading as much as I can (thanks Leo!) I'm only now starting to understand the true purpose of life and my reason for being alive. Leo's mandate of "you must focus your life on maximum engagement" has resonated with me and it's clear now that my mental prison can no longer be tolerated. Life is too short and I must break free of negativity and self hate in my life. This self actualization journal will serve as my public accountability for my escape.

I am 34 years old and have been imprisoned by negativity for almost 3 decades. I'm a freelance videographer, editor and motion graphics artist (baerstudios.com should you be interested) and since a young age I've struggled with beating myself up. By ignoring the pain it simply burrowed deeper and has stayed with me. By choosing to focus on the negative I've robbed myself of the ability to be positive, keeping me locked in the prison of self defeat. Optimism and "maximum engagement" are slowly coming back to me and it's time I hatch my escape plan once and for all.

Depression and self abuse reared their ugly head early in childhood when my homelife started to degenerate. I distinctly remember in fourth grade beating myself up assuming something was wrong with me in a struggle to explain why things were so bad, not being mistreated. In order to survive I had to blame myself, the alternative of realizing that my home life wasn't a safe or happy place. In my early adolescence things took a dramatic turn for the worse. After years of abuse and neglect I began cutting myself, punching walls, couldn't interact socially and in retrospect a ton of trauma based pain.  Around my 20th birthday things took a dramatic shift for the worse when I experienced my first manic episode and severe depression. I barely could make it off the couch and all hope withered away, leading to years of suicdal thoughts. Slowly over time things improved, and I saw my problems for what they are and saw the prison I was trapped in.

Cleaning up my diet, focusing on exercise and listening to a lot of self help the puzzle pieces slowly started falling in place. Even through the struggles I've managed to slowly progress in life. At 25 I quit my first "good job" at CBS News HQ to pursue running my own business and have been at it for 9 years. At age 31 I bought a house with money I saved up thorughout my 20s, fixed it up, rented in out, raised the value of the house to nearly double what I paid for it. I recently just got a second mortgage and just bought another house where I plan to do the same formula. Last year I met a wonderful partner and have had my longest relationship.

My life has a lot of promise and potential and I can feel the optimism floating into my being as I write about how far I've come. Despite my "wins" I know the negativity, self hate are still buried within me holding me back, but it's time to let go and break free. I know I have a long way left to go but with consistent effort, bravery and determination I will break free and achieve the happiness and financial freedom I know is possible. By deploying empathy and kindness on myself I'm slowly chipping away the walls that have trapped my joy and optimism. I'm determined to change my life, find my joy and optimism and set myself up for a happy life. I hope one day to look back at this period and be glad to have made the effort.

I'm thankful for this forum, Leo's content and everyone who has helped me along the way. I hope to one day return the favor and help as many people as I can the same way others have helped me. Thank you for anyone taking the time to read this, please comment any observations or advice you may have. I am willing to do whatever it takes.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Dabidoe

[ZenRising]

This is a noble and powerful beginning! Well done my friend... I'm looking forward to reading your posts and sharing in your journey.... (I also do video and motion graphic work by the way)

Keep it coming!

Lucas

[Dabidoe]

Thanks for the kind words Lucas! Always happy to connect with a fellow video peep.

Looking forward to keeping this going. 

[Dabidoe]

ENTRY 02

DECISIONS: The space between stimulus and response.

I can't change the way the world is, I can't change the external but I am completely in charge of the internal interpretation and what choices I make to improve my life. Instead of looking at the challenges I face: building a business, living with bipolar disorder, relationship struggles and I can give in to defeat or put energy into overcoming my challenges. When I look at a problem and think "this is tough, but I'm going to face it down and give it my all" the outcome is so much better than when I think "ah everything stinks." I can't control everything but I do get to control that choice, and where I want to put my focus. 

Making a commitment to positivity is a choice that I've decided I'm going to make. My life in many respects is doing just great, and the choice of how I interpret it as good or bad is entirely my choice. There have been many things that I've beaten myself up over, many a good thing I've overlooked to focus on the negative. In the grand scheme of life many of the things that have bothered me, upset me or brought me down have been relatively insignificant and trivial comparatively. I have the power to "flip the coin" and look at things through a new lens of positivity "what's the worst that could happen? at least I've got my health and a beautiful life." 

Looking back on the past I could say things were hard, but that would be discounting all of the positive. Even the notion of positive and negative is kind of flawed and distorted in a way. If everything: both good and bad has a beauty in it then I won't even be bothered by negative. Removing my personal feelings and intial response from the situation and making the choice to see things within the framework of beauty and meaning is something I have to strive towards. 

There are so many amazing things I can do with my life, it's just a sims game sandbox where anything is possible. Even if I was in the worst depression of my life I could sell all my belongings, get on a plane move somewhere entirely new and have a completely different life! No matter what negativity or struggles I face I have a TON of options and that feeling is so empowering. I'm just about to wrap up at work right now but I sat down and decided to write in this and I can already feel my hope and optimism growing. 

Beyond just the self, there's the eternal within all of us. I don't claim to know anything about what lies beyond the physical body but I do intuit and feel that the energies of the universe can work in both productive and destructive directions. When I focus inward on the pain, wanting for more I can feel the negative energies flowing in. When I open my heart and dare to love myself and the world around me the positivity flows inside of me. 

Viktor Frankl wrote a lot about this in Man's Search for Meaning, about flashing forward to the end of your life looking back on one's life and deciding how you would have liked to live. I've done that in the past and made some good decisions, even if they were hard (quitting a "good" job to pursue running my own business) and although I'm "getting old" I can feel that is just a mental trap. There are no rules. I may struggle financially, emotionally and more but as long as I have the power to make a decision of how I choose to interpret the world around me I will always be OK. Noone can take my agency to decide how to view things, how to generate hope and optimism no matter what happens.

Last week there were a few times I faced frustrations (moving several thousand pounds of vinyl flooring, being let down by my contractor as I worked on my investment property) that I saw the negativity creeping in and actively made the decision to flip the coin and choose gratitude and positivity and felt the optimism flood into my soul. There is nothing I can go through, no pain to great to ever rob me of that ability to take a pause between stimulus and response and feed the positivity. Negativity is simply a choice, a choice that's weighed me down for far too long. Life is worth living, there is always a purpose of struggling and improving.

[Dabidoe]

ENTRY 03 Moving forward

Things have been a little difficult lately: I got covid (and gave it to my girlfriend's roommate, my gf didn't get any symptoms couldn't find a test) and had to miss the Holidays with my girlfriend and my family stuck in my apartment. I decided I was going to be OK with being lazy, didn't have bad symptoms (headache and fatigue) but wasn't feeling particularly motivated being stuck inside so smoked pot and played final fantasy tactics (I didn't have any coughing or breathing problems.)

For the past day or so I've felt better so now it's time to get my priorities in order. I had a very good business deal come through that may get me close to "financial freedom" - making more passively than I spend. It's been a major goal of mine for some time and already I can feel it lightening my burden. I was able to go through some old writing I'd been puttering on for a year and change. It's not my best work and unclear if it will go anywhere but just commiting to making it something would be nice. I have an idea to make it into an explainer video style animation. If only just to have some sort of completion for it. It's for a self help book/course called "The power of change" and part of it is holding change while saying "change is within my grasp, I have the power to make change."

I've also put work into another creative project I'd been procrastinating, feeling uninspired. Just a website I write called paranoidechochamber.com that's part blog part conspiracy theory satire. It's a conspiracy site warning you about robots and reptilians but presented in a satirical way (it's on a site called paranoid echo chamber.) Since the pandemic I've felt like conspiracies are a bit irresponsible which is why I've procrastinated a bit on it. For my most recent article I've changed it up gave it a more outlandish edge. (Zuckerberg's metaverse aka zuckerverse is digital hell - fake expose on howzucks plans for metaverse is trapping your soul in digital afterlife hell.)

I've decided a to recommit on my path to self improvement: in attitude, health, fitness and work is something I need to take seriously. Caring about my future, working hard on my goals, staying consistent with my work ethic. Taking effort to remain positive through self care, journaling and meditation with a focus on forgiving and accepting myself, offering myself love and gratitude, building tenacity humility and empathy to take action and accomplish some goals.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Dabidoe

[Dabidoe]

ENTRY 04: Replacing the negative with positive.

It's clear that it's not enough to simply remove the negative without introducing positivity. I don't need permission from anyone to be positive, have goals or ambitions. There are no rules and I have every reason in the world to believe I have what it takes to succeed. Focusing that things are going to pay off in the end is something I've dismissed to avoid pain, but avoiding pain causes it's own pain.

Preoccupation with what's wrong and wanting things to change overnight is a great way to stay stuck. Looking back on old journals and notebooks I can see why certain changes I wanted never stuck - because I never actually believed that it were possible. I got frustrated and when the change didn't happen overnight I just reassumed a negative mindset of defeat and gave up.

It's clear to me that effort failing is not a bad thing and effort is nothing to be afraid of. I couldn't bare to suffer through the effort required and searched for instant gratification over longterm commitment. 

Effort > Perfection.

I don't have to be positive or negative I simply have to believe that with time and effort change will come. No matter what happens in my life I can always expend effort to improve my situation - no matter how dire. I've noticed that over the past year my mindset has greatly improved and I'm much happier. I have a loving relationship, good career prospects, am happier and calmer all because I simply believe that things will get better.

If anyone else is struggling with believing in themselves and overcoming negativity no matter how long you've suffered there's always the ability to change. We all have the power to change - our attitudes, our environments, our behaviors and accept the things we can't change. I'm only know starting to understand what loving myself looks like, and I'm so happy I finally have!

 

[Dabidoe]

05: Avoiding pain prolongs suffering.

Reflections on the past, regrets and moving forward.

It’s easy to get discouraged when you try and fail. If weed has been your crutch for years or decades it’s going to hurt trying to stand without it. Depending on how much of your baggage you’ve been sweeping under the weed carpet it can be overwhelming. It might be discouraging that the pain seems to get worse for months and years after you’ve quit.

 

I first started smoking weed 20 years ago high school around junior year. I was a loner with a bad family situation and some serious emotional problems. I’d punch walls, slice my arm open with a knife, act out, isolate myself watching TV & fucking around on the internet. I was good at school but really didn’t give a fuck… I used to crawl around on the floor  so smoking weed “loosened” me up to be around others and gave me an excuse to hang out with people.

 

 

10 years ago was my first real attempt at quitting and I made it a few days. I realized everything I realized now, that running from it only made it worse. I had a really rough night, went out to New York and was stood up by an old coworker I had a crush on. I was fresh out of college out on my own in a place I couldn’t afford, desperately searching for a job and failing miserably. I ended up selling weed just so I could afford to eat, which took the pressure off getting a job.

 

I eventually settled for a crappy job working in Camden, NJ at an e-commerce store doing customer service for replacement hardware. It was as boring and mind numbing as you’d expect.

 

 

When I found weed it was an emotional crutch that seemed like a godsend. The crutch made it easier to walk through life taking away these bad feelings I’d felt since childhood when my family life collapsed.

 

When I fell in love with smoking weed was to try and run and hide from my pain. I had a rough childhood, spent too much time alone, undiagnosed bipolar and was cutting myself. After a particularly bad fight with my dad I sliced my arm open so bad I severed the muscles in my arm and had to go to the emergency room. All of these issue just rattled around my head and I made no effort to challenge them, put in the hours and effort to address my problems.

 

Using weed seemed like just the thing I needed, not realizing avoiding the pain only made the pain worse.  I could hangout with other people and have fun instead of being tense and on edge. It made it easier to talk to women. I would miss out on actually fixing the problem by being too scared to sit with my pain, feel it

 

It prevented me from falling on my face and got me out in the world walking around.

[Dabidoe]

Well a bit of a delay but for the past 35 days have not smoked any marijuana, have been meditating, finished a book I'd been reading for 5 years (IBM & The holocaust, not an easy read but eye openning), been exercising, working on my relationship (addressing my neediness as opposed to blaming her for being busy or seeming "inattentive" - she has a stressful job that takes a lot of her time), made the decision to sell my house, am buying another one and more.

After a couple of months of inactivity I decided to reconnecti with my therapist and when I told him all that he complimented me saying "it sounds like you've found some very healthy patterns" which made me feel good. Today I do not "feel" good, it's gloomy, I'm tired and so I decided to eat some mushrooms which got me kind of high (small amount.) Yesterday I bought a camera to replace an old one that got stolen in a burglarly, one that I had spent a lot of time & energy chasing after (a GH5S with a sigma 16-35 if anyone is a video nerd) and although the money is going to get a little tight it felt good just pulling the trigger and getting it. I felt inadequate and sad after having my gear stolen looking for jobs that asked for higher end cameras I USED to have

So moving forward I think I'm going to be working a little harder on my dysfunctional thought journal, writing about my past traumas and then recontextualizing them as an adult (what my CBT therapist calls "talking to little david") and staying off the weed. I might try some CBD and mushrooms here and there but want to commit to at least 1 full year without the whacky tobacky to prove to myself that I can do it. Slowly working up my exercise routine but I get hungry as a motherfucker and then real sore so might have to slow down and ramp up a little slower.