Alright... I initially thought that I would take at least a 3 months break from this forum to handle a lot of changes but as I'm currently backsliding a bit I decided to write some stuff here. I started to lose an old identity several months ago and in consequence, I became more and more agitated. I experienced a lot of pain as many things from the past came back to the surface. I had many mood swings, felt lost and disoriented. End of October, I didn't know what to do as my inner compass was all over the place so I decided to have a break to clean myself. I spent a lot of time observing myself, inspecting myself, and healing. I became much more aware that my relationship with this forum was trauma-related and I think that this applies to many people here. Having a trauma-related relationship with actualized.org is something that I already became aware of during the middle of this year but this time I decided to take action on it. I noticed that every time that I would use this forum it would feel distasteful and I got tired of this feeling. It was a feeling of pressure, of me needing to perform, of me needing to fit some perfect standards. After going through my past and processing many emotions, things feel better. I can now read this place while being more at peace and I'm also noticing people that I wouldn't notice before as I raised my vibration. However, this is still an ongoing process and they are other things that I want to clean up before starting to journal again more regularly (and more consciously) here. I contemplated my relationship with work and I noticed that I have been pressured and shamed from all sides in the past: I have been shamed and pressured for being proactive, work-oriented, and organized I have been shamed, pressured, being called dumb for enjoying life and not taking things too seriously Being shame from all sides explains why it has always been difficult for me to be balanced: why I'm sometimes too work-oriented and sometimes too complacent. I have difficulties being calibrated. Also, I'm experiencing some chest burn as I'm writing this as they are still things to clean up. I asked myself this morning: "How should I live life? What should be my attitude towards life?". After a few minutes, the following thought appeared: "Life is about experience, there's nothing more than experience, experience or the now is everything that there is". While this is true, it also felt like a deny of setting a direction, listening to my inner voice and the challenges that it implies. From my experience so far and in accordance with my personality, being too directionless is as painful as being too certain: Being too directionless makes us creative but too chaotic and therefore neurotic Moving with too much certainty makes us high achieving yet neurotic when we can't achieve Setting a direction without being too attached to it and enjoying the experience with an objective in mind looks like the appropriate balance to me. I got back in touch with a friend in the past months who has his own small tech company and I consider him balanced regarding experiencing/achieving. His attitude is: "This is the objective, this is where we want to go but what's more important is that things are agreeable for all of us. Sure, it might take more time than expected but this is OK as long as we can sustain it while enjoying the experience.". He has some healthy characteristics that I want to integrate while I still want to be slightly more work-oriented than him. I'm not sure if this is trauma or caused by the fact that I want a lot of diverse life experiences, maybe a bit of both... What we choose to do comes from balancing what we want / what we don't want. We might argue about the potential to grow from doing what we want vs. doing what we don't want but for the moment I consider that embracing this paradox of sometimes doing what we want and sometimes doing what we don't want as doing something that we don't want and who will ultimately grow us... Speaking of people... I started to become much more observant of people around me and noticed parts of myself everywhere. Everyone that I'm attracted to or who I reject represents a part of me to be integrated and to make peace with. We always meet the right people at the right moment and if we do an effort to stay aware we can healthily integrate them. I noticed parts of myself everywhere: in my family, in my work environment, on this forum. I am everywhere, all the time... To be continued... (maybe... because I feel the desire to go off again)