Integrating my shadow, Dealing with past trauma, Insecurities, …

[Jannes]

I am not sure where to put this but I think it makes sense in this area because its mostly about social issues.

 

 

Hey everybody,

I am going through a pretty difficult but transformative time at the moment. If you want to get to my points directly then just scroll to summary. My issues make more sense with the context of my past. So if you have the time to read through some of the highlights of my past which I had a lot of fun to write because it shows very clearly how the world is against me and I am the helpless victim of my circumstances (I also put some humor in it where I could) I would really like that. But if you dont have the time to read I am still very grateful for every comment.  

 

So I here are different blocks of my life in which I describe the most essential events regarding my struggles at the moment.

 

kindergarden:

I was in a small kindergarden at first an then switched to a different one after a year maybe idk. I only have memorie of the second kindergarden where I went until I was 7. So I was always a pretty shy, unagressive and  REALLY dreamy kid to the point of where I sometimes didnt know what was going on around me. (But more on that later) And it didnt help that my father literally always dropped me off unpunctual. My parents were summoned by the kindergarden because they saw that I was always to late and as a consequence of that was always alone. The dynamic was that when all the kids where dropped off at roughly the same time they were all open and looking for playmates. But when I arrived they buil their groups so it was always really hard for me to get in. So after the meeting in the kindergarden my father only dropped me off 5 minutes to late the next time. And after that it went downhill again. I always thought it was my fault. I had a really loving father but he definetly wasnt fully actualized irl ?. I only once felt how naturally it could come to find friends. I arrived to late of course but then there were little pools where we could sit with around 4 other kids. I was a little shy but I think one of the kindergarden teacher pushed me a little to also go into one of these little pools. So I went in and was really united in a little group for a good amount of time and somehow this translated to the rest of the day where I was always really with other kids. But this was kind of a rare exception. At the beginning I tried really hard to find friends to play with I think, the problem was that I completly lacked the needed agression to play with other kids. Here are some of my memories: 1) Some kids had JugiJoh cards and I was super Interested in them as well. So two of the kids who had JugiJoh cards and me sat at a table with some milk or something. And this one kid just threw some of his JogiJoh cards in my face like I was his low-quality bitch. I felt an immense amount of gratitude and thanked him for each JogiJoh card. He just laughed about me which I didnt understand. So I investigated this situation deeply came to the conclusion that he may have made fun of me. I followed them and I even got really friendly with the other “JogiJoh-kid“ but as soon as I got some connection with that kid he instantly blocked me. I felt that he didnt dislike me but I was just not a kid with which you could survive. In general I got picked on a lot and I tried to play it down by acting like a clown even making myself look stupid for the entertainment of others. I just couldnt fight back. My parents also told me before going to kindergarden that I should not punch anybody and that the Kinder Garden teacher would take care of everything. One day I came back home very angry saying roughly „If they punch me I am allowed to punch back“ (thats my moms memorie). But my parents then told me something like „No, No dont punch thats not good“ (Of course they didnt know what was going on there). So I didnt really fought back. When my parents eventually found out what was going on because of other parents “I was also very sorry for what all the kids did to Jannes“ they made a 180 and told me that for every time I fight back I will get a reward and that helped so much that I wrestled with other kids (continuation at the end of kindergarden and elementary school). But before they allowed me to fight I just couldnt bring it over me. I remember when the one JugiJoh kid picked on me and so with every amount of energy I tried to put it into aggression but it just turned into crazy painful laughter and I ran from him. Even the Kinder Garden teacher told me that the other kids cant know that I didnt like what was happening when I laughed all the time. I remember hating myself so much and asking myself what is wrong with me for not being able to tap into my natural aggressive energy. Being excluded and bullied from other kids was obviously tragic for my social developement but all of that had a good side. I learned REALLY well to be on my own. And I say REALLY because I can still invision how little me ran on clouds full of joy. I dont know what I was doing exactly but I think something in me just really gave up on finding new friends so I tried to make the best with what I had. All the kinder gardener saw that I was alone but always said that I doesn’t seem like I lack anything. I am pretty sure I even had some spiritual experiences. For one because I always said when I wanted to say something „I believe that…“. I knew that there are some things like some of the things I experienced that I could know for absolute certainty and then there was all the other stuff and I knew I couldn’t know it for sure and so it made sense to me to always say „I believe…“ before every sentence. And then I have a memorie in the kindergarden where I went really deep. I felt something extremely beautiful and lovely for some time. And it shuck me so much that I said to myself something like „Even if being nice makes my life a lot harder and it will I am still going to be nice to everybody because it feels so goddamn good to act selveless.“ (I think that was the context.) I also felt really connected to Jesus. Whenever we went to church I looked over to the Jesus statue and felt really connected to him (my kindergarden was a Christian kindergarden). 

At the end of kindergarden I found a kinda friend. He always wanted to fight but at this point I integrated my aggression enough so that I could fight with him. 

 

All of these events aren’t in perfect timeline because my memorie isn’t good enough for that.

 

Elementary school:

I started off pretty much alone. I remember that we split the class into two sides. On each side where 2 groups. Girls on the right and boys on the left. I went to the right with the girl groups because they were less offensive to me. I didnt have a seat partner but I was still pretty much integrated in the group. In general I found it so much easier to have girls as friends. And I also sometimes played with them in the afternoon. I actually have mostly good memories. One of my girlfriends was stronger then me though and one time she pushed me on my knees, wrote me like a horse and tear out a big chunk of my hair. So yeah stuff like this even happened to me with girls. In the school garden I was still alone though. My class teacher viewed told that my parents but also said that it doesn’t seem like that I am in need of something. I think a bit later in elementary school I tried to befriend the boys. My problem was that I still didnt know how to play with other kids in an organic way I still needed an invitation or something. So once I was so disappointed that I couldn’t connect with the other boys that I ran across the school garden with tears in my eyes (which was a shock to some of the school kids because nobody ever saw my cry (I dont want to do a stupid boast or something. I think it just explains my way of dealing with problems pretty well which was always about controlling myself). One of the girls saw me and asked me why I was crying and I said to her something like „because these are my only friends and they dont want to play with me.“ So she walked with me back to the boys and also took a teacher with us. All the boys came and I stuttered something like „You are my only friends and I would like to play with you“ (something like that but definetly the first part of the sentence.) There were all very nice to me and one or two even gave me a tap on the shoulder and for a short moment I felt really connected with all the other kids. But then the teacher and girl went away and all the boys turned around to play and I completely misinterpreted this very vulnerable point in my life. I thought that they were all just fake and acted nice because the teacher was there and didnt want anything to do with me because if they wanted they would give me more attention. Maybe this is partly right but what I didnt understand was that them returning to play was not a sign of them excluding me. But because I interpretated this so bad I lost a big chunk of faith in finding friends. But then sometimes later we had a new classmate. He struggled a bit to find friends at first so he came to me and we became good friends really quickly. He was if you will pretty much 100 percent a boy. He liked fighting. He liked building stuff with wood and drill and he liked and did things that boys did like having Pokémon cards and stuff like that. He told me that the other kids in school wouldn’t be like that to me if they knew me in person like he did. I had a lot of fun with him. I went to do judo with him. Because I integrated my aggression in the end of kindergarden I could also wrestle with him. It was still beyond me how much he and his brother coud fight and hurt each other in an hour but through him I learned how fun it could be to be a bit of an asshole. Being in this constant fight mode is simply a lively game that he played and that probably a lot of kids played and I learned to like it. And I learned about Pokémon from him. Most days after school we went to his house and watched an hour of Pokémon. This was for sure one of the biggest loves of my life. So for some time I had a short handful of friends with one true friend and a true passion in Pokemon. This was probably the best time of my life.

 

middle school:

From grade 5th to 9th which is like 6-7 years ago (grade 9) I started having problems to find new people again. And maybe half a year later I got constantly humiliated. It was really weird in a way because my bully really liked me and wanted me as a friend but I he disliked a lot of my behavior. I wasn’t cool and enough of a jerk basically but I also wasn’t kissing his feet. He was pretty muscular and I stood no chance against him. My time of having fun in fighting was also more then a year ago and I forgot how I managed to defend myself. What also really didnt help he was pretty much the king of the grade and had a lot of minions doing everything he asked for. He literally sometimes asked one of his minions to bring me to him when I was with other people and that minion went across the entire schoolyard (which was pretty big) and dragged me physically to him when I tried to wrestle myself out of there. But he was like the best friend you could possibly have for about 20% at the time. He always said something like „if you are on my side and don’t hang around with these losers I can be like this to you but if you go to these loosers I will make your life a living nightmare.” And he loudly told the whole class „If anybody fucks with Jannes I will fuck your life.“ And he introduced me to all the cool kids of the grade and the girls and often put me on the throne. He told me personal things about himself, even and I wish I was a bit wiser back then, but hey I was just a school kid „You know Jannes, I always wanted to have this fame but now that I have it all I am still not really happy.“ I don’t know why I didn’t change for him, especially given the psychological pressure. It was partly because I have a very strong need for authenticity and you couldn’t change me by force (at least of this magnitude). The other thing was that I was always a person who is pretty unsure of himself and so there was a lot of resistance of just doing something he asked for like changing my haircut or acting more masculine or whatever. The bullying was both a lot of physical and emotional abuse. The physical side was never like dangerous just a ton of neck blows, hair pulling, baking pipes and stuff like that. The physical bullying became so bad at one point one time that I always looked on the ground and just tried to expect any incoming blows because looking to straight up made my cheeks vulnerable to any incoming blows (that probably doesn’t sound right but anyway). I remember that I was at home and my mom just wanted to give me a hug and just by her raising her hands I winced very notably. There was also some sexual abuse but nothing extreme (just verbal comments and not that often and often covered as a joke but I didn’t feel threatened I think). And a lot of verbal abuse „Jannes you son of a bitch“ (I am not sure if it’s an insult in English but it’s a pretty bad one in Germany. He rolled up my sleeve to show everybody how small my arms and shoulders were. Or once he pushed me while I was taking a piss so my whole sweater got covered in piss and he made fun of it in class. Or once he took some of his minions and dragged me on a place of the school yard where nobody could see us and his minions pushed me on the ground and hold me there. I was fighting against that but was helpless as one could be. They uncovered me (I don’t remember if they did it fully) and filmed the whole thing. Luckily the video was on a phone of a guy who didn’t participate on that and deleted the video immediately. This was the strange thing about all that, I never had a person that always helped me, but sometimes some of the people in class helped me a bit. Even many of the girls helped me a bit. Not physically of course but with comments like „why are you doing this to Jannes again?“. I feel so incredible grateful for that. I think in 8th or 9ht grade I even became the class representative which still makes no sense to me. 

At home I always tried to make my situation in class a secret. I told my mom in 9th grade when my bully pretty much gave up on me (after 4 years) what my situation was. For me being a mommy boy was the most terrible thing one could be ? I loved the world of being free and on my own so much that I rather took all of the pain with the chance of overcoming it then to live in a world where I would go to my mom for help. I was pretty hardcore... I think I got that feeling from reading Ronja rubber daughter). But as a result of not being able to defend myself and being a looser I collected so much shame for myself that I couldn’t work properly in life. I wanted to be the defender of my little sister but I was so ashamed of what I was that I didn’t feel like spending time with her and she must have thought that I abandoned her (and we had a really good relationship) or I never tried to approach girls because I felt like such a looser although for some reason a lot of girls liked me. I found a friend who was also an outsider. He didn’t treat me well at first or even when other people joined but I was his best option and now we are good friends. We played video games, ate candy and talked about hentai. Yeah I kinda got by… ? 

 

Beginning of Highschool:

So then I went to grade 10 to 13 (Highschool). At the beginning for like half a year I was super hyped to have a chance of a new beginning. I maintained a slight bit of optimism and joy for life throughout all this time and now was the time where I put that card back on. The problem was that I didnt develope enough confidence yet to easily make new connections to people and I also only had friends who wanted to stay in their small circle. My friends were also incredible boring but I didnt have the guts nor the conscience to just leave them. Then there were also a couple of instances that took my last bit of fighting will out of me. For one the friend of mine was always glued to me and never left me BUT in class he always reserved the better seat for himself where he had a new person on his left and me as a backup on the right. I only confronted him on this lightly. And then another major thing that happened was then I approached a girl :). She basically texted my friend if I am taken or not (which I was not) and then we texted a bit. Somehow the conversation turned to protein bars that I made myself and she said that she would like to taste one of them at time. Some higher power took over me. I had to make that lady a perfect Protein bar! So at the weekend I bought ingredients for at least 20€ (including things like freeze dried strawberries ?) and spent the whole sunday making 3 types of protein bars. I took the bars with me on monday. I think I didnt found her in the first break. So in the third hour I gathered all of my guts and boosted myself into an ecstatic states of consciousness (thinking about the most vibrant feelings of romance in which I serve my lady the pure pleasure of the protein bar). So in the short break from the third to fourth school hour I went over to the next class where my lady was at, ready to serve her my protein bars. I confidently opened the door and peeked across the classroom with my hand on my head like a Captain who is looking in the distance. But I overlooked her because she was just close to me at my left side looking confused to what I was doing. I asked her if she wanted to go out of the classroom to taste a protein bar and she went out with her friend. So I opened my lunch box with the protein bars and thats when reality hit me. I completely saw how much I pushed myself into this daydream and kinda lost touch with reality. I didn’t even thought about how to nicely present my bars or why I took that comment about my protein bars so serious. So I opened the box and presented her these cold, brown,sticky and unaesthetic chunks of something (mint-chocolate). She said that she wanted to go to the toilet with her friend but that she would take a bar with her. I also went to the toilet to give myself a few minutes alone to reflect on what just happened. We saw each other across the floor when we came back from the toilet at the same time to go to our classes and she gave me a thumbs up and a nice comment regarding the protein bar. But I knew that I just showed all of my insecurities and that most if not all of her attraction towards me was probably gone. Later that day I went to the gym. My friend texted me that she texted him that she wasn’t interested anymore. And then I texted the most stupid thing in my entire life. I texted: „You are not thaaaat great after all.“ Please let me explain. Maybe there was some hatred mixed in there but I really wanted it to be a joke. Its funny to say something that is so out of question to say that it should obviously not be taken seriously. That it is clear in itself to be meant as a joke as in "Imagine I was going to say to you „You are not that great after all“, wouldn’t that be hilarious how stupid and weak minded one could be.“ She just wrote: ??? and so I thought she got the joke. But she DID take it seriously. So the next day when I went to Spanish class (which was a mix of most of her class with a few of my class) EVERY girl knew about it (around 15) and they all gave me a death face ? I couldn’t take that shit anymore, in my mind I officially left society that day. (I apologized a few days later on WhatsApp and the death faces where gone but the damage was made). 

 

Mid highschool (stage orange):

Now comes my depressing times. I felt how I lost all my inspiration for life, how I was unable to build a character, how I didn’t have an integrated shadow that allowed me to control life on my own and I felt that if I was staying the person I was right now I would end up as a very very uninteresting, shy and just unlively person and I just hated every aspect of myself. Many years ago Leo made a video explaining what it takes to change your character. Because there is so much resistance in changing because it literally means killing your old self. So you have to want to kill your old self. And I was ready for that. In my mind I had no problem draining my old self in the toilet. Not sure if this kind of thinking is still what Leo would recommend but yeah it worked for me at the time in making a big commitment. I would change no matter what. I couldn’t live with my old self but I also didn’t know what I should strive for to change. So I watched a ton of stage orange style motivational videos for inspiration. And I had the attempt to build a personality that couldn’t be hurt by the world anymore. (I really strived for that) I did a lot of different things from cold showers, to working out in the gym, meditation, esoteric practices, healthy eating, went vegan and “light spirituality“. And I disconnected myself emotionally completely from the world. I only wanted to come back when I succeeded in becoming my best version. Some of the things I did were obviously great and I integrated them to this day like healthy eating, meditation and working out (although I definitely took them too seriously) others were just short tries. In general I just had no clear direction to where I was aiming at. And that was especially true for all of my attempts of building this character that would be impossible to be hurt by other people which just kind of backfired. As an example of what I did do harden myself. When I was in a group and felt like meditating I just sat down and meditated. I didn’t care (at least I didn’t want to) what other people thought of me. If I wanted to meditate in that moment I just did it. And I knew that everybody was staring at me but I just ignored it. But the problem was that I really did care what other people thought of me so there was a lot of shame that build up in me that I didnt admitted to myself.

 

End of Highschool (stage green):

Although I still was interested in success I really didn’t aim for it that much anymore. I had no sense of achievement and as a coping mechanism I fell deep into Nihilism. I gave it all but couldn’t succeed in normal life so I thought that I needed a bigger picture that justified my suffering or give me a reason to fight because without it I couldn’t maintain my fight. I went even further into isolating myself. My goal was to get into a state of consciousness where I was so detatched from the world that it would be possible to see the world how it is and what it’s point is. And what I found was that obviously there is no real point in our existence, we ultimately just die and leave nothing behind. And I also found duality. That good can’t be experienced without the context of bad and Vize versa. I asked myself if one could have a net positive life because there are certainly people who have a net negative life (experience more suffering then joy throughout their life). And I asked myself how I could have a net positive life. Because with all my desire comes great suffering but how else could I be happy? I was completely puzzled. I think I contemplated something similar to the „Ubermensch“ from Nietzsche. So basically an impossible person that is able to look the pain and meaninglessness of life directly into the eye, accepts it and moves on. So kind of a superhero. And this went along with a strange intuition I probably maintained from my childhood, that life seems to be a chosmic joke and that beyond this duality seems to be some ecstatic joy as a quality of life somehow. Towards the third year of Highschool I stopped my isolation. I didn’t try to meet new people or felt really connected to my few friends but I stopped my attempts to further isolate myself. This kind of sentimental state of consciousness where I kind of stopped my attempts for successs and my attempts to isolate myself or to find new friends with just this strange search for what my intuition showed me.

In my third year of Highschool I kind of repeated my second year in a lighter version but now with an attempt to find truth everywhere I went instead of success. I also focused more on my grades who where really bad the year before and got pretty good in school. But I was just completely stuck in my head. I don’t know what the actual processes where but some of them integrated what I was doing the year before (For example I came to the conclusion that I have to take a compromise between social norm and what I wanted in that moment because I can’t free my psyche from social judgement) but most of my thoughts tried to figure out how to access this vibrant state of consciousness. 

 

Free year to university:

After I finished high school I took a year off. And then came probably the worst time in my life. I had nothing to do for several months and didn’t meet a lot of people so I was just stuck in my head. At my worst moment I watched a very dark video from Jordan Peterson in which he talked about if it would be better if nothing ever existed because all all the suffering and I really thought that  that might be the truth. Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life my parents pressed me to do some internships. I really didn’t feel like it but did some anyway. In this internships I noticed that I was way happier because I socialized more and my life had a direction. This all didn’t make sense to me at first but what I concluded was that life itself doesn’t need a deeper meaning and that’s also not what we strive for. What we want is the FEELING of meaning. Even if there is no bigger meaning behind things and you know that they can still FEEL meaningful to you and that’s enough and probably even better when you are happy because it takes the seriousness out of life. With every internship I did I felt noticeable better. I took on a temporary job in a bakery. It was super stressful and all of the multitasking definitely wasnt for me but I still felt like there was finally some life that was pumped into my veins. 

I only did 4 internships. The last one was at a school and somehow I found that the most interesting. I am more of a creative and inventive person so I thought about working as a digital nomad and making money with my own ideas but seeing how little I could motivate myself on my own I knew that I would probably break up and don’t go through with it. So I decided to become a teacher. I left home and got an apartment for myself in Rostock (germany). The first semester was great and because I forced myself to meet new people which worked decently. But then covid hit and I was stuck in my head again. I knew that I didn’t go through my spiritual problems completely so I came back to them. I found Leo’s channel and watched a very good amount of his videos and my spiritual questions were finally kind of settled. I never had non-duality experiences but I knew that I could reach them with enough practice eventually and this calmed me greatly.

 

Psychedelics:

So at the end of the third semester to now I did around 10-15 mushroom trips. It revealed a lot about my psyche and changed me in big ways. I didnt have a lot of mystical experiences yet but it changed my ordinary every day life a lot. For example: I persuaded myself that I dont need and want friends and the trip showed me very clearly that that is a lie and that I in fact deeply desire to have close friends. Or it showed me how overly intellectual I became which blocked me from my emotions and other people. And also just how much pain I still take with me from my past. Just like a big chunk of painful matter that infests my heart.

 

The transformative experience:

I was always really self reflective and especially through Leos teaching that habit got supercharged. One very big identification I have with myself is that I am a good and „pure“ person. This belief is challenged by a lot of sources in my life, namely Leos teachings „Who is the devil?“, Alan Watts teaching on how trying to be unselfish is itself selfish, and also my reflections (which include psychedelics) on myself and n human nature where I noticed that people just act good because they feel an obligation to act good, not because they want to (most of th time at least and this is definetly true for me). But still that inner identification that under all of that I am still an „angel“ somehow stood there unshaken. 

UNTIL one magical night where I reflected a bit about myself but without any serious Intentionen and I suddenly really grabbed the origin of the “good guy“. I zoomed out enough to see its underlying motivation its life stategy. 

I play the good guy to:

1) get a sense of self importance -> (because I tell myself that people are in absolute need of my „pure energy“)

2) I am just a good guy and not a looser -> So whenever someone takes advantage of me, he is just a bad person and I cant defend myself properly because I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody (So I made myself comfortable in my defenselessness)

 

Summary:

So all of this leads me to a few key points. I somehow thought that you have to be nice at all costs and that the proper strategy to end conflict is to kill people with your niceness. (Which is ofc bullshit) And that is a belief that is deeply rooted in me and highly problematic. Learning about stage red and the ego helped me to not „demonize the devil“ so much. But because I build up this „I am a good guy ego“ my whole life I struggle to integrate my shadow like a normal person so 

 

1) How should I integrate my shadow again?

And how do I keep the good aspects that come from the „good guy ego“?

 

2) Through all of my past I build up a lot of pain and trauma that is sticking to me. (On shroom trips I really feel that big matter of pain that is just in my heart. How should I go about releasing it? When I am in a good place of my life the saying „time heals all wounds“ is definetly true to me. And psychedelics are also amazing for working through inner conflict from my past. But should I do more? I thought about forgiveness meditation, looking for a psychlogist, … 

 

3) I struggle to feel accepted by other people. Although in the present there are a lot of people who appreciate me and would like to have me as a friend. More then a few times people said roughly „I would like to have you as a true friend…“ which blew me away. It is so against how I feel about myself that I reject these kinds of offers. And even with the people I am close with I still struggle to let them in my heart. This all comes because I still live in the past. But what should I do about it? Maybe I should just focus on 2) and 3) will solve itself ?

 

4) I first discovered spirituality at a low point in my life (beginning to mid highschool I discovered Alan Watts). It always felt like a „way out“ of my current hell-hole. And through the year I thought of it as my only real option so I got really serious about it. But now in the recent months I sometimes experienced some pretty happy peaks of myself when all of my needs where met and I see an option for me again to be happy even without spirituality (yes ofc when I get older the threat of dying becomes big, but RIGHT NOW thats not enough of a motivation for me). And because spirituality is pretty hard to do and because I lost a lot of the seriousness about it I feel that I have to reshape my relationship to it. It isn’t the only way for happiness anymore its more like the way for the most amount of happiness. But that’s not that big of a motivation anymore. So how do I keep motivate myself to do spirituality ? I also didnt fully experience a mystical experience yet so would this solve my motivation problem if I had one or would it make it even more difficult ?

[aurum]

@Jannes

It sounds like you’re feeling very conflicted on a lot of issues. Including that you probably don’t like feeling conflicted.

If you’re open to advice, I’d just keep taking baby steps. You’re already doing spirituality and doing the work. Even if you’re feeling unmotivated and slacking off, that too is also a part of this process.

Meditation is good. Psychedelics are good. A psychologist is good. I trust that you have the inner guidance to know what you need next to continue healing.

[Jannes]

On 8.6.2022 at 1:09 AM, aurum said:

@Jannes

It sounds like you’re feeling very conflicted on a lot of issues. Including that you probably don’t like feeling conflicted.

If you’re open to advice, I’d just keep taking baby steps. You’re already doing spirituality and doing the work. Even if you’re feeling unmotivated and slacking off, that too is also a part of this process.

Meditation is good. Psychedelics are good. A psychologist is good. I trust that you have the inner guidance to know what you need next to continue healing.

Thanks for the advice! You are right I should be more comfortable with doing baby steps and have faith that over time they will lead me to a good place. It’s just that I lack the bigger picture of what is happening to me exactly which is scary because I can’t be sure that I move in the right direction or in what direction I move at all but I think that’s just very human.

[flowboy]

@Jannes

The 'killing them with kindness' is a defense mechanism.

As you described, during some time in your childhood, this was the way to survive.

Now as an adult, it's really hard to get rid of, even though it doesn't serve you anymore.

Going into conventional CBT therapy to unlearn this behavior and learn new behavior would be an uphill battle and ultimately not satisfy.

You're on the right track with shadow integration.

On 07/06/2022 at 0:15 PM, Jannes said:

And it didnt help that my father literally always dropped me off unpunctual. My parents were summoned by the kindergarden because they saw that I was always to late and as a consequence of that was always alone.

This is a subtle form of neglect. If you dig into your shadow, you may find a lot of old anger towards your father.

On 07/06/2022 at 0:15 PM, Jannes said:

My parents also told me before going to kindergarden that I should not punch anybody and that the Kinder Garden teacher would take care of everything. One day I came back home very angry saying roughly „If they punch me I am allowed to punch back“ (thats my moms memorie). But my parents then told me something like „No, No dont punch thats not good“

Wow... this one hit me personally because my parents raised me so similarly! Aggression was in their shadow, so I had to be the nice kid. I wasn't allowed to join martial arts and learn to defend myself against bullying. They didn't see the need I had to be taught self defense, and they didn't want to see how badly I was treated.

Because of their shadow against aggression, they pushed me to be a nice kid, forbade me from being tough.

And I became a nice dreamy kid, defenseless, in his own world of ideas and dreams, mostly alone and socially awkward.

[flowboy]

@Jannes  When I help people with shadow integration, there's different components to completing the process:

1. Understanding and mapping it out.
   Using models to understand better what needs you had as a child that were not met, what defense mechanisms you developed.
   And what a child in that situation must have felt, and how overwhelming that was.
   The influence of the parents' belief and shadow on your development.
2. Understanding the inner child and minimizing reactivity.
   Through inner child work and what is typically meant by shadow work, you can get glimpses of what you must have felt as a child in different ages and situations. You develop a connection and compassion for your younger self this way.
   In your case, you may be able to catch yourself better when you want to be nice, and choose a different behavior.
3. Deep feeling and completing the grief process.
   Here's where we get into the shadow for real. The pain is still stored somewhere. It needs to come out. A bit of shadow work and shedding a couple tears unfortunately doesn't do it.
   Shadow is created because the trauma of unmet needs (in my case, the need for protection, guidance, safety and to be seen, held and supported in my need to belong in a group and defend my boundaries)
   Unmet needs are then SO painful, that the child can not consciously walk around with it, or it would die.
   So then it goes into the unconscious.
   The part that feels the need, must be repressed.
   Creating your niceness response (a denial of your own true need in the moment)
   You can bring those parts back to consciousness, bit by bit.
   There's a lot of crying involved though.

[Jannes]

On 9.6.2022 at 2:57 PM, flowboy said:

@Jannes

 

This is a subtle form of neglect. If you dig into your shadow, you may find a lot of old anger towards your father.

thanks for your comment!

Yeah maybe. My father was always is still is kind of a looser to put it in direct words (socially) and founding a family was something he might hadn’t fought of of being in his reach. Plus he demonized his own neglectful father for all of his own problems and so these facts combined probably made his kids his great mission in life. He flourished with us children. Although I really feel authentically loved by my father there was always a conflict in him between on the one hand the love for his role as a father which included his need to be praised and loved by his children and on the other hand what was really good for us. So as an example my father always overshowered me with prays because it felt good to him. But he often praised the most ordinary things I did and so I often miscalculated my abilities in reality. For example: In time of kindergarden I once did a bit of sack jumping and my dad praised me as usually how incredible I was for being able to jump in a sack. Then on my birthday we did a sack race and little me completely deluded that I was the greatest sack racer on the planet and then was devastated to the ground when all the other kids whizzed past me and I made last place. I cried so hard because I just couldn’t believe what happened. (I actually remember doing a sack race against another kid in the end of elementary school to face my painful defeat in the past. This time I knew that I actually had to work to win. I gave it my all and won :)) And him always being to late to bring me to school was just another symptom of his conflict. He loved the time with me when driving to kindergarden so much and also hated to push me to be faster so much that his other side got the better of him and so instead of pushing me to kindergarden fast because it was the best for me he rather dawdled with me because he wasn’t able to be a bit rough with me and cut the time with me. 
And the kindergarden situation with me not being able to defend myself. Yeah my mom definetly didn’t integrate her shadow and my father also not really or at least not completely. My parents just didn’t take me serious because they didn’t take themself serious. I remember that in kindergarden I already made the decision that I would become strong and independent as soon as possible because I saw how their advice was just completely over on reality and I wouldn’t survive with them. It also made me pretty angry that they lead me to make such stupid decisions and I saw them as responsible for my hell hole, so me abandoning them was justified was my thought process. And yeah today my parents are kind of surprised that when I moved out that I didn’t feel the need to meet them all that often. And my mom was kind of shocked that I also want to become independent as soon as possible and that it is really important to me to be able to finance myself. 

[flowboy]

4 hours ago, Jannes said:

And the kindergarden situation with me not being able to defend myself. Yeah my mom definetly didn’t integrate her shadow and my father also not really or at least not completely. My parents just didn’t take me serious because they didn’t take themself serious. I remember that in kindergarden I already made the decision that I would become strong and independent as soon as possible because I saw how their advice was just completely over on reality and I wouldn’t survive with them.

Wow we have similarities in our story there.

I learnt early on that my parents couldn't help me with protecting myself from bullying and also with socializing, because they themselves were clueless, had gotten bullied, were not social. And I had no siblings or friends so I felt like I'm just not gonna survive.

Had a deep session yesterday where some of that stuff was processed.

[actuallyenlightened]

1) will fix itself if you solve 2. Your brain is hardwired to be good at socializing if not bogged down. 

2) very effective but highly dependent on your pain tolerance. 

I did that for 2+ years straight once every 2 weeks (LSD preferred). Works wonders, I'm a changed man, but was the hardest 2 years of my life, gets especially bad in the beginning and is like running a marathon through a volcano.  Feels like the most direct, fastest method but riskiest.. if you've already done 10+ trip you should know what that's all about. 

At first I just tried to remember all of my bad memories and tell myself that I choose to let go of the attachment for the whole 8 hours. After doing that for enough trips, I intuitively figured out the mechanism behind how my brain releases blocks and can 'see' energetic blocks and remove them just by focusing on them. Feels like it's capability that all humans can develop with psychedelics but that's just speculation. 

3) also if do 2. That's part of your shadow.

4) I take modafinil everyday (probably not healthy) and it makes me painfully aware of my shortcomings even on great days. Keeps me motivated

[Jannes]

23 hours ago, actuallyenlightened said:

1) will fix itself if you solve 2. Your brain is hardwired to be good at socializing if not bogged down. 

2) very effective but highly dependent on your pain tolerance. 

I did that for 2+ years straight once every 2 weeks (LSD preferred). Works wonders, I'm a changed man, but was the hardest 2 years of my life, gets especially bad in the beginning and is like running a marathon through a volcano.  Feels like the most direct, fastest method but riskiest.. if you've already done 10+ trip you should know what that's all about. 

At first I just tried to remember all of my bad memories and tell myself that I choose to let go of the attachment for the whole 8 hours. After doing that for enough trips, I intuitively figured out the mechanism behind how my brain releases blocks and can 'see' energetic blocks and remove them just by focusing on them. Feels like it's capability that all humans can develop with psychedelics but that's just speculation. 

3) also if do 2. That's part of your shadow.

4) I take modafinil everyday (probably not healthy) and it makes me painfully aware of my shortcomings even on great days. Keeps me motivated

2) I actually never a had a really bad trip. I would say half of them were positive and the other half were neutral and sometimes a bit challenging but never really bad. I am very careful with psychedelics (always follow the protocol) though and I only did a high dose once, the other times low to moderate doses. So I am still pretty inexperienced when it comes to potential risks so. Did you do low or mid doses ? I did lsd twice and I like it more then magic truffles because it’s more clear but it’s just so damn long that it’s a bit too much for me but maybe I can get used to it. 
 

4) I sometimes microdose on magic truffles when partying or hanging out with friends and I see things a lot more clear as well that way. It definetly gives me motivation to be a better version of myself but it’s not that deep that I feel motivated to get enlightened. Is this similar or is modafinil different ?

[actuallyenlightened]

@Jannes Hey didn't log on for a few weeks.

2) I do a medium dose (300ug for me) + an extra 75ug booster around 4 hours in. Goes without saying that I dedicate an entire day. Also take 30-45min break watching TV after maxing out my meditation stamina and meditating in shorter intervals going into the night.  I haven't done too high of a dose on lsd but tend to become God at high doses and forget about my problems, which come back a few hours later.

4) Modafinil definitely raises my senses but can definitely go a whole day and get nothing done lol. This one has a lot to do with what you hold as the most important things in life.  Personally I think I'm 'too good' to feel shame, guilt, anger and fear and decided to eventually get to such level (without suppressing anything + being virtuous) and believe I'll see my life really start taking off as I approach that point. Thus, every time I feel even an inkling of such emotion, I go home and try to meditate it out of my system. 

 

[Jannes]

12 hours ago, actuallyenlightened said:

@Jannes Hey didn't log on for a few weeks.

2) I do a medium dose (300ug for me) + an extra 75ug booster around 4 hours in. Goes without saying that I dedicate an entire day. Also take 30-45min break watching TV after maxing out my meditation stamina and meditating in shorter intervals going into the night.  I haven't done too high of a dose on lsd but tend to become God at high doses and forget about my problems, which come back a few hours later.

4) Modafinil definitely raises my senses but can definitely go a whole day and get nothing done lol. This one has a lot to do with what you hold as the most important things in life.  Personally I think I'm 'too good' to feel shame, guilt, anger and fear and decided to eventually get to such level (without suppressing anything + being virtuous) and believe I'll see my life really start taking off as I approach that point. Thus, every time I feel even an inkling of such emotion, I go home and try to meditate it out of my system. 

 

2) Alright thanks.

4) Interesting. I personally would just like to be more in control of these emotions by being really with them/dancing with them. "Don’t feel guilty because you feel guilty, BE guilty.“

[actuallyenlightened]

If that's the case you'll get there a lot faster