Shadow work using IFS therapy

[spiritual memes]

I just had the craziest experience. 

After doing ifs for a decent while, I noticed a pretty significant energetic blockage in my neck area corresponding to my throat chakra. It felt like there was energy rising up from my lower body but there was a protector part blocking the energy and preventing it from moving upwards.

It took me several weeks to get accquanted with this part and during a session I managed to integrate the part so that it would let go and let energy through. Immediately I felt energy almost like an electric current moving through my neck and head. I felt my entire face vibrating as energy moved through it.

Eventually, the energy stabilised and I felt a energy blockage corresonding to my third eye chakra. I used the same method that I used before to unblock it and the energy moved up into the crown chakra where it was once again blocked. While attempting to unblock it, I noticed an intense fear that if I let go, my mind would dissolve and I would cease to exist as an individual. I kept trying to unblock it but I was unsuccessful so I went to bed.

While I was in bed, I tried to sleep as I had a job interview next day, however, there was so much energy in my crown chakra that I was unable to sleep. I tried once again to unblock it with a more gentle approach and this time it was successful. I had an extremely intense psychedelic experience where I merged with the universal consciousness. Its like the consciousness/energy in my body was water in a bottle in the ocean and by opening my crown chakra, I had removed the lid and allowed the water in the bottle to merge with the ocean.

However, before I could fully surrender to this infinite consciousnes, I was hit with intense intrusive thoughts which showed me my worst fears and must fucked up thoughts (People I love dying horrific deaths). This was a protector part trying to stop me from completely letting go, it convinced me that because my worst fears are technically possible, I could not fully let go. It also convinced me that because I was connected to universal consciousness, my worst fears would manifest due to the law of attraction and my trying to make them go away, I was actually giving them energy which would make them even more likely to manifest. This created a nasty feedback loop which almost felt like a bad trip which stopped my from fully letting go.

I decided to use the IFS approach to understand the protector part responsible for my intrusive thoughts. Its trying to prevent me from letting go of fear because life contains fucked up stuff. Therefore I have to have some underlying fear and clinging to be prepared. Its trying to protect the parts of me that are traumatized from seeing the fucked up aspects of the world.

This greatly lessened the intrusive thoughts but I was unable to surrender my ego to the universal mind. I also had a job interview the next day which i was worried about which also prevented me from letting go. I lay there in bed trying to sleep. However, instead of going unconscious I started seeing intense hypnogogic visuals almost remniscent of DMT. I started dreaming but I was still conscious and self aware of my dreams although they more resembled weird thoughts and shapes rather than any thing realistic.

I woke up the next day fairly normal, but damn what a weird experience.

[spiritual memes]

Unburdening an exile is an incredible experience. The uncomfortable knot that has been in your body for as long as you can remember suddenly dissolves into a warm loving, vibrating, golden light. This light spreads through your body loosening any tight areas. The protector parts, touched by this light, begin to vibrate. From a systems level, the equilibrium has been disrupted causing a chain reaction of healing but also destruction.

What an amazing experience.

[spiritual memes]

There are 2 extremely powerful protector parts responsible for a large portion of my bad habits, one in my upper neck area protecting me from external physical threats and another in my heart area that blocks my ability to experience love. These are really fucking difficult to unburden because they're so well built in. removing them would completely destabilize my mind. There are also more protector parts preventing me from accessing these parts to begin with so its an uphill battle. Breathing into these areas reveals so much tension and inner resistance. This is going to be difficult.

[spiritual memes]

I've made a huge breakthrough in my approach to IFS. Instead of seeing unburdening my parts as a goal, the better approach is to forget the goal entirely and focus improving my relationships with my parts. A better relationship with my parts IS the goal. Not more confidence or less anxiey or fewer addictions. Those are just side effect of my relationships with my parts.

I managed to achieve a deep state of connection with my dissociated parts while in a state of meditative ego death. The parts dissolved into a singular field of consciousness. There was no more inner resistance. It was as intense as a psychedelic state except with no visuals and mindfuck.

Although the next day, I seem to have lost most of the mental clarity and my parts are dysfunctional once again.

 

[spiritual memes]

Just got rejected by a company i spent 2 months doing interviews with. It's not even that I wasn't good enough. The higher ups just changed their minds so the position got cancelled. On one hand I feel an overwhemling sense of despair and anger since I absolutely need a job to move out of my parents house and live my own life. On the other hand, I feel kind of free? I had spent so much time stressing about the outcome that I wasn't allowing myself to live life. During my frustration I felt a space open up inside me and I felt more alive than I have in a while despite my shitty situation.

I feel like the law of attraction had something to do with it. I was clinging so hard to getting a job and leaving my situation that I was out of alignment with the universe. i was giving out the energy of lack rather than abundance and so I manifested some stupid reason for my job application falling through. Its weird because I feel like even if i got the job and moved out, I would be miserable because I wasn't in alignment with life. The past few weeks of job applications have made me feel dead inside and now that its all for nothing, I actually feel alive.

The universe is definitely trying to teach me something. I'm guessing it's gratitude and abundance. Having an abundance mindset and letting go is so hard though. I'm 23, with pretty much no social life or sexual experience, Im unemployed and living with my dysfunctional parents and with a bunch of childhood traumas holding me back. The only things I have going for me are my qualifications (masters degree) and my body which is slowly getting worse as the stress of my situation is causing me to gain weight (which isn't actually that bad as I struggle to gain weight). i feel life everyone else has their lives together except me. All my friends are either in relationships or frequent hookups. They also have pretty solid jobs and live on thier own. The one thing I have is my spiritual connection. I regularly have spiritual experience where I realise that I have everything that i am searching for and I finally feel at peace. However, these states usually don't last long.

[spiritual memes]

I also have begun doubting spirituality and wondering if im just deliding myself with all this consciousness shit. I'm an extremely rational scientific minded person so actually believing in spirituality and nonduality took a lot of mystical experiences as well as rationally backed arguments (thanks Bernardo Kastrup). Recently I've been in a very pessimistic attitude and I constantly read comments and articles about why materialism is true and idealism and spirituality are bullshit. These really get to me because of how important spirituality is to my life so I will spend hours arguing trying to debunk these argumens from skeptical materialists on the internet. I'm able to defend my worldview from these materialist arguments but it really gets to me. Its really depressing that materialism is mainstream, especially around scientifically minded people because I am a scientist and look up to scientists. 

[spiritual memes]

 

[spiritual memes]

I've been doing IFS every day and ive stopped journalling because there are too many parts to count. I've removed a significant emotional blockage which was a foundation of my entire mind. My underlying shame surrounding sex and my inability and desperation to get it is completely gone. 

I feel free but also empty like i've lost a part of myself. Turns out this underlying shame was on of the reasons I started self improvement in the first place.

[spiritual memes]

I've spent a large portion of my life thinking that I was broken and needed to be fixed so I could become normal like everyone else. This entire self improvement journey was a quest to somehow 'fix' myself.

Maybe I'm not broken. 

Maybe I never was.

[spiritual memes]

I've discovered one of my deepest and most repressed parts. It is the part of me that is afraid of being happy. The part that gets paranoid whenever good things happen because it believes that everything will go wrong. Its so deeply rooted in my psyche that it has subconsciously influenced my life leading me to a life of misery because that is the only state where it feels safe.

It's trying to protect me from being caught off guard. It believes that reality is fundamentally hostile and therefore I must be constantly vigilant at all times, never letting go. The moment I finally allow myself to let go is the moment the rug gets pulled under me and something devastatingly bad will happen. This has been the case many times throughout my life. Out of all my parts, this one is perhaps the most cruel, willing to do anything to prevent me from letting go. It fills my mind with the most fucked up possibilities. It is protecting one of my most wounded exiles, an inner child that has experienced such unexpected suffering.

I have managed to communicate with the part and get it to relax, however this is perhaps the hardest part I have had to deal with so far. I found myself exhausted after the session like I had run a marathon.

[spiritual memes]

Just as I thought I was making progress, I got hit with a pretty brutal reality check. My life situation is still shit and my subconscious anxieties are as strong as ever. Have I really been making progress? My life has been shit ever since I left university and I'm still unemployed. I've never had a girlfriend or had sex, and all my friends are too busy to talk to me. Part of me feels bad even meeting up with my friends because they've all got their own busy lives while I'm depressed and alone. I'm tired all the time and my habits have gone to shit.

Quite a few people have messaged me asking for advice about IFS after reading my journal but I feel like a fraud giving others advice since I can barely get my own life together. I have dreams of becoming super spiritually developed and making huge contributions to humanity but I'm just kidding myself. I spend most of my life fantasizing about the person I could become, imaginary relationships with girls that probably don't think about me at all, and a future where I am happy. I guess that's just a coping mechanism.

I guess I was repressing this frustration with my life. I want to have a positive attitude but its so hard. I feel like I'm kidding myself. Have I really made any progress?

Edited January 16, 2023 by spiritual memes

[spiritual memes]

I'm able to see past the illusions of my mind and achieve a oneness with my parts where everything is ok. However, this experience is always temporary. I always slip back into my dysfunctional ways. How do I maintain this state?

[spiritual memes]

Fucks sake, I keep transcending my neuroticism and achieving liberation, only to fall back in. Whenever I let go, I literally attract what I want but as soon as I cling to them I get taken away. I swear as I've gotten more awake, the law of attraction gets stronger and stronger. This isn't necessarily a good thing since I usually attract negative things.

[spiritual memes]

I seem to be facing a block. I have made a lot of changes to the core of my psyche which have destabilised my mental system. Many of my parts are scared to do any more IFS work. Whenever I try to do IFS I get a strong feeling of tiredness and resistance to change. It may be wise to take it slow.

If I think of my mind like a society, doing too many political and social reforms might cause instability and chaos. This is the same in my mind.

[spiritual memes]

On another note, I've spent some time on actualityofbeing as I felt Leo and actualized were becoming a bit toxic. Its a lot less toxic than actualized with a greater focus on integrating spirituality and less on self help and extreme psychedelic use. After spending time on there, the problems with actualized and Leo's teachings become extremely apparent.

I think I'm going to spend less time on here and more on AOB. I will still update this journal and help others with IFS but I will spend less time on the more toxic discussions that tend to happen on here.

[meadow]

Really appreciate your journal here. I feel like you're a younger version of me who took better decisions and isn't about to let 10 years just slip away. I'm rooting for you. Thanks for writing about IFS.. will explore that now. And thank you for posting that Crywolf song, new favorite artist. 

[spiritual memes]

On 06/02/2023 at 7:20 PM, meadow said:

Really appreciate your journal here. I feel like you're a younger version of me who took better decisions and isn't about to let 10 years just slip away. I'm rooting for you. Thanks for writing about IFS.. will explore that now. And thank you for posting that Crywolf song, new favorite artist. 

Thanks mate. I'm sure those 10 years you let slip were not wasted. I've found that my darkest times have been the best learning experiences. I cannot recommend IFS enough.

I'm glad you like crywolf, he's one of my favourite artists and I've been trying to get my friends into it but its not for most people. Highly recommend you check out his album exuvium and his skeletons EP.

[spiritual memes]

Phil from actualityofbeing gave me some great advice. Whenever I have a thought, emotion or feeling, I should express it in any way I can. For example when I feel hopelessness or despair, I should allow it to be and express it. Writing it in a journal definitely helps. When I express my feelings more the negativity gets transmuted and I feel a space open up in my energetic body. I tried it at night time one day and when I woke up the next day the world sparkled with a vivid colour as if I was looking at it for the first time. It really felt like I was on psychedelics.

I also got some good advice from mandy, she said to focus on what I want instead of focusing on what I don't want. Many of my wants are actually rooted in avoiding something negative. For example, my desire for a relationship is rooted in loneliness. Thinking about what I want should not feel negative.

I'm glad I found these teachers. Shame Leo banned them...

[spiritual memes]

I feel myself unravelling.

 

 

 

 

 

When I unravel, what will remain?

Edited February 11, 2023 by spiritual memes

[spiritual memes]

I just clocked that this journal is becoming quite popular. If anyone is reading this, wasssuuuuppppp 

I should really post more music here.