I've tried accomplishing things. It didn't work.

[Fuku]

I used the skills I liked the most and got better at those for a few years. I was having a bit of success (extremely relative, but for me at least), but then I just burned out and now it's been months since I haven't tried again (or rather, I did but got pushed by some terrible negative force that coul've been saying something along the lines of "this is done. We don't want this anymore, just stop.")

So I decided to do what I couldn't do for years while I was working at my craft and worrying to waste time : enjoying art I like created by others.

It felt good at first, but after a few weeks it started to feel very annoying. I love it but...I can't just do that. It feels...stuck? Empty? Irritating? Can't put the right words on this.

 

So there I am stuck in the middle of being able to create things technically but my mind not letting me, and on the other side, appreciating art but my mind doesn't want to either.

What the hell?

Those have filled my whole life for 40 years and now none of it feels confortable for some reason.

Adding to this a very long time depression, and anxiety and other symptoms (self diagnosed ADHD or autism, maybe bipolarity, I don't know, I do check a lot of common boxes of those), I just feel worse and worse, not even good just resting in my own skin. I feel like I'm going towards what society calls "crazy" (simplifying, of course. I just mean that...I can't take living and society aymore).

I've been exercising, eating well, have a wife, good friends, etc...but none of it seems to help me feeling better.

I'm sorry if this sounds like venting. I just don't know how to live anymore. And I thought a spiritual community like this could have interesting thoughts, even if I'm losing all hope in humanity (I have this weird feeling that...I don't have all knowledge, obviously, but still, that I've seen/heard it all. That life is over for me an that I'm fighting for nothing. This is so weird)

Edited August 27, 2022 by Fuku

[Ulax]

@Fuku Heya, thanks for posting.

Sorry to hear you're going through all this. It sounds to me like you're going through a lot of distress.

At this point, I'd recommend staying away from spiritual practices and working on depth psychotherapies to address your mental health situation. My current recommendation would be to engage with the following two books from Dr Janina Fisher:

https://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Living-Legacy-Trauma-Therapists/dp/B09CRJYL34

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Fragmented-Selves-Trauma-Survivors-ebook/dp/B06X9YWZMM

Imo, the second linked book is only really needed if you want to do a deep dive into the approach I am recommending here. The first link is a very accessible workbook for clients to use to aid their recovery from deep mental health issues.

I think it would also be worth seeing a psychiatrist who is informed about ADHD to check whether you have that or not. Or potentially any other form of neurodivergence.

I understand life is tough for you right now but I think there's a lot of resources out there that can help you.

I hope this helped.

[Fuku]

31 minutes ago, Ulax said:

@Fuku Heya, thanks for posting.

Sorry to hear you're going through all this. It sounds to me like you're going through a lot of distress.

At this point, I'd recommend staying away from spiritual practices and working on depth psychotherapies to address your mental health situation. My current recommendation would be to engage with the following two books from Dr Janina Fisher:

https://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Living-Legacy-Trauma-Therapists/dp/B09CRJYL34

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Fragmented-Selves-Trauma-Survivors-ebook/dp/B06X9YWZMM

Imo, the second linked book is only really needed if you want to do a deep dive into the approach I am recommending here. The first link is a very accessible workbook for clients to use to aid their recovery from deep mental health issues.

I think it would also be worth seeing a psychiatrist who is informed about ADHD to check whether you have that or not. Or potentially any other form of neurodivergence.

I understand life is tough for you right now but I think there's a lot of resources out there that can help you.

I hope this helped.

Thanks for the suggestion. I kind of hate the idea or relying on therapists because it's very new to me and I feel like every one of them will recommand some meds to me (I have medial anxiety and even the slightest new medicatio I take can turn panick attacks on pretty quickly...and reading about things like antidepressants and the like is pretty scary for various reasons. I also feel like getting medication would be like hiding the deeper problems by just putting a patch over it.

 

Besides medication, I'm under the impression that most therapists are here to make people talk and realize things about themselves but I've been doing that in depth for dozens of years with close friends and my wife, and I feel stuck. I just let every little thing out but then the words kind of disgust me and I feel bad for stating the obvious, aka there is no solution to my problems and I'm too self-conscious about things.

That being said, I don't have any experience with therapists and those are most certainly biases, maybe they can surprise me.

 

Also thanks for the books you recommanded, I'll take a look into those but I see the word trauma used on both and I don't think I've got any trauma, life was shockingly nice to me and I don't even seem to have a reason to be in such a deep mental health mess.

[Fuku]

Sorry for double posting but I'd like to add a separate question to my original post :

How do I know if what I think I like is what I actually like?
Maybe I'm frustrated about it because I'm confusing love for art and love for doing art myself?

For some reason I just can't accept the fact that I love music, drawing, or other crafts, and that I wouldn't be actually practicing those myself. But clearly my brain is stopping me from doing those now. Hence why I'm wondering if I'm not confusing my feelings about loving something and doing it myself. But if I'm not doing it, I feel useless because I'd just be someone average that has nothing in his life and those people bore me (most of them, obviously I can just love somebody for their vibe/soul)

Sorry, I'm trying to clarify some stuff but it seems like instead I'm just going in circles more and more...

[Raze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOxNig1AK2I

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAVhKfcs6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xxqg4PHg3M

 

[Eph75]

@Fuku

Without knowing more specifics, to me, and I might miss the mark here, it sounds like when what you try to learn transitions - from the point where there is novelty, where you can mostly ride with the learning experience - and into the phase where the learning shifts into the phase where it truly gets challenging, you lose interest. 

Maybe that losing of interest is connected to the pressure and negative experiences, e.g. anxiety that follows when something that was just fun turns difficult, and challenging, and requires extraordinary efforts to develop extraordinary skill, past the point of skill building that essentially just happens by absorbing something. 

Regardless of what we do, that point will come. It's the needle of the eye that essentially separates the wheat from the chaff, on the road towards mastery. 

That stage is typically where we experience negativity, anxiety and as a coping mechanism we essentially lose interest, to avoid experiencing that suffering. Perhaps turning to something else, something new and ride the novelty of that, until a new eye of a new needle show up on the horizon. 

The only thing that can allow us to squeeze through that phase is determination. 

Things that can help us is such thing as, the recognition that we're not alone in this world, and there are others craving mastery as well, and using others on a similar path as a support system that can help us focus through it, greatly helps. Partnering up with someone, joining a group of a team of similar people, experiencing growth in cohorts, and so on. 

The mentor aspect of this also helps us along, having someone more skilled allieviate the burden of that pain, but also help us see new thing, and old thing in a new ways that help us experience optimism and excitement anew.

A different way to look this would be through the lense of the Kreuger-Dunning curve, and it being the phase that shows up as "the valley of despair" in the version of the image below, where the negativity experienced on the learning journey is the confidence drop when realizing that what we thought we knew, and what we've learned so far, is insignificant in relation to what there is to know, and the confidence we previously held is proven false, to ourselves, by ourselves. A powerful realization. 

That valley being the needle, and the eye essentially being the mental barriers of yourself, that you needing to punch through, before your learning can take you to a place where it starts resembling mastery, and where confidence and joy re-emerge as a result.

Maybe this resonates with you?

And if it does, what you experience is one of the quirks of the privilege of being a human being. 

A lot of people stay knowledgeable on a surface level, staying on the left side of this in everything they do. Some people have extremely broad surface level knowledgeable, but lack deeper knowledge in any of the fields of their competency. 

While you could look at this as a lens towards separate areas of expertise, it also offers a lens towards yourself, and how you can rise above that valley, as an overarching meta phenomena of yourself, developing the very core of your being and how you relate to challenging situations.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Eph75

[Fuku]

20 hours ago, Raze said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOxNig1AK2I

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAVhKfcs6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xxqg4PHg3M

 

Thanks, I've already seen the Eckhart and Julien ones. Rewatched them again tho. Basically it can be summarized by : be present. Which is probably the most important advice of all to navigate this world, and that I thought I kind of integrated considering the amount of time I-ve heard or read it, but clearly, this is not the case, otherwise I wouldn't be where I am right now.

Besides that I don't even know if I'm chasing success that much. I just feel aimless. Maybe I'm confusing things. Maybe for example my love for music could be transfered into talking about music online, and not make it. Who knows.

I definitly have ot find a way to dive into my shadow or whatever method could be used, I actually never took the time to do so but I don't know where to start.

@Eph75 Thanks. I know of this, and it could just be the simple answer to what is happening. I do feel bad for not knowing the basics and not being a ble to sit throught learning them, despite having produced so many things.

Maybe I just subconsciously see the gap between myself and what I consider like "real" artists and this is what's so disheartening to me.

Maybe I just need longer breaks. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to resist my whole life without creating anyway. I've already had huge pauses and at some point it just itches too much to get back into it.

[Eph75]

@Fuku

Yes, often we look for more complicated solutions and adding to the mix, when the actual thing isn't that complicated at all. It's often our mind, the avoidence, resistence and resulting coping strategies that we employ that makes things complex. Most things are quite simple to approach, if we only could see the simple path, break a challenge down into manageable chunks, and drop our resistance to move. 

4 hours ago, Fuku said:

Maybe I just need longer breaks.

Maybe, maybe not. 

Rationally, that would mean that you avoid/back down from the challenge of pushing through that dip, the valley.

Meaning that you will face the same hurdle over and over again, instead of continuing dispite the anxieties produced by the insight/knowledge that you are not matching up to whatever you compare yourself with.

I'd say that probably it's better to be disciplined around practice and instead reframe how we relate to the outcomes we're looking for.

To focus on the learning and celebrating even the smallest step taken on that learning path as an accomplishment, rather than comparing with artists you deem amazing or "real" and focusing on the gap that confirms that you know nothing.

Those role model artists should stand for the inspiration to experiment rather than showing us how far we have to go to "be content". 

At some point the joy of the doing will [likely] reappear as a result of the process, and you emerging more as a unique artist standing [more and differently] confident on your own, around the mastery you've ended up building.

Emotionally, taking shorter breaks might be useful. I know they certainly are for me. Takes some time to consolidate the phases of practice/learning/pushing, interweaving pahses of a more playful approach, until the hunger to push re-emerges.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Eph75

[Fuku]

Update : I started doing a bit of music again.
It's probably the thing I'm best at and I keep on getting better even if in very small ways.
That being said, I don't really feel any joy rom the process and I'm even ashamed to send what I've composed to the people I work with.

On the other hand, during my breaks, I started watching movies and series again, and reading comics and books, play video games, and this feels...like home. Always interesting to me.

Maybe I should not be trying to accomplish anything creative after all? I don't know if it's because I'm getting old, but my whole soul is whispering some.
Even tho I'm not really interested in them, I feel like I should've had children long ago, and they should be teenagers or adults now, and I could finally "rest" from their education, and tell myself I lived my active life and I'm slowly going towards retirement and I can now get back to those passive passions that I used to like.

And what's so bad in just living for fun? I refused that idea but it's starting to seem more and more ok to me.

What if social media, spirituality, all of these successful people, have actually just caused me pain by making my mind believe that I could be someone exceptional and successful when I'm actually not "made" for that? To achieve anything?

I'm so torn. I'm split between those 2 opposite paths, I can't tell which one is wrong, and it's causing me great pain. I just want to be able to flow through life again.
 

[Eph75]

6 hours ago, Fuku said:

And what's so bad in just living for fun?

There's nothing wrong with that, living to have fun seems like a great thing. 

Although, as with everything, there's balance to be found. Just having fun, and neglecting or avoiding something in that process, will create imbalance that shows up as some kind of negativity and suffering. 

We're self-regulatory in nature; we sense the imbalance and it shows up in ways that sometimes (often actually) is hard to interpret, and often is incorrectly interpreted. 

Being and doing ultimate needs to be in balance, and our self-regulatory ways tries to make us alert to imbalances so that we can fix them. 

There's a place where doing meets fun (being), and where fun doesn't equate to avoidance. 

The hard part is the interpretation of the signals we give ourselves, and the means, or self-regulation, they call for. 

In your reply, you mention comparing yourself with others, social media, and not feeling content and even ashamed to share what you've created with others. 

This is a great start.

• The negative aspects of social media is likely to overshadow the positives, and the realization that we don't need social media, and that social media is a source of much [kinds of] suffering to many people, is an important realization. Should we and do we need to be a part of that, risking paying a high price in the process? 
• To compare ourselves to others is a mistake, we should instead [learn to] use others as inspiration that give us fuel to focus on our own thing, and have the courage to be who and where we are, so that we can just keep practicing and keep learning in that process. These comparisons are connected to that shame and not feeling content. There's always someone that can do what we do, or try to do, in a more creative way, more efficiently, and with better results/impact... and so on. 
• By stopping ourselves from sharing what we create, we remove the possibility for others to give us the feedback that can help us improve, and to give feedback that isn't distorted by our internal biases [for or] against outselves. It also gives us a chance to find out and prove ourselves wrong, around the false thought and feelings that we might be experiencing. 

This takes courage, courage to be vulnerable and expose ourselves to others. Meaning facing the fears that we have to be judged by others, and to risk confirming our fears, or having those fears proven irrational and wrong. 

A meta challenge that we much benefit from facing - challenging those fears of not being worthy of love and belonging, and being rejected by others. 

6 hours ago, Fuku said:

I'm so torn. I'm split between those 2 opposite paths, I can't tell which one is wrong, and it's causing me great pain. I just want to be able to flow through life again.

I'm just seeing those two perceived  paths as being two that really are one. 

It's what creates a schism between the two, a duality where there is none to begin with. A schism created by our unfavorable thought processes more so that by anything external and objectively true. 

By facing these challenges, that inherently exists within anything that is difficult to achieve, we find the means to uncover the joys and the fun, and allow the marrying or reuniting of challenging, creative and fun, into one and the same path. 

There are a number of significant insights, and mindshifts that needs to happen to make this subjectively true.

That's the real struggle; the taking on of the challenges that causes anxieties, doubt and suffering, and leading ourselves into those challenges so that we can stay with the uncertainty and disorientation it inevitably brings - leading to our developmental growth, where our minds can shift to see what is, in new ways. 

Avoiding those challenges, that is the very coping mechanism that is looking to keep us safe in our comfort zone, which is cozy enough, but won't help us grow, and over time the imbalances created is likely to crank up our suffering while lingering in our false sense of comfort and safety. 

This is human nature - wanting to grow, and the resistence we put up is keeping us from the flow that naturally wants to happen. Becoming aware of, and letting go of those resistences, one by one, allows us to more often flow. 

There's a need here to drop the sense prestige and approach this in a more playful manner. Life isn't as serious as we make it up to be. We make it harder than it is.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Eph75

[Ulax]

@Fuku Brother how are things now?

[Fuku]

On 11/09/2022 at 7:54 PM, Ulax said:

@Fuku Brother how are things now?

Thanks for asking.

It feels weird. I made some music again but it didn't feel that interesting. Nothing really does, when it comes to creating.

So I defaulted back to my older mode of playing games and watching movies.

It feels kind of weird but I also very confortable.

This fuels me but...not for creating. It just kind of fuels my soul.

On the contrary, the content that used to put a spark in me (philosophical, spiritual, self development) doesn't seem to go anywhere, in fact, it's kind of starting to...disgust me? Even physically, just right now I was watching a video of one of my youtube subscription from this one guy I really like that thought me a lot, but it felt bad.

And I'm thinking about basically deleting all of this kind of content minus a few that could still go other place than rather just repeat the same basic ideas with different words.

I know it sounds off point considering what I was talking about, but I what I mean is that my energy in general is leaning more towards passivity, neutrality, and even if some part of me doesn't like it cause I was convinced it was not the way and every smart people I follow say it isn't, it still feels right somehow.

Maybe this is just a break. Maybe my energy, my will, are pretty much dead at this age and if I had to make something, it should've been earlier.

For now, I'll just stay in that dark and comfy place of being hypnotized by the endless content I like.

It feels weird after years and years of being on a roll, but I just physically can't do aynthing else right now. Sorry for this disappointing answer that's not really in the right mood for this community...

Edited September 17, 2022 by Fuku

[Ulax]

Hey @Fuku , I notice that you said that maybe this is just a break. And, that maybe your energy and will are pretty much dead at your age. Further, that if you had to make something, it should've been earlier. It sounds to me like you are feeling dejected because your need for hope regarding your future is not being met. Am I correct?

Edited September 18, 2022 by Ulax
Spelling

[Fuku]

22 hours ago, Ulax said:

Hey @Fuku , I notice that you said that maybe this is just a break. And, that maybe your energy and will are pretty much dead at your age. Further, that if you had to make something, it should've been earlier. It sounds to me like you are feeling dejected because your need for hope regarding your future is not being met. Am I correct?

Being a non-native english speaker, I'm having trouble fully understanding your question.

But what I can answer for now, is that, even if my current situaiton feels confortable, I am kind of disheartened by the idea of my future being "just this".

I wish I could fully appreciate my play/watching time, but there's always somethign in the back of my head. Not sure if this backgroud thing pointing the fact that I'm not doing aynthing is right, or if it's an annoyance and I should just let go to fully be myself, which may just be...a "normal" person.

It seems like nothing but, on a different level than before, I still feel that sensation of being torn left and right, and never fully be able to be present.

Sorry, I know all of this is kind of vague.

[hyruga]

People will always be better at you in something unless you keep practising on them.

An example is someone has been playing golf and you have been playing bowling, What chances is there that the first time you play golf, you can beat them? So you just have to start practicing golf.

[Fuku]

I get the idea of how things should work to get better at something. I understand all the keys. I was on that path.

But it doesn't seem to make me happy.

That's why my problem is more vague than just not giving up on something, knowing how the progression curves and all that stuff work.

The problem is more some kind of existential crisis about why I spent years learning something, why it seemed to work, and why it doesn't now.

Also why I don't think anything creative or simply productive would make me happy (after all, this is something like my 3rd or 4th path doing this kind of stuff. Granted all at very level, but still. Music, drawing, making video...)

Honestly, the more I talk, the more I feel bad asking anything to anyone else, because despite this inner will to refine things in some way, it all just seems like I don't even know what I'm asking anymore, my thoughts go in circle despite pushing them all I can, it kind of makes me feel nauseuous spiritually (hard to explain, sorry), I feel shame, and it makes it really hard for people to help, and I feel like I'm wasting their time.

So, this is a vicious circle I can only escape by not doing anything.

In a way, maybe the only way to actually understand is to do somnething that seems obvious but I never did for really long, now that I think about it : meditate, and reflect on myself. I like to think I'm someboy interested in spirituality and person evolution, but I'm actually not. I just read and watch things about it. But I never put to the test the usual methods that are actually supposed to help find my true self...which would be...some somrt of meditation, not sure which, and some processes like shadow work and whatnot. If I knew how to find a good way to start that, since it's not an "exact science". Yes, I know there's also drugs but my anxiety is so strong, panic attacks can come very quick sometimes, even just from a simple medication that I don't know. I actually stopped smoking marijuana because of that. Worst panick attack of my life, lasted for hours, thought I was dying for real.

[hyruga]

 

@flowboy puts it very well, burn out is due to workload over agency and purposes.

You have to find out what services you are providing, what you are getting in return and what are your values and aligned to them. Then you will feel less frustrated and less tired.

Edited September 19, 2022 by hyruga

[flowboy]

@Fuku  I feel for you man.

I've spent most of my life having anxieties and obsessively thinking and analyzing about what's wrong with me, talking about it to family members and friends, and then sometimes it seemed like mostly what was wrong with me was that... in and of itself.

But that realisation was not satisfying nor curative.

The more I'm doing deep inner work and learning about myself, the more I'm making connections of how I came to be this way and how I can get out of it.

I guarantee you that your mental state has a reason, I could even help you figure it out.

Don't think of "trauma" as some dramatic event that other people had happen to them and you didn't.

Everyone has conditioning.

Past is interconnected to future, until deconditioning happens.

More often than not, things go back to the earliest years including birth.

[Ulax]

On 19/09/2022 at 0:23 AM, Fuku said:

Being a non-native english speaker, I'm having trouble fully understanding your question.

But what I can answer for now, is that, even if my current situaiton feels confortable, I am kind of disheartened by the idea of my future being "just this".

I wish I could fully appreciate my play/watching time, but there's always somethign in the back of my head. Not sure if this backgroud thing pointing the fact that I'm not doing aynthing is right, or if it's an annoyance and I should just let go to fully be myself, which may just be...a "normal" person.

It seems like nothing but, on a different level than before, I still feel that sensation of being torn left and right, and never fully be able to be present.

Sorry, I know all of this is kind of vague.

@Fuku Regarding your first sentence, no worries man. I'm trying out a new type of communication style. So it might be that my wording is unusual, hence why its difficult to understand.

Am I right in thinking that you feel disheartened because you don't have much hope for the future?

 

[PepperBlossoms]

try hard enough and eventually you will fail