Thanks Vineeto for your reply and providing that reminder of those memories. I forgot I had those experiences and they can sometimes seem so far away. I’ve been feeling between neutral to good for the past week. Even during days of lack of sleep. The main obstacle is my own default state of being that I can only describe as an obsessive-compulsive neuroticism. Everything must be “right” before I’ll feel good. Even the actualism method I feel like I have to do it “right” or else I keep thinking it over and get stuck. It seems to be a function of the guardian or social identity. In this I am ultimately looking for a certainty. But I find now that I am able to ‘emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable’ and with this I am able to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. I don’t have to agree with everything that is happening in the world but I also don’t have to give in to the instinctual compulsion of suffering over it. I think it has been this emotional reservation which has impeded a moving forward in a more stable feeling good.
With that said, yesterday I realized that there actually is a certainty here. The certainty is in sensuousness. This quality keeps me here. It makes sense how attentiveness is a “sensuous attention”. I am usually instinctually trying to solve things in the murky areas of ‘being’ but I am here always existing reliably in a sensuous manner. This in itself invites feeling good. It stands in contrast to my default state of being. Now it’s a matter of how can I allow more of this to come to the fore more often.
Something else which clicked as I was going about my day was the realization that the best that I can do for my partner is to always feel good. And in turn, this is the best that I can do for everyone. It’s like I am turning everything that I have been doing around truly 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I see the difference between intellectually unaccepting and emotionally unaccepting. I don’t agree with the Human Condition, but if I’m emotionally unaccepting of it then I have no choice but to try to solve it instinctually. It’s like there was some “rule” that one must be emotionally unaccepting and thus react in some compassionate and empathetic (suffering) manner. So my focus now has been to make feeling good the baseline.
Also I am curious what you think of this @Vineeto :
RESPONDENT: (…) How is the method best done – should I examine the feeling and find its trigger while experiencing it, in order to get back to feeling good?
RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an intellectual/ abstractional-type person then … yes.
RESPONDENT: Or should I get back to feeling good and then figure out why I last felt less-than-good?
RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an emotional/ passional-type person then … yes. [link]
I know the advice now is to return to feeling good before investigating anything. Is the above advice recommended at any time?