Hey everyone!
Got a question straight to @Srinath, but hopefully for the benefit of the group.
I often find that feeling good often leads to feeling very excited and kind of giddy/hyper, in a good way. I was wondering if you think these are feelings which should be dealt with like good feelings (neither expressed nor repressed) or whether they are fine to encourage.
If I had to answer on my own without “expert help”, getting in touch with these feelings they do have a synthetic quality as all feelings do, so therefore don’t count as pure feeling good - more like a secondary excitement of the self to feeling good. What did you used to do with those kinds of feelings? Do you consider them a barrier to actuality like the other feelings?
I’ve had it happen sometimes I feel really excited in a good way but then at night I can’t sleep haha. It’s like a mix of feeling good and excitement (put in words:“I am so excited to feel good!”) So yeah obviously it’s much better than a lot of other feelings lol but nevertheless…should probs dismantle right?
I think excitement can either be a good feeling or a feeling good thing depending on its quality and context. Sometimes as a feeling being, feeling good would crossover into an excitement which had a quality of magnanimity, omnipotence, pride, victoriousness etc. which I thought was more of a good feeling. I would gently turn away from it.
On the other hand when I was about to become actually free there was an excitement which felt more naive, destinal, giddy etc. Then after I became free there were days when the excitement was so great it was almost unbearable and kept me up at night, but it seemed like something non-egoic was energising me.
If you’re not sure, I would just wait and watch and see if some clarity emerges. You need the excitement in the end for AF to get you over the hump - i.e. the thrilling side of fear
Thanks for your excellent answer. It’s great that you are able to recall those experiences still and thus give such a relatably helpful answer.
I would categorise this type of excitement as having a “sugary”/heady quality to it…one’s feeling of excitement is very separate from what’s going on - giving this sense of being almost untouchable (which is I imagine why you use words such as omnipotent/victorious etc).
It is very different from the excitement involved in an EE which feels “pure” and truly harmless, which one knows one can follow it with impunity, and which brings one in touch with actuality rather than creating a separation.
My intuition was to dismantle/let go of it but just wanted to check first! Thanks @Srinath.
I’ve been wondering about this too. In my youth I could get so excited that I sometimes felt totally exhausted afterwards. It was a sort of emotional high which didn’t feel good at all. I have therefore fought excitement as a sort of bad feeling, even before I came to know about the subject of actualism.
But I haven’t been discriminating between different sorts of excitement. Perhaps now I should try to allow for some excitement to be a part of my life.
It was caused by being thanked and praised at work. Ive had a very interesting year. Long story short; I’ve been struggling with the “dog eat dog” world, where competition trumps cooperation. Finally, i was able to do something that the bosses could see just how good i am at my profession. Which resulted in them praising this achievement.
The excitement was a low key thing, but enough to keep me awake.
In this way it is definitely a “good” feeling, which resulted in a bad night’s sleep. I didn’t want to go to sleep, i wanted to stay in yesterday where i was “getting somewhere”. Going to sleep means i have to start again today.
