I noticed the magic of it yesterday finally in a lovely moment of contemplation that nothing makes the rain, it’s just happening. Then I looked at some birds, and noticed the same thing, they are just happening also. It’s quite a soft and gentle and lovely and wonderful and somehow has an oomph of strength in that moment of realisation. Anyway, very nice, thought I’d share.
I’ve been able to notice this more over the last week, and that the magic is in this fact, everything, including this body, is happening of its own accord, nothing else is making it all happen. There is a total peace in there and also when I can pay attention to it, something happens in this body there is an opening feeling and that is where the joy comes in. The magic is in that it is alllllll happening. Good things to observe - a river, the wind, birds flying. I had a micro-pce a couple nights ago watching my fingers make a paper plane, just doing it on their own - the amazement comes with a shock as well, so there was the PCE, recognition of it, shock and then amazement at what just happened.
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Same again - going from locked in unhappy confused stressed to instantly better just by putting my attention on that quality that’s in everything happening of its own accord. On a swing bridge looking out over the river. Instant relief. I am a creature happening also on this amazing planet. From being the creature involved in its own social maze to being the creature just standing in an amazing world. It’s amazing how instantly all the worries vanish. And even though the experience only lasts a short time the after effects of a great mood are awesome.
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What’s great about being able to do this myself more readily is that I am beginning to experience the actual world as the fact and not a theory or something in the middle where I believe in it mostly but sometimes I don’t believe in it (is it just a mind trick or if I’m really locked in my suffering it seems like it can’t possibly be true). Something I wrote down yesterday was I don’t have to be anyone anymore… I can shed the burden of having to be someone. So that was a fact seen in the moment and now its lurking in the background when I feel like I should do this or that or need to work on this, that realisation pops up and says remember; none of this being someone is actual. So it’s like a chunk of the urgency of being has had the wind taken out of it.
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Because I can get back to feeling good in an instant, I can do it again; knowing I can do it again makes it doable.
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Feeling sadness, left-behind, stress, envy, frustration feelings at work. Manager leaving for another job. Workload going up. Went for an early walk to look at the river and get back to feeling good. Did pretty good. Succeeded! It’s a bit of a balancing act or something delicate about finding the right mental angle to let the actual world sneak through my barrier along with gently reminding myself of the facts that I don’t need to feel that way. Took a few minutes and a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing, feeling good then dropping back to feeling bad - questioning if i am betraying myself by not feeling bad…yes and no…yes for I am declining my ‘needs’ but also i’m doing myself a favour to feel good regardless of everything that happens…it’s possible to be free emotionally of all the things that happen!
In the actual world none of this matters and as soon as the bad feelings are gone it’s so obvious that it is better to not bother feeling bad.
I was feeling miserable because of my life - I was being protective “what about me” - what about my importance. Feeling trapped. But then realising I wasn’t trapped and I could feel good no matter what is the real freedom. It doesnt matter what happens because I’m here anyway and it’s amazing to be here.
Was it silly to feel bad - yes because now I don’t feel that way. I didn’t need to feel that way first. Also it’s so much better to feel good. Most important, feeling bad isn’t actual.
Felt good for the rest of the day and then great after work.
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This morning I was frightened to be left alone. Being left behind. Panicky. Gotta keep up in the race. Don’t leave me. Visual of everyone rushing forward continually moving forward in a massive herd. And I stumble and then just stop and let them go.
Deep deep herding instinct. Primal. Belong And keep up or die.
Today at work I felt progressively sadder, I felt lost and abandoned by my Manager, left to fend for myself in a bleak world. I went to the river at lunch and gazed out looking for the magic. It took a while. I was resistant to letting go of the sorrow. I was like a baby inside myself, alone in a dark room. I teetered back and forth and eventually found a place somewhere feeling ok, not great, but certainly not awful. I was surrounded by the magic but I was also protecting that feeling in the middle of the experience. For who am I without that feeling. That poor child needed to be felt.
Such a deep need to remain a miserable self, despite the facts. Not to berate myself. Just observing that strength of need.
As the afternoon went on i felt more dissociated rather than feeling good, which I’m thinking was due to having to focus on work while still not feeling great, but I allowed myself to continue in part misery, justifying that it was appropriate.
Finishing work i allowed this to lift and feel good and I recognized again that it would have been better to have been feeling good while working. I think there was something in the psychic atmosphere at work because everyone was apparently feeling low mood. It was like an unspoken group consensus to feel appropriately low.? Speculative idea.
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Really enjoying these daily entries, Ian.
It is motivating me to get off my ass and work through my own objections to feeling good.
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Thanks! I’m glad, it’s also encouraging to hear that. I am finding that writing is motivating also and good for reflection. I’ve decided to make this my priority and make it public in order to challenge my fear of feeling like a weirdo for wanting to do this. Sticking my neck out.
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Investigating being a man. Investigating is what i find challenging because Im not sure what angle i should be going for to have success at diminishing or eliminating part of my identity. At least i havent found it yet.
@Vineeto @claudiu if you are willing I would welcome assistance, clues, guidance from those who have had success at investigating identity with the result of freedom from that part of the identity.
I was feeling shit at work (a separate issue). I said as much. A colleague told me to ‘man up’. Instantly and sharply I said ‘fuck off’. It was an immediate defensive reaction, as a reaction against feeling shame, from being ‘told off’.
Now, how should I investigate this…I’m trying to find the right angle here to disempower and ultimately eliminate a part of myself.
Two things. My identity as a man. My identity as an individual.
I was being not a good example of a man.
If being a man wasn’t part of my identity I wouldn’t be upset by such a remark.
So there is a man identity. Outlined by feeling defensive when challenged.
So there is the part of me that feels like a man. But there is concern that I’m not a good enough man. That I don’t fit the picture of what a man should be. I feel like I am not a real man.
There is also the individual part of me that feels like i dont have to be like that and will defend myself from having to be a certain way.
These things are in conflict and its where i start to go round in circles.
What should I address first and how. This is what i am trying to determine.
Or am i on the wrong track about it being about being a man. There is something though. I had to defend myself so something is there to feel in need of defense. Maybe it is more about a personal ethic. You shouldnt criticize another person…or other people shouldnt tell me what to do… don’t tell me how i should be. I felt attacked and responded with aggression. There was a threat to my sense of being.
I get bogged down in this kind of thinking/ investigating, not sure if I’m getting anywhere or not. I’m getting somewhere but not yet the where I want to get to.
I’m trying to see the facts, to gather the information hoping to stumble upon a release valve realization.
I have successfully made myself laugh at myself. And have to remind myself of the problem in the first place to be able to keep investigating. This seems good but I’m concerned this is me lifting the rug to sweep the issue back under it.
So. I know I don’t need to be anyone, but i still feel like i do (of course?). This is a non actual entity concerned about what kind of non actual entity it is.
Well, at least I’ve noticed something and brought attention and awareness to it. This is good but not the answer.
Maybe the issue is more about authority and resentment against that. Maybe more of a child identity feeling bullied and wanting to assert itself. Me as a child wanting to protect myself.
In my experience, whenever I do these deep dive investigations, I am usually avoiding doing the method. Now, this is not to say that this is the case with you. But I often go round and round in circles, trying to locate the one linchpin that will collapse this whole belief structure and lead to me feeling good or having a dazzling PCE. It never works for me like that. The reason for not feeling good is usually simple. Either I don’t want to make the effort or I want to feel bad. Once I’m feeling good, my investigation is driven by curiosity. I’m looking around, prodding here and there. I’m not looking for something specific, per say. Not looking for an answer. I’m looking at the problem itself and it’s structure. There’s a big difference here, because looking for the answer is usually driven by a feeling (desperation, or wanting to get rid of the bad feeling ASAP). Again, only you know the integrity of your investigation. This is just some food for thought.
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I can speak with some experience here because I have done a lot of investigating over the years, how effective it was is another question 
. As @Josef mentioned I think a lot of it, probably the majority, was just me going round and round in circles, trying to pin-point that 1 thing which would magically make the whole structure collapse, all the while feeling bad. This kind of investigation has the flavour of ‘me’ trying to fix the human condition from the ‘inside’, all on ‘my’ own. It’s usually pretty painful, confusing and ineffective business.
The way which works is to get back to feeling good first, then from the position of enjoyment and appreciation investigation has a completely different flavour, it is more akin to contemplation, it’s possible for it to become quite a fun and fascinating thing to do. I can pinpoint the difference between the 2 approaches to something @geoffrey wrote a while back, that beliefs fall away when something better is available.
So to summarise you do all that you can to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive, then from that position of enjoyment and appreciation you can turn your attention towards these aspects of ‘yourself’ and see what you make of them then. It can be quite incredible to see them from that new vantage point.
Thanks heaps for the responses @Josef @Kub933 i really appreciate it.
Good insight for me. True I wasnt back to completely feeling good but didnt want to sort of let the problems of the day just go only to return, so I decided to pick one event and look at that…although I was being curious about the investigation, there was some determination or urgency to get to the bottom of it. Also when thinking about the event i certainly allowed myself to feel bad again while bringing up the feelings, so that makes sense.
When you talk about seeing the structure, can you put that into more words, im curious what that means or looks like for you.
Also would you say the sorts of things that i wrote about above are familiar or similar to what you might be uncovering when you investigate or for you is it some other kind of experience.
I guess this is the part where I have to see what works and what doesn’t, but hearing different versions of what a success might look like would certainly support me going in the right direction, especially given that fundamentally we all share the same thing.
Awesome stoked to get your takes on it. 
Hi Ian,
A couple of thoughts. You pinpointed the specific trigger and saw exactly what happened — perfect!
The trigger was: you expressed you were feeling like shit to a coworker, and they told you to “man up”.
This caused you to be rather upset — this prompted an immediate defensive reaction, but what followed doesn’t matter so much as now you know the specific trigger.
I definitely recommend getting back to feeling good first. While the sting of it is still lingering, it inevitably leads to circling around the topic without progress. From a place of feeling good, going back to revisit it will often bring the emotion back, but now you have the benefit of a backdrop of feeling good to rely on and prevent fruitless circling. If you find yourself circling then just pause and get back to feeling good again before revisiting.
Now, you wrote some thought about whether it’s to do with you being a man, or being an individual, and some clash of the two, and then maybe it’s not about you being a man at all but something else? The answer is: I really don’t know, I don’t have access to your thoughts and feelings and psychic makeup 
.
But luckily - you do! And here is the key to it, you want to investigate in a thoroughly sincere fashion. The answer of “is it really X?”, only you can know. The way you find out is you get yourself to the point of genuinely wanting to find out what is actually the case about this topic.
You will know that it worked once you see what it actually is. Basically you won’t be sure, you will investigate various things, and at some point it will just click. This may sound dissatisfactory as an explanation but it really is how it works. Sincerity is important because you have to be able to allow yourself to see when you got it right.
Here are a few tips of how to go about investigating:
- replaying the moment is helpful as you can essentially replay the trigger to yourself, and see what part of you reacts. That reaction is exactly where to look
- then when looking at the reaction, ask yourself various questions such as:
— why did I react that way?
— what is it about X that led me to react that way?
— what do I have at stake?
— What about the makes me feel it’s important to reach this way?
— (a particularly useful one): what would I lose if I no longer reacted that way in these situations? - maintain a light and curious mental tone. You are investigating yourself, but what if you view it as a puzzle? It can be fun to piece together these things. Viewing it in this more dispassionate way can help to gain some insight.
These questions and this approach will help lead you to find specifically what it is you find dear about this part of yourself, that allows you to hold onto and nourish it despite it leading to you feeling bad.
And there really is the point: contrast that reaction with feeling good. Is it really worth it? Once you know why you find this part of yourself dear, is it really worth holding onto that part with it meaning you lose out on this feeling good?
Can you accept a world where you feel good even if such a situation happens? If not — why not? What would be wrong with such a world? This will help you see better why you hold it dear.
(One thing I found particularly helpful at the start of all this, was I realized I would tell myself things like “oh it can’t be Y, I’m not the kind of person that holds Y dear”. I came to realize that Y was precisely where to look haha. These weak protestations were just a defense mechanism so I could maintain a cool detached sophisticated socius that felt itself to be above the rest.)
At this point it might already have clicked and you have seen this particular construction as silly. If not, repeat above. If you are really quite confident you know what it is but you just can’t let it go, then you have to realize you have essentially two sincere choices:
- accept and resign yourself that you are this way, you won’t change, and you will continue feeling bad when this type of situation happens
- change yourself, allow yourself to let go of this thing that you hold dear
Ultimately, it is up to you.
Let me know if you found this helpful!
Cheers,
Claudiu
Hi Claudiu
Marvellous, thank you very much - that’s exactly what I was looking for.
It’s very encouraging as reading it gives me confidence that I’m on the right track and also provides some clarity/conciseness around what exactly I am doing and what else I could be doing.
Yes it seems that there is a consensus around feeling good before investigation which makes a lot of sense experientially now.
Yes I am being as sincere as I can be, which is why I found several different ‘answers’. Each time an answer came to me I would note it down and then let it go and allow my mind to ponder further for whether that was the truth or whether there is something more to be seen, looking for or feeling out for something more honest or more aligned with the facts. Almost like fishing, waiting for the next layer to pop up. I feel like that I was closing in on it. The idea of investigating until something clicks doesn’t sound dissatisfactory to me, it sounds exactly like what I was going for and makes perfect sense. Truth-finding, like it’s a gem or treasure.
Those tips are great, I was replaying the moment to tap into what was happening for me, that is useful, those are all the kinds of questions I was putting to myself. What would I lose? is a new one that sounds like it has potential as a different angle - I will use that one this evening when I have more time to contemplate as am feeling very good today.
About investigating as a puzzle…yes this sounds right, I feel like that’s how I’m approaching it except I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to get it right or to solve it with urgency - which seems due to not feeling good in the first place. I can see now how it would be better and more fun to be more playful or lighthearted about the process.
I was going to respond to the last parts but then felt like I should just put it into practice and bit by bit came out with a result:
Indignation - I am a man.
You don’t know me.
I know what I am, I am awesome.
More of a man than most people.
Being a rebel. Sticking up for myself.
Being cool. Being different. Feeling like challenging the status quo.
Being misunderstood.
Angry resentful person. Hurt. Bitter like a wounded dog.
Secretly believe I am really cool. Like I am a very cool man.
Sense of justice also, correct what is wrong.
I know it, a feeling of yes yes see I know it already.
A pride of being right, of being already better than everybody.
Superior self knowledge. Superior ideals.
- This is fun to do this, fun to feel like I’m getting closer to the goal.
Is it worth feeling secretly superior and getting upset when challenged, or to feel good (obviously to feel good!)
- As I get closer, or fish deeper I have these relaxing sighs or laughs as something moves.
By getting upset what was challenged was my sense of myself as a really cool person.
I was being subject to swift humiliation and retaliated to save face although that backfired against what I was trying to portray.
Kind of a cocky rebel.
That’s really funny.
Now I’m not 100% convinced that was all there was to it, but it certainly shifted something inside me and I can see that part of me and it’s obvious and clear it’s not worth holding on to, it doesn’t mean anything and living without it would be so much easier and better.
Holy moly! It seems to have worked! I feel confident to about 90%, certainly that was absolutely worth seeing. There seems to be something else in there but I am happy for now. Perhaps I am not willing to go further just yet. I’ll let this rest for a bit. Let the effects simmer and settle.
- I began to go further in and found humiliation, old sadness, a need to protect something inside myself, there was (in my minds feeling eye) a soft glowing ball low down deep, very sensitive, very precious, and has something to do with fear. I will post this now though and carry on.
Wonderful, very very very helpful post and posts thank you so very much Claudiu, Josef and Kuba.
I’ve been wanting to ask for this kind of help and clarification for years, and only found I was able to ask for it recently. So I very deeply appreciate your responses and am very happy to have found success with this. I am looking forward to getting better at this and making my way toward actual freedom.
Thank you
Ian
p.s might be worth noting that from starting to posting this 1.5 hours has gone by.
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