For me personally I often use this style of writing throughout the day if there is an issue that comes up and I have a few spare minutes, I always found that physically writing something down helps me to focus on the issue at hand. So really the purpose of this kind of writing is not to be read but to help with the process of investigation.
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For me it’s the same. Writing something down can make certain things clear. I sometimes look back at those, but very rarely.
A little tip from my side: When you are within a PCE, or an EE take your phone out and record it. Talk to yourself from the “other side” so to speak. It has helped me very much, because the video captures some of the atmosphere and magic of the situation. Try it out. It may suit you.
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Hi everyone. I have not seen a lot ( if any that I remember, except for Vinetoo’s description of her HAIETMOBA, she wrote that she would notice everything including sensations in her body) of
discussion or mention of Physical sensations felt in our body as a result of feelings.
For example, a ball a the lower belly with fear and dread, a tightness in the chest with anxiety, etc.
How the awareness (and if) of those physical sensations are used in actualism practice ?
Would anyone be able to shed some light on this subject ?
My experience with physical sensations has been that they are sometimes useful for noticing emotions occurring, but the gold standard is the intuitive feeling of the emotion itself, which is not necessarily linked to awareness of any physical sensation.
These physical sensations can get pretty weird when it comes to extreme emotions, a good time to notice their workings, notice if you panic because of the weirdness, etc. Invariably, they will settle out & it will be as if nothing has happened if they’re allowed to flow. It’s useful to remember to neither express nor repress.
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Thank you henryyyyy.
Another question :
Someone wrote: investigations on anger in your journal seemed to me like they were done whilst in the throes of the feeling. In my experience, such investigations ( while feeling anger ) are targeted at getting rid of the feeling rather than trying to understand it. One thing we always say here is to get back to feeling good, or at least let the feeling subside by not expressing or repressing it. The only thing you can do then is to feel it fully.
My question: The only thing you can do then is to feel it fully. Is this after getting to neutral or feeling good or while feeling that bad feeling ?
This is one of the high lights of yesterdays 6 hours video chat with geoffrey:
I am paraphrasing and just trying to get across the main ideas as far as I understood them,
so bring your own Salt Shaker with you 
I asked geoffrey about “feeling good” and
He said you have to have Intent - then somehow explained that Intent means you
have to want something with ALL OF YOUR BEING ( this same process would be necessary to
give up any addictions, chemical or psychological, including suffering and malice ).
But what does All of Your Being means, it means or I better say, it requires, that YOU ARE NOT SPLIT ( Dissociated into several emotional parts within yourself ) , then and only then, when you are Whole ( not split) you can even : want it [ feeling good, actual freedom ] with ALL ( Whole ) of YOUR BEING.
But, but, but … to make yourself Whole, you have to start with an utmost Sincerity, which allows you
to see all parts of yourself ( even the ones that you did not want to see or did not know you had, because they hide so well) without being judgmental and moralistic, hence, being most benevolent
towards yourself in this process. And after this Fusion of different part of the split self via Sincerity, then and only then a genuine Intent ( commitment) can be made, otherwise with a split self, that Intent would be meaningless ( because “All of You” could not have been ‘onboard’ with that decision/Intent/Commitment etc. to begin with ).
What was also surprising, was that the same Intent ( with "All of Your Being - and that is your Nonsplit being ) is needed across all steps of actualism practice, all the way to self immolation. Not only at the beginning, so you can allow ( I like Elgin’s word for this better, Agree ) for “feeling good” to surface,
then causing EAATMOBA to occur ( by your Agreement also) each moment again.
And when you get to a more advanced stage, like geoffrey in 2017, having had many PCEs and
still “hitting the wall” trying to self immolate; he realized that his Intent ( All of His Being ) was not onboard, because "a part of him = split " was believing that “he” could do it in a special way by trying
“harder”. So when he saw the 2017 “chat” with Richard and Vineeto ( done by Alan and Dona ) he heard them ( R&V) repeatedly mention commitment to feeling good. And I think he realized that the same commitment ( INTENT ) with All of His Being was needed to go further from his then current stage.
And the same commitment, INTENT, becomes obviously even more necessary around the process of self immolation, because that is the trickiest and riskiest part for the identity to Agree (allow) upon, with All of It’s Being.
///////////////////////////////////////////
So a new comer reads a few pages on Actualism, and it feels good and it makes sense.
So he or she decides to give it a try.
But he can not find “Sincere Intent” , because he needs to be Sincere first before he can
have Intent. But if he or she can become sincerity ( not just have sincerity, as Richard said)
things will move along fairly steadily.
So to beat the dead horse : Your have to start with the most Basic Requirement for
Actual Freedom and that is SINCERITY … Then you can Agree to the rest along the way
including Intent, Naivete , EEs, PCEs and ultimately Actual Freedom from human condition.
But you have to start with Sincerity ( while being benevolent towards yourself and your findings
about yourself along the way, so as to unsplit yourself with what you find about yourself ).
I think the SINCERITY, checks to see if your Intent is genuine ( clean and pure ) or not, all along
the process of Actualism Practice.
For the beginner especially, this SINCERITY must include allowing and accepting of any and
all emotional unpleasantries that may surface, and accepting them gladly and non judgmentally
as “gifts” given to us by our psyche, so we can begin to get rid of or weaken these very
unwanted and disturbing emotions that we have ironically been running away form all our lives.
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Thanks alot for this post. It really hits home with me - this subject of sincerity.
This also reminded me how I once stoped smoking. I had many failures behind me and at one point in my 30’s I realized that I acctually smoked because a part of me wanted to smoke - no matter my feelings of guilt/anxiety of it being harmful and bad etc. I back then came to see myself as two persons; one part that wanted to smoke and one that was feeling guilty/anxious about it. I understood that I had to end the conflict within and fortified with this realization I thus decided to let the smoker have his way “until he felt completely done smoking”.
From that point I just smoked… and whatever bad feelings connected to this occupation I just saw them slowly subside to the fact that it was impossible to kick the habit without the WHOLE of me being on board. I thus kept on smoking every cigarette with utter sincerity - consciously focused on each cigarette and each and every inhalations for about two months… so that the smoker I was would really have an quality experience. I even stoped thinking much about my approach as having an end to it.
Then one day, when I had been out running. I had come home and entered the shower and while I stood there covering myself in shower cream - suddenly and from out of nowhere this sentence entered my mind (totally unrelated to what I was doing):
“I don’t want to smoke anymore.”
And I quit right then and there… And it was so rediculously easy, no craving, no nothing at all - not even a trace of a thought of wanting a ciggarette. I just quit right then and there and moved on with my life.
Now, I acctually started smoking again a year later, simply because I wanted to see if I could get addicted again after such an experience. I thought maybe I’d become immune to this addiction (I had all sorts of ideas [beliefs] connected to this expereince) Haha, of course I wasn’t immune and there was no magic behind my experience. I once again became a smoker. Now, I don’t smoke anymore but I use a vape and I love it and I have no intention of kicking this habit.
Now this has me thinking about the method and my own difficulties of asking HAIETMOBA and applying the method in each and every moment; my constant falling of the horse and losing whatever sincerity I thought I had (I run with it for a few months and then something happens and I slip back into my old ways).
I just need to accept this and let whatever sincerity be lost when I experience it as lost. I have to make no big deal about ‘my slips’ and I need to be as relaxed with falling of the horse as sitting upon it - I just need to be conscious and pay it a little attention - and I must also accept when I have failed to be attentive. The action of picking up the thread where I lost it should be done as if - no time has passed - between the application of the method and the non application of the method. I should get back upon the horse as if I had always been applying the method without falling of the horse in the first place (make no emotional fuzz about it). Even if this means I’m only able to apply the method for 1 minute a day with complete and utter sincerity.
Oh, yeah, whatever I feel; good, bad or whatever and in relation to my ‘quit smoking experience’: I feel whatever I feel because I want to feel that way (just as I wanted to smoke). There is no way around this. How I feel is my choice at all times. Thus there’s no point feeling bad because of feeling bad (it’s just silly). I just need to be [want] each and every feeling with utter sincerity. I mean I know why I have failed getting anywhere… I have failed because I don’t want to apply the method (when I’m not applying it) and having this break from actualism must be as okey as the times when I feel engaged. I must be as sincere about living out my old patterns as those brief moments of wanting to become a happier person.
As a matter of fact, rather than wanting change, I’m so much more comfortable feeling, thinking and walking down the same old trodden path - that I’ve been walking upon for so long. Most of the time I want to stay as I am. Most of the time I have no desire to change at all… and I acctually need to be utterly sincere about it.
So please guys… don’t ever make the misstake of seeing me as some sort of acutalist, when most of the time I’m just being this old fart - unwilling to change and stuck in my old ways. 
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My only goal now is to become “happy and harmless” and I’m acctually going to stop trying to achieve this end. I’m just going to be my feelings with the utter most sincerity - just as I did all those years ago when I quit smoking - when every cigarette was smoked with sincerity, at the same time, losing the goal, almost forgetting what the true intent of my approach was really about.
I want to try change, I want to push myself and I want to stay in control of the process. But now I’ll ‘try’ (relax) dropping this all together and just be satisfied with feeling and being whatever I feel with all the sincerity I can muster.
“I won’t leave this body until I’m exhausted; until I’m done”, I felt shivers going down my spine when I to some degree realized it’s meaning: When I’m done feeling what I want to feel! (when I feel done smoking) Thus I can in no way rush this process and any attempts to do so - will only prolong my stubborn addiction to whatever I feel.
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Thank you so much FrankN! (And obviously @geoffrey for this clarification/emphasis) I can see i’m lacking enought sincerity, in the first place of how much i want freedom (actual) or something else (a mix of desires that provoques an splited and confused being).
@jesus.carlos in that case how about feeling good right now, and then the next moment, and the next after that?
You have innumerable chances so don’t despair. If you had enough sincerity to be free, you would already be free - as would anyone else. All you can do is stay with where you are. If you are sincere about how you are feeling now and then choose to feel good instead – then you’re on the right track.
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I think this is a really good way to look at it. You only need to choose to feel good one moment at a time.
For a long time I thought of the instruction to feel good “come what may” as like having to sign up in advance to an eternity of being a “good boy”, with the knowledge in advance that I was doomed to fail because I’m not a good boy, or a perfect person, or whatever. It reinforced a view of myself as a victim in this process (“it’s so unfair that my feelings are stopping me from feeling good and that I’m not built to feel good”).
What I realise now is, that as long as ‘I’ am here, each moment again, with the intent to feel good - then I’ve got all the power to choose to do that.
This approach requires me to ”own” many good or bad feelings which I would otherwise usually dissociate from, distract myself from, or further indulge. With the understanding that all these feelings are me (even the ones that seem like they are happening to me rather than as me), I can then successfully integrate those good and bad feelings into my experience and choose to feel good as per my overarching/overriding intent to do so. I am then one feeling good entity as a whole, instead of a split entity consisting of ‘me’ who wants to feel good on one hand, and all those shitty unwanted feelings on the other.
A common example of feeling bad when tired:
If I were to say for example: “I want to feel good, but alas I feel tired right now” - I would essentially be separating myself from the part of me which is emotionally complaining/suffering as a result of physical tiredness symptoms. Without owning those feelings (which I might not initially recognise, because I mistook those bad feelings to be properties of the tiredness symptoms themselves), it will be impossible to get ‘me’ as a whole to feel good.
I know dissociation can have different meanings - but in the light variation of the term it’s a probably fair to say that, in their natural condition, all feeling beings are dissociated.
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Felix, as a feeling being there is this tricky line to walk between being sincere about ones feelings on one hand and committing to feeling good come what may on the other. Everyone has to try to find their own balance here.
You can dissociate from feelings by being too insistent on feeling good whilst denying your emotions or trying to clip a false happiness onto unacknowledged feelings. But you can equally become too serious and concrete about your identity and instinctual makeup, seeing it as an interminable weight, forgetting that ‘you’ are insubstantial and that there is a miraculous opportunity to feel good each moment again – regardless of what you might have felt just a moment before.
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Hey @Srinath thanks for your response 
Was there a specific aspect you were clarifying or gently pulling me up for here, or just a general comment?
Just encouraging you (others) to maximise opportunities to feel good each moment again I suppose! It’s an area where one can easily underestimate ones capacity and just let things slide out of habit
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Yeah!
I was just saying I liked your formulation: “ how about feeling good right now, and then the next moment, and the next after that?”
It breaks “feel good each moment again” down more, into something thats achievable. You alway have a handle on this moment and that’s all you have to “worry” about. Rather than thinking of it as an instruction over a duration of time (akin to “feel good forever and don’t fail”), which can feel like a Sisyphean task.
Also wanted to point out that once one is aware of how one feels now, it’s often those unclaimed feelings which are actually causing this moment to suck and that’s why it might take some time to look and deal with whatever that hidden belief is.
But you are absolutely right, its unlikely unhelpful and not necessary to go for perfection - like the classic actualist jihadist approach I sometimes take
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Actually thinking about it more carefully now I probably read the second half of your post as having the potential to morph into, what I was warning against … But you can equally become too serious and concrete about your identity and instinctual makeup, seeing it as an interminable weight, forgetting that ‘you’ are insubstantial and that there is a miraculous opportunity to feel good each moment again – regardless of what you might have felt just a moment before. … but that’s for you to consider or disregard.
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Tbh I don’t get how that relates to what I said 
. Could you put it another way? Are you saying that trying to hack the process might oversee the fact that the processes of feelings and being are less mechanical than that?
I get the feeling you might have misread something or I’ve put it badly haha.
Hmmm no that’s not at all what I’m saying. Sit with it a bit and see if it makes sense. If not we can circle back to it later. Maybe it’s my COVID brain 
Edit: just saw your earlier reply (jihadist one) which popped up just before I hit send. Looks like you got it
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I think this is the point that resonated to me after reading the @FrankN summary. I notice that I confuse easily feeling good with good feelings (a feeling of rush and adrenaline, thinking in a future posibility of something special to happen, or an excitement derived of the ilussion of feeling loved by someone, for example). What i’m trying to clarify is that feeling good is not always something clear for me, and there is when the need of sincerity has to do it’s part.
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Can you comment on how you related to this as you approached becoming actually free? For someone trying to become actually free, is this a topic ripe for contemplation?