I found this part particularly interesting, could you expand on what it’s like to be your feelings and how it differs from what you were doing before?
Before, it felt like it was me against my feelings - having to employ this method of feeling good come what may DESPITE the fact that the never ending cycle of feelings and instincts would continue. As if I had to do all this work to keep getting back on track, all the whole feeling guilty about my inability to stay on the wagon. This phase lasting 3-4 years has been very painful. Maybe on the other side it will look like I was resisting pure intent. From this side it looks like I just didn’t know what to do.
By being my feelings - I stop making an enemy of these feelings. I integrate them, I absorb them. Then they are not powerful at all.
What I’d recommend is just going somewhere and sitting down, and seeing what comes up. This will likely be painful - especially if you wisely choose not to distract yourself. Aren’t we all just distracting ourselves all the time? So don’t do that - face the initial uncomfortableness of it. What I find is that by doing so, those feelings start to yield. It will no longer feel like you are being run by your feelings - it will be clean and like you are on top of your feelings. Allowing myself to be fully aware of feelings without opposing them. This should result in feeling good, without trying to feel good as an active method. Needless to say the point here is to be aware of feelings which are operating (unlike mindfulness). And because it feels good to be aware ongoing, with all these resistances simply folding, you can then also trust awareness, ongoing, to steer experience.
My problem with the current communication of the method is that it purports that “feeling good” each moment again IS the method essentially - rather than a result* of the method (which is awareness/attentiveness based). I disagree with this ”actualism lite” presentation of actualism - like something you just do on the train on the way to work. Everyone wants to feel good each moment again, and a commitment to have that be the case won’t work at all, in my opinion. In fact for me that only exacerbated my stress and anxiety - because my strong desire to feel good was constantly at odds with what I was experiencing. Whenever I felt happy or good by coincidence, I’d latch on to that as being a successful application of the method - write a post even lol - but I could not maintain that.
The reason I think “feel good each moment again”* as a method in itself doesn’t work is because it easily becomes an attempt to control how you feel - which is a losing battle. It doesn’t point to the penetrative and centralised awareness which actually does remove the barriers to feeing good.
I know there are other aspects of actualism that do point to what I’m talking about - being your feelings, awareness/attentiveness, naïveté etc - but the feeling good thing is touted as being the central method that overrides everything else (including asking HAIETMOBA). There may be reasons why it’s presented in this way - differentiating actualism from spirituality for example - nevertheless I think it’s counterproductive for those who are trying to do this.
It feels so so good to have the feelings and instincts out of the way. I think there needs to be more practical talk about how that’s actually done - rather than saying it’s just about sincerity or wanting to feel good (which I personally don’t agree with).
To me trying to do virtual freedom in daily life means you are never being deeply aware enough as you need to be to make this work. Of course once you have that awareness operating and feeling good is truly WORKING, you can apply it each moment again. Doing nothing is a great litmus test for whether you are feeling good or not.
Hope that helps!
*I’ve made one edit to this like a week later
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It seems to me that the reason the actualism method is feeling good is this - Richard had that 4 hour PCE and when back to normal he wanted to get as close to that experience as he could each moment again.
He saw that felicity and innocuity was the closest imitation of the PCE (which he wanted to live) whilst still a feeling being.
Hence the method to imitate the PCE has to be feeling good each moment again.
Then of course there are various useful techniques/tools which aid the application of the method but those are not the method itself as they are not an imitation of the PCE. I think this is the bottom line of it.
If we keep in mind what the goal is - live the PCE, then the method of doing so as a feeling being is enjoying and appreciating each moment again. The method becomes about constantly bridging the feeling being state towards the PCE via felicity and innocuity.
Yeah I can’t say for sure - and I’m not dissing the way actualism is presented necessarily. It’s very engaging and really draws you in.
I’m advising people to follow their own experience, and see what works and what doesn’t.
In my view the actualism website essentially gives you some parameters, to guide you towards the experience of the PCE. But it isn’t some perfect toolkit thing which you just follow and it works - that’s clear.
Another aspect is where you start from. People all have different psychology, different baselines, different personalities, different circumstances etc.
You can tell all people “head north and you’ll get there” but getting there - including obstacles faced along the way and the time it takes to reach the destination - is entirely dependent on where an individual starts.
That being said you can also head in the wrong direction entirely. I remember Vineeto said to me last time about becoming free that feeling good is like the first rungs on the ladder. You can’t climb a ladder without the first few rungs.
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I can feel that there is a natural approach for me to do actualism where I kind of lop off all the branches of myself, leaving just a stump.
It’s very controlled and self-observational - and I can feel that that root of me is still there even when I do that. Asserting control, keeping me in line. It’s almost like something reptilian, like a kind of tension. That’s not going to work.
I remember from PCEs that i talked about how I’d kicked the controller/try-er identity out from under me.
Where’s the abandon to the enjoyment and delight available in this moment?
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Ok I feel really good - I seem I’m going to have to watch my habit of controlling this process.
It’s very easy to operate from/as a locus of control to produce the appearance of following actualism - but it’s def not the same as feeling good.
I could chill and listen to some reggae now 
Today - similar issue as the previous day.
But now I see how big an issue it really is. Which is….(drumroll)
C O N T R O L
I could not possibly have done more than I have to ram the info on the website into my skull - I eat, sleep and drink actual freedom. I ask HAIETMOBA at this point almost permanently.
Yet no matter what, that has not brought me results. Which is strange right - I’m always asking how I’m feeling, what feelings are there etc
And yet; I am always there, controlling it. I can feel how I am there as a point of view even in the absence of particularly characteristic feelings. In fact these days, I don’t really experience a wide breadth of feelings - but I keep ‘myself’ active all day on this hamster wheel of asking HAIETMOBA or what I need to do to feel good or what feelings are in the way or reminding myself I am this body etc etc etc. The results is a kind of mild stress all the time rather than true enjoyment.
So anyway after I saw this clear as day- I’ve since decided to let this moment live me. It’s become really obvious that this is what I have to do - and that my main issue overall atm is control.
There is nothing lacking in terms of my dedication to doing this, my focus and concentration etc, my desire to feel good etc.
However, I’ve managed to turn actualism into work, into a hardcore self-observation exercise, into a mindfuck.
But since deciding to let the moment do the talking, I feel so so much better. It’s different I feel emotionally so much lighter - like oh I can kind of just be here as a chirpy inhabiter who lets my body just operate while I don’t have to do anything.
It’s funny with this actualism thing - whilst there are parameters and you can seek advice - you really are in it alone in terms of going through the psychic maze….which means the obstacles you face along the way will be particular to you. My obstacles aren’t about not trying enough…mine are about trying too hard. Getting in the way too much - trying to force everything to happen through sheer discipline etc, or trying to really get to grips with the material and get myself to do it (for example “ok I’m supposed to delight - I need to do something to get myself in that frame of mind).
So the idea that I can actually do less, apply less effort etc has brought such a relief. But I also feel good because this is what allows me to enjoy being alive, rather than worrying about AF all the time. I’m no longer putting myself under that pressure, and it feels like things can happen by themselves to a degree.
It seems to have really altered my perception in a good way - I was talking to my mum right after and she looked so clean and pure, and very alive.
I feel (following my nose) that this is the right way forward.
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Hi Felix, I am glad you have decided to post again. As I have a lot of similar issues as you, so your posts are very helpful and refreshing for me to read and try to integrate. Please keep on posting about ups and downs of your progress.
Much appreciated!
I had an excellence experience turned PCE tonight - finally got out of the way. Holy shit.
It’s always so much better and WEIRDER than you can ever remember.
Absolutely amazing how it makes every hurt and upset and pain go away, let alone any reference point to be able to do anything but wonder at this very moment. It makes all life go away in its usual form. It is so ‘other’.
For me the key is all about resistance. To feel good is to stop resisting this moment of being alive. Judgement, self-critique, striving, fear - they all have to go way for feeling good to arise. Only then is it possible to let slip the shackles.
Much easier said than done for a cunning identity. And all too easy to go into “mindfulness” and anxious/depressive states when the identity tries too hard to be in this moment, to monitor behaviour and be essentially vigilant. And then from that uncomfortable position, of course the desire to escape is stronger than ever, hence why I’ve had ADHD and addiction issues.
I’ve always found it very frustrating that actualism never seems to explain REALLY how to do it haha. Like, sure HAITEMOBA, feeling good etc but then you go to do it and it’s difficult AF. But then being given nothing a la Geoffrey is also no more comprehensible really haha. In fact this identity has gone absolutely crazy trying to do it. And I’m glad because what an amazing, pure and simply wondrous gift. Utterly inconceivable to the feeling being writing this.
Now that “I” did it on this occasion, I totally get why people struggle. And I see that the desire to drink the Kool-Aid, to cling to the “promise of actualism” becomes the second best option rather than to really navigate complex social identity issues which one up. You get told it’s the answer and it’s so important and you aren’t sincere if you do it - the ego goes crazy on the failure and desperation of it all. Strangely it becomes “I need to achieve actual freedom…in order to survive!!”
My issues have been absolutely huge, and this process has been more akin to seeking enlightenment because what was in the way was very deep and scary. Not all as easy as it often sounds on the AFT website.
Anyway I write this as a dirty identity again. I wish I had written from my pure state but hey, I could barely remember Felix the Actualist at that point.
Time to bury him soon, actually.
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(Written an hour before on my phone). I just had a blink and you’ll miss it PCE. Hard to write about it. Like the other experience I reported - I don’t know what it is or what the territory is.
I am blown away. Just 1-2 seconds, of total clarity, perfection freedom.
I had a stressful client call tonight, and I was absolutely shocked at myself. Nothing went wrong on the call, but emotionally, within, seeing just how INSECURE I am. Like crazy levels. And not just feeling insecurity but being insecurity.
Now I can see there is no crossover between the feeling being and the PCE
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It keeps happening. I cannot believe it lol. The veil keeps slipping.
I’m not trying to continue it when it does happen. If I’ve proven aaannnyyything it’s how trying hard gets you nowhere in this.
All I’m doing is being sincere. I have no method, no skill or strategy, and no clue what I’m doing.
But it keeps happening. So clear, so fun, so pristine. And then I go back to being a feeling being for a bit, forget it happened essentially; and then round the corner BAM.
Much more vivid and “in your face” than what I usually imagined of the PCE. Dynamic, vibrant, easeful, fun and even down to earth yet incredible exciting to experience
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I’ve started to see a lot of stuff about myself, and how I have been the one blocking myself.
I’ve always had the feeling of wanting to be actually free so bad but being “held back” by obstacles which I felt were much more complex and difficult to surmount than those described by others so far.
And of course there are “real” obstacles that you face as an identity doing this. It’s part of the process, one that people might cunningly skip over, because it is indeed scary and dramatic - and one is pretty much alone in doing it. I know in my case, one seemed to understand the burnout, the nervous system exhaustion, the trauma, the sex addiction, the ill health etc etc etc - except to say “feel good”. Which seemed like telling someone on fire to take a few deep breaths!
It became clear that I was someone who ostensibly wanted to become actually free more than anyone else in the world, but at the same time I was just simply unwilling/unable to feel good. And in my ‘automatic’ state I have felt a constant pull towards creating nervous system activation, as if addicted to anxiety and excitement at the same time. Terrible but the distraction and escape which produced these effects was somehow badly wanted.
It’s taken a lot of intention to get familiar with these obstacles and understand this entire web of social identity issues, feeling/belief clusters and even physiological effects that have catapulted me around from left to right. In fact more than just identifying the issues or being familiar with them, I’ve had to get way deeper with it to have any chance of untangling myself from them. Some of them were so shameful and perverse and silly and addictive/repetitive and seemingly rare (things I hadn’t heard reported by others) that it made them so hard to look at and address. Others of them felt so “pre-established”, so axiomatic to who I am that trying to undo those beliefs was like trying to disprove 2+2. In other words, I truly believed these things that were the objects of my own abuse! These beliefs seemed deeply coded into my nervous system, propelling me headlong into the same old situations and feeling states I professed as an actualist to want to avoid. Like saying “I don’t want to hit myself in the face with this hammer” and then doing it straight after (or even at the same time!). Encountering and undoing one’s own cunningness is very difficult…
Desiring actual freedom at identity level is simply not enough to achieve progress. The intent to feel good needs to penetrate one’s whole being, that nothing else will be accepted within the integrated system. You can’t blame parts of you for not playing along - you need to take out the magnifying glass and really figure out what’s going on. This is complicated when many different issues are connected together into a total tangle. In my case I have had to understand that while I like feeling good, I didn’t want feeling good. There were other things I wanted much more, like power, status, security, love, perfect circumstances, a perfect body, immortality…anything to cure the ocean of insecurity llinside of me. Anything but feeling good.
I have had to fail SO hard at all of that, and look at all of that (as much as I didn’t want to), to get to a place of authentically choosing to feel good. And once in a feeling good state it’s remarkable how those things which totally ran one’s psyche before become obsolete and powerless. Until they crop up again at least…I find even one’s own values change when feeling good - the powerful and nefarious instincts are no longer poisoning the well and benevolence is invited in, quite automatically.
Feeling good becomes a value in itself from this vantage point, and is felt to be something incredibly valuable to have and to share. It creates a whole new way of looking at the world and being in the world - all because oneself has changed as the lens through which everything is experienced and perceived. I have been the block all along. Which we always knew but it’s weird to see how true it is…
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Yes this is so important, @claudiu’s recent post to @Felipe invited me to see this for myself. To experientially ascertain just how precious feeling good is.
Then further from there it becomes clear why one gets back to feeling good first before investigation, because once feeling good is in place all those dramas that ‘I’ get involved in are seen for the small potatoes that they are, as you say - feeling good becomes a value in itself. Essentially you get to see that feeling good is way more precious than any of those dramas that ‘I’ previously held dear.
Perhaps the reason why this can be hard to see initially is because Actualism is reduced to merely a ‘positive thinking philosophy’ or ‘don’t worry, be happy’ mentality.
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I’m starting to feel good more and more often. Right now I’m experiencing the clarity and coziness and delight of feeling good - total safety and fun at the same time. Where is the anxious and stressed state I’m so familiar with? And did I take a drug? (no 
)
I always wanted to feel good but could seemingly never ever manage it. I was just in the way from dawn till dusk - and I came at actualism like a bull out of a gate! Like I was going to bend it to my will haha. But it went the other way. I got punished over and over and totally exhausted until I got the message. Now it’s like feeling good is bending me to “its will”, which is thankfully an utterly benevolent one. I am gladly going along with this state of affairs, which is amazing, as I had started (or never ended) to worry that the wide and wondrous path maybe didn’t exist outside of my fantasy.
Part of the “secret” of actualism seems to be that the road is only wide once you are past a lot of your own obstacles. In my case the entrance to the road might as well have been a pinhole. I remember Geoffrey saying something similar back in the day. I don’t mean to make it sound hard, I’m just stating how it was for me.
I think part of what creates this effect (the impossibility of feeling good when not, and the impossibility of not feeling good when doing so) is the momentum that feeling states have. When you are anxious or stressed or anything else it feels like that will go in perpetuity - like nothing else could ever be possible. And it’s the biggest challenge to disrupt what’s already the case. These feeling states want to lock you into them, and they have the power to make that happen…especially in the way they nest themselves within your identity (the perfect hiding place). In my experience it’s not just a matter of wanting to feel good and getting that automatically. In my experience, at least, it’s almost impossible if you don’t investigate very thoroughly and with a LOT of understanding and friendliness towards yourself. I know temperament comes into it too and I always very driven and ambitious.
By the same token, feeling good has momentum too - right now I feel it will never end. It would almost be impossible to conjure a feeling to ruin this delightful state right now, because feeling good is just too delicious and “me” and “it” are one. It’s almost like letting the universe play me like a saxophone. It’s a kind of frequency that you tap into, but not by force, like I always wanted to. It’s a real catch 22 that wanting actual freedom too badly will really, really not work.
I know I used to write a lot about “actively enjoying” etc but what I was really trying to do back then was to go over the self….like trying to override my real desires and feelings and instincts and resentment for being alive by brute force. It’s not the way. You can’t pretend that the self is not there, and then abuse it or suppress it or manipulate it to get some outcome. The self needs to be treated with care, graciously and gently like you’d treat a little kid almost. It will cling so hard to what it thinks it wants with a powerful grip, and investigating is a way of gently prying it’s toys away from its little hands.
Anyway I don’t want to talk like I’ve finished the journey, it seems it’s just starting! Just wanted to jot down some thoughts on my merry way.
Hi @Felix,
This is a very good description of your struggles with the actualism method and the insights you obtained from it what to do and especially what not to do.
Felix: Part of the “secret” of actualism seems to be that the road is only wide once you are past a lot of your own obstacles. In my case the entrance to the road might as well have been a pinhole. I remember Geoffrey saying something similar back in the day. I don’t mean to make it sound hard, I’m just stating how it was for me.
Given that you say “the entrance to the road might as well have been a pinhole” – perhaps this very simple suggestion might help you to find the wide and wondrous path in future. When some strong emotion occurs, mark this as a flashing red light.
Red light in traffic means STOP. Not just go slow but stop. Don’t cross the road when the red light is flashing, not in traffic and not in the actualism method. Before thinking about the trigger, the emotion, the problem, do whatever you can to get to feeling neutral, then to feeling (reasonably) good. Play a game, have a shower, have a cuppa, anything to get to feeling neutral.
Then, and only then, you can try to contemplate the silliness of feeling bad –
[Respondent]: How does the mere seeing how silly it is make us happy once again?
[Richard]: Because nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth getting malicious or miserable about (let alone compensatingly loving and compassionate) when the realisation that this moment is the only one there ever is becomes the actuality it already always is. (List D, No. 11, 24 Nov 09)
Only when you feel good and you can look at the problem, which caused you to feel bad, in a dispassionate way, only then your contemplation and investigation and puzzling things out is worthwhile and can lead to some sensible results and even resolution.
Felix: I know I used to write a lot about “actively enjoying” etc but what I was really trying to do back then was to go over the self….like trying to override my real desires and feelings and instincts and resentment for being alive by brute force. It’s not the way. You can’t pretend that the self is not there, and then abuse it or suppress it or manipulate it to get some outcome. The self needs to be treated with care, graciously and gently like you’d treat a little kid almost. It will cling so hard to what it thinks it wants with a powerful grip, and investigating is a way of gently prying it’s toys away from its little hands.
That is spot on. “ You can’t pretend that the self is not there” because that pretence is the self, creating its own duplicate, pretending to having a fight with itself – in order to distract you from feeling good. It’s a pure diversion tactic. Once you wake up to this cunning pattern, it will be easier not to fall for the same trick over and over again 
I wouldn’t say that “the self needs to be treated with care”, as if you and the self are not one and the same, rather that you need to learn to be a friend to yourself. That means sometimes it (which is ‘you’) needs gentle guidance via pure intent, sometimes ‘you’, the more sensible adult needs to step in to call an end to a tantrum-throwing angry child. Calling an end means STOP, as described above.
I wish you great success.
Cheers Vineeto
Hi Felix,
That is truly wonderful news!
Just a few things to add to Vineeto’s excellent message.
First I would take this opportunity to advise you to explicitly direct your attention to appreciating what is happening for you right now. As I wrote to Kuba recently:
I would heartily recommend all the recent posts surrounding this topic of appreciation, starting from James' Journal - #398 by Vineeto and onward, as this can really propel you forward once you are already at this very worthy stage of “experiencing the clarity and coziness and delight of feeling good”.
The other main thing I wanted to draw your attention to is the matter of will, intention, and the role this plays in actualism, because it is a very important one.
What I have found, and the further I go down the path the more I find it is true, a fact, is that I am my feelings and my feelings are me. Any way that I feel about anything, it ultimately is up to me, it is my deep-down choice as to how to feel. The act of feeling the feeling is equivalent to me wanting to feel that feeling. How could it be any other way? As I am those feelings, it is not possible to feel something I do not, deep-down, want to feel.
You wrote:
What you have found out is that you cannot “override [your] real desires and feelings and instincts”. This is completely correct. The missing piece is that the ‘you’ that is trying to override those “desires and feelings and instincts” is not all of ‘you’. It is only a very small, essentially cognitive “ego” piece that is sitting atop a mountain that is the entirety of ‘you’, which is affective, emotional, and psychic[1] in nature.
So how can it be your choice how to feel if you cannot control how you feel? The key is that you are those “real desires and feelings and instincts” that you were trying to override. The key to being able to redirect that energy more and more into feeling good, is seeing that this is the case. This is where sincerity comes into play – it comes down to allowing yourself to see precisely why you have those desires, feelings, and instincts in the first place. Once you see the actual reason you feel that way, then you will be able to have a conscious say in the matter.
I think of it as bringing what is subconscious up towards the conscious. This can often be rocky and tumultuous because we all have an ideal of how we want to be, which does not match how we actually are – the social conditioning has evolved specifically to suppress and redirect those malicious and sorrowful impulses so we can be relatively well-functioning members of society. Thus there is an inherent conflict in them, and allowing yourself to see what appears to be the ugly belly of the beast that ‘you’ (and ‘I’ and all feeling-beings) actually are, can be challenging. But the delightful thing, what really allows you to do this safely, guided by pure intent, is that since those deep-down desires are you… you actually have a choice in the matter! Once you allow yourself to see it, then you can allow yourself to choose feeling good instead.
This may seem too abstract, so I’ll leave you to ask yourself this question: as you are feeling good now, do you want to be feeling good? And if you really didn’t want to be feeling good, do you think you would be?
I would re-consider this in light of the above, seeing that this “self” that you have talked about in the third-person and referred to as “it”, is actually the you, the Felix that is reading these words right now. You can thus be gentle with yourself, be ok with the fact that you like these “toys” and are holding onto them with a “powerful grip”, and then you can begin to gently investigate just what it is you actually have to gain by keeping these toys around, and what you fear you might lose if you don’t.
I would counter and say that not wanting it enough is what will really, really not work. The key is to want it in a sincere, aka aligned way – with both the upper egoic pieces of you and the deeper soulful pieces all wanting it. You have seen just part of you wanting it doesn’t work – excellent! Now you can proceed with getting all of you on board, bit by bit, starting from where you are at and taking things one at a time.
The more success you have, the more you feel good, the more you feel good the more you can appreciate how good feeling good is, the more you appreciate how good feeling good is the more you want to feel good, which then fuels your intent and allows you to go further and further.
What a blast it all is!
With cheers & whole-hearted encouragement,
Claudiu
(as in: ‘of the psyche’) ↩︎
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One brief addendum, you wrote (emphasis added):
I want to highlight that you report being able to “tap into” this “kind of frequency” of feeling good. Being able to tap into it implies having some wilful (as in conscious) control over it, does it not?
And this is precisely the key. You have figured out that you do have a conscious choice in feeling good – it is just that choosing feeling good does not happen in the way you “always wanted to”, but rather happens in a different way than you thought it would. Yet it does happen!
It seems like a promising avenue of contemplation to wonder exactly how you are able to tap into this – exploring it in a curious manner and nourishing it may well lead to you being able to do it more and more.
Cheers,
Claudiu
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It was really nice to read your messages of support and encouragement and advice. One thing I find, as I go along, is that I’m getting a lot softer and regulated and actually able to “absorb” care from others, it’s really nice. Thanks.
One thing I’m starting to see a LOT of is the role of shame in hampering real investigation. Identifying as the thinker, and too scared and ashamed to face my “dangerous” feelings, I only ever knew how to beat myself up and suppress unwanted emotions. I felt and believed deep down I was just too bad, an irredeemable “lost cause” who couldn’t live up to Richard or the goal of being happy and harmless. And I had all the feelings to back it up.
Now I’m going a whole ‘nother route - and it feels great. As my regular self I’m becoming caring, considerate and emotionally available - things I had never been in my whole life haha. I plan to write more about my “story” later in case it’s helpful for others.
As for actualism, I’ve also been having peak experiences more regularly - and this is doing more work to undo emotional ties and habits than analysis ever could! This is a very intuitive route compared to what I was doing before.
Last night for example I had an EE of about 1.5 hours. It all started with feeling good, but I wasn’t trying to have anything happen - just went for a walk at night.
Slowly but surely, the world around started to transform, and become much more mystical and magical - fairytale in nature. I couldn’t believe the integration between the “man made” world of houses and cars with the throbbing organic/“natural” world of exotic trees and shrubbery in the area where I currently reside.
I noted the absolute solidity of the world around me, and it was hard to consider that those typical feelings I have had over the years even exist, as the physical/sensory world around me was just all too apparent and obvious, as well as friendly and inviting.
This solidity and safety was further enabled by my own internal state, which was incredibly happy-go-lucky and clean as if not burdened by anything. There was no need to control my actions, or decide which direction to go or anything like that.
At certain times the infinitude of the universe become briefly unveiled, as I found my experience became totally stripped of context. No before and after, and certainly no “here” or “there” - it was quite thrilling to experience.
Coming back to normal life, this EE has allowed me to up-level, and not fall back into the same old. I can feel that my brain is starting to understand more and more what is working and what isn’t (on a somewhat rudimentary “hotter” or “colder” basis). As such feeling bad feels wrong, and is much easier to untie - especially by tracing back to last night.
Anyway just wanted to drop a line. Cheers!
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Hi Felix,
Thank you for your appreciation and the message full of good news.
Felix: One thing I’m starting to see a LOT of is the role of shame in hampering real investigation. Identifying as the thinker, and too scared and ashamed to face my “dangerous” feelings, I only ever knew how to beat myself up and suppress unwanted emotions. I felt and believed deep down I was just too bad, an irredeemable “lost cause” who couldn’t live up to Richard or the goal of being happy and harmless. And I had all the feelings to back it up.
Now that you are feeling good, even excellent, and with a memory of an outstanding EE only yesterday – can you recognize how shame and feeling ashamed is a mere tactic of you the feeling being, to distract you from changing?
And can you also comprehend, how equally your belief that you are “an irredeemable “lost cause” who couldn’t live up to Richard” is a habit, initially a survival habit, which is now no longer necessary nor beneficial to maintain? If you can understand this as a realization then you can decline this belief each time you become aware of it … and in one scoop two large obstacles will be removed and allow you to “not fall back into the same old”.
Coming back to normal life, this EE has allowed me to up-level, and not fall back into the same old. I can feel that my brain is starting to understand more and more what is working and what isn’t (on a somewhat rudimentary “hotter” or “colder” basis). As such feeling bad feels wrong, and is much easier to untie - especially by tracing back to last night.
Anyway just wanted to drop a line. Cheers!
Yes! That is exactly it – “feeling bad feels wrong” and a clear indicator towards more and more enjoying and appreciating being here and being alive right now.
It’s wonderful to behold.
Cheers Vineeto
Just a short note to say I experienced a similar issue with shame … it was a barrier i hadnt recognised that was in the way of me being able to welcome my feelings and from there begin to have more freedom to investigate and bring to light those parts of me i was otherwise suppressing.
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