I have taken a break from work, and a break from eeeeeeveerything - purely to have the time and space to figure out what’s going on with me.
It’s a bit of a scary decision because it affects income etc, but I’m fine, and so much of the propensity to keep working comes from atavistic fears. Most people always divert to the homeless argument as if it’s either “work yourself to death” or “be homeless” with nothing in between. Obviously bypassing the fact that it’s the feeling being within that is determining qualitative experience, much more so than circumstances.
I am finding this time extremely helpful. Being constantly distracted by running my own business - which is a 24/7 thing - means you always have an excuse for why you are stressed. It’s similar to what Richard said about exercise diverting attention away from “the stressor within”. I know Richard talked about how you could still work, and I’m not saying you can’t, but that doesn’t mean you have to either. For me this time completely alone is really helping me look at how I operate.
Probably the biggest thing I’ve found is this. So much of my “determination” and “drive” to pursue actualism has been driven by FEAR. This fear points away from itself oh so cunningly….I’d even wake up already stressed, and then of course you feel fearful and want to escape. Which can either be something actualism related or something completely different.
For me it has pointed me towards being intense about actualism, being very very hard on myself, and trying as hard as possible. And then of course some off the wall psychosexual antics, as a means of escaping the whole hell scape I created.
The clear seeing of this was completely evading me before. And now I’m thinking, how did I not identify this?(???) haha. It’s so obvious in retrospect, but that’s also because I have been able to INTEGRATE this fear, to examine it, to know it, to feel it and to rid myself of it. When the fear was there, it totally blinded me. I was looking everywhere else. “Im not good enough” “I’m not smart enough” “I’m not sincere enough” leading to putting more and more pressure on myself about actualism and a million other normal life things too. “Im a fuck up” “I’m sick” “I’m lost” “No one wants to be with me” “I’m not making any progress”.
It was scary to experience the physical symptoms of fear and anxiety all the time, and that’s what I was focused on. I was wanting the SYMPTOMS to go away, as if the cause was unknown. Like wondering why your boat is leaking. I had a lot of physical symptoms as well which made it even more distracting. Plus a full time business etc etc.
The thing is though my feelings were not expressing themselves in thought form. My thoughts were all of the actualist variety. I deceived myself into thinking I was being positive about life, not resentful etc because on an identity level I was wearing the clothes of actualism, but underneath I was a scared resentful feeling being.
This was my way of trying to put a lid on the feeling being. To not be caring toward myself or others. This lack of friendliness within caused my nervous system to absolutely tighten and freeze and lock up - pretty much on an ongoing basis. I just wanted to shut everything down and “achieve” what I needed to. I didn’t want to mess things up so I ignored myself.
Now, I feel I am finally doing something different. There is a sensitivity, an
attentiveness and a WILLINGNESS to just try in a sincere way, without pressure, but plenty of intent. I can feel it all pulling into one energy, it’s very open, and integrated.
I feel more naive, and way more experimental. No longer believing what feelings tell me are the case and just being blocked. But going beyond the block.
I wonder if that’s the case for many of the people on here that there is some block there that they are just seeing as being all too real. Feelings can make it look like attentiveness has no power, like you’re trying to saw through concrete. “Sure I’d love to feel good but I can’t cause I’m feeling X”. For me it was burnout - could never get past those feelings of just being totally stressed and wiped out.
So then feeling blocked you might be like “I need to read more of the website”, or “I need to understand X concept” or you might plan out some sort of map of progress (of course putting self immolation way out in the future because you believe yourself to be far from it). For me it was making myself private enemy no. 1 - I started trying to push all these ideals on myself of being a good person, never complaining, doing what Im supposed to, ignoring feeling bad because really no one is there etc.
Lately I feel my guard is coming down. My nervous system is relaxing (frequently this causes some hot tears). There’s a sense of possibility, of fun, of opportunity. I am gathering intent, I’m excited at the possibility of self immolation. I’m (mostly) not kicking myself for the mistakes I’ve made so far with all this.
I have been hunting myself for not being able to turn “myself” into a good person. I’m starting to see that’s the whole game, I’m seeing the limits of being a self - that there is no winning. Why have I tried my whole life to be a winner then? Attempting that is pure stress.
I feel ready to do something else, to lose almost, as an action. And it’s like I can feel some support there, that I won’t be “alone in this endeavour”. That it’s possible.