Yeah it’s amazing the ability I/we have to generate enormous insecurity. Insecurity that has driven us to all these actions.
For me it was a few traumatic things that triggered the chronic stress thing. And then actualism just felt like a new thing I needed to achieve, and despite “trying hard” it seemed I just went in a worse and worse direction. It’s as if it caused me to dig my heels in further if anything - I had something to torture myself with and resent every day - the constant “failure” to feel good.
And because I had gone “all in” on actualism, at least from an identity POV, this created more life problems that I then ignored my feelings about (lack of relationship, lack of congeniality and friendship, lack of stability, lack of domesticity and settling down). Also because actualism talked about not needing money, relationships etc and I used that to justify my already somewhat antisocial tendencies.
So I was actually creating a mid life (third life?) crisis for myself…really putting myself in a bind in a very harsh way. Maximum pressure, feeling like there’s no one to turn to etc. I’ve had support from actually free people but they also represented my apparent failure to follow their advice. I’ve been like a panicked animal for a few years at least (can probably take the word like out of this sentence!)
Nowadays it’s different mainly because my capacity for feeling what I’m feeling and identifying what im feeling is much greater. And I’m way more inspired for some reason - naive you could say. I’m not being diverted by my thoughts, my self perceptions etc which is allowing for greater penetration and making it easier to get back to feeling good. I can feel I’m starting to “tame” this exceptional insecurity which has been flinging me around from one achievement to the next most of my life.
Taking time off from my business has helped to look at things more closely. I found an identity in crisis, terrified to be alone and unable to cope with modern life. At least in terms of what I’m supposed to have achieved, money wise, relationship wise, the lack of support and people around me as I get older etc. Being very aware I am ageing as well. And then all this causing utmost desperation for actual freedom as an escape from this personal tragedy. And perceiving everyone else, non actualists, to be doing so much better than me.
I’m really starting to see this mindfuck for what it is. I have been living “in the psyche”, which takes you far away from being here. It’s flighty and fretful and panicky, and never placated.
I’m starting to come into the simplicity and stability of being here. Letting go of these mental frameworks I’ve used to survive life, abandoning my old ways. One thing I ask if I’m getting that anxiety is HAIETMOBA, with a lens of - is it a fact that I’m unsafe? Just what is it about this moment in place and space that makes me unsafe in any way? Is that anxiety or fear in the environment, or is it in fact me doing that?
This usually reveals the beliefs that are operating. Usually a lot of shoulds about what I should be doing, what I should be achieving, what I need to improve about myself to justify being here. Also some mean questions like why do people not want to be around me, what’s wrong with me? Etc etc. A fried nervous system certainly helps to perpetuate this dynamic.
By asking these questions, questioning how I operate, it helps pop these bubbles which are interfering so catastrophically with direct experience. I start to relax more (usually comes with some tears as I go into more of a parasympathetic state). I start to feel safe, and no longer imagining a need to be doing something else. I start to feel freed up and “inspired” to feel good (no longer blocked in other words).
Then of course the world around me starts to become the safety that I thought was missing in the first place.