Felix: Still applying getting back to feeling good – at the moment it’s basically all I’m doing. Either I feel good, or I don’t.
Hi Felix,
Just to be sure – trying to get back to feeling good is different to actually getting back to feeling good –
Richard: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): you felt good previously; you are not feeling good now; something happened to you to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; you find out what happened; you see how silly that is (no matter what it was); you are once more feeling good. (Richard, List D, No. 11, 19 Nov 2009)
Felix: I realise I have been tempted again and again and again into anxiety, despair, self castigation – none of which is what the actualism method is about.
Of course when some feeling is sticky, such that it reoccurs again and again, the trigger need to be recognized and after getting back to feeling good to take a closer look and explore it as much as you dare, chip away at it, so to speak to eventually take it out at the root.
For instance you say further below that “I’ve spent most of my life feeling extremely self-conscious”, meaning you give others a lot of power how you should be, appear, behave which ultimately makes you feel bad about yourself.
As I said to another recently –
Vineeto: It’s a general rule of thumb ‘Vineeto’ found in ‘her’ investigations – if ‘she’ couldn’t shake off a bad feeling it was usually that ‘she’ wanted to keep/ defend its opposite good feeling. (link)
It’s really the ‘good’ feelings, those one cherishes and keeps close to one’s heart, which are the hardest to dislodge. But they are also the ones which keep the ‘bad’ feelings in place. Take “anxiety” and “self castigation”, they both have their origin in you wanting to please others and not disappoint your friends/family.
‘Vineeto’, in a conversation with Richard, learnt it can be loyalty and it gave her a great boost to dig into that deeper –
Respondent: Meanwhile, I also wondered if you had discussed about peasant mentality with Peter and Vineeto, during their feeling being days, because there is no mention of this peasant mentality even in their journals…
Richard: Yes, it was discussed – mostly touched upon from time-to-time, as appropriate to a particular situation and/or set of circumstances, rather than emphasised as a core issue in regards to actualism/ actual freedom – and the main aspect which feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (for example) came to grips with in the early days was loyalty.
A clue as to how soon that topic came up is contained in a snippet of a discussion about loyalty itself which happened to be tape-recorded, in 1997, and transcribed in ‘The Compassion Gained Through Forgiveness Binds’. A short way down the page the following exchange takes place. Viz.: (Footnote). In that text I am reminding ‘her’ how there had been a conversation about loyalty on the second or third occasion ‘she’ had visited – and I can recall, even now, how on that initial occasion it had touched a responsive chord in ‘her’ as something vital to examine – as ‘she’ had shifted ‘her’ familially-inculcated and societally-instilled allegiance to ‘the system’ at large over onto the spiritual commune which ‘she’ had been a live-in member for the better part of nigh-on seventeen years. (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 19 Jun 2015).
Footnote Q2= ‘Vineeto’:
R: I remember you and I having a conversation about loyalty the second or third time you came here. You were realising that you had loyalty to hold you back
Q2: Yes, it took a while for me to work through. It is a feeling of belonging, and when I dismantled what loyalty is made up of then it loses its virtue.
R: It is connected with belonging? To a particular group? So all these group therapies that people do, they would not question that loyalty, would they? Because they belong to that very group that is running the therapies. The whole thing of the commune.
Q(2): It’s a new loyalty – away from the family and toward the [Rajneesh] commune.
R: Whereas I am only interested in being rid of loyalty altogether – however strange that may initially seem. [Emphasis added]. (link)
Felix: A bit of therapy and looking at my childhood etc has actually helped. Nothing excessive but just to realise that I’ve spent most of my life feeling extremely self-conscious – as if always looking at myself from an external point of view (the view of others – how they see me, what I need to be/ achieve in order to be acceptable to others).
These days my life is coming back into bloom so to speak. I am no longer living that intense, lone wolf lifestyle which is clearly not conducive to feeling good.
I think something can happen as an actualist where, because feeling good seems like the hard part, you focus on dismantling social identity. This can turn into a lot… avoidance, turning away from others, isolation etc which starts to look and feel more like depression (with a lot of negative-self rumination).
Clear signs of feeling good for me include things like feeling good in my body (not like I’m taking up space), being confident and at ease, finding it easy to relate to others and care for them, a sense of fun and being on holiday.
The more I feel that the easier it is to make a habit of it.
It’s taken a long time to learn that but I’m getting it! That life was meant to be fun. (link)
I’m pleased to see that you are having more and more fun. Also, “it’s taken a long time to learn” because there is a life-time (your life-time up to now) to unlearn, whilst the old being is constantly re-introduced/ reinforced by society and ‘humanity’ around you. You can pat yourself on the back. 
Cheers Vineeto