Felix: Hey Vineeto, thanks for the encouragement and lovely to hear from you.
I don’t know exactly what animated me to write that post in exactly the way I did – I was in a particular state at the time (feeling good but there was something maybe a little bit… enlightenmenty with some lofty blissful feelings getting mixed in that I could detect) and it’s not my usual way of writing. It reads a bit haughty in retrospect but I had no self consciousness about writing it at the time!
Hi Felix,
Good to talk again.
Don’t be coy about the insight of having identified this “ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection” as having been your “attempted object of appreciation”. This “ethereal … target of projected perfection” is exactly what prevented you from appreciating what is right under your nose, and what enormous benefit to be rid of it. I know from other correspondences that many had similar difficulties.
Here Richard described how it was for ‘Vineeto’ –
Richard: … such tergiversation reminds me of what feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ reported after the first few weeks of listening to me/ reading my words.
Speaking in regards to the effects any and all attempts to fit this totally new paradigm into ‘her’ existing mindset were having, ‘she’ explained the process as being … (1.) as if ‘her’ brain was being turned upside-down … and how (2.) ‘she’ was having to relearn how to think all over again. (Richard, List D, Alan, 29 Feb 2016).
It can be a tumultuous process at first, to clearly and fully understand that actualism is not at all like the real-world or spiritual world way. It is indeed an entirely new paradigm [prototype] to human consciousness.
Felix: When in less lofty territory I am currently “practising” the method in the most basic way. It amazes me that it works but it’s also clear that there are a number of blockers that can stop the actualism method from being straightforward and obvious.
It’s good to always get back to “the most basic way” – because it is really very simple. Only when one wants to make it sophisticated one gets entangled in one’s own mind-games.
Felix: The main thing being of course, the nature of feelings themselves. They are very strong and once a particular mood or emotion has come about, it can be (apparently to oneself at the time) very hard to shake. I notice a tendency in myself to either deny (“everything’s fine and life’s good”) or to wallow (clinging harder to the emotion, indulging it, having feeling-led thoughts and fantasies about it all).
I wouldn’t say the feelings are arbitrary though (though in a global sense, yes they are). Following them and listening to them you can kind of feel out their origin, their “message” and the type of worldview that they paint. For example I’ve identified a kind of sorrow I sometimes get that causes me to separate myself from the entire world – usually triggered by major failure. It’s a childish (and fairly likely rooted-in-childhood) kind of “everyone wants to hurt me” sorrowful feeling with a scorched earth “nothing will ever be good enough” bent. I don’t feel it that often – I’m more likely to experience what I’ve identified as it’s counterpart – which is a sense of needing to achieve, needing to overcome difficult circumstances, and needing to win at something in order to fix myself in some way. It’s if/when that plan fails (which it inevitably does) that the isolating sorrow is triggered. Cue a desire to listen to emo music and analyse my life from every possible angle as to how it all went wrong haha.
Ha, it seems you have already extensively felt out your most common feelings and found many to be in the similar “sorrowful feeling with a scorched earth” category, so much so that you can laugh about it at times. May I ask, do you enjoy the ‘drama queen’ (‘Vineeto’ did for a while) or have a particular penchant for victim-hood? These can be quite addictive personas.
Felix: But indeed, feeling out emotions only gets you so far and the resistance to getting back to feeling good can be strong. I’ve been finding that it really helps to think of “nipping in the bud” even if I am already deeply in a feeling. That may sound dissociative but it’s not actually, it’s more like a cue to stop expressing the feeling basically (and a reminder that it’s not all as deep as the feeling makes it seem, that feeling good is just a step or two away).
Well, once you see through a particular game you play with yourself, it’s not dissociative to nip it in the bud, rather sensible. After all the actualism method is enjoying and appreciating, not diving into deep emotions for the sake of it.
However, investigating the obstacles to feeling good is more looking for the reasons why you have those (sticky) negative feelings in the first place, in other words why you keep them. Is there a belief or moral/ dogma or other reason behind it? Are you defending a particular aspect of your identity?
Felix: This can create a quick touchstone with the present moment and now in a more felicitous form, which comes as a positive surprise and then it’s easy to appreciate that one is suddenly feeling much better.
It’s amazing how this achieves the “end goal” of feeling good now and then I no longer have the urge to do all the analysing (of my life) and intellectualising (about actual freedom) that I subsequently realise I was doing. (link)
So, despite your penchant for deep feelings you ultimately know where your bread is buttered, so to speak.
Cheers Vineeto