Hey @Kub933 did you perhaps have a PCE while I was away? By the sounds of it you did . If so I’ll go look for it in your diary.
I saw that amazing flow diagram that was put together, nice one @claudiu. It will be interesting to see how people go with it.
I’ve been thinking lately… the part which is the most important in the whole method - getting from feeling good to having a PCE - is not explained with explicit instructions on the website (and hence can’t really be explained in a diagram either).
This makes sense because the process of getting to a PCE is not really linear or trackable right? It’s pretty esoteric territory! It requires people to stumble and discover something they have literally NEVER done on purpose before. There are some vague instructions or phrases to consider (“enjoy and appreciate”, “activate delight”, “be naivete”, “current time awareness”, “sensuosity” etc) but there is no recipe at all as @geoffrey has always said. One has to be a pioneer and discover the possibility for oneself, which is dependent on myriad factors (from mood to physiological state to environment to triggers to time of day to methodology etc etc).
Once someone gets the knack of how to have an EE or PCE, then feeling good is something that’s a lot easier to know how to do (because it uses the same essential approach). Then concepts like “nipping it in the bud” or “identifying the trigger” are going to positively feed into application of the method - because one has that ongoing enjoyment in place as a foundation. Without this foundation, all those instructions are mainly going to cause issues in my opinion (in my experience at least).
The basic resentment for being alive is at the core of what an identity is, and “enjoying and appreciating” from the outset, without recourse to the usual forms of instinctual outlets or pleasures (“neither express nor repress”), is about the last thing people will
know how to do. A PCE is very powerful for overcoming the innate cynicism of being itself, and that’s why I agree with the neo-actualist tendency to prioritise having a PCE. Once that golden clew is established, the Virtual Freedom method of “feeling good each moment again” is going to be easier to apply and the identity will be getting some magical help “from outside” as well , in the form of pure intent.
If I were to go back I would wait for when I feel good to attempt a PCE, and repeat this until I eventually had one - rather than getting lost in an attempt at the virtual freedom method from the outset, without this foundational knowledge. Even now - I would not make an attempt at a PCE unless already feeling pretty good.
This is not to bag on the website, or the diagram, or attempts to explain actualist concepts. It’s more just to say to people on here that clarifying, summarising or distilling the various concepts Richard uses can be helpful - but will not ultimately lead to practical success. To have practical success you need to go have a PCE (and for that I’d advise waiting for times you already feel good).
ThIs is just based on my experience of course,
and the mileage of others may vary. I can imagine a lot of variation between people depending on psychological makeup and initial baseline for example - but thought I’d just put my own experiences out there!