Yes I know what you mean completely. Indeed people are quite vicious and we all have this internalised to some degree, along with societal standards and all of that. What’s quite perverse about the way the mind works is how vicious one can be to oneself, where the animal instincts can actually be turned on oneself.
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Feeling really unstressed today. The least stressed I have felt for as long as I can remember.
Just to feel what it’s like to be this body without that stress is quite remarkable. It had become such a core part of who I was that it was almost impossible to be myself without being stressed.
Like I’d wake up and go “it’s time to be me” and then that means feeling stressed.
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There are a few “macro” issues I’ve started to look at. Obviously actualism is typically about the micro, looking at feelings moment to moment. But there are some issues that become more evident when zooming out and a pattern can be seen. One such pattern is something I am still working out, it’s quite amorphous and fuzzy but I can see the edges of it so to speak.
I clearly have problems with shame, blame and control. The way it works seems to boil down to the following:
- My self worth is entirely tied to outcomes
- In order to have self worth, those outcomes need to be exceptional
- I will aim for very high standards, nigh-on perfect outcomes (having a perfect body, producing exceptional work, being the best singer, becoming actually free etc etc)
- As such I’m usually “future oriented”
- When I can’t have control over those outcomes it becomes a massive threat to my self-worth and I rapidly turn the blame inwards: huge shame, self hatred, self aggression etc.
This is the perfectionistic mindset that seems to drive a lot of my behaviour. It is very future oriented. Emotionally speaking I’m typically focused on what the future version of me needs to be, and typically condemning the current version of me for:
- having what I perceive to be a bad body or a body that won’t respond as I command
- not having a solid romantic relationship or clear evidence of enough friendship etc around me
- being disorganised
- not feeling good
- falling into burnout
Etc etc
The belief in my head seems to be that if I were to give up on my high standards of how I need to be, I won’t achieve the “future me” that I apparently need to ensure I achieve (or else I will condemn myself almost to death, it seems).
Clearly this kind of self-castigating became a very strong survival strategy for me, and in some ways worked as I achieved substantial goals and was a typical “high achiever”. However now it is clearly no longer working and has become a massive hindrance (especially with actual freedom as my goal), almost like a total shut down of my potentiality.
I think it also causes a kind of neuroticism/negative self focus that manifests to others as someone who is unfriendly or selfish almost. They don’t understand the inner drivers and so it just looks like being antisocial or apathetic. It blocks empathy.
I will be looking at this habit each moment again because my own inability to be friendly with myself is clearly holding me back from feeling good each moment again, and ultimately what I want most - actual freedom.
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Feeling very naive and sensuous atm. This investigation really helped^.
As much as I’m speaking about the “macro”, that macro is made up of composite micro moments - these can easily be missed. In fact I am motivated as a self to miss them, as if secretly clinging hard to my much-held beliefs.
I went to the park and was feeling incredibly naive. The chat with @Vineeto made me think of the following quote:
“Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naiveté.”
It made me realise I am kidding myself, if I think I’m being naive, let alone being naïveté itself. My standard is too low as it were - I’m content to be clever or verbose or argumentative or rational, proclaiming my lack of deep feelings and denying the muddying sense of ‘being’ that dirties everything.
Everything started to look very fresh and vibrant in a way that it hasn’t in a long while.
Now I’m back at home on the balcony. My awareness is drawn to the presence of any interference of the types of issues mentioned above, my main ones, the most hidden ones. The ones that dominate my every waking moment virtually in the back of my mind.
But those issues aren’t coming up, sensuosity is. The flickering of candles, the glow of my phone, the tapping of my thumbs. The faint sound of crickets. Cars in the distance.
There is an aliveness, but I’m still much much more out of the way than usual. It’s wonderful. My aloneness is of no concern whatsoever.
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Didn’t expect to be writing quite so soon. Things have been going really really well since I last wrote. I dropped 10000 ways of thinking and maps and self analysis and and and. Stopped even considering myself an actualist if I can put it that way.
As a result I’ve been able to get under those layers and actually understand how I feel. This morning I realised I was basically “comfortably numb” - successfully noticing/avoiding triggers but essentially just stuck in a lowkey depression and not actually feeling good in the true sense.
I have recently procured some LSD I have been thinking of taking. This morning I thought, “I could take it but I’m not feeling good enough - I want to be feeling good for it.” So I then “chose” to feel good. And having tried that a million times before, this time I was not blocked.
All that self-defeating anxiety about myself as an actualist was not there to block me. I just felt good and it was all good. I had a great day and didn’t overthink it; haven’t been trying to do anything or achieve anything other than feeling good and being somewhat aware it’s this moment. A “light” approach and low effort/low touch.
This has been producing amazing results. At various times the world around has taken on a really inviting aspect, at times bordering on fairly tale quality. I’m starting to feel truly naive at times and to experience wonder. At one point I peed in front of the bushes and it’s hard to describe but it was just amazing to be there where I was and nowhere else. The bushes were magical and seemed to extend forever. All the drudgery and mundaneness and stress is not happening, that was all a kind of prison I have been stuck in.
Then tonight after a really fun dinner with friends I had an EE, unbelievably fun and so weird but so amazing. This world is absolutely amazing!! One thing I’ll note too is just the 100% health of feeling good. Absolutely no psychomatic symptoms to speak of or body issues or self consciousness.
After that EE the “good feelings” absolutely flooded in, almost like the opposite of depression. I felt it was the best night of my life, like the last day of summer and I could die and I’d be happy. Then it was going to change to gratitude and crying but since I’ve seen that before I nipped it in the bud.
Now I’m sort of back to where I was earlier today, just lowkey enjoying and appreciating. Excited and enthusiastic about the possibilities but not pushing for anything.
I think maybe it’s going to be a bit futile trying to write about this stuff ongoing. This process isn’t a rational one and as such my efforts to explain my way through it might actually hinder me.
But whatever this change is (I don’t want to reflect or analyse it right now) it is well reflected in the posts of recent days.
I never took the LSD btw, I had the organic version 
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Still feeling good today, what a big change! The best thing is I’ve started really enjoying daily life.
Tasks I used to not feel any energy or motivation for I’m finding fun - this morning I’ve been inspecting rental properties and it’s been really good. You would honestly think I had antidepressants that had kicked in. I feel a lot more happy, sociable, confident and in the mood to make jokes and have fun etc.
A whole lot of the overthinking stuff has gone away. Man I was really down low and basically a magnet for all kinds of anxious thoughts and fears and desires. This is a remarkable change that I wouldn’t have thought possible.
Part of that is that my actualist identity is a lot more chill - I was worrying all the time about my lack of progress and the clear signs things weren’t working. Whereas now yesterday’s events have shown me the actual world IS there and how truly amazing this discovery is, and that I am not somehow especially blocked from it or cursed to never find it.
Definitely need to keep looking out for good feelings. I notice there is a sense of “ooh don’t take these good feelings away because what if there is nothing there”. So I can be just as attached to good feelings as bad feelings it seems! There is a bit of fear that comes up when I contemplate going the unknown path again. But I know that I will in my own time.
One pointer is that these good feelings that are
mixed in to my feeling good definitely have a bit of a rollercoaster effect. I notice it when the high starts to come down and there is a dip.
So I’m prioritising stable enjoyment 
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Despite my excellent experience the other day, a lot of old habits reverted that I am now working on fastidiously (not sudorifically though:))
I feel I have never “faced” myself with such determination as in this period. One thing that has really helped is truly zero in on my goal. If I have this ambitious temperament, why not use it in a way that is truly conducive to my goal?
I’m aiming to become free of the human condition, and in the meantime I’m aiming to be as happy and harmless as possible each moment again.
Another thing that has really helped is to stop thinking of the actualism method as having to be instant, easy, painless and effortless. This has actually really helped because I think I always kicked myself when not feeling good - it’s supposed to be each moment again, I don’t have what it takes etc. If it were easy, many people would have done it - and there are very few people who have attempted virtual freedom.
I’ve realised I tend to panic when I get the stress/anxiety triggers - “oh no it’s happening again” type thing - which obviously only accelerates the reaction. I’m starting to see I have habits of catastrophising when these reactions do happen. This is also a way of sabotaging the actualism method - “I’ll never be able to get rid of this burnout”, “I’m trapped”, “the method doesn’t work for me”, “my health is suffering “ etc etc.
Perhaps it is because so many of my issues relate to flight/fight and anxiety or stress type feelings, that indeed my first reaction is to escape when I get triggered in this way. It feels terrible, I don’t feel safe/healthy and of course one doesn’t want to sit there feeling it, and feeling good seems very very far away.
What I do is the following:
-
Interrupt the process, ie I remove myself from whatever is happening. This includes any escaping type behaviour. I stop the battle
. This requires me to have a kind of “distaste” for going the same old route. An acknowledgement of its futility (not unlike the Allen Carr approach of giving up smoking). -
Then I go and sit down, perhaps with a cup of tea or on a balcony or something. I fully allow myself to feel what I’m feeling. I don’t blame myself for having these feelings in the first place - it’s the human condition reflected in me, and if it wasn’t “bad” there wouldn’t be a need for a third alternative. So I let feeling bad almost be a motivation to propel me forward.
-
I bring my attention to the fact it’s this moment, whilst still friendlily and gently acknowledging any feelings that are there. I just allow myself to feel them and then they start to subside like a muscle that has first been tense and then releases. If I was in fight/flight I find it becomes soothed and comes down quite a lot.
-
Inevitably one feels better just by having brought some awareness, stopped doing escapist stuff, applied friendliness etc. I appreciate the improvement in how I feel. It feels good to feel better.
-
I notice some of the beliefs or habits that are in the way - impulses I have - but I don’t ride those impulses out or analyse them I just gently acknowledge them and set them aside.
-
I allow this fact of feeling ”gooder” to validate the fact that the method does work, that I do have some control about how I feel and that it means I can keep going, which is motivating.
-
When I next feel bad, I remind myself that last time I felt bad I successfully got myself back to feeling good. So I simply need to repeat the process.
-
I don’t push once out of feeling bad. Feeling good is enough, I don’t raise the stakes by trying to have a PCE or anything like that. I let myself do whatever at that point whether playing on my switch or writing a post.
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That got me out of feeling bad. But why this constant falling back and addiction to suffering, I ask myself.
Why am I so afraid of being naive - what I do and my way of operating just doesn’t work. Almost “white-knuckling” my way through life - and very in control, defensive, afraid, aggressive.
I ask what I’m really motivated by here. Is it all an attempt to prove I’m good enough? Because deep down I’m so sure that I’m not, as one of my deepest beliefs? I think there is very deep trauma here in this regard….from which stems the desire to constantly strive, to fit 1000 images, to reach some pinnacle point at which I hope to be invulnerable, not needing others, and most of all able to accept myself - who is by default felt to be simply abominable and unacceptable? Whilst knowing deep down that this isn’t working, that I’m making myself ill, that I am inevitably ageing and will die?
And what of humanity, if that’s what this is all about? Don’t I see myself as quite separate from humanity, special in a bad way, preciously afflicted and in tragic circumstances…
It’s as if I’ve carefully constructed a cage to make it all impossible - on the basis that actualism is intensely difficult and I’m too messed up. All the while demonstrating to others that it’s impossible.
What will it take for me to finally say YES to being here? I think I might be ready to.
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I have been applying the method in the most basic way possible. Truly back to basics. It’s just about as feeling good as much as possible atm.
I have some big ticket issues - that whole stress/burnout thing is the main one. I find it nigh on impossible to get out of it when I’m there. It’s like im “locked” in a sympathetic nervous system state that no amount of feeling my feelings or intending to feel good seems to dissolve.
But inevitably I do feel good at some point again (socialising really helps me feel good again) and I look back at why I got triggered and just stay feeling as good as long as I can. I’d say it’s not necessarily just about individual triggers, I think it’s also about my whole modus operandi, my approach to life entirely. I obviously have a long term habit of using intensity/will/drive to accomplish what I see as my goals, and actualism became a way to do that 24-7 with deleterious consequences.
Feeling good is happening more though and indeed feels “not of my doing”, it has a beneficiary quality to it and my thoughts and approach (and visual perception) totally changes when there. Sometimes it verges on magical or I can feel that the actual is there. It’s only from feeling good that it happens. It’s amazing how easy things become at that point. It feels very healthy and really good, like saying “bye bye problems” haha.
The burnout state on the other hand is like having my hand on a hot stove. It’s hard to think clearly in it. It promotes very short term and negative thinking and there is a generalised anxiety to it. From there, “everything is wrong” but there is no sense to it and no clear way to fix things. It feels as if there were only problems; infinite problems ; and that my life consists of a painstaking, desperate and totally failed attempt to overcome these obstacles. I can feel a literal “burn” like my whole nervous system is totally tense.
If I make it sound very binary it is quite like that atm.
I am either in one state or the other usually.
Another thing I’m realising has caused a lot of undue stress is the way I’m living life generally. I put myself in a situation where I fully committed to trying to become free, whilst not giving myself anything to “hold on to” in the real world - the things that ordinarily would help people feel good or not feel anxiety. For example; having a stable place to live, steady relationships, a normal steady job etc etc. I’ve got some bad habits since becoming an actualist of running from responsibilities, trying to avoid problems and stress, procrastinating etc which are silly and it creates more problems than it fixes. So im also looking at some of those practical things.
Cutting out a lot of the actualist identity stuff has helped - it’s made me a beginner again but that’s also a blessing as real change is happening.
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Felix: I have been applying the method in the most basic way possible. Truly back to basics. It’s just about as feeling good as much as possible atm. (…)
Feeling good is happening more though and indeed feels “not of my doing”, it has a beneficiary quality to it and my thoughts and approach (and visual perception) totally changes when there. Sometimes it verges on magical or I can feel that the actual is there. It’s only from feeling good that it happens. It’s amazing how easy things become at that point. It feels very healthy and really good, like saying “bye bye problems” haha.
The burnout state on the other hand is like having my hand on a hot stove. It’s hard to think clearly in it. It promotes very short term and negative thinking and there is a generalised anxiety to it. From there, “everything is wrong” but there is no sense to it and no clear way to fix things. It feels as if there were only problems; infinite problems ; and that my life consists of a painstaking, desperate and totally failed attempt to overcome these obstacles. I can feel a literal “burn” like my whole nervous system is totally tense.
If I make it sound very binary it is quite like that atm.
I am either in one state or the other usually.
Another thing I’m realising has caused a lot of undue stress is the way I’m living life generally. I put myself in a situation where I fully committed to trying to become free, whilst not giving myself anything to “hold on to” in the real world - the things that ordinarily would help people feel good or not feel anxiety. For example; having a stable place to live, steady relationships, a normal steady job etc etc. I’ve got some bad habits since becoming an actualist of running from responsibilities, trying to avoid problems and stress, procrastinating etc which are silly and it creates more problems than it fixes. So I’m also looking at some of those practical things.
Hi Felix,
It is great to hear that “feeling good is happening more” even though it alternates with burn-out states.
Perhaps what you are realising at present, that “the way I’m living life generally” “has caused a lot of undue stress”, can now help you to reduce or at least diminish those burn-out times. It seems to be a long-standing habit, almost imprinted, so it will need determined and persistent observation to slowly change the way you are “living life generally” to a less stressful modus operandi.
Is perhaps the need to be the best in everything you do the reason for the stressful way to live life? If so, do you have a way to look at that need, to check if it is necessary to maintain it? After all, it is from where you acquire social acceptance, recognition (link) and praise.
But … is it worth the prize?
I leave it to you to mull it over, perhaps it helps.
Felix: Cutting out a lot of the actualist identity stuff has helped – it’s made me a beginner again but that’s also a blessing as real change is happening. (link)
That’s a great step towards a less stressful approach to actualism and you are already reaping the rewards. So much better than collecting imaginary ‘medals’ in a system that only turned out to be spanners in the works.
The additional benefit is that as “a beginner” you are curious and eager to discover new ways of enjoying being alive in a naïve way.
Cheers Vineeto
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Hey Vineeto,
I think there is some huge blockage going on here.
I’m investigating this deeply atm.
The moment to moment awareness of being alive has never been the problem, in the sense that I am aware a lot of the time.
However I’m all the time feeling this tightness, like
a physical pain (psychosomatic of course) - some kind of knot of emotional pain which I’m all the time avoiding.
Through awareness the last couple of days I am feeling deeper into this knot. I am feeling more resentment than I knew I had there (perhaps my ambition to feel good and succeed in that way led to a denial of pain).
Another factor is some traumatic stuff that happened - both as a kid and then a few years ago which is when the burnout arose.
I think it caused me to shut down emotionally. I saw a therapist once about a year ago and she said I had a tendency to not be empathetic about what i was feeling, almost like I was staying purely in an intellectual zone. I spoke with one of the basically actually free guys recently and they said they thought I was “downplaying” what I was feeling.
So it’s like this sense of being shutdown, of not being open or delicate, of having a very hard outer shell - almost impenetrable. All the while this sense of disconnection has made it very hard to make sensible life choices or even relate in a normal human way to other people. Like having no intuition for what’s good or right, somewhat like being “off kilter”, or misfiring/malfunctioning (the recent event with that post from 2 years ago being an example of that).
And though aware “all the time”, my awareness does not take me into this pain. I avoid and distract all the time. Like feeling what there is to feel down there will somehow ruin me or something.
This is totally subconscious, because of course as an actualist I’ve wanted to feel what I’m feeling etc and do all the right stuff. But it’s been a cunning cat or mouse game where I’m always trying but not succeeding, wanting to feel good whilst being dragged in the opposite direction.
There’s been more and more triggers lately where I’ve seen a huge internal storm raging under the surface. It doesn’t get expressed outwardly at all, and again it’s like it’s got a lid on it. Like I’m not “allowed” to feel or express what I’m feeling. It’s often not appropriate to the situation. Not sure if this comes from when I was a kid…I was pretty sensitive but would always get harshly punished for what I was feeling.
But now it’s like I can’t run any longer - clearly what I’m doing isn’t working. I think I need to get close to what this is.
At first it’s like there is nothing there, except that kind of physical knot. But the more awareness I apply (with some sense of friendliness or empathy) the more it grows. I’ve found myself starting to tear up a bit and stuff like that when I do it and it does feel good, like the release of a pressure valve.
It’s like I need to allow myself to truly feel. I’m cut off from what’s there…the more I am friendly with myself and caring the more these feelings are seeming to open up.
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Felix: Hey Vineeto,
I think there is some huge blockage going on here.
I’m investigating this deeply atm.
The moment to moment awareness of being alive has never been the problem, in the sense that I am aware a lot of the time.
However I’m all the time feeling this tightness, like a physical pain (psychosomatic of course) – some kind of knot of emotional pain which I’m all the time avoiding.
Through awareness the last couple of days I am feeling deeper into this knot. I am feeling more resentment than I knew I had there (perhaps my ambition to feel good and succeed in that way led to a denial of pain).
Hi Felix,
Thank you for your explicit reply. My guess is that this resentment /these resentments would be the layer to start with. Whatever else is going on, as long as you resent the fact that this is where you are at, the pain/tightness is multiplied by resenting it. So I would say, peel the onion from the outer-most layer and see if you can get to a point where you accept that this is how things are at the moment. See if that makes you feel lighter, better, more likeable and more liking to be alive.
Felix: Another factor is some traumatic stuff that happened – both as a kid and then a few years ago which is when the burnout arose.
I think it caused me to shut down emotionally. I saw a therapist once about a year ago and she said I had a tendency to not be empathetic about what I was feeling, almost like I was staying purely in an intellectual zone. I spoke with one of the basically actually free guys recently and they said they thought I was “downplaying” what I was feeling.
So it’s like this sense of being shutdown, of not being open or delicate, of having a very hard outer shell – almost impenetrable. All the while this sense of disconnection has made it very hard to make sensible life choices or even relate in a normal human way to other people. Like having no intuition for what’s good or right, somewhat like being “off kilter”, or misfiring/ malfunctioning (the recent event with that post from 2 years ago being an example of that).
And though aware “all the time”, my awareness does not take me into this pain. I avoid and distract all the time. Like feeling what there is to feel down there will somehow ruin me or something.
This is totally subconscious, because of course as an actualist I’ve wanted to feel what I’m feeling etc and do all the right stuff. But it’s been a cunning cat or mouse game where I’m always trying but not succeeding, wanting to feel good whilst being dragged in the opposite direction.
There’s been more and more triggers lately where I’ve seen a huge internal storm raging under the surface. It doesn’t get expressed outwardly at all, and again it’s like it’s got a lid on it. Like I’m not “allowed” to feel or express what I’m feeling. It’s often not appropriate to the situation. Not sure if this comes from when I was a kid … I was pretty sensitive but would always get harshly punished for what I was feeling.
I won’t comment on those yet, because it is best to take one thing at a time.
Felix: But now it’s like I can’t run any longer – clearly what I’m doing isn’t working. I think I need to get close to what this is.
At first it’s like there is nothing there, except that kind of physical knot. But the more awareness I apply (with some sense of friendliness or empathy) the more it grows. I’ve found myself starting to tear up a bit and stuff like that when I do it and it does feel good, like the release of a pressure valve.
It’s like I need to allow myself to truly feel. I’m cut off from what’s there … the more I am friendly with myself and caring the more these feelings are seeming to open up.
It is a sensible approach, be gentle, be friendly and be aware that any of this is neither your fault nor your failure. It is the human condition in your particular situation and you are now ready – because “I can’t run any longer” – to tackle the uppermost layer of that “knot”.
It’s time to end the fight against yourself.
Cheers Vineeto
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Thanks for your reply Vineeto - I appreciate it must be hard to track the inner workings of a feeling being and what’s happening but I appreciate your efforts to understand and help.
I have actually been finding this knot thing incredibly helpful. I mean it’s painful/has the essence of suffering but being “stuck” in this way is inviting progress as I deeply ask myself what it’s all about.
I think my description of going back to being a beginner may create the impression I have 600 layers of unexplored identity layers. Whereas i don’t think that’s the case.
As I feel throughout the day I’m mostly always aware of what I’m feeling. It might be anxiety, it might be boredom. The problem is that the “pain” point that these feelings create is not being relieved, but rather coalescing into a sum of its parts - a “pain” identity of feeling like I’m always carrying this heavy weight around or have my hand in a hot plate.
I’ve been going deeper and deeper into this. Why am I always feeling some version of bad? What would it take me to not feel this way?
This has been taking me into naïveté. Its effect is amazing…this is the path forward I think. As an identity, I’ve given myself nowhere to go so to speak - all the usual doors to escape are locked because I know that any of the usual human pathways I could take are mere repetitions of the same old cycles, that they wont work, that nothing will ever be as “I” want it. I’ve tried to dominate myself, to dominate life - and that has “brought me to my knees in a sense” - it’s not going to ever happen like that.
All I know each moment again is that I want to feel good, that I don’t want to feel bad, and naïveté is helping me find this….its not possible to define what it is. But it’s what is manifest when I am naive.
So indeed, I’ve been applying “emergency naïveté” so to speak haha. Having no other option, I have had to discover naïveté for myself -the hard way, and against my natural inclinations which are anything but that.
I came to the dog park tonight and just sat there, and felt this pain; this ennui; this Duḥkha. The pain of being, the resentment for being alive itself. And I just had enough, I asked what it would be like if I didn’t feel this. Can I put this burning coal in my hand down.
It’s hard to say how things changed but they did.
- Neurochemically, in that I felt a lot better
- Physically, in that my nervous system relaxed and some tears came up as a natural consequence of that
- Perceptually, in that the dog park turned into a wide wondrous plain that could have been in an exotic place like Africa or on a distant planet
It’s continuing now and I’m seeing things so differently. It’s not a question of my beliefs in this moment or that about this or that topic. It’s more like my whole belief in myself, and where I am. It’s like I change to seeing with a universal lens, not a self-centric/maligned egocentric one.
On the other side of me and my problems there is this total wonder, and a sense of being anywhere/when.
So indeed all these problems I’ve described - the identity making to impossible, feeling trapped, doing everything right but everything being wrong …it seems to be my way into naïveté.
Stuff is opening up. I see a way forward, and an open door.
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One more thing I’ll say.
One thing I observed today that may have been important in going into naïveté:
I think there comes a point as an actualist where you have become aware all the time; but no magic is happening. It’s like the limbs of identity have been cut off…there is no “play” (without going down a malicious or sorrowful route). And then as an identity you can feel like “nothing is happening! I am here paying attention; asking HAITEMOBA, wanting to feel good etc but nothing is happening”.
Then if you’re like me, your whole life is about actualism. There isn’t a lot happening to feed off as an identity; to make one feel good in the ordinary sense. No wife and kids, no desk job, cut off from the usual safety nets - it’s not usually considered a healthy place to be in for a feeling being’s mental health. Then add an actualism method which was supposed to be the answer but then doesn’t seem to be working.
So here I was again today just feeling that sense of being aware, but not getting anywhere out of being “me” in the most basic sense, of being a centrepoint of suffering.
Acknowledging this sense of nothing happening was really important in helping me realise I actually had to discover something. It’s not enough to just not express/repress then sit idle, in neutral. Even ”trying to feel good” won’t move the needle necessarily in a real sense - that can be an idea coming from the mind but not reflected in what one feels.
I thought of the basically actually free guys that all got there via PCEs rather than actual freedom and they all seemed to go out and discover the qualities of the PCE.
So I got outside and contemplated it and felt and came to my senses and all of my problems went away. Don’t know if to call it an EE or PCE and I don’t care at all because it’s just magic to have found a way forward.
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Felix: Thanks for your reply Vineeto – I appreciate it must be hard to track the inner workings of a feeling being and what’s happening but I appreciate your efforts to understand and help.
I have actually been finding this knot thing incredibly helpful. I mean it’s painful/ has the essence of suffering but being “stuck” in this way is inviting progress as I deeply ask myself what it’s all about.
I think my description of going back to being a beginner may create the impression I have 600 layers of unexplored identity layers. Whereas I don’t think that’s the case.
As I feel throughout the day I’m mostly always aware of what I’m feeling. It might be anxiety, it might be boredom. The problem is that the “pain” point that these feelings create is not being relieved, but rather coalescing into a sum of its parts – a “pain” identity of feeling like I’m always carrying this heavy weight around or have my hand in a hot plate.
I’ve been going deeper and deeper into this. Why am I always feeling some version of bad? What would it take me to not feel this way?
Hi Felix,
As a reminder only, you may remember this quote – in order for the actualism method to work, it is important that you fully grasped that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ as contrasted to ‘I’ have feelings (which I don’t like). Here is how No. 60 described it –
RESPONDENT: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between having feelings and being those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.
This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something” about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I am the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.
This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.
I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST)
RICHARD: And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005a).
Hence my suggestion to check out any resentment, which would prevent you fully acknowledging and accepting that you are the feeling you are experiencing. When you stop objecting to feeling the way you feel and when you fully experience that you are the feeling, it is “almost too easy” to change from feeling bad to feeling felicitous because it is so obvious that feeling happy feels so much better than feeling bad.
The above quote is also an important reminder for anyone who has practiced any form of meditation where one creates a ‘watcher’ to observe one’s thoughts come and go. This creates an artificial, additional distance between ‘me’ and ‘my’ feelings which prevent the actualism method from working as intended. However, once one grasps and fully accepts that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings, ‘I’ am the instinctual passions, then ‘I’ have a choice to be whichever feeling I prefer to be. Of course, the triggers still need to be investigates once feeling good in order for them to not be triggered again and again.
Felix: This has been taking me into naïveté. Its effect is amazing … this is the path forward I think. As an identity, I’ve given myself nowhere to go so to speak – all the usual doors to escape are locked because I know that any of the usual human pathways I could take are mere repetitions of the same old cycles, that they wont work, that nothing will ever be as “I” want it. I’ve tried to dominate myself, to dominate life – and that has “brought me to my knees in a sense” – it’s not going to ever happen like that.
All I know each moment again is that I want to feel good, that I don’t want to feel bad, and naïveté is helping me find this … it’s not possible to define what it is. But it’s what is manifest when I am naive.
So indeed, I’ve been applying “emergency naïveté” so to speak haha. Having no other option, I have had to discover naïveté for myself – the hard way, and against my natural inclinations which are anything but that.
That is almost funny, “against my natural inclinations”, and yet it is quite common that the natural naiveté of early childhood is so deeply buried that one often has to come to a point of feeling very foolish to have failed in order to rediscover one’s naiveté.
It is very fortunate that you did. It is indeed opening doors which had seemed closed.
Felix: It’s continuing now and I’m seeing things so differently. It’s not a question of my beliefs in this moment or that about this or that topic. It’s more like my whole belief in myself, and where I am. It’s like I change to seeing with a universal lens, not a self-centric/ maligned egocentric one.
On the other side of me and my problems there is this total wonder, and a sense of being anywhere/when.
So indeed all these problems I’ve described – the identity making to impossible, feeling trapped, doing everything right but everything being wrong … it seems to be my way into naïveté.
Stuff is opening up. I see a way forward, and an open door. (link)
Be careful not making this newly discovered naiveté into a new philosophy or system or imaginary identity, else it becomes a restricting cage to lock you in again. ‘Me’, the identity, is very inventive at devising cunning scenarios to keep ‘you’ in place.
Nourish the wonder, the amazement, the appreciation how wondrous and wonderful the world is when you see it afresh, each moment with eyes of simplicity, naiveté – guileless, unsophisticated, artless, ingenuous and open to a new experience each moment again.
Cheers Vineeto
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Hey Vineeto,
Well I finally took the acid I had - the actual acid this time, not the “organic” version.
This was a wise decision I think….I was terribly repressed. It was quite something to experience as the gates of feeling were truly blown open.
There’s not much you can say about an acid trip that makes much sense. Except that these trips are great for cutting out a lot of identity and demonstrating just how truly inscrutable “I” am. They are amazing for getting out of a rut, like the psychosomatic symptoms I’ve spoken of.
I’m not feeling those symptoms now at all. There’s an ease and I’m really enjoying writing. The simplicity of it being this moment…
And of not being able to do anything at all to make it any BETTER or WORSE other than allow myself as this body, to make contact with the physical universe as it is constituted in this very moment of writing.
“I” build myself each moment again, on the back of it being this moment of the universe. “I” am a inherent shapeshifter, always eluding and creating powerful explanatory psychoprisms. There is nothing that could possibly satiate my insatiable and irascible nature. And yes this power is all hidden, like the roots of some epic mycorrhizal organism, under the guise of everyday “quotidian” life. Habit, culture, all of that.
This is not a concrete explanation per se but an attempt to capture…something about the experience of being alive.
Indeed one thing I noticed throughout my trip was a strong tendency to want to explain what was happening at every millisecond, to predict and control….no wonder as to where the immense psychological pressure has been coming from.
I think control is a huge thing for me. I mean the desire to repress the emotions…reinforced by religious fervor of diehard actualism…creating a cocktail of confusion and psychophysical clouding clusters that permanently buries the thin thread of naïveté.
What I’m realising now is there no way I could possibly conceive to control me and my story of me, including my journey to actual freedom or whatever…there is nothing about me in particular, to make me good or bad at it, more or less deserving of it….or whatever else.
There is an ease to it being this moment; exactly as it is…with free acknowledgement of whatever comes up….as being “merely” a substantiation of this universe within the body of one individual.
Looking back at everything I’ve been and felt these last years…wow. There is no need to create more stories, but it’s perhaps useful for the purposes of a case study. I’m glad I’ve recorded things more or less as accurately as I can, and I hope that will continue.
It’s amazing how simple this moment is. Nothing to run from, au contraire.
Air conditioning, the warmth of my dog nestled by my side, a lovely tune playing on my phone, the enjoyment of typing these words.
It’s such a pleasure to access, here where I can be friendly, and no longer a victim of the instincts and their psychogenic effects.
And through this acid trip, having experienced the wraith-like nature of me….it is only sensible that I should wish to channel myself towards friendliness.
These deadly instincts are not to be underestimated. This identity has played with them / as them much too audaciously and recklessly….nigh on suicidally. But all that feeling bad gets you is more feeling bad.
There was a key moment in the trip where I felt overwhelmed by what was unfolding, and at risk of being almost strangulated by my own tentacular writhing.
I reminded myself to feel good…to simply move in the direction that was away from what felt bad and closer towards feeling good.
At first it was very difficult, I was adrift in a stormy stormy sea. I tried to wrangle myself at first in a control sense, but realised it couldn’t work for me to resist in this way. I’m not sure if this can be said to be a metaphor for repression, or else a definition of repression itself.
Anyway, I realised I would need to choose to feel good… it was very much by hook or by crook…I realised in any given moment I am but flying by the seat of my pants haha, and this humility made it easy to go with the Hail Mary option of enjoying what was at this moment, without need to stipulate the way this moment was manifesting.
I’m not sure what happened, there was a hard to remember messy interim, but the long shot of it is that I did indeed manage to “sew up” this Pandora’s purse of…perturbation.
Indeed the whole thing about “sensibility” really came to the fore. It should have been obvious all along to this feeling being; though it clearly wasn’t haha; that habitually choosing nonsensical pathways could only create more doom and gloom. The phrase “paying lip service” to actualism comes to mind.
I have been so buried under layer upon layer of identity, all of which has very REAL consequences….in the form of repressed feelings and their resultant maladaptive physiological effects.
I’m not sure to what degree I am still impacted by the LSD but I am now going to back to what I was doing before, which was naïvely enjoying…
Here in this bed, with this phone all aglow, the exchange of warm mammalian warmth with my canine companion.
Tomorrow awaits me, perhaps fully sober. No idea how I will be tomorrow, right now I am so aware of how I am now, and it’s just amazing.
Not needing a partner, or human connection, or to look a certain way…but able to be friendly and completely turn my antisocial identity inside out. I’ve enjoyed a chat with my Mum, and some random guy who his looking for a housemate.
I’m so ready to play and to simply be…in this amazing playground universe.
To exist is already such an incredible thing….and then actualism….to live the drama of being a psyche that self immolates. Only the universe could have thought of that one. Hahaha.
I’ll certainly have to be careful of “my” habits as sobriety sets in. Key things are
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just feel a bit better than one does - when in doubt, go in the direction of feeling more good
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don’t lose this moment as being the thread that enables the delineation between an imaginary psyche and an actual physical world
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don’t allow a sense of “build up” of the feelings into a psychosomatic knot that becomes hard to untangle
The human condition is not my fault.
I can’t control what is.
Allow myself to feel.
Other people are alive and they feel. Dare to care.
Watch out for social identity*
Ease and simplicity…you’re already here.
*To the point about social identity…I am so far from what could be considered a normal person at this point (obviously in a different sense I am of course totally normal).
But what I wish to remind myself of is that I can’t be both an actualist AND “win at life” by being the hottest, richest, youngest, smartest. Uh…pick one
I’m clearly “failing” spectacularly at life in a real world sense haha. No family, no wife, dubious financial planning, no achievements that anyone from outside could appreciate.
But that needn’t be a badge of honour either…as in, why not make some sensible/practical choices that would provide a bit of stability, while you hide the secret of being an actualist pioneer (and for once not self-condemnatory about your prospects).
Either way it needn’t matter, as long as you allow yourself to feel and openly acknowledge that which, at this moment, causes you to want to escape from reality, into the dream of being something other, Felix 2.0 which is always on the horizon but never seems to actually come to fruition haha.
It’s such a pleasure to play with myself, to enjoy friendly humor about existence and be the benefactor of my own well-meaning and good intentions.
Each moment is a chance to delight and delect, and with an added opportunity to observe and discuss and dissect.
Right now I can say without cynicism….
Ain’t life grand 
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Few reflections:
I think one thing was popping the bubble of emotional repression….all my issues had really built up, creating somewhat of a 6-lane pile up, emotionally speaking.
I think the psychosomatic symptoms were a byproduct of that. I had really started to get many layers removed from having any sort of clear levers to pull, and I was in an anxious-depressive condition.
The trip brought me back to the fact it’s now, as in - riding the wave that this moment is - and that any change I make can only happen at this point of contact.
As such, it seems to have done its job of the “mental health reset” that I was looking for.
Beyond that it was obviously an incandescent, primordial clusterfuck of spontaneous happenings haha.
In that context, the actual freedom method made a lot more sense….the psyche is a labyrinth, so you can’t seek to really control what’s happening or wrangle oneself as an identity (which is what I think I’ve been doing). I am realising how much I even control my body, my diet, my circumstances - I’ve been giving myself no oxygen. No allowance to enjoy.
I gained a lot of respect and humility in a non-emotional sense. How could I ever seek to really force myself into fitting an image…if I’m to experience the actual world it will need to come from a place where there is the right soil and water so to speak.
Which means, I suppose, wading into this territory of things I don’t understand with a lot of curiosity and openness…not coercion and control.
At a tricky point in the trip, the simple intent to feel good took me into a much better place. I lay under a lamppost, bathing in its luminescence, while photons gently eyeblasted me. It was still and PCE-like in quality but hard to say for sure.
At other times of less purity I could truly feel the instincts kicking through me. My undercurrents of violence and sexuality and aggression and desire. And a lot of fear.
Through this there was a crucial non-judgement…I am how I am. I’m not ever going to be Richard, or a jacked 20-year old, or whatever. This “humility” seems to have calmed me down
There’s a difference between realising “my” nature and wanting to change it versus using actualism as a means to bully and chastise oneself.
It’s easy to do because there is no shortage of what could be considered insalubrious within one’s own mind when was is honest and aware. Kick, kick, kick. Why feel guilty for what is there by way of blind nature?
Whereas to feel freely and observe curiously is hopefully going to take me in a different direction now I intend to worry much less about my current state and circumstances and to muster more intent to explore and discover fresh and desirable qualities that this body is capable of.
TLDR: Dropped a lot of mind junk. Lots of naive contemplation to do.
Things have settled down nicely.
There isn’t as much bursting creativity and such - that may have been a byproduct of some remaining LSD in the system. I was surprised by my propensity to write in such a dynamic way and feel the ripples of my psyche so viscerally. I really “became something different”.
But now I’m feeling like a normal a human again, albeit a happy and harmless one.
In fact I feel such a steadiness of mood, including a general enthusiasm for daily life.
I have traces of triggers and good/bad feelings - which I’m not dissociating from or repressing at all. I notice resentments and things here and there but am not dominated by them.
One thing I really learnt from the trip was not to lose contact with the now-ness - because once I start getting removed from that I go down a very meta-analytical route and lose the thread of believing I can influence how I feel.
There is such a simplicity to this quotidian life. All the normal activities of life is where everything is happening.
Today I was washing my uncle’s car, a task I was somewhat resenting as I struggled under the boiling hot sun. I just allowed myself to gently acknowledge what I was feeling and the task became much more enjoyable.
At times out of the corner of my eye, there was slippage and glimpses of the actual occurred. I momentarily became this body playing in a sensuous world. The slosh of water, light emanating and sparkling and reflecting everywhere, the squeeze of sponges and this body’s engaged scrubbing of the car. Everything became so fresh and vibrant!
Im excited to be having these glimpses, and I feel on the right track. It’s remarkable to find the actual world HERE, under one’s nose - not a fantasy realm or a distant vision or a hope/dream in the future.
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