Felix's Diary

[Felix]

Written earlier today:
If I had to give this post a title, I’d called it “The building up of me.”

This morning I woke up feeling a bit weird and stressed and I paid attention to it and it only seemed to get worse.

I thought oh no I’m slipping into the old ways, I felt a loss of control like I couldn’t keep on the path that I wanted to. I paid attention to what I was feeling but there was a hardness to everything, an utter stuckness, as if totally weighed down by a huge anchor that I could not muster the strength to lift.

I realise I always want to escape when this happens. Everything feels so bad and wrong, it scares me that I can’t explain what’s happening at the time, it scares me that I can’t get my mood to change at the time. It’s as if it’s all built up so quickly and inextricably that one is totally lost at sea.

I find the best thing when this happens is just to sit on the couch with a cup of tea and contemplate. Allow whatever is, but without distracting from it either. Ground in the body, but without straining for being sensuous or anything either. Contemplate that I am my feelings.

It seems almost like tensing a muscle, that by tensing it after a while it relaxes - like “progressive muscle relaxation”. It’s hard for these feelings to sustain themselves when given total attention.

As the feelings subside in power, they start to lose their stranglehold - it’s a bit like suddenly there is more oxygen. In my case, less panic and anxiety. Then one is feeling better, and intelligence can operate better.

Investigation is working, I just need to keep going. I can feel it. After these tsunamis it all subsides, and I’m back to feeling good.

[Felix]

Today I had the smoothest day of feeling good I’ve had in a long time.

I’m employing the method more simply than ever

When I feel bad, I get back to feeling good - this can be really hard and sometimes needs some sort of outside impulse.

When I feel good, I appreciate and stay aware as to not be triggered out of it - this is much easier.

The bad feelings tend to feel like such a fixed state, - comes with physical symptoms and a huge amount of nervous system frazzle and tension - and yet magically feeling good completely cleans it up.

It’s quite amazing how psychosomatic it is - the fact I can feel at the very edge of exhaustion and burnout and then 30 minutes later I’m totally fine. The power of feeling good…feeling good is also psychomatic :))

[Felix]

(Continued…)

A big part of the appreciation is sensuous enjoyment.

I revoke anything I’ve ever said that would suggest sensuousness can be accessed in the absence of enjoyment/feeling good.

I don’t think it can be, and I think it’s highly dissociative and borderline dangerous to be practising mindfulness.

One key factor in feeling good is that I’ve been ridding myself of my sexual identity (not to be confused with giving up sex). I think I’ve been in heavy denial about the degree to which my sexual instincts have been prioritised over feeling good in these years.

I’ve started getting rid of parts of my identity that, prior to now, I simply saw as impossible to get rid of. Stress, desire, lust, loneliness, anxiety…. My attempts to stop those triggers felt totally Sisyphean, and as such I constantly reinforced the notion that ridding myself of them was nigh on impossible; much like the drug addict or porn addict who constantly relapses and feels helpless in the face of their demons.

Retrospectively, it looks quite clear to me that my capacity to feel good before was scuppered by the parts of me that I was dominated by - these feelings/beliefs were deeply embedded within my identity. As such, I simply WOULD NOT get back to feeling good in the face of such triggers and the intricate network of noxious beliefs they were tied to.

I was a true hedonist and escapist, and I couldn’t access any sensual enjoyment. I was very numb actually.

Well, all it took was to learn that even when I feel very bad and it all looks very complex, that I can indeed get back to feeling good. The feelings and feeling states that were blocking me were very scary ones, and I kept myself panicked rather than naively and sensibly navigating them. I was deeply fearful I was drowning, failing, becoming ill, losing the plot etc.

Even now I can fall back into that territory, but I no longer doubt my ability to feel good so it’s so much easier to rectify. Once there, and feeling good has stabilised, it’s oh so easy and sensible to maintain.

It has its own momentum, and doesn’t need to be vigilantly guarded. It’s very much supported in fact, because when feeling good, this world shows itself to be utterly cosy and benevolent.

Right now I’m at my brother’s house for the evening. My brother and his wife are getting the kids ready for bed. I’ve been enjoying feeling good for hours. I’ve been playful and gentle with the children, but not too excitable either as it’s time for bed. I’m attuned to my brother and his wife, with a sense of fitting in quite perfectly to the scene - neither too much or too little. Right now the kids are resisting going to sleep, and there is the usual screaming and crying protests from their beds. It doesn’t bother me at all…it’s just how children are.

The dim lights are entering my eyes so gently and warmly; there’s a village-like intimacy as we each make the transition into bed, ready for sleep. It’s all quite magical and serene.

[Felix]

Brief update from me, “for the record”

I’m pretty sure I was simply anxious/depressed before - I wonder how many posts those feelings wrote especially fear and desire

I’m just going to factually say what’s happening

• I’m exercising a lot, this has been hugely helpful in getting me out of anxiety/depression.

• I’m feeling better all the time. Lots of lying around in the sun and enjoying. Even working is a lot more enjoyable.

• waves of sincerity are hitting me. It’s hard to explain what this is. But sincerity is happening.

• I’m not trying hard at actualism, just being my feelings and enjoying and appreciating life as much as I can in a light and gentle way

• I can see the issues of “me” but I’m not hyperreacting to them. When they crop up I’m just like…ok that’s just “my” way but no condemnation for whatever form I take moment to moment

• I feel a lot lot lot more comfortable in my own body….psychosomatic symptoms have gone away. I look and feel a lot better & healthier.

• I am putting way fewer conditions on myself. About how I should be based on whatever ideas…

• im doing way less actualist map building. I barely think about actualist theory or technique. Enjoyment is simple and that mental energy is tiring.

• I have this feeling that I can self immolate and that I will immolate. It’s that sincerity thing I mentioned above

• before I felt I wanted to self immolate so bad but it was all about escape. This feels like coming into the enjoyment of being here…it’s totally different.

• I’m not focusing on sensuosity as I advocated for previously. All the sensuosity that is happening is “embedded” in an emotional enjoyment.

• I don’t want people to follow any advice I’ve ever given here

• I’m not getting ahead of myself at all. I’m right where I’m at and that’s all good

• One day I’ll write all in detail about way’s thing can go wrong with the actualism method and some pitfalls to perhaps avoid. For now, it couldn’t have happened other than how it did and I’m just focusing on right now.

[Andrew]

@Felix

before I felt I wanted to self immolate so bad but it was all about escape. This feels like coming into the enjoyment of being here…it’s totally different.

I was thinking about this yesterday, about trying to escape. It came with a whole lot of self condemnation. Adopting “self immolation” as the final gotcha in a sick game of hating my life.

I have noticed over the last year many times how I stay stuck like the meme going around “I was going to fix myself, but I want to see if the world collapses before I put in the effort”. A feeling that it’s all going to hell anyway, why try? Hence; escape.

[Felix]

I am sure I’m getting closer to the actual world. I have been trying to do the virtual freedom method for a long time now. Things are starting to actually work though. (I’ve written private notes on what I think were the various blocks and how I overcame them - will probably share those later).

The “improvement” is something that you can sense - affectively there is an obvious stability. It feels good to feel good. And then sensuosity creates the feedback loop. Sensuosity is fun and exciting.

This current experience I’m having started when I was just in my room tapping away on the computer. It went to that place of fun/sensuosity/current-time-awareness somewhat of its own accord, and I just leant into it.

I decided to go for a walk and, remembering the delight from my room, it was easy to enjoy the world around in the same way (you could call this a sense-familiarity of “how to enjoy”).

What I’ve really started playing with is modulating my moods. Recognising when I’m in the danger zone - being aware of how I feel with no dissociation - investigating - contemplating the possibility of feeling good - inclining myself towards it. To get to feeling good, I find forcing doesn’t work. It’s more like something that comes back around, with some nudging.

When I look at my years of difficulty with this method, I see I was getting stuck in quite extreme anxiety most of the time when we’re talking about applying the method, or trying to have PCEs and stuff like that. I didn’t know what to do when I hit those barriers which I perceived as threatening. Feeling good seemed a literal impossibility no matter how hard I tried.

Now it’s totally different, anxiety or emotional pain or insecurity are just like a setting on the washing machine - not something to lean into or take seriously at all (other than to feel it fully and sincerely investigate). Don’t get me wrong, they are still powerful emotions - it’s just that I have a game plan when they take place now, one that doesn’t involve dissociation/escape/despair/self-castigation/further anxiety.

It’s crazy how when feeling good or beyond, this moment really is enough, and not something at all to be wasted.

[jesus.carlos]

I can almost copy & paste your description thinking in my own. Have you experienced PCE’s lately in this close VF?

[Felix]

Having done away with dissociation, I’m experiencing a lot more surges of big feelings. I think these feelings have been there underneath the whole time, but I was running from them.

I really got stuck. On one hand, I wanted to succeed, be a great actualist, become actually free etc. On the other hand, the strategies I was employing were anything but about openly feeling.

I was trying to override what I was feeling, to push past it and ignore it (on the way to success, I thought), I was distracting myself and running.

Sometimes I was trying to solve the feelings with real world solutions (ie “I need more friends”, “I’m not occupying myself enough”, “I need to do X to feel happy”).

Other times I was distracting and running. Escapism and pleasure seeming so as to not have to deal with negative emotions.

Another one was to blame myself. “I’m a terrible person”, “I don’t care about anyone”, “my neurotransmitters are messed up”.

I really put myself in a difficult situation, caught between the real world and the actual world and not flourishing in either.

Now I can feel what’s underneath without it being mediated by, anything really - even social identity. The feelings are very strong, at times. Very strong fear, for example. At other times, strong sorrow.

Weirdly, even though these feelings are by no means pleasant or easy to feel, it seems it’s a step in the right direction to be feeling in such an unfiltered way. At the same time, when these feelings come up my intent is to get back to feeling good - I do not purposely wallow in feelings of anxiety or whatever. Sometimes I think of Geoffrey saying to himself as a feeling being, “just chill dude”.

That being said, some of these feelings are very sticky. When fear takes over, those feelings push for some kind of action. But other than further anxiety, there isn’t actually much to do but to sit it out (and aim to “tap dance” on top of it - not taking it too seriously lest it ends up in a panic attack).

Fear is powerful - it can easily make me feel like everything I am doing must be wrong. When this happens I am careful not to catastrophise further by going down the route of feeling it’s my fault or worrying about if I never find the actual world etc. It can help to remind myself at these times that the actual world does exist, that I can trust Vineeto and the other actually free people who have done it, and that I am finding my way through the psychic maze and will come out the other side at some point.

I suspect that some of the strong feelings have something to do with control - I’m fighting for my life at times haha. The quotes from Vineeto in Kuba’s diary about naïveté are inspiring. I’ve already proved that a strategic or sudorific or controlled or anxious approach doesn’t work, so I’m interested to see if I can let go…

[Felix]

Hey @jesus.carlos it’s been more excellence experiences lately - still aiming for a PCE but also not wanting to try tooo hard. Glad to hear it’s going well for you

[Vineeto]

Felix: When I look at my years of difficulty with this method, I see I was getting stuck in quite extreme anxiety most of the time when we’re talking about applying the method, or trying to have PCEs and stuff like that. I didn’t know what to do when I hit those barriers which I perceived as threatening. Feeling good seemed a literal impossibility no matter how hard I tried.
Now it’s totally different, anxiety or emotional pain or insecurity are just like a setting on the washing machine – not something to lean into or take seriously at all (other than to feel it fully and sincerely investigate). Don’t get me wrong, they are still powerful emotions – it’s just that I have a game plan when they take place now, one that doesn’t involve dissociation/ escape/ despair/ self-castigation/ further anxiety.

Hi Felix,

Welcome back.

You seemed to have used your time very successful, after a lot of trial and error, to finally succeed in finding “a game plan” which “doesn’t involve dissociation/ escape/ despair/ self-castigation/ further anxiety.”

This in itself is quite remarkable, especially to acknowledge, then recognize and decline dissociation and further to decline the follow-up above listed feelings as well.

Your last sentence confirms that it’s really working and it’s wonderful to read –

Felix: It’s crazy how when feeling good or beyond, this moment really is enough, and not something at all to be wasted. (link)

Cheers Vineeto

[Vineeto]

Felix: Having done away with dissociation, I’m experiencing a lot more surges of big feelings. I think these feelings have been there underneath the whole time, but I was running from them.
I really got stuck. On one hand, I wanted to succeed, be a great actualist, become actually free etc. On the other hand, the strategies I was employing were anything but about openly feeling.
I was trying to override what I was feeling, to push past it and ignore it (on the way to success, I thought), I was distracting myself and running.
Sometimes I was trying to solve the feelings with real world solutions (i.e. “I need more friends”, “I’m not occupying myself enough”, “I need to do X to feel happy”).
Other times I was distracting and running. Escapism and pleasure seeming so as to not have to deal with negative emotions.

Hi Felix,

At this point it might be helpful to remember that human beings are primed to automatically push negative, unpleasant feelings away.

The trouble is that the energy to push them away is adding to the affective strength of the feeling, i.e. makes it worse. It helps to pay attention to this automatic response and consciously decline rejecting/ pushing away the feeling and just let it be. You will see that this instantly diminishes the strength of the feeling and allow you to get to a reasonable level of feeling good.

Then, and only then, you can have a look at the trigger and sort it out so that the same reaction doesn’t happen again next time in a similar situation. As you said “this moment really is … not something at all to be wasted”.

Felix: Another one was to blame myself. “I’m a terrible person”, “I don’t care about anyone”, “my neurotransmitters are messed up”.

I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience, this is really a very persistent habit and well worthwhile extricating yourself from this addiction to blame yourself, especially because it is held in high esteem by a large part of society. Be a rebel in this regard and pat yourself on the back each time you discover and decline such a habitual self-castigation.

Felix: I really put myself in a difficult situation, caught between the real world and the actual world and not flourishing in either.

Just to be accurate, you are not “caught between the real world and the actual world” but rather caught between your old ways and the new way of feeling good come what may.

Felix: Now I can feel what’s underneath without it being mediated by, anything really – even social identity. The feelings are very strong, at times. Very strong fear, for example. At other times, strong sorrow.
Weirdly, even though these feelings are by no means pleasant or easy to feel, it seems it’s a step in the right direction to be feeling in such an unfiltered way. At the same time, when these feelings come up my intent is to get back to feeling good – I do not purposely wallow in feelings of anxiety or whatever. Sometimes I think of Geoffrey saying to himself as a feeling being, “just chill dude”.

Geoffrey is spot on – it’s a more succinct way of expressing what I said above regarding not feeding the feeling by objecting to it.

Felix: That being said, some of these feelings are very sticky. When fear takes over, those feelings push for some kind of action. But other than further anxiety, there isn’t actually much to do but to sit it out (and aim to “tap dance” on top of it – not taking it too seriously lest it ends up in a panic attack).
Fear is powerful – it can easily make me feel like everything I am doing must be wrong. When this happens I am careful not to catastrophise further by going down the route of feeling it’s my fault or worrying about if I never find the actual world etc. It can help to remind myself at these times that the actual world does exist, that I can trust Vineeto and the other actually free people who have done it, and that I am finding my way through the psychic maze and will come out the other side at some point.
I suspect that some of the strong feelings have something to do with control – I’m fighting for my life at times haha. The quotes from Vineeto in Kuba’s diary about naïveté are inspiring. I’ve already proved that a strategic or sudorific or controlled or anxious approach doesn’t work, so I’m interested to see if I can let go… (link)

Before you move on to your next aim, remember that when you fully, i.e. experientially, grasp that ‘I’ am my feelings in lieu of having feelings then you can consciously choose which feeling you rather be, which is, of course, being felicitous and harmless.

As a reminder, here is No. 60’s account how miraculously this worked for him at some point which I posted on 20 January this year (link) –

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).

I wish you a lot of fun and success.

Cheers Vineeto

[Felix]

Hi Vineeto,

It’s great to hear from you. I know I tend to disappear sometimes, mainly because I want to make sure I’m making progress and not kidding myself diary entries etc. Thanks for the welcome back.

The messages and words in recent days on here have been amazing. I’m not sure if it was always like that and I just wasn’t “open” to it, but there seems to be a marvellous energy happening. People seem to be having fresh insights, and it’s great to read of @claudiu’s exciting trip to see Geoffrey.

Blockquote
Vineeto: You seemed to have used your time very successful, after a lot of trial and error, to finally succeed in finding “a game plan” which “doesn’t involve dissociation/ escape/ despair/ self-castigation/ further anxiety.”

Regarding this - indeed it’s incredible the degree to which one can get lost. For me, I have always been such a diehard actualist - but this seems to be a part of my identity itself rather than something sincere…the irony of being an intense/obsessed actualist who most of the time was feeling driven and stressed rather than good.

Indeed I am still somewhat between how I used to be, and a new change that I feel is coming. It’s remarkable to experience this change towards feeling good more often happen. My health is also improving generally.

That being said, this intense Felix does come back. Today was an example of that (my post about fear) where I was sitting on my hands, and intending to feel good - but my lived experience was actually a huge amount of anxiety and fear. And what you say about “splitting” oneself is very apt, because at that point I’m becoming anxious that I’m feeling anxious - as well as the notions I mentioned of fears that I’ll never make it, that I’m not cut out for actualism, or that I’m wired “wrong”.

So this driven/controlled way of getting actualism to work, just clearly doesn’t work. It’s very self defeating because one feels one is trying one’s absolute hardest, and is only getting psychoemotionally punished in a way. Right now I’m feeling good and this anxiety is very hard to imagine - I can say feeling good is easy haha. But I know at the time it was not the case at all, it was distressing and I was up against a wall. I think throughout my time practising actualism I have had a fair whack of that sort of thing.

I am really keen to apply the approach you suggested of not objecting to these feelings when they come up. The feelings feel so wrong, to the point of making me feel physically ill/unhealthy, but I think it’s also because I am pushing them away from the moment I feel it (usually from the moment I wake up into it) and think “this feels wrong/bad”. It creates that kind of animal stampede effect, of trying to flee one’s own body. In the past to escape the stress I would pursue distraction/escapism which is where my addiction issues were happening.

There are a couple of other layers too. When I’m feeling bad or anxious, I start to worry that I’m a complete failure, that I’ve messed up my entire life, that I’ve been flailing with actualism for years, etc etc etc.

It makes me double down harder. I refuse to distract myself. I don’t express or repress. I sit in a room with nothing but looking at the feeling. It’s the “controlled” way again which does not work. Even if I say I’m going to feel good no matter what happens, it doesn’t get me there.

It’s a bit like those mindfulness people who get themselves all out of sorts mentally…though I wouldn’t say I’m dissociating…but still it feels very depressive and dysfunctional/unsafe.

So instead I let it go/give up, I go do something else, and in the course of a few hours and by interacting with others etc I get myself back to feeling good, in a natural/unforced way.

I find socialising is the best way for me to get back to feeling good - there is safety and confidence, compared to that very alone/anxious state I sometimes end up in.

Then when I’m feeling good like now, I treat myself much less harshly, I feel like it’s all going to work out probably, and that I’m all good. (I also feel good about myself).

I can laugh about it now haha but it’s a genuine habit this type of catastrophising.

Tonight by contrast it’s amazing how good I feel. It’s easy, I’m enjoying, and I feel flooded with good intention and optimism.

Can I ask you:

1. Why is it that sitting and saying “I’m going to feel good” doesn’t work? Is it a question of misaligned intent?

Once feeling good I can perpetuate it easily (by appreciating), but when feeling bad no amount of intent seems to get it to move.

Is it because one is escaping what one is, by seeing oneself as having feelings rather than being those feelings?

2. Regarding “being one’s feelings” - is it more important to try to be one’s feelings (rather than have them) at all times, regardless of what those feelings are? Or should you still have feeling good be the main focus?

What I’m getting at is - I have an intent to feel good come what may. I would very much like to do that. But I don’t trust that that intent is the right kind of intent, because I’ve already experienced a million times over that I’ve actually driven in the opposite direction to feeling good whilst ostensibly wanting so much to feel good.

I’m confused about intent and control - how to wilfully/skilfully go in the right direction while also not at all controlling what that is.

Or do you think that these questions constitute “map building”/strategy (ie non naïveté) and that just more affinity with feeling good ongoing will answer all these questions?

[Vineeto]

Felix: Hi Vineeto,
It’s great to hear from you. I know I tend to disappear sometimes, mainly because I want to make sure I’m making progress and not kidding myself diary entries etc. Thanks for the welcome back.
The messages and words in recent days on here have been amazing. I’m not sure if it was always like that and I just wasn’t “open” to it, but there seems to be a marvellous energy happening. People seem to be having fresh insights, and it’s great to read of @claudiu’s exciting trip to see Geoffrey.

Hi Felix,

You are welcome and I do understand that you disappear from time to time to work things out for yourself. I am delighted that the people on the forum are doing very well indeed.

Vineeto: You seemed to have used your time very successful, after a lot of trial and error, to finally succeed in finding “a game plan” which “doesn’t involve dissociation/ escape/ despair/ self-castigation/ further anxiety.”

Felix: Regarding this – indeed it’s incredible the degree to which one can get lost. For me, I have always been such a diehard actualist – but this seems to be a part of my identity itself rather than something sincere… the irony of being an intense/ obsessed actualist who most of the time was feeling driven and stressed rather than good.
Indeed I am still somewhat between how I used to be, and a new change that I feel is coming. It’s remarkable to experience this change towards feeling good more often happen. My health is also improving generally.

Indeed, this not only seems, but is in fact, “part of my identity itself rather than something sincere… the irony of being an intense/ obsessed actualist who most of the time was feeling driven and stressed rather than good”. It would be very beneficial if you renamed/ relabelled this part of your identity rather than giving it the self-confusing label of ‘actualist’, thus justifying the self-harming habit of blaming yourself, amongst other misconceptions.

Recognizing the feeling of intensity and being obsessed should be enough to alert you that you wandered off the wide and wondrous path whenever the “intense/ obsessed” old Felix appears on the scene, makes you feel bad (competition, having to prove something, putting yourself down) and actively works against the aim of actualism.

Therefore it is not only perfectly safe to decline obeying the demands of ‘old Felix’ (which are the commands taken on as a necessary survival strategy) but it is imperative to decline this (now redundant and harmful) habit each and every time it rears its ugly head –

Richard: It is important to comprehend that the aim, the goal, of actualism practice is the enjoyment and appreciation of being alive right now – at this very moment of being alive and not indefinitely postponed off into some indeterminate future – via the minimisation of both the malicious/ sorrowful feelings (the ‘bad’ feelings) and their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (the ‘good’ feelings) in concert with the maximisation of the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, and how that (affective) enjoyment and appreciation is the very actualist awareness in action (as distinct from the buddhistic mindfulness, for instance, which requires cognitive engagement). What this means in effect is that, because one cannot help but be aware, each moment again, of even the slightest diminution of that experiential awareness (of that very enjoyment and appreciation of feeling as felicitous/ innocuous as is humanly possible) via feeling it diminish, cognitive attentiveness can be freely applied to whatever one is engaged in doing, in one’s moment-to-moment daily life, be it earning a living, reading/ watching various media, studying for examinations, and so on, and so forth. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive)

Perhaps upon carefully reading what the aim of an actualist is you will recognize that your phantom “actualist”, the “intense/ obsessed” Felix is the very creation of ‘you’, the identity, endeavouring to survive another day and prevent you from freeing yourself from the shackles of real-world moralistic/ ethical beliefs and behaviour.

In actualism there is no need to be intense or obsessed because your motivation is derived from the sincere intent to imitate the actual (as experienced in the PCE).

Felix: That being said, this intense Felix does come back. Today was an example of that (my post about fear) where I was sitting on my hands, and intending to feel good – but my lived experience was actually a huge amount of anxiety and fear. And what you say about “splitting” oneself is very apt, because at that point I’m becoming anxious that I’m feeling anxious – as well as the notions I mentioned of fears that I’ll never make it, that I’m not cut out for actualism, or that I’m wired “wrong”.

Here is what I wrote to Chrono only yesterday –

Vineeto: … Most likely you have, like most feeling beings, been brought up to put yourself down, blame yourself first when something unexpected happens and then “splitting myself instead”. It is vital to recognize such habitual reaction and decline it each time it inveigles itself again. Nothing which affective attentiveness cannot fix when replaced with a more fortuitous and fruitful habit of patting yourself on the back for noticing it each time you catch it (a habit is best replaced with something better when you want to extract yourself from a destructive habit). (Vineeto, Chrono, 2 June 2025)

When you experience an intense ‘bad’ or ‘good’ feeling, first stop the automatic reaction of fighting the feeling as soon as you become aware. The rejection of the feeling adds to the affective energy of the feeling itself. By becoming aware of this automatic rejection the feeling of anger or fear will diminish in intensity instantly.

Also, as soon as possible, stop putting yourself down – you are doing something entirely new to human consciousness (and against all intuition to boot) and this is a challenging and exciting enterprise. One way of fighting the feeling is to blame yourself. It’s not so much that you are “not cut out for actualism” or that “I’m wired ‘wrong’” but that you need to ween yourself off from ineffective and harmful habits, which you call “actualism” to additionally confuse yourself.

Felix: So this driven/ controlled way of getting actualism to work, just clearly doesn’t work. It’s very self defeating because one feels one is trying one’s absolute hardest, and is only getting psycho-emotionally punished in a way. Right now I’m feeling good and this anxiety is very hard to imagine – I can say feeling good is easy haha. But I know at the time it was not the case at all, it was distressing and I was up against a wall. I think throughout my time practising actualism I have had a fair whack of that sort of thing.

It is vital to know that you cannot force/ will yourself to feel good by “intending to feel good”. That’s what I conveyed in my post to you yesterday with the quote from No. 60 starting with “It has taken me a hell of a long time …” (link).

Felix: I am really keen to apply the approach you suggested of not objecting to these feelings when they come up. The feelings feel so wrong, to the point of making me feel physically ill/ unhealthy, but I think it’s also because I am pushing them away from the moment I feel it (usually from the moment I wake up into it) and think “this feels wrong/bad”. It creates that kind of animal stampede effect, of trying to flee one’s own body. In the past to escape the stress I would pursue distraction/escapism which is where my addiction issues were happening.

Exactly – the moment you call it “this feels wrong/bad” you actively object, reject and fight the feeling. Instead you can acknowledge it as part and parcel of what you are, a feeling being genetically endowed with instinctual passions and it accompanying feelings. This very acknowledgement will not only diminish the “wrong/bad” feeling and enable you to get back to feeling reasonably good, it also allows you to recognize that you are this feeling in contrast to merely have the feeling. From this point to can choose which feeling you rather be. It is impossible to change the feeling by merely “intending to feel good” as long as the dissociation of having the feeling operates.

Felix: There are a couple of other layers too. When I’m feeling bad or anxious, I start to worry that I’m a complete failure, that I’ve messed up my entire life, that I’ve been flailing with actualism for years, etc etc etc.

Ah, the familiar habit of putting yourself down which makes you feeling even worse and more anxious.

Felix: It makes me double down harder. I refuse to distract myself. I don’t express or repress. I sit in a room with nothing but looking at the feeling. It’s the “controlled” way again which does not work. Even if I say I’m going to feel good no matter what happens, it doesn’t get me there.

See the red flag? Turn back, WRONG WAY.

Felix: It’s a bit like those mindfulness people who get themselves all out of sorts mentally… though I wouldn’t say I’m dissociating… but still it feels very depressive and dysfunctional/ unsafe.

You are dissociating as long as you (instinctively) feel you can will/ force yourself to feel differently. To summarize and repeat the above –

• 1. Stop fighting
• 2. Stop blaming yourself (that in itself should result in getting back to feeling good)
• 3. Stop calling this ‘doing actualism’
• 4. Acknowledge and become aware that you are your feelings (your genetic heritage which all feeling being share)
• 5. Be the feeling without rejection or blame or escaping
• 6. Choose to be a different feeling (such as feeling good)

Felix: So instead I let it go/give up, I go do something else, and in the course of a few hours and by interacting with others etc I get myself back to feeling good, in a natural/ unforced way.

There is a third alternative, you know? See above instructions and consciously apply those for a change (in the order as listed).

Felix: I find socialising is the best way for me to get back to feeling good – there is safety and confidence, compared to that very alone/anxious state I sometimes end up in. Then when I’m feeling good like now, I treat myself much less harshly, I feel like it’s all going to work out probably, and that I’m all good. (I also feel good about myself).
I can laugh about it now haha but it’s a genuine habit this type of catastrophising.

Well, it works in the short run but it does not prevent those very same feelings in their very intensity, and the very same reaction, again and again.

Felix: Can I ask you:

1. Why is it that sitting and saying “I’m going to feel good” doesn’t work? Is it a question of misaligned intent?

No, it’s a question of misaligned application.

Felix: Once feeling good I can perpetuate it easily (by appreciating), but when feeling bad no amount of intent seems to get it to move.
Is it because one is escaping what one is, by seeing oneself as having feelings rather than being those feelings?
2. Regarding “being one’s feelings” – is it more important to try to be one’s feelings (rather than have them) at all times, regardless of what those feelings are? Or should you still have feeling good be the main focus?

Yes, see point #4 but don’t try it/ will it/ force it before you have done step #1, #2 and #3.

Felix: What I’m getting at is – I have an intent to feel good come what may. I would very much like to do that. But I don’t trust that that intent is the right kind of intent, because I’ve already experienced a million times over that I’ve actually driven in the opposite direction to feeling good whilst ostensibly wanting so much to feel good.

Your intent is presently missing the harmless aspect – you keep harming yourself and possibly others in the process.

Felix: I’m confused about intent and control – how to wilfully/ skilfully go in the right direction while also not at all controlling what that is.

Control is the real-world tool to get what one wants/ intends. Affective attentiveness is the third alternative tool to reach one’s intent –

Richard: The intent is you will become happy and harmless. The intent is you will be free of sorrow and malice. The intent is you will become blithesome and benign. The intent is you will be free of fear and aggression. The intent is you will become carefree and considerate. The intent is you will be free from nurture and desire. The intent is you will become gay and benevolent. The intent is you will be free of anguish and animosity. (Richard, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness)

Felix: Or do you think that these questions constitute “map building”/ strategy (i.e. non naïveté) and that just more affinity with feeling good ongoing will answer all these questions? (link)

As I was trying to convey in this post is that you keep jumping ahead while ignoring the very first vital steps of the tools Richard provided on the wide and wondrous path to become happy and harmless.

Naiveté cannot flourish as long as you are habitually blaming yourself, don’t you agree?

Cheers Vineeto

[Felix]

Hey Vineeto - thanks for your detailed reply.

Yes you’re right, I essentially have had a strong masochistic streak and so my application of the method has been very self-punitive and anxiety ridden. Forced and not built on a sincere/benevolent intention.

But I am starting to undo those habits. I was curious as to how you would answer my questions, but it’s not because I was…making arguments in favour of that way of operating haha.

The intensity, shame and anxiety has been an elaborate survival strategy I think - and, as you point out, one that had utility in previous points of my life like childhood but not anymore.

I’ve also been looking at family stuff because aspects of my relationship with my family have helped perpetuate and reinforced some of those anxiety and self image problems.

But meanwhile, there is an adult functional me emerging and im enjoying discovering (or rediscovering) the fun of life.

Cheers, Felix

[Vineeto]

Felix: Hey Vineeto – thanks for your detailed reply.

Hi Felix,

You are very welcome, maybe read it again in a week’s time to see if you are applying all the details.

Felix: Yes, you’re right, I essentially have had a strong masochistic streak and so my application of the method has been very self-punitive and anxiety ridden. Forced and not built on a sincere/benevolent intention.
But I am starting to undo those habits. I was curious as to how you would answer my questions, but it’s not because I was… making arguments in favour of that way of operating haha.

I understand, it was for the purpose of labelling. But then the question is what to do about it once you know that.

Felix: The intensity, shame and anxiety has been an elaborate survival strategy I think – and, as you point out, one that had utility in previous points of my life like childhood but not anymore.

Yes, then you had no other choice but now you have. Consider it like an addiction and treat it as such – decline each instance of it.

Felix: I’ve also been looking at family stuff because aspects of my relationship with my family have helped perpetuate and reinforced some of those anxiety and self image problems.

I was aware of that but you had to find out for yourself. After all this is/was the environment where you developed this self-hating/ self-blaming addiction.

Felix: But meanwhile, there is an adult functional me emerging and I’m enjoying discovering (or rediscovering the fun of life).

Cheers, Felix (link)

That’s great to hear Felix, as Kuba quoted Richard yesterday –

Richard: “Do your own thing … but have fun; if you’re not having fun then, hell, stop doing it, something is wrong; if you’re not having fun, if you have to force yourself to go to work, if you’re unhappy, something is wrong”. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 14 Dec 2009)

Cheers Vineeto

[Felix]

I’ve started embarking on the “PCE walk” again - I think it’s been years since I was going that route emphatically.

I’m in a different position now, so it was a really interesting experience.

I’m going to start at the end, how I’m feeling now, and work back.

I’m currently experiencing a sensuous anonymity - much less in the way than my daily self. Awareness is dipping a lot deeper now, showing that the “shell” of me is wayyyyy more empty than I thought before.

My current “day to day” state is somewhat like - “ok I’m doing all the right things, im not chastising myself, im not pushing on experience, im not escaping, im not dissociating” - but still there is this sense of existential being mucking things up. A murkiness of fluctuating mood states that is definitely not as much attached to real world states anymore, but is nonetheless lurking there. It could also be caused by overactive mindfulness sort of dragging down my affective mood as well.

This was the fodder for my walk, to try to work out this discrepancy. Affective awareness was my main tool, simply noticing the kind of undulating feelings I was experiencing as I went along, as well as the mental chatter that accompanied them.

There was at first a sense of alienation - as if by even being on the walk I was leaving behind the “warmth” of humanity, the ostensibly protective tribe in which my social identity keeps its safe place. There was some …fear, or at least “coldness/alienation” type feeling. And it was literally cold and dark. I simply allowed these feelings and made no effort to change them .

At some points certain shifts happened. For example as I looked at houses, it was as if they took on a totally new aspect. Whereas suburbia usually blends together into a kind of television show backdrop that’s ignored, at this time it was only the one large house or two in my purview that was of interest. The houses seemed enormous, cars as well - and there was a creeping fairy tale like / toy village quality to my visual observations of people going about their evenings.

At times on the walk, the potential trade between selfhood and sensuous perfection made itself somewhat evident. This happened when I was trying the absolute least, such as when I took a break to pee. During that, as I observed the scene around, it was as if the light from a lamp post was penetrating my eye so absolutely that felt notions of me ebbed away. It was as if death was there - sensory death haha.

At other times, I had to make some effort to not get “caught” in the same mindsets that I used to generate on these walks - such as going into intensity, or having anxiety/fear take over etc. These were mostly easily dispatched though there is still a niggle of anxiety that sits in the background of these walks, cautious to properly
let go of the reins into utmost delight, wide eyed wonder etc. It’s like I still expect 1. for PCEs to be a serious activity, rather than something properly fun and freeing and 2. that the world is dangerous, and the actualist path is serious, requiring my effort to navigate it all.

I am just continuing to investigate, noticing these flavours that are coming through and attempting to penetrate the stygian nature of the psyche.

Through stillness and allowing myself to step out of social identity to a degree I can certainly see aspects of my usual identity (ones that look like “authenticity” from a real world perspective) instead las something ungenuine once stepped outside of.

All of that being said after I came back it was as if I was suddenly more still than ever before. Where I usually experience a practically unchanging background restleness, now I was starting to almost collapse into sensuous anonymity and stillness - as if going catatonic virtually.

One thing that came up was somewhat intuitively in one of the deeper micro moments was realising that actual freedom really is about death of the self. That’s how deep it goes - not rearranging deck chairs, but actual subverting the very nature of personhood itself.

[Felix]

There is something here too as I continue to investigate/contemplate

Even when I’m attempting to be my feelings, STILL there is a cunning dissociation and distancing.

It’s like I see myself as the puppeteer of my own mood states, looking down at my feelings through a microscope.

And therefore my application of the method is also disrupted/poisoned by this misunderstanding. To use another metaphor, it’s as if my attempt at the method is about trying to keep the ball of feeling good in the air. I am the one anxiously trying to keep the ball “where it needs to be”, rather than truly experentially understanding that my mood and me are literally one and the same. It’s me.

[Felix]

More contemplation in the shower.

Can I trade letting this moment live me - with my seriousness about trying to do (my version of) actualism.

Ie can I let this moment be fun, each moment again ; by dropping the habit of coopting every moment for it’s apparent utility in needing to achieve my aims as an actualist.

I think I can.

[Felix]

Another way to look at it - you can’t pop a few lawyers of identity or feelings and then expect to be automatically in a PCE.

In my case, I typically pop the bubble of normal social identity and usually end up in fear/anxiety.

But now I’m seeing that that’s just another bubble that then needs to be popped. That there is something totally fresh and vital and delightful right there for the experiencing if I become a clean lens for it.

//

This contemplation is going further into it always being now.

Of course the method is not about keeping a ball up. It’s so easy to turn the method into a kind of strategy that exists across time, so that when one feels bad one is planning to fix it in an imaginary future, and when one feels good it’s as if a past goal has been achieved.

Whereas, to use a singing analogy, you need to sing right on the note. You can’t scoop up to it from below or slide down from above. Either will sacrifice the purity of that note. And so same with having the method operate cleanly.

Of course I expect to get stuck in moods still, and there will be some sort of work to shift out of it. But that shouldn’t be the ongoing method. Once there is a current time awareness, it should not be allowed to get buried or lost so easily. It’s that ongoing, awareness-based, moment to moment felicity which drives things forward then.

[Vineeto]

Felix; I’ve started embarking on the “PCE walk” again – I think it’s been years since I was going that route emphatically.
I’m in a different position now, so it was a really interesting experience.
I’m going to start at the end, how I’m feeling now, and work back.
I’m currently experiencing a sensuous anonymity – much less in the way than my daily self. Awareness is dipping a lot deeper now, showing that the “shell” of me is wayyyyy more empty than I thought before.
My current “day to day” state is somewhat like – “ok I’m doing all the right things, I’m not chastising myself, I’m not pushing on experience, I’m not escaping, I’m not dissociating” – but still there is this sense of existential being mucking things up. A murkiness of fluctuating mood states that is definitely not as much attached to real world states anymore, but is nonetheless lurking there. It could also be caused by overactive mindfulness sort of dragging down my affective mood as well.

Hi Felix,

It’s great that you are tackling your habit of chastising yourself.

However, several things you have said in this post, and the next two messages, indicate that you are indeed still dissociating.

First, I like to let you know that a “PCE walk” is the invention of the ‘affers’, the people from Dharma Overground who have consistently attempted to marry their post-buddhistic practice with actualism (see Announcement). It is certainly not actualism –

Richard: This perpetual enjoyment and appreciation is facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible. And this (affective) felicity/ innocuity is potently enabled via minimisation of both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings. An affective awareness is the key to maximising felicity and innocuity over all those alternate feelings inasmuch the slightest diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation automatically activates attentiveness. Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity and innocuity. The habituation of actualistic awareness and attentiveness requires a persistent initialisation; (…) If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. (…) … one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood … usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most. (…) Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good … but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, This Moment of Being Alive).

“Mindfulness” is a practice of ‘noting’ and not “an affective awareness” – which in contrast to ‘noting’ is an awareness how you experience your feelings at this moment of being alive. Also, ‘noting’ stops at simply ‘noting’ what’s going on whereas with the actualism methods you pay attention to “slightest diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation” and do what it takes to get back to enjoyment and appreciation, as described above.

Then you talk about “overactive mindfulness sort of dragging down my affective mood as well”. Mindfulness, overactive or not, is not the actualism method either, it is mental/ cognitive not affective, and instructs you to just note and put it aside as noted or, in buddhistic practice as unsatisfactory (dukkha).

Fact is that in the perceptive process feelings come first and then there is a cognitive response (what you call “mindfulness”) unless one has trained oneself to suppress feelings –

Hence what is necessary for the actualism method (not your version of it) to work is to actually allow yourself to feel the feelings.

Felix: This was the fodder for my walk, to try to work out this discrepancy. Affective awareness was my main tool, simply noticing the kind of undulating feelings I was experiencing as I went along, as well as the mental chatter that accompanied them. (…)

When you say “try to work out this discrepancy” – which “discrepancy” are you talking about? “Simply noticing the kind of undulating feelings” is not the actualist affective awareness with the sincere intent to get back to feeling good, enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive as described above, and as such ineffective at best.

Felix: I am just continuing to investigate, noticing these flavours that are coming through and attempting to penetrate the stygian nature of the psyche. (…) (link)

Before it makes sense “to penetrate the stygian nature of the psyche”, you first have to abandon the habit of dissociating from your feelings so that you are able to get back to feeling good. Remember:

Richard: “… one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood … usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most.”

Perhaps it helps to remind you of what I wrote in my last post –

Vineeto: You are dissociating as long as you (instinctively) feel you can will/ force yourself to feel differently. To summarize and repeat the above –

1. Stop fighting
2. Stop blaming yourself (that in itself should result in getting back to feeling good)
3. Stop calling this ‘doing actualism’
4. Acknowledge and become aware that you are your feelings (your genetic heritage which all feeling being share)
5. Be the feeling without rejection or blame or escaping
6. Choose to be a different feeling (such as feeling good)

“Stop fighting” includes stopping dissociating. Notice dissociation and distancing, and pinpoint which feeling is dissociated from by stopping to fight this particular feeling. Only when you are no longer dissociating can you get back to feeling good, otherwise it is merely ignoration/ repression of the feeling.

Point 3: Stop calling this dissociation from feelings, “mindfulness”, doing “PCE-walk”, and an apparent “attempting to penetrate the stygian nature of the psyche” whilst still dissociating ‘actualism’ – it is not.

I am putting it so bluntly to save you more times of distress and going round in circles by using methodology which has nothing to do with the actualism method which is the key to get you out of your mess.

Felix: There is something here too as I continue to investigate/ contemplate.
Even when I’m attempting to be my feelings, STILL there is a cunning dissociation and distancing.
It’s like I see myself as the puppeteer of my own mood states, looking down at my feelings through a microscope.
And therefore my application of the method is also disrupted/ poisoned by this misunderstanding. To use another metaphor, it’s as if my attempt at the method is about trying to keep the ball of feeling good in the air. I am the one anxiously trying to keep the ball “where it needs to be”, rather than truly experientially understanding that my mood and me are literally one and the same. It’s me. (link)

Yes, that is a perspicacious and honest acknowledgement.

This dissociation is especially obvious when you describe what you call “looking down at my feelings through a microscope”. Other expressions are ‘keeping one’s feelings at arm’s length’, which is another euphemism for dissociation.

Even if you didn’t have official dissociation training such as vipassana, you nevertheless had learned to use it in your early life as a survival tactic with the result of having many feelings express themselves in psycho-somatic effects such as excessive stress.

I highly recommend Claudiu’s detailed and candid report of how he, eventually, successfully extracted himself from the habit of his learned dissociation –

Claudiu: Though I had noticed this in my own experience, I hadn’t formed it quite so succinctly in my mind. I noticed that, thanks to many months of training myself to do so following the advice written in MCTB and given to me by the DhO participants, is that I had reduced everything to physical sensations – touch, sight, sound, etc., with thoughts thrown in as well (though there was debate as to whether thoughts can also just be reduced to one of the five senses). Thus, when I felt something unpleasant in my body, or some persistent tension, the only recourse, meditatively, was to put my attention on it, and notice it as being ‘impermanent’ (that is, as according to MCTB, vibrating in real-time at a certain frequency), ‘not-self’ (that is, as according to MCTB, happening on its own without a ‘self’ involved), and ‘dukkha’ (that is, according to MCTB, unsatisfactory in some fundamental way). The affect itself is taken completely out of the picture. It is noticed, but it is noticed strictly as a physical sensation, and the solution is to do something about that physical sensation.(…) Thus there seems to be a tension with a weird and unknown cause because that very cause is something that one is denying exists. The tension is painful in and of itself but is made further painful by actively identifying it as unsatisfactory.
This naturally leads to aversion and one tries one’s hardest to make those sensations go away however one can, which ends up being an attempt to suppress the affect. (…)
The tensions were still there when I was not doing anything in particular, though, thanks to my aforementioned months of mental training. I found, though, that if I simply asked myself what the problem was, I would soon get an answer! I had noticed this before but it hadn’t quite hit home in the same way – whenever I felt that tension it simply meant that something was bothering me! It was remarkably difficult at first to figure out just what that was, though. The overwhelming unpleasantness of the physical tension made it hard to keep a cool head and actually look at what was going on. It was a fear of seeing what was actually wrong, likely because of the suppressive nature of the meditation I had been doing (even though I was self-describing it as not being suppressive). I found I thought of a metaphor wherein I had to undunk my head from my body in some intuitive way – to back off morbidly focusing on the physical sensations – to allow the affect to be felt.
This took some active doing but it was well-worth it. (…)
I still experience these tensions occasionally but now I’m actually able to say as much without causing the tension to arise/get any worse. Now I know that whenever something like that starts up, there’s simply something bothering me, and it’s just up to me to either sit down and figure out what it is on the spot, or, if I’m too tired or unwilling or lazy, to distract myself and put it off until later. The latter option is becoming less and less appealing as time goes on, however.
Richard: ‘Words cannot properly express just how much of a dastardly act it was for the affers to co-opt Actualism, subsume it under a tawdry facsimile of Buddhism (there have been no arahants for more than two millennia because of sectarianism), and thus unnecessarily perpetuate the suffering of humankind.
In eleven days time the direct-route, to the already always existing peace-on-earth, will have been available for three (3) years … and what do they do instead?
Go sit on a cushion, withdraw from the physical, induce altered states, ‘dark nights’, depressions, anxieties … there is even a jhana-jockey hospice being set-up to nurse the casualties.
‘Tis craziness run riot … utter madness’. (from Richard, Claudiu, 18 Dec 2012)

We talked about this before on the forum and you basically said it only partially applies to your own situation. Nevertheless I recommend reading it again with all possible (i.e. fascinated) attentiveness because I think a lot of this pattern is still operating and causing you distress and “seriousness” and a faulty interpretation of the actualism method.

Felix: Can I trade letting this moment live me – with my seriousness about trying to do (my version of) actualism.
I.e. can I let this moment be fun, each moment again; by dropping the habit of coopting every moment for its apparent utility in needing to achieve my aims as an actualist.
I think I can. (link)

You can try, of course. But I think you can only do this if you completely drop all aspects of “(my version of) actualism” and start afresh.

Cheers Vineeto