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.