AdamH: Hey Vineeto, I managed to get back to feeling good by contemplating how, if it came down to it, I would sacrifice the things I feel that I’m protecting (namely my job) if it meant I could be perfectly and continuously naive. I also had a moment of realizing that underneath the fears about my job was the fear that I wasn’t likeable (which related to job insecurity, hence my fears about the ‘whims’ of my boss).
Hi Adam,
Chrono has just posted a report (link) that he was experiencing a similar fear of not being likeable and found other feelings lurking beneath that. It may give you some helpful or even applicable pointers.
Instead of “sacrifice the things I feel that I’m protecting” you can instead put everything on a preference basis –
Richard: The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that … it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry … or irritated … or even peeved, if that was possible. (Richard, AF List, No. 7, 27 Jan 1999).
Richard: I did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that … it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry … or even irritated … or even peeved. (Richard, List B, No. 12a, 16 Jul 1998)
And instead of wondering why other people do perhaps not like you, you can find out if you like yourself and if not why not. Is there perhaps a bad feeling lurking in the dark that you want to keep hidden, hidden from yourself? Something which perhaps requires some bright light of awareness? Something you can do something about with sincere intent to be happy and harmless?
AdamH: Now that I am feeling better and contemplating your suggestion, I definitely think it has some validity. Once I started hijacking the naivete I started feeling insecure about it continuing, and started being oversensitive to other people’s reactions to me. This instantly created a cycle where I became more disingenuous trying to get people to like/ value me, which because it had the opposite effect eventually lead to me giving up in a state of self-pity. Anyways, I’m now just tuning into the ‘inherent’ value of being naive, rather than what it gets for me. I’m not quite there but I’m peering over at the state of ‘gay abandon’ and trying to work up the daring to get back to it and let things take care of themselves, let life live me, and give up on the careful control and manipulations. It’s still a little hard to believe everything won’t fall apart though. (link)
You see, you can’t make naiveté happen, you can only allow yourself to be more naïve, in this moment – it is something outside the domain of the ‘controller’. It happens when you allow life to happen, not have it ‘your’ way. Hence a good way to start is to put everything on a preference basis, give up control a little – and don’t expect everything to happen at once (like a big leap to “the state of ‘gay abandon’”) – that again would be the opposite of being naïve.
You can experiment when doing nothing in particular for a while, and not know what is going to happen next, feeling a bit foolish perhaps, that’s ok, then a bit more of that, allow the objections and recognize the silliness, then get back to feeling good. Just explore what happens without plans how it should turn out …
Cheers Vineeto