The biggest thing that’s happened in the last month or so has been an emphasis on continuity of feeling happy and harmless. I realized that my general practice had been to spend time reacting to things that upset me for a while before eventually trying to get back to feeling good, rather than immediately trying to get back to feeling good.
This seemed like valid actualism practice, even though I was aware that I wasn’t doing it perfectly I thought this was a good way to make incremental progress. The problem with this approach was that it basically allowed me to stop making any progress in the direction of self-immolation, because I could compartmentalize myself and my feelings into short periods of time and create a safe space for ‘me’ there. Making it my actual goal (rather than a distant future goal) to be happy and harmless continuously is clearly so much more confrontational of myself, I actually have to change now if that is going to be my goal.
I think my practice is definitely in the best place it’s ever been, and I can relate much better to things I’ve read on the AFT site. I’m also closely observing the emphasis on not creating new maps and just focusing on maintaining the happy and harmless feelings, the holiday atmosphere, as steadily as possible. In terms of actually doing something about the human condition, it’s clear that this is the only way to put my money where my mouth is.
Where I still get off track is when I want to ‘be somebody’, somebody important. It’s clear how I still have a competing motivation to be recognized, especially in my career and work, and that keeps me from more wholeheartedly committing. I think that by fully acknowledging this and sensibly evaluating ‘will this motivation deliver the goods?’ it is losing some influence.