Ian's Journal

This is awesome! It made me think back to the conversation recently in @Felix’s diary about feelings becoming (seemingly concrete) ‘states’. How is it that a passing feeling of sadness can solidify itself into a depression and remain so for years.
Interesting that once these ‘states’ develop they will become somewhat of a “self fulfilling prophecy” in that ‘I’ will eventually believe that it is something completely outside of ‘my’ influence. This may be backed up by the fact that those ‘states’ begin to cause physical symptoms.

Not only have ‘I’ felt this way as long as ‘I’ can remember but ‘I’ seem to feel this way no matter what ‘I’ do, then furthermore the body itself begins to experience the outcomes of this prolonged feeling. ‘I’ become a victim to this thing that is now experienced to be outside of ‘me’, cunningly projected ‘out there’ into the ‘physical world’, the end product being that ‘you can’t change human nature’, that ‘life is a vale of tears’ etc.

It is interesting that the beliefs I mentioned in @roy’s journal can cement this thing even further, by believing that it is our “faulty brain” that is the cause of this ‘state’ ‘I’ end up completely hiding ‘my’ involvement and unfortunately by doing so ‘I’ also throw away the possibility for change. Then only ‘change’ can involve trying to escape from this painful cell that has been created, into delusion as per spirituality or the more everyday addictions and self destructive behaviours.

As I wrote to @Felix :

It seems to me that these ‘states’ are basically the end products of a completely failed system of dealing with one’s emotions. One is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

And you have demonstrated the method that works! :grinning: Which is 180 degrees opposite to the above approaches, because it is not about forgetting ‘my’ involvement and eventually projecting it into ‘something else out there’. No it is in the other direction, into seeing that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, in doing so this whole mess described above is progressively cut through until ‘you’ arrive at the seeing that :

That is so awesome, so there was a feeling but due to ‘my’ need to define and delineate ‘myself’ ‘I’ eventually turned this into a belief system - “‘I’ am the kind of person that…”. Those beliefs then held the feeling in place and would continue to do so unless the whole play is exposed for what it is.

How incredible, I wonder if something similar happens at ‘my’ complete dissolution, there are all these pins that keep ‘me’ in place, I wonder if at the moment of ‘self’-immolation it is all seen to collapse due to never having had any genuine structure to begin with other than ‘my’ belief. That ‘I’ only sustained ‘my’ painful existence due to ‘my’ belief.

2 Likes