Ian: I’m mishandling actualism. I recognise today that a part of me wants to be successful with actualism as a way to be lovable vs as a way to be free… applying actualism to be perfect and thereby avoid shame… to be worthy/ loved/accepted because I can’t be accused of self centred arrogance, and/or can’t be affected by shame. Good to recognise.
Vineeto: Excellent to recognize it – now you can be on the look-out should it turn up again.
Does your action of publicizing this significant discovery on the forum indicate a conscious choice to pursue actualism as your priority?
Ian: Actualism has been the ultimate goal since I had a PCE before finding the actual freedom website - whether it has always been number 1 priority is kind of a two part thing. It’s always the underlying thing, every experience gets analysed whether badly or well through the lens of actualism. I haven’t had a lot of success with enjoying and appreciating consistently (aside from a few weeks here and there where for some reason it all seems easy) but that doesn’t mean it’s not the ultimate goal. Hopefully this latest realisation will help me actually make progress. […]
The thing is I have been wanting to get to the bottom of why I feel so continuously stressed for years and I have recently cottoned on to the fact that it is less about completion of tasks (at work for example) and almost entirely about whether I feel accepted in the group. The completion of tasks is how I maintain acceptance. It seems like such a big pervasive network of beliefs that I am not sure where exactly to look. […]
Hi Ian,
It seems to me that presently the actualism method is contraindicated because as yet you do not want to feel good for its own sake so it won’t be very successful to practice it right now.
To start with, a more practical approach would be, instead of trying to attain acceptance from everybody and their dog, for you to realize that the only person you can change is yourself. As a rational consequence you can ask why do you not accept yourself / why do you not like yourself. (It’s very difficult to make other people like you when you do not like yourself).
A first and most obvious answer is (and very common answer in fact for those honest enough to admit it) – that there is resentment – resentment of being here, of having been born in the first place and resentment for the way things are in general. It goes hand-in-glove with the belief that life is inherently bad.
Here is what Richard had to report about it – perhaps it works for you as well –
What is at the bottom of all this disapproving business is a basic resentment at having to be here in the first place (as in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ for example) and that fundamental grievance gets taken out on the universe at large.
And for as long as ‘I’ am out to prove that life sucks (by being miserable and malicious) and that being here is the pits there is no way ‘I’ am going to be happy and harmless as to do so would be to betray ‘my’ most basic feeling about it all.
I kid you not – it was one of the first things ‘I’ realised all those years ago – yet there is a simple way to be done with such nonsense forever. Viz.:• [Richard]: ‘In 1980, ‘I’ , the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the world – and the universe itself – was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the ‘wisdom’ of the world ‘I’ had inherited – the real world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free … ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly … the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! (pages 240-41, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).
You will see that this is a far cry from being ‘more neutral’ about it all. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 30 September 2003)
I also recommend other examples from the Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Resentment.
Once you identified resentment and decline to nurse this futile and ineffectual feeling any longer, then wanting to feel good cannot be far away.
Cheers Vineeto