John

[John]

I have tried to become an good actualist. I have really tried to apply the method (on and off) these past years with quite poor results. The only noteable results happened about one year ago, after having spent many days really trying to get into an experience of “enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive” and to feel good. I had sucess… for a few days everything was new and exciting and I came to feel really good. I even for a brief moment touched upon the state of feeling excellent (very felicitious and innocious feelings). It was just so crazy to be going on an ordinary walk, to feel like this, together with this thought coming out of nowhere: “This is fun!”. I can’t recall having felt anything similar ever before in my life!

Of course I was expecting more… alot more… but then everything started going downhill instead … old forgotten spiritual beliefs emerged out of nowhere, like dark clouds on the horizon, and as this thunderstorm later was upon me in it’s full force - I was thrown into an abyss of fear and dispair.

In discussions with Craig I finally broke this viscious cycle and got back on my feet, feeling somewhat ‘normal’ again. But that’s it… There hasn’t been any more happy happy days. There’s no longer any particular enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of beng alive and I have not even come close to anything which resembles what I came to feel one year ago. The worst part this past year has been the loss of motivation… the kind of motivation I had those glorious summer days… as when at the pool, I felt like this big kid, playing and enjoying the magical fluid surronding me.

I have no motivation… I just can’t bring myself to even try for a second, to get back to that happy place again. I can’t get myself back upon the horse. I have zilch motivation left to work towards that ever again - no matter how lovely it was. I just don’t care anymore for what I did back then… nor the results produced there by. I have really tried to the best of my ability these past years… but in all sincerity… I have simply failed… Now… I can’t even bring myself to try any more. All motivation is gone. Instead I’m slowly reverting back to my old ways. A life of indulgence in my appetites, where I mindlessly go about my day - watching youtube, playing computer games, doing whatever I feel like etc. - thus being little attentive to anything.

I am everything that an actualist is not supposed to be. I’m most definately everything that YOU do not want to be. A complete failure.

I don’t care anymore… I don’t even care about trying to understand the method nor any other actualist lingo connected to it: “What am I going to investigate today?” - geoffrey (zoom-video). I certainly don’t care about any investigations. I never got to understand how to go about investigating anything nor did I ever have the stanima to “think things through”. I acctually found it utterly boring - this attempt of trying to pounder upon my own uninteresting stuff. No, I don’t care and I’ll never try to investigate anything ever again. But lo and behold! Still I had an investigation going yesterday and it happened all by itself:

"This incident today was so out of the ‘ordinary’ (though the word isn’t backed up by feeling like having a ‘wow-factor’ to it.). I woke up this morning… and for some reason I found myself starting to reflect upon my dead mother.

It’s kind of interesting since I never think of my mother and really don’t remember how I experienced her, since she died when I was eight years old. I guess my trip to Finland one week ago and there meeting with my aunt (whom I hadn’t seen for 40 years) and us discussing our past together - somehow had paved way for these early morning contemplations of mine.

Anyways… tears began flowing and I found myself crying this deep heartfelt cry, a phenomena that could have lasted for a long time, judging by my history of sadness and strong emotion (I’m certainly no alpha male lol). I wished for her to be alive, I wished I had known her and I just felt so sad about missing out on a person whom I had loved so much etc.

Suddenly… I was as if interrupted… I just stopped in the middle of what I was doing… just like that… when this wordless realization came upon me. I’m not even sure how to translate this ‘knowing’ into words, but it had all to do with the fact that I was acctually crying about a person that don’t exist; didn’t exist; and has never existed in the first place. The high regard and love towards this person, my mother, wasn’t actual and thus the need to cry simply vanished."

Now what hope is there for someone like me when there’s no motivation at all to get back on the path I was walking upon? Have I sort of given up? Do I sound like a broken man - ready to throw it all away and call it nonsense?

No!

I simply don’t care about silly ‘motivation’, ‘drive’ and the act of ‘trying’. I don’t care at all… Because I have intent…. No longer does it matter if I feel good or bad nor where I’ll go. Because I have intent. This intent is with me in every experience and thus in whatever feeling I live through. Good or bad feelings? I care not. Because I have intent. Is it pure intent? I don’t know what that is since I have no significant experience of this ‘palpable lifeforce’. I don’t care if it’s pure or even dirty. Because I have intent. I don’t even care if I’m attentive to feelings through HAIETMOBA or if forgetfullness has me slipping back into my old ways (which happens way more frequently than not). Because I have intent. As soon as I notice that I have gone 'off track (forgetfullness) I feel back ‘on track’ again (attentive) as if I had never fallen of the track in the first place! I will make no difference between these different ‘modes of being’ because I am all modes… I am… whenever aware or unaware… I am… whenever attentive or unattentive. I always am am am… and thus I have decided to bring all of this, the good and the bad, under the umbrella of my intent. I have decided that the TOTALITY of myself is going to be a part of this intent. This one and only intent.

TO BECOME HAPPY AND HARMLESS - COME WHAT MAY!

[Andrew]

Wow.

I actually relate to what you have written John.

My last 4 voice notes today;,

Motivation

Feminine Energy

Compassion

Someone Special.

I was questioning how I have zero motivation to do anything at all. I am a talented guy, a house full of toys, but zero motivation. Even for normal things.

I saw that I had a lot a feminine energy. I want to be looked after. I then saw that I couldn’t leave anyone behind, I want everyone to be understood. Then I saw that I wanted someone special. Someone to help.

I understand your tears. Though, judging purely on what you wrote, it seems you blocked out the grief via some actualism inspired belief.

Your mother exists as surely as you do. And while we may work with the premise that nothing in the real world is actual, it doesn’t sound to me that you truly let the sadness work itself through.

Apologies if this is too forward. I am open to having a chat via voice or video, as I think that we have something in common that would be beneficial to discuss.

Cheers

[claudiu]

Funny thing of actualism … once a certain switch has been flipped, no matter how hard one ‘tries ’ to give it up, one finds oneself doing it anyway!! it just makes too much sense not to do it lol.

[John]

This sentence is so funny!

@Andrew

Your mother exists as surely as you do.

Fuck this is news to me Andrew! Amagad! What the hell!? Now don’t tell me that you happened to see her while being over at the grocery store!?

Thanks for the invite to discuss this further. But I’m a lost case man. Don’t even bother. But I’m most sure there are other souls out there for you to save.

[Andrew]

Haha, well maybe we can start our own “lost case” sub-chapter of actualism.

Just because people die, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Did you actually know for a fact that is the case?

I have heard and read it all before. People turn actualism into a belief system and repress their own feelings.

What I mean, without contradiction, is that as long as you are a feeling being, she exists. My family members who are dead, also exist.

The real world is real. Very very real. Why would you stop crying? Because you don’t exist? Who was crying then? Who stopped?

[Andrew]

In your response, telling me to go save someone else, I am seeing anger.

In your lack of motivation, I am seeing depression. Which is a deep deep sadness.

Forget whether people exist or not, and feel it out.

I don’t doubt you had something stop you crying. Something which you have chosen to see as an actualism revelation.

I did the same.

In 2017 when my second brother suicided, I cried spontaneously with depth at his casket, but nothing much else. It took 5 years to cry for the first brother. I am not free of the grief of losing 4 family close to me. It’s not something that anyone is designed to handle. Depression is the bodies way of protecting itself from the broken entity within it. If the grief really comes out, uncontrolled, as it has for me, suicidal feelings are felt.

I appreciate your post and your sharing. It reminds me of me. We are not lost cases though. Just those who may have to walk a bit further.

[John]

Wow, so argumentative, always so argumentative Andrew.

I know that you’d like nothing else but to have me laying on your ‘sofa of freudian psychoanalysis’ but I find this approach extremely boring and speculative at best. In fact, where you want us to relate:

Wow. I actually relate to what you have written John.

And to have us pounder upon in togetherness, I left behind… after it had happend… and that was the day before yesterday - I think? I thus have no care in the world about that particular incident which you want us to keep arguing about.

Why would you Andrew want us both to cling onto this past junk of mine? I think my old garbage is best left alone… Why don’t you? Perhaps you like to be stuck in the past; to be stuck in sadness and greif, because it all feels so real? If that is the case and if you’re really prone to this type of behaviour - I can most definately relate to that. You see, I once cried my heart out on a daily basis for 2,5 years. And In relation to your words in the quote below: Do you Andrew think I back then “let the sadness work itself through”?

it doesn’t sound to me that you truly let the sadness work itself through.

To give you an hint: I’d be dead by now if I had waited for it to “work itself through”. As a matter of fact: I was acctually driven by your kind of thinking here! I have acctually lived your kind of thinking… I know it by heart. I waited… and I waited… I didn’t want anything but to die, but I thought that I just had to be patient and let myself cry… so I kept waiting… for so long I waited for the sadness to be done and over with… I remember being so scared of repressing the bottomless sorrow aching within my heart, but there simply was no end to it… no end at all… Another more simple example would be, that of my dead cat. I cried my heart out for this cat. Then I felt done greifing. But the funny thing here, was that I sometimes would revisit the memory of my dead cat during the years that went by - just to grief every time it happened! Perhaps when eight years had transpired, since it’s death and I once again found my self getting choked up and about to start crying to the memory of my cat… I felt that enough is enough… and stoped crying about the damn dead cat.

Anyways, I’m neither worried about the subject of repression nor the act of repression. I am repression and I tend to indulge in this life long habit more often than not. Who cares? Now if what I know for a fact to have been an event of ending belief, wasn’t a fact but what you call repression:

“It will crop up again, life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.” - Richard (PCE-video)

But I won’t try explaining to you why this acctually was an event of ending belief. Because if you haven’t seen it already, such an attempt of mine wouldn’t be about explaining the facts to you. To you… it would seem like I was doing what you so often seem satisfied indulging in:

Argumentative speculation

One thing I’d like to give you though… is that my choice of words (in the attempt to describe this wordless relalization) could have been poorly choosen and thus might have inadequately described the actual event - thus somewhat missleading you in your argumentative assumptions, of what you think did happen to me. If so I apologize.

Let me make a pause here… because this is most interesting: What is it that brought you here? Why did you pretend to care? What is it about you and this subject? What are you really up to? Fascinating stuff, but not for me to pounder upon.

Anyways and again: I just didn’t know how to properly describe this wordless realization that had me stop right then and there… never too look back… With that said, I can’t have myself caring much about the below questions of yours:

The real world is real. Very very real. Why would you stop crying? Because you don’t exist? Who was crying then? Who stopped?

No. These speculative questions of yours matters not at all to me… I get so bored and tired of myself each time I try to speculate. I have tried. But I truly suck at speculation and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn this art from you no matter how much you keep trying to teach me.

[claudiu]

For me it was seeing that no matter how much I may grieve or sorrow , the universe continues on, completely unabated , as a factual matter. It doesn’t ‘stop’ just because one person died , no matter what they meant to me … i was angry at this, it felt so unfair , but then I saw that I literally was wanting the universe to halt , everyone and everything stop what it’s doing and bow down to my grief , literally worship my exalted grief … and that was the ending of said grief for me! The silliness of it just clicked into place. The ending of the grief was equivalent to and not separate from the seeing of it as silly. A wordless realization as you say

[Andrew]

Fair enough John, kudos on the use of bold text. I am yet to work that one out.

I was happy to read the post, and have no issues with misinterpreting your writing or you misinterpreting my intentions. That’s why I wanted to chat. It seemed very synchronous that I was thinking and feeling about the very same subjects.

I am glad that it wasn’t some spontaneous repression, but a genuine end to the grief. That’s encouraging news for anyone dealing with grief including myself.

[John]

I… experienced alot of sadness today as I will not be seeing this woman anymore and whom I’m secretly in love with. I cried and felt very bad this afternoon after getting home from work.

Nothing unusual here… sadness in connection to unrequited love is my thing…

Letting whatever feeling work it self through, had me later wanting to go to the gym and to work out a little. This willingness of wanting to go to the gym is noticeable. Usually when I feel depressed - I become passive and ‘physical activity’ would be the first thing that I’d drop. I have noticed this pattern these past weeks; that I’m able to function and to act more sensible (not act out) even while being in the midst of my own bad mood. I don’t seem to get draged down by myself as much anymore and thus making things even worse.

While at the gym… I suddenly had this realization which almost had me start crying out of sheer happiness… For a brief second, I realized how nice it felt just to be my feelings (crazy huh?) and to have every feeling just run it’s course without my constant interference; ‘checking’ my mood; analyzing, judging, expecting, criticizing, blaming… and so on and so forth. It just felt so nice to have this break from ‘myself’ and to let myself feel whatever I want to feel.

I felt sort of free…

My realization in connection to my ‘smoking anecdote’ was that I acctually want to feel whatever I feel (as I wanted to smoke even though I considered it bad at the same time). I am a feeling being… and thus I want to feel and I need to let myself feel - even if this means mostly feeling bad. I must be utterly sincere in feeling bad. Whatever desire or the tiniest inkling of wanting to change how I feel - tells me that the purity of my sincerity has been lost (I feel this too, of course, not making a fuzz about lacking sincerity. ).

This is what I do. I do nothing… Just letting myself feel whatever I want to feel… and it’s not really a ‘letting’ myself feel either, since this word indicates that I’d also be a sort of passive observer to the feeler and whatever is felt (splitting myself up): “I am my feelings and my feelings are me.” more than ever and would perhaps be the simplest way to express it.

Because when I’m fully my feelings (to the best of my current ability) it’s like there’s only ‘me’ and no ‘I’. There’s no past and there’s no future and there’s nothing outside of me… oneness?.. in these moments of being. There’s nothing else for me to do… but to accustom myself futher to this process of being my feelings… more and more… Even if not much is going on, and even if I continue to experience mostly bad feelings in different degrees:

I feel sort of ‘positive’… erm… as in being ‘on track’?

[John]

SADNESS
Yep. Another day of sadness… At the begining of the day I found myself listening to music related to the memory of this woman whom I also love and of course - I was sobbing. I love at least three women… deeply… What a fucking mess. After that I started crying intensely when the thought hit me that I’m to just feel:

“until it’s time for me to leave.”

Later this afternoon… I connected with another woman on one of these dating apps and for some reason this now had my inner kingdom in complete disarray. The emotional turmoil was just really bad henceforth; after chatting back and forth… I still managed to get out for an evening walk, which was nice. Here I got to laugh twice for reasons I don’t remember. The walk was done with almost full attention to this moment of being alive and even if this deep felt sadness in the ‘background’ hasn’t left me for the whole day - the walk was still relaxing and very pleasant indeed (enjoyable).

This is just basic human stuff and nothing to read about really. But I want to imagine that if I’m ever successful in this endavour of becoming “Happy and Harmless” it might be helpful for those sad souls who never could imagine themselves becoming happy (Haha, as they say in school: “No one left behind.”).

I’m certainly one of these miserable bastards. Perhaps I pitty myself?

[John]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmQmepDPg6I

Here’s an example of one of the depressive tunes that’s being played in my headphones throughout the days. It should definately capture the state of my current mood.

It’s me in the picture.

[Miguel]

@John

This is just basic human stuff and nothing to read about really. But I want to imagine that if I’m ever successful in this endavour of becoming “Happy and Harmless” it might be helpful for those sad souls who never could imagine themselves becoming happy

The forum is ultimately intended to be just that: a record of how various human beings in various circumstances over various periods of time can improve their lives to various degrees through AF.

So this kind of experience you are writing about is indeed human stuff, about which it may indeed be good for someone to read.

I myself have been both the writer and, many years later, that reader. So right now I am a mostly happy reader who often wrote believing that it would never be possible to be happy.

[John]

I was watching geoffreys zoom video for the first time in many months. I have watched this video countless of times before (mainly during my peak interest of applying the method in the summer of 2021.) but this time was the first time when I no longer could relate to some of the things that were said by geoffrey.

Before… it was like I could relate to everything, even though I hadn’t had the experience (or very limited ‘peeks’) of things that were talked about. What was even more weird was that I at one or more occasions experienced it - as if what I’m personally doing - isn’t even in alignment with what he was saying or perhaps even going against it! That’s how it felt… and for a brief moment a sense of fear came over me:

The fear of having walked astray.

It was just so weird, because I thought that I’d always be able to lean on the actually free person and his words - as a point of reference. But as of now… and when this belief is gone, I no longer even have them as a sort of guiding light.

I have been walking in other people’s shoes. I have been reading other people’s maps. But as it seems… I’m now on my own… on a path into the unknown.

I’m curious of where my feet will lead me…

[Andrew]

@John

I’m curious of where my feet will lead me…

I have been thinking this quite literally when walking, and as a metaphor.

It’s like my feet are so far from the ‘action’ in my head and heart, that they are somehow closer to the actual world.

They are certainly very down to the ground.

As a metaphor too. It pretty easy to spot when I have a “foot in both camps” or more accurately, both feet in the ‘normal’, and a toe in actualism.

The striking thing is that when one’s feet are metaphorically both in the feel good actualism camp, all the rules don’t apply. There isn’t anyone to tell me what to do now.

My feet are a reminder of the decision to feel good, each moment again.

[John]

Yesterday afternoon after work I wrote in my own diary:

“Exciting to see if I’ll make contact with the sadness of the abyss now that I’m off work for the weekend. I have felt better these past days, really ok acctually.”

I have just noticed that when I’m not occupied with the routine of everyday life, it starts to creep upon me - which was what happened today in the afternoon. Oh, yeah it also seems to be connected with another failure to make contact with this woman - because I’m just odd. It’s like I need these failures to poke a hole in old wounds… that never seem to heal…

I had to take a walk in the evening now since I really struggled to be my feelings. On my walk initially I felt very frustrated that I have yet to overcome this sadness:

“Why is this sadness still going on!?”
“why, why why!?”

It really took some time for me to see that I’m still fightning these feelings - that I don’t want to be them. That I’d like to escape to the fairy tale land of an actual freedom or some other fluff. I also just felt so worthless:

“How am a person like myself ever going to make it?”
“I might just kill myself.”

It took me an even longer time to calm down in my frustration/confusion and to be these feelings. When I after almost an hour got to that point, it was if the dark clouds opened up and on the night sky there were now small specks of lights… it was still dark… but the light from the stars… now had me feel a bit comfortable in my own misery.

Everything just wasn’t as dark anymore…

I mean it’s one thing to feel happier and happier and to be these feelings, but it’s another thing to fully be one’s darkest moments… and that’s what I’m up against. It just doesn’t make sense that someone interested in actualism has to do this, but I guess the traumas & difficulties of my life seem to have shaped me into some sort of gloomy ghoul - and this ghoul (my feelings) I must be, be, be.

It’s like I’m climbing this terrible moutain and going through all kinds of hardships along the way… I musn’t lust or want to be anywhere but here (my feelings). I musn’t dream and try to see the moutain peak, shrouded among the clouds. I must keep my head down and immerse myself fully in the cold, in the rain, in the storm, in the aching of my wounded hands, in the soreness of every muscle in my body.

I must be this moment of being alive.

I have no clue to whenever I’m doing this right or not… I don’t think it matters much either… as long as I keep climbing.

I feel a bit ashamed writing about my struggles since I’d rather write about having success. Also I have this feeling that I don’t want to pollute this place with my ‘negativity’. More than anything I fear to be ‘wrong’ in the eyes of you all. But it is what it is.

I’d like to end this post on positive note: I just can’t see myself ever wanting to stop the ‘climb’. There’s something about the climb itself, that is intriguing even if I feel awful at times.

[John]

Laying on my sofa doing nothing I had this insight:

That my thoughts are now going to be used as cues to me being occupied with escaping this moment of being alive - that I’m acctually fleeing whatever I’m feeling right now just by thinking alone!

I mean all of my thoughts are just utter nonsense, fantasies & mindgames, that I’m occupied with and most rarely (if ever lol) I’m thinking about an actual problem! This insight is really big and it will most likely have me even further immersed in this moment of being alive!

There’s no reason to think. No reason at all.

/The Ghoul

[Andrew]

@John

I’ve spent more moments sitting on the edge of that abyss wondering why I can’t get rid of it than I care to remember.

What came up a few months back was that the abyss itself is a belief.

The sadness etc are all there, but it doesn’t have actual depth. Everything in the psyche feels like it is a something, and we have all sorts of metaphors built-in by default, religion, society etc.

A few weeks back you made a pronouncement that you were going to feel good come what may.

There is another way of putting which Richard often uses, and I noticed it when I was working trying to get a report together of the trip I did to visit them 5 years ago.

Here is the excerpt;

"All that is needed to start, as it turns out, was what Richard said 10 days later at the airport “Feel good, each moment again”.

Well, that and apparently 10 years of drama to understand that was the whole point. As Vineeto comments on the AFT, " when one sets the intention to do this, one will have the drama needed, until one has had enough of it"

…

I started above with the single most important thing said as they turned to get back in their car;

“Feeling good, each moment again”

My notes from 5 years later;

There is actually a very subtle and important message in the grammar Richard has used here .

Each moment again.

It’s not “feeling good all the time”. That is subtly different. It implies that there is this big continuous “time” and the goal is to fill it with feeling good. Like a marathon, but no way to know how far it goes.

Each moment again, implies a decision too.

It implies a distinct, repeated action. It’s not a slog, an endurance, a chore which takes “time” to succeed.

It’s a moment of feeling good. Done again and again.

Richard has noted that “This moment has no duration”. It’s the same moment happening again, it’s not going anywhere, and it’s happening now.

The statement implies a continuous “fresh start”. Which he also states elsewhere, “Hey presto! Another opportunity to feel good”."

I will share the whole thing at some point, right now I am using it to process a lot of feelings and beliefs that arose but we’re never examined.

In a way, you are turning “being your feeling” into a method outside of what Richard meant by it.

You already are your feelings. It’s not a technique, it’s a premise and report from Richard that this is a fact of the psychological/ psychic self.

So, trying to be the sadness to get rid of the sadness is redundant. The sadness will go when you go.

Have you watched the download video excerpt on this page where Richard talks with Pamela about this exact point?

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/method.htm

In the meantime the method is to get back to feeling good. The advice that has been around for a while is don’t set your sights too high. Feeling good starts with the answer one might give in polite conversation “How are you?” “I am good, thanks” Ordinary, down to earth, and not hard to find.

The deep stuff won’t go away by focusing on one premise of actualism whilst ignoring the repeated on nearly every page exhortation in one guise or another commitment to feeling good.

The cool trick lately is there is a difference between the commitment and the outcome.

One can remember that commitment and drop whatever thoughts and rumination, and one is in fact back to feeling good in the ordinary, water-cooler “How are you Larry” kind of way.

From there, one can gently let something of what is automatically going to come back ( the previous thoughts, feelings, abyss whatever).

Something better will happen in your thinking in that first minute.

Then, you will start to feel less than good.

Stop and remember the commitment.

One is then feeling good again.

Then the thoughts and feelings return. One can get a few quality minutes of decent insight thinking in before blame, one-sided victim stuff, regret, resentment tinged thinking returns.

Stop and remember the commitment.

One is then feeling good again.

Then carry on.

Over the last while, I have done this exact thing for 3 or 4 hours at a time. Found myself in tears over the tragedy that my ex-wife and I never got even the entree to the love dream. Feeling that sadness was important, because all I had ever felt was anger and blame with a of course I wasn’t perfect tacked on the end.

[Andrew]

Making that moment to moment decision to return one’s thinking back to that ordinary “feeling good, thanks” place.

All the issues will return in seconds, but the difference is your thinking is now closer to your native intelligence, and in doing this, that place in your mind has the high ground.

Make the issues come to a feeling good you, don’t go to them and become a feeling bad you.

One of these works in hours to sort something out, one of these never works at all.

[Elgin]

@John

That my thoughts are now going to be used as cues to me being occupied with escaping this moment of being alive - that I’m acctually fleeing whatever I’m feeling right now just by thinking alone!

It’s not really thinking that is the problem, but the thinking self. The thinking self or Ego/SI often tries to interfere with your feelings, tries to moderate or manipulate them constantly.

This distinction is important, because you will need thinking to connect the right dots and end beliefs, false concepts etc. Otherwise they will go on forever and a day.

But I get what you want to convey here.