Journal de Henry

Hmm, are you getting out-peacocked?

Well, that’s my perception anyway. I look at my bedside and see no movie star.

Or, not a hot enough movie star :unamused:

Fancy a phone chat?

Sure, I could try that

I will DM

3|29|22

Re-re-re-approached the issue of love and loneliness today with my recently-tweaked investigative mindset per

@claudiu

I wasn’t having sufficient success seeing the silliness and kept getting pulled back into feeling bad about this or that love-related trigger.

I could see that I kept trying to ‘distract’ myself (but without intent to get right back to investigation… I was trying to escape). I think that I was actively taught to do this, it has the flavor of something my mother told me to do once. “Do something else.”

Ok, now I know to “do something else,” but to make certain that I get back to it so I can finish off the issue.

So while still feeling bad, I jotted down a few questions for myself, from the space of feeling bad, to answer later when I was back to feeling good. A letter from unhappy me, to happy me.

It took me a little while but I did after a bit notice that I was feeling good again (secret sauce: I ate a snack!)

Ok, time to get back to that letter:

-What if my partner leaves me?

-What if she does things I don’t like and changes a lot?

-What if I break up with her and am alone? (& no other girls like me)

-What does it mean if she hooks up with some other guy? (We have an open relationship but this one does eat at me)

When I went to answer these questions I gave myself a reminder: What is the sensible way to respond to the above?

I could see that I was wanting to do what I had done in the past, which is sort of ‘push myself’ into feeling good… another version of training myself. That hadn’t worked in the past.

I realized as I started to answer the questions, that I was imagining ‘what would happen,’ but in my imagination all the outcomes had a sad-sack quality: in my imagination, I was sad (because me-as-I-am responds to each of these outcomes with sadness). So, I tweaked my approach some more.

Rather than acting out of emotional imagination, I would use my intelligence to appraise and determine how best to act, should each of the above occur

I can make certain that I take the best steps for the most beneficial of outcomes, in any of the above events (most of which I have extremely limited control over).

That way, should any of them come to pass, I will already have determined how I want to act - subject to additional intelligent appraisal and decision.

Should I fail - I likely will, sometimes - no matter, I still have a plan - simply get back to it!

So:

  1. If she leaves:

Move on with my life, do things I like.

Simple!

  1. If she changes in ways that I find unpalatable:

Have a conversation about the issue. If it’s not working, leave her. See #1

  1. If no other girls like me (The “Forever Alone” outcome):

See #1

  1. If she hooks up with someone else:

Talk with her about it to better understand the situation. If what is happening is unpalatable, then I can leave her. And… See #1.

It’s very obvious: the move is always to just do things I like with my life, enjoy and appreciate.

This approach was a major breath of fresh air for me and for the first time in a long time I’m approaching my life with genuine confidence, because I have genuine confidence that I can act on these intentions. No longer am I taking for granted that “I will be so sad” if ‘x’ happens. If I start to feel that again, I can remind myself: No, I will not. I will move on with my life and do shit that I like.

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Does such an investigation have lasting effects? Or do you have to keep going back and do it?

I struggle with similar issues, and for me the need for emotional validation is the main issue. I see two sensible ways to deal with it

  1. Balance out my life, focus and develop other interests so that my relationship is not the end-all-be-all of my existence.
  2. The feeling-being that craves emotional validation is the root cause. So work on eliminating that.

For an investigation to have lasting effects it has to be a genuine, sincere interest to understand an issue. A lot of ‘investigation,’ without pure intent, can become an extra-sneaky way to stay the same.

I’ve done it a lot, it feels like being a rat caught in a trap, contorting but ultimately still in the trap.

So the first ingredient is always to ensure a strong connection to pure intent / remembering PCE / why you’re doing all this. Is it more important to you to be happy and harmless, or to ‘get what you want?’ To continue being upset?

Once that’s in place, investigation can happen.

A genuine investigation is a fact-finding mission. Nothing but the actual facts will do, and sometimes that requires more than just sitting and thinking about something. Maybe an investigation would take a few weeks, or a year! But that’s sometimes necessary to genuinely understand something.

It frequently involves doing things that are scary. But I go there because I’m already scared anyway, and I’d like to be free, so it’s worth it. The fear can’t maintain at 100% volume 100% of the time anyway, which is a form of security.

When the facts are seen, I change. I can’t pretend otherwise. The seeing dispels doubt and illusion.

There can still be some habitual feelings that can be swept up later (nipping it in the bud), or maybe lingering related side-issues. But when an investigation makes something obvious, it is always extremely obvious. That is the gold standard.

What you’re describing is, I think, familiar to me: investigating, maybe making a bit of progress, but then the same issue comes back again and again. That just means the investigation is incomplete. Along the way I learn lots of interesting things, but I haven’t yet completely seen what’s going on. When I’ve completely seen what’s going on there’s no problem, because everything fits together, everything makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to feel bad about something that is just ‘the way it is.’

So all there is to do is get back to it. It has helped me to pay attention to my approach. That has been its own investigation for me: “how do I investigate most effectively?” And so I research, talk with other actualists, try this and that out, and see the results.

These seem sensible to me. Maybe the next investigation would be, to live with these points in mind, and see what kinds of results you get.

That’s what I’m doing, with my previous post: I’ve set some sensible intentions, now I live that way and see how it works for me.


Also, I came across this excellent bit of correspondence yesterday that might elucidate some things:

RESPONDENT No 23: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good?

RICHARD: Two things immediately leap to mind … (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) … and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being). What I would suggest, at this point, is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) … then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good.

Pretty much the prerequisite to success with the method: I have to value feeling good over any other reaction.

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image

“ The following evening, I found myself back on my couch, leaning across the little table that separated us, explaining to Richard that I experienced him as being on the other side of a veil – with only his face bulging through as it were. As was I explaining this to him, I was waving my hand in front of my face so as to illustrate the veil and I happened to look down at the table in front of me.

On the woven table mat my attention was drawn to a dark blue plastic cigarette lighter, an empty glass, a tobacco pouch and other sundry items. All of a sudden, Richard’s phrase “the actual world of people, things and events” came to mind and I found myself acknowledging that the things on the table existed in actuality, i.e. did in fact actually exist, and this being the case, here I was waving my hand in front of “people”, in this case Richard, saying that I experienced him as if behind a veil, i.e. not actually existing. It took only a few more seconds of switching my attention from the things on the table and my waving hand for the whole illusion of a separating veil to collapse – along with my illusory self-centred identity as I was gradually becoming aware of.”

From Peter’s Report of Becoming Free of the Human Condition

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Woke up this morning feeling pretty good & sensuous, and I could actually see as ‘I’ woke up and began to take the mantle, I began to feel bad about something, and I was able to just catch it and go the other way. A remarkably peaceful & happy morning so far!

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That is nice, I can relate to that henryyyyyyy

I love that henryyyyyyyy :slight_smile: : that really helps me!

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Henry? Oh yeah, I know that guy! He’s the one that enjoys & appreciates a lot :grin: :grin:

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Nice observation henryyyyyy , good catch!

4|5|22

My partner decided she wants to take space from me / break up a few days ago, which has significantly shaken ‘me’ and many of my beliefs around myself and what ‘I’ ‘thought was happening

For example, I was forced to contend with the fact that there are many many things I don’t know and am not sure how to do perfectly, where throughout our relationship I had been trying to play myself off as the prototypical ‘strong male’ who ‘knows what to do’ in any and all situations… really I was just spouting whatever sounded good to ‘me,’ which not coincidentally always ended with self-serving conclusions

This has helped with my sincerity considerably

It has also strengthened some long-standing beliefs, such as that I will be alone or that no one likes me. I was thinking about that a bit earlier and am excited to dig into that as it had been semi-dormant for a little while

There are also beliefs such as that it would be better for us to be together, but that isn’t necessarily a fact. It’s clear that the way I had been being caused her distress, some of that is due to things that I want to change, and some of that is due to things that I consider sensible.

But the fear still wants us back together, it isn’t considerate of specifics or what is sensible

There’s a lot that I’m not sure of right now, a lot that I’m not sure what the most sensible thing is. But I have been tackling emotional issues as they come up with pretty good success under the circumstances

I was prompted to start writing here as I had a wave of fascination in the emotional waves I’ve been going through, in the process of breaking through many beliefs that I had held static for a long time (because of not wanting the relationship to end) but now are moving. Life is happening.

One of the primary things that has become clear is, just how miserable I have been about life

Not having a partner to blame things on or lean on when I’m feeling bad demonstrates a big hole

I often have found myself ‘not sure what to do with myself’

And then pretty quickly found that there was purity coming through everywhere… had an experience a couple days ago of “everything is meaningless” becoming “everything is purity”

Interesting to re-think what I’m looking for in a romantic (for lack of a better term) partner

So much unknown.

Interestingly, she broke up with me about 2 days after I did an investigation ‘coming to terms’ with the possibility of her breaking up with me

Psychic vibes, anyone?

All this has definitely brought ‘me’ to the surface

And it hasn’t all been being swamped. If anything there is a clarity to everything lately. I had been numb in my fear of it ending

Now I just am motivated to become clear

I don’t want to suffer

I’m not going to accept, “breaking up has to be a bad time”

My intention is to enjoy & appreciate, and I’ve been doing that and taking apart what has been in the way with great success

I have a yellow legal pad I’ve been making diagrams, writing out dynamics as I investigate

Riding the wave.

My line has been, ‘what is sensible?’ When I’m trying to determine what to do.

It isn’t sensible to sink into despair

And now that I’m on the surface, it’s quite easy to make progress because everything is so obvious

And I’m a little more motivated than I was before

A lot of sneaky things have been revealed

Purity is still here! Pretty nice!!!

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4|6|22

Reading @cross.chrono and @claudiu’s reports on pure intent, as well as the quotes @Miguel has been providing, reading more on the AFT myself ‘getting to the bottom of it’ my own experiencing of purity has been increasingly bleeding through

I experience it as happening indeed all the time (in different strengths), ‘bleeding through’ my every experience no matter how emotional, no matter how much ‘me’ is there, and it exists as a reminder during those emotional times that I’m not going the direction I want to go. It greatly weakens my interest in energizing those selfish experiences because I can see for myself that it’s not a good direction to go.

And just now allowing the purity to bleed in more and more I realized that I was experiencing it ‘bleeding in from outside of me,’ and I remember Richard’s words ‘am I not also that perfection?’ and suddenly realized that I was considering my body as outside the universe… indeed these fingers typing are just as much a part of that purity, this mind thinking is just as much a part of this purity, it is only ‘me’ that creates separation

That experience, ‘purity from outside’ is only because of ‘me’

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It’s like a pure intent avalanche is cascading over the forum hahaha

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4|11|22

Hope is only ever ‘over there,’ the present self/suffering remains

This is what keeps the actual from becoming apparent.

Hoping to become free ‘one day’ prevents it from happening

It has to happen now.

This is where perfection is

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Very well said @henryyyyyyyyyy. You have rung my bell.

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Having a ton of fun right now, the method is working exquisitely well.

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