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.