I remember a while back on this forum Geoffrey wrote about which articles or bits of information he would recommend to those looking to succeed with the actualism method. He wrote (paraphrasing) that “This moment of being alive” was the key article and this along with some other bits of information would likely be enough for anyone to succeed.
But he also wrote (again paraphrasing) that he saw the “Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness” article as potentially problematic for various reasons. I can see how for someone like me - clearly prone to dissociation and defaulting to a meditative like focus - it has been problematic.
And I was always fond of that article, perhaps for that specific reason, that in my misunderstanding I would begin to apply that same meditative like focus to ‘examine the psyche’. This kind of focus can be summarised by the phrase - I am not that. ‘I’ would assume the role of attentiveness and ‘I’ would direct ‘my’ gaze on all these affective phenomena, looking at them come and go and examining them one by one.
This kind of looking it was quite addictive because it was safe for ‘me’, after all ‘I’ was only looking at these things which were not ‘me’, and ‘I’ could spend countless hours apparently exploring the depths of the psyche whilst remaining fundamentally unchanged. Essentially ‘I’ would assume the role of the watcher. Now writing this out I would wager that I am not the only one who has defaulted to such a thing.
What I see now is that genuine attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation automatically leads to change, it is only by acting as a watcher that ‘I’ can remain unchanged. I have often used the following example when trying to describe to others how getting back to feeling good takes place - to remember perhaps a moment when say the weather was starting to shift and affect one’s plans, and there would be this shift happening into ‘being’ frustrated or upset or what have you, and all of a sudden this would be seen - in the most matter of fact way - as simply silly, and it would cease there and then. I think most people have experienced something akin to this happening in their life. But there is no watcher in such a scenario, it is ‘me’ that sees how silly it is to let X spoil this moment of being alive, and this seeing is the ending of that particular drama. The reason why it works is because in such a scenario ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am ‘being’ frustrated or upset and that it is simply silly to ‘be’ that - the end.
It seems I am untangling now just what on earth I have been doing all this time 
Essentially it’s slowing bringing out into the open all these feelings and states of ‘being’ which ‘I’ have pushed to the side and ignored. And of course ‘my’ ‘actualist identity’ has solidified this even further, in that I just wouldn’t accept that yes it is me that is being resentful or anxious or what have you, it couldn’t possibly be me because I am an accomplished actualist lol. But as Claudiu wrote the other day this is indeed the case - that if there is a feeling happening then it is me, no matter who I believe or assert myself to be.
And often it is little things, silly things, that I would not allow “such an accomplished actualist” would ‘be’… For example just now there was this feeling that after I finish training BJJ today I will not have anything else to look forward too. I know this feeling because I have felt it for a long time, except that I would experience it as coming from ‘out there’ and somehow assaulting ‘me’. But no it is me after all, and now it makes sense experientially what Richard would often mention - is it not silly to let such a thing spoil this only moment of being alive? Indeed it is but I first had to see that it was me all along.