Hi Vineeto,
I have been looking at what you wrote and also I have had Geoffrey’s words on my mind - “When ‘I’ am whole feeling good is a choice”. Those words stuck in my mind because they summarise so well this very common pitfall for me. Which is basically to split ‘myself’ and then have 1 part try to shove around other parts.
I was thinking the past couple of days about how the actualism method is intended to be utilised sincerely ie with ‘me’ as a whole, and how crucial this is. Because the second that ‘I’ operate from that dissociative experience then ‘I’ am no longer aware that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings, and so how can ‘I’ possibly have a choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment of being alive. From the dissociative experience ‘I’ can only try to shuffle around parts of ‘me’ and ultimately go round in circles.
It has been almost like a different paradigm altogether, to consider proceeding only as a whole, that any ‘motion’ which happens for ‘me’ is ‘me’ moving as a whole. Initially when I considered this it seemed like trying to work out a muscle I have never used, it seemed all buttons on ‘my’ dashboard entailed splitting up first.
But I have been putting this into practice and then today I was able to re-discover naiveté again. But this time I can indeed see that it is something that ‘I’ am ‘being’. I experienced naivete as a “place in ‘me’” which ‘I’ can visit/become. I also noticed that when ‘I’ allow naiveté that there is this tenderness in ‘me’ which did not exist just prior. It is always experienced as being so right, that this is exactly how ‘I’ should ‘be’, not as a moral command but because it delivers the goods.