So things are looking good lately due to the change in approach. I wanted to write about this in case anyone else might be going down the same dead-end.
What I noticed I have been doing for a while now is using notes as somewhat of a buffer to actually feeling what is going on. So when various feelings came up instead of feeling them fully and conducting the investigation this way, I would instead write notes which allowed me to sort of ‘think about actualist stuff’ whilst not having to ever experience those parts of myself fully.
It created this buffer that kept me at a safe distance and turned it all into purely intellectual looking. Also instead of a genuine exploration culminating in the discovery of facts I was instead projecting actualist concepts onto these feelings which I was separating from. All in all this approach was a waste of time.
I only wish that we had someone like @geoffrey spend a good portion of a zoom video explaining that this is a dead end so that I could have heeded his advice
So the past few days have been no more notes, the focus has been on sincerely looking at these feelings as they come up, without trying to change them, distance from them, deny them, fight them, moralise them etc
Simply applying awareness-cum-attentiveness to these feelings, initially this was quite intense, perhaps because I have been running from them for a while? Either way sooner or later they would subside and then I would find myself experiencing a freedom from those emotions, not a desperate escape from them but a genuine freedom from having this particular emotion in my life, that ahhhhh feeling as the world opens up and inner conflict disappears - absolutely priceless!
Now the other thing which happened this morning, sort of a “Duh” moment… Is I realised that sincerely exploring these emotions along with understanding their cause actually culminated in me no longer - ‘going there’. This is all super simple, down to earth kinda stuff, as in I have been there before I am not doing it again, but in order to make this super simple decision I had to actually explore the whole issue fully, no longer through some buffer.
The way I experienced all this is that initially the emotion was felt like this beast that I was running from and was unwilling to even face/acknowledge so I shoved it into a dark corner.
Then I tied myself in all these knots so that I never had to look this beast in the eye. BUT what actually happened when I dared to do this is that I realised this beast is actually me, sat in that dark corner and blindly screaming for no reason at all other than it being what ‘I’ do / what ‘I’ am.
Seeing the above clearly and fully is what allows me to see the silliness of it all.