I’ve been really enjoying our conversations too! I’ve never been able to talk to a partner this way before, it really is eye opening and really nice 
I remember before when we’d get to hard topics I’d feel myself shutting down, resenting the conversation and being defensive. However now it’s like a flip has been switched and those things don’t come up when we talk about hard topics. It’s really cool and I even get excited now when we have these chats! It’s like ooo what can we expose next!
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This is something that goes against the commonly held relationship advice like “Be a bit mysterious” or “Don’t reveal yourself completely” etc…In Richard’s Journal, there is this article where a man n woman give Richard this kind of real world relationship advice - You keep a part of yourself secret and your partner does the same and then there is this common area where you meet your partner and this way of relating is what is necessary to have a healthy relationship(paraphrasing a bit here). Its like one of those Venn diagrams with ciricles overlapping with a common area hehe
Richard as usual gives a 180 degree opposite answer 
and argues that this approach will infact prevent intimacy from occurring…I think Richard n Irene had also agreed not to use their secrets against each other
Fully exposing myself to my partner would look vulnerable n weak and secrets can be used against you…so perhaps this is why its scary to go this route…I guess men in particular may have more problem with this because of the whole “don’t look weak by expressing your shit…shove it all down”
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Yeah that essentially summarises the fears, but here comes the interesting part! Because a lot of the time (in the traditional way) if you open up to your partner it is tacitly assumed that they must reaffirm your feelings in a way that leaves you feeling good.
So if I say “do I look fat in this, tell me honestly because I am insecure” we all know what answer this is looking for and where it leads, not intimacy for sure!
So what I found from talking with Sonya is that sometimes it is exposed that we do indeed support the very beliefs which the other fears we might do.
So this is where it gets very fascinating indeed, for example I might find that Sonya does indeed look for a man to be an authority or I do indeed project beauty standards on her.
It is like finding out that your worst fear is actually the case in the other. But this is not the end of the road. Because then you can both question the validity of these beliefs with the common goal of removing everything in oneself which stands in the way of intimacy.
My job is not to make Sonya feel good about herself and neither it is her job to ensure that I feel good about myself.
The job is to expose, question and remove. Then if this is successful we reach a common ground, something factual that is concrete - this is the goal.
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This is superb stuff !
Yeah its all pretty new to me and very exciting !
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So I had a really cool chat with @henryyyyyyyyyy and @emp on Saturday, there were 2 things which happened for me that were very useful. Actually it was a great reminder of why we discuss these things with others, so that we can help correct each others understanding.
The first bit was something that both @henryyyyyyyyyy and @emp pointed out, which was that I was psychologising my fear by running it as part of some ‘actualist progress map’. So I had this little story going that maybe I am experiencing the fear of death because it is the experience of pure intent which is pulling ‘me’ towards extinction. A neat little theory 
And maybe it is so maybe it is not, the fact is though I was using this theory to cement this fear as something unavoidable and so I was locking myself in fear as opposed to enjoying and appreciating.
Actually it’s nice talking to actualists because they are not afraid to call you out! This was very useful for me to notice in myself.
The other thing which was BIG, was when I was talking to Henry about my performance anxiety when doing my weekend jobs, again I had lots of neat theories on why it is so.
@emp then mentioned that perhaps this is to do with the simple fact that I am addicted to suffering. And this made the clouds part finally, because no matter how much I investigated and broke down this performance anxiety it was still there.
At first it looked more like something habitual, I noticed that it is almost like clockwork for me at this point, in a similar way that when I wake up I find myself walking downstairs and rolling my morning cigarette. When it comes to Saturday around 2pm, my anxiety alarm clock knows it’s time, it is time to be anxious.
But also I noticed that if I was to imagine being at these hen party jobs without the slightest whiff of anxiety it would feel off, somehow wrong, not what I want.
So going deeper I noticed that I am addicted to being this rollercoaster of emotion, it makes me feel alive, it feels right to experience certain events through this up/down cycle.
And this can be very easily demonstrated actually! Because when I have a weekend off and I am just at home chilling, I feel there is something missing, I want some kind of excitement, some emotional stimulation and yet the next weekend when I am busy with the hen party jobs I find myself resenting having to experience this anxiety and pressure.
I noticed the same tendency when coaching martial arts, I am addicted to a certain up/down cycle of emotions, yesterday just before coaching I began to feel the same thing and the initial pull was into what I always do which is essentially getting drawn into that whole world. A world where there are problems and solutions, schemes and plans, dangers and security… But most importantly the visceral experience of the good/bad feelings, the thing which feels real to me like nothing else. Somehow I am perversely addicted to being that.
But yesterday I took a different route, seeing that I was doing this again and remembering what @emp mentioned I instead decided to allow myself to feel good. It felt weird at first, like I was doing something wrong, on some level I did not want to feel good, it felt like I was letting go of something important to me by feeling good.
But it worked, the weird cycle of anxiety and release was largely minimised and there was feeling good.
But this has left me wondering just to what extent I am simply addicted to suffering, lots more to explore for now.
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Hmm, I have noticed in myself that I love to reach a “conclusion”; to neatly wrap up a question with a definite answer.
However, I have to ignore a whole level of nuance to do that.
The other day, it sunk it a bit just how radical a proposition it is to psychically ‘die’. Only a little bit though.
There is potentially a list of “I am just addicted to suffering” type conclusions which will quite easily span our natural lives.
Just consider Alan and his repeated “Prima Dona” humble-brag.
Don’t let any conclusion knock you off exploring more.
To me “addiction to suffering” is a very broad and mostly high level catch-all.
Be specific. Very, very, specific.
@Andrew Your reply essentially ignores the gist of what I wrote, then proceeds to explain what things mean to you and then proceeds to offer advice based on those self ascribed meanings. Advice which seems to be more directed towards yourself than me.
Unless you are actually directing this at yourself ?
I don’t doubt that, that is the nature of conversation. We are always referencing our own understanding and experience.
I was reflecting on what you wrote after, and it seems that if that conclusion “I am addicted to suffering” is what is going on before your Saturday gigs, or martial arts classes, then, great!
Stop.
I smoke too. I gave up the other day. Relatively easily. Then I started again. I’ve given up for years at a time before.
Why do I go back? Even long after the last trace of nicotine is out of my body?
Is the gist of what you realised the simplicity of just stopping being addicted to suffering?
That sounds great.
Is that getting the gist?
Because that sounds exactly like stopping ‘being’ altogether, which is the whole point.
Yes exactly, the point is that I have done the specifics, the nuances, the explorations etc extensively over a prolonged period. However there is a certain habitual movement towards ‘being’ those emotions which persists.
So noticing that ‘I’ as ‘being’ have a certain agenda/complusion/drive/investment etc towards suffering is not just a ‘catch all’ but rather an observation of how ‘I’ tick.
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Although it’s probably worth bearing in mind that the addiction to suffering cannot stop until ‘I’ disappear.
But seeing the extent to which I am invested into my own suffering allows a different path to be taken, one of enjoyment and appreciation.
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Ah, I see. So it really is seeing it as an addiction like smoking then. One could just stop.
That sounds very fresh and freeing to me.
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Yeah it is very simple and also very perverse when I think about it. All this horrible sorrow and malice that we see - the depression, suicide, wars, rapes etc.
The fires fuelling these things are not happening to me, rather I am being those very things, the things that I wish to be free from and thus end up weaving myself into various knots.
So how else could we call this but a perverse addiction to suffering?
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Sure.
What do you see as the next step then?
For now - to catch myself beginning to ‘go there’ and back out.
So the pattern has been identified and exposed, now it’s a case of blending it into my daily life via attentiveness.
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I like that.
Like catching oneself reaching for any addiction we want to stop.
At some point, it’s you can do it energy which makes the difference.
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So it’s getting pretty wintery here in the UK recently and with it comes some deeply lodged memory of a PCE for me, it’s actually really weird!
I don’t know when it happened, I think within the past couple of years, but I remember finding myself completely lost in this magical wintery wonderland.
Now almost everyday I begin finding myself in that wonderland again (this morning it was one foot in one foot out) and it feels so damn familiar! I still can’t pinpoint the PCE though 
It is always interesting how the rememoration works though, that sense of I know this place! I have been here, and yet it seems somewhere ‘out there’ that I can’t fully pinpoint. It is utterly ‘ordinary’ and familiar when found and on the other hand it is this completely other world that I seem to know nothing about.
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Stumbling across the actual world is kinda like I’ve been living with dementia or something, all of a sudden there is this undeniable actual world right here and I feel almost stupid that I was somehow doubting it’s existence, when in fact I have been here all along. Very bizarre!
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