Hey @FrankN, I came across actualism in 2018 I believe, I was actually googling something about Buddhism and ended up on a website called Dharma Overground and because I googled something about emotions, I ended up reading a post about a ‘group of people who say they can get rid of emotions’ lol and thanks to that post I found actualism.
For the first couple of years, I didn’t really apply the method constantly, I sort of went back and forth between reading stuff about actualism and other things that I used to be interested in at the time, like Dzogchen Buddhism and Non-duality. It wasn’t until this year that I fully devoted myself to understanding and applying the actualism method, and since then I’ve experienced some really wonderful PCE’s and EE’s that really helped me understand experientially that this is something that works. I would say that since March, I’ve been in a process of letting go of many of the beliefs I held dear, like the existence of ‘spiritual planes’ and ‘life after death’. Although I was never a believer of a particular religion, I was agnostic and would always say “well…Maybe this metaphysical stuff is true…” After a while of applying the method, though, I realized why I was agnostic. I was holding on to the hope that maybe I was immortal after all, maybe I did have a soul, maybe spiritual realms did exist. Seeing that I was holding these beliefs because there was actually an emotion operating in me (hope) that was born as a response to the fear of dying really helped me get rid of the need to believe, which was a big relief because up to that point there was always a struggle between my sceptic part and the part of me that wanted to believe. That is probably one of the most important things in my process I can think of. I still struggle to feel good every day, it’s certainly easier than before, at least now I don’t waste time blaming the outside world every time I have a bad mood, and know how to go back to feeling good, even if it takes me an hour or so. I’m currently exploring how I can access naivete and pure intent more easily, and trying to be more conscious of the parts of me that block these things from becoming apparent.