Yeah,
Both my theraphist said that it is normal to grow in an expand contract way, aswell as my shamanic teacher. My shamanic teacher told me just to ask: okay, another round…what can I learn this time?
Hmm, I think unhealthy habbits come as a way of coping mechanism…I really like to ask myself when I go into those unhealthy habbits:
What do I feel right now?
What could I do instead of this unhealthy habbit?
What am I gonna do now?
This allows me to learn why I do those things, what emotions I process/regulate or run away from with those things. But even when I realize: ahh okay, I am repressing anger with youtube…, it doesnt mean that I just do something else…Building new habbits is big work. And I only have a limited capacity. But often I will watch youtube then shorter. Or when I find something that lets me regulate my anger at one point, and I practiced that several times…slowly and slowy those new habbits take over.
And I definitley prefer that slow and steady approach.
What I recognize is that for me, those “coping spirals” get shorter and shorter. And isnt this amazing? When an unhealthy coping (that borderlines addiction) transforms to a little pleasure and enjoment after some hard work?
Currently going through this with cannabis. I quit it for a year and when I was in thailand (where its legal), after 4 weeks of abstaining, I allowed myself to touch it.
It was nice, though not as amazing as it used to be…and from the getgo I also saw the dark side of it (being foggy the next days, lsoing drive, increasing social anxiety)…and I immidieatly went back to my old using patterns…(using it every day in the evening). After 4 days though, I woke up and said. Nah, Stop, I dont want my relationship with cannabis to be like that…And I realized that I cant own cannabis. I cannot have a stash of it at home. I threw away the remaining of what I had (even though I stayed 2 more days).
Now here at home I was thinking…can I take some cannabis when I go out to a party with friends? Or should I leave this to thailand?
On friday I went to a psytrance event with some friends. Some of whom smoked weed.
I planned my “menue” of substances for the night and I decided I would allow myself to have one or two tokes from my friends. When I was at my friends place, I felt the pull to ask to roll my own joint. Once to not have to share (I am a bit hypochondric about getting flu in flu season) and secondarily to make it very very weak, so I have exact control over my intake. There was a fear though, that I would take this joint home and then have it at home again…
I am very proud on what has happened this evening: Firstly, I had the impulse to use it from the beginning of the night. But I realized it, that this was not an autenthic impulse of the now, but rather a voice in my mind from my past. Also I didnt want the social anxiety to take over.
The evening was amazing. I had some LSD and MDMA and it was the best night I have had in a while: Being in a crowd, and not feeling any ANXIETY, feeling safe, being okay to dance in a crowd and being pushed a little bit without getting a contraction in my nervous system. Making my way through the crowd, pushing people a bit to the side when they block my way…I normally dont do these things. I now really start to see what this anxiety is…and how it goes so deep into my nervous system and body. After this experience I actually consider SSRIs…being able to live like that all the time sounds really really wonderful. Ill talk with my theraphists about that.
Also there were some girls with our group. It was amazing. I got compliments, two of the girls liked me and want to meet me soonish. We had some talks and those are finally some woman that are interesting to me…I rarely meet woman that interest me!
What sounds really small but what was a really big thing for me was the following:
I bought some jelly snakes (Sweets) to bring there and eat while high…one one of the girls really liked them and came again and again…I fed her from above ike you would do with a fish 
Once I felt a bit couragous and took the one side in my mouth and wanted to see if´she would take it…I immideatly saw and felt the energy and just swalloed the wwhole thing and loughed…and gave her the next one normally…getting rejected for a seductive/sexual thing was really really bad for me in the past…my exwife allways ridiculed me for that (and I didnt fight back…because I had massive issues with the feeling of embarassment)…but having this experience of where I am being rejected and then later still having nice conversations…where this rejection didnt influence our “relationship” at all…was a very healing experience…
Later more to that.
So back to the weed. Later I had some puff from my joint. 2 Puffs…and then I made a pause…one guy of the group started smoking weed early in the night, went paranoid and went home…I didnt want it to end like that.
Then another 2 and again put it away…
And on the one hand I liked it, it relaxed me…but it made my process much stronger. It showed my my fears much more intensly…I felt the pattern to smoke more to cope with that fear…and realized…nah, thats not healthy…rather just use some nicotine right now.
I used the last our at the event to work with my inner child, work with my anxiety…for that it was perfect.
On the way home, in the cab I started to think about two things: What will I do with the remaininder of that joint…It would last for atleast 5 more evenings of smoking…And I decided: No, I dont want to have this pattern of smoking alone at home in my life again…so when I came home, I gave thanks to the spirit of the plant, admitted that I cant contain and own it, and gave the remaining back to mother earth (aka my garden), with the prayer that it may come back to me in the right moments of my life. I am really proud of myself here. Still I have to say: I am a bit scared that this is the beginning of using it regularly again…but for me this way feels like a try to transform addiction into a healthy using habbit.
The second thing I was realizing in the cab: With both my mum and my ex-wife…when we had a fight or any issue, they would bring it up again and again…they would never fully forgive and let go of things.
I realized this because I had a reunitation with my bestfriend of a year (2022 I think) that I “broke up with” after an intense fight…we didnt really had a talk or so…we met at some events and had some shallow exchanges and when we met a week or so at mens circle we talked afterwards and it was really nice, so we met some days later and it was really nice again…in hindsight this fight was just one or both of us being triggered…nothing more. And time does eat up emotions…I had this image…that normaly after a fight, the emotions go down and down…that everyone processes his emotions…the waves go down and its possible to reconnect.
I asked chat gpt about that process…and how forgiveness works…
And it said: Forgiveness is a decision…a decision that something that happened in the past is not longer allowed to influece the future. I feel that is a very wonderful way to describe forgiveness.
So I had an amazing experience. I am sure some more will come up in the next days.
I came about an interesting post on reddit regarding anxiety and motivation.
That anxiety somehow comes from external motivation…and when getting rid of anxiety there is this motivational hole…where there is only drive for things that make me emotional alive…I feel like I am right there…and there is the need to develop those inner parts, this inner drive and discipline. I found this goal for me that I wrote about. This will give me motivation and drive. I want to get there. Its still a bit hard for me, as this goal is very abstract and in the future. But on the other hand I know what steps I can take right now to go into that direction:
- Hit the gym
- Make everything ready for my Bali journey
- Sort out that house situation
- Learn to find balance between nourishing myself and challanging myself
- Make my life lighter (throw away or sell stuff I no longer need, like clothjing)
- Meet people to socialize and increase my healthy ressources
- Have a balance between spiritual and grounded life
- Keep staying in a positive emotional state and follow my highest excitement
When I read about that inner motivation, I knew that it was time to start with subliminals again…Godlike masculinity 30 seconds microloop today.
The sub journey has started again