Great realizations there @Fractal_Explorer. Keep going, you are on the right path 
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Rinse and repeat for 20 years until they fire you, just because… Wonder what that job could possibly be for you?
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I am only listening to UA right now with my focus being visual art.
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Well right now I feel like staying away from any type of production environment is a good start. I got into working with computers because I hate business, sales, all that stuff. Unfortunately at this current job I’m expected to know a lot more about that shit and it’s getting increasingly irritating that I basically have to memorize close to every departments function within the company. All for a whopping $16 hour.
Aside from that my true goal is this music thing. So that’s building up on the side. The plan is to continue with the jobs until I have enough skill or interest to switch over. Basically doing it the smart way. Not jumping head first into chaos screaming “follow the hopes and dreams!” Lol. That’s what old me would have done and I’d probably just crash and burn.
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I think I’m seeing my own perceived worth reflected in my reality. The more I think about. Why would I stay in a job I don’t like? Why would I not have women show me any interest? Why would I constantly feel like my music sucks? Why would I have doubts that I can live a happier more fulfilling life? It’s all self worth. At the end of the day even if the subs can help bring about goals and whatever life I want, it won’t come to me if I don’t accept it. Plain and simple.
I did a little thought experiment today. If someone came up to me and could guarantee me unlimited success in my music endeavors, lots of money, and ultimate creative freedom. How would I feel about taking it? The initial response would be hell yeah. But after some digging, I realized it made me deeply uncomfortable. And that uncomfortable sensation? Basically my brain having a hard time reconciling amazing stuff in my life because I feel I don’t deserve it.
Doesn’t matter how hard you push for something if your current mindset constantly pushes it away and keeps it out of reach for you. At that point you’re running on a treadmill and getting nowhere with the carrot dangling in front of your face.
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Very wise words, man. Deep wisdom in there @Fractal_Explorer
Are there ways you can think of, even small ones, to start shifting that mindset into a more empowering one?
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Well definitely starting from the ground up and focusing on building up my self worth. Keep the long term goals in mind, but giving a lot more attention to myself. As much as I want to achieve certain things, I have to first allow myself to have those things without resistance.
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So as an update on only listening during the day. It definitely feels like more is processed. Hard to describe, but it’s like a clear headed feeling vs the sort of overwhelmed/overstimulated one that comes with listening at night too.
But I have to say I’m not entirely sure if I’m not getting on board with these changes or if I’m just going a different route. I’m really tired of always trying to be someone else or better. And I admit that I’ve always been very insecure about my masculinity because I was and am still sensitive. Instead of trying to beat that out of me I should really embrace it instead. These past 4 years of my life I really lost myself. I wanted to improve so bad, but it never came from a healthy place. I always wanted to be the badass independent alpha type, the stereotypical image. I’m starting to think it was just overcompensating. Honestly I had some intense anger last night thinking about it. It’s a limited, rigid role, why the fuck would I want that for myself? Why do I always feel this need to be someone other than myself?
I think there’s a lot of reconciling going on trying to figure out what exactly an ascended alpha is for me. It’s not a template or list of behaviors. It’s a state of being. And I think for that reason it’s more about being the best version of myself vs trying to be something different. At this point in my life it seems like when I try to be someone else it’s more of a defense mechanism to protect that inner self.
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The ones you see on YouTube trying to badger a hapless female into giving him her number. The ones who exaggerate their body language and give the thousand death stare to all pretenders, the ones who go to the gym and pose in front of the mirror with his gym bros?
Yeah. That’s “alpha”…
… Or the healthier alternative: just be yourself. Why wouldn’t you just be yourself? Everybody else is taken.
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Nah definitely not that. I never aspired to be like that. Think like James Bond or lone wolf type dudes. I grew up avoidant, instead of working to overcome that I just descended further into isolation. At a certain point I told myself it was better that way. It’s not. Being social, honest, open, that’s healthy. What I was attempting to do was not.
But your second point is spot on. And I’m going to work harder at allowing myself to be who I am. Sometimes it just gets a little muddy when you aim for self growth. What’s me holding onto old negative behavior that doesn’t serve me vs who I am at the core. Perfect example would be the fact that I’ve always been relatively quiet. Always got comments about it. But am I naturally quiet or am I inhibited? Distinctions like that are sometimes hard to make and I used to feel a lot of pressure around people to speak more, so I’d force myself to do so.
Side note after thinking about all this, I’m going back to listening at night. I realized I can’t consistently get enough exposure day to day to supplement my growth. it’s too variable. With night listening it’s guaranteed and I can’t pass that up. This is all too important for me to be messing around with inconsistent listening patterns.
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Nature or nurture. Hard to tell what it is without a long period of “behavioural readjustment”. I believe it’s more of an issue in such a boisterous society anyway. Would you want to experiment with it at all?
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That’s an interesting though @Michel. And I always thought about this.
There is a dilemma though: How can you both STAY yourself and BECOME better? How can someone improve, which means change, while stay authentically the same person? I am curious to know your thoughts.
Very important and positive values.
Other than these, are there other possible alternatives for a real man to be, that include the best of the traits you already have, the wisdom you gained in your isolation, and all those traits and more that you haven’t thought of yet in this wide world?
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It’s all in the foundation.
If like many of us, have been told that who we were wasn’t good enough (for society, family, peers, whatever) then the foundation wasn’t there, which leads us to either compensate or cover over that which we believed is faulty.
Self acceptance allows us to STAY the same AND change, which is building on the core foundation of your personality and augment elements that match it.
How much easier life could have been if we had someone say to us “I accept you” in order to accept ourselves?
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Being completely honest. Nah. I feel like for me as long as I can speak when I want to speak I’m good. I think that’s the part that’s been weighing me down the most. Not the fact I’m not some social butterfly.
Good point. Yes there are other traits that can be cultivated within myself. Traits I’m unfamiliar with, but shouldn’t neglect just because I’m unfamiliar with them. Assertiveness being a big one for me. Not aggressive, but having enough self respect for myself to not allow people to walk all over me. I’m now accepting that I’m changing for the better, but that doesn’t mean I have to throw out all the more empathic traits I grew up with.
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I was considering adding regeneration to my stack. At the very end once. I’m not sure if it would be worth it or not, or if it would just take away from AM and UA exposure time . But I’m realizing I want to change and the difficulty surrounding that is because of my own blocks that were passed down in my family. It’s hard for me to acknowledge that despite all the work I’ve put in over the years to heal I’m still uncovering issues. But I know if I don’t get these sorted I’ll never be at a place where I can have ultimate control of my life and how I want to live it.
It’s a bit like seeing something that desperately needs fixing and denying that’s the case. There are mixed opinions on this. Some say if you don’t give those things attention you can overwrite it and some say you have to remove the blocks that hold you back. I don’t want to acknowledge that I still have a bunch to heal in myself, but the fact is if I was healed and beyond 90% of this wouldn’t I already be living the life I want to live and enjoying it?
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Decided to hold off on Regeneration. I’m just going to use the Elixir more as I haven’t been consistently using that. Had a session this morning that felt good. I have to say the way it helps create a safe environment for releasing the emotions is really helpful and much needed for me. I have great difficulty accessing my emotions, it’s like a wall of shame has built up around them that I need to break through.
I’ve noticed a pattern that the more I start breaking through and challenging long held beliefs, the more I feel like it’s impossible. And when this happens my biggest mistake in the past was giving up or doubting myself and thinking I was delusional. Getting in touch with the power within myself is something I’ve been trying to do for a long time now. I’ve always known it’s there, but I can’t tap into it at will. It’s an odd feeling, it’s like those video games where you start out super powerful then you somehow lose the abilities and have to start from scratch, so you gotta grind to get back to it.
So thoughts like. “This isn’t possible” or “I’m always going to be stuck” are just limiting beliefs I’ve told myself over the years when I had difficulty being who I wanted to be.
And along with that I’ve realized how limiting members of my family are in their behaviors and thinking. They’ve taken the entirety of their life experiences and that’s their set in stone behavior, that’s “who they are”. No wonder where I got this from. Take an unstable self identity, low self esteem, mix that with being surrounded by people who you ASSUME know better than you and you basically get a worldview or belief structure that you operate within. There’s a sense of security in following, people have done the trial and error, there’s a roadmap, you don’t have to risk as much, but to me that’s deeply unfulfilling. And I’ve always known this, it’s just my fear that won out and I gravitated towards that security.
Thinking about it now I was probably more outspoken as a child, questioning, challenging conventional beliefs. I must have irritated someone or hit a raw nerve at some point and been criticized for it. So I started deferring to authority figures more. People are so quick to assert how things are in life, I’ve never been that way. I’ve always let people define how they want to live their lives. I have no qualms with how others choose to be happy, what really pisses me off though is when people start thinking they know what’s best for everyone. But ultimately that’s MY responsibility to be strong and steadfast in my beliefs and how I want to live my life, in an ideal world we’d have people that respect differences but we don’t. So you just have to be strong enough to let it bounce off you. My biggest mistake growing up was assuming people were just as empathic and open minded as me, I was naiive and I opened myself up for manipulation. Being an INFP and leading with my Fi function I had a strong set of values that I projected onto the world, it was a painful wake up call when I realized that’s what I wanted to see vs how things are.
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So I went out to the city with my friend yesterday to go to a birthday get together thing for this girl I sort of know. I was feeling pretty good before I left. But when I was there, it was one of those situations where I wasn’t in the tight friend circle so I felt out of place. I definitely connected more with the people there than I usually do, but man was it full of effort. I didn’t really find myself enjoying it all that much. Which kind of started making me depressed. Like I just wanted to chill and have fun with these people, but I realized I was still having issues doing that. Outside looking in, all that. Just being more of a spectator for other people having fun. It’s not limited to new people, I sometimes get this in my friend group too when I’m hanging out. I can’t get “in” the conversations. It’s not that I have poor social skills, it just feels like sometimes I don’t have the interest or energy to do so.
I’m doing all this work on myself so I can enjoy my life. But it’s frustrating when I’m in the moment and I still struggle. Maybe it’s because I have a lot on my mind and to fit in I sort of have to act like nothing is bugging me and that’s a massive energy drain. I kind of push myself to hang out with my friends sometimes because I feel like it’ll be good for me to socialize and get out of the house. But sometimes it just ends up me being physically there while mentally somewhere else.
I don’t really know. This is one dynamic of my life that’s always been a mess. The social aspect. I gave up on it at one point because it got too painful trying all the time and being disappointed.
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Definitely hitting some lows here. But I’ve seriously upped my gratitude practice and it has helped a lot. Being thankful for what you have really does help offset stress and depression. Some days I wake up and I feel that familiar feeling of everything being horribly wrong in my life. But then I remind myself what I have and think how I can change what’s got me upset. It’s definitely a process, practicing positivity isn’t an easy thing. To be positive when you feel like everything in your life is terrible is definitely a skill. My knee jerk reaction is to dwell on all the negative. Consequently I get more of that.
I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of guy. So naturally I took on this idea that my life had to be 100% ideal before I could be happy. Instead of working harder to recognize the small things in life and appreciate them. Happiness really is a mindset, I think my mistake was thinking after close to 10 years of depression I could just flip it on. But I see now it’s because of habits I’ve developed that I need to restructure. And it’s going to take some effort on my part and it’s probably going to be uncomfortable in some way. But I need to do this because if I don’t I’ll keep going down a negative spiral of finding a reason to be upset with my life.
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@Fractal_Explorer - I am not INFP but I am INFJ and I can somewhat relate to most of what you are feeling on the social side. Keep going on, my friend. You will get there👍
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