Mostly just watching negative self talk and practicing self compassion. I’ve found my own lack of self esteem isn’t due to the absence of things but the unrelenting criticisms on myself that suppress more naturally positive thoughts and feelings.
Okay. This is more concrete.
Now what do you do when you notice the negative self-talk?
I ask myself where it’s coming from, what’s the emotions underlying it are, which part of me is expressing this. Then if I have the time I’ll just talk to myself, if not I’ll make note of it and come back to whoever wants to be heard later.
I don’t follow traditional thought stoppage techniques that are advocated for a lot like in CBT. I find aspects of CBT useful while others not so much.
1 Like
I watched the movie I Saw The TV Glow. I only had a vague idea of what it was about but this movie hit hard. I’m inclined to think the subs led me to it intuitively to help process some emotions.
Seductress is definitely kicking up some emotional stuff. I’m 50s on my custom and 40s on seductress. Still trying to find the sweet spot for myself right now.
Running seductress, I feel like I’m going into the depths of my soul and rescuing someone else and bringing them to the surface.
I’m really distraught. The more I connect with my authentic self the more I realize how much pain I was in for years and just numbing out to survive. But I need to feel this and process it. I need to finally make peace with it. I can’t believe this is what my life was at times.
I used to think my gender issues were a privileged problem. Like yeah yeah you don’t like being a guy but you could be starving or missing a limb or in war, it’s not a big deal. And I did that to myself for years because I thought the idea of being in emotional pain over mismatched gender was dumb and I needed to get over it.
I just really appreciate seductress right now because the internal is so important to me. I know who I am. I just still feel trapped in a way. And even if the physical isn’t there, cultivating that internal validation is so important to me.
What would a journal be without goals to look back on? Gonna outline a few so I can track my progress.
-
The most obvious one, physical shifting and having a body I’m happy with. Still figuring out what that is exactly, but trusting my subconscious to guide me. I def want some curves though. I’ve been perpetually skinny so looking to gain some weight in the right places.
-
Feeling more attractive, I’ve never felt to my core that I’m attractive. I’ve never experienced that. Also when I was presenting as a guy I thought I was incredibly ugly. But it was really just the dysphoria. I look back on old pics and I don’t really look that bad.
-
Confidence, how I hold myself, being fierce. I’ve always been timid my entire life. The more aggressive side can come out if I’m pushed, but I’d rather walk around and feel powerful. I don’t want to feel like anyone has the power to make me think less of myself. I could never feel truly confident because it always felt like part of my male act.
-
Sexual confidence. I want to be sexy and know I’m sexy, unapologetically. I don’t want to be embarrassed. I want to own it and embrace it. Even if I’m trans and I don’t pass 100% I still want to feel sexy. I also want to understand my own sexuality better
-
Get my makeup, clothes, and personal style on point. Right now I’m still experimenting but I really want to find something that feels like “me”.
-
I want everyone to read me as a woman, not an effeminate guy. Even if that means just having an aura that presents me as such I’d be happy. Being misgendered sucks.
-
Overcome my fear and insecurities surrounding liking guys. It’s really two parts to that one. One, I am at increased risk of violence against me. Part of me is afraid if I’m too attractive I’m gonna get attention from all different types of guys, some of which will have a meltdown if they get an inkling that I’m trans after their initial attraction. Two being attracted to men is NOT something I openly embraced growing up. So I’m struggling with letting that part of myself just flow naturally. There’s also just that insecurity around my body, how I look, if I even compare to a cis woman. I know that’s not fair to put on myself, but I def have to work through that.
-
Finally move on from the past. I lost a lot of years, a lot of experiences. But all I have is now and I have to make the most of it. So I want to live in the present, enjoy my life, who I am, what I can explore. Make my life so friggin joyful the past becomes irrelevant. It’ll be part of my history but it won’t hold me in this cycle of pain I go through at times.
Information releaser in my custom is working, unfortunately for me it’s bringing up some really painful memories. Ones that I look back on and I’m like “oh yeah I did feel that way huh?”
I got through a lot of my life by engaging in hardcore intellectualization. Sometimes it’s hard to just let that go and understand that what I feel is what I feel and it’s the truth for me. One thing stood out to me the other day there was a very defining time when I as a child where it became quite clear there were boys and girls. The girls saw me as a boy, but the boys realized I didn’t fit in. I’ve since learned that me being transgender didn’t follow the typical scenario of strongly identifying with the opposite gender and boldly announcing it to the world, but rather intense discomfort of the one I was stuck as and not knowing why. Just a claustrophobic, painful, suffocating feeling like I was trapped in something but didn’t know what. It’s only with my awareness now I can look back on these events and understand what they were.
I cried a lot last night. In between sobs I also started realizing how trapped in this body I felt. I’m thankful there’s some kind of interventions nowadays to give me some peace. And I also had a sort of unification in my mind. I think there was still a part of me in denial about how I felt. But now that all parts of me understand how this body is not bringing me happiness there was a strong commitment to doing everything possible to help me feel at home in it more. I definitely had some thoughts floating around of needing to accept things and love my body, but I can’t. Not like what it is right now. I recognize the person underneath it deserves love and compassion, but the exterior doesn’t match that internal person. I have a vision of her I plan on manifesting into the physical or I’ll die trying I’m not gonna settle in my life.
Bumped listening time to 1 min for both of these subs.
I’m basically re-orienting myself to what recon is for me. Instead of feeling like it’s a “get through this for growth” thing, it’s more like a “what’s going on inside” thing.
I’ve noticed the higher levels of exposure cause my body to respond by tightening up, trying to distract myself, or a general sensation of holding back. This isn’t the sub scripting, this is my ongoing difficulty with my own emotions and allowing them to express themselves without judgement. I’m getting better at it, but it’s making me realize it’s important I don’t shy away from this because it’s uncomfortable.
I think having this little bit of pressure to encourage growth is good, it’s forceful enough I can’t ignore it but also not so overpowering I’m a heap of anxiety and non-functional. So 1 min feels like it might be the sweet spot for me for a while until the emotional response tones down a bit.
Other than that I am feeling more confident lately. In my decisions and not doing stuff just for fear of others reactions and judgement. This has been mostly showing up at my job. I’ve become pretty ruthless will telling people from other departments that it’s not my or my teams responsibility to know how to solve the issue they are asking about. I used to get so much crap dumped on me because I decided to be helpful and nice and people took advantage of that. Even worse when something was an issue it was immediately my fault and they’d be quick to make it my problem vs part of problem solving in their job. I’ve had to learn a lot of hard lessons in this job and a lot of upsetting things about other people and their willingness to just pass the problem down the line until a responsible person picks it up. But I’m pretty much done.
I don’t burn myself out trying to get on top of things anymore, i can’t. The culture at this company expects the world without the resources so that’s not my problem anymore. I just do what I can and call it a day. I started delegating more to my team, basically hanging up my technical troubleshooting hat. They were coming to me for answers far too often and not solving their own problems. But also I was so afraid of a problem I could solve in a matter of hours taking them days, that I stepped in too much. Now I don’t care, I delegate, they do what they can, I drop some questions to get them to think more, and that’s it. Basically it’s my fear of criticism and looking bad in the eyes of the company that was driving these decisions. Not letting that drive me to burn out anymore.
Lots of anger that’s gonna be in this post.
I’ve been reading about detransitioners, right wing bigots, youtube comments from ignorant ass people on gender critical videos, all manner of intolerant people, crime statistics and violence on trans individuals. I’m doing this because this is the world I live in every day and to remind myself none of these people are right. None of them. And that my personal power is my responsibility and to not forfeit it over to these horrible human beings.
I am beyond the point of trying to be understanding. You invalidate my entire life experience and who I am and what I need? I don’t owe you shit or an explanation.
I plan on being so powerful and confident all these people can do is seethe in their own hatred and judgement while I laugh at them. That’s what I aspire to. To no longer get depressed, sad, or anxious because I internalize their fucked up beliefs about me as a person.
Taking steps to start my transition has been the most important thing in my life. I’m happy I had the courage to pull through and finally step into it. For as many comments as I’ve gotten about being brave, I find myself thinking bravery shouldn’t be a prerequisite to living as your authentic self in society.
I never thought I’d be here. This was always my biggest fear and what kept me away from exploring my gender identity further. But I’m facing it now and doing what I need to do to live a more fulfilling life for myself.
I had a dream last night that tells me seductress is doing some healing.
I was hanging out around people. But I was off to the side. One guy was like “I’m sorry but unless she has a uterus I can’t see her as a real woman”. My friends were there and my brothers and they told him that was an incredibly hurtful thing to say.
This is basically a projection of my deep subconscious fears. How I fear people will validate my identity but then criticize it behind closed doors with gossip and criticism. I have no evidence of that. It just always lurks in the shadows. Existing as this thing that seems potentially real but I also can’t know. It’s like some weird quantum mechanics except having to do with the existence of negative perception towards me.
The solution is to feel good about myself and care for myself. To the point others opinions on me aren’t weighed so heavily. That way I have nothing to fear. I’m getting there.
Other than that I got some blood work done. I was incredibly anxious but my testosterone is finally suppressed and my estrogen levels dominant. One less thing to worry about. I thought I was gonna be battling my correct blood levels for a year or more. All I have to do now is let things unfold in my body. Hoping the correct E levels will give Seductress some more shifting power.
Counterbalance some doom and gloom right now with a breakdown of my custom modules and how they’ve been showing up in my life.
Symmetry: Helen of Troy Core
New Physical Shifting Experience Core
Synergy: Carpe Vitam
Synergy: Harmonic Conflux
Synergy: Subconscious Mastery
Safety Net
Untouchable
New Dawn
Epigenetics & DNA Modulator
Homeostasis
Unlimiter
Mosaic
Symmetry: Helen of Troy Core: I’m gonna be honest. The changes are slow and hard to catch for the physical. But the biggest change for me so far is the shift from focusing on my flaws to valuing the features I like. And I think this is really important because I have no doubt I go down BDD spirals and pick apart every little thing and distort my self image. There’s a lot in here that I know is helping find the right path towards expressing myself. Hair, makeup, nails, all that which is an incredibly difficult thing to navigate with 0 experience about any of it. So I’m pretty happy, sometimes I stumble upon things by pure chance and it’s exactly what I need.
New Physical Shifting Experience Core: This one I put in my custom to really set the focus on physical shifting and it’s been working well. The intent was to run unrelated physical shifting modules through it to basically align them with a common goal vs being more open ended. I would say what I notice most with this is the more tailored feel towards my goals I’m setting out for. Hard to explain, but having run the NLE core before I find they’re really good when you could hit potential roadblocks and need to find an alternative route to get you where you want to go vs plowing through a wall and getting more upset. If I had to give an analogy. Standing in front of a huge ocean wave (mental block or obstacle) you can think you’re gonna waltz right through that wave but you’re gonna get crushed. Diving under it to get to the other side, that’s how I see the NSE modules. Smarter not harder. Same destination, different means to get there. Now the fun part is when ego might get in the way like saying “well I should be able to eat that wave and be fine”. All well and good but you’ll just end up getting knocked over by waves all day vs actually getting to where you want to be. This is an important lesson I’m learning in my own life, I’m a chronic wave eater.
Synergy: Carpe Vitam: This one at times fills me with jittery energy like I can’t just sit around. It’s been really helpful. As someone that has a natural inclination to escape and avoid, I feel like this one just keeps me on the right path. I don’t have to dedicate as much focus to pulling myself out of holes because I’m less likely to get sucked into those doom spirals. It’s been really important to keep moving me towards what I want.
Synergy: Harmonic Conflux: This one has been doing really great things to sidestep stress. It’s helped me put into perspective what’s more important in my own life and minimize stress so I have more energy to enrich my own life. The Harmonic Singularity effect is interesting too. I definitely notice my body releasing and relaxing, some emotional release that comes along with that. Most noticeable with my stomach releasing tension.
Synergy: Subconscious Mastery: This one has been a huge influence. I’ve been uncovering repressed memories and emotions, getting deeper insights into things I wasn’t aware of as well. All the things that were profoundly effecting me on a deeper level but I couldn’t consciously see. It’s also helped me start validating my own emotions more and my experiences in life.
Safety Net: In general I’ve noticed I’m just guided to the right people. Those I don’t have to worry about, who will support me, and are good people. I’ve had situations where close friends and family would say they were there for me if I ever fell on hard times and to not worry about being safe. I’m still internalizing this, I did everything alone for so many years. I lived my life on the constant assumption that it could all fall apart at any second and I needed to be able to survive on my own without help. But I’m seeing how much of a weakness that really is, not a strength. It’s a strength to be able to accept help from others and have support in your life.
Untouchable: Being transgender, this one has helped a lot. I honestly can’t put into words how difficult everything has been for me. Even I have trouble conceptualizing it. But this module helps me put it all aside and keep moving forward towards a better life for myself.
New Dawn: It’s been helping me let go of my old life and build something new. A big reset that I need. I’ve had experience with this module before and it always helps break that “nothing is ever going to change, this is how life will always be” spiral I got consumed in at times.
Epigenetics & DNA Modulator : This one has been interesting. I find myself questioning my own long term behaviors what’s “me” vs a result of things like generational trauma. There’s a lot of difficulties surrounding my authentic self expression. I had a lot of anxiety throughout my life trying to keep another part of myself locked away and unexposed to the world.
Homeostasis: Super straight forward. Seriously helped me reign in my bad sub listening habits and start finding a consistency that was right for me. Also helped me tune into my own personal feedback mechanism of when to back off with subs vs keep pushing a bit.
Unlimiter Lots of recon from this one, but really useful. I find myself challenging comfort zone ideas and thinking more broad. Staying away from accepting less or more negative aspects to offset potential disappointment. There’s certain comfort in thinking I know what’s possible or not, but the truth is I don’t. And sometimes when I challenge that it shows I was using it as a scapegoat to hide away from challenging my own beliefs.
Mosaic When I was running Genesis I found a lot of the focus was honed in on my physical shifting. Now that I’m running Seductress I expect it to link up really well. Mostly included this because I’ve found it does help sort of unify everything I’m running.
I’ve had to start reassessing my career path. Right now what I have is giving me money and safety, but I can’t do this. I never want to manage again and I don’t have to. I also don’t even know if I want to be in the tech world anymore. Knowing what i know now I think I fell into this career path because it’s so faceless and I could get lost in puzzles and stuff which would distract me from my gender dysphoria.
It just feels so forced now. Like why am I doing this? Why is this my focus? Maybe there’s another route within it I’m not seeing I can explore. But I’m lost right now and it’s scary because this is the only skill I really have and I really need money at this point in my life. But I’m exhausted with keeping up with this neverending anxiety of not keeping up skill wise, not being on the cutting edge of tech, not being able to compete with people that seriously enjoy this stuff and have me beat in that department by sheer inspiration to learn alone, and also the constant potential for mistreatment and being undervalued.
So yeah screw this. Screw what’s been decreasing my quality of life. I need to figure something out
What do you plan for your listening schedule this coming week?
Pretty much same that I’ve been doing, every other day just slowly increasing exposure till I find a good spot.
1:30 for my Custom
1:00 for Seductress
Given your thoughts about a possible career change, what do you think about Genesis?
I’m following Saint’s recommendation he gave me recently.
Truthfully I don’t know about Genesis right now. I don’t know if it’s focused enough in what I need. After running Seductress for a bit I’ve noticed the focus landing firmly on me, not the outside world and what it can use me for or my value in the eyes of others. I have really come to realize that I’ve spent so many years not just being able to be myself, I don’t think I can care about much of anything else with regards to career or life purpose. There’s really no point in interacting with the world if I can’t do it as myself, so all those goals seem secondary to me right now. And if I’m honest I’m resentful of the fact that in the eyes of some people I’m nothing more than human cattle to milk labor out of. So I’d rather build up my confidence enough to the point where I can tell them to go kick rocks.
I have both Safety Net and Synergy: Carpe Vitam which contains Unrelenting Wealth Motivation & Energy. In theory those modules should serve as enough support modules to keep my focus firmly on what I want out of my gender transition while providing the appropriate resources to facilitate that.
All in theory. I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m trying something.
1 Like
So much societal conditioning is straight trash. And I’m always thinking I’m beyond it when I’m not. It’s a subtle coercive anxiety that sits beneath the surface and blurs my own feelings and perspective on things. I guess if I’m more irritated by it lately it means I’m more aware of it vs dissociating.
I’m attempting to give up caffeine again , drink more water, stop eating gluten (long time intolerance to it). I’ve been turning to caffeine to dissociate again. It gives me this jolt to get through my day at the expense of my health and my health is more important than productivity at a job.
A bunch of people in a conference room couldn’t connect a Jabra speaker to their laptop. One of my techs was late, the other out in the warehouse. Owner was there, cue panic among everyone. For a very brief moment I was thrown back to my childhood and that same sense of fear not because of what anyone said to me but what was implied in everyone’s actions. More specifically you’re gonna be in trouble and he’s not gonna like this if it doesn’t go his way. And everyone feeds into this, I can’t stand it. I can’t be part of an environment where THAT is considered appropriate behavior.
I haven’t overcome my traumas. And I’m starting to think I’m kneecapping my own self improvement by being in a triggering environment and expecting myself to adapt to it in some way.
I know it’s not just me and my biases. After my tech helped out he stopped in my office to vent a bit at how everyone upstairs collectively lost their shit.
Every day I lose my patience more and more. I hate constantly doubting myself. What if I’m the unreasonable one? What if I’m just too sensitive? Bleh. I think the environment has to change not me. But this company sure does pressure me to confirm to their toxic workplace habits.
Spoke with my boss yesterday. He’s on his way out the door soon. Confirmed with me this company crushes moral in people. So at least I’m not imagining it.
My team has been slacking off lately. I try to be supportive and find out why, work out solutions,etc. But it’s not going anywhere.
It might be just coincidence but I’ve noticed since starting my transition I don’t get the same level of effort out of people when delegating tasks.
So really I need to start valuing myself. I have given them every opportunity to grow, ask me questions, find their niche, etc. At this point they don’t even acknowledge how their actions makes my life more difficult, they just assume they can do what they want and I’m the shield that guards against fallout. And that’s not fair to me. I thought I was failing them in some way but I realized yet again in my life I’m taken advantage of because of my empathetic nature. And this is why management isn’t for me. It seems like you either have to have a fantastic team that supports you or lead by fear and always have the consequences in their heads which I don’t like as motivation.
Been a shitty week so far.
In a moment of frustration and recon I listened to my subs for 3 min. It was not the right move. Sometimes I get tired of my own shit and make these borderline self abusive decisions. What I learned. More recon, less growth, and whatever benefits I did get were probably only confined to that first min or so. So no I’m not pushing beyond limits or anything like that by listening more just getting the same results with an added extra side of unnecessary recon. Lesson learned, again.
Aside from that, I’ve noticed a shift in my thinking. It’s small but important. I’m starting to dare to be hopeful with regards to my physical changes. Like focusing on it and ignoring what others say. Cuz really I’m afraid, I’m afraid that after all my efforts and hope that it won’t be enough. But I have to at least try even if the perceived failure exists.
