Have you looked up the term “corrective emotional experiences”?
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I haven’t heard of it before, but reading about it now it sounds like what my previous therapist and I were doing. I was doing IFS with her and on my own. I fell off with it, I need to start integrating my parts again because it did help.
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One of my core values is authenticity and it gets me in trouble in life. Right now I’m dealing with that on my job search. I hate that so many job postings look for extroverts. I’ve dealt with this crap all my life. I hate this feeling of needing to be something else to play some game, hate it. So I’m not going to do it anymore. The problem I have with people and their advice for jobs, it’s not sustainable. If I get a job under false pretenses of who I am guess who has to show up to work every day? Someone else.
I would rather show up as myself and stop stressing about appearing good enough. And I’m keeping everything transactional. I provide a service, you pay me. Please keep your toxic positivity stuff away from me and stop trying to emotionally manipulate me.
I’m going to keep using the job application process as an exercise to enforce boundaries. It is difficult. When you need money, to be put in this compromised role. It makes it harder to have the leverage. But I know that’s the energy I have to carry if I want to be treated well.
Would you please give some examples of how this has happened to you?
Wasn’t there a time when programmers would just work out of their home and not even leave their homes to go to work?
Oh programmers yeah, they are still able to do that. I’m not a programmer though. I work with systems and infrastructure and supporting business. It’s a little different. I do scripting for automation, but I don’t really build things software wise.
My last job. I never felt valued as a department. At worst we were seen as a revenue consuming liability and at best we were just expected to pull off massive projects without a hitch. I did not care about the product we sold or the culture behind it, I just did my job. But higher ups in the business had this arrogance to them like we didn’t fit in, just really toxic family dynamics. I was made to feel like I was doing something wrong or not invested enough in the company’s vision. They wanted the company moral without lifting a finger to actually organically produce that. We were consistently understaffed so when things broke or needed to be fixed we were perceived as incompetent because we couldn’t snap our fingers and magically fix an issue that we were seeing for the first time.
For job postings. I see it a lot with tech. It’s not enough to have skills, you need passion, a good personality, someone willing to go above and beyond. It’s ridiculous though because it’s something like a company that makes windows for houses, it’s fake and unnecessary. It’s corporate trickle down effect. They want all the advantages of a hard worker and they want to control your emotions while employed under them. And I’m not saying having passion or willing to go the extra mile is bad, but some of these jobs are just pulling from a script and think if they mirror what others have done with none of the substance to back it up they’ll succeed.
All I’m saying is I don’t understand why we had this shift in white collar jobs. It feels more like trying to be recruited into a cult vs a job. And I’m sick of not knowing who I’m actually applying to work for because it’s a waste of my time and theirs.
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Makes sense. You have obviously thought a lot about it and gained important interpersonal insights!
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Too much thought honestly. But a lot of jobs mirror toxic relationships. It’s important not to even get involved with them to begin with. Unfortunately the lesson that was beat into my head over the years is be afraid of not having money and do what you have to do to survive. That’s ripe pickings for someone that wants to capitalize on your desperation. Unfortunately anyone can own and run a business and their success isn’t even contingent on their ethics or morality. Which makes it a minefield to navigate, especially if you already come from a shaky foundation
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Your insights are top notch! I wish people could realize how profound your two above posts are!
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Thank you! Now the true test is making sure that insight is actualized. One of the most difficult things for me has been having a high level of awareness, but instinctually doing things that hurt me or put me in a position to be taken advantage of. I think Sanguine has been helping me step out of that fear based auto pilot I’ve been stuck in.
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GREAT! What about it has helped?
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Being able to take a step back and change my behaviors. I learned to do things to generate safety for myself, but that safety resulted in lower quality of life. It’s hard going against survival instincts. But Sanguine helps create a little space in between the thoughts and action so I can move towards what I really want. It’s really small right now and I don’t have any concrete changes in my life, but I feel like I’m getting closer to the opportunity of experiencing life in a way that’s different than what I was stuck in for so many years.
Have you heard the phrase “observe and describe” in therapy?
I haven’t heard that exact phrase. But after reading it over it aligns with what I was learning in therapy. I’m very bad at describing emotions. I can blab on for hours about all the circumstances and connections around the emotion, but observing and describing is a weakness of mine.
What about the concept of mindfulness?
Yup I’m familiar with mindfulness. I’m still trying to get in touch with my body and emotions. I’ve been in such a heightened state of fear for the past few years I checked out of my body. I’m doing a hip releasing/trauma 30 day course that’s been helping.
I think I need a course or something that provides guidance in a non-judgemental way. I’ve unfortunately found a lot of mindfulness based concepts that ironically put a lot of expectations on the individual. I hate most self-help for that reason, I’ve tried a lot over the years and always came out feeling like a failure because some technique or modality didn’t work for me. It’s gotten to the point where even reading material like that can serve as an uncomfortable trigger for me.
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@RVconsultant or anyone else that stumbles upon this post.
I was in a lot of recon when you proposed Limitless and QL. But I was thinking about it some more.
I still feel like Limitless and QL would be too much to add onto my plate right now and expanding my cognitive ability very often locks me up in a state of fear. But then I realized Beyond Limitless is an alternative, which would just help me capitalize on my existing ability and wouldn’t be too dense.
Unfortunately I’m once again stuck with running out of room in my stack. My HoT custom will be staying in place, it’s too important to let go of. I really would like to run Seductress when it comes out and from the hints that were dropped I think there’s going to be a strong wealth component that will help me with finances too. So that leaves Sanguine. Creating a pros and cons list to see what you think.
Pros of Beyond Limitless
- Helping me plan and organize my life. Right now I’m trying to move to a new location, find a new job, and also build my skills so I can be confident
- Outside of the realm of jobs, I could use this to enhance my own skillset to execute the goals of HoT when it comes to fashion and how I look. Which could greatly help me in blending in more socially and increase my confidence.
- My life is one big shifting puzzle piece right now. It’s been incredibly draining. Beyond Limitless is tailored towards immediate cognitive support for current events.
- I’ve been told multiple times that the skills I have are very valuable so I could very easily capitalize on what I currently have to immediately improve my life vs self sabotaging. My barrier to getting a job seems to be myself more than anything else.
- Potential rewiring of brain states that contribute to trauma based reactions
- Productivity in general. It’s bad right now, I can barely keep up with cleaning my dishes in the sink. A cleaner home environment would also aid in stress removal
- Helping me navigate any new job, even if it’s not an ideal one. Being able to perform with ease and not question my intelligence would open doors to being more flexible with moving on if something doesn’t work.
- Improvements with the whole aspect of job searching, applying, and interviewing. For lack of a better term, my brain feels like a dull knife. I’ve been through a lot and its effected my cognitively, but employers don’t like to see that.
Pros of Sanguine
- Sanguine has helped me maintain a calm state amidst all the chaos in my life.
- Sanguine has been helping me rewire how I should view life. Not focusing on productivity or pushing myself, learning to take care of myself and break out of old patterns of survival strategies.
- Putting myself first, advocating for myself, getting more in touch with authentic behavior.
- Learning to relax, like really relax as a skill
- Tuning out the noise from current events while still able to stay informed.
- Building optimism and resilience in myself, feeling like I can rely on and trust myself.
Just typing all that out. My gut feeling is I should leave Sanguine and add Beyond Limitless to the stack where Seductress would go. It just sucks feeling like I can’t run what I want but I think the focus should be on stabilizing my life. Curious to know your thoughts. Do you think Beyond Limitless would be better in this situation vs Limitless? Limitless has a lot of benefits, but I’m worried that will serve as a barrier to embracing the overall script.
I should probably make this a ticket huh?
Might give Limitless a shot and see how it goes. Thinking long term and really scoping out my life and hitting all my insecurities when it comes to my career prospects and intelligence. I don’t deserve to suffer financially just because I’m hindered in my beliefs.
It’s weird I distinctly remember a point when I was a child where I stopped learning or displaying any signs of intelligence because it got me ostracized or bullied. From that point forward I tried less and less in school. It was safer that way. And I carry on this pattern today, yeah I’m afraid of being perceived as intelligent.
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Our society does this all the time. We label our brightest children “nerds,” pushing them to the fringes. These kids, with their limitless potential, are bullied, ignored, and shamed for tapping into the infinite mind—a gift every person has if they choose to believe in it.
From the limitless copy. Really weird that I made that post and then read the copy in full and saw that.
You know limitless never appealed to me because I think I was too afraid to even entertain the thought of standing out. But reading this copy, it’s weird I resonate with the idea behind this so much. I never really made the connection that it wasn’t JUST confidence I had an issue with, it was a fundamental undervaluing of my own potential within myself. This constant friction of existing in a frame or design I never wanted, but also not knowing how to exit it. I hope this helps me find the key to escaping.
The plot thickens.
I thought about it some more. Does Limitless solve some key areas of my life? Yes. But what’s the end goal? Where does that leave me? In a slightly better circumstance, but still chained to something invisible.
I want to break those invisible chains. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do in my life. Have the freedom to step outside enough to not feel like I’m stuck on some conveyor belt. I want to let go of the web of beliefs and concept of reality I’ve created for myself and restructure it without taking a sledgehammer to it all and upsetting the balance.
I’m going to run RoM instead of Limitless in my stack. I’m going to commit to uncovering myself. That is #1 priority. Nothing else matters because if I don’t move through the world comfortable and aligned with myself I might as well be dead.
This is a gamble for me because I don’t know how this will unfold or how it will effect my life. But I’d rather step into the fear of the unknown than devise a carefully curated plan that still keeps me stuck in a box.
@RVconsultant Thanks for the RoM suggestion, I think it is the right title for me at this point in time.
Last night I had this moment of letting go and some weird effects of RoM before even running RoM today. I have run it before so maybe the thought of even running this sub again just had me recall the script.
I realized that I’m not a free person. I’m governed by fears and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve made deeply aligned decisions. The rest of it is falling in line with expectations of what I should do.
Today I decided I’d do nothing. I wouldn’t job search, I wouldn’t think about my future, I’d lounge around, sleep in late, I’d just follow my intuition and learn what I really wanted to do. First thing I noticed, guilt. Why? I have the luxury of doing nothing, I have money saved, I don’t have to step back into the meat grinder of capitalism. And I’m resentful because I feel like that’s what I’ve been programmed to do.
Really whats the point of building a foundation if that foundation is built on top of lies? Or even worse, someone else’s expectations? I’m tired of looking people in the face and exchanging pleasantries about my own life as if I am on the right path when I know deep down I’m not. If I was, wouldn’t I find energy to talk about my life? Wouldn’t I want to share it with others? Instead I feel like it’s a source of shame because I find myself trying to act as if I do have some sense of connection with my life when I don’t.
I’ve been afraid to dig deeper. Every time I’ve dug deep in the past and expressed that to people I’ve been treated as if what I say isn’t in the realm of reality. But it’s more reality than some artificially constructed lifestyle design. I don’t say this to be elitist and I don’t look down on those who have found their path. But I need to find something else, not want, NEED. I’ve come full circle. What I perceived as the naivety of my youth were genuine feelings and emotions that weren’t honored, then I procrastinated, and now I’m back to where I started. Arguably better off in terms of resilience, confidence, and capabilities but the fundamental questions were never answered.
My goal is to stop lying to myself and practice more honesty among the people in my life. My ego has been so caught up in what I’ve been “building” and terrified of going back to square one. But it has to be done. I can’t live like this anymore.
Life can be so much more, but right now I view it with contempt and obligation. Those are my honest feelings. And while gratitude and appreciation are powerful tools, they can’t be used in a spiritual bypassing manner to offset a lack of alignment or purpose. Doesn’t work like that.
I’m in for a deep dive. Might unravel in this journal, who knows. I have no idea what to expect and that’s honestly the best place for me right now vs thinking I know what’s best for myself that’s just an echo of collective opinions of everyone around me.