Oh that’s a good idea! I’ll have to see if anything like that exists. Like a face ratio calculator or something.
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Vendor screwed us with a tool for implementing a major merger at my job. A sub 10% success rate they didn’t clue us in on until after the fact and it was failing across the board with 200 employees. As me and my team were doing our best to reign in the chaos we were absolutely slammed. Then nobody on the business side telling me if a certain group of individuals were down or not. Then I had the president come into my office when I was in the middle of two calls and ask me if the entire order entry department was down? I don’t know? Did anyone bring it to my attention except you at 3pm in the afternoon? She later told my boss that he needs to monitor my inbox because I told her I was slammed with tickets on an unusually high volume day which she took to mean I couldn’t do my job properly.
And that’s it. I’m done. I’m leaving. I don’t deserve this shit or being constantly thrust into these situations where everyone is afraid of the big boogeyman CEO at the top and losing their jobs. Fuck that, it’s toxic. I don’t even like this job or being a manager.
Sort of related to that I’m rethinking running 3 titles in my stack and pairing down my focus a bit. Maybe drop Phoenix for now. I might build a HOT custom with Genesis in it and stack that with LB once a week.
Major difficulties right now
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Being transgender, physically and socially transitioning and the huge mental hurdles that come with that. Juggling a job on top of that
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Job confidence and skill level, this job has shit on me so much I feel beaten down. They never invested in me and they basically forced me into a manager role in order to compensate me and took me out of the technical role which I regret
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Burnout burnout burnout, I’m sick of companies that are profit driven, ERP systems, sales focused ventures(no offense to anyone in sales here). It’s a level of pressure to keep the systems online 100% of the time with no hiccups and practically no real payoff for me except stress and maybe a tiny bit better pay.
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Whatever passion or slight interest I had for IT is now met with a deep aversion and bad association
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Fear of not making enough money. I’m lucky that I’ve gotten to 70k a year at this point in my life. I need to break the limiting belief that it’s a fluke or I’m being paid too much. Otherwise it will chain me to shitty jobs like this one
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Not at the most confident point in my life right now as I’m sitting in between genders, using my male presentation to still get me through life. It’s incredibly unsatisfying and painful at times.
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Still working through childhood trauma in therapy
On the flipside major advantages
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Not married, no dependents. I’m single, I take care of myself and live alone. So I’m flexible with jumping ship from jobs
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No mortgage, no house, no outstanding debts. I did my best to not let the financial issues of this country get its hooks in me
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I have a passion that’s music and I’m not terrible at it.
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Supper supportive family and friend circle I can lean on. I just have to get more comfortable with doing so
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33 years old, so I’m not that old yet
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In theory I have the flexibility to travel (within reason), explore, break out of this stupid rat race bubble I’ve been stuck in.
I just want to feel ok. Phoenix got the ball rolling with some drastic changes, but I honestly feel like I just need gentle support at this point. I don’t want to go through trials and pain and fights to change anymore. That’s not what I need right now.
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Ok typing all that out, I’m going to stick to this stack for now. Phoenix is doing good things. All this, everything I’m experiencing right now is change. It’s scary and difficult and I just wish I could have my comfort back but I know that comfort was slowly killing me. So onwards we go.
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I’m back to 30s loops I guess. I need to stop thinking that’s “not enough”. I’ve noticed a pattern
Run 30s loops
Start feeling better
Think I’m ready for 1 min
Run 1 min loop a few times a week, feel fine
Processing queue backed up, next week I feel bogged down
Think I’m not doing enough or pushing myself hard enough so continue 1 min out of stubbornness
Start feeling worse
Realize I should have stuck to 30s
One thing I’ve started doing is really tuning into my body while listening to the loop. I noticed I had a tendency to dissociate in order to make it to one minute which was doing me no favors. So now I just run the sub and listen to my body as much as possible. I’ve realized within that short 30s windows there’s A LOT of emotional processing that is taking place that still isn’t a walk in the park yet. Dumping another 30s on top of that, yeah of course I’m having issues. It’s just me being worried about not maximizing my growth and losing time vs me giving myself improvements in my life systematically and in a balanced way. Life isn’t just about getting better, it’s about enjoying what’s in front of you. If I’m putting myself in recon for multiple days there’s no point.
But for positive stuff. My hair appointment was amazing. I learned all about my hair texture and how I have really wavy/curly hair and the frizz I dealt with on a constant basis was because I had no idea how to work with my hair and was treating it like it was straight textured. I have been absolutely loving my hair since that appointment. Oddly enough lol, it got me thinking about ME. Who am I naturally and where do I fit vs trying to force myself into roles I’m not suited for. Loving myself enough to embrace all aspects of myself and make those work for me.
I know for me I’m sick of giving myself a limited list of choices to choose from when it comes to a job. Like no, I don’t have to put up with shitty work culture or people that are high strung. There’s this correlation in my head, I don’t know where it came from, but if I’m not working in a production or for profit environment then I can’t make enough money. The “you can like your job and be in a supportive environment or you can make a lot of money” Why not both? Idk I think it’s just some bad beliefs from how I was raised and what my parents put up with and passed onto me. But I’m going to reject that and find something that ADDs to my life, not take away from it.
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What do you want to happen in your life in the next 90 days?
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I have a few actually. But I’m gonna put them in order of most important to me
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Feel good about myself, my expression, my identity, live as myself fully without worrying what others think. I’ve spent too much of my life afraid of being myself.
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Physical shifting goals, I just want my outside to match the inside as much as possible. I know that might take longer than 90 days though. But anything I can do to improve my own physical outward appearance is massively important to me right now.
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Build more confidence and feel more secure in being able to find jobs and do them. Maybe longer term find a job that helps me grow and isn’t an absolute meat grinder to work at. Have the confidence and security to know I can leave toxic workplaces and have something lined up right away. Unemployment terrifies me because I had a period of my life that got really dark dealing with that.
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Get back into my music and write more songs. But I really want it to be enjoyable for me vs feeling obligated to get better at it. It’s still something I really struggle with. This is still important to me, but it’s taken a back seat for the time being as I’ve been working with my gender identity and prioritizing that.
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Phoenix objectives from the sales page
- Release the shackles of past, present, and future constraints, embracing the full potential and magnificence of your true self.
- Purge your life of toxic influences, freeing yourself from harmful, negative, and destructive impacts.
- Reshape your identity to align with your aspirations, enabling you to become the person you’ve always envisioned.
Yup I’m on the right sub.
This has all been really difficult for me, but I’ll keep going. Every day I challenge my ideas of what life has to be like for me. I know I have a tendency to take the path of least resistance and stay in situations that aren’t good for me. But I don’t want to settle in life.
I’m just afraid a lot of the time. I’m honestly afraid of happiness. Since taking steps to feel better in my own skin I’ve been experiencing it for the first time in a while. And it terrifies me I think because I don’t want to lose it. I’m reminded that a good way to offset this is to practice gratitude which I’m going to start doing more of. Maybe like 5 things every morning.
The other part of it is, I’m still dealing with the fact that I’m now part of a population of individuals that are more likely to get targeted for hate and violence. The more I change my outward appearance, the more that sinks in. I’m lucky enough to live in a nice area, but it deeply saddens me there are people that want to kill or harm people like me just because I’m different.
And no the answer isn’t self defense or learning martial arts, it’s about overcoming my own internalized fears and not letting other negative people ruin my life without even having them in my life.
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So I scheduled a transfer to my online bank for savings. I should have done this a long time ago and I didn’t. I have this anxiety about money so I always built up a cushion. But I’m putting 10k in a 4.20% yield savings account. The fact that I’m finally doing this is a sign I’m breaking past some money limitations. Honestly I could safely put another 10k in there right now and I’d still be fine. But I’m just starting small. The goal is the money goes in there and absolutely does not come out so I have to just work up to it a little.
Had a chat with a friend and they helped me polish up my resume and get my skills section together. It’s a good step, I couldn’t even touch my resume for years. He also sent me a link for what’s essentially fiver for IT professionals, so if I ever needed quick cash I could do a quick contract gig or something so that made me feel a little more secure.
Talked about long term goals, career paths. He said maybe development would be good for me. But I’m not much of a programmer. Other suggestion would be networking, but I’m in charge of making sure a network is functional which means on call and if it goes down it’s my head. I already decided that I don’t want that stress in my life. So right now I’m just considering what possibilities I have in front of me and where i can pivot to.
But yeah nailing one of my goals right now which I’m super happy about because this has been hanging over my head for a while now.
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I’m still getting hammered by my short 30s loop two days ago with LB.
I pretty much cried off and on all day yesterday and then even today. I don’t cry a lot because most of my life I saw crying as pointless. I saw my own emotional difficulties and struggles as unimportant. I saw me not being comfortable in my gender as something I needed to get over or stop dwelling in or I was exaggerating a minor thing.
The more I’ve just started validating myself, the more I feel the emotional pain of never being able to be myself in my life. Ever. I’d always twist and contort myself to get validation or approval. Or even when i was in the moment with someone there was always this anxiety about them finding out about the real me and I would be in a half way state of connecting with another human being.
I guess just reconciling all this, it’s tough. The hardest thing I’ve been through in my life. I have a lot of steps laid out for myself to be more comfortable as myself physically. But emotionally and mentally? This is hard. It almost doesn’t seem real, that’s how hard it’s been hitting me.
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You know this is a chance to be myself fully. Forget about everything everyone has ever told me or pressured me to be. I don’t have to be ANYTHING I don’t want to be. This is a fresh start in my life. So that’s what I’m going to see it as. What do I like? Who do I want to be? How do I want to express myself? Nothing off limits. If that means crying most of my day then screw it I’m gonna let that be
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I have to keep reminding myself I have just started when I get upset that I still have so much anxiety over what others think. It’s like yeah over the years I tried to cultivate self confidence and recognizing my own worth. But I could only go so far since I wasn’t accepting myself fully.
I feel like for the first time in my life that super vulnerable part of me is showing up in the world and it’s been terrifying. Prior to that it’s like I spent my whole life guarding this and whatever confidence or ability to interface out in the world was just for functioning but not really living.
Letting go of that security has been the hardest thing for me. Granted I wasn’t the most confident guy but it sort of worked. I had my little comfort zone. My job, my music, and I’d just say to myself “good enough”. But it never was.
Phoenix has me on this edge every day. It’s not overwhelming anxiety, but it’s like my mind refuses to go backwards into hiding in comfort zones.
I finally scheduled a laser hair removal consultation appointment to get rid of my facial hair. I don’t know why it took so long. I knew it was distressing to me but I had trouble giving that to myself. Maybe that’s more along the lines of LB. Maybe that’s me and my constant doubts about being transgender or if this is the right thing to do.
My mind keeps saying “switch to Genesis you’ll feel better”. But I am feeling better on Phoenix, I just also have to cut through a lot of fear and uncertainty to keep moving forward.
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Ran a min of LB this morning. Will see how this goes.
After my last therapy session my therapist pointed out the awful self talk I’ve been having towards myself. And that’s what gets you into trouble, not other people. People can say whatever they want and yeah it can hurt sometimes but the real killer is when you take that negative event and let it reverberate through your entire mind and make you feel bad.
Last monday I went to my support group and I left my apartment wearing some women’s clothing. Nothing crazy just a cute top and some jeans. Just something to make me feel better. But I had so much nasty stuff running through my head while walking through town. It’s been difficult. But it made me realize the solution to this isn’t stacking more confidence on top and not caring what others think, it’s about loving myself and showing myself compassion so those outside opinions don’t have as much power over me.
I know I still have a lot of internalized hate and shame for being who I am. And that’s been getting projected out into the world. The fact remains I haven’t truly lived outwardly as who I want to be yet. I’m still working up to it, but I know all those new experiences will be important to help me reframe how people generally feel towards transgender individuals. Cuz right now I’m living in an echo chamber of my own hate, fear, and shame.
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What is your listening schedule right now?
Have you considered Ascension for Women?
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Right now my schedule is one day on one day off
Phoenix
HoT
And then once a week LB or whenever I feel like I can listen to it on one of my listening days.
I was actually thinking about running ascension for women the other day. I might switch to that instead of Phoenix. I like Phoenix but I feel like I need to really start focusing on foundation for myself. Going to read the product description later and see how I feel about it.
I would feel bad bailing on Phoenix but I’m not sure it’s what I need right now. This might be a down the line one to run when I’m really trying to bust past some limitations.
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Ascension for women sounds perfect, I feel so good reading the description. This hits so many things I’ve been struggling with. I’m gonna stop Phoenix now so by the time I finish my 5 day wash out coming up I’m going to switch right over to this. I’m actually really excited to run this. Would be great if this got some NSE love in the future.
I do wonder what the limits of physical shifting are. I would have been interested to see the effects of HOT on me without taking HRT. But that wasn’t something I was willing to gamble with and lose time on. Hit my one month mark on may 1st, apparently physical changes don’t really become prominent until 3 months? But I’ve got HOT I’m using so my mind is super focused on my desired outcome.
I can say this. The day after running HOT my perception of myself changes a lot. But then it fades a bit. I flip flop between liking the way I look and feeling like I have some way too masculine features that upset me. I found a website that analyzes your face with AI and seems to be based on symmetry principles it compares to. Obviously if you’re not careful this can quickly move into body dysmorphia territory. It’s like 10 bucks a month for more advance reporting and it seems to do all measurements and comparison automatically. Gonna give it a shot and track my progress with it.
Not a clue if that’s accurate, but I’ll take it.
Here you go!
Let me know what you think. I have close to 0 knowledge on face geometry, ratios, etc. But they seem to have some good info on their site.
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I won’t lie, I got really confused when I saw you write about HOT, lol. As if I woke up in an alternate reality or something. Figured it out now… wow, this is a pretty fascinating journal. Reminds me of another DnB artist.
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