Having trouble on LBFH

Questions and Comments
#1

I’ve been on LBFH about a month, and I changed my rest days to 4 or more. That is having it dig deeper, meaning more recon. Today, I did LBFH and my first run of Sanguine (in years).

I’m wishing to share some of what I’m going through. I’ve been holding back, both around people and here, but I need to hear what I’m misguided on, but also some good.

Major point: I finished another 13-hour day just hours ago, doing 6 days straight of physical labor. I did over 70 hours, and I’m tired as hell. I’ve been propping myself up on caffeine. I’m unsure how fatigue affects my thought life because I was mad a lot yesterday and today, while keeping it inside.

But I’ve felt very dependent on my coworker’s approval of me, and broke inside today. After being dissed repeatedly (I’m a 3rd guy working with 2 guys who’ve been working together for months; very cliquish), I felt very dismissed, ignored when I’d speak to either of them, and when the lead driver told me he was ignoring me as he backed his garbage truck towards me, it was my breaking point. I’d had my hand up signaling stop. Ignored.

I ended up keeping my damn trap shut, ignoring the f***ers, and that wore on me. I took a 15-minute nap midday, and I came back seeking to rejoin the discussions. (yeah, that break refreshed me, until my anger returned)

But pulling back emotionally and personally is an old survival mode I resort to. I’m screaming inside “leave me the f*** alone!!” when all I see is physical danger if I even open my mouth. I’m imagining hostile tempers, and both these guys are quick to defend themselves verbally. I tend to often comply with angry people.

I worked around these people today, and wanted no part of them. I imagined telling them I wanted to be taken back, but my imagined conversations turned into something not good repeatedly. So, I dealt with it alone.

In short, I’m having old bad feelings surface and not seeing a way out. I’m seeing old unhelpful ways of handling disagreement, but …damn, it’s all I know. I’ve not had many non-complying reactions to disagreements with most people.

Another major point: I’ve believed almost my whole life that YOU had power, and I didn’t. Which leads me to be dependent on others.

I know I’m missing something(s).
I know I tend to not share my errors, especially here.
I know I could submit a support ticket.
I think like a child stuck in an adult body.
And I’m used to the above bad situations, calling it “normal”.

A symptom of recon is title switching. I’ve considered going back to DR2 today (my 1st time since I pulled off it in late August), but I’m living under a self-imposed prison of “you might be making a dumb move”. I didn’t think of posting that, but I know some will say “why don’t you try…(any SC sub)…?”

And I’m not helpless. I wrote that, and my mind said “who are you talking to?” Because part of me being dependent on you is me playing a weak person.

Last major point: I’ve been kicking my own ass whenever I fail, or whenever I imagine someone seeing my errors (since it opens the doorway to treatment like I received and imagined today: being ignored and disrespected).

How can I change?

Gonna drop and sleep in tomorrow.

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#2

What I get from this post is that there’s a deeper level of reconciliation happening here, let me explain why:

Firstly, you’re fatigued, mentally, physically and emotionally, but instead of letting it out, you’re bottling it up, and trust me, as someone who always used to do that, it’s extreme taxing on you, even if you don’t realize it yet.

I’ll be honest with you, you’re projecting your own anger outwards, the strong negative emotions that you’re bottling up are overwhelming you so much mentally, that it’s projecting outwards, which is leading to your behavior (I’m 90% sure of this) is what’s causing them to act a certain way with you, because the more bottle things up, the more of a “punching bag” you become, since people realize that you’re just gonna bottle shit up and not react or stand for yourself.

Secondly, you see what you wrote here?
Read it again, multiple times, and understand that what you’re going through is a massive shift, your inner world is changing on a much deeper level and making you confront your own BS that you’ve been keeping up for so long, and the reason you feel so bad is because you’re still keeping it up and not doing anything about it.

Honestly, what you need with LBFH is a title that would push you to own yourself, and my recommendation is Khan, start that journey and stack LBFH all the day, but more importantly than the title is: start consciously putting effort in fixing your behavioral patterns, especially how much you bottle things up.

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#3

Hard labor makes us stupid. That’s a well know thing.

I’ve experienced something like that a couple of times. It’s like the “old me” creeping back on me. It shall pass soon enough.

Wait out the recon and proceed with your subliminal training when you haven’t had any recon for at least 24 hours. Recon is a tricky beast that goes away and comes back even if you haven’t run your loops. The same if it comes to subliminal fatigue. Wait it out till you’ve had 24 hours when you’ve felt “normal” energetically.

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#4

This may not be sub related. 70 hours of hard labor is exhausting, and people tend not to have their best emotional states when exhausted.
If your coworkers are working as much, that goes for them too.

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#5

That’s exactly what’s going on. I’m a target for others. I began seeing the driver yesterday as a “bully”, and I held my tongue all day. I wasn’t in the best state of mind, and I’d see good spots of him throughout the day. I was afraid of my anger, as I hold it in most of the time.

I’m thinking about your suggestion to run Kahn. Undecided yet, mostly due to old messages popping up. I did Stage 1 when it came out originally, and I had no glaring recon pop up like others did. I felt more confident.

I’ll share this. Do you know why I’m undecided as of yet? I’m used to following others’ lead vs. my own. Like whenever I feel unable (unwilling?) to do something, I’ve always looked for a leader to follow. That’s very, very true for me. And being angry–ooooo–don’t do that. Being nice has been an easy, uncomfortable outlet for that. I avoid conflict, but create it in myself with myself. How the F do I handle it in myself? I ask myself, honestly.

Thank you for sharing your reason for responding, having done it yourself.

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#6

Yeah. It points back to things I’ve known about and avoided. Doing something which worked for me would be very welcome since old ways are loud about reminding me it never worked.

I’m going to stay on a 4-day rest, knowing recon will surface. I’ll keep it simple like that. Maybe a 5 day washout. I’ve wondered since I began doing longer rest periods if the washouts would be nixed because of this. I’m sure someone has asked it already.

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#7

I hadn’t thought of them. Thanks @COWolfe.

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#8

This tells me that Chosen or CFW might be useful. I’ve not used either one in-depth enough to say which would be better.

I do know that others have said they’re basically completely different flavors from one another since CFW is so inward-looking.

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#9

I had Chosen in my DR customs. I’m unsure how it worked in there, but I wasn’t incredibly uncomfortable in social situations. Iron Frame helped out in that too since it cut down my reactiveness to people testing me.

Part of the reason DR was attractive to me was it incorporating the masculine characteristics. I rarely wrestled with my masculine image on a deep level. I felt more grounded and generally unafraid of things popping up.

@Invictus was right. It’s doing some major shifts in me, all simultaneously. I’m thinking I should work with this.

I even rewatched a YT video just now, remembering how weeks back (maybe months), I’d watched it and balled my eyes out. It’s an analogy of him feeling out of place, protecting himself constantly. He takes his mask off in the end (a space helmet in the video), and strangers he’d previously met welcomed him just as he was. I cried again.

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#10

That’s is a symptom of lack of self-love. Somehow, you subconsciously believe that you are worth less than other people. That’s why you’d rather put your trust in someone else. The truth is that most people are just as clueless about life as you are.
Leave LBFH in your stack forever. I haven’t seen a sub that comes close to that one as far as self-love is concerned.
I don’t care how many subs you run, if your self-love tank is empty, you’ll always be dissatisfied with your results. Self-love is the one thing everything else is built on.

5 Likes
A Northern Power (Not Nice)
#11

I’m gonna pick points in your post and you tell me if I’m on or off the mark. I just want to help but I am guilty of projection at times.

First question. Did you hit this work week because you genuinely wanted to for money or something? Or was there a deeper push inside you that made you feel like you should do it? Self harm can come in all forms that we don’t usually consider. Propping yourself on caffeine, not listening to your body’s need to rest, and powering through can be a form of neglect.

This sounds like old emotional neglect wounds being activated. More specifically an emotional flashback. I think you’re already familiar with all this, I’m just pointing it out in case you’re being unnecessarily harsh with yourself. It’s easier to go black and white and shut people out this way, like you said it’s a coping mechanism you learned. It’s not bad, remember that. It served a purpose and still does, you’re trying to protect yourself in some way. Don’t condemn yourself for this behavior.

You are not under any obligation to be friends with your coworkers. You can be cordial, even tempered, but you don’t have to have a bond. This is another side you should consider. Do you genuinely want to connect with these people? Or do you feel obligated to? Were you responsible for other’s feelings to an extreme degree in childhood? That might be another side playing out here.

I say this with the deepest intentions of helping you get better. Have you considered a therapist? The overload of work undoubtedly brought down A LOT of the mental energy you expend keeping these things under wraps. But it leaked through a lot more because in all likelihood your willpower got drained from everything.

It’s not about working harder, tough love, or any crap like that. It’s about finding out what has you stuck and working in a smart safe way to resolve it. Anything else is just machismo crap operating out of ego or insecurity directed at us. And as men we get that shit piled on us by the truckload. I will fight anyone who says otherwise because I’ve encountered too many stories in my life of guys silently suffering. It’s something I feel very strongly about and I believe needs to change badly.

I say stick with LBFH. It’s going to keep uncovering stuff. Out of all the subs I’ve run this one hits the past traumas the safest way. It’s like going in with a scalpel and surgical precision vs just trying to take a huge excavator and pull all that stuff out at once. The excavator seems like a good idea at the time, but it’s not always what you need.

You’ve got the insight, mindset, and courage for growth. You just might need some extra help to get you further along.

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#12

Buy Taiga or Ginseng and Schisandra they power you up very quickly.

Forget the pills and small doses, take much of that- very fast.

For the rest of your problems - Godlike Masculinity

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#13

I did it since it was required by our company. Hurricane Ian hit the other coast, but high winds hit us, and our city was filled with tree limbs everywhere. I didn’t know it was going to be 6 days originally, as 50-55 hours is normal for me. I had physical energy, but LBFH was doing a work on me, testing my old self-built guards. It’s gonna be a norm for a few weeks, but FEMA has some trucks and people coming in this week, which will lessen our workload significantly.

Definite flashbacks, but more like they moved in overnight. It seemed like I only had these old tools to work with. Me being hard on myself was old hat, but it never stopped. @Invictus was right when he said my anger was hurting me since I saw myself doing hurtful things over and over, but I wasn’t doing anything about it.

Not in a long time. I’ve used many mind tools since I stopped seeing one, so at that time, I thought I’d moved past needing one. Know any who deal with masculine issues and overcoming childhood trauma?

One of my biggest reasons for excluding therapists happened about 4 years back. I was doing a competitor’s sub, and I realized how I’d built some dishonest fantasies with myself and everybody else. I lied to myself and everyone else, but knew something was wrong. Even in therapy, I didn’t know how to be real. I stopped it and numerous legit recovery outlets since my whole existence there was grounded in lies to look like I was doing the work, when my real goal was to keep everyone away from my deepest pain. I was doing very little work on myself, and I couldn’t stand the charade. So I quit it. All of it except subliminals.

Speaking of which, I just thought of a recovery organization which I frequented online years back. I stopped when I saw myself coming in and putting on some show of how life isn’t working for me well, knowing my old intentions were to constantly keep people AWAY from my deepest pains. I haven’t thought of that in quite a while. I just don’t feel good about doing it again.

That’s a major reason I’ve not even considered a therapist in years–subliminals are showing me the dishonest displays I do. I wonder “who the f am I?” when old norms were “a liar”. And I’m the only one who can change this for me.

Thanks for the direct questions. I’m seeing I still do this hiding of my real pains and issues to work on using subs, and the disconnect between true issues and flagrant fronts is causing me more stress. I’d make a custom if I could change my pattern in this.

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#14

Would you elaborate on these?
And why Godlike Masculinity specifically? What’s your experience with it?

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#15

We need to understand that the whole idea of patterns and washouts was developed as a guideline for people who are initiates or are not really proficient in the art of Mental Alchemy that is comprised of self-observation and introspection. The general rule I follow is I run my loop only if I haven’t had recon or symptoms of “overexposure” for at least 24 hours. It works very well for me.

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#16

Thank you @Sub.Zero. I’m grateful you clarified since it’s something I’ve not practiced much myself (determining my own rest days). I’m reading about and discovering myself how ZP blooms sometimes painfully. It doesn’t lie. I’m seeing value in it as I go forward.

Point blank: I’ve not believed in myself to try this. Not admitting that, or keeping it in, has been problematic for me.

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#17

I don’t get recon. Recon gets me.

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#18

I’d love to know why you said that @Trader. It sounds deep and well thought out.

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#19

Just lifted from a Chuck Norris joke about fear.

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#20

Got me :+1:

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