Liminality custom Qv2

You raise a good point about judgement. Nobody really holds onto the idea that long. But to me that’s worse. Ever seen some bit of misinformation spread virally on the internet? People posting to social media about an event or thing that may not even have occurred, it gains traction and suddenly it’s a fact. That’s how I feel about people that parrot old beliefs about the difficulties other human beings tend to face. But maybe that’s what it is, a defense mechanism. Looking at someone else’s life and thinking “oh shit I wouldn’t want that, better distance myself from that as far as possible. Here’s some made up solution that works 100% of the time even though I haven’t faced the difficulties this other person has faced”.

I’m not sure if I deeply believe in society, or more specifically the structures created around us. My quest for answers is more like a constant questioning of humans in general and what limits we might have. Why is one person stuck in bed with depression while another is living their dream life? The answer of “they worked hard”, I don’t buy it. It’s too simple and it negates all the variables that someone encounters in their life. Those are the answers I really look for. If an individual can’t change, why? Let’s find out what it is and help them vs accusing them of not wanting to change or not trying hard enough.

I guess most of this stems from my own experience in life and my deep empathy for individuals who continue to suffer. This of course invites in such theories like karma, basically individuals wanting a challenge so they reincarnate to learn that. But that is contingent upon someone’s belief in that whole theory of life, whether or not it exists is hard to say.

I’ve always been an idealist. The world never seems quite what it could be and I guess that troubles me on a deeper level. I’m very much the wounded healer archetype. Except I feel like there’s not a lot I can do.

Update, felt good about running it again yesterday. So right now I’m just gonna go by feel of how much I think I can handle. I think my first few runs were definitely the equivalent of jumping into a cold pool of water. Shocking and a lot to take in at first, but I’m coming around to it.

Worked on a bit more of my track yesterday. If this custom can squash my perfectionism I’ll die happy. Perfectionism has been the bane of my existence for as long as I can imagine. But it’s getting hung up on the tiniest of things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things that kills me. For example having a synths release a few ms longer, over the years I convinced myself that it needs to be just right or the whole track falls apart. But it’s simply not true and I was driving myself insane trying to micro manage the timing of every single element in my tracks.

Like you’d think I’d have a gun to my head with how much importance I’d place on how much a kick drum rings out for. It just doesn’t matter or if it’s a little sloppy literally nobody cares except me and other perfectionist producers. And yet I just always get into a bad habit or stuck groove, it’s like this ping of anxiety that causes me to obsess and overthink. It has nothing to do with perfecting the craft or the vision of the song, it’s just me worrying about what the song could turn into. It’s just all incredibly distorted.

Part of me feels like I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing and if I just let myself go and write it’ll be terrible and messy. But this has been me for a while. My imagined end result is always greatly over exaggerated when it comes to anything. My perspective of “messy” might just be a melody playing a few notes too many. But it’s that constant paranoia and anxiety that kills my creativity.

Saw this today

Super important. Not just for raising kids, but your own growth. I constantly got told I was “so smart” growing up. So what happened when I hit challenges? Felt like an idiot and failure when it didn’t come easily and naturally to me like everyone had been saying for years. And then on top of that the crippling perfectionism of needing to maintain that status of “smart”.

I’m 30, but the self esteem movement wrecked people in my generation. It was a complete and utter failure at building resiliency or self-sufficiency in kids. You’ve probably heard the joke of participation trophies and how every kid got a trophy regardless of if they won or lost. That’s just so terrible, it doesn’t mirror ANY part of the real world so why would you do that? And the insistence on making sure kids don’t get upset operates under the assumption that they need someone outside of themselves to deal with upset and they are inherently weak or fragile.

An entire generation insulated from real growth and learning experiences and most importantly understanding how to value THEMSELVES and not some arbitrary traits they are praised on. Kids were robbed from valuable learning experiences because of some dumb shit pop psychology assumption that swept the country.

I’m not saying kids need to be “tougher” or any of that macho nonsense. They just need to be given the space to learn to rely on themselves.

2 Likes

Yep. Praise process, not outcomes. (most of the time)

is a good policy

Not in a a good place today. I guess AM is still beating me up. A lot of my life feels like a mess and I just get paralyzed by it. I’m chipping away at it, but admittedly I procrastinate on things I know I should do. A big one is finding a new job, but to be quite honest I don’t have trust in my capabilities. Of the skills I do have, I feel like it’s not enough. But at the same time there’s absolutely no motivation to expand on that skillset. So I’m kind of stuck in limbo trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.

First step is making a dedicated schedule for job searching and applying. Decided to make that an hour every saturday and sunday to begin with. Something manageable I know I can do and build up from there. Set a timer and when the timer is up just go about the rest of my day. It’s nowhere near how most people apply every day, but I can’t do that. I don’t have the mental capacity or energy for it right now.

And then there’s my music, which can feel like a job itself with how much dedicated effort and focus I put into getting better. I get upset when I can’t create or it doesn’t go well or I can’t finish something. To the point where most people wouldn’t understand why it’s so important to me.

I messed around building some templates today for my modular synth. But just looking at all the tools I have and how I don’t have proficiency to use them how I want like other people got me down. It’s not that I’m not trying to learn, it just feels overwhelming at times and frustrating. For example, this is a patch I stumbled upon that I liked the sound of. I have to dissect it to see what’s going on, but when I see stuff like this I just immediately get stressed out. And this isn’t even a particularly complex one.

I don’t know, it’s just frustrating trying to do stuff and it doesn’t work out or it feels like there’s a block to getting anything done.

2 Likes

Unrequested feedback begins here:

My intuition is that the more you make your growth processes interpersonal, the easier they’ll be. Your perceptual default when it comes to independent tasks is to construct the world into mountains of unscalable height and deep, dark, difficult-to-traverse valleys.

You could construe that as a bad thing if you wanted (and you probably do), but you could also see it as your mind’s natural pull toward emotional and experiential intensity, and your instinctual, inner tendency to try yourself against intense challenges.

However you look at it, it’s a perceptual default, and a perceptual bias.

Other people, whether distant and symbolic (as when you deconstruct someone else’s musical composition) or tangible and concrete (as when you consult in person with a counselor, healer, or helping professional), will provide some helpful outside perspective.

It’s not that those people are right and you are wrong; it’s that other people can provide a less overwhelming paradigm. It can be a kind of vacation or alternative to your default Intense paradigm. Also, your natural tendency to care for, be attentive to, and to help other people will compete with and distract from the overwhelmed, imperiled picture that predominates in your attention when you’re alone. Likely to have a balancing effect.

The negative side of the interpersonal strategy is that you also achieve much higher focus and concentration when working alone. That’s probably part of what makes it so appealing. So at some point, you’re likely to get fed-up with being around others and feel that ‘it’s time to go and get some real work done’. And that’s legitimate as well.

But bringing these two elements into a skillful ratio, may help to make the journey a bit easier.

2 Likes

Lol your feedback is always welcome here. I shout into the wind on this forum a lot so people are free to do what they want.

It’s funny you mention this because I had that thought the other day. The issues I’m dealing with are compounded by my inability to sort of escape that intense anxiety of having “so much to do”. I’m seeing a therapist soon for this exact reason.

I have this feeling that when I move past a lot of the challenges I’m currently facing with my job and living situation those mountains are going to look like lumps of dirt. But I think the main difficulty is my current perspective of it and how I have trouble strategizing and prioritizing in such a way to help me move on past it.

2 Likes

makes sense.

1 Like

These past two days have really sucked for me. I’m going to hold off on listening this week coming up. I seem to be going around in circles with this and feeling like I should be able to handle 3 loops total every other day for the week, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Kind of made me realize something. If I generally have a hard time juggling multiple things in my head and organizing and prioritizing, stuffing my mind with more to process isn’t gonna do me any favors. I’m just going to overwhelm myself and procrastinate even more. Land myself into even more trouble.

It’s important I work with my mind, not against it. And from enough really harsh rest days on the weekend, I can kind of see how I’m just getting to it all of it now. Which means it’s too much and I’m not actually integrating anything during the week.

I still think this would be a good strategy.

Not to follow a fixed time interval, but instead to use a “kick-push” strategy, like when skateboarding. Play another loop when you feel the momentum of the first loop running out. If that’s 1 day, then wait one day. If the next time takes 1.5 weeks, then that time you wait 1.5 weeks.

Fixed intervals (e.g., every 2 days no matter what) are for people who can’t feel what’s happening. (Uhhh… like me much of the time.). But you seem to have some ability to tune into and track your internal state a bit more. If you use and apply this sensitivity, now it becomes an advantage rather than a setback.

How about playing the next loop when you feel that you’ve finished processing the previous loop?

2 Likes

Yes you’re definitely right. That’s what I’m going to do moving forward. I guess I just have a tendency to try to power through things and cause more issues for myself. I’m still learning to be patient with myself vs fueling my growth through a sort of self hatred

Theory time:

Here is one way of thinking about growth processes.

We can divide them into:

  1. a destabilization/deconstruction phase

    and then

  2. a restabilization/integration phase

In order to transition to an improved configuration with more options, flexibility, strength, or whatever, we need to become ‘able to change’. This means that things need to, at least temporarily, decrease stability and solidity.

(If you have a metallic sculpture, and you want to recast it into a more preferable shape, you need to heat it up first or even completely melt it down first.)

This unstable-stable cycle is ongoing and natural (think breathing, heart beat, blood flow, sleeping/waking, and so on), but it often becomes heightened whenever we pursue a more intense, extreme, or intentional change process.

In this case, the instability, or chaos or entropy, is in the service of increased adaptiveness and functionality. But that does not mean that it is somehow safe. This sought-for disorder is just as potentially threatening as any other type of disorder. So, it still needs to be handled with care, discernment, and respect.

That’s the theory.

In your case, before you were using subliminal programs, you were already navigating and contending with some degree of systemic instability. (This is not uncommon for artists, for introverts, for [insert challenged group here]).

In that situation, a lot of people just clench up and double down. Too much chaos already. So, I can’t afford to try to grow or to try to heal. I’m fully occupied just handling this instability. Very understandable position.

But you decided to go for it anyway. To invest in more chaos, this time chaos of your own choosing that could help you to start to change the direction and momentum of things in your life.

In my opinion? You made the right choice.

What’s the point of all of this if you’re not trying to guide the vessel in a good direction of your choosing?

But it means that you need to be even more vigilant. You need to continue handling the original chaos/instability, and you additionally need to handle and skillfully navigate this new intentional chaos of the intentional growth process.

A long way of expressing myself, but the point here is that prudence, discernment, and sensitive observation are your friends.

I hear you.

The essence of love is to consider that someone’s experience is valid and legitimate. That it’s valuable and worthy of respect.

So, sure you (and we) sometimes ignore and invalidate your experiential wisdom; but I think there’s plenty of evidence–extremely consistent evidence–in this and your previous journal, that you also give a lot of love, respect, and legitimacy to your experience.

It’s a process. We can always give more.

1 Like

Much appreciated man, this helped me out. It’s one thing to have these perspectives and thoughts on your own situation, but an entirely different matter for another individual to see the same and provide more tangibility to it. My life has consisted of a ton of unintentional self gaslighting so sometimes having that outside input helps.

2 Likes

Must be Blue Skies, but there’s a lot of evaluating my position on my myself. What I mean by that is, I seem more obsessed about being “better” than actually being better for the sake of having a happier life. Or maybe it’s a mix and I have to scale back on one side.

I mean I’ll tell you what I always feel like I should do in the back of my mind. Get more certs for my job, build my skill up, challenge myself more, get a better job, be financially stable enough to be able to support a family. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t think of that stuff and think to myself “yeah definitely what I’m motivated to do and really want to work towards”. It’s more like “I should probably do this so I don’t die somewhere homeless”. The motivation there is primarily survival, but it seems entirely born out of fear. I know from every single experience in my life making decisions out of fear is the dumbest shit I could ever do. It never works in my favor.

This might just be me being more artistic and creative and not fitting into those incredibly common roles in society. Or I can be entirely wrong and the reason is my dysfuction and I just use the artistic/creative label as a scapegoat to not feel like a complete failure.

But one module, Joie de Virve, is very important to me. If there’s no enjoyment, no flow to life, no alignment, and just doing things “because” life is pointless because it’s being squandered. My issue is I can’t seem to break away from the survival fear enough to explore alternative avenues for living a fulfilling life. I know the road or path I’ve been on for the past 3 years regarding what I’m doing has been wrong but I’ve been stuck. And I know others are on those alternate paths and continue to ride them with as much normality as I do in my dead end monotonous current(current invoker sounds like it’s influencing me here).

My main point is just needing the power and confidence to just cut through the bullshit of life. There’s a lot of that. I’m tired of dealing with the status quo shit, but at the same time I routinely fail to do a lot to get out of it and that makes me incredibly frustrated. It’s haunting because my life is playing out like my parents, something I witnessed as a child and developed a lot of anxiety over because I’d watch them be stuck, frustrated, stressed, but unable to move on.

The challenge these days doesn’t even seem to be the amount of work I’d have to put in out in the world. The challenge is reorienting myself in such a way where I leave behind old survival strategies and comfort zones in favor of something new. If I have the same internal framework, the same subconscious routines, and I do stuff “out there” I’m not moving along in life how I want. I’ll be tackling problems and events that didn’t come from the outside randomly, but are just part of all that subconscious programming. So in a way I don’t think people necessarily “move through life”, but rather life moves around you.

But it’s only been 18 days since I’ve first started this custom. I can’t expect to do a complete 180 in that time, but there’s something emerging here for certain. Some internal knowing, but a lack of confidence in my own abilities and trust to throw away the safety nets I’ve built for myself.

1 Like

It sounds like this custom is gentler than DR.

Are you running Elixir?

What do you think is the strongest healing module you are running?

1 Like

It’s definitely more forgiving. With DR I felt a neverending spiral I couldn’t get out of. I have my down days but I seem to bounce back a lot quicker.

I would say the strongest module is blue skies. I’ve had it in my other customs and I’m very familiar with how introspective it can make me. It’s not a breakdown or anything like that, but it’s like a magnifying glass into your soul. I’m not sure how to describe it better. But it tends to make me feel my needs more and push those to the surface vs burying them. Which is a sort of indirect self love in a way.

1 Like

Dude! Don’t you know it?

I’m glad this is working better for you. I think I’m more or less out of the reconciliation hell from DR.

2 Likes

Going to be making an offline journal for myself. I’ll be posting here a lot less unless I hit some bigger breakthroughs or make massive progress. As of right now I’m just going through a rough time trying to get my life together and a lot of my posts on my journals are better suited for offline use. They don’t always highlight the effects or progress of the subs and I’d rather have clear separation between my growth and the 1000s of thoughts and feelings I run through in my mind on a daily basis. It’ll be better for me when I can look back on my journals and have a positive list of changes vs having to sift through the same negative thought loops and stuck behaviors. I guess it’ll be a sort of filter before stuff hits here so I’m not indulging in the same mistakes.

2 Likes

I understand. I keep an offline journal too.

Remember you can always take more rest days and/or do fewer loops.

1 Like

Oddly enough as soon as I made this decision I have important stuff to write here. Go figure.

These are stupid simple concepts that get overlooked by me because it’s hard to remain consistent. But it’s fundamental stuff.

  1. No matter how much something sucks, don’t focus on every shitty aspect of it and let it consume you. I’ve done this with my job for the past 2 years. It took up mental real estate that could have been better served visualizing positive future scenarios

  2. Life changes don’t have to be complete 180s. It’s nice if they are, but they don’t have to be. Anything less than that isn’t failure or not pushing your comfort zone enough. Growth is growth.

  3. There’s always a way out of your current situation. But what won’t help you get out is telling yourself you’re stuck and nothing is working. One you’ll get depressed, two your list of possibilities will shrink until you’re on an island of fear and doubt. It’s a bad place to be, one I’ve been many times.

  4. Talk to people in your life. Things might feel bad for you and it’s tempting to just isolate yourself until you’re “better” and feel good enough to be around people. But it’s a trap. You’re your own worst critic, people want you around flaws and all. You just can’t see that because you’re so used to putting yourself down for every perceived flaw.

2 Likes