Something that crossed my mind a few minutes ago. This forum is a good opportunity for growth just from reading other journals. Monitoring internal reactions, thoughts, feelings on certain subjects.It can be like probing deeper into your own mindset or belief system without hardcore introspection. I’m going to try to do better to take these uncomfortable feelings as opportunities to explore myself more vs shutting out.
2 Likes
I have a course on sync licensing music. I haven’t even touched it yet. Where I’m at in life, I just don’t really have belief in myself with anything I do. This is due to my wild inconsistency and inability to get anything done. You go through years of that shit and after a while there’s no faith there. I can’t even pretend or try to convince myself it’ll be different.
I basically took those really defeatist core beliefs and paved over them over the years. I got some stuff done, but ultimately nothing to satisfy me.
I say this now because I think I’m just getting to some really deep foundational stuff. Glossing over it again with trying to think positive is going to be more damaging than helpful. Ultimately that’s how I landed in this mess. I didn’t take care of my mental health, my parents didn’t do anything for me growing up either. It was just platitudes and “you need to stop overthinking and get out more”.
Deny, deny, deny, and crash and burn in my 30s. That’s about how things are going for me. My mind finally decided to pull the breaker on everything. I guess a somewhat secure job and a decent financial situation had my mind thinking it’s “safe” to unravel everything. Prior to this I was running on pure adrenaline with fear and stress.
2 Likes
I’m on day 3 of no caffeine because I screwed it up last week.
I don’t know if it’s the caffeine withdrawal, the fact that I was using coffee as a crutch to make it through my day, or going back to a 3 minute loop for this week. I only drink 1 cup a day so it’s a bit ridiculous it’s this bad. Or maybe this is just the unmedicated ADHD. But my thoughts are incredible dark this week. I’m doing my best to focus on things that I’m grateful to have in my life or bring me joy but it’s a struggle.
The only reason I’m staying at this job is because I have security here and the state of the economy right now has me anxious as hell. It seems like if you don’t have in demand skills you’re kind of screwed. But I don’t think this job is fulfilling to me at all. It has it’s moments when I’m solving stuff that’s a challenge, but it’s mostly been routine crap that numbs my brain.
1 Like
Tried writing some music today and just couldn’t do it. I listened to a track I’m working on instead. As I listened to it all I could think about was sharing it with the world and getting some validation for the work I put into it. And I thought to myself “is this really your motivation at this point?”
Needless to say my priorities are all screwed up and it’s why I’m disconnected from what I create lately. Validation seeking always kills art.
I simultaneously want to do more with my music, but also hate the idea of more people hearing and judging it because I know I don’t have the confidence in my own stuff to make good decisions.
On the flip side, yeah I want to share my stuff. Even if it only connects with one person. I think being able to share an emotional state through music is a great thing.
But overall the process of writing just sucks right now and I can’t get into it without feeling stress.
Putting this here for accountability purposes because I never get to it. I’m going to get back into my old bodyweight isometric routine which is the only workout program I’ve ever been able to stick with. If my energy levels go up from there I’ll probably incorporate some calisthenics and whatnot too.
Not happy with my life right now. My physical and mental state is trashed. I’m stuck in a horrible feedback loop I need to break out of.
When I was younger I’ll admit I didn’t see much hope for myself. Thought I’d end up dead or homeless. But I did what I could to get better on my own and landed into my situation today. Which honestly speaking isn’t the freedom I had hoped for in my mind either.
I need to figure out my budget more with my income, I’ve been closing my eyes and paying for everything because I know the hike in cost of living isn’t matched by my current income. Been putting it off because I don’t have a solution to it. I know my job won’t give me a substantial raise, last time I had one they wanted to put me on for 50K salary. I said no way, the bar has gone up now. I won’t take a salary position for less thank 80k. But finding a new job is out of the question at this point in time. I don’t have the necessary skills or the emotional regulation to deal with the issues of potentially being fired, meeting new people/guarding against who’s going to manipulate me, not having enough money for basic necessities, going through the whole job search song and dance. When I explain this to people they don’t get it. it’s not just a small leap of faith and then poof a new job. Things can go wrong and leave me in a worse off place I don’t bounce back from. Things could also go right, yeah. But I need to know I can handle the worst of situations in case they do happen.
That being said I am actively working on all this in therapy. The problem is I’m just trying to fix a bunch of dysfunction but living and surviving requires a certain amount of functioning. It’s just all this crap that should have been resolved before I entered adulthood, but now I have a screeching runaway dumpster fire of a life I have to get under control and people don’t understand. But I’ve given up trying to explain it, it’s not worth the effort or time I just focus on myself now. If people want to make judgements about my lack of being proactive or whatever it’s fine.
1 Like
My posts have been a downward spiral lately, but I had a session with my therapist today that really helped.
Basically I’m afraid of the process of therapy and the therapist. All my past therapists I’ve just tried to bulldoze through that fear for the sake of getting better. That 100% does not work. With my current therapist I’m communicating my own needs and adjusting the pace.
It got me thinking about my approach to these subs over the years. I like this forum, but man at some points it definitely wasn’t good for me. It became more about trying to prove how mentally strong I was, some underdog story where I was gonna conquer everything. The self worth directly tied into this sort of grandiose image of how I turned my life around and whatnot. So unhealthy.
It’s why I built failed custom after custom, its why I kept making things worse for myself by forcing myself to run ascension, it’s why I avoided healing subs, it’s why every action I took wasn’t actually providing for my needs but continually building up this fantasy end goal free of pain or very real human emotions. I thought if I built this concept of myself and got approval from everyone for it, so I wasn’t just some failure or loser, everything would come together.
Honest to god it’s fascinating I’ve gone almost 12 years in this self development journey and it’s just now I’ve realized I haven’t even touched parts of myself growth wise. What I’m learning in IFS is your internal system can do anything and everything to hide parts from yourself. It wouldn’t surprise me that some of my parts act as interceptors of the subliminals and intentionally don’t share it with other parts. The incredibly harsh feelings I was getting on Ascension was not actually indicative of growth, it was backlash from my system basically saying “get this shit out of here, you’re gonna hurt someone”. And you don’t move past that by forcing yourself in.
All in all today was a huge success for me. I have a growing acceptance and understanding of my own emotional needs and how to get them fulfilled. What will help vs hurt me. That has not been an easy thing for me to identify. I dealt with it over the years by just outright denying that stuff.
1 Like
The parts work I did yesterday really opened up the gates towards integrating these subs. It’s not 100 % there and there’s still a lot of work to be done but I’m noticing pretty significant shifts.
For one all that ambivalence about who I’m creating music for. It was actually tied to that part of me that didn’t want to be seen and felt its role was to protect me by shutting down my emotional needs. Today I just felt like it didn’t matter. And even if I wanted my music to be seen or have it acknowledged that’s fine.
Today at my job I legitimately did not worry about tasks falling to the wayside. Now it’s a “I’ll get to it when I get to it”. I’m not gonna get wrapped up in the chaotic energy here. I will not do that to myself. Definitely Sanguine, I felt a calm steady energy. No matter how much the boat rocked I was under control. I made a mistake that would usually send me into a tailspin, but I found a solution to undo it. All that frantic energy that usually burns me out was focused towards a solution. Also solved a problem that had everyone else stumped and I felt good about it and didn’t downplay it.
This is a small growing piece of me, but for as long as I can remember I never really put much attention into what I looked like. I actually actively avoided anything that would draw attention to me, but deep down I like being different or eccentric. I want to express that and be me in this world. So fun stuff like jewelry or accessories, different types of clothing, etc. I think this is more a manifestation of UA, pulling up my inner world and expressing it on the outside. Prior to today I would have just told myself it’s dumb and attention seeking, but I understand now a lot of that stemmed from the fundamental belief my needs weren’t important.
There’s so much more to me I’m uncovering. I don’t know what else is there, I just know for a long time there’s been aspects of me actively repressed.
1 Like
Walled off experiences in life as a result of past trauma. That’s what I’m beginning to understand more. Not the trauma itself, but how it changes your entire worldview. It’s really easy to get stuck there, but the goal should always be healing from it.
I’ll give you an example. Lately when I see anything that reminds me of family dynamics it instantly makes me feel terrible. Then the plot thickens when you realize A LOT of places of employment are run like dysfunctional families. So at this point I’m experiencing emotional flashbacks on a daily basis.
The thing I’m working through is that my childhood had good times and I think they are just as important as the bad. But unfortunately I have to process the bad first before I can make it through to the good. I’m in a rough position with healing now where the dynamic between me and my parents is very smeared. It’s about respecting my own boundaries and knowing what’s genuine connection with them vs forcing myself not to hurt them by overriding my own internal well being. It’s really complicated.
One of the things I’m always trying to cultivate is to see both sides in all aspects of life. It’s too easy to put everything into a neat box for the comfort of thinking you know how an individual operates or things work. And admittedly sometimes they are that blunt and straightforward and there isn’t any nuance. I get in trouble with this at times because I give people too much room to overstep my boundaries out of this sense of obligation. It’s a weird idealist/self-abuse cycle I’ve been in for a while now. There are some good traits mixed with hurtful ones, I won’t even call them bad. Bad has now been ejected from my vocabulary with regards to myself. Bad always comes from somewhere misunderstood.
My new sort of motto for my own life is “minimize the hurt, maximize the self realization”. Sometimes we can’t always completely heal hurt in the time span we like so it’s about doing what we can to minimize it. Maximizing self realization is more about making me the center of my universe and more powerful vs letting the bad stuff out there make me feel powerless and afraid.
I’m not as far along as I assumed after all these years. Pretty much only made it past the gate blocking the way at this point. But instead of mourning lost time I’m going to look forward to discovering new things as they unfold for me. In a way I’m lucky that I’ll be able to appreciate all these things more as they come into my life with a higher awareness. That doesn’t mean what I went through was necessarily desirable, but life is about adapting and I’ll do that in any way I can.
Thinking about giving myself a track a week challenge. No waffling around, no distraction. I’ll be able to see where I’m deficient in my workflow. They don’t have to be works of art, just complete. I think what I need now is just quantity. Something to focus on besides the quality that I so I often get hung up on. Let the quality come with time instead of trying to directly bring it about because that has 100% not worked and has only caused writing paralysis.
If I don’t make it one week I’ll hold onto the track. If I really like it I’ll explore it again another day. But each week will be new ideas and starting from scratch. I’ve never done this and I never liked the idea of it because I realize now it directly violates that perfectionist part of me. But it’s what I need to break out of this songwriting rut.
1 Like
I’m itching to try these new ZP builds, but I’m gonna stay the course of my sanguine UA stack for now.
So one loop a week so far. It seems like around Saturday this past week the influence of the sub sort of faded. So that would be about 5 days of processing/rest. I’m ok with that. I noticed significant results without a huge amount of emotional upheaval I sometimes end up in. It might not be as fast as I want, but I’ll stick with this for now.
I’m only able to grow as much as my system allows for at this moment in time. Better to undershoot than overshoot.
Trying something new. Instead of listening to my stack with titles back to back, I’m introducing a cool down period. I thought about it and I generally start getting that resistant pushback at around the 3 minute mark. So clearly 3 minutes is where I cap out with exposure time, so it doesn’t make sense for me to run another 3 minutes right after that which is the equivalent to 6 minutes. So I’m going to start keeping track of how long it takes for the first loop to sort of settle and feel ok to run another moving forward.
Accepting where I am will do more for me growth wise than lamenting about where I’m not.
I think I live in pain every day, I’ve just gotten good at ignoring it. This weekend I’m doing a deep exploration of where I’m at, how I really feel, and what needs to change for me. Metaphorically I’ve been walking around with a broken leg.
I loaded up on caffeine today just to make it though my day because the alternative is just getting anxious about not being able to complete tasks. I’m doing better, at least that was my only caffeine intake this week.
My emotional health seems to be put on the back burner before everything else without thinking. I can’t run off this survival mode thing anymore. How can a life devoid of actual physical suffering bring about so much mental anguish?
Am I missing something internally? Or am I tuned into how for the large majority of my life I’ve been pushed into a system I want no part of? I have no answers for anything, no roadmap to feel better, it’s all trial and error but it’s exhausting. I feel like I’ve been on the precipice of breaking through but that’s been a feeling I’ve had for a year now. Which leads me to believe that’s really more of a blind faith and determination in myself to move forward.
1 Like
Stepping away from SC products and exploring different things. I’m still gonna hang around the forum but won’t be posting my own progress anymore if it doesn’t pertain to these subs. Trying to keep methodologies completely separate to avoid confusion.
1 Like
Introverts must remember how important it is to take action and to have real experiences
Because introverts constantly mistake ideas for experiences and assume that thinking about a reality is the same as experiencing that reality.
This is a fatal error.
2 Likes
True words. I felt I needed a rotation from these subs to open up my mind a bit and also gain perspective on how I interact with them. I may or may not continue with them depending on my findings.
1 Like
Throughout life, I, like many people, have had a tendency to generate feelings of discouragement, excitement, hopefulness, etc., based primarily, not on so many things that were happening; but on thoughts and ideas about life, myself, what’s possible, what things might mean, and so on.
What I wrote was not intentionally directed at your plans. I was reflecting on things and felt that I needed to remind myself of this. Then when I’d written it down, it seemed like something that was relevant to you too.
So I just posted it without any context. (It-the time- was also quite late.)
1 Like
One thing that has me taking a hiatus from the subs is I couldn’t shake the need within me for them. No matter what I told myself, that I was making the changes, that I didn’t need them, that I had the internal power, etc. it didn’t work. None of that self talk stuck.
You may ask, why are you so against using them as a tool? Simply because they are a tool outside of me. As transparent as Saint and Fire have been with these subs it’s a little upsetting that yes a part of me doesn’t like the idea of not knowing what’s in them. It’s just a safety thing. The threat of betrayal, it’s a fear, an unfounded one but a fear from part of me. Unfortunately I can’t use a subliminal to calm that part because it’s through the same channel that caused the upset to begin with.
I’ve been doing a lot of deeper healing outside of these subs. A lot of things I’m learning about myself and why a lot of self help hasn’t helped as much as I wanted over the years. There are mechanisms inside me to protect and guard against things. As I become more aware of them I start respecting those boundaries more vs trying to barge my way in.
When I reflect on the past it seemed like I was stronger or more persistent, but really what I was doing was violating my own boundaries and not giving myself space to heal and be compassionate with myself.
Long story short at this point in time I feel these sublminals do more to upset my internal system and make things more difficult for me vs helping. I now have a focus to work with internally so maybe one day I’ll feel better about returning to them.
It sucks and it’s a shitty realization to come to. But beating my head against a wall and expecting a different result is far worse.
2 Likes
Sub Club is a company with the mission of innovating and offering growth, healing, and development resources.
It is not a religion.
You are free to come and go.
Tuning in to your timing, your patterns and seasons of growth, and your inner promptings is not ‘a shitty realization’.
May you be free and may you attain ever greater levels of wellbeing!
2 Likes
I’m back. Not as long as I thought I was gonna stay away for but I definitely learned some stuff in my time away from the subs. Lots of paranoid delusions, fear, lack of trust. But it all stems back to me feeling like I don’t have autonomy over my life. I used another companies subliminal products for a while prior to subclub and it just never seemed to get me to where I wanted to be. I just didn’t want to end up in the same place. Just a lot of perceived past failures that still come up.
During my time away from subclub I didn’t get the intended clear head I thought I’d get from an extended break. No, what became apparent was that my baseline level of functioning just sucked. With or without subs. And yeah it was really easy to overdo it for myself running the subs, I didn’t respect that. Not that I was going wild and disregarding listening instructions, but I wasn’t taking into account how I felt. I’m going to be using micro loops moving forward and stick with that.
So plan of action
UA and Sanguine, 30s micro loops. Undecided yet how often, but more than likely just running them when I feel I can without overwhelm.
No intensely introverted waffling about internal experiences that don’t translate into the external. I’ve come to learn in my IFS therapy it’s not WHAT happened, it’s the level of communication inside you right now in the present and putting focus on that. Intense introspection, theorizing, intellectualizing can seem like insight or improvement, but it’s more than likely an effort to escape feeling. At least it is for me, I have to be aware of these patterns. They are my comfort zone and a distraction from real growth.
No customs. None until I achieve what I want out of standard titles. And I’d like to make a request that nobody make recommendations for modules or custom ideas in my journal. I am impulsive by nature and easily impressionable by novelty, I’d rather not have that enter my headspace when focusing on a singular goal which I’m already relatively poor at. If I can’t get what I want out of standard titles a custom isn’t gonna do it. This goes for sharing any potential benefits you’ve gotten from particular modules and how it relates to my situation. I understand it’s a helpful gesture and I appreciate that, but I have to enforce these boundaries for my own good. It’s not that I’ll abandon my path, but I go through a period of intense hyper fixation on potential ideas that won’t stop in my head until I’m bored of it. I’d just rather not go through that.
Overall just pointing my focus towards more actions i can take in my life. This is admittedly hard because some days I can feel paralyzed in my body. But learning to scale down actions and appreciate any type of progress vs this all or nothing thinking that has plagued me for years. A big part of that is music, giving myself permission to create just because, not setting artificial goal posts I have to hit before it’s ok.
And finally developing more trust in myself. Knowing I can navigate this world, not being held back by fears, etc. Just feeling safe. I do feel more safe because my living situation is ok, but I also need to feel safe when shit hits the fan.
Please, please, please.
Remember that, when it comes to mental and physical health, regular exercise is one of the most effective healing influences.
Moderate, healthy, raising the heart rate (cycling, jogging, walking, dancing, etc.) Anything that makes your breathe deeply and regularly, sweat somewhat.
Give it 5 weeks at 3-5 times per week, ~30 minutes.
Doesn’t have to be intense.
It’s a truly crucial resource.
p.s. Welcome back!
1 Like