Self-Expression

[Phil]

30 minutes ago, Eternal said:

@Phil

 

Thanks man. It has really been hard the last few years but I will try my best to reflect on what you are communicating.

🙏🏼 

If what’s wanted is for now and going forward to be easier, the first step - which isn’t per se a step, as in a doing, an effort or an action - is allowing now & going forward to be without preface. 
 

 

[Eternal]

Started experiencing a lot of tiredness so I had to lay down in bed. I woke up at 10 am today which I thought was quite late. I managed to do 30 minutes of meditation and Brain training on my phone. I want to go to sleep so badly and it is only 2:30pm, I have not even been to the gym! I tried doing some creative work on developing a website but I find myself lacking any kind of capacity to do work. I don't have a job and not much money. Living with my grandmother gets challenging as she does not know where she is half the time and is suffering from dementia. 

 

It makes me feel very weighed down. Ideally I want to get a job I enjoy, live a passionate life but a lot of resistence is present. Uncomfortable emotions. Negative thoughts. Tiredness/sleepiness which is a huge bother for me. I am so tired right now. Not even in the mood to express myself, like there is fear from saying thwat I actually think. 

 

Always seem to feel the same every single day.

[Eternal]

I feel better getting out of bed just now, I collapsed in bed just wanting to waste my day earlier on. I got up and had somethiing. I want to have something in my life to focus my mind on. I spoke to my grandmother for a little while but life seems challenging when you have everything given to you and the world seems so massive. My grandmother worries about me and I never seem to talk to her that much. I am way to concerned about my own issues with life and selfish. Not really in the best mood for communicating. I just want to shut down and be myself today. Self-expression feels hard when the last thing I want to do is express. I am scared that I may come up with such discordant thoughts. 

[Eternal]

@Phil

 

I collapsed back into my comfort zone today, sleeping in bed and doing things to waste time until I can go back to sleep. Developing a work ethic seems so hard. Going to try to do some stuff now. Tomorrow things won't get better because the only time is NOW. Can't go on for much longer like this.. laying in bed feeling so powerless and tired, just wanting to escape reality until I can go back to sleep is no fun 😞 

 

Try and do something but everything feels like so much work and effort.

[Phil]

@Eternal

What actually happened though?

[Phil]

@Eternal

Sorry, that was pretty open ended. I mean in terms of inspecting direct experience & dispelling the suffering. Going by the emoji… I don’t think that’s really your comfort zone, I don’t think that’s what you want. 

 

Developing a work ethic is said to be hard, which implies that’s something one could actually do. But how would one actually go about the action of developing a work ethic?  Maybe the cart is being put before the horse. How hard is the work of & only of, the moment? 

 

Also it’s said tomorrow won’t get much better because there’s only now. If there’s only now then how could it be, and be known, that tomorrow won’t get better? 

If there’s not actually time passing… how is it possible then to “develop a work ethic”?  Who is thought to develop a work ethic over time, for who won’t tomorrow be better for? That who can’t possible be you, the one present in this moment, and only ever ‘in’ this moment. Unless of course a work ethic can literally be developed, in this moment? See what I mean? The root of the suffering is that the one thought of isn’t actually present. 

 

Reality is a word for everything that is. If there were two or three realities, you’d have been specific about which. You’re not separate from reality. Perhaps the thoughts of escaping reality are a sort of cover up. Maybe what’s attempted to be escaped, is feeling, or, how you feel. But feeling isn’t a pair of shoes. It can’t be escaped, left, or taken off. This is the Good news… because feeling… feeling great, happiness, is all you actually want. 

 

4 hours ago, Eternal said:

Try and do something but everything feels like so much work and effort.

Try to ‘feel work’, or ‘feel effort’ now. How does it feel? Solid, squishy, wet, cold, warm, dry?

Maybe what’s felt isn’t actually work or effort, but thoughts about work, effort & a self in a past and future…? 

What if the present you is the source of the fun sought?

[Eternal]

@Phil

 

Does suffering end when I don't judge emotions as good or bad? Because feeling is just feeling and I seem to say "I feel bad". 

 

Negative thoughts make me feel lower down on the emotional scale. 

 

What do you mean the root of all suffering is that the one thought of isn't actually present? Why do I get so many self-referential thoughts about myself? 

 

Yes I am very much attempting to escape my horrible feelings because they feel horrible. I want to feel great. How do I feel great at all the time. 

 

I often want to escape reality because the moment feels very  uncomfortable to deal with which is why I look forward to going back to sleep at night. Then I can dwell on the past and beat myself up for wasting 6 years of my life, not really achieving anything and being lazy. Knowing about self-help but not doing anything to better myself. Being bad with women etc... Almost like self-fulfilling prophecies. Who I am now is kind of based on past events. 

 

Like "I am so lazy" "Failed life" etc.... 

 

Feel the need to improve but I don't live up to it. I want love and happiness but it feels out of reach when I seem to be constantly on the low end of the emotional scale. Maybe I need more expressing to do but sometimes my days get so bad that I don't even want to journal. Pulling out my laptop is the hardest thing ever to even journal. Maybe it is just me wanting to run away from what I am feeling. 

 

I may go out tonight to try and socialize but that brings up uncomfortable feelings which I want to escape. 

 

I communicated to my Dad that I am finding it overwhelming trying to work on the new website and he understood. He didn't want to message me as much but I spoke to him earlier and he said he might get someone else to do it. That made me feel bad. Almost like I wish I had a better work ethic and help build my Dad an awesome website but resistence was strong in the moment. The last few days I had to shut down and just lay in bed, waiting for the night to come so I can go back to sleep. 

 

Hopefully I can realize what I am and get out of all this suffering and getting thoughts about not wanting to live. 

 

A common one I face is what is the point in living if I don't enjoy anything

[Eternal]

@Phil

 

Fundamentally I feel like I lack something and chase 'something out there' so I can feel happy. All I want is to feel happy. I want to feel good. Regocnizing my true nature seems so out of reach with all the beliefs I have. 

 

Seems to be belief on top of belief about myself and lots of thoughts containing "I". Or well it is just a thought at a time... I want to enjoy life but what if I just have a depressed ego. My sense of self has been conditioned to think negative thoughts. 

[Phil]

@Eternal

Suffering is always ending… and arise in being recreated by judgement, which arises of ignorance, which is resolved by meditation & asking more and more relevant and nuanced questions, these realizing more and more insight, clarity and ultimately truth. 

 

46 minutes ago, Eternal said:

Because feeling is just feeling and I seem to say "I feel bad". 

 

Negative thoughts make me feel lower down on the emotional scale. 

Inspect - where is that one, which is said to feel bad?

Where is the one which is said to feel lower down on the scale?

 

47 minutes ago, Eternal said:

What do you mean the root of all suffering is that the one thought of isn't actually present? Why do I get so many self-referential thoughts about myself? 

The ‘you’ that ‘gets the thoughts’ is a thought about a separate self. 

There is an experience of thoughts about a myself - but inspect these thoughts - actually look for the myself the thoughts are about. 

The “separate self” or “myself” the thoughts are about, is never in the present, and is always thought to be, in a past or future. 

 

49 minutes ago, Eternal said:

Yes I am very much attempting to escape my horrible feelings because they feel horrible. I want to feel great. How do I feel great at all the time. 

What’s felt is the judgement of feeling as “horrible feelings”. 

As awareness (so to speak) be closer and closer to the origination of the judgmental thoughts. Be aware of them as they arise, rather than averting and then suffering long periods, such as days in bed, etc. 

 

51 minutes ago, Eternal said:

How do I feel great at all the time. 

That statement is, imo, a major, major breakthrough. 

That is the question of questions. 

 

Next, who, what, where - is the one which wants to feel great all the time?

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

I often want to escape reality because the moment feels very  uncomfortable to deal with which is why I look forward to going back to sleep at night.

You say you want to escape reality - and aren’t humbly noticing you don’t know what reality is. You don’t know what it is, you’re saying, you want to escape. 

You also say “the moment feels very uncomfortable”, without knowing what “the moment” actually is. 

You also say you “sleep at night”, without any actual direct experience of or knowing of what “sleep” really is. 

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

Then I can dwell on the past and beat myself up for wasting 6 years of my life, not really achieving anything and being lazy. Knowing about self-help but not doing anything to better myself. Being bad with women etc...

These beliefs are conditioning, and I suspect worse… based on the conjecture or believing of deeply misguided “teachings” which have inadvertantly been believed and employed to distance from feeling. It’s been suggested that you could better yourself, which is the same as saying you are lacking or aren’t good enough or could be bettered, which is a message which comes from an ego, which believes the same, about “itself”… and that ‘self’ is what the ego is, and does not exist. The thoughts about that separate self are experienced, but there isn’t actually that ‘separate self’, and again, that is what suffering is. 

 

The believing of these thoughts is the conditioning and is the suffering. There isn’t actually a past to dwell on. Where is it in direct experience right now?

Where is the one believed to achieve or not, to be lazy or not, in direct experience, right now?

Is there a second, separate self actually president right now… or is this thought attachment, a.k.a. monkey mind, a.k.a. believing the thoughts that there is - - in spite of how this feels ?

 

Likewise, there are thoughts of self judgment like being bad with women… But there isn’t that self which is thought or believed to be judged. there is only the self which is feeling the discord of the judgment of these thoughts.

 

1 hour ago, Eternal said:

Almost like self-fulfilling prophecies. Who I am now is kind of based on past events. 

Where are “past events “?

(just thoughts about)

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

 

Like "I am so lazy" "Failed life" etc.... 

 

Feel the need to improve but I don't live up to it. I want love and happiness but it feels out of reach when I seem to be constantly on the low end of the emotional scale.

Be more literal. Are you actually “on” a scale right now?

Or are these emotions which are experienced?

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

 

Maybe I need more expressing to do but sometimes my days get so bad that I don't even want to journal. Pulling out my laptop is the hardest thing ever to even journal.

There is no need with expressing. 

There are no “days”, there is now. 

 

Practice is like meditation actually do “work “. 

 

If you want to feel better, express how you’re feeling and see that it is the thoughts which are discordant, meditate every morning, and again in the afternoon to clear the mind.

 

If the relaxing into being so to speak is overwhelming… Then practice single pointed or in concentration meditation to focus the mind. 

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

Maybe it is just me wanting to run away from what I am feeling. 

Yes. 

 

 

 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

 

I may go out tonight to try and socialize but that brings up uncomfortable feelings which I want to escape. 

It’s the thoughts which are uncomfortable because they aren’t true. 

52 minutes ago, Eternal said:

 

I communicated to my Dad that I am finding it overwhelming trying to work on the new website and he understood. He didn't want to message me as much but I spoke to him earlier and he said he might get someone else to do it. That made me feel bad. Almost like I wish I had a better work ethic and help build my Dad an awesome website but resistence was strong in the moment. The last few days I had to shut down and just lay in bed, waiting for the night to come so I can go back to sleep. 

 

Hopefully I can realize what I am and get out of all this suffering and getting thoughts about not wanting to live. 

 

A common one I face is what is the point in living if I don't enjoy anything

Use the tools. They work. Meditate twice daily. 

Google ‘suicide prevention hotline’ and speak with a trained person who is there to help & very much wants to. 

[Eternal]

@Phil

 

Been a few days since I have done any form or journaling, just not been feeling the best. In bed, on my phone, or doing whatever to escape my feelings. I went out both Friday & Saturday nights to practice game but with not much luck. Perhaps the ego gets to much in the way and the fear of approaching and actually getting to know someone feels way to overwhelming so I don;t really talk to many new people. 

 

Usually in bed for the next few days in powerlessness - just laying in bed feeling the same emotion. I felt worthless because a girl I have seen 4 times just does not respond to my texts and there was this huge overwhelming fear of texting her to come to mine later but I just did anyway. It makes me mentally beat myself up because I wish I should of been different when I was with her. I was talking to her about serious and deep stuff - what I was passionate but I was not funny. I wish I could of been more funny and playful so I beat up on myself for not being good enough. I hate the fact that I constantly have to chase girls and I find that not many girls want to chase me. Always in the chaser/pursuing frame. I expect this girl to make me feel happy and I don't know why. It is the same with any girl. 

 

I check my phone like 50 times a day just to check my text messages from girls to see if they responded... like I am a drug addict... then I beat myself up for checking my phone like I should not do that... It is a constant running away from emotions. 

 

Now I feel like I need to be productive.. hopefully I can start enjoying my days without relying on others... but I get lonely.. so lonely... no one loves me apart from my family 😢. 

 

Gota fill the void.... Why cant a girl just want to chase me... I just want an abundance of women I see but it feels so damn hard like I been doing this for years with little to no results.. sometimes I wish I was just a natural around women but socializing is so damn hard. Even journaling feels hard sometimes because I am in my head so much. The fear.. Maybe I am just trapped in trauma. Gota stop thinking negatively but my mind is used to it. Bunch of negative habits.. 

[Eternal]

I hate the feeling of not being enough and wanting to be a different person. Like you messed up around someone and if you acted differently, they might still be around. It makes me question my own way of socializing or being with others. I am so used to being inside my own head. Don't know who I am anymore. I try to live up to other peoples expectations but sometimes I wish I was more funny. I just don't find that I have a good personality as I mostly get rejected. What does that say about me 😢 MAybe I need to change who I am. I am not enough.... 

[Eternal]

Managed to get some work done today for my Dads business which felt great, I was in flow state for a while. Initially there definitely was some form of resistence to starting it but I overcame that and managed to sit down and focus 100% on the design of the website. It is becoming more apparent to me that I just continously think the name negative thoughts on a daily basis which make me feel horrible and don't even try to feel better. It is almost like I enjoy feeling bad, hence with all the negativity such as not being good enough around anyone and needing a woman to fill the void of incompleteness within. Not realizing that I am whole already and wanting others to complete me. 

 

Going to think more positive thoughts which are aligned with what I want out of life such as going to the gym, improving finances, developing work ethic, creating amazing connections. 

 

I know all of this is possible but I fear that I may go back to my old ways in the future of being stuck in denial and powerlessness. I found it amazing to not even think about checking my phone when I was working on designing the website. I definitely feel better than I did yesterday. Yesterday I was in bed all day having discordant thoughts about feeling worthless etc... But today, I just feel more enjoyment from life, by actually getting out of bed and doing tasks. 

 

I think later I will create a To-do list for things that I would like to do tomorrow. I did also take modafinil which has given me more energy but I need to prioritize my career right now and earn money. I don't like never having any money to get cool things. I want to get a really good camera/clothes and start taking great pictures of myself for instagram. 

 

For now I want to help my Dad with his new business and potentionally learn digital marketing on the side to learn that skillset and see if I like it or not. Going to take a break from work now... and I will get back to it later! 

[Eternal]

Been feeling better the last few days. Thinking more positively and really inspect where there is discord. I did lay down today somewhat as I did feel burnt out and needed to rest since I have been working most of today. Really trying to get this new business up and going and finding that I am learning a lot to do with website development. Using elementor as a page builder. I had fear about doing expression journaling today as if I don't know what to say or what to speak about. What if I say the wrong thing etc.... 

 

It really is up to me to inspect where there is discord if I want my life to change. I can get very caught up in just resisting the negative emotion and constantly let it repeat itself, day in and day out without inspecting anything. But the negative emotion and feeling is there for a reason, telling myself that something is not right. I don't know what to do right now as I don't really feel like doing more work, need to relax and recharge. I feel good that I am 1% closer to where I want to be in life. I am going to do this website for my Dad and then do a course on getting into the digital marketing sector online. See how that goes and whether I like it or not... 

 

Trying to enjoy the days instead of constantly thinking that they are just one big grind..... usually I have this discordant thought on wasting my days until I meet someone or be in contact with someone else in the hopes that it will make me feel better.  A belief that must be let go of... I feel very tired today as I only had 4 hours sleep, well my body does.. but at the same time I have a lot of energy as I am becoming more aligned with positive thinking. 

 

Ideally, I would like to do a few more things today and nothing is stopping me at all. I may just delve into it and see how it feels. Maybe cook a new meal, sort out my wardrobe, do my grandmothers balcony.... tidy the kitchen etc... 

 

Earlier I did feel extremely burnt out from doing a lot of work but I layed down in bed to meditate for 30 minutes and feel more of a sense of calmness now. Honestly, I just lack life experience so I am just going to make a conscious effort getting more experience to know what I like and don;t like. Nothing will change if I spend my days in my bedroom doing nothing. 

 

I do remember when I was on the phone to my mum earlier that I was going into realms of negativity... but I snapped out of it... I expressed gratitude, layed down and meditated to see how little power thoughts actually have over me. Thoughts are just passing clouds.... 

 

ughh I hate the feeling of being forced to journal or just not knowing what to say or talk about but I am trying to get better at expressing myself.