Moving on...
Moving on with my growth-homework, the last thread was really good. I can feel the change in attitude. The elements of story (rigid identity) and mirror (projection) are milestones in awareness, for me. An example is that there is a good chance I will be offered a position (hired) at the end of the week or early next week. (Yay!!!) And that is a BIG change, since I haven't worked consistently since 2007 and not for a corporation since 1984! So there will be a dramatic change soon in getting up regularly and having a new routine. The difference in me due to the discussions we just shared is that I am measuring how I feel as far as fear and predicting how I will feel.
This new process of being more awake to how I am feeling makes a difference in what I am feeling. This morning I do not have the usual reaction for predicting how I may feel or should feel next week (if I get the job as expected). I feel this whole thing about my mirror, and my "story-that-I-can-change-if-I-choose-to", has been based on a compulsion to "think about" how I am "supposed to" feel; as in preparing myself to feel and what feelings to expect and avoid, and instead I am willing to experience the feelings spontaneously, and not create imaginary "feeling-goals" to watch-out for or expect. Once again it gets back to the defensive habit, obsessive-reaction/impulse, of "predicting-the-future" in order to feel safe in having the preassigned program to exhibit and express. I feel that the "catching-myself" in feeling the need to have a plan or prepare for what I may or may not experience is a real awakening for knowing when I am defending myself for denying my true feelings. Actually, it is the moment that I catch myself "thinking about" my feelings that is the sign of an escape to security, and a defense through denial of those feelings. "Thinking about" and "planning" are the ways I avoid and deny feeling. "Imagining" how I will feel is a way to avoid feeling now. It is an escape to the future to avoid what I am feeling now. (I'm glad I caught that in my editing).
Now. Let me translate for myself: I am feeling happy with my new self's direction of giving my feelings the attention they need to be aware of when my feelings are attempting to overwhelm me and "make me" ashamed of them. That's about as short as I can express it for now. Whatever comes next week, I will be able to handle, by feeling my feelings at that time. I am making myself aware of when I am trying to "Future-feel", and I am stopping it. I am breaking the addiction to looking over my imagination's-shoulder to check to see if I am, NO! WILL BE, feeling the correct feeling according to someone else (I suppose that "someone else" is a reference to my imaginary "ideal-feelings" self's projection*). I am teaching myself to feel WHAT I am feeling and not HOW I am feeling "IT", the experience. I am neither preventing or avoiding the future feelings or escaping to past feelings. (Hahahaha,,,I just realized while I was writing that sentence my tongue was all over my own lips, licking them. Talk about FEELINGS! Evidently I struck a chord! What I just wrote seemed "delicious" to my unconsciousness, if not my tongue, and my denied feelings! It wasn't until I stopped that I noticed my tongue was still wagging. Ha!) Okay! So I feel good about this insight just now.
*Ha! Again! I just realized that most of my paranoia about being "watched" for being evaluated for behaving and feeling correctly is my own imaginary split-off "Ideal-feeling self"; the "Super-Ego", the social conformist, judge, and dictator, that prohibits independent feelings, and helps me deny my true feelings! Now I'm circling back to the mirror phenomena and projection. The "person" that I blame for me needing to deny feeling my feelings is not a real object, but a projection of my imagined need to have "ideal feelings". I want to (Okay, HAVE WANTED TO) blame everyone but myself for having to deny my feelings in the past. That "person" is the "idealized" person I created in my imagination (My Super-Ego) that I have created as split-off part of my "being" me; the "better-me" than the "wrong-me". The "wrong-me" is the one with the real feelings I am seeking to feel. The feelings I can depend on to tell me who I am, not who I'm "supposed-to-be" in order to be ideal. I'm guessing the "Super-Ego" is really better labeled the "Superlative-Ego". The word "Superman" produces one feeling association to me; and the word "Superlativeman" creates a completely different feeling to me instead. So I feel more aware of the difference in sensation between identifying the image I'm afraid of angering, or paranoid of evaluating me, as my imaginary idealized "Superlative-me", instead of "Super-me". Super means powerful or having magic powers which is impossible; superlative means absolute best, to me, and which although it can be possible to attain under certain exacting circumstances, to expect to be able sustained indefinitely and in all cases is irrational, due to the concept of polarities.
So now I am feeling aware of the feelings of when I am attempting to be ideal, as an impossible goal, by feeling when I am denying I have less-than-perfect feelings. The whole belief-to-change is that I am not allowed to have less-then-perfect feelings. And the one I need to seek permission from to have and express less-then-perfect feelings...is me; and not someone outside of me. The one I project into my mirror is me. I must give myself permission to feel my feelings, while I am feeling them, and know I will survive feeling them. "They", the feelings, feel "strange" and "awkward" (embarrassing) only because I have always denied them to avoid feeling "strange and awkward". I taught myself that I was "bad" if I did something that felt strange or awkward, creating the feeling of shame. Letting go of the feeling that shame is the same as guilt may be another feeling to change. Getting over the feeling that awkward is bad, is one of the "evaluations" to let go of.
The belief to change may actually be in the belief that I need to evaluate myself at all. Just feel what I feel and let my present feelings tell me who I am ... in this moment. The better I get at feeling myself in this moment, the stronger I will feel in facing EACH new moment. I guess that's it again: stop the habit of evaluating my feelings and just feel them. That way, when a future moment becomes now, I will feel I can handle it then.
Ciao
Richard
This new process of being more awake to how I am feeling makes a difference in what I am feeling. This morning I do not have the usual reaction for predicting how I may feel or should feel next week (if I get the job as expected). I feel this whole thing about my mirror, and my "story-that-I-can-change-if-I-choose-to", has been based on a compulsion to "think about" how I am "supposed to" feel; as in preparing myself to feel and what feelings to expect and avoid, and instead I am willing to experience the feelings spontaneously, and not create imaginary "feeling-goals" to watch-out for or expect. Once again it gets back to the defensive habit, obsessive-reaction/impulse, of "predicting-the-future" in order to feel safe in having the preassigned program to exhibit and express. I feel that the "catching-myself" in feeling the need to have a plan or prepare for what I may or may not experience is a real awakening for knowing when I am defending myself for denying my true feelings. Actually, it is the moment that I catch myself "thinking about" my feelings that is the sign of an escape to security, and a defense through denial of those feelings. "Thinking about" and "planning" are the ways I avoid and deny feeling. "Imagining" how I will feel is a way to avoid feeling now. It is an escape to the future to avoid what I am feeling now. (I'm glad I caught that in my editing).
Now. Let me translate for myself: I am feeling happy with my new self's direction of giving my feelings the attention they need to be aware of when my feelings are attempting to overwhelm me and "make me" ashamed of them. That's about as short as I can express it for now. Whatever comes next week, I will be able to handle, by feeling my feelings at that time. I am making myself aware of when I am trying to "Future-feel", and I am stopping it. I am breaking the addiction to looking over my imagination's-shoulder to check to see if I am, NO! WILL BE, feeling the correct feeling according to someone else (I suppose that "someone else" is a reference to my imaginary "ideal-feelings" self's projection*). I am teaching myself to feel WHAT I am feeling and not HOW I am feeling "IT", the experience. I am neither preventing or avoiding the future feelings or escaping to past feelings. (Hahahaha,,,I just realized while I was writing that sentence my tongue was all over my own lips, licking them. Talk about FEELINGS! Evidently I struck a chord! What I just wrote seemed "delicious" to my unconsciousness, if not my tongue, and my denied feelings! It wasn't until I stopped that I noticed my tongue was still wagging. Ha!) Okay! So I feel good about this insight just now.
*Ha! Again! I just realized that most of my paranoia about being "watched" for being evaluated for behaving and feeling correctly is my own imaginary split-off "Ideal-feeling self"; the "Super-Ego", the social conformist, judge, and dictator, that prohibits independent feelings, and helps me deny my true feelings! Now I'm circling back to the mirror phenomena and projection. The "person" that I blame for me needing to deny feeling my feelings is not a real object, but a projection of my imagined need to have "ideal feelings". I want to (Okay, HAVE WANTED TO) blame everyone but myself for having to deny my feelings in the past. That "person" is the "idealized" person I created in my imagination (My Super-Ego) that I have created as split-off part of my "being" me; the "better-me" than the "wrong-me". The "wrong-me" is the one with the real feelings I am seeking to feel. The feelings I can depend on to tell me who I am, not who I'm "supposed-to-be" in order to be ideal. I'm guessing the "Super-Ego" is really better labeled the "Superlative-Ego". The word "Superman" produces one feeling association to me; and the word "Superlativeman" creates a completely different feeling to me instead. So I feel more aware of the difference in sensation between identifying the image I'm afraid of angering, or paranoid of evaluating me, as my imaginary idealized "Superlative-me", instead of "Super-me". Super means powerful or having magic powers which is impossible; superlative means absolute best, to me, and which although it can be possible to attain under certain exacting circumstances, to expect to be able sustained indefinitely and in all cases is irrational, due to the concept of polarities.
So now I am feeling aware of the feelings of when I am attempting to be ideal, as an impossible goal, by feeling when I am denying I have less-than-perfect feelings. The whole belief-to-change is that I am not allowed to have less-then-perfect feelings. And the one I need to seek permission from to have and express less-then-perfect feelings...is me; and not someone outside of me. The one I project into my mirror is me. I must give myself permission to feel my feelings, while I am feeling them, and know I will survive feeling them. "They", the feelings, feel "strange" and "awkward" (embarrassing) only because I have always denied them to avoid feeling "strange and awkward". I taught myself that I was "bad" if I did something that felt strange or awkward, creating the feeling of shame. Letting go of the feeling that shame is the same as guilt may be another feeling to change. Getting over the feeling that awkward is bad, is one of the "evaluations" to let go of.
The belief to change may actually be in the belief that I need to evaluate myself at all. Just feel what I feel and let my present feelings tell me who I am ... in this moment. The better I get at feeling myself in this moment, the stronger I will feel in facing EACH new moment. I guess that's it again: stop the habit of evaluating my feelings and just feel them. That way, when a future moment becomes now, I will feel I can handle it then.
Ciao
Richard
Replies
Beautiful! :-)
Hi Rich,
This is really exciting! I too have felt a positive anticipation reading these threads. Right now, I just feel really hopeful.
I appreciate the dialogue that you and Vicki have shared. It is great!
Keep the Faith!
Shar
\"Getting over the feeling that awkward is bad, is one of the \"evaluations\" to let go of.\" Feeling \"awkward\" is the feeling I avoid, and I feel it in every new situation and with any new people. There is something about the \"not knowing\", I guess, that reverts back to my superlative-ego\'s prohibition to \"look\" or \"appear\" awkward. It is the \"process-time\" of learning. I just associated the feeling of awkwardness with feelings like guilt or shame for hearing \"You\'re supposed to know!\" I feel there is a lot of guilt/shame still hidden in that remark. Being overwhelmed with a fearful emotion like guilt or shame interferes with the reasoning part of my mind, so I act on impulse. My most typical reaction, or defense, is \"withdrawal\". Which makes sense, to me, if I consider that babies close their eyes when they are overwhelmed. It is a natural reaction, not just me. --- Okay, Now I see the shaming! \"You\'re supposed to know better!\" is directed at me, my identity, not what I\'m doing! It IS an attack on me, and my identity. I did something wrong but it feels like I am being evaluated as wrong and not what I did. (Whatever it was. Right now, it feels like a global feeling, not specific event or act that I remember. The feeling feels \"opaque\".)
The importance of my opening paragraph has to do with what I am feeling this morning. I woke up at 4:30 and had a difficult time going back to sleep. Yesterday, a day off from any demands to be somewhere, I cut up (chain-sawed) a couple of old fallen trees I\'ve been wanting to cut up and stack for about five years (I bought the chainsaw in 2007. Last Friday I had cut up another one). I worked from 12:30 to 6:00 pm, with breaks to re-fuel and drink and rest, and by 5:00 my back muscles were alerting me to needing help, so I put on my \"weight belt\" (I forgot it earlier) to give my back support. That amount of work, bending over repeatedly, when I\'ve been mostly sedentary since entering school, tired me out. This morning my back is just fine, no aches or pains, my body is just a little more tired than usual. (Eventually, I\'ll get back to what this has to do with my feeling lessons.) While trying to sleep, I had some difficult dream/thought and one was about the new job opportunity and how much money I owe people that even with the new job will take years to pay off or pay back. So I felt that \"fear\", \"guilt\", or \"shame\" feeling about both the future, and my past; where I was never actually taught a trade or how to \"make money\" and I felt shame about that too, and anger, if not for feeling remorse about my past. Fortunately, unlike usual, I actually re-read my journal entry first before I started writing, and now I recognize one of the tests for teaching myself to change. I realized I was experiencing \"past-feelings\" as a way to divert attention to what I was feeling now: shame. So one part of the dreaming was about the future and the other about the past, all to avoid a feeling; shame. (And fear about my ability to pay my debts.)
Then there was the anger for never being taught how to make money in a career. It has always been a struggle for me, the aggression and assertiveness to make money and learn how to take care of myself; also shameful. \"It seems as though I have different values than many other people.\" (You know what? It seems I use \"it seems\" to deflect saying \"I feel\". I need to watch that more.) I feel like my inability to make money involves being able to know what people value and are willing to pay for having; and I have a disconnect there: One: mind-reading, and two: actually having differing values than \"normal\". As a \"withdrawn\" introvert, and an individual, I enjoy my solitude and privacy, and I enjoy not socializing obsessively. I don\'t \"follow\" trends, usually, I satisfy my needs as best as I can, but my needs are not that high. I especially don\'t need that much attention, and I shy away from it in order to maintain my privacy, which can be bad if you\'re trying to advertise what you do and can do. (Ha ha ha!) I AVOID attention! And now I feel it has a lot to do with the feeling of shame, for being who I am and not expressing myself and contributing to other\'s needs and helping them acquire what they value. (Also here, is the feeling that \"I don\'t want to trouble anyone\" by asking for help or getting my needs met. I STILL feel I have nothing to offer worthwhile. I just don\'t SEE it! y.e.t. Maybe the \"I don\'t want to cause any trouble for anyone\" is really a projection for: \"leave me alone, I can\'t help you and I feel bad or wrong when I know I can\'t\". I feel ashamed if I can\'t help you or do what you ask, becomes I can\'t help myself to do what I ask of myself, which becomes I WON\'T do what i ask of myself. There is a conflict between \"Leave me alone and I need your help\". I feel, right now, there is still a core issue hidden in this conversation with myself. Some abused reward. I\'ll have ot come back to it later; or at some future time.)
The first thing though, is to get back to the current lesson, and feel ashamed, without justifying or denying it! And let it go. And I am finding that difficult in this moment. And it is a good lesson to do. (Even though I just spent the last three paragraphs \"explaining and justifying it to myself\". The main thing is to feel ashamed and not try to \"fix\" it, and know the feeling that it will not kill me to feel it. I don\'t \"have to\" hold on to the feeling all day, or forever.
The underlying focus is on feeling there will not be enough money, ever! And it feels like there never has been, and yet here I am. I am not happy with what I have, and who I am yet; and that is all about feeling choices. \"Ever\" and \"never\" are future and past concepts, and both are global assessments. Soooo....what? So they show I am unhappy with myself, ashamed; and it involves my \"Superlative-Ego\". What has past is done, what will happen in the future is unknown, and my only fears is that I do not know what will happen next. This morning\'s lesson is to practice not evaluating whatever I felt in my \"dreams\" and I am feeling now.
It feels awkward, and I\'m doing it anyway. Go find a way to get my needs met by trading what I can do to get them. The next step is in not focusing on what I feel I can\'t do yet or haven\'t done; those didn\'t work. Now feel open to new feelings about myself, other than shame based on my past, or to be avoided in the future. (I\'m trying to convince myself, I\'m also resisting for a moment. It feels awkward!)
Later,
Rich