Suvuviel
11-23-2020 One of the skills I’m practicing now, from The Happiness Trap is recognized when I’m hooked on a story I’m telling myself. By recognizing that I’m caught in the story, I can then step back and unhook myself from it and refocus on what really matters. It’s proving helpful in terms of recognizing the internal stories I tell myself and diffusing them. It’s also helping me be more productive again, because I’m not letting those stories dictate my day and take over my energy.
11-25-2020 One of the realizations I’m continuing to work through is the realization around expectations that I impose on myself as well as the ones imposed on me in the fast. I tend to push myself very hard, because that was always the expectation put on me. Over the last few months I’ve been trying to work less and relax more. Today I talked with Kat about some of my fears around the expectations I’ve put on myself and it really helped to unpack those further and acknowledge those are really just stories I’m telling myself that don’t serve me. I can be more productive by actually doing less.
11-27-2020 I was reading the Sedona Method yesterday and a bit of advice it offered is what when you stop holding on to how and why something happened, you can then release it because you’re not attached to it anymore. It’s good advice and I’m trying it out because sometimes I do hold onto things because I want to understand why. The other bit of advice, equally helpful is that when you find yourself holding onto something and you can’t let it go, it can be useful to consider if you’re holding onto it out of a sense of pride or other form of attachment that’s keeping you rooted in the misery. In my case, I realize I’m holding onto some things, such as the experience of only being wanted for what I could do for someone because it’s what I’m familiar with and mostly know…but its not good for me and its stopped me from showing up in the relationships that truly matter. I’m letting that pattern go because it doesn’t serve me.
11-28-2020 I had a realization today as I worked through a blockage, around love. I realized that I’ve often approached love from the naïve perspective that love cures all problems. I have had this expectation that loving someone and being loved by someone would health the pain I’ve felt within myself. This realization came about because I woke up today feeling a sense of discontentment and when I did qi gong I worked through that block and came to this awareness of the selfish attachment I’ve had to this idea of love healing inner pain. What a burden that puts on the relationship. The truth I’ve come to realize is that love doesn’t heal anything…it simply allows you to acknowledge that you feel something for someone…and that should be all it needs to be. I let go of that expectation about love and I felt better for doing it, yet also sad for realizing how I put that burden on the different relationships been in, and how unfair that was of me to do so to the people I’ve been involved with.
On a different note, the other day I shared a question that asked what it would be like to value you for you, as opposed to valuing yourself for what you’ve done. I found the responses to be curious. Most people felt a need to argue that value of self could only be derived by doing something, instead of separating out what is done vs the value of appreciating yourself for being. But in fairness, I think it is such a foreign concept to simply appreciate yourself for you, especially in cultures that place value on what is achieved. I realize I have nothing to prove to anyone and that any work I do can be done without ego weighing into it, If I value myself for simply being me instead of attaching value to what I’ve done or not done.
11-30-2020 I had a realization this morning about how one change in how I approached a situation would have drastically impacted my life. I also have continued recognizing expectations in my various interactions with people and the pressure that puts on all people involved. It’s freeing to see how the expectations really don’t work and to also recognize the expectations placed on me as well as the ones I’ve placed on others. I’m letting them go because they really don’t work and create more harm than good.
I’ve also been reading Ego is the Enemy. Reading it really impresses on me the importance of doing the work for the right reasons, not out of ego or a need to be recognized, but out of a desire to do the work because it serves the community that needs that work. The author makes a point that what you work on also works on you and to me that really strikes home because if I’m doing the work for the right reason then I’m not making compromises with that work, but instead really approaching it from the right place and perspective that truly helps the people that need what I offer.
12-1-2020 Today I had a realization that I was holding onto a feeling of guilt. I did some dissolving working around that guilt and it helped me place a situation into further context. I realized that the more I continued to hold onto that feeling the more it would keep me rooted in thoughts that weren’t helping me and once that happened, I felt this release that helped me immensely.
12-3-2020 I’ve been continuing to dissolve the blockage I found around the feeling of guilt and I discovered some feelings of sadness and anger as well. When emotions interweave like that it becomes delicate work to dissolve the blockage, so I’m just taking my time with it, but as I’m dissolving it, I’m finding that it’s becoming easier to release the emotions and memories associated with them, which is helping me move on from events earlier that happened earlier this year. I’m also doing a Sirt food diet plan for the month, as a reset of my diet, but also a spiritual and physical cleansing and this too is helping me immensely in terms of releasing the experiences from earlier this year.
12-5-2020 The last couple days have been interesting. I had some powerful realizations, but also a bit of an emotional struggle, which I used my new tools to deal with and even though it was hard, it didn’t feel as chaotic as it has in the past. What the Sedona Method helped me with was changing my approach to my feelings. Instead of identifying with my feelings, I’ve started recognizing that I am having feelings, but that having them doesn’t mean I am them. This is hugely important because at times I’ve gotten so caught up in the identification I have with the emotions that it’s overwhelmed me. I’ve also treated them as facts, when really they’re not. So now when I’m feeling an emotion, I pause and consider that I’m having an emotional experience and this is helping with the feeling. The Happiness Trap has reinforced this with its own methodology of diffusion.
I’ve been so used to suppressing emotions that this new approach feels scary, because instead I’m choosing to acknowledge the emotion, but as I get used to it I realize the emotions have less power over me than I thought and that I can release them and really be present in the moment instead of caught up in identification. I even have experienced moments of contentedness and peace and though I find those feelings to be particularly foreign, I recognize they don’t have to be and that I also feel less of a need for chaos in my life.
I’ve also been continuing to read Ego is the Enemy. The chapter on being an eternal student really resonates with me, because I’ve come to recognize the difference between arrogance and confidence more and more since the events in 2017 happened. I still catch myself getting caught up in what I know, but I recognize I need to keep challenging that assumption and keep myself open to learning.
Another point the author makes is that doing something from a place of passion is often a recipe for failure. As I read the chapter on passion I recognized myself in it, both in my business activities in 2017 and what happened earlier this year. I let my passion for the moment blind me to the realities of what I had or what I could do. Instead of operating from a place of purpose and focus, I let my emotions take over. This doesn’t always happen, and in fact I see that with my approach to writing. While I am appreciate and enjoy my writing, I am methodical and process focused…and that’s why it works so well. I need to apply that same level of understanding to the other areas of my life.
12-9-2020 I learned about Trauma Bonding recently and it put a situation into the right context and allowed me to finally and fully let go of feelings I was trying to work through from August. It’s amazing how the right context can explain a situation and help you move beyond it, bringing clarity and peace as a result. I also decided to let go of hosting a virtual conferences for occultists. At this point, I realize I just want to write books and create classes and focus on my community. Anything else, in the occult scene, is a distraction I don’t need. It feels good to let go of that burden. I’m increasingly realizing that I’m going in a different direction from the majority of the occult community and that I need to trust that direction without necessarily bringing anyone else along with me. My people will follow if it speaks to them.
12-10-2020 Today I was given instructions for the next step of my work with the sphere of art. I won’t start the work until Dec 21st, but it felt good to get some direction moving forward. I feel cleaned out emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually and re-focused and re-oriented on what really matters.
12-12-2020 I was experiencing an emotion today and I tried something out which helped immensely. I reframed the experience of the emotion from being “I am angry” to “I am having a feeling of anger”. Reframing the emotion in that way helped me acknowledge the emotion, but also diffuse it. I then continued working on it via meditation. I found this to be a very helpful experience, because its providing me a way to feel the emotion without being overwhelmed by the experience, and then suppressing it.
12-14-2020 Today I’ve been experiencing a feeling of compassion for someone else as I consider what I know about that person and the circumstances of their life. Sitting with that feeling is good. It leads me toward a sense of forgiveness and further letting go. At the same time it makes me aware all over again how a given person is suffering even if it doesn’t seem like, because so many of us carry burdens others can’t see. I’m glad I’m learning how to let go of mine.
12-16-2020 Today I was interviewed and one of the things that came up was the open letters I had written to the convention organizers. It’s been five years since I wrote those letters and I’m an entirely different person now. I realize how much my own drive to be recognized created that situation. Now when that desire to be recognized comes up, I recognize it for what it is and let it go, because it’s just another trap I don’t need to be in. It’s the kind of realization I wish I had been better at earlier, but I suppose one just has to make some mistakes along the way to start getting better at life. As I told the interviewer it really doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that I’m doing my work from the right place and connecting with the people that need that work.
12-19-2020 I’ve been thinking lately about what my enough looks like. My enough is that awareness of satiety in regards to my life, where I continue to do what brings me joy and purpose, but without necessarily focusing on how much I can grow my business or change something else. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about as I look at where I am with self-publishing and consider what is essential vs what is trivial.
The other thing I’ve been focusing on is an awareness around my internal state of being, particularly in relationship to the part of myself that is in chronic pain because of how it feels dissatisfied with me and my life. It’s the part of me that hurts because of what happened so early in my life and I’m finding a way to be present with that part in a healthy manner, honoring it and recognizing it without indulging it. I have either tried to suppress that part of me or given into it, without really learning how to be with it, but the skills I’m learning are helping me come to a better space with it.
12-21-2020 I was reading the Happiness Trap and the author made a point about how certain thoughts amplify emotions and what it helped me recognize is how my own analytical nature can sometimes get me caught in a spiral of emotion and thought around trying to understand why something happened, when maybe I just need to let it go. Then again, I also recognize that sometimes those thoughts have helped me get closure where I might not have otherwise…but I’m open to trying new things and this book has helped me not get so fixated on my emotions. Have the experience and then let it go. It helped me recognize a thought stream I’ve been wrestling with for months and I feel like I’m finally getting closure with that thought stream.