Cathal

@Thought Art @Nahm thank you for ur replies i decided to try this strong determination sitting, i basically just sat for 1 hour and my mind went wild.. like holy shit, but i kind of lent my attention towards all the emotions, at a point i felt content. i've been doing this for a couple of days, a few times a day. really kind of empties me, or at least dissipates a little trash driving me crazy. like holy shit being in survival mode is... every thought and feeling is DEFEND THE BASE, it's crazy

I've been pretty dedicated to spiritual and psychological work ever since I did psychedelics a few months ago and moving on from hedonism, but each time I get even a slight glimpse of the present moment through whatever means I just splurge out getting high as possible on video games, food, music and it's exactly what I did my whole life as a kid. It's really weird actually, it's like so intense that i'm making up for 'lost time' or something, like I really want to get high high high because my life beyond 14 or 15 has been pretty shit. 24 now. Video games have been my whole life, since I was 3 or 4 from being amazing immersive experiences to coping mechanisms to literal complete escape from reality they just don't bring me what I want anymore, I cannot enjoy them... and that makes me really quite sad. When this reality hit me that I couldn't enjoy video games that is when suffering truly began for me. Really. I struggle with accepting these things. But I am trying. It's almost like i'm starting to develop a fear of coming into the present because it's like it's almost more comfortable to be numb and disconnected but not unbearably depressed than to get the sweetness of the present and come back to my baseline. I think I am very slowly seeking real purpose in life but get caught up with: the moment i'm capable of enjoying things without the baseline of anhedonia and dissociation I splurge out and just get as high as fucking possible, rather than pursuing truth and how I can transform myself and ultimately my goal or transforming others. Any thoughts ? Maybe it's cause I have absolutely nothing to do

Does anyone have any sources where I can understand how to intergrate/tap into my masculinity? It is heavily repressed. Basically as a kid saw my Dad for a angry/regret ridden tyrant and said I will never be like that. But I suppressed my aggression and abillity to stand up for myself, let everyone bully me, I was so enmeshed i've never in my life built a stable identity. I kind of feel like a broken child and I work mainly on the inner child stuff, but the shadow or as I describe it to myself my very imbalanced masculine energy that I want to express/feel/understand. Any of that stuff spark any authors/videos etc I could look at ? thx

and the sick thing is i sometimes believe if i get rid of this body i can have a more capable life to do something to help others. it's a conflict with this almost like; unstable need to help save the planet vs the unbearable lethargy and stuck purely in the physical navigating entirely by myself literally no friends nor family anymore lol = day to day insanity i wouldnt wish on anyone

@Nahm why is the boredom this insufferable? i feel like.. it shouldnt be this bad. im talking like going through intense waves of suicidal ideation when i sit in it. i break pretty easily. and you are right i just thought about it for a while, i feel like i already know what to do and seeking the window of oppurtunity is procrastination in disguise, i'm just expectating at some point of this inner work i'll have more compassion available and therefore more consistent motivation to do the things i want to do i just don't rn. i feel expected of myself to do stuff bcus i know I CAN because there's soooo much suffering and here i am, capable, but at the same time I CANT because i have barely enough motivation to clean myself. i just feel like sometimes theres so many things fundamentally so out of my awareness, some severely repressed emotions, sometimes draining all this life out of me. u know, it just dissolves with the psychedelics, it's absolute freedom and peace from nuerosis. coming back into my physical body, feels like theres so much trash i just wanna get rid of it. but yeah thanks

Meditation Journaling Self-Study Forgiveness/Compassion cultivation Contemplation (habits, emotions, lifestyle) Talk to other people about shit you don't even care about Holotropic breathing/Wim hoff method EMDR Yoga Qigong Talk therapy Affirmations Sleep Diet De-armouring (vunrability with someone else) Psychedelics (with intergration) Shadow work Surrendering practices (laying down is good doing that)

@NoSelfSelf ye its kinda the despair of no longer having a bottom to the pit even if you try, now it's just endless falling into this suffering. idk its unbearable, i just wish i could enjoy something like fucking art or walking or feel anything

This is really relatable especially because a guy I sometimes talk to recommended that book and recently I had really implemented it two times, really glued myself to a subtle emotion to the point in came in waves of grief and eventually dissipated into a very peaceful warmth. It does kind of throw everything into the haze. Time by so painfully slow, there is no consistent enjoyment hence the passing of time is so noticable I genuinely feel at 24 years old I have been here for way too long because I have been dissociated for like 6 years now. It's my baseline I guess surviving the onslaught of traumas. You start craving emotions, anything to work with. Give me perverted shame, give me primal rage, give me fucking empathy towards videos of cats on youtube. But I guess you also learn that whatever comes up is what you're ready to process and the expectations really take away the things you want a point. I'm hopeful though that I could actually change although my suicidal ideation remains the pull of it is less it just kind of lingers in the backround, I have also very recently only realized what spirituality was. Within 5 months I was able to do quite a bit and had some genuine glimpses being fully present in my body. I have been pretty hardcore ever since I did psychedelics, before that my life was isolate>survive> play with hedonism. I think it's so fucking important to have a therapist, the mirror has helped me so much more than I thought. A lot of inner child work for me really pulls me out of the dissociation for a bit. There is so much pain in my body that now that I built trust with my therapist it surfaces up so fast, wish I could talk to her more than once a month. I also think the feeling guilty when expectating yourself to 'feel' is very important to be aware of. When you're dissociated, you cannot feel empathy. So when you're expectating yourself to be the person you were prior to dissociating you still haven't fully accepted this is what you're experiencing right now and prob just makes u feel shittier. Are you hypervigilant? Going to write to you practically what has helped me in the last 5 months since I started to intentionally love myself (the positive stuff that works). Holotropic breathing (if not your thing) Wim hoff method 3 rounds in a row does it Metta Meditation + ofc just meditation Running on the spot till I cant move Cold exposure Yoga...? When I actually follow a real hatha yoga instructor it works Talk therapy Social interaction during the 'glimpses' where your heart is open more can be quite intergrating. Ultimately doing psychedelics has shown me this dissociation is just like another wall of protection, it's not like a deep loss of body or mind where you're floating around like a ghost but it's simply a more intense state of protecting what you're identified with. If I could change anything or recommend something is change your environment and who you surround yourself with (if anyone, when possible) with non triggering folk. Can't rush it, take it easy but keep taking it as it presents itself. It sucks but... those glimpses are so sweet can you imagine how much ecstacy is waiting for you?

hey I need some advice. I want to clean up and find a stable diet that really benefits my body and mind as best I can get it and aids my current issues and with more context to this post, the aid of herbs/medicine or supplements because I have a bad knowledge of it all, I take 0 drugs anymore just a multivitiman. I'd appreciate it. I eat one hour a day in the morning, to keep it simple I eat like vegans do. I deal with quite a bit of energy lethargy, emotional disconnection, dissociation and possible endocrine system damage from a cocktail of prescription drugs when I was younger. I would describe my day to day state of being in 'freeze' from the abuse and intense anxiety I went through, calming relaxing stuff I enjoy it makes it much easier to explore myself like meditation and helps me with going into therapy, like feeling safe? I think i'm a kapha-pitta-vata (kapha and pitta are almost the same) dosha in ayurveda, I fuckin cannot really wrap my head around that system but if that helps ya...

@Nahm Hi thanks for the offer of help. Yeah I was just looking at people link people making sausages or some shit and didn't know what my post turned into, but I wanted to ask you about nootropics. Was anything actually helpful? I have been concerned about my nervous system and my body not producing certain hormones from maybe my thyroids or something in the endocrine system, I don't know really. I just have a gut feeling about it from everything I read and my life and drug use. Do you know anything about that stuff or would any nootropics help? I never really tried nootropics because I really got sick of tolerance, actually with most drugs. I drink caffeine and a multi-vit btw, spices like tumeric + neem, ginger Thanks

I'm basically stuck at the top. I've been experiencing 4 as my baseline for a few years. Chronic percieved danger numbed me out to the point of suicidal thoughts on a daily basis. Became a big hedonistic bastard to cope with that, definitely had some effects on me physiologically. (full body tremors, constant shaking) Psychedelics and sometimes meditation pulls me into the present moment. I feel alive, I feel the warmth of the sun and the sound of birds, feeling of the wind and beauty of music. There is a lot of pain in never letting go of anything, it was the vow I took as a kid to never express myself eg. I wouldn't be like my father who was a kind of bipolar tyrant. But my understanding has developed so much since then obviously and now I'm kind of taking care of myself, but this dissociation stuff is life destroying. Example: hypervigilance, (I was bullied a lot in school, that was... 7 years ago) and I still experience this kind of state where my awareness gets aroused so intensly I get pulled from threat to threat to threat when I see other people around, cars, noises, it shuts down my ability to connect and keeps me numbed out and tensed up EVERYWHERE i go. fucking torture bruv I mean it has sucked the life out of me literally. I've been trying to find out how to feel grounded in the present more. I've done just about everything I've researched, mindfullness, somatic experiencing, breathwork, meditation, changing diet. It feels a bit like a disability truly now. Does anyone have any advice on coming out of this state? Day-to-day it's just surviving and not living. I really want to change.

@Thought Art yeah i found one. shes a very spiritual person with a really interesting story and really actually nice to talk too. but her actions (breaks, constant schedule changing, hanging out with her friends and cancelling our appoinment and shit like that) idk maybe it's the part of me not wanting to trust someone but also sometimes pull this sceptic out of me making it hard to trust. but yeah, i don't think there's anyone who couldn't use a therapist (could be a friend/family if u have that) having a truly trustworthy mirror reveals a lot of very buried stuff

i really feel like it's a simple case of exposing myself to a new environment/experiences, but i just cannot find this environment that i feel safe to fully shake the demon in me. well.. enough to express myself and to make my messed up identity realize there is no more danger, and it's safe to experience the present. but i really need that support and i can admit that, it just does not work by yourself, it's like a whole part of my brain turns on in a social environment that i really need to be in, i donno if anyone knows communities that do weekly mental health video calls honestly i can't find a single one on discord. i'm gonna just make my own at this point what i feel like people who are experiencing this freeze state or dissociation from the present moment is some kind of exposure. because the response is isolation, and i am in isolation right now doing 'healing work' but this is also healing and i just really need to fucking recgonize i have to put myself in a social situation that it feels actually safe. the thought of just walking around shoots my anxiety through the roof, i mean this attachment comes from a deep root of being picked on by 20+ people in a small town growing up mostly. if anyone does know any communities like this or discords or zoom /whatever feel free to reply, thankz

@Wilhelm44 yeah also a strange situation i'm in i literally live in a town by myself where i don't know anyone and don't speak the language of this country x d but i've been looking online. it's difficult to find that group of people for sure, i still haven't

@Wilhelm44 Quite a bit since my mushroom trip. Before that I was cutting, spending all day on video games + drugs and basically locked myself in isolation. Self-love is very difficult, I find it really quite hard to apply to myself. Feels like a lot of empty words, the intention is always sincere though. Meditation, yoga, sometimes I journal, eat pretty good, trying to learn art. I'm just so incompetant on how to be a human being, I'm 24 and learning how to talk to people, I actually have intense anxiety that I don't fully realize. I've only been taking is more serious for a few months at this point, this dissociation thing is really crippling tho cause i really don't understand what to do about it. But yeah, I can acknowledge I have taken some steps at least, still I would like more progress. I can accept this present moment but I know I can do more. Thanks for the suggestion i'll try that visualization stuff. You're right I have quite a few of that identity to being a victim. It's difficult to truly let go of that stuff, kinda shaped my whole life

Hey could you comment your favourite resources eg. person/book for working on your inner child? thanks

@Loving Radiance thanks!

@_Archangel_ or just reply with the name of the book

can someone reply with the name of the book everyone is talking about? i'm new here. thank you

I'm pretty new to all of this. But basically; Guided meditations are so easy to follow along and enter states I really can appreciate, but when I do it alone it's the lesser that I can get into those states that are so easy when guided and as to why it's the nuerosis that is pretty intense when I attempt it myself, I do try to let it float by but I have a lot of attachments that are basically a knee jerk reaction that pulls me almost every few seconds away from my object. This can happen for 40+ minutes. Is this something that will fade with practice? I am worried I may build a reliance on guided meditations. Thanks

I'm beginning to see my deep-rooted attachments and the pain attached to them. The inability to feel compassion towards myself, the insecurities, the lack of confidence, depression, helplessness etc and also the stories. The thing is tho, how do you guys 'heal' or go about resolving all of this undigested emotion and lack of compassion? For the life of me I am stuck in this intense hypervigilance lack of feeling safe dissociated state where when I try to 'heal' or attend to them, nothing really happens. They're just words for walls of resistance I guess but it's like trumps titanium mexican border, it's so incredibly difficult to do sober sometimes the despair and feeling helpless to help myself consumes me. Psychedelics work like a charm in dissolving the resistance and I can easily touch the trauma at its root but my experience has been I cannot intergrate post-cathartic feelings of healing afterwards as time goes by, (does anyone have an opinion why or do you agree psychedelics aren't a good tool to heal for day to day life beyond the trip?) I also have a therapist now but tbh I feel like she is not that useful so far. Maybe I just don't trust her yet, I definitely have trust issues but I also have no idea how to tell if she's a good therapist or not. It's like I can intellectually understand what I need to do, I do it and it's like not much changes. I struggle with the 'what should I do to heal myself?' I never really get any breakthroughs or any satisfying level of wow I really let go of that thing. I get quite frustrated because I'm kinda just at the point of I don't give a shit about anything else except helping myself, I don't even have many addictions anymore, I just surrender to the suffering and let it fuck me in the @ss

@Michael569 Yeah I mean in the space of about an hour I eat 1500-2000 calories or something like that each morning, I know that's kinda weird. I just got into the habit of it, yeah it's a vegan diet. Basically I kind of withdrew from everything to give time to go into healing and helping myself, I have all the time in the world. I sleep pretty good, do a good yoga session each day, and I get work done. I have done a lot of drugs, cigs, weed, alcohol, benzodiapines, codeine, anti-psychotics, mood-stabalizers, SSRIs, SNRIs, a big cocktail of desperation which could have possibly fucked with my hormones. But when I did mushrooms a few months ago I just quit everything in a week, I'm just kind of sitting on the chair with unbearable suffering at the moment. No but then again I haven't been to a doctor in a long time. My goal is to get in touch with my emotions and my feminine side, my ability to feel compassion towards myself so I can start the forgiveness process which I can see is a really really important thing I must do to let go. But rn I cannot feel a thing, so I would ultimately like to achieve feeling relaxed safe and to cultivate compassion and loving feelings, so I'm not really sure to what degree a certain diet and the use of herbs or whatever could help that because I really don't have an understanding of use of herbs/nootropics/drugs to help with what I just described and if it can help transform me.

i'm dealing with a lot of suppressed emotions from my past - especially anger. when it arises, do i physically do something like smash my pillow to death or something or do i just let the anger flow all of my body and stick with it till it's gone?

@Roy thanks this is really helpful, it reminds me of that letting go book by david r. hawkins, it is really difficult not to punch something or rip something apart though jesus, i have a ton of suppressed anger from being raised the way i was so i don't know how to deal with it. not in the way The Emperor wants

yeah i have a lot of trouble finding ways to express myself through something like art, dancing. i really don't have much capacity to enjoy anything right now but you reminded me of the importance of looking for an outlet for myself, thanks