Raphael

Racism in the US Even though I did see some racism while growing up I think that I never realized how big it was in the US and in this world before joining this forum. As most people here are from the US, I started to get more interested in the politics there without going too deep. Also, the Trump mandate blew me away. I couldn't understand how something like this was possible before learning more about Spiral Dynamics. One thing that I noticed about people from the US is that someone's race is inserted in a lot of sentences even when it doesn't matter. It's like a way of living there. It's quite interesting.

Racism in the US Even though I did see some racism while growing up I think that I never realized how big it was in the US and in this world before joining this forum. As most people here are from the US, I started to get more interested in the politics there without going too deep. Also, the Trump mandate blew me away. I couldn't understand how something like this was possible before learning more about Spiral Dynamics. One thing that I noticed about people from the US is that someone's race is inserted in a lot of sentences even when it doesn't matter. It's like a way of living there. It's quite interesting.

@Rilles I meant a video to check his narcissistic level. My dad is also a narcissist. When I was between 4 - 8 years old he slapped me in the face just because I was in his way. However, he did grow a lot and he is getting closer to a decent person, I'm currently putting him at 4/10 on the narcissistic scale. It's a bit easier for me to heal now, I guess that it will take more time for you.

To which degree is he narcissistic? Where would you put him on a scale from 1 to 10? Can you find a video of a similar person so that I can see?

Try to inspect yourself, inspect past events, try to understand the other person, try to see similarities between you and the other person (you both lack self-esteem for example), change the meaning and healing will start to happen progressively. Journaling can be very useful. Also, if you meet this person again and can talk to him/her a bit (just a few tiny words), can have more compassion and acceptance while being around this person then you'll know that you are healing.

What I noticed is that no matter what I read there is nobody throwing emotions at me which means that the difficult emotions are generated from inside. What I'm trying to do is to feel the emotions fully, heal (because these comments are helping to heal) and then get to a point where I can read them without being impacted by them. Also, reading them with a different tone of voice may help.

No.

I want to slow down a bit while doing this. I want to take more time to re-read the previous posts, to analyze, self-reflect, make the meaning evolve, understand, and ultimately heal.

I think that the reason why bullying almost never went physical for me was because of the quality of the schools. The schools that I went to were privileged schools for privileged people — even though I wasn't privileged and was feeling a bit different — because of that most kids had a better upbringing than average kids so they were less prone to engage in physical violence.

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: A Feeling of Unsafety + Social Anxiety I remember not feeling safe while going to school because I had a weaker body and because of the amount of criticism that I was getting on my body. I remember being on guard, I remember checking behind me in case of someone would try to target me. I guess that this is the same feeling that women experience while walking in the street: women don't feel safe, they are always on guard. I can relate to that. This feeling of unsafety contributed to me developing social anxiety, it made me feel alienated, it made me feel afraid of the world. I remember a few experiences that I think were caused by me having a weaker body and by low self-esteem: Being Trapped in Middle School When I was 8 or 9 in middle school, I was just walking in the school when two boys came around me. One of them caught me from behind so I couldn't move. He was really tall and much more muscular than me. The second one came in front of me and tried to grab my feet. I tried to defend myself, I didn't let him grab my feet. After some moments of agitation, they finally gave up and let me walk away. I remember being in the middle of the schoolyard, I remember everyone staring at me. I remember feeling publicly humiliated, I remember feeling ashamed of being weak. I didn't want people to look at me, I wanted to hide, I wanted to escape. I didn't get physically beaten, but I still got traumatized. In my mind, I was like: "Just wtf happened? I'm just walking and people are attacking me." A Bit of Agitation in The Library I was peacefully reading in the library when I was 13 when again some boys targeted me. It didn't go physical again, but it was still a bit traumatizing. I was wearing a hoodie and one of them covered my head with the hood, then a third boy came and took my defense. The third boy was also a bully, but he never really bullied me that much, this time he just told to one of the other guys: "Hey, come on, he only has his skin on his bones, let him". I'm honestly thankful for this boy even if he wasn't an example most of the time. Again, I felt humiliated, I felt ashamed, I felt weak. And again I was just wondering wtf happened. I wasn't doing anything, I was only reading peacefully, but these boys targeted me. A Bit of Agitation During The Sport Class I was experiencing some moral bullying during a sports class when I was 14. I don't remember what these boys were saying, but they were mocking me and I remember not feeling safe. They were just around me making fun of me. As I wasn't feeling safe, I remember putting my right arm in front of me in a defensive way. While I was doing this, I remember one of them mocking me even more. I don't remember what happened after that, but I know that it didn't go physical. I was afraid, I didn't want to be attacked, I was trying to defend myself, I felt humiliated.

An Insight On My Dad: He is Here to Help I had an insight about my dad while doing the shadow work session. This insight is: my dad wants to help, is here to help, and my father's sub-personality inside me wants to help me. It feels like I'm turning to my dad to help me. As young as 4 years old, my dad always told me to let him know if anyone bullies me at school. He wanted to protect me, but as he was over-protective and had a lot of anger and impulsiveness I cut him out of my life by stop talking to him. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I often paired with hypermasculine guys in the past: because they reminded me of my dad, because I wanted to feel protected as I didn't felt safe. Maybe that's also one of the reasons why I'm living in my parent's house, maybe it's because even though my dad is a difficult person to live with he always cared about me and wanted to protect me in the end. I feel some safety in this house but at the same time some unsafety as I'm a bit afraid of openly expressing myself in front of my dad. As my dad always had a lot of inner conflicts, I declined his help. This is why I don't want help because help reminds me of the help that my dad tried to give me. As he was very conflicted his help felt oppressive to me, but he couldn't help himself. This is also why I don't want to help anybody: because help feels selfish. The one who tried to help me the most was my dad but as he had a lot of impulsiveness and anger inside him his help felt selfish, it felt like I had no right to do anything. In consequence, I feel that helping is selfish, I feel that I have no right to do anything because I'm preventing myself to help the world. However, my dad did the best that he could. He had a lot of difficulties helping in a healthy way, but he did the best that he could. I forgive you dad. Not helping is a protection mechanism within me. I don't want to help because I see help as selfish because this is how it always felt when my dad tried to help me. I'm overprotecting myself as my dad overprotected me, I'm damaging myself just like he damaged me. We are both acting in a very similar way. We are the same. By not helping I'm selfish too. I couldn't be alive today without people who helped me and people who raised me - in an imperfect way, ok - but raised me anyway. These people did the best that they could. This is natural to help others, so I'm letting myself being natural and helpful to others. My father self is trying to help my child self inside me. He wants to nurture my child self, he wants him to grow, he wants him to become a man. My father self inside me wants the best for my child self inside me. I'm allowing my father self to help my child self and I'm also opening up my child self so that he can give feedbacks to my father self who do the efforts to listen to my child self to help him best. I'm letting my father self helping my child self and my child-self is opening up. My father self and my child self are now communicating together, they are helping each other, working together, growing together, and healing together.

Thank you, thank you. I appreciate

@Raphael I forgive you for being so dumb! Everyone is dumb from time to time, it happens, it's fine.

The Stupidest Thing That I Did The stupidest thing that I did was when I was 19 or maybe just turned 20. I was consuming personal development content and Leo's videos for more than a year and I had the opportunity to do a speech in an amphitheater in English. I was super excited as I loved public speaking and because I had so many new ideas from personal development. So... I did a motivational/idealist speech ala Tony Robbins which explains how everyone is a slave of its mind and who puts forward idealist stage Green values to create peace in the world and who demonize capitalism and religions. I basically explained how we could change the world by just changing our minds and... by meditating every day for just 20 minutes! Lol. I even did a 3 - 5 minutes guided meditation at the end to show people how good they can feel by just meditating a bit and calming the mind. Oh God, I cringe as I'm writing this. That was just so fucking dumb, I'm cringing so much. In the end, I'll say that most people liked the presentation because they applauded a lot. Some people gave me positive feedback and told me that it was awesome. My teacher told me that she was impressed by the quality of the presentation and two other teachers came to me to ask me some questions. However, I also noticed that some people were laughing and that others were nonreactive, looked annoyed, even some friends. It bugged me when I noticed that and I started to think: "Why are they reacting that way? Don't everyone agree with me that religion is bullshit, that capitalism is destroying the world and that we can change everything by changing our mindset?". I think that it was the first time that I got a hint of stage Yellow and of how multi-perspectival the world is. Overall, I'll say that even if my public speaking abilities were really good and the presentation was good I was a complete fool. I tried to push a mix of stage Orange/Green values on everyone which explains some of the reactions. It looked similar to what Greta Thunberg did here:

More Radical Honesty I had a phase where I have been an asshole. I was rather mean with my sister when I was a kid. I called her names like "slut" and "bitch" and even hurt her physically a few times. I stole some toys at school when I was 5 years old. A girl who was in my school bus saw it and told it to the teacher. I was ashamed of what I did and just wanted to hide. When I was maybe 6 - 7 and was playing at school with a paper plane, a boy took it in his hands and destroyed it. It made me angry so punched him and he crumble down into pain. I had a video game addiction from 14 to 16. I haven't played video games seriously for more than 6 - 8 years now, but I can still watch some gameplay online as a coping mechanism. Even though the bullying that I experienced in high school was moral bullying in 99% of cases, it was enough for me to have a few micro intrusive thoughts of doing a mass shooting. Fortunately, it never went further away than that. During the final exam of high school, I was so stressed out that I ejaculated in my pant. In the moment I wasn't sure if it was cum or pee, but it was cum and it reassured me because as cum is thicker it doesn't fall on the ground so nobody noticed it. I wasted years of personal development by doing it with the neurotic attitude of pushing through it until it works and it didn't work. The personal development that I came in first was a mix of stage orange/low-green personal development including some of the first videos that I watched from Leo. It was success-oriented personal development that emphasize enormously on taking very quick actions to get quick results, but it didn't work. Some people (including Leo) were saying that the one who takes the most actions will get faster results than the one who spends time theorizing... well... there's a bit of truth here but also a lot of nonsense. The best thing to do is to work in a conscientious way and to take slow calculated actions in order to avoid mistakes and create results. Never, ever, ever, EVER listen to anyone obsessed with speed even if it's Leo or any other reputable personal development guru. Personal development isn't a competition, it is personal. What I needed to start with when I was around 18 - 20 was shadow work, this is what would have help me the most, but I didn't come across it (even if I was doing a bit of it by self-reflecting a lot). I guest that a part of me wasn't Green enough and that the part who wanted success at all costs dragged me down into hell from mid 20 to mid 21. However, the desperate moments that I had during this period of my life did help me as I cleared many traumas from the past. It's quite ironic that one of the first comments on this journal is from someone proposing me to do some shadow work. I got trapped in the libertarian ideology in the past when I was around 19 - mid 21. I took the ideas of independence, freedom, and not caring about others to the extreme. I wanted to do everything by myself to be seen as stronger and better than everyone. I was seeing people who weren't as competent as me as dumb and lazy, but it was me projecting my trauma onto others. I even went to the extreme of not caring about my grandma who had difficulties walking in the street because I was sure that she could do it by just putting in some effort. Some of Leo's videos damaged me. I'm thinking here about some stage Orange videos from 2014 - 2015 like "How to stop being a victim", "How to get shit done". The hyper-masculine approach triggered some traumas inside me, made me fearful of not getting results. It reminded me of the attitude of my dad. Part of the reason why I resonated with Leo was trauma-related. The masculine approach doesn't work for me in most cases, I prefer a compassionate approach in 80% of cases with a bit of toughness in 20% of cases. Most of the content that I watched from Leo has been useless. I grew up enormously but mostly intellectually, I lack a lot of embodiment. I fall into the category of the philosopher who knows a lot of things but isn't grounded. I'm good at theories and finding the structure behind things, but I have difficulties generating results. I have been working on an app since 2018, however, as I was in a very poor mental state for years I couldn't work properly and failed many times. I am now finally getting there. In my most desperate moments, I used porn and masturbation as a coping mechanism. I had a few days where I would masturbate three times per day to deal with the pain. It can still happen that I use masturbation as a coping mechanism but that's quite rare. I have been afraid of been labeled an incel in the past, but I don't care anymore because I don't fit the category. I have health, I make money, I'm self-improving every day + I'm not desperate for a relationship even though that's something that I'm interested in trying. I see incels as an extreme thing. Pretty girls used to scare me... but I'm not sure if it's the case anymore. I need to expose myself more to see. I don't feel manly enough. I feel that I lack mental strength, discipline, that I'm not responsible enough, that I don't provide nor care about others enough. I wondered if I wasn't bisexual in the past because I noticed that some guys were good-looking and also because I attracted some transgender women and homosexual guys previously. Overall, I don't think I'm bisexual, but just that I have a bigger feminine side than average guys. I had a few interactions with the opposite sex that I'm not proud of: When I was 13, I remember staring at a girl's ass while she was bending. One of her guy friends saw me and told her: "Hey, Raphael is checking your ass". She responded with disgust. It made me feel ashamed. When I was 20, I went to a nightclub and started to dance behind a girl, I was very close to her. My dick was very close to her ass. It didn't look like it annoyed her, but I'm sure that it was the case even though she didn't express it. I feel like I have been a creep. I was exercising at a gym when I was 20 and a lady (maybe in her 50 - 60) came close to me to ask me if I could move some weights for her. I don't know wtf happened but I kissed her on her cheek. This is how we say hello in France, however, this is not something that we usually do in this context. I don't know what happened but even if this woman was old, I felt attracted to her. She felt feminine and she also reminded me of my mom. She was surprised when I kissed her and responded with a little "Oh!", then I responded "Hello" and explained that I do "la bise" (a French word which means kissing someone's cheek to say hello). I didn't understand why I did what I did just after that. I felt ashamed, I felt like a creep. Biggest Regrets Not taking school more seriously: This one is my #1 biggest regret. I wasn't a bad student, I was most of the time a bit above average without putting in that much work (except around 17 - 18 where I was the top student). I feel that if I just did some efforts I could have easily been a top student most of the of time, but I never felt that much supported and my parent's never really supervised me that much. School gives an advantage in life and by taking it seriously we learn how to learn and how to solve problems. However, at the same time, I was also aware of the trap of school and good grades. I knew that life was way more complex than just good grades so I educated myself on things that I was interested in aside from school. Because of that, I can now enjoy a comfortable situation where I don't have to work that much to make money to survive. Dismissing friendships and intimate relationships: Because of the bullying, I started to become very emotionally closed and distance myself from people at 14 - 15. Something felt wrong for me, it felt like people always want relationships but always fight with each other, so I decided to avoid that. I now regret that because a few good friends and a healthy intimate relationship can help someone grow.

26 September 2021 Wake Up Time: 06:31 AM (objective 6:00 AM - 6:30 AM) In Bed Time: 10:27 PM (objective 10:00 PM - 10:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ✅ Healing ~ No distractions until 8 PM (Doesn't apply on Sunday) ❌ 1 hour 15 minutes of random journaling before going to bed (Did 35 minutes)

25 September 2021 Wake Up Time: 06:03 AM (objective 6:00 AM - 6:30 AM) In Bed Time: 10:34 PM (objective 10:00 PM - 10:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ❌ 1 hour of meditation in the morning ❌ No distractions until 8 PM (Doesn't apply on Thursday) ✅ 1 hour 15 minutes of random journaling before going to bed

24 September 2021 Wake Up Time: 07:19 AM (objective 6:00 AM - 6:30 AM) In Bed Time: 10:34 PM (objective 10:00 PM - 10:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ✅ 1 hour of meditation in the morning ✅ No distractions until 8 PM (Doesn't apply on Thursday) ✅ 1 hour 15 minutes of random journaling before going to bed

23 September 2021 Wake Up Time: 06:45 AM (objective 6:00 AM - 6:30 AM) In Bed Time: 10:33 PM (objective 10:00 PM - 10:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ✅ 1 hour of meditation in the morning ~ No distractions until 8 PM (Doesn't apply on Thursday) ❌ 1 hour 15 minutes of random journaling before going to bed

I'm noticing that as I'm journaling things are getting very messy. I'm wondering if I'm doing things properly. I have a lot of insights and my mind is going in thousands of directions. This journal is going to be messier than I expected.

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Noticing Feelings /!\ Warning: These are just feelings that are arising while journaling. THEY DOT NOT REPRESENT HOW I AM 95% OF THE TIME NOR HOW PEOPLE PERCEIVE ME IRL IN MOST SITUATIONS. I'm noticing some feelings arising and things happening while exploring my body image issues: My social anxiety is spiking I feel unaccepted I feel weird I feel abnormal I feel anger I want to self-isolate I feel afraid I don't feel safe I feel inferior I don't want people around me I don't want people to touch me I don't want people to talk to me I don't want any friends I want people to leave me alone I want people to stop mocking me I want people to stop criticizing me I feel hate I feel hated I'm getting into stage Red: I want to kill people and to take down this whole fucking world with me I feel unattractive I feel avoidant of women I feel a distrust of women I don't want women to look at me I don't want women to care about me I feel hate of women I feel avoidant of men I feel a distrust of men I feel hate of men I don't want men to look at me I don't want men to see me as being weak I feel alone I feel isolated I feel alienated I feel some burning sensation in my stomach I feel not understood I feel sad I feel some tears coming up I feel agitated I want to end my life I want to end my suffering I want to hide I feel shame I feel avoidant I feel very distrustful of people I don't want to care about people because I feel that people hate me I hate myself I feel extremely fearful of what people think of me Other things that happened while journaling: I did loud and weird sounds with my mouth, I'm letting everything out I repeated "Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE" I cried a bit while at the same time repeating: "Help me, help me, help me please, help me, help me, help me". I did this a lot. I breathed repeatedly and very quickly I tried to cope by clicking a bit everywhere on the internet and by going on some porn websites.

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Self-Hate All the criticism that I got on my body contributed a deep feeling of inferiority and self-hate: I hated being mocked at I hated been mocked on my body by girls I hated been mocked on my body by boys I hated being a target of bullies just for existing as a human being I hated being compared to a girl I hated my body for being weak I hated being seeing as weak I hated being seen as an inferior human being for being skinny I hated being seen as an inferior man I hated how many comparisons people would make with me I hated being treated like a kid and talked to as if I was younger by some kids that were younger than me I hated not being taken seriously I hated that people would always want to help me because they perceived me as being inferior were what I wanted was to do things by myself I really hated myself enormously just because of my body.

@Raphael Notice the bitterness, anger, and resentment.

Alright everyone, thank you very much. What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to kill myself or what?