Raphael

How Much A Relationship is Important for Me Thinking about relationships made me reflect on the question of how much having an intimate relationship would be important for me. And the answer to this question is: I really don't know. This area is probably one of the areas in life where I'm the most hesitant. I see the potential of a relationship, I see the potential in the experience of having a deep emotional connection, sharing vulnerabilities with a girl, and having sex. However, I also see the trap of relationships, the trap of seeking happiness through someone else. I know why I'm hesitant and I know that it's not healthy: I got very badly brainwashed by my dad. He planted a seed in my brain at a very young age by telling me how bad all people are. Nope. People aren't necessarily bad, people are just how they are. I might resonate with some of them and not with others, some of them may help me, some of them may cause me pain, that's all. I also might be hesitant in this area because of how difficult relationships have been for me in life. Because of how abnormal I always felt, because of how strange and unique I always felt. I recently wondered if I didn't have a light form of autism after doing some research on this subject. Some traits highly resonated with me: Trouble reading social cues. Participating in conversation is difficult. You have trouble relating to others’ thoughts or feelings. You’re unable to read body language and facial expressions well. (You might not be able to tell whether someone is pleased or unhappy with you.). You don’t like to look at someone’s eyes when talking to them. Building and maintaining close friendships is difficult. https://www.healthline.com/health/autism-in-adults#highfunctioning-autism These are difficulties that I dealt with most of my life. But I think that it's just a limiting belief because I did have periods where I have been more social and do have some people in my life that I enjoy talking to. So this is BS, I don't have autism even if I can relate with some of these traits while reflecting on my life. I might have started life as being naturally socially more incompetent than average people, but that's fine, that's just a skill to develop. I see a pattern in myself that is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: because of how difficult relationships have been for me in the past I'm tending to avoid them. This is a trap that is keeping me stuck. After all, what if I develop myself as an awesome man and attract an awesome girlfriend? What if I have an amazing relationship? I cannot know if I don't try, I cannot know if I stay stuck in the same thinking pattern. I think that I have all the abilities to create an amazing relationship, I just need to push myself out of my comfort zone. Having an intimate relationship is definitely something worth trying. This is life, life is about experiencing it, living it, living it to the fullest.

Existential Happiness In terms of happiness, I resonate enormously with the video below. Assuming that I have a functional base, I'm first and foremost counting on myself to make me happy. The happiest moments that I experienced in my entire life were moments of deep solitude, I wasn't doing anything special, yet the kind of joy that I experienced were outside of normal human experience. I'm talking about deep existential joy: the kind of joy that can make you cry, the kind of joy where you feel ecstatic, the kind of joy where you are blown away by the magnificence of existence, the kind of joy that people notice when they see you, the kind of joy that is abnormal. The only moments where I experienced this amount of happiness were moments of deep solitude. It doesn't mean that I'm always happy when I'm alone, I obviously also experienced deep depressions while being alone. I experienced pain in solitude and experienced pain with people. I experienced happiness with people, however, I never experienced deep existential happiness while being with people. Maybe it's because I never found extremely aware people IRL, so thinking that I cannot experience deep existential happiness with people might be a limiting belief. I see a bias within me that puts solitude on a pedestal while dismissing social relationships and I don't think that it's healthy to be too much oriented towards it. I have shadows to explore here, I see past experiences and conditioning in my life that caused me to have this orientation. I'm definitely dismissing too much the value that someone can get from relationships.

I'll never grow without integrating Red. I need to integrate it in a healthy way. I need to try on my dad.

Ok.

@Raphael Don't be afraid of Red, embrace Red.

07/08/2021 (Week 28) If any of what I wrote this week is true, it might be helpful if I... let go of negative aspects of my mother let go of negative aspects of my dad embrace the positive aspects of my mother embrace the positive aspects of my dad unite the kindness and supportive personality of my mom with the visceral strength of my dad orient myself more and more towards positive self-talk

I might be a bit crazy... so what?

I'm starting to get bored writing about relationships. I think I'm just going to write a few other posts then move to other things. Also, I think I'm going to completely cut out the dating section of this forum because honestly, I might vomit one day while reading this place.

Having A Mind That Functions Differently I initially titled this journal ADHD: Personal Notes then changed it to My Over-Active Mind. I had different reasons for doing that: I don't like labels. I had never been diagnosed with ADHD, yet I see many commonalities between how I function and symptoms that are considered as been ADHD symptoms. ADHD is over-dramatized as been a serious mental health disorder. I personally think that they are many degrees to this: at some high degrees, it can be pretty difficult where at lower/medium degrees it can be empowering. I don't feel disabled in life (even though I have my difficulties). I just think that I function differently than most people and therefore need to have a different life system. I feel that there is a lot of bullshit in the typical mental health field. Mental health is relative to what we consider as being mentally healthy and elements of mental health can vary from culture to culture. Many times a thing is called a disorder where it is just a weakness and the other side of all weaknesses is a strength. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, yet some strengths and weaknesses are more common than others. When we perceive an uncommon weakness in someone we tend to demonize this person, yet this uncommon weakness can hide an uncommon strength. I see my mind as my biggest strength, it can be difficult to handle sometimes so in a sense this can be a weakness, yet this is one of the most powerful and most important things that I have in my life. I will definitely write about ADHD here, but not in an over-obsessed catastrophizing way. I just want to understand how my mind functions, its connection to my body, its structure, and how to make the best out of it.

No.

New Organization Workdays Monday Tuesday Wednesday Friday Saturday Physical Exercise Days Tuesday: Chest + Shoulders Thursday: Back + Triceps + Biceps Sunday: Legs Meditation Habit I'm going to put back a 1-hour meditation habit in the morning for each working day. What I noticed is that it's much easier for me to work when I meditate in the morning. Breathwork Habit I will do breathwork on Thursday and Sunday. Other Things I will start with this organization next week. However, I will also have to think about finding time for: Journaling. Reading. Reading this forum. Watching Leo's videos. Relaxing / Contemplating.

Slicing Weeks in Half So... I changed my organization a bit maybe ~2 months ago to work from Monday to Friday and have empty days Sunday and Saturday and it doesn't work. What I noticed is that I work well from Monday to Wednesday, then start to lose willpower on Thursday. This is too much for me to work five days in a row without any breaks in between. I'm going to change back my organization to something a bit similar to what I had before.

This organization doesn't fucking work.

I applied scores from 1 to 10 to each items here. I maybe deluded myself sometimes, I'm not sure. Here are what these scores means: 3-4: Below average 5-6: Average 7: Quite good 8: Good 9: Very good 10: Perfect These scores doesn't apply to superhuman saints. They are about below-average people to healthy stage Yellow self-actualized individuals. ------------ The high-conscious partner can sustain itself independently. Score: 7/10 I'll say that I do a bit better than average here and in the context of the country that I live in. I can sustain myself and make money without having to work that much. I also have more freedom because I'm not an employee. However, they are still limitations because the amount of money that I make is actually below what I need to sustain myself in a developed nation and things can be uncertain sometimes as clients can appear and disappear randomly. I'm still working on improving my situation here. The high-conscious partner is happy by itself and have a positive, proactive attitude towards life. Score: 6/10 I currently feel good as I'm writing this and my happiness has actually been improving since the last month even though I backslided a lot. However, I don't know how much time it's going to last. Things are paradoxical here: sometimes I can feel a lot of happiness and I find myself laughing without reason, but I do feel sadness and anxiety many times. I wonder if I don't have an anxiety disorder. If I reflect on the past six months, I'll say that my happiness have been at 6/10 overall. The high-conscious partner takes responsibility for its life, is a life-long learner, and constantly self-improve. Score: 7/10 Yes, I take responsibility, I self-improve and I learn every day. However, I can sometimes easily get discouraged in the face of challenges and also get lazy. The high-conscious partner has a healthy integration of all Tier 1 stages. Score: 6/10 I'm average here and I see a lot of room for progress notably at stage Red and Purple. I do lack self-esteem, I do lack confidence, I do lack assertiveness, I do lack people skills, I do have some social anxiety, and other things to work on. The high-conscious partner is as authentic as possible. Score: 7/10 This really depends on the environment that I'm in and on the people that I'm dealing with. Let's say that I'm with a conscious person, then it's much easier to be authentic. The high-conscious partner has high awareness. Score: 8/10 My awareness is really high. Often time I'm able to see issues within me and self-analyze while still being aware of the lack of embodiment. The high-conscious partner can admit biases and mistakes and correct them. Score: 8/10 This can be tough many times, but it'll say that I do much better than average here. The high-conscious partner can take constructive feedbacks. Score: 8/10 The high-conscious partner can give constructive feedbacks. Score: 8/10 The high-conscious partner is a good listener. Score: 7/10 I can often time be lost in my head and being unable to hear people talking. However, when someone really interest me I can be a very good listener. The high-conscious partner is genuine. Score: 4/10 I noticed that I'm very rarely genuinely interested in people. Someone really needs to have something special for me to be genuinely interested, most of the time people bored me. Many times, when I'm interested it's for analyzing them and understand how they work and this sounds evil lol. Also, the notion of being genuine and doing things for others always sounded fake to me because ultimately the difference between self/other doesn't exist. When someone says that he/she genuinely cares about others, I understand what this person means because genuineness is an emotion and I also felt in my life. I don't think that when someone says that he/she is genuine this person is egocentric and uses the term genuineness to mask a manipulative ego, but I feel that most people lack awareness regarding what genuineness really is. If someone doesn't exist, someone cannot be genuine so it's not possible to be genuine without it being about the self. Even when we do a selfless action such as giving money to a homeless person: this action is genuine, but at the same time it is about the self because we want to feel a certain way from our genuineness, we want to feel good to help other. Most of the time people have genuine needs, they have a need for genuineness. It doesn't mean that this low conscious and egoistical, it can be very high-conscious, yet this is still about the self (and others at the same time) because ultimately the boundary between self/others doesn't exist. I could write an entire post about this. The high-conscious is empathetic. Score: 7/10 I do have an above-average empathy, but it can still be improved. The high-conscious partner is respectful of everyone and respects people's boundaries. Score: 7/10 Some people really pissed me off in the past, but overall I'll say that I'm respectful of people even when some behaviors can make me cringe. The high-conscious partner communicates openly, honestly, and has a deep humility. Score: 7/10 This one really depends on the environment that I'm in. If I'm in a conscious environment, this is much easier. The high-conscious partner has high emotional mastery and can deal with its emotions in a healthy way. Score: 7/10 It almost never happens that I throw my emotions at others, I do my best to be as respectful as possible here. When I'm dealing with difficult emotions, I just recluse and let them out by screaming, crying, jumping, moving, etc. I often do feel some bitterness and impurities in me, but nobody sees it. The high-conscious partner can show its vulnerabilities and issues, share them, and discuss about them. Score: 7/10 Depends on the environment, it's easier in a conscious environment. Also, I noticed some past traumas related to girls in my life that are causing me difficulties to be authentic and share vulnerabilities with girls. The high-conscious partner has high integrity and do everything to maintain its integrity as high as possible. Score: 7/10 Better than average, however, I still lie and still delude myself. There's also a weird thing that I noticed that comes from the fact that I can't relate with most people and because of that I feel like I'm always lying to everyone. The high-conscious partner is flexible and can change quickly depending on the situation. Score: 7/10 Some progress can be made here. The high-conscious partner has a healthy relationship with its body. He/She cares about its body, eat healthily and exercise without being obsessed by it. Score: 8/10 Can be improved by taking more care of my skin, my sleep, and my posture by optimizing my work environment. Overall, it's healthy. The high-conscious partner is comfortable and open with its sexuality. I'm striking this one because of my lack of experience. This is currently completely uncomfortable for me because I never explored this with a girl. The high-conscious partner doesn't have any strong addiction that prevents him/her to function properly in life. Score: 8/10 I almost put a 10 here, however, the reality is that I'm addicted to thinking, information, and reading the actualized.org forum. It can make me lose a lot of time sometimes. The high-conscious partner doesn't have any strong biases against any group of people based on origin, ethnicity, gender, gender orientation, or similar things. Score: 7/10 I still have residues and shadows in this area. Other Things: I still lack a lot of education on relationships and masculine/feminine dynamics. Because of that, I feel like some of my ideas might be screwed. I can see limiting beliefs, shadows, and traumas related to dating, relationships, and women within myself. This needs to be cleared out. I feel a lack of embodiment in my life. I feel a lot of impurities and dirtiness within me. That's probably caused by the fucked up environments that I got myself in from end 2017 to end 2019. Ok. So... when I started thinking about these things maybe a few months ago I thought I was ready for a relationship, however, I can see now that a lot of things still need to be improved. I need to continue educating myself and work on my shadows in this area.

06/08/2021 (Week 28) Mother gave me a view of myself as... a good boy a kid a good looking guy an intelligent person a strange person a head in the cloud person an innocent person a kind person a good person Father gave me a view of myself as... a dumb person an anxious person a shy person an incompetent person an abnormal person a dependent person Mother speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I am good enough that I can do it that I am smart that I am good some reassuring stuff that I am exceptional Father speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I cannot do it that I am stupid that I shouldn't be how I am that I need to push harder that I need to make more efforts that what I do is never enough that I need to change that I'm not enough that I'm an idiot that I can't change that I'm incompetent that I cannot succeed that I should not listen to people

Sometimes I Would Like To Be Dumb I just have too many things in my mind, this is insane. Sometimes I would like to be dumb. Sometimes I envy these people who can just do their simple job without thinking that much about it, without complexifying things, without interconnecting everything and seeing the big picture. I'm just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking... all the fucking time. As soon as I wake up I start to think, when I go to bed I have trouble sleeping because I'm just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking... When I cook, I think. When I talk with people, I think. When I take my shower, I think. When I work, I think. When I exercise, I think. When I walk, I think. Sometimes, I cannot even hear people talking because I think. Sometimes, my thoughts interrupt me when I'm doing something and I get into an involuntary pause. I have thousands of things that I want to write about, thousands of things that I want to share about, yet this is so complicated because of how overactive my mind is. Thoughts triggers thoughts which trigger other thoughts which trigger other thoughts... My mind want to see the big picture despite me, even when this is inappropriate to the situation, even when this is counter-productive, even when it hurts my survival. Sometimes I want to vomit my thoughts out. Calm down mind, calm down. It's gonna be ok...

I need to detox.

I have been backsliding pretty hard since the last month. My schedule is fucked up, my sleep is terrible, I'm irregular and disorganized, I'm mind is too agitated, I have difficulties getting things done. I think that I need at least 2 - 3 empty days just to self-reflect, empty my mind, and calm down a bit.

Balance is the key.

Things That Annoys Me About Femininity Here are some elements that we usually associate with femininity and that annoys me if they show up too much: Damsel in distress syndrome. Inappropriate use of the compassionate approach. Too much talking. Too much complaining. Too much implicit communication. This one can really annoy me sometimes. I understand subtleties and implicit communication, however, if this happens too much and/or in an inappropriate context I just want to shout at the person to fucking say things directly. We cannot understand implicit communication all the time. Too much consideration of the opinions of others / people pleasing. Too much neediness for relationships. Not doing things because they are hard to do. Choosing what feels good instead of what works.

Things That Annoy Me About Masculinity Here are some elements that we usually associate with masculinity and that annoys me if they show too much: Over-assertiveness that is inappropriate to the situation. Over-confidence that is inappropriate to the situation. Over-controlling behaviors. Inappropriate use of the tough approach. Leadership through fear. Men competing for anything like dumbasses. Hiding of vulnerabilities. Not sharing emotions. Lack of consideration of others.

Maybe it's more of a collective issue in the area where you live in this case. Looks like something needs to be done to raise awareness within dogs owners so that they get sensitized to the difficulties that some people have with dogs. As a personal experience, I used to keep two of my dogs unleashed when they were small because I didn't thought they would hurt anybody and because I was sad of seeing them leashed all the time. However, they grew up and started to run after people. I understood that I needed to keep them leashed when a man finally complained to me (and also when someone beat one of my bigger dog and gave me some death threats). They are always leashed now. If talking to the owner doesn't work, then it's more likely to be a collective ego issue. Also, I had moments where I was tempted to tease some people with the dogs when I saw that they were afraid just to see their reactions. I know, I know, I'm evil, I'm sorry, however, I never did it seriously. Why are you afraid of dogs btw?

05 August 2021 Wake Up Time: 08:40 AM (objective 6:30 AM - 7:00 AM) In Bed Time: 12:04 AM (objective 10:30 PM - 11:00 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ❌ Cold shower after waking up ✅ 45 minutes of meditation in the morning ❌ No social media until 7 PM ❌ 30 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 07:51 PM - 08:37 PM I had a Zoom call with the accountant. He's a really nice guy, looks like we have a bromance. Duration: 46 minutes Focus: 3.5/5 Progress: 3.5/5 Deep Work Sessions: 11:48 AM - 12:51 AM Did some work on a small web app. Duration: 1 hour 3 minutes Focus: 3.5/5 Progress: 3.5/5 02:02 PM - 02:38 PM Did more work on this web app. Duration: 36 minutes Focus: 3.5/5 Progress: 2/5 08:44 PM - 22:30 PM Worked on this app again. Duration: 1 hour 16 minutes Focus: 3.5/5 Progress: 3.5/5 Total Work Duration: 3 hours 41 minutes, including 2 hours 55 minutes of Deep Work Average Focus: 3.5 / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Average Progress / Session: 3.12 / 5 (objective at least 3/5)

05/08/2021 (Week 28) Mother gave me a view of myself as... a smart person a head in the cloud person a good looking person a good person a helpful person a baby Father gave me a view of myself as... an incompetent a weak person a dumb person a dependent person a useless person a lazy person an abnormal a fragile person Mother speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I am smart that I need others that I am good looking that I can help that I am helpful that I'm lost in my head Father speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I am weak that I am incompetent that I am dumb that I'm fragile that I'm incapable that I'm lazy that I'm shy that I need to push myself harder a lot of insults that I'll never achieve anything in life that I'll never succeed in life

04/08/2021 (Week 28) Mother gave me a view of myself as... a good person a smart person a beautiful person a baby a helpful person a useful person Father gave me a view of myself as... a dumb person a weak person an incompetent person a dependent person a baby an abnormal person a failure Mother speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I'm very intelligent that I need to help others that I should not push myself too much that I should not push myself too much outside my comfort zone that I am good that I look good Father speaks through my voice when I tell myself... that I can't succeed that I won't succeed some insults that I am not good enough that I am weak that I am a failure that I should push myself that I should push myself outside my comfort zone that I am shy that I should not be shy that I don't care about others that I only care about myself that I am the most important thing in my life