Very lost on what to do

[rd5555]

I’ve been trying something on and off for over 2 years, and I just cannot seem to do it. It’s the lefkoe process where you eliminate limiting beliefs. Many people are able to do it successfully right off the bat. I have struggled enormously with it.

The trouble is, it feels so painful and unenjoyable to do it now because it feels hopeless.

Part of me thinks I should be like, ‘fuck it, I just need to man up and commit to taking action on it everyday, even if it’s brutal. A bit like an overweight person turning their life around by committing to navy seals training. It’s brutal.

But the other part of me thinks, I need to take a more gentle approach, really try to open myself up to the problem, and think of a more creative way of doing it that is more customised to me.

I feel like I was close to being successful with removing beliefs in the past. But I’ve learned that what worked in the past doesn’t always work again in the future in the same way, sometimes you need a different approach to what worked before, you can’t always recreate success in the same way as the past.

The one caveat I want to make though, there are different ways something can be painful or unenjoyable. In Leo’s videos on getting laid, he talks about going out to clubs and speaking to girls, which he hated doing and how painful it was. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying this is easy to do, especially if you’ve been rejected all night, sticking in there is incredibly hard, even just having the balls to go out there and make your first approach, so I’m not downplaying the brutality of that at all. However, I think one thing that makes it easier is that there’s literally no way around it other than to speak to girls, there’s no other way to improve, so in a sense it becomes easier to surrender to the brutality because you have no other option.

 

Whereas with the work I’m doing, what makes it painful is that you have to visualise events and try to see that they don’t have meaning.

I just finding working in this way, has always felt so unenjoyable to me, combined with a whole bunch of doubt about how shit I am at the process.
A bit like, if you like to read books slowly, and then all of a sudden you're made to real books really fast with a timer. It can make the whole reading process feel so painful and unenjoyable to you. It's that kind of unenjoyment. 
And what happens now is, i'll try it for a week, and then it just feels to painful so i'm back to the drawing board to find another way of attacking it, or having another go using the same kind of method but with slighly more understanding or nuance than last time, I keep doing this over and over.

I have tried both the brutal method and the more creative gentle method before but nothing really worked, but I just need to get this sorted. 

I naturally do a lot of introspection/journalling in my day I’ve tried to do the process in that way, but it didn’t really work. Just felt too logical and analysing, rathe than how the process is designed to be: experiencing the memories and feeling. In fact, any medium i've tried, it hasn't really improved things.

My life situation has become so fucked up, I’ve been in a really dark place as I now have a lot of things riding on me being successful with this process, I just need to get this sorted but I don’t know how.

Ultimately I feel like it boils down to either taking the brutal approach, or finding a more creative and customised way to do it.

It's just that, after trying it for 2 years, something tells me, maybe the normal medium isn't gonna work for me. Maybe I need to find a different way of doing it.
But then the other part of me thinks, I just need to be more consistent with the normal medium, because as I said I keep going back to the drawing board.
 

This post has 2 intentions.
The first intention was to try to get some more advice on the best way to attack this.
The second intention was to be able to have people to talk to more about this. I've had all of this bottled up for 2 years, not really spoken about it with anyone. So I really think having people that I can speak to about this might help a lot as i'm navigating my way out of this dark place.

Thank you for listening
 

 

[LordFall]

What are we talking about and what’s worked so far and what hasn’t worked? 

All areas of life are not created equal. Plenty of things that are hard and not worth doing and a few are easy and worthwhile. 

You have to know your goals and desires and develop the self-awareness to know if you’re going in the right track. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, LordFall said:

What are we talking about and what’s worked so far and what hasn’t worked? 

@rd5555 ^This

We might need some more details to assess.

First question - are you attempting to mentally think or reframe your way out of something with a process to fix a mental process gone awry?

Taking a wild stab with the above - but a big mistake many make is trying to think your way out of a problem only taking real world action (ie physical or applied) will solve.

In any event, we may need a couple of concrete examples to dissect to offer up a solution

[rd5555]

@LordFall @Natasha Tori Maru

Thanks for your replies, and good points!

It might help if I first give a breakdown of what the process invovles so that you have some more context

Essentially it’s looking at childhood beliefs.

A belief like ‘I’m not competent’ usually comes from being criticised by parents when younger, for example: leaving the milk out and a parent criticising you for it, getting annoyed or angry. Hundreds or thousands of similar events like this between ages 2-6 usually form to these beliefs being formed.

The first step is, looking at some alternative interpretations for those events.

For example:Dad criticised me because he had a lot of insecurity around Money, not because I’m not competent. Or, Dad might think I’m not competent, but other people such as my teachers at school, and my grandma didn’t think I wasn’t competent. This section is just about creating some other possibilities for what those events could have meant aside from ‘I’m not competent’

The next step is: looking back at those events it seems like you can see evidence of ‘I’m not competent’ in the events of always being criticised, because one of the reason people believe these beliefs is because it seems like they saw it/saw evidence of it. This step is about realising you didn’t see evidence that you’re not competent, you just saw a parent criticising you. There’s a few different ways to do this.

The next step is about meaning: essentially you have to realise that the meaning ‘I’m not competent’ came from your mind, not from the events. there’s a few different ways you can do this

The feeling step:

One of the other reasons people believe these beliefs is because the feelings they felt at the time feel like proof that the belief is true.If someone criticises you and it makes you feel not competent, that feeling feels like proof the belief is true. So this step is about imagining those events happening again, but this time you give it one of the other interpretations such as ‘dad just criticised me because he had a lot of anxiety around money’ When you reimagine the events with this new interpretation, you should get a very different feeling. And here is when you form the connection that, you experienced the same event, but when giving it a different meaning you got a different feeling, so the feeling you initially had wasn’t proof the belief was true.

And then at the end, if done correctly the belief is eliminated

I struggle with all the parts at different times.

But the meaning step has been the hardest for me.

[rd5555]

what has kind of worked and kind of not:
For most of the past 2 years, I think I’ve been trying to force myself to think through the questions, trying to visualise the events really hard, rather than letting go and just feeling, almost letting it come to me.

I’m still not very good at this, I can do it sometimes.

But I find it hard to direct. I’m pretty good at being able to just let go and relax, but I then find it hard to turn that relaxed state towards the questions, I often end up feeling in this light and dreamy state but unable to turn my attention towards the questions.

In terms of thinking rather than feeling. I have a history of this. When I used to try visualising my vision for my life, I would almost try to force my mind to get excited and connected to the things I was visualising. And the harder I pushed, the less connected I feel.

Eventually I learnt that when you just let go, relax, that seems to the thing that allows you to connect better. I don’t really know anything about chakras, but to me it feels like I’m opening up my heart chakra when I let go and relax.

Although, the times when I was almost successful at removing beliefs (when I felt a decent shift and some aha moments, but probably didn’t quite get all of the steps) they weren’t all moments when I was in a relaxed, open minded state.

So, although I think the relaxed open minded state might be important, I don’t feel that alone is 100% of the solution.

I’ve felt an aha moment for each of the steps at some point during the past 2 years.

Although, when I had an aha moment for the meaning step, it was a bit of an anomaly because the belief I was working on when I had that aha moment was quite a unique belief, and the method I used for that step was quite unique and I don’t think I’d be able to use that method for any other belief.

 

I’ve also tried practicing the questions in a deliberate practice form, where I do like reps 10 reps at a time, 1-3 minutes each. Where I’m not trying to remove the belief, I’m just practicing the questions. It felt much more enjoyable because I wasn’t in a state of lethargy while doing the process, but it just didn’t really move me forward.

 

The method which feels most painful and unenjoyable now, is doing the lefkoe process  in the ‘conventional way’ spending 40-60 mins working on a belief trying to remove it. Honesty whenever I do it this way now, I just feel such a huge sense of fatigue and lethargy. Because I feel so shit at doing it this way, I have such low self efficacy doing it using this method. However, it is also the way where I usually get the best feedback and lessons from it.

 

Recently I tried introspecting on some of the principles such as ‘events don’t have meaning’ I did it for about a week or two; and just found I wasn’t really getting any traction. Also I have a deadline about 4 months from now that kind of make it crucial for me to get this sorted and remove beliefs by then. And it just felt like by introspecting, I wasn’t really taking action towards it. It wasn’t really moving my forward.

 

However, as I was thinking about this some more today, I thought….

Since I haven’t really got this concept that events don’t have meaning down, it’s probably gonna be hard for me to remove beliefs without this. So I think, maybe spending a few weeks really working on wrapping my head around this. I started doing this introspection this afternoon and it’s felt okay. Just

 

But out of all these methods above, the only thing that has gotten me close to removing a belief is doing it the conventional way.

But obviously it’s a lot more painful and enjoyable now that it was before, I have a lot more self doubt etc too about doing it the conventional way. But still, I just don't know if any of these other mediums are gonna move the needle.

 

I think ultimately, the thing I’m wondering is: after I’ve got a better grasp of the events don’t have meaning concept, should I start practicing doing the conventional method, or find a more sustainable way of doing it.

Part of me thinks, maybe I need to accept the brutality of it. Even if it’s brutal and painful, just keep doing it, that’s gonna be the way through this.

But then part of me thinks, you can’t keep doing something for weeks and months if it feels painful, you have to find a way of doing it that makes it more enjoyable or sustainable. I mean, I’m under no illusions, I don’t think any way of working on this is gonna be ‘enjoyable’, but still, there’s some ways that are better than others.

 

Do you think the brutality and pain would just remain for the weeks and months I’m working on it, or do you think it would reduce each day that goes by, I’m not sure if I become conditioned and find it easy to deal with (like an overweight person doing seals training who adapts to the physical demands of the training) or whether it would just wear me down more each day doing something I find so painful and unenjoyable?

 

[rd5555]

 

17 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

First question - are you attempting to mentally think or reframe your way out of something with a process to fix a mental process gone awry?

Taking a wild stab with the above - but a big mistake many make is trying to think your way out of a problem only taking real world action (ie physical or applied) will solve.

You know, it’s really interesting because for the past 18 months I’ve been so cognisant of how important it is to take action, rather than trying to think your way through things. (even though I ultimately kept going back to the drawing board hundreds of times rather than taking persistent action)
And I’ve felt a tremendous amount of guilt about how I should have just stuck with it when I had the momentum at the start and it was fresh, rather than coming back to the drawing board everything it felt like the process wasn’t right for me, or that it wasn’t gonna work the conventional way, and taking pauses to try to do things to work on my mindset to aid in the process.

Often times in hindsight, you can look back and think, if only I had just stuck to it each of those times and hadn’t quit, I would have been successful by now, and that’s the way I’ve been feeling over the past 18 months. And who knows, maybe I would have been successful if I just stuck with it.

However, in recent months I’ve started to think, I’m now not so sure I would have been successful with it at the start if I just stuck with it long term.

When you try something this many times, for over 2 years and keep hitting your head against the wall, in my experience I’ve found there’s usually a reason for that, something isn’t quite right.

Whether that’s my lack of fully getting the no meaning principles which I’m currently looking at, remains to be seen I guess.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Hmmm, there is a lot here!

I can see you are attempting to reframe how you view events and history through this cerebral process. And reframing can be very very powerful. I am naturally able to flip frames and perspectives. It is so natural I cannot prevent it happening - my default. I do this to sort of 'data harvest' meaning from past events so I can project future outcomes and discern meaning. Most people need to train this behaviour into themselves. I was blessed/cursed with it inherently (not to brag, it just is what it is).

A secondary effect of this process has been that it often will reveal a hidden meaning I have made from an event. And that meaning usually becomes a belief. This is really important to realise as, often times, especially when we are young and developing, we take meaning from events that are not true in the slightest. For example 'I went and spoke to that person - and they rejected me. They acted like I wasted their time - that means I must always have a reason to approach someone'. This leads to internalised shame as a result of taking on the wrong meaning/belief from the event. The real meaning behind the event is 'People are selfish and will choose arbitrary reasons for dismissing you that has nothing to do with you at all' thus not internalizing any shame that we may be bad/wrong. But when we are children, it is way too scary to see the world and others as bad/evil - that is too much to take on mentally! So we tend to blame OURSELVES. It is US who are wrong - evil. That is internalising the shame. And this is tragic, because it can lead to all sorts of issues - namely social anxiety, approach anxiety, and self isolation. I use this example as it is an extremely common one I see in others.

So I think your process is powerful - the feeling you are looking into - it is a result of a meaning/belief. But as you can see in the example above, the meanings we make about our world and ourselves are often WRONG. But the feeling remains because the belief remains unconsciously - that is to say - outside of our awareness of it. So it keeps coming up - this feeling. What the hell! Because the belief remains. So feelings are true - they are real - but where they arise from can be the error - the incorrect belief and meaning. This is why allowing feelings and following them is very, very important. They cannot be ignored or else they will come back with more force. More frequently. And they cannot always be trusted in that, the belief hidden behind them may be an error.

Realising the above mentally is half the issue. That can be enough for a big 'THUNK!' moment in some and realization. 

But to integrate that you need to act it out in reality to prove to yourself that meaning is false, and see the truth of the experience that you missed the first time around. So if we roll with the example above - we realise there is some weird SHAME feeling that doesn't seem right - we want to test out this reframe of a past belief to see if it is true. And the only way to do so?

Go out and approach others. Again and again. Look at the patterns. How they react. Do they always react to you the same? Even when you approach and have nothing to offer of value? I guarantee you they will not. Sometimes they welcome a stranger. Sometimes you have a laugh with them! They will always act differently. Even if you are the same... so what is going on? It cannot be an issue with you causing their reaction - they always react differently, independent of you. How they perceive you will always be different and really have nothing to do with you! Suddenly there is no shame there, because you are doing nothing wrong. You aren't bothering anyone.

The key in the above is the action taken in reality to address the recontextualised view on past events. This will re-emphasise the falsehood of previous beliefs and act to create new memories, and see the truth originally missed.

So my question is - as you seem to have contemplation down pat - have you been engaging in reality to generate experience to relook at what was once missed? This it the key to rewiring the mind. The direct feedback taken from reality... in the social domain. Working. Talking. Family. Friends. Exercise etc. It can be confronting - but it is often the missing step

Edited October 7 by Natasha Tori Maru