Self-Actualization Gone Wrong (?)

[mmKay]

Hey guys, finally felt like sharing this after close to 365 days of procrastination (:

Note to whoever bothers to read: It's a "short" personal story about my steep but (probably) worth journey of following Actualized.org : Life Purpose, Meaning of life, Mystical experiences, Happiness, Motivation , Apathy and Nihilism.

I feel that some of you will resonate. Enjoy!

 

Concise background rant : 

21 years old male born in Poland who moved to Spain at 5. 

Videogames were my life  since as long as I can remember.  They really sucked me in throughout my life as I really enjoyed them, I developed mastery in some of them,  and they also were my way of escaping my upbringing ( bullied in school, feeling shame for being poor ( living in caravans/ in a shack up till 18), alcoholic / mentally unstable / emotionally abussive mother since birth, etc.

All I did was school - videogames ( and very often skipping school to play some more ) .

I literally barely have memories up till 17 since everything was very routine-like and other stuff I prefered to repress.

I used to be deep in victim mentallity and merely reactive towards the world since I felt that the circumstances were stronger than me and also my father used to over-protect me and my brothers by providing everything he could and making my existance as comfortable as possible, which made me even   " weaker "   

Got into personal development at 17 by accident while googling stuff about how to improove social skills to get a social life and ultimately get better with grils sice I had a crush on a chick in my class (actually I was amazed that there was a whole comunity about improoving themselves).

 

Okay.

 

January 2018 I bought the LP course after getting my first real job that I used to save up for my future studies ( having money is cool) .

Three videos in, and next thing I know while meditating I get a flash of " go study psychology in university rather than translation". So I freeze the LP course and for couple of months do what's needed to make the switch in my studies since I didn't want to waste any more time. Resistance kicks in because of boring/challenging subjects and I go through a mini crisis. I didn't know if  I was just rationalizing my laziness. But I could intuit that it didin't feel right.

Shortly after,  I had the insight that I wanted to study psychology because it's what's most similar to Personal-development, and I was like " why not study personal develpment directly? " ( also was actually somewhat motivated by a random Tai Lopez video where he was preaching "taking your eduaction in your own hands".

Also shortly before that,  as I was Journaling,  I became aware ( thanks to Leo's theory and his BS detector ) of how little developed Universities actually are, and that the safety ( both the time spent studying and the job they provide later on ) are a complete ilusion.

I knew there was no University Major on Personal-development, and that I would have to wing it. I would have to be both the teacher and the student.

May 2018 my confident ass  accompanied by faith in my half baked LP decide to take my university savings move to Barcelona (opposite extreme of Spain, 1000km away from my family or anyone I knew) to live on my own and get involved in the RSD pick up comunity  ( that was the subfield of Personal developent that I chose to focus on after binging for a year or two on pick up theory).

Spent around 3k euro on digital programs as I felt it was an investement. It probably was an investment, but . . .

As I felt that my horniness/ flawed self-esteem /poor skills with whamen wouldn't let me advance the LP course,  and given that pick up provided a clear path for self-actualization with tangible results, it would be the perfect decision. Right? Well, bear with me.

As I meditated more and more ( staring at the same wall since 2016, for 20, 30 min daily, up to 60 min for half a year at my peak ) I became more and "numb".  The " wins " just felt okay , and the " loses " just felt okay.  I was becoming deatached from life. I could feel it was It was building up towards something. 

Around June 2018 Leo bursted my bubble. The "Understanding Meaning, Value and Purpose" video cracked my reallity ( Highly recommended video, THANKS LEO)

I became conscious of how our Meaning-Making Apparatus works, and that my whole life was a house of cards. Everything I belived in was BS from the beggining !

 

Long story short :

We pull meaning out of our  Individual / collective asses and hold on to it as if our life depended on it ( Because it does !

So there is nothing to do and nothing to archive. Your problems aren't real. Seriousness doesn't exist. There is no reason to develop yourself. There is no reason to have sex. There is no reason to talk with your family. There is no reason to eat healthy, there is no reason to stay alive rather than killing yourself. There is no good or bad. Whatever you do, is " Okay" ( with capital "O" )

Also, there is no reason WHY NOT to do any of these things.

You are left completely groundless with overwhelming and terrific  Freedom. It's all up to you. You either create meaning consciously or soak it up unconsciously.

Meaninglessness isn't good or bad, it's meaningless.

All of this doesn't come across remotely as powerfull by writing it in a sentence as by becoming directly aware of it with your own real-life examples and actually feeling how the whole conceptual framework of your life crumbles down (:

 

Alright.

 

That ah-ha nihilist moment combined with the decision of quitting my old life , confusion about what do I actually want to do with my life, struggle with understanding what I am, existential dread and tons of questioning of my beliefs, escalated into not only a mid-life crisis, but a full blown Dark night of the soul.

For months I was consumed by Nihilism and Anomie.

Learning how to date lost its meaning and became very shallow.

I flunked my expensive RSD program and I didn't care because money lost meaning for me.

I had lost my virginity with a hooker because the stigma was gone, and  I half assed some psilocybin mushroom trip where I had no major insights.

Finding my Life purpose also lost its meaning for me and although I could Intuit that some anwsers were there,  I was already chained by resistance and distractions.

I felt enormous emotional pain.

Loneliness that wouln't go away even around people; a feeling of not being understood & being amazed at how unconsciously others held onto their beliefs, and more extreme levels of confusion by each belief or asumption that I dared to question.

I Indulged in addictions, Porn, masturbation, junk food, trash entretainment. . .

Sometimes I laid 24 hours in bed for weeks doing barely nothing,  besides standing up to pee and grabbing some unhealthy food to eat. 

 

(if there is something that I regret from all of this, it's not documenting my thoughts  and the shifts in my worldview enough as everything was happening )

Then, after binging on some more Actualized and Byron Katie content something clicked.

I learned how to let go. Of everything, any shoulds, regrets, expectations. . . I learned how to Sit  and bliss out. Complete acceptance and surrender to the pressent moment without wishing to be anywhere else.

I finally became aware of where the main source of happiness comes from.

 

September 2018 I decided to swallow my pride and fly back to my dads home to be become a  Squatter ( quite extended practice here in Spain ) so I wouldn't have to pay rent.

I seriously considered to just do full time meditation somehow.  Interestingly enough I had a chance to join an Ashram in Barcelona since a monk in an orange toga approached me literally at the entry to my house , offering me a free short copy of the Bhagavad Gita, but I after a brief chat I could see that he was clearly lost in dogma, and my desire to join would be  corrupted by the desire of grounding myself in some structure/ authority that would tell me what to do rather than having to embrace the paralyzing freedom.

First month back was alright. Blessing out doing nothing  feels good but it doesn't manifest in cash ( at least directly ). Since im not into Breatharianism or Freeganism, I got a weekend job to get some income, where I'm working till today.

 

After binging on some more of Leo's content, I stumbled across the " You aren't Happy because you don't want to be " video. After that one I really made myself into a lazy slug couch potato.

Summarizing : Swallow unconditional happiness ( which screws up your  entire motivational system). You don't guilt yourself for anything. You don't reward yourself. 

I had learned to be Okay with anything, and also,  all the rules to live by were gone. No "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts"

I was still half-assing meditation, yoga, journaling if I was doing any of these at all, and I was resisting the LP course that had caused me so much struggle.

I had some mystical experiences in the past like becoming directly conscious that thoughts come LITERALLY from NOWHERE and had some short lucid dreams here and there, but now after letting go of SO much suddenly for couple of days  I started being conscious inside of my dreams sometimes even few times per night;  two times I started Astral Proyecting and  levitated horizontally out of my body for a short time and flew around my room; that one time I woke up half asleep and had a short no-self experience where I literally lost my sense of self and finally around november I had a two minute samadhi experience where I discovered non symbolic understanding and realized what direct awareness actually means.

I became aware of what the fabric of reallity was ( you can call it consciousness, but  if you categorize it in any way it dissapears, exactly the same way as if you want to think about silence, any word that you come up with is not it.).

 

I remember looking at the wall for around 20 min doing some neti neti / focusing on Actuallity meditation , and I realized the wall, my body, my perceptions and my thoughts were made exactly out of the same thing!

Finally that " all is one " cliche made sense.

 

Cool, but I'm still here, and life is still going on.

 

Yeah, this happened around 7  months ago. Thought it would be a good idea to not " push" myself and just digest the insights.

 

I didn't resist anything, and as you can guess, before I knew I was already caught in distractions / addictions.

Since then, even though It's hard for me to suffer unless I go full unconscious mode, I've been stuck in the same rut as from last year since the reallity breakdown of discractions, porn, masturbation, sugar, wheat, junk food and and now also videogames. 

Resistance has the cuffs on me and the LP course feels like a threat to my ego so I keep sweeping it under the rug after slowly chipping away at it.

I rationalize my behaviours because  ultimately everything is " Okay ". Right?

 

This is a new challenge. I never had to face addiction . I never had to create Meaning to live by from scratch.

(Fun fact , I used to have somewhat arrogant thoughts along the lines of " how can these people be addicted to smoking? Boii, make me addicted to crack-cocaine and I'mma break that sh*t in NO TIME. Lol.)

 

At the beginning when I had quit videogames after 15 years,  I did it cold turkey since I had so much motivation to develop my social skills for a reason (  the idea of getting in a relationship was so meaningful ! )

But during the " crisis " I saw that actually, it was meaningful to me because I craved aprooval, both from the girl and from other people for getting such girl. It was ME who created that meaning.

 

Admiting that ALL of my motivation to develop myself was grounded in the desire for girls and aprooval was a tough pill to swallow.

So once I realized  this, and that family, money, working out for  looks , fame, archiving any kind of social status or any other "Social Success" ,  are no longer sources of motivation and meaning, I'm just left with "doing  whatever I want , only for myself".

And it's freaking hard and lonely. Developing myself just for myself . I never had to do this before. I was used to allways suck on other peoples meaning and value structures. But now I saw behind the curtains and there is no going back even if I wanted to.

 

Definately subestimated what it takes to be an Autodidact and what it takes to be in charge of your own life .

Pretty funny how reallity humbled down my arrogant ass that expected smooth exponential growht lol.

 

Even though I have quite a few ideas about how to break free I'm struggling to pull myself out of the rut even after couple of attempts,  and i'm too arrogant in my skill of  taking care of myself to ask for help.

Any rules I set for myself are weak since I can see they are groundless. Commitments are also shallow since I see how they are groundless. ( I see how I create meaning out of thin air ).  Blurry visions that I come up with for my life haven't yet created enough leverage.

But yeah, I'll have to humble down again and go for Tony Robbins basic self help, consciously create a structure to live by, and keep chipping away at the LP course.

 

Shoutout to all my fams who are stuck in a rut, and if you aren't , don't worry, you will be ! (:

 

[Truth Addict]

@mmKay

I enjoyed reading your story. Much of it resonates.

I think what is crucial for you at this point is to realise that you are overthinking, and that your thoughts are meaningless. I mean I know you know that already, but do you actually embody it?

Embodiment in this case means to stop judging your behaviour of slacking off and just be cool with it. I know this sounds the opposite of what you think you should do, but have you ever let go of the desire to change? Have you ever stopped imagining a great future? If not, then I think you probably haven't found your authentic self yet. Your shadow is probably preventing you from meeting your authentic self. Have you done shadow work?

Life is all good and beautiful when you lose meaning and value, because you stop thinking and start experiencing, being in the present moment.

Ultimately, I think you will have to find a job that doesn't bore you, probably start with a job that is easy and simple, and from there on, you let life guide you.

mmkay, it's all Okay 

[mmKay]

14 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

@mmKay

Embodiment in this case means to stop judging your behaviour of slacking off and just be cool with it. I know this sounds the opposite of what you think you should do, but have you ever let go of the desire to change? Have you ever stopped imagining a great future?
 

Yeah, that's exactly what I did for the last 7ish months after the realization that no matter what, evertything is "okay".
Looks like leaning towards distraction , addictions and comfort is the default for our race if we don't inhibit any behaviour, or at least for this chimp here.

Days turned into weeks and months. Time flew by. I decreased judging and moralizing and whenever I did any behaviour I did the best to just "notice" and go with it.

Nowadays I make use way more of intuition to guide me, and it tells me this way of living is not the way to go. 

 

14 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

@mmKay

Your shadow is probably preventing you from meeting your authentic self. Have you done shadow work?

I've been interested in it for quite some time. Not sure how it exactly goes but I do a lot of journaling about my past and try to be aware of my emotional trigger points and judgements. I'm sure there is a lot to work with there.

By the way, i'll repost this in the Self-Actualization Journals Section since I genuinely enjoy writing about these topics and it kind of feels lonely to just type away in my Onenote journal haha.

[Arnold666]

So Dark can get the night of the soul

[Truth Addict]

@mmKay

I'm following your journal, it seems interesting.

In my experience, life will throw a bunch of challenges in your way, you don't even have to worry about that, lol. Your job is not to chase challenges, but to simply accept them with open arms.

If you feel the urge to do something, then by all means do it. Trust your intuition.

You might want to start relationships, I assume you've been alone for a long time. Relationships can be a challenge, and they can help you to change if you want that.

Also, changing your lifestyle can change you in very radical ways. I guess you felt that a couple of times as you mentioned big changes in your story. I just can't stress how powerful that change in the outside can affect the inside.

[Dan502]

Absence of human connection was the thing that stood out for me most in your story.

I like what @Truth Addict wrote: "Ultimately, I think you will have to find a job that doesn't bore you, probably start with a job that is easy and simple, and from there on, you let life guide you."

[mmKay]

19 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

 

Also, changing your lifestyle can change you in very radical ways. I guess you felt that a couple of times as you mentioned big changes in your story. I just can't stress how powerful that change in the outside can affect the inside.

Yeah, one of the ways that I thought about how to break of the rut is radically switching my environment, like moving to another country on my own, but what I have noticed is that it helps because your survival instincts kick in and makes you busy with basic survival - how to get income, get an apartment and fit into your environment, but once you have that handled and are at your standard level of comfort, you  are back where you started, with little vision for what is next, since your motivation to take action was grounded in basic survival, unless  something happens along the way that opens you to something new, like meeting someone inspiring or discovering something new to do. 

Right now deciding between moving to a different country in a couple of moths or going for Vanlife, which is actually a very Stage green lifestyle that also aprooves of my love for minimalism. 

18 hours ago, Dan502 said:

Absence of human connection was the thing that stood out for me most in your story.

Very true.

From what I have noticed, since I was very young I developed a coping mechanism to keep myself from getting hurt by others by opening as little as possible, for example I wouldn't hang out with others after school, so no one would ever find out that I lived in a caravan or a small self-built wooden house. When I was around 10 once opened up about this when someone asked me, and I ended up being bullied for my sincerity and openness for two years as this spread around and finally switched schools. 
When you are little, the classroom is your world, as Julien Blanc says, and disapproval / rejection feels life-threatning.

So from there on I would minimize my social interactions and try to be as little noticeable as possible.

I did have couple of friends later on, that I used to hang out with from time to time, and that are good friends of mine till today, but since I was many times skipping school to play more videogames I ended up skipping couple of years ( as they kept advancing ) and almost flunking of school very early ( 15ish ), so when whey were gone,  I played the lonely guy game where I would walk around the school during the break and sometimes even hide in bathrooms so no one would see me being alone.

Therefore also the couple of times that some girl would be interested in me I completely blocked it off so there was no possible way that I would be ridiculized or hurt.

Nowadays we still stay in touch but only from time to time since I have outgrown them. I resonated WAY MORE with people I met through the Pick up comunity and the RSD inner circles.

I've been working on being more real and open because I noticed that being open to vulnerability was lacking in my personality and was hindering my relationships, as being open is one of the things that bonds people together in my opinion. But still it's not worth to be open to everyone, you gotta discern.

Coworkers at the restaurant I work at are just okay, Although I could hang out with them way more often, I'm simply not interested in surrounding myself with such people.

Family would be the last category I want to mention, and the hardest to deattach from. Even though we have been together for a very long time and shit is kind of hitting the fan right now ( we could lose the roof over our heads ), it the end it's also people that I don't want to be around 24/7 and if I commit to helping out to stay together, finantially and emotionally , I feel it would severely hinder both my growth and happiness.

Now, something that has been on my mind for a very long time and that I will have to contemplate more on.

How important are other people for our lifes ? ( relatively speaking, I know we are actually "all one" , and we are the ones who set the meaning)

But actually, I'll create a new topic talking about this.

 

[Truth Addict]

@mmKay

Why do you think having a big vision is a necessity? Have you considered that you might just want to live a very simple life? Have you considered that this might be your authentic self? For me, I'm planning on earning a certain amount of money (I'm 22 years old now, I should be done at 35-40), and then start investing it in many different places, and then just sit back and enjoy life without having to work anymore.

[mmKay]

If there is something I stand for it's for sure a simple life ( as Leo introduced me to Lifestyle Minimalism ) , but just one that fits my higher self rather than lower self .

Without a bigger vision, the " just being, in a non-judgemental way" leads me towards comfort and distractions, really, as I told, I gave it a good shot.
Actually I was confused about what the Authentic self is and had to re-watch the video, so now feel  confident saying that my current way of being isn't  it.  It feels as if literally  you coudn't climb Maslow's hierarchy without filling up the gaps of the pyramide in its order, as self actualization and expressing creativity are a level under self-trascendence. At least it's how it felt for me. ( I understand you can do both simultaneously but one without the other doesn't feel right )