“And it is possible that I am alone in an empty universe, speaking to no one, unaware that the world is held aloft merely by my delusions and my smooth, sonorous voice.
More on this story as it develops, I say, possibly only to myself.
[…]
And now a continuation of our previous investigation into whether I am literally the only person in the world, speaking to myself in a fit of madness caused by my inability to admit the tragedy of my own existence.”
The last several days feels like I had entered an alternate universe. I have recently been single and had a profile on PoF when someone with no pictures contacted me asking intriguing and unusual questions. Normally women won’t show a picture of themselves because they are self-conscious of their looks for a legitimate reason, hoping to win someone on personality or mutual interest alone. This had happened to me before, however after a few messages we exchanged our personal blogs that detailed our trips and experiences with psychedelics. To both our utter amazement, the style of writing, the depth of inquiry, the apparent drive for honesty and unmasking in our writings was nearly identical. Her blog was virtually the woman-version of mine and vice-versa. At that point I made the decision I had to meet this faceless stranger, no matter what she actually looked like, who’s deepest intimate thoughts and feelings mirrored mine to such an uncanny level.
I made some flight adjustments to my trip back home to stop over in her city. I had never met a woman off any dating site, nor had I gone out of my way to fly and meet one, especially one that was so private she wouldn’t even show me a picture. What if she stood me up?… Hotels, flights had been booked, it felt risky, yet a risk worth taking.
It was a Saturday morning at 10am when she came to pick me up at my hotel. We had barely even texted, and hadn’t even talked on the phone. To be sure I was a bit nervous, but my excitement and curiosity was stronger. I was also psychologically preparing myself to have as little good fantasy or bad \\ like-expectations as possible. Which is tough for me. I was stepping into the void, standing at the edge of the unknown….a theme that would keep coming up over the next several days.
When I went out to meet her, I saw a gentle mature soul looking back at me. She was obviously a bit nervous as well, and that did ease my anxiety as I was not alone in this feeling. I trusted her instantly and off we drove to grab some breakfast.
We made small talk initially getting to know each other better. After breakfast we visited the nicest new age bookstore I had ever been where we talked about and showed each other all the various books we had read. After we took a short walk on the beach, had lunch at whole foods and then made the trek out to a place called Deep Cove. There we would find ourselves on a bench overlooking a beautiful cove and going into incredibly deep and fascinating conversation. We were going deep in deep cove….oh the irony.
At one point in the conversation she admitted to feeling very vulnerable, and that she was not used to this, she being the one that normally had incredible insight into people by psychoanalyzing them. Well she had just met her match and got a taste of her own medicine. I felt a little shy/guilty yet at the same time appreciated the look of vulnerability in her eyes. It put me in touch with my own. It was a precious slightly uncomfortable moment, that starts to bring tears to my eyes.
I appreciated her quest to uncover defenses/masks so much. I felt such gratitude to bond with another soul that shared this value. And I could tell the feeling was mutual.
As we walked back to her car, the compulsion to put my arm around her started to grow strongly. We had only met in person but five hours ago for the first time, and already I wanted to hold her hand, as a couple would who have known each other for quite sometime. I resisted the urge. It felt premature, even though it felt so right on a heart level.
We went for a nice dimly lit dinner at a hip restaurant. She remarked how my face had changed, and I looked like a different person. At some point in the conversation I began feeling terror. The DMT trip feeling of being lost in a self made cube universe came over me. The more I paid attention to the feeling the more the terror amplified. I became concerned that I might break down into psychosis and go mad, right there and then in the restaurant.
I can’t quite say for certain what triggers this. There seemed to be a certain look in here eye, or perhaps a place somewhere inside her that put me in touch or somehow reminded me of that dreadful place. Perhaps it was her comfort of being in a place she called “the void”. The feeling did pass I willed myself out of it. I didn’t tell Miss.Pouncy at the time, because I was scared her concern and moreover her curiosity about it would make it worse.
After she dropped me off at my place, we hugged for an unusually long time, and it felt so good. She invited me to stay at her place the following night, saying she had an extra guest bedroom.
The following day she picked me up at 2:30 ( she had had a scheduled psychic reading that morning…more on this later) and took me to her neighborhood area. We went on a walk at yet another beautiful beach, and then visited a beach town. I’m pretty sure she was trying to shit-test my anger, because we parked at the very top of a massive hill to walk down to the pier, and had to walk all the way up. It was strenuous but I didn’t mind, haha. After we grabbed some good pizza and went to her cute humble abode. I loved the decor and look inside, it was just the kind of place I would get/make.
After dinner we went to her bedroom where she did a tarot card reading for me. This is the result:
The accuracy of this was rather mind-blowing, it described on so many levels what was happening and what was yet to come.
She asked some further questions of the tarot, about me and was getting a fox symbolizing trickery. That was interesting, as I felt strongly we were both embarking on a journey to breakdown and see behind illusions.
That reading left me with a massive amount of emotions I could barely process going in all different directions.
I decided to act on my compulsions from the night before. I had been drawn to stroking her arm and touching her face much like children like to touch the faces of their parents. The DMT like terror seemingly had invoked a desire to affirm her physicality apart from me. I wanted to make sure she was real…..that all of this was real. Things had become more surreal than I ever imagined possible.
She noticed that as I was doing it there was great sadness bound up with feelings of playfulness for me. She then also began to question if she carried those same mixed-entwined emotions and it seems as if she did.
I kept stroking her, when she spontaneously kissed me on the lips, quite proud and satisfied with herself for having made the first bold move. Shortly after she cuddled into my chest and I held her. It felt soooo very good to hold her close. My mind may have been confused but the feelings in my heart held steadfast for her.
We gazed into each others eyes, seeking to understand each other better. At one point she was looking at me with such profound compassion and appreciation while I was talking . It was difficult to take in, even now in retrospect it is difficult. Her love was so deep, so powerful and so life affirming. It seemed to good to be true, like I didn’t deserve that kind of love, that no one could love or affirm me in that way. And yet here she was even after I revealed aspects of myself that I thought cast me in negative light. My shadowy struggles for depth and intimacy in relationship.
This relationship between her and I seemed to work in the reverse of most relationships. The more we saw each others darkness the more we appreciated each other. Especially the courage it takes town own the darkness within, feel it fully and show it. Normally that sends people running off in different directions, but here with us it forges an even stronger more intimate bond.
Between her 30+ ayahusca journeys’ and all my psychotherapy we are both on an unrelenting path to own and bring to light all the pain and hurts within ourselves down to the deepest possible levels. The intimacy this opens up is awe inspiring and breathtaking.
Miss.Pouncy kept using the word trust. Trusting in our selves and each other and trusting our deepest emotions no matter how “negative” they might seem.
Another interesting thing happened was with time. Normally when having a good time with someone time moves by very quickly. Well between Miss. Pouncy and I the reverse was true. Every day felt like 2.5 years. The amount that was going on an emotional and spiritual levels between us was difficult to even wrap my mind around. Things internally moved faster than I could perceive and comprehend giving the effect of slow moving time.
The more time I spend with her, looking into her eyes, I can see layers and walls come down. I can see past some even though they are still there and keep me out. I can sense the desire behind them. Likewise with me as well. I know this process will take time and perhaps one day we will emotionally reach the deepest parts of our souls in full trust , love and appreciation.
——–some time later——
As I lay next to her in bed spooning her, my heart chakra expanded to the full size of my chest. I felt its raw red power spinning slowly and strongly. My sacral chakra was also activated with an orange vortex of medium size. As I pressed my chest into her back, I could feel her heart chakra open from behind, and draw in the raw primal energy emanating from my chest. I could feel it being quenched and cooled. A trans-formative process was taking place. A powerful conduit had formed. I felt so much compassion and love within my body for her.
I had to consciously work on containing the energy and allowing her lithe body to absorb it. It was a powerful mixing of her yin with my yang. It felt rejuvenating, the tremendous pressure of the compassion and desire building in me was soothed. This process lasted maybe 5-10 mins but felt like hours. I felt more powerful after, as if my capacity for primal heart compassion had just increased. In a way her yin extended back into my heart contracting the ferocious sun like torrent of energy that had been continuously created by my desire since I had first met her.
I felt I was achieving a certain level of mastery over powerful heart energies. Normally my heart wants to explode outwards with compassion when the desire gets this strong, but I worked hard to not allow that to happen. The result was a more powerful and contained heart. I can feel my capacity for intimacy, self and other….. evolving in leaps and bounds, just by containing and consciously structuring the flow of the powerful forces of desire contained within me.
Never had I been so well matched. Her yin and my yang energies are of equal power, complementing and balancing each other out through a continuous dynamic tension. Driving us powerfully towards ever deeper levels of intimacy and creative energetic capacity.
When you don’t “give your heart away” but keep it and allow room for desire to build and the associated energies, your capacity to love authentically increases.
We ask ourselves is there a limit, to depth with which this can go. Or is it infinite? What a wonderful mystery that we can explore together. We had spent merely four days together having gone deeper than ever before in that short period of time. We both came to the conclusion that this is merely the beginning, the very tip of the iceberg. A whole new way of being is possible, and now and then I get small glimpses in her eyes of what may be possible if we continue this journey together. This ocean is much deeper than I had ever imagined. The inner beauty being of such vividness and vastness. Journeying “into” her is also a simultaneous journey “into” myself. This is not a solitary journey, although I believe for some it can be done to a certain level. I do believe though that to gain access to the deepest portions the powerful forces of yin and yang must be harnessed. The reciprocal mirroring that occurs in relationship, is what creates the internal and emotional reference frames. It is a relational process!
I know this journey wont be all easy. There still are numerous defenses that her and I have that need to come down, and some of that may be painful. But it is my hope that we can support each other in that process and be compassionate mirrors. Also there are new emotional & psychological skills we need to learn to help better contain these powerful torrents of energy, new as of yet unknown ways of managing and structuring energy within ourselves.
——Some time later———-
I was lying in bed with her, she took my hand and pressed it on top of her yoni. She’s wearing underwear and shorts yet I can still feel the contour of her yoni lips underneath. She is deeply aroused and presses her yoni firmly into my hand, as I press gently down on her mons, and gripping the lower part of her vagina firmly with my fingers. She presses her hips and yoni into my hands in a very slow moving wave like motion. She is breathing slowly as well. My breathing goes deeper and slower too.
Watching her in deep pleasure, affirming it helps me create greater capacity for my own pleasure. In that moment I was so present and keenly aware of our separation, and the utter beauty of her enjoying and going deep into the pleasure of her own body. Normally I would have the compulsion to try and merge my energy with hers, and project into her pleasure. This I would not allow myself to do. In fact I did the opposite, going deep within myself and feeling my sensual arousal in tandem with hers.
Normally this extremely high level of arousal would cause me to “loose control” or dissociate. It feels to good to be true. The fact that she was writhing so slowly though, helped slow everything down for me too. I enjoyed the slowness of it all, I could feel my capacity for pleasure building. It was I like I was a large container; a vast reservoir of water that was being firmly stirred. The energy would circulate throughout my torso.
The more I could appreciate/affirm her sensuality the more I could appreciate/affirm my own. The more I could appreciate/affirm my own the more I could appreciate/affirm hers. This was a powerful cycle that kept building, greater and greater capacity for sensuality. It was creating a profoundly deep level of visceral and powerful intimacy.
I wanted the moment to last forever, to hold on to it, realizing it would end. I made a startling realization though, that the moment would last forever, in it’s own dimensionalized time slice. I could have access to that moment in the future, and know that it still existed and a part of me was still experiencing that loving slow sensual bliss. It felt like new avenues to extend and enhance pleasure through the manipulation of time were possible. A multidimensionality was now accessible through the powerful intensity of the emotions in that moment. I felt it with every cell in my being soaking it up.
When we make out the same thing happens for me. I start to tune inwards into my solar plexus and sacral chakra. I nurture the desire and ferocious arousal that is building. I then work to contain these feelings as I kiss her and embrace her. I feel the raw power of my own sensuality coursing through my body and meeting hers at the boundary of our skin, lips and our tongues. My breathing becomes powerfully deep. I feel like am becoming a great beast….a Jaguar of immense raw energetic muscular power. The feeling is incredibly life affirming, physical reality affirming, physical body affirming.
When I open my eyes I can see the power inside her, her top eyelids relaxed, here eyes cast down feeling her own sensual desire, giving into it, and expressing it. Sometimes her razer nails come out, seeking to express that feral desire. (she promises to cut them shorter, ouch.)
In those moments we are connected in ecstatic bliss, that feels supernatural. This is not some kind of mental abstracted dream world of fairy-tale love, this is primal, ethereal, elemental. The energies so powerful they extend beyond physical reality into ethereal primal spiritual dimensions of raw emotional power.
We both have inner Jaguars seeking to meet. Our sensual explorations are helping us build capacity so that we can handle the tremendous power so that one day they can and will meet. I can feel myself evolving with every encounter with her. Going deeper becoming more me, individuating, strengthening my visceral physical and spiritual ego.
The desire is also so strong it is forging connections with various aspects of my multidimensional self. I, my body then becomes the conduit of focal point for channeling other aspects of my self and entity in communion with the multidimensional aspects of her and her aspects. Now and then she see’s different faces flash across my face…an asian man, a black man…an old man.
When we engage in sensual passion her face changes as well, I can see that I am not just making love to one person but many beings expressed through her own unique individuality. One of those even appears to be a desert Mesopotamian princess.
To be continued…..in future posts.
INFJ’s have very powerful creative emotions and willpower. This works for good or for ill. Due to their strong paranoid tendencies If focused on the negative it can quickly lead to hopelessness and depression through increased negative feeling/thinking.
I describe INFJ’s as people who do best when taking abstract arcane/non-tangible information and bring it to the masses in a systematic and comprehensive way. They are system educators and paradigm changers. I find it critical they be engaged in activities along those lines creating and disseminating information. All that vast creative knowledge inside of them needs to come out and be expressed or else the energy becomes bottled up with no outlet turning to nefarious tones.
We are here in this plane to learn to manage power and energy. It’s creative expression is a vital part in maintaining it’s flow.
INFJ’s tend to be very sensitive to criticism, yet have no problem criticizing the state of the world. They tend to be quite dissatisfied with life’s terms.
Many INFJ’s are actors and musicians due to their natural ability for intense structured emotion. Famous INFJ’s include Madonna, Beyonce, Keanu Reeves and Denzel Washington.
Teal Scott is also an INFJ and a good example of one using her talents correctly.
INFJ’s tend to have few friends and when they do it’s typically an ENFP. INFJs tend to be in one-up one-down relationships where they are on the up. Many times they are the leader of a small “tribe” or entourage of friends hanging at their coattails. They have difficulty handling conflict especially with their ideas and unless you agree with them on nearly everything and pay lip service to their sentiments they will likely ditch you quickly. They therefore have difficulty getting along with other strong personalities which is a real shame.
Collaboration is something they don’t due well, yet due to the nature of their big-picture interests is almost necessary if they want to begin realizing their goals. It’s a real paradox for them. Their emotions can be quite mercurial. HItler was an INFJ taken to an extreme. Many church pastors, guru’s, cult leaders are also INFJs.
In addition to being good actors and singers they also make good writers. The internet in many ways is a perfect place for them where they can express their creativity from their reclusive place on YouTube, blogs, e-books and forums.
I have always prided myself in my ability to spot hypocrisy in other people. Sometimes I feel like I am THE world expert on it. The difference between what people say and what they do never seemingly escapes me. I feel like I have a dogs nose for people insecurities and the devious methods they use to cover them up. It’s also kind of like crack for me.
Which leads to sarcasm. A cruel sense of humor. I can sometimes be calculating cold and cruel in this manner as I point out people’s insecurities and the discrepancies in their logic.
My intent isn’t be cruel, many times I wish I could say things in a nicer manner, but sometimes I think truth is a dish best served cold. Also I feel many times that honesty=cruelty especially when it comes to touchy subjects. I have a real difficult time imagining how certain things can be broken to people in a “nice” way.
In essence people’s insecurities frighten me. I see them as a threat to my survival, chiefly because my mother had so very many. As a kid I had to adapt to her emotionalism in order to survive and this involved reality testing her behaviors.
The catch here though is other people’s insecurities frighten me because my OWN insecurities frighten me. Because I am so aware of other people’s hypocrisy it makes me feel I am also self-aware of my own. I feel I am the least hypocritical person most self-honest person out there because of this.
However recent therapy sessions have made me become aware of a profound disconnect between my thoughts and my emotions. A type of cognitive dissonance.
I have a bitter edge towards happiness, and getting needs met, a certain in-built bias. I feel that most peoples happiness is disingenuous, and really what they are experiencing is a type of false high to cover up their pain. In reality this is how I feel about my own happiness when i do experience it. I feel like I am being disingenuous to my inner hurt child/self.
The recent therapy I went for however changed something in me. It got me to sense into a type of contact support I had never really allowed myself to feel. This has started opening up my heart to be more open and free. Others peoples insecurities including my own cause my heart to clamp down and lock itself up out of fear. Opening it up makes me feel incredibly vulnerable, however I realize my heart does not to be alone, but that there are other bodily and emotional resources available chiefly in my back and those supporting my “back” that can support my heart.
I am now trying to move to a place, where I can still spot hypocrisy, however instead of feeling negative towards it, being compassionate and understanding. And then perhaps playfully pointing it out to others/myself in a safe supportive environment that facilitates compassionate change rather a sarcastic shaming one.
When insecurities are brought up I feel that some level of shame is unavoidable, however if you immediately offer redemption it severely lessons the pain. Bringing internal insecurities of others/self to light should really be a joyous evolutionary moment. It’s a moment of self-betterment, of increased awareness, and expansion of consciousness, a liberation…a redemption.
The insecurities really are surface matter, debris that can be cleared, that a delightful soul exists underneath that is quite separate and distinct.
This evening I lay down for a nap and had a dream with many recurring elements in it. I remember biking to a elementary school with a friend to learn something important or perhaps assist someone. When we got there my friend tried stealing someone else’s lock to lock his own bike, and the teacher and another kid got upset with him. I couldn’t understand how you could steal a lock int he first place, considering it’s a device meant to prevent theft. Not quite sure what the meaning of that was.
In my next dream I had to drive somewhere in my old Honda civic, but the roads were super icy and I was dreading the time it would take to get somewhere being forced to drive slow and cautiously. My mom asked me if I wanted to use her new lexus SUV, and I couldn’t decide which one would be better. I figured maybe hers because the tires probably had better studs. I normally like vehicles lower to the ground and dislike SUV’s and trucks…although they are functionally a bit better when it comes to snow.
Then I decided to stash my car, lock it up, noticed I had left my snowboarding backpack inside and was torn if I should leave it, and if it would be safe. Then I was walking back to the house, it was dark outside and I looked up and saw a large white cigar shaped UFO zip by overhead. Mesmerized I yelled at my parents to look, and they couldn’t care. Proof of alien life, I was ecstatic. More ships began to appear. I took out my phone and tried videotaping them, barley believing my luck at experiencing this.
One UFO craft looped around and came back, I looked closely and was disappointed as it looked man made. It even had an american flag on it, but it was crossed off, weird. It came close and let out a landing stair/ladder. I ran over and climbed aboard, where I was met by an alien lizard like man. I followed him to central command, and the ship was teeming with alien creatures and animals. The thing was basically Noah’s ark!
All the creatures were quite happy to see me. There was wild tigers, lions brushing past my legs and large box’s of balls like those in indoor kid’s playgrounds.
—–
The backpack represents my early childhood needs. As a child and teenager my backpack contained importantly my food (need nourishment) for school. It also contained my information/knowledge in the form of homework and textbooks which signified mental dissociation as well and the attachment issues related to that. My backpack also contained my discman or walkman which was my source of allowing emotional expression through music. Often as children our honest emotions are shunned and music becomes an escape or an avenue for those emotions that were repressed as a form of pseudo expression through singing along in our heads through other peoples voices and the vibrations of musical instruments,
In essence my backpack is a survival backpack and all associated attachment issues contained therein. Interestingly then it also signifies the belief that needs and existence are contingent or validated externally. As if they are object outside of myself I need to carry rather than things I intrinsically have within.
On the healthy side, it was my snowboarding backpack which symbolizes my autonomy. As a kid I always picked mountaineering or functional extreme sports style backpacks.
The reoccurring car/mobility issues dream element I had thought symbolized issues around autonomy. I realized for me it doesn’t.
For me it has to do with will which is signified as parental resistance to the child acting with it’s own power.
As a kid age 4-12, my parents used to take me and my sibling on very long camping trips across north america. Often involving several thousand miles of driving. We used to spend days on end travelling, first in a van and then in a truck that had more a bench in the back than genuine seats. This was pure torture for me I was extremely bored, and antsy. I was furious with my parents and had to contain lots of anger at being constrained in such a manner. My sister and I would often fight and then we would get spanked. This is similar to my church experience where I would have to sit quietly for 6 hours a week minimum since I was born. Also caused a lot of armoring in myself physiologically and emotionally.
This is a persistent “trauma” that has haunted me all my life, and now haunts me in my dreams. I have never enjoyed driving. My parents got me a car at 16, and while normally most kids would be super happy, they did it so they wouldn’t have to drive me around to the places I needed to be. I would rather any day live in a city such as NYC where I could walk or take the train everywhere avoiding vehicles all together.
In my late teens and twenties I had to drive between 30-60 minutes often on ice to get to school through rush hour traffic. This was a traumatic recapitulation of church and early childhood camping trips and perpetuated the stress and time anxiety issues associated with being in a vehicle. Long days sitting in school were sometimes bad, but didn’t feel as confining. Airplanes while they may get you places faster were almost just as bad, in that you are sandwiched so close between people and have even less movement room than in a car.
I love “traveling” places as in I enjoy the destinations. The getting there part though almost makes it not worth it however. I went on 3-4 week vacations with my family from age 4-26 yearly. I managed to see half the world in that time which I am grateful for.
Now I avoid driving at all costs, and when I do have to I try to make the most of it. Being the driver or the passenger makes little difference to me. It causes me a lot of muscular tension as it brings up those feelings of resistance and having to emotionally push through by tensing up. This happens almost subconsciously. And if there is a week where I don’t have to drive, my dreams will take care of it recreating those conditions leaving me exhausted upon waking.
As a counter-point to these issues, I used to do lots of biking, skateboarding, rollerblading, snowboarding and recently kiteboarding. I love exploring (healthy autonomy) and doing it via a way I can move move and express my body. As a teenager I used to go on midnight runs listening to angry rock music and linkin park, venting those anger emotions of feeling confined by my parents. I enjoy being on boats/ships. As a kid I loved going on a ferry. Being in transport while having plenty of freedom to move around without being confined to sit in a narrow space. Also riding first class on a train that is going 200km/hr is very enjoyable. There are no seat-belts, you are free to walk around, got o a restaurant, sit at a bar, etc.
I have some serious nervous system re-wiring I need to do around this issue. This has been a great driving force for me in terms that one of my life goals is to build a spaceship so I can get anywhere I want quick.
Last weekend I watched Maleficent and seeing her fly was nearly orgasmic. I wish i had wings. When in the film her wings were clipped, I felt so much raw empathy. The anger and resentment that ensued is something i have not allowed it’s expression so watching it on screen was rather cathartic. The film really moved me on levels I am scarcely aware of and that I just realized after this dream today.
I wish I had wings in that I feel that it would resolve my will issues. I feel that imagining this may be one of the most empowering things that I can do. In the film Maleficent uses the power of her wings to knock people down in bouts of anger. Will is a lot about repressed anger and so this is a good healthy expression of that.
It’s no coincidence that the banner image for this site is of Illidian and he is a angry gothic like fallen druid with almost broken tattered wings. In many ways this is the way my inner child feels inside, and ti want to rise out like a phoenix form the ashes.
The archetypal symbolism associated with these emotions astounds me, especially how they are manifested into reality, fantasy or real. Dragons also have had a profound impact on me.
Will is ultimately about power and being able to assert your own power. It’s about managing the flow of energy and raw power within and expressing it. This is the primary thing I incarnated on earth to learn about. I am interested in the energy source that propels movement in all its forms. Biologically, emotional and technical. I aim to master it in all it’s forms.
My dream specifically the UFO craft with all the animals in it was my inner self showing me the way how to resolve this issue. I have had countless car/helicopter/plane/flying dreams where I have had issues. Now that I know where those issues stem from I can develop a plan to move forward and build inner resources so that I can find resolution and truly fly. Who knows maybe one day I will actually have wings. I can start with lucid dreams perhaps.
It appears we all have insecurities we wear on our sleeves. They become a statement of our identity of our victim-hood. We rationalize their purpose as being “good” somehow in that it serves a critical purpose in moral righteousness and keeping us safe and pure.
Last night I discovered my one INFP-friend used jealousy. He actually defended his jealousy and said it was a good “natural” thing. He felt righteous in having it. The downfall is he couldn’t stay on facebook longer than 3 days, because he was overcome with jealousy to the point where it emotionally drained everything out of him. Also the uncertainty of online interaction and social conventions/expectations totally crippled him. He viewed everyone as caricatures of themselves insecurities covered up with false personas and incessant narcissism.
He defended his “right” to jealousy, in that to him it was a badge of his uniqueness. On one level he realized it was perhaps a “negative” insecurity but he didn’t care. Jealousy is a defense mechanism, and signifies that you are envious of other people leading lives and having things you desire yourself but feel powerless to create for yourself.
I told him if he was living his life in true accordance with his inner self and inner most desires that he would have everything he desired and jealousy would thus be impossible. In fact he would be happy for others. You can’t be happy for others if you are not happy for yourself.
My gf also an INFP also has an equally powerful defense mechanism. And that is negativity/hatred/anger towards other people. When people don’t behave in accordance to her personal set of self-righteous values and standards, often when it even doesn’t directly affect her, it will incite great anger. Again seen form her perspective this is a righteous “good” pure anger that is most necessary in establishing high ideals and of course safety.
When I then critique her on her overt negativity, she defends her defense mechanism quite well and swiftly. To her it has kept her safe from her mothers dangerous boyfriends and all the dangerous things out in the world. To her it seems perfectly justified and if it’s excessive at times, well…she doesn’t really notice.
This sets up a dangerous baseline emotional blueprint. If for example my INFP-friend is not feeling jealousy in some amount throughout the day he will feel like somethings wrong, he will likely feel unsafe and maybe not even know why. Same with my gf, the negativity directed at other peoples way of being becomes this baseline emotion, that needs to be continually fed. If there isn’t something in her immediate social environment to ego-trip about then shell use a past memory or even make something up.
Everyone rationalizes their behaviors, when it’s obviously negative it should be a clear red flag something is deeply amiss.
So what is my defense mechanism I have defense mechanisms for? Probably excusing other peoples bad behavior. I learned to excuse my mothers emotional abuse of me, for my own survival. I defend other peoples insecurities all the while being terrified of them and thusly having judged them with disgust.
In many ways I am similar to my INFP-friend. My jealousy isn’t so much about the material things other people have, but the connection they have with friends. A picture of someone with their friends on instagram, will elicit a near instantaneous subconscious disgust reaction. The thing I desire most (connection) is also something I am often equally disgusted when I see it in other people. According to my therapist because my mother didn’t connect with me adequately, I resented connection outright.
It would stand to reason then I still needed her for my survival and thus I excused her bad “behavior” and rationalized it away in order to keep myself sane in the face of a clear lack of necessary empathetic connection.
That’s the thing about our defense mechanisms, at one point in our lives they kept us sane at the sheer injustice we felt being inflicted on us. The problem is that the defense mechanism becomes anticipatory and thusly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Even more dangerously it becomes a beast we need to feed in order to feel like things are “normal”. If things get too good….something must be amiss we reason, so we then conjure up ghosts of the past to re-create that feeling of self-defense.
The secret to resolving these issues is partly as follows.
For my INFP-friend and his jealousy, he would need to start to learn how to feel good about the creative materializing abundance power in himself first, and then feel good and relaxed about other people when they create abundance for themselves.
For my gf and her anger-at-others-peoples-bad-behavior issue, she needs to start feeling good and relaxed about her own behaviors instead of righteous/justified in her actions/in defense of…;; and then begin looking and feeling good about other peoples good behavior.
For myself I need to learn how to feel good about doing what I want, and putting my own emotions first, and feeling relaxed about it instead of other peoples. Then I need to feel good when other people put themselves first in a relaxed manner instead of compromising themselves to other peoples emotional whims/needs.
I need to feel good about coming from my inner self and connecting emotionally from there with others. My entire way of relating to people, in terms of being overly invested in their emotional state and forgetting my own needs to change. I need to feel good and relaxed about voicing my own emotional desires and not worrying about it’s affects on others. And then feel good when I see others do the same thing.
Recently my gf and I have been watching the new TV show “From Dusk Till Dawn”. It is very much like most Quentin Tarantino movies in terms of style. An interesting thing I noticed is the main characters in the show typically have no mind filter. They are always stating out loud how they feel and what they desire in an aspergers fearless type way. The show takes what is normally very intense survival type situations and gives it this comedic overlay often injected at key intense moments. The effect is one of regulating intensity of emotion with humor. Very effective. The characters follow their hearts regardless of cataclysmic consequences and stay true to themselves.
The characters may do horrible things but at least they are doing horrible things with integrity and respect to themselves. In a strange way I find the characters forthrightness very therapeutic. It provides a good emotional template in that even in extreme survival situations the characters remain unusually calm, relaxed and true to themselves. Often even when they know they are going to die, or are in the process of dying.
I believe Quentin Tarantino is trying to teach himself through his characters a new way of being. I doubt he realizes he is even doing this. When we dream for example we feel that we merely one player among many, not realizing that dream character we are scared of or fighting we actually created to teach us a lesson about ourselves.
It is thus important that when we see traits in others we admire, we emotionally begin to embody that new emotional way of being for our personal benefit. Many people don’t take this simple little step. For example many people admire animals for their cuteness, but what they are really admiring is how present they are. Few take that opportunity to become and be like that animal and to embody the same qualities that make it “cute” in the first place.
“Addictions are always about trying to complete yourself from the outside, even temporarily. Now unfortunately every time you do that you also wound yourself. What you are really saying to yourself is “I’m not enough”. Further reinforcing your worthlessness.” ~ Gabor Mate
Which is pretty much a page out of the Christian narrative. In Christianity every human being is born in sin, incomplete, flawed, broken un-whole. Their salvation is found externally in Christ/God. This reinforces the concept the self is “not enough”.
Even many atheists buy into this kind of paradigm under Freudian psychology which posits that the base nature of man is not nice, but beastly and “evil” and needs to be constrained by the mind.
The entire western narrative needs to be changed to one where the self is worthy, great, powerful & inherently good. This is what many psychedelic drugs teach people. You are your own savior, once people realize this religion becomes unnecessary.
I was having a recent discussion with my gf on this subject.
We live in a society that values work, and that considers life hard, a battle or a challenge. From that value system arises the beliefs that a person should earn their way through life.
And by this I mean thing such as:
The underlying belief then is that there are things a person must “DO” in order to get said things, and that it requires “effort” of some kind. The greater the reward the more “effort” required. I challenge this notion and think it is completely ass-backwards.
What is interesting is how earning is conceptually linked to feelings of ownership. Let’s say you work really hard for a fancy car, you may feel you deserve that car that you are entitled to it. The fallacy and the house made of the deck of cards is that you don’t anything at all ever. You don’t own people, and you don’t own anything material or immaterial. Nothing is permanently attached to you. People may try to own things out of insecurity but all things can be taken away from you at a moments notice so it’s easy to see how the propriety of ownership is a complete illusion. And if ownership is an illusion, than the effort put in to acquiring ownership is also a false construct.
This leads well into something known as entitlement bias. People who get a spontaneous raise will feel they deserve it regardless if there was no actual rational merit to it and look for confirmation bias to justify their position. The fact entitlement bias is even a phenomenon to begin with tells you something is amiss. The need to justify abundance or wealth even when it is not earned shows you how pervasive the underlying belief in scarcity is. Thus when people earn something they feel doubly justified. Scarcity is a feeling an insecurity and when “earning” things to compensate for it is used it leads to a illusionary and false solution.
Justification is nearly always bad. It means you are trying to defend something or your self. Justification in this context implies that abundance sometimes is not justified and that there must be reasons for it as such as hard earned work. People who feel the need to justify are not secure within themselves or their abundance. It signifies a lack mentality. And lack attracts more lack.
The way to change this is to move to a mental framework where abundance is implicitly a given. No justification is necessary no feelings of entitlement at the expense of anything else are necessary either. It works from the assumption that in an infinite universe there is infinite abundance and that is the natural order of things. There is no need to even contemplate lack. Feeling goodness and seeing goodness thrive and assisting and nurturing it is the way forward to actualizing that infinite abundance.
Seth states the following:
“The feeling of effortlessness is what is important.”
“In the inner world, your desires bring about their own fulfillment, effortlessly. That inner world, and the exterior one, intersect and interweave. They only appear separate.”
Ever see people who seemingly have life so easy. They just naturally somehow have wealth, health and friends. Does that make you jealous, envious, perhaps upset that someone else gets the things so easily when you seemingly have to work so hard to get a mere portion?
This is what I am getting at, and this is what I realized on my most recent entheogen trip. Reality is ultimately best created from a state of relaxation. An intense type of relaxation has the most creative and cohering power. All That Is/the universe creates easily it is it’s birthright, it is it’s implicit nature. Does the universe feel challenged and that it needs to put hard work in order to create reality!? No that’s absurd, and therefore since you are a portion of the same universe it would be absurd for you to think that way as well.
Desire fulfillment occurs quickest when there is a playful emotional ease about it. If you are stressed working hard trying to fulfill a desire you are doing something wrong. Deep emotional relaxation is paramount to effective attraction and creation.
Mastery in this physical plane comes when great things happen just because. They are not earned, they are freely given/created by you.
On my last trip I had this impression that “I took care of myself”. I had no reason to stress about anything, because it was all taken care of, and that if I would just relax, I could tap into my own abundance that is already there. No earning or hard effort/work required.
If you feel that money, respect or love is something that needs to be earned, then when you get those things it will feel anti-climactic. The concept that hard work = desrvedness, eschews the inherent abundance of the universe. It presupposes a condition of lack which is perhaps the greatest illusion of all. It goes under the framework that there are holes inside that need to be filled.
The precondition IS abundance, When great things happen to you it’s because that is just the normal natural order of things. Feel that the next time a desire is fulfilled. When good things happen it is meant to be like that, it was meant to be easy. Nurture that feeling of effortlessness. It is your most powerful attractor, creator and the best way to fulfilling all of your desires.
This is a tough one for me. And I am not really quite sure I know the answer. But the thing I am perhaps innerly most defensive about is my desire/method to connect with people via excitement or activation. I call it mind enthusiasm.
I feel like my root desires are wrong and the way I go about trying to get connection is wrong yet even knowing that both are wrong I defend them. I don’t know another way. This is a bit abstract for me, and rather cleverly hidden from myself by aspects of myself so it’s difficult to articulate.
I desire group connection above all else. And there is something wrong with this, or at least the motivation behind it. I am operating from an insecurity a state of fundamental fear of loss of connection and fear of being lonely.
Then the way I try to make up for that insecurity/fear is use excitement emotion, to dissociate into my head and use the excitement emotion of the prospect of intimacy to try to get connection.
Last night I had a dream I was trying to get a part on the show “Gossip Girl”. ( a show my gf watches) I was trying to get in by enthusiasm alone, but that was not good enough. I needed emotional control in order to act, and knew I didn’t have it and thus didn’t deserve the part or the subsequent connection of working with a team to construct a show.
The dude interviewing me for the part was nice at first then turned into a real ass. . He was informing me my intention for wanting be on the show was wrong in the first place. Then I became defensive about my method. This opened up a lot of repressed hurt inside me as my instant compulsion was to defend that very motivation.
The thing is after I didn’t really know what my motivation should be….what was wrong with the desire to connect with people and work together in a meaningful way? I was very frustrated.
This left me feeling bereft and confused, with no clear way forward. Afterwords, I tried finding my car but couldn’t remember where i had left it and spent hours searching for it, my “mobility”. I had maps that wouldn’t work and was trying to use the sound of the horn from pressing my key dongle but could not echo locate for the life of me. Hearing is something I have difficultly with or perhaps listening. And this is why I am fucking lost and anxious without my mobility/energy. I also couldn’t see or read the map either.
There are 3 primary modes of learning or being according to the VAK system.
My first two were failing me in terms of navigation. I had completely ignored the third which is by sense of feeling. And this is the problem of how I navigate relationships with other people and myself. I try to connect with people via my visual/auditory mind rather than my heart/feelings/body. This is part of the reason I crave physical intimacy so much is because I deny it to myself, and feel that someone needs to give it to me instead. As if it is something that is externally sourced and I do not posses in the first place.
I am an amazing navigator when it comes to physical reality, and literally have visual/intuitive maps inside my head. However I am a terrible navigator when it comes to the dream world of emotions. And the flip side of this physically is that I would make a terrible actor. Modern society has an obsession with actors/actresses, and it has been a secret desire of mine to be one for a long time. So much success with so little “logic” work.
The thing is even those who are good at acting, and have seeming emotional “control” are they better for it? With recent suicide death of Philip Seymour Hoffman the obvious answer is no. Actors are not necessarily more developed humans. This confuses me because I feel that if I had those skills I would be amazing.
The thing is I am really good at what they are not, so what we each want is what the other person has. Ultimately it’s a synthesis of emotional and intellectual power.
For me then the path forward is practicing feeling, practicing connecting at a deep emotional level to myself and others. Psychedelic entactogens are a great tool in this regard. So is dreams, and meeting lots of people and observing my emotions in the engagement process.
So I believe my dream taught me an important lesson and gave me the answer to the original question. The answer still feels fuzzy, but I feel at the least I am aware of the areas I need to look….or rather feel. However resolving that inner fear/insecurity though Is probably another matter that I haven’t yet got too appropriately,
Heroic Mastery 