Greetings my friends

Would like to share something that has been acknowledge, but not addressed for me personally. A few recent psychedelic experiences and reflection has brought this to the forefront of my mind.

I will try to keep it brief.

To state it explicitly, I have a hard time doing almost anything I want or desire to do, and there are deeply entrenched feelings of being "undeserving," accompanied by guilt and shame.

If I can convince myself that whatever want or desire is in the category of self-care, then it's whatever.

The essence of this is mainly my severe depression. It is what it is, we're dealt the hand we're dealt. However, the concepts attached that make this harder can be mitigated.

Such as this deep inner mandate, attached to an idea of Enlightenment that was generated around the age of 16, that runs, "anything I want to do must also serve some greater external good." That's nice and all, but a fallacy. One cannot always serve. We must all walk our own paths. I must foster myself. It's my duty to myself as consciousness in this embodiment. And the idea of Enlightenment, doesn't mean "be miserable all the time." It's okay to feel joy outside of performing service.

We could also consider my upbringing. Father: abusive (mentally and physically), stifling, controlling, defeating, hindering, etc. Often upset with for no real reason (imo). Influenced feelings of being undeserving; inadequate.

But at my age (early 30s), it seems I ultimately decide, in manners concerning only myself, whether I am deserving or not. As an example, not every listed item needs to be accomplished for me to go ahead and take a quick journey. Just the most important responsibilities. And considering DMT usually improves my mental state, it's reasonable to reflect that it may help me get more done. It's also not necessary that I always had "proper" or "right" action or behavior, because I won't; I am human. Perfection is an ideal, not necessarily part of pragmatic reality.

But, then, we need to revisit feeling undeserving because, with psychedelics, there's this underlying worry (I'm a worrier... work in progress, work in progress...) that the psychedelic will punish me... completely irrational, I'm aware. But, it's still there. There's self-applied cognitive acrobatics involved in working up the nerve to do psychedelics, though I want to do them...

I don't really know how I got to this point... I mean part of me does, and part of me doesn't. All of this is programmed in me through neural routes of frameworks. It will take time to reprogram. It's a fundamental disconnect with myself.

And this pertains to other activities outside of psychedelics as well. Music, video games, etc. I find myself following the feeling of "what should I be doing," instead of "what would I like to be doing?"

I even felt this for taking my psychedelic guide courses and intensives. Feeling selfish for doing so...

Aside from reframing and rebuilding a stronger foundation for my relationship with DMT, this issue is also why I don't breakthrough on purpose...

Sometimes humbling yourself before others with a problem helps make progress towards changing it. I thank you for reading and support. You are all phenomenal, which is why this can be shared here.

I'll figure this out, though it may take a while.

And this wasn't that brief, apologies.

I love you all

One love

self esteem issues stemming from childhood abuse is tough man. I'm sorry you feel the way you do Void. I think you're a great person and don't believe a persons actions give a person their worth. I think that how you feel on the inside is usually a better look into the person you are.

One love

Thank you for reading and for your support my friend.

There's obviously more to this and I could have stated more, but I just wanted to put this out there as a way to call myself out on some of my own bs.

I like your perspective. For me, it's an amalgam of things that expose "value" and "worth." But if reflecting on your position, there are parts of me that feel well about a number of things about myself and so that is very helpful.

You know I think you're really great as well. Hope you've been doing well

One love

Hey Void I can relate to some of the internal struggles you describe. Kinda gets in an unproductive loop wondering if I should be doing whatever I'm doing or should I be doing something else; feeling guilty for having spent time on something. In some ways I know it's ridiculous to self criticize (at least so frequently) but alas it keeps happening. So much time would be freed up if I could rid these thoughts lol.

A phrase Terrence McKenna says comes to mind, and I believe he's quoting someone, goes something like "it doesn't matter what you do but it's important that you do it".

Whatever path you've taken thus far has brought you the unique experiences and vantage point to bring to the table what nobody else can.

Cheers

Artificer, thank you so much for sharing how you relate and your support

I know that unproductive loop well. It's been helpful for me to sift and filter through what I truly want and why versus what I think I want. Aside from external factors that leave me feeling overwhelmed, there's a lot of internal input from the plethora of interests I have. I've accepted that I may not get to them all in the depth I'd like to, so prioritize the ones that mean the most to me now. Also, being less considerate of exertnal societal metrics for "success" and such has helped to. I may be more considerate in a lot of regards than I should be. Reminds me of a time when a doctor told me I am beyond myself...

I agree with you and Terence in that regard, lowering my standards and just "doing." It's been nice. Would like to better apply this stance to psychedelics.

And thank you. That's very kind of you and I appreciate the sentiment.

One love

Man, I can tell you, from my own personal experiences that these kinds of traumas can be difficult to overcome. I, too have a large portion of my life question what I am doing, and if I could be doing more. At times it can lead to overworking myself, and others, falling into a state of apathy. There is really no middle ground. The worst part about it for me is that I know I am doing both when they are happening, but I just cannot seem to pull myself out of it. Nature just takes its course, in that respect. Is that how it tends to work for you as well?


I feel you, my friend, and I am always just a message away if you ever need to talk

It has been enormously helpful for me to just learn to be. Sit still and breath. Let go of the need to do something or be relevant. I believe the best gift I can give to the world is to take care of myself. Healing one cell is the way to healing whole body and I am that one cell.

This author has been very influential for me and this one of his best books.
https://www.amazon.com/A...eedom-Here/dp/0062434667

Thank you both for chiming in.



Ah thank you my friend. I experience similar cycles. I have found it beneficial to learn to identify signs of these states and the steps the mind takes to reach them in order to augment and eliminate them. Definitely a long work in progress and that's okay. A balancing act.



I agree with the wisdom here. My first time smoalking changa, "just be" was what got me over the hump. The come up was a bit rough. I had mentally tried to align with and focus on ideas such as love. But it wasn't until I chose to focus on being that I got a grasp on the experience.

Acknowledging this conundrum is a realization of feeling unfulfilled which is indicative of not taking proper care of myself. A little too altruistic and I've been consumed by the tide that overextension creates. Just looking for the balance between simply being and fulfilling myself, so in turn I can help others with the same.

One love

A huge challenge with me as well.

I think we might be able to form a club! This is something I've long struggled with too.

One thing that might be worth looking into is the little-recognized condition of "Pathological Demand Avoidance". I wonder how that chimes here.

Thanks for your replies. It was helpful for me today to see the new responses as I was in a deep loop of intrusive thoughts about this topic and topics related.

For any that want to join the club, share your experience

One love

Shame and guilt are two very common and insidious symtoms of unresolved trauma. The factors you mentioned regarding your upbringing are also very common causes of PTSD symptoms. One does not have to experience violence or physical abuse to carry around PTSD. PTSD is a constellation of symptoms that emerge from being unable to deal with a particular or ongoing situation. As a child, the person whom you were in the care of made you feel as if they didn't care, and being unable to care for yourself it is very reasonable to have feelings as if your life was in danger and being unable to escape is probably the primary causal factor in whether one develops PTSD, along with lack of support, which it sounds as if it was also the case.

Unresolved trauma keeps us in the place where it happened, locked into a place and time long in the past. We carry guilt and shame over our inability to cope, and from the abuse heaped on our shoulders by abusers (I don't want to call your family abusers, but I am using that term more globally- the way you were trated if anything but loving and kindness and support is frankly abusive. My parents were similar and it took me decades to let anyone or myself look at them as anything but providers because they gave me home, food and toys but no love.)

Have you done any kind of therapy? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a valid and incredibly useful form of therapy (From Wikipedia:"Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a form of psychotherapy in which the person being treated is asked to recall distressing images; the therapist then directs the patient in one type of bilateral stimulation, such as side-to-side eye rapid movement or hand tapping." ) which perplexingly can lead to resolution of trauma symptoms, it may be something to look into.

Also the book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk is an incredible book written by a long-time trauma researcher that lays out in clinical yet very readable terms how we hold trauma somatically and talks about various therapies, including MDMA and ayahuasca, which when used intentionally and with aftercare are also "perplexingly" effective. Body work like yoga done through a trauma lens (google trauma sensitive/informed yoga) is being very useful to me right now.

If you do intend to do any real trauma work, please put a good support network of professionals and social support in place, body work or any other effective work brings stuff up and you can be really raw and risk crisis without support.

I would love to talk more about this subject. Trauma sucks, it keeps us hindered, prevents us from being our true self and from enacting creative strategies to reach wellbeing and fulfill our intrinsic potential as the wonderful and beautiful minds that we all are. Thank you for sharing, IDK if any of my little rant is useful at all to you, but this is at the forefront of my mind as I work through it myself.

If you don't remember anything else, please remember and just do this:

BE GOOD TO YOU!

Oh, and PS: even service is something we do for ourself. All action, whether you are eating or feeding is done to somehow give us something ourselves. That does not mean it is wrong, it is just what animals do. And if serving another gives you some dopamine, or whatever, that's a damn good way to get it in my humble opinion. All good things to all good people! Wishing you, and all who suffer and struggle with this horrible dis-order peace, wellness and abundance in your life.

It most certainly was. Thank you for jumping in here. I always appreciate your input and insight.



Most definitely. Though I have worked through a fair amount of it through therapy in the bulk of my twenties, there is nevertheless still a vast amount of work to do. The "work" never ends. I was just going about doing this work in altruistic but detrimental ways.



Something for me to look into. Thank you. I hadn't heard of this method before and it sounds intriguing as well as complementary with positive effects aside from its psychological benefit.



With the guide-work courses that I have been taking, this book has come up several times (which is not surprising because the method of this particular modality is to elicit psychedelic experiences on cannabis that is predicated on the somatic aspect of experience and healing). They have been very powerful and therapeutic experiences, and I am continuing with this modality while continuing to explore others. I do plan on reading this book.



It's funny, I agree with you with a twist. It is/was (the perspective on this is presently in flux, so this is speaking relative to the thought structure near the time of the OP) a sense of "it's for myself in that it's not for myself." Because "selflessness" is a double edge; even if one sacrifices as much of themselves as they can, they still cannot sacrifice the choice made on their part to commit the selfless act, thus being based on a self obligation of "doing what we think we ought to." But leaving only that choice is not much of a being, so in some sense everything was sacrificed.



Thank you brother. I am learning to.

One love

A user here recommended reading Ethics by Spinoza for some perspective on life. I appreciated it, and it seems like it might be the sort of thing you'd be interested in. Maybe old hat for you. I personally wouldn't try to get the gist of it from someone else's summary/interpretation though, just read the whole thing if you're going to read it.

That's a really great recommendation! I haven't read all of it, but definitely parts that I have have stuck with me. One of many philosophers I'd like to study more of.

I generally prefer reading the original translation of the original work. More flavor, even if it's someone hard to read like Heidegger.

All the same, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and standford philosophy website do really well in summarizing and analyzing many philosophers and philosophies.

Thank you again RoundAbout

One love

I’ve read something similar while reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s books. He mentions late Hellenistic and Roman moral writings, by philosophers like Senica and Marcus Arillius and others. And Montaigne as well, who was a popularizer of such ancient writers/ writings. I’ve yet to read many of them.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s works btw, while not being about healing, his writings have been very helpful with my healing process. He wrote a series of books called “The Incerto.” He’s definitely my favorite philosopher of these times we live in.

https://en.wikipedia.org...ki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

Whitehead is also interesting to me. While I haven’t read much of his work, he influenced many people who have helped me. Like ones from Eselen and California Institute of intregal studies, who btw have a lot of information about healing on their website and YouTube channels.

I'm shocked that I haven't seen this post until today. I can relate to all of this, 100%. Thank you for sharing. All I can say is keep doing what you're doing. It seems your path has many parallels to my own, and I can always relate to things you post. This one is no different and some of these are things that I am currently challenged with, like the "self-applied cognitive acrobatics involved in working up the nerve to do psychedelics". I feel that. Sometimes it feels like things will never change, but then I look back and see how much has changed already. Anyway, much love, and keep it up!

We all carry some amount of trauma with us throughout our lives. We haven't talked much, but from the few times we've had an exchange in the chat, you've always left a pleasant feeling in me. You strike me like a kind-hearted person that is always willing to reach out and offer some advice or support. People like you are valuable and much needed in nowadays' ever so disparate society.

I know saying "don't feel that way" does absolutely nothing, so I'm just going to say what I have observed and felt for you. What you make of it and how you apply it to your mindset is up to you. But I have a lot of respect for you. I like to think we're somewhat of a family here on the Nexus because anyone can always reach out and they will be listened to and offered support.

So that's what I'm doing - offering my wholehearted love and support to you. If you need to talk, you can always talk to me. I might not be able to provide some insightful commentary or advice, mostly because I'm still rather in the same boat with you than on the shore, but oftentimes knowing you're not alone in the deep is everything you need to make it through and grow.

Love ya brother. This place is better with you around.

I am overwhelmed by the love and support from you. So humbled and grateful to each and everyone of you, so much so that as I revisited, seeing new posts and perusing through some older ones, I began to cry. Good tears though. I didn't expect this much reception when I initially posted this thread.



Thank you for the newbie for me (Nassim). I have heard the name several times, but never fell down his rabbit hole. If he is advocating for such stoic philosophers then I will be intrigued (I read Marcus Aurelius in high school which impacted me greatly in my moral resolve.

Will definitely be checking him out.

Whitehead is awesome. Really enjoy the majority of his work that I've come across. I encountered him through my on going studies in mathematics and logic.

I find a lot of healing interacting in the realm of philosophy. Something about engaged depth of thought resets and invigorates me. But will be looking into the Institue of Integral Studies, as I had never heard of them.

Thank you!



My brother, there's definitely resonance felt on my end with you as well.

As you say, I think it'll never change and think back and see how much it has: I have started legitimately working on a guidework practice, I have developed a powerful relationship with DMT that I am very happy with, and more. It's sometimes simply hard to keep that in perspective, but in learning to be gentler with myself, I am learning ways of engaging the more beneficial perspective when it's hard to.

You share a great deal of wisdom here and I want to return the encouragement for you to keep it up as well

P.S. You may be pleased to know that I just ate some mushrooms.



Indeed we do, and I have had some psychedelic experiences that have uncovered a plethora that I have not worked on as much as I truly need to.

Thank you for such kindness in your view. It means a great deal to me. And it's funny because you're definitely someone who I have the thought, "I hope we can interact more soon." Reciprocity is a beautiful thing, as I find you to be an authentic and standup individual who I too have great respect for.

I also agree that this overall is like family. My tribe is here. And while, I try to be authentic as often as possible, which includes being vulnerable, here is where I feel the most comfortable with and about it. All of you add to my feeling this way (safe and comfortable).

Sending love to you all. I can't put into words how grateful I am.

I have learned a lot, discovering that many of you deal with a similar conundrum. While I feel for all of you, I also feel we're in this together now.

In an effort to help move past this, I am working on a treatise that I've wanted to write (for over a decade) revolving around skepticism and paradox. I decided it would help me write the full version, by sharing my brand and use of skepticism here at the Nexus.

You really do need to look into EMDR therapy. My therapist started doing this with me about a month ago and it is seriously a game changer. It's brought up memories and feelings I've repressed for a LONG time. My therapist basically told me psychotherapy is used to get cash out of people and most of the time it takes way too long to actually be any help. EMDR will give you immediate results.
I hope life is treating you well man.