the self

• Choice
  • You can follow the herd or be on the fringe of society
  • Attraction to the fringe
    • Pressure
    • Curiosity
  • To be at the fringe take courage
    • may not be fruitful
• Sustainability
• Self as inexhaustible source of aspiration
  • Heidegger depicts the angel, your devine double
    • Messenger / mediator with the supreme being of knowing
  • I was seeing self more like sacred second self
    • awe, wonder, emerging
• New insight in relation to enabling activation
  • How about also seeing the self being inexhaustible nothingness?
    • Bottom up affording insight and creativity
  • Propositional knowing is guiding but also entrapping
  • Use of abstract symbols allow for the freedom of emergence
  • So how about a less defined vision of self, to the extreme, nothingness
  • However, also requires the awe and wonder top down
• Summary
  • Use the imaginal of Self as the meeting of
  • My
    • Concrete sensory
    • Abstract imaginal
    • Nothingness
  • With sense of understanding of external
    • Cultural wisdom
    • Cultural biases / traps
  • Remember integrated (synthesis), co-creating

reflections

• At the fringe of social norms
  • it is hard work to be at the fringes of social norms
  • it takes courage
  • it may be because of pressure biological / survival
  • it may be of interest

Where I am?

• Boat small
• Stability
• Still rocky
• Holding together but rustic
  • Some patches of no paint
• Small, low
• Respectful
• Moored up

Where I want to be?

• Self
  • Safe background
  • Inquisitive - Room to explore
• Felix
  • Time
  • Role model
  • Loving
• Kathryn
  • Providing finances / time
  • Providing interest
  • Providing Love
• Freinds
  • Conversation
  • Small activities
• Career
  • Not big and in control
  • Free to provide benefit with areas I touch
• Community
  • Local - involved enough
  • Online - happy with change
• Environment
  • Individual choices
  • Contributions
    • Mindset
    • Nature
    • Wildlife

What is blocking me?

• An application
• Meaning

What do I need?

• Friendship

• Fun

• Playful

  • What does this mean to me?

• next week

  • validate how I have moved on - consolidation

Where I am?

• Boat small
• Stability
• Still rocky
• Holding together but rustic
  • Some patches of no paint
• Small, low
• Respectful
• Moored up

Where I want to be?

• Large room inset into a hill in canada
• Large view of the woodland
• Designed for socialising
• Fairly minimal
• Autumn
• I have hesitation
  • Sounds a bit lonely

What is blocking me?

• Sales brochure
• Disbelief, distrust
• Disconnected

What do I need?

• Friendship
• Fun
• Playful
  • What does this mean to me?

• summarising
  • past impact on my character
    • even if not true, being open to it can open more beneficial responses
  • strong/skillful will has a defence mechanism
    • also my choice of partners / friendships show my alignment with that defence
    • recent neighbourhood worries, show strong / skillful will that might be quite damaging
• How do I love that as is?
• Need to get out of my head
• get away from theoretical learning and do something practical
  • physical conservation

Contact from company

• Body overwhelmed with previous emotional defence mechanisms defending from
  • Lies
  • Ruthlessness greed
• Feels like this could be different
  • Not needing to defend
  • asked to be approached on my turms
• Terms
  • Treated like a human
  • See where I can offer benefit
    • Else not interested in participating
• Express
  • Not interested in additional pain, but happily falling on current agreement
  • Want to see details before conversation

Insights, future, practises

• Explained insights I will summarise here later
• Discussed future possibles
  • Continue with course
    • Break to settle
    • Refresh fellow students
  • Grounding in experiential work
  • Potential for app for supporting an inner-dialogue
  • Self study, freer to explore
• Lack of celebration
  • Relates to love of self
  • Relating
  • Aim to develop a self-dialogue with self to question my love of self

Importance of the sacred

• If everything is relationships
  • … and I question if anything is objective
  • the practice of religion is a meaningful practice
  • of relating with something untouchable
  • practice in relating
  • in turn knowing yourself in relation to
  • maybe therapy isn’t about knowing, but practise becoming
• Maybe becoming the Self is a similar process to touching God

Love for oneself

• Hard to find a motive that doesn’t fall back to motives of survival
• Maybe when I was young, I missed the focus on self and therefore adapted to fitting in
  • Displayed in my focus of good will in creativity and work
• This lacks the need for expression and importance of oneself
  • Displayed the frustrations my partner has with me

My relationship with love for other and myself

• Myself
• …. as well as Family, Partner, Son, Community, Environment, Existence
• Reflect outside of Team, Coping / Stability, Greed
• Intimacy, Seeing & being heard

Therapy notes

• Transpersonal
  • Trust in the will of the Self outside of my field of vision
  • Still questioning, hence the study of psychosynthesis
  • Balancing my efficiency and resiliency
• Talking about Love
  • Eros, Philia, Agape
  • Can’t pinpoint what it is
• Thinking of my family as a child
  • Can’t remember the connection of closeness
  • Hypothesis of building up defence/resilience
• Techniques to open myself
  • Meditation
  • Music

Therapy session

• Great conversation over body, feeling and mind. I didn’t agree with all that was said, but it did allude to the differences in connection with feelings and the difficulties in connection and intimacy with a client as a therapist.
• Talked about
  • My stuckness,
  • Limitation bringing meaning but also self-deception,
  • The problem of why
  • I am here not to develop my will as I know I can cultivate it effortlessly, but to develop my capacity to love, myself and others
• Action
  • contemplate what love has meant to me

reflections in rd

• Grateful for the gift of the platform for reflection and the plausible insights I received
• grateful for my personal reflections today
  • my visualisation of the death of my son as preparation for tragedy
  • my reminder that I am right at the beginning of my letting go process
• little confused by the weekend
  • realised I have learnt a lot already
  • something about the possible indulging, good to feel the boundary
  • holding it lightly
• Have a favour to ask
  • over the weekend someone who betrayed me got in touch, how might I reply
    • lost in his ways, bully
  • Thanks for you email, hope you and your family are well. Can you send an agenda so I can feedback

Random thoughts

• Low energy with how things are.
  • Feel like my sacred doesn’t exist and I am flapping in the wind
  • Kathryn and I are surviving, not loving
  • Felix is happy but notices and questions Kathryn and I bickering
  • Friends let me down again. Feel like giving up on them
  • House lender has pulled out and chance of another is looking bleak
  • Was hoping for some enthusiasm from my brother about my product idea, but have hear nothing back
• So what do I do?
  • My philosophy studies have given me plenty, but might have come to a point of peek return
  • My course is continuing and I am just riding it as is. The essay will consume me for a while.
  • Think about how develop my relationship with Felix and Kathryn
  • Think about the house
  • Think about developing friendships
  • Be easy on myself,
    • I am in a transition period…. not being in my element exposes areas for development
    • Note I have been unsatisfied for over a decade now… maybe I am going to arrive somewhere meaningful.. if not then at least I am trying.
• Try to think transpersonally
  • My well being is not separate from the well being of the world

Thoughts on how to continue what works

• I would like to find some way to have a discussion on what I have learnt in the week. Be it a podcast or just a group

Meaning crisis

• Even if one always chooses to be rational, one’s actions may appear irrational from a higher/lower level perspective.
• Links with the Small World Network, efficiency/resiliency
• What is it to be irrational? Romanticism? Affording breaking frame?

Therapy notes

• Similar behaviours since I have been 5
  • Maybe to do with my defence for my dad, protecting the less dominant
• Behaviour was like a 5 year old, less developed personality coming out
• Determined feelings of not being submissive
  • Feeling like being managed
  • I noticed my mum saying in the Mary call after the therapy session that she noticed she naturally falls into managing people.
• Suggested take turns having a rant
  • Own the feelings, don’t blame
• Identification of strong, good will, often skilful will to (but not from my 5 year old)
• Will is different to Love -find out why. Action: Note down contemplation thoughts around it first before studying it
• Maybe there is a lack of love in my life
  • Love for myself
  • Love for the other
  • Love from the other
  • The training that led to it, my goto defence suppressing it
• When I came out of the argument, I felt a hole in my heart. - use this in my essay with the interconnectedness of mind/body/feelings.

Thinking of making an online workbook for public use

• As long as it is super simple
  • it might be worth the promoting to make a bit of cash
  • it would contribute to my family finances
  • it would be helping people develop themselves

thoughts on family meeting

• The gathering wasn’t as heartfelt that I was hoping
  • Maybe we are just on different paths
  • I wish my brother would open up more and be more present
• We forgot to talk about Dad’s birthday
• I found myself getting a bit annoyed, I think there was background discomfort from the current flatmate joining. He was indulging in his own insecurities.

• Focus on my jump to will
  • Presenting trust for efficiency
    • Links to betrayal when it falls apart
  • Wanting to be challenging
    • Lack of focus on love
  • Current stuckness, no will searching for will exists.
  • Experiences in work, family, friends, course members
    • Too fast
• Looking at the past
  • Mum as free willed, dad as dependent
  • Seeing the advantages of separation of the dissonance of focus
  • Possible dealing with it by placing attention elsewhere, external
• Self-protection could be a disconnect to self
  • Focus on the needs of the other
  • Strong will + good will
• There is a lack of transpersonal will in regards to:
  • Feeling of meaninglessness
  • Poor foundations

RD thoughts

• Noticing I am speaking of therapy as a concept
  • when really it is an my own connection with it
  • that will change over time
• I do still like to explore myself the fittedness of counselling in my own development.
• Trainers feedback
  • Love is on the receive
    • slower paraphrasing, affirmations, reflections
    • for trust to build, you need the love archetype
    • you are all where you need to be right now
  • Will = second stage
    • with trust - starts to be more challenging
    • and you can be better if you change etc
  • Recommended reading:
    • Care of the soul
    • Dark night of the soul
• I found this advise quite profound!
  • There was a show of hands as to where our focus was.
  • I was the only one who had the focus on the will.
  • Maybe I came to the course / RD sessions etc with a trust, of which the others needed to develop.
  • Therefore I jumped straight to the will and challenge.
  • The others might not have developed the trust yet leading to confusion and defensiveness!

Therapy

• Suggested strategic management at bristol uni
• We talked about the will and trying to identify an interesting area for study
  • When describing my experience of the will, I spoke of the different pushes and pulls through different stages of my development. She felt this was ideal for the essay.
  • Maybe just writing a bit would provide the question and conclusion.

meaning crisis

• I noticed JV had distilled our quest as:
  • distinct Perennial Problems that appear due to the machinery of relevance realisation
  • and that we can overcome these problems with known practises
• He sumerised enlightenment as the developmental process that gives us reliable amelioration and alleviations of the perennial problems.
  • I like it
  • Is this NLP? as it seems formulaic….

Thoughts on coaching

• I was reading other coach websites and realised I do not have the experience to be in the same game. The qualifications I am seeing are diplomas, and talks, and many decades of experience with many “magic” testimonies.

  • I have a completely different career background
  • However, One did say “Sometimes they feel you have done something to them, but alas no, they have made the changes themselves, all you did was hold the remote control and hit the right buttons.”

• Trying to identify what their angle is

  • something positive to aim towards
  • work out what is propelling you forward; are you moving towards something for you, and what is the purpose of having it, what is your deeper why
  • once we remove our own beliefs and negative emotions aka the unconscious things that block our path, we are free to move forward and notice possibilities that were always there
  • love and compassion for others

• I noticed a pattern of helping people do stuff

  • by why? fulfilment?

• I took a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and it came quite clearly as a ENTP. I strongly relate to the description

• I need to relax and enjoy the process!

  • Talking to an artist today, she said its like being a child again and enjoying the exploration, limits off!

• Some quotes from Wayne Dyer

  • If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
  • How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
  • Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.
  • When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
  • You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.
  • Conflict cannot survive without your participation.
  • When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.
  • You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.
  • The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.
  • Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

Thoughts about therapy

• It’s nice to have a chat, especially in this time of isolation
• I can be more honest as there is no agenda
• Seeing thing from an outside lens
• It doesn’t seem to move fast enough
• … and unsure if it is freeing up the unknown
• Feel the need for guidance

Current state

• In general
  • I feel like I am wasting my time in life, falling behind, anxious
  • I seem unable to unconditionally give myself to my partner
  • I seem unable to find something I believe in
• Maybe we should talk about empathy
  • My lack of it
  • What that means
  • How does that impact my life
  • How can one cultivate it

Question

• Do you have expectation of the therapist?
  • more active interrogation

talked about

• Talked about current expectations from my partner
• How I am doing well with my son
• how I am not filling my need to be of service
• what do I most want?
  • love and be loved
• Why do I feel the need to carry and display the past
  • As a leaver? - This seems constructive and destructive.
• Why can I not snap out of it and provide unconditional love?
  • inability to love!

Thoughts on the Meaning crisis

• Sacretness is
  • Serious play (Religio)
  • Fuelled by participatory symbols/concepts/context such as rituals, work (Mythos)
  • With an self-organising, intrinsically interested and evolving relevance realising
• Sacred
  • Not absolute product
  • The ongoing transjective relationship process of RR

Thoughts on my focus

• I noticed when walking in the woods that I was looking at the trees and wondering about the how I might be interested in them. There was a:
  • moment of awe in the magnitude of details within it
  • dismissal as I examined the usefulness of the tree in my life
  • sense of freedom
  • sense of oneness
  • sense of beyond me, and a need to contain my being
  • strength but also signs of disease everywhere
• I noticed:
  • A participatory symbol
  • A relationship
  • A scale

Thoughts video editing

• I found it hard to get into. but once I’m in there it flows
• I suit the pace and balance between organising and getting it done
• I have a good sense of emotional connectivity and know when something is speaks or is clunky
• I noticed it had similarities with the therapy sessions

Therapy notes

• Counselling skills
  • worked out not to be goal orientated
  • agapic love
  • hard work wanting to tune in
• Rd session
  • noticed I was feeling superior over the person who had an issue with me
  • trainer found me very interesting
  • therapist suggested that maybe showing some love and interest is what she wanted to grow trust. This might have been more appropriate in a professional setting as I am not required in RD to do this.
• Given I have enough Wil when needed
  • Where do I belong?
  • suggested: Climate psychology alliance
  • Part time is fine.

counselling skills reflections

• Difficulty breaking frame from as I perceive a potential client
  • Confidence of value
  • Impatience
  • Values
  • Care
• From strengths finder
  • Context
  • Discipline
  • Competition
  • Maximiser
  • Harmony
• What does this suggest to myself about myself?
  • Impatience of being
  • context and harmony needed for counselling
  • context, discipline, maximiser needed for capitalist
• I had to work very hard, treading water, to pull out and respond to what we where asked to focus on. I had to fight the coffee to remain attentive to the subtleties
• Am I putting myself through this because I am aware of a hole in my development? An imbalance in my quest to become more wise?
• I am gaining an understanding of therapy as a means to set the scene for the others transcendence. Agapic love.
  • This is always going to be useful. However, half the time the other would need to use this insight to embody it and that is where a coach may be better placed.
  • I question my sustainability in this field. I am sing it to become more wise and a better human. Can I find fuel to help the other beyond exploration of this gap?
• where do I belong?

counselling skills reflection

• I admitted to feeling like a fraud and not caring at all time, maybe not my vocation
• Why do I wish to jump over the data and get straight to the point - efficiency
• Was told that for true transcendance the client needs to discover the aspects for themselves - participatory knowledge
• Analogy providing survival tech to africa need to come from them for it to be sustainable
• Instead, focus on being a mirror
• Agapic love - To give - Set the scene for their own transcendence.
• Conclusion - The future is unwritten and can be unseeable. I am here an willing to make the most of this opportunity

Therapy session

• What do I want?
  • Be at ease with my situation
  • Be a good dad and partner
  • Be healthy in my exploration
  • Find something I believe in, some way to believe
  • I have found a plausible method to our navigation. But it still doesn’t provide a why.
  • What is my higher self / soul?
• Homework: explore imagination through a mind map
  • Possibly include cultivated personality as a feature below, newness above.

Meaning crisis study group

• Great insight into how the brain works
  • Continually pulsating, breaking/making frame
  • consciously managing our insights, affording salient relevance selecting and wiring
  • proceeding with care/responsibility

family life

• Managing my partner becoming claustrophobic and irritable
• Making a balance between doing what I think is best and being a servant to my requirements to keep the peace
• Noticing being honest while walking away made my partner explosive. Not the best tactic!

media thoughts

• Noticed after discussing direction with my brother
  • I might suit a audio software development job if I don’t find something else
  • When looking at someone else’s tool that was similar, I noticed I wasn’t interested in it, or looking at the community
  • Maybe keep this ticking on the back-burner for now and look at something environmental
  • If we are in a race for species survival, surely it doesn’t matter whether I like, or am good at, a particular path. I even if it is just being an inspiration for someone else to drive forward.

Therapy session

• She noted I had trouble with English early on and suggested a autism questionnaire. Other identified area might fit, so work checking out.
• I explained my new insights below, but the description seemed abstract and not so relevant.
• Asked me what is “soul”
  • I answered with a force that is from outside the perceivable self, maybe the level above gestalt

Reading The Way of Psychosynthesis

• In prep for my next therapy session, I should
  • Dig out my characters, strengths, values etc
  • Map out future potentiality
  • Visualise timeline

Meaning crisis conversation

• Great discussion. I’m going to try to gather my thoughts.

• We are subject to an ever evolving and complexifying arena with a combinatorial explosive / uncertain problem space and potential goal states
• Inherent domain constraints and agent / arena fittedness providing a capsulated perception of constraints, conflicts, orientation, meaning and purpose
• As autopoietic self-organising systems, we primarily strive to maintain ourselves through optimising our ability to adapt and transcend
  • Relevance Realising / General Intelligence / Optimising opponent processing of
    • Efficiency (simplify/compressing)
    • Resiliency (complexify/particularising)
  • There is feedback dance between the agent / arena relationship
  • There is a velocity to transcendence
    • Flow state balance
    • Cultural / experiential time constraints of knowing
      • Propositional (belief statement to be true/false)
      • Procedural (way of doing something)
      • Perspectival (view)
      • Participatory (action with)
• History has shown this dynamic suffering of opponent beliefs
  • having / being
  • certainty / uncertainty
  • complexification / simplification

What are the lessons I am learning here

• Notice the patterns!
  • Sometimes efficiency wins, maintaining the status-quo through containing / self-deception and optimising through simplification.
  • Sometimes the imposed pressure to change requires letting go and breaking frame towards something more fitting.
  • There is an optimal grip on the balance between efficiency and resiliency that relieves suffering, this is GI/RR
  • One needs to adapt to culture as well as be an individual expression.
• Maybe a simplified view of our task in existence is to
  • Constantly complexify ourselves for fittness with the constantly complexifying environment, to survive by updating ourselves to the environment and update the environment to ourselves.
  • This includes discovering the meta patterns and particulars of how we optimise this process and ready ourselves for even greater potentiality
  • Accept that one derives meaning and purpose from the constraints of the domain.
    • When meaning and purpose dries up, there is more out there to be found, but work is needed to breaking frame and discover it.
    • This process is circular and essential for the optimisation process.
    • There is plenty of historic examples to draw from.

Being motivated by low latency audio software

• Always more interested in tuning things instead of using things
  • Looking at low level code feels like touching the items I use
  • Without being involved I feel subject to someone else’s limitations
  • Is there a lot of ego there?
• However, it also fills me with dread.
  • This space where no one goes. Art where no one looks
  • So easily dismissed
  • Void of humanity
  • Slave to an illusion
• Do I really want to make another product?
  • A whole bunch of tick-box tasks
  • Creating a tool that doesn’t contribute towards something worth while like contributing towards the environment
• Seeing an old employee as part of the team of people working on the audio language made me notice some things
  • Feeling unwanted. Noticing he liked me but has never encouraged our friendship
  • Jealousy
    • Partner talking about him working with people all over the country
    • Stepping into his territory
    • catching myself, making sure this motivation was for the right reasons, something that I connect with, not in comparison to another
  • Hope that I might be accepted
  • Summarising
    • There is an ich to be scratched
    • It doesn’t need to be what I commit myself towards
      • I would have to work on acceptance that I would not fully engaged and capable within the arena
    • Maybe I could convert my existing ‘Jasper’ software while also keeping my eyes on the environment
      • How would my brother feel about that?

My note to my brother

I had to write about that audio software exploration in my journal and I noticed a few things.

• I seem to like touching the things that I use. Wanting to know what they look like inside.
• Approaching low level code feel like art where no one goes. The opposite direction of humanity and connection. However, I can see the SOUL code feels intuitive and there is a lot to easily learn about dsp.
• I wonder if converting jasper to be web based would something of use.
• I wounder how you would feel if I set sail on converting the max into code
• I should be doing something that contributes towards the relationship of humanity with the environment, not creating another product…

Therapy session

• Talked about my lack of relating to my childhood memories.
  • Is there something there? Might not be….
  • Other people got a lot out of the thematic session
• Talked about the RD group.
  • One of the people owning their issues with me which was a relief
  • Feeling like, and recieved feedback that the manner I handled the conflict was advanced
  • Noticing the difference of will from myself to the majority
    • Externally driven intuition, pattern seeking, thinker/perceiver, living in a sensorial culture
• Big questions
  • Why am I interested in the Why we do things
    • Are we just
      • relevence finding machines,
      • living in a culture of rules,
      • with a motivation to optimise the recepting and affecting process
      • end of story
  • How do we deal with our potentiallity becoming less, and not knowing the goal state or the problem space?
  • Is our goal to identify who we are? Does it help or simply fortify our belief.
• Homework: do some timeline visualisations

Home schooling - Little time

• finding little time to think

Working on old music software project

• enjoyed working with my brother
• noticed I was more interested in getting the software to work than making sounds

Therapy session

• covered relationship with my dad and how he in my life as my dad has impacted me
  • We covered things at speed, and although I may have learnt something, I’m not sure I was in the right state of mind to take it in, so I’m not entirely sure if I learnt something.
  • Will come back to this and give it more though in the week when I have time.

Reading Jordan Peterson : Maps of Meaning

• Enjoyed the prologue of the book
  • Although my life experience is different, maybe less dramatic, I can relate to a similar existential crisis
    • Loosing confidence in main cultural structures like coding, business, values, truth, law and more
    • Attempting to only make actions/opinions that I know to believe to be true, but left with nothing/little to say
    • Importance of finding out/ curing this frozen position

Looking back at coaching website

• Need to beautify / seem professional
• Noticing that other people climbed the conformist ladder further than me and remained with large ambition
• Need to write much more, reaching out to pain points, bridging with empathy, clarity and confidence building
• Maybe charge little, speak to Nina about her experience

Thoughts about the old work partners

• reflections of how they double crossed me. I no longer believe as I did that they could have done it through self-deception.
• I felt like saying “why would I give you my friendship? If/when I stand in the way of your personal greed, you would not hesitate in stabbing me again!”

A new year focus

• Trying to break from the family focused holidays and back into working out what I am doing.
• Updated my site to represent some of the directions I wish to portray myself as
• Feels like I need to bring together some of my thoughts again.
  • Map of models learnt
  • Focus on direction and ‘why’
  • Finish autobiography
  • Financial plan for the next 4 years
• What do you think is important?
  • Personal
    • Remain content with how things are
    • Remain content with change
  • Family
    • Felix’s attention needs to remain in focus
    • Family life needs to be sustainable
  • Work
    • Some form to contribution would be a good idea.
    • Would be ideal to find, and develop a contentment strategy, with some lifelong mission with grounded principles
  • Environment
    • I need to return to doing my bit
  • do I choose my sacrifice and head into detail, or do I remain out and look at the big picture?

Driving in the car

• Quite annoyingly I fond myself becoming quite angry about old work situations while driving to some xmas music with Felix in the passenger seat.
• It wasn’t the music or Felix, but maybe I haven’t been driving for a while and it kicked in some past need to be in control.
• I though about conversations/meetings and how I might have handled them if I knew what was happening, how I would be more ruthless, insistent, direct, determined.
• I kept repeating some thoughts of “Why would I talk to you. You stabbed me in the back!”
• I wonder if I am convincing myself, or if I am reaffirming, or preparing.
• I know deep down, that the working environment was not my arena, I was only there for a while. I achieved what I wanted. It was no longer serving me. It annoys me that my exit wasn’t my decision, that people went behind my back, that it is another scare in my trust in human nature.
• I want to forget and move on, but it haunts me.
• Why?

Therapy homework

Describe my view of my father

As an individual

• Kind, Giving, Good intentions
• Patient
• Quiet, Sulky, Depressed, Stands behind others

As a father

• Not present, Little tangible love
• Goes with the momentum, Not imposing, Avoids conflict
• Willing to give advice or assist with tasks when asked
• Consistent, Loyal

Within society

• Socialist
• Traditionalist, Loyal, Obedient, Follows rules

Environmentally

• Mindful, Good intention
• Opinionated (but only when asked)

What influences he has had on me

Positive

• Shown me patience, family loyalty and being of service has value
• Provided a consistent normality to fall back on, the simplicity provided me with space to find inspiration more organically
• Through my dad not being confident:
  • Shown me that a lack of self-determination can lead to an empty uninteresting life
  • Running away from dealing with conflict will lead to a disconnected lonely life

Negative

• There was a lack of conversation, and therefore not taught me relationship skills
• Had to hide the more adventurous side of my life through fear of disapproval and putting him in a place of conflict

How his character impacts me now

• I live an independent life, with a lack of family connection. I value them with a sense of joy in avoiding the unimportance of some cultural norms, that they will always be there. However, I lack the agapic love.
• I have been striving to prove myself as someone that is interesting and has worth as an individual. However, this is appearing fruitless too.

What changes might be suggested

Therapy session

• Relieved to be approaching the big questions of pointlessness etc
• Felt like we covered familiar ground. However, hopefully simplifying these thoughts and holding in context may lead towards surfacing the right questions and actions.

Thoughts on the RD conflict

• Q1 relating to frustration
  • It appears that my participation in the group frustrates you. Do you see this in a good or bad way, or both?
• Q2 relating to expectation
  • It appears that there is a level of expectation as to how I or others respond towards what is put out. What do you think would happen if you were met with only that of your expectation?
• Q3 relating to trust
  • I heard an appearance of breakdown in trust. What would be required to repair that level of trust?
• What is uncomfortable for me?
  • It frustrates me that we cannot spend our time examining our higher selves
  • I believe it it because we are spending too much/all our time expressing our lower confused unhealthy selves
  • I realise identifying our unhealthy selves is a process we all need to go through. However:
    • This space was not designed as a therapy session of which I feel it is being abused as one due to the parameters
    • We are not trained to be therapists (yet) and so asking us to be one and to cover this ground is a tall order
• What can I do to relieve my frustration?
  • Let go of my ambition and wait patiently
  • Meet your frustration
    • Danger of reinforcing it if you are unwilling to meet
  • Expose my frustration
    • Opens the door for adult conversation
  • Find a bridge to help us both transcend this frame

Thoughts on chapters

• The limbo, the beginning, middle and end of a chapter is very linked to the stages of Will
  • As one has mastered the subject and anxiety turns to oneness with the arena, one creates room for another creation
  • During the overlap, there is a relationship dance between the two creativities
  • To survive, the new creation needs to see potential and then develop a strong force to impress itself into the arena
  • The space is not big enough for the two and the strong will puts pressure on the being will of the first.
  • With a firm understanding, the first can initiate the letting go process back into limbo, allowing the second the opportunity to master and lead
  • chapters seeming analogous to granular synthesis:
    

    

• With relation to the dynamics in the RD group:
  • There is a dance of play
  • Maybe I am asked to to role the frustrater allowing them to highlight, question part old frames and head towards the limbo stageMaybe for me, it is doing the same. To part the impressive drive and learn to listen

Meeting with the course tutor

• Reluctant to being one person to lead the conversation as I was wanting the relational dynamics trainer’s opinion. Instead I received what I expected from the meeting
  • The tutor was not present so could not give me the professional opinion of my questions of what was happening in the group
    • was the group heading in an unhealthy direction
    • was this normal and part of what was expected
    • was I in the wrong and am behaving unhealthily within the group
  • He shielded me from talking to the trainer and suggested I spoke to my therapist and waited for the next session to bring this up
  • Even though unwilling to help, he is at least aware of what happened to take into consideration in the future
  • I acknowledged that I did learn from this experience non-the-less

Therapy session

• Having spent a number of days feeling frustrated and beaten up by the incident going forward, I could only bring it up as our topic of conversation
• Things taken from our conversation:
  • Be aware that they might feel pushed on too much / too quickly,
    • This might also relate to my inability with groups generally
  • Train myself to be more empathetic
    • and bridge their train of thought into mine
• Also expressed my insights of the will
  • Strong will
  • having/being will
  • Map having a de-binary impact on my view of strengths of will / blockages
  • The significance and importance of the stages of the will
    • Relating to my stuckness at the moment and appreciating what benefits come with it

Relational dynamics

• I address the issue I experienced with last month’s RD group straight away. This was all handled in good faith and I felt like both sides showed a mature level of responsibility towards their own participation in the conflict.
• We then listened to a number of people voice the issues they were experiencing in their current lives. Sometimes I brought my observations to the table that seemed appreciated and praised, other times where I could not bring something relevant I remained silent.
• When there was a large pause of silence, I made a suggestion that we swing the attention towards a more chatty and positive form with the question of what brought us to studying psychosynthesis. Not everyone answered and some were hesitant, but more or less I think the suggestion was accepted.
• I was asked what was happening for me and so I answered with absolute honesty thinking that people could handle and appreciate my observations:
  • I was noticing we were spending all of our time on the negative.
  • With the knowledge that becoming aware of the negative narratives where an important part of change, another important, and so far neglected, part is to focus on where we would like to be headed.
  • I noted my desire to explore more questions such as views of meaning and direction and how it related to the content of the course.
  • I noted I struggle with the pace of the group and am used to a more energetic and creative exchange.
  • I expressed my enjoyment in identifying the models on models as a way to relate to our experience and that I would love spending more time discussing how these models are for us with the experiences we have.
• We were asked to check in at the end of the day. One student expressed her strong offence to what I said which led to the student I had the issue last month agreeing with the statement that I was lacking in feeling and was cold. He used my ‘models on models’ expression to back up his argument.
  • I expressed that that was unfair and that I should be judged in that way and that history shows that reality has been described through both rationality and spirituality of which even today we have not arrived at a decision of certainty and possibly never will.
  • The first student started to hide, but also expressed that my statements muted her (using the term I used earlier with the first conflict)
  • I was told by the tutor that I was a thinker and saw reality through that viewpoint as though I was someone different to the centre of the group.
  • I explained that that statement was also unfair and that I have shown my vulnerable side, told through my heart with trust.
• We were asked to wrap up the session with one word.
  • I said “exhausted”
  • There was at least a 2 minute silence before anyone else spoke.
• I feel like:
  • The students are wallowing in their ego narratives
  • I want to talk on a higher disidentified layer and have some fun!

will seminar

• Was told I was great at helping the client explore her imagination
  • Timing, stearing
• Feeling like the trainer, although probably very capable, came across quite board and without the energy to listen or articulate accurately. More interested in impress his own current views
• One student I find is still kicking up a fuss for attention

Seminar on cultivating the will

• Really enjoyed spending some time contemplating the will and how I connect with it.
• My main insight:
  • Not wanting to impress my vision onto nature and others without good reason–
• When role playing as a therapist
  • Was very tired and couldn’t concentrate, relied on the script.
  • Client noticed I was box ticking

Therapist

• Helped my partner move through an important decision and letting go of the past potentialities
  • Highlights my lack of direction
• Talked about my relationship
  • Felt that we we a good fit, nerves because of this during initial stages
  • She dislikes my lack of romantic love and attention
    • Not sure I have ever really believed in romantic love
  • We have accepted each other as the parents of our child, and although not bad, isn’t exciting
  • I noted my lack of passion in life at the moment doesn’t help
• What do I believe in?
  • I accept full responsibility to provide agapic love towards my child
  • I enjoy the comfort / quirkiness / general enthusiastic doing in my family life (even though my partner would prefer more)
  • I believe in having less impact on the planet
• What can I do with a lack of passion?
  • I like coding, but only a bit, same with gardening, music, etc
    • Seems like a toy/distraction/self-deception
  • Am struggling picturing a career when I can’t allow myself to believe in it
• What do I relate to?
  • Feel like culture is in a circle of forgetting / reminding of different possible aspects of meaning and purpose, mostly based on immediate survival needs
  • Relate to Dascates/Hobbes soulless existence
  • Find Kant’s romantic connection with imaginary too randomFind Nietzsche’s self-deception Will as an example of the process I’ve been spat out of at work.

Walk with Jimmy

• Mostly done out of responsibility for him rather than me
  • Realised I had a lot to give
• Was pulled out on something
  • responded to the correction very well
  • Spoke a lot!
• Reminded myself of the joys of companionship, and aimlessly wandering outside

Study group awakening from the meaning crisis

• Really interesting episode that brought up two definitions of the will as a response to romanticism
  • Will to live (Schopenhauer, nihilism)
    • Life is pointless, just survival
  • Will to Power (Nietzsche, postmodernism)
    • Self-transcendence, but also self-deception
• Also how romanticism came about.
  • Perception filters of rationality distorting reality
  • Leading to experiments of imaginary as creator of reality, replacing religion
    • Napoleon expressing himself onto the world
• The standard of conversation is high. I feel like I am keeping up, but I appear to be annoying one of the people through expressing propositions. Sometimes I seem to lack some philosophical finesse, which appears to break down the communication a little. I like that people keep me in check, forcing me to double check myself. I hope it is sustainable for them.

Therapy session

• Picked out the rise of the achiever through my parents relationship with each other and my relationship with my brother and friends
  • The need to be:
    • Of worth, being the one capable of solving issues
    • Or being skilled and manipulating in an impressive way
    • Friendships require being something of interest, that stands out from the rest
  • The impact it has on unhealthy behaviours such as
    • My current anxiety of being technically prepared for employment or being of service just in case someone would benefit from me being there
    • My hiding away from relating, and instead
• What do I do with these thoughts? What am I trying to achieve here?
  • Am I trying to accept who I am and roll with it,
  • OR fix / train myself?
  • OR contain areas to allow other areas to blossom?
• I feel like I am doing well at looking at project Joe from afar and not being emotionally connected with shame, guilt, or other defence mechanisms

Reflecting on my feeling in my youth

• Brother
  • Noticing I was more physically and mentally capable than my brother
  • Wanting to support him, but equally find him slow
  • Feelings of
  • Impatience
  • Frustrations
  • Bond
  • Seeing myself
• Sister
  • Distant, independent
  • I felt like I knew more than her, yet at times she shone very bright in some skills, like music and adventure. A bit like my mum.
• Mother
  • Independent, fun, rebellious, interesting, exciting at times
  • I generally felt quite free to be anything
  • Pulled about at times
• Dad
  • Not much to learn from
  • Solid background
  • Needed to hide part of my life from
• Best friend Chris
  • Very similar at times, but more conformist with passions I wasn’t concerned about
  • Both of us had lots of innocent energy and can do attitude
  • I was more cheeky
• Street friends
  • I felt very much liked and a main character in the group
• General
  • Until my first breakup I had been full of self-confidence
  • My mind couldn’t allow for non-inclusion / secretes / betrayal
  • Free to be different
  • Take action straight away…. Why not
  • Poor english never seemed to worry me, except for reading out aloud. However, I wasn’t resistant when asked.
  • Enjoyed my english teachers rock-and-roll cheekiness and followed his lead in improvising in the swing group

Anxious need to update my tech knowledge

• Feeling quite overwhelmed and anxious that I might not be knowledgeable enough if I returned to a coding career. So I decided to refresh myself with what I would need to know in order to string some services together as I see them needed, along with exploring some current frameworks to support that.
• I have made a list and dug in with some example apps and got quite far. However, I soon realised the complexities and struggles of getting things working well together.
• I now question again if I want to spend my time plugging code or systems together. For what purpose?!
• I looked up at the clouds and noticed
  • How disconnected I had become from the reality that was outside my tiny insular problem solving mindset
  • How it takes some time to pull myself out from the details and feel balanced with all that is
  • How difficult it is to keep both the detail and the gestalt in view
  • How there is a choice as both would be hard to sustain
  • How studying life and reflecting that back on the world might provide me with a stronger connectedness with reality and the life around me
• Other thoughts as to why I was feeling anxious and how I dealt with it
  • Maybe I am distracting myself,
  • Maybe i am tired of studying
  • Maybe I was preparing myself for potentiality
  • Maybe I was testing the boundary
  • Maybe the contact from Neil triggered this need
  • Maybe I just needed to get ready to produce my coursework as a website

Study group awakening from the meaning crisis

• Feeling a bit let down as all of the original participants are not attending.
• I let myself talk from a personal level with quite an articulate description of where I am failing to move on. The other people expressed resonance with my situation. However, there was no advancement.
• I think studying Descartes and Hobbes evoked and supported the feeling of meaninglessness in life.
• It was good to be there as a reminder of where I have come from

Therapy session

• How I felt during RD
  • Impatient
• Email - don’t feel like revisiting but should do as that is not how I would like to be treated
• Homework:
  • Autobiography
  • Feeling in my teens

Behaviour training

• I have decided to dual my journal with my twitter feed as an experiment
  • Consideration to what impact publicising myself will have and how I am approaching it
  • Expression of thought process for others, not narcissistic self obsession
  • Hopefully inspire some conversation and invite potential paths
  • As a means to create some content on my feed - is this narcissistic already?

Study group awakening from the meaning crisis

• I had a hard time coming to terms with learning about Martin Luther. His ideas seemed quite a distance from mine.
• It was good to see the soulless viewpoint of Descartes as a boundary of thought and reflective positioning from my viewpoint.
  • It highlights the mack of connectedness I have experienced though long exposure to logic in my career

Thoughts

• Revitalised by the US elections and the potentiality of a greener mindset
• Should revisit environmental career avenues

Thoughts

• Sad to see more lockdown, brexit looming, america splitting in its political battle
• Sad for Felix when he needs relationships in his life. At least it is fortifying his existing and strong relationship. Also he is forced to spend more time outside (in the dark)
• Feeling a little overwhelmed with psychology definitions, but also feeling like they are slowly entering my life in settling and linking-the-dots form

Studying “The way of psychosynthesis”

• Very interesting to see the social dynamics of Roberto Assegioli and his companions as they sift through the query of life, social pressers and ego dynamics. It is not too dissimilar to my own, although in a different field.
• Related the ebbs and flows of friendships, focus, intuition drives, experimentations

Studying Eckart, Ockham, Black death, Commercialism, Galileo

• Really interesting take on the beginning of commercialism and scientific wipe out of the spirit/soul as important and therefore aspect of reality

Psychosynthesis weekend thoughts

• After a great two days of lectures with Diana Whitmore, I was disheartened with the relational dynamics again.
• I strongly annoyed one person with my eager and wide perspective. Followed by being picked out by three others as indirectly talking about them in a cutting manner.
• I know I am direct, with strong values of wanting to connect with reality, and values of truth, and that these at times are non-conformist to our current cultural-norm.
• I know I am not willing to conform to simply fit in, and that my loneliness is an issue in my life.
• I wonder how it will play out within the group
• I wonder on my suitability to work with people as a career
• I hope I have speeded up their journey
• I wish to make way with more connections within the group and further deepen my studies.

Thoughts

• Large recognition of a lack of trust in human nature, and that maybe this is where my lack of will streams from

Thoughts while studying Augustine and Aquinas

• It seems our dependency of having propositional thought to explain reality has swamped our ability to know through experiencing reality

Thoughts while taking notes on subpersonalities

• Maybe I should compile a comprehensive list of my subpersonalities and find the higher transpersonal quality between them

Therapy session

• We discussed:
  • that many of my chosen points to write about were emotional triggers. I explained that they were probably chosen as salient due to the dynamic of uncontrollability they possessed due to not having the maturity in character to have agency within them.
  • My need for mastery might have been an avoidance. Find meaning within the container and avoid other responsibility
  • My want for true friendship, how I go about achieving it, why I feel like I miss the mark and how I safeguard myself from failure. For example, dropping people quickly so as not to feel like I am being of burden.
  • Maybe I didn’t have enough containment in my childhood. Noted that benefits the life of a self-deceived entrepreneur, but less as a conforming manager.
  • Future focus on Negation to my emotional life

Chat with Joshua

• Great summarising of my current thoughts and relating it to my life. Went too fast and covered too much detail to write here. Will try in the future
• Write summary

Creative development

• Almost started playing a tune in the new studio. Feels like I should make a collection of tunes I like and try to replicate them. Listening to Peter Broderick and realising how he is representing the pinnacle of stage green to me. Some of his values I feel is so true, and others so silly.

Therapy session

• Explained my recent insight. We had a difference of opinion when it came to the will. I suggested we might require self-deception to create meaning, she spoke of the will with more of a intuitional drive.
• Covered my discomfort with the communication channels with my previous career. I described my strategic approach and action inertia and was advised to come into connection with my intuition. Bought the recommended books Eugene Gendlin, Focusing, and Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine
• Autobiography was not covered but priority next week.
• The session felt far too short again. Maybe I just have the energy to continue non-stop

Online stoicism talk

The talk went through the 7 pillars of stoicism. I asked some question at the end to make use of being there, but would have like more interactive participation. I don’t fell as though I will join that group again for a while.

Walk with Nina

I gave her an update on my findings with the study group and how the existential inertia described by the Gnostics felt so relevant in my life. We pondered meaning and while she was explaining something, an off topic thought entered my head.

• Meaning and knowledge:
  • Meaning arises through experiencing a difference between the sides of a boundary combined with the forces for change, where the potentiality for change holds meaning.
  • The degree of agency to observe, analyse and manipulate the sameness and difference of the boundary experienced is structured through the inherited culture, a personal history, and the application the potentialities of change offers.
  • Insight as a defined understanding itself comes with limitations and vulnerability to self-deception.
• Forces:
  • Creativity, curiosity, improvement
  • Fulfilment, flow, achievement, belonging
  • Uncomfort, boredom, anxiety
  • Clumsy undeveloped subpersonalities taking hold
  • Existential inertia, not having the needed perspectival and participatory knowing
• Bringing it together for integration and action: When looking at what path to direct myself, is the activity of creating a good life one of choosing the agent and arena I want to be and within that provides limits that affords meaning and the forces for change? If so, do I simply sucom to the limits and self-deception within that container?

Writing notes on Read Hardy J: (1996): A Psychology with a Soul (Woodgrange).

• I have found writing notes on what I read brings me 100x more closer to the content. It takes a lot longer, but seems totally worth it at this stage.
• I noticed some confusion with the description of the ‘I’. It appears that, either I haven’t fully grasped what was written, or it is a personal relationship that might evolve as time goes on. It is stated to be the source to my experience, and that is something I have felt when going through a balanced view or neti-neti process. However, I didn’t connect with what was written in the book.

Listening to a podcast by actualised on The big picture of Personal development

This was a fantastic summary and I need to go through it again making notes. I didn’t agree with his final statement that we have the capacity to know everything. Also, I noticed that he forgot something that feels, to me, a fundamental reason for personal development. Long standing species, such as a bee, has an optimal grip on being a bee as an agent in its arena. Humans, however, are not in harmony with their environment and therefore unsustainable.

Meaning crisis Study group

• Focus on existential inertia and gnosis.

  • Using psycho technologies (context) along with a higher state of consciousness
  • Activates and transform perspectival and participatory knowing, optimal grip on reality
  • Liberates from existential entrapment (stuck / stupefied)

• This was a fascinating discussion group and seemed really related to the conversation I had just before. I loved the description in existential inertia as this was a state I felt so strongly in the building towards my company exit. One could look at the exit process both as inflicted and self-inflicted, and to a greater extent the battle against change would have been a tricky one and therefore not really inert. However, I really related to this state as the need to understand what I would lose and miss out on was so great and unknowable. I wished that one of the coaches/therapists had role-played this scenario with me.

• There was a new guy on the group called Tim of whom I connected, meeting him with a similar level of energy, enthusiasm and pace.

Chat with course member

• I had some fears with how people may perceive me as having organized a course group social with no one turning up. I also decided to just allow it and not waste energy on such a thought. Someone did turn up halfway through the announced time. I chose to completely look over any thought I may have had in what that person may have thought about joining lonely me.
• We had a fab discussion, talking about our experience in the lead up to the course and during our first few days.
• A running theme of the conversation included the benefits of the course over simply self study. We both agreed that now was the time, and putting it off would simply lead to not being as deep the following year regardless of continuing the course or not. Also that we appreciated the aspect of play within the thematic seminars as something we all need more in life.
• I felt I got a little closer to the student with keen interest to continue pushing for more connection.

First session with therapist

• It was very fast. I had enough time to verbalise my story and decide on how best to use our time together. Very happy she seemed to understand some of the modals I was using in my descriptions. I don’t have faith that the season is long enough to get deep about anything, so I suggested we could focus on one topic at a time.

Reflections on writing autobiography

• Interesting to witness
  • whole areas of life being framed by single scenes
  • Such a large collections of memories I have chosen not to include even though they have all been a part of the journey of who I am
  • I have chosen to write down mostly negative events and generalised positives

Writing the high level course structure

It was great to finally come into contact with the course as a whole and in detail.

• I recognised familiarities of my past academic experiences and elements that will challenge them. The focus on intra- and inter-personal processes was regarded as unremarkable and a waste of time in previous courses, so I recognise I am going to be very conscious of when and how this will be present in my written work.
• It has become apparent that some extra focus upfront will put me in a good groove to align with and make the most of this course
• I am excited for my first therapy session and feel the need to write some of my autobiography to maximise my time with her with regards to getting to know me within the context of the course
• I feel the need to reach out toward the other students to get to know them some more and exchange our initial connection with the course

Actions

• Write a structure for the workbook
• Write further reflections on the subpersonalities sessions
• Write further reflections on the relational dynamics session
• Read+notes Hardy J: (1996): A Psychology with a Soul (Woodgrange)

Preparations for psychosynthesis course

• Start journal (this) by bring up to date
• Write High level course structure
• Order foundations google docs folder in prep for workbook

Preparations for personal therapist

• Start autobiography notes
• Snapshot of Personal character map. Including and salience ordering of values, capable arenas/mediums, vision
• Snapshot of salient questions

Conversations with Joshua

• What is a highly beneficial and plausible occupation right now and into the future?
• Above satisfying personal survival needs, such as finances to pay the bills and family attention to connect and satisfy the needs of my immediate loved ones.

Meaning

• Immersion in the details of a container promotes a self-deception of reality. It is visible through my own experience the beliefs I had for the benefit of the container while immersed in it were strongly purposeful, yet outside the container could seem meaningless or trivial.
• If the arena is correct, then it would include support for the agent being human and all the facets and limitations that come with that.
• Beliefs seem important in order to maintain the existing structures. If we all put our attention on metadata, many survival needs, such as health, security, law would collapse.

Therefore, to support the creation of transcendable arenas for all humanity might not be a positive strategy.

Personal integration

• Possible occupation of a coach
• Music for me would benefit as an expression of my agency for others to reflect from

Company integration

• Companies encourage a shared cultural ideology and orientation of the individuals that work there, but are often orientated towards capitalism values due to their need for survival in the current culture. What would it take for a company to listen to the idea of transcendence?
• Companies such as Shell and BT have announced the orientation away from the use of fossil fuels. However, their motivation might be from the wrong source, being one of survival pressure need to continue their existing capitalism values of growth instead of agape love for the other (environment)

Meaning crisis Study group

• Looking at the three Greek definitions of love (Eros - consuming, Filia - cooperation, Agape - creation and open future). I gained understanding that Jesus’ core Christian message to “forgive” was largely misinterpreted. Not to move on from the others wrong doing, but instead defined as follows:

Forgive

• to give
• with no expectation of repayment,
• and furthermore, to give the salient landscape to the other
• for their own transcendence
• out of love
• for the other and their arena,
• being a process that is said to not fail.

Salient questions

• How does this compare to the term ‘Unconditional love’?
• Does the natural facets of being a person struggle with the process of Agape?
• Is the process term Agape a good fit for the term ‘God’?
• Insights easily become ideologies, with the vulnerability to create a frame. Is there a formulaic process to balance the pursuing and immersion of an insight and the de-centralisation of it to open room for creation?
• Was the pressure to upkeep the arena of Roman alpha-male dominance setting the scene for self-deceptive hope for the less advantaged? Or was the message of participatory agape love plausible?