I'm ready to investigate

[Antony]

I guess i really fear that there's nothing

[vinceschubert]

My mind has an idea but i don't think that's it.

Don't edit your thoughts.
Did you reason "I guess I really fear that there's nothing" ? or was that what came to mind?

I go stiff, feel kinda sleepy and numbed. Like i'm too tired to look anymore and don't want to look anymore. I get distracted and then it subsides. Then i'm confused as to how it rises again for me to really look at and investigate. Then i'm frustrated.

These are mind tricks. It is an attempt to stop any change in you.
Ok, last question for tonight (it's getting late here in Australia)
Start thinking of 'If an I exists' to bring on the fear, then notice the part thoughts play in the ensuing physical reactions.
i'll pick up your response about 12 hours from now.
Good you are here doing this.
Your life is about to change.

vince

[Antony]

The response that i fear there is nothing is what came to mind.

It's like i am expecting an end prior to even asking that question. Like i've already seen what's coming. Believing and anticipating something is going to happen (intense sensations rising in the belly area). So when the question comes it's already been deflected and it has no potency. Now when i look at the question i feel blocked and sleepy again. I'm actually laughing at how annoying and ridiculous this is :)

Thank you for being here Vince. I really appreciate it.
When you said your life is about to change it brought up a lot of sadness in me. I've been wanting this for so many years.

I am going to persist with this question until we speak again.

Sleep well.
Antony

[Antony]

It's like i know what the thought is meant to do so i've already disarmed it.

When i was walking earlier i saw that the 'fearful me' was a fiction. It was just an instant. Then i attempted to see it more clearly but it seemed veiled again.

[Antony]

Hi Vince,

I wanted to add what has transpired today. I've been noticing how afraid i am of the world and other people. I have this feeling of fear when i'm seen by another. It's like i don't want to be seen and to just disappear would make it all feel better. Behind it is this feeling that i am expected to be a certain way or to respond in a certain way to people. If i don't then i feel this great fear. I keep feeling that people want something from me and that i just can't be myself. Whatever that may be happy or sad. Particularly when i'm sad everyone sees it as a problem. This makes me really angry and then sad that i don't feel accepted to be in whatever state i am in.
I'm feeling really shaky about this at the moment.

Antony

[vinceschubert]

this feeling that i am expected to be a certain way or to respond in a certain way to people

How you were trained to feel this way is irrelevant to what is taking place here, but what i do want to know is what process takes place when this comes over you.
You can imagine yourself in the situation where you have these expectations if that works or actually put yourself in that situation if necessary, then observe your thought patterns and tell me how it works.

i saw that the 'fearful me' was a fiction. It was just an instant.

Fantastic, this is big! But now DONT CHASE IT.
It is something to observe when it occurs. It just confirms again that we are on the right path.

Thank you for being here Vince. I really appreciate it.

Thank you too Antony. Doing this is beneficial here too.
Loving feelings pervade.

[Antony]

Hi Vince,

I have actually just spent the last hour or so in this experience of feeling like i'm not allowed to just be myself.
I'll try and explain as explicitly as i can.
The first bit is like a pang of fear when i heard someone enter my flat. A feeling of obligation that i have to interact and speak to them. I constantly feel this pressure to do so. I keep letting go of this impulse to move and do something about it as i generally feel like i don't want to do anything. I fear their judgement of me. Then, if and when eye contact is made, the pressure (as fear) to interact, and break the ice as it were, intensifies. So i am constantly feeling unease around this. When with people i constantly feel this expectation and therefore i feel like i'm not allowed to be as i am. This often makes me feel angry as i see that they are just wanting to get their way. At the heart of it i don't feel accepted.

Many thanks,

Antony

[vinceschubert]

The first bit is like a pang of fear when i heard someone enter my flat. A feeling of obligation that i have to interact and speak to them. I constantly feel this pressure to do so. I keep letting go of this impulse to move and do something about it as i generally feel like i don't want to do anything. I fear their judgement of me. Then, if and when eye contact is made, the pressure (as fear) to interact, and break the ice as it were, intensifies. So i am constantly feeling unease around this. When with people i constantly feel this expectation and therefore i feel like i'm not allowed to be as i am. This often makes me feel angry as i see that they are just wanting to get their way. At the heart of it i don't feel accepted.

Antony, work through the quote above and paraphrase it with the addition of where and what thoughts occur at each stage in the process.
Hear the internal voice as it occurs at each step.

[Antony]

The first bit is like a pang of fear when i heard someone enter my flat.

I am thinking that there's someone there. There's a sense of waiting for something to happen.

A feeling of obligation that i have to interact and speak to them. I constantly feel this pressure to do so. I keep letting go of this impulse to move and do something about it as i generally feel like i don't want to do anything.

I feel like i want them to go away as then i will be able to rest properly. Then i think that their presence has nothing to do with the way i feel as the whole thing is taking place in my mind. So it's not them that is the problem it's just the thinking experience that makes it appear so. So i see that i am left with just my own responses to the situation and that they have nothing to do with it.
Now i look at it, this thinking process is at the root of all the feeling reactions i mentioned in the story above. I don't see the other as a problem and so take possession, as it were, of my own reaction and essentially just sit with it. But the feeling of other and the reactions continue regardless.

I fear their judgement of me. Then, if and when eye contact is made, the pressure (as fear) to interact, and break the ice as it were, intensifies.

I feel like i have to care what they are thinking/experiencing. I don't want to be seen to care as i know this caring response is just coming from this pressure of fear from 'what if i don't'. It's like if i show i am caring once this pressure is felt prior, then i know i am responding falsely and it's not genuine. I feel angry because i submitted to being puppeted by a fearful response and the other gets what they want so i feel manipulated. When these situations arise I keep seeing the others own unease and expectation. I think that it has nothing to do with me as i have drawn the conclusion that all responses are a result of fabricated projections.

This was a difficult exercise to recall how i think in those moment. Perhaps i have gone off the mark a bit?

Antony

[vinceschubert]

it's just the thinking experience that makes it appear so

Excellent Antony, now tell me where these thoughts come from. Where do they originate ?

[Antony]

I don't know where the thoughts come from. I mean there's no place i can find that is a source of them.

[vinceschubert]

I don't know where the thoughts come from. I mean there's no place i can find that is a source of them.

So tell me Antony, is there a self behind these thoughts ?
Is there an I or a Me anywhere in sight ?

[Antony]

It's weird. It's like i don't really understand the question anymore.
I've been laughing quite a lot about how everything seems because i can't work it out.
There doesn't seem to be anything to work out. That's what's so funny.

[Antony]

At times it feels like the thoughts are occurring to someone. It's like when they're going on there's some glimmer of a someone but the minute i go to look or construct the question who? or what? it just doesn't make sense.

[vinceschubert]

There doesn't seem to be anything to work out. That's what's so funny.

Tell me what you mean by this...