AE's Adventures in Accidental FIRE

[AnalyticalEngine]

@ertyu - This is all what I'm leaning toward as well. For one, what I'm realizing is I haven't solved the housing problem sufficiently nor have I solved my investment strategy problem sufficiently (I care a lot more about all my money off in index funds in the overpriced market now that I actually have a lot of money). And those are just practical problems on top of the emotional ones.

For therapy, I think I might focus on my more common problems first because it will be easier to find a therapist who can address them. For example, religious trauma or ACT for depression will be easier to find someone who can help verses the complexity of FIRE. I know LivingAFI mentions the difficulty in trying to find the right therapist in his post about his divorce, so I do imagine finding someone who is a good fit may require some legwork.

[7Wannabe5]

What I mean is that as a single woman/lesbian, I find myself in what one might call the "male provider" position more often than not. Certainly, it could be a growth opportunity to learn how to occupy another role than "breadwinner" but it is what I am most familiar/comfortable with and there is certainly fear in the uncertainty of not playing a role I know how to play and I am socially rewarded for.

Gotcha. It's more an issue for your Sexual self than your Security-Oriented/Solo self or your Social self.

My DS36 recently commented, "It was clear that you were the more stolid character than Dad." My sister once said, "When you date men who are younger than you, then you have to be the cool one." The other default option being "the pretty one."

The phrase "male provider/breadwinner" strikes me as some mix of "stolid" and possibly "cool", but absent of "pretty." For a sexual relationship to be in equilibrium at any given moment, each partner has to ante up some combo of stolid/cool/pretty that is of equal value to the stolid/cool/pretty combo brought to the table by the other. Generally, the more "stolid" you bring to the mix, the more likely that you will be the partner who is "paying" for the more sexy "cool" and/or "pretty" mix brought by the other. This "payment" might not be monetary. For example, it might be doing your partner's laundry with no help with oil change in exchange, or always being the one who is a good listener.

Therefore, it may be beneficial to consider what mix of "stolid", "cool", and "pretty" you prefer to bring and also what mix you prefer to get in exchange, and then also consider how giving up your lucrative career objectively and subjectively changes the mix you have to offer. It is also important to bear in mind that there is some variability in what any given other human might find "cool", "pretty", or "stolid" , and also much more importantly how we perceive and value these qualities in ourselves. For example, I thought it was totally cool that the primitive technology flea market guy I met this summer could weave functional tools out of the bark of a Linden tree. Obviously, learning to play guitar would be more generally perceived as cool, but it's better to pick the skill that aligns with what you would think is cool if you were shopping for cool, even if it is your preference to shop harder for pretty and/or stolid. IOW, an attempt to gain empathy by inhabiting the gaze of other can be remarkably more helpful than simply following rules of thumb. For example, rule of thumb is that it's prettier to be skinny, but I am a long way from skinny, and I get a lot of action from some pretty cool guys, but if when I inhabited my own masculine energy/gaze, I myself believed that pretty=skinny then that wouldn't happen, because I wouldn't be honoring my own aesthetic. So, you need to ask yourself while inhabiting the gaze of your own internal preferred other energy if you think that you are "cool/pretty/stolid" and why or why not?

[Jin+Guice]

What concerns me is that you have a lot of power and flexibility, but I don't see you believing that. You have almost a million dollar net worth. You secured a job, with what appears to be not a lot of effort, a little over two months after your journal post where it says you got laid off. I realize you know that you are not only grappling with money problems... but do you know that money is a solved problem? Are you approaching this from the position of someone who has power and options because you are currently a person with a lot of power and options.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@J+G - You are 100% right and it's a problem I struggle with that is the result of the religious trauma. Mormonism teaches you that you have no real power, you have to follow the rules, and you aren't allowed to make decisions for yourself or have any emotions. Failing to see my own agency/power and falling into the scarcity mindset is a perennial problem in my life I have trouble changing because it's an emotional issue. Sometimes the issue feels like wack-a-mole in that I deal with one manifestation of it and it finds a way to come up somewhere else.

@7W5 - The point about honoring my own aesthetic is interesting. I'm realizing I'm viewing a lot of my life under the default gaze, which obviously doesn't work well for me for multiple reasons.

I'd say my internal landscape leans masculine (so much so that trying to force femininity on myself actually triggers what I would call gender dysphoria despite the fact I am definitely not trans/don't feel that framework makes sense for my life). So looking at myself through a feminine gaze is an interesting exercise in expanding my perception of myself that I'm going to have to ponder more about.

[Jin+Guice]

Until you tackle that it doesn't really matter if you take the job or you don't. How can you experience the abundance of already have today? What's something (probably small) that you know you can do but believe you can't.

[7Wannabe5]

I'd say my internal landscape leans masculine (so much so that trying to force femininity on myself actually triggers what I would call gender dysphoria despite the fact I am definitely not trans/don't feel that framework makes sense for my life).

Yeah, I think it is a bit of a stretch for most of us. I mean asking myself "What woman in this room would I hit on if I were a man?" is on one level more difficult than asking myself, "What flower would I land on if I were a butterfly?", because I also think, "Ick, why am I a man?" when I imaginatively inhabit the first question. However, as an intellectual exercise the process is fairly similar. I have also found that a side benefit of this sort of empathetic exercise is that it also reduces the tendency towards jealousy, maybe because it's essentially a deconstruction, so it abstracts meaning and subjectivity. IOW, once you gain a better grasp on what the other (and/or/versus the other within you) finds attractive, it simultaneously loses power and importance, and this "acceptance" allows you to dwell more in "want" then "need", to seek "value" more than "validation."

[suomalainen]

My top fear approximates, "Something terrible happens to somebody I love and it is my fault or I could have done something to prevent it.", but if I can't release this control mechanism, I will thoroughly deplete myself in my efforts to prevent this from happening. I have to sit with the reality that terrible things over which I have no control will happen to the people that I love or eat every last muffin in the bakery to distract myself from facing this fear.

Boy does this hit home for me. That point you made once long ago about "no responsibility without authority" has been an active guidepost in my life ever since that I reference frequently. Still hasn't cured me, but it's a useful management tool.

Right - and good example with self-determination. The challenge is to decouple our souls from the Machine, bearing in mind that The Machine goes a few levels deep So it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we’ve escaped it when in reality we’ve just moved on to the next level’s boss.

But there IS an Out.

Otherwise there’s little point to all this.

There is no out. Even Dick Proenecke (sp?) had regular supply deliveries via float plane. And there is no point. But why should that stop anyone from doing what they want to do today?

I never went to therapy in the past because it was too expensive, but my new ACA plan should cover it, so I might try to find a therapist who specializes in ACT to help me work through some of my issues.

Combining with the thoughts above - you don't have a money problem; you have a stunted-inner-child problem. I would (and did) easily spend 1% of your net worth on finding and utilizing a therapist you click with. No other activity in your life will yield greater dividends to your health, wealth and happiness. Also - pay up. Don't look for a cheap in-ACA-network therapist. Mine (two of them) were $170 and $185 / hour. If you had (treatable) cancer, you wouldn't count pennies. Mormonism is cancer. Find a therapist to help you root it out. Whatever it costs will be worth it.

[7Wannabe5]

Boy does this hit home for me. That point you made once long ago about "no responsibility without authority" has been an active guidepost in my life ever since that I reference frequently. Still hasn't cured me, but it's a useful management tool.

Yeah, hugely important breakthrough for me to be able to "differentiate" my bloated responsibility caretaker. That said, the codicil I've since added is that there are situation in which it is more functional to learn how to exert appropriate authority relative to responsibility rather than reducing guilt-ridden bloated sense of responsibility back into alignment. For example, almost all of the situations in which an adolescent might say "I didn't choose to be born." when confronted with social responsibility.

[OutOfTheBlue]

@AE, did you remove your last post? I can't find it anymore. I thought it sounded excellent.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@OutOfTheBlue - I did remove it. I keep getting self-conscious I am oversharing in this journal because I will sometimes write things when I feel more depressed, and then when I feel less depressed, what I wrote feels like oversharing. This is by far one of the most frustrating things about depression--I don't know if the depressed version of me or the less depressed version of me has the "correct" view of my life or what I should be sharing with people because it changes so dramatically depending on my mood.

On a side note, many people have written how depression is similar to grief, and the more I grieve/let myself feel negative emotions, the more my capacity for presence and positive emotions like love or joy comes back. Writing this now, I am realizing I was taught that grief is an indulgent emotion and should be avoided, and I am wondering if maybe that is the root of some of the problem.

But I'll also say, without access to all my emotions, it's basically impossible to make any meaningful choice in life, and this emotional backlog was certainly the reason I felt so stuck before.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Yes, I've seen it happen a number of times, but I think this dance of posting/unposting is totally understandable and legitimate. You can always change your mind, and this forum technically offers this ability!

Grateful for what you have shared all this time, and are willing to share.

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It seems like there's often an inner criticizing process going on for you. I'd like to speak to that, and then address emotions.

An insight about this (coming from Inner Relationship Focusing) is that if there is a criticizing part, you can infer there is also a part that is being criticized. One that is the recipient of that criticism (its not you). And you may be merged/identified with or dis-identified from one or the other. This helps discover and work with two, not one, parts.

That criticizing part does not necessarily appear as an emotion. It can be experienced as a voice, a thought.

Still, this is what we could call having "a feeling about a feeling". There is something in you that has a feeling about another something in you (that has a feeling).

Maybe its impatient about it, maybe it does not it see as legitimate. Whatever the case may be. It is often some part that is judgemental of another part. And it can feel very personal!

And yet another part can be critical of that criticizing process, so then it could be a "feeling about a feeling about a feeling" (but that's generally how far it goes, there is no infinite regression).

What to do?

First, at least in this context, I think it is useful to see thoughts and emotions/feelings as part of a spectrum. So you can assume that a criticizing thought/voice is also a feeling, just with a less prominent of an affective tone to it.

Second, radical acceptance. While grounded in presence (one cultivated by a contemplative practice and other ways), you have the opportunity to acknowledge both. Without feeling compelled to take sides. There is no arguing, no negotiation, no promising, no reparenting, no acting upon needed. It's about taking the time to listen, to be with each one of them, to give space. And to see from its point of view. Change comes from the quality of inner relationship and the accepting presence you provide.

So again, there is no taking sides. Everything is allowed to be. Taking sides may lead to further inner fragmentation/identification-merging/dissociation.

And in particular for the criticizing part, it is often worried about something. You might see what is it worried about, what it does not want to happen (in protection). And maybe then, you can discover what it does want for you (beyond protection).

Depression does not necessarily imply the absence of feeling (although this is how it felt for me in the midst of it), but, among many other things, that there may be more than one feeling-parts at play that are counter-acting and often neutralizing each other. It's like one force rows on one direction, and the other on the other. The result is a very very tiring standstill. If there is grief, and that grief is not allowed to be sufficiently experienced, yes... depression. The (un)grieving of the ungrieved grief.

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A few more words on emotions.

We often speak in terms of positive vs negative emotions. But that may be a conceptual overlay. "Emotions cannot be intrinsically negative or positive, even though we usually experience them as pleasant or unpleasant." If you peel off that label, that story, that interpretation that tells you "this is sadness", "this is joy","I feel that because of this" and stay with the raw emotion, as it is felt (in the body), how does that emotion appear? You might experience it as a kind of intensity, energy, vibration, and see that the so called negative emotion is not dissimilar in that regard to a so called positive one. When something is felt and brought close without its discursive overlay, and is allowed to move, to express... What I am describing here is a kind of emotional digestion (and it ties with what I billed "undigested experience"). One that stems from trust and willingness to feel (to be aware of), and feeds on some of that emotion, whether it's deemed "negative" or "positive", and helps let go of the rest. So there is both digestion and release going on. Doing so might be actually empowering (like when the body digests food and naturally excretes what is in excess etc.). You are allowing your aliveness, without evaluating/filtering what is ok or not ok to be felt. The intention, like in open, non manipulative meditation is: "I am willing to feel whatever needs to be felt. I am willing to see whatever needs to be seen."

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I didn't mean to break things down like that (it's more about the principles, the general idea), but that's how it came out. Hope it's okay! The above also wanted to show the value of body-oriented approaches/modalities, besides working with thinking/beliefs/patterns etc.

[suomalainen]

But I'll also say, without access to all my emotions, it's basically impossible to make any meaningful choice in life, and this emotional backlog was certainly the reason I felt so stuck before.

Have you ever read Permission to Feel? Probably a good starter book for you.

[ertyu]

Second, radical acceptance. While grounded in presence (one cultivated by a contemplative practice and other ways), you have the opportunity to acknowledge both. Without feeling compelled to take sides. There is no arguing, no negotiation, no promising, no reparenting, no acting upon needed. It's about taking the time to listen, to be with each one of them, to give space. And to see from its point of view. Change comes from the quality of inner relationship and the accepting presence you provide.

So again, there is no taking sides. Everything is allowed to be. Taking sides may lead to further inner fragmentation/identification-merging/dissociation.

I am not a fan of "parts" and inner fragmentation--offering my opinion here as an option, not as a criticism of @OOTB. I'm a fan of, "the whole contains this-and-that": this opinion -and- that opinion, this drive -and- that drive, this attitude -and- that attitude. It's an attitude of seeing all of what's there and allowing it all to be there, holding both opposites // all there is together at the same time.

In the end I don't think it much matters what inner gimmick one uses to get to the stage of, "I am holding all in consciousness and knowing it for what it is," I prefer the unity of all (even opposites) approach bc I feel "partsing" oneself up is an act of inner violence/violation (which it may or may not be true, may or may not matter, and these may or may not be the right words to speak about this, idek).

In either case. I decided to write because I got stuck at this stage. it's an inner process so no one can describe it in concrete terms; I can't use language to signify it the way one can say "table" and everyone immediately knows what this refers to. So there is a stage here of experimenting with different ways of holding "the stuff" in consciousness and observing what that does to it. This is not where I got stuck. I got stuck because I did eventually get a feel for it. I arrived at the "oooh, aha! That's what they were all talking about!!"

... and then I efforted like mad trying to force-replicate it. I went in specifically with the desire to make that fucking shit be gone once and for all, damnitt!!. And this attitude of looking-so-one-can-fix-it kills all the benefits of looking-so-one-can-know.** There's something about *trying* to fix it that pretty much guarantees endless tension, frustration, and being a little pissy bitch about oneself, the world, one's history, etc -- there's a tension and an irritableness to it. Took me a while to accept that I cannot exercise will at this process. Everyone that ever teaches anyone to meditate will tell you that -you- don't do it, that -it- gets done, that your only task is to get out of the way and accept that there are no guaranteed results, and yet here was I subconsciously thinking that I was smarter, that noooooo, *I* was gonna be that special snowflake that was going to figure it out and actually fix himself.

Lol.

Ha.

Anyway.

Good luck with the inner process of holding it all in consciousness/awareness and with landing on and enjoying those small precious moments of letting go and freedom.

** Because you've "partsed" yourself up again: you've divided yourself up into "it, that needs excision / obliteration / fixing" and "I, the will-agent, which shall excise it and thus "fix" himself."

[Jin+Guice]

I was also planning on responding to your long post.

I'm not sure what you mean by oversharing, but I don't think it's possible to "overshare" here as long as you follow the forum guidelines. But maybe you meant sharing more than you are personally comfortable with?

Therapy is the highest ROI activity I've ever engaged, which was an accidental side effect. It allowed me to see blindspots and ask for what I wanted which has resulted in me making and keeping way more money than I spent on therapy (this was obv not my goal in therapy).

I did not do a bunch of research about what type of therapy I needed or what therapist was best. The next closest thing to therapy is guitar lessons. When you are starting out, almost any teacher will do, unless the themselves can't name the strings and strum through some basic chords.

I also don't think it's necessary to go very often after the initial period. A therapist (guitar teacher) is more like a guide who lets you do most of the work yourself. And like musical lessons, if you're not interested in actually learning or putting in the time outside of therapy, the therapy doesn't do much.

From the money angle, I think your most expensive items are the emotional issues you are having. They are holding you back from believing in yourself and considering all options. You have an expensive apartment. I've been assuming the main purpose of getting an expensive place are: 1) making it easy to move out of the area where you experienced religious trauma and 2) easily living in a place where you can enjoy things that are better for your mental health, like abundant people and easy walkability.

So I think working on your emotional issues is also how you are going to resolve your money problems and ultimately embrace and enjoy the retirement you've worked for.

[ertyu]

Therapy is the highest ROI activity I've ever engaged, which was an accidental side effect. It allowed me to see blindspots and ask for what I wanted which has resulted in me making and keeping way more money than I spent on therapy (this was obv not my goal in therapy).

This might be off-topic to AE's journal, but the forum as a whole might benefit from a detailed post explicating this. There is a lot of negative attitude to therapy on this forum, ranging from, "it's for sissies" to "the therapists have a deliberate interest to keep you fucked up and keep you going," to "it's all navel-gazing and only makes you weaker, as a man you must ACT ACT ACT" to "well why can't you just ignore your irrational feelings" and so forth. A couple of members have shared they've benefitted from therapy but no one has gone into a lot of personal detail, possibly bc of the prevalence of the above culture. An explication of how you found therapy not just an activity that you found worthwhile engaging in *despite* ERE but also that therapy actively HELPED with ERE (wasn't heterotelic) might benefit many, including the lurkers.

fwiw, I did not read AE's deleted post but I'm +1 on "the core issues here are internal" -- externally, you seem quite on track, AE

Anyway, good luck whatever you decide. I am also a +1 on JnG's oversharing point, but then I realize many might consider -me- and oversharer, so.

What's with that anyway? Frita appears to have a similar thing. Who drummed it into yalls heads that you don't deserve space for your inner content? It's probably half-cultural, half- gender bullshit, but it's bullshit, imo.

[AxelHeyst]

. There is a lot of negative attitude to therapy on this forum…

Whoa, really? I have totally missed that kind of anti therapy perspective you're describing. I always thought the forum vibe was generally pretty pro therapy. I must be hanging out in the wrong journals.

[suomalainen]

I keep getting self-conscious I am oversharing in this journal because I will sometimes write things when I feel more depressed, and then when I feel less depressed, what I wrote feels like oversharing. This is by far one of the most frustrating things about depression--I don't know if the depressed version of me or the less depressed version of me has the "correct" view of my life or what I should be sharing with people because it changes so dramatically depending on my mood.

My take on this is that there's a struggle going on: the pain of depression vs. the pain of isolation. When you're "more depressed", you write a lot, presumably because that thing that blocks you from being vulnerable and sharing is less powerful compared to the power of the depression; it's less powerful because the pain of being depressed is more than the pain of being vulnerable. When you're "less depressed", vulnerabililty and sharing may cause [anxiety] and the pain of the depression isn't so bad anyway, so you're willing to forego the connection you apparently seek.

Whether parts vs whole or whatever is not for me to say. But what I will say is that each is you. And each is telling you something. Listen to it.

A couple of members have shared they've benefitted from therapy but no one has gone into a lot of personal detail, possibly bc of the prevalence of the above culture.

I wouldn't say "no one". Also, I dunno that I'd agree there's an anti-therapy culture here. I talk about it allatime and I don't think anyone's given me shit about it. There was this one dude who had a real hard-on for me though, and definitely thought I needed more treatment. Or to be committed.

[ertyu]

@suo, @AH: Yeah, fair point. It could be me disproportionally noticing things that rub into my raw spot / bump into the chip on my shoulder.

ETA: I think I sorted out what my deal is. This is a derail to AE's journal so let's take it elsewhere if anyone happens to want to discuss further. If not, also good.

[Frita]

Frita appears to have a similar thing. Who drummed it into yalls heads that you don't deserve space for your inner content? It's probably half-cultural, half- gender bullshit, but it's bullshit, imo.

Um, to what are you referring?

[Jean]

I have a strong anti therapy bias, but I would happily have it removed.