My consciousness and me

My consciousness is me in fact. If I have this image that there is my consciousness and there is me, then I am separating myself from consciousness. What a trick. ‘Me’, trying to convince myself that I need to get there. 

When I realize that my emotions, thoughts, body, and ‘constructs’ are also part of me then I can start to stop this crazy fight. 

This has something to do with letting go. Or with forgiveness. Or with love.

I can acknowledge that my thoughts, emotions, body, etc. are also part of me. I don’t have to feel disgusted about them and try to get rid of them, or be angry at them, or feel ashamed of them. They are part of me. And maybe those parts of me are suffering. It can be a better idea to see them and acknowledge them – and through this acknowledgment help them to run their course.

I can feel consciousness any time

It is this inner feeling or image that is described many times as a presence, a gentle energy field, as God, as space, as some subtle joy that is in us and around us.

It is not that hard to feel it. It is my emotions, thoughts, and other ‘constructs’ that occupy my attention and sometimes I forget that this consciousness is always there. 

Does this resonate with you?

“I get lazy because if I had to be active then the pain behind my depression would be too great.”

Described in a different way: “If I had to work ( especially do things that I don’t want) I could not concentrate on keeping my pain at bay.”

How about this?: “The thought that comes is that it is just not worth it.” 

What is very telling about this thought is that while it is very logical for depression (when I am depressed I stop caring and lose motivation) this ‘insight’ usually doesn’t bring a breakthrough – I mean many of us find it true and still not a lot happens, even if we cook it for a long time. 

This is a short article, solely written for ‘Depression vs. Laziness’. If you want to read more about depression then here are some suggestions:

Why don’t I fit in the world around me?

The connection between my depression and addictions.

What is this mild sadness in me?

The cause(s) of my depression

Depression is caused by a sense of loss. I define loss as something that I lost or something that I did not get but I find I should have. 

The cause of my depression is mainly unconscious. 

I find that this is because its roots are in childhood – they started happening in childhood. I could hardly get depressed at a more mature stage if I had not been hit by a sense of loss at a stage of my personal development at a very vulnerable state. Or from another point of view: I did not have the required level of consciousness (strong enough Self) to process my sadness and depression. Why does it matter? Because it can give a clue why it is so hard to process depression. (This article does not go into how depression forms.)

‘..something that I did not get but I should have.’

When I find that I should have gotten something but I didn’t, it will have the same effect as losing something. Many times it can be much harder to connect the dots in our solution-oriented world. It takes a higher level of abstraction and one example is when one understands that the cause is her depression is that she sees how unconscious and immature her family of origin may be. 

If this resonates with you then go deeper into finding out what you are missing in your life and in the world around you. Here is a possible route for you: Why don’t I fit in the world around me?

Cause-and-effect examples

• • • Example thought #1: “I would like to get that calming and deeply good feeling that I got as a child when my mother or father came to comfort me, and helped me to get out of my state of distress.”
    • Cause: His mother could not be there for him when he got into a state of distress and it happened many times (for example, she had to take care of his siblings, or had to go to work). He was not – at that age – at a level of maturity to be able to calm himself. 
    • Effect: His nervous system got into a state of shock numerous times and could not get out of it and as a result, this shock got imprinted in him and also manifested in physical illnesses. He also developed a sense of worthlessness that manifested in low self-esteem and he go into relationships where he can replay this sense of worthlessness.

• • • Example thought/belief #2: “People do not listen to me. I wanted a lot of attention from people around me and especially from people I trust because I wanted to tell about the great discoveries I made. But people just laughed.”
    • Cause: This person grew up in a shame-bound family. Her caretakers – instead of greeting her ‘need for greatness’, ridiculed her because they had problems with their own self-esteem.
    • Effect: She developed shame.

Addictions and depression

Addictions are ways to cope with something painful in our life. Coping mechanisms,  or tools if you will. At the time they formed they served their purpose.

Depression comes with continuous pain, many times very hard to find its roots, and usually, it starts to be with us from early childhood. Understandably many of us turn to some kind of coping mechanism. Some form of addiction. 

Cause-and-effect examples

Here are the above examples complemented with the relationship to addictions.

• • • Example thought #1: “I would like to get that calming and deeply good feeling that I got as a child when my mother or father came to comfort me, and helped me to get out of my state of distress.”
    • Cause: ..lack of mother’s availability..unable calm himself alone..
    • Effect: …nervous system in a continuous state of shock, physical illnesses, sense of worthlessness, low self-esteem, toxic relationships.
    • Addiction: He became dependent on his partner (and used her as a secure base), even if it is a toxic relationship, and became a chain smoker. 

• • • Example thought/belief #2: “People do not listen to me. I wanted a lot of attention from people around me and especially from people I trust because I wanted to tell about the great discoveries I made. But people just laughed.”
    • Cause: Shame-bound family. Ridiculing, and other types of direct and indirect shaming practices.
    • Effect: She developed shame.
    • Addiction: She became a workaholic and a fitness maniac (in an effort to show her greatness), and later, her social drinking turned into alcoholism.

What to do?

• Know that it is a grief process (The root cause is depression and as such, a sense of loss.). And know that you need to go through it. 
• You need to give up your addictions. Your grief process will hardly be able to finish if you don’t. 
• Expect some level of pain (worsening of your depression) as you are grieving the things that you lost or did not get but wanted. 
• If you have some serious addiction then seek professional help. 
• Expect a kind of relief on the other side that you could not imagine. 

What NOT to do

• Exit situations that you already identified that connect you to your depression. In other words: Remove yourself from old patterns as much as possible. 
• Stop hoping that it will vanish by itself.
• Don’t judge yourself. Know that grief is hard.
• Don’t give up. Restart when you fail. 

(As the subject is huge my only goal here is to give some food for thought, and I agree with anyone who would argue that there is a lot more to the above. )

A change happens in me when I deeply and clearly see the problem I have about myself and realize that it is not true.

Let’s do it through an example: Belly shame

Although I write about it through a specific example and through imagined happenings, please focus on the abstract behavior and mindset behind it (Though I find that the example may be very relevant to most of us). 

1 – I start facing it.

I sit down, close my eyes, and start focusing on my belly. I am feeling the curves, its big size, and the discomfort it is causing me. I am looking at myself from the outside with my imagination and what I see is an ugly, chubby person. I start to feel disgusted with myself. And I start to become depressed. 

I want to escape from the emotional pain and want to give up. I have my usual escapes: I pull back my belly, start to sit up straight, and put a relaxed smile on my face – ‘I am fit and beautiful, I am fit and beautiful…’. It works for one or two minutes and then my disgust and sadness are back. Probably this is the time I should go to the fridge… or head to the gym and start starving. Not that those worked. Nor the idea that I ignore the fact that I am fat and tell myself that I am still ok. 

There is no escape, I sit back in my pain of disgust. Maybe I can take it for one or two more minutes…No, but I cannot, I pass out. I cannot take it any longer. Let me just cry. You won. I am a failure. I admit I am fat.

(what happened: You could come closer to it. You had the courage this time to face it.)

2 – I am separating from it

I am genuinely facing my emotional pain and thoughts about my belly shame. Somewhere I read that the method to start processing my pains is to ‘revisit’ them and look at them consciously. Observe it while being in it. Good that this comes to my mind just at the right moment.

So I try to look at this situation from the outside, like an observer. Sort of like there is me and there is the situation. It is happening to me but I am not it.

Holy shit!! It is working to some degree. I am starting to feel some relief. And I am able to stay in it. What I experience is that I am still feeling those curves and how big my belly is, but I am basically just looking at it. I am not saying that it is physically pleasing but somehow the emotional pain is fading. 

(what happened: You have started to rewire yourself. On all levels.)

3 – Window of additional opportunity

In addition to the above, you may experience some other things. You may consciously realize that your beliefs changed (or even that you can decide how you want them to change.). And maybe not only in connection to the given issue.

If we take the above belly shame example: While you may not like the size of your belly, you are not shame-bound to it. And you may experience that you are now less shame-bound in other areas of your life also.

Notes

• Seek professional help or someone you trust if you feel unsafe! It is important!!! Someone who can hold you emotionally as you are doing your work. Tell that person what you are doing and what help you wish to receive.
• Don’t give up if it doesn’t work ‘soon’ enough. Trust me, you will find no one who did it ‘soon’ enough.
• Experience shows that although we all dream of a sudden and everlasting release, what happens to most of us is that we are going in and out until we fully process it and integrate it. 
• Although the above outlines a specific and consciously known issue, I find that it can work the same way for problems that we are not fully conscious of. 

Am I right with my assumption that you think you are not doing anything now? Well, most probably that is not the case. In fact, you are probably very busy thinking. 

This is what may be happening. You are waiting for something to happen. Whatever it may be, if you are a bit like most of us, then you could probably not tell what you are waiting for. 

And chances are that all the thinking that you are doing in your inner world is nothing else than an attempt to figure out what exactly you should do so that the most awaited change finally happens. Be it fully unconscious or partially conscious – I mean your thoughts – the thing is that they probably arise from some conflict or contrast, and until this conflict is solved in you, you will not be ready to do a change – and so stop your waiting.

So the question boils down to: How do I resolve an internal conflict in me? Now that subject is well beyond the scope of one article but I would like to share this with you now: When change happens in my life it usually happens if one of these three things happen: (1) I get so fed up that I give up, or (2) I realize that getting something that may not be the exact thing that I want is still better than nothing, or (3) I just simply start doing something (anything) that actually triggers a change of mindset in me where I realize that this lack of movement (waiting) is in me and not in the world around me. 

I think there is this positive mindset that arises that whatever comes will be good. 

Certainly, there is very well the possibility that you are waiting for something to happen that is real and ‘outside you’. At the time of this article there are huge changes taking place, and you very well just feel that there is something to wait for.

Are you among those who change jobs frequently and you feel that it comes from some inner struggle that is not clear to you what causes it? If you may not have heard yet: It is happening to a lot of people recently.

I am listing some inner mental constructs (belief systems if you will) that may help to understand this behavior of yours.

(This article is not about the job or work environment, but about your inner relationship to your job/career. And there is any suggestion that one behavior is better than the other or if any is unhealthy. Perhaps quite the opposite.)

See what resonates with you the most.

There is a transformation taking place in me

You may be going through an awakening like a lot of other people in current times and your constant quitting of jobs is a byproduct of it.

However distant it may seem and you may not have originally come for such an explanation but consider it. (This somewhat stands out from the rest below.)  

The career/path is actually not for me

It speaks for itself, although it may not be conscious in many (most) of us that this is the core of our problem why we don’t enjoy our job. It is unfortunately common in our society today that we land in a career path that is actually not for our true nature. This is my oversimplified take on it: We ‘must’ choose way too early in life before we have the level of independence to be able to decide for ourselves. And then we carry on doing something we don’t really want and over time it solidifies more and more. 

To me, the great question here is: How do I get out of this? The circumstances work against me. Most of us (including me) who came across this will probably agree that it is tough to make the change – both from a practical/physical, and an emotional point of view. (I don’t have the silver bullet. I know from my personal life that my inner urge to change the course of my life in this regard became big enough to make changes.)

I mirror my unmet needs onto my workplace

This is about the mostly unconscious unmet needs that I carry into my workplace in an attempt to have them met. My goal with many of the articles on Self Chatter is to provide possible cause-and-effect type explanations, and since this subject is rather deep, I have put it into a separate article. See if this resonates with you with respect to job quitting?: I Have Been Waiting All My Life.

My inherent understanding of the dysfunctional and toxic nature of work life in today’s world

I find that this is becoming the main theme recently (the Pandemic was one main trigger for it). And frankly, this is truly good news. I wrote a separate article on this – The Cause Behind the Great Resignation. 

A huge amount of us are getting conscious of how toxic, inhuman, and dysfunctional our life at work is. I sincerely hope that a critical mass is building up that will trigger a positive change in how we want to work, how we want to relate to the world of work in general, and how we want to create meaning through what we call ‘work’. It will not be the old structures and systems that will suddenly want a change, but we will do it.

I don’t know what I want

It may sound a bit awkward to state something like this but there may be great deepness to it. I wrote a separate article on it here: Why don’t I know what I want?

I have a disorganized attachment style

I refer to John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and from those four Attachment Styles (Ambivalent, Avoidant, Disorganized, Secure) I find that the Disorganized Attachment Style is common among those (including me) who keep changing jobs. 

With a Disorganized Attachment Style (you can read about it more in the link above) we do not have a clear attachment pattern, we experience a confusing mix of behavior around us, and our relationship with our workplace serves both as a source of comfort and also fear.

(If you ever wondered why workplaces can be so disorganized and chaotic (even if companies pretend not to be such), well, with so many of us having some sort of dysfunctional attachment styles, what can we expect?)

Again, my oversimplified take on it: I gravitate towards workplaces where the main style of attachment is disorganized in nature (because it is ‘fa-mil-iar’ to me…). And when I get overwhelmed and fed up, I quit. If this is your main theme then the good news is that your decision to leave such a workplace means that your Self is actually healthy: You don’t want to be in a relationship that is disorganized in nature. 

I have low self-confidence

Again, it speaks for itself that it is impossible to feel good at my workplace if I do not have or cannot build a certain level of self-confidence in what I do. This is here as a possible ‘Aha’ paragraph because so many of us are blind towards ourselves regarding our self-confidence.

The bridge between a vibrant and a grey life. 

What is this mild sadness in me that is almost always here?

You probably feel it too that the word “mild” matters here. I label it mild because the world around me is telling me that it is natural, it is ok, “Everybody has this, why are you so sensitive?”, “Nothing happened! Shut up and carry on.”

I also find it mild because I can still live with it. However, this sadness is blocking me, and I just don’t know how to overcome it. I tend to think that this is mild on purpose: This way, I have a harder time figuring out how to approach it and work with it. It feels as if a cloud is walking with me to keep me in the shadows. 

If I look at this as if it were something that was put on me, and not something “I caused myself”, then I get very angry. My intuition tells me that this view is much closer to reality. This mild sadness in me isn’t ok, it isn’t natural. It isn’t something that I “made”. 

So what’s up?

I can tell myself that this mild sadness is a form of depression. That it developed due to some loss, or due to something I should have gotten, but didn’t. I can say that we are all born with the inner knowing of how much our human life is worth, and the enormous potential that is in all of us. And I will be correct. I could continue to go down the rabbit hole and work on this mild sadness with great discipline. I have done that, as most of us. It worked up to some level. 

But I say a HUGE NO this time. I say, this is spiritual bankruptcy. I say no, I am not going to play this game of trying to get out of this sadness by trying to correct myself. There is nothing to correct. I say: Leave! I see you now, I see you are doing this for your own benefit, and I don’t let you be in my yard anymore! No more talking with an intruder, masculinity in use now!  

(Please note that I am not implying that one shouldn’t work on their sadness. But I am saying that there can be another way out too.)

The strength of phrasing my problems in a short and basic way is about deeply understanding my own self.

There is zero greatness to this post, no big revelations. It’s just that the subject is important, and there is a chance you will become more effective with your inner work. 

The method

Phrasing it

It sounds obvious, but you have to phrase it to name it. Otherwise, you run the risk of just endlessly ‘walking in a mist’. This is much more important than it looks, because it is so easy to be unconscious when we are in a conflict, a great deal of anxiety, or stress. Tell yourself to phrase your problem when it appears.

Why basic?

When you are basic it is a sign that you have gone deep. Your Self is basic. In the best way possible.

Why short?

Your true self hardly phrases thoughts and emotions in 30-word sentences. When your phrasing is short enough, it usually means that you have cooked it well.

Resonate

Go with what resonates with you. Your thought about your problem is only yours; no one else needs to understand it. And no one else needs to resonate with it. What matters is that it is true to you.

Change it as your understanding develops

It is a very good sign if you change it. It means that you are deepening your understanding. And you may change it back to a previous one; and that is all okay too.  

Have discipline

Phrasing your problems in a short and basic way will actually help in having discipline. It is less energy up front, and gives enough punch to get to the next step. 

An example

“Why don’t I get what I want?”

• It is short.
• It is basic.
• (It does resonate with me. There is much more to it for me than what meets the eye.)

Let me talk about the “strange” ideas first. I have thoughts like “I will only be happy when I get rich.”, “I must be super sexy and then I will be happy.”, “Happiness is all about self-confidence. And I don’t have enough of it.”
I realize that the problem is that I am “conditioned” to comply. How is it possible? Why would I let it happen?

This is one key to understanding: I am taught to think that there is something wrong with me and I don’t have enough of good things – I could summarize my general state of mind with this belief: I need something.

One other possible key to understanding: Ok, I get it that I am conditioned to think that “I need more”. Now that I know, how is possible that I cannot change this belief of mine? It doesn’t seem to make sense and looks like an unsolvable paradox. One probable answer: Hidden trauma. Trauma works in a way that it blocks the thoughts, emotions, and ultimately the mind to make sense of what happened and it creates logic (thoughts) as a defense mechanism – in this case: “I need something to overcome my lack.” (“Look how happy the other person is by having a brand new car. This will be the solution”).

I want to think differently about this.

I want to realize that happiness for me is much more about being a person in balance, seeing my rich inner world, being able to let my True Self guide me, working on having healthy relationships with others, and so on.

Actually, I don’t need to tell myself what I want this way. It sounds a bit like some kind of order to myself and another cliche. Rather my job is to find out what is causing my painful feelings, what is blocking me. Once this part gets better my ideas for a happier life will unfold naturally.