Pyrite: Eye of the storm?

[Pyrite]

Overall very encouraging thank-you. possibly more so because it is not pointedly encouraging.

There's more, but these are good concepts to embrace. At first it will be very painstaking and deliberate. Eventually it will become habitual. And then concepts that you will start to learn over the next weeks will become your next "deliberate work". Then they'll become habitual. Pretty soon things that would rock your world, tweak you out, and threaten you today...they just won't hit you the same way. And that creates a positive cycle, because as you feel less threatened and wounded, it will make this type of growth even easier as you'll be in your own way less and less.

I am pleasantly surprised how this deliberate action to change my habitual attitudes has already had such a huge impact. Notably detaching. And it hasn't been at all like I dreaded it to be, like self lobotomising. I am cautiously looking forward to applying this "mission statement" approach with my wife. I have consciously been treating/communicating differently with colleagues, friends etc, and it has been fruitful. maybe just in my head.it is hard to say whether their reaction has been different or my interpretation of their reaction has been different - BUT my re-reaction has certainly been different.

I am "excited" that I am for the first time feeling like I am in control here and not the rest of the world. this may be another aspect behind my controlling behaviour. I always felt boxed in and so i lashed out an tried to control something else, rather than try to control me.

i am going to stick with this for a while. i dont think i can add on other stuff, and self care stuff - it all sounds to hard. and as you say, when this becomes habitual.... move on to the next step.

Ironically i have spent my whole life in my head, and absolutely driven myself, but what i can see now is that it was different. I have meditated to different degrees off and on since i was a child and i thought i was self-aware and could review myself objectively, and perhaps I can, BUT i have resized that I stopped short of really controlling myself objectively. I have put this in the same basket as self lobotomising. my objection to hardcore Buddhism as well. That suffering is a result of desire, passion etc - so eliminate desire, passion. this has always seemed abhorrent to me. Desire and passion are what make life worth living. But now i am starting to FEEL that it doesn't really mean this. I can't really put it into words - but I feel like it is not diminishing desire and passion to direct those feelings, or control them. you simply dont waste them. like controlling yourself and your judgemental behaviour etc. its not eliminating you, its pointing you in the right direction.

all of those "annoying" (not really annoying but you know what i mean) self-help quotes that can automatically pop-up everyday you launch an app or something - they seem to have new meaning. "you are in control of you .....".

it is empowering to feel this way, that i can choose i want to be. i am in no way there yet, but i can see a future.

i only wsth that my darling W could come with me. Still, that COULD happen, we just dont know

Good luck with finding that special lady Z. She's in for a real treat.