Beating up the blackhole effect

[seeker5]

I went through another big swing in my moods (happiness and then deep gloom and doom cycle and back to feeling fine). I thought I'd write it out to help analyze what happens so I can better learn to deal with it. I got out of the deep gloom and doom stage tonight. After I got out of it, I was feeling so....incredibly combative that I couldn't help but want to beat the hell out of this gloom and doom. I just saw this blackhole effect as if it was this person and I was beating the hell out of it. I could see its face all beat up, with scars and blood coming out from my punches it. I'm not sure if that was healthy, but I felt better knowing I was going to work on beating it out of my life. .

So, that's one of my big goals now, to stop falling into these destructive hopeless pits that I call blackholes. I don't really know how a life feel like when you stay generally happy and well adjusted, but I'm aiming for that.

What basically happened this time is I got lazy this weekend, and didn't feel like doing the things I felt I wanted to do. I also felt quite tired and didn't feel I had much energy. So I distracted myself by playing games on the computer, reading news, browsing this forum, etc. After doing that for a day, that's when the doom and gloom and hopeless feeling started.

I know Steve said I should aim to create genuine value for others for several hours a day, however, last week with school starting, I really wasn't able to do any of that. My whole focus was on starting school and doing everything I needed to do that. I do want to aim to create genuine value for others regularly though so it will help.

I think somehow I also need to disconnect feeling lazy with eventually feeling gloomy, hopeless and doom. Or a way to get me out of feeling lazy. Or have so many exciting projects that I can switch from one to the other. Or what...? So many people get lazy for a day or two, and have no problem just picking up and moving on. I don't see why I can't get lazy for a day or two and pick myself up without having to fall down into feeling completely hopeless and very doomy and gloomy. There has to be solutions to this problem that I can implement. Damnit.

I wanted to write a lot more analysis of what happened, but I'm feeling so sleepy now it's not coming out. I'm going to go ahead and start this thread though and maybe I can get some input. I know the best time to start such a thread is the evening I overcome my blackhole so I'm posting this now.

[Holistic Star]

Hey, I had a lazy weekend too.

What were you told about being lazy as a child?

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Hey, I had a lazy weekend too.

What were you told about being lazy as a child?

Hmmmm. My father had a saying though, that was drilled into me a lot. It's "Everything is earned". That is, you have to work for everything, with the implication that nothing will come to you unless you work for it and earned it full and square. Maybe I should work on changing that belief.

I still spent a lot of time being lazy as a child though.

Edit: Holi, I think that's a great idea for me to explore all the associations I have with laziness. I'll do that tomorrow. I probably have a lot of negative association with it.

[Aleksander Krstic]

I say you face your fears so you can become more emotionally resilient. Like today I was scared like I haven't been in about a year, yet it didn't affect me that much as it did years ago.

[Holistic Star]

What does is mean about you if you are lazy? What do you tell yourself?

What do you define as being lazy? Are you expecting yourself to be productive all the time?

[seeker5]

I decided to go ahead and do this exercise before going to bed.

What does is mean about you if you are lazy? What do you tell yourself?

Lazyness is death. If you get lazy, you can't get out of it and you'll die.

Lazy people die and lose everything. Lazy people get conquered by the non-lazy people. You see that in history all the time, those who trained constantly to fight would conquer and enslave those who didn't.

I see that part of my thought-pattern Friday when I had a lot of things I wanted to do (and only managed to get 1/3rd done) that went like "I have to do this this weekend or else I'm doomed!". All it was was preparation for school, getting all of my school stuff organized and start working on some school assignements. I dunno, it felt very important that I do it. I ended not doing it, I went to class without turning in my assignement and it was no big deal. I'll have many assignments so not turning one in is only a very small point off, but it felt at the time very important, very crucial that I get it done at the time.

What do you define as being lazy? Are you expecting yourself to be productive all the time?"

Lazyness: as doing something that doesn't move me toward my most important goals, or toward maintenance of life stuff. Yeah, I do expect to be productive at all time when I'm by myself. I know that's not realistic or normal, but I do expect that. When I think about achieving, I automatically think of myself working all the time. It's only lately I've realized that's not right (as I wrote in the thread Successfull people work like crazy), but it's still a natural pull to view achievement in that sense.

Despite this definition, I'm by far one of the laziest person I know in Vegas. (I'm sure some homeless people are lazier, but I don't know any homeless people personally).

Hmmmmmmmm. Interesting. Thanks for the questions. Definitely got bad beliefs about laziness that should probably be challenged and changed.

I think I'm going to view this project of removing my Blackhole effect as writing a computer program, as I used to do. You may have a bunch of bugs in the code that affects the program and make it crash. So you hunt for bad code or bugs in the code. Each time you fix a bug, you run the program and see if it works properly. If it doesn't, you test for more bugs to fix. You do that until the code works properly. So, I'll do that here. I'll keep looking for bugs to fix until I can get the program to run without crashing . I may fix some bugs (for example, seems that some of my laziness beliefs are buggy and up for an update) and if the program crashes again, I'll go back to looking for more bugs over and over and over until eventually the program doesn't crash anymore .

[Holistic Star]

Have you been up all night?!!!

Well sleep on it. I like your idea of fixing buggy code.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Lazyness is death. If you get lazy, you can't get out of it and you'll die.

Lazy people die and lose everything. Lazy people get conquered by the non-lazy people. You see that in history all the time, those who trained constantly to fight would conquer and enslave those who didn't.

Wow, Seeker5, this belief alone looks like the trigger for going into the black hole.

Have you done The Work on it yet?

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Have you been up all night?!!!

Yeah I was. I normally still stay up late, but not this late!

Originally Posted by Angela

Wow, Seeker5, this belief alone looks like the trigger for going into the black hole.

Yeah I came to that realization too. I realized last night (or rather this morning ) as I was falling asleep that when I combined that belief with the belief "Everything is Earned" that if I'm lazy, then I "earned" the being "conquered and beaten up". So I realized that I then carry out that beating systematically to myself through a variety of harmful ways and thoughts.

Have you done The Work on it yet?

No, but I'll try it later on today. Having done The Work countless times though, I feel tell I may have some trouble with it (whereas for most of the time, The Works goes over smoothly). I really feel this is true, that when you look at history, it is the people who were the hard-working people in terms of training to fight that conquered and enslave all those who were lazy and didn't spend as much time training to fight. I've read a bunch of history and I'm a history bluff so I could bring up a lot of examples to back it up. So....any advice?

[Angela]

Yeah, you can find evidence for any belief if you're attached enough to it. It sounds like your unconscious mind doesn't feel safe yet about letting go of the belief "laziness equals death and slavery." That's fine -- your unconscious mind's prime directive is keeping you alive, so thank it!

You know, you could say that "life = death," too. Pretty much anything you do, you're still gonna die someday. So "everything you do = death." Right? Maybe you are choosing to believe that laziness, in particular, hastens death and makes it more imminent, like jumping off a skyscraper? Well, I know a lot of very old, very lazy people, don't you? None of whom are slaves -- in fact, I'd have to say they may be the most FREE people I know. So, I can find lots of evidence that "laziness = death and slavery" is NOT true, too.

So, can you really know for certain that it's true?

p.s... I checked the clock when I started writing this, and it was 11:11.

[Lauxa]

seeker5,

I just wanted to share that with my new mantra I have seen a massive shift away from lazyness and towards willingness. I had a similar cycle as you where I would feel very lazy, then depressed, then angry and aggressive. I've been working this mantra for about 2 months now, and haven't had a low period that lasted for more than a few hours since I started, which is definitely a new personal record. My new mantra is "Everywhere I look I see wonderful things."

Well, I am channeling a little song around this mantra, here's a verse:

Each place that I look wonderful things appear,
They buoy my spirits, they fill me with cheer,
Where do they all come from? The source is not clear,
But everywhere I look I see wonderful things!
And it is enough to see wonderful things!

Of course I still need to rest sometimes, still take some time for idle distractions, but when I am done I go back to my mantra and it is not long before I am manifesting more wonderful things.

I also started doing aerobic exercise about 5 times a week around the same time, scientific studies show that this boosts the "executive function" of the brain that is responsible for goal-directed behavior.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Angela

Yeah, you can find evidence for any belief if you're attached enough to it. It sounds like your unconscious mind doesn't feel safe yet about letting go of the belief "laziness equals death and slavery." That's fine -- your unconscious mind's prime directive is keeping you alive, so thank it!

Yeah, I feel like I have this tight grip on that belief, that that belief is very important to my wellbeing. The thought of letting go of this beliefs runs up fear, like a claw grasping on me. This seems so different then all the other personal belief that I've handled with The Works.

You know, you could say that "life = death," too. Pretty much anything you do, you're still gonna die someday. So "everything you do = death." Right? Maybe you are choosing to believe that laziness, in particular, hastens death and makes it more imminent, like jumping off a skyscraper? Well, I know a lot of very old, very lazy people, don't you? None of whom are slaves -- in fact, I'd have to say they may be the most FREE people I know. So, I can find lots of evidence that "laziness = death and slavery" is NOT true, too.

Well, I think I'm much more scared of the "conquered" and "beaten down" part than the death part. If I die, so be it, I don't have to live with it. But the conquered, beaten down part is the scary part, as I have to live with that. I don't do crazy things like jumping off tall buildings because I don't want to end up mained and cripple.

Hmmm. I only know a very few old and lazy people. Those that are lazy and old worked their entire life to get to where they are so they get to take a break. Not to mention, it's not like they are trying to accomplish anything anyway except wait until they die.

So, can you really know for certain that it's true?

I suppose logically I know the answer is no, I can't be certain. But ugh, this huge part of me says it's absolutely true. Maybe I can go look for evidence that it's not true.

p.s... I checked the clock when I started writing this, and it was 11:11.

Awesome . I love it when I write something on this forum and then I see a 11:11 too .

[Angela]

For purposes of doing The Work it's not necessary for you to be able to answer "No" to the first two questions. You can believe it's absolutely true and go ahead and do the rest of The Work anyway. I think it will still provide some value for you, by helping you move more freely among perspectives.

Don't worry, when you're done, you can have your old perspective back if you want it.

I think the freedom comes not so much in giving up your beliefs, but in developing flexibility in your thinking. There's a lot that comes with looking at old beliefs from new perspectives.

[seeker5]

@Lauxa: Thanks for sharing that, that mantra is beautiful .

I normally do aerobic exercises for 30 minutes almost every day....except when I get into black holes. Then I do no exercise, it's like I go into self-destruct sequence.

@Angela: OK! I think you're right. I'll do the Works on that belief tonight when I come back home. Thanks, I appreciate your input in this thread .

[seeker5]

Ok, I started working on The works.

I started on the belief "Lazy People die and lose everything".

I did the question of "How do I react when I think this thought?", and really got down on all this was costing me. Really enlightening. Did the "Who would I be without this thought?", and it felt great. It felt like I could be much more free to be myself, and to enjoy a much more stable life. I could give myself permission to be lazy for a while, and I wouldn't feel so much intense pressure when I'm productive among many other benefits.

However, I got stuck at the turn-around. Didn't come up with a turn-around that I felt was true. After a little while, I thought maybe I should redefine what lazy people means, but I got stuck there too for now.

I'm going to sleep now, and hope I come up with some answers when I wake up.

I know the turn-around are the most important part of this exercise, as it's usually in the turn-around that I'm able to shake off the belief.

Any suggestions/input?

[Angela]

How about "Lazy people live and lose nothing"?

Can you see the truth in that?

Also: "ALL people die and lose everything." There's truth in there, too, isn't there?

Then change the people to "I" and see what happens.

[Holistic Star]

Hey great start! I thought you said you were lazy

How about:
Lazy people live and gain everything or
Lazy people don't die and lose everything


Are you also going to have to do the work on statements like

Being productive means I have to be productive at all times? and
I shouldn't be so lazy
I'm one of the laziest people I know.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Angela

How about "Lazy people live and lose nothing"?

Can you see the truth in that?

Also: "ALL people die and lose everything." There's truth in there, too, isn't there?

Yeah, you're right. I can see the truth in both of these. Thanks. I worked through those today.

I also realized the statement I made about lazy people being conquered by the non-lazy people may have been true for thousands of years, but not anymore. We don't physically conquer each other anymore, at least, not where I live. I don't have to worry about a horde of Mongols coming down and killing and enslaving everyone in my city because I was lazy.

Then change the people to "I" and see what happens.

Ok, I'll do that tonight.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Lazy people live and gain everything or
Lazy people don't die and lose everything

Thanks for the suggestions .

Are you also going to have to do the work on statements like

Being productive means I have to be productive at all times? and
I shouldn't be so lazy
I'm one of the laziest people I know.

Good idea. Yeah, I think I need to run through the gamut of all of these beliefs so I can really expunge these disempowering beliefs out.

It's awesome getting a glimpse of feeling that I can be lazy without having to beat myself up over it . Gives me a feeling of more freedom, and I suspect I can bounce back from being lazy for a day or two much much easier then I currently do now.

[Angela]

Just one thing... if you ever spend the night at Steve's house, and you decide to have a lazy morning lie-in, lock the door from the inside.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Angela

Just one thing... if you ever spend the night at Steve's house, and you decide to have a lazy morning lie-in, lock the door from the inside.

I didn't understand at first what you meant so I let it be. A few hours later I went back to read what you wrote, and it dawned on me and I LOL. .

[seeker5]

Ok, I spent a few hours tonight at the library working on these lazy beliefs. It was quite eye-opening and very interesting.

I especially love this turnaround: Lazyness is life. If you get lazy, you can get out of it and return to life.

I did The Works on the personal beliefs that Holi suggested too.

I'm feeling a surge of energy, I feel more free now which is awesome. I want to do so much, but I think it's more of I connect with so much I want to do rather than feeling pushed to have to do all of those things or else bad things happen. The great thing is I've got a four day weekend now ahead of me so I can see how well I get to do all those things I really really would love to get done. .

Doing The Works on this is quite different than what I normally use The Works. I normally use it to change the stimulus from an outside event that causes a negative reaction in me. This time, I was using it to change a negative reaction due to an inner stimulus. I also sought to question global beliefs I had about the nature of the world, rather than beliefs I had about how someone else should behave and act. Normally I can test right away if it works by going right to the outside person/event and see how I feel. However, since this is an inner stimulus, I kind of have to wait until I get lazy again to make sure I've got all the kinks out. I'm a little apprenhensive about it, we'll see. I kind of feel 75-80% that I've got all the bad beliefs about laziness, but there's still some still mucking around there.

I also made some important distinctions about lazy people. There seems to be two main types of laziness. First, there is the laziness from someone who doesn't connect with anything and distracts himself by connecting with things he doesn't want to connect with, but which are easier to handle than other things. This could be watching TV, etc. That type of laziness in the short term can be beneficial to recharge energy, but in the long term it kind of messes with the mind. Then there is the laziness that comes from refusing to connect with things one doesn't' connect with and only connecting with things that one connects with. That type of laziness is good and healthy in the sense that one is constantly seeking to connect with things that truly matter. If we had more people of the second type of laziness, then we may have less wars, less corporations creating products that destroy the environment, less junk food out there, a much better society, etc.

So in a way we do need more lazy people in the world, people who disconnect from the things they don't connect with and instead go out and embrace full-hearted the things they connect with.