I had a very helpful conversation with Rags over the weekend, which helped me come out of my social withdrawal a lot.
I am bad at expressing myself, and over this year, learned that to those who are close to me, seldom do they actually know what is really going on in my life.
Due to this, and social withdrawal, some negative social feedback, and just honestly not having the level of social skills & awareness I'd need to be my full best yet, I recognise I've been making some mistakes and I take full ownership of them.
I was able to understand, that I can serve, and can be effective, and I am sure there is a me who exists in a few months, who is a more harmonious person, who is able to have far better group relational ability.
What helped, was being understood, expressing how I think, feel, and being able to give contextual, full, big picture expression of what I worked on/went through this year, to someone who understands the context well (Rags) and is far more socially adept than myself.
I take ownership of my flaws, and I am working on them.
My needs:
-A core need to serve. A core need to help & produce value. It pains me in the core of my soul that sometimes my current level of communication, prevents me from being the leader I know I can be. I've been a leader in different settings, professionally and in my personal groups, and I have been given good feedback, and people have told me I have added value to their lives. Rags gave me some positive feedback here also and let me know, a trip he went on with another one of our friends, Arcade_Fire, was in part due to my fulfilling my core need of service & adding value. I believe I have added value to others, and for those who have been around me, I believe it was a net-good.
-A core need to solve problems. This one drives me and is something that is extremely important to me as a person. Not being able to work on these problems, and help move them in the right direction, causes me a lot of negative emotions - anger at myself for not being effective at my missions in life, and then, anger at the world and civlisation. I channel my energy of my life into constructive focus and engaging with the issues I care about, in a meaningful way, and taking personal responsibility and ownership - being the change I want to see. Making change. Creating things. Being a man on his purpose.
-A core need to live my values. (A) I must speak my truth and orient others towards the correct pieces of the puzzle, for them to put together themselves. I take great satisfaction that after a long hunt, some people, due to me, were able to find tools that actually helped them, due to my speaking about them, they did their own research, and made progress. I am very proud about this. (B)
I truly despise the problems of loneliness, the incel problem, anxiety, depression, childhood abuse, trauma, health destruction,
I hold some unhealthy hate in my heart against abusive individuals and in part dedicate my brain power and energy to fighting back against them, by creating resources & tools that allow those who seek help, to fight back against those who tread on other human beings. I despise social systems that remove individual agency and autonomy, as well as individuals who impose themselves on others. I recognise my own communication skills and relational ability, and self-awareness, reflection, and ability to express myself, was shut down for a long time due to a bad life (severe mental & physical illness for about 5 years), but having worked on it for years, with full focus, I recognise the progress I've made.
-Safe Space & Community: One person alone, is easy to beat. A community of action takers, is a movement that empowers the individual, with acceptance, and the ability to gain strength through skills, knowledge, and ongoing support, reassurance, and creation of an autonomous individual who is able to be a leader, and live their core values positively. I am really proud that guys from the forums, meet up. I am really proud they had a house together. These things, made me feel really good about the years of posting here and make me proud that I stuck with the project when no one was posting for months and I just powered through and did not give up. Now, a few guys post. I hope I can grow CMU a tonne and bring good guys in, who will add value, and allow us all to thrive and succeed in our lives.
This is VERY IMPORTANT to me as a human being, and a core drive/need I have, and why I at times have felt quite defensive when people have given me negative feedback on the forums. But Rags helped me understand this from the other persons perspective, which helped 95% of my confusion/sense of disconnection go away:
"I must reorganize the environment of man by which then greater numbers of men can prosper." — Bucky Fuller (1965)
I learned a lot from Buckminster Fuller on systems thinking, philosophy of design, and how to fix problems via systems - how to use technologies to support human advancement, and thwart human ill & destruction. Orienting this way, makes logical sense to me, and I can't justify using my time on things which do not add to the net-good.
Which is why I don't watch TV or use social media, other than to express my own ideas.
Some of this, actually comes from the anger I hold at how many issues I had to fix in my life, and how this made my life a lot harder than it needed to be. And yet, this ignited the fire of other-worldly, outlier-level determination, persistence, dedication and just down-right grit. So, I will use those characteristics I developed in life (I built them through intention, repetition, and self-talk over years, convincing myself I can achieve anything I want in my life if I work hard enough at my goals).
I have a lot of areas for development, around social awareness, and inability to understand other human beings. I had a very weird upbringing and had to learn a lot of how top be human. I do also recognise I have a tendency to push others away, when I feel they have not understood me. This at it's root, in my opinion, is happening to me at this time, just due to how complex inner work is. I have about 50,000 different changes going on within myself, and don't have the mental bandwidth to also upgrade my relational ability, empathy, understanding, and frankly, learn how to deal with group & social situations better.
Rags explained a few mistakes I have made, and I understood them. I do not feel shame at making these mistakes, due to me not understanding the situation and how to deal with it in a healthy way, vs how I did it, and the impact this has on others around me.
I take ownership of all my flaws, and live my own core values daily with integrity:
-Commitment & dedication: I do what I say. I said I would focus on inner game this year, so didn't market my business (I made some content when bored but otherwise mostly studied, improved my thinking, and worked hardcore to the bone on myself). I said I would go teetotal, and did it. I said I would rejoin my groups in Jan 1st, and will do it.
I am not perfect, but I try incredibly, incredibly hard to do what I said I will do. That is why many people in my life did trust me. And I did the right thing.
-Community: This is VERY important to me. I am really upset and still grieving about how lonely and isolated I was for years. I suffered a lot as a human being due to this. One of my goals when I started self-improvement was to build a social circle of great, supportive, interesting, vibrant and action-taking, highly aspirational self-improvers. I was able to do this! In addition, I wanted to create communities, where people can come and find deep community and connection.
I have tried so, so, so hard for many years to keep this community going because I believe in community, it helped me massively change as a guy, and I feel shame, guilt, and sadness at my flaws and ways in which I have made social mistakes that may have not served other people here, made them at times feel unwelcome, and there is no excuse for this.
Due to now having been able to get proper feedback, from someone who understood the context, I can see, process, and work on being better.
It is really important for me, as a guy, to be heard, understood, and for myself to express the truth that is in my mind and what I am going through, and this is how I relate to others. If they understand me, it helps me be open and to also understand them, and this allows the relationship to move forward and for me to not be defensive, closed off, and learn the things I need to learn. I recognise I have relational wounds, trust issues, core fears of being seen as a bad human being, among other slightly irrational fears in relation to perception of me.
I cannot tell you how much work I've put into myself this year. Hours, daily. Good lord I can't even summarise it.
I have a way to go.
But, I am progressing, and many of my relationships show green shoots. My brother offered to trim my beard and line it up yesterday, something he's never asked before, because I suppose he never felt comfortable. This, is great!
I take full responsibility for my betterment, and will keep trying daily to be a better person. I feel a lot of guilt and shame at the people I've pushed away over the years. I don't judge myself too harshly because I know how challenging this year was:
-Childhood trauma discovery & various healing crisis / flashbacks
-C-PTSD diagnosis, and ongoing work on healing - has been months since I've had a deep C-PTSD meltdown
-Social withdrawal, due to me becoming overwhelmed by my inner game year and how much time, effort, and sheer freakin elbow grease you have to put into this. My good lord it can be so much.
-Group relational issues: I began to feel as if my friends were not listening to me, didn't understand me as a person, and I really struggled to understand them and relate to them at times also. This meant I was getting shut down internally, and didn't have the self-esteem, self-awareness, or communication skills to express what I needed. Granted, I didn't know what was happening within me, my inner game year was not exactly by choice, it was by necessity....
I have learned, that I do have a deeper need for others to understand me, how I think, how I see things, and have a need for empathy, compassion, and to feel heard.
I can see I can be prickly, thorny, and defensive, when I don't feel I have been understood or listened to.
This, I am working on, by finding healthier ways to relate to others, and learning to communicate, express, and share my own feelings and experience, with others in a constructive manner.
As I am working on this, I want to keep my community project (this forum) going and I think in order to be the best spiritual-servant (my leadership style) I can be, I will make efforts to:
-Not post on the wider forums, apart from the 2 threads I have created where I am able to express my ideas on health, performance, achievement, and human change. I am glad you guys let me post my ideas and share my thoughts, this helps me a lot and has helped me heal a lot as a person. These threads are MAC's Performance Thread & CMU Podcast.
-Not share my opinions/thoughts, in other logs. My relational ability, social processing, and empathy/awareness, as well as communication, deeper social understanding, isn't where it needs to be yet. I am not suggesting I am an utterly hopeless incompetent. I am, however, suggesting that I endeavor to be world class in anything I do. (1) Performance Coaching, (2) Men's Work, (3) Community Development. I do not do any of this, to lose. I do it to be effective in my missions and become a legendary human, who adds real, true value to the world and brighthens the lives of the human animal. I understand this comes from a slightly dark place of a need for "revenge", as an ultimate "fuck you", an ultimate, "I came from hell itself, and still became a good person, I succeeded despite the odds, because I cannot be stopped as a human being". This, is probably not healthy and needs to be processed, healed, and my bad past, could instead be seen as the growth opportunity that created a better human being, who is doing good work in this world and making it better in some small sense. This, is a long, convoluted way of me saying, I see my own flaws and issues, and am working on them, sincerely, and take ownership of this - I will become better, and serve through living my core values.
As you can see, all of this is complex, and hard to work through. I am grappling with a lot. And just need time to reflect and understand myself, far better.
It is best done, in a safe and trusted space, with other humans who I can learn to relate to. This, is likely going to be when I return to my groups, and not on the forums.
I am not ready to be the best leader I can be for the forums yet.
I trust the other mods, and I trust the other guys in the community who are regulars - I will not post on the wider forums, just moderate & make sure no rules being broken.
I am going to post on my threads, and I think as I improve, and my relational ability comes back, and the defensiveness/social fears of rejection I've developed this year go down, I will feel more connected, and better able to come on here and be effective.
That, isn't now. I need to do more inner game work on myself, do more wound reduction (there are 50,000 other things I am working on right now, believe me, my inner world is complex).
I wanted to share this, because I am trying my best to be successful and effective at my missions and core values, but I am also in need of compassion, empathy, and some understanding in the areas I have for development. I am working on myself, and I feel like I am progressing towards becoming the person I want to be, more each month.
Thanks for hearing me out, it really means a lot to me.
-Ravi
