Is this it? / Free Burritos
Is this it? / Free Burritos
an existential chat with Jenn Cole
Over the last month, I’ve been going through an extended emotional low. My mind has been coming up with all kinds of reasons for why I’m feeling this way. It’s been trying to cook up all sorts of creative strategies to try and get myself out of it.
“if only I had a job…”
“if only I had more friends….”
“If only I could have more exciting experiences…”
“If only my life could be more like someone else’s…”
Then everything would be better and these uncomfortable emotions would go away.
My mind loves to suffer. It loves a personal sob story. For the last few weeks, certain mental patterns have been resurfacing — I’ve been trying to push the river again, trying to coax myself into initiating my way out of this. All it’s really done is prolong this emotional low by avoiding feeling the pain of what’s underneath. Sometimes you just need to have a moment where you cry and yell at the sky “this isn’t fucking fair!” And then it passes. Life goes on.
Only recently have I woken up from this slumber of feeling confused, anxious, tense, and overwhelmed. I also realized how much of this was my mind in hope transference — of feeling both hopeless but also “hoping” that if I took action on XYZ, it would fix everything. For me, transference is when my thinking becomes distorted — a kind of desperation takes over my mind. I don’t notice when I’m in my “guilt” motivation because it just feels like mental clarity. It’s an ability to see life as it’s happening without resisting it, which is the true role of the mind.
Being in transference isn’t a bad thing. Although sometimes it can distort the purity of an emotional low. It’s one of the most difficult things about having emotional authority — how to not create unnecessary suffering through attaching mental stories to emotions. Emotional lows can be painful and intensely physical. But suffering belongs to the realm of mind alone.
Coming Out of the Fog
the mind suffers.
my mind wants to suffer,
is addicted to suffering.
bodies can feel pain.
they can feel discomfort
or unpleasant physical sensations.
they can be threatened by immediate dangers of survival.
but suffering belongs to the realm of the mind.
it begins the moment you assign a story to anything.
suffering is when you subjectively measure yourself — or your life — as “good” or “bad”, “better’ or “worse”
as if there is something you need to improve.
as if there is something you need to fix.
there is nothing to do.
there is nothing to become.
you cannot control the maia.
you cannot manipulate the outcome as much as your mind would have you believe.
you can navigate the illusion as yourself.
that’s about it.
the belief it’s “all up to me” inhibits me from seeing:
it’s just ‘a’ life.
not a better life,
not a worse life,
just the life that’s happening right now.
isn’t that interesting?
personalizing your suffering
only hurts yourself.
It was very useful these last few weeks to have the experience of trying to make things happen again, of trying to somewhat ditch S&A (again). I got to witness the resistance in my body and in certain interactions on a subtle level. I got to watch how fatigued I felt when my mind was just *thinking* about making decisions, even if they didn’t manifest in reality.
I think you reach a point of sensitivity where even if you want to initiate and “go against” your mechanics, the body just won’t let you. And it isn’t a matter of trying to live your design perfectly — you just become more comfortable in your skin. It’s a cellular process you can’t unlearn (nor “do wrong”.) You eventually have enough tangible evidence of what flow feels like; it just doesn’t feel good to try control things anymore.
Jenn Cole, a close friend and neighbor, and I were hanging out in a cafe in town when our conversation turned pretty existential. We got real about the heaviness of being in the experiment and “the burden of awareness.” She even quoted back to me a meme I had made some years ago I completely forgot about.
It’s not to say the experiment is always dark, nihilistic, and depressing. And thankfully, I am mostly past this phase. But it’s something I come up against often in the midst of these prolonged emotional lows — is this it? Is this really as good as my life gets? The truth is I don’t know. I know there is a lot less resistance in my life. I know there is a lot more ease within my body. I know by all means, my life is objectively easier and less stressful than it’s ever been.
But the mind wants to create problems out of nothing because it needs something to do. For most of history, the bulk of our daily lives — and mental bandwidth — were solely concerned with survival. For a large swathe of humanity, this isn’t the case anymore. New problems fill those shoes. Hence, existential questions and crises emerge.
You're only here to be here.
Why do you need a reason?
You think you're here to be happy?
Are you crazy?
You think you can be in the Maya and be happy all the time?
Are you nuts?
The only people that can be happy in the Maya all the time are lobotomized.
- Ra Uru Hu
Life is seasonal. Human Design hasn’t changed that. What I’ve been searching for all these years is how to be okay with myself, how to be content with who I am and my life. The lie we’ve been sold is that it only happens under certain conditions. In some respects, not much has changed over the last four years. My outside circumstances might have changed. But I still am me. I still have these moments — or months — when my mind yearns for something else and wishes things could be different.
The only difference is I’m aware of it now. I don’t trust every story my mind tells me just because it’s built a convincing case. I trust life. I trust my authority. I know everything looks different depending on the filter of my emotional wave. I know when I am in a state of overwhelm — when the anxiety and pressure is at it’s loudest — this is the time to pause.
After I cried in the cafe to Jenn and felt some of the veiled heaviness lift, we went home and recorded this conversation. This was originally recorded for Jenn’s Patreon, but I also wanted to share it with those of you here. We will be recording more conversations in the future which will likely be re-shared behind the paywall.
Jenn is a 4/6 Splenic Projector with Desire Motivation on the RAX of Service. She is designed to Intuit (10-57), Transmit (44-26), Structure (43-23), and Judge (18-58) through guiding, correcting, and empowering the Collective. Here she shares her sharp, freaky-genius insights into the burden of awareness and her near 7 years of being in the experiment.
Oh yeah, I never explained the free burritos part. As we were having this deep existential chat, the cashier announced to everyone she had leftover pastries and burritos to get rid of before closing for the day. We couldn’t help but laugh because here we were complaining about how shit life can feel and then the Universe gifts us free burritos. Okay, okay, we get it. Life ain’t so bad.
We cover:
my recent emotional low and (recurring) crisis about getting a job
existential questions such as: as this really as good it gets?
living as yourself and abandoning “the plan” / all “planning”
dealing with boredom, melancholy, depression
the throat pressure to initiate and manifest
increased sensitivity to “resistance”
Projectors and deconditioning around work
the not-self attachment to material / immaterial validation
free burritos as an omen from The Universe
hope you enjoy and get something out of it <3
This conversation was inspiring to listen to. I found myself nodding my head “yep yep” almost the entire time and it helped bring me into that “space” where I *know* all of this and know it all makes sense. Then after the mind comes in and causes havoc. BUT knowing we are experiencing this together makes a huge difference to my experience. I am not alone and that is so comforting. Thank you both.
Enjoyed your convo!