Staying confident
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:12 am
I'm coming up on the 9-month mark since I started trying this, and I still have almost nothing to show for it. I have one very short separation every 2 months or so; it's just enough to keep me from giving up. I keep being told that confidence is very important to the practice, but after nearly 3/4 of a year of nightly failures, it takes a toll not only on my confidence in the practice, but also in my self-esteem to some extent.
I know what I want to do in the phase. I have about 4 different plans I'd like to enact, but 9 times out of 10, I don't even wake up with the intent to try and separate. I'll just sleep through the night and wake up with my mind completely blank before it quickly turns to a song or something that happened on a video game I played recently. (I also usually don't remember my dreams.) Yes, I use the deferred method and wake up after about 6 hours of sleep, screw around for a few minutes, say something like writing in a journal or using the restroom, then go back to sleep and wake up in the morning with the above problem.
On the rare nights I do remember to separate, most of the time I quickly give up from lack of any movement or fall asleep. As stated above, I will have some movement or a very brief separation about once every 2 months, which is just enough to keep me from saying "screw it."
So now I'm starting to lose faith. I'm stubborn and breaks don't do anything more than frustrate me further. There's somebody I wish to see, many places I want to see, and many things I'd like to learn, but I can't do any of it because I'm constantly failing. So how, after nine months of disappointment, can I regain enough confidence to be able to realize my dreams and start separating more often? Outside of confidence, what could I be doing wrong? I've got all the basics pretty much memorized, and everything I can think of that might be causing problems never seems to get me anywhere.
Please, give me a little hope. I don't want to give up on this too.
I know what I want to do in the phase. I have about 4 different plans I'd like to enact, but 9 times out of 10, I don't even wake up with the intent to try and separate. I'll just sleep through the night and wake up with my mind completely blank before it quickly turns to a song or something that happened on a video game I played recently. (I also usually don't remember my dreams.) Yes, I use the deferred method and wake up after about 6 hours of sleep, screw around for a few minutes, say something like writing in a journal or using the restroom, then go back to sleep and wake up in the morning with the above problem.
On the rare nights I do remember to separate, most of the time I quickly give up from lack of any movement or fall asleep. As stated above, I will have some movement or a very brief separation about once every 2 months, which is just enough to keep me from saying "screw it."
So now I'm starting to lose faith. I'm stubborn and breaks don't do anything more than frustrate me further. There's somebody I wish to see, many places I want to see, and many things I'd like to learn, but I can't do any of it because I'm constantly failing. So how, after nine months of disappointment, can I regain enough confidence to be able to realize my dreams and start separating more often? Outside of confidence, what could I be doing wrong? I've got all the basics pretty much memorized, and everything I can think of that might be causing problems never seems to get me anywhere.
Please, give me a little hope. I don't want to give up on this too.
