 Guys great to have you here with me again. We're going to talk about procrastination and How the the ego or the separated self uses a concept for instance like productivity to Get us caught up in this trap of procrastination. That is so difficult and painful for us Now we're going to get into it here I'm going to show you exactly why a concept like productivity will lead to problems like this. I'm going to show you the metaphysics The dynamics that take play With the ego guys the ego is a device. It's a it's a thought system and Whatever concept goes into that we end up paying a price for Identifying with it or using that concept within the ego itself and that's a little bit abstract but I'm going to really map it out here very very slowly the first thing I'm going to show you here is this and it's This whole idea and I'm referring to it as ego algorithms So it's almost to show whatever concept I'm holding It becomes almost predictable. What will happen with that afterwards if the mindset I'm in is of the ego or you could say of the separated self or you could also say a thing I like to refer to or to say sometimes about this is the mind that which is carrying unhealed trauma or has a split psyche or is Yeah, split psyche is the best way to put it a mind of a persona and a shadow but what I'm showing you here is Really the layers underneath all of this we have our goal at the start and if we're carrying trauma The goal is always going to be to hide the real source of my pain to Live from this egoic identity this false self that I've created for myself and to maintain that and put it in place Because we're in so much pain because of trauma, but if that is our goal to maintain this this false self That will determine the mindset that we occupy which will be in an egoic mindset and From there the next layer out will be well, that's going to determine all the thoughts that I have on a day-to-day basis all the thoughts I have are going to determine all my emotions and That will determine how am I perceiving my life? What does my life look like all the external things that I see manifest before me? These are all down to the mindset thoughts and emotions that are going on underneath the external appearances So with that being said, let's just take a look at this concept of how where this procrastination thing comes from Now really let's take a look at a story So this person says I have been desperately trying to overcome my problems with procrastination and productivity and at one point I was so depressed I didn't even try Then I started to make Plans for myself. I focused on what I needed to do and how to get from point A to point B The problem is that none of that worked either I'd make the plan and then fail to follow through I feel so hopeless and powerless So that's the emotional reality hopelessness and powerlessness. I seriously have become incredibly lazy And I need to get serious and do whatever it takes to be more Productive productive is the concept. It's the attachment here need to be productive. I need to be productive Now what this looks like it plays out always the algorithm is this There's also going to be in the bottom corner there bottom left corner. You can see this is the split mind This is the mind that has Gone through difficulties in the past and its experience pain in the past maybe a lack of love Maybe as is a trauma But it's dividing itself into good bad right and wrong. What's acceptable? What's unacceptable trying to fix itself all the time because it believes that there's something wrong with it In that mindset any concept we pick up, which is number one and this can be any concept It's going to follow a predictable pattern. We will develop a strategy We will experience outcomes and we will find ourselves in there inevitably in some kind of a story around this So what happens here is okay the concept I'm going to pray Maybe I'm not feeling good about myself. I'm feeling kind of depressed. I'm helpless and hopeless. I need to be more productive is the The the concept I'm going to pick up here now the strategy in this case is okay Well, how am I going to be more productive? I need to make plans I'm going to plan and from experience of working with many people who have had this issue with procrastination the planning often becomes this Work work work work more work when am I going to get more work done? I'm going to do it here here here and here, but in any case, I won't dwell on that too much but the Just to mention that the the way we typically Plan when we have an issue of procrastination is very very dysfunctional and very unhelpful But in any case this will always be there'll be some kind of strategy I'm going to plan. I'm going to become more productive or I'm going to make myself more productive some way Now in the split mind the egoic mind or the traumatized mind Whatever it is, whatever the strategy is there'll always be some Snag that'll always be something that goes wrong. So the outcome in this case is I find that I'm not following through And we might say well, isn't that unlucky? Maybe I have to plan a little bit harder or something or maybe Find a different strategy push myself more The thing is this is by design The outcome will always be Unsatisfactory for us and that is a part of the design and will understand why as we talk more here in a second But I can't follow through what's not working. It'll always be something like that and Finally, then we're in the story and this story is really well What are my thoughts about this outcome of not following through and it could look something like well Look, I need to work harder Like a big story about how much I'm not doing enough work and we will notice what we have here in Step four in the story is there is a victimizer now. There's a bad guy in the story. Okay Now sometimes the bad guy The victimizer can be somebody else could be maybe my professor who gave me too much work to do or something like that Or my boss at work But in this case the victimizer is sometimes them quite actually more often than not the bad guy is ourselves When we're experiencing this so I need to work harder or something wrong with me in that question that Example there the person was saying they're lazy. So they're the bad guy But also notice so now we have a bad guy We have a victimizer if we go back to number three there in the outcome You're going to notice that well this not following through thing in the outcome also makes you feel powerless and Victimized so we have a victim here or which is you know if we have a victimizer We're going to have a victim We'll also experience an awful lot of lack in that Okay, this is actually in the persona really the the victim Aspect is always found in the persona so if We look back then to the strategy. Okay, we were planning that was our strategy Really here's the most interesting thing of all with this There's always a hidden strategy So I thought my strategy was I'm just going to plan more or I'm going to push myself more There's a really something interesting going on there's a secret strategy actually with all this whole thing about productivity. I'm trying To secretly get rid of something. I'm not actually trying to get something this productivity I'm actually trying to get rid of something with this whole thing Which is why number three there the outcome will always be dissatisfying So the question is well, what is it? We go back to concept one What is it that I'm trying to get rid of? I'm trying to be more productive really Without this whole thing about becoming more productive. The secret strategy is I'm trying to get rid of Feelings of being lazy or a better term still I'm trying to get rid of my guilt Okay, I'm trying to get rid of feelings of guilt with this. This is the flip side of the productive person the productive person productivity the flip side of productivity is always laziness or guilt and We convince ourselves that the more I if I finally become this productive guy I'll get rid of all this lazy stuff over here And the thing is the more you try to do it You're always convincing yourself as you're going and seeking this thing about being productive. Well, I'm only I have to do it Because I'm lazy I'll do it a bit more because I'm lazy the more you do it You're just affirming more and more the laziness is there and we try to get rid of it more by achieving this persona and The two cannot be separated this way. What we need is it to get out of this mindset entirely Change the entire Paradigm of this, but we don't start there, right? That's what's that's really what's going on unconsciously typically we're going to find ourselves in Point four in the story where we're saying I need to work harder and we're feeling like we're the bad guy if we're there That's where we start. So here's the step-by-step Process of how you end this pattern for yourself So the first thing we're going to do if we look at the the theory here behind this Okay, we have the goal the goal ultimately will have to change to be someone that's more accepting of myself But we have mindset thoughts and motions and perception These are the things we're going to start to refer to here as we look at our solution But if we're in the story there at point four the first thing we have to do is Start to reverse this projection We're actually projecting all this blame from our mind onto our self in this example It could be somebody else, but what we have to do if we're caught up in the story is Stop projecting or reverse this projection, right? That will get us out of the story. So that could be inquiry Okay, but it's it's basically it's kind of just questioning this whole idea of I need to work harder It hasn't been working for me Okay, so we start to reverse our projections we do inquiry. We start to challenge some of that thinking just question into it gently and that's really What taking responsibility is? It's kind of a responsibility of the problem has nothing to do with my behavior as such that's just a a Symptom or a side effect or a reflection the real problem with this is my mind my mindset that I have around this whole thing Why is this so difficult for me? right So Responsibility is to look at the real cause. It's nothing to do with my behavior or pushing myself harder or making even more elaborate plans There's something about the way I'm thinking and perceiving all of this That's a bit fishy and needs to be so I'm just going to say maybe it's not my behavior in step four That'll take us right out of the story. Maybe there's something deeper going on in all this And that's going to bring us to the next one, which is okay Now I'm coming and I'm looking at this outcome and I'm looking at this thing of I feel like I can't for it through I'm feeling victimized. I'm feeling small, but the real thing is feeling I'm coming out of the story now, and I'm left with okay if I stop this blaming thing What's the reality situation are my feelings and if we can feel into those emotions if we see they're in our in our Theory thing there on the bottom right you can see that the emotions When we're working back up are the thing we're going to get in touch with first And it's so important to start feeling it to those feelings as difficult as they are to be with or just to start Bringing more awareness to them because they will show you what have I really been thinking about this We need to go through that layer of emotion because the emotion will tell the truth about what it is I'm really telling myself here, you know for telling yourself really great things and supportive things all the time things that work You won't feel all that heavy helplessness and hopelessness Okay, so those things are very important to start getting touch with get real about I don't feel good here So this is emotional awareness doing body work here This is going to help us with that and that's really going to bring us down into the next step Which is inquiry about okay? I think a lot of these feelings are coming from this idea that I need to plan harder or I need to push myself more and Maybe it's also an awareness of what am I actually trying to get rid of here with this approach I'm trying to get productivity Well, really all I'm ever doing with this is trying to get rid of this feeling that there's something wrong with me true behavioral modifications and pushing myself more and all that stuff and Those now we can start to really use discernment, which is to question All those things about if I plan more I'll be more productive or I need to push myself harder Those thoughts are all causing those heavy emotions that we're feeling and Finally if we can start to really question those things and now we're really into just questioning the whole concepts themselves Well, okay, I've been carrying this concept of productivity. Well, what does that really mean? productivity to me meant That I have to push myself. I have to I have to really work hard and sacrifice fun and Be like one of those super human people that never rests or Takes a break. Okay. That's okay. That's the way I've been seeing productivity. Maybe or I've been seeing productivity as Productivity comes first and spontaneity and relaxation is a luxury and I'll get around to it have time. We see we're questioning the whole Real meaning of it and now we're going to start to choose a Way to reinterpret it to make a different choice So I'm still going to want to be productive, but just in a completely different mindset a completely different Definition of what that might mean. So productivity starts to become something like I am productive because I Am compassionate to myself because I give myself plenty of rest and support and fun and a guilt-free play and all these different things and My sense of self-worth is not on the line when it comes to productivity. It is nothing to do with myself This is the kind of new story that we create for ourselves so those are the things that will take us back out of this story of Self-attack there's something wrong with me. I need to work harder. We start to reverse projections more body work We'll tell us what we're really feeling and now we're getting a touch with all these thoughts that I'm having and these strategies Have they been working for me and finally we'll come back to the the concept itself of productivity I need a completely new way to think about productivity Okay And if we can start to do that What we're really doing is in the bottom left there is we actually when we take a new Interpretation that that mind that is carrying trauma that is split between good bad right wrong Productive lazy it starts to become much more self-accepting It's a mind less at war with itself than it was in the past because it's no longer using productivity to get rid of the feelings of laziness it's much more about a balanced approach to productivity that Both the part that wants to be productive in the part that feels again needs rest and relaxation Can start to come together and reconcile as a unified whole rather than a split mind that are at war with each other all the time So These are this is an example of an ego algorithm, and I'm going to make some more of these This is just an example of what happens with productivity when that gets put into the algorithm. This is the result But it's the same dynamic every single time assuming that we're carrying trauma and we enter into this ego device Because the ego is just a device. It's a thought system. It's lifeless really it only has impact because We kind of use it on knowingly we think it's going to help us I mean we pick up a concept like productivity or to be productive what could possibly go wrong Well, if my mind is split because I'm carrying trauma There's a lot that can go wrong with that and it can lead to an awful lot of pain So guys, I hope you'll join me again, and we'll maybe talk about some more of these And I hope that was a really useful video Take care and we'll talk again soon