Just One Look Forum Archives

Hello all,

This is my first post here after following what's been going on here for a while. I'm 41 years old artist (painter...Or fancy myself as one, at least) and cleaner from one of the Nordic countries.

I found John's work about a year ago and did not have any difficulty grasping what he was suggesting, even though I came to this from spiritual seeking, having been in love with J. Krishnamurti and later E. Tolle in particular, even though both left me quite paralyzed for lack of clear instructions what to do to be finished with suffering. I was in a point in my life where I had been seriously depressed for years (perhaps slowly getting better already) in a series of milder and more severe depressions following one another for more than fifteen years. I felt I had absolutely nothing to lose when I didn't even want to live anymore and didn't see a single worthwhile thing left in life. I just kept dragging myself through my days out of sheer duty. It seemed looking at myself didn't require much and wasn't a practice, so not much was at stake. The whole thing seemed slightly ridiculous, if anything, as I was getting more and more cynical about any kind of cure.

I tried a to get a feel of me and I think the childhood memory trick did it for me. I also just plain tried to point my attention at that feeling of me existing behind all my experiences. I got a brief and faint good feeling about myself when I tried to look at it but I didn't feel I had succeeded and sent a message to John in one of his webinars asking if there was a difference between just imagining and thinking about this looking and actually doing it. John felt that I had done what was proposed. I kept looking whenever it occurred to me for a few weeks or couple of months. Then it didn't occur to me anymore and I was ok with that. I just set myself to sort of waiting what would happen, as John had pointed out that it happens on it's own and not much can be done about it.

My misery continued as before and I didn't notice much happening in my life that could be attributed to inward looking except for quickly losing any interest in "spiritual" teachings. After couple of months I spontaneously started actively exercising again at gym and a few months on made an equally spontaneous attempt to cut my sugar intake (didn't last long, though). I also quit using antidepressants and sleeping pills and decided not to seek therapy for my depression. I was a bit nervous about that but went on with it. In retrospect, those might have been effects of looking. I'm still mildly depressed but perhaps there's slight difference to it now. I feel like something behind it is absent. I get sudden attacks of anguish but they don't leave me as deeply miserable as before or as long as before. It might be "normal" recovery from depression or, as I have lately come to believe, the recovery we talk about here. I'm quite a sceptic and try to be critical but I'm getting more and more convinced that this is the answer, if there ever was one. I'm not sure what to expect from this, but I'd like to start living instead of slowly dying. I'd like to be able to feel happy about painting, about life and about people, and above all, I'd like to be finished with this all pervasive feeling of loneliness that seems to have been there always and all the debilitating misery it breeds.

I'm grateful to John and Carla and everybody who have posted about their experiences here.

Kindly,

Seppo