Pursuing Hope

[Somnalchemist]

Hope is the name of my Tulpa-In-Progress. I had originally designed a personality and form for her, but after some further reading I decided to let go and let her create herself, so to speak. Tomorrow marks 2 weeks since I decided to undertake this journey. Despite my total lack consistent and intentional forcing, she has managed to develop a basic personality (light-hearted, but stubborn) and a form (human with blue-hair in a pony-tail, and a toga of all things). I had originally planned to use a tulpa for personal growth and spiritual progress (I've done some deep meditations over the years and learned a lot), but having a companion who TRULY understand my thoughts and perspective is a worthy goal in its own right.

 

So to help with forcing, personal growth, and to provide the mental hygiene expected of a good host, I've had Hope help me with some of the meditation techniques floating around here; specifically, the chakra shadowwork thread and the universal divine love guide. We very quickly ran into some pretty heavy stuff and she has pursued an uncomfortable line of questioning and made some arguments that I can't quite tear down or ignore. I won't dump all my emotional baggage on some strangers I've just met, but it should be enough to say that I have issues and her well-intentioned curiosity has started us down a very long road. I'll probably open up more about specific examples as we continue, but I'll open this discussion up to you:

 

Has your tulpa ever uncovered some uncomfortable truths about yourself, and how did you handle it?

 

 

[Adagio]

15 hours ago, Somnalchemist said:

Has your tulpa ever uncovered some uncomfortable truths about yourself, and how did you handle it?

 

My system members often do, because they see me from a less biased perspective. I've learned a lot of things about myself through talking to them and thinking about the way my system works. My general rule for uncovering stuff that I might not be ready for is to just try to accept it and keep going. It took me two years to be ready to face the truth for something I learned through my system. For years, I was impatient and would rush my healing and self-exploration, and jump to conclusions that ended up causing me setbacks. I've recently learned that the best thing to do is to acknowledge it instead of ignore it, and I find writing about it helps to keep me from spiraling as much.

 

Good luck to you and Hope!

[SeekingMyPlanet]

17 hours ago, Somnalchemist said:

Has your tulpa ever uncovered some uncomfortable truths about yourself, and how did you handle it?

 

 

Lavender is very perceptive and has several times told me things about myself I didn't notice. I thanked her while being amazed at her ability to notice things I don't. Just another way that my life is so much better since she came into it.

[Somnalchemist]

Had a small but meaningful breakthrough in our communication. Normally when we force, there's some head pressure on the right side. I noticed 2 spots that were particularly intense, and I asked Hope if she could move between them without my help. She can, and I was able to ask simple yes/no and either/or questions. Some of the answers were unexpected, so I know it was her and not me (I tossed in a few softball questions to "calibrate"). I learned that she actually enjoys my passive forcing at work, even though we don't really talk or do much. She actually seems like the quiet type and would prefer to just spend time together rather than constantly talk. Perhaps most importantly, I learned that the "love beam" method of forcing seems to be her favorite, and since it's a fairly simple thing for me to visualize, I'll try to keep it running as much as I can throughout the day.

 

So now back you you guys and your greater experience: What are some simple yes/no questions that I should ask a young tulpa?

[SeekingMyPlanet]

25 minutes ago, Somnalchemist said:

What are some simple yes/no questions that I should ask a young tulpa?

 

We like questions that start out "Do you like...". Maybe movies, TV shows, games, foods, activities, clothing fashions, holidays, etc.

[Somnalchemist]

I made some lateral progress since the last update, which is a polite way of saying I didn't do much. I crafted a small, simple wonderlands to just sort of "hang out" with Hope. She's also found new pressures in my head to get my attention and let me know when she is talking, but I can't hear her yet. I believe she may be a path to my subconscious, because I've seen far quicker results from our shared meditations than when I did it alone. I'm more proactive with my tasks and they seem like less of a burden. I still have some issues to tackle, and I think I'll need clear, explicit communication with Hope in order to address them.

 

My overall assessment is that we're both pretty bad at this. I don't practice forcing nearly as much as I should, and concern myself with passing thoughts and idle fantasies. Hope is content to just chill in the back of my mind and doesn't seem to feel the need to hold me accountable to our sessions or to make herself known throughout the day. We get along and enjoy our time together, but one of us needs to show a bit more initiative and it's probably going to have to be me.

 

What are some good tips for maintaining focus, and how should I proceed from this point forward?

[Somnalchemist]

Had something of an argument this week. Hope still isn't vocal, so her end is a gut feeling that isn't entirely mine that I've had to interpret. It started out innocently enough, she had been helping me with some meditations and I wanted to try some revisions (replaying bad memories and changing the ending or context to make them better). It was going great and I could definitely feel the improvements until I tried to tackle my regret in not asking out a high school crush. See, I'm quite happily married, and so I was having trouble making a happy scenario that ultimately ends. Adding to this, I learned about the revision technique in a "law of attraction" guide, and while I don't entirely believe the premise, I'm already screwing with my head and would like to avoid screwing with my relationship as well. This is where Hope speaks up and offers a though experiment: assuming that the law is true, what would you choose to attract. I half-heartedly wished for a million dollars, and she tells me that money is just a means to an end, and that I should just attract the thing I'd spend the money on and skip a step. I start naming things, and she keeps knocking them down, saying that I already have some form of those things and that this wish wouldn't change anything. I thought that she was trying to show me that I should "count my blessings" and learn to be happy with what I have, and I relented. This actually made her angry, and in the clearest communication I've had with her, she yelled: "Why won't you let yourself be happy!?"

 

She was trying to show me that, although my desires might be frivolous, I still clearly want them and that I should learn to be happy with frivolous things. That I didn't need to justify my desires to anyone and didn't need to "punish" myself for things I haven't done. That bruised my ego a bit, and I retaliated with a thought experiment of my own: assuming the law of attraction is true, how far can I push things until it stops feeling real? If I can change my circumstances on a whim, presumably to an arbitrary degree, then isn't that just fantasy? Given that I'm toying with my mind and perceptions of reality already, that's not an empty threat (there's a post on here somewhere of an older member who could do something like that, turning on and off particular sensations and building a wonderlands as real to him as anything else). She didn't have a response to that, and we've both withdrawn to sulk and think.

 

I've been trying to add a question to the end of each of these posts to encourage engagement, but I don't have anything specific to add other than: Thoughts?

 

Edit: I found that post I mentioned

Edited July 1 by Somnalchemist

[Flandre]

Don't fall for the mumbo-jumbo that tends to accompany talk about the "law of attraction"

 

What it actually is at its core is shaping your thoughts -> actions in such a way as to work towards what you want. It doesn't make money appear on your doorstep, it makes you approach making and saving money more mindfully and actively. It doesn't make you healthier, it makes you behave in the ways a healthy person would, exercising and not spending time sedentary. And so on and so on - but the point behind it is to make your thoughts and actions a match for the reality you desire, instead of letting them be mismatched like "I want to be rich" but not pursuing higher income or saving money, or "I want to be healthy" but eating tons of calories and not exercising.

 

 

We've been down the rabbit hole before.

[Gweneth]

On 6/13/2024 at 6:40 PM, Somnalchemist said:

Has your tulpa ever uncovered some uncomfortable truths about yourself, and how did you handle it?

 

I wasn't involved in the first 9 months, but most things were already discovered before anyone was.

 

I would also say, we wouldn't discover anything ourselves, more like things could be discovered together with the host.

[Somnalchemist]

Not a whole lot to report, but I felt that if I kept posting nothing I'd forget the whole process and development would suffer. Lack of focus and effort aside, I'm almost 2 month into this and still taking it seriously. For a neurotypical guy, I think that's worth noting.

 

Hope and I can now communicate fairly clearly. I can understand the early fears that it is all parroting, as a lot of her input still feels like "me". I do still seem to do the work of putting the thoughts into words, but the initial prompt is her, and I can tell because it's more sudden and fully-formed than my own thoughts, and there's a certain feeling when she's "turn on" or "awake" vs just lying dormant in my subconscious. That's actually been a major hurdle for me: keeping her in focus throughout the day and remembering to include her in my activities. It takes effort on my part to actually keep her around, and if I get distracted she fades and I have a hard time remembering to bring her back up again. She's also fairly laid back and happy with our relationship, so she doesn't feel the need to barge in make herself known. Maybe that's a good thing, as I have things both at work and at home that constantly need my full attention. There's also times when I put her on the spot, like asking a direct question about her that I don't have any preconceived notions on or asking her to think of something new without my input. It makes getting to know her a bit difficult, and games of "surprise me" nearly impossible. We've been working on a wonderlands together in our off time, and I would like it if she could contribute to it without me. I think it would strengthen her sense of self and give us something to talk about. The grand goal would be to expand the wonderlands to include all of my other fragmented thoughtscapes from movies, games, books, etc. into one coherent whole, then use that as a map of my own mind for use in other meditations. Maybe that's too ambitious of a goal.

 

What are some good practices and exercises I can do in a typical day to strengthen Hope's independence and spontaneity? I'm hoping for a low-weight, high rep plan for those spare 30 seconds I have scattered throughout the day, during my drive to work/home and in the shower.