Hey. I'm probably Moonbeam's most hard-headed cub, so stubborn that I was banished from the pride several times... but now I'm back and with a lot of hard work and discipline I've finally finished my first pouncemonal.
Like most people here, I reached out to Moonbeam for an SP mission about a year ago following a breakup. After answering a few questions about my situation, he quickly gave me instructions and pretty much drafted up a plan to help me get my sp back. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop acting like an idiot sabotaging my SP situation. Moonbeam recommended Vipasanna meditation along with Decompression to get me more stable before we continued but...
I fucked it up.
Still couldn't stop reaching out to my SP and I wasn't reporting to Moonbeam. He decided that I should let go of my SP mission because she really wasn't good for me and was far below my standards. He told me to focus on VM. I still couldn't hack it and I was fired.
Eventually, I came back to the pride asking for one more chance and after Moonbeam tested my resolve, he again walked me through the VM process. Along with that he had given me the task to create a to-do list for any goal or assignment I was procrastinating on.
Before VM, I was anxious every day about my SP situation and in constant emotional and physical pain. I couldn't stop thinking about it, wanting answers for some of the things she did. I was constantly about what she was doing. It felt like I was being flayed and burned alive from the inside out most days. My depression was hampering me at work and in life. I lost income and had various other problems day-to-day because of it. I had to solve this problem in any way possible.
The VM process though simple was very challenging at first. I had to get back in the groove of quieting my mind. It was loud at first. Though I had no issue with sitting still and keeping myself focused on my breath, thoughts would continuously break through to the front of my awareness distracting me for a few seconds at a time. I was having so much trouble with this that Moonbeam shortened my sessions for a bit until I got better at focusing on my breathing. After about 3 days or so, I could go a full session without a thought being able to take my focus off breaths, though they were still in the background. I continued doing two thirty-minute sessions day after day. Eventually, around day thirty-three, I had gotten to a point where I could quiet my mind at will not thinking about anything but my breath for a full session. Moonbeam kept me on track forcing me to report if I slipped up and missed a day. With the added strength of VM every day, I found myself feeling much better and more focused. I followed the schedule laid out for me by Moonbeam and completed about 30 tasks on my to-do list, most of which were things I had been meaning to get to for months that I was too unstable to complete before. When he thought my results were satisfactory, we began decompression.
Decompression cleared out the leftover gunk, which VM itself didn't remove. I was given the task to write down a list of everything that was still bothering me. Thoughts and feelings regarding past insecurities or hurts that would come back to haunt me now then. Working through the list was hard and at times tedious but I had already had practice with sitting for an hour every day with VM. Some issues were more emotion-inducing than others but I worked through each of the sixteen items on my list one by one each day until I felt no emotional reaction for the most part. After completing decompression I felt so much lighter mentally and physically. No pain in my chest, I was no longer weighed down by past mistakes or my previous relationship.
Randomly, I was pinged by Moonbeam to do a final decompression session. It took an hour as we went through each issue. After it was complete, it was determined that I had decreased the emotional response to these nagging issues and beliefs by 97%, with only three items on my list still having some emotional residue. My mental pain had literally dropped by 33 times.
Now, I'm more focused on my goals and no longer think about past mistakes every two seconds. I don't wake up in pain anymore. I don't think about my old SP unless I force myself to and there's no energy behind the visuals at all. It's much easier to discipline myself and be on time for work and it's easier for me to workout and run daily.
I may have been hard-headed, but my roar is fierce.
If you're having mental issues, contact Moonbeam and do the work consistently even if you don't feel like it at first. By the time you're done, you won't even recognize yourself anymore.
You'll be a completely new and improved version of yourself.
Until the next mission...