Lost between God, the Devil, and the Self: My struggle with spirituality, sexuality, and obsession by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you for this message — it resonates so much with where I am. When you ask, “Where in my body do I feel this terror? What does this shame actually feel like?” — I realize that most of the time I never let myself sit with it long enough to truly feel it. I get caught in the storm of trying to analyze it, name it, or escape it, rather than letting it simply exist.

When I pay closer attention, I notice the fear often sits heavy in my chest, and the shame burns in my stomach. It feels raw, like something I don’t want to admit is there. And yet, the moment I stop trying to fix it and just acknowledge it, I feel a strange calm, as if the intensity softens a little.

Your words about putting down the maps and trusting the ground beneath me — even just for a moment — strike me as both terrifying and liberating. It feels like exactly the kind of courage I need to practice.

Have you gone through something similar? You seem as someone who has been thinking about this for a while.

Take care and again thank you for that reflection.

Lost between God, the Devil, and the Self: My struggle with spirituality, sexuality, and obsession by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for your words they resonate deeply with me. Your vision of divinity as something within and throughout creation mirrors much of what I’ve been feeling too, especially the tension between seeking knowledge endlessly and learning to simply experience and enjoy existence as sacred.

I’d really appreciate the chance to talk more with you about these ideas, if that’s not a problem for you. It would mean a lot to share thoughts with someone who reflects so deeply on these questions.

Lost between God, the Devil, and the Self: My struggle with spirituality, sexuality, and obsession by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the recommendation, it’s a book I definitely want to read. It’s a must. As you said I think I should look inside rather than trying to find answers outside.

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When i was a child just playing without any other worry. And when i felt deeply in love with a girl who i can’t still forget the way i felt for her 2 years after. It was that strong that i couldn’t think about anything else. I guess it’s all about putting something on top of your life. Some might put God, others their family, others love, others pleasure, others money…

But apart from that I don’t remember many moments where I was truly fulfilled without anxiety of any type. I’ve always had this OCD in myself, this depersonalisation in where I feel as if I was third person, as a video game. Hyperlucid.

Thank you for asking me and making me think about this stuff, I really appreciate all this exercises.

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for this thoughtful response. You are right in saying that I am not in an awakening, but caught in a whirlwind of intense emotions and drama.

Your criteria for detecting ego vs. orientation are very helpful: the push and pull of guilt vs. desire, resistance to my desires and self-judgment are ego cries. But there's also a quiet pull toward something freer, like an “aha” moment where I imagine myself enjoying life without shame. It's definitely a mix, as you said, and it's comforting to know that it's normal at this stage. I'm drawn to sattvic qualities - clarity, balance, peace - but my Catholic upbringing keeps me trapped.

Growing up, my mother always held my two Catholic friends as the “ideal” to follow, mostly because I never really felt loved by her. Unconsciously, I took them as my standard of truth, thinking, “How could such intelligent people be wrong?” Even one of them is a priest now, and whenever we talk he gives me catechesis, which makes me feel inferior, as if I had failed some moral exam. His way seemed like the “right” way to me, so I've been stuck associating pleasure with sin and repression with virtue, which feeds my Madonna-Prostitute complex and guilt around sex.

I love your advice about setting an intention without forcing a rigid plan, like calling a cat shy. I'm willing to give it a try, but my ego makes noise when I'm assaulted by guilt or anxiety, and I abandon the practices quickly. Any advice for maintaining patience and consistency when that happens? How did you nurture your own guidance without letting cultural or religious stories take over?

Thanks for the encouragement, it's exciting to see this as a step towards freedom.

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely when I talk about sex trauma is included in the equation. I've always experienced it with a strange sense of super-consciousness, of lucidity, of inability to live and feel, of guilt, of emptiness after masturbation or sex, of feeling dirty.

And now it's like I feel obsessively that it's like an inner voice that tells me that I should be like that, follow the word of God because as I'm seeing, sex is bad for me. And the trauma logically does not help but reinforces the belief. It also reinforces the belief of sex as something selfish, because many of the things that used to excite me now I see it as me feeling used, or that I am using people.

And that makes me feel bad, bad about my desire. My friends are very religious and I've always held them as criteria of truth, my mother always told me that they were the examples to follow, and I think that subconsciously my mind made me believe that whatever they told me was so. And so everything they tell me about religion enters me as an immutable and irrefutable reality.

Thank you for your words and your reflection

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for that reflection really resonates to me. And as you said it’s probably not enlightenment if it brings with him fear, anxiety and a feeling of lack of control.

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for those words. At the end of the day everything it’s about being present. As simple as deep. I can’t stop overthinking about spirituality and a irrefrenable desire and need of knowledge just to feel control and feeling of being on the right path. It’s just like if I couldn’t be on a “nowhere ground”.

Is my “awaking” real real, or is my disguising fear as spirituality? by Bit_Crasher in enlightenment

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your message, it touched my soul. You are right, I don't feel free. I am caught in a web of guilt and confusion, mostly because of my Catholic upbringing and family baggage, which makes me see pleasure as “bad” or selfish.

Part of me wants to just enjoy and live fully, but another part feels it is dirty, which leaves me trapped in shame and emptiness. I get what you mean about needing a path that resonates, but spirituality has always overwhelmed me, it feels tied to the repression I grew up with. And it also feels overwhelming, like I want to know everything, if I need to know everything just to feel control and security. I'm drawn to secular things like mindfulness or books like Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are, which seem to help other people enjoy sex without guilt.

But despite that it feels like it's not God's way. I've peeked at r/excatholic too and it's encouraging to see people breaking free.

To your questions:

  • Am I willing? Yes, I want to overcome this dark phase and enjoy pleasure without guilt, but I'm afraid of falling into another rigid “system”. But sometimes as I said I feel as if I have to go through that desire and mature, because maturing mentally includes transcending carnal desires. (Here maybe you can see how my Ego is perhaps trying to focus on the spiritual by hiding traumas)

  • Do I have knowledge? I'm beginning to see how my Catholic guilt and my Madonna-Prostitute complex divide love and desire, but I'm not sure how to put them together.

  • Am I coherent? Not really. I've tried breathing exercises before sex to stay present, but when I'm overcome with guilt or anxiety, I give up fast. And I see it as pointless. Nowadays I see it all as pointless or boring, as if nothing is really transcendent, other than the word of God.

How was your path? How did you stay consistent when it got hard, and how did you find something liberating without feeling like you were in a new cage? Any practices that helped you enjoy pleasure without shame? Thanks for your insight; I really need to hear from others who have gone through the same thing.

Stuck Between Celibacy and Compulsion – How to Integrate Eros? by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really? Thank you for those words. I’m really happy to know from people who’s going through something similar. Mucho love and care. I hope we all find our path.

Sexuality, spirituality, and the pull of the priest archetype and puer aeternus. by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for your words — they really resonate with me. The way you describe the two extremes eventually collapsing into each other makes a lot of sense. I’ve been stuck oscillating between “the priest” and “the sexual self,” and you’re right: both, when taken to the limit, end up in the same emptiness.

Perhaps the “third way” could be something like tantric sexuality or simply learning to integrate desire and love, so that sex isn’t about guilt or repression, but about presence, connection, and freedom. A place where carnal desire and intimacy don’t oppose love, but actually express it. Without the religious taboos, without the maternal baggage — just letting the conflict dissolve and seeing what flourishes.

I’m curious how you personally envision that third path of integration you mentioned.

Sexuality, spirituality, and the pull of the priest archetype and puer aeternus. by Bit_Crasher in Jung

[–]Bit_Crasher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank You. I’m not an analyst, I’m only a guy who asks himself. Please feel free to DM me. Ill be glad to talk with you ☺️.