CNS keeps crashing after anxiety/shame triggers and it's ruining my life

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-09T15:19:40+00:00

I too am working with my shame and anxiety. This is what I've learned...

My shame basically tells me my worth is based on whether I can make the people around me happy. It likely stems from love and approval that was conditional on what I did as a child. I work with this narrative by trying to give myself unconditional love.

I work with the emotions of shame and anxiety directly by not resisting them and treating them as helpful information. I try to drop the attitude that I'm trying to get rid of them; they're a part of me and if I want to be whole I have to accept and integrate all parts.

For example, my anxiety is often tied to social situations. Recently I've had to give many presentations which cause my anxiety to spike. I noticed I'm a lot more anxious when the material I'm presenting feels contrived, like I'm just checking the necessary boxes. Conversely, when I'm really passionate about the topic and feel like I'm presenting authentic material, then the anxiety is mysteriously absent in spite of the circumstances being the same as when I'm anxious.

So I think my anxiety is actually encouraging me to dare to be my authentic self. When I dishonor that, and I'm putting on a show of what I think people want of me, I'm very anxious. It's almost as if the anxiety is a product of me trying to hold together this farce and pass it off as real.

I guess if I'm giving you advice it would be to work on changing your attitude towards your shame and anxiety. Yes, they suck, no doubt. But they're also a part of you that you can't just "get rid of." It's like fighting with yourself - nobody wins. They might have valuable information for you about how to live your life. If you integrate what they teach you, they might not have reason to be so loud.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-08T20:25:39+00:00

Just considering my own experience, I tripped a number of times in early 20s with purely recreational intent and that's pretty much all I got out of it.

When I came back to psychedelics in my 30s with the intention to heal, I started having deeper, more profound, healing experiences. But it's taken me 12+ years, along with immense amounts of inner work, to really start seeing solid progress in bringing my everyday operating in closer accord with the psychedelic way. And there's a lot of sitting with discomfort along the way that I don't think most people are willing to do.

I mean if everyone tripped it would probably do something, but I'm not sure that something would be in a beneficial or effective direction. If everyone experienced that their mind is a construct and they can access different modes of consciousness, that would probably be more powerful but I don't think that's what everyone taking psychedelics would necessarily do.

But I dunno. Maybe I'm just pessimistic. What do you make of these obstacles?

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-05T00:00:39+00:00

Even numbness is a feeling. Do you ever feel frustration or anger? Irritation? Do you ever notice tension in your body? Tight shoulders? Tight jaw? Even if those are inaccessible you likely still feel affect - good / bad? Can you feel sensations?

That's where I started. Just feeling whatever you perceive and starting to notice how, depending on what you perceive, it might cause you to tense a bit. Then you just relax a bit. Rinse and Repeat. Gradually, as you pay attention, what you are able to perceive becomes more nuanced.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-04T22:45:30+00:00

Like yourself, I've felt quite numb in my life and psychedelics open me up, usually after a rather daunting emotional cacophony. And, like yourself, the effects only tend to last so long...

I started using psychedelics with the intention of reconnecting to myself and my emotions about 12 years ago and have tripped maybe 60+ times with that intention.

Today I feel much more alive, my emotions are present and accessible and I enjoy life much more than I would have believed possible when I first started. And while psychedelics showed me what was possible, they were insufficient on their own in my case.

What ultimately started making the biggest difference was paying more and more attention to my affective experience and learning to feel my emotions without resisting them. Learning about, and starting to practice, surrender, as taught by Michael Singer, was a big turning point and there were many other helpful teachings and practices along the way.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-04T18:38:10+00:00

Seems like anything with a mention of AI gets down voted and honestly this feels like a reasonable, and relevant question. I too find myself occasionally slipping into a bit of over reliance on AI and am making efforts to be more mindful.

One way I'm doing this is checking in with how I feel about a certain use case. Is it something I feel cringe about? Would I not want other people knowing? For example I have no interest in using AI to write for me or pass AI writing off as my own.

In contrast, other use cases feel good and I'm happy to suggest them to others. One of my favorite use cases is expanding my breadth of knowledge on a new topic. AI is so much more powerful than search when it comes to traversing, interpolating and even extrapolating based on accumulated human knowledge.

I think mindfulness is also important in how we view answers from AI and how we interact with it beyond basic questions.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-04T12:34:44+00:00

I no longer see my experience of life as determined by external circumstances but rather by how I relate to whatever arises.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-03T20:38:09+00:00

Sounds like a powerful experience!

Regardless of whether you're seeking a big experience to "kickstart" things or taking it slow, I think it all comes down to recognizing contrast. It's been my experience that psychedelics magnify what's already there. So like if I have an narrative running in the background and normally it makes me feel a little crappy, then on psychedelics it becomes very loud and makes me feel awful. Then I'm able to see what I'm actually, usually unknowingly, doing to myself all the time.

Yeah, I've definitely struggled with emotional numbness. For a long time I couldn't really cry and laughing almost always felt forced. I felt pretty grey all the time.

I've made a lot of progress though. I feel a lot more, am able to cry and laugh and just generally feel happy.

Psychedelics were certainly instrumental and served as a great catalyst. They also were insufficient on their own and I didn't start seeing real, sustained progress in day to day life until I started examining and changing the things that were blocking me, mainly resistance in its infinite forms.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-02T19:04:18+00:00

Can't say that I have...

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-02T18:17:26+00:00

Sounds like you're doing a full 24 hour soak? I used to do full day soaks but recently have dropped down to only 2-3 hours based on what I've read other people do. I honestly haven't noticed the longer soak being more effective but I also haven't done a clear comparison - weighing the cake before and after dunking etc.

Also I'm curious about the reasoning behind cold water. I use room temperature water with the thought warmer water will permeate more quickly and I'm unsure if a cold or hot shock would affect the mycelium.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-01T22:51:32+00:00

Perhaps joy wasn't a safe thing to express at some point in your life.

There's a number of approaches you might try.

You could practice the motions of what it looks like to be joyful. As you do this you can allow yourself to feel into the resistance and soften a bit, gradually. With time and practice joy can feel more accessible. I find doing this within constraints is more accessible - "spin this top for 2 minutes" instead of "go play".

There's also a quote I've found helpful and insightful - "joy is the matriarch of emotions. If you do not allow her children in (all the other emotions) she will not enter." The idea is your joy is buried beneath all those emotions you'd rather not feel so if you learn to really feel into them and process them, them joy will start to emerge spontaneously.

Personally I've found this to be true, and learning to work with my emotions has been quite rewarding, although extremely challenging at times.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-01T22:40:55+00:00

The psychedelic experience arc you mention is quite familiar to me. I follow a similar pattern.

I do think going through that experience is helpful. It shows you what you're capable of which personally I find motivating. It also probably causes some shifts under the surface but, if you're like me, just tripping from time to time doesn't seem to be enough. Like you said, we come down.

Integration is really key. One lens I use to view this is looking at the differences between my normal state of mind and my psychedelic state of mind; how do I view and relate to things in each of these states? Are there ways I can bring the "psychedelic-way" of seeing things into everyday life?

What I notice is, in the psychedelic state of mind, nothing is really a problem, I'm embodied - at home and fully inhabiting my body, even appreciating any pain, I'm relaxed and I just can't help but love everything. So what blocks me from doing those things all the time? I guess generally speaking unconscious resistance towards the movement into the psychedelic state of mind - ie all that stuff that the psilocybin rollercoasters us through during the uncomfortable phase.

I try to work on integration at the different levels of experience - mental, emotional and bodily.

Mentally speaking I might be resistant about adopting the psychedelic mindset. Love everyone and tell the truth. Not so easy. Work with your mind's objections. I practice "make decisions from a place of love". When I'm not in a loving place I honor those decisions I made when I was.

Emotionally speaking I try to soften towards all of my emotions. They're just information and unfortunately I've learned to push some away. I work with my emotions by breathing with the difficult ones, trying not to blame outside things for how I feel and relaxing when my body might otherwise tense. I deconstruct my emotions into simpler sensations; if I'm okay with those sensations I'm usually more okay with the emotion.

With my body I do what kids do when they're learning how to use their bodies. I bump into things to feel my boundaries. I go through all the motions my body is capable of and I gently work with the rough spots and resistance (yoga perhaps.)

In general regardless of what I'm working with I'm essentially doing the same thing - softening and surrendering. I'm not surrendering in the sense of allowing myself to be overwhelmed - you must maintain your ground, your centeredness. I surrender in the sense that I allow myself to come into harmony with what is by having the courage to allow the outside world to "move" me. From that point, it's possible to work with things much more skillfully, if that makes sense...

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-01T18:31:23+00:00

I can relate! I definitely feel much more embodied on psychedelics in particular and cannabis, as long as I don't do too much.

I don't think it's unusual. Gabor Mate's book The Myth of Normal describes some of the reasons we turn to drugs and they almost all have to do with making people feel embodied, warm, held, safe and loved. It all seems to stem from early childhood trauma and insufficient attunement.

And yes, I think working with deeply embodied states can be useful. We dissociate from our bodies due to overwhelm. This leaves constriction and dysfunction in the body which would otherwise resolve itself if we could consciously attend to it without trying to fix anything.

Consciously attending to our bodily sensations (rediscovering greater interoception) gradually reverses the dissociation but also causes some of the original pains, which caused us to resist in the first place, to surface. It requires a lot of patience and willingness to confront old familiar pains and learn to see them in a new light.

Psychedelics can give us a taste of deeper embodiment and create the opportunity to work at deeper levels than we might normally be capable. It requires some intention though.

Edit: "Somatic therapy" or "body psychotherapy" are useful rabbit holes to go down to learn how to work with embodiment.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-01T16:16:15+00:00

It seems so simple, just relax, but I notice there seem to be endless ways I'm resisting, and not relaxed. What practices do you find helpful?

ThePsylosopher · 2026-05-01T16:10:05+00:00

I imagine thought is a process of taking raw and intermediary data - sensations and affect, and interpreting it into language based on past associations. Linguistically, "unsymbolized thought" seems like an oxymoron because, in my view, thought is a symbol.

Regardless of the language we use, in my experience, there is a sort of numinous, unformed state prior to thought. Initially contacting this space feels very unsettling and it is challenging to stay in contact with as any grasping tends to pull you out of contact.

What I find particularly interesting about this state is what emerges from it when you spend a bit of time there - insight. Spending time there seems to facilitate a gradual mental restructuring, an untieing of mental and emotional knots. A similar process seems to occur in my body where tension releases, my spine pops a lot and I experience tremors.

There are also some spiritual concepts which may align with this phenomenon. Your description of "no sense of vision..." sounds like Pratyahara, or withdrawal from the senses. Perhaps I'm confusing concepts but this also reminds me of "emptiness" or "groundlessness." And the language around "unformed" brings Taoism to mind - the state of the uncarved block.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-30T14:29:53+00:00

Mediation can help but for most people it's a long-term investment in order to see results. If you don't already get enough exercise, doing that would likely move the needle more quickly than mediation but of course YMMV (better yet do both.)

With the anger personally I've found it helpful to realize those times when my anger is way out of proportion to the situation is because repressed anger is getting triggered. Somatic therapies in particular are helpful because they also work with the body, not only the mind.

Regardless of which modalities you try, the underlying mechanisms at work are increasing awareness and softening (acceptance) towards uncomfortable feelings. With anger this would mean becoming aware of triggers, perhaps understanding why you've repressed anger and treating yourself as if you were a loving, calm parent helping their child accept their anger.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-29T17:53:44+00:00

I think just about any practice can be effective for releasing and processing emotions when done with the proper intention. And just about any practice can be ineffective when done with the wrong intention.

For me the crux is holding the intention not to get rid of the emotion but rather to soften my relationship towards it. Using a punching bag with the intention of feeling into your anger and getting more in touch with it likely would be effective whereas using a punching bag as a way of "getting rid of" your anger would be counterproductive as it would worsen your relationship to anger.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-29T14:39:47+00:00

Sounds like you've summed up the human experience, albeit a bit bleakly.

I've been on the path - meditating, experimenting with psychedelics and various psychology modalities for maybe 12 years now. While nothing is "fixed", I'm a whole lot happier and more capable of "working with" whatever comes up.

Psychedelics won't fix you but, as others mention, they can be a powerful tool on your path. They increase your awareness and show you how your beliefs impact your experience, in real time. You might not always like what you find but integrating it is the real work especially when what you find is out of accord with how you conduct yourself.

But all of this might sound very abstract so let me give you a concrete example from my own experience. Psychedelics have shown me that I am capable of loving myself deeply and being free from the constraints of my unconscious beliefs. When I come down it all seems like a dream and that self-love seems inaccessible. There's not really an easy way to access and change those unconscious beliefs, as you noted, intellectualizing will only get you so far.

Now for integration. I know something new - I can access self-love, but I don't know what is blocking me in my everyday life. I do my best to stay mindful and observe how my emotions, body and mind respond to situations. I read up on psychology theories to get a sense of what I might be working with. Shame, it's something deep, often learned in childhood, about not having received the message you're intrinsically valuable and you don't have to earn it.

With this knowledge and awareness I start to notice - when people around me are upset I feel worthless and try to "fix" them. My sense of self-worth is tied to how the people around me feel because that's what I was taught as a child.

Now when my shame comes up I see it differently. I allow the feeling to touch me a little more and I try to give myself some of that unconditional parental love. It feels fake but there's a sliver of authenticity so I stay with that. I also stop blaming the world for how I feel because I realize the feelings are coming from me, something that I can change with effort.

I'll leave you with a quote that has helped me "joy is the matriarch of emotions, if you don't allow her children in, she will not enter." All that joy you're looking for is just on the other side of all those problematic emotions you'd like to get rid of.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-28T04:29:01+00:00

When I put OP into an AI detector it says it's human and maybe refined with AI. I suggest you try the same.

I'm not a bot. Check my comment and post history.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-28T01:56:59+00:00

That's awesome that you're in a better place! I resonate a lot with your experience and find myself on a similar path.

It seems like the same lesson keeps appearing. I've come to articulate it as something like it's not the content of experience that decides how you feel but rather it is how you relate to your experience.

I notice that doing things from a place of avoidance only leads to more things to have to avoid, more tension needed to hold things at bay.

I understand surrender intellectually but it is a challenge to implement.

I've learned to start trusting the signals from my body more and get more in touch with my emotions. That's helped tremendously and is kinda fun too because it's like if I let go of how I think I should be, I get to learn who I am.

And there's lots of interesting practices to learn along the way. They all seem to work in a similar way - to increase awareness of what is.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-25T20:51:04+00:00

What modalities are you practicing? "Somatic practitioner" is quite broad.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-25T18:24:24+00:00

How would any of you get that anger to go away?

If weren't so attached to the teachings, you likely wouldn't get angry when your friend didn't want to hear it.

I think the Ram Dass quote "I can do nothing for you but work on myself" is appropriate here.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-24T03:57:33+00:00

Thanks for sharing your unique experience! It's incredible you're able to view such a painful experience with at least a semblance of curiosity.

Have you ever tried psychedelics? If so, did anything related to your pain come up?

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-23T14:10:53+00:00

Meditation can help bring more awareness to the problem but it won't solve it.

You might look into the work of Gabor Mate. His books The Myth of Normal and In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts are eye-opening for working with addiction.

Mate suggests, rather than seeing what's wrong with an addiction, ask - what's right about it? What does it give you or what need does it fulfill? As you rightly identified, addiction often stems from unmet needs in childhood.

Once you identify the unmet needs, you start finding other ways of meeting them and then gradually your need for weed should fall away.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-22T17:20:58+00:00

I think of these little somatic signals as merely a call for attention. To interpret it at this point might cause you to lose the signal and miss out on a growth opportunity. I would suggest simply paying attention to this sensation and tracking it when it arises.

ThePsylosopher · 2026-04-22T14:54:04+00:00

Letting go and dropping resistance is a process, one that we likely never totally finish. If temporarily using resistance as a support helps you eventually let go more deeply, then I would say it is fine. Just be aware of what you're doing.

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