The Emancipation of Survival Mode

The best truth bombs pertain to the psy-ops our own psyches are infected with, not the ones we see in media or political theatre.

When one accidentally stumbles upon the true nature of reality and becomes devastated by the “revolving door” impermanence of it all, realizing that nothing or no one external from ones spirit can be counted on as a source of security, vitality or even love, the tragic comedy of it all is:

We do not realize this as something to celebrate, because we have stumbled upon truth. Stumbling is not necessarily an indication of recognition. At least not if you’re like me.

We might get confused because we’ve been conditioned to believe in fairy tales that prime and press us to be life-long consumers and dopamine chasers (an essential trait for any modern day wage slave) and think,

“Oh, there is something wrong with me, my life is so horrible, I will never be loved, I don’t even want to live this life, what is so wrong with me?”

Actually, nothing is wrong with you, or me. We just stumbled upon truth and our minds have no idea how to recognize it, because the ego only knows where it goes, so when we encounter the unfamiliar, we ourselves can glitch out. So we (initially) see it as:

An absolute fucking nightmare.

It can produce suicidal thoughts, but do we really want to die? Is it TRULY that we want to die, or is it that we just don’t want to live the way we are living?

I have discovered that for me, and in MOST cases others as well, it is the ladder.

We still have the instinct to survive, to live a fulfilling life, for something BETTER, something different than teeth-gritting compliance and participation in an unnatural reality that erodes our souls daily.

Who could blame anyone for that? And there is something better… but that’s where many of us get snagged.

No matter how “awake” anyone is, there are LAYERS to becoming deprogrammed, unplugged, completely etch-a-sketching our minds from the indoctrination we’ve been fed since our first day on this earth.

A snag here? We’ve all been programmed to look everywhere BUT within ourselves for solutions to life’s seemingly unanswerable questions and dilemmas.

This is enforced everywhere. Even in the seemingly noble places, like religion, or belief in God. Let me also speak right here and say, I am not attacking religion or God. I do know there is a magic to this world we live in that DOES respond to us, we are in relationship to it, but I do not know the name for it. I say God because that’s as close as I can get, but I do not claim to understand it beyond the fact that it is there, and when I try certain experiments in faith or prayer, stuff happens that I cannot explain.

That is as far as I will go with ever trying to break it down, because I enjoy being continuously led to new understandings or non-understandings by said force.

However, there are incredible differences in what I just described, and what we know as organized religion. I have seen it work true miracles in peoples lives and I have watched people accomplish seemingly impossible things through faith. I have also seen the polar opposite happen and watched people become traumatized and shrink into nothingness from dogma and shame.

Personally, I don’t believe in any of the absolutism within it, and I also recognize these are man made stories. I see where they have their value and I also see where my resonance with the message is an absolute zero.

I sit here and read this book, a book addressing the awakening process of when things in your life fall apart. A book talking about the profound spiritual teachings in hopelessness and death - and it is blowing my mind.

A friend sent me this book, “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron, and it is describing exactly where I am at in life, and many others too. I will not be going into any personal struggles here, let’s just dive into the teachings.

This sums up my life for the last handful of years, as I have moved all about the country, playing musical chairs as I run from tyrannical laws, mandates and cultures within cities that are collectively losing their shit.

An excerpt:

“Trying to get lasting security teaches us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can’t be done. Turning our minds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery. At every turn we realize once again that it’s completely hopeless— we can’t get any ground under our feet.”

If you are a fellow Alien Tumbleweed and relate to the long road taken of the search for stability, security, purpose, effectiveness, escaping poverty & tyranny, building something new in a world that is CONSTANTLY shifting, dodging seemingly endless trap doors at your feet while the dogs of fear, illusion, vice and death nip at your feet -just to remind you resistance is futile - then you likely relate to that statement.

You will also likely find relief in this:

“HOPELESSNESS AND DEATH:

If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.

..

In Tibetan there’s an interesting word: ye tang che. The ye part means “totally, completely” and the rest of it means “exhausted.” Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out. We might say “totally fed up”. It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope, that there’s somewhere better to be, that theres someone better to be, we will never relax with where we are or who we are.”

This is the strange freedom and truth in hopelessness, in being so ground down into nothing that we want to hit the eject button.

The snag we run into is when we hit these “emotional bottoms” where we see the futility in whatever it is we are doing, we reach for more of what is futile.

We reach for more of what is outside of ourselves.

We reach for more of what does not exist - which is something I’ve been noticing, but I legitimately thought I was just crazy, or it was something inherently wrong with me.

I took it personal that things seemed to dead themselves before they ran the course that I thought or hoped they would. I am seeing so much death around me in all types, not just the physical kind, but constant burning down and revealing of how much of this world is entirely smoke and mirrors.

I would have never known had I not been on this path of endlessly running, pursuing, seeking, escaping, fighting.

The realizations are devastating.

They also have somewhat of a relaxing nature, which brings me to another surprising spiritual teaching that I found in the book I’m reading.

Apparently, to relax is an actual instruction on a path to liberation.

WHAT?

If we want tot talk about what I am worst at in life, that would be in the top three without a doubt.

It might even be number one to be honest.

Who else is programmed with the response that they are lazy, shameful, undeserving, about to ruin their lives and miss out on everything and everyone and are an eternal failure, if they slow down for even half of a day?

This is classic modern day slave shit, and my brain is infected with it. Hands down.

It may be a rough realization, to stand and look at all you have pursued and believed in and thought was the answer, and to realize it is actually more of a problem than anything else.

To realize you have been slowly killing yourself just to live a life that is only existing in jargon, empty promises, memes, or a future everyone speaks of, but ironically is never arrived at…

That’s when the blessing of a FULL STOP arrives.

What is important?

Stillness. Peace. Fulfillment. To truly breathe. Love. Connection. Community.
And that thing I love to dodge…. REST.

Operating constantly in burnout mode is something I have experience in, and it always results in some sort of health breakdown, crisis, or a succession of both. Not interested in continuing that pattern anymore.

The teachings in this book dive deeper into the nature of hopelessness, and facing death every day in our lives - loss, change, and things simply not working out how we thought they would. The ways we are programmed to compensate for this only create more unhappiness.

I’ll share a few things and wrap this up.

Keep in mind what I’m about to share is the perspective from the author and this is not a jab at anyone who believes in a God. I don’t know how to fully describe or understand God, but I am not an atheist, and I do not believe the author is either. I think she is just speaking in terms of how we perceive God in this society, but do with this information what you will:

“Nontheism is finally realizing that there’s no babysitter that you can count on. You just get a good one and then he or she is gone. Nontheism is realizing that it’s not just babysitters that come and go. The whole of life is like that. This is the truth, and the truth is inconvenient.

..

From this point of view, theism is an addiction. We’re all addicted to hope— hope that the doubt and mystery will go away. This addiction has a painful effect on society; a society based on lots of people addicted to getting ground under their feet is not a very compassionate place.”

..

“The word in Tibetan for hope is rewa; the word for fear is dokpa. More commonly, the word re-dok is used, which combines the two. Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there’s one, there’s always the other. This re-dok is the root of our pain. In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives.”

..

“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves.”

..

There’s that r word again, RELAX. I’m going to stop quoting the book and wrap this up because I think you get it at this point. These are interesting points I plan on diving deeper into and putting into practice. What I’ve noticed:

I’ve noticed that I’ve been in a very long season of upheaval, grief and loss. The ONE thing I have never done is slowed down, rested or relaxed into the experience. I have been doing what I’ve always done, I’ve been fighting, striving, working, trying, constantly producing, pushing, trying new things to change the situation.

The situations will change scenery sure, but it doesn’t change the reality ever. Apparently there are lessons that need to be learned here, and the way I need to learn them is by feeling the entirety of the experience as it is, instead of constantly trying to rearrange life my way.

It’s beyond exhausting, and you come to find yourself in a cycle of endless giving and producing and pushing and working while realizing you are beyond depleted in yourself and wonder what reserve you’re even drawing from to give in the first place. It is impossible to show up as your best self like that, let alone your full self.

Today I’ll practice surrendering the hope that anything outside of myself is going to give me that which I ultimately seek.

I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s time to get out of survival mode and allow my brain to not be in “we’re going to war or gonna die” mode 25/8. If you read one of my former posts titled “the ACTUAL meaning of life”, this will make more sense. I’m just putting those realizations into action now.

Let me know how this resonates with you, if at all, hopefully no one got caught up on the nontheism part. That’s her experience and aligned with certain Buddhist teachings, it can be easy to misunderstand being in a culture where we literally idolize everything, not just God, but celebrities, careers, fake money, image… it’s also what all of social media is centered around: worship…

Which is why I have also made the decision to step away from social media and much of my public roles for the time being. Unplugging from the overstimulation and hive mind of our society has gone from a desire to a legitimate need.

I will still be writing for substack, and podcasts will still come out, but most of everything else is either behind the scenes or on hold.

If you are on this email list or in my telegram, you’ll be in the loop for whatever I send out. You can also contact me here or email me at tesstamona@gmail.com if you don’t have my personal number.

Let me know how this feels for you, much love to you all.

peace and fulfillment.

the emancipation of survival mode.

the release of the unworthy archetype.

it is a constant war that we’re all supposed to pretend we aren’t covered in blood from.

fuck all that.

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