I'm Facing A Symptom, Not The Cause

“I can only share what I feel and what I'm doing and hope that in taking the steps first, it makes it easier for someone else to follow."
Experiencing Love Ep 138

Hello and welcome to Experiencing Love. I'm your host, Philip Joks, and I'm so glad that you're here. When I woke up today, I decided to say enough is enough. I can't even say that I woke up this morning because it wasn't the morning; it was the afternoon. I woke up well into the day and realized that I'm really just weighing myself down.

I was recently talking to a good friend of mine, one who I admire, who inspires me, and who seems to understand my path and where I want to go, because they've been here before. And one thing they said really stuck out to me. It was them saying that they remember having their 2pm days. They remember years ago when they were just starting and they didn't know how they would become successful, how they would figure this out. And they had their days of sleeping in until 1pm, 2pm. It stuck out because, in relating with me, they also said, "And I know it's not forever. I know it's going to be different later." By them saying that, I did realize that this didn't have to be forever. I don't have to keep weighing myself down just because things are difficult and I don't see a way through yet. I just have to keep moving forward, and it will get better. I really do just want things to get better.

So, I may be far from where I want to be, far, far from perfection. But I could make little changes today. I could go to sleep a little bit earlier, wake up a little bit earlier, and most importantly, just enjoy a little bit more sunshine. I do miss the sun some of these days. It feels like I'm spending more of my waking hours in the dark than I do when it's light out. There were times a couple of weeks ago where I was going to sleep at 5, 6 in the morning. Like I would see the sunrise before going to bed. I don't want to do that anymore.

The approach I'm taking with this is similar to the "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here" approach. I don't have to go to sleep at a certain time. I just don't want to be anywhere near my computer or my phone past a certain time. Lately, the pattern's been past 3pm I'm still on my computer. I'm going to see what I feel like and what life is like if I put everything away by 1am. The goal is not to drastically shift everything because I know if I do that, it's more likely that I'll switch back. I want to make this change gradual. I think the most lasting change, the changes we get to create in our lives, come in two ways. It's either these slow, gradual changes, the ones where it slowly locks into our identity, and then the opposite, which is like ripping off the band-aid and completely disrupting all patterns. In order for that second one to work, it's almost like you have to do it, commit to the change, and you have to make sure there's no way to go back. The burning the boat situation, where if you're the invading force trying to take over the island, burn your own boats, leaving you no way to escape. With this change, give yourself no way to go back, or make it so damn difficult that it's just easier and simpler to stick with the change.

The last time I tried to fix my sleep schedule, I would say I tried to go in between those two options and failed. Because of that, I made a big change, yet left myself a loophole to retract what I did. One thing I want to do is give myself a reason to wake up in the morning. Whether that's scheduling a call early in the morning or going on a sunrise walk, having a morning ritual, or just having a personal commitment that I care about. I want to do this for a reason and not just because of productivity. I could do this for meaning or connection. I'm starting a little bit at a time this week, planning that screen time curfew, and then maybe next week creating some morning plans that get me out of bed earlier, maybe getting more than 10 minutes of morning sun in my eyes the week after that. I can really lock into who I am, that I wake up that early. And who knows, if I do it for two, three weeks like this, it may just be enough time that it feels natural. After three weeks, it's more just about showing up every day and doing it rather than making any more changes.

The reason I bring all this up is because this is the struggle that I'm going through now. I had to ask myself the question, why am I even talking about this? What makes this the biggest thing that I'm going through right now? And the reason I'm talking about it is because this is genuinely a struggle for me. By talking about it, it's like a cry for help. Yet it's also a type of therapy where I just get to talk through it and then hear myself talk through it. I want to know later on what I was going through during these times, what were the challenges I was facing because when I think about it, it's easy to believe that this is all petty and trivial, that this is such a small problem to have. And I also acknowledge that anybody going through this can truly be having a rough time right now. The effect of having such a sleep schedule that you don't enjoy can really weigh you down and just feed into this destructive cycle that makes it worse. Chances are, someone doing this is sleeping to feel better. Their body is more exhausted, their mind is more exhausted, so they sleep to regenerate. But in sleeping longer and therefore sleeping later, there may be some guilt and shame about sleeping so late. And that guilt and shame can come from many different places, whether it's friends or family, whether it's society telling you that you have to be up before the sun, you could only go to sleep after the sun sets. It's all about the grind, it's all about the hustle, it's all about working hard. When we feel like we've wasted or slept through even just a part of that critical work-hard period, we could feel disappointed, discouraged in ourselves. That takes a toll on our mind and our body. We don't have this structure in place for this specific situation to help us build our way out of it using just our mind. Oftentimes, spending time with friends and family can truly help to build you up and give you that support system that you need. And yet, we don't always have that 24/7. Sometimes we are just left alone with our thoughts, and then we're tired, but we don't go to bed. We want to feel better, so maybe we doom scroll a little bit longer. Maybe some people involve drugs or alcohol to feel better. Some people incorporate sex or pornography. There are so many different ways to treat this symptom and not the cause.

This problem, this sleep schedule that I'm talking about now, I see it as just a symptom of a bigger problem. And yet when I think about what that bigger problem is, which I would say is the stress surrounding figuring this out, whether it's business, life, finances, relationships, everything stacked on top of one another, it is so stacked and so scary. Sometimes, even though I know it's not helpful to stack it up, that finding the solution just gets overwhelming. And it's easier to just focus on the symptoms of this bigger problem. If I broke it down, the big problem that I have, or the cause of all these symptoms, I would say it all points back to making my dream work, figuring out and proving to myself that my dream is possible. Possible for me, because I know it's possible as I've seen people do it time and time again. I've seen people do it on social media all the time. More importantly, I've seen people in my personal life do this. So I know it's not restricted to a certain type of person or a certain group of people. It's possible for me. I just haven't done it yet.

Gosh, in talking about it, I even see that I'm bringing that energy into this world. I'm bringing that vibe into my content. Not always, but enough. I need to keep having these conversations, these things that make me truly uncomfortable to bring up and admit. It's one thing to admit that I have a problem going to sleep late and sleeping in late. It's another to admit that what I'm doing right now is not working and it's alright for something to not work. I guess it's even harder to admit that not only does it not work, I also don't know how to make it work for me, which is obvious, but also scary. Obviously, I don't know how to make it work for me, because if I did, I would have done it by now. Man, I just want this to work. I want to believe in what I'm doing. I want to believe that I'm meant to be here and meant to be doing these things. I know this is all for a reason. I don't need to hope this is all for a reason. But I'll never really know what that reason is, not until I've reached my finish line, the end of my life.

I never know if following this path and doing these things is just meant for me to get back on and embrace a previous path that I was once on. There is this fear that I'm going through all of this struggle, all of these challenges, just for me to end up back where I was four or five years ago, just with new knowledge. It'd be both a blessing and a curse. I would see the last four or five years as tangibly meaningless. But I know there's a gift and an opportunity in learning and knowing something I didn't know before. I guess I'm just afraid of what's the big lesson that I need to learn that took me five years to get there? What's the lesson that's so big and so pivotal for my future that I had to spend countless nights crying? Or maybe there is no lesson. Maybe this is exactly where I'm supposed to be, and my path truly is going to be different than the one I was on years ago. I won't go back to college. I won't live that lifestyle. I won't follow this misconception of security and safety that I was taught to believe. The unknown is scary, I know it firsthand. I have no business telling anyone what to do or how to feel. I can only share what I feel and what I'm doing and hope that in taking the steps first, it makes it easier for someone else to follow. Maybe that's the purpose. Maybe that's the meaning or the reason. Maybe I'm just the first to walk a path that someone bigger is meant to follow.

If that's the case, or whatever is the case, I will take it with my head held high, a smile on my face, and love in my heart, knowing that everything that I'm doing here and now is all to experience love. It's to embrace the fear, to get to the love on the other side. I'm not running away anymore. Not this year, not any year. It's time to step into it. Trust who I am and who I'm becoming, and not just dealing with the symptoms but overcoming the cause.

I don't have much in terms of a takeaway for today. I don't have a to-do or to-try. That's just for you. I want you to get what you got out of this episode, and you decide what you have to do next. Keep scrolling if you have to, move on, maybe put the phone down, close the laptop, shut down the computer, drive in silence for a bit. Whatever it is, just keep moving forward. Do what you do best, and keep being you. I hope you have a restful rest of your day and night. Remember to always fill up with love, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one. I love you.

Feeling inspired by Philip's journey to change and embrace love? Dive deeper into his heartfelt revelations by listening to the full podcast episode. Discover more insights and reflections that might just spark your own path to transformation. Click This Episode On Spotify to listen now.

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