required activity vs activity as escapism?

[shadrach]

When is activity escapism? When is it required?

I'm struggling to complete projects that I take on. This sometimes even extends to daily life chores. Almost everything requires a mental "triumph of the will" type effort and I feel a strong resistance in my solar plexus to almost any task. It would be accurate to say that most of my effort is mental as there is 0 emotions driving it. Sometimes the resistance gets so strong I cannot continue as a mental confusion sets in. At that point, I get annoyed or angry with myself and self-hating.

On the occassions where I muster the will and maintain the effort and "push through", the resistance in my solar plexus is overcome and a sense of power appears - as if the rest of the body comes into play - and interest and a certain kind of pleasure comes along with it. It's not just a pleasure of "achieving", but it's also a kind of ease, calm and harmony of the body where I experience joy, not just from the activity but from this energy that has somehow been unlocked. The "trouble" is that the next day, I begin a new from an even lower place energetically, if that makes sense. Or if I somehow manage to maintain a level of activity for 3 or 4 days, inevitably on the 5th I will do something to relax, which takes me out, sometimes for several days on end.

I don't know how to process this from an "emotional clearing" standpoint. I feel like it's a deep issue because I even doubt the validity of clearing it, except from the "pushing through" approach. Also I'd like to ask if you're familiar with 4th Way/Gurdjieff? Work (whether physical, emotional or intellectual) is a big point in that system and culturally, it's something that is very hard to shake off as a guy. I have a vacation now - zero obligations - and yet I feel like I'm wasting my life by not doing something - and at the same time I'm not drawn to anything I "like", even a hobby feels like "work" to me.

Am I looking for an easy way out? Should I just accept that I am going to have this resistance to anything that I do?

[John Ruskan]

EC Process work does not often start with a clear understanding of the internal energetics, such as you are describing. It's good that you have zeroed in on the solar plexus - that's a good start. What you need to do now is to continue or develop a right-brain inner practice where you sit with the energies or the resistance and allow it to develop. It's ok to accept resistance - true acceptance of resistance often leads to a breakthrough, which is what you need. Our starting assumption is that there is suppressed, unconscious energetic congestion in the solar plexus - the significance center. The unconscious resistance you apply to those feeling energies carries over into your activities, leading to the ups and downs you describe. We would expect to find suppressed feelings relating to significance, not being good enough, disrespected, a failure, etc.

I just re-read a few months ago 'In Search of the Miraculous.' I'm a big Gurdjieff fan, but I'm not familiar with his work thing. What I got out of it was to strive to maintain constant self-remembering, or witnessing. This ties right into EC work, except we go deeper into feelings than he did.

Of course, work can be an escape, or become an addiction, or it can be taken to a Karma Yoga level, which is doing the work without thought of reward or personal benefit.