An Unwanted Life Story: Zac Thraves’s Acceptance Journey

This is the sixth instalment in the Unwanted Life story series, with today’s Unwanted Life story coming from Zac from The Miscellaneous Imagination Experience. So welcome to Zac’s acceptance journey. You can find Zac’s blog here. So please take the time to read their contribution to my Unwanted Life story series and then visit their blog and check out their content.

 

Without further ado, here’s Zac’s acceptance journey in their own words.

 

 

I often ask myself, what is depression? Is it something chemically wrong with me, or is it a reaction to past traumas? Is it a consequence of high sensitivity or feeling disconnected from this world?

 

At different times I think it is a yes to all of the above. However, I think that they are also all linked, and what makes us who we are is spiritual, chemical, and based on experiences.

 

Ergo, I wish to present to you three people who I have read about in the past as I have journeyed through my emotional wellbeing and I think all have a point about accepting who we are and how we can help ourselves. I believe now, and it has been a long-fought battle with my demons, that we are responsible ultimately for our emotions and our actions.

 

Having read Stoic philosophy, I challenge the idea of blame on others. Yes, we can say that trauma is the fault of others, but where do we stop? We can keep going back as they are reacting to theirs and so on and so forth. It has to stop somewhere, and I think that through acceptance and clearing we can reset the past, perhaps reset our mind, our thoughts, and then our actions and reactions.

 

 

One of the most important Stoic beliefs is that we only have control over our emotional actions and reactions, not over others. We can’t control events, so why do we stress ourselves over trying to? We can only have control of our thoughts, and those thoughts lead to reactions, be it anger, sadness or even self-harm. I did self-harm and thought the world was against me. I had created a scenario where I felt like an outsider.

 

The trauma that had tipped me over the edge was the death of my mother, which had a huge effect on my family. It opened up my sensitivities and old wounds and grew into a monster, which became severe depression.

 

I had always felt different, and for many years felt unwanted or unwelcome in groups, with friends, and misunderstood with my family. I was better alone, and as I got older my life became less and less the life I wanted. I was hit by such a low while in my marriage, where I no longer felt able to be myself, that the end felt inevitable. I harmed, and I seriously considered suicide. These are strong emotions and even now when I have very down days those feelings return.

 

However, from the other side of the storm I can see that I created this scenario in my head, I created the monster. The world was and is not against me, I have realised that the big one who was against me, was me. The world that we see is in our mind, our body is separate, we have ultimate control over our mind, even though at times it doesn’t feel like it, and so we can decide whether something that happens creates the emotion of sadness or happiness within us. Let’s begin with:

 

 

Exhibit Number One: Walter Russell – your body is a machine, like a piano, it is not you.

Walter Russell was born in 1871 in Massachusetts and was an American impressionist painter, sculptor, mystic and author. Russell wrote extensively on science topics, but his ideas were often rejected by scientists.

 

One of his ideas was the symphony of the universe and that the universe was made of nine octaves, or pressure states. These would be our emotions, and that we move through each high and low frequency on a daily basis. Perhaps his artistic nature led him to view the universe and our reality within it through a different lens.

 

He said that all that we see and witness is in our mind, in our imaginations if you will. This is similar to the Kybalion teaching of the universe being the all, and we are the all. We are the universe. The quote above relates to how we view our body in this material world. If everything is in our mind, then our bodies are the instrument, not the music. We create the music in our lives and this helps to shape the life that we want.

 

However, we become lost in the material, and in thinking that what we can feel and touch and taste is all there is. Yet, all of those senses are electric impulses being sent to our brain, and in nano-seconds interpreted into something that we recognise. So we know through memory that what we have eaten is bread, or butter, because that is what our internal library records say that they are. With that in mind, we can change and reprogram ourselves.

 

Many people are shaped into being something other than they are through manipulation, brainwashing, trauma, or bullying techniques. Armies around the world use it, media uses it. Just because we are being shown what the world is by external sources, is that really what the world is? We are not material if everything happens in our mind. It sort of leads to the law of attraction. What you think is what you see.

 

Dr Wayne Dyer is an advocate of this as well. If you can change your mind on something like taste, then you can also change your mind on something like negative thinking. You get what you think, but believe that you are the song of the universe, not the instrument. You are the creator. You are your spirit, your soul, your essence, not your body. This can lead to a greater understanding of individual purpose in this world and of acceptance of the eventual death of our body, the instrument.

 

 

Exhibit Number Two: Ernest Becker – psychiatry is a form of fascism

Ernest Becker was born in 1924 also in Massachusetts, what is it about that state?! He studied psychology and became an assistant professor for a university in San Francisco. But, after rebelling against the system of mental health he was sacked and instead became a renowned anthropologist and author, his most famous work being The Denial of Death.

 

It was over a period of time and study with patients who were considered to be mentally ill, that he saw, first of all their treatment, and secondly, how unstable the hospital staff were. He asked us to consider this question, what is wrong with feeling emotion and being sad? Plenty of philosophers have argued that the more you know about the world and about life, the sadder you become.

 

He saw patients in these so-called hospitals who were completely oblivious to what was going on. So heavily medicated and beaten down that they did not question, could not question, and led a life of confused bliss. Yet, he argued, when the medication wore off, they would wake from a semi-comatose state and for an instance see some kind of truth. However, they would be treated as conspiracy theorists and argued down, led to believe that they were ill when in fact, they were reacting to the environment around them.

 

Becker stated that surely when faced with a reality that one is unhappy with, or uncomfortable with, or deeply upset about, one action would be to rebel against it. The very act of rebellion is seen as disruptive, and the reaction from authority is to clamp down in a harsh and violent way. Every action leads to a reaction. When the one being beaten down reacts violently in return, they are seen as the aggressors.

 

He simply argued that this ideal is oppression against the weak and helpless. In fact, the whole practice of psychology is an act of oppression. Do you agree? Well, he is not the only one to think so too, and I don’t think he would be the last.

 

 

Exhibit Number Three: Neville Goddard – imagination creates reality

Neville Goddard was born in 1905 in Barbados and became a minister, writer, and speaker. He is described as a mystic online, but I think that is too simple. His main argument was the power of our imaginations and how to use that to manifest the life that you desire. He regularly used The Bible, the teachings of Jesus, the Christian God, and was often invited to speak in churches in America, usually around Hollywood which is where he died in 1972.

 

His is a powerful message that resonates with many people today, and you can see his influence in many YouTube videos. He basically says that we are God, and we have the power of God. Which ties in with Walter Russell and Ernest Becker. We manifest exactly what we want in our lives.

 

If you are a person who dwells on the negative, and you must know people who often gossip, complain, remind themselves that they never get a break, or it never happens to them, then you will get exactly that reflected back at you.

 

Our imaginations are our greatest asset, and once you have set your intention, which could be to manifest a new job, for instance, then you act as if you have already received it. His message being that we are all energy, and the universe only works in energy. If you act with gratitude, grace, kindness, and love, because you are receiving everything that you wish for and all you need to have is patience, it will come to you.

 

He also spoke in many churches about the messages in The Bible and that it is, from beginning to end, all about transcending the violence which characterises mankind’s present level of being. It affirms the possibility of a development of another level of being which will surmount violence. It is our violent world and society that is having an effect on our emotions.

 

If we can overcome that, recognise the power within our imaginations to create a better world, and be grateful for what we already have, it will manifest. We are, he said, made in God’s image, we are spirits having a human experience. This should give us strength to overcome the fears and anxieties that the world traps us in and use our love to create a better future.

 

 

Conclusion

I was first introduced to these people having read The Game of Life by Florence Scovel-Shinn. This was the magnetic power of positive reframing. We do have this opportunity, but fall too easily on the negative because that is what we hear most of the time from the noise that comes from this world. Yet we can filter it, we can block some of it, and we can choose to ignore it.

 

An important Stoic lesson is to remember that we control our reactions, actions, and emotions to events, but we can’t control events. Our universe, our world, where we are, is exactly a sum of the thoughts we have put out there.

 

When it comes to Ernest Becker, his idea of psychiatry really resonated with me and I used his words in my show about my experience in the mental health system. I questioned why it was wrong for me to feel what I was feeling, and I questioned the medication. I thought, and still believe, that we are all our emotions. If we are made to feel guilty for being depressed or anxious then we shift that energy into fearing it, which creates a bigger monster inside. For me, I started to feel better the day I decided to embrace the dark thoughts. As time went on, the power those thoughts had over me lessened.

 

Further reading

• The Game of Life by Florence Scovel-Shinn.
• The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.
• Imagination Creates Reality by Neville Goddard.
• You’ll See It When You Believe It by Wayne Dyer.

 

Bio

Zac is a writer and performer based in Sussex. Last year he produced a fringe show about his mental health using comedy to approach difficult subjects. Zac writes blogs, plays, and podcasts. He recently won Best Actor for playing Charles Dickens.

 

YouTube | X (Twitter) | Bluesky | Blog

 

I’d like to thank Zac from The Miscellaneous Imagination Experience for sharing their acceptance journey with my followers and me. It takes a lot of courage to open up about such experiences. But at the same time, sharing such personal stories helps spread awareness of how feeling unwanted can affect our mental wellbeing if we let it. It also highlights how acceptance can help with our quality of life.

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share your experiences of feeling unwanted and your thoughts on Zac’s acceptance journey in the comments section below as well. If you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.

 

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