1. Introduction to Engineered Feelings


The first week of November 2010 changed my life dramatically. There was no car crash. No one died. I had no catastrophic relationship breakdown, except the one  with myself. My behaviour had developed organically without a lot of attention to my own body or feelings and that would need to change.

I graduated with an engineering degree long ago and the process of problem identification, analytics and rational solution finding had become a way of life by 2010. In fact I was the leader of a very technical engineering team at Bell Canada because of these abilities. My life's reference framework was pretty black and white. There was reality and there was fluff. I preferred reality.  

During that notorious week in 2010 I came to realize that what I was doing wasn't working. This one realization took me on a long journey of discovery. I'm more than 10 years into it now and a lot of things are much clearer. What hasn't changed is the need for further discovery of who I am and how I function in a variety of circumstances. 

 As you can imagine my approach for discovery is as systematic as possible because that’s how I think. Every discovery I make is placed into a new framework of thinking that I've built over the last 10 years. 

 This series of blog entries describes some of the events and discoveries along my journey. The primary purpose of writing all this down is for me to document it in a summarized form for my own reference. Along the way I've decided to open it up for you, hoping you find value as well. Maybe you think like me or maybe you know people who think like me. Either way I hope my journey gives you insight into your own relationships. 

By now I'm pretty open to talking with people about my journey. Time and therapy have been a big help with that. Just bear in mind that my voice may quiver from time to time when the conversation gets raw.

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