I've found that my spiritual journey has isolated me a little bit from society. I moved to Sydney, Australia from Canada to study physiotherapy a year and half ago and it's been difficult having no support or not really finding many people that I'm connecting with given my interests (anyone I mention meditation or spirituality to seems totally disinterested, it's a very catholic, far right leaning country, and the culture has little interest in ice hockey or psychedelics for the most part .
I've diligently been meditating 20+ minutes every day for about the past year and a half, looking forward to Leo''s videos each week as they always bring me back to some form of self reflection and focus in my life.
The ego backlash concept is something that I have noticed a lot and I find very challenging to deal with. I feel for me it happens when my mind gets to a point where it doesn't want to endure suffering anymore, and demands I cave in and give it what it wants - a bunch of addictions. Then eventually through the process, my awareness overcomes this and I get back on the right path. But this cycle has repeated itself so many times, and I'd like to see if other people have unique experiences/tips to helping overcome this.
The one time I managed to avoid it was after an exam being extremely upset because it hadn't gone as planned and obviously felt I could have done much better. It was incredible how upset I was over something so small because I knew I'd passed the course already. But rather than letting my emotions drive me to distraction city (facebook, chess, whatever) I decided to contemplate on why I was so upset for about an hour, then meditated for another two hours. I just sat there and decided to face the negative emotions head on. The result was pretty incredible... I came out of it feeling as though I was experiencing everything for the first time. I was in awe of the simplest of things, from eating a sandwich to even the feeling of gravity pulling me down. I started watching some youtube videos on what I was feeling and felt a deep sense of connection and love for everyone on the screen. It was total bliss, somewhat similar to an experience i'd had on psychedelics, but toned down a little bit.
My most recent insight is that when we go into these backlashes, our emotions > conscious awareness. Our actions become ruled by how we're feeling and we go into our more primitive way of being. I think the only way to ever overcome this (and I'd like to hear other people's perpsectives) is to get to a point where conscious awareness >>> emotions no matter how strong they are. I can't emphasize Leo's message enough that you NEED to build a consistent meditation practice, IMO only awareness can help you dig yourself out of your ego's holes.
