LastThursday

In another thread, in passing, the topic of confessing our weak spots came up. Specifically @Zigzag Idiot said: "I feel the forum would be more balanced if we could all be a little more confessional of our weak spots. With hopefully a more mindful and spacious atmosphere developing. Where just the confession of a shortcoming is allowed to sit in quiet with some kind of subtle acknowledgements from others who are also doing the Work." I think it is really important to dwell on our weak spots and to be open and vulnerable to other people about them. And what better place than this forum to do that? In confessing our weaknesses there is strength. The idea here is simply to simply listen and contemplate, not to try and fix or help or argue or whatever. Feel free to do the same. So as a taster here goes: I have a bad habit of shutting people out of my life who have 'wronged' me in some way, rather than resolving the problem with them first. I have a strong tendency to hide from life, rather than being open to it and brave. I don't plan my future and sometimes to my own detriment. I would like to lead an amazing life, but I take no action towards it, then beat myself up for being miserable. I feel a huge amount of loneliness, despite the fact that I'm good with people, and could make friends easily if I applied myself I feel the need to show my cleverness so that I get approval and love from others I hold myself back from people to accommodate to them, rather than just being my authentic self I'm never satisfied with the way I am, and constantly need to question myself, which is emotionally draining Ok that's enough! Now your turn.

That's great! I'll pick up the baton and start a post to that effect.

Personally I don't think there are ANY Jesus's or Buddha's on this forum. But collectively, we can pull each other up by the spirtual bootstraps. That is spot on. Of course that's only half the story. The other half is how the person receiving the 'rightness' behaves in response, if they are triggered and show it, then they also also guilty of bad behaviour, or of some further 'inner work' that needs to be done. In my opinion variety and flexibility of behaviour is what we should all strive for - sometimes 'right', sometimes 'humble', sometimes 'rude', sometimes 'polite' and so on. Just like a diet, too much of one thing is bad for you in the long run. Many people (me included) are too narrow and set in their behaviours and this causes them many many problems in their lives. But flexibility of behaviour involves a lot of experimentation, fearlessness, self knowledge and high consciousness. All that work! Phew.

@OctagonOctopus no need to fear death, you have already died many times.

@Zigzag Idiot that's the idea. Except mis-matchers don't do it consciously - it's not a strategy they deploy, more of an impulse to be different all the time. My point is that, when you're interacting with a mis-matcher, it can seem like they're always disagreeing with you and trying to impose their 'right' views. But in actual fact they're just doing what comes naturally to them.

It's my projection, but It seems like your brother has become dependant on you for his own survival. But because you're not willing or can't provide enough to help him survive, he blames you. Now you've cut him off, he has become hostile or angry and is using his friends as a way to show you that, because he's unable to do it himself directly. His anger will subside in time, and the gossip will stop. Perhaps he will eventually learn to fend for himself, or find someone else to use as a crutch. But he's not your responsibility if you don't want him to be. My advice is to just tell the truth to counter the gossip and to wait it out.

Some people are natural mis-matchers. When they see or hear a thing, they naturally want to find ways in which they can be different from that, or see it from a different viewpoint than other people do. This is more of a cognitive style than a need to be Right per se. So look out for those types as well as the insecure ones. Maybe you're one yourself?

Engineering/Computer Science degree. Working for a small firm supporting a middle sized Estate Agents in the UK, and doing all their web development and support. I'd like to break out of programming for a living, I feel like sitting in front of a glowing rectangle eight hours a day is such a waste and probably really bad for my long term health. But in a roundabout way, I'm helping people find a home which is good, albeit with a view to fleecing them - London prices! But the money's too good and the stress is low and my commute is ten minutes. If I had the wherewithal and gumption to change things, I'd go work outdoors in a sunny climate, where people talk to each other, and live somewhere where the neighbours want to talk to you and fuck the money. But at 46, it's super hard to rock the the boat - although I don't have a wife and kids or even tied to my own home (yet). I still have a chance at having an amazing life, that's what I keep telling myself. The only thing getting in the way is me.

1. God is a figment of its imagination. 2. Big ball of yarn? Slices? Leo Slice. Last Thursday Slice. A Slice going through all of us. But avoid confusion, the slices are not sequential, sequential is meaningless outside of time. More like flowing to the nearest most similar slice? (Or Not) Dunno, just thought games. As you were.

Yes.

Are you feeling that way 24/7? Or just when you notice it? When are not feeling that way (why)?

I guess I go on this forum to contemplate. The ideas, questions and problems on this forum are better than my own imagination. And I'm addicted to contemplation!

I'm dying every second. I sometimes wish I could take it all back; that perfume, that innocence, that simplicity. And yet, here I am, reborn every second.

Great video, useful insights. Many of the things we need to do often come from 'outside ourselves', and there can be a lot of mental resistance to those tasks, leading to procrastination. For some people 'internally' generating actions or having some form of ownership over them is useful in overcoming procrastination. It's also helpful to go meta and realise that 'doing', 'taking action', 'procrastination', 'goals', 'schedules' etc. are all part of a paradigm. It's possible to shift out of that paradigm and realign with a different way of being.

@see_on_see The videos will still be relevant in a week, a month, a year, a decade, possibly even in a century. What's the rush? Be master of your own schedule, don't be a slave to someone else's.

Why not go detective and keep a simple diary of when and where the negative feelings occur? Just keep it to a bare minium: time, date, location, what the feeling was. Maybe some sort of note taking phone app would be useful. Do it for several weeks, maybe a month. Then see what turns up?

Without a doubt smoking. But guess which one I've quit? Maybe I'm just very deluded. Maybe I should get a partner and have kids, but that's waaay higher investment that Porn***. Being an older bloke, my hormone levels are way lower, so not so much pressure build up anyway, my gratification is manageable, but it's still a low consciousness activity that I should definitely quit.

This is just the cycle I mentioned above. You are fooled, because you think the emotion comes first and then the thoughts after, because it all happens very suddenly. But it's always thought and bodily sensations first, emotions next. You can still break the cycle. The other thing to notice, is that emotions also come and go, just like thoughts. They may last longer, but they're never permanent (they just seem that way). What happens in practice, is that emotions keep being triggered over and over again by thoughts. Is a depressed person really depressed 24/7? No, they're just depressed over and over again many times a day, otherwise how do you explain when they have a 'good' day? In a way, an emotion is itself just another thought. What's the difference between anger and excitement? Both produce adrenaline in your body, your body may tremble, and you feel hot and your muscles tense - what's the difference between the two? It's all just context and how you label it. What's the best thing to do with emotions? Pay attention, take action if needed, otherwise just let them subside and go away. Break the cycle.

Not give up? Just let the feedback sink in over the coming days and weeks, that's all. Don't overthink it at this point. Examining yourself and getting to know yourself, the good and even the shitty parts is always painful and can be brutal (I know). The ego will want to push back and make you feel like shit or weird, so you stop doing it. Don't stop. But do take it easy on yourself, just a bit at a time, not too much.

Naturally. Anything you can say for a man, you can say for a woman and vice-versa. But pragmatically most of us live in a gender biased society - males and females are 'programmed' or 'indoctrinated' to fit different moulds from a very young age. Don't underestimate the power of that programming, it's not so easy to escape with just words. Since the bias is there already, the idea of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' can be generalised into archetypes - which is really what @Shin is referring to. If his post read 'What being the archetype of masculinity means' then that would be closer to his gist. It doesn't mean all men should be like that, just that if you aspire to be archetypically masculine, then follow those rules.

@Mikael89 a man follows the rules when he needs to, and breaks rules when he needs to - without regret or fear of judgement from others. @Shin superb post.

@Harikrishnan there is a belief that we are like vessels full of past emotions and fears and anxieties. And if we dip into the vessel that we can somehow 'fix' our problems or have some form of relief or resolution. This belief is not useful. Psychiatrists have it wrong. A more useful belief is to know that thoughts and bodily sensations arise of their own accord. We then out of habit, 'attach' an emotion to that thought or bodily sensation and call it something like 'anxiety'. The thoughts and bodily sensations will also disappear of their own accord - and this is crucial - if we let them. Sometimes the emotion we attach to a thought, makes the thought keep coming back, because we have given it importance. And a vicious cycle is set up. To break the cycle, we need to get out of the habit of 'attaching' emotions to thoughts. You have to do this consciously and very deliberately and trust that the thought or sensation will go of it's own accord. At first it will seem extremely difficult not to react out of habit. But it can be done. Here's an example: I have given up smoking many times. I have clearly observed the cycle when trying to give up. I would be minding my own business, when a thought to have a cigarette suddenly appeared. This 'caused' me to have an emotional reaction, something like a mix between anxiety and hunger in terms of intensity. This emotion kept the thought alive, which in turn kept the emotion alive, until I succumbed to a smoke. To break the cycle I had to realise that the thought would naturally go away if I paid no attention to it. In other words I made the thought less important over time, and eventually my emotional reaction would not get triggered - the cycle was broken. See, this is much better than dipping into stories of my childhood and why I took up smoking in the first place and talking and thinking about it endlessly with no resolution! That didn't work.

You're are right of course I don't need theories to bring me into existence, my beingness is 'evident', with or without thought. But, my contemplation of being IS a thought. And if being exists it surely must be contemplating itself, otherwise it wouldn't know it existed. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. I'll carry on down the path... What is the misconception BTW?

And so they were, and yet here I am. Are all distinctions in thought? Or are all thoughts distinctions? Is being distinct in itself or is it formless?

@winterknight do you think (eherm) that being is everything else that is NOT thought? Or does being include thought? Or does thought include being?