LastThursday

That is all of self-development in four words. Seems like you're on the right track. There's no end to the process of loosening patterns.

Would you say the internalised self-narrative is the identity itself or would it just be the result of a more abstract lingering emotional trauma? The narrative gets generated as a way to materialise the trauma into a more adult and relatable form? I do think there is a component of self-blame and shame - I think that's why I mentioned low self worth. Shame would be a signal to others that you know you did wrong, yes, but also somehow related to our hierarchical social brains, in that you're volunteering to be lower in the pecking order - hence the low self worth. Maybe being lower worth means that sabotaging yourself is a more justified activity? I don't know it still doesn't seem like a fair explanation for self-sabotage. Tricky. I do think children up to a certain age, don't easily separate their identities from their parents' identities. In many ways they are their parents, it could be too much of stretch to attribute to much self-consciousness to the process. I mean, this would explain why traumatised people repeat the trauma as adults, because they never fully separated their identities from their abusers? I think there can be a large moralising and judging component to any internal narrative going on related to trauma, which is "taken on" from others around you, especially from the important people around you. I suppose one physical aspect of moralising is punishment, and this is enacted by the traumatised individual? I'm not sure about the release of tension concept, surely self-injury is more tension inducing? But self injury can be very visible to others, although I'm not sure what this would signal to them.

@Oeaohoo the response from ChatGPT you gave is interesting. It does seem like the two poles have something in common though. In some way they both want the best outcome for you, one protects, and the other wants connection? All identities at some level in that case want what's best for you, in their own particular way. It's just that in your case they're not playing along, you get so far, then reject the situation. Would you agree? That would seem to be my experience, and I've often come across this in people. How does the self-sabotage arise from this kind of message? I can understand that it would make it hard to allow others to express their love for you, but it only seems like self-sabotage if there are other competing needs there too which are being suppressed. What about more direct self-sabotage like self-injury that would seem related?

What do you think broke in your case? No need to respond if you don't want to go into it. Do you think having an identity around trauma means that anything that challenges that identity is rejected in order to protect it? Maybe there are multiple identities and some are stronger than others, a "Desire" identity and a "Resenment" identity.

It's uncanny how trauma often converts into self-sabotage. I do wonder why that is. What do you think? My reasoning is that it's connected to low self worth, and that attacking yourself is often the only form of control available.

Meditation is not a cure all. What can happen when you meditate over a long time is that it gives you a clarity you didn't have before. Sometimes that clarity reveals negative aspects of yourself you weren't aware of before or just ignored. It's quite natural that in uncovering those negative things you'll think about them more often. There's some research that found that meditation can make some people more unhappy than they were. The problem with negativity is that there is a strong emotional reaction to it, and this stops you from proactively confronting that negativity. The growth actually comes from confronting the bad parts of yourself in the right way (therapy etc). But the silver lining is that over time, meditation can make you more emotionally resilient, and to better regulate your reactions. Clarity is neither good or bad, it just brings things into sharper focus.

Here's my logical step by step approach to these sort of worries: Be aware - educate yourself, how dangerous is it? Is it something you can control? - no then you have no choice right now, forget it and carry on. Are you willing to take action on it? - no, then it probably isn't worrying you enough, forget it and carry on. Take action. In short, worry about what's worth worrying about. Here's an example: Talcum powder may contain asbestos, which is bad for my health with long term use. Yes I can control it, I can stop using it. Talcum powder has benefits to me, in terms of comfort, but stopping using it would be a minor inconvenience. Maybe the negatives outweigh the positives. Ok, I'll stop using it.

I'm with @Zigzag Idiot. Saying that you are "god" in public is asking for trouble. The word carries a lot of emotional charge and to say you're God could be offensive to some. It could only be used if the people understand your context, such as on this forum. Anyway. Even if you believe it in private it's still problematic, because God has the connotation of being omnipotent, which clearly you're not. You're special, but not that special.

Limerence is just one of the stages of romantic love: infatuation. The only difference is that there isn't reciprocation with limerence. Helen Fisher explained it (infatuation) in terms of hormones and biological drives: In my experience the only way out of limerence is to de-escalate the importance of the person in your life and in your thoughts: cut all contact, remove all triggers. But with social media and easy access this is a lot harder nowadays. It's similar to addiction.

Fair enough.

I'll continue in sceptic mode: how would one know how accurately one is perceiving reality? If people can become insane isn't that evidence that it's not possible to know if you're insane or not?

That begs the question: what is sanity?

My first reaction would be "am I deceiving myself?", then, "how can I validate it?". If they both check out, of course, I would become a magician or a god.

Do you equate self-control with mastery? Mastery can be a very long and many faceted process, patience is definitely needed. But mastery is also an incremental process, and you can gain its benefits bit by bit. At some point you won't recognise yourself as the same person anymore, because mastery will have changed you. What seems hopeless at the start is hopeful at the end. Mastery is just what you choose to master. If your hope is to tolerate pain and master it, then that's what you should do. What you're describing about yourself just seems like a problem of motivation. Motivation is complicated. In broad strokes there is positive motivation and negative motivation. Positive motivation are things like, exciting goals, rewards for achievement, satisfaction of completion, recognition, free leisure time. Negative motivation are things like, deadlines, not having money, bad consequences for not completing, letting others down, not keeping to some standard. Some motivation is more neutral, like having a plan, collaborating with people. You need to work with all types of motivation.

Start with recognising that you're not a machine, but a human. You will have disciplined days and undisciplined days, allow yourself that. You will also have only a certain capacity for discipline, and that may be a lot less than you want to achieve your goals. But that capacity can increase with lots of practice. Use techniques like Pomodoro to help stretch your capacity. From a philosophical view you're always doing something, even if it's just sitting there breathing and blinking. You cannot not help but be doing something, 24/7. So disclipline is not a matter of active versus lazy, but of constantly steering your activity in the direction you want. Also, everyone is different. Work out your own psychology. For example, my natural tendency is to be haphazard and go from one task to another, so I just go with it, and allow myself to work in small bursts, and lots of differerent sub-tasks of the main tasks. But, I can also work well with timed tasks, such as 1 hour on task A, 1 hour on task B ans so on. Maybe morning versus afternoon works better. Learn what works for you.

The flipside is that subjects like Solipsism, Free Will, Spiral Dynamics get discussed at all. Isn't it amazing that there's a bunch of people willing to talk about these niche abstract philosophical ideas on a public forum? Yes their definitions and usage get abused and misunderstood, I'm with you on that, but still.

I used to be sad about the lack of it here. But I've changed my mind about it. It's hard to convey humour in text and very easy to be misunderstood. One person's humour is another person's offence. Some humour can get misundertood as trolling, even if it isn't. What one person finds funny might be seen as childish by another. British humour is not American humour. And on and on. I inject a bit of humour from time to time, because I enjoy it, but I try and keep it to a minimum, and not get too upset if people don't pick up on it.

Totally. Bloody annoying though. But I admit I'm not immune either in the ego department. I like to use the full force of my vocabulary for peacocking purposes, a.k.a, showing off. Not that it does me any favours in any way. Anyway, I'm rambling now.

Only my personal pet peeves: Any topic with the word "Leo" in it. Any comment that has something like "Leo please answer". Topic starters that don't engage at all in any of the answers. Using made up language or terms nobody else understands. Threads that derail into nonsense. Lists. But to answer the actual question, I strongly don't vibe with all the pickup emphasis in the Dating section. There are other saner more agreeable ways to find someone, you know. There are saner ways to learn social skills.

To me insight is the same as understanding, with a sprinkle of surprise. Something like, it was there all the time, but now I've become aware of it, I understand, how surprising. I think it's totally possible to forget insights and to get dumber over time. Sometimes there's a certain amount of practice needed to make them stick, especially if they come from other people. Also, sometimes it's like, ah yeah I get it now, wow. And then sometime later, actually I don't get it, I thought I did, doh! Commonplace book. Why does that phrase spring to mind...? I forget.

@Something Funny I get the sentiment. I can go on to Amazon or eBay right now and get nearly anything I want, and I don't even need to get off the sofa. Any idea I have someone's got there already or it would cost a bunch of money to set up and protect. Either, you're making the same thing but better, cheaper or in a slightly novel way. And most things on Amazon or whatever, I don't actually need. But despite all that, it is actually possible to be genuinely innovative and creative, and there will be a market for it somewhere. It just takes practice and effort. There's probably never been a better time to be visible to the world and showcase what you're about if that's what you want.

And, in long? What's simultaneity? I mean, I know what the word is, but what does it mean to you in this context?

Awakening is a funny word. The unsaid assumption is that you're asleep. Asleep to what though? Plenty plenty I'm sure, but I don't know what it is yet. So to me awakening is the process of discovering what I don't know yet. By "know" I mean the whole breadth of experience. And therefore I'm constantly awakening. But, there is a philosophical awakening to be had. And this is done by mental contemplation of everything. Even a light contemplation on things can yield some awakening. It's about constantly asking questions and finding your own answers to them. Everything is in plain sight, you just have to learn to see it. That's one facet of awakening. There are other types of awakening.

I would often count my breathing at the start of a run, four paces in, four paces out. It feels quite artificial, but it does stop the mind wandering, and it put focus on my breathing and regularity of pace.

I think I've said it before, my prescriptive answer is that there is no purpose to this in any way. It just is. Saying that it doesn't stop purpose from being the main thrust of living, you just understand that purpose is there as a motivator or a prop to feed your human needs. There is no right way to carry out the process of living, and you don't have to live with purpose. But you're asking a more existential question. There is so much coherence to experience that it seems silly not to give it purpose. Experience seems "designed" and put together too well not to be purposeful. What is purpose though? It's goal oriented action. And I think that is where it falls apart. The more you examine this the more it's realised there is no end goal to it, it just carries on and on, there is no purpose to it. @saif2 would you say that the purpose is then just for God to manifest itself?