FindingPeace

Norfolk, United Kingdom

I have this problem to. I posted something about it in another thread. Personally I find conversation very pretentious and just a shallow game. The reason being that there is very little value to most of what 'normal' people have to say. I don't care about politics, or the weather, or their life, or someone else's life, or hearing about rants and complaints and judgments etc When I observe other people engage in small-talk it just sounds so rediculous and shallow. Very low-conscious. I think there is a difference between 'small-talk' and 'intelligent conversation' though. But then what is 'intelligent'? Current affairs, news, politics, technology, society, lifestyle? I don't know. It's all 'chimpery' to me. Self-help, self-actualization and the topics discussed on Actualized.org and this forum are far more interesting and insightful than most of what other people can talk about. So I am at a loss too. It is as though the further we emerge from this fog of bullshit that human society brought us up in the more detached I feel and less able to interract with it all. Then again, why the need for conversation at all? I actually don't feel that I'm missing out on anything. Peace has become bliss, lol. I think we talk too much to be honest. Never mind the 'monkey-mind' in our heads, what about all the chimpery we spout through spoken language? Speaking of which I loved that analagy Leo used in the 'How society fucks you in the ass' video - 2 cages of chimps throwing shit at one another. Love it. Sums up so many human interractions...

The example above is a good one. I have a slightly different take on the control / free-will concept. The thing that has bothered me for years is this business of 'probability' and statistics. We like to think we have control within a fairly 'predictable' envelope of probability. However I came to a realisation recently. There is only ever one outcome from an event - that's the outcome that happens. And nothing can change that. We think that chance plays a part. That things are 'uncertain' or even certain. If I flick a coin you think that there is a 50/50 chance of a heads or tails. There isn't. There's a 100% chance of the one outcome that it will be. The outcome that occurs is the only one that was ever going to occur. And if we had a complex enough simulation we could predict it. There is no chance, no probablity. In fact everything that happens is certain. Everything that happens could be predicted if we had a simulation complex enough to do so. Every decision you make, thought you have, action you choose. Nothing is random, or chance, or choice. It just seems that way. Everything is an effect of a preceeding cause. Or, every cause has a cascade of effects. Reality is just a chain-reaction of cause-and-effects. It is only to our brains, our minds that it all appears to be chaotic, or even predicable or controllable. We are all on a linear path through life. Everything we 'choose' and every action is and was always going to be. From the moment you were born, this moment in time right now, reading this, and everything that led to this point, was always going to 'be'. And everything from hereon will also be what it will be and can be no other way. We just can't see it yet. It always makes me laugh when I hear people or catch myself thinking "what if I had done something differently?" - but I can't. It went the way it went. It was always going to go that way, because it did. There is no "but I could have made a different choice" - you didn't, you made the 'choice' you made. End of. And the future will play out in the same way. We're on a ride. It seems as if we're driving, but ultimately we're not. We're just responding to cause-and-effect from one moment to the next. We're caught up in a chain-reaction that started when reality started and will end only when reality ends. Food for thought...

Interesting topic. I've been contemplating this recently. I had a realisation - what is this human need for meaning and purpose? It is as though we have to find meaning and purpose in everything rather than just 'being' and enjoying everything for what it is. There is no 'meaning' of life. And no, there really is no valuable contribution yo ucan make to the grand scheme of things. How would you even quantify 'valuable contribution' anyway. 'Value' itself is just a human concept. Life has no inherent value. It is a phenomenon of nature. This is really our species greatest undoing - this desperate need to find value and meaning in our own existance and everything therein. This all said, there is no need for nihilistic reactions. Just because there is no inherent meaning or value doesn't mean that we should all just shut down and give up. I actually find it a liberating truth. It means that we don't have to spend our lives suffering as a consequence to our persistance quest for value and meaning. We can be far more accepting of 'what is' and appreciate life more. Life itself can hold a unique value to you. It can be a meaning in and of itself. I don't care that I'll make no impact, or that I myself have no value. I don't care that there isn't any overall meaning. I am alive and being so allows me to appreciate the beauty of life and nature, of reality. For as long as I am here and able I shall continue to persue that fact alone.

I meant to add that for each of the items you come up with, ask yourself if you need this thing, why you need it, and how you can work on it to satisfy it yourself. Just becomming aware of the insecurities, needs, wants, expectations will help you become more mindful of your motives and future interractions. But it is good to question these things too, and see where you can make healthy changes to alleviate the need for others to satisfy these things for you. I have done this work on myself and it has given me several profound insights in to myself. This excercise also works for any areas in life where we have needs or dependencies on things - whether it's bad habits, friendships, jobs, whatever. By imagining loosing (or intentionally depriving ourselves of) something, the drives and motives bubble up to the surface through the negative thoughts and feelings that ensue.

This is my first post on this forum. This forum is a fantastic idea and long awaited! I’m in the UK and I’ve been following Actualized.org for over a year now. It has given me the clarity and insight I have been looking for over the last 30 odd years. I always knew there was more to life than met the eye but I didn’t have the ‘keys’ to the doors that would let me out of the illusions we grow up in. This content was exactly what I was waiting for and aligns so well with my own critical thinking. I’ve been meditating for just under a year now and consistently for the last 6 months. I commit to 20 minutes every day, sometimes longer. I also have extra ‘mini’ meditations during my day if I need to. I am interested in hearing about the techniques that others use when meditating and the benefits they are experiencing as a result. I use a technique whereby I combine thought ‘rejection’ and mindfulness. Either with my eyes closed or open I try to maintain my concentration and focus on the present moment, on the senses, but without ‘engaging’ in the sensory input. Just being aware of it. Whilst doing this my ‘thought-stories’ tends to stop and just brief, random, generic thoughts flash by – narratives or commentaries, which I also don’t engage with. Anytime I catch myself wondering off into thought-stories I refocus on the present moment and the senses. Focussing on breathing can be helpful too, although I try to half-focus on breathing and the other senses, particularly hearing and, if eyes open, sight. As Leo says, you can’t stop thoughts from arising. But I have defined at least 3 kinds of thoughts. There are the thought-stories where you drift off in to an audio-visual world that plays out things that are on your mind, problems, past events, future events or fantasies. These I call the monkey-mind, the thoughts I want to quieten the most. Then there is the ‘voice’, the narrative or commentary that comes out of nowhere and passes some comment on the present situation. This I have learned to ‘cut off’ as soon as it starts. In fact, the ‘thought’ arises before the ‘voice’ describes it so there is no need for the voice to say anything. The last kind of thought is the completely random one. Disjointed and irrelevant to the moment. Apart from these the only other thing I have observed is a kind of background ‘noise’ that varies from day to day or throughout the day. Fundamentally I can't stop the more 'basic' thought but I can almost stop the thought-stories. Which is my greatest aim. One of the weirdest things I have observed is that my thoughts are not 'me'. They don't come from 'me' and I cannot control what they are or when they will occur. In fact they sneakily creep up on me and hijack my conscious mind. It's odd, because they don't have any personality or identity. They are not 'me'. I guess this is an important realisation but as yet I'm not sure what it means. The other thing I have observed is that the thoughts serve no real purpose. Even if you think you are having a 'constructive' thought-story about some pressing issue, I find that, inevitably, the thoughts will be forgotten by the time the 'pressing issue' is addressed anyway. So in fact they are a waste of time and mental resource, not to mention a distraction from the present moment. I find I can meditate in almost any environment. In fact if there is an ‘ambience’ it is better. I have actually found that by doing this in more busy or noisy environments has reduced my ‘trigger-ability’ to ambient events like sudden noises and disturbances (reminds me of Leo’s story about the wasps when he was meditating and the ‘emotions lighting up like a Christmas tree. I’ve noticed this myself). It’s kind of like the ‘do nothing’ technique where you can observe a situation without engaging in it, without criticising, judging or expecting anything from it. I actually find it easier to meditate when there is some ambience to ‘observe’. Most of the time I meditate in a quiet room at a specific time. But I also find it helpful when I am feeling anxious, stressed or emotional in some way – maybe I have been triggered by something. Just taking time out for a mini-meditation of 5 or 10 minutes just quietens the mind and the emotional body. It’s particularly helpful when I find I can’t sleep too. Getting up, arousing myself and taking 10 minutes to mediate and then going back to bed will almost always work. The benefits I have noticed from my meditation is a reduction in stress and anxiety. Being far more comfortable and at ease in busy, loud or bustling environments. Far less reactive to things going on around me or even specifically to me. Less emotional reactivity and the ability to calm my emotional body. Feeling far more calm and relaxed and at peace in any situation particularly when doing nothing – like queueing or waiting, or sitting on a plane or train for hours, or in any environment that I’m not engaged with. In fact I can use these situation to do a mindfulness-meditation. I actually look forward to these situations and see them as opportunities to quieten the mind and be at peace in the moment. So what do you guys do? What are the benefits you are finding? What really works and what doesn’t so well? And what have you learned about you own thought processes?

Thank you for replying. As I have read around this forum it is interesting to see how different people's meditation experiences are.

It's interesting to see that most replies to the neediness issue revolve around finding the causes and making peace with the past. This is important but there is more to it. I see neediness as a lack of self-esteem and a lack of identity. Fundamentally people are very needy because they aren't taking responsibility for creating and shaping their own lives and are dependent on others to do this for them. This happens subconsciously, and many us have a degree of neediness and are probably not even aware of it. The secret here is to focus on what these 'needs' are that you are trying to get fulfilled by other people. As Leo so well put it in several of his videos "There is nothing that another person can give you that you can't give yourself.". Neediness can come from a need for validation, approval, security, 'love', attention, lack of self-confidence, all manner of things. All of these things can be worked out of the system. Looking to your past helps to identify where it started but you need to identidy the actual effect of that past and the insecurities and needs that it has invoked within you. When I have seen neediness in others I have seen people who don't appear to have a cohesive life structure when they are on their own. I beleive the thing to do is to create a life for yourself, that is secure and satisfying, independently of other people. That way your dependence on others will be reduced and you will be less needy for them to contribute to the life you have created for yourself. As other people have said, learning to love yourself is very important. If you don't love yourself then you look to others to prove to you that you are lovable. Another cause of neediness. An exercise I came up with to identify insecurities and needs it this: You've just left a relationship and you're feeling needy. So sit down with a pen and paper and write down all the things you feel you have 'lost' now that the relatonship is over. Also write down all the things you crave from it, or another potential relationship. As you spend more time out of the relationship, perhaps spending time alone, write down how it feels. Any emptiness, or sadness, of fear, anxiety. Think about why you needed that relationship in the first place and how it made you feel while you were in it. Think about your expectations of relationships - what you expect from the relationships itself and from the other person specifically. Now is the best time to do this because you are currently feeling the effects of it. This isn't an easy exercise because there will be deep, inner issues that you will need to find. We're not just talking the easy, off-the-cuff things that you can identify. Take time to really introspect about it. In short, the easiest way to find out why you do something, or are a certain way, is to think about how it feels when that thing you do or are is taken away.

Interesting topic. I try to practice mindfulness, being aware of the present moment. Instead of getting bored though it is actually the absence of any particular emotion or feeling that I get. It's just a state of 'neutrality' for me. I think maybe what you are doing is trying to specifically 'engage' in the present moment. For me, I don't try to interact in any way with it. I don't 'think' about the present moment. I just observe it without any form of judgment or expectation. Just let it be. It sounds to me like you are 'trying too hard' to be present. Trying to analyse the moment. Being aware is about being aware but not thinking about it. Not having expetations of it. I was recently on a 4 hour flight on a plane without any entertainment and it was dark outside so there was nothing to see. I relaxed my body and my mind and just allowed my senses to see and hear. There wasn't much to see and hear - just the roar of the plane, voices, sudden sounds, people moving about, occasional motion. But I just allowed myself to be aware without questioning or analysing or trying to 'mentally interrogate' the present moment. I just felt relaxed and neutral. And that was it, for 4 hours. And I didn't 'feel' bored once. In fact there was no real sense of time. Boredom comes from the lack of stimulation. But to become bored you have to be thinking about something that offers that stimulation. You have to also be having some expectation of some 'reward' from being present that you weren't getting. The expectation was unfulfilled. Being aware of time doesn't help. If you're counting the minutes and hours you will feel frustration and boredom. I find meditation really helps to quieten down the need for stimulation and be more accepting of the present moment without the feeling of boredom. Ultimately if you're feeling bored then your mind is focussing on other more stimulating pursuits. Monkeymind. That is perhaps where the work needs doing.

It's true that many people don't have the interest or commitment to watch an hour-long self help video, or even 30 minutes. I think the problem is more related to perceived benefit than anything else. Instant gratification. Unless someone believes that the effort will be rewarded with some tangible benefit they will not take the time or put in the effort. The problem with self-help is that most people are sceptible about it in the first place. Everyone thinks they know better. Secondly, the results of self-help are not always instant or obvious. You may not get a mind-blowing epiphany right away and the results may be far more subtle, at least for a while. It's very hard to promote self-help when you can't promise a direct, positive, result. The results really depend on the mindset of the person viewing the material and unless they have the right attitude in the first place they may not get any results at all. I've tried to encourage others to watch Leo's videos. I've even tried to engage others in conversations about some of the concepts I have learned from the videos. But people aren't even receptive to it in casual conversation, let alone getting them to sit down for even 15 minutes to watch somone on the internet talk about fanciful 'theories' and psychology (that's how others tend to see it). It's sad that people are not so receptive to it. If only we could find a way to promote self-help. It should be addressed in schools and colleges. I, for one, wil happily invest an hour or more to watch one of Leo's videos. I have the openmindedness and interest to engage in the content without even knowing whether or not I will agree or benefit from it. I like to consider the possibilities of what I hear. Thumbs up for the new forum. I really like the platform. Well presented. Better than any others I've have seen.

I came to this realisation myself a few months ago that all people are selfish. And I don't necessarily mean in some nasty or antisocial way. To be a living organism is to be selfish. Survival is selfishness. It has to be. But we humans have taken survival in to our world of illusion, abstract thought, concepts and agendas. Into our ego. The ego IS pure selfishness. As Leo talked about in his video about 'How we lie' he pointed out the truth that we all operate from our own agendas. However I identify 3 types of selfishness, only 1 of which I deem unhealthy: Where you benefit at no cost to others, Where you benefit at the expense of others, Where you benefit and others also benefit. We all operate from one of these contexts at any given moment in time. Ultimately the bit that is always present is "I benefit....as a result to my actions". The benefits can be sneaky and not obvious. They can be direct and materialistic. Or they can be emotional. They usually come in the form or one of these: material gain, comfort, security, validation/acceptance/approval, stimulation/excitement. Even 'volunteers' are getting some reward. Most likely validation and a sense of nobility. However, at least their actions benefit others. Selfishness is an interesting paradox: To be the recipient of a selfless act is to actually BE selfish. Especially to expect any form of selfless act - this one I see a lot in relationships. It can actually be selfish itself to acuse someone of being selfish. But to give something to someone selflessly, at your own expense means that someone has to receive that thing at your expense. To do so knowingly would make them selfish would it not? I find the whole concept of selfishness fundamentally flawed. Ultimately because, in the end, there is no true selflessness and everyone is acting from their own agenda. The only thing that does make sense is that everyone is selfish and acting in their own best interests in everything they do. Ultimately, why would anyone do anything if there really was no benefit to themselves. Even if that benefit is a simple as wanting to feel good about themselves. Even when we are convinced that we are doing someone for another person we usually have some sense of reciprocation or validation. It's a good one to contemplate.. Rant ahead: Relationships are the ultimate pit of selfishness. Do you choose your partner for their benefit or yours? Do you spend your life criticising and complaining to them that they don't do what you want them to do, don't behave how you want them to, don't do this, don't do that, don't fulfil your needs, make you feel special etc.. need I go on? not to mention the ultimate selfish manipulation - 'if you love me you would want to do x,y,z for me'. Human society is hell bent on pointing the finger at everyone else and expecting everyone else to meet their needs and expectations. Noone wants to take any responsibility for themselves. I think I'll post a whole topic about selfish expectations and how they are destroying society both at large and within people's personal lives. Anyway, rant aside. Interesting topic to contemplate. I too wish people would admit the truth of it rather than give the egoic defenses and justifications. Let's just be real here and admit the reality of humanity. No need to judge or criticise it. It is what it is.