mmKay

Beautiful video. Leo has one where he talks about " 40 signs you are neurotic" or something along these lines, and in the comments many people were saying that these are actually normal human behaviours because they are so common. This manifesting video is perfect to provide contrast on how to live in a less teeth clenching way (:

watch understanding ego backlash and how to stop backsliding videos

Working on " general self-help knowledge" is a trap. Pick, choose, divide and conquer. Go for the books with topics that genuently spark your curiosity and that are relevant to the current chapter of your life, either about something that you are going trough or looking forward to improve in. Imagine you have a math test about adding and subtracting but instead of focusing on that you decide to read some geography. No wonder you wouldn't get traction reading. Also, maybe you have too much stimulation going on in your life. Obviously If you binge on Netflix, Youtube, junk food and other distractions you will literally be bored by books since by comparison they offer more subtle amounts of "entertainment". But now imagine you literally locked yourself in an empty room for a day. After 15 hours of staring at all the walls, a book would be pretty interesting. I'd say reading is an acquired taste. You learn to love it by doing it more. Surely there are people who would rather open a book than watch some Game of Thrones. Is it common? Hell no. On the other hand, ask yourself what are you reading books for? Are you hoarding random information to feel like you are improoving ? Are you rushing through them just so you can say " I've read 5 books this month"? . Many of us have to take a hit in the ego and admit that quality of reading and implementation > quantity read. Remember that Learning = Behaviour change. Otherwise, after you close the cover, you can have a couple of cool ideas to share with your friends or to post on the forum, but have you really improoved? Overall, the most practical tip that also will give you the most real life results would be this: Make reading part of your daily routine and apply intuition to manage the hows. You will see what works and doesn't work for you. It is a life long process of discovery. Personally I have to improve a lot when it comes to reading, taking notes and consistency&discipline since I've decided over a year ago to go for Autodidacticism rather than plugging into the College system. I'm also eager to read some more ideas here (:

I'm aware I'm sharing this more for an Ego boost than just for the sake of sharing or helping others a bit to grasp awareness, but here it is: After watching the "Understanding How Paradigms Work" video, something clicked during meditation. "Thinking is a paradigm, and so are words". Basically I started stripping away " Fog " that was clouding pure "awareness". What I did was to stare at a wall with the intent of not labeling anything. Any attempt to understand experience ended up in the use of Thinking & Words paradigm. It is not " wall " , that distinction between it and the rest of objects is created by me. It is not " white ", it is not " see ", and the wall doesn't have a story. After some time of struggling to keep focus on this "non-judgemental awareness" I started noticing "something" that is everywhere. Something that is everything. It was what the wall is made of before I conceptualize it as wall. So was the hand I was looking at, and so were the thoughts I was having, so was the thought of " me ", and so were the perceptions I was having. The best description of it that I could come up with was " It is what it is, and It is aware of itself " but that is still not accurate. I experienced why it impossible to explain "being aware" since the one and only way to "understand" it is by experiencing it, and why talking about it is so wierd and unclear. Because it is literally " Ineffable ". If there is some word that can describe the experience, it's that one. The clarity lasted around 5 min, with "waves" of "it" being more clear, or less clear, and then it slowly started fading, being gone after a couple of minutes. It sounds to me like some of the descriptions of "awakening" that I've heard, and Leos explanations of " everything is made out of Being". But for me it was pretty much like having some candy at licking range away from your mouth, but you end up not being able to chew on it and just salivate your mouth off. So if it was that, it was some really shallow experience. Or I'm just deluded. By the way, I feel like every single word we speak or think should be in between quotation marks. Makes it that more accurate that it is not the actual thing that we are referring to. Obvious but not really.