VioletFlame

You "tune them into their natural intuition" by encouraging creativity & play everyday, not by encouraging them to wander the streets on their own at 6, and saying "Guess my work's done here, I taught them everything they need to know about the world, they're on their own now!" and hoping for the best and hoping they listened to your advice. That's neglect. That's playing with fire. Good luck teaching a 6 yr old everything about the world, they'll most likely turn around and argue with you because some of them are fairly certain they already know everything haha, they think they know more than you. That's why they need protection!! They're naive little rascals!

@Leo Gura Yes, self-inquiry and deep contemplation are the antidotes for not only understanding ourselves, but everyone else, as well. Though it can be perceived as inertia, sitting alone in a room all day is actually one of the most productive & constructive decisions any human being can make. Quite life-changing & profound, actually. It's not that black and white. You can do a "good deed" without saying a single word, and that's pure selflessness and humility. Also, I have met plenty of "social", extroverted people who disguise themselves as "good people", when in all realness, they can be the least honest, least virtuous, least trustworthy, least respectful, civil people out there. It's all a facade.

100% agree with this statement. Also most people have repressed childhood wounds they're either not willing to confront or are not even aware of. Those wounds then get passed onto the child, which is a serious issue, and commonly underestimated. This is a bit extreme to me, however, that they allow 6 yr olds to "wander alone" because they can be "trusted". It's not the child that should be trusted, it's the "adults" we must worry about and the OTHERS in the world that cannot be trusted. Parenting is one thing, like making the child aware that such threats exist is one thing, but even if they teach them "not to talk to strangers", for example, children are still innately naive, easily swayed, persuaded, & manipulated. Children, especially a 6 yr old, are generally inherently innocent/harmless (so it's not a matter of "trusting" them) unless in the very rare case, they are born with certain deficiencies & red flags suggesting psychopathy, children are not a threat, or an endangerment to society. Condoning "freedom" to a child THAT young is a form of neglect in my opinion and is highly irresponsible. That is actively endangering your child, not protecting them. As the parent, it is 100% your job and responsibility to ensure the safety of your child and protect them from constant external threats and dangers, not the child's responsibility, that includes educating them on these issues, yes, but don't just throw them in the fire, or in with the pack of wolves. That's a recipe of disaster. Children are not supposed to parent themselves, or protect themselves, that's not their job. That's literally our job as the adults.

I'm so glad this was inspiring for you. Thanks so much for reading!

@Leo Gura That's crazy I literally said that exact same thing in the Declining Birth Rate post, lol. That basically I believe it is irresponsible for anyone to have kids if they haven't healed their childhood wounds or are not a fully developed and psychologically mature/conscious adult. Otherwise, it's a thoughtless act because you're not considering the affects it will have on your child. It is wise to heal yourself psychologically and heal your own wounds before bringing a child in this world, absolutely, 100%, because otherwise, you WILL project all of your problems onto them, even if you're not realizing it and you WILL pass down those wounds, traits, & behaviors onto that child. Children are so sacred. If you want to birth a child, think about the life you will give them, before they are here. You most certainly require a visionary mindset. Children absolutely deserve better, and I am a huge advocate for that, however, coming from someone who has overcome trauma & mental illness (read my post/story on how I overcame trauma on my Self-Actualization journey in Mental Illness thread (: ) , I fully believe neuroplasticity is real, too, as I am a living testimony. Most people with mental illness are not a lost cause. There is so much hope and room for growth/improvement that it's actually astonishing.

I've had some of my most interesting conversations with a schizophrenic, but I'm not advising you to talk to anyone you intuitively don't feel comfortable with. Safety first, always, and definitely follow your gut. Schizos can be vastly dismissed, misconceived, & stigmatized and most of the time if you just talk to them like you would any other person, they're not so bad as they're perceived to be. A large reason is because there are various types of schizophrenics and they have different severities, so it depends. But they most of the time just want to feel heard and understood, just like all of us. It's of course wise to draw a line between friendliness/inclusivity, & keeping the space/creating a healthy distance between you and the person. Always remain neutral and always keep your guard up. But I'm that person who tries to understand schizophrenics, if I happen to come across one, and treat them/talk to them like any other human being. If it becomes too unintelligible, show them understanding (even though you have no clue what they just said lol), and politely disengage. One of my best friends actually developed schizophrenia over the last few years and it has absolutely broke my heart to see the "shift" in her personality, but she is completely harmless, she's just experiencing life differently now.

And that's a good thing, arguably, a blessing. Aside from Jehovah's Witnesses, who wants to "run" the world, anyway? Hitlers & Trumps (Machiavellian leaders), usually, and now AI & robots.. engineered by men who are typically obsessed with replicating sci-fi movies. Predominantly, and throughout history, men, not women, desired to "rule" the world, and for all the most corrupt, ruthless, & selfish reasons. The operative term being "rule". It's rare one wants to "save" mankind, or help the world; it's rare to come across a high-conscious leader, unless their stage Yellow or Turquoise. Instead, leaders & "rulers" want to dominate and make the world their own, which fits into their "box" and satisfies their own survival needs, biases', ideologies, & fantasies on what the world should look like, failing to consider what's best for the majority of mankind; oblivious to the whole picture.

Hi @Leo Gura, would you be so kind to read this post (my self-actualization/trauma recovery story)? It took some courage posting this one on the forum, as it is deeply personal, but I felt called to share one of my most significant life experiences with everyone here with the hopes that others who may have gone through similar traumatic events can see it from a new perspective, or find hope. After years of at least a full decade of consistent spiritual work & deep inner-work, something just really clicked within me one day and it all made sense. I suppose you could say I saw the big picture and things became clear & transparent. I switched my perspective on the trauma and suddenly my whole outlook on life, people, & the world in general, changed in a profound way. I feel as though my traumatic experiences, the suffering I overcame, my experience as a trauma survivor, and my outlook on the trauma itself has really opened my eyes over the years, and I feel it's safe to say that it has helped me reach Awakening, or a sense of spiritual enlightenment. To have suffered for years, to have overcome this abuse, and still choose to view the world with love, including my abusers, with Love & Empathy, I feel as though I have mastered Love and must acknowledge how far I've come and for having gotten to this higher, deeper level of acceptance & grace. They say suffering can help one attain enlightenment but I think it's your perspective on the suffering, as well. I also wanted to thank you for your content on spirituality & personal development, as your videos have helped me to stay disciplined and motivated on my journey, and to never give up, despite whatever life throws at me, I always strive to become better. I guess it would mean so much if you read my story here because in a way, you also helped me get here; where I am today. Thank you, Leo. 🙏

So true, girl. It's actually quite a sadistic viewpoint, isn't it? The womb is so sacred, yet it can be perceived with such degradation & profound disrespect, it's astonishing. In a sense, when you really think about it, because everything's connected, and we are one, it's rather self-loathing to view the womb with revulsion because all of us come from the womb, and inhabited the womb for maximum 10 months. We are literally a part of the womb, and we exit the womb as a bloody, gory screaming mess, lol. To be repulsed by the womb, is to be repulsed by the Self, and life itself. Giving life sounds pretty bad ass & hardcore, if you ask me. Lol!

@NewKidOnTheBlock It is the desire for immortality itself that boggles my mind. If we can just release the desire and the obsession for eternal life in our physical bodies, and truly embrace death for what it is, then we will feel free, and truly happy.

Oh yeah, I most certainly believe our "Soul" or "spirit" lives on (is immortal) but our physical or material experience here on this planet cannot be eternal, it's simply not meant to be. Life & death is a perfect design as it is and it is irrevocable, it should be embraced for what it is.

Even if "immortality" was engineered by man, which I believe is pretty much impossible and a rather silly fantasy/ideal, there will still be physical threats & external dangers in the world. You could still get hit by a car and die, you could still drown, you could still get chased and eaten alive by a lion, you could still get shot or murdered by a psychopath, and there will still be natural disasters, always. Scientists can't manipulate or artificialize nature, or "play God". Death and mortality are inescapable, no matter how much scientists try to shy away from that fact. Hasn't anyone here seen the Final Destination movies? Lol! It's supposed to teach us that death is our fate, there's no escaping or avoiding that, only accepting & embracing it in the end, but I suggest embracing death now, while you're still here so you can actually live a good life. 😅

Immortality is unnatural and trying to rationalize it or use science or technology to "create" immortality is simply manipulating Nature itself. Nature can't be rendered artificial. Every living thing dies. That is part of the natural design. It is perfect as it is, and I believe there is reason and a purpose in death, just as much as there is reason and a purpose to life. Immortality is a pipe dream fantasy and desiring it is usually rooted in a deep fear of death, or lack of acceptance that death is inevitable, and inescapable. No science can escape or avoid the inevitable, no matter how badly scientists may try to replicate or emulate what they see in sci-fi movies.

Yes, that's one of my favorites! 🩷 Oh it was my pleasure. 🩷 Thank you so much. 🩷 You as well!

@Judy2 Thank you for reading. To answer your question, I have found various techniques that help me cope with immediate stressful situations, circumstances, & emotions and they are related to my spiritual practice & personal development work and I'm happy to share them with you. 1. Meditation, mindfulness, deep breathing, & active presence. The 5,4,3,2,1 technique, helping you to tap back into your 5 senses and come back to your body, helps re-ground my emotions and state of mind. Focusing on something I can either see, hear, smell, touch, or taste in my immediate environment is an excellent exercise to help re-regulate yourself and return to the present. 2. Feeling the emotions in my body instead of resisting them. Always checking in with myself and what my body is trying to tell me. Paying attention to how something is making me feel on a physiological level is very powerful. Don't ignore or neglect your emotions. Don't fear them. They teach us everything we need to know about ourselves. I think it's important to feel into your emotions because they can teach you a lot about where you're currently at and what you need to improve on. 3. Self-soothing practices, warmth, tactile comfort, & somatic movement. Gentle yoga, stretching, swaying, & rocking to release tension. Self-massage; rubbing shoulders, neck, hands, arms, etc. Hugging myself, wrapping up in a cozy soft blanket, holding onto a pet or stuffed animal, warm baths, holding onto a warm beverage, aromatherapy (lighting candles, incense, essential oils, etc.) Tapping (EFT) to lower cortisol levels, and reduce stress. 4. Creative practice & cathartic release. Singing (another deep breathing, diaphragmatic exercise) involves using your whole body (the whole body is your instrument) and breathing deeply which helps release pent up emotions, anger, tension, etc. Writing lyrics. Journaling. Listening to empowering, soothing music, or music that matches my mood or current emotion. Playing guitar & other instruments, was another incredibly powerful way to cope with stressful circumstances or situations. Creativity comes in many shapes and sizes though so finding what works for YOU is what's most important here, as long as you're expressing yourself in some way, you can reach a cathartic, transcendental release/experience, which can be incredibly profound. 5. Lions breath, growling, & exhaling loudly (screaming in a pillow can also be effective). If you are alone and safe, one of the things I found to be quite helpful, not sure if I invented this or not, but growling under my breath..it may seem kind of silly but it has honestly been incredibly powerful, and it really helps to release anger during a chronically stressful experience. Also, exhaling loudly, like when you take a sip of cold water and some people go "ahh" lol kind of like that, it's meant to give you that same level of relief. Lions breath was a yogic technique I learned that gives you that same vocal release where you stick out your tongue and breathe heavily, it makes me feel kind of "metal", if you like metal music you'll know what I mean lol, oh yeah...headbanging too, works like a charm I hope these were helpful! Thank you for asking! <3

@Jowblob I'm really sorry you're going through this. Hugs. I hope things get better for you soon.

That is funny. It takes one unmaterialistic man with a lot of will to live in the biggest gambling state in the U.S. and NOT gamble lol. I give him props. Gambling is an undesirable pursuit for me. But I feel for people who struggle with it.

I think the devil can be found in the self. For example, our shadow side can be closely related or akin to the "devil", but it is our responsibility as humans to become aware of it, and to heal our shadow self, so that we can become as close to "God" (however you wish to define that) as we possibly can and also so we can become better, more developed, and self-aware beings. There is a light in our shadow, if you will. It's a non-dualistic concept in my opinion. Both God and the devil can be found in the self, externally too, of course, but also internally. I think we can actually learn a whole lot about ourselves when we become aware of our own devilish nature, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, etc. But that's just my opinion.

Aw I'm really glad it was able to give you hope. Thank you for reading.

I've tested its accuracy before and I believe Google AI actually said that the relative minor of the key G major is A minor once and I was so appalled, but also found it kind of amusing, lol. The relative minor of G major is E minor. I literally outsmarted AI. Haha. But like my point is, for someone who didn't already have that knowledge, and was genuinely trying to learn say a relative minor to a key signature, for example, searches it on Google, and the first answer that pops up is blatantly false, then that's concerning. It's literally spreading misinformation and dumbing us down, in these instances.

@Leo Gura That's the problem. People search for a quick and dirty, promptly answer now, then blindly accept it as truth, without thinking for themselves. We search for an "answer", but fail to search for the true meaning. And the craziest thing is.. Google AI isn't even always accurate, it makes errors all the time, and AI itself can be biased! It accumulates data from peoples' opinions on the internet, not just "facts", but can be disguised as "facts". It is rather deceiving and misleading. Remember there was a time we'd actually have to do some research on the internet to find the answer we were looking for? We'd have to dig through various articles, forums, and sites to actually thoroughly learn something? Lol. I still favor this method, because I believe it's the most effective. However, research to most people now is an inconvenience. If we can obtain the "answer" instantaneously in a matter of seconds, why would most people bother to "go the extra mile" and dive deeper into the meaning of a thing? It's like it feeds on our obsession with convenience & taking the easy route.

Thank you for reading!

@Leo Gura I am a professional songwriter/musician. Have been writing music for nearly 20 years with a degree in music concentration. I can do this without the use of AI and can assure you that because it's coming from a human, it is guaranteed to have soul. I know you're probably just doing this for shits & giggles lol and why not right? But it is nearly impossible to create an AI-generated song (aka tincan music) sound soulful. AI does not have a heart or a "soul" and one simply cannot create authentic music without those two things, period. That's like expecting an inanimate object to love you or assuming a photo of a feast will satisfy your hunger. I recently wrote a piece titled, "I Don't Wanna Live In This World Anymore" (yes, quite blunt. It's also one of the most vulnerable songs I've ever written) but it's got a similar dark lyrical theme as Mad World. It touches on slop a little.

@Leo Gura ^^ That was his response to my post on the thread shown below (I simply expressed my opinion as I thought we're free to do on this forum) I said this: Just stopping by to declare that AI is destroying humanity and will harm society in a myriad of ways. It poses serious threats to the spirit of mankind. The whole literal purpose of AI is to overthrow humans and REPLACE us. Why on earth does that sound like a good idea to anyone? The ultimate form of dehumanization is AI. And in my opinion, it is self-destructive to want to see AI dominate society. We are already massively devoid of true, authentic human connection. AI will only divide us further and grant us a greater excuse to: 1. Take the easy route & choose laziness and hyper-convenience over human agency, diligence, & real effort 2. Isolate & socially withdraw ourselves 3. (Most importantly) To no longer think for ourselves, & to expect machines and AI to promptly give us all the answers, AND worst of all, assume it's truth, when in all actuality, even AI is erroneous, BIASED, inaccurate, and makes mistakes! On top of that, we are already seeing an over-reliance and extreme dependency to technology in general. Just imagine if the world blacked out and we couldn't use our phones or social media anymore, what would we do? We would all go INSANE. Think for a second just how pathetic that is. AI encourages us to NOT think for ourselves and discourages us to develop real skills; it discourages cognitive autonomy & critical thinking. If AI plans to do everything for us, then I predict we will develop learned helplessness, and we will lack the desire or WILL to do anything ourselves or to learn anything at all on our own. We will become conditioned to believe that AI is superior and that personal effort is futile or unnecessary. If something else is doing everything for us, why should we do it? The mentality of our future is "Oh well, AI will take care of it so, why bother?" It is human nature to choose convenience over challenge & difficulty, but that doesn't make it wise or right or beneficial for mankind. It only disrupts the process of growth, consciousness, and true human development. I commented to a different user: If we become too reliant on AI "solving the problems" for us, we will no longer feel it is necessary to use our own brains, our own critical thinking or decision-making skills. We will continue to use AI to "take the easy way out" or shortcut in life. Not everything can be learned in a matter of 3 seconds. Stop trying to cut corners. It takes hours of deep thinking, of reflecting on a topic, questioning it for yourselves, etc to truly understand something. And guess what, there's nothing wrong with that. Why do you want AI to do the thinking for you? Is it ignorance? Is it laziness? Are we actually trying to dumb ourselves down? Because that's what AI wants from us. To become dumbed down slaves & zombies. It is trying to convince us all that it is more intelligent and superior to human beings, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. To then he responded: "I would argue that this is a pretty low intelligence comment." And proceeded to claim that I lack critical thinking skills! But look, it's cool, we both apologized to eachother. I'm honestly never this rude and even surprised myself for reacting that way, but I genuinely felt personally insulted myself, as he was blatantly insulting my intelligence, when all I was doing was expressing my opinion.

THIS insulted me. Therefore, that is why I reacted the way I did. You flat out insulted my intelligence and claimed that I lack critical thinking skills before I said anything rude to you and you think that's okay? I am sorry for getting rude, and I'm honestly not usually like this, but I am fed up with people blatantly disrespecting me and then trying to rationalize it.