flume

Sometimes I feel like I can’t cope with the pace at which my life is moving forward. At those times, literally everything overwhelms me and I’m just spending days doing barely anything, sitting around wide - eyed, trying to let my body integrate what is happening. The overwhelm is interesting because I actually live a super simple life. I’m proud to say that I’m at a point where I don’t say yes to anything I don’t want to do anymore. That means anything that’s too much for the senses is more or less cut out of my life because it drains me: movies, shopping, gossip, parties, constant music or chatter, public transport, too much touch, electronics, small talk,… I have organised my life in a way where I have basically no input from the outside world what so ever like the news or commercials. So I live like a grandma. And I love it. I so enjoy living a slowed-down life and being by myself, I wouldn’t want it any other way. So when I’m not working I sleep, read, write, meditate, research, cook, do yoga, dance, go outside, work on ideas, philosophise or catch up with a handful of people that I’m close with. When I am working I’m putting what I’m learning into practice, taking care of people while not loosing touch with myself, communicating properly, connecting with nature, advancing an idea I really believe in and working out my exact mission within it. (I’m the luckiest person on this planet when it comes to my work.) So this makes that basically all of my time is spent on developing myself, which leads to rather big changes in awareness and circumstances… All. The. Time. I’m only starting to notice this now because I’m looking back at old journal entries, thinking: “Wow, I was a totally different person two months ago.” This is a bit unsettling at times, so I retrieve and give my system the time it needs to adapt. Right now is such a time.

Everyone knows salads are healthy but they’re quite frowned upon because they’re usually boring and unsatisfying. So as a salad lover, I gathered some tips on how to make them more enjoyable :-) Start small Vegetables are a lot higher in volume per calorie so you’ll have difficulty stomaching a big bowl of greens for lunch right away. Set an intention to eat one small bowl as a side dish everyday for lunch or dinner. Start with no greens and use a lot of dressing Let’s be honest, the big, tasteless leaves of salad seem super boring and usually prevents us from making one in the first place. So start enjoying your salads without them. If there are raw vegetables in a bowl, it’s a salad in my books ;-) Just eat things you enjoy. Once you’re in the habit of having a bowl of veggies everyday, you can gradually add some greens: arugula, butter lettuce, spinach, etc. Chop them very small in the beginning and you won’t even notice they’re in there. The most important part of every good salad: The dressing You’ll wanna stay away from store bought dressings and make your own instead. It’s actually fun and a lot more versatile once you get the basics down. Here are two of my favourite dressings: 1 Tbsp of tahini 1 Tsp of honey 1 Tbsp of mustard 3 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar 3 Tbsp of lemon juice Some apple cider vinegar 1 Tbsp of nutritional yeast 1 Tbsp of olive oil Garlic powder Dried dill The base of your salad will be mostly raw veggies: Tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, carrot, beet, zucchini, corn, cabbage, radishes and greens. But the key element to making salad filling and satisfying is having a good balance of carbs, protein and fat in them. This becomes especially important if you want to have your salad as a meal, not just as a side dish. If you just eat veggies and a bit of dressing, you’ll probably be hungry again in an hour. Good sources of carbohydrates would be potatoes and sweet potatoes, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, squashes, whole grain pasta, brown or wild rice. Alternatively you could eat some whole-grain bread on the side. For protein I’d recommend chickpeas, kidney beans, butter beans and other kinds of beans, lentils, tofu, eggs, feta or fish (depending on your diet). Some great sources of fat are avocados, olives, all kinds of nuts (walnuts, cashews, etc.) and seeds (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, etc.). Some extras if you wanna go fancy: Dried or fresh fruit like apples, figs and raisins. For winter: Roast up your favourite root vegetables in the oven with some olive oil and put them on your salad while they’re still warm. I sometimes to that with chickpeas too. Sprouts are full of nutrition and give your salad a good crunch. Some pickled cabbage or sauerkraut gives and interesting flavour and is good for digestion. Use all your favourite herbs (I love fresh basil and dill). They’re (again) full of nutrients and pretty easy to grow yourself. Just be creative. There are no rules, really :-) It's easy to forget the basics in all the self actualisation and spiritual work we're doing here :-) Eating healthy will assist you greatly in finding focus to pursue what’s important to you in life.

@Barbella Yes, we’ll go through this until we have the courage to listen to our heart right away without doubting it and learn that that’s the most loving option for everyone. You already know what to do. And you'll grow from it, just be compassionate with yourself You deserve a man you’re crazy about

I started doing Kundalini Yoga a couple of weeks ago at a yoga center nearby. I’m really loving how the units are a mix of (very intense) yoga poses, calming practices, information and meditation… They really take their time (90 minutes) so it feels very well rounded. Most of the kriyas are done with closed eyes, so you’re really bound to focus on yourself. The practice really forces me to surrender every time. But in a very enjoyable way. It’s difficult to describe. Even though I’ve only been doing it for a little while, I can really tell how this kind of yoga has a very real core and (if done right) the exercises are meant to awaken you. It’s not all about who can bind into a pretzel and has the prettiest yoga pants. Every time I leave the studio my mind is very spacious and my body feels activated. So I have to say, I’m impressed. I’ve always just done things by myself because I thought it was silly to pay for these things… But I was wrong :-) This is actually really helpful. I’ve tried a little bit of Kriya yoga in the past and this now really reminds me of it. Anyways, I’ve been a bit sick the past week. For some reason this made me lucid dream a lot more than usually. So while being in one of them, I asked the dream: “What would awakening feel like?” I suddenly felt a hot bright ball of light at the base of my spine, moving in a U-shape, trying to move upI mean… I’ve heard about kundalini energy before but this… Was freaking hot and intense!!

They do seem real if I don't become lucid. It's only afterwards that things seem "off". If I do become lucid, they're not quite as solid as waking reality. It's weird to be aware of how you're making it all up... It's exhausting in a way, but only if you're trying to change things. It feels like swimming in myself. Still pretty new to all of this so it's difficult for me to draw conclusions. I just intuitively know what my dreams mean when I wake up. I'd say they feel like a projection of my mind that helps me become whole, balanced, mature... All the good things :-)

I have the same tendency as your girlfriend and my last relationship somehow went down the same way. So I think one of two things could be going on: She just wants to feel your strength. She wants you to step up and lead her and not be concerned by her nagging around. Her moods are just a test to see how confident you are in what you do and how well you can handle criticism. Read “The Way Of The Superior Man” by David Deida to understand this dynamic. She has trouble with accepting that side about herself and is constantly projecting that rejected side onto you. In that case, she would probably benefit from going to therapy. It’s probably a combination of the two. At least in my case it was. I’d recommend for both of you to read “Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus” by John Gray as well. You’ll need to sniff out if it’s a problem on your side (stepping into your masculine), on her side (working through old patterns), or in communication (like described in Grays book). Good luck! :-)

I often do in my dreams and I write down some of them. Here’s an example: Worlds P. and me are standing in a room with a framed painting hanging right in front of us on the wall. It’s large, almost as large as our bodies and it’s picturing a different world - one you can enter by just stepping through the painting. And so we do. Even though we’re never really communicating and rarely look at each other, it’s clear that we’re travel companions, exploring all of this together. The “room” we enter represents someone else’s world, it’s like visiting someone else’s mental projection of what the world feels like for them. A viewpoint so to say which we can witness without being caught up in it. Every room we enter has more pictures hanging on the wall which lead to different people’s minds. So we wander through 3 or 4 different worlds. I remember C., a client at work, who’s mind seems to be running on train tracks that have no other option but to keep going on the same predetermined tracks over and over again. His mother, carefully watching him in the background, seems tense. She has so much love for her son. Watching him from afar, she’s unable to see what we see, unable to see how his autistic mind really works. Because of that she feels held back from all the love she could give. Love and understanding are one, after all, which this whole dream made really clear to me. In M.'s world we see a group of people doing yoga near a lake. As we come closer we see how she’s talking to one of the instructors, telling him about her troubles of keeping a constant practice. We understood. We really understood, because it seems like for the first time, we were paying attention to the expression on her face and not just her words when she was talking about her difficulties. The entire dream had an atmosphere of safety, connection and zero gravity. There was nothing we desperately wanted to explore or know, the point was just to lovingly understand. The last world I can remember was one with a lot of water again. We were sitting on rocks in a riverbed enjoying the clear water and the suns broken reflection on the waters surface. P. decides to dive and see what’s under the surface. I see how he injures himself by bumping his head against a rock underwater. After crawling back out to his seat in the sun I see a bleeding graze above his right eye. As throughout the whole dream I’m still in a calm, loving, peaceful state. I swim over and gently put my right hand on the wound. My hand is slowly healing the wound and this is the end of the dream.

Divinity in form

@Thittato You look like my lost twin. Blonde, blue eyes, black glasses, nose piercing, woolen sweater and an apartment full of books, plants and instruments. Cheers! Love your style

Gym tunes

Writing so little lately, even though it would do me so good. Really motivated to write and read more again. With autumn around the corner, the gloomy weather outside… How lovely :-) Getting back into training at the gym has been really tough the past months. I’ve been really fit in the past and it feels like now I have to start all over again. I love training though. I love getting stronger and more in tune with my body. I’m actually able to up my weights a lot quicker than I used to, since I was really thin back then. Some part of me doesn’t want to accept that I might never be this skinny ever again. Being borderline underweight just felt awesome for some reason… Like I barely exist and I don’t need to occupy space… But I (obviously) wasn’t in a good place mentally. But even now... My relationship with my body stays one of the most difficult things to deal with for me. I think my perception might be really off as well… I just wonder how much free mental energy I'd have if I wouldn't have to think about it so much all day.

Your post made me think of a book I was just reading. It’s “Letting Go” by David R. Hawkins, maybe you know it. Was a total game changer for me and I bet the technique would be super helpful in pick-up situations as well. He basically says the other person can tell your intentions and moods and is really just mirroring your thoughts and emotions back to you. I’ll post some pages here, maybe it speaks to you. Good luck!

It means to love reality

@Rilles Love it! Just subscribed on Spotify. Your music reminds me of Caribou and Ogris Debris, I'm sure you know them

“Watch carefully, the magic that occurs, when you give a person just enough comfort to be themselves.” (Atticus) “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens.” (Carl Jung) “Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.” (A Course In Miracles) “Whatever you think you teach, you teach what you are.” (Nathaniel Brandon) “In proportion as he simplifies his life the laws of the universe will seem less complex; and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” (Henry David Thoreau) “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live a life according to its dictates; a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.” (Henry David Thoreau) “It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.” (Socrates ) “Art is a personal act of courage. Something one person does that creates change in another.” (Seth Godin) “Science is organised knowledge. Wisdom is organised life.” (Will Durant) “The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. Asia, not even East vs. West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.” (Will Durant) “The most profound experiences arise from questioning the obvious.” (Peter Ralston) “Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” (William James) “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” (Carl Jung) “The next message you need is always right where you are.” (Ram Dass) “Everyone takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” (Arthur Schopenhauer) “When you awaken the truth within yourself, there’s no illusion to overcome, only truth to be recognised wherever you go.” (Matt Kahn) “We question not for an answer but to experience whatever is true.” (Peter Ralston) “It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s just that I stay with problems longer.” (Albert Eistein) “The answer to every question is loving yourself more, not less.” (Matt Kahn) “Stop working on yourself. Start relating to yourself.” (Matt Kahn)

After so many years of feeling lost, it seems like I've finally found my teacher. Matt, you've made all the difference in my life. It's like my entire 'traditional' spiritual journey was put on halt and I've found a much more helpful approach to doing all of this work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everything inside of me agrees with this energy and the shifts that have happened over the past months and ineffable. I'm having so many moments of being completely overwhelmed by the beauty of life, to a point where I feel like on MDMA. It's crazy. Feels like coming home. Finally. "Stop working on yourself. Start relating to yourself." @Natasha So happy to hear that it's gotten you some clarity. We always know best, we just have to dare to listen. Love you!

Matt Kahn all the way Just watch any video that speaks to you.

Good points, I liked the video! I felt bad about not keeping up with the news for some time. Like I should ‘do more’, if you know what I mean. But if you really look at it, it’s funny how people think that they ‘do more’ by reading the news. Actually, they’re just more angry, judgmental and in an overall worse mood. That won’t solve anyones problems either. Stoicism is perfect here. You do what you can, with what you have, in whatever situation you’re in. We need some serious solutions for this world. And sure, you have to get to know the problems for that. But then a shift in focus needs to happen towards solutions and betterment. People rarely ever make that jump. You can’t destroy evil, your only chance is to build alternatives. And no-one’s doing that while being lost in pointing fingers. “It’s difficult to keep track of the problem when you’re part of the solution” ;-)

The past month really has been a ride. It’s been so overwhelming that I had to let go completely of any kind of routine. And I did let go easily this time, because I know this game by now. When I’m holding on to the same routine for too long, life gets crazy so I’m forced to let it go. I then spend some time in a limbo until a new route emerges and everything begins anew. It’s scary to stop micromanaging myself and my days. Routines and “force” did help in the past to some extent and I think I’ve just consumed too much self - help content. Yet I feel the intense pull that letting go is exactly what I need to do. Instead of a habit tracker and a strickt to-do list I made a “feel-good-list” this month It’s meant as inspiration to take good care of myself. Feels so light compared to what I did before. Focussing on self love so much lately, I now live by the question “What do I need right now?”. The answer is always there immediately. Clear, simple, straight forward. A part of me is still scared that I won’t get things done this way. Yet here I am, still meditating, reading, taking care of things. But feeling so much better at the same time. I read this question the other day: “If you could tell your younger self of 5 years ago anything, what would you say?” And I’d just say “Relax. Trust life. There’s no need to overthink every decision. Life is taking care of things as well. You won’t do wrong.” Today has been the perfect example of what trust can do. I had no intention but to be kind to myself when I woke up. After my morning meditation I felt really inspired to do things that are good for me. Having a lot of energy and clarity, I exercised and went out to buy and organise things that I’ve been putting off for months. Checked so many things off my list effortlessly. I also met two really nice people that unexpectedly helped me with some questions I was having. Later I was at a Café reading and when I wanted to pay I found out that this super handsome man sitting on the table next to me already paid my coffee when he left… I mean, come on. What a day! I find it really difficult to learn how to trust these boosts of inspiration and energy. I still like to keep track of planning projects for example but that just seems impossible sometimes. That’s a difficult balance to strike. But I’ll figure it out. Trust love. Trust life. Trust myself.

Finally bought speakers today. My never ending dance parties just became THAT much more awesome

I might as well post my Me-Sheet here for reference: Life Purpose Leading people back to their connection with nature Zone Of Genius Finding similarities between nature and the human mind Domein Of Mastery Gardening, Writing, ? Top 10 Values Independence Uniqueness Truth Solitude Vulnerability Contribution Appreciation Humour Knowledge Nature Top 5 Strengths Enthusiasm And Energy Love Of Leaning Spirituality And Sense Of Purpose Optimism And Future-Mindedness Gratitude Long Term Goals Enlightenment Work Outside All Day Be Self-Employed Cure Eating Disorder Top 5 Questions Is it possible to find God through nature? What would a completely new form of therapy be? What does it mean to love something? What would happen if everyone dared to be more authentic? Why is there something rather than nothing?

I’m really inspired by how vulnerable people are in their journals so I decided to journal more here. It’s funny how my relationship to this forum has changed over the past year. I used to be so intimidated when people weren’t nice to each other, I’d think about mean comments for days and I never dared to really say what I’m thinking. Now I’m way more comfortable with who I am, so it’s easier to stand up for myself and not let negativity effect me so much. Being on this forum has been (an continues to be) a great leaning opportunity. There are a lot of incredibly nice and helpful people on here that inspire me very much :-) I reviewed my LPC-values the other day. I was really happy to see that I’m becoming more aligned with them over time (even though I haven’t actively been working on any project the past weeks). Anyways, one of thee values is vulnerability. Journaling publicly a big step in that direction for me. It does me good too. And I enjoy reading back on my old entries.

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror." KAHLIL GIBRAN

Oh lovely. Totally new to these things to be honest. But I'm open to learn about it for sure :-) Long threads are a bit overwhelming to me sometimes, so I probably won't be checking it all the time. @Galyna Hi! As I've said, no idea about these things but I'm an Aries with a Scorpio rising and a moon in Taurus. Whatever that is worth Do you need anything else? Oh and since you're into numerology here: 17, 3, 33 or any combination of 1-3-7 are returning constantly in my life, for example in house numbers, bills, etc. Maybe you have any thoughts on that. @zeroISinfinity I can already tell, you're a weird bunch