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@bejapuskas @ivory @Shin @Gabriel Antonio Thank you for your lovely replies. It's a bit of a silly thing to struggle with but that's why I'm here. I wanna practice and make myself uncomfortable. Get out of the identity - mindset. It's funny because for years now I just avoided social media and thought I've gotten over the problem. So no, I'll keep my picture and I do want to share personal things Haha, this is already killing me.

@Leo Gura That's not what I wanted to say with this post at all. I think this post might have come off a lot more offensive than I intended to. I don't actually want the forum to be any different. I'm just sharing what I'm still struggling with.

INFJ. Almost scary how accurate.

@Jj13 I second that! Good luck. Do whatever split works for you. I know, personally, I'd prefer working on both things daily. Mornings and evenings for meditation, yoga, reading and journaling and then working hard during the day. I find the practices can influence each other nicely.

@ThinAir you suck

@ThinAir Totally! Let's do it! Maybe we could hang out in some random book store and drink coffee or try to read each others thoughts. Anyways, hit me up for sure. I'll beam you a message with my phone number right now. Let me know if it worked. Can't wait to give you a hug! Truly yours on forum, M.

sounds lovely! definitely my 2 favourite parts of the report

I've been taking cold showers every morning now for several weeks. Obviously, there's lots of physical benefits, as they apparently help fighting disease by strengthening the immune system. Personally, it helped me to feel more grounded in my body, as I live in my head quite a lot and as a result I don't really feel very connected to my body. If you're interested, check out this podcast: https://www.russellbrand.com/podcast/70-heal-yourself-with-the-ice-shaman-with-wim-hof/ This really convinced me to give it a shot. Most importantly though, it taught me how pain in my daily life is self inflicted. It's a one minute shower. Yet my mind potentially makes it into hours of dread, moaning about it and trying to find excuses. Such a little thing - yet so much resistance. If you take a closer look though, I don't have a problem if I'm not standing in the shower with the cold water running over me. I set myself a challenge to see how little I could suffer doing something quite uncomfortable. Because, actually: Going to bed the night before - no problem Taking off my clothes - no problem Stepping into the shower - no problem Showering - the resistance usually goes away after 10 seconds. So most of the time, I'm just anticipating something, that isn't even real yet. Realising this really helped me to take a bit of that power that my mind has over those silly things away. I see it in other areas of my life as well. What's the gain from dreading something you know you have to do anyway? Why not dance through it by taking your resistance down? And yes, I've definitely heard about the difference between pain and suffering before. It made sense in my head, but the experience of it drilled it into me much more efficiently ;-) Maybe this post can be of encouragement for some of you to try something new and uncomfortable. Make it your yoga. See how you react doing the same thing everyday. Give it a chance. Be open and learn.

Oh, Eckhart is one of a kind, isn't he? I used to think I don't 'need' his teachings. That they're maybe nice, but hey, I heard about all that stuff before. Yet every time I read his books, it does something with me. And when I listen to his voice, I don't doubt that there's nothing but truth coming out of his mouth. It's the way he presents it though. It would be so easy to just skip through. Everything he says is so obvious. He speaks so clearly that it makes it difficult to see. It's easy to miss. Like a light, so bright, and right in front of you, that you need to develop some skills to look at it for any more than a few seconds. Otherwise it does nothing to you. "The Unmanifested does not liberate you until you enter it consciously. That's why Jesus did not say: the truth will make you free, but rather: 'You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' This is not a conceptual truth. It is the truth of eternal life beyond form, which is known directly or not at all." Again and again: words are not enough. Warm regards!

Hi, here's some of my thoughts when reading this: You said you're not pursuing sex because of this worry that you couldn't perform. And you feel like you want to get 'back' to 'normal' - how it was before, when you could perform and you wonder what has changed. I often experienced that in self development there is no way back. It can be quite scary when something has been a certain way all our lives and everyone around us is doing the same. Like chasing sex and getting a sense of satisfaction from it. But observing the mind forces us to look deeply into our patterns and often shows us how empty they leave us. Seeing things clearly robs you of the ability to get a fix from it. Automatically, you detach from it. I know the same thing happened to me when I started meditating. My sex drive disappeared for months, yet I felt more loving than ever. I guess you might also wonder whether you will ever have 'normal' sex again. All I can say is: You might not, but there are better things ahead of you. You'll attract more meaningful connections where you can be truly open and vulnerable, which also means sex on a whole other level. Did you ever ask yourself what would happen if you saw this whole situation as growth, rather than an issue? Maybe chasing girls just doesn't serve you at the moment. Consider it. Sometimes it's the ego wanting to make a problem out of things that actually aren't really problems. Playing those kind of games keeps you involved in things that aren't actually problematic. What is it you feel bad about? Or do you maybe just think it's something you should feel bad about? Kind wishes!