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@zenjen I think this thread highlights a lot of important points. We can criticize and boycott Amazon, and I'd support that. But at the same time, we've become dependent on it. This is why I believe the incentives in our systems are backwards. You are incentivized to buy from Amazon, even if what you really want is to support your local community. And that's a problem. Really it should be the opposite. You desire to support your local community and you are incentivized to do so via systems, such as local currency. But because we are in such a scarcity mentality around time and resources, we don't value community. We value maximum efficiency (or what appears to be efficient on the surface) and consumption. And then we create systems that reinforce and reflect that.

I've never been divorced but my parents are. It's one of the hardest things you can go through. First, I'd ask if you're ready to release those feelings? It's understandable you'd feel that way. Those feelings aren't bad and can serve a purpose. If you are ready, there's many healing modalities out there that can assist you with that. Second, I'd focus on coming back better than ever before. You can't change the past but you can move forward using the lessons you've learned.

It certainly shouldn't feel forced. If you're happy doing what you're doing, great. The problem I find is that if you don't consciously define your life purpose, someone else will. In other words, your purpose is either conscious or unconscious. But you always are moving towards some kind of end goal. It just so happens that most of the default purposes set up by society are really not working anymore. So people have to wake up and start carving out what they actually want. For instance, a woman could unconsciously attach herself to the default programming of "my purpose is to be a mother". But is that all she wants? Could there be more? What's good about it? What problems are there? Why does it exist at all? These are the kind of questions people have to ask, lest they get sucked into something they don't actually want. If life purpose sounds too stressful, consider asking yourself what living a truly authentic life FOR YOU means. And keep asking it until you really know.

I'd consider it as part of the shift away from commoditization and towards gift economy / community. Probably some mix of green / yellow. I'm mostly concerned with what the next phase of business is going to look like. We need green before we can start thinking about turquoise. Right back at ya

I love being in nature. But if you can’t find the divine in interactions with other people, you haven’t found the divine. This is your trauma speaking.

The real problem is that our financial system is built on artificial scarcity and endless growth. You can't have conscious capitalism when money is created at interest by privately owned banks. Or when people are incentivized to horde money rather than be generous. Capitalism vs socialism is a debate that doesn't go deep enough.

Yes I'd argue it is. Strips clubs and brothels are shadow forms of sexuality / intimacy and generally not conscious activities. Try it and see

That's one of the main reasons people do it. Undoubtedly that could happen. But sex can be a legitimate spiritual path for people. When you're having sex and it feels so good, that's because divine energy is freely flowing through you. You are high on God. It's not just chemicals in the brain like many scientists would tell you. So sex, in its most conscious form, is literally about connecting to God. You're opening all the chakras and surrendering the ego.

Because you need consciousness to even realize that these things are important. For instance, if you're unconscious, you don't want a candidate with the highest level of consciousness. You want the one that is best going to serve your small bubble of what you consider "I". So it's a bit a strange loop we are in. In order to raise our consciousness, we need a higher level of consciousness.

I'd consider a career in academia then. There's lots of lower consciousness ideas in the field of economics that need to be exposed. What about a PhD instead of a Masters?

I really liked Slow Sex by Diana Richardson. She’s been in this field forever and has written a several books. For guys, The Multi-Orgasmic Male by Mantak Chia is a great start. Also check out Nic Warner.

He got in some trouble recently but I still vibe with a lot of his music.

@jj40 Jacob, It's a common thing for people to be experiencing right now. First thing I would ask is do you have a spiritual practice? As in meditation, yoga, breathwork etc. Without that, it can be difficult to tap into our deeper intuitions about what direction we should head.

I find it becomes obvious. Anyone who is alive is still in a process of learning. But if you've put in enough work, you'll quickly see that you have answers / skills other people don't have and could benefit from. At the same time, I've found it's not like God reaches down from the heavens with a scroll that says "YOU ARE READY". If that has happened to you, DM me, I'd love to hear about it. At some point you just have to appoint yourself as ready. And trust that you don't have to have all the answers, just let God do the talking.

@Natasha Great question. I find the biggest factor is to have a non-judgmental attitude. Even if no words have been exchanged, I believe people can intuitive feel if they will be judged for opening up around you. It's in your energy. As long as people know they'll still be accepted, they generally feel safe to say or do just about anything.

@lostmedstudent That's awesome! I've definitely struggled with flexibility. The biggest things I've seen are just to be consistent, do different kinds of positions and relax into the stretch. As I understand it, our muscles actually don't need to be stretched. It's subconscious patterns in the mind that say "X muscle can only stretch Y amount". In reality, if you were under hypnosis and the ego was out of the way, supposedly we'd all be capable of incredible feats of flexibility. So you take it slow. Don't rush into a stretch and set off that alarm. Just sit with it and let the muscles naturally open up as they see they are not in danger.

@bensenbiz Spiritual work has helped my creativity tremendously overall. Yes, there's been dark night of the soul type times when I definitely didn't feel creative. But I've written more music and poetry in the last year than my entire life combined. Just keep doing the work. The creativity will come as your brain hemispheres balance and you surrender into the infinite creativity that is already within you.

@charlie cho Yeah it's a pretty silly label. I wouldn't let people's perceptions about it bother you.

@SS10 Didn't read 12 Rules and not planning on reading this one. He has never impressed me.

@Gesundheit You might as well ask how do I become enlightened. It’s all the work Leo has talked about. Pick your path and go deep with it.

@Rilles I was taught how to meditate in catholic high school by one of our teachers. You can always find pieces of truth if you’re open to it

@DecemberFlower This is basically law of attraction 101. Yes, your emotions show you perfectly if your perspective is in or out of alignment with your deepest truth. But it’s also not that simple. There is so much conditioning going on that often we start to deviate from this at a young age. For instance, let’s say as a child you learned that worrying = love. There’s a very chance you will spend much of your life worrying and thinking that you’re expressing love. Some people also shut down feeling their emotions when they were younger because they learned it wasn’t safe to feel. Feeling and following their truth meant bad things happened. So we want to trust our emotional guidance, but we also want to be aware of how it might have been distorted.

That makes sense though. Picking a name will happen, but if you’re in resistance because of a deeper fear, than it’s going to feel like going in circles. The way out of any limiting belief or pattern is awareness. What are you really avoiding here? You may want to look at past experiences as well that feel familiar to this one. Patterns usually show up in multiple areas of our lives and at multiple times.

Based on reading this, it sounds to me like you’re running into some fears. You’re trying to avoid making a mistake so much that you’re not doing anything. This name problem is really a form of resistance. Does that resonate?

@Vision Not necessarily. There are many academics that aren't stuck in Orange. Some of them start out as Orange materialists and grow out of it, like Tom Campbell.