Dlavjr

It's certainly tough, yes. That's a battle that comes with relationships that don't come out of two people at the same stage in development. I don't particularly want to exit the relationship but I know that further down the line I either need her to be developed to where she has found her own purpose and is self sufficient, or I need to not be with her. I'm not picky or dependent enough to require somebody to be at my stage now but I don't want to dig a hole for myself to where I'm with somebody that depends on me fully in all aspects.

I certainly feel like I have more to give, but I also have little desire to take. I'm with her because I enjoy the time together and I think she's kind and caring, but I require very little. I have my own goals and path, and I intend on maintaining those things. I tend to want to bring people along with me, and she seems like she needs somebody to ground her as well as push her to develop. I'm content with where I am with helping her develop, but I fear not knowing when enough is enough, and when it gets to the point that it's clear that she will not grow.

How does this work, then, in the case of her being the type to shut out her emotions easily? It seems like when she gets anxious about something, which she gets anxious about many things, she loses sense of her core values. Her authentic self, or at least the most authentic version that I've seen of her, is far different than the timid and self conscious self that she presents to family, coworkers, etc.

If it was the case that I picked her up prior to getting to know her I'd agree with you point. In this case, I've known the girl for quite some time. It's a complicated situation for me because I'm attracted to her and love being in her presence and spending time with her, but her life outside of me is filled with issues. The way I see it, one of two things could happen. Either she takes after me in my lifestyle and I can maintain who I am as the masculine, and hopefully by taking lead, she'll follow and she'll adopt what she learns into other aspects of her life, or she'll tear me down with her. I guess, in that sense, I can answer my own question by saying that it's up to how I act and whether or not I can stay authentic to myself and not adopt her issues, but also I wonder if I'm underestimating relationships and psychology and it's not that simple.

That's very sound advice, thank you. I guess I never thought of looking inward here because I was always looking for signs in other people.

Ideally provide love and support, which I do when we're together, but I often feel like her emotions otherwise shroud her and I find that when she gets stressed out she dissociates and lashes out at anyone who tries to bring her back to presence. I've been patient with her and loving and it works and helps, I just don't want it to continue to where I need to be there for her constantly. I guess my real question is, how can you tell if somebody is learning to help themselves and develop, as opposed to using you as an emotional crutch?

I've been experience an extreme sense of discomfort in my own body and it's been leading to me having some pretty bad anxieties. For whatever reason, the awareness of my own existence, or rather lack of existence, makes me feel anxious and uneasy. The strange part to me, is that it's not the thought of it that makes me anxious, and I'm not feeling fear. At least I wouldn't say that I'm fearful of my own existential understandings. I often associate the awareness of presence to be a beautiful and freeing thing, especially in a time of political and economic tension. It's the realization that I am essentially trapped in a body, seeing through a perspective, living life through an ego that I can never truly drop, that starts to make me uncomfortable. If the awareness gets really strong, I can feel my whole body, every joint and every nerve. Fighting the urge to feel these things only makes my anxiety heighten, but I was wondering if anybody feels that existential anxiety, or at least something similar? Essentially, how does one get through life once you've become extremely aware of what you are? Also, I do meditate, but I find that I experience high anxiety in doing so, maybe it's just something I have to sit with and make peace with, I'm not very good at meditating ever since my initial awakening of oneness of being, it's like I had the stark realization of my own godhood and immediately afterwards my mind couldn't shut up about it, like a teenager that just lost his virginity. I guess I see what people mean when they imply that this work is essentially driving yourself insane.

Can anxiety only exist/manifest through thought?

Before I even start, I'd like to preface this by saying I've already quit porn and masturbation. I've noticed that a lot of people on this forum instinctively give that advice and while it's helpful in some cases it's not the cure for all sexual problems, but I digress. So for the past year and I half I've been single, not sexually active, and very focused on personal development and purpose. I recently made a connection with a girl who's been a longtime friend of mine and we're starting to get into relationship territory. Everything is fine and I'm very attracted to her, but for whatever reason my sex drive hasn't really been on my side. I have a difficult time getting into the mindset of being turned on, and that in turn makes it difficult to get an erection when the time comes. When I do manage to get an erection, it's not a full one, and when it is a full one, I focus so much on trying to keep myself aroused and erect that I finish quickly. If I don't, then midway through I just kinda lose it and don't want sex anymore. This is very strange for me because I am not an asexual man. I've had intimate relationships before, my last relationship was pretty sexually active during the times that it was healthy. I still feel horny, I still want to sexually satisfy her, but I just have a rough time actually getting into it and when I do I can't last. I know this is the one question men ask the most, I've been trying the solutions that I expect to hear such as breathing slow and deep, relaxing the muscles in the body, focusing on her, feeling into the moment, holding back ejaculation, slowing down or switching positions etc., I exercise and eat decent, but it's still strange to me how low my libido is, and I can't tell if I'm having subconscious stage fright. I try to joke it off when I finish quick or can't get it up. We've only had sex a few times but I know I can perform better so it's pretty frustrating. What are other factors? What foods lower libido? What raises testosterone? What are mental practices that I can do? I'd like to improve in any way I possibly can so that I can perform at my best, and I also want to feel sexually hungry again, I feel like I just don't care if I have sex or not but I want to be intimate and please her and experience that tight closeness of good sex again. It might also be worth noting that I have a lot of fears going into relationships in general and perhaps that can factor in as well. Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated.

I struggle with this concept a lot myself because I find that compassion (at least in American culture) often ends in being used. I understand that there is a line to where you need to know not to give too much of yourself or what to have to benefit others but I often find it discouraging to be giving or understanding to those who do not appreciate or understand compassion.

I've begun cleaning up my diet, as suggested by Leo I'm cutting out wheat and dairy. Dairy isn't so hard as I already drink almond milk and don't care for much desserts, but wheat is proving to be a tough one, as I often rely on sandwiches as quick and ready food. What's available for healthy alternatives to bread? Also, is vegan cheese recommended or is it not really much better?

I have not masturbated in a month and I haven't had the urge to since I started seeing her.

As a 21 year old, is it safe to supplement testosterone or should I just focus on doing it naturally? I've also heard of the edging technique, however I fear that if I partake in any sort of masturbation it's just going to make it more difficult for me to get aroused. When I was single whenever I did jerk off I wouldn't be horny for like a week.

I just started going to the gym again this week so I'm getting back into a routine, my diet consists of mostly meat, eggs, nuts and vegetables, but I'll be the first to admit I succumbed to too many nights of alcohol while quarantined which did me in pretty badly. I find her beautiful and I'm always admiring her but for some reason I don't have a lot of sexual drive. I'm always talking to and seeing incredibly sexy women just from going out and having friends and I can recognize their beauty but I don't have any desire to pursue anybody sexually. The relationship I have with this girl has a great foundation from years of friendship and I love being with her but I just could care less about sex in general, I have little desire to pursue it. When it comes to pleasuring her I'm ready to ravage her but I just have a hard time feeling stimulated myself.

I currently work at a supermarket, so my job is not exactly mentally demanding, and that gives me the opportunity to practice mindfulness and presence. A couple weeks ago, I was talking to a coworker, and suddenly I was hit by a train of consciousness. Everything brightened, I felt pressure in the back of my head, and I became instantly aware that I was not my body, that I was the entire store. I felt like I was listening to myself talk but I also had trouble understanding what the girl was saying to me because I was super caught up in what I was experiencing. Since then, I've been able to on command become that awareness. I feel the cloudiness when I spiral into an ocean of thinking, then I can just pull myself out and become fully present. I'd describe what I feel to be as if my entire existence is a dream, as if I'm watching myself as if I'm not my self. I see my entire sense of self as being imaginary, I can feel my thoughts as being a manifestation inside of me and not myself. My thoughts create me. I truly understand the phrase "I think, therefore I am" now, as without thought, I cannot be anything. The reason why I suspect possible HPPD is that sometimes I feel great resistance, and I cannot control it. Sometimes I need to be a "self" so that I can function, but yet I will, without warning, become intensely aware. In those moments, I feel fear. It feels dangerous when I'm on the highway and suddenly I realize that I'm imagining everything. I understand that I'm driving myself to feel this way and that the fear is directly coming from the resistance, but in moments like that I can't help resisting because I don't want to put my life in danger simply because I know that there is no death. My meditations have become more intense, smoking weed and even drinking alcohol are intense, and sleeping is difficult because I can feel myself slipping into a dream as if I'm beginning to trip, and it's distracting and makes me uncomfortable. What can I do about this? How can I practice accepting what I experience and working with it? How do I maintain motivation and pursue life purpose and relationships? All I feel that I need right now is to sit and be present, it feels like all the meaning I've created for myself has dissipated and I'm just floating through my existence. I feel like I'm constantly at the end of an acid trip where I'm just peaceful and content in nothing, and when I try to focus on anything mental like studying or reading it's almost nausuating because I'm just sucked into what feels like a separate reality, like I'm engulfed in my mind and thought, it's like I'm teetering between being conscious and being unconscious at all times.

I'm an aspiring musician myself, only I'm going the college route and haven't really built up my confidence yet to write and release anything. Keeping in mind that I'm not a professional, I can give you advice from what I've seen in what little experience I have so far in the business. Music is about 50% talent and 50% connections. It's a little tough now with COVID, but you gotta play as many shows as you can. Promote, and reach out. Collaborate. Plenty of musicians online are glad to collaborate, you'd be surprised how easy it is to build connections. I had a metal project going on and at the time we had reached out to a well known and talented drummer in the genre who was happy to not only record drums for us but also was willing to post a video of himself playing one of our songs on his already established channel, and we're absolute nobodies. Unfortunately the project fell through, at least for the time being due to personal reasons, but you get the point. The other thing is don't limit yourself. Take any opportunity that you can to put yourself out there. Social media is a fantastic tool but it's not the only one, however I'm part of a lot of music related Facebook groups and there is a lot of sharing of music in those groups. Music is a community as much as it is an art, don't be selfish with your art. Share your art, share other people's art, get involved. Most importantly, don't give up, and don't let anybody tell you that you won't get anywhere with music. You will. Hopefully one day I will as well. Much love ❤

That's fair, perhaps I rely on guidance a bit too heavily. I'm a big question asker, I should learn more the hard way. Already though I'm settling more into the realization and working with it. Awakening isn't something that happened to me, I don't possess the awakening, and I think one of the harder things to cope with is seeing how everyone is asleep and there is little I can do about it. Without a doubt the hardest mindfuck to handle is the difference between real and unreal. When I had my first real, intense and eye opening DMT trip, I had a hard time believing that any of this was real for a long time, and my awakening reignited that feeling. I'm beginning to understand that it's all real, but I guess at the same time it's not? Seems like that's the nature of the mindfuck that is nonduality, it's all the same and exists within itself. I used to think that spirituality existed on some separate plane. You chase and chase this one thing but once you have that big realization, you realize you were chasing the wrong thing all along. I'm just going to have to push through the ego backlash and learn to align myself once again with my core values. There's a beauty in the purposelessness of it all, because it's just infinite creation. Resistance is suffering, and that's the number one important thing to know in this work.

Are there any techniques in doing so? There are times where I'm mid conversation and I feel just a burst of awareness and it feels similar to deja vu. I randomly peer into the infinite and it's if I can almost feel time as it moves forward in this ever-flowing river of constant energy. I tend to fight the feeling because I feel like it's distracting and impractical to be in that state without intent, but then I end up fixating on it and that's when the existential fear trickles in. Should I learn to appreciate the shifts and move on from them? Should I make note to consciously make the shift into full awareness so that I'm more comfortable with it? My fear is that I don't want to lose my grip on reality. I understand that that's just ego trying to survive but I still want to maintain my purpose in life. I'm really caught in a loop here.

Yes ego backlash can be horrendous and last indefinitely. I had a falling out with a very good friend of mine because of how bad his backlash was. He and I used to trip together and challenge one another's growth, as well as pursue goals together such as writing music and getting in shape. His backlash was worse than mine, he got addicted to cigarettes and caught up in politics and pussy, now he's incredibly defensive of his ego. I both feel and fear for him. As for myself, you're right, there has been a value shift. In a sense it's ironic, once you see that there is only the present and that everything is you and you're in a sense watching a documentary on yourself, you find clever ways to justify bad behavior and you're so caught up in presence that it creates that instant gratification. I also feel overwhelmingly sensitive now. My anxiety makes me feel like a squirrel, I'm always so quick to react to things and I'm so focused on everything that's going on around me as if something is going to happen. I almost miss being oblivious ?. It gets worse when I smoke weed, I might as well be tripping when I smoke, which is a shame because weed used to soothe the anxiety.

I've watched the video on ego backlash but I'll make a point to watch it again now that it hits more personally. In the meantime, how does one fight ego backlash? Or do you just allow it to pass? I feel as though I'm falling back into all my old habits now and making poor decisions in an attempt to resume life as normal, but it's strange now because I'm aware of when the decision is made due to influence rather than rooted in my deep desires.

How does one go about giving up control? I feel like it's so easy when it comes to everyday stuff but when it comes to giving up your sense of self and the meaning you've created for yourself, it's so much harder. I've practically lost the sense of being alive, I'm just existing forever in the moment but yet there is no me to exist. It's like I'm just watching a life play out in first person, as if it were a documentary. How do I let go of everything that creates my "story" and accept the fact that I am not anything?

How common is it to have multiple life purposes? I've been extremely set on pursuing music as my life purpose because it's my passion and I'm in love with the freedom and creativity of it, as well as the thrill of skill building. However, recently I've been pondering being a nutritionist, or personal trainer, or something along those lines in regards to health and fitness. Reason being is that it's personal to me, because I used to be overweight and I now take that stuff seriously and I love helping my friends get on diets and giving them exercise regimes. The problem is I'm pretty broke and I want to go to college for both. I'm already in the process of enrolling in a music degree because I want to learn how to compose professionally and master the theory, perhaps eventually become a professor, but now I'm second guessing myself. Should I just stay on the path I'm on and pursue health and fitness as a career later in life? I want both, but it's a matter of how I should go about it, or if I should focus on one thing at a time as to not put only half my attention/effort into each.

I've found that if you're gonna focus on anything, discipline would be it. If create a good schedule for yourself and stay disciplined enough to follow it routinely, everything will fall into place. You need to be aware of what you need to do and what's good for you and have the discipline to keep to it. I think my issue is that I get anxious and overthink things and I start to second guess my own purpose, and I start to think "well I also want to do this, but what if I would rather do that?". I find comfort in fantasizing a perfect world in which I'm able to balance all of the things I'd like to do but realistically the less I focus on the more I will develop mastery. It's just difficult when you're so passionate about so many parts of life but are unsure of where to focus your efforts.

Feel bad about spending money on useless shit, don't feel bad about making an investment towards your future. How much do you value yourself? How important is your purpose? That should take priority over everything else, money is nothing but a means for you to pursue your dream, if it's spent wisely it's not wasted. Maybe create a spending plan for yourself where you set aside some money for a cushion and some money to put towards things you need to make yourself happy. Locking yourself into a routine or pattern of sorts is a good way to grind and grow. Set aside time for purpose and time for recreational use. Just maintain discipline and you will be fine.

I see what you're saying. I still have free time for the time being, if I go back to school I'm not sure I can say the same but I guess I'll find out then. I'm putting too much emphasis on my life's meaning and in doing so I forget that there already is meaning, and that everything is perfect as is. It's so easy to slip into a neurotic frenzy, at least for me. One thought can easily chain into overthinking and overworking and overanalyzing and everything is a slippery slope when it comes to trying to live a life while also being aware of God and aware of the fact that it's all a story. I'm seeing more and more the things that I need to work on and how I'm allowing myself to fall into these traps. I'll see to being more conscious of my thought patterns and more aware of the bigger picture.