Eph75
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Posts posted by Eph75
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@Roy ??
@electroBeam Two parts of an emerging path that complement each other beautifully ?
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Oh my, that turned out longer than intended
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@Roy If there was a quick and easy solution to this, that could be sold, someone would get rich, fast.
It's basically about personal authenticity, to show up being and doing what your morality tells you that you want or should be and do.
There's no "perfect" here, all we can do is to acknowledge when we're not being authentic and then work ourselves into greater levels of authenticity. There will always be challenges that are too great, anxiety inducing and off-putting.
There are more or less difficult challenges in life. A lot of things that can't seem to get done are easy, and small, and just a quick decision away. Yet, there is something in-between authentic thought and being authentic that is hard to pin down. That or rather the dynamic between you and that need to change so that you shift towards being authentic more often than not.
Awareness when this happens, of course, is key. But what next?
With awareness comes the awareness of ego actively talking ourselves out of taking such action that makes us authentic.
How do you need to handle that voice in your head, that monkey companion that never seems to shut up or cheer us on into the right direction? That seems to work hard at shifting us towards taking the easier, most effortless route, all the time, to do nothing or waste time on simple distractions such as surfing the web, refreshing social media waiting for something new to show up, playing video-games, watching movies/TV-series and so on.
That thing that needs to change is hard to name. There are a combination of factors that collaborate to help flipping an unnamed switch, that thing. Such factors as intention, strategy and pure will-power all add up to being better at handling those switch-flipping moments when they present themselves.
Notice how intrinsic motivation trumps all, if there is something that carry the label should or must, we have a hard time doing. But if there's something in us, intrinsic motivation, that puts a label want onto something, there's usually no stopping us. So how do we turn should or must into want?
Jedi mind-games.
What could start with trivial things, such simple things as always picking up stuff that is lying around, when you see them, no exceptions. Notice that without incorporating intention and will-power, nothing will happen, and strategy most certainly help to follow-through.
You spot a pair of yesterday's socks on the floor and you just pick them up, that was your intention, and put them in the clothes basket, using will power. Repeating the process will start to feel the satisfaction of becoming "a person that puts dirty clothes where they belong", and you get a wee shot of serotonin every time you do, and, soon enough you will get dopamin levels going when you catch the scent of dirty socks
From here is till be easier to stack other similar habits on top of that one insignificant action, from socks to all clothes, perhaps to make the bed every morning, no exceptions. Same thing happens again. You start identifying with being a person that "has a tidy bed all day, every day".
Moving on to, e.g. unloading the dishwasher every morning, and putting dirty dishes back in it. You become identified with someone that "keeps a neat kitchen". And from here is becomes really easy to become a "tidy person".
These chores are also in a sense redefined from being things that need to be done, to quests for being authentic, where intrinsic motivation probably is higher than with picking up smelly old socks. It also not longer matter whose socks they are, that's beside the point, and the quest.
Tougher challenges await, but from what changes you've gone through, you have also redefined yourself from "being unauthentic" to "being someone that is becoming increasingly authentic every day", and that switch-flipping unknown thing that resides inside us hold less resistance than it used to.
Perhaps you're still not ready for tackling the big dragons. Just make it about becoming ever more authentic and walk-your-thought. You will become identified with "a person that changes ones life", and when that is our identity, difficult challenges and large thresholds become "more manageable" to approach.
Seems very easy, feels very hard, astoundingly easy to change.
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I just sing "I'm a Barbie girl"... same same and not different
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@Preety_India Yes, of course. Yet, the nature of the emotional attachment to beliefs/ideas of how things should be and play out dictate how you perceive the happenings in any given scenario.
Assume something happens, that is "bad", here are two possible scenarios:
- Scenario 1: the ego has created limitations that make things that happen appear to "happen to you" , leaving you a victim to circumstances and with a sense of powerlessness. That story is about you, and the bad things that happened to you. And, a feeling that there's nothing you can do about this.
- Scenario 2: the ego is not/less involved, things that happen just "happen". It wasn't specifically about you, there was no elaborate plan to do "bad" against you or do you wrong. It happened, there were circumstances and reasons that made it happen, and you were absolutely there and a part of it, but it didn't happen "to you". And, you don't become a victim under those circumstances, you may remain powerful. That's the story that prevails.
These two scenarios carry two very different stories that will impose very different effects on you.
Some people get crushed by things happening to them, they struggle, maybe even give up, maybe for the rest of their lives.
Other people strangely grow and exit stronger, with a sense of having become "reborn", even though what happened was "bad" or worse.
Quote"What does not kill us makes us stronger."
The outcome is depending on ones ego limitations. What he did, you can't change, what happened did happen. How the ego dictate the story, that is something you can own. So the choice to make the story different is within your power.
An interesting thing with stories and perspective shifts, is that they do change the past.
The past is residing in your thoughts, and the thoughts are in the present. Changing your stories and shifting perspectives changes the meaning of the happenings of the past. What happened still happened, but the meaning carried by what happened can dramatically change.
That power is inside you.
And who knows, maybe at some point, when the narratives have changes, and perspectives have shifted, there can be true loving forgiveness, and letting go, even of "him".
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@Preety_India Sorry for that
For example:
11 hours ago, Preety_India said:More than low self esteem, what needs fixing is my worldview of relationships and people where I believe in being this wonderful loving angel who does not expect much in return and does not enforce rules or egoic boundaries.
This happens when I dissolve my ego a lot.
This happens because the ego is strong/limiting.
11 hours ago, Preety_India said:Maybe I can develop my ego a bit to be more selfish, to begin thinking in selfish ways. But it's still hard for me. I don't know how to go about that.
Instead, this will happen when the ego is deconstructed/not posing limitations.
The only selfish act would be setting ones actual needs aside to try to fulfill the pathological needs of ones ego.
No (i.e. less dominant) ego results in no feeling of selfishness, no judgement against self nor others, no sense of nor lack of self-importance, no victim-hood. And, no limitations in helping others.
Taking above into account, demonizing "him" is strong ego acting out, by upholding self-importance, in various ways, even though it means stuck with suffering.
On 2020-11-16 at 7:43 PM, Preety_India said:"why did he lie to me?"
"why did he cheat on me?"
"why did he treat me so badly?"
"how could he hurt me so much and still say that he loved me?"
"what did I do to deserve such mistreatment and unfairness?"
"why did he use me and pretend like he really was loving me?"
"how could he hurt me and still say that he cares about me, which means that he never cared about me?"
"why hurt me so much and why such deception, could have let me go by being honest?" "why not simply tell the truth and let me go?"
"why did he manipulate me and play such games and hurt me with his games?"
"I loved him so much and did so much for him, how could he not care about me at all and then claim that he really cared?"
"how and why did I trust a man so much and let him hurt me?"
Reading this block, the only thing it says is "to me?", "on me?", "me so badly?", "hurt me/loved me?", "unfair", "use me", "care about me", "hurt me", "manipulate me", "not cared about me", "hurt me?"
Strong ego makes this replay over and over again, reliving the past in the now by exercising the thoughts which means reliving the pain and suffering over and over again, while maintaining ego self-importance - again - even though that is irrational and through suffering.
It's not the idea of "him" that you need to let go of. It is something in you that you need to come to terms with, and let that go. That "something" lives in the stories about "you" that happen to include "him".
This may seem counter intuitive, but it's not.
Reality as you experience it is created, and happening in you. The stories made up is created by you. The emotional attachments and triggers are in you.
None of this is with "him", regardless of what he actually did to you.
This might not be helpful to you, where you are right now, but considering the amount of work that you are putting into yourself in your self-actualization, I assume working towards awakening and some day enlightenment, I hope that it will be enough to start to unravel what it is inside yourself keeping you stuck.
"He" is distraction, and thinking that "he" is the problem is what is trapping you.
If "he" isn't "it", then what is "it" and how can you shift focus to "that"? That's the key to the paradigm shift that you need.
Whatever that is, it is "you" and can be released with realizing self-love.
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@Preety_India There is significant self-deception lurking in the shadows of your posts. It is up to you to spot what that is - a start/clue is to delve deeper into what curve-balls "ego" throws us, and explore how we get decieved by it and in what unthought-of ways it could manifest without us being aware of it going on.
Your reactions are more about you than about others. It always is. And that's where progression lies. Going the other way, expect gridlocks and wild goose-chases.
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@Preety_India Notice how the ego makes it all about you. And notice how the stories are very elaborate. Also notice how the stories strengthen your "rights" and demonize his "wrongs". In this process you make a permanent place for these stories to live on, casting shadows of the past over your present, a dusk falling over you like a damp, heavy blanket.
Notice how our self-importance grows by repeating these kind of stories. They makes us feel anger and with it comes an infective and addictive false sense of power.
Letting go of him requires letting go of your stories about you-and-him. Taking the negative energy away from fueling the stories.
Packaging him in such a heart shaped box and letting it go, with love, is in that sense rather that letting go of your stories. The stories are easier to take responsibility for than taking responsibility for "him" and "his words" appearing in your thoughts. When the stories goes, he will follow.
Living in the now prevents these stories from being. Being in the moment is being in a storyless space. Being in the past or the future both cast such shadows over the present. In this very moment, nothing else than your awareness exists.
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@Preety_India What is it about him that you are having difficulties letting go?
Do you still want him, deep down, somewhere, in some way?
Or, is it his critical voice that makes a guest appearance in your thoughts, putting you down in his absence?
Trying "hard to forget" sounds a lot like suppression, and we all know how that's not a solution.
What is it that you needs to come to terms with [with yourself] in order to package him up in a red heart shaped love fueled balloon and just let the thoughts of gently drift away in a breeze, never to haunt you again?
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You are going to reason yourself into moving in with him, you are "already there", he will seem like he wants to change and you will fully buy into it. You want to fix him, a lot of people have this need when there's something they have that needs to be fixing in themselves, and turning away from that into fixing someone else, becomes more graspable.
But hey, it is time to wake up, you can't fix others. They can only fix themselves. Just like you need to have the motivation to change yourself, to make the change needed in you happen.
Also, if there are these kind of tendencies before living together, at a stage where people usually show their best sides, the indication is that it will get [much] worse when you two are tighter linked by living together.
It is at these kind of moments there should not be created too much room for over-thinking the situation, and instead to just get out! - and for the simple reason that no-one has the right to impose these kind of behaviors onto others, and no-one should allow themselves to be someone else's stepping stone.
You both have issues, his may be destructive and more visible, but you are in denial of your own pathological behavior towards this, as many people that are "caught" in abusive relationships are.
A good thing is that you say that you don't have a pattern of being/selecting/having these kind of relationships "finding you", and that's good.
So let's not start such a pattern now, right?
Up and leave, immediately. Contemplate what you need to work on with yourself. Life goes on. More caring people will cross you path.
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This may come across as harsh, but, to you, does it seems like a healthy thing to move in with him? It is not your job to fix him. Leave, and focus on dealing with your own pathology instead of focusing on him.
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Partake in your own race, don't fall into the trap of becoming a part of others races, comparing yourself with others successes. There will always be someone that is better than you, and all those others combined will be better from every aspect you could possibly think of. That trap is a self-esteem-destroyer.
Focus on yourself, do your best and don't compare that best against others accomplisments.
Quit Facebook and similar social medias, they're will make you feel inadequate. Fake success and extraordinary people seem like the norm, but it is not. Faked facades to fool others into thinking that they are not as miserable as everyone else.
Redefine "failure" from being something bad into something necessary, a requirement to success is to fail. No one can succeed all the time, there must be failures but they are truly only failures if you let then set you back. Use them as lessons of life and learning opportunities, that which they are.
Also daring attempts increase the risk of failure, yet, daring attempts asserts great developmental growth - and great successes.
With that said, only you know best if you really are wasting time doing nothing, not even attempting, or if you are doing your best. And that you have the power to change.
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1 hour ago, Strangeloop said:There are times when we want to feel like accomplishing something.
There are opportunities for accomplishments everywhere, all the time, just start with smaller increments and you get into the habit of having small successes. The snowball effect will run its course, greater successes awaits.
1 hour ago, Strangeloop said:Feeling like I need to rush things even when it's not necessary.
What is the rush? What is rushing you?
Is the feeling rational or irrational?
In this day and age everything is rushed, a time of instant gratification, we want results and we want them now. In reality, 10 years of invested time is more realistic, before hard results happen.
1 hour ago, Strangeloop said:This feeling of inadequacy.
What is this about?
5 hours ago, Strangeloop said:Then the question arises, what is worthwhile doing? Is it anything that gives the most amount of money? Or is it something that gives the best states of consciousness?
Is that inadequacy linked to the amount of money vs. state of consciousness questions above?
- If you focus on well being, do you feel that you will be side-stepping building monetary wealth?
- If you focus on monetary wealth, do you feel like you will be side-stepping well being?
Where does the expectation that creates the inadequacy come from?
Again, is it rational or irrational?
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There's a big difference between "going nowhere" and "going somewhere", the latter doesn't have to mean that you know what your calling is, you can still take steps towards "somewhere" and that "somewhere" can shift over time, yet the time invested is not wasted.
In a sense, starting out building a sound foundation on which everything else gets built. Spot what you identify as waste, then be authentic by addressing that, and then just keep doing that. It will allow for building that foundation but also, for each step you take, you gain a new perspective and a direction starts to manifest, a direction that could transform into your calling/life purpose/vision. Once you get going, the "ball" just tend to "keep rolling" and new opportunities present themselves. Moving from thought to action is harder.
Deciding this at a young age is like deciding what your favorit food is going to be for the rest of your life. How could you possibly know, you haven't had time to sample the food market enough to make that call.
Unfortunately the answers to these kind of questions are not served on silver platters, they are things that you will have to figure out for yourself.
In a sense, that's the journey that is life.
But don't take it too seriously, there's no one direction in life so whatever direction you end up focusing on can manifest much later in life. After all, it's all about the journey, isn't it
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It is quite relative to your own objectives, isn't it? And objectives are quite relative to where you are on your developmental journey.
A very simple example; spending time on the forum to gain perspectives and grow yourself in different ways is "useful", while spending time on the forum being dogmatic about your beliefs and arguing with people is a "waste of time".
If the time spent is adding value to your objectives, or your calling, whatever that might be, then it isn't "waste of time". What that calling might be, and if/how it relates to the world and others and if/how that changes humanity to come is a related subject. A risk of course if that your calling is irrelevant from a more holistic perspective, or even toxic.
If your calling is to become a master at playing video games, then practice is useful to achieve this. Yet it is not very likely to be useful to make a living, nor useful towards some greater calling, e.g. the future of humanity.
"Waste of time/well invested time" is relative to your calling, and the usefulness of your calling. On someone else's scale it might be useless..
If we want to retire to some cave to eat maggots and meditate for the rest of your life, and you find that sustainable and peaceful, who's there to judge the objective usefulness?
Sure, that opens up to making all sorts of "bad" judgement calls, but that's life isn't it? Navigating choices as best as we can, with as much awareness as we have.
The question is, can you catch yourself when you're bullshitting yourself?
If you go against your authentic self and subdue to the ego desires you'll end up with conflicting thoughts that is the growing ground for "unhappiness".
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Yes, awareness and perspective.
Although, limiting beliefs can make sense, as beliefs are relative to perspectives and the needs/desires to fulfill some desired outcome.
Even if the beliefs can be limiting to growth, they can can be useful in pursuing and fulfilling toxic needs/desires.
[The definition of toxic needs/desires also them being subject to perspective
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That's also why such beliefs are so hard to identify as being limiting, let alone to let them go, as this implies becoming aware of, gaining understanding of, and the letting go of the underlying toxic needs/desires.
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To "destroy" limiting beliefs, it is assumed that you become aware of the beliefs being just that, believing and not knowing.
If you have the determination to explore your limiting beliefs, to better understand them or to alleviate the limiting effects they impose, simply take a random belief and ask yourself if you truly know this thing, where does your perceived knowledge about this comes from, does it come from first-hand experience or through accumulation of information conveyed to you.
Acknowledge the possibility that you have created "truths" out of information that is not first hand experience. Also acknowledge that first-hand experience is subjective and is more than likely [
] distorted, deceitful or down-right false.
This is planting the seed that sprouts into growing open-mindedness, not in form of gullibility but as curiosity to explore other perspectives that contradict whatever "truth" you have made for yourself by your existing belief.
Note that all beliefs are limiting and limited in some way. Also, we cannot be completely free from beliefs.
What we can do, is to work towards emotional detachment from our beliefs, so that they are not as much of something we're holding fast to, in order to ensure not losing our footing when the foundation of the reality as we currently know it starts shaking and our ego is being challenged.
Instead, we can lean onto a certain set of beliefs, which are not as much "my beliefs" as they are "convenient beliefs". There will be no emotional need or desire to defend them, if they were attacked, and also, there would be no prestige in letting go of the existing beliefs so that we can [more] effortlessly transition to other beliefs that make more sense as we further develop.
We're then becoming more at flux, and flowing with what is and new understanding will appear more effortlessly, and from sources that were not available to us in the past.
An interesting aspect of this, is that many of our beliefs have been adopted/created in order to protect ourselves from ourselves; a coping-mechanism that allows us to avoid confrontation of that in ourselves that is painful to face, and to accept.
Stay brutally open to the possibility that with your beliefs, and the limitations they present, you also have to address the limitations of your ego and address those. This way you will develop authenticity and lessen the need to be protected by such beliefs.
In this sense, it is about recognizing and destroying ones dogma, and not so much about the belief itself.
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@Mirko the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing repeatedly and suffering the same result. You are indeed magnificent GOD INSANITY.
I enjoyed the beauty of your post, for nothing of worth to you.
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There not being anything to be "saved" from.
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@Akemrelax Yes, I think this is coming from astrong sense of having had and wanting to share realizations so that others can adopt what oneself have understood and therefor skip/end "unnecessary suffering" .
Development is at large linear/sequential and parts rejected or skipped will create shadow aspects that will hinder that very development at a later stage.
In that sense, we need to run the course of it, and learn from it through first hand experience.
Help in navigation at the point of each stage of that development, in a certain and deliberately packaged format, can still help reduce the suffering and to not get stuck for too long.
Although, such help assumes an extraordinary awareness, understanding, experience and ability of communicating in an effective manner towards whatever stage of develoment the reciever is at.
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3 hours ago, Thestarguitarist14 said:The value for growth doesn't take a back seat, but your expectations are tempered with realism. And, while yellow sounds cool, I know that I have little control over progress and the transition will happen in due time.
@ivory the above quote is your, not sure why the forum quote function switched to it being else
Yes, and yet, growth can be triggered and accelerated by stretching ones mind upwards into new territory in a deliberate fashion, to [peak] experience and bring back apects for reference, graduately making the unknown more known, adopting behaviors thereof, and equally letting go of the comfort and certainty of what was already known.
This can be done by directly allowing to stretch ones beliefs and values to see what is beyond, or, by detaching from emotional attachment to current beliefs, so that we better allow ourself to flow with growth through acceptance of the existence and validity of other perspectives.
A combination is of course what is most likely but further up the stages, 2nd tier, green-yellow transition, this is more deliberately so, and not just happenstance sprung from opportunistic growth.
You can fully enjoy each stage, imagine what the indulgence that is organge enjoyment can look like, when in flow, high on dopamine and serotonin, and with the sense of being unstoppable, life is great. Or worse, imagine a caricaturistic red and the high/enjoyment of the power trips of the controlling soul, tripping on the suffering of others. Or, the healtier aspects found in green, e.g. the strong sense of belongingness with others.
What they all have in common is a myopic view that "this is it", and thereby a feeling of the others aspects being, in a sense, invalid.
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5 hours ago, Thestarguitarist14 said:I just don’t care for people acting as if friendships are the answer to your problem.
And also that is a nuance of the whole, that will need to be taking into account when dealing with self-deception and growth.
That very answer can equally so be a coping skill to avoid facing ones needs to grow in certain areas, becoming overly dependent on relationships and hence not understanding and moving past ones actual belonging needs and also to degrees ones esteem needs.
The result could be an exacerbated need of, and leaning on relatipnships and friends. This could also be justified by being "green", forgetting that mental illness/pathology, which such deficiency needs are interwaeved with, exists regardless of SD state.
The same questions as stated in the previous post also applies here, turning them around towards preaching for need-for-friends.
This also shifts focus onto this being all about perceptions/perspectives and when we turn to self-deception, which is the meta to take away from it all, and is where growth of ones own understanding lies, regardless of state.
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@Thestarguitarist14 - @Akemrelax is talking about avoiding problems in relationships [or lack thereof] that causes suffering by adopting the belief that friends are not needed. This would be a coping skill and hence self-deception.
This is of course not the same as the growing of understanding for ones relational needs so that the pathological aspects can be overcome and the real/basic need can be exposed and understood.
These two aspects are both valid.
The problem is that the individuals that have adopted these kind of beliefs as a coping skill don't have the awareness to see the pathology in their ways of doing so.
By sending out the message that there is no need for friends, to them, it is not helpful, as they will have to face their problem rather than run away from it. This leaves them at status quo.
Two hypothetical questions that arises are;
Does the dogmatic no-need-for-friends preacher lack the understanding of these nuances?
Might that preacher be someone that is subjected to self-deception and in denial of ones own deficiency need?
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From a pragmatic POV I'd agree that awakening gave also me the insight that my friendships and relations had and was causing me more negative effects than possitive effects.
But that wasn't about the friends per se but about my skewed perception of what I tried to live up to in order to be a good friend, and also what I expected in return out of my "invested time". My needs were toxic and I sought out/attracted toxic friendships that ultimately wouldn't be able to get me where I needed.
But that's not what friendship is, nor what friends are for. Those are transactions of sorts, lets say in my case centering around self-esteem, investing myself in order to get confirmation via such friendships so that they could make me feel better about myself.
When coming to the realization that such "friendships" have caused suffering, it is easy to act out of a position where we externalizing the suffering and wrongfully projecting the cause/blame onto those "friends" that you've made yourself codependent of.
From this POV, what we're looking for and "need" in friendships is then to be found within ourselves.
True friendship is something else, it is not about expecting to get something back and instead centered around the beingness of the relation. Which then of course emphasizes the requirement for compatibility/balance between two individuals in order to be fulfilling.
Not continuing investing in percieved friendships that are not true in that sense is a good thing.
Reducing number of friend and keep true Friends is good but it is also harder to find authentic friendship as a lot of people are acting out of various dysfunctions.
As I wrote before, when extracting your own toxicity in the expectations of yourself and others from the friends/relations equation, what I have found is that I have a very low need for interactions with others and I get most if not all of my basic need met by the interaction I have with my wife, my sons and my parents.
The exacerbated need for friends was created by my own toxicity. Without that toxicity my need was already met with excess.
Also, this realization changes relationships in general at the core, shifting focus from the negative to the positive and when doing this you change and it brings out more of the positive side in others, not reinforcing each others negativity/toxicity and people that were triggering your suffering in you can very well turn out offering something special that you couldn't absorb in the past.
Instead of downward spiraling relationships they start to upward-spiral without any expectation how they should be or needing them to become "perfect". There is something good in everthing and everyone, it is just a matter of seeing it and that helps neutalizing differences and abrations.
Business relations and networking is essentially required to maximize success. That doesn't mean that you can't be successful doing it on your own. This is coming from a need of transaction of services though, but that doesn't prevent such acquantinces turning into friendship over time.
Also what success is, is relevant depending on who you are and at what stage of development you are, as is the need of friends and the form friendships are expected to come/be.
Trying to force one POV onto others when this dynamic is grossly deoendent on who you are, where you are coming from, what you deficiencies are and at that stage of development you are as well as whhere you are on the spiritual path is a recepie for disaster
If cutting friends is a knee-jerk reaction to desperately avoid suffering, while it might be a requirement in that very moment to get on with your own development, it is not a sound long term philosophy to get permanently stuck with.
Human interactions are complex and small changes in you can change the whole dynamics of a relationship, in unexpected ways.
in Personal Development -- [Main]
Posted · Edited by Eph75
A comment about this, as I just mentioned the voice briefly.
Awareness of this internal voice and dialog is fundamental. It's a great step towards becoming able to take a step away from "it" - ego and its voice - and observe "it" and what "it" is doing and how "it" affects us.
Actively doing this, and gradually raising the awareness of when, and how "it" is operating through imposing limiting attributes, will allow us to, and to more efficiently so, address those limitations, so that we gradually deconstruct the negative and limiting aspects of our ego.
The resistance you are mentioning, this is just one aspect of the ego that we benefit greatly from working on deconstructing. In a sense, this resistance aspect is quite fundamental as it allows ego to maintain status quo, its main line of defense so-to-speak, i.e. ego protecting itself from deconstruction.
Authenticity is in a sense is our Excalibur, that will guide us through the great inner spiritual conquest against the ego.