Bogdan

Besides basics such as sleep, exercise and healthy diet, do you still think detoxing heavy metals is the most potent thing that lifts brain fog? And could you remind us of the top most important things that you found help with brain fog?

@Yimpa 😆

Such an amazingly beautiful answer I'm tearing up

My period of addiction to it was about 10 years. I am currently almost 8 months sober from it. During these 10 years I tried quitting dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. A few times I managed to go 3-4 months without it, and I had many, many attempts that lasted weeks and even more that lasted days. What finally shifted my mindset was a combination of many things... One of the most important pieces of advice for me was that if you've been a long term addict, do not delude yourself that you "beat" the addiction after only a few months. Not even after a year or two. Just accept that you'll gonna probably have to go quite a few years, and potentially for the rest of your life without it. I realized that for me personally, sobriety has to become my single priority. Total focus. If that's not in place, then everything else is just fantasy. There are also many other crucial mindset stuff like that that have helped and continue to help me go through the difficult, and also the stimulating parts of life, sober. I highly, highly recommend the channel Addiction Mindset for this. But ultimately, what Leo keeps repeating to us rings true - when the pain is big enough, you'll change. Last year this pain finally became way too much. Even though it was pretty bad for years before that! It became so painful - couldn't believe how it's as if for years I was asleep to just how addicted I was. I was completely deluded, drowning in fantasies, beliefs etc. It was shocking to realize that I'm living like a miserable, lazy, deluded, narcissistic, unconscious addict! I started realizing that I'm in real danger of totally wasting my entire life. And so after a few months of fiercely searching for the information/help that I specifically need, i finally gathered all the tools, that combined with a certain painful and scary experience, allowed me to step into this completely different era of my life. Also it took 10 years of Actualized for me to finally see how I am being a textbook zen-devil, falling in every trap possible. While fantasizing of becoming one of Leo's best students, I was IN TRUTH making a mockery of this work. My last 5-10 years were spent half-assing meditation, contemplation, pickup, career, business, sobriety, learning, having new experiences, psychedelics... I was destroying my health... And poof, I'm 30 now. That's one of the main dangers of weed. But at I am SO GLAD that now I can see the truth of my foolishness. Truth is worth all the pain. I also have compassion for myself, and i understand why my sad Romanian ass had to go through all of this. It is ultimately so Beautiful and Perfect! I am putting Truth at the top of my values as best as I can. I credit my (currently still unimpressive) breakthrough into sobriety to valuing Truth. I will continue doing so and I will see where that leads me. I wish you good luck, and may you break free from the chains of addiction!

I saw nobody posted it here yet so here it is:

I'm confused. What do you mean? Fan fiction usually means something positive, but then I saw he has a negative view of Trump. Why would him posting a skit in which he makes fun of Trump be an example of his flaws?

I started learning more about neurodivergence and neurotipicality. I thought I'd leave Sam Vaknin's perspective to add to the discussion, as I find him being pretty up to date with "stuff" in general. Right in this moment I'm not able to recall all of this thread's or the video's points, but from the top of my head it seems like: - NTs flock together with other NTs - same for NDs with other NDs - people use the term ND too loosely, wrongly equating it with mental illnesses that may have nothing to do with ND - NTs should learn that NDs function differently and should learn how to let them take their proper place in society

I'm learning dutch right now. I'm using AI to translate sentences I wanna know, then I listen with text to speech programs until I can read them by myself, and eventually memorize the whole thing. But I do think it's ultimately about learning the words themselves. It's just that this is the best way I've found to do so. By learning them within the sentences you actually are interested in learning. Simple and direct. Easy, even. Wikipedia has lists of the most common words for any (or most) languages. In theory, learn the first 2000, you can speak. Learn the first 5000, you are fluent.

This conversation has been super eye opening for me. I'm realizing indeed I am being way too cynical, and also that I actually am able to extract the good and leave the bad. At least moreso than in the past. In fact, what Teal teaches has been truly life transforming for me. Like the parts Leo was mentioning, and reciprocity, and others. Funny how in the moment I was stuck in the negative. I think I've been falling in the trap of becoming alergic to new agey stuff, cause I'm finally getting rid of all those beliefs myself. But I shouldn't throw away everything that has a worse noise-to-signal ratio than Actualized, lol. Damn, I almost fell in the trap of thinking "I'm better" than Teal for a sec 😆 when in fact I'm just starting to make sense of all this stuff, after (only) a decade of Actualized.

I just read what y'all have replied on this topic. I find it interesting how all of us have more or less the same view on Teal. Makes me curious about why that is! I wanna add this regarding Teal's teachings - from what I understand she is big on not bulldozing aspects of self. Not letting one need or thought dominate another. She seems to be dogmatic about there always being a 3rd common ground option, and that there is no need for "zero-sum games". And that bulldozing always leads to repression or something. I think the paradox there is that this common ground option ends up dominating over zero-sum games in your worldview. It's a damned if you do or if you don't situation. At the time I was searching for advice that would help me with my crippling weed addiction. And for me this kind of advice was not useful at all. The opposite, even. One super important thing that ended up helping was Leo clearly communicating that sometimes you just need to fuckin use brute force, keep focus, vision and fuckin bulldoze through. Some things just require that. So thank you Leo for that also. 💪😎

@Miguel1 imma write this and go to bed, but tomorrow I'm looking forward to reading all of you guys' thoughts From what I've seen, she might have useful stuff for people who are on the brink of suicide. I personally know someone that claims Teal's videos helped her in not making that decision. But honestly, I think Teal is too lost in her own imagination with some stuff. She claims she has extra sensory perceptions, which.. fair enough. But then she makes claims about different types of aliens. And also about AI being a sort of being from another dimension.. She keeps having opinions about how WW3 is already happening blabla. She told some person attending a retreat that their friend (or someone else) is possessed by an alien ... where muh epistemology at? 😆 I seeing a lot of new agers parroting this type of stuff, and I suspect a lot of it originates from her. People that follow her tend to believe she is a super special being, sent to be a sort of high level priestess of this world, and I think she perpetuates this narrative. Also I personally found some of her ideas about trauma, and therapy harmful for my journey. But probably that's not on her, but on me. So I am currently finding too much of her content wacky, schizophrenic and not nuanced enough. Too much noise vs signal.

That video is actually a direct quote from you, lol. From a blog or forum post. Dunno if you care, but on two occasions I saw the guy commenting on videos you post on your blog with your commentary

I whole-heartedly agree bro

to paraphrase Leo - rats be ratting 😆

same thought. without epistemology, metaphysics etc these trips will possibly just strengthen his current worldview.

http://youtube.com/post/UgkxVQg6hZp2TuC5WTqmwzv3AbqZBgUpdI2H?si=fB199H9EnFnBhGBL Here's his trip report he just posted

I haven't seen that video. I don't watch fitness content much these days. But I know, right? His advice made my training so intuitive and free and enjoyable even! I think Mike Israetel is a good example of not a very good positioning in societal survival, since he has to maintain his image as a smart gym guy, that has to keep people kissing his smart gym ass to make a living, y'know? 😆 To me it's like... Just use consciousness. Say I wanna grow x muscle. Is the muscle stimulated or not? What does it do? How do I create tension in it? How do I enhance it's strength in the motions that it's meant to do? And how do I not over do it? It's really not that complicated.

Guys, I've studied the fitness industry at nauseum for almost 10 years now. I came into lifting from a sedentary background, and got injured a lot of times due to training as if I already had an athletic body. Long story short, for compound lifts, I recommend this sort of approach: I didn't know who to listen to, so I went balls to the wall on everything. I was dumb, yes. For hypertrophy I found a GVS (Geoffrey Verity Schofield) approach to work best. Check out Lucas Hardie aka Range Of Strength to remain flexible while doing so. Check out David Weck to take care of your spine, balance and coordination. Btw GVS - one of the best (probably natty) natural bodybuilder ever, pretty much agrees with what Leo said, as advice for beginners.

So the intelligent thing to do is to get through enough socialization asap so one can move on and naturally value higher spiritual stuff? Is that a good way of putting it?

Me too. I used to have severe allergies, digestive problems and skin rashes since I was a kid. In the last years they were getting worse, I developed joint pains and much worse skin rashes that would not heal, and I found two things that helped - either strict carnivore, (which was a nightmare for me regarding sugar cravings) - and what I do now, which is eating the majority of my calories from carbs, BUT I need to not go overboard with the fats. I can even eat straight table sugar or juices, honey, etc simple carbs (things I blamed before for instantly making my symptoms horrible) and I feel great as long as I I make a minimum of effort to not eat too much fat. And surprisingly this way I don't really want processed sugar almost at all. Plus, an active lean body uses simple sugar much differently from a sedentary obese one. It was a lightbulb moment for me when I realized "unhealthy sugar" - chocolate bars, donuts, sprinkles, milkshakes etc. are just blobs of fat with sugar. 20, 30+ grams of fat per 100g, alongside those 30, 40+ grams of sugar.

I know this has been discussed before, but this video just dropped and I was wondering how come someone like him doesn't think that accessing Truth is dependent on brain chemistry. Does he fail to consider that these tools need time and effort to get results? Does he not understand that all states are Absolute? I wonder what questions I should be asking, I'm kinda baffled to hear he did lots of psychedelics and still thinks this way 😅

Hm, I think it's possible your current human state of consciousness is still constructing false distinctions/dualities with - experience vs non-experience, arising vs falling, and untouched vs touched. What I see right now is that experience is, by definition, all there is. You say Truth remains untouched, as if that which is touched is not Truth. Isn't that separation you're making?

Ok well.. maybe try 5-meo a bunch of times and then report back? I don't know what else to say

@James123 I see. Sooo... Did you put 5-meo up your bum or not? 😂

@James123 Leo has made all these distinctions clear so many times. Maybe you'll get upset from me saying this, but to me it sounds like you are the one desperately clinging to this life, and projecting it somehow. And when you talk about Truth and birth and whatever it just seems to me like you're imagining a bunch of stuff. Like you're not distinguishing between your human thoughts and reality. If I'm right, all that is to avoid God realization. Cause if you actually would merge with God fully in the way the term means it, you would not call it an experience. Nor would you deny God. Perhaps after hitting you with that harsh way of speaking you won't wanna answer, but I'm really curious - how does your day to day life look like, especially in the aspect of - How addicted are you to substances or unhealthy habits? Perhaps it's not the case, and the language difference might have something with it, but your way of talking kinda reminds me of when I was severely addicted to weed and cigarettes and stuff like that.