mandyjw

Excellent observation. It can stem from a feeling of insecurity or insignificance, which can make you susceptible to the options of other people who are acting out of the same feeling. These opinions are never really THIER opinions exactly, but our own judgements and interpretations about what other people think. You don't actually experience what other people think of you, you experience your own thoughts guessing what other people might be thinking. You can't really deal with it exactly, but you can determine what it is you DO really want. You want to live and create out of the joy and inspiration that is uniquely yours, and yet also so intimately shared by all others that they recognize it at once. This leaves you free to go directly to happiness, joy and enthusiasm, rather than thinking about what actions you can do that might get you that or other lesser forms we think we need, like acceptance and respect from others as an end result. Happiness is not ever found as an end result, it is only ever experienced now. It is actually the lack of resistance to itself that actually allows us to create fully. Awareness of thoughts that feel bad, meditation, and taking time to write down and discover the things that bring you joy are incredibly helpful.

God is not a ruler over all. He does not need a ruler. If he does use a ruler, it's to help create something really awesome, not for measuring things, because God knows that creation is always in a state of creating, and is never complete. And it just so happens that THAT is the most awesome non-state of things that anything could ever "reach".

It's a beneficial cycle, as you pay attention to how you feel when you eat things, you start to feel better and become more aware of how foods affect you, you start to make better choices effortlessly and those choices make you feel better, think with more clarity and make you even more aware of how you feel. We all are different so outside of general advice about what foods are healthy and what aren't, veggies=good, preservative and too much sugar=not good, it takes a lot of listening to your own body, which, as I said before the awareness thing is really what it's all about anyway. It's easy to get caught up in diet dogma and fear mongering, and that's where intaking too much information about healthy eating can sometimes start to backfire. It's not about judgement, it's about curiosity and greater awareness and enjoyment about food and life in general.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -Heraclitus

De-lusion, I-llusion Ill-usion illusion- from Latin illusionem (nominative illusio) "a mocking, jesting, jeering; irony," from past-participle stem of illudere "mock at," literally "to play with," from assimilated form of in- "at, upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + ludere "to play" (see ludicrous). https://www.etymonline.com/word/illusion "All the world's a stage" There are no players, just play.

Believed fear and doubted desire is suffering, they are opposites but come to the same end. Disbelieved fear (roller coaster kind of thrill) and believed desire is love and appreciation, again they are opposites but not actually.

There's a huge difference in how they feel, there's a "knowing" with synchronicity that sort of merges feeling and knowing. Confirmation bias explains the tendency of the mind, but I guess the real question is, what beliefs do you want to support, and what IS objective? I'd say confirmation bias is more like holding a resistance right where it was before, so it might feel sort of comfortable in a way, in that it's a practicing a well worn pattern even if it's one that doesn't feel so great. But it's not like an epiphany, amazement, wonder, a clue or a knowing wink from someone you really love, which is what synchronicity feels like. Although to be honest after experiencing it a lot sometimes I have just rolled my eyes and just laughed about it before. In my experience synchronicity sort of blows up confirmation bias, it sort of shocks you awake from your old humdrum, tiring, exhausting belief structure, and shocks you awake with new fresh eyes of childlike wonder.

Ooooo... good question. What is trust? Is trust a thought? Is trust a belief? Or is trust a knowing that's so deep it's what you KNOW thoughts about trusting with?

Last night I had a weird dream. My parents own property that is accessed partly by two different woods roads. I dreamed that someone decided to sell lobster out of an outlet on one of the roads which was very strange. I was distrusting of him, like anyone that used to ever go in there. When I walked or ran there, I would listen for a vehicle, and if I heard one I would usually hide in the woods. Whether that's because that's normal behavior when you live in the middle of nowhere, or because my parents constantly told me to be careful and fueled my fears, I don't know. There was a person who had showed up to deliver something and the person had had quills like a porcupine, which was absolutely bizarre. Then later me and my mother were cleaning out really old stuff that was my Grandmothers? and there was this sewing box full of antique needles that were incredibly well made, like a lot of old tools. So of course, I could interpret this a lot of ways, but going along with what's on my mind, and the synchronicity of sewing needles and porcupine quills, the message might be, use what is past for creation, not protection. And that's exactly what I was sort of trying to see through with my Grandmother. She was quite feminine, loved beautiful things, loved crafts, loved making things, and yet, much of the time was miserable, and there are multiple reasons why I get compared with her. So... this reminds me of something, maybe I shouldn't go here. If you're female, being an artist is the occupation that puts you at the highest risk for suicide. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096882/working-female-suicide-rate-by-detailed-occupation-group-us/ There's some correlation with creativity and depression, and I think, I know it's spiritual awakening related. I think there's a major misunderstanding of society here. A creative woman is born with incredible gifts, gifts that the world needs most right now, but because they are exactly what the world needs most right now, they WILL be devalued and laughed at, and part of her gifts are a sort of vulnerability and fragility, that isn't what it seems. She's like the mouse in the Gruffalo book. (I really wish @remember hadn't been banned, who gave me this insight into the meaning of that book, but there's another example of devaluing the feminine that's stuck in my craw). She herself CREATES a more powerful monster than the predictors, and she TOO must out-wile the monster she herself created to just happily enjoy eating a nut at the end of the book. Ok wow. This went deeper and more to the heart of things than I was thinking it would. Thinking it would? Really? If she herself starts to believe this perspective too, that she is not worth much, that she is weak, that she is prey, she may begin to feel that she is worthless too. And she IS prey, prey to (pray to!) a bigger monster than the ones initially placed in the forest, but to the monster of her own creation. What the world needs most, is for you to know and feel your own worth, no matter who you are, no matter what gifts you have. It doesn't matter what society is like, it doesn't matter what the world is like, all that matters is my own alignment with me. My Grandmother gave me the tools for creation, and she gave me the clarity that comes from contrast on how to use them in a way that is aligned with Self.

Those would be examples of existential misunderstandings more that mystical experiences because of the presence of fear and despair. It's like asking a deep question with power, but the answer has yet to hit you because fear and despair is from the perspective of the limited asker of the question, not the answer. You are both the question and the answer, you are what has seemingly split itself into question and answer. The wholeness of this is the answer. You must feel, attune to the wholeness and the question you asked can back to you as the answer. Genes and past experience are diversity, not limitations when seen from the ultimate, Wholeness of what is, non-perspective. Seen from that perspective they are like an artist's color palate. Red is limited in that it is not green, but all separate colors are only visible WITHIN the pure light that already contains the potentiality of all colors.

Only if you throw him out.

Snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails, sugar and spice and everything nice

I've been really focused and productive lately. I have channeled my inner Martha Stewart. I started using a journal that I started after reading about bullet journaling. I sort of used the principal but turned it into my own thing. I use a page each for several categories of my life. I'll have a page for the entire month and things I'd like to do. I have a page for wants. Usually I'll write something out and be like, why don't I just take action on that right now? And I do. I write when I'm inspired, and I'll look at it when I want some guidance or momentum or just feel like it. When I first started it under "wants" I put "a lobster jello mold." I wanted it because someone I follow has one as a joke cause it looks like a dick from a distance. Is it a dick or a lobster? This is the magic of imagination. So I was like, "what is keeping me from making this idiotic whim a reality??? Oh, myself and my caring what other people think, and I went right ahead and bought one off eBay. I should have known. It's not JUST a lobster mold. Well, obviously, but it's not JUST a lobster mold that also looks like a dick. Looking at it on the wall, I got even more inspiration. Get your mind out of the gutter people. I was also watching Mrs. Maisel and decided since I have a copper theme in my kitchen to just get a whole collection of copper jello molds and line the kitchen like the 50's. I remembered my Grandmother's and how much I loved them, they struck me when I was a kid, how pretty they were. So I guess what happened was that once I lined the kitchen with them I stopped thinking people thinking the lobster was dick and started thinking, "oh my God, I'm just like my Grandmother." So for the past couple days I've been questioning, what do I DO with this? What does "your inner being never look back, mean? Do I look back, knowing this is also looking forward? How does this all feel? I was kinda lost, but wanting to sort of connect with this feeling or not wanting to be associated with her, but feeling that way anyway. I asked Mom for a picture of her, and she brought out an album that had only the first few pages filled. I don't remember any of the pictures. I started look at them and the most recent one of her made me tear up instantly. The death of my maternal Grandmother happened two years ago, and coincided with some fast intense spiritual realization and it was an entirely different experience with lots of emotional purging. But this grandmother died when I was 16 and I remember being so fine during the funeral and then grief just hitting me in the shower after it was all done, and not really knowing how to process. One of the big realizations I had when my maternal Grandmother died and even happening years before was that I had let my Dad's judgements color my own relationship and judgements of her. He was incredibly judgmental. And so was I. I thought this was truth. My Grandmothers couldn't have been more opposite, one incredibly loving, content, but naïve and the other sharp, and judgmental, unhappy. But still, he found great flaws in the both and criticized them all the time. Bleh, this feels like writing a dumb story. Maybe I'll continue later, depending on how it feels. I'm cautious about past digging. Maybe for good, reason, maybe too cautious. It's like learning to walk, you fall on your butt sometimes. That's ok. Anyway, looking through the photos I kind of thought how photos are just "imagination aids" and I could use them to tell any sort of story, mostly in connection or identification with myself. I didn't have a very nice wardrobe, so for my senior pictures, my sister loaned me hers. In one of the pictures I wore a black halter dress and a cowboy hat, it wasn't like me at all, but it made a great picture. One of the boys on the cross country team rode the same bus as her and stole it from my friend and put it with his other "pictures" in his wallet and I didn't know whether to be disgusted or flattered. I think all we are each other's imagination aids. They'll just do whatever they want with us. Masturbation aids or target practice, who knows? Depends on mood. Everything depends on mood. Lobster, or...? So today I gassed my car up and noticed that someone waited for the pump behind me a minute and then had to turn around to get to a pump. I watched the pattern of "I inconvenienced someone, I shouldn't even be here" come up. If I hadn't spent my entire sheltered life in such a rural area, I would not have had the privilege of maintaining this shit without giving it up out of anger or pure frustration, I suppose. Then I noticed that they drove a Navigator that had a sticker on it that said "I'm only speeding because I have to poop." That made me feel better about inconveniencing people and taking up their time.

Please don't smack Matthew because he is just quoting Jesus, and Jesus also talked about treasure in heaven, not on earth. Really, the material realm just doesn't matter. Because WE aren't matter, there's no matter that matters.

You just gotta start telling a different story. Turn around what you don't want to what you DO want. I remember before coming to this forum I started to think I had a horrible Facebook addiction. I'd go on there, not realizing what I was looking for. Conversation? I wasn't enjoying it much at all. I tried using blockers, it didn't work cause I have a business that requires Facebook. Then I came here, and had some amazingly productive, deep, engaging conversations. Then Facebook became a useful tool, and I never did anything to address the "addiction." Stop beating up on yourself for the way things are. Just acknowledge how you want them to be and start finding inspiration to make small changes. I've done this in so many areas of my life from overeating to too much caffeine. The more I shame myself and guilt myself for an addiction the more I double down on it. The more I focus on the fun of feeling better, the more amazed I am at how quickly I can turn something around. It also helps to journal through it. Write down every miserable, shitty thought. Have a dry sick sense of humor with it all. It's really hard to focus on them and not start to see how funny it all is. Have you ever been really mad or really pissed off and then you just sort of noticed something, the sky or whatever, and you almost get angry because THAT thing is not ALSO angry and even you yourself seem still like it in a way, even though you really feel like to be true to yourself you should be angry? And you almost feel like you are being disloyal to yourself? No? Am I the only weird one? Well the nature of awareness is always just chill, so that's why it happens. It's always just... aware, just creating, just... a blank page. This all can turn on a DIME. Everything. It can, and you can get really good at making it turn around on a dime, and when you do, you'll be like "OH MY GOD, I just DID that!" And THAT is way more interesting than the improved situation or what the situation was before. You are infinitely powerful. Sometimes we start our stories out in real shitty places just for the magic of contrast, to prove to ourselves how amazing we really are. You have the power to throw your power away, THAT'S how powerful you really are. Funny, right? Rather than feeling you're failing, just marvel in the knowledge of that power that you can not, could not, ever lose.

? Or they then only attract a certain type or women that are conditioned to find those things attractive because they think those markers reflect on their own worth too. It creates this entire culture where all kinds of unnecessary work is done, and an immense amount of thought and effort goes into something that's already inherently effortless and so beautifully NATURAL. Stems from trying to think one's value instead of just realizing and being one's value.

Suddenly that Queen video seems just as funny and brilliant as ever.

So the misunderstanding is "I am a thought". But the misunderstanding is also the understanding. (FUCK me. ?) I am only a thought, I only ever experience me as a thought. So if someone identifies with being not-good enough, insignificant, whatever else, and they also experience obsessive thinking, they already know that they can't trust or believe their thoughts, and they think that if they can get rid of the thinking, they can get rid of themselves. Or if they can get rid of themselves, they can get rid of the thinking. Themselves = the problem. Themselves = thought. Thought = problem. Law of attraction and the very nature of thought to create means if you're stuck in this cycle, you are absolutely fucked. If YOU think YOU are a problem, you perpetuate you, and if you think thought is a problem you will get more of it it. It's a vicious cycle, you created, but also trapped yourself in. SHIT. All of the spirituality, was as much the problem as solution. The problem is the same as the solution. The very "die to self", transcend the ego teachings become the perfect validation for a self who that already trying to off itself for years. What does "free" of thought really mean? Is it being expressive and free to think, or NO thought? I THOUGHT Eckhart Tolle meant I had to be free of thought to have spiritual attainment, ie, to be happy. He was another man I threw my own guidance away with in recognition of authority, which I saw as a means of getting what I wanted. Dissolution. "He" was, like all true spiritual teachings, problem AND solution. The "power of now" means, they are the same fucking thing. Abraham Hicks taught me how to vibrate as the solution. What if it's free WITH thought, and free of thought? "It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture." Maya Angelou It doesn't seem like it fits at first, but it does.

Jesus. Did I DO this? Is this my fault? Is it my fault for holding shitty perspectives? For buying them? Did I throw my power away? I found solace, forgiveness and transcendence in Christianity of this whole powerless perspective, and more or the deepest, sharpest power taking misogyny in how it was typically practiced. I guess every great story has a pretty shitty beginning. I am after all, an androgynous author. Power is my creation. power Old French povoir, noun use of the infinitive, "to be able," If I'm able to throw my power away, isn't that power?

I'm not important. I feel like most everyone passes over or ignores my posts of advice here, maybe because I'm female and I try to argue for a perspective of joy in little things, cause I see that missing here. Why do I even bother if I myself don't buy it sometimes? I don't "buy" it. I project that life ought to be more free, more relaxed, less pressure to become, to get to, and yet here I am doing the same. If I can't be content in being small, do I think if I can convince the world, that I'll finally feel ok? What's the point of marketing? What's the point of playing the game? It does work for good. Bleh. Hit a wall. Not getting anywhere. Maybe some George Ezra, will help, he's a successful man. Maybe if I was hotter, more confident, and the hotness would bring the confidence, I could just have a piece of it. I suppose that's all women can bring to the table. For a time. I'm already past it. Every time I dress and paint myself into hot I feel sick and fake. I suppose that's a perspective that doesn't agree. Every time I ignore my looks I feel invisible and feel I have to work to stay that way, and hide. 'Cause life imitates art If I get a little prettier, can I be your baby? You tell me, "Life isn't that hard" Every single fucking movie you saw growing up, the woman is beautiful, strikingly beautiful. Every story you love, they turn it into a movie and Hermione is pretty. We can't make her the way she was written in the book, she has to be beautiful. There's money at stake. The only way women make money, and get success is by being attractive. Didn't a woman WRITE Harry Potter? Yeah, that's cause you don't see authors. J.K.Rowling. She didn't use her name on it for a good fucking reason. What would make me feel better? "Universe, I would have enjoyed Jack in Titanic more if you'd just cast some real ugly bitch for Rose. " I don't like to look dull in comparison to shiny beautiful things. Dim the stars for me God. They make feel insecure. Done, it's called light pollution. Light pollution! What a concept! The lesser light is too bright up close, so I can't see the supposed greater ones that are far away. Which IS lesser and which IS greater? Clever. Even sharing this, isn't really authentic. I think this video is brilliant, but also feel like it's making fun of women and that I'm really not cool or funny at all for feeling that way about it. I don't know what I want. Just like a woman. Am I looking for a resolution? I never wanted to be a woman. I never wanted to be a man either. I never wanted to be both or neither. I've heard that I'm beyond all that. It seems a solution, that is not. Maybe I want a dissolution. Maybe I've been trying to avoid, trying to be cool, trying to work it all out, trying to work myself out of the equation. Source, dissolve me, get rid of me, I'm damaged goods, not worth much, never was. What is all-powerful perfection supposed to do with that? It's like oil and water.

Woooooow. All that self judgement trying to fit in with what other people think, trying to be happy, but not just allowing happy. Even with spirituality, I'll do it, I'll do it again. Especially with spirituality. I'll take the best teacher I can find and turn it into a big fat SHOULD. I always liked doing this earlier, with men. Always men. Has to be a man. Cause men know what's up, especially the successful ones. They are the antidote to silly, flighty little creatures, happy about painting and stupid little things, like me and Grammie Lily. Mr. Money Mustache. Message I heard, Buying shit is silly! Ok, I'll stop buying stuff. Tim Ferriss, Message I heard, if it takes time and effort on your part to produce, you're doing it wrong. Ok, I'll stop doing one of a kind art and try to get rich somehow. Leo, Enlightenment is an achievement. Somewhere, much earlier than I ever found these people, all of which it's not their fault, I decided that I had to have BIG wants. Because if I was happy with little things, I was little. Maybe I am little. Maybe I have no size at all. Maybe I'm free to dream big or dream small, all just for the pleasure of dreaming.

Thinking lots of crappy thoughts. It's a relief that I'm not a thing that can find happiness in things and experiences, but that the entirety of me is experience. I dunno, is that right? I don't feel like getting technical right now. I really want to sleep and chill out, not journal, but kids and a dog. 5 minutes later after giving my daughter the last of my spinach, peeling myself an orange, my daughter asking for it, giving it to her and peeling another and then being asked if snails have armpits, and then having to google if snails sleep, I'm back to journaling. So yeah, happiness is not a thing you can find. Again like, it's a major relief. it's amazing. beautiful, brilliant, perfect really, but oh fuck it I'll be depressed about it anyway. All these pleasing things, food, having kids, the kids being cute and wonderful and curious just how you wanted and being like, "I just want to fucking take a nap for 20 minutes" and not being happy. What a miserable bitch I am. I keep thinking this stupid thing and I know it's not right, but since I'm tearing up about it, I think I'll go there. My Grandmother was always miserable, never happy with anything, always moving around, and I keep thinking of her, comparing myself to her, partly because I was compared with her a lot, and I was her favorite, and she was miserable enough to have favorites. Again, like knowing that something isn't right, that you can't just be happy anyway, is a recurring theme. Oh fuck it. I'm painting my stairs. It's very exciting. They were primed white and now they have one coat of white paint on them. I'm very happy with this. There's something wrong with me, I'm happy with such little things. OOOHHHHH. I just randomly went with the thought that felt better, even if it was about a totally random separate topic. But it WASN'T! Oh, journaling. So fucking exciting. Boomerangs. Source. Yep, this is fucking awesome. Damn, I'm getting GOOD at this, like really efficient! I mean, I'm good, am I not good? Yep. I'm Good.