mandyjw

You gave birth to yourself. Are you at the level of a hamster, eating your own young cause the cage you're in isn't quite to your liking? You create that too.

Didn't give a shit about enlightenment, had an awesome time building up my life, starting a family, realized none of it "made" me happy, spent a short time thinking I'd made a huge mistake, but slowly realized my perspective of everything was the issue, not the stuff itself, or the lack of stuff. Even my perspective of my perspective was an issue. There is no material distraction, there is no material "price" of enlightenment. It's just realizing that the matter we think that makes up the material doesn't matter. And by doesn't matter, I mean, there's no value whatsoever to be gained by avoiding it, thinking if you do you'll get something better in return. This is not a marketplace.

So this is funny. I got the life dreamed of. This right here, is what I worked my ASS off for, and everything I ever expected, plus. Mortgage free, almost completed house (god, I'd hate it if there weren't any projects left, I love projects). A job I can do but don't have to do, but LOVE. The freedom to appreciate beauty and express it and sell it for money, or just do it for fun. The best dog ever. Told my husband I wanted a blue-eyed boy and brown eyed-girl. I knew this was shallow and stupid and I knew I'd love my kids no matter what. But strangely enough, that's what I got. A brilliantly smart, funny and sweet boy with red hair even, I always loved red heads, never even dreamed I'd have one for a kid. How strange? How amazing. I got my extroverted, right brained, creative, sweet, emotional fire ball daughter, the exact thing I thought would be the perfect balancing last addition to our family. A husband who is sweet and kind, and smart, and I always hated his sheer brilliance with puns until I got enlightened and now I love even that. I wanted to have all these things and then I wanted to be free to enjoy them. And here I am. This is it. I never expected the enlightenment thing. I was going in that direction, down that rabbit hole, not knowing where it led, but I never expected that it would be... totally and completely life changing and... everything is the same. Like everything I ever wanted but didn't believe, never dared to dream because it wasn't tangible. I wanted it badly, but as there was nothing to pursue, it feels like it just fell into my lap. The permission to drop all those tensions, all those walls, the hilarity in seeing through them, I couldn't dream up a better life adventure. How fucking lucky could I possibly be? The sheer depth everything has is stunning, and yet, when it's too much you can laugh it off as the very creator of depth and dimension itself. And at some point, I may have became the typical hedonically adapted lottery winner a year down the road, mad because someone scratched the metaphorical fancy sports car, forgetting my great fortune. Ah, well. It wouldn't be fun if I didn't have the right to be a selfish entitled asshole once in a while. I remember, I remember how fucking awesome this all is, and I know know that none of it needs to be secured, it's very essence, it's very desirability is in its sheer freedom. Could this get any better? THAT is the beauty of there being no levels. The answer is both YES and NO, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

You can't just tell yourself to stop caring what other people think, the key is to realize what you want more than that. The key is to tap into the kind of inspiration that so completely consumes you that you don't give a thought to what anyone is thinking. You fall in love with that kind of living so much that nothing else will do. It's like when you fall in love with someone and hell or high water couldn't keep you apart. Before there were all kinds of thoughts about doing things right, and pleasing other people, but you get so swept off your feet in your intense focus on this one person that there's no doubt, no question. That's the sort of feeling, the sort of inloveness with life in general, regardless of specific people or conditions that you're here for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primarily_obsessional_obsessive_compulsive_disorder "They will understand that these fears are unlikely or even impossible but the anxiety felt will make the obsession seem real and meaningful. While those without primarily obsessional OCD might instinctively respond to bizarre, intrusive thoughts or impulses as insignificant and part of a normal variance in the human mind, someone with Pure-O will respond with profound alarm followed by an intense attempt to neutralize the thought or avoid having the thought again. The person begins to ask themselves constantly, "Am I really capable of something like that?" or "Could that really happen?" or "Is that really me?" (even though they usually realize that their fear is irrational, which causes them further distress)[7] and puts tremendous effort into escaping or resolving the unwanted thought. They then end up in a vicious cycle of mentally searching for reassurance and trying to get a definitive answer.[3][8]" For someone who is telling themselves to "stop thinking that, I'm bad for thinking that" all their life, certain spiritual teachings or interpretations/interpretations of them are gasoline on the fire. Even if it IS the solution, in experience "stop thinking that" is another thought. They already know fully that they are lost in illusion and that they want to get out. The only solution is to pay attention to the guidance of feeling over thought, then any thought can pop up, thought or no thought, all is welcomed. Law of attraction, you cannot push against thought, you get more of them. You have to turn the other cheek. Probably why I find journaling so helpful, it embraces thought, and focuses it. Ok, so, I've been hating myself for my thoughts all my life. Thinking I'm bad for having the thoughts, not realizing I am a thought, and that is a thought. The main way I'm suffering for this now is with social anxiety, and relating to people. I get so concerned I'll hurt someone's feelings and so obsessive in going over what I say afterwards that I avoid some conversations and play roles in others. I can get along in life perfectly fine, but when it comes to conversations I really want to have, sometimes it feels debilitating. It is actually fear of my own thoughts in the future of hating myself for what I said. The fear is a thought, of a thought. It's like getting up in front of a crowd and saying something stupid like orgasm instead of organism, everyone else is perfectly fine, laughs and you probably made their day, but it's the thoughts I think about myself for saying it, that are terrifying and even cause the unfocused state that makes a person mix up words. I know this fully, all too well, but again, "knowing" is the problem. "Responsibility: with an excessive concern over someone's well-being marked specifically by guilt over believing they have harmed or might harm someone, either on purpose or inadvertently." It's actually selfishness. What Mandy? What have we learned from George Ezra today? "Blame it on Me" Too tired to think anymore tonight.

Angel Old English engel, ultimately via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek angelos ‘messenger’; Alright, that's enough of THAT energy for tonight. Not sure where that came from anyway. Where does anything come from?

I decided to test my mother with some covert questioning to see if she was still in love with that particular weather man. YES. It was the most hilarious thing ever, and I never let on that I knew. Come to find out, he's very spiritually inclined and now no longer the weatherman, but the Pastor of a church. It's always just a passion for God.

So if you wanted to program someone to see through the matrix of thought, wouldn't you make them so that something was wrong with their thinking process, so they'd have to look back upon it and question it? You don't look under the hood of a car when everything is running perfectly. What if you made someone who thinks incredibly fast, powerfully, is a strong thinker, refuses to think what they are told, but of all angels, (angles, Miss Speller) and the nature of thought is like a moth flying into a flame, and thought is the strength and speed of its wings. I say... fuck this slow and stop and no thought thing. I ain't interested in the brakes, baby, hit the gas. Just blow the fuckin' motor.

Woahh....... Down the rabbit hole we go, hoppity hoppity, ARRRGghhhhhhhh!!!!! Pure O, a form of OCD, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primarily_obsessional_obsessive_compulsive_disorder Common intrusive thoughts/obsessions include themes of: Responsibility: with an excessive concern over someone's well-being marked specifically by guilt over believing they have harmed or might harm someone, either on purpose or inadvertently.[9] HUGE CHECK MARK. Still dealing with this. Fear of driving and social anxiety related. Sexuality: including recurrent doubt over one's sexual orientation (also called HOCD or "homosexual OCD"). People with this theme display a very different set of symptoms than those actually experiencing an actual crisis in sexuality. One major difference is that people who have HOCD report being attracted sexually towards the opposite sex prior to the onset of HOCD, while homosexual people whether in the closet or repressed have always had such same-sex attractions.[10] The question "Am I gay?"[11] takes on a pathological form. Many people with this type of obsession are in healthy and fulfilling romantic relationships, either with members of the opposite sex, or the same sex (in which case their fear would be "Am I straight?").[6][12][13][14][15][16][17] Not really in that description, repression, other milder forms, mostly healed. Pedophilia: Sexual themes in OCD can also involve the fear that one is a pedophile. This is typically accompanied by significant distress and fear that one might actually act on pedophilic urges.[18] No. Violence: which involves a constant fear of harming oneself or loved ones.[12][19] No. Religiosity: manifesting as intrusive thoughts or impulses revolving around blasphemous and sacrilegious themes.[19][20] HUGE check mark. TOTALLY healed with nonduality and this existential shit. 666 all the way, baby. Also, I still love Jesus. Health: including consistent fears of having or contracting a disease (different from hypochondriasis) through seemingly impossible means (for example, touching an object that has just been touched by someone with a disease) or mistrust of a diagnostic test.[19][20] CHECK Mostly healed. Relationship obsessions (ROCD): in which someone in a romantic relationship endlessly tries to ascertain the justification for being or remaining in that relationship. It includes obsessive thoughts to the tune of "How do I know this is real love?", "How do I know he/she is the one?", "Am I attracted enough to this person?", "Am I in love with this person, or is it just lust?", "Does he/she really love me?", and/or obsessive preoccupation with the perceived flaws of the intimate partner.[21][22] The agony of attempting to arrive at certainty leads to an intense and endless cycle of anxiety because it is impossible to arrive at a definite answer.[23] The partner will have seriously troubling thoughts about what their significant other could be doing, especially in the possible and usual form of cheating. Although these thoughts are not triggered by the sufferer, and are indeed spontaneous, the partner will put them self down for thinking in such a way that makes the other look bad.[1] There is uncontrollable constant guilt, fear, and distressing thoughts of what will happen.[21] In most cases, the significant other will become irritated and part ways. This leads to suicidal rumination and regret by the sufferer, even when it wasn't their fault, because the emotions, thoughts, and impulses were not in their control. Maybe but not how it's described. Some revelation may smack me upside the head from this one, I'm open to that. Existential: involving persistent and obsessive questioning of the nature of self, reality, the universe, and/or other philosophical topics.[24] Oh psychology, this is where you disappoint me. Such a disappointment. Really. Cancel the men in white coats, I don't want them, even if they are really super hot. If I need some excitement in my life while my husband is away, I'm sure I too can find a weatherman (on some channel somewhere, maybe in Arizona, or something, I don't care) that strikes my particular fancy. Or there's always Blippi. This existential questioning is how we attempt to heal, and DO heal, but yes, you may call it the last obsession. And that's why mental illness is a super power. Healing power sometimes looks like vulnerability, doesn't it? (That's Claire from Heroes, by the way.)

If it feels right, I think celebrations are perfect times for stuff like that. Often I only get into trouble if I keep the leftover celebration food around after and get in the habit of eating it. After a couple days of eating too much sugar and I often get hit with this horrible mood. If it's just a treat, it doesn't happen and I have no regrets whatsoever.

I would start an IRA with some of it if you don't have one, and bank the rest in a money market account until you get hit with some real inspiration. Just sit with the feeling of having it and imagine what you COULD buy with it for a while. That in itself would be really fun.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53950320 Oh COME ONE! Can't I still fall in love with some famous musician like a 14 year old girl INSTEAD OF it just being some sort of weird nondual impersonal, yet intensely personal thing. My mother was so modest, but she totally had the hots for the weatherman for like a solid decade, I could see it in her eyes, and every time she said his name. It was really just her love of predictability, I KNOW it. I'm too fucking smart for my own good. Haha, yeah that's what God said when he decided to scatter all his intelligence all over the place like Humpty Dumpty or the Tower of Babel, except it's all right here and never even left. Sigh. It's too perfect. It's even more perfect than that, but I wanted it to be LESS PERFECT! I think. DAMN IT! Edit: Did I just misspell "come on" as come one". JESUS! This is getting creepy. And also quite delightful. You know my dog who is the best dog I ever had and absolutely loves me more than anyone has ever loved me and is delightful and the most handsome thing I've ever seen also has eyebrows JUST LIKE PENNYWISE the clown? Oh! Spell, like cast a spell! Bahahaha. I just hope the men in white coats are hot.

Blue eyes, blonde AND a voice like that? I am God after all. Theme of the song nicely resolves the misunderstood consequences of this notion too.

Self Love.

It's definitely not always subtle, you even been in that can't eat, can't sleep kind of love? We make it complex with thinking. The same way we make it complex to eat when we focus way too much on all the mercury in the fish, and our Omega 3 and 6 out of balance, gluten, etc. You can use information and thought to your advantage or to your misery. Yes, we "need" love, sex, friendship, belonging, time alone, good healthy food, exercise, fresh air, sleep, clean water. But even with all my needs and most of my wants taken care of I can still focus on the absence of stuff all day and feel miserable about it, or I can make intelligent decisions to plan around my wants and needs and embrace the moment and what I'm focusing on now. In any given moment there's something to appreciate.

What if Harry Potter isnt real, but the figment of someone's (Jk Rowling's) imagination? I'd still love him anyway.

@Viking Hunger and thirst are a sensations, then we translate them into thought, which is typically an awesome thing since thought allow us to plan ahead for them. But we can also let thought spin out of control and become addicted to food or hoarding food or whatever else. Emotions are like the sensation of hunger or thirst, only less straightforward for most, thought will translate emotion as it likes. If we have mistaken beliefs all translations will be off and may even cause us to want to shut off our guidance of emotions, that's not what I'm suggesting we do.

I'm starting to see that the only reason you'd make a song about not caring about your reputation is because you DO care about your reputation, but don't want to. I should feel disenchanted, but, it's just funny. Hi everyone. I care about my reputation, but I don't want to and I'm trying not to. Embarrassment is highly likely to ensure, because this is a universe of no exclusion, and the universe doesn't hear the word no. Huh, "here" and "hear" sound the same, you can only hear what people say about you, here. The past two days have been extremely productive, with finding motivation and effortlessly knocking down barriers in the realm of something I've wanted to do for a really long time but more recently have not given a shit about, finishing my house and kitchen. THIS is the beauty of law of attraction. Stop giving a shit, and boom. It all seemed to be a domino effect of the washing machine breaking, being happy about this because it was a lemon from the start and also 10 years old, asking my dad to come drain it, so I could get my clothes back. That very night I had this sort of jolting revelation come to me. Don't laugh. "You shouldn't store stuff on the top of the refrigerator." So long story short, this led to repainting the entire kitchen, and fixing in one fell swoop a bunch of stuff I wanted to do but had no motivation to do because I believed I couldn't move the refrigerator by myself. This turned out not to be true. After all this I decided to go out to a beach last night. When I got there I regretted coming, regretted not bringing my daughter, felt unable to enjoy time to myself which I have so been asking for but not believing I could move the fridge my self (other subject, not really). I walked across some mud, found a fossil of something I'd never seen before, and realized I had no desire to keep it, so I put it back and this was more interesting to me than the fossil. Thought about how I turn nature into something I worship too much and feel as if I must enjoy because I think I enjoy it, and I can't think enjoyment, only drop thoughts and enjoy. The tides changed just as I walked out and I got to see the whirlpools go from tiny little circles, to boiling, and when I looked overhead I smiled at seeing an almost perfect equal half quarter moon, on the Spring equinox. When I was driving home, an owl flew straight at my car looking straight at me, moving just in time before it hit the windshield. That's only the second time I've seen an owl in the wild in my life.

The miraculous cosmic joke of it all is that the emptiness that is being feared or avoided is actually already fully that fulfillment that we seek. Happiness is actually the lack of something, the lack of discontent or the sense that something is wrong or missing. In a way you could say it's emptiness, but because it wants nothing and has no bounds you could also say that it's entirely full. So when you're with your girlfriend and things are going well, these isn't anywhere to go, anything to want. Because she is the only "object" or circumstance there when you feel that lack of wanting, you equate her with that feeling of happiness. That's not an issue, but what is an issue is equating her absence, or any other thing or condition's absence with that sense of lack or unease. That sense of lack is a thought, a feeling, a series of thoughts and beliefs that you've practiced that something is missing. It's something extra that you are doing, that is being imposed on an already background of absolutely fulfilled emptiness. Meditation, done in various ways can help you catch the action of thought imposing itself and its ideas and connotations of emptiness (and what it means for it), on the feeling of emptiness, telling you what it is and what you are and what you have to do with each other. When we get this wrong, feeling is our guidance and we feel awful because, our thoughts about ourselves don't align with the Truth of ourselves. On a less existential level, when we get too dependent on a partner, the best thing we can do for ourselves and our relationship is to explore what you want from life and what makes you happy. Start with making lists of things you want, and making lists of stuff that raises your mood that you can work into your day. If you feel unsure, start small. It's crazy how fast the momentum builds. Maybe you want to start a project, learn something new, meet new people, spend more time with friends, join an organization, start a band, but first really sit down and determine what it is you want to create, what makes you happy thinking about it right now. The idea isn't to jump into something that will make us feel complete once we complete it, it's to get in tough with the joy of creating a beautiful life experience right now. All creation, all art starts with an empty blank slate. That emptiness that you avoid is the very potential for creative life force itself. "Now" is empty, limitless, infinite.

Let things happen as they happen , they will sort themselves out nicely in the end. You need not strain towards the future -- the future will come to you on its own. For some time longer you will remain sleep-walking, as you do now, bereft of meaning and assurance, but this period will end and you will find your work both fruitful and easy. There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable for it means the soul had cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment -- when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid, the state may be distressing, but there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: whatever you come across -- go beyond. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj ('I Am That') There is nothing wrong with the world. What is wrong is the way you look at it. It is your own imagination that misleads you. Without imagination there is no world. Your conviction that you are conscious of a world is the world. " -Nisargadatta Maharaj Ok, so let's throw some boomerangs, and project some stuff on the world. It's scary. (I'm scared) It's big. (I'm little and insignificant.) I can't tell if the guy who lost his license for DUI and drives by my house on a lawn mower to go to the gas station is sad or humorous. (don't know what to do with that either?) There should be more trees everywhere, and I don't like public restrooms. (You really do think you're a feral cat, I guess) Ok, I think my mood is currently too good for doing this. I'll try again when I'm pissed off or something.

Any attempt to escape what you already are is a trap. You wouldn't need to escape if you didn't think you were trapped. The trap, your wolrd is a projection of you, self created. The word escape comes from es cape, like someone grabbed your cloak and you slipped out and ran off without it. “Go back, go back to sleep. Yes, you are allowed. You who have no Love in your heart, you can go back to sleep. The power of Love is exclusive to us, you can go back to sleep. I have been burnt by the fire of Love. You who have no such yearning in your heart, go back to sleep. The path of Love, has seventy-two folds and countless facets. Your love and religion is all about deceit, control and hypocrisy, go back to sleep. I have torn to pieces my robe of speech, and have let go of the desire to converse. You who are not naked yet, you can go back to sleep.” - Rumi Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

@SilentTears I'd like to agree that it's wild, but maybe it's just feral since I'm still able to be trapped with the right treats. ? It's less about the chocolate and more about just noticing the attempts to escape.

Feeling all over the place, and muddy so I'm hoping to focus some things. I've been working more lately, basically to focus on something that has momentum since I'm sort of prone to noticing other things that don't. And cause, it's fun and makes money. Hard to lose. My studio is such an amazing thing to behold, messy though it looks, it is full of a 17 year old collection of different kinds of glass, tools, murrini chips made by myself and other artists, and all kinds of different odds and ends. Complex murrini is a bitch, 2 plus hour commitment of intense, focused work that you cannot stop for any reason whatsoever, and when you pull it, it either works or it doesn't. If it does work you have a design you can use in beads for years. I have a huge library. Then there's my head, full of techniques and refinements I've made for years. There's a lot of momentum there. With spirituality, and teaching or whatever the fuck I'm doing, I feel like a babe in the woods, thrilled with myself for doing the most basic things, which is FUN, oh so fun. My passion for it is driving it, but it doesn't really have a lot of roads built that it can drive on. The secret to life is that mastery gets really fucking boring after a while and yet, you get to keep your infrastructure or whatever. Ooooh... I'm just being results oriented. Where's my fucking results, mother fuckers? I don't know which and what I'm referring to, but i know there aren't here NOW. SOMEONE HAS TO ANSWER FOR THIS. There aren't any. This is it, this is the fun. Oh right. Where's the chocolate? I need some chocolate. (You're saving that for tomorrow, since you know, you bought the bar yesterday and there's like one piece left?) Fuck.