mandyjw

Creativity to me is a flow state, an allowing you just know by how it feels. The book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron is a great resource. Journaling, self care, taking time to yourself, appreciating other's art and creativity, listening to music, time in nature and generally following your bliss are all key for me. I find that trying to please others or trying to own the end result too much hampers creativity.

Pure desire doesn't have anything to do with anyone else. Pure desire just feels like love. You are becoming more aware OF yourself, when you want to just become aware. Become aware of these thoughts about yourself and others as you have them without believing that they are a true reflection of you. Or them. You are unnecessarily owning and trying to release behaviors you find bad and therefore, judging, creating, identifying and perpetuating them. If the thought about yourself feels bad, it's off. Listen to feeling, not thought. It's not about a mental judgment of "am I bad?" Also maybe just take some alone time now.

Make sure you have all the practical stuff checked off. Do you get outside everyday? Do you get enough vitamin D? What's your diet like? Do you exercise? Do you have a creative outlet? Do you interact with people on a regular basis? This is a big part of your depression in my opinion. Creativity is timeless. "Waste of time" does not apply. Make an intention to counterintuitively make the time for your "waste of time." If it makes you feel better and what you want most of all is to feel better how on earth would that be a waste of time? Explore all the limiting beliefs about this. You only want success from your goals because you believe that they will make you feel good. Do what feels good and your goals will come much easier. I've experienced this too, and believing that you have bad days can add to the frequency and downward spiral of a bad day because in your mind you've too soon identified it as a bad day. Make a list of things you really enjoy doing but don't often take time to do. Try to do two or three things from the list everyday. Waste some time on yourself this way, intentionally. You'll notice the bad days don't come as often. Have you gone into mindfulness or meditation or much? Take every thought captive. Do your best to question and become aware of every thought with curiosity. The ones that feel good, let yourself really enjoy them. Don't doubt them. The ones that feel bad, don't believe. What is the desire in the bad feeling thoughts? In every negative thought is a desire, even if it's a general desire to feel good. When you do feel really good, think about how you can act on working toward your more tangible goals and desires. If you don't feel good enough to take action on bigger goals then just refer to the list of small things you enjoy doing. It also helps to start small and make lists of small desires. New piece of art in my apartment, find new book I'm excited to read, try a new recipe, that kind of thing.

@Danioover9000 His life before was a lot more varied than just a few depressive episodes. He read a lot of deep books and had some insights preceding the awakening that's mentioned in the book. His book takes people out of suffering, in fact there's nothing real "there" that anyone needs to be taken out of. That was the entire point of his awakening, seeing through this. His awakening insight, "I can't live with myself anymore." "What, are there two of me, one that cannot live itself?" All of your darkest thoughts are trying to wake you up to something. All of your lighter thoughts are too, but we often don't have the right resources to get the message until the suffering grows LOUD enough that we have not choice but to listen. But you are always feeling. Now. No need to suffer, that's essentially Eckhart's message.

Thanks for sharing!

This book is absolutely AMAZING at letting go of the survival thing. Highly recommend it. It's hilarious, entertaining, and mostly full of true stories. If you're like me, lots of them will leave you with chills up your spine. For example the author decided she was unsafe living in a "bad" neighborhood she absolutely loved so she did the smart safe thing and got an apartment in the safe part of town. Not long after a bullet came in through her window in the "safe" apartment, narrowly missed her. I've had a lot of similar but somewhat less dramatic freak things happen in my life to show me that all our fear and concern actually creates the situation we fear and when it comes, it's still ok. https://www.amazon.com/Outrageous-Openness-Letting-Divine-Take/dp/1476793484/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=outrageous+openness&qid=1609688190&sr=8-1

There's no cause and effect. Enlightenment is beyond cause and effect. Even within the realm of story of cause and effect, beautiful things come out of suffering, like for example inspired books that lead people to the same realizations without the intense suffering part.

Don't mistake thoughts for enlightenment. That's a thought, I have decided asking questions is pointless so I will place this limitation on myself and project a future where I will maintain this self imposed limitation to not ask questions... for what purpose?

https://www.actualityofbeing.com/concentration-single-pointedness I find that starting a hobby or side hustle you're really interested in and sticking with it is a good long term goal that naturally helps concentration. I do glass art and every project I begin must be completed in one go or it must be discarded. That in itself trained my focus unintentionally. Could be applied to any art form or learning an instrument or skill.

@Aaron p @Nahm might be a great resource for you.

My first introduction was seeing my dad watch an Eckhart video. I was so infuriated by him just sitting there on stage saying nothing that I yelled at my dad for watching such garbage. 7 years later I had a subscription to Eckhart Now and listened to his videos for hours weekly.

Just reflecting you here, but I also absolutely love this metaphor/ illustration.

OMG, that article is funny. Lots of little tidbits thrown out all around to feed the inner shame and judgement monsters. "The message board is already abuzz, with a discussion string on “sexual energy in the process of awakening” drawing particularly enthusiastic attention." Also couldn't help but notice how women were mentioned in the article. Kim is painted as "slim and attractive", suggesting that she therefore must be some sort of trophy for Eckhart, but Oprah is painted as some sort of demonic monster. Most Christians use a structure of understanding and beliefs to base their faith in, they, just like atheists give all power to the mind. Belief in Jesus is the hope of salvation and the key to transcending the fear of death to them. If you press them on the exact thing that makes someone "saved" or "not saved", you mostly find that it's some sort of mental gymnastics that saves someone. It's just a whole lot of mental effort to avoid feeling. Same as we all are doing, but Christianity is essentially just a strong framework and fear motivation to keep that framework in place. It can be used as an obvious example to help point out to ourselves how we still do the same.

When feeling confirms the validity of a thought so strongly you just can't miss it. Cause truth is love. True Knowing is awareness itself, that's also what unconditional Love is, and what you really are. Insight is a manifestation or an expression of this, leading right to the ultimate knowing of Consciousness itself. Ask and it is given.

You isn't.

Who pissed in your organic cornflakes?

You can obsess about not being obsessive. We can't control out minds but we can let go of the attachment to thoughts. Is it possible that you equate the OCD thoughts with suffering, when it's only a false belief that the two are connected? The resistance can be an attachment holding it in place. Are you into meditation, mindfulness and spirituality at all? I had a big breakthrough with OCD a couple years ago and saw that it was not what it seemed to be and was actually very connected with intuition. Mine was minor except for a year or two when I was a kid when it got intensely painful and affected my life a lot. I knew I was crazy and tried to hide it the best I could. My parents weren't the type to take me to talk to anyone. One day my best friend told me about this book she had read called "Kissing Doorknobs" and that it was about a girl who had OCD and she described what it was. I instantly knew that's what it was. From that moment I felt like since now I had this label, I could actually distance myself from this thing that was suddenly known. As a teenage I was able to train myself to ignore them, stop taking them seriously and it worked really well, the impulses only actually came up sometimes when I was running or in a meditative state. They didn't bother me again until right before the breakthrough at age 30. I'm cautious to talk about it because there are many different manifestations of OCD and to many people familiar with traditional treatment methods the way through can seem like running in the opposite direction. If you're interested in discussing in more detail feel free to PM me.

I don't think this is a childish thing to be upset about at all. You dad has his priorities all mixed up and isn't allowing himself any joy in his life right now, so his reaction was a reflection of his own misunderstanding. You tried to give him joy, but in his current state of not being able to receive any joy, he rejected it. Sometimes we add on the feeling that "he rejected me", so it helps to understand that that's not it. We can only be responsible for allowing our own joy in life, not other people's. We can try to give them joy, but they have to let it in. It's perfectly fine to be sad about this until you're ready to move directly in the direction of feeling the joy and love out of which was your original intention and motivation with the gift.

Your past videos made me conscious of how important open-mindedness is. Since I've realized that the reason open-mindedness is so key is that open-mindedness is none other than unconditional Love which is none other than the nature of Awareness itself. You could call it Empty or you could call it Unconditional Love. I don't have an individual, separate mind. In my direct experience I am aware of thoughts but mind, or minds are abstract concepts that I'm aware of... as thoughts. Rupert Spira talks about how consciousness is like a camera lens zooming out, so in dream or psychedelic states you may directly experience the subconscious which is much more shared, one and collective than a normal state of consciousness. You can experience archetypes, (including aliens, angels, gods, saints, etc) entities, collective thoughts, collective consciousness, a feeling of oneness, all sorts of phenomena. But these are still experiences, with an experiencer. You adjust the camera lens that was focused in on something small and specific slightly and it completely changes your world and opens your eyes and heart as to what is possible and what you might be. But to move beyond self or ego, you can only become aware of what's false. In Awareness there are no distinctions such as levels. How can there be? "I'm big and you're small, you must be subject to me." Arrogance and inadequacy feel awful to anyone who buys into the story of them. Must we drag this worldview into spirituality, into the idea of transcendence itself? . Transcendence both is and is not a higher level. It's not a particular perspective, it's the loss of a person behind the perspective. Hierarchy of states of consciousness is not Love, this is separation and identification. Sure it seems like there are levels to light, but what is light really? Is it a wave or a particle? Depends on who's looking at it. You're stuck with the problem of the observer. You're awareness itself.

I've considered the similarities a lot too. I think the difference is that in true meditation nothing is avoided, but the nature of thought is to separate and the nature of separation is to avoid. So while we can seemingly avoid thinking about things, we often DO think about them in a negative light but avoid dealing with them in a productive manner, or seeing them clearly. As you meditate and put how you feel above your mental judgement of the situation, some subjects are "avoided" until you get to a place of inclusion and understanding that it can be understood in an entirely new light. For an everyday example, If I try to help my kid with his homework when I'm completely exhausted, I'm no help and end up yelling at him. If I avoid the homework and meditate for 15 minutes, then I will be in much better position to be of an help to him. You can apply the same principal to serious problems such as traumatic events in your life. It's not wise to tackle problems when you aren't in the position of being able to see clearly and you can tell by how you feel. It sometimes concerns me that joy, love and inspiration are glossed over here, maybe to make enlightenment seem bad ass, difficult and therefore worthwhile?, when joy, love and inspiration are the way. Danger is not danger when you're in Love. You can imagine anything you want about your situation. If you're aligning with joy, love and inspiration, you're never stuck. Alignment with feeling comes first. The rest follows.

Good for you! I'm big on using natural, unscented laundry detergents. If someone loans me a sweater that is washed in a fragranced detergent, I notice it constantly. Fragranced detergents and fabric softeners cause us to lose sensitivity to smell and can cause head aches and brain fog that we don't even know are there. Natural deodorants are a good change to make but it takes time to find the right one. You don't need an antiperspirant. Usually body odor is caused by poor diet and stress.

Why worry about a whole year, as if you could know what would happen over the entire course of a year? Likely parts of it would be amazing and part would be difficult. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. - Jesus Trust in life, and follow your joy. Maybe it gives you joy to make a lot of money for a few years doing something you really like, buy a house and pay it off. Who knows? Don't limit the form expression of life can take.

Those "rational" stories are the sneaky ones.

Truth = Love.

Is radical open-mindedness something you can actually do, or is what Consciousness already is?