mandyjw

A few months ago, springtime I think.

I dreamed that I was swimming in a hot spring in this desert setting and Leo was there. I was surprised and in wonder of it, and he explained how it worked even though in real life I know how hot springs work and have always wanted to go to one. Under the water was the foundation of some old building. I was amazed by how warm the water was, and loved it. Then it started changing. I started to notice all kinds of dirt in the water, and it got dirty and disgusting as stuff grew in the waters that were getting warmer and warmer as summer came closer. I told Leo that we should move. To the right, somehow, magically, was the swimming hole at the river where my mystical experiences started, which is almost always really cold. Then the dream changed and what the building had been turned into a mystery we really wanted to solve.

@tsuki No but generally people identify with their minds, not their bodies, so that puts the stigma of mental illness on a whole new level of sticky.

In my experience starting with the assumption that you're fundamentally flawed is what prevents people from getting help.

Awesome, don't try too hard to mentally interpret it, just go easy with it and see what resonates with you. Archetypes kind of widen our focus, and put us in a dream/story state. You know how a story can put you to sleep at night? It kind of works like that, except used intentionally they can give us glimpses into the subconscious, or what we are usually so busy coloring over with our real life stories and blaming ourselves for. Over time connections might be made, but maybe not instantly. Just stay curious.

The reason I suggest it is that she is a powerful archetype. What archetypes do is they allow us to look at certain aspects of ourselves, while taking the personal identification out of it. So basically, they promote open mindedness and let us look at things from new angles. They also let us see the light side of something we might see as a flaw or something we are really ashamed of. So I really suggest you look into it for yourself. I never would have been open minded enough but had an experience that I realized the roots of which back into my childhood and a history of behavior I tried to repress, and she helped me to understand that side of myself and the big why behind it. Since then, I've encountered a lot of other people both men and women, saying that she was a big part of their journey to understanding themselves. I think another reason that she is so powerful is that the feminine has been repressed for so long, it makes sense that it would bubble up with wrath, in the strangest of places. Perhaps your psyche? Our psyches don't have walls, as much as we'd like to believe. Sexual fantasies are often so tied in with spiritual clues and symbolism, one can't be separated from the other. I suspect this problem is less personal than you think. Maybe there's something there you can own and embody in a positive light. Like Nahm suggested, work and creative life is also a fantastic place to look. People often get stuck with sexuality when their creativity has no direction or outlet. Sex/creative energy are intimately linked as well.

@Fuku Are you interested in meditation, spirituality, psychology, archetypes at all? If not, disregard this. If yes, look into Kali. https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/gods-goddesses/kali-a-most-misunderstood-goddess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali

Going straight for my dreams and creative pursuits in life made the insecurity not come up so much. I had kids which took all my time and energy for a time and simultaneously got deep into spirituality again, (this time outside the walls of Christianity) then got a lot more insight into what was driving those feelings and the misunderstandings of feeling incomplete or needing validation. Realized I'm responsible for making my life fun myself. Realized my nature is to boundlessly love everyone, at heart I'm a Holy Whore, like Mary Magdalene, (that one's a little out there, might need to go on a trip of some kind or other for that one ) and that there was a light core to the dark repressed shadow feelings I was covering over. Realized I'm not evil for wanting to look and feel my best, or if people find me attractive. Realized I'm not failing anyone or lacking when I don't. Realized I'm not actually a mind, a body or a woman, but also I really am. Realized that attraction or desire for something can mean wanting to embody something other than what I think the desire is on its surface level. Don't repress the feelings and don't take them seriously. Guilt and repression drives them. I'm also fortunate to have some male friends who also have only had one long term partner, and we share a lot of the same traits. Seeing the same thing in them helped me to observe the same psychological patterns playing in my head, and I noticed there were certain strengths and weaknesses to being that way and that it was less personal than I felt.

I'm an Abraham Hicks fan, she talks about the importance of being "selfish", and I realized there's no self so, acting Selfishly is counterintuitively good. It's really about taking radical responsibility for your own thoughts, experience and perceptions of things. That's how we best serve the greater good, rather than trying to make our self, fit into the box of what is self proclaimed "good."

No, the opposite, I was saying I did feel that way but donating to an organization helped me let go of those thoughts and feelings, guilt about making and having money, etc.

In my experience this is a very selfish thing to do since once I did it, it helped me let go of guilt I had around money and then I just made a whole lot more of it.

As someone who really wanted to purse higher education in psychology but didn't make it work out through the traditional education route, I want you to open your mind to appreciating the value in the course you're on. It's all the more powerful and useful to you now that you won't be dogmatic about it. I wouldn't assume that you have to throw it away. I really believe that the world will really need people who can bridge these fields, who have these deeper transcendent insights but also the qualifications. Look into Carl Jung, read Woman Who Run With Wolves. You can certainly integrate psychology and spirituality. There's no border between the two. Keep your focus on what you want, don't resist what you don't want. Sometimes we create conflicts when there are none. With a slight shift of focus on what we want and what inspires us the conflicts falls away. The brain exists, and it does not. Both statements are simultaneously true. No conflict.

All are both true and untrue, it's easiest to focus on how aligned your thoughts are by how they feel rather than looking for outside objective truth. Incredibly painful thoughts can bring to light deep but unseen, or misunderstood desires or intuitions. The same thought can be thought again and understood, but of course when it is it will feel amazing. Clarity is inseparable from the feeling of the thought. Align with feeling first.

The grass is always greener. I'm in a similar position and in my early 20's I struggled with it a lot. What I really wanted wasn't actually sex with other men, just the validation and fun of being wanted by other men.

You may actually have very different desires from those that you think you should have or see others being motivated by. Be brave enough to figure out what they are and go for them.

You're a good guy, Leo. Thanks for putting the work first. It takes balls to put up a post like that and it takes balls to take it down. Your work has covered really important parts of spirituality and subjects bridging to it that no one else had the courage to take on before. I for one needed the bridge. I have incredible appreciation and gratitude for you. I really hope that life, love, companionship and your work integrate seamlessly for you.

I think it's a problem of disconnection. The movie Blood Diamond did more to educate people about a major issue than the news did, mostly too late. People only pay attention to what effects their lives day to day or certain fears that might affect them unless there's a strong emotional pull. It's hard to make people care about things that seem so distant from their day to day lives. It's an art. The easiest thing to do is to donate monthly to the best organizations that work toward improving these issues. https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=496970&p=3626027 They have to be improved in areas all around. For example, educate women and there's less overpopulation and hunger becomes a smaller issue over time. Everything works to improve the overall situation together.

Shhhh....

I can sort of appreciate imagine that there's a stronger impulse and aversion there for men. There are guys that I find really, immediately physically attractive. But in real life I've never really loved what was in their heads and hearts enough to be emotionally pulled enough to do anything about it. In a long term relationship stuff equals out. Like my husband comes from a fairly rich family, mine is lower middle class. His last year of college, his parents decided to cut him off for religious reasons and then he graduated in the middle of the financial crash with no job prospects. I made a lot of money while he was in school so I bought our house, paid for our wedding and most everything for a while. Now he makes a lot more than me, I do most of the work with the kids, house, I work some but can focus on spirituality or whatever I want. Neither of us feels like one provided for the other. Both of our parents are still married, pretty much the same equal situation on both sides. We saw relationships more as a partnership, not a transactional, value exchange. This is a male fantasy. (Yes, women have plenty or their own ridiculous fantasies) Most men LOVE to be the hero. Even if you're paying his rent, you gotta have him kill spiders for you or something like that.

My husband is overweight, always has been, I'm in pretty good shape and always have been, and when I get embarrassed about his weight it's always because I'm thinking about what other people think of me. It's always about me. I think that's what gets overlooked. I hate getting comments about how he got a "pretty girl" or I'm out of his league, cause when we got together I had buck teeth and no one knows the circumstances of our relationship or preceding friendship. It sucks to have someone see you as a couple and judge you on superficial appearances, but again, that's always just my own thoughts and insecurities. I think that's what we miss. It always goes back to our own insecurities.

Well I love him so much and so thoroughly and completely, that I don't give a flying fuck about him either. Flying fuck. It's really a beautiful term, I think. A letting go and merging of things together in such a way that it's absolutely weightless, substance less. Yep, it's about time to get off the internet now I think.

It's not called the Law of Attraction for nothing. We all just really want to make each other happy and fulfilled. Cause that's what makes us happy and fulfilled. Because that's really at the core, what we already are.

Yeah, honestly, we're kinda the sexier sex. That's what we love and want to embody, physically and psychologicaly. If there are insecurities in one it breeds insecurity in the other. Everything you judge or criticize is yourself.

SEE! Your mind has no walls whatsoever. This is all you.

There's really no fine line between love and hate. Actually no, maybe it's 5'3".