fopylo

@TurquoiseAngel Heard it from Ralph Smart. @hyruga I didn't hear good things about his book "The War of Art"

@TurquoiseAngel I hear you, but I approach it with the notion that I'll anyways not produce something high quality in 15 minutes, so why even put the effort? I feel sorta "beyond it" (of course it's my ego). But that doesn't say that I should do longer sessions because mentally it will destroy me (slight chance I'll go all in but feel super overwhelmed and resist it even more next time). I'm putting myself in a lose-lose situation, lying to myself from all directions in order to stay stuck where I am. This is insane how genius the ego can be

@Leo Gura Quite the opposite for me. When I'm on nofap then my mind stops thinking about sex, making my focus much better. Still doesn't make sense that you have more energy. It calms the body like you said

@Windappreciator Yeah, I do feel kinda calm. And I'm not taking action so it's a problem lol

@Eph75 Dude no no no, your replies are very great and there's nothing to say sorry for. I really want to thank you for continuing to help me understand this fundamental topic. You have no idea how much this means to me. I feel like I'm learning life from the beginning. Also, you're wise as fuck so that just makes it better. It really does take me a long time to digest what you write. Ohh so you mean that the "solution" is just to live normally, freely, and that the suffering comes from having those expectations and rules of needing friends? So like the goal is that we choose what experience we want to fill our reality with, without feeling any need for a certain outcome and expectation, and thus friendship is just a certain type of experience out of the infinite experiences you can choose? Correct me if I'm wrong Yeah, so having deep friendships like the example you gave is what I really want. It still feels like a need, but I also understand on the experiential level what you mean by being free and this certain approach to friendships. It's sort of like the friendships I had as a child. I didn't feel like I needed them (sometimes I would even leave them) but those were indeed one of my best friendships I've ever had. Many aspects of spirituality are playing in being a child, and those types of friendships is what I ultimately want for my future self (more like from now on). But I am still on the level that I have some rules about it and that I need them. Dude, I must have told you, I am a high-school senior just about to graduate from high school. The people in my school are people that I've known for 6-12 years, and after that we must go serve in the military and we will be all spread out. I feel like this thought overwhelms a bit and that's probably one of the reasons I am yearning for experiencing friendships like when I was a child. I want to exhaust the time left for experiencing that with some of those people. And how do I develop this higher awareness in my interpersonal relationships and how will it take effect in practicality? I also didn't quite understand the content vs structure ? So I guess you're saying that cutting ties because I'm not receiving the acceptance I feel I need - won't work (in making things better). I guess by 'deeper reasons' you mean it doesn't come from hate or from a reaction but rather a conscious decision. Man thanks again for putting the effort into your messages. I feel like I'm starting to understand better

@Windappreciator I have a very great ambition to become a musician and sometimes I get huge waves of inspiration and callings that this might be the thing that I should focus my life on (or at least a very great hobby for sure). I want to start creating because I feel like music has always been a part of my life, and life always showed me in indirect ways why I'm meant for it (my inspiration, my perfect pitch, synesthesia, get emotional, go deep into it's magic). The "negative" motivation is because I have resistance to it from the reasons I mentioned above

@Leo Gura That literally doesn't make sense. You must be getting it from something other than jerking off. @Harlen Kelly And also I am doing regular exercise and I can tell you that jerking off makes me feel slightly weaker. In fact, doing nofap has made me way more energetic and powerful in the gym, makes me more grounded and it's easier to focus on self actualization work

Actually I'm living in my parents house, soon finishing high-school. I don't really fear being away from them. I really believe that cutting ties with them is the best solution for me. Maybe not that harshly but at least to stay far from them as I feel they are limiting my growth. (obviously it is me who is limiting my growth but they are a great handicap and with my current development level I need to change some externals to influence the external)

So when I try practicing being more conscious of my feelings in my day to day I tend to realize that I'm way better at recognizing fear and "lower" feelings like sadness, anger, frustration. But then once I express it (say on a journal) then I get stuck, because what now? A new feeling is supposed to enter right? A higher one on the emotional scale I believe. Consciously or subconsciously I don't put my focus on higher feelings really, to be conscious of them. I believe most of it is because it was way more important for me to get out of the binds of fear and "negative" emotions, and so I'm only used to put my focus on it and so I don't have much experience outside of it. Also, a good piece of my identity is still defined by those emotions, and so letting go of these emotions and welcoming the higher ones are a bit threatening, but I know they will be liberating. The way I recognized it was because I'm doing this exercise Leo gave of mindfulness of thoughts and I've realized that most of the thoughts I wrote were from the lower emotions. I didn't consider the higher emotions like contentment, passion, boredom. Because honestly, the lower ones are easier. I think it also depends on your average state of being.

@Arcangelo Yeah man this was the whole purpose of this - to test them. But those kids are still gonna be kinda friendly to me at school, and it's not as if we had some fight or something.

@Eph75 Could you please clarify? I'm still trying to figure out what is the solution you are suggesting. You said some very important deep stuff but I'm not managing to connect the dots of how I apply it to friendships, because you talk about detachment and becoming aware but it's hard for me to play it in my head how this will work. I've been practicing mindfulness and a lot of meditation and I might be slightly more stable, but there's still something in me that says that just fulfilling others' needs and not getting shit back would not be such a great idea (even if it means loving myself more). I'm saying this sentence from experience. I've done mindfulness practices and self love, felt more whole inside, but this situation just felt weird and not human to me. I don't want to live my life with no friends and to deceptively excuse myself out of making friends by telling myself that detachment is the solution

@OmniYoga Dude I'm still a virgin and far from losing it lol

So I've been doing a bit of Leo's exercise to write down 50 thoughts for the next week (been writing about 30 now) and I've stumbled on some things. When I have a thought which is more detailed I want to write it down and use it for my practice, but I'm not next to my journal. So I kinda try to hold on to this thought and feeling, and then by the time I get to my notebook it doesn't feel quite natural. I've subconsciously been suppressing other recurring thoughts in this time period, and also I am trying to recall an emotion I had a few moments ago, which is out of the present moment. Also when writing down the expression I have some images in my mind which I'm planning on describing, but as I'm writing the expression the images change and I didn't plan it and I still try and write the images I had, and then my mind hurts a bit from thinking and concentrating. So what should I do? Should I just write right away as things flow? The problem is that I don't have detailed thoughts while next to the notebook, it usually happens when I'm busy doing something. It's almost as if recalling a memory (thought) is like trying to monitor the present thinking. I can't exactly write down the present stream of expression, content of thought, images and feelings all together, because as I'm starting with writing the expression then everything else I mentioned is starting to shift into other forms and then I get a written down description of something that never existed in the first place. Oh and by the way, this exercise made me be in my head and less mindful than usual, it felt quite bad at the gym talking to people and I was in my head so much. How do you go about it? I would like to hear

Totally relate

Yeah I get that "loving everything" sometimes. I would describe it as the joy of just experiencing vs. escaping and thus not fully experiencing. Experiencing in and of itself is quite liberating, simply being. I would redefine your word "suffering" for more like things which cause you certain low emotions (which doesn't mean bad). And once you're cool with it then it is not suffering, for you at least, from your experience. Don't relate it to others' experience and say that their meaning of suffering (or suffering you once experienced) isn't suffering for you, right now, but you enjoy it and therefore believe to enjoy suffering. I also sometimes look back at the things which caused me suffering and now I'm more cool with them, but it isn't suffering anymore. You might not be suffering right now something serious

@iceprincess I just don't want to neglect Maslow's Hierarchy as well as my authentic desires and my unfound objective. Sometimes I do contemplate but it ends quick because I still fear of missing out and going all in on the wrong things.

Self-actualization is all fun and cool, but I often don't have a solid clear direction for where I'm going. I am doing my 20 minutes of breath meditation, 30 minutes of mindfulness meditation, workout 3 times a week, on nofap, have a morning routine, starting to get back into hobbies (piano and learning Japanese), and maybe a few more, but it feels very comfy. Like I am continuously learning by watching Actualized,org and reading. The problem is that all it does is making me feel more secure in my state, in other words, it took some layers of fear off (the mindfulness practices especially helped with it). It's more like a peaceful comfort because my happiness levels have shot up. So yeah, I'm pretty much lost as to where I want to put my focus towards (to go all in for a period, it is quite scary and threatening). I might choose the wrong domain. I've recently watched Leo's video on the importance of balance in personal development which was very good. But still, the balances that I put for myself will all need to eventually coordinate in accomplishing the one major objective. How do you get clarity as to where you are going next? I don't have some serious bad aspect in my life which I'm suffering from, which in that case the answer would be quite obvious.

@Flowerfaeiry In less than 3 moths I'm going for a pre-military camp for 6 months and then serving at the military for 2.5 years (a must). I won't have time to work on finding my life purpose

@kag101 Study, and have a part time job (if you could call it that way since it's only like 3 hours a week). High school senior, and then military for 3 years (you must. It's the law from my country) before I get to this point where I decide what to really do with my life.

@Anahata I haven't gotten much love at my teenage years, or more accurately, I didn't accept it in my experience (but still it wasn't much). My mother tends to get angry easily and tries to dig deep and as if she is trying hard for me to face this pain of guilt and humiliation she's trying to open up to me, and I've always ran away from those feelings. Same with my father. He's trying to get to much into my life in subtle ways and I just want him to get the fuck out of my life and stop asking these indirect personal questions and start focusing on his own life instead of mine. So you can understand why a person like me would have trouble feeling emotions if he escaped from them for years. I am doing my mindfulness practices and meditation. But I don't want to neglect Maslow's Hierarchy and to get super hyped about spirituality and neglect the basics. That's why sometimes I prefer not to go far with spirituality. I've seen Leo's video yesterday about Shamanic Breathing which did catch my attention, like really. He said that it's effects are very great and could serve as a practice before psychedelics. But I'm kinda scared doing it, because what if I lose myself and get very emotional and I'm around my parents. FYI I try to act as much stoic as I can around my parents. Not expressing emotions next to them. No way. Criticism from dad, ignorance from mom. I can't let those effects to pour in when I'm not that in control, as I might later deeply be hurt and regret it. It's supposed to bring up lots of scary shit which is terrifying me, but if it means setting me free then I'm more likely to do it sometime. Also a problem. Can't let my parents know I do this. It has to be private somehow. I've lately been taking a few Japanese lessons on Italki and I've planned well for a time in the week when no one is home (besides my brother who's always in the basement), but I was still very nervous that someone would hear me from outside. My father surprisingly was unexpectedly home and I was nervous as hell. My brother or father might have heard me and it just pains me and I've took a break from it

Man, I've read it a few times. Very deep and insightful. From what I understood you say that everything could be good as it already is (regarding my friendships) but it's just that I'm trying to get my needs fulfilled from them. So like, me fulfilling their need could be something that I could enjoy (the things which sparks the friendship) and the part of me that also needs this need fulfilled is something that I can fulfill for myself and I'm just projecting this problem onto others? My ego is still not that highly developed, and like you said, there's nothing bad about it but I still want it fulfilled, because at some point I will become burnt-out from giving and not receiving (which is why I basically started this thread). But then rises the question - What need do friendships actually fulfill if I can fulfill it alone? My assumption is that they give me similar benefits, just that friendships could fulfill it quicker and with attachment. But then what purpose do those friends serve? You said the reason I have friends is because there's something in them that I value. Yes, this might be true for a few, and that's why I've been slowly loosening ties with others who I just feel aren't really fulfilling my needs. The friends that I do meet with share common interests like me, and maybe like one I'm just friendly with because we talk a bit about life. The ones that I'm loosening ties with are those which I feel they are either distancing from me or that I just feel like they are slowing my growth (most cases). But you said to maximize this "thing" I find connecting. For the purpose of having a fun time or fulfilling a need? I could also "maximize it" with the ones with whom I'm loosening my ties, and there is a reason why I chose to loosen ties. It can't be sustainable.

@SaaraSabina Oh man, I know what you're talking about. It's a fucking disturbing state to be in. From my experience you need to integrate yourself more so that you can feel more centered, here, flowing with life and experiencing without running away into fantasy. And so I found that the best way for me was through mindfulness with labeling. Leo has a great video on it, highly recommend! Just want to say that mindfulness was perhaps the most life changing thing I've experienced to this point. I certainly felt more like a child, flowing through life, experiencing what is without too much label and running away. This is still mind-blowing me today!

What is so special by the number 24? Why not 23 or 39? Or why not give a range of numbers? Why does does the outcome need to be determined by the number of times you chew and not by some other factor? Sometimes I just get so skeptical about him.

@Eph75 So basically you're saying that they don't fulfill my need because they simply don't have a desire for it? Because they are focused on something else which already makes them feel whole? But isn't it a little selfish that I give them this need but they don't return it back? You said relationships is about finding the right balance. So how can I have a good relationship with those people? (they are kinda my friends. Some to different degrees but I do like their company). It is odd to have a one sided relationship in which I fulfill someone's need and get it back from someone else, while the person I am giving it to is fulfilling someone/something else's need

@Harlen Kelly Can certainly agree that I am at more peace when being around people since I got on this journey of developing inner peace through mindfulness and meditation and other videos of Leo. It is going smoothly and I feel at ease and that's why I'm more chill with people, and that's the reason why I initiate. While on the other hand they don't