Kelley White

I appreciated your humor. @abrakamowse

I really appreciated this thread! Thank you so much @OWL and @abrakamowse.

Familiar with both. Ultimately all of that? Its made up. When I say its made up? Who created the word human? Who made that thought into a word. Lewiss Carroll, Douglas Adams, Seuss, one of many who create the "others' of story. Long before I stumbled upon Leo I viewed the Universe as stories. Even spacetime? Who created that word? That concept? We made it all up. I'm energy. Even that is a story, energy is a word, its made up.

So all this time I'm thinking, I don't feel human, I know I'm not human, that's not crazy? I keep asking my therapist that same question every week. You are sure I'm not crazy I see all these patterns and things? He says the same thing you do. Nope, you are not crazy. That's been a real fear of mine, that I'm crazy because i have these kind of experiences @Sarah_Flagg describes only I feel things. I can go into social situations and just feel what the people around me are feeling. I don't charge for reiki because we have no evidence to back it, but I can seem to feel where people are having issues. It always surprises me. LOL I'm a huge skeptic. LOL Thank you. Interesting thread and it makes me feel a bit better.

@OceanJjb you are very welcome for the information. I'm not sure what science will have next, but there are new technologies developing every day! Science is not THE answer, but it can be a great tool for solutions.

Here's the story I like to use as a metaphor for what you are observing and writing about above; time travel. You are now a being (I like to say artificial intelligence carbon unit) at a desk. A thought comes from this dimension" we label "past." We can choose to say what an (?) thought? Let it go... OR? We can use to chase that rabbit by giving it our focus. That focus? Can evoke sensation which appears to stimulate emotion which prompts observation, processing, and assimilation of the stimulus as experience into a framework for organizing, making sense, understanding. (Our preconceived notions, worldview.) Now this dimension of "the past?" It just became your "now." You time traveled while at your desk to a past dimension and made it real in your present dimension. Make sense so far? At that moment you are a shape-shifter time-traveling, shifting emotion, form of thought, action; based upon being in the past dimension while attempting to function in the present dimension. Want to time travel to the future? Just do the same process only focus on the "future" dimension. Time travel is never linear. Sometimes you may find yourself in multiple dimensions in one now. When time traveling, one rarely travels alone, so one might include an entire cast of characters on one's internal journey and then react to them in the now based upon past or future virtual adventures which only occurred in your own awareness. Isn't that fun? When you add the virtual online realities to the reality of physical reality, you are now a time traveler within multiple dimensions of space-time. You are now capable of being in more than one space-time continuum at the same time! Congratulations! You are a master time traveler. Of course we made all of this up? So I am wholly just creating a different let's pretend to explain this to you. Really? We are everywhere and nowhere all at once, one, now. The art of science, life unfolding. Or not?

@OceanJjb Re: Ketamine in the USA? They are doing clinical trails, I'm considering one at University of Washington. They are best done under the care and supervision of a doctor but they definitely seem to get positive results in the 5% of trauma patients who do not seem to get relief from traditional medications. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00088699 Here is a link to another trail http://sklad.cumc.columbia.edu/psychiatry/clinical_trials/View_Trial.php?ID=383&type=simple A starting point for those interested.

@JeffR1 Rather than avoid the topics, I like to challenge folks to examine their fundamental beliefs which underlie such paradigms. I like your key. I use it in crafting my work. I like to imagine life in a game theory virtual reality construct. Its still story, but is a story with metaphors which lend themselves quite well to certain concepts pointing to losing all stories. So imagine a game with players whom are all unique in skills and attributes, all playing with different contexts, goals, skill sets, frameworks of understanding, all simultaneously in play. If actualization is a evolutionary progression in part, then each individual has to actualize within their contextual framework of understanding. @AHappyTeddyBear, Were you upset that your classmates disagreed with you or that they disrespected your right to your own views and be your authentic self? Some of my best poems are created from a space of anger about what my story construct perceives as injustice. Art is a great way to channel anger in a non harmful way. I love poetry because its like writing in code. I alone know what I am really writing about. Its not the emotion of anger that has a moral negativity...it is perhaps the entertainment of negative thought to the point of action which becomes self defeating and problematic? I hear you feel an emotion, you feel a reaction, you visualize a negative to not act on the negative? Can you take it a step further to the turnaround? I welcome others being upset with me expressing my truth because it means I exposed their point of resistance? Was I successful because I provoked emotions in a person who might fail to feel or even think beyond the end of their "knows?" Once I observed we are playing at different levels within the same "game?" I could accept and observe and evolutionary process to actualization itself across religious/spiritual/political patterns. (Or I could just be bat shit crazy. LOL I remain open to both options. LOL) It allowed me to be more inclusive, more tolerant, more accepting of others walking the path they are on, it seems Plank would be correct with his spoke and wheel theory, all spokes are still a apart of the same wheel merely experiencing the wave-field of the wheel from their vantage point from within a different wave-field? Just some thoughts. Great thread everyone.

@Hira Athar THIS is huge! Thank you for sharing a critical key to success on the path.

I find that an interesting story about "enlightenment." Its like the minute you try to describe enlightenment you create a story about it?

Poet. Guilty as charged. LOL Hey you get great peak experience. Hahahahaha I have been back at writing every day this week. A first after the past six to eight months. This has been a very helpful space for re centering and focusing me. Thank you @ModernSage. I appreciate your observation as well. A favorite lecture of mine you might enjoy....

Safety has been a huge issue for me. Not feeling safe. I liked how he re framed this. Thank you for sharing it. @A way to Actualize

I understand this @Aman We tend to have four basic responses to fear/anxiety: Fright, Flight, freeze, fawn. These are coping mechanisms. So it sounds to me like what you are describing is a mental framework where you internally fear you are not really a part of the family? So it sounds like you default to freeze and flight which then leaves you feeling left out and unworthy? I agree with @Ayla, inquiry is the place to start. I am just allowing the thoughts to come, watching them, asking if they are really true? For me I realized? I did not like me, so often I assumed others did not like me and it skewed how I listened to/processed what they had to say. In other words they said A, I heard z. Why? I felt z about me, so they said A, but my mind filled in the gaps to support the underlying belief I had, z. I've also realized, just because someone is related to you? It doesn't mean you like them or want/need to be fitting in with them. It doesn't mean they feel safe and like family for you. Do you feel worthy independent of anything or anyone? That was the question I had to work with first. What is worth? Is it innate? Is it earned? What does worth mean? Is worth a value or an emotion? If you feel worthless what are you really feeling? Fear? Frustration? Pain? Anger? If you want to make it very real? Who are you? Who is the "I" observed?

@A way to Actualize, I tried to listen to this yesterday and ran out of time. Thank you for sharing it and I will try to listen to it all today.

@Pallero great point. We also never know what the other person is really experiencing. Thank you for your comment.

I really find when I start focusing on what I have and what I am grateful for? That tends to re shift the focus for me. Just another thought @Jonathanz.

@Rob Great thread. Thank you for sharing and for posting.

Good Morning @Ryan_047. No worries, no apology required. We are here to be of help to you. Thank you for checking in so I know you are doing better. I really appreciate that. So you had cake and family visit. That sounds like a nice Birthday. Wow! I hear tons of positive things in this statement: Helping family Helping country Feeling motivated to live (that's a huge one there) Wanting to practice my hobbies/passions AND feel pleasure from them. Those are some great goals. I am glad to hear that your folks are doing better. I am sure that would help with some of the stress you were feeling. I am glad you have a daily routine, so being true to you is a good thing! I am really happy for you and proud of you for doing some very mature internal work on you. You take care of you and if we can be of help, well we will be here.

Being of the Gee U R U mentality, I like to be pragmatic. When tools work, they work. If they happen to be Leo tools I don't mind. Its working for me at the moment, but I also mix things up.

Good Morning Aman. Nice to meet you. Thank you for sharing. Do you have things in common with your family? Is there a reason you cannot talk freely to your family?

@8LanguageStud, thank you. That is very kind of you. I got a copy of Haidt's book last night, I'm about 70 pages in. I'm finding it very interesting. Thank you for suggesting it. It's nice to have met you as well. Finland? I have learned to never say never. I must confess, Ireland is definitely on the wishlist. I hope you have a great day.

Hey, that might be helpful if you have one for smoothies. I like your spreadsheet project for self actualization. That sounds like a useful tool. I am happy you could get something positive out of what I was pointing out; it was meant that way. I really wish you the best.

@Spiritjunkie, Thank you for sharing. Its interesting, I think it would be more precise to call the law of attraction the law of selection. Are you merely attracting something simply by being aware of it? I mean its already there...all you are doing is focusing the focus to fit the pattern; whatever pattern you want to see. Now, because you are looking for the thing that's there, you see it? IE; I buy a red car, now I notice all the red cars like mine versus before I might never noticed red cars. The flaw? When we credit causation with correlation. I buy a red car, I see more red cars, leap to the reasoning more people are buying red cars, or I'm attracting red cars. You could just be more aware of red cars. It also wholly negates improbability. Other players within the game with differing intention and outside variables... Thank you for sharing the reasoning behind the process though. I appreciate you taking the time to do that. I'm glad it works for you. Its definitely an interesting process.

You and I must have the same coach? @joegarland I have to agree, I have been doing the same thing, its not always fun, its not always easy, but it does help you make that inner critic shit up. Its a process, I remind myself daily. @JeffR1 Wholly agree. @Pallero Looks like I good book, I checked it out on Amazon. Thank you for sharing. @Vamptacular @DanoDMano Good Stuff there. Thank you.