FelixTheCat

@Monkey-man Hahaha thank you! Feel much more reassured! I just thought I won't have any unusual experiences as I do not do as much hardcore work as some people do on this forum (in terms enlightment work I mean). It comes when you least expect it maybe @John Lula That would make sense as I also read somewhere that it is body's defence mechanism. I will tell you for sure that I have been stressed out about my uni work and everyday I had eerie feeling that I might die any second (I am terrified of death hehehe). In any case, I think I interpret derealisation as a scary experience, while it isn't really! And it will get better when I will stop freaking out

Hello everyone! Not long time ago suddenly a strong feeling of derealisation (3 weeks ago) came over me (which seems like happened for no reason) and caused a chain of panic attacks spread over days. However, the world does not seem the same place to me right now, it is somewhat not real at all and it is somewhat scary (even, absolutely terrifying), but also uplifting at the same time. And I still have this feeling of derealisation. Now, I talked to my meditation teacher and he said it could have been a sort of like enlightment experience (or however you would call it :D). Overall, I did meditation for 1 year and a half, with months of break in between, but for the past 3 months I did it solidly for 40 minutes twice a day. No self-inquiry and no breathwork. Whatever it was, I am wondering how to go about learning about this experience and perhaps would you recommend any reading on the subject? I suspect that possibly I am not ready for this stuff since I have been actively avoiding reading up about enlightment. This is because I did not want my ego to interpret these things. Possibly, it was a bad idea after all!

@Nahm Oh wow! Thank you very much, for such detailed explanation! This is fantastic, I will definitely try it out! I actually like doing yoga Nidra which allows you to concentrate on different parts of your body, I might try that one as well! Except you have to lie down and I get very sleepy after awhile hehehe

@Mighty Mouse I agree with you, it is really up to me, I just gotta buckle up I guess!

@cetus56 Thank you very much for you inspirational reply! I really hope I am not alone ahahaha things have been weird! @Mighty Mouse Thank you! I really hope to deal with this, it's just that I have to tell myself that I am not going insane ahahah It is a bit dificult when there is no one around to support this whole process ^^" @Faceless Ah interesting, could elaborate a bit more on that? I am not entirely sure what you mean Sorry for being slow ^^"

@Jamie Universe Thanks for your reply! :3 1. huehuehue I guess I could be in the same boat with you on this one 2. I used to have lots of broken beliefs that limited me in every way as well I see! Sounds like you had tough time, but huge applouse to you that you managed to get out of your depression! It is very difficult and you need lots of courage to get there. And I agree with you, that looking at something as an obstacle that you surely can surmount makes much easier, and in my case, keeps me sane hahahaha I have been doing something very similar recently, reasoning that being nervous will not help me in any way and just keep on circling around the same thought won't resolve it. The more you pester it, worse it gets I actually read something interesting from a book today, called ' The Unfettered Mind' by Takuan Soho (it is about sword fighting and mind, old school stuff hahaha), where he says that in Zen Buddhism, the mind that is stuck on the same thoughts, is like ice because it was frozen by fear. Thoughts should be always like water, continuously moving and changing as it can adapt to any situation quickly and appropriately. This concept kind of helped me to change my prespective on my thinking process in general

Hello everyone! I am currently going through huge anxiety episodes accompanied maybe by depression spells. I feel very detached and it freaks me out even more, feels a bit like I am going insane. I went to doctors just in case to check with my health; my blood tests are normal (a bit of vitamin D deficiency), I am waiting for MRI scans and two doctors said I probably have depression aaaaand I am seeing psychotherapist next week. *shrug* It has been like this for 3 weeks. I am not entirely sure what caused this all, but I did make everything worse by telling myself I have some horrible, terminal disease *cough* I just wanted to ask, what would you do in similar situation? Do I continue meditate or maybe put it aside for now as it may bring about more anxiety? Anything helps. Thank you

@HII Thank you! Mind is very self-decieving and it is becoming more and more apparent to me hahaha

I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me out!!! It really feels like I can manage anxiety better! Maybe I can keep you updated on the situation or something

@Shin Alright, will do! Thank you for your kindness! @jhmarrio Hey thank you very much for your reply! It makes all sense to me and I think there is definitely truth in it. I can see meditation might aggravate my anxiety a bit. I feel I do need to get back on my legs right now and then I can look deeper into my problems. I might do a little bit of mindfullness (which I think is a bit different from meditation?) since I read somewhere it can help with detachment @Akim Thank you for sharing this, I think actually this is very helpful! I kind of actually trying to take this whole anxiety more as a challenge (I did know this is a thing, ahahaha), but I then I would fall back into this automatic full on anxiety state. Reminding yourself that you should look at this as a challenge, helps a lot, honestly. Growing my self-esteem is so important for me because I keep on realising how impaired my self-esteem is. @HII @Akim I agree that honestly it is actually difficult to deal with an invisible problem. My psychologist told me that panic attacks do not happen for no reason... You see, I am very neurotic about becoming successfull due to mainly 2 reasons; my low self-esteem and fear of not being able to support myself financially (don't want to burden my parents). I am still a student in uni and I am striving to do my best, but I think, I am doing this out of fear all the time, althought for me it does not seem like it. I've set up vigorious routine for myself and started micromanage myself like insane, I did not have space for my mind wonder. I've done this because I am scared to be failure and to top that, my gaols were probably absolutely unrealistic. So, you know, I cannot really say this is exactly the reason for my total freak out, because for me doing this all hard work and having schedule, felt like accomplishment for me. I was doing very well, but maybe in hind sight I screwed myself over by numbing myself mentally. This is opinion of my psychologist as well.

I wanted to say thank your very much for your replies, it makes it much better if there is someone to listen!

Okay, thank you! I will try, this reassures me a lot. I actually had a break from meditation, but I intuitively think I should get back to it!

Well my very first panic attack came out of blue: I was just reading book in my room and all of sudden I have this strong feel detachment and then I start freaking out and start shaking. I talked to my psychologist recently and she thinks this random panic attack was due to a burnout as I have been very strict with myself for the past 3 months (although I thought I was doing great hahaha). Since it felt like it happened for no reason, I automatically think, 'that's it, I damaged my brain, I am going to die' or something like that. Basically all of the subsequent panic attacks, after the first one, were caused by me, convincing myself that I am physically ill and I am going to die. This problem that I have with me freaking out about my symptromps is not a new thing; I've been like this for years and I honestly hate it. Sorry if this is too long

Hey everyone! :3 This is sort of a journal on my self-actualization journey and since I am quite new to this field, I have no idea what I am doing in terms of self-actualizing (to be honest in everything as well). However, things will definitely change over the time and I will know where to ground myself! For now, it is a lot of experimenting and trying hard. A bit myself, I guess: My name is Rita, currently 19 and I have lots of cool stories to tell But long story short, I lived in 4 different countries (plus travelled on top of that) and now finally settled down. I am studying in university and planning to work in video game industry. I gained lots of cool experiences during my travels and learned lots of new things, but hey, there is still a lot to learn and improve on! For the readers: Just to let some of you know, this journal is meant to be more or less fun as I tend to take many things with ease, but this is not to say that I am obviously not going to be all light-headed. I want you to enjoy this journal as much I want to enjoy it myself! I just reckoned it would be nice to have some sort of feedback mechanism to see how I am doing with my actualization work. So yes, thank you for passing by! Structure: So for my journey I outlined the most important things I want to work on. Now this might be a temporally lay out how I go about my journey. I tend to change it A LOT; if it does not work for me chuck it out of the window. But I think the current structure I am going for should be alright, for my current challenges. The areas I am working on: 1. Health: I regularly do running, yoga, pilates and also fencing I keep low-acid, low-sugar and high protein diet I work on my problematic posture 2. Career related: Preparing my portfolio Working on my university stuff 3. Other projects: Other projects I pick up; they are not obligatory, their purpose is to keep my mind fresh This includes things like: drawing every day, learning how to use new software, coding in different language etc 4. Self-actualization work: Which consists of working on: Low Self-esteem Constant Procrastination Perfectionism Issue Fear of Death Better Life Now, this is a lot to work on and focusing on one thing is quite effective. But lots of things on this list are extremely interconnected, one causes the other. However, I will approach them in a very focused way and bit by bit get there. Hopefully, it will work The way I structure my journey: This journal is mainly all about self-actualizing, so it will be concentrating on the five areas (the self-actualizing areas mentioned prior). I would dedicate one week to work on one of these areas. Selecting the area would depend what is happening currently in my life, so for example, having exams soon would mean it is the perfect time to try to beat the procrastination issue. Sometimes I would be improving one single area for more than one week just due to circumstances. Further, this journal is going to be a way to write insights down and look at where I am at it now with self-actualizing work. I do not set my goal to update it every day; while I will be committed to update the journal, I do not want to end up squeezing out writing from myself. If I have an insight or I want to say something, I will write it here! Nevertheless, it will be obligatory for me to update my journal at least once a week (I set Sunday evening for now) where I will be basically reporting my numbers. So did I meditate enough, how my diet went, did I achieve goals I wanted to achieve? It will be more of an assessment. SO YE, WELCOME ME, AND WELCOME READERS! This is going to be followed by very long detailed explanation on the five areas of self-actualization and self-improvement I am working on >:3

Hey there! :3 I understand how you are feeling as I am facing similar dilemma. Myself, I have done one year of univeristy already. I would say do not stress out about it, people tend to make big deal out of university (college), but in reality it is not that important what you do in uni; many of us end up doing something else in life anyways, not what we have done for our degree (including Leo himself). I think this guy talks about decision-making nicely in this video. Maybe it would be a good idea to try out as many different things as you can while you have relatively free time (even if you picked a degree already, you can do stuff in parallel). At some point you will stumble upon somethiing that gives you creative energy. This usually comes from other people, where your work inspires them and makes them change. For example, in one of Leo's videos he talks about how he started making self-help material and he recieved lots of appreciation and support. (I tried to search the video to link it, can't find it :c) This gave him creative energy to make more material and love what he is doing. So I think it is important to consider that you need to impact other people with your work. This is how I go about with my stuff now! That said, if you have not seen this, this and this yet, it is very helpful! Hope I sort of helped!