benny

Just finished watching both of these videos. I was hoping someone could elucidate the finer distinctions between the two.

Perhaps I should contemplate the distinction.

So I was journaling about what it is I want out of life today. I would make a numbered list, and for each thing I listed, I would ask myself "why do I want this?", until I hit on something irreducible. So one of my items was "I want to be fulfilled". This led to "Because it is important for me to live this life to fullest." This led to "Because I don't want this opportunity to live my life to the fullest to pass me by." This led to "Because I don't want to look back on my life with regret." This ultimately led to "because I fear the pain of knowing I wasted my life." At this point I knew I had hit the root motivator for my desire to be fulfilled. I've learned from Leo that fear-based motivation leads to yo-yo effects, though my growth trajectory since beginning this work five years ago has been an upward one. That being said, it's been mostly external work up until this point (getting in shape, developing social skills, developing a good work ethic, etc.) Now I'm beginning the inner work, and I'm wondering if that shift in the type of work I'm doing will make it so that this fear I have makes me more susceptible to self-sabotage. I've also learned from Leo that through the law of attraction we attract what we fear. So my question to Leo and to all the community members is this: Is my fear of wasting my a life a healthy fear to have? Is it a healthy motivator? Or will it sabotage my efforts in the long run?

Bump. Please help.

Bump.

That's quite vague. Could you elaborate?

Just wondering how many are feasible to do in a given day. The way I have it set up right now is one affirmation and one visualization at a time, which I do daily from anywhere between a month to three months, depending on when I "feel" that I've put in the necessary time to rewire my subconscious. Is this already too many? Should I only one at a time? Can I do more?

@egoeimai Thanks for the share, but this doesn't answer my question. What I want to know is how many different visualizations and affirmations I can do in a given day. To be more clear, I choose two things I'd like to wire into my subconscious, say, not caring what others think and being more confident. I then do each of these for 5 minutes every morning for one to three months. My question is can I increase the number of visualizations and affirmations within that one to three month-long time-frame, or is there a limit?

@SOUL You didn't waste my time. Thank you for your insights!

So recently I've reached the point in my journey where I realize that most of the "growth" I thought I was experiencing was just me "rearranging my external circumstances", as Leo puts it in his video on fake vs real growth. In other words, the "confidence" that I developed was just a behavioral adjustment. I'm still fundamentally insecure in social situations. Same thing applies to my health and physical wellbeing, intelligence, and host of other issues and insecurities I thought I could fix by changing the externals. So now, after five years of personal development, I realize I have to begin doing inner work to discover root issues that catalyze a lot of my problems in life, be it behavioral, emotional, or something else entirely. Here are my questions: What are the fundamental skills I need to use to begin doing this "inner work"? Which videos would you recommend I watch to develop this inner work skill set? Once I discover root issues, will they be problems I can deal with on my own, or will I need to see a therapist? If a therapist is necessary, what school of practice should the therapist abide by? Are there any other recommendations/advice the community can give me for digging deep and discovering these root causes/deep-seeded issues?

@Leo Gura By skills, I mean the list of activities you just mentioned. Thanks.

@SOUL Contemplate it for what it is? I don't understand. Sure, my lack of game with women definitely dominates my thoughts on a daily basis. I'm acutely aware of the grief it brings me. I still don't understand what this awareness in-and-of-itself does to improve my lot in life. As far as your knot metaphor, isn't that one of the pillars of personal development? Are we not supposed to untangle this mess, no matter how ugly it is? If I just leave the knot there, even if I "unplug" it, it's still there. The mess is just sitting there now and I'm ignoring it. That doesn't mean it's gone away or that I've RESOLVED the issue. I agree with you that you need to be happy with your experience for others to be happy around you. Turning a blind eye to the past? Again, most, if not all of what has shaped me thus far has been my past. If I turn a blind eye to it, how am I supposed to develop a deeper understanding of myself? How am I supposed to resolve my childhood woes? How am I supposed to uncover unconscious, deep-seeded issues?

@SOUL I like that you've pointed out the interconnectedness between inner and outer work. I also like that you could detect that I'm coming from a place of fear in my development just from reading my post. Pretty impressive stuff. Integrating faith into my development is now something on my radar. Thank you for that. I was hoping you could explain what paying attention to the accompanying thoughts, feelings, etc. will accomplish. The issues that I'm aware of in my life are circumstantial. For example, I want to get into pickup and get good at dating and talking to girls. The inadequacy I feel, and identifying that inadequacy, doesn't alleviate the pain I feel from not having the success with women that I want. Also, why all this emphasis on contemplation, reflection and the like from Leo? Sounds to me like your advice not to dig runs in direct contrast to these practices. Could you explain? Lastly, you speak of detaching from root causes and instead replacing those causes with love, peace and joy. Isn't that just turning a blind eye to the problem? Furthermore, even if that is the solution, how do I go about doing this?

Both very informative. Thank you both.

I'm having difficulty reconciling the notion of a nature - a fixed disposition in which a person acts - with the notion of self-development. On the one hand, Leo has mentioned in at least one of his videos that as you grow and self-actualize, you learn things about yourself, such as your strengths and weaknesses. This implies that there are things about yourself that you come to discover as you grow through your journey. This further implies that there are preexisting and immutable characteristics about oneself that are immune from change. My problem is this: how am I supposed to know what I can and can't change about myself? It seems to me like blaming an undesirable trait on your nature is a limiting belief that prevents progress. That leads me to another question: do we even possess a "nature" in the sense that there are fixed traits about who we are as individuals that we can't change, or is our entire being malleable? Been struggling with this one for a while now. Anybody have any perspective on this?