Emerald

Same thing here. This is very similar to what I discovered. Here are a few videos that may be of help in understanding what is actually being suppressed. One of the reasons why your story and my story are so common amongst women is because society's definition of femininity is very limited. So, as young girls, we look and we see that by society's definition masculinity is far more fleshed out and superior to society's definition of femininity. And there are tons of people who want to maintain this reductionist way of viewing the feminine. But the reality of the matter is that there's a lot more going on relative to the feminine than society knows. The feminine principle is interesting and deep and fits like a glove. It's dark and gritty as much as it is light and innocent. Here are some videos of mine that center around this topic.

Tampa sucks. It always feels like someone's being murdered somewhere nearby in a drug den. It's kind of run-down, and I don't like the vibe there. Yet again, it could be just the areas I frequented when I used to go there a lot. Orlando is alright. Traffic is pretty bad and everything is 20 minutes away from everything else. (I'm partial to this option on a selfish level... but only because it's less than 2 hours from me in St. Augustine compared to Tampa which is about 4 hours away and Miami which is about 5 hours away.) Also, because Orlando is in Central Florida (pretty much smack in the middle of the peninsula part of the state) it would be about a 2 to 3 hour drive max from everywhere that isn't in the Panhandle. But the Panhandle is pretty far away from almost all the big Florida cities anyway. Tampa is also relatively close to the center... but it's a tad bit more South and closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Miami is pretty cool. I went there a couple weeks ago and had a great time. That said, I've only been to Miami three times in my entire life, and the other two times happened before I turned ten. So, I'm not sure if I think it's cool because I've only seen the cool parts. But it would be a really far distance to drive for anyone who lives in North Florida, Central Florida, and/or the PanHandle. I've never been to Ft. Myers so I can't advise either way. I know it's close to Naples, which I've heard is a very nice place to go. Hope this helps.

@Leo Gura I might come meet you in Atlanta or Miami as I'm almost right in the middle of the two depending on the schedule. It would be nice to meet you and others interested in the same type of things.

The self is an illusion in the sense that it isn't a thing in itself. It's more of a collection of thought processes. But when it comes to Yin and Yang and the interplay between the two, these are aspects of reality that can be observed. They are phenomenologically real. So, don't let this discourage you from exploring what you're experiencing. It's just a different perspective that is still valid from its own platform. So, don't let non-dual beliefs get in the way of self-exploration.

True. I think that a lot of people tend to get into all kinds of ideas about what's natural in humans because there is an underlying assumption that we aren't being natural right now. And this idea that once we "find our way back" to being natural that all the bad things will go away. But the reality of the matter is that we've always been natural the whole entire time. So, monogamy is natural, polygamy is natural, polyamory is natural, etc. But I do think people have an underlying reptile brain charged lean toward polyamory. I know it is true of myself as I still get crushes here an there. But I also prefer monogamy for a wide variety of reasons... even if it means that I have to sacrifice my desire for kindling new romances. For me, the sacrifice is worth it. For others the sacrifice may not be worth it.

You must understand that your worldview is very debilitating to your psychological health, and as a result there are many neuroses that come up. So, not every man is the way that you are... even though the potentials are there if they start adopting a similar worldview. All of your stuff is cranked up to 11 because you're in a worldview that creates a 'contents under pressure' effect. So, no. Even though it is quite common and normal for men (and women for that matter) to think about sex often, not all men are so fixated upon all women sexually in the way you described. A sizable percentage of men (maybe even the majority) have some degree of discernment and don't have an intrusive level of sexual thoughts. This degree of fixation only happens for men who strongly resist and reject their feminine side and Yin in general in a very extreme way. This is because sex becomes the only acceptable outlet for connection with the feminine. And that connection is desperately needed... but can never actually come from female sexual validation either. Now, it is common for men to be in resistance to their feminine side because of societal pressures placed upon them to perform masculinity and reject femininity. So, sexual obsession is quite common for men in general because of this. But even though it's common, it's not normal or healthy for men to be sexually obsessed... even though it is normal for men to be very interested in sex. Also, your ideas of what constitutes self-love and self-esteem are so far from reality. So, you seem to believe you have them, even though what you describe as self-esteem and self-love are diametrically opposed to what they actually are.

You don't have to be dishonest to market yourself... especially if you're a spiritual teacher. Just understand that, at this point in human history, your business may not catch as many people as someone who's willing to be ruthless and manipulative and talk about attractive nonsense. But you'll attract a better quality audience, that values your honesty. And if you market yourself the right way, you'll attract those who are looking for a person like you. I have a YouTube channel and I'm very big on being transparent and honest. So, I always share my perspective, observations, insights, and interpretations... and I always make it clear which of these I'm talking about. And I do my best to be thorough and avoid falsehood. I really do my best. And this is a lot of the reason why my audience resonates with my work. People can often tell when a person strives for honesty, and a lot of people are looking for that... especially in a teacher. So, I may never be as successful as those who sensationalize to get attention or use dishonesty to manipulate... but I am already modestly successful and my YouTube channel will hit 1 million views by the end of 2018, most likely. So, what kind of success would you be looking for? Do you want a wider audience for the sake of sharing your insights with a wider audience? Do you want to be able to make a living from being a spiritual teacher? Something else? I can maybe give some pointers once I know.

From the most down to Earth and mundane perspective that is absolutely true. In our daily comings and goings ALL people are never less than 99% similar, whether they be male or female or whatever other qualifier (race, disposition, socio-economic status, etc.). In fact, that 99% is more like 99.99999%, as we are very similar. I bet other creatures can't even tell a female and male human being apart most of the time... if they had the faculties to think in those terms. So our divergences in sex really do only come up here and there. People like to exaggerate this difference because we want to make everything sexual and sexy... and we try to polarize as much as possible. Men tend to like doing this more than women though in the current state of affairs. Women see themselves as mostly similar to men, while men see themselves as mostly different from women. But in quite a lot of people, we try to imagine the genders as being more polar than they actually are. This is why we see extremes of the feminine and masculine on television and in cartoons there is a clear exaggeration of feminine and masculine traits. So, human beings are incredibly androgynous by their very nature. So, because of this, there is also a mix of masculine and feminine in people on the perspective of subtle energies and it can be notices that men tend to gravitate a bit more toward the masculine pole and women more toward the feminine pole. But these energies don't come from gender... but gender comes from them. There are also a lot of differences from the perspective of sexuality as this function (heteronormatively speaking) is the reason why sex exists in the first place. The function of having males and females in a species is to be able to make babies... nothing more than that. So, that's why these differences are more pronounced.

@Silvester I made a video on the topic of good and evil several months ago. In the video, I describe what I've experienced about good and evil as experiential realities. They do exist as warring internal drives... but it's not how most people think about them. I'll link it below...

What positive emotions are you getting form the hedonistic pleasures? Also, is there anything that you genuinely enjoy right now that is not hedonistic but expansive, even if it isn't something that you'd think of as being "high consciousness"?

Why do you keep doing this?

I made this post a couple years ago, and I thought it would illuminate some things... "Well, I think that this is very normal to want to have deep relationships but also to want the excitement of experiencing new partners sexually. It's two different areas of the brain and two different neurochemicals that contribute to both of these feelings. One is based in the reptilian brain (biological urges and instincts) and the other is based in the pre-frontal cortex (emotions, socialization, reason). Now, even though the wanting to have sex with other people is more pronounced in men because more sexual variety equals more children and more genetic variety and more ways to pass on the genes. Sexual variety for women is biologically normal too but only after a few years when the child is well into toddlerhood. This is because, in nomadic times a woman could not both provide for a baby and care for a baby at the same time because human children are born premature because of our brain growth. So, the father needed to provide for the first few years otherwise the children would not survive and the woman would likely be in bad shape as well because of the intensity of the labor process. So, women have more biological impetus to settle with one partner. But once the three years is up, it benefits our gene pool for the woman to find another strong partner to mate with so that more genetic variety is added to the gene pool. For women, finding the best partner to make the children who are most fit to the environment is the most important. Women can only have so many children because it takes an entire 9 months to make one for them, and there's a lot of work and labor that goes into the process of making and caring for a child. So, the man has to be awesome. Men, on the other hand, can afford a few duds because they can have thousands of children in their lifetime. So, the biological impetus is to mate whenever possible. Both of these behaviors in men and women are what contributes to a biologically healthier species. But because we have a very complex social structure and a complex emotional understanding, we live in a society where men and women have to co-exist and find ways to make these two conflicting drives work in order to create a healthy relationship, a healthy family, and a healthy society. We also all want to be treated fairly because of our ability to reason which comes from the pre-frontal cortex. So, our lower nature (instincts) often conflict with our higher nature (socialization). So, these two things must be reconciled. This is where the paradox comes into play, because (no matter what) there is no way to perfectly reconcile this paradox. The only thing to do is to accept that you will never have things exactly as you want them, because one drive will always cancel out parts of the other. Your best bet for minimizing the issues caused by this paradox is to find an incredibly open minded partner who understands this paradox and doesn't shame you for wanting to have sex with other women. But to expect her to allow you to sleep with other women, while not being okay with her sleeping with other men will undoubtedly get in the way of her pre-frontal cortex's need for fairness. And even if she allowed it, deep down it would cause a barrier to intimacy (which your pre-frontal cortex wants) because of the unfairness aspect. This open-mindedness is hard to find because most people (especially women as I've noticed) buy into the idea of the fairytale romance of only being attracted to the person you're with, love at first sight, etc. These narrative only create more strain and shame around our most natural tendencies. So, unfortunately, it is what it is. You just have to make room for this paradox and find a balance between relationship stability and satiating your baser desires. But we're all in the same boat. I have the same struggles and I'm a woman. My husband and I talk about this struggle too, although I enjoy listening to his fantasies more than he enjoys listening to mine. I'm a bit more open-minded in this way because human sexuality is fascinating to me. I love watching the conflict and tension at work. I also know that his desires for sexual variety doesn't mean that he doesn't love me or want to stay with me. But, you can also change your relationship to your desires, so that they don't run you. I think that you seem to be very self-honest about this dilemma where few people are able to be. So, continue with self-honesty but make it more radical still. All suffering comes from illusion. So, you may not be able to change the way that you're wired on the physical level. Biology is biology. But you can transcend the ego so that you're not buying into "I can only be fulfilled by having things the way that I want them" stories."

But is it something that you'd want to do with those conditions not withstanding?

If you eventually want to live the monastic life, why not do a 30 day meditation retreat at a free Vipassana center? That way, you can see if that's the right path for you. Plus, you will be in a different environment than your dad, and you will get a lot more clarity about the situation because the situation is not pressing your buttons and muddying the waters. This is what I would do in your situation to get distance and clarity, and ultimately make wiser decisions about how to go forward from there.

To answer this question is a little bit difficult, as it's convoluted. First off, the divine feminine has been repressed from humanity for many millennia. Up until very recently in history it has been the story of man against nature (aka the masculine principle against the feminine principle). This has manifested in the past as a desire and need to manipulate and control nature on the macro and on the micro has manifested as men oppressing women. So, in the past, there has been little ability for women to pursue the things that might excite them in a worldly sense. Then, practically, prior to the advent of machines that have made it quicker and easier to do house chores, it was women that needed to do the domestic work while men went out and did the labor that required more strength and a lack of pregnancy. And at this time, women would be pregnant all the time as it was prior to the advent of birth control and sex education. And if women fully realized their sexual/libidinal energy that motivated them to be self-asserting, then it would be a danger to the fabric of pre-industrial society. So, in the past, it was very rare for a woman to pursue anything beyond motherhood and domestic work which was a 24/7 job that allowed for no wiggle room. They were also the punching bags of history since they are physically weaker and representative of nature which was capricious and then took many human lives. Presently, these constraints of women's autonomy are no longer necessary and are a hinderance. But we still are conditioned to believe that the masculine principle is good and important while the feminine principle is bad and unimportant. And women still shoulder a lot of this weight and are pressured to both be masculine (and deny their femininity) and avoid being masculine (while also avoiding any expression of femininity that is dangerous to the status quo... which is most of it) at the same time. So, for all of history there has been a weight on women that has squelched so many of our natural strengths and caused fragmentation and disintegration... but this lessens as we spiral up in human evolution. Now for the tricky part... your question itself is steeped in masculine principle preference. Even valuing being known and seen as important as a guru is an aspect of the masculine principle. It is ego and hierarchical thinking. This adds more weight onto the repression of the divine feminine in society. So, even your question is loaded with this masculine slant. We have a hard time seeing value in that which is not masculine. This also creates a barrier to women becoming empowered and stepping into their most natural energy... which is the feminine. And the feminine is powerful in a way that the masculine can never be. And it is exactly what our world needs right now... even if it's unceremonious and subtle. If we continue valuing the masculine at the expense of the feminine, humanity will continue to grow cancerously upon the Earth and the Earth will die. So, women stepping into our feminine power is a huge component to making the jumps necessary to save the planet from the masculine imbalance that eventually grew to match the power of the feminine planet and began choking it out. And if you had ever felt that feminine energy and truly stepped into it, you'd never feel uneasy about the fact that women had never been ranked highly in some arbitrary hierarchy on a rock floating out in infinite space. That's all imagination land anyway. Status and importance aren't real. Fame is not real. History is not real. You are real. The Earth is real. And if you really became conscious of this, you would know that your validity could never come into question or be defined by how people see you or remember you.

There are no utopias. Never forget that. No one is going to award people money based upon spiral dynamics level because it doesn't provide direct, measurable value to people. A person can be turquoise as the come and provide no value to others. If you reward a person by the quality of the soil in their backyard, but don't reward the fruit that the plants grown in the soil bear, then you will get a lot of people enriching their soil but never taking the time and effort to plant trees that bear fruit... and the entire world will starve. Your idea is based purely in fantasy and a meritocratic idea of which people are most valuable... and rewarding them for some perceived merit based upon an imperfect framework. The world runs the way that it does precisely for a reason... and that doesn't come up based upon an idea of how things should be. It's based on the troubleshooting that the people of past generation have already done.

The idea of the spiral is that each stage integrates and grows through each lower stage. Therefore, if someone has truly transcended red, that means they've also integrated red. So, a person who is in the higher tiers would be able to call upon the skills of red if the situations warrants it... if they've truly grown through that stage completely.

Women aren't attracted to types of guys... they are attracted to very specific guys. So, if a woman becomes attracted to a man there is an immediate attachment before a relationship even starts. But there is a lot of dysfunction in the world. So, women who are emotionally dysfunctional in some way will attract and be attracted to guys who are emotionally dysfunctional in a complementary way. And more often than not, the women get the crappier end of the stick in those relationships... though not always. For example, it is often that women who have trouble with setting boundaries, tend to be attracted to guys who like to go over boundaries. Women who have trouble with self-respect, attract men who have trouble respecting others. Women who have trouble with self-hatred, attract men who have trouble with hatred. So, essentially, women's dysfunction tends to be turned inward toward themselves, and men's dysfunctions tends to be turned outward toward others. So, it's like a double whammy. This is a common dynamic. So, this is very bad news for women who are dysfunctional because they abuse themselves and find partners that will mirror that self-abuse. So, it becomes a vicious cycle. But don't listen to any of the stuff written by men on this thread... they're just making up ideas in their head based on a fetishized notion of womanhood. As a teenager, for four years, I was in an abusive relationship because I have trouble with expressing anger... so I found a guy who exploded in fits of near-violent rage 10% of the time. But the rest of the time, I really liked being around him. So, I was willing to weather the 10% of God-awfulness to be around him because I loved him.... and he loved me too. But we were very dysfunctional. I had no self-respect. So, I felt the abuse was okay. I wouldn't have even left if he had beaten me... I'm sure of this. I was that attached. But at present, I have a much easier time asserting myself. I have more self-respect and firmer boundaries. And men like that aren't attracted to me anymore, and I'm not attracted to them. So, I know that if I got into a new relationship at this point (I'm married so I won't) that I would find a guy who didn't have these issues. I can smell a dysfunctional man from a mile away and I'm no longer attracted to the dysfunction. So, you just see these dynamics because the women are dealing with the contrapositive issue to the one that's causing the guy to be an asshole. But this is nothing for you to fret about or feel like you need to be an asshole to attract women. It's just that a lot of women tend to have low self-esteem and feel inadequate and lack self-respect. But these aren't the women you want to be involved with anyway. It's a lot to take on someone else's dysfunction.

Well, in a sense, it doesn't exactly work as a ratio... but it's the easiest way to understand it. So, talking about ratio works as a metaphor more than an actuality. But if we are thinking about ratios and using that metaphor, the answer is yes. But it would be less common. If a person is very obviously androgynous, where they don't lean more toward masculine or feminine. I suspect a lot of non-binary people are about 50/50 as well as people who would be described as extremely gay... like men who have a lot of feminine mannerisms or women who have a lot of masculine mannerisms. But even with most gay people there is usually a lean more toward the polarity that typically corresponds with their sex. For example, an average straight women would be like 80% feminine and 20% masculine... whereas the average lesbian would be like 65% feminine and 35% masculine. (I'm just pulling numbers out of the air... so this is just an approximation) A non-binary person would be closer to 50/50. Then a trans man (assigned female at birth) would likely be more masculine than feminine in varying degrees. So, it's possible to have any ratio. It's just most common that people would be like an 80/20 split between the polarity that corresponds most frequently to their gender and the contrapositive polarity. But it's also less common for a person to be extremely masculine or extremely feminine as well. So, an 80/20 split is more common than a 90/10 split. So, it's most common for us to all be halfway between androgyny and the polarity most closely associated with our sex.

That's the most concise and accurate description of Yin/Yang that I've heard.

@Shan Now, I'm probably not the prime example because I just started my business venture, but I am an life-coach/entrepreneur with my own YouTube channel (which I've had for a few years now... it has about 17,000 subs). I also have a young family. My daughter is 7 and my son is 3. Presently, I work about 20 hours per week doing life-coaching, and about 15 hours per week making a weekly video for my channel. Then, I probably do about 10 hours per week of research and other types of work to be used soon to expand my channel. So, that comes out to about 35 hours per week. And from all of my income sources, I'm making about $1600 per month. So, I've currently matched my entrepreneurial income to my income that I would normally make as a substitute teacher... so I can quit if I want to. Technically, I've actually already exceeded that income by about 40% because substitute teachers don't get paid during summers, winter break, spring break, or other school holidays. So, I've presently solved a huge financial problem that our family has weathered for the past 8 summers, just by starting my entrepreneurial ventures. Next month, I will begin working on a course to sell through my website. So, I will spend probably about 12-16 hours per week working on that as well, with no financial gain until I release it. But once I do, I'm hoping that it will add quite a bit to my income without having to do much work to maintain it other than dealing with technical difficulties and advertising it. Then, once I actually get certified as a life coaching, I'll raise my prices because I'm offering the service for dirt-cheap now. So, I'll probably be making about $5k per month, at that point off of life coaching (if I have ten clients per month) and I'm hoping to make at least $1k or $2k per month off of my course (hopefully more). But I don't believe at any point in time, will I have to spend 80 to 100 hours per week on my business... in fact, I could not do that if I wanted to. I'm the heavy lifting parent between my hubby and I. So, I wouldn't want to spend any more than 45-50 hours per week working... but I'd prefer 35 to 40 hours. I used to spend 60-70 hours per week working as a full-time teacher and I never had any energy for my kids. This is one of the reasons why I preferred substitute teaching. So, I would never want to go back to that as long as I have kids at home. Plus, I can schedule my work times for times that my daughter is at school as well. So, that's really good. Now, if you wanted to have like a 6 or 7 figure business, you might have to spend that 80 to 100 hours per week. But if you want to make it in a modest way, then there is no need for that if you play your cards right.

I have come more to the conclusion that the experience of being human with all its limitations has a value of its own. So, I don't get extremely curious about these "What else is out there?" kind of inquiries, as what I seek is something very mundane and close to home. So, I know that if I explored to the fullest extent of my humanity, that I would come across quite a lot of new truths... as I have been. And I'm not completely bereft of curiosity in that range. But I know that I would become acclimated to the novelty after a very short time, just as I have with all other bits of novelty and newness. The other side of the pillow is relieving for a moment, but quickly loses its charms. What I'd really be after is the feeling of innocence in experiencing a completely new thing. But innocence is not in an experience that's novel... it's much closer to home.

You don't choose how much masculine or feminine is in you. It is pre-conditioned. So, everyone has a unique masculine/feminine signature that ebbs and flows in a predictable way throughout their life. It is not something that you can make a conscious effort to develop or manipulate. You must simply tap into whatever happens to be there, and realize your full potential regardless of what it's labeled. Now, chances are that you'll be mostly masculine because you are male. Most men are mostly masculine with just some feminine. So, it's natural for you to have a more masculine slant to your personality. But don't write over your natural masculinity with societal notions of masculinity. And don't repress your femininity in an attempt to cleave to those societal notions of masculinity either. Just own and integrate whatever happens to be there regardless of the polarity, and the Yin and Yang will work together in intercourse with one another to exalt you to your highest. Don't just have sex... be sex.

He recommends this because people are androgynous by nature. So, if you don't integrate your feminine side, it just leads to lowered consciousness and repression. It's the same with women and their masculine side. It's there no matter what. They can't get rid of it. So, a woman can either choose to integrate it or choose to repress it and become less highly developed. And men who repress their feminine side will still have femininity... it will just be shadow femininity because it's repressed and unconscious. Men who have a disintegrated feminine side are both brutish and shrewish. They are often very passive aggressive, bitchy, and petty as well as just annoying to be around. Without the feminine side, you get a very immature version of masculinity that's not stable. And ironically, they will be very "beta", as many people like to call it... despite trying their damndest for the opposite.

Could be just desensitization to screen violence or detachment from emotions in general. If you were a sociopath, you'd be mostly or completely unable to feel emotions in general. It would affect your ability to function in life too. So, if emotions aren't an everyday mystery and issue for you, then you're probably okay.