Emerald

When I had my enlightenment experiences, among many other revelations, I realized that I'm bi-sexual and that I had been lying to myself by telling myself things like "I just think women are pretty." or "I'm just used to relating the female image to sexuality" or other things like that. I realized that I had always been attracted to women for my entire life, and that I had been denying it because I didn't want to have to tell people and risk being rejected or judged. So, enlightenment won't effect your sexual preferences. But it will reveal to you what's real and authentic to you because there's no "self" to protect from judgment or unwanted identifications. So, if you're attracted to a woman then you'll be okay with that. Or if you're attracted to a man, you'll be okay with that. You'll just recognize your attractions as sensations in the body and nothing more. You won't make them mean anything about a particular self or fear divergence with any cherished self-images.

I disagree that Feminism is out for female supremacy. All feminists that I know personally are genuinely trying to correct the imbalances that are there and feel deeply hurt about the state of things or the perceived state of things. There really is real pain there and not just an attempt to dominate. I even self-identify as a Feminist despite diverging in many ways from the mainstream ideas that you'll find shouted across all social media platforms. The problem with the current state of Feminism is a lack of awareness of how the door sometimes swings in the opposite direction and using the same backwards ideas about gender to pepper some of the claims. For example, our society has a really backwards social pattern that says man= strong aggressor/woman=weak victim. It's called the predator/pray dichotomy. So, anything done by a man against a woman will be seen compounded exponentially by our social norms surrounding whatever the issue is. So, domestic violence against men is often looked at as less serious or even laughed off like we'd laugh at a Great Dane who's afraid of a kitten despite the disparity between male and female strength and stature being much much closer together. Women are roughly only 15% smaller than men. The metric for strength, I'm not sure. But I'm sure this metric isn't as far apart as we make it out to be either. This automatically paints women as weak and men as strong but aggressive. Even though more aware Feminists seek to dismantle these types of ideas, the emotionality in the group often unconsciously feeds off of the assumption of man=strong/woman=weak. So, unconsciously, when it's perceived that a man has something in a better way than a woman an unnecessary emotion is added to it and a reaction where it would be more beneficial to deal with these types of issues dispassionately. To look at the issue in a deeper way to dismantle impersonal social norms. But there comes to be a lot of shaming and demonization that is just unnecessary and very divisive. So, I agree that this issue too should not be peppered with the "a man should never hit a woman." ideas as it stems from the assumption that men are always the one in the position of power and women in the position of powerlessness. But I do ascribe to the ideas "A physically stronger person should never hit a physically weaker person." and "People shouldn't hit eachother." and "It's unwise to be in a relationship with someone who hits you."

I do focus on quality content primarily, as it is THE whole entire thing. The content is my priority, and I am constantly working toward improving my channel with each new video. But I also like to set goals for my stats because I'm the type of person whose motivation and confidence intensifies by getting clear quantitative feedback: whether it be positive or negative. I've always functioned best that way if I can draw clear lines in the sand. It helps me be able to grasp better what the quality of my videos are to other people, because I find it easier to discern than my own qualitative assessments, which are necessarily biased and sort of float in the ether. Thus far, I've found no appropriate metric for this stat. From the research I've done, my audience retention rate could be atrociously horrible or could be exceptionally awesome. It's just not clear to me. With you being a successful content creator in a similar niche who does longer videos, anything that you could offer for clarity would be extremely helpful to me. Thanks!

I'm sorry. Sometimes those proper English spellings sneak up on me and I read them as a typo. When I was a teenager I started spelling the word color as colour, just because. Just thinking either was standard to use. My teacher started asking me if I was English. I didn't get it at first.

Thank you.

@GerhardI'm checking out your website now and I wanted to make sure that I pointed out a typo that I found. Skepticism is spelled with a 'k' and not a 'c.'

Your post scares me a bit. I've inexplicably (despite my best intentions and tons of effort for the contrary) lost all of these things with the exception of husband and children. It's been a lot of loss and inability to make things stick ever since my experiences. So, my mind has already gone to the possibility that life is so difficult because it's paring down all of my attachments to push me toward awakening. It terrifies me that life may take these things from me in the same way. Your post reminds me of this fear. I'm sorry to hear of your losses but glad for your insight and presence.

I'm very excited because on Saturday, I'll be going to Teal Swan's synchronization workshop in Orlando. About a year and half ago, I found her videos an it really helped me see things from a more beneficial perspective and I was able to dig myself out of some serious psychological holes that I'd been stuck in for years. I'm trying to think of the best question that I can ask to help move my life more in the direction that I want it to go. I'm thinking about a question regarding releasing fear to get clarity, or something of that nature. I'm also going to be staying at the Tribe House where there are going to be other healing-related events and the like. I'll be there from Friday through Sunday. If you've had any experiences with Teal Swan's workshops or if her videos have impacted you positively feel free to comment.

That's good. I read what you wrote. I think honesty is the way to go. It'll help you find a good match instead of just a match. Plus, if it makes you feel better, I'm sure that she's used to all manner of guys (from ages 18 to 80) approaching her with anything from "You look lovely today miss." all the way to "Sit on my face b****." So, I'm sure that your confession that she reminds you of a character that you wrote probably wasn't that crazy seeming to her nor did it make her feel disrespected. So, knowing the experience of being a woman, I wouldn't feel in any way embarrassed about this confession because being approached is just life as usual to her. But definitely be as honest as possible in every situation, unless it hurts someone's feelings. Life is better when centered in authenticity.

- "Ohh fair maiden... thou hast me feeling feverish. Didst thou bestow upon me, the plague?" (Both keel over and actually die from the plague)

This may get too personal with my own stuff, so I apologize. From my experience, adults who don't go the extra mile to develop themselves get more and more set in their ways and less wise as they get older. I can't be around my mom for very long without her completely cutting herself from my life for years at a time as she just can't have anyone in her life that deviates even slightly from her impossible standards. She's 60 now and she's become a shut in. She's also sick, so this compounds the shut in effect. She came the other day to stay with me for a few weeks to help out with the kids while my husband is out of the country. I should have known it was a bad idea because my mother and I haven't spent more than a couple days consecutively together since I was 13. Now she's cut herself out again, and she really doesn't have anyone except for my sister who is 43 but lives with her as she is mentally challenged and can't live on her own. Thankfully, I know that she'll at least have her as she can't cut her out. She will go out of her way to find things to be against and be upset about. She irrationally twists all things to be a personal attack on her and/or a symptom of all things wrong with the world thus strengthening her disassociation from people including all of her family and the vast majority of the very few friends that she's ever had. I'd love to help her but she's just not reachable and not willing to listen to anything that deviates from her narrow view of the world. It's sad to see her so contracted and miserable like this, but there's no way to change her or make her happy. It would be a miracle if she was able to get some insight to help change her life but she is closed up, like so many other adults in their twilight. So, my advice is simply to let people be as they are. You might not like it because it's painful to watch someone you love suffer. But unfortunately, it is what it is.

@Leo Gura I'm having a hard time finding out if the average watch time/ audience retention rate is decent on my videos because most sources on the internet only talk about channels creating content that's shorter than 5 minutes in duration. Some say anything over 10 seconds is good, but that's obviously only true for short entertainment based videos and really doesn't apply to educational content. An average video on my channel is about 15-25 minutes long, give or take and my overall average watch time for my channel is about 5:45 minutes per view. Can you give me some perspective as to whether or not this is decent based upon your experience? I'd imagine that your averages are probably very polar with a lot of people sticking around for the whole video and many others who just can't sit still for the whole duration. Thank you!

It's sort of like lifting weights. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

You're welcome and thank you!

You may be trying to change too much at once. Start with one small change, then stick with in for a month to set the habit. Then make another small change. Over the course of 12 months, that's 12 habit changes. This effect will really begin to snowball. But don't pick more than one at a time. It will just feed into your paralysis.

I like this. Thank you. Good night.

Actually, in the first two to three years after my experiences (which I didn't know anything about enlightenment at the time), I just tried to do everything to undermine my positive self image and to nullify my identity. Sort of like repressing the ego. The experiences were so liberating that I was willing to undermine all the progress I had made toward growing my identity. If I had painted my ego as a masterpiece, what I did was the equivalent of scribbling over the painting with a permanent marker. Trying to embarrass myself, have no boundaries, not care about my reputation or well-being, cut myself off from everyone, etc. Then, after about three years of floating in the ether, I found Jungian psychology and learned all about individuation vs. the Self, and how individuation is most natural for human beings but that it is also the thing that makes us dis-unified from the Self. I read a lot on the subject and finally felt like I understood something about what had happened to me. But eventually this reached a meteora where I could grow no further on that path, as it was all intellectual. It wasn't until I found Leo's videos that I learned about enlightenment and made the connection between my experiences of not caring about identity and enlightenment. Also, it was emboldening to me to begin pursuing personal growth again and feel that it doesn't hinder progress toward enlightenment. This may not be the case. It absolutely could be a barrier for all I know. But I know that life has been lighter since. I don't have as much resistance to my natural drives. But I'm watching them and hoping that I happen to "hit the right buttons" to become liberated permanently. Until then, it's self-hatred and struggling and suffering every day. But at least it's better than hating self-hatred, struggling against struggling, and suffering through resisting suffering.

I love Maslow's Hierarchy but there are some ways that I agree with what you say. I was big into maximizing my life when I was 20, with a focus on growing myself, getting the best grades, being the most creative, and pursuing a goal of becoming a famous artist one day. I was sculpting a masterpiece ego. Then, I had a couple of experiences where I didn't see through the illusion of ego per say, but I just didn't care about it at all. I was under the influence of an entheogen and I had no fear and felt I had nothing to lose. So, I was able to let go of ego for a bit which opened me up to so much more truth that I was previously insulated from. So, I had a high degree of freedom from ego for those experiences. I immediately noticed that my "maximize life" and achievement-based lifestyle was deeply rooted in self-hatred, and that I was trying to improve myself to avoid death. So, I think many people who pursue self-actualization have this same self-hatred deep down (you'll find some degree of it in most people pursuing growth, including myself), and that self development acts like a bandaid to distract from the perceived annihilation of death. But I'm embracing self-actualization now thanks to Leo, after years of denying myself the natural impetus toward personal growth and living in a personal hell, half in and half out of life. So, I think it's possible that self-actualization could be part of the process. Doing the personal growth work until it gives way to dissatisfaction and the self-hatred becomes clear. To do what feels most natural but to watch with unbiased awareness. What are your thoughts?

You're welcome!

I'm glad this was helpful. For me, this is a trap I've fallen into many times after my glimpses of enlightenment. I have a video about the differences between ego repression and ego transcendence. I'll PM it to you. Best of luck on your journey.

This was a mistake that I made after I had my experiences. I was trying to replicate them, and the only thing I'd ever experienced in life that was similar to those experiences was childhood. So, I tried to make myself act like a child would in as many ways as I could get away with. Needless to say, it didn't work and I just ended up seeming weird and doing foolish things.

If you've watched Leo's video about self-lies and wondered what a self-lie looks like, this is it. Deep down, you know this isn't really true. Look closer at your emotions and motivations here to drive your awareness deeper. Don't be afraid to see yourself as being in some negative way, and you will see how you're lying. It's fascinating.

That makes sense. Sort of like time gives the illusion of change and movement and patterns. But time is a human construct and not real in and of itself. So cycles also are constructs of the mind that puts patterns on top of things for understanding in the same way. I hadn't thought of it this way before. Thank you.

@Ayla I was just thinking. Could it be said that smaller scale cycles are also astrology? So, astrology being the study of cycles instead of the study of the cycles out in space? So, the growing of a plant, ants building an anthill, the patterns in traffic, and the movement of the planets in the solar system are all part of astrology. It was just a thought that I had after reading your last post above.

So, if you're familiar with my backstory and my "enlightenment" experiences that came on as a result of experimentation with Ayahuasca years ago, you'll know that this is really what opened my mind to spiritual seeking in the first place. But I have always been under the shadow of these experiences because I had access to such wisdom then, and I have in the past seven years been trying to replicate or get back to that state of being somehow or another. Since finding Leo's videos a year and a half ago, I've made a ton more progress than I'd made in all the years prior. But there's always this comparison thinking going on with my present experience of reality and my past "enlightened" experience of reality, where I'm asking myself "Am I there yet? No." "How about now? No." I"m always measuring my present experiences up against those past experiences. There is a deep certainly that I've been carrying around about my understandings of enlightenment that I know isn't the right mindset to be holding to be truly open, because beliefs block me from open-ness. But I haven't been able to shake this deep feeling of certainty that my memories of the experiences I had will somehow hold the key to waking up. But slowly, I'm getting more and more confused and life is getting a bit directionless and pointless feeling. This feels really negative and uncomfortable, but I suspect that this may be a necessary step to get to the point where I truly feel like I know absolutely nothing and can let go of all expectation. Anyone else here having similar experiences?