Emerald

It's called The Diamond Net and the blog and videos are at thediamondnet.org. Let me know what you think. Thank you. Thank you for the words of encouragement. Best of luck with balancing parenthood and self-actualization, to you as well.

So, it's occurred to me that I've neglected some basic fundamentals of life before seeking the higher forms of self-actualization. So, currently I started a 66 day 100% commitment to install three keystone habits related to the three fundamentals: sleep, exercise, and nutrition. A keystone habit is a habit that creates a ripple effect through other areas of life. It takes about 66 days to truly form a lasting habit. So, here are the ones that I've chosen to focus on: 1. Sleep: Wake up at 6 am every morning, and go to bed by 10 pm each night 2. Exercise: At least 15 minutes of exercise daily 3. Nutrition: Weigh myself every morning and keep a food journal with calories included. Today is day two of my 66 day challenge, and so far so good. It has been helping me be productive in other areas too. I also have a 100% commitment to do at least 1 minute of meditation daily forever. With caring for children, it's disheartening the lack of guarantee of having 30 minutes each day. This will guarantee that I won't fall off track, but my ultimate goal is to do at least 30 minutes daily. So, I'm trying small changes, and I hope that they accrue over time.

I'm pretty sure that he was asking about the logistics of having kids while pursuing enlightenment... not so much getting the kids to meditate or to pursue enlightenment.

There are a few more that I watched too. But I really liked the top one.

What part of Hungary are you from? My husband is originally from Szekesfehervar but moved to the states in the year 2000. Also, I went through and checked out a couple of your journals. I think it's really great that you're keeping them. I've been struggling with basic routines and things like that. Yesterday, I was watching some videos about creating new habits, and it was suggested to start a "keystone habit" that creates a ripple effect through other areas of your life and helps create other healthy behaviors. They recommended focusing on the "physiological fundamentals": sleep, nutrition, exercise. So, I just started a commitment to wake up at 6 am every morning to wake up before my kids, keep a food journal, and exercise at least 15 minutes a day. So, if I get those things done, I win the day. I'm making these a 100% commitment for the next 65 days. I would normally try to implement an entirely new schedule but always ended up getting overwhelmed and depressed when I failed. I think this one will help me a lot in the long run. I'm going to post the videos that I was watching below.

I have a hard time with this. I'm currently a stay-at-home mom, and have been for about the past 9 months. I have a 4.5 year old and a 1 year old. I was thinking that I would be able to carve out more time for meditation since staying home, but that has proven to be somewhat difficult. What I'm doing now, with maintaining my meditation practice is to set the bar low, so I get to keep up with my meditation. I require myself to meditate at least 1 minute a day. As long as I've done that, I count it as a win, that way I stay on track and am not tempted to break the habit. Everything else is extra credit. Of course, my goal is to do 30 minutes or more. But sometimes, I get interrupted and can't get a full half hour of peace and quiet. So, for these times, I just go as long as I can without being interrupted.

During one of my experiences, I had an insight that I had been keeping my emotions "small" in order to keep myself protected from negative opinions and seeming weak. When I had let go of my ego, the emotions bloomed 10 times their intensity and they were all beautiful. It was like a beautiful work of art going on and ebbing and flowing throughout my entire body. There was joy, ecstacy, sadness, rage, lust, peace, and many other micro-emotional shades that were very particular. It was only through contrast with the ego-transcendence experience that made me realize how much I had been confining my emotions to a small window of acceptability and making myself go unconscious to them. It was only through this increased emotional sensitivity and awareness, that I was able to see that my emotions were engaged in a beautiful dance that I had been depriving myself of.

I've seen those names. I was actually wondering with The Son and Rasmus both how they had gotten such a high number of posts/reputation point without my having seen them before. It all makes sense now.

Thank you.

Have we spoken on here before?

I don't know them that well. They had a hit song when I was in high school, and I liked it.

If a gay man hates all women or if a woman hates all women, it is likely due to resistance to their feminine nature. Feminine repression isn't just a problem for straight men. As for how this expresses itself in an individual will vary. Often, if a person has resistance to femininity (or masculinity) and they also have a sexual orientation that matches the gender associated with that energy, they will become obsessed with sex as this feels like a way to temporarily heal the divide within themselves. As for how this expresses itself in gay men, I'm not sure as I haven't had a close friendship with a gay man with extreme resistance to femininity. But I've had huge issues with repression of femininity in the past, and I developed a variety of unhealthy patterns in relation to it; one of which was sexual obsession with women (I'm bisexual). It was my normal attraction to women compounded by the yearning to be in touch with my own feminine side. Since doing a lot of work toward reintegrating my feminine side; my friendships, feelings, and attractions toward women are a lot healthier. On top of that, my self image has improved. But yes, sexuality and attraction can be separate from emotional relationships, and they can also be deeply intertwined. In my post, I was moreso talking about unhealthy sexual obsession occurring as a result of repression. This would serve as a barrier to friendship because the person with the sexual obsession might be unable to relate to someone in an intimate non-sexual way. I see this pattern in society a lot. But it need not be the case. A psychologically healthy person can sustain friendships with people of either gender, while also being a sexually motivated person.

I was agnostic leaning heavily atheist when I had my experiences too. It really is something hiding in plain view.

Message checking all day long. My recommendation is to do three 20 minute intervals throughout the day that you can check and respond to messages, emails, and texts. Otherwise, unplug. @Rasmus Does your screen name relate to the band of the same name?

I think that a lot of men and women are very immature and probably couldn't sustain a friendship with someone of the opposite gender... but this is a sign of repression and low consciousness. If you really look at people beyond your own ideas about gender, you will notice that there is a natural ebb and flow of masculine and feminine energy in every single person in varying degrees. So, we are all androgynous; some moreso than others. People with a resistance to friendship with or sexual obsession with a particular gender have a resistance to their own contrapositive energy. Men who have resistance to their feminine nature cannot sustain a friendship with women, so sexuality becomes the only means of connection. Women who have a resistance to their masculine nature cannot sustain a friendship with men, so sexuality becomes the only means of connection. So, sexuality becomes a deep thirst and crippling need for people in this state. A healthy, fully integrated person can have deep friendships with others because they have made friends with themselves. Sexuality can be enjoyed as a beautiful connection in a state of wholeness and not just a way to put a Band-Aid over the inner wounds caused by the splitting off of the contrapositive energy.

I don't want to narrow my content because my channel is about sharing insights that I've gained over years of introspection and research. It's more about surveying a lot of topics in as much detail as possible than specializing in a particular micro-niche. All the topics that I cover are generally under the wider blanket of personal development, and that there is a large crossover between each of these topics. Leo seems to have made covering a wide range of topics under the window of personal development work for him with an uncommon group of target audiences, so I'm confident that I can find my audiences as long as I can figure out who they are, where they congregate, and tailor my content delivery to them.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel worse. I sometimes give advice where validation is more appropriate. It's totally normal to feel the way that you feel. I get caught up in similar thoughts and feelings at least once a week. So, you're definitely not weird or alone in your struggle. I think it's symptomatic of being in your 20s and in that part of life where things in life aren't exactly settled yet. But it often helps me get through those times to realize that thoughts are sort of like paper tigers. They don't have any power if you don't pay attention to them. Also, if you don't feed them, they die forever. But it always takes me a long time to get to a point where I can apply this realization. But since I have been, the intensity and longevity of these experiences has waned quite a bit.

Thank you. I'll definitely do some research on long tailed marketing.

It's okay to be where you are, and it's also okay to hate being where you are. Sometimes it can feel like life is a giant rock laying right on top of me, that I just can't lift up. So, even though I'm not dealing with the same circumstances, I know the feeling of not being able to steer my life in a better direction. I get disheartened and self-loathing frequently and it feels like I'm going backwards... but it isn't so as long as I don't take stock in the thoughts that arise. I think the most helpful way to spin life in a better direction when dealing with this issue is to practice unconditional acceptance toward your thoughts and feelings. Remember that there is no 'you' to think, and there is no 'you' to feel. So, you literally have no control over either of these things. You are not your thoughts. You do not control your thoughts. You do not control the content of your thoughts, and you don't have any say in the emotional reactions that come up as a reaction to the thoughts. So, your thoughts and your feelings are no more or less 'you' than any other phenomenon in nature be it a sunrise, ripple in a pond, or storm cloud. So, accept every thought and emotion that arises, because they have as little to do with 'you' or 'your worth' as ants crawling uphill. Imagine being falsely identified with an anthill and worrying and thinking "the ants shouldn't be crawling that way!" You have as little control over thoughts and emotions that spring into your awareness than you have over those ants. So, don't believe a single word that your mind tells you... particularly if it's negative and effects your self-esteem. You know it's an ego illusion for sure if it makes you feel worthless. It's a great litmus test for ego. I hope that you feel better soon, and can steer your life in a direction that suits you much better.

From watching almost all of his videos regarding spirituality: yes and no. Yes in the sense that God (spirit) is what existence and non-existence is comprised of. Enlightenment is the realization that you are God and that reality is this. No, in the sense that he doesn't believe in a God-image. He doesn't think that there is a man in the clouds... nor does he subscribe to any particular religion.

I resonate with Teal Swan's "spiritual map." Basically there is Source, which is everything in existence. This manifests as everything in existence. So, there is the highest level of truth where everything is one... Source. Then there are other dimensional levels where there are soul streams and delineations between the various expressions of source, all the way down to the third dimensional expression where everything is separate.

That's funny. The process you described on my thread reminded me of spiritual autolysis, and I mentioned it in my reply.

Thank you.

So, enlightenment is a complete awareness that everything is in constant flux. When I had my 'ego-transcendence' experiences, I was free from attachment and not afraid of anything including death. So, I had no attachment to my own mortality or ego. I preferred to live and enjoyed life very much, but if I were to have died then I would have accepted it without resistance. This is one of the things that I missed most about those experiences. Now that I am not in that state of being, I have all sorts of attachments and resistances. One particularly problematic attachment, I feel a little nervous to share, because it's very personal to me and I go to great length to hide it in daily life. I really don't like it because it's "unbecoming" . This is attachment to my physical appearance and sexual identity. I am 26 years old, and I'm having insecurities about getting older and losing the attention associated with being a young woman. It feels like I have this identity and that I'm not really enjoying it or using it. But I have no idea what to do with it, what I want from it, or even the full extent of why it causes me such grief and attachment. I'm not trying to attract a mate, and I don't consciously get any advantages in life from it. I'm happily married. So, it's likely sexual instincts clashing up against social norms, in a Catch 22 kind of way. So, it becomes a weird kind of empowerment spiked with disempowerment. It is like a giant can of worms that opens up any time I try to exercise the more feminine aspects of my personality, especially anything to do with sexuality. I really hate the way that it makes me feel, because it gives me this really raw, self-hatred feeling. It really colors my identity (sexual and otherwise) in ways that feel really un-natural and stressful to me. It also makes me feel bitter and jealous that men don't have to experience this same sort of "identity death" until much later in life. I'm aware that this isn't men's fault, but it still upsets me and I have resistance to this part of nature. Either way, it's a major attachment that I have, and I suspect that overcoming it will be necessary before progressing further toward enlightenment. Several weeks ago, I posted about an experience that I had where it felt like my senses were "collapsing in on themselves" and like "I" was going away. I was only "brought back" when thoughts of these insecurities popped into my field of awareness from out of nowhere. I felt a really horrible, traumatic feeling after the fact. These insecurities have been on my mind 10x extra, ever since. So, I suspect that my ego is using these insecurities to sustain itself. Does anyone have any ideas of how to let go of a particular attachment, without repressing these thoughts or feelings?

I agree. I've done far too much rationalization. It adds more to the thought stories that I'm seeking to starve.