RickyFitts

I don't throw the word 'transcendent' around lightly, but this song is worthy of the word:

Is there a part of you that feels like you shouldn't be feeling angry? I find that that inner resistance to what we're feeling is what tends to keep us stuck there - and unfortunately, this sort of mentality is extremely common in humans, we're basically trained to repress our emotions from a young age. So we just end up bottling up our feelings, and this can create all sorts of agitation, irritation, unhappiness, even illness and physical issues. Be conscious of that inner resistance, notice how it manifests in your body as tightness and tension, and allow those areas of your body to relax and breathe. Other emotions like fear and sorrow, maybe even an intensification of the anger, may start to arise as you do this - keep coming back to the body, just keep allowing it to relax and breathe.

This video just came up on my Youtube stream, and I'm sharing it here because I think what Mackler's saying here is hugely, hugely important, given the influence that Peterson has on a lot of people at the moment. Mackler focuses particularly on the fifth rule of Peterson's '12 Rules For Life': 'Don't let your child do something that makes you dislike them.' He points out the flaws in this rule, how it's only liable to screw up children even more:

Not been my experience at all, I've developed deep emotional connections with a few women over the years without having sex with them first. If you're compassionate, empathic, open, a good listener, and willing to be vulnerable, women will develop an attachment to you; of course it can easily become dysfunctional if you're not careful (as I've experienced in the past), but for me personally I would want to have that emotional connection with a woman before having sex with her, I think that's a far healthier foundation for a long-term relationship.

@BlessedLion No worries. ?

Mm, that was my feeling, too - my sense of it is that it tends to be a very humbling process and can pretty much bring you to your knees, or at least that's how it's been in my experience.

Do you actually know this through your own direct experience, or is it just something you've heard about?

I don't think there are hard-and-fast rules about it, it might be a viable path for one person but not for another - I've tried it but didn't feel it was right for me personally, but I can see how it could be effective for others. I do think it's a specialised practice, though, and it's going to be too intense for a lot of people; I think a gentler, more gradual process is going to be much more effective and harmonious in the long-run for the majority of people, but people in our culture often lack the patience and try to force things, and then end up paying for it further down the line (that's how it was for me, too, to an extent, I had to learn the hard way to be patient and not push myself too hard).

Depends on the person I think, some people's nervous systems and psyches aren't going to be able to handle the energetic charge if they have a lot of unprocessed trauma in their systems, and so a gentler, more gradual approach would be more appropriate for them. Hopefully Venant appreciates this, because kundalini energy can be incredibly destabilising if your system isn't ready for it.

Sounds like a great idea!

Means you meditate at least once a day to me. What does it mean to you?

I shared this essay by Ajahn Sumedho on the Four Noble Truths elsewhere, but I'm highlighting a particular section of the essay which speaks specifically about the logic of meditation - it can be found on page 41, under the subheading 'Allowing Things To Arise', and I think it's well worth a read for anyone who's serious about meditation: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/4nobltru.pdf

Just realised I somehow posted a song by The Weeknd in error, I meant to post this one:

Very interesting! I know I've definitely felt the negative effects of pushing myself too hard, it only ended up setting me back in the long-run. I think it often stems from an unconscious belief in your own inherent inadequacy, which makes you feel like you have to strive and strain in order to prove that you are worthy.

So true. It initially came as a surprise to me to see that people in spiritual communities could be amongst the most unconscious folks you'll ever meet, the lack of self-honesty and self-awareness in some of these people can feel hugely frustrating and there's just no getting through to them. Spirituality can be just another thing people hide behind in order to avoid facing certain harsh realities.

@Liebestraum Such an interesting art movement and period of history, I never appreciated the dark side of Art Deco but it's a real eye-opener all right. ?

I know, I watched both series and the Christmas special through my fingers. ?

@Liebestraum Oh yeah, love Art Deco. Though the game 'Bioshock' has left me with the unshakable feeling that there's something fundamentally creepy about it, because that creepy-ass game was chock full of Art Deco.

Just read up about this on wikipedia, sounds very interesting!

Oh yeah, British literature's great too (think I did read one of Nabokov's novels years ago, too, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me). There's just something about American literature that vibes with me, maybe the fact I'm half-American on my dad's side has something to do with it (and/or maybe it's just the ubiquity of American culture that makes me feel like I'm intimately familiar with the place ).

Very interesting link, thanks!