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You're still so young. See this as a transformation fase. My advice is stop taking lsd and that crap and start working out, go run or go to the gym. Build some muscle and eat healthy. Get a purpose for a year. A goal that you want to accomplish. It can be anything and start working on it (if I could learn anything I would learn this skill.... fill in the blank) and then make a plan. You can also try some stuff if you're not sure, keeping in account startup costs ofcourse, you want to be as low as possible.

101. Summary: Self Image - The Amazing, Absolute Key To All Personal Growth Self-image is one of the most powerful, important, practical tools you can use to transform your life to ridiculous levels. There’s lots you can say about the power of self-image. This episode’s just an intro. Take A Look At Yourself A lot of these ideas about self-image come from Maxwell Maltz’s classic self-help book Psycho-Cybernetics. It’s a highly recommended book on Leo’s booklist. -Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s. He started studying psychology and the concept of self-image, because as a plastic surgeon he noticed some interesting things. Some of his patients had crippling emotional problems because of their appearance. Some had deformities, some thought their nose was too big or that their face was too wrinkly or that they were just plain ugly and unacceptable. Maltz would fix up their appearance, make them beautiful, and patients would react in one of two ways: Some patients would feel radically more confident and go out and change the rest of their life. They’d feel great and be full of self-esteem. Other patients would still feel ugly, even though they were now beautiful. In fact, some patients were so upset with Maltz that they accused him of not having made any changes to their face at all. They would call him a charlatan or a quack. Of course, he had made changes, but the patients had such a strong self-image of being ugly that their self-image still remained even after becoming beautiful. It shows how your self-image is what determines how you feel about yourself and your life, no matter how positively other people assess your looks. This is a really powerful concept. (Some pretty girls (not all) who get put in the "hot, beautiful" or "8-10" category see themselves as average, because they're subconsciously comparing themselves to other "hot" girls. So they sometimes have a self-image of being "average" because they're "average" among other beautiful girls. It'd be more accurate for them to compare themselves to the general population and feel grateful to be pretty at all. It's the same for some Harvard grads. A fair number of them feel like "underachievers" or even "failures" because they're comparing themselves to other Harvard grads, not to average joes who don't have degrees from Harvard.) But What Is Self-Image? Self-image is a subconscious framework for how you see yourself and your life. It’s what you believe and what you think is true about reality. Every belief you have is part of your self-image. Especially beliefs about what you think is possible. Do you think it’s possible for you to earn a million dollars a year? Do you really believe that? If you do, then that’s part of your self-image. If you don’t, if that sounds like some ridiculous fairy tale, then being a millionaire is not part of your self-image. Holding a limiting belief about your potential makes that pathway of reality blocked off to you. Your mind is creating a map or mental model of reality and how the world works. This model is mostly subconscious. You’re not aware of all the assumptions you make about how your world works. Or how society works, how life works, how you work and who you are. You’ve been programmed by your parents, culture, school, your job, your friends and basically every single person you’ve ever come into contact with. Circumstances have also programmed you. Putting your hand on a hot stove programs you to flinch and never do that again. Watching Captain America: Civil War programs you to like good guys with lovely shoulders who have blue eyes with specks of green around the irises (it’s a feature, not a flaw Baron Zemo—duh ?) Those lessons from your environment get seared into your subconscious. It becomes part of your self-image and model of reality. You’re more careful around a hot stove because that burned your hands. You also never want Jared Leto to play the Joker again because that burned your soul ?. Unravel The Thread Your self-image is like a large ball of yarn. There are hundreds of thought strands, all tangled and bunched up together. All the experiences you’ve ever had, all the lessons, beliefs and assumptions you’ve amassed are wound up into that tight ball of yarn. It’s a pretty big tangled mess. It’s all sitting below the surface, subconsciously, so you don’t even see it. You might see a thread here or there, but basically, 95% of your behaviors and actions are subconscious. What’s powerful and important about that is your subconscious determines your results. “But Leo, isn’t having a self-image egotistical?” Well, in order to drop the ego you first have to develop a healthy ego. You can’t just drop the ego when your ego is weak and underdeveloped. It's important to integrate the healthy aspects of the lower stages of development before you can move on to higher stages. (Dr.K from Healthy Gamer has a good segment about leveraging the power of self-image, ego and identity here (9 mins): Maintaining Balance Wanna know why you’re stuck in life? Your body and mind are like a thermostat that’s been programmed to stay at a specific temperature, determined by your subconscious. It tends to keep you in a state of homeostasis and equilibrium. (Ep: Understanding Ego Backlash) So, you get stuck at a specific salary, or weight, or happiness set point, or quality of relationship and so forth. To create big changes, you need to unravel the ball of yarn that is your self-image and subconscious. Self-image is so powerful because you’re going to align your behaviour and actions with what you really believe is true. So, what so you really believe is true? About your potential, your personality, what you deserve, how smart you think you are, how the world works, etc. What’s even crazier is if you believe something is true despite it being proven false, you’ll still behave as though the lies are all true. That’s why the beautiful patients still thought they were ugly after they became beautiful. Your behavior is shaped by what you believe is true, not by what’s actually true. If you believe a lie is true, it will feel true even if it’s ?. There are many things in your self-image that are complete horse shit and illusions, total fabrications, and they’re keeping you stuck in life. If you want to create massive change in your career, your confidence, your relationships, your fitness or anything else, then you have to start digging into your self-image and work on your subconscious. Changes That Last When you start changing your self-image (which is absolutely possible), you start to create lasting changes that are sustainable. They’re not subject to the yo-yo effect. That’s how you can create huge weight loss or massive success with the opposite sex, or with your finances and your business. That’s how you create transformation in your psychology and epistemology and your emotions. It’s how you become optimistic instead of pessimistic. It’s how you tackle anxiety, depression, alcoholism and more. All of those changes happen by working on your self-image. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you’re sculpting your self-image. It’s why understanding epistemology is so transformational. You get to find out how you’ve been deceiving yourself, which helps you unravel your self-image and subconscious. It’s also why meditation, psychedelics and awakenings can be so powerful. They give you a clear, undeniable experience of who you really are beyond your limiting beliefs and cultural programming, as one with the Godhead. Self-Image Examples Here’s how self-image works on a practical level. There are thoughts about yourself and thoughts about reality. These beliefs create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thoughts about Yourself You don’t see things as they are; you see things as you are. Really think about the following limiting beliefs. What results would they manifest in your life? -If you think,“my thoughts are what’s real. It’s just how reality is.” You’ll be way less likely to question your limiting beliefs. -How about “I’m a failure”? Just imagine how that thought would play out in your life, believing you’re destined to not win? That thought will propagate itself like a virus and ruin your life. If you think,“I failed in the past, so I’m always going to fail,” you’re less likely to look for evidence that shows you can win and learn. Just because you failed once, or even several times, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from failure and change your future. If you’ve had several failures, that’s probably because you haven’t unravelled your self-image and subconscious, but you can do that now and create massive change. -Watch out for “it’s genetic” and “I’m naturally like that.” Those beliefs will kill your potential. “I’m shy because my parents were shy and I have shy genes” makes you feel hopeless to changing. If you feel hopeless, what chance do you have of creating a fun, thriving social life? Can you see how important it is to root out a belief like that? -Also watch out for “This advice about self-image isn’t true.” If you believe that, you’ll come up with excuses. You won’t do the work of uprooting your subconscious, cognitive distortions. -There are shocking things about yourself that you believe right now, with a 100% faith and certainty, which are completely bogus and are completely destroying the quality of your life and your potential to grow. -Watch the episodes on how to “Stop Being a Victim” to understand the power of your self-image and subconscious. Thoughts about Reality What if you believed that: “Money is hard to make.” There are so many negative self-image problems with money. Do you think that belief about the “reality of money” will have an effect on your salary and how much is in your bank account? What about: “Life is unfair” or “Life is hard and difficult.” That’s a fairly ugly limiting belief. How would that perspective affect how you interact with the world? What about: “Other people think I’m ugly”? How would that play out in your life? How eager would you be to socialize and approach people you find attractive? These are just some common examples out of thousands. Which limiting beliefs about reality and yourself are you carrying around? Break The Manacles Everyone has limiting beliefs as part of their self-image. Unquestioned, faulty assumptions will perpetuate a low-quality of life. The spooky thing is you don’t even know that they’re there until you unravel them! A lot of things in your self-image are completely illogical, stupid and foolish, until you articulate them and look at them objectively. Take a thought like, “I’m unworthy of love.” Logically you’ll say “everyone deserves love,” but you don’t really feel that way deep down. A thought like that will create a whole host of relationship problems. You’ll drive your partner bonkers trying to get them to give you compliments. You’ll feel rejected, angry and bitter if they don’t lavish you with enough love. You’ll create a lot of stress and drama, because you’re insecure. That’ll drive the other person away and make the relationship fall apart. Then the self-fulfilling prophecy gets fulfilled, which reinforces the initial belief “I’m unworthy of love.” However, you can avoid all that by uprooting your belief of unworthiness, thus creating a totally different chain of cause and effect. One where, instead of draining your partner because you feel unworthy, you instead share, celebrate and magnify love with them, making them happy to be with you. Lift With Your Legs The biggest takeaway is to understand how important your self-image is and how it determines your entire life. It’s real and not some silly self-help buzzword. You need to focus on figuring out your self-image. This is where change happens. It’s like the saying, “if you’re going to lift a heavy object, lift it with your legs and not your back.” If you lift from your legs you’ll have the strength to carry the heavy load. If you lift with your back, you’re just going to hurt your back and maybe drop the box on your toes. Creating an inspiring, flourishing self-image is like lifting with your legs. Using willpower is like lifting from your back. It’s probably the method you’ve been doing up until now. Maybe you say to yourself, “OK, enough is enough. I’m going on a diet” or “I’m starting a business” or “I’m going to read a full summary instead of just skim it .” Then you try to start that new business or that new diet and you quickly fall off, because your willpower breaks. It’s because you’re not using your strongest muscles. Willpower is great, but it’s more useful in short bursts, like starting a habit. For long lasting, transformational change, you need the big muscles of self-image to follow through and maintain a habit. That’s the key to massive change. Let your subconscious and self-image do the heavy lifting. Your subconscious is the power center of your results. It’s where 95% of your action stems from. This involves deep introspection work. Coaching is really good for getting you these insights too.. It can bring up stuff from your subconscious, and get you to realize things you haven’t realized before. Yes, you can change your subconscious. Maxwell Maltz says it takes 21 days to create a lasting change to your self-image. That’s how long it takes for new habits to permeate into your subconscious. It’s actually not that difficult, but it takes persistence.

true - and a true yellow thinker would probably understand this. the development to a sturdy yellow is a full integration of green, which includes understanding its complementary though. if a person is red or red/purple in basic behavior, the personality is not yellow even if mental execution seems to execute in a yellow way. maybe the way of systemic transformation of any system is one of the most discussed and most difficult and challenging processes in politics and history which historically does not forgive errors in the long term, therefore a lot of green thinkers are still impulsively red triggered which creates conflicts. although this is why green plays such an important roll in collective stage development, especially in functioning societies green has a massive importance. wars like second world war though for example or even revolutionary wars throws humanity far back in their developmental stage in total in a lot of cases to beige and it’s not sure the system would really change after that phase if aggression keeps the society in lower stages - if criticizing capitalism you really need to understand what’s the alternative. regarding viruses and such i think the development of better medicine and less animal farming is probably working out better in a functioning society.

Insights about Love, Manifestation, Teaching, Reality, Sexuality, Personal Development, Shrooms, and more. December 27th 2021 Dosage: 2 grams of African Transkei strain mushroom, these are regarded for potency and high visuals. So I'm definitely testing it out. Now that I'm writing this in the future, I would say that the Penis Envy Stain is stronger. Taken at 11:21AM as a lemon tek tea, and I also grounded the shroom with a coffee grinder such that it's a fine POWDER. I added the lemon juice, let sit for 5 mins, added water boiled from the kettle, let it soak for 20 minutes, and then strained and discarded the solid bits. Doing it this way makes the trip hit really fast and really hard. My initial Intentions: What is Clarity? What is Curiosity? What is Creativity? Ideas for my business. >These intentions weren't seriously held, and as a result I actually ended up thinking about what was already on my mind. And that led to some different insights that were also very valuable. 17 min Starting to feel the onset 21 min Getting dizzy 24min Yawns, so many yawns. I need to premeditate my intentions for like 5 minutes focus before I take it. >This was me reflecting on my crappy intention setting skills. 26 min Feeling a massive body come up >I get an amazing body high, like a bunch of vines are growing in my body like a parasite and constricting me, taking hold of me. Designs on a Tapestry moving 30 min Heavy body load 39 min Tingling in my fingers and my limbs 39 min Tingling in my fingers and my limbs 45 min Yawning and tired like crazy. You can have unwanted imagination, like looking at your cute dog and imagining it getting skinned down to a skeleton. >Yeah, so your imagination on shrooms is supercharged and effortless in this way. 55 min Giggly >I'd say the majority of the trip lasted 5-7 hours. Duality needs to be created to maximize the love of the universe. I want to love everything that I've created. (as God) >Note that I have zero awakenings or even mystical experiences yet. I have yet to even realize baby insights like no-self. Life is learning about how to love. I teach people how to love their ideal self. To love discipline. To love routine. To love excellence. To love the idea of destroying their perceived barriers between the story of who they think they are now and the story of their ideal self. To love the action of suffering through a very challenging practice routine. To love doing the shadow work they need to do to rid their addictions To love being curious about life in order to find what they're authentically passionate learning about. To love the idea of healing their past and rewriting their story to become their ideal self. etc. I think the archetype of Shrooms is love. I initially saw shrooms as a tool of catharsis, but now I see that the catharsis is a byproduct of the mechanism of love at work. Shrooms fudge your boundaries of reality, which is a collapsing of dualities, which is love. All insights come from love. (When it comes to the topic of manifestation) You ARE IT! YOU ARE ALREADY WHAT YOU MANIFEST! YOU JUST MAKE ACTIONS TO PROVE IT! I understand what they mean now with Manifestation. You are ALREADY the person you ought to be. Imagine this. You are actually someone from another dimension that has already accomplished all the things you've wanted to. But now you've been transported into this body, into this universe, and now you simply have to prove you're already the case. You need to rewrite the books, redo the consciousness work, redo the speaking practice, and you doing this is just you proving that you are already it. It comes from a deep place of love. You become a fountain of love by loving your ideal self much that you are already it, and then from that place, you simply are spilling yourself out, and you transform through that process. That transformation IS the manifestation process. You shapeshift. You have to demand more of yourself to manifest it into actuality. That is precisely how you grow, out of nothingness, you demand more. You summon more of yourself! A visionary leader is someone who demands more from other people. They LITERALLY SEE your potential manifested in this moment right now.a I see you, the reader, as extremely intelligent. I see you as one that's capable of massive love. I see you as one that will accomplish your goals in life. I SEE IT. Can you? The universe if just a manifestation, an illusion of the highest degree, an imagination. Everything in the universe has been manifested. It's not just fucking there. It has been manifested ### ### ### Collection of individual insights You need to enrich and love EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE, EVERY OBJECT, EVERY PERSON, every idea, every creation, destruction, transformation, birth, death. THIS is how you love your life and spiritualize your life. Learn how to lose yourself more into life. When doing an activity, let go of your mind detaching you from the task at hand, and have the courage to fully lose yourself to the task. When it comes to learning, It doesn't really matter if you're kind of sleepy trying to learn still, if you're still learning, you're learning. THE MOST HARDCORE LOVE IS what is holding your table together. I need to study a book on boundaries NOW! When being a teacher, your need to BE the actor they NEED for THEM. THIS is how you teach people. You shapeshift into the form they want to see, to best receive the message. This is why if you're a christian, God will appear to you as Jesus in order for you to comfortably take in the teaching. God appearing as Jesus is the best MASK for God to manifest such that you best receive the message. So when you are trying to teach someone else, you need to create that persona, that mask, such that people will believe in the authority(illusion) that you've constructed. You shapeshift into person they need to see in order to best receive the teaching. Ask people in your life what kind of person would they like to see in you. That's also the kind of person you need to be to be their best teacher. The backdrop you have demands your attention. Literally how you dress, and the room that you put yourself in. The background you have while speaking influences how seriously your message is going to be taken to heart. The tone of your voice, the appearance of organization and thought-thoroughness in your speaking will demand authority. How deeply and interconnectedly you've integrated your insights will determine how strong your message becomes. When the insight is so deeply integrated it just becomes a part of you. And through that you just have to express you SELF with utmost excellence and vigor, and through that, THAT is what creates a great teaching. How you're perceived affects how you're recieved. ### ### ### Later I had an Insight that had me roll around and flip around on the floor for several minutes going "WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!" over and over again. So, some more manifestation ruminations. I thought, What would it take for me to be able to talk to Leo everyday? Kinda like in a way of a great talking to a great. Like if you wanted to hang out with Socrates, you would have to be at his level. Sharing insights and shit. I then thought "well I would then have to be at his level in consciousness and understanding". (Even though on the deepest level you can only get the deepest truths from yourself and not other.) And, yeah, I know that this comes from the my selfish part of my ego that idolizes Leo because he is a really good teacher and I want to be one of the best teachers in the world myself. Anywaayyysss... Then, I REALIZED that I could ACTUALLY get there. I saw in myself, a deep realization of my potential to manifest as much Consciousness as Leo. Like in my mind, this was extremely possible. That I could make Leo my peer in terms of level of understanding. This is what made me go what the fuck. I was like "HOLYYY SHIIITTT!" Maybe my confidence is just the peak of Mount Stupid in the Dunning-Kruger Effect. But hey, it felt GREAT! And it gave me a massive confidence boost! Here's a powerful question. What would you need to become to befriend your teachers as peers? As equals? What would need to become of you? What would you need to do on a day to day basis? What actions would you have to take? There I was, rolling around on the floor, just experiencing high amounts of joy at the realization of actualizing my potential. Meanwhile, while this is happening, my buddy beside me is lying on my bed, on 6 grams of shrooms, fighting his demons like he's playing dark souls. But he did so very silently. Basically it was all an internal battle. Haha! I asked him later about it and he said that my excitement and rowdiness didn't fuck with his trip, so that was good. # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Theme song of this part of the trip, reader, if you want, play this song. I was having the crux of this insight during this song. I curled up into a ball lying on my bed, snuggling an extremely soft blanket, feeling loved and feeling cuteness. I spent what felt like hours just enveloped in the love. I was hugging my super soft blanket, with an AMAZING body high, making everything comfy as fuck. I was biting my lip for a long time in a total state of erotic energy. I was fantasizing about LOVE. Fantasizing about sharing love with a male! At least a very specific feminine man that was supposedly crushing on at the time. It was a mega positive experience. Later I am hugging my blanket on the floor, still thinking about love. I'm loving the massive gift that life that God gives us. A lot of times during the trip I was saying "WEEEEIIIIRRRD! WEEEEIIIIRRRD! WEEEEIIIIRRRD!" >I was learning that on a very deep level, I want to love absolutely everyone and I know that when I realize I'm God, and when I realize I'm everything, I will be able to learn how to deepen that love. I want to learn how to maximize the love of the universe. I was also massively deconstructing the boundaries between loving everyone, on a deep emotional level. Like, what does it actually mean to love people? What really are you actually loving when you say you love someone? I have awakened to mega feminine energy over here. Also... I'm Awakening to bisexuality. I want to be feminine and seduced. I want to be masculine and be seductive. I LOVE feminine energy. (Side note, I'd probably love 5MeO MALT) I can find it in women. I can find it in men. I love the idea of putting makeup on to be more feminine when I want to embody more femininity. >I was learning that the gay side of my sexuality is expressed in a very differently navigated way than my Straight side. They're not the same at all! I also learned that liking the same sex comes with a whole new set of collective societal baggage that suppresses, demonizes and denies homosexuality. Coming out of the closet it not merely just simply accepting yourself and loving yourself, but it is also learning how to navigate in this reality in order to maximize the amount of love in the universe. Coming out of the closet literally means that you are learning how to navigate the oppression in society such that you can exercise love for your homosexual self, but yet at the same time, still look after your physical and social survival such that you are not one to be killed physically and demonized socially. >How you do this is becoming so sure about who you are that you're not attached to how people think you are. What manifests as bisexuality for ME, is probably very different for another person that identifies as bisexual. What you think bisexuality literally means for you, means a different thing for me. Like I don't like men in the same way AT ALL in the same way that I like women. The way I like women is HARDWIRED into my brain at a deep core level, whereas, the homosexuality that manifests in me comes from what I literally call a "gay fetish". This was imprinted into me from a young age as a result of homosexual experiences I had when I was younger. (Like age 10.) And for years I've denied and demonized the part of myself that liked that because I identified as straight. AND also at the same time homosexuality was VERY GROSS! But over time I found abstractions with fantasies like drawing of pornography, drawings that fudged the duality between male and female. (I can go into more detail of what I mean by this if requested). "My homosexuality" was in a way manifested because I loved a A SMALL part of myself that had a fantasy or two, and that part I explored more and more. It was years in the making. It was manifested over YEARS. It wasn't there, it was something that was nurtured and grew a life of its own. (I can literally go into detail step by step, each domino that had to fall to get to this point.) >But ANYWAYS, part of coming into my own is me letting go of YOU understanding my story that I've constructed over here. >In order navigate this new part of myself, I will study a book on boundaries, as well as contemplate what boundaries are. Also what is a relationship? >So just to clarify, in the end, right now at least, as I write this, I'm still unsure about what exactly my sexuality is, how Bi I really am. Like, do I just like feminine boys? Like twinks/femboys or whatever, and do I just like them physically(sexually) or am I able to love them emotionally too? Am I able to love a masculine man? Am I able to love masculine energy? or just feminine energy? >This trip allowed me to massively process tons of fear around taking action that would create further clarity. So now I am more confident to take even more action into developing more clarity into my sexuality. ### ### ### Additional Insights What is Courage? Courage is a perceived leap Beyond first perceived boundaries. Courage is biting off more than you can chew. Courage is willingly throwing yourself into a place that you KNOW you're going to lose control. Where you are not even sure if you're going to be able to handle it. Contemplate, What is control? Control vs Freedom. The light of God's love is so bright that whatever it touches it burns away any impurities. I need to practice spending money on highly valuable personal development resources. Like a life coaching package. Ideas hold the power of the universe. Which is why Epistemology metaphysics are important as FUCK. When it comes to buying shrooms I learned that a cube is a cube as they say, just buy some cheap b+ and forget the other strains. Just take more and you're there. You can't really fuck with the quality of shrooms. (Like I mean vendors usually sell really potent shrooms.) You can love fear. I am a DMT jester. That's the energy I hold. I am like the circus, I am expressive, I am chaotic, I am a clown, I am the actor, I am the laugher. That's also what I look like with the colorful clothes that I'm wearing that I call my tripping uniform haha. ( I haven't even done DMT yet lol) ### ### ### Integration: Study a book on boundaries to help navigate all my relationships in life in a way more healthy manner. Such that the love in my relationships have an opportunity to deepen and work at a higher level of synergy. Have a conversion about my sexuality with my Mother, as I spill everything about myself to her. As this is part of the process of facing my fears. (By the time I'm writing this, I already did it.) Take action toward deeply integrating this part of my sexuality. Explore myself. Thanks for reading!

At first there were two. It felt like one died - I believed it was me - I thought I died - Memories are clinged to the unfinished transformation and the "dying" self. I am here and now. Who is here now? It is me. I am currently observing how memories and thoughts spiral around "me" that apparently "died", I can just look at them and can see them for what they are. They bring up a huge wave of confusion, the story around it feels like "I am not supposed to be here", I cant deny the feeling, it is there and is hella confusing, it is a fear but also worry and doubt about not being "a normal person". I know what thoughts can cause if not remembered what they are. just thoughts, tho they also feel like somehow time related: the more time passes, the more the "I" of the story gets confused about its death and being still here, it is like a letting go process of "me". Questiones arise: was the story ever real? I mean it was experienced and still has been very vividly experienced for 4 years now. I can also say that it would be not wise to suffer from it, because it's just thoughts playing their game. Yet the feelings feel so "dying, letting-go of-like", like as if a part of me died long ago, that I sometimes hardly believe it's "just thoughts" but maybe there is something else playing inside of me. I know going inside of the story doesnt help much, feeling the story doesnt either - it cant be resolved, only seen for what it is. In the end I will let go either way...because I love life too much...Maybe I am already whole?

Great book. Read it twice. Highly recommended. I love how he explained the difference between conventional therapy that deals with ego and how it gets you nowhere, and letting go method which is true way to spirituality and transformation.

Very instructive material on God from the perspective of fully transitioning from awakening or God-consciousness, to enlightenment, or in her terminology, God to Godhead; a great read: https://o-meditation.com/2009/10/16/from-the-unitive-state-to-no-self-bernadette-roberts/ After enlightenment there's no inner world or outer divine anymore. Excerpt: Stephan: How did you discover the further stage, which you call the experience of no-self? Bernadette: That occurred unexpectedly some 25 years after the transforming process. The divine center – the coin, or “true self” – suddenly disappeared, and without center or circumference there is no self, and no divine. Our subjective life of experience is over – the passage is finished. I had never heard of such a possibility or happening. Obviously there is far more to the elusive experience we call self than just the ego. The paradox of our passage is that we really do not know what self or consciousness is, so long as we are living it, or are it. The true nature of self can only be fully disclosed when it is gone, when there is no self. One outcome, then, of the no-self experience is the disclosure of the true nature of self or consciousness. As it turns out, self is the entire system of consciousness, from the unconscious to God-consciousness, the entire dimension of human knowledge and feeling-experience. Because the terms “self” and “consciousness” express the same experiences (nothing can be said of one that cannot be said of the other), they are only definable in the terms of “experience”. Every other definition is conjecture and speculation. No-self, then, means no-consciousness. If this is shocking to some people, it is only because they do not know the true nature of consciousness. Sometimes we get so caught up in the content of consciousness, we forget that consciousness is also a somatic function of the physical body, and, like every such function, it is not eternal. Perhaps we would do better searching for the divine in our bodies than amid the content and experience of consciousness. Stephan: How does one move from “transforming union” to the experience of no-self? What is the path like? Bernadette: We can only see a path in retrospect. Once we come to the state of oneness, we can go no further with the inward journey. The divine center is the innermost “point”, beyond which we cannot go at this time. Having reached this point, the movement of our journey turns around and begins to move outward – the center is expanding outward. To see how this works, imagine self, or consciousness, as a circular piece of paper. The initial center is the ego, the particular energy we call “will” or volitional faculty, which can either be turned outward, toward itself, or inward, toward the divine ground, which underlies the center of the paper. When, from our side of consciousness, we can do no more to reach this ground, the divine takes the initiative and breaks through the center, shattering the ego like an arrow shot through the center of being. The result is a dark hole in ourselves and the feeling of terrible void and emptiness. This breakthrough demands a restructuring or change of consciousness, and this change is the true nature of the transforming process. Although this transformation culminates in true human maturity, it is not man’s final state. The whole purpose of oneness is to move us on to a more final state. To understand what happens next, we have to keep cutting larger holes in the paper, expanding the center until only the barest rim or circumference remains. One more expansion of the divine center and the boundaries of consciousness or self fall away. From this illustration we can see how the ultimate fulfillment of consciousness, or self, is no-consciousness, or no-self. The path from oneness to no-oneness is an egoless one and is therefore devoid of ego-satisfaction. Despite the unchanging center of peace and joy, the events of life may not be peaceful or joyful at all. With no ego-gratification at the center and no divine joy on the surface, this part of the journey is not easy. Heroic acts of selflessness are required to come to the end of self, acts comparable to cutting ever-larger holes in the paper – acts, that is, that bring no return to the self whatsoever. The major temptation to be overcome in this period is the temptation to fall for one of the subtle but powerful archetypes of the collective consciousness. As I see it, in the transforming process we only come to terms with the archetypes of the personal unconscious; the archetypes of the collective consciousness are reserved for individuals in the state of oneness, because those archetypes are powers or energies of that state. Jung felt that these archetypes were unlimited; but in fact, there is only one true archetype, and that archetype is self. What is unlimited are the various masks or roles self is tempted to play in the state of oneness – savior, prophet, healer, martyr, Mother Earth, you name it. They are all temptations to seize power for ourselves, to think ourselves to be whatever the mask or role may be. In the state of oneness, both Christ and Buddha were tempted in this manner, but they held to the “ground” that they knew to be devoid of all such energies. This ground is a “stillpoint”, not a moving energy-point. Unmasking these energies, seeing them as ruses of the self, is the particular task to be accomplished or hurdle to be overcome in the state of oneness. We cannot come to the ending of self until we have finally seen through these archetypes and can no longer be moved by any of them. So the path from oneness to no-oneness is a life that is choicelessly devoid of ego-satisfaction; a life of unmasking the energies of self and all the divine roles it is tempted to play. It is hard to call this life a “path”, yet it is the only way to get to the end of our journey. Stephan: In The Experience of No-Self you talk at great length about your experience of the dropping away or loss of self. Could you briefly describe this experience and the events that led up to it? I was particularly struck by your statement “I realized I no longer had a ‘within’ at all.” For so many of us, the spiritual life is experienced as an “inner life” – yet the great saints and sages have talked about going beyond any sense of inwardness. Bernadette: Your observation strikes me as particularly astute; most people miss the point. You have actually put your finger on the key factor that distinguishes between the state of oneness and the state of no-oneness, between self and no-self. So long as self remains, there will always be a “center”. Few people realize that not only is the center responsible for their interior experiences of energy, emotion, and feeling, but also, underlying these, the center is our continuous, mysterious experience of “life” and “being”. Because this experience is more pervasive than our other experiences, we may not think of “life” and “being” as an interior experience. Even in the state of oneness, we tend to forget that our experience of “being” originates in the divine center, where it is one with divine life and being. We have become so used to living from this center that we feel no need to remember it, to mentally focus on it, look within, or even think about it. Despite this fact, however, the center remains; it is the epicenter of our experience of life and being, which gives rise to our experiential energies and various feelings. If this center suddenly dissolves and disappears, the experiences of life, being, energy, feeling and so on come to an end, because there is no “within” any more. And without a “within”, there is no subjective, psychological, or spiritual life remaining – no experience of life at all. Our subjective life is over and done with. But now, without center and circumference, where is the divine? To get hold of this situation, imagine consciousness as a balloon filled with, and suspended in divine air. The balloon experiences the divine as immanent, “in” itself, as well as transcendent, beyond or outside itself. This is the experience of the divine in ourselves and ourselves in the divine; in the state of oneness, Christ is often seen as the balloon (ourselves), completing this trinitarian experience. But what makes this whole experience possible – the divine as both immanent and transcendent – is obviously the balloon, i.e. consciousness or self. Consciousness sets up the divisions of within and without, spirit and matter, body and soul, immanent and transcendent; in fact, consciousness is responsible for every division we know of. But what if we pop the balloon – or better, cause it to vanish like a bubble that leaves no residue. All that remains is divine air. There is no divine in anything, there is no divine transcendence or beyond anything, nor is the divine anything. We cannot point to anything or anyone and say, “This or that is divine”. So the divine is all – all but consciousness or self, which created the division in the first place. As long as consciousness remains however, it does not hide the divine, nor is it ever separated from it. In Christian terms, the divine known to consciousness and experienced by it as immanent and transcendent is called God; the divine as it exists prior to consciousness and after consciousness is gone is called Godhead. Obviously, what accounts for the difference between God and Godhead is the balloon or bubble – self or consciousness. As long as any subjective self remains, a center remains; and so, too, does the sense of interiority.

Don't know if I've written about this before here - probably - tulpa creation. What is a tulpa? The concept is basically an imaginary friend on steroids. You create and maintain a separate entity - normally a person - using thought alone. See Wikipedia for more. I don't know why exactly the idea appeals to me, after all I'm in 40's not my 00's . I think it ties in with my philosophy of thinking that we should all regularly inhabit different characters, as a way to expand ourselves, and to not get too stuck in ourselves. To be honest this is what we all already do (see earlier posts), so the only difference here in creating a tulpa is doing it consciously rather than unconciously. Effectively, you are already a bunch of thought-forms vying for attention and control of your body. Further to this, everyone in your life - male and female - is also a thought-form. Unconsciously created tulpas abound rattling around inside you. I thought I would create a female tulpa, because why not? Ok, well this is kind of related to my earlier phase of needing to work through what feminity meant for myself (yes I'm male) - we're all a balance of feminine and masculine qualities - whatever they are. Earlier I was interested in tipping the scales and embodying or expressing what I thought were more feminine qualities. Creating a female tulpa would allow me a chance of feminine creative expression even if just in thought. I have plenty of material to work from, half the people in the world are feminine. I'm not sure where exactly this need to explore a more feminine identity comes from, it's certainly not from sexual orientation (men don't turn me on, but I can appreciate a good looking one and why he's good looking). However, I was often confused for a girl when I was very young (longish hair), I have enjoyed the odd bit of cross-dressing (but hadn't done a huge amount of it). I was a little bit of a mummy's boy but not that much. In my twenties or thirties I was questioned on occasion whether I was gay or bi (nope) - even my own sister wanted me to work it out by experimenting, which I did and I definitely wasn't. This questioning made me wonder what about my behaviour made people think I was. In my forties I've worked hard to be more masculine in my character to stop this confusion in people; especially not to put off potential women I was interested in. This is not something I've ever spoken about to anyone. Lucky you, you're the first or at least in the low tens! I do think that I'm lost translation though. Being much more masculine just isn't really me, it's just a show. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's inauthentic, because I am being an authentic masculine version of myself. It's just that it takes conscious maintenance and suppression of what I used to think were "natural" expressions of my character. So here we are. In a way the female tulpa perhaps would be the more extreme version of that younger more femininely balanced self. She would have to be the female me. I have a good template as I have a sister! But we are quite different characters, so I can't just steal her character for myself - it's also kind of creepy to do that - the thought-form I already have of my sister doesn't need corruption. But despite our differences we are the closest two humans in terms of upbringing and some of our thought patterns and behaviours. Name your tulpa. I originally called her Christine, but wavered and eventually settled on Charlotte (I like CH right?). She kind of needed her own mind and body shape, but to be averagely me. When I first tried I found the maintenance side of the tulpa onerous. My visual imagination is good, but imagining a whole being from nothing except some vague template I found to be very tough. I had a long hiatus where I just forgot about the whole thing. But the idea didn't really go away. In adjusting myself to be more masculine the more feminine side of me screamed louder. Life is like that, some things are impossible to ignore and like it or not eventually you have to deal with it somehow. When I came across hypnosis videos online, there were various "feminine transformation" videos, for men I presume. The sheer fact it even grabbed my attention spoke to me. I'm a curious sort so I tried it out and it had a curious effect on me. What I had missed with the tulpa creation is what I should have done all along and that is: embodiment. After all, it was embodiment of more feminine qualities that I was missing in the first place and the reason for the tulpa creation. Embodiment is far more potent because you become the character, albeit a female character in a male body. It allowed me to explore the tulpa more fully. Although, I may have unconsciously shied away from what I felt could be a slippery slope - to what, I don't know. Some of the videos were straight become a woman type affairs. Some of them were more to do with cross-dressing. Knowing NLP well enough, I anchored Charlotte (the name) to these hypnotic moments of feminine embodiment so I could "recall" her more quickly. In a strange twist (the universe provides) I temporarily became the owner of a bunch of clothing which I promised to take to charity. I took the opportunity to actually cross-dress, specifically to fill out the Charlotte character. You really are the first know this, and as you can imagine it's odd spilling my guts like this on many levels. It's giving me the outlet I need to explore more feminine characteristics and it feels like a holiday from my normally straightjacketed-everyday-masculine self. How far am I going to push it? I don't know, it's quite possibly just a phase and I'll get bored with it. Maybe when I feel I've rebalanced myself again and can put an acceptable version of myself for public consumption it will end (acceptable to me and to others). What it also allows me to do is experiment with being someone else, albeit in private, but my hope is that the good parts of that experimentation will spill over into @LastThursday and go some way to "fixing" parts of me I don't like or "improving" other parts. I haven't actively bought any female clothing; not sure I will. I have bought nail varnish. I am very very weary about being caught out cross-dressing. Already I've probably been caught with a neighbour peering through my window from across the way. Part of me doesn't GAF, part of me really does. The social stigma is just too much. Definitely my friends can't know and neither can my family not because I don't think they wouldn't be accommodating, but because I'd never hear the end of it and I don't want to be identified by it. I also have a social image to upkeep unfortunately. In a bizarre sense I feel I'm not really cross-dressing but more like dressing a shop dummy called Charlotte in order to bring her to life. It is definitely fun and strangely cathartic though. Hey ho.

Christ is not Jesus’s last name,,,,,, https://cac.org/anointing-with-love-2019-04-10/ https://cac.org/wisdom-jesus-weekly-summary-2017-04-15/ Jesus was not a priest or a prophet in the usual sense of those terms. Rather, he was a wisdom teacher. He stayed close to the ground of wisdom: the transformation of human consciousness.

@DocWatts I watched and heard this perspective from Chomsky before right around the time I started learning and finding of libertarian socialism and socialism, in general, a few years ago. 1. I admit I feel a slight anti-white Western liberal cringe and bias when I hear this seemingly urbanite liberal white girl who just got into revolutionary theory and politics pose a question to Chomsky about Lenin's legacy in such a hyperactive and excited tone and voice. It's cute but I get LARPy vibes from her, though better that than nothing for her and other young people there starting to independently to learn on their own about the history of marxism and socialism to start deprogramming themselves and forming their own autonomous interpretative worldviews and more critical thought patterns based on their own reading, insights, and literature from the biases, prejudices, and assumptions that the mainstream western corporate media ingrains in its audiences. 2. I am not defending now or advocating in my understanding for the centralized version of the Soviet Union under Stalin and later others, though I think at the time it performed despite its many terrors and horrors that it committed on its population an overall modernization and civilizational uplifting of the people of Eastern Europe free from becoming victims of external exploitation, stagnation and the inability to develop and grow on their own under the international system of capitalist unequal exchange (Zizek quotes in the text I posted above that the Soviet leaders including Stalin viewed it this way, though Stalin performed it in a more autocratic, centralized and imperialist way towards other nations). 3. Much of the autocratization and centralization of the Soviet Union happened under Stalin: ''The direction in which Stalin was already heading is clear from his proposal that the government of Soviet Russia should also be the government of the other five republics (Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia): If the present decision is confirmed by the Central Committee of the RCP, it will not be made public, but communicated to the Central Committees of the Republics for circulation among the Soviet organs, the Central Executive Committees, or the Congresses of the Soviets of the said Republics before the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets, where it will be declared to be the wish of these Republics. The interaction of the higher authority, the Central Committee, with its base was thus abolished: the higher authority now simply imposed its will. To add insult to injury, the Central Committee decided what the base would ask the higher authority to enact as if it were its own wish.'' 4. Zizek already addressed in the article where Lenin diverged from Rosa on the question of none necessity of progressive forces to lead the new states of some undeveloped countries and the inability of people to become libertarian right away without first: the idea of a modest, "realistic" project for Bolshevism. Because of the economic under-development and cultural backwardness of the Russian masses, he argues, there is no way for Russia to "pass directly to socialism": all that Soviet power can do is to combine the moderate politics of "state capitalism" with the intense cultural education of the peasant masses – not the brainwashing of propaganda, but a patient, gradual imposition of civilized standards. Facts and figures revealed "what a vast amount of urgent spadework we still have to do to reach the standard of an ordinary west European civilized country … We must bear in mind the semi-Asiatic ignorance from which we have not yet extricated ourselves," he wrote. 5. On this note that he said we should agree with the fascists that it wasn't socialism but the destruction of it to avoid their strawman's and projections, but I would remind him of this quote from Zizek what disservice that does for the progressive and humanistic legacy it did for some nations of Eastern Europe and what opportunism that supplies for the right-wing reactionary movements: ''One of the signs of this regression is a request often heard on the new European right for a more "balanced" view of the two "extremisms", the right and the left. We are repeatedly told that one should treat the extreme left (communism) the same way that Europe after the second world war treated the extreme right (the defeated fascists). But in reality, there is no balance here: the equation of fascism and communism secretly privileges fascism. Thus the right is hard to argue that fascism copied communism: before becoming a fascist, Mussolini was a socialist; Hitler, too, was a National Socialist; concentration camps and genocidal violence were features of the Soviet Union a decade before Nazis resorted to them; the annihilation of the Jews has a clear precedent in the annihilation of the class enemy, etc. The point of these arguments is to assert that moderate fascism was a justified response to the communist threat (a point made long ago by Ernst Nolte in his defense of Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism). In Slovenia, the right is advocating the rehabilitation of the anti-communist Home Guard which fought the partisans during the second world war: they made the difficult choice to collaborate with the Nazis in order to thwart the much greater evil of communism.'' I plan to read starting from the basics using Wolff as a reference in Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism when I get to it in my free time. 6. Also on the final note it was in then developed industrialized civilized countries such as Germany seen ripe for socialist transformation according to orthodox Marxists that the destruction of socialism also took place that the German Social Democrats voted on the war credits to send the German proletariat into an imperialist war on behalf of the German ruling class and arranged for the assassination of the leaders of the Spartacist Socialist Movement Liebknecht and Luxemburg.

Hello, This is a trip report of my Ayahuasca ceremony. I won't dive into the setting details, other than stating that it was in nature with a group and a shaman. After drinking the first cup, it was obvious that the medicine works by releasing the initial layers of unconscious mind into Consciousness. This is observed by sensing that the flow of energy in the body (whether physical, emotional or energy sense of the body) is more balanced. This observation is especially noticeable in the "Chakras", like between the eyebrows, in the center of the chest, solar plexus and more. This sense of energy flow was accompanied by complex Psychedelic visuals, that cannot be described by me other than the sense of purifying thoughts and beliefs form the unconscious mind. If I push the envelope on my creativity, I would describe the visuals as emotionally geometric shapes the resembles the visual representation of suppressing thoughts, feelings and emotions. As more and more suppressed thought is brought to surface, nauseous and nasty feelings in the body are felt, which is reasonable if the medicine oblige you to face your shadow and feel it. All and all, the first cup is quite manageable, even though it requires coping with some truth regarding the hidden aspects of our adopted identity. However, the second cup is where the real work knocked on my door and asked for answers. Ready? So after 'excavating' the initial layers of the shadow, it is time to face our most hidden and obnoxious thoughts and beliefs regarding our self and others. This is where I was forced to meet with the deep traumatic events of my life, and the conceptual architecture that erected as a result of this traumas. The deep layers of our subconscious is where fear, guilt, shame, hurt, dishonesty, illusion and attachment lurks. Encountering those aspect of my shadow was extremely painful to swallow, almost unbearable. It wouldn't surprise you that this is the part where most people are crying from the depth of the pain the reside in their emotional heart, and emit unreasonable voices of disgust and terror having to face shame and guilt, and of course, vomit their intestines out. This is purification of both body and mind, which are ultimately two sides to the same coin. During purification and afterwards deep insight regarding thoughts and beliefs can be gleaned, and it becomes obvious that every thought we hold affects the body, that in some way the thought form wishes to materialize in the body. For me, it was no different. Childhood trauma made me cry and emit voices of sheer helplessness due to feelings of rejection, shame and guilt. This was accompanied for me by extremely complex visuals both in shape and color, which I lack the ability to describe with words. Finally, I had to face the belief that I am this specific body-mind. I was "shown" that this is an illusion, that who I really am isn't some specific self, but both this self and every other self. In some weird way I cannot explain, I had visuals that showed me how self and other complete each other and cannot exist one without the other. Every experience of my self was possible only due to the experience of others, and vice versa. Even thought the distinction between self and other seem solid and separated, it is an illusion. The distinction between experiencing only one mind and experiencing another's mind is what enables the Self to experience different minds. This was extremely daunting for the attachment to the mind, which I sensed as some deep pain for being deluded so long. I cried. I realized that I could never hide aspects of my self from others, because I am others so the only one I am hiding from is me, which is a paradox. It is impossible to hide from You, because You is all there is, and You know when the self is hiding. Whenever we manipulate an other, whether it is by lying, misrepresenting, affectations, etc., we are only manipulating our self. The same goes, of course, for hurting or judging the 'other'. Thinking of our Being as some specific self is an illusion, a trick of mind, an attachment that distort the Truth. After realizing that the body-mind is not even a blip in existence, that who I am isn't this body-mind, I experienced a sensation of being reborn. I was relieved completely of my shadow and attachment to thought. I could not care less what others think of me, I only wanted to hug them and tell them that I love them. The perceptions of the body sensations and the sky in night was of pure bliss, joy and love, as in being grateful for just existing. I could not fathom that such sensations of freedom can be felt. Breathing was deep and profound, penetrating every particle of my being and the nervous system felt rejoiced, renewed and "electrical". I could sense profound sense of divine energy between my eyebrows for I finally saw reality for what is is. The magnitude of my enthusiasm and astonishment was out of this world, and I could not hold my self from saying repeatedly: Wow, wow, wow. To wrap things up, I would say that Ayahuasca differs from the classic Psychedelics not only because it is DMT which enables to dive deep into our shadow or unconscious mind, but allow us to flood the unconscious to the conscious long enough so we can see all of our hidden delusions and emotions. Mix this with the shamans music and way of touching our hidden and sensitive aspects of our self, and you get a profound experience. Don't get me wrong, Psilocybin and LSD can and probably will expose your subconscious, but usually not to depths of Ayahuasca. As for DMT in it's freebase form, the trip is usually too fast and too complex to glean serious insight regarding self and mind. But it is nice to make you curious. I would also say that if you "cleaned" your subconscious, than your trips will probably be lucid and without all this repressed emotions and horrific visuals. This is probably rare amongst human beings because we tend to be selfish and dishonest, so only mature and extremely honest individuals will have "lite" subconscious. Regarding practices such as meditation and contemplation, I cannot deny their ability to penetrate our hidden aspects, but if you want to reach the bottom of the subconscious, the root of the false self, they require intense focus and commitment. I really hope this post helped you in some way. Ayahuasca can be extremely complex and emotionally disturbing experience. But it can also mature you a lot, bring modesty to the self, and motivate transformation. It is also a heart opening trip because you can learn the deep truth regarding the illusion of being a specific self, which in turn weakens the attachment to mind and body. Much love

@Tyler Durden Cool thread, read through your discussion with BenG. Unfortunately, being able to change reality in the way you wish, at least without throwing a potentially dangerous formula for HPPD into the mix, is magical thinking. Spirituality is more about changing your relationship to reality than bending reality to your will. There's a great scene from the matrix about just this, actually. https://youtu.be/uAXtO5dMqEI Fortunately, you won't physically die if this happens. However, it can certainly feel like you're forgetting large chunks of information about yourself. This forgetting is part of a metaphysical transformation that some, who've gone through the process, report to have "felt like dying". You aren't dying. If it makes you feel more comfortable with the process, which has a long track record of getting pretty creepy at times, try reframing it. For example, you could think of it like deleting the cookies and clearing the cache on your web browser, so that it runs faster. Not so scary now. Same old browser, right? Alternatively, you could think of the information you're forgetting as having been getting in the way of your remembering something else which will radically improve your luck in ways that just about everything else in life can't quite. For the best results, don't worry so much about getting the next great reframe from Leo or your other teachers, and just get creative! If you have the energy, make it a game to see how you can reframe unsightly situations in novel ways that you find personally empowering. When you get tired and don't want to play anymore, recall something simple that gives you just a little more peace of mind in the next moment. It's perfectly fine that you're asking these types of questions. And don't beat yourself up for having physical insecurities. The big old wide open void of forgetting is our pal on the spiritual path, and when you're ready to move on, she'll take good care of all these woes for ya. Back to the bad news. You need to stop looking back if you want to be able to sprint fast enough for long enough to totally leave your problems in the dust. Knowing how much pain they cause is a step in the right direction, and fully feeling pain might make a good next step. You can't wake up and live the rest of your life in someone else's body, but you absolutely can enjoy the body you've got. Godspeed, Tyler.

I too am an American (living in New York) who is deeply disturbed by what is happening to my country. My own approach as a private citizen -- for whatever it is worth -- is to be kind, to be gentle, to speak truth to power when necessary, but to generally listen before speaking, and to seek consensus in whatever modest form it can take. I believe our country is on the verge of a very difficult cultural transformation (from Orange to Green, in the language of Spiral Dynamics), and we are as like gardeners tending to a plant that is ailing. This task requires a great amount of sensitivity and skillfulness. So aside from voting responsibly and supporting political changes that open the door to greater democratic representation, I think the key is to be present as fully as possible.

With Stuff like David R Hawkins and Julien Blanc's Transformation Mastery - do we not think that by going out and approaching but also by putting our awareness on those sensations of fear and/or journaling about those feelings of fear, we can reduce our approach anxiety/general social anxiety more permanently overtime? Julien Blanc claims he doesn't need to get 'in state' anymore, he is naturally in state because he isn't resistant to the sensations in his body.

Attachment is a very deep subject in both spirituality and psychology and the healing of our core attachment wounds improve both those separate lines of development (not confusing spiritual development for realization). This link stems from the work of Daniel P Brown whose has not only been the lead pioneer in attachment research in the world of psychology and psychotherapy but also an advanced Vajrayana Mahamudra that’s been trained by some of the best including the likes of the Dalai Lama. He’s written works like Transformations of Consciousness with Ken Wilber as well as his groundbreaking work Pointing Out The Great Way. The extent of his work though is really a magnum opus in itself so I won’t really do it justice. Anyways.. Many of you are probably kinda crazy like me. I have a lot of trauma but also was diagnosed with ADHD as early as 6 along and so forth. I notice some of you on here point out that you guys struggle with similar things and coincidentally that shows up as issues not just in day your meditation/spiritual practice but also your relationships and other behavioral patterns. One of the things that’s being found with ambiguous issues like ADHD for example is not just that it’s a multidimensional issues that likely doesn’t have just one source but that it’s also commonly rooted in things like attachment disorders/disturbances based on the 5 pillars that constitute healthy or unhealthy attachment but also things even like trauma and even prenatal trauma. Now trauma and attachment disorders aren’t really the same but they “interact” or relate. This has become an issue for many of us (particularly boys/guys/men) in this day in age due to the transformation that’s resulted in the modern and postmodern family system as it moved out of more traditional family systems prior to women joining the workforce and this children had less attention and nurturance that were too busy working (PLEASE RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO FALL INTO IDEOLOGICAL THINKING WITH THIS AS THATS NOT WHERE I’M COMING FROM). I imagine many of us don’t really notice this stuff because it’s become so normal at this point we don’t really see it unless we visit or interact with families in say the 3rd world like say in Tibet (I’ll get to them in a little bit) that don’t have the kind of neurotic dysfunctional family issues that we have here in the west (particularly in America). To highlight this I want to share some things that might illuminate this a bit more using both Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. There’s a story from some time ago when the Dalai Lama was at a press conference and a Buddhist practitioner (I think it was actually Sharon Salzburg if I’m not mistaken) asked the Dalai Lama about self loathing. The Dalai Lama stopped the press conference for some minutes to speak to his translator. He then proceeded completely bewildered and spoke how Tibetan people don’t have that and how he couldn’t even comprehend why people would do that to themselves in that it was completely unheard of to him. Which isn’t really a tell tale sign about his enlightenment as much as it is a sign that that truly doesn’t exist in Tibet despite the suffering of many people there. It’s a cultural thing. You see, when Tibetan monks practice Loving Kindness in formal Tibetan Buddhism, you know what their practice is? They visualize their mother as their mother was perfectly loving for them. Those early healthy attachment bonds are in place in those early years and that’s really a cultural thing. Can you imagine how many westerners would struggle with such a practice? I know I would and I know I’m not alone as this is common in todays modern and postmodern world relative to the simplicity that comes within a traditional culture. I even notice the contrast in psychological temperament when I hangout with friends that grew up in more traditional upbringings (particularly eastern but even Christian too). Now, what are those 5 Pillars of Attachment? Safety Attunement (usually with the mother) Delight Affect Regulation A sense of support for being and becoming one’s unique best self. If you’d like more details into each of these pillars you can check out the following text in the following link: https://www.onlyyouforever.com/the-5-pillars-of-attachment/ So what do you do if you have any one of those needs or issues in any one of those 5 pillars? Well, here are some resources for you that stem from the work of Daniel P Brown. The first one I suggest is to go to the following link: https://www.attachmentproject.com/ There you can find therapeutic modules and resources to truly heal these wounds and attachment disturbances. They are incredibly affordable as, from what I recall seeing, being under $60. That’s a great deal in my opinion. The next one is what is called The Ideal Parent Visualization which Dan Brown actually guides that you can find here: https://www.integralsomaticawakening.com/resources The protocol for this practice is to do it right when you wake up. If you have a meditation practice you do first thing in the morning, do it before you start your usual practice. This practice is one that’s serves multiples purposes. First off, it’s of course about healing and cultivating core attachment wounds by visualizing (and you can really include the somatic field of your experience - this is big for me personally - if you’re not the best at visualization) perfect ideal parents that aren’t in the image of your biological parents and cultivate those core aspects in your own experience slowly over the course of weeks and really many months. Ultimately though this also evolves into a deeper spiritual practice where the goal is to eventually merge in union with the perfect parents in your visualization as it really is on par as a deity practice. Oops! Did I give that away?! Don’t worry about that though. That’ll happen if and when it happens. Start where you’re at and don’t shoot for anymore than where you’re currently at. There is so much to really say on healing this stuff. Yes it’s nice that it does help promote greater spiritual development but it also helps with healing those core wounds that were created in relationship to others in our childhood that land us sleeping with people that not so coincidentally are very much like our parents and we relate to in the same subtle ways with them as we did with our parents and getting into the same kind of relationships again and again and again. This is karma. We’re trying to fill deeper needs that we didn’t get early in childhood and unconsciously find people to fill those needs. That’s okay. We’re just trying our best with what we got whether we know it or not. There is a way to satiate these unmet needs though. I highly recommend checking those resources out and of course also getting good psychotherapy that deals with these attachment issues. Generally I hear tell it takes 3-18 months to really heal these kinds of disturbances. If I were you though I’d throw away these timelines. If this resonates with you I highly recommend you give yourself what you’ve been looking for. Take care and thanks for staying with this long post if you’ve made it this far. I hope it serves you.

It definitely happens and will more than likely occur again even after this phase of anxiety is released. This is the process of purification, the mind slowly training itself to be at peace in the midst of pain or pleasure without craving and aversion. Long story short, sounds like you’re right on track! As far as strategies to help soften these kinds of phases of practice, 1) A shamatha focus rather than vipassana or open awareness. Focusing on feelings of bliss, happiness, contentment, and equanimity while following a meditation object like the breath sensations at the nostrils or whole body. 2) You can try a short breathwork session before a sit. Ive found doing anywhere from 2-5 mins of wim hof style breathing followed by holding my breath as long as possible afterwords to be extremely grounding and energetically clearing before meditation. 3) Throw in walking meditation. These can be very rejuvenating when formal seated practice becomes too intense. 4) Intentionally scale back practice. If 10 mins is all you feel called for, no reason to “should all over yourself” into thinking you need more. 1 minute of formal practice is better than none. Id keep the daily consistency, no matter how small. 5) Try meditating with meditative music or sound bowls. Can be very healing and help dissipate and transform the anxiety energy. 6) Listening to guided meditations. The only guided meditations Ill listen to are from a YouTube channel called Samaneri Jayasara, which is about as enlightening as guided meditations can be. 7) Endure, push through, bring equanimity and truth even to these sensations. At the end of the day, all moments are moments of truth and freedom. So even if we find relief through transformation, the process of purifying the mind means we will eventually be able to sit in sensations of anxiety with no issues.

Agreed.... as Gandhi observed it is only experience that changes the will... theoretical learning is usefull but it cannot bring transformation... we have to act in the real world and take real risks to build personal empowerment...

One thing that helps with the being in core vibration at all times is recognizing the shift from “forcing” to “flowing” can be instantaneous to a mind that sees reality deeply. We can literally shift up and down the emotional scale at will. The more trained, unified and clear the mind is (cultivated most effectively through meditation and mindfulness), the more quickly this shift can occur. Another crucial point about this kind of mind akido is that the “shift” that occurs does not always create the downstream “in flow” or “in vibration” feelings immediately. There can at times be a lag in the time it takes for the new momentum to build, the immediate shift in vibration we’re looking for is not in the manifest feelings (although again these too can be subject to immediate transformation), but an immediate shift in the context holding emotions, which is actually more powerful, as this context is actually the space creating reality and at the deepest levels, all of reality. The emotions and being “in state” are just downstream by products. After all, sometimes being moody and depressed is exactly where we need to be to be at our best and in state, when we hold this topic holistically and maturely.

@HypnoticMagician I feel the opposite it would gain more. If you really want to play advocatus diaboli play it with a bit more mindfulness. I love criticism, yet what you wrote is sheer stupidity and myopia. I am better off doing the stuff instead of receiving that kind of feedback. What you are saying stuff that happend in my life would basically drive you to suicide for me you are just some rando online. I don't think commenting me is going to work for you. Just stop it. Writting j.k like a 12 y.o apologizing for brat like behaviour using this nasty kind of fantasy language. I don't know just give others feedback who are worse off than me. Your opinion to me is as close to worthless as it gets. The amount of assumptions you make is horrible. Go troll someone else. I care about results and not about your philosophy of things. What kind of feedback is this? The way you type almost tells me everything about you. So, just go through your transformation. Talking about assumptions.

changing bad habits for good ones is haaard... for me at least... in many ways, success and fulfilment in life is really a question of what behaviours and patterns I have effectively habituated... for me it was and is incredibly important to have support and accountability when trying to shed old habits and develop new ones... willpower alone is rarely enough - the whiteknuckle approach to personal transformation has 'got no legs' Good luck my friend! Lucas

Would like to quote Adyashanti here: "As soon as you can let go of what was, and the way you thought it was going to be, and who you thought you were going to be, how that was going to secure everything. The sooner you let go of that, even thought it’s kind of behind you already…. the sooner you allow it to be gone, because you see you are transforming…." "You know those romantic ideas of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly…. used in spiritual books, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon and becomes a butterfly. What happens in that cocoon? The caterpillar goes “what the hell, it was not a good idea to weave this damn thing. This is not a cocoon, it’s a coffin.” The transformation starts to happen. “Oh my God, I am not going to be the same person I was when this finishes.” You don’t know where it’s going. There is no relation between a caterpillar and a butterfly. A butterfly is not a flying caterpillar. Caterpillars and butterflies don’t have much to do with each other. There is a transformation at the seat of your consciousness that happens. And the transformation is like what I am describing. As it is happening, there is a fear and reaching back to how it was. The way forward seems so blind, doesn’t it? You have no idea. You are moving into a new way of being that you have no operating manual for. You had a good operating manual for the dream state. Highly functional, illusory egoic self. At least you knew how to function in the dream state. That makes it even more weird, when that whole thing starts to transform. I understand that. Don’t imagine that where you feel yourself to be now…. that’s not the destination point. You are already moving through it. You can only go through it, there is no going back."

Just stop, my friend. Just stop. You don't need to make any transformation you are already enlightened. Just let go of all the effort to do any spiritual practices and be still. Don't try to get anywhere just be here as you are. The god is always within you in every moment, all you have to do is let go of control. Surrender to what is now. Every moment.

I am apparently very attractive but even so, I never got laid easily until doing quite a bit of meditation and mind transformation away from neurotic and insecure tendencies. Then I could “come out of my shell” (? seriously though) and just be a good guy who isn’t intimidated by anything and can very comfortably “be myself.” But I would say, “game” is damn intuitive. If you still need to get the pickup phase out of your system, I highly recommend it, from experience, but not exactly to the degree I believe many others have — though it’s not what you probably think... Imagine going from having no game to then practically merely sticking your toe in that world, getting what you want surprisingly fast, and then miraculously finding super early-on that it’s already enough... That is what happened to me. But I’m certain that I’m extremely “lucky” in that regard. And there’s still more to learn. But the natural game-skill or at least game-mindset was somehow uncovered from a fair amount of experience working in a women’s department store (it wasn’t strictly a shoe store, Leo ).

Not an ideal. There’re twofold: transformation and consciousness. One way to summarize the goal: decreasing self increases consciousness. Realizing your self isn’t you. This is what I’m told. What you said isn’t true. You can have fun and be enlightened. Enlightenment is about the truth.

About the last two weeks Incredible things happened in the last two weeks, so I made a list.. The most incredible one was on this Friday: an ex colleague (and hopefully soon a friend of mine) called me to tell me about a formation exactly in what I want to practice when I’ll be doing integrative medicine and also to tell me about a job offer to do an internship in a medical office that has the same philosophy. As cherry on top of the cake the formator and mentor of the medical office knows me by a friend of mine who actually lives in Sardinia!! Universe always delivers big time!! I haven’t said yes to the offer yet as it is for May 2022 and it would mean resigning from the job I have now where I have a one year contract and I also risk to have to pay for the room that I am renting in the new canton but aside from that it’s an amazing opportunity!! During the last session with my therapist, she made a great point about my fear of displeasing other people, which is just the other side of the coin of people pleasing. I am awake enough to know now that people pleasing is manipulation, so I release it. Easier said than done but at least the step of awareness is done. Another thing she said was to learn to channel negative emotions. I do it more and more. The most helpful for me is the D-Love journal, a journal I started in March where I write to myself in an unconditionally loving way. Thank you Universe for giving me this idea!! On Wednesday this week I had a hotseat session with the mentor of the mindset training I’m in. I decided to talk about vulnerability as I noticed that I am still not able to be as authentic as I would like (#backtopeoplepleasing I guess). She said “It’s uncomfortable doing you when you’re not used to it. It’s a birth-giving process.” I just need to lean into the resistance and finding the courage to show myself as I am and speak my truth. There is a nuance though: it’s not about telling all of my thoughts and feelings to the whole world: I need to find what is ok for me to share and be aware of what is appropriate for the situation. She gave me the challenge of finding out how I can be more vulnerable at work. It will be by speaking up when I disagree with or just do not fully understand the why of what my supervisors propose for patient care. Last weekend I participated to an online workshop with the mindset training. It was very intense and focused on Self Love. The main lesson I got from it was the fact that anxiety comes from our mind trying to predict the future based on what happened in the past. Yet the future is made by what I decide to think, feel and do in the present moment. Also, personal growth, inner child and shadow work are all supposed to be life-long processes apparently. Does it mean that I’ll never get rid of anxiety? Idk.. Quoting my mentor, it just means that life will continue to throw challenges to me to foster my growth. So it’s totally possible that one day I’ll stop worrying about things that will probably never happen. Defined like this it’s so ridiculous!! :’) Thank you Universe for all this awareness!! Here are some gold nuggets I got from the workshop: The more you love yourself, the more other people can love you Dancing is the language of the soul My message to my inner child: You can tell things!! I am love, love is not something I give or receive: I can just operate as love. It’s all about balance: our best traits can become negative if pushed at the extreme. The negativity/positivity that we think creates in the world. Suffering comes from resisting reality so get busy only with what you can control: your thoughts, actions and feelings!! Dismantling th Ego is understanding how it defines the future based on the past. Acceptance is the fastest way to transformation. Acting on what you’re intuitively guided towards is challenging, that’s just the way it is. Return to love daily. Focus on what you want to become and what you want to attract. When you’re you all the time you’re less exhausted. Love rules and love heals. Your thoughts are not your thoughts, until you start creating intentionally (with affirmations, visualizations etc). Showing up is the most important thing for a relationship. Be authentic, 100%!! Be willing to be vulnerable, being vulnerable is the true act of courage. Don’t make it about achieving things, make it about being the best human being you can be. You’re always one decision away from becoming a different person. Share the growth, not the process! Keep leaning into the resistance: go where you’re uncomfortable every day! Keep letting go: if you’re meant to be together, you’ll find each other. Be clear and stay clear! New affirmations: To let go of what’s no longer in alignment with the life I want: “I deserve the very best that life has to offer. You are not the best so I release you”. It doesn’t matter what the mind is saying, I just practice. I am love and I only act from love. The next step now is doing more and being more intentional in what I do. I noticed I’m letting myself go in some subtle ways, like meditating in bed instead of seated; not really exercising and eating things I one ate just exceptionally more regularly. A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean (Will Durant). Fortunately I live in the same era as Ryan Holiday. I’ll subscribe again to the Daily Stoic!!