The Awakening

[EchoTGM]

Hello everyone, new user here. I thought starting a public journal would be a good idea for a first post. Maybe I'm mistaken, but who knows.

My journey towards self actualization "started" when I was 14. I was talking to a very talented musician about my unhappiness and he suggested me to read a certain book called "The power of now", and so I did. I was shocked, and I knew there was some truth to it. I therefore set the path to enlightenment as the first priority in my life, and it didn't last very long. Of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I completely forgot. I got carried away by video games, movies, etc... you know how that goes. 

About a month ago a friend of mine sent me the link to Leo's youtube channel and after watching a video I immediately felt deep regret for those wasted years. I'm now 20, almost 21, and I've been smoking weed every single day for the last 3 and a half years without realizing that I was living a shallow and empty life. I totally fell asleep for all these years, and I feel so grateful that I've been given the chance to get on the right path again.

Funny thing is I did actually quit weed for a month, after thinking about it during an LSD trip and realizing I was no better than any other addict ever and my awareness had been severely limited by all those highs. And of course I relapsed a month later and the cycle began anew. 

Anyway, I'm on my 5th day without weed. Again. This time I also decided to not use any alcohol either, because I know that numbness will get me wanting to get high again. I've been doing my daily meditation, I'm loving this clear mindedness, and I'm dead serious this time. I still have a (potential) supply of alcohol and weed and I will ignore it. Mark my fucking words for serious.

Oh and tomorrow will be my first day of work ever. I'm glad I got my priorities straight in time for my first job. Thanks for reading, hope this vertical slice of my life didn't make you roll your eyes too much, and till the next journal update  

Edited November 5, 2017 by EchoTGM

[EchoTGM]

In the end, I didn't like the job and decided to keep looking. 

Nevermind though, what's important is I didn't relapse! That makes it two weeks without consuming (again). Usual abstinence problems popping up, such as difficulty to sleep and mood swings, but it's pretty manageable. 

Meditating while fully sober is great, well more like meditating while high is impossible. So yeah, going strong. I'm having kind of a hard time meditating every single day though, I need to work on the habit.

[EchoTGM]

Week 3, still haven't smoked anything. I'm starting to smell subtle scents again in an intense way, it's incredible how smoking deprives you of your smell.

Since I succesfully quit weed, the main focus of this journal will now be my spiritual nondualism journey, which isn't going so well. Even with a reminder on my phone I've been procrastinating until I go to sleep. Watching Leo's videos pumps me right back into the mood though.

Anyway, here's a story that I want to share with you guys: recently I had an LSD trip with a friend. 95% of the time I trip by myself but once in a while I do it with friends too. Nothing special about the trip, I spent most of the time looking at the sky. Mindfucking stuff really, jesus that sky. When it was coming down (about 8 hours in, we were almost sober at that point) and we were walking down the mountain towards the nearest town. I decided to try and meditate, since I didn't really take advantage of my time tripping. So I tried to meditate and I got this intense very unpleasant sensation. I don't know how to describe it but I'd say it was like choking, except I didn't really have trouble breathing, it was more like an 'internal choking' or something. 

So I took a deep breath and started talking to my friend... And that's it. The whole thing lasted I would say about 2 seconds. Still don't know if it's just nocebo effect or if something was really happening in me, but maybe I'll try meditating again next trip... maybe