Fleshing Out "paradoxes Of Personal Development"

[Surrealist]

Thank you for creating this forum. 

Having watched all of Leo's videos, gone on a Vipassana meditation retreat / started meditation practice regularly, and consumed quite a lot of books on personal development, I'm feeling quite bought into the general precepts of personal development, and have found them to be profoundly true, and useful in battling some of my worst problems (depression, trying to live and work honestly, dating, intense negativity, creating art in spite of resistance, etc).

I wanted to open up a discussion of some of the friction areas where these concepts "fight" with other beliefs, and create sometimes frustrating debates in your mind. It rings true that inner battles both in the foreground and the background are at the root of neuroses. It would be useful to hear what has helped smooth out these "paradoxes" in your practice. 

Some of my friction areas for starters: 

PROBLEM: I'm on this journey because I was disgusted by my behaviors and the terrible results I was getting, so I'm constantly going against the grain of my default behaviors and impulses, exerting pretty harsh discipline. I often suspect that I'm oppressing my lower self too much, and feel like a caged animal going crazy. I'm often getting told "you're too hard on yourself".

SOLUTIONS: Changing the paradigm will just take time no matter what, and there will be a period where your default behaviors resist the higher self. Most advice from friends and family are well meaning but wrong. 

PROBLEM: What other people generally want to do is in conflict with personal development (ie drinking, smoking weed, watching TV, gossiping etc) and I can feel people being alienated or feeling judged when I don't do those things with them, and I don't want to be totally isolated myself. For example, I have weed addicted friends who can really only tolerate hanging out if they are smoking weed, and I don't like making them go down a spiral of doubting themselves when I don't join as I used to. 

SOLUTIONS: Personal development should eventually translate to a deeper sense of happiness, which will win over other people moreso than their desire to do drugs with me. 

 

[Leo Gura]

As far as your second problem goes, the solution there, more realistically, will be to ditch those friends and make higher quality ones. Lifting everyone up around you as you try to develop yourself is a huge uphill battle. You gotta get a bit cold-hearted and just have the courage to go your own way. In the end it will all work out great. But in the short-term it will feel like you're being disloyal or selfish.

[Surrealist]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

As far as your second problem goes, the solution there, more realistically, will be to ditch those friends and make higher quality ones. Lifting everyone up around you as you try to develop yourself is a huge uphill battle. You gotta get a bit cold-hearted and just have the courage to go your own way. In the end it will all work out great. But in the short-term it will feel like you're being disloyal or selfish.

Thank you, very nice to hear from you directly. 

I do see this point quite clearly, and agree that it's the best thing to do, and have had my eye on that target. My results with that have been a little shaky however, probably for reasons related to my first point. Since I was already habituated to going around the world with a very harsh, judgmental eye, glaring in the streets, always quick to see straight through to the cynical manipulations and dishonesty in much of the pop culture, advertising, and ploys all around us (I work smack in Hollywood for a certain media company that you would love to eviscerate), now that I find myself banishing yet more pleasures and people and saying more "no", I'm concerned about feeding my judgmental nature and making it even harder to make friends. I get told so often to just relax and be open to things and say yes, and it seems that I'm going even further in the other direction. I don't want to be such a hater, and at the same time I resonate very well with your advice as far as surgically cutting out problematic behaviors and people. 

Meditation helps with the root issues with the anger and judgmentalness, it's just quite a long game of course

[Leo Gura]

Just focus on your own objectives and what you know is healthy, and the rest will take care of itself. Unhealthy stuff and people will fall away naturally as you get more involved in your own work.