Therapist says I should stop reading books

[StarStruck]

@njuufa @ZzzleepingBear thanks for the heads up. I think I'm going stop reading books and just meditate every day for 2 hours. Currently I'm only meditating like 10-15 minutes and that doesn't cut it.

@Eph75

My problem is that I'm just too stuck in my head because of my hyper active brain. Sometimes I can't even concentrate on a conversation; my mind just goes apeshit into every direction, recalling knowledge and trying to analyize everything, instead of just being present and letting it in what is being said.

I might have ADD. What really helps is concentrating on my breath and concentrating on my body when I'm in a conversation or when I have to pay attention on something. It roots me into being but this is just a temporary fix.

This is my plan of action

1. Stop consuming knowledge like books until new year!
2. Meditating everyday for 2 hours
3. Perhaps silent retreats
4. Psychedelic trips every 2 weeks, perhaps more

 

 

[Asayake]

48 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

@njuufa @ZzzleepingBear thanks for the heads up. I think I'm going stop reading books and just meditate every day for 2 hours. Currently I'm only meditating like 10-15 minutes and that doesn't cut it.

@Eph75

My problem is that I'm just too stuck in my head because of my hyper active brain. Sometimes I can't even concentrate on a conversation; my mind just goes apeshit into every direction, recalling knowledge and trying to analyize everything, instead of just being present and letting it in what is being said.

I might have ADD. What really helps is concentrating on my breath and concentrating on my body when I'm in a conversation or when I have to pay attention on something. It roots me into being but this is just a temporary fix.

This is my plan of action

1. Stop consuming knowledge like books until new year!
2. Meditating everyday for 2 hours
3. Perhaps silent retreats
4. Psychedelic trips every 2 weeks, perhaps more

 

 

How about you add yoga or working out to your mix? If you want to get out of your head you could try getting into your body, those are great ways because they give you strong body sensations that are easy to focus on. with time this will give you increased body awarness and it will help quiet your mind. Yoga and working out has been more helpful for me as an overthinker than meditation has been. Although, meditation has been helpful as well, especially for getting me started with getting into my body. Since you already read a lot you could read Eckhart's The Power of Now. He gives practical advice in the book on different simple meditation techniques you can test out for yourself to help letting go of thought. He struggled with intrusive thoughts that made him suicidal in his early life so he has solid experience overcoming a severe degree of this problem.

[The Mystical Man]

On 9/22/2022 at 3:32 PM, Nilsi said:

I'm talking about great literary works of course, not some random novellas they sell at the supermarket.

Reading Dostoevsky, Orwell, Tolstoy and other greats is far from a waste of time. Some of the wisdom in fiction is far greater than what could ever be communicated logically. Same goes for movies btw. 

That is true. Robert McKee talks about that in his book "Story". In the chapter "Structure and Meaning" he discusses the power of aesthetic emotion: 

"When an idea wraps itself around an emotional charge, it becomes all the more powerful, all the more profound, all the more memorable."

"Intellectual analysis, however heady, will not nourish the soul."

"Writers deal with ideas, but not in the open, rational manner of philosophers. Instead, they conceal their ideas inside the seductive emotions of art."

Plato wanted to exile storytellers, because he knew how powerful they are.

Edited September 23, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[StarStruck]

19 hours ago, The Mystical Man said:

That is true. Robert McKee talks about that in his book "Story". In the chapter "Structure and Meaning" he discusses the power of aesthetic emotion: 

"When an idea wraps itself around an emotional charge, it becomes all the more powerful, all the more profound, all the more memorable."

"Intellectual analysis, however heady, will not nourish the soul."

"Writers deal with ideas, but not in the open, rational manner of philosophers. Instead, they conceal their ideas inside the seductive emotions of art."

Plato wanted to exile storytellers, because he knew how powerful they are.

That is so true.. I'm a stoic and it has its benefits like going with the waves of life but it also has its downsides: non-emotional intellectualising.

I had a date today and I tried to totally to just focus on the emotions instead of the thoughts and it worked out great. I want to extrapolate this to my productivity: focusing on the emotions (the flow) instead of the thoughts (conditioning) of my work.

Actuality of Being has a great video on it:

 

22 hours ago, Asayake said:

How about you add yoga or working out to your mix? If you want to get out of your head you could try getting into your body, those are great ways because they give you strong body sensations that are easy to focus on. with time this will give you increased body awarness and it will help quiet your mind. Yoga and working out has been more helpful for me as an overthinker than meditation has been. Although, meditation has been helpful as well, especially for getting me started with getting into my body. Since you already read a lot you could read Eckhart's The Power of Now. He gives practical advice in the book on different simple meditation techniques you can test out for yourself to help letting go of thought. He struggled with intrusive thoughts that made him suicidal in his early life so he has solid experience overcoming a severe degree of this problem.

I have dancing, workout in my mix too. I forgot to mention those. I'v thought about yoga too. It is something I would like to do it is just too much to implement.

Recently I read Power of Now after having read it years ago. It is great but I don't remember much of what I read. I remember that the body is the gateway to deeper consciousness. I'm concentrating on my body, bodily sensations and breath during the great and that helped me with staying present. So in a way rereading was great.

 

[Eph75]

@StarStruck

Meditation, yoga, and so on don't change your way of thinking or how you think - they only help with reducing the nonsensical noise that occurs. 

That reduction of noise, or if you will, amplification of "signal" helps with focusing on what we perceive "really matters". 

These things don't fix anything! 

They're amplifiers, noise reduces, which allows for more efficient introspecting into whatever "signal" is. 

These amplifiers help you to focus on the actual work. Nothing comes for free. There's still challenge. And you have to figure out what your personal challenges look like, based on what your observations of "signal" might be. 

Chances are you already know. 

If you don't, don't get stuck on theorizing, look for whatever action you can take.

That's the one thing that matters. It don't even have to be the right action. That will sort itself out in a self-regulating manner.

The passivity and stuckness in thought is the real enemy.

Force yourself to snap out of it. 

Action (!) and the sensing into the results of doing is the path forward.

Without doing, no progress, no evolution, no development...

...and, that development happens foremost in interactions with others.

There's no other path forward. 

Without others, you're still stuck in theorizing [aka mental masturbation].

If you think you're not social, or too introvert to be social, and that you don't want to pursue challenges that involves others, that's just a coping mechanism that equates to your ego trying to maintain status quo - does not want to change. 

You cannot evolve in isolation. 

That's the real challenge. 

Every moment is an opportunity to change that.

In every moment you do have a choice, unless you surrender your authority to "something else".

Reality, existens or being is slapping you in your face. It's saying, "time to wake up".

Seize the moment! Memento mori. 

THIS is a defining moment, so, snap out of it - you'll only see the significance of this moment in retrospect. 

Touche! 

The results of the actions that we choose, changes who we are, shifts how we think and as a result perceive things. 

No action, no change. No change no growth. No growth no detachment. No detachment... [insert your own imagination]

Edited September 23, 2022 by Eph75