LastThursday

Damn so it is. I'm just so used to counting from zero.

Yeah definitely confusing. I guess talking in terms of distributions 50% has to be the average right? Ok phew. What are you if you score zero, an empath, Mother Teresa, Jesus?

Primary 1.2/5. Secondary 1.9/5. Still, that secondary score is more than 20% of people, gulp. I've got to admit though, I don't like rules.

Yes. You? I'm not sure of your point though. Transactionality is built into human relations, reciprocality being the main driver, as you mentioned. You're right that we do use each other to get our needs met, but that can be done without objectification or just using others as a means to an end. In terms of pickup, as soon as you approach, both parties generally understand what is going on - there's a transactional aspect to it. But, whatever occurs, you can have a mindset whereby you treat the other person as you would want yourself treated: as a person with a history, a family, friends and their own fears and insecurities, and their own thoughts. If you do that, then it puts a different complexion on the interaction. Pickup (aka talking to people you find attractive), is not bad in itself. It's just the heavy emphasis on manipulation techniques, scatter gun approach, and a degree of potential harrassment, that's off. Even the name is suggestive of taking an "object". But that's my personal opinion.

It begs the question whether a narcissist is aware of their own narcissism. Maybe not?

Some tests are a lot more nuanced, where it's not obvious what's being expected from each question. Then some fancy cross-correlation is done to get the score. Those are better. Most internet tests are too transparent and simplistic. It's fun though.

1/40. Is a narcissist likely to recognise the narcissistic answers and avoid them to make themselves look good?

I couldn't agree more. A lot of the humanity's problems stem from treating other people as objects rather than divine beings like you yourself. Sometimes we don't even realise we're doing it, we have to be vigilant at all times.

My Dad has health problems, he's in his mid 70s. I prefer the word problem to issue, call a spade a spade. He has heart disease and late onset diabetes. Whenever I would visit him and go for a walk, he would have to stop every few hundred yards with pain. I felt for him, despite his imperfections, despite the way he frustrates me, the way he treated me when I was younger (avoidant behaviour), I still love the guy. I'm so similar to him in a lot of ways, to hate him would be like hating my hand. What does a son do in that position? He can only express his limited wisdom, and tell him to get it fixed, and help as much as he's prepared to help. He's a stubborn old goat. He has the arrogance of self-assuredness and he knows best. I'm the same, I listen, but I don't, I've always gone my own way, even to my own detriment. And he's goddamn avoidant. Whenever pressured he goes into his shell, and effectively ignores everyone. As I lay in bed some nights, I would think: will that be me in twenty years? Fuck that shit. My dad never smoked and hardly drinks. In fact I'm the bad influence, he tends to drink more around me and is inclined to eat crappy food. I smoked for years and years. To be honest I'm more likely to end up with health problems than my Dad is. Yikes. But also as I lay in bed some nights, I would wish for my Dad's health problems to go away. If some sort of remote healing works then let it happen. I imagined him healthy and being able to do all the things he wants to do. I did this on and off for months. He had a heart attack last year. That heart attack, forced him to confront his own stubborn beliefs. His family, me included, listened to him, chided him, cajoled him. He at first refused all surgery. After much deliberation he agreed to have two stents inserted (rather than the bypass surgery that he actually needed). After a period of recuperation he was able to walk without pain. He also found out that he had stopped being diabetic (due mostly to much improved diet). And so my wishes came true. Is this remote healing? Who cares. If my wishes had somehow warped reality, then it was done in a way that was consistent with it. If wishing and praying do anything, then it works like this. Reality adjusts itself in a consistent way to your expectations, it can take time, and the adjustment can be in very unexpected ways: my Dad had to have a heart attack to shift his beliefs enough to fix himself. So, I can only keep experimenting. I hate to see people I love suffering. It's a small price to pay to set aside some time each day and wish for them to have better lives, even if I'm deluding myself.

When I open my eyes each morning I seem to wake up a bit more. Reality surges forward suddenly and it's always a shock, but my dreams are tenacious - their ephemeral surrealist tendrils sink further into my consciousness. Dali would twist his moustache in happiness. I suppose one morning the balance will have shifted and reality will instead reflect my dreams and then I won't know whether I'm dreaming or awake.

Grab a belief by the scruff of the neck, shake it, deconstruct it.

No 3 Trieste is beautiful

If we listened to the naysayers then nothing would ever get done. @Someone here do your thing mate, there's a market for nearly everything nowadays, you'll work out your niche in due course. Master your craft.

I was taught it as "collapsing" anchors, but yeah. I was just explaining one narrow aspect, that I'm more familiar with. The body can be divided up into many different "systems": circulatory, lymphatic, nervous, microbiome, muscular, skeletal. But it's all one thing really. If anything is being stored, then it is imprinted into all these different systems. One interesting system is the electromagnetic field of the body, this being the result of the electrical potential of cells in the body. I would say that this field is throughout the body and very dynamic. I don't think it's passive, but can actually feedback into cells and affect their behaviour. That might be a prime candidate for storage of trauma. I'm sure there are many practices (e.g. Reiki, acupuncture) that are actually affecting this field for theraputic purposes. And, the whole idea ofbody meridians in Chinese medicine has to do with this.

Hey @soos_mite_ah it's great to see you're doing well. I also work with real estate software, and have the same feeling of it being unaligned with my values. But I tell myself that in the end I'm helping people find a home (maybe even their dream home), and that's no bad thing.

I want that.

Emotions are called feelings for a reason, because they are felt in the body. I would argue that all emotions are manifested in some way in the body. The particular combinations of feeling you have in the body are labelled as "happiness", "jealousy", "panic attack", "calm" and so on. In that sense emotions (labels) are not stored. But the sensations in the body are stored in the same way as knowing how to move your arm are stored (whatever that is). Emotions are closer to reflexes than to conscious movement in the body. A reflex is there to either protect you or to give you a message. It wouldn't make sense to say that "my reflexes need processing" and it's the same with emotions. What processing actually means is changing your body's response (emotional reflexes) to thoughts and situations that trigger certain emotions. The body learns it's emotions through association: e.g. you get a tightness in your chest when talking to people, and call it anxiety; the pain is triggered by (associated to) people, but the association is learnt not innate. There was a first time that association was made. That means triggers can be unlearnt and the association stopped. One way that the association is stopped (processed) is by using narrative techniques. You explore the narrative of the event that formed the association in the first place: e.g. you spoke to a person when you were a kid and they were aggressive towards you. And you re-contextualise the triggered emotion by doing this exploration. In this way you weaken the link between the stimulus (people) and the response (anxiety). With work you break the link totally. There are other ways. For instance NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) breaks the links between stimulus and response (emotion), by disrupting the normal process of the trigger mechanism. It gets you to trigger the normal emotional response in the body (to something negative), but at the same time triggers a different (positive) response - the simultaneous responses interfere with each other, the upshot being that the body relearns it's reflex. There are some very powerful NLP techniques if done right. This is a non-narrative approach.

Something we should all aspire too. Even clueless people will be impressed by the confidence (and delivery).

@zurew I totally agree. Leaders need charisma and vision which is all about delivery. If you're looking for Leo to lead (or to be an authority) then of course his delivery matters, which is what the OP is about. I would say spirituality and self-development is less about people's delivery and more about the message being delivered. For example Sadhguru and Leo say a lot of the same things, but the delivery couldn't be more different; they're both worth listening to. The expression "Don't judge a book by its cover" says it well.

I feel as though I've run out steam when it comes to journaling. I mostly took it up during the lockdown, and because I've always fancied being sort some sort of writer. I think I've got out everything I wanted to get out (in my other journal). I've processed a lot of stuff through it, by virtue of the fact of just writing it out and thinking about what to say. I've also expounded on a lot of my ideas and clarified them, where before they were half-baked and nebulous. I've also improved my writing style and I find it quite easy to just keep writing: I enjoy it. I've also used it as a way to express myself and my unique take on things. Maybe, I've even been entertaining! I've never been one to inauthentically force myself to do anything. I'm big enough and mature enough to do only the things I want to (and when I want to do them), or the things that absolutely have to be done. I journaled daily because I wanted to. I'm journaling less because I want to. One of my aims for journaling was not to repeat myself, I wanted every post to be new. There are probably more depths I could plumb, after all I have 50 years of experiences; to recount all that in real time would take another 50 years. I think more ideas will accumulate in time and I can come fresh to it. I did start to consolidate my old journal into book form and that sits on my hard drive ready to be edited and polished and arranged. Knowing myself, I will have a spurt of energy and focus sometime and get the thing done, I just don't know when. I had a stuttering start to journaling on here, constantly yo-yoing about what I could actually write about. But the waters broke in the end, I had a need that had to be fulfilled. I feel the same about participating here on the forum and even about pursuing some sort of spirituality in general. My needs ripple differently each day and are fickle. I took a break from here for a number of months, because of a confluence of factors: mostly I was processing the effects of my coaching sessions, and because I didn't want to be beholden to habit and distraction; I wanted to know I was in control and I am. I'll continue journaling on here, but I suspect far more sporadically. At the moment I'll continue to spam the forum with my insights.

One of the hardest things to do is to separate the content from the delivery. Most of a lay audience, or even advanced audience will find it hard to do this. I think that's why people glom on to certain teachers, because they have a delivery that suits them, and maybe even in spite of their teachings. It's only when you start hearing the same message from many different sources, does the delivery begin to matter less. In my subjective experience Leo has a defensive quality to his delivery, as if he's constantly under attack and he has to protect himself. He leverages that as a kind of rhetorical device in lot of his videos. I think that defensiveness also affects other aspects of his delivery. I don't know what you think Leo? I could be way off the mark.

Have you tried? It's clear that if it's possible, then it's not easy to do because we would all be doing it. My idea is that the world you experience is a habit. From repetition the world learns to behave the same way each time. By repetition I mean that consciousness becomes aware of certain aspects of itself and expresses those more strongly (structure and laws). It's like a river stretching out and carving out a landscape, over time the branches get deeper and more defined. One way would be to jolt yourself out of your normal reality, like re-routing a river. That would "loosen" the habits of the world. On the other hand, there are things we can all do, and that's already magic.

Meditation is about pulling yourself out of your normal "everyday" mode. By doing that you allow yourself to become aware that you're more than just that. It's a process of stepping outside your normal self (transcendence). By stepping outside yourself you can also become aware of your own behaviours and thoughts and gain insights. This process of transcendence purifies because you're always looking to go beyond who you are already.

I think like waves lapping a beach, surrender and attachment come and go as you "awaken". You have to surrender when beginning the journey, but then appreciate attachment for what it is. You do both on one level, but identify with neither on another. You even give up on the "process of awakening" eventually, because that's not it. But you have to have a process to even begin.