Bluebird

@kieranperez There is a section in the book 'Loving What Is' by Katie Byron which goes into belief about purpose and feeling lost. Could be very useful for you since it can be easy to get stuck in the belief that I need to know what I want to do. Which is just a belief that causes suffering, perhaps by letting it go you will find your answer. The answers are often where we least want to look. Won't fix anything man. You'll come back down to your ego after the trip and everything will basically be as you left it. That being said, if you want to trip, go for it. It has helped me clarify what I want to do with my life in terms of both purpose as well as smaller development things. Would recommend it, but also facing your demons as I have to some degree isn't always therapeutic you know. Sometimes you've faced them and they're still there, so it won't always help. But you should trip on LSD for yourself and get your own answers.

@Pilgrim The year when you fall in love with yourself. I like that, I think I'll steal it haha @Maya_0 I think there's been misunderstanding about what I mean by the "Year of Love". I had a psychedelic experience that opened my up to universal love and decided to embody and integrate that more in my life. Intimate love seemed like it should be one part of that as I'd been running away from it for so long. Already I can see that I made the right call, by running away from romantic love I was avoiding the real work of facing my beliefs and mental stories. Having made the decision to embrace all love, including moving towards a romantic relationship, they have all come up, and so I've been able to process them very effectively with inquiry. I can tell I made a very powerful choice in doing this, because already struggling through these beliefs has opened me up to a liberation and freedom I've not known before. It's brought me into contact with The Work. And so, I'm extremely grateful. @Shin I completely agree with what your saying. However I spent 1-2 years alone self-actualizing and working towards enlightenment quite happily and made significant progress. Now I've felt a strong intuition that the next step for me was a relationship, so I chose to follow it. It's not that I wasn't happy alone, because I was (unless I deluded myself). It's more than I'm not happy alone when I decided I wanted a relationship. So I needed to go for it in order to work of the deeper wounds. Which with everyone's help, I've been doing. Hopefully this makes some degree of sense. Additionally, my mental stories are already disappearing after only a few days of The Work. In doing so I've been primarily free of suffering and the relationship with this girl has progressed in a healthy way, moving towards rescheduling the date which I think will happen. But, I'm also (mostly) okay if it doesn't.

@thehero Read Loving What Is by Byron Katie if you haven't already.

@Aaron p If it triggers you. You're becoming aware of a projection. Do you really see 100% clarity? Do they really only see distortion? Maybe you are still confused as fuck, just less confused than before? But, if it doesn't bother you, and you're just making an observation, you can probably ignore what I'm saying.

These are just stories pointing to the reality. None is necessarily true, none necessarily false. Part of being openminded is being openminded to the idea that you are deluded right. So that being said, I see it more like this. Every one of the below talks essentially about the same phenomenon, who knows what the reality is, but the labels help to build understanding around it. The Shadow Negative Energies Low Vibration Demonic Entities Harmful Other Dimensional Beings Satan / Devil So yeah, by reading up on how people recommend to exorcise demons, or cast of negative energies, or work with the shadow you are essentially researching the different aspects of what is experienced as basically the same phenomenon. Though, I have no clue what the fuck I'm talking about so don't take my word for it.

The key difference will be in anything to do involving interplay with the other sex. Dating and relationships Integrating the feminine and masculine Anima / Animus Otherwise, most of the challenges people will have to work through are universal, just experienced in different degrees. For example, most people suffer with self-esteem issues. I could imagine that would manifest slightly differently between a man and woman, but it is fundamentally the same issue with the same solution. You could make broad statements, but that really wouldn't capture it. 99% of issues will be universal to some degree, picture two overlapping bell curves. Keep in mind, this is just from my limited male perspective

@Shin Thank you! It's totally true. I've begun doing The Work as suggested and have already felt it help me detach from my identification with belief and suffering. Whereas I felt my meditation practice could do it well during good times, this has helped me remain objective during the harder times. Love that Eckhart Tolle quote.

Love

@Aakash lost in an endless mirror maze my reflections echo into eternity stuck somewhere between insanity and salvation they dance with the devil tonight

It's strange but a part of me almost enjoys suffering.

@ivankiss Thank you. @How to be wise Funny, I just came across the book "Love What Is" and felt a strong draw to it. Yes! Definitely need some more inner work on this neglected part of myself.

Sometimes it's easy to overdo it on the theory and planning, just start with a responsible dose and have some things to ground you. Something fun or a friend who you can call if things start to get dark for example. Enjoy

Growth / Individuation / Wisdom

@clouffy Your measuring stick is in your intellectual mind

Either they're not getting the lesson, or you're not. Nothing? ...Other than that, which may or may not spark something, it's a tough situation and we're here for you bro. You said in another thread you like reading biographies, sounds like yours is a good one in the makings.

@kieranperez Sounds like you have more direction in your heart than your head is willing to accept.

What if you were okay with all this? What if you dropped your expectations of yourself and just decided to surrender? Remember man... What you're going through now, this is the work. What you're going through now is what you were literally born to do ❤

You're resisting love, it hides behind the veil of fear (the approach). The approach makes you vulnerable, exposes your heart and soul. You are not your personality, it's largely programming from parents and your environment. Understand that the way you feel about not wanting to approach the shy girl, is how she feels about you. The loving thing to do is to go say hey. You might get hurt, keep your heart open. I promise you, love is found when you move through fear. It doesn't sound like you're in a place to accept this, your "acceptance" in this case is going to be repression. Not the most healthy outcome. To answer your question, to really accept it, you have to go out and get a girlfriend, find a partner, someone who loves and can be loved. This will at least start to bust your beliefs. Only then can you really choose. Besides, ask why you think you have to accept that you won't have a girlfriend... There will be a deeper belief, I promise you that.

First a quick story! When I was quite young, around 13, I recall watching a documentary that changed my life. It was a documentary about young entrepreneurs, their journey's and where they are at now, their pitfalls, etc. But there was something deeply profound I noticed in the documentary... Every single young entrepreneur mentioned they started by building websites for friends cheaply. I decided that I would learn web development. 99% of all the money I've ever made was through this base of web development. It's taken me to where I am today, allowing me to run my business and live well. I'm wondering if anyone has detected a theme like this amongst spiritually enlightened teachers. Is there something that they aren't even conscious of, that many others did, to begin their journey? Perhaps, perhaps not. Just interested to hear opinions. The one I've come up with is Suffer, but that doesn't seem particularly helpful This might be a useful step in kickstarting the journey more, taking the right first step that will pay off 1000x in the next 5 years.

Social skills will serve you very well in life. Social skills based on authenticity are even better. You seem to have some beliefs to justify your introversion, building an identity to avoid the real work of changing yourself. You can reframe them with enough questioning and practice.

Your sister could either represent her or your anima (inner feminine). Don't take things to literally, but you have to do this yourself. Try this. Visualise yourself becoming the cup. Now ask, "what is my purpose", "what do I represent" Then you may be given an answer. If not. Just stick with the image. You don't always have to analyse the dream, often just staying with the image will slowly integrate it into your consciousness.

Go for it man. You'll be fine. To be honest. Take some fun stuff as well. Pineapple and orange juice and music. It'll be great!

@Wisebaxter Having a friend who you can call to calm you down will work well. 150ug is still low enough that if you really do start to freak out, you can resist it anyway and just sob in the corner (absolute worst case - and it's super unlikely). But reframe it anyway, let's say you trash the place. Who really gives a fuck. In the end, I came out the other side much stronger and with a lot of growth (kinda glad it happened). So, all good brother. If you have a countryside area, that would be great. It's your first acid trip so unlikely you'll experience a crazy ego-death or anything. But best to have preparations, a valium is a good idea. Make sure to write up a trip report

@Viking Theory may be of use. For me I thought I got the 'What is Love' video intellectually, in hindsight I really didn't. I came back after some Psychedelic trips helped me see what love really is and that everything is love. On the comedown I re-watched the love video and it made so much more sense. But I saw love for myself in everything (I'm not there anymore) through the LSD and that did more for me than intellectualising every could.

@Wisebaxter I can explain. I didn't resist it, I went into it fully. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Was I afraid, fuck yes! I literally was dying, it's not that bad, but like it definitely scares you. And when you are some kind of nondual state you can start freaking out. It came together for me on my latest trip (I wrote up a trip report on here). I'm happy everything happened the way it did. I was frolicking around in nondual bliss for a long long time, living lifetimes and shit. I really loved it. However, when I came back down to my ego more fully I had walked into my neighbours' place. He had called the cops, the cops handcuffed me and called an ambulance. I'm still thinking this is part of the trip, I had ascended and none of this shit matter to me anymore. Anyway I was taken to hospital, kept there for a few hours, my parents were called but it was midnight so they didn't pick up. Just awoke to a message saying I was in the emergency department. I didn't have my phone or wallet on me so I couldn't call anyone for help. I caught a taxi back to my place after they let me out at like 1am. I get back and I'd destroyed my place, broken plants, flipped cabinents, torn the top of a glass table off, pulled off all my clothes and shit. There was dirt everywhere. I had crushed my guitar by falling on it. This didn't matter to me because I was in this nondual state. But when I came back down it suddenly mattered again.... Anyway, all I'm saying is. Be careful (again this was on 600ug), I couldn't really control myself and the shock of realising my true nature led to a god head feeling that my entire life was a lie and so didn't matter. I thought at the time I was handling it really well, I didn't handle it so well. Also I pissed myself thinking I was having the best orgasm of my life, ahha. That's all I meant about it not being pretty. I mean, during the trip I had the most beautiful time of my life. But just remember, you'll come back down and your ego will be left to clean up the mess. Still, I think it was all worth it.