Superfluo

Hi! I gained self esteem and confidence thanks to what happened in my life and how I overcame my obstacles. And this is personal, this is my perspective. However, I learned that confidence and self esteem are not actually "skills" (like being able to speak fluently a language), but they are a reflection of how you see yourself. You can "obtain" them by changing how you see yourself and taking control of your life and your needs. Also realizing that your life is only yours, and that only you have the possibility to be happy and make your life a masterpiece could help. But you don't just need to think "Okay, my life is mine. I get it", you have to realize it, that means to understand to a deep deep level the consequences of it. That realization will shake how you see your life, your problems, your attitude, basically yourself. If you want pragmatic and practical advice, you can find powerful techniques on the internet or reading books related to self esteem. You can also search for them on the forum, on Actualized videos or on YouTube. But I think everything that promotes positivity in your life is fine. Some techniques/advice are: Making a list of things you have accomplished in your life. Making a list of your talents and gifts, and your strenghts and abilities. Making affirmations that inspire positivity. These affirmations are to be made in present tense, in a simple and brief way, and in first person. Affirmations however can be harmful or useless if you don't believe them. When you decide to affirm something, use affirmations that drive you emotionally, and don't use the ones that make you feel the lack of what you are affirmating. For example, if you want to say "I believe all people are good" or "I love living my life" or "I feel happy no matter what" but they make you feel they are false, this could mean that they are too different from your perspective of reality, and therefore they could make you upset because you want to believe them but you can't. So use affirmations that have a positive emotion behind, so that the emotion will boost your sense of confidence. Changing the way you use words. Positive words can change how you see a problem and therefore solve it, thus you gain confidence. Asking yourself useful questions: "What can I learn from this?", "What can I change?", "What can I do to improve this situation?", "How this situation can make me happy?". Finding your core beliefs and follow them. Developing more empowering beliefs. Visualizing the life that you want, the personality that you want, the job that you want, and remember that you have two possibilities: you can try to pursue what you want, and you can quit. If you quit you never know how things can go. Maybe trying can make things go bad. But if they go spectacular? And moreover, no one will take you step by step to the life you want. You are the only one that can improve your life. Nobody will do the work you have to do. In fact people will actually use you to make their life better. Be aware of that. Starting healing, shadow work and other forms of healing. Maybe the fact that you feel you need more confidence has a root cause in a event or situation in the past, when you were a child. Furthermore, healing your wounds can make you feel in control of your life and more complete. There are some techniques explained in some books: "The Work" by Katie Byron, "The Completion Process" by Teal Swan, and others. Starting to change your habits if you want a better life. They can improve your quality of life both in the short term and in the long term, and they make you feel in control of your life. But you have to want it. I personally meditate 5 minutes per day, exercise every morning, drink a glass of water after I wake up to rehydrate my body and read 15 pages of a Self-Help book a day. WITHOUT EXCUSES. If you start to think "Well, if I skip a day/time/week, what 's wrong with that?", this leads to losing that habit. You have to kill excuses or excuses will kill you. And start with changing only two or three habits, otherwise you will be overwhelmed and decide to not do them again. Changing your diet. Vegetables and fruits are a good start. Doing what you love to do, when you want to do it (but do it intelligently, don't screw up your job because "you have to play the guitar" :D). Scheduling your chores/appointments/duties/daily activities/tasks. Improving your relationship skills: find how to relate better with your family, your friends, your partner. Everybody has his/her own way to do it. Keeping learning. This makes you feel more in control and you can learn new ways to improve. Meditating and doing self-inquiry work: they make you question some stuff and build new and more solid ideas. However they can also lead to confusion. So better focus on them when you feel ready. Also they require time to have significant impact on your life. Being aware that you could slide back (ego backslash), but don't worry, that's part of the process. Spreading love in the world, helping others, doing volunteering, ecc. Following your emotions, don't suppress them and don't ignore them, they are there for a reason. If you have struggles with emotions, find out how to solve them (healing, shadow work and meditation can help). Finding your life purpose (I haven't succeded in doing it yet). A question you could ask is "If I had all the money I wanted, what would I still do?" or "What would I do even if I never got paid to do it?". There are many other practical advice, but I don't remember all of them, and I don't have all the answers.

@Andreas Thank you, that idea roamed my mind for some time but I wasn't sure if it was right. Any other practical advice?

@Outer So basically you're saying that too much information isn't a problem if I'm able to distinguish useful from useless?

Mhm I think I got it now, thank you everybody! However, feel free to continue discussing this topic if you want!

Hello everyone! I recently watched Leo's video called "Why Brains Do Not Exist" and it all seemed logical to me, I understood the concepts and their implications. We are in an illusion/reality that is all there is, and at the same time that illusion is nothingness, there is no "I" because it's an illusion too, a part of that reality. We are infinite oneness, everything is all, there's no "everything" indeed, it's all Essence. However there's still one point I don't grasp. I'm new here and I don't know if a question like this has already been answered elsewhere. The question is: why meditation works? How is it able to "break", to trascend the illusion? After all, the process you go through meditation is still an appearance inside of the illusion. So, let's make an example: let's say you are meditating and you reach a state where you are fully present. Even if you stop to use the mind, even if you go beyond your thoughts and you put them apart and reach a state of presence, isn't it an appearance inside the illusion? In that state you still perceive sensory stimuli, which are part of reality. You still perceive sounds coming from your surrounding for example. Personally I've experienced an extremely tiny moment of transcendence that helped me realize this stuff, so I know it's possible to reach a deeper state of consciousness. In that moment I had a great insight, a realization of the "truth", I temporarily saw beyond the "curtains". But then, where that realization came from? It was still something resonating with my thoughts and my emotions. So it was, at least in part, inside the illusion. Therefore how do we know it wasn't the ego perceiving itself in an unknown form? You can answer that to reach the state of enlightment you abandon your ego. But the absence of ego is still an event occurring inside an illusion that doesn't exist. I know the mind cannot comprehend the enlightment experience, or at least explain it. It's something you have to experience by yourself (I also watched the video about the implications of Godel's incompleteness theorem). But maybe someone can try to explain it to me. Maybe there's something I'm missing, maybe my reasoning has some fallacies, some holes. Thank you

@Leo Gura Is there an answer you could give me? I'm still searching for an explanation

I've found a video made by Teal Swan about going beyond the oneness truth that might be related to what I'm saying, even if I've never perceived it, so I don't know if it is possible. But maybe it can expand someone's mind. You can search it if you want, I've seen I can't share videos here. I know Teal Swan, and I think she's a wise woman. But again, there are no proofs ahahah

@Bluff But why? How does it work? These are the questions that continue to bother me. Yes, I know, we can't understand more if we continue to use language and reason in this topic. But I'm just trying to find a compromise between my personal experience and the materialistic point of view I held before. When you say enlightment is not about understanding but about seeing it sounds like a matter of faith, doesn't it? I know reality is pure magic, like Leo said in one of his videos, and I agree. I know you have to have faith to embody enlightment. But then it's like having faith in a mysterious man up in the clouds with a white beard we cannot see, isn't it? Yet people who have experienced some degree of deep consciousness believe there isn't a God in the clouds (like me. I'm applying skepticism even to my own ideas and experiences).

@Bluff Yeah, meditation makes you shut down the monkey mind, and the goal is to shut it up as far as possible as you said. Totally agree. Then you say that you can perceive what's left, i.e. consciousness. Totally agree again. But then let me make another example to explain my problem even further. We agree that the mind is full of thoughts, and that the absence of thoughts is the state of enlightment (I made it simple). Let's say the mind with thoughts is a box full of things (thoughts), and all there is outside the box is the "truth". I know this mental image I'm offering to you is wrong, because this example oversimplifies mind and Being. There are a lot of details to be aware of. But for explanation sake let's move on. So, meditation makes the box empty, like you said. But what's left is the empty box and the reality external to it, not just the reality. So how can the "empty mind" perceive Being if it's only an empty container? I don't know if I made my point of view clear, but the mind can't comprehend all this stuff. So thank you for your answer. @Nahm Yes, totally agree, when you realize you're inside a dream, then everything becomes less "heavy", more "transparent" to you, and you can live knowing everything that matters is having fun and experiencing the beauty of this magic journey. However you are in this dream, so better make it as wonderful as possible (even if free will doesn't exist i.m.o. ahahah), to maximize happiness (which I think has little to do with inner peace). So people, just relax and have fun and be kind each other. It's as simple as that