Anicko

I kind of want to talk about the Law of Attraction. I don't think that's a great name for whatever it is, it makes it right off sound so far out there. But there is definitely something that is true about it, I think anyway. Since I've been aware that I'm paying attention, so many things have happened to, and for, me. I prefer to remain open-minded. I don't know that I believe there's some sort of force at work, but I do see how powerful our minds and beliefs are. Maybe someday I'll understand it better. Anyways, I feel like everywhere I look I'm finding hints of inspiration and direction. I try not to take anything too seriously, but I'm trying to figure out what it all means. I feel like I'm being called to let go, just flow with whatever happens. I love love love my new job already, and it's an amazing opportunity for me when I'm done with school. I could be afraid of it, so easily. School is going fabulously, and every single time I feel like doubting myself instead I find proof that I'm incredibly capable and I have the ability to gain new skills easily simply because I want to. I know I'm on the right path, sometimes it just seems so impossibly hard. But, anyways. I did this fun little LoA manifestation thing (some video on YouTube), and I swear, I am finding pennies more and more. Sometimes even bigger change than just pennies. If nothing else, it's fun, and it serves as a valuable reminder to me. Everything is going to be just fine.

Life sucks when you spend all your time doing crap you don't want to do. Trust yourself to know what you need to do, and you'll be inspired to do those things without being miserable about it. Even stupid, mundane things like cleaning your home.

Two entries in one day? Yes! I've been getting over that funk, but there's parts still lingering, and I have free time to think today. I love it when the pieces just start falling together. I start to get a sense that everything actually will be okay. Peeeeaaace. I start to realize what things mean, how things work. I still have moments of doubt in lots of areas, but then I'm gifted moments of quiet. My mind starts working right, and I gain clarity and insights, moments of perspective shift, and it's SO HUGE, you don't even know it until your old mind seems to be the crazy one. Life is 80% so perfect right now, and most of the non-perfect parts are on their way out or a valuable source of learning for me if I can just get the perspective right. The problems solve themselves after that. I've seen it, I know that's the truth. And if you see it too, then you'll know what I mean.

@Quizzer I'm not particularly interested in a pissing contest, but you can keep up with my journal and compare it to your life if you like. I have no need to try to force you, or the OP, to do things "my way". I just happened to offer my opinion on the question asked, and it drastically differs from yours. So what? Don't take it personally.

@OceanJjb It is a good thing, and validation for you that you are on the right track. As you begin to understand, you'll start to see other people's perspectives, and eventually your sense of compassion really blooms. It will help you to truly forgive and let go of your past. Don't beat yourself up for your "mistakes", in the past, today, tomorrow. You are perfect and beautiful somewhere inside, and when you find it, you'll realize it's always been there. Life will become perfect and beautiful too.

Most of the time you do need to just shut up. Sometimes it will bother you a lot, but if you explore your feelings, you'll understand when is right to talk and why sometimes it's not. It all depends on what you are looking for. If you just want to feel like you are better than other people, by all means, preach and judge away. But if you seek more than that, you'll learn to realize when you are truly inspired to share something and when you are behaving in a way that is calling for you to let go.

I personally need like 9-11 hours of sleep most nights, but life only allows me 5-6 right now. Sometimes I get a nap or a day to sleep in, but so rarely. It is different for everyone. You have to explore your own patterns and test it yourself to know what's right for you.

That's a great way to burn oneself out and be miserable. When one lets go of expectations (one's own as well as those of others) and lets go of perfectionism, one realizes how stupid it is to ever make oneself do anything at all. Life gets so much better.

That's a good way to approach thinking. The trap I see here is worrying about how you'll know whether you are doing it, whether you are doing it right.... Stop right there. Stay mindful of your thoughts, keep asking why, follow the chain to your core belief that needs to go. That's all you can do. It'll take practice, but you will realize eventually that you are doing it, and doing it well, and your life and mind are miraculously a million times better. That's all the validation you'll need. Because, the thing with inner work is you can never actually know. And it's practically impossible to share your experiences exactly or for anyone else to guide you. Just follow your own thoughts. It really all starts there.

If I don't want to do it, I won't agree to it in the first place. That's my secret trick for getting shit done!

I have had an interesting opportunity to watch someone try to do the self-improvement thing from an entirely physical perspective. It is hard to watch it all fall apart. I have tried to 'help', but as you all surely know, other people don't want our help. Not the way we can/should help anyway. It is interesting to watch that other person actually lose their battle, but still cling hard to excuses and to the stupid beliefs they picked up from "experts". You can't fix things if you don't do the inner work first and properly. The results and changes you see when you focus on the physical are lies you tell yourself, and the positive changes won't last forever. It's so easy to blame anything other than yourself. "Oh, things suck now because I stopped going to the gym every day. If I just start doing that again...". But that's a lie because if you actually loved it, you wouldn't have stopped in the first place. And it's actually okay to admit that you don't love it. Plus, you conveniently blinded yourself to all the problems caused by your focus on the outer. You didn't notice that you were actually moving away from finding your true self or connecting with other people's. Try to find people in your life that are doing this to themselves. Look deeply and learn from it. It's also an excellent opportunity to watch your mind for judgments.

Relationships in and of themselves are not the problem. It's all about the particular people involved. Chances are, many things about you are going to change. Some things change quite suddenly, while others take time. Some people you know are not going to like it at all. The hardest part is staying focused on yourself. You can not let other people, no matter how much you love them, stop you or make you turn back completely. You need to learn to use others as mirrors for you. That will help you in so many ways, especially if there are relationships you want to keep. It takes time and practice. And, unfortunately, pain. But it's worth it.

I don't think hard work pays off unless it's work you actually want to be doing, from your true self perspective. I'm "working" far less now and making more progress than I ever have towards having a happy, peaceful life. If you often overeat and have no problems... Well, you are likely free of beliefs that your food will harm you, so it doesn't. I disagree completely with the reply above. It might be true for some people, particularly those only concerned with the physical outcome of their own realities, but it will not bring inner fulfillment. It will not fix permanently the problems in your life. I don't need discipline or will power or whatever you want to call it. If it's something that's right for me, I'll do it, and not even need to talk myself into why I 'should'. But I don't care what anyone else thinks I should be doing anyways. I'm not going to beat myself up anymore just because what's right for me is wrong in their mind. You have to figure out what's wrong in your mind. It's a different kind of "work". It takes time, it's emotionally so difficult. It's so much easier to put yourself on a strict routine so you can avoid dealing with your inner self. I'm a free spirit, man. Routine and discipline suffocates me. That's how I wound up in a giant pit of despair in the first place. Always telling myself if I just do what this guy says I should do, things would be better. Hahaha. Work at what YOU feel inspired to. Screw what anyone else thinks. They are not you.

I guess whether it means anything at all depends on whether you are in or out of the illusion.

Life is not easy. Everybody experiences fear, doubt, loss. I feel like forever I've been stuck just not knowing what I should do next. I realize some of the best moments in my life have been things I didn't have much input deciding how it was going to go. Being inspired, but not realizing it at the time. And I've gotten through some of the worst moments the easiest when I just flowed with whatever happened. It's a different experience when you are mindful of the whole thing. It's not easy to stay awake all the time, and I'll never know for sure if I did achieve such a lofty goal. The mind is a funny thing. I'm trying really hard to flow with my most recent "problems" and allow inspiration to pull me through it all. It's so hard to not let those old false self thoughts sound really comforting right now, but at the same time it all seems so ridiculous. I can't worry about any of it! Aaahhh.

What really clicked for me was focusing on looking between my eyebrows (like you are staring at your third eye). It was hard at first, but it got easier with time. Meditation in general gets easier the more you practice.

I don't even bother trying to defend myself anymore. Especially against attacks that are ridiculous and totally out of left field. I'll just shut my mouth. I don't owe any explanation. I know it drives you crazy, but it's definitely preferable over me allowing my buttons to be pushed, and going crazy myself. It is funny to see more than my own side to things, often it helps me realize the full picture, and if it can't be resolved, at least I can let it go.

It is hard to fight those codependent issues. I struggle a lot, but it gets better and better the more I'm paying attention to my thoughts. I'm working on just focusing on ME. What do I want and need? How do I feel about things and why? As I get to the root of those things, other relationships in my life actually get better, and I'm starting to feel like a real person, not just a doormat.

I am trying, currently, to work on forgiving myself some mistakes I've made. It's funny to try all these different views of the same situation, trying to find what fits right. True forgiveness is not what you think it is. It is so fucking hard to explain it right. It requires reliving that memory over and over, feeling that pain, humiliation, sadness... Over and over. When you just think about it doing it, it doesn't seem that hard. But when you do it, it's so awful. It is so much easier to watch a video. Play a game. Visit a forum. But if you stop that, and focus, you figure it out. You change your perspective, and suddenly you GET IT. Then the memory changes. Maybe you forget it completely, the way you probably don't remember much about life as a baby. As a baby, you knew what "forgive and forget" truly meant. And you don't even remember what that was like. It seems so weird! Totally cray. I can't help you understand if you haven't 'realized' yet. The idea might seem ridiculous, but to someone outside you might think karma is nuts. Believing in aliens is utterly insane. Global warming just isn't real. Sometimes I just don't know what to think. My life is not as glamorous as you might need it to be for you to believe me. But I'm starting to experience real joy. What we call happiness. And I can't make you understand until you feel it yourself. You aren't letting anyone off the hook for doing you wrong. Forgiveness does not mean what you think it does. It changes your memories so you don't have to remember anymore. I've successfully done it for so many things. If I recall the event, I'm not emotional about it any more. I can share my story with no attachment to it. You might not believe me that it happened because I'm so neutral. But that won't bother me either, because I don't need you too. It just brings true peace to your life. So when I think of something you did wrong, it's silly to put myself in my old shoes, so to speak. And you'll realize there are things you did manage to truly forgive, and it will be funny to you that you could have experienced that event other ways. Hard to explain. Forgiving myself is much more challenging sometimes, and maybe you'll realize this too. I have really embarrassing memories come up, and I just can't let them go. Why?? I think humiliation is one of the hardest things to let go for ourselves. It's hard to imagine viewing it as somehow funny, like you do for, say, your best friend farting in front of their crush in high school. If it's you, it's torture to sit through the memory and all the embarrassing gut-wrenching moments until something clicks, empathy fades, and the memory magically becomes only hilarious. If you look hard enough, you will remember the old "movie" in your old way, and you will laugh at yourself. Oh god, I'm getting so convoluted here. If you've felt it, you know what I'm talking about. If not, I hope you realize it soon. Too long; didn't read : Real forgiveness isn't what you think it is. Forgiving myself seems so much harder than forgiving other people. It's weird.

Are you experienced with meditation? I just think of how 'they' say when you meditate, you must stay awake/aware for it to be meditation, when you reach an altered state, you are no longer "meditating", and to me that is fair to say, because when you cross the line into that body sleep/brain awake, that's the hypnotic state. When you feel it, you'll know it. What's neat is that once you learn how to reach it at will, lucid dreaming becomes way easier to do when you want to, as well. I, personally, don't attach much meaning to dreams, but they are loads of fun and give you plenty to think about sometimes! You could also try binaural beats. Doesn't seem to work for me, but everyone is different. Doesn't hurt to try.

Sometimes people forget how hard it can be to express what you really mean, especially when you are typing words out on a screen. Harder to ask questions for clarity, no face to watch, no hand gestures/body language to help in understanding another person's point. Things seem harsh or mean when it's really just lack of connection in communication. Patience, compassion, tolerance, grain of salt... All that jazz.

@LinLin I had the best success learning laying down because I could keep myself from falling asleep unless I was seriously just too tired (I would have fallen asleep sitting up too!). I was not able to reach a "hypnotic" state until I got really good at basic meditation though, and that took me a little bit to learn. You need to be even more relaxed than when you meditate! As for books, I read a few. Self hypnosis for dummies was okay for explaining the basics (I love the for dummies books for learning the basics of many things!), but I spent most of my time scouring the Internet for different methods. Lilian Eden has some good guided meditation videos, but one in particular, "Perception: unbound mind" for some reason really knocks me into an altered state (it's so much fun!!). I don't know how or why, but I like to use it every now and then. Jason Stephenson has nice videos as well. Then there is one by Suzanne Robichaud called 'Training you mind to let go of thoughts that do not serve you' that also gets me relaxed enough to get into an altered state, and I like to ignore her command to wake up at the end and keep working on letting go in silence after the video ends until I'm ready to come out of it. I feel like the biggest problem while learning is being completely relaxed, no distractions. You are sort of finding that window between awake and asleep, and I can't say the way it feels for me is the same way you'd experience it... Sometimes I actually feel myself drop into the state, other times I don't really realize I'm there until I'm ready to get up. I wish I could provide more help, but it's the kind of thing you just have to keep trying until suddenly you discover you've done it. I hope you figure it out, it's a very interesting experience!!

If I were less experienced with relationships and people in general, these videos would be helpful for me. I'm way past this kind of information, so watching his videos with those themes are quite funny. I have seen some people talk about Leo being uninterested in marriage and family, and if that is true (I don't know, really don't care), it does give perspective as to why he still thinks that way. I used to think that way too. Don't be bothered by it, (don't take it personally) and if it helps someone, that's what Leo wanted. It all depends on what "level" you are at with your personal development.

@Progress Yes, I get the sense he was rather misunderstood. The YouTube videos trying to scare people into thinking he was the devil, really so funny. It's hard to understand why you suggested I look him up when you just wrote me one sentence, so I was a little confused what I was supposed to do with the information!

That's what teachers are for. We are not meant to need them forever. We must let go when it is time.