flume

Goodness me! I just tried this. When he said "Ok, second round" I was like WHAT! Crazy stuff. Such a friendly, grounded and easy going guy though. Made me feel really good to hear him talk about the way he relates to and appreciates his body. We need more people like that. May I suggest something a little more gentle but totally awesome as well? Maybe for a rest day? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5kgE1Q51M0

I'm in tears. Peace is here my friends.

Every conclusion is a form of delusion Feeling much lighter this morning. I’m already amused by the human melodrama I got myself into the past weeks. Too much reflection just becomes weird after a while... I'm really getting in a swirl trying to explain what is happening to me, turning in circles endlessly by analysing myself. Meh. I'm just done with that for now. There are too many exciting creative projects I'd much rather focus on. So I'll just Drop it like it's hot Drop it like it's hot Drop it like it's hot @fridjonk "Every conclusion is a form of delusion" Matt Kahn stated in a recent talk. This statement really stuck with me. How often I'm trying to neatly "package" experiences up, "come to an end", a conclusion, so I can finally put them to rest. It's an understandable tendency but it's also useful to be aware of this mechanism and play with it. It feels extremely expanding to leave events open. Not coming to a conclusion is a meditative experience as it puts me into the now so effortlessly and loosens the grip of the mind in an almost natural way. Love it. I've been playing with this statement for a few weeks now. Especially when it comes to other people, I feel like I can appreciate them in a whole new light. There's a sense of "truly meeting someone" when I'm holding back on my conclusions about them. I still continued exploring the emotional scale and found it extremely helpful at the lower emotions. There's something magical about seeing that your emotions aren't fixed and don't have to define you. A very sneaky, pleasant way to get out of it I'd say. Feeling like a wizard indeed! Out of the entire scale, enthusiasm always feels the most natural to me. It's like coming home, somewhat of an "exhale" every time I return to that version of myself that is just eager to create with a million ideas firing. In this infinitely large field of self help and spirituality, nothing ever helped me as greatly as working with my feelings, letting them become my guides and advisors. It really took me some years of trial and error but more and more I'm feeling like I'm carving a path that truly works for me. Just putting all the puzzle pieces together slowly. “The meditative mind is the result of not only meditation, but of astute emotional expression & understanding.” In case somebody wants to check it out: https://www.actualityofbeing.com/the-emotional-scale All that being said, that damn car is something I do want closure on though. Thank you very much for the endless times we stood still on the side of the road, eating pizza, not knowing what to do. Good times, good times @ThinAir

I agree. This alone might actually be enough, crazy as it sounds. From Integral Life Practice: "A recent survey of over two thousand scientific studies documents an enormous range of benefits from meditation. These include physiological changes of state (such as metabolism, respiration, and alleviation of pain); positive psychological and behavioural effects (including shifts in perception, concentration, brain physiology, and attention); and enhanced subjective experiences (including equanimity, extrasensory experiences, and illuminating dreams). Remarkably, meditators even have a significantly more youthful physiology than non-meditators, as measured by the classic biomarkers of ageing. Most important, meditation in the only factor demonstrated to significantly accelerate growth through stages of development! The science is unambiguous: meditation works."

I tried the emotional scale for the first time. Noon. I just slept for 12 hours. My focus is nowhere to be found. I can’t read, can’t meditate and there’s a weird film between me and reality. My apartment is a mess and the thought of leaving the house to visit my family today overwhelms me. I feel like a zombie and I have no idea what to do. “Enough of this” I conclude and look up @Nahms emotional scale. Anything “Law Of Attraction” usually turns me off. Airy fairy stuff I never understood, fake-positive people with a way-too-simplistic worldview. But I mean, if Phil recommends it, it’s probably good. I also have no idea what else to do. I get a headache starring at the screen so I get an online reader to read it to me. Sitting there, I listen to all of it, but I enter the conversation emotionally at “Discouragement”. I take the time to express out loud how discouraged I feel. When I felt satisfied I moved up an emotion and do the same. Giving the whole experience the benefit of the doubt, I’m really starting to get into it. Looking like a lunatic I run around in my apartment, talking to random objects and myself, play some stuff on the piano, do random stretches and go back to it. I’m slowly realising that this is working. Still in the bottom half of the scale, the emotions don’t feel great, but every step up is slightly better than the one before. And taking the time to really express them in whatever way makes the lower emotions just fall away naturally. Weird how that works. When I got to “Overwhelment” it read: “The recognition and expression of overwhelment is, in a sense, a ‘popping of the balloon’ of one’s own ‘big picture of worry’. It is a ‘putting down’ of ‘the baggage’ we’ve been carrying. This inherently feels relieving, as it brings us back to the simple, to the now, to what is, to ourselves, to the present.” That’s the moment I crashed. This so hit home. I realise that I’m SO. FUCKING. OVERWHELMED. It worries me, because if I’m really honest with myself, this has been going on for weeks at this point. Even though I love my life and the people in it, right now anything is too much. I feel like I can’t filter things that are coming my way appropriately anymore and everything feels like an attack. I felt the weight of weeks of accumulated tension dropping off me, laying bare in front of me. “I’m so fucking overwhelmed. I’m so overwhelmed” I kept saying and cried my heart out. My mind (finally) didn’t resort to “causes” of this overwhelm anymore. The feeling was just there, unmistakable, thick and truly expressed in its essence. I knew I couldn’t go on up the scale at this point. This feeling of overwhelm deserved some more time. No need to rush past it. Not like I could, even if I wanted to. Tears flow freely and it feels good to come back to myself, to no longer run and finally be honest with myself. This took up most of the day. In the evening I drive to my parents and tell them what’s going on. They help me conclude that it’s not a good idea for me to take care of other people at the moment and that I should probably take time off work. I call work and get a week of sick-leave. Back home I take a hot bath and listen to a Matt Kahn talk. Crying again, I realise I should probably up my water intake as to not get dehydrated I surrender to the fact that this is just calling my attention now. Whatever “this” is, I can’t run from it any longer. And no one can do this for me. In fact, trying to explain myself to people around me only makes matters worse. This place is not foreign to me. I’ve been here before. I call it the “belly of the beast”. Even though I’m quite disoriented at the moment, feeling very much “in the middle of it” and I don’t really know what I’m doing, I can intuit how necessary all this is. Tonight I had another 12 hour sleep followed by an extremely gentle, low intensity day. Warm oatmeal, a walk, a bit of reading, music, writing,… I think I have enough strength to look at the scale again now. I really feel like I’ve found a set of “tools” that help me greatly in these situations. The emotional scale might be a new one. But I’m also respectful as to not overwhelm myself even more. No need to rush things and make myself feel unsafe. This is good though. I can feel it. The only way to go now is up.

Awesome! I love the idea of "cross-disciplinary" art So many possibilities there!

Consciousness is not a property of plants, plants are a property of consciousness.

Everything is here to help you.

Letting Go - David R. Hawkins

Just came back from an information evening at a school for organic farming I applied to. When I’m with the animals or in the garden at work, I’m really in my element. So I decided I want to have more background knowledge about agriculture in general, how the different fields are connected and the possibilities there are. I’m pretty bummed out about the evening though to be honest. It’s a cute small school in a beautiful rural area, surrounded by hills. They get a ton of applications and only take 30 new students every year. I guess my chances are good but nothing inside of me wants to go back there. Too many regular-school-red-flags. Written tests, more theory than practice, division of subjects in a super artificial way. I also don’t feel like there was enough emphasis on working with nature and the big picture of health, just talks about calculating feeding portions, legal implications, blablabla… It bums me out that farming is barely taught in any other way anymore. Because it’s not profitable or whatever. It’s just soul crushing to see even organic agriculture turning sour like this. Wow, I’m really grieving right now. This matter is so close to my heart. I guess I’m a bit spoiled by our sweet paradise of 10 cows and 20 sheep who I get to give names to and talk to daily. They’re so well taken care of it actually melts my heart. But this school is not for me, even though it’s a great step in the right direction. I’m proud to be from Austria, given that we’re pioneers in organic farming. There are almost 25000 certified organic farms in this country which make up 1/4 of all farmed land. And this number is growing steadily every year. I’ll find something different though.

How should I begin to describe these past weeks? And is it even necessary? Let’s just say I was in a real swirl for a moment, annoyed by cars and family troubles, navigating some trauma-purges but still enjoying the intensity of it in some interesting way. I noticed that I’m spending quite some time lately thinking about how I’m coming across. How people perceive me, in real life but also on here crosses my mind a lot. It makes me wanna come up with all kinds of ways to present myself in a better light. Those thoughts can be a real rabbit hole… “Maybe I’m not humble enough. Maybe I come across as arrogant or unrelateable.” But I have no interest in placing myself somewhere in comparison to other people. I have no interest in downplaying my experience by ranking it in some kind of system. Why can’t experiences just stand for themselves? I mean, come as you are. Right? Any direction this conversation on being or not being a certain way is going seems to be a dead end though. It leads nowhere. What I’m trying got get at is that this whole conversation feels pretty off. It’s not like I’m gonna come to some sort of conclusion, finally ranking myself on some kind of modesty scale in comparison to other people. I feel like this whole post is gonna eat its own tail pretty soon. I’m actually quite excited because I feel like this kind of thinking is really coming to an end for good soon. “I’m like this. I’m like that. This is how I am.” Seems like these thoughts just need to recycle a few more times in my head, maybe 3 times or 300 times, who knows. But they’re like weeds without water, so they’ll die away pretty soon. It’s just a funny tendency to get in my own way. Self-referential thinking 101. The freedom of experiences just standing for themselves is unmatched though. People have their experiences. I have my experiences. And they don’t need to have anything to do with each other. This is freedom.

My mood that day. Also whether or not I feel like it's a good time for me to come. Yes, same partner. This seems to be a common issue, yes In all seriousness, this is a messed up situation you were in. Trauma response for sure I'd say. Don't "adapt" around the wound, look at it directly.

Got a little tense just reading this I think woman can really feel the pressure of when a man wants them to come so that they can feel good about themselves. It ironically takes your focus off her by constantly "doing stuff" and thinking about how it all relates to you instead of being there with her to enjoy it all. That whole way of thinking is really not serving you imo. You’re not “supposed” to do anything. Sex is not some kind of “give and take” scenario where you should keep score of... Anything really. Just explore together. Also, sex is totally different for woman. I for my part don’t care much about orgasms. Sometimes I have a bunch of them, other times I don’t. Who cares. The sexy thing is that it doesn’t make my man insecure or go into hyperactivity mode. Because sex is more to him than a booster for his confidence. Also, notice that you think she wants to come over and over again. But what does she think? Definitely talk about this with her. You might be surprised how she sees the situation. If you're not open about your feelings towards each other, she can't completely relax with you and that, in turn, makes it more difficult for her to come.

A friend of mine told me he saw great improvements as soon as he stopped ejaculating so often

Depends on the work you do. If your work is really aligned with your values and strengths it won’t even feel like "work". That's why the LP course is so valuable, it helps you find what you're naturally passionate about and inspired by. If you tap into that and find a way to really align your life with it, work will basically be effortless. For 99% of people that are working so much though, they're probably just "grinding” away because they feel trapped. Like mothers working two jobs to have enough money to buy food for their children or businessmen who are never content with the amount of money they make. They're more likely to have terrible sleep and eating patterns as a result and their general health and emotional wellbeing will suffer. That's detrimental for your health, especially on the long term. So "working a lot" isn't something we should aspire to do as some kind of virtue imo. We're finding out more and more that people are more content and healthy in countries where you can survive on less hours of work. Universal basic income is a must imo so that everyone gets the space to find out how much and what kind of work is good for them. If pressure is taken off, creativity can flow.

That's basically what James W. Jesso did with his book "Decomposing the shadow". He worked with mushrooms for a year (or something?) and then compiled his findings and progress in a book. So if you're excited about it, why not? :-)

Writing. Writing. The infamous attempt Of sorting and sifting through thoughts and events of Days and lives and times away Still grudging through me, still making me sway My heart laying bare, my limbs lame and stiff While my insides are bubbling through the tales of my midst Paralysed by who you forgot to be In moments of opening all life back to thee And steady and vast is the warmth that awaits Every feeling and sound and thought and excess If the depth of it all is allowed to reveal The true nature of surrendering the means to appeal Shedding, shedding, visions of light Holders of dreams, bearers of night Ride me back to where this song began The source of all longing to unite me again In me and with me and through me it is That these words are the cure That these words help me live

Whenever people hear my name for the first time, they start singing one song or another. Waiting for the day someone brings up this one

My car broke down several times last week and I’m in the process of getting a new one. Pretty pointless to begin describing how much it annoys me to take care of this. On the bright side, the moment I allowed myself to really really really really really really really hate this situation, I suddenly felt a lot better. I can now laugh about how much I hate it all, I can totally commit to the experience and it doesn’t feel sticky anymore. I enjoy living the “I hate to take care of practical stuff”-archetype, even moaning about how energy draining it all is and how I just want my inner world back. It’s great. Perks of having inferior extroverted sensing.

Wow, I haven’t been this exhausted in over a year I think. This really hit me out of nowhere. It’s like I’m standing with my back towards the ocean and a huge wave builds up without me even realising and down I go. I think I’m overworked and overexcited from this (birthday) weekend, a difficult family situation, my car breaking down and just too many things planned in general. The tension between wanting to do many beautiful things and at the same time wanting the most simple life with nothing planned is killing me. Even though it doesn’t feel like a contradiction most days, these days it really does. After I got home from work yesterday evening I was shaking and so confused, I didn’t know what to do. I realised I couldn’t feel myself anymore. I took a bath, splashed around in the water, trying to ‘find myself’ again. I felt thrown back to years ago, when I felt similarly maniac, ready to take any kind of drug or cut myself open just to feel something. Anything. I knew I was safe though. No way I would hurt myself in any way. I knew that this too will pass and I’ll be out of this in no time. But still I was able to really surrender to this weird state I found myself in. Old thoughts and memories flooded my system to a point where I had to give up making sense of any of that. The thoughts had no real grip on me anymore, same with sensations. Everything was just passing by. All that was left was a stream, a sequence of “happenings” that I couldn’t even judge “crazy” or “helpful” anymore, because perception had no interest in these labels. In the middle of this non-dual experience, I realise I’ve found an unexpected loophole through suffering, to the present moment. I knew that this is possible. I’ve found out about this conceptually on my first LSD trip. It’s the same “hole” Eckhart Tolle fell into. At the bottom of every negative feeling, the present moment is always here to catch you. “You cannot fall deeper than into Gods hands” they said. I guess that’s where this phrase came from. Today I’m here. Coming back to what I love most. Writing to seek the lesson. Dear feeling of exhaustion and overwhelm, I know you’re a great teacher. Please share with me the gifts you’re bringing especially to me. You’re free to experience anything and it doesn’t define you. So why am I having these feelings? So you learn that lesson. So it has nothing to do with outward circumstances? Outward circumstances are created to teach you the lessons you need. I don’t feel like “my consciousness” ever changes though. Highs, lows, even sleep and trips, nothing ever fundamentally changes about the one perceiving all this. At all. It doesn’t. So why those “lessons” then? So you realise that. Realise what? That your consciousness never changes and you can finally be safe with life. All of life. You just still had the impression that the thing you do or the things that happen to you define you in any way. They don’t. None of this is about you.

@fridjonk Riiight? Have you ever taken 2CB? I always get such mind blowing insights about health on that drug, don't know why. I think I'll compile them here in a post sometime. Aw, Matts event in London just got cancelled (or moved online rather), otherwise I would have totally passed that wish along to him Love the new pic btw! You better believe I'm booping that nose through the screen every time it pops up. How do you get them to stare so straight into the camera though!? Very impressive. @Michael569 Thanks

Inspiring thread to follow This book really made me realise that it's not about the amount of content you consume, but how you work with it. Every page in the book is just so relevant and you can work with it endlessly. Keep it up!

In my experience, examining the bad feeling first is the right step to take. It’s a feeling that arises inside of you, so take it seriously. Try locating the boredom or frustration in your body and put your attention on it. Examine it in a meditative (observant) way: How does it move? What are its qualities? Treat the feeling like a person that’s here to deliver an important message to you. “How are you here to help me?” Is a question that always leads to success. Examining bad feelings is like digging for gold: They’re here to teach you something, you just have to be open and willing to learn. Just play with the answers that come up. You’ll know you’re going in the right direction when the feeling transforms into a more pleasant feeling and tension leaves your body. Then go with that. It might be different every time, so no yes/no answer is possible to your question. That’’s what it means to cultivate love imo: Leaving mechanicalness behind. Even in meditation. Especially in meditation. A bad feeling is like a child asking for your attention. Sure you can ignore it for a while but it’s not gonna get any calmer by doing so. Nor will the relationship benefit from it. The “pushing through” mentality might “work” sometimes, but I find that in the long run you’re cultivating an environment of distrust an opposition. If you come at it from the perspective of “everything is here to help me”, there are no sides anymore. No pushing through thoughts or bad feelings required, as they’re listened to first. Meditation will become a lot more pleasant, peaceful and effortless this way. Meditation is not a “tool” so to say, but an outcome of feelings taken seriously.