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She sounds like a real snack! Keep us posted... In case you make it out there alive

Hey I really enjoy reading your journal Really cool to see you grow in such a balanced, honest way. I checked out your youtube channel I saw on another thread and just wanted to tell you how cool it is that you can speak so clearly. That's not easy at all! Really cool stuff. Anyways, keep up the good work

@flowboy Spot on advice, but not for partners in my experience Here’s my two cents: Seeing someones level of development is not a judgment, it’s clarity. It becomes a judgment once you make people “less than” because of it. Bad mouthing, criticism and envy are all classic forms of projection. There’s your shadow, that’s your stuff. So totally, work on all your judgements - they’re awesome pointers for what’s coming up to heal and integrate. Buuuuuut, in a relationship, the situation is a bit different I find. You can “work on your judgments” as long as you want, but the problem isn’t that you’re not saintly enough, the problem is incompatibility: You’re living different lifestyles, that’s not gonna work on the long run. You don’t have to love all the same things as your partner of course, but a pull towards the same direction is kind of a must. From what you’ve written, your values and interests are completely different. They’ll probably only grow further apart in the future. It’s like one person wanting kids while the other doesn’t. There’s no right or wrong, but it makes you incompatible. I’m telling you this because I’ve been in this scenario a few times and the point where you’re at inevitably comes. The more I tried being non-judgmental, and putting my wants second, the more resentful I became and it came out in all kinds of ways. When I was totally honest, I saw that it wouldn’t work but I just wanted it to work so much. I didn’t want to be alone so I dragged it out more than necessary. If that’s the case for you, don’t try to change him, just tell him it won’t work. The verdict is yours in the end. Only you know what you’re dealing with. You’ll ultimately have to judge what is really going on for you: A heated projection on your part or the simple truth incompatibility? I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Good luck! You look drop dead gorgeous btw

Yes, with a friend. The only way this works is if you're both willing to look inwards, are completely honest with each other and leave enough room in the relationship for this "energy" to grow. What helps are a high level of maturity, similar interests, a desire to make it work, facing your emotions (maybe even together) and a clear framework for what you want this relationship to be. It all comes down to being honest with each other. Which is old advice. But who is really doing it?

Nobody can give you what you're only here to provide for yourself.

If you're scared of anyone stealing your idea, it ain't your life purpose :-) And if it's not your life purpose, you probably won't have the strength to stick to it and make it greater than anything that came before. And even if you could, it wouldn't be satisfying. Better spend some time (and money) on finding your life purpose and taking steps towards that.

A mushroom trip once told me placebo means remembering your own power.

My relationship to negative emotions is changing so much lately. It really upset me for example when people where gossiping or just complaining about the same things over and over again at work. I’d have a million ideas on how to work through these things but they just insist on staying in their loop. I talked to my therapist about it and he said “Well, complaining about it might be their way of working through their problems?”. I did not want to hear that. It seemed completely backwards to me. Then one day I got home from work, totally overwhelmed by the overload of opinions, energies and interpersonal struggles going on there. Holding the same high standard to myself, I didn’t want to complain. I was super agitated though, I knew something had to get out and a friend of mine just kept poking me to tell him what’s up. I ended up having a good cry and letting it all out at once: How it feels to be there, all the things that bother me, how lost I felt, when it all started, a hundred different examples. By doing all this, I actually came to the core of what was bothering me: I feel so blessed working there and believe in this project so much, I just want to affirm more of the things that are going well instead of always focusing on the problems. And I felt like there was no room for that. I thought people would see me as naive, ungrounded or whatever. Some silly positive thinking new ager, blablabla. But I can’t help but LOVE this freaking place. And I’m so done keeping that to myself. A few days later I really got into shadow work for the first time. I found out that, what I’ve unexpectedly found this evening was a “golden shadow”. Wilber writes that these are shadows of our emergent capacities we have not yet owned. They are cast by our higher self and want to be lived by us. But sometimes our highest intelligence, intuition and capacities don’t fit our image of ourselves and so the urge stays suppressed. Really digging shadow work since then. The 3-2-1 process he describes is incredibly simple and I’ve found many disowned parts I could integrate. Awesome stuff. Thank you also Matt Kahn for telling me over and over again to be a person, have an opinion, have feelings and commit to your experience! You know what, sometimes things really bother me… And that’s ok. As he always says, everything is here to help you and serves your greatest expansion. Why haven’t we learned how to relate to these things earlier!? I also saw that good leadership at work is really only possible when you’re willing to go deeply into a problem, talk it through, look at it from every perspective and consider all the complaints so a new path can emerge. Good leadership is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The nuance, intuition, strength and high level thinking required to solve complex problems is just so inspiring to see. Feels good to be around that. Maybe I’ll be doing this too someday… :-) Since all this happened, I had a good chat with my boss, feel much more rooted and authentic at work and way less afraid to stand for my truth.

Books :-)

@roopepa The link in your signature Mind melting!

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari

Wow, I’m feeling really foggy in my head since the trip. It’s difficult to focus or really get a hold on life these days. Good thing I’ve went through this often enough to know that it will pass. This year started on such a high in terms of creativity and ideas. Also loving my books lately, but since the trip I can barely touch them. Sleeping a lot and having many many dreams… I’ve actually come back to breath - focused mediation these days. Seems to do me good. Just a few minutes at a time though. Still so funny how I’ve done this kind of meditation religiously for years and then it just turned from helpful to destructive in no time. Life with all it's funny turns Now I can slowly welcome it back into my life, bit by bit. Makes me think of this David Whyte poem: “Find that far inward symmetry To all outward appearances, Apprentice yourself to yourself, Begin to welcome back all you sent away, Be a new annunciation, Make yourself a door Through which to be hospitable, Even to the stranger in you”

Well "difficult" means relative to your mother tongue or the other languages you already speak. But consider this: - There are different language groups like Germanic (German, English, Dutch, etc.) Romance (French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, etc.) You'll generally have an easier time learning languages in "your group" since they developed from the same roots. Vocabulary and grammar will be somewhat similar and pronunciation feels more natural. - The difference in grammar is another difficulty. English for example has only one kind of article ("the") while French and German have 3. - If you have to learn a new kind of Alphabet like in Russian for example, that's gonna make it way harder as well. - You can just check the level of difficulty intuitively on yourself. Do you understand anything the person is saying in the new language? Can you gage a few words? Look at written sentences: If you're totally lost it's gonna be a steep journey.` Glad to be of help Beautiful aspiration. I bet it will widen your horizon quite a bit! There's some amazing research showing that just by switching languages you can find new ways of thinking and problem solving if you're stuck somewhere. It'll make your mind super flexible. In that case it's probably worth to invest time into learning Latin. I personally never did but it'll be a lot easier to learn most languages once you have Latin down.

@Thought Art Interesting topics! Keep at it @Conscious Water So cool how confident you are in front if the camera. Good work

Lucid Dreaming - Gateway To The Inner Self by Robert Waggoner But also, up your meditation practice and try to be more calm throughout your day (especially in the evenings). If your mind and body are hyperactive during the day, lucid dreaming is gonna be difficult. If you're very exhausted it's gonna be hard to stay conscious of what's going on, so maybe taking a light nap during the day will work better for you. Just mediate before that and lay down with the intention of paying attention to your mind space. Also, it's better to stick to one technique than trying many of them at the same time. Start with writing down your dreams in the morning. Anything you remember is fine. You'll need to get some momentum going there. Good luck! Getting into this can be tough in the beginning but it's totally worth it. I was excited about lucid dreaming for a long but before I cut out weed, had a regular meditation practice and stayed off electronics as much as possible it just didn't happen.

I learned languages both in school and through actually moving to different countries. The difference is huge. You can’t really get proficient in a foreign language on paper I find. Especially not if it’s a difficult one. (Difficult meaning far different from your mother tongue) So in school: wrecking your brain, endless study, never getting ahead and ultimately giving up. Locally: Being totally lost for some time, slowly piercing it together and then getting in a real flow. I heard there are good apps like duo lingo but my experience is that you can’t learn a language proficiently unless you’re interacting with locals. The best thing I’ve done so far is supplementing talking to locals with a language course in their country. It makes a huge difference whether you’re still switching back to your mother tongue to explain something or whether you rely completely on the new language. You have to get out of translation - mode for real proficiency. Learn it from a teacher that is local and only speaks the language you want to learn. Depends on how difficult they are. I’d focus on one at a time. Once you’ve mastered that, move on. Or I mean, if you just want to tip your toe into them, that’s fine. I’d just rather not learn a language than be sloppy. In school: Years and I didn’t really get ahead. Irl: Depending on how difficult the language is, 4-8 months. But you see great progress before that. That’s just the point where I thought “Ok, I can really convey everything I think and feel in this language now”. You just have to exercise your vision enough to get through the first 1-2 months. That depends on how well you’ve learned the language beforehand. Once you’re proficient for a long enough time (say 1-2 years of daily use) you won’t have to revise often. Most of it just sticks. It’s good to keep conversing from time to time (or watch a movie, read some books) but you’re not gonna loose your ability to communicate in this language anymore. If you’ve only learned it on paper though, revising is basically all you do. It's not fun and the skills leave you after just some weeks. Talk to locals, be compassionate with yourself and go all in. Going in half-heatedly, not knowing what your aim is and thereby giving up before making progress. Make up your mind before and cut out all other possibilities. 4 Again, your local language school. Also any topic that interests you now, but in the new language: videos, movies, books, etc. If you wanna learn extra fast, get yourself a boyfriend in that new language. Hehe I'll say this: Our schooling system is quite backwards in many areas, but languages is one of the worst. Your theory-practice ratio should be somewhere around 10/90. And you should only be taught by native speakers. The regular system is failing badly at both of these so you need to be smart enough to take another route. Have fun! What languages do you want to learn? Maybe I can help you out with a few specific resources

@Michael569 Much appreciated!

Trip report I took LSD the other day with the intention to just have a chill day. Do my usual stuff and all. And then BOOM, that acid hit so hard again. 1/4 tab and I was gone. Out there, once again. I really don’t know why I'm so sensitive to this stuff. Well, some interesting stuff happened (Much open mindedness required to read this) I had some minor insights at first which I can’t even really remember. I realised once again that healing your body completely means death. That’s why people resist health so much. Even the people that find it important can’t get there all the way because it would mean suicide - your mission is completed so to say. I also saw how, funnily enough, people get so old because they’re so sick (not because they’re healthy)!! Crazy stuff! Then the sexual part of the trip started. That was a first on psychedelics for me. I was laying on the floor and started masturbating. The acid really did it’s thing there with me. I got into some usual fantasies letting myself go completely in the arms of a strong man. I could really get into the archetypal experience of masculinity and femininity, sort of switching between the two. When I got closer to climaxing, suddenly the polarities shifted and I realised how the feminine is actually a warm, receiving, calm ocean that is holding space for the masculine to rage. That’s literally how it felt, like a safe space where a man can, for once, let go of his limitation, get all that anger and restriction out in a climax. And I wanted nothing more than to be there for that. The “unloading” was not in an abusive way, it felt incredibly healing and necessary. Like that’s what we’re here for… Then, after climax, the energy was completely different. Still experiencing both masculine and feminine at the same time, I noticed how and orgasm really opens up a very vulnerable space… It’s like laying your emotional body bare in this haze of relaxation and release. And I realised: The most important part of sex is actually when the sex is over! Like a surgeon, that wouldn’t just cut you open and then leave you there, it’s incredibly painful to just walk away after an orgasm or do nothing with the space that just opened up. It’s so vulnerable, so innocent, the core of who we are. So there we have the chance to actually go into real intimacy, but people rarely do. If this space is neglected for long enough, a child starts to materialise between those two people in order to force them to work on their intimacy. If you work things out by yourself, no child will be born (Still just talking from the trips perspective, not claiming truths here). So children are just a couples way of working on their relationship. It forces them to focus on one another, to face themselves and thereby grow. Their relationship gets triangulated in a sense. I suddenly saw all the webs and connections in my family, how me and my siblings are my parents way of clarifying their relationship and how much they needed us for that. That’s also why it’s difficult for them to let us go once we grow up. I then went through the life of a child in the womb of her mother and experienced how safe and warm it feels to be in there. I didn’t experience birth, but being a very small child and how beautiful it is to just lay on the ground for hours. Out of pure joy and a lust for life, I felt the urge to learn how to crawl. What an incredible feeling!! I really struggled at first but I enjoyed every minute of it. Being allowed the space to do something like this by myself was the most beautiful experience. Just connecting to “real me” on the living room floor again, I noticed the smell of the blanket I’m laying on. Then it hit me: This is actually the blanket I learned how to crawl on when I was a baby!! Now I know why I love it so much and why I never wash it. It’s just my favourite. I looked up pictures later that actually confirmed my insight. It’s not the first time I have these flashbacks to being a baby on LSD. I never really intend for them to happen but it’s always very intense. Then, out of nowhere, the message came: “But there’s a different way.” And I saw how I was Maria, the mother of Jesus and her life preparing to give birth to the son of God. “The other way”, meaning that a child doesn’t have to be born out of compensation but can be directly God-given. What it must have meant for her to live through that destiny, how she had to grow herself, how she was completely alone in her life, yet more carried by the universe than anyone would have recognised. The original meaning of faith, the knowing, that God is coming into the world, that salvation is here, and she is the one to carry it inside of her. I saw so many connections between her life and mine. In fact, my life was hers. I’m living this story, 2000 years later, feeling exactly as she did: This might sound cheesy, but I have this deep trust that things are going well. A “knowing” that the future will be good and also the knowing that I have a part in bringing this to the world. I always had that. My life’s just a search for the right spot to “birth this thing”. Whatever this is. In the story it was a child but sometimes that just seemed metaphorical. My path of “personal development” now is just the modern version of what I did back then during nights in the cave, trying to grasp my role in all this and changing myself to fulfil my destiny. Her role in this is learning to be her own support and trusting existence to perform a miracle through her. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but all is well! I know it, because I carry it inside of me.” Maria is chosen for this, she has no choice in that way. Only when the child is on its way she gets informed. She’s unobstructed in the sense that she has no past lives or karma to clear and no other focus in her life. She has no previous knowledge and is pure of heart. It’s very interesting, since I never had any connections with past lives. I actually feel like it’s my first time here and some psychics and friend confirmed that to me. I'm new here. That’s where my pure joy and energy is coming from- I have no reason not to trust life. So was Maria. She was innocent in the sense that she wasn’t carrying any burden. So she had time to grow into her role. I also suddenly grasped why my values are the way they are: Independence, God/Truth, Solitude… I totally makes sense that I need a lot of space to work on this. I then realised that I’ll never be in a traditional relationship with a man, that’s also why I’m having difficulty imagining this in my life. A man, like Josef, is needed, independent and selfless enough to support me in this birth, even though it’s not “his child”. I realised how that also must have been an incredibly difficult journey for him to make as well. Ok wow, I know all this sounds crazy, but honestly that’s just what happened and the insights I’ve had. It just so fits my life because I can’t see myself living this traditional life or really having children. On the other hand, in my dreams I often see myself having a boy. The trip told me that he’s gonna represent the second coming of messiah-hood. That a new area will dawn and the child will represent this change, just like Jesus did 2000 years ago. I only need a few people who can hold space for me enough to bring this miracle into existence. I had a second orgasm, one of birthing this thing into existence. It wasn’t a physical birth, more of an energetic one, something that moved through me, it’s quite difficultly to explain. It took quite a long time and asked a big amount of energy. I knew all my life came down to this moment. Then I slipped into the experience of the child, laying in the crib between mother and father, looking at them, acknowledging them but not being attached to them at all. The child of the universe, a living miracle. I also looked at him as his mother, knowing he is not mine, not being attached to him at all, we’re just part of the same, bigger plan. So history basically evolves from one of these births to the next. It always means a leap in existence, and now is the second time this will happen in history. His name will be David, “God’s beloved”, the trip told me. I’ve been tripping 6 hours at this point, not moving a lot, still on the floor. I was getting up to check the time and noticed how exhausted I was. I felt these experiences, more real then anything I could ever imagine and it was so much in such a short amount of time. Thinking about what just happened I wasn’t sure whether I’m on the biggest ego-trip ever or in the middle of a prophecy of the highest of all journeys. I then realised these things (selfishness and selflessness) are so closely together and it freaks me out a bit. I decided not to draw conclusions. I honestly had NO IDEA where all this came from. As I’ve said, no intention what so ever. But I just couldn’t anymore at that point. I thought about calling a friend, but I didn’t and just had a nice stretch, danced a bit and came down slowly. All I wrote down when coming down was “Stay humble and healthy”. Honestly, you just never know what’s coming your way so hold your opinions loosely. Also, all of this only makes sense in a healthy body. Such a nice theme that is coming back overall in my life lately: I just want to be healthy, that’s the most important thing I can do to myself. Wow, this was honestly the most out there thing that ever happened to me I think.

David Deida! I sometimes think he understands women better than they understand themselves

The end of this essay (Circles) is so damn beautiful as well: "The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion. "A man", said Oliver Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he know not whither he is going. Dreams of drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction to men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart."

Yes, I remember Matt Kahn talking about this. He said when your frequency rises above a certain point you'll stop being affected by electronic gadgets. They won't influence you anymore and you'll instead influence them He needs to buy new microphones and speakers several times a year for his events, they just can't survive around him. Can't wait to see this dude in person and let him fry my brain

Collapse of opposites I’ve noticed that the distinctions between different “areas” of my life are getting real blurry over the past months. I used to section my life out into different categories like “spirituality”, “work”, “knowledge”, “relationships”, etc. And maybe there was value in doing that. It got me started and helped me stay on track. Now though, these things start to merge. It started with work first… The difference between work and home just wasn’t so noticeable anymore. I’m not in a hurry to get away from either one. Then mediation started to slip into my life. The lines just started vanishing: Am I driving, or meditating? Am I sleeping, visioning, doing shadow work or mediating? Am I meeting up with friends or taking care of my body? Am I tripping, philosophising,…? And so it goes with all my life. I’m just not able to keep track of the categories anymore. It also doesn’t feel right anymore. There’s still some lowkey anxiety about dropping my formal meditation habit after all these years. Like I’m taking a step back, being weak, being ignorant. But it’s not like I can do anything about it really… My body just screams no when I’m trying to sit down. It’s wild how something that is so useful in one stage can be totally destructive in another. Much in awe of life’s many layered realities… At the same time, I never meditated so little and was so sucked into presence on a regular basis Things are shifting. So I guess it’s time to change. Yet again… It’s a messy and confusing process though; I don’t wanna pretend like it’s all easy. I have plenty of days where I feel unfocused when reading, not present when eating, hyper busy in my head, agitated at work, etc. But presence infuses my life more and more. It feels like, at some point, I just let go and (as Ken Wilber so perfectly said) “At some point the practises start doing you.” Perfect way of describing what’s happening. Gosh, I can’t believe my life sometimes. I love it so much!!! The direction it’s going is very exciting and I can’t believe how amazing I feel on a daily basis compared to just a couple of years ago. It’s really easy to just focus on the problems and never look back to where we came from… This sort of segues into my life purpose… Life purpose The further I get into the LP course, the more clear it becomes that I totally wanna share my journey on a more personal level with people, probably through youtube videos or something. I know it’s a much used medium but that’s not really important. It doesn’t even matter whether it’ll be successful or not, I wanna keep my current work place anyways. But the thought of it excites me. I have so many ideas on what to talk about that it keeps me up half the night sometimes I have so many cool things, ideas and projects coming up… And I don't want to keep it all to myself anymore. I wanna talk to people about passion, music, personal development, new ways of spirituality, body work and ED struggles, organic farming, language, books I’m reading and just how I make sense of life. But not in the abstract, but in a fun, relatable way as someone who’s just sharing along the way. Just as much as I’m excited though, I’m also TERRIFIED. The further along I get in the course, the more I slow down because every step I take makes this more real. The inevitable moment of publishing something for the first time scares me to death to be honest. Phew…

Feierabend! (Why is there no word for that in English?)

I once took 3g of dried mushrooms. Literally nothing happened. No "state change" whatsoever. Turned out to be one of the most insightful evenings of my life... I felt such deep gratitude for my life as it is. Psychedelics somehow changed since then. Since then, psychedelics are just a fun and interesting exploration. But not an escape, a compensation or a quest for some "ultimate truth" that I couldn't find in everyday life.

Yes. We have a meet up group around personal development in ma city. I'm not too far from you. No social media, but we could have a quick chat, see what you're up to and if it would fit the group. Contact me if you're interested