Bratcat

The thing that would motivate me the most about losing weight if I was in your position wouldn't be health or good looks. Something I've noticed many times before, is the way overweight people carry themselves. Everything seems so hard and exhausting. Getting out of breath when you walk up the stairs, almost falling when you try and sit on a bycicle, having trouble getting into a car... I don't know how overweight you are, but when I imagine having to carry an extra 50-100 kg with me everywhere I go, I'd be so much less motivated to do stuff. But the good thing is, these things don't change only once you've reached a healthy weight, but already from the moment that you start being serious about working out. I sometimes have days where I barely wanna get out of bed and these are the days where I'm already exhausted just from standing up and doing the dishes. But on the days when I get up immediately and incorporate some kind of workout into my day or even just ride my bycicle to university or work, I feel like existing in this world is so much easier! Same goes with eating. I do not have a healthy diet by any means! What I have learned is to eat exactly what my body tells me to, even if its storebought cookies with processed sugar. This may not work for everyone, but I have found that this way I don't get as many cravings, it's easier for me to stop eating once I'm full and I don't eat around aimlessly to try and satisfy some craving. However I like almost anything, if you're a person who doesn't like most vegetables or fruit, this may not work for you. Maybe try learning to cook. My point is: you should lose weight, because you will feel better. I know this is hard to imagine, and I know working out can be a pain in the ass, but you can and will actually learn to enjoy the pain. You just need to stop thinking to yourself "I don't wanna do this, this is painful", and start enjoying it, because what you're doing is you're working WITH your body, not against it. You are doing something for your body, because you love yourself and simultaneously your body is doing something for you, the effects in your mental health will immediately if you have the right mindset.

@Scholar What you wrote makes a lot of sense to me, thank you. I need to learn to focus on the next step instead of the whole map.

Hi everyone! First of all, I'd like to say that I truly appreciate most of Leos content and do not want to cancel ego work. However I would like to share my experiences in hopes of helping someone else see the traps I walked into. Since I was a child I've always been a mix of being deeply insecure and kinda narcissistic. I was tested to have an intelligence above average and from that moment on I based my entire value on it. I never learned how to properly learn because in my pride I thought I can only prove my intelligence if I get good grades without working for them. I wasn't the most empathetic child, I think I was around 16 when I noticed that and started actively and slowly changing. It is still deeply ingrained in me, that I have to continously act intelligently and never make a mistake to prove my worth. A couple of years back I discovered Leos videos and ego work and it came as a blessing to my struggle to always do the right thing. Because suddenly there was no real right or wrong, there was no me, so in turn, there wasn't anything that could hurt me. I felt free. But also, I felt better than everybody else (ego), I felt as though I had seen a truth noone around me had yet discovered, and at the same time I was scared to share it with them because I thought they wouldn't understand. Of course I wanted to be good at ego work, so in my head I started questioning and critizising everything I thought and valued. I was passive in most discussions because when you don't know the whole truth (which you don't if you aren't god) no opinion is better than a partly blind opinion. Then I got into a relationship with a person who was equally as insecure, though I think it was rooted not in their narcissistic nature but their constant devaluation during childhood. They were on the journey of keeping ones ground and maybe overdid it sometimes. So in a sense we were completely opposed: I tried to constantly be neutral but wanted others to just see how I was right, whereas they tried having strong opinions even though sometimes it was just for the sake of having an opinion and it wasn't actually about defending their truths. For the first time in my life I had to really get along with another person. There was no runnning from conflict, no faking apathy (because feelings) and no discarding the other person I was in disagreement with. As you can imagine, due to me trying not to identify with any values or personality aspects I was deeply vulnerable. I often felt powerless, misunderstood and manipulated. As a result over the following months I started losing my self worth. I couldn't prove it anymore through being right, I also couldn't stand being wrong or leaving a conflict unresolved. My interest in education and self-development plummeted because I couldn't identify with it anymore. I'm now at a point where I need to find all those values, traits and interests i really identify with and leave ego work to the side. Maybe someday I'll be ready for it, maybe it just isn't for me. I hope someone reads this who can learn something from this without going through the same thing Also I'm open to any advice on how to go from where I'm at right now! Have a nice day PS: I do realize that this was in fact my ego feeding off the idea of becoming enlightened (better than others). I still think that at the moment I don't have the right capacities to do some real ego work.

I am from germany as well. I think this is a good example about how perspectives can differ. I don't see any radical change since the refugee crisis in 2015. Maybe I see a couple more poc or women wearing headscarfs on the street (not a bad thing yet) I sometimes see arab men acting threatingly. I sometimes see german men acting threatingly. I sometimes see muslim women acting inconsiderate in public. I sometimes see german women acting inconsiderate in public. You see where I'm going? Biases have a way of confirming themselves because you want them to. However I see your point, I guess modern Islam is mostly rooted in stage blue values, and german society mostly in stage orange. BUT Even with this realization, how do we go from there? Don't let anyone into our precious german paradise bubble? Keep exploiting other countries and hoping everything will sort itself out sometime in the future? Wait until all the third world countries are so frustrated they'd rather turn to ISIS than a country focused on progress and human rights? Or just hope that most of them get killed off in some war or due to hunger? Maybe welcoming muslims into our society isn't the fastest way to progress, but it sure as hell is the safest and the most humane. Fatalistic theories aren't going to get us anywhere, if you think the german government is going to collapse under a couple million muslims, maybe we aren't so ideal after all. Other cultures aren't immune to progress, you know that right? But how do you expect them to, if you shun them and put them in a hazardous environment where they have no option to choose progress, since they have to focus on survival? And by that I also mean segregating them from us while they are already in germany, not giving them the same chances, threatening them...

So you're the Jesus of xenophobia?

Hello everyone! I've been in this relationship for a little over a year and there had been lots of ups and downs since like the 4th month already. I ended the relationship already 2 weeks ago, but not really, because i was still hoping that maybe we could sort things out and get back together. Basically the thing that ended it was this: He expected me, if we wanted to get back together, to pledge my forever love to him, to really believe that nothing could ever seperate us. I told him that I could give him everyday commitment, but that I was too personally vulnerable to let go of any (logical in my opinion) thoughts that there could be issues we wouldn't be able to sort out. I had always felt very dependent on him, and to keep that sort of "distance" seemed to me the only way to work on this codependence without losing him. Long story short neither of us were open to a compromise. So now I am alone again and absolutely scared, but atleast now I think I managed to completely let go of him, no hopes or will to get back together with him. It is hard for me to believe that I will ever find someone again who makes me not feel alone, and even if I do, I am absolutely terrified of the time before that, where I am definitely alone and have no deep social connections whatsoever. My consciousness is extremely low right now. Please bear with me. I feel like before that relationship I was on a relatively good path to self-love and high consciousness. I am not saying that my ex is responsible for my "downfall", we certainly both played our parts, but just for your orientation I would say that our relationship dynamic was in a lot of ways similar to that with a narcissist. I am once again not saying he has a narcissistic personality disorder, just that some of the behaviours fit. Some of them definitely fit me as well. So... I am depressed, I have also been depressed before and during my relationship. I already booked an appointment with a therapist for next week. There's nothing guiding me in my life right now. I lost a lot of passion, I'm studying philosophy and anthropology but the contents seem meaningless to me now, but I also have no other idea of what I want to do. I would probably kill myself if I wouldn't hurt anyone by doing so. Where do I start?

@pangolin The reason I couldn't give him what he wanted was because we had had a lot of difficulties before I broke up with him. Situations where I couldn't recognize him as the person I thought he was to the point he almost scared me. I wanted us, if we even were to try it ever again, to take it very slowly and see if both of us did our part. I just couldn't give him what he wanted before seeing if he'd really recognize those concerns of mine and change accordingly. It's true that in the very beginning I didn't want to commit to a relationship, but that changed. However I always thought a lot about our possible future together in an anxious way, because it felt like we were inevitably steering towards a point where we just couldn't work out anymore. For example I wanted to do a semester abroad and he was always soooo scared about that, wanted to come with me or else he thought I'd find someone better than him during that time. I never said he was toxic. I said the relationship was toxic. There's definitely some things he did that weren't okay, especially looking back I feel like I was very subtly manipulated at some points. But what I meant by toxic, was the codependency that resulted from both our insecurities and my inability to rely on myself whilst being with him. @Aquarius Actually he is 11 years older than me and had quite some relationships before me. I know you mean well by saying I can't be alone in the You-niverse, but as I already said I'm on an extremely low consciousness-level right now. I am just constantly filled with sadness and fear and it is very hard for me to see the beauty of life. I just miss the connection to another human being, someone I can share everything with, someone I can call at every time of the day and whose presence just makes me feel at home.

Thank you Leo @iGhost I think it's okay to a certaint extent to be needy in a relationship, as long as you recognize it and are willing to work on it yourself. Nobody's perfect and everyone has got their insecurities. @Spiral Do you mean dating in search of a new relationship is a trap or do you think even casual dating like one-night-stands etc. isn't such a good idea for me right now?

Of course I don't know exactly what's going on in your life, but I believe you made the right choice, if you already admit that a big part of you knows that you were holding yourself back in that relationship. I had the same feeling in my past relationship and believe me it reeeeeally sucks, but even after only 3 days of fully breaking up my head has become a lot clearer and I am more and more certain that it was the right choice. I get that it's extremely scary to leave a relationship because you've learned to lean onto your partner for security and selfworth. It sounds like we are in a similar situation right now, if you want you can message me about it.

thanks everybody it's really hard for me right now. I've been the happiest i've ever been when I was with him but that doesn't make up for our incompatibilities and the fact that I don't know how to be happy when I'm alone. I still love him and it hurts me to think that he's unhappy, but at the same time I can't make myself responsible for his happiness. I don't really have any good friends and my family lives far away. Nothing feels worth living anymore if there's noone to share it with. How do I learn to live for myself?

thank you Elisabeth I indeed had already blocked him on Whatsapp and after that call blocked his number, and he just now sent me an email, which I didn't open. I'm planning on reading it together with my therapist, I hope I can persevere until then.

Fuck he just called me and said he thought about it and was able to calm down a bit and wanted to explain to me again what it was that he wanted. I cut him off and told him that I can't do this whole back and forth thing anymore, but it threw me just a little bit off. I had just started building my world without him and then he calls.

Do you believe talking to someone with lower self-esteem will make you lose self-esteem yourself? Or kissing someone? Or going fishing with, or high-fiving someone? I guess it depends on whether you believe what she said about sexual energy being the energy of all creation, and sex making you exchange positive or negative energy with your partner. To me this sounds like they are describing a psychological level, rather than a spiritual one. Of course, if you sleep with someone you straightaway deem to have spiritual work to do, wounds to heal which you do not and you thus believe them to be inferior to you in some way, you are going to feel like you are in some way less, after the act. That doesn't have to be related to energy flows or whatever, it's just you feeling like you settled for less than you are worth. Additionally you could just be influenced by contact with people who have to struggle through challenges where you might be further along, but then fear ego backlash. I'm not the best at advice about this topic, as I haven't had that much casual sex so far, but to me, it can be an opportunity to seek connection, be open and vulnerable very quickly and to therefore emotionally, socially and eventually spiritually profit from this connection.

I apologize in advance for this very long text! Thankful for every single one of you who reads it until the end! My boyfriend has lied to me. A lot. I don't know when and about what it started. At the moment the main topic were video games. Couple months ago i "stalked" him on steam to see that he had played video games for the past 2 days almost nonstop. I confronted him about it, said that I was worrying about him being addicted and wasting his life away. He agreed. He said he had a serious problem with videogames and never wanted to play any again. Apparently he really tried to. Then some time ago he told me he wanted to play again, i showed him that i wasn't too amazed by it, but he did it anyways. It kinda struck me hard, I'm not exactly sure why. I had to leave the room and was upstairs in the bathroom, crying about it, waiting for him to come look for me, which he never did. (I know that wasn't very mature of me, but that's not the topic right now). Afterwards I confronted him, i was very emotional, I don't remember that much of what I said unfortunately. I think it was that conversation when he told me he wanted to see what it was like after all this time, but it wasn't as exciting as he thought it was gonna be, and he wasn't going to wanna do it again for a while. Then a couple of weeks ago I caught him by accident. He acted very caught, but told me it had been the first time since we talked about it and he was so firm about it!! I totally believed him. He had been on and off with different jobs for the entire time i've known him, there were long periods of unemployment. Then, there was a time where he had to work everyday, 9 hours a day. There were a lot of days where he said he needed alone time. I felt neglected and told him about it. He was understanding but it was also too much for him. I feel like he didn't understand that telling me that he loved me and that he'd always be there for me wasn't enough. I was used to seeing him almost everyday, and him not wanting to see me as much had to have an effect on my sense of security. Some time later I was at his place, he told me he wanted to play some games now, while I had to study. I tried to act unbothered, after all it's actually not my place to tell him what to do, and atleast he was being honest. But my thoughts started racing, and I couldn't help but talk to him about it. During like a waiting period of a game I asked him if he could end the game. He didn't want to. I got hurt and kinda angry, so I couldn't stop myself from "demanding" he show me his steam statistics to see how much he had actually been playing. He got extremely defensive, told me he felt very controlled by me and that he wasn't going to show me anything, even though there'd be nothing to see there. He demanded I'd leave, and that we could talk tomorrow, but right now he was too distraught to do so. The next day he texted me about feeling too constrained, like he had no power over his own choices. He wanted us to spend more time apart, so we didn't have to feel like we HAD to spend time together, just because we were in a relationship, but because we wanted to. I told him I knew what he meant, but we had to talk about everything in ordner for our relationship to work. He didn't really react to that, suggested we'd go swimming together tomorrow. Only after I insisted that he had told me yesterday that we'd talk about everything, when I really really wanted to do so yesterday already, he came by my place, he didn't want me to go to his. We talked about lies, I told him I couldn't trust him anymore. I understood that demanding to see his steam data was unhealthy control, but also told him that at this point, in order to believe him anything, I had to see it, because if he were right and hadn't been playing at all, it had to be a very simple tool for him to prove exactly that. Following that, I slowly learned, that maybe that had not been the only time. At first he said I would jump to the wrong conclusions since he had been only for updates and stuff but not playing, then I learned that maybe actually he had been playing a little. He told me he had been lying because i gave him the feeling that playing was very very wrong and he should never ever do it and he felt very guilty every time he did it. He didn't wanna feel this way anymore, said that he actually enjoyed those things, even though he once said that he never wanted to do them before, and that was the reason he needed us both to focus a little more on us. Tbh, I agree with him. I don't think he's wrong. I do think my controlling might have pushed him deeper into lying, and I do get, that he is a very insecure person. He has a very bad self image and quickly resorts to "agreeing" with people just to appear to do the rght thing, instead of standing up for what he thinks and wants. At the same time, I don't know which one started first, the lying or the controlling, I guess we are both kind of hardwired to do our part. I fully agree, that our only way out of this would be for us both to work on this. We tried that the last couple of days, I demanded nothing of him, I know he mostly did nothing, playing games, watching movies, but I also get that sometimes you need some time to just find the power to discipline yourself. So tonight he didn't answer me anymore, normally we atleast write goodnight. For over 15 hours he didn't reply, only after I asked him if he was okay. He said his battery had been flat and he went to bed early and sleeps very long times at the moment. Now, I can see that he received my message 10 minutes after I sent them and that he watched movies on Netflix until 8 in the morning. I know, stalking, not okay and unhealthy. I understand, that he wouldn't want me to know that he is not feeling good at the moment, not having that much control over his life and wallowing, in fact, it's a very very small and understandable lie. But for me, in the context of our latest conversations and after I asked him explicitely not to lie to me again, it is a big lie and he had to know it. On the other hand, i know there's things i can trust him on. I know he is always there when I need him. I know he loves me, and the way he expresses his love often reminds me a lot more of what Leo described about love, than the things I do and feel. He does not control me, he wants me to be equally as free and have time for myself, to do the things I actually want to do, instead of just hanging out with him. I fear that we have already gone too far. That my mistrust is too big, that I'm not able to let go and not control him, and that he is just not able to eliminate those lies from his life, I get that it's a habit and I get his motivations for lying. What unsettles me most, is the way he defends his lies, very adamantly, to the very last straw until there is no way of talking himself out of it anymore. It is very believable. I fear, that this is exactly why I can't be sure about anything anymore. I do not want to lose him and I do not want to give up on him. I don't want to just demand and if I don't get what I want I abandon the whole relationship, but I'm also scared of overindulging him. I'd be very thankful for your thoughts! I'm aware that my life is very unconscious right now, but these are the little things I have to deal with at this point, hoping I'll get out of it soon.

@Martin123 Thank you very much for your reply. You are absolutely right. Unfortunately we kinda split up now. I had talked to him about our issues and taken full responsibility for my controlling behaviour and the things it had caused. I emphasized that I wanted to keep trying, but also needed some volition to do so on his side. But all he could do was bask in his self-deprecation. He kept saying how awful was but couldn't say that he wanted to do better in the future. Though I understand that kind of thought and how hard it is to get out of it I couldn't take it anymore. I do want to be there for him, and I told him that, but I just don't have the emotional strength to see my issues seperate from his, especially since we have a lot of the same issues. He left quickly once he realised what was happening and we didn't leave it on good terms. I really hope he'll want to talk to me sometime soon, because I still care about him a lot and don't want him to feel alone.

Yeah I mean it's clear that he wasn't. But if we are able to establish that he wants to be honest in the future, how can I be sure then? I sometimes feel paranoid with other people, yes. I definitely have made experiences with my parents that caused me to have trust issues.

I think I thought that way for a long time too. But I guess that illusion shattered some time ago. All I want at the moment is for the both of us to be happy, ideally together. Of course I am extremely scared to be alone, to not have someone to talk to about anything anytime. But also I love him and I feel loved by him unconditionally. Do I want him to change? Yes! I don't think I can be with him if he keeps lying. Do I want him to play less videogames and focus more on his goals? Yes! But I get that it is a process that can take a long time and I have tried pushing him there way too much. It's something he needs to realise on his own. I'd still be with him, as long as he's completely honest with me. I'm just scared that he can't stop lying and I can't start trusting again. How can I tell if he's honest?

Thank you Shin. Yes I'm thinking the same a lot of the time. Which is why I added this part: There's just things he does and say, that makes me feel deeply connected with him. He had a very rough childhood and I guess he's very damaged because of that. I feel like what I described in that quote is true, that he is in essence a very good person, and that he has a lot of very big things to work through. I just don't know if I can stand by his side, if he is able to do it anyways, or if I would damage myself too much in the process. I've been thinking about asking him if he'd like to go to a couples therapist. What do you think about that?

It definitely sounds like it has to do with you breaking out of your old christian beliefs, which is not something that happens over night, there is never a clear cut. People always doubt themselves, so naturally you're going to ask yourself if you're actually seeking the truth or if the devil finally got to you. I'm not exactly sure how to help you, I feel like these things are always a looong road. What stands out to me, is that you want to "trick yourself" into feeling like a good person. You want to believe that you are good, not trick yourself. I would suggest maybe writing a list of qualities, beliefs and actions that you deep down believe to be good, or consciously think to be good, or both. Think about if those apply to you. Some of them probably wont. I know mine wouldn't. But I don't know if that necessarily means you're a bad person. I guess it just means you are a person. I mostly believe that striving to be those things, always keeping yourself in check makes you a better person. Being completely and utterly "good" is probably out of range. Atleast it is for me at the moment. Let's just hope this path that we're on leads us there.

Hello everyone! I'll try to make it as short as possible. I've been in a relationship for about 6 months now (longest one I've ever had :D) and I have had doubts about them holding me back or not being entirely compatible from the very beginning. Same with all my previous attempts at relationships and also friends and family. I tend to see myself as more reflective than most of my acquaintances. Although this could be completely false, let's just pretend for a second that it isn't. While thinking that I am further along on the path that I expect to be roughly the right direction, I do still believe that I can learn a lot from others, especially in their own respective small areas that I haven't got a lot of experience in. For example, my boyfriend is a very empathetic and emotionally intelligent person, while I had to learn most of my compassion through conscious thought. However, I tend to get bored and frustrated very easily. I am frustrated when people don't immediately process the theories I offer to them, when they put them aside, view them as not that important, and just generally are in a different spot in life. Which everyone is! I discard people and when I don't I fear it's just because I am exploiting them for the emotional security that they give me. I do not know where I am right now, therefore it is hard for me to know where I want to go. I was mostly stage green for the last 2-3 years, but always with some kind of distance, never fully immersed in some kind of activism, and even when I was vegan I still made exceptions. I definitely haven't shed orange, but I am worried that right now, instead of transitioning more into yellow, I am falling back into orange and justifying it by mistaking it for yellow. For me, this is harder to see clearly when surrounding yourself with other people (I believe my boyfriend to be mostly orange), but it is not fair to make other people responsible for your own lack of progress. There's not really a question here, just share what your thoughts are on my situation and if you are eperiencing or have experienced similar stuff

Hellooo, I think your replies are invisible nah seriously, I'd be really happy if someone would be willing to contribute some of their thoughts to help me see things clearer.