RickyBalboa

@Serotoninluv This awareness you speak of that is transcendent of the personality construct is not meant to be experienced in the context of a conversation with other individuals is it? How would something like that work if one posited that they could interface with another individual in that state? The moment you are asked a question such as "Where did you go to school?", you would have to search through your memory bank and identify with being the experiencer of that story. Ultimately popping you back into personality as a subjective viewer. This is my struggle in social situations. The less I identify with myself, the less equipped I become to handle a conversation. But then again I always have difficulty understanding what people mean by being present. Presence seems to be relative to your goal rather than a solid place independent of any one individuals perspective. I mean, aren't all perspectives at any given point in time technically present?

Hi, I was wondering what some of you guys think about the implications of the type of positioning you use when talking with other people. I know different scenarios and different environments have different effects on the way people decide to interface with each other. But I find it strange how often alot of people seem to have conversations at different forward facing angles depending on particular contexts. I guess I'm being vague but what Im trying to get at is how acutely aware I become of the way I am standing in reference to the people I'm talking to. I have problems with social anxiety and as a way of leaning into my fear I try to face people directly without situating myself side ways and providing myself shielding from the intensity of 1 on 1 communication. However it seems even people who are quite comfortable approaching me and having conversations like to position themselves so that their hip is resting on an edge of a square and im the edge sitting 90 degrees to them. Either that or standing almost right next to me as if we are on the same resting edge. This seems indirect and I end up trying to face them to establish a clear connection. In this process I feel like im making them feel uncomfortable which is strange considering I have such a phobia of people, I never approach people yet someone has the balls to approach me about any such thing yet doesn't want to face me directly? I almost feel I am missing some sort of unspoken rule. Another thing to mention is that I feel men are more inclined to stand next to each other more so than women. Women seem to prefer straight on contact with each other. However I have one friend who is into pickup and he says NEVER approach women straight on. Always come in at an angle. I know the variables to answering these types of question are complex and theres no size fits all for engaging in human interaction. I just have a hard time understanding how I might be reading people so incorrectly. Please tell me how some of you choose to interact with people in terms of direct/indirect attention. Do you have rules you play by concerning interactions involving a lot of physical body language?

@DrewNows I received this book as a gift about 2 years ago. It was the first book I had read in a while. I still remember it pretty well compared to other books I have read since then. I should read it again.

@DrewNows A lot! I just think that that's one side of the coin. What if I was so content with myself that I felt no need to interact with anyone ever. I would be contributing nothing to the development of others. I think intervention with the external world is necessary for me. Especially since I DO in fact spend very much of my time alone. Maybe Im just starting to feel the need to express myself outwardly because I have never really developed that part of myself in the past. Leo's recent videos on conscious politics might have influenced me in some way too. I'm always experimenting and changing. Try not to take what I say too seriously. I could be saying something completely contrary to what i'm saying now within a week.

@Truth Addict Thank you! You don't know how often I bore my family speaking about my own endeavors about fixing my body problems. I've fixed alot of them simply through awareness and experimenting through trial and error. It feels great to finally have some of my thoughts on bodily matters effect someone else other than just myself in a positive way. I'm not so sure on what to say about your sleeping habits. Its tough to say since we could probably agree you are relatively unconscious of your body during the act of sleep lol. Not much room for modulating posture when tossing and turning during the night. Also take your pillow into consideration. I dont use pillows for the most part. I've heard arguments it might not be the best for your spine. I guess whatever helps you keep the best alignment. Sorry I cant really help more on that matter :/. The best I got is run some mock sleeping tests and try to feel out tension and adjust til' you find something comfortable. If you really wanna go the extra mile you could set up a camera and observe your habits. That's pretty extreme though if you aren't really suffering too much. Best of luck Addict of truth!

I'm concerned because the sooner I can I can get down to the reasons why me and another are failing to connect. The sooner I can make modifications in what im doing to help establish connection. For ex. I have a friend on the autistic spectrum and sometimes I must concede my gaze to get him to talk. I can tell direct eye contact is a distraction for him and too intense for him to function at the best of his cognitive abilities. If I can understand the most elements to why and why people dont do certain behaviors. The more insight I have into navigating the waters of these interactions. Too many times I cant get to the roots in 1 on 1 live interaction because people will feel to much shame or feel its not appropriate to discuss deeper feelings. Here on actualized I can gain that insight and recieve answers to questions I never thought previously. Like user Justthinkingaloud posted. Those types of posts help me alot. Just small contributions that give me a birds eye view of all different types of peoples personal feelings and perspectives on the matter. Good question! I do seem to not share my emotions so much when having conversation. Some of that I have to contribute to just being less of a person who lets their emotions lead them through decisions. I like ideas and opinions, but feelings not so much. I 'feel' that sometimes I have fear in sharing my opinions because I never rule out any possibilities. This tends to make it easy to call me a person of radical beliefs. Most people have some sort of breaking point where If you say something to radical or taboo they will flip on you, even if you are just questioning a possibility rather than describing it as a full on belief of yours. I know one thing. If i were to be completely honest with people about my internal reasoning processes without filtering myself I would be in BIG trouble lol. I do need to work on being more transparent though despite having unconventional opinions on things. @JustThinkingAloud This DOES help. Thanks for contribution!

@DrewNows There is 100% some validity to some of the ideas you are suggesting. But what still stands is that Im trying to make meaningful connection where I can understand people, and when people don't look at you It's easy for them to disallow that from happening. Another reason for starting this is that is its socially inappropriate to ask people in the middle of a conversation "What are you feeling right now about this situation"? So Ive taken it to the net where people can express their ideas freely. Asking people in the flesh "What are you really feeling now" undermines the sincerity of the people involved. How they feel should be self-evident. When people are looking away from you its not so self-evident anymore. From your responses thus far, Im guessing you might intuit that "you're pre-occupation with someone elses feelings is a sign of your insecurity". While in some cases it may, I am simply the most concerned with profound and meaningful connection with another individual to produce the most powerful experience for both parties. I'd rather conversations such as this that go meta and produce profound insights rather than the trivial drivel I hear come from most peoples mouths. And if some how all of my goals to live a profound life are simply a mask for covering up anxiety then I dont know what further to say lol. No offense taken. I highly respect people who aren't afraid to point out my potential weaknesses and put my perceived certainties to the test. It's what we all need.

@DrewNows Yeah, I mean I appreciate your post because It applies to me for sure. It just wasn't the point of my post to mention the anxiety. It was simply a supporting detail for my post. I guess I could have titled the post better. What I was trying to prompt was discussion about how people moderate their posture to balance the line between creating powerful connection vs creeping someone out. The intention was rooted in the subject of sociology rather than self-help. Again, thanks for the video.

@Sahil Pandit I like that! More so the prospect of 'setting' something as a baseline before stacking further connection on top if it. My rebuttal to that might be something like "You've set your baseline. However, now you have to express yourself more intimately using your body parts(hands under the table). If you then do this and a lull in the conversation happens and all the energy drops dramatically, what is your segway back into a baseline? Do you simply focus back on the breath and then put the hands in the original resting position?" I sometimes find I become so involved in the process of expressing myself that I forget come back to some sort of equilibrium in my body. I end up doing some pacing type of action like looking around the room or shifting my body position to no avail of finding true peace until someone replaces that lack of energy with a new topic. My go to is usually to embrace the silence fully. That results in essentially me ending the conversation though. I'm still playing with ideas revolving around this. I don't speak with people all that often so some going out and practicing and being aware of myself is due.

@Sahil Pandit As a matter of fact, my last two posts have advice directed toward other people involving posture. I do yoga, and use breathing to relieve anxieties. But what im more focused on here is the logistics of interfacing with people. the 'how' of peoples actions. I know how I prefer to stand. Building some sort of cohesion with another person in reference to my own is what I'm interested in. Helping build a connection so we can get to the meat of the conversation with solid eye contact.

@Mezanti Simply by being aware you are doing it for yourself you are peeling a layer of the onion back. The personal gains are attractive and make you feel powerful but the rewards that are the most hedonistic began to lose their luster the deeper you go.

Sounds like you are talking about tears of joy. Maybe I misunderstand. I guess I can sort of relate. I'd go as far as to use a word that really isnt part of my vocabulary but... perhaps a feeling of being 'blessed' you actually got to experience something so profound. I don't really have that feeling for much of any of the events of my past involving other humans. My tears of joy or feeling blessed are always revolved around moments of profound insights. I cry over psychedelic experiences that changed my life more than anything else I can think of. Maybe sometimes a piece of music that reflects those moments as well.

I think its great you are doing spirituality for your own benefit. That's great! What is also great is that doing whats best for yourself in the long-run for your physical and emotional health is whats going to benefit everyone around you. These practices are priming you for how you are going to help others later on. Leo has mentioned this in his talk about paradoxes. You gotta be selfish so you can be more selfless. Don't worry about the selfishness. The changes you are making are bringing you clean joy. You will be thankful for all you have learned and want to give it back to others later. Keep it up. You are doing great! edit: oh jeez, I didnt read the prior post. I guess we are saying the same thing.

@Truth Addict I'll try my best to help but this work requires alot of self-reflection, mind-body feedback, and experimentation. I can't demo your body to see what all these things you are experiencing feel like from a first person perspective haha(would be cool though). Some of the variables I would try to explore are perhaps your sleeping position. Do you sleep on your side, stomach, back? Which way do you typically turn your head in any of these sleeping positions? Just try these different positions and try and relax while noticing where the tension arises. Also we cant rule out its perhaps related to some sort of stress your experiencing in your life atm. Feeling any particular emotional stress due to any recent changes? As far as the computer goes. My guess might be poor posture of sorts and general exclusion of the upholding of your neck and facial muscles. Is your screen lower than your head. Does your mouth sit agape as your working with a completely loose hanging jaw? I can say from experience that my jaw and frontal neck strength has increased by placing my monitor on a heap of books so that my general line of sight is straight ahead or slightly upward to see my monitor. Imagine your monitor and the stand it sits on are its head/neck and the bottom of the stand is its collarbone. Make it sit level with your collarbone as if you are face to face with another human being. If done right, you should be sitting with a straight spine and your jaw pointing slightly upward. This requires more work from all your muscles to uphold this posture(core, hip flexors, groin, chest, shoulders, back, neck, trapezius, jaw). It becomes tiring especially when you are first adapting to it, but if you are doing any regular exercise like yoga, gym, etc... You will be fine. Just stick with it. Move your chair closer to the ground or move your keyboard up. Do whatever you have to to create the image of a rod going from the top of your straight down into your head through the neck, chest and to the bottom of your pelvis. I personally put my screen a bit higher than what seems comfortable to really counteract the urge to just let the weight of my head come down and be just looking up with my eyeballs. You should look like you are gazing at a sunset far away. you will have to keep checking up on yourself to make sure you are not progressively starting to hunch forward to relieve those muscles of the work they are not used to putting in. If you find yourself leaning in to see smaller text then that's a problem with the magnification you have set on your computer or you have your screen to far from your face. The best thing you can aim for is the position you would meditate in (lotus). That's all I got in regards to positioning yourself when using your computer. Hope it helps

I'll be the first to say no. I was not inspired in the least with this movie. Neither was I impressed. I don't see any reason you can't have a dream within a dream by lucid dreaming. If you've laid the creative groundwork I don't see why not.

My subjecting view of this representing the pain and suffering of the totality of humanity in the form of music.

I have become incredibly more in touch with my body over the past 5ish years of my life. This is a subject I can talk a LOT about that I usually have to shut myself up about when talking to other people(their silence speaks volumes). Now's my chance :D. As far as the 'why' goes for your post. There are MANY reasons for imbalances in your physical form. One possibility is the activities you are engaging in. If you are doing any repetitive motions during the day you are most likely gaining muscle on one side of your body for a specific muscle group. Dancing isnt completely balanced exercise. Alot depends on your form of dance, which leg you are leading with, which arm is used more for asymmetric moves. I hope also have taken masturbation into consideration if thats something you do regularly. I spent many years using one arm and eventually switched because I noticed it was aiding in keeping my body bowed in a particular quadrant of my body rather than getting those kinks out. Lastly another thing to take notice of is something I dont have a name for but I've heard someone refer to as "neurotic holding patterns". Ways that your body retreats into itself when you are feeling negative emotions. Slouching, receding the chin inwards, positioning feet unevenly. These ways of holding your body become chronic and further contribute to muscle imbalance. These ones are hard to get rid of because they exist in conjunction with our past traumas. These holding patterns are tied to you like your identity is. The faces you make, the sounds you produce when speaking as well are a reflection of the mental state and can change when you become aware of the way your are preforming them. As aware as I am about all of these factors I still struggle to keep lasting change in the face of new experiences. My body wants to snap back into my old ways because its comfortable with them. Like I said I can talk about this for ages, so rather than write the equivalent of a book on these forums just ask me whatever particular concerns you may have. The best advice I can offer is to partake in yoga. It will make you more aware of all your imbalances and weaknesses in your body. You must pay very close attention to your body and movements and counteract them with the corresponding parallel movements to achieve symmetry. Why is all of this important? Some might say this is pure narcissism and preoccupation with physical appearance but its about balance. Life is a balancing act. A balanced body is a balanced mind and vice versa. Not only that but it will fix chronic pain you may be experiencing in certain parts of your body and prevent deterioration of your body in the long run. Yoga and tai-chi are the best things I can recommend for this. Also just conscious awareness of your body ALL through-out the day.

We live in a time where every attempt to fix something is made increasingly quicker. The quick pill for muscle gain, weight loss, foreign language fluency etc.. While this is a good great in the short term, it either fails to keep people dedicated to their goals or has some kind of negative side effect that requires them to stop and pops them back where they started. I've seen people get glimpses of spirituality and not have good enough of an understanding of what they were experiencing to the point that they they chalk up their psychedelic experiences to just "being high" or "hallucinating". What are some of the things some of you accredit your lasting passion toward this journey of awakening to? What subjects of interest have served as a great pre-requisite for opening you up to studying spirituality and engaging in its practices? Although I have a plethora of things in my past I can attribute my spiritual success and growth to. Two of the biggest catalysts have been being a voracious consumer of art in all its mediums no matter how radical and studying psychology in college(classes in Sensation and Perception were a BIG one). There has been no greater help than engaging in activities requiring patience, open-mindedness, and a willingness to find beauty in the most mundane of things. What hobbies, subjects, values have helped you and are ones you believe will help others maintain a steady interest in awakening without falling back into slumber?

Tell us more about your habits. Do you just free-write for your allotted amount of time within a certain medium(fiction, non-fiction?)? Provide more details if you would. I dont have any recommendations as far as courses or books go.

Unemployed living with parents. I've been in and out of jobs over the past 5 years. These jobs have consisted of Tennis coach, City truck driver, Plant Nursery worker. I've always had a a big emphasis on doing jobs where I'm actually helping society in some measurable way. I have a long list of jobs that I feel are bringing living beings and this earth downward. On top of this I have a disdain for corrupt hierarchical systems which limit my creativity and autonomy. I deeply love studying psychology, spirituality, philosophy and self-help. I spend much of my day committed to obtaining new skills and knowledge. I try to be as minimalist efficient and conservative as I can living with my parents but am finally beginning to run low on finances. I know I have to start working soon and am mortified all my time for learning what I love will come to an end as I am forced into some menial job because my lack of credentials. Feels bad. But I'm thankful for all I have learned and been given in my life.

Not sure if it suits your preference but I try to be very much so in my body when I am simply walking from place to place. I feel all the nuances of my movement. Noticing the tightness in my hips. The erectness of my spine. The flexibility of my joints. using momentum of my arms efficiently. I just continue to learn how my body moves and its resting positions. Looking for imbalances in certain muscle groups and compensating for their lack of work in my movement. Not sure if I look weird some of the time but i've been told I move very gracefully. Sometimes people I meet for the first time prompt me with "Do you do yoga". Hope you can add this to your list of conscious activities.

If I had to be completely honest, there's probably some fear of the unknown mixed in with my decision to not go all in. That's not to say I don't have glimpses of divinity. But i'm still reserving room for all out ego destruction type of experiences.

Hello all. This is my first post on the actualized forum. I've decided to finally take advantage of the forum since I don't get much of a chance to exchange ideas about topics concerning consciousness and non-duality in my day to day life. So without further ado..... I was wondering what many of you would have to say about the power of consciousness. I'm currently reading The Cosmic Game by Stanislav Grof and there are an interesting few paragraphs in the chapter about the process of creation which seemed like good turf for discussion. My question is whether absolute consciousness is fully in charge of creation/reality in all of its features or a sort of alternative where only the basic parameters are set and the outcomes are unforeseeable even to God himself. The book compares the latter idea to that of being the creator of a chess game. While the creator did imagine all the rules and limitations of the pieces within the game, can it truly be aware of every single possibility the game is capable of creating? Is there any room for uncertainty or surprises for divine consciousness? The possibility of each would have huge implications of the role of ones life.

I do and have been working my way up slowly over the years. However I've reached a place where its glaringly obvious that I need work on other mental barriers in my daily life. I feel I have to earn high level awakening experiences and I don't intend on going into them until I can master my worldly hang-ups. Purification work as you might call it hehe.

I could have guessed you'd lean toward the first school of thought. While It lends itself to the idea of true infinity I imagine many of the points of view from members on this forum will exist somewhere in between these two ideas. The two provide a good distinction from each other while both acknowledging god in a supremely creative capacity. I thought it would be a great entry question as it definitely gave me pause while reading it. Unfortunately I don't have the direct experience to say I believe one or the other with any certainty beyond recognizing the ideas presented by you and other figures. Looking forward to others points of view! Thank you for creating actualized Leo!