Shantanu

Main takeaway for me was: Not to pick up new things. I am a very curious person and could not help to get engage with next thing. It is good quality but most of the times it is very anti-mastery. I could not master my current understanding, knowledge by reengaging myself with it; by repeating, by making solid memories. Instead I'll always seek out for something new. These days I was thinking that how would I give the time to all aspects of my life. How would I possibly do all the things that I wanted to do. It seemed almost impossible. But many of wants and needs are just baseless. Pure deception of mind, telling me that you will feel great when get this or that. I understood by watching this video that, I only need to focus and spend my time on important things in my life. My life should permit me to relax, take vacation, meditate, contemplate and seek spiritual goal along with my career and life purpose.

Actualize.org worked great for me so far. I was the person, who was very much anxious and less social. Now I am not. I had lot of trouble understanding my emotions when it comes to office issues and dating/ relationships. Actualized.org gave great insights. Videos about workaholic and approval seeking behaviors awakened me. I became conscious about my behaviors. I liked these videos so much that, I spent about 2 weeks watching them all. My thought was to go through all of them, then focus on the one which I really need. I also started meditating and contemplating. I did a 1 month of meditation streak. My anxieties were better handled, I was more aware and was pretty happy. Before 2 months, I got laid off. I know how I would have taken this news if I was not on the self actualization journey. I had a better perspective this time. I decided to take advantage of this break. I decided to work just enough on interview preparation, i.e 3-4 hrs of study and spend rest of the time on spirituality. I increased my meditation time, started relaxing, started believing that everything is going to be just fine, started with small little prayers and affirmations, stared loving myself more and more. I been working from 3 years and did not get a time to read much. I bought myself a kindle device and started reading a lot. I read following books which gave me different perspectives, deepened my understanding and awareness about spirituality and self help. 1. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind - by Dr. Joseph Murphy 2. 5 Love Languages - by Gary Chapman 3. How to be 3% Men - by Corey Wyne 4. The Inner Journey - by Osho 5. The Way of the Superior Man - by David Deida 6. You can heal your life - by Louise Hay 7. The Power of Now - by Eckhart Tolle (Currently reading) 8. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Currently reading) All these books worked wonders for me. They tuned me further with my true self. I got to see different view points from different people. During this time I also took up few counselling sessions, not because I needed some sort of help, but to discuss about my undertakings and actualization journey. This too helped me a lot. Along with all this, I continued to prepare for interviews. Recently, before 2 weeks, I got a very good offer. My previous experience will of of use here; project showed a lot of promise for new learning and skillset development, plus they offered me a very good raise in salary. I joined them shortly. My relationships improved a lot. I was able to understand what is happening around in the realm of relationships. I took control. I started to give more and more without expecting much. I started to derive joy from helping others. I also got lot in return. This improved my happiness to a great extent. To summarize, I perceive myself very different person from what I once was. Past 1 year changed me a lot. I ventured to do lot many things which I never did and thought I would never be able to do. I witness a lot of pain and this launched me into self actualization journey. This gave me immense curiosity to learn, get aware and to live life with purpose. I was able to recognize my neurotic behaviors, control anxiety and develop my career. Many around me told me that you became very calm and compose, sure and certain. All this in just 1 year. I am sure that future hold lot to offer. I am very grateful, about this phase in my life, all bad that happened, all good that is happening, all the people who influenced me, made me more aware about myself. I want to end it by thanking Leo, all his crew, and participants of this forum. I strongly believe that you are touching many lives and transforming them. Thanks for everything.

This is great information. I came across this term could of weeks ago, wanted to know what it really is.

What it means is this: With very accurate map, you can go from one place to another. You can use it as guide for navigation. Now what happens it this, since you reach at new place as shown in the map, our mind tricks us believing its the exact territory. But if you see, map does not tell you about many characteristics of territory. It'll not tell you about what constituted with territory, it'll not tell you for instance what shaped its geography, it'll not tell you about weather, elevations, type of soil, who lives there, how will it exactly look, how will it smell at particular point on map. We can use the map only to navigate from point A to pt B. Otherwise that map is mostly useless. Same is the case with atom. We can have diagrams of it, we can show electron moving about nucleus. But that not how atom actually is. Long time ago we thought atom is the basic and smallest element, then we discovered electrons, then we discovered even electrons are not smallest particles.. This is go on and on. We'll keep on correcting our diagrams/ maps, we'll make them appear to be true, real, we can play video in 3d showing atomic structure. It'll feel real. But its not truth about atom. Its our hypothesis and frameworks which we confuse with reality. Sound is reality for bats, vibrations is reality for snakes, as human we make see and sense more, but can that be a actual reality? Think twice here.

You have gone through a lot. You also know that blaming them in not going to solve your problems. Best thing you can do is, tell them what you feel, let them know. This will take big burden off your shoulders. They'll also realize that efforts are needed from their side too. This way you'll reduce blaming them and victimizing yourself. Also thing along these lines: Most parents are not conscious about their behaviours towards their children. They generally do their best of their abilities to raise a child. Many people just get into marriage, have children. They are unaware about skills needed to raise a child, they are inexperienced as you and me. Best one can do is to stop torturing self of inabilities of others. Let them know what you feel, share your dreams or future vision, ask their honest support and move on. This is the only thing you can do. Now they may give their support or they may not. It should not bother you much. You are on your own in the life's journey. You'll be glad that you did your part and moved on.

Hi @Prozhanchi, What generally happens is we think other person is unfair to us, he/she should not treat me like they did. Whole problem with this assumption is that, out mind deceives ourself very much here. No matter how hard you try, you can't control or question thoughts and feeling of other person. They did what they have to do. You don't have to take responsibility of their action, only yours. What helped me is following: Talk to a person and tell them how bad you felt, how much you were hurt. If that is hard, you can just write a mail to them. Make it big and include everything. Don't accuse next person for anything. Just share what you felt. Then, the end tell them that you forgive them for this. And you wish them well. Tell this in person and write it at the end of mail. Move on after doing this. Now whenever that person's thought pop up in your mind, repeat that, I forgive [Tina] and I wish her well. This will bring down negative thoughts and emotions in you. Also remember that, by forgiving someone, you are not letting next person go free or you are not devaluing yourself. You are only freeing yourself and valuing yourself more. You can still hold next person accountable for their actions. But you are choosing not to be attached with them or their thoughts hereafter.

It exists as long as you let it exist. If you are clear about what you want out of relationships, if you are not hiding and suppressing your emotions, next person will do the same. No need of these 'labels' then.

Deep down do you think he can't be or rather should not be better off without you? With second statement, you are just feeding your ego: how he is wrong, how he can be better with you.. Best thing is recognize these are self deceptive thoughts and see from where exactly they are coming from. The strategy which works for me is this: If my mind is fixating on same disturbing thought while meditating, I take a mental note of that thought. I'll sit and finish my meditation. Later in the day, when I have time. I sit and do contemplation and introspection of that thought. I find something deeper that helps me understand what is happening. I get more awareness and understand why this thought is popping up. Next time, I do not witness same thought hogging over entire meditation session.

Hi All, I am 25. I was introvert for till about an year back. I been improving my communications skills with toastmasters and by forcing myself be more social from about 2 years now. Results are great. I got much better at communication. Developed good confidence. I'll call it top to bottom approach. Learning by doing. Then, with actualized.org I came to know about my psychology, my thinking patterns, why I feel the way I feel and why I do the things I do. Well, this helped me to get over my anxiety and gain a new level of confidence. Many internal conflicts were resolved and life appeared simple (not easy). 1 year of toastmasters could not bring that much profound result which I got with few moths by understanding psychology and acting to change it. I'll call it bottoms up approach. With Communication, we generally learn by doing, by actions. Like we learn to listen actively, to nod a head, to use good body language, to use vocal variety, etc. All that is good and I am doing it. Though the pace of getting result is slow with this approach, I am fine with it. At the same time I would like to work on communication with bottoms up approach. I want to know how to develop more awareness about communication, how to understand psychological need of it? Leo talked about 6 pillars of communication. Assertiveness. Authenticity. Open mindedness. Empathy. Clarity. Listening. I am planning to do contemplation on each of this area. Will try to understand whats actually is going on. I am looking for your inputs. You might have done contemplation on these areas; followed the second approach. How should I go about with this approach?

Sure @Leo Gura. I am OK with it since I am doing it just for 20 mins now. After my 1 month challenge, I would definitely try few things and update this tread. Thanks for your work!

Thanks @Markus It helped!

Best way is to keep yourself engage in activities you like, your hobbies. Meet with all those friends for which you did not had time before.. Understand why your relationship failed, what went wrong on your part and what went wrong on his. After this, know that, deciding to breaking up was the best think you did at that time. When you breakup with dignity, you almost know the reasons why you two are breaking up. When you feel like calling back, or checking whether he'll be still interested, just remind yourself why you broke up at first place. Don't take any actions at this time, you can't trust your emotion here. Tell yourself, you'll let this emotion go and then you'll take action. Once the emotion goes away, mostly, you'll not decide to go on the same route. This method worked great for me.

@charlie cho Yeah, I sit with quarter lotus posture. @Markus Thanks for detailed description. I was not aware of the fact that pressure on nerves causes this. Its my 19th day out of 30 days meditation challenge. I was never worried about legs getting numb. I was more interested whether there are any ways that this could be avoided.

Hi all, I picked up this line from somewhere: "What we think about others tells more about us than other person" I first did not believe it, but it disturbed me for a while. When I gave it a good thought, I could see others are nothing but thoughts in our mind, and yeah, technically, this statement is true. I am interested more in what it says about living life. Does this mean, I need to pick up only good stuff about other people, ignore all bad. I associate them with good feelings and memories and not to focus on their wrongdoing. This way I could have peace of mind about relationships. Also, whenever I meet anyone, I'll always have something good to talk about. If I am talking good about them, they most likely will reciprocate. I.e I become more likable and acceptable in crowds. Appears to be a quality of leader. At the same time it inclines towards people pleasing personality. My concern is, is it authentic way of living life? I could be there. Not sure whether I need to follow this approach with all people.

Hello all, I practice meditation each day, sitting straight on yoga mat. At the end of each round, my feet go numb, it is difficult to even stand for few minutes. Is it common with meditation? Is there any way it can be avoided?