Eph75

@Preety_India What is it about him that you are having difficulties letting go? Do you still want him, deep down, somewhere, in some way? Or, is it his critical voice that makes a guest appearance in your thoughts, putting you down in his absence? Trying "hard to forget" sounds a lot like suppression, and we all know how that's not a solution. What is it that you needs to come to terms with [with yourself] in order to package him up in a red heart shaped love fueled balloon and just let the thoughts of gently drift away in a breeze, never to haunt you again?

You are going to reason yourself into moving in with him, you are "already there", he will seem like he wants to change and you will fully buy into it. You want to fix him, a lot of people have this need when there's something they have that needs to be fixing in themselves, and turning away from that into fixing someone else, becomes more graspable. But hey, it is time to wake up, you can't fix others. They can only fix themselves. Just like you need to have the motivation to change yourself, to make the change needed in you happen. Also, if there are these kind of tendencies before living together, at a stage where people usually show their best sides, the indication is that it will get [much] worse when you two are tighter linked by living together. It is at these kind of moments there should not be created too much room for over-thinking the situation, and instead to just get out! - and for the simple reason that no-one has the right to impose these kind of behaviors onto others, and no-one should allow themselves to be someone else's stepping stone. You both have issues, his may be destructive and more visible, but you are in denial of your own pathological behavior towards this, as many people that are "caught" in abusive relationships are. A good thing is that you say that you don't have a pattern of being/selecting/having these kind of relationships "finding you", and that's good. So let's not start such a pattern now, right? Up and leave, immediately. Contemplate what you need to work on with yourself. Life goes on. More caring people will cross you path.

This may come across as harsh, but, to you, does it seems like a healthy thing to move in with him? It is not your job to fix him. Leave, and focus on dealing with your own pathology instead of focusing on him.

Partake in your own race, don't fall into the trap of becoming a part of others races, comparing yourself with others successes. There will always be someone that is better than you, and all those others combined will be better from every aspect you could possibly think of. That trap is a self-esteem-destroyer. Focus on yourself, do your best and don't compare that best against others accomplisments. Quit Facebook and similar social medias, they're will make you feel inadequate. Fake success and extraordinary people seem like the norm, but it is not. Faked facades to fool others into thinking that they are not as miserable as everyone else. Redefine "failure" from being something bad into something necessary, a requirement to success is to fail. No one can succeed all the time, there must be failures but they are truly only failures if you let then set you back. Use them as lessons of life and learning opportunities, that which they are. Also daring attempts increase the risk of failure, yet, daring attempts asserts great developmental growth - and great successes. With that said, only you know best if you really are wasting time doing nothing, not even attempting, or if you are doing your best. And that you have the power to change.

There are opportunities for accomplishments everywhere, all the time, just start with smaller increments and you get into the habit of having small successes. The snowball effect will run its course, greater successes awaits. What is the rush? What is rushing you? Is the feeling rational or irrational? In this day and age everything is rushed, a time of instant gratification, we want results and we want them now. In reality, 10 years of invested time is more realistic, before hard results happen. What is this about? Is that inadequacy linked to the amount of money vs. state of consciousness questions above? If you focus on well being, do you feel that you will be side-stepping building monetary wealth? If you focus on monetary wealth, do you feel like you will be side-stepping well being? Where does the expectation that creates the inadequacy come from? Again, is it rational or irrational?

There's a big difference between "going nowhere" and "going somewhere", the latter doesn't have to mean that you know what your calling is, you can still take steps towards "somewhere" and that "somewhere" can shift over time, yet the time invested is not wasted. In a sense, starting out building a sound foundation on which everything else gets built. Spot what you identify as waste, then be authentic by addressing that, and then just keep doing that. It will allow for building that foundation but also, for each step you take, you gain a new perspective and a direction starts to manifest, a direction that could transform into your calling/life purpose/vision. Once you get going, the "ball" just tend to "keep rolling" and new opportunities present themselves. Moving from thought to action is harder. Deciding this at a young age is like deciding what your favorit food is going to be for the rest of your life. How could you possibly know, you haven't had time to sample the food market enough to make that call. Unfortunately the answers to these kind of questions are not served on silver platters, they are things that you will have to figure out for yourself. In a sense, that's the journey that is life. But don't take it too seriously, there's no one direction in life so whatever direction you end up focusing on can manifest much later in life. After all, it's all about the journey, isn't it

It is quite relative to your own objectives, isn't it? And objectives are quite relative to where you are on your developmental journey. A very simple example; spending time on the forum to gain perspectives and grow yourself in different ways is "useful", while spending time on the forum being dogmatic about your beliefs and arguing with people is a "waste of time". If the time spent is adding value to your objectives, or your calling, whatever that might be, then it isn't "waste of time". What that calling might be, and if/how it relates to the world and others and if/how that changes humanity to come is a related subject. A risk of course if that your calling is irrelevant from a more holistic perspective, or even toxic. If your calling is to become a master at playing video games, then practice is useful to achieve this. Yet it is not very likely to be useful to make a living, nor useful towards some greater calling, e.g. the future of humanity. "Waste of time/well invested time" is relative to your calling, and the usefulness of your calling. On someone else's scale it might be useless.. If we want to retire to some cave to eat maggots and meditate for the rest of your life, and you find that sustainable and peaceful, who's there to judge the objective usefulness? Sure, that opens up to making all sorts of "bad" judgement calls, but that's life isn't it? Navigating choices as best as we can, with as much awareness as we have. The question is, can you catch yourself when you're bullshitting yourself? If you go against your authentic self and subdue to the ego desires you'll end up with conflicting thoughts that is the growing ground for "unhappiness".

Yes, awareness and perspective. Although, limiting beliefs can make sense, as beliefs are relative to perspectives and the needs/desires to fulfill some desired outcome. Even if the beliefs can be limiting to growth, they can can be useful in pursuing and fulfilling toxic needs/desires. [The definition of toxic needs/desires also them being subject to perspective ] That's also why such beliefs are so hard to identify as being limiting, let alone to let them go, as this implies becoming aware of, gaining understanding of, and the letting go of the underlying toxic needs/desires.

To "destroy" limiting beliefs, it is assumed that you become aware of the beliefs being just that, believing and not knowing. If you have the determination to explore your limiting beliefs, to better understand them or to alleviate the limiting effects they impose, simply take a random belief and ask yourself if you truly know this thing, where does your perceived knowledge about this comes from, does it come from first-hand experience or through accumulation of information conveyed to you. Acknowledge the possibility that you have created "truths" out of information that is not first hand experience. Also acknowledge that first-hand experience is subjective and is more than likely [] distorted, deceitful or down-right false. This is planting the seed that sprouts into growing open-mindedness, not in form of gullibility but as curiosity to explore other perspectives that contradict whatever "truth" you have made for yourself by your existing belief. Note that all beliefs are limiting and limited in some way. Also, we cannot be completely free from beliefs. What we can do, is to work towards emotional detachment from our beliefs, so that they are not as much of something we're holding fast to, in order to ensure not losing our footing when the foundation of the reality as we currently know it starts shaking and our ego is being challenged. Instead, we can lean onto a certain set of beliefs, which are not as much "my beliefs" as they are "convenient beliefs". There will be no emotional need or desire to defend them, if they were attacked, and also, there would be no prestige in letting go of the existing beliefs so that we can [more] effortlessly transition to other beliefs that make more sense as we further develop. We're then becoming more at flux, and flowing with what is and new understanding will appear more effortlessly, and from sources that were not available to us in the past. An interesting aspect of this, is that many of our beliefs have been adopted/created in order to protect ourselves from ourselves; a coping-mechanism that allows us to avoid confrontation of that in ourselves that is painful to face, and to accept. Stay brutally open to the possibility that with your beliefs, and the limitations they present, you also have to address the limitations of your ego and address those. This way you will develop authenticity and lessen the need to be protected by such beliefs. In this sense, it is about recognizing and destroying ones dogma, and not so much about the belief itself.

@Mirko the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing repeatedly and suffering the same result. You are indeed magnificent GOD INSANITY. I enjoyed the beauty of your post, for nothing of worth to you.

There not being anything to be "saved" from.

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@Akemrelax Yes, I think this is coming from astrong sense of having had and wanting to share realizations so that others can adopt what oneself have understood and therefor skip/end "unnecessary suffering" . Development is at large linear/sequential and parts rejected or skipped will create shadow aspects that will hinder that very development at a later stage. In that sense, we need to run the course of it, and learn from it through first hand experience. Help in navigation at the point of each stage of that development, in a certain and deliberately packaged format, can still help reduce the suffering and to not get stuck for too long. Although, such help assumes an extraordinary awareness, understanding, experience and ability of communicating in an effective manner towards whatever stage of develoment the reciever is at.

@ivory the above quote is your, not sure why the forum quote function switched to it being else Yes, and yet, growth can be triggered and accelerated by stretching ones mind upwards into new territory in a deliberate fashion, to [peak] experience and bring back apects for reference, graduately making the unknown more known, adopting behaviors thereof, and equally letting go of the comfort and certainty of what was already known. This can be done by directly allowing to stretch ones beliefs and values to see what is beyond, or, by detaching from emotional attachment to current beliefs, so that we better allow ourself to flow with growth through acceptance of the existence and validity of other perspectives. A combination is of course what is most likely but further up the stages, 2nd tier, green-yellow transition, this is more deliberately so, and not just happenstance sprung from opportunistic growth. You can fully enjoy each stage, imagine what the indulgence that is organge enjoyment can look like, when in flow, high on dopamine and serotonin, and with the sense of being unstoppable, life is great. Or worse, imagine a caricaturistic red and the high/enjoyment of the power trips of the controlling soul, tripping on the suffering of others. Or, the healtier aspects found in green, e.g. the strong sense of belongingness with others. What they all have in common is a myopic view that "this is it", and thereby a feeling of the others aspects being, in a sense, invalid.

And also that is a nuance of the whole, that will need to be taking into account when dealing with self-deception and growth. That very answer can equally so be a coping skill to avoid facing ones needs to grow in certain areas, becoming overly dependent on relationships and hence not understanding and moving past ones actual belonging needs and also to degrees ones esteem needs. The result could be an exacerbated need of, and leaning on relatipnships and friends. This could also be justified by being "green", forgetting that mental illness/pathology, which such deficiency needs are interwaeved with, exists regardless of SD state. The same questions as stated in the previous post also applies here, turning them around towards preaching for need-for-friends. This also shifts focus onto this being all about perceptions/perspectives and when we turn to self-deception, which is the meta to take away from it all, and is where growth of ones own understanding lies, regardless of state.

@Thestarguitarist14 - @Akemrelax is talking about avoiding problems in relationships [or lack thereof] that causes suffering by adopting the belief that friends are not needed. This would be a coping skill and hence self-deception. This is of course not the same as the growing of understanding for ones relational needs so that the pathological aspects can be overcome and the real/basic need can be exposed and understood. These two aspects are both valid. The problem is that the individuals that have adopted these kind of beliefs as a coping skill don't have the awareness to see the pathology in their ways of doing so. By sending out the message that there is no need for friends, to them, it is not helpful, as they will have to face their problem rather than run away from it. This leaves them at status quo. Two hypothetical questions that arises are; Does the dogmatic no-need-for-friends preacher lack the understanding of these nuances? Might that preacher be someone that is subjected to self-deception and in denial of ones own deficiency need?

From a pragmatic POV I'd agree that awakening gave also me the insight that my friendships and relations had and was causing me more negative effects than possitive effects. But that wasn't about the friends per se but about my skewed perception of what I tried to live up to in order to be a good friend, and also what I expected in return out of my "invested time". My needs were toxic and I sought out/attracted toxic friendships that ultimately wouldn't be able to get me where I needed. But that's not what friendship is, nor what friends are for. Those are transactions of sorts, lets say in my case centering around self-esteem, investing myself in order to get confirmation via such friendships so that they could make me feel better about myself. When coming to the realization that such "friendships" have caused suffering, it is easy to act out of a position where we externalizing the suffering and wrongfully projecting the cause/blame onto those "friends" that you've made yourself codependent of. From this POV, what we're looking for and "need" in friendships is then to be found within ourselves. True friendship is something else, it is not about expecting to get something back and instead centered around the beingness of the relation. Which then of course emphasizes the requirement for compatibility/balance between two individuals in order to be fulfilling. Not continuing investing in percieved friendships that are not true in that sense is a good thing. Reducing number of friend and keep true Friends is good but it is also harder to find authentic friendship as a lot of people are acting out of various dysfunctions. As I wrote before, when extracting your own toxicity in the expectations of yourself and others from the friends/relations equation, what I have found is that I have a very low need for interactions with others and I get most if not all of my basic need met by the interaction I have with my wife, my sons and my parents. The exacerbated need for friends was created by my own toxicity. Without that toxicity my need was already met with excess. Also, this realization changes relationships in general at the core, shifting focus from the negative to the positive and when doing this you change and it brings out more of the positive side in others, not reinforcing each others negativity/toxicity and people that were triggering your suffering in you can very well turn out offering something special that you couldn't absorb in the past. Instead of downward spiraling relationships they start to upward-spiral without any expectation how they should be or needing them to become "perfect". There is something good in everthing and everyone, it is just a matter of seeing it and that helps neutalizing differences and abrations. Business relations and networking is essentially required to maximize success. That doesn't mean that you can't be successful doing it on your own. This is coming from a need of transaction of services though, but that doesn't prevent such acquantinces turning into friendship over time. Also what success is, is relevant depending on who you are and at what stage of development you are, as is the need of friends and the form friendships are expected to come/be. Trying to force one POV onto others when this dynamic is grossly deoendent on who you are, where you are coming from, what you deficiencies are and at that stage of development you are as well as whhere you are on the spiritual path is a recepie for disaster If cutting friends is a knee-jerk reaction to desperately avoid suffering, while it might be a requirement in that very moment to get on with your own development, it is not a sound long term philosophy to get permanently stuck with. Human interactions are complex and small changes in you can change the whole dynamics of a relationship, in unexpected ways.

What you are hiding from, why and how it is that you come up with the answer is important, much more important than meeting expectations. "Hiding" is a coping skill. Equally, "not hiding" can be a counter-reaction and thus equally unhealthy, especially if we do because it is somehow expected. Seeing how these interplay allows for detaching from our pathological need [or disortions of basic needs] so that we can "be/do" with less restaints and more freely fullfill what is needed to cover the basic needs. It is important to remember, and clearly see that extroversy is the external expectation of these times, it hasn't always been so, and it varies with culture, yet our world is strongly leaning towards a need to be extrovert i order to meet today's expected version of being "successful". In a competitive world we "need" to be extrovert in order to cover our "need" to become "successful" and accepted by that very world view, a world view that is operating from seemingly ever increasingly unhealthy aspects. The exaggerated or distored needs that we create [out of e.g. these kind of factors] are not basic needs. So that leaves the strive for understanding of self to such a degree that we see where the line should be drawn, where authenticity stops and where constructed false needs begin, and what the implications of self are, when straying too far towards either direction from this line.

Also, maybe the denying of a need needs to happen in order to gain the first-hand experience of that being the wrong route to wander, so that we can better allow ourselves to understand the two extremes that when seen in a new light, that opens up the possibility for transcendence. We learn from mistakes, mistakes will be made. Are the mistakes necessary? If so, are they mistakes or simoly an inevitable a part of the journey? Help then rather becomes not preventing mistakes but to help better navigate mistakes so that they are easier to deal it, as they happen, and easier move on from them. In a sense, to make the journey easier.

@ivory Yes, and yet the mental health part of it is so tightly interweaved with how we percieve that basic survival need, that when experiencing it, or maybe rather, from that position, when we are "subjected to" it, there is no separation as there is such a strong feedback loop happening here. We're the ones feeding back into it and the trancendence becomes the ending of, or greatly reducing of, that feedback so that the basic need can be seen for what it actually is, and in a sense, the de-horning the beast once percieved. So we're talking about the same thing but from two different outlook-points. -- OT: And yes, we all do interpret "needs" differently, more or less so, that's natural. Developmental growth is linked to how we percieve, how we make sense, how we make meaning and with it the content and meaning of words change to better help describe and understand the increased complexity in which the world is possible to be percieved. So the trick is not to get hinged up on definitions of words but to stretch into getting a glimps of what's being conveyed through words, and what complexity there is therein that is passing us by.

@Preety_India

Bit of a paradox - you come from needing as a part of desiring something better than what is. You need this and that. There are means to means but none of these are means to ends, ends that we falsely believe are on the other side of the seeking. The idea of needing friends is leading us astray for that simple reason, that we make a need out of it. As a reaction, to desperately detach, we create a new need that is "not needing friends" , which in itself is another need. And, then there were two.. There is a transcendence of needs. Transcending the need to have friends doesn't mean that you "can't" or "shouldn't" have friends (!with exclamation marks!) - it is about the preception of there being a need per se. So this applies to how we relate to any kind of need. Detaching from the need to have friends allows you to be free to socialize without having the original pathological deficiency need hanging over you as a dark brooding shadow, or dictation how you feel or respond to certain stimulation. On the other side, of attachment-detachment, "things" dont need to be. And therefore "things" are free to be. Without attachment. Without any preconcieved notion as to how that "thing" should or shouldn't be. If, and only if, there still is an underlying need so fundamental that it surpasses the layer where we create or exacerbated false needs, you have complete freedom to fulfill these without them being the center of your being. Such fundamental and actual needs are far, far less than we think. And fulfilling such requires far, far less from us. So, transcending attachments/needs is a means to operate from "being" / being-cognition. The self-actualization/-transcendece journey itself comes from a need/needs. So the need to self-actualize needs to be transcended in order to... Paradox. Easy to get stuck/lost here, when all we can do to get there is to let go. So that we can see that "it" was here (availiable) all along, but we make ourselves too busy with getting distracted creating the very thing that we are trying too hard to avoid.

Is there's a part of you that want to have that job? ...that is, another part of you than the status hungry shadow aspect that is telling you that taking the job is the right/expected thing to do? Is it possible to change how you relate to work, so that you connect to the parts of a/that job that can be fulfilling while still denying regression into the "hamster mode" , being run by money, status and external expectations and pressures? Instead of denying specific work, change the work-self dynamics at the core. If there is no such appeal, and on the counter-balance side the expectations - shadow-internal and/or external-cultural-society-family ones - what is it that make you consider this? The fear of becoming trapped as "a hamster" can hide, mask, take way positive and appealing aspects. We can still "do" and feel at peace, if we've changed the way we relate to things. Of course somes thing won't allow this internal synergy. What appeal is there that is tearing at your? Most important is to listen your intuition about this, and maintain authenticity and self-respect. This is where knowing life purpose, vision and direction become very helpful - if alining and going in direction of, or straying away from or down-right counter-acting wanted outcomes.

I've had one lucid dream quite immediately after I created intention to become lucid, where when I questioned the happenings in the dream I got yanked out and shot out through what I percieved was the atmosphere, whole body shaking violently, rumbling in my ears, without any vessle, with light, flames and sparks all around me with blindning flashes, that eventually reduced and transitioned into floating in starless space, transitioning into travelling through a wormhole-like spiral tunnel with lights around me, eventually to end up just floating on my back in the void. Tried to move my arms but was paralyzed. After a while I felt ready to open my eyes, still percieving being on my back, and when I opened my eyes/woke up I found myself having slept on my side, which was very surreal. Amazing experience. Since this was the second or third night I went to bed with the intention to become lucid, it felt like it was going to be easy from there on. That was, I don't know, 6 months ago. Spent a few months straight trying to become lucid again but it has not happened, which is quite disappointing. The only difference is that with the intention to become lucid, I always remember my dreams very clearly, and after waking up and going back to sleep, dreaming starts immediately. But still, no awareness inside the dreams I haven't invested into this though, just read some books but I don't journal the dreams in the night, nor have I tried other techniques mentioned in the books to increase the likeliness of succeeding. I'm a bit too invested in getting my usual 5-6 hours of sleep. Still, I would like to think that I can learn to master this before too long.

A combination. Endure, stay true, stay as motivated as possible, keep going. Avoid becoming myopic, long term results are what matters. Everything has ups, downs, setbacks/regressions and all development moves in cycles and plateau at times. Manage expectations. The more at flux and in flow we can allow ourselves to be, the less meaning is attached to the obstacles that crosses our path, and also the fewer obstacles there will be. At the same time, there's inevitably going to be obstacles to which we have to change how we relate. So letting go, understanding or whatever will help changing the relationship to the causes will help in breaking it up. Not to be confused with repressing, shunning or navigating around the obstacles as they are inevitably going to come back unless properly let go of. Stay as open-minded as possible and acknowledge "knowing of not knowing" to better see and embrace the change that is waiting to happen.