Eph75

This strikes the nerve of growing awareness; to stop looking outwards, turning inwards and start building up understanding and compassion of self.

@kindayellow No, being alone with your thoughts should not be equivalent to setting yourself on fire, tearing your world apart. The inability to be alone with our thoughts in a healthy manner is what sets our world on fire. Distraction is the defense mechanism that prevents us, in our unhealthy state of being, from setting ourselves "on fire". What if being alone and in equinimity with thoughts is the way to go? And how do you get there? What ideas are there that needs to be let go of that is acting as fuel to your ruminations?

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Distraction is the easy way out - and avoidance of growth. Face your demons.

This is amazingly easy and it's amazingly amusing to see how people struggle with this, something that is trivial in the context of actualization. Go to bed same time every night, get up at the same time every morning, never sleep in, patterns shall arise and you shall awaken before the alarm rings. If you want to make it easier, when the alarm rings, put on previously prepared clothes and go for a nice walk. No hesitance, just do it. If you don't have time, set the alarm earlier to create the time. A few paces and you're completely awake. Choose not to be a victim of circumstances.

@Jed Vassallo Very cool stuff!

@LordFall Yes. Furthermore, there is a significant level of amusement in all of this, the trick is it see through and beyond the packaging and not allow it to lead you astray; the content of the review, the content in this thread, the content of the minds at play, the content of your mind. It's all a big joke. Existence that is, so why not surrender and join in with the laughter? But also this thread is what can be expected from the typical [replace with description of self].

Not knowing the depth of the toxicity in this, but from what I've read in the different threads you have started about your past relationship, it sounds like a volatile situation. Whatever happens, make sure you stay safe.

His ego has been chipped, he tries to recover/rebuild the ego by attempting to control you in your absence. It's the same but a light weight version of the "If-I-can't-have-her-no-one-can" that in extreme cases lead to violent acts and worse. Controlling/possessiveness shouldn't be mixed up with real love. You seem affected by it, even though the relationship is over. Does he still have an emotional effect on you?

There is no value in erasing history unless we judge that history from newly gained perspectives. That's kind if missing the entire point. Embracing all that is mean we also have to embrace all that has been, it can not be with it. This is where there is time to just pause and turn to introspection. No thing in this thread is "out there". What you are looking for is, like everything, within you. Therefore, this is a distraction.

@Lento I think we already agree. A destination implies a desire to get somewhere - or - need to prove something which results in distractions. This thread is such a distraction

The definition of "awakening" matters hugely, awakening implies awakening from a sleep. To me, that happens once and only once and that is when we've awaken from the "sleepwalking" state that most of us spend our entire lives in. There is no mistaking when this awakening has happened. If you're in doubt, guessing or feel you have a stong enough concept, no - that's not it. This you just know, and feel. Awakening makes us "see" in a completely new way, a kind of third or a fourth person perspective. We see and make sense of things in a drastically different way. We're more of a spectator of the going-ons that we are the participator. With all the consequences that follows. Insights we can have infinitely many of. None of which can be "total". An insight is just a new way of making sense of "some thing" previously known or "some thing" that we've been made aware of that we we've not been aware of previously. Still, this is just one more distraction that pulls us away from that which matters - which is embracing "nothing".

@Lento No, that just sums up to nothing at all.

It does not matter. It's just a label that is attributed to an experience in that moment. A moment that appears as "relatively total" . Of course it's not, the thought of having an insight of everything that is, it is absurd. So yes, he was mistaking, and yes, he is human (who'd have thought). This whole thing arises from *someone* putting Leo (or anyone) on a pedestal and *someone else* reacting againt it. There's always more. Push on further. For him but also for everyone else that gets hung up on what he does, "rigth or wrong". It does not matter, it's just one more distraction.

It sounds as if you are worried about what others will think about your music, so the closer you come to being finished the more doubt you add into what you do / more restistence arises in a sort of self-sabotage. That self-sabotage could be an unconscious defence mechanism in order to avoid risking having your ego and self-esteem getting "targeted" in case people would reject your work.

https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/anxiety-chest-pain

How do you experience this "pain" and do you usually experience anxiety? First thought that pops into my mind is that anxiety can make itself reminded as such "pain" that more like a pressure point than a sharp pain, in the opposite side of the heart region. Gets accentuated when exhaling slowly and deeply.

Stumbled across this one a while back, bookmarked it, never got around to reading it, have no idea what it says but it might be of interest. A four part thing where one part is detox. https://scottjeffrey.com/decalcify-your-pineal-gland/

That's all very broad. What is it that you imagines that you would have done, which you have only done 10% of? What is it that has been stopping you from doing "all that"? And why is it that that "what" has stopped you? And what kind of internal work have you done to make anything happen? Do you feel that "enlightenment" is the fix all solution? And what do you imagine would happen if you suddenly would find yourself being "enlightened"? There are a lot of questions, contemplation is key in order to help taking us "somewhere".

While time being a mental construct and also the past only existing in the mind as a mental construct that past is very much prone to being a misrepresentation of reality even more so than what the perception of the current moment is. That illusion of time doesn't negate the representation of perceptions of moments experienced "in the past" even if we should say that there is only this moment. Well, unless they are fully false memories and not false in the sense of inaccuracy through perception. The past happening right now in the mind whenever the thought of the past occurs means it is experienced right now and we own the capacity to change the past by reinventing or reinterpreting the perception of that past. We do that with or without intent. It happens all the time. IMO it adds confusion when trying to make sense of this when applying the idea that everything is happening in your mind and hence is only an illusion. I find the topic interesting yet hard to make sense of all the thoughts that are being thrown out there, there's a lot of implicit subjective assumption in these kind of topics.

I'd say.. Pay attention to what you are telling yourself. Hell is created by that internal voice when it gets to do its thing unchecked. A) Become aware of the voice in your head B) of what it is saying C) that it's bullshitting you 99% of the time D) treat what it tells you with maximum sceptisism If you manage to understand this, experience it while it's full at work and challenge it, that will turn you away from the destructive paths it lays out before you. You will be going to better places.

@Adodd Thanks for the kind words I'm here to help as much as I can.

Ethos - ethics Pathos - Emotions Logos - Logics Essentially the way in which one reasons. By leaning on logos you lean towards reasoning and judging through logics and facts or even "common sense" to get others to agree with you.

Which brings up a related - and should be equally interesting - topic. Do women suffer a self-esteem hit as they get older and their vaginas become - not sure what the most accurate term is - not as firm as it used to be?

Also posted here

Are you sure a defense mechanism is that crude? That's not really a question. Don't underestimate the subtleness of the ego. Instead recognize and ask what might be going on here that is not readily available for you to percieve. I don't know you so what I say means nothing, of course, but also recognize that you reasoning this way actually means something. That something is much more interesting from a growth perspective. Loving the stage we're in is loving life. Life is to be loved. I don't think tier 2 underestimate tier 1, rather the opposite, appreciates the stages for what the are. They're part of all of us. And they are more apparent from a perspective beyond. Actually, they are not seen as a direct thing from within tier 1.