Loving Radiance

Hey there I want to gift a female friend a book that explores feminine energy (Yin) and its associated qualities. She is on a journey to embrace her feminine shadow and reclaim her sovereignty. I thought a book that provides practical insights she can apply in her life would be a great gift. I'm looking for something related to the menstrual cycle, archetypes, and new age concepts, ideally connected to Integral Spirituality. I'm interested in a more feminine approach to Integral Spirituality than the typical Ken Wilber books. I already asked an AI for it and it gave me "Women Who Run With the Wolves" and "The Book of SHE: Your Heroine’s Journey into the Heart of Feminine Power". Do you have some personal gems you'd like to share and recommend?

In addition to what Emerald proposed above, it also can be low self-worth expressing in core beliefs like "I am not good enough.", "I am unlovable.", "I am powerless", etc. Avoidance of intimacy and depth in order to avoid fear of rejection, in order to avoid shame, in order to avoid hurt and feeling low in worth. Embrace intimacy and do deep conscious breaths when you feel like running away. Embrace your emotions which you would avoid feeling when you are avoidant. Only step outside your comfort zone as much as you can manage: have a balance of embracing your avoidant tendency (creating distance and having alone time to breathe) and going out of your comfort zone (creating closeness and going into intimate situations and relaxing into them). Toxic self-reliance is toxic. More often than not, accept her help when she offers it (even if you think you can manage on your own). Ask her for help when you need it (don't trust your mind or automatic behaviors) and accept feeling weak. Take a moment and do deep belly breaths before you do it in order to ground yourself in your body. Again, only step outside your comfort zone as much as you can manage. Connect to your emotions and feel into them daily. (google "insighttimer Morning IFS Parts Check-In | Jenna Riemersma" and open the site on your desktop or in desktop mode on your phone) Surrender to the feeling that she could become dependent on you. Surrender to the discomfortable feeling arising in your body. Breathe deeply and feel it. Same here, only step outside your comfort zone as much as you can manage.

Nice perspective to study society @Leo Gura he also added book recommendations at the end if you are interested in diving deeper

Amazing share. Thanks Emerald.

Negative Values Release The NLP visualization was quite useful for the first 2 times. It then became apparent for me that it was too detached, mental, slow and with too much safety precautions in it (of course it has to be that way because the course is designed that even a highly traumatized person could do it). With my intensive shadow work practice I could dive straight into the themes and instantly connect to these parts which are active in these themes (mind you that I trained this ability for a year 24/7 in an intentional community focused on shadow work). It took one evening for me to dip my toe into most of them. it was easy to connect to the parts, visualize the situation and sit with it to let the lesson come into mind. I notice that mental recognition of the lessons isn't healing or embodiment. It is about integrating these lessons into my life on a daily basis and intentionally caring for and healing the wounded parts. Since then it happened on multiple occasions that my mind recognized a situation where I could apply a lesson and then let this feeling/caring arise. The real work is isn't doing the NLP visualization, it's the fundamental shift in selective focus (RAS) to heal the inner dynamics and to do the healing consistently on a daily basis. I don't really know how I should proceed from here. Reprioritizing again is something I'd avoid. I could visualize my psyche structure to be healed and then imagine if my values would shift when I inhabit that state of consciousness. It could work. I also sense fear in a protector part in me who wants to avoid this because it was quite arduous already to find a new value and go through every pass. It would mean - besides doing the healing work - building a deeper foundation that would stay for longer because it is more grounded in truth. I sense that this is the right way despite the resistance. The shallower way would be doing the healing work and just continuing with the list as-is, rationalizing that it will change in a year or so no matter how hard I worked on it in the beginning. This also has some truth. The expression of personal truth shifts over time, so no matter how deep or shallow the foundation is, it shifts in one year regardless. Hm, I better take into account that this course is built for less developed people, so there is a way to shortcut this process again by using my visualization and feeling ability. Well, the solution lies in introspecting... List of the trauma situations of the themes and their lessons: Note: Child part and exile part are used interchangeably, I only used them in order to put focus on different characteristics of that part. Original theme: Health caused by repressing anger in response to mom at 2y.o. or younger Lesson, "Express the life energy that is alive in you." Friendship is caused by social trauma when moving into high school (12y.o.) and not seeing resonant people to become friends with and not going for finding them due to: self-abandonement emotional repression dissociative retreat into imagination belief "I am alone and there is nobody there for me. The external world is dangerous and there is only safety in being alone." Lesson, "Be there for yourself (presence with vulnerability), and follow and openly show your desire and need (expression)." I too noticed that there is a much older trauma which reactivated as a 12y.o. I did it again with the intention of going to the point in childhood where I experienced this trauma first. I sense that this energetic protective wall to others was already caused when I moved into elementary school and the kids being too loud for me. Belief: The outside world is too much and overwhelming. Lesson,"Feel yourself, care for your needs and create the environment according to your needs." Clarity & Open-mindedness to cope with trauma (mental bypassing) Child part is neglected from mental bypassing, directing the energy heavily in the upper body and being in the head in order to disconnect and avoid life. Inner child rejected values because they were used to not serve it's life energy and to disconnect from needs which would, if followed and expressed, expose me to an exile part which holds shame, fear of rejection and pain. Lesson, "Use the head to connect to life." Authenticity, Self-Mastery, Wisdom, Contribution and Health caused by rejection & judgement of the old non-embodied, depressive and purposeless life (Clarity & Open-mindedness) Child part was repressed by mental bypassing and thus the child used the inner critic to negatively motivate me the values. Repression was seen as a confirmation that the shame exile has validity. Expressing the emotions would lead to removal of negative motivation and make the motivation towards the values purely positive from inspiration and desire. Lesson, "Express your emotions that are alive in you." Self-Mastery, Wisdom, and Contribution are caused as reaction to using Clarity and Open-mindedness to cope with both #1 and are also caused by unworthiness (being pushed by inner critic; needing [value] to be worthy of love) Exile part of unworthiness was there when all in my family were older and bigger while I was smallest. Inner critic is used to protect and avoid activation of shameful unworthiness. This exile holds deep love for reality which gets shut down whenever fear arises when wanting to step outside the comfort zone. Doing things because of the love for the world and not out of wanting to be worthy of love. Lesson, "Go outside to follow your desire and embrace everything that arises." "Follow the light when everything seems dark." using Love and Grace to cope (seeking safety from inner critic) On the hand, the values are refuge from harsh inner critic. Inner critic protects unworthiness exile part. On the other hand, there's the belief "I can only be love and grace when I am X or have achieved X." So, by using the inner critic I need to embody Self-Mastery, Contribution and Wisdom to be worthy, but it's never enough because of the never healed wound. Lesson, "Ground your whole being in love and grace." Clarity, Open-mindedness (and Wisdom) are caused by the dissociation coping-lifestyle developed after traumatic mushroom experiences Cognitive disorientation feels unsafe and not held. Ground in something deeper than the cognitive to hold yourself Lesson, "Ground yourself when everything is chaos and turning around you." Edit: During visualizations I became conscious of the black hole void energy that trauma creates. I am grateful to do this healing now in the beginning of my journey. It is clear now why many "successful" people are never fulfilled in their values even if objectively they have the value in their life 100%.

@jacknine119 It helped me to distance myself and heal for a time. Now I feel I want to get more into contact despite their development and level of unconsciousness. Trust your intuition.

Because of ideology and epistemology (being dumb in critical thinking, bias, and sense-making).

1. Be conscious of yourself when you stay in the relationship for sex and not for the person you are in relation with. Be conscious that you stay in this relationship to fulfill your own needs. I imagine that you are in need for sexual pleasure and your partner is the only source for that. Do you practice self-pleasure and are you praying to yourself in that practice? Do you give yourself love? 2.1 It is important for your partner that you communicate with her and that she knows when you want to be high. What is so difficult for you about that? It is reasonable that she wants to be informed because you are living together. (I get how there is something in your psyche that makes this difficult.) 2.2 What would it feel like if you communicate with her before you take psychs? Is that difficult for you? If so, what feeling arises when you imagine doing this "communication before action"? Go into the feeling and listen what it needs and what it wants to tell you. 2.3 As you already wrote, it seems to be a pattern for you to be unbalanced in this. It points towards an unresolved protective pattern in you, expressing as avoidant attachment. There is a shadow part in you which makes you not communicate and use psychs behind her back. So, get present when you have the feeling of doing psychs without communicating with her beforehand. Notice the impulses drawing you towards reaction, to fall into autopilot mode. Notice the energetic and emotional flow that brings you into this. Feel into yourself and ask yourself what you try to get by doing this action. What need are you wanting to fulfill or what story are you wanting to affirm and repeat? What quality of state of consciousness is that shadow part in and how does it feel like? How is it stuck in repeating a loop? What pain or vulnerability is this feeling/pattern/part avoiding? 3. Once you become more conscious of your pattern - emotionally and cognitively - talk with her about you being regularly stuck in your protective pattern which makes you be in a dissociated, shut-down state of consciousness (which makes it difficult for you to communicate). Talk with her how she can feel empathy for you and help you get present in that moment when these situations occur again. Think of baby steps how you can bring more consciousness into the habit. Be prepared take the long road because it is so engrained in you. For example, I have noticed that I go into guzzle mode whenever I eat. I notice that whenever I chew a portion, there comes a time when I already prepare the next portion to stuff into my mouth. I am not present and enjoying the portion I still have in my mouth. The baby step is then that I become conscious of it and slow down my eating. I prepare the next portion only after I have chewed and swallowed the last one. I eat mindfully and taste the portion in my mouth. This is doing small steps for me. And of course, I will fall right back into guzzle mode just after a few seconds, just as fast as attaching to thoughts while meditating. I notice that I think of it and become more conscious of it more often. I always ate like this so it will take some time till I fully bring mindfulness into it. 4. What did all your close friends and partners mirror to you or criticize on you? Connect the dots and notice patterns arising. From your post I see avoidant attachment (with the accompanying survival responses of flight, then freeze, and - if nothing helps - fight) and spiritual bypassing. The ego structure will use awakening and higher states of consciousness to serve its patterns. For you these patterns are of avoidance. Do the shadow work. Face the truth and the feeling that you are avoiding in the relative realm. Come out of hiding and give yourself to grace:

@Elton You came here to create something with your life. Yes, going the hero's journey is hard and arduous. And it's most fulfilling when you walk it, stop, look around and take in the beauty and start walking again.

Actualized Quotes #081 On the point of theft, here is a high-quality podcast that I was reminded of: "How Offshore Finance Corrodes Culture, Politics & A Globalised World" https://open.spotify.com/episode/1y16qp6vRVXet5e0PRC034

Amazing find. Thank you for sharing!

I'm glad you folks can take something from this

@Sandhu https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cognitive-bias.jpg

Google them and share interesting biases you discovered

@numbersinarow It's not about taking sides and clinging to it, it's about what is more important for the current situation. A clear opinion is practical in dire times. The reality is that you cannot do analysis and build up civilization from understanding the systemic issues at hand when we are still in war with each other. Universal rules in the relative domain are imagined. The rules we accept are based on survival, so we imagine them to be universal.