Lento

@Serotoninluv Thank you man ?❤️ And gotcha! Mine was just a playful humour too ?

@Serotoninluv Oh! That's relieving to know. I kind of have been wondering for sometime about what you meant by that statement. And speaking of humour, I guess I've become the biggest joke here, exposing my shadow to light while ironically claiming to have some expertise. You know, just something to reminisce and laugh about in future threads lol ??❤️

@Rasheed Maybe you need to consider contemplating this question in your journal!

Let it go.

@Anton Rogachevski Are you saying that the Palestinian people would do the kidnapping, torturing, or killing? Or is it just their "government" i.e. Hamas? Because I believe if there are progressive people like you on the Israeli side, then surely there must be people with similar mindsets on the Palestinian side. I mean it seems like you don't fully agree with your government anyway. For instance, I'd guess you are against the Israeli West Bank barrier?

Positions reversed, would you consider doing it (becoming a citizen of Palestine)?

This one is really interesting. It's kind of difficult to detect the shadow here, but I'll speculate a little bit about some possibilities though: Making mockery of this thread as he may think of it as being irrelevant to personal development. Making an irrelevant statement to oppose my view on this topic. Making an irrelevant statement not for the sake of opposition, but rather to point out another possible way for looking at this topic. Making a vague statement with a deep message and meaning that we missed because it's way above our heads. All of the above is wrong and I am simply overthinking a simple post that I couldn't understand for some reason(s). None of the above matters, and I'm simply being silly. Now, I don't know @Serotoninluv in person. But we've had certain encounters here on the forum, so I assume he's not just throwing trash. I would like him to speak and resolve this mystery for us. There are different shadows to be detected here. Some of them can be related to me, some of them to him. I would love to discuss further openly with him, if he's up to it.

In my experience, seriousness arises from incomplete knowledge. Why did I underline "incomplete"? Because to have all the knowledge (you are fully aware) means to be enlightened. And to have almost zero knowledge means to be completely ignorant. "Ignorance is bliss.", they say. It's the journey from knowing to not-knowing (even in reverse if you will) where all the seriousness arises. There is no enlightenment really, because reality is infinite and always changing, so we aren't capable of knowing/learning/being aware of everything. However, the more knowledge one acquires, the closer they are to enlightenment. The only difference between enlightenment and ignorance is that ignorance stems from spiritual bypassing, i.e. something like: "problems only exist when you think of them", "there is nothing but direct experience", "your car doesn't exist unless you look at it", etc... While enlightenment stems from observing reality, through mediation, and through those 'spiritual bypassing' lenses as well as through anything else. However, there's nothing wrong with being serious. I think that it's a requirement for a healthy growth. I like to think of it as a spectrum of seriousness vs. non-seriousness. One should not attach themselves to one side of the spectrum. Just my mind monkeying around.

@Eugenio Well, yeah. I think you have some good points. Perhaps I was a bit brief about explaining my point. I mean, certainly the shadow of people can be projected onto each other, but that does not invalidate, or devalue it, right? I could tell you that you hating cruelty is not good. This might be a shadow of my own and might not be. Maybe I'm just a religious person who follows the belief of no-hate dogmatically. Maybe I hate hatred. Maybe I'm just preaching to you through my superiority complex. Maybe I'm showing off in front of other people. You see, things are not as they seem. They're always very complicated and interrelated. I think we need to agree to similar definitions regarding the shadow, because we might be saying the same thing. However, if someone has done a lot of shadow work on themselves. I think at that point they may be certified to point out shadows in others, professionally. And that is a real thing. Have you read @winterknight's posts? It's called psychoanalysis. It's basically shadow work done to you by a professional, even helping you to move on from past traumas and stuff. Here's a Link for his thread. You probably need to search the word 'psychoanalysis' for better results. Again, in my opinion, that does not mean that the feedback of other 'unprofessional' people, and even 'less developed' people is trash. In fact, I think every perspective, no matter how limited it is (or might seem), can be of (different degrees of) value for someone who is willing to learn. I think the formula would look like this: listen, accept, embrace, estimate, work, and then let go.

Run! Literally run! Go on a daily free run every morning. Exhaust yourself. Go back home. Drink some juices. Take a shower. Have an above-average-sized healthy breakfast. And then do whatever you do. Now, whenever you feel the need to jerk off, you will be able to detach much easier.

Are you stupid, or just trolling? Or both?! You always complain and whine about your bad situation in life, especially with women. Then you come here claiming that women are predictable? WTF?! If they were, you would have ended up nailing one (maybe even more) every night. If they weren't, then you're full of shit. Either way, you shouldn't be here playing the victim, spreading your negativity all the time, attracting a lot of attention, and distracting us while you are not willing to help yourself. It's called self-help for one reason, and that is to help yourself by yourself. Get a life, man!

How long are the sits? In my experience, longer durations, preferably preceded by meditation, play a huge factor in the dis-identification process. I think that a 30-minutes sit per day won't be enough for creating the momentum required for a breakthrough.

I totally agree. Although I don't think the term 'presence' drives it home. I mean, presence is obviously all there is, so how can someone ever not be present? I don't mean to oppose you Leo, but I think being a little indirect here can be of more help.

@Mikael89 I'm attracted to both fat girls and curvy girls. They're not the same, and I'm attracted to both. To me, there's nothing better than a cuddly teddy bear ?? The athletic type of body varies in my opinion, I mean it can look sexy depending on the muscle and fat distribution. It's a highly subjective matter, and you can program yourself to become attracted to whomever you want.

Grace. Connection. Acceptance. To me, meditation is simply the act of non-doership, as paradoxical as it sounds.

@cypres Yeah, I think these kinds of discussions are of most value to us as "self-actualizing" people hanging out on the internet. It's really good to see more and more people being open to learn about their own shadows. In my opinion, there should be a dedicated subforum for shadow issues, since integrating the shadow is a huge piece of the personal development puzzle. Really, there's nothing personal about our shadows. We all have them. The problem is that we often can't see them from the insider's perspective, but mostly others can spot them and then point them out to us. The "shadow pointing" discussions are in my opinion one of the best tools for individual and collective growth. Me and my best friend do shadow work together. Ideally, this is how it looks like: - *Either of us does/says something* + Hey brother, I've noticed that you've been doing/saying this and that lately. I love you and I want to make sure that you are aware of it. From my experience, this behaviour probably indicates this and that, so just checking out on you, what do you think? - Thank you for the feedback. I was/wasn't aware of that. I'm not sure it indicates anything to be honest, but since you're suggesting it, then I should probably take a closer look. I highly recommend for everyone to find a close friend who's also interested in personal development, preferably one of each gender. I think this will advance one's growth by orders of magnitude.

I think any reply here would mainly indicate the shadow of the owner being projected outwardly. For instance, the OP's shadow might be criticism, superiority complex, perfectionism, or all of them. Mine might probably be the "big-shot-ism". Cetus56's might probably be the fear of being wrong, or the shame of one's own past. These are just possibilities, one might simply be trying to help others so let's not dismiss that. After all, everything gets interpreted by you (or me), not anyone else. The interpretation is the key to growth. If we could interpret everything in a positive light, I'd say we'd most likely grow the most.

But you seem to trust us ? How's that going for you? ? And how is it even possible?

Women are sensitive creatures. She's sensed your suffering and probably was trying to comfort you. There's nothing personal about her leaving you, but it'd be awkward for her to say that once again after you broke up. She felt guilty and probably now that guilt was released. She let go, and now is your turn. Good luck brother ?

@petar8p @electroBeam Really insightful and eye-opening observations guys! Thank you so much ? And electroBeam, it's ironic that these insights come from someone whose avatar is a copycat of Leo's ?

For the same reason(s) all religions judge prostitution.

@dimitri You're the absolute awesome!

Have you ever considered doing the opposite of those things, just for the sake of experimenting? I'm not kidding, a whole new way for seeing the world might open up to you simply from experimenting with your shadows. A lot of growth can happen if you embrace what you're unfamiliar with. (I'm really suggesting this with love, just like the last time, so please don't think I'm opposing you or that I'm being the devil's advocate, or anything like that). ?

@Eugenio From my POV, it's completely perfect either ways. ❤️ (not sure you're talking to me though).

But you are others, so selfishness is not even possible to begin with. @themovement I don't know about Leo and I can't speak for him. But to me, I don't think it's true liberation to think that you need to do something in order to become liberated. I think that liberation is everywhere and that it's always the case. The only question would be whether you are aware of it or not. Why did you post this thread? I highly expect that Leo's answer for your question would be similar to yours for mine.