trenton

@Leo Gura good job improving at chess. Have you considered playing games against yourself? I had some really cool games that way. I keep getting draws because my opponent is an equally powerful human who knows exactly what I'm thinking. While doing this you can map out exactly how you think and then look for improvements in how you calculate and plan.

I called Leo's blog post yesterday. This is awesome. I figured it out before the post.

I totally called it! Leo just made a blog post about this exact subject.

I have recently learned that my sister plans to attend family therapy with me and my mom. This causes me such extreme fear and anxiety that it causes me nightmares, horrific sleep paralysis episodes, and a return of suicidal thoughts. I struggled to find ways to cope, resulting in me jumping between laughter and screaming while banging on objects. Once again I decided against cutting myself even though I was tempted to cut myself without suicidal intent. For the past several weeks I had a great peace of mind. I was preparing to move out and so was my sister. I had hope that for at least most of my life, I would not have to fear contact with her. My peace of mind depends on the news about my sister and her future relationship with me. Ideally I want to be in a position where I don't need her for anything and I can be free from her. My biggest fear about therapy is that not only am I going to have to talk about my emotions, but I also have to worry about my sister lying about past abuse to manipulate the situation. My mother and sister often put me in an impossible situation. On the surface they say they want me to open up about my feelings, but when I do it is met with backlash like a lot of yelling and cussing. When I stay silent they treat me like I'm the problem for not being willing to just talk things out. My sister then calls me childish for avoiding conflict even though she is not capable of handling conflict by just talking things out. They force me to bottle up intense emotions and then act like I'm the problem even when my trauma has been weaponized against me. The field of medicine and therapy have failed me. They told me that when I was ruminating on my family problems, it was a sign that something was wrong with me. They started giving me anti psychotic medicine which not only didn't work but also damaged my liver resulting in further medical complications. I have been doing everything I could to work on myself and be the best I could be despite my trauma. I took responsibility wherever I could and I have seen this approach to relationships with my sister backfire on me. My desire to be the better person will be capitalized on and exploited. The hospital failed to recognize the trauma responses and treated me as if I had mental disorders. My relationship with my family has significantly impacted my medical situation and my major life decisions. Unfortunately, the institutions I went to made me go back to living with them due to past suicidal thoughts. I want to protect myself from future harm. I fear that everything I say will be used against me and trigger retaliation like it previously has. There are so many potential problems with these meetings that need to be addressed. Any idea on how to handle this? Do you think trying to tough this out for the next few months will destabilize me further? I feel perfectly peaceful so long as I don't have to worry about my sister.

I've been noticing some of the apparent contradictions between what Leo said in past videos and what he says now. For example, when he talked about everybody acting with good intentions he later suggested that they are literally good. This also included open-mindedness exercises like the possibility that evil doesn't exist and is a pure fabrication of the mind. Meanwhile he later started talking about insights like I'm not good, I'm evil. He even made posts on this forum about how it is foolish to think everybody is inherently good. This can leave you prone to exploitation. Perhaps this is why stage green is frequently exploited by red by targeting their assumptions of good intent. From one point of view evil does not exist, from one point of view everybody is good, from one point of view evil does exist, from one point of view it is asinine to think everybody is good. The reason Leo stresses so much that actualized shouldn't be held as a belief system or ideology is because what he teaches is true, but from a certain point of view. Depending on the point of view, a lot of contradictory stances could be true. When he speaks, those are relative truths unless he is delusional. I discussed this site with an ai and the ai thinks he is insane and sounds like a narcissist claiming absolute truth. Leo took some tests to claim otherwise. This is why it would be a nightmare if one day Leo was gone and forums like these turned into an actual cult with people furiously debating what Leo said. I think it would be wise of Leo to one day get rid of the forum seeing how the spiritual community could ultimately devolve into dogma. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from these teachings if various conclusions are true from a certain point of view.

@Something Funny if you meant my personal life, then i can give you a real life example. During spring break I traveled to Europe with my sister. We were in London watching street performers. I had done my research, so I was aware that pick pockets targeted tourists who were watching street performers. A couple walked up behind me and my sister. I looked at their faces. They had unnatural smiles. Their eyes were unnaturally fixated on the performers as they avoided any eye contact with me. Their body was stiff and the smiles exaggerated. This is when I felt something was wrong. They positioned themselves such that I had nowhere to run because I was caught between the crowd and them. I couldn't move and now was vulnerable. I pretended to watch the street performers and the loud music. I was silent and listened carefully for any movement behind me. As the song approached the climax with loud noise and excitement, I heard the zipper of my backpack coming undone and felt the vibration through my body. I was bullied a lot in school, so I was sensitive to people trying to steal from me. I immediately took off my backpack saying "I heard that." I placed the backpack between my sister and myself and checked. I found the zipper was opened. I turned around and looked at the couple. They maintained their unnatural smiles even though they were just caught. They pretended nothing happened and walked away. So to answer your question, When somebody seems suspicious, I become extra alert around them and pay close attention for sudden movements even when I seem to have my guard down.

I'll be honest, I mainly identify with yellow even though other people on this forum would think I'm nuts. I tried taking online tests and evaluations for this and I consistently got yellow. I tried describing myself to an AI. I don't know how trustworthy it is, but it also said yellow. Maybe the truth is that I don't really fit cleanly into any category. I might have some qualities of blue, some orange, some green, and some yellow. I view it like 35% yellow, 15% blue, 30% green, 20% orange. Maybe it is some kind of combination like this. Maybe it's actually 20% yellow and 35% orange if you think I mixed things up. But if trump is stage yellow, then I'm stage white super mind.

@Something Funny you are describing a very real problem with how law enforcement functions. Institutions are generally reactive rather than proactive. For example, a teacher at school could be luring children to private lessons. If the school doesn't do anything proactive, then it will not be until multiple children come forward with complaints about sexual abuse even though most of the children stay silent. This is even harder when dealing with someone with a good reputation. if you try to confront someone like this before they have done anything to you, then they will just gaslight you claiming you are paranoid. The frustrating reality is that given how various institutions and law enforcement are structured, there isn't enough done to prevent the problem from arising in the first place. All you can do is protect yourself to the best of your abilities.

I did all kinds of work on myself. I would have done psychedelics had I had access to it. Therapy was slightly helpful. Most of the help came from my own research, self reflection, and insights.

@Candle thanks for responding. I have done therapy. In my experience it's incredibly difficult to find a therapist who can help you. I think it is a sign of broken system if I have to keep jumping to different therapists hoping they can help. I have done a lot of independent research on psychology. This combined with a lot of self reflection allowed me to generate useful insights which I have used to help myself and others. Sometimes my own research proved more helpful than actual therapists. I read several books on emotional mastery for these purposes. What I was trying to describe is that I had suicidal thoughts because I felt like I was trapped in an abusive relationship with no clear escape. In the case of my stepfather, my homicidal thoughts stopped when he was evicted. Pills don't help when someone is punching you and throwing pans at you. Unfortunately I ended up in another abusive situation afterwards. My older sister blamed me for my younger siblings being sent to the foster care system and she didn't like my methods for evicting my stepfather and for getting mom to break her drug addiction. I never had a good relationship with my older sister. She would sometimes weaponize my trauma against me while refusing to take responsibility for her part I conflict. I am given mixed messages about not bottling up my emotions because when I say what is bothering me it doesn't lead to anything helpful. It just gives them another reason to attack me. I'm now moving to Kentucky. So long as I don't need to worry about avoiding unavoidable problems, my mind can become more clear and focused without ruminating on past harms while fearing future harm. I hate being forced to navigate situations which have no positive outcomes. Bad relationships make me hate life and this is one of my fears about dating. The ability to escape a bad relationship gives me hope in life. I have no reason to kill myself so long as I am not trapped with someone who hurts me and refuses to change. I have a great peace of mind when I can live knowing I don't have to fear someone trying to hurt me. It feels good to enjoy life for once.

A major game changer for me was learning that my shame was a trauma response and not a reflection of reality and who I am. Intense shame and guilt was a learned behavior from my childhood because it felt less threatening than confronting people who refuse to change. I lived most of my life trying too prove I was worthy of existence through grandiose achievements and a higher purpose at the cost of social connections. Much of my behavior is rooted in intense shame and guilt as if I was incapable of self love. I continue to experience behaviors rooted in learned shame. I'm doing my best to push back against this.

When I originally came to this forum, I held myself to a certain standard. I tried to at least pretend to be a high conscious individual. I tried emphasizing the values and mimicking the thought process of what I believed a high conscious individual would embody. Sometimes I failed and it was embarrassing. Somewhere along the line, I decided to show the forum my true colors. I felt that I wasn't being authentic enough due to the identity I created around the appearance of being intellectually or spiritually advanced. I pushed myself to discuss things that actually bothered me and seemed to be the obstacles in my life. I began discussing deeper emotional issues that I hadn't yet overcome along with the abusive situation with my family which led to suicidal thoughts. Something felt off about sharing this kind of personal information. Something was uncomfortable about it, but I can't put my finger on it. This pattern continued in real life when I would share things that made me uncomfortable discussing. I reasoned that there might be someone else suffering in this way. Eventually, I did find people who finally felt able to speak about their deep trauma without fear of judgement. On some level I viewed it as a sacrifice for a good cause. Perhaps the problem was that I didn't know how to discuss who I was as a human being without tying it to trauma and how it impacted me. For example, I could tell you that I am interested in high intelligence and developing an advanced mind. This is why I study things like psychology, philosophy, emotional mastery, among other topics. However, the attachment to seeming intelligent stemmed from a crippled sense of self worth due to trauma. I didn't always hold those interests. This makes me wonder what child was lost along the line. Similarly, I didn't always have such extreme phobia of dating and the opposite sex. This disposition was also a consequence of trauma which seemed to define my worldview in a profound way. What if I remained open and more extroverted rather than shutting down? These are both examples of how I have a hard time showing who I am as a human being without accounting for the profound impact trauma had on my self image. It looks like online forums became a tool for discussing these things without being threatened because I won't meet these people in real life. I discuss all kinds of things on this forum that I didn't share in real life. I think my behavior of over sharing began with my school projects. I discussed things like domestic violence and drug addiction. I did that because I was hoping to get help somehow even if meant I would be punished. Perhaps my over sharing is a continuation of this learned childhood pattern. I was otherwise very quiet and silently depressed. What are your thoughts on this behavior? I think I should trust my instincts and share less personal information in my interactions with others. I even did practice dating where I ended up sharing how I was hurt by anti depressants. Apparently that was too much.

@Buck Edwards that is interesting. I seem to be on the other side of this situation. I had a lot of girls trying to hit on me even though I was quiet, didn't give then any attention, and deliberately ignored them. I gave them no validation whatsoever, yet they were all over me. I don't know why those girls were attracted to me. I honestly found them annoying because I had too much drama in my life to start getting a girlfriend. Maybe you see them as the no nonsense type. They don't play social games like telling you you're pretty because they want to sleep with you. You're not interested in guys trying to play these games with you. You might also feel like you are not worthy of praise from these men because they are so great. They give you something build up to. I would like to understand this phenomenon too. Any idea why those annoying girls won't leave me alone and they keep inviting me to a massive orgy? Sometimes it is sexual harassment and assault as if the goal is to manipulate me. I don't understand how I became the target.

I want to tell my story to see if someone can learn from it. I have found some useful insights along the way for people with this kind of behavior. When I was young, I originally had no interest in porn. I didn't understand the purpose of looking at it or what it was supposed to do. My grandpa looked at porn and he was caught on multiple occasions because of the search history. My sisters, mother, and grandma freaked out while I just ignored it. In fact I had developed a purity complex due to trauma. I learned to disown sexual pursuits as something of lower purpose and value. The values I imposed on myself were for me to justify my existence through achievement and leaving a legacy. For some time it seemed my integrity had become unbreakable because I had no desire to engage in the inappropriate sexual behaviors of other kids. This purity complex started to fall apart when I hit puberty. I would have more sexual fantasies and started masturbating. I felt some level of guilt and feared being caught. Nevertheless the pleasure was too great for me to resist even with my trauma. At this time I still didn't understand the function of looking at porn. One day, I was watching a show about police. In this episode there was a sexual predator who took trophies from his victims. He would take their hair and panties. He would also take pictures of them tied up and looking scared or while naked. As I watched the show I dismissed this behavior as just weird and wasn't interested in understanding it. However in the next scene a police officer started explaining the behavior. The police officer said that having trophies and pictures of his victims enhanced his sexual pleasure during masturbation. This line stuck out to me. I never was interested in porn, but now I started thinking that if I look at pictures of naked ladies while masturbating, it would enhance my sexual pleasure. I decided that I wanted to try it. The officer inadvertently encouraged this behavior. I started looking at porn and I discovered that the police officer was right. I felt more pleasure while looking at pictures compared to just using my imagination. However, I quickly discovered that I was leaving a trail of evidence behind in the search history. This is how grandpa was caught. I went through the history to delete the evidence while keeping the innocent pages. Deleting the entire history like grandpa did would be suspicious so I needed to learn from his mistakes. This is when I stopped looking at porn for fear of getting caught. For several years I didn't look at porn. However, I one day discovered incognito mode when I was just messing around with internet settings. When I read about incognito mode my brain immediately became interested in looking at porn again. The description was basically an invitation to look at naked ladies. I don't remember how old I was when I started looking at porn again. I looked at a lot of different kinds of porn. I noticed I had a fetish for situations involving an imbalance of power and control. I therefore gravitated toward situations with a group of men having sex with a single woman. It feels embarrassing to admit this, but I prefer to own up to these kind of things. Once I got out of college I decided to pursue self education as I searched for my life purpose. My self education included researching various political issues. I thought through all of my positions carefully trying to be as objective as possible while setting aside my emotions and biases. I used politics as way to self reflect on how selfishness can manifest while trying to commit myself to being as unbiased as possible. One day I started learning about sex trafficking and its relationship to porn. Human traffickers were forcing women and children into prostitution for money and sites like pornhub among others were not doing enough to stop the illegal porn because of the amount of content. Therefore people looking at porn were potentially financially supporting and aiding in human trafficking. Despite being aware of human traffickers, I continued to look at porn anyway. However, I was different from most people looking at porn. I would carefully observe myself and commit to radical self honesty by admitting that I was prioritizing my own sexual pleasure over the victims of human trafficking. I looked at forums debating porn and noticed that most porn addicts were incapable of this level of self reflection. I showed an unusual level of honesty and self reflection by admitting that my behavior reflected negatively on my moral character. Meanwhile people who look at porn a ridiculous amount like multiple times everyday would make really stupid arguments to defend themselves. I was looking at porn about once a week. As I continued to learn about sex trafficking, I increasingly doubted the content I was looking at. I noticed there was teen porn in which the girl looked too young for comfort. I also looked at those gang situations with multiple men and started wondering if that woman was actually being coerced. I realized that I was unable to tell if the porn depicted a legal situation or not. I therefore couldn't tell if I was helping human traffickers or not. Overtime my guilt pushed me to force myself to stop looking at porn. However the temptation to look for sexual pleasure was still there. I had conflicted feelings about this. I haven't looked at porn in about 9 months. I continued my self reflection process through Journaling and observing myself. I recently recognized the flaw in my behavior. I was using the suffering of others to attack my own feelings with guilt. This is a form of emotional self harm and self sabotage. I made this connection through all of my previous studies in psychology and emotional mastery. I realized that so long as I was operating under guilt I could not function optimally. I was still thinking about sex constantly throughout the day, especially in terms of pleasure. It was feeding into the continued temptation to look at porn even though I didn't actually look. I started observing my guilt and shame recognizing I need to let it go. As I let go my mind became quieter. I knew the outcome could be that I go back to looking at porn, but I surrendered to that possibility as well as the alternative that I don't. I paradoxically discovered that letting go of my guilt and shame allowed me to let go of temptation. This is one of the paradoxes of psychology when guilt can reinforce unwanted patterns rather than remove them. It leads to a cycle of distress and relief. It can be like guilting yourself over eating junk food or any other habit. In my case the guilt caused my mind to fixate on sex even more. It reinforced Patterns of shame like my ocd around sexually assaulting people randomly. My mind now feels more peaceful and clear. All of the other self reflection I did makes me feel more capable of loving myself. I am continuing to let go of guilt and shame which is a habit that got drilled into me as a child due to trauma. I hope someone out there learns from my story. What do you think?

@Candle attachment to control is key in my experience. When I was stuck in an abusive situation with my stepfather, I felt like I had no power. I wanted my suffering to stop. Suicide gave me a sense of control over my suffering because I had an out. My thoughts of self harm stopped when I received news that I wouldn't have to live like this for several more years. I also had homicidal thoughts though the process. I didnt want to become that kind of person and spend the rest of my life in prison because I would only suffer more. I thus preferred suicide, but I didn't have a firearm. No amount of pills was enough to save me.