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Everything posted by trenton
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I would love to be a chess teacher. The problem is that this job is rare. I found a opportunities in California and New York, but I live in Ohio. In order to be a better chess teacher I also need a better rating. Currently there are only online tournaments. I started playing over the board tournaments as soon as I got out of college, but they all shut down about a year ago due to the virus While I was in college I became lost and undecided because I could not find a clear path to get what I wanted. I was not optimistic about the career prospects in philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, computer science, or engineering. I never had and passion with engineering, but based on my aptitudes, I excel in mathematics and would be suitable for this. I finished an associate's degree in General studies. When I felt lost, I started watching actualized.org. I pressured myself with personal development because if i don't change my life situation, then I could be a bag boy at Kroger, living paycheck to paycheck after my grandma dies and i have nobody to support me anymore. These future possibilities make me feel stuck and frustrated. Although spirituality and philosophy are interesting, I don't think it is what I need. Possible back up plans. I am considering going back to college for business. I don't have a passion for business now, but it may be necessary to make a back up plan. My goal would be to build my own chess school where I can train people to become masters. I could expand on this idea of a school, by including personal development like emotional mastery. I also want children in low income families to be able to attend because I don't want poverty to cause people to waste their talents. I could give scholarships to some of these families like the school in New York did when I tried to join. If I can't join a school to become a chess teacher, then I could build my own school. My other back up plans include engineering because of my mathematical aptitudes and writing because it helps people to understand autism when I reflect on my thoughts. I often laugh out loud instead of in my head. This can be problematic and makes me stuck on what to do about my immaturity. How else could I form a back up plan? Should I go to college for business and education or engineering?
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@freejoy I took the vaccine. The needle was much less painful than other needles. You do not need to worry about getting the vaccine. The pain that comes afterwards is worse and your arm will hurt for a couple of days.
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trenton replied to Harikrishnan's topic in Society, Politics, Government, Environment, Current Events
It seems that issue of police brutality will continue to be framed in a misleading way by the media. When will it stop and when will the public recognize a better approach to the issue? How do you think the media should be framing this issue? If we frame a problem the wrong way, it can make us less effective at tackling the issue. If you need a clearer example of police brutality, you could try this video. It demonstrates that police are not properly trained to deal with the mentally ill. I found further evidence of this on the global slavery index. The victims of modern slavery are deeply traumatized. Human traffickers also target illegal immigrants because of the language barrier and the fear deportation. You can check out this site for more about police brutality in the recommended section. Slavery is related to BLM through police brutality. https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-states/ -
trenton replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Forestluv what should a person do if it seems like they really can't awaken? This is important to know in spirituality because it demonstrates that we can't judge people for being selfish devils. The circumstances of their birth and upbringing could pose real obstacles to awakening. If people can't experience God directly, then it looks like they have no choice but to either be religious or be an atheist. Cases like these could sow the seeds of doubt in future spiritual groups. It could lead to atheism if we don't let people know that spirituality does not work for everybody. Imagine the disappointment people would face of they ended up like the unfortunate woman you described. I think gurus might ignore this because people can easily turn this into a limiting belief. -
trenton replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
That is a good point. In the United States people would get in trouble substance of abuse. It is possible that most of us will not have access to psychedelics any time soon. For most of us, techniques are the best we have. The advantage to emphasizing the benefits of psychedelics is to undo our programming created by the war on drugs. At first I was close minded to psychedelics because my parents were drug addicts. Other people may have a harder time opening their minds to psychedelics and it is driving people away from this site. Maybe we should make a greater effort to emphasize the power of techniques available to the majority of humanity. Psychedelics could have a stronger emphasis in politics because this is preventing people from growing their consciousness. -
I just got my vaccine. I am scheduled to get the second dose in three weeks. It is important for me to get the vaccine because I work at Kroger. I come into contact with many people every day from bagging groceries, collecting carts, and cleaning restrooms. I have a high risk of getting COVID and spreading it to other people. If you are not in a high risk environment, I still recommend that you get the vaccine. The point is that it improves the immunity of the general population in order to prevent mutations of the virus. There are a few side effects of the vaccine. I have aches in my body and head. My heart is also beating faster than usual. You probably should ask your doctor if the COVID vaccine is right for you if you have a heart condition. You could be hurt if you have other health conditions.
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trenton replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
This mindset reminds me of religion. Religion becomes susceptible to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy when they say somebody didn't really believe or have faith. In the case of other spiritual groups there are many people devoted to spirituality who never awaken through traditional means. We need to be careful when attributing a failure to awaken to a lack of desire for self knowledge. Maybe we could be committing the same fallacy as religion when we assume anybody can awaken by traditional means if they have a strong enough desire to do so. From this point of view it also does not make sense to act as if spirituality is for everybody because there is evidence that it isn't. If somebody is not spiritually gifted and they are resistant to psychedelics, how would they awaken if they were truly passionate about Truth? -
trenton replied to Denial's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Denial I'm glad it helped. One of the problems with our social conditioning is that men are split from their emotions. There is no scientific or psychological basis for this image of a cold macho man. This is a complete utter fantasy because in reality men are still very emotional creatures. Our society fails to recognize the significance of emotional mastery and it can worsen people's depression, anxiety, and even the likelihood of suicide. The stereo type that only women are allowed to be emotional is insane and it worsens EQ in men. A real man can recognize the strength and courage in vulnerability and self honesty. Good luck. -
trenton replied to Denial's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I recognized that I felt in control of my life because I have the possibility to commit suicide. This meant that no matter how bad things got, I would have an out. This is how apathy makes us feel in control of bad situations. It got to the point that I threw my belt away at one point. I don't have a clear solution to this issue. My best try is to try to escape to something more productive instead. You could feel in control with a good hobby instead of being depressed. I end up laying in bed defeated for hours and I could lose the whole day because of this. I think you gave me some helpful insight. This attitude could be responsible for any I feel like so many things I do see meaningless and empty. This defense mechanism is supposed to make things feel empty so that we are not hurt by them. In this way our suicidal thoughts are a consequence of us being in denial that we have been hurt. This is a dangerous self deception that founds our self hatred and depression. This denial comes from the fact that we are afraid of being hurt through being emotionally vulnerable. This leads to me isolating myself from other people and being non confrontational. By isolating myself it leads to a lack of socializing which leads to anxiety which leads to suicidal thoughts. The way out is to allow ourselves to be emotionally vulnerable. At least recognize that the current way of being is much more difficult in the long run. It is not easier at all. I don't know who told you to face the emotions you get from not doing something to stop OCD. How many people did this work for? I guess we could try this in the topic of dealing with strong negative emotions in another actualized video on emotional mastery. There are two things you need to recognize. First, your brain cares about your safety. It is using defense mechanisms like apathy to deny that you have been hurt. Meanwhile if you did not act on your suicidal thoughts, then it demonstrates that you still do care about life. There is not a lost hope for you. Secondly, you do not have to accept that everything is out of control. You are allowed to deny whatever you want until the end of time. By acknowledging this, you can become less neurotic in your approach o truth or personal development. As for convincing people that I am better than I actually am, I did have some thoughts like those. I tried to compensate for it with a fighter attitude, but it only worked in the short term. At the very least we can start with self honesty. There are still a couple of problems I have not fully resolved, but I hope we can still help each other. Good luck. -
trenton replied to Denial's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Denial I can relate to this. I started getting waves of depression around the time I was in late middle school and early high school. It was around that time that I started having more suicidal thoughts and I felt that I was unable to control my emotional suffering. I first want to steer you away from your attitude toward death in spirituality. It is easy for the ego mind to twist these things in a selfish way. In this case, death is being twisted in a way that it leads you toward harming the body. This does not come from self love, it comes from hatred and apathy. This is not what spirituality is meant to teach us. One the topic of OCD, I am curious about your locker situation. When I had a locker at school, I never left it unlocked. I still would double check and sometimes even triple check, but then I walk away thinking "did I lock my locker?". I often had the same attitude toward my backpack. I would look in my backpack repeatedly to make sure I was not missing something. There was only one or two times I actually forgot something ever. If I thought I was missing something, I would start panicking only to realize I had what I needed in another pocket. I was never told that I needed to face the emotions from not doing the action. As for being a control freak, I think focusing on meditation is a good way to ease anxiety and paranoia. My mental health has improved because of consciousness work. Because emotional mastery is critical for us, we should run through the emotional mastery play list on actualized to see if it helps unsure your neurotic personality. Childhood vows is one of the most practical episodes in the site. This may not cure your entire condition, but at least it will makes many small but significant improvements to your psyche. All of these small issues could be contributing to suicidal thoughts. I want to tell you that I feared going insane for a long time. When we don't socialize with people enough, our minds can tell us anything even if it is depressing. People with autism don't socialize as much as most people, and my psychologist is trying to get me to do this more. I have a younger brother in high school and we are studying emotional mastery together. I try to cope with my inner conflicts by keeping myself productive. My mind could be focusing on a chess game for example. Once I get into a state of flow and analyze the complexity of a tough game, my life becomes much more enjoyable. If you could find ways to stay productive, it can help you avoid these situations in which you get paranoid because you are busy doing something else you enjoy. There is no need to be a control freak in these cases. One of my observations for my thoughts was that if I am thinking of my thoughts as bad and I get afraid of them, this will make the thoughts worse. This can contribute to racing thoughts and over thinking. Consciousness work helped me to recognize this. In your case the fear of losing control is doing this to you. In my experience I called this an inner devil's advocate. There are ways to ease this. I can expand upon this with shoulds and should nots. Sometimes I have destructive curiosity. This can include pulling the fire alarm. If you recognize that there is a line between your thoughts and behaviors, it can ease your fears of acting on these thoughts that contribute to moral anxiety. Acknowledging curiosity is a more effective way to deal with certain kinds of thoughts when compared to fearing your thoughts about doing something stupid. This includes thoughts about randomly breaking things, morbid curiosity that contributes to suicidal thoughts, or even sexual fantasies that we could get paranoid about. I am currently at the part where you feel in control of life when apathetic. I can expand on this after my appointment with my psychologist. I hope you find parts of this useful so far. -
Although I watched many spiritual videos, deep down I still believe that this is just philosophy and science is still more objective. I may understand some criticisms on an intellectual level, but I still hold science as true anyway. I would like to describe my experience in this forum. If I don't seriously question science, then philosophy can quickly be degraded into mental masturbation, preventing me from gaining real benefit from it. This idea that science is objective has real consequences for me and it prevents me from taking this seriously. Growing up, I was curious about how it is that I exist. I never had an answer to these things and I felt isolated and alone. It seems everybody is caught in minor human activities and don't even question what we are doing here. I didn't socialize much with others and this left me to making many theories about reality. It was rare for people to share this interest as I often flew over other people's heads. In this process I created a philosophical or spiritual ego. I didn't really care about truth, and other people could see through the bullshit. This is why in my experience rationalism was often more honest than my pseudo spirituality. Sometimes I still made metaphors about how everything is connected, but I felt delusional and it looked like philosophy was doomed to be mental masturbation for me. How could I take intellectualizing seriously if questioning the obvious was only to make me look cool? How should I approach spirituality given this kind of background? Are there others in this forum like me who still hold science as true and spirituality as a mask or facade we put on? I am currently trying to open myself to more serious questioning because without it, my growth is limited and I am fundamentally locked in the materialist paradigm because of rationalists calling out my bullshit.
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trenton replied to Denial's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I want to tell you that you are not alone. Suicide rates are high for people with autism. The disorder is misunderstood and people can feel like outsiders to the neuro typical world. I work with a psychologist because of my suicidal thoughts. I have a cycle of feeling happy before it crashes into a depressing outlook on life. I am on anxiety medication, but it is becoming less effective as I use meditation because this is more effective. Sometimes the cycle gets repetitive to the point that it can seem hopeless when there is no obvious cause of me hating life. Do you mind me asking how long this has been going on? There could be all kinds of trauma for you to work through, but it may not be the case that any particular event caused you to be this way. At least your ego could be a little bit healthier if there is obvious trauma you could work through. I have a very neurotic personality as well, and it demonstrates clearly the importance of emotional mastery. Your school did not reach you this so you should buy the book list if you have not already. Emotional mastery is the highest priority which can be helped if you read the right books. I'm reading one of these books right now. These have been more helpful to me than anything else. If you have autism, then the high suicide rate makes it that much more critical that you study this. I want to tell you that I think I am overly critical of myself. I criticize myself for my obsessive mind when it is over anything. This is not really a problem If you frame it as you are passionate about something and eager to learn more. Recognize the strengths in the apparent weaknesses. If you think of yourself as a bad person for any of this, then that is not true. People with autism are doing the best they can, but the way we act does not make sense to most people. We can still be very effective in any field of interest. Narrow interests can make you obsessive, but it can help you become excellent. Excellence can only come about when we are passionate about what we do. The goal of our self criticism is to improve ourselves. This can be used to tear ourselves down again and again. I would like a different approach to this. I have told others on this forum about this before and they said that if we realize we are already enough of can stop us from turning personal development into something neurotic. One thing I noticed is that improvement can be chased forever and it can be used to manipulate myself forever if I think I am not good enough. There is no point at which I would be good enough of self improvement becomes chasing. This might be the reason why harsh self criticism does not work for me. I will mention that I find going for walks helpful. I also enjoy writing music and poetry just for fun. I wrote a song called "you have been to the bar.". I will be your friend and we can give each other more information on how we could approach these cycles of depression. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Adamq8 I like how you pointed out that materialism can't be falsified of it is assumed that all perception is false even though it is the only thing experienced. I started reading into the hard problem of consciousness. The problem is that consciousness is greater than the sum of the parts. Reductionism assumes that things can be taken apart and reverse engineered to be understood. I did not watch the episodes on holons and holistic thinking yet. That might help. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Consilience I never heard of "the hard problem of consciousness" until this thread. I should probably check it out. I would like to know how the materialist paradigm effects people outside of spirituality. I can see that it is creating a limitation on spiritual growth, but how else does it affect people? If I can see this from outside a spiritual perspective, it would help me to take it more seriously. In this case I mean the belief that there is a material reality beyond perception. How does this affect people when it is held to the equivalent of religious indoctrination? The first affect is the fear response to questioning the underlying paradigm of science. This is because reality seems less real when there is only perception and no material matter beneath it. In this way it is not rational to reject this questioning, it is emotional. Are there other affects? One reason I don't take this contemplation seriously is because I don't see the significance of these materialistic beliefs. What would society look like without them? -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I would like to mention that I have one objection to science which is the same as religion and politics. The reason I don't want to convert to any religion in particular is because it limits me to a narrow perspective and prevents me from seeing reality from many angles. This leaves me locked in a belief box forever until I die. Life is more interesting when viewed from many angles. One reason I don't like science is that it is hyper specialized. This can lead me to locking myself into a narrow perspective with the rest of reality being unknown. If I want to explore life enough for me to enjoy it to the fullest, hyper specialization is not the way to it because it is too limited. One reason I dislike politics is because I lock myself into a narrow perspective and often assume it to be true or the best. In this way I can see a pattern continuing. No matter what method I use to approach life, I don't want it to be strict, narrow, and limiting. This will lead to me feeling incomplete because I hold a part of reality as if it is all of reality. A narrow perspective can't solve reality. In this way I can tell it is untrue and limiting because of how closed it is. How can I approach life from many angles if science of materialism does not let me do that? -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Science must be a subset of philosophy because of the philosophies of rationalism and logical positivism. If I don't what I am, then this does not negate the fact that experience is still happening. How do I know if any observations are real? I could use the naked eye, a radar, an X-Ray, a microscope, and much more. Which perspective is the most accurate representation of reality? If all of them are perceptions, then none of them can be truer than another. To argue that X-Ray is truer than radar would be silly. I know observation is real because it is happening, and can come in many forms. In this case I am using observation, experience, and perception interchangeably. All observations must be equally real because they exist. What is objectivity is a good question. Who gets to say what is objective? If we favor one point of view over another, then this is already subjective. If I say that objectivity exists, then this is pure conjecture because it can't be proven if all experience is subjective. I am thinking that my direct experience is proof that existence exists. If there are things outside of my experience, then existence is bigger than me. This would mean that I am this awareness and this experience, but I am only a part of existence. If I assume that I am separate from this experience, then this is emotion and conjecture because there is no proof that I am the awareness of the experience, but not the experience. I am interested in neuroscience because it suggests that reality is a hallucination. The hallucination is happening within me, and I would have to imagine that there is an objective reality outside of this hallucination. If I am hallucinating reality, then how can I be separate from it? If I am hallucinating this experience, then all experience is happening within me, not outside of me. I think I am that which is hallucinating reality. I have been using the scientific method on spirituality. I tried meditation and it has eased my anxiety to the point that anxiety medication is becoming ineffective on me and making no difference. I also tried the guided meditation that I am God multiple times. The experience gets deeper and more intense each time I do it. If I do this exercise 30 times will I experience God? This is a scientific hypothesis that I am testing now. In the back of my mind I often assume that I am being misguided and the people who buy into materialism are not. Why do I assume this? It is easy to pick up the assertion that materialistic science is objective again. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Carl-Richard Sorry I can't remove the other quote. One of the challenges I have that is limiting me is the constant background that doubts efforts like these. Without this background paradigm nagging at me, I could ground myself in direct experience. Now on the question "can thoughts be true?" Thoughts can be true from a certain point of view. For example, I can say the door is white. There are other ways to look at the door, but I am describing my experience of the door rather than through an X-Ray for example. I could more accurately say that there is a perception that the door is white. Taking into account all other perspectives, my thoughts are not really 100% true. All thoughts can be doubted because they are true from a limited perspective. This leads to bias in that I could prefer one view over another. Thoughts are true from a narrow perspective, but false from a broad, multi perspective view. I am wondering about a perspective that can account for all perspectives in reality without any bias whatsoever. Without a method to determine what is true or false, I would not hold one view as higher than another because all of them are imaginary. If I have no method to determine what is true or false, then I am left with present experience. Everything else is concept and imagination because there is a bias toward which method should be used and who created the method. If I only have this experience and the rest is concept, then I must be imagining that there is anything beyond direct experience. There is this perception and to add anything beyond it is concept and theory. -
trenton replied to Denial's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I have autism. I have a mix of strengths and weaknesses in spirituality because of this condition. Starting with some strengths, people with autism often have narrow interests. Narrow interests can be good for developing excellence in a given field. If spirituality is one of your interests, it can make you persistent in growing your consciousness. This is also one of the biggest weaknesses of autism because you can't always find people who appreciate your niche abilities. One of my narrow interests is chess. I enjoy the state of flow created when I am absorbed in what I am doing. This is potentially a strength in that chess is a form of meditation. It is potentially a weakness if my hobby becomes a distraction. I have some autistic traits that I often try to hide from other people. Sometimes I like to turn on music on my tablet and bounce up and down clapping while laughing. This makes me look like the child my grandma takes care of who also has autism. This could be a strength in that I am very playful in which case I have nothing to be ashamed of. One of my traits is that I am a perfectionist. This makes me very critical of myself because I want to grow as much as I can. Perfectionism is common in autism and it can lead to turning self help into something neurotic. This leads to me shoulding myself a lot. This become an obstacle if it is not helping me to excel. So far I have found the most help out of emotional mastery. Although the problems you describe are similar to other people, I think there are different degrees. For example guilt can be more intense and autism can be related to other mood disorders like anxiety which leads to racing thoughts. In this way I am able to let go hyper rationalism for personal development. I can still use logic as a tool in other areas of life. This is a good example of autistic traits I let go of. I wish there were some courses on emotional mastery because my personality is very neurotic. I become full of negative values when trying to become acceptable other people and it clouds my most genuine values. This has made the life purpose course more difficult. I would like to point out that you think you blame your problems on health conditions. You are trying to be good by not using autism as an excuse to gain some kind of social advantage of to excuse for devilry. The term "blame" indicates that you have a defense mechanism against this potential to exploit other people. Make sure that you don't use this to deny immutable differences because the defense mechanism could come with guilt to replace things which could be explained with autism. There is a balance in this case, so don't swing the pendulum too far in one direction. I swing the pendulum a lot. I'm sure there is more I can add, but this is a start. I hope it helps. -
When I first started following actualized.org, I pushed myself with a self deception. This was the self deception that the truth is important even though I knew it to be meaningless to me. This seemed necessary at some point as I was attempting to point to something that I struggle to point to and articulate. This leads to many mistakes when I am trying to express the one thing I am drawn to, but can't grasp it. If you push yourself to seek the truth, it creates a corrupting influence if you do not actually care about truth. This leads to creating a false identity which leads to more suffering. This identity will then be maintained by pretending I know things I don't. This leads to ideology, dogma, religion, bigotry, and violence. I think it is worth understanding how this trap works because it is a very popular trap for humanity to fall into. When I more clearly explained what the trap is that makes me drawn to religion and politics, I was much more peaceful. I still struggle to articulate what is the thing that I am interested in. The closest I can get to explaining it is by describing what it is not.
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I will be quoting Leo from the maga riot mega thread. "Honestly, that split already happened 4 years ago with intelligent conservatives like David Frum, Bill Krystal, Nichol Wallace, Joe Scarborough. They knew right off the bat that Trump was an imposter conservative and they opposed him early on." David Frum said: "when this is all over, nobody will admit to having supported it." These are conservatives worth checking out because they demonstrated integrity. I watched one of them a couple of months ago. In healthy conservative views there is more to it than making your audience afraid of the left. These healthy conservative views are very different from mainstream republicans who are embracing trumpism.
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I notice that repeated exposure to left wing views creates an echo chamber. I think it is smart to avoid this because I can still be very easily mislead. I find it far too easy to demonize republicans for voter suppression and lawlessness. I think this forum would do well to ease the echo chamber effect of the strong left wing bias, by including a mega thread of healthy conservatives. This would be perfect for seeing diverse perspectives, while giving ourselves a more nuanced understanding of politics. Should we make this kind of a mega thread?
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trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
That would probably be easier. I think I should try Leo's guided meditation about how I am God a few more times while I am in the woods. Right now it is Easter and I am too busy to do that, but I have plans. In a sense none of the thoughts about me are right if they are representations. This is a good point you're making because I get very absorbed in thoughts and self judgement. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@soularlight I can see strength in vulnerability. What was called strength before was succumbing to shame. This leads to denial and the idea that I'm not good enough. This also leads to staying stuck in the same cycle of suppression and judgement until collapse. In this case I am over compensating because I don't want to fall into the trap of using my identity as vulnerable victim to manipulate people into doing what I want. In this case vulnerability comes from honesty which comes from strength. Similarly there is intelligence in admitting mistakes. The mistake is to deny the mistake. This demonstrates humility and creates a foundation for growth which uses self honesty rather than self destruction. As for needing to be better, I get this a lot. There are several reasons why I hurt myself and try to use fear to change my behavior. This includes, my job at Kroger, my lack of a vision, my lack of reading, my lack of work ethic that prevents me from typing a book, how I'm not making enough money, and so on. I constantly feel like I need to change, but this approach is not working. This leads to guilt caused by failures to live up to better ideals and it is miserable. I am open to the idea that I am good enough now because of my experience that I will otherwise never be good enough if I always have to be better. The bar can keep getting higher forever as a way to push myself to make desirable outcomes, but it does not work in many cases. I'm not sure what we would be playing. Whatever we play, always trying to win makes me more tense and it takes fun out of the game. This leads to the meta game. What does wisdom want me to know now? Probably that there is nothing wrong with me. This would help with the anxiety medicine. At least I won't paralyze myself with high levels of anxiety. This would also mean that I am perfect. This sounds unbelievable, but it is logically true of there is nothing wrong with me. The same probably applies to everyone and everything. This would mean that wrong is imaginary and can only exist through giving it authority and power. This means that from one point of view the problem is that the idea of wrong creates a problem, but the problem does not exist if nothing is wrong. If there is no wrong, then there is only what is. I was open to this possibility for a moment, but started closing again. If it can be easy rather than hard, this makes me more open. If I wish I were open in the future, then that is not going to work because it implies that I'm not good enough. It would have to be now. I don't feel open right now, and that is okay. In this case the motive is to avoid denial which would keep me stuck, rather than to use self acceptance to keep oneself stuck. This all would still mean that I am perfect though. That does not change. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I am open to this possibility. I hesitate to type about how making things harder is supposed to be an example of strength. It is a very perplexing thought. This creates misery and does not really develop emotional muscles outside of suppression which is unhealthy in the long run. It may have to do with pride in overcoming difficult challenges which actually don't have to exist. Anyway I also believed that solving complex puzzles was a sign of genius. If I create puzzles that don't need to exist, then this creates games. I think my resistance to making this way easier stems from a confused understanding of strength. This can physical, emotional, or mental. The result is that I repeatedly crush myself thinking that a better me will emerge when in fact it just leads to misery. This can lead to many emotional problems, thus creating weakness in the ability to focus as well as my body falls apart through filling it with bad foods. I am not sure what an alternative definition of strength would be, but the old one hurts a lot. Especially since suppression is seen as strength. I was embarrassed to the point that I hesitated to type all of this. After typing this I can be a little bit more open to the possibility of making this easier. -
trenton replied to trenton's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@trenton I actually notice a similar sense of pushing when I play competitive games. I act like winning is more important than it actually is. I end up making things harder on myself when I pretend that I have to win even though it is not as important as I act like it is. This again leads to leave by letting go of results.