DianaFr

Without being married this wouldn't be a complete experience. As a woman, I like to be owned or claimed by my husband. It's like a declaration by him to me and everybody else that I belong with him. We share the same surname and we are legally bound to each other. This feels like a safe container to me, I definetely prefer to be a wife instead of a girlfriend. On a deeper level we both share a similar abandonment trauma from childhood, so securing our connection with the ultimate means possible actually provides that sense of safety we both crave. There is something about the physical things like the ring on my finger or wedding photos or having a new signature that serves as a daily reminder that this is all real. It's a big deal for someone like me who is mostly withdrawn in her inner world and quite distant from the real one. Speaking about idealism, I'd say it has no place in marriage. You marry a real person, not an extension of your own illusion. Yes, it often starts with this but as you progress and mature and get bruised and disappointed and heartbroken again and again, the idealism strips away layer by layer, until you meet your core truths and can finally perceive them in your partner as well. Then you can love him for who he is, not for the image you assigned to him. It comes with a pleasent sense of liberation because you finally realize you get to be yourself - as flawed and weird as you are - and have that safe connection with your partner - as flawed and weird as they are - at the same time. It's quite nice, albeit very very far from ideal.

I guess 'the why' also matters. I always wanted to get married because experiencing life with somebody who is my person has always felt way more desirable than the freedom of doing it solo or in a low-commitment way. I get attached to people easily and I seek emotional security, so being married is healing for me. It's not a trap for me but a safe place that is the foundation of my life. I don't think my husband feels trapped either. We support each other, cheer each other up, we know each other's deepest fears and desires and we push and pull each other when needed. I'm the first person my husband calls when good and bad things happen and he is mine. It took a lot first to learn to trust each other and we had to go through some hard stuff but that brought us closer eventually. Nobody's going anywhere for the time being. It could be a trap for some or many, but for others it's a way of life.

I don't know, you should be more specific - brain activity is such a wide concept, it literally means nothing if you say it's decreased/increased. Brain activity measured by what and under what experimental conditions, compared to what, induced, blocked, modulated by what, what organism, mouse, rat, human, cell culture or multiple, in what condition, healthy/diseased, wild type/knockout, etc. And ultimately what's your point?? If you present such a wide statement and don't relate it to anything, then it's a little difficult to have a productive discussion. I never studied the topic but thanks to your post already found quite a few interesting articles about the effect of psychedelics and it's way more nuanced and complex than increase/decrease. You, however, seem to be passionate about the topic. Can you point to a specific piece of data that is in line with your statement?

But is that really a paradox? I personally have no problem distinguishing between childhood and adulthood (no discrepancies for me there) and I also don't have a problem acknowledging that we are children and adults at the same time, within the same body. Also you say there is not an exact day or moment that something turns into something else. But how is it useful to apply this principle to natural phenomena? Sometimes you could indeed detect on/off, yes/no type of situations but more frequently there are stages and transitions and many steps in between the extremes. Why is that a paradox to you?

Another question - what do you mean by brain activity? What in particular is being decreased by psychedelics and is that supposed to be beneficial or detrimental or it depends? I'm not an expert on the subject by any means - just curious. I quickly checked the literature and found an article in eLife* which looks at LSD and brain connectivity. It's a neuroimaging study that suggests that some brain regions present increased connectivity (increased interaction) in some regions and decreased connectivity in others compared to placebo. Also, this change spatially correlates with the expression profile of a receptor that's involved in the metabolism of LSD. According to these results, it seems more appropriate to talk about the modulatory effect of psychedelics. I would love to read a more detailed argument from you to understand your point better. *Preller KH, Burt JB, Ji JL, Schleifer CH, Adkinson BD, Stämpfli P, Seifritz E, Repovs G, Krystal JH, Murray JD, Vollenweider FX, Anticevic A. Changes in global and thalamic brain connectivity in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness are attributable to the 5-HT2A receptor. Elife. 2018 Oct 25;7:e35082. doi: 10.7554/eLife.35082. PMID: 30355445; PMCID: PMC6202055.

I suggest you base your point on peer-reviewed publications from respectable journals. It's also a good idea to try to validate the other perspective at least partially by trying to understand where these arguments are coming from - it helps greatly with coming off less biased and more likely to be listened to. For scientific people, whenever you present a blog post as an evidence, especially on a controversial topic, it's an automatic downvote. It could help if you presented data with a better validity.

I've been living with C-PTSD for 35 years now. I still experience the traumatic event as vividly and intensely as if it happened yesterday whenever I'm triggered back into it. You mention you feel anger, shame and self-hatred. For me it's this endless grief and sadness. Shame as well. Can you tell more about what happened to you?

What I pick up from your story is that there are two versions of you - one that is productive, disciplined and motivated and this is the version you like and adore. The other is lazy, destructive and purposeless and you hate it because it makes you appear to yourself as a loser. These both versions are equally you, they're parts of you, just one dominates at a given time. In my experience, this could be a reflection of your internal fragmentation which perpetuates the cycle of self-sabotage and self-rejection. The type of behavior you describe as current, signals about essential needs that have not been met which is the foundation of any addiction. In some twisted way your current behavior is still serving you and the more unaware you are about the underlying issue, the more it seems to be out of control. This is also why your legendary phase could not be sustained - if success involved increasing the gap between your conscious self and the parts you have stuffed away in your subconscious, it's like pulling a rubber band - it extends because you put effort in it but as soon as you let go even for a little bit, it jumps back with force. So you never had a stable and secure inner foundation to begin with. And you can't build one with willpower and discipline. It's more about radical self-acceptance, sitting in the discomfort of your emotions, healing your traumas, connecting with your values etc. It's about inviting back what has been lost even if it goes against your current self-concept. You will be truly successful if the goals you pick resolve your internal split, not make it bigger.

In general, talk therapy is a more reflective and introspective type of intervention which is better suited for dealing with mental health issues. Coaching is more goal oriented, fast-paced and specific. However, the boundaries between the two are blurred since the methods often overlap and different practitioners have different work styles. I love both of them but I would personally seek out coaching if I wanted to clarify my goals, draft up a strategy and have someone to challenge me and keep me accountable as I move closer to my goal. I would see a therapist for emotional and personality-related issues. If you would like to primarily focus on your depression and loneliness, therapy seems to be a better option, since most coaches are not qualified to deal with mental health issues of this magnitude. If active socialization is your main priority, coaching could make if more effective. But check the certification and experience of the person you consider working with, since they could have mixed background and/or specialize on cases like yours, e.g. a psychotherapist by education working as a dating coach etc.

@Keryo Koffa Great topic! Can you elaborate more - the two examples you mention, what are they letting you cope with? What's the pain? For me, one of my grandest coping mechanisms is self-sufficiency. It gets triggered especially when I don't feel safe in relation to other people which is almost all the time because of my fundamental childhood trauma. So now it's all about learning to de-sensitize myself and become okay with the discomfort of not running away but practicing communication and conflict resolution instead. Sucks quite a bit, but that's the way up.

Even though I recognize my opinion may not be welcome but I want to throw in a different view, not necessarily as a response to the original question. Overcoming attachment is not natural. In fact, it's extremely unnatural. It goes against our deepest nature as a species. Try to raise a newborn baby and you will see the non-sense that many of these spiritual teachings are. As a parent, I would never wish for my son to become non-attached to the things he needs, to talk himself out of that. My wish is to equip him as much as I can with means to build healthy relationships and have a healthy sense of self so he feels safe in the world and provides that same level of safety to others. This is what we all should eventually strive for. Not to get rid of our desires or needs but to be able to meet them. It goes equally for mundane things like technology and deep stuff like sense of belonging and purpose. For example, what's so bad about being attached to your cell phone? If one really questions this, one may find the cell phone is not the issue at all. @Someone here Why are you so attached to creating spiritual freedom?

Hi Brent From what I've read, it seems to me that you could benefit from having a clear plan or strategy to get yourself ahead in life. Here's a few things that stood out to me. First, " basic wage slave job". I see this term used in this forum excessively and, to be honest, it makes my skin crawl a little, especially if it comes from a young person, like yourself. This is a very unhelpful framing of having a job because it imposes that you are making a huge sacrifice by slaving away for penies while in fact you're somehow "above it". It would be a different story if you'd be stuck in a low-income job for years. But this is not about you. What you call a wage slave job is actually a way for you to build skills you currently lack. Discipline, work ethics, attention to detail, perfecting your craft, structuring your life, developing a routine, mastering interaction with different people (your boss, coworkers, clients, contractors etc.), learning social skills, building a network (even if it starts with a couple of people you get to know), observing things, seeing how businesses are run, what are the problems or challenges the industry faces - you get to develop all that by your mere presence at a workplace, and it doesn't matter what's your job description, as long as you keep your ears, eyes and mind open. If the job meets the occupational safety and other legal requirements, it's a good place for you to be, even if you're a janitor, a gardener, a truck driver, whatever, because you're there to build a foundation. This would be a much more helpful mindset for you to start out with. Second, being prone to anxiety and depression and not dealing well with stress. This makes a lot of sense in your situation. What I don't know is to what degree your mental health issues are a cause to your situaton. I do know, though, that they're greatly enforcing it. Being socially anxious myself, I know that it makes you want to isolate and keep away from demanding life situations, but the more you isolate and keep away, the more your anxiety increases. It's a vicious cycle that you must break by giving yourself healthy doses of challenge. Third, you say you can't hold down a job for more that a few weeks, you are not academically skilled, and you are not passionate about anything. This tells me - a radical life shift needs to happen. You must expose yourself to new situations and people so you can have new experiences that will snap you out of the current state of being. It sounds like you have nothing to lose, so if I were you I would take a year out of my life and do something totally new. Join a youth organization that serves charity, go volunteer for a cause you find important, find a way to travel to another continent (through a charity mission or labor force, for example), join the military or national guard - just make yourself useful in a grand way. I promise, being stuck in unemployment will be the last thing on your mind. You have your whole life ahead of you and there is so much that you can give and take. Just be open to it and think out of the box.

Sounds like you need to feel yourself out a little bit before commiting to anything particular. Why not experiment and see how it goes? You could decide to stick to posting regularly on Facebook for, let's say, 3 months and then evaluate how it went and if you want to continue. You could come up with a few criteria for success so you can actually measure the outcome, e.g. sharing my thoughts feels fun, I have developed a posting routine and I stick to it, I've had at least 3 meaningful discussions as a result of me posting etc. When the times up, you can decide which direction to head next. Another thought to consider - there's some difference if you just want to share your thoughts or intentionally grow your audience to achieve engagement. It's not highly realistic to build an engaged audience by putting out random posts. For that, in most cases you would have to apply a more strategic approach and apply a lot more effort. The question is - is this something you're up to?

I see suffering as unnecessary but unavoidable, at least in the present condition of the humanity. I'm an empath and one thing I've not been able to get through is the trauma and grief or the massive pain body of humanity. I used to think if only I do enough work, I can heal myself and find peace. Now I've realized that I can't fully heal unless I cut myself off from the world to not feel its pain. We collectively have been through indescribable pain and suffering, it still lingers all around, and what bothers me the most is that instead of learning from the past we want to recreate it, the horrific parts of it. Every time I see a picture of a child whose parents have just been bombed to death, my heart shrinks because that child, as innocent and pure as it may be, has now become a continuation of suffering generations before him has felt, and he will grow up and make his choices accordingly. That feels wrong. Transcending personal suffering is all good and well but another thing is to hold space for the collective suffering. For me, it feels like an endless ocean of pain and grief I can do nothing about, just breathe with it and experience it, and the weird thing is it so desperately wants to be experienced. There is something good that comes out of it, though. If you manage to not shut yourself down and you don't try to escape, there is a deep meaning to be found. It's like a reflection of all that is good about being a human, our virtues, our strengths, the very essence of humanity. At the end of the day, these are very simple things - connection, kindness, a stretched out hand for you to hold. I've lost a great deal of faith by seeing our will to war, but as long as I continue to feel deeply, I will know there is at least one uncorrupted part within me that may be a help to rebuild.

Just out of curiosity - what drives you to practice spirituality to such an extent?

No, they are not I've literally taken multiple courses for coaches on niching and this is what I've learned. Took a while to wrap my brain around it. A niche is a specific group of people you serve with your ideal client being one particular person within that group. You end up creating all your content with that one person in mind. A niche helps you narrow down your client search - if you want to serve, let's say, white collar office workers, you market yourself in places they hang around the most. If you would consider life quality coaching as your niche, you could theoretically target every single person on the planet which would make your marketing efforts futile. Nobody will hear you because nobody will feel specifically addressed by your message. That's the point of a niche - to help people hear you amongst the myriads of messages they receive every day. You achieve that by targeting a specific demographic by talking to them in their language.

Depends on the type of people you socialize with. "You get hooked on parties, mindless talks, and casual sex" - this is a very specific type of demographic. I don't know many things that feel better than being on the same wavelength with another person, sharing insightful moments, maybe working together towards a common goal. "Your mind gets infected with their way of thinking" - the solution for this is to surround yourself with people you respect and who have complementary skills and worldviews so you all foster each other's growth. You realize you can't make it alone and that you even don't want to since it's way more fulfilling to go the distance together. And this is coming from me - a life-long social anxiety sufferer. My condition has taught me to deeply appreciate human contact.

Life quality, mindset, habit, wellness coaching - these are not niches. "I help overworked mothers regain confidence about their bodies" "Is your 9 to 5 sucking all the life out of you? I help you improve your vitality so you never run out of energy for what truly matters" A few silly examples of how a niche of a health expert could sound like. A specific target audience + their pain + their gain. People are never going to buy coaching. It's not food, they don't need it. They will, however, buy a solution to their pain or problem. That's what you have to sell.

I switched from paper notebooks to Remarkable 2. I write a lot and used to have multiple notebooks and a ton of notes which were difficult to manage. I keep a diary for twenty years now and I have a big box with all the notebooks that basically document all my life. Now all my notes are organized in one place plus I can carry all of them with me. I do use software as well, but nothing replaces handwriting for me.

My tips for coach training. 1) Accept the fact - most coaches fail. I think the statistics was that 80% of coaches fail within the first two years (it's the average time before their resources run out). 2) The bar for entry is ridiculously low - anybody can call themselves a coach these days and most of these "coaches" don't even know what coaching is and is not. So your competition will be high and you will likely have to work hard to convince your potential clients why you are not a yet another 'I will help you' artist. 3) Accept that marketing will be at least 50% of how you spend your time as a coach (likely more during the early phases of your business). So you will need good coaching skills and even better marketing skills (there are plenty of great coaches with no clients because they don't know how to sell themselves). I may be wrong, of course, but the way you describe your coaching purpose makes me think that you think people want to buy coaching to get their lives fixed. But they don't. Most people have no idea they need coaching, so they are not going to buy it. They will buy a specific solution to the specific problem that's bothering them. And another thing - your target group should be able to afford your rates. If they can't, you don't have a sustainable business model. 4) Your coach training program should be ICF-approved. 5) Did you mention you were living in UK? I suggest you check out the Animas Center for Coaching. I got my transformational coach qualification from them. This school checked all my boxes both before and after training. They also have a great community support where you can continue to attend trainings for free how much you like. 6) Do think about the business aspect. In addition to coach training, I invested in Marie Forleo B-School. I may be biased, but I highly recommend this program. I also hired a social media coach (since I sucked at it). Just be prepared you may need extra help to get going.

So you have a few quite specific goals to work on! The video project sounds like one that only needs a plan and a take-off. The path tends to show itself as we go, so it doesn't even matter that you don't have the money just yet. You also say that you feel stuck, like you can't do anything. What do you mean?

Okay, we know now that there are not physical restrictions that are holding you back. Then what is? The question is - are you satisfied with your current life and yourself? If you don't change anything, will you like your life 10 years, 20 years from now? If you are generally okay and just looking for approval - you do you. It's certainly not my cup of tea, but, hey, people have different desires and that's fine. If you don't like your life, however, only you can change it. It doesn't mean you can't ask for support, but you gotta show initiative. So what is it that you ultimately want?

Gosh, if I heard this from my son, I would slap him in the face and throw him out of the house - so that he wastes not a single minute more of his and my time. Do you have a disability or other condition that makes you unable to work? Are you a minor? Did your parents lock you up in their basement to prevent you from going to university? If none of this is about you, I don't see how it could be your parent's fault. I also don't see a good reason for pointing fingers, unless you're actively healing and letting go of self-blame. If you're a sane and physically healthy adult human being not living under extreme conditions, nothing is holding you back from having a car, job and education but you. Sorry, a bit rough, but time to grow up is now.

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I can give you some suggestions as a very sensitive and anxious person who are used to working by herself, currently has many committments and just can't afford to blow any of them because of emotions getting the best of her. 1) Use your negative emotions to your advantage. Don't just passively read the news worrying. Do something about it, anything. Find movements, organizations, platforms that deel with helping victims of military conflict and get involved! Even posting about it and getting your word out may be very helpful. Your friends are in danger, people are dying, the war is spreading to more places - of course you can't take it and just live as nothing happened! What is one realistic thing you can do to help this situation? 2) Working alone - no better suggestion that the good old discipline. Give yourself deadlines, have a non-negotiable work schedule, plan your work for the day, week and month, create KPIs and measure them, incorporate rewards etc. 3) Your work must be meaningful to you. You can't expect the circumstances and your mood to always be perfect, but things must be done regardless. For example, I must take care of my child and meet his needs every single day no matter how tired I am or how bad the global situation is. If your work has an impact that's bigger than you, you will keep at it no matter what. 4) Optimize your work conditions and look for support. Find other creators who work by themselves - you can keep each other stay motivated (you even had an offer in this very thread!) If you're sitting all day in your room by yourself, go work at the coffee shop or library occasionally - this will make you more productive. 5) Create space for your feelings. What must you do to vent, make sense of your emotions and clear your mind? Do it regularly as part of your mental/emotional hygene, so it doesn't mess with your responsibilities. 6) Work very hard but rest even harder. Just try to make sure one doesn't interfere with the other.