InterruptReQuest

According to what I've read, the reason we get addicted to things is because we are trying to distract ourselves from our unsolved problems. It makes us feel better for a while. We often avoid our unsolved problems because we don't know how to resolve them. Most people don't, because this is something we are not taught.

I've been trying to go through some past events that I didn't fully deal with, but it proves to be almost impossible because I can't feel the emotions that are associated with those events. I rarely feel anything, which leads me to believe I might be emotionally numb. According to my understanding, it's purpose is to protect you from emotional pain, but I don't think it's serving me anymore because I'm no longer living in the same environment as I used to. Does anyone have any experience with emotional numbness and how to deal with it?

Well at least as far as I know, I don't resist them consciously. Otherwise I probably wouldn't want to do this, because I know that I need to deal with the emotions. I did try breathwork few times and I remember getting a tingling/numb feeling (similar feeling to your arm falling asleep for example) in several parts of my body, but I don't know if that is linked to emotional numbness itself or if it's something that happens when doing breathwork. I have heard others getting that too, but I don't ever recall it begin linked to emotional numbness. I have also heard someone say that emotional numbness in itself is sort of feeling, but I'm not sure if that feeling is the same kind I mentioned above.

I recently discovered that my depression is most likely caused by bullying I had to endure as a child. I was suggested therapy, but I was told that it can take several years to fully heal through that method. Are there any exercises or techniques I can do on my own along with regular therapy to hopefully heal faster? I'm already fed up begin as I am currently, so any help will be appreciated!

Sure, but still wanting to find ways to speed up the process, even if just a little, is worth it

I've noticed during these past few days that when I meditate that certain muscles in my body want to tense up. Like, if you were to intentionally tense your biceps (or any muscle really) as much as you can for a moment (maybe around 10-25 seconds at at time) and then relax them, but my body does this sort of automatically. Is this normal to happen during meditation and what does it mean?

Could be. I wonder if I'd be able to release the trauma when that happens. Not sure if just observing is enough. I do know of self inquiry as a concept.

I wouldn't call it becoming aware of the tension (although I've had those too). More like my brain just decides to tense some muscle(s) really hard for a moment. It is a different feeling. I do regular focusing on breathing meditation and sometimes guided ones if I feel like it.

First off, I want to say that I'm not 100% sure if 'aggression' is the right word here, because there is a lot of contradicting descriptions for what it is. The description is more important than what word I use here. I found a page about aggression on a mental health website (not available in English) that explained why aggression is needed (a rough translation): I heard something similar also in some shadow work related content. A lot of the benefits described in the quote are either partially or fully lacking in my life, so I was wondering how should I start to reimplement this in my life again? I guess you could view reimplementing aggression as taking one's power back. I know that the problem in my case is repression, but I'm not sure about the effective methods for for "undoing" the repression. I do have a faint memory of what could be the source of the repression (or at least one of the cases that eventually lead to it), which I guess is a good start.

In short, TRE exercises are used to release trauma, stress and tension that are stuck in the body (maybe repressed emotions too). I found these exercises about a week ago and I have noticed overall less muscle tension and more flexibility in result. I think this is by far the best way to release these stuck "energies" (at least for me it is). However I'm not sure if these exercises actually can heal the source or if it just releases what already has built up. Has anyone here tried these exercises? I'd like to hear other people's experiences with these exercises too.

My fear of failure has been getting in the way of most things that I actually care about doing. On the surface this fear appears as procrastination. Forcing myself to do something (which is the most common advice I've heard) doesn't work at all for me, and in fact it might make things worse. I actually want to figure out the root cause and fix that. The problem is that I don't know what the cause is (in my case) and what to do about it once I find it. I believe it might be something that's pretty deep in my subconscious mind, which might be why I'm having hard time figuring out the origin or this fear.

That's true, but it's easier said than done. I know "logically" that I shouldn't care, but getting the message down to the subconscious level is something that I haven't managed to do (can you even do that?). I don't know if you can truly not care unless you manage to do that.

I just discovered that the fear I have been feeling might actually be coming from success, not failure. Long story short, several months ago I heard of a term "fear of your own potential". Back then I didn't think much of it, but today it popped back in to my mind as a result of other things I was thinking about. So I decided to actually read what it was about and I realized that people that fear success often don't consciously know it and often appears as procrastination and fear of failure. I think I'll do a bit more research into this subject and plan a suitable approach for correcting it.

@Setzer901 I have taken a look at shadow work before and have identified few things (although I don't know if they are related to this issue). I'm still trying to figure out a good way for me to integrate them, though.

I can definitely say that's true for me. I am slightly worried that what I believe to be the thing I want to do in life doesn't work out for one reason or another. Do you have any suggestions on good ways to remove these blocks? I've been doing a guided meditation for this, but I don't know yet how well it works.

There was definitely some useful stuff in the video. I also started looking into releasing repressed negative emotions, which might very likely contribute in this problem I have. I just have to find a way for releasing them that works for me.

I was curious about the different mystical experiences that one can have, and I was wondering which ones are easiest to experience (without psychedelics since they are not an option for everyone)?

I don't remember what these experiences were called, if I've ever heard what they are called to begin with... In several videos Leo has mentioned experiences where one's consciousness will merge with an object or another being's. I was curious if anyone here has had these experiences and what they were like in a bit more detail. If our consciousness is indeed able to separate from our body, what exactly is preventing it from doing so at will and what is keeping us connected to our bodies, assuming that when the experience is over, consciousness will return to the body it is connected to on it's own without having to "manually" return to it?

Thank you for the replies. The way you explained it makes more sense than what I originally thought. I guess I just interpreted it a bit differently than how it actually is.

I often hear people describing limiting beliefs as a voice in their head telling it to them. However I have never experienced this. I am pretty sure I have limiting beliefs, but I don't know what they are, and this is something I'd like to find out so I can sort them out. Is not "hearing" the limiting beliefs a good or bad thing and what it means if I don't hear them? Or am I just misunderstanding what a limiting belief feels like? Is the voice that is telling the limiting beliefs the same as monkey mind?

Both are good points. How should I go about figuring out which one it is in my case (or if it is something else). Detaching from the ego is something I'd like to do, but I don't think it is relevant at the moment. At least trying to fully detach from it anyway. There are few things that I should be doing, but I can't get myself to do them. I thought that maybe a limiting belief is holding be back, but I couldn't say for sure. Could be something I haven't even thought of yet.

I've been having this question on my mind for some time now. I have heard of "monkey mind" several times and I have a general idea on what it is, but I'm having hard time distinguishing between what thoughts come from the monkey mind and what don't. Are all thoughts that are "accompanied" by an internal voice counted as monkey mind or is it only "unintended" thoughts? How do I recognize between intended and unintended thoughts? Also, are "auditory thoughts" (eg. earworm) that may not have a internal voice "speaking" (like a melody from a song) counted as monkey mind?

I've been thinking of this for a while now, but can't seem to find any clear answer to it. So, how do I know when I've found my life purpose? Of course it has to be something I'm passionate about, what does it actually feel like? Are there ways I can test (or questions I can ask myself) to know whether something is or is not my life purpose/passion? Right now I believe I might find my life purpose in music, but so far everything I've tried have pretty much felt the same (which could be because I haven't found the right instrument). Generally I do like playing instruments, though. I have played piano the longest (although rarely nowadays), but I don't think that is my passion. For some reason lately I've gotten this feeling that I'm fooling myself thinking that I like playing piano, but actually I just refuse to give up on playing piano because I've put so much time into it. Are there any other traps one could fall into when finding life purpose/passion and how can you avoid them?

For some time now I've felt lack of motivation towards almost everything. Basically most things I do are simply the things I need to stay alive. The rest of the time I have, I'm not doing anything useful. Basically I'm just wasting time until the day ends. I have ideas on things I want to do and what I want to achieve, but I'm not able to take the action on them. It almost feels like my body is disagreeing with me when I want to do something I want or I know is good for me. Even making a small habit change is difficult. Usually I'm able to make small changes for few days, but then I just fall back on my previous habits. It's like I've dug myself in a hole that is too deep to climb out of. If I am able to do something it's usually something that has consequences if I don't do it. I guess willpower has something to do with this as well. At this point I'm not sure which direction I should be heading to get out of this state. It feels like every direction I go results to a dead end. There probably is some underlying cause for this, but I just don't know what could have caused this and what I should be doing about it.

Mainly my motivation was the benefits that meditation has. Regardless of knowing that the real benefits don't show up until few weeks to few months of daily meditation