Lieseluke

Hey, I've been thinking about seeing a doctor for a while now because I may want to get some treatment for my scars that makes them less prominent and visible. I was wondering if any of you has experience in that field and if yes, what exact option did you go for? As far as I know there are different options like cold therapy, laser, etc. Just for context: I am talking about self-harm scars that came from cutting (past!). Some of them were stitched together but most of them I took care of myself. Also, my skin tends to not heal very fast and also produce too much scar tissue so some of the scars look not very smooth and rather big. So even though I have been self-harm free for about 1.5 years, some scars still look like they've not matured at all. At the moment I apply lotion and oil once to twice a day and try to massage them regularly. I'd also be glad about any further advice.

Oat-cocoa-lemon-balls Ingredients Oatflakes Cocoa powder Cinnamon Lemon zest Lemon juice Shredded coconut Butter Water Ground almonds Let the butter soften at room temperature for a while, then mix everything together (sorry that I don't have exact measures) and form little balls. Coat them in almonds (or whatever else you like) so that they don't stick together. Put into a box or on a plate and store them in the fridge until they have hardened. Make sure the lemon is organic since you are using the zest of it.

Well, with language it's always a fine line in terms of whether you get across what you really mean. If I were you, it might be worthwile to look into your langauge. As in examining what words you use/what you use them for (did that with the words around feeling and thinking myself a couple of weeks ago since I used them quite unconsciously and still do sometimes). Maybe it's just my opinion (or projection) but your use of language, i.g. "this pathetic world" does sound a little bit like bitching/complaining. Taking the risk for being labelled rude and unkind by you, I'd like to say that I hope you really know the difference yourself. I surely would be careful.

@Preety_India Lol okay. My bad then. Sorry. Not sure what you want with understanding then. Other people pouring out their hearts too? Telling you that they feel the same? Just saying that they get it?

@Preety_India I read your post, I am sorry that you feel so confused and not understood. Not sure whether you are familiar with David Deida's books or some of Carl Jung's work on marriage, anima and animus (can be applied to non-married couple relationships too) but I can definitely recommend these sources. Anyway, there are some things I would like to comment. Don't forget that this is your perspective. Not every woman necessarily feels like this. I am not trying to deny your preferences but there are enough women who will want a more masculine man to say that this is definitely not generally applicable to women. This reminds me a little bit about what Leo said in his video about male and female psychology: women want men who look masculine on the outside but think like their best female friend on the inside and men want women who look hot and sexy but think like their drink buddy on the inside. That is not how it works... Of course, this example is a little extreme and you can feel this attitude in various subdegrees but maybe you wanna think about it. Just some undeveloped thought/suggestion: how about you contemplate your wants and needs? Why do you need emotional security only because you want it all? And why do you need that ground to stand on? Maybe it feels like you have no control over who you are attracted to but I do think that as you grow mentally/mature/let go of old wounds, needs and get a more healthy self-image that you will not be attracted anymore to the same men than your younger/more inexperienced self was attracted to. Overall, please be kind and compassionate towards yourself. I can read from your post that you feel a lot of pain when it comes to relationship with men and I really hope that you can make happy and fulfilling experiences with men in the future. Also, I'm not where I want to be regarding my own mindset/attitude towards relationship so please just take this as some ideas/thought prompts instead of as some critique.

I am collecting lots of different material from different books, videos, podcasts etc. and contemplating about how to create fulfilling relationships because eventually I want to put it all together and create some sort of a workbook for people. Anyway, since at the moment I am diving into the topic of giving and receiving in relationships, I am interested in your main/favourite ways of giving. I do not strictly mean material gifts (even though they can be a valid form of giving too) but more behaviour/thoughts/way of communication/etc. Since balance is also very important, what are some of the signs that would tell you that you are either giving too little or too much? And why do you think so? Let's brainstorm if you like

@Chew211 Lol, you make it sound as if usually the men did all of the household chores which in my experience is not the case But I have to admit that it also depends on the kind of chores. What about doing some of the chores that you know your partner hates when you see that they are really down or exhausted? Anyway, I do think that everyone likes to feel needed to some extent as long as it's not mere exploitation which I believe is not what you suggested. So finding ways how you can give your partner the feeling that they are needed and appreciated and noticed is probably a good idea.

@roopepa You mean kind of like sharing more of yourself by doing this? Can imagine that this is really cool, especially when you also share the reasons why some songs are so special to you. Maybe when they have some sort of story or memories attached to them.

Nice distinction! I did know about love languages and also put on my list that I wanna write about them and encourage people to find out theirs but I never thought about that the love language you like to give might be different from the one you like to receive the most. Although when together with a partner, I think it is actually nice and caring if you try to give to them in their favourite (receiving) love language.

So seems like one important aspect is that true giving is not done because you want to get something in return/expect something or want a certain outcome but for the sake of love simply. What do you think?

@peanutspathtotruth I might have experienced fractions of that feeling though I am still far away from being connected to that source all the time. I think I know what you mean when you say that it is also important where it is coming from. Kinda relates to authenticity and genuineness @Recursoinominado @peqkno

@Barbara thanks for reminding me that it does not have to be something that is usually considered comfortable in the moment. Like yea, I know brutal honesty is hard, it might sting for a moment/or a while but I have to consider the long-term effects too

@SgtPepper Agreed. Siddharta is great! I also loved "Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse

@Preety_India Do you think your relationship with yourself is also a joke? What is a relationship to you? And what makes one imperfection bigger than the other? After all, what you consider imperfect, is perfectly relative. And perfection itself is too. What is it that you are pointing at other than a sense of separateness?

I have currently read "Dear Lover - A Woman's Guide to Men, Sex and Love's deepest Bliss" by David Deida and I am now reading "The way of the superior man" (also by David Deida) and I am quite confused at the moment because the topic of how I see myself and whether I feel (want to feel) more feminine or masculine has been challenging for me for some time now. My main confusion regards the following questions: Can I differentiate between a masculine and feminine approach to finding a life purpose? Is the mere striving for life purpose rather a masculine or feminine phenomenon? (David Deida writes that for someone with a masculine essence it is most important to find and work towards their own unique purpose or mission while for people with a stronger feminine essence the flow of love is most important) How can I combine embodying femininity (and valuing highly love and a romantic relationship) and still working towards a life purpose, towards something greater (with masculine direction)? How do I find out whether my core essence is rather masculine or feminine? Do they have certain "feels" to them? If looking at low-conscious and high-conscious people: How would the expression of feminine energy differ between women of different development? How can I healthily express more feminine energy? If you have any advice or personal insights, they would be much appreciated.

I actually had the same problem (only that I am not sure where the deviation came from) and suffered from not being able to breathe properly (getting even worse in the summer with the heat or in winter with dry air in heated rooms) and my nose was always blocked. I used to clean my nose with a nose collunarium every morning and evening but the effects usually did not last very long and even right afterwards I felt far from being able to breathe freely. Eventually I got surgery and though the days after surgery are really not very great, once the splints are removed and the first healing is done, it is really so much better! To me it was worth it, and I would definitely make the same decision again! The difference was remarkable for me.

I do not think that this will work for everyone, I can imagine that as you said that there might be people who would rather feel like their anger is being fueled further by "living" the aggressiveness and following through with respective actions. But I have had similar experiences with anger release that is to say I could release anger by hitting some wood against trees or breaking branches (that were already lying around in the forest) into small pieces. Screaming works effectively too sometimes. I also experienced that by releasing my anger, sometimes the underlying emotion comes through so that I might end up crying in the end which helps me too release accumulated emotions and tension as well. I think it is important to also develop the skill of simply letting go (which I am still working on) because there may be situations in your life when smashing someting, banbing some objects, or screaming is simply inappropriate and will cause further complications. And one has to be very careful and watch themselves in order to find out whether living out aggressive energy is actually directed towards letting go and release or whether they rather get worked up about something even further when doing so because then the whole situation might escalate.

Running is great, I fell in love with it some years ago when I started to read some runners's biographies and other books about running. I can really recommend the following books: Born to run: A hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the greatest Race the World has ever seen Barefoot runner: The life of Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila Eat and Run: My unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secret of the fastest People on Earth This is just a small sample (wanna read Haruki Murakami's "What I talk about when I talk about running" sometime too) but if you lack motivation once in a while or if you are really passionate about running, reading some of such books might be a real pleasure for you. Also I got really interested into barefoot running and soon after getting involved with lots of running material, I started changing my running technique (wearing barefoot shoes or shoes with a very low heel pitch, landing on middle-/forefoot, making smaller steps, ...) and wow, this change was awesome. I cannot even run with "heavy" normal running shoes anymore since they feel so constricting and like a burden and running feels much more exhausting then. Barefoot exercises (not especially running in the beginning) can also help with several feet issues and I have seen my sister benefit from this especially. I wear Merrel Barefooot running shoes but there are so many other good brands out there, I think there is a huge variety nowadays, even if you are looking for "natural/barefoot" trail running shoes for example.

Getting wrapped up in guilt only perpetuates the suffering. You are neither helping yourself nor all the billions of other people when you feel guilty about your good life. My boyfriend actually got me to realise a similar point when it comes to having a job and when you see people working insanely long hours, getting paid very little and basically having a miserable life. I used to wonder how I can be okay with wanting a better job and striving for something that will make me happy when we actually need all those people doing the dirty work that nobody wants to do. However, just becoming another employee at McDonald's or becoming a cleaner will not help any of those poor folks. So by finding a life purpose and doing some work that actually provides value and improvement to the world, you could do much more to help someone. Have you ever asked yourself whether the cause of your guilt may be a feeling that you are not doing anything meaningful with your life or that you take too many things for granted? Practicing gratitude and appreciating the little things that you would otherwise take for granted will have a more positive impact on your life than this worrying and guilting yourself.

Hi girls and guys! I am 20 years old and I have recently (April this year) entered my first relationship with a guy and I currently find it very challenging emotionally to navigate this area of my life appropriately. I hope to get some new perspectives on this topic (please do not judge) and ideas of how others handle these things. My situation is this: When we met, neither of us had had sex before although he had been in some sort of loose relationships with two other girls whom he only kissed. He told me quite early on in the relationship how he had actually been desperate to get a girlfriend for a while and that he used to worry that he would never have sex in his life and that he had a time when he listened to a lot of pick-up advice. Our communication has actually been very open (compared to my usual experience with people) right from the start and we discussed things like relationship expectations, boundaries regarding cheating (though we have not properly settled on this completely yet) and our own feelings. Well, at some point he told me that one of the girls he "dated" earlier, was back in town and that he wanted to meet her because he still felt attracted to her. We discussed it, things went back and forth, and maybe he will get the opportunity to meet her at the end of October and I do not know how to feel about it. Sometimes I feel very jealous because he basically told me that if I was okay with it he would like to have sex with that girl and that makes me confused as in how to think about our relationship. And other times I feel quite open about it and would rather encourage him (since he said that it is not about leaving the relationship but rather to explore sexuality and so on). A few days ago we talked about relationship matters and he said that sometimes he feels disgust when we are kissing or after sex and that he does not exactly enjoy kissing (which I had suspected but not really admitted to myself). He also explained that when interacting with girls, he often immediately gets into that 'how-can-I-make-her-interested' pick-up mode and thinks about having sex with other women. It does hurt me but at the same time I try to understand it from a male's point of view (since I know from Leo's videos and some other sources that male and female psychology can be quite different). Yet I simply cannot quite understand how this attraction and relationship thing works for men. Like I cannot get a 'feel' for it. Besides, he still seems to care about pick-up/learning how to attract women and sometimes I wonder whether it is normal to be in a relationship and kind of simultaneously work on your dating/attracting skills as in"preparing" yourself for the next relationship or at least the state of being single again. When I get this vibe from him, I react by trying to detach more and also think about whether/how I could prepare myself for the "world after this relationship." However, I actually do not like the mindset or the feeling that I get when treating the relationship as something that already has an expiration date. Overall, we seem to struggle with different views on intimacy, sex, feelings and maybe what we want the relationship to be like. However, he is an amazing guy (he introduced me to Leo's channel btw) and I had many great experiences with him so far and I do care emotionally about him a lot, so I do not want to throw away the relationship (only because not everything goes smoothly) but it is hard for me to view it as a learning or growth opportunity solely and I wonder whether I am ready to take the insecurity of not knowing where this goes, feeling like I should already detach from him in order to be able to cope well with a potential break-up in the future. If you make it here, thanks for reading and I would really appreciate some new thoughts on this

Hello to everyone! (This is my first post so I hope I am not violating any values here) I wish to receive some advice or hear some personal experience from people who have taken antidepressants (favourably Venlafaxine (also known as Effexor)) and who tried to quit, are still trying to quit and/or suceeded. Besides, I have some questions about psychedelics (mushrooms). My situation is the following: I have been on antidepressants (first Escitalopram, then switching to Effexor) for about to years now and my current dose of Effexor is 225 mg daily, I have been taken this dose for a couple of months now. I never liked taking pills and I already quit my sleeping pills two or three months ago but kept taking my antidepressants. When I started researching psychedelics, I also started reading about quitting antidepressants and I was shocked about the reports from other people. I have two personal concerns: 1. I want to take psychedelics (mushrooms) for personal growth and therapeutic/healing intentions which seems to be impossible/not advisable with Effexor. 2. I do not want to keep taking Effexor my whole life and I do not want to keep my body in a state of addiction where I am probably also suffering from side effects. The thing with Effexor is that the withdrawal symptoms are severe (from what I have read until now), even so severe that many people who try start taking the pills again because quitting is painful and can take a very long period of time, mess with your emotions and psyche, possibly making you unable to work for a while. Regarding psychedelics the problem is that the effects on Effexor will very much be decreased to such an extent that most people cannot trip anymore (they feel euphoria and maybe some body sensations) but have a completely sober mind and even with increased doses (you have to increase them otherwise it seems that you get no effects at all) it is likely that you will not get the full effects. I am not saying that it is like this for everyone taking Effexor or that you can trust everything out there in the internet but there seems to be some common doubt about Effexor or antidepressants in general and I am concerned. So is there anyone who also took Effexor and quit successfully? How were your experiences? Over what period of time did you decrease the dose? How long did it take for you to stabilise? I would be very thankful to receive some answers and I hope I structured my post sufficiently. Have a beautiful week to whoever may read this!

Good to know, I was not sure how long it would take to get my body completely clean of venlafaxine. Just to make sure I understood you correctly: It takes 4-6 weeks after tapering off until my system is clear?

@Enlightenment Thanks for this strategy, I have not heard of it but it seems reasonable. However, I might have to adapt it to my situation a little bit since I have trouble sleeping and setting alarms late in the night might not be exactly what I want but splitting the dose in several parts to take throughout the day seems good.

Thanks for your answer. Some of the symptoms you are describing match with the other information I have gathered but it sounds a little promising at least that not everybody experiences them on a terrible level though I can imagine that it is never a pleasant thing to go through. In the patient informatin leaflet of my medication it says that the very maximum dose is 375 mg daily, so with 225mg I take a medium to high dose which probably should not be quit cold turkey. I already experienced vertigo, headaches and nausea when I once forgot to take my pill in the morning.