Rob06

@Yarco Thanks for your realistic perspective based on your own experience raising a kid @ZenAlex Yes, partially agree, even though self-actualization is a lifelong process. @Leo Gura Yeah, I might want to prepare for waking up at 5 am to meditate (if the kids aren't already awake at that time ) @Raptorsin7 Yes, somewhat @Superfluo Yeah I can imagine some shadow stuff coming up while raising kids. My childhood wasn't very dysfunctional, even though I was raised a bit overprotective myself. Did you encounter this kind of stuff while raising children? Thanks all!

I started seeing more success with the ladies years ago after practicing some of the stuff from the YouTube channel TrippAdvice. I practiced both at home and "in the field", very important. That didn't "fix" my deep lack of self-esteem though. That took years more of personal development stuff. And only after I did that, did I really feel confident. I also noticed that my desire to have a girlfriend diminished dramatically with it, because I felt so much more secure and at home within myself. So I would say, go for developing yourself, becoming more social, and gaining self-esteem. This will make you naturally confident, which women love!

Watching it now. I think it's good that the series are so basic, to slowly (re)introduce psychedelics with a bigger audience. Nice to see these kinds of topics gaining traction on more "mainstream" platforms like Netflix.

I think these are very important points which should not be taken lightly. If you actually suffer from (some of) these illnesses, advanced spiritual material might not be for you in this stage of your development. Focus on healing these diseases if possible, and/or coping with them at best as possible first. Maybe this is obvious, but I'd rather state the obvious than see you getting hurt. Here's a video from Shinzen Young on the difference between Enlightenment and its "evil twin" depersonalization-derealization disorderthat might be helpful . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA

I'm not sure if Spiral Dynamics is necessarily the best model to use in this family-relationship situation. It's easy to put a label like Blue or Orange on a person, but does that really help you understand all the complexity of these human beings you live with? I'm sure your parents are way more complex than just the value system that Spiral Dynamics stage blue describes. Doesn't answer your question, but might be food for thought in maybe broadening your perspective of dealing with the situation.

Wow, nice one, thanks for sharing.

For what it's worth, this is a list of the highest consciousness countries from David Hawkin's 2004 book Truth vs Falsehood. No idea if his consciousness calibration method is valid, but it could be. So, maybe visit several cities in these countries first Australia 410 Canada 415 Germany 400 Hawaii 405 Hong Kong 400 Netherlands 405 Singapore 405 South Korea 400 Switzerland 400 United States 421 In The Netherlands I get pretty good vibes in cities like Amsterdam, Groningen, and Nijmegen, conscious wise. But yeah, just based on some vague intuition....

Sounds like what could help you is simply becoming more interested in life, other people, and all the different aspects of life (politics, nature, social stuff, whatever). I used to be pretty narrowly interested but slowly became more interested in everything. It didn't only raise my intelligence (I assume it did), but also just made life more joyful, which is the more important point. Another point might be that our society has a pretty limited view of what intelligence is. Are you intelligent if you can do mental arithmetic very fast? Well, then I'm pretty stupid . I do believe my actual IQ was raised over the years by the regular practice of meditation, but can't verify that.

There's quite a lot to unpack in what you say. Resistance is normal, and it could come from low self worth and/or perfectionism. What helped me with low self-esteem was a combination of many things, from reading and applying personal development material (Nathanial Brandon's work on self-esteem), to meditation, and most powerfully, doing a couple of personal development programs. Practising self-love, self compassion also might be a good idea. Don't beat your self up for slipping back sometimes, it happens. Small incremental changes can come a long way over years! What do you mean by "How to change my habits, without compromising my self worth every time."?

How to get out of your own way as a creative? Check out this video: The first time I heard this piece in this particular YouTube video, I was 16 years old. From that day onward, I grasped the power and magic of music. Every time I watch this video of Wilhelm Kempff performing this amazing piece, it reconnects me to the intrinsic beauty of existence, and a plethora of emotions runs through my being. I am talking about the 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. A wave of energy surges through my spine as I listen. I guess yoga folks would call that energy kundalini, tai chi people chi, taoists call it the great tao, christians spirit or soul, atheists just call it energy. Whatever it is, I intuite that this creative energy gives birth to the current moment, the eternal now, it does not discriminate, nor does it judge. That's something to dive into in a next post. Look at Kempff's facial expression during this performance. This man is not in what we usually call a regular "sober" state of consciousness, operating from a linear, rational thinking state of mind. Rather, it is an elevated state of consciousness, and therefore functioning, that allows him to execute this piece with such expression, intensity and emotion. It is almost like he, along with the listeners, is just an observer, watching his hands play the music, and listening to it. His enjoyment of the music, along with the performance of it, creates a positive feedback loop. Don't get me wrong here. Of course, thousands upon thousands of hours of practice from the regular state of consciousness was necessary to allow for this flawless execution. Scrutinizing one's own practice habits, technique, and such is still important. But when the time of performance comes, the rational left brain has to surrender and merge with the more holistic and intuitive right brain to really bring the art alive. And even during practice, one should strive to practice from that flow state. This can be hard to attain, since you can't force it. You can only create circumstances that make the possibility of flow arrising much higher. In the same way that you can make the possibility of attracting rare birds to your garden higher by planting the right trees and plants. One of the biggest challenges of the artist or creator therefore, is to create the circumstances for flow to arrise. You have to get out of your own way, so to speak. Even though I've known this intellectually for years, it took me a long while to really start to embody this concept, and I'm still working on it now. One thing that helped me tremendously with this is the practice of meditation. Regular practice allows one to more easily surrender to what is. This might sound whoo whoo, but it really just means that you accept reality as it is, without judging it. If a problem has a solution, solve it, if it doesn't have a solution, accept it and let it be. Why does the skill of surrendering to what is help in performance, you might ask? Let me phrase it differently. From a scientific perspective it makes sense why meditation would help with performance and creative work. I once read that scientific research shows that the regular practice of meditation actually grows the part of the brain that connects the left and right brain (the corpus callosum). Sounds crazy, right? This apparently is the case. You can find these studies for yourself. An even better way to realize that meditation has a direct impact on creative performance though, would be to start practicing it, and experience it for yourself. Another aspect of this video that I really love is that Kempff doesn't execute this piece a 100% perfectly in terms of notes. There are quite some "mistakes" or "wrong notes" in his performance of the piece. But he doesn't seem to be bothered by that. Next to that, I have yet to find a performance of this piece that moves me in the same way Kempff's version does. I listened to other performances, played even faster, with even better technique, but without the same instensity, expression, and emotion (which is a subjective notion of course). As in life, mistakes are unavoidable, part of life itself. It is how you contextualize them and deal with them that makes all the difference. Think about the way Kempff deals with mistakes he makes in this performance, the next time you make one. He takes responsibility for his mistake not by stopping, or by going into his head, and therefore robbing others of the gift he shares, but by continuing in the same spirit. Talking about getting out of your own way: most of this blog post was written from a state of flow. The insights, words and phrases coming to me effortlessly. It just came from the love I have for this music, and the desire to share it. Now, at the end of writing this post I realize that my mind is starting to play tricks on me, saying things like: "Will people like this post? Will they think I'm weird? Is it good enough? How can I create a good conclusion? It has to be excellent", and so on. There's not necessarily something wrong with those questions, but I feel the creativity and flow creep away in that more rational linear state of mind. The time of critisizing your performance or creative work is after the fact. Not to judge yourself, but to improve your ability to share your creation with others even better the next time you come around to it.

This journal is meant for gathering and sharing my thoughts, insights, and contemplations on creative work. It will be an intersection of self-actualization, creativity, carreer success (and failure), and spirituallity. As a creator, struggling to make a full time income and trying to actualize his potential and life purpose, quite some insights and experiences come up. I like to structure all of these thoughts, experiences, and insights and share them. This deepens my own understanding of what I'm doing, and motivates me to contimplate the topics and questions that naturally interest me. Hopefully, it will be of value to you too.

Is there a specific reason why the guy went from vegan to obese? Or just $$$$?

Interesting, why would you regard Scott Joplin's work as Stage Yellow? Or is it the piano teaching system in the video you are referring to? The traditional Chinese music seems more like stage Blue to me.

The events you are about to read took place a while ago, back in May 2016. Currently I am getting interested in experimenting with psychedelics again, so I reread the trip reports of my two past experiences with psyhedelics, both with ayahuasca. Wanted to share my trip reports with you guys and girls as well, so here it is. A short introduction I did both of these trips during a weekend retreat at a Dutch organization called The Sacred Voyage. It was all in kind of a therapeutic setting, using concepts like "getting back in touch with your inner child," and "facing your shadow," and your "inner critic". The Saturday consisted of group sharing, a dancing and moving workshop, and holothropic breathwork. The Sunday was completely dedicated to ayahuasca. The guides were all very experienced in working with plant medicine and things like shadow- and consciousness work. The setting was professional yet personal, which made me feel very comfortable to go into the experience. We were with about 15 people, all sitting on our own mattress with blankets and cushions. There were about 4 guides. Luckily there was no dancing or weird ceremonies during the ayahuasca itself, and everyone was encouraged to go into their own process. The guides were there to help out if needed. I fasted about 5 days beforehand on recommendation of the organization. I left out my addictions like coffee and sugar, and ate only smoothies and vegetable soup. This is probably the reason why I didn't have to puke or shit myself. I went into the whole experience with excitement and a bit of fear, and with a headache from lack of caffeine and a poor night of sleep. Back in 2016 (I was 24 then) I was dealing with social anxiety and low self esteem issues. I was also dealing with overuse issues and pain in my arms and shoulders, due to playing bass guitar. I studied jazz at conservatory, and was very perfectionistic. My self esteem was tied in with how good of a musician I was, and I didn't think I was that good. I wanted to see if the ayauasca ceremony in the setting of the Sacred Voyage could help me get over these problems, and maybe even heal my body. One more thing I need to say for you to understand the trip report better is that I took a couple of pictures with me, pictures of me and my brother as kids, pictures of my parents (and also grandparents if I remember correctly), and pictures of myself as a baby, lying under an incubator. As a baby I didn't have enough oxygen to make it on myself. I was looking at these pictures a couple of times during the trip. So without further ado, here is trip report number one from back in 2016. This is how I wrote it up back than. The report "Yesterday I made my first Sacred Voyage. It was a very special, confronting experience. The biggest theme that emerged in the journey was my inner critic, manifesting as a demon of immense power. The journey started after taking the first glass of Ayahuasca with a chakra meditation that lasted about an hour, which was led by the leading guide of the ceremony. At the end of this meditation I started to see all kinds of patterns and became dizzy. The stuff started to work. At some point (I weren't able to track time anymore) I started looking at my arms. They started to turn and spin slowly before me and deformed. At times they looked like baby hands, but I also thought of the hands of one of my aunts, who is mentally and physsically impaired. I looked very closely at my arms, the veins were very clearly visible. I also tried to give them healing by giving them some massage and love. At times my hands seemed very alien-like! What I remember afterwards is that I smelled a very burning scent. I know it was incense, because one of the guides passed by with it again when I was almost out of my journey. But during the journey it smelled of an intensely large fire. I entered a kind of lava underworld with a lot of desert (different but similar to the lava level in Super Mario 64, combined with the desert level) . My breathing became very heavy and it felt like I was exhaling some kind of thick smoke. It felt like I was a demon/wizard from the Middle East. Later I realized that this heavy breathing might have come from being under an incubator as a baby, reliving what that felt like. In any case, it felt very familiar to me. I felt like I came out of fire. This fire demon wanted the best for the baby (me as a baby). I took the photo and gave the baby fire and love. In the photo of myself I saw a lot of my mother. I also felt my mother's love for me when I was a baby. It was a very strong love, but also came out of a lot of fear of losing the little one. It is very difficult to put this whole experience into words. So much happened. I've heard, seen and felt so much. There were also very powerful insights and life lessons, of which I will probably get some of them back in the coming time. The whole journey was kind of a struggle between this fire and love. Fire in the form of power and strenth and love in the form of Universal Love. The demon, my critic, loses itself very quickly in its own power. He doesn't want to give up his kingdom. This power destroys himself. He forgets that he comes from a place of love and good intention for the baby, and he's too scared to let go, too scared the baby will get hurt. There were also many beautiful moments during the journey, moments when I could almost let myself go in love, or in the good. There were also a lot of insights. And love for myself, for my parents, for my brother, for my friends. Yet again and again this goodness has been overshadowed by the demon that cannot let go. I was in a lot of physical pain. Especially in my bones, joints and in my solar plexus. The pain in my bones and joints was mainly due to the mattress on which I lie and slept the last night I think, and because I slept very badly the night before the trip. Because of this, my body had hardly been able to relax. Maybe it has something to do with my sleeping position. In any case, the pains in my body intensified considerably during the journey. This pain was also a feature of the demon during the experience, who was old and weighed down by his own power, which made him suffer. Words that came up in addition to fire and love were curiosity, adventure and humor. Qualities that I ascribed to myself, but which I think are also entrenched by the demon. Letting go was also an important aspect. At one point, I convinced the demon of finally letting go of itself. I put on my eye caps and inserted my earplugs and lay down quietly. I literally wanted to die. The demon understood this too. Only it didn't work. The demon started making excuses all the time, things that had to be done before. Viewing photos, healing my arm, etc. Each time I tried to convince the demon that it will continue after death, but then with the demon by my side, and not the demon ruling over me. I told him that adventure awaits on the other side. But he didn't want to give up. This resulted in a lot of stress and pain. In retrospect, I think I wanted to let go of the demon because it caused me too much pain. I also wanted to discover what was behind that pain, to the light, to heaven or something. I think this was an ego decision and it doesn't work very well in that dimension I think. I was also worried that I didn't have enough time. Not enough time in the sacred dimension to let go and experience the nice stuff. The battle actually went on all the time. It got really frustrating at some point." Final Thoughts That was all I wrote back in 2016, about my first ayahuasca experience. The whole thing lasted about 8 hours and I drank 3 glasses of ayahuasca. The last two tasted even nastier than the first one. In hindsight I remember that I had this naive notion of letting go of the ego and surrendering to Oneness which I read about before, and maybe heard about through Actualized. I thought that I would just be able to let go and be all happy afterwards. It didn't turn out that way... I can also see how the demon I experienced during the experience is a beautiful metaphor for the ego, or at least for the denser, darker, traumatized parts of the ego. Leaving the retreat that day I didn't feel all lovey dovey, excited and spiritual, like I imagined it would've been. I felt kind of confused and disappointed by the whole experience at first, but started to really appreciate it in the following weeks. I'm still not really sure what I got out of the experience. It didn't heal my body, and didn't fix my low self-esteem issues. I only got a grip on those a couple of years back, and not through the use of psychedelics. I do view this experience as an essential start of my spiritual/self-actualization journey though. It certainly made me hungry for more, and I saw the potential of the psychedelic realm, so to speak. Today I also see that I probably got too deeply emersed in the content of the experience, rather than trying to go meta and contemplate and observe the whole thing happening. But on the other hand, that was where I was at, at the time.

Wow, what interesting sensations must that be to feel both the love and sounds in your being. Seems like you worked through a lot of shit lately, and are now experiencing the "rewards" for that.

Do you somehow belief you are not worth the expensive/quality stuff you buy? There's something to onearth for you there.

Building a contemplation habit in the midst of building my business.

One of your worst habits seems to be your self hate. Why are you being so hard on yourself? Be compassionate to the part of yourself that fucks up. I know the frustration of falling back into bad habits. I've been at this work for nearly a decade, and still have bad habits. I fall back sometimes. You've been at this for three years. Think about all the things you've learned in that time. Everytime you fall back into a bad habit, it will get easier to pull yourself out of that hole. The knowledge you gain from books won't melt away by jerking off 3 times a day, unless your sperm is really intelligent . Take it easy. One babystep at a time. Than one big step back again. Than a couple of baby steps forward.

Thanks, that's very insteresting. I had a lot of physical problems when studying music in college. This was mostly due to my perfectionist mindset, and never having learned to relax during playing. I'm relearning the relaxation part now though. After a ayahuasca ceremony once I had a similar experience to yours, where the bass guitar just played itself, and my arms and shoulders were completely relaxed. As soon as ego came back in and wanted to play better/faster, tension arose again. Thanks again,this helps me reflect on my compulsive/neurotic tendencies while practicing/playing.

It's interesting to see that the CNN news anchor guy seems to have a better ability to go meta on what's happening and to point out the underlying human behaviour and epistemic problems than the news anchor woman (don't know what their names are). She seems to jump to premature conclusions and just sais "I don't know what to do with these people", whereas the guy goes one step deeper. The meta approach creates more understanding and less judgment. I sent this vid to a consiracy friend of mine who still believes Trump is in power. Looking forward to his response

Cool trip report. What impact did the relaxation of your body have on your piano playing, if any?

God is Nothingness... No wonder you didn't get any results.

My approach is similar to that of LastThursday. But I do use the structured approach for creative work as well sometimes. I tend to work in 25 minute spurts, and than take a couple of minutes break. This is because I tend to go into over-focus mode, going completely into my head, becoming perfectionistic, which results into a tense body and brain fatigue. The alarm rings after 25 minutes, which is a reminder to take a breath, put my focus back on the process rather than the result and stretch my body. When I'm in a particularly focused and relaxed mood, I don't set the 25 minute alarm, and can sometimes work for 90 to 120 minutes in one stretch. I would say the best practice is to experiment with some different methods and see for your self what works best. Be mindful of your state as you start working. That might dictate your strategy for that moment or day.

This is one of my favorite examples of mastery over the piano: Even though his execution of the piece isn't flawless, the expression and soul with which he plays it is absolutely astounding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSulR9Fymg (not sure how to embed the video thumbnail in my post)