FlyingLotus

Good video. Thanks for sharing. Here's an excellent video about addiction you may also enjoy.

(This summary’s been done before, but it’s such an important episode it deserves a super thorough summary.) 257. Summary: How To Stop Being A Victim - Part 2 - What All Victims Fail To Understand -This is one of the most foundational episodes. It’s the follow up to one of Leo’s most popular videos: How to Stop Being a Victim. Summary is here. -Have you ever wondered why you get stuck in a victim mindset? Being a victim happens whenever you start thinking: I can’t. It's impossible. It just won't work in this situation. I've already tried everything. It's just not going to happen. There's no way it's going to work. I don't know how. My genetics aren't going to allow me. My life situation is just such that I can't do it. My boss is holding me back. My husband is holding me back. My girlfriend is holding me back. My children are eating up all my time. There's not enough time in the day. I don't have enough money. -For this episode, select one area in your life where you feel stuck like a victim. This could be your diet, fitness, health, mental health, money, relationships, marriage, upbringing, children, career, business, talent, intelligence, appearance, personal development goals, etc. -So where in your life do you feel like you're really stuck, like there’s some outer circumstance that’s really holding you back? Most people feel like a victim in some area. It could be one specific area or your whole life where you feel like a victim. -So, what makes a victim a victim? Basically, a victim thinks that the external world is a greater obstacle to him than he is to himself. This is a very profound insight. A victim is a victim, because he thinks the external world is a greater obstacle to him than he is to himself. _____________ You are the only obstacle. -It’s critical that you grasp this. This is such a deep insight… -That’s right!! There are no other obstacles but you! Anything that you think is an external obstacle is actually an illusion (money, time, jerk boss, spouse, bad luck, bad genes, etc.) -It’s your mind that's the obstacle. This is always, always the case. This is one of the most bedrock foundational principles of all self-development. -You need to realize that this is true. Of course, the problem is if you're a victim you don't believe this. When you hear this your mind comes up with all sorts of objections, logic and counter examples, which you naively believe. -Keep in mind, there are different levels at which you can grasp this truth. Surface Level Understanding: You hear, “You are the only obstacle” and you get it intellectually, but pretty much think it’s bullshit. Intermediate Level Understanding: You kinda, sorta, maybe get convinced this might not be 100% bullshit. Deep Level of Understanding: This is true! The only bullshit here is me thinking it’s bullshit when it’s actually, totally true! You see how this is true, why it's true and how it’s working in your life. You also see it working in the lives of everyone around you and recognize it as a general principle of life. Once again... A victim is a victim, because he thinks the external world is a greater obstacle to him than he is to himself. -Victims don't realize that “the mind is the only obstacle.” They don't see all the ramifications that such a statement has. The victim fails to appreciate how much their own mind is deceiving them. They underestimate the possibility and impact of self-deception. Victims don’t take those things seriously enough. -Self-deception is one of the biggest dangers in life that you have to guard against. There’s layers to which your mind is the obstacle because your mind has layers of self-deception baked into it. ep: Self-Deception I. ep: Self-Deception II - 60+ Self-Deception Mechanisms. ep: Self-Deception III. Summaries for all three are here. clip: Overcome A Victim Mentality With Mindfulness (7 min). Things That Are Way Less Dangerous Than Self-Deception: Things in the external world, like… Your boss holding you back. Enemies that you have. Business competitors out there. The bad economy. Your spouse holding you back. Your genetics like you weren't born beautiful. Being born with a lack of confidence. Bad parents. A bad upbringing or childhood. Things You Should Actually Be Worried About: Your mental filters. Your attitude. Your limiting beliefs. Your judgments. Unquestioned assumptions you have about reality. Your lack of introspection. Visualization or the images that you run through your mind. Your monkey mind and how it chatters and prattles on and on and on without stopping without any control. Your model of reality as a whole. Your emotional reactions and how your thoughts and your beliefs are charged by emotional reactions. Your judgments, of yourself and others. The self-constructed model of morality that you have. What you view as right and wrong and good and evil. The habits that you cultivate or fail to cultivate. Your self-talk. What words do you use? What’s the tone of the language you use? Don’t forget, self-talk is largely subconscious or outside of your everyday awareness. Your awareness and consciousness. How little mindfulness you have. Your ego. The effects of ego on your relationship to other people, the outer world and to yourself. -Unfortunately, as a victim you tend to discount all this stuff. You don't spend much time thinking or strategizing about it. Instead, you spend most of your time worrying about the external world rather than the internal world. You spend too much time worrying about physics versus psychology. -The external world is actually a projection of your internal world. You don't acknowledge how much external reality is warped by your psychology. -Victim thinking is difficult to extract from your psyche, because you have a belief that says: “How I think about the world is not that significant. Reality just is what it is. The physical world is all that matters." "I’ve got real problems! Changing belief systems is some silly new age theory. That’s not real and tangible, like getting money or hot babes.” -So you have a faulty, disempowering belief system going on inside you, and when you believe something like that you're really stuck. Why You’re Stuck 1) The victim mindset is totally false. It's a false belief, because how you think is extremely significant. Reality is not just physical. Reality is not just “what it appears to be.” Your problems are not just "real world problems.” So, victim thinking is just factually, flat out wrong. 2) The victim mindset is totally self-deceptive and self-reinforcing. -When you believe that your worldview isn’t that significant, notice how ingeniously deceptive this is. It's deceptive to the point of beauty. It means you're not going to take any action to introspect and think about your thoughts. You're not going to be reflective. Your attention’s always going to be focused "out there” at the external world. It’s never going to want to turn in on itself and really investigate itself. That's what victims tend to do. The reason victims stay stuck is they don't look inside to see how these “real problems” are actually being created by the victim's mind, by their beliefs, attitudes and perspectives. -The reality is that there are no real problems. Problems are not things that exist in the external world, even though it seems that way. A problem is a feature of the mind. They are all projections of your mind, whatever the nature of the problem is (financial, family, relationship, business, etc). That’s because, it’s you who attributes meaning to situations in the external world. It’s you who then creates goals, objectives and wants to accomplish things. Notice that all those things are parameters of the self, of your mind, of how you hold yourself relative to reality. There is no problem without the mind. -Not only that, but a problem has to be actively created and sustained by your mind. Your mind has to actually burn calories to create problems. It’s an active process. A problem is like a little rodent living in your head. You're feeding it all the time, but you're not aware that you're feeding it. This rodent is living in your head rent-free. It’s consuming precious time and energy, while making you disempowered and miserable. However, it doesn't seem like your money problems could be a little guinea pig nibbling away at your brain. It seems like the money problem is “out there” in the external world. -It’s very critical that you grasp this. See the ramifications of what’s being said about the victim mindset and how it's true in your life. You have to recognize that you are creating these problems. Until you recognize that, you won’t be able to let go of your problems. You’re not really self-actualizing until you grasp what’s being said here. That’s how foundational this concept is. -Until you grasp that “the mind is the only obstacle,” your world will appear hostile, unfair, depressing and cruel. In fact, that's how most victims feel about the world. -If you don't feel that way about life and the world, you probably feel that way about some area of life. Maybe you feel like you were dealt an unfair hand with your heredity or genetics, and because of that the world is hostile, unfair and cruel. Maybe at work your boss has more power than you, and you feel like business is depressing and cruel. Maybe you keep trying to get into a relationship with a good person, but you’re in a pattern where each new relationship goes bad after a few months, every single time. Then you say to yourself, “this is just how relationships/guys/girls/Capricorns are.” None of that is true. You’re creating all that, even if you’re not aware of how you're creating that. -It will take you some time and work to realize how you're creating it. The reason it'll take you so long is because you're unconscious and resisting what’s being said here. So, this is the beginning of the becoming more conscious process. -It’s really sad to see people who don't grasp what’s being said here. It becomes almost impossible to help them. It becomes impossible for friends and family to help a victim. A victim gets really stuck, because every avenue of a solution that comes his way will be denied by his mind. That’s because a victim’s mind is searching for the answers in the wrong place! Thought Experiment Time! As a victim, you currently, believe that the outer world is all that really matters and the inner world is not very significant. So let's flip that around. As a thought experiment, consider a life where the inner world is all that matters. So, changing things in the outer world wouldn't really matter, because by definition the inner world is all that matters. So any problem you try to fix in the outer world is not going to get fixed. It's going to keep recurring over and over again. So, you’re just going to become more and more frustrated. It's going to feel like an unsolvable, no-win situation. So, are you imagining that? Good, now what's funny is didn’t we just describe exactly the situation in which you find yourself being a victim? Isn't that exactly what your problematic situation is like right now? You keep changing the outer world or at least you try and the problem just keeps repeating over and over and over and over and over again. Maybe there’s slight variation, but basically it just keeps repeating. Again, if you're honest, isn't that your situation? So shouldn't that clue you into the fact that it's the inner world that matters? -If you don't change the inner world and correct problems there, they will keep being projected out into the outer world. It's almost like if you're at a movie with those old fashioned projectors, and you see a smudge on the screen. You walk up to the screen, you try to clean it up, but the smudge doesn't clean up, because the smudge is a dust particle on the lens of the projector, which is getting projected onto the screen. So you can clean the screen all you want, but if you really want to remove the smudge you have to go clean the lens in the projector room. You have to sorta turn inward, the eye has to look back on itself, so to speak. That's what you have to do with your mind. So, you shouldn’t worry so much about the outer world. You should not fear the outer world. You should fear yourself more than any outer world problem. Your self-deception is the thing you need to fear. Your mind, you have to recognize, is not your friend. -Stop gullibly believing your mind. That needs to stop. You need to question it. The reason you're stuck in life is you've been naively believing yourself, and the self is a tricky bastard. -Stop allowing your mind to frame control you. Frame controlling is how your mind sets reference points for everything you judge. It sets the parameters of what you expect. eg: Guess how many episodes of Star Trek: DS9 were made. The answer is somewhere between 150-600. What number did you guess? … … … … … … What if I told you there were 22 episodes of ST: The Animated Series, 98 episodes of ST: Enterprise and 79 episodes of ST: Original Recipe. Now how many episodes would you guess? … … … Notice that your guess is probably a lot higher in the first case than the second case. In the first case you were primed to consider much higher numbers, between 150-600. In the second case, you were primed to consider much lower numbers, around 22, 79 and 98. The real answer is… -Be aware that you’re probably not conscious of how people frame control you. Advertisers frame control you with their prices. It’s a very classic sleazy marketing tactic. It’s actually similar to the Star Trek example above. Let's say the price of the product costs $100. To make that price look like a great deal, they’ll say the product actually costs $300, but it’s on sale! “This normally costs $300, but we’re slashing it to $200, and if you act now you can get it for $99, or four easy payments of $19.99.” So, by the time the price gets to $100 your mind says, “$100 is so cheap compared to $300.” -Marketers and advertisers frame control you like crazy. (Classical Conditioning and Pavlov’s dogs.) Beer commercials will show a sexy woman next to a beer bottle. She’s smiling and your heart starts racing from arousal. Those excited, happy feelings then get paired to the beer. You don’t realize it’s happening because it’s “just normal” to see a sexy woman drinking beer in a commercial. Your mind is being frame controlled to associate something positive with that particular brand of alcohol. eg: The multiple award winning show “Mad Men" covers the creation of desire and how unhappy people sell happiness. It’s brilliant. Mark Your Man. Advertising and Happiness. Carousel. (Man, I need to rewatch Mad Men.) All of this sinks into your mind below the radar of your awareness. That's how advertisers frame control your buying habits, and frankly many of the standards in your life. -So notice how your own mind frame controls you, especially in situations where you feel like a victim. Basically, your beliefs about reality are very distorted. You need to start taking your beliefs very seriously, especially the whole process of belief creation that you go through. When you start to acknowledge and truly grasp what’s being said in this episode, the following things will become relevant to you: Things You Should Take Very Seriously: Psychology Philosophy Contemplation Meditation Mindfulness Non-duality Intuition Wisdom Truth -If you're a victim these things won’t be important to you. They’ll seem abstract or like they can’t impact the burning issues in your life. But, as soon as you grasp what’s here, a very important shift will happen. You'll start to take everything on that list very seriously. They will become very relevant and fascinating to you. You'll become an eager, dedicated student of these things. They’ll be the most burning issues in your mind. They'll become paramount. Only then can you really get the full value out of the videos at Actualized.org. Until then you’ll be skimming the surface, looking for shallow tidbits of advice here and there, but you'll be missing all the juicy meat that’s available. Exercise Time! 1) Select one area in your life where you think you are a victim. Be specific about it. 2) Write it down at the top of a piece of paper. 3) Now write down: a) All your justifications for why you can't change in this area. b) Why this situation is impossible. c) Why this situation or problem is not your fault. 4) Write down how this situation seems like an external problem. 5) Now write down how this situation is actually an internal problem. (It’s going to seem like this problem is external, but it’s actually internal. So find that contrast. Your mind will throw up all kinds of excuses. Don’t give in. You can have your excuses or you can have a great life, but you can’t have both. So, don’t believe the lies.) Now ask yourself: 6) How am I creating this obstacle? 7) What am I avoiding by creating this obstacle? 8) What must I believe to be a victim? -If you do this you're going to get a lot of insight into everything in this episode about the victim mindset. You need to find out how your mind is hiding the fact that your “external problem” is actually an internal problem. Watch out for those justifications. They are robbing you of your life. Maybe you even agree with everything in this episode so far, but when it comes to your specific problem you’ll want to dispute it. -This is a pretty complex exercise, so you should really sit with it and contemplate it. You may also want to review this episode again. -You’re going to see exactly how victim thinking applies to your particular situation. Hopefully that will jumpstart your awareness of how self-deceptive the ego-mind is. Getting clear on how this works will carry over to all your future personal development efforts. Areas that Uprooting Your Victim Mindset Will Impact: Removing limiting beliefs. Understanding how you deceive yourself (and stopping it). Becoming more aware and mindful. Installing positive habits. Avoiding mental traps that get you stuck in victim mindset. Becoming more successful in a fulfilling way, not just a superficial way. Developing your mind to the point where it can no longer deceive you. Turning your mind into your greatest ally, instead of your inner enemy. Becoming the Master of Your Fate, the Captain of Your Soul. -You can’t imagine the incredible places you’ll go if you learn how to counter the deceptive nature of your mind. This journey will take years of practice, but it's extraordinarily worthwhile. So, Upgrade Your Mindset.

Turns out I'm not on his newsletter! Explains why I didn't get the #hotwitchepisode.

Interesting, I've never been notified about updates through email and I've had the list for 1.5 years. I hope Leo does add more soon. He mentioned a book about dopamine and motivation that sounds interesting. In any case, I've definitely seen new books added within the last month or so, and many more within the last year. Although that might not be the update you're talking about.

Just checked. I see at least 10-15 new books since last year. Lots on page 2. Some are in the science category, some in the "Deep Thoughts with Kim Kardashian category" ?

I hope so too! Period cramps suck, even for vampires it seems

I didn't know vampires were into personal development, lol! @Preety_India Heating pads and ibuprofen are your best friend. A lot of health professionals say Ibuprofen's the best painkiller for periods (but I can't remember why). A hot bath, or even hot tub jets are great, but tougher to find of course. Also foot reflexology helps. Especially massaging the hollow area behind your ankle bones. I also like to lie down on a rolled up towel that's placed vertically under my spine. Placing a heating pad between the towel and your body is great too. This person's using a foam roller, but a towel works best. It also feels good to place it horizontally under my hips, or to place the towel wherever relieves pain. There are a lot of videos on youtube of different stretches you can do that also help.

The link is for John Oliver's Opiods III segment from Aug 8, 2021. I think Opiods I & II will work outside the US:

@RickyFitts @cjoseph90 You're both very welcome ?? Hope it helps with your journey.

Every Spiral Dynamics Infinity Stone Color has now been collected: Stage Red and Stages Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, Turquoise. So, when you’re done reading, snap your fingers like Tony Stark and say, “I…am…Spiral Dynamics Man ? " 449. Summary: Spiral Dynamics - Stage Purple “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” —African proverb -This comes from the work of Claire Graves, Don Beck and Christopher Cohen who developed Spiral Dynamics (ep: Spiral Dynamics.) Spiral Dynamics is a developmental model that looks at the evolution of culture and human psychology throughout time, both at an individual and collective level. -This model is extremely useful for understanding the development of yourself, of people around you and of different cultures and societies. It will help you make sense of the crazy cultural stuff that's happening around you. -Each stage corresponds to a set of values and a level of and moral cognitive development of the psyche. As we're going up the spiral, there’s an increase in the level of consciousness and complexity to the culture and to one's psyche. -You can’t skip stages. You have to go through each stage to get to the next stage. Also, no one stage is “better” than any other stage. eg: Genghis Khan went from a stage Purple upbringing to being a stage Red warlord. Genghis Khan (6 mins). His rule also created a foundation for Stage Blue and even Orange (2 mins). His empire established the Silk Road. He also allowed people to keep their religion, as long as they agreed to also pray to Genghis Khan. His story is the basis for Danerys Targaryen and the Dothraki in Game of Thrones. -Throughout life we try to evolve up these stages as quickly as we can, trying to get to tier two which is Yellow and Turquoise. -Stage Purple is tribalistic, animistic, mystical. Life is both magical and fragile, because the elements are harsh. It has primitive, yet deep mystical wisdom and traditions. It’s 10% of the world population and 1% of world influence because it’s so archaic and out of touch with technology and modern society. -If you’re living in a relatively developed part of the world, you’re probably around Stage Blue/Orange, maybe even Orange/Green. At this level of development, modern culture has indoctrinated us with individuality, materialism and consumerism. (Five Things about Libertarianism [5 mins].) -There’s a Libertarian myth that each person is a rugged individual, a John Wayne cowboy-type, who survives by himself, no society necessary. (ep: Why Libertarianism is Nonsense) “I have the right to my property, my house and my guns. I want to be left alone and I want things my way!!” -However, Libertarianism is not how most of humanity lives or has historically lived. The majority of human history was communal life where you lived as part of a tribe. Having an individual identity is something that's relatively modern. It's maybe a couple hundred years old to a thousand years old. In most developed parts of the world, we forget that humans are a tribal species and this leads to all sort of Libertarian absurdities. Stage Purple emerges with the beginning of homo sapiens. There’s never been a time in the history of humans where we lived as individuals in the wilderness. Mother Nature is too brutal to survive it alone. So, we’ve always been part of a tribe. If you look at our nearest ancestors the chimpanzees and the bonobos, you see that they don't survive by themselves. Bonobo tribe . They even have a highly social, highly communal, primitive culture, like using tools, grooming each other’s hair, learning from each other. You don’t see a lone monkey or gorilla surviving by himself in the jungle. He’d get eaten. (Learning from Bonobos.) Stage Purple is about being a member of a tribe. The Stage Purple tribe is how mankind began and how it has lived for hundreds of thousands of years. If your tribe dies out nothing else is possible. Your tribe is your whole life, your whole identity. Identity is the crux of all development. Contribution and self-sacrifice to the tribe are paramount. The individual sacrifices for the tribe. The tribe trumps the desires of your ego, or to have sex, or to hoard all the coconuts. Competitive individualists are looked down on because they put the tribe in danger. Life is magical and mystical. There's an element of spirituality and mysticism (we also see that at stage Turquoise.) Being with the tribe feels like living in an enchanted magical village. Disney movies do this a lot: Mulan’s ”Honor to Us All.” Pocahontas’ ”Colors of the Wind”. Moana. Tarzan’s ”You'll Be In My Heart”. Belle's “Provincial Life” ? The Stage Purple Family Stage Purple is a natural extension of the family unit. If you take the family as the basic unit of human survival, expand on that and you have a collection of families living together, which constitutes a tribe. Basically the tribe is one big extended family. Like in the family unit, if your mom needs help with her computer, you don’t bill her for your services. You do it, no problem, because she’s family. In a tribe, that attitude extends to everyone. Everybody helps everyone out. There’s no cold, calculating, business-like transaction where you’re trying to profit from someone else in the tribe. The tribe is small enough for everybody to know everyone and their personal business. There's no sense of alienation and anonymity, which exists today. If you're living in a big city you probably don't even know your neighbours. As a tribe we can hunt together, share new inventions and develop a shared culture, which becomes very powerful as we develop up the spiral. The tribe gives life meaning. There's a deep emotional bonding between members of the tribe just like in a family. You don't want to let your tribe down, so it’s important to contribute. Contributing isn’t some burden that's imposed by a dictator from up above. At the end of the day, once you're done all your survival activities, you can tell stories around the campfire, dance, do art, drumming, music, drink and party, which adds spice to life. There are group ceremonies, rituals and celebrations. It’s much better than being alone in a shelter trying to not die. The Stage Purple View of the Universe Purple seeks harmony with Mother Nature. Purple reveres the power of Mother Nature. Nature is mystical and wise. Knowing the environment is a matter of life or death. Knowing when the sun sets and rises tells you where to plant crops. You need to predict rainfall. Studying the stars and sky lets you navigate through the mountains. You need to find good hunting grounds. Adds to the animistic sense of spirituality. Time is cyclical, based on the seasons. Not linear time, but a cyclical sense of time. Time is connected to the movement of the sun, stars, seasons, zodiac sign. Polytheistic. There isn’t just one God. There’s usually a multiplicity of spirits that you have to appease and work with. There are conflicting spirits, some good, some bad, some petty, some mischievous. You can find these figures throughout mythology. Animistic: everything has a spiritual essence. Animism is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Purple obeys the desires of mystical spirit beings in nature. They have a life force and intentionality of their own. (The sun spirit, the water spirit, the plant spirit, etc.) eg: If we anger the river, the river will stop flowing and we’ll die of drought. We must appease the river by praying to it and performing rituals. The tree spirit in our oak tree is good and watches over us at night, but the tree spirit in the enemy tribe’s willow trees are bad. A mystical sense of cause and effect. Without science, it’s unknown how nature functions, which makes it deeply mysterious and mystical. Purple can draw false conclusions about causes and effects in nature. There's no theorizing about the logic behind performing a rain dance for the crops, or trying out different dances to get different results. That’s not how Stage Purple sees things. eg: The shaman might do a rain dance and believe he caused the rain to fall. The crops might go bad, and the tribe might think it must have dishonoured their ancestors in some way. Earthquakes and lightning probably come from earth, wind and fire spirits who demand a weekly vigorous, ceremonial, tribal dance ?. Stage Purple Mindset Stage Purple is more right-brained than left-brained. Purple is more intuitive, feeling-oriented, body-centred versus logical, rational and scientific. There’s no formal science at this stage of development. There's no writing system, so you can’t document and codify your understanding of the world. The logical mind is more about analyzing and categorizing things, which is good for scientific purposes or writing a book, but it's not so good for survival in the jungle. Stage Purple uses intuition to navigate through life and reality. Gut instincts are better for survival than logic. You'd be surprised how far you can get with intuition and instinct. eg: Stage Purple people who are very experienced, like a shaman or a medicine man, can have very keen senses and extraordinary perception which comes from massive experience. The Shaman’s been living in the jungle for 50 years, going on hunts and gathering plants. He’s become very very attuned to tracking animals, reading footprints, looking at weather patterns, predicting where lightning is going to come from, when rain is going to fall. He can hear different animal sounds or bird calls and based on that he can predict whether it's spring or fall, or if there are predators nearby. The shaman has become very very perceptive through intuition and feeling. This allows him to survive much better than logic would. All the logic in the world won’t help a scientist with three Phds survive in the Amazon. Following tradition keeps you alive. Survival at Stage Purple is very precarious because of the harsh environment. Traditions have been tested for hundreds and thousands of years by your ancestors and by their ancestors. They figured out to navigate the jungle through trial and error. Many of them died figuring out where to get clean water or safe shelter. Now you are relying upon their traditions to help you survive, so you follow them faithfully. So there's a great value placed upon retaining ancestral and tribal memory. Your survival literally depends upon your ancestors. It's not just nostalgia. That shared ancestral memory, knowledge and wisdom of how nature works is the tribe’s version of google (or Actualized.org ?). Purple’s rigid attachment to tradition leads to its downfall. They’re closed-minded and unable to adapt to other cultures and perspectives. They’re too rigid to co-operate with other tribes, which leads to conflict, battle and death. It also leads to the need for Stage Red’s ruthless, warlike individualism. Stage Purple Culture The tribe relies on a verbally shared history to pass down wisdom. Because Purple is usually pre-literate, they can’t create a manual on how to survive the elements. Without science, they also don’t know how nature really works. So, the tribe has a collective memory with rigid rules and rituals on how to behave. Without these traditions you could easily do something that kills you. You could eat the wrong plant and get poisoned. You could hunt the wrong animal and get eaten. If you do anything the wrong way you could die, and you can’t just call 911. Traditional customs are extremely important. The tribe relies on traditions and history to give people a sense of grounding and a sense of identity. The culture tells you who you are, where you came from and how you're supposed to behave. Because everything is traditional, there's not a lot of creativity or innovation. You just learn and obey the traditions. There’s a traditional, “right” way to hunt, cook, cure disease, make medicine, dance, celebrate, handle funerals and the death of loved ones, etc. It’s also important to know what’s taboo, what not to do. Vivid myths, parables, legends and telling stories. Storytelling is extremely important for pre-literate cultures. They existed before writing systems were invented. So, the history and wisdom of the tribe was memorized through stories and myths that were passed down from ancestor to ancestor to ancestor. To make sure those stories were kept intact and not corrupted, there wasn't a lot of room for creativity or embellishment. You had to learn those ancestral as faithfully as possible. So, a lot of emphasis is placed upon the history of the tribe. This actually plays a very important existential role in one's psyche. It’s important to retain a track record of where you came from. Tribes do this through mythology and sharing of stories. Today, modern science tells us where we came from. There’s a sperm and an egg, a genealogical record of ancestors and so forth. But science doesn’t exist at Stage Purple. There was no historical record you could google. You had no clue what happened 5000 years ago, except through the tribe’s stories. Culturally rich in folk stories, songs, dances, artwork and crafts. They compensate for a lack of writing with other art forms, which can be very beautiful and sophisticated. A lot of anthropology is about collecting these cultural artifacts and putting them in museums. eg: Sacred objects, traditional songs and dances, costumes and traditional dresses. Family relics, masks, tattoos, jewelry and other adornments. Has many folk stories about mystical creatures. Each culture has their own stories of mystical creatures who are often mischievous tricksters who have to be appeased or reckoned with. Spirits, sprites, pixies, elves, gnomes, trolls and magical creatures come from basically every culture. There are unwritten rules about how the tribe works. Because there's a deep sense of tribal history, there's lots of implicit rules that get developed over centuries of survival. Rules about hunting, dancing, celebrating, talking, eating, etc. One of the challenges anthropologists face when they discover a new tribe is there are implicit rules and customs you have to follow in order to not offend the tribe. So one of the challenges is they have to spend years really going “full native,” as it's said, living and learning within that tribe, through trial and error. Once they learn these unwritten rules, they can fit in and function. These rules are usually not rational or scientific. They’re sort of intuitive heuristics for survival in that particular environment. It also varies depending on the unique environment the tribe developed in. (re: Survival heuristics. The Himba tribe in Namibia can detect multiple, imperceptibly different shades of green, but have difficulty seeing the difference between green and blue.) Words have magical powers. Words are sacred, magical and powerful. Prayers, blessings and hexes. Words are used in dances and rituals. Communication with the spirit realm. Out of Body Experiences. Astral realms. Psychic Abilities are considered real. Summoning nature spirits and ancestors. Ordinary events are seen as mystical signs or omens. Superstition runs rampant. Purple doesn’t realize culture is an arbitrary construction. The tribe’s culture was created unconsciously as part of its survival activity. It’s not chosen, it just is. It’s helped their people survive for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years. Survival is so brutal at Stage Purple that they’re loathe to change. It takes many stages above Purple to get to a point where culture is seen as something that's socially constructed and malleable. Purple also doesn’t see how culture can be counterproductive, destructive or a form of brainwashing. Purple thinks its culture is the only way, not just another way. Stage Purple has difficulty imagining other ways of living. Once other tribes starts interacting with it, the tribe's isolated bubble gets punctured. This creates a problem. Purple feels threatened by diversity and alternative perspectives about culture, rituals, gods and methods of handling survival. If another tribe performs a rain dance differently, it’s not just different, it’s “bad and evil.” It’s definitely not better than our raindance. Our tribe’s traditions came from our ancestors and we value our ancestors. We don't value their ancestors. Stage Purple is the early origin point of all religions. These ancient traditions got co-opted by religions that came later. They became systematized, orthodox, and stripped of mysticism. eg: Not eating pork or shellfish. It’s a carryover from Pagan customs from a time when eating either of those was dangerous because they carried disease. eg: Christmas was originally the Winter Solstice, which was an important date for hunter gatherer tribes. It’s the peak of winter, after that it starts going towards spring. Stage Purple Social Roles Fixed social roles. There are fixed social roles, the chieftain, the medicine man, the shaman, the hunter, the warrior, the fertile young bride, etc. Everybody's playing their role. These roles are very fixed. Cooperation is necessary for survival. Gender-based division of labor. There’s usually a gender-based division of labor. Women do the cooking and maybe gathering plants, whereas the men go hunting and manage the defensive perimeter. The men go on group hunts to increase their chances of victory, instead of going alone. There’s an emphasis on protecting fertile women. Women have many many children because half those children will probably die from lack of sanitation or lack of food. Not all the children will even make it to adulthood. Preference for boys. There’s lots of needed manual labor because survival is difficult. Boys tend to be physically stronger and better at survival than girls. Arranged marriages and selling daughters. Arranged marriages and selling of daughters is very common, usually when they're only 12 to 15 years old. The more beautiful the girl, the more reproductive value, the higher the dowry. The girl doesn't have any choice about this. The dowry is sort of the extra payment that the parents get for nurturing and raising a girl instead of a boy. Because she was physically weaker than the boy, but to compensate she has reproductive value. Sexuality is free and not taboo. Tribespeople are very comfortable with their sexuality and nudity. Sex is not seen as bad or dirty. It’s why you see half naked women in those National Geographic documentaries. These cultures also tend to be polygamous and have lots of children. The repression of sexuality comes at Stage Blue with the advent of orthodox religion and morality. Raising children communally. The child isn’t just raised by the mother and father, but by the entire village. It helps to socialize children and get them used to interacting with lots of people. Whereas modern society is isolating and young people don’t have as many social bonds, which leads to mental illness and socialization problems. Respect for the Elderly. Modern society tends to discount the elderly as feeble. In our modern culture we can go to google or some Harvard Phd and get information in books, or from other humans who lived 1000s of years ago. You don't have that in a pre-literate society, so literally it's the most experienced person who's still alive. At Stage Purple, there’s a lot of value placed upon the elderly. There tends to be naturally emerging leaders based on seniority and experience. There's a council of elders who are well respected and they serve the tribe selflessly. They coordinate things, but not in an autocratic way. Leaders emerge from seniority. It's not dictatorial or a bunch of power hungry monarchs, like a Stage Red mafia boss. A Chief instead of politicians. So the chieftain tends to be old, very experienced, has survived many battles, went on many hunts and has a lot of wisdom. When you can’t write down knowledge in a book, you can see how valuable life experience is. The chieftain is not a dictator. He's there to selflessly serve the tribe and pass on wisdom. He's not in it for personal gain. The chief is going to be on a close emotionally bonded basis with everyone he's dealing with. Unlike a corporation or mafia boss, he’s not trying to leech wealth from everyone underneath him. Stage Purple Resource Gathering/“Economy” Stage Purple is basically small-scale communism. It's pre-industrial, hunter-gatherer and usually pre-agricultural, although it’s capable of being agricultural on a small scale. (Generally as humans became highly agricultural they settled down and moved to stage Red and Blue.) There’s no formal legal system, court system, laws, military, taxation, or formal market. So, it’s the dinosaur of governments. The chief or elders usually distribute goods based on the needs of the people. It’s not about climbing a corporate ladder and becoming the richest and most powerful. Sharing of resources. There's a strong emphasis on the value of reciprocity, sharing and cooperative interdependence. Resources are distributed based on need. The tribe shares its resources, food and property to maximize tribe efficiency. Sharing is a necessity for survival in a harsh environment. This creates a natural insurance policy. If I can’t find fish today, maybe you’ll share some of your surplus with me, then I’ll cook dinner for you next week. There’s no sense of profit motive. Communal or Tribe property. There’s so much collaboration and cooperation that property is communal, not private. There's no strong sense of individual property rights. You could own your own house, but it’s also the entire village's house. Social bonds > Business & Profits There's not much to do in a Purple society other than social bonding. So that's the most valuable thing, moreso than wealth acquisition or collecting material objects. Purple isn’t very materially productive. That's not something they prioritize. Life isn’t about how much money you can earn or working 14 hours a day to get ahead, to buy stuff you can’t afford to impress people you don’t like. They’re not buying the latest technology or cool gadget or a new purse, like Stage Orange. Being on “Island Time.” Business schedules aren’t as important as social bonds, which is annoying for people with stage Orange goals. When Westerners do business in a Purple culture, like India, Jamaica, even rural Nova Scotia, stuff probably won’t get done on time, or quickly compared to an Orange culture like New York. Purple will prioritize a community celebration, or their niece’s wedding, or public holidays. (Chinese culture doesn't do that) Nepotism is also rampant, because Purple is so family oriented and social bonds are more important than profit. Blood bonds trump competence. Tribal warfare. Us vs Them. Stage Purple is so deeply tribal that there's an intense in-group/out-group dynamic, which leads to tribal warfare, blood feuds, racial violence and potentially ethnic cleansing. This is where Purple starts to phase into Stage Red. eg: Genghis Khan went from a stage Purple upbringing to being a stage Red warlord. Genghis Khan (6 mins). A Purple tribe can’t stay little forever. They will grow, take up more resources and more of the environment. Soon more tribes pop up and will start to interact. That’s when you get tribal conflict. There's a very deep social and emotional bond within a tribe, but when another tribe comes along they're seen as foreigners. Especially because each tribe is so beholden to its own traditions; they’re each very very inflexible. Each tribe is close-minded and traditional, so they clash with each other. They can't see the relativity of each other traditions that comes much further up the spiral. The other tribes are threatening. They have different traditions, values, culture, ancestry, appearance, etc. How do you make the tribes cooperate? This creates a very serious problem which ultimately leads to the necessity of higher stages of the spiral. Examples of Stage Purple -There's a lot of profound, effective and practical wisdom to be found within these Purple mystical spiritual traditions. It’s not all fairy tales and magical thinking. -People think non-duality is a modern, advanced thing, so it's amazing to see our ancestors from thousands of years ago already had it figured out (like with Aztec philosophy and Teotl.) -There’s tons of examples, here’s just a sampling. Tribes in… Sentinel Island: The Sentinelese Tribe - Untouched For 60,000 Years. Amazon: Korubo tribe. Documentary about the Huaoaranis tribe. Tribe that inspired Avatar. African tribes: Zulu, Bwiti, Surma, Hadza. The movie Black Panther drew inspiration from Stage Purple tribes. Black women leaving Christianity for traditions from their homeland Indonesia: Korowai tribe. Top 7 Indonesian tribes. Papua New Guinea: Chimbu Skeleton Tribe. Native American tribes: The Comanches. Lakota. The Apache. The Middle East: Afghanistan’s Koochi Tribes. Saudi Arabia. Iraq. Syria. Uzbekistan. Bedouin tribes in Oman. Russia: Chukchi people in Chukotka. Altai people. South East Asia: Bajau Laut tribe. India: Jawawa tribe. Jarawa's message for the world (10 mins) Siberia: Nenetses clan. Becoming a man in Siberia. Australia: Aborigines documentary (50 min). The Purple prototype. New Zealand: Maori. Maori Warriors. Cannibal tribes. Korowai tribe in West Papau, Indonesia. CNN reporter almost gets eaten by an Aghori. Although that often gets exaggerated because of Western stereotypes. Hawaiian culture Various Hawaiian ceremonies: Kahunas, luaus, leis, ceremonial food, cookouts. Aquaman does a Haka. Indian culture and spirituality is very tribalistic. India has 100s of tribes, each with their own language. Being so fragmented has created a barrier for business and modernization. It’s tough to pick a primary language for the country when each tribe wants their own language to be the dominant one. Lots of strange arcane spiritual traditions, based on herbal medicine, psychedelics, witchcraft, black magic in places like Mayong, Assam. Ayurveda. The Healthy Gamer channel covers this subject a lot. (It’s a great channel.) East Asian cultures: Tibetan spirituality. Nepal’s Kumari, the Living (child) Goddess. Japan’s Shinto religion. It’s separate and distinct from Buddhism. Very ritualistic, worships Kami who’s the disembodied life spirit that pervades everything, rather than a monotheistic God. Similar to the force in Star Wars. What is Shinto? The Maneki Neko. A golden cat with the paw that moves back and forth. A good luck charm. ლ(=ↀωↀ=)ლ Fortune cookies. A superstitious holdover from Purple. Something can be Purple and still have a recent origin. A lot of Purple stuff gets discovered and reinvented. Acupuncture. Chi energy. Teotl and Nawa notions of spirituality Very profound, effective and practical wisdom. Turns out non-duality’s been figured out for thousands of years. (ep: Aztec Nonduality). Cultural Practices The "Circle of Life" ? from The Lion King. The sacred Tree of Life. The gift economy and sharing of resources is a Purple idea. Used at Burning Man and various burns around the world. Old spiritual texts and scriptures. Ancient mythologies. Sun worship. Animal gods and spirits. Animals have a spirit and life force of their own, which is pagan and sort of anti-Christianity. Stage Blue treats animals as just personal property, which is not the case at Stage Purple. Ceremonies Tattoos that the Maori of New Zealand paint on. If you take magic mushrooms and look in the mirror, you can see those patterns on your face and body. The Day of the Dead Shrines. Ancient burial grounds. Burial rituals. Stonehenge. There are lots of different stone circles around the world. Art & Music The Paleolithic cave paintings like you see at Lascaux, France and other places in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Folk tales and fairy tales. Chanting in drum music. Drum circles. Traditional songs and dances. Sweat lodges. Vision quests. Tribal tattoos. Face paint. Masks. Symbolic costumes and ceremonial dress. Jewelry. Totem poles. Sacred objects. Family relics. Superstitions Knocking on wood. The lucky rabbit's foot. Black cats. Prayer altars. The Evil Eye. Urban legends. Astrology. Secret handshakes. Magick -Leo tried various alternative healing modalities (alternative health stuff starts at 30min) to diagnose and treat what turned out to be SIBO. Very interesting ?. Crystals and gems. Teal Swan on Crystals. Witchcraft. Romanian witches. Modern Witch in Brooklyn. Wicca. Modern day Wicca. Gerald Gardner. Protection Magick. Protection from other people. Banishing spells. Shamanism. Neo-shamanism. Paganism. Voodoo. Modern day Voodoo. Voodoo and possession. Haitian Vodou at the Haus of Hoodoo . Voodoo Museum in New Orleans. Curses and hexes. Casting curses on politicians. Magical healers. Summoning healing spirits in Haiti. Sage cleansing in Native American tribes. Lovespells. Warnings about Love Spells. Wiccan. Voodoo. In modern Salem. Witches in modern day Massachusetts! ? War and Tribal Conquest The Haka. Originally used to rev up tribesmen before war. It’s is used today for cultural performances and revving up testosterone in sports. Maori All Blacks Haka. “Cheerleading” at an all-boys prep school. Try doing this before a work out! Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Blood oaths. Cannibalism. Eating one's enemies. It's a trope where you defeat your enemy, cut out his heart and eat it while it’s still beating. Suicide bombing. This happens in very underdeveloped parts of the Middle East that are very tribal, very clannish. The culture, the value system there is that you sacrifice for your tribe. So if your tribe is getting exterminated you will gladly strap a bomb to your chest in the defense of your tribe. Suicide bombing is a hijacking of that stage Purple “sacrifice for the tribe” value system. It combines with toxic stage Red and gets weaponized. It seems irrational to Westerners, but not if you look at it using spiral dynamics. Kamikaze pilots in World War II is a similar thing. It’s a very self-sacrificing force that was part of Japanese culture. Psychedelics & Plant Medicines Herbal medicines. Ayahuasca mushrooms + peyote combo. Amino muscaria mushrooms. Ayahuasca ceremonies. Peyote ceremonies. Mexican shamans used Salvia divinorum for divining purposes in witchcraft. Magic mushrooms and datura are used in ceremonies. Boiti African tribes use iboga for ceremonies. Rites of Passage South Korean coming of age rituals. Fulani tribe in Benin (trigger warning ?). -Boys becoming Men 5 Shocking Ceremonies (trigger warning ?). Navajo ceremony. Bar mitzvahs. Boiti tribe use amanita muscaria mushrooms for this rite of passage. -Girls becoming Women 5 Shocking Ceremonies (? trigger warning ?). In the Apache tribe. Apache endurance test. Navajo ceremony. Hoopa Valley tribe in Northern California. Teeth filing in Indonesia. Amazonian tribe in Belem. Bat Mitzvahs. Debutante balls (last 60s NSFW). -Elaborate mating and marriage ceremonies Click here to watch Leo describe a sex act no one would enjoy, not even with the most beautiful person in the world ?❤️‍??. Bosniak Bridal tradition in Kosovo. Dowries. Fertility goddesses. Purple in Modern Culture There’s tons of examples, here’s just a few. The whole idea of the “noble savage.” Missionaries going to tribes to spread Christianity. The missionaries are stage Blue going to Purple tribes to “convert the heathens.” In modern society, Stage Purple lessons start getting integrated in kindergarten, when you’re thrown into a group of other kids. You learn how to share and play with others. High school is all about playing political games of who's the coolest kid in school. There are all these different tribes of kids based on where they sit in the cafeteria. Small company work environments, like a startup or team of 10 people. It's a modern invention, but has a tribal, communal stage Purple dynamic. Like an extended family. Books: Don Miguel Ruiz’s “The Four Agreements.” Ancient Mexican Toltec wisdom. Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist.” Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” covers Purple mythology. Carlos Castaneda’s books, especially “Don Juan.” Carlos Castaneda books arose after the 1960s psychedelic revolution. Amazing books filled with lots of ancient, tribal wisdom. Don Juan has a very animistic worldview. He’s reading signs into a crow flying over his head. He’s attributing mystical things to that crow, and it’s because he’s from Stage Purple. He’s both naive and wise, like a Purple shaman. Movies & TV: James Cameron's “Avatar.” The Navi, those Blue cat looking creatures are a ripoff of the Native Americans. ”The Medicine Man” with Sean Connery. "Dances with Wolves." Miyazaki films are heavily influenced by Shinto and spiritual animism. Is Miyazaki Inspired By Shinto? (13 mins). “Spirited Away" is a must watch, awesome film. Many Disney films and songs. Mulan’s ”Honor to Us All.” Pocahontas’ "Colors of the Wind." Moana. Tarzan’s ”You'll Be In My Heart”. Belle's "Provincial Life" ?. Games: Patapon is a rhythm game about controlling a little group of tribal guys who go to war against other tribes and defeat creatures. (Very cute and catchy.) Turok the Dinosaur Hunter. The treasure hunting elements in Tombraider and the Uncharted series (for us non-boomers ?) Legend of Zelda. It’s set in an animistic, mystical world, with influences from the Shinto religion. It has shrines, various water and fire spirits. The world has a magical, mysterious vibe with artifacts and different races of half-animal, half-humans. Ghosts of Tsushima has a strong Shinto element in the game. (It’s also very beautiful and fun to play.) Horizon Zero Dawn. Also a fun game to play, and beautiful. (Tripcaster is OP.) Stage Green Incorporating Stage Purple Stage Green tries to integrate our Purple ancestors’ tribal wisdom, harmony with nature, sharing of resources and a communal way of living. eg: The hippie “Envision” Festival in Costa Rica. Stage Green with a lot of Purple influence. Modern hippie stuff is heavily stage Purple. Same with Burning Man. Stage Green is also reacting against the materialism of stage Orange. It looks back fondly on the sharing of resources and the gift economy. There’s been a reevaluation of psychedelics, plant medicines, organic farming, sustainable agriculture, the value of shamanism and mysticism. It overly romanticizes Purple. Purple doesn’t scale with billions of people and modern technology, like nuclear weapons, tanks, airplanes, internet. It also can’t account for the environmental impact of a Stage Blue/Orange/Green and society. Slogans/Phrases/quotes Ubuntu is Zulu for “I am because we are” or “A person is a person through other persons.” All for one, one for all. Don't say it or it might come true There’s no place like home. We are all part of Mother Nature Blood is thicker than water. You'll jinx us. This is how we do things around here. Honor the ancestors. That will upset the spirits. What Triggers Stage Purple (1:34:42) Disrespecting tradition, elders, ancestor and spirits. Life is so fragile at stage Purple that disregarding “common sense” could get the tribe killed. Lack of bonding and lack of reciprocity. Not being a team player. Libertarianism. Trying to do your own thing. It’s considered selfish and rude and puts the tribe in jeopardy. Arrogance, greed, ambition, selfishness. Like a Wall Street trader trying to bribe a shaman at an Ayahuasca retreat for a better room. The shaman will be disgusted because he seeks wisdom, not money. Other tribes/cultures. Threatening and confusing. A danger to the tribe. Domination, exploitation, dehumanizing work schedules. The desire for materialism and productivity. It breaks social bonds which is a much bigger priority in the tribe. Innovation and progress. The tribe wants to keep things traditional, the way the ancestors have always done them, even at the expense of progress. A shaman would never try 5MeO-DMT for example. This is the downfall of Purple, the inability to adapt, especially since Orange is all about science, technology and evolution. Downsides and Unhealthy Aspects of Stage Purple 1) Tribalism. Probably the biggest downside. When people are deeply tribal this devolves into tribal warfare, blood feuds, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the worst case scenarios. 2) Extremely isolated and fearful of outsiders. 3) Narrow worldview. 4) Inability to adapt to modern society. The nature of life is constant evolution. You can't put technology back in the bottle.[/b] You have to work with the new technology that is available and integrate multiple cultures into your own. The globe is one interconnected system. A lot of old traditions and customs aren’t going to withstand the industrialized modern Western technological machine that is society. Stage Purple needs to let go of those old, outdated ways of living if they want to integrate with modern society. 5) Overly traditional and conservative. 6) Overly superstitious. Too much magical thinking versus rational thinking. There’s value to mysticism, but there's also value to being rational, practical and material at times. Sometimes you need to have simple rational plans and goals and be pragmatic. 7) Fearful of natural phenomenon. It can overly mystify natural phenomenon and treat it as though it’s not understandable through science. 8) Too slow to adapt technology. It can resist or reject technology, even when it’s more effective, which is a shame. eg: Psychedelics and the spiritual community. Modern chemical synthetic psychedelics are a new technology, invented in the last 60 or 70 years. They’re also more effective than yoga, meditation or even Ayahuasca in the jungle. They can get someone decades of results in 15mins. Part of the spiritual community says it’s “not real” or invalid to use for healing trauma, or personal development because it’s based on a drug. It’s a rejection of new technology. They’re not thinking about the potential that this technology can can offer us because it’s not the traditional way of doing things. 9) Doesn’t integrate information from outsiders. eg: Yoga. Strict yogis have a particular yogic system. (Yoga comes from Stage Purple.) Originally there were hundreds of different yoga systems, all with their own dogmas and rituals. Each one says it’s the best and only correct method of doing yoga. This can't possibly be true, because there's lots of yogis who've used lots of these different systems to become awake. None of them are communicating with each other and combining the best of each tradition to create a super-souped up version of yoga, like Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun. (Bruce Lee learned every fighting style, combined the best parts and created Wing Chun. It’s where the saying “absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own” comes from. Stage Purple doesn’t do this.) 10) Isn’t really “environmentally conscious.” If they were we’d see this awareness in Red, Blue and Orange, but we don’t. Their carbon footprint is too small for them to be polluters. They don’t have to deal with cars, or power plants, dumping toxic chemicals in the water or modern technology. True environmental consciousness only evolves at a high level of Stage Green. 11) Only works at small scales, in tribes. Not with millions of people, like in a city. Breaks down. Doesn’t scale. 12) Not innovative enough. Not creative, adaptable or progressive enough. It can’t work in the modern world. That's why Purple is dying off. It also has a lot of valuable wisdom that needs to be mined before it dies off. Stage Purple Wisdom for Incels Incels struggle to get laid simply because they don't know how to socialize. It's not that women don't want to sleep with you. It's not that you're not hot looking enough. It's not that you don't have a square enough jaw, a small dick or other incel excuses. The fundamental problem is that incels are so alienated. They spend so much time playing video games, watching anime, reading toxic incel forums, masturbating about how women don't like them, that they don't spend any time socializing with women face to face. If you want to get laid you need to start socializing. Many of these these incels didn't learn how to socialize properly when they were younger. Now they suffer from that. If you grew up in a proper healthy Stage Purple culture you would have learned these things by the time you were a teen and your life would be a lot more fulfilling. You'd be a lot less suicidal and you'd be a lot less depressed. Connecting with intuition and emotions. Incels are so “logical,” everything is about science and facts over feelings, this is nonsense. Actually, the quality of your life is much more contingent upon the quality of your emotions, and your intuition rather than your logic. Talking to and attracting girls requires being much more emotional and intuitive rather than logical and stuck in your head. The value of living in harmony with nature. For incels who keep writing troll comments about women and how they're depressed and want to kill themselves, when was the last time you were out in nature? Hiked in the forest while listening to the birds, basking at the sun, looking at the stars, without all the light pollution of the city? Probably not in years. You would feel a lot better about yourself if you did that. It’d be even better if you did that with some friends, as part of a group. So try camping with your friends instead of playing an MMO. Top Lessons from Stage Purple (1:49:50) -We live in a Blue/Orange/Green culture, so you probably have gaps in the lower stages like Purple, Red, Blue. Stuff you haven’t fully integrated, lack experience with or that you've turned into a shadow. 1) Be grateful for modern technology and creature comforts. Appreciate how much we take survival for granted in the modern world. eg: Primitive skills video. 2) Building intimate social bonds. Learning how to socialize. Being comfortable with socialization. Socialization is fulfilling. It helps you get friends, romantic partners, a spouse. A lot of people struggle with socializing today, partly because of the internet. We’re alienated. We didn't get properly socialized for whatever reason. That leads to social anxiety, bullying or being bullied and having an axe to grind. 3) Humans are a deeply communal species. Stage Orange Libertarian types think they are rugged individualists, that they can live life all by themselves. That mankind is supposed to live like a lone wolf. Well, those people haven’t learned the lessons of Stage Purple. They have to go back and learn that. If you're a Libertarian, start to appreciate what it really means to be human. You’re part of a larger global phenomenon that's happening. A larger society and community. To be part of a community means making sacrifices. It’s not all about you and what you need. It’s also about what you're willing to contribute to society. What kind of sacrifices are you willing to make. Then you wouldn't have these silly views of taxation being theft. Taxation is necessary to build everything you like about a developed democracy. That’s a much healthier point of view to have. 4) Caring for the entire community. Treating the entire human species as a family rather than treating other humans as strangers, aliens or illegals. Treating other races as equal instead of inferior, with lower IQs and all that nonsense in the alt-right. Start to see that we're all in the same boat. We're all part of Earth, the greater spirit of Gaia. All our actions collectively add up to what our community is doing. What we should be doing is building a global, multi-racial, multi-ethnic community. Imagine if you treated every race, every gender, every sexual orientation, every social class, as though they were members of your own family. If you embraced them with love and kindness instead of scapegoating and demonizing them. Imagine trying to distribute resources fairly, amongst everyone. Wouldn't that be something? 5) There’s more to life than individual profit. Many of us are lost in the trap of materialism and chasing profit at the expense of everything else. The quality of your life is determined by your social bonds and emotions, much more than the material objects your chase. 6) The value of living in harmony with nature and living more organically. There’s a spiritual quality to just being out in nature, which a lot of us are disconnected from, especially if you live in a big city. Try going out in nature more, communing with Mother Earth, so to speak. Go for hikes, go to the desert, the mountains, the forest, the jungle. Soak in the beauty, the fresh air. Make it a walking meditation. 7) Connecting with Intuition and Emotions Connect to your emotions and intuition, not just your logic. Live from your body and your heart, not just your head. Psychedelics can help open up your heart and get in touch with your body and out of your head. clip: Life Revolves Around Love, Not Logic or Science (6 mins). clip: Passion Is Not A Luxury (3 mins). 8) Psychedelics. We can turn them into modern technologies for deep healing and personal development. 9) The importance of spirituality, mysticism and psychic powers. This isn’t just wishful, magical thinking or the placebo effect. There's something very profound in spirituality and mysticism. Psychic powers are real and you can develop them to various degrees. Start taking that seriously as a possibility. 10) Simplifying life. Being rather than doing. Slowing down your life. Declutter and minimize. “Does this spark joy?” Getting rid of all unnecessary distractions. Spending less time online. Spending more time spiritually connected to nature and people. Start appreciating nature and you’ll see the quality of your life improve, especially if you move away from chasing material pleasures and being stuck in survival mode. Get into Being mode 11) Listening to the wisdom of your elders. Learn the wisdom of ancient traditions. Listen to the elders of your community, seek out their wisdom. Implement it in your life. Ancient traditions aren’t just silly superstition. There can be deep wisdom there. 12) A natural wholesome organic diet. Start eating veggies and organic, grass fed beef and you'll feel much better and live better. The whole organic foods movement gets criticized as elitist, but it’s also healthier. Our Stage Purple ancestors lived on organic food and they didn't have much cancer, heart disease, depression, AHDH, acne, eczema, erectile dysfunction, autoimmune disorders, and so forth. A lot of modern diseases comes from the toxic diets we’re eating. Transcending and Integrating Stage Purple -You’ve already transcended it. For sake of comprehensiveness, to transcend Purple you’ll have to develop a sense of personal ambition which will lead you to Stage Red. You can’t skip Red and go to Blue. -Stage Purple is not good or bad. No stage is “good” or “bad,” not even Red . -Question tradition. Let go of tradition. Question your ancestors. -Expose yourself to many different cultures and tribes. Travel and open your mind to the world, to new experiences. Broaden your horizons. -Let go of magical thinking and start to think more rationally, more strategically and more scientifically. Study some Western philosophy -There’s a lot of spiritual wisdom that you can find within Purple cultures. -Although it’s fairly primitive by today's standards, but there's also a lot of amazing stuff worth studying and reading about. Great documentaries too, even for free on youtube. Wrap Up -Most of Actualized.org’s viewers are roughly Orange/Green. At that stage it’s easy to take the lower stages for granted, so don’t forget to integrate them (Purple, Red, Blue.) Also try to avoid all the toxic elements of these stages. (Healthy) Stage Purple: Connection to nature. Community and a communal mindset. Socializing effortlessly and naturally. (Healthy) Stage Red: Assertiveness. Courage. Personal Ambition. (Healthy) Stage Blue: Self-discipline. Work ethic. -You need to spend a good five to ten years building a solid foundation for yourself with Stages Purple, Red, Blue and Orange. -You need a strong foundation where your survival and material needs are met in an effective, healthy way. Then, when you’re solid with that, you can start to work on enlightenment, awakening and advanced metaphysical subjects.

@Preety_India I'm so sorry to hear that ?! I don't know what to say, except that I'm keeping you in my prayers ? ?

484. Summary: The Root Solution To People Pleasing & Loneliness -This episode is about giving you a root solution to the problem of people pleasing, and loneliness. It’s an advanced solution, but simple enough to implement. This will not be ordinary, shallow self-help advice. -Leo’s struggled with people pleasing and coming up with solutions to that problem for decades. When he moved to America he had difficulty acclimating, which led to a people pleasing strategy that started in childhood. He’s also had epiphanies about loneliness because of his recent advancements in consciousness. People Pleasing is a Survival Strategy -For the first 20 years of life we start off with the cognitive development of little animals who have to adapt and fit into society. Society is a collective game and you learn to play by the collective rules or else you’ll run into problems. As a child you were acculturated, domesticated. This isn’t bad; it’s necessary. Society can't have children biting and yelling at each other like zoo animals. To live in a healthy society we need to civilize ourselves, but there are certain costs that come with that. One of the costs is you start to develop extrinsic reward mechanisms in order to satisfy yourself, rather than just making yourself happy. Basically, you learn to behave in ways that get approval, love and satisfaction from others. When your reward mechanism is extrinsic instead of intrinsic, your sense of happiness gets handed over to others. They dole out little bits of happiness when you please them, turning you into a Pavlovian dog. So, you jump through hoops to get the love, satisfaction and approval you desperately want. -One bad habit Leo developed that took a long time for him to unwire is getting approval through good grades. At school Leo was very into academics and developed a reward mechanism where he needed to get As to feel good. It was a way to get praise from the authority figures in his life (I didn't know Leo’s parents were Asian, East Indian & Jewish ). Good marks became an ego thing and a big driver in his life. Sure, there were good side effects, like discipline and getting educated, but he was basically performing academic tricks for people. Once he left school, it became difficult for him to find his sense of satisfaction in life, because there were no more teachers or universities giving him grades or rewards. He felt empty. If he’d been less self aware he could’ve substituted teachers and grades for a girlfriend and money. Then he would’ve been expecting rewards, praise and As from his girlfriend or bosses. Luckily that didn’t happen to Leo, but that’s what happens to most people on the treadmill of approval (Aaron Abke has a great video on why achievement and approval cannot equal love.) -You have to be very careful about what extrinsic reward mechanisms your ego-mind develops. If other people hold the goodies that dictate your behavior, then you constantly have to do stuff for them to get your reward. This will never lead to a satisfying life. clip: Your Mind Distorts Reality to Survive [8 mins]. clip: Transcend Your Script [6 mins]. clip: What Shapes You Most [5 mins]. -If you're a people pleaser, you’ve adopted the habit of getting your happiness extrinsically from others. It’s a problem for everyone, but even more so for women. Generally, women derive more of their satisfaction from building social bonds and networks than men. Women tend to be helpers and caretakers, especially the more feminine they are. So it becomes this giant social game where you only feel good when you please others (clients, co-workers, bosses, children, your partner, likes on Tweetbookagram, etc.) Also, with people pleasing, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re being selfless and spiritual by “serving others,” when you’re really just seeking approval. -The problem is it never lasts, no matter how much approval you get or people you please. It just becomes another material pursuit, in the same way that men chase money or sex. It's never going to deeply satisfy you, so you just keep chasing for more. -The solution is to take back control and sovereignty over your own reward mechanism. To make it completely intrinsic, so that the satisfaction, love and praise you want you give to yourself. You need to rewire your mind. (10:13) -Your mind might be objecting and resisting this because you've built this extrinsic circuit, which means that stuff has to happen in the outer world for you to feel good. “I have to see ______ happen and it has to match my personal standards. I can only allow myself to be happy if…” These extrinsic reward cycles happen no matter what you're pursuing (business success, sexual conquests, the valuation of the stock of your company, pleasing your husband, getting your children into Harvard, etc). It's all the same thing, structurally speaking. The solution is to short-circuit all that and go directly to giving yourself the happiness and love you want. That’s how you really apply spirituality to get a deep sense of satisfaction. -It’s a very counterintuitive solution. (A counter-intuitive solution is when the most effective path ends up being the opposite of what you’d naively expect.) Obvious routes can be foolish and shortsighted. The wisdom of crowds doesn’t work if the crowd is full of fools. Make Your Own Doggy Treats “But Leo, sure I can bullshit myself into feeling happy and giving myself rewards, but it's not the same as getting an actual, external, objective reward. It’s new age, self-help, positive thinking bullshit. It's not the real kind of happiness that depends on external conditions being met, like X amount of dollars in my bank account, or helping people in the real world, or having sex…” -It almost feels like you're cheating when you do this and in a sense you are. These are the cheat codes to life. -Most people grow up in a survival situation where they had to please others, like their family, teachers, classmates, authority figures, adults at church and so forth. So the idea that you can just give yourself happiness and approval directly without any middlemen seems crazy. It feels like you’re not working hard enough to get your doggy treats. -Consider that there's actually something very deep that you're fundamentally missing here. You’re giving away your sovereignty to others by letting them define what is true and what’s not. You’ve looked up to authority figures to validate reality for you, instead of going inside and sovereignly telling yourself what’s true. (ep: How Authority Works) Well, the same thing happens with satisfaction, happiness and love. You've given away your authority and now you can’t feel satisfied because you're looking for other people to satisfy you. -You’ve turned this into an aspect of your ego. Your ego has a self-image of being good, or selfless, or hard-working or generous. In order to live up to that image, you have to constantly work and work and bend over backwards to feel good enough. You might even feel guilty for allowing yourself to feel loved for no reason at all. You’ve invented standards and conditions for what you think you must do to "deserve love.” -No matter how many nice things you do for your clients, your husband or children, you're never going to be deeply satisfied by that. You're caught in this trap of constant struggle to get that drug of approval, of gratitude, of praise, of satisfaction from others. Maybe you have an expectation that you can only feel love when somebody thanks you or tells you you’re a good person. Now that you've set this standard for yourself, you’re a slave. You’ll be bending backwards for others until they thank you or tell you you’re a good person. If they don't give you what you think you deserve, you’ll get bitter because you've been denied the reward. You're like a dog who jumped through a hoop, but the master didn't see it and didn't give you a treat, and now you're upset at the master. -It’s the same with career success. A lot of people are scared of being satisfied with their career. They think being happy will stop them from working hard, from growing their company to $20 million, or $50 million, and that they can’t be satisfied if their company's only worth $20 million….the problem is once your company does reach $50 million, you still won’t be satisfied. You’ll want $100 million and then a billion and where does it end? It doesn’t, that's the problem. -This is not a very intelligent situation that you've placed yourself in. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to take back your sovereignty and control? Take back full responsibility for the reward mechanisms that make you feel happy and satisfied with yourself. To stop letting other people from having control over that. To be your own master. To make your own doggy treats. Happiness: Dual versus Non-Dual Approaches -The dual approach says there's a self and others, and you become happy by doing things for others. This makes the other responsible for your happiness. The other could be a family member, a lover, an animal, an institution you work for, etc. -The non-dual approach says what if you integrated all others into yourself? That’s what you're doing when you practice non-duality. You realize everything is One, that there are no boundaries between self and other. Non-duality lets you realize if you and others are one, why don’t you just give yourself the doggy treats? At first this feels fake or like cheating, but recognize that this is a more advanced way of living life. It's even more difficult to take responsibility for making yourself feel happy. This is actually a sign of maturity and growth. It takes quite a bit of consciousness just to open your mind to this possibility. “But Leo if I can make myself feel happy, loved, praised, then I don't need the $50 million company, or my children, or my wife to make me happy. If I don't need the awards and achievements, then why not sit around basking in my own happiness? Doesn’t that short circuit all of life!?!” That's the genius of this method. (20:35) This is a feature, not a bug. You want to be autonomous, to free yourself up from depending on others’ good opinion. If you're a people pleaser it means you derive your happiness externally, you’re acting manipulatively to get those doggy treats. -If you took back responsibility for your happiness, you would be so full of love and satisfaction that it would naturally pour out of you and back out into the world. You could behave without attachment or fear. You’d be truly coming from a place of of fullness. From happiness, not emptiness. When you come from neediness, you'll manipulate others to get them to meet your desperate needs. But when you no longer need their treats, you can act in the highest good. You can act according to your authentic values, then you're truly free and autonomous. -Then when somebody doesn't give you something, it's okay. You’re not attached so you don't get needy, bitter and resentful with them. You don't judge them for not acknowledging you. -The solution here is very simple: take back ownership of your reward mechanisms and satisfy yourself. Non-Duality Epiphanies About Other People -Over the last 10 years Leo’s gotten a lot of satisfaction through his life purpose, which is doing his work at Actualized.org. He shares deep insights and understandings with others, like you reading this right now ?. He gets enormous amounts of satisfaction from this, but after some years he’s started to notice there's a problem. First, he has to constantly release new videos, otherwise he won’t get the pleasure of the feedback, of delivering wisdom. This puts him in a perpetual quasi-slavery to doing this work. Second, no matter how many videos he releases (over 500 now) he never feels fully satisfied. He’s still gotta release the next one and the next one and the next one to keep getting that satisfaction. Third, he’s reached such profound levels of consciousness, understanding and insight that it’s beyond the point of being able to share them with anybody. There's almost nobody who is conscious enough for Leo to communicate his deepest insights about reality too. In the past his discoveries and wisdom were at a level where he could communicate them to us. Now, he can't even share them with us anymore. Lately, he’s come face to face with the realization that he won't ever be able to share his insights with any other human in the universe. At those super high levels of insight there's no sense of other that exists to communicate with. It’s a very deep degree of non-duality. -So, the highest levels of insight Leo achieves will be totally unshareable, incommunicable. He’s had to resign himself to that. It’s been a bummer because sharing profound insight was where he got the most juice out of life. The Trap of Sharing -There’s actually a trap of trying to share with others. A lot of the happiness we get in life is from sharing. Which is why people share things on social media. They enjoy laughing together. Same with experiencing some achievement in life. You share it with your loved ones and they congratulate you. Sharing makes your achievement feel much better and juicier. Whereas if you have nobody to share it with, then your achievement sort of falls flat. Like, what’s the point of winning an Olympic gold medal if none of your friends, family or anyone in your life will ever know about it? In consciousness work, when you reach the gold medal, nobody else knows you've reached it. That’s the bittersweet tragedy of doing really deep consciousness work. Nobody will understand or know when they look at you that you’ve just had this massive God realization. Only you will know. -That’s ultimately because only God can know itself. Only God can appreciate its own beauty, its own infinitude, its own goodness and its own intelligence. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. So Leo bit the bullet about his consciousness work and said, “I’m going to keep having these very very deep awakenings, and I have to be okay with them being incommunicable. I have to rewire my own thinking and my own reward mechanism, such that I just bask in my own infinitude and my own self-realization. It’s not going to be about other people praising me or even helping others achieve it themselves, because the levels of insight that I've reached, that I'm trying to actualize, nobody else who follows my work will ever reach. It's just impossible. I’ve given up on any possible satisfaction from teaching it, therefore I can only get satisfaction from basking in it myself. I have to be at peace with that and enjoy it. Just allow myself to be satisfied at my own self-understanding. It’s literally self-indulgence.” -That’s actually where true satisfaction and happiness comes from. It's not about sharing with others, pleasing others, achieving goals or getting rewards from others. It boils down to: what is your capacity for self-satisfaction? -Do you want to be happy in life? Do you want to experience the highest levels of love? Well, it can't be extrinsic; it must be intrinsic. You must be able to sit and just bask in your own joy of yourself, in the beauty of existence that you're conscious of. Just sit quietly, silently. Don’t try to share it with others or spoil it by writing or shooting a video or taking a selfie. Just bask in it. That's harder to do than it seems, because most of us have been conditioned to talk about it or share it. When you do that you're actually creating a subtle sense of other and you're not deepening your appreciation of what that thing is. -I want you to notice that. So, next time you find some cool video online or something funny, instead of sharing it with your friends, pause and don’t share it at all. Just enjoy and appreciate it, all by yourself. Recognize that it's just really really funny for you. Recognize that you don't need the entire social matrix to validate it for you. What About Loneliness? (33:10) -When your reward mechanism goes from extrinsic to intrinsic, it's almost like locking yourself in a solipsistic bubble. That sounds negative, but it’s not. You become your own source of truth, happiness, love and praise. Your own source of humor. You’re fully happy being the only person in the world laughing at something. A lot of people wouldn't be satisfied with that because when they laugh, they want others to laugh too. -It’s very counter-intuitive to deliberately, consciously lock yourself in a solipsistic bubble. As a thought experiment, imagine you were the last person on Earth. Could you still enjoy life? If the answer is no, that's a problem. It shows that you've built a lot of extrinsic reward mechanisms. “But Leo, that’s a horrible situation. I would want to kill myself if that ever happened.” That just shows the depth of the rot in your mind. That thought experiment takes away all the external sources of validation and enjoyment for you. You would be forced to find other ways to please yourself in this situation. -What you want to do is reach a point where, if you were the last person on Earth, you could still be totally joyful, happy and live out the rest of your days by yourself, just basking in the beauty of reality. In that situation, reality hasn't gone anywhere. The social aspect to life is not really where the deepest joy comes from. The deepest joy comes from appreciating existence itself. The beauty and intelligence and majesty of it. Building that connection, that metaphysical connection to reality is what spirituality is all about. (ep: What is Spirituality. Summary is here.) You want to build such a deep metaphysical connection, such a personal connection with the raw fabric of reality itself, that it makes you complete in and of itself. Everything else is just the cherry on top. You don't need people, or comedy, entertainment, sex, your family, you can just be happy by yourself. Make yourself satisfied. Doing that will simultaneously solve being a people pleaser and being lonely. -The reason you feel lonely is because you haven't built a deep metaphysical connection with yourself and reality. If you get lonely easily that shows you haven't spent enough time in solitude, connecting with yourself. You've built a lot of reward mechanisms that have to do with getting approval, validation, love, entertainment and humor from others, but you’re not truly able to enjoy life by yourself. This is a problem. The Greatest Love of All “But Leo, I’m being selfless and sharing with friends, with my children and my spouse. What’s so wrong with that?” -What’s wrong is that you're giving your power away. You're giving your sovereignty away and making yourself a slave to them. Remember, they will never ever, ever, be able to validate the deepest form of love for you. The deepest truths, the deepest satisfaction in reality can only exist within yourself. That's not something you can transmit to anyone else. You can only experience it within yourself. -Your friends and family are not going to validate or celebrate your awakening with you. They are not going to be conscious enough to rise to the level that you will rise to through this work. Almost nobody you know will be conscious enough to understand or appreciate what you've accomplished other than yourself. You need to start changing your reward mechanism such that you feel complete with your own self-recognition and self-understanding. You don’t need to feel lonely, isolated or misunderstood because of this. Ultimately, God is the only entity in the universe, so it must acknowledge and bask in itself as what it is. This is crucial for you to reach the highest levels of satisfaction in life. You can recognize your own innate love, goodness and consciousness. By the time you accomplish this you will no longer be a people pleaser and you will no longer be lonely, at least not in the ways you used to be. -Leo’s not telling you to leave your family or to never be social again, or to be mean and bitter towards people. He thinks it’s important you maintain some degree of socialization so you don't become a total recluse. It’s just that your primary source of life satisfaction must come from a deep, meaningful relationship to reality and not your relationships to others. -Ultimately you want to get to a point where the deepest love, satisfaction and joy you get in life comes only from yourself, when you’re in solitude. You can still go to a party, or a club, or pick up girls, have children, socialize with your family, but when you're doing that it’ll just be the icing on the cake. You need to be your own cake. The common mistake is to make other people the cake, when they should just be the icing. The core of your being has to be grounded within yourself, not out there in the hands of others. Otherwise you’ll be in this dysfunctional relationship where you have to please others, or sacrifice your own values and truth, or lie and manipulate, or construct fictions to play these social games. Even if you do all that, it will still never fully satisfy you. The only true satisfaction is within your own self. So start building towards that. Developing a Deep Connection to Reality -So how do you do all this? You practice by feeling love within yourself for no reason at all. Appreciate yourself as the conscious entity that you are. Appreciate yourself as the universe, as God, as infinity, as absolute love, as absolute truth, as pure awareness. You should be able to deeply appreciate the very fabric of existence itself, even if you’re just sitting in an empty room. That's what spirituality is really about. That creates the foundation of happiness upon which everything else is built. If you don’t have that fundamental kernel of happiness you will never be satisfied. No amount of houses, cars, sex or children will correct for that. No amount of good deeds either. -There’s a lot of creative ways you can come up with to practice. You could do a good deed for somebody without them knowing about it. Just keep it to yourself. Normally, you’d tell someone to get praise or credit, but don’t do that. Be the only person in the universe that knows you did that good thing. Let’s say you leave $500 in someone’s mailbox or donate it to a worthy cause. The next day, when you're sitting there reflecting on your life, just feel good and bask in the fact that you did that because you are good. That act was an expression of your own universal goodness. Realizing your own innate goodness is worth infinitely more than your spouse or friends telling you how good you are for doing that thing. -When others they tell you how good you are they're coming from a very materialistic perspective. They don't have a deep spiritual connection to the actual goodness of the universe or to the goodness within you that drives you to love and take action in the world. So the kind of praise they give you will be superficial praise. It will be highly dependent upon their judgments of you, because as soon as you do something that they disagree with they will stop praising you. In fact, they might even chastise you for this good act. They might tell you to spend that money on yourself, or give it to your family instead of some random neighbor. This might make you feel bad. You expected praise, but got called foolish. Then you're going to feel bad. Whereas if you didn't tell anyone and you could just bask in your own goodness. You know what you did is good and selfless, even though others may not agree. So why do you need them to acknowledge you? Cut that umbilical cord. Stop needing others to acknowledge your inner goodness, your love, selflessness, consciousness and intelligence. It should be enough for you to recognize these things simply within yourself. -This is harder to do than you think. First, it requires self-reflection. Second, it requires slowing your life down such that you actually have time for solitude. Most people don't even have time to contemplate the good things they've done all week because they're too busy chasing the next thing. That's how absurd this situation is. If you can’t even be grateful for the good things you do for yourself, how can you expect others to do that for you? You don't even recognize your own innate goodness, then you get bitter at others for not doing so either. Of course others don't recognize it in themselves too, because to recognize one's own innate goodness takes a high level of consciousness and maturity. -Most people feel so unlovable, so broken, so undeserving, so guilty that they don't even allow themselves to take in praise. The survival conditions they were raised in were so severe that praise was considered a luxury. So a lot of people motivate themselves by brow beating themselves, by telling them how bad they are and then this becomes an entire way of life. You feel bad about yourself, even though you do good things, but it’s never enough. -So imagine reaching a state of consciousness and spiritual development where you're able to just sit in an empty room and be fully satisfied. Without having to do anything. Where you’re so in awe and in love with the sheer existence of the room, by the raw physical fabric of reality itself. You are so appreciative of your direct experience and of existence itself that it's enough to satisfy you. The more you contemplate and bask in the absolute truth and the absolute love of the present moment, the more conscious you become of the spiritual nature of reality. The deeper and deeper sense of bliss you experience and then you bliss out literally on just existence itself and that becomes the best part of your day. This is the ultimate level of true satisfaction. -It’s very different than the way you live now. Where you begin the day by downing some coffee, then rushing off to work and doing this thing and that thing, taking care of the kids and by the end of the day you're exhausted. Maybe you even feel like you've been productive and therefore you allow yourself a little bit of happiness. So instead of all that, just come back home, sit in a room by yourself and luxuriate in the glory of existence that you are. All those external activities are actually distractions to this bliss. What About Selfishness? “But Leo but isn't this extremely selfish to live in this solipsistic bubble? I'm just sitting there and sort of fellating myself in my own mind. It seems almost dysfunctional!” -It seems dysfunctional only compared to how most people pursue happiness. The true dysfunction is running around trying to please others, to buy stuff or achieve goals to get happy. -What you're not understanding is that if you're able to reach this level of happiness and self-satisfaction, when you do go out there and socialize or run errands, which you'll still do, you’ll be coming from a much deeper place than you are now. You're not going to be a thirsty dog running around looking for a little bit of satisfaction from someone else. You have taken responsibility for giving yourself the satisfaction and love that you deserve. Then when you're out in the world, you're gonna be so satisfied, so full of love you’ll naturally pour that love out to others and be naturally selfless. -By withdrawing into yourself, you might become isolated, solipsistic and even selfish for a period of time. As you withdraw and cut off some of those social connections you might not be there for your friends and family as much as you would have when you were their little lap dog. That's true, but later you're gonna come back on your own terms, as a truly sovereign conscious being and then after having helped yourself, now you will be in a position to help others. You can't really help others when you're enslaved to them. -This is very counter-intuitive. It’s paradoxical. To live the most selfless life you must first live very selfishly by withdrawing into yourself. Look at the classic story of the Buddha. He supposedly lived a life of luxury and privilege. He had a whole palace full of family members, uncles, aunts, a father and mother. He had a wife and a child and one day, in the middle of the night, he walked out on all of them. Didn't even say goodbye. Imagine how betrayed they must have felt. Then he wandered through the woods for seven years meditating, pursuing awakening until finally he came back. So he didn't abandon them forever, but he needed to go through that period of selfishness. That selfishness was to realize the infinite self, the selfless self. When he realized that, he came back and helped them realize it too. You can't really help others to love unless you're able to realize love for yourself. A problem many people pleasers and women in abusive relationships face is they get stuck. Ladies can have this self-image of being very loving and selfless, but it's not true love. It's not true selflessness, at least it's not the deepest, non-dual form of it. -What you'll realize if you do the spiritual work deeply and you awaken is that love is not something you do. Love is something you are. Goodness is not something you acquire through good deeds, charity and bending over backwards. Goodness is what you are. -It’s not easy to raise your capacity for love, to cultivate and recognize your own goodness, to allow yourself to feel satisfied for no reason other than the consciousness of existence itself. Your mind will not want to do this. Your ego-mind controls you by setting up all these conditions for happiness so that you perform for it. That's how it gets you to do all manner of survival activities. The fact that you need to trick yourself in order to get stuff done shows you that you’re not coming from the highest level of motivation. The External, Material World is Illusory “But Leo, this sounds like self brainwashing. You're just sitting in a room bullshitting yourself into happiness. That's not truth, that's just new-age, wishful thinking stuff. If I build a $50 million company, that's objective, that's tangible." “When I get happiness for building that company or getting a million dollars or having sex with some hottie or raising beautiful children, that’s tangible material stuff. That’s what deserves true satisfaction, not sitting in a room doing nothing. That's cheating.” -Part of the materialist worldview is thinking that the external world is truer than your inner nature. It’s actually the opposite. The truest thing is your existence, your consciousness, your God nature, your intrinsic beauty, yourself as the universe. That's the real, absolute truth. (59:00) So, your money, children and good deeds aren’t what's objectively real. That’s all derivative, second order stuff. They’re all illusions. Its meaning and existence are predicated upon the fact that you exist, that you are God dreaming up the universe. The objective, tangible world is a figment of your imagination. -You need to recognize and re-collect your sovereignty. Use that as the anchor point from which you feel, think and take action. If you do that you will overcome the problem of loneliness, of people pleasing. You will overcome the problem of endlessly chasing things that never satisfy you. You will also overcome the ultimate problem of being unable to communicate the infinite beauty of the universe to other people. Only you can recognize the infinite beauty of the universe with your mind's eye, through your own consciousness. Nobody can do this for you. You can share bits and pieces of it, but you can’t fully transplant the infinite beauty of the universe into other people’s experience of life. Tips for Application -Keep building and building this type of solitary satisfaction until it gives you near-orgasmic levels of pleasure. Do good deeds for their own sake, not to get praise from others. Appreciate the world around you more. Gratitude turns what you have into enough. Start doing things by yourself, especially the things you’d normally only do with others (going to the movies, a restaurant, a waterpark, etc). Appreciate it without needing to share the experience or get validation from others. Enjoy a scenic place by yourself. Go to a national park, a beach, a beautiful city and just walk around. Luxuriate in your solitude, in this beautiful, kind of melancholic, solipsistic bubble. Don't talk to anyone. Appreciate and soak in the beauty that's there. Let that be enough to satisfy you. Dine at a beautiful restaurant by yourself. Order a really nice meal, maybe something special or exotic, and eat it slowly, deliberately. Appreciate and enjoy the heck out of it in a way that you never would with friends. When you’re eating with friends you’re too distracted to even notice the thing that you're eating. Go to the movies by yourself. Enjoy it just as much as you would with friends, or even more because friends can distract you by talking or eating popcorn. When you're done watching the movie, don't talk about it with anybody. Resist the instinct to text your friend about it. Just appreciate the movie as it is, by yourself. Appreciate solitude, period. There’s a positive, melancholic side to solitude. It’s nice to be alone with your thoughts, to contemplate and appreciate what’s in the present moment. -If you’re alone, but feeling lonely, learning to appreciate the alone times will make you more grateful when that special person does arrive. So let that craving go. Ideally you want to be satisfied with others and by yourself. Only when you’re coming from that place of self-love can you be authentic. You won’t need to control or manipulate others to stay with you. If they come, great. If not, you can still enjoy yourself. -These tips are deep spiritual work. If doing any of them makes you feel like a loser, it shows how addicted you are to external rewards. -Building up the muscle of beingness, of wonder, of awe at the universe will make you appreciate other people and activities so much more. Leo’s not saying you should never spend time with other people. It’s good to maintain a healthy social life. He’s just saying you can turn solitary travel into a practice to build your satisfaction for life. You're still going to socialize, but you’ll do it from a deeper place of satisfaction, not desperation. -The fundamental truth is that, in the end, you are the only conscious entity in the universe. So if you don't appreciate the universe who will? This episode is trying to guide you towards a very deep, profound appreciation of existence, of reality that can only be done by you. It’s not going to be done by your unconscious friends and family who take existence for granted. This appreciation of reality requires training. It’s not something you learn in a weekend. Most people won't to do it. They don't even know they should be doing it. So, you’re one of the few humans on the planet that’s going to do this, if you do it. -You can’t imagine the level of satisfaction and joy this will bring, especially if you keep it up over ten, twenty years and beyond. You’re going to have a level of joy that nobody around you can understand. You’re also not going to be able to share that with anybody but yourself. But it’s not going to be a problem, because you've trained yourself to luxuriate in your own joy and you will finally feel complete. Feeling Unloveable -Most people feel they don't deserve love. You solve that problem by giving yourself more and more and more love until you realize you are love. Then you're always conscious of the love that you are, that the universe is. Then you don't need other people to give you love and you don't feel unlovable anymore. This solves all your self-esteem problems too. (Aaron Abke has a good video on self-love.) -This solution is very counterintuitive because the ego mind has co-opted true love, happiness and satisfaction to manipulate you into doing its survival bidding. If you don't take ownership over that process you're never going to be satisfied in life. Survival and the mechanisms your ego mind has constructed aren’t about happiness. The ego-mind is about surviving, not thriving. The ego’s not designed to make you happy. That’s why no matter how good you are at surviving, it's never going to make you happy. (1:10:30) You can't pay someone to appreciate life for you. If you can't appreciate life you're going to be miserable and depressed. -You will not be satisfied with anything shy of infinite love because that's what you are. Deep down consciousness knows what it is and consciousness is seeking to reunite with its true nature which is infinite love. You have love, beauty, intelligence and goodness inside you, but they have been obscured by layers of fear, shame, survival scripts and social conditioning. You're out of touch with your own divine nature within. You’ve got to discover that and when you do, that's what you will really want. All the external stuff you've been chasing has been a poor substitute for what you were really seeking, the divine nature within. Discovering that is the root solution to people pleasing and to loneliness. -Now that you know all this, what are you going to do? If you don't do the work nothing's going to happen. Ten, twenty years will go by and you’ll be even more miserable, because you’ll wish you’d started this work much earlier, but then it's gonna be too late. -So start now. Come up with ways to start practicing this. Ultimately, you’ll have to have some enlightenment experiences to your true inner nature as love, God and absolute truth. That will make you more present, grounded and appreciative of the beauty that is here. (1:13:50) That will build a metaphysical connection to reality and you’ll appreciate reality more and more and more and more. These days, Leo can just look at a fork and marvel at the intelligence of it. This might sound absurd, and if somebody told Leo five years ago that a fork had any intelligence to it, he’d think you’re some crazy, new age hippy. (I always though this scene was silly until I learned about non-duality: The Matrix’s Spoon boy) -These days when Leo looks at an ordinary dinner fork it baffles him that most people can’t see the infinite intelligence. So everything gets turned upside down and then life just becomes so profound. The depth of life is true richness, not money or external possessions. It’s really about your capacity to appreciate the intelligence of the design, of this entire dream that you're in. Then just looking at reality makes you feel full of delight and joy, because what was just an ordinary fork, car, person, cat, place, you see for what it really is: a finite manifestation of God, of the infinite mind that you are a projection of. Then you can see and appreciate its innate beauty, intelligence, goodness and its connection to the whole universe. Shallow vs Deep Solutions - Notice that many of the problems in your life can be solved at multiple levels. You can find a lot of shallow solutions to the problem of loneliness or people pleasing. This episode presents a very deep solution. Deep solutions are more difficult to understand, implement and they take longer. They’re a long term investment instead of a quick fix. - When you make deep, long-term investments that solve a problem at the root, you don't have to keep fighting the problem over and over again for years. You won't have to live with the problem anymore. Shallow solutions will never hit a problem at the root. Quick fixes will waste your time, money and won’t stop the problem from reappearing, maybe even for the rest of your life. -Life is designed in such a way that you get out of it what you put into it. In this way life is fair. So, how much do you want to put into it and get out of it? How deep do you want your life to be? Do you want to have a really deep profound experience of life? Well then you're going to have to dig deep and do the work, because it’s not going to just land on your lap. - Everything Leo teaches is predicated on the idea that you want to live a more profound life than the average person. If you don't want that, you’re wasting your time at Actualized.org. You should go watch someone else. The depth in your life that's possible is so profound, none of you can fathom it. It’s truly infinite and impossible to communicate. Hence, how deep you go depends on how deep you want to go.

(Part of this summary comes from the Actualized.org textbook. I also have a youtube video of just the Meditation part. You can also download it here.) 231. Summary: How to Deal with Strong Negative Emotions “The tendency to avoid emotional suffering is the cause of all mental illness. To lead a healthy spiritual life we must face problems directly and experience the pain involved.” —Scott Peck “The Road Less Travelled” -The master key to dealing with strong negative emotions is to allow yourself to fully feel the emotions. This works on all sorts of strong negative emotions (sadness, hurt, anger, resentment, betrayal, fear, anxiety, shame, demoralization, boredom, even numbness.) -This solution is very counter-intuitive. (ep: The Counter-Intuitive Nature Of Life. clip: Emotions and Counter-Intuitiveness.) A counter-intuitive solution is when the most effective path ends up being the opposite of what you’d naively expect. Obvious routes can be foolish and shortsighted. The wisdom of crowds doesn’t work if the crowd is full of fools . -Success often comes from counterintuitive moves. You have to do the opposite of what your psyche wants to do or finds comfortable. Allowing negative emotion to wash over you and feel it fully is counter-intuitive because we don’t want to be vulnerable. We think vulnerability makes us weak. Ironically, it's the opposite. eg: Instead of running away from an assailant, you charge at him. To impress a girl, instead of bragging about how rich you are, you jokingly say you clean toilets at Arby's. -Your ego’s mandate is to avoid pain and seek out pleasure. So, it doesn’t want to feel the full impact of strong negative emotions. It feels too dangerous. It doesn't want vegetables; it wants to gobble down candy. It’s Okay To Be Vulnerable -The first step to artfully handling strong, negative emotions is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. There’s no shame in it. It’s not weak. It’s the human condition. “But Leo, I was vulnerable in the past and I got hurt. Why go through that again?” -You’re right, in a sense. Your psychology consists of wounds you received in childhood, especially if you have a neurotic psychology. As a child, you were vulnerable and got hurt. The hurt was so painful you had to shut down. You erected defenses, survival strategies and various shields to protect against emotion. Now you spend a lot of mental energy maintaining those defense mechanisms. clip: Your Mind Distorts Reality to Survive (8 mins). clip: Transcend Your Script (6 mins). clip: What Shapes You Most (5 mins). These defense mechanisms are a sham. A big part of becoming a mature emotionally healthy adult is to dismantle all the defense mechanisms that you erected in your formative years, because they are now weighing you down. -The real truth is that you’ve been denying you are vulnerable, no matter how much power you have or try to amass. Even if you’re a super muscular, juiced up, macho guy, swaggering around the gym, trash talking other guys, you could still die from a bullet to the head. Even the richest person in the world or a military dictator with thousands of bodyguards is still vulnerable. In fact, the reason he needs all those bodyguards is because his power makes him more vulnerable. Become a Super Conductor A superconductor is a material that allows current to pass through it with zero resistance. This is real. You can create a wire and pass current through it, over very long distances and not a single drop of power is lost to resistance! This is what self-actualizing people do, they become better and better super conductors of negative emotions and all emotions in general. This is what developing emotional maturity means. -Instead of resisting and denying emotions, truth, or reality, become a super conductor. Have zero resistance to negative emotion.. The standard automatic ego reaction is to resist every negative emotion. Four Automatic Ego Reaction Because your ego doesn't want to accept and feel pain, it will… Act stoic and cool. At the first little stab of negative emotion your ego’s knee-jerk reaction is to act cool. Deny the feelings, deny what’s happening and sweep it under the rug until the rug starts to stink. Distract. Entertainment, drugs, food, sex, etc. Suck in pain and tense up. You tense all your muscles and hold in the pain. You become tense and emotionally constipated. Control and manipulate. Rather than feel emotions, you start to invent schemes to weasel your way out of it. -These four things kill your ability to become a super conductor, because they create resistance. That resistance creates most of your suffering in life. We’re going to “fight” that resistance by opening up and allowing the pain in and letting it flow through. You need to train your mind for that. Process for Strong Negative Emotions -Guided Meditation starts at 13:18. A video of just the mediation is here (if Leo wants me to take it down, I will.) This process is simple, but challenging. Conjure up one of your strong negative emotions. Relax your body. Get in touch with the present moment. Connect with your body and feel where that negative emotion resides. Feel it deeply. Don’t judge anything that’s there, fully feel it. Let it in. Allow the emotion, accept it, don’t resist it. Observe with curiosity what’s flowing through you. Allow it again, don’t begin resisting as you observe the emotion. Do nothing. Sit down and FEEL. FEEL IT. FEEL IT FULLY and ALLOW it. Conduct the emotion, let it pass through you. -It will come in waves, every time you get hit by a wave just repeat this process. Notice the tension and tightness in your body. Relax your body – belly, shoulders, hands, and arms, jaw. Breathe deep. Breathe into your belly. -Observe your emotions with curiosity. Not just in this exercise, but in life. -Don’t distract yourself. Don't go order a pizza, or have sex, or have sex with the pizza delivery guy. Don’t go into fantasyland about your emotions. Just sit there and allow them. -Your job is to be a superconductor and nothing else. Being a super conductor is not fancy or attention grabbing. It’s just lying there and letting current pass through. The ego has difficulty being passive. -Notice how much tension and tightness is in your body. This is how resistance happens. You’ll forget as you go about your day. With awareness you’ll remember to relax your body and relax into your emotions. -This is a skill, a practice you have to develop over time. You’re developing more awareness and consciousness through this practice. -So, you don't need to “get rid” of negative emotions. Emotions will go through you, disappear and come back and disappear again. Likes waves in the ocean. That's how emotions are. You don’t need to do anything about them other than fully feel them. This is the behavior of a self-actualized, emotionally mature individual, the opposite of a neurotic one. What's a neurotic individual? Someone who resists and denies reality. Labelling and Resistance -Recognize that you have a habit of resisting and negatively labelling emotions. -You have been resisting and labelling emotions your whole life. This habit is strongly ingrained. Anytime you feel something you don't like, even just a little bit, you automatically label it as “bad or evil or negative” and you immediately say, “No!” -Negative emotions aren’t “bad.” There’s actually no such thing as a negative or bad emotion. An emotion is just a sensation coursing through some part of your body, along with some mental imagery and verbal labels. “Bad” is a judgment. If you feel hurt, notice that the hurt itself is not “bad.” That's just the ego’s judgment (ep: Evil Doesn’t Exist.) Bad and evil are just problems of perception. When you label, you create a separation between that thing and yourself. You then feel compelled to resist, deny and fight against it. (clip: The Universe Is Selfless [8 min]) If you want to develop real emotional maturity you have to stop labeling things as bad, negative or evil. -This isn’t some “positive thinking” or magical thinking or just soothing yourself. This goes much deeper. Live In Truth -Denying your emotions and the present moment is to deny reality. You’re dissociating from your body by going into your mind or into fairytale land. This process helps you face reality instead of resist it. When you relax your body instead of tense up, when you feel your emotions freely, that's facing reality. Your emotions are “What Is.” That’s aligning with the truth. -What’s here in reality is not bad: it just is. So stop resisting your emotions. Stop labelling them. Falsehood is when you call things bad because of fairytales in your mind. -It’ll take lots and lots of practice to do this, but it'll be very worth it. Meditation is a very good habit because it teaches you mindfulness. “But Leo, couldn't I cause myself some kind of psychological damage by feeling emotions?” -The feeling of hurt doesn’t actually hurt you. Psychological damage is caused by resistance. A superconductor is not damaged by the power that surges through it. Electricity doesn’t damage a lightning rod because it has such low resistance. The electricity goes straight into the ground, or gets channelled into the clocktower to charge the Delorean. (This is also why you can’t destroy a waterfall with a wrecking ball. @Emerald has an excellent video on the power of non-resistance. So, don’t go punching waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to…) -If you feel an emotion that's causing a lot of suffering, that means you’re resisting it on some level. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. -DO NOT avoid the emotional labour. The ego wants you to waste time searching for a magic pill that lets you resist, deny and disconnect from reality. Allowing your emotions is the exact opposite of what you really wanted, but the nice thing is it’s a real solution. -Fake solutions sweep dirt under the rug until the dirt starts to stink, fester and create a lot of problems. A real solution cleans away the smelly dirt and leads to true freedom, but it takes courage. -See the bigger picture here. Don’t do this just to solve one problem. To get over some boyfriend or girlfriend who cheated on you, or some business partner who screwed you over. That will pass anyway. -Can you imagine what every facet of your life could look like if you became an emotional super conductor!! What would your relationships look like? What would your career look like or your business? How much more money could you earn? How much more competitive could you be? How much more would you enjoy reality? How much self-confidence would you have? How would you relate differently to your family and your children? How much more resourceful would you be? How much more effective would you be in the world? How much stronger of a leader would you be? How much more could you contribute to the world? How much more impact could you have on the world? -That’s why you want to master your emotions. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your emotions. That's why becoming an emotional superconductor will lead you to your dream life.

So meta!! You're very welcome.

I can't remember the video, unfortunately! I'm guessing it has something to do with non attachment or knowing where true power lies? I'm pretty sure it was a main video though, not the blog.

I remember a story about a warlord entering a village where he meets a monk and tells him, "I have the power to kill you right here." Then the monk says, "I have the power to not care." Then the warlord was so impressed he gave up his title and became the monk's student. I'm totally paraphrasing here. Was that the story?

@LovingRadiance posted this in the summaries thread . Reposting here since it’s for one of Leo’s blog videos. Blog video: Back From 2 Month Break, Updates (upload February 5th 2020) Balance of Creative Work & Rest Possibility of getting over-satiated from over consuming personal development / spiritual content to the point of just consuming it: this results in not living life anymore as to not experience the whole range of life because the mind is still immersed and is not truly resting resting allows getting conscious & self-reflective of one's work by recognizing limitations from a detached birds eye view because of the contrast of work & rest Pacing oneself (resting, and working with the right endurance & speed) serves long-term sustainability of creative work output: all areas of life are better to be seen through the lens of sustainability ("Is this area of my life sustainable? If not, how can I make it sustainable?") undogmatic sustainability includes exhaustive unsustainable work in one area while neglecting other areas (temporary) Looking at one's life to be an apple tree: apples are results result-oriented approach isn't healthy as only caring about the apples neglects the roots, trunk, branches, leafs... other parts of the tree are other areas of life that get neglected when one only focusses on the fruits of the work Creative work: is counterintuitive to manual work. Being pragmatic & deadline oriented eats up creativity one is most creative (getting ideas & inspirations) when nothing productive is being done directed with deadlines gets practical (perfectionism is restricted) seems to be balanced when done in cycles of: working on a project finishing the project time off & resting work with less creativity needs smaller cycles (diurnally and hebdomadally rather than biannually or annually) Innovation: That what worked before will not be that which brings your work to the next level being stuck in your old ways of doing creative work will get your work outdated by the competitive innovative work of other creative people True Spirituality informs & transforms all areas of life like the way of doing creative work Role of requisite variety (RV) in life: Definition from Wikipedia, "If a system is to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled." there is not enough RV used when one is stuck on any problem not enough RV manifests in a narrow uncreative approach troubleshooting with try & error has to be so much done that success is inevitable (through lateral thinking & trying out a wide range of solutions; there's now equal/higher RV than the problem) upholding identity is something that often holds back RV find root problems in your life and apply RV - one solution will work by chance Working on projects: requires focus (eliminating all distractions, creating a working environment) _______________________________________________________________________ @Nos7algiK Your welcome!

Leo has a blog video about all the stuff he's tried in his healing journey. It's super interesting. https://www.actualized.org/insights/my-health-situation

Not sure if you're referring to me, but I'm an Asian woman . I figured my name, picture and ongoing references to the best Chris were dead giveaways. Although, looking at my profile pic, it'd be hilarious if I was secretly a white dude with raging yellow fever.

@StarStruck There it is.

20 Dream Killers 1. Fear of failure “What if I fail? All that work and time for nothing." The Truth: So your proposed alternative is settling for mediocrity? Life is not as simple as you think. There is rarely true failure. Sure, there is no guarantee that your next business venture will succeed, but you are discounting the valuable insights and progress you'd make even if you failed in the short-term. You're looking at failure in a completely unresourceful and limiting way. Failure is how the best people in the world succeed. You fail, fail, fail... then you get success. 2. Stuck in comfort "I've got a decent life already. It's not perfect, but I can tolerate that." The Truth: Then you will never be truly happy. You will never truly tap into the greatest joys in life. You will also feel a background hum of discontentment because: 1) You know you're capable of more but refuse to heed the call. 2) You will grow tired of tolerating things. Minor discomforts fester into major resentments. Comfort is good, but you can't even fathom right now how amazing you are capable of feeling. Feeling comfortable is selling yourself so short. You are killing off all the greatest peak experiences in life. 3. This isn't me "This is not who I am. I'm not that type of person. I'm not a type-A personality." The Truth: "Who you are" is a greatly misunderstood concept, as are personality types. Who you are changes every day and your personality type does not dictate your future. There is no eternal, immutable "you". Your brain is rewiring itself all the time. Who you are today is not who you were 10 years ago. Who you are is going to change in the next 10 years regardless. The question is, will you direct that change consciously or follow media, friends, and co-workers? Living a life of vision and passion is not merely for some people, it's for everyone. Everyone gets joy out of having something meaningful to work towards. 4. Setting small goals "I'll set 'realistic' goals. After all, I don't want to disappoint myself." The Truth: The danger is not in setting your goals too big, but setting them too small! You MUST create a compelling vision of your future. It must inspire and excite you or it's not bold enough. Most people fail at their goals because their goals are not inspiring. Having the courage to come up with a bold vision isn't easy, but it is the key to creating an extraordinary life. Don't get caught up in "but-how-will-I-do-it?!" thinking. Generate some courage. 5. Fear that you are not enough "What if I'm just not good enough to rise to the challenge?" The Truth: Your potential — everyone's potential — is nearly infinite. You can't even fathom what you could accomplish in your life if you just set your mind to it. This is not just wishful thinking. Think of all the immense challenges you've overcome throughout your whole life. Really! Think about how much you had to summon of yourself. While you can't rise to meet every challenge, you are far more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. Unless you have a physical disease, you can do it, and certainly so if there is at least one other person in history who has. The only question is, will you try? Will you give it your all? 6. Lack of time "I'm too busy with work and family. I don't have time for this." The Truth: You're too busy to strategize and design an extraordinary, influential, and rich life? Nonsense! You are too busy with the wrong things. In reality, you simply don't know how to manage and prioritize your schedule effectively. Stop living other people's agendas and start imposing your own. If you've got to hold down an existing job, that's fine, but you've got time to work on this during your evenings or weekends. 7. Lack of capital "I'm barely paying my rent. Finding a purpose is a 'luxury' I can't afford." The Truth: That's exactly why you are struggling! You think too small. Living an extraordinary life isn't a luxury, it's the best strategy for achieving financial independence. There are opportunities out there that don't require a lot of start-up capital. You can simply get more income from your current job by building yourself up to the point where management sees that you have more value to offer. 8. Too old "I'm too old. It's too late for me to make big changes." The Truth: This is a flat out excuse. Total nonsense! Everyone feels this way at times, regardless of their biological age. I've felt "too old" when I was 25! What a load of bullshit my mind was feeding me! Other people only start to feel "too old" in their 40s or 60s. Unless you've got a serious disease, neuroscience shows that we are fully capable of learning new things and changing everything about your psychology up until death. There is no reason why you can't make a big impact and create an extraordinary life in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. In fact, studies show that creative people, and people with a purpose, live much longer. 9. Too invested "So everything I've been doing up to now has been wrong? I can't throw all that away!" The Truth: It can be hard to admit that you've been going down the wrong path, especially if you've been going down it for a long time. This takes courage. Unless you're about to die, imagine how much time you still have left to live and how much better that can be if you decide to shift tracks. Also, don't discount the experience and wisdom you've developed with that "wrong track". You will advance much faster in your new endeavours because experiences are transferable. 10. Fear of success "Success won't be that great anyways. I'll have more responsibilities and more stress." The Truth: It depends on what you mean by success. I'm talking about feelings — the ultimate goal. You have no idea how much better you can feel when you're living a fully engaged life. It's not a matter of having more money or a prestigious position. When you're on purpose and living your vision, you will feel a deep sense of pride, satisfaction, joy, excitement, and gratitude. Your fear of death will melt away. These are the greatest feelings in the world and cannot be bought with any amount of money. This level of success IS much more than it's cracked up to be. If you're just after money, then you're probably right, it won't be that fulfilling. As far as stress goes, 95% of stress depends completely on your inner game, not external circumstances. There are many ways to deal with stress. 11. Up to fate "If it was meant to be, it will happen 'naturally' on its own. I shouldn't force it." The Truth: Total defeatist, fatalistic nonsense! Successful people are self-made. Be proactive! People who want something must go out and get it. Rarely does something valuable just fall in your lap. Stop putting yourself at the mercy of luck, circumstance, or God. If you have a compelling vision of your life, you will be so eager to jump into action that you'll have a hard time sleeping. God helps those who help themselves. Afterall, you don't pray for God to fill up your gas tank or to do your dishes for you. You do it yourself. Neither should you pray for success or happiness. 12. Maybe later "This is great! But I'll start later..." The Truth: While there may not be an immediate rush, the real problem is procrastination. You are just using this as a veiled excuse for not getting started. You simply have resistance to getting started. Acknowledge your resistance, don't hand-wave it off as "what's the rush?" The fact is, you could die tomorrow. What is the point of not starting to live up to your full potential today? Right now!!! If you can't summon the discipline to start right now — while this information is fresh in your mind — let's face it, when will you? 13. I can't change "I can't change. I've tried so many times in the past and failed." The Truth: This is perhaps the worst limiting belief of all time! The fact is, the past does not equal to the future. We've all been there. We've all tried and failed to make changes in our lives in the past. But we've also all made changes successfully. Make sure you're giving yourself credit for the big changes you have been able to make. If you keep struggling to make a change, it's probably because you aren't using the right strategies or simply don't know enough about the topic. Change is always possible. 14. Fear of work "It's going to be too much work." The Truth: You can't be sure exactly how much work there will be or what the work will entail. Actually, it's not really work that you fear, it's the pain of work. But pain is a relative thing and depends entirely on your mindset. If your mindsets and skill levels change, what seemed like painful work can become the greatest joy. Too often we blow the pain of work out of all proportion. Once you're on track with your greatest vision, the idea of grinding through work melts away. That is in fact why pursuing your dreams is so important. You will work x5 harder but feel like you're working half as much as you are in a boring, dead-end job. 15. This is wishful thinking "Living your dream is a fantasy. The real world is harsh and you gotta kill to live!" The Truth: The real world can be harsh, but it can also be beautiful and easy. Millions of people right now are living extraordinarily engaged, happy lives. If that's not you, if you're struggling to survive and having to "kill" just to make a space for yourself in this world, and you live in a 1st world country, you are doing something wrong. With a different strategy you can work yourself into a place where life becomes easy. Don't be discouraged if life is hard for you right now. And don't think that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is! 16. Lack of talent "I'm not talented or gifted like others. It's easy for them, it's really hard for me." The Truth: Talent is a myth! This has been scientifically proven. Most of the people we think of as "great" or "talented" were no more pre-disposed to greatness than others, they just put in more hours. Talent is a matter of diligent effort. It takes about 10,000 hours of experience to grow yourself to a world-class level in any domain of life. If you're willing to put in the hours, you are virtually guaranteed to become excellent. And developing expertise is challenging for everyone. No one has it easy. All the world's greatest experts went through really difficult growth situations. 17. Success won't last "Even if I succeed, it won't last any ways. It will be impossible to maintain." The Truth: This is simply a limiting belief and often a self-fulfilling prophecy. While some achievement may require continual maintenance work to keep, the problem can be entirely overcome or greatly reduced by using the right strategies. For examples, maintaining a healthy weight isn't as hard as it first seems because your tastes and thoughts about food change. While many fail at making sustainable changes, that is only because they use the wrong strategies. 18. Obligations "I have important obligations at work and at home. This is selfish and irresponsible." The Truth: You have an unhealthy, socially-conditioned negative belief about selfishness and responsibility. You are biologically wired to be selfish. This is a good thing! Counter-intuitively, taking care of yourself first and giving your agenda and happiness top priority is going to make you a better provider for others. Most people cannot help others for extended lengths of time because they are unhappy themselves, or don't have the emotional capacity, or don't have the resources. Once you have an exciting, happy, abundant life, you will naturally want to help others and you will have the resources and knowledge to do it much more effectively. 19. What will people think of me "None of my friends or family is doing this 'personal development' stuff. I feel weird talking about it." The Truth: That's probably the chief reason you're not more successful right now... because no one has ever shared these strategies with you. Be open-minded. This is a HUGE opportunity for you to grow and disseminate your findings to friends and family. Once you use these strategies to get results, your friends and family will take notice and support you. You will also get more and more comfortable as you use them and prove their power to yourself. And, sometimes you have to go it alone too, and that can be very rewarding and pleasant. 20. Fear of change "But this means I will have to radically change my life around!” The Truth: Yes, you probably do have to make some big changes in your life, and they will probably take lots of time and effort. But, change is good! Your life is too boring, too dry, too mundane as it is. When you bite the bullet and start making these changes, you will feel a sense of relief, and a sense of pride for acting on your dreams. Your best memories in life will be of these times of big change. You will be so happy and thankful a few years from now that today you decided to really invest in yourself. Just picture how amazing your life will be in a few years after you make these changes. _______________________________________________________________________ Oh no, that sucks! Sending you positive vibes ✨ ? ✨

@Ismael Thanks . I was hoping someone would summarize that one. It's a good episode!

@Loving Radiance Thanks for letting me know

483. Summary: The Top Dangers Of Using Psychedelics Resources on Psychedelics and Safety: ? Actualized.org on Psychedelics ? PsychonauntWiki is a good resource for researching. Episode: Episode 268: How To Use Psychedelics For Personal Development (49 mins). Summary is here. Blog posts: Top Dangers of Using Psychedelics How to Research Psychedelics The Antidote For PreTrip Anxiety No Trip Sitters Blog Videos: What It's Like To Smoke Salvia Divinorum (43 min) crazy salvia trip, fooor real (6 min) Salvia Trip Report (16 min) DON’T DO SALVIA OR DATURA!! -This is going to be a lopsided episode. Leo’s not covering any of the good stuff about psychedelics here. He’s done other videos on that. He’s also not trying to convince you to do psychedelics. That’s a decision you have to make all by yourself. -This episode is about the necessary precautions and information you need if you're going to be tripping seriously. Leo’s such a huge advocate of psychedelics that he cares about how they’re misused and abused by people. -This episode focuses exclusively on the negatives and the dangers. There are a lot of immature people who don't research or think through potential dangers. The majority of these dangers can be very easily avoided if you are responsible, thoughtful and careful. Keep in mind, you can make anything sound sinister if you emphasize only the negatives. (eg: The Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide!?!?!) -Leo has loads of experience with psychedelics, so he has a lot of insight about the dangers and risks. He’s taken over 100 trips, from low dosages to very very high. He’s done everything from mushrooms, LSD, DPT, DMT, 5MeO DMT, 4AcO-DMT, Salvia, and even experimental research chemicals that most people don't know about. He’s also studied this field a lot theoretically. He’s read a lot of trip reports, interacted and watched a lot of people who do psychedelics, dealt with people on the forum who report trips and the various problem that arise for them. He’s also had bad trips himself. -This list of 32 dangers is quite comprehensive. 1) Overdosing (3:20) The extreme version: taking so much that you kill yourself. The lethal dose for MDMA is pretty low, so that’s a serious danger. Same goes for certain research chemicals. However, od'ing on LSD or shrooms is pretty difficult. Find out what the lethal dosage is for the psychedelic you’re taking and stay far away from that dose. Also make sure you’re accurately measuring the dose you’re taking. The mild version: simply taking a dose that's too high. This is more common. The reason this happens is people are not carefully weighing their doses with a milligram scale. They're just popping stuff hoping they get it right. This is extremely reckless and will lead to dangerous situations. You might lose bodily function or pass out. You could fall over and crack your skull open. You could be seriously disoriented for a few hours, leading to all sorts of psychological problems and an existential crisis. The solution: stay within a low to moderate dose range. People can get cocky. They overestimate how much they can handle and underestimate how powerful psychedelics are. No mater how “tough” you are, there’s a dose that you won’t be able to handle. It will freak you out and be a net negative for your development, personally and spiritually. There’s no need to do crazy high dosages. Keep them in the moderate to low range. People try to outdo themselves, thinking that the more they do the sooner they'll deconstruct their ego or reach enlightenment. Some just want bragging rights on online forums. In practice, this will only set you back and you'll regret it. Nothing is gained. There’s nobody you need to one-up, not even yourself. Progress isn’t about taking high dosages. It's about increasing consciousness, which is easier to accomplish with low to moderate doses. High dose trips can get too crazy to be productive. Your mind can’t make sense of the trip or even integrate and remember it. What really matters is letting the psychedelic transform your everyday life, not bragging on some forum. Check your ego at the door. 2) Physical Harm (7:10) All sorts of physical harm is possible, especially if you're taking high doses. You could become disoriented and lose control of your body. You could run around in a reckless manner. There are trip reports of people jumping around naked through the streets. Falling over, hurting their arms and legs. Discipline yourself to sit still and contemplate when you're tripping. 3) Tripping in Dangerous Locations (7:30) Location, location, location. Generally, you want to do psychedelics in an indoor environment where it's safe. A comfortable room with no one to interfere is great. Stay indoors. No balconies, no ledges, no rooftops, no sharp objects, no sharp corners where you can fall from a dangerous height or crack your skull open. Stay away from loud, crowded recreational areas, like parties, raves, nightclubs, music festivals, bars. They’ll create problems. Same with tripping outdoors in the woods where there are wild animals. If it’s nighttime outdoors, your vision will be compromised too. 4) Vomiting (8:40) People commonly report vomiting while on psychedelics. They do psychedelics after eating, which is why they vomit, especially if they take a high dose. Vomiting and passing out at the same time creates a potentially lethal situation. Leo's done more than 100 trips and he’s never vomited once, so it’s a matter of being careful with your protocol. So, don't take psychedelics within four hours of eating anything. Make it a rule. It ensures you have an empty stomach and then there's nothing to vomit even if you feel like vomiting. 5) Really, Really, Really Bad Trips (9:48) There are different degrees of bad trips. There's bad trips and there's really really really bad trips, which you especially want to avoid. People underestimate how bad a trip can get because they underestimate the power of consciousness. Consciousness is all powerful and infinite. Consciousness is rendering your entire sense of reality and everything you've ever seen or known. Consciousness can conjure up anything, including the worst nightmares ever. So imagine that nightmare being manifested as real or even realer than this physical reality that you're in right now. Also, when you're in these psychedelic peaks, there's no notion of time, so they can last for eternity. A really, really, really bad trip is like being stuck in the worst possible hellish nightmare you can imagine, where you're being tortured and devils are coming at you and you're in total madness and it seems like you'll never return to normal life. It's not like a usual bad trip where you can just convince yourself you’ll be okay, that you’ll be back to normal in a few hours. In a really, really bad trip there won't be any reassurance. You’ll actually believe that this nightmare is your new reality. You can completely lose memory of your old reality. You can forget all about material existence. You’re going to be in this new, hellish reality with no control. Your ego won’t be able to manipulate it. You're going to be stuck in this downward, infinite spiral into hell. That is possible. (Don’t do salvia or datura!) Solution: You can avoid that by keeping your doses low to medium. Those kind of bad trips usually happen when your dosage is too high. You also need to ground yourself and be psychologically healthy so that you don't have a paranoid mind. The more paranoid, depressive and negative your mind is, the more likely you are to lose control, spiral into negativity and even into states of madness. If you have trouble dwelling on negativity and cutting off negative thoughts in general, then your doses need to be low. 6) Facing Repressed Fear and Trauma (13:10) If you have a lot of trauma and shadow material that you've been repressing, it's gonna come out. Psychedelics will get you to confront traumas, the shadow side of your psyche that you've been repressing and hiding. Most people who get involved with psychedelics are fairly immature and also tend to have quite a bit of trauma in their life from childhood and adolescence. They also tend to be fairly fearful. Since psychedelics deconstructs your mind and your reality, they will screw with your sense of what you think is real and unreal. Forcing that to come out is actually a good thing. It’s necessary for your personal and spiritual growth, but that doesn't mean it's going to feel good. Your ego might not be prepared to handle it. It depends on how much pain is brought up and how quickly. Keeping your dosages low to moderate means you can face your fears and traumas gradually, at a rate you can handle. If you just jack up the dose, it's going to be more than you can handle and this is going to set you back. It’s like going to the gym. If you try to bench press 200 pounds on your first day, like you see other people doing, because you don't want to look like a wimp, you’re going to seriously injure yourself. This will force you to stay out of the gym for the next few months, or even years. Counterintuitively this will slow your progress. One of the biggest problems you see is people taking “heroic doses,” because they want to prove their “machoness.”[/b] They freak themselves out, too much trauma comes up and this scares them away for years. The proper approach is to go slow and steady and gradually build yourself up, and deconstruct your ego, over a period of months and years. It does very little good to go to the gym once. That doesn't really change you. What works is doing a little bit consistently, over months and years. It’s the same thing with psychedelics. As you're doing psychedelics, make sure you don't freak yourself out so much that you get PTSD, anxiety, nightmares, depression or fall into solipsism or have an existential crisis that stops you from doing regular personal development work and consciousness practices. 7) The Potential for Psychological Instability (17:30) All of these can happen: deconstructing your mind, nihilism, a loss of your sense of reality, a loss of your illusions, depersonalization, ungrounding and losing your mind, even going insane. Although, we’re trying to deconstruct the mind, the rate at which you do it matters a lot. If it happens bit by bit, you can handle it. If you get too much all at once your life can spiral out of control. You could even have a psychotic break that leads you to making rash, life decisions you will later regret. You can end up in a mental institution. You can spiral into depression or nihilism where nothing matters and you lose joy for life and all sense of meaning. This can cascade throughout your life, into your family and career. So, try to deconstruct your psyche at a slow, healthy rate. 8) Confusion (19:25) Psychedelics can make you very confused about reality and what's really going on in life. This confusion can be emotionally stressful and difficult to cope with. It can last for months or years depending on how much tripping you're doing and what kind of confusion you have. Generally, confusion is actually a good thing. Confusion is not bad per se, as long as it doesn't make you do stupid, rash things. (ep: How to deal with Confusion) 9) Can Exacerbate Mental illness (20:23) If you have mental illnesses, you need to be very careful because psychedelics can crank those up to 11. Stuff like bipolar disorder, schizophrenic tendencies, depression, PTSD, anxiety and so forth. You could end up at a mental institution where they'll over medicate you and imbalance your body and mind even more. You could even get addicted to those medications and it'll take months or years to wean yourself off them. If you have a mild one, you can still take psychedelics. They can actually help, but you have to be extra extra careful and keep your doses low to moderate. If you have some severe mental illnesses, then perhaps stay away from psychedelics altogether. Research your mental illness very deeply (blog post: How to Research Psychedelics). Read reports from people with the same mental illness who have been taking psychedelics. Learn how they’ve been handling it. What’s worked and what hasn’t. You can see their dosages, effects they've been experiencing, whether it was positive or negative. eg: Do a google search on: reddit.com bipolar disorder LSD (or whatever psychedelic you're planning on taking) That gives you an idea of what to expect. Even then there's no guarantees and the more severe your mental illness is the more things can go wrong. Also, if you're stuck in a profound mental illness and there's no cure and you've tried everything and nothing’s helped you, consider the possibility that psychedelics can help. Now it depends on what kind of illness you have. What kind of psychedelic you use. How you use it and so forth, but you can also do research into various academic studies, programs and clinical treatments around the world that do help with depression, PTSD and anxiety. There's some really good science behind that. Very soon we're going to have the first FDA approved use of psychedelics for treatment of depression, PTSD and other things. There's going to be legit treatments available through various clinics and licensed doctors. So it's real science. It works. It's not just hippie mumbo jumbo. 10) Can Interfere With Pursuing Success (23:25) If you're really into selfhelp, if you're in that spiral dynamics stage orange phase where you’re working really hard on your business or your dating life and you've built up a lot of momentum, be careful with psychedelics because they can derail that. It’s both a downside and an upside. Psychedelics take you beyond the material existence, so they're going to make all that material stuff seem very petty and meaningless. That’s sort of the point. It’s what transcendence is about. But for a lot of people, they're so immature and underdeveloped that they’re not ready to transcend the material domain. They need maybe ten years focused on meeting their survival needs in a conscious, effective way. So, if you have all these goals, but then start doing shrooms, you might rethink those goals. On one hand, that might be a good thing if your life’s miserable and you need to reevaluate. On the other hand, maybe your goals are spot on and it’s in your best interest to keep working towards them. Psychedelics can make you second guess yourself and make you less productive because productivity loses its meaning. You realize you're in a rat race and you're never going to be satisfied. It might be a good idea to start doing psychedelics when you can afford to coast in your business or life goals. When you have the luxury of shifting priorities from productivity to spirituality. Understand that they’ll be a financial cost to prioritizing consciousness work over productivity. You could also say that less money but more spirituality is better for you in the long run. Your priorities will be different if you have a spouse and kids that you’re responsible for. You don’t necessarily know how psychedelics will affect that. 11) Using Psychedelics to Avoid Building a Good Life (28:38) You could potentially use psychedelics to escape tackling the problem of survival and building a good life. Most people who watch Leo’s videos have a more immediate problem of trying to master survival in an excellent way. So, their main problem isn’t a lack of enlightenment. If you're struggling to build a career, or get laid, or manage your emotions (loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety), those are very basic problems. Jumping deep into psychedelic territory might compel you to not worry about any of that material stuff. “But Leo, who cares about building a good life? That's just dreams and the illusion of Maya, bro. I'm gonna go into the mystical realms, because that's where the good stuff's at, right?” That can be a very big trap, because no matter how high you go into the mystical realms, no matter how deep of a God realization you get or what insights DMT alien entities download into you, you’re eventually going to come back down into mundane, material reality where you have bills to pay, children to feed, a house to clean, a physical body to take care and all those other obligations. Survival and building a good life is not something you want to do poorly. That is something you want to face head on and master ?. No matter what nondual experiences you have, you’ll still need some degree of success in physical, material reality. Otherwise, you’ll live miserably on the material plane. That’s not something you want and it will negatively impact your spiritual pursuits. So, you want to keep one eye on the mystical domain and the other eye on building a good life. Become financially secure, get a good job so you’re not anxious about basic physical survival or homeless. 12) Becoming Too Isolated (32:30) Psychedelics can make you go deeper and deeper into yourself, withdrawing into your mind and psyche, especially if you do them chronically. You could stop talking to your friends and family and trap yourself in this solipsistic echo chamber. That can spiral out of control, then nobody is there to help you or keep you grounded. You can even start to hate the world, especially if you misinterpret your psychedelic visions. So, balance out psychedelics with some sort of social life so you don’t become a total recluse. 13) Making Rash Decisions (33:25) After a profound, breakthrough trip, you might decide to divorce your wife, leave your children, quit your job, tell your boss to go screw himself, walk away from your business partners, go travel the world, sell your house, give away all your money to charity and this can really end up biting you in the ass. Even though a psychedelic trip only lasts at most 12 hours and the next day you're going to be completely down from the trip, the lingering after effects of the chemicals will still remain in your psyche for at least a week, especially after a deep trip. So for the rest of that week you can be having thoughts that are not typically the kind of thoughts you would be having, which can cause you to make rash decisions. The best safety measure against this is to have a rule that after you trip you're not going to make any rash or bold decisions for the next week. Make sure that your mind comes back down all the way and you're sober. You're totally stabilized and then you can make your decisions. Until then, you’re probably not thinking straight. 14) Feeling Demotivated about Meditation (35:35) Psychedelics can take you into levels of consciousness that are really high, that meditation clearly cannot. This can be demotivating for your meditation or yoga practice, because “what's the point?” In a sense, it's easier to fool yourself into meditating when you don't know about the peaks that psychedelics are capable of producing. (This is one of the secret reasons why a lot of Buddhist and yoga practitioners instinctively stay away from psychedelics.) The thing is, meditation, yoga and self inquiry are important for raising your baseline level of consciousness. Psychedelics are not gonna raise your baseline level of consciousness that much. You're gonna come back down at the end of the day, so that kind of leaves you nowhere. Even if you do psychedelics, you still need daily manual practices to raise your baseline state of consciousness over a period of years and decades (yoga, meditation, self inquiry). Then on top of that, you’ll be getting these spikes with psychedelics that take you to crazy peaks. 15) Chronic Usage (39:25) Yes, Leo’s broken that rule. He did 30 days straight of 5MeODMT (ep: 30 Awakenings In 30 Days.) But, that was done in a very deliberate almost scientific way, and now he can teach from that wisdom. Using psychedelics chronically will erode your mind and sense of reality. It will turn your life upside down and you’ll stop being able to think straight. That’s what happened to Leo during his 30day trial of using 5MeODMT. He was constantly high and it was really really interfering with his mind and sense of reality. If it had continued any further it would have been a disaster. Leo recommends taking long periods between trips to integrate insights. Even doing psychedelics twice a month is too much if you do that consistently. You’re still not going to be able to integrate everything, so be careful about that. Chronic use will turn psychedelics into a crutch, an addiction, an escape from doing the real, manual labor to develop yourself. So, don’t use psychedelics more than once every two weeks. 16) Misinterpreting Mystical Visions (42:05) You're going to have all sorts of visions and insights, but when you come back down the ego is still going to be there. The ego is going to try to make sense of all these crazy experiences you've had. It's going to corrupt them. It's going to try to co-opt them and use them towards it's own selfish purposes. Here is where you run into the problem of Zen devilry, or false notions of enlightenment and a messiah complex (ep: Becoming a Zen Devil. Summary here.) You start to proclaim yourself to be God and telling everyone how great and powerful you are. You think you have abilities to heal people, to change the world, to awaken everybody. This can get very dangerous. You might get the idea to build a cult. You might think you're qualified to teach people, and if you do, you’ll be teaching them some corrupt version of the truth. So just be very careful because your mind is very self-deceptive, especially when you come down from a high mystical experience. These mystical visions don't necessarily mean what you think they mean at face value. Your mind can easily imagine and hallucinate all sorts of stuff. Maybe because you’re Christian, you experience Jesus delivering a personal message to you. So you start to believe you are Jesus’ messenger here on Earth. Then you come back down from the trip and actually believe that you have been ordained to convert all the heathens to Christianity or something like that. Psychedelics will exacerbate any biases and self-deceptions you have in your mind. For you to gain the most out of psychedelics, it's very important that you have a pure mind, a mind that has inquired into itself outside of the psychedelic trip. Clear out your mind, purge your selfishness, your various biases, egotisms and shadow sides. If you have a dirty, corrupt mind your mystical visions will be corrupted and misinterpreted by the impurities in your mind. You won't be able to separate the truth of the mystical vision from the selfish, personal needs you have. All of your egotism and shadow side will turn your non-dual experience into a toxic, fake-mystical stew. Then you'll run around trying to infect everybody else with it. This is Zen devilry. It’s also possible that having awakenings cause you to think you fully understand reality when you don’t. You only saw a small facet of the truth, not the whole truth (ep: The Many Facets of Awakening.) It usually takes you multiple trips over a period of months and years to assemble a big picture of the truth. Be aware that you can deceive yourself about awakenings and mystical visions. You can misinterpret them badly and infect others with those misunderstandings, so be very careful. 17) The Pain of Being Disconnected From God (46:55) If you're doing psychedelics properly, you’ll eventually become conscious of God. This will be one of the most important, beautiful and profound experiences you've ever had. Then you'll fall back down to earth the next day. You’ll want to get back to God. It’ll become the thing you chase. You’ll be intoxicated with God, with becoming God or being one with God or feeling God's love. Infinite love is so intoxicating that it's going to pain you to go through everyday life disconnected from God and from infinite love. This could potentially get so bad you become suicidal. “What’s the point of this material existence? My crappy job, my crafty family, my crappy life. I should be up there in heaven with God.” You might also spend your days dreaming about the next time you can do psychedelics. Then it becomes an addiction, an escape from material existence, obligations and survival. Counterintuitively, the most profound, beautiful mystical experiences can actually lower the quality of your life. Because before psychedelics your mundane, boring life was all you knew. You were blissful ignorant about the beauty of infinite love. You can’t inhabit that 24/7, so your ordinary life seems very pale by comparison. Basically, you have to relearn to appreciate the paleness of mundane existence. That’s challenging to cope with. Although you can't really get physically addicted to psychedelics, you can become psychologically addicted, especially if your ordinary life kind of sucks. If you’ve got nothing going on for you in ordinary life, then you can definitely see how these psychedelic peaks can become an escape and your sole purpose for living. That’s not healthy or sustainable in the long term. 18) Suicide (50:35) If you're taking psychedelics and you notice yourself having suicidal thoughts, then the first thing you should do is completely discontinue psychedelics for at least three to six months. Don't do them. Reground yourself in ordinary life. Remember, suicide is just a temporary trick of your ego-mind. Don’t harm your body. Make a commitment to yourself to not harm your body. Don't even consider suicide as a possibility. If you maintain at least one avenue of hope in life, you can keep going. (clip: A Spiritual Perspective On Suicide [11 min]) Psychedelics can make some people suicidal for various reasons. You can feel like you're losing your mind, or plunge you into a nihilistic, solipsistic funk. You could misinterpret a vision or insight. You could experienced derealization and get stuck. Basically, you don't want to work on the material plane and you think suicide will give you a shortcut to God. Psychedelics done properly can actually be the cure. They can show you something beyond the material domain, beyond depression and pain. If you're dissatisfied with the material domain, which a lot of suicidal people are, then what you're really looking for is the spiritual domain, but you don't know how to access it. If you can't meditate, do yoga, self inquiry, if you don't have those skills built up, psychedelics can help you deal with trauma. A lot of suicide is rooted in trauma. Psychedelics can show you the miracle of life, of love, of consciousness of God. In this sense psychedelics can prevent suicide, but they can also cause it. It depends on how you them. 19) The Illegal Side of Things (53:00) Familiarize yourself with the legal nuances of these substances. What are the legal ramifications for getting caught with them? Which substances are legal in your area and which are not? eg: Think very, very, very, carefully before doing drugs in Singapore. Maid sentenced to 25 years in prison for trafficking marijuana. This requires research depends on where you live. These substances are illegal in many parts of the world, but not all parts. How you're handling these substances. How are you driving around with them? How you're carrying them? What the policing situation is like? Be very careful about supplying psychedelics to your friends. There’s a big difference between getting caught as a user versus as a dealer. When you start using psychedelics you might want to share them with all your friends and your family. You might start inviting them over for psychedelics or sending them gifts. Eventually, what happens is people start talking and you get caught. In that situation they're to going to try you as a dealer, not as a user who has a little bit of psychedelics for personal use. It's very very important to take precautions so that there’s no links between what you're doing and dealing to others. Make sure that you take responsibility for the legal consequences. Do you understand how many years in jail you could spend if you get caught? Researching that will sober your mind to the realities of things. There’s a big difference between a few months versus 10 years in jail, but you didn't even consider that because you didn’t do your research. There are also legal ways to do psychedelics. There’s also a variety of quasi-legal grey areas too that you can explore. It all depends on your risk tolerance. eg: Ibogaine clinics that treat drug addiction. Leo’s not your lawyer and he’s not telling you what you should or shouldn't do. He’s just saying you need to study this stuff so you know what you're getting into. Then you can avoid the most serious dangers. 20) Taking the Wrong Substance (56:58) Don’t take unknown substances. Sometimes in trip reports, people just take some unknown drug. Don't take random pills from people you don’t know. You have to know what your substance is! Know the dosage and the source of where you got it from. You have to be reasonably confident about the dosage being accurate. It should come from a quasi-reliable source at the very least, if not a reliable one. 21) Toxicity From Impure Substances (58:00) Toxicity comes from impure substances. This depends on if you're getting your substance from a trusted source then this shouldn't be a problem. Certain substances can contain fairly high impurities, especially things like MDMA or LSD, especially if you get it at a rave or a music festival. Those can be notoriously impure. 22) Physically Damaging Your Body with Chemicals (58:38) There are certain kinds of psychedelics that are chemically damaging to your body, like ketamine, MDMA, DMX, NBOMes, nitrous oxide, and others. (Of course, it depends on how much you take and how often.) These substances aren’t even considered classic psychedelics. Solution: stick to the classic psychedelics that will not physically damage your body, like mushrooms, DMT, mescaline, LSD. They’re not physically damaging in most cases for normal people. They're the safest and most field tested. eg: MDMA permanently rewires your brain if you take it too much. It can lead to neurological damage. Ketamine can lead to bladder or kidney damage. There are some substances that you shouldn't take at all. Leo's taken salvia, but doesn’t recommend it. It screws with your motor control and creates very very chaotic trips. Datura’s even worse. Leo’s not doing reverse psychology here. Don’t take salvia or datura. There’s better stuff that’s way safer. 23) Bad Interactions Between Psychedelics and Medication (1:00:40) If you're on SSRIs don't combine that with psychedelics. SSRIs are frequently used among depressed people. If you're on antipsychotics or any other medication, you have to seriously research potential conflicts, side effects and interactions between your medication and psychedelics. These combinations can be potentially lethal. 24) Mixing Substances (1:01:30) When you mix two or more chemical substances together they can have a synergistic effect either positive or negative. That can lead to side effects and drug interactions you didn't anticipate. There have been reported deaths from people taking 5MeODMT plus a medication they were on. Combining 5MeODMT with MAOIs, like you do with ayahuasca, could also be a lethal combination. Combining various medications and supplements with psychedelics, and/or taking multiple psychedelics together is dangerous territory. Stick to one chemical at a time so you clearly know what effect which substance is having on your mind. 25) Psychedelics Can Be a Gateway to Hard Drugs (1:02:50) They can lead to other recreational, hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth, crack and so forth. It doesn't have to be that way, but it can be that way. Psychedelics aren’t ridiculously addictive like meth, so the line can get blurry. You might underestimate how addictive hard drugs are. Also, the sources that are getting you psychedelics might also offer you recreational drugs. Psychedelics will open your mind. You might think, “they're not so bad. They're not hurting my body. Why not try some other stuff too?” Then your heroin turns out to be laced with fentanyl and you kill yourself. You have to draw a real hard line between the recreational stuff and psychedelics. Only stick to the psychedelics for personal and spiritual growth, not partying. 26) Chronic Weed Addiction (1:04:10) According to trip reports, some people like to combine psychedelics with weed. They do it to calm themselves down. This can actually make your trips more paranoid and synergize in a negative way. So keep that in mind. Read Leo’s blog post on pre-trip anxiety. Unlike psychedelics, weed is more addictive and easier to use daily. Even if you’re only using psychedelics once a month, if you get into a habit of using weed frequently, that's not going to be good for your development. Leo recommends avoiding weed altogether. 27) Experimenting with Research Chemicals (1:06:00) There’s dozens of different research chemicals. There’s always new ones being released and you might want to experiment with them. The problem is the newer the chemical, the less it’s been field tested, and the more dangerous it is. You could potentially stumble upon something very harmful, so you got to be careful with research chemicals. Also, you might order some research chemicals they end up sending you the wrong batch, which is potentially quite problematic. 28) Hallucinogen Persistent Perception Disorder (HPPD) (1:07:05) HPPD happens when you do so much psychedelics at such high doses that the psychedelic effects linger on your visual and auditory field. Something gets rewired in your brain long after the trip. They can last for months or years or a lifetime. The most common symptom might be tinnitus, which is a ringing in the ears. You can also get tracers or other kinds of distortions in your visual field. This can last an entire lifetime. It can be quite distressing and interferes with one’s ability to enjoy life. So just be aware of that. This happens to a very small percentage of people, but it does happen and you don't know if that’s going to be you. Especially if you do a lot of psychedelics or high doses. Nobody’s sure what causes it, if it’s genetics, or a side effect of mixing psychedelics with medication. You can research plenty of case studies about HPPD online or in the forums on reddit and so forth. Leo’s never had it, but he’s very careful about dosing and not overusing. 29) Extracting, Synthesizing and Dealing (1:09:09) The more you get into psychedelics, you might want to try growing your own shrooms, or extracting DMT, or trying to synthesize your own LSD. You might get some crazy ideas about growing, extracting and synthesizing. At that point you’re running a drug lab and if the cops catch you they're not going to charge you as a user. They're not even going to charge you as a dealer. They’re going to charge you as a drug lab. Don’t do anything reckless. It's not worth going to prison for twenty years just to extract a few grams of DMT. They will easily charge you heavily if they catch you. So you have been forewarned. 30) Online Scams (1:10:25) Leo's heard stories of people buying stuff from random websites and not getting their product. Their money gets stolen by fake websites and shady dealers. 31) Driving intoxicated (1:10:50) Have a rule that you won’t be driving or getting into a car. There are trip reports of really irresponsible people taking LSD then getting in a car to buy snacks, then the psychedelic hits while they’re in the car and now they can’t even see straight, much less drive. Once you've taken the psychedelic sit down, pay attention, contemplate. Don't think about anything else. Focus on your trip. Don’t run off somewhere. Sit through the trip until it's all gone, and then you can use your car again. 32) Thinking You’re Invincible (1:16:10) You might start to think, “I’m God and God is immortal.” Well, God is immortal and invincible, but your human life isn’t. There are consequences in the relative, material domain, so watch out. -Remember, this list was only focusing on the worst of the worst parts about psychedelics. You might be turned off because of all the dangers and problems. Keep in mind that the majority of these dangers can be very easily avoided if you are responsible, thoughtful and careful. -Leo’s given you very quick solutions to many of these problems, so you can avoid many of them. No, you can't avoid all of them. If you're very very risk averse person then psychedelics are simply not for you. -Don’t forget that all of life is risk. If you did a list of all the risks and problems of driving or sex or business or relationships, you would never do any of that. Dangers in business. You can get sued, your partners can scam you, your products can kill people. Dangers with sex. You could catch an STD. You could get a girl pregnant and pay alimony for the rest of your life. You could be impregnated and the guy could abandon you. Dangers in relationships. Your partner could have a crazy ex. She could cheat on you, infect you with an std, hurt you emotionally and steal all your money. He could abuse you, rape you, brainwash and manipulate you, even kill you. -Life is full of risk. It's about managing the risk. You don't want to be paranoid, but you want to take reasonable precautions. You're not invincible. Top Mistakes in a Nutshell 1) Not taking psychedelics seriously seriously enough. Treating them like toys. 2) Being immature about the whole process. Being immature period. Maturity is one of the most important factors to using psychedelics productively and not destructively. If you're immature don't do them at all. 3) Doing large doses and not measuring them accurately. 4) Frequent and chronic usage. 5) Tripping with friends in dangerous environments, with a lot of noise and distraction around. 6) Not sitting still and contemplating because you’re too immature. If you can't control yourself, don't trip. There are trip reports of people who take shrooms, strip off all their clothes and run down the street screaming. This is very immature. “But Leo, I’m tripping!! I’m supposed to be free. I wanna let myself gooooo.” Well, you shouldn't let yourself go so much that you jump off a balcony. If it’s too much to ask of yourself to not do reckless, dangerous things, then don't trip. 7) When mentally ill, mentally unstable and immature people getting into psychedelics. Their mental illness just gets worse and they spiral out of control, and end up taking more to feel better. 8) Zen Devilry. (ep: Becoming a Zen Devil. Summary is here) 9) Not enough theoretical foundation or consciousness work. Learn the metaphysics, the epistemology, spiritual theory, non-dual theory, and so forth. Actualized.org covers all that stuff. 10) Not doing the manual labor of personally developing yourself. Assuming that psychedelics will handle everything, including your physical health and spiritual growth. Substituting drugs for meditation, contemplation, reading, learning, watching Actualized.org, and other spiritual practices. If you just fly by the seat of your pants and do psychedelics, your life will be a disaster. 11) Doin a few trips and thinking you’ve got it all figured out. If you've only done five or ten trips or even 20 trips you have no clue what psychedelics are really like. You're just a widdle baby. It requires about a hundred trips just to start to get your bearings on what psychedelics are, how they work and their potential for spiritual growth. You have to spread your trips out. Treat this as a longterm, multiyear process. Don’t do a bunch of trips back to back. Because you're spreading it out, a lot of work is involved. Follow safe protocols. The more you do something dangerous, the more risk is incurred, so the more you do it, the more careful and methodical you have to be.. Actualized.org and Psychedelics Moving Forward -Leo’s not trying to convince you to do psychedelics. Contemplate these dangers. Take them seriously. Taking psychedelics is a decision you need to make for yourself, not because you think Leo told you to. In the past he’s talked about the benefits, so now he’s providing a balanced perspective. -In the future, Leo wants to emphasize the importance of psychedelics in this work. Emphasizing psychedelics is controversial and people will criticize him for that, which is why he released this episode. So that you’re doing psychedelics in a responsible way. -He finds that psychedelics are the most direct path. They can give you the deepest, clearest understanding of what reality is. So, forget about permanent enlightenment. It’s enormously beneficial to directly experience truth, God, Love, reality and consciousness for yourself. For a lot of people, psychedelics are the only way they will ever experience that. A lot of people get lost in mental masturbation, theorizing about metaphysics and solipsism. It's very important that you actually do the work or you'll get nowhere. (Yoga, meditation, self inquiry, psychedelics, etc) Again, Leo’s not pushing psychedelics on anyone. You don't have to do them. You can still access God, love, consciousness, truth and epistemology independent of psychedelics. But if there’s a direct, easy way to access it, why not use it? Most people aren't devoted enough to meditate for ten years, or do intense ten day retreats. Or they're not spiritually gifted enough. So how do we deliver these understandings to them? -Leo says the depth of his understanding and the quality of his work would be impossible without psychedelics. These tools can reveal non-duality to you quickly, effortlessly, directly and yet they're misused and demonized. As a society we cannot afford to have these amazing tools get so abused. We need to build a responsible path towards psychedelic use, not just a clinical path to only use them for PTSD, depression and addiction. -A lot of people who teach psychedelics don't connect it to the highest, purest metaphysical understanding of reality, or to epistemology or developmental psychology. Actualized.org is in a position to do that or at least play a role in that. There’s a non-dual path through psychedelics. This path doesn't exclude other practices. It just adds an extra dimension of psychedelics on top of it. That's how Leo sees spirituality being done in the future. He feels it’s his responsibility to help actualize ? it. He also acknowledges that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants in the psychedelic community. (Pioneers like Terence Mckenna, Alexander Shulgin, Martin Ball, James Auroch all deserve credit.) There’s also the challenge of popularizing the responsible use of psychedelics. This is about changing culture, changing how society at large views psychedelics. -It’s very important for you to be ridiculously responsible about how you do psychedelics. If you’re doing this in an irresponsible manner with a bunch of Zen devilry, crazy antics, misuse, abuse, harm to yourself and others, Leo will denounce you and kick you off the forum and the comments section. He’s not gonna tolerate any of that stuff, because there's a larger game here and that Zen devilry is not gonna fly. -So just be responsible. Be conscious and get excited about some amazing discoveries in the future.

Do remember what the quote was about or the topic of the video? Even a vague paraphrase?