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I could totally relate to you. For about a year or more I've made sure to stay as far as I can from my parents because I was scared that their unconscious behaviors will impact me and pull me down after all the work I've been putting in, for the exact purpose of growing myself from their ignorant abuse. I have to be kind though and all that since I depend on them. I live in their house, they provide food, money,... Now I'm at the stage where I can go to family gatherings without feeling threatened for my survival (although I'd prefer not to since it still pulls me down a bit). I think that many people on this journey deal with the same issue of dealing with their unconscious family and difficulty in friendships/relationships because of the consciousness gap

@kag101 Totally. Then how did you become present without trying to? Being present requires you to know you are present, and knowing that requires you to say to yourself for a brief second "oh, I'm present" (and then in my case "wait, shit, you're not" )

So quite the opposite. As kag101 said, it is the fear of letting go and being totally immersed in it (like being totally in it, like infinite with it). Perhaps your claim would've been correct if I'd have more experience playing video games and seeing the negative aspect of it

@kag101 Interesting.. You might be on to something. Perhaps it could be true, but I believe I do it unconsciously which is kinda funny. I'm unconsciously thinking about being mindful, which is a conscious act, but thinking about it isn't since I'm not getting anywhere

@Shin Totally! But in general I have a musical ear and I love listening to music because it just feels so true. I won't be surprised if my life purpose turns out to be creating music. I mean... I am very much struggling with it and I wouldn't say I've really managed. Even showing signs of tiredness and sighing are hard for me. I think it has to do with the fact that it's difficult for me to be authentic, even though I've practiced quite a bit of mindfulness.. ugh..

@Osaid I am attracted to some male anime characters, mostly from their looks. If what you say is true, then does it mean that sexual attraction is being attracted by some features and they can be emulated on a man? I also like anime women (not so much though) but I find that the attractive males are way more attracting than the women. Ironically, I feel disgusted thinking about men in real life I haven't watched porn in more than 6 months and I'm on nofap over 190 days (not trying to show off, but telling you that my head is surely not consumed with sex fantasies. This is what enabled me the most to focus my energy on this journey). But yeah, taking a break and going nofap helped me manage my sexual urges better and I find myself more attracted to things and more honest with myself. I'm not sitting and jerking off to it lmao

That might sound very weird and disturbing to some people but I'm going to be honest - I am attracted to women more than men in real life, but I'm more attracted to anime males more than anime women (I think they look better). Please, what does this mean about me??

I understand a bit. Sometimes I have been questioning whether I'm gay and I'm just subconsciously hiding it from myself out of fear. I tried thinking about gay sex, tried masturbating thinking about men - All of it really disgusted me. I had to do it and I realized that I am (like I thought) attracted to women. However, something important that I've realized is that my attraction isn't 100% straight. It's not either straight/gay/bi, but more like mostly straight with some light degree of gay. I can admit that I find men attractive at times but not to the extent of wanting to get sexual and very intimate

As I am practicing mindfulness, self acceptance and meditation, I find it easier to talk about deeper things and to talk about personal issues with others (or maybe I've just gotten used to it since I've practiced it a lot as a survival mechanism for improving my life - that only through honesty I can get the help I need). So I'm kinda good at going deep with people on a personal level, such as general problems, life situation, fears, goals, etc. However, when I get to those deep territories I feel like I am not completely being and feeling in to that intimacy. It's as if I'm putting out facts which are personal, without a strong connection at the Being level. I'm playing a trick on myself believing I'm becoming intimate and completely in the moment with another person. It's quite frightening and overwhelming the shit out of me. I am avoiding hugs and fluffy friendships with others. Also avoiding authentically light-laughing with others (I will authentically laugh at things which are obviously funny and strongly make me and others laugh). Also I avoid opening to greet people happily. I am going in less than 4 months to a camp which is 6 months long and I'm going to live with people and do social activities, and this kind of gets me anxious sometimes. I decided to sign up for it long ago because of benefits I saw in it. However I really don't know how I'll be able to maintain myself if I don't manage to develop great social skills and inner love and good vibe. There is something inside of me, however, that tells me that the good life is where I am feeling lot's of love and acting from a place of authenticity and mindfulness

@RendHeaven How in the world do I fix this?

I just came back from a trip (travel and camp) of 2.5 days with a group of people in my same age group and I feel that my mindfulness has grown as I am being forced to feel my surrounding while walking and seeing the view as it is (it also helped me socialize a bit). But now I am starting to notice more nuance aspects of my life, such as my hardship in being authentic, loving to myself and to others, not exactly feeling the emotio In as it is (which means that also when I feel kind of down/shy/not so in the mood I will always trick myself into feeling better and it usually causes a bit of resistance, or I will kind of force myself to be authentic which is quite paradoxical because then my authentic self is changing without me realizing). Today I've managed to actually feel some vague feelings for a while and I just let them be without even trying to label it. Just curious about the sensations of my body and my thoughts in the passing moment. It was quite big for me, but I think it is because I am slowly getting to a development stage where I start to let myself to feel more. This makes my understanding of life way bigger than most people I see, but at the same time I am starting to realize that I'm not actually living how I really want to live, and I'm becoming aware of it more with time. All of this said, but still I am quite behind in the basic self help. I need to develop my social skills and my management in life in general. My understanding of the higher stages are way above the practical self help. So I am expanding my awareness in order to see my position in a more clear way lol. I really don't want to be stuck in life and feel like I am always behind. I have desires which 99% of people I see don't even consider (or so, I guess) such as becoming mindful of emotions and letting them be which is quite hard and I don't know how to do it. I am talking all this and it's nice, but on the practical level I am quite behind and I am questioning whether I am even on the right track I'd appreciate it if you could give me a better understanding of where I am and help me understand things from above. All I want is to live a good life in peace with myself with no resistance. I can feel happy, sad, depressed, anxious, scared, embarrassed, shy. I can see nice colors in the sky, terrible looking tree, my messy room, the nice landscape, the magical place. I can hear all the sounds, whether they hurt or are a pleasant tune. I can think anything I want, whether it's anxious or some fantasy. Basically, I can experience anything - Just without this resistance. This will truly change my life I believe

How about vsauce? The reason I think he's a good fit is because he is a very scientific person and thinks very deeply not only in science but also about the brain function. Although he is scientific, I believe he is an open-minded person. He doesn't seem to hold on science like an ideology but rather as something that he is passionate about and likes to question. He asks lots of questions like you do. Consider it

@Shin By resistance I mean the overall resistances I have in me. With vision - not seeing things as they are and tend to see mind-created grayish spots to mask on reality. With sound - I tend to muff the sounds a bit to avoid it. With feeling - I tend to not notice the sensations of my body exactly and there is a big delay. With thoughts - I suppress them sometimes. Basically resistance is delaying me and masking reality. Behind in the basic self help - I mean that my practical skills (social skills, hobbies, relationships, leadership, life purpose, etc.) are quite behind most people I see.

As I say in the title, I am starting to feel more like a child, and I'm starting to get this "feel" for what it means to become more conscious. It's like my field of awareness of experience has become wider. But it's not as if I'm more serious and focused hardcore on everything, but more like, I am recognizing better what is already here, and it has a feeling of knowing. I am learning more about myself and have this feeling that I'm going in a certain direction, like to goodness or something, hard to explain... It's as if consciousness is a magical thing that its purpose is to pull you out and move you into goodness, but like the true goodness that is true for you and deep down you want it but never knew the actual way of getting it. So I am still on the very beginning of this journey, but the growth I'm starting to experience is keeping me going. While practicing self acceptance and mindfulness, I feel that I'm slowly slowly breaking my ego, and it feels uncomfortably scary yet very excited and happy at the same time. It's as if I'm becoming a normal fricking human being. I used to think all of this was just some joke. I would really hesitate trying to describe my issue (which was feeling fragmented/not in touch with reality, and not integrated, which made it hard for me to feel and love) and now I'm getting a feeling of just being a few years younger. It's like, I see almost most of the world is capable of loving and being in touch with the present moment, and I just got to their level with a strong knowing. It also helped me realize that what I want to pursue is being authentic. Anyways, as I'm starting to feel younger, some memories of being a child came up, and I am sure I remember that I was way more competitive as a child. Like I used to be very competitive, mindful and very curious about life (maybe that's why I'm so excited to come back to it). But then I am stuck with the paradox of how come I've been more competitive as a child then now? I mean, my ego as a child was less developed... Could it just have been a different level of an ego's development?

@universe umm.. because this means comparing myself and bringing up the past.. don't know

I don't think we have it lol

@universe @Matt23 Then what is an example of good competition? What is the inner state of being in that competitive state? I'll need an example

@universe How? Then what is your drive for competition? To strengthen the ego and the image of yourself?

@kag101 Don't think so. I used to (and still to some degree) suffer from social anxiety. I might have had periods of light depression but I don't think it was very serious. It's kind of funny to think that being angry feels better than living in fear, and feeling lonely feels better than feeling envious. It was a huge shock for me

This has bothered me for quite a while. All the people I know don't do really self actualization work (I don't know 100 percent but it's an easy estimate). I, on the other hand, take this work more serious and have been practicing 30 minutes of mindfulness meditation for the past week and a half, ~30 minutes of the self acceptance exercise guided by one of Leo's videos for the last 2 weeks, and on top of that I've been doing regular meditation every morning for about 20 minutes for a bit over a year. All of that is nice, but I don't seem to have a much better life than just normal dudes who go out with their friends and have fun time. It also seems like many of the normal people I see aren't as much in their heads when engaging in a conversation or a different experience. It's as if they have practiced mindfulness meditation or something, but something just feels wrong... Don't get me wrong. I am feeling better on my own from all these benefits, but still, I don't yet feel the degree of love and flow and peace when engaging with other people, as much as they have. I still feel quite behind in terms of how much I'm resisting reality. Could it be that those people have a higher level of consciousness than me while they are not even aware of it? (lol) Or could it be that my resistance to reality was so bad that I haven't even realized how terrible it was, and now it's starting to just become normal level again? In any case, I feel like I'm missing some part of the equation, like maybe something that's getting me stuck. To give a better explanation of how this mindfulness and self acceptance have helped me: So I have always been sucked into youtube going through rabbit holes of self help (for mental masturbation, obviously), and pretty much spent my day thinking about improving, and believing I'm improving by hardly doing a thing. My mind was very very weak and I was literally not able to do almost any activity that required my input, it was just to threatening. I'm talking about even fear of playing a video game, which I still do (because it's an emerging into a new world and I might lose myself, if it makes more sense). But I have managed to play the piano a bit (it became easier for me to be present and to risk the dirty process of learning and making mistakes and becoming creative and committing). All of this is nice and great, but it feels for me like those things are very easy and natural to many other people. And yet, I am the one working on raising my consciousness! How could it be that I'm still behind?

I know this question sounds a bit silly lol. When I do my mindfulness practice (see, hear, feel) it took me a very short time to get the hang of shift my focus to a specific sensation. The same goes with sight and hearing. But feeling my emotions in the moment is something I still struggle with. Like, what sensation am I trying to reach? Am I trying to feel a though or am I trying to feel inner body sensations? Most of the time I don't feel anything because I'm focused on the practice itself. Another related question is how do I become mindful of my feelings when talking to people. Let's say I feel very anxious suddenly while in a conversation, will it really be effective to just focus on the feeling (without judgement), feel into it, allow myself to feel this way, observe it, keep allowing it, and then do nothing?? lol, it sounds kind of weird to do this while next to other people. I'll get lost focusing on the feeling that I'll lose touch with what the other person is saying. In addition, the other person is continuing to talk and so it stimulates my thinking and I can't focus on my feeling clearly. In fact I might get caught in the loop of thoughts feeding into the emotion

@StarStruck I do take notes It's just that I don't know if reading more will necessarily help me, at least with my current state (the book is insightful though). Like the book said, getting more knowledge is a trap. Building the habit is more important than building the skillset, it comes before. But I still get a little tensed when working on some music. I don't know if it has to do with the amount of time I give myself, or that I am still in a development stage where I'm still learning to cope with this tension (fear). Practicing 15 minutes a day without expectation might be a great thing to do but I don't know how much I'll really improve.

Hi, so I am busy reading a book about the mental game of music creation, and I would say it is good but I don't seem to take it seriously now. I've been thinking whether I should start reading a different book (money related). I've decided that I want to learn money management and a strong theory and investing since I want to feel this "hole" in Maslow's Pyramid. After I get a basic hang of it I want to go and pursue the tier of Love and Belonging (friends, family, intimate relations). I want to get those areas handled so that I won't get fucked up later in life. But at the same time this just might be an escape from actually creating music. One of the main ideas behind the book I'm currently reading is that building the habit of creating just 15 minutes a day in the music workspace will get me to become great. So habit is more important than knowledge, and that focusing on quantity rather than quality is better since you'll get shit done and we have a natural desire to become great. So I've done this for like 3-4 days and I do get a little nervous because I put importance on those 15 minutes. Anyways, I was just wondering what should I do in this situation. (by the way I've also took a break from the audiobook "unleash the power within" from Tony Robbins)

@Gili Trawangan Music Habits - The Mental Game Of Electronic Music Production

@Thought Art This is what I face sometimes. So like I'm busy reading this book and I am starting to not feel so interested but the interest might come later, and for now my attention got captured for a quick moment on personal finance because it is more practical for now and for advancing in Maslow's Pyramid. Not planning to go all in but just to have some strong theory and basic money management.