Cathal

let yourself feel all of it, sink into all of it because it is just what is. the possibility of truly letting go will come if you can embrace the darkness just you would embrace love if it came to you, it is encompassing all of if that you will find a lot more stability, peace and presence it is the madman method but fuck it, it works- go as hard as you can into the mess and always know, it is not you, all comes to pass when there is no longer struggle for aversion/attachment/craving, to fully be with what is means there is no possibility of any of those poisons to ruin you avoid it and consequently you attach to it, glue yourself to it, be with it and feel it - accept it, don't try to do anything, the only effort is to try your best to make no effort to do anything and let it fuck you

this inner struggle is because you still haven't accepted what is still not rooted as consciousness, struggling with controlling what arises within. thoughts, emotions, sounds, taste, it just arises - is any of that you, and do you need to do anything about it? who is trying to change itself? but that is not what is, you were always soul/essence, you are getting confused - don't say, 'i am 'soul' for who is who now? you tryna butt the other guy out the way to make room for the bigger you, more sense of you, the new spiritual you, just more games that lead to suffering

why is it something you want to stop?

do longer meditation sits, go on a retreat, meet new people

why would pills help with letting go?

@KatiesKarma here's the difference between animals and humans. humans have both a physical and mental preservation, that's why we're so fucked in the head but yeah basically so a few people mentioned breathwork and i have to say that it poured so much out of me that i have to recommend it. you can join a zoom class, i used it a few times because the sharing and the group 'energy' and the music all played a part for me https://breathworkonline.com/flexible-date-free-breathwork-workshop-home/ the question not really to 'solve' the dissociation because that is just a consequence of the actual things you need to 'let go of/solve'. and there has to be also a very very very very developed understanding into how your mind functions and that 'sense of you' is not you, without realizing everyone is a mirror of you there is no room for you to allow yourself to FEEL the triggers of trauma so you keep them locked away, does that make sense? if you keep getting identified with how you feel and avoid the negativity such as anxiety/feeling judged or whatever the fuck, then there's no room for change and no direct insight. you stay in the realm of intellectual understanding that in the past you ran away from so chances are you are either unaware of how much trauma, which is a very broad term, did you have childhood issues, heartbroken by a partner, left to be homeless, bullied? there's ways of surfacing that shit up without doing anything but talking to someone you're attached to or you are and you haven't been able to find a method back into your body so, here's a few things to try; Tre - trauma realese exercise, it's like shaking ur legs, also watch the lectures by the guy who created it - Peter Levine Talk therapy - it's pretty important to have a good mirror, it is actually too important to ignore, especially for inner child breathwork - do the wim hoff method for a while, at least daily for a few weeks, and push yourself to get to 5 rounds at once or something - things will absolutely happen, holotropic too/shamanic/the link i sent is like the INTENSE catharsis, it is like a psychedelic trip psychedelics - this is a bit tricky for me to put here because while they are SO useful and without them i would probably just be ruthelessly suffering and never got introduced to spirituality, they are just as potentially not useful lol so it's entirely up to you (mushrooms specifically helped). the intent must be solid in stone, but it has helped, i have also done a lot of drugs like mdma/ketamine that gave me A LITTLE insight, such as i need to forgive someone and work on that more and so on and some catharsis but i don't think it was necessary. medication/ssris/benzos/anti-psychotics was useless meditation techniques - try yoga nidra, do hatha yoga, allow yourself at least like an hour a day to just SIT with it all, without 'doing anything' / zazen, it is going to be very unpleasant but it is important you can sit with this pain. also, oshos dynamic meditation. forgiveness!!! - metta, loving kindness. primal scream - go somewhere where you can scream so your lungs out. read the book letting go: pathway of surrender, that is probably where you should start. and end i know how much pain you are in, that absolute numbness, inability to enjoy anything, the lethargy and craving it to end. good luck, you will feel again

yes, i was dissociated for a very long time. it was unbearable, but i just kept working with the trust someday something will happen, it took months of catharsis and developing right understanding that just i remember i had this thought i was like, oh, i can feel my body. and it has ramped up to where i'm at now - now i feel very in my body and present, like i am just here, there is a stillness and ability to listen to what is arising in my awareness with a feeling of connectedness. i have become very sensitive to what is so freeze is just a response, dissociation, fight, flight whatever the fuck - it's all the same, there is something unresolved in the body, the issue is the one who is identified with the mind is so out of touch with the body they go on seeking relief endlessly, but never still the mind enough to listen to the body, which is why somatic experiencing/breathwork is so useful, because it just shuts it up for you. then healing can occur, because the intelligence of the body always just knows what to do - the problem is when you try to figure it out intellectually, then you always stay stuck in that trauma state of 'blockages' it is not about how hard you work, it's just doing the right thing which can happen spontaenously, like looking at a picture of you as a child can just burst open the floodgates of inner child wounds. consciousness is not split or disconnected, it is just awareness is so intensly contracted that you experience is as a deeply unbearable sense of seperateness and inability to connect - which you crave so badly, but never fulfill. dissociation is tricky, it was for me anyways, i just done about anything you can think of. i think it all added up, but definitely there is work. it all comes down to what is it preventing you from letting go

youarerad.org check that website out

no enlightened beings just enlightened action so how has your actions differed? that is all there is to it, you might have filled ur head up with so much spiritual shit but what do you actually do differently? that is the real measure

Can you elaborate on your deep breathing technique? I used to get that same kind of experience but doing holotropic breathwork

"The moment truth is asserted, it becomes false." Is the real truth to spread your truth exactly as you experienced or is there a deeper truth, that everything is as it is and has no need for you to assert your truth into it? If you actually care about helping people, go beyond your truth and see things more clearly and develop skillful action. Here's what I mean. A teacher has a disciple that wants to get closer to God, so he says fast for 2 weeks. 2 weeks later, the disciple comes back and says he hasn't eaten in 2 weeks, the teacher says 'congratulations I admire your devotion' The same day another guy walks up to the teacher and says 'I haven't eaten in 2 weeks' the teacher replies 'congratulations I admire your devotion' Can you see how retarded that is? You dont ASSERT your truth, because that is not truth. You do your best to meet people where they are at. That is real compassion, compassion is not asserted. Your desire to convert people to fulfill your needs is highly unethical and isn't helping you at all. You might have just become far too attached to your spiritual experiences and I don't think you shouldn't 'not care about it' but investigate the nest you built for yourself more clearly, 'who' is the one bothered by peoples dissapproval of its truth?

if you want real answers instead of validation seeking watch dominion on yt

I was journaling a bit and wanted to contemplate on my unmet needs and see if I am shitting myself on this unrealized 'desire' to transcend physical needs/desires like a good companion or partner. It actually became pretty clear that I had this subtle belief system that if I keep going 'harder' on spiritual practice, aka longer meditation sits, more yoga, more blabla psychedelics, retreats that I would somehow be able to transcend those needs I have because lets be honest who doesn't desire companionship? Most people say fuck it and get a dog because finding a good partner has failed them, another way of avoiding negative emotion no? Then realized it was a very clever way I failed to see that it was just another method of aversion, the fear of feeling unwanted/rejected/abandoned outweighed the seeking of partnership in ACTION and was kind of taken over by ego as 'do more of this and you won't need to face your fears' and holy shit it takes on the form in some nuerosis and dreams when I see it more clearly. Which I wonder how many of these belief systems might be going on and how deep does it run? I'm wondering if anyone has similar thoughts and what have you done about it? For sure it must interest you as these are great hindrances to spiritual development for everyone, I think I look too much at the traditional spirtual east sometimes and forget here in the west we are raped with conditioning/traumas right out of the womb and it's not something you can avoid, some get it harder than others

i think ur dancing to much with a more subtle version of the 'i' you are identified with, only another ego thinks it transcended itself - building a new sense of itself out of the experiences, that they are somehow better or more spiritual than before

just keep letting go, surrender to whatever is arising in your consciousness but stay firm and rooted in that you are consciousness and everything is arising within you - it is not you - no matter how vile and painful it is, letting go means doing nothing but let it be and it will go on its way

thanks that was a nice read for me

Everything seems to point as right view, understanding, action develops is inevitably that the way to actually transform the way we are conditioned, belief systems you are limited to, nuerosis, trauma etc -which is all experienced as the feeling of seperateness and your sense of 'I' fundamentally- is to surrender to the knowing/intuition of truth which consequently means surrendering to identification to all inner turmoil like anxiety, depression, apathy, pride, grief, anger, jealously, envy, self-pity, all the games we play with ourselves to avoid some kind of fear. Surrendering the pleasure of self-pity, surrendering the pleasure of feeling superior, not attaching yourself to those illusionary feelings that come up is hard but as you keep doing it the sense of self isn't a prison, the capacity of love opens up and the understanding of why people act the way they do transcends the reaction and reinforcment of your sense of seperateness There is absolutely no method of traditional spirituality that will transcend this, no kundalini, giving to charity, visualization, asanas, kriya, vipassana, psychedelics, dreams of giving ur guru a bj You want some pussy? too afraid to deal with the fear of rejection/shame/judgement to go straight up to a girl and ask her out? Spirituality wont help you brah You have a need to fulfill and a lot of emotions to surrender to, the way to LET GO of those emotions and purge it out of your body -so they don't completely limit your growth- is to surrender to them knowing they are not really you, allowing yourself to fully feel the shame, anxiety, worthlessness - they are just memory replaying itself over and over from what you got identified with from what other people have done this is just an advertisement for this book because it has been so fucking useful, it is all just surrender to God/Intuition/Knowing/Good/Love/Intelligence and let go of the pleasures of attachment

he is clearly spreading his experience of love for everyone to benefit from, this is inspiring all hail the cult leader

you can try to cold turkey, but the cause of addiction is your sense of seperateness, always, so unless you are simutaenously working on that shit your habit of aversion and craving will continue to find form in new addiction sense of seperateness is your identification to self and all the boundaries you created to reinforce that 'I' feeling - so I think there needs to be more insight into that or you will go on craving connection in the external and getting lost there, I get the sense you try will try hard to change but without insight you are always trying to become limitless by building on top of unrecognized limitations, which results in looping and failure your addiction to nicotine/caffeine turns into eating more food, sleeping more, masterbathing more and vice versa so sure try it, whether you do or don't it's going to reveal something. and it really doesn't matter

yes i used to smoke it daily until i ran out, usually with 250mg-500mg packets - it was nice, i am a bit fucked in the head. go hardcore if you're willing always surrender, the intensity will really help you with mastering surrender to what is and that is by far the most useful thing i've gotten

i used to think that, that i fucked up myself so much that i want to lose this body and get a new one in hopes of a better life then i saw clearly how killing myself would not end my suffering, perhaps 'relief' but just create more confusion that i know somehow i would have to clear one day, i am glad i didn't do that because i'm actually enjoying life and less than a year ago i actually slit myself waiting to die. surrender to what is and the thought of death won't really arise unless this is purely just thought then i think you will have to deal with that action/karma at some point

no there is no smooth process, you just do the right thing and surrender to what is. what is means, anything that arises in your experience of consciousness. fully feeling and experiencing, no more avoidance. thats the way out

about 10 months ago i slit myself and tried to die, abused child teen opioid addict etc, i then did psychedelics and had an intense experience of freedom in which i just knew this was what i have been looking for. i call them by manic jesus episodes, i've had many of these since i was about 22 but i didn't really understand them until this year after the dissolution of the 'i' via psychedelics, i have this intense right action drive but with no understand and no direction i ended up on the streets having psychotic episodes, calling random people asking them about there childhood trauma and travelling sleeping in the ditches, begging for money and leaving my country to go into a volunteer place, you might say ungrounded. i went through the most unbearable dark night ever, just soaked in ruthless suffering. anyways, i kinda saw psychedelics won't bring me to where i want to go, i just knew if i kept working on my traumas, forgiving, understanding things and stick to meditate fuck it i'll get somewhere and... yeah, here i am i am just so present. i can enjoy the mundane, i can enjoy so much shit, i just burst out laughing so much, i really love people as they are, i am so radically accepting of ppl. my mind is still active as fuck but its like i can see watch it so effortessly, things feel very effortless and i just feel so very loving, i can see things so clearly within myself that the way people behave and the way life is, it just is and i can now only see it but appreciate it. i know i have a looooong way to go but tbh at 18 i made a vow i would be dead at 24 and here i am, so ye this has been nice, i just wanted to share that. i am a bit of a lurker in the enlightenment scene because i have no idea what the fuck u guys are talking about, but this is mind blowing to experience for me. i am determined to follow in teachings of Christ to service all beings through action, beginning with the darkest of sinners

Physically harming yourself. There are also drugs that can permanently mess with your brain and therefore your potential in this life... I wouldn't say anything at all 'ruins' your life indefinitely, but there are a lot of things that limit your potential for sure which you might say is a ruining of some sort but yeah.... popping your eyeballs out or making yourself deaf, there are those kinds of self-harm cases brah

Yes letting go: pathway of surrender is a must to understand in the sense of what surrender will do for you if you commit to letting go of the negativity and identifying with the pleasure you get out of the positionality you're in, in your case you avoid confronting your negative emotions by remaining quiet and avoidant. Surrendering the right way, to what is as it is, to the trauma at a felt level is the only way you will actually feel free of it. If you try to resolve it within your thinking mind, or think it doesn't deserve the same level of attention as severe trauma because it's 'mild' you will just keep dragging it on and on only to continually repress it through intellectualization and tbh, this anxiety and social aversion is not mild at all. it will cripple you