Sugarcoat

Yea! I used to believe that if I remove something I´m "attached to", that will accelerate the process of detachment. But no, even when I have done that, I would walk around with desire of that thing. So letting go seems to be more spontaneous, you can´t force it. And there´s nothing wrong with desire, Yeah now I´m just going through it, time will tell.

I resonate so much with what you write!!!!!!! This attachment view of reality, just as the other spiritual stuff, was very set in me, but it also got shaken up a bit recently. The certainty there also fell away a bit my mind has been absolutely wild lately it´s kind of funny, it can sound like this: "Eventually I will have to let that *insert thing I think I´m attached to* go, but I don´t want to!" "who has said you have to let go?" "But if I don´t let go and instead give in to the desire by letting myself enjoy the thing I´m attached to then I will suffer because desire means favoring of one thing over the other. So if I desire something then I will have to try to maintan that thing because I´m resisting the opposite of that thing which is the death of that thing I´m attached to. So I will suffer from this tension of trying to maintain something and resisting the opposite. So I have to remove the thing I´m attached to so I can let go of the attachment and learn to love both opposites equally so I can gain peace" "But don´t you remember the time when you did just that, you removed a thing you desired/where attached to for a while, and you still went around craving it and daydreaming about it, so obviously the attachment/desire was still there. So doesn´t this point to that letting go of attachments is not something you can force by removing the thing you desire. It´s more spontaneous, one can let go of something even while having it, just as one can desire something even when one doesnt have it currently. And now youre attached to the idea of detachment and think it will allieviate you of suffering, so that´s just more resistance." "but I´m afraid that if I let myself have things I desire, then something bad will happen and mess it up becuause it seems like reality is designed to make me realize truth, reality doesnt care about my pleasure, so since desire is untruthful and delusion something will go wrong if I give in to it" "wtf bruh that´s some idea in your head you have no clue if that´s true about reality. Who has said that reality won´t allow you to enjoy some pleasure? That´s just more fear and concept. Just do what you want and resonate with, doesn´t have to be so complicated. " and so it goesssss.... I used to ground myself and feel more sane by focusing on sense perception to quiet my mind or to meditate, but now it´s like I don´t know if that is more sane or truthful so I´m just all over the place. When school starts again I´ll probably feel more grounded and normal again hopefully lol Okay this might sound like I´m miserable no I´m doing fine, sometimes anxious sometimes more peaceful

I´m not saying meditation is to be avoided, or that I will never meditate again. I´m saying that I used to believe and feel certainly that meditation was doing something special, one of them being alleviating me from suffering, so something was lost if I didn´t meditate, that´s how I felt. Sometimes my family could ask "wanna follow us we will go and buy some things" and I´d say "no I have to meditate", as if meditation is inherently a more valuable way of spending my time. There was a tension "will I get home in time to meditate". Not intense tension and fear, but still a little bit. This was felt and seen through. Now it´s like "okay I can meditate if I want, but I don´t know what it will do, will it make me more peaceful? Perhaps, will it induce some special experience? Perhaps, but I don´t feel like I know that anymore". When it comes to pleasure, most of the time I´m at home studying so there is not much in my life that would compete with meditation so that I would have to rationalize it away in order to pursue pleasure. Wouldn´t rationalization of not doing meditation only be necessary if I felt like meditation threatens something, if I felt like something was lost, some pleasure perhaps, if I meditated? But it was the opposite, I felt something was lost if I DIDNT meditate, so I had to rationalize why I should meditate. I´m not claiming to be in some enlightened state of not knowing, I have no idea about enlightenement. I´m not gonna sit here and say "I dont know if time is real", why? Because it wouldnt be congruent with my feelings/sense. It certanly feels like time is very real. But the certainty about meditation doing something special for me doesn´t feel real anymore, there I don´t feel like I know. You seem to genuinely want to help me see through potential self deception, I appreciate that , hopefully I´m more clear now

"most certainly", do you know that for sure though? I am not claiming that it´s not true, just that I don´t know if it is true, the sense/feeling of certainty about it is not there anymore for me about those things. What do you mean by seeking from a position of infinite detachment? from my perspective you seem very openminded judging by the tone in your post, but there seems to be some fear that this is a dangerous way of thinking, as if something valuable is lost if one applies what I wrote, but why is that?

I laughed out loud when reading this. Lovely energy in your words It feels a bit freeing yes to not constantly be bound to some future idea of increased awareness that I´m always looking forward to that will allieviate my suffering and that everything I do has to be contributing to this otherwise I´m losing something lol But I still have other attachents so I´m still in my seeking energy lol, one thing at a time I guess

Currently I don´t feel like meditating no, but I will if I desire to. Currently I´m all over the place lol I feel some attachemnts I have but I can´t force myself to let them go so I´m just doing whatever

I´m not saying it´s not real. I´m saying I don´t know if it is, and I didn´t know it even when I thought it was real, so from my perspective it was concept at the time.

Anxiety and thoughts seem to go hand in hand still from my perspective. If I am around people I will hold tears back usually but when I am alone I let myself cry. Just let yourself cry, I don´t do anything specific, if the crying comes it comes Yes, i´ll let my emotions guide. Where there is tension there is something to work on

This falling away of certainty seems to happen spontaneously. I´m starting to think how it seems completely independent of any action I take in my life. Thanks darling, Yes! It seems very spontaneous.

@Godishere Let´s say it´s true that we are god and infinite. But do YOU know that for 100%? Do you truly know that? ask yourself honestly. If you are honest you might find no, you probably don´t, and I don´t either. So why ruminate about it? If you are so awake, what is the problem in your life? If there is tension, negative feelings, maybe a sign that you`re doing something "wrong".

A little rant I get a sense that many people in the spiritual community are lost when it comes to what this journey is really about. I’m not enlightened or anything but this is still some insights I wanted to share as I think some people can benefit from it. As a newbie when you get into spiritual work/self-actualization you have ideas about what it is about. So you install these habits. “I’m gonna meditate everyday” “I’ll eat healthy” “I’ll contemplate x hours every week about these topics Leo talks about in his videos” “I’ll say this mantra” etc this is good of course. But as you get going on this journey, what I’ve found is that you realize that these things are not really what it’s about. this journey is more about identity level change, letting go of attachments, such as identities you are attached to, following your intuition. You see, let’s say you have social anxiety, your highest priority shouldn’t be contemplating non duality, but instead to overcome your social anxiety. Sure some exceptional people might be called by their intuition to jump into enlightenment work before doing the basics , but most people are not like this. If you are a person who is attached to the identity of yourself as a successful person and you are attached to acquiring money. No amount of meditation and contemplation in the world will give you the growth in consciousness as long as you don’t let go of these attachment. Once again, identity level change. Why do we see these people who have built entire carriers on spirituality, they do yoga meditate etc but you can still tell that they’re neurotic and not high conscious ? Because they’ve gotten their priorities messed up. They’re not letting go of attachments and getting identity level change. if the spiritual journey is pleasing to your ego, are you really doing the true work? For example, my intuition has been telling me to stop enhancing my physical appearance, not that it is inherently non-spiritual, but because I have to in order to let go of my attachment to it as a woman. This is painful to my ego, I don’t want to do this and I’ve resisted it, because I’m deeply attached to being pretty. But it’s these things that your subconscious/intuition is telling you to do that will give you the true growth if you do them. View meditation as a practice that creates the stillness/space necessary for your intuitions and visions to arise. Then your task is to bring them explicitly to your conscious awareness and act in alignment to them in the physical world. Dont think “Leo gave me the assignment to contemplate science for a week so I will do that”. Is that TRULY what you need right now? Perhaps not. You see, you probably have something lingering in the back of your mind that you subconsciously know that you should focus on, but that you are avoiding and instead trying to satisfy your need for growth in consciousness by doing less important things in other areas of your life. That thing lingering in the back of your mind is your intuition trying to get you to change. So ask yourself , and answer BRUTALLY honestly In what area in my life am I struggling the most? What do I fear the most? What am I the most afraid of letting go of? What identity/self image am I holding on to? What am I afraid of admitting to myself explicitly? What is lingering in the back of my mind but that I am repressing? What are my biggest attachment? you might think “well I’m mostly attached to my body” and yea of course if someone puts a gun to your head you won’t care about money in your bank but most of us in here are not at the level of consciousness where we can give up attachment to our physical body, so leave that to the side and focus on other aspects for now. Let your intuition answer these questions, and align with that in the physical world. This is where true growth comes. Leos video about burning through karma talks about this. Very foundational video.

Nicely written. Will reflect on it

Yea I was unsure where to post it. I’m gonna wait and let the moderators move it if they want

Hello, first time ever posting! I’m an eighteen year old female and for my entire life I’ve been struggling with low self-esteem. I was very narcissistic as a young child, later becoming more of a people pleaser, probably due to growing up with neurotic parents. Its improved significantly due to spiritual work (meditating since 16 years of age) and other practices. I’ve gotten rid of the vast majority of my people pleasing tendencies, nowadays I have zero trouble saying no and setting boundaries. But one aspect of the people pleasing “mindset” that’s left is the tendency to put people on a pedestal. In particular highly social extroverts. I’m currently in high school, and I’m basically surrounded by a bunch of high energy extroverts (my school is known to be rich socially so we’re not talking about the average person here). Meanwhile I’m this low energy introvert, still struggling with self esteem. so I have this unhealthy tendency to put my peers on a pedestal. Their extroverted energy gives off the impression that they: • are confident (sign of maturity and high conscioussness) • don’t take themselves seriously (once again sign of the same things) • are well developed ego-wise It fascinates me because let’s say I’m surrounded by a group of people who all have much higher IQ than me, I wouldn’t feel insecure because I have self-distance to my IQ so I don’t take it personally and put them on a pedestal for it, because it’s not like they are superior to me because they are logically smarter. But I’m struggling to apply the same mindset to these extroverted socially competent people at my school. Shyness tends to be associated with children, meanwhile more confident and outgoing behavior is associated with confidence which is what an adult is “supposed to be”. So I’ve subconsciously judged myself for not being that way, while at the same time overestimating how developed these people at my school are. It seems like extroverted behavior can when expressed in a friendly way, give of the impression of “having ones shit together”, causing a person to seem more stable and grounded than they are. I know on an intellectual level that these people also have insecurities, and that just because they are highly socially competent doesn’t mean they are highly developed and mature. But it’s hard to feel this on an emotional level. Also since I’m non-Swedish from the suburbs going to a school with a lot of rich inner city Swedes I can’t help but feel a bit different. Basically I'm trying to find confidence in my low energy introverted “nature”, but it’s a struggle. My question is, does anyone relate? How come some people can be so extroverted and seem so confident? im just venting at this point lol but just felt like sharing this. No matter what I’m working hard on building self esteem as I strongly genuinely feel the desire to actualize the confident version of me that I know is somewhere underneath the layers of fear and social conditioning. thank you for reading

In those situations I find that you just have to force yourself to say it anyways. Simply force it out. Period. Sometimes it might happen that you mistakenly interrupt someone, that is okay. Sometimes you won’t get the reaction you desire and it will sting in you. That is okay. Sometimes you might even get a negative reaction. That is okay too. Sometimes you get into a “flow” where you say something, a conversation starts and now you act spontaneously, that’s the point you want to get to. But drop the idea that you have to be super energetic like a stereotypical extrovert. The goal here is to get comfortable, overcome fear and express yourself authentically, not to fit some societal idea of a confident fun person. If you say something and it didn’t turn out how you wanted and you cringe and feel awkward. Allow yourself to feel that. Feel into that emotion. See it positively, the more you get triggered the more you can accept it and become immune to judgement. How can you get over the fear of talking if you don’t talk? How can you get over fear if you don’t face it? A couple of days ago, my crush came up to me and said good morning. I said it back but then I kept silent, because I’ve stopped forcing myself to speak when I have nothing to say (it’s been helping my confidence actually). He noticed my nervousness it seems and he was like “hello?” and smiling. I felt nervous and so damn awkward, but afterwards it felt good in some weird sense, becuase I realized that it wasn’t as scary as I thought. Yes it was awkward and so what? Did I die? No. You can do this. I’m struggling too, we’re in this together.

Yea I feel like there is this tendency when one does spiritual work to overestimate how much one has grown in consciousness so I try to be brutally honest with myself.

I struggle a bit with the idea of accepting myself since I feel like I’m constantly changing, how can I accept my introversion when in another moment I’ll feel energetic and extroverted, what is it I am accepting? I tend to try to accept specific emotions I’m feeling or specific situations instead. I’ve had a hard time resonating with the term creative since I associate it with artsy aesthetic stuff which I don’t find myself passionate about. I know it’s a broader term though. I’ve never thought about it that way. I do find though that when I do activities that feels in alignment with my vision for my life (eat healthy, meditate, study effectively etc) I feel that it helps my confidence so perhaps.

@Batman very true. Everything you wrote hits home for me. I’ll keep trying to express myself authentically more and more, so I can finally break out of this cycle, seriously. “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens” - Rumi

This is what keeps me going honestly.

I’ve contemplated this a bit. I want to spend more time contemplating but my time is mostly consumed with studying lol Well well. The thing is that I’ve overcome a big part of my shyness. So when I meet new people, even if they seem very social and extroverted, I won’t be particularly anxious although a bit of fear can come up. Why? I guess my ego wants to identify as a confident, fun, interesting person. To be able to do that there has to be something happening in reality that validates that I am that way, such as people laughing at my jokes. A newbie tennis player might feel insecure around pro players because they think those players judgements are true, since if you are good at something you can detect if someone is bad at it. The newbie thus trusts the pros judgements. This seems to be similar to my case, I’m insecure around some people since I consider them to be good at socializing, thus being able to detect when someone is bad at it. So I’m afraid of saying or acting in a way that could potentially bring about their judgement, let’s say a look of disapproval. If they give me that, it must be true that I’m bad socially right? So in that moment when I’m getting bad approval or a lack of approval , I’m identifying/feeling like an awkward person, which hurts my ego becuase I don’t want to identity as that. what causes the lack of confidence from the beginning? Why can’t I just go into the situation confidently from the start? Something went wrong in my childhood I guess. Insecurity started as a young child and has since become an self fulfilling prophecy or whatever that fancy term is. Feelings of Insecurity from whatever unknown cause -> acting awkwardly -> receiving feedback from others that I’m awkward-> idea of myself as awkward strengthens, on and on . so I have to break out of this cycle in some way, by self inverting as you say. I try to express myself more and more just for the sake of it. It’s been giving me some progress actually. When it comes to disconnection from sensory experience, I have this a lot from a young age. It gets stronger from my daydreaming addiction, but the more I express myself the less the impulse to daydream becomes it seems.

That’s true in a way, since in certain situations I feel more energetic and extroverted compared to the other people I’m talking to. I’m trying to let loose and relax yes. I just feel like there is some mental block in my head sometimes.

@bloomer Nice to know somebody relates. As you say, extroversion isn´t special, and they also have flaws, but its hard to realize that sometimes. I think as long as one has a flawed perception of oneself, one will have a flawed perception of others. So the solution here is to work on ourselves, and it will translate to how we relate to others, I think. When it comes to small talk, thanks for the advice you linked, but I personally think I´ve come to a point where listening to advice on how to socialize does more harm than good to me. Because it makes it seem like my problem is a lack of social skills, but I´ve realized that it´s rather a problem of fear. When I am relaxed I can small talk easily. So I suggest you to ask yourself the same. Is the problem that you lack social skills and need to learn how to small talk better, or is it that you can small talk when relaxed, but fear gets in the way sometimes? Perhaps both, one can always improve social skills of course. But as of now, is your biggest obstacle fear/low self esteem instead of lack of social skills? If it is the case, you might have to reconsider how to go about your problem Thank you for your kind words.

Hahahhahah I wish I could have that mentality irl

@Gesundheit2 That’s where I’m slowly heading. I’m working on myself so I can come to a point where I’m comfortable enough to express myself authentically. It’s going but it’s going slow, which frustrates me. Anyways beautiful analogy.

@Leo Gura Thank you for your straightforwardness. I’ll try my best to think like that