manuel bon

🟢 Meditation I haven't meditated for some days now. I am feeling low, depressed, and pretty empty. I watched Leo's video titled How to fall in love with life. It's a great video, even though often it focuses too much on falling in love with consciousness, which is too deep and developed as a topic. At the beginning he says that it's important to have awakenings into the nature of reality to love consciousness, but I don't think this will really help my human life situation. But the rest of the video was really great, motivational, and inspiring. I want to live a fulfilled and meaningful life, I want to get better and be proactive!

i came back to NL, I was strong and motivated. I went to the gym and had a great session. The day after I got sick. I was so sick for a whole week, I had 39°C fever, now I'm okay, but I am not normal 100%. This year I have been sick many times, I don't know what's up with my body, for sure it's psychological. I can't wait to feel normal again. When you are not okay physically, when some sickness really puts you on your knees, only then you can see how valuable real normal health is.

I am not feeling great right now. I am back in the Netherlands, and I'm back to the old relationship "problems". Every time my girlfriend and I are apart for some time, when we meet again she feels weird. She knows we are in a relationship, why she likes me and why we are together, but somehow feels like I'm a stranger. This feeling lasts for a couple of hours, or one day, then it fades away and it passes. I always support her with everything and try to give her a lot of space, but she feels like she becomes trapped in a cage, where she doesn't have space to organize the way she wants, eat the way and what she wants, and more. We talked a lot about everything, and it looks like it is in her mind, since I always let her do whatever she wants. She is Spanish and I'm Italian, we live in the Netherlands, I will have to go back to Italy after my Master to help my mom with my dad, and she wants to work in an orchestra. Since it's very difficult to win a place in orchestras, it's very probable for us to be in a long distance relationship in the future, or even not be able to be together, since we wouldn't know when we can be together. I am more grounded and live in the moment, and try to think of what we have now, not of what we will not have in the future. But she is very paranoid, anxious, and overthinks a lot. This aspect is present in many aspects in our relationship, also when it comes to sex. I am not going into detail because it's very personal for her; for me it's important to have a healthy sexual relationship, it's important to simply have one. I feel like I try to adjust myself more in this relationship, and I am the one who thinks more about the other's wellbeing and safety. I am not saying that she doesn't do it, but she's kind of complicated and sometimes childish for some things. I accept her the way she is, and I want her to feel good. What I am tired of, is feeling like I am the one who always has something to teach, or to take care of her.

@Leo Gura what do you think of Eckhart Tolle's teachings?

I'm happy I'll go back to the Netherlands tomorrow, cause I'll finally live with my girlfriend. We will be sharing an apartment with another Spanish girl. I feel this is a great new beginning for us! I miss her.

Yesterday, dad was very good, he was normal mentally speaking. I was happy and surprised. But then in the night something changed, and he became again the same old disabled person, and he disturbed everybody's sleep. I felt bad for my mom who has to sleep with him always (for emotional reasons - not only for him, but also for herself -, but also for safety reasons - if he stands up in the night he might fall or hurt himself), but still, when he acts like yesterday night, everyone wakes up cause he makes a lot of noise. I didn't sleep much, but I feel rested, probably it's because of meditating (which is great).

🟢 Meditation Today I did around 35 minutes of guided Prana Darshan meditation. It was nice, but I didn't love it. As I said yesterday, I have preferred simple body scans until now. It gives me more physical relaxation, and I feel like it's a deeper meditation.

I am a classical musician, and also for me it's pretty boring sometimes. Classical music is generally for the 'elite', and it's very uncommon that someone who's not a musician really appreciates it. It very sophisticated, and most of the time you need to be understand it to be able to really appreciate it (and to understand it you need to be a musician, or at least you should know some theory). Even if I think that it's often boring, I also have to say that there are many classical pieces which are so great and deeply touching that go emotional beyond any other music genre.

How to do it? I'm usually not angry, but when I am, I see that I have lots of suppressed anger ready to come out. If I tell myself to calm down I suppress this emotion. I'm learning to be mindful and present with anger, but still when I'm angry I become like an animal, explosive and violent. I need help.

I've been drinking lots of water and doing exercise daily. When I go back to the Netherlands I will start going to the gym with my girlfriend. I'm motivated! The key is keeping these practices also when feeling down.

Dad was very good yesterday, and looks like today is gonna be a good day. Yesterday in the evening, it almost looked like my real dad came back. That's great, it would be amazing if he'd have these moments more often.

I am happy. I am meditating every day again, and I really feel the effects through the day(s). I want to keep this practice and slowly build it up and do more spiritual practices (like holotropic breath, and more). I want to improve with my daily mindfulness, and stick better to the exercises from Eckart Tolle.

🟢 Meditation Today I meditated for 30 minutes. I did a guided Soha Ajapa Japa. It was the first time, and I liked it, but nothing special. So far I prefer the simplest meditation, the Kayotsarg. Simple body scan and focus on the body. Maybe I say like that because in this one I can let my mind wander more, and the others I need to focus more. For now, I am going through a list of guided meditations, which I will end mid next week. Then i will choose the one I prefer the most and stick to it.

@Ulax thank you! all the best to you too!

Damn, which strain?

It records the conversation

@Letho thank you for sharing your story yes, if you want to share your insights please do! thank you so much!!

When you're dead your family suffers, but you don't. It's easy to not get personified with an irrelevant character (or their family) that dies in a book or movie. Rape is more intimate, it's also a psychological kind of abuse, and even if it's an irrelevant character you still feel them cause it's so deep. I would prefer to be killed than being raped (I know it's selfish to some extent, but still).

Today I did 20 (out of the 30) minutes of Chakra Suddhi meditation. I really didn't like it. I was distracted, and I thought about how silly this guided meditation was. I am aware of the fast that meditation should be about letting go, accepting the present moment, but since I am not the most experienced meditator, it was difficult not to judge, and be able to focus, or not overthink the ridiculous meditation. If I have more space alone today I will do another one.

Today was a good day emotionally speaking. I am scared that in my life I'll let myself be complacent, and fall into social constructs and ideologies, because that's the easiest to do. Just let myself live the way everyone does, and not actually be able to detach from all that. I'm scared because it's difficult. I'm scared because nobody around me or close to me wants to do this kind of work. But I have to do it, I want to!

@Terell Kirby thank you for the advice! Do you think it can be a good business idea? I think it's something innovative, but I'm not sure it can work out.

I share here the last thing I wrote in my journal, because I would like some help, or feedback from you. This post is both about my personal development and business, so if you think that this post belongs to another section, you can move it. Before summer 2024, I was all about selflessness, meditation, calmness, and this kind of living. I didn't think about money, I was almost fully in the green stage of SD (at least this is how I felt). I didn't judge people, didn't like gossip, trying to be good with people. A negative thing was that I was smoking a lot of weed, sometimes even daily. I love weed, but I understood that it's not good for me, I would not let myself feel the emotions I had, and it harms the body. Now I see, that after that, I went back to stage orange. Well, actually maybe I never was in that stage fully, since I'm still a student, and I never made money, and didn't live life "as an adult". I started investing, I want to start a business, and make lots of money. But I see that the way I act and the way I am is not the same as before. I talked about this with my girlfriend, and she said that I can be at this stage, think about starting a business and making money, but my values can still be the same from last year. I can still meditate, not complain and judge, not gossip, etc. And that's true, I agree with her, but I am scared because I don't feel like before. I know things change, our body and mind are different every day and change, but I don't want to feel the way I feel. I decided to start a business while I'm still a student, I want to teach meditation and mindfulness to musicians, since I know that these practices are not taught or known a lot in this world. I started an Instagram account and a website, offering coaching and guitar lessons (I am a certified meditation teacher, finished my bachelor's degree in classical guitar, and am currently doing the master's, with my thesis about this topic). I am happy because this is a more conscious business in my opinion, but I don't know how to scale it. I don't have customers yet, I have under 100 followers on Instagram, and the ones I got are only because I spent 20€ in advertising a post. I feel I'm just starting out, but hopefully this can be something great. I would love to hear your opinions about my situation, and even some ideas and help regarding this business. Do you think it's a good idea? thank you for reading

I didn't watch all Leo's videos about that, but from what I remember I thought that SD was more intuitive and easier to understand. But of course it's a completely different model. I should start reading about the 9 stages

True. Even if I feel kinda different, my values haven't changed

Yeah you're right