Clarence

Maybe, but at the same time, it's a constant reminder that I will hurt him if the love doesn't become reciprocal at some point… so as an anxious person, it was causing a disservice to both of us as more anxiety doesn't lead to more love. I think he lacked the capacity of seeing through my eyes and feeling how that was making me feel. But that was a first experience, so I didn't know where to stand and how to really express myself… That's completely true, though it is so so hard to put into practice… Thanks, I'm interested to try. I don't want to take any medication because I don't want potential interactions with psychedelics, but I've read that rhodiola has a short half-life, so it seems fine to try it :).

@mmKay Thank you for sharing your journey.

@manuel bon Thank you. I remember my first boyfriend who would tell me every day "I love you", and I would just smile and stay silent. He said it was ok if I didn't have the same feelings, but that was still awful to hear those words. Maybe I was not good enough at setting boundaries. It would have been better if I had asked him to stop saying that altogether, especially so early into the relationship. Indeed, but that's so hard to do if they will feel hurt and let down. But I guess I have to learn that it is an unescapable part of human relationships, something I have to get used to... Of course, it also works differently from one relationship to the next. @Buck Edwards Thanks for the good advice. It's very well expressed. Learning to listen, trust and act upon one's instinct, intuition and feelings is maybe what I'm missing the most. Though it's a very difficult skill to acquire. I've gotten into the habit of softening my speech or adapting my actions in order of not hurting others; I nearly always put other's wellbeing before mine because I've been hurt a lot my whole life and I know how bad it feels. Now I am really afraid of being the reason others suffer (when breaking up with someone who likes me, for exemple). I can see that it is not healthy, but it is extremely hard to get used to that. It plays in my mind for so long after I hurt someone. @Princess Arabia Have you tried it personally? I'd be interested to hear your experience with it if you have.

Thank your for your sharing, it's very helpful. I've been in situations where the people I was with had more feelings than I had, so I felt pressure right from the start not to hurt them and desiring to 'match' their feelings. But it's a beautiful story you share. I wish it will happen to me too at some point. It's a great exemple of giving it a chance even if the feelings don't arise quickly or if there are doubts questioning the relationship for quite some time.

I really don't think you can genuinely love someone romantically by forcing it, by "putting it there", as you say. I've tried. It doesn't work. I've never romantically loved someone out of a conscious decision. It just happens if it's meant to, whether I consciously want it or not. In the same way, I can't decide to be sexually attracted by a person if I am not. But maybe you're different. I'm not really looking for a definition of "falling in love" here. I just use this term because everyone understands it, to mean a love which is romantic and, most of the time, includes a sexual attraction.

Thank you, @Princess Arabia. Your answer is sweet to read. I feel like you're very on point too. Though I had wished that some people would have shared a similar experience to mine, not to feel like I am the only one in this situation. That's correct, I have so much fears and anxiety. It likely plays a big role in the difficulties I have in dating. But honestly, I don't seem to be able to reduce my anxiety, or I haven't found a practice or therapy so far that works for me.

@Raze Thanks for the videos. I listened to most of the first one and some of the two others, but I don't find them answering my questions.

Ok… though it's still as hard to meet someone willing to. Or I was just unlucky so far. The only one I met who was interested didn't understand English well enough to listen to a video. Honestly, I don't know what else I can realistically expect out of a relationship. I'm not into sex so much and I'm not interested in girls either, which makes dating harder. The last person I dated said he had never been on dates with someone for so long (6 dates total) without having sex. We never had sex and stopped dating because I didn't fall in love and he was working too much. Another one, I went on 4 dates with without sex either. And we stopped dating. I need to be in love to be interested in sex with someone, but I don't fall in love that easily. So that's complex at the start of a relationship. Forcing oneself into sex is not much fun and quite uncomfortable too (I tried in my first relationships). I experience things a bit upside down compared to most people, which is why I feel a bit confused about my situation and don't know what to act on. My most successful relationship… I was in love with my (sexual friend) partner but he wasn't in love with me. So quite bad still. Very bad. But sex was good and it was fun. The secret to this working: I fell in love before manifesting interest. But to reproduce that to find a balanced relationship seems like a fantasy and doesn't make me feel like I am in control. But how much in control are we of our romantic feelings? So confusing. @Leo Gura If you have other advice, they're welcome. You may just say that I'm doomed and that I complain too much

Not just the journey, but also being in a relationship itself is distracting and time-consuming. It makes me question how worth it it is to have a partner, especially as there are pretty much no chance to meet someone with the same passion for psychedelics and Awakening. I hope I'm wrong, but so far, I've not even met a single person around me who even knew about Actualized.org or 5-MeO-DMT. So I have very little hope to meet such a person some day. They would, on top of that, need to be a good match on a relationship level to be relevant. If you can't share your deepest trips with your partner, and feel understood, and also listen to their own Awakenings… what's the point of the relationship. There is so much disappontment for me not to be able to connect on this level with a partner. That is what I desire most out of a relationship. Everything else to me seems irrelevant, but at the same time, I'd crave to share those things with someone. Am I wrong to be so defeatist… I don't know, but I don't think so. Even on the forum, it is so rare to read members who are positive on psychedelics, God-Realization and Alien Consciousness. How impossible it would be to meet such a person in my country to build a relationship with. @Leo Gura I hope you could tell me to stay positive and have hope that such a person exists. It's hard to do the search if you don't believe it will ever be possible to find what you desire. I really don't know what else I could want out of a relationship. Nothing else really matters if my partner can't understand the depth of who I am and of who they are.

@Girzo I don't care about Sadhguru.

Many people do. Some have spontaneous flashbacks, others get to know about their past lives through the Akashic Records (you can learn how to access them yourself), or through past life regression hypnosis. You can look into Michael Newton's work, who specialized in regressions in the period in between lives, but he also talks about past lives. Through this practice, people can get direct access to their past lives. I haven't done it yet, but it's something I'd like to experience. It would just require more work than average for me because my mind is particularly active. So I would need to practice calming my mind and letting go before attempting a session, or I would fail to enter the specific hypnotic state.

At this level, it is easier for me to grasp. But it is not as easy human to human. I've always felt like levels of consciousness were somewhat independent to human genetics. But now I don't know anymore. It makes a lot of sense like this. The notion of continuity of consciousness is important in the way I perceive things, more important than the finite human body. But in this sense, consciousness could be the reason for certain genetics to be the way they are in the first place, and so things would be reversed. Not genetics causing specific consciousness, but consciousness causing specific genetics, including at the human to human level. Indeed, it's a real strange-loop. [When I say consciousness here, I mean 'individual' consciousness (in absence of a better word).]

But then… his consciousness here is somewhat independant from his body, as it kept evolving with different genetics.

Ok, I did not see that, but thinking more deeply, it actually seems true. It's a bit confusing to me though. Even scary. I thought that what made my consciousness the way it was was my consciousness itself, not my particular body and genes. It flips everything upside down. I've always felt like my sense of self was strongly separated from my body, as if my human body was a stranger to me, and so, as if my consciousness was independant to my body, but that way of being and sensing oneself could as well come from… my genetics. No wonder I'm confused, it brings me back to acknowledge the existence of my body, and even more so, in relation to my sense of self.

To talk about someone's level of consciousness, wouldn't the word 'innate' be more accurate than the word 'genetic'? I feel like the word genetic emphasize a strong bond with the body, pretty much as if consciousness was produced by someone's body/brain and their specific genes, while the link and relationship between someone's mind/consciousness and their body is very complex and even somehow separate, especially as we believe/have become conscious that physical death is not the end of ourselves, of our consciousness. Innate, to me, doesn't make that strong link with the body, and so better account for the nature of consciousness.

@Husseinisdoingfine Take a break; try to think about something else. Let a few days or weeks pass. You are overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, which prevents you from seeing clearly. Maybe this failure is meant to guide you towards something better. Many times, when we fail at something, we later realize that it was not all that bad or that it was actually good. We might be glad at some point that things happened the way they did. There are many other paths you could take. Right now, you could even take a break from studying for a year to redirect your life, and either choose to start the same major again in another university, or find another field of interest which you will end up loving as much. There are many possibilities waiting for you. You're just not in a headspace to see them right now… which is why taking a break, distracting yourself, doing something you usually like doing, spending time with a friend, or just going through the suffering you are going through, are currently some of your best options. If you think deeply enough, you might even realize that you could regret killing yourself. You are at the beginning of your life. This failure is an opportunity for growth and reflection. Life is hard. It is painful, but you will recover. You must learn to navigate life, as it will go in many unexpected directions. One of your job is to become flexible and imaginative enough to adapt and create new plans after each turn…

You probably did something wrong in the first place if someone hits you in the face.

Is there a way to answer that question? So, what we're really asking, is whether the cat makes a difference between "self'' and "not-self"? Or is it to know whether the cat actually knows the concept of cat as humans use it?

@Princess Arabia Your post made me think about something similar Matias DeStefano talks about. Here's a quote: I've just found this video in which he talks about that, if you're interested: I don't have a definitive answer on that, but I think it's nice to think about. That the universe is a cell inside [our] Mind is easier to directly realize, but the Earth could also have its own form of consciousness and so could be a conscious being with its own awareness, operating on a different level than human consciousness. It is likely to me, and in that sense, we could be the Earth's or the Universe's neurones (as he puts it). I find this interesting. That makes me wonder how it is like/could be like to be the Earth's consciousness or awareness.

There is not much choice, but it's so frustrating that people are not mature enough to handle these things.

I really wonder what those things can be.

Amazing.

How does it work? Do you listen to music you love while lying down or driving? Or is it more specific? What are the kinds of emotions/emotional state you aim to enhance with it?

OCD can be pretty serious. I have a form of it; obsessions are so strong in OCD that it can dramatically impact one's quality of life and mental health. So I understand how it can cause suicide. When something doesn't go right (most of the time, just a tiny detail in the eyes of anybody else), I get very strong reactions and obsessive thoughts about it. I can't distract myself because I am completely consumed by my thoughts. They are extremely intrusive and won't go away. I stop living normally for a few hours or days, until the thoughts and emotions slowly pass. I resist changing my mind or using a technique to calm my obsession so strongly because it feels so wrong. It’s really hard to understand, even for me, because this is not who I am most of the time; it’s my mind and extreme stubbornness controlling me. I think that I have a very deep aspiration to realize something meaningful in this life and that I am particularly strong and capable of enduring prolonged suffering. If I weren't, I would have already commited suicide. OCD obsessions are very hard to live with and often come with depression… for good reasons. So from my experience, OCD can cause serious suffering and lead to suicide if not taken care of, especially in times of crisis.

They are very primal questions (even more so as the last one is not formulated in a tactful manner) and they don't seem the most important to me. I think it would be more important for the male psyche to tap into a woman's overal way of being, feeling and thinking. Though that requires a very high level of intuition, sensitivity and integrity, as well as an effective capacity to truly listen to women and their feelings. – I think it won't ever be entirely possible for a man to fully step into a woman's shoes or for a woman to fully step into a man's shoes. It is extremely hard to do, even more so that all women and men are not identical at all in their own feminity and masculinity. There are very feminine women, but there are also very masculine woman. Even within cis women, feminity is a spectrum. I think that feminity is another important marker to identify what a woman is in conjunction with sex organs, but that's not perfect either, because there are cis woman who are not very feminine, and cis men who are more feminine than certain cis women. Overall though, a woman tends to be more feminine than a man, leading them to wear make up or dress in a feminine way, for exemple, and leading them also to be more in touch with their feelings and emotions, being more sensitive than men in general. In my opinion, the way a person feel inside is what matters most to determine a man or a woman, especially in cases where there is a lot of ambiguity. That doesn't define man and woman, but that is still an aspect to take into account in the attempt of defining those terms. I think there cannot be one simple definition of what a woman or a man is. To me, it is a vague feeling or idea. It's a mix of perceptions, of how people, men and women, look from the outside, and of how I think they think and feel from the inside, which is influenced by my own history, personality, and by everything I've ever heard, seen and thought. The clearest representation I have for what a man and a woman is, is a spectrum in which on one hand is the most stereotypical man one can think of (cis male body, cis male appearance and characteristics, cis male psyche), and on the other hand, the most stereotypical woman one can think (cis female body, cis female appearance and characteristics, cis female psyche). And as we move toward the center of that spectrum, the simplified representation of what it means to be a man or a woman starts to blur; it ceases to be so simple. One could still be a woman, but lacking the stereotypical female appearance, psyche, or body, or any combination of these traits - up to the extent where one would start leaning more towards the center of the spectrum or toward the beginning of the male side. There are so many humans on Earth, with so many differences in-between them, that it is mind-blowing to see that some people think it is easy and possible to divide them all into just two categories—two categories that should determine and define something extremely fundamental and core to their entire being.