Jastilus

Thanks, it means a lot to me having done something good for somebody.

I startet at the age of 37, after 10 years of hardcore drug abuse, not being able to work for 8 years after dropping out of university half-way through and getting violent in my marriage. My life and that of my wife was just a big pile of shit, twitching nerve spasms, thoughts running amok in our brains and an unability to show the love we had for each other when we married. In August 2015 we bought the life purpose course after watching several videos of Leo to really get clean and make a difference this time by finding a life purpose that is strong enough to stop hunting excitment with drugs and other hollow pleasures. I can't really say why, but the way Leo talks and describes these concepts really appeal to me, so he got through were others didn't. Since then we watched the videos and took time between them to really comprehend and understand them. The first 40 videos are concepts and it took me until February 2016 to really grasp them, make the interconnections, understand them, watch my behavior in the sight of these principles. Since March I worked to find and test my top ten values (you can look them up in m y profile). I had to correct them 5 times and make all the exercises again since yesterday. Now I have the feeling I really got through to my positive motivated values, so I can progress to assess my strenghts. I have succesfully stayed away from amphetamine for 2 months know and did significantly reduce my abuse beforehand from sleeping only 2 nights a week for years to one 2-3 day session every second or third weekend. When I din't take ampehtaime I drank nearly a bottle of whisky a day and I have reduced this to drinking a beer or two on the eveneing and not every evening. The violent fits I threw have stopped completly and the love between my wife and me has taken root again and grown back into our lives. Right now my journey is to maintain a constant state of awareness of my behavior. I still have many things to correct, to overcome, to discover and to let go, but I can now "see" my behavior all the time, even when I can't manage to do the right thing at least I am aware of it. When I watch some of Leos free videos or make the exercies from the course I often need a couple of days to really grasp the meaning and to accept the truth of the concepts. This leads me to very emotional states where I may cry like I seldom cried in my life, when I discover bit by bit, that the devil designing my pesonal hell has been myself the whole time. It is really very hard emotional work and I often feel exhausted after doing an exercises that requires to dig deep in myself. Since two month I don't beat myself up anymore, when I allow myself to smoke some weed or drink a beer and watch an episode of Downton Abbey and that has reduced my smoking and drinking, as I am not addicted to "Not drinking" anymore. I read "The Big Leap" from Leos Book List and must say this book was an eye opener for me, it is just full of truth and written in a very warm and nice way. Right now I am reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and this book is also full of gold, every page an eye opener. Normaly I could read even a big a book in mere hours, as I am a very fast reader, but these books I read one or two pages a time, because they are so full of really deep ideas and truths, that I often need weeks to really think through just one chapter and correct my own flawed and incorrect views. Right know I am at the state of fighting an inner battle to allow myself a real glimpse of hope, of an optimistic outlook on my future and that of my wife and son. I invented this game (to be playful about it is an idea from 'The Big Leap') where I make a grimace that fits, if I become aware of any neurotic or limiting behavior I do at the time. So if i get awareness of nagging about something, I make the grimace that fits to be nagging somebody about shit. My wife loves this and plays along so we have fun doing this work on ourselves together and even my son gets a laugh out of it, if he gets a glimpse of it. I hope that helps and wish you the best, your plan sounds good, you won't regret it. The course changed the trajectory of my life dramatically and I am but halfway through. Just my advice is to take your time to do it, although do something related to it every single day, like watching a free video, really deep thinking about a concept, have a talk about it with somebody who cares, post something here in the forums etc.

Print out photos the size of postcards and frame them behing glass. Learn to lick the glass with no emotional or thoughtful response to the photo behind it. Take a blank white sheet as reference how you feel when you know there is nothing but paper behind the glass. Useful photos could be: - The picture of a smiling face of a woman / man you find attractive. - The picture of an aroused sexual organ of your own gender / opposite gender. - The picture of an animal you find repulsive in great detail. - The picture of a humilated human body. - etc. I find it very hard to do, but just testet it once after watching the video with the picture of a disgusting spider.

I don't want to sound like an advertisment, but I bought Leos Life Purpose Course in August 2015 and right now I have worked half-way through it and already got significant changes from it in my life. As Leo says you can only overcome a strong ego I would suggest you start with your life purpose and make your ego strong, as that is actually a part of the path to being enlightend. After investigating my values thorugh this course (a painfull process over 6 weeks for me) I started looking enlightment and meditation guides from Leo too and could "comprehend" the concepts far more easily then 8 months before, when I first startet with conscious self-actualization. Learn about your values and your strengths and when you have built your life around these values and strength, you have a way better starting position to pursue enlightment from my experience.

I think you focus too much on what the media sees as "impact on the world". I am pretty sure if you would summarize all effects Jesus Christ and Leo had on the world and people, then Jesus Christ would have "more effect" but from my subjetice viewpoint a very negative effect if you just summarize everything that his person inspired others to do. This may not have been his intentions, but it was the result. I think you need to be VERY clearheaded to really control and direct the influence you have on the world and the biggest influence on me personally are seldom some big media figures, but the ones I chose to really listen to. Satirical overpointed: - I don't see Ghandis very big influence as "peaceful resistance" doesn't seem very popular ourdays. - Abraham Lincoln can't have had much influence if you look who represents the republic party ourdays. - The atrocitys done in Jesus Christs name and the hate against homosexuals etc. still grown in his name by far outweighs his positive influence on the world as a whole. - Martin Luther King didn't half as much to bring the races together as rap has done the past 20 years alone. He spoke of it, but it didn't really reach lots of peoples heart. So in my viewpoint anyone who influences 10 people in a positive way and 0 in a negative has done a better job than jesus christ if you let him take blame for all the things done in his name, although he most certainly may never ever have aproved but did obviously fail to foresee this. That may not have happened if he wouild have spend more time meditating and less preaching. The direct influence from person to person is the most valuable in my opinion and not what the media credits to this or that person, because NO ONE will ever know what or who exactly turned the tide against racial hate in each person or to believe in kindness and giving or spiritual advancement or....

Am I blind, or didn't you mention what age your son is? It sound to me like you should clarify the situation with your wife first. You two need to "speak with one mouth" (that is german saying, I hope it translates) or your son will be disorientated if one parent tells him A and the other tells B. You need to know what values you want to hold up, what behavior is tolerated and what is not and what are the gains for good behavior and what are the penalties for bad. Talk about how problems should be solved in the family, perhaps you want to establish some ritual like once a week or even oce a day (perhabs after dinner at the evening), where everybody is asked to tell of the day and can bring up problems, even about other members of the family. Once you are on the same page as your wife you need to make your guidelines absolutely clear to the biological father. (it sounds like he is still in the picture somewhere). Get him onboard if possible by pointing out the benefits for his son. Then talk to your son together with your wife. Make absolutely clear that you love and support him, but that there are (and must be) rules for people living together. Make clear what these rules are or discuss rules with him, if he is old eneough to give some input. Make clear what he has to benefit and what penalties he gets for disbehavior. Then be asbolutely strict about this, you really need to get your wife on board with this, because a child deserves and needs a predictable enviroment to learn how to cope with the unpredicability of life outside of your home. Home is the safe base for childs, here you should know what action has what result. After that be loving, kind and live the values you want him to learn. That is the hardest part for sure, my 5 year old son reflects EVERY single one of my bad behaviors and attitudes. I critisize my wife for shit, so does he. But the good part is, when I am loving, compassionate and kind, he is too. He just has a lag in this of 2-3 days. I think this lag gets longer, as they grow older, so you might have to be that good example for weeks or month, especially if he has traumatic experiences with an abusive father figure.

My wife had the issue that she needed to sleep 12+ hours a day or was constantly tired. After extensive research on the internet we began to eleminate possible reasons and after a hormone check she was diagnosed with Hashimoto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashimoto%27s_thyroiditis ), which is an auto-immune illnes of the thyroid gland. Wikipedia: "An average of 1 to 1.5 in 1000 people have this disease." My wife got hormones she hast tot ake every morning and her condition has greatly improved and she isn't that tired anymore. Every doctor should be able to check for this with a blood test. Hope this helps and best of luck in resolving this.