Elisabeth

I remember you study engineering, but you may have not yet gotten in touch with the system of financing of universities and the social pressures in them. There's no real freedom to do quick paradigm shifts within a university. To get a job, you need to get published, to get published, you need to be acceptable to a journal who won't take too radical stuff; to get money, you need to get a grant from a grant agency; you also need a phd, in order to get a phd you need the acceptance of some professor, who also can't publish too radical stuff because his career is on the line. You are part of a rigid hierarchy, and you also have to do a ton of administrative tasks, grant application writing, teaching, maintenance. Just forget it. There's no way Leo could do what he's doing in an academic setting. Maybe it's a little better in the humanities, but as a physicist I feel that due to the short-term financing there is no longer any freedom od revolutionary exploration in academia. If you want to stay in research, you're up for some rough loss of illusion.

Did your kids find a life purpose?

@Onecirrus From the word "vulgar" you can see that certain words used to be considered both bad and common. I suggest that labeling certain words as "bad" is a residue of class division, and partly still is a means to maintaining said division. The higher, more educated society uses refined language to differentiate themselves from the mob. It's an ingroup identification sign. That means there's no direct causality with spiral dynamics levels - you could be red, blue, orange and talk either way. Sure, green will tend to reject the underlying division of people. Probably all stages, if they are good communicators, may choose their language according to their audience.

Stuff you can do right now to find your life purpose (in no particular order): - Contemplating from scratch is absolutely great, whether you buy the course or not. Think about these: Your values, your strengths, meaning, what you would like to create in the world, what lifestyle you'd like to live, your fears. - Try a ton of very different things. Your teens are the ideal time to do hobbies and part-time jobs and just sample life. Try to sell ice-cream for the summer, try to program a game, try to organize an event, try to do art, volunteer planting trees (or whatever). If you have any future job in mind, talk to professionals, go see how it really looks like to be doing that job. Be active. Without experience, it's very hard to figure out a LP. - While trying new stuff, you'll naturally learn transferable skills. Social skills, analytic & critical thinking skills, self-awareness, adaptation & resilience. - Find people who are inspiring to you, talk to them, read their biographies. This is enough to have you busy for the next two years, but I think you should still do the course before you decide on a college.

She also has hundreds of hours of free youtube video's.

Or perhaps you could update the thread from time to time with something specific, then people (not just me) can offer you other communication options. I would feel out of place positioning myself as an expert. I have one actually: I noticed your misunderstanding with Key Elements in your thread about locking threads. You missed her point, and she was not willing to clarify. From my perspective, she was being a bit harsh. You were communicating on point, asking her to give you the link between "people with mental illness can't be helped on the forum" and "threads should be closed". What you missed is that your notion of mental illness seems very simplistic and black and white (in that discussion at least). I can't really blame her for not explaining further. To be able to be explicit, she would probably have to write a page-long treatise about boundaries, the blurry line between health and illness, relationships, boundaries again.(*) So in that thread, you were on too different a level of expertise. (*)I'm not totally sure about her point either, but I did make the painful experience that trying to help someone can make you drown in their shit, so I think that's what she was getting at.

@Zigzag Idiot This is awesome. I bookmarked it. @Truth Addict It's very hard to give general communication advice (although some people here show it can be done). Would you like feedback on any specific situations?

Jefferey Martin (the guy who studies enlightenment most scientifically) claims in his book, that even stable enlightenment, which lasted years prior, can be lost under extreme stress. He's had people contact him asking about how they can get their 'fundamental well being' back. A regress is obviously something that does happen and is not unique to the 5-meo path.

Ask yourself if these expectations you had were realistic to begin with.

@Shaun Maybe you want to see leo's "contemplation" videos

Yeah, and the career break tends to be more substantial. Same story here.

I agree. Btw., I'm also 30 and childless. And sure, even liberal parents want grandchildren. The point was, you can balance their pressure with voices who remind you that you do have time and it's ok to take it. It's good that you're getting down to your authentic motivation.

@StarStruck I was wondering where you're from. I thought: maybe some conservative area in eastern Europe. Then I looked. Location ... NL, Netherlands??? One of the more liberal of western countries? In that case I think you might benefit a lot from changing your social circle. Move to a bigger city. Do go to university. Do get an IT job. Do speak to entrepreneurs. (You could start slowly by joining a facebook group for freelancers or something. ) I say this, because there must be people not so far away from you who are totally ok with a guy being single at 35. IT guys who had less luck with girls. Scientists, who have had to change jobs and countries a few time. Career-focused entrepreneurs. Liberal city communities (who tend to be a little more lgbtq+, polyamory, kink etc. friendly, and generally pro-choice when it comes to crafting your own relationships). All these people will help you normalize what you're feeling and desiring. Or maybe you are in touch with peers of yours who also don't quite conform to the norms of the previous generation, you just don't speak much to them. Also, I see your dilemma between "getting a job and a family", and "switching to a career in programming" as a false one. Why don't you get a girlfriend while you are doing your degree or starting your business? You do need to develop a strong relationship with her before you have kids, and that will also take 2-3 years, so why not date seriously? (It's ok if you don't want to, just pointing that out.) As for inner work, you could try writing down all the thoughts/beliefs that are telling you to comform (to your family's wishes), and question each of them. Perhaps that helps a little.

I don't know what you studied, but that's not how college is supposed to be. College is supposed to give you a quality foundation in your chosen field of study. If you want to know the inn's and out's of something, that's where college is valuable. So it's D) Find something that's actually interesting and meaningful to you, then go to a good college on that subject (or start a business on that).

I thought he gave up one on one coaching years ago. He said in one video. He does answer a lot of questions on the forum though.

The full version of the salt water drinking clense is called "shankha prakshalana". Gets it all out. But it is a bit demanding, when I did it (twice) I mostly slept through the rest of the day. I did it because I had mild digestion problems lasting for weeks.

See a psychotherapist too. That's why they are here, to help you get to the difficult stuff.

I'm sure I will Thanks!

I have a lady question. I'm scheduling for the bufo alvarius ceremony. Are there any guidelines as to what time of your cycle does it make sense to schedule your psychedelic trip? For me, there are huge variations in mood. The second week I tend to be most stable and active, the week before my period I can easily get tense or depressed. The day before my period is usually the time when I'm most vulnerable, but also the time when my deepest insights come - I rely of this time of the month to show me what I've been neglecting in my life, what my most recent topic to look at is. Any experience is amplified. I tend to think that I should err on the safe side and go when I'm most stable, but would love to hear any related experience.

@Leo Gura We have a new liberal party in Europe and Czech Republic especially, the Pirate party. They gathered around emerging topics like freedom of speech and authorship rights in the digital age. In CR they have a cool leader who'd go to psychedelic festivals, and choose as their guiding motto "free, educated and digitally connected society". They claim to be in the middle/above left and right, but mostly they tend left. I'd certainly place the highest values of the party green-yellowish, but the execution is often not there. I'm currently a bit of a fangirl, but very curious how this experiment goes. So far it's going great, they have 13% in CR and they are a relevant oppositional force to the populists currently in government. But will the ideas that unite the party be strong enough to keep them working honestly, and working together, for the long haul? I thought you might want to know, and in case you do follow, I'd be interested in any reflection.

I wrote some thoughts on SD and relationships when Leo introduced the model. (I mean the initial post, the thread went awry later) I don't think so. I've been talking to polyamorous people for a lot of years now. And yes, they tend to skew green. (Open relationships, sex only ... I don't know about that, I think they might be more orange.) But the implication doesn't go the other way, green people are not necessarily polyamorous. Believe it or not, there are people who don't have the kind of jealousy you do. When you ask them why they chose poly, they usually say something like 'I've never really understood monogamy, it feels like a straightjacket and it makes no sense. I don't even understand how people can make a clear line between friend and partner. I love my friends and cuddling or sex are just a natural continuation in some of these relationships.' For these people poly is more like a sexual orientation they didn't choose (although for many it is a lifestyle of choice). But they are the minority. That's why I think full polyamory (people having multiple partners with the consent of all involved) will stay a minority. At least for another century, if not forever. There are fully valid reasons why to choose monogamy and/or sexual exclusivity even if your heart is open. You'll probably be less triggered by your girl having soft or sexual feeling for another if you go full green, but the relationship agreements that the two of you make depend on your deep, deep preferences, not on your color on the SD spectrum.

Yes, you'll encounter seemingly contradictory pieces of advice which have both helped people. That's because people are not the same. One person might feel worthless because he's never achieved anything. He might be helped by goal setting and developing discipline. Another person might also feel worthless, but he's an anxious overachiever. Goal setting is his second nature, and in fact, it's the very thing that hinders him from stopping and looking inside. He might be helped by loosening up and doing less. Any time you hear about a technique, you have to think about its prerequisites an limitations.

@Nick Architects (engineers, physicist's, doctors, even philosophers), highly specialized professions, need college no question. Business people... some of the colleges have little substance or provide you with knowledge unrelated to your profession. He hasn't picked a field where he would like to get thorough background. That's why he's questioning.

@luismatos To me it sounds like you could benefit from a) more life experience (yes, including relationships, but not limited to them), possibly leading to life purpose work, and b) western psychotherapy or other techniques aimed at emotional healing and self-acceptance. You're doing advanced spirituality, but your more basic levels of Maslow's pyramid aren't there, including a sense of belonging. It's hard to go after divine love if you hate yourself.

Sorry for the long blank space in my quotations folks, it's google chrome somehow doing that, I don't know how to fix it.