Elisabeth

Btw. your zone of genius is not very clear to me. You think or write, but the output is ... what? What is it that you're excellent at? Can you put a finger on it? As for your medium, maybe it's ok to not decide just yet? Maybe it's ok to try out a few different projects/artforms and decide later which one suits you best? Maybe it's ok to take your impact statement and walk around with it in mind for a while, looking for all the different opportunities there are? Btw., don't take me too seriously, I'm basically stuck in the same place of the course

Make songs or help produce a musical movie/theatre (just to widen your pool of ideas)

Separate layers of "truth". We may ultimately be one (I have no idea yet if that's true). But on a lower level, on the level of matter a and a separated self, sure, you have your body, your genes, your personality. If YOU are falling for a girl, she is real just as you are real. Meaning also lives in this relative world. Also, you do NOT have to work towards realizing the absolute truth. Who sais you have to? You only do it, if you're curious about it and want to do it.

The real riddle to me is ... why did learning about spirituality stear you away from that happiness? Why didn't you just stay happy and more aducated about possibilities? Why wouldn't you continue to take life as it is, and perhaps incorporate meditation, and continue to take that as it is? It seems you might have fallen into either depression (which could happpen even without spirituality) of some kind of a trap on the path. Or both. Don't focus on "what was wrong with my life". Try to find out what's going on NOW. I'm not sure, do I make sense?

Uuu, nice catch of a video I'd add that arousal/orgasm is not exactly a goal of this practice. It is meditation. I've done this in a (perhaps slightly less threatening) way, where the man doesn't touch the clit directly, instead he slowly circles with his finger around the inner labia, touching the whole outer genital area. It is a beautiful experience and it does have the potential to heighten sensitivity. You can also reverse gender roles (though I'm not sure about the exact instruction for the touch), preferably not right away, it should be a nice experience for men too. Of course, what you need is both people to be willing and able to stay in meditation.

Certainly not true in general. Damn, sure, the brain is the woman's most powerful sexual organ, but the physicality helps a lot. When in the right mindset with the right partner (sometimes even with a not-so-right partner, lol O:)), touch is awesome. I wonder, Emerald, if you could work more with your fantasies in bed. This... ... sounds almost like you have a learned trigger. Like you can be in your pleasurable fantasy, but then, once touch occurs, your mindset changes too, like it's time to snap out of the fantasy and do the chore. Question is, could you incorporate the physical sensation to enhance the fantasy instead? By all means, try!

@Emerald Eh, Emerald... maybe you are that way... but I doubt it. I'm sorry your husband expects you to have sex. When you take the freedom to explore, it should be possible to find pleasurable activities (admittedly, maybe it's not PIV) and increase body awareness to a point where you enjoy immensely.

I am not sure what to say, could Teal Swan help you?

Most likely, the government will collapse sooner or later, and THEN fast development (influenced from outside) will take place.

Why do you peg your team at green?

Does she know about your romantic feelings? If she does (or even if she doesn't, you'll just have some more explaining to do), I think you could do the same that's recommended after a break up: Take a no-contact break, let the feelings dwindle, then see from there what you want to do. There's a good chance it will be much easier afterwards to continue with a friendship, and set the appropriate level of intimacy for that friendship. Roughly 40 days of non-contact is usually recommended to get a romantic attachment out of your head, but this is highly individual. So you tell her something like that: "Listen, I enjoy our friendship very much. I realize that neither of us wants a relationship at this time, but my romantic attachment makes it hard for me to maintain healthy boundaries. I need some space to sort myself out / let the feelings fade. I would like to do a non-contact period for X weeks to restart clean. I hope this is ok with you." Hopefully, she understands. Then you withdraw, and you don't see her, text her, or follow her on social media. You get her out of your head. When the no-contact period ends, you can go have tea and catch up I've done this twice, with a crush I've had for several months (after he rejected me), and with a short relationship. I maintain good friendships with both men - I do have some tender feelings left, but the clear break helps a lot.

There's your answer.

You can also visit yoga classes - the more meditative kind. They usually put focus on full breath in every session.

Yeah, but if there is no vision, nothing is created. Or?

@Shroomdoctor I have a facebook group and meetups for 22 people, all basically my friends with interest in self-actualization, everyone highly intelligent, educated, kind, capable of critical thinking and out of their teens (and modest, LOL :D). In the short time (4 months) I'm doing this, I had to decide on little issues like: 'Let everyone invite their friends to the group, or should I approve new members?', and 'Should I delete this fun distraction from the facebook page, or let it stand? If I do delete it, is it abuse of power?', and 'Should I set rules, like not letting in people who come late to the meetings?' I became very conscious of competing principles: The need for spontaneity, vs. the need for structure; The need for free expression vs. the need to stay on topic; The need to allow people to co-create the community vs. the need to keep it to my vision; even the need for freedom vs. my needs of comfort running the group (because ultimately, if I let the project expand beyond my limits, I can't lead it and it will likely die, which won't really benefit the people in it). Ultimately you have to make decisions that keep the project aligned with your vision, even if you piss some people off. I'm writing this just to say: It must be incredibly hard to set the correct kind of guidelines for the actualized.org forum, and to decide whether these were broken or not. There will be some threshold Leo has for valid vs. manipulative criticism. We can disagree with him on individual cases. I understand though that perhaps a few of them have added up for you to let the forum atmosphere seem off.

I have been part of polyamorous communities since 4 years now. Polyamory is real, and it's not just men's thing - quite the opposite, on the polyamory.com forum we observe, that most long-lasting happy relationships are or MFM shape. But it's rare and requiring you to develop advanced relationship skils fast. In your case, Hardkill, I can guarantee you're looking into it for all the wrong reasons. Successfully polyamorous people aren't those who don't want to commit fully and wish to sleep around. Successfully polyamorous people usually more like are like "I have a strong bond with so many people, and with some of them, we choose to add touch, but we can take it or leave it" and "I choose partners which are polyamorous too, but I would never ever do something that hurts them, I care about their well-being like my own". Ask yourself, how do you feel if Your girlfriend i sleeping with some other dude? You decide to open up the relationship, and suddenly she has several prospects, while you can't find anyone? (a very common scenario) You have to take care of the feelings, likes and dislikes, of not one, but two girlfriends? (the reality, unless you want to leave a trail of woe behind) You have a new date tonight that you'd rather have sex with, but you have to tell her first that you already have a partner? and respect when she's all confused or rejects you about that? (That's that honesty you are talking about!) Your two partners are in conflict, and you are the one who has to remain calm and impartial and compassionate with both? You'd rather have a sex date with your new sweetie tonight, but you have obligations with your old girlfriend or her family? If you feel "ugh" about any of these, the polyamorous reality is NOT for you. Maybe now you say, "ok, so maybe I'm looking for more open/swinging" type relationship. Still, see point one and two: What if your (hypothetical next one, not this one, since she will hardly agree) girlfriend now has two committed sexual relationships, as women tend to want sometimes? What if he's better in bed then you are? Is it worth the effort to find women who will sleep with you despite your relationship status? Just do your best to commit for now. If the urge to date or sleep with someone else is irresistible, you break up first. I'm not saying you can never do polyamory, but for now, I'm pretty confident you don't have the skills, and it would blow up into your face.

My boyfriend likes that medicine too. He's been going for the last 6 months to like 10 ceremonies or something, and he lost 15kg weight since. I went once for a small "trial" dose, but I didn't like it much. I got one dot, and I wasn't even supposed to purge with that amount, but I did. Afterwards I had a long aftertaste of not feeling well the next day. Maybe it's because I didn't drink enough water, or maybe my body is having a weird reaction, I don't know. Maybe I should try again, but I'm not comfortable with these dots leaving scars, and since first time was weird, I'm not particularly motivated.

Thanks I won't journal individual meetings, because 1) I don't think it would be very useful, and 2) there are privacy concerns because I'm writing about other people, so this is about the level of detail I'm willing to go in. Most of the depth is nonverbal experience anyway, it's not very transferable. How would it be useful to you?

I want to report back on this lost thread that: It's working! Yai! Quite amazingly! We've had about six evening meetups so far, and they are interesting and diverse. I've introduced people to basic pranayama and the 'do nothing' meditation, someone else has introduced vipassana, we've had systemic constellations exercises (by a friend who's taking a training), we had an experienced lady as a guest talking about her journey, we have contemplated death, we've shared personal stuff and there's trust in the group. Really cool. The things I think we're doing right: meeting regularly and having some structure to the meetings (I keep track of that), having more people with different PD paths who can lead a bit of the program, keeping it rather fun (going at the pace of the slowest person with the exercises while sharing more advanced experience), encouraging sharing by sharing food ;), having a facebook group for the links and events, and mostly just being supportive and caring about each other The things that didn't quite work out: We are not as diverse a group as I hoped we would be, as some people didn't show up at all, and it seems it's mostly my male friends who resonate and come regularly. So it's usually like 6:2 in favour or guys :D, and a bit of the intuitive side is missing. All in all, I would love to encourage everyone who feels the potential around them to start such a project

I'm in a similar boat. When watching the video, self-inquiry made some sense to me for the very first time. Before, I would not get anything out of the "who am I?" question, because I would get stuck on some particular feelings. This time, when looking for the I, I think I managed to keep my mind focused on the inside without a thought a few times for maybe two three seconds, and during these periods of time I started to physically tremble. I take it as a sign of being onto something. @Leo Gura

I remember one depressive morning a few years ago waking up and feeling no desire whatsoever (except perhaps for the desire to desire again). There was no reason to do anything, no reason to go on, no reason ...whatever. There wasn't even pain but there was suffering, so I remember just sitting on the floor and rocking back and forth, wondering with my very limited capacity to wonder what the hell happened and if I'm going to be this way now. It was one of the worst feelings in my whole life. So in that way I relate. What happened afterwards is that eventually, I had to pee and that got me up and thankfully the state ended. In my experience, losing a desire you've always had is usually temporary. It usually happens if you're too exhausted and preoccupied to go after that thing you desire. As you get better overall (and you will), the desire will reemerge. I'm sorry I don't have better advice for you than "wait it out", but I'm quite sure it will work.

Imho the best teachers (people who lead personal development workshops etc.) nowadays synthesize western therapy with spirituality or new age stuff (transpersonal psychology included). If someone only has a background in psychotherapy, they will have limits to how deep they can go with spiritually oriented people. If someone only has a background in one spiritual school, they will often be dogmatic. If someone only has self-help/new age background, or no formal education in any school at all, they will often lack structure, lack a method, and usually hold on dogmatically to their favorite theories/superstitions anyway. I'd much rather learn from someone who has both western AND eastern background, who has taken a training as a therapist as a basis for their work before adding spirituality on to it, than someone who has no formal background at all. What I'm saying is, you don't have to get a Master's in psychology specifically, but consider a training in your favorite therapeutic school. It does make a lot of sense even if you then later want to work with people in your own way.

@Michael569 I think you can 1) hold two contradictory hypotheses instead of beliefs (either global warming is human-induced or not, some people are not sure) 2) use two different models to describe the same thing, kinda like wave-particle duality 3) hold contradictory beliefs which are contextual: eg. in general I believe that people should dive into their emotional world and sort out their childhood shit, but if I see someone lost too much in his head, I believe he or she should take some real-world action instead. Another example, I believe there is a physical world made of matter governed by physical laws, but I realize for some people everything is spirits, so if I go do a shamanic ritual, I'll do my best to dive into a different metaphysics for a few hours (point 2 or 3). I'm probably not solid yellow, but I see this capacity increasingly developing in myself. Just notice how you switch between paradigms, if you do.

Clearly, your classmate didn't handle his part well. Now he's stressing and externalizing blame. You don't have to take on the blame, however, it's an experience for you - next time you supervise something, maybe you could check in earlier, and tell the person that "hey, you should get started with the documentation too, it's more work than you imagine". As for helping him with his part or not, that's kind of up to you, and also what kind of relationship you have with him and want to have with him in the future. Being generous, disregarding the accusation and helping him now is the difficult thing to do, and likely the choice that will make you proud of yourself. But you are under no obligation to do so.

Ehm O:) I'm staying after all. I negotiated some free time after my last exam to hopefully help with the tiredness. No idea about my career after the phd, but I'll just finish it. Why? Honestly it was a somewhat desperate decision made while I was down and felt like I could not go on. Now I think I still have some debt in science, in that I haven't tried some stuff that I wanted to try out.