Elisabeth

Our (former?) member @Emerald has a video.

I guess that's the gist of it. (Or at least one of the necessary ingredients.) It's pretty hard to get to the level of awareness where you can do this consistently though.

This is just my opinion based on just my own experience with no real research, but IMHO it IS extremely hard to get out of depression. Half a year for a modest few centemeters above the ground improvement ... yeah that's a typical timeline. I'm sorry for that. It's not fair. Appreciate yourself for having any improvement at all, a lot of people... just don't. It's like you're starting way below zero (if zero is "where most people are at"). You can't even expect yourself to be able to carry out a lot of self-actualization techniques, or get the gains as fast as other people. Congratulations on meditating and exercising consistently, that's not trivial. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think you need to keep at it and next 6 months is another few centimeters and life starts looking bearable. And then ... well likely some day exponential growth will surprise you. (Please google a picture of an exponential right now! :)) You can consider adding some technique specifically designed to work with emotion. Have you got a therapist? Like classical talk or body-centered psychotherapy? They can be an immense support. Keep at it. I'm cheering on you.

Yes, modifying techniques might be dangerous or ineffective. But NOT modifying techniques could also be dangerous or ineffective. Every technique has it's limited range of applicability. It's designed for people with a certain level of awareness and certain (typical) obstacles. But if you're lower than that or have a not-so-typical nervous system or your private set of trauma, just taking on a technique could be dangerous. For example, using the Vipassana-beginner instruction to just watch my breath makes me extremely agitated and anxious really fast. Maybe I'm not distinguishing between concentration and mindfulness properly, or I have an agitated mind, I don't know. Anyway, the do nothing technique works better for me. You have to test techniques for yourself.

@Azote Rather numb and inactive. Depressed thoughts are coming up, but they are quickly covered by tiredness. I suppose it's not a bad thing to feel that way, the travelling has been demanding.

There's a fine line between mental illness and spiritual awakenings. People who are willing and able to guide people through their most difficult times with psychosis are very valuable. It basically requires sitting with the person in their state of mind, sometimes for days and weeks on end, and being present, accepting and conscious enough to not freak out or interfere with their process. I found this mini-videoseries very interesting. Part one explains spiral dynamics. (Not sure why they put half-naked women on the title screen though, heh.)

@Key Elements @Nahm You are both being incredible. It helps so much to even have a platform to talk about these things and someone to listen. I mean it. I did take a deep breath. And I did the imagination exercise. And I calmed down considerably, and then I went home and made myself soup. (Well I also numbed by watching random videos for two hours, but that doesn't sound as much as a happyend ;)) Point is I did stop trying to figure it out for today. I think I'll be able to meditate and sleep now (6 hours shift relative to Nahm, judging on the psychedelic timestamps ;)) Much appreciated.

Lol yeah a lot of us academics are very attached to being smart It's certainly one of my patterns and my self-esteem does hinge on it unhealthily. I've noticed a while ago. I'm not sure that's the most important component of what's going on right now since I've already understood that however intelligent I am (ok you say brain is illusion but I don't buy it yet ) it doesn't help me with emotions or presence or kindness and there are other abilities to cultivate through the spiritual journey, but thank you for reminding me

Ah, it's a backlash, right? (Well, could be. Could be one of my manic-depressive-type cycles. Shit, I'm doing it again.)

I looked. It's more like riding a wild horse, trying to get rid of me (the intention) in every curve. I think I just don't wanna let go of all the things I'm thinking about. Just sitting and feeling the body as I used to suddenly doesn't feel good because this state of agitated "concentration" has a certain appeal (it is no real concentration at all, but has a certain quality similar to single-pointed focus). As if I'm missing out when I try to bring my mind and body not follow on impulse. I also realize that I'm numbing pain a lot of the time. It's more of a feeling of failure and worthlessness than fear.

I sympathize. And I don't recommend doing physics if you're slow at it. Physics courses ARE hard. You don't learn as much nice popular stories you'd like to, it's all math. It's important to actually be able to enjoy the process of your studies. And if you wanna theorize about the universe ... it takes a lot to understand the most fundamental theories on the mathematical level. We're talking about 10 years hard work and then you're a specialist in a really small subfield of a theory. Make physics your hobby. Pick up amateur astronomy, do great photographs and enjoy the image processing. Read popular books such as the First three minutes. If your math skills are good, take introductory courses into theoretical mechanics (you need the Hamiltonian formalism for quantum mechanics) and quantum theory or theory of relativity online, at your own pace. Whatever it is that feels like satiating your curiosity. You could also consider a specialization in numerical methods (solving differential equations)/ computer modelling and offer your technical skills to an institution that does astronomy. There are many physicists today who (are forced to) do (bad) programming because they need specialized software, I think there is a market. That way you could even have a masters in computer science and still earn a phd in physics

Today I realize I'm still very sad about this. I realized that to follow the advice of @Key Elements (and @Nahm ) I would have to change my metaphysics. A month ago I didn't believe in any kind of universal force with the ability to guide me. But I also saw how my approach of trying to figure everything out fails and makes me miserable. So I was thinking that maybe I could give the other paradigm a try. Anyway, what happened is that a month ago I decided to give the thinking about LP a break and focus on work in progress since I had a physics school in Italy and a conference in Turkey planned. Well, that didn't work - the universe hit me hard by 1. bringing back all my relationship doubts (so that I nearly broke up), and 2. with another tonsilitis. So I didn't go for the physics school , and I was ill and depressed for a few weeks, and I lost my meditation and breathing habits/practices I implemented in the months prior. I'm still not quite back on track, my mind is so distracted that when I sit down to meditate I lose the intention within two minutes and just succumb to a random impulse to get up. I'm just back from the conference Turkey though, and I did have a presentation (and survived the anxiety). If was an intense week emotionally, the first two days I was watching my utter disinterest in the experiments (superconductivity and magnetism in nanostructures) which were presented, then some theory talks came about, and I flipped a switch to hope. "Yai, math, maybe I do wanna do this." My supervisor wants to send me to another school on superconducting electronics since the last one didn't work out. There will be some theory, so far so good, but I still have a hard to explain bad feeling about it. I guess the direction is wrong. I tried to find some more general event to help me do a course correction. But the only one I found is so highly mathematical that it's gonna go over my head, like possibly "I got lost in the second lecture and haven't caught up since" over my head. I felt like going anyway, but my supervisor said no way. Maybe I should be more assertive in talking to him, but I don't really know how to do that, especially if my argumentation is based on a gut feeling, and his... on my performance. I mean, I can get all excited about a topic but then I don't follow up with the work. I don't grasp things as fast as my former theoretical physics classmates. I know that. Sigh.

I watched your last video. It's amazing. The animations are amazing, and the content says "I know what I'm talking about". What needs some more practice is your voice, I find it a bit flat and unemotional, which makes it hard to keep attention. One great advantage Leo has is him making things personal, and also putting his excitement in, which reflects in the dynamics of his voice and changing pace of speech. I see you'd like to be a little more objective than Leo, which is totally great (and I mean it), but you still have to find ways to convey positive emotion through your voice. Anyway, great respect. I had a fleeting fantasy about starting a PD blog with the goal to reach people who (like me a few years ago) seek help for their psychological problems but never thought that 'personal development' and 'spirituality' are the words they should be interested in, and also to transfer some of the things I've heard from Leo into my language (since many people still don't dare listen to English content), but I haven't even started.

Btw., @SelfHelpGuy , see if any of this is useful for understanding jealousy More than two Some more links

@Paulus Amadeus I do not (quite) have a sample of people focused on 'sleeping around' (I do know women who like sex a lot, but the people I draw into my life generally tend to put connection before sex). What I do know is that, if the intention is a long term relationship, M-F-M shaped relationships tend to be as stable as F-M-F if not more. The focus on biology .. I also see your point, but I never quite bought into these theories. I know that there are books like "sex at dawn" which claim to have figured it out and probably have a reasonable amount of expertise behind them. They still always seemed to me like justifications of the (rather unsatisfactory) state where male straying and playing the field is more easily apologized ... (although, by the sheer math of two people having sex, is somehow has to be 50-50). IMHO culture is much more important... yes a woman who's unfaithful risks losing here guy more than the other way round, but how much of that is really biology. I guess trusting these stories or not depends on ones personal agenda Yet what I do perceive in myself is a real strong pull towards nuclear family. It's not the case for everyone, but often, yeah: Nonmonogamy is relatively easy if no children are in question (or, if the children get older) - but when contemplating family I do get insecure, competitive etc. I don't know if it's my age and biology ;), wanting to have the man as a secure provider (yuck), or if it's the social structure I've absorbed from all around me (expecting children, relationship escalator, nuclear family... ). But it's a strong pull.

It's ok I think that's quite typical (?especially for women? with a lot of questionmarks around the generalization). It's just a pointer towards what you seek most in the relationship, and most fear losing. It sais that for you, connection is scarce, and that you believe that his connection to others will diminish the one with you. (I'm not saying that can't happen.) I've been reading around on the polyamory.com for a few years now (and I recommend that forum), that's why I can comment confidently. I only have personal experience with a FMF V-type relationship, going on for a few years now, not really sexually open. It's a rather rocky journey, I only recommend it if you're REALLY CLEAR on your resons to do it. I gave a few details in some other thread on open relationships, do a search. There a lots of kinds of nonmonogamy, and loads of different personality traits which leads a person to choose them. Not all feminine is submissive, and not all masculine is outgoing. The woman's desire could be wild and unpredictable. She could have a great capacity to form bonds really quickly. The man could be introverted and stable, or focused on his purpose, without that much desire for sex advantures or more than one relationship. And that's just one modality out of many.

IMHO an actualized relationship is a relationship involving honest, authentic, intimate, loving people. The relationship form isn't deciding. People's authentic preferences are very different when it comes to relationships. Teal Swan has an episode on polyamory. Try watching that. She sais it's the future but people today, including some real masters, are nowhere near it. Leo commented somewhere that polyamory is probably not the way for most people. I don't know their take on general nonmonogamy/ sexually open. Fealing jealousy is normal, even for people experienced in open relationships. You deal with it in a similar way to other unpleasant feelings. You let yourself feel it, and you investigate if there's an important message that this feeling is bringing you. If I was to guess (and this is really no more than that), right now for you, it's about trust (self-trust, and other-trust, they are connected) and stability. You've only known her for one month. Are you really in a relationship, or are you just dating around and playing the field? You have no foundation together. And, if I read correctly, you've already had a number of others ("on average" more then her) - that's a lot of adventure in a short time. On top you don't know how you'll react when she has a partner, and how well your needs will be met in this particular relationship and in this relationship arrangement. That's a lot of reasons to be a little insecure. I call bullshit on that. There's plenty of non-monogamous relationships (I know them online and irl) where the woman is leading the show. It's a generalization that suits your particular wants. It's ok to want it for yourself, but as a statement, drop it.

Whatever your source of information (can you give it?) they likely don't refer to real time-travel. More an uncertainty-relations type of thing. Not sure about details.

Good luck Leo. You're amazing, brave and inspiring. I'm still at a loss as how to integrate the tiny bits of progress I've made with the rest of my life, but without you bridging the divide between spiritual and rational, there would be no spirituality for me at all. Go actualize your full potential.

I have two ideas, which might or might not apply 1) Look at the filters you use at the beginning of the relationship. Maybe you choose a certain type of girls who are not ready to be loving in a relationship yet. Maybe you use offering that support as your main way to approach girls, so that you pull girls towards yourself who are after that support mainly. 2) As suggested, you might have a manipulation pattern going on where you offer that support to get support yourself. It's a very common and very ineffective pattern. See, offering support in itself DOES NOT make you unattractive. What does, is offering support with a string attached. What does, is also the inability to be direct about what you want. You're writing very well that love, support, affection need to be mutual in the relationship, yet it's also the case that expecting reciprocity might not be the best way to go about it. I'm adding two Teal Swan videos, I don't know if they hit your core issue, but I think in some ways they apply; try it, maybe you'll collect little nuggets from her videos.

It's a possibility. it's a rare moment at all when we're without any of the everchanging variety of emotions, unless we're not paying attention to them or not willing to feel. Is that a presumption in your eyes? Could be. But it increasingly lines up with my experience as I'm aware of emotions. I'm not saying he has to feel a "spark". I'm not sure what he meant by "felt nothing" - no eroticism, sure, but no feeling at all... I suggest maybe he's not in touch. But of course I could be wrong. Judging from one description of one moment only, of course it's just a suggestion.

Ehm ... how in touch are you generally with your emotions? If I kiss anyone, I'm sure SOMETHING is gonna come up. Might not be romance, nor shame, but could be a sense of tenderness, or longing, or it could be wonder, or it could be resistance and disgust if it wasn't such a great idea. Most likely I'll be feeling a mixture of a number of emotions. I could be wrong, but "felt nothing" most likely means that you didn't allow yourself to be in touch with your feelings in the experience. If you start paying attention to emotions in interaction with other people, you'll be feeling something the moment they enter the room. Let alone if you touch them. Pretty much always.

"To some extend" is probably a good phrase here too. With psychology, most change is not actually changing yourself whichever way - it's development, and it's discovering of your authentic nature. You've go a similarly deep rabbit hole to go down with sexuality, in fact, it's so tightly bound with your psychology that you can choose using your sexual drive to transcend the ego. But on more basic levels, "changing" your sexuality will be trying out new things with an accepting (observing, meditative-like) mindset and seeing how they feel and if you like them or not. What I find that the very triggers that make you aroused don't change much, but as you drop shame and preconceptions, you discover both triggers that were hidden previously, and new states of pleasure, ecstasy and consciousness. So if you're interested in experiencing touch with a man, try it without preconceptions. It might not get you aroused (or maybe it will), but you might find it's nothing like you thought it would be.

I don't know what you're trying to say, but "I" is a concept (or so they say) "man" is a concept "abusive" is a concept - and a highly abstract and ill defined on to of it It's just a story what you have written. Very far from direct experience.