Elisabeth

Well, yeah, I'm 27 and it sounded like a question I might have posted a few years ago O:) "What the fuck do you mean by knowing myself?" My today's answer is knowing how I react in different situations and what suits me an what doesn't - acquired by non-judgemental self observation. I came to that conclusion, because life threw me into a very difficult situation relationship-wise, which gave me some pretty solid experietal knowledge about what I want and don't want. I'm doing the life purpose course now. If you're looking for your values and strengths, that's exactly what Leo has guidance on in a part of the course, so I just did the exercises and I have my "top" list. Doing so took a few days and was beneficial for sure. The way to generate the list was partly dreaming and gut reaction, but also a lot of relating to experience I've had. I find the values which I haven't "tested" much living in the real world to be vague and on shaky foundation. I think I could follow my own advice and get more new experience

I think that asking questions is brilliant, but much easier if you have experience to build on. Forgive me, but I'm guessing you're young, like teens or very early twenties. If so, if you can get yourself in diverse life situations, that will do a lot for you that meditation can't (in my personal opinion, I'm not that versed in meditation). It's both and, life experience + contemplation & meditation, that gives you self-knowledge. Go live alone, and you'll know if it suits you or not. Go try work you've never done for a few weeks of your school vacation, and you'll know if it's exciting or boring. Have a relationship. If it ends, you'll know how you react to pain, if it continues, you'll know how you love (this particular person at least), both ways you'll discover a value or two of yours. Those lessons are among the clearest ones we get from life.

I hear you.

@Peace and Love Thank you, this is also a very good post. You are spot on with a few things. The lack of control, I somewhat know about it - actually to me it feels like I've already improved a lot on this front (since I was depressed a few years ago). It must still be rather obvious if you can name it from my three paragraphs. I'm doing the life-purpose course now to help me get further on track with what I want. I also do know about comfort/distraction eating. It's hard to stop myself when I'm frustrated with work (or worse, anxious). Nice to hear you learned to work around yours As for food allergies, I haven't considered them much, it's mainly pollen that causes me stress (and mild asthma). I understand the possibility of cross-allergies though. I'm not sure how to tell a food allergy, I only avoid peanuts (my allergologist tests for them) and raw apples (they give me a very weird taste in my mouth). I got a short summary of the diet and I may do it, but maybe it's not the most urgent issue (?) compared to "just" cutting down on refined sugar, and exercise. I'm going to see some holistic doctor in two weeks, I'm sure she'll have some dietary recommendations too.

Thank you! I will go back to the mission statement video, and I think I missed negative visualisation completely, so I will have a look if that one applies. Actually I did start with one simple habit as of now, I'm doing the yoga sun salutation every morning. 2 rounds take just a few minutes, so I might be able to sustain that. I think you're right about strategy. This will be a life-long battle... well, hopefully eventually not a battle, but a path. I'll try to get a clearer picture of the goal, and then (if resistance allows) I'll take the time to do the pre-mortem. I'm setting my timeframe to do this until next Saturday, and I'll let you guys know if I did. On the first glance, resistance is the one huge huge problem, as I said, and yes, sitting with it may be the technique needed (although I am resistant even about hearing that advice, lol). Def not in the right frame of mind now -- let me start with clarifying the goal / mission statement, and retry once that's in place. edit: I just found this https://www.actualized.org/blueprint/resistance . I printed it out, underlined my key points, and taped it on the door of my room. It may serve me well in the changes I want to make (with work as well).

Hi Leo, will you do/release the video on the energetic body you promised when talking about becoming a sage? I would really love to hear the no bullshit explanation on that. All the best, Elisabeth

The ideas I'm thinking about for myself but am too resistant to doing them (feels kind of like admitting defeat): take some course/camp in healthy living for at least a few weeks to get you on track, and/or get someone (doctor, friend, therapist) to supervise you - just someone you tell about your progress or relapse every week. Or maybe a support group. Not being alone might be a little easier.

I think the approach of combining growth and proactivity you want to take is great. I think it may help to realise you still have a lot of time to do some of these things. You can take the little things you really want to do one at a time - so you also tackle one fear at a time - and you've got the next 5 (or 10 or 50) years to do so. How to prioritise? It's your mostly your leisure time, so I would say start with the one that will bring you most joy right now, When that runs its course, you can choose another one. And maybe you'll find that some of the things you feared or wanted are no longer relevant after a few months.

I wonder if yoganidra is supposed to be such a state...

I just want to say that these are really good achievements in my eyes. I don't know if you need ambition or not (I seem to just have some), but what you already did is really good direction.

I don't know about psychedelics, but I know, that your overall emotional state has a significant effect on your ability to study - if you're depressed or distracted by strong emotions (or tired from processing them), your memory and concentration gets so much worse. So if you're dealing with integrating some psychedelic insights, the emotional challenge could be part of it.

Everyone is giving great practical tips, and they are right. I just want to add, that math can be a really beautiful subject, an art form really. They don't tend to show it at school too much. If it appeals, spend some time daydreaming about pyramids (3D geometry) and what the heck the meaning of 'infinetissimally small' is (calculus) If you want a glimps of what a mathematician finds beautiful in maths, you can read 'A Mathematician’s Lament' by Paul Lockhart. It's a 25 pages essay, you can google it.

Leo, have you got any advice regarding life purpose which is specific to women? I'm just working on the course, almoust through my concepts section, and just now it seems to me I've been on a reasonable track. I studied physics and now I am a year into my phd. I bought the course in a moment of doubt about my chosen career, but the talks you have about shattering expectation, and other, reassures me that the difficulties I've experienced are not insurmountable, and that a lot I've gone throught is a necessary part of the path. I think I need to make some twists in my attitude, i.e. acquiring a much more concrete vision of the impact I want to have on my world, but overall the track I am on could be turned into my mission. One of my fears now though is what about family. I'm approching 28, so it's really a time to reapproach my strategy around combining relationships and work - and since my relationships didn't work out, I don't see myself having children before finishing my phd. That's trouble though, since that age between 30-35 is often the age of most productivity and results in science, it's also a time when you are expected to change a few different postdoc positions (often all around the world). Not exactly a huge asset relationship wise, but pretty much needed if your aim is to be worldclass. I believe raising a child is similarly demanding and almost as meaningful as your life purpose. To nurse my children properly, I might want to take a few years out of the workspace. It's very difficult to return to something as demanding as physics (or anything on the world-class level) after a few years. Do you know any resources with tips how to creatively work around this challenge?

I think it's totally worth doing the course before choosing a university major. I think I might not get it at 14, although I consider myself a pretty bright kid - I just didn't have the emotional maturity. 16-17 maybe. If you get other Leo videos, you should be fine, but if you buy it and find it over the top, you can still get back to it every two or three years. Actually, it's unlikelly that you will the purpose that you will stick to in most of your adult life in your teen years - but you can definitelly have a purpose, which will help a lot. Don't make him discouraged. No need to read everything at once, he can save up for the books he really wants later. Besides, there are libraries (or he can put some of them on the wishlist for christmas ).

As a girl, I long lived in the paradigm that touch, let alone kissing leads to a (monogamous) relationship. I wasn't even aware that people sometimes date several potentials at once, before they decide. So while today I certainly don't think that having more then one close person is wrong, what you did may be considered lies of omission - you knew some of them would be upset if they knew you are intimate with others, but you didn't tell. You suspected some of them may be wanting a relationship, but you didn't tell them you're not ready. It doesn't matter if you did wrong or not. I don't hold much of "right and wrong". They could have asked and not place expectations on you. Yet I think the lesson learned, if you don't want to hurt people, is to be upfront. You don't have to say everything you've ever done with a girl, but you should tell something along the lines of "I enjoy very much what intimacy we have, and I would be happy to keep going with it. I'm into (kissing, cuddling, deep conversations, whatever), if you are happy to do so sometimes. But I am not ready for a relationship and I am not willing to date you exclusively. Are you willing and able to sustain a casual relationship?" And all of that preferably before you kiss, or at least very soon after the first encounter. Prevent them from putting their hopes up. It is respectful to give the girls all the information they need to make their own decission. You may end up having less girls, but you will hurt less people and maintain a more honest selfimage. If it's interesting for you, you might want to take a glimps into the polyamorous mindset. I'm definitelly not saying you should have multiple relationships if you're not ready to manage one, but these people have wisdom to tell about honesty.

Whether advanced people eventually stop caring about relationships or not, I am extremelly surprised by the notion emerging in this thread that a (more) advanced person would manipulate their partner. Shit, if I have someone who is less experienced in life and relationships (meaning they don't have as clear hold on what they want as me, aka I'm able to manipulate them), I will be taking all the care in the world to give them enough space to form their own decisions and treat them as equals. It is a responsibility I accept, if I care in the least for my ethics. Manipulate them to take "more pleasure" for me? Push my self agenda upon them? How advanced is that? I personally think that relationships, caring and honest relationships, bring much value and pleasure to our lives and can facilitate our self-development journey. And I certainly don't have to manipulate the other person to gain access to that pleasure - quite the opposite. The pleasure comes from a voluntary participation in the intimacy, the common projects we have and the things we choose to do for each other. The art of respecting and accepting your partner is a learned skill necessary in relationships, as well as the art of holding your boundaries. Relationships may have a timer attached, be it because of death or simply because peoples preferences change, but crossing and joining paths with someone for a bit of the journey is an experience very much worth it.

The information you gave in the first post is not enough. I want to date someone, who can walk the path with me. Yes, I will choose a man whom I can admire for something. He has to be interesting. But that is not solely dependent on life experience. And I hope he can admire something in me as well. It doesn't matter that much, if he is behind in some areas, as long as we both have the will to develop and a similar pace. Naturally, I will lead in some things, and he will lead in others. I will choose someone, who wants to see me and wants to be seen, who can love me and the world, and who is devoted to the relationship and the path we walk together.

I am not quite sure what you are confused about. One of the ways to "see" atoms is scanning tunneling microscopy, which indeed uses electrons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope If you look at the photos on the right, there are atoms seen by the microscope as bright balls (of higher electron density, which proportional to the current flowing through the microscope). People can actually also manipulate atoms with this technique. This is as direct as it gets, but for me personally it's direct enough. There are also countless other ways to study the world of atoms and elementary particles. Of course you can say atom is just a concept. Definitelly our understanding of it is just a model, and as all models, it is flawed. But this model is prooving pretty strong in it's context of applicability. Send me a pm if you're interested in the physics, stick around if you want to replace it with metaphysics, both makes sense.

I wonder. Two years is a long time. And she's got no one else yet? Did she break up with you? Was the breakup dramatic somehow? Would talking to her and finding out what is left help clear something up for you? If there's no hope for the relationship, generally, I think the technique is breaking the habit of thinking about her. Distracting yourself anytime you catch yourself daydreaming about her, stop comparing your current gf with her (for example by appreciating what you have) etc. Also, "loving her from distance" might help a little. Just acnowledge that it's ok to have warm feelings for her, and you don't need her to be close just because you feel something for her. Maybe the feelings will never go away, but you will be at peace with not acting on them.

Be careful there. If you happen to stay in the field you study, you may one day find out that all those differential equations come useful. You may have to reprogram one of these softwares to add a custom cirquit element. (Or you'll meet some older collegue who does all of this from the top of his head before you can even pull out your notebook and you will be seriously embarrased ;)) I started phd and I'm quite surprised about how all the knowledge they had been trying to teach us throughout my years of study bit by bit in different subjects comes together sometimes, stuff emerging which I thought unimportant.

There was a ted talk mentioning a similar disease (although mostly about managing depression), I wonder if it can be of inspiration for you...

I think it is very advisible to ask a psychologist (or a couch?) to help you with this specific decision making process you're afraid of now. They have tools - my psychologist has helped me with with a major decision. I was asked to imagine and describe my life after choosing each option, and then we just layed one pillow for each option, and I was asked to sit there and feel what's going on. So I guess it was about getting into touch with feelings. But it doesn't hurt have another person take you through it. Decisions become easier after you have made a few of them, so it's not like asking for help with one decision is just a quick fix. You do learn.

I thought it might. I remember complaining to my doctor about not being able to concentrate on studying once. It felt like my attention can't go past 10 min. Well... a few weeks after I won a high competition in the go board game (hours of concentration). I realized concentration per se was not the problem. I suggest to check your attitude towards studying. Reading accademic texts is of course way more difficult then more simple topics (and you should expect to get tired), but also, emotional resistance makes it so much more difficult. If you don't really want to be studying (or only have extrinsic motivation), of course you'll daydream. So... work on your vision, and check what mood you are in when you sit down to study (I can't say much what to do about it then, because I'm still figuring it out - anxiety especially is a bitch). Also remember to take breaks, or perhaps find other types of study materials if yours are especially boring.

What are you reading? Does this apply to all topics, or perhaps specifically school stuff? Is the problem on a computer screen and in a book alike?

It's certainly possible to work on lack of initiative. In my experience, it basically falls back on not viewing that particular area of life as important and/or not allocating/having the resources to nurture it. You can rethink priorities and change habits. But in my own experience, the reasons we tell boy (and the reasons boys tell us) about why we are breaking up are never ever complete or accurate. We're falling out of love for many different unconscious reasons, including subtle personality clashes and unmet needs in the intimate area. Don't get hung up on 'fixing that one bug she complained about'. I don't know how old you are, but it sounds like it was your only relationship. If you are like most people, now you think she's one and only, but you will probably fall in love again immediatelly once you are over it just a little. Don't improve for her. Improve for yourself. Edit: Oh, I just noticed the post is a few months old, I suppose it's been sorted out more or less.