Pelin

When I was into low carb diets two years ago, I discovered 99% cacao dark chocolate from Lindt. It goes great with coffee, you melt it on your palate first and then follow with coffee. It's not meant to be bitten and chewed, because it's too solid. You get used to the bitterness and begin to appreciate how tasty and bitter dark chocolate is before you finish your first bar ? I don't follow low carb strictly anymore, but one of the things that stuck with me is my switch to dark chocolate. And so far, Lindt is the best one I've tried. Their dark range is very wide and I recently tried their Chili Dark one (I believe around 50% cacao). It's also awesome, although a bit sweet. Having said that, I usually consume just one inch square a day if at all. I used to have a sweet tooth but not anymore. I started to find store bought snacks too sweet after my switch to dark chocolate.

As long as you have meaningful relationships, socializing is okay. I'm also at a stage in my life where I don't socialize much, but still feel fulfilled. I guess your priorities can change over time. If your simple lifestyle feels okay to you, you can drop the blaming and focus on your improvement at this time. If you feel like you have some good friends that you get a lot of value out of, keeping in touch might be a good idea. Sometimes people may resent you and think you don't like them if you don't keep in touch. If you have such friends, and if you want them in your life, I would recommend you to give them a call once in a while. They may prove helpful in your journey. I have some friends like this, and whenever I meet them, I'm inspired. But if your friends add no value to you whatsoever, it's okay to drop those relationships and stop wasting your time in my opinion. If your girlfriend is okay with you having a small circle of relationships, and if she doesn't force you in socializing, that's great.

Short answer, No. Long answer, being an extravert or an introvert is not about a need of people as far as I'm concerned. An introvert can also feel lonely, and it is normal. It is more about how you energize yourself, alone or with company. As an introvert, I need some alone time to recharge, but feel comfortable (mostly) among other people as well. You may have a job that includes spending a lot of time with people and socializing (that actually requires being more conscious of your actions than by yourself) and can be an introvert. I do not associate anger and aggression with this personality trait. Either type can experience it, and it is tbh quite common in introverts too. The same case with the need to create drama. Beware of this feeling of associating yourself with higher consciousness. It has happened a lot to me and happens still. We tend to see ourselves and our traits to be better than others, that is an ego trick. I've taken your post as a reminder for me that I should look into this within myself as well.

I agree LoA and Abraham-Hicks helps a lot. But the essence of LoA certainly isn't visualization, to me at least. It's all about feeling better and raising your vibration, because in a nutshell this law suggests you're attracted to the same frequency as how you feel. I would rather meditate more and therefore at least move up to a neutral feeling than do visualization, but you know what feels good for you.

1. We are where we are because of what great minds contributed in maths, physics, philosophy etc. 2. Anything that you do out of guilt cannot be a noble choice. 3. What if you did something related to terrorism and as a result, it became much worse? When you remember your calling, it will be entertaining and it will make a difference. The biggest difference you need to make is on yourself. Let go of the idea that you need to make a difference in the outer world.

@Peo To me, explaining nonduality using language is quite limited because the human language itself is dual. When you try to explain it, unless you are a gifted teacher, you are at the risk of sounding insane and people will definitely not relate to you, like Jim Carrey as others suggested here. Try to communicate it by experiencing it. You don't have to speak about it unless you are asked directly. Don't just waste your energy on finding the right words, even to yourself, spend it on embodying it and people will see there is something different in you, but more likely this will be about peace and love instead of "my kid's just gone mad, we need to see a shrink." I almost never talk about my spiritual journey, nonduality and stuff like that with my husband for example. On the outer shelf, he identifies with being very logical, very scientific, and a bit religious too. He mostly resists non-religious spiritual teachings. Because I know he resists it, I don't feed his resistance by using my words. However, I can see just living with him and being myself is changing him immensely. And the consciousness will continue to raise whether or not you talk about it. So just focus on your consciousness, and it will benefit the consciousness of all beings on the planet.

@BjarkeT I didn't know Leo did a video on this. I started watching his videos in 2016 and I seem to have missed this one. Thanks. @FoxFoxFox noted. Will look into it.

Anything you know, you've experienced, book suggestions, videos, or if you think it's mumbo jumbo, throw at me. I'd like to learn more about the higher self.

@Shiva @Gligorije @Brandon Nankivell Lots of great advice, thank you. Video proposal is a great idea. And also narrowing down my niche. As I didn't know what to expect, I put everything I can do, which sounds like jack of all trades, master of none. I am such a beginner, and of course, upwork didn't accept my profile right away. I'll apply the advice and build a stronger profile when I'm done with my teaching job (hopefully in a month), it's consuming all my energy right now.

After I moved to another country a year ago (from the Middle East to East Asia), what has changed most for me is my perspective. I considered myself to be very open-minded, but I realized I was only looking from Middle Eastern and Western perspectives. Asian perspective is totally, totally different, the whole experience made me look at everything with a new eye. Now I get to understand what open-mindedness means. I guess it is worth to move out of your country, maybe only for a limited time, to just gain some perspective. And just to add, tourism is just not enough. It's like window-shopping.

I've been working as an English teacher / Academic English instructor for the last 8 years (since I graduated from college), but I am getting less and less satisfaction each year, mostly because I've come to hate institutionalized education. I have almost made up my mind about going on another path (of social work or counseling related), but I need to earn money in this transition period too. So I thought I could do some online tutoring/ proofreading/ translating, and I signed up with the well-known upwork website. However, I'm not sure how to get my first client, as I've never tried it before. Any advice for me is welcome, what to do to stand out, what clients to look out for etc. And if you know any other website in my niche, that'd be most helpful.

Just enjoy what you are right now, and don't worry about what will happen in the years to come. I've had a few LDRs myself, and I ended up marrying the last one (I'm talking about the other end of the world here, 15000 kilometres and 7 hours time difference), and all I can say to you is, what's meant to happen happens, whether you live close to each other or apart. Enjoy her company, and enjoy your me-time as well. That's one of the good things about an LDR. You get to have more time for yourself and your own development. And you learn to enjoy being alone, too.

It sounds as if you need to ground yourself regularly. Try going to a park, garden etc and ground yourself. Walk on grass bare foot, touch or hug trees, do grounding meditation (there's a bunch on youtube) People say eating root vegetables also helps with grounding but I haven't particularly experienced it. To me nature and earth does the trick.

I read one of the books about Ikigai (the one by Hector Garcia Puigcerver). They did a research on the longest living people in Okinawa, JP and found out that most of their ikigai was very simple: Family life, gardening, community, dancing. 100+ year old people would meet everyday for parties and dancing That was very nice to read, and also the flow state of some Japanese otakus were interesting to read. But I don't think ikigai relates to the graph you showed above. I felt that ikigai concept was more green, even blue at some point (spiral dynamics) but the graph looks more yellow to me, more systematic.

You are trying to instill logic into something like religion. why do you think religion needs to make sense? To oversimplify it: Religion: blue Logic: orange truth: way beyond what we, most humans, can imagine. Mohammed as well as other prophets might be one of the lucky ones to glimpse the truth, but they were in red/blue societies. So it’s even possible they didn’t much understand what they witnessed. So don’t expect logic from any religion. It’s just not valid to believe in or out of something because it makes or doesn’t make sense.