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.

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.

@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.

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.

In my first year of teaching, the students just wouldn't shut up, and I used a bad word. I was teaching in a private school and this was totally unacceptable. Luckily, the students didn't turn me in. I would have got sacked and maybe have a disciplinary record. In my second year, in another private school, I got constantly yelled at by the principal because she didn't think I was academically competent. I cried a lot, and was mildly depressed. This caused further insecurities and I was really doing a bad job teaching in the first two years of my career. In my third year, to the principal's surprise, I found a job as a lecturer at a uni. Things started to get better after that. I found that seniors and managers tend to pick up on newly graduates and make them feel really insecure about themselves. Most of them do it unconsciously but they do. Because we give in to their ideas about us, we believe we are what they think and we keep making mistakes. Don't get discouraged. Just keep doing what you're doing and know that it gets a little bit better each time.

In most areas of my life, I am a self confident person. I'm a teacher, and I have no problems speaking to an audience or stage fright. I am married and have close friends and although I'm not overly social, I'm usually okay with face to face interactions. However, there are some social situations I feel anxious and don't know how to fix. I get worried when I need to make a phone call, let's say to a hospital or restaurant to make a booking. If I have to change it, it becomes worse. I sometimes feel the same when I need to answer the phone, too, esp if the person is not in my close circle. I have trouble texting or saying someone to do me a favour. I'm afraid they will judge me and I will waste their time. When I need to deal or negotiate with someone, I usually refrain and let them win. I have had a personal blog for two years and I'm only talking about it openly and sharing it for the last year. Before that, I had a blog for 5 years that nearly nobody knew about. I was ashamed of the things I wrote there, and was afraid some of my friends would take what I wrote personally. Even after a year of telling my friends about my blog, I'm not motivated to promote my posts on social media. I somehow understand the reason behind all of this is fear of judgment. But what is the root cause and how can I fix it? Any advice, book suggestions, Leo videos that I might have missed, greatly appreciated.

@non_nothing thank you, I've downloaded the book. I'll let you know of the progress.

After watching Leo's video about body awareness and relaxation, I realized I've been clenching my jaws too often. So I'm trying to relax whenever I notice I'm clenching. The best method I've found so far is to simply smile when I notice I'm clenching. It immediately relaxes my jaw. And I also read before that Balinese smile while meditating. That may be worth a try, as Leo says most of us can't relax our bodies even while meditating.

@7thLetter Do you miss your childhood, or your false ideas about it? Thinking about the past and worrying about the future are both common in all ages, I believe, unless we work towards freeing ourselves and starting living in the now. I often hear young kids talking about the time when they were even younger, like a five year old tells memories from when they were two-three years old, as if it is the distant past. The thing is, I realized, what I remember from those memories and the kid remembers are entirely different. So it is actually the kid's ideas about what happened make them remember and cherish those memories. Let me clarify with an example. I remember when I was in primary school, I spent most nights with my mum and sister watching TV series and playing games. When I looked closely into these memories, I remembered something my mum said: Your father's not home on the days starting with P (that is three days in Turkish). She even made a game out of it, and we were not traumatized, we never questioned why our dad wasn't at home with us. I later understood that he used to go out and possibly gamble those nights. Basically, half of the week we didn't know where exactly my dad was. And my mum, despite being very frustrated with him, cheerfully played games with us. Many years later I learned that this was a huge problem in their marriage, and that they argued a lot. I never saw them arguing until I was like 16 or so, and never suspected they were unhappy, because both have always been very loving parents. Now, looking back, I cherish those memories, yes, but I don't miss my childhood knowing that my mum suffered. I still listen to music from high school times, or play "street fighter" with my husband at times. Just yesterday we were talking about the cartoons we watched as a child and watched a few episodes. I don't see it as a problem, though, or an issue of not staying in the now. Childhood and adolescence are the times we start to develop a taste for things, and we are not bound to change them. Of course we grow, for example, I don't listen to metal music any more, or I have developed an ear for classical music over the past years. But I still listen to Green Day from time to time, and sometimes it brings memories, too, but that doesn't mean I miss my adolescence or get stuck in it. I agree with @see_on_see on nostalgia being a channel for art, and also good for redemption and moving on (and as a plus, not just for the creator, but for the viewer too). I like writing short stories, and I see myself coming back to my childhood neighbourhood in one way or another when I write a story. Our house was demolished when I was 12 and it still is a traumatic memory, but writing helped me quite a lot in neutralizing my memories.

I feel so lucky these days, I am a bit scared. Looking at now and looking back at the past, I can connect the dots and everything was just right to prepare me for now. Many things a day make me smile. That is a bit unfamiliar for me not to worry about things, so I find myself worrying about not worrying about stuff. I’ll just enjoy myself, starting now.

So, I'll post here my musings, things that inspired me, things that keep popping into my head. Yesterday in the office we were talking about a woman who starts to speak Russian after a coma (her mother tongue is Turkish) and she'd never been exposed to Russian in her life. I told my friends that I think we have collective consciousness hidden in our cells, we keep cycling and recycling and we actually know everything collected in our consciousness. They rolled their eyes, not rudely but I guess they did not really understand. I guess sometimes you need to just shut up. That I can't do sometimes. So sharing here with nonjudgmental people seemed like a better idea. Prepare for some weirdness.

@Emerald @exhale @Key Elements Wow, really great points guys. Gave me lots of insight, thanks! Emerald, I agree with you on not making parenting into a project. It’s kind of hard to resist, so I understand the good intentions behind it, but as you say everyone has a different personality and kids will eventually go their own ways, choosing a path for them as parents can be really harmful.

I am thirty, and was born to a blue society, where it is even a bit late to have children. So I have all the social pressure coming from peers, parents etc. to start having children. Some days I feel really motivated about giving it a shot, some days I never want to have children, ever. First of all, I don't really know if I'm reflecting or sometimes just protesting what other people think about having children, making a statement. How can we understand if it is the society that drives us to do something or it is genuinely us? And secondly, I've been married for four years, and I love the life I'm living now. So I have two scenarios: If we have children. For twenty years or so, we'll devote our time to them, limiting personal time. That may seem like an unselfish move, considering we will have to hold some of the things which we love doing (for me writing, travelling, personal development work, and even full-time working). But in the future, most people assume that your kids are gonna look after you, so it also seems selfish. It also reinforces your position in society, you're accepted by the community etc, which further feeds your ego. Most people who have children admit that raising children will eat up your personal time. If we never have children, then we can dedicate more time on our inner work, we can keep doing what we love doing. We are not permanently based in one country so we won't have to worry too much about relocating. But after some time are we gonna regret this (when it's impossible for me to have children physically) or if I finally decide to give birth, let's say in my forties, is it gonna be too late and are we already gonna be too old to support the kids in their later years? (And I just remember Chopra now, he was saying his biggest accomplishment was his kids and grandkids) So I wanna hear your opinions on this. From personal development and inner work point of view, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having children?

My mum has gotten more into the green zone after retirement. She got interested in yoga and meditation, and I voted for green but, she's starting to see the big picture. Last time I saw her she was reading Eckharte Tolle and was really into enlightenment. I can say she's turning into yellow. My dad is a nationalist and although he has some hints of orange, he's mostly blue. Now to think about it, I've always wondered how mum could tolerate him and his closedmindedness. Maybe it's because she always had some yellow within her which allowed her to accept him as he is much more than I can.