Naviy

It is so nice to be here, among "higher quality" people. You become what your social surroundings are. So, I feel motivated and energized by just visiting this forum and being in this atmosphere of respect, desire of knowledge, wisdom, development and self actualization.

Stages of life - thought Truth - thought To be rooted - thought Meaning - thought Feeling right - emotion, thought Feeling confused - emotion, thought Conclusion - thought Mind - thought Answer - thought Thought - thought etc. What thoughts are made of, though? Leo says that a thought is exactly what it is when you experience it. Experience of a thought = thought. But then, what is experience? What is experiencing? (I'm not trying to explain something right now, or argue, I am not sure what I am talking about, I'm just kind of asking a rhetorical question).

Sorry... But I think Leo means that you should look at your experience of such thing as "meaning", like in meditation. Not think about it. If you look at this experience, you will see that "meaning" is a mental sound and some inner feeling (AKA thought). While you're just making more thoughts about such a thought as "meaning".@tryingforfreedom

It's from Youtube comments on that video (Leo's comment). @Ayla

(link from Youtube comments)

After 5 days? Wow, what's gonna happen after the normal 90+ days...@Lynnel

Sleeping for 8 hours and taking a 30-minute nap before reading helped me to read in bed and not fall asleep.

Why do you need to become the most masculine man that ever lived?

http://actualized.org/articles/the-ultimate-model-of-human-knowledge Leo's comment to this video on Youtube:

I think by "pain body" he means the prism of your emotinal and disfunctional beliefs. Some event or thought may trigger you to look at everything through this prism.

I am the same, except I've never had any girlfriends, relationships or friends. I am 25 years old, lawyer, live in my own flat. I have always been an outcast and always been alone. Actually, I think I am the loneliest person I know I have been suffering from loneliness during my teen ages a lot. However, since then I have developed soo much. You cannot even compare. I do not suffer anymore. Also, almost a year ago, with help of the new knowledge I learnt, I've managed to find 2 persons online, and I communicate with them every day via Skype for almost a whole year. They are my first friends ever We have really close relationships. With one of them I feel like we are brother and sister (she started calling me brother actually), and with the other one we are almost like in romantic relationships except that fact that we live in different cities, lol (both of them are girls). I know, this might sound pathetic, but I am very sure that I am not deluded. I strongly believe that most people on Earth are not capable of having such close relationships as I have managed to develop with these two persons, and currently I do not feel lonely at all.

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I want to say too Thank you, Leo, for what you are doing. Finding actualized.org was probably the most important thing in my life.

@Leo Gura What was the mod for a video game you made, which became the starting point of your game designer career? And what was the game?

What also helps me to keep doing this constant awareness pracitce, is that I know, based on all the information from other people, that every time I become mindful, it is good for my mental health, it improves my overal well-being and it makes my psychology healthier. The more I am mindful (aware), the better quality of my life. I try to have this attitude - "I've just cleaned my teeth and hell... It was so boring. But hey, my teeth are a little bit healthier now". You become a little bit healthier every time you remember to be mindful.

Yeah I do this all the time, every day, as much as I can. I call it "constant mindfulness practice". I also do the "formal" Mindfulness meditation as Leo described it in one of his videos and I use an affirmation "I am always mindful". Developing Mindfulness (Awareness) is my #1 priority right now. When you feel bored, try to watch the boredom - where it feels, how it feels. Also try to watch your inner resistance to being bored. Let the boredom be another good object for practicing awareness. When I am tired, though, sometimes I let myself to fall asleep into thoughts. Because practicing awareness is not an automatic or easy task for me (at least at my current low level of awareness).

I had the opposite feeling from those videos. I was like "Yes, yes, yes! Finally somebody talks about it! And so precisely! Yes"! I've read and learned all this stuff a couple of years before I saw Leo's videos. And also during my research I've seen a lot of bullshit about enlightenment on the Internet. I think I needed (and still need) motivation to continue the active research on what "I" is or what reality is (by research I mean practice, self inquiry etc,). And when I hear somebody tell something that is similar with my own conclusions and discoveries, this gaves me motivation.

Hi everybody I am so incredibly happy and excited about this new forum There is a thing I'd like to ask you: "What is your daily personal development routine"? There are a lot of pracitces and excercises, so what do you personally do daily? During the peak of my discipline (this lasted for about 4-6 months) I used to do daily: 1) Visualization: 10-15 minutes (for help with fear of public speaking - did not work actually ); 2) Affirmations: 10-15 minutes, 5 minutes per affirmation; 3) Meditation: 20-30 minutes (I tried different techniques); 4) NoFap: abstinence from masturbation or watching porn for long periods of time (2 months+). This does help a lot, there is also a special community devoted to it; 5) Planning: I planned my day with Google calendar; 6) Journaling: an everyday Journal for everything; 7) Going to sleep and getting up at the same time; 8) Reading books and watching self help videos: books from Leo's list and all kind of personal development videos on youtube; 9) Constant Mindfulness pracitce; 10) Gym: 2 times a week (sometimes I skip); Right now, however, I dropped some practices, and currently I do: 1) Affirmations: 10 minutes, 5 minutes per affirmation; 2) Meditation: 20-25 minutes (currently I do Mindfulness meditation as Leo has described it in his Mindfulness meditation video); 3) Constant Mindfulness practice; 4) Reading books and watching videos (not every day now); 5) Journaling (not every day now); 6) NoFap (my longest streak was 60+ days, I relapse more often recently); 7) Gym: 2 times a week (sometimes I skip); So, what about you? What is your daily practice? ++ Oops, forgot gym. Added it.

I felt better when I did it. But I wasn't able to make it stick for more than 1 month. (Tried several times, but never gave it so much importance) But I'm gonna follow your advice and put that as my top priority. Thanks! You might want to try guided meditations first, probably. Like "Headspace". This is how I got into meditation. Guided meditations are more fun and feel more obligatory.

What is free will? There was time, when I tried to meditate on will. Thoughts and decisions (which are feelings+thoughts) come and go. If you meditate hard, you will be able to notice, that you are aware of any intention or motivation, but only when they come. But who made them come? Who made a decision to make a decision to do something? According to my observations, any decision or intention come into "the field of awareness" by itself, like any other object in awareness does. You do not decide which intention will come next. If you think, that you decide, then I'd suggest you to meditate and find out - what it is like to make a decision? How does it feel like - to make a decision? Also, try to find out - what "will" is. How does will feel like? How can you spot the movement of will and what was there before you noticed this movement? What or who triggered the movement of will to appear? You did? How exactly did you do that? Try to find it out by watching closely (meditating).

I've been using that affirmation for 6 months+ too. And I've changed a lot of affirmations since then. You know, I'd say that you probably are not noticing the results yet. The results are pretty subtle. I started noticing the results after I actually stopped using this affirmation and switched to other affirmations. I've noticed that I have this non-verbal movement in my mind in each situtation, where I'd feel not confident, that makes me automatically see the situation through the prism of "I am completely independent of the good or bad opinions of others". I do not think about it even - it's like a reflex. And it automatically helps somehow to not care about what other people may think about you. I'd suggest to repeat this affirmation not only during this "formal" 5 minutes, but especially in every situation, where you'd feel yourself not confident enough.

Moscow, Russia

Computer games, music, web browsing, walking with music, playing guitar or bass or piano or drums, chatting with my 2 best friends on Skype. Sometimes I go to metal concerts (alone). Pretty crappy, but true

About NoFap. You can try it and see if it works by yourself (20-30 days minimum are needed though - no Porn or Masturbation) - actually, you are not losing anything if you give it a try. It is like to stop watching TV for a month. There is also what they call "hard mode" which includes "no Sex". It is even more effective. You do not necessary need to give up porn or masturbation for your whole life ever. The most important part is "rebooting" - this at least one time when you abstain from PMO for 2+ months. Usually they say that normal reboot period is 3 months of no PMO, but on my experience, I think that 20+ days is already something very effective. For me meditation is #1 of all personal development practices. And not only because of the benefits that you can see they write in formal articles on the Internet (better memory, better focus, better emotional control, etc.). These are good, of course, but for me meditation is something much bigger. With meditation I feel that I become closer to reality (I have no idea what "reality" is, I am just describing the feeling ). I experience life in a clearer way. I have more freedom. I feel that I live a "truer" life overall . I feel that everything is more right and clear when you meditate daily. Everything is just better with meditation I also feel less vulnerable and more flexible (psychologically). More independent from circumstances of life.

Quoting my post from another thread, it fits this thread more: