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@Pallero If you need professional help, you should probably just keep on looking for the right therapist. There is definitely someone who could help you, you just haven't found him/her yet. If you can't afford the one who seemed to understand you so well, find someone who charges less. Just don't give up.

I don't think that every person doing personal development is by definition happier from one who has never heard of it. Perhaps, this is true for a majority of people. Still, I know some very decent, hard-working, passionate people who live a happy, peaceful life, and they have never studied anything related, in the slightest, to personal development. Somehow, their upbringing, environment, life choices, inner wisdom pushed them in the right directions. These are highly intuitive, good-natured people. Also, there are some people who do personal development with a lot of negative motivation. It's difficult to experience happiness in its fullest potential when your motivation is negative. Let's say, just hypothetically, "I do personal development to quit drinking/smoking/drugs", "I do it to stop being a victim", "I do it cos I hate my low self-esteem". It's hard to be happy with thoughts like this. I'm a bit stuck here cos my motivation still ranges from positive to negative. And, of course, there are some, as mentioned above, who don't care about dignity, self-respect, goodness and growth at all, whether they ever heard of personal development or not.

In this society, Inner-peace often shrinks, giving space to agitation, triggered by external influences. Some don't even believe it's possible to access this spiritual freedom. That's why, it's necessary to protect and nurture it within ourselves. Protect from distractions and impurities. Notice how distracted most of us are. We want to be at peace, yet, we are resistant to experiencing it. We'd rather get stimulants.

It's so hard to eradicate these. These beliefs, these systems, injected to the bloodstream, feeding our subconscious from early childhood till now. Yet, it seems necessary to raise above this dependency and comfort, face fear, and create a life of our own. Not the copy of the copy of the copy. Laborious and frightening process, then why bother, eh? Let's go back to sleep and think about it tommorow after tommorow after tommorow.

It just seems to work this way, doesn't it? @Truth If you take care of your body via e.g a healthy diet or exercising, you do raise your consciousness and the mind may start pulling you towards other opportunities to grow in different areas of your life. If you take care of your mind, and e.g start to experience emotions fully, quit stimulants, or start a meditation habit, etc. the awareness will shift to your body automatically, as the body is the main medium by which you experience these things in the "physical" world, experience life. Actually, whatever you focus on at a particular moment (whether it's exercising, diet or deep inner work), I think that your mind will always get influenced first. So basically whatever you do, you either grow your mind (expand consciousness) or you decrease its capabilities.

@Juan Cruz Giusto I think that when we introduce new habits to our lives , at some point, we start having doubts whether we exaggerate it or not. I sometimes have these thoughts about my progress. Doing lots of the things I hadn't been used to do for most of my past life, occassionally they feel odd. After a while, I may have quiet thoughts slipping in saying "Just relax, have a beer, do something easy and entertaining" or "Quit it completely, can't you see that you're the only weirdo doing this? It's not gonna really help you so stop fooling yourself. Blah, blah". I don't know how old your new habits are but perhaps it may take more time to have them sink into your subconscious. I used to introduce one habit at a time in order not to get overwhelemed by them, and now I have quite a few of them which stick. But this does not change the fact that, just like you I sometimes doubt myself. And just like you I minimized time for socializing to minimum, and became quite strict about my routines. Perhaps, one of the solutions could be to develop a more relaxed approach towards your habits. Don't treat them like homework, rather, think of them as a game, a journey of self-discovery. ; ) Not something you have to do at all costs. It's a choice of one of many possible scenarios. Plus, you probably still have some time for your friends, but now, because of your higher priorities, you do focus on the inner work more. It has costs you know. Social life suffers. Your inner life flourishes. At least, I hope it's true.

@rush About detachment, what if you just observe the thought itself? You could observe your craving for success and competition more. Why do you want success? Why is success on the top of your values? Do you think it determines your usefulness? Do you want to prove something to anyone other than yourself? Do you seek approval/validation/self-importance? These are just ideas. The same comes with competition. What is your drive behind it? Expose your feelings, surrender to the truth. Look, if you aim at success and competition, that probablymeans that you choose to be reactive to all the things which happen in the world, be it good or bad, rather than to be grounded internally. You choose to be both stimulated and torn by external influences, influences mostly beyond your control. This way you give away loads of energy trying to control the outcome, rather than to create. On the other hand, you could simply choose to master yourself, focus on your art, for the sake of the art and growing yourself, not for external applause or fleeting satisfaction.

@Baz Logotherapy has a technique called "paradoxical intention". Basically what it assumes is that fear brings about what one is afraid of, and at the same, hyper-intension makes impossible what one wishes. V. Frankl recalled a case when he was once consulted by a physician because of his fear of perspiring. Whenever he approached someone he expected an outbreak of perspiration and this anticipatory anxiety was enough to cause huge sweating. The solution to that case was detachment realised by a sense of humor. Next time, the doctor met anyone he told to himself quietly "I only sweated out a quart before, but now I'm going to pour at least ten quarts!" This was his detachment from neurosis. As a result, he stopped sweating excessively. It can be applied to your case as well. Perhaps, you anticipate that you may fail, that she may reject you etc. So before approaching a beautiful woman, you may have a short inner-dialogue with yourself, such as "Well, I used to frighten away dozens of beautiful women before, so why not scare the shit out of this one. Here I go". Such attitude is quite hilarious and can release loads of tension.

@Phrae I think it is actually quite tough not to exhaust your laser beam of focus after 4 hours of intensive work. You may consider tricking your subconscious mind. If you feel like you're gonna give up after 4 hours, it might be advantageous to work fewer hours, e.g. 2 hours, then stop for a while, have a break and resume (work for 2 more hours), stop, and resume (2 more hours). This way you may devote to 6 hours of focused work daily intersected by short breaks, to let your mind rest for at least 30 min.

What is failure to you? Is it something you don't allow yourself to experience? For me occasional failure is good. I treat it as a part of mastery process. It teaches you humility and patience. Everybody fails sometimes and this shows you what areas you could improve in or explore more. It's like a game. Your ego will not suffer if you reconcile yourself with the fact that you're gonna fail in life occasionally and develop more acceptance towards it Stop fearing failure and your values will be less neurotic. also success is a byproduct of your efforts and contribution. So perhaps aim at contribution, and success will happen spontaneously as a side effect.

Hi all. I have a dilemma, concerning the self-actualization process, please, advise. I used to have a really rough life, recovered from it, and finally experienced calm, acceptance, self-love which I didn't even know was attainable for me before. Nowadays, on daily basis, I spend around 6 hours in total on meditation, reading, learning, contemplation, life purpose work, etc. My lifestyle is very simple, routinized, perhaps, some would say boring. My main aim is to develop the ability to get in touch with my intuition, find a life purpose, create minimalistic lifestyle, and at the same time cut off from as many distractions as possible for me right now. Now, I don't really engage that much into bringing a lot of value to the world. I'm still to a significant extent focused on my own needs and goals, which are mainly targeted at my own well-being rather than at making improvements to the outside world. I work just few hours daily, earn minimum to sustain my life, and spend the rest of the day on self-actualization work, meditation, learning, doing life purpose course, or other things which seem important to me right now. I don't socialize, I'm almost totally withdrawn socially. And I feel somehow guilty and scared. Guilty about doing so much of self-actualization work, rather than, I don't know, forcing myself to work and earn more, providing more of any value, spending more time with my growing nieces, etc. But at the same time, I know that these things used to drain me so much, that's why I cut off from them. I do a lot of inner work now. Work with my subconscious. I do a lotta "purification". And I'm kinda scared now and have thoughts that it's all wrong. That I lost my way and perhaps should just stop it, go back and force myself to be more contributing, experience the world, even though I really hate this idea. I feel guilty about being so focused on myself. I chose to develop, create my life purpose first and redesign my life to synchronize it with my values. I feel that only then I could truely contribute to the world, extend my comfrot zones to the farthest extent and got more in touch with my intuition, higher self. Or am I just fooling myself? Am I doing this right or wrong? I don't know if my way of thinking makes any sense. I do feel a bit lost.

Many thanks for all the golden thoughts. I had to get it out of my head and your reflections have broaden my perspective. @poimandres @Principium Nexus @ajasatya @Swede @ashashlov @Shin @Bodhi123 @blazed I'm aware that expanding consciousness, developing deeper appreciation of life, getting fulfillment, etc. is a very long and at times very challenging process. And since I don't know many people in real life who do love self-actualization, I'm grateful for this forum. @Principium Nexus About sharing and socializing, it's not easy to share these things with people, as most of them insinuate that I'm weird and wasting my life. What they usually suggest is - get laid once a week, enjoy your life more, do your nails, have a baby, etc. Anyways, I know there must be people out there who may share same interest as I do, and perhaps, I will work on my relationships a bit more in the future. Have a nice day!

Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run-in the long run, I say!-success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it. - V. Frankl

I find meditation with eyes open much more uncomfortable. Therefore, I prefer to keep my eyes shut. Keeping my eyes open often means some additional distraction, inconvenience, some weird double vision experience. But, perhaps, the point of eyes open (other than not to fall asleep) is to experience this inconvenience and learn to stay at peace with it. Does open-eyes meditation give more advantage than close-eyes meditation in any cases? In one of his videos, Leo says that Strong Determination Sitting should be done with eyes open. I think "Do nothing meditation" is also about keeping your eyes open. Though these two types are mindfulness exercises, risght? So maybe in such a case eyes-open make more sense. I don't know, I wish someone could present his/her view on that.

If you hate it, consider quitting it. Or you may end up several years later whining that you wasted years of your life on something you hate. Do figure out what would you enjoy to do in life. What skills do you wanna acquire? What is important and meaningful to you? @dboyle There must be an area in which you could flourish, just ask yourself. How about changing majors to something more stimulating, interesting to you.. what would that be?

@Sharpadox This has been happening in the last couple of weeks? Maybe this is just a temporary shift that will pass soon? Maybe your intuition is trying to tell you to pause for a while with your art work, or knowledge-seeking inclinations, etc. and solve some small existential problems, confront certain emotions? What is really happening, ask yourself.

@Just Do Nothing Same here. I think the breakthrough happened when one day playing a monk in D&D I just thought of how well my character was developed throughout months of polishing it. I enjoyed the process fo improving him a loot. And then I had this realization "Wait a minute, what the fuck am I doing getting lost in a pixel world, doing kung fu via a pixel monk in the world where other team players tell me to look up at the fictional starred sky to admire the view of it". @Jack_Clark I understand that games give you a lotta excitement. But what they also give you is the illusionary protection from the very real reality. Perhaps (or not, I don't know you), you find life uncomfortable and unexciting enough to get lost in them. They are fascinating and give you relatively easy rewards. But think of how you feel when you finish a game.. Do you feel fulfilled? Because what I started feeling at some point was deep hollowness and deppresing passiveness. I looked at my monk who could do awesome martial arts, some sexy ninja moves, and thought to myself "Do you wanna spend majority of your time improving some virtual non-existing hero made of pixels or would you rather become a hero, get your shit together and take the responsibility for your life now." Think of who you wanna be in your life. What you wanna accomplish. Create a purpose. This will give you strong motivation to stop playing so much. And then get your shit together and accomplish anything in the real world. Collect experience points, reach higher levels of consciousness and rejoice.

Frankl is one of my role models. Found meaning in life against his suffering in Auschwitz. Displayed vast quantities of love, dignity and courage. Gave his suffering the meaning, took the maximum responsibility for his responses. "The person may remain brave, dignified and unselfish, or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal".

Could a life purpose be simply to get and stay on the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Could you share your thoughts on this? I've been doing the Life Purpose Course, and most of different results in this course pull me towards self-actualization and growing. I don't exactly know how to make it about other people YET, that is how to contribute. I just wish to grow and become a wiser, loving human for now, that's it. You know, when I think of life purpose and passion I think of people who desire to become awesome creators, build new machines, become some sort of leaders, musicians, artists, writers or whoever else. I don't really have any particular goal like this. At least not yet. The only theme which is there is constant improving, becoming authentic, loving, selfless, suchlike.

@Leo Gura Thanks for sharing this.

@Afonso Don't you think that each time you check out if these thoughts are present in your mind you actually evoke some of them? You expect them. Look, like this "- Hmmm... Am I thinking about bananas now? Yes!" - here comes a storm of banana thoughts. Later - "Bananas, are you still there?" And BOOOOM - banana purée mindfuck strikes again. Anyways, monkey mind is normal, be at peace with it when it happens. Take a note of thoughts and come back to the physical reality, to whatever you do at a time.

@Hardik jain What do you mean? How insane?

@MHarris In what directions do your values and strengths pull you exactly? Don't they already give you a hint of what you should be doing with your life now to start creating your mission, your life purpose? Perhaps you need to investigate them more, and start to create some goods on your way to finding the real purpose. Even some small things. Just make them aligned with the values. Maybe give yourself more time, take some new experience, perhaps extend your comfort zone a lil bit. I don't think this process can be rushed.

Wake up call: Some time ago, while taking long, warm, bubble baths in my depression, I realised that I actually choose to feel that pain rather than to act in order to recover. Such a helpless, lazy bum I was. Then something inside me forced me to take a shower, clean up my flat and eat a healthy dinner. I heard this voice inside me from then on, and less than a year later, I accomplished more in my life than in the previous 10 years.

I believe that my most important life experience was when I actually hit the bottom of constant victimizing myself, bumped by severe alcohol addiction and self-harm. There was a point in my life I hated to live. No vision. No love. All I knew was fear. And NOW I'm so fucking proud of myself, that I finally smashed the shiny battlefield armor of my deepest fears, and embarked on a journey of self-actualization, at the same time cultivating acceptance and kindness. Of course this armor is still there, yet, getting rustier with time, and more breakable with each bat swing. I learnt to appreciate the process. I let major changes come naturally. I started to develop love for life. I created a purpose to live. I'm healthier than ever before. Sometimes, everything seems so perfect, so peaceful, that it actually makes me freak out somewhat. And this is just the beginning of the journey.