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@Dodo She reminds me of Anna Brown. Love the more feminine perspectives on spirituality.

I'm specifically working on becoming a freelance illustrator. I want to get to a point where i'm doing client work i.e. working for brands, companies, advertisers, magazines, publications. In addition to that, I want to produce and sell artwork that specifically illustrates spiritual and metaphysical ideas/concepts. I've always been 'arty' but I never got any good career advice in my teenage years, so I dabbled around in other areas and spent many years not really building my art skills or doing anything art related. However the whole time in the back of my mind I knew I was wasting a natural talent that I had, and if I didn't pursue it seriously I would regret it for the rest of my life. One day I suddenly realised that there are actually people that get paid to draw and make pictures! It just didn't occur to me that illustration was a potential career path, particularly now with social media etc. I also realised that illustrators aren't just people that draw images for children's books. There are many other avenues to go down. That was about 2.5 years ago, and i've been working on projects and kinda obsessively honing my skills ever since. I had a lot of fundamental art skills to learn, despite having done a lot of art my whole life. And good work takes a lot of time. I might spend 15 hours on a piece only to realise its not working. So thats why i've been working on it for a long time, and i'm not slowing down any time soon. I took Leo's life purpose course sometime before this. Elements of the above are clearly in my notes from the course, just not as explicitly. The main thing the course taught me was to just be committed to figuring out what you want to do in life, even if it takes you years to get there.

@Leo Gura Personally I didn't see any issues with the post. I actually thought it was quite genuine and honest. You didn't try to sell yourself as something you're not. My only concern was that, as you said above, people would almost certainly use it against you. A brave call to retract the post - it was probably the right move. Put that post on an actual dating site and you'll be drowning in it. Best of luck to ya!

@Cosmin_Visan 'Flower power sounding ideas'? Don't make a mockery of things that you clearly have had no direct experience of. You will be weeping for forgiveness when Infinity dissolves your entire life and everything you believe to be true. When you realise yourself as Eternal God Infinity, all written philosophy becomes utterly meaningless and quite frankly useless.

I'd say the best solution is a full nights sleep - which is 8 hours in my case. Of course a full nights sleep doesn't mean good sleep, so do everything you can to make sure that you have high quality sleep. I am guilty of always having a coffee in the morning before my meditation but to be honest there are occasionally days where I still fall asleep.

Personally I would go and do this project. By the sounds of it it doesn't seem like a long term commitment. It's not like you're gonna be working with this guy forever. It could provide some really good experience which you can take with you going forward. Of course! You are not alone in this. I could go off in 20 different career paths, but ultimately you have to commit to something. You've got to be ok with letting go of a lot of stuff, dreams, ideas, in order to fully actualize one path to the fullest. It doesn't mean you can't change course in the future, but you've got to commit to something in the short term at least. Really it comes down to what the hell do you really want out of life?! If you had to spend 50 hours a week working for the rest of your life what would you most want to do? Then start putting a plan in place to make it happen. A great vision, but too vague. You can't 'help people actualise', do 'psychology research', and then do 'music/art' all at the same time. Be much more specific, think about the actual reality of each of these things on a day to day basis. If you had to pick one of these things which would it be? What do you really want to be doing? Psychedelic therapy is field that is going to massively open up over the next few years and decades - and it will be an extremely important area of science. We will need lots of compassionate, openminded, and forward thinking people to take the lead. Why don't you work towards this? I could see myself doing this - maybe in the next life.

Whats so hard to believe about this? Girls are still out and about. Maybe not as much as normal, but just because there's a pandemic doesn't mean all the cute girls suddenly vanished. I know plenty of guys that are still out doing day game and getting phone numbers. On nearly every session in the past few weeks I have gotten a phone number, and many of those were from girls with masks on. Just to clarify, i'm average looks wise, and my talking skills are still very amateur. I've only taken up day game in the past few months. There's no trickery here, i'm not hiding anything. Its very simple.

Day-game. Stop using Covid as an excuse - it isn't one. Don't just limit yourself to bars and clubs. Girls are still out and about and open to being approached in public, if not more so than usual because they are being starved of their usual social contact. Even here in the UK, with a full lockdown, it's still completely possible to go and speak to girls. Food stores, parks, and just generally on the street there are still loads of girls walking around, depending on where you live of course. What about the masks you might say?! You can still approach girls with masks on. Unless they're completely covered up you can still get a sense if they're attractive or not. You can use it as part of the conversation. You say you're exhausted after work, do some approaches before work and during lunch time? If you can't approach during these times, then you have no choice but to approach after work. It's tough, I know, but sometimes you gotta do stuff that you don't want to do. Scrap the dating apps unless you're a super high value guy. I have a lot of experience using the apps and it doesn't come close to the experience and benefit of actually talking to girls face to face.

@Hellooo Actual Eternity

Locking this thread because its attracting too many spam accounts.

@Leslie Ann Firstly, welcome to the forum! Secondly, I see you have started two separate journals with the same title. Please just write all of your entries in one journal thread.

@haael Good to hear things are picking up for you. You're doing great - keep at it!

I'm sorry to tell you this but this is literally never going to happen. Stop procrastinating and go out and approach girls. You need to be talking to dozens of new girls every month.

Locking for low quality and disrespectful tone/attitude from the OP. Feel free to discuss the election but don't just post random one line opinions. And lets practise compassion and empathy rather than judgement.

To be fair, the fact that you actually gave it a go is a worthy achievement - so props to you for that. I also understand not wanting to do this work with a group of people. There's a big difference when you are truly on your own for sure. However, the main benefit of doing the group retreats first is that you get a real sense of what it takes to actually do 8-10 hours of meditation every day for 10 days. The actuality of it is completely different to the imagined actuality, which is why on these 10-day Vipassanna retreats at least 10-20% of people end up leaving after the first day or two. As you started to experience, overcoming and dealing with the boredom is a big component of these retreats. The structured setting of a group retreat helps you deal with it. For me personally there is absolutely no way I could do a 7 day solo retreat without having done all the group retreats that i've done over the past few years. But like I said, great effort man! Looking forward to hearing from you if you decide to give it another go.

@Mvrs Is the idea 'Since i'm not real' actually based in your direct experience or is it a belief? Who says you are not real? Why do you think you don't exist? Maybe you are just mistaken about what you are.

@Lews Therin Yea don't get too bogged down with the details. It's not gonna make any difference if you breath in for 6 seconds rather than 10. Follow the general guidelines, and suit it to your needs and requirements. Whats written down in a book should always be taken with a pinch of salt.

Have you done any organised meditation retreats before? Like a 10-day vipassanna course? I would suggest doing a few of these before trying to go off by yourself. You might find it easier to have an external force controlling your schedule and looking after your basic needs. I think you also need to have a more comfortable environment to do this in, some proper food, cooking facilities, proper washing facilities etc. You want to have all your basic needs met and secured for the duration of the retreat. You should also appreciate the value of taking adequate breaks between meditation/contemplation sessions, where you might do some light walking meditation, have a nap etc.

He offers fitness coaching, meal plans, workout advice etc.

@Superfluo As I get older I realise how useful style can be at helping you in social situations. It really does change the way people perceive you. I'm assuming you are a young male here. I'll give you some points based on what I personally think is good style, but as aurum said above it really depends on you and what you like: 1) Buy well fitted clothing. 2) Use only a few colours for each outfit, 3) Use block colours, as in large areas of colour. No graphic t shirts unless its a stand out piece amoungst other more simple items of clothing. 4) Shoes say a lot! If you want to wear trainers/sneakers, go for some simple all white style. Otherwise wear some chelsea boots, smart leather shoes etc. I like shops like ZARA, COS, All Saints, UNIQLO. These are fairly inexpensive and sell relatively high quality, well fitted clothing. The problem with the really cheap stores like Primark or H&M is that the clothing doesn't fit great, in my experience. Go into clothing stores and take photos of the mannequins - people often ignore these completely, but they are styled by actual stylists! Pinterest is also a great place to get fashion inspiration.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. All of this is unlikely to permeate into your son's real world life, behaviour and relationships etc. The main thing is to ensure that he does not become addicted to video games in an unhealthy and toxic way. This is certainly a real danger, particularly as he is so young, and he will thank you later in life for making an effort to prevent this. However, in our current world, most young people living an increasingly significant portion of their lives in the digital world. And for boys this is in video games. So in some ways it's unavoidable. It's up to you to ensure that he has other things in his life that can bring him the same or more satisfaction and enjoyment. It's all about finding the right balance.

@Onecirrus I think the OPs thread is fine in this sub forum. It's not creating any arguments or major issues so I see no reason to move it or lock for low quality. This is an important topic in our current times. @Hsinav Fortnite is one the least violent and toxic video games on the market. Just because they are shooting other players in the game doesn't mean your son is going to suddenly become a mass murderer. The idea that video games incite real world violence or cause players to be more aggressive was disproved many years ago. There is no evidence for it. You might find that the act of completely restricting your son's ability to play the game will have a detrimental effect on his social life and mental health. If you want to restrict his game time to a certain period in the day or a certain amount of hours per week thats fine, but I would say don't completely restrict him from doing it. If all of his friends are playing it, he wants to be social with them and fit in with them - this is very important. If his gaming becomes toxic, if he is playing constantly every hour of the day, then I would suggest intervening and restricting his total game time.

@Khr A fair response. After reading the thread more carefully I have revoked your warnings. But in the future, just flag comments that you feel are against forum guidelines.

@ItsNick As others have said, what you're experiencing are Kriyas. You just need to allow them to happen and release when and where you can. They will subside eventually. Believe it or not this is a very promising sign, not many people have these sorts of energetic movements.

@Aco If you want advice from people you need to be much more specific about what you're looking for.