InfinitePotential

@Michael569 I use the following tape: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003TXPZ64/ref=sxts_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1508767075&sr=1 You could probably find a better one that's thicker, but this completely works for me provided I sorta purse my lips together before taping. Also, to make it less sticky and not hurt to take off, I tape it to my hand for a while, remove it, and repeat a few times before taping it over my mouth.

In Jed McKenna's works we are encouraged to perform "spiritual autolysis", basically get rid of all of our beliefs until what's left is a Truth. And I certainly think there is something there, namely the being of nothingness. But even in doing that, couldn't there be Truths outside of the Truth that we have direct access to? How do we know that things we (perhaps used to) believe in aren't true? In McKenna's theory of everything, he proposes that the physical universe is a subset of consciousness (his C-Rex vs U-Rex idea). I tend to agree (in a way... at least it seems according to our best theories in physics that the universe is absolutely nothing like our human interpretations or intuition of it, and that the act of observation makes things "real"), however his argument seems to be along the lines of "everything we experience we experience within consciousness, therefore consciousness is all there is". Perhaps that's true from the perspective of a human life, but how can we know that a physical universe doesn't exist outside of our conscious awareness (however radically different it may be from our perceptions of it)? I get that we can't KNOW that there is a physical universe, but if asked "is there a physical universe or is there not", wouldn't it be perfectly reasonable to answer "I'm not sure, but if I had to guess I would guess there is"? How can we KNOW there is not one? Even with an experience of Source, or Cessation, or Absolute Infinity, or Empty Awareness, or death before dying, etc... Even with that experience how can we know there isn't something outside of it and the consciousness experience it gives rise to (namely, a physical universe)? It seems just as reasonable to me to say that in such experiences I'm basically going straight to deep sleep while maintaining awareness. I.e., nothing too out of the ordinary, just a profoundly relaxing experience and practice, but one that could happen in a physical universe where one somehow trains their brain/body to enter deep sleep while remaining aware. I ask, because I can see enormous benefits from completely freeing myself in the belief of a materialistic universe (namely, not feeling threatened whatsoever, not feeling the need to accumulate goods, compete, exploring mysticism, etc.). So far, the most convincing argument I've come up with is "how can there be something rather than nothing"... There can't be! It makes no sense that there would be something. Therefore, there is nothing, and every "something" is an "illusion", i.e. not real, i.e. not physical. Would love to hear other's thoughts on this matter, pun intended.

This reminds me of Adyashanti's experience of awakening... He basically sat out one day thinking "this is gonna be the day I have an immense psychological breakthrough, it absolutely has to be today or I'm gonna go insane" after having spent many years intensely focusing and practicing self-inquiry. During this sit, he had a realization of complete and utter defeat. He realized that what he was attempting was completely impossible, and he had failed. He "entered a game with a 100% chance of losing". Given that realization, he was able to completely and totally let go, which gave him the (non)-experience he was looking for. In my opinion, the practice of letting go of absolutely all effort and allowing experience to be (or not be) as it is is the most rewarding practice, and leads to the most growth. It's kind of like one of Leo's videos during his 7 day retreat... The moths from outside the window were trying to reach the light inside, but it was an absolutely futile endeavor. No matter how hard they tried, they would not reach the light. It would require some completely new kind of quantum leap for them to reach inside; a discontinuous jump. Similarly for us to realize our selves will require something totally unlike anything we've ever experienced. How could you experience yourself? For whatever is having that experience is not being experienced. It will require exercising a muscle you've never used before, namely getting good at not trying. Or maybe it takes a little bit of blind luck, or magic. That being said, practicing self-inquiry is still very valuable and worthwhile. Had Adyashanti not done so, he wouldn't have been able to feel that complete and utter defeat and totally let go.

@Ilya I've had the exact same problem. It helps to set a clear intention like: "I will do noting meditation for the next 20 minutes" or whatever you want to do. And if that doesn't work, "Do Nothing" is a perfect technique to default to. For example if while you're meditating you're like "do I want to do this technique or that technique" and constantly thinking over and over and switching between techniques, you can just totally relax all effort and rest and "do" a non-technique.

@Igor82 Yes! Honestly I could have included a TLDR saying try taping your mouth shut while sleeping to see if that benefits you. My sleep quality and energy throughout the day is much better doing so, I'll probably tape my mouth while sleeping for life.

@Claire Verlyn correct, but be safe about it, do some research. It might help to eat low carbohydrate for some time first (because when you eat low carbohydrate your body will learn to use fat for fuel... if you just abruptly stop eating, your body may have a hard time tapping into your fat stores and you can have a pretty bad time for a few days). Another option is a "fat fast". If you drink coffee or tea or anything like that, consider adding some coconut oil to it, and consuming only that throughout the duration of your "fat fast". Coconut oil itself is very good for acne (because it improves your insulin sensitivity)

@Claire Verlyn You technically fast every day, for example you're not eating when you're sleeping. Try extending the amount of time you go without eating, reasonably and gently. Before doing that, eating a low carbohydrate (or more accurately, a low glycemic) diet could really be beneficial for you. http://supernaturalacnetreatment.com/insulin-important-acne-hormone/ Research the benefits of fasting and low carbohydrate (low glycemic) diets, inform your parents. As for positive affirmations and self love, yes those will help a ton. In the end it's your body doing the healing. You want to get out of its way by having faith that it is highly intelligent and doing what is best for you. You can even love your acne, your body is having an appropriate response to the condition it is in. It is proof of your health and the ability of your body to manage itself. Feel the way you want to feel about your skin. Really sit there and just feel that your skin is flawless and beautiful. You might have a negative thought come in like "but it isn't!", simply notice it and say to it " I can see how this belief has served me in the past, but no thanks, I choose to love my skin". Then truly feel love for your skin, and sit there and feel beautiful. Sounds great, but the trick is to actually do it, and do it regularly and often, and with intensity and emotion. Feel the way you want to feel. Doing it around bedtime could be particularly effective, as your subconscious is more impressionable at this time. And do those things which you believe help your acne (proper hygiene, clean diet, etc). They are like "permission slips" for your subconscious to heal itself.

@Claire Verlyn Tbf, I've seen lots of praise for raw honey on the internet and elsewhere. And protein shakes around a workout can potentially be beneficial, but that's more for a bodybuilder and even then I wouldn't recommend it. The problem with both of these foods is they cause your insulin to spike -- keeping your insulin low (as well as improving your insulin sensitivity) is one of the most important things you can do to improve your acne. That's why I recommend going low carb, fasting, and exercising. And of course use good judgement, but even underweight people can achieve profound benefits from fasting (provided you're not in danger of starvation or anything). Actually, I've heard reports of underweight people fasting, and their digestion and health improving to the point where they could gain weight. As for foods to gain weight, I would recommend adding some high fat foods to your diet. Perhaps use more oils when cooking, consider dark chocolate, etc.

I would definitely second the fasting recommendation, especially the occasional extended fast. It produces profound autophagy within your cells and has a potent anti inflammatory effect. Really mastering this one thing could make your skin go from unhealthy to vibrant and radiant. I would also highly recommend cultivating a meditation habit. Stress can indeed cause skin issues, and meditation is the best tool we have for stress management. Get really really good at relaxing your mind and body. This allows the body to heal, rest, digest, repair itself. Self love and a positive attitude is sure to help as well. Your subconscious has incredibly powerful healing abilities. I would recommend even affirming to yourself everyday (especially right before and after bed) that your skin is beautiful and radiant and glowing. Feel what it would (and will) feel like to be completely acne free. Additionally I would ditch the protein shakes and possibly the honey (especially if it's conventional, non local non organic honey). Eat only Whole Foods, as high quality as possible. See whole30.com. Some foods that seem especially effective for healthy skin are turmeric, fish oil, beets, pomegranate, raw cacao, leafy greens, and coconut oil. Consider going on a low carb diet. Get plenty of high quality sleep, practice good hygiene, relax as much as possible, perform tons of low level aerobic activity (i.e. walk a lot), and always feel grateful. What a great challenge to overcome!

@tyy Thank you for the advice. Being able to smoke moderately without going overboard would be ideal and is what I'm going for. Have had mixed success controlling my habits since starting this journal. Mostly success though porn wise, and not much success at all weed wise. I have been keeping up with my other self actualization habits and practices, an in addition have begun to journal a lot more. Can tell keeping a journal will be profoundly beneficial. Hope my next post will be about the positive progress I've made in cutting my bad habits.

I feel there are two glaringly obvious parts of my life that could be changed in order to increase the quality of my consciousness, create more profitable experiences, and be happier more often: Porn Weed Outside of those two things I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself, certainly room for improvement everywhere though of course. I don't mean to say that noone should ever look at porn or use weed, but the way I see it for me is that these two things control me to a large degree, put me in auto-pilot mode, and I haven't proven to myself in almost a decade that I can go without the two indefinitely. I've gone some time without both and can say that the quality of my life substantially improves when I do. So at least for now, this journal will be mostly about me gaining back control over my weed and porn habits. My goal while writing this is to go at least 2 weeks without either. I may update it about other stuff as well; perhaps about my dreams -- historically, they've become drastically more vivid and potentially lucid when I've gone without weed and/or porn (especially weed).

@Annie Sounds like you're taking you and your family's diet seriously and taking steps to improve it, mad props.

Quick and tasty and super nutritious breakfast: eggs and bacon, maybe with a little fruit. For lunch, standard meat and veggies. Slow cookers help for convenience, maybe the picky eater would like something like beef stew or chili, comforting foods like that. For dinner, same as lunch but I like to also make sweet potato (or potato) wedges for "dessert", with ceylon cinnamon, maybe a liiitle bit of honey, some butter, salt pepper. Way better tasting and better for you than any processed snacks.

Contrasting showers (alternating hot and cold) are where it's at. Hot opens pores, cold closes, we all know the benefits of cold showers but warm relaxes the muscles and is pleasant, something to look forward to and a reward for the cold. Contrasting showers get the blood (and lymph!!) flowing. This is good for healthy skin. Also for what it's worth, in my experience, organic, wild or pasture-raised foods (i.e. grass fed) are the least suspect for skin problems. They don't necessarily make your skin look better (save maybe fatty fish, eggs, liver and other organ meat), but they don't make it look worse like some plant foods might (even so called healthy plant foods, like too much fruit, night shade vegetables can be a problem for some, high fodmap foods, etc). That being said, another food I'll mention that is the most famous beauty tonic in traditional chinese medicine: Schisandra berries. Look into these, they are amazing for healthy, glowing skin, as well as amazing for overall health and well-being. That being said a healthy diet/lifestyle overall is essential.

"The Little Book That Beats the Market" gives a perfect investing strategy for someone who doesn't want to put too much effort into it but still get very good returns. Best bang for your buck. You could spend a ton of effort looking into current events and trying to predict future trends to MAYBE do a bit better than the book's strategy would have you do, or you can put almost no effort into it and get great returns via the strategy.

Make it as easy as possible on yourself to find a life purpose that resonates with you. The course would be a great potential place to start. A journal and a pen. Lots of reading information, research on various areas that your life purpose could fall into, building up your "soft" infrastructure (as I think he called it), a focused mind, control of your attention, self-control, willpower, creativity, etc are skills that would be applicable to any life purpose. Good luck, I'm searching for my life purpose as well.

Okay time to really take some right action. I plan on today containing minimal stimulation, plenty of meditation, plenty of jumping on my trampoline, fasting until dinner (I overate a bit yesterday), learning, working towards my life purpose, and absolutely no seeking of erotica or weed. Another thing I need to get a control of is how much coffee I drink. Drinking coffee seems to make it a bit harder for me to control my urges. But I'm in deep and don't want to just give it up immediately. So I plan on for this week drinking no more than 3 mugs a day. Pre mortems: Weed: Why I might fail: I have weed at my apartment --- don't have any weed I get home from work, I have weed at my apartment, and I feel like smoking --- instill that meditation habit you want to start doing right after work Friends want to smoke --- I'm generally okay with doing this, but for now will explain how I'm trying to cut back and gain control over the habit Weekend morning and I really feel like smoking --- work on life purpose or meditation Porn: Why I might fail: It's been days since I've looked at any or masturbated, I rationalize to myself that just a little bit won't negatively effect me --- read something or bounce on trampoline, remind myself that I'm wanting to totally rid myself of the control porn has over my life which will take some time Long distance girlfriend that I'm with a few days to a week per month leaves --- realize that this is a perfect time to see my urges and be present with them and let them come and go, and a perfect time for me to prove to myself I can not look at porn even when I feel like I want to. Also talk to her about my craving(s) and how I'm beating them Porn is easily accessible and a click away --- install a web filter and don't have anything downloaded on my computer I've looked at porn a bit and think I may as well look at more --- get up and do something else like bouncing on my trampoline, walking, reading, working, etc. Go to habit when I feel like relapsing: bouncing on trampoline. Also remind myself of the benefits and how amazing I've felt in the past when I've gone without porn for a while, and the theory behind why porn is so detrimental to me (sooo overstimulating). Coffee: Get some decaf beans and if I've already had 3 mugs of regular coffee and really want some more, make decaf instead. Keep cutting back until I can go without coffee indefinitely and a cup of coffee is a treat that gets me feeling euphoric again.

I would recommend eating a diet like this: http://www.perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet Tending towards lower carbs has made my skin glow a bit more in my experience. Not to demonize carbs, they can be extremely healthy (just forget I said that about the carbs and eat similar to how that link explains). Another thing you can look into is the "whole30" program (can be found on google). It basically eliminates every normal culprit of food allergies and has you eating exclusively whole foods for 30 days. Besides that, a really powerful exercise to get your body's detoxification processes going is "rebounding" otherwise known as jumping on a trampoline. I wrote a post about it in the health fitness nutrition section, I can't talk it up enough. Do some research on it and invest in a cheap trampoline and your skin will benefit so much. Also, some particularly helpful foods for your skin include pomegranate, and beet root. Many super colorful plant foods will help a lot. Beet root increases your nitric oxide and gives your skin a nice glowing tan like hue to it. Pomegranate is just red af and chock full of antioxidants, and one of the most ancient and healthiest fruits you can eat. It's gaining popularity lately. If you can only choose one, look into the benefits of beets. Rebounding + reduced breathing exercises + Beet juice (+an all around healthy diet like how perfecthealthdiet.com outlines) will result in your skin looking much better, guaranteed, as well as a ton of other benefits (nitric oxide is your friend).

@Christian Thank you for the tip, I've sorta half-ass done that before but will do it more formally soon. I did have some dreams last night. This forum could be an excellent place to keep track of my dreams--typing is much easier for me than writing things down. Writing has more flexibility (to draw charts, etc) but if I'm just writing words typing is much faster. Though I have dreamt of some things I'd be hesitant to talk about online, but at least it's anonymous and you can't get in any trouble for what you dream. Anyways: Dreamt I was in the backyard of my first home a late wintery night, lots of other childhood friends there, knew it was time for these things to come out that kill everyone (like that time of night) (little spider creatures). Most people hid inside, me and one friend (don't remember who) hid under the fort, then I realized the spiders could get there, so I decided to hop over the backyard fence (as the spiders were beginning to cover the entire backyard), but the other side of the fence was a huge drop of uneven, rocky terrain and a river. There were patches of snow I thought could be a good place to land but it seemed a dangerous distance to fall. I went to a different location on the fence which had the least severe drop, sorta grabbed onto a tree which actually lowered almost all the way down to the ground on the other side where I safely landed. Had a thought like "I'm glad I'm not a frontiersman that had to go through this kind of thing making life or death decisions". Had some other dreams last night but having trouble remembering them now and they weren't super vivid. I did actually smoke just a little bit yesterday. If I go just a day or two without, the dreams generally get extremely intense--this one wasn't much compared to some others I've had. I almost want to copy some of my past dreams that I've saved into separate posts. Also, no lucidity last night which is a goal of mine. Last lucid dream was last Saturday night, the 18th, where among other things I dove into water from a great height lucidly. Also I mentioned that I'm "doing pretty well for myself" besides the weed and porn, which is true conventionally speaking. However I know that my bad habits are leaking out into practically all areas of my life and negatively effecting them. When I've gone a while without smoking weed and looking at porn (especially looking at porn, I can't help but feel guilty after looking at lots of porn), my confidence skyrockets, my trembly voice is gone, life seems more magical, my awareness goes up, my motivation goes up, confidence in my abilities and what I can achieve go up, energy, relationships, etc. Basically, I feel like if I can control these habits, I can live a life I will truly be proud of on my death bed, and make some sort of positive contribution to the world. Whether that be in music, writing, starting a business, a combination of things, etc.

First off check out that optical illusion, it's the album cover for Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective's most successful and accessible album and arguably their best. The song's lyrics start out with "Am I really all the things that are outside of me?" and that line is repeated over and over at the end. Sounds a lot like enlightenment. Other lyrics include: "Would I complete myself without the things I like around?" (being grounded in yourself) and "Do you appreciate the subleties of tastebuds?" (mindfulness) Also Good Girl / Carrots off of Person Pitch, a solo record by Panda Bear, one of Animal Collective's members has these lyrics: "Listen in between your notes There's something been going on While you were busy taking notes And look in between your moments There's something good happening Its good to sometimes Slow it down" Also Death Grips' "Lord of the Game" feat. Mexican Girl and featuring a sample (without legal permission) from Beastie Boys' "Brass Monkey" ends well: "Fuck where you're from, Fuck where you're goin, It's all about where you're at" Also they sing a lot about death which is pretty cool. Also Between the Buried and me has some spiritual and enlightenment themes in their music. Stuff like cutting away every piece of you til what's left is unrecognizable, etc. Here's a song called Astral Body that's light on the screaming and about astral projection. If you like heavy metal they've got lots of other great stuff.

Buteyko method is far superior IMO and advocates pretty much the opposite of what Wim Hof does for breathing exercises (Buteyko method has you breath calmly and less and sustain slight air hunger for a while, Wim Hof method has you hyperventilate and breathe more for a while). I can see the Wim Hof method giving you some quick energy but most people today breathe far too much. Consider a healthy, fit individual vs an obese unhealthy individual both after walking up the same flight of stairs. The healthy individual will be breathing far less and more calmly and easily than the obese individual. It's more important to get your unconscious breathing pattern to be such that you breathe slowly, rhythmically, calmly, and far less than almost everyone in modern western culture is breathing today. This will have a hugely positive impact on both body and mind. "A perfect man breathes as if he is not breathing" - Lao Tsu I'm all in for the cold exposure stuff though.