jjer94

unconsciousness sucks. I notice my need to be right all the time, going all the way back to the school days. Now that I know there's no way my family could understand the work I'm doing, I have imaginary dialogues in my head with them, where they object me and I put them in their place with an air of superiority. The result is resentment towards them and their unconscious ways. Why do you resent them? Because they're unconscious and they don't realize it. They're not living up to their full potential, and it bothers me. Perhaps I'm a little angry at myself too for not living up to my full potential in the past and present. Why should humans strive to live up to their full potential? Because that's what life is all about! It's the hero's journey! The journey to integrate and transcend yourself! And nobody fucking realizes it! Everyone lives a fucking mediocre unconscious life because they avoid themselves and their emotions! All of our problems have to do with this one issue! I want to fucking slap everyone on the back of the head and tell them to WAKE THE FUCK UP! Lordy lord, aren't you feisty. So you believe that unconsciousness is bad. Where did you get this idea from? None other than Leo himself. Well, not really. He never said that explicitly, but I extrapolated it. But after a few years of this work, I see so clearly that it's true. Unconsciousness is a huge root cause of all of our problems. That's baaaaaad. I should cram my megaphone in unconscious people's ears. Can you absolutely know this is true? No, not really. Bad relative to what? And what does it mean to be unconscious? It just means, unaware of what you're doing. When you're unaware of what you're doing, you're unable to see how you sabotage yourself and get stuck. If you're trying to get unstuck, unconsciousness is bad. But in the existential sense, there's no inherent badness to being unaware. You're just fucking unaware.... How do you react when you believe that unconsciousness is bad? ....and you cause all of the world's problems! By sitting on your damn plastic couch eating your damn plastic cheetoes fogging your fucking brain and wasting your life, you're not only doing yourself a disservice, but you're doing the world at large a disservice by catering to your emotional weasel, you fucking twat!!! I get all oo-ra-ra and pissed off. Almost like a religious fanatic. Who would you be without that belief? I'd be...well, definitely more compassionate, that's for sure. Probably kind of lost too, because self-actualization seems to be my anchor. The thing that keeps me waking up in the morning and moving in a clear direction. It's invigorating and worthwhile to live for. Without that, I don't know what I'd do. Probably fall back into old unconscious ways. I'm kind of afraid of unconsciousness. Seems like I fear unconsciousness just as much as I want to self-actualize. What if unconsciousness is good? Fuck, unconsciousness is good? No way! Well, actually... If you want to live an easy, safe, comfortable existence If you want to have at least some happiness, sometimes If "ignorance is bliss" is your motto If you want to be in the herd Then I suppose unconsciousness would be good. But I can give a million-and-one different reasons why unconsciousness would be bad. I shall continue to hold my belief like a religious fanatic. Sigh...We'll have to work with this some more.

I'm glad you did, because my body had an emotional reaction, as though I was being attacked. From what you said as well as my reaction, I realized on a deeper level how much I really avoid conflict and try to be the "good boy." This goes back to my school days, when I tried really hard to get good grades and suck up to the teachers. Because deep down, I believed I wasn't good enough, I compensated through maintaining the "good boy" image. I was also contemplating last night my strong urge to always be right, and I think it ties in with this as well. Anyway, that deserves its own entry. What I mean to say is, thank you for your perspective.

I don't. I wasn't trying to spark a debate, rather to share my experience and leave a warning about taking diet too seriously. That's a good point. I wasn't. I did cronometer to make sure I got most of my macros and micros. DHA seemed to be fulfilled by the fruit, but probably not enough. Perhaps because of soil quality, as you mentioned before. Yes, they are projections. Thanks for pointing that out! Honestly, I still don't know what to make of it.

I also was a John Rose/Doctor Morse fanatic for awhile, doing the whole raw vegan fruitarian thing. Five and a half months later, I was emaciated. I could barely lift my body, form sentences, let alone interact with others. I also did fasting and herbs, including a 9-day Master Fast. Feet and feet of that mucoid plaque stuff came out. I had orthorexia. Was constantly plagued by the fear of eating the wrong foods in the wrong combinations, to the point where I couldn't go to any social events because they usually involved eating. After lots of surrender and paradigm shattering, I switched to cyclical keto. Three months later: regained more than 25 pounds, energy and focus through the roof. Usually, the issue is not diet. It's dogma and human psychology. When you attach yourself to any particular diet plan and say that it's the one and only "SPECIES SPECIFIC" diet, you've turned it into a religion. You've mechanically closed your mind down to any other possibilities. You can end up, quite literally, moralizing yourself to death. Your mind limits you by saying, "You can't eat _____", and when your body craves that food, you repress that tendency to the shadow realm. Hence, yo-yo dieting. I binged like crazy after giving up on raw vegan. Raw vegan works great for some people, just as keto works great for others. Dietary preferences change throughout the years. New discoveries are also made every day in the field of diet. @ppfeiff, ever hear of the term "glycation"? Or AGEs? How too much sugar can gray the hair and cause accelerated aging? How modern fruits have 30x the amount of sugar of their predecessors? Does that change your perspective at all on John Rose, who at 63 years old is totally gray and senile? I just say all these things as a warning. The moment you set your dietary beliefs in stone is the moment you trap yourself. If I were you, I'd adopt the more open mindset that @Richard Alpert has.

wrong. I had a breakthrough insight last night. I finally realized the true essence of mindfulness... I used to think of mindfulness as just "observation." You witness your senses and thoughts in the present moment, and that's it. Right?... RIGHT!? I've been doing this so-called "observation" with the hidden agenda to dissolve my unwanted emotions, as if observing the uncomfortable sensations will make them magically melt away. In other words, I subtly reject aspects of my experience and pretend as though I'm doing mindfulness. But not last night. Last night, my mind was racing with negative emotions in bed. At first, I pushed them away; I used my acupressure mat and breathing exercises to try to fall asleep. But mind refused to shut up. So instead of fighting it, I gave into it. Instead of observing it with the subtle intention to get rid of it, I allowed it with no intention to get rid of it. I thought, "Okay, fine. If I feel restless, then so be it! I'll stay up. I'll think myself to death if I have to! I admit it. I feel xyz." Fifteen minutes later, I fell asleep. The essence of mindfulness is not just observation; it's allowing! It's allowing this moment to be exactly as it is, not in the observe-it-till-it-goes-away sense but in the I-don't-care-if-this-emotion-kills-me sense. It's allowing emotions to do their thing, regardless of how uncomfortable they are. No hope of more comfortable emotions, no expectation of getting better. This moment is the best moment there could possibly be, because it's the only moment happening. To say "no" to any aspect of this moment is to fragment reality and create suffering.

A thousand years I am life I've come a long way...

@HII I posted Sigur Ros because the feeling of that song matched what I was feeling this morning. Has nothing to do with what I wrote. But thank you for the advice, and thank you for unveiling an emotional reaction within me.

toxic shame. I had a few insights this morning during meditation because I was so agitated. I dug into that agitation, and a whole slew of shit came up. The agitation turned to anger directed inwards, which turned to shame. "I suck at music." "There's no possible way to make money from it, so what's the point of throwing all my eggs in that basket?" "I'm incapable of doing anything. Every time I go up on stage I will be humiliated because my toxic shame leaks through to the audience." "Every song I write is too cryptic. Nobody gets it." I think back to the songwriting workshop in Ireland. How I was told that my songs were cryptic. How they pushed me to write story songs about made-up characters instead. How I cried in the countryside because I thought that the way I was writing songs was somehow "wrong" and that I wasn't fit to do it. I think back to the radio contest I enrolled in. How I was the first contestant to get booted. How my nail broke the day before my performance, so I couldn't really fingerpick. How I said to the show host, "I kind of saw it coming," because deep down, I was so ashamed of myself and my music. I think back to my Dad's 50th birthday, when I was 12 years old, and he forced me to play a song in my brother's band in front of hundreds of people, and I was screaming and crying because I didn't want to do it. How he forced me anyways. How I messed up on my solo, and people still applauded me. How humiliated I felt. How I quit playing guitar for eight years after that event. It's the same thing, rehashed over and over and over again. The cycles of shame. The self-fulfilling prophecy. It's almost like I WANT to humiliate myself, so I can confirm these beliefs and continue living in psychological homeostasis. No wonder why I haven't played much guitar lately. The inner critic keeps flinging this shit at me. And the sad part is, I believe most of it.

I've been using Simplenote for the past two years and hadn't heard of OneNote until Sunday. Now I'm transferring all of my entries into OneNote. I second @Zega 's excitement. Thanks for the plug, Leo!

hey! listen! I realized today just how little I listen to my family members. I sometimes ask them how their day was out of courtesy, but I don't actually care what they have to say. My mind just tunes out and goes elsewhere. It predicts what they're going to say and responds with "Yeah," "Sure," "Mhm," "Cool." This phenomenon is an example of the psychological term called adaptation. Adaptation is your psyche's tendency to get desensitized to something if you're exposed to it regularly. The best example would be a gift. When you receive a shiny laptop as a gift, that sucker is amazing. You want to spend as much time as you can on it. But how about one month later? The excitement of having the laptop wears off completely. I don't know how to combat adaptation. Am I doing them a disservice if I pretend to care? Wait, this goes deeper than I thought. Much deeper than adaptation. Maybe I...oh fuck, the truth?... Here goes... I don't value what they have to say. I've made my own value judgment towards them. I've deemed them as "psychologically underdeveloped." I've shut out all possibilities that they could say something noteworthy to me, and because of that, I half-listen to their words. What does this say about me? That I'm manipulative? A scornful bastard? A self-righteous close-minded prick? Nah, just honest. And perhaps somewhat aware and somewhat willing to change. In some ways, they're worse in this regard. They not only tune me out sometimes, but they also have rigid belief systems. They won't actually listen to new ideas. Instead, they just wait their turn to preach their ideas at me. Law of attraction, much?

the remains. I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets. I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road. At night I turn back the clocks; I open the family album and look at myself as a boy. What good does it do? The hours have done their job. I say my own name. I say goodbye. The words follow each other downwind. I love my wife but send her away. My parents rise out of their thrones into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing? Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same. I empty myself of my life and my life remains. --Mark Strand

5% less ignorant. More agape moments, more screaming, more crying, more being out in the beautiful woods, more yoga, rinse and repeat. My body is buzzing! Man oh man, the anger is endless. I've been hurt so many times, and I've been too unconscious to process the hurt. Instead, what I've done over the years is just beat myself up more for my actions...which leads to depression. Depression = anger turned inward. De-pression = descending emotional pressure, that when unacknowledged, completely saps the body of energy. Or as Jim Carrey said, Dep-ression = deep rest. Where you get so sick of holding up the charade, that you just collapse. Most of the reason why I get triggered by unconscious "chimp-like" behavior is because I've had a hard time forgiving myself for my own chimp-like behavior, especially with what happened to my friend three years ago. I have a hard time accepting ignorance. I have a hard time accepting the fact that most of the time, ignorant people are ignorant of their ignorance, and there's little I can do or say to snap them out of it. Three years, ago, I was one of those ignorant kids, falling into the same cycles of desperation. Today, I'm only 5% less ignorant. Now is a time to forgive. Where have I been?

I'm surprised no one's talked about the ketogenic diet yet. Keto is an incredibly therapeutic diet. It resets your body's metabolism to primarily burn fat for fuel. Fasting or missing meals becomes a non-issue, as your hunger is suppressed and blood sugar remains steady throughout the day. Your cravings for carbs shut down completely after a couple weeks. For anyone looking to eat healthier and is having a hard time cutting out sugar, keto is a good start. Being in ketosis also feels a bit like Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless. You can keep going, and going, and going, and going. Your focus is improved twofold. Your mood is uplifted. For anyone who feels depressed and has a hard time getting out of bed, keto is a good start. Most of the foods you eat on keto, if you remove dairy, are very gut-friendly too. If you have leaky gut or digestive issues, keto is a good start. You don't feel like you're missing anything on the ketogenic diet, since your carb cravings shut down. The problem I had with veganism and raw veganism was that my cravings were ridiculously hard to control. I continued craving meat even after five months into it. On keto, you feel satiated all the time. You don't have to think about food so much. For those of you who are recovering from eating disorders like orthorexia or bulimia, keto is a good start. I'm not sure about the long-term benefits of the diet though. I'm only a little more than two months into it. If you want to learn more about the diet, @Siim Land has a lot of quality videos on it:

@Nadosa That is why I suggest cultivating body awareness... go for a walk my friend. Thirty minutes of walking will do better for you than a couple straight hours of thinking about thinking.

If you're confused, you're not being honest with yourself. Deep down, there's something you're not admitting. A few months ago, I was at this point too. At some points, I could barely get out of bed. I realized that I was repressing my truth. In truth, I didn't want to die. Rather, I desperately wanted to live. But I felt trapped. Maybe you resonate? If so, explore your own thoughts and see what's under all of these suicidal thoughts. Contemplate why you feel so drawn to do it. Go further than the nihilistic thoughts, the thoughts that others have wronged you. Look deep at your own feelings, e.g. "I feel trapped and lonely and sad." That's a good start. Oftentimes, taking thoughts too seriously is a symptom of being dissociated from the body. What personally got me out of my slump was cultivating body awareness: daily walks, yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises. A simple walk every day can do wonders for you.

it's gonna buck. The worst emotions are the kind that hold back other emotions. At the beginning of this rock bottom phase (sounds like an 80s band name), I felt guilty for feeling angry at my family. I thought that my childhood was perfect: they provided for all of my needs, they encouraged me to try new things, they didn't abuse me per se. There was no rational reason to be angry at them. But the hurt little kid within me thought otherwise. And trying to repress the little kid when you're at your weakest is like trying to control a bull by grabbing its horns. It's gonna buck. The truth is, I was angry. I was angry that my autistic brother got most of the attention. I was angry that my dad forced me to ration the video games, then ultimately unplugged them. I was angry that my middle brother, being my polar opposite personality-wise, told me to be more social. I was angry that my dad and brother picked on me since I was the youngest and most defenseless. I was angry that my dad wouldn't stop when I said stop. I was angry that my mom smothered me because her relationship with my dad got cold. At some point, I gave in and let the bull do its thing. It still is. I find myself screaming and crying in the car, kicking the bed, and blabbering nonsense, because I feel the urge to release this pent-up energy that's ossified my system over the years. And it's only after doing this, that I realized that this anger is my own projection. More on that in another entry. But just because I think the anger is unreasonable, doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. That goes for any other emotion.

thawing. For years, I've felt frozen in this block of ice. Physically stiff, psychologically circuitous, emotionally numb. Blindly falling into the same karmic cycles over and over and over and over again. I didn't realize how frozen I truly was, until I started reading through my old journal entries. All of these memories of past rejections. How I brushed them aside, projected onto the other person (e.g. she's just a stupid bitch), and refused to feel the hurt. Lack of awareness only made me get rejected even more. Slowly but surely, the heart grew colder and colder until it froze. Then my friend committed suicide and my heart became Antarctica. A little more than two years into this work, and I finally feel like I'm thawing. The anger, the hurt, the sadness, the grief. All of it's been coming to the surface. My body is releasing stuckness through yoga. My awareness is increasing through meditation. I see very clearly now that my self-esteem is extremely low, and my fears of humiliation and rejection are extremely high. I see how I've compensated for these fears: the social anxiety, the video games, the clinginess, then the isolation. I see that I haven't been able to forgive myself for what happened to my friend three years ago. I may just have to take a road trip to visit his family for closure. Despite feeling so dang sad, I'm also glad that I'm feeling. I'm actually feeling!

@phoenix666 Need to? Not sure. But facing the "darkness", inside and outside, means less scary corners to run away from. Two years in, and I feel like I've only just started...

@egoless I didn't have one, but have worked on a few. The first one was growing an assortment of vegetables and berries, and had a chicken coup and a few goats. The second one had a menagerie: yak, ducks, a hundred or so chickens, turkins (the weirdest-looking things you'll ever see), alpaca, llamas, goats, and a sheep. The one I'm currently working on is primarily vegetables with some berries and bees, though we're in clean-up phase for the winter.

@egoless I've never tried it, so I don't know. Same thing with the mushrooms. I know chaga's a big deal where I'm currently living. I bought some local chaga tea recently that was extremely expensive. So, maybe? You'll have to do your own research on that one.

@egoless Yes, it can be hard to make profits. You wouldn't want to do it for the money. As for the crops/livestock, it all depends on where you want to farm. Different crops/livestock thrive in different climates. For example, in my climate, chickens, bees, mushrooms, and cruciferous vegetables like kale do particularly well. The last two websites are international, and WWOOF also has extensions for other countries such as https://wwoof.nz/

Coming from someone who's currently working on a farm, and who's done farming internships in the past: farming is hard work. Depending on the size of the farm, work hours will be long. The physical labor is meditative and relaxing at times, strenuous and frustrating other times. It's very grounding work. However, if you think finance is too repetitious, you may not like most farm work. Would you be willing to pull weeds for a couple hours straight in a squatting position? Or shovel chicken poop all day into a wheelbarrow while flies are assaulting your back? When it comes to freedom, you're tied to the schedule of the animals and plants. Days off are scarce. It's a chop wood, carry water kind of job. Fortunately for you, it can be a solitary activity, and you could probably listen to podcasts or whatever while you're working. That being said, there is a sort of beauty to it. Like you said, farming does connect you with nature. Most of us don't have that connection nowadays, and that's a shame because it's so precious. There is also a sense of fulfillment when the dinner on the table is coming directly from the garden. If you're a health nut like me, it's even more gratifying. Not to mention you're bringing nutrients back into the soil. As for creativity, there is some, but not as much compared to the physical labor. If you're interested, you could take a "test drive" of sorts. I used https://wwoofusa.org/ and stayed on a farm for a couple months to get a feel for it. There's also https://www.helpx.net/ and https://www.workaway.info/. I hope you find what you're looking for!

kernels from the journal. I've had amazing insights today leafing through some old journal entries. I've written in a journal on and off since first grade. Yes, first grade! I'm so damn grateful that I did, because now with my fresh perspective, I can spot the psychological patterns and see how they've persisted to present day. One of the most blatant patterns is toxic shame. Synonyms for shame: low self-esteem, embarrassment, humiliation, non-deservedness, feelings of unworthiness/deficiency, etc. The way I used to cope was through berating and inflating my ego. Now for some funny (and depressing) quotes from my journal entries: (2001)"I had a assembly this after noon It was the shape show. every hottey in the whole school woched me. I wore these stinkin paper squares." (2003)"I like her. She knows that I like her because a troublemaker told her." (context: I told a "friend" that I liked this girl, and he told the entire class about it. I was crying that day in front of everyone with my head down on the desk.) (2003)"Last Sunday, I was about to puck, but still, life is good." (context: At day camp, I threw up in front of everyone because I ate too much. One of the most humiliating moments of my life. There begins my forays into eating disorders and the fear of vomiting.) (2003)"I finally realized that I am the best writer and speller in my class." (2004)"I'm a master at pogostick bouncing! I can bounce 153 times in a row!!!" (2004)"It's an amazing, 52-page long story!! It's the best story I ever wrote. It's so amazing, that I felt inside out when I read my first draft!" (context: After this entry I sent it in to a contest, and it got rejected.) (2004)"Did you know that I'm in advanced spelling? I know, the first 20 pages of this journal wasn't such great spelling. But now, I'm a master! I can spell transcontinental! See? I just spelled it!" (2004)"Even if years passed, I still have a crush on M, even though she's kind of bratty, I still like her. Sometimes I even have dreams of her." (context: In first grade, girl says she's in love with me and holds my hand. One day later, she says she's no longer in love with me and breaks up.) (2004)"I've also checked out how much I've grown. Not even a centimeter. I'm all skin and bones! But one thing has changed...my muscle. I have a 6-pack, no offense!" (2005)"I was way too lazy to write about winter break and about the new years. I was too busy playing video games (something I like to call sweet Halo 2)! Sorry about that. Maybe I won't do it next time." (2007)"As you can see, I have blossomed into a more sophisticated writer. T...HM...I regret making those stories. Now looking back, that was so god damn embarrassing. Some of my friends even still bring it up. FORGET ABOUT IT, BITCH. I HAVE CHANGED. I am no longer that innocent little boy who played video games all day, but more involved and less modest. Well, hopefully. I am still recovering from not being able to play videojuegos for an excessive amount of time. Halo 3 is sick though." (2007)"I have really ruined [my relationship with M] with the queer paperclips (fucking clippy! Damn you! God, I was weird...)" (context: In fourth grade I collected different colored paperclips in an Altoids can.) (2007)"I've been making a fool of myself in P.E. In softball, 2 days ago, I played 3rd base for an inning, and I had a chance to get somebody out, but instead of pegging them, I threw the ball at them. Mr. F yelled, 'What is this? dodgeball?' I was humiliated. R [my crush] was in this class too! I wonder what she thinks...I also embarrassed myself by throwing the bat twice after I swung. It was extremely humiliating as well. Today even, in indoor 8-base kickball, I missed the kick twice. How fucking stupid is that!?" This is only the tip of the iceberg. I still have several more entries to read through...I'm debating whether to share more.

perfectionism, part whatever. I've been contemplating perfectionism in my direct experience a lot lately. Examining what it feels like viscerally and emotionally, and examining what the thought-stories are saying. I've found that in my experience it comes down to this: security. Or a million other synonyms: solidity, certainty, grounding, knowing, holding on, etc etc. I want things to be perfect all the time. I have a set standard for what "perfect" means. I attempt to manipulate reality to maintain that "perfect" standard. But reality has no set standard. It does whatever the fuck it wants. Shit happens. And because of that, reality may not always conform to my set standard of "perfect." So the very act of setting this "perfect" standard is setting myself up for suffering. Suffering = the thought that "reality shouldn't be the way it is right now." The ego uses perfectionism as a tool to keep the illusion of itself going. Then, it becomes a "spiritual seeker" that looks for perfectionism (i.e. security/solidity/certainty/grounding/knowing/holding/etc.) in existence. But there is no perfectionism to existence. And it's that very lack of perfectionism that is paradoxically perfect. To have a perfectionistic ego is to deny the basic qualities of life: That it's transient, and that it's bigger than any standards or paradigms. In fact, it vies for the opposite qualities: solidity and certainty in a paradigm called "perfect." You could say that that's a form of death. And now, for the final paradox...drumroll... by "dying to" this perfectionistic ego, I'm actually becoming more alive. Go figure!