Cjaryo

I personally think that letting my mind think of whatever in gravitates for helps the most, that it's more relaxing that forcing consciousness/breathing, which can feel neurotic in a stressful day.

I experience this too, and it's basically happening because you're one of the few people in your life that are growing themselves, so there's less to talk about with friends and family. I don't recommend that you stop self-actualizing, as the average life is a mediocre life. Part of the journey I believe for everybody is developing a form of self-reliance, where you don't need anybody to be happy. I'm an introvert and even I went through that phase. Also, if you're looking for a video to help out, Leo has one called how to deal with loneliness.

I think what your describing is like when I go into the shower, and just think about stuff in the middle of a fast-paced day. During these breaks, we have time to contemplate feelings from our intuition and think about things that we can't during work, school, and whatnot.

Another possibility is that the intuition is sending you messages to work on a part of yourself that remains undeveloped. I agree with @Ilya in that you could work on self-acceptance/love.

@rogi 97 Then it seems like your problem might be just overthinking when you're sober, which I believe comes from anxiety and stress, so find a way to let go, and maybe lower your standards until you get comfortable.

Congrats on your success with social growth. Keep working on yourself and don't get complacent/comfortable. Do you work out, meditate, etc.? How long have you been self-actualizing for, and have you been focused primarily on dating/social skills?

When you're intoxicated, the ego or at least part of it isn't so restrictive about what you do and say, so you seem more natural and say what you want to. Try to talk more about the deep and real topics that you enjoy when you are sober, and you'll get better at it with experience.

I think you're stressing too much about the results right now. If it's a problem with self-esteem, work on building your confidence for some time, through exercising, achieving, etc. I recommend that you change your priorities so that you aren't living a so stressful life.

Name: Chris Arroyo Age: 15 Gender: Male Location: New York, USA Occupation: 10th-grade student Marital Status: Single Kids: No Hobbies: Personal development, reading, running, journaling, philosophy I got into personal development in 2014, the year that I got friend-zoned and then depressed. During this time, I was watching a lot of videos about getting a girlfriend and getting un-friend-zoned. I later watched other videos from Leo, listening to them primarily while playing video games. Personal challenges I've overcome: Became a vegan Got friends 21:15 5k Journaling habit Detachment from needing a girlfriend Overcame Netflix and video games What I'm working on now: Improving exercise habits Working on PMO addiction Solidifying journal habit Preparing for a meditation habit Learning to play electric/acoustic guitar

Free will vs. determinism is just a paradox, that we need to embrace and accept. Both sides are correct, and both sides are thought constructs, just paradigms and belief systems through which we see the world.

@Leo Gura Did you ever have a PMO (Porn, masturbation, orgasm) addiction?

Upon first glance, I believe that demons are so often represented as black smoke because of what it symbolizes. Black: Evil Dark Sinister Scary Unknown Smoke: Unpure Suffocative Blinding

I'm in a similar place right now, mostly in respects to NoFap. I think that what we need to do is get more serious about our lives, and work on improving it, maybe just in a general sense. For you and I, pornography may be too big of a challenge to handle, for now, or we haven't prepared enough to end the bad habit/addiction. Thus, we must educate ourselves with books and work on what we can, such as meditation, journaling, visualization, fulfillment, and so on, that will indirectly make us able to lose this habit, by making us a better person.

@Ocean I disagree with some of your examples, but I believe that you are essentially correct. The way I see it is that some things (20%) produce a high yield of results (80%), and we should thus focus on those activities so we can greatly change our lives with relatively low amounts of effort, and a relatively high amount of rewards.

I've tried to develop for myself a meditation habit 3 times. The last one was quite strong, but I lost it to video games. Within the next few days, I'm going to pick it up again, but I first need to more fully understand why I want to develop a meditation habit.

I'll probably get into yoga later in my life. I didn't know that there were so many areas to get insights from it. I think that periods of depressive episodes can help people to get in touch with their root issues that they had not greatly developed. I hope that you use your memories of peace from 2015 to power what you do in 2018.

I think that you have two major things to work on now, being a satisfying/fulfilling source of income, and your video game addiction. The former is necessary so that you can live your life feeling genuinely good, and without financial worry. The second saps you of your time and is a cul-de-sac. Realize this fully, with awareness, and you will change with less force and effort. Anyway, I'm fifteen years old, thus living with my family and attending high school. I have three domains within my house (dining room table, basement, and bedroom), which I try to keep minimalistic. I try to keep these areas associated with their functions (basement and dining room for schoolwork/ basement for guitar/ certain couch for meditation and reading/ and the bedroom for my journal and sleep). I imagine that when I am older, possibly in college or out of it, I will have certain rooms like you do, dedicated to more of my habits. With my current situation, my parents' houses are full of useless shit, and unorganized, so in the future I plan to have much less stuff, focused on my lifestyle

I think that Instagram would only make those egotistical desires stronger, and then you'd become unsatisfied with the low amount of likes, followers, and whatnot. It is your decision though...

Develop the philosophies of cynicism and stoicism, essentially in the facets of not caring about others or their opinions. At first, this may sound mean, and it can be labeled as so, but it unwinds a lot of the paradigms that society has imposed on you.

Hello So I'm in high school and my freshman year has just ended. I started learning how to play guitar and how to speak Spanish (Duolingo), exercising, and reading. I'm wondering if anyone has other ideas for me to use free time for. Big thanks!

So I'm 14 years old, so this is more of a "what would I tell my future self" type of thing. I would say: Hello, I hope that you are doing everything in your power to develop yourself and rock college. Be authentic and keep actualizing!

This essentially breaks down to you realizing that looks do not directly correlate with value. How you do that can be done in many ways. Examples include: A) Consider all the beautifully people you know, and then how stupid they actually are (If you have trouble here just think of a porn star, hot but dull), B) Consider the normal or ugly people you know, and then how smart they are, C) Notice and be aware that this paradigm (world view) only limits your potential. I believe that a combination of these is best for changing this belief. Notice that I did not talk about the benefits of this paradigm, and that there are some. If you however are within the extremities, you can use these techniques or others to balance yourself.

I think thats a great idea. I'd love to have some people in my area that are also on this journey.

Suffering can cause growth, although I would recommend that it be more mental than physical. If the body can survive the cold, the cold then manifests in the mind. The experience may be worse, but you come out better for it (like cold vs hot showers). I think that this parallels to Buddhism, in that you can't be completely indulgent nor completely restrictive. I believe that not wearing the jacket would give you more growth, as it would train your mind to be uncomfortable (a good thing). The extreme forms of this however, would be bad.

@K VIL You could go from a lazy shit to instinctual master, although these two types of people run on different world views, making it difficult. The lazy shit believes that there is nothing they can do about life, and for that reason they are stuck. The instinctual master however believes that they have no control, and that the self will naturally gravitate towards what is best. The innocent mistake in Progress's post is that he used the word impulse, which has different meanings. Right now, to us, an impulse is for comfort, but for him, an impulse is for making the right decision. Another obstacle holding us back from being an instinctual master is comfort, and that we crave it as well as security. The method Progress proposed is that we free ourselves from comfort by self-discipline, and then, the right things to do become intuitive. For you to instantly transform into an instinctual master, I believe that you'd have to listen to or develop your intuition, and make actions with it.