GabrielWallace

I agree, this video is something special. When it was first released, as I was watching it something suddenly clicked inside of me and I had the fullest, longest-lasting enlightenment experience I've had without psychedelics. It had been one of the craziest, most dramatic weeks of my life... I was trying to end a relationship, I was in love, my friend was in the hospital and would die a couple days later, we were trying to get his family a visa from America (I'd hired him to come to China), I was sick with a rash and sores, my head was all over the place and I was hoping from some clarity from somewhere... And then Leo delivers this video... And something clicked inside me, and I was suddenly weightless. All pain was gone. All strain, physically and mentally and emotionally, had just been lifted off of me. The insight of objective meaninglessness had untwisted something in me and I spent the day instinctively grinning, laughing, crying at all the beauty surrounding me, feeling energy run through my body like I've only ever felt on psychedelics or intense breath work... The whole experience lasted almost the entire day on full power. I've had glimpses of that same weightlessness again, but not quite as strong as the one I had that whole day. This video is something very special.

Hey everyone ~ I am trying to help a friend. Last year she did a vipassana meditation retreat and now she meditates around four hours a day. She claims that these days she only ever feels love, and no other emotion (although she's contradicted this a few times without realizing it). She completely lights up when talking about meditation and the 'wellspring' she goes into when she is there, and she says that her only life purpose is to be there. She says that before she learned to meditate and found her 'peaceful wellspring', every day of her life was torture. She's never seen any meaning in life, and still doesn't, but the meditation takes her away from the torture and into love. On one level I don't want to suggest that she is wrong - both of us are very aware that meaning is simply created - and I wouldn't want her to change her meditation practice when it is so peaceful for her. What concerns me is how she talks about how "we could just forget this stupid life". I asked her to talk more about what she meant, and she told me about how she has "always felt trapped in the body" - particularly when taking a shit. She recently did fasting where she only ate two bananas a day every day for more than a month, while meditating four or more hours a day. She said that she only felt total blissful love during this time, except when she went to the bathroom. She said she thought she would escape the torture of 'pooping' if she only ate a tiny bit each day, but to her surprise she still had to go each day. She said it's the one time she can't imagine being in a meditative state, because it's the worst and most torturous experience for her. (I clarified that it wasn't specifically a physical pain, but more a reminder how 'trapped' she is in her body.) She said she feels trapped and tortured in this body, but when she meditates she can forget she has a body. For me, meditation is not about 'forgetting I have a body', but rather connecting deeper with it - and of course, if I go really deep (on psychedelics, for example) then I can sometimes reach levels of being infinite, which is not dependent upon the body and where I realize the body is an illusion. But this is very distinct from needing to escape the torture of the body. I am concerned for her. Do you think this comes from a deep childhood trauma? Have you ever heard of this before? Something about it all sounds familiar but I cannot remember where I've heard of this before. Are there any books or research on this subject? Anyone else who has been through this? Ultimately, do you have any recommendations? Thank you so much in advance.

Now that I'm making that connection, I do remember reading about some experiments Stanislav Grof did in this field of relating the birth experience to one's life. I read that book several years ago and I will revisit it now... Any other ideas from anyone though, still more than welcome!

@Swagala Thank you for your input. Also, one more piece of information for anyone reading this, which may or may not be relevant, is that she also told me that she remembers being in her mother's womb and not wanting to come out, and that she didn't like the experience of being born. I forgot to mention that, and it may well be of profound importance.

@Swagala Hahah... But the thing is, she doesn't really "love everything about life." She thinks life is stupid and describes it as torture, particularly being "trapped in the body." She equates the whole experience of being in her physical body with torture, it's just that taking a shit leaves her no space in her mind to 'escape it' as she can when she puts herself into her own loving meditative state.

Have you completed Leo's worksheet on Money Psychology? That worksheet is helpful and practical in understanding any neurosis you may have around money. He attaches it in the description of this video: There are of course several books you can read on the subject as well. A lot of them mix the psychology aspect with investment and business tips to go with it though, which you may or may not be looking for. Other than that, I personally find simply making detailed financial plans are very helpful. The more clarity you have over your financial situation (your earnings and your spending, as well as accounting for any potential financial setbacks), the more control you will feel over the situation.

@sarapr Don't give up trying to challenge and broaden people's perspectives. The lesson is that you need to take different approaches with different people. Personally, I'm a fairly busy person and if I disagreed with, say, a Christian who believed that the Bible was the literal word of God, and then the next day the guy sent me a two hour sermon from a preacher and said "Now you'll definitely get it" - honestly, I'd probably get about six minutes into it before turning it off as well. Because in my life, that's not a priority. It's not where I am 'in the maze', so to speak. Work out where people are in the maze. Guide them around the next corner. And plant seeds along the way. You can certainly still be upfront with them about where you are. You can still tell them you watch Actualized.org videos and whatever else, because that in fact plants a nice seed - but for a lot of people, it will only be a seed. You need to know how to get someone from A to Z without launching them up in a rocket.

Unfortunately when I encountered one of this guy's videos I reacted hastily and wrote a comment that wasn't entirely thought-out and probably did a bit of a disservice to Leo's teachings. That's something I very seldom do - I am usually rather meticulous about the way I choose my words. But there was something about the bravado nature of the guy's ignorance that triggered me in the moment and drove me to immediately try to call it as I saw it. And I know my comment lacked the depth of articulation that should have been there. In any case, I don't think the guy himself would have listened, whatever I'd said. I think he does what he does as a form of self-deception. You can tell by the way he presents his arguments and even by the way he responds to criticism. I don't know his whole backstory, but the little I do know leads me to believe that he stumbled on his own spiritual path so many times that he felt betrayed by his own spiritual teachers and became bitter at spiritual teaching itself. He now spends a lot of time and effort trying to debunk spiritual teachers. He's convinced himself of this 'unspiritual' ideology and made it his whole identity - to the point of making YouTube videos to present to the world. He's actually convinced himself that he's helping people by doing this, but all of it is an ego construction built in order to dwell in the facade that 'there is nothing more to pursue'. This is my take on it. But who cares what my opinions are about him, really... I don't know him and I could be wrong. It's not meant to be a scathing criticism of him - just my analysis, for what that's worth.

Hey - thanks for taking the time to read this on Christmas Eve. I've been in a relationship with a girl for almost six years now. We've lived together for more than five years. It's been a rough year and finances are not what I would call stable right now, since I've started making money online and it fluctuates quite a bit. We've had a disagreement about her basically giving me a surprise bill for her online shopping this Christmas. That's just a little background to give you some necessary context, but the issue I need advice on is not on the disagreement itself, so I don't feel it's important to go into other details. What I was trying my best to do to solve the problem was to have a conversation about why this has upset me, what her expectations were, the situation we're in, and most of all try to really become mutually aligned with our goals and what we are working towards in the future and what it will take to get there. I'm very willing to compromise. I love her and I am committed to her. But we both need to understand what we both are trying to do with our lives. But it's incredibly difficult to have this conversation at any time of the day on any day. It's not the first time I have tried to sit down and have a real conversation where we discuss what we want in life, what it's going to take, and really become aligned. And it never happens because every time I try to do this she just watches YouTube or her eyes are glued to her phone. She does respond to what I'm saying occasionally, but usually only with the most rudimentary of comments while still watching makeup videos or talking to people on WeChat (China's WhatsApp). And that's when I start getting frustrated. I start repeating things over and over again, because I feel she's not listening. And then it just becomes a cycle where she just says "I heard you say this many times" and I say "But you haven't responded, and I don't know whether you understand what I'm saying." Through this process, I get more and more frustrated and it turns into me raising my voice and her not responding. My question is: How can I have a real conversation that leads to a true mutual understanding of each other's motivations, when she's always using distractions to avoid real conversations? It's not about me wanting her to agree with me, it's really about wanting to see if we're aligned and whether we have aspirations that will support each other in the future. Whenever I say this to her, she always says she just doesn't have time. It's true that she hasn't had a day off in about two months, and I can certainly sympathize with that, but she's always got time to have an exchange about a cute cat video, just never about anything that's really important. And this has been a situation for years that has lead to many problems that I would very much like to avoid in the future. If anyone has any insights about how to engage in a meaningful conversation with someone who is incessantly distracted (or is using distractions to avoid the conversation) then I'd very much appreciate it.

It occurs to me that there was maybe not enough context in my initial post, even though I was just looking for ways to pull her away from her internet addictions to engage in a real conversation. Perhaps what you need to understand about this situation is that we have both wanted to leave China for more than four years. I've felt stuck here, but I've been willing to stay because I know that she really is stuck here and she doesn't have the luxury of just leaving like I can. The whole time I've been trying to figure out a way for us to get out. She has her heart set on Los Angeles but it seems to me that she's not very realistic about what we need to do in order to make that move. My Chinese working visa was denied last year because of a change in the law (long story). I'm now on a tourist visa and I make visa runs every couple of months so I can stay with her for most of the year while making money online. But who knows when the Chinese government are going to stop me? What then? I also pay 100% of the rent in our Shanghai apartment. I know she's been working relentlessly every day for months but she won't even tell me how much money she is making for all this work. So when she tells me that she bought lots of clothes online this month and gives me the price to pay her for Christmas, there's clearly a real lack of alignment or communication. I've been trying to sit down with her and work out a real, solid plan for our future. I've been trying to do this since way before I was forced onto a tourist visa. It's essential that we're aligned otherwise what are we even doing? I know that neither of us wants to be here, but she won't talk about it for any length of time longer than 30 seconds without beginning to scroll through her phone and ignore me. Don't get me wrong - I have compassion for her stress about the situation and I understand her instinct to avoid talking about it - but it does neither of us any good. I hope this clarifies the situation a little better and you understand that it's not just me coming up with my own personal goals and trying to force them on her. I'm genuinely asking what I can do to engage her in a conversation where we can actually talk through the situation that she is trying to distract herself from facing, because I understand that it's stressful for her to talk about, but avoiding it is causing more problems.

Maybe I should clarify, when I talk about becoming aligned with our goals, I don't mean having identical goals. But at the same time I don't separate my goals from my life with her - I can't just ignore the fact that I have a Chinese girlfriend currently living in Shanghai who wants to live in Los Angeles. When I speak of alignment I am talking about whether or not we would be mutually supporting one another in what we both want for the future, as well as where we're going to live and the kind of money I need to be making in order to support that lifestyle. She has dreams of living in Los Angeles, but that requires her to get a visa or green card, which takes a lot of work as well as marriage. And right now I can't afford to live in Los Angeles. She needs to understand that reality, but also understand my plan for getting us there, which requires me to invest in my business enough to get the necessary money coming in regularly. If she doesn't get what I'm trying to do then she'll just keep billing me for gifts she buys herself online and we'll never get there. That's where alignment must come into the picture. Perhaps it sounded like I made lots of plans just for myself and I wanted her to agree to them, but that's not what I mean at all. Many of the plans account for moving to where she has said she wants to live. (Location isn't a priority for me in my life, but it is for her and I'm willing to accommodate for that.) Believe me, if my goals we're completely separate from her, then I wouldn't even be in China right now and I wouldn't be moving to Los Angeles ever - I'd just be traveling the world by myself off the money I make online. But that wouldn't work since we do love each other and we're committed to a life together, so we need a plan to get where we both want to be. And I've made one - I'd love to share it with her so we can adapt as necessary and get on the same page.

Thanks to responders @purerogue Yes, you're right that it's not a good idea to bring it up when she's been working so hard. But the issue that once again stirred the many questions I have about our future was the fact that she spent so much money and then told me that I owed it to her for Christmas. I felt that just handing over the money without explaining that this wasn't something I was happy about would be a terrible solution. Yes I was pushing the conversation, but there was good enough reason to do so. Her birthday is January 8th and I cannot afford for her to give me another bill like that due to me not making that clear to her. She won't get a day off until Chinese New Year, which is about six weeks away. And despite the fact that she's been working so hard for the last couple of months, this isn't something I've only been trying to do for a short period of time. It's literally been years that this problem has persisted. We've been together almost six years and I can count the 'serious conversations' we've had on one hand ('serious conversations' from my masculine dominant brain of finding solutions, haha - I do recognize that we've had countless 'important' conversations from a feminine perspective ). I will take the advice and wait again until Chinese New Year to try again to have a dialogue where we get really clear on each other's motivations for what we are really trying to do and get in alignment. I have around 100 pages of very detailed future plans now for the next five years, and I'd love for her to tell me whether or not she agrees with all these plans. I'd have loved to make them with her, but like I said she avoids big discussions like that - and I value purpose and clarity. If we're not in alignment, then we have to sort that out. But I can't know if we never talk about motivations or goals. @Jeff Zhang Yes, she is Chinese and I have been friends with her family for years - they call me 'Xiao lao wai' ... There's no question about the fact that she wants to stay with me for the rest of our lives - that much she has said. But it's the path we're on together that I want to clarify. @Odysseus Merry Christmas

There are indeed too many beautiful gems of condensed wisdom out there to choose one. I'd rather make a whole necklace out of them and allow them all to sparkle in their own glorious way - which is what Leo has been doing with his book list. A few that have really guided me or at least resonated with me (which may or may not do the same for you, since we're all in different parts of this maze) include: The collected works of Zhuangzi Tao Te Ching, by Laozi Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are, by Alan Watts Symbols of Transformation, by Carl Jung The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda

@Jeff Zhang I wish there could be one in China as well, haha ... Looks like we're gonna have to wait a while for that, though. I've already made the first draft of my annual plan for next year. Planning to take a trip to LA and San Francisco with my girlfriend next October, shame the dates don't work out too well. I have a feeling I'm going to have to wait until 2020 before attending one of these events.

The unfortunate truth is that a lot of people stumble over one or two of Leo's videos and make a judgment and sweeping generalization within a minute or two. Rare is the person who stops to listen in-depth to what Leo is really saying throughout his body of work. I have little doubt that Joe Rogan has stumbled across one of Leo's videos at some point, but I'd also bet a lot of money that he never took the time to listen to any of Leo's 1+ hour videos in full receptiveness. It's easy for people to quickly mis-categorize others on YouTube and switch to another video, particularly when it comes to personal development - and even more particularly when they are measuring their potential wasted time versus potential benefit. If Leo were to get on Joe Rogan's podcast and give him a fair conversation, I'm confident that Joe Rogan would be very tuned in to what Leo is saying (whichever direction it took). It would also bring in a lot of new people to Actualized.org willing to go down the rabbit hole.

@Baotrader A big reason you see no reason to continue it further is because you believe you made the decision "through serious thinking." Why would you want to make such a critical decision based only on "serious thinking"? Before you really make your decision, you need to exhaust other ways of deciding just so you know it's really not the complete wrong decision ... For instance, have you tried making your decision through 'playful thinking'? Or... through 'creative thinking'? Or even forgetting about thinking and getting to a decision through 'love'? You cannot see if your decision is either right or wrong unless you have put aside 'serious thinking' and made the decision from all the other perspectives. Otherwise you are making these big decisions while half-blindly trying to see the answers in the dark. Let me know how it goes. ?

Hey everyone, I was looking to see if there was any mega-thread of 'intentions' to set when tripping - what I mean is questions, contemplations, inquiries and focuses to specifically write down before taking psychedelics, in order to make the most out of the psychedelic experience and penetrate the next layer of your consciousness to make spiritual (metaphysical/existential) progress. If it is already somewhere else on the forum, I apologize - but if not, I think it may be a valuable resource. Tomorrow is my 33rd birthday and I am going to be doing a solo LSD trip. It's certainly not my first trip to the rodeo... I've had several life-changing experiences on psychedelics, having first been 'initiated' by my Dad when I was 18 and having since explored this independently quite deeply. But this is a big one because it's been quite a few years since I've done it alone, and this year in particular I've been through a lot. I won't go into all of that here, but I do think that personal circumstances are woven into the experience, and should be considered when setting intention. That's not to say that the objective of the intention itself should be necessarily therapeutic or personal - just that when considering the intention, it should be mindfully customized to the individual and where one's head is currently at. I think sometimes an intention should ask a deeply existential question and sometimes it could be deeply personal. Either one could actually lead to realizations about the other - the separation is quite illusory anyway. You might also argue that it is better to simply go into a trip with a wide open mind and receive whatever comes. I understand that, and I think in some circumstances, yes, that may well be the best way. But there are other times when people need to set an intention as a launching pad, so that it's not a completely aimless endeavor. When I say 'launching pad', I really mean it that way - I think if the trip takes you somewhere else entirely, you should go with it and not put up resistance, because that's the ego trying to dictate the ride. These 'intentions', the way I use them, are simply launching pads. With that in mind, here are just a handful that I've either set before or that I might be setting in the near future: I am cleansing the blockage and baggage that has built up inside me, so that I may once again anchor myself in Self-Realization and walk my path with clarity and compassion, open eyes and an open heart. What is language? How can I be a better version of myself? Who am I and why do I forget who I am? What is reality? What is Existence? What is Non-Existence? What is Infinity? Who can I be and what can I do to create the most meaning in my life starting now? I am exploring my unconscious mind and bringing it into the light of my conscious awareness. How can I best express the beauty of the truth of reality through my art? Hope to hear some of your 'intentions', too!

@SBB4746 I understand where you're coming from. But listen. Leo knows who he's talking to. It's true that not everyone who has ever 'escaped the maze' has had to have read 300+ books. There are many illiterate people in history who have become enlightened. Leo knows this. But you're watching YouTube. Don't misinterpret me - I'm not saying that watching YouTube is a sign of weakness or that it means you have an addiction or anything of the sort. What I'm saying is that the world in which you live right now is a carnival of whistles, rollercoasters, cotton candy and clowns. And even the most curious of individuals (indeed, especially the most curious) can get swept up in the clamor and craziness of it all, so enveloped in the whirlwind of immediate curiosity that you don't stop to question broader perspectives, alternative insights, or what's outside of the carnival. "What's true in one's experience" is likely to be an extraordinarily limited fragment of 'the maze' unless you expand your search. Books are one such great way of expanding your search in a targeted, intentional way. One such way. Books can be used as tools within the maze, as maps... or even, in some cases, as weapons against the other rats. And yes, as you point out, books could divert us, puzzle us, and we could turn them into shiny objects of worship... But I think Leo was pretty clear about being selective and intentional about which books to use as tools, as well as being critical in our radical open-mindedness. Books have the added advantage of cutting the chord that connects you to unnecessary distractions as you dive deep into a perspective that was specifically designed with the intention that you would progress through it in a linear way, thus guiding your consciousness through this new view of the world step by step, just as a well-structured melody sustains a listener's attention to the final note. This is beneficial because you're no longer bouncing around from curiosity to random curiosity - you are being lead by one who has already walked this particular path of the maze you happen to be reading about. Sure, it's great to be a lone explorer, but it's also fascinating when the maze has a tour guide who can silence the crowd around you for a moment. The idea of reading so many books is to expand the sphere of your awareness. Your direct experience sharpens your awareness.

Before you can consciously and quickly manifest something in a dream, you have to become lucid. Before you can consciously and quickly manifest something in life, you have to become lucid.

Alan Watts discussing recontextualization - I remembered this little old diamond as I was watching Leo's video on recontextualization, and I've just found it again. I understand that people often ask what practicality these kinds of topics have... There is of course the deep practicality of training yourself to alter your perception of reality, and how that alters your experience of reality and your ability to become more conscious of Infinity... But here I think Alan Watts gives you a quick win in the sense that he gives your ego another way of transcending pain through recontextualization, which you can begin practicing the next time you feel pain. My suggestion is practicing this whenever you feel pain or other negative emotions, and you will find yourself becoming more and more conscious. Here's a direct quote (the emphasis is not added by myself): Play from 5:32 to listen from when he really starts talking about recontextualization.

After watching the video in full before bed, I woke up from a mild nightmare (or a disturbing dream) in the middle of the night... And before going back to sleep I allowed my mind wonder around the question 'Is a dream the same as a nightmare?' In my half-lucid, alpha brainwave state, I was considering all the samenesses and differences between the two, and I can't remember everything I came up with now. But I do remember that I went down a miniature rabbit hole for a good 15 minutes before I drifted into sleep again. Still, I am conscious of a few of the little insights I had. For instance, I could have dreamt the exact same content and called it either a dream or a nightmare... It's only a matter of interpretation. That's the real difference. Then again, how I interpret the dream on a second-by-second basis as it's happening will determine how it develops further - not just what my own ego character does in the dream, but the entire dreamscape itself will remold itself continually based on my own interpretation of it as either positive or negative. So the ever-changing nature of the content can be a difference as well. But at the same time, I was very aware of the 'deep sameness', as Leo calls it, between a dream and a nightmare: consciousness. In a sense, it was a really wonderful first 'comparative assessment' between sameness and difference that I just accidentally stumbled upon right after watching the video. Of course, it wasn't the same as contemplating - simply a short half-lucid wondering - but nevertheless it was penetrative. The very essence of the consciousness that was both the dream and the interpretation of the dream would have been the same regardless of labelling it a 'dream' or a 'nightmare'. And so it is with everything. Of course, I'll still be contemplating a whole lot more on sameness and difference. There will be more discoveries. But it was beneficial to have a somewhat more direct hit of the underlying sameness in all the content and substance that is the dream before contemplating this further. P.S. My thinking was most likely also influenced by a great book called Lucid Dreaming by Robert Waggoner.

I understand this is a long post. This is because there are many aspects to my dilemma and I trust the wisdom of the people of this forum to offer advice after penetrating the multiple layers of my situation, rather than merely scratching the surface. I've always been very skeptical of taking advice on such complex personal issues, because no one can know the nuances and layers of the matter as deeply as myself. I've tried here to give an account which is inclusive enough to give you some insights into the heart of the issue, while still (believe it or not) restraining myself from writing unnecessary details. Thank you in advance. A little background: I am a 32 year-old man and I've had 'father issues' my whole life. I'm half-American and half-English, and about six weeks ago I was forced to leave China (where I'd lived and worked for six years) because of visa issues. My Chinese girlfriend of five years is still in Shanghai, so my solution has been to come to Thailand on a 3-month tourist visa to begin a journey making online passive income, and for the foreseeable future to go back and forth between China and Thailand on tourist visas (perhaps until marriage). The last I saw my family was two Christmases ago, when I went to visit my parents where they lived in Dubai. It started off well and we even had a family LSD trip together on Christmas morning, but on Boxing Day, after my younger brother went back to his place in Turkey, my Dad threw one of his temper tantrums, told me how much of a disappointment I was, and kicked me out of the house for the third time in my adult life. I told myself I'd never speak to him again after that. Just before Christmas last year, I did ayahuasca for the first time (not in the rainforest, just in a controlled setting in Shanghai), and the plant actually made it VERY clear to me that the multitude of problems I was having in my life and in my relationship was a direct effect of my conflict with my father. So I listened to the experience the plant offered me, and I sent him a message of reconciliation. I heard nothing back from him. Now that I'm in this huge transition in my life, where it's critical for me to focus on getting this online business stuff right, my Mum has told me that they are coming to Thailand for my final month while they are on summer break, because they've had a tough year and it'll be good to see me. They've booked their flights and they are coming - and apparently my Dad has tickets for a week earlier than my Mum. (My Mum is going to visit my Dad's aging mother for a little while first. They are a lot closer than my Dad is to his own mother… it's a running theme in his life.) The problem for me is that I really need to deal with this issue I have with my Dad for my own well-being. It goes way beyond what happened in Dubai, but that just inflated the pre-existing issue. I can't cook a meal without hearing his voice yell criticisms at me. It seems almost all of my self-criticism takes the sound of his voice. I've started taking on a lot of his victim mentality and his anger issues. And that has overflowed into how I've handled my own intimate long-term relationship as well. My whole life my Dad has dealt out a lot of heavy emotional and psychological abuse to me (and my Mum), though he would never admit to it. The closer it gets to this time of my Dad coming to Thailand, the worse my meditation becomes as well. Every meditation session becomes a therapy session. I'm not meditating - I'm rehearsing what I am going to say to my Dad and all the built up rage I have for him just rushes through me while I am trying to meditate. It's terrible. And not only while I meditate - also while I am trying to work on my new online business. Any advice on how to deal with this aspect of the situation (which might be more related to directing my focus) either as a connected issue or a separate issue would be appreciated. My main question is: I find myself wanting more and more to have my Dad right where I want him so I can finally confront him about all the nasty ways he's manipulated me (and the family) over the years. The angry part of me wants more than ever to use all his demeaning tricks back on him (using a rhetoric riddled with logical fallacies just to come out on top, making him feel intellectually inferior, jump-scaring him in the middle of his sentences, etc). Partly because there's no other way to make him listen. In the past I've always, always held back out of compassion - because I knew that if he were ever faced with the truth of how much damage he's done, it might just hit him like a freight train. In fact, it would be so threatening to his ego that he would just deny it to himself anyway. And I knew that it was more than likely my Mum who would face the consequences after such an attack. … But that has never ended positively for me. Being the compassionate one has always lead to him taking advantage, which has only ever given me more and more psychological barriers to deal with on a daily basis. … Will it actually help to confront him in this way when I see him? If I try to do it in a tempered, compassionate way, as I've tried in the past, he's going to use all his old tricks and do anything to 'come out on top'. That won't be good for my psyche and I'm concerned I might never get over these issues. … But if I go all out, is that going to cause even more disturbance to my psyche for the rest of my life? I've even imagined myself physically beating the shit out of him, and feeling great about it. But I'm sure the 'feeling great about it' wouldn't last for very long. I'm very aware that even emotionally beating the shit out of him could lead to even further distress. And like I said, my Mum would be the one going back home with him. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on how I should approach this impending family reunion, I'd gladly appreciate it. Thanks again for reading this.

For me it was actually the supplements video, almost four years ago - I wanted to know which supplements would be best for me and here was this guy who took like 30+ supplements a day! I watched a few of his other videos he had at the time, and then I'll never forget when he first posted about psychedelics - 'Leo Does Mushrooms' - I thought "Finally self-help goes psychedelic!" and I never missed another week after that, haha.

@Rebec @nour-cha93 @Jed Vassallo Thank you all for reading and responding. Your comments have been helpful. @Jed Vassallo You are right about how doing the consciousness work turns the issue is a non-issue, and that when I train my mind to perceive reality as a show full of characters then that will do much more than just shift my perception and handling of this particular problem, but it will also do wonders for how I am able to interact with the rest of life as well. I've actually been able to disembody my ego very substantially in the past, though it's been almost a decade since I've held it like that for any great length of time. It was actually my Dad who was able to reignite it. I remember at one point around nine years ago I had gone for about a year without any real sense of anger - I was beginning to meditate and get into consciousness work - and it took just a couple of days being with my Dad before he was able to twist it out of me and flare it up. For me, I have gone through many phases of partially embodying my true connection to what I call 'Total Boundlessness', but at this particularly unstable point in my life I'm a little further away from that connection on a deeply experiential level, though it's easy for me to remain intellectually aware of it. Just being aware of it, though, isn't enough to deal with the stuff I'm going through and the powerful emotions of anger I'm feeling towards my father. @nour-cha93 Perhaps you are right that fighting with him is useless. It won't lead to peace of mind. But it's not possible for me to ignore him, because he is actually inside me, in a very real sense. It's difficult to describe, but I feel that a part of him - a part of his consciousness - has actually found its way into my psyche. Perhaps this is my overactive imagination, but I do have theories about how he transferred some of his consciousness into me when he initiated me into psychedelics when I turned 18. Anyway, whatever the case, and however crazy that sounds, the fact is that if I don't deal with him then he is here to stay, along with all the psychological baggage. @Rebec In one sense you are right about having too much to deal with right now. But the fact is, as the ayahuasca experience showed me last November, dealing with this issue will make everything else I am dealing with so much easier. I can actually feel this problem in my body. It's built up in pressure points in my muscles. I feel like every day I am actually carrying this problem around with me and that it actually has a weight and physical form. (This is why I am interested in both Kriya yoga and Reichian therapy at the moment, though I haven't penetrated it as much as I'd like to yet.) So I really feel like this is the problem to deal with. There is no question that I am not at peace with myself about this issue. To be honest, the main reason I want to deal with this issue is for my own well-being and to make peace within it myself. Perhaps that sounds selfish, but I figure that I can't help my father (or my mother, for that matter) to feel at peace with any of it until I become at peace with it myself. This definitely requires a lot of inner work and won't just be solved by an interaction with him. Though I do feel that a real interaction is necessary - not to repair the relationship but rather to help resolve my inner conflicts. Thank you so much for recommending 'The Work' by Byron Katie. I will definitely check it out. I am also going to check out a book that Leo just put on his book list on the last update - it's about shadow work and apparently has exercises. I believe I have quite a bit of shadow work to do, especially regarding the relationship I have with my father. I'm still not sure how things are going to go with my father when I see him. One thing I know for sure this time is that I'm not going to let him dominate every interaction and speak down to me. In the past I've resisted confrontation with him, I've always tried to be the pacifier, but I've realized that I cannot simply do that this time, because the outcomes that have arisen out of that approach has damaged my psychological well-being. Sometimes a battle is necessary to be fought in order to destroy the psychological blockages the past has left - I am reminded of Arjuna's battle. I just have to be very careful to clear the way, instead of creating mountains of spiritual and psychological rubble and a war-torn wasteland in my mind. Thanks again to all of you.

@RendHeaven A few days ago I had an experience like this myself, which I almost posted about. I think the common factor in both of our cases is that we didn't negotiate with our egos very well - Leo talks about this, I think in his video on backsliding but also I believe in his video on how to be a strategic motherfucker. For me, the issue was that I told myself that I would go seven weeks straight where all I would do would be to work on setting up my own online business, and I'd watch zero porn, indulge in zero UFC (which I enjoy watching), go carb free, and every day I'd meditate, do yoga (Kriya yoga) and work out. My plan was that after the seven weeks I would have a 3-day break on work and binge on the stuff I'd been missing, while still doing the meditation and yoga... I actually went five weeks like this! But I just hit a wall where all I was super stressed about files being deleted and technical issues and all I could think of was sex, sex, sex... My productivity was suffering badly for a couple of days. So I decided to take a half-binge early... I basically took a day and a half off, and it didn't feel good, because it took me probably a day after that to recover and get back into the work. And really, if I'd negotiated with my ego a little better, I'd have avoided the complete burnout I felt that lead to the binge. The parallel I'm trying to draw with your situation is that you went from barely being able to meditate or do self-actualizing work, straight to doing it full-time, and yes, you had a massive ego backlash. These changes can't be forced all at once. Your ego will react. The ego has to be treated like the frog you want to boil and eat - you can't throw it in boiling water and expect it not to jump out; you have to place it in lukewarm water first, and ever so slowly heat it up until it dies without resistance. The frog is the ego. I know it's frustrating and we want to slay everything all at once and become enlightened or leap to the next stage, but we've both experienced what happens when we try to rush it. And we're not alone. Keep strategizing!