Oliver Saavedra

Check Daniel Goleman's books Emotional Intelligence and Focus. Also his breath focus guided meditations had been very useful to me for training my concentration. On the first ones it reminds you every few minutes to go back to the breath, giving you some hints to look which is nice. And on the next ones it leaves you on yourself but still reminds you every certain time. Leo too talks about it, the metronome practice has been useful to me too.

How do you recognize when you're facing someone who has "absolute idea"? You know, when someone gives his point of view as if it was "the only truth". Here's what I notice: - Talks with a sense that "MY WAY is the ONLY way" - Tends to catastrophize the opposite ideas - Black or white thinking - The more polarizing the idea, the more controversial and popular - Dialogue and debate is about KILLING the other idea - It's more about being right than about solving the issue - Lack of big picture understanding - Attachment to their own idea; idealist, partisan - Emotions of anger, control, blame, criticism, hate, rage, disgust, prejudice - Unable to listen What else do you notice? What do you do about it? Any research recommendations? I'm trying to understand that context ant their ideological structure.

Here I come with neuroscience's point of view, I'll try to put it the easiest way i can: Your brain is usually on a state of free-asociation (connecting ideas with eachother) thus generating a wandering internal dialogue. The most active zones are the prefrontal medial cortex, where your amygdala (your mammalian brain that processes emotions) connects with your excecutive brain parts. Thus making you constantly worry while planning. If you are more intellectual your left brain is more active, this brain-side is in the past and future, and thinks in a logical linear way. If you are more emotional your right brain is more active, this brain-side is in the present, and thinks in a network-irradiant way. When you practice meditation you can notice your mind all over the place, because you probably have some randomly-learned brain patterns. Your neocortex is the external layer of your brain, the most evolved, and its frontal lobe is the one responsible for self-reflection, strategy, problem solving, creativity, empathy, impulse control, and more. What's beautiful is that you can train your brain using your focus/attention/concentration. The more you teach your brain to concentrate, the less it will wander on random brain patterns. Mastering focus will make you master your brain's capacities and your lesser impulsive brains won't make you their bitch. So... laser-focus deeply on your breath, or on any sensation, and when the wandering mind gets your attention, notice it, genlty let it go and return to your meditation object. Let's grow that Neocortex Much Love ❤ PS: One might argue that brains do not exist, but that's an existential perspective just as this is neuroscience's perspective. To me understanding how the brain works has been as important as understanding self-help and spirituality.

Yes, in my experience emotional growth is the real deal. The most practical and the one that grows you the most. Here's some advice: - If you're more intellectual, learn to focus on your emotions and your body - Study everything on Emotional Intelligence (you can start with Daniel Goleman's books) - Recognize your emotional patterns and grow your vocabulary - Learn to calm down when you're in intense negative emotions - Don't make decisions until you're calm down (you can't access your neocortex when the amydala is stressed) - Practice reflexive thinking, and divergent thinking - Do what's emotionally difficult, master your resistance - Get ready for feeling life MORE, it's beautiful and a bit scary at the same time haha Much Love ❤

Cool! looks like many hours of work Learn some color theory and make some moodboards to help you define the style you want and you can take it to a whole new level.

Quarantine has also messed up a little my social skills, but yet has been a good time for reframing the type of connection I want. As a huge introvert I find essential to build a strategy for this. First of all, start with yourself, try to feel comfortable a true to yourself during talks, i notice the "you should talk more" mindset gets in the way a lot. Only talk when you want to, not when "you should". Also practice talking before you think, because feeling awkward + overthinking freezes you and gets you stuck there, and talking before you think gets you unstuck. Just say say say. Second, choose how deep you want to connect with whom. There's a lot of people that you wont get past the small talk, and thats ok. And there are others who also want deep talk and connection, so try making questions to dialogue around and check how deep you and them are willing to go. Much Love ❤️ Also check Susan Cain and Brene Brown

Neil Peart (and Rush) has always been one of my biggest inspirations of mastery. In their music and their lyrics you can feel mastery and Truth as the underlying theme. Also most progressive rock, metal or jazz are masters of their instrument, for the genre requires a mix of complexity and beauty. “What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession.” –Neil Peart

First of all, you sound EXHAUSTED. Take a long break for resting and letting all of this go for a while. Here's the reasons why: You can't work through a solution when your brain is in that emotional turmoil. So trying to force-change the situation won't work. Your amygdala (the part of the brain that processes emotions) gets overly excited and has intense emotions and your inner dialogue doesn't stop, and if you act on it, it just gets worse and worse. For you to make a reasonable solution you first need to calm down the amygdala so your frontal lobe (the part of the brain responsible for self-reflection, planning, strategy, empathy, creativity, and more) can do its work. And it won't until the amygdala has relaxed. So for real take a break, practice relaxing your body and your mind, do some. breathework, meditate, dopamine detox, stop consuming information, take a day off, go in nature, do things you enjoy. Do anything that relaxes you from that cronic stress you're describing. Then come back here and we can work it out. Much love ❤️

There are thousands of reasons that could lead to you not getting what you want, so be more specific. What do you desire that you are not getting? What are you doing? much love ❤️

@Sunnyboytoni What is it that you don't like about embodying it?

Its ok to value something even if you are not 100% a master of it (which you never will), value just means you consider it important and central to you. Courage is not about having no fear, but about acting through it. Vulnerability is the birthplace of courage.

HAHA I love this, loops and mind-twisting things (especially when mixed with comedy) are one of my favorite forms of entretainment. Creation, learning, reflecting (or contemplating, however you like to call it), making new ideas, laughing, enjoying, playing, practicing are my favorites too. If you enjoy what you do and it supports your growth in a healthy way it's fine, if it doesn't then be careful. Any entretainment is fine until it becomes a distraction.

Oh man, i feel this so close to my own experience, here's my advice: 1. Find out if you are an introvert, we have a WAY different form of socializing and expressing and connecting with people, and because we feel weird around others we usually blame ourselves or feel guilt for not being able to interact with others (or just not wanting to) Check Susan Cain's book "Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking" To express yourself you need to understand who you are and honor it, to accept yourself fully and be comfortable in your own skin Also check Brene Brown's talks and books on vulnerability, shame, authenticity, courage etc. That's GOLD for self-expression, for it is completely an emotional endeavor which we are often repressing. 2. Check your speaking habits, your dialogue form, the tone you use to express to others and also in your inner dialogue (the one in yout head), all the anxieties, stage fright, and so on. Just do a self-research of it, journal about it, that alone is gonna take you to a whooole process of finding yourself and finding your voice. Much Love ❤️

No shame in having an ego who has a character and an opinion. There's a leo and there's a Leo in all of us, and they're both perfect and have work to do at the same time.

Another one, as a designer: Who makes your thumbnails? What's the design process of them?

https://www.actualized.org/store

Go play, fun is what you feel It's a feeling more than a concept

As a student and now teacher of creativity this is the biggest question I've always had about you: How's your creative process? How has it evolved? And for other personal questions: What have been the most meaningul turning points of your life? What are the hardest things you've had to learn in order to keep growing? What's your vision for the next years of your life?

I need to make shirt out of this quote, it sums it all up.

THIS, totally. That's why I said YOU are the meaning-maker here and that's what matters. Your external reality and your internal meaning-making-structures feedback on eachother. And just as the gradient colors of the rainbows, as our consciousness understands itself in reality the line between internal and external also blurs. The meaning-maker and the-object-it-makes-meaning-of become one.

Study all models, connect the dots, make your own conclusions. You are the meaning-maker here.

Acceptance is acknowledging what is as it is, accepting the situation, accepting your feelings toward the situation, even accepting that you can't or don't know what to do. And then through that acceptance doing what you have to do. If you don't feel and accept things first usually what you do is a bit dirty of negativity, of resentment, blame, hatred, and then you try to control the situation or force it to change, you try to make it what it "should be", because you think you can only be happy if it changes, and in doing that you are living as a victim of circumstances. When you acknowledge, feel and accept what is, you can create and change things with a clear heart and mind, you do things through Love and Vision, you change things because you deeply want to make them better yet you stay dettached from any results, you allow yourself to be happy first and then working things out, not being a victim of cricumstances but a creator of your own reality.

All "evil" is just selfishness and ignorance, try to see how you are (or have been) selfish and ignorant and you might get a glimpse of compassion for who also are like that. The thing is, when you catalogue something as "evil" or "wrong" you automatically prejudge it/deny it/reject it, not being open to understanding their perspective nor being able to feel compassion and love for them. And that's just another level of selfishness and ignorance. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Sounds like you are in "the end" phase. Blessings my friend

Go, go do it! Go try it! Then check if it feels good or bad to you. If it feels right then follow that track, if it doesn't then readjust your strategy. The most important thing is to have a vision that makes you feel amazing just by wondering about it. If it doesn't feel like that then imagine other possibilities. Imagine, feel, strategize, try, repeat.