WickedIrish

Hi, My name is Matt. I wanted to share with you how far I've come after consistently watching leo's videos for 8 months. I feel like I have my mind back, the manic depressive thoughts i was dealing with have practically disapeared. I found the courage to take extreme risks and every one has paid out in some way. For example I dove into a job opportunity thousands of miles away as a door to door salesman, and I completely killed it $$$. I was always smart but unmotivated to finish school, I finished failing my fourth semester in a row about the time I started to watch leos content. Now I am going back to a different college in 2 weeks to chase a different degree, I cant say how great it feels to finally be chasing a career I can be passionate about (biology). I understand the nature of thought much better now, I feel this is one of the more important things to work on daily, It really has tamed my mind. I always thought I had development some sort of mental illness in my early 20's, however I am confident now that it was simply emotions going unchecked. The most important lesson I learned was pain tolerance, tolerance toward yourself, others, and tasks at hand. Things will only happen in the way I want them to happen if I am ready to embrace the physical and mental strain that is required. One of the best ways I found to practice this, was cold water training. I picked this method over leos sit-and-do-nothing-mediation because it is simply the most painful way to sit and do nothing. There is also a extreme health benefit, your brown-fat activators go off the charts (300x more energy production than any other cell in your body) your brown fat cells during this process of keeping you alive put out a immense cardio exercise. If you are interested in brain development, this is a feather you should put in your cap. Due to increased blood flow and a ton of endorphins you will never feel so alive and alert. I highly recommend this approach to leos standard *accept the pain* approach. After 6 months of sitting a frozen creek or river and mediating until I couldn't move my body, my veins have became so flexible and my brown fat activation is so strong- I can cut a hole in a frozen lake and stay in it for a hour and a half. Very happy with the results. I started watching leo's videos to tackle my mental health, I have had so much fun trying to reinvent my health that I can't stop! I believe leo is largely to thank for my new career choice. I want to do this as my job, the possiblities with viral applications is immense. To top it off, quantum computers will accelerate advances in biology so fast..I cant see myself doing anything else. To recap my results, - increased mental clarity -immense tolerance to cold (scheduled to break the world record for half marathon in the artic circle with no clothes in 6 months, current record holder is-wim Hoff) -exciting new career path - I am able to finally afford school again I have a long way to go, there are still very many problems to address, accept, and conquer. to end this post, my advice to you all would be to pair mental health work and physical health together, go extreme and stay on the path. There are wonderful things I can exsperience now, there is nothing like walking up a mountain barefoot in the snow to go swimming. Something like that would have killed me quickly 8 months ago.

Can I only experience oneness by being aware of my own ego? How far back would you have to step?

Get a second degree (EE) Work for 3 more years Buy cheap land (20+ acre), preferably with trees. No more than 100,000$ on land. Build a cheap house Live Keep life simple

Increasing your awareness really helps, are you content with your progress? Good! Your on the money

We all go into that blind downward spiral every now and then. Hey Matt, my name is Matt as well. I recently injured my hands, carpel tunnel in both hands. I wear braces everyday and it tests my resolve. You and I both need to get our resolve back, identify with your past self and realize nothing has changed. Easier said then done, I right now in this moment, am wondering if I am insane about my new found clarity, and everything I worked for is being tested. My Body and Mind seem to be working against me. This is another test Matt, You and I both need to recognize that these ailments of the mind and body do not define us. We define ourselves, and we are perceiving ourselves in a unhealthy way. Cold water therapy has been keeping my inflammation in my hands at bay, perhaps you need to find a similar hobby. I have a friend who moved to new Zealand several weeks ago and is struggling to find a job. He mediates fear away by staring at grass of all things, standing up outside his window. Your country is utterly gorgeous, there is alot there to calm your mind. Good luck

You sound like a student, I was one as well. Focus on grades and use free time to expand your mind. Grades and mindfulness is a great start.

I just posted this in my journal, Maybe you can relate. I reached out to several friends hours ago who mediate and they really helped me understand I am not alone in this struggle of keeping the calmness present. I feel Algi that you too are seeking agreement, well let us agree then that we need no one but ourselves. Our resolve will make any experience bearable. Even the lost of a amazing girl, I can relate too that as well. You seem more confident than me, which I respect like none other. Use that confidence and find your resolve.

I have realized lately I express a need for agreement, even if it is agreeing that all the strange moments my mind ties to awareness moments as pure mania. I have found my self obsessed with the thought, despite my increasing ability to push thoughts away. I wonder if I think I am having mania moments instead of clarity. I am afraid of progress, I tend to lean that they are lies part of a mania like dream I am creating as a distraction from my goals. This leaves me feeling afraid and alone, that procrastination has finally caught up with me. I even wonder if my gains with summo ( which generally leave me sweating and warm) are in fact part of the mania and what I experience is a amplified version of fear that induces the sweating and perception of warmth. I am aware the best course of action is a cold shower or a calming sensation to focus on. However I cant shake the feeling I am tricking myself or if I am just so fascinated with idea that it is a lie that I stall everything. I told myself the days of circling thoughts are over, but this is heavy on my mind. I feel the need to test my gains with summo with heat sensors, which i use for work, to confirm i am not crazy. This need is overwhelming me, only focusing on body sensation helps me but it is difficult right now. I know this is just another thought keeping me grounded in my own personal hell. I want out, but I know I must let that need go. Even if I am full of mania, I know a calm mind makes better decisions. I will test this summo mediation, but why do I need data to be happy? I feel the need to confirm or deny my sanity. Which when I think about it, has been present for a long time. I need to let the idea go or it will destroy my resolve on mediation. I am worried all my gains have been personal lies, where did all this confidence disappear too?

Algi, That loneliness is another thought I struggle with too.

Abrakamowse, My cold therapy is paying off. Since I was a kid I would keep myself entertained by feeling the energy in my wrists in the back of my grandmothers BMW. I got a child like feeling when I read about *tummo* mediating yesterday. I think they have it very wrong but I connected with the *fire in your chest* feeling. It is like coming home to my best friend, I let the feeling enter my wrists for the first time in a long time. My heart rate quickened and the sensation coursed through me like it did a thousand times in my childhood. I was very eager to show my friend who practices mediation as a serious hobby. He is younger than me, 21 and college educated, and very knowledgeable about nature and perception. He keeps a wrist bracelet to remind him of being aware. I sat him down and spent 30 minutes with my own personal guided method to help him feel this sensation. It was too natural to explain but I did my best and he claimed to have felt what I call *the sensation*. It is something else, you cannot stop it once its there. Thoughts cannot affect you, you are overwhelmed by sensation. The pure sensation just courses through you, I believe the attention to your body blocks your thoughts. Once the feeling is there, your adrenaline spikes and your feet and hands go cold. Breathing seems to affect this feeling by taking it away or maximizing it. He is in my mind a professional at acknowledging thoughts as weightless. Very skilled, it seems to be second nature to him. After 30 minutes he acknowledged that he hadn't thought ( even while speaking, which is new to us) for 15 minutes. He was amazed, as I was. After researching our discovery we found a tutorial on the method itself. I disagree with most all of it personally, but what actually worked was this specific breathing pattern. Breath deep and press the air into the bottom of your stomach, then direct that sensation up your spine. I have never felt warmer, the adrenaline left and blood returned to my hands and feet. This can be seen as a hot/cold experience, I cannot argue with the logic of adrenaline and how it operates. However, I cant say enough how good I felt. My thoughts stilled even while talking, which is a huge gain for me. We will be going to the snake river to test our experience this weekend, the river is about 39 degrees F. If I beat my record of submerging underwater for 1:02 minutes I will be a true believer. Please give this method some thought ABRAK, if your looking to distill your thoughts this may very well help you. I cannot describe how easy this is for me, my talented friend struggled to feel anything at all. I am a poor teacher, however what worked wonders for both of us is this summo method. I felt heat radiate off the cheeks in my face and my arms and legs. I am very eager to return to the river and test the experience. Here are some last thoughts I feel important - My friend is very talented at awareness and he struggled (felt very little heat) - He claims to have felt a accepting nervous feeling that caused the start after he relaxed his muscles. I partly agree, however I feel amazing and twitchy as it comes on. -We both experienced heat - This is a very natural feeling if you invite it in, the Summo method takes this sensation and calms you and once the feeling hits the top of your spine you experience heat. - I am amazed this man is struggling, he has helped me through many of my struggles with awareness. - I may be wrong and feel the need to test this theory. If I can submerge for two minutes underneath 39 F water, I will never let this go like I did as a child. This used to keep me entertained!

@Prism I am in Pullman, Washington

Once you realize the focus is a blinder, you may ask yourself who am I then? Thats just a another tilt of the ballcap, but decent enough awareness to realize the issue. Whats the issue? thats another tilt of the ballcap. Keep it straight, until you realize the ego is trying to make sense of the blindspots. That is the tricky explainable part, Wheres the problem? I have no idea? Who has no idea? <---The straining EGO Look at HIM, Feel HIM. What are you? Not Him, you are whats looking at him. This cannot be explained. Only your Ego demands an explanation. So Truthseeker, running laps in your brain about the idea is only the straining EGO trying to put parameters on something it cant. Awareness is everywhere, became of aware not by asking. Only a EGO could have a problem with any idea. When ideas are introduced to you, the ego is feeding on useless information. Thats why it cant be explained and only felt. Words are noise, thoughts are noise, sight is noise. Your world is very loud, stop trying to make sense out of senseless material (noise). Your perceiving noise to be something it is not. When everything is noise, you are very quiet. that quietness is awesome to experience.

I feel its important for steps, even though there aren't any. Its the same idea in my dream, the idea of control. I had more fun when I realized controlling the dreams would wake me up. I would kill myself out of fear to wake up, but the last abstractions I tried to run away from wouldnt let me. I stabbed myself and I didn't wake up. Then it told me " Do you really think thats going to help?''. Its like im trying to get myself to understand that no control is better. Does that make better sense now? You are trying to realize the good in no control. If I am even worthy of defining steps for you, which i am not. I would say you need to put a ballcap on. When the ballcap is straight, you can focus. When you think about anything even the focus, that hat gets titled to the right or left. Any thought at all will steal your focus and move the cap. Keep your cap straight by not thinking about anything that steals your focus, which is the act of thinking about it. You are indulging in thoughts, dont do that. thats a tilted ballcap. When, the cap is straight long enough, no resistence to thoughts ( thoughts turn out to be really bad thieves if you recognize that the only reason they steal anything is that you let them) you became aware of that focus. When you became aware of the focus, you realize that the focus is a blinder.

I do play the ego in my dreams. I took lucid dreaming very seriously for 3 months a long time ago. It was maddening, After I found my technique, by stilling my mind and spinning around a object. Any object, the thoughts created a obelisk for me. I spin with my eyes closed around this thing until I am constantly falling ( in a spin?). Then there is no object, I could explain for quite awhile how I get into this spin but its really all about feel. This was the most effective method to lucid dream for me, I got quite good at it. I could be aware of several dreams a night. I wanted control, the idea of control. It was maddening, how hard it was to materialize things. I wanted my knife at my side, I would try it and will it into existence. Impossible, after attempt after attempt. I reached out to a community (blog) about lucid dreaming and asked them about control. So many different ideas, they almost never worked. One idea was suggested to me, walk into your house or where ever. Find the TV by not looking, just walk into a room it should probably be there. If not turn around. Once you realize its there, change the channel and jump through. I tried this, I became aware of being outside. So I walked inside into the TV room and a TV was there. Great, I *changed the channel* which really didnt change the screen. I backed up and jumped head first into this TV, cracked my head and woke up. I went back to sleep which makes it easier because its easier to get into a REM cycle if you just left one. This you must experience, its part of the dream jumping I call it. That spin is gold. So I start spinning and dropped back into REM. I walked right into the TV room and this time I gave up. I realized that if I jump through this thing I'll wake up. Just like when I am scared. So I changed the channel not expecting anything, then I was in a field. Like It worked without trying. I finally had control I thought, just dont think about it! The next dozen dreams were amazing, my knife was there when I needed it. Any abstractions that came at me I charged at, the knife was never there, only when I needed it would it be there. The only problem was I couldnt kill anything trying to screw with me. The whole dream tries to screw with you, If something I stabbed laughed it off I would pull out my knife and kill myself. Utter control I thought, they dont have to wake me through fear. I can just kill myself and try again. This was huge, shoulder to shoulder with a nightmare and it couldnt touch me. Only I could really do that, even if these abstractions introduced pain. Which I could never feel in the morning, it wasn't a bad thing. Only the lack of awareness by waking up, which I blamed entirely on the abstractions and my inability to deal with them with them without killing my self. I became really good at being at peace with dreams, they started to be pleasant. No abstractions, if they showed up, i would kill myself, but they stopped showing up. I started to have fun, the experience. Then something happened, I was standing. Ready and alert, at peace with the scenery. Then it came, the ultimate challenge. The Apex predator of my abstractions showed up and it didn't care. I was standing on this bridge, soaking it in. underneath the bridge was nothing, at the end the bridge ( which didnt exist) it didnt go anywhere was a sunset with no sun. Then I became aware of a tall humanoid shape, shiny like metal, like pure black but shiny. It was walking this huge spanse of the bridge, and doing it well. Since the bridge didn't have finite distance, its walk was short but the bridge was so long. When it got close I got tensed, ready and alert. This thing stopped walking, like it knew I was afraid. This thing is a apex predator, trying to make me feel ok with its presence. Defiantly I pulled out my beautiful knife and said You cant touch me. I plunged the knife into my chest but this time I just bled. No pain, then it started walking again. I realized the futility of my knife and dropped it and sat down in my blood. It came very close, wrapped its arm around my shoulder without touching me and whispered, " Do you really think thats going to help you?" The truch was scary, nothing could help me. This thing somehow grounded me to this state. No control, I fell backwards and woke up. That was the most interesting experience I ever had dreaming, the idea of control was this idea and this thing knew it. Used it against me, It knew I knew deep down. Like the ultimate challenge, my own understanding. It used that against my control. This humanoid was the only thing that understood and it somehow made it the most dangerous. Its my dream, that thing has to be me. How? I tried not to think about it. The more I thought about it the less it made sense. How could it be the predator when all it did was whisper something I knew to be true? Why was I the definition of upset with it.

I think We want that awareness back How are awareness and I AM connected The big part of I AM, was the silliness of everything. I would burst out laughing. We are always aware of our senses, we are not stupid. When are we aware of the power we give to thoughts. I think its when we realize we give them power, and their stupid and crazy.