Erlend K

Why are you considering Sedona method? Don't you think some kind of cbt would most likely be more effective?

You should make meditation comfortable. If you do it in an unpleasant way, you will likely quit any time you hit a bump in your motivation. If you keep trying to build a meditation habit, and then quit, you are just training your mind to give up. Idealy meditation should be something you like and look forward to.

Is the idea some product or service you want yo sell? Do you have the capital to start a business?

I don't think I ever actually used the word "self development" in conversation. Still, most people in my life know I practice buddhism, like to work out, eat healthy, do yoga, read psycholgy books, take my career seriously, practice positivity etc. We will have conversations on any of these topics, but for some reason never on "self development" as one coherent thing.

@Haumea From what I remember, Socrates was generally opposed to written works on moral grounds.

According to the two most comprehensive studies on happiness throughout the lifespan, there are two main ingredients in a happy life: 1 Staying physicaly healthy and 2 Developing strong, intimate connections with other people. These are the two main things to focus on. If you dont have these in order, they should be your main priority. Everything else is we work on like career/life purpose are supposed to be suplements to these, never replacements.

What kinds of problems are you having, that you feel unable to deal with? Maybe you should take a break from studying theory, to free up some time and mental resources?

This is a common problem, and there is no quick fix for this. Have you tried talking to a therapist? If nothing else, therapy would be a safe, supportive training ground for opening up and talking about personal stuff. Once you get used to opening up to your therapist you can start slowly pushing yourself to share small bits of personal information to the people you trust the most, and slowly, gradualy go from there.

I think it's best not to get too caught up in abstract long-term goals. "Finding your values" is not a theoretical exercise, but simply identifying/becoming aware of what you actualy find valuable. From what you write it sounds like positive, meaningful relationships are one of you values. This is a very positive value to have and you should take it seriously. Abstract, long term goals are good to have in the back of our minds, to make sure we are overal moving in the right direction. In our day to day life tho, I feel it's better to focus on the challenge right in front of us, and the things we truesly value right here and now. This is what actualy motivates us to move towards our longterm goals. For you, the most constructive immediate goal might be to get a girlfriend, preferably one who is also into spirituality and sd.

About 95%of behaviour is mechanical. We are only consiously aware of why we perform about 5% of our actions. This has been independently verified by two large, metastudies going through the literature on the topic. Whenever you perform an action you can just assume that it is most likely mechanical.

Social Anxiety is one of the most normal mental disorders in the world, and therefor incredably well researched. There is a ton of stuf you can do to gradualy overcome it. The three most important being 1 Therapy (preferably CBT). 2 Drugs (preferably a MAOI like Nardil, perhaps combined with a benzo like clonopin if your symptoms are severe) 3. Facing your fears. Don't give in to the desire to avoid social situalions. Anytime you give in to the fear you reinforce the belief that socializing is treatening and should be feared. Other than that, theres a lot of things you can do that is well documented to reduce social anxiety, but these should be seen as supplements to the three above: -Physical exercise -Avoiding high GI carbs, and getting all the nutients you need. -Getting enough sleep -Meditation -Self-Compassion exercises -Progressive Muscle relaxation -Keeping a gratitude journal -Spending time in nature -Helping others

Have you tried some kind of CBT? Have you tried any medicine? MAOi's like Nardil are the most effective drug against social anxiety, and it dosn't have the nasty side effects of SSRI's or benzos. Seeing as you already do physical exercise, socialize as mutch as you feel capable of and get enough sleep, CBT and a drug like a MAOi would likely be the most effective combo for you. Also, if you work only a few days a month, it is very important to fill the rest of the time with working on something meaningful, like a personal project or something philantropic. In Martin Seligmans coursea course on positve psychology he mentions that whenever someone asks him if he can give 1 simple advice for something they can do right away to reduce depression his answer is always "Go out, find someone who needs help and help them". Acts of kindness is very well documented to elevate moods.

Fetishes/kinks are great, as long as both people are into it! They can spice up your sexlife and make it more fun and playful.

I'm generaly sceptical to gurus. I feel like most of them pretend (or even genuinly believe) they have all the answers, and that their personal opinion is the only valid opinion to hold, and anyone whos ignorant enough to think differently can be subly looked down upon or ridiculed. The meditation/dharma teachers I feel like I have learned the most from tho are Culadasa, Joseph Goldstein and Shinzen Young.

Do you go to therapy? Theres a form of CBT called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) that is very effective against OCD. If you can't find a therapist who practice ERP you can read up on it and try to do it on your own. Have you tested any medicines? Anafranil is very powerful in treating OCD symptoms.

The obvious answer is that kindness/helping makes us feel happy. A standard beginner exetcise in positive psychology is do 1 fun thing, then reflect over how that feels and how that feeling changes over the rest of the day. The next day do one philantropic action and do the same reflections. What one discovers is that the philantropic action leads to a deeper and more lasting sense of well being.

It has been documented that mindfulness meditation can worsen some neurotic disorders. However if you feel mentaly healthier from meditation I doubt this is true for you. I wonder why your therapist recomended you to take a break tho, if it dosnt have any negative impact on your neurosis. It is possible he has picked up something about you that you havnt picked up yourself. On the other hand it is also possible he is misinterpreting something you have told him. It would no doubt be best to talk with him about this, explain why you feel meditation is good for you, and let him explain why he thinks its damaging for you. Be mindful that your own biases might give you an urge to reject his explanations out of hand and try to be aware if this happens.

Doing things you enjoy doing together with people you enjoy spending time with is a fundamental part of a life well lived. At your age your brain is not fully developed yet, you are just transitioning from having a child brain to having an adult brain. At that stage we have very limited insight into our own personal bullshit (ego defence mechanisms, biases, unconcious liferules etc). As long as you keep a healthy lifestyle and keep learning and exploring you are on the right track. Planning your life in detail or choosing some "life purpose", just becourse someone said you ought to is counterproductive at your age. I think the most important growth you can do at your age is developing a pro-social personality. This includes kindness, generosity, cooperation, compassion etc. This is one of the rare skills that nearly all great sages and wisdom traditions in history have advocated, and modern positive psychological research confirms that these are one of the main ingredients of a happy life. These skills are harder to cultivate the older you get.

I used to be interessted in methaphysics when I was younger. For me it was mostly just a tool for intelectual stimulation. As far as Im aware, methaphysics didn't add anything to my life except for the enjoyment I got while engaged with it. Some sages have recomended metaphysical contemplation as part of a spirital path. Others, including the Buddha, saw it as a distraction and wasted time that would have been better spent in meditation or practicing kindness and generosity.

Building a colony on Mars asap makes sense. We are at a point in history with a lot of existencial threaths to our specie, including nuclear war, nuclear terrorism, biological warfare, artificial inteligence etc. The main priority for humanity right now is to avoid extinction. The way we can maxemize our odds of achieving that is by becoming a multiplanitery specie. If Elon really though there was a way to absolutely avoid this risk by "raising conciousness here on earth" or whatever, I'm sure he would have prefered that. If you want you can make it your goal to "raise the conciousness" (whatever your personal conceptualization of this term is) of Kim Jong-un, the taliban leadership, Salman, Ali Khamenei, Putin etc, and see how far you get.

It can mean a lot of different things. First of all it could be medical, at least if it persists outside of meditation. If you are doing concentration practice, pressure at the top of the head can be a symptom of eary stage Piti, and thus a sign of progress. On the other hand it can also be a sign that you are trying too hard and straining during meditation.

Different tratiotions view this differently, so there are no objective answer. Buddha thought enlightenment as consisting of four stages where reaching each stage gives a direct glimse of emptiness, and leads to a permanent shift of the mind. He allso taught that insight into non-self is just one of the three fundamental insights into the nature of reality (along with nonsatisfacoriness and impermanence) required for enlightenment. Geffory Martin has performed depth interviews with 1000s of contemplatives from most major contemplative traditions, who are viewed as highly realized within their own respective tradition. His conclusion is that there are roughly four different categories of cognitive/phenomenological shifts that practitioners can experience, depending on the methods used. These include shifts in sense of self, emotions, thought paterns etc. All of these can be viewed as "enlightenment" / the ultimate spiritual goal from various contemplative traditions. F.i, in the christian/bramanistic mystical traditions the endpoint is a sense of unity with gods love/allness, which is stage three in Martins scheme. In Buddhism the endpoint is eradication of the sense of there being a Self (There is no core in your mind that is "me". Our mind is just some kind of hierarchi of partialy cooperating, partialy competing mental processes that produce mental phenomena that constantly apear and disapear in a field of awareness, which is also not "you", but just another impersonal mental mechanism/aggregate), combined with insight into impermanence and dissatisfactoriness.

First of all: The person yelling and humiliating you, is that your manager? If so, would it be possible to ask him for a few min talk in private and tell him about your emotional issues? If he dosn't respect that, you should probably find some other place to work. Secondly: Would you agree that you are being lazy/sloppy at work? If so, this could be an opportunity to work on your work ethics.

There is often a tradeoff between living a life that would be labeled "happy" (joy, contentment, peace of mind, love, personal growth, presence eudaimonia etc.) and living a deeply meaningful life (using your signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than you are). Completely dedicating yourself to a cause means sacrificing some or a lot of your personal happiness for that cause. I would bet Elon Musk is living a life that is more deeply meaningful than most of us can even imagine. He has simply sacrificed a ton of happiness in exchange for a ton meaning. How much happiness it is worth trading off for meaning is a highly individual question. I have no idea if Elon regrets this tradeoff (or would even if he knew all alternative lives he could have led). For people like us who are very focused on personal growth and spiritual development it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that these pursuits are somehow objectively better than any alternatives, that anyone with deviating priorities are mistaken/havn't realized was the 'Oh so great ME' have realized, and then use this to smugly feel superior to them.

At least in the Buddhist tradition: Samatha/anapanasati mainly develops concentration, vipassana develop concentration to some degree, but mainly sensory clarity and equanimity. "Do-nothing" is mostly a suplementary practice. It can be usefull for instance if you find that you are striving too mutch in your other practices and struggle with letting go. I assume it can help build equanimity as well becourse if its strong focus on non-interference with the activity of the mind.