Knock

Great video, thank you for sharing. I find a lot of our mental health problems are a combination of both psychological AND physical/environmental. That's why it is so crucial to have mentors and a strong supportive social environment to truly flourish in life. Meditation, positive psychology, or antidepressants alone won't lead you to happiness and life satisfaction.

Yes, low self-esteem can make you selfish. People with low-self esteem come from a place of neediness. Because they don't feel validated in themselves, they are needy for the attention and validation by others. This often manifests in self-judgement and self-focus, not acting with authenticity or integrity, because you are wanting others to like you and give you the approval you seek. This constriction in your actions prevents any deep connection, and hence doesn't create a good environment for others. By trying to come off 'likeable', you come off as rigid and boring, ironically making the person like you less and perhaps not want to spend time with you. Hence low self-esteem prevents you coming from a place of love and providing anything meaningful to others. That lack of agency you feel is a component of self-esteem, called self-responsibility. It may be hard for you now, but an important part of self-esteem is doing what is in your power to take control of your life in ways that are meaningful to you. If you haven't already read Nathaniel Brandens book "The 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem", then I highly recommend it. He answers many of the questions about self-esteem far better than anywhere else I have read, including this forum.

Take it slow, but be consistent. If I may, I will share with you my running experience. For the past 3 years, at the start of summer, I've been compelled to start running because the weather is so nice. I initially start slow, and run short distances. Over the weeks I start to get faster and run longer. Within 8 weeks I am back to running 5km's fairly consistently, and I gain overconfidence in my abilities. Without fail, every year, I become inpatient and try and run a 10km when my body isn't ready. Every year I achieve that goal, but in doing so compromise my running form and injure myself. This injury puts me out of running for the next few weeks, and by the time I am healthy enough to run again, all my confidence and ambition to run is gone. Don't be like me. Don't let your ego get ahead of your abilities. Take it slow and progress even slower. Progress should look like a sharp increase followed by a long plateau. You need to love the plateau and not get too far ahead of yourself. If you listen to your body, it will prompt you when its ready to take it up another level.

They are not mutually exclusive. You can work for financial independence, and still have time in the day to do enlightenment work. I agree with you though, work through the foundational levels of Maslows hierachy and slowly inch your way up the spiral to have a integrated and balance grounding before prioritising enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not a cure all pill. Self transcendence is at the top of Maslow Heirachy of needs for a reason. I recommend surpassing the lower foundational levels first.

I think its because society is at orange and hence your environment will draw you back down. When society integrates and accepts green, it will be easier to transition.

First of all, I understand that the thought of finishing study and entering the real world can be quite daunting. We have all been there before, and noone knows what they are doing. Just a perspective broadening opinion; I think this idea of 'wage slavery' is doing a great disservice for the abundance, security and connection that a 9-5 job provides. Since working a 9-5 job, my life has been substantially better. Before I was working casual jobs with weekend shifts and could never hang out with all my friends who had 9-5 jobs. Even though I had a lot more time to pursue enlightenment, I had no connection, no money and no stability. With my wage slave job, my life has been amazing. I can now hang out with my friends on weekends, I have more money than what I know what to do with, I have a fantastic exercise and meditation habit that I do every weekday, now that I have a routine. My advice is to keep studying, get yourself some work experience, try it out for a few years first before you disown it. Fully integrate 'orange'. Satisfy your lowest rungs on Maslows Hierachy. You can't expect to instil self-actualisation in a healthy way if you forego these steps. May I ask what drew you to studying finance?

Social interaction is about connection first, your subjective 'truth' second. People will only listen to your 'truth' if they are curious. That comes through connection and respect. Once they have connected with you, respect you, like you, and want to be more like you, then they will be open to hearing what you have to say. Social maturity is learning when it is appropriate to share your truths, and to do so in a loving and connecting way.

It's just a label, it can be empowering or dis-empowering. For example, lets say people call you autistic, but your not. This means that you have a 'hidden power'. You will be underestimated. People will be more likely to help you. They will be more impressed when you perform well. You will get greater praise and opportunities when you outperform all the other autistic due to your 'hidden power'. It is like competing in the para-Olympics and winning gold. Be the best, most well-functioning autist in the world. Soon you will have people doubting you were autistic all along. That is when you have transcended the label.

Reminds me when you talk to young hippies in their early 20s. They have this naive optimism and carefree nature that can be very attractive. The older hippies seem are still carefree, but are a bit less optimistic and lose some of their 'spark' it seems. Sometimes I wish I knew less, and lived off a mindset of good vibes and the LoA instead of the 'rational values' I live by now.

If it contributes to personal power (taking action on your values) towards healthy goals (fitness, better relationships, self-confidence, self-actualisation, etc) then it doesn’t matter if the underlying belief is ‘True’ or not. Discuss.

Nescience = not knowing by having no awareness (forgivable) Ignorance = having awareness and knowing, but chosing to ignore it (unforgivable) For example, lets say by principle you consider it unethical to buy a shirt if it comes from a sweatshop: 1. Buying a shirt, not knowing that it comes from a sweatshop = forgivable (nescience) 2. Buying a shirt, knowing it comes from a sweatshop, but buying it anyway = unforgivable (purposely ignorant)

The topics of conversation are contextual to the environment and level of comfortability. Know this rule first: The topic of conversation will always drop down to the lowest common denominator in groups of people. This is because people want to be all inclusive in their conversations, so when you find you are talking with a larger group of people, the conversations will be very 'shallow' and 'superficial' to appeal to all peoples interest. For example, if there are a 3 green people talking, and 2 orange people come and join the conversation, then the conversation will drop down to orange. If you want deep conversation, you may need to find some green or higher people, and either talk to them 1-on-1 or in small groups (and only if they are comfortable discussing these conversations, which may take some time). Also, don't be a downer in conversation. Bring the joy instead. If someone loves travelling and it inspires them, don't be like "You know, you are just running away from your insecurities and wasting your money". Instead, approach with curiosity "cool, what draws you to travel there? What did you get out of your last trip, it sounded awesome." etc. If you are not interested at all in what they are talking about, try to steer the conversation to your interests. There are always people interested in personal development of all kinds, be it career progression, hobbies, spirituality, sports, fitness & health, etc.

So after watching Leo’s latest Spiral Dynamics video (Important insights & nuances), I had some insights into myself. When I first heard of spiral dynamics, I agreed with the ‘green’ ideas. I followed similar belief systems and ways of thinking in my mind. I believed that intellectually I was at a green level. However, what I failed to see was that I am not a ‘green’ person on the spiral. I am not green financially I am not green socially I am not green emotionally I am not green physically I am not green environmentally I’m probably not even green spiritually. I haven’t integrated the previous steps in the spiral. I never transcended orange with financial/social/physical abundance. I realised that you can not disown something you never had. It’s like I’ve been trying to jump the stairs to self-actualisation, instead of walking up them. At the moment, I believe I am still trying to secure my self financially with job security and having my own house. I don’t have many friends, and feel a deep lack of connection with society and others. I am literally on the ‘Safety’ level of Maslow’s Hierarchy, trying to bypass my way to Self-Actualisation, in a desperate attempt to meet my lower needs. Now I just feel stuck. I’m addicted to passively seeking out new and novel information for a quick fix, that I have no discipline or grit to stick to any of the practises.

Actualising is akin to learning to bake a cake. Your goal is to learn how to bake a cake. Leo provides you with some baked cake. It is full of sugar and tastes so nice (‘juicy’) You know what the cake look is meant to look like You have a rough idea of what constitutes the cake. But you are no closer to being able to make the cake. Until you start baking.

To add to this point; I like being apart of the 'wage slavery'. If I didn't work in my job in working on something meaningful, I'll feel a great lack of fulfilment and disconnection to much of society. I always thought that if I won the $10 million dollar lottery, and had the time and money to escape needing a paycheck, I would still keep working at my job. I currently have all the money and time to do all the things that make me fulfilled. Yes, I am a wage slave, I'm not 'free', but freedom is chaotic and meaningless without structure. It is like a football player in a match is a 'slave' to the football game. They have to play the game out, and there are rules and conditions they must abide by, but they enjoy it and in fact makes the game meaningful.

How do I know if my expectation is aligned with how things should be? What’s the best way to tell that you are ‘objectively right’, or close to it, if that’s even possible. I quite often doubt my mind, and the decisions I make, as I know that I’m just speaking from my subjective experience and am at times awfully wrong. This leads to a lack of confidence in making any meaningful decisions, and hesitation to assert what I think, as I don’t even know if I have the right (or in the right) to assert it. E.g. I feel I am getting too overworked at my job. How do I know if that’s true, or am I just being a bitch?

This response resonates with me. However, I am unsure of what action to take. Should I focus on self-inquiry then? I feel that what I am having to do for work is beyond what any reasonable human would expect. However, I live in an area of high unemployment, and have been unemployed myself before. I guess the questions swirling around my head are: Is my boss taking advantage of me? Should I try and move jobs? Or is this how it is, and I have to learn to stop whining and accept it? It's hard to accept I am creating a scenario where other aspects of my life are being unhealthily compromised because of work.