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I too am an American (living in New York) who is deeply disturbed by what is happening to my country. My own approach as a private citizen -- for whatever it is worth -- is to be kind, to be gentle, to speak truth to power when necessary, but to generally listen before speaking, and to seek consensus in whatever modest form it can take. I believe our country is on the verge of a very difficult cultural transformation (from Orange to Green, in the language of Spiral Dynamics), and we are as like gardeners tending to a plant that is ailing. This task requires a great amount of sensitivity and skillfulness. So aside from voting responsibly and supporting political changes that open the door to greater democratic representation, I think the key is to be present as fully as possible.

It definitely happens and will more than likely occur again even after this phase of anxiety is released. This is the process of purification, the mind slowly training itself to be at peace in the midst of pain or pleasure without craving and aversion. Long story short, sounds like you’re right on track! As far as strategies to help soften these kinds of phases of practice, 1) A shamatha focus rather than vipassana or open awareness. Focusing on feelings of bliss, happiness, contentment, and equanimity while following a meditation object like the breath sensations at the nostrils or whole body. 2) You can try a short breathwork session before a sit. Ive found doing anywhere from 2-5 mins of wim hof style breathing followed by holding my breath as long as possible afterwords to be extremely grounding and energetically clearing before meditation. 3) Throw in walking meditation. These can be very rejuvenating when formal seated practice becomes too intense. 4) Intentionally scale back practice. If 10 mins is all you feel called for, no reason to “should all over yourself” into thinking you need more. 1 minute of formal practice is better than none. Id keep the daily consistency, no matter how small. 5) Try meditating with meditative music or sound bowls. Can be very healing and help dissipate and transform the anxiety energy. 6) Listening to guided meditations. The only guided meditations Ill listen to are from a YouTube channel called Samaneri Jayasara, which is about as enlightening as guided meditations can be. 7) Endure, push through, bring equanimity and truth even to these sensations. At the end of the day, all moments are moments of truth and freedom. So even if we find relief through transformation, the process of purifying the mind means we will eventually be able to sit in sensations of anxiety with no issues.

Agreed.... as Gandhi observed it is only experience that changes the will... theoretical learning is usefull but it cannot bring transformation... we have to act in the real world and take real risks to build personal empowerment...

One thing that helps with the being in core vibration at all times is recognizing the shift from “forcing” to “flowing” can be instantaneous to a mind that sees reality deeply. We can literally shift up and down the emotional scale at will. The more trained, unified and clear the mind is (cultivated most effectively through meditation and mindfulness), the more quickly this shift can occur. Another crucial point about this kind of mind akido is that the “shift” that occurs does not always create the downstream “in flow” or “in vibration” feelings immediately. There can at times be a lag in the time it takes for the new momentum to build, the immediate shift in vibration we’re looking for is not in the manifest feelings (although again these too can be subject to immediate transformation), but an immediate shift in the context holding emotions, which is actually more powerful, as this context is actually the space creating reality and at the deepest levels, all of reality. The emotions and being “in state” are just downstream by products. After all, sometimes being moody and depressed is exactly where we need to be to be at our best and in state, when we hold this topic holistically and maturely.

@HypnoticMagician I feel the opposite it would gain more. If you really want to play advocatus diaboli play it with a bit more mindfulness. I love criticism, yet what you wrote is sheer stupidity and myopia. I am better off doing the stuff instead of receiving that kind of feedback. What you are saying stuff that happend in my life would basically drive you to suicide for me you are just some rando online. I don't think commenting me is going to work for you. Just stop it. Writting j.k like a 12 y.o apologizing for brat like behaviour using this nasty kind of fantasy language. I don't know just give others feedback who are worse off than me. Your opinion to me is as close to worthless as it gets. The amount of assumptions you make is horrible. Go troll someone else. I care about results and not about your philosophy of things. What kind of feedback is this? The way you type almost tells me everything about you. So, just go through your transformation. Talking about assumptions.

changing bad habits for good ones is haaard... for me at least... in many ways, success and fulfilment in life is really a question of what behaviours and patterns I have effectively habituated... for me it was and is incredibly important to have support and accountability when trying to shed old habits and develop new ones... willpower alone is rarely enough - the whiteknuckle approach to personal transformation has 'got no legs' Good luck my friend! Lucas

Would like to quote Adyashanti here: "As soon as you can let go of what was, and the way you thought it was going to be, and who you thought you were going to be, how that was going to secure everything. The sooner you let go of that, even thought it’s kind of behind you already…. the sooner you allow it to be gone, because you see you are transforming…." "You know those romantic ideas of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly…. used in spiritual books, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon and becomes a butterfly. What happens in that cocoon? The caterpillar goes “what the hell, it was not a good idea to weave this damn thing. This is not a cocoon, it’s a coffin.” The transformation starts to happen. “Oh my God, I am not going to be the same person I was when this finishes.” You don’t know where it’s going. There is no relation between a caterpillar and a butterfly. A butterfly is not a flying caterpillar. Caterpillars and butterflies don’t have much to do with each other. There is a transformation at the seat of your consciousness that happens. And the transformation is like what I am describing. As it is happening, there is a fear and reaching back to how it was. The way forward seems so blind, doesn’t it? You have no idea. You are moving into a new way of being that you have no operating manual for. You had a good operating manual for the dream state. Highly functional, illusory egoic self. At least you knew how to function in the dream state. That makes it even more weird, when that whole thing starts to transform. I understand that. Don’t imagine that where you feel yourself to be now…. that’s not the destination point. You are already moving through it. You can only go through it, there is no going back."

He's too extreme, especially stuff about running on broken legs that will do more damage than good long-term. But most people are also too lazy and undisciplined on the other end of the spectrum. I think most people would improve their lives if they listened to him and even moved 20% in his direction. His advice is good if your life needs RADICAL transformation. Like if you're so obese that you're almost certain to have a heart attack in the next 5 years, it's probably better to take the Goggins approach and literally starve yourself down to a healthy weight as fast as possible, rather than stay on the path that you're on. Or if you're living in your 20s at home with your parents just smoking weed all day and haven't had a job in a decade. There are people who have accumulated so much bad karma from their past actions that extreme suffering is the only way to burn through it. For every extra calorie you ate in the past, it's a calorie in the future you'll have to go without to balance it back out. If you haven't exercised in years, that's a lot of exercise to make up for to get healthy again.

Just stop, my friend. Just stop. You don't need to make any transformation you are already enlightened. Just let go of all the effort to do any spiritual practices and be still. Don't try to get anywhere just be here as you are. The god is always within you in every moment, all you have to do is let go of control. Surrender to what is now. Every moment.

I am apparently very attractive but even so, I never got laid easily until doing quite a bit of meditation and mind transformation away from neurotic and insecure tendencies. Then I could “come out of my shell” (? seriously though) and just be a good guy who isn’t intimidated by anything and can very comfortably “be myself.” But I would say, “game” is damn intuitive. If you still need to get the pickup phase out of your system, I highly recommend it, from experience, but not exactly to the degree I believe many others have — though it’s not what you probably think... Imagine going from having no game to then practically merely sticking your toe in that world, getting what you want surprisingly fast, and then miraculously finding super early-on that it’s already enough... That is what happened to me. But I’m certain that I’m extremely “lucky” in that regard. And there’s still more to learn. But the natural game-skill or at least game-mindset was somehow uncovered from a fair amount of experience working in a women’s department store (it wasn’t strictly a shoe store, Leo ).

Not an ideal. There’re twofold: transformation and consciousness. One way to summarize the goal: decreasing self increases consciousness. Realizing your self isn’t you. This is what I’m told. What you said isn’t true. You can have fun and be enlightened. Enlightenment is about the truth.

About the last two weeks Incredible things happened in the last two weeks, so I made a list.. The most incredible one was on this Friday: an ex colleague (and hopefully soon a friend of mine) called me to tell me about a formation exactly in what I want to practice when I’ll be doing integrative medicine and also to tell me about a job offer to do an internship in a medical office that has the same philosophy. As cherry on top of the cake the formator and mentor of the medical office knows me by a friend of mine who actually lives in Sardinia!! Universe always delivers big time!! I haven’t said yes to the offer yet as it is for May 2022 and it would mean resigning from the job I have now where I have a one year contract and I also risk to have to pay for the room that I am renting in the new canton but aside from that it’s an amazing opportunity!! During the last session with my therapist, she made a great point about my fear of displeasing other people, which is just the other side of the coin of people pleasing. I am awake enough to know now that people pleasing is manipulation, so I release it. Easier said than done but at least the step of awareness is done. Another thing she said was to learn to channel negative emotions. I do it more and more. The most helpful for me is the D-Love journal, a journal I started in March where I write to myself in an unconditionally loving way. Thank you Universe for giving me this idea!! On Wednesday this week I had a hotseat session with the mentor of the mindset training I’m in. I decided to talk about vulnerability as I noticed that I am still not able to be as authentic as I would like (#backtopeoplepleasing I guess). She said “It’s uncomfortable doing you when you’re not used to it. It’s a birth-giving process.” I just need to lean into the resistance and finding the courage to show myself as I am and speak my truth. There is a nuance though: it’s not about telling all of my thoughts and feelings to the whole world: I need to find what is ok for me to share and be aware of what is appropriate for the situation. She gave me the challenge of finding out how I can be more vulnerable at work. It will be by speaking up when I disagree with or just do not fully understand the why of what my supervisors propose for patient care. Last weekend I participated to an online workshop with the mindset training. It was very intense and focused on Self Love. The main lesson I got from it was the fact that anxiety comes from our mind trying to predict the future based on what happened in the past. Yet the future is made by what I decide to think, feel and do in the present moment. Also, personal growth, inner child and shadow work are all supposed to be life-long processes apparently. Does it mean that I’ll never get rid of anxiety? Idk.. Quoting my mentor, it just means that life will continue to throw challenges to me to foster my growth. So it’s totally possible that one day I’ll stop worrying about things that will probably never happen. Defined like this it’s so ridiculous!! :’) Thank you Universe for all this awareness!! Here are some gold nuggets I got from the workshop: The more you love yourself, the more other people can love you Dancing is the language of the soul My message to my inner child: You can tell things!! I am love, love is not something I give or receive: I can just operate as love. It’s all about balance: our best traits can become negative if pushed at the extreme. The negativity/positivity that we think creates in the world. Suffering comes from resisting reality so get busy only with what you can control: your thoughts, actions and feelings!! Dismantling th Ego is understanding how it defines the future based on the past. Acceptance is the fastest way to transformation. Acting on what you’re intuitively guided towards is challenging, that’s just the way it is. Return to love daily. Focus on what you want to become and what you want to attract. When you’re you all the time you’re less exhausted. Love rules and love heals. Your thoughts are not your thoughts, until you start creating intentionally (with affirmations, visualizations etc). Showing up is the most important thing for a relationship. Be authentic, 100%!! Be willing to be vulnerable, being vulnerable is the true act of courage. Don’t make it about achieving things, make it about being the best human being you can be. You’re always one decision away from becoming a different person. Share the growth, not the process! Keep leaning into the resistance: go where you’re uncomfortable every day! Keep letting go: if you’re meant to be together, you’ll find each other. Be clear and stay clear! New affirmations: To let go of what’s no longer in alignment with the life I want: “I deserve the very best that life has to offer. You are not the best so I release you”. It doesn’t matter what the mind is saying, I just practice. I am love and I only act from love. The next step now is doing more and being more intentional in what I do. I noticed I’m letting myself go in some subtle ways, like meditating in bed instead of seated; not really exercising and eating things I one ate just exceptionally more regularly. A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean (Will Durant). Fortunately I live in the same era as Ryan Holiday. I’ll subscribe again to the Daily Stoic!!

Friday 18/11/2021 22:10 If my anxiety fades a bit, what I'm left with is a bit of an indifference to life or death, I suppose. I'm not in a rush to kill myself, and neither do I desire to. They talk about there being intrinsic fear, which I seem to have internalised in habits, but the habits look unreal to me from this POV as a role which could be broken, I just lack motivation. Silence and book can be my companion, maybe walking tomorrow. I have no need for food today but I could very well eat I'm not sure about the extent of my "transformation". I get a gentle smile from life somehow. I've probably been living with eyes closed for a while, unwilling to leave my hole despite inner realisations A long way to go

Lol no sorry I don't get the three cups reference. I don't believe the thought is perception. I know the word simply refers to something that I perceive. I look around and I perceive what I CALL change. I perceive what I call old people and young people. The word refers to something real that I perceive though. And baby to old person is called change or transformation but certainly not No change.

In my own journey, I've found there is a direct relationship between how much I love myself and how needy I am for the love of others.... I don't think there's a silver bullet - it takes time and work and more time and more work, but real transformation is indeed possible... before I could really start to grow and change, I had to face up to and own the fact that, on a deep level, I hated myself... it sounds severe, I know, but I had to face the truth before I could move forward... I wish you (self) love and healing my friend...

Whenever you are facing adversity, whenever things seem to work against you, ask yourself: 'how is this perfect?' You don't have to pretend like you see it, nor do you have to seek for it. You just have to be truly curious. Really feel into that question. Keep asking, over and over again. You will not get an answer. But you might just become directly conscious of how perfect everything is. How literally everything is only assisting you in your highest evolution and greatest transformation. Not a single thing happens without it being meant to help you. Everything is happening for you to awaken to and out of it. To awaken as the highest you there is. To awaken as All. If it's happening, it's happening not only for a reason and with a specific purpose, but because it is absolutely necessary for it to be happening. It cannot help itself. It is happening because you are unconditionally loved and supported. No matter how dark and heavy it gets, everything is only pointing towards The Light, that you are now. Everything is always perfect. Always has been and always will be. Perfect balance. Reflection. Symmetry. Synchronicity. Alignment. Harmony. Resonance. You cannot help yourself but be utterly perfect. You are so perfect, perfection doesn't even make sense. All the mistakes you perceive, the errors, the unfortunes, the struggle... it's all a work of a mastermind. And it's beautiful. A true masterpiece. You are imagining contrast, so you'd become conscious that there is nothing but Light here. Nothing but perfection.

No shit. What I tried to say was that if he only got views I doubt the transformation would be this drastic. I love it..

It's not just about sex. Actually very little. It's more about the significant personal transformation that occurs when a man does a lot of serious cold approach and socialising. A part of that man dies and a newer, stronger more masculine individual is created. It's almost like a right of passage into manhood if taken seriously. The sex is a small by-product of the process. Most guys are just happy to get a bit of attention and validation from a female.

I can speak for myself that if you do an authentic high quality practice like isha yoga and not some youtube cowdung, all these things like depression, anxiety, insomnia will go away. I'm saying this, because I used to be depressed and suicidal 24/7 some years ago. And today I can't even remember when I had a bad day or a bad sleep. Life is easy, your problem is you're looking for solutions in the wrong place, you do some stupid nonsence and then expect results to come. No, unless you do the right things, rights thinga won't happen to you. I recommend people if they're serious about their own wellbeing to find a high quality tools for their transformation instead of listening to false teachers and teachings that are roaming the entire internet space today. Regards ❤?

Hello guys. Hope you will find my experience worthwile. You will always have problems. Negativity will always be self-evident. Your fears, guilts, lacking of something will never leave you, unless you find a way to renounce it. I haven't found, so here I am. I am very passionate about music. More than ever. If I am by myself. How much time do I have left for it to practice in a place that is appropriate and go trough creative and other grudgeries to push out music in a format everyone can underestand (from the people who will acctually relate, because it's a niche genre). That being said, well, my country is in lockdown. I am going to play my instrument not knowing if I will have a penalty or not. Second thing, i changed my job. The atmosphere is quite positive. Better than what I had. But. I tought I was safe. Unless i will try optimally (not like the best that I can every second) I will be safe. I was wrong. I still get grilled by my managers, "How can you forget", "Why are you doing this", "But you already had a training". Well, it is not that simple. And the feedback I receive does stem from the moods of the people up the hierarchy above me. Even if you did your best and was the most honest, you will still get flamed, you will still make mistakes and your livelyhood will always be treathened. I am really upset at this fact and the unfairness of it and how it affects my creativity. I still to this day do not know how to deal with this, but I am always willing to try again and again. I personally DO NOT THINK I AM INCOMPETENT AT ALL. I underestand most of the factors of my actions. Forgetfulness, the nature of how people distort memories with immagination, how people make decisions, how people are ruled by decisions, how bad the communications are with other collegues, departments, managers, clients, and it's just so indirect, which just shoots in the foots of everyone. You will all have to deal with this from time to time. When you are valued as "not competent enough sometimes", or acctually your results will not comply with what is required, although the situations are just 50% not the same and not standard. How can you not make mistakes? Also everyone is driven by fear of not having their bread on the table, and in their depth kinda dissatisfied with life in general. I need a mental transformation. I need to know how to treat my job. One solution that is the most emotionally relieving is competence. Another is renounciation (but that is for everything, even all the comforts, life purposes and all that becomes a bunch of nonsense). Third thing. I am feel and actually I am displaced from a large bunch of society. My values and their values don't match. I am ridiculed by my neighbours (yes, even here), I can't find many places where I can really express myself. I can't express to anyone what I acctually think, what I acctualy want, what acctually I think life should be, I can't even share anything with most of the people I tought are my friends, I just always have to relate with them to get something I want from them, but I feel my ideas are becoming dangreous. As I said, I need a mental transformation. The worst thing is that I will forget about this incident or other incidents like that, and live in the same way and keep suffering like this. I know something more is possible. There is a very strong urge for the truth arising in me. At one point I even wanted a girlfriend. Who am I kidding. All this is just delaying something, which will come back as suffering. I know a few things I can do and I will do. I am so sick living in this mediocrity (and no I am not even close to suicidal or depressive), which just ends dragging everyone trough the glass. I guess I will just read/learn extra to really assure and know, if somebody says I am incompetent in some way, I will always know, firsly, that I did my best and secondly, that I am not really stupid, because the willingness to learn is the basis of intelligence. This is under-looked, because who even cares about the truth of things? Who can think about the truth when they are emotional, desireful, fearful, angry? Then I will proceed on fixing my diet and lifestyle so that I don't fall asleep when meditation for example and just go for it, build a steady practice for years, to develop the taste of purification. (I also really want to close down and trust nobody, mind my own business, assume the worst and share about my private life as little as possible). The wage slavery will crop up your neck and drain the most of your life fluids. Then if you continue to share your love and gifts, I bow down to you. If you have your shit together, if you view your work ethic as not better than somebody but as an infinite potential and stick to it, i bow down for you. If you have found some truth in life, I am really happy for you. I have, but this is not enough. I feel I need to completely change the way I relate to survival and become incredibly pragmatic and meanwhile existential truth oriented. As I said, this is a good moment to leave the body, but I don't know how, so I will keep moving. Thank god this is impermanent. And about music? Well I will try to continously make some releases from time to time, but I want to slowly turn the priority on enlightenment work and this job and then the rest would be music. I am just so done with this. The safest part in life is the path of responsibility, but you will be bitter, this is by design when we are educated the way we are. You will have to learn how to deal with this. I really want to let myself burn so I remember this moment and make that leap closer to sielence. Thank you for reading.

Just read the following article on the subject of accessing an intelligence that's far deeper than that of the thinking mind and thought it was very good, so figured I'd share it here for other like-minded people (it's by a spiritual teacher called Amoda Maa Jeevan, who still appears to be relatively obscure, but I think her teachings on spiritual transformation are excellent): A Deeper Intelligence A list of all her articles can be found here (I thought this one on emptying your vessel was also very good).

That is a scary thing to realise. I realised it when my friends told me. I had started and quit 3 different university courses. I had lived in 17 different places. I started creating an app, then I lost faith in it and quit. Realising that this pattern leads nowhere is an important part of the transformation. I've been doing the same thing for over 2 years now, and I don't really think of quitting anymore. There's things to pursue that are so true to you, so authentic, that the thought of quitting won't occur. The rest is temporary exploration, fun, but although it's painful, you can let it go when it's ran its course, and be better off for it. The more open-minded your personality is, the more of these temporary explorations you will have. The higher your impulsivity is, the more you will commit to things you have to later uncommit to. The more you are in touch with what is truly worth striving for, to you, the less you will want to spend energy elsewhere.

"You can’t deny that at least some people who are on the path of drugs have big experiences, but you will see that they don’t grow, there is no transformation in the way they are. In fact, such a person never attains to Grace, he sort of retards. He never attains to any kind of fragrance. He just has big experiences to talk about, otherwise he slowly retards" ~Sadhguru That's exacly what I came to see in psychedelic users. It's really visible with a naked eye if you're open. But the thing is, psychedelic users will probably deny this untill the end of days, not wanting to see the truth of it. I know it's also very offensive and unpleasent thing to say espesially on a forum like this. My apologies. For what is worth, sadhguru mentioned that drugs are still a possibility in the end. So that should make a lot people happy here ?

@charlie cho Social anxiety makes me block my expression sometimes, and whilst I'm introverted, I'm sometimes extroverted but that gets blocked by anxiety or feeling low I occasionally vent to friends. The other day I was talking to a friend about something that bothered me, both of us to a degree, but I waiting out the impulse to bitch in particular manner which didn't feel nice. There's a way I used to vent to my sister with, but I have no tolerance, it's unpleasant -- You're an mbti nerd right? Alright so I was basically always an INTP, just a regular paki nerd. My psyche got so plunged into shadow, strong emotions, existential despair, that my personality changed. There are shadow stacks, my Fi in abrupt consciousness, the demon/transformation function

I decided to pickup again. As you can see in the journey, I was offline between begin-August to the middle of October. It will be low intensity pickup. I'm over hyperactivity. I have the skills to get phone numbers with minimal effort. My effort is really on my self, inner game (self-acceptance and self-transformation), and most importantly my work ethic and LP. My mindset is totally different than in the beginning of my journey. Girls really disappointed me and I'm learning a lot from them. And the more I learn about them, the more I learn about myself.