Don't trust my mind anymore

[Akemrelax]

What needs to be realized is that the mind is limited and what you call yourself is limited. So you can still trust the mind, logic, and rationality but always remember that they are limited. You can make the mind less limited by learning and growing, but since it's a finite entity, it will always be limited. 

Regarding making practical decisions and deciding whether you like your choice or not, I like to see it as different parts of my ego trying to survive. So, for example, maybe, part of you wants to do law, part of you wants to be lazy, and part of you wants to do science. Now, which self you want to survive as is your arbitrary decision. Ask your self what values you hold and pursue your (higher self/ ideal). So if you say, you want to do law because you want to help people, then the part of you that wants to pursue law is the higher self and the part that wants to be lazy is the self that will have to die. There is no right/wrong answer here, this is where the creativity of the universe comes in, you have the freedom to have any set of values and pursue anything.

Growing your awareness/consciousness will grow your intuition which will reveal more biases from external influences and help you see reality more clearly. So right now you have this realization that your mind is influenced by external factors, this is an insight that you have because you have a certain degree of awareness and intuition. If you increase your intuition, maybe you can realize more of such things.

Intuition is not a logical or rational thing, you have an intuition about something and you just know it, it requires no proof. So for example, people intuitively know how to use logic, logic is part of intuition. Use your intuition to make practical decisions and keep increasing your awareness to better that intuition.

Lastly, I may add that pursuing your passion and what you like may not necessarily translate to you liking your job. Focusing on working right instead of finding the right work, may be an important aspect too. Building interest, curiosity, and passion slowly overtime may be the answer. Leo has good books on practical career advice in his booklist.

[UnbornTao]

An important point: remember that purpose and meaning are not found, but created and developed.

Usually assuming otherwise in terms of career keeps us uncertain, restless, dissatisfied.

[Nthnl]

10 hours ago, Barbara said:

Hey so, recently I feel like I can’t or shouldn’t trust my mind for making decisions, having opinions, or taking a position. I guess I’m stuck in a counterproductive relativism (?) is that a thing?
About having opinions I understand how it’s like a good thing to not have the urge to have those, but I’m struggling to make practical decisions. For example, I’m in university, taking law but I don’t like it, or at least, I think I don’t… I can’t even no longer say if I like it or not, since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence.

Let’s say I don’t like it tho. I’m finishing it next year and I want to find something to do. I would like it to be aligned with my purpose (which btw, haven’t found yet), but can I even trust the content of my purpose?
Does anyone identify with this? Am I looking the wrong way? I’m seriously confused. Any recommendations on books, podcasts, or videos on this topic (Leo's or other).

Thank you for your attention 

You thinking about trusting  your mind is your mind. 

[tsuki]

11 hours ago, Barbara said:

Once Sadguru said (and I find it accurate) that feelings always follow thoughts, they're just slower. So if you cultivate a thought, any thought really, eventually you will feel towards the thought. For example, as much as I love my boyfriend, I know I can go on the verge of ending the relationship, just if I, for a period of time, feed a bad thought about him. I know this sounds severe but I find it freeing since it's my choice to lead thoughts and actions that will maintain the relationship good and alive.
Also, I've watched so much Derren Brown, and Mind field on youtube, that it's so clear that our subconscious is very susceptible to external influences, and our emotions and actions are enormously ruled by our subconscious.
But are you talking from direct experience? If so, I would love to hear more about how you feel integrity by aligning your life with your feelings. 

@Barbara The instrumental way in which you speak about your feelings and your subconscious is symptomatic of your distrust towards yourself. That is why you are lost within relativity. The fact that your feelings are relative to you does not mean that they are arbitrary, or irrelevant. Nor does this mean that you should try to fabricate them. This only leads to being progressively more lost.

Feelings are always about you. They are telling you how aligned you are with your true self. Thoughts are secondary to feelings, not the other way around. Their true purpose is to "unpack" the feeling, make it more tangible, a coherent story that helps you to understand yourself, your surroundings, and act with loving intent towards yourself. Thanks to language, you can also express your feelings clearly so that others can understand and respect you. To respect you, means to treat you in alignment with your true self. Respect feels good. Transforming feelings into thoughts takes honesty, while expressing feelings via language takes courage. This is the basis for any genuine relationship. Both partners need to be able to be honest and courageous while respecting each other. 

There are, however, things that are conventionally called feelings, but upon closer inspection reveal to be something else. This has to do with traumatic experiences, shadows, and unhelpful conditioning from society and our parents. Sometimes we're conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing certain feelings so we developed smoke screens that prevent us from noticing them. For example, hate is a smoke screen that prevented me from feeling anger. Smoke screens have the effect of lowering our awareness and taking hold of us. Their defining characteristic is that the orientation is about something external to you, ie. "about them!", "that nasty boyfriend that always leaves dishes on the coffee table!" etc. Depression and anxiety are other examples. Smoke screens appear in response to your will, or rather, unwillingness to feel certain feelings. This will may have various levels of depth - it may be superficial, as in social settings with your friends, when you inhibit your bad mood, or deep, coming from emotional/physical abuse and stored as trauma in your nervous system. Smoke screens, however, are always sure signs of shadows, which are autonomous aspects of your psyche that unconsciously try to satisfy needs that you reject. Shadows are not evil, they mean no harm - they are simply unskilled in having your repressed needs met. They are the parts of you that you do not accept and throw under the rug (hence the arrival of smoke screens).

Apart from the conscious and the subconscious (subconscious is made of the repressed stuff), there is also the unconscious. The unconscious are the depths of you that you normally have no access to, but is arguably the most amazing stuff, the portal to God, or what I called "true self" in the beginning of this response. The guardian of the unconscious is what is usually called "the inner child" and having relationship with it gives you occasional glimpses, or full experiences of truth. The point of this relationship, however, is to give the inner child the ability to guide you in your everyday life. To align your mind with your heart and make the mind a follower, which is its true place. This is the only way to experience the truth, regardless of whether it is about you, or about externals. Integrity comes about when you stop repressing the parts of you that do not fit into the image of your ideal self that you hold in your mind. Instead, you have to re-calibrate that image to encompass all of what constitutes your experience in an accepting manner. All of you have a purpose and nothing is worth discarding. All of it has to be understood though and seen for what it really is. Emotional maturity, freedom and individuation is what you get out of this process. That is, being truly adult, while being a child, as opposed to being adult contrary to being a child. The latter is false adulthood, oftentimes seen in males as posturing.

Edited November 5, 2020 by tsuki

[Barbara]

9 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

Deep down you know what you want. It's just very, very, blurry and concealed behind what you call "practicality."

Yea, I also suspect this! I'm also afraid that I'm actually denying the fact that I don't wanna study law anymore, since it's a laborious decision.  

 

9 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

There is deep value in trusting your instincts.

I really want to explore this deeply. Do you have experience with this? If so, I would love to talk about this!

 

9 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

your desire to find an external source of authority is a sneaky way to feel safe in a cocoon of theory

Yes, I'm very aware! Before posting this, I thought about it, since I don't wanna feel the victim here, but take responsibility. Have to admit tho, feels nice to have an external authority telling me what to do, like Leo, saying what I'm lacking. I'm aware this is a victim like behavior, so I'm distancing myself from it. 
I know what I have to do next, and I'm very committed to it. 
So, thank you so much @RendHeaven for taking the time and for sharing personal deep insights!
I wish the absolute best for you
WIth metta

[Barbara]

@Akemrelax Hey, I'm very thankful for your answer. 

9 hours ago, Akemrelax said:

I like to see it as different parts of my ego trying to survive.

 This is a new and different understanding of things but resonates with me deeply. Feels like want I need to hear since if I'm honest, I'm reducing different decisions as bad or good. Thank you for bringing me this awareness. 
 

9 hours ago, Akemrelax said:

Focusing on working right instead of finding the right work, may be an important aspect too. Building interest, curiosity, and passion slowly overtime may be the answer.

I'll have this present within me. Would like to acquire experience on this topic. Come back to you in a few months 
With metta
 

[Barbara]

@Arzola I'm reticent about this since I've no experience with it. It would definitely return some power and responsibility, as it would make me the creator and not the discoverer. 
Thank you!

Edited November 5, 2020 by Barbara

[Barbara]

@Nthnl Guess I've to embrace the paradox...... 

[Barbara]

@tsuki Tsuki. This is amazing analyses and advice notably from, what I believe is a higher understanding perspective than mine. Thank you for bringing me this awareness. I'll sink your message in and work from it. With love

[Darlisto]

@Barbara

Hey Barbara. I can definitely relate to this. 

It is true, we are conditioned with all sort of outdated, beliefs and paradigms that don't serve our highest purpose and who we truly are. This means that we simply cannot solely depend on our mind for decision making. The mind is great for analyzing, filtering and understanding all the data and experiences we take in, but we cannot trust it as our main source for navigating life, because our highest truth is beyond our analytical understanding. There are a lot of things that can help you in navigating life in a more satisfying, authentic and smooth manner. 

The first one is understanding the differences between your analytical mind, your emotions and your intuition. Your intuitive feeling, stemming from the area around your navel and sacral chakra area is very powerful and will often contain a lot more truth than the neverending, relative, black-and-white voice running through your mind. I wondered if you're open to the metaphysical and have ever considered using Tarot for shaping your perceptions and intentions? Can do wonders if you're open minded to certain metaphysical concepts.

Anyway, the main point. Human Design. It is in my eyes the highest form of human understanding. It is a mechanical philosophy that is all about one things: decision making. How do I make decisions as myself? How do I differentiate between what is me and what is not? How do I navigate life successully as my true self. I've done many years of personal development and this was the final master key that finally unlocked my root problem, which was overcoming the struggles that mental decisions caused for me. It can be quite overwhelming at first, but I'm willing to help you and give you a short reading of your personal chart, which would give you a concise, clear and trustful method of 'authority and decision-making' for your life personally. Shoot me a message if your interested.

Hope this helps!

[tatsumaru]

18 hours ago, Barbara said:

Hey so, recently I feel like I can’t or shouldn’t trust my mind for making decisions, having opinions, or taking a position. I guess I’m stuck in a counterproductive relativism (?) is that a thing?
About having opinions I understand how it’s like a good thing to not have the urge to have those, but I’m struggling to make practical decisions. For example, I’m in university, taking law but I don’t like it, or at least, I think I don’t… I can’t even no longer say if I like it or not, since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence.

Let’s say I don’t like it tho. I’m finishing it next year and I want to find something to do. I would like it to be aligned with my purpose (which btw, haven’t found yet), but can I even trust the content of my purpose?
Does anyone identify with this? Am I looking the wrong way? I’m seriously confused. Any recommendations on books, podcasts, or videos on this topic (Leo's or other).

Thank you for your attention 

It seems to me that essentially what you are asking here is "How do I know what's true?" aka "What can I truly trust?".
As the oracle said "It is a pickle, no doubt about it..."
This pursuit of truth has puzzled most western philosophers, led countless people to commit suicide or become paranoid and resulted in a ton of weird literature without much to offer for all that effort in return.
And yet the answer was always there within you hiding in plain sight.

Let's see if I can help you notice the little bugger that's been causing all that needless suffering.

First a bit of context is needed...
There exists a parallel world of words that was created by you and resides in your memory that your ego's been using to play tricks on you.
Words are just noises that you store in your memory warehouse for the purposes of communicating your experiences.
They are not really our world, they are just useful.
The only reason we are asking a question like "How do I know this glass really exists?" is because we have created the concept of glass in the first place. What you are referring to as a glass is actually just you experiencing something that's denser at that location.
The glass is no more separate from its environment than your hair is separate from your head.

Why is this important?

Because understanding this collapses the whole need to answer the question of whether the glass is real or not, because there was never a glass to begin with. This in turn frees you from doubting your senses because your senses never really told you there was a glass there, that was just a belief you were taught to tell yourself, and the price of every belief is doubt. Doubt is really just a reminder that this is something you made up in your mind. So the first thing to do to free yourself from this issue is to ask yourself - are you having doubts about your experiences or about the stories that you are running in your head regarding those experiences? Very quickly you will realize that doubting experiences doesn't make sense because even doubting your experiences is an experience. Doubt belongs to the parallel world of beliefs.

Truth however is to be found within the real world of experience...
Next time you have some feeling become aware of that feeling, don't distract yourself with thoughts. Then observe what's the difference between feeling a feeling and thinking about a feeling. This will restore the proper split between the real world of experience and the parallel world of concepts which is just your own creation.

As you pay more and more attention to your feelings, observe how certain experiences don't make sense to you and feel meaningless and how other experiences make sense to you and feel meaningful and attract you. This is your inner compass. It's always been there for you but you were taught to ignore or suppress it by the collective ego. The ego tries to convince your heart (which btw is impossible) that this may not feel meaningful now but it will start making sense once some bs goal is reached. Once you reach that goal, there might be a slight sense of accomplishment but essentially it won't change anything - that's why a lot of people when they get rich - they become more depressed because they have no more stories left to fool themselves with and the unaddressed existential crisis that was suppressed for a lifetime finally starts to re-surface again at full power. The reason why the ego is doing that is because it maintains itself through struggle if there's no struggle it will be gone, so it better try to convince you that struggling makes sense. It better try to convince you to doubt your heart...

And finally the key...
You say "since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence."
In order for somebody to be in integrity he or she needs to know who he or she is, because integrity is to be true to one's self.
The unaware person is indeed volatile for they don't have any standard to be in integrity with.
Yesterday it was trendy to become a doctor, the unaware person signed up at the medical university. The day after that someone said software engineering is the best career to have, a bunch of unaware people started signing up for that. Only to realize they hate it and they suck at it too.  Our minds are not really malleable or under great external influence because feelings are not choices. You can't be convinced to feel love or happiness, I dare you to try it. What you can be convinced to do is to ignore your feelings because you are the captain of your ship, the feelings are there to guide you. Now I bet you won't date a person you aren't attracted to, right? It never works out. So why "date" any other thing in life that you are not attracted to? Realize that attraction is not a choice and you will reclaim your trusty inner compass again. After that - follow your inspiration without hesitation or you will end following your hesitation without inspiration.

Cheers.

[RendHeaven]

4 hours ago, Barbara said:

1) I'm also afraid that I'm actually denying the fact that I don't wanna study law anymore, since it's a laborious decision.  

2) I really want to explore this deeply. Do you have experience with this? If so, I would love to talk about this!

1) Yeah, you don't want to study law. It's pretty obvious from over here~

2) Gosh, my whole life right now is learning to shut the hell up and have Trust/Faith in myself and the grand order of things.

I'm not even sure where to begin. This is stuff that you can't really talk about (though we all try to do so on this forum, lol)

If you have specific questions, shoot.

Edited November 5, 2020 by RendHeaven

[Barbara]

Hey, what a day. I've been watching and studying the videos that Leo recommended and read all of your posts. It all touches me deeply. 

@tatsumaru Your post really aligns with leo, and I appreciate so much that you took the time to share something so important. I definitely know that I've a lot of work to do, and I'm very thankful for your words, that clear the path a little bit. 

2 hours ago, tatsumaru said:

Because understanding this collapses the whole need to answer the question of whether the glass is real or not, because there was never a glass to begin with. This in turn frees you from doubting your senses because your senses never really told you there was a glass there, that was just a belief you were taught to tell yourself, and the price of every belief is doubt. Doubt is really just a reminder that this is something you made up in your mind. So the first thing to do to free yourself from this issue is to ask yourself - are you having doubts about your experiences or about the stories that you are running in your head regarding those experiences? Very quickly you will realize that doubting experiences doesn't make sense because even doubting your experiences is an experience. Doubt belongs to the parallel world of beliefs.

 

3 hours ago, tatsumaru said:

The unaware person is indeed volatile for they don't have any standard to be in integrity with.

I'll take this knowledge and have it present. Thank you so much to bring it into the light. 
Wish you the infinite best 
With gratitude

[Barbara]

3 hours ago, Darlisto said:

The first one is understanding the differences between your analytical mind, your emotions and your intuition.

Darlisto, this is immensely important, I'm now aware. I'll definitely learn this in an empirical way asap. Leo has a vid about intuition, check out that, if you want. I found it treasure like. 

 

3 hours ago, Darlisto said:

intuitive feeling, stemming from the area around your navel and sacral chakra

But how is that? I'm curious. 

 

3 hours ago, Darlisto said:

Tarot for shaping your perceptions and intentions

I've once studied a bit about Tarot but didn't get too involved in it. I'm open to reading more about this, yes.

Thank you deeply for sharing
Warm regards 

[Barbara]

@RendHeaven Ok, just a quick one then, so I can understand you. What is instinct? And maybe, in what form do you perceive instinct? 

[Arcangelo]

''Your mind is not your friend''  -Leo Gura

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, Barbara said:

@RendHeaven Ok, just a quick one then, so I can understand you. What is instinct? And maybe, in what form do you perceive instinct? 

Ask yourself  

[Barbara]

@RendHeaven Surely, but I asked you so I can grasp what you percive as instinct and understand what you mean when saying instincts can bring great value when trusted 

[Nahm]

On 11/4/2020 at 1:10 PM, Barbara said:

Hey so, recently I feel like I can’t or shouldn’t trust my mind for making decisions, having opinions, or taking a position. I guess I’m stuck in a counterproductive relativism (?) is that a thing?

Do you feel ‘like you can’t or shouldn’t’, or are you thinking ‘you can’t or shouldn’t. If you feel like you can’t trust the mind, don’t. Listen to & trust feeling. You’ll receive intelligence, aka, intuition. It isn’t only received as feeling in the body, but of the universe. Relative to dualistic thinking, intuition is certain, knowing, carefree and lighthearted... all of feeling. ‘Feel into’ the subtly & lightness, being lighthearted. 

Quote

About having opinions I understand how it’s like a good thing to not have the urge to have those, but I’m struggling to make practical decisions. For example, I’m in university, taking law but I don’t like it, or at least, I think I don’t… I can’t even no longer say if I like it or not, since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence.

Trust feeling. Notice when you second guess it. “I don’t like it” arises from feeling, the source of want, and don’t want. Recognize & connect with that feeling. Notice when you are believing, that you are thinking, feeling. And feel directly instead. Let the entire topic go from mind. Literally let it go. It’s gone, completely. You forgot what the topic was, gone. And trust feeling. See what’s arising ‘there’. 

Quote

Let’s say I don’t like it tho. I’m finishing it next year and I want to find something to do. I would like it to be aligned with my purpose (which btw, haven’t found yet), but can I even trust the content of my purpose?

“The content of my purpose” is thought, thinking. The source of purpose is feeling, intelligence. Feeling is clearer when you don’t expect it to ‘be in a future’, where the thinking seems to go. Being here now with feeling, making a list of what arises, that which you are wanting, coagulates into what you want...what you were looking for but not realizing, in thinking. 

Quote

Does anyone identify with this? Am I looking the wrong way? I’m seriously confused. Any recommendations on books, podcasts, or videos on this topic (Leo's or other). Thank you for your attention 

Feel. Whatever arises comes & goes. Breathe, relax, feel. It only gets clearer & clearer, and more intelligence is received. It is a delightful experience. 

[Bittu]

Interesting thread!

Follow your intuition with all your courage and don't give a fuck about anybody else's opinion.