My intention is to build my sense of intuition, to be able to trust it to lead me in life. Having bipolar, it becomes difficult to trust yourself, but I'm confident I can regain that trust.
I'd also like to able to trust my community, those around me. Whenever I fall into a manic phase, it's generally because I'm failing to listen to my friends and loved ones telling me when I'm going down the wrong path.
I want to heal my bad habits, such as straying away from my friends and hobbies and becoming hyper obsessed on one person or job/idea. I'd like to cultivate balance in my life, never being too high or too low.
I believe I have the ability to make things simple. I can look at a convoluted piece of code or problem, and simplify and organize it, and abstract it to its basics. I can probably learn to do the same for others' lives. Take a look at what they're trying to accomplish, and get rid of all the business and noise that's going on in their head.
I believe in the power of open source, that we don't live in a zero sum world anymore. I believe that by sharing and collaborating ideas, we can move towards progress and happiness much faster than by competing. I want to help heal this harmful competitiveness, the story that we have to put someone else down in order to succeed throughout the world.
A lot of times when you get clear insights you can change your current situation. You don't have to quit your job, you can change the group dynamic at your job.
You should also not be afraid to reach out to strangers and make a difference in their day. If you see someone down, talk to them, do something small and nice for them (ex: give them a flower). It costs you almost nothing but helps make a rather large difference.
Through individual coherence, we can start making shifts in the world. There are a lot of industries popping up that are moving the world in the right direction, healing the people in this world.
I am particularly interested in the alternative health companies that are starting to sprout up, workshops, groups, and courses, like MindValley, circling, acro yoga, cuddle parties, which are starting to approach spiritual and emotional problems, not just factual/scientific knowledge (like our school system). Groups are starting to come about that help people learn about themselves, and by participating in them (like participating in the Duality course) we are promoting that direction in the world.
If we don't heal the pain and problems we have, they'll just keep coming up. I've seen this in relationships. I have had the same problems come up in relationships (codependency, obsession, self criticism/self doubt, poor self imagine) until little by little I started approaching these problems and finding the tools to heal them.
We can use intuition to root out those problems that we keep ignoring. We can really listen to ourselves to see what is weighing us down, and what keeps resurfacing
When we aren't using our intuition we are just guessing at what to do. We react to what's happening, instead of having a clear direction. I notice I second guess myself, and bring up a lot of "what if I did x" scenarios. If I follow my intuition I can be a lot more sure of what I'm doing even if the results are momentarily not what I want.
I notice during my manic episodes, I have a lot of insight into what to do to help the world or what is best for me. However, at some point I stop listening to my intuition and start feeling pride and lack of humility behind my ideas. That tends to squash my initially good, intuitive ideas, and overruns them with actions that hurt me and others.
I generally have a lot of the answers to my life problems. In relationships, I've already learned tons of strategies to listen better, to handle conflict. But after initially learning those strategies, I don't keep practicing them. So I forget them, and when I need them most I don't apply them. It's important for identifying the techniques and activities that help me, and keep practicing them, turn them into habits.
Similarly, I know generally the things it takes to not be depressed:
It's easy to do them after a depression (like right now). But then, one part of my life starts taking over, and I start neglecting those habits which I know are healthy for me, and keep me from depression. I forget about my friends and hobbies. I let my room turn into a mess. I stop exercising. I make excuses. And before I know it I'm depressed, in a state where I actually don't have the willpower to continue those practices. All I can do is wait until I have the willpower again, and not make those same mistakes.
This was a really resonant section. I've noticed that when I'm with a group of people I admire, who are living the type of lifestyle I want, I tend to grow very quickly with them. The group rubs off on me, their habits become my habits. For example, I had tremendous growth when I immersed myself in the acro and cuddle communities. Everything just seemed to flow naturally.
However, when I hyper focus on one person or try to do things on my own, my bad habits start to surface, or I absorb the bad habits of that other person. In my relationship with my ex, Asya, even though she was an amazing person, because I was missing the dynamic of the group (by distancing myself from my friends and activities) we started adopting and magnifying each other's bad habits of codependency and isolation from others. Our poor communication habits resurfaced, and we started forgetting all these wonderful strategies that our friends and community had taught us.
When you're on your own you go into what Jeffery calls "learning journeys". You still get to where you need to go, but there is a lot of pain along the way. You learn the same lesson in a much longer time than by sticking to the group intelligence, and learning the lessons in a much quicker and less painful way. I often go on these "learning journeys" when distancing myself from my community. And I tend to fall into long, deep depressions. Where I still learn the lessons I was supposed to learn, but at the cost of a lot of time and great pain and discomfort.
It's so important to find a group that is going in the direction you want your life to go, and not stray too far from it.
The reason is not being present in the body. I noticed that meditation is very difficult for me. I always need external stimulation. During a depression I watch Netflix for 16 hours a day. But if I let my mind settle, as in some parts in life, I start getting much better answers. I have a feeling of the right thing to do. I'm remembering the beginning of my relationship with Asya. I knew almost exactly what to say and do to make her feel better. I had trust in God. I wasn't worried. I felt that I was listening to my body very clearly. But later on in the relationship, I lost touch with my body, I had a goal, something I really wanted. I wanted to get closer to Asya and I was blind to everything else. I just started submitting to my desires, and ignoring what my body was trying to tell me. I stopped meditating and praying to God. And that lead down to some terrible results including my long depression.
"Out of body" experiences, the idea of listening to your guides, and spirits, are ironically achieved by listening to your body. The universe in contained within ourselves. All the knowledge and answers necessary for our lives are within ourselves.
Many people think that to be more "spiritual" you have to leave the physical things of this earth (not have possessions, deny yourselves pleasures). I see this a lot in Buddhism and Hinduism.
But there's another philosophy that spirituality is about merging the spiritual and the physical. It about bringing more presence and intuition to what you're doing on the physical plane.
There's a reason why we are spirits having a physical experience. We are here to enjoy and change and make the most use of this world, not ignore it.
The people we admire the most (actors, athletes, singers, figures like Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa) are very present in their bodies. They are focused on whatever they're doing and letting their body direct them. Their head is not filled with noise and questions and second guessing when they're doing their activity. They're just in their zone, in tune with their bodies, in partnership with their bodies even.
For me the examples that come to mind are programming, deep conversations, and acro yoga.
During programming, when I'm working on an interesting problem, especially refactoring or organizing, I feel like one with the code. I don't really second guess or question myself, I'm not aware of all the things going on around me. I'm just really enjoying myself, and letting my body guide what line of code to fix next.
When in deep conversations, a conversation with my friend Danny Berkowitz, comes to mind. He is a physicist. And once he gathered some of his smart friends, and we all discussed philosophy and physics. I remember being so engrossed in the conversation. It just flowed. We weren't worried about how the other person was viewing us in the conversation, or if we sounded smart or dumb. We just were enjoying each other's knowledge and insights, contributing our own. It's topics we all had a lot of knowledge in a cared about. I miss having those kinds of conversations, which really make me critically think about philosophy and the nature of the universe.
Acro yoga also comes to mind. There I'm really in my body. In order to do the moves I really need to feel my body's interaction with my partner's. There's no time to think or second guess. You're just doing the move and adjusting based off what your body tells you. I really miss acro yoga.
Jeffrey says we all experienced this flow, so why don't we do it more often?
You is the consciousness. And your body is like a container. You can pour more or less of your energy into that container. As you pour more energy you feel in tune with your body.
A lot of times energy "spikes". For a few seconds you feel very in tune with your body and then that energy drops back down. I feel like that a lot. I may have a great idea, and be very excited about it, and then quickly run out of steam.
In Bipolar it's dangerous to have to little or too much energy for too long. Too little and I fall into a depression. Too much and it's not sustainable, it drains me, and I then fall into a depression.
My friend taught me an exercise to regulate the amount of energy you're feeling. He said it's good to always be aware of that energy level, and regulate it up and down as needed.
You can do this when talking to someone, to be more present
I feel ungrounded when:
For jet lag: try grounding yourself to the place you're going to before you fly
My intention this week is to feel connected to everyone I encounter. I want to grow my bond with Nilu, Mike, and Joe for our last days together. I want to really make Joe feel like he's making progress, and that he is supported and loved. I want to make Mike feel more grounded, able to control his anger. And I want Nilu to feel that I really connect with her and I see a lot of great qualities, a lot of Asya's qualities in her. That adventurous spirit, and positivity.
I want to blossom a new connection with Christine. I want to explore our bipolar together and become lifelong friends who can help each other overcome our ailment. I want to bond with her dog too and go on frequent hikes with her :)
I want to reunite with Alice. I want to restore that amazing unconditional love dynamic we had a year ago. I want her to know that even if we aren't in touch as much, she can always lean on me for support.
I want to connect with all the people in the house, and take in all that they can teach me. I want them to become my family, my tribe, and share many fun activities with them on a regular basis. I also want to regain that bond I had with Ray. And explore our similarities with Alton, I feel we have a lot we can do together.
Finally, I want to connect with Asya. When she feels ready, I want her to read my letter, and feel the love I put into it. A love that connects us through everything. I want to keep feeling that love strongly and fall deeper and deeper into it, knowing that it's the only thing that really exists.
I want to usher in a new reality for myself, where I am empathetic and appreciative of everyone who enters my life, seeing the good in everything and everyone, and the beauty.
Unlike in the physical world where we are taught that we need to take action to progress, in the energy world, you listen and wait for the answers to appear. There's nothing you have to "do", and in fact doing actually impedes the process.
It's important to set an intention for what you want, but afterwards, be flexible as to how your desires get fulfilled. Wanting something to happen a certain way, often prevents the natural evolution of the desire to flourish.
I've found that when I let go of the "need" to have things happen, they generally happen in the most amazing, unexpected ways.
I remember when I first began dating my ex, I prayed to God to let me unconditionally love her, and be in my life. And I let it be known that I want to be with her. But after that I became open as to how things rolled out. I remember after a certain seminar, Asya said that she didn't want to be with me (or the other guy she was dating...long story, we were in a triad). I was disappointed, of course, but I trusted that things would work out in some way, without "needing" anything in specific. And shortly after, we started hanging out more as friends, and an amazing relationship blossomed. You see in order for me to love her unconditionally, we needed that no expectations friendship, where we could freely explore with each other. I got to show her how much I loved her, and cared for her, regardless of whether we were dating. And only once I truly let go of "needing" to be in a relationship, my desire was fulfilled.
I also had an incredible miracle happen recently. I wanted for a long time to be a contractor instead of a full time employee, which would afford me the opportunity to work less, take more vacations, travel the world, chase my dream life. I asked my boss, and he flat out said no. Later on I wrote a long letter, addressed to my boss, HR, and the VP of Engineering, which I worked really really hard on, explaining why contracting would be in everyone's best interest. I eagerly awaited a response, placing all my hopes and dreams on them saying yes. And they came back with a response - no. At that point I really gave up the need. I used to blame my boss for being so stubborn and controlling, but I gave up that blaming. I said "My boss has the right to set whatever rules he wants to set. That doesn't make him wrong". And I said "I trust you God, that you'll make the right work situation happen for me, and that it won't be as linear as I "need" it to be". And about a month later, I had a conversation with HR, where she said "Toli, I talked to your boss, and we might be able to offer you a contract role". I never in a million years thought this would happen, after 2 flat our rejections.
I noticed this pattern happening over and over in my life. Only when I sit back, and give up my "need" to have things happen a certain way, only when I stop pushing, and give the reigns to God, my wishes come true.
I am a programmer, where details, precision, edge cases really matter. My natural tendency is to overthink, which makes me a great programmer. But for almost everything else in life, it's a hindrance. I spent much more time thinking of what could go wrong, rather than focusing on what I'm doing and feeling. As I'm learning to selectively turn off my overthinking, I can take advantage of the best of both worlds. When it comes to interesting problems, or happy thoughts, I can turn on the overthinking, and let myself enjoy them in greater detail. But when it comes to things I can't change, negative thoughts, regrets, I can turn off the overthinking. It doesn't serve me.
Life has proven to me that the worst case scenario never happens. And if it does, it generally gets resolved in ways I couldn't have imagined, making me learn and grow in the process. Nothing bad is as bad as I had imagined it. So really the lesson is, let go, trust that things will turn out. Because every single time you have in the past, they did. It's simple science.
I can definitely relate to all of the effects of overthinking.
I naturally love to argue. I latch on to little details and nuances, that are beside the general point. Now sometimes I argue because it's fun, but a lot of times people don't take it that way. Many times people just want to be listened to and accepted.
It took me a very long time to finally let go and travel. I had so many thoughts running in my head of what would happen, what the risks were. And then I just let go, and nothing terrible happened. Well actually one of the worst case scenarios happened - I got rather depressed because of the COVID lockdown. Broke up with my girlfriend. But just 2-3 weeks later, all this doesn't seem nearly as bad. And now I know that nothing is stopping me from traveling. I can handle whatever worst case scenario, and have so much to enjoy.
And obviously my bipolar is largely due to overthinking. I used to marinate in negative thoughts, instead of just feeling them and letting them go. I can do this much better now, things still bother me, for example when Asya wanted to wait before reading my message, I felt sad. But only for an hour or so, and now it doesn't feel bad at all. The key is just giving those thoughts all the space they need to yell and scream, hear them out, and let them leave.
Listening has always been a big problem. I'm used to my powerful brain always being right, and always thinking of additional info, ideas. This is amazing and I thank my brain for being so powerful. But I am starting to learn how to turn that processing power on and off. When I listen with the intent of listening, all that information my brain can generate doesn't matter. I already know I'm smart. People know I'm smart. There's nothing to prove. Instead, I could focus on my goal - to make the other person feel heard. And there will be tons of places where I can let my brain out to play, and debate, and think all it wants!
Finally, meditating has been difficult until recently. There was just so much going on in my mind. "Did I miss something important?" "Am I doing this right?" "What was that thing I did wrong a month ago". Practicing letting go of those questions helps me clear my mind. There will be tons of time to ask those questions later, and the important stuff, I won't forget. The unimportant stuff, if I forget - great!!
You can imagine your analyzer as a light switch that you can turn up or down. Both are useful in different scenarios. And consciously being able to say "ok now I'm going to use my intuition" is a great power.
My main takeaway is that intuition is much like a dream. Things are nebulous, unexpected, illogical. Things just kind of flow without an exact A caused B. This is very different from programming which is why it's naturally difficult for me. But coming into the understanding that intuition is like a dream, I can stop applying the same rules of logic to intuiting. I don't have to use the scientific method to prove what I'm intuiting or back it up. I can just accept it. Or I can use my logic side to back it up later.
I feel that intuition is much like an email inbox. You can send out messages asking for what you want, but ultimately, until the person you're contacting decides to reply, no amount of "doing" or "thinking" will make the response come faster. Refreshing the inbox over and over won't make the reply come any faster. You're just wasting time. Just sit back, enjoy your life, and when the notification finally arrives - and it will, you can take action!
Maytte Dusseau well for me it started by just following the instructions in Jeffrey’s meditations. He says imagine a room, I imagine a room. He says imagine rearranging your room, I imagine a rearranged room.
Something actually comes to mind that Jeffrey said. He told the story of how he was teaching people to see Auras. And one of the students said “I can’t see anything”. And so he went behind her to troubleshoot, see what she was seeing, and he saw the person in front of her covered in flowers. He told her “what about all these flowers”. And she said “well I always see that, I thought I was supposed to see lights or something”.
I think that helped me quite a bit. We can all imagine stuff. Start as small as imagining a square or a circle. And move up, add detail. Let go of the idea that you’re “supposed” to see something. I thought I was supposed to see a library with answers. Instead I saw a jellyfish which takes me on adventures and gives me weird dreamy visions.
Another thing that helped me is that these “visions” act much like a dream. We all dream. And we see a weird set of seemingly disconnected events which logically don’t go together. One minute I’m with my ex. Another moment she is my mom. Whaaa. Freud much?
Combining those two principles you can start seeing visions too. Just drop all expectations. Start imagining stuff consciously and before you know it your subconscious will take the reins. Just don’t fight it or control it or try to make sense of it. Because the minute you do it all disappears (like when you’re trying to remember a dream).
It’s also kind of like the law of physics where you can only know a particle’s speed or location. Here, you can experience a vision or you can analyze it. Not both at the same time. So let go and experience it fully, and when it’s finished analyze your your heart’s content!!
Happy vision-ing!!! 🥳
Jellyfish visualization Hi tribe! I was listening to Part 2 yesterday (hehe I’m behind). And during the Library meditation I somehow floated off into this cosmos where I encountered an enormous jelllyfish. I googled it and this image is strikingly similar to what I saw. And the jellyfish touched me on the forehead with one of its tentacles and told me it’s my spirit guide. Now why a jellyfish, I don’t know. I was always a dog person, assumed it would be a dog. But I felt sooooo happy to have found my jellyfish. I just laughed and said “jellyfish!”
I didn’t really have anything specific to ask it. My mind was surprisingly empty (which is really uncommon, I’m also a super analytical programmer). But I guess I asked “what’s my ex’s spirit animal?” We’re not talking at the moment (taking a break from each other after our breakup). But I was interested to feel her energy. And I saw a cute little dolphin. It seemed so enegetic and was just twirling around and around. I tried to ground her but she wasn’t really up for that. So instead my jellyfish followed her and we just zoomed around the universe very quickly! I can’t describe exactly what I saw but I remember getting the gist “wow there’s no much beauty and play in the universe”
The main thing during this visualization, I tried not to question or apply logic or push on anything that was happening. I just went with it and had an amazing time playing with my dolphin!
And at the end I got the answer to the question that was lingering at the back of my mind - what should a new relationship with my ex look like? What we were doing before clearly wasn’t working. But we both love each other and are fascinated by each other. We just fell into codependent habits, lost individuality, and stopped having fun. And the message I got was to return to what made us fall in love in the first days - just being all silly and taking pictures of ourselves jumping into a pool with our clothes on and dancing underwater. Telling each other amazing stories.
I don’t think my ex is meant to be my girlfriend in the traditional sense. It is probably not in the cards for us to shack up together and have a standard “honey I’m home” type of relationship. Definitely not in the near future. Asya is an integral part of me, my mirror. We reflect the amazing, adventurous silly spirits in each other. But to retain that amazingness, we need space. Our time to be together as one, with each other, with everything, will come. But we still have so much of the world to experience before that.
What comes to mind is a vision I had during a psychadelic trip many years back. I saw my companion. That’s really the best way to describe her. We would have amazing adventures on our own, experience all the world has to offer, see beauty, and then come together to play and share everything we have learned on our own. And when we’ve had our fun we would return to our solo adventures. Always learning, growing, and meeting new people.
My wonderful adventure with the jellyfish and dolphin reaffirmed that vision. And I’m eagerly awaiting all the “physical” world and energy world adventures we’ll experience, together and apart.