5 ms·

Since you already experiment with things like meditation and psychedelics, you should look more into finding out more about your psyche and feelings, and other

Since you already experiment with things like meditation and psychedelics, you should look more into finding out more about your psyche and feelings, and other self-development themes. Find out more about your inner being, about the structure of your (and in general, human) soul, what motivates you, what deep fears you have, in what ways are you still unconscious about yourself. There are tons of books, trainings, coaches that can help with this. Basically you should do more "self-development". There is no innate problem with facebook, slack, or computers or screens or any other similar thing. The problem is that you are getting distracted. You are not fully present with what you are doing. Thinking that facebook is a problem is just grossly misleading. When you have fixed your internal issues, you will not care how many websites or LCD screens are around you. You will do what you want, when you want it. Telling this to an average person is next to pointless, because they are so unconsciouss that they will not understand it. They have lost touch with the notion that they actually have a choice of whether to be distracted or not, they have a choice in how to feel in every single moment. Since you already experiment with the stuff you wrote about, you just might though. For someone who is in deep unconscioussness, who lacks knowledge about themselves, who is constantly distracted and who eats junk food that does not provide their brains with enough nutrition, etc. - trying to do simple dumb things like "I'll only look at facebook 10 minutes a day" - sure it might give some results. But once you've gained some basic groundedness - it just becomes ineffective to look at specific distractors, and much more effective to look at deeper issues within you that cause distraction in the first place.

SolaceQuantum 10y ago
What do you do if the situation you are in do not allow time to sit down and perform deep introspective behavior? I find myself very easily falling into introspection to the point where my mind often cries out for it if I go without for a while. However, my current work and the balancing of multiple careers (as a programmer, as a writer) and social obligations mean I often don't have time and feel intense stress/distress at the inability to commune with myself for long periods of time. I also know I suffered greatly in college due to similar distress. How does one find the time to oneself when the world demands ones time?
- rpeden 10y ago
  The world can demand your time, but that doesn't mean you have to give it your time. Your careers are social obligations are all things you do by choice. I'm not saying you can drop all your careers and live without money, but you have the power to make career related decisions that will give you more time for yourself. Can you temporarily pause one of your careers to give you more time with yourself? Are your social obligations all meaningful to you? If not, it's okay to say no when invited to events that aren't meaningful to you in some way. You end up with obligations because you choose to take them on. You have the power to choose yourself instead, at least some of the time. At you end of the day, if you don't make time for introspection and relaxation, you might find yourself burned out and failing to meet your obligations no matter how hard you try to work.
- marmot777 10y ago
  Even people with careers and kids manage to fit it in. I'm not a person who's good at fitting things in but I've seen it done. :-)
- Capt-RogerOver 10y ago
  Well all the practical advice still work: eat well(!), excercise, have a proper sleep schedule, read good books, and even yes, hard-limiting time spend on social media - they all still work. I just meant that all those things also do take time and, more importantly energy. Like the mental energy to keep yourself from looking at facebook, or the energy to keep an excercise schedule, etc. And so after a certain point, you should switch more of that energy from "dumb" solutions to more intelligent, deep and wise solutions like introspection, meditation, specific work with your fears/feelings ("shadow work" as some call it), going through important memories, talking about this with your loved ones, etc. etc. > the point where my mind often cries out for it if I go without for a while. Especially when you notice that some part of you cries out for something like this - is usually a very good time to find time and energy to do this. Your system actually tells you what you need. And even if nothing superbad happens if you ignore such signals every once in a while, if you repeatedly ignore them - the signals will stop coming and you'll become even less conscious about this part of your life. Until this behavior will cause some actual crisis (life, social, health, mental health, you name it) that will actually force you to return to listening to your signals. But it will be much more comfortable and better in the long run if you don't let it come to this and listen to them already, especially if you are even at this point already sensitive enough to recognize them. (Many people don't even recognize such internal signals, so it's actually pretty great that you have this.) > How does one find the time to oneself when the world demands ones time? If I try to put it simply, it's by recognizing that you are actually a more important and close being to you, than the world around you, or your obligations, your practical goals, work, or sometimes even people who try get something from you. Recognizing that giving yourself the needed energy and attention is actually the best way to achieve the life you actually want, even if it would mean giving up on some external things.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
marmot777 10y ago
Thank you for this. This is something I could possibly pull off immediately. Going cold turkey's too high a mountain for me to summit at the moment. I'd imagine a lot of people could start here.

SolaceQuantum 10y ago

What do you do if the situation you are in do not allow time to sit down and perform deep introspective behavior? I find myself very easily falling into introspection to the point where my mind often cries out for it if I go without for a while. However, my current work and the balancing of multiple careers (as a programmer, as a writer) and social obligations mean I often don't have time and feel intense stress/distress at the inability to commune with myself for long periods of time. I also know I suffered greatly in college due to similar distress. How does one find the time to oneself when the world demands ones time?

rpeden 10y ago
The world can demand your time, but that doesn't mean you have to give it your time. Your careers are social obligations are all things you do by choice. I'm not saying you can drop all your careers and live without money, but you have the power to make career related decisions that will give you more time for yourself. Can you temporarily pause one of your careers to give you more time with yourself? Are your social obligations all meaningful to you? If not, it's okay to say no when invited to events that aren't meaningful to you in some way. You end up with obligations because you choose to take them on. You have the power to choose yourself instead, at least some of the time. At you end of the day, if you don't make time for introspection and relaxation, you might find yourself burned out and failing to meet your obligations no matter how hard you try to work.
marmot777 10y ago
Even people with careers and kids manage to fit it in. I'm not a person who's good at fitting things in but I've seen it done. :-)
Capt-RogerOver 10y ago
Well all the practical advice still work: eat well(!), excercise, have a proper sleep schedule, read good books, and even yes, hard-limiting time spend on social media - they all still work. I just meant that all those things also do take time and, more importantly energy. Like the mental energy to keep yourself from looking at facebook, or the energy to keep an excercise schedule, etc. And so after a certain point, you should switch more of that energy from "dumb" solutions to more intelligent, deep and wise solutions like introspection, meditation, specific work with your fears/feelings ("shadow work" as some call it), going through important memories, talking about this with your loved ones, etc. etc. > the point where my mind often cries out for it if I go without for a while. Especially when you notice that some part of you cries out for something like this - is usually a very good time to find time and energy to do this. Your system actually tells you what you need. And even if nothing superbad happens if you ignore such signals every once in a while, if you repeatedly ignore them - the signals will stop coming and you'll become even less conscious about this part of your life. Until this behavior will cause some actual crisis (life, social, health, mental health, you name it) that will actually force you to return to listening to your signals. But it will be much more comfortable and better in the long run if you don't let it come to this and listen to them already, especially if you are even at this point already sensitive enough to recognize them. (Many people don't even recognize such internal signals, so it's actually pretty great that you have this.) > How does one find the time to oneself when the world demands ones time? If I try to put it simply, it's by recognizing that you are actually a more important and close being to you, than the world around you, or your obligations, your practical goals, work, or sometimes even people who try get something from you. Recognizing that giving yourself the needed energy and attention is actually the best way to achieve the life you actually want, even if it would mean giving up on some external things.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

marmot777 10y ago

Thank you for this. This is something I could possibly pull off immediately. Going cold turkey's too high a mountain for me to summit at the moment. I'd imagine a lot of people could start here.