noomii

So I started the practice when you suggested it. I didn't do the candle as it hurts a bit, I'm light sensitive. But I've been experimenting with different visual objects and that works with me. I do 5 min of it and then I just do breath awareness 30 min. Then later I noticed it might be good to do it one more time 5 min during the day. I notice a slight difference in me during the day. Focusing on the breath still feels difficult. What I do during that time is just to try bringing back my attention to where I feel the breath in my belly, whenever I notice the mind wandering away. Seems difficult to me to focus clearly on the actual sensations even though I try to and I'm pretty tense in the body the whole time. I might just need more concentration. @Phil Should I be able to concentrate flawlessly during 5 min before I do it for longer...? For how long do you suggest to do the practice? 😊 Still easily lost in thoughts during the day but not as extreme as before I started the concentration. Feels very difficult to be productive because of the emotions/thoughts. I feel very misunderstood (unworthiness/guilt?) by others about this because really it doesn't seem like anybody understands this experience of aversion that makes me so unproductive. I just feel like I'm sitting in a rollercoaster all the time. There's a lot of fear and worry about a lot that just feels so raw. I feel worry about it coming up. I have not been getting the support I want either so I very much feel that I'm on my own in this and I've become so used to it. It probably just makes it worse. I feel very resistant towards the support that is easy to get for different reasons. Most times it feels like I don't even believe what the professionals say because they all just have the same education and are trained to say the same thing. I just want to feel supported by friends and family around me. Real human connection and not some shallow temporary therapist.

Beautiful. 😊 Thank you. What would you say is an easy object to focus on for a beginner? Love. ❤

@Phil there's a lot of sugar-free peanut butters to buy. Also it's possible to do home-made almond butter & peanut butter (or any other kind of seed/nut butter). Almond butter is great for baking healthy brownies 😄 I recommend soaking all nuts, seeds, grains and legumes over night and wash off "anti-nutrients" (at least the soakable ones). It makes it much easier for the body to absorb the nutrients and easier to digest 😊 I'm very sensitive but I feel a difference right away when I eat soaked nuts/seeds. Mood-boosting. If one wants to maximise nutrients even more I'd look up "sprouts". A lot of them are easy to sprout. I'm not a fan of the taste but it's super healthy. I believe eating organic and wild food is the healthiest.

I want to see that. A lot of thoughts are saying "it's not possible, I won't make it happen, there's too much thoughts to inspect." I think a part of what feels like effort for me with questioning is that I feel tensions in the head and it tend to feel worse when focusing on anything. I find it difficult to have a relaxed focus. It would feel so good to have something to blame on for lack of progress in meditation 😂... I will try concentration practice. I remember I tried it for some time but I was very rigid and not gentle at all, that didn't work, didn't feel good and I just felt frustrated. However that link is going to Contemplations, same with the link on your site. Thank you Phil 😊

I felt inspired with the hope to feel better and see more clearly. In a way that was me opening up to life. The willingness was never lost and I never stopped living fully. In a sense one always lives fully. What I first meant with "living fully" was to live as I truly want, I feel like I'm not.

Yes I've meditated for four years. Not kidding I'm pretty sure I've done it wrong most of the time because of my attitude/expectations and just lack of actual focus lol. Or it's just not enough. The only time I experienced tangible benefits from meditation was in the beginning, I did guided ones. After a while I think I started to try to control the experience. I do breath awareness for 35 min, that's the best one for me now. It would probably be helpful if I did it for a longer time. I've not managed to relax that often. I do breath work everyday yet still very restricted/shallow breath. I even did breath work before bed last night for half an hour but even after that it took me half an hour to fall asleep because of shallow breathing, I wasn't really feeling anxious it was just that I couldn't breath properly. And I wake up during night breathing shallow. I only do nose breathing and take deep breaths as often as I can. Emotional scale is the only thing I know that works for me currently that naturally makes me breath freely and fully while I do it. I just feel so exhausted after I've done it because it usually takes me one hour. So I don't do it now but I know I can if I want to. And I'm bringing awareness to emotions I feel everyday a lot. That's almost like doing the emotional scale but for some reason feels easier and more free to me. So I wouldn't say I'm avoiding everything I feel, I'm doing good allowing a lot of emotions. What's missing is that I'm not fully present with the emotions I feel about the things I'm unwilling to accept about life... Those thoughts just seem so convincing to me. I did have those thoughts today. 😂 I'm aware that when I feel overwhelmed by a lot of things I always wish I could dissappear. I've had those wishes almost everyday for a long time "in the background", that I just ignore, but sometimes they get so loud when I feel overwhelm. When I feel better I'm mostly just focused on something else and I keep going but these same thoughts shared in my post keep coming back and try to convince me that they're true. I've had some distance from it the whole day today because I've focused on other stuff.

I have a difficult time accepting suffering as a part of life. Everything about life just seem to be too complex, difficult. I just want to avoid suffering completely. It seems kind of meaningless to me to inspect thoughts because until I've done that I will suffer and after that I will suffer again. I'm only motivated to improve by the idea that I'll somehow eradicate suffering completely, believing I can only be at peace/truly happy when I've done that. If it's all just an illusion anyways I don't see the point in going through suffering. All I really want is to feel truly at peace and happy now and always. I can't ignore these thoughts and just go on focusing other things because they seem to hold me back a lot in a lot I do and they just feel heavy. I currently feel a lot of fear around money/career. If I knew that living(loving) life fully is the only way, that it's the best way and that fully accepting suffering/all of life is totally worth it, I would do much better. I'm willing to question when it feels good to do it, but everything about life still feels too difficult and I don't see the meaning with improvement/effort/work/going through suffering if I'm still going to suffer no matter what I do. How can one find the willingness to truly live life fully? To truly love this present moment? What is the most effective way to let go/take care of suicidal thoughts, to let go of beliefs about suffering and to see truth? I'm aware of the responsibility I have about getting the professional help I need.

@Phil Thanks for helping me notice the beliefs 😄 Is aversion an emotion? So it's more accurate to say that I'm experiencing aversion towards emotions, not procrastination? So when I'm feeling stuck thinking I'm not able to take the action I want. I can be aware of how I feel in the moment. What is better to focus on if I continue to feel that stuckness and not able to take the action I want at all in that moment? I believe it gets worse when I expect the emotion/thoughts to disappear just so that I can take action. Are the emotions on the emotional scale all emotions there is? I clearly feel a lot of unworthiness and guilt. It feels like I'm running all the time. I feel so much stress these days it feels so horrible. It's so counterproductive. I'm running to avoid unworthiness and guilt. I'm running for a sense of feeling worthy (feeling good), doing things/living up to expectations about an idea of what is successful/worthy. However... My behavior/productivity is most of the time the opposite of that learned idea. Might help me to just let go of all the thoughts telling me about how 'my cognition functions'. I just feel so bad about it and confused because I don't know how to have the same kind of cognition/mind as I used to. I have assumptions about what caused it and what I need, but I don't know. Everything feels harder and takes longer time to do. I clearly feel a lot of unworthiness about it because it feels so bad to think about how 'years' are passing by, I feel so unworthy when thinking I 'lack' knowledge/education when comparing myself to what other people do or educate themselves with. When thinking of that I'm trying to literally compensate by proving my worth bulldozing myself. That's also counterproductive. That's just me trying to run from unworthiness and burn out doing so. I will most likely only experience the cognition/mind I want when I let go of unworthiness or guilt.

I wish it felt that easy. That's how I usually think "Just do it!" to just take action now. Most times I take the action (action as in starting to write down questions about what I want and how to go about it) right away but then I feel blocked by not fully feeling doubt or worry. With blocked I mean I start to "ruminate/over-think" and it feels like I just cannot proceed and need to take a break doing something easy to let go of the thoughts. I might have ignored some emotions on the way... Not fully feeling the doubt/worry/overwhelm/boredom makes it feel too difficult to actually do what I want. I set an intention last month to first get in alignment before doing stuff. To let go of emotions first and if I felt any resistance I would just decide to do that thing later when I feel in alignment for it. But alignment never happened 'later'. So I guess there was a lot more emotionally for me to let go of or maybe I need a different approach in how I do it. I'm spending most days outside doing those things but it feels wasted when I'm not fully present. Sometimes I'm enjoying and being present. All the things that feel effortless for me to do (like just going places close to where I live) are things that I don't want to do anymore because I've been doing them for so long because of feeling so much powerlessness about doing what I actually want to. Sometimes I've been doing what I want but with a lot of discordant emotions involved when taking action to do it and while doing it. Sometimes I've felt in alignment while doing what I want, but that's not often. Now I just want to let go of that powerlessness.

I've been procrastinating a lot for a long time. But almost the whole month of July and right now have been extreme. I've been feeling so much doubt about not knowing what to do/where to go and on top of that thinking I feel too much overwhelm to do what I really want (I've had a bunch of free time now). I've been feeling extremely bored, passive, rotten, heavy, burning sensation of stress and I've been isolating so much. Suicidal thoughts have appeared a lot and they still do. My focus is more now on wanting to question them. It really have felt and looked like the same day have been repeating itself. I did escape for a few days last Saturday. I went to a day-party and camped at the same day and after that I went to some friends for circling (mindfully exploring our connection with each other) for two days. I crashed feeling fatigued the whole day after just wanting to lie down and cry. It filled me with joy. Now I'm back feeling stuck procrastinating again feeling stressed because I think I have to decide what to do/where to go NOW. I absolutely hate staying where I'm at and I feel suffocated staying here. This Monday I'm going back to the activity I do so I feel stressed about doing things I want to do now. This September that activity ends and I have no plans on what to do, I don't know what I want to do then and that I've procrastinated on too. I have no work at all then. I feel safe and it will work out somehow. Avoiding almost everything necessary for me is not really helping that. I do wish I could die instead of facing the fear of responsibilities. I've been looking at all the feelings of doubt, overwhelm, resistance about staying where I am and most of the negative emotions that have come up. I did try emotional scale for some time but it felt too heavy to do so I stopped it. I think the procrastination have been a way of unconsciously regulating my feelings by avoiding overwhelm, doubt etc. It does feel like I can't control the procrastination when I'm in it, I can't force myself to do anything. The only thing I can do is to be aware of what I feel. Writing this feels heavy, simply because I need to think about what is actually happening with me. Feels like something is trying to stop me from over-thinking all the time and that's why it feels hard to do anything where I need to use effort with thinking. That's a reason to why I procrastinate doing anything, too. Overwhelm, stress and doubt comes up when doing most activities that requires planning, decision making and most things requiring a lot of thinking. Trying to figure out by thinking for a very simple thing like where I want to go out camping in nature makes me feel a lot of doubt and overwhelm. It makes me feel completely blocked and I simply cannot think more about it. Also I feel incapable of doing the things I truly want to do, I can do them but they feel too overwhelming. I want to go far out in wilderness and go to other countries but the ideas that come up with what I mostly want, feels too overwhelming for me because it takes a lot more planning and a lot more feelings of overhelm come up that I need to take care of. So I'm mostly focusing on things that feels easier emotionally. I have earlier written down what I want in my notes but that doesn't seem to help much because I haven't let go of the feelings about it. I know a good next step would be to actually use a dream board which I'm also procrastinating on like everything else. But most of all I just want to relax completely and let go. That feels more important than anything. Feels like I'm making everything MUCH more complicated than it is. Though what I've shared here in this post is just a small part of everything I'm concerned about. Now another day have passed with procrastination and rumination. I could've even planned tomorrow but I DIDN'T?! I feel so exhausted, I've not had a break from this shit for the whole day. The weather here felt special as it does in august. It felt like I wasted it because I was just lost in thoughts. I believe I've wasted all of these months. I want to receive some clarity on this or support of any kind! Thank you

I find it hard at the moment to inspect thoughts in a more focused way like The work (not yet read it fully through though) or any contemplation. I question thoughts spontaneously in a gentle way just to notice the thought is probably not true. I want more questioning when it feels easier to do so. Hard to explain but it's as if the "mind" is closed off, hard to read, focus (I mean focus that easily trigger tension in the head. The focus that happen in meditation is relaxed and good!) or do anything actively/with effort with my mind. I can, but it takes a lot more time and effort. But it's not like I will wait for that to resolve before I question thoughts. Practices that help me focus more on feeling is good at the moment. This self inquiry on the other hand seem to involve less thought activity. I've been thinking I'm not yet "ready" for it, that's probably just a distraction.

Feels like the next practice! Hi! Feel free to send me it. I've heard of it but never actually tried it for different reasons. Thanks 😊

@Phil When I did the scale yesterday it felt a lot more effortless. After expressing the first emotion, I simply looked, with my eyes, at the next emotion on the scale and did nothing, subtle thoughts and feelings about that emotion naturally arose by themselves. I just allowed that to happen and were mindful of what I felt. Is that what you mean by allowing? Look to possibilities, do you mean this as something I can do actively in my mind like... actively look for activities in the mind/thoughts, that have the possibility to make me feel passion? If so, that's what I've done with no success (not allowing it to naturally arise by itself). Still a bit confused about what to do if no thoughts or sensations comes up naturally by themselves. If I want to let this be a practice of allowing, I can see how I could simply notice what is already felt in me in that moment and notice if a different emotion comes up instead, like frustration or jealousy. Maybe "actively" looking for better feeling thoughts can still be useful here if done in a gentle way? Btw no passion felt yesterday... looking forward to feelin' it! 😊 Thank you so much Phil.

I've been trying out the emotional scale for a while but I notice that often when I reach for better feeling thoughts, I don't feel the emotion that I expected to feel. Usually this happens when reaching for Contentment and higher up on the scale. It can happen lower on the scale too. If I haven't felt overwhelmed in awhile I usually don't feel anything when reaching for thoughts that I tend to feel overwhelmed about. I've been going the whole way up the scale two times at least, I think. It doesn't feel genuine at all when I sit for so long trying to find thoughts that makes me feel something. A lot of times I only get a subtle better feeling when doing that but it doesn't feel authentic. There's a lot of confusion when reaching for thoughts about Passion. I don't have any memories about feeling passion and I don't have anything I feel passionate about right now. A few days ago I thought about how I will find what I truly feel passionate about "in the future" and that worked, not sure if it was passion I felt, or just excitement. I thought about the same thing about passion the next day, but I didn't feel the same anymore. Sometimes I've skipped one emotion, it feels better doing the scale flowing with it. Maybe I've misunderstood how this actually works. Thank you 😊

I promise, I did not see what I did there in the moment 😂 Still a lot of questions around the question that came up (that's why it came up) but I'm letting those inspections be for later, it's not the right timing for me. Thank you for all that you are 😊

@Phil When I read about focusing on thoughts that feels good, I immediately started thinking about shaming or making the negative thoughts wrong. "I must force myself to think positive!!" Funny, I realized that didn't feel good. It feels good to know I can love the negative thoughts as much as the positive ones. I'm free to focus on whatever thoughts I want to. Feels good to express negative thoughts and give it my loving attention to feel seen. Then, when it feels good to me I can whenever I want shift my focus to the goodness. So being the creator & being in control of what I focus on, is it possible to focus on what feels good all the time? I mean isn't that what we all want, why does it feel so hard then?... 😂 Constantly thinking "relaxation is difficult" does not feel so good. I admit I haven't given the Emotional scale an honest chance. I've tried it briefly several times. I feel inspired to try it out for longer to really see for myself what will happen. At first I thought that simply letting go of the feelings that come up when I write down what I want & while taking the action to do it would be most effective for where I'm at now. I go through the emotional scale slowly & for me it feels like more effort. But the emotional scale seems more fun, so that's what I'm trying out now. Yeah it surprises me every time! When I suddenly feel "in alignment" I always start doing what is my lowest priority, but that's also when I feel the most effective/productive, when I feel good. Soaking up the beauty of nature & music is a good way to let go of thoughts. 🥰

I was thinking about posting that one too when I saw this thread! 😂

@Phil Thanks for clarifying :) Express those words in my journal to see that they're just thoughts & to notice the feelings that come up when I write out those words? "Include ‘for me’" - what sentence are you referring to? There's no confusion in Feeling :) I was more soft with myself the day after the post. When I'm being soft with myself I just do less of what I expect myself to do. But it's not enough with "doing less", if I don't let go of the feelings I hold on to. I don't fully understand how to love myself when I feel overwhelmed with thoughts when I'm planning, writing down stuff for improvement etc. I know I can notice the feelings when it's happening & just be with it. But I think I've made noticing & allowing feelings into an effort where I have high expectations on myself, pushing myself too hard (along with a lot of other things). I think I feel a lot of resistance to feelings so I just want to "get rid of" all the suffering & feel "in control" by using force on myself expecting myself to do a lot of work on myself with a lot of effort. I fear being without the attitude of needing to get rid of everything painful, because I think I would have to face much more suffering without it. Without that attitude I would let things be as they are without changing anything about it, unless I actually wanted to change something. (if "I" would be in resistance I would just allow myself to be in resistance & not expect myself to be different, unless I wanted to/if it felt good to be different). I also believe if there is something I want to change there is still suffering experienced. Love for me feels like not needing to change the feelings or thoughts, if it doesn't feel good to do so. It feels more loving to have lower expectations & follow what I feel inspired to do. When thinking about how it would be to let go of this mindset I feel unsatisfied/pain & thoughts about meaninglessness, because I will most likely still suffer focusing on something different & I hate that. It's not a life worth living feeling constant suffering & hoping it will be over one day. What I want most of all is to get rid of all suffering Now & I just want to feel complete/happy at all times. I feel so strongly when writing it, I despise suffering. I feel powerless about this desire. I believe I can't feel truly complete & happy all the time. I don't know if anything I write is true. There is confusion about how I can truly end my suffering fully. I managed to get away for a night this weekend. Part of the experience was amazing. It was a forced decision & it did not feel like what I truly wanted, it was an escape from my feelings. I experienced a lot of doubt before deciding to go. It felt almost like a wall in front of me. I expressed my feelings but I notice now that I did it as an attempt to get rid of my feelings just to be able to take action. I didn't feel with Love. "The wall" of resistance were thoughts that said "if I decide now to go there, I'll feel stressed preparing myself, feel stressed getting in time to bus, the whole way there & I feel anxious about being in unfamiliar places. I feel unwilling to be with my feelings". I did feel all that but I did a great job taking care of it. I also resist staying at home because of feelings of anxiety/fear/anger/powerless about manifesting life I want. From the fear of being in that place, I try to use force to choose to go places as an escape from the feelings. Every time I'm alone with myself again, it feels like I'm "stuck" again. I've been looking for a solution in a place "out there", when the universe really wants me to look at the feelings here.

I feel a lot of anxiety & over-thinking when doing any kind of mental activity such as planning, structuring & strategizing what needs to be done. This makes me easily avoid doing things that is necessary for me, like planning out things I want to do. (my cognition's function makes me avoid a lot of activities too but in this post I focus on the anxiety) I try to allow the feelings when that happens but this happens so many times everyday, I think it's not possible to let go of every feeling I experience every day. I do try to feel my feelings as much as possible though. This have resulted in a lot of procrastination & isolation. It feels like I'm in a hurry all the time & that I don't have time for doing anything (I do have a lot of "time" for doing what I want & I know when I'm relaxed I do feel like I've got "time"). I've not even felt like I've had the time/energy to order a goddamn dream board, thinking I need the perfect one lol & prioritizing other things that is more urgent. I often feel like I don't have time for doing anything that is just for enjoyment. I stayed at home the whole weekend because I felt too stressed about getting myself ready for a party. I even feel like writing this is making me waste time from my day, but letting go of that thought & expressing like this really grounds me. I feel annoyed by advice like "I can just let go of every thought, that I can just focus on what feels good or choose happiness in this moment." Because it seems to me I can't do that all the time. I've been writing down things I want. When reading what I want there are feelings that want to be felt, but a lot of times I don't feel them. When it comes to actually planning it out, I just feel overwhelmed by thoughts & it feels like a lot of "work" because of both my cognition/lack of clarity & feelings that come up. Planning out fun activities, ordering stuff I need online or just reading anything, should feel effortless... But really I always need to reward myself after doing any of that. I have decided to attend a festival in two weeks but I already feel overwhelm/stress about preparing myself for it. It's clear to me that what I need is to let go of the anxiety that I feel. Taking action from a place of resistance just doesn't work or gives very poor results. I feel confusion about how to most effectively let go of my anxiety. I'm meditating & after that doing deep, calmer breaths (I seem to need more of both or something different that works for me). I'm feeling a lot of feelings everyday. I do still have a lot of anxiety, shallow breath, existential rumination/anxiety. There's a conditioning that wants to be let go of & it's pretty obvious what I need but it feels like I have such a hard grip on my critical thoughts because I feel fear about what would happen if I let go of them. The critical thoughts are learned from my father & I do try to let go of the fear of doing wrong when I'm in the presence of him too. I want to heal at the root. It feels easy sometimes to give myself "free-time" to relax, listen to music, go to a party where I can let go of these thoughts. But when it comes to actually needing to use my thoughts as a tool in self-improvement in any way, I always feel anxious, not knowing what to focus on & overwhelmed with thoughts. I also think a part of the "problem" is that I want this to go as fast as possible so I'm being too hard on myself. I have a belief that working on myself will lead to no longer needing to work on myself, obv not true. I can see how my solution is really here & now. I feel shame sharing this because it feels like this is something that "should" be easy, this doesn't feel easy at all. I want to let go of the anxiety that holds me back from taking any action. I want to take inspired action. I want to feel relaxed & peaceful. I want to be compassionate & allowing. I want to allow life. I want to allow myself as I am now. I just want to travel & enjoy summer with new friends, really. There's probably a blind-spot that I miss out on because of the beliefs. What techniques have helped you the most with letting go of feelings, besides meditation? Is there a more effortless, easy-going & loving approach in my healing? Thank you

@Indisguise 😂 Right!? Except I'll be a lady & do it my own way. Nevermind, I wanna party with the universe Now! 😂

🥰❤️ Celebration of life. This made me think about Komet Bernhard

@Blessed2 so it wasn't old gasoline then? 😅 Where did they even put the leaded gasoline when they banned it?...

@Blessed2 Sounds like heavy metal exposure. I've read that gasoline can contain Lead. You might be toxic. Have you looked into Andy Cutler heavy metal chelation before? Leo actually have a video on it using Andy Cutler's protocol. Do you remember how you felt the time after inhaling? How long have you had these symtoms? Your body might be trying to communicate to you in its own way that it needs some help with clearing out toxins from the body 😄 There is a solution out there for you, this is not the new "normal"😊 You deserve a healthy body & mind! ♡

INFJ here too.

@Lotus Might explain a part of what's going on in my belly 😂 Felt a bit scary to share. Felt good being able to relate to you. 😊 What's the name of the program you're following? Feels better to attract from a place of inspiration & wanting to enjoy the experience itself 🥰