awake

What would you ask or say to them? Please give this question some thought. I will soon have the opportunity to do so, and I would like some input to consider when formulating what I will say to or ask of him. Thank you for your time and input.

i also remember something very powerful i was taught. here is your chance to experience limitless. close your eyes in the night time, or in a room that is dark, or simply facing away from light. try and find the limits. edit: really try, for as long as it takes you to find them, it is a process

I've had lots of experiences which I can only really label "spiritual". They have happened both in shifts of awareness, as well as powerful feelings that I have felt (not, as far as I can tell, from any physical event in front of me). However, these things, despite how many have occurred, have always been short lived. Yesterday I had my longest experience, where after a moment of realization that I was powerless to change something I had been fussing over in my mind, I suggested to myself just to forget about trying to change it and accept what is. From then on, for the next few hours, I was very much more aware of my own internal processes than I have ever been before. I noticed the feelings that happen before my mind habitually goes from awareness back into lost in thinking, and they no longer held such a power over me. I also would notice the feelings that came up anyway, I was just a lot more aware, without judgement, of my personal goings on. During that time, things took on a very "magical" appearance - thats the only way I can describe it. However, when I got back home and went on the computer to do some work, it slowly started to fade away. Later that night and even now, I would say I am able to become a bit more aware than I would have been a few days ago, however it is little in comparison to the experience of yesterday. Through that frame of reference, I am able to observe that currently, although I can be aware without judgement for some time, those processes which I would previously simply observe now take more control over me (than yesterday), I am less able to actually feel them and other feelings, and when I am simply paying attention, there is a bit of frustration there, that "this moment is not so great" I am wondering if there is any advice you can give to me.

Thats interesting, what it really is, is I just don't feel ready to release - which doesn't imply I know if I'll ever feel ready to. How i logic'd it, is that I don't think I'm wise enough to decide or know when its time for something like that to be let go in me.

from my experience of it, it is like the tiniest thing possible, which is everywhere.

Any answer has failed to capture it.

Thank you all. Your responses have helped me realize in short, that the expectation is only a hindrance. Can you please elaborate? I don't understand.

I'm now noticing a much greater ability to be aware of the yes, subtle processes that go on - i am surprised how many they are, and I was right (when I surmised months ago) the root of all these thoughts are feelings. What I used to do was focus my attention on feelings, but I do not know what benefits that had for me. What happened that day I described in my first post I suppose was just another one of the many random occurrances of that nature. I have fairly little direction in which I know to do, I am just experimenting between awareness and focus on feelings and amplifying them (good and bad). I don't really want to "let them go" as much as I want to focus on them (not by repeating their logical stimulus over and over, but keeping my attention on them as they come up and "keeping them there" with such) - good or bad. I am surprised, I would have thought (and the voices in my head agree) that TTB would have much more to say on this topic. Thank you hagar.

at this point i practice just to be. the more it is for something, the less it seems like practice to me. of course what is it to be, well to me, at this point it is to feel and observe, and all things that my life requires of me as for me, since i learned about practice and all its different methods, it became very clear to me it was not something i sat and did 25 minutes once or twice a day, but it was the "substance" of all my life, and ihave approached it as thus to my best ability i also agree with scotty. to explore. i could not have imagined what has happened "as a result of" practice, so its clear any of my expectations would just be wrong. "the map is not the territory"

I have posted something similar to this 2 other times now.. And honestly I am surprised that on a forum such as this, there has been so little response. I am wondering if anyone has spent any time feeling their negative feelings. That is, having a feeling come up, then focusing attention on keeping the feeling there and feeling it, possibly amplifying its power. I want to know if anyone has had any experience with this and where it has lead them. I can do the same for both good and bad feelings, however it is easier to do the bad ones, and so I figure there is something to feeling the negative feelings I have. As I feel them, more come up, but are mostly bad. When a good one comes up, I do the same, feel it, but I cannot feel it for as long as I can feel the bad ones. Having done this for only a week, I can access much stronger bad feelings (that i recognize are resulting from past events), though I wonder if I am diluting myself, and by feeling them I am only making them stronger. That is my inner quarrel, if I would be better off focussing on good feelings, building them, and disregarding the bad ones.

Thank you all for your very meaningful posts on the topic. I was a little weary about asking this sort of thing, because I did not want to hear about people's results - I would think that it would create some expectations in me, and I do not want that out of this activity. In fact I did unfortunately gain the expectation that something good will come of this, but I am working through that (it has a bad feleing also) The fact that so many responses of encouragement, without mention of outcome, have risen from my call out, is inspiring, and motivating. Especially the one about things getting worse before they are getting better. Although, as I mentioned, I feel the feelings continually through my focus, not by remembering over and over the content which lead to the feeling, when I started (about a week and a half ago) what i was feeling was fairly non-intense, and though my outward awareness decreased a little (as it does, say for example when you smoke marijuana, which i no longer do), the feelings were not taking over that much - it was clearly me, observing and feeling them. As they get stronger, they are taking over more of the perception, into a.. sadder one. Regardless, I am becoming more sensitive overall, to bad and to good. Actually I have had some relatively quite good (not the best) feelings since starting this, and I look to the comment made about worse before better in times when I am really feeling bad. I looked into the book and the audiobook that was recommended here with an amazon link, and I sourced a copy of the audiobook. I listened to a bit of it, and already it seems as if he is wise. I do not think I am ready for the contents of it yet, as I do not like the concept of applying some action to "release" what is inside me - for now I am comfortable with just feeling those things. I appreciate the comment about staying away from outside influences, and I notice myself yearning more now to watch tv, or listen to music (i have done a little of both, though overall less than usual). I also notice my ego is much more active in its quest to find conflict - i have no doubt this is at least in part what causes me to desire watching TV and music so strongly: I think it is searching for material to be re-programmed with. I am still fairly active in building my websites, though I have toned it down. Mostly what I am doing is just feeling a feeling, and usually I don't do it for very long, as another one soon comes up and I feel them as they come. Actually this alternates fairly randomly based on my own judgement.. Sometimes I will have a thought and right after, catch the feeling of the thought (not when the thought comes, as I am still identified with thoughts = me, and I have many different voices in my head, most of which are not currently under my control) then feel that, or the same thing if its another feeling, and sometimes I will just keep with the original - I don't know which is better to do. It is easiest for me to do this, actually on the bus. Watching the landscape pass by so quickly is a nice distraction for what i can only assume is my ego, while I focus inwards. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to do this a lot, and since it is Winter time, the only other places I have are the couch in the living room (which is shared by others who are often watching TV) and my bed - both of which places I often fall asleep during this practice, though I suppose that is simply a matter of practicing my focus.

I just wanted to post this here to report my progress (shocking amount in such short time) with some techniques learned from DHE 2000. The concepts, thought learned from DHE 2000, I have found are taught in many disciplines, but worded differently. I want to hear from people who have experienced similar things, as well as potentially get advice, and encourage people to go this route. I think this is the best place to accomplish all of those. Anyway, about a year ago I found DHE 2000 by Richard Bandler and John LaValle, and have been applying the concepts I learned in the program. When I first listened to it, I felt bliss, which started in my neck, but went through my whole body. In fact, I felt bliss 5 times in quick succession. It just feels weird to try and quantify it like that, but whetever. The second time I listened to it, I felt powerful love, continuously, until I chose to stop it. That is one of the things you learn in DHE - how to control feelings. Increase, decrease, create new ones. But something was wrong for me. They say in the program, "We don't deal with shitty feelings here. If you have shitty feelings, get over them." But they only give some NLP patterns for how. Personally, I don't believe in my pictures that much to start with, so switching around their submodalities doesn't work very well. I am much more of a feeling person. However, when I try to amplify good feelings, hold onto them, it is hard. For me, it is much easier to feel bad. Consciously making myself feel bad has been my journey over the past couple of weeks, and I sense it may also be so for the next while. My theory was, since I was better at feeling bad feelings, there may be something worthwhile to explore in them. There must be a reason that I feel them. I do not mean this in the sense of "I must find out why I feel bad", but my goal has turned to explore the negative side by feeling through my feelings. I do not access them through affirmations such as "I am shit" or whatever, but I have had a largely bad programming growing up, and I have lots of bad feelings that come up naturally. When one does come up, I just keep it there and feel it, observe it.. Don't try and figure it out or anything. I noticed a few things from this already: I am able to feel the good feelings much better already, and keep them there much longer and amplifythem much more strongly. I am noticably making progress on getting over the stigmas I used to have related to them. Yesterday I was out and noticed my stress over making eye contact with hot girls, when it occurred to me, that I am already making myself feel bad, worse than other people can make me feel - so why am I intimidated by them? That still has not sunk in yet, but I am not trying to understand things on a conceptual level just yet - only feeling feelings. Today I also made a fool of myself on another forum. I got burned for my ignorance, but I did gain some valuable information on there (about the subject at hand) and some insight into the changes that are happening to me. I used to take burns like that personally, like they were against me. For the first time in my life, I genuinely interpreted it as those sorts of things that I used to interpret as bad, were actually good, lessons learned, and those forces I saw as negative are there to help me grow. This last realization further enforces my belief that I am doing something right by exploring my "bad" feelings. There's stuff out there like Sedona, where you try and "release" the feeling, but I am weary of that - I do not want them to go away yet, I do not know that I am the best judge of how to decide when my feelings have served their purpose - after all, the best, most powerful feelings I've had in my life have been totally at random. (at least, from my view they came randomly) I've had social stigmas all my life because of how I've been treated, and although I also, all my life, from those in "higher" positions of authority than me, have spared no expense to tell me how smart I am, how convincing I am, how good of a lawyer I would be, etc, I simply am unable to influence myself into action regarding improving my social realm. I am a virgin, because my feelings trump any conceptual motivation. I have been offered money, tried to psyche myself out, had other stuff on the line, and still not opened a girl to date. I hope this eventually leads to some progress on that front, because my feelings trump any logic or beliefs I have or try to install. I know that because I can currently feel my bad feelings more, I have some sort of responsibility to explore them. I have been doing the opposite, trying to hold on to what is relatively (relative to the intensity of the bad ones, and to the much greater intensity of the potential good feelings I've gotten) scraps of good feelings, and it hasn't gotten me very far, in my view. Relatively, in the few weeks I have been "exploring" my negative feelings, I have had many more improvements than while "exploring" my good feelings. I don't expect any changes though - that way, they are a welcome surprise whenever they come, and I can't be let down. My last note here, is that the conscious control and observation of these feelings, means that I am not very much entranced in them. Like when you are really angry and cannot control yourself. Or really sad, etc, and you act different. The implications of the feelings on my actions are not as strong, feeling them at what is in fact a more powerful intensity, of my own will, as opposed to having them come up randomly and influence my behaviour and judgement. I do notice, though, that I am a bit less aware overall than I was before. I think this is perhaps the one negative aspect of this venture I have incurred so far, and I will see where it brings me.

Hi everyone. Its been a while since I've been here, but its not been so long since I've been in contact with you. Through lessons learned in the powerful DHE 2000 program by Richard Bandler (not a spiritual program by "label" but a very strong shortcut with meditation), I have learned to be able to "catch" feelings as they pass by, and hold onto them, feeling them, and amplifying them slightly. However, it is much easier for me to do this with negative feelings. It is my theory that is because these are built up remnants of the past, which are blocking me from doing so with positive feelings. Pursuing this avenue has made me feel a lot more in general, over a short time. I get much more of those moments of noticing real beauty in nature, and the positive things I do feel are marginally more powerful. I wonder if any of you have done similar work with feeling your negative feelings as they come up, and keeping them there to feel them more (not through recalling the reasons why you are feeling that way, but just simply feeling them), and if you have learned it is more beneficial to simply do so with the positive feelings, and try to amplify them, or if it is necessary to explore these negative feelings first? I also wonder if there is any guide in the city of Toronto or Scarborough, Canada, that I could physically go to visit for guidance in this area. Thank you.

accept them cause you grew upw with them you have potential issues you havent dealt with if you were not instantly struck with peace, surely you can call from the methods you used to get there? if you were, surely you can call from the lessons youve learned since then? peace is a feeling, that usually comes from understanding of the oneness of the universe, at least for me i think you are diluting yourself, if you claim you have constant peace and actual bliss, yet people bring you down 'all that is exposed to the light, itself becomes light' maybe they are just bringing you too far back into realizing that things aren't as you really wish/you are trying to change instead of accept - and you are abreacting against them,. gl

@Inedible: I have been recommended sedona a fwe times... As it is, I've been feeling these feelings for a few days or so, and don't feel ready to 'release' them yet - and I am uncovering other bad feelings I haven't had in a while. Also it is fairly difficult for me to concentrate on just one negative feeling right now - other ones keep popping up and cycling through them. I will look through this firstly. @drewhempel: I was doing the reverse breathing I learned from the golden flower meditation, and i got really light headed at one point, and felt a bit peaceful afterwards. I googled the term, and found one about breathing in while also contracting the stomach, etc. Is that the one? I'll try this after I listen to Sedona. Until then, I think it is better to feel the bad feelings through than try and get rid of them - I think they're there for a reason. Does anyone else have input? I would think there would be more response on a forum like this.

I've been aware of Sedona as an option for a while, and have access to the teachings behind it. However, as I understand it, Sedona applies a secondary concept, "releasing", to the feeling. My intention is to "feel the feeling through" to its necessary course - I think if it'll be ready to go away, it will be when it naturally feels right to transform into something or whatever really happens, not when i choose a time to apply some technique to it. Though I am still searching for answers, I don't know if either way is right. I have spoken with people who do Sedona though, and they, mostly, have very short fuses. I wonder if this is a side effect. Thanks for your input.

I hope someone can help me with this quickly, I don't have much time to make this decision. I left university for one year, cause logically it was the best option for me. But it feels like shit, not to be there. Even though logically this is what is better for me. I think I will be more prepared for every aspect of university by taking a year off - this year, I'm just not ready to take full (or even a satisfactory amount of) advantage of anything that's there. Yet I still feel like shit for leaving. Is this attachment, is it something I should follow, despite knowing I will not do as well this year? (for various reasons, I think they're valid - preconceptions, other projects on my mind, don't value or appreciate the experience, the list goes on, including some external circumstances which are of lesser importance) Thanks if you can lend some help.

To take the test, scroll down. How do you feel?

I'm 18 and its been 20 or so days since I've done it, and I only think about it when I'm reminded of it.. It has made me more focussed on my goals, confident since its a goal I'm achieving (30 days for now) and also more attracted to the opposite sex. Like you said, you get the urges when you have nothing better to do. So find something better to do. What's wrong with meditating, or controlling your feelings, discovering what's inside you? Its chemicals made by your body that make you feel good (even when you take drugs, all they do is trigger chemicals that your brain already produces), so go explore that.. Try to feel more happy, notice it's easy.. And if you can feel a little happier, then it stands to reason that you can feel twice as happy! Then twice as happy again! Or joyous, or peaceful, or loving, whatever it is! TRY IT! I don't know how old you are, but I say just man the fuck up, don't be suffering because of it, and ravage your wife when she gets home - she'll probably appreciate it more than "Hi.... Honey..... You wanna have sex?" vs "ROARRR, ME MAN, YOU TIRED NOW? WAIT UNTIL AFTER! AHAHAHAHA!!!!" If you really have so little control over yourself, just do it, whatever. Good luck on your goals if you can't even not touch yourself for 10 days. If you really want to but can't, the answer is simple. Just don't fucking start. Don't open the porn site, don't go find that magazine, whatever it is for you. It's much easier just to nip the desire in the bud than to say "oh I'll just look for a little bit" which is totally lying to yourself. You know why you want to "look for a little bit" its to find something to make you want to look for more, then more, then more, until you've finished and start thinking, damn, I wanted to be fresh for my wife now I've got 1 day less of desire that I can pump her full of. Honestly, it comes down to, a hand vs. a person. If you can't make that decision, then, well, you don't deserve the right choice anyway. Good luck.

Hi, I'll make thsi quick and to the point. i think it's valid and don't feel the need to try and convince you of that. You should change the donate/ "Support The Tao Bums" page to have more options than just 25$ Like 1/5/10/25/35. At least.. Thanks

I don't know what kind of advice I want to hear for this, but I hope that the right ones come along for this. A problem I have been having for a very long time, is that I have not been able to get the motivation up to meet new people. It hasn't really been as big a problem until now. I am an extrovert by nature, and so I get energy from other people. I went to a small highschool, so there wasn't really much pull from the energy that I felt from others. Now, entering university, I feel a lot more energy. I don't know if its from the physical place, but I presume it's from the people there, because I have a desire to go and meet new ones - girls and guys (but moreso girls). But I don't. Basically, I think I am socially inferior. I take a long time to open up, when I do open up though I'm always making jokes and people are always laughing, and I'm having a good time - but it takes a long time, and its hard especially, even if there is 1 new person around me. I thought it over tonight, and for some reason, it has never been clearer to me: it seems to me why I don't want to approach, is because I don't want to be embarrassed. I think I will be embarrassed, either directly - in the situation, where it is made obvious to me either by how I sense/feel what embarrassing thing I've said, or others make fun of me, or embarrassed by proxy, whereby regardless of whether I notice the embarrassing thing that happened, people will go and talk about it behind my back, focusing on the worst of it and making their minds about me - both of which I think will hinder me in future interactions, and I just don't want to risk it. When I interact with people I barely know, I feel embarrassed to be saying the stupid pointless shit that I do and have all the awkward pauses that happens. Then I go inside my head and (abstractly, don't have thoughts but rather quick comparative images/feelings) of people who show better chemistry than me and these people or this person I'm with, having a good time, and feel worse that I can't do that. I don't think that last bit is the only problem though, because I'm fairly awkward from the start. And for those reasons, I don't go and meet new people. I've heard the advice "just do it". I've heard the advice "just forget about all that". And I think, sure, it may be valid, but I can't seem to apply just those principles to myself - like I said, I have a hard time finding the motivation to go and talk to people. I hope reading this, some of you can help me move past this block in getting what I want.

Hi everyone. Please I beg you, that if you have any interest in helping people out through their problems, take the time to read this post and comment on it. The reason being that I haven't been satisfied with my life for a long time now. I have tried everything from Outer to Inner Game to NLP/Hypnosis to Spirituality to Affirmations and everything in between and in that general field of self-help. But one thing has remained constant in my life: lack of results. I always had supposed I was depressed, and in fact the only thing I haven't tried was consciously feeding my depression. I just started university, and the new atmosphere made me absolutely sick, because I couldn't bare to see that I still had the same attitudes that didn't serve me or my goals, and could not do what I wanted to do. So I decided that all my efforts to better myself have been in vein, and I decided then to sink deeper into my depression by affirming to myself all the bad things that were true in my life. A lot of the times what I was saying to myself was probably just complete bullshit, but there were some moments where what I was saying, I realized, was absolutely true for me during regular life. I want to note that I do not usually "feel" depressed, but I always thought there was something underlying that was keeping me from getting to where I wanted to go. I remember some of the things I've uncovered about my attitudes and actions in regular life, and I wanted to share them with anyone who will lend an ear(or eye) to listen. Hopefully, someone can see the basic underlying problems between the lines of what my attitude is normally like, and recommend some program or some advice to fix that, or the direct problems themselves. Until then, I will be indulging my depression, because: -The only feelings I can really make last are the ones that are bad. -Any good feelings either that I make or get from myself or other situations/people are always short lived (while what caused it is still going on, sometimes not even that long), and never last. -No matter if I feel good on my own or based off things that happen or other people, how I feel always goes back to bad. -This is why I think that the only "real" part to myself is the depressed, sad part of me. -I think this side of myself is always persistent and successful in showing itself, regardless of how much I try and cover it up by changing my attitudes, beliefs, or actions. -When I'm not trying to change my state, I live in a state of mediocrity. -From this state, I cannot get anything done. -I cannot motivate myself to accomplish any of my goals or do anything I want that requires any sort of uncomfortable situation to be faced (i.e. meeting a girl, or making a friend). -I can make people laugh that I am comfortable with, sometimes really often, but when the time comes that we see each other again, they are less than thrilled to see me, and act it. Sometimes they ignore me altogether. -I cannot have the same sort of fun and light-hearted interactions with girls only. -All my conversations are peppered with awkward pauses. -This is especially true in groups, where if I am new to the group, or there are people who are new to me in the group, it feels hard to take the lead, and if I am not leading, I am usually sitting back doing nothing. -I feel jealousy over my friends (what few I have) having other friends besides me, especially when they hang out with them. -Whenever I am consciously trying to do something that involves other people (where I have an expectation of what I want to happen, even just a general vague one), I never succeed and always incur this feeling of self-sabotage, that works. -This feeling and the success of its purpose also occurs when I am trying to create genuine change in myself. -I am unable to create intimate relationships with people, (i.e. getting to know them at all). -I cannot remember what people have told me in conversation. -I have a hard time doing critical thinking stuff during conversations, like linking anything someone has to say to anything else (responding in any way), especially with girls. -My default responses with girls are usually negative and deflecting, perhaps so as to diffuse the conversation and get out of there asap, even if I'm interested in them. I think because of all these things, I don't deserve anything good to happen to me. So, I do not expect much out of this thread, and it is more here to feed my depression. So if you can shed some light on what I am facing, and how to fix or circumvent it, thank you very much. Otherwise, thank you for reading this far, and I hope life finds you better than it has found me.

So some of you may remember the "I met a real life tao bum" topic I made a while back. There is this homeless man who walks around my area and he is enlightened - or very far along the path - a true Tao Bum. I can feel his energy whenever I see him wandering around, and when I have thoughts, and he is around, he makes sporradic movements akin to my thoughts (i.e. I have a thought, he'll do a backwards round house kick, then I'll have another thought, he'll do it again or some other clear physical action - tit for tat) I spoke to him once but was very nervous and didn't get much inthe way of physical answers, but his presence causes very strong and positive effects in me that I can feel. I sometimes see him around, and I want to approach him and learn from him, but I have always been fearful of what to say. Please help me, what would be reasonable things to approach him about, so I would not be wasting either of our time? My mind is still overactive and out of my control, although I have become better at noticing the space between thoughts and trying to reside in there, recently a new, differnt sounding, much more random and creative (sometimes funny) voice has popped up inside my head in addition ot the one that my intentional thoughts are said in, and still some of my unintentionla thoughts are in my regular head-voice. Yet, this new voice - which has different content of thoughts than my regular - is becoming more and more the source of my unintentional thoughts, and I still cannot think from it intentionally. Thank you.

Hey guys, recently I've been having some feelings... I'm hoping you can help me understand more about them or tell me what to do next in my practice, or offer some words of encouragement, things along those lines. There are some that I feel (sense) are remnants of my past somehow, and happen when I see things (random things trigger it - sometimes things that remind me of other tings consciously but not often) and they are sort of dull - as most of my past was. They're hard to describe (indescribable), and there are many different kinds of them, differing variations. Some of those feelings occur more often than others. The Describable ones fall into two sensations: the sense that I don't know that anyone outside of me even has a reality, for all I know I'm the only thing here and everything is like a computer program with a very advanced Artificial Intelligence - but its not me thinking about this, its a feeling like this, sometimes triggered by a thought of similar nature to what I just described, but sometimes the feeling just comes. The second one is a sense that I don't know what's coming next. This one, unlike the first, is never triggered by a thought, but sometimes the descriptive "i don't know what's coming next" or similar thought comes afterwards. Any insight you can offer into this would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

That's an interesting reply, thank you for it. I am also beginning to notice that all people I come in contact with are beginning to look like a single entity to me, instead of individual unique people, sort of like its a continuance of not knowing the realities of other people, or if they even exist...