Thomsun

With Tao Te Ching, we can learn to get an careless attitude towards things that normally effects our emotions negatively, reducing stress/anxiety/anger. But it is exactly these emotions that motivate us to achieve "good" and "better" things. This careless/acceptance attitude does bring alot of peace and contentment in your life, making the world your home. But how to get motivated then? When stress has been your main motivation for a lifetime, how become motivated while in peace? Without motivation I feel like I cannot achieve anything. Infact, trying to achieve and trying to care again the stress creeps back in again. This is very paradoxical to me and I don't think I can solve this problem on my own. Hope to get some feedback here.

No problem man, I get it now. Little flexibility in perceptions and little faith. The demons are deprived when you have faith, their existance will no longer matter. So its not really about demons, but faith, which brings inspiration, which brings passion, which brings motivation. But we can do something about that. When I aim for a goal I can not logically go straigth toward it. I must be flexible in my faith, to bend and become straigth. Telling my self I am something that I cannot even comprehend will be useless, if my sub-conscious has no concept of the idea. It is a matter of finding the right believe at the right moment. If you can believe in the Tao or god, then you can believe in anything. And keep believing is an ongoing practice. Having faith as if your life depends on it. Well, better said: A faith that not even death can touch. Thanks for the posts

Man, I love this topic. Another big post So, you're saying that the core of passions/innerbelieves/dwarfs/subconscious/whatever always stay the same and that the expressions of your passion can be changed? That is a very innovative idea. But I don't think that we have a core passion that is unchangable. The only passions that we will always find motivation for and is unchangable is survival&love/sex. The will to survive and to reproduce and that we all express this core purpose in diffrent ways But lets say that every one of us does have a soul purpose in this life that is beyond reproduction/survival. How on earth would we find what our core purpose is? It would make life so much easier to sum it up all in one sentence. Perhaps we should have faith in a temporary purpose and have it change over time? Someone once told me that looking at a picture or movie of yourself when you are a baby is enlightening for finding this core purpose.

Well, sloppy zhang put some wise words in there. Stress is not a good motivator, passion is... Unfortunately it will not allow me to change these "dwarfs" or innerbelieves whatever it is that is standing in my way. I do not know how to change these passions for the better. You both advise to let the dwarfs run the show, not to change them. Should we let them run the show even for worse? Like becoming a "bum" ? Do you think it is impossible to change my inner believes/subconscious/dwarfs to point them into the right direction and then have them run the show? If it is possible then why should we not try and change it for better? Or how should we change it if you think we should. I'm going way out there with the following example, don't take it serious. Let us say that some psycho murderer is out there enjoying the killing of children in cruel ways, he wants to not like it but he simply does and he cannot resist the urge to do so. Because he is so passionate when he kills children. Then you say to him, "meh, just follow your inner dwarfs. This is something they enjoy, let them run the show." Now things would get ineresting right? Because the inner dwarfs are strongly in conflict with the conscious and rational mind. The emotional mechanics that come into play here are motivators for such cruel behaviour, and these are subconscious. Surely you can learn to consciously deal with it, but where does that leave you? Still passionate about the same thing, it does not change the passion from a cruel thing to a constructive thing. It does not redirect the dwarfs. The other thing is when someone actually feels passionate about something good and then he looses that passion to be replaced by something bad, then he wishes to feel passionate about the good thing again and cannot succeed to find the passion/motivation. Loosing one genius. These things totally make me curious, so I'm looking forward to reading the replies

Some deep posts, thanks. @Devoid, I find this to be true for inspiration. When I require succes. But this I've been practicing since I was a little kid. I always won art contests and have had great successes in my studies. But this entire part of my life that I wish to continue are based on stressed and motivated by those emotions. My main problem now is finding motivation for this life without relying on stress. Without feeling stress when pressure is applied. I require to find motivation. Astral anima gave me a link to a podcast of some norse mythology or something. The lay of the allwise. My inner dwarf, my subconscious, does not see the benefit of focusing on science and studying. I find it hard to wake up at morning when I have to run a couple of miles, because I'm not motivated to do so. I don't feel the benefits, I just see them as a destiny I have. Things are always easier said then done in my life. I become lazy because of this excessive intellect and no body and soul connection. How do I find motivation to do the things I do, without seeking stress. How do I convince my inner dwarfs to work for me and not against me? I tried convincing them that studying is good, fun, amazing, but it doesn't work. When I had stress, saving my self out of tight situation was the only reward and motvation for my dwarfs. Survival based living. Seeking boundaries, finding alot of pressure and stressing alot, leaving all the work till the last moment. Working 24/7. I loved what I did everything easily because my dwarfs were backing me up. Now that I've had an reality check, I cannot feel the same stress to those pressures anymore and I lost motivation for everything. I can't just affirm believes so that my subconscious mind changes, clearing my mind doesn't motivate me either. Even with a clear mind, complete focus on my work, I eventually feel drained everytime I do something. As if my inner dwarfs are sabotaging me. Perhaps I'll PM Astral Anima to see if knows more about that link he gave me. It just explains how the subconscious is your dwarf, not how to change its directions. Its like you're here to safe the entire world and you're like "meh... I'm gonna take a nap now." Thats why stress seems good if you want to get to a certain destiny and not care about the path.

That sounds so obvious, perhaps thats why I overlooked it for so long. Alot of stuff on the internet give us wrong information about how the unconscious mind works to try and sell you material. Your perspective realy helped me to open my eyes regarding my own behaviour when it comes to changing the unconscious Thanks, Astral. Thanks...

Hey, everyone. Guess I'll have to introduce my self here. I'm a pretty young adult, male, living in Holland. Grew up multicultural amongst muslims, christians, buddhists. Also alot of people who claimed to be religious but were not so. Found that these forums have a couple of mature people who hold valuable insights and perhaps paradoxical wisdom aswell. Not everyone! Just some, hehe... Well, I don't expect some guy/gal with all the answers here, but its certainly nice to read how everyone chats with eachother. My main interests on these forums are anything regarding the emotions and how they effect our lives in a good or bad way. The Tao is so powerful when it comes to bringing peace in my life and gaining new perspectives. I've found that I can pretty much rely on Tao Te Ching anytime I'm confused about anything and need some new perspectives. Looking forward to making my first topic. Bye:)

Yeah, but what if these stresses and negative emotions like sadness/anger/anxiety is coming from within? For example a fear "schedules." It is completely irrational to the mind but somehow this emotion keeps winning over your willpower. Willpower is useless in these kind of situations. Without the emotional mechanics backing you up, how can you fight the hard way? How can we experience every irrational negative emotion to its fullest when it drains us, how can we use the negative emotions as motivation for change? How do you cope with irrational fears, like fear of airplanes. I would either run away from my fear, or stay aware and completely accept my fear untill it is gone and I no longer care about it. Then I feel less motivated to run away from the airplane, the only thing left is outside impulses sending me inside the aircraft for me to fly to the destination. But I don't get a "desire" to fly when I get rid of the "fear" of flight. Thats the main problem. I require the desire aswell to change my life. This is just an example, but I hope you know how it translates into other stuff. You saying we go against the emotions but still feel it? I don't get it.

Hi to you aswell. Magical words you got there. What does it mean? I must find the void of certain actions to be inspired for it and then motivated for it and the rest will follow? How do I do that? Lets say I have a study, and my logical mind fights my conflicting emotions, trying to complete the studies, while my emotions feel repulsion from doing these things. I need a motivation that does not cause stress/anxiety/sadness/anger. thanks.