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16 Sep 2007 @ 03:50, by oasiian. Personal Development
I have returned to this community, and over the last two years and at the completion of my adolescence, I have learned..... More >
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 2 Aug 2007 @ 20:14, by zendor. Personal Development
I've quested for connection since early childhood and have constantly been reminded that intention brings us both deliberate and non-deliberate manifestation. Our thoughts and feelings can bring us together in a sublime experience or rip us apart through anger and depression... chaos in our internal experience. I was drawn to this web of life-giving support by that sublime experience we tend to call love. I'd like to offer an acronym that perfectly submits this understanding to our available cognition - Limitless Oscillating Vibrational Energy. More >
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30 Jul 2007 @ 15:56, by skookum. Personal Development
I have some ideas...would love to hear yours. More >
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12 Jul 2007 @ 06:23, by skookum. Personal Development
My friends at reiki are using this as a emotional baggage releasing tool.
Basically she explained...when an unwanted emotion rears its ugly and usually buried head...you...
say...
"I'm sorry" *I see this as showing a certain responsibility for your issue.
"Please forgive me." *an acknowledgment of our humanity and vulnerability
"Thank you" *for the lesson I have learned or whatever you want to think it is.
"I love you" *a remembrance that you and others deserve love.
She basically said that this done with intention can work wonders. I believe her. Sometimes just facing the issue and addressing it and then forgiving yourself or others can do great good.
another good link
[link] More >
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4 Jul 2007 @ 23:59, by ming. Personal Development
Via Frank Patrick:"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
-- Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970) Yeah. But what is instinct?
If you break it down into perceptions, most people ultimately make big decisions not based on logic, but based on that it feels right. Very often a physical feeling around your stomach area. The "gut feeling", you know.
There are always more perceptions involved. Maybe it *looks* a certain way to you, in your mind's eye, and it *sounds* about right in your mind's ear. And, yes, some kind of feeling that seals the deal, that "this is right!"
Most people will be likely to deny this, and will insist that they make their decisions based on a careful study and analysis of available facts, which they logically add up into a decision. Oh, nothing wrong with careful analysis and logical reasoning, but even if you're very good at that, like if you're a scientist, you end up deciding whether it is right or not, and that decision is based on some kind of feeling you have, however much you deny it. Some people merely make up the reasoning after they've had that feeling, in order to defend the "logic" of it. Others will try to go through some kind of routine before, to show that they seriously worked on the decision process. But it still ends up being some kind of feeling of it being "right" or "wrong".
However, there are several kinds of what we could call instincts.
In my experience, everybody has a built in sensor for their personal right or wrong, which almost instantly will give the answer, based on some kind of subconscious processing of all available facts, or based on something more esoteric, and this mechanism will tend towards never being wrong. That's what we maybe could call intuition.
But at the same time, most people are easy to fool, in a long list of different ways. You can be led to believe that something is something else than what it is. You can be led to see something as normal, even though it isn't. Stage magic, hypnosis, advertising, politics - there are many places you'll find such tricks used. People will manipulate you into choosing a certain reality, because it looks, feels or sounds right, even though it isn't. I suppose that's playing into instincts too. But it isn't intuition.
Recognizing the difference between those different kinds of instincts can be hard. A lot of people probably know no such difference. If it feels right, it is right, whether it is the call of your destiny, or a commercial on TV.
Anyway, the question is how we maybe might train ourselves into being fooled less, by information or by perceptions. How can evidence and instinct get more into sync? I think that starts with what Alfred Korzybski called "Consciousness of Abstraction". That you're aware of the existence of the various layers and filters through which you deal with "reality", and that you have an idea of their pros and cons, strenghts and weaknesses. If you try to deny that any of those layers exist, you'll make stupid mistakes. The more conscious you are of your processes of abstracting reality into ideas, and of concretizing ideas into reality, the less likely you are to be fooled. More >
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28 Jun 2007 @ 22:28, by ming. Personal Development
Wikipedia:The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.
The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.
Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,
1. incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
2. incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
3. incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
4. if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack I guess I feel a little better about feeling ignorant and incompentent sometimes.
Oh, and here's a quote from a very wise man: "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..." -- Richard Feynman More >
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5 May 2007 @ 00:35, by sunimal. Personal Development
Everybody can be happy. Everyone needs to value others and not hurt their feelings. If someone needs assistance -provide it - you will be rewarded with a friend forever. Allow your child to identify his/her talents and promote their development, children will love you forever. If a person you supervise is weak, coach him/her to be better - he/she will be eternally grateful. Never fire an employee-assist him/her to select a position aligned to his/her talents - the world will become a better place. More >
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 26 Jul 2006 @ 16:17, by jhs. Personal Development
When tracking back goals (versus the super-goals) in Skywork (groups sessions) and individual research, we find consistently the same supergoal at the end of the chains: sharing joy.
More than coincidentially, this super-goal is also the LAST stage of emotional contemplation of the famous sequence of Gotamo Buddho which goes as follos:
- sharing friendship
- sharing (emotional) distress
- sharing joy
- equanimity, void of sensations of any kind
(the last four stages (or states of superconsciousness are equally beyond human emotions).
It should come as no surprise that this ultimate super-goal, when inverted, becomes the most aberrative and destructive of all human emotions: jealousy.
Quite fittingly, the Torah/Old Testament describes the jealousy of Kain versus Abel as the first story after the expulsion from Eden... More >
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 11 Jul 2006 @ 01:30, by freo7. Personal Development
Appreciation, Mental Focus & Intention Exercise 2 Share, A Law Of Attraction Exercise Extra-ordinaire` - just follow the flow and then fill in your own words of LIFE ~ This works 4 me!!!!!!!!!!
More >
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 4 Jul 2006 @ 13:12, by ming. Personal Development
If you think you have problem, it sometimes helps to imagine something bigger. Like, a much bigger problem. Then your current problems at hand suddenly seem much smaller and easier by comparison. You can't quite get your diet to work? Well, a billion people in the world are starving - that's a bigger problem, and in comparison, it is very insignificant if you weigh 5kg too much. It also works if it is something positive, if you get to think of something so wonderful that, again, your current problems become insignificant. Which shirt should you wear, the white one or the grey one, or should you go shopping for a new shirt? Well, if the doorbell is ringing, and outside you see a news crew, and the smiling host of your local Lottery program - you'll be choosing that shirt in no time at all. No longer any problem.
Most obstacles in life are really quite relative. What you call problems will for somebody else be nothing at all, something to solve in half a second. What you call problems will for somebody else be a great blessing. You don't know what company to choose to replace the window shades on your car? Hey, in the first place, you have a car, and most people in the world are not so lucky.
Likewise, your own obstacles will seem different to you depending on what you compare them with. Like, depending on what objective you're working towards, and how much you believe in it. If suddenly you have something more important to do, you'll handle most things in no time, and you'll take on some challenges you otherwise would never have thought of.
Here's a couple of thought experiments Max and I thought up once, a long time ago. Nothing terribly unique about them, but they illustrate the possibilities well.
Imagine you're going to die tomorrow, or maybe next week. What would you do? Clearly, your priorities would totally change if you knew, for sure, that you were going to die shortly. A lot of petty issues no longer would be an issue. Other things, which you have been ignoring, suddenly become very important. You'd probably want to tell people close to you that you love them, even if you forgot to mention it previously. You'd suddenly feel like calling up people you had some minor conflict with, and settling it. You'll apologize to a few people, for things that you did or didn't do. You'll probably put some of your affairs in order, making sure your family is taken care of, as well as possible, and that they know the password to the checking account, and that kind of thing. And then you'd probably concentrate on having the most quality time you can in your remaining days. Doing the best things you can imagine, with people you care for, and doing it in the most intense and emotionally awake way that you possibly can.
OK, you might react totally differently, and go into a deep depression, and hide in your room, and not mention it to anybody. But that would be missing the great opportunity. The opportunity to bring everything up to date, and to revel in the love and good will and closeness and compassion you kind of wanted all along, but didn't get around to.
Noticing that you very well could do most of that in a week, the question is of course why you don't just do it anyway, every day, even if you don't know you're going to die next week. After all, you might indeed be killed in any instant, by a stray meteor or a falling brick or a heart attack or a drunk driver. You don't really know, and you don't really have any good way of avoiding it. So, why not live in the moment every day, bring out the best qualities of life, and don't leave anything dangling. Say what you feel. If you feel you need to do something, do it now, as you won't necessarily get the chance again.
Such a thought experiment might of course remind you of that. Maybe inspire you to do the things that really are important, rather than messing around with unimportant stuff you don't really enjoy anyway.
Another experiment: imagine you're an inter-galactic agent who's been sent to this planet in order to clean things up. The planet is on a downward course, people are fighting about stupid stuff, destroying their environment rapidly, and following self-serving leaders who don't have more of a clue than they do. Something needs to be done, so the Grand Council in the galactic core have sent YOU. What are you going to do?
Most of us settle down on having a certain standing in life, a certain sphere of influence, a certain range of things we might attempt to do. It is different for each of us, but most of us imagine certain boundaries around our sphere of influence. I might start a business, I might be on the parent's council in my kid's school, I might get a bigger car, I might win the lottery. And I sort of position my problems and obstacles within that sphere. I might have some trouble starting a business, I might argue with the other parents in my kids school, I need to pay my mortgage and my taxes, etc. I adopt these problems as part of my allotted place in life. It goes with the territory.
Some people, who seem no more well-equipped as human beings than me, might choose bigger lots in life. To be a politician, and be elected to office, for example. They're not smarter people, but merely people who assume that they ought to do that. You might assume that your lot in life is to be wealthy and run a big company. It is not that you necessarily have something I don't have, but you define your playing field that way, and you define your obstacles accordingly. The steps for getting a bank to lend you $50,000,000 are not terribly different from the steps of getting them to lend you $50,000. Hiring 1000 people is not inherently different from hiring 1. It is just that one adopts and accepts a different scope and some challenges of a different size.
So, OK, I've been sent here on a mission, and I have, say, 1 year to change the course of the planet. What would I do? Well, I probably wouldn't just aim for getting an apartment in the suburbs and a job as an office clerk, and keeping up with my car payments, and trying to catch the latest shows on TV. Maybe I'd do some of those things as part of my plan, but that wouldn't be my focus at all. I'd have to look at it strategically. What is the power structure on this planet? Who are the most influential players? Where are they? How do I enter their circles? Who would be my allies? How do I acquire large amounts of resources very quickly? What are the most effective means for influencing mass opinion? What's the most effective framing for a movement that will change the planet - a religion, a polical party, a business, a media event, a technology? Once I establish the targets and the means, I have to go about it systematically and quickly. I only have a year, so I need to meet some major milestones every day.
That wouldn't be an easy job, but you get the idea. If that were actually what I was here for, I'd do very different things than I otherwise would. And I'd be quite likely to make some significant progress with it.
You'll notice, of course, that there already are people who work like that. Maybe they don't consider themselves inter-galactic agents, but they somehow have the motivation to claw themselves to the top of the heap, where they'll have the influence they desire. People who think very big and who don't hesitate. People who'll go directly for the most powerful points of leverage, and have no qualms about whether they deserve it or not. And the difference between them and you is not their inherent skills, but mainly the scope of their vision. They believe they ought to do something big, and they don't let themselves be stopped by small obstacles. It doesn't matter if they start with no resources. It is all in the attitude.
So, point being, you are free to frame your life as you want it. You're equally free to choose a big frame as a small frame. The frame is just something you imagine, but it helps greatly if you believe it, and you feel it, and you act as if it is important. More >
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