Difficult Predicament

This is just my opinion but it may help. You impact the world simply by existing in it and by having a focused intent and desire for it to be better. If your intentions are for the good of all, the universe will put opportunities for you to serve in your path. I appreciate your enthusiasm to go out and change the world but I think if you slow down a bit and let things come to you, you will have an easier time. I hope this helps in some small way. We must all change the world by first changing our selves.

Hi Nick.  Bless you for bravely sharing your personal history.  I don't have all the answers to your questions, but like Kevin, I'll offer something in hopes that it will help.

I can relate to your desire to change the world.  I wish there was more I could do -- as one person -- to impact the world positively.  But maybe all of us are doing more than we realize.  There are countless examples of one person doing something relatively small which, in turn, sets off a chain of events that significantly impacts the world.  It's like the Butterfly Effect.  Two such examples that come to mind both gave rise to the Arab Spring, which subsequently led to the Occupy Movement worldwide.  As I recall, it began when a middle eastern street vendor who became so disillusioned with his struggle to survive (amidst government corruption) that he set himself on fire.  In response, a young middle-eastern woman posted a video plea for people to join in protest in Tahrir Square.  This is a timeline of the events that followed:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring

Now I'm not advocating that anyone do anything as rash as setting themselves on fire.  Rather, I say find your passion, whether big or small, and do it.  Everyday, many people quietly make a difference in their own corner of the world without much notice or notoriety.  These people are parents, teachers, physicians, and even bums on the street.  One never knows how our words or deeds may impact other people.  A simple conversation with a stranger in the grocery line could wind up changing his or her life forever.  Think back a moment... do you still remember something someone said to you a decade or more ago?  It may have seemed small at the time, but the fact that you remember means that it has some significance for you.

Don't underestimate your role in this life, Nick.  You may feel small or unimportant within the grand scheme of things, but what you do matters.  The answers to all your questions are within inside yourself.  Meditate on these questions and let the answers reveal themselves in their own time.

As for not knowing if you're delusional or not, I think you're in good company.  The bi-polar issue aside, I think we've all questioned our sanity at some point -- especially now when a handful of us have "taken the blue pill" and have lifted the veil that the elite have put upon the heads of the populace.  It's hard not to feel crazy when most people around you don't understand (or refuse to believe) what is really happening in the world.

So Nick, be kind and patient with yourself.  You're okay.  Really.  Just take one step at a time, trust in the process and let things come what may.

   I see the whole bi-polar thing as a perfect example of the world we live in,,,the world of duality..I think everyone would love to do a lot of things, but are always stifled by the need to use most of their time just to survive,,eat, pay rent, etc....so that tug of war inside goes on and on,,,and then manifests in different ways.....

     No answers from me either,,,,just the suggestion to throw away everything you think, or thought you know,,,,and start from scratch,,,,it helps me to be in the present a little more,,,,then,,,,like Kev said,,,your opportunities to play your part,,whatever that is,,,can present themselves to you,,,and you will be much more likely to spot them when they do,,,,,,Peace to you,,,,T

who has for most of this lifetime had a committment to awaken and awaken the rest of our sleeping species, I have a few thoughts about your diagnosis, your intention and your questions.

Diagnosis first. The folks I've known and worked with who carried the label "bipolar" have incredible potential and I have seen them spin out into deluded, manic dysfunctionality & relational disconnectedness and/or spin down into nearly catatonic dysfunctionality and relational inaccessibility. I've also been studying the neurology of awakening and of all the imbalances that charaterize our dysfuntional culture/species. (I am not an expert in this and, to my knowledge, no one is.)

What I can say, however, is that the fluctuations in personality patterns are reflected in imbalances in the brain which can be stabilized with skillful neurofeedback. This requires good nutrition (you might check Nora Gedgaudas' Primal Body, Primal Mind), good sleep, and may require lithium salts, etc.

In response to your questions and intention, I'd like to ask what kind of impact are you having on the people around you, on your family and on your community?

In my own experience and in all the classic Advaitan and Buddhist literature, as we advance on the path, certain capacities sometimes show up. These "mundane" siddhis may be interesting and potentially helpful to others but we are repeatedly warned not to get infatuated with "powers" and to keep our goal of enlightenment for the sake of all beings in the foreground of our attention.

Becoming a boddhisattva is a choice and committment we make or have made to awaken in order to best serve all sentient beings and assist them in whatever way they need and, most especially in the recognition and realization of their true nature.

Clearly, there are many skillful means which can assist in achieving inner and outer harmony; many of which have been posted on this forum over the years. IMO one of the most supportive and helpful is available to any one at BalancedView.org . (For more on this you can check out two threads I recently started on this forum What's Right Now?" and "A Valuable Support In Awakening."

Just what is it that you see yourself doing in/for this world? How can I help you achieve it?

Bless you more, Nick,

John

Firstly may I join in applauding you in feeling so connected to us all here that you would share this truth of yourself, believe me I know it is not easy.

I was also more recently diagnosed with Bipolar 2, having lived for many years on medication for depression, non of many types ever really worked long term for me.

I am at this moment, under my Psych's instructions, off any medications. I believe this has actually given me greater clarity of thought and process. That said I have many times come out of the deep down, to be thrust amongst the clouds and be full of I can do anything. Some of my greatest creative inspirations have come to me in these moments. After many years of this rollercaoster life I have each time gained greater insight into myself and have learnt each time a new set of tools, values or have just felt closer to the God within.

I now write down all the great ideas, inspirations or indeed my thoughts on how I can help change our world, this has enabled me to let go and let be, and as has been mentioned before await guidance on my next move, this is not always easy and there are times when I just have to voice some of my new found constructs. Fortunetly I have some great friends that are patient and understanding, and will listen to my ramblings, they call it the "Chatty Ian Phase" 

Not sure anyone can answer your questions for you, I think you know the answers somewhere deep inside. I am assuming from your diagnosis that you have some form of support through this, be sure to make use of that, and share your thoughts just as you have here.

If there is something that you feel real passion for, try just doing something small towards that goal and then ask, ask, ask for inner guidance, listen to that quiet inner voice.

My heart felt thoughts are with you Nick, be kind to yourself and please keep us posted. Whatever happens you are most definetly part of the whole process.

Thank you so much for your deep and vulnerable sharing on this Nick. When a person starts really waking up, this can sometimes trigger what is called a kundalini rising experience, which is also considered a kind of spiritual emergency. This can also look like a psychiatric disorder. I had two of these experiences about nine months apart in 1998 and 1999. They were incredibly powerful in opening me to a more profound way of being in the world.

I recommend you explore the topic of spiritual emergence. A great place to start is the spiritual emergence network at http://www.spiritualemergence.info. Stan Grof and his wife Christine have written a lot on this topic, particularly as Christine has struggled with this all her life.

Yes, you are an absolutely amazing being with unlimited powers to transform our world. Yet you must remember that you are not the only one. Every one of us is an amazing being with unlimited powers when we fully open to it.

And we can't transform the world alone. We can only do this together. I use the mantra "Be it. See it." Be it means step as fully into your divine magnificence as feels right and best for you. See it means then see and evoke that same divine magnificence in each person you encounter. When you fully see the divine in each person you meet, you inspire all around you to join you in this place. Then you are much less likely to lose your balance and to create real, lasting change, as all want to join you in this amazing journey.

I wish you all the very best with this, Nick. I know it can be very intense. And yes, many people end up in psychiatric hospitals when they go through spiritual emergence. Several of my friends have, and I have counseled several others to help them avoid that. Do your best to stay grounded to the Earth yet also welcome higher guidance in the shifts that are occuring within you.

I hope this helps, Nick, and wish you all the very best and lots of love and compassion as you create this more expanded version of your self.

With abundant love, joy, and support,
Fred

Nick, thanks so much for your honest and sincere sharing.  You ask for help, but in doing that you also offer help in understanding for those of us who read your post.

I don't want to say a lot because a lot has already been said, and I think all of it is excellent and useful.  I do want to point out one thing, though, that occur to me as being especially important in that it could empower you to put "in gear" what our G-spot bodhisattvas have offered here.

So, what I have in mind is something that maybe wasn't expressed explicity above, but in reading your post it rose up in my mind as being possibly something key for you to consider.  And that is to see if you can see yourself more as the  observer of everything rather than as a do-er or potential do-er of what you think needs to be done.  That is, to take yourself off the stage and be the "audience."  Taking that vantage point doesn't eliminate our involvement in events -- we're involved whether we want to be or not.  But it may shift the emphasis from "What do I need to do?" and "I can and must do something," to exactly what others have spoke about here: waiting for clarity and direction from a deeper, quieter place within.  In my own experience, that deeper, quieter place within can emerge much more easily from the Observer than from the Do-er.  When what needs to be done is "given" in this way, then the Do-er will just naturally take action without fire, smoke, and fuss.  For me, the overwhelming urge to Do is a tipoff that it's coming from an untrustworthy place in myself.

So this Observer just watches what's happening "out there" (in the world, near and far) and "in here" (thoughts, impulses, motions) as an awareness of all this strange phenomena of life, with curiosity and without judgment.  With this "guide" on the job, the Do-er can do appropriate and truly effective things in life, in the world. 

But again in my own exerience, I find that I have to assume this "role" intentionally because of the strength of my lifelong conditioning to just be caught up in the drama of my life and the world being played out on the "stage".  And part of that intention is to just pause for a moment or two (or longer if there's time) and be aware of myself as an observer observing whatever is going on at the moment.  And there's a relaxation and a release in that.

Wishing you success and even mastery as you go forward on this uncharted path that we're all on both alone and together.

Nick, I agree with Fairy and I think you'll notice in your own experience that all states come and go. It is useful to notice the ongoingly stable and naturally inclusive alert presence in which all states come and go; and then, to relax back into that. Trying to re-create a "positive" or enjoyable state, put us in efforting toward an uncertain future rather than resting as our open presence; we become much less likely to notice the guidance and clues that life ongoingly offers us, which could lead to new and, possibly, even more enjoyable states.

I personally am so glad to once again be reading inspiring posts from you, it has been a while :)

May I add further thought at this point, there is also a continuing rise in vibration going on, both at a soul level and a planetary scale. For ourselves each time this change occurs there is a time of adjustment, I know for myself the lifts in vibration have at times created great stress and sometimes sickness in the form of headaches or a strange lack of focus, almost confusion, a feeling that something is out of balance. Once my body has adjusted, it is like waking again to a new view of my world, new understandings arrive.

Thank you Elizabeth for the link to your cleansing method, some of which I had been doing almost on auto pilot, others I had not given thought to. I have recently moved to a new dwelling, so most of my STUFF is in boxes already, what a great time to sort.

 My guides have already told me this in the form of a conversation with my neighbour / landlord / close friend, they asked me about some books I had, they questioned why I still had them. The particular book was actually a collection of magazines called Animals in a binder the issue dates where from 1963, full of childhood memories, yet I had not looked at or read them for many years. As of right now I am unsure wether to keep or donate .......... before I do either I have decided to revisit their pages :)

This an excerpt from a website I was led to from one of Fairy's video posts.  It might help give you a different perspective on mental illness, Nick.  (I'm not advising you to get off meds or providing medical advice, just sharing info from this site.)  ~ Noa

http://veilofreality.com/

Certain people who experience so-called overexcitability (OE) (“Supersensitivities” in terms of  Psychomotor, Sensual, Emotional, Intellectual, and Imaginational) have the potential to grow out of the lower levels and integrate their being into the higher ones. However, just as explained in the aforementioned esoteric teachings, Darbrowski also points out that this process requires conscious work and it doesn’t happen by itself. In other words, if one does not use the “shocks” to further one’s evolution and does “the work” to gain self-awareness, one will stay at the lower level where most of humanity exists, mechanically and reactionary, feeding one’s little “I’s” based on conditioning and programming. In light if what we’ve explored so far, one can see how OE (especially in children) could also be an indication that one may be a wanderer. I certainly can relate to Darbowski’s TPD and see how it applies to my upbringing and personality development.

From “A very brief sketch of Dabrowski’s theory of Positive Disintegrstion” by W. Tillier:

Suffering, aloneness, self-doubt, sadness, inner conflict; these are our feelings that we have not learned to live with, that we have failed to appreciate, that we reject as destructive and completely negative, but in fact they are symptoms of an expanding consciousness. Dr. Kazimierz Dabrowski has spent 45 years piecing together the complete picture of the growth of the human psyche from primitive integration at birth; the person with potential for development will experience growth as a loosening of the stable psychic structure accompanied by symptoms of psychoneuroses. Reality becomes multileveled, the choices between higher and lower realms of behavior occupy our thought and mark us as human. Dabrowski called this process positive disintegration, he declares that psychoneurosis is not an illness and he insists that development does not come through psychotherapy but that psychotherapy is automatic when the person is conscious of his development...

Without intense and painful introspection and reflection, development is unlikely. Psychoneurotic symptoms should be embraced and transformed into anxieties about human problems of an ever higher order. If psychoneuroses continue to be classified as mental illness, then perhaps it is a sickness better than health.

To Dabrowski, real therapy is autopsychotherapy; it is the self being aware of the self through a long inner investigation; a mapping of the inner environment. There are no techniques to eliminate symptoms because the symptoms constitute the very psychic richness from which grow an increasing awareness of body, mind, humanity and cosmos. Dabrowski gives birth to that process if he can.

Initially, people who are acting on low impulses or who are simply robotically emulating society have little self conflict. Most conflicts are external. During development, the clash between one’s actual behavior and environment and one’s imagined ideals creates a great deal of internal conflict. This conflict literally motivates the individual to resolve the situation, ideally by inhibiting those aspects he or she considers lower and by accentuating those aspects he or she considers higher. At the highest levels, there is a new harmony of thought, emotion and action that eliminates internal conflict. The individual is behaving in accord with their own personality ideal and consciously derived value structure and therefore feels no internal conflict. Often a person’s external focus shifts to ‘making the world a better place.

“Without passing through very difficult experiences and even something like psychoneurosis and neurosis we cannot understand human beings and we cannot realize our multidimensional and multilevel development toward higher and higher levels.”

- K. Dabrowski.

It is part of a necessary process and even today there are times of depression (although not as intense anymore) as I keep working on myself and peel off the layers of my false “I”. The work never stops, it just becomes more refined and deeper. At the same time the moments of true love as a state of being and consciousness increase (not dependent on anything or anyone outside myself) as opposed to an chemical emotional experience. I feel more and more aligned with my real “I”, making the personality/ego a vessel/instrument for the higher self to work through and not letting the ego be in the driver’s seat. Just as noted in the quote above, there happens a shift at one point away from pre-occupation with oneself towards “making the world a better place.”, not acting on mechanical self-absorbed lower impulses but conscious actions based on the higher centers. This can also be related to a shift from STS towards STO activating the Wanderer’s mission profile to be of service and assistance. However, I still slip into the mechanicalness of my little “I’s” if I’m not watchful and make the effort to stay conscious.

Despite society’s view that there is something wrong with you if you are depressed and selling you anti-depressants, it is actually a GOOD thing. The soul and true self is screaming for attention. As J. Krishnamurti said: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” One shouldn’t avoid it or numb it with medication, drugs or “feel good” pop-psychology but go with it and trust that it is actually a natural process that can be used as a catalyst for growth and esoteric development.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk talks about this process in an exchange with the Cs:

Q: (L) My experience has been, over the past couple of years, that whenever there is a significant increase in knowledge, that it is sort of cyclical – I go through a depression before I can assimilate – and it is like an inner transformation from one level to another. Is there something we can do, and if so, is it desirable, to increase or facilitate this process in some way?
A: It is a natural process, let it be.

     i am sure this could shed some light for a lot of people, if nothing else, just to tell  them that it's OK to fell all those things....I am going to try to translate some key parts of this into chinese for a couple of people I know here...

In a big way, I have experienced exactly this for most of my sacred journey.

seems to correspond with the understanding of dissipative structures and aspects of individuating a self from the family systems frame. We move or are moved beyond our familiar, relatively stable mind-world/dream-body. Our self/world construct cannot contain the changes and breaks apart this can be as challenging as puberty or a "psychotic" break from our familiar group's consensus reality. Thanks for this one, Noa.