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#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization #nondualawareness #nonduality #advaita  To read my self-development articles please visit my site here:http://freedomfromtheknown.com Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom Hello, I'm Ivan: travel junkie, blogger, teacher, a student of life. Welcome to my little home on the net, where I hope to share ideas and insights to help you lead a deeply fulfilling life.   This is a journey of discovering both inner and outer freedom. Will you join me on this quest towards ultimate freedom? I write and talk about my experiences in: self-development, psychology, traveling full-time, living abroad, location independence, meditation, yoga, lucid dreaming, entrepreneurship, lifestyle business, language learning, and how to be in the now.

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealizationToday's quote is by Sir Francis Bacon, “In charity, there is no excess”   If you are on a self-development or spiritual journey, much of that journey at times can seem selfish as you are mainly focused on yourself. This can be ok because in order to truly help others we must be able to help ourselves first.  This will also help us to relate to other people’s struggles and then we can be in a better position to help by having some personal experience and insight into their situation.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

#selfdevelopment​ #conciousness​ #spirituality​ #selfrealization ​I think it’s safe to say that most of us will spend our whole lives searching. Searching for love, money, happiness, success, and many other worldly desires.   This search takes place mainly in our external world, a search that leads us further away from what we actually want and from who we really are. We feel that once we attain these worldly desires that life will be grand, everything will be ok, that we will be deeply fulfilled.   I think that many of us deep down know that things like money, becoming famous, becoming powerful, will be really nice but that ultimately it will not give us the peace of mind and deep fulfillment that we crave.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com​  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom​  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization  The title of today’s video is “How To Become a Leader: What Trump Taught The World”, but it’s actually based on an article I wrote a long time ago, which was “How To Become a Leader: What Hitler Taught The World”. It’s not my intent to discuss politics here, but if Donald Trump has done anything well, I think many of us will agree that he did a great job of implementing the main ideas that I discuss in the post.   The purpose of this video is to raise some awareness among people who would like to be a leader of some sort, to make you aware of the responsibility you will have, and to question what your true motives are and the possible consequences of your message. To possibly re-think what it means to be a leader. Do you even need to be a leader?    To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization Today's quote is by William James, “Genius...means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an inhabitable way.” If you have watched some of my videos you will know how much I stress and talk about the faculty of attention. If you are new to my channel check out my video where I give an overview of the 3 levels of attention. I’ll put some helpful links in the description box below.   Understanding The Three Levels of Attention For Our Self-Development: https://youtu.be/n-cTUil01Bg  How To Really Understand Yourself Through Proper Self-observation: https://youtu.be/2fmLjPpOZAM  To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Today we’ll talk about increasing our ability of working with our sensitive energies, of getting more acquainted with recognizing sensation for what it truly is.   With learning to relax the body, emotions, and thoughts we are laying the foundation for our journey into our inner space. Our ability to perceive what’s going on inside us becomes more acute and vivid. When our body is no longer wasting its vital energy on unnecessary tension and strains the energy that keeps us in relationship with our bodies is naturally accumulated. Most people never advance on their self-development path because they simply don’t have the energy because our already low supply is wasted through various unconscious leaks we have developed like negative emotions and bodily tensions. If we were video game characters, at the end of our day our power bar would always be in the red. We just don’t have the resources to pursue more lofty spiritual goals.   Through our practice of deliberate sensing, we learn to come into contact and become grounded in our bodies through this sensitive energy.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Living From Presence: How To Really Enter The Present Moment: https://youtu.be/-Px1k1XLJ2A Developing Presence 101: Relaxing The Body and Releasing Its Tensions: https://youtu.be/Yj6x1VzN874  Recently I made a couple of videos about living from presence, If you haven’t checked them out, I'll put the links in the description box. In the first video, I talked about the importance of grounding our attention in the raw sensation of the body, in the 2nd video I talked about the next step of learning to relax the entire body to get our energies flowing more freely, today we’ll talk about furthering our ability to calm our body.   Once we have gotten acquainted with learning to use our attention to progressively relax our whole body, we will try to go into a more thorough deeper relaxation. Our self-development journey is one where we learn to go from the gross to the very subtle.   The tensions at the coarser physical level of our body are usually the easiest for us to identify and to let go of. The next more subtle and deeper level of tensions that we need to relax is that of our thoughts, emotions, and will.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Today's quote is by Epictetus, “For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.””   This quote highlights an idea we've discussed before, which is the importance of creating a life aim for ourselves. A long last aim that can serve as our guide and always point in us in the right direction for our life. Since my channel focuses on self-development and becoming more conscious, increasing our awareness can serve as a broad and long-lasting aim for our life. Anything that helps us move in the direction of becoming more mindful and aware is good and anything that takes us away from that aim we would consider bad.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”   They say patience is a virtue, and it truly is the number one quality to cultivate in our lives because it ties in and is a by-product of all our self-development work. Real patience is the result of our genuine inner work, of us, becoming more conscious.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Recently I made a video about living from presence, If you haven’t checked it out here: https://youtu.be/-Px1k1XLJ2A  In that video, I gave a brief overview of how our spiritual journey is one where we go from the gross to the very subtle, and the importance of learning to ground our attention in the energy of sensation in our bodies in order to grow and feed our presence.   Today I’ll get a little bit into discussing the initial stage of developing contact with our body, with our body presence which is an essential beginning foundation to help us go deeper and higher into the subtle energies of our inner space. Developing our inner energy body of sensation will act as a container to attract and hold the next higher energy of consciousness.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com   Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom   Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Today's quote is by Mark Twain, “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”   We're living in crazy times right now, and we all could use a little cheering up. Unfortunately, modern life in many parts of the world has encouraged more selfish ways of living, of being. It’s a dog eat dog kind of world out there. Which has become a big source for stress and unhappiness for many.  To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com   Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom   Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Today our topic is on living from Presence.   Our whole self-development journey is one towards a deeper understanding and embodiment of presence. The more presence we invite into our life, the more our life comes alive. Living with little presence our life just slips through our hands and passes us by. We become passive participants in our life and don’t experience it fully.   Presence means to be here and now grounded in our life, grounded in our bodies, through not only the sensory experience but also aware of ourselves doing whatever it may be as we are doing it. We fully inhabit our bodies and actions by being an active participant in our life.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

Today's quote is by the Buddha,   “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”   I know it seems as if the sky is falling every day as we hear non-stop about all the different crises going on around the world. Especially if you are someone who has been directly impacted by everything going on. It can be difficult to feel thankful right now.  But as the Buddha said, as long we’re breathing and live to fight another day, we should remain thankful. It’s all a matter of perspective, no matter how bad things may seem we can always find something to be thankful for.    To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com  Podcast: https://anchor.fm/bitesizewisdom  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitesizewisdom

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization  I have spoken before on the importance of making an aim for oneself in respect to our self-development work. Our aim is what keeps us on the right track. After careful and sincere self-observation, of being objectively mindful of our behavior we should be able to identify areas that we need to work on in order to progress on our journey of becoming more conscious. This data helps us to formulate an aim for our self-development work. For example, you may discover that feelings of jealousy are especially damaging to you, so your aim is to understand and overcome them. Today we will talk a little bit about understanding where our aim comes from and that it can come from a right or wrong place within ourselves.   We need to have a deep and clear comprehension of our aim, of ourselves, of our attention because we may have an aim that is right but be coming from a wrong place or we may have an aim that is wrong but be coming from a right place in us.   In order to understand where our aim is coming from we need to have an intimate relationship with our attention and how it relates to the main centers in our body.    Recommended videos:  1. Balancing and Understanding Our Intellectual, Emotional, Instinctive Brains: https://youtu.be/WePYyrVbFQU  2. Increasing Self-Awareness of Our Three Brains: Head, Heart, and Gut: https://youtu.be/dyIX9_wBxss  3. How To Not Be A Smartphone Zombie: Increasing Awareness and Expanding Consciousness: https://youtu.be/f9H1p6IW3gs  4. Understanding The Three Levels of Attention For Our Self-Development: https://youtu.be/n-cTUil01Bg   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization All of us have heard the importance of learning to be present, of living in the now, but how many of us are actually really living it, how many of us really understand what that means or how to do it…   Today I’ll briefly touch upon this by emphasizing that we need to live like we really mean it.  It means we need to learn to identify the silent presence behind all experiences and to live by having our intention in whatever it is that we may be doing. Living from a place of presence we do not let life just happen to us, or to let this present moment go by unnoticed. We are here in an integrated way, fully and vividly as our attention and intention. We are in our life living it as it unfolds.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

#selfdevelopment #conciousness #spirituality #selfrealization Today we will continue our discussion on negative emotions, specifically that you have the choice or right to not be negative.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

In recent years due to the success of the Secret, the law of attraction has enjoyed a mass revival. Although it was good that the focus was generally on being more positive, it lacked a comprehensive understanding and also gave birth to many negative outcomes due to this. I  Instead of helping people become more free, it subtly enslaved many people as well by enabling them to become more egotistical and the results promised did not materialize for most. Peoples hopes and dreams are being exploited to the max in this age of social media by internet marketers turned self-improvement gurus.    A big part of that is that the teachings are so watered down in an effort to reach a big market and it focused only on the intellectual thinking process so it made people even more lopsided by neglecting the development of the other essential parts of our Being.   In the Secret, they rebranded something that has been taught for thousands of years as if they were sharing something revolutionary, something new. So today we will briefly go into the art of prayer, which is the original method to manifest in our material reality and some of the key ideas and understanding missing from a lot of mainstream ideas around the law of attraction.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

On our journey of self-development, one of the key themes that you will find across all spiritual paths is that of purification...and specifically of the purification of our emotions.   The emotions that we have picked up through life, that are now part of our false personality, is what keeps us at the level of being that we are currently at.   False personality is all that we have acquired from life, all our conditioning from the external environment that has shaped us. False because it’s not intrinsic to our real nature. These emotions that we learn from the imitation of those around us, are mainly negative.   For an explanation of self-observation check out episode #32: https://youtu.be/p7UZtW0nMmo  To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

Today we will talk a little bit about how we can use our habits to help us in our self-development work. In trying to change ourselves to live more consciously we need all the energy we can get. Much of our energy is spent through all the automatic habits that we have developed, and through all our various energy leaks such as indulging in negative emotions, at the end of the day we simply don’t have enough energy left for our self-development work. So we need to become less mechanical, more mindful, and to stop all of our unnecessary energy leaks.   To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com

Energy is all around you. On our self-development journey, one of the primary tools that we use to gain self-knowledge is our attention. We develop a deep and intimate relationship with attention. Which is just an aspect of our true Will. Not what most people take their Will to be which is a constantly changing little “i”, the will of our conditioned personality.    When our attention is refined enough it may be possible for us to be able to perceive and to draw in the energy in the air. This gives you a little clue into the real meaning of “inspiration”. The Latin word “spiritus” means both breath and soul. All of the other major traditions tell us that the air contains special energies. From the Taoist traditions, it is known as ch’i. From Yoga and Hindu philosophy, it is known as prana. Ruach, from Hebrew, is the breath of life. And pneuma is the ancient Greek word for breath and also related to the spirit.   So today we will be talking about the importance of collecting the vital energy in the air for our inner work.    To read my self-development articles please visit my site here: http://freedomfromtheknown.com