“I'm looking for paradise,” says the boy.

“You are already there,” Mary says. “Every thought and feeling are exactly as they should be.”

Why thoughts are so hard to explain

If I explain it, it's already in a box, a dimension.

Therefore, I am to do it twofold: with the box and without the box.

With the box

Let's say you have a million thoughts. (See, I already boxed the amount of thoughts by saying what it is. This is a mistake.)

Some of those thoughts reflect back the inner state of your whole body, or parts of your body. This means that a randomly picked thought can be a reflection of your whole body.

Without the box

You live in freedom; you can think about anything you want. But be wary: some thoughts are not there for nothing. They tell you something about the state of your whole body.

The point? That you are your whole body at the same time, but that your thoughts actually matter. They tell you something about the tone of the birds in your whole body.

How I use thoughts

I grab one from my own shelf.
I generate a completely new one.
I let consciousness decide, so partly the whole state of my body.

You can literally pick one from that part of your body.

Your thoughts reflect back the state your whole body is in.

This doesn’t mean that a thought about suicide is true. But it does mean that something is up in your whole body.

I have been in psychosis, and what you notice then is that the whole tone of your thoughts changes. You become extremely paranoid, and you have thoughts about being chased by helicopters. Also, thoughts become very narrow, like you have the same thought the whole time.

It’s a little bit like the way somebody lives reflects back the inner state of that person.

So thoughts are not the problem. They work perfectly fine. I have never experienced that there is something wrong with thoughts themselves, in a mechanical sense.

If your body becomes healthy and returns to a state of connection, then your thoughts automatically change with you. Thoughts are super useful. If there is something wrong with me, I always start with my darkest thoughts.

It also works backwards

So what you think reflects back how you operate your whole body. If you only watch the news and you think the outside world is scary, you maybe won’t go outside anymore. If you think you are worthless, you don’t try new things. If you are part of a minority, this probably also will have an effect on how you move.

I used to roll myself up as a little ball inside myself because of the ideas I had.

It’s always been a whole-body thing

Your thoughts reflect back the inner state of your whole body. Thoughts are therefore extremely useful in analyzing your whole body, but it doesn’t mean that suicidal thoughts are going to make you commit suicide.

Think in terms of taking care of your whole body.

A common loop is this. Let’s say you stay at home a lot, so your whole body doesn’t go outside, receive sunlight, or feel connection with others. Now, your thoughts start to change because there is something off with the state of your whole body. Now, you think there is something wrong with your thoughts (I only have sad thoughts), but there is rarely anything wrong with the thoughts.

My body is overworked right now. The reason I know this is there are certain recurring thoughts that have entered my mind.

Level 1

Here you have this thought, the brain says. Go ahead and think about this.

Afterwards: ''How do you feel?''

Here is another thought.

''Does this feel better?''

That’s how you learn to think: by practicing with different thoughts. That’s how you learn to understand the effect they have on your whole body.

Level 2

What is a bad thought exactly? Does ‘bad’ exist? If I think about something negative that really happened, is that something bad?

I don’t buy it. I want to think about dark things too.

''Are you sure?'' the brain asks.

Level 3

Dark definitely exists, but it’s not what I thought it would be. Some things are just not good for my vibe. Those are not necessarily bad things, but things I am not interested in.

On the other hand, there seem to be things that, in a sense, are never good. Like suppressing thoughts, for instance, not trying to think about certain things. Or very dark corners of the internet.

…

jumps over a hurdle that’s called Buddhism

…

Level 4

I always get stuck in the 4th dimension because there is a jump somewhere.

...

…

Level X

''I'm looking for paradise,'' says the boy.

''You are there,'' Mary says. ''Every thought and feeling is exactly as it should be.''

Bonus level

''I have a bonus level for you,'' somebody says.

''I'll take it,'' the boy says.

…

After It’s Done

The whole approach is too passive. You just kind of sit around while it’s being perfect. I like to have a more active role.

Start pressing thoughts like buttons. Start pulling thoughts. Start using the brain and squeezing electricity in it, as if you are squeezing a muscle.

Consciousness is the pointer, the thing in between, the temporary.

Beautiful.

Think of religion as a cloud going through your head. And it also goes through the head of somebody else. It’s something that a lot of people think about a lot. This gives an unbelievable sense of “doing together.” It’s like living in a collective consciousness.

I don’t really understand how it works, but it’s beautiful.

These collective ideas of what religion is, and which ideas hold true, get tested over time by each individual. So it always changes over time, which is how it should be. I don’t really know what was on the minds of people thousands of years ago. I don’t know what people will think about a lot in the future.

But for me, while not even believing in a higher power, religion always has a special place in my heart because it’s so unbelievably clever. It’s street knowledge. It’s something you do. I mean, there is nothing that has helped me more than these sets of ideas. Of course, religion also has terrible consequences, for women, for instance. That is very sad.

We humans are notoriously bad at understanding that a lot of the ideas we have right now will not survive the test of time. I suspect this is the case with psychiatric disease. Or with how we treat animals, which is more heartbreaking than we think.

I have lived in paradise many times, therefore I know it’s a place on Earth. I have also lived in hell, which is also a place on Earth.

What a large group of people thinks about, and spends a lot of time on, has infinitely more power than those who throw the nuclear bombs. You have to experience that to understand it. Right now, a lot of people work on consciousness, and therefore it has become this beautiful thing. Again: you have to experience it to understand it. It’s like partly living in a shared thought network, while nobody really can see each other’s thoughts, of course. But we are working on that same thing, whatever you want to call it.

I can honestly, hand on my heart, say that I cracked the puzzle of consciousness. Knowledge goes like this: something is in the air. Everybody gets in position. The strongest start placing and shooting. That’s why, with big theories, they always come in waves of multiple people working on them. I am not the first one who does it: multiple people have, and they leave hints for each other. Adams’ apple, for instance. Or having something on your liver. It’s just so clever.

If you are hard on yourself, lovingly smiling at the mistakes you make is the hardest thing there is. Forgiving yourself. Looking at yourself with loving eyes. You can hardly explain that to someone else. They want to help you, but they cannot really see what you are doing on the inside.

I wish I could explain it to you more, but you also have to find out for yourself. For me, this is the equivalent of the Holy Grail. Your world will never be the same again. You go from judging every word you type, every mistake you make, to somebody who is pleased with the words that come out. Not perfect? OK. I am fine with that. I forgive myself that not everything I type is perfect. I am just happy to write a little bit.

I used to start every action, every thought, with “This is not good enough anyway,” until I found that was actually the real problem, not what I was writing.

See how hard it is to shake these things off? They come from generations of my family who taught each other things a certain way and were way too critical of each other. Maybe they succeeded in their lives, but I chose another route. One with more self-love. Maybe I’m wrong, but I am willing to find out.

I have met so many happy people in my life who came from ordinary families, filled with love. That’s better than doing everything too strictly, too career-minded. I have seen people develop eating disorders because of the pressure they grew up with. They had to swallow all their bad feelings, and they did not know what to do with them.

See It for What It Is

I find it strange that we label people with psychiatric illnesses. We don't actually know how things work on the inside. So I suggest that we only give people labels for things we can see from the outside.

I’ll start with myself.

I have an ADHD diagnosis. I do move around a lot; I can't sit still. But does that mean I have ADHD? I have no idea.

So I gave myself the label “I move a lot.”

This makes a huge difference, because now I don't have to worry about having ADHD anymore. It really gives me a lot of peace. “Ah, look, I just tend to move quickly and often.”

It's a subtle difference, but it makes all the difference in the world.

The permanent label is what hurts the most.

Or:

“My attention span is three seconds.”

“I have a fast mind. I can think quickly.”

“I have more thoughts coming one after another than other people.”

“I can easily connect things.”

In a different category:

“I've been sad for a while.” (when I feel depressed)

“I'm afraid.” (generalized anxiety disorder)

I think some people use their bodies very passively, as if thoughts kind of happen to you. But it’s very interactive: you can press on thoughts, like their buttons. It’s a very interactive way to get to know yourself.

For me, thoughts are like buttons you can press. And then I can create every feeling I want. For real.

So, I talk back to my thoughts.

A thought comes, I press it, communicate back, something happens, the next thing happens, you speed up, more thoughts come, etc. It's a very interactive process.

You can, in a way, program your body from the inside out.

From the perspective of somebody with ADHD, you are unbelievably slow. So people with ADHD constantly have to put their foot on the brake.

“Can someone speed this person up?”

Have you ever noticed that if you suppress emotions, it puts enormous pressure on the organs on the left side of your body?

Circles

You may not realize it now, but there is energy flying around through you. It keeps your heart beating, your brain thinking, and you being you.

Energy flies round and round.

We get energy from everything. Our food, the air we breathe.

That energy that flies through, we can convert into other things. If you want to. You can also spend it on nothing, if you want to, that's the beauty of life.

Yet, we are converting it and trying to make the world a better place.

How do i break it down into smaller circles?

What I find hard personally is breaking down the big circle of energy that flies through me into smaller chunks. Sometimes I can't decipher working-out energy from creative energy or sexual energy.

Or I have unpleasant energy going through me and I counter it with working out, yet those things initially had nothing to do with each other.

Or I don't feel well and therefore I limit my energy intake (I eat less), because then I feel less bad.

We all are each other a little bit

I have ideas in my head, the energy that others spend on thinking about things, that I still carry around. How beautiful is that? I can spend a cow's energy on walking because of the energy a cow spent on eating grass. We should respect that a little bit more. But that comes with time.

I can describe in words how beautiful life is

Religion used to be about this: consciousness, the beauty of life, the tears. It's not something you can put into words. It's like having a tear in your voice when you start speaking, so full and rich of emotion it is.

With energy, there is a choice.

I mean this with zero prejudices: it's your own choice.

But I don't want to spend my sexual energy on cheap internet stuff.

First, I want to do it the ADHD way. I want to spend little amounts of energy on a lot of things, in complete chaos.

Then, I want to do it the autism way: I want to spend all my energy on one thing.

I also want to use a part of my energy to suppress other energy and become depressed.

Then, I want to let life lead me a little bit. I trust that I have learned enough in the meantime about what works for me.

So that's what I did...

Science is about facts, truth.

Religion is about
life rhythm and respect for energy.

These are two
different worlds.

You work for 6 days,
you take a day off.

Or you take 5 breaks
a day.

If I eat a cow,
consume that cow's energy, and then utilize that by watching social
media videos, do you understand where guilt comes from then?

When you grow up, you learn millions and millions and millions of things. It’s incomprehensible, the amount of things you learn. It’s an enormous stack.

Inevitably, there are things you are going to learn and teach yourself that work in the short term, but not in the long term. The problem with those things is that they can spiral into all kinds of psychiatric diagnoses later on in life.

I have made this mistake, and many others did too. So let’s try to help each other a little bit.

Learned behaviour * time = psychiatric disorder

Let’s say you have taught yourself that when you feel bad, you stop eating. This works tremendously well in the short term, because when the amount of energy that circulates through your body goes down, your whole body operates at a lower voltage. At a lower voltage, you feel fewer bad feelings. So you actually feel better. So it works. It’s a very logical mistake.

Or: you suppress bad feelings in yourself. Also works, because you will feel better. The problem is that bad feelings use the same highway as good feelings. So over ten years, you don’t feel anything at all. Everything turns grey. Now, you are diagnosed with depression. Again: a legitimate, sensible mistake.

Or: you don’t admit to yourself that you are scared. You don’t allow yourself to be scared, for example because you grew up in a household where being anxious was seen as a weakness. Works perfectly fine in that situation, but not over longer periods of time. Because you are scared. You can pretend you are not, but you are. Again: don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s a sensible mistake.

Especially in places where emotions and love are seen as weaknesses, a lot of weird behaviour exists. Probably one of the biggest mistakes is the ‘performance-driven’ household that is only busy with the best athletes and school grades. In these environments, when you don’t actually listen to what a child wants, you plant the first seeds of underlying suffering. If a child feels bad, then what is it supposed to do? It survives.

I have the same problem with ADHD and autism. Children that can basically do everything: unlimited energy, unlimited creativity, a knack for knowing everything about certain subjects. And we have managed to make a diagnosis out of it. If people with ADHD and autism need to get diagnosed, literally everybody in life should be diagnosed with their own personal neuroatypical disorder, because I have never met a normal person.