We know about the links between low self esteem and trauma and auto immune disease/cancer, in this sense the cancer or autoimmune is you, its not an outside enemy attacking you if you accept the cancer and change yourself and thus changing the cancer cells there is hope of recovery if the lessons are learned of why the body decided to grow cancer cells.
I suppose what i am trying to say is sometimes it seems that if we regonise the parts which are not us (or that we would not like to be part of us) rather than outright reject them should we be transforming them instead?

  Long ago I was familiar with the scientist discovery of dark matter, and that no one knew what it meant.  Through my research  I discovered that dark matter is another name for negative/ego manifested into the human body it clicked and then so many puzzle pieces began to fit together.  I had understandings and insights about things before on a personal level that I hadn't shared with people, and now the information was either confirming things I internally knew or piecing it all together in ways that made a full picture.
But the fear of who i was still clung like toilet paper on a wet shoe in the restroom - you know the kind that you don't want to touch so you do little cirque de soleil  acrobatic acts to try to get the paper off the shoe without touching it with your hand? 

At one point I had an idea that flitted across my mind to say that if I thought I was an avenue for dark then i should end my life.     I immediately read an article from Amitakh Stanford  (say what you will about her work it singlehandedly freed me from every misunderstanding I ever had and led me into a feeling of freedom more than anything i'd ever heard) and she spoke about this topic.   She talked about knowing yourself.    I decided to go into meditation on it.  I discovered then and there that if i were an avenue for dark matter, to the degree i was concerned about, then i wouldn't have any of those negative thoughts that were coming to me... certainly dark matter wouldn't want to take itself out.    The fear of who I am stopped.

Although I will say that now-a-days I get more concerned if i'm inadvertently being an avenue for negativity just through my stupidity.    Even yesterday i spoke with a friend who is in Venezuela trying to help Chavez cause, and suddenly I wondered if i were inadvertently using my energy to help in a place where i shouldn't be.   She is driven to help in the Chavez cause and i have no real opinion on it all,it's her cause and she doesn't know why she's driven to help him,   i just support her to do what she feels is best from within.   I just don't want to aid something inadvertently that is negative and which appears as a wolf in sheeps clothing.   So, in this case it's not so easy for me to get an inner feeling on this chavez/friend situation because i have a deep respect for this friend and so my inner information may get a little biaste.   I also don't want to over-think anything, but go more from a place of inner spirit.   not as easy as it sounds in this case.

I still see, and deal with on a daily basis, people who are ego-inflated as an obvious attempt to cover up serious esteem issues.

I don't mean to imply that I am above it, but I see it for what it is now. I always had the ability to read a person pretty accurately. That ability has only gotten keener since I've dropped most of what ego I had. There is an almost indistinguishable line between ego-based overexuberance; foolish pride, and true confidence.

It all sounds so simple now, but if these people would stop, and realize that 95% of their insecurities are brought on and amplified by cunning MARKETING.

Marketing is an extension of pure conditioning and needs to be recognized as such. Marketing can apply to anything.

A drill sargeant "selling" fear as motivation.

A government "selling" us fear as a means to maintain the same fear.

A magazine ad, featuring exotic locations, beautiful people... may have been intended to make the "consumer" equate buying 'that' product with being 'there'.
But what often happens is that images like those add to the feeling of unworthiness, and unreality, OF unreality.

"I'll never have that, I'll never measure up"

And far be it for most people to even question if it's something THEY really wanted for themselves.

A simple scene in any movie, be it a sex scene, a shoot'em'up scene, whatever. They train us to think like the movie, be like the movie, live like the movie.

The outcome is a very skewed definition of "success" and distorted ideas about how humans should interact, selling you impossibly high expectations.

The trick is being able to separate what you want, from what they want for you.

Do that, and you are more than halfway home. Because you will find those irrational fears that may have followed you for years, simply fall away.

For instance, panic attacks are brought on by feelings of intense insecurity,

I call it the antiadrenaline. That is, adrenaline being not expended to help ourselves, but to do severe harm to ourselves.

And some of you may think these are brought on by external stimuli.

Which is somewhat true, (and that "somewhat true" part is what justifies not resisting it) because these stimuli are all things you are not in control of. Being obsessively concerned what others think of you, is a sure trigger.
Remind yoursel it doesn't matter, any more than not living up to that magazine ad matters. You will see the irrationality of the fears that fuel said attacks. The fear goes, the panic goes with it.

Liberation begins with YOU.

You might postpone trying to take on all the worlds problems, until you've made some headway with your own.

Healing will take as long as it takes, and don't fall into the "I'm not worthy of giving myself the time and attention, it's selfish"
nonsense.

It's essential you discover who you are, AND who you're not... both. Just like in the title.

Warm Regards, J

Dylan, I kinda agree with your statement about guilt being ever-present, if I took that out of context then apologies; I think guilt in high amounts is at best alerting, at worst debilitating.

Doubt and guilt are so similar, it seems you can't have one much without the other.

It's like logic and belief trying to morph, it can't fully.

Likewise, in my exp, when one begins to fade out from ever-presence to more of a backseat reminder, the other naturally follows, and diminishes.

They can both be alarms to ourselves that we are moving in the wrong direction, we should be able to discern at what point they cease to be useful to us.

I think I am getting better at that..... even still it may always remain in small proportion, but for the most part guilt is totally counterproductive, as is doubt in ways, but that is only my take.
                                                            J

Montalk, you brought up the issue of self doubt, and that is a hurdle.

My self doubts at this point are things like this-

a. do I need to be able to meditate
(I can't really even picture myself doing this, are people who can/do necessarily on a higher evolutionary scale?)

b. The seemingly absolute futility in desiring more than what the current "system" has provided, knowing decay is the only inevitable course.

c. the more lies seen through, the further away real truth seems, and the less it matters after awhile, the layers of an onion.....which just gets more pungent with each one.

d. my complete refusal to label or embody any one belief "system" seems to make anything null and void.

.......to name a few.

I have no MILAB stories, I have never seen a UFO, my mind is open to these things without experiencing them firsthand.

For some reason I am drawn to these issues, I know they are not fiction, but I cannot really explain my own fascination.

Before I saw the term MILAB, the Andy Pero story, Projekt Ubermensch was my primer into the world of programmed snipers, etc.

What I guess I am illustrating is in many ways I am just a reality-based
truthseeker, it seems like many others here have had vivid experiences, positive or negative, I can really empathize even not knowing what it is like for some.

I do feel blessed for remembering everything, with no unexplained gaps, or missing time/ flashback experiences. I can't imagine really what that would be like to live with.

I got off on a tangent, I am pretty confident with the direction I am going, It's the one that leads away from everything else.

I am trying to fight the struggle, litte by little. The struggle we impose on ourselves, mainly through nefarious conditioning, (we truly are all MILABs in one sense or another, we have had something taken from us) the belief that life is and always will be a battle.... a hard one to break.
                                                           J

I have been hypothesising that you mind, what gives you most of the logical and emotional thoughts and impulses that you experience during the day.  Your spirit/soul however communicates to you through intuition.  I haven't found a way to charectorise exactly what intution is because I believe in many ways the mind has learned to mimic it and blot it out.  Intution comes like a whisper in the ear only it is an understanding deeper then words can describe.  The chattering noise in your head is your mind, trying to keep you under its control, trying to blot out your intution.   

The difference between the capabilities of the mind and soul are quite drastic.  When you rationlize an argument, you are pleading your case to your mind.  The logic of the soul is thousands of times more complex, and were the soul to attempt to explain through rational arguments the advice it gives through intution, it would be similar to trying to explain quantum mechanics to an infant.  I believe if you learn to identify your intuition and trust it, you could gain a very large advantage in life.  If you are traveling down the highway of life, your mind can only see as far ahead as your eyes can see, but the soul is aware of the entire journey ahead of you. 

I believe this is how a person can function when they shut off the mind, how things just seem to work out for them.  Using the mind in a situation would be like trying to swim against the tide that is carrying you against the shore, where if you just relax you will notice you can catch the next wave and surf your way back to shore. 

I haven't had the chance to say these concepts are definately correct, but from my current experience I think there is something to it.

Or recently when I explained my moderating approach concerning discerning between type (A) and type (B) individuals, the irony is that those with good hearts and introspective abilities are the first to get paranoid about themselves not being up to snuff, while the troublemakers cavalierly blow it off and adapt their tactics. In other words, as long as you know that you are sincere, so will those with discernment and intuition. Therefore, you can avoid self-destructive paranoia by simply knowing some basics about yourself and having the confidence that others with eyes to see will know it also.

I appreciate this greatly, Montalk. It is very difficult to truly convince oneself of these things, but a part of me knows it's true.

Loneliness and despair have been unwanted companions on my own journey, but they are surmountable with effort. It is well to be reminded that others understand and that the fetters of self-doubt are not binding to a pure heart and mind.