Spirituality Won't Solve Your Problems.
Summary
TLDRIn this introspective video, the narrator recounts their journey of self-discovery, beginning with a pivotal moment in 2016 that led to a major change in life direction. They explore the concept of intuition, initially skeptical but later embracing it as a guide in decision-making. The script delves into the narrator's experiences with cognitive science, meditation, and the teachings of Alan Watts, illustrating the balance between intuition and rational thought. It concludes with a nuanced view on intuition as a skill to be developed, not a replacement for conscious decision-making, advocating for a curious and present approach to life's complexities.
Takeaways
- 🤔 The speaker initially struggled with the concept of trust and intuition, finding it difficult to rely on an immeasurable feeling for decision-making.
- 🔄 A pivotal moment in 2016 led to a significant shift in the speaker's life, sparking an interest in cognitive science and a deeper understanding of their intuitive self.
- 🧠 The process of choosing a major in college exemplified the struggle with analysis paralysis, where the overwhelming number of options led to indecision.
- 💡 An emotional reaction to cognitive science as a major was the first conscious awareness of the speaker's intuition guiding their decision-making.
- 📚 The discovery of Aaron Dottie's YouTube video on developing intuition provided a structured approach to harnessing this intuitive self.
- 🧘♂️ Meditation and setting intentions became part of the speaker's routine, leading to a more intuitive and less anxiety-ridden life.
- 🌟 The influence of Alan Watts and Zen Buddhism introduced the concepts of naturalness and spontaneity, emphasizing living in the present moment.
- 💻 The speaker's experience with YouTube and relationships highlighted the challenges of relying solely on intuition without considering the broader context.
- 🔍 Research into the validity of intuition revealed that it is a skill that can be developed and refined over time.
- 🏋️♂️ Just like physical training, pushing past initial intuitive limits can lead to growth and improved decision-making skills.
- 🧐 Recognizing the limitations of intuition in a modern context, the speaker concluded that understanding why intuition leads one way is crucial for making informed decisions.
- 🌱 Embracing the ups and downs of life, the speaker encourages owning all decisions and viewing life as an experience rather than a problem to be solved.
Q & A
What was the speaker's initial perspective on trusting their gut?
-The speaker initially did not understand the concept of trusting their gut and found the idea of basing decisions on an immeasurable feeling to be unhelpful.
What significant event in the speaker's life led to a change in their perspective on intuition?
-The speaker's perspective changed after a series of events starting in 2016, particularly the moment they felt a strong emotional reaction when considering the cognitive science major.
What is analysis paralysis as described by the speaker?
-Analysis paralysis is a state where one is overwhelmed by the number of possible paths to take, leading to indecision or the inability to make a decision in a reasonable time.
How did the speaker's experience with cognitive science influence their life?
-The speaker's experience with cognitive science led them to make a major change in their academic path and discover their intuitive self, which significantly altered their approach to decision-making.
What video did the speaker find on YouTube that helped them develop their intuition?
-The speaker found a video titled 'How to develop your intuition: a simple step-by-step process' by Aaron Dottie, which provided a structured approach to becoming more in touch with their intuitive self.
What are the three steps outlined by Aaron Dottie in his video for developing intuition?
-The three steps are: 1) meditate and become present, 2) set an intention and know you will find the answer, and 3) let go of the answer and become present to the feeling you would have if you already had that answer.
How did the speaker's approach to life change after adopting the practices from Aaron Dottie's video?
-The speaker became more confident, less anxious, and started making decisions based on their intuition, which led to a more free-flowing and spontaneous way of living.
What impact did Alan Watts and his teachings on Zen Buddhism have on the speaker's life?
-Alan Watts' teachings on Zen Buddhism influenced the speaker to see past the illusions of the mind's effort to constantly label and to observe total present-ness without attaching to thoughts, leading to a state of naturalness and spontaneity.
What was the turning point for the speaker that made them question their intuitive decisions?
-The turning point was when the speaker felt a disconnection between their intuitive way of being and the planned action required by the modern Western world, which first manifested with their YouTube channel and then with their relationship.
What conclusion did the speaker reach about intuition after their research and personal experiences?
-The speaker concluded that intuition is a skill that can be developed over time and that it is important to understand why intuition is leading one in a certain direction, evaluate one's skill level, and expose oneself to more situations to hone intuition.
How did the speaker's understanding of intuition evolve by the end of the script?
-The speaker's understanding evolved to recognize that while intuition can be a powerful tool, it needs to be balanced with conscious thought and an understanding of one's biases and conditioning to make better decisions.
Outlines
🔍 Discovering Intuition
The speaker recounts their journey of self-discovery, which began with a struggle to understand the concept of 'trusting your gut.' Initially a computer science major, they felt a diminishing passion for their field and experienced 'analysis paralysis' when faced with making significant life decisions. A pivotal moment occurred on September 14, 2016, when they were drawn to the major of cognitive science, an interest that sparked an intense emotional response. This realization led them to embrace their intuitive self, a discovery that would profoundly change their approach to decision-making. The speaker then shares how they stumbled upon a YouTube video by Aaron Dottie, which provided a structured method to develop intuition, and they began to apply these techniques to their life, leading to increased confidence and a more engaging academic experience.
🌟 Embracing Spontaneity and Zen Philosophy
The narrative continues with the speaker's deepening exploration of intuition, leading them to Alan Watts, a philosopher known for interpreting Eastern thought for Western audiences. Through Watts' teachings, particularly his book 'The Way of Zen,' the speaker learns about the principles of naturalness and spontaneity central to Zen Buddhism. They grapple with the concept of living in the present moment without attachment to thoughts or outcomes. This philosophical shift influences their lifestyle, leading to spontaneous decisions such as starting a YouTube channel and attracting a romantic relationship through meditation and intention-setting. However, the speaker also experiences a growing disconnect with the structured, planned approach prevalent in modern society, causing internal conflict and a sense of crisis.
🧘♂️ Balancing Intuition with Rational Thought
In the final paragraph, the speaker confronts the challenges of relying solely on intuition and the potential pitfalls of making hasty decisions without rational consideration. They reflect on their experiences, including a period of existential questioning that led to a hiatus from YouTube and the end of a relationship. Through research and contemplation, they conclude that intuition is a skill that must be developed and refined over time, much like physical strength. They acknowledge the importance of understanding the reasons behind intuitive responses and the need to balance spontaneous action with informed decision-making. The speaker advocates for a nuanced approach to life, where intuition is honed and utilized consciously, rather than being a substitute for rational thought. They end with a call to stay present, curious, and to view life as an experience rather than a problem to be solved.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Trust
💡Intuition
💡Analysis Paralysis
💡Cognitive Science
💡Meditation
💡Zen Buddhism
💡Spontaneity
💡Alan Watts
💡Intuitive Self
💡Patron
💡Decision-Making
Highlights
The speaker initially struggled with the concept of trust and intuition, viewing them as immeasurable and unreliable for decision-making.
A pivotal moment occurred on September 14th, 2016, when the speaker felt a strong intuitive pull towards cognitive science as a major.
The speaker experienced a transformation in decision-making, moving from analysis paralysis to trusting their gut after choosing the cognitive science major.
The discovery of the speaker's intuitive self marked a significant shift in their approach to life and decision-making.
The introduction of a YouTube video by Aaron Dottie on developing intuition provided a structured approach to harnessing this intuitive sense.
The speaker adopted meditation and setting intentions as part of their daily routine to enhance their intuitive abilities.
Intuition led the speaker to make significant life changes, such as starting a YouTube channel and attracting a serious relationship.
Alan Watts and Zen Buddhism introduced the concepts of naturalness and spontaneity, impacting the speaker's perspective on life.
The speaker grappled with the modern Western world's disconnection from the principles of Zen and its emphasis on planned action.
An existential crisis emerged as the speaker questioned their YouTube channel's purpose and their relationship's future.
The speaker recognized the need for balance between intuition and rational thought, acknowledging the limitations of both extremes.
Research into the validity of intuition led to the understanding that intuition is a skill that can be developed and refined over time.
The speaker learned that intuition must be primed and trained, much like physical muscles, to avoid making rash decisions.
Modern influences can hijack our intuitive responses, leading to potentially harmful or irrational actions if not critically examined.
The speaker concluded that intuition, when properly developed, can lead to more efficient and effective decision-making in life.
Life's complexities and the interconnectedness of experiences suggest that intuition plays a vital role in navigating the unpredictable.
The speaker encourages embracing curiosity and presence, viewing life as an experience rather than a problem to be solved.
Transcripts
I never really understood the term trust
your gut because what does that even
really mean are you trying to tell me
that I should put Faith in all of my
decisions based on a random immeasurable
feeling nothing about that seemed useful
at least that's what I used to think
before I went through a series of events
that would change my life forever
starting back in 2016. September 14th 8
23 PM the blinds were shut over my
second story dorm room window as the
freshmen and sophomores that usually
strolled around this part of Campus were
walking to their friend's doors to get
ready for another Friday night party I
was scrolling through my College's
website on my laptop the glow from the
laptop screen in my pitch black room
revealed my distraught face I had no
idea what I wanted to do with my life
for the first one and a half years of my
college career I had been a computer
science major it was rewarding and
sometimes even fun but the passion I
once had for this activity started to
slowly snuff itself out like a little
kid trying to blow out a candle on their
birthday well I guess all all those days
I spent with my physics teacher after
class in high school learning how to
code a game were all for nothing then I
thought to myself the page I was
scrolling through was my school's list
of Majors I knew I enjoyed technology
Science and Arts but that only
eliminated a few of the couple hundred
Majors listed for me to choose from
making decisions had always been a
difficult task for me especially when it
evolved ones that could potentially
change the entire trajectory of my life
I frequently had what is called analysis
paralysis which is a state in which you
are paralyzed by the amount of
hypothetical paths you could go down to
the point where you don't end up making
a decision in a reasonable amount of
time or you don't end up making any
decision at all but I didn't have the
luxury to choose the latter it was
either I continue pursuing a major that
I no longer felt fully aligned with and
run the risk of never truly enjoying the
rest of my life or find a more favorable
one I searched for the strength to act I
analyzed every single major the pros and
cons with each how much money they would
make me versus if I would really like
them until finally I came across one
named cognitive science and when I
started scrolling through this major
what I felt was different sure I thought
most of these subjects were pretty
interesting but something about looking
at this major specifically caused my
body to have an intense emotional
reaction I felt a jolt of energy rushed
through my head until it eventually left
through my fingertips and toes and a
little voice inside of me kept repeating
yes this one over and over I was sure
this had happened in my life before but
this was the first time I Was Made
consciously aware of it and that was the
major that I ended up choosing this
event marked an important discovery that
would change the way I acted in the
world the discovery of my intuitive self
two months since that event had passed
by and nothing about me really changed I
had held this discovery within the back
of my mind and was now slightly aware of
when it would happen but I lacked the
information required to utilize it
properly but then one day as I was
looking at my YouTube recommended I saw
a video pop up on my feed it was titled
how to develop develop your intuition a
simple step-by-step process by the
YouTuber Aaron Dottie and suddenly there
it was again the emotional sensation the
shift in my heartbeat and the natural
gravitation to click on the video it
felt like the answer I was looking for
all along presented itself to me without
any external effort required so with
enthusiasm and excitement I decided to
click on the video he laid out a very
structured and easy to follow approach
to getting more in touch with this
intuitive self the first step was to
meditate and become present the second
was to set an intention and know you
will find the answer and the third was
to let go of the answer and become
present to the feeling you would have if
you already had that answer like some
divine intervention had effortlessly
fallen into my lap I felt Overjoyed it
was everything I had been looking for
and I didn't have to do my usual
anxiety-inducing routine of straining
endlessly for the solution to my problem
From This Moment onward I made about
myself with every decision you make
employ these steps you you learned and
always let your intuition guide you it
was now mid-January and the once anxiety
ridden over-analyzing young man I was
had transformed into an unconscious
free-flowing being I felt like the
essence of water I'd flow from one
activity to the next without much
thought and before each decision I'd
make I'd give my gut a split second to
guide me the parties I went to that once
had me acting like a forceful fake call
now had me more confident than ever able
to talk with anyone because I was no
longer so in my head stressing about
whether I was saying the right thing or
not or whether this person liked me I
was simply letting my intuition do the
thinking and talking for me quickly and
immediately I started my new major and
almost every class I went to felt more
engaging and interesting than my
computer science curriculum and just
like Aaron doddy's video had suggested I
started meditating daily and decided to
set the intention that I wanted to
attract a woman into my life and have a
serious relationship and just a couple
months after I ended up talking to a
girl frequently and she later became my
second girlfriend I even started this
YouTube channel during this time based
on an intuitive hunch all of these small
but significant events eventually led me
to go deeper into the idea of living
freely and without much thought until my
spiritual research made me stumble upon
a man who completely changed the way I
viewed reality and my life and that man
was Alan Watts Alan Watts was a teacher
in philosophical Entertainer known for
popularizing and explaining Eastern
religion and philosophies in the Western
World the first book of his I listened
to was called the way of Zen which
explained the Eastern teachings of Zen
Buddhism the central ideas of Zen
Buddhism revolve around two things
naturalness and spontaneity to achieve a
state of Zen one must see past the
illusions of the mind's effort to
constantly label and just observe total
present-ness without attaching to one's
thoughts in other words one must act
completely spontaneous within the
present moment when one student of Zen
asked his master how do you practice Zen
the master responded when you are are
hungry eat when you are tired sleep well
isn't that what everybody does aren't
you just like Ordinary People Said the
student oh no the teacher said they
don't do anything of the kind when
they're hungry they don't just eat they
think of all sorts of things when
they're tired they don't just sleep but
dream all sorts of dreams another zen
master in response to someone asking
what the ultimate secret of Buddhism was
spontaneously said dumpling I use these
examples to show that Zen has no form or
aim it isn't trying to get somewhere or
be something it's simply just is just as
nature does not try to be anything other
than nature and cats do not try to be
anything other than cats one should not
try to be anything other than whatever
the present calls them to do as a
college student these teachings were
predictably quite hard for me to grasp
since Zen tries to teach what cannot be
put into words regardless I continued on
listening to this audiobook every day on
the way to my classes thanks to the app
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finishing the way of Zen I felt like a
switch had flipped in my head suddenly
the half full potion of intuitiveness
that was sitting in the stand of my head
had been filled to the brim and smashed
on the floor of my brain allowing it to
ooze into my psyche I had lost any
semblance of structure freed my ego and
became this moment and this moment only
with all its complexities and
spontaneity whatever it was that the
present moment and my intuition made me
move towards I followed it I stopped
identifying with this physical body and
saw everything as an all-connected
source that only existed in the present
all of these unconscious spontaneous
decisions eventually led me to buy three
different sets of kimonos which I had
planned to wear to school the day after
they arrived and even though I ended up
never going through with that it
highlighted just how much I had shed the
idea of deliberate planned thinking and
simply allowed my myself to go with the
flow in its most extreme State no more
forced interactions no more wondering if
I made the right decision or not and no
more beating myself up when something
didn't go my way because when you have
no attachment to the outcome the future
or the past then it's impossible for
everything to not go your way but then I
felt something happen the massive
disconnection between my way of being in
the modern Western world that is built
upon planned action started to wear down
my positive attitude and that first
manifested itself with YouTube after a
couple years of making videos I was only
at a few hundred subscribers part of me
felt like my time would come eventually
but another part of me just wanted to
run away from it all leave society and
grow my own produce in a cabin in the
middle of the woods this unclear Split
Decision in my mind haunted me because
it was the first time since I had leaned
into my intuitive self that I was
questioning a decision and actively
worrying about it next came my
girlfriend something in me told me that
maybe we weren't right for each other
either which was only further
exacerbated by a couple shroom trip
where I revealed to her that I was
unsure of our future together it was a
full-blown existential crisis but
despite the confusion I still let my
intuition guide me once more and stopped
making YouTube videos for a while and
broke up with my girlfriend too and just
like that I was right back in the same
position I found myself in the night I
was scrolling through Majors on my
college dorm room bed can confused lost
and stressed I had now seen both sides
of the extreme from being the
overanalyzing overthinker who let all
decisions cast a debilitating spell on
me to the Zen enlightened eagleless monk
who let spontaneity and intuition act as
my brain's pilot but somehow both of
these ways of living produced the same
result in the end I knew that getting
out of this mental state would require
some reflection and action so I started
to do more research I took in
information from both sides of the
spectrum such as the audiobook blinked
by Malcolm Gladwell which argues that
intuitive thinking can be extremely
useful then I listened to the audiobook
don't trust your gut by Seth Stevens
which explained that data and statistics
can help you get what you really want
out of life and throughout my research I
found that like almost all things the
answer is invariably nuanced but amongst
all those things there was one thing
that was consistent and that was the
fact that intuition is a skill that can
be developed over time let's say you're
new gym goer and you're trying to lift
heavy weights you're grinding out a hard
set and you're starting to feel fatigued
your intuition would tell you to stop
right here because it's not primed to
push yourself to the absolute limit with
your body's muscles after all lifting
weights is a process of literally
tearing down your muscle fibers to make
them grow back bigger and if you haven't
pushed your muscles to that point before
your brain automatically sees that tear
down as dangerous but stimulating
optimal muscle growth requires you to
silence that intuitive voice and keep
pushing to one rep before or at failure
but it isn't something we are innately
gifted with in the same way that the
novice lifter doesn't know how to push
themselves I was letting my poor
intuitive voice allow me to make rash
decisions about my career paths sure it
happened to be that cognitive science
was the right choice for me but who
knows if that was by chance by Divine
guidance or just because I had been
focusing more on cognitive related
things at the time which caused me to
have a bias towards that major and
wanting to stop my YouTube channel was
the result of my brain's lack of
patience and inability to think long
term not because it was truly the right
thing to do in the end a lot of what I
considered intuition that is when I
thought or acted a certain way without
thinking about why I did came from
biased conditioned irrational Notions
what I realized is that spontaneous
unconscious action can be dangerous if
you don't know why it's happening and
this is especially true in our modern
worlds where everything from the food we
eat to the content we consume to the
advertising we see is all engineered to
hack our brain's intuitive response and
get us to overindulge unnaturally and
unnecessary Pleasures hell even changing
the color of a product on a shelf in the
grocery store has been shown to
influence our intuitive purchasing
decisions so what may have worked
wondrously for 12th century Zen monks
whose primary worries were survival
based may not work as well for our now
hijacked brains but of course that
doesn't mean that this way of living
should be disregarded completely it just
means we need to first ask why aren't
tuition is leading us to go this way
evaluate our skill level in this area
and expose ourselves to more situations
that we are trying to hone our intuition
in and by doing so we can start to make
what once took a lot of conscious
deliberate efforts unconscious like the
master of the sword who can predict each
of his opponents movements without
thought or the seasoned businessman who
can choose the right stock investment 85
percent of the time just through sheer
feeling when you're a young teenager
like I was your intuition is gonna kinda
suck it's gonna get you in all kinds of
trouble misguide you and it's going to
make you consistently ask yourself why
did I decide to do that but that's what
makes it so beautiful life doesn't
really make sense and it's gonna beat
you down pretty hard sometimes this
strange existence we are all taking part
in is an interconnected playing of
elements that we will probably never be
able to understand through words alone
and sure you may not always make the
right decision but if you own all of
your decisions they all end up becoming
the right ones so stay present and stay
curious because life is not a problem to
be solved it's a reality to be a
experienced
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the intuition is guiding you to click
right here to check those out I love you
guys thanks for watching till the end
peace
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