This is a post I agree with one hundred percent. The whole process you've described here is one I've gone through over the past two years. My mind and self have never felt so open, free and unrestrained.

I've also been through every one of the events you've described there, but for me, what wound up happening was my awareness and willingness to detach from my own beliefs and morals (until all I could feel were the morals my deepest self required) growing and expanding every time I was faced with a situation in which conflicted with my morals, where I questioned everything and anything that could be possibly questioned, and then weighing out my view of it against the view of anyone who put the situation before me, as well as any it concerned, and tried to see from every possible perspective. Also involved smashing apart my ego with a hammer to remove that overbearing sense of self worth people unwittingly take wherever they go (that sense of "but me..."). I think after all that...I finally know what selfless open-mindedness is all about. It was a very enlightening experience.

Are you also into spirituality, by any chance?