DMM710

Anyone have a good suggestion?

https://youtu.be/Fh-BchpGXD0 I found this video pretty useful when I had similar concerns

Yes! This is the kind of thing I’m looking for. Thank you! Yea I’m gonna work up to that eventually. That’s kind of the end goal. Today I just stopped a few random girls and asked them a stupid question about a water bottle filling station on campus. One of those times was 2 girls walking together which was fuckin scary. Oh another one I’ve done a few times is pointing at a person driving in the opposite direction. Their reaction is usually pretty amusing. Also I don’t really know what to say to cashiers tbh. I usually just say “how’s your day goin?” Which gets “good how’s yours” and I’ll say some random thing on my mind or whatever. Is there a more open ended question I can ask them?

List so far: Say hello to random people Hold eye contact for longer than is comfortable Make other people break eye contact first Start small talk with cashiers I'd be interested to hear from people who have gone through this, and what it was like.

A list I have so far What is the relationship between __ and __? What are the ramifications? What is its substance? How did it come into being? (What allows it to exist at all?) Why is it important? What are the traps? How does it interconnect with other things?

Also curious about this

What’s the difference returning to your breath after noticing a thought, and suppressing a thought?

So observing and being non reactive is what I’m going for? When I hear someone say “let it go” I usually think of actually letting it go, like... Removing it from my attention so it no longer occupies my mind. He said things like “returning to how you felt before it arose” or imagining the thing not effecting you. That’s sort of how things play out when they don’t effect me, right? If some dude sneezes - I notice it, and it immediately leaves my mind. I don’t consciously accept it and all that. My mind just naturally lets it go without my input. It arises, and clears from my thoughts, which is sort of what I’m doing I thought.

So just as an example: I have an itch. I notice the itch, I do something similar to refocusing attention to the breath. Just kind of clear the mind and try not to think about it. Is this correct? I can’t “visualize someone else giving it up” or whatever. I can’t grasp the feeling.

Anyone know of a good heavy metal test that isn't $90?

Or the episode on shadow work!

Seems like every video is about non-duality in some way now. Without psychedelics it's all belief because there's no way to verify it. I could do practices all day everyday and still fail to ever discover this stuff for myself.

Basically I want to get over my social anxiety. I want to make friends and date. I’ve been pushing myself to work every day (instead of just the weekends) it’s usually very uncomfortable for the first 3-4 hours but then I get really comfortable and socializing becomes effortless. Every day it’s the same thing though. I get there, I’m awkward for a while, I get in my head a lot, then eventually I feel confident and social. I usually meditate before work, I’ve tried affirmations on my way to work, word association exercises... idk what to do. How can I maintain that feeling I get at the end of the night? It’s been 3-4 weeks and it’s still the same. I don’t feel like I’ve made a lot of progress.

The most I can do in my mind is approach a woman, see her being happy and stuff but that's it. I can't come up with any convincing dialog or anything. Any tips?

I'm usually pretty good for like 10 minutes. After that point I start getting antsy and worried that I'm not doing it correctly. I've also switched between different meditation methods 1,000,000 times. I always feel like I'm not doing it right, which makes me think there's some better technique I should be doing. Could that be the issue? Maybe i'm just not giving a single technique enough time to master it? Also what technique do you guys find the most effective?