Guided

Hello everyone, I came across a peculiar situation today. There is a djembe drum circle that I go to every week, and it is a wonderful way to practice mindfulness and 'go back to nature' so to speak. Rhythm heals many wounds I found. The people that go to these circles are... very loving. 10+ second long hugs worth of loving, if you get me. (I guess you could say 'green', if you want to describe it from a spiral dynamics point of view.) I feel glad to come into contact with this circle of people, as I usually don't come across loving people such as this in my daily university life. I look forward to attending the circle precisely for this reason. Yet, at the end of today's session, I noticed an odd feeling - I said goodbye and shaked hands with one of the members I met that day and felt tense, shameful, almost as if there was something more that I should do or say to make the situation comfortable, except having no idea what. It felt awkward. Following that, another member came to me and whereas I extended my hand to shake his, he instead went on and hugged me in a genuine way. I felt glad! However, at the same time, I felt as if I was in danger and retreat as soon as possible. After exchanging a brief hug, I started feeling sad and guilty because, the way it seemed to me, even though I wanted to, I wasn't able to return the genuine love he was offering. A thought cropped up saying that "I'm just an emotional vampire" and that "I'm not capable of giving love - just taking it." Quite unsurprisingly, suffering ensued. Moments later, I saw a young woman (also a drum circle attendee, who I happen to be considerably attracted to - she has the most wonderful smile) giving a prolonged, loving hug to the drum circle teacher. Seeing that, I felt a profound longing, almost as if feeling homesick after being away for years and years and wanting to return. Feelings of envy cropped up (sadness, weakness, powerlessness). I felt a pressing urge to escape, run away - and having reacted to it, I hastily said goodbye to them and left the building. They were still hugging at that point, and I don't think they noticed me say goodbye. This was such a subtle, one could even argue a trivial experience, but by far not the first and only. I feel that it is this mind pattern that causes me to be awkward and shy around people who, well, either show genuine love to me or have the potential to do so. You can imagine what this does to my ability to form not only sexual/romantic partnerships but also friendships. Whenever I feel loved - I have an obsessive urge to push the person away, and when I try to give/show love, I feel deeply ashamed of it, automatically assuming the other person will not really appreciative of it. Push-pull mechanism at it's finest, really. I theorised briefly when on the way home about why this could be the case, but the bottom line is that giving/receiving of love trigger feelings of pain, usually resulting in the activation of the fight/flight system, leaving me feeling depressed, emotionally cold, worthless and unwanted. Does anybody have any thoughts on how to deconstruct this dysfunctional mind pattern and 'regroove' it to something hopefully more healthy and positive? Does anybody have a similar experience? I'm looking for brainfood here, really, hopefully to gather some momentum towards positive change. TL:DR - I feel sad and ashamed of being ungrateful when being loved by other people, and feeling ashamed and apologetic when showing love to others. What do?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hM8YqhJJk0lbI9l5JmM8G3SXeNqNt1uF https://drive.google.com/open?id=10tWGfC4RWWPyBT1J76T49VR_E_vULg5h I did this for a friend's theatre performance a while back. I might as well share it!

I think you're onto something here. I never could understand this whole 'let's build sexual attraction so we can fuck as soon as possible' thing, I guess other guys would say I'm 'losing out on opportunities passing by every day', but, at least in my experience, trying to go from zero to hero with girls in the shortest possible amount of time invariably ended up with disappointment! Hell, to this day, I don't enjoy approaching unknown girls and women with the intention of initiating a sexual/romantic relationship. Too much unnecessary pressure, too much tension from the get go. (Not to say I don't do it at all though - sometimes the mutual attraction is so strong my body just moves to approach by itself.) I'm glad there's some people out there who see it similarly. @Preety_India Honestly, I know the sense of attraction will say you want him/her NOW but this thing really does takes patience! Try to let the tension build over time and see what happens! All the man to woman relationships (even the so called flings) I've had in the past were with women who I saw on a frequent basis throughout my normal day. She was just simply around. I never had to push or consciously try to meet her or create more attraction - I just did it naturally, without thinking, through authentic communication and awareness of her body language. (I was of course aware of the attraction) We simply got to know each other better through daily/semi-daily contact, and it is how I learnt more about their personality and, of course, boundaries. A person will usually tell you what their boundary is themselves, if they sense you are a viable partner. This philosophy of no-chasing might seem like you're 'missing out', but honestly, you aren't missing out on a single thing. Actually, yeah, you are missing out on some unnecessary stress and frustration. Sounds like a good deal to me. I hope this makes some sense, apologies if I'm rambling too much

Thank you for the support everyone <3

Hahaha yeah I guess I'm thinking too hard about it, unnecessarily. Thanks.

Title nefariously stolen from @Leo Gura's post he made a few days ago. Anyways... I just came back from a venture which took me into a classic UK pub and after an hour or so of idle sitting around watching football, other people talking or playing pool I realised why I came there in the first place - to talk to new people. Err, actually, it was to pick up girls. I've been struggling with it recently. Well, not recently. I struggled with girls all my life, but it's just now that I'm consciously struggling with it and trying to better myself through approaching new people, especially attractive girls. I've always been a shy guy and always dreamed of the perfect girl to just come and find me. I even dream of being a girl sometimes, but I digress. Anyway, from today on let this be my great big glorious self-actualisation journey onto banging girls left and right and maybe even learning something on the way, you never know. While I do realise that it doesn't have such a big impact on my happiness whether I have a girlfriend or not, my dick doesn't really care about my happiness if you understand what I'm saying. Either way, this is going to be the place where I'll write my daily experiences with meeting new people, especially girls, and especially the intimate kind of meetings. Honestly I'm writing this completely for myself though I'll try to make it readable for whoever is on a similar journey to mine... who knows, maybe we share the same troubles, my dear reader. In any case, I do hope this will help me in reaching my goal... which is not a goal at all but just a milestone of sorts, and that is finally get it into my thick head that I'm good with women and nothing can prove me otherwise. Because I am! Sometimes. Usually not. But I have my moments. Recently I've been reading Badboy Lifestyle by, well, some guy who calls himself Badboy and the kind of language he uses is amusing, but I cannot help but see bits and pieces of enlightement in his writing. He realises that all feelings, sensations and thoughts eventually pass away, so there's not reason to get you knick-knacks in a rustle because of them. Just do what you gotta do... and if it's approaching that gorgeous girl that just entered the bar where you've been standing around trying to get to know (and fuck) somebody cool, well, it's your choice whether you act on those feelings or not, but don't whine about it if you don't. I've been meaning to write this thing for a long time now, though originally with a topic more related to spirituality and whatnot, but for now this sexuality thing seems something that I REALLY want to get in order as it seems to be stopping me from any further progress towards ridding myself of all desire. Which is kind of funny, it's like jumping into a river in order get dry. But I guess you won't know what it is like to be dry without being wet first. Either way, I guess topics related to spirituality will jump up from time to time. I try to do my Vipassana meditation daily, and it helps me tremendously with awareness, empathy and just generally slowing down, which is very useful in talking to girls. True confidence! If you've read so far, dear reader, that would mean that you are truly interested in my quest for some good-lovin' and connection, all while spanking the good-for-nothing self-critic that has been haunting my psyche for as long as I can remember! Well, it's time we put him under a spotlight, let's see how he likes that... Keep your eyes peeled, this is going to be one helluva ride.

Change is the biggest contradiction - it occurs even though it shouldn't. It does not make sense. How can it be? The mind cannot understand it. It is an infinite loop of creation and destruction. Every moment gives birth to the next moment, but any given moment cannot be a cause of itself, so another moment has to be created and the old discarded, dissolved. State of no-change, nirvana, cannot be attained, because there is no-one, no-essence, no-soul, anatta, to achieve it. It is the ultimate joke. How can something be true but false at the same time?

Sounds like a great slogan for some big company.

On another note, this reminds me of story about my friend. She once asked her meditation teacher on the nature of aniccha, the impermanence of things. This is what she asked: The teacher said he needs time to think about it. The next day, he answered this: Even though I do not completely resonate with his answer, it certainly is something to meditate upon.

This is is it. This is exactly the blaring contradiction that occurs. How the hell can this happen? How can nothing change when there's nothing to change? Funny you should mention maths, it was the philosophical error of infinite regress that made my mind go bonkers and arithmetic is one example of that error. And taking this principle to change... we get this bad boy. (here's a link to the article, it's a pretty interesting read https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/infinite-regress/)

Yeah, I struggle with this too. I'm too scared to approach a woman I find attractive directly, out of fear of rejection. It's easier to say 'eh, whatever, she's not that hot anyway' to myself but then that frustration builds up. It's not nice when it vents. I noticed a belief that says 'being open with you intentions is a sure way to rejection,' and 'you have to hide your attraction' so I try to be subtle when getting to know a girl. It rarely works and when it does, the connection is weak. The stronger the attraction, the stronger the fear. Is it really all about the mindset? Do I just have to get to know girls and be open with my intentions until my mind starts to understand that there is nothing to fear?

I went on a date recently. It went alright, considering I haven't been on a date in ages. We went to play some minigolf, which turned out to be a great idea. It was fun. We connected easily, as we both had plenty of travel stories to share. Eventually though, that connection sort of... fizzled out. The conversation didn't lead anywhere, or rather I tried to impress her a bit too much with my travel experiences rather than simply sharing them. Eventually, we went back to the Uni to chat some more, and I felt like we haven't been as engaged in the conversation as much as I'd hoped. Maybe that was the part of the problem. She kept eyeing passerby people. She even commented on a guy passing by. I kept talking about boring stuff. How many times has anybody heard the question 'Have you gone home for Christmas?' Either way, the date ended on a tasteless note. Still, I'm interested in her and would love to meet her again. It has been tough to form connections even since I returned to the UK. Have I changed, or have I let the cold surroundings affect my character? Maybe both. That's why I would like to give it another go, meet her again, and let the ice melt. I feel plenty of expectations within me. I will let them pass. I have talked to my Indonesian ex-girlfriend many times recently. We share a great connection, better than ever before. I feel glad about it, but I get the feeling I am dependent on her emotional availability. It seems there is an unconscious belief of 'she made me happy when she was my girlfriend'. This equals 'I cannot be happy by myself' I find it hard to consciously try to attract women without being desperate. Should I try again despite this fact? Is this the correct way? It's uncomfortable as I'm becoming aware of my desperation. If I'm becoming aware of it, then yes, it has to be the correct way. I'm making progress. I haven't done pick up for the past few days. Going on that date filled me with a strong feeling of validation. 'The fact you went on that date means you're pretty much sorted,' the mind says We all know that thoughts are not to be trusted. I haven't actually achieved anything by it. I haven't grown an inch by it. Actually, I feel less confident now than I did before I went on the date. Work, music production in my case, has been a great distraction away from my sexual desire. Actually, the only reason I started producing music was to give an outlet for my sexual energy. Through it I was able to reach deep 'flow' states - intense moments of concentration, where there are no thoughts or feelings of desire for intimacy. It proved to be easier to focus on music than it is to focus on sexuality. It is less scary, more predictable. It is nothing but another means of escape. But it cannot substitute it forever. There will come a time when I will have to face these fears of an unknown territory. If that time is not now, then when? It has to be now.

I finally understand. It's so damn simple! Yesterday, I posted this. Reading it over, it finally dawned over me. It's so simple! Life is literally suffering. Life is just embodied suffering! Life is suffering that gets transferred from one life to the other trying to finally heal itself. We are literally just the universe trying to liberate itself! No suffering, no life! No life, no observer. Without an observer there is nothing! Nothing! Where that suffering came from I have no clue, but that's all there is to really to it! It's just so, so simple.

Thanks for the useful tips Leo! i'll try to put them into practice this week. Especially the one with not drinking - for some reason, I always feel obliged to buy a drink in whatever club/bar I go to. The benefits are clear, you feel more confident, loose... the drawback is, you don't actually learn anything. The idea of saying whatever comes to my mind is fun! I'm pretty good at that at times, I can go off for tens of minutes calmly talking about the most absurd things. That is of course dependent on how anxious I feel at any given moment - if I care about what the other person thinks of me, I'm never able to do it genuinely. I got a bit disheartened this weekend honestly. I talked to my Indonesian ex-girlfriend at lengths about what I'm trying to do with pick-up and one thing became clear - there's a overarching theme of desperation when I try to go out to get girls and in the relationships I form here. She said 'You care about finding a girlfriend too much. Stop looking and it will happen.' I thought 'Well how is anything gonna happen if I don't look? I'll never take action. This is just girl's logic - stand around and wait for something to happen.' Well, turns out it's the one thing that prevents me from doing pick-up properly. I can still do pick-up. Just the intention will be different. I won't be out looking for a girlfriend or a girl to fuck. I'll just be out enjoying myself. Another thing I realised is that I'm pretty damn lonely. Southampton is a big city and the people are generally cold if I compare it to the other cities where I stayed for a longer time. Thus, at times I feel like I need to impress others for them to want to have anything to do with me. I've finished reading The Jungle Books yesterday and after reading the last story, where Mowgli returns to his mother, I felt it - I don't truly believe that I could be deserving of unconditional love. When I imagine myself in Mowgli shoes, I just feel angry and dejected. Like some sort of injustice was enacted on me. When I imagine somebody treating me with respect, love and kindness for no apparent reason, I feel angry and powerless. Typical nice-guy pattern, I know. It's the demons haunting me from childhood. It seems to me a bit out of place to be talking of these things when it's just pick up, and yet it's precisely these things that got uncovered as I try to do pick-up more and more. It also makes me want to give up, because now these uncovered complexes get connected with what I'm doing right now. I will NOT give up!!!

I mean, what do you think? I guess I do believe what you have written there - that life is one big struggle against suffering. I was largely basing this off Buddha's teaching, especially the words he said after attaining Buddhahood. Of course we could go for hours on trying to figure out what he meant by that. At the same time, I do believe that liberating yourself from craving will allow one to enjoy life without clinging to it. Also I should say that my opinions regarding this are largely based off what I heard in S. N. Goenka's lectures - those who sat a 10-day Vipassana course will know. It is difficult to break the beliefs I gained during those 10 days, as sometimes the ideas he presents in the lectures get tangled up with the direct experience gained during deep meditation.

Yeah, I get what you mean. It is very easy to see life as some sort of plague on the face of the earth. I know I'm guilty of believing that, and it reflects. The thing about it is that it's just theories that spiral out of control. They are do not have real basis on direct experience. The 'all life is suffering' theory I posted above is just a strange interpretation of what I experienced during meditation - that everything must pass, and then the brain just went to town with it!

Truth be told, I cannot answer these questions. I don't have the experience!

Day 3: One step forward, two steps backward I must have made a mistake somewhere. This morning, around 4am, when I returned from a club, I masturbated to porn while drunk as hell. Plenty of desire turned up and when I'm drink, my self-discipline is nowhere near to where it needs to be for me to be able to not react to it. Still, I managed to approach a group of girls yesterday. There was a girl in the group who I recognized from a local pub. She works there. I found her interesting ever since I saw her in the pub, so after dancing close to the group of girls in question, in some way or the other the group and I started talking. They were really friendly and I found out that the girl I was interested in wa there with her girlfriend. Eventually, music take me over though and I danced off into the night. I think I'm making progress in that regard - approaching women is not such a daunting task anymore. Now I need to improve myself on what to actually do and how to behave when I do. I also realised how much clothes change how others perceive you. Everybody knows this, I know it, but to directly experience this fact is interesting. I got into the club for free, simply because I was eager to get in (there were no more tickets) and put on a 13 pound outfit from Primark - just a white non-collared shirt and black trousers that both fit me perfectly. I don't know why, but the door lady just said 'Get in' and I was in! Suddenly many people I met during the night were much more keen to pay attention to me and generally react to me more positively. Maybe it's just a British thing. Anyway, I think I will stick to trying to meet more women during the day, as meeting them at nighttime is not exactly my cup of tea. I do not want to place myself in situations where drinking alcohol is abundant, as I used to have problems with that in the past, and it does real damage to my self-discipline. I mean, I masturbated, which is a big waste of energy. The thing is, I'm very, very good at building rapport. Many people tell me this. Attraction is where I stumble a lot, and I feel that during the nighttime you need to build more attraction than rapport to truly 'meet' and girl, get her to bed or just make a connection or whatever you want to do. With daytime being the opposite, you do not need to build that much attraction to create a connection. You won't get one-night stands for sure, but that's not really what I'm looking for at the moment, even though the idea of doing it sounds fun. So, with that being said, I'll try to recuperate from the masturbation over the weekend (it drains me to the bone and I feel it) and then see how I do next week. It will be interesting to observe how I do after masturbating. Will my energy be lower? Will I be less sexual, less confident, during approaches and day-to-day interactions? I think I know the answer to that, but still, direct experience is direct experience. It will also be interesting to observe how women will react to me when I put on some really snazzy clothes, even if it means I might look a bit out of place. It's worth a shot. Let's just take this whole pick-up thing as an experiment - and experiment of what I can do and what I'm capable of. I'd like to see where my limit is. I'd also like to see where the boundary is between the things I have control over and the things I don't. Hey, maybe I really am not-so attractive at this current point of time, in this current place! It's all demographics anyway. I was very attractive to women in Indonesia. I come back to Europe and BOOM, not so much anymore. What has changed? So I guess I just need to figure out the things that work and things that don't, and the only way to do that is trial and error!

Well, if I go down the path of what I written above, (of which I'm no longer so sure, after everyone's great input,) if I just went and offed myself, my stocked cravings would have to go somewhere. Reincarnation would occur. The cycle of suffering would repeat. Which is something I'd rather not do, as it's simply better to try to make the best of the life at this current moment. If I have the opportunity to try and liberate myself with effort, why not do it? But yeah, to be or not to be? That is the question.

Huh, some great replies here. Thanks everybody!

Day 2: The Valentine's Day Craze Whew, what a day. It was both a success and a failure. It just depends on how you look at it. Let's get started. The day started off pretty well. I woke up early, meditated for an hour (even though one half of that was just pure sleeping. Worth a try) and then started to get ready for a job interview I had later in the afternoon. I went to Primark, bought some clothes and had a great chat with the cashier on how she managed to get a Visa to stay in the UK. She's African, and told me not to worry about interviews - just go and have a 'chat' about it, just like she did when she went to the Visa interview, which obviously went well! It was interesting because it's unusual for me to strike up a conversation with cashiers or clerks. Before I spoke to her I had remembered that it's a great practice to talk with clerk, so I just casually shared that I'm buying clothes for a job interview. Before I knew it we were having a pleasant conversation. Did I ever meet her before? No. Did it matter? No. Was I gonna meet her again? Probably not, but it still didn't stop me from just having a nice conversation where I was completely relaxed. Anyway, fast forward a few hours, after the interview finished, I had pretty much only one thing in my mind - I want to talk to girls. The interview left me in a pretty restless state as I worked myself up because of it for some reason (there was no reason to do so, I had the job before I even went there,) so by the time I arrived to the Uni, where I decided to do game for the day, I was in a pretty unstable, though eager, state of mind. I saw some guys holding roses in the park and didn't think much of it, until I realised that it's Valentine's Day. Oh boy, if I'm going to to this today, it's gonna be something. I'd like to go to the core of what I'm trying to write right away. Writing seems harder and less concise than yesterday, but I digress. Basically after realising that I cannot do work at the studio (it was full of people,) I just sort of wandered around the campus like a headless chicken looking for girls to approach. Man, the fear! The fear consumed me whole and interestingly enough stayed no matter what girl I was trying to approach. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's go a bit back... I saw a pretty Asian girl sitting by herself in the campus cafe and decided to go and meet her, just like that. I like Asians. I went to her, sat down beside her and... did nothing. I started eating my flapjack and before I knew it, all the momentum I had built up just vanished and my mind was racing back and forth on what I should say. I have no idea for how long I've sat there, but I was just paralysed by worry and fear. It simply felt like I couldn't do it at that moment! Or rather, I was making myself believe I couldn't do it. Either way, eventually she actually fell asleep on the bench and sooner or later I gave up and quietly walked away like I never had the intention to talk to her in the first place. So, what happened? Let's summarise. Tomas (that's me) sees a girl he likes. He goes and sits beside her and wants to talk to her. When he sits down, she doesn't seem particulary interested, is wearing headphones, texting, but is visibly bored. Tomas sees this as a sign of disinterest to him and reacts in tandem with faked disinterest, hoping something will happen while eating his flapjack. Tomas thinks about what to say for moments on end. Minutes pass, flapjack gets eaten, girl falls asleep and Tomas gets completely disheartened. 'I let the fear beat me again,' he thinks. 'What a disgrace.' Tomas gets up and leaves in a bad mood. Does the girl know about any of this? Probably not. So, where's the problem? Well, that's obvious. He just wasn't sure whether it's gonna be alright or not. He wasn't sure of himself and felt like things should be different within him if he's ever going to succeed. He thought he should feel different, be different, be more confident, be more open, whatever. But not what he was at that moment. Anything but that! She wouldn't like that. Probably. He doesn't really know, but is definitely not gonna try, that would mean he could get rejected, or even worse, ignored!!! So he kept his mouth shut and didn't say 'Hey, I thought you were interesting and wanted to meet you,' which was what he wanted to say. He kept looking for the perfect time, perfect line, perfect opportunity that never came. He waited for so long that she fell asleep! He was so worried about the outcome and thought out every possibility of how the conversation could go and pretty much self-censored everything he wanted to say to her. And so, nothing happened. Or did it? Writing it in this way is pretty helpful already, but what I wanted to show myself this way was exactly this problem that has been haunting me for so long - this anxiety that tugs at my mind whenever I try to consciously approach a woman I like. It doesn't happen when I approach anyone else. Just attractive girls and guys (this is not limited to sexual attractiveness). I'm so bent on the outcome like it means the WORLD to me at that moment and it paralyses me INSTANTLY to the point I cannot do absolutely ANYTHING. Or at least that's the feeling that the ego imposes on the mind-body when it wants to assert itself. It's so afraid of the possibility that a desire could be satisfied like the devil is afraid of the cross. You are not worthy! That's what it says. You like that person and want to meet them? Well, why the hell would they want to meet you? By that time, Tomas is running away to hide in a corner, because facing that anxiety breeds seemingly more anxiety and doing that one thing that seems to be causing this anxiety is out of the question. What is actually happening is that in Tomas's mind, at the exact moment when a want, desire or need arises, a big neon sign flickers saying 'WANT = BAD!!!' flickers on and off. Tomas gets scared and runs away. It feels like doing that one thing is just gonna make him more anxious! So why would he do it? It's better not to do it, it's better not to feel this way, he doesn't want to feel this way. So he doesn't do it and the feeling eventually goes. Until he eventually sees another person he likes. What Tomas doesn't know is that his desire is not what's creating the anxiety. The desire is just uncovering it. The anxiety is already there. It's his reaction to this desire that makes him unable to say a thing and perpetuates it further. It's like the Pandora's box. Alright, summary again. From the top. 1. Desire turns up. 2. BIG BAD!!! 3. Tomas gets scared! 4. Tomas runs away. 5. Tomas feels safe, for now. 6. Go to step 1 and collect 2000$ worth of anxiety. Every single anxiety WILL pass! It must. Everything does. So every single anxiety that comes up should be answered with 'Do it anyway'. I don't feel sociable enough. Do it anyway. I don't think she'll like me. Do it anyway. I'm not in 'state.' Do it anyway She seems busy. Do it anyway (but please, use common sense.) I don't know what to say. Do it anyway Her hair is not brown enough (what does that even mean?) Do it anyway Eventually, all of these anxietes will be felt and will HAVE to dissolve. There's not other possible conclusion to this. They cannot stay after being addressed directly, no matter where they came from! The darkness cannot survive under direct light. Then, better beliefs can come to replace them. What makes me realise this is that just a few moments after, I decided to do a little experiment. Earlier that day, I received a small heart shaped badge with my Uni's logo on it. I remembered my acting days and decided, hey, let's do a little play. I'll try to be as cheesy as possible, be open with it and ask a girl, any girls, or girls, on how much would she/they rate me on the Level of Cheese. I just want to see their reaction. No expectations whatsoever. So after about five minutes of trying to trick my mind in to actually doing it, something just snapped and I approached the first group of girls I saw. It was some English girls. I stood there right in front of them, one sitting, one standing, and spoke. 'Hey, I need your attention right now. I'm going to show you the CHEESIEST opening line you have ever heard' I just started yelling like I was trying to sell them a new car. Not exactly how I planned it, but let's roll with it. One laughs and says 'Alright, spit it out then.' 'I just wanna... give you my heart.' I hand her the badge. 'That's all I wanted to do, just this.' 'Oh okay, take care then.' 'Alright.' As I leave, I hear loud laughing behind me. Did it bother me? Not at all. I was happy. I finally approached. I blew it completely and yet I didn't give one single damn about it. Until this moment I still do not care about what she might think of me, honestly I do not even remember her face that much. It might sound trivial, but for me this is just such a mind blowing thing. i mean, I ran away to the studio straight away (the studio is like a base camp for me,) told a friend about it and we had some great laughs together. 'No wonder you failed,' my friend says heartily. So, in a way, I failed HARD today. I failed miserably. So many beautiful girls just passed by me with me not doing anything at all. I let a girl I like fall asleep in my presence. I did the most awkward, cheesiest approach ever. And yet, it doesn't feel like that at all. Just the fact that I went to the campus to do this in the first place is the most unusual thing. Just the fact that I decided to go sit beside the girl was a success in a way. Just the fact that I tried approaching a girl with the most stupid line ever is a success in a way. Because before, I would never attempt to do these things and just leave it all to 'providence' or whatever I used to believe. All of these are BIG successes as what these apparent failures allowed me to do is to bring all these anxieties and unresolved emotional issues to light of consciousness. Somewhere, where they can be addressed, heard, healed and ultimately dissolved into nothing.

Yes definitely, it becomes second nature to do it. I had a conversation with a woman who was working in sales and marketing for ages and she said that she can be social anytime she wants, simply because of the sheer amount of raw practice she had.

Please stop paying attention to this troll and pay more attention to what has been written above. It really is about this and this only. 1. Reaction to desire is the cause of suffering. 2. Craving (aversion is but a negative subversion of craving) are the reactions to desire. All suffering can be traced to this moment. 3. Craving breeds more craving. 4. Craving is a reaction of the mind-body to pleasant or unpleasant sensations. 5. By changing the mind-body habit from reaction to non-reaction to these sensations as they appear from moment to moment, the generation of craving ceases. 6. By ceasing the generation of craving, old stocked up cravings saved in the mind-body will show themselves in the form of sensation. 7. By mantaining a state of non-reaction, the old stocked up cravings will dissolve. 8. When there is no more old stocked up cravings, liberation occurs. There is no craving to generate more craving, eliminating the root of suffering and ending the cycle or reincarnation in the process. If a mind-body passes with cravings in stock, those cravings have to go somewhere, so new life is created in order to bear them. That is reincarnation. Life is Suffering. Literally. It's just suffering being transferred from one life to the other trying to finally heal itself. That's Liberation

31 approaches in a day? Holy moly my man that is TONS and I wish I made that many approaches in a month... But yeah it really is just about making yourself more comfortable around people and 'energizing' yourself with social momentum. Do this by talking to people and then talking some more. After that, it will feel like a muse is literally throwing words into your mouth. Approaching becomes easy after that. Not any less scarier, but easier.

Day 1: Social Momentum Alright, here we go. I'm buzzing so much right now I'm struggling not to touch myself. I feel so much sexual charge withing me it's almost hard to contain it. I feel like I can lift mountains right now. Will change by tomorrow, but that seems to be how I'm feeling now. There is a clear reason for this - I talked to a lot of people today and met a couple of girls who were clearly into me! But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back in time first. I'll spare you the details, they're not important. What's important though is that I realised today that when it comes to social situations, including hitting on girls, it really is only about the state of mind you're in at that exact moment. (Finally I understand what PUAs mean by the word 'frame'.) Everything else will just sort of work out itself naturally. Here's a girl that you're interested in? Cool. You can say to her whatever the heck you want. If it's with the right 'frame', it's always gonna come out 'right', or at least you'll be cool about it if it doesn't. You just need to be conscious of two things - create attraction and then develop a connection. Attraction and Rapport. Feelings, then thoughts. It's so simple. Here's how I realised: I work for my uni as a student ambassador. Basically during open days and such I take people to where they need to be and help out with a myriad of tasks. It's a great job for one simple reason: I get to practice my social skills by having to approaching new people without expectations and practicing creating rapport with my fellow ambassadors. On top of that, I get paid for it! Dream job. Either way, there are times when I lock myself to the studio and not talk for days. My social skills drop down below bar quick when that happens. I noticed though that whenever I go and work as an ambassador, for the rest of the day after working, I feel incredibly social and comfortable around other people. I thought it was just a coincidence. I was Wrong, with a capital W. It was all about momentum. The more I talked to people, the easier it got, the smoother it got, the more pleasant it got. I got more opportunities to make friends, you name it. Just today I got an invitation to a party on Friday, met two pretty Greek girls who seemed very eager to meet me again (I'll be seeing them on the Friday party,) met a Slovakian girl after calling out her professor for naming Slovakia 'another generic Eastern-European country' (these posh people are ridiculous,) which created instant attraction and just moments afterwards she was almost throwing her phone at me so she can get my number. Being Czech helped, since straight away we started talking in our native language. Cool. Afterwards I noticed it felt really good being in my skin and frankly quite unusual to be so comfortable around others. Pretty much everybody who I talked to reacted positively to what I was saying, no matter what I was saying. Wait, that's not how it works! ...or at least that's what the minds was taught to think. Now I'm just wondering about all the possibilities of what I can do in such a state of mind. Talking to attractive girls is still a big hurdle for me to overcome, especially since talking to girls is only ever a problem when I know that I'm attracted. Expectations, perhaps. Either way, thinking back on my successes with women, it really was only when I was in this relaxed, but energetic, state. If I'm ever going to be consciously successful with women, it will be more about finding ways to put me into this state of mind rather than finding the correct words to say or whatever some people think it's about. If I can do that, success will come eventually, probably after a nice big fat chunk of awkward failures in which I try to gather enough momentum to swing me up into that state. After that, every interaction is a success in one way or another. It's framing. It makes sense now. Huh. What did I have to do to achieve this momentum? Well, not much. Just talk to people. Then talk to them some more. Speak up. Suddenly all these exciting opportunities started coming outta nowhere. The more you do it, the easier gets. The easier it gets, the more fun it gets. When it becomes fun, it becomes a game, and that's where all the magic happens. So, let's play!