nistake

@28 cm unbuffed Sounds good ? Formal meditation, maintaining mindfulness throughout the day and working on your material desires at the same time are the best way in my opinion.

They're not mutually exclusive. Enlightenment is not a huge event with fireworks and rainbows (afaik). It's basically seeing who and what you are really. Even if you get enlightened, you can have goals and material desires. Rupert Spira attends to football events, Sadghuru is a fan of motorbikes, Eckhart Tolle likes coffee and wine. I know these are small everyday things, but it shows that enlightenment doesn't mean abandoning practical life.

You don't have to be a victim, you can create the life you want (with strong work ethic, discipline and constant learning).

Good stuff! Keep 'em coming.

Yeah, a sort of roller coaster effect can be expected, especially if you're new to this. It's important that you just observe these up-and-downs dispassionately. It shall pass.

You mentioned taking showers, but cold or hot? Regular cold showers should be a great temporary solution. Take ice baths, if you dare. That'll cool ya down in no time I've tried ice baths twice. I could only last 2 minutes, but after those 2 minutes I felt like a whole new person (in a good way).

If you get triggered by the fact that somebody dismisses/criticizes psychedelics, it might worth taking a look why you react it that way. If the shoe fits. @Mada_ Holy shit dude

When do you think it's appropriate to speak up and when is it appropriate just let things go and not take anything personally? I'm not interested in theory, I'm interested in real life examples. If you have any personal stories, feel free to share. My story: A co-worker (who's above me in the company hierarchy) asked me when I'd be finished with the work he assigned it to me and he did it in a rude and inappropriate manner. He did it several times. The first few occasions made me a little bit angry, but I could let them go. After like the 4th time, I got fed up and I spoke up and defended myself. I raised my voice a little bit, so we had a short conflict. After a while, things cooled down and we managed to discuss the issue in a civil tone. Important thing to note: We don't have a beef with each other, he just kind of an impulsive person and he can't really control his emotions. I like to think that I defended myself rightly, but if I'm being honest, that was kind of an egoic reaction and it made me agitated quite a bit. Maybe I should've defended myself, but in a calmer way. It would've been more elegant. No idea.

If you get stuck on the surface level and you keep bringing up ordinary topics, then yeah, you can quickly become her gay friend. However, if you make your intention clear as soon as possible, that's gonna be the moment of truth. Polarizing is where it's at.

@OBEler That's okay man. You learned from it and that's what matters. Next time try again, but with a clear intention and when your overall mood is much better.

Tripping just to avoid negative feelings and thoughts may not be the best idea. No wonder you had such a bad trip. I'm not sure if that was your intention though.

After a few years of consciousness work, you slowly realize what's important for you, what you value, what kind of personality you have, what interets you and so on. Realizing these may not be enough, taking action is really important. It's basically a long process of trial and error. Also, it's never-ending and you always learn and grow. But in my opinion, you can get to a level where you're more or less stable and you're not operating out of social conditioning, possible childhood traumas and conditioned thought-patterns.

Yeah, that's spot on. If you want to win in these online competetive games, you really need to be dedicated and you basically need to spend all of your free time on gaming in order to improve. When you do get on a level where you're able to win the majority of the matches, you realize that you don't actually win anything and it's not fulfilling at all Quite the catch-22. You've got 2 options. Either quit gaming all together and look for another fulfilling hobbies or find other games that are not competetive and not designed to win at all costs.

Joe Rogan has some pretty heavy red aspects imo.

@Michael569 Initially that's a good strategy, but if one is not self-aware enough, it can quickly become a nice-guy pattern. I used to think the more I encourage the other person to talk, the more they like me which can become a huge-huge trap and it causes so much unnecessary suffering. Speaking from experience. Asking questions is great and active listening is also appreciated everywhere, but a conversation is supposed to be a 2-way street. Sometimes you just need to talk about yourself and do so in a confident manner, just like Leo says.

I'm a guy, but allow me to chime in. If the compliment is like "Hey, you have a nice ass, how about a date?", then it's obviously creepy for the majority of girls. I'm pretty sure there are guys who can pull this off sucessfully, but that's a small percentage of guys. However, if you say something along the lines of "Hey, you have a really nice dress, where did you buy it?" and you mean it (not just for the sake of pickup), you can easily initiate a conversation with girls and they wouldn't be offended. Granted, there'll be always girls who find you creepy no matter what you do, so you just deal with it and move on. Bottom line: If you're aware of social norms and you're polite but confident, you'll be just fine. Don't listen to random memes and social media.

I never thought about nudist beaches, but that actually sounds good.

How about hatha yoga? There are some asanas that require some serious energy.

Enlightenment won't fix your issues in your practical life. You still need to pay the bills, you still need to interact with people, you still need to take care of your family. But hey, why not going for both? Doing serious consciousness work while having a nice career and/or life purpose, having great relationships, having financial security, travelling, exploring different aspects of life and maybe having some fun in the process sound quite exciting to me. Even Ramana Maharshi suggested to his students not to quit their practical lives.

@Mulky If you reach that high state of consciousness, you probably will find much more enjoyment in the "real" world instead of sitting in front of a computer and spending hours watching a movie (not that there's anything wrong with that).

If you find a job/project that you like, then you can stay present without much effort. You can still get distracted but it's much easier to get back to the work. It's like you have a nice project and that's your object of meditation. Your focus is much better and it can induce flow states. However, if you don't like what you do, well, you can slip into unconsciousness quite easily. Daydreaming, distractions, fantasizing and so on.

This

- Self-awareness is huge. Try to maintain it during the day and try to catch yourself when you're about to be a nice guy. If you can do that, you'll have the chance to decide otherwise. Consciously decide that "okay, now I'm not gonna be a nice guy". Don't be rude for no reason though, you can do this politely. - Seek out discomfort on purpose. Cold showers, pickup, rejection therapy (look it up @ youtube). Nice guys usually fear about what other people think about them. These things will basically desensitize you if you're committed enough. - Journal and contemplate. Ask yourself questions regarding to the people pleasing mentality and try to answer them honestly. - Practise saying no. If you're in a situation when you think "ugh, I really don't want to do this", just say no without explaining yourself. Social situations would be a great place to start. It depends on the severity, but you won't be able to fix this issue overnight. This'll require conscious actions and daily practise. But when you manage to fix it, it's gonna be so worth it. You'll feel like a completely new person with a healthy amount of confidence and self-esteem.

I think it only works if you combine it with other lifestyle choices. Regular exercise, quitting porn completely, yoga, cold showers, etc and the most important of all: practise pickup if that's your goal is with nofap. Regular fapping is basically an instant hit and can quickly drain your motivation to take the necessary actions. Quitting it may propel you to do so. I've been practising nofap lately (along with the above mentioned things) and seen some great benefits so far.