flowboy

What pain would I feel if I had no mess to project it on? It occurs to me that I'm living with the perpetual feeling of "something's not done, not finished, not cleaned up, not ready" Sometimes I let clutter build up in my apartment for a few days and take a sick pleasure in that. Sometimes I let it build up in my email. Or in not trimming my beard on time. And then on a conscious level, I dread the task of catching up, cleaning up, finishing. But do I really? At certain times during a Primal therapy treatment, the therapist would actually tell the patient to push through and get their life together... just to reveal their pain. They would get a job, get out of a toxic relationship, move to a place they liked better. And afterwards, feel the same feelings with no place to project it on. So it would be much clearer that they were from the past. I love to hate that things in my life are unfinished... overflowing email account, clothes need to be decluttered but I never get to it. What would be revealed if I did all of that? What feeling would I have left over, with nothing more to blame it on? Do I feel unfinished? Was I induced? I should find out.

What time do you go to the gym? Going to the gym within 4 hours before sleeping can disrupt sleep. Also: any nightmares?

Sounds like she's just trying to meet new people and build a social circle. Doesn't sound like a date to me, but I hope you have a good time anyway and report back!

I feel like I'm on the brink of a breakthrough insight. I've been contemplating what true therapy is, and how it relates to manifestation and magic. What some people call shadow work, is just changing your beliefs and feelings in the present so that your life becomes better. As within, so without. Examples of magic: Existential Kink Affirmations Manifestation Magic Sex Magick Sedona method The Work Gratitude journaling Prayer All of these work with the 3rd line, and limiting beliefs and neurotic struggles are removed to enable a smooth manifestation of what one wants in the present. They work with the subconscious as well - they penetrate into the unconscious beliefs and attitudes and change them. That causes someone to behave and perceive in a way that is more conducive to getting what they want. That does not mean that they penetrate the 2nd line. There is repression and gating on all levels, so there are subconscious 3rd line beliefs, attitudes and desires. In the 3rd line unconscious, the symbolizing on situations, objects, relationship and people also lives. This can be rewired with a practice like EK, so that someone stops their self-destructive behavior. But where does the repressed 2nd and 1st line Pain go? Nowhere. Some forms of shadow work do touch it a bit - if it includes an old-feeling inquiry or the pain of parts - then a tiny bit of grief can be felt, which is relieving but not curative, because it doesn't include full first-person conscious reliving, and if there is the symbol of the "inner child" in the mix, then the psyche is still fragmented. I hypothesize that the fragmentation keeps the true Pain at a safe distance while allowing the 3rd line to be improved and rewired. The 3-2-1 method involves first person perspective, so depending on how far one takes that, it could constitute a "symbolic reliving" or a "fragmented reliving" as Stone calls it, which according to him is curative. And then some variants also add a bit of unreality - forgiveness, recontextualisation, "changing the scene" into the mix. This is condemned as dangerous folly by Janov, Jenson and also Miller - creating a groove from real unfelt Pain into unreality, thereby cutting off a pathway to healing. The inner child can not be given what it needed then, now. Neither can the inner baby. Trying to rewire a traumatic birth memory into a good one, as rebirthers have tried to do, just forces that high valence Pain to find another way out, perhaps seizures, perhaps migraines, perhaps colitis, while damaging someone's connection and pathway to let it out. I've worked with people whose 2nd line memories are polluted with "helper" figures - older selves, older brothers, saviours that weren't really there - it makes it almost impossible to focus on the original scene. They think they are done with it, but they have just created more neurosis, more unreality. I hypothesize that hypnosis and EMDR work in similar ways. Reinforcing the disconnection between the memory and the Pain. Which probably does remove a certain triggering pathway, but the pain has to find another way out eventually. I recall my friend who was driven to suicide after receiving EMDR therapy relating to her traumatic childhood. Before EMDR, she was a functioning neurotic. She was restless, unsuccessful in relationships, suffering with the consequences of attachment trauma, the source of lots of drama when she was triggered, and constantly seeking something she never seemed to find - or even be able to recognize when it was right in front of her. But she was stable, reasonably happy, had found friends that loved her and accepted her for her quirkiness, and she had found a purpose. She was a happy-go-lucky free spirit, always able to manifest something she wanted to create, always had people ready to help. Alternative healing methods like rebirthing had helped her a lot, and she was now helping other people with it. Then she decided: perhaps I'm missing out by not doing any mainstream therapy. And signed up for doctor-sanctioned EMDR sessions. Within months, she was paranoid and suicidally depressed. The last thing I ever heard from her were hostile messages containing paranoid ideas about how I had tried to ruin her life in different ways. I was not the only one she pushed away. She committed suicide within a few months of starting that therapy. Back then, I didn't know what to think - isn't EMDR supposed to relieve trauma? Now, what I guess happened, is that some high-valence painful memories were brought up to "process", EMDR was used to disconnect the Pain from the memory, and then the part of the pain that was not consciously processed, had to find another way out. One of those ways can be paranoid or psychotic ideas, as Janov teaches. An effect of traumatic birth Pain - which I know she had - not finding its way to consciousness but overwhelming the psyche, is a hopeless, death feeling being projected onto current reality. That's how people come to believe that there is no way out but suicide. There is a reason that EMDR is not recommended for early trauma, but rather for individual incidents later in life. I believe that the therapist has misapplied her method. I also believe that the "rebirthing" my friend had done some years earlier, might have done some damage to her ability to process the birth pain, by attempting to install a "new, better" birth memory, which can not be done. This could have contributed to her sudden episode of darkness. But I digress. Magic and manifestation are effective techniques to help someone develop the attitudes and perceptions that most efficiently get them what they want in the present. It does that by removing the unhelpful attitudes and perceptions, and neurotic symbolizations. These unhelpful attitudes, perceptions and symbolizations can however be important clues to find and heal the cause of someone's neurosis. I'm not sure what happens if you magic them all away - but I suspect their root cause doesn't just disappear. Perhaps other neurotic attitudes and symbolization just keep popping up indefinitely - like playing Whack-a-Mole. Perhaps this is why people say that shadow work is never done. It is a misunderstanding of the difference between magic and healing. The brain rebalances itself constantly, it maintains homeostasis. Unfelt old feelings of being unwanted create unhelpful attitudes and beliefs. Feeling those unfelt feelings removes the need for those unhelpful attitudes and beliefs, and people do start to improve their lives without the help of magic and manifestation. They develop healthier attitudes, slowly, but they last. Using magic and faith is faster at creating healthy attitudes, which can also create fast results in someone's life. But it must be continuously practiced. Or regularly refreshed. This is why people get addicted to their religion, why faith must be regularly practiced. For some. This has also been my experience with affirmations. I use affirmations, I get what I want... for a while. Then my mind creates new reasons for why I can't get what I want this time. Homeostasis. It's actually quite obvious. People have negative thoughts, and then they remind themselves - or each other - to have Faith. And it works for a while - as long as they can hold on to that faith, their life improves. As long as someone can maintain the thought "I am loved", their relationships go better. This is why people gratitude journal every day and keep doing it. They have to. A daily dose of healthy 3rd line. If they stop, their mind reverts back to rumination and thoughts of worthlessness, nobody wants me, et cetera. Because their traumatic pain is still there, untouched. Regression therapy diminishes that, and people drop their unhelpful beliefs slowly, but permanently. I would say that even CBT can be categorized as magic - if we define magic as getting a daily dose of healthy 3rd line in order to make short term improvements in life. Okay, now I am satisfied with my contemplation.

@Tyler Robinson As are you!

It's winter now, I believe it's normal to have your hair thicker in the summer than in other seasons. It's also normal to lose up to 100 hairs a day (I've read somewhere), they just regrow. If you're still convinced that you are losing an abnormal amount of hair, then keep reading. Getting a thorough blood panel including hormones would be the first thing I'd look at. And then have that result printout checked by someone like @Michael569 or any expert you trust, maybe some biohacking person or female hormone balance specialist, just to get a good read whether something's out of whack or not. Your GP's opinion is not enough, they tend to be too busy and nonspecialized to pick up on subtleties. If something's out of whack with your hormones, then you need to figure out whether it's nutritional or psychosomatic. Here's the order in which I would troubleshoot it: removing sources of stress in your life, removing toxins from your diet and skincare products, see if you are using any hair care products or shampoos that you didn't use before and could contain toxins, quitting smoking etc, getting your blood checked for the level of hormones, vitamins, minerals and other stuff that's supposed to be there, talk to nutrition experts and hormone experts and get their take on your blood panel, try supplementation or diet changes, See if it's a side effect of medication that you are taking maybe try artifical hormone supplementation if that's something you're willing to do, otherwise look at regression therapy or Primal therapy to restore your natural state. I assume that you are in your 20s or maybe 30s and don't have a disease, so you should not be balding or having your hair permanently become thin. If you are suffering from emotional stress, your hormones will be out of whack. If you have a certain level of unprocessed early childhood trauma or birth trauma, your hormones can be out of whack by default. If your mother was stressed when she carried you in the womb, your body can get an imprint from that which can cause an unnatural hormonal setpoint, or an unnatural level of stress that the body takes over as a setpoint for homeostasis. That can sometimes be restored with Primal therapy, but it can take some years and is a big time investment. So check the easy stuff first.

Pretty much exactly matches my experience. And I have been diagnosed with ADD when I was 19. The apathy towards people and the addictiveness eventually made me say: no thank you, I'll find other ways. I've spent years of my life finding different things to optimize to minimize symptoms: diet, supplements, meditation, habits, tricks to structure, et cetera. I've coached others on that stuff, with good result. Currently, I'm doing research on how aspects of ADD can be permanently improved, without the continued use of medication or the aforementioned bag of tricks. I've found some things that are working for me, but it took a lot of digging and reading between the lines of not very well known books. Building tons of good habits that minimize the symptoms is no longer interesting to me. I'm interested in what's curative, and none of the therapies that will be recommended by the current medical system are that. Some forms of therapy that exist, but wouldn't typically be recommended for ADD, do seem to have permanent effects. I need to experiment on myself more before I'm comfortable making recommendations publicly. @KazmanTo answer the question: make a careful consideration about taking the medication. If you need it to save your career or marriage, it can be a good idea. But be aware that if you have a hint of an addictive personality, you'll have problems with this one. Due to the disconnecting nature of the medication, it's easy to slip into a habit of taking it and working a lot, because it just feels good, meanwhile becoming distant to your partner and children and slowly ruining personal relationships while being unwilling to see it. That certainly happened to me; I restarted taking the meds when I was 24 and turned into a workaholic with problems in my relationship. My ability to feel suffered. Here's what I mean by disconnecting: The impulses that make for some of the symptoms of ADD (impulse to switch tasks, impulse to react to a feeling of boredom and distract oneself, impulse to change directions during a conversation or project, making it unstructured and unfinished), are impulses that originate in the emotional body or in the visceral body. You can verify this by 'catching' these impulses and noticing an underlying anxiety or negative emotion (feeling) or strong sense of discomfort (visceral) The medication that exists for ADD helps you to cut the interference from the feeling brain and the visceral brain, so that your conscious, thinking, task driven brain has all the space to calmly do what it needs. And that feels great. Until your relationship, either with friends, family or partner, demands that you tap into your feelings. Then, you may run into problems, because you need access to your feelings to connect deeply with people, have true empathy and closeness, etc. Not everyone runs into this issue, I hypothesize that the people who get away with it are probably keeping their doses really low, and/or they have partners that are sufficiently neurotic and in their head that they don't notice the drop in connectedness. The above points are based on my own literature research combined with introspection. See also:

Lately means that you didn't have this problem before. So: your life has become more stressful. What changed?

@Brent Rothwell Acting tough like you're always in control, if it doesn't match how you feel inside, is incongruent and women won't feel safe with you or trust you if you do that. Don't do that. Don't do any acting. There's a difference between: expressing your emotions with the implicit ask for her to listen and help you feel better acting unconsciously out of your emotions (being emotionally reactive, blaming/accusing etc), and: being aware of what you are feeling and talking about it with her, without putting the burden on her to make you feel better, without being unconsciously controlled by your emotions You can do some of nr 1, in my relationship we do that for each other, but it's best to make sure that it is with permission. Either implicitly or explicitly, you should have established that she has the space and energy to listen to you. If you overdo it, or are unconscious about it and demand more of this type of attention than she is willing to give, you get a dynamic where you are the needy one and the other will feel burdened and pushed away. It's possible that there is a true incompatibility, where one partner wants to have lots of listening and caretaking of each other's emotions, and the other doesn't want so much of that in a relationship. It's a personal preference that is not right or wrong, but it needs to match. If it doesn't match, a change is needed where one person either gets a therapist or sees their friends more, or the couple seeks counselling, or they break up. You should avoid nr. 2 when you can, because it's the cause for drama, but also beware that you can't always avoid it. The amount of this that you can't avoid, should roughly match hers, because it's a measurement of your level of maturity. It's pretty standard for people in relationships to have a certain level/frequency of drama that they are comfortable at. If you are incorrectly matched there, you won't be together long. And when it happens, introspect and learn from it together. Nr. 3 you can do lots of, and your girl will love it. Unless she's not interested in who you are, which would make it a superficial relationship. To sum up: Consciousness: practice to be aware of and take responsibility for what is going on inside you, so you can talk about it instead of act from it. Permission: if you have a need to be listened to or for someone to make you feel better about something you're feeling, that involves the other person expending energy and you taking it. It can be a good thing, but only if both people are up for it. Don't over-demand or unconsciously take, or you'll push someone away. Responsibility: who is holding space for the feelings being discussed? If you are holding space for your own feelings, you can tell her about them casually without it taking energy from her, in fact that will be attractive and positive to her. If you have a need to be made to feel better, then she is expending energy to hold space for your feelings. Learn to sense the differenc.

It's not a date in her mind. She mentioned her boyfriend after agreeing to meet you, so that can mean two things: She has some integrity and expects to just have a friendly hangout with you. Any attempt at intimacy will cross her boundaries. She doesn't have integrity and is not calling it a date in her mind, but she might cheat on her relationship anyway. Bad situation to be in. If you have integrity and still think she's worth pursuing, you'll friendzone her on the date, proactively turn it into a friendly hangout, and if there is sexual tension you set a boundary that she end her relationship before you go there.

Since I put up www.erikjongbloed.com in 2019 and officially started what I would today call childhood-aware life purpose coaching, several people from this community have also opted to work with me, and I thought it'd be nice to collect some of those experiences in a topic that others can read if they are curious about what I do.

@Butters These kinds of compulsions tend to, at their root, be stronger than any strategy. Yes you can discipline yourself to not spend a lot of money, but then the compulsion will morph into something else, another way to rebel, make exceptions, find that freedom. Could become anything from just a ton of body tension, or more unhealthy food exceptions, to creating more drama in your relationship, to migraines. Not to dismiss practical strategies, they can work, and if you have a practical need for this change, you should practice discipline, but the core impulse of it won't go away like that and find another outlet. Maybe a more innocent one, or maybe one that you will have less conscious awareness of and is therefore more sneaky. The reason is that they are rooted in a part of the brain that is deeper and more powerful than thinking, awake consciousness (the symbolizing cortex). It could be unprocessed feelings from childhood, or it could be unprocessed pain from infanthood. Usually a combination. You'll probably assume at first that you don't have a significant amount of that, and you'll be wrong, but it could not be any other way. It's by definition unconscious material. What I would recommend is to yes, patch the leak with discipline and strategies, but also work on the long term solution, which is to diminish the compulsion by letting out the energy that drives it. A good way to do this, is to use the compulsion as a way in. In your case this would be: Find moments where you are about to spend a lot of money compulsively Don't do it, deny yourself any relief (can be hard to do in the beginning, but be patient) When you successfully held back the compulsion, lie down somewhere and inspect how you feel The discomfort can be identified as a body feeling, and upon further inspection, an emotion too Then ask: is it familiar? With practice, your subconscious will hand you some past painful scenarios While lying down, go over those scenarios and feel the pain of them. If done properly, it's really scary and feels like you might die, but you won't. This is how you cure it without it then morphing into something else. Takes a few months of practice though, during which your compulsions will diminish and you'll get more sense of wholeness as a person.

I spoke to someone from a mastermind I was in, he talked about his experience with him, I tracked him down. So, by word of mouth.

@max duewel Definitely getting coached is recommendable. If you don't get coached, then you have an internal conflict when convincing others to get coached. Also, pay an amount for it that is painful. If you cheap out, you'll attract clients that cheap out on you. I paid my coach 2k a month for a good while.

@Simple Success Beautiful! Nice to see someone who finished the LP course with a real-world plan, not just abstract ideas. If you're indeed good at consistency, you'll make this work. Could go fast, could take a couple years (finding your voice and audience), but who cares. Here's a painful lesson I learnt that could be useful to you: don't start on multiple platforms, pick one way to generate leads/followers that you like doing and stick to it. Only add another one when you can pay someone to do it for you. I had a period where I panicked and started to post on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, and more, and I burnt myself out quickly with very little to show for it. There is just no way to do all of those things well, each platform has its own way of structuring things that works, and consistency is the name of the game. A good YouTube short is not the same as a good Instagram post, etc. Focus wins, even if it seems to take a bit more time. Also, you don't even have to start digitally. I'm sure there's lots of people in your city that want to get ripped. Offline marketing still works, and sometimes it pays to do the opposite of what the crowd is doing.

@Loving Radiance Lovely. If more clarity follows, I'll be curious to read it.

Psychosis is repressed early trauma bubbling up to the surface without proper integration. Psychedelics can cause this because they mess with the repressive system, sometimes permanently opening gates that used to shield someone from their unconscious pain. This 'fear of absolute truth' you mention, is actually right, but it includes the absolute truth of how someone was abused, neglected or came close to death as a baby. It's only human and normal to have a deathly fear of that. There's no way not to. Blowing up the repressive system with tons of psychedelics is not a wise way of going about it for everyone.

Hi @Loving Radiance I re-read your post a couple times and let it sit for a few days. Here's some stuff we have in common: I also studied biotech, but not as long as you I quit because I couldn't see myself working in a lab under fluorescent lights I sustained myself with programming, though I have much more of a passion for it than you I also did a bunch of stage green & neotantra retreats I also shifted my interest to psychology and the human mind I 'wasted' much more of my twenties than you, until I was 27 my life was mostly being in survival mode, unsuccessful attempts at personal development and starting businesses, being unconscious and held back by ADHD and childhood trauma, then at 27 I slowly started taking action towards something purposeful, still taking many detours trying to figure it out without burning out. Sometimes I regret the wasted time, but I can also see how it couldn't have gone any other way, given my history, conditioning and environment. And I had fun and made friends on the way. I also love personal development and community, and am working on combining those into a project I'm proud of I also have done (and still do) coaching Here's what's on my mind after reading your posts: There's perhaps a contradiction/conflict with your beliefs and your strengths So those are qualities that loosely relate to therapy, leadership and coaching. But then you say: So you liked coaching, but not when everyone is doing it? What you want to do should not depend on what other people are doing. You can, will inevitably, find a way that is unique to you, if you do something long enough with passion and curiosity. I'm not saying you should start coaching again. Everyone and their dog is a coach now, I know. I'm just inviting you to check if you have the same bias that I have: a neurotic need to be unique and different. This has become a trap for me, as I tend to turn away from things as soon as I perceive other people doing similar things, and it doesn't satisfy my need to be unique and different anymore. Now, doing things in your own unique way is mostly a good thing because it leads to innovation, but for me there is also a dark side to it: I tend to be so distrustful or dismissive towards anything that comes with an established group of people, that I miss opportunities to learn from others. I relate this back to my childhood: I never belonged, I never fit in, not in the main crowd at least. Because of that, I now have an unconscious fear that if what I do isn't "alternative" and different enough, "they" will not accept and hurt me. This is something I have to keep in check. Maybe it doesn't apply to you, ignore this part in that case. Regardless, don't be a coach if you don't want to, unless it's really what makes you happy. Those strengths you named can be applied in many other ways too. You have the life purpose course, but you didn't complete it. Why? One thing I usually advise clients with similar questions, is to make small bets. Leo's course also emphasizes the importance of small bets, trying things out to see how they feel. If you want to get out of theorizing and find your path, you will have to make lots of small bets. A small bet only counts if you honestly believe it has the potential to become your "thing". A small bet is often scary and requires some courage. A small bet often requires acting in the face of the fear of looking stupid. Learning programming even though you already know you don't like it, doesn't count as a small bet. That's not to say to not do it, I'm making a different point. Learning something else you're not particularly interested in, in order to provide for yourself, seems like a step sideways: you're already in the process of learning something you're not particularly interested in, but offers job opportunities. Why exchange one for the other? I don't know anyone who actually works 2 hours a day at a programming job and can sustain themselves that way. Maybe that is the domain of the freelancers who delegate everything, I do know someone like that, but that takes a longer time to build up, because you need to understand it well enough to do quality control, and also build up a network of clients. If you already feel uninterested in the topic, and neither IT nor business excites you, that will be an uphill battle. I'm not saying don't do it, I am saying that you are probably looking at it through rose colored glasses because you're craving a change. There are no real wrong decisions in this context. If you have the tenacity to keep trying things out and developing yourself, you'll find your path one way or the other. It's hard to maintain a grounded sense of direction and know who you truly are, if you haven't worked through childhood trauma enough. What 'enough' is, differs from person to person, but you'll know you're there when you feel grounded and clear about your direction. How's your relationship with your father? Lack of direction usually has to do with the father. Either he's too opinionated on what his child should do, therefore the child can either try to neurotically please the father and abandon its own wants, or defy the father and be on its own too soon, because it had to defy him, resulting in excessive self doubt and lack of direction. Or it's the other way around, which is how it was for me: he's not involved and supportive enough, he's fine with anything his child chooses to do, he's sure it will work out some way or another, but doesn't really have enough input to give, to provide strong support and let the child internalize that sense of strong support, which is a more covert form of emotional neglect, also resulting in a sense of lack of direction. Great! But, abstract. Now from that, there can be thousands of iterations of concrete ways to actualize this. Why don't you brainstorm a list of concrete ways, and figure out some small bets? Stick to things that can be executed immediately, where you are, with the time you have, with the resources you already have access to. That's where I used to trip up, I liked to keep it abstract or at least include some element that wasn't available yet, be it time or connections or resources. It's a procrastination. I'm sure you have the resources right in front of you to actualize this, if you're willing to see them.

True. Well-balanced viewpoint. I infer that you're doing well, I'm happy about it!

Another thing I found helpful is to set boundaries, for what behavior (cuddling/kissing/partying with others) is okay with you. And where you set the boundary, is where you can still be your best self. So if she's doing something that is currently too much for you to handle, and you'll be all insecure and anxious all the time, that's not good, and you can ask her not to do that so that you can be reasonably chill. Being anxious and in drama all the time is just not good for a relationship. I know, because I'm currently still exploring my boundaries with that. All of that is not to say that you can forbid her to do things. It's up to her to accept that or not. Maybe there's an incompatibility there, where she wants to be free and party and doesn't want to be patient with you. Maybe she does. Find out.

@Ampresus I empathize. I've had times where I felt so lonely/alone that I chased every girl away with it. I vividly remember how a girl I was sleeping with who was really into me, instantly stopped responding to me when I begged her to come over because I felt alone. Pickup will be an uphill battle from this state, and won't solve that feeling either. I discovered later that my lonely feeling was part due to repressed pain from my childhood. Never fitting in, getting bullied, getting left alone with people who scared me, stuff like that. I worked on that (and still do at times) using shadow work and also worked with a professional trauma therapist, Primal therapy works best for me. Also, I started exploring myself, new interests I hadn't dared go into, took acting classes, improv classes, public speaking, tantra workshops, and I gathered a solid tribe from all of those things. Having good deep friendships helps a lot. Then you have a life that a girl would want to be part of. To summarize: Lasting, debilitating negative emotional states rarely only have to do with the present situation, there's usually resonance with the past that is an opportunity for healing and lightening the load I found shadow work and different forms of emotional healing work helpful, and also finding my tribe through pursuing new interests was helpful. My life was more complete and it was easier to not depend on a girl for emotional well-being, which made me a more attractive choice and I knew it. I still did sporadic approaches and online dating. There's nothing wrong with it. Some girls would just really like me and date me or sleep with me even though they could see I wasn't "complete" within myself. And that was nice. But making my own life more fun and complete, with passions and friendships, made all of that a lot easier.

Women don't need videos on how to get laid. They need videos on how to recognize and find actual husband material and keep him.

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A loser is a loser until they heal their trauma and come to see it in a different way. Shadow work will help. Trauma healing therapy too. I’m still working on it as well.