flowboy

@Vivaldo The strategies I have applied with success, is to instantly start doing all the awesome things that you've dreamed of, but either your relationship didn't allow you, or you were too comfortable to challenge yourself. Make your life ten times more amazing than it's been in the past. You are responsible for how much you enjoy your life, and how good you feel about what you are doing with your life. No other specific person should have a big influence on that. If you are experiencing regret, practice forgiveness. Two good methods for that are Byron Katie's worksheet Leo's forgiveness exercise video If after that you still don't feel okay, then this breakup is showing you a problem that already existed during your relationship: you are not okay on your own. Work on being okay on your own. Not just okay, amazing!

Dear little Erik. I am sorry for internalizing all that shame and repressing you. I am sorry for being so harsh with you. I am sorry for not allowing you the mistakes you needed to make in order to learn. I will be very patient with you. I will be compassionate with you. I will be careful, delicate and patient with you. I will guide you to figure out how to express yourself in the way you want. And I will allow for all the mistakes necessary to learn. Even if no one around me will accept you. I will accept you. I know that you need that. And that it's completely okay. I accept you for all the misunderstandings, and creepy and unfortunate expressions you have gone through, and will have to go through in the future. You need space and allowance to learn at your own pace. I look forward to learning many more lessons with you. I will no longer expect you to have it figured out. I will no longer expect you to be perfect. I will allow you and guide you through all the lessons you need to learn. We will make many mistakes together, and we will laugh about them. I will hold your hand. I will never abandon you. I will be forever patient with you. All your expressions are okay with me. No matter how many external people reject or misunderstand us. I know it's part of our sacred journey. We will walk it together. I will never abandon you. Every expression is sacred and valuable. I accept every expression from you, no matter how distorted. No matter how misunderstood. No matter how externally rejected. It's you and me together now. And thank you. Thank you for guiding me to do this. Thank you for showing me your needs. Our needs. Our needs for full, authentic expression. Together we will walk this path. No matter how long and winding the road is. We will have each other. You will not be alone.

Facing it It's a hot flash. A hot, cramped sensation in my chest and head. Hands and throat also getting really hot. My vision becomes more narrow. My heart races. I want to turn away. Run away. I feel like I want to curl up in a ball and cry. I want to cry. I want to cry and lay on my back and ask WHY, WHY, WHY does this keep happening, why can't I be like that, why. I want the group to save me from my suffering. I feel envious and worthless. I feel very small. I feel a hot pressure on my heart. Talk to it Hello, hot cramped sensation in my chest. I respect how powerful you are. Why are you making it so hard for me? Making what so hard? Good question. Let me ask instead: what are you trying to tell me? I'm just sad. I know, I can feel that. I feel that sadness. That sense of what I want being unreachable. Because it's in another person than me. Why do you want to protect me from? From the bad, bad experiences we had going up to girls. From humiliation. From ostracization. From being exposed for being selfish. For being exposed for not understanding social rules. So why do you come to the surface when I see her with him? Because you could never be that. Because she's not for you. Because she's with him. Because he's got something that you don't. Because... Because you can never become someone else. So you can never have some interaction that you see other people have. Because it wouldn't be yours. Okay, I understand. Then why do you make me feel like I want to? Because this hot jealous flash you give me, it feels like to me you are saying something is wrong. Something is. What is wrong then? We don't have acceptance. We don't have the experience of being accepted for our natural playful expression. And he has. I understand. When did you first feel this? In the bathtub with D. In the classroom with Rawina. My physical impulses were not acceptable. And so I shut down and became your hot flash. Be it Your hot flash is me. It is your physical sexual expression that you had to surpress. I am in pain because I was unrequitted. I was not answered. I am joy. I am happiness. I am pure love and I am sexuality. And I had no place to go. That's why I am in pain. Every time someone said: "Don't do that", or laughed at me, or were shocked by me, or creeped out by me, I became more and more shut down. Until now, here, I am just watching from my glass tower, locked up, where no one really knows, while I have to watch other people expressing themselves freely. My sexuality was never okay in groups. It could never find a place. I am telling you I need a place. I need to be healthily integrated. I am so, so lonely. I am so frustrated. I am repressed. All I want is happiness, merging, pure joy, pure love. It hurts me that I creep anyone out. That I get disapproval. That I get locked up. I understand. I appreciate your intention. I understand that you want me to integrate you. Shall we call in the help of the older brother? Because we need healthy expression. And we were never taught that. Yes, please. Someone to guide me. I am pure life force. I need healthy expression. I need help and guidance. And I crave acceptance and reciprocity. I understand. That is really okay. I will create an environment for you where you are accepted. And I will get the help of the older brother to guide us towards healthy expression. Older brother archetypes, here we come. I summon thee. I need you.

Face My eyes are jumping all over the place. I find it impossibly difficult to hold eye contact. I don't feel like I am being authentic, no matter what I say. If I am saying something, I will be interrupted by this scanning sensation of looking within the group to see who approves of me, who likes me, what is my status. It's gotten so extreme these days that I know it's coming up to be healed. I always used to deal with this, and break through it by using tricks to get myself into a good state. And now I just feel... clamped. It's a sensation of melting. Of becoming very very little. Soft. Weak. Slimy. Shrinking. Shrinking and melting. I can break through it but it's so, so present. Sexual tension. But perhaps the sexual tension is only in my experience. Jumping, tense sensation around the forehead. Dull, brick-like blockage on the right side. The dull brickiness can only be filled by sexual validation. I'm constantly in a trauma response state. I barely have the energy to tell a story, or inquire into others, be interested in other people. The jumping around, gathering information about my status is draining my battery. It's getting so much energy and it's so obviously useless. And when I let it rest... I just feel weak and meek. Calm, but sexless. This is the same feeling that I got when I was at a highschool party and my crush was there. I couldn't talk normally to her. I melted in front of her. I felt shame, worthlessness, weakness. A hand holding me down. Clamped around my side, around my heart. Arms stiff and clumsy. Sight jumping around. Voice trembling. Acknowledge Hello, feeling of constant alertness of my social status and female appreciation. I see how powerful you are. You are making me feel tense, restless, weak, small, like a little boy. What are you here to teach me? That you are a little boy. Okay. What do you mean? You are little because you have been little. Because there is little of you that is even left of the man you were before you were born. Because there is no one to protect you. She won't respect you. She will drop you, she will ditch you, when she truly finds out about who and what you are. You are a DIFFERENT species. Don't forget that you are different and you can not pretend to be the same. And that means she will ditch you. Okay, I think I understand what you are saying. But why do you think she is different / I am different? She grew up happy with herself. She developed properly. Whereas You were not socialized properly and have giant holes in your self esteem. I understand that that is your perception. What are you protecting me from? Damage to the reputation. Outcast from the group. Total and utter humiliation. Having to call your parents crying because everybody hates you. Thank you for protecting me from being outcast. What happened to you? I was outcast. Everybody hated me. Because I tried things. Because I went for what I wanted, but those desires were not okay. THey all hated me! Integrate Thank you for protecting me from being outcast. I am actually really attracting so many loving and healthy people around us today, that you don't have to protect me from that anymore. I thank you, and now I really am okay with or without any group. I will always take care of you, and I will be always able to find new friends. I understand that you think we are a different species because we've had holes in us, we are carrying pain and holes in our development, but actually, so is she, and so is everyone. I want you to know that we will not be rejected, for having insecurities, for having holes and twists in our development, because she and everyone else does! Why do we pretend to be different when we are so much the same! There is no need to even bring this up as "my" problem, this is everyone's thing and it does not belong to me specifically. She's dealing with childhood pain. Neglect. That so called perfect childhood that you think makes someone more worthy, not only does not exist, but also does not make someone more worthy. Nobody had it perfect. Whatever happened to us, let them all see it. Let them all see it. Let them all see it. Let them all see it. Let them all see it. Let them all see it and touch it in the other one. Touch it in the other. This is what connects us. This is what we are here to do! I am giving myself permission to be foolish, to be awkward, to be socially inept. And laugh about it. And laugh about it. Thank you for this conversation, 16 year old Erik. I will come back to you and talk more with you. You can go do something you really like. You can go play drums and go on the computer and lose yourself in nerdy stuff. I will make sure that we can be relaxed and make social errors and laugh about them and not get ostracized. That's a thing of the past. We control our destiny now. I love you.

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I get that you are not doing this on purpose, but this is the behavior of a controlling and paranoid man. What strikes me here is that you don't trust her. Otherwise you wouldn't think that her loyalty depended on the situation. So the question is: do you not trust her because of her, or because you don't trust women in general? In other words: is the trust issue about her, or about you? You can not have a working relationship, let alone marriage, with this trust issue. So all your focus should be on getting to the bottom of this lack of trust. It could be from: Parents, friends, society or teachers giving you ideas about women not being trustworthy Personal insecurities relating to her having more experience sexually than you (blaming her for now having less value (less trustworthy) is more comfortable to the ego than facing that you actually feel insecure, so many people use this unconsciously as a cover) Whatever is at the bottom of this, whether it be toxic cultural conditioning or personal insecurities, it needs to be resolved fully before you can have a healthy relationship with any woman. So dig deep! Good luck?

@zunnyman The point of life is to have a human experience, and to face the most challenging aspects with as much love as we can. Go towards the fears that feel the most meaningful and insurmountable to you, and face them. Overpower those fears with love. Spread love in whatever you do. It's really hard, but that's the point. So do what you want and what you think is meaningful. And love the most difficult aspects of life. And confront your deepest fears.

@zenviolet First you need to resolve the hatred, self loathing and guilt. After that, doing positive things for yourself becomes easy and natural. If you feel zero motivation to do a new positive habit, it's because either: It's not authentic. You read it on a blog / book, and now you are using it to 'should' yourself, but it doesn't fit you and you need to choose an alternative practice that you actually like more, that accomplishes the same outcome. You are not motivated, even though you know it's really the right thing, because you don't feel a lot of love for yourself. Ever notice how loving someone make you want to take care of them? Well, same goes for loving yourself. Makes you want to take care of yourself. If you're not feeling self-love, you don't have motivation to do positive things for yourself, and "should"ing and forcing don't work long term.

@Value I can give you some references in DM, depending on where in Europe you are

I get it, that is true. What are your values? And the values you want her to have?

@actually What I usually do with clients is start with investigating your childhood conditioning, everything you remember from the past impacting you. Get writing, write out your entire story and every event that negatively or positively impacted you. This is a good start to dig some things up and refresh your mind. From there, I'd first try feeling into the feeling of wanting approval. How does it feel? When was the first time you felt this way? That will get you to the root of it. From there, fully feel the feelings connected to that memory. Then change the scene to 'save yourself' in that memory. In my experience when doing this myself and also when working with people, this creates a sense of sudden freedom, clarity, and now you can see and be who you would be without this past event. Need for approval is based in unworthiness. Unworthiness is based in childhood unmet needs or adolescent trauma. Children are born feeling worthy. Then shit happens. This is how you get back to your pure, worthy, confident, non-needy state. I really love this shit. It's amazing to see. When feeling this sense of needing approval again, you can do the 3-2-1 method by Ken Wilber. You can do it writing style. No need to have a person in mind, you can also directly talk to a feeling. Actually @flume made videos that will be helpful to you:

@Thought Art You're better off going to a yoga class and psychedelic festivals, so you can meet women to talk about qi-gong and other things with. There's also dating apps especially for people who identify as spiritual, one of them is meetmindful.com, check it out!

Beautiful ?

Might this person be you? What are you really asking? What is it you want? Productivity or sex? What is your goal and vision?

Effect. Phantom cause. Real cause. Your parents' influence on you doesn't stop when you move out of the house. It's still very much controlling you from your subconscious. That's where this weird feeling comes from that you can't quite pinpoint. It's hard to pinpoint because it's part of your shadow, it's coming from your subconscious. Releasing your childhood conditioning will resolve this. Shadow work is one way to do that.

@Jenkins Yes, here's a tip: be very careful You can't fix another person. You can only give them some feedback to make them aware of things they may not have been aware of before. But even that requires their willingness and participation, and your detachment. I sense that you are quite proud of your psychological development, so be extra careful to keep your awareness on their boundaries and what they are ready for and open to, rather than going too far because it just feels soo damn good to the ego (I know :)) If you want to still go ahead, watch this video I made exactly for this situation:

You haven't taken the full lesson. Once you learn the full lesson that a relationship is supposed to give you, all you feel is gratitude. Her breaking up with you was a sign that you need to work on something. Seeking approval from other girls is just another manifestation of that same thing you need to work on. Once you've worked through it, and you don't need approval anymore, you will just be grateful to your ex. And probably you won't want to be with her so much anymore, but you'll still appreciate and love her from a distance. So stop running, and face your shadows. This is not about getting over this woman. This is about whatever is in your shadow that causes you to seek approval. Why do you not feel enough? Or worthy? Really do the work on this. Shadow work, inner child work, et cetera. If you don't, life will just bring you more and more painful situations to make you face the same issue. So you might as well stop running, and buckle down, now.

@Anon212 You are too hung up on being respectful. The things I marked bold, you should not have done. Don't try to be a good boy to make up for the insecurity she caused in you by stopping you. Girls will stop you to test how you respond. If it makes you flustered and insecure, then you are too attached, and she feels unsafe and doesn't trust you. So how to respond when she stops you? Trick question. You stop her before she stops you. Two steps forward, one step back, sir. And you have to be the one setting the pace. (The fact that she says you "can hang out" means she jumped into the leading role, setting the pace, telling you the boundaries, because you lost your frame when you got insecure. Her setting the pace and the frame will only lead to friendship, because she can't be attracted to a man who can't lead her.) Long term solution: inspect the insecurity she triggered when she stopped you, and resolve it. Why did you think there was something wrong with what you were doing? In a sense, her stopping you can be fine, and you can still make the date work and escalate later, as long as you don't have insecurities that get triggered by it. When that leads you to mentally go: "You're right, what I was doing was wrong, you should have stopped me, I submit, whatever you want is fine". That is what she saw happen, which means she can easily make you insecure, which makes her lose attraction. So that's where the work is. There is no limitation, by the way. If she still wants to speak to you, and you are able to have a conversation with her and display total freedom, lightness and detachment from outcome, and also be honest about the insecurity that got triggered and show that you're self-honest about it, without getting down on yourself, you can have another date with her tomorrow and maybe even sleep with her. It all depends on your state of mind and ability to be honest and let go.

Develop yourself spiritually and do shadow work until they stop showing up in your life.

I quite like the website @peanutspathtotruth . It has beautiful graphics and is still minimalistic. Here's what I would change: The yellow on purple text. It's hard to read and reminds me of 90s websites. Looks unprofessional to me. I would change it to dark purple on white or something like that. The text boxes on the contact form need to be white, not purple. The logo at the top is too pixelated, it needs anti-aliasing. Congratulations on finding your purpose and taking action on it! I wish you lots of luck ?

A good cry does clarify things. My mustache is full of snot. I've been walking around with that. Maybe I should shave. I still love her. Shopping for food, I wish I was shopping for her. I still have a deep desire to take care of her. I don't think that's going away. And what is also true, is that for me to feel like I can be my full self, integrated, self-reliant, actualized, I need a relationship to be way different from how it was. And we may or may not be able to meet each other there.

Ever since the break, I've just been thinking I was mostly fine. I'm fine! This is fine. Really, really fine. Maybe there is a slight irritation towards Maria. A bit of ugh. But mostly fine, and I'm doing really well! Today, that bullshit lifted. I notice that the slight irritation was just a lot of anger. Anger that I covered up, because it didn't seem fair. Because I don't want to be so angry with her just for who she is. And now that I can see the anger, I can also see the love. I'm just crying inconsolably. I've never loved anyone as intensely as this. How could we get to this awful place then? We have to face it that we may just have incompatible desires at this moment. Or incompatible conditioning. But it still doesn't make sense to me. I thought that a love so intense could conquer all obstacles. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm feeling the pain of our dream together dying. That's what I'm grieving most. Our dream together. And I immediately want to rationalize and say: "Oh, but we can get together again in a new way, make a new dream, blah blah blah" Maybe. Maybe not. It seems that if we were both a couple years ahead in our journey, we'd match perfectly. And we can't make each other skip that time. Or something like that. So now there is the fear of loss. And the desire to control. I've never loved anyone like I loved her. And I still feel that. I still have perfect access to that feeling of being in love with her. I just didn't love what our relationship became, with living together and having a busy stressful life.