flowboy

@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.

@Kross TL;DR: If people are interrupting you, there is probably an error in where you put your attention when speaking. First thing you do is investigate whether this is a problem with the other person, with you, or a combination. Hint: it's usually a combination. If you are having interactions with multiple people who tend to cut you off, it's worth doing an internal investigation. Do you feel worthy? Do you feel like what you have to say is valuable? Then, if you have your mindset handled, it's time to bring it across. See my video above: speak with intensity, and keep focus on the value that you are transmitting. Thanks for the mention, @flume. A good visualisation to do, is to imagine energy streaming from your root chakra, through your heart, into your hands, where it forms a ball of energy. This ball of energy represents the value that you are providing by speaking. And by keeping your attention on transmitting that value to the other person, you make that energy stronger, drawing other people in so that everyone wants to pay attention. That is different from getting in your head, and pulling a list of bullet points from your mind. This is boring, and will make people lose attention and want to interrupt you. While you are speaking, you should also at all times have some awareness on the listener, and on the fact that you are helping them by saying this. If that service aspect is missing, you are speaking selfishly and people feel this. When someone talks over you, just keep speaking. Look them in the eye and check if they are still following along with you. If they look confused or distracted, you might address it directly, and check in with a question: are you following me here? If that all fails, you may just be dealing with a person who doesn't have basic listening skills, or doesn't really want to hear what you have to say. So then you have to address this. Address the situation, not the person. Good: "Are you sure you want to hear this? Because your behavior of interrupting me, tells me otherwise. We don't have to keep talking. It's fine with me." Bad: "Shut up, I'm talking and you're disrespectful."

Same topic as what I wrote the previous post on.

How to give advice to friends https://www.erikjongbloed.com/blog/how-to-give-advice-to-friends Just had a conversation where I noticed something: someone shared their struggles with me, and I hesitated with my response. In the past, I'd probably have looked for things in the story to fix, and come up with some really helpful and insightful comment to help her along. But recently, I don't do that anymore. Not without being asked. I simply let her know that I get it, and all of that is okay. Then I was reminded of conversations with one of my best friends, A. He would share an open loop, something that was coming up for him, a relevant struggle at the moment. I would respond with helpful insight and advice. And he'd be slightly ticked off, and say: "Well I didn't really ask for advice..." I would be slightly uncomfortable, because I had all this advice bottled up, could barely hold it in, and also I didn't know how else to respond! Someone shares something that feels like a problem, it's uncomfortable! So I would try to get the conversation back to a state where I was comfortable, the state that feels like everything is fine, or going to be fine. We've had moments like this in our conversations throughout the years. And all the while, every time I talked with him about things I was going through, I would feel so great after those conversations! So heard, so listened to, so empowered. And I couldn't figure out how he did that. Until quite recently, where I finally made the connection. There is a disempowering nature to giving advice that someone did not ask for. The underlying message is: "You are not equipped to figure this out on your own. You need me to tell you what to do. Because clearly, you are helpless." This is gratifying to the ego of the advice giver. And it solves another problem: the advice giver doesn't have to sit in the discomfort of what someone shares. It's very rare that someone has the wisdom to sit in the confusion, sadness, or anxiety, together with someone. So that they don't feel alone going through it. But they also are still empowered to resolve the situation using their own insights, when they are ready. Here's two questions I like to use when someone tells me what they are working through, and I feel like I could give advice. 1. Are they really stuck, or are they just in the middle of figuring it out? If you talked the situation through with them just by asking questions and being curious and understanding, would they naturally get through it? If yes, they probably don't need you to tell them what to do. 2. Have they made their own decision that they want someone else's advice? To confirm that, you can ask: would you like my input? Just them saying: "Yes, please!" empowers them to solve their own problems as an adult. Because they still were the ones making the decision to ask for help. This is how subtle the distinction is, between an empowered adult asking for help, and someone assuming the role of a helpless child. You probably know people like this. In fact, this may be most of the people you know, who exhibit the pattern of the helpless child. It's probably also you. Don't feel bad. It's me too, sometimes. We so often teach what we most need to learn. An adult who is assuming the helpless child role, will talk about their problems to a friend, with the specific hope that they will step in and tell them what to do. This role is disempowered, because there is no decision involved. Even though they may really appreciate the unsolicited advice that they were hoping to get, it will leave them dependent on others to make decisions for them. What's worse, if they do end up trying what you said to try, and it doesn't work out for them, they may easily slip into victim mindset where they blame you. Because they never made the conscious decision to get advice, they didn't assume responsibility for implementing the advice. Conclusion: if you give someone advice without them asking, you are helping to perpetuate their helplessness. But this is easily fixed by guiding them to consciously decide whether they want your help or not. I'm going to end this with sharing an open loop with you. Do you feel the urge to give me unsolicited advice? Notice that urge I've celebrated New Year's Eve alone. Which is okay, but it is a bit boring. I'm in the country I moved to in order to be with my girlfriend, but we're apart right now. I'd like to see my friends, but they are all in another country, so it's not that easy. Also, I really could use a couple day's break from work. Uncomfortable, right? Wouldn't you just love to tell me what to do?

I really like this video.

There's a lot to unpack there. To begin, from the start you are describing the behavior of your peers in elementary school as sexually inappropriate. I looked it up, and elementary school is supposedly for age 5 until 11. Those are kids. You were a kid. Both you and them at this age are too young to be held to adult standards of what is sexually appropriate. I don't know what traumatic events exactly happened, and I don't mean to make light of that at all. I wouldn't be surprised if there are very painful memories to unpack there as well. Moments where you felt deeply hurt, and perhaps couldn't talk about it freely without being judged. But the first clue for me is this harsh judgment: sexual impropriety. Is this the same judgment you put on yourself, when having fantasies? That they are inappropriate? Because that could explain the "I hate myself" thoughts. Then: what explains the judgments? In most people, judgments about sexuality come from upbringing. How did your parents handle educating you about sexuality? Where did all this judgment start, and where was it exacerbated?

@B222 Yes, but you can let it happen without consciously trying to. Being present with trial and error is enough to sharpen your intuition and gut sense. You can learn really fast without ever thinking about it. Just by being present with a relaxed mind, and acting intuitively. This way it's always authentic. Of course, that requires that you forgive yourself really quickly for apparent 'mistakes'. The sooner you forgive and accept, the sooner you are back to the present moment.

@Yidaki I do take it seriously, at the same time I know that this is knowledge filtered through a human, making it an imperfect representation. Now here's an actual scientist with a very interesting talk where he speculates on how DMT could make us see into other dimensions. I enjoyed it a lot, absolutely fascinating.

Still, this is modifying the behavior in order to get results. That's a needy attitude. If you are being exactly the amount of aggressive that you want to be, then you did nothing wrong. If she passes on that, then it's just not a good match. That's authenticity. Can't be authentic and not willing to wreck it.

Very cool development

@Gabith What you're doing is already awesome, so keep it up I'd say. What effects do you notice from this practice? One way to improve the effect, could be to upgrade your "parenting" style to do more deep listening. In these conversations, I'm seeing a lot of moments where your inner child says it's feeling bad, and then your response is to quickly make it feel better by saying nice things to it. That might be a bit hasty. It doesn't give his pain enough space to exist and be validated. It doesn't satisfy deeply because it doesn't honor the validity of its experience. It doesn't make him feel heard, rather subtly gaslighted. Also, it looks a bit like you are comforting him with an agenda. You want to make him to feel okay so that he doesn't bother you with his pain, instead of just for his sake. (is this a parenting style you recognize from your own parents?) Examples: My take on the situation here is that although today that you are talking to the inner child, and you are hugging him and being nice, he is still burdened by past memories where he needed some form of love, protection or reassurance and didn't get it. You telling him that everything is fine now, whilst he doesn't feel like it because he is still burdened, creates mild trust issues. In order to go deeper, try to refrain from saying things to make him feel better now, and instead go with him into those memories he is burdened by, and make him feel better in those specific scenes. So you are actually letting him take you through bad memories and feeling the pain for him, and only after you have taken over and felt all the pain for him, then you work with him to change the scene to a comforting one. Don't force him to feel better. Hope that makes sense. This is the same basic approach that is used in schema therapy. But there's no reason you can't use it to heal yourself. Good luck! You're doing great.

This resonates so hard. I'm resonating off my fucking chair here.

She hates my work vibe, I can't relate to her in my work vibe. I love my work vibe. I don't like her work vibe either. We should only be in vacation mode together. That's when we worked the best. I didn't even have to move here for that. Oh, the irony.

Sometimes I think we would be best served by seeing each other only occasionally, and taking one or even multiple weeks in between to contemplate and work on boundary issues that came up for both of us (we both have them), and do our own stuff and spend time with our own friends.

Okay, today I really miss her. I needed a long, long period of cooling off from all the patterns and craziness that infected us. Now, it's starting to feel a bit too long. Maybe she'll come spend a couple hours with me on Sunday. Maybe not. So many conflicting thoughts. I'm doing great, for all intents and purposes. I'm spending almost all of my time on work for clients or for my job. I feel inspired and like the world is mine to conquer. My work is having a real, positive impact on people, and that just makes me want to do it more. Help 30 times as many people in the same way. 100 times as many. Suddenly I understand what people mean by the desire to have an impact. That never spoke to me before. But now that I get what it feels like, to really do something valuable that has a positive impact on real people, I just want to do it more and more and more. I don't want limitations and demands to be put on my time right now. One recurring theme when we were living together, was that I wanted to be free to work all day, every day, six days a week if I wanted to. I am building up a business, and in the starting phase, it can get really hectic and so this level of hard work can be required. And it does get me stressed, and tired, and I love it. It makes me feel like I'm living my life right. I have an important cause I work for, it feels purposeful, and I want to give it my all. I don't want to hold back. I don't want to compromise. I don't want to be restricted in any way. This is my time to explode my value that I give to the world. I feel endlessly creative, endlessly energetic. And that has not felt like it was okay for her. I'd usually be met with guilt and fights when I planned to continue to do some work in the evening. I just never figured out whether she wanted that to be okay for her, or whether she really wanted a boyfriend with a different lifestyle. She doesn't like to see me work. I have a very masculine work vibe where I put pressure on myself to get shit done, I stress about not getting enough shit done, and I am constantly confronted with my limits, causing pain and disappointment. And I love it. I know how she works, too. It's really effortless, relaxed, and completely dependent on inspiration. It's the feminine way to work, and you could argue that it's healthier because less stress is involved, but when I imagine myself working in that way, I feel like throwing up. (Some issues with my mother popping up there) I want it to be hard. I want to push myself. It makes me happy. I'm meeting my edge. I'm pushing the boundaries every day. This is what I always was supposed to do. Since I've been living by myself, my motivation has exploded. I don't procrastinate in the mornings anymore. I'm not that hard on myself either. My life is just about one thing, it's going great, and I feel strong and inspired. But oh God, I miss her though. I miss the way being with her calms me down, balances me out. I miss her wise and thoughtful words. I miss admiring her endless creativity. I actually miss the vibe we had when hiking on our first date. When she'd let me teach her things, and I let her inspire me. I had this really heavy feeling today. Something is dying or being neglected. I don't think we're done. But I also don't feel like going back to living together anytime soon.

@Karmadhi The one who plays the competition game, loses. If you perceive others as competing with you, 2 things could be going on: The guy is actively trying to dominate and compete with you. This is easy to disarm if you're able to not get sucked in to that game yourself, but instead call him out on it. If he's trying something, that means he needs something. And that means there's a weakness you can expose. If he's actively trying to dominate and compete, he'll probably make a bunch of social errors, chimp behaviour that you can make fun of him for. For example you can pretend to admire him and get him to brag about himself, making him look unattractive and needy. Or if you feel like he's being physically dominant or vocally dominant, you can make a mockery of that in the same way, by pretending to admire it and seducing him to show off a bit, thereby he becomes the clown. ("You should be my body guard", "Omg you're so bulky we should totally arm wrestle", variations of that) Make sure to quickly turn attention back on the girl. You should be mostly ignoring the guy all together and just maintain eye contact with the girl, and only if he's rudely interrupting, should you employ a disarming tactic and quickly go back to ignoring. Basically framing yourself as a cool, socially intelligent person, and the other guy as a pathetic clown who is trying to show off his chimp score. He's not actively trying to do anything, but you are feeling intimidated anyway. This is an inner game issue. Something is stopping you from shining your true greatness, because you have the illusion that this person has something you don't have. Shadow work could be a way to move through that. A simple 3-2-1 process could reveal a golden shadow. Finding this quality that you are jealous of or intimidated by, in yourself, and discovering how you had it all along. All in all, if your attention is on the competition, you lose. As long as you are able to keep attention on the interaction between you and the woman, and ignore all else, you are winning.

@Noahsteelers34 You seem to be burdening yourself with thoughts about how much you need to daily practice this and that. That's a future-related burden. It creates extra anxiety and stress. Come back to the present. Want to be a person who starts conversations with people and takes initiative? Great, you can be that today. Assuming the identity of "someone who starts conversations spontaneously and takes social initiative", or however you would phrase it in a way that makes sense to you, is all you need to do. From there, just take it day by day. Decide to be that person. Feel the resistance against that. That is the seed of ego backlash, telling you: "Hey dude, you didn't use to be like this. Look at all these past memories of not being like this!" Letting go of that past and starting fresh today, is all you need to do. Every day anew.

@Anders Saether The thought of the guards is just a manifestation of a conditioned belief that you are doing something bad. This is exactly what you are here to overcome. If you didn't have the belief on some level that you approaching people can be wrong, you would never have had problems meeting women, and you wouldn't even be here learning about pickup, because you'd have been doing it naturally. So this is just a manifestation of the root of the issue you're working through anyways. Getting some positive feedback can definitely help. Keep going until 5 women tell you "I'm so glad you approached me that day". You won't care what the guards think, after you internalise that.