flowboy

@Nadosa If you went to a psych with this, they would label you and medicate you. But they label and medicate anything that is out of the ordinary. The question is, does it help you to internalize the belief that something is wrong with you? Are you okay, or do you need help? If the answer to that is yes, do you want to go the spiritual route or the psychiatric route? Only you can answer these questions.

@ertopolice I don't know how old you are, but I sense a bit of a lack of social insight from your story. Could be lack of experience, but probably also due to lack of a good example to model yourself after. Girls learn how to be a woman from their mother. Without an emotionally intelligent and healthy mother, they are quite helpless to fall prey to toxic men, because they lack this imprint of healthy discernment. Of course, if you recognize yourself in this, you can definitely develop this, if you put conscious effort into it. A good way to start imprinting yourself with healthy dating behavior, is to collect a support circle of healthy women around you, so you can learn from each other, support each other, and talk about girl stuff. Start a "sister group" / women's circle. Make sure to find women who are lucky in dating, able to find and keep good relationships with healthy men. (not just have high standards - actually finding good men and keeping them!) You'll probably feel a bit uncomfortable with them because they are so unlike your toxic mother, but you have to push through this and befriend healthy people who you want to be like. You've probably heard the saying that you become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. I'm a bit worried that if you don't focus on this, you could have a string of disappointments just like this. I hope you don't take offence. Obviously I could be totally off.

Thank you. Objectifying others leads to objectifying oneself. @itachi uchiha See how you just reduced yourself to a number too? Does that make you feel great, powerful, valued? To define yourself as a "2 out of 10"?

Such a conscious man indeed...

Sounds like he has a superficial streak, maybe even a bit of narcissism. Anyone can make themselves look good on social media. You fell prey to good marketing. Good marketing does not mean good product. I hope I don't sound mean. It's happened many times to me, that I pictured and fantasized too much about someone before interacting with them, and was disappointed, or even that that fantasy made me too desperate and blinded me to discern properly. It's also possible that this guy is mostly alright (although I'm not a fan of his attitude about looks), but you approached him from this place of already having decided that he was perfect for you - this can rub people the wrong way. It can come across like you were trying to put him into the box that you needed him to fit into, for your fantasy to be true. People don't like to be put in boxes - they like it when you get to know them as a person, without preconceived notions. @ertopolice Do you have girl friends who have great taste in guys, and are able to attract the right ones? What kind of example did your mother set for you in that regard? My intuition says you could use some female guidance to model healthy female dating behavior after.

My advice is to judge guys by their behavior, in real interactions with them. Women usually don't get attracted when you go up and tell them how cool you are. This is for a good reason - anyone can say that. By extension, any loser can make a cool profile. Let him prove to you that he is really that great.

This is cool and I have some experience with self-inquiry and the relief that it brings, but should not be confused for a solution to emotional problems, like fears of abandonment et cetera. That would be spiritual bypassing, the phenomenon of people joining enlightenment cults who should be joining therapy sessions. In other words, your answer is a great answer to the question that was asked, but the question was not the right question to ask for the problem presented.

@meadow is a total nerd/expert about this stuff. If you're looking for a tool to periodically download these transactions into your sheet automatically, and run the calculations you want, look into Nordveld.

For an information product, you are paying for someone to put together and prioritize the right information to get you to your goal. This means you can always find the information yourself, and carve your own path. This can take longer, and also you could find a lot of information that is wrong or unhelpful, which delays you on your path or even sets you back. And so a course could potentially save you that time. The value is not in the information you need, but in the absence of information that you don't need. In other words, prioritization and curation Still, an extremely high quality, well-curated information product, be it a book or a course only has a success rate of 20%, at best. That 80% of people starting on a book or course, don't get the result they wanted from it, which can be ascribed to their lack of follow-through and discipline. So before buying an information product, it is wise to ask yourself: am I the type of person who has the patience and dedication to finish things for myself, in isolation? If you are, you can get good value from an information product, if it is high quality and the creator has experience successfully teaching others, as well as doing it himself. A coaching program is different from a pure information product, in the sense that there is live personal contact involved, either with a community of people learning the same thing at the same time, or directly one-on-one with the teacher or coach. (Perhaps certain information products are called coaching programs these days, even though there is no regular coaching involved, and you are just left to work through it on your own - be sure to know what you are getting) That highly improves success rate. Human contact, even if it's only a weekly check-in call, can make the difference between 20% of people succeeding, and 80-99% succeeding. Still, what matters is whether the teacher has experience successfully creating the promised results for himself and for others. And it helps to do research on that, such as check review videos and see if you find them believable. We simply are humans who learn best when the ingredient of human contact is present, be it a classroom, a weekly group call, a university with peers around, or one-on-one meetings with a teacher.

Careful not to conflate skepticism with lack of open-mindedness. Someone can be open-minded and still not convinced.

@Gabith Cool!

@Gabith Have you tried doing it while writing? You can just do this while writing instead of visualising, it certainly works better for me. The trick is to not think about your answers, just write the first thing that comes up and don't stop writing. Don't stop to worry whether it makes sense. This is how you channel your subconscious. Did this yesterday and worked pretty well, here's a simple example for you: Hope that helps!

You are confusing wants for needs. That is where you are stuck. A man who can authentically express his desire, is an attractive man. Actually the inability to express this makes you unattractive. Stop telling yourself that you can express this by looking at her a certain way, or listening to her. That's how women express attraction, not how men do it. Women expect you to be able to be direct. So increase your direct expression of your desires. (Of course, in situations where it's socially appropriate and doesn't cause her embarrassment) A man who needs a woman to give him sex, love, or approval, is an unattractive man. Neediness is like having bad breath, it's just a no-no. So you have to show up to the date, making her feel: "I am attracted to you, but I don't need you, and I need to know more about you to be sure that I actually want you." That means, wanting her physically is not the same as being ready to fall into her arms. (Don't fall into her arms anyway, better to let her fall into yours) You may be attracted to her body, but if you are truly not needy, you still are not convinced that she is the right woman for you until you know her better, and have screened her to know that she ticks all your boxes. What are your standards for a woman? If it's just "attractive and willing to have sex with me" you are too desperate. Take some time to contemplate what type of woman would be a healthy match for you, and practice interviewing her to find that out. You can tell her that you think she's hot, but you still need to know more about her, to be sure that you want her. This is the correct vibe to come from.

Although on a God level, I'd say this is an illusion, because Everything matters, I do understand the desire to do something that matters on a relative level too. Most successful artists have found a way to create a mission around their art, they want to change the way people think in a certain way, or inspire people to do X or Y, et cetera. Could be anything, from just making people feel good, to motivating people to make love not war, to motivating people to have more compassion for animals. Whatever is their jam. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Every artist you love has a mission around it that they believe in. That enables them to have the drive to continue in hard moments. You need to come up with something like that, if you want to get past this, and have your art feel more like a purpose. And then verify and convince yourself that it actually does that to people, that you're not just playing mind-games with yourself.

This tells me that you haven't gone deep enough on the source of your lack of self-love and approval. Self-love practices are good, but they are surface level. A temporary action to raise your vibration for today, but not always tomorrow. Like we discussed in DMs, if you want approval, there is deeper work you can do to go back to the root of that lack of self-approval, heal it, and your problem is solved. Your favorite shadow work method should be enough to get you there in most cases.

Actually, needing something from them is what is stopping you from being truly authentic and enjoying the dates. Wanting sex from them is not only okay, but without that there is no point in going on the date! Are you okay expressing your desire for a woman openly, or is there some shadow around that? Are you currently in a place where you can say: "I'm attracted to you" without flinching or making yourself uncomfortable, thus projecting an incongruent vibe? If you have a shadow around your desire, then the next step is to work through that by practicing honest expression. (Learn to say: "I think you're hot.", "I would fuck you", "I'm attracted to you" from a comfortable, detached place) If you actually have neediness, then your sense of being complete without her needs work, and is what is missing. The best way to do that is to create a life you love, that you think is awesome even without a woman. The quick and dirty way around it is to just have more dates on the calendar.

Your own name or some variation of it is usually a great name for a website - and available. You can always invest in building a brand and choosing a cool name for it later.

@Javfly33 Yes it does. But also it has sugar and dairy. I wouldn't recommend depending on something with sugar to be able to do work. (Although I definitely have in the past) Truth is it's probably still better than going back to chugging espresso's. But also I get that work is important, so again you have to think about whether you want to push through or quit another time.

@DManKee It could contribute indirectly to depression in two ways (that I know of, @Michael569 correct me if I'm wrong) The crash that you get half an hour after consuming it, causes anxiety and negative feelings and thoughts, because the brain is deprived of fuel. The repeated consumption of sugar causes damage in arteries and overnutrition of cells, which causes low grade inflammation, low grade inflammation causes chronic low mood, brain fog, lack of energy and depression. Eventually this leads to diabetes, auto-immune disease or heart disease. According to Aubrey Marcus: monk fruit and stevia are best. But to be honest, I never use any of that stuff because I don't miss sugar at all. Quitting cold turkey is 2-3 weeks of suck, and then your taste buds recalibrate and everything tastes sweet again, even though you don't eat sugar. Best to just take a deep breath and go through it, in my opinion. Your body will thank you, and you'll never miss it anyway once you're on the other side.

@Javfly33 Yes, I managed to code without coffee... but man, it took me a long time to believe that it was possible. People with more practical jobs don't get how much raw abstract thinking power is needed to do programming. And there's two types of programmers I found: those who have never gotten into coffee drinking, and those who drink it every day. I'm the third kind: I managed to stay quit and do my job again. Those are more rare I had to quit multiple times, and each time it was multiple weeks of pretending I knew what I was doing, until the brain came back online. It sucked, and I felt guilty and bad about myself. But I see these people just drink water and code away, so I knew it must be possible. You probably got at least 2 more weeks of this, depending on when you quit. I won't judge you if you go back to caffeine, I did many times. Also when I got a new job, I started again. Starting a new job may not be a great moment to have zero mental power. But keep in mind that there will never be a good time to get off it, because it takes 40 days to regain full function. So if you still want it, it's something that you have to pick a time for, and then commit to performing like shit for 3 weeks and being okay with that. That time might not be right now. Or maybe it is. It's up to you, a very personal choice, and there's no wrong answer. If anyone judges you, dare them to give up their precious tea, coffee, sugar, or cigarettes when starting a new job. Didn't think so Edit: hot chocolate (homemade with a lot of pure organic cacao powder) could be a good alternative to hold you over for a couple weeks, if you still want to go ahead. It still contains tiny amounts of caffeine, similar to decaf, but it doesn't give the jittery feeling and crash, because the active ingredient is mostly theobromine, and more importantly, it's by definition harder to make (heating up oat milk etc), and not available in every office / street corner, so less chance of escalating into an addiction. (I say that because drinking chocolate you can buy ready-made won't have enough cacao to have an effect on you, and probably has other ingredients that actually hurt your mental clarity)

satisfied ✅ I borrowed a bicycle and went on an adventure. I cycled along the river and just explored nature and looked at different buildings. Since the shadow work yesterday, I feel like a new person. This sense of weakness, of being a lost kid far away from home, has lifted. Now I'm just a man, having a good time exploring things on his own. In a sense my situation has always been my worst fear. Ending up alone, not knowing anyone, in the middle of nowhere, far from home. And going through that, I have really felt that for the past days. Buildings looked unfriendly, and everything looked like it wanted to tell me to go the fuck home where I belong. I took the same walk around the block every day, trying to suppress this sad feeling of being lost. Today, it's a lot different. As long as I'm here, I might as well explore the environment! And there is no sense of being an abandoned helpless kid, stopping me from doing that. I just feel like an adult, having some fun. There is a lot of energy being freed up. I felt really excited to get on the bike, to take a steep walk uphill through the woods. I stopped at a closed sports park which had a sheltered bench and a table I could use. Video called my buddy and we had a great conversation as I smoked my pipe. Ate a can of tuna, and I was on my way. I feel almost careful to enjoy this too much, because the anxiety and despair could be back tomorrow. It is still winter, after all. But I also feel just really proud of who I am, and what I'm doing. I'm living in this totally unfamiliar country, I hardly know anyone here. The only person close to here that I know well, I am currently not speaking to. And... I still feel great. If this doesn't stop me, what can? I feel invincible. easy✅ connected✅ Working on serene. Just came home from hike. Will take some time to warm my feet and then start cleaning.

Now what would be cool, is a documentary about coaching an actual homeless person to heal and build themselves up all the way towards creating and maintaining a million dollar business. Would take years, but I bet it can be done. Needs a multidisciplinary team of dedicated professionals. I feel inspired.

@Mosess You can try to become yet-another-meditation-teacher, which is hard. It's hard because: Your competition is: every meditation center and teacher out there Your customer base is: people who are already looking directly to learn meditation from a teacher. So that means that you will have to explain to everyone why you are better than Isha Yoga Center. Or you can think a step further and come up with a story to sell it in a unique way, to people who were not necessarily looking for a meditation teacher. Ask yourself: how did meditation help me? What was my life like before and after I started doing it? Then start telling people about that story. They will want those benefits for themselves. Now you are inspiring people to learn from you how to overcome the same obstacles that you went through, and get the result that you got. Even though they were not going to look for meditation as a solution, if you hadn't told them your story. This is what is called a Blue Ocean. You have little competition now, because you are not fishing in the same sea of seekers looking for enlightenment, together with the big guys like Sadhguru and TM. And if you profile yourself well, you get inquiries from people you have a lot in common with, which means you can actually help them better and make quicker progress with them, than some generalist meditation class would. Of course, this only works if you are willing to do more for them than just teach them a meditation technique. You have to be concerned with their particular situation and really want to help. Then meditation is just a tool in your toolbox.

@Lyubov I didn't always feel like this when I still had my dayjob, but I can tell you, some days I felt so, so guilty for not performing well. I knew I could do better, but I felt like I dropped the ball, taking too long breaks, watching videos instead of working at times. This guilt would build up and make it even harder to do the work properly, because I put more pressure on myself, and that caused anxiety. Yes, finding something you're more passionate about is probably the true solution, but here's a short term fix. What helpt me, was honesty. I bottled up all this guilt for not working as hard as I could. Until one day, my girlfriend advised me to just confess. I told my coworker: "I've actually been unfocused all day and not done much of anything. I feel guilty and ashamed" He responded with compassion and empathy, telling me performance is a cycle with ups and downs, and to take care of myself. Feeling lighter, I told my team lead. He accepted it too. My slate was clean. Here's how I think this applies to your situation: I think you can regain some energy by practicing some honesty with your clients. You gave an important clue: You can tell them. "I love helping people that are willing to work hard. That motivates me to put in even more effort for you. We are doing this together." And you can tell the others: "I notice that you haven't been willing to work as hard as I think you can. That makes me feel less motivated to help you. How we can turn this around, is if you actually give it your all. I know you can do better" Another way to make it more interesting to you, is to explore with them why they are not willing to work so hard, and then coach them a bit. I believe motivation is a natural state. You only have to find what is blocking someone, and remove that, and their natural motivation will come back.

I've worked in sales for some time. Products and companies that were kind of shitty, or somewhat okay but still not really caring about their customers that much. It's not about the tactics. Of course there are deceptive sales tactics, and if you find a company using those, naturally stay away. But every tactic, every sales conversation will feel shitty if you don't fully in your heart believe that you are really helping people with something awesome. If you want to get into sales and not have it ruin your soul, focus on finding a company you believe in, with a product you love. Be a customer and buy that product. See if you actually love it. If not, how can you sell it without being a hypocrite? Finding a company and a product you really love, will help you: Get a job with them. They want true ambassadors who believe in their products, because they know those make the best salespeople. Actually sell. You don't need tactics when you really believe in something. People will feel that from you.