flowboy

@NightHawkBuzz I suffered from this pattern. I'd pick up working out every morning, quit smoking, then after a few months, I would have a backslide. Here's how you transform it: you flip the story that you tell yourself about it. Instead of calling the unwanted behavior a backslide, and saying to yourself: "Whatever I do, I end up here again", for example: "No matter how many times I pick up running and quit smoking, I always end up smoking and not working out again", Flip it. When you catch yourself in the old behavior, go back to the new behavior and say: "No matter how many times I do this behavior, I always end up in this new place! It's true, the evidence is here. Guess that's who I am now". Example: "No matter how many times I try smoking again, I always end up working out and being clean from smoking. It's clear, and I can see it, because I am back there again now. Look where I am. Apparently, I can't help but eventually slide back into healthy habits" It's all about where you lay the emotional accent. Where you put the emotional accent, no matter whether it's positive or negative, is where you gravitate towards. That means that smoking one cigarette and saying: "OH CRAP, I'm back here again! How terrible of me", is an emotional accent, that is going to steer you in the direction of smoking more. Putting on your running shoes and saying: "OH CRAP, I'm running again! Can't avoid this apparently" would steer you in the healthy direction using a negative emotional accent. But you can also do it with a positive accent: "Phew, see, there I am, being healthy again! So happy that I always end up back here". Just don't put accents where you don't want to go. Be indifferent there. Try it, it's really powerlful.

Yes, VPN. I don't need it to access the site, but it's always on on some devices I use.

I'm so sorry to tell you this, but the comedic muscle develops only with the correct pressures of a social environment. Other people around you. You are asking: can I please train my biceps for months and months before going to a gym and picking up a weight? Humour is a social virtue. It's a social lubricant. It allows other people to relax, feel more at ease, get insights about themselves, feel more connected, decrease stress, release the pressure of awkward situations, and more. Comedians will also tell you that it's impossible to develop their craft without going in front of an audience. No matter how many fancy joke-writing exercises they do. The only test that counts is other people. Did they laugh, or not. That's how you learn. In my opinion, there is little value doing all these exercises by yourself, and a lot of value in practice. Why do you want to be funny?

Lessons of today: I can take all the brain supplements I want: if I actually need a nap, they don't do shit I tend to get exhausted and leave unprocessed notes on my desk after a meeting. Leaving the cleanup for later is quite deadly because it creates overwhelm. I need to get back my habit of leaving things clean and finished. I can always, ALWAYS get into a state of flow / access concentration, however foggy I feel.

No he's not. And by now you're annoying him with questions. How do you feel when guys ask you question after question, but never take any initiative or tell you what they want?

@somegirl If he's anything like me, he's not interested in talking endlessly online just for the sake of talking. He may have no idea that you are interested in him for dating potential. Guys perceive asking questions as requests for information, not as signs of interest. In short: this is too subtle of a signal, just suggest having a coffee together and he may say yes. You said you wanted to put yourself out there. Well, this is not putting yourself out there, this is asking questions. Suggesting the date is putting yourself out there. Do it you might get what you want. This is better than being direct. Also: "So when are you going to show me around X?" "So can you teach me to Y sometime?" Anything where he is in the lead, and he can set the time and place and be the man about it. But you still have to suggest it, because so many guys are slow to catch up to your intentions. And if you think he looks hot, just say he looks hot in that picture. That also communicates intent. Probably do both those things. Let him know you think he's attractive, and indirectly suggest a meeting. Then if he doesn't step up, forget it.

I would start there, too. He pretty much nailed it. There could be value in adapting his teachings to a young audience.

@Lyubov Beautiful!

Thank you, that's good to hear. Indeed... there's not much to criticize my parents on honestly, they are the nicest people. Just with blindspots and unresolved stuff. Just like most people in their early thirties. That's the most trippy part! As long as I can remember, I have believed that I was naturally distrusting of authorities and groups and mainstream anything. But now some clues are appearing that could be pointed to as causes.

Am I in lack of money because I eat so much food, or do I eat so much food to confirm and maintain my lack of money? Did my metabolism adapt to my beliefs? Everything is on the table now.

Did an integration exercise after doing shrooms with my girlfriend. My entire identity with all its quirks are being deconstructed. Why do I never trust the mainstream option, and have to compulsively be different? It makes sense given in my childhood and highschool years, I was never accepted into a group. But I tried liking mainstream things in order to be accepted. It not only did not work, it got me more disliked and mocked. Why did I have this need to mention in every conversation the sexual experiences that I've had? Why did I keep a list of names for so long, and feel in competition with my friends? Even though I was the only one who was competing? Because I had a friend at 13 who would brag about his sex life every day and say that we were worthless losers for being virgins. Every day. And we looked up to this guy. So I learnt: having sex = winning at life. Not having sex = losing. And that's the paradigm through which part of I still sees the world. Great career? Fulfilling family life? Meaningful life purpose? hmpf. Yes but are they slaying pussy? Otherwise: losers. No wonder I quit university, because I figured this career path of being a scientist or inventor would get in the way of getting laid, which would still make me a loser! Why did I put chicks up before the open windows while fucking them? So that random people on the street could see that I really was not a loser. Why did I have sex in front of my friends? Why do I not mind at all, and even like it, when details about my sex life get mentioned to people I don't know? So that my 14 year old friend knows that I have a sex life now, and I can get his validation. As a 16 year old, the guys in the class watched HIMYM and did Barney Stinson quotes a lot. As usual, none of them liked me or wanted to hang out with me, but I thought maybe if I understood that show, I could talk to them. I watched that show, and I perceived Barney to be the only winner. I took what Barney Stinson said as gospel. I soaked it up in my identity, integrated it. It planted the seed for the attachment to sexual prowess goals later. In the show, he is depicted as a bit of a comical fool, a caricature of someone with superficial values, adopted after trauma, that don't make him happy. But I did not see the 'not happy' part. Nor did I see the clown aspect of his character. I just perceived him as the only cool guy who had it right, and the other characters as losers, with their stupid 'families' and 'children' and 'settling down'. Makes sense, if you completely devalue human connection and intimacy. Which I did, because the world rejected and stomped out all my requests for it. I'm currently learning/becoming more aware that being deeply intimate in a relationship feels totally different from being shallowly intimate in a one night stand. And that it makes me happy, content, feel safe, and gives meaning. Which totally does not fit in the world view of my hurt 16 year old self. Oh my god. Isn't marriage even stupid anymore? We watched a wedding video yesterday and I cried my eyes out. It was beautiful. What the hell man. Everything I believed in order to survive, is now wrong? The "get laid or be a loser" meme then connected to my dad's remarks about me / us having "weak genes" and "would never survive in the wild / in a tribe", people like us could not be dominant/successful. Which tied in with my experience of being misunderstood, mocked, shunned, bullied and beaten everywhere I went, and whatever I tried. No wonder there's still a haze between me and the concept of meaningful work, and the only vision I could clearly feel strong motivation for, was all about sex and money. Summary of what my hurt inner child said: The exercise we did was: we lied in bed, me in her arms. She embodied a motherly, unconditionally loving figure. (Not my own mother) I embodied my 3 year old me, my 5 year old me, all the way to 17, and at each stage I got to ask questions I never got to ask. She reimprinted me with loving and accepting responses and reassuring me that in the future, I would get everything that I was lacking now. It was very nice. It's too early to tell what the effect truly was. Also very insightful to find out how strong that pain was, the "I can't survive and no one is helping me. I'm being beaten and my parents don't care about defending me / helping me defend myself". I suppose this has to cook for awhile, and then I'll be a different person Don't even know who anymore, man... This is so trippy

Side note: You are describing two different chakras, Anahata and Svadisthana. I think you'll agree when you look up their description. Let me give you some feedback on what you shared. Good. Don't Only if you judge yourself. And that's okay. Let yourself be not into it / less aroused. Stop thinking you 'should' be into it. How does this thought come to be? Is it expectations that you feel from your girlfriend? If you want to take the masculine role, lead from where you're at. Any attempt to manipulate your own state, or judgment of yourself, will feel not just awkward but vaguely unsafe to her, if she's in her feminine. So it's your task now to get better at stating where you are at, and what you want. Keep in mind that any feeling and state you want, will hit you spontaneously, and stronger than you could ever fake or 'manipulate yourself into'. As soon as you let go of blocking out what is, and be open to moving through all the states that are presented to you, as needed. All the while sharing and taking your partner along for the ride. Example: You are in your love and caring state. Polarity feels sort of neutral. Meanwhile, your girlfriend is ready for sex. Instead of judging yourself for being in the wrong state (cheat code: you are never in the wrong state), you say: "Come here. I don't feel so sexual right now, but I do feel very emotionally intimate." Phrase it however you want, as long as you express it. You then invite her to cuddle, and you go on to express your loving and caring state, by saying loving and caring things to each other and looking in each other's eyes. Give full expression to your state, and you'll move on to the next. If different emotional states present themselves, go along with those too. (I've had it where I had to cry for awhile first, some blockage had to be released). Before long, you'll have a rock hard boner and feel masculine like never before.

In other news: my friend David offered me a cigarette, and without great effort, I did not take it. Nor did I keep thinking about it all night. I was in doubt over it, sure, but it didn't seem worth it. I guess that recent LSD trip where my girlfriend was standing over my death bed as I died of lung cancer, really did its work?

@Raphael @dharma-shishyah Thank you both, that means a lot.

So much of my perceptions are through the lens of: this person is a real alpha male, with actual good genes, and this other person is not. Or I am not. I've been trying to make life choices to prove to my Father that he was wrong. That the weakness dies with him. And unfortunately, he seemed to be right in some cases: I had to run away from bullies at many instances, and the times that I didn't, I got the shit kicked out of me. The most extreme example being when I fought three guys in a street fight and lost some teeth. Setting myself up for failure, because proving my dad right meant that I at least still had that connection. I was still at home somehow. That could be the contradiction that has been taking up so much energy. I want him to be wrong, so that I can be successful, but I want him to be right, so that he is still my dad who knows it all. If you are poor, and at the losing end of a deal, you are noble. Winning = being mean and wrong. I'm sure he wouldn't put it that way, but that's the message I got as a child. I was talented at some things, but always second place. Now it makes sense. Saying "I want to win / I deserve to win" anything, feels totally alien and weird. Every life choice has been evaluated using the test: but can that get me to the top somehow? Never mind whether I enjoy something or whether it makes me happy. The only thing that matters is whether this path can help me become top dog in some way, and spite my father.

I am feeling the pain of my younger self. CAN'T TRUST MOM CAN'T TRUST DAD They are sweet but they can't protect me. They can not help me get what I want. It seems they are in some sort of plot to make me into a loser. I was born with a certain weakness and ineptitude to survive in this hostile world, and I am screaming for help, but they won't, BECAUSE THEY ARE IN ON IT. NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME. NOBODY. God, why did you put me here, if I don't have the potential to do well? If your plan is to make me into a tragic weak loser, God, then I'm sorry but I am going to have to sabotage your plan. I will create my own sexual and financial success, even if NOBODY ELSE WANTS ME TO HAVE IT. Can't trust God either. Every parent figure, arcetypal or not, seems to be part of a plan to make me play the role of a meek, beta servant. Why wasn't I born with more fight in me? Why did I let kids push me around on the playground without doing anything? Why didn't my dad care? Or know what to do? Why did he shrug it off, instead of teaching me self-defense? Because he was weak. Do I blame them for putting me in multiple schools where I was beaten and abused? All the while telling me that it's not so bad, and to turn the other cheek? Refusing to help me defend myself? Or do I blame myself more? Here's what the entity in me says, that was created back then: I got very conflicting messages in my childhood. My parents said: you must be sweet and sensitive and harmless, but the world says: you will be abused and oppressed for being that way. And you will never win anything, or gain respect, and no women will want you. I didn't even know if I wanted my parents' approval, or the worlds' approval. I chose to shoot for worldly success, and to do that by fighting everything that I was. Trying to change myself as much as possible: after all, if the way I was, was how my parents approved of me, but the ones telling me to just be my sweet and sensitive self, also had no clue how to defend me, or themselves, from aggressors, or to be socially or sexually successful... then it's easy to think being myself is wrong, my parents don't know, the bullies are right. I need to change and become mean and angry. Yeah, no shit I don't feel ready to be a father. My own father didn't even think it was important to make me strong enough to physically defend and protect me. No no, he thought it was inevitable for me to get beaten up in school, because that's what happened to him. So he just sat back meekly and closed his eyes to it. No wonder I don't trust authority. No wonder I don't trust any 'mothering' or fatherly type of energy to give me advice. It's always: "yeahh yeah, you say you mean well, but you are part of the plot of making me into a weak loser. I can't trust anybody but myself" I can't trust anybody but myself. And what did 13 year old myself think was important? Being popular, and sex. Can't be a loser when you're fucking new girls all the time. So that's the move. Hedonism was a great way to rebel against my father. Especially when I felt him becoming jealous, for the girls I fucked. That was sweet revenge. He hurt me first, by being so weak and trying to make me the same. So whenever I start to feel too much at home, and I'm getting nudged in a certain direction, whether it is my university, or my girlfriend giving me well-intentioned advice, I just shut off and go "Yeah yeah, fuck this, you are trying to weaken me. Sex is the only thing that matters" I'm stuck in constant rebellion. Anything that is main stream, or anybody that my parents would approve of, are part of the plot against me, to victimize me, weaken me, take my manhood away, or basically: to deny me getting my needs met. No wonder I rebelled against my girlfriend so hard when she got along with my parents so well. No wonder that the parts of my vision board that I feel the strongest motivation for, are actually the parts that are there to annoy my parents. Getting insanely rich, to annoy my parents. Fucking an insane amount of women, to make my dad eat his heart out. Other, more benevolent goals I have, feel a bit more distant to me. I guess because my parents would approve of them. So I can't really trust that, can I. Only the hedonistic goals feel completely mine. I just remembered: my parents gave me my first self-help book. That's how I got onto the treadmill of accumulating ever-more habits, that almost made me good enough. What a gesture. "Here son, here's a book with principles for life that we failed to embody, but hey, do as I say, not as I do, why don't you. All the misery you've gone through is your fault, after all." It was with the best of intentions, but it got me obsessed with all these principles I had to embody in order to be a successful human. It gave me an activity to project the feeling onto, that the way I am is fundamentally flawed. Shortly after, I designed my first morning routine.

I'm in bed with a fever, and I feel mentally insane. The work I've done, re-telling my life story in the past week, has been ... opening up old wounds, shining light on very dysfunctional patterns / defense mechanisms. To what point can a person be fixed? Literally 2 parts of me are shouting at each other, wanting different things. One feels at home, the other will never feel at home anywhere. What did my childhood do to me? Why do I have so much jealousy, ungratefulness, envy boiling all the time? Why do I feel totally fake at times like this? Why did my dad have to tell me that I have "weak genes" and am bound to be a loser? Because that shit cut deep.

I just went through all my enemies, my bullies, my perpetrators... and forgave them one by one. They needed someone to beat up. We all need a win sometimes. I'm happy for them. I visualised myself carrying my younger self away from a dangerous, no-win situation. I did not need to be there at all. With people who did not care about me, and people who were looking for someone to vent their aggression on. I gave myself the martial arts classes that I needed and never got. I gave myself the brotherly protection, kicking away all the bad guys for him. I visualised myself as an angel, wrapping my arms around my younger self and also my perpetrators, and comforting them all like they were brothers and sisters and I was the parent. I've been through so much shit, man. I've been publicly shamed, humiliated, beaten and mistreated more times that I can count. And I'm in the process of becoming okay with it. It's okay. I love them. We're all playing the same game. That was their role, this was mine. We played them well. I even forgave my parents' perpetrators, who made them what they were, passing on some shadows to me. I'm happy to carry my part. I love them all. Now, I feel totally raw. I want to curl up in a ball on the couch, wrap my hands around my knees and do nothing of importance for a long time.

The way to do that would be to set your life up in a way where you never have to do a job that requires you to think logically and analyze. In addition to treating any anxiety, depression or other tendencies to ruminate and think about oneself. Getting in flow in this case is basically the process of turning off the logical analytical mind, and letting go of all filters. This is in my experience most necessary if you had the analytical mind and filters turned on in the first place, for example because you were at work, or because you were worrying/thinking about yourself in some capacity (something that people who do personal development will inevitably do at times). So yes, if your life requires you to never have to get serious, and you can be in socializing-party-mode all the time, and you stop all self-reflection and rumination, perhaps also don't read books anymore because it requires too much thinking, it's theoretically possible. Provided you are an extravert. If you are an introvert, you will need to have times of not being 'on', or you'll burn out. There's probably some jobs that lend themselves to being almost always in 'state', as RSD used to call it. Bartending maybe, club promoters, any job that is based on you being social and organizing parties and stuff. Trip promoters. Being a pick-up coach, also a good example. Rock star, perhaps, I'm not sure. But if those things are not part of your purpose, I wouldn't worry about it. If you love what you do and how your life is going, you have self-acceptance and self-love and self-esteem and all of that, and your traumas have been properly dealt with, it doesn't take many conversations to get into flow anyway.

I've never heard of someone being suicidal and there not being some sort of neglect or abuse in childhood. It's always there, even if they are blocking it out or minimizing it. I would look into Primal therapy.

@StarStruck I find it gets better after I get warmed up with some interactions. Don't just go out and stare at people, you will never get warmed up. And also that's a creepy way to go about it. Talk to 10 people in quick succession and try again. I think you'll find it will come naturally when you are in flow.

Coming home should not be practice. Coming home should be utterly relaxed, all shields down. Unless your main purpose in life is to live with people uncomfortably, and then write a book on it or something, this is probably detrimental to what you are trying to do in life and you should leave this situation.

@fopylo This. Obviously what they are saying has found some resonance in you at this point. Or you wouldn't be hurt, just weirded out. Getting back to the place of just being weirded out, is the key to turning this around. So I would investigate those beliefs in you and deconstruct them until you see the absurdity in it. If you do that correctly, you can get yourself back to a place of just being utterly surprised and weirded out by any of this namecalling, and you can react authentically with: "What the FUCK are you even saying? Are we just saying shit that doesn't make sense now? Am I going to call you X Y and Z (insert equally ridiculous things). " You can only pull that off if your inner game is strong, which means that there is no part of you that thinks the other is right to blame you or shame you. Only if you are not mentally busy with whether the insult is true, because it is just soo ridiculous you won't even entertain it, will you have the mental headspace to question the other person's sanity/validity for what they are saying. This is basically a frame battle. If you don't believe that the other is making any sense, and react accordingly, then you make the other feel weird about what they just said. And it will stop really quickly. To put some more force behind it, you can start questioning out loud what is wrong with the other person, that they say something like that. Make them feel weird for their behavior. Because it is socially undesirable behavior that they are doing, and you should make them feel weird and ashamed for that, instead of the other way around! In order of level of aggression (never go further than you have to or it will backfire) "Why are you so awkward?" "Are you jealous of my chess game?" "Dude why are you trying to put me down to feel better about yourself? It's okay, we accept you as you are, man. Calm down already" The psychology angle is very effective, basically discrediting someone's mental health while framing it as though you are simply worried about them and trying to help. There are endless variations on this. It's mean because it's true, you are exposing their true mental weakness that causes them to do this, meanwhile it looks like you are being clean and nice, you have the plausible deniability because it doesn't even look like you are bullying him or her back. And they are warned that they have to behave well with you, or they will get a label of mental illness sticking to them. And the rest of the group might adopt that silly label. "Do you have something going on at home?" "Is your daddy mean to you or something?" "Are you secretly afraid that we will know about your small dick, and that's why you keep saying mine is that?" "Are you secretly thinking about my dick all the time, and that's why you say that? I'm sorry, I'm straight tho" "When are you coming out of the closet for us?" Never aim this at the group, only aim it at the specific person who hurled the insult at you. If there are multiple, focus on one, and throw these laser daggers at this one until the rest of the group starts to find it amusing and the target feels shame. Then you won. And then stop, never be meaner than necessary or it backfires. Basically start questioning out loud why the person would say this, until you find something that makes them look really silly and the rest of the group may love and adopt. You try to label me, I will label you. If you are reactive to the other while doing this, you lose. You must hold your focus and ignore their counterattacks and attempts to distract you. If you are coming from a place of hurt and anger, you already lost the game and everything will backfire. That's why I'm saying: first clear your own negative beliefs about yourself. Because you've gotta be cool and amused to pull this off. Have an inner and outer smile and a chuckle armed and ready. I can't stress this enough. If you try to pull this off whilst overwhelmed with fear, anger or sadness, it will explode in your face. Good luck!

Me in a nutshell. At least, a side of me. It was more pronounced when I was younger. Nobody told me that spending all my money was bad Nobody told me how to talk to girls Nobody told me how to keep my place clean. Or my clothes I BLAME MY PARENTS FOR EVERYTHING What an attitude... but hey, that's what it was. A coping strategy that arose out of pure panic and powerlessness. I am what some might call a "late bloomer", which in my case meant that my ability to socialize and understand and care about people developed very late, as did my executive functions (organizing, strategizing, self-control, etc). What do you do, when others are able to do what you aren't? I alternated between considering myself deeply flawed and blaming my environment for not teaching me life skills.

Being boring == finding yourself boring. Being interesting == finding yourself interesting. If you find yourself interesting, not only would you talk about your life more animatedly, and be able to share more colourful details and a wider range of emotions, also, then no one can tell you you are boring and get any other reaction but laughter out of you. Which is automatically passing the shit test.