flowboy

And this has what to do with personal development?

Avoiding the question though.

She has stuff like that.

Where there is multiple reasons, there is (self-)deception. Either you have given up hope, or you are against it. Can't have it both ways. Imagine you somehow knew for sure that your perfect partner, with whom you could effortlessly be and share yourself, was waiting for you around the corner, maybe you'd meet her in a few months, and with her, none of the past traumatic experiences will repeat themselves, not even close, and you will achieve massive growth together, provided you kept the option open. Would you reject her because you are against relationships?

New affirmation added: I know the practices that make me feel good and productive, and I am always doing them consistently without exception. Feeling great about myself is my everyday normal. I don't need self-sabotage and shame, and I can accept the highest levels of contentedness and serenity and feelings of greatness into my life every day

Everything in my life is going great. I can't really say otherwise. And I feel grateful. But here I am, not sticking to my good habits, doing things that I know are going to make me feel guilty and bad, for like no reason. Coffee, bad work ethic, bad food, wasting my energy on forum discussions. Why? If I wasn't in it right now, I bet I would have a great advice for this person I'm being right now. Mr. Answer-to-everything, has the universe figured out. Lets's test that theory. What would you say sir? Chris: When I am doing my practices and sticking to my schedule, I feel serene, productive and content. Today and yesterday I went against all those, predictably making myself feel guilty, stressed and ashamed. I don't know how to prevent this self-sabotage that seems to happen regularly. What do I do? Flowboy: you are giving yourself something you crave subconsciously: guilt, shame, stress. If you didn't like that on some level, you wouldn't go back to it. The cheap thrill of caffeine is not what you are looking for, it's the delicious feeling bad and guilty that you want. You have a humiliation kink. Times of success and feeling great about yourself bring this kink to the surface. Another way to look at it, is you have a thermostat that regulates you back to a certain level of contentness that you are used to. Two things you can do here: add an affirmation about feeling great about yourself for doing your practices so consistently. Using this regularly can adjust your self-image and thereby your thermostat. Secondly, your craving for self-humiliation won't be resolved until you make the enjoyment conscious. So do the EK practices on that. You know how. If you think that's best, almighty Flowboy? Time to get to work.

If you judge her for being shy or weird, you are probably also being harsh on yourself whenever you feel like being shy or weird but repress that. Wouldn't you like to be more free? To allow yourself to be shy, weird or whichever way you feel like, and others too? One perspective that may be helpful is that this girl came into your life to teach you about yourself, and invite you to explore the shoulds, shouldnts and judgments that you place on yourself and others. You can take it as a challenge to love her fully, or you can let her go. Loving only a part of her is a waste of both your time.

That is all fine and good and I don't disagree with that, but it is a smokescreen. The issue I see is that you would rather give up than trust that there's people at your level who you can find and meet and have a relationship with. You can sell it to yourself as a rational choice, I don't buy it though. What are you wanting to protect yourself from? What are you unwilling to feel (again)? That is my question.

On the topic of love and relationships, no you can't. As an unborn baby you are safe and connected, surrounded by warmth. If everything in your childhood goes right, and your parents don't ignore you or deny you love and warmth, you keep that state of trust in life and relationships. If something goes wrong, you might become cold to protect yourself. But trust in love is the default state. Because the relationship with the parent becomes a blueprint for the relationship with a mate. If your parents divorce at a young age, you might not want to get serious with anyone. If your parents allowed harm to happen to you, you may fear intimacy and tell yourself that you don't need it. Et cetera et cetera. It is a mistake to think that your level of trust in life and love is random, and not connected to childhood or past events.

Deciding to not do something is still being just as attached to it. It's just an attachment to not doing it. Same coin different side.

@Parththakkar12 I understand that it seems like everyone is saying the same thing to you, and they know what's the right answer for you. They don't. Everyone is partial and biased and has a limited view (unless they are currently on 5-meo). So when you do the work, you may find out that they are wrong. But now you found out. You've grown. And now it won't bother you anymore. The irritation is gone because now you know. That's why irritation is a good cue to follow. It's an invitation to discover something.

I empathize with this frustrating experience. I've been there before. When I was young, people used to tell me sometimes "you have a lot to learn" and then refuse to explain it. Infuriating, to say the least. Not the exact same, but something I can relate to. But what else can someone do, who has a particular understanding that they can see you have not yet, but use these indirect ways to nudge you to explore for yourself? This is why therapists are so annoying. If they told you directly what you need to understand to grow further, two problems would happen: You would not accept it, and argue over the content. Because from your current perspective, their words are nonsense, and your ego can easily come up with arguments why. But that is just a strategy that the ego uses to maintain its current level. All egos are afraid of change and very good at fighting it with arguments, if they are enabled to. That's why debates don't grow anyone, and why indirect approaches are necessary. You would get the therapists' biases and misperceptions mixed in there. It simply would not be as clean as if you were to discover it for yourself, and also, you wouldn't take it seriously unless you discovered it for yourself. In addition, it's not respectful and also false to tell someone exactly what they need to understand, because you are asserting absolute authority over their reality, putting yourself on a pedestal that can never be deserved. So all you can really do is point at something and hint that there is more to discover and work to be done. Sometimes, when people are very comfortable, it can be helpful to shake them up a bit. But they only accept real growth from themselves. In your case, you seem to experience it as an attack that many different people and situations point you to something that is unclear to you. I would propose to instead start looking at it as an invitation. An invitation to discover for yourself, and do this shadow work that causes so much resistance in you. The more something bothers you, the stronger a signal it is, that you can get a lot of personal growth leverage there. That which you most need, will be found where you least want to look - Carl Jung But you don't have to. The choice is yours.

Settle down cowboy. No one is attacking anyone. For sure I am implying lack of objectivity. Unless you are God, you are not objective, your judgment is clouded, and your perspective is partial. That's what being a human is. Questioning and unwiring firmly held beliefs, and integrating the shadow (which can be through integrating other partial perspectives), is what expands our perspective and brings it closer to a more wholistic view, ultimately heading towards enlightenment. That's personal growth. Yes, and to answer your other question, our hurt clouds our judgments and views and entire perception of reality. This is true for me, for you, and for anyone else who is having a human experience right now.

I don't know how other people mean it when they ask that. I do know what I mean however, so let me clarify. By "who hurt you", I mean "there is a lot of pain and negativity radiating from your words, and you may not be aware of it but it is very obvious to other people, and something you might want to look into, because that's probably a good spot to focus on for maximum personal growth. That pain must have been caused by someone or some situation in the past. To resolve and alchemize it, you would need to look inwards and dig that up, hence find out who hurt you, re-process the traumatic experience and the emotions, and then practice forgiveness" Probably that's what I should have said in the first place. But it's very long-winded.

I personally would enjoy many more examples of it, and more detailed ones. I think she kind of breezes through it, but to get a good understanding I would appreciate a 2 hour video like Leo makes.

@Parththakkar12 This topic is personal to begin with. There is no separating people's view on things from who they are, it's all connected. Arguing content is not going to help anyone, it's just a game egos like to play as a pastime. No argument causes one party to be more open to the other's viewpoint, instead, the opposite happens: the biased view of each becomes more firmly cemented. See also Leo's blog video on why debates don't work. When people post a topic like this, seemingly advising everyone to adopt their viewpoint, it is because on some level they want to evolve out of their limited viewpoint. But they don't consciously know that. My perception is that OP has a very cold view on relationships and sexuality, and it's only possible to arrive at such a cold view if the warmth in your life has been taken away at some point. This could have one of the causes I listed, or something else that I didn't think of. In any case, the OP has an extreme stance on relationships and has a Love & Relationships shadow - which means he is fractioned. To progress in personal development, he needs to integrate his shadow and explore love & relationships, and become whole again in that dimension. Any extreme stance on anything is a sign that there is integration work to be done. I'm a huge fan of going back to the root of where this denial began, and emotionally processing what happened, and then forgiving people who hurt you. But there are other ways too. You can do shadow work using different methods, like Ken Wilber's 3-2-1 method, or Teal Swan's method. Hope that helps

But what is the point of woman skills? Are they the end-all-be-all? Or are they the way to get into a relationship? Which you could be in right now? I'm not pushing you either way, but you need to step up as a man and make a decision on what you want, and stand by it. Letting her, or the situation, decide for you is weakness and won't serve you long term.

Who hurt you? This is messed up. I get why people give you the feedback that it seems like there is something wrong with you. They totally have a point. I bet you don't have a warm, loving relationship with your mother. Someone important hurt you and refused to love you, and I don't know if it was one or both of your parents during childhood, or girls or friends during adolescence, or some other combination... but you would do best to take a good look at your past and process some of it. Preferably with the help of a good therapist. Try to suppress the impulse to take this as an insult and assume that I say this with love, really giving you my assessment of what would be most helpful for you to do.

@Valach What do you think would be best for her? Is it in her best interest to be with a guy who can't commit to her, is one foot in, one foot out, never sure about her, and wants to do pickup instead of seeing her?

Just keep going. Eventually you will get girls who are into you and tell you that you are handsome. If that happens enough, you'll believe it. You'll find out that there is no objective pretty/ugly for guys, and how much she likes your personality mostly determines how physically attractive she perceives you as. Also, do strength training, get a girl to take you shopping and teach you to dress well, shave or neatly trim your beard and hair, smell good and then just don't worry about it.

@StarStruck They are attracted to how you feel inside. To whether you are emotionally healthy, and able to self-generate and sustain positive emotions in the face of challenge. That's why they test you by insulting you. If they say that you are fat or too short, and you are clearly not hurt at all (this must be genuine, third eye again), and respond with a joke, fun and lightheartedness, then to them that is a successful experiment they did on you, where you proved that you can handle the obstacles and challenges that life tends to throw at you, and keep your spirits up and keep going, without ending up stuck in some emotional ditch. That means that if she were to attach herself to you, and let you lead her through life, she would be safe and survive and thrive with you. It all makes sense. Being a good conversationalist, funny, and listening, are all symptoms of the underlying emotional health and resilience that they are looking for. That's also why outer game works at first, but then inner game shines through and determines whether she considers you a good choice long term. Don't worry, you'll get laid without having great inner game. And that in itself (you reaching a goal you chose for yourself) can also contribute to you feeling better about yourself, believing in your abilities, and developing that emotional health and resilience that makes you genuinely attractive.

@StarStruck No actually you don't like your appearance, and they sense that and just aren't going to indulge that lack of self-acceptance. Don't worry, all in due time

@StarStruck Great action taking! Congratulations! Progress that deserves to be celebrated. Don't worry.

If you don't feel like spending much of your life energy educating ignorant people, move. I would move. It's going to cause too much friction and waste your life juice which would otherwise be spent towards your life purpose. Why are you living there in the first place? What's keeping you? It sounds terrible.

Someone who has what you want, and actually seems decent...surprise surprise. Could it be... That you actually need good character traits to succeed? That the people who are demonizing "billionaires", are actually the ones more selfish and greedy, and that's why they are unsuccessful? No...that's TOO radical.. isn't it? Let's keep hating on who we secretly want to be like, that will bring us closer!