flowboy

@Noahsteelers34 I didn't see the words "and I'm in love with her" in there at all, so drop them all and go looking for the real thing.

@kamill That's rough, my sympathies! Life purpose goes deeper than any single concrete activity. The 'essence' of how you are meant to share beauty with others is not tied to singing. It is an essence that can be abstracted and applied to any other concrete activity. It is a pattern. One exercise I have done with a client is to focus in on that feeling of meaningfulness, when you share beauty with others through singing in your case, and then search for other times in life, short or long, that you've felt that same feeling. This is to get a sense that it's not tied to its current expression. What is it about singing that makes it deeply meaningful? What is it about singing and its relation to other people that makes it feel right for you? Do they need to be mesmerized? Emotionally touched? Transported to a different world? Uplifted? Entertained? Is it about the feeling of you expressing yourself and your inner truth, or rather about you surrendering to a creative force that makes your ego step aside and lets magic flow through you? Is it about an experience of pure naked expression? Is it vulnerable or not? I'm just naming some things I can think of. Try to describe as many facets of the experience of singing that makes it meaningful, then take away the singing part and see what else you can put in place of it. Now you must hold on to that feeling and go on a search for new concrete ways to feel that. If you woke up one day in an alternate reality where people didn't have voices and singing was not a thing, you would still be able to find your way to expressing your purpose. Which could take a long time, but your purpose isn't lost.

Lol. he was a genius visionary and had a huge beneficial impact on the world. Not sure why 'occult' means bad to you, seems a bit paranoid

@NightHawkBuzz That's what shadow work is for. Whatever, whoever you judge and cannot muster empathy for, is part of your shadow. Through shadow work (which is a psychological process you do on yourself) you make contact with the projection (the bad qualities you are perceiving) and assuming its perspective (looking through their eyes) and then describe your feelings and wants and thoughts. This is something you can do in a journal. It builds empathy because you find out that every tendency and quality is something you also have inside you. And if you've never done such a terrible thing, you have the potential. (do you have a part of you screaming NO this is bullshit, this guy is a liar / doesn't know what he's talking about? That's your shadow )

What is unworthiness / low self esteem? The extent to which one's body-mind system has not internalised that not getting its needs met properly by parents in childhood, and all the direct and indirect consequences of that, is not one's fault.

I’ve been infused with spiritual energy today. Everything is still and much more enjoyable and delicious. Kriya yoga and prayer work. who knew

Why does the majority of people doing a self-actualization journal appear to be nuts? Well, I am one of them now, so I guess I'll find out. The bad I have started attempts at implementing habits that I wanted since I was 19. I am 26 now. The years in between I have spent anxious, occasionally depressed, constantly having so much chaos in my mind that I felt I had no choice but run away. Running away meant eating random shit, smoking a lot, drinking, getting caught up in drama, and a LOT of binging TV and youtube. All the while not even being able to get up early for work consistently, or brush my teeth for that matter. There's a part of me that believes I am 'cursed', destined to live a mediocre life as an unhealthy heavily neurotic lonely person, that I don't deserve to be healthy because I've been a smoker, and I'm lazy, and so on. When I listen to this part, I can hardly get out of bed and I brush my teeth/shower only every few days. Also I never do dishes or clean up, so being at home for me is navigating through the mess, trying to close my eyes to it and distract myself with TV as much as possible. All this went on while I had relationships and did have my share of social fun. Having people over just means scrambling to hide the shameful uncontrolled mess. I've stayed up entire nights without sleep, trying to force myself to clean up or vacuum. Or cook. My mailbox has 1600 unread messages. I could go on. I've been diagnosed with ADD. I sought this diagnosis because it fit: in highschool I could spend five hours staring at one math problem, not understanding the words that I read. I wasn't lazy, I wanted to fucking do my homework! I just couldn't bring my mind to it. In hindsight I should have eaten less bread probably, might have helped. Anyway. I've been on and off ritalin and dextroamphetamine many times. It does me no good in the long run. At best it just blindly increases my enthusiasm for EVERYTHING, which does not help me with controlling my focus and being selective at all. At its worst, those medications have altered my personality to not be interested in my partner and turn me in a workaholic, which fucked up my relationship and my health. My conclusion is I have to face this propensity I have for chaos, and handle it. Without drugs. The good In recent months I have been working on my vision, trying to get a purpose clearer and clearer. I have been eating clean(er) and going to the gym regularly, which helped my mood a lot. The past week I've even written down everything I eat, and with that awareness I put on it I was motivated to eat even cleaner. The result has been that some days I have felt AMAZING for like no reason except a good morning routine and no bad food. I don't even need coffee anymore. I have been a non-smoker for almost 5 days now. Things are looking up. My goals: Eat fucking clean. No grains, no dairy, no sugar, no coffee, no alcohol. Drink water, sparkling water or tea. Meditate daily Concentration practice daily Give up TV and read instead Keep a life plan/vision, year plan, week plan, and daily schedules. Not knowing what I should be doing is the nr 1 cause of anxiety for me currently. Learn some basic yoga asanas. Do this in the morning. Increase self expression. I've started practicing public speaking. Maybe I want to start a blog too. Learn to drive Do prayer, and other gratefulness practices to keep me humble and in flow Weight training at least 3 times a week. This is almost an addiction at this point: I need it to regulate my mood. Stay a non-smoker Formulate a business plan and execute on it. Can't be a wage slave forever. Learn pickup. I need this for my soul. I'm tired of making excuses to not talk to a girl So, my intention is to update here on my progress and to keep 'stats' of how many hours I spent on the activities above. Let's see how it goes! I feel energized!

@trenton I would encourage you to study up on Rudolf Steiner's work and achievements. He was a mystic who had a big vision for change in the education system. He started his own brand of schools and they are still alive and kicking (they're called Waldorf schools) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education If you really want to play big, you could emulate him.

Mescaline did it for me. But it also includes a stiff trip, which then later turns into the euphoric connecty experience. So you'd have to be ready for both.

@Vladimir @Leo Gura Which one of you is more Awake?

I can relate. I felt that way when I was going out alone to do pickup by myself, feeling massive shame and anxiety, day in and day out. Pushing myself. It's the fight of my life and all that. I never had much success while having that frame of mind. You know what I did have success with? Talking to a girl whenever I was in the mood for it. Daytime, in the park, or just outside my house. Relaxed. Curious. No pressure. Here's what pickup guys don't realize: girls can feel it when guys had to psych themselves out and have this "fight" mentality. It feels weird and tense for the girl because they can feel the amount of pressure a guy is putting on himself. Coming from this "I'm so scared, it's the fight of my life" frame, you'll never come across as authentic. Nobody wants to get to know someone who is SO scared and pushing themselves SO hard to get to know you. Imagine that. Someone trying to be your friend who has this tense anxious vibe around him, every time you say something nice to him he freaks out. He's been writing affirmations and journal posts about his attempts to be your friend. It's weird Now, I feel your pain. It's hard to get out of the tense, anxious, "pushing and overcoming", challenging-yourself state. I know, sometimes it happens to me too and I'm by no means good at pickup. (I get laid though) I LIVED in that state almost constantly until I was about 27. I'm just making a point: pushing, overcoming, challenging yourself, forcing through massive anxiety does not attract people, it repels people. What to do instead? Do shadow work and release the conditioning from your childhood. You have it, although you're probably not aware of it. It's the only cause of low self-worth: people with no self-worth issues are not afraid to approach people. (Think about it: approach anxiety is what happens when you perceive someone to be way higher status and more valuable than you. Now if you were approaching a celebrity it would make sense. Why should your subconscious assume a stranger who hasn't proven anything to you to be way higher status than you? Why should there be fear? It comes from having been an outsider in earlier life, and that comes from other subtle traumas which you can release and thereby raise your self esteem (see my video on this)) Combine this with approaching, but in a different way: only go so far that your system doesn't freak out. Check in with yourself frequently: how anxious am I? How fast is my heartbeat? Am I in my head or am I still connected to my body? Can I sense my body and can I feel my feelings, or am I freaking out with racing thoughts? If some action step would take you over the edge towards feeling anxious and having to push through it, don't do it. For example, if just saying hi and then leaving would not freak you out, but trying to have a long conversation would, then don't go for the long conversation at that moment. And if saying anything at all would get you anxious but just high fiving someone still feels okay, then only do that. And after everything you do, check back in: am I anxious. am I in my head. am I dissociating and watching myself or thinking too much. This way you are off to a slower start but you'll actually get real intimacy later in the night (or day). You'll be able to say and do much more without freaking out. This is the only way Why must it be this way? Because you have baggage from childhood and a symptom of that is approach anxiety. Stop freaking yourself out (nothing good happens from a pushing-through-anxiety-hardcore state), take it slow, and release this baggage. It's the fastest way to get results. TLDR: do shadow work and learn to get into a flow state by staying under your trigger boundary, then expanding it.

@oldhandle Definitely don't isolate yourself, locking yourself up in your room until you're the rich purposeful successful guy you think you have to be to be ready to date. Definitely also don't start to make dating your main focus and put your life purpose on hold. Recipe for meeting a lot of girls who will waste your time and mess with your emotions a lot before leaving you anyway. Have a strict timeboxed week for your LP work and whatever other responsibilities you have. Make every day look as much the same as possible, etc. Stick to those timeboxes and work on your goals. You'll leave about 20% of your free time to do other activities for relaxation and inspiration. You need that anyway, there's no working 100% of the time or you'll grind to a screeching halt within a few weeks. Try to make that relaxation time as non-toxic to your productive time as possible. Read books, hang out with friends without drinking a lot, go into nature, do physical exercise, fun stuff without poisoning yourself basically. And then, since you're going to get horny anyways, fit "some" dates in that 20%. But don't date girls who want to drink and stay up late, it's not worth it. And don't let them infringe upon your 80% timeboxed week. Or your sleep. It's hard but that's the way.

Made u a vid

@99alvarosanchez I've got videos and fun group exercises just for that!

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? After this post I quit, because I am arguing for your happiness and sanity and you are arguing against it. Should it not be the reverse?! I’d like to point out that your examples are from media and culture, manifactured, ideas deliberately propagated with a marketing agenda, and my experience is from real life, things I’ve seen with my own eyes. Get off media if you want to be happy and successful in dating and socially, it’s doing you no good and brainwashing you with these untruths that resonate with your internalised sense of unworthiness. And this internalised sense of unworthiness is thanks to childhood trauma by the way, you can raise your self esteem a lot by healing some of that.

@Noahsteelers34 I was a door-to-door salesman in a grey and distant past, I know how brutal it is. Great job! It didn't translate to dating for me either, I was just as insecure with the occasional bout of ballsiness. I'm a bit more wise now than 10 years ago. If you want to get good with dating the same way you did with sales, then you're going to have to do it in more anonymous environments where you don't meet the same people again usually. Because it's quite a sociopathic path to success (hammer it out until people hate you or close), you can only make it work with a huge constant influx of new people. You're not making any friends or building a reputation in the mean time if you do this on a college campus. Because you'll be known as the guy who ignores all other guys and hits on all the girls all the time. Guys and girls will learn to avoid you because of this imbalance. I will suggest a slight modification: you use this hammering social energy to accomplish a more indirect goal: making cool shit happen with other people. Not going straight for the individual date, but instead throwing parties, organising gatherings, outings, whatever brings people together. And then you use this sociopathic persistence to get the best people to join (guys and girls). Now you're a social leader (= attractive). At those get-togethers, whatever form they may take, the girls who are interested in you will come talk to you and then you can play from there. That's how to be a player without becoming a pariah.

@Seed That paragraph was an honest signal that you are an amazing exceptional mother and any little one would be lucky to have you at whichever time. If me and my partner were having this dilemma, I'd probably get a babysitter for a weekend and take MDMA or LSD together and talk about it. It's a great way to get to what you feel deeply and circumvent all the contradictory voices in the mind. If you're not into that, I would recommend a 30 minute shamanic breathing session (see Leo's video). If you do that and set the intention to figure this out, you will have your answer. If you're not into that, a session of chair work / parts work / voice dialogue (all the same thing) will no doubt help to make this decision. It's how I solve my dilemmas.

What you're missing is that 1,000,000 in 40 years will only be worth what 295,712 is worth now, if inflation holds steady at an average 3% a year, and it is certainly not going anywhere. Also: how old will you be in 40 years? Do you ever look at a 70 year old and think: "I wish I had his body and energy levels and 300K instead of being where I am now"? If your plan is to always have a job and never start a business, then you better get a bit more ambitious and climb the ladder until you can save 1000/m+ If you do see yourself starting your own business at some point, then this plan does not make any sense, because any extra 500 bucks you have left is better spent on advertising and blowing up your income than stowed away for a measly 6%.

What I've learned from neotantra (spiritual & sexual shamanism) workshops and people, comes down to this: Every man has a frequency at which it is ideal to ejaculate. This can range from daily to monthly to even biyearly. This frequency depends on age, but also on the person. It's something everyone has to experiment and find for himself. Exceeding that results in lack of energy and sluggishness. (I can confirm this is true for me. My ideal frequency is about once every 2-3 weeks) Ejaculating too little results in unbalanced energy, being out of touch with feeling and empathy, and obsessiveness. Breaking the ejaculation habit and building up some sexual energy makes it easier for the man to have full-body orgasms (I can confirm this is true) instead of the superficial sneezes we usually have. That's for the penis owners. Now for the vagina owners, it is said that: Only clitoral orgasms drain your energy (Some women can confirm this is true for them, others don't notice it) Other types of orgasms (there are 12 types for women and 8 for men) only increase your energy Therefore, if you want to feel more alive and live your life with more vibrant sexual (= life) energy, it is recommended to not focus on the clitoris when having sex or masturbating, and get other types of orgasms instead, like full body orgasms, valley orgasms, womb orgasms, vagina wall orgasms or what have you. Sometimes you may want to drain your energy by having a clitoris orgasm, so that you can sleep, release tension, or alleviate painful period cramps. There's nothing unhealthy or wrong with that. Then for everyone, it is true that: Not ejaculating/clitoris-orgasming every time you have sex, has massive benefits for one's sex life. Because the sex becomes less goal-oriented and more meditative, there isn't this end goal to always automatically work towards Therefore, people are less in their head and more in the present moment when having sex But also when cuddling, stroking, touching, kissing or hugging anyone. The enjoyment is felt in the moment, no matter the intensity of the interaction, and one becomes more sensitive to pleasure without release.

@Lila9 Same for me, I've got a book shelf full on it. Plus retreats and experiences I've had with some exceptional teachers and therapists helped a great deal as well. If you'd be open to a PM conversation I'd like to have a chat with you on the self healing topic, compare experiences and ideas, without derailing this thread?

I'm really sorry you feel that way. You are objectifying yourself. The same way immature guys reduce a girl to their breast size, waist line or cooking skill, while that's really not what keeps a guy satisfied in a relationship (it's personality and essence, the other things are just superficial factors that need to not be neglected), the same way you are now reducing yourself to looks and money... those are just cherries on top, you don't need them! A relationship that works and keeps working is when you like each other for who you are. That essence that you are born with, which you don't have to work for or modify. That's what really keeps people connected and moves them from the dating phase to the relationship phase. Of course, all the superficial factors need to be respected in the mean time. Both of you need to take care of your own health, and looks, and you need to be working on your purpose/career (but you don't have to have it made for someone to love you!) Haven't you met these bums of guys who have weird looks, can barely pay their own rent but they're just so happy with themselves that they get girl after girl? What does that tell you? Also you look good enough to get girls. Stay away from the redpill/blackpill content, it's seriously messing you up! Fine if you believe we don't live in a spiritual world, but we don't live in a cold, calculated sexual market value world either.

@PurpleTree The only way to be honest when you're conflicted, is to face the fact that there's multiple truths, multiple conflicting but passionate sides of the argument. Multiple sub-personalities having different agendas. Have you ever tried any parts work?

@Lila9 What a quality answer Reminds me a lot of the Letting Go process... how did you develop your approach? Do you tend to do any self-therapy on top of it?

I got reeally triggered some weeks ago, let's use that as an example: I felt it coming. In a social situation, with my girlfriend and a bunch of strangers around. Some sense of unfairness, pain, anger growing, clearly trauma based. It got so strong that I knew there was no stopping it. I wished I was in a therapy room but I wasn't. All I knew to do was externalize it, so I told my girlfriend: "I'm getting triggered. I suddenly feel really angry at this and that person. I don't know how to stop it. I think I have to go." (this happened over the span of 30 minutes, as I felt it slowly growing and not backing down) And I left, as the feeling grew worse and turned into wanting to disappear, wanting to die etc. I stumbled to the smoking area to bum a cigarette (which I definitely should not have done, but I was not exactly overflowing with willpower) Now I was with strangers, and I still knew: it's coming out, I have to externalize it, but these are strangers. I can't put it on them, all I can say is "I'm really triggered about some situation, sorry if I have a bad vibe". Back in my room I fell flat on the bed and cried. A lot. What did I do right? I communicated what was going on to people I was with. Had I not done that, I would have projected it onto them and been very unpleasant. Staying "on top" of it by watching it and mentioning it in conversation helped me to not turn into a complete immature mess. What could I have done differently? I could have applied breathing techniques like box breathing or alternate nostril breathing. It may have allowed me to move on in the moment, but I still needed time alone to calm down, and I'm glad I took it. I could have stayed away from nicotine, which diffuses and blocks 1st line pain so that it's harder to work with. And since I had to cry anyway, perhaps without the drug it would have been a more connected, insightful cry. I recommend awareness and communicating about it in conversation. If you don't do that, and try to ignore it, in my experience it will just be projected like crazy and ruin interactions.