flowboy

@k-ahmadzadeh You think you need above-average humor or looks in order to have friends? You don't. All you need (to get laid, to have plenty of friends) is to be comfortable and accepting of your average or below-average looks, humor and whatever else you imagine to be important. That, and from that also flows honest and vulnerable self-expression. What you shared in this post, for example, is it something you would mention when getting to know people? It should be. That's how self-accepting and honest and vulnerable you'd need to be in order to be a people magnet. Example without self-acceptance: "By the way I have few friends and not much luck with dating" (sad voice) -> you'll get pitying looks and unsollicited advice Example with self-acceptance: "I haven't had a chance to make many friends here yet but I'm open to meet people. Yeah I would also like to get more dating experience and find the right one, the girls obviously don't know what they're missing (big smile) -> you'll get invites to hang out because you seem relatable and at the same time not sad and needy

He just likes to say that. He never was the type to want money for money ‘s sake in the first place. Psychedelics don’t change you into anything besides more if yourself. Well lsd and DMT won’t damage your brain. Unless you already have a weak grounding in reality and are prone to psychosis. That said, people who start to lean on psychedelics as their main tool for healing, doing ayahuasca month after month year after year start to become very skewed people with strange unrelatable personalities. use it for insight, not for healing/therapy

When to go for the kiss is when you start wondering about it. These are your instincts. Learn to trust them.

The value of a video on youtube is not just in the information, which you can find anywhere if you look, it's also in who is presenting it. I concur that it would be cool to hear Leo talk about this.

@Jannes Do this on a microdose:

Did your father emotionally abandon you? Or set a bad example? Where's the warrior spirit? Regardless, if you don't feel you're competent enough for a gas station / mcdonald's job, you've got really low self esteem, best thing to do is to 1) get angry and use that anger to take action, like other people suggested (this resigned defeated attitude is not going to cut it), 2) do some basic personal development shit, develop your vision, check Leo's 2014 videos, 3) get referred to a therapist and get some CBT, 4) make friends with men who are on the right track and have a stronger spirit you can learn from

Those vitamins and supplements I mentioned help the brain make enough neurotransmitters to get the repression system working and have enough left over for daily functioning. Gamechanger.

@Federico del pueblo Yeah you blew too many bricks out of your repression system at once and now it's leaking. Symptoms of that are anxiety or psychotic thoughts. I advise against doing trauma work and high dose psychedelics in the same time period for this reason. Don't worry though, chances are it will self-correct in a few days, weeks or months. I will stipulate that with a bit of willpower and perhaps a bit of breathwork, you can work on your trauma in a safer way so that this doesn't happen. We have an inner "healer" that knows exactly how big of a chunk of trauma to release in a session so that you can still handle it. This gets overridden by psychedelics. Here's what I recommend now, to recover quickly: take a complete multivitamin regimen. My girlfriend and I are both doing that and noticing that it helps tremendously, not just with feeling deeply into things when they come up (we cry more) but also with not having trauma interfere and "linger" in the background for days and days (being tense and anxious and not knowing why) In particular, take: - A complete multivitamin complex - 3g vitamin C - L-Phenylalanin or DLPA, 700mg on empty stomach in the morning - Ornithine, Arginine before sleep You'll be the old you soon enough! Accidents happen with the courageous experimenters. Wish you a speedy recovery

I've worked with repressed feelings on psychedelics quite a bit (LSD, MDMA, mescaline), I also work with repressed feelings in clients, without substances, and here's what I've learnt: Low doses are better than high doses. (Sorry psychonauts) Ideally you are not distracted by visuals or wild closed-eye visuals, so no need to go much beyond a microdose The only point of the psychedelic is to overpower the Manager Parts (in IFS terms) so that answers become more easily accessible. It's not about the substance, nor does a higher dose make the session more effective. What makes the session successful is the questions you ask yourself (or preferably, have a buddy ask you) High doses + trauma work carry real risk, you can easily disrupt your repression system too much and basically blow up the gates, resulting in too much pain surfacing at once and cleaning up the mess for months. Risk of psychosis and panic attacks in the aftermath. This is a mistake that is too often made. Here's the questions you should be asking yourself during the experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbpE3r10X4uA&list=PLzBuA1Jno6DoWuOftzc7fL3XO8u2Ln45m&index=3

It can be okay for a period of time, if you're really passionate about something. Then again, you could also be having a manic episode. In fact, that's probably what your biological state is most congruent with, but it doesn't have to mean that you're not thinking clearly. Regardless, just expect it to be a phase and the pendulum to swing the other way at some point. Look up the symptoms of mania and keep an eye on yourself. Use feedback from friends to stay straight on your path. Feel your body's needs and respond to them. What are you working on?

I'm sorry you're bed-bound. It's a difficult thing we're not made to deal with, so cut yourself some slack also. What I will say is what I have noticed in myself: the activities you mention are a bad replacement for socialization (a band-aid on loneliness) Because you are already reading, which is taking in high quality information / entertainment. So what could you possibly get out of social media and shitty films? Imagined social life (even living with the characters of a movie in the imagination). And discussions with faceless people you don't care about replace social interaction with real people. I'd expect it to be easier to cut down on those things if you had friends over a lot, or lived with people. I say that because I experienced it for myself: on a retreat, coliving with other people around me, not necessarily interacting with them even, I had zero impulse to argue with people on the internet or watch tv. Then I got back home where I lived alone: back was the phone addiction, the allure of Netflix, and the correcting people's opinions on the internet.

Maybe this belongs in the "practical" section, I'm not sure. Had an insight while doing shadow work on LSD. Maybe it helps someone here who is also doing shadow work or self therapy. Traumatic memories don't have feelings attached to them that later get suppressed. So looking at old memories might feel deceptively bland - meh, don't feel much. It's because the feelings never got the chance to manifest - in fact, giving yourself the space to feel the appropriate feelings for the first time is how to heal traumatic memories.

This. The first times are going to be awkward, it's better to just accept that and courageously stride forward into the awkward times, than unrealistically expect yourself to behave as if you'd had the experience that you didn't. How is that fair to yourself? One thing is for sure: you will lose her if you don't initiate.

False. I got back together after breaking up, and the issues on both sides that caused the breakup are either transcended or heavily diminished now. Happily engaged now. I guess an important factor is whether the other person has a motivation to grow and develop herself just like you, or whether she's likely to stay complacent.

@Valach Here's what's going on. She's using the poor other guy as a placeholder until she gets you back, or someone of a similar caliber. It isn't going to last with him - guaranteed. She's telling you almost literally that she is willing to have whatever kind of relationship you want with her (hint hint - a change to shape the relationship completely how you want, what does that tell you?) She's using Instagram to manipulate you, make you jealous and get your attention You are really the man in her eyes, she has a lot of respect for you. This means you have quite a lot of leverage, until she gives up on you or meets someone else she can respect in that way. What to do with this? Now that she's more flexible on the configuration of relationship she wants, decide whether you want her back on YOUR terms If you do, then don't be daft and indecisive, call her and tell her to break it off and come home to you IMMEDIATELY. She will comply if you do that now. If you wait a week, the indecisiveness you show may cause her to change her mind and really forget you. However: she's displayed some serious immature behavior here, namely cheating on her current guy and emotional manipulation through instagram. As well as keeping a guy around just to save face / be less alone. This is NOT mature behavior. Based on this you might decide that she's not for you, or you might decide that you can grow out of this immaturity together (perhaps you also have some). Which means you have to set the STANDARDS. (tell her we're not going to tolerate this level of behavior from each other in the future, starting now, or it is over) Whatever you decide, uninstall instagram and block the website. There's nothing for you there. Instagram is for stealing men's attention and emotionally manipulating them. I used to have it for "following interesting people" but really for following my exes, might-have-beens and random girls showing their ass. It's for suckers. Don't let yourself be manipulated like that and delete it. Make a decision within a few days and act accordingly. Either cut her out completely and cleanly or set the standards for how she can come back in and tell her to come back in. Being wishy-washy and indecisive will cause regret and make this a festering ugly emotional process stealing your attention and energy for months to come. Sorry about the caps and the strong language, I just came from the gym. I'm certain about what I said though and wish you the best with this situation. I would advise spending a day in nature without your phone, taking a pen and a journal with you, and make yourself decide after that day which way you'll go. It's what I did. I went into the forest, cried a lot, wrote a lot, pro and con lists, imagining futures with and without her, and made a decision. Then acted accordingly the next week. It worked out well for me. Don't let it fester.

I don't know the ins and outs of what is officially considered holotropic breathwork, but I've been in some retreats and workshops that involved breathwork. I've also facilitated breathwork once at a retreat I organised with @meadow. People tend to get what they need to get out of it if they just keep doing it for 30-60 minutes. I'd compare it to psychedelics - it takes you where it wants to take you. BUT you can use guidance and suggestions from a competent person if you wish. That's all extra though. Practically the question of "where do I take this now" never really came up for me when doing breathwork, because of the profoundly altered state of mind. It's an experience that you can just surrender to, just remember to keep going. That's 80% of the value of breathwork guidance, is reminders to keep going and not forget. If you're not feeling profoundly altered 10-15 minutes in, your breath is not going deeply enough into your chest and belly. It's necessary to really exaggerate it in the beginning, until autopilot takes over. And nose breathing is fine, even better, if you get good air flow there. Good luck!

Yes, I've condensed what I've learned from Janov and Vereschack amongst others into one 2hr guided video instruction recently, which I've made available to some people upon request. Worked pretty well for the ones who were brave enough to try it out

It all started when she noticed me biting her head off after she’d wake me up. Even though she tried to get me out of bed in the nicest, sweetest way - I’d hold a grudge until noon! It had become a pattern. So we decided to do shadow work to see if we could fix this. The first session (documented here) brought me back to childhood, and I was able to connect the experience of having to get up, to having to get up and face the dread of daily highschool bullying. That felt like a tremendous relief, and I already felt lighter. The heaviness around getting out of bed had lifted. Though as we kept talking, I realised this had only been the first layer. There was something deeper there. Being “woken up” felt like a profound symbol … for something. So I started a round of circular breathing and felt into it. Soon, I was in the center of a tornado of old feelings. Bullseye. I stayed in the feeling by expressing it, even though it wasn’t clear what it was yet. Then my brain started showing me little flashbacks. A safe warm place. Having to leave. Fingers prodding me. I started breathing sharply and heavily and hysterically crying. Strange, high-pitched baby cries. My girlfriend @flume is holding the camera. I hated those fingers prodding me. I WAS NOT READY. However, I am BORN. (I asked my mother about the story of my birth: turns out I was induced, which explains the feeling of not being ready, and I was also breeched (ass-backwards), which a doctor discovered by prodding me) Now I remember: all I wanted to do was GO BACK, just for a little while. And that’s how I feel when my partner tries to get me out of bed. Now, I’m over the hump. I’ve felt the pain. The flood of insights follows. Why I never felt like I was fully participating in life. Why I felt like my life was just “for practice”. Why I always had this sense that my life decisions were not real, and one day I would go back and do them all over again.. If you’ve ever done sessions like these, you know the onrush of spontaneous insights and clarity. This was 2 years ago. Since we did this session, I’ve never had a cranky morning again. I’ll say it again. I’ve NEVER HAD A CRANKY MORNING AGAIN. I’ve had slow mornings, sleepy mornings, snooze-ten-times-mornings. But never angry ones anymore. Not only that, but my knee-jerk reaction of “leave me alone, I’m not ready” which manifested in many situations, such as right before planned social activities, before bed, basically anytime I’m in the zone with something and interrupted, my angry reflex has gone, only to leave a mild residue of resistance that can be overcome with a simple sigh. I hope you enjoyed this story and that it may inspire you to try a shadow work session for yourself. Cheers, Erik

@Julian gabriel Ok so can you imagine another dick going inside her while you’re waiting at home for her to return from a date and be cool with that? Like have you thought this through at that level? What you want is possible, I’ve done it, but not from a naive unempathetic frame of mind.

I once went to a free seminar by RSD Sarah, and paid 300$ for the follow-up seminar, where she would give us 1-on-1 coaching on how to approach. What a rip-off. The sales tactics she uses are abusive, and the advice she gave was toxic. What she would basically do, is in the free seminar: Have volunteers come up on stage and role-play with her as the girl, and challenge them to "pick them up". Then ignore and diss them in front of everyone, so they get really triggered and shamed (it was a rigged game - she wasn't going to let anyone pass that test) Then use that to make people think "wow I really have problems" and pitch her 300$ seminar. Then be verbally abusive to anyone who dared to say they wouldn't join the 300$ seminar, and basically demean them in front of anyone ("Look at you, you're fat, you're not doing anything with your life, you're bald, you're not attractive, women don't respect you, you need this more than anyone" - and use the audience to apply peer pressure) I was so taken aback by this that I recorded her abuse on my phone In the paid seminar: Practice showing emotions, but in a fake way. So she would have us take selfies with our faces making different expressions, like we took all of these selfies with our faces in these fake weird expressions Do more role play with people and point out how emotionally dull and monotone they expressed themselves (that part was true) She told me that she noticed a lot of anger from me when she practiced showing disinterest as a girl ( that was true ) But then I asked her: what do I do about this anger that is apparently repelling women according to her? And her answer was, and I quote: "I dunno, just do some meditation or something." That'll be 300$ thank you.

If EFT Tapping was a relationship exercise...

@ValiantSalvatore I've spent time trying, really trying to give you a healthy perspective in order to help you today. Helping does involve saying things that rub your ego the wrong way sometimes, so I have reminded you that I'm not attacking you, I'm just calling them as I see it and giving you my professional opinion. You've responded by accusing me of all sorts of bad things, abuse even, and threatening me, so I actually regret even trying to help you, which I'm sure I'm not the only one. Stop biting the hand that feeds dude. You owe me an apology.

@ValiantSalvatore Maybe this is a good time to actually process your childhood trauma with your dad then? Since you are projecting it all over the place. If someone tells you something you don't want to hear, but out of the goodness of their heart and it's well-intentioned, but then you interpret it as malicious gaslighting, something's seriously off with your radar and this is a telltale sign of unprocessed trauma.

At this point you're just venting and blaming. What's your part in all this, and what steps can you take to change it? There's always something