Illusory Self

Have not posted on here for a while but I have not been in the best place, feeling better today however. I notice I feel a whole lot worse living up to other people's expectations of you & doing things just to please others. I went to see my Dad over in Ireland, it was nice to talk to him but at the same time I was wasting my days just so I could go back to sleep. I found it uncomfortable being out of my ordinary routine. I am back in the UK now but slowly becoming more conscious of how I am wasting most days.... trying to learn to love & appreciate the present moment of life. My mind always wants to get somewhere instead & not enjoying the experience. I decided to read Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg & going to start small. I really want to change certain routines in my life. I am going to celebrate each habit that I do. I need to journal more so I can express myself more clearly. It feels very hard being stuck in your own thinking. Making a seperate post for the Tiny Habits transformation that I will be doing, I am only 26 & need to think more positively. Not many people my age know about personal development & self transformation. I must think more highly of myself to increase my own self worth & esteem. I try my best & I am not going to be so harsh or self critical for set backs in my life. i must love myself more, I must love others more. The inner critic is hard to deal with but love will heal everything. I have to be more kind towards myself, I don't currently have a career. My financial situation is not the greatest but I am in a first world country & have family around me that love me. I am loved by others but still feel lonely. I need to express self love towards myself. I am in a good position in life & need to stop comparing myself to others. It's all about how you perceive reality.

I recently decided to go & see my Dad for a holiday & it made me realize how our values differ so much. Most people I interact with on a daily basis are just not into self-development. I wouldn't say I have taken that much action in the past but at least my mind is open the amazing possibilities of actualizing your life if you put in the work. I find most people just work mundane jobs & watch T.V, ect... It makes me feel really internally alone because I find a cannot relate with many people in person. It makes it harder to make friends. I find I get really lonely a lot of the times & not sure how to deal with it. I just crave someone to talk to about bigger things than the mundane. I don't really have any friends in real life & think it is a problem, but I don't want to make friends for the sake of it. I want deep meaningful connections. I think it would also help me on my journey towards self improvement because of accountability, I don't have any of that right now & it is incredibly easy to fall of track/get caught up in other peoples realities. I want to self-actualize my life but I fall of track so much & I think it is due to lack of friends who are passionate about the same things. It feels hard when everyone around you is basically into the opposite of what you are into.

@thisintegrated I don't understand why I crave companionship & connection with others. I often use it as a distraction just to escape from myself. I know they cannot give me anything, it feels largely an unconscious process that goes on within me.

Anyone have any exercises on how to solve the issue of always having bent fingers? I find it hard to do push-ups/yoga stretches with my fingers straight on the floor. I am not sure what caused the issue but I am guessing from years of playing computer games as made my fingers go into this default position

@Leo Gura I have a huge problem with every date I go on with this issue. Thinking about all of that seems to just put me massively inside my own head. Like internally I know I should be doing certain behaviors but it almost causes me to freeze up in the interaction because I put to much pressure on myself on how to act. Sometimes I will get out of my head & be myself but that really does not turn the girl on, since I speak about logical stuff but I am actually being authentic to who I am. All this personality stuff seriously confuses me. It does not feel good repressing your masculinity because of extreme fear. I think this can become a very bad self fulfilling prophecy.

I debated whether to make this post or not as I feel like I most likely know what answers I will get. At the same time it could be good to get a different perspective on things. Maybe being part of a community could help as I don't really vocalize what I am thinking to others. The main issue that I am facing in my life is having no direction or sense of LP, even after taking Leo's course. I think it mainly down to a lack of life experience. It's almost like I do not know where to start that I feel totally overwhelmed. Bad financial situation, bad at dating, no LP. I feel a lack of enjoyment in everything I do in life. Like i'm constantly trying to escape how I feel. My mind says "I need to change", "tomorrow will be a new day", but that never happens. I am honestly in a rut. Most days consist of me just constantly on my phone doing nothing, & feeling incredibly tired. It's probably because I don't know where I should be heading. I feel like I can't really talk to most people about my situation because they don't really understand. I currently have a lot of free time, can work part time on my Dad's business (doing SEO/digital marketing) but I find it incredibly unfulfilling. My living situation is not the best, currently living with my grandmother & basically have all my family around me. Ideally I would like to live by myself. I find it really suffocating right now, even though they all love me. I don't feel like I have much of a sense of identity. It just feels like everything is way to overwhelming to cope with & I don't know where to begin. Ideally I just want to live by myself & doing spiritual work, ocassionaly talking to my family. I just get afraid of choosing the wrong thing for my LP, I don't really want to choose something purely for money because eventually I will just give that up. I think a lot of internal pressure is put on myself to figuring out what I want to do. As everyday seems to mostly be the same, I thought I would post this to see if I could get any feedback on changing my situation. I do contemplate on what my future could look like but cannot seem to come up with any answers.

Seemed to have a very bad ego backlash yesterday, I was just in bed all day watching T.V. I tried to go to a kundalini yoga class but could only stay for 60 minutes as I am not very flexible and did not think it was for me. I have managed to keep up the 1 hour daily meditation practice & cold showers. I do more importantly need to build a work ethic though, it is currently non existent. The same as my financial situation. I managed to get back on my feet today somewhat, but I really need to figure out my LP. Just seem to have no idea on what I am actually passionate about. I chase the opposite sex to distract me, the same with technology. I just need to contemplate more on what I want to do with the short time I have in this universe. May put dating on pause for a little until I get a better sense of who I am.

Don't think I am going to do this journaling everyday, it feels like a lot to cope with. Going to go at my own pace... has not been the best day today

DAY 3 9:30am - Woke up at around 9:30 but was laying in bed until around 10:10 before I decided to get up. I went to sleep at 4am the previous night as I was out trying to practice game. I do not feel that tired today however. Had a cold shower, did 1 hour of do nothing meditation, kegel exercises, stretching. Have not checked my social devices until now. Going to look into doing some shadow work later on. 12:40pm - Going to try take it slightly easier today, as I know if I keep going to hard to try to change myself, I may slide of track. I am putting a lot of mental pressure on myself to try to figure out my zone of genius & LP. 14:33pm - Reviewed values & strengths, journalled, kegel exercises, spent some time on online dating sites, still feeling very lost & confused in life. Making a conscious effort to get better at it however. Going to do some cooking soon & 1 hour of reading. Still need to look into doing shadow work. 16:24pm - Managed to do some cooking, however I felt like I messed up a lot on the recipe. My grandmother helped me, I feel incapable of cooking by myself. The meal was some kind of tofu stir fry with rice. Seem to be getting into negative though spirals within my own psyche right now. Going to allow it as it is though & do not resist. I want to feel love towards others but I can barely feel any kind of emotion. I get anxious even expressing my own thoughts on a journal, not knowing how best to express my inner diologue. Time to do some more humour visualizations. 17:46pm - Tried to do some reading but really cannot put my mind to it as a lot negative thoughts keep on bubbling up. In the future I will most likely need at least 1 day off a week where I can recharge. I feel like I am doing way to much right now, trying to enforce to many habits at once is not a good idea. Going to lay down & introspect, try to be kind to myself for all that I have achieved, sometimes I wish I could just cry. I put to much pressure on myself to even cry. The brunt of my internal suffering comes from having girls being attracted to me via online dating/girls looking at me when I go out but my internal confidence is non existent. I feel so close to having a good dating life but so far at the same time. I put so much pressure on myself when it comes to talking to the opposite sex that nothing ever gets said. The fear just feels unbearable, I don't even know why. I generally don't like talking about myself to anyone. This whole social domain feels to strange for me, I just want to quit it. I mess up 90% of the dates I go on. I don't understand it. Last girl I went on a date with said "the chemistry is not what I wanted it to be" but we vibed for like an hour - last 30 minutes I got drained & did not say much. She really seemed like my type also, I could of been her type if we got to know each other more but this all comes down to not being confident/leader/dominant. This shit gives me so much social anxiety... It's all so fake. Going to get Teal Swans completition process, I have some shadow work I need to do. 21:46pm - Listened to a lot of Teal swans book to do with shadow work. I am finding it very interesting & intend to implement some kind of practice soon. I am most certainly repressing certain parts of myself because I feel constantly unhappy and I don't like feeling this way, I have a lot of inner work that I need to do. I feel so disidentified from my sense of self that every action I do is a mask upon my true self, it feels large unconscious. I have trouble knowing who I am personality wise also. I need to raise my vibrational energy. Going to do some cold draw exercises now to master my sexual energy & then go to sleep. Tomorrow I intend to do a lot of work for my Dad's business as I think that needs to be put priority so I can get my finances in check. After that I need to move out of my family situation, living with my grandmother. 1 small step at a time...

DAY 2 9:00am - Woke up Was lying in bed for an hour before I decided to get up. Had my alarm set for 10. Need to stop wasting time lying in bed doing nothing. It's just so comfortable though. Grandmother is going out in less than an hour so going to wait for her to go before starting my meditation. My plan is to clean up my desktop & laptop, such as lastpass. Organize bookmarks etc. Brushed teeth 5 minute cold shower 10 minutes of kegel exercises 11:57am - Organized some of the stuff in my lastpass vault, feels kind of a waste of time but I like to be organized on my digital devices. Going to do 10 minutes of word associations & 1 hour of meditation (do nothing technique). 13:39pm - Did one hour of meditation (do nothing technique). Seems to be more enjoyable, sometimes I would have eyes open during the sit. Would allow anything to appear in my conscious awareness without resistance. Did more kegel exercises & had a protein shake. Going to do a 1 hour reading session of the Gandhi's autobiography now. I seem to be feeling very tired today, most likely from last night. Probably sleep deprived. Debating whether to go out tonight or not. I do need to improve at socializing but it feels like such a damn chore. 14:58pm - Finished reading 1 hour of Gandhi's autobiography. I find a lot of the vocabulary rather confusing in it, makes me want to improve mine. A lot of the words in it I did not totally understand. I was feeling extremely sleep deprived so decided to take some modafinil & get some organizational work done soon. Going finish up with lastpass. Don't think I will do the Life purpose course today as I am not feeling up to it. 15:40pm - Did some organizational work, briefly checked online dating apps. I always seem to feel very lonely a lot. I don't really have any friends I talk to which is probably the reason, I seem to want connection but most people reject me. On the other hand socialization can be a waste of time. It would be nice to have a few good companions though on which I can share how I am feeling. I crave love from others, disincluding my family because that is predestined love. I want real, true love. Someone to actually love me for me. I guess I shall just keep working on myself for now while keeping an optimistic mindset about the future. I am going to enjoy the weekends as more of a relaxation time for me. Time to get something to eat. 17:28pm - Got something to eat, did humour visualizations as well as kegel exercises. Managed to get some stretching in for more painful foot. I also booked a class at my gym for showing me how to do the correct form on certain compound lifts. I am really passionate about building muscle so that could be a hint towards a LP of mine. I want to sculpt the perfect body, hope my foot pain eventually goes away though as it has been ongoing for years. Going to also learn to do some stretching routines in the near future, I feel way to inflexible. Youtube is probably my best bet. I may make it a goal of mine to read 1 wikepedia page a day. 18:19pm - I tried looking at wikepedia, It looks way to confusing for me to start doing that now. I need to focus more on financial goals instead of educating myself. I will still educate myself but in different ways. Tried to do 10 minutes of the cold draw & could feel some sexual energy going up through my body but could it did not seem to go all the way to my brain. Going to do some stretches now & try to clear organize my computer more 19:27pm - Kind of feel like I am just wasting loads of time at this point scrolling through lastpass trying to organize everything into different folders, I did manage to delete passwords I have not used for a while. Was reading the actualized textbook for a little bit, inspiring. Still have quite a bit to clear out & declutter from my computers but think I have done a lot today. I will need to try and cement more of a clear vision for what my LP will be. It's so tricky because I have done the cause but still cannot wrap my head around what to do. I enjoy going to the gym and trying to build a consistent 1 hour daily meditation practice as of now. I do still need to work on game, gotta conquer the horrible AA. Will most likely try & go out tonight just to get better socially. 19:55pm - Will possibly try to do 1 hour of LP course trying to figure out my zone of genius which I really cannot seem to figure out at all. 20:21pm - Decided that I am going to try to go out tonight. I must go out to learn game though, no more being fearful of approach anxiety. Going to go out solo & socialize even if this is my worst nightmare. 1 hour of LP first though! 20:52pm - I have tried to do the zone of genius exercise multiple times, I even ask questions about what i'm naturally good at but I just cannot come up with an answer ughhhh. Anyway Going to recite values & signature strengths for a while to memorize them. Going out solo shortly to practice pickup.

DAY 1 7am - Woke up 5 minute cold shower Brushed teeth 10 minutes of kegel exercises 1 hour of meditation (do nothing technique) 9:00am - Heading to the gym Been to the gym & did legs. Trying to currently heal my ongoing foot pain by doing stretches, was there for 1hour 50minutes in total. Went to the shop to buy some ingrediants to do cooking later on. Just had my after gym food, going to attempt to do 1 hour of work for my Dad's business. This is going to be hard as I have no work ethic, my mind is saying "i'd rather do nothing" but it has to be done in order for me to improve. 12:10pm - 1 hour of work without any distractions Somehow I managed to do 1 hour of non distracteed work. I found it to be very challenging, was mainly on moz looking at different backlink opportunities to grow the sites organic traffic. I found some good websites but I found it to be very challenging to come up a good email outreach template. I could not think of one but happy I did some work for once. Going to take a slight break now to do some stretching + get food before going into doing 1 hour of the LP course. 14:23pm - 1 hour of LP Managed to do 1 hour of LP work, mainly just watching different videos. I did quite a lot of it in the past, decided to slightly tweak the words in my values list. Figuring out the zone of genius seems to be the hardest task for me, I cannot seem to figure out what I am good at. Going to give the exercise a go tomorrow & block out a 1 hour chunk of time. There are a few life purposes that I really want to do & feel somewhat of an inner conflict on deciding. Going to do 1 hour of a podcast now to improve my social skills. 16:00pm - 1 hour podcast Did one hour of my podcasting, felt it was a lot more natural this week compared to last week. You learn so much about yourself just talking for 1 hour to a camera. Trying to perfect my delivery in social situations hence why I am doing this. Recommended by Julien. I notice my mind tends to not want to talk that much & it often goes off topic during the podcast, next week I will most likely just talk about how much week has gone instead of choosing a specific subject. Maybe I might just choose a subject & try to teach myself to talk about it for an hour. Not sure yet. 17:23pm - 1 hour reading Decided to do word assocation exercises for 10 minutes where you string a sentance from a word and then pick any word in that sentance but the last. Found it challenging on some of the sentances & found a lot of them were also quite repetitive. I did do 1 hour of reading Gandhi's autobiography which I am starting to quite enjoy. Doing it as part of the homework assignment for the LP course. Going to do some humour visualizations soon & take a bit of break before going out tonight to try & focus on my game 18:54pm - Did some other stuff.... Managed to do a 10minute journal entry into onenote. Going to try to learn the Cold draw technique so I can try to reach a full body orgasm. My goal is to install 20 minutes of practice daily. First off I need to grab something to eat before 8 however as I am doing IF. 20:33pm - Time to go out shortly to work on my game... Dedided to try to learn the cold draw for 10 minutes instead of 20 as it is quite challenging feeling your testicles, learning to pull your sexual energy up throughout your spine. Kegel exercises & 10 minutes a day should suffice. I made some really nice cheese quesadillas with mozerlla. Currently trying to cut to 10% bf so not eating that much. Today has been a productive day, nervous about going out later however. Need to get over this approach anxiety. Going to do a 10 minute visualization of me going up & attracting girls before going out. I don't intend to get laid but would like to get up quite a few dates for next week as it will fit my schedule better. Edit: Just got back from a rather unsuccessful night out. Did not do any approaches & went to a bar crawl meet up. I did practice some socialization with the meetgroup at the beginning but got quickly burnt out. I did not drink & was feeling incredibly sleep deprived to even want to socialize with others. Going to sleep now & will set alarm for 10am. Going to possibly go out tomorrow by myself. I think going to these meetup groups gives me an excuse to not learn game. This night is not even worth writing a field report about as I did not even do any approaches. I am happy I got some socialization in towards the beginning, just not enough. Was dancing doing fuck all for a very long time. So much harder when you don't drink alcohol.

I recently went on date with this girl & I thought we had a great vibe for a majority of the date, it did die down at the end though. She genuinely seemed like a really nice girl & mentioned going on a 2nd date several times. I managed to kiss her, got her to sit next to me, it was very much on in the moment. She dropped so many hints that she would like to see me again during the date. I know I should of done more leading during our date, I probably should of tried to invite her back to mine towards the end. I personally think the last 30 minutes of the date was my downfall, I felt incredibly burnt out after an hour of communicating so she was doing a lot of the communication towards the end. Anyway I sent her a text saying "Had a great time with you" after the date. She responded with "I had fun too!" the next day I said "Would be great to see you again sometime soon" to which I got a response several hours later "thank you for the date you are very sweet but I did not feel as much chemistry as I would have liked for a second date, hopefully you can understand, sorry about that." That message would of made sense to if there was actually no chemistry. But for a majority of the date (at least an hour) there was non stop talking & she genuinely seemed incredibly attracted to me. Mentioning seeing me again, ect... Is it up to me to create more chemistry with the girl? I genuinely thought we vibed a lot. Just trying to figure out what I did wrong as I very much thought a second date was going to happen. It is not the nicest feeling when I got the message as she seemed to be very much my type appearance & personality wise. It makes me question how I need to act on dates in the future also. The feeling is so much worse when you genuinely like the girl.

Yeah I know, I did manage to kiss her which is a small win for me but I do seem to blow most dates I go on. I seem to get massive amounts of fear of rejection, even if we are vibing. She even hinted about getting out of the pub, but again the fear was way too overwhelming to cope with at the time.

Does anyone have any good music playlists to play, preferably some chill edm/house music similiar to actualized.org music playlist but with more variety? Want to have some good playlists ready if girls come over

I feel like it is so socially conditioned upon society that me not drinking alcohol will loose me some girls. It is a good reason to use to get them to come back to yours etc but I have not drunk in almost a month & intend on quitting. Does feel challenging going on these dates to pubs & getting a tonic water. I order it casually without making a big deal about it but I feel in the back of the girls mind, she is thinking why is he not getting a drink? I recently went on a date & the girl kept saying it was strange how I don't drink alcohol. I tried to own my reality/frame but still I feel like it is so conditioned in society to drink. I'd much rather improve my socialization skills without drinking though

I seem to have quite a bit of irritated skin around my neck area (I think it does do to clean shaving once a day) & wondering what the best way to get rid of it is. It basically is a lot of little red dots and looks like irritated/dry skin. I tried putting like some moisteriser on it recently & that seemed to irritate it even more. Not really sure the best way to describe it. I mentioned it to the docter & he just said to put shaving balm on after you shave but I doubt that will fix the issue, as I don’t even shave there will give it a try though. It seems to of been there for a while.

Lately I seem to be getting quite a bit of face acne & have some forehead wrinkles. I would like to have a healthy face but I am really commited to bodybuilding right now & have a lot of dairy/protein shakes. My meals are very inconsistent. I will typically eat the same meals every day. Just so I can get enough protein. What is a healthy diet when it comes to bodybuilding and having enough protein? Also I am looking into have a skincare routine, does anyone have any recommendations on a good mens skincare routine? I also seem to be getting some wrinkles on my forehead & I am only 25. I need to change my diet & have a skincare routine in place.

I live in the UK and I am looking into detoxing heavy metals but cannot seem to find anywhere to get a provoked urine test from. Also I am not sure where to get good quality DMSA from.

Thanks, will check it out

Currently using a cheap water filter but just wondering what is the most ideal method of consuming water without all of the heavy metals?

Thanks, I will do that. A lot of my acne comes from having my hair over my forehead since I have long hair. I am going to experiment styling my hair more sideways to try to get rid of it, even though I don't really like the style.

What does?

I often forget to drink, how much is the ideal amount to drink daily? I am trying lately to experiment with eating meat for most of my protein. is it okay to still have some dairy during the day? Also is it possible to get rid of the wrinkles? I find I experience a lot of tiredness & brain fog also. I genuinely just don't know what kind of diet to turn to as I usually just eat the same foods and have become obsessed with having enough protein. I wish there was just a diet template I could follow that has all the nutrients in. I am a vegeterian but lately trying to experiment with eating meat. Can you recommend any good skincare products? I don't even eat any vegetables

When I am in solitude, I seem to crave real person human connection. When I am around other people I just want to retreat back to my own solitude. Whenever I interact with someone, I don't seem to enjoy it whatsoever. Even my family members. When it comes to socializing, I almost feel somewhat dead inside. I have no charisma, humor, authentic expression... I really want to get better in this area of my life but socializing feels incredibly draining, even talking in general. This creates serious problems in my dating life as I am so much stuck in my head I never know what to say to anyone. A part of me just wants to be left alone in peace & quite. I am not sure if my lack of social expression is down to past trauma which just causes me to be in my head far to much, the feeling like I can't be myself or is it simply just a lack of social skills since I have never really been properly socialised when growing up. Right now I have almost given up on trying to improve my social life, because it feels so intensely emotionally draining & I don't enjoy it whatsoever. I am not sure that is the wisest decision to make. Lately I have given up on dating since I would get loads of numbers & girls texting me but I genuinely do not know what to reply back & found it very draining so I removed a lot of people from my life. I don't really have anyone I communicate with now. I find that focusing on dating/sexuality really hinders my progress towards spirituality. I am kind of the person that seems to get really obsessed with mastering one thing. Whenever I interact with another human being, thoughts such as these will run through me head: How fast/slow should I be speaking, when I should I interrupt the other person talking so I can speak, how should I move my body. Probably the most crucial one is: what shall I say? For family members I tend to just surrender into not wanting to talk but I don't think that is healthy, I never seem to express myself. As you can imagine it becomes so much worse for me interacting with the opposite sex. I feel they are judging me on every little micro detail that I make in person. Feels so incredibly draining. Right now I seemed to of just cut of communicating to most people in my life trying to focus on more spiritual/LP goals but I am not sure if that is the right thing to do. I tend to not even talk to them at all, so they just end up asking me loads of questions & I don't even enjoy giving responses. I am always thinking "what can I do next". I tend to feel like I have an unworthy personality & damaged ego. Never knowing how to authentically express myself.