Caoimhin

Hey! I was wondering if anyone else has done chelation yet and experienced smelly urine during the cycle. No, I don't have a UTI or STD and there was no change in diet. There was a distinct difference in the smell of my urine... has anyone noticed this? Is this a sign it's working or are these chemicals just dank/musky smelling?

First, I empathize with your struggles. Life is tough. It feels impossible sometimes. It's overwhelming and can totally go the opposite direction you want it to. It can feel out of your control and to a large extent it is. I don't want to make assumptions or project, but you've clearly been feeling down and out and I want to acknowledge that before I give you my two cents. I've hit low points too and have turned to spiritual techniques and psychedelics as a desperate attempt to figure it all out. I haven't done a trip like the one you did though. I stick with LSD and I've never gone higher than 150ug. I'm fairly sensitive and I only use it for trauma work or with set intensions. I suggest if you want to get something practical out of your experiences with psychedelics, lower your dose and have a good foundation of spiritual practice before. Don't blast youself to space if you can't handle life on earth. These psychedelics show you your highest potential. This can be depressing if you are nowhere near there. Use them to show you what the next highest state looks and feels like and then try to maintain that. My base reality has moved up to a microdose of LSD because I realized that it's possible to live there sober. If I were to experience what you experienced, I'd feel so far from that, that I might get depressed and discouraged. That is not productive. I'd say take time away from psychedelics for a year or two. When you return, take low doses and don't mix substances too much. These types of intense spiritual experiences are meant to help you realize that this state is always available and always present. When I take LSD, what I realize is that the only reason I'm not tripping when sober is because I haven't given myself permission to do so. This is the classic idea that you are always enlightened, but you just haven't realized it yet. You experienced a potencial way of existing and it was pretty great compared to the lower vibrational plane of material reality. You caught a glimpse of the truth but your ego hijacked it on the come down. I'd say let this experience process and try your best to integrate it, there are deep lessons there, they may not be "practical" but they may be lessons in being. Yes, life is meaningless... that's not inherently depressing. The depression is a projection of the ego. The ego wants to feel important and special. When it realizes that it isn't, and that it might not even exist, it gets depressed and holds on to that because that is all it has left. Practice reframing this experience of nothingness. Depression is a choice, choose to view this meaninglessness as infinite potential for meaning(it's the same thing). Because life is meaningless, you can create that meaning. Ask yourself: Why is meaninglessness depressing? Best luck and keep the faith

Spirituality is being, philosophy is understanding. They inform eachother.

@D2sage Thank you! i appreciate the detailed response, i'll check this out as well.

Hey! I've been wanting to start a website/blog just to get myself out there and get my feet wet. I'm new to entrepreneurship (I'm still trying to learn how to spell it without Google's help) and I know little to nothing about coding or web design/development. I have great ideas on the content I'd like to share and some tools I want to create for public use. I have a bunch of limiting beliefs that I'm working on and I lack the technical skills but I refuse to let that hold me back from sharing and adding value. I don't want to be a Leo clone but I am using him(as well as others) as an example. Any advice, books, resources, etc. will be very appreciated. Thank you !!

@Michael569 thank you, i'll check it out too

@Leo Gura got you, thanks!

Hey, I've struggled being a late bloomer too. I didn't read your whole post but I got the gist. First, I think your past is quite normal, so no reason to feel shame. Second, it seems like you think a lot about your past and lack of experience. If you stay in that head space, your situation will be very hard to change, so choose to stop living in the past. We are taught about the importance of setting boundaries with other people but never really consider setting boundaries with our own thoughts. I invite you to set a boundary with thoughts about your past. This means that if you have a thought about the past, notice it and then refuse to entertain it. Your ego will keep picking on you until you have better boundaries with it. Not everything your ego says needs your attention. When you refuse to entertain these kinds of thoughts, eventually these pathways will fire less. This might sound like repression but it isn't. When you have firm boundaries, you are acknowledging the thought and allowing yourself to feel it, but you choose not to live there anymore. Thirdly, stop comparing yourself to others. Everyone has their own story. You have the power to rewrite your story, but you use that power to write stories about others'. What does this subcommunicate to yourself? (actually answer that) Even if you don't really think you compare yourself to others, you are, or else you wouldn't have written this post. The ego needs a basis of comparison to feel good or bad about a situation. This also means that it is a two sided coin, I invite you to stop all negative and positive comparison. Negative comparison is self-judging, positive comparison is moralizing. Ask yourself if these are habits you want to keep doing. Lastly, and I can't emphasis this enough. You must love yourself unconditionally. Everything you've written is coming from self judgement and a lack of self-love. I know this sounds abstract and fluffy. Self-love couldn't possibly be the solution, but it is... If you don't love yourself unconditionally, no one can do that for you. No amount of sexual experience will fill that void. I do believe gaining sexual experience is valueable and necessary for healthy development, but you can't/shouldn't force this stuff. If you wait until you get more sexual experience to love and accept yourself, you'll never get either. You don't have control over the former, but you do have control over the latter. On the same note of self-love, because they are the same point, you must also forgive yourself for your past. I recommend doing the exercise Leo lays out in his video http://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-love-yourself. Do this daily and do it until you start crying. Notice that you are the only person you ever needed or wanted love from. This will make you unstoppable. Best luck and keep the faith

@mmKay oh that's interesting. I haven't noticed that. i'll keep that in mind, thanks!

@The0Self @Leo Gura good to know, thanks !

@kray yeah, so i've been hearing, thanks!

@Enlightement lol i'll name it actualized.net, Then I'll wear a bald cap for the head shot

@Leo Gura did you use those to make your website or did you make it from scratch?

Hey! First, I want to give you some much deserved admiration. It sounds like you've been trying a lot of things to improve yourself. Self improvement is no small feat, and anyone who takes on this challenge has the heart of a warrior. It takes courage to face your problems head on. I want you to know that. With that said, here are my thoughts. I think you are confusing hope with trust. Hope doesn't cure people of cancer. The people who are cured from cancer didn't just have hope. In Viktor Frankl's book A Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about how the people who survived the horrors of Nazi concentration camps were the people who believed without a doubt that they would make it out alive. Hope inherently has some level of doubt. We hope for the things we believe we don't already have. This keeps us in the mindset of scarcity and lack. Trust, however, is not scarcity. When we trust, we know that what is ours will be ours. We trust in God and The Universe. We trust in Absolute Abundance, even in the most difficult moments. More importantly, we trust ourselves to be able to handle anything. Trust is universal. Trust means you might not get what you think you want, but you know you will still thrive, not just survive. Trust is knowing that if you lose your way you will always find your way back, or that maybe you can never lose your way to begin with. Trust is knowing that there is no other way and that God won't let you deviate too far for too long. Hope, though we consider it to be a positive emotion, is still quite low frequency compared to trust and abundance. Hope keeps someone from killing themselves. Hope keeps you going in times of desperation. I don't want to discount hope. Never lose hope. If hope is your baseline, then you will at least stay alive. That's important, but don't live there. Know when hope has exhausted its use and then transcend it to higher vibrations. @thierry said it well, "you do not stop until you are healed (or no)". Keep troubleshooting your problems. If it takes 20 or 1000 techniques to find the cure, it will be worth it, but also know that the cure will look a lot different than you expected it to look. Listen to your intuition when you ask these questions. If the answer you come up with depresses you, then it’s probably not the right answer for now. If it empowers you, then that’s more in alignment. Remember, you are an unlimited being, placing limits on yourself. Lastly, you seem self aware, and I'd be doing you a disservice by telling you all this without prompting you to do your own investigation. What do you think is the right answer to your question/s? What is the opposite of seeking? Then when you have that answer ask: how do I practice this? Do some research or come up with your own exercises/techniques. Then try it for a month and see if you have better outcomes. Good luck and keep the faith!

@Lila9 i was never a huge fan, but here recent work is good and her growth as an artist is inspiring

I love this song. Pretty deep and spiritual. I felt like this community would appreciate it.

@Master in Training Of course! Glad to help out! Yeah, the practical exercises are the most exciting and also offer the most immediate results. Let me know how it goes if you try any of them! Good luck

Hey, fellow people pleaser! I want to commend you for starting this journey towards self-respect and self-love. It's not an easy task to unwire the people pleasing brain. I think you are starting on the right path. The methods you've come up with yourself are really powerful and if you stick with them you'll keep gaining insights. You're building your self-efficacy, which is huge in this work, and you are trying to observe your people pleasing tendencies in real situations, which is really powerful and direct. You might not even need advice, but because you asked, I'd love to offer my two cents and the methods I used to overcome most of my people pleasing. But first let me play devil's advocate... It makes a lot of sense to want approval from others! Why would we not want that?? We are biologically programmed to want approval; it's essential for basic survival and mental health. Plus, people pleasing says a lot of good things about your character: you care about others, you want a loving respectful relationship with others, you are empathetic, you're kind and polite, etc(actually think about other good reasons to be a people pleaser and write them down). Do you want to give up all those great traits in exchange for whatever is on the other side (people displeasing? sociopathy??)? I hope the answer is no. So my first point of advice is to stop trying to not be a people pleaser. Instead, the goal should be to put your own approval above others. You don't want people to not like you, that is negative motivation and you'll keep backsliding when you get lonely and desperate. Instead, you want to trust that you can handle disapproval and love yourself regardless of what others think or say. This is a better foundation to work from because it is positive rather than negative. It will minimize backsliding because you are growing in self-love rather than shaming and suppressing parts of yourself. The deeper, non-dual insight here is that your relationship to yourself is exactly your relationship to the world, and your relationship to the world is exactly your relationship to yourself. You can keep the good parts of people pleasing by being a nice decent person, you just stop deriving your self worth from it. Here is a list of insights, mental reframes, and techniques that I've used to get over my people pleasing. It's not comprehensive and I invite you to experiment. Stop internalizing others approval. Approval is a two sided coin. We tend to focus on getting rid of negative emotions, and keeping the positive ones. This is what keeps us stuck in the pattern. In order to stop being a people pleaser, let go of the dopamine spike of positive feedback from others. Don't let the opinions of others affect the way you feel about yourself, both positively and negatively. If someone gives you praise say thank you then continue as if it didn't happen. Reframe your goals. I relate to wanting to get bigger to build up confidence. I'm a hard gainer and have always been insecure about how skinny I am. Over the years I've put on muscle, and to an extent that made me feel better about myself, but the focus wasn't right and going to the gym became a chore. I was getting fit for approval. If you withhold approval until you reach a goal, you'll never reach your goal. That's because you're not deficient in your body or muscles, you're deficient in self-love. Self-love comes first. I had to reframe my health goals so that the motivation was to be healthy. I'm working out now because I love myself and love the growth I get from facing the challenge. I want to be fit and healthy to get more out of life. Now I don't care how big I get and, counterintuitively, I've been making some impressive gains with less effort. Practice self-love. This is the most important and life changing advice here. This is a simple yet powerful technique. Look up Leo's video How to Love Yourself. Don't underestimate this technique. Okay, here it is, look yourself in the eyes and genuinely tell yourself, "I love you exactly the way you are". Do this until you start crying, then go further. This simple technique has changed my life within the first few sessions. Everything else I've said derives from self-love. There is no cure all, except self-love. Ultimately, the only person you've ever wanted/needed love from was yourself. Go straight to the source and you'll never have a people pleasing problem again. Don't give up people pleasing to gain approval. It's tricky how the ego coops this. Most people pleasers decide to give up people pleasing because they realize it is a bad strategy for gaining approval, and at least for me, I wanted to give it up so I could feel more confident and attractive around women. Rewire your brain to have different beliefs and they will inform your behavior. The other way around is just aping confidence without having it. People see through that very quickly, and what's worse, you can start smelling your own BS. The content is different on the surface but the structure of the behavior is exactly the same. Watch Leo's video called Content vs Structure to understand this more. Social exposure. This one is more practical and you've been doing a version of it already, but let's expand on it. Shame attacking exercises: (All credit goes to Dr. Abert Ellis and Dr. David Burns) This exercise is where you purposefully go to a public place and make a fool of yourself. The key here is to do this mindfully and observe how others respond to you. Here is a good list of examples: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffeelinggood.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F01%2FShame-Attackng-v-1.pdf. If you want to learn more, I recommend searching through the Feeling Good Podcast or searching Feelinggood.com. I've done many of these, my favorite one was singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in the mall food court in February. It's a very intimidating technique but it will transform your life. The number one rule is to only make a fool of yourself, never insult, hurt, or embarrass someone else. Rejection collection: Again a technique popularized by Dr. Ellis and Dr. Burns when it comes to dating anxiety, but also popularized by Jia Jiang for a more general fear of rejection. This is where you go to random people and ask for something outrageous to get them to say no. The goal is to get rejected. If they say yes, it doesn't count. For me, I went to a bar or club and asked 10 women for their numbers. Again, I want to emphasize that the goal is not to make people feel uncomfortable or insulted, please do it respectfully. Full disclosure: This is similar to the others. This is where you walk up to strangers(or people close to you) and tell them something you are insecure about sharing with them. You can say something like, "hey, this is random, but I just wanted to tell you that I've been struggling with people pleasing my whole life, but I've been working on it and I'm not ashamed of it anymore". You can say something about your body image, or anything you are insecure about and wouldn't normally be open about sharing. This is also intimidating but very powerful. If you come up with your own disclosure, remember to keep it positive and self-empowering. Don't emotionally burden the other person. Don't bring the mood down lol. Actively try not to impress people. This is good for first dates. It's simple, don't try to impress her. Say unimpressive things. It takes the pressure off. Let yourself be imperfect. Again, it's simple. Let yourself be a people pleaser sometime. Accept that some people will still make you feel insecure for now, that's okay, you're growing. Reframe it! People pleasing can be endearing. It does work sometimes. That's why we do it. If it never worked it would have never been reinforced. Going back to self-love! Accept and love yourself exactly the way you are. You're a people pleaser sometimes, love that. You'll find that you stop people pleasing as much when you allow yourself to do it sometimes. This is forgiveness. Hope this helps and keep the faith!

Hey, thought I would share this thought I had while doing day game and practicing my social skills. Yesterday, I had a quasi-insta-date and ended up spending the whole day with her. My insight was into how we actually get into state. This helped me deal with the shy, awkward and creepy first few approaches that ultimatly got me warmed-up enough to get 2 phone numbers and a insta-date, all within only 8 approaches! Essentially, this reframe was inspired by Ryuu Shinohara's book on money manifestation called The Magic of Money Manifestation(I hope to write a review of it eventually!), the Sedona method, and just the general idea of developmental stages. In Shinohara's book he mentions that emotions have higher or lower vibrations and inorder to climb up to the highest vibration and manifest the good life, we have to recognize each stage we are at, embrace it, and try to move up to the one above it. Ex: if you are jealous, the next stage up is anger, some stage above that is doubt and so on until you reach abundance. My idea is that, of course this is the same for when we go out and practice social skills (it's the law of attraction, duh!). What if each night we go out we have to systematically go through these stages to get from shy/insecure guy(low vibration) into a guy in state(high vibration). State, of course, being when you are effortlessly charasmatic and have little to no fear or anxiety while in a social settings. Ok, here is my rough model, please tell me what you think and what your personal experience is. isolated/withdrawn-> shy/insecure->awkward->creepy->sweet/friend vibes->charming->unshakeably confident(aka state) The main reframe I hope to establish here is that if you are going from not sociallizing for a while and then back in, you will have to readjust and go through these stages again. Of course, over time the goal is to have so much exposure that you raise your baseline. The learning curve is also different for everyone. Some people who had a lot of social exposure and social success early in life and are naturally more extroverted might be sitting comfortably at a higher stage all the time. This post applies to them too, but is focused more so on helping the shy/introverted guys that are struggling to get through the uncomfortable early stages. Think of these uncomfortable early stages as the threshold guardians. They are there to test how much you actually want to improve your dating life. On the other side of these uncomfortable stages is the dating life you dream to have. Be awkward and shy for a few approaches. Then notice yourself being creepy for the next few. Expecting and embracing the lower stages will help you get through it quicker. Being creepy is actually a very important stage for the social learning curve. You are creepy because you aren't calibrated yet, this is how you reorient yourself with others. You need to test boundaries to see where they lie. When you are creepy you are being bold and testing what is acceptable. You learn really quickly what not to do or say, but you might even be surprised to find that something you thought was off limits is actually working to attract her. This girl I meet at the grocery store was looking at shaving cream when I approached. She hooked as we were talking about her shaving habits and how hairy her legs were(she was wearing sweatpants, I wasn't making a rude observation). In developmental models like spiral dynamics we learn that the higher stages incorporate the lower stages and build off of them. It took me being awkward and creepy first to know what is socially acceptable in order to move past just being acceptable. Something I thought would have been too personal to talk about actually worked out smoothly. Tell me what you think! Hope this perspective helps!

Hi, this is my first post on the forum! i was wondering if anyone has purchased the hotseat at home program(or any of the coaching calls from Self Mastery Co. for that matter) and if so what was your experience? was it worth it? is it a scam? I'm considering pulling the trigger on it since it is 50% off(which i hear is more often the case than not). i've done maybe 400 approaches so far, not consistantly enough to make substancial improvements, but enough to get a base of good sets and a lot of awkward cringey blow outs. I've found that Leo's How to Get Laid has been foundational and gives a great jumping off point. is this program going to offer significantly more/better information than the how to get laid series?? also, if anyone lives in new jersey/new york area, i'm accepting wing applications

@BlessedLion yeah, i'm with you. i want to do pick up with integrity. i might not get as many lays but it's quality over quantity imo.

@hyruga thanks, yeah you make a good point about how it might work in different cultures. sounds like good stuff though and it makes sense he's the leo of pick up, leo got into personal development content because of owen.

@LordFall thanks for the response. yeah i think you're right. i want to get other areas of my life in order first, but i'll deffinitely pick it up when i get things in order. until then i'll just do approaches for the exposure and so i'm not starting from zero when i get more into it.

this is so pure and wholesome lol

@PataFoiFoi of course, that's what this community is here for. Let me know what you get out of it if you try it. There is a lot of great advice; you have a lot of homework to do now lol. And your destiny is yours to chose. don't get stuck in determinism. Determinism doesn't exist and neither does freewill for that matter... Remember these are distinctions that will be erased. What's left then?? Well that's something to contemplate lol. You seem to have this negative belief that You created this life to suffer Hell. That isn't true. You created this life for no reason at all. No point. Just to create for Creation's sake. I've never read Paradise Lost but this is a great quote, "Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n. Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?" maybe you want to be in Hell? There are lots of good reasons to stay in Hell... you can keep beating on yourself is one... in Heaven that shit doesn't fly lol best wishes!