Solvinden

Hello everyone, to put it simply, I need to improve my social skills in the next year quite a lot (job related). I struggle with severe social awkwardness. For example, I don't know what to say. Even if I know what the "right" thing to say is, I often feel awkward nevertheless. Moreover, I struggle with eye contact and humour quite a lot. All of these things sometimes work good at special occasions, so I think it should be a learnable skill for me. Here is what I think I could work on: 1) Increase the time of "just being" even further. Most of the time I just feel like chilling/relaxing. If I give in to this feeling, I feel afterwards more motivated to talk to people and my social skills improve. Nevertheless, it feels like that alone is not the solution. 2)Read some good books concerning the topic I now start reading "How to win friends and influence people" which I skimmed through seven years ago. Honestly, I think this book is going to be helpful but probably it won't help me much to master the very basics. Do you have any other book recommendations/other sources of helpful information? 3)Expand my comfort zone I also feel like this is going to be helpful because I always feel scared on some level in these awkward situations. On the other hand, a few years ago I was talking to hundreds of girls on the street and I wasn't really improving in social situations. But nevertheless sometimes these exercises did help I guess. I think I will need to find the right way to extend my comfort zone. Any inspirations from your side? I realized that my social skills became quite a bit better when I said something incredibly embarrassing/wrong and people judged me therefor. Then I'd get a little bit angry and wouldn't feel so scared anymore. In this state I also have more success approaching women. 4) Leo shot a video about increasing your humour. Even though I like the general method, I feel like there are more efficient ways to develop humour. Do you recommend Leo's method or do you have a better idea? 5) I think it is important to contemplate my social behaviour and create my own insights. 6) Masturbate less frequently. By doing so, energy levels tend to increase and I'm more motivated to talk to people. 7) What some friends said: -1- I tend to avoid eye contact in certain situations which is weird. But this feels awkward sometimes, especially if I have nothing to say right now. -2- I let others talk too much about themselves and it is difficult for others to find out who I am. I'm too "mysterious". But due to all the personal development I've been doing, I feel like it would be awkward to talk for example about Meditation as a field of passion as they maybe wouldn't understand. -3- I heard that I'm an empty hull with no emotions whatsoever, which is quite painful. I know that people that are very close to me think that I'm a "warm" person. On the other hand, strangers tend to think otherwise. All in all, I think working on removing my fears in these situations is the most important part. I think by doing so, most of my awkwardness would already disappear. I'm exited for your ideas and inspirational thoughts! PS: I already do 1h30min Meditation+Yoga and 2-3 times sport a week and I'm an INTP which is very introverted. Love, Solvinden

Hello everyone, I really dislike living the self-disciplined kind of life. Nevertheless, I think self-discipline is important. Basically, I'm doing 90% of the time the things that I want to do which is good. The problem is that I can't enjoy the moment in all of this doing. Most of the time, I'd rather like to crash on the couch. As a result, I'm unhappy even though I live the life that I think is best for me. Any advice on how I can fix this problem? I think I need to learn to enjoy the moment even if doing something feels unpleasant. But I feel like that awareness just doen't "work" in this case, I do 2h of spiritual work a day, do sports, approach women and put quite some effort into my work. Love, Solvinden

Hey everyone, i suddenly have the possibility to take some holidays in June/July and I would like to use this chance to go to my first 10 day Vipassana retreat. Unfortunately, every retreat on tha dhamma-page close to my place (Switzerland) is already fully booked. Nevertheless, I would like to go on such a retreat. Do you have any idea what I can do in this situation? Maybe there exist more efficient retreats or is there a possibility to still go to a retreat close by? More precisely, I want to go to a retreat where I could expect the most progress, even if this makes the retreat more challenging. Love, Solvinden

Hey guys, I need your advice: There is this offer for coaching from a known, reasonable coach that I got (telephone + group coaching) for becoming successful with women. Also, I get my money back if I don't reach my aim (sleeping with several women in this coaching period). But still I'm sceptical. That's especally becaue it costs 5000€(which I think is a lot for the content offered) and I just startet working so that's lots of money. Also I got somehow a fishy feeling because I felt pressured by them to book it right now. On the other hand, I really think he is a competent guy and if I reach my aim this will have a big impact for me. I'd need around 3 months for getting the money together, even though I'm really scared because of the amount of money involved. Everyone would think I'm crazy! You need to know that I already approached lots of girls and didn't have success so that's why I got interested in the first place. Any recommendations? Love, Solvinden

Hey everyone, I'm telling you what is bugging me right now very much. 1) My schedule each day is very stuffed. Work, meditation, etc.... The problem is not that I don't have enough time to do the things that are important to me. Actually, I invest more than enough time in self actualization habits. The problem is that I have the deep desire to do nothing and to let got, sitting in front of the laptop and watch youtube videos. However, 1-2h each day aren't enough to fulfill this desire. As a result, I suffer because in the end I need to go to work again. (The work itself is good, only very demanding) I was thinking about the self discipline vs freedom video. Maybe, it's really the solution to go all in and erase this "letting go" time entirely. Nevertheless, I would invest several hours a day in meditation/yoga/.... But I'm not sure if this will work out in the long run. It's a painful change and I'm afraid that life feels even more stressfull because of the fuller schedule. 2) It seems that I'm "strange" in the opinion of other people and I think it is related to my self actualization journey. People struggle that I react to each situation nearly the same way and that nothing takes me really off guard or is making me enthusiastic. One person even said that I'm an empty hull with no personallity whatsoever. I found that really extreme. I think for feeling this deep meditative peace permanently, I just need to stop doing and start being, but with such a full schedule it feels like not possible, even though I invest some hours each day in this regard. Implementation in daily life doesn't work somehow for me. I feel that maybe giving up the habit of letting go and wasting time at the PC might change something in the long run. Any inspiration is welcome! Love, Solvinden

Hey everyone, I eat for dinner most of the time bread and I find it really difficult to find an alternative. (I can't eat nuts/vegetables/fruits/oat flakes all day and I don't want to cook twice a day.) In addition, I'm worried about my calory-intake because of I'm too slim. So healthy snacks with lots of calories is also something I'm looking for (and I don't think eating tons of nuts is good either). Love, Solvinden

Hey everyone, following situation: I never needed to do much for university and even with nearly no work at all I got two master degrees in regular time with very good marks. Because I didn't need to invest much effort in work yet to attain my wished results, I tended to waste lots of time which I could have been investing so much better. Now the problem: I got accepted at a top university for doing my maths-PhD and I realized that I do need to put in more effort for beeing able to finish my PhD because if my supervisor doesn't think I'm good enough, he can kick me out after one year. Intuitively, I know that I need to become a better version of myself for attaining my goal, the PhD. Some problems I'm facing right now: - not confident enough to defend my own ideas if they get attacked offensively (maybe I'm wrong and I embarass myself further?) - doing embarassing mistakes due to the fact that I do my PhD in a slightly different subject - If I ask questions, my supervisor thinks they are stupid, so I'm a bit afraid to ask questions - difficult to make progress in the research - It seems to be "attended" that I prove a certain result in around 10 days - generally struggling to building up this "friendly, humorous" relationship with professors - Briefly: Making a bad first impression I don't think I'm overstrained but I need to change myself for surviving this situation and honestly I think that it is good for me that I'm getting stressed out, so that this can be the impulse for me to become a better version of myself. All advices and encouragements are very welcome. It was especially important for me to share my situation with some more people. Love, Solvinden

Yeah, you are right. I need to reduce my work load. On the other hand, I don't want to throw this excellent opportunity away. I'll aim for 50h now. Honestly, there is no activity that I would rather like to do, the work itself is cool. The most important thing for me is deepening my presence. Basically, I would be the most happy if I'd be meditating most of the day. In theory, I know that I can be present while working, while doing stuff. But in practice it is nearly impossile for me.

I'm passionate about it. Since kindergarden I was the guy that was passionately talking about numbers and stuff. Honestly, the problem isn't so much work itself, but that I don't have time anymore for anything else.

Formally, I started at the beginning of March (a few days ago), but I was also doing some stuff in the last month. In addition, I moved to a new country. Right now, it's really very much work (70h a week), so that I dont find much time for anything else and it stresses me a lot.

Hey everyone, I want to discuss how I can change the fact that I'm an emotional cold person. What do I think is the problem? 1) I distract myself too much (TV,PC,...), resulting in lower body awareness. 2) When I was in high school, I was very addicted to video games, resulting in numbed down emotions. To a certain degree until now. 3) If I sit in an empty room and ask my heart what it really wants to do, the answer is sitting/laying down and doing nothing=raising body awareness/allowing repressed emotions. What do I think is the solution? 1) Making it my highest priority to have high body awareness throughout the whole day 2) Giving myself enough time for meditation and just being in the body 3) Restricting distractions as much as possible And even though these things feel right and my intuition tells my that I'm on the right way, I only make little progress (difficult to measure, because of mood swings), so that I tend to get unmotivated after a week (+ it's emotionally challenging) because I didn't make much progress (which results in ending up at the starting point after a while). Somehow, I got the feeling that there are more direct ways to confront my emotions. If I just do my basic stuff on a day + lots of meditating, it feels on a certain level also like wasting my time, but how else do I get back the ability to actually wanting to do something which is not related to media. I give myself several hours a day for feeling my emotions intensively / meditating, but it feels like I never can satisfy this urge. Honestly, I'm a bit confused about what I should do and I would be happy about every inspiration.

I think I'm missing something. I was disciplined about my practice and still felt so numb and not making progress. Then I was talking to some kind of ex-girlfriend for around 2 hours and now I'm much more emotional than I was before doing so. (Even though doing body awareness and lots of meditation). I have these experiences often, but not always. Same when I'm doing martial arts. I think I don't get something.

Okay, thanks, I'll try. In addition, there are some thing that I know I can do better. I'll change these too.

Yep, basically that's it!

Sounds very familiar, it was basically the same for me! Before meditation, I wasn't even fully aware of this problem. I thought, if I find a girlfriend, then everything will be better. Or If I find the courage to meet with new people more frequently. By meditating I realized my true problem and that it is already lasting way longer. Like I said, because of this feeling is a collection of lots of feelings, it is very difficult to give it one label. For example, I have the strong intuition if I would just follow my higher self (or becoming a zen monk) without doing things actively, I would solve my problem. I think this feeling became first really problematic in high school when I had the strong need to get a girlfriend. The feeling was that I could never get a girlfriend. Nowadays, it's still similar. One big motivation for getting my feelings right is to finally collect beautiful experiences with several women. I had a girlfriend and in my last vacations I had sex with several girls, but it did not feel good and I know it will be awesome if my emotions are pure. So basically, I wait for these emotions to be purified for being able to take action. And no, talking to girls if your emotionality is shity is a very bad idea. I talked over the years to over 1000 girls and it felt like hard work and I didn't have much success. If I think about it, this feeling also stems a bit from the addiction to media. While writing this, I also get the new feeling, that maybe and just maybe, the problem isn't too complicated and one could find an easier solution. In other circumstances, maybe I wouldn't care at all about these feelings. On the other hand, I really want to be euhphoric and share these emotions with the humans around me, which I feel I can't do with my current state of emotions. PS: I don't get the pic.

I already visited a doctor. He says everything looks perfect. In addition, I also don't believe that it is a physical problem. Well, basically this feeling of numbness is a collection of so many intense emotions that I don't feel much anymore as a defense mechanism. I can feel how my muscles in the stomach area are always tensed up and that I can't release that tension. If I do, I can feel how strong emotions are coming and I tense up automatically again. I think it would be very helpful if I could bypass this mechanism. I think this tension/resistance is what is making this state so uncofortable. In addition, I have from time to time phases of deep peace, resulting from the meditation praxis and the occasionally occuring massive release of emotions. But in the end, in the long run I get back to the original level of bad emotions. Honestly, I don't know if I described it detailed enough.

On a daily basis, but it depends. I was already doing NoFap (best 72 days) and there were some behaviour changes (being more active towards women). But all in all, that alone was not creating enormus changes. Nevertheless, it had defnitely a positve impact on me, even though it's difficult to stay abstinent for so long.

Yeah, it's chronic. If I do the "right things", as mentioned above, for a while, then this state tends to get on average a little better too. "Numbed down" I felt pretty much always, but it got worse over time. Around 3 years ago when I left home and moved in my student apartment, it got worse. And when I started playing computer games excessively in puberty, it got much worse. But I think, that since early childhood I have the habit to distract myself from my emotions.

Well, I'm open for each kind of advice.

Thanks for answering so fast! 1) Getting up at 10:00, going to the PC watching youtube videos/anime for 1-2h. Then meditating for 1h and doing 1h for university. Then talking to family and friends a bit and going afterwards for 1-2h again to the pc wasting time Afterwards doing some running/martial arts for around 2h. Then meditating for another hour and doing an hour for university. Rest of the day wasting at the PC again playing LOL. Days aren't always that bad. On a regular basis I have also these "perfect days" even though they don't feel perfect (because from my heart I just want to relax/meditate or waste my time at the PC). 2) My only real desire if I feel deep down and don't let delude myself by shallow illusions, is just being able to feel emotions like a normal human beeing again, being able to allow my emotions all the time and beeing effortless present. In addition, I want to feel passionate about some things again about which "I know" that I am deep down passionate about (my studies, meeting new people (not too often)+feeling the desire to want a girlfriend and not only wanting one because the idea of a girlfriend is compelling,...) On a certain level I know that these things can only be truly fulfilling if I solve my main issue. I also have the desire to let go so that I don't have to confront my feelings anymore which is why gaming is so dangerous for me. (I know that's a "bad" desire.) 3) This urge wants to dive through all these negative emotions that I have surpressed so far with the aim of releasing these emotions if I face them long enough. This is so important because of I feel how these emotions affect me negatively everywhere in everyday life. I'm very cold with other people because I don't really feel so much because of I'm so numbed down. In the last relationship it was also very painful for me to see how my girlfriend suffers under it and in general how it affects my reputation massively.

Hey guys, this is my first post and I think the concepts discussed here are the most profound and true one. This is not the typical post that I write but I'm very pissed right now and I think it is helpful to write now. Basically I understand everything and I do everything right but still I'm absolutely awkward. I cant enjoy myself and I am really tense. I believe that when I feel strong, clear emtions, flirting with girls will be easy. I think the problem is that I believe unconciously very strong in illusion of the I. As a result, I tense up because I try to control everything. Im in Infonesia and I get lots of girls on Tinder, but even in here I have in the date never success! Its frustrating! As a result, I say fuck off I dont think and act per choice anymore. I think if I can life just let flow, I feel strong emotions and live will be good. But honestly I dont get many results, even though I do like everything one can do. So, I just wanted to writr that. Maybe someone can give me advice. Right now, I'm just depressed and angry. Thanks to you all, Solvinden