Psychotherapy for improving my social life?

[Valach]

Hi guys,

Ever since highschool, I have always been quite introverted, socially anxious and bad with opposite sex. Starting end of first wawe of covid I've decided to do something about it and started putting myself out there. Meaning I found an experienced wingman and went out with him as much as possible ( on average 5 times a week). Eventhough we were out of lockdown at the time, the situation was not best for pickup since most of the bars and clubs were closed, so we pretty much had to rely on daygame. We did this from like June until September, when my country went into second lockdown. I did see some improvements, but I can also see I still have a lot of work in front of me.

 

Since we are still in lockdown now and I assume we will be in couple of upcomming months I have decided to focus more on my innergame before I can jump into the field again. I have been doing mindfulness meditation, metta meditation each day for 30 minutes each and top of that I did some shadow work, which I kinda struggled with. I also scheduled an appointment with psychotherapist who's focus is self-esteem, relationships etc. I wanted to ask people on here, if you have any experience with psychotherapy helping you with social anxiety, introversion, low self confidence etc? Also guys who did pickup or just made progress on how they view themself, would you consider mindfulness and metta meditation as a good practice for my purpose atm?

 

Thank you guys so much in advance for the answers.

[flowboy]

Self-esteem is your natural state and your birthright. A child has great self-esteem, until his parents fuck it up, or other bad things happen during childhood, like bullying for example.

So any therapy that gets to the root of that issue is great. You don't need some fake layer of positive thinking on top of your buried trauma. You need to get the root cause out.

That's why Primal therapy was great for my self esteem. You can google that.

 

Apart from that: how about building a social circle and getting some friends who value you? That will also help your self-esteem and your game.

You don't want to date girls and have to hide the fact that you have no social life, I've been there and it's a huge bother.

So perhaps you can work on that too, as a suggestion.

Edited December 7, 2020 by flowboy

[Leo Gura]

Personally I haven't gotten any self-esteem boost from mindfulness meditation. It's just not designed for that.

I think therapy can be positive if you have some childhood trauma which sources your low self-esteem.

I'd say the #1 solution to this problem is going out regularly, socializing regularly, and taking to attractive girls regularly so that you feel them getting attracted to you. As you attract more of them you will start to feel better about yourself and develop some confident and shatter some limit beliefs.

The #2 solution is psychedelics, which are far more powerful than any therapy at getting you to truly love yourself. Basically, psychedelics will do what therapy does but 100x deeper, faster, and cheaper. But they will be more emotionally taxing and challenging because you'll be accomplishing more work in less time.

You won't understand what true self-love or self-acceptance is until you do some psychedelics. No therapist can explain you this because they themselves don't have it or know it.

[arlin]

@Leo Gura which kind of psychedelics are good to be used for this purpose? Lsd? 

Anybody knows? 

[Valach]

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

Apart from that: how about building a social circle and getting some friends who value you? That will also help your self-esteem and your game.

You don't want to date girls and have to hide the fact that you have no social life, I've been there and it's a huge bother.

So perhaps you can work on that too, as a suggestion.

Thanks for the tip. I already have a decent size circle of friends, although I would like to add maybe some female friends and cooler people in general.

[Valach]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I'd say the #1 solution to this problem is going out regularly, socializing regularly, and taking to attractive girls regularly so that you feel them getting attracted to you. As you attract more of them you will start to feel better about yourself and develop some confident and shatter some limit beliefs.

 

I kinda of get that getting validated from attractive girls will boost my confidence with other girls. I am not sure however if that will help with other people in general. You know, big part of the reason I started with pickup is to able to be myself around other people in general and to express myself fully. To not walk in this stiffled state all the time. Other thing with this approach is, what happens once I stop with approaching girls? When I get a girl friend or a wife? I would expect my confidence will go down quite a bit.

 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The #2 solution is psychedelics, which are far more powerful than any therapy at getting you to truly love yourself. Basically, psychedelics will do what therapy does but 100x deeper, faster, and cheaper. But they will be more emotionally taxing and challenging because you'll be accomplishing more work in less time.

You won't understand what true self-love or self-acceptance is until you do some psychedelics. No therapist can explain you this because they themselves don't have it or know it.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunatly I believe psychadelics are illegal in my country, so I am not really able to get them.

[Loving Radiance]

@arlin  Search for "shrooms" & "trauma healing" or "healing" in general.

[arlin]

Allright yhanks

[Girzo]

You have done daygame pick up for a few months, your anxiety can't be that bad. 

Inner-game is outer-game. The only way to improve it is by getting practice. 

But psychedelics seem to be an option. I have a theory that they they kind of work like a substitute of social interaction. What I mean is, I feel warm after doing psychedelics similar to how I feel after hugging someone, or confident like after approaching a hot girl, or safe and amused like when playing board games with friends.

Psychedelics seem to be pushing these buttons. And 100's of others, too, of course, haha. These substances also require from you some courage to take them and then to endure the experience, so that can be helpful. Also, planning logistics for a trip has similarities to planning a date.  I know it's a bit werid angle to look at it, but it really does.

[ertopolice]

@Valach You got so much work already done!!!!

I am still struggling with my no so big circle plus age issues (when all ur female friends are either married w/kids or into long term commitments, and so on.. kinda it's me the one who is out ff any "normal" social circle for my age due to X reasons ofc)

Social circle is important

Does not matter if they are into enlightenment or no and you are.  I know it feels weird when no one around you does not bring up these actualized topics but you can enjoy social interactions swell (OK...I need to moderate my bringing up these topics because random ppl get scared :DD).  

SO! good luck with any option u decide. Sure all of them will bring u advance

 

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by ertopolice

[TrustTheProcess]

mindfulness meditation has been critical for me to develop a presence. It helped me learn to get out of my head and into the moment which is critical for becoming a magnetic person and building connections with others

self love-- literally dedicate time in your day to accept yourself and to express gratitude for all that you have

psychedelics and therapy are def more effective for resolving deep inner trauma as mentioned in above comments, but I wouldn't discount the power of meditation and self love practices. If you are interested in developing charisma, I highly suggest the charisma myth by olivia fox cabane. 

[Recursoinominado]

Save your money, go out and talk to people, nothing will replace this first hand experience.

[Yali]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Personally I haven't gotten any self-esteem boost from mindfulness meditation. It's just not designed for that.

I think therapy can be positive if you have some childhood trauma which sources your low self-esteem.

I'd say the #1 solution to this problem is going out regularly, socializing regularly, and taking to attractive girls regularly so that you feel them getting attracted to you. As you attract more of them you will start to feel better about yourself and develop some confident and shatter some limit beliefs.

The #2 solution is psychedelics, which are far more powerful than any therapy at getting you to truly love yourself. Basically, psychedelics will do what therapy does but 100x deeper, faster, and cheaper. But they will be more emotionally taxing and challenging because you'll be accomplishing more work in less time.

You won't understand what true self-love or self-acceptance is until you do some psychedelics. No therapist can explain you this because they themselves don't have it or know it.

@Leo Gura

You drink alcohol on your nights out doing PUA?

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Valach said:

You know, big part of the reason I started with pickup is to able to be myself around other people in general and to express myself fully. To not walk in this stiffled state all the time. Other thing with this approach is, what happens once I stop with approaching girls? When I get a girl friend or a wife? I would expect my confidence will go down quite a bit.

It doesn't matter. Pickup will increase your social confidence permanently across the board. You will become better at talking to strangers, barbers, taxi drivers, clerks, shopkeepers, etc.

31 minutes ago, Yali said:

@Leo Gura

You drink alcohol on your nights out doing PUA?

Never

[Preety_India]

The only way to beat this is to actually go out and talk to people and be ready for new experiences. 

Rest is beating around the bush. 

[Raze]

7 hours ago, Valach said:

Since we are still in lockdown now and I assume we will be in couple of upcomming months I have decided to focus more on my innergame before I can jump into the field again. I have been doing mindfulness meditation, metta meditation each day for 30 minutes each and top of that I did some shadow work, which I kinda struggled with. I also scheduled an appointment with psychotherapist who's focus is self-esteem, relationships etc. I wanted to ask people on here, if you have any experience with psychotherapy helping you with social anxiety, introversion, low self confidence etc? Also guys who did pickup or just made progress on how they view themself, would you consider mindfulness and metta meditation as a good practice for my purpose atm?

IFS therapy has helped a lot. Basically the idea is that confidence issues, sexual shame, or things like anxiety are because you have buried childhood trauma's in which you trained yourself to hide that aspect of yourself, and they help you to unwire it by going back and remembering it and 'forgiving' yourself. It definitely works for me, I think the old method of getting over approach anxiety by systematic desensitization is too oldschool, because if you take a break you will just regrow all your anxieties again, even rsd people accept this now.

David Tian has a series called practical psychology on youtube which explains it a bit in this context. He is actually anti pickup though however he's useful.

I've also heard good things about psychoanalysis.  I've been more skeptical of traditional psychotherapy lately. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Raze

[Yali]

@Leo Gura You should make a video detailing your journey into pickup. Sounds pretty inspirational; post it on your blog.

[Globalcollective]

@Leo Gura Do you still go out and do pick up these days?

[flowboy]

@arlin  I had good results resolving some mental issues with LSD. (even accidentally, during a fun trip)

Your mileage may vary though.

Stay happy, take it easy, but take it!

- Terence McKenna

[arlin]

Thanks @flowboy