flowboy

And you wonder why women don't want you... Such a bitter attitude repels anyone. Maybe go easy on the opinion forming based on internet information, and get a couple women to like you, and go from there? If no women like you, it's you who is the problem, not the women.

That is fantastic.

That's interesting! In a different phase of my life, I would have loved to go there. Where does the money come from? Do they produce goods?

Looks like you've got it figured out.

It exists but it doesn't work, and ends in restraining orders filed against you. The only exception to that is, if she's attracted from the beginning but there are practical obstacles. Like: she's still in the process of divorce. Or: her parents won't let her date you until you get a job. Or: she likes you but has limiting beliefs about dating you. Or: she's attracted on some level but she's not convinced that your lives fit well together. Or: she's so attracted to you, that she has a hard time believing you actually want to be with her. Or: you are in the military and get to see her only for a couple days a year, until your situation changes and you can be together. That's not friendzone hell, that's attraction with practical obstacles. A longer courtship dance, stretched out for some reason. Being in the friendzone is something that only happens to men who can't be honest what they want, which is a prohibitively non-attractive trait. If she doesn't find you attractive from the first day, any pursuit after that will dig you into a deep hole, because it shows that you are desperate.

If you are only passionate about inspiring people with music, there's no sense in going to school to become an engineer to create some kind of invention to solve hunger or disease somewhere in the world. "Most meaningful" is relative to your perspective. That's why we have individual perspectives. So that only you can be you, and someone else can do what's meaningful to them. It's a trap to try and find what the "objective" best contribution is, because There isn't one If there were, and everyone would do the same thing, nothing else would get done Everything is important. Question is: does it feel important when you do it? Are you in touch with how purposeful different activities have made you feel?

Lack of confidence fixates in different places. Basically, wherever it can stay without being "proven" away. If your looks is a comfortable place to hide, that's where it will go. You can hammer it out of there, by going to the gym, taking better care of yourself, getting positive feedback on your looks until it goes away. But it's like whack-a-model. Like moving a bubble of air, between a sheet and a glass window. If the lack of confidence is still serving a purpose, it will just go somewhere else. Maybe the next thing is: you're just not well-read enough. Or: you're just not experienced enough. Your social skills are clunky. Your accent is wrong. You need to work on yourself more. You haven't done enough research. Whatever it is. It's still a useful practice to improve your looks where you can, and seek experiences to contradict this belief. How many people will have to tell you you're attractive, until you believe it? It's also a useful question to ask yourself: why don't you want to connect with people? Your looks are just the easiest scapegoat. Can't use anything else. Hobbies are fine, can't use that. Passions are fine, can't use those. Interests are cool too. Damn it. Looks it is, then But if you really wanted to connect to people and talk to these girls, you wouldn't let it stop you. So why don't you want to?

Not sure I completely agree, but I love you for not saying "off of"

Good for you! It doesn't matter where a childhood is on the objective scale of goodness. To a child, there is no objective scale. Small things can make enormous impact, because it's very immediate, and their parents are the only important people in their life, that they are completely dependent on. Even the best parents had personality quirks that have a great impact on their child's defense mechanisms and conditioning that will control their life as an adult. Minimizing and relativising, and saying "it wasn't that bad", is doing your inner child a total disservice. Basically the same disservice that your mom is doing you today when she doesn't listen to you.

It's easier on the body. Coffee disrupts the digestive system and causes ulcers. Tea doesn't do that. Also, it has less caffeine, and more l-theanine, which counteracts jitteriness. To avoid anxiety and optimize sleep quality, it's better to not drink tea or coffee at all.

It's so valuable and transformative that people who have done it, generally recommend to indeed do it when it's a good time in your life - when you can afford it. Doesn't matter at which age you do it - but afterwards, your quality of life is... very different. Enough hyping it up. I can't speak for her, but I'm sure my girlfriend would be happy to talk about it if she has time. You may even have some mother related experiences in common.

It wouldn't work as an online option. The unique concept works so well, because you are in a group, physically healing together from the same kind of stuff. Builds great bonds, too. I think if you can afford a 2000 euro retreat, you can afford a plane ticket. https://www.pujalepp.com/upcoming-events I don't know why her website is such an absolute mess, it's embarassing really, but believe me when I say this is the most important thing I did for myself in my life. @flume is fresh off this retreat. I did it 2 years ago. So I'm sure she'd be happy to talk about it.

Gaslighting. Classy. Ugh. I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this. Everyone deserves an emotionally mature pair of parents. Have you also developed people-pleasing behaviors in your other relationships? Sacrificing and forgetting about your own needs? Being attracted to people who are emotionally dismissive in similar ways? Not knowing what you truly want, within yourself, or knowing it but being paralysed to act on it? If not, congratulations. Most people would. I'm not even going to go into the topic of how to change this dynamic, because you tried that, and she didn't want to change. So there's no hope of changing your mom. What you should focus on, in my opinion, is healing yourself from the damage that she already did, to prevent you from playing out similar dynamics in your future relationships, and passing it on to your children eventually. My recommendation: save up 2000 and do Puja Lepp's primal therapy retreat. I've done it, I've gotten my friends and partner to do it, I've met friends there, and we absolutely love it. It's the best tool for really kickstarting the process of being free from all the patterns and dysfunction that our parents put on us. She should really pay me for all the times I've recommended it.

Was that the same flavor of anger that you feel about your younger self, not being able to speak up against your dad (yet)?

See any similarities between this... ... and this? This is the real reason people don't recommend revenge. It makes you the same as who you are taking revenge against. People are scared of you man. And if you remember what it was to be a child and have to submit to your dad, you know exactly what they are feeling. You've been there.

I would agree with that. However, there's more to shadow work than beating up your dad. However good of a start that may be As long as people can still irritate you and make you angry with their behavior, you still have more shadow work to do. Another reason people shy away from revenge, is a reason that I think you are purposefully not seeing. It doesn't evolve you to the next paradigm. Whether you've won or lost, you're still playing the same game. The game in this case being loosely described as "You do this to me, I do that to you. The world is ruthless and competitive and I have to be harsh to stop the people who are trying to stop me" Sounds like your dad's paradigm..? That explains why you are still living in a world full of people trying to stop you, which you have to combat in some harsh way: And believe me, this attitude is not helping you achieve your goal of people being straight with you, because with that amount of tension and defensiveness, hanging around you like a cloud, people won't feel safe to say what you don't want to hear. Wishy-washiness and avoidence is all you will get. Because you scare people. However, you are still being mean and lashing out at people being wishy-washy at you, or not responding when you think they should. Are they the cause of that anger? Then how come it doesn't anger others when they do that?

You didn't spar? My friends spars all the time, from what I understand.

Oh man, the shadows we inherit from childhood... I saw my dad as weak, so I was mean to weak people (or whatever I perceived as weak) for the better part of my life. And sentimental, too. It still triggers me when he raves about how nice it is to just sit and stare at trees or whatever. Ugh. But the sword cuts on two sides. I was also being mean to myself when I saw myself as weak. There is no one without the other. How you treat others, is how you treat yourself. Therefore, doing shadow work will solve these problems for you. You can be just as career-driven (which is awesome by the way) as you want, without ever having to lash out at anyone. It's possible, and much more satisfying and peaceful, but hard to imagine in the "before" state. I certainly like living in the reality where everyone is out to help me, instead of out to stop me. It's nice

Aah, this looks familiar. I don't know if you actually want people to be honest with you, but you sure aren't helping to make that happen. What makes people feel safe to be honest? People are willing to be honest, when they can be sure that they won't be judged, or punished, or become the target of any mean-spiritedness, for whatever they say. Your current behavior does not qualify as a safe space vibe, if you feel me. You lash out, you are mean and you are disrespectful. I wouldn't tell you the truth of anything either, if I was in personal contact with you. The way you treat people is not deserving of it.

I'm someone who will tell people the uncomfortable direct truth as I see it. Because I appreciate that from others as well. However, over the years I've developed and grown into a way of doing that ... more tactfully. And more importantly, more lovingly. How well people take this, is related directly to the place it's coming from: are you being honest because you love them and deeply empathize with them, and know that they can do better? In a warm way? Or are you simply saying what feels good to say, because expressing judgments without any tact is the most easy thing to do? Which would feel more cold and self-righteous, when doing it. Even when doing it out of the highest vibrational intentions, still many people won't like it. Which begs the question: do you want to be popular, or do you want to be brutally honest with everyone? Because the brutally honest thing is only sustainable between a small circle of intimate friends. Doing it to everyone is just setting yourself up to be disliked. People will think you are being an inconsiderate asshole, and they would be right. Because saying whatever you want without concern for someone's ego or sensitivities, if they didn't ask you to, is quite an unloving act. (Which I used to do the shit of when I was younger - didn't have many friends). It communicates that you don't care how someone else feels, you just care about how you see things. Which explains why people may think you're right and you make interesting points when you talk to them, but then still don't want to meet up and connect with you. Because they already picked up on you not caring about their humanity. People don't remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel. Disclaimer: this is just how it worked for me. It's a massive projection. Maybe we have this in common, maybe we don't and I'm totally off.

I have a friend who has done Krav Maga for a long time, and he says they specifically prepare you for this too, by some ways of training you that I forgot the details of. He says it's the best sport for actual self defense, because it includes the very effective moves that are ruled against in other sports, such as eye poking, nut kicks, and more.

Ok, I misunderstood. That's a valid point

My background is that I have ADD (without the hyperactive part) and while I know about neurofeedback as a tool, I haven't explored it (yet), simply because it was not available to me, and while I'm not comfortable with the word "cure", today I'm doing quite well without any help from medication or machines that are outside my budget. If you go down this road, please let us know what it's like! I have no doubt that neurofeedback can be valuable as a tool to train concentration skills. However: this inability to concentrate, is really a myth. Have you ever wondered why you can hyperfocus for days on end, without a lot of sleep or food, when you actually give a shit about a topic or project? So in those moments, suddenly you are cured, but then in the day to day, mostly you have a disorder? Doesn't add up, is my conclusion. In my experience, the road to healing is paved with admitting things I don't want to admit. I can't focus on what I'm trying to do, not because my brain is malfunctioning, but because I don't actually care about it. Oh, but I do care about it! I want to be X, Y and Z. This is what I am trying to be. So I have to care. Trying to make myself care, hasn't worked so well for me. That did mean having to admit: I didn't actually care about college. I just wanted to fit in with society and have the validation of getting a degree, to prove I'm smart and worthy. I didn't actually care about being on time for a meaningless job I didn't actually care about what the people I was trying to listen to, were saying to me, because my creative and out-of-the-box thoughts could run circles around their boring, linear thinking. It just wasn't interesting to me. I didn't even actually care about showering every day, in some periods of my life. Or feeding myself properly. Or my health. Now of course that has evolved, and for the most part I take good care of myself. But it's important to admit, that I do that because I want to. And when I didn't do it, however much I tried to tell myself I should want to, I didn't truly care about it deep down. I felt I was just fine without it. But Erik, I have to do X Y and Z for survival. I have no choice. Do you want me to fail/become homeless? Of course there is value in learning to concentrate on things you deep down don't care about in that moment. It's valuable and necessary. There is meditation, and several tricks and tools you can use to accomplish that. Also neurofeedback. But fundamentally, all of that is patching up weaknesses versus playing to your strengths. And you will be much more effective and satisfied in spending most of your time playing to your strengths. So while it's important to patch up skills where you need them for survival, my long term roadmap to a fulfilled and "cured" life (I put cured between quotes because I don't support the view that ADHD is a disorder), is to become more self-honest about the activities and topics, big and small, that you actually, deep down actually care about, and aligning your life with those. Concentration problems will vanish like snow in spring.

Here's your sticking point. You have a filter on what you are willing to say. How much of what goes on inside you, you are willing to share. The requirement: "meaningful", is probably only the tip of the iceberg. How many other requirements for what you say, do you have? Does it have to: Not make you look stupid? Not make the other person feel bad? Not make the other person be mad at you? Not be too revealing about your inner psychology? Not make you look weak? Not make the other person judge you as ...? When you can't think of anything to say, how would you feel about saying: "I can't think of anything to say?" A conversation only comes to a halt when thoughts or feelings come up that you aren't willing to share. (Or aren't aware of, or don't know how to put into words) For example, when one person talks about something that seems smart and interesting, and you can't think of anything meaningful to say, it might be because you don't actually care or understand that topic, and would rather talk about something else. So why not talk about something else?

@samijiben Start with the most easy and direct path, and if you encounter obstacles, examine and overcome them as they present themselves. Okay, so my advice is to talk to them, connect with them, and more. Okay, so let's go get some experience! Think I'm an asshole yet? That'd be fair. But there is no point in giving you a general manual for anything, if you don't know what your specific blockage is. Connecting to people is the most natural thing. Only when it is obstructed by something (such as anxieties, limiting beliefs, trauma, conditioning, shame, lack of emotional intelligence, lack of empathy, et cetera) is there anything to explain, learn, or solve. Your question is like if water went on this forum, making a post about how to flow downstream. Just... flow downstream. Or try, and tell us what is obstructing you. I say this as someone who had trouble connecting with people and talk to girls (and "more") for most of his life. The insight I'm presenting here (that it's the most natural thing, that you already have once the obstructions are taken away), has come to me only recently. I'm 28 now. But maybe it will help you sooner.