Roy

Please don't harm yourself. It doesn't solve anything.

I've been in the exact same scenario that went both ways. Love her and do your best to be supportive, but ultimately it will be up to her to help herself. Nobody, not even a therapist or psychologist will get her out of that, but her.

Avoid falling into this common trap @Striving for more. Spend your time focusing exclusively on yourself and your own aspects. Don't worry about others or if they are being hypocrites or not, all irrelevant. What matters is the information and if it's useful or not to you, the messenger is a distraction.

Perfect example of relativity, nice post @Fleetinglife! There are hundreds of millions of Indian Hindus who see what most of the world does to cows and would have the same sorts of emotional reactions. It's all just programming, beliefs, perspective.

I believe Leo put it best in one of his videos, "How to ace life". Do the thing that is most emotionally difficult. Let that statement be your guide when you feel lost or "not sure what your next move should be". A few months ago I had a girlfriend where after a few dates together, having had sex and her opening up about some deep trauma - I knew it wasn't the right relationship for me and she needed time to process things as a single person before being with someone. So it was best to cut things off. However I didn't want to do it over the phone as it would seem too cold, so I suggested we meet in person. I didn't plan for us to do anything or go anywhere so we could just be at her place to talk. We ended up talking for a while, but for some reason I just couldn't muster up the strength to break up with her at the time. I ended up staying the night and we had sex again and we connected some more, but in the back of my mind I knew it didn't change anything. A short while later I cut things off as softly as I could, but it would have been easier for everyone if I just did the thing that was most emotionally difficult. Realize that ALL your emotions (even the unpleasant ones) are communications for you, and that you shouldn't ignore them. It's not up to anyone else to tell you what they mean or which ones are "right", you'll have to figure that out on your own with experience. Like @Nahm said. Remember to breathe, relax, and observe. Take time to consider emotions and actions, without action.

Have an extremely blunt conversation with him, preferably on the phone. That he is moving way too fast and too attached, and needs to slow down. If his immediate reaction is too volatile, or his behavior doesn't change after a few weeks, then end it.

Well consider human history has been tens of thousands of years of bloodshed and tribalism in an overwhelmingly dominated patriarchal system, up until recent history where things have toned down and life has gotten much better with women getting overall more say and power..... I'll let you put the pieces together

It means to sit down and strategically change as many things as possible in your life, to what you want to do most, or at least more than others. So life is easier, and like going "downhill".

What does depression mean, spiritually, metaphysically? Is it a signal of something? A symptom? Just trying to gather a deeper understanding. Thanks in advance! To be clear I'm not talking about clinical depression with chemical imbalances in the brain. Disregard that kind of depression.

Capitol G by Trent Reznor "Don't try to tell me that some power can corrupt a person. You haven't had enough to know what it's like. You're only angry 'cause you wish you were in my position. Now nod your head because you know that I'm right, all right!"

How do I get my hope back?

Yawn. Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, then we can talk. There are literally hundreds of millions, billions of recording devices in the world now, most of which are high quality. Yet despite all the "evidence" we haven't had a single legit video or image capture of what is clearly, and inarguably verified as an alien or alien vessel. Even the quality of the releases from the US military is total dogshit. This is just a mass hallucinatory conspiracy theory right now. When we actually do have proof there will be global public hysteria. Which right now there is not because it's clear we don't.

Nah it won't happen for quite a while. My country is still filled to the brim with rural Conservative simpletons. Who have the audacious lack of self awareness to call their party "Progressive Conservatives". lol I should start my own party called "The Up Downs". I volunteer at a local fire department, and most of the people there are generally conservative. They are fantastic people who won't hesitate or have a problem delivering Narcan and first aid to overdose patients, but if you bring up the idea of safe injection sites so that we WON'T have to go to such lengths to save people they get pissed off because socialism and it's their tax money being used to "feed their addiction". It's a good example of the cognitive dissonance of those on lower Spiral Dynamics stages.

Volunteer somewhere, anywhere. It will be one of the best decisions you can ever make. I started when I was 18 after being forced to to get my 40 community hours to graduate high school, but it was so awesome I never stopped doing it. You'll meet some amazing people to socialize with because the environment of volunteering naturally draws kind, interesting, high quality folks who will look out for you. Toastmasters is also great (and free). It's the perfect environment to practice socializing and build confidence in that area, because you are in a completely friendly risk free place for it. The people there understand exactly what it's like and are all in the same boat. Volunteering basically cured my crippling social/anxiety, and it was fucking baaaaaad.

@Emotionalmosquito You are correct. However I'm not looking to get into a gender war here about who has it worse in each area. I was offering the OP an opportunity to learn and address the bias embedded in his title.

Don't read too much into it. People in the world have all sorts of weird reactions, attitudes, and chips on their shoulders. If you legitimately didn't do anything wrong then you don't need to get in your own head about things, it's just a waste of your energy. On the topic of your title though, I urge you to step into the perspective of a woman. A lot of women DO have to worry about sexual violence, and it's not some "paranoid" joke. It's hard to appreciate as men because we typically experience our reality and go about our life in the world feeling (generally) confident in the event of a physical encounter. You are only scared of the handful of men who are clearly stronger than you, and scoff at the notion of being threatened by 99% of females. Women on the other hand are at the mercy of the overwhelming majority of men they encounter. They have to be on their guard and have a certain baseline level of fear to keep them safe and from being in situations they can be taken advantage of, because they will be mostly helpless in the event of things going horribly wrong and some fucked up guy deciding to rape them. So yes "Women are paranoid for possible rapists 24/7m", and not for no reason. Sit and contemplate the experience of a female. Go watch some videos of victims of sexual abuse/violence describing their experiences. It will be good for you to expand your worldview.

Free time, so I can appreciate this unique and wonderfully interesting existence. Why become a slave to money, when I am just going to use it to get more free time anyways? I'll just go directly to the time thanks.

It doesn't make sense because you're being a neurotic logic pedant.

Trauma breeds trauma breeds trauma.

Ooo boy. Has this been one I've had to learn, and relearn again

That may be why you feel you're getting nowhere, because you're just "generally" looking for help, instead of focusing on the things you need to work on most, your biggest problems or obstacles in life. Things will start to "actually" work when you take responsibility to search for and focus on the exact information you need to use to make changes. Just "doing personal development" doesn't really change anything. It just makes everything a tiny tiny bit better. Stop using a machine gun and get yourself a sniper rifle. What is your single specific biggest problem right now @Max8?

Take THAT for data!

It's not brainwashing, or a belief, or wishful thinking. It's literally as simple as lifting weights. How do you think you could bench press 100 pounds? You would start bench pressing what you can comfortably say 65 pounds. You would do that for a while, consistently. Then add another 5 pounds, and do that for a while, and so on. All the while keeping the vision and realizing eventually you will reach 100 pounds. At the start you might say it's "impossible" because you can't do it currently. But if we all just went about living life based on what seemed possible now and convenient, nothing would get done or accomplished. You don't have a right to bitch, or make excuses, or call it "stupid" when the road map and the work is right there in front of you. If you want to bitch, do it while you're going through the work and exhausted. That's when you can call it stupid.

It's interesting there seems to be two kinds of Stage Green. When I'm talking to people I like to play a game where I prod with certain questions and judging by their emotional reactions I'll know which one they are pretty clearly, whether they are putting it on for show or they have a chance to get past it to Yellow.

It's the ego going whatever lengths necessary to uphold the identity that it deserves to suffer, for whatever reason that may be. Of course, all of it is a fiction. If looked at hard enough, long enough, and with enough determination it's possible to see past the surface into the hollow.