Ulax

@LSD-Rumi Okay. Noted. Maybe go learn about personality disorders. This sort of behaviour from this other user does not surprise me in the least bit considering my understanding of personality disorders. The level of delusion some of these people are in is astounding, i.e. an NPD person. They'll literally believe they are the second coming of christ, and will use anything they can to justify it, unconsciously.

@Paul Boldyrev I'd agree. However, the level of manipulation that does happen, isn't the same as the manipulation that you have to engage in. For example, my view of the average relationship is that is full of manipulations. However, you can do self development work to the degree that you end up in a relationship that is way less manipulative than the norm.

@LSD-Rumi The guy probably hasn't done his shadow work. So is still relatively unconscious and acting out the same destructive patterns they always have. That said, I'm guessing this post was in part devised as a subtle way of getting your own back on this person. That's understandable to me, if it is the case. However, ultimately doesn't seem like a reliable relationship conflict strategy to me. In future once you see a red flag, I'd recommend just terminating the conversation asap. You can just make up some random excuse ending it, and then jut be firm in that frame.

@CARDOZZO Great book, in my opinion! In my experience, can help one understand why it is that some people have "such bad luck in love". And realise it isn't really about luck at all, just attachment style.

@Paul Boldyrev I'd say its always manipulative, just to varying degrees. A lot of sales, to my opinion, inherently involves exploiting vulnerabilities in human psyches, so as to try and influence to people to act differently compared to how they otherwise would. That said, the way i see it most industries are full of manipulation, again just to varying degrees.

https://ifs-therapist.vercel.app/ Found this on reddit. Edit: Some further notes from the creator: "It is open source and the chats are not stored so you don't have to worry about privacy. It's made using the chatgpt tech. It's surprisingly good for guiding an IFS session if you find it difficult. It responds to what you tell it. If you like recording down what parts you work with, you can ask it to summarize the session and parts involved and it does it really well."

I think the key is to restrict using alcohol as a crutch as much as possible. Its a massive cope for a lot of folks in my opinion. That said, I don't see too much harm in every once in a while getting drunk for fun, with mates.

@2xj_m Ah gotcha

@The Mystical Man Jesus man ?

@2xj_m Meditation? Shadow work?

@tezk Thank you *love* Congrats on the progress for you btw! What did the trick for you?

@Emerald Agree strongly with this. I was shocked when I researched about what fascism was, and the prominent definitions seem to correlate with speakers who appeared on prominent conservative leaning shows like Fox. Trump too seemed to tick a fair few boxes. Also, I think hidden political agendas, be they purposeful or accidental, can be found essentially in any view. An example of this, to my mind, is the popular sentiment around the idea of how people should act in debates and discussions. Because even take the following example of an idea. What i see to be the idea that two figures in a debate ought to be respectful to each other, and not jump to conclusions about what the other is saying. It appears apolitical to a lot of folk that this should be the case. But i would argue its actually a view that caters to a conservative and far-right agenda because it allows for a lot of dog whistling going unchallenged. Further, I would argue that policing tone, i.e. you shouldn't be angry, gives more power to privileged groups because said groups are less likely to be traumatised. Therefore, in my view, privileged group members are generally less likely to 'act out' in discussions, and so less likely to have their views delegitimised compared to less privileged folks.

@Vlad_ I like the post. Here's my view on nofap. Personally, I see nofap used as a pretty superficial crutch in general. I've done it before and I did notice more energy and more sexual energy towards women. I found myself much more aroused, and sexual desire played a much bigger part in my life. I did enjoy this, and did find value in the sense of discipline developed through the practice. However, I found it pretty shallow in the overall effect it had on my psyche at the time. And the results were always a few devil's handshakes away from being lost . Which i found made nofap pretty unreliable. Also, I think nofap can often be used in the place of doing serious inner work. I don't tend to hear people talking about things like depth psychotherapy in those communities. Usually its quite stage orange, in my view. Further, I think what's not accounted for is that nofap has a whole community surrounding it with certain norms around what is to be celebrated, i.e. not jerking off for a month is something worthy of celebration. So, I think when people go for a long streak, some of the positive results they attribute to nofap are likely just feelings of pride of meeting celebratory norms within a community they belong to. Finally, I think a lot of folks in the nofap community already probably deal with issues surrounding sexual shame. So, doing nofap furthers that sexual shame in my view because the practice is, in my view, centred around the idea of the enjoyment of sexual pleasure being wrong in some manner, at least implicitly. I wouldn't be surprised if a decent amount of those in the community are actually attracted by this sexual shaming dynamic.

To my understanding, uses a mixture of NLP and hypnosis. I also understand PSTEC to be popular with some in the PUA community too, as a powerful inner game tool.

@Mada_ I try to base my boundaries on the assertive rights in Manuel Smith's "When I say no I feel guilty", and Pete Walker's list of assertive rights in "CPTSD survival to thriving". Though I pretty much always currently struggle in the moment. But that is okay. That said, I think my boundaries would depend also on the my perception of the people around me. If I'm in a golf country club, I might feel more relaxed asserting my boundaries politely. If I'm in Jihadi John's Isis commune I'd probably be less assertive in my boundaries.

@Migue Lonas Love it man! I did solo nightgame once or twice, and I had the same feeling of not wanting to be the dude just lurking in the corner hahaha. But, you're in another world to me with the amount you've done it. And, man I love that idea of just being able to go to pretty much any place and make friends! Loving the ambition too man! And that sounds to me like a really cool relationship you have with your girlfriend. ------------ I'm in quite a different life situation at the moment, so i can only relate so far. On my end, I've had some material successes. I became arguably the most successful student in my high school's history in terms of where I ended up for university, and got pretty decent at amateur boxing. Both of these were the results of a 'what if' mindset I developed, where I would challenge myself to things just with the view to grow from the experience. Like for example, with the university, I applied to a university course that no one thought I could get into because I wanted to learn how to deal with the experience of people doubting you, and also dealing with applying for things outside of my comfort zone. And then I ended up getting in, and going to one of the best courses at one of the best universities at the world. With boxing, I was a pretty small, middle-class kid, and joined a local working class amateur boxing gym. I found it very taxing, but learnt a lot about what hard work really meant. I ended up captaining my university's boxing team too. My motivation for all these growth activities was actually based a lot off the videos of Owen Cook, and ideas around limiting beliefs, and self improvement. It was strange because I resonated a lot with Owen's talks around things like depression, but I didn't know why. Gamewise I have done three phases of game totalling around 8 months I'd say total. So, overall I'd say I'm very limited in my game experience. Except, for some reason, when it comes to getting success with cute girls at french ski resorts . The issue was that emotional issues that I'd had all my life really caught up with me around 17/ 18. And affected my university studies a lot and my career ambitions. I had been interested in becoming a civil rights advocate in the US for folks on death row. And, my ability to game was really affected by these other parts of my life too, and just my emotional state. And, since around 20 I've been learning the ins and outs of managing my emotional issues, which have been rather serious. It turned out I had a form of PTSD due to a lot of traumatic experiences growing up involving family and friends. My latest game phase around 22 actually opened up a lot of those wounds again that I'd been dissociated from, and indicated a certain truth to me. I chose to leave my old life behind, and try to make it on my own. However, the stuff that opened up has been pretty debilitating, and my mind is rather splintered as a consequence. I frequently flick between various different narratives of the past. And, a lot of my actual thoughts I am dissociated from. I've only recently managed to get in touch with, and realised i was unconscious of these. And, it seems it was these unconscious thoughts that Owen's vids were resonating with. Its felt like uncovering a conspiracy theory to be honest. And in these past four years, particularly these past two, I've been researching and experimenting the hell out of inner psyche to achieve identity level change. At the same time, its been painful watching time slip by as I try to develop myself in this context. I had a much larger ambition for game, but i see my current work as being part of the journey. And also the past two years have consisted of a fair degree of chronic pain for me. However, i retain and apply my growth mindset in this area now. In terms of my life purpose, I'm not really too sure of what it is at the moment. My dissociation and chronic pain has meant I am cut off from a lot of my psyche, and hence my authentic self. And i see that as imperative to being able to find a life purpose. However, I am very interested in a spiritual/ depth psychotherapy called 'internal family systems' therapy. And I have considered before dedicating my life to bringing it to more of the world. However, in contemplation I often find i come to the conclusion that some means of affecting politics would actually be a better means of helping bring it to the world. My reasoning being, in part, that, rather unsexily, its accessibility depends, to my mind, so much on things like funding of research, government funding of sessions for those in poverty, the economic climate, i.e. ability for prospective clients to pay relevant fees. I have a certain disgust for the way psychotherapy is priced at the moment, as many in need are simply priced out of it. Not that i blame practioners, but its just the way i see reality is. But really for now, I've had to humble my ambitions for the time being towards doing the necessary inner work. -------- Also, thank you for the compliment mate I was thinking earlier too how valuable it is to have someone with your life experiences on the forum, too.

@Migue Lonas Jheez dude! That's amazing! Thanks for sharing. Edit: Also the part about going solo really challenged some limiting beliefs I have. I've only heard of one other pick up guy doing that before, and he's an instructor now.

I'm getting what i see to be encouraging result from a meditation style where I watch my thoughts and then every say 6 seconds note 'thinking-thinking-thinking'. I was hoping some users would be kind enough to help me understand what type of meditation this is called. Also, if you know, what the benefits and/or limitations of this sort of meditation are? And overall what to expect from this style of meditation compared to others? Thanks in advance.

@Migue Lonas Can you give a brief synopsis of your game journey?

@CARDOZZO Hmmm, I'm sort of wary of giving a specific pointer because I don't know where your psyche is at currently, and I think different minds work well with different things. But I'll lay out some general things here. High conscious psychotherapy with a competent professional can be useful, in my opinion. Stuff like internal family systems therapy, gestalt therapy, humanistic, somatic experiencing etc. Bodywork like Trauma Release Exercises could be useful. (course: https://www.trecourse.com/)) A good book which gives an overview of trauma is, in my opinion: The body keeps the score. Also, Alice Miller, 'Drama of the gifted child' is a useful one I think. Also, setting up a concentration practice, and then exploring a variety of meditation practices, to find one which helps you process trauma and/ or helps regulate your emotions. I like a dude called Daniel Mackler too at the moment. He has a youtube channel, and also one of his books is about journaling about trauma (Titled: From Trauma to Enlightenment: self-therapy in twelve steps, Daniel Mackler) Again though, I'm still in the process so I'd say my perspective is somewhat limited.

@LSD-Rumi I really relate to this. In my experience, the answer is to: 1) Limit who you let into your life. Be that casually or long-term. 2) Meditation and Shadow work In my opinion, its not actually that any intellectual idea or attitude is destabilising in of itself. Its adoption can lead to destabilisation of one's mind. But in my opinion in depend where that mind is at. If you have a strong healthy sense of self, say from years of successful depth psychotherapy, I imagine these new attitudes and ideas will be much less destabilising than someone who is traumatised. Or if you have done a lot of successful meditation, then your mind is adept at handling any idea or attitude. And so I believe such a mind would be much less destabilised by taking on these new ideas or attitudes.

@Yimpa I get you. And agree in one sense. But I guess what I'm interested in is what sort of work a certain style of meditation tends to do for practioners. I.e. I've heard and believe some style tend to allow for more shadow work. Some tend towards giving the practioner more piece of mind. Some towards more mystical states.

@Federico del pueblo I think these videos could be of value (I'm not that savvy when it comes to dream analysis though. Also, I haven't actually watched these vids, I just like the youtuber when it comes to trauma related stuff).

@CARDOZZO Personally, my theoretical belief is that once one processes a large amount of their traumas then they get a lot of access to their authentic self and trust in their intuition. And from there one's life purpose becomes relatively straightforward. I do think its important to note that I'm currently in the process of trying to process a lot of my traumas. So I'm not currently speaking from direct experience. So, I'd say I'm more on the side of 'finding it'. Though you sort of have to create the conditions for finding it through trauma work.

@StarStruck Haha its funny you say that. When I first did game I was in my late teens and training at an old school amateur boxing gym. The sparring and training there used to scare the crap out of me. Some real scary guys, and some psychos haha (one guy used to be very aggressive and constantly giggle when he hit someone!). I used to actually skip training to go and nightgame sometimes instead. And nightgame was actually somewhat of a relief in comparison! Then when I later gamed again at a later point in my life, I found it a lot more challenging. I guess doing something really scary like old school boxing can really ground you.