Eph75

Great post, I'm glad you made it. Another way to look at this is to keep cognitive complexity as one developmental line. Then, you have your meaning making process that goes through a perpetual short cycle; Sensing - or noticing Making sense - or trying to understand Responding - or creating some kind of impact on self/other Then returning to the sensing around the impact created. We need to push into the outer boundary of our own, ever increasing complexity, into the land of chaos, where our current sense making is insufficient, to catalyze our further growth of cognitive complexity. If we don't, we stagnate. We will be help by our society to reach a certain complexity, and a certain flavor of sense making, but at some point we stagnate unless we press further, by our own devices, or the devices of the universe. As our sense making shifts towards growing increasingly complex, more and deeper meaning is created, serving an increasing depth of the information on which our responses are made. We will grow increasingly impactful, being able to take more information, perspectives, and eventualities into account, and create increasingly simple responses, that lead to increasingly beneficial outcomes, whatever that might be, which [the outcomes] is a product of that very same sense making. Wisdom is a result of this process; the ability to accommodate a high level of complexity in our minds, to allow ourselves to produce simple, yet effective responses, that are impactful towards some purpose. Wisdom quotes are a great example, they simply tend to make sense, also to those that have not experienced the underlying complexity that went into that wisdom quote, as such quotes range anywhere from motivational to deeply profound, depending on the meaning making of the recipient, served by the complexity within the simplicity. The depth of profundity can only be fully seen though a lens that allows for the depth of complexity, that produced the wisdom. But, that wisdom can be life changing to many who do not, without needing to grasp the actual depth. One sub-stage in the process of what you describe is the loss of own perspective, where there being so many perspectives seen, and no single perspective being invalidated, resulting in no single perspective being the preferred one. I'd say this is related to the emotional detachment of "own" perspective, and a fear of reattaching, having yet to discover that loosely leaning on to preferred perspectives still does not equate to re-identification with, but being able to choose and shift perspectives more, as the tools they are, and to, use the right tool for the right job. That's where we get lost in mental maturation, around complexity, and deconstruction, without proceeding into the reduction phase that leads to wisdom, philosophical and practical use, instead of just increased the amount of information produced in the process, attributing some false value to the complexity itself, reducing ourselves to information horders. Sorry, went into a bit of a rant. Such, indeed, is life

This is true, but only when it's standing on a foundation of higher level of complexity, or enough complexity to be able to hold on to it, that allows for producing a wisdom and a simplification. And this is evidently true in your case, as that underlying complexity shows up in what you write [not just here] without any need to explicitly deconstruct, as that deconstruction happens implicitly, to a certain depth, as part of one's sense making. But that's not true for everyone, depending on how much we've developed that complexity, and it's not true to the OP, as the question in the OP would not exist if it did rest on that complexity. Blind/parroted/learned wisdom, and leaning onto simplicity without that having that complexity is simply foundationless ignorance. Besides, it is fun, and why not deconstruct only to reconstruct

@Tudo This is something that we could dig into, in absurdum. You could assume that the person's sense making isn't affected by race [etc] and is driven by pure unbiased preference. That option A would simply be more preferred than B, or B would be more objectionable than A. Nothing in existence is that simple, or black-or-white. There's plenty of bias in everything that we do, as a complex composition of factors that build on each other, throughout time, and at the roots these biases are likely to be influenced by race and other distinctions, in one way or another, along with many other factors, regardless of how far removed they might seem to us. Whatever that composition would be, they ultimately could show up as mere preference. How self-aware we are about our biases, values and reasoning/logics and whether we're exposed to our own inner workings to such degree that we are able to see, hold and question how race [etc] plays in, matters. That's when we give ourselves to choice to self-author who we are, and influence our choices in a more conscious and responsible way. We're still under the influence of our biases, it's impossible not to be, and we can still be self-deluded. Is it healthy to introspect to learn more about ourselves? Absolutely! What we find is important, but why we are looking, is important too. The OP displays a fear of being viewed as "racist" for having the biases [or preferences] that he has. This, too, is interesting for introspection to learn something new about oneself, through that fear; the perceived consequences one risk facing, who the ones judging us really are, and what kind of power they hold over us? Ultimately we can become [more/deeper] aware of our values, to accept and own the biased preferences that we have, and at that point it would not matter whether "someone" would label those preferences racist or not, or attribute some other label. Their labels would not define our preferences, as our preferences are ours to own. The consequences, are also ours to own, regardless how fair or unfair they might seem, as we cannot control the interpretations of others.

Happy it helped you

Of course not. It's preference. Entertaining that kind of fear, would also make you a homophobe for preferring women.

@Razard86 If you were to be so fully present in the moment, that there was no yesterday nor a tomorrow, only now, the concept of death wouldn't exist. You would have to leave the present moment to experience the existence of either yesterday, or tomorrow. Even if your avatar were to die, you would still be fully present in the experience of dying and the stages of dying, and they would be no more than just impermanent moments. How would you know it would be the avatar dying, and not just another present moment "dying", as every other moment perishes. Death is conceptual. Remove that conceptual understanding, along with the ability, or desire, to travel into the past, or the future, and the conceptual understanding of death and experience dying never existed.

@Heart of Space Whatever will be said here, won't be "it" for you. You're already firmly attached to some ideas. That's in no way unique to you, as you already are aware of. I haven't seen anyone doubting you. Not quite sure how to write this without it seeming like criticism, or potentially being taken as criticism. It's not If you take it like that, this post, or parts of my previous post, I apologize for my bluntness. I have a habit of just blurting things right out. It's not at all about whether those ideas your hold are right or wrong, it's simply about letting go of resistences attracting or detracting towards the one or another direction, so it becomes a no-thing, a distraction, a quirk, a glitch, or whatever, rather than something. Ultimately "it" IS a catalyzer for a shift in your sense making, and "it" IS showing you something that you need to change. "It" will succeed when you are ready, and not a moment before, nor later. The reason why "it" won't be for you, is that you have to get there by yourself. No one can show you what that is, you have to see it yourself to believe it. After the fact. The material world value attachments that you mention here, over and over again, is where the detachment likely needs to happen. But as long as you, resist letting go, or even defend that attachment, it won't get you anywhere. That is, anywhere, except existence find new ways to turn its knobs on you, to increase that "thing" [some kind of non-superficial suffering] that got you asking the questions around something that you aren't ready to let go off - that's the process, always. There's nothing wrong with this. It's just how things need to/will unfold. It's the question(s) that drives us forward, towards the edge of what is likely to be perceived as a cataclysm from the current paradigm. (Somewhat dorky to fit two Matrix quotes into one post without trying to do so) If anything, a first step would be try loosen the firm grip on your current beliefs, and feel out what that's brings. Fiddling with spirituality sets off a start on a journey that tend to unfold itself, whether we want it or not. The problem is, that some get on this journey without understanding the implications, but that's only a problem if one resists the journey. There literally is nothing to regret. What's the problem that you percieve that made you start this discussion? You asked for a prayer, but there's a problem for you here, what is the problem and what would you like it to be like, rather than what it is today. If it wasn't a problem, you wouldn't ask for a prayer. It could have been a blessing, or nothing in particular. So, what do you desire, and how do you get closer to dissolving that problem? (Dissolving the problem typically doesn't mean fulfilling the desire)

@Rob06 I'd say you should start with defining what self-actualizing means to you. It could mean pursuing carrier to some, or transcend and detaching from the desire to "have" career to others. What is it that you think you are sacrificing if a child/children takes up your time? My kids are in their early 20s and as they were in the dawn of their days, other parents talked about children as a burden, as something that often was in "the way" , something that "interfered" with something that they needed for themselves. These people weren't self-actualizing, the children just interfered with some desire. Doesn't matter where that desire comes from, or seen as healthy or unhealthy in nature. If children clashes with your other desires, and you can't allow for the time the children needs to grow up to healthy secure individuals, then yes it will be a problem, interfering with self-actualization. If life and children is part of ones own growth, children are a magnificent growth opportunity, that catalyze a lot of maturity that will support further types-of self-actualization. Question is, would you lose something that you desire by having children, will they prevent you from doing something particular. Or would you prioritize other things that means you miss out on their childhood, that impairs your future growth? Kids take and deserve getting a, lot of time, love and attention. Besides, what's the rush? The one thing that used to pain me with having kids, was seeing other parents completely ignoring their children, with the result of them screaming for attention - which still was ignored. What I found scary was how many parents that did ignore their children, and how few actually allowed them healthy space, feeling seen and affirmed. Paradoxically, the children getting attention required little attention as a result, when being in situations with others, and the ignored children was constantly trying to get the parents attention, but failing to do so. I've never felt that it has been exhausting to have childen, but as with everything, the experience lives in the resistence and desire that circumstances should be otherwise. A child with a tummy ache that can't sleep, is preventing your sleep. That's true, but the greater exhaustion is the thought of it being something unwanted, and being better if they didn't keep you wake, and you got your own beauty sleep. What will you lose if you allow your life to slow down? This slow down is more than 2 years, it's an indetermined time-commitment towarda another human being. There will always be situations that deserve being prioritized, and those situations will vary depending on phases, ages and showing up different for different sexes. Simply allow it to be a different kind of personal development. It might interfere with the original plan, but plans are designed to fail, adjusting to changing circumstances, flowing with, works better. Often you can have a piece from both worlds, just a different piece.

Consistently sleep on the other side and hope for soft parts to allow for a shift over time? Or "simply" accept that we're not symmetrical, and start loving what is.

@John Iverson It's a social agreement explicitly or implicitly made between two people. Impossible to answer, as the circumstances vary a lot, not least based on country/culture. Regardless, you're free to define that agreement, between you and others, and face the consequences when there are disagreements. The more traditional values, the more this burden lands on the male. Personally, I see a difference between the assumption that the man should pay, and the man actually paying. This comes down to choice, and control over one's choices, not feeling obligation. If the culture demands and you're not blindly or consciously supporting those cultural values, that's problematic. Gets me thinking about the equality paradox; that when given freedom of choice, the traditional gender roles are often maintained, by choice. Maintaining traditional values where gender roles and equality is shifting, we're seeing circumstances where the male earn less than the female, but still the tradition of the male paying is maintained in order for the male to feel masculine and worthy the love and acceptance of a female. This gets problematic when parts of a system pushes for egalitarianism, from some/selected perspectives, but not from others. Let's just call it growth pain. The Philippines, I would assume, is very traditional.

@Heart of Space Curses are as real as we make them, and no doubt, you are cursed. If our sense making produces such meaning that we see curses, those curse are as real to us as any other way, positive or negative, that we perceive reality. We attract what we fill our minds with. Whether that means that things actually happen based on it, or our focus putting that into focus doesn't matter as the effect of it is the same, our awareness is filled with "it". That might sound as if curses are objectively real, but what I'm saying is that you believing that curse are real, they manifest by you noticing negativity that you attribute to being cursed. Hence, you are indeed cursed, proven by first hand experience. This lies within your interpretation you make of what's happening around you. Your way of interpreting, how you attach meaning to things also is clearly visible in your posting here. Consider this; one man's curse is another man's blessing. You could interpret this as you being cursed, and indeed someone else gains benefits from your misfortunes. You could also interpret this as the same phenomena could be individually interpreted as being either a curse, or a blessing. Leaving it up to the sense making and how you relate to what's happening, while defining it as negative or positive. Life finds ways to kick your butt so that you can grow, and outgrow that which you get stuck with. A more complex sense making that allows for seeing the opportunities within the negative (although it would not be framed as negative at that point) that happens, has happened and will happen, allows for bringing something new about, that can emerge, that shifts us towards a more free relationship to what is happening. These manifestations of some curse that you are subjected to, simply is existence turning its knobs on you, to help you shift your sense making, towards increased complexity. Again, curses are as real as we make them. We continuously construct our reality, whether we are aware of it or not, and when needed, we get knocked around by existence to grow towards becoming self-authoring, where we realize the choice to construct ourselves and the world as we see it, by authoring ourselves and what we are. That knocking around is experienced as suffering. Your curses are your blessings, you just have let go of your resistences, stop fighting and allow for the lesson existence is trying to teach you to create the shift that is waiting to happen. Your suffering will be amplified the more resistence you put up. That's the correlation between spiritual work and growth. With spiritual work you start an inevitable spiral that uses suffering to catalyze your own growth. That suffering increases until a point you break/through to the other side. Getting stuck from our own dogma is our own greatest enemy, dismissing new perspectives, perspectives from beyond, preventing movement/flowing.

@Yarco never mind this, bad tag/can't delete on phone @playdoh I'd be careful to assume and judge. If you ran something over that created a small enough hole that the tire didn't instantly deflate, you could very well get two flats on the same side as you would likely have run, whatever the object was, over with both wheels. The tire would deflate over night. I've been "cursed" with a bunch of flats, and only one of them deflated instantly (fit my little finger into the hole), the others I noticed in the morning as I was going to work. You could try inflate the tires and see if they hold air long enough to drive. The milk is just trivial nonsense that had it not been the flats you might not even have payed a second thought. What if... they're a coincidence and you're laying blame where blame doesn't exist? If the tires are slices e.g. with a knife, and not a slow deflation puncture, or maybe the valves just been used to deflate the tires, then there's foul play, but you still have no idea if there's correlation between the milk (trivial) and assumed foul play. It could be someone else and the milk incident just being a coincidence. Let it slide, don't create any bad blood by assuming and blaming, then let the future determine if there's more to the story.

Rather; let her go and recognize that you could never control her in any way that stops her if she wanted to cheat on, or leave you, without being corruptible and destructive in that controlling process. Your controlling thoughts fueled by insecurities influence your actual behavior, in ever so subtle, or not so subtle ways, that you are actively breaking, not making in this very moment. Instead focus on being someone who reduces the chances of her cheating and leaving, not by control what is, but by increasing what might draw her towards you. Ultimately she need to want to be with you. This isn't inherently about her, it's about you. Your insecurity is one part of that. While your mind works hard to control the situation, you inevitably become less attractive in a magnetic sense, not pulling her towards you, but reversed your magnetic pole, pushing her away. Let go of these thoughts and use this as an invitation to develop your inner game, your inner sense-making that is serving you with these limiting thoughts. Regardless of you being able to retain her interest or not, you will have won, as your development is a win-win, and you're not competing with anyone else than your yesterday's limited self. You are not likely to believe me if I were to say that from a post development perspective this relationship, she and any other female, will become trivial, as you grow towards something that becomes less and less defined by what you have that is external to yourself, but by what you yourself represent. Although, this is inevitably what will happens. It might sound like you're losing *something* in that process, but in fact you gain *everything*.

If it wasn't obvious to you already, I'm sorry to say, no, you do not. To say the words because "we should" have trust is completely pointless. Not trusting isn't something to be ashamed of. It is just a fact, and recognizing thta fact is a cue to become deliberate about working on building trust. If you really did trust her, you would not have entertained this idea, but deeply know that it is not a problem. Ask yourself; Do you have valid reasons not to trust her, i.e. she has proven herself not trustworthy? Or, does this live in your insecurities? Make this about you, not her, and see it as a personal growth opportunity. Deliberately let her leave showing full confidence in her. Showing that you don't trust breaks her trust in you. It would actually push her away, not attract her towards you, creating a stronger, trust based bond. Introspect and fully feel into what you feel in this process; as she's leaving, while she's gone and when she comes back. What thoughts and feelings are coming up for you throughout (before, during, after) that process? What needs to change, in you, to be able to have trust, and to address building the trust that is missing, between the two of you. Trust isn't about being navie, and choosing to be blind to whatever might be there, it goes both ways, and it's something that is built, it's not served on a silver platter. Feeling psychological safety is product of that process. Feeling safe, you in your mind, and her in hers. Trust exists between the two of you, and it needs to go both ways. Building this starts with you, so can you support that process actively/deliberately making this something that helps you grow as a person?

Absolutely. I'd differentiate between listening to advice, gather information, and use what resonates best and matches best to oneself, than not listening to advice at all. But I get what you mean, don't abide to anyone's advice, just use the input to gain more clarity to make better calls. It all comes down to the root. The path to getting to the root is not one, and as you say, sometimes incorporating more than one. Consciously doing so develops us.

That's a not all that fair and flawed reasoning/comparison, as baldening is a natural state, and not at all state that is dysfunctional and harmful to the psychical health of the person. 200 kg overweight is. Both do have the psychological aspect though, but equating them doesn't really make sense. Rather equating not lean, not muscular, not ripped, but having a "healthy portion" of body fat. Then add to that, having an "awkward" body shape, that makes whatever you got not looking comparatively great in contrast to the social norm of what beautiful looks like, ads, magazines, social media and so on. Accepting one's individuality both in terms of authentic self expression and physical appearance, despite it being different from what would be preferred/great/perfect is ultimately healthy. Pathological obsessiveness with that "healthy amount of" body fat and the awkwardness of bodliy shape leads to mental health issues, possibly spiraling into self-loathing, or worse. Even at its smallest manifestation, this forum thread is birthed from a mental dis-ease perspective. The hair is the symptom. The current composition of the mind is the root cause. We could easily chase the symptoms of life like it was a game of whack-a-mole, but it soon gets tiresome. There's also a good chance that one starts losing one's individuality in that process, trying to be who we think that we should be to fit in, rather than being what's authentic to us. There are most likely underlying reasons for the 200 kg overweight, where food has become a coping mechanism, turned to rather than facing and working on the underlying issues, quite possibly having spiraled out of control. Balding is not, unless it's a physiologically treatable condition, that causes hair loss as a side-effect, and not as a biological phenomena. With that said, this says absolutely nothing about having or not having any hair. What authentic is, what feels free, is just that, up to the individual to decide. That means, the grounds ones choices stand on, matters, a lot. This is perfect, if you can accept your condition, and love yourself.

Regardless, the path forward is developing acceptance of self, and ultimately self-love. It would be pretty odd if one shaved or kept ones hair for the sake of someone else, or for something else, while feeling like shit about it. Although, that's what most probably would do, for the sake of being accepted by others, we sacrifice ourselves and what truly matters most. Abiding the delusion of needing to do/be one or the other to fulfill an underlying desire. Ultimately to be worthy of love and belonging. The only way to get peace and to develop acceptance is to challenge the underlying feelings and mindset related to hair, head shape, and appearance in general, and explore how that connects to self-worth and self-esteem.

Cut your hair down to 0.5 - 1 mm (essentially as short as possible without being shaved) and get used to it by choice, fully embrace who you are without hair. Once your comfortable by choice, you can grow it out and it will be much easier to remove the hair when the time comes when it's "too thin" and holding on to it looks desperate. I wouldn't say that I'm balding, but I've developed significant hair curves and hair has thinned out quite a bit, as well as a bald spot at the top/back of my head is starting to show (clearly visible but wouldn't define it as bald). I originally got rid of my hair due to my low self-esteem and resulting vanity about my hair style, and got used to not having hair and detached from being partly defined by how my hair looked. Didn't do this based on my hair thinning. But now I am comfortable with any hair, although I have grown my hair back for the time being, about a year and a half ago, and that's when the hair thinning became obvious. I'm fully confident about removing my hair, I could literally do it right now and I nor anyone else would care, as I've gone from no hair to hair on and off in the past to be fully comfortable with me regardless of my hair, and I have proven that no one else care either. Long story short, the best thing you can do is to fully love yourself, balding hair and big forehead as you see it now. Holding on to the past creates suffering, and hair as you desire it is obviously a thing of your past, not your future. You could always implant or treat your scalp to slow the hair thinning down, but ultimately thin is where you're going, it's a matter of when and how much you resist it. There's plenty of guys that remove their hair based on it being thin, and plenty of guys that remove their hair from choice, perhaps based convenience or as in my case, personal challlenge/development. There are plenty of old people that have full heads of artificial hair, toupees, wigs, colored thin hair, comb-overs, turban looking contraptions and so on that look 100% unnatural and draw more attention than a young-mid age person with a very shortly cut or shaved hair. The latter I would likely never be noticed. The former stands out at someone who desperately holds on to the past that has slipped away from them. Short story got long. Ask yourself who you want to be, that makes you feel free and authentic, and not driven by fears of what others, and you, think or feel about your head. Then embrace it and fully accept your choice.

@DefinitelyNotARobot I would start with recognizing that your are not you perspective. You already have, you said it yourself, by deliberately stepping away from your depressed perspective and "entertain" a different perspective, your frame of mind changed. Recognize how important this statement is. If what/how you experience changes with shifting perspective, then you are not your perspective. You are not your perspective, so why holding on to it so dearly? That's a first step towards something new. I'd say, instead of desiring a different perspective, try working on having a loose connection with perspectives, to such degree that perspectives are not ours, they are tools that are more of less favorable towards producing some outcome. If you are clear about the outcomes you want to create, i.e the effects and impacts and not the output generated in that process, then it will be much easier to see what works and what does not work in moving you closer to that outcome in a more efficient way. This mean, if you would drop desire, then no tool is needed. Perspective becomes entertaining but inherently useless. Judgment, assumptions, conceptualizing can still be done, but they are more of a separate thing to yourself, than a part of you. Building up this ability makes shifting perspective not only less personal, but shifting is personally beneficial when looking at those outcomes you want to generate. From defending existing perspectives as part of self, to welcoming exchanging ineffective tools, as more effective tools show up. You recognized your perspective as that of someone with depression, you switched that as the ineffective tool it is, to another tool that rationally makes sense it would be more efficient, and it was. That's a pretty easy example, most would replace depressed with happy, but don't know how to do it. What if you think you know your perspective is efficient and maybe even the only right perspective. The emotional attachment to that perspective as part of the definition of who you are will prevent you from replacing that perspective. How can you become more perspective-fluid, so that we accept and drop perspectives as they are useful? This requires being comfortable with change, and perspective change is the ultimate personal change, shifting part of who we think we are into something else. The more comfortable with change we are, the less resistent to change we are, the more practice in flowing we get, the less perspectives will matter to us from the point of view that they define who we are. Curiosity is important in this process - to not reject but to explore curiously the perspectives of others, to see what they see, and appreciate with that perspective, their desire outcomes, and what deficiencies that drive them.

The only way that everything could be free, would be if everyone contributed equally with services that are needed, which isn't necessarily or even likely to be realizing your dreams, but to be the equivalent of a worker ant who does not question it's individuality in favor of providing that service, that essentially becomes allotted to that person-ant, so that "it" can be a cog in the system. There's always going to be lazy ants or free-loathers, what should the system do with these people? The answer is likely to be to accept that some will not participate and let the remainder of the system work a bit harder to accommodate those that does not, or doesn't not fully contribute. Morale is going to drop, as people get fed up with working harder, and the group that lives of the system will grow with time. Morale will drop further, as people get fed up with breaking their backs and living lives that are "all work and no play", to maintain the system and keeping it from collapsing. I'm curious, what's your theory on how this could become possible, from which you build the belief "that there's no reason why everything shouldn't be free" ?

I'd diffentiate between being conservative, and appearing conservative to someone/you based on interpretation. Say [esp. less healthy] green could perceive yellow as "conservative" because yellow would not necessarily agree with green manifestation. For example, yellow would be for change, but against specific change that would bring damaging imbalances from a systemic point of view. Foreseeing damaging longer term side-effects, second, third or maybe fourth order effect , where green may be acting emotionally on their humanitarian value system. A different approach would be more beneficial. That could be interpreted as being conservative, sustaining what is, while the systemic perspective gets lost in translation. In a sense, either you are "with us" , "progressive", or you are "against us", "conservative". Yellow does not automatically mean being good as clearly communicting something or ability to angle things in a disarming way. Yellow isn't conservative, but also yellow doesn't automatically mean being comfortable with change, or not having internal resistences. Those are human, and yellow is still human. Theory (mind) and actual practice don't always align. Progressive can be damaging if done in a less conscious way. Pushing for change for the same of change or ideology produce systemic impacts that are difficult or impossible to reverse, and a future branches out in a direction that needs to mend the new imbalance, always causing ripple effects. In a way this is how development happens, it's not linear. But it can be more or less of a detour, especially when systemic cause and effects and possible correlations might be seen or predicted beforehand. Unrestricted progressive will run in a sprint-like fashion, while humanity is a marathon.

A coaching like stance in a conversation, means asking questions or in other supporting ways help others to get lost in thought and self-exploration. Coaching should have no agenda or desired outcome other than help people grow in whatever ways they best need. In that sense, there is no room or need for teaching, mentoring and least of all preaching. And this, as a process, helps accelerating the growth process of others. I'm reading into this, a coaching like approach inside essentially an arbitrary conversation, for the sake of others finding whatever benefit they need for themselves, based on a mode of conversation that increases the chances of being catlyzing. Is the need to do something like this likely to stem from some personal need to fill some gap? Well yeah sure. Everything we do is biased in some way or another. That doesn't make it bad. And it can be very helpful and impactful on an individual's life, it can help change people's lives, iterally. Coaching and it's effects are documented. Just like therapy is. And still, in both cases, it's the other person that needs to define the problem/need and also do the work needed. I'd stretch as far as to say that we should do this in every single conversation that we have. It's essentially just great communication and relationship building skills. Simply a means of having great and increasingly deep and meaningful conversations with others.

A urologist looks at this from a psychical perspective. Therapy, a therapist/psychologist looks at the implications your mind and way of seeing/thinking about things affect you, psysically. ❤️ Look at this as your "dick issues" being your mind/body calling out to you that something else is not right. And that you should take action. If so, it's not about your dick, it's about something else, and focusing on your dick just makes your dick an ever bigger problem that adds more anxiety. Pills helps removing focus from the "dick symptom" so that you can focus on the heart of the matter. That would be yet another angle to work on this. You already know the path you need to walk. That's 4 possible angles to action, that combined will amplify the process. - Address the erection problems with medication. Depression is a valid reason to get a prescription. It also eases strain on your relationship which is a huge part of your support system. - Therapy helps working out the root causes of your depression. - Meditating works as an amplifier in itself. Like a blanket of calmness in the process. Increasing focus and calmness of mind. - Socializing more, to meet belonging needs, and to challenge the introverted side of self, that *may* be what you need.

@Dany Balan Re-read my post please. None of that is about addressing physical health, it's about mental health. Anxiety and depression will have the effects you mention, and you have a plausible explanation when and why it happened. Addressing your depression and anxiety is what you need. Meanwhile (!) get a prescription for Cialis which will help you with the wood, even if you take a fraction of a pill. Not needing to deal with anxiety around sex is one step towards creating positive movement in working out your depression. Gives you a bit more space to breath. Work this from multiple angles. It's great that you have psychical workout routines and eat healthy. That's a good foundation! Now tend to your mind. Would you consider exploring together with a therapist?

For sure telling people what to do or what to be does not work. People want to choose, or have the illusion of choice. To feel in control of their lives. Where choice lacks, resistence is high. You cannot make the horses drink the water, you might not even be able to lead them there, but you can make the water appear more appealing, so that one or a few horses start craving a drink. Influence can happen, but only if the receiver is susceptible. Where dogma rules, wasted effort will happen. These kind of efforts are two folded, they are equally much about oneself becoming more capable to catalyze change, to change oneself in that process, and to help others have a positive impact on their own lives. What that change would be is not ours to choose, it's theirs. In a sense, these efforts have undefined outcomes, other than creating spaces where shared sense making happens, where new perspectives can show up, and shifts can happen. They are about catlyzing potential shifts by helping raising awareness of oneself, not telling or showing anyone what's right or wrong. The largest challenge is it being some form of social media platform or group, with internet culture, where people are not usually their authentic selves but rather a imagined, distorted digital self-image.