mandyjw

You don't have an ugly personality. You're kind, I can sense that. You don't bother to engage with people. People read that as you being completely uninterested and put off by them. Women aren't put off by you, they think you are put off by them. All you have to do is engage more and show your interest. Then you'll receive that interest right back from them.

Some of the RSD skills are just to meet people and become more confident in groups or around the opposite sex. Those skills are great and can be used to form any kind of relationship you want. But isn't the point of pick up to pick up women? Even the term pick up implies that girls are something like inanimate objects that can just be picked up and dropped off. It implies that the point of the entire thing is self gratification. Relationships definitely do not have to start with sex, plenty of people have sex after they establish respect and mutual friendship. Sex is just one way of connecting with someone. My point is just that the OP should set his intention. Does he want to have one night stands, a series of short shallow relationships and sex with various different people or does he want a deeper connection with someone including sex? The reason it's important to know that beforehand is because women can sense your intentions, they know when they are being used, and that's going to dictate what type of woman you attract. If the only way you know how to get women is to attract women who only want sex and an ego boost of being desired by multiple men then that's the only type of woman you'll get. It's a lot easier to teach someone how to attract a woman like that and a lot harder to try to teach someone how to form a deeper connection with someone.

You've already done the most important thing, which is realizing that those thoughts are hindering you. Try to catch the thoughts in the moment when they come up and recognize them as just unhelpful thoughts. The point of meditation is to be imperfect because as thoughts come up your build the muscle to let them go and not identify with them. Purposefully try to do things with the mission of being imperfect at them. Is there an art project you can do, just for the fun of imperfection and to practice it?

@theking00My life is way way more peaceful than it was before I learned about enlightenment. But now I'm not sure that I still believe in enlightenment at all.

@Shin

@Shin Do you live in your Mom's basement?

Ok for 2019, Before enlightenment, do the laundry, wash the dishes, pay the bills, after enlightenment, do the laundry, wash the dishes, pay the bills.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Going from two assumptions, All suffering comes from the mind. Enlightenment is the state of being free from suffering and does not exist as a future state, or a permanent state. It is only a state that one can achieve in the present moment. There is no such thing as an enlightened being. People can appear to the mind's judgement be enlightened because they are never or very infrequently in other states. Therefore the only path is to enter a state of freedom from suffering. Suffering is nothing more than an indicator that we aren't in a conscious state. Why then in so many spiritual traditions is the emphasis on seeking suffering? Isn't that completely backwards? For example I used to run long distances and I thought it made me a better person through suffering. I was focused on the suffering part. I dropped running for a few years and then picked it back up and discovered that I didn't care what I got out of it, and it was purely enjoyable. I didn't change the activity I changed the focus of it. Why do any method to "get" enlightened that makes you suffer? The suffering can only mean it isn't working for you. The trying can only mean that your doing it for the wrong reason. Why ever meditate or do any any other practice for any other reason than that it makes you feel good? Enlightenment is nothing you can work toward, you can only experience it now.

@RawJudah Do you just want sex or do you want sex with several random people? A relationship brings more sex. The point of pick up is to still get sex without relationships.

So if you are completely uninterested in this conversation, that's fine. Are you? Because you barely engage in your responses. Just pointing this out because if you have a problem engaging ever single person is going to think that you are completely disinterested in them. What do you like best about you self and your life?

@Mikael89 Those types of women tend to have a way of making themselves invisible, including being reclusive, anti-social, overeating and not caring about their looks. Are you SURE that you'd want that or would even be able to SEE those women and not completely overlook them? Try to re-frame how you look at rejection. If I'm trying to come up with a new design in the work I do I set a goal for myself that I have to fail or make a complete disaster. If I don't I'm not trying hard enough. Your can make it your intent to get rejected.

@Mikael89 So my positive beliefs are false but your negative beliefs are true? Be fair here! It's fine if you don't want to have beliefs but you do, you strongly believe that no women like you. What if you met a woman who believed that she was completely unattractive to men and that no man would ever want her or like her. Would you want to approach her and work through all that resistance? Is that the kind of relationship you'd seek out?

You have to sort out your inner voice (gut instinct) from messages you've absorbed about what other people think you should do. Sometimes that means doing what other people want you to do to find out that's not right. It gets easier and easier with practice. Certainty only comes from being able to hear your inner voice clearly.

@Shaun Both are true simultaneously and paradoxically. Just stop trying to sort it out and focus on what feels good. There's nothing wrong or untrue about focusing on what makes you feel good. Especially since that's the direction you need to go in right now to even just balance out.

I love Leo, but you have a lot of very valid concerns. Leo says himself he has a hardnosed masculine approach to enlightenment. He is overly focused on the dark aspects of self, and I'm really hoping he comes back and balances those out more. In the meantime it's important to balance his teachings with a lot more softer approaches (or non-approaches) to awakening and wisdom, Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, Tara Brach, etc.

It's a huge shock to your system to find out that this work doesn't make you happy. You realize at some point that you may have gone into it looking for the truth or for noble reasons but deep down you also wanted it to make you happy because otherwise the state you find yourself in now would not bother you. You just need to change your focus. You love life so focus on life and what you love. You can choose the thoughts you have. If you have thoughts you might as well make them happy ones. More pedestrian level advice can be a huge help. The kind of stuff we may egoically think we are above now that we've had a taste of truth. Self care. Go do something you love doing, no matter how little. Exercise. Go for a walk in nature.

Trying to compare your path to different points along the way is another distraction. An extremely compelling distraction we all fall into, yes, but a distraction nonetheless. Comparison is judgement, judgement is thought, thought is the illusion you're trying to see through. There's just this moment, be aware now.

@now is forever Future hope of salvation if you do the right things. Sounds like every other dogmatic religion on earth.

@Mikael89 Your personality is just a belief. Believe what you want, they are all false anyway. Don't you realize the power of this?

That's why you can only seek awakening and not enlightenment. Enlightenment doesn't exist. If you define awakening as an experience that's all that exists.

@Shin A one sided awakening isn't a full awakening. It's maintaining certain dualities while dissolving others.

@DrewNows I guess so. I mean everyone is their own manifestation of life in their own way with their own imbalances. I'm not sure how you can be one with your body and all others and also abuse both to that extent. So I think it's safe to say enlightened people are loving and seem somewhat boring to the untrained eye.

How many of you would be sold on enlightenment if the first thing you heard about it was the idea that you'd be able to sit all day and do nothing and find as great joy helping an old man cross the road than winning the lottery. Well SIGN ME UP for that shit. This is why almost only old people listen to Eckhart Tolle.

@SQAAD Yes, I wouldn't call it enlightenment exactly but cherry picking powerful truths can make people seem enlightened and even more than that really enigmatic. I think that truly enlightened people seem really boring almost all of the time.