Dan Arnautu

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Posts posted by Dan Arnautu

  1. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    I'm both surprised and glad that the questions are still coming in. Seeing the thread grow makes me think of changing a few things.

    I see many problems that I already adressed in previous replies. I think I'm gonna start posting the answers in video format on youtube or something of the sorts. That way I can easily redirect people who come with the same problems to those specific videos and I can go into more detail on each question.

    Also, that way people can more easily interact with each other in the comment section. And, it would make this thread more compact as I will only post the links to the videos as replies (with the tags of the people I responded to) instead of having long stretches of text. I can't really link to previous replies if someone comes with the same problem I adressed in the past, but I can link them to the video in which I talk about that, so it would make my job a lot easier (especially if the thread just keeps getting larger).

    @kieranperez @laurastarla @kieranperez @BMoss @saish

    You guys would be the first ones I respond to that way. I'm gonna try to shoot a video today and see how it goes.

    Let me know what you think of this idea. I would love your feedback and input.

    On a final note, I really love that all of you guys want to start or have already started taking action towards improving your life situation. Most people we see around us wait for the problems to fix themselves with time, make excuses or sit around bitching and complaining, and oh boy that doesn't work. I think all of you guys are on the right track.

    UPDATE: Started shooting the video reply, but my phone ran out of space halfway. Now I'm emptying it out and I hope it doesn't take too long. I am pretty busy today, so if it takes too much, I'm gonna shoot a longer video on another day, of course with more letters from you guys.

  2. Posted

    @WildeChilde Funny enough, I had an awakening when I was singing. I was blasting New Divide by Linkin Park in the car. It was night outside and my friend was driving very fast.

    I was singing at the top of my lungs and noticed that I was hiting even the very notes perfectly. On a very high note, close to the climax of the song,  I felt like I was going into a state of union unknowingly. I felt like the song was singing itself. My whole head was vibrating weirdly. My body became very relaxed all of a sudden. I could feel my awareness expand into my surroundings and felt bliss coming all over me. I was like a full cup of water that was spilling all over. It was very hard to take in that much pleasure, plus the fact that I never felt like that in my life and blindsided me totally.

    It was a kind of orgasm that I hadn't experienced before. I thought about it for two days straight after that.

  4. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    @BestSelf I see that the issue of self-acceptance is a recurring theme with people here. I was and still am guilty of it myself at times.

    You can't really do anything other than practice self-acceptance. You have to learn to love your flaws and be grateful for being able to identify them. If you can transform them into assets, do that. If not, accept them and see if you can improve on them in any way.

    Either way, you have to change from the inside out. If you try to just fix the external circumstances (your inadequacies) through different techniques and gimmicks, the insecurities and negative self talk will still be there after that.

    I was self-conscious about my sternum for most of my life. I have a condition called pectus carinatum (pidgeon chest). In the past, I wanted to do surgery in order to get rid it, but I figured I shouldn't just choose the easy way out, and thus only use it as a last resort.

    I started going to the gym and now, 4-5 years later, I don't have any problem with it. Personal growth has transformed the way I look at it and that's why it doesn't bother me. In the past I thought that people would laugh at me, saying that I have man boobs and things like that, but at this point in my development I wouldn't give a rat's ass about their opinion. I wouldn't want negative people like that in my life anyway.

    A change in mindset I think is required in order to provide lasting change. Adopt an Amor Fati attitude, as in, "one shall not want anything to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism should be mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it."

    For all your inadequacies are necessary. You must love them because they show you how you ought to do in the future. Do not judge them for guiding you in the right direction.

    In the future you will look back at your flaws smiling because they made you a stronger and better person in the present moment, they made you more equipped to handle life.

    Watch Leo's video on the power of self-acceptance (you can find it on youtube). Do the exercise there multiple times and you should start to see some positive change in your mental attitude.

    Finally, please realize that all outstanding growth comes only from a place of acceptance.

    A fat person shouldn't accept itself only when it has finally gotten fit. That's not transformation coming from a place of love for the body. A fat person should see the situation as it is, accept it to it's full extent, and start to change because that will lead them to having an outstanding life, not because they hate their current self and the way their body looks.

    I trust that you can spot the difference. 

    Good luck!

  5. Posted

    On 3/18/2018 at 0:31 PM, Moreira said:

    Im 35 yo and I feel like an old man. Loud noises disturb me, I'm going like in a slow pace, I prefer to chill out rather than party, stick to routines and when something or somebody breaks my timing I feel angry.

    My bbody is making me feel that way, even I eat healthy and exercise. Could it be chronic fatigue? Or I'm too nervous and get drainedfsuper quick.

    I don't think you should instantly assume you have a problem. If you enjoy doing those things, keep doing them. It sounds like your are just worried about other people's POV or maybe society has imprinted your mind with the fact that a 35 year old should act and be a certain way. I am 20 and I too prefer to chill out rather than party, and hate when people break my routines.

    Maybe just practice meditation and mindfulness on loud noises and being non reactive when people mess with your schedule.

  6. Posted

    @okulele Changing your diet radically will never work. It will just cause a yo-yo effect of binging and punishing yourself into eating less the next day. You have to find a way you can eat the foods you enjoy, eat out with friends and be able to drink alcohol without it affecting your fitness goals. 

    You haven't learned the fundamentals yet.

    Let me give you an example. I am currently on a cutting phase. I want to go down about 8 kg of fat, while putting on muscle.

    Today, my first meal will be a chocolate cake that my roommate just brought me. And now I might hear you say.... "But Dan, how can you slim down by eating cake?". I can, because I know what energy expenditure is, because I track my calories and macros, because I do intermittent fasting and that allows me to have big, satisfying meals while still getting shredded.

    You have to learn the basics of nutrition, otherwise you are just banging your head against the wall. You don't have to only eat salad and lean chicken breast to get the body of your dreams. Read Eric Helm's Muscle and Strength Pyramid's books.

    In the picture below you can see an 8 week transformation from 2 years ago. I lost 10kg of fat there. I was eating fatty burritos every night, having a chocolate every single day, going out for drinks with my friends and much more.

    Once you learn the fundamentals of nutrition, you don't have to limit yourself to anything. You can eat whatever you want. Quantity is the key thing you need to track. There is no ONE healthy food. Almost no certain food is bad in and of itself. If you eat 80% clean, you can throw some candy in there. It won't make any difference. Consistency beats perfection.

    If you really want to eliminate specific foods from your nutrition, do it one at a time. Any more than that and it will backfire. Also, find alternatives. If you drink too many energy drinks, switch to sparkling water and so on. You get the gist.

    Read the books, apply what's there, maybe hop on a Kinobody program (search for that on google) and "Voila!", you have your dream body.

    Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

    Good luck!

    imageedit_2_6147092483.jpg

  7. Posted

    Will there be more videos about practical topics (like "No growth possible without training", "How to shop for healthy food", the commonplace book video etc.)?

    At this point in my life I saw that those help me much more than the ones talking about enlightenment. Will you only cover deep philosophical and non-dual topics from now on?

    Although, I've got to say, you helped me get an A in my "Meaning, Existence and Truth" class with the Derrida video. I referenced your video in my essay and I illustrated how when you apply Derrida's deconstructivism to Wittgenstein's Rule-Following Paradox, you can see that the paradox will forever remain unsolvable in any absolute sense, because it has the wrong epistemic foundations.

    Took your advice and dug the academics a new hole on that one. ;)

    Thanks in advance, Leo!

  8. Posted

    @Kisame I see that you thought this through. I'm gonna tell you something you might have not considered though.

    If you meditate every single day, you build momentum. If you only do a hardcore session a week, your procastination/resistance will be through the roof, firstly because you will have lost the momentum from not meditating the days before and because the meditation session is 7 hours long, which is a daunting task.

    Plus, the 7h meditation is more prone to being affected by an emergency than 7 20min-1h meditations. 1 thing can ruin you whole day meditation. If you spread that out though, not only can you move the meditation accordingly to another part of the day, but it will also be less prone to emergencies.

  9. Posted

    2 hours ago, alyra said:

    My biggest struggle is that I have too many issues in life that I am behind in, some of which endanger my health, most of which sum up to render me unemployable altogether. I need to balance multiple growth and habit-changing at the same time, and scheduling is a weakness of mine. I feel overwhelmed by how much I need to keep track of, and often have inconsistencies in important things that make things worse for me. 

    It isn't an issue that is fixed by focusing on one thing.. because then everything else goes to hell and I go backwards overall. It isn't an issue that is resolved be removing myself from the needs I believe in, I do that already, but it won't change the fact that my body is weak and fragile, that I spend 1k of my parents money a month and barely afford to get the help I want to get with that money, and often lose hope random days of the week from too much stress. 

    What I want assistance in - advice - is, how to balance over 50 needs where I can only seriously work on about five at a time?

    (I am able to balance the rest well enough that they only slowly deteriorate, but for the past two years I've just been cycling through different groups of goals I need to work towards, which means I make growth and then lose it over and over - overall I improve over time, but I want a more effective strategy) 

    (some of these things are probably many of the things already mentioned here - focus, motivation, money, relationships, I will go and read them when I have time to dedicate to such research later... but my main priority is balancing it all)

    In this case I think less is more. It isn't humanly possible to deal with 50 things at once. You should maybe take care of one thing, and then you move on to the other, and then the other. You shift areas of focus.

    If you say you NEED to balance more than 5 things, I think the answer is not finding a way to balance 50+ things, but rather, find the 5 most important things that keep MOST of the balance in your life. The needs are not of equal importance between them. Some have to be more important than others.

    If you can only work on about 5 needs at a time, do the following exercise:

    1. Make a list of all the needs that you have to balance.
    2. Ask yourself the following question: What is THE ONE need that, if fulfilled, would make all the other needs easier to deal with or irrelevant?
    3. Once you have the most important need that you should adress from answering the question above, remove that need from the list and repeat the process four more times.
      • Now, you have found the 5 most important needs that, if fulfilled, will make taking care of all the others easier, or will make many of the remaining needs irrelevant.

    This is an exercise borrowed from Gary Keller, author of the book "The One Thing". It worked wonders for me and it will many times prevent paralysis by analysis.

    If you want, send me a message with the results of the exercise. I'm real curious.

    Good luck! 

  10. Posted

    2 hours ago, blacksapp said:

    Hey Dan! First of all, thanks for the iniciative...I think it helped a lot of us for understanding a little bit better ourselves.

    Well, I don't want to be too long so I'll try to resume it.

    In my 15's I lost a lot of friends (new people around kinda stole them), got depressed and had no one to care about...parents too busy.

    Since then, I'm not able to make friends, hate socializing and got stuck in porn and video-games to satisfy that sadness within.

    Everybody make laugh at me because the way I walk, the way I talk...l've been trying to get better but is so frustrating to be in a place the you are "a clown". The biggest problem is that I couldnt see the problema 'till now. 

    Today, I'm actually single, have basically no friends, I have a job but wish to have a better one but no able to find. I'm christian and it does not allow me to go even to pickups to get better with girls...I feel like I'm in a cave and I'm trapped.

    Really don't know what to do.

    Thanks

    It's great that you decided to take ownership of the situation. 

    Well, there is a lot of work to do in your case. I think you gotta start with small things that can make a big impact. That will keep you motivated.

    Thing is, it's very hard to make and keep friends if you are depressed. We, as humans, usually want to hang around happy, outgoing people. If you can just put yourself into a decent state of mind, that will do wonders for you and progress will start to show.

    Seeing progress in what you are doing is key, so that's why I say that starting small is very important. If you will see yourself as successful only after you get rid of all the problems, you will have robbed yourself of the whole joy within the journey of becoming the best version of yourself.

    I say we tackle this one by one, otherwise you will get overwhelmed. If you are willing, I say we should start with the walking and talking, because we as humans are doing that all day, and that might provide the greatest return on investment.

    Watch these videos and start to apply what they say:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWirfhjfeVo&t=3754s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg8bNsybfNw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB1Rv9bW9hQ

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbXhofIJSQU

    Also, I suggest you read The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida. He has a part into the book dedicated to body language, but the whole book can offer more insights on how to adress your particular situation.

    Here is a quick excerpt that might stir your interest:

    "The superior man practices opening during these times of automatic closure. Open the front of your body so your chest and solar plexus are not tense. Sit or stand up straight and full, opening the front of your body, softening your chest and belly, wide and free. Breathe down through your chest and solar plexus, deep into your belly. Look directly into the eyes of whoever you are with, feeling your own pain as well as feeling the other person. Only when the front of your body is relaxed and opened, your breath full and deep, and your gaze unguarded and directly connected with another person's eyes, can your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously in the situation. To act as a superior man, a samurai of relationship, you must feel the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefore unable to act with mastery in the situation." - David Deida

    If you are willing, send me some pictures with your sitting, standing and walking postures the way they are right now (in a private message) and then, after practicing the things said in the videos for about 10-15 days (especially the ones in the second video linked above about body language), send me another set of pictures to update me on your progress. 

    Remember that poor body language is not only harmful in social situations, but it also affects your physical health directly. Hunched shoulders can cause shoulder impingement and mobility issues, sitting for long periods of time everyday can cause anterior pelvic tilt (which causes back pain) along with tight hips and hamstrings and so on. I could ramble about this for days.

    I will try and help you adress the other problems too after we see some improvement on these ones. Hit me up with a DM.

    That's about it for now though.

    Good luck, @blacksapp!

  12. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    15 minutes ago, Psyche_92 said:

    My biggest struggle is not hearing back from recruiters after having good interviews 9_9.

    Watch the following videos. They represent less than an hour of invested time in exchange for maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account or finding your ideal job. They will tell you all that you need imo:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCK3mQuvfw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkMZoTe7JXs

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tdyZWbGWO0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukmClH1KoA&t=575s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0-I-HYPeHo

    Fact is, most people looking for a job do the bare minimum to get in. If you apply just a little more effort than that, you have no competition. Almost all applications are thrown into the thrash because people don't know basic grammar these days. Maybe 30% pass the grammar and eloquency and 5-10% are chosen for the jobs.

    So if you are applying for a job with massive competition, remember that 70-80% of them will be rejected from the start and you don't have to worry that much.

    Also, read the book: ”How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It goes into great detail on the issue too.

    Good luck!

  13. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    15 minutes ago, Ether said:

    @Dan Arnautu Yes, I used to feel very frustrated but i went on anti depressants and it numb my depression. But just got to keep looking foward.

    You can try the Depression Meditation Pack from Headspace.

    I did the anxiety pack and it helped me a bunch. It actually made me understand anxiety better and change my relationship to it. A few years ago, I experienced panic attacks on a daily basis. Now I experience those only in very special circumstances, which I think is and outstanding progress. A psychologist or psychiatrist would have not been able to do that.

    Good luck! 

  16. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    18 hours ago, SOUL said:

    A struggle I have is ignoring people who have self important perceptions of themselves in thinking they can solve other people's issues using their own subjective experience perspective.

    I eventually pay them some attention and I may even interact with them in some way but they almost always assume their observations and insights are a universally recognized truth, right or good.

    Yet, my intention of interacting with them is in possibly bringing some awareness to humble agnosticism in perception because the value they assume they are imparting to others is the very value they fail to acknowledge in their own perspective by the process of dispensing 'wisdom' to others.

    If you are focused on your purpose/mission in life, you won't have any time to look at or think about those kinds of people. Unless your purpose is to make those people more aware of their closed mindedness, I suggest you focus on you.

    Also, the endeavor of changing their mind will usually end in failure because they have to be ready to change. 

    "Don't try to teach a pig to fly. You will end up dirty, and it bothers the pig."

    Good luck!

  17. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    11 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

    Only the worst person in the world can do that. Gosh so abusive. 

    Judgments don't help the situation in any way. Remember:

    "When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you."

    Let's keep the atmosphere supportive here. If you have something negative to say to the guy, send him a personal message. This thread is about building people up. Let's keep it like that.

    Thanks.

  18. Posted

    20 hours ago, sarapr said:

    @Dan Arnautu i have another struggle : how do I correct my sleep cycle ? Here's what I can do , I can wake up whenever I want but can't go to sleep when I want and then if I don't get proper sleep at night I keep having naps during the day and I can't control the napping and that reinforces me not being able to go to sleep at night when I want . give me a pill for this one too . the previous one worked awesome thank you for that.

    I had that very same problem. You need a night routine that you repeat every single night, one which will tell your mind that you are ready to sleep.

    The routine can be something simple like:

    • Dim all the lights 1 hour before sleep
    • Make a cup of tea and drink it while reading a book or watching something funny
    • Brush your teeth
    • Go to sleep

    The key is to do the same routine every night without exception.

    Also, by any means, have a cut-off point for all work. This is a tip I learned from Cal Newport. Have at least half an hour before sleep where you can detach from all work, all external stressors etc. Don't go to the bed immediately after studying or reading a complicated book. Your mind won't let you sleep from all the running thoughts and ideas.

    Other things that will make your more sleepy and get your body ready to sleep are:

    • Installing the Twilight app on your phone / Flux for desktop and laptop.
      • These apps will get rid of all the blue light that the screens project. The blue light prevents your body from secreting melatonin, which is the hormone that regulates sleep and wakefulness. If you get rid of the blue light, you will become sleepy much faster.
        • That's also why I suggest that you turn off or at least dim all the lights in the house one hour before sleep.
    • Put some music or nature sounds in the background (any kind of constant sound will work). 
      • Contrary to popular belief, humans have not evolved yet to sleep comfortably in complete silence. Our body is used to sleep around camp fires, in forests, in nature in general, where you hear many sounds constantly.
    • Cut off all social media for at least one hour before sleep.

     

  19. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    23 hours ago, Shin said:

    How to forgive yourself after having destroyed the psychological and physical health of the person you love the most ?

    Please tell me ...

    I'm gonna quote Gary Vaynerchuk directly on this: 

    "All of this looking back is fucking with your neck." 

    What happened, happened. You could not have done it any other way. Why suffer the event over and over again in your mind? Ain't once enough?

    If you can do something about the situation, do it. If not, see that as a lesson both for how you should not act in the future and for becoming more present in the moment / aka making the past die every second. 

  20. Posted

    On 3/13/2018 at 1:39 PM, Ether said:

    @Dan Arnautu I have been meditating on and off since summer 2017 and being aware of my thoughts like clouds everyday since 2016.

    What advice would you give me to transcend these thoughts? I heard every type of advice but the progress is still slow. Maybe all I can do is keep going.

    I want a quick fix but there seems not be one.

    We have to get rid of the quick-fix mentality if we want to keep making progress. Your improvements will usually come in small spurts after long periods of plateau. So you just have to keep at it.

    Also, maybe you haven't found the technique that works best for you yet. There are so many. For me, going into my body (ex. body scans) works really well for slowing down my mental chatter and making my mind more calm. Because when I am fully into my body, I can not be into my mind. Visualizations also work really well for me.

    For others, awareness of the breath or chanting mantras may work better etc. Sample each meal for a few months each and see which one attracts you the most.

  21. Posted · Edited by Dan Arnautu

    5 hours ago, StarfoxEpiphany said:

    @Dan Arnautu To answer your question, it's generally been easy to make money, just usually by doing things that don't interest me and suck the soul out of me  (office work, sales, teaching, military, management).

     

    The problem with pornstarship is just normal fears I suppose.  No different than anything else, really. Am I doing something right for the world? Do I really bring something significantly different to the industry?  How do I compete with Johnny Sins? How am I going to be paid consistently? But these are all just normal fears, and I'm already well, balls deep, in the process.  It appears I was just looking for an extra push, thanks!

    You're gonna get paid very consistently if you make use of social media. If you build a large following, you can easily get sponsorship deals, do affiliate deals, create products etc. (and you have the potential of becoming a millionaire simply from those). There are many ways to go about this. You will figure this out.

    What you have to accept when pursuing this path though is all the consequences that come with that job: the way people perceive you because of your job, your prospects of getting hired in other industries if you did porn in the past, family tension (bc many parents don't agree with the idea of their child becoming a pornstar, mostly because of how other people will perceive them) etc.

    If you know all the consequences that may appear with that job and you are ok with them, and if that's what you really want to do, then by all means, go all out.

  22. Posted

    2 hours ago, StarfoxEpiphany said:

    It's always been painful for me to make money.  And 2 years after taking the life purpose course, which led to much improvement, adventures, financial successes, traveling, growth, etc.,...the only thing that currently feels right at the moment is to become a pornstar.

    I don't get what the problem is. Is it hard for you to make money or is the way in which you are making the money painful?

    Also, if becoming a pornstar is what floats your boat, there is no one stopping you.

  23. Posted

    @Dinesh Karki

    1. Quit college if you absolutely hate what you are doing and get a job (even as a bartender need be).
    2. Then, while supporting yourself with that job, start to try hundreds of different activities to see which one sparks the most joy in you, the one that you would be inclined to do even if you would not be payed for it.
    3. Once you find the activity that sparks the greatest amount of joy in you, commit to master that activity/skill in the following 10 years.
    4. With mastery, the money will easily come. Once you become good enough to make a stable living from that activity/skill, quit your job and do that full time.

    This is the oversimplified process. You will figure out the how-to along the way. Right now, you need to sample the buffet of life and see which type of food you enjoy the most.