gleb

I'm a pretty sensitive dude. I'm afraid this will affect my long term relationships with women since I have trouble managing strong emotions moment by moment. EX. I deal with alot of work stress, am moving across the country in 2 weeks and trying to maintain a relationship with a high quality girl. It sucks, I'm struggling to maintain a cool, stable internal environment. I had a very stressful point yesterday and shared it with her. I asked her to lay down with me so I could decompress and we started talking about our long distance situation. Eventually, we both started to cry about it with each other. I feel like I've made a terrible mistake though. I feel castrated and weak that I let her see this struggling side of myself. How can I improve or reframe my reality here? Any anecdotes and experience that might help here?

This topic has been one of my main contemplations for years. So many archetypes and nuance. Some key characteristics I can share as I walk to the gym: Purpose driven. Non-reactive when appropriate. Enough emotional reasoning to decide when to ignore the pull and when to submit to feelings. Tip of the iceberg. So many offshoots to this law. Honest and authentic. Charm stems directly out of this. Charm can effectively be called lying with the intention of being caught. Strength - physical and mental. No real reason to be weak in either category. More. Masculinity often defines itself in the context of a group. How you interact with other men and women shapes your brand of masculinity All these peak masculine traits are sharpened by learning from other good men. Almost impossible to polish without positive role models or conscious action. Spending time with women helps a man understand yin and rounds out the edges. Also helps you get laid.

Lmao Leo

Yo, I typically lurk and visit this forum every now and again to kiss the feet of our cult leader (hi Leo ) but today I am am breaking a several year long streak of silence to chat about something near and dear to my development, especially regarding women and dating: Semen Retention. DISCLAIMER: I am not dogmatic about SR, think the entire "nofap" community is a little ridiculous and under baked, and don't live by a creed regarding this. Porn and jerking is obviously not good or bad as with any activity. I don't view myself in negative light when I bust to a porn video and you probably shouldn't either. IDGAF what Actualized's community groupthink is on this either, though the consensus seems to be split. I've gone through periods of deep abstinence and periods of over release. At the moment, I am moving from a period of moderate release/porn consumption to one of soft abstinence (have a consistent girl, but don't release every time) and as per usual I have some PERSONAL observations and benefits that many folks shrug off as a placebo. However, I really don't buy it. 1st: PORN: There may or may not be science to support the benefits that one gleans from abstaining from porn and I don't want to get into piecing apart the studies. The only logical vein I entertain regarding the "porn and jerk bad" ideology is the principle of overstimulation and what's called the "coolidge effect". This makes sense to me. I can actually feel the horsepower in my mind and senses go down a gear if I have a jerk session that involves multiple videos, edging, etc. I believe and support the super stimulus label that porn gets. I remember having over a years worth of abstinence and returning to a video and it genuinely felt like I took a substance. My pulse was outrageously high, excessive salivation and euphoria, flushing, was on the verge of cumming my pants in literal seconds. Through the FLOOD of overstimulation, I had an insight that crystalized in me the idea that porn is likely far more powerful of a stimulus than we think - especially since most red blooded males have had a consistent HD stream of it for several years. How can you know/remember what it felt before you nuked yourself with videos of outrageously attractive women in perfect lighting getting dicked down? Toss some novelty into the mix and a fleshlight and you've in essence cross-faded yourself without ingesting anything. 2nd: Just jerking/ real sex? All I have is personal experience for this. Internally I felt a hair sharper, noticed myself caring and feeling more sensitive to my girlfriend's desires at the time, possibly a bump in energy, harder erections, etc. This level never felt much different from what the fapstronauts call the PMO state, but I definitely can attest to feeling less mentally dented after release than when I did in conjunction with pornography. I could see this all the changes here being a placebo or related to the return of baseline sensitivity. 3rd: Holding that nut IN Here is where things get esoteric and beyond explanation. Bear with me as alot of these are approximations of the changes occurring during the mentioned time frames. FOR ME with years of reliability: 1st week. There is a noticeable spike in energy and horniness. My shy personality (which usually takes a dash of willpower to overcome when I am consistently releasing) starts to slowly evaporate down to about 20% of its usual strength. My chronic fatigue starts to fade. 2nd week. Genuinely feels like I have unlocked access to key words, phrasing, and intuition directly relating to seducing girls. I just have it. The "state" feels mostly permanent. I've always had intuition to the energetic systems in my body and let me tell you that it feels like energetic whips connected to my kidney start flailing and crossing somewhere in the solar plexus region around this time. Sometimes its very strong, sometimes I don't detect it. I can feel a certain "charge" permeating my entire body. I describe it as feeling like a loaded gun. Body and face posture change without explanation or conscious regulating. 3rd week. Look dude, the female attraction thing guys are reporting is REAL PHENOMENON. How exactly it works is beyond comprehension and I have tried to look at it from every angle. It just happens. All I know is that around this time girls are "dropping hankies" left and right and I am so happy to pick them up with a confidence that is significantly pronounced. Personality starts to dominate social situations more frequently. Quiet reserve of energy magnifies and focus at work and gym is 15-20% better. More euphoria from everyday activities and sensitivity to music. I am a metal head and Megadeth is especially sexy during this time :). Anger and frustration can come in here too. Difficulty regulating emotions sometimes if they start to turn negative. Insights considerably amplify. Different patterns of thinking emerge. 4th week beyond: Consistency in the above that remains for several months. Features actually start to change - a weird sheen started forming on exterior of my skin. My mother made a comment on it back in college asking what I had been doing to my skin when I was on a 90+ day streak. Hadn't done jack fellas. Law of attraction accelerates and coincidences become more frequent. Closing thoughts: 3+ weeks of holding it in - just recently had a trip to Vegas on business and got 3 lays in 3 days without hunting. One of them was a 41 year old cutie from Miami (I'm 25). One was a hippie girl from Oregon with hairy arm pits. One was an Egyptian girl that lost 21,000 gambling in one night. But I also got a number in the gym after busting 3 times over the weekend with a longer term girlfriend so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have always had decent natural game but I don't practice. I'm an average looking dude that lifts and has a nice vocabulary and intuition. Something changes on SR man. It all just clicks. I can read her like a book. The sensitivity gain tunes me into every one of her gorgeous movements, what she says without saying it, where her body is positioned, etc. Its beautiful and its too consistent for me to believe that it's simply me reacting to my beliefs about the practice. There's a definite energetic shift that assists and extends beyond seduction. I encourage all dudes to try it for at least 4 weeks. See if your success in dating and relationships changes. The neediness to release or "get a girl" fades after the 1st week (at least for me). If it doesn't, fap away! Happy to answer any questions! I've been on and off practicing for nearly a decade now.

I find most energy work form is visualization based. So if you want to breathe into your balls and imagine the energy pouring like a fountain out of your head that may help. Channeling via exercise seems to be the most consistent way of getting the energy out for me.

Kind of a shocking synchronicity that you mentioned fasting. I’m a bodybuilder and have been stuffing my face for close to a year. Took a ~30 hour fast this weekend and will be exploring more closely in the coming months.

@Leo Gura Come on man. Read that sentence back.

This is gunna be divided into chronological sections. This trip spurred a dramatic internal reorganization and changed the trajectory of my life for good. I believe it to be responsible for deepening my interest in Truth to the level it is now and briefly turning me into a hippie. I can now contest to the huge power of entheogens. TREAT THESE SUBSTANCES WITH RESPECT. If you're taking them for spiritual/personal development reasons, I urge you to thoroughly research the experiences of others and make sure that you are well versed in personal development phenomena beforehand. There was a long stretch of time afterward where I felt clinically insane and would be in tears wishing I could go back to ignorance of these subjects we discuss on this forum. I simply wasn't ready for what happened, so there are still parts of me that are ambivalent to the idea personal development. The change of my mental landscape took months to process. The rug was pulled out from under me, hard. If you're not ready for something like that to potentially happen, don't take psyches. Without further a-do, let's dive in! LIFE PRE-LSD I was in college when the idea of taking a psych hit me. After my first semester, I wrote myself a 5 page paper (scientifically sourced) highlighting the pros and cons of taking acid. Convinced of its safety profile, I obtained it from a friend of mine. About a week after that a close friend of mine and I took it in his basement. The idea of drugs turned me off for the first part of my life. Before this trip I had only smoked weed twice and drank less than 10 times. I was really into body building at this point. I was also pretty big into no-fap at this time too - well passed the 90 day mark. I was aware of meditation and practiced loosely. I was also aware of the Ultimate Truth thanks to Leo . I would watch his videos but never really practiced, just masturbated to the theory. My interest in these subjects were just budding at the time. I also had no anxiety or depression prior to this - they were more than likely suppressed. This was prior to Leo talking about psychedelics. I'd like to thank PsychedSubstance for being a heavy catalyst in peaking one's interest of these subjects. I wanted a revelatory experience and things just fell into place for one to happen. I told my Mom and Dad before hand what I was doing and my reasoning for it. I offered them to read the paper I wrote and of course they turned me down. They were disappointed. My Mom wouldn't talk to me for a while. Why would any orange colored, right-winged household want to turn their world upside down? THE TRIP December 11th, 2016 is the night that we took it. We overlooked a couple of things. We didn't test the substance, nor did we have a trip sitter. We laid blankets out on the floor and had music going on a record player. Our intention for the trip was exclusively introspective. I wrote out a list of questions to ask myself. Unfortunately, I don't have the list any longer because I got upset one day after the trip and threw it all away. Extreme denial . It included questions like "What is time?" "What is the meaning of life?" "Who am I?" etc. The classics. We dosed up. The tabs weren't bitter or metallic tasting. In-fact, there were many times we doubted whether or not we got scammed. The person who sold them to me told me they were 100ug doses. I don't know about the validity of that statement, honestly. It took over an hour for the effects to come up. Emotions were intensified and album covers gave me strange feelings. It wasn't hectic at all. Just subtle. Visuals were nothing like I expected. They were mild. Colors were contrasty and my vision felt HD. This was the first time I could manually zone out with my vision. That stuck from the trip. Fractals were delightful. My body felt light and I felt more athletic than usual. My balance was extraordinary. The first things I noticed were my hands. By god people, I attest to this day that our appendages are the most peculiar things of our physical body. My friend explained our physical characteristics as "foreign" and it felt like a perfect word for them. We are alien. Nearly the entire come-up was spent contemplating the profundity that we are organisms. That was a realization that I never considered, it was almost as if we went third-person on our conceptualization of ourselves. Everything was new. The peak is where it gets juicy. Eventually I got to a point where I was squatting with my notepad trying to make sense of what I had written. Every once in a while I would scribble down a hieroglyphic that only made sense to humans. The realizations seemed profound but when they devolved into a ink splotch on paper the magic was stolen. The entire notion of writing my thoughts seemed futile. How are we supposed to express what's going on inside? The expression is never as accurate as what's actually happening and it seemed like it was losing it's value once I tried to analyze it. From that point, I applied that to thinking. When we analyze, we're losing the magic. We're losing what's presently going on. Thoughts like these came by the bucket load. At this point I was pacing back and forth with the amount of revelatory information being presented to me and I would occasionally mutter something to my friend who was supine on his back, wide-eyed at the ceiling. I would say, "I feel this..." and " I feel that..." and at one point a freight train hit me. I was actually stopped dead in my tracks. The question gives me goosebumps as I write this but the next thought that came up was "But who is I?". Almost immediately after that, something strange began happening. My thoughts and emotions seemed distant and my identification with them was not present. It felt as though the pallet or stage on which these sensations were happening on suddenly became recognizable. It was so still. It was so vast it was startling. I have no idea how long it lasted. What I did say to my friend afterward was "The real me is not scared". As soon as I started analyzing what was happening is when the resistance came. I burst into tears. I was suddenly on my ass blubbering about the beauty of what just had happened. An entire new domain of life opened up inside of a 15 minute time frame. It was too much but just enough at the same time. Fuck people, how do you explain this? The rest of the trip was spent contemplating this experience with great joy, and at one point I could logically explain to you how I was no different from a couch cushion. It lasted over 15 hours. LIFE AFTER THE TRIP The first moth after this experience was beautiful. It felt like the afterglow lasted for days. I would tear up at nature and enjoyed being by myself for long periods of time. I was obsessed with what happened and kept researching psyches and reports of non-duality. And then, the purging came. I woke up one morning at 5 am frantically wondering if I was dying. It was a full on panic attack. I had no idea what was happening or what to do. It was very painful. I went to counseling services later in the day in tears wondering if I had gone mad. By their estimation I had extreme anxiety. The months following this were spent in very dark corners of the soul. Every action, every thought, every emotion, every inch of my being was being analyzed. There were many times I called home to my mom crying that I didn't know what was happening. Suicidal thoughts were prevalent. I spent a lot of time in bed contemplating existence and researching enlightenment and doing some practices. Around spring time 2017 I had a few more moments where I felt I had gotten close to disappearing but there was resistance that came up. I experimented with psychedelics again but never again came close to it. The following trips were less introspective, more of them spent in nature caressing tree bark and wondering how a frog can sit in one spot for hours. Every time I smoke pot it's in hopes of reaching that state again or contemplating my existence. These days I'm stable. No more depression and very minimal anxiety. My thirst for Truth is seemingly unquenchable, however. I've begun seriously implementing practices and am now truth-seeking for the long haul. I've got the first year planned out with what habits I want to build and what book I want to read. I haven't taken a psychedelic in 8 months. I still think about it every morning when I wake up. It's haunting. And I don't know if I love it or hate it, but I want to see more. Once you peel back the first layer, you gotta keep going. That's all I've got. Be careful out there

Hey ya'll, I need a set of fresh eyes on this topic. No, I have not watched the How to Be Authentic video yet. I'm trying to contemplate here but I can't wrap my head around this confounding conclusion. Any advice? If we could keep the metaphysical explanations to a fundamental level I would appreciate it. I can't just zen-mode my way into understanding just yet. Recently, when I reach a moment of deep emotional release the theme of authenticity keeps coming up through the anguish. I feel like a faker in many regards. I feel like I don’t know how to act based on truth, or siphon out my authentic self through the non-stop stream of consciousness. What would I truly do in this situation? Where would I earnestly lead myself, professionally speaking? What would the real me say in this social situation? How is one supposed to differentiate the bullshit from the true? The argument of nature vs. nurture comes to mind here. The way people act socially seems to be taken directly from their environment and assimilated internally, only to be regurgitated when a particular social pattern calls for it. How else would you know to say anything at all? The only reference point you have is what you have encountered before, right? This isn't authentic because it isn't pulling from an original source, correct? Another foil in following this “just be your[authentic]self” reasoning is that, what if my authentic desire is wholly unethical? What if I want to kiss that chick I just met without asking her? What if I want to gorge myself on doughnuts and bust a nut to pornography from dawn until dusk? What if I want to dropkick my friend in the face for publicly ridiculing me? I don’t think acting on these impulses would do me any good in anything but the short term and it especially wouldn’t be good for the party opposite to me. But isn’t the antithesis of authenticity to suppress these desires? This is what I cannot wrap my head around. Authenticity as most people including myself define it seems to be inherently unethical. If my natural impulses are “authentic” because they are really what I would like to do, then most situations would end up with me hurting others and myself reaping benefit. Even the situations with me being selfless still have a tinge of self-service. I want to look good in this other person’s eyes so I can have an ally etc. How can I be my authentic self without being unethical? Thanks in advance.

@BestSelf Default Mode Network

@lmfao I was completely skeptical until I got my solar plexus, heart, and throat chakra opened. It was as close to magic as I have experienced. I was completely sober but felt like I was on a tiny amount of mushrooms with energy surging through my abdomen. The woman who did it didn't evem touch me, amazingly.

What's up everybody, Recently I had an energy work experience that blew my mind and shook my belief systems. I have an inclination toward these radical facets of life and enjoy reading about various spiritual topics but I didn't realize how close minded I was until a woman helped me open 3 of my chakras without physically touching me. This woman, who has a PhD in Psychology, also spoke with me about the existence of spiritual realms and spirit guides and while we didn't go too in depth, she did warn me that after experiences like chakra work and psychedelics people tend to have an increased sensitivity to their presence. She gave me a brief outline on how to handle experiencing "entities" and made it very clear to not have them physically touch me and so on and so forth. Talking with someone in person about topics like these is vastly different than online chats and to have them induce am entirely different state of consciousness without me consuming a substance has shook me substantially. After this, her yarn spinnings about spirits doesn't seem to far fetched. Psychedelics are my go tos for work like this, but there is still that underlying belief that it's a drug induced experience and not necessarily "valid". Energy work was nothing short of mystical. I couldn't believe what was happening in the moment and I left her office in pure bewilderment. With that being said, my day to day life has been affected by this change in view point. This kind of stuff -especially entities- scare the bejesus out of me. It's a part of life that doesn't make logical sense and the experts on it are few and far between it seems. A kind of underlying paranoia plauges me when I try to go to sleep at night and I shit you not I am aware of very subtle changes in my environment when I am alone. Especially in deep meditation, I get rather fearful of what could happen to me with regards to these alternate realms and I don't want to accidently slip into a random dimension and have my soul raped by a demon or something like that. I've had a few nights of insomnia from this and earnestly wonder whether or not I've gone mad. Simply talking like this is enough for me start pondering the possibility of mental illness like schizophrenia. I'm not quite sure what to do and any advice would very appreciated. Thanks!

@electroBeam It depends what happens during the trip. Awareness is higher for a few weeks and then wanes. The wane is variable on how hardcore your practice is. Usually, It's more of a nudge in the "right" direction than it is a permanent change for me. Meditation and yoga are akin to micro nudges over a long period time while psychedelics are an dramatic overhaul that require processing time and practice to stay on track. However! I will say my first experience with a psychedelic was so radical that my baseline awareness rose forever. I had no idea what I was getting into at the time

@Crazy_Monkey_Brain Just do it - it's the only way. Start with shorter times and work your way up over months. Try downloading HabitShare and marking everyday that you do it with an accountability partner. It helps. Good luck my dude!

@Outer Those book lists made me nut. I had no idea Jordan Peterson even had a website. Great post!

@Vipassana It's been a few years since I've messed around with edibles but I definitely went to another realm the last time I ate one. I had visions of / embodied a brick in a wall during the Roman Empire and felt like the house I was in was the only place I had ever been. Can't recall much else outside my X-girlfriend (who also ate devil brownie) asking me if we were going to be alright. Lol. Edibles seem to be a "cleaner" trip than smoked cannabis. Less cloudiness and more lucidity. I would venture to say that edible cannabis is more psychedelic than people give it credit for in my experience - but I don't think it can effectively be used for consciousness work. Too wonky and spaced out. Nothing really sticks. However, if you are looking for some bat-shit mystical experience, they might be a quality candidate.

They are just crying. They are not trying to control anything - just expressing. It's like a tree opening flowering in spring and you saying it's controlling your attention. You're the one who said that, not the tree. The tree opened its buds independent of what you projection you put on it. In fact, the tree couldn't give less of a shit about you seeing it's flowers. Same with a baby. Toss it in a forest - it will cry even if no one is around to respond to it. It doesn't have a little self yet. It's not playing a game yet. It's just being. Part of its being is crying.

@Xin Consistency is key. Get the habits that you want built over the course of years. Learn to appreciate the slow building, long term growth. Don't expect it to change in a week and give up. Dump your phone except for communication and the relative bare necessities. And for the love of baby jesus don't run from the suffering. Sit with it, get used to it and you will grow. Another tip that might apply to you: Don't make a beline for the spiritual realizations. If they come, they come. Build a base (buissiness, circle of friends, gf/bf, egoicesque goals and achievements, etc.) and then take off. A cannon can shoot farther on solid ground than in a boat. You don't want to be walking around with existential dread while trying to decide what you want to do with your life. Or maybe you do - who knows. It's only up from here my dude!

@Saumaya That's the name of it! Thanks b

Hey yaw, I've been noticing I spend a fair bit of my time on here and wanna branch out a bit and get a mixed flow of information rather than streamlined dose of Actualized.org. Any of you guys know of other high quality personal development/ spiritual forums I can take a peek at? Thanks

I went to a "psychic" once during some major spititual realizations that induced massive emotional turbulence. I paid 65 of the 67$ I had to my name to be told that there was curse on my family that can only be cured if I continued to return to this woman for paid chakra cleansing. Or if I paid a large sum of money for a crystal that would keep me safe. She also told me that I was a wolf in my past life. On the recipet the title of the service was "yoga studio" and when I arrived she was smoking a cig and yelling in Spanish on the phone. Scammers are real folks- do your research and have a level head before diving into psychics. My mom has gone to a couple that have actually seemed legit though.

@Shin I would just get a Chromebook and use Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Chrome OS also has Web Apps for Microsoft Office if you really want to use em. Of course they're not as extensive. They're cheap but usually have good hardware and are perfect for streaming vids. I've made it through two years of college with a Acer Chromebook 14 and the only thing that gave me trouble was that it can't run Silverlight, but of course, there's an app for that too.

@Uncover You need to re-examine what you believe to be true about yourself and challenge them. Just reading through your post a single time, I could identify several limiting beliefs: Is it really to late to even try? You probably have another 50+ years up your sleeve to get laid. There's no point? Who said that? You or the reality of the situation? How could you ruin something you haven't even began? Do know you would ruin it for certain? What exactly is ideal? Who is making up the rules for who you can and can't fuck or talk to? You or the reality of the situation? You might be able to see why you're setting yourself back in the realm of women if you reread this and dissect it. Here you are setting yourself up as a victim to nature and to the girls themselves. Sure your hormones might be bursting, but they weren't directly responsible for you being a horn dog and chasing women. And never, EVER does the girl friend-zone you. You friend zone yourself. et cetera, et cetera As for the communication part, I resonate with you. I have trouble communicating as well but I've identified that it is only me the prevents me from speaking. You are the manager of your internal environment. The external circumstances are what you make them out to be. Contemplate this. Dissect what you hold to be true about these areas of your life and see if they are in accordance with what's actually going on. Make sure to be aware of when you take your thoughts at face value! They are never completely true. If you're using video games to run away from your problems, then it's probably wise to cut them out and face them. If you are using social media to compare your social life to others and base this as what life is supposed to be like then yes, cut it out. But don't expect these to be magic cures. Your problems are all created by you.

@Omario It can't be explained very well linguistically. You just have to try for yourself. Let the experience lead you and don't try to control too much. And don't believe a single thing your thoughts tell you. And try eating an apple during the trip. It will be the best tasting apple you've ever had

@Psyche_92 Drop acid and watch yourself waste away on whatever internet related thing you are using. Contemplate on how it's positively serving you and remind yourself/ reread your insights when you feel yourself slipping up afterward. My succulent dropped on the 29th of December and has had no urge to compulsively use the internet since. But he's installed a meditation habit in conjunction with Holosync immediately after the trip so that's probably helping. Psyches are incredible for breaking addiction patterns.