The Job of the Man Is to Be the Rock

[Joshe]

@Hojo Becoming emotionally stable and strong is something you do as a healthy, adaptive response to reality. It shouldn’t be done for women. Women are just inadvertently good at revealing a man’s emotional instability. When I saw it in myself, I wanted to change for myself, not for women, because I suffered so much that I didn’t want anything or anyone to have that much influence over my state, so I had to figure out what I was doing wrong and change, for myself.  

If a man tries to become a rock for women, I don’t think it would work well because that whole pursuit is driven by needing something outside one’s self, but the whole point is to need less from outside and develop an internal locus of control.

Edited Tuesday at 04:59 AM by Joshe

[Hojo]

@Joshe You dont want to become a rock, you want to become like air. You become a rock for a woman because shes emotionally unstable.

Who did you need to become a rock for?

Why would a rock need a rock?

Edited Tuesday at 05:19 AM by Hojo

[Joshe]

7 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Joshe You dont want to become a rock, you want to become like air. You become a rock for a woman because shes emotionally unstable.

Who did you need to become a rock for?

Why would a rock need a rock?

Lol. I’m not sure I follow. Air is good too!

[MuadDib]

 

How I felt when I first saw Euler's formula.

[Basman]

The advice that you need to divvy up your emotional energy is excellent advice. Guys do tend to go from 0 to a 100 and it is scaring the hoes. It is how you get those cringey confessions that get left on read. I think it could potentially prevent a lot of guys from killing themselves if they where more calibrated with sharing their emotions.

[theleelajoker]

12 hours ago, Joshe said:

@Hojo Becoming emotionally stable and strong is something you do as a healthy, adaptive response to reality. It shouldn’t be done for women. Women are just inadvertently good at revealing a man’s emotional instability. When I saw it in myself, I wanted to change for myself, not for women, because I suffered so much that I didn’t want anything or anyone to have that much influence over my state, so I had to figure out what I was doing wrong and change, for myself.  

If a man tries to become a rock for women, I don’t think it would work well because that whole pursuit is driven by needing something outside one’s self, but the whole point is to need less from outside and develop an internal locus of control.

Good points. Also don't think it would work if you do it for someone. It's a nice bonus that once you have that stability, you can be a support for somebody but it's a byproduct not that goal.

And also agree with "Women are just inadvertently good at revealing a man’s emotional instability"  it's actually quite funny how they do it without consciously knowing.

What were the main things you changed about yourself and your behavior?

[Joshe]

5 hours ago, theleelajoker said:

Good points. Also don't think it would work if you do it for someone. It's a nice bonus that once you have that stability, you can be a support for somebody but it's a byproduct not that goal.

And also agree with "Women are just inadvertently good at revealing a man’s emotional instability"  it's actually quite funny how they do it without consciously knowing.

What were the main things you changed about yourself and your behavior?

Agree. They show us our neediness, fragility, turbulence, jealousy, etc. Without women, we would never even know it 😆. Everything is for everything else. 

I suppose “I” didn’t really change anything. It was more of an adaptation fueled by suffering and high metacognition. I could trace back my suffering to my neediness and it was obvious I needed to remove the neediness to not suffer. 

The way it seems to work is: Suffering happens -> I contemplate it. If I find that the suffering is caused by something petty, like jealousy, I try my best to penetrate the absurdity of it to see just how absurd I'm being. Every time the feeling arises, I go back to my distillation of the absurdity, and if I'm still bothered, I contemplate some more. Eventually, when the feeling of jealousy arises, since I contemplated it so deeply and made judgements about what jealousy is, I somehow reject it, but I don’t really know how I accomplish that. 

Actually, I just conversed with ChatGPT and it explained it quite well. The elusive mechanism seems to be "reappraisal". 

The mechanism works like this: recognition → reappraisal → disengagement

Key insight is: 

Because you’ve already decided in advance what the meaning of that emotion is, the “battle” is over before it starts.

This is like having mental antibodies: the recognition itself neutralizes the thing, so it never blooms into the full emotional state that would need active suppression.

"You’ve trained an automatic recognition + dismissal sequence for emotions you’ve pre-judged as counterproductive. Because of deep contemplation beforehand, the recognition step instantly triggers a reframing that drains the emotion’s fuel."

Not sure if that answers your question. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:34 PM by Joshe

[theleelajoker]

9 hours ago, Joshe said:

Agree. They show us our neediness, fragility, turbulence, jealousy, etc. Without women, we would never even know it 😆. Everything is for everything else. 

I suppose “I” didn’t really change anything. It was more of an adaptation fueled by suffering and high metacognition. I could trace back my suffering to my neediness and it was obvious I needed to remove the neediness to not suffer. 

The way it seems to work is: Suffering happens -> I contemplate it. If I find that the suffering is caused by something petty, like jealousy, I try my best to penetrate the absurdity of it to see just how absurd I'm being. Every time the feeling arises, I go back to my distillation of the absurdity, and if I'm still bothered, I contemplate some more. Eventually, when the feeling of jealousy arises, since I contemplated it so deeply and made judgements about what jealousy is, I somehow reject it, but I don’t really know how I accomplish that. 

Actually, I just conversed with ChatGPT and it explained it quite well. The elusive mechanism seems to be "reappraisal". 

The mechanism works like this: recognition → reappraisal → disengagement

Key insight is: 

Because you’ve already decided in advance what the meaning of that emotion is, the “battle” is over before it starts.

This is like having mental antibodies: the recognition itself neutralizes the thing, so it never blooms into the full emotional state that would need active suppression.

"You’ve trained an automatic recognition + dismissal sequence for emotions you’ve pre-judged as counterproductive. Because of deep contemplation beforehand, the recognition step instantly triggers a reframing that drains the emotion’s fuel."

Not sure if that answers your question. 

Yeah, kind of answers it. Sounds simple but probably not easy, like many things.

I wonder about other emotions beyond jealousy. Fear, fight flight freeze when (as far as I understand it) the limbic system overrides any rational and measured response 

[Joshe]

6 hours ago, theleelajoker said:

I wonder about other emotions beyond jealousy. Fear, fight flight freeze when (as far as I understand it) the limbic system overrides any rational and measured response 

I haven’t yet been able to neutralize those. I do try though, so maybe one day. I don’t have nearly enough exposure to them for good practice. Fear and it’s manifestations are much more subtle and difficult to neutralize, but it could be done with considerable work -I think much more work than the process I described. 

[theleelajoker]

4 hours ago, Joshe said:

I haven’t yet been able to neutralize those. I do try though, so maybe one day. I don’t have nearly enough exposure to them for good practice. Fear and it’s manifestations are much more subtle and difficult to neutralize, but it could be done with considerable work -I think much more work than the process I described. 

Yeah it's not easy. I'm getting more into somatic stuff, Peter Levine for instance. Did simple exercise and I could immediately feel an effect on my body. One thing for my is dissolving old fear (trauma), the other is being focused not to create new tensions. 

The awareness from psycedelics and Vipassana make me super sensitive not so much re fear itself - it's subtle as you say - but re it's traces in the body. Tense muscles, contractions, constrained movement, activated nervous system. 

I can feel and see changes due to working on it, but it's literally like stretching a muscle it's not done in one turn but gradually. Also, lot's of stuff is coming up when dissolving these tensions - fear has a source and those tensions have been holding back something for a reason 

Edited Wednesday at 08:01 PM by theleelajoker

[Joshe]

4 hours ago, theleelajoker said:

Yeah it's not easy. I'm getting more into somatic stuff, Peter Levine for instance. Did simple exercise and I could immediately feel an effect on my body. One thing for my is dissolving old fear (trauma), the other is being focused not to create new tensions. 

The awareness from psycedelics and Vipassana make me super sensitive not so much re fear itself - it's subtle as you say - but re it's traces in the body. Tense muscles, contractions, constrained movement, activated nervous system. 

I can feel and see changes due to working on it, but it's literally like stretching a muscle it's not done in one turn but gradually. Also, lot's of stuff is coming up when dissolving these tensions - fear has a source and those tensions have been holding back something for a reason 

Sounds like a good strategy. Thanks for the resource. I’ll check it out.

My intuition is that you must come face to face with fear until it becomes so familiar and ordinary that it’s not a big deal anymore. Conjure up all the things that arouse fear and focus on them until they lose their power. I feel that I could obliterate all fear with such a practice.

I have a deeply ingrained fear response regarding being social that I picked up in childhood. Shit is buried deep and for some reason, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, pops up on me out of nowhere. I can go many months without it showing itself, but it always seems to show back up and I can’t really trace why. I noticed it seems more likely to show up when I’m not engaging my will. Sometimes, it feels like destiny, like a teacher. 

Edited Thursday at 12:25 AM by Joshe

[theleelajoker]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

Sounds like a good strategy. Thanks for the resource. I’ll check it out.

My intuition is that you must come face to face with fear until it becomes so familiar and ordinary that it’s not a big deal anymore. Conjure up all the things that arouse fear and focus on them until they lose their power. I feel that I could obliterate all fear with such a practice.

I have a deeply ingrained fear response regarding being social that I picked up in childhood. Shit is buried deep and for some reason, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, pops up on me out of nowhere. I can go many months without it showing itself, but it always seems to show back up and I can’t really trace why. I noticed it seems more likely to show up when I’m not engaging my will. Sometimes, it feels like destiny, like a teacher. 

Yeah I feel there are two dimensions to it.

One is the real stuff, everyday interactions, body sensation, the way we are influenced by fear, stress, emotions, anxiety as we live our life. It's easy to identify this when you get to know people, EVERYONE seems to have something, just different. It typically traces back to childhood and people do suffer - they are lonely, stressed, tense, anxious, depressed, living far beyond potential, loosing hair, bruxism etc. Often seems like complex trauma, Tim Fletcher has a great free series on this. Those experiences are serious, it directly influences life quality. And it takes work to free yourself from this.

And then there is the destiny part you mention. For me it feels like: "Welcome to the show, are you not entertained? Better then being dead, isn't it? Fighting through your trauma, becoming free, that's some story isn't it?"

Once I had some insights in the nature of reality during meditation retreats and interactions afterwards,  there was the thought of "Ok so the One causing all this is the One suffering all this is also the One healing it and also the One observing the whole process?"

Put me out of balance for a while, still integrating but I feel best we can do is just accept the hand we have been given and play it with as much fun as possible.

Edited Thursday at 07:43 AM by theleelajoker

[Natasha Tori Maru]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

Sounds like a good strategy. Thanks for the resource. I’ll check it out.

My intuition is that you must come face to face with fear until it becomes so familiar and ordinary that it’s not a big deal anymore. Conjure up all the things that arouse fear and focus on them until they lose their power. I feel that I could obliterate all fear with such a practice.

I have a deeply ingrained fear response regarding being social that I picked up in childhood. Shit is buried deep and for some reason, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, pops up on me out of nowhere. I can go many months without it showing itself, but it always seems to show back up and I can’t really trace why. I noticed it seems more likely to show up when I’m not engaging my will. Sometimes, it feels like destiny, like a teacher. 

Have you considered this trigger may be within the body? Say, the intellectual capacity to grasp the fear and rationalize it is well understood. However, it remains in a strange way to be triggered in a seemingly unknown fashion. The brain is connected to the entire body through the nervous system. There could be the possibility this connection has stored some primal fear in the body?

I used to suffer from bouts of crying with no cause. Nothing linked to my cycle. No thoughts appeared to trigger the emotion.

I do a lot of yoga practices. Whenever I do a hip opener I end up crying in pure despair and grief. Uncontrollable. The same feeling as above! Nothing will stop instant tears and the feeling in these poses! Consistently - memories of how my grandfather passed arise when I bring awareness to thought. I have grieved the loss of him (14 years ago), yet, without fail, the hip opener will trigger the emotion. This happened to me to the extent I stopped performing any sort of hip opener. 

Later I really decided to challenge myself to face it. Hip opener after hip opener. Self calming techniques. The weird crying and emotion bouts stopped. And although I cannot say there is direct evidence of a connection, it remains a phenomenon I experienced.

[theleelajoker]

1 hour ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Have you considered this trigger may be within the body? Say, the intellectual capacity to grasp the fear and rationalize it is well understood. However, it remains in a strange way to be triggered in a seemingly unknown fashion. The brain is connected to the entire body through the nervous system. There could be the possibility this connection has stored some primal fear in the body?

I used to suffer from bouts of crying with no cause. Nothing linked to my cycle. No thoughts appeared to trigger the emotion.

I do a lot of yoga practices. Whenever I do a hip opener I end up crying in pure despair and grief. Uncontrollable. The same feeling as above! Nothing will stop instant tears and the feeling in these poses! Consistently - memories of how my grandfather passed arise when I bring awareness to thought. I have grieved the loss of him (14 years ago), yet, without fail, the hip opener will trigger the emotion. This happened to me to the extent I stopped performing any sort of hip opener. 

Later I really decided to challenge myself to face it. Hip opener after hip opener. Self calming techniques. The weird crying and emotion bouts stopped. And although I cannot say there is direct evidence of a connection, it remains a phenomenon I experienced.

You could even say the "head brain" is an extension of the "gut brain"  We just define it the other way round in the west.

In a high sensitivity state, after two Vipassana retreats within weeks+smoking a joint I once could literally feel the vibration of fear in the body of my gf when cuddling, my hand in her chest. I am quite sure it was literal fear because it was the exact vibration I felt and party worked through in previous retreat. The process I experienced connects to a lot to stuff @breakingthewall talks about when he mentions fear, energetic structure and openness.

Hips are said to be the place where emotions are stored, so your experience makes sense. IME the challenge is what you described: going through the stuff is uncomfortable short run but beneficial long run. It's climbing the mountain until the short run benefits are so visible that the process becomes a downhill flow 

You could even say the "head brain" is an extension of the "gut brain". We just interpret it the other way in the west

In a high sensitivity state, after two Vipassana retreats within weeks+smoking a joint I once could literally feel the vibration of fear in the body of my gf when cuddling, my hand in her chest. I am quite sure it was literal fear because it was the exact vibration I felt and party worked through in previous retreat. The process I experienced connects to a lot to stuff @breakingthewall talks about when he mentions fear, energetic structure and openness.

Hips are said to be the place where emotions are stored, so your experience makes sense. IME the challenge is what you described: going through the stuff is uncomfortable short run but beneficial long run. It's climbing the mountain until the short run benefits are so visible that the process becomes a downhill flow. Easier said than done. But possible.

Edited Thursday at 10:32 AM by theleelajoker

[Joshe]

6 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Have you considered this trigger may be within the body? Say, the intellectual capacity to grasp the fear and rationalize it is well understood. However, it remains in a strange way to be triggered in a seemingly unknown fashion. The brain is connected to the entire body through the nervous system. There could be the possibility this connection has stored some primal fear in the body?

I used to suffer from bouts of crying with no cause. Nothing linked to my cycle. No thoughts appeared to trigger the emotion.

I do a lot of yoga practices. Whenever I do a hip opener I end up crying in pure despair and grief. Uncontrollable. The same feeling as above! Nothing will stop instant tears and the feeling in these poses! Consistently - memories of how my grandfather passed arise when I bring awareness to thought. I have grieved the loss of him (14 years ago), yet, without fail, the hip opener will trigger the emotion. This happened to me to the extent I stopped performing any sort of hip opener. 

Later I really decided to challenge myself to face it. Hip opener after hip opener. Self calming techniques. The weird crying and emotion bouts stopped. And although I cannot say there is direct evidence of a connection, it remains a phenomenon I experienced.

I’ve considered it but never invested the time to truly investigate. I’ve been pushing myself too hard for the past decade, accumulating stress and tension, and largely ignoring self care and ignoring getting in touch with my body and being. I feel like a need a long break to explore all that, but that’s nowhere in sight. When I try to do such things alongside working toward financial freedom, I get all fucked up and can’t operate well in any domain. I think I might need a practice that allows me to get in touch with my being, but without mind being involved. So I need some sort of peaceful movements, fast and engaging enough to keep my mind out of it. I was looking into that a few weeks back. 

Primal fear seems apt. I suppose it could be in the body. I notice my abdomen is often tense. If it’s in the body, maybe it’s there. Thanks for sharing. I’ll ponder. 

Edited Thursday at 03:21 PM by Joshe

[Schizophonia]

Me rock me masculin male.

Me doing club battle with males to have actualized woman. 

Edited Thursday at 03:20 PM by Schizophonia

[Joshe]

20 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Me rock me masculin male.

Me doing club battle with males to have actualized woman. 

Lol. Can’t get anything by you. 

In hindsight, I suspect such posts are not very helpful, and to be honest, I wonder how much of my ego is talking with some of my posts. But I’ve kinda adopted “strength” into my identity, and of course I think my way is best. 

Stop being fucking weak bro! Lol. Not you, you seem to not be weak where women are involved.

 

Edited Thursday at 03:40 PM by Joshe

[Schizophonia]

12 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Lol. Can’t get anything by you. 

In hindsight, I suspect such posts are not very helpful, and to be honest, I wonder how much of my ego is talking with some of my posts. But I’ve kinda adopted “strength” into my identity, and of course I think my way is best. Lol.

Stop being fucking weak bro! Lol. Not you, I actually think you’re not weak. 
 

No me strong, me having won the club battle and me having biggest wily, me being actualize alpha male 

[Schizophonia]

@Joshe 

I'm not making fun of your point of view; I just wanted to joke a bit.
I basically said what I had to say on page one; I could make another serious response if I have an idea.

Edited Thursday at 03:49 PM by Schizophonia

[theleelajoker]

1 minute ago, Schizophonia said:

@Joshe 

I'm not making fun of your point of view; I just wanted to joke a bit.
I basically said what I had to say on page one; I could make another serious response if I have an idea.

Now you're weak. Lost your club and wily not as biggy as you say. Uagagagagagahhh