3 Months in South East Asia: Socialising, Pickup, IFS and more

[riplo]

It's Day 6 - Currently on the plane to Chiang Mai

After 4 nights of bad sleep, so bad that I was entering paranoid delusion (as discussed) I still couldn't sleep on Day 5 night. I ended up getting only 3h.

I followed all the rules of good sleep hygiene.

• Wake up 11.30-1.30
• No caffeine after 2pm
• No naps
• Get back to private room 2.30am, deeply exhausted already 
• Low light and f.lux on phone
• Meditate stretch or read before bed
• Earplugs, eye mask, coldish room
• In bed at 3.30
• Lie down doing slow breaths and body scans

And every night I would lie there with my heart beating quickly, in a state of fight of flight for literally 4h+ without being able to relax fully or sleep.

One night I meditated lying down motionless for 2h before getting angry and moving.

I did not expect my body to have such a reaction to this place. My mind and soul felt healthy and capable, but my body had it's own reaction.

Looking back, it makes sense. New food, heat, bacteria, humidity, noise, chaos, bed, and new social environment in like 5 different ways.

It reminds me of when you get a new cat. You have to put it in a room and just expect it to hide for 5 days no matter how comfortable you make it's new environment. It's nervous system needs to adjust, no way to rush it.

Looking back I would have gotten myself a peaceful airbnb alone for 3 days before going to a party hostel.

Part of me was afraid I would close up socially on this trip, so overreacted by throwing me straight in the most uncomfortable social environment I could imagine. Acting out of such unconscious fears often backfires.

Anyway day 5 I kept it quiet and chill, I was just stopping myself falling asleep and giving my body a feeling of comfort and safety.

Spent most of the day alone, doing tourist stuff. Rode around on a boat, got a full 1h massage.

Then guess what, I went to hostel dinner again on Day 5. Made small talk and stayed all the way to the drinking game I went crazy about on day 4. Turns out, it wasn't even a drinking game. It was just some game throwing balls around on a pool table. I played with everyone and despite being tired it was fun.

So that whole thing yesterday, that felt like a life and death situation requiring jumping out the window, was actually completely fictional and had zero grounding in reality.

Then finally last night, I got a full 9h sleep. It felt so good, like finding water in the desert. I still feel kind of strange, but generally conscious and much better than yesterday. I'm excited for chiang mai!!!

Also one of the girls working at the hostel was so fucking hot... it's just shocking

[riplo]

Day 7

It has dawned on me that what I am doing here is true spirituality, or at least truer than I have ever done till now.

It is one thing to stay connected to presence, to being, to the body, to remain as the witness, when you're on a meditation cushion, safe somewhere alone in a room.

It is another to stay connected to it, to try and bring it into your thoughts word and action, when you're out there, constantly scared and reacting, mind and body going crazy, shit flying everywhere.

[Butters]

12 hours ago, riplo said:

Day 7

It has dawned on me that what I am doing here is true spirituality, or at least truer than I have ever done till now.

It is one thing to stay connected to presence, to being, to the body, to remain as the witness, when you're on a meditation cushion, safe somewhere alone in a room.

It is another to stay connected to it, to try and bring it into your thoughts word and action, when you're out there, constantly scared and reacting, mind and body going crazy, shit flying everywhere.

I feel you man, I feel the same right now. Stress, and it's pouring rain. Lots of uncertainty in these kinds of situations. Gotta tap from within and start living in the desired reality right now

[riplo]

@Butters For sure man. Wishing you success 🙏

Day 8

Following something_else' advice I have moved to a not party hostel. This is exactly what I needed. Party hostels I will return to once I have regained some stability.

I'm so grateful for my friends and family back home. They are so loving, so accepting, wise and honest and funny and thoughtful.

 

Some quotes from Conversations with God that keep swirling in mind:

• reaction vs creation - the only difference is the c, so reaction from past experience can become creation of new experience when you c (see) clearly

I'm trying to be present and look around, so I can see these social situations for what they really are. If I can really see them as they are, Vs what my conditioned mind projects onto them, I can move past fear and choose a new way of acting.

• If you don't go within, you go without
• There's a difference between what is Natural and what is Normal. Normal is just something commonly done. Natural is what you are when you're not trying to be normal. I tell you this: nothing is more natural than love

Edited January 23 by riplo

[something_else]

@riplo Also don’t forget to have fun  I know you’re viewing this as a growth opportunity but primarily just focus on doing the stuff you enjoy and find fun while you’re out there and the rest will fall into place. Solo travel is meant to be about fun, freedom, Independence, learning how to let go, relax, not overthink things and just be in the moment. It’s about learning that you are your own person and other people’s thoughts and actions don’t define who you are.

Not everything has to be sociable. Go and do stuff yourself wanna do by yourself and learn to enjoy it without a sense of shame. If you try to be sociable all the time you will burn out quickly.

I found that going to a nice street food restaurant by yourself and then sitting in the plastic chairs on the side of the street and people watching was one of the best ways to socially reset.

Place no pressure on yourself to do anything, just sit and enjoy good food and watch the world go by. Let your nervous system relax and realise that you have nothing to worry about in that exact moment and that you are safe.

Edited January 25 by something_else

[riplo]

 Day 10

I will be posting less often, every 2-4 days.

The past few days have been so beautiful. Not on the outside but on the inside. The fears and self doubt I have faced and overcome. The inspiration and love I have felt. The motivation I have dug for and found.

There is too much to write so I'll just select a few juicy bits.

 

I am settling in now. Made lots of friends at this hostel I'm in and have been going out on excursions with them.

My sleep is still fucking me up. I'm going to take even more responsibility for it and do everything I can to sleep well from now on. I have some ideas.

Yesterday morning I had an insight that will change my life going forward (unless I forget it)

Goes like this:

    Reading the War of Art (must read book for anyone trying to do anything like this) and the IFS book something clicked:  
    - I am deeply scared of fear and resistance itself, and see it as wrong
    - When I go out, I'm not just confronting Resistance in making the decision to go out. I'm confronting it in every approach, every new set, every awkward moment when I want to eject, every hour spent at the club, every time I start worrying what people think of me
     
    - For the past few months, I have seen this as bad: 'I have done this so many times! Why do I feel like shit?! There must be something wrong with me, I can't do it in this state, I need to heal first, I need better sleep, I can't handle being out here when I'm like this, I need to be happy' 
    - This a mental model that sees fear and resistance as bad, and resists it. What you resist persists 
 
    - Such fear and resistance is not a sign of something wrong with me that needs to be fixed. It's an inevitable part of growing 
     
    - The approach is to accept it and act with it still inside me, accepting being miserable and that's ok 
    - It's not a bug, it's a feature 
    - Trying to get rid of it in order to be happy is simply an incorrect view of what growth is like 
 
    - This squares with IFS. Rather than telling my scared parts they are wrong for feeling what they feel, I unblend and accept and fully feel the fear, and act with it, rather than trying to repress it 
 
    - This is why I got more success with, and had more fun doing, game from month 3 to 6, because I got some skills, while accepting fear and resistance was inevitable and kept pushing through endlessly. At some point I decided 'I should be above feeling this fear' and that's when it got difficult.

 

Bang and just like that, I have changed my whole view of what this journey will look like, and began taking more action.

Yesterday I made friends with everyone at my hostel and went out with them to a bar. Cycled through many states of feeling open and social then scared closed and like a loser talking to no-one. But I stayed for the whole thing, feeling the resistance in my body and knowing that this is growth.

I chose to volunteer for Karaoke. Sung I Miss You blink182 by myself, in a state of total fear. It was god awful, awkward, cringeworthy, all the drunk happy people actually left the dance floor together halfway through, my friends sat away not looking hahahaha. I got off that microphone feeling like I had shredded my reputation, it felt bad, I was shaking. But deep down I got satisfaction knowing I had faced resistance and come out the other side. I did a bit of night game after and it was great.

I did some more tonight and it felt good too. It feels tantalising, I want more!

Many other things happened. Small things, that felt meaningful and beautiful. I'm excited for what is to come.

“Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas.”
— Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Edited January 25 by riplo

[Lyubov]

I need to get out of Ho Chi Minh, air quality is killing me…

[Butters]

12 hours ago, Lyubov said:

I need to get out of Ho Chi Minh, air quality is killing me…

Is Da Nang any better? 

[MaxV]

This is a fantastic read so far! I'm planning to do the same in november this year and i'm already experience some anxious thoughts about the whole ordeal. I'm not going for dating or pickup or such specifically. I've just became 34 years old and i'm really longing for an adventure to embark on alone. 

Your adventure is very inspirational. I'll follow you progress for sure! 

[Butters]

11 minutes ago, MaxV said:

This is a fantastic read so far! I'm planning to do the same in november this year and i'm already experience some anxious thoughts about the whole ordeal.

I had fear or flying, really blew that up in my head. Flew for the first time in 8 years this month and it was not bad. Now I'm looking forward to my next flight 🙂

[riplo]

@MaxVHell yeah man I wish you luck. It's my first time travelling properly also. I feel like I have grown faster out here than I have in years, I'm sure you'll find the same

@Butters I have mad fear of flying too. I watch lots of air crash analysis on youtube. Probably doesn't help lol

@Lyubov The air quality in Bangkok and Chiang Mai is awful. You can actually feel it stopping you breathing properly as you walk down the street. I would recommend getting a PM2.5 mask for walking down busy roads, you can pick em up in 7-11

 

Edited 4 hours ago by riplo

[riplo]

Day 17
“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

 

So I've been in Chiang Mai for the past week
Lots of stuff has happened. Just to rattle off some events:

• I am semi part of hostel life. Have made many friends and acquaintances
• I went to a drag show. I got pulled out of the crowd onto the stage, shirt off, grinded on, whipped, mock oral sex, etc in front of 200 people. It was great
• Went out to a UKG rave solo, danced for 2h straight and had fun despite being scared at first
• Went to a jazz club with a Taiwanese influencer and hypnotherapist 
• Among many, did a badass spontaneous cold approach on a group of 2 girls and 1 guy and ended up going on a date that kinda failed (will explain in a future post)
• Went Mui Thai with my hostel, also to some waterfalls, other excursions
• Starting to get abs now from gym and eating healthily

But really, all my days are the same
I feel closed and antisocial, but I bring myself to go into these social situations / cold approaches anyway. Often I succeed in acting despite fear, and it feels good.

But often the fear is too much and I back out, and I end up by myself feeling bad. If I have enough presence, I meet these lows in a conscious and productive way - journalling, observing, studying personal development material, etc. Sometimes I succumb to avoidance strategies, to distract myself from this pain - porn, youtube, etc.

Sometimes I'll already be with people when I feel the negativity washing over. Usually I make myself stay, and watch this all unfurl within me to the best of my ability.

I've have had many 'aha moments', which I will share. 

There's going to be a big gap between my experience of these insights, and the experience of anyone reading them here. Reminds me of Leo's levels of understanding video. Because I got these from experience, from reconciling parts of my worldview etc, they are more meaningful to me, having 'lived them', than they will be to you. Also, these insights are not something I can have once and be done. Despite having 'realised' them, I haven't integrated them into my life.

Bad habits creeping back in
When I first got here, it was easy for me to maintain good practices and stay away from distractions. Now I have been here a while I notice it's getting difficult again. The novelty has worn off. A strong, specific, emotionally resonant vision for who I can become will help me here. I don't fully have that yet which is dumb.

Be present always
Despite having meditated for years, till now, I haven't made an intention to be present continuously every moment of the day. I have this intention now. Some days it seems like I've spent 60% of the day present. Which is crazy. Without an increase in awareness I have no hope of seeing all the crazy shit my mind throws at me.

Taking a more professional attitude
The War of Art says you beat Resistance by becoming a 'professional', taking on a serious yet detached attitude towards the work. That is what I have tried to do with socialising. 

First off, focus. I didn't really come out here to travel and have fun. I came to grow in a specific way. That is what gives me most satisfaction and makes life feel meaningful. I will stay focused, plan my trip around growth and socialising primarily, rather than having fun or chilling or anything else. This may sound overly harsh, but it doesn't feel harsh to me. It feels mature and inspiring.

Next, discipline. A week ago I set the goal that no matter how bad I feel, whenever I enter or leave my hostel, I will meet at least one new person. And every time I leave, I will do at least 3 approaches. This was a great idea, I do it automatically now.

Also, I changed my mediation practice to fit better with the work. Every day morning and evening for 20m, 'do nothing' mediation primarily. I have decided this technique specifically will help me but it's long to explain why.

Next, detachment (this is one I am still working on)
"The pro stands at one remove from her instrument - meaning her person, her body, her voice, her talent; the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological being she uses in her work. She does not identify with this instrument. It is simply what God gave her, what she has to work with. She assesses it coolly, impersonally, objectively.

The professional identifies with her consciousness and her will, not with the matter that her consciousness and will manipulate to serve her."
    - Stephen Pressfield

I find socialising difficult because I am overly identified with my instrument. When I face rejection, it's not my approach that was rejected, it was 'me', and it hurts. What is my instrument? What is it I can train daily with right practice, yet remain detached from?

My instrument:

• My body language, words, facial expressions, jokes
• How people react to me
• How sexual I feel, my emotions, how closed or open I feel, how good in my body
• The content of my thoughts, the rationalisations and excuses that come up in my mind, the desires to avoid and hide
• My hardwired limiting beliefs and insecurities
• Any way that I show up physically and emotionally

None of this is within my control, yet I guilt myself, get angry and take it all so personally when this doesn't go how I want it to

What I can control:

• Walking up and doing the approach in the moment when I feel fear
• Staying in though I feel uncomfortable
• Going for the number, the kiss, the pull
• Doing this consistently, again and again over weeks and months
• Choosing whether to believe my resistance when it comes up with distractions, or stay focused 
• Mediating and getting good sleep every day
• Staying in Self, greeting whatever parts and emotions come up with consciousness and love and understanding

If I can realise what I've written here at a deep level and actually live it, then problem solved

Connection practice
My therapist recommended me a good practice, goes like this:

I am always both disconnected and connected to others

When I feel disconnected, like other people know each other and don't want me there, my fearful parts are feeling into something real. It's not nothing, it really can be an emotional, energetic field shared between the group that my 'field' is excluded from. Ok, yet I am always also connected. Just by being in the same room, our fields are overlapping, and I can feel this connectedness if I want to.

So, when I feel disconnected, don't repress it. Expand awareness to fully include this scared part. Then expand it further to feel into the feeling of connectedness. When the part and the connection are there together in awareness, the part can see for itself that it's connected, it's not alone, and it can heal.

I find this difficult to do in practice but I am working at it.

Dealing with a specific fear
The other day I was out approaching when I ran into a specific old fear. What if I approach a girl, it goes badly and she turns out to be in my hostel. She tells everyone how creepy I am and I become a social outcast.

I tried to push through by reminding myself how low probability this is. I even did a calculation:  (people at my hostel / travellers in Chiang Mai) x (% it goes badly) x (% I will see her again) x (% she tells others) haha. It came out at under 1%. But the fear was still there and I kept missing approaches. I sat down and began asking myself how I can deal with this.

I realised I was trying to repress the fear, and fight it with other parts. I tried really understanding it and feeling into it, and ended up acknowledging that it is a valid fear to have, however small. The way I overcame it wasn't by dismissing it as low probability, but by reminding the part that worst comes to worst, Self is here. Even if I become a social outcast (whatever that means), I am 27 years old. I am here. I can handle it.

Something clicked again. This is the way to deal with such fears. Acknowledge, feel, understand. Seek first to understand and then to be understood. And then trust that I can handle it anyway and act with the fear still there. 

Sexual mask part
Last week I saw an interesting part emerge. I was talking to an attractive girl, she was introverted but I think she was into me, though there wasn't any man to woman stuff going on. I saw how even though I was attracted, something was cutting me off from this. My whole lower body felt vaguely numb. I didn't take it further, left the conversation early, then felt bad.

I investigated this with IFS later that day. I lay watching sex tapes I made with my girlfriend, watching for any guilt or shame or constriction arising in my body. I found it, a vague feeling of sadness. I greeted it with compassion, and tried asking it questions, why was it sad, what does it want me to know, etc.

I got some very confused answers out, the following is from my journal:

Do I feel shame about sex?
- Yes. Why? I want to understand why I am sad.
- I am here for you 
- I feel sadness 
- Unloved, isolated, wanting to be included but not being, not shame or guilt, just sadness, grief
- A clutching in the throat, feel like I will cry, resignation, hopeless and being alone
- Wanting someone them to love me and knowing they don't, and feeling alone and unable to talk to anyone about it
- 12yo lying in bed in Poland thinking about how they don't love me
- 13yo being in a relationship with Sim and realising she doesn't like me

- Protectors closing up again over the sadness and the tenderness, but with a sense of exhaustion and dullness
- Not wanting to do this job, wanting to rest
- Like a slave going back to work, resigned to the fact that this is his whole life, work work work, he will never be free, he has done it a million times and this is his life, a dull, drowning exhaustion
- Why do you feel you have to do this?
    ○ That is my job, my responsibility

- why do you feel you have to do this job forever?
    ○ I get almost no answer that feels valid
    ○ There is no alternative where it doesn't do this, this part doesn't think about any alternative, it's job is singular. To mask over and shield the pain and the vulnerable tender parts 

Whenever I do stuff like this I put it into ChatGPT and ask for its opinion. It's analysis was great. 

I assumed masking of sex was about guilt and shame, so went looking for that. But what I found instead was attachment grief. 

This develops when as a child, you needed emotional closeness or reassurance and didn't get it reliably, so you learned not to expect it and handle things on your own. The grief and pain of this harsh 'lesson' sits with you forever just beneath the surface.

It was a surprise to feel this within me. I have never been in touch with this part or seriously considered it intellectually.

This part sees wanting sex as wanting love, so masking isn't about sexual shame, it's protection from reliving that experience, which is really very innocent and pure. Needing love and not getting it.

I don't know how to heal this part or give it the love it wants. But I have faith that when I am ready it will reveal itself to me again and it can be healed. 

This is real shit, real trauma work that I have never engaged in till now.

As I write this, I realise again that this is where the work is. In bringing love into myself and my life. All the other things I am doing mean nothing without love.

This is all within myself
Every fear and limit I have is inside myself. Criticism and judgement from others is just a mouthpiece for my internal resistance. With love, I can heal all my fears, grow through all my limits, and be free, able to love and live the life I want. I catch myself so focused on the external when really I am working with my own mind, always. If you don't go within, you go without.

 

Kind regards <3 

Edited 3 hours ago by riplo

[emptiness dancing]

1 hour ago, riplo said:

I went to a drag show. I got pulled out of the crowd onto the stage, shirt off, grinded on, whipped, mock oral sex, etc in front of 200 people. It was great

LOL!! 

[Sincerity]

@riplo Just read your last post. You’re going great work man!!!

I’ve also read the War of Art recently - over a long period of time, rereading many times, thinking about it a lot. It’s great that it’s inspiring you too.

Cheers. You’re awesome man, don’t forget it.