On making myself feel good

I was wondering recently how exactly did I come up with the three points related to my inner game priorities. Especially the first one, about making myself feel good.

Now I remember, it's taken from Dimitri (The Approach) who has great stuff on natural game.

I've taken the following excerpt from Psyneh's blog :

This time its a post written by Dimitri which focus on feeling good.. enjoy!

Now more than ever, I can point my finger to exactly one part of the Western society woman, and tell you what she is looking for:

To feel good.

It's it. That simple. The vast majority of women in the West want to feel good, and will evaluate most decisions in those terms. Any perceived attempts by a man, or another woman, to make her feel bad will cause resentment. She will think the person is less valuable, and relate to him less (bad for value, and attainability - two parts of what create attraction).

In fact, the most attractive men are men that seem to want to feel good, and make others around them feel good. If you're part of the "feel good" club, you will seem more valuable, and women will understand where you're coming from. This is where the basis for one night stands, short term flings, the "thing on the side", and so on come from. Women now turn to marriage with a stable guy when that would make the most sense in terms of feeling good - once social pressure begins to build up that she should be married, once she's grown bored in her career, when she feels children will make her feel good. And even then - she's likely to take a man on the side from time to time. Numbers on how many women have extra-marital affairs are murky and deluded, but regardless of what scale you're using - they're pretty damn high.

Now at this point, many men reading this might be starting to get resentful of women. And any women reading this might become indignant. This is from a lack of communication.

The fact is - the pursuit of good emotions is no more right, wrong, true, untrue, just, unjust, noble or petty than anything else in the world. Life is what you make of it and what you want to make of it, and if you desire is feel good things, then that is fine. In fact, it's a fairly straightforward goal, and not a bad focusing point until you develop other causes in your life you might want to champion (for women, this is often their children as they get older - men usually take on other causes).


If you want to have women in your life, my friend, you need to seem like a "feel good" thing, and in fact, anything you do that portrays you like to feel good and want others to feel good will increase both your value (for obvious reasons) and your attainability (because women can relate to it).

TEN RULES OF FEELING GOOD:

1. Make yourself feel good first.
2. Never try to make anyone feel bad.
3. Try to make everyone around you feel good.
4. Making other people around you feel good makes YOU feel good - even making others feel good is a semi-selfish gesture.
5. You never sacrifice your own good feelings to make another person feel good.
6. You don't feel negative emotions, except when doing so makes you feel good.
7. You don't try to fix problems - you try to make people feel better about them.
8. If it's not your job, don't try to go logical, or linear about issues around. It's not fun.
9. Never look down on anything - be indifferent about stuff that you don't like.
10. If you're failing to keep one of those rules, that's okay as long as you keep the appearance that you're following them.

The ideal kind of fun comes from a leader who engages in "mutual value escalation" - this is where someone makes someone else feel good, and themself feel good at the same time. Why do women love gay guys so much? They follow the feel-good plan, and mutually value escalate a lot.

"OH - MY - GOD! You're SO Pretty!"

You might also note that that almost all of the cultures of the world that are thought to be the most sexual/desired engage in these behaviors - They often greet each other with big hugs, lots of kisses, compliments, and great hosting/entertaining of each other. They play games, dance, and drink together. They want everyone to feel good.

It's simply unacceptable to put someone down unless they're trying to ruin someone's fun. Anyone that's increasing the fun and good emotions around is to celebrated with. Your M.O. for dealing with fun people needs to be joining into the fun - or more accurately, bringing them into your fun. If they're unable to join in having fun with you, THEN you may dismiss them - remember, it's wrong to disdain someone. We simply ignore those who aren't fun, or occasionally have a little fun at their expense.

It's impossible for someone to have fun at your expense if you're someone that follows the culture of having fun. If someone makes fun of you, you laugh, smile, embrace them, joke about it, or make a good retort. But your goal in doing so is to have fun and good emotions, and to make them and everyone else around have fun too. If you want to deal with guys who don't have your best intentions at heart, simply try to have mass amounts of fun with them. They'll either have fun with you and come to have your best intentions at heart (they're now your friends) or they'll miss a step, stop having fun, get offended, et cetra - and they're then cooked.

Out of the cave, going out again

Ola amigos.

After that little stretch of time I took to close down and recenter myself, I started feeling the urge to go out and meet women again.

I was curious as to whether recent insights about myself will make it easier for me to approach women. Previously, going out wasn't an activity I was enjoying, because I wasn't in my own frame : I would go out because one of my guy friends would want to, I'd appear enthusiastic on the outside, but would feel terrified on the inside.

I would go out because I was supposed to go out.

I would feel anxiety and guilt because I wasn't going out enough, because I wasn't having success, because I'd feel a very strong pressure to perform in front of my male friends. Also, I would be very sensitive to what I'd perceive as people watching me, judging me (i.e. social pressure).

Eventually, after stepping back and gaining perspective, I realised that all my mental frames were wrong:
Prior to the club, I'd feel anxiety, with no real desire to go out. I'd go out because other people wanted to, not because I CHOSE to. Big difference.
At the venue, I would feel very scared. I'd follow the guys I came with wherever they went.

I couldn't make my own decisions, be independent, and focus on myself.

Even worse, I would look for the first excuse to leave (have to catch a bus, whatever). And on the way back, I'd feel relief at having finished with the ordeal. Worst of all, I'd feel like shit and totally unhappy about myself.

But I did not KNOW I felt like that. What is probably a instinctive reflex in other people is something that I'm learning to grasp just know. And that reflex is : Ask yourself how you feel right this instant.

I was living through other people's eyes and frames for so long, that I had forbidden myself to look into myself and my desires, and to give priority to myself. I didn't even know one was supposed to feel good about oneself most of the time, and that feeling good should be my first priority.

I don't know why it took me so long to realize that something was very wrong. Yet again I demonstrate an incredible lack of ability to analyze myself.

Eventually, I understood what was wrong. I finally realised that I'm supposed to LIKE what I'm doing. Quite apart from a perfectly natural approach anxiety/fear of rejection, I should go out based on my DESIRE to meet women, and feel excited and energetic about it.

It's supposed to be fun, and everything I do is supposed to stem from a desire to make myself feel good.

It sounds so obvious now, but I only truly assimilated that concept a month or so ago. Unfortunately, there seems to be a great difference between intellectually understanding something, and actually assimilating and FEELING the concept. I knew all this stuff a long time ago, but didn't really understand them until now.

So even though I can now describe my inner game beliefs in three points, it took a long time of inner searching and probing to finally 'get it'.

Here are my current beliefs:

1) At all times I'm supposed to feel good about myself, at peace in my mind and relaxed in my body. That is my NUMBER ONE PRIORITY, and as such I have to put that concept above all others, and before any other person's feelings. This is how one's supposed to live most of the time, with moments of pain and insecurity being only temporary exceptions to that rule.

2) Feelings of anxiety and guilt are most often the result of me forgetting about my desires, and giving importance to outside sources, such as what people think of me, what people think I should do with my life, what I PERCEIVE people as thinking of me (especially weak on that last one). I see th solution now as detaching oneself from those external sources. I can now visualise (and feel) it when I recenter myself, and push away outside interference.

3) To obey the first rule, and feel good on the inside, I'm supposed to OWN my outside environment. After identifying my desires (I don't like it in here, I feel hot, I want to meet women and have sex, I want to travel, etc...), what is required in order that I feel good is to TAKE ACTION, and go after those things I want. This is what it's all about when we are told to create a strong frame, have one's own reality etc...

That last point is difficult to describe when one hasn't felt it. To those who never had this problem, reading this will seem silly. Those who are only at the intellectual stage of grasping it will nod their heads, maybe write affirmations (like I did) with mixed results. Anyone who is constantly questioning himself will eventually assimilate the idea, but each at his or her own rhythm.

(Now I sound like one of those self-help guru types :-) )

An example of the last point is the club environment. I, like so many guys out there, was/am scared of them, because it was associated with so many anxiety factors, such as:

Pressure to perform (in the eyes of friends and lair bros).
Fear of being rejected by the girls.
Fear of people judging me negatively, laughing and pointing at me. (I call this social pressure, and it's a big weakness of mine).

If you have truly assimilated the 3 points, then you'd go to a club out of a powerful personal urge to meet and flirt with women. When you become so focused on your desires and on pleasing yourself, there won't be a place anymore for 'outside sources' (i.e. what people think, or rather what you perceive other people as thinking of you).

When that mental shift happens, I've found that things become easier (writing a post soon about recent club outings). The second point helps a lot, because by identifying the external sources, you can now mentally detach from them, and emotionally feel like you can keep them at a distance. You can keep them at a distance because the first point now takes up all the space inside of you.

Now I get it when people say 'own the club, feel it like it's your home and your party'. I tried using this affirmation a long time ago, but now I GET IT ! I FEEL IT !

Before, I would feel crushed by the club, and by all the anxieties attached to it. I would really have no inner frame to talk of, and would try to stand out as little as possible because all of my inner self was attached to outside validations.

What a terrible time I've spent in clubs, and in most of my activities, pretending to be there out of my free will. I was living my life based on what I thought I was supposed to do, what other men I shadowed wanted to do, and put everyone's frames before mine. It's no wonder I felt like an empty shell (and still do at times. The process of healing is fucking slow) .

But I can honestly say I feel better these days. It's still too early to scream for a miracle, and it's not like a movie moment, where in one moment I became illuminated and cured. This has been an ongoing LONG process. But I can give some examples of how great it is to have realised that what I feel is my priority, and that taking care of how I feel is what should drive my actions and decisions.

One simple recent example is when I met a big group of guys. We were just hanging out, and a lot were alpha. I realised that a part of me always dreaded hanging out with them because they were so intimidating, so I'd feel a big urge to perform by being cool, and not doing anything that might make them judge me negatively. The last time we met however, things were different.

At first I was tense without realising it. Then I focused on myself and realised I was feeling some anxiety. I did what the author Osho said in the book 'Awareness'. I first listened to my body, and thus noticed that my shoulders were tense and that I was leaning forward. I relaxed my body. Then, I proceeded to calm my mind, by focusing on the now rather that being in the past or the future. Finally, I went deep and focused on my feelings. As a result, I felt a wave of inner calm flow from inside of me.

What a great feeling that was. I felt at peace with myself, and totally relaxed. It felt like a small high. I must've looked a bit silly, feeling slightly giddy, smiling and laughing silently. A good moment.

So yeah, things are definitely looking better, because I've started gaining some control over my inner states: Having first of all identified my priorities, coming to grips with them and ALLOWING myself to put my desires first; having realised anxiety comes from allowing external sources to take up space inside; and finally having understood that I can refocus myself (detaching myself from external validations) and that I can OWN my outside physical environment, as the way to obey my first priority.

It doesn't always work, but it's the right path.

I can feel it.

Cheers,
F.

My current mental reframing

As a recap of the last post, here are my current three mental ideas :

1) At all times, I must make myself feel good about myself. That is my number 1 priority.

2) I identify when I feel insecure, or have anxiety, and I detach myself from them by recentering myself, and feeling good about myself.

3) I OWN it. Always I own my environment. That's how I can make thing exterior to myself change in a way that will make me feel good.

Now, I've had many of those "key" sentences before. Here's a sample of old ones:

-It's my frame.

-I am not condemned, I don't have to feel anxiety, because I'm trying something, and if I'm not happy, I'm not stuck. I can try something else.

-I am not a loser. I'm not stuck, because I can choose to get out of a situation.

-I don't have to be spectacular, I don't have to be perfect. I can try, and then try again.

The vicious cycle to avoid is the following: Afraid of getting "stuck", i.e. a loser. and thus getting in my cave, feeling depressed with no energy, and feeling paralysed. This paralysis makes me become stuck, as I'm not able to take action. To avoid having to recognize this inaction, I go into daydreaming mode, and in those dreams I am perfect and spectacular. Daydreaming is like a drug, with the high inevitably followed by a return to reality, and the fear and guilt that I'm becoming more and more stuck. I avoid thinking about it even more, and thus the cycle continues....

The way to deal with the cycle is to take action. By taking action, I realise that I can try things. That I'm not condemned, and that it's the trying that matters. What I try can have average results, it doesn't have to be perfect/spectacular. This is what I mean by owning it.

I need to simplify the vicious cycle above, and make it more clear. Maybe another time.

F.

Back from the cave

Hey guys, it's been a while since I posted.

I've been in my man cave for the last month. I felt I needed to step back from the whole pickup thing.

The reason was that I'd become stuck in a negative frame. Instead of feeling good about myself, about approaching and talking to women, I had developed anxiety due to the pressure to perform.

I felt guilty for not hitting on a girl I saw and liked.

I also felt pressure to "be cool" in front of my friends. Whenever I'd go out with a friend with the intent to pick up women, I would become paralysed by approach anxiety. It wasn't the healthy fear of approaching that everyone feels. It was much stronger than that, and very negative.

Moreover, I'm deeply sensitive to social pressure. It's the pressure of other people observing you and making judgements.

Eventually I realised that I just wasn't enjoying it, that I was forcing myself out of some sort of obligation. All the fun had been replaced by feelings of anxiety, fear, and general insatisfaction. It was mental masochism yet again, and it took me some time to realise that.

Needless to say I didn't have much success with the girls I talked to.

So I took some time out. I realised I had been going on a very wrong path mentally. It was a path full of negativity.

Once I realised that, I started slowing down, and looking inwards to get some perspective.

First of all, I forgot that all these things I do have one purpose: to please me. It is all about me, not about others. Yet I feel this pressure when I'm around people, this fear of them judging me in a negative way. Why is that?

I know the answer, it's related to my inner game issues. My insecurities have as a consequence that I seek validation from others. However, it is all MY perception of how people see me. So if I go and walk up to a girl, and it doesn't work out, then I feel as if they look at me in a negative way, and that's something difficult for me to shake off.

When a friend calls me and we make plans to go out, I start feeling fear, pressure, and anxiety. So all my smiles when I meet the friend, and my boasting and my exterior coolness, all my declarations of "yeah, let's go get some chicks, let's have some fun", are LIES.

Yep, it's all untrue.

It's bullshit.

It's all FAKE.

The truth? I don't really want to go out, because I'm TERRIFIED.

I'm afraid of people.

Once I'm at club/pub, I use the first excuse I can find to leave. I feel scared before and while talking to chicks, and I feel lie shit afterwards regardless of the outcome.

I always feel bad after a night out. There is this lingering unease that I carry with me. It's NOT supposed to be like that! Why did it take ma so long to figure that out?

The solution? 3 things:

-I need to relax and regain some perspective.

-I need to recenter myself around myself. Focus on ME. What do I want? What are my desires?

-I need to own my environment.

These three points are the results of the reflections of the past weeks.

I have been unhappy when I was going out, because I was going out with the wrong frame. I was going out for the wrong reasons. Because my friends ask me to go out, I feel the obligation to do so.
More fucked up is the fact that the weak me generates guilt, and uses this guilt to drive me to go out.

This is classical me psychology. With regards to going out and sarging, I've fallen into the same old trap of doing an activity, not because I want to, but because I feel I HAVE to, for some fucked up reason. That's what I mean by being in the wrong frame.

Basically, the thought processes happening in my brain are very negative, and perpetuate a cycle of guilt, anxiety and pressure.

That's why I needed some time out, to realise the trap I had thrown myself into.

I need to break the cycle, take a deep breath, feel good about myself, and obey my desires.

I need to reframe my thought processes, and get my desires and priorities straight.

My name is Fabz. I am a man.

I have desires, and these desires are my priority.

My priority is to make myself FEEL GOOD about myself, at all times.

At ALL TIMES, the single most important thing, and what I need to focus the most about, is how I FEEL.

At any time, I must ask myself: "How do I feel in this instant", and the answer should always be: "I feel good about myself internally, and externally I'm enjoying this activity".

If I don't feel good about myself , then SOMETHING IS WRONG. Since I am my most important priority, I need to take a mental step back and ask myself why do I feel uncomfortable.

It is UNACCEPTABLE that I do not feel comfortable. If I do, then I must fix the situation, and that is my priority.

If I feel internal anxiety, I identify it and defuse it. These anxieties are usually related to other people, and me worrying about other people. That "other" is UNIMPORTANT compared to myself, and by reminding myself of that, I can defuse the tension.

I must learn to dissociate myself from this "other". That is so hard for me, yet so crucial.

If I feel anxiety or discomfort because of something in my surroundings, then it's my obligation to fix it, to TAKE ACTION. This happens often because I become passive, lose initiative for fear of being judged, and thus do not give myself any sense of value or self-worth.

This happens to me SO often. That's the problem. It was such a part of my life to feel uncomfortable and anxious that I didn't even know I felt this way. It's like when there is a continuous buzzing sound. After a while we forget about the sound, and only notice it when it's turned off.

I need to constantly be aware of that inner sound. I must constantly be probing into that inner buzz and become aware of how exactly I feel.

That is the right path, and that mental exercise consists at any time of three steps.

a) First of all, RELAX. Take a deep breath. Then another.
Get some distance from everything around you.
Slow Down.......Slower......slower.
Get some perspective. Ask yourself: "What am I doing here, why am I doing it? And am I enjoying it?"

b) Repeat this sentence and FEEL IT: "I need to feel good about myself right this instant"
"Why am I not feeling good right now? What are the reasons?"

Identify the reason. There will probably be some anxiety, pressure or guilt/shame inside me. And those feelings are due to a person other than me that is affecting me. I am giving too much importance to that "other", and that is WRONG.

Detach yourself from this anxiety by recentering yourself. "It's all about me, NO ONE ELSE".
FEEL the "others" going away and disappearing from your consciousness. There is only me inside, and that is beautiful and right.

c) TAKE ACTION. OWN THE SITUATION. Take initiative to correct this situation. At any time, because I am a FREE MAN, I can take steps to change something that makes me uncomfortable, be it internal (negative state) or external (people I don't like, need to please, passive, uninterested in activity, etc...)

What I want is IMPORTANT!! It's SACRED.

Own the moment. Feel good about owning it, about yourself. Create this bubble where you are owning it, where your every desires are applied, and feel good about it. I have the RIGHT to feel good, and to change whatever I do not feel good about.

FEEL EXCITED ABOUT OWNING IT, about CONTROLLING and being ACTIVE.

LOVE EVERY MOMENT, and feel the energy coursing through your veins.

That is the way. Enjoy it. Enjoy yourself.

F.