Happy person in-training

The human mind has a great capacity to delude itself.

We get used to being unhappy.

We get used to being in pain.

We can live years without realizing that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way our life has turned out. It took me 24 years just to acknowledge to myself that ‘I'm not happy’.

I need to get used to being happy. My general state of being was one of anxiety, fear and insecurity; one of escape into a fantasy world where I'm perfect, and one of an inability to face reality.

I need time to become accustomed with the fact that I shouldn't depend on anyone, that I have to take action and that I'll make mistakes in the process.

Get used to being successful. People will envy you. Weak ones will fawn all over you and will seek your reassuring shadow, same as I was not so long ago. I hate it when people become weak like this around me, it makes me feel uneasy. I must stop seeing it as such, and basically not care.

When successful, people will notice you, and will try and shake you. Men will try to invade your frame, and women will test you to see if you are the real deal. And they will all cheer when you fall, except the few precious ones, the loved ones and the true friends.

I need to assimilate the concept of being attuned to my desires, to what I like to do, and to the fact that I have the RIGHT to act and change things if I'm unhappy. I'm allowed to impose my will on the physical world to get what I want.

There will be clashes with other personalities, and that is OK. I will be misunderstood and criticized. People will discourage me and make fun of me. They will attempt to impose their view of the world, and of what is right or wrong. I must get used to that fact, and become stronger so that I can be able to not allow any one's frame to change mine. In the same manner, I will naturally attempt to force my world-view onto others, and strong willed ones will remain unaffected.

Basically, I'm learning to take my place in the world, to exercise my will, that I CAN and SHOULD exercise my will, my perception of people's feelings be damned!

I have to internalize the concept that I was sacrificing my own happiness for the sake of others. For the longest time, I've perceived my happiness as inversely proportional to that of others, which has made me try to be as unremarkable and as externally ‘polished and formless as possible. Basically I had no character. I was described once as someone who 'smiles all the time'. Enough said.

I'm just learning to give myself value, and to dissociate my happiness with that of others. There should be a core of happiness, of identity in each one of us, that is inviolate and fully unreachable by anyone. No matter what people are around you, we should be solid on the inside.

I should finally get used to the fact that I will fail many times, that I'll be wrong and will have to review my ideas and thoughts and beliefs. In life, an adult man knows that shit will happen. The difference between a boy and a man is that the man has accepted that fact. He has accepted that he might get cancer, that he might be betrayed, or fail miserably. A boy will be scared of the nightmarish potential future, will cry for injustice and will run to a father/mother figure to hide in the hopes that things will go away, or that someone will take care of the problems. A man does not worry, for he knows that shit WILL, in fact, happen in his lifetime. It is not a matter of if, but of when. That's why the true strong man is not afraid at present, because he has assimilated that reality of the world.

A man live in the present time fully and completely, enjoying his life and actively seeking to achieve his desires.

And when shit strikes,

Well, he is a man. He will deal with it.

That's what men do. We know there will be pain and hard times, and we deal with them to the best of our capacity when they happen.

Alone, with no certainty of success, with no one to whom to run for cover and protection, nakedly exposed, a man will face his problems with a clear mind and with a clear flame of self-sustaining, self-sufficient life force burning fiercely inside him.

And when faced with insurmountable odds, when things look desperate, a strong mature man will throw everything he has, and scream a giant and rebellious FUCK YOU to the world. And if he has to go down, well then so be it.

That's it.

It's a long process, one of a difficulty I've underestimated, and one that provides its own share of pain. But that's the training necessary to be happy.

I’m thus a happy person in-training.

Welcome to the world.

Im going out tonight

In trying to gain more control over my life (the source of happiness in my current understanding of the world), I've decided that I should ask guys to go out with me to sarge, not the other way around.

So tonight I called a friend to be a sarging buddy.

I took this from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (I think) : Everything a man (as opposed to a boy) does has a purpose.

I should write a post about my theory of what differentiates a boy from a man, and how it applies to my current life.

Anyway, remember the general rule: One is supposed to generally feel good about himself.

To do that I must identify my current state (angry, anxious, afraid, etc..). I must then clean it of all negativity.

Then replace with the basic rule of life, of feeling good about oneself.

I detach myself of any external source, i.e. I recenter myself :

Become aware of your body, and relax it.
Become aware of your thoughts, and clean them up.
Go deep and FEEEL good about yourself.

Then I can ask myself, unclouded by external influence :"What do I want?".

I want to go out, and behave in a controlled manner in a club or bar. That means I want to talk to people, be social, not be limited by fear, but rather own my environment, expand my control space, and just enjoy myself. I want to be able to flirt with women, and generally evolve through the night in a club without feeling any negative thought

Not having any fear in a social situation implies not being jumpy or overly reactive to any external input. This is a challenge for me as I become overexcited with the energy of a crowd. According to the Myers-Briggs test, I'm a highly extroverted person. In a sarging context, that's not always a good thing.

So anyways, concentrate of being calm and unreactive.

Also, concentrate on identifying immediate desires, such as:
-Not to laugh too much, and only when I feel like it. With my friends, when I'm nervous and grow passive, I smile and laugh too early, too much. This takes me out of my positive controlled state because I'm not acting according to my true emotion of the moment.
-I see a set I like, or a woman passing by me, and I want to interact with them. The should be an immediate desire-action linkage in me. I see something I want => I take action. No doubt or questions or self-analysis. Just do it.

Always, always always be focused on myself. No matter the outcome of any interaction, I get out of it unaffected, because I am obeying my immediate desire, and I don't let external factors affect me.

Be selfish, constantly monitor your thoughts and desires, and TAKE ACTION. This is the rule of lie. Desire -> ACT. Desire -> ACT.

As a practical objective tonight, let's see how much I can remain in state throughout the night, and how I feel about myself immediately afterwards, and the next day.

F.

Mantra

I'm still often paralysed by fear an anxiety. I just wake up some day and feel unable to act.

My guess is it's because I slide into a negative frame. One that attaches a lot of anxiety on any action or decision. Instead of the frame : "I want to do this, this is my desire, it's gonna be great, I'm excited about the idea of taking action and stepping that much closer to what I want", I'm afraid of what will happen, of failure, of success, of having to deal with success and the "burden" of expectations.

For decades, I've been in an anxiety frame. One that put me in a passive state. I used to avoid making decisions as much as possible, and always (unconsciously looked for a dominant male figure in my social groups. Those guys would be the ones making decisions, and I would follow, safe in their shadows).

The problem is that one gets used to a way of living, even if the frame makes you unhappy. I used to compensate my passive life and general lack of purpose and lack of enjoyment of my life by escaping. I developed very strong daydreaming scenarios, in which I would be perfect and all powerful. Also, masturbation was (and still is) a powerful escape mechanism, providing me with instant pleasure.

Jerking off is like a drug at times, I get instant pleasure, and escape from the present. And like a drug, the inevitable return to reality leads to momentary depression, lack of energy and daydreaming.

I used to read a lot as well, especially science-fiction and fantasy types. They are excellent escape mechanisms. A good sign in recent times is that I feel less and less of a desire to read new books. I started growing disinterested with them, something I see as a sign of improvement.

However, I'm still very often plagued by 'bad days', where negative thoughts paralyse me, and make me feel stressed out and anxious about nothing in particular. That's the power of it, that it's so vague a feeling that I often don't realise I'm sliding into it.

I think I need to gain more control of my thought processes. Of the words that course through my brain, and I think I need to do them via repetition.

The author Osho, as well as other sources, have helped me for form a general set of guidelines and life concepts. These are general rule on how I should view life. I wrote them in an older post.

The banter post

I'll use this post tp put all te banter stuff I can fun/invent.

This is an excerpt taken from the PU101 blog.

November 26, 2006
Make Banter Work for You Every Time
Our instructors are constantly posting solid-gold advice on our VIP Coaching Lounge. If you're not a member already, you are missing out on a chance to get real-time coaching from the best in the business.
Just to show you what you are missing, today we're going to share another amazing insight from pickup coach extraordinaire Sean Deacon (visit his blog at blog.seandeacon.com), who follows up on his rules for SMS game with the guide to get you having fun, and succeeding, with Banter. Enjoy!
I realized something about banter during the last Art of Attraction Workshop. It came together after hearing something that Lance said when he was introducing the idea of banter to the group. He said (and I paraphrase) that banter is essentially role-playing. The banter line just establishes a role for the two of you that you can then act out in a playful way. If you look at banter in this way, it lends itself to banter INTERACTIONS, rather than the use of banter LINES.
For example, when you call a girl a brat, you are using a banter line. If you assume the role that she is a bratty little sister and you are the cool older brother, then you can go on to say something like,
"you are gonna totally get sent to your room for acting up. And you have to DENY it when all your friends call you up and tell you they think I am cute, OK? I don’t want to be kept up all night hearing your giggles, ok?"
The "classic" banter lines are great, but they are just that, one-liners. You can say "I don't know who your boyfriend is, but he is not spanking you enough", but where do you go from there? What if you assume that you are now a love doctor, and she is a love patient in need of treatment? That sounds pretty fun to me.
Sometimes I will find something in the situation, or something a girl says, and then I will assume a role for her. I then assume a role for myself in relation to that role, and act out those roles.
At the last Art of Attraction Workshop, I ran into a girl that I had met a few weeks earlier. We had been emailing since then, joking about switching jobs, because she had a bad week at work. When I saw her, I told her I had a new job if she still wanted to switch, that I was a go-go dancer. The role set up was now "we are go-go dancers". I asked her what kind of cage she liked to dance in. I told her I got new knee high boots with fur around the top and she better have something cooler than that if she ever wants to be a better go-go dancer than me.
I think most people can see how banter interactions are better than banter lines. If you deliver a banter line, you are just some guy with a funny line. If you can start role-playing, you can have a much more fun and playful interaction.
Some of you may have seen Sean Newman go on after a line like "I am just here to flirt with you". He can keep going and going off of that idea. What he has done here is set up the role that he is an expert flirting teacher, and the girl is a cute student who needs to learn how to flirt. He riffs and riffs off of those assumed roles, and the result is a funny and charming interaction.
I see the PickUp 101 coaches do this all the time. They throw out a line, and keep riffing off of it. What makes it easy to riff off of this is the assumed role-play BEHIND the banter line. Consciously or not, they are playing a certain role, and treating the girl like she has some complementary role, and going from there.
Here's another personal example I have used:
"You are so cute. I just want to take you home with me. You know what we are gonna do? We are gonna make forts out of the couches with the pillows and blankets, and we are gonna play house, and we are gonna watch cartoons, and then mom is gonna bring us some ovaltine, and we're gonna crawl inside our fort to drink our hot ovaltine, and then we're gonna watch cartoons all morning."
The role here is that we are cute little kids together, that we are gonna have a bunch of innocent childish fun together (ever play doctor when you are a kid?).
I have used these examples when flirting with girls. The usual result is giant smiles and laughter.
What I hope that some of you guys will get out of this is how to take banter LINES, and turn them into banter INTERACTIONS.
You can take an existing banter line, assume some roles between the two of you, and then deliver it from that perspective. If you open some girls and spit out,
"I really like it here, I am so well lit!"
That can be funny, but where do you go? Assume the role that she is an artist, and you are the art!
"My god, I should be a sculpture! Are you good at art? Listen, if my cute adorable smile is going to be captured for eternity as a statue, I need a VERY GOOD artist to get it just right. I need that creative flare that I know is hiding behind that big smile you have on your face."
After that, smile, tickle, then drop into some deep rapport, find something unique and special about her that isn't obvious, and fall just a touch in love.
Sean "jaz" Deacon~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~http://blog.seandeacon.com

Lay Report: The ex's best friend

Yo, I had sex for the second time with a close friend of my ex.

Before I talk about the second time, let's go back and see how it all happened.

A year after my ex and I split up (a couple of months ago), I started thinking that I should make a move on the Friend of the Ex (let's call her FridEx). I felt that she had been attracted to me for a while, even during my relationship, so it was up to me to make things happen.

It's really cool to realise that I have at least assimilated some simple concepts related to relationships with women. In this case, some important points to keep in mind in order to get the lay:

-First and foremost, it is the man that LEADS. I have to make things happen. The way it works, things don't just happen by themselves, the man seizes opportunities and makes it seem like 'it just happened'

-Second important point: Being discreet. In general, women are very fearful for their reputation. Particularly in this case because FridEx, my ex and I are part of the same extended social circle. That means that FridEx is worried about people in general finding out, and the ex in particular because they are really great friends.


Steps to get laid:

First of all, seizing the opportunity. FridEx sent a group email about watching a DVD at her place. I saw that almost no one responded, so I sent an email where I enthusiastically stated how I had always wanted to watch said DVD (no really). A few days later I called her to see what was up with the plan, she said that nobody so far had confirmed. I told her I'd come and will be bringing wine, and that I'll call some people to get them moving.

I brought the wine alright, but conveniently forgot to call anyone of course :-).

At her place, I was totally relaxed and fun, teasing and making jokes, but not flirting. We watched the DVD, and eventually her roommate went to bed. As soon as we were alone, we started talking, and I began the 'accidental' kino (waving my forearm to make a point, and the forearm touching her knees for ex).

I realised we had a seating problem because we were on a big couch and I needed her to get closer. So I proposed that we watch some cool videos online. That's because there was only one chair in front of the desk. I went to sit, she came, I moved and gestured her to sit next to me. I started showing her some of the videos, explaining what they were about. Then I escalated by caressing her hair above her ear. She became quiet, and then said something along the lines of "I can't believe I'm doing this".

For the rest of the night, her ramblings where of three types: "I can't believe I'm doing this" "She's my best friend, I could never forgive myself if she found out." "Promise me you won't tell anyone".

I managed this as best I could, telling her this is our thing (creating a frame where we have our little secret), pretending to back off, and then taking her and kissing her passionately. We ended up in bed, making out like mad (she was horny as hell!) and then she would stop, look at me and tell me "Promise me, promise me, promise me !!", which I obliged, trying hard not to grin or laugh.

So the sex happened. She was so horny she came from penetration soon after.

Afterwards, and the next few days, I kept in touch with her, soothing her, telling her not to worry, that we made a pact never to tell anyone, making her feel special, etc...

All in all, a good experience.

Fast forward to two days ago. I had told her before that I was traveling soon and that it would be good if we could get in touch. She called soon after and mentioned that it 'would be good if we hung out before you travel'. The second degree meanings were loud and clear.

The night of the lay, I called her, asked her what she was up to. She said nothing much, felt like relaxing at home. She "happened" to mention that her roommate was sleeping at her boyfriend's place tonight (the roommate knows the ex, and thus cannot find out about us.).

I saw the opportunity and seized it by asking her if she'd seen a certain movie. She said no. I told her it was a hilarious one, that I had it on cd, and then asked if she had a laptop. She answered yes. (me: "oh that's cool! Hey, I have an idea, let's watch it at your place" lol).

I got to her place, the laptop couldn't play the cd, so we watched tv, then turned it off and started talking about politics, then I touched her hair above her ear...

Then we fucked.

No LMR, no emotional management later on. I got to come on her breasts too. (I came on her hair a bit as well, but don't tell her :-) )

That's it, nice and easy does the trick.

Keys to the lay:

-Seizing opportunities.
-Making things happen, take the lead.
-Deal with logistics.

Cheers,
F.

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.