I’m working another contract gig for the next few months, and recently I had an interesting encounter with a new girl on my team. She’s 34, Japanese (dual citizenship) maybe an HB 6.5-7 and over the summer she hooked up with a guy here who she had a somewhat monogamous relationship with until he transferred to Australia last August.
This girl is ‘in love’ with this guy who’s not aloof to her, and not fully indifferent, but he sets himself as his first priority and never considered turning down his transfer in order to continue anything with her. The guy is nothing special to look at. No muscle definition, kind of fat-thin if you know what I mean, but pasty white, ginger, not out of shape but not in shape, maybe 5′ 11″.
She cannot shut up about what a ‘real man’ he is. She bought a $2,200 ticket to visit him for a week and a half in January and has made a personalized calendar as a gift for him that has photos all of these events they shared together over the summer, every month with a heartfelt description of some thing she loves about him included.
To her, this guy is Alpha as fuck. On Tinder, this guy would be a left swipe 100% of the time. His attitude is indifferent Alpha, but he’s self-concerned. This girl idolizes him.
Granted there’s a lot more going on here to consider; her being well past the Epiphany Phase, necessitous and urgently wanting to consolidate on a long term monogamy makes this guy into an idealized prospect. Thus he became her Alpha, if not anyone else’s. Granted, it’s mostly situational; she thinks she wants to have kids with him and at 34 that clock is about to expire, but she has to come to him, literally and figuratively.
However, although the guy is definitely a ‘contextual Alpha’, he’s got a genuine Alpha-ish bearing that translates into his being self-aware of his condition and really not giving a damn what anyone else might think. He’s got total Frame control, but it’s not an intentional control, and that natural casualness of indifference only makes her want to please him that much more. There may be a cultural element to this as well, but to hear her talk about other, lesser men, it’s apparent she’s been very much westernized in her sense of entitlement.
Self-Concern Without Self-Awareness
People think I’m crazy to hold up a guy like Corey Worthington as the example of an Alpha Buddah, but this guy has the same unpracticed, self-unaware, mojo as Corey.
Personally, I was at my most Alpha when I didn’t realize I was. That’s not Zen, it’s just doing what came natural for me at a point in my life when I had next to nothing materially, only a marginal amount of social proof, but a strong desire to enjoy women for the sake of just enjoying them in spite of it.
I’ve mentioned before, the most memorable sex I’ve had has been when I was flat broke (mostly). It didn’t matter that I lived in a 2 room studio in North Hollywood or had beer and mac & cheese in the fridge – I got laid and I had women come to me for it.
It didn’t take my doing anything for a woman to get laid or hold her interest. All I did was make myself my mental point of origin. It’s when I started putting women as a goal, making them into more than just a source of enjoyment, that I transferred that mental point of origin to her and I became the necessitous one.
A lot of guys will call that being ‘needy’, and I suppose it is, but it’s a neediness that results from putting a woman (or another person) as your first thought – your mental point of origin.
I’ve used this term in a few posts so I thought it deserved a bit more explanation.
Your mental point of origin is really your own internalized understanding about how you yourself fit into your own understanding of Frame.
If Frame is the dominant narrative of a relationship (not limited to just romantic relations), your mental point of origin is the import and priority to which you give to the people and/or ideas involved in that relationship. It is the first thought you have when considering any particular of a relationship, and it’s often so ingrained in us that it becomes an autonomous mental process.
For most of us our understanding of that point of origin develops when we’re children. Kids are necessarily “selfish”, sometimes cruel and greedy because our first survival instinct is to naturally put ourselves as our mental point of origin. Only later, with parenting and learning social skills do we begin to share, cooperate, empathize and sympathize as our mental point of origin shifts to putting the concerns of others before our own.
Young boys are generally very Alpha because of this unlearned self-importance. This is the source of the almost zen-like, mater-of-fact Alpha bearing of Corey Worthington. As I said, he’s not a ‘man’ anyone ought to aspire to, but he is an Alpha without intent or self-awareness.
There is a ‘first thought’ balance we have to maintain in a pro-social respect in order to develop healthy relationships. The problem we run into today is one in which boys are (largely) raised to be the men who provide more than they need in order to establish a future family. That learned, conditioned, mental point of origin is almost always focused outward and onto the people he hopes will reciprocate by placing him as their own point of origin.
Natural feminine solipsism makes this exchange a losing prospect. Women are both raised and affirmed by a vast social mechanism that not just encourages them to put themselves as their mental point of origin, but it shames and ostracizes them for placing it on someone or something other than themselves.
By now I’m sure that much of this comes off as some encouragement towards a retaliatory selfishness or narcissism, but putting oneself as his own point of origin doesn’t have to mean being anti-social or sociopathic. It requires a conscious decision to override an internalized understanding of oneself, but by placing yourself as your mental point of origin you are better positioned to help others and judge who is worth that effort.
It often requires some emotional trauma for men to realign themselves as their own point of origin, and I feel this is a necessary part of unplugging, but the real challenge is in how you deal with that trauma in a Red Pill aware state. If you are to kill the Beta in you, the first step is placing yourself as your mental point of origin.
So my weekend discussion questions are this: Are you your mental point of origin?
Is your first inclination to consider how something in your relationships will affect you or your girlfriend/wife/family/boss?
When men fall into relationships with authoritarian, feminine-primary women, their first thought about any particulars of their actions is how his woman will respond to it, not his own involvement or his motivations for it. Are you a peacekeeper?
Do you worry that putting yourself as your own first priority will turn a woman off or do you think it will engage her more fully?
Are you concerned that doing so may lead to your own form of solipsism, or do you think ‘enlightened self-interests’ serves your best interests and those with whom you want to help or become intimate with?
November 17th, 2014 at 3:28 pm
@sfcton – I’ve described my current state of mind to several friends as being predatory, that I feel like a predator when I’m out and about in the world now. Some don’t understand, I don’t give a shit, lol…
November 17th, 2014 at 3:45 pm
@Hobbes, have a read of this, something you might want to think about:
http://redditlog.com/snapshots/614541
November 17th, 2014 at 3:46 pm
@redlight – All lower SMV guys need to do is lower their standards and they will eventually find some women who is excited to fuck them. Setting them about the losers game of trying to manipulate uninterested women into bed for half-hearted sex, and failing the vast majority of the time, that’s no way to live life. Either improve yourself or settle for what you can pull naturally. Engaging in long term campaigns and projects – that is the way of the beta.
There is also the outlet of professionals for those who want to “punch above their weight”. This is not effort free either because you are still dealing with women, but if some guy who can’t pull hotties wants to do one of them, why not pay? He’s getting negotiated desire one way or the other – but one is much more straight up and much less filled with rejection and bullshit.
But to tell people that they can learn to be like Hobbes (he’s a natural alpha, he just doesn’t know it) or Xsplat? Fyi, Hobbes probably looks like Harvey Keitel – “ugly but fuckable” or some other version of it. I bet he’s very good at short term connections, as women have very different and more malleable standards for short term mating than they do for long term (older guys can exploit this with young hotties, usually very dependent on circumstances). He’s defacto attractive on a certain level, but is unaware of it. Talk to women about “ugly” guys they would fuck to see what I’m saying. See who they come up with and why, it will be instructive.
November 17th, 2014 at 4:13 pm
as einstein says… it’s all relative… if the best alpha she can find is some simp… she’ll simply be more beta than he is…. just hope that some player doesn’t take a fancy to her…..
November 17th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
Thank you for the replies everyone, that was very helpful. It’s going to take me a while to sift through all of that and absorb it but I appreciate the advice very much and am going to do my best to make the most of it.
@ Glenn
Your post reminded me of a zen koan:
—————————————
A great Japanese warrior named Nobunaga decided to attack the enemy although he had only one-tenth the number of men the opposition commanded. He knew that he would win, but his soldiers were in doubt.
On the way he stopped at a Shinto shrine and told his men: “After I visit the shrine I will toss a coin. If heads comes, we will win; if tails, we will lose. Destiny holds us in her hand.”
Nobunaga entered the shrine and offered a silent prayer. He came forth and tossed a coin. Heads appeared. His soldiers were so eager to fight that they won their battle easily.
“No one can change the hand of destiny,” his attendant told him after the battle.
“Indeed not,” said Nobunaga, showing a coin which had been doubled, with heads facing either way.
—————————————
Now a little aside on physical attractiveness, personality attractiveness, and genetic determinism vs. Lamarckism:
Dr. John Mew and Orthotropics. If you Google orthotropics, it’ll explain everything. Facial attractiveness is largely controllable through proper resting oral posture and proper swallowing. Dr. Brian Palmer also discussed the importance of breastfeeding on cranial development.
A lot of people, men and women alike, have never had the facial attractiveness they would’ve had if they were taught properly from a young age. I had braces and a retainer, and later had all 4 wisdom teeth removed, whereupon I noticed my eyes got closer together, my eyesight got worse, and my facial structure changed for the worse — less masculine, my jawline disappeared and my face got narrower. I kid you not. And I’m not the only one. Wisdom teeth develop for a reason and they absolutely help to support facial structure.
Path of least resistance. Take the wisdom teeth out and the facial structure will collapse to some degree, because there is no need to maintain a wider palate to accommodate wisdom teeth if there are no wisdom teeth there.
I have been using proper oral posture for several years, though, since I learned about it, and it has definitely made improvements in how my face looks. It’s subtle but it’s noticeable. Anyway, if everyone taught this to their kids, the world would be a better place. See also: “Buteyko Meets Dr. Mew.” It explains all that in detail. The teeth will form around the tongue and eliminate crowding if the tongue is in the proper position: the “U” shape. When the tongue hangs down and exerts no pressure on the teeth, the palate develops in an unattractive “V” shape.
I’ve been using Lems shoes and Correct Toes to help with my knee and back pain. Definitely noticing a tremendous improvement. They realign the toes into the proper position, where circulation is maximized and strength and balance are optimal, and the Lems have a wide toe box that allows for toe splay, which is how our feet are designed to function.
Those are just two examples of acquired traits. The unattractive face might always be unattractive, but nowhere near as unattractive as an unattractive, improperly developed face, as a result of poor oral posture. Which is a behavior long after the fact of conception.
And even in the womb, there are massive amounts of variables. I’ve theorized for a long time that in tandem with feminism, the rampant chemical “castration” of men due to pesticides, plastics, and general mineral deficiencies and poor health in pregnant and nursing mothers, is a tremendous issue —
— the extreme amounts of polyunsaturated fats everywhere, that INTENSIFY and EXACERBATE the effects of ESTROGEN; men are being bombarded from birth with toxins that antagonize testosterone…
…it’s known now that index vs. ring finger length can be correlated to how much testosterone a fetus was exposed to while it was developing.
Is it bad genes, or being conceived, developed and born in a sub-optimal environment? The line is too blurred to say for sure about anything. But I definitely lean more to the side of Lamarckism, and have a lot of faith in people’s potential to improve themselves.
“Monsters and Magical Sticks: There’s No Such Thing as Hypnosis?” is an excellent book and opened my mind up quite a bit. Regardless of the role genetics play in our personality, I absolutely believe that beliefs are acquired traits — we learn that this or that way is the “right” way, and just do it on autopilot. Even if it’s killing us.
One of my efforts lately has been to raise my testosterone and lower cortisol naturally. I have been struggling to get off of porn. From everything I’ve read on Your Brain on Porn, I have the feeling that if I can quit for a long enough time, my brain might balance out and let that “mojo” arise naturally.
I believe that there’s a high chance that these ‘mating’ behaviors (trying not to sound autistic here) are directly influenced by hormones. It only makes sense that a man with higher testosterone and lower cortisol will “just get it” easier than a guy with low testosterone and high cortisol.
Hormones are perhaps the most significant influences on our behaviors. Of course our thoughts can influence our hormones and vice versa. So it’s an expansive topic, but that’s why I’ve become so fascinated with studying nutrition and hypnosis as a kind of single unit.
Anyway, I’ve noticed more “just getting it” before to an extent when I’d quit porn for 6 months. I felt more confident around girls and was flirting out of nowhere, without having to think about it.
Was still afraid of escalating. But I knew when girls were eye fucking me. I was just too nervous to do anything about it. I think that’s a barrier as a result of a belief system — AKA where the hypnosis comes in.
I was just so horny and I also wasn’t feeling so strung out all the time — my physiology just changed. From quitting porn. The research Gary’s done on how porn addiction might influence brain chemistry is pretty staggering. I try to be careful about what I believe, but it’s interesting stuff anyway.
But I got rejected by a girl I asked out and then felt like a giant pussy and sunk back into the porn and self-defeating attitude, which I’m only recently starting to come back out of.
I think we CAN and DO self-defeat. Is it genetics that wants us to lose out on life? Or is it internal processes and programs, based on broken and untrue ideas about ourselves and our limitations?
Did our genes screw us over and seal our fate from the start, or is it our belief that we’re screwed that keeps us screwed?
Expecting to be Don Juan is unrealistic. But beyond that, unnecessary. I’m a good looking 25 year old guy. There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to get laid other than my attitude. And I blame myself for that — and I believe that I can change my attitude if I have the right skills to do it.
I’ve been using a method similar to the Sedona Method. I’ve mentioned it before. It’s pretty different but the basic idea is similar. I’ve been diagnosed with simple schizophrenia, bipolar, major depression, etc., but years ago refused to give in to the doom and gloom of the mental health system and became determined to study nutrition in order to heal myself naturally, and get off all the zombifying drugs I was on.
And I’d say I’ve had tremendous success. I am no longer on any medications and refuse to take any, my years-long chronic insomnia has gone away, and the mood swings and panic attacks are also disappearing. My story could be in the NY Times, for real. And maybe one day I will write a book about my transformation and my opinions about necessary reforms in the mental health institution.
But moving on: Have you heard of the studies on monkeys? There was one study where they replaced an Alpha male with a Beta male. The Beta male, who previously had high cortisol and low testosterone, *ADAPTED* to his new role. His physiology literally rose to the occasion — his cortisol dropped drastically and his testosterone shot up to fit his new assumed role of Alpha male.
Testosterone I/O by Christopher Walker is another good book.
I don’t know what I can reasonably expect as far as a sex life goes. All I know is that that doesn’t matter — what matters is doing the best with what I have. All I can do is believe that I can improve myself with every fiber of my being, and act on it.
And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve transformed my health completely and continue to do so as a result of operating on this belief system.
Will I ever have sex? Have a woman want me? I believe I will if I believe that I can and that I will, and take the necessary actions to get to that point.
I’m reading this blog for the same reason I’m training to be certified in a form of hypnosis therapy as well as a branch of nutritional counseling. I believe people can change.
Not everyone is going to get an equal slice of the pie. But it’s like a parable in the Bible: the one about the vineyard workers. The owner paid everyone the same amount, even though some people showed up really late and only worked one hour, while others worked the entire day.
His response to people complaining was that he gave them the money he promised he’d give them, and they agreed to that amount…so basically he told them to shut the fuck up because they got what they agreed to get, and complaining about how unfair it was that other people got more was just making themselves miserable for no reason.
I might never have the N count of some guys here. I have no idea what my maximum potential N count could be. But it doesn’t matter. But as a 25 year old man who hasn’t even started approaching his maximum SMV yet, to shoot myself in the foot and believe that I will NEVER HAVE SEX….
…there are Red Pill guys here in their 60’s who are getting pussy, who only found this blog a year ago or something like that.
If I believe I’m doomed to a life without sex, that’s what I’ll get. The amount of sex I’m capable of getting, or the quality of women I’m capable of getting, is irrelevant in the face of that idea. All that matters is what I believe about myself, what I believe I deserve, and what I’m willing to do to get what I want, what skills I’m willing to learn, what time I’m willing to put in, etc.
So I’m reading over those comments carefully and getting what I can out of them, while changing everything else in my life that I can. I agree with Glenn 100% on self improvement. And I am a living breathing example of the reality of self improvement. I have not exactly gone from zero to hero, but pretty close. 5’11”, 118 lb anorexic having nervous breakdowns/psychotic break, in and out of mental hospitals, self-mutilating, suicidal — to 195 lbs with a decent amount of muscle mass, no longer on any medications, thinking more clearly than I ever did and instead of hating myself and wanting to die, feeling proud of who I am and how far I’ve come in my life.
I actually like myself now, which is probably the greatest accomplishment of my life so far. And I don’t need to be with any women to know that NOBODY can give that to you.
Although I still have work to do, because if I really respected myself to the maximum, I would respect my desire for sex and pursue it and get it. But I’m working on it. The hardest part about self-respect for me is believing that I deserve things from other people. But again….working on it.
I know I’m writing a lot but I hope some of my point could get through. The zen koan really expressed the core of what I wanted to say, but I still think the orthotropics stuff and the rest is important enough to bring into the discussion, especially considering physical attractiveness and all that.
November 17th, 2014 at 4:33 pm
@Richard – Einstein said he hated people saying it’s all relative. He never called it the Theory of Relativity; other people stuck him with that. What he set out to do, and what he did, was discover what was absolute. The reference point that you can say “relative to what?” about.
As it turns out it wasn’t a thing or point, it was a natural law, the speed of light in a vacuum.
That’s what Rollo is trying to do here, nail down the absolute in human sexual dynamics, so we have a reference point for understanding the relative.
November 17th, 2014 at 4:47 pm
@ Glenn
One of the last hurdles I have to get over is the guilt. Hobbes has mentioned that. I could probably have fucked at least a few women by now but I think one of the reasons I didn’t escalate was because I was afraid of hurting them.
Nobody cared about hurting me and yet they did it again and again. When I hooked up with that one girl months ago I was able to escalate because I established that I didn’t want a relationship and asked if she just wanted to hook up.
I might try that with some girls I know that I can tell are attracted to me, but I’m afraid of pursuing because I think they want a relationship with me.
There was one girl I was in an LDR with that was morbidly obese. The desperation thing is definitely there. But I did learn from that what it was like to be wanted by a woman, and wanted desperately. It just got to the point where I had to call it off because she was serious about wanting a committed relationship and I just said what I felt — that I couldn’t offer that to her.
But also not to guilt trip me, because she decided to keep seeing me despite me having told her over and over again that I don’t really want to be in a relationship with any girl — I just want to have sex as a regular part of my life while I do my own thing. So I’m not taking any guilt on. That shit pisses me off. I’ve felt bad enough on my own in my life and if anyone is going to try to pull that on me — fuck you is my attitude.
Even being so huge and me not being that attracted to her — she did have a very pretty face at least — it felt great to know she wanted me so much. She was constantly telling me how much she wanted my dick and how much I turned her on and all that stuff. And she meant it. The few times she did visit I couldn’t have imagined her being more into it.
I wish I fucked her at least. I was just too inexperienced to even try at the time. We fooled around, she blew me and swallowed every single time, a whole bunch of times, and I’d fingerbang her, wouldn’t even consider going down on her because I thought it was gross. And always have. I can’t even watch that stuff in porn, I just don’t like it.
Even if it was just because I’d invested time into her and she had no other real options, not to mention that I’m definitely not ugly, and am actually quite attractive, so from a purely physical standpoint there was a COLOSSAL divide between our respective SMV’s.
Which was enough to forgive any and all beta behaviors I had, as well as her knowing I was trying to hook up with other women basically the whole time I’d known her. She also knew I was failing at it. But I definitely get the idea of “dread” from my experiences with that. It got to the point where she would talk about wanting to do me with another girl because she knew that would get me excited and that’s what I’d really like.
I am on the fence about asking some girls I know point blank if they’d just want to hook up sometime. I’m not sure if I could bring myself to faking that I want to be in a relationship with them and then pumping and dumping them.
That might crucify my odds. We’ll see. But I did have a hookup with that one girl after asking her point blank if she wanted a fuck buddy. If I didn’t get cockblocked I probably would not be a virgin right now and she probably would still be coming over.
I do have to say, being so desperate and optionless, it’s tempting to settle for a girl that I’m not really attracted to, but am attracted to enough to want to fuck. If the difference in SMV is enough for them to treat me like an alpha god, and enough for me to ACT like one around them (because they don’t intimidate me because they’re not hot)….I don’t know.
All things considered, the desperate obsession with me and endless compliments about everything about me and how I looked and everything else….it felt a lot better than sitting here jerking off.
HOWEVER….it was an LDR, and I never got a chance to see how things would go if we REALLY started spending time together. I actually broke it off after reading on RM….I was considering committing to her until I found this blog and then I started changing my perspective, and decided it was best to let her go and try to learn how to play the field as well as I could.
Especially since she’s so much older than me — 8 years older, and wanted kids and everything. That could’ve ended up as a complete trainwreck. Who knows.
But anyway here I am. I do have a little experience by now, and that hookup was thanks to this blog, I never would’ve initiated anything like that before finding this place. So I have grown a bit.
Now it’s a matter of repeating that hookup process with other girls. Might have to use a little more tact than asking them if they want to come over and hook up with me, or if they want to be fuck buddies. But it’s worked one time, and it will definitely work better than sitting here doing absolutely nothing at all.
So I don’t know. But I do have to get over the guilt and the worry. I’m debating about it. How much can I really go “dark” in order to get what I want? What kind of sex life am I willing to settle for, and what kind do I really want?
I’m definitely getting in my own way. Realizing that is the first step to doing something about it. When I initiated that hookup with that girl I just capitalized on what I knew to be her interest in me — I “just got it,” for sure. Subconsciously I did pick up on her sexual interest in me. And I’ve noticed it in other girls, just never did anything about it.
The point blank asking if they want to hook up might not always be the best option, but I’d be interested to hear if any other guys here have had good results with that.
Keeping in mind it wasn’t cold. I knew the girl, wasn’t really friends with her, but we were acquaintences and she would regularly flirt with me. I knew she had interest and that’s what gave me the confidence to just ask her point blank.
November 17th, 2014 at 5:14 pm
@Glenn
Totaly agree. I look at everything as the apex predator. Makes life a lot more fun and simpler. Best reality check for when you are not functioning correctly. If you are not feeling predatory, then something is wrong.
November 17th, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Men are mentally better at getting from their point of origin to somewhere else. In order to score with the chicks.
Layne Vashro, Elizabeth Cashdan. Spatial cognition, mobility, and reproductive success in northwestern Namibia. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.09.009
November 17th, 2014 at 7:46 pm
@Rollo- Oh, thats nothing new to me. I remember a even worse case you wrote about – some married guy found a porno from his wife doing things she would never do with him.
I’m well aware of that dynamic. But to me it’s all about how you, as a man, approach sex. In my experience- even as a beta, I always saw sex as fun and wild. I never judged, so they never felt uncomfortable. Well, its not that I didn’t judge, I just never let on about it.
Oddly I always found the women who were most into me to be the ones most likely to lie. We all kind of do that sometimes- worry about how we’re being perceived. I just always kept sex varied- dirty, soft, crazy etc and they always pick up on it and just let go of it.
I understand that being beta will make men have negotiated sex, And that being beta increases the likelihood of these types of situations.. and I agree,But Tinder Masters contention was that women reserve great hot sex for good looking guys. And that is just false in my experience. Women reserve great sex for men who make them tingle, and part of that is being alpha enough to get them there. Looks is secondary.
For example, look around at all these guys who are actually pretty attractive (more than me for sure) who are so beta they have lame sex- or are denied altogether. Now look around and you’ll see some pretty ugly but alpha-ish dudes getting enthusiastic sex.
So I agree with your assessment that alpha/beta will influence whether a woman gives you her enthusiastic all in bed, I disagree with Tinders assertion that its looks that are the defining factor
November 17th, 2014 at 8:09 pm
@softek – Wow, thanks for being so open. I don’t have any specific advice beyond what I’ve already said. And it seems like you are working on this, so at some point results will come. The bottom line is that you need to get off the schneid – you have to sink your cock into a woman. I think you were on the right track with the one who was flirting with you. As for being cockblocked, if she was actually interested that is only temporary, so I’d consider going back to her. I invest my time in women who show interest.
Whatever the case, given the challenges you started with, I say you should also get that you have come an awfully long way. The thing that does jump out at me from your writing is the anxiety about all this. I wonder, do you have techniques to deal with that? Women respond to calm confidence really well, and many are put off by nervous guys. I have my own issues with anxiety but in fact have learned a lot about how to calm myself, for my own happiness, not to pick up women.
Keep up the good fight, as it’s all we can do anyway. And remember, no man on this earth ever laid on his deathbed and said to himself, “Gosh, I wish I fucked fewer women” lol. I say the kind of sexuality you want is “more”.
November 17th, 2014 at 9:24 pm
@ Glenn
Thank you so much. I’ve been keeping up with your comments and I’ve found them definitely among the most helpful here.
I’ve been using Faster EFT, which is similar to the Sedona Method. I used to have near panic attacks just making appointments, like dermatologist, dentist, etc., and have had tons of anxiety problems about things that have nothing to do with girls, like traveling, public transportation, applying for different jobs, or promoting my own services — when it gets bad I tend to be borderline agoraphobic.
But I’ve been making appointments as needed, had some major dental work done and it ended up being no big deal — I used that technique to work through the anxiety and before I knew it I was making appointments and getting the work done like it was nothing.
I believe that the lack of sex is a symptom as much as it is a cause, if not more a symptom than a cause. Major lack of respecting one’s own needs, fear of asserting oneself, fear of being “selfish,” afraid of what other people think, etc.
http://www.secasa.com.au/sections/for-students/the-child-abuse-accommodation-syndrome/
I found that article the other day and found it very interesting. I was only molested once and it wasn’t by a family member (it was at a physical by a doctor), but even though that article says it’s mainly about sexual abuse I think it applies to abuse/neglect in general.
It reminded me of a lot of things that happened to me and stirred up a lot of feelings, and those feelings are my blueprint for what I have to deal with. I have been using Faster EFT on the intense rage that comes up.
I actually went back to the place I used to hide as a kid. Complete darkness, very cramped. I couldn’t fit in the small space anymore but I went into the area and just sat there. It was like I was being drugged. I literally felt like I was high, like I was in a hypnotic trance — and I believe that’s what it is.
And when anyone says something that reminds me of that stuff, even unconsciously, I go into a trance — whether it’s rage or panic or whatever, and I just lose my shit. Rarely visibly, since I don’t express my emotions in person just about ever, but in my mind it’s just a gigantic horrible mess.
I’ve been using Faster EFT on that progressively. Going back DIRECTLY to the memories, and dealing with the emotions as they come up.
Those emotions have so many ties to my negative self-image, and the more work I do on myself, the better my self-image becomes. The more forgiving I am for my “mistakes,” which are really insignificant whereas before I thought they were horrible and unforgivable. My parents drilled it into me that I was a “demon child” and that I made their life a living hell — they couldn’t deal with their issues and they blamed me as a child for all of them, and I grew up learning how to carry that burden. Basically, they hypnotized me into being like them. They didn’t know that’s what they were doing, but they were trying to make me just like them, to get me to think and see the world just the way they did.
It’s hard work, but it’s worth it. I have to remind myself to push through — that the anxiety and fear are my path to recovery and an improved life, now that I have a skill to deal with them.
Because if I don’t deal with the anxiety and fear….it will always be there inside of me.
I learned a lot getting high just two times. The first time I had a panic attack for 3 and a half hours. Full blown. Horrible. The second time, I started to panic, but I was able to pull myself out of it because I knew what to expect. I knew it was okay to relax, that I was just overreacting to the feeling of being high.
I never did pot outside of that, but I learned a real lot from that experience. I’ve adapted that to how I see anxiety or any other negative emotions that come up: they’re just feelings, and if I calm down, they’ll pass. Faster EFT is a tapping technique and the primary phrases used are:
“It’s okay to let it go
It’s safe to let it go
I’m okay as I let it go
Just let it go”
And grab your wrist, take a deep breath, blow it out, and say “Peace.” The deal is, like the Sedona Method, to interrupt the freakout response, induce a state of peace and calm, then go back to what was causing you to feel so bad, induce a state of calm again, go back and check it again, etc., until you can’t make it bother you anymore.
It’s based on hypnosis, which uses ‘trance breakers’ to do just that. It’s basically Pavlovian conditioning in reverse — desensitizing to a stimulus. The ultimate goal is to change it to a positive, whatever way you can, by re-visualizing or “re-imprinting” a different feeling and image that you’d rather have.
I’ve used it on memories of being molested at a physical by a doctor, my dad abusing me, getting bullied, etc. — I have major work to do with some of that stuff, but I have made progress using this method. It’s hard work going in there because it hurts so much and is so draining from how angry and upset I get, but when I clean something up, I feel better. And it lasts. I still am dealing with things but my overall stress and anxiety levels are much lower than they were 6 months ago, before I started using this technique on a daily basis.
November 17th, 2014 at 9:37 pm
I’ve also found that taking 1-2 grams of potassium citrate per day and taking 1-2 tablets (125-250 mg) of magnesium per day (Jigsaw brand is the best I’ve used) has been helping a lot as far as my mood stability goes.
And especially taking them at night, they’ve been helping my insomnia tremendously, especially as I’ve kept up with them. I know the bulk of testosterone we produce is produced at night, at least if I remember correctly, and making sure I’m giving myself the best chance I have to produce as much testosterone as possible is one of my primary goals right now.
But the recommended amount of potassium for adult males is 4.7 grams a day at least, which is more than 10 cups of orange juice (about 450mg per cup). That’s a lot, and I doubt most people are getting anywhere near that much. Potassium citrate powder is cheap, and I just take it with a “Pinch” teaspoon, which I believe is 1/16th teaspoon, which should come out to about 357 mg.
I usually take a couple of those a few times a day, e.g. breakfast, lunch and dinner. But that’s my new higher dose. Before I was doing about 800mg a day total. But since I’ve upped it, I’ve been sleeping a hell of a lot better.
I’ve been doing a hair mineral analysis program, and I’m taking more minerals than that, but the naturopath I’m working with says he recommends potassium and magnesium to anyone, even without getting tested, because they’re generally deficient in everyone to some extent and they also aren’t that expensive. He doesn’t recommend any particular brands, but I’ve done well with pure potassium citrate powder and that Jigsaw magnesium I mentioned.
Getting more sleep has been helping me A LOT. A real lot. I was averaging 5-6 hours of horrible sleep a night, usually taking at least a couple hours to fall asleep, having nightmares, panic attacks, etc. Now I’m actually feeling sleepy at night and it doesn’t take me long to pass out.
I also have been working out regularly and that also helps a lot with sleep. I recently went from higher reps to lower reps with heavier weights and I’ve been having better results with that.
November 17th, 2014 at 10:11 pm
Congrats Softek
November 17th, 2014 at 10:14 pm
@Softek, I used to suffer from manic depression, OCD, anorexia, and social anxiety. I also learned about hypnosis, starting at about age 12. At age 16 I discovered meditation and noticed some important differences between the two mind training techniques.
While hypnosis is very useful for dealing with beliefs, meditation can deal with mindfully re-training ones direct momentary experience.
It was at 16 that I also discovered body the body centered meditation including hatha yoga. Also some of the self-hypnotic routines I did were body centered meditations; especially feeling love physically in areas of the body.
Later in life I learned chi-kung, which is another body-centered meditation, which I found to be very powerful and important, and practice to this day.
For self improvement and getting over old habits, you may want to look into these other approaches. Beliefs are important, but there are other approaches that will help a great deal in other ways.
November 17th, 2014 at 10:34 pm
Oh, I also used to have runaway thoughts, and would sometimes crave peace from them. At times they even were close to voices in my head. The neurosis was so painful as to be a living hell and I’d think of suicide occasionally. And I had another condition, and I forget the name, where the russling of paper would give me the chills.
It was the meditation that had the strongest effect on all of that, and all of that, including the worst of the social anxiety, went away by about the age of 21, after many long meditation retreats.
November 17th, 2014 at 10:39 pm
While other people were out at college getting their career in order, I was out in a Buddhist monastery and in distant isolated forest hunters shacks or in a tent in an isolated sea-shore field or in big meditation centers, working to get my head in order.
As an investment in my future, the meditation was far superior to working on a career.
Later I worked on building up my own businesses, and that took decades to get off the ground. But the foundations for me were really worth the investment – taking the time out to just focus on meditation. I did that for several years.
November 18th, 2014 at 12:31 pm
@ xsplat
We seem to be cut from a similar cloth. I dropped out of college after having a nervous breakdown and spent the next few years reading Buddhist texts, meditating on Zen koans, reading the Bible (I’d forgotten all the doctrine I’d learned growing up and wanted to read it as a spiritual text from my own perspective), and just reading everything I could about spirituality and psychology to get my head in order. Also intensively independently researching nutrition — that was a key player too, if not first and foremost.
I’ve pretty much struggled with suicidal thoughts almost daily since I was 12 or 13, major mood swings, OCD as well, intrusive, incessant thoughts about horrible and mean things that I didn’t want to be thinking about.
Anyway, especially over the past couple years I developed some skills with instrument building and repair. I have a lot to learn but even though I don’t have a regular client base yet, I’m definitely light years ahead of the routine guys working at music shops, in terms of what I’m capable of doing and the quality of my work. The only thing that’s lacking to get me off the ground is my confidence in myself. I would work with my friend once in a while, who’s renowned in the area, but he likes working alone and more or less left me to my own devices after showing me the basics, and I have yet to make my own way in the world with that.
Though like it said in that ‘confessions of an incel’ article, confidence comes from experience. Just like I need to start getting with girls, I need to get more work in and get paid and praised for it regularly — and that will build the confidence. I’m extremely proud of the instrument I built myself, it’s excellent, looks very unique, and everyone who’s played it loved it — but the confidence isn’t there because it’s not consistent. I look at it and pick it up and feel proud but I built it over a year ago. The feelings fade with time — atrophies like muscles you don’t use.
The hardest part is that with no sex life and no immediate prospect of having one, and having gone so many years in isolation like this, my motivation is wearing thin. The lack of human companionship and a feeling of any real, genuine bond has taken a very heavy toll on me.
I’ve only learned a little bit of qi-gong and might get back into that. Although it was just watching videos online about how to do it. There might be actual classes around where I live. I’d have to push myself but there could also be the benefit of meeting like-minded people there.
Mantak Chia had a lot of cool stuff and I used to read some of his work, but it’s been a long time. On the physical side at least, I’ve been doing gymnastics as well as weightlifting and that definitely helps to keep me centered. The gymnastics especially. There’s a site, Gymnastic Bodies dot com, that has the best bodyweight training program I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve been doing it for 6 months, have made a lot of progress and my overall feeling of strength and well-being have magnified exponentially. And I’m not even 1/4 of the way through Foundation One yet.
It’s reassuring to me that you feel the meditation was more beneficial to you than working on a career. I feel the same way when I stop and think about my own experiences. What I’ve learned about managing my emotions and being able to find at least some peace within myself despite the massive storm of memories and emotions inside my mind — and so much more that I can’t put into words. You know what I mean. I think about dying a lot and it feels good to feel conscious and like I can be at peace with how my life has played out so far — that is to say, that I can choose to be at peace with it.
Of course I still want to move forward and have a better life, but I think it’s important to accept ourselves for where we are right now, including where we came from.
November 18th, 2014 at 1:38 pm
“I’ve pretty much struggled with suicidal thoughts almost daily since I was 12 or 13,”
Ya, I was mostly normal, except for very minor OCD, up until puberty as well.
You mentioned studying Buddhist material. Did you also regularly practice a meditation, such as sitting still and following the breath, or mantra, or similar? My gains in wellbeing took an extra-ordinary and long term effort. I’ve met very few people who have put in similar hours. Doing that was also of course not without risks and side effects. At one point I was seeing the guru pictures in 3-d and thought they were embodied by the presence of real gurus. He he. And I was very hard core about not caring about worldly things. I took it all quite seriously, and really did my very best.
And some of the most extra-ordinary gains were temporary or came back in fits and spurts.
And it took years just to even begin to get a real vipassana style formless meditation of just resting the mind.
And much of the meditation was truly arduous.
But none-the-less, some dramatic personality and wellbeing changes did happen. I am nothing today like the troubled teen I was. Nowadays my inner voice spontaneously proclaims “I’m so happy”. That’s what I just said to myself not 5 minutes ago. And I wasn’t trying to tell myself some self improvement story. I really am so happy that those words just naturally burst out of my mind.
So ya, neuroplasticity is real, and great and lasting long term changes are possible. It can be a long grueling process that requires intense willpower though.
November 18th, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Oh, and I had a nervous breakdown too – even after most of my heavier meditation. That was due to the stresses of living with a BPD wife. The nervous breakdown is what got me out of there; I realized I had the option of staying with her and go crazy, or leave.
It took about a year for my nervous system to recover.
And I’ve had periods of needing anti-anxiety medicine. Moving to SEA fixed that – the pace here is easier, and you can get by on less, so there is less stress of what happens if things fall apart financially. Oh, and the regular sex with young women helps more than I can explain. For everything. That’s huge.
November 18th, 2014 at 5:04 pm
@ Softek – I concur with Xsplat that experiential approaches to developing a peaceful, positive outlook on life are great in the sense that they don’t get you caught up in your head. Example: Meditation is really about letting go of your attachment to your thoughts as who you “are” – you are having thoughts, you are not your thoughts. When you start to get that much of your “thinking” is really the squabbling babble of the “monkey mind”, well then you get to laugh really hard at how silly humans are in taking our much lauded consciousness so seriously.
I’ve done many other self-help routines. I meditated regularly for over years and actually “disappeared” myself and also grew to understand that the only point of meditation is to develop mindfulness in the current moment. Many people get hung up on self-medicating with meditation and while it does have some good effects, that approach is merely more escapism.
Ultimately, what all that work missed was the set of lies that are sold to men to make us work for the good of humanity instead of ourselves. Until I realized that my entire sense of worth was being given by how successful I saw myself as a provider and protector and worker and father and husband and lover etc – my point of mental origin was all wrong. In this way, the Red Pill was like the final puzzle piece on my journey of developing an authentic, self-loving self.
It also helps that I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in magic, I don’t think I’m going to be saved, I don’t think anything better is coming than this life, so for me, I’m out to be as grounded in reality as one can be. I have often described Buddhism as developing a profound relationship with reality – and then laughing at it. Humans are quite silly when you take a good look at us from a distance. We are just another animal, running around on the planet looking to dominate it, eat and fuck. We are the most successful by far and also have developed social structures and language in ways that no animal ever has – but we are just animals nonetheless. And this animal likes to fuck hotties – which is finally a-okay with me.
March 20th, 2015 at 5:29 pm
[…] of necessity and ideally cast off if he could change the game. To the Alpha who makes himself his mental point of origin, that burden is a challenge to be overcome and to strengthen oneself by. In either respect, both […]