drpaul wrote:"To get your mojo back in this kind of instance, stand in the middle of a crowd, shouting to yourself ON THE INSIDE, and laughing ON THE INSIDE, saying "this is ME, I EXIST, I am HERE, ON THE SCENE, these are my hands, these are my legs, and I have a VOICE." All done in outward SILENCE.

When someone senses your state of being, and starts a convo, you will be ready, and indeed will have a voice."

Thanks a lot, dr Paul! This advice is helping me tremendously. I feel more ease now NOT TRYING TO BE PERFECT and just enjoying "the ride".

I went out with my friend yesterday (first time in 2 years), at first I was my old self being in my head, but then I remembered these awesome advices that you guys gave me and felt so much at ease! I had my OE turned on most of the time and my friend told me that I am way cooler than I was before (I have seen him first time after few years). I still had been anxious about approaching women, but I will get there...at least I made a decision to go out and not stay in my comfort zone.

This is advice that has worked for me, so I am sharing this to give you some ideas to explore in your life.

I have found that when I meditate every day with the intention to not think (ie. to count each breath and start over if begin to think, which includes thinking about the question of if it is a thought or not) disciplines the mind so you gain self-control over it. This is essentially what Dr. Paul would consider growing observing ego ability (a learned skill). In a mystical woo woo sense, it is what spiritual "gurus" say when they claim you are not your mind. I have come to see this as the realization that you have power and control over the mind.

I realized that I would be in a situation, socially, and my emotions would become rampant and think with certainty that "others are thinking this about me" and "I am hopeless". During this time, the thing I most wanted to do was to analyze and to solve the problem. However, for me, the problem was the thought itself. If I did not think then it was solved. I would think okay time to not think, but then the thought would come up and say "how do you know this will work?" I think the key is just faith. You can start to see that all your world is just in your mind, which is subjective.

In my case, my thoughts lead me to social anxiety. For others I believe it can be the same thing leading to depression and a host of other things. When I distracted myself like by listing all 50 states, it took my entire focus onto that challenging task thus letting go of the old thing. Letting go doesn't mean to never have it again, but rather seeing you never did. You can let go of a friend, yet they can decide themselves to still want to be around you. Once let go, you have in effect said 'No" to sure up the boundary, thus you can now have power over it to see if good for you or not.

The problem are the thoughts. I don't want it to sound spiritual nonsense. We of course have to think as humans, I see it more as a kind of boundary. Inside our boundary is our thoughts. Nobody makes us think anything. We think to cause an action and think about the result, all this affecting our emotions and more. So start to gain oe to make the thoughts work for you. I realized my beating myself up was just self-defeating. I looked for all the causes of it. My cause could be the other is cooler or have to look good or will be made fun of. You choose this, with a good boundary you must prioritize goals. To me, the goal of growing and becoming happier is more important than being liked. That is just like a maxim I use to tell myself that I think puts me on the right course.

I was hesitant about writing this because I am so unsure myself about things most of the time and I really don't know anything. However, with that said, the things I have said seem to have had a positive effect on my life recently.

Any comments or criticisms?

matty,
I sincerely thank you for sharing your thoughts, man.

Social inexperience was always a major roadblock on my path to maturity, growth, and development. Before getting into dr.Paul's materials which have done a brilliant job in explaining human psychology from the scientific point of view, I kept thinking it's just the mother nature that made me socially inadequate and I don't have any control over it. I was passive like a rat from MindOS. Now, I can clearly see that my lack of social skills is caused by being perfectionistic "all or nothing" attitude. Big boundary hole here that leaks my self-esteem. I couldn't even fill it up to the full because it keeps leaking so fast, metaphorically speaking. That explains me being comfortable with friends and family (being filled with positive emotional energy) and uncomfortable around strangers (draining positive emotional energy).

So, now since I can see what was the root cause of my problem and know how to fix it, I made a decision to go out without thinking that if I don't get it right the first time I never will. Patching big boundary hole takes time, but I am willing to do so a little by little until I patch it completely. I will keep working on my boundary but enjoying "the ride" at the same time.

Yup that seems to be the best attitude.

Sounds like you're making progress.

Congrats and good luck.

d3cryptor, you are being too hard on yourself. I think you are doing pretty good right now expressing yourself.

Perhaps we could all relax about what people think of us when we realize how little they really do. People's bodies might be in a room together, but their heads could be somewhere else concerned over some aspect of their own lives.

Otherwise, I really like Case's answer regarding focusing on the other person

For some specific techniques and insight on overcoming your discomfort and learning to focus on the other person, developing your own confidence and social skills, I recommend checking out this really great book called, How to Work a Room, The Ultimate Guide to Savvy Socializing in Person and Online.

This book is written by communications coach, Susan RoAne.

She has a website with more information as well as a resource for the book at her site. It's not expensive and is really excellent--I also own this book and can testify to its merit. Something you will want to keep in your library for a long time and refer to often.

http://www.susanroane.com/books_work.html

or just

http://www.susanroane.com

Also, do you have Dr. Paul's, The Gentleman's Toolbox? I think you would like this. Check out the products page, or ask the master himself.

flyer wrote:d3cryptor, you are being too hard on yourself. I think you are doing pretty good right now expressing yourself.

Perhaps we could all relax about what people think of us when we realize how little they really do. People's bodies might be in a room together, but their heads could be somewhere else concerned over some aspect of their own lives.

Otherwise, I really like Case's answer regarding focusing on the other person

For some specific techniques and insight on overcoming your discomfort and learning to focus on the other person, developing your own confidence and social skills, I recommend checking out this really great book called, How to Work a Room, The Ultimate Guide to Savvy Socializing in Person and Online.

This book is written by communications coach, Susan RoAne.

She has a website with more information as well as a resource for the book at her site. It's not expensive and is really excellent--I also own this book and can testify to its merit. Something you will want to keep in your library for a long time and refer to often.

http://www.susanroane.com/books_work.html

or just

http://www.susanroane.com

Also, do you have Dr. Paul's, The Gentleman's Toolbox? I think you would like this. Check out the products page, or ask the master himself.

Hey flyer, thanks for the insight. Much appreciated.

Yes, I own GenToolbox. Lots of useful stuff, I agree. However, my inner game needs to be fixed big time, first.

I will check out the book. THanks.

I think you are doing great d3cryptor from Alaska! Always loves hearing from you man.

One thing. I´ve noticed for myself, being INthe comfortzone is in fact nessacary. Only you have to step out of it once and then. If you ONLY stays outside you would drain yourself. See what Im cooking here? And what fun would it be if we were perfect? Think about this. You have reached your learning curve when you are 72 (around 70 anyways) you are 23 right? wow. how many years of fun do you have to reach your curve man! This means that even DP that seems to have all the answers is learning. Every single day.

Want to share a quick story.

Today I had a meeting with medusa. This four REALLY hot girls in my chemestry class sat around a table and talked about how sweet out teacher is. Expecially one of them, if 10 is perfect she is pretty damn close to 10. I have had some eyecontact with her so it kind of got to me.. Medusa had me turned. For a while I sat there like my old drippeling retarded self..
So I said to myself. Hey f**k medusa I have a cool shield, here have a look. And what if there is no tomorrow, my wings are out right now. I looked her in her eyes and smiled. Not to go anywhere with her, but to prove to myself that I´m my man. BAM.
Well, hope you get the point in my story.

I am glad to hear from you too, thrivinglonewolf.

Now I see how hard I was on myself. Not so long ago, I had lots of negative thoughts that "I am not enough. I am 22, and my dating life and social life haven't changed a bit". Yes, I have became more mature than I was several years ago. My career is going well...Just received my diploma yesterday ...One more year -- and I'll get another one. Still, I feel like my masculinity is still down because I don't have anything fun happening in my life. Like you could tell that my life is very ordinary by what I do...work and study...work and study...I feel angry and I know what I need to do...but can't really start doing that.

For instance, I tell myself to be friendly to everyone and simply say "Hi" to girls, but don't because I have been my old self all my life, and it's hard to break patterns. I am going to work on it though.

thrivinglonewolf wrote:Want to share a quick story.

Today I had a meeting with medusa. This four REALLY hot girls in my chemestry class sat around a table and talked about how sweet out teacher is. Expecially one of them, if 10 is perfect she is pretty damn close to 10. I have had some eyecontact with her so it kind of got to me.. Medusa had me turned. For a while I sat there like my old drippeling retarded self..
So I said to myself. Hey f**k medusa I have a cool shield, here have a look. And what if there is no tomorrow, my wings are out right now. I looked her in her eyes and smiled. Not to go anywhere with her, but to prove to myself that I´m my man. BAM.
Well, hope you get the point in my story.

Haha, man that's awesome! Thanks for sharing your story. No to shame!
Are you Warrior by any chance?

YES, congratz!
No I´m a Lover/king.

In the way you write I sense that you feel like you have your struggles aka. what Dr. Paul speaks about and everyday life, BUT there is some more vague, you do not know what is? Am I right? I had it this way. Didn´t know what it was, (perhaps ask someone else). "when going gets tough the tough gets going" I bit harder and flexed more muscles, poof I got to where I wanted..

See when things seems hopeless and you try to learn everything all at once, but you do not get anything like you can nail it, you are already half way there! If you know where you want and who you want to be you will get there. What it costs, is TIME --> patience.

My secret to healing is - I found good people to hang around.

Learn to chillax man. Just chill. Find your way. It does not help to fight blindfolded

If you can´t pull something out of that. well, I tried.