In quite the funk this weekend, but also had a kind of revelation that I hope I can articulate well enough that I can repeat this later on how exactly to get out of it. I think my funk / down-ness was related to this therapy I've been doing. The shrink even told me that I can expect random emotions and outbursts as we go through and discuss why I am the way I am and how to be more healthy and happy.
What's been depressing / angering / frustrating me for a while now is that I feel like I'm capable of accomplishing great things in life, but I don't have a great outlet for doing so. I deeply want to have and know a real and important purpose in life.. and not having one makes me feel like I'm just wasting time. I look back on my life and have done good things..in order to fill this mold of what I believe would make me perfect.
Pickup hasn't helped that at all btw. There is a lot of "Here is this theory of why other guys have success and why you don't, or why you aren't good enough and you need to be more like blah blah blah (stoic alpha, outgoing party guy, smooth pimp like player, ****y collar popped jock, buff, peackocked aloof magician)". In other words you are not successful with women, people like this are, so be more like them and therefore you should be too. The premise is that you are not good enough like you are, so fit a mold that is. The problem is that if that isn't actually who you are and you are a perfectionist not getting the results you want you will constantly feel like as a person you are not good enough, and I'm just not good at faking it... so it's a constant state of being unfulfilled. Even if you have more success, was it because of who I am or was it because of who I portrayed?
I'm really not any of the above at all, I'm just me. I'm slowly learning more about who that me is. And while I'm being more honest with myself I'm seeing why the previous portrayals didn't work. I wasn't connecting with people with real similar interests, or expressing what I actually thought... I was trying to prove to myself that I was good enough. Not exactly a buyers frame even though it did occasionally work.
I also put way too much value on beauty, I may still do that though I'm noticing that beautiful women are actually attracted to me and the thing keeping me from them is the fact that I'm not comfortable / normal around them. THAT boils down to thinking of myself as having low value. And I believe that I'm thinking that BECAUSE I'm measuring myself against being perfect (or ummm perfect in Pickup Architypes). A big part of that is new, I actually used to have much more success with women. I think it's due to me thinking I have to maintain an image of being successful because some of my friends look to me to be successful. I didn't care before but now trying to help them, and be the guy that's good with women I have built an ego around it and am not just simply having fun and connecting rather I have to uphold my image to them. I'm confused as to what I should do. I shouldn't be, but I do find myself shifting into a roll / becoming like them in a way where it's about the nani when we do something. I don't even want that though I don't like going out alone as much anymore and slip into this mode. I need to find my way back to my happiness where I don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone and I can actually connect with women again.
Wow big side track but important one. Anyway so I was in a major funk, emotions going nuts, negative thoughts, very tired (which I'm learning is VERY bad for my mood...just how I'm wired) abound and I listened to Eckard Tolle cd where he does some practices for getting into "the now" or this moment. Basically what happened was phenomenal, I got a little bit of space between all of these future and past psychological thoughts bombarding my mind and with that space, and letting all the mental noise die down I was able to find some peace with what is and who I am. I'm still in that place now the next day and I feel really good! With women too, I went to this coffee shop and just talked story / had fun talking about estrogen vs. testosterone for building muscle with the coffee shop girls, and there was a cute new one who was really feeling me. I wasn't trying to be cool or act some other way I am not I just talked about what I was doing with weight lifting stuff and a quick little theory and she was really feeling me. I didn't close / make plans (which is fine), but it's been a while since that has happened without effort and I owe it all to just SPACE / being present and being in that moment. THe takeaway for me in all this is that that psychological / mental noise / unfulfillment / perfection seeking is really the problem and not the solution. The lack of the noise is the answer, everything flows naturally from there.
So the short: next time in a funk, listen tolle, let go of trying / seeking and just be cool with what is right now....and sleep well.