It's day 7 here in sunny small-town Thailand and the lessons are coming thick and fast. I never new that logging and writing about my progress in this no pRon journey could have such an affect. I guess public accountability before the tribe has a way of doing that.
So hopefully these life lessons will come to me in even greater measure in the near future so that I can share them with you...
Talk to people anyway
Yes, we advertise low value when we're needy but we still have to put ourselves out there, so we don't grow old and moldy around our soul-edges.
Last night I went on an absolute downer with my friend. We had this low-key barbeque which us South Africans call a braai, and (Sounds like Brine without the "n") and I started spouting off about how I felt my time was over and this and that. This morning, yesterday's timewasting while getting up told my body "This time you damn-well get up sire." Which is what I did, at 4:40 am and and promptly went for a 45 minute walk around the park. On the way back from the park I picked up some ice and some mushroom juice which is something they sell at the 7-11's here.
Well something happened on the way back. It went like this. A cute, well-dressed Asian girl was walking with a bunch of men from their hotel room, and I swung my head round to stare at her. Her and her friends all saw, but I don't care, because for one thing, they're tourists and will never see things again, and secondly I have to acclimate my body to the fact that women like me. They actually do. Especially when I'm in a good mood.
I know this for a fact, and the no-pRon has made a huge difference in that.
Remember. There are no losers here
" There are no losers here."
That should be your mentality going forward if you're serious about change. You can go out of your way to talk to strangers, whatever you're wearing, whatever you're doing; there is nothing to lose.
I forgot that for a while because a certain woman on Tinder who I fell for flatly ignored me. This led to certain neurological changes that caused me to look needy or something else, and it made other women reject me.
This girl from Samui really trod on my feelings. It was sickening to think that she'd drop me just because I was in a bad place in my life. She only wanted me while I was useful. I was teaching her English and she was in a cutthroat mode of operation where she'd do anything for money. And this wasn't good for me. Bad person. Bad situation.
Well anyway, that got me stuck in a mental rut for longer than I should have been. I wanted to be on her level again. I was consciously and subconsciously fighting to be good enough for her. THIS POISONED MY OTHER RELATIONSHIPS.
THERE IS NO CURE FOR HAVING BAD PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE IF YOU CAN HELP IT.
You can't fake it
Sense of self is important. A sense of who you are is sexy. Think about the moments in your life where this happens. For me, dopamine and other endorphine-related highs are at the core of my success. When I feel good, those around me naturally feel good too.
Another area where I can make things better, and I just mean that 1 percent better, which is all you need for stratospheric gains, is becoming more organized and planning beyond the moment. This means that when really important moments arrive, you aren't caught off-guard.
A woman I've recently worked with who has a husband got so upset with me occasionally because I was probably leaking such a toxic cocktail of noradrenaline and cortisol that she stormed out of the classroom. To onlookers it would make no sense but women are Geiger counters for stress and things in the unseen realm. Totally my fault for not preparing for that lesson adequately.
This made me feel bad in a way but I dealt with it by saying, well since women are overly dramatic I just have to hold the frame and let her little tempest in a teacup carry on. That is not the best outcome. I should have prepared more. But when the time comes and you're not prepared that's all you have. You have to pretend like nothing just happened almost. Men have issues too relating to lack of empathy which, and neither the damaged condition of men or women since the fall is better or worse. But what I will say is this: You cannot be unprepared.
Reading the self-help books is not enough
The hollow feeling you get after reading self-help and other books related to neurology is not because they aren't good in some way, but they are more like the cherry on the top or some kind of frosting holding the cake of ideas together. They are not however, the cake. The cake is you doing what needs doing. If you want to be a writer, do what needs to be done in order to write. For me it's exercising a hell of a lot and adventuring and taking risks. For you it might be different. Taking action is the whole 95 percent of the cake, which is why you might find years of reading like in my case, just haven't paid off.
Fantasy matters
"I'm choosing to say no and I'm choosing to love it" is a good way to reframe a situation like pRon that you can't get over. The way you can say it if you feel trapped is: I have millions of pRons at my disposal but I refuse to watch them because I love it that way.
That's different to saying: "I can't ever do it again." That's because like any forbidden fruit, we want it and we want it now. We have to use fantasy to reframe things. Be it books, or be it jokes or something otherworldly. Otherwise we eat the forbidden fruit, and the forbidden fruit's hold over us increases: Desire increases until predictably, we just end up exhausted, dissatisfied and depressed.
Russel Brand puts it thusly: "We tend to collapse all of life's striving into a single high."
In other words, the whole nature of addiction is to make us find something that looks like the real thing. But the real thing requires a process. That's how we're hardwired.
The tough part is that the process sounds so mundane that we can't face it. The addiction on the other hand is majorly exciting. It holds within it the smell and taste of life. What's useful is some form of fantasy outside of the addiction. This might take the form of movies or books that are wholesome. If you're a Clive Barker fan like me, maybe they're not so wholesome but they're still more wholesome than the pRon or the thing you're addicted to.
Building fantasy into your life and character can be an amazing salve and can actually replace the excitement of which you feel so deprived. Your feelings are the most real things you have. As John Lennon put it: "The thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside.
One thing I like to do is walk around my apartment block with the air that I own the whole place. This is also how we can check those hollow feelings we have on occasion. The feeling that everything's collapsed or is collapsing all around us. Each split second counts. If you encounter such feelings, counter it or reframe it with a positive fantasy.
Better than this though, is to counter the feelings of rejection and shame with something that can move you toward being better in that area. If you're constantly getting rejected, use that rejection to drive you to go out and become a better person. Go to gym, go running. Eat proper nutrition. Cut out beer and pharmaceuticals. Become more organized. Do something that builds your career. Use all the resources you have, of which time is the most important, to drive your decision-making.
The origins of shame
The odd thing about shame is that it's often not really our fault. I for one, never had a father. So one day I crept onto the top of a cupboard in my room and started playing with my person. That was the day I first trembled and felt a mixture of pain and fear and also joy. A tiny blob of mucosal "stuff" got pushed out from my intimacy and I thought I must be either very diseased or very lucky.
That secret has remained with me ever since. Along with the fact that after that, I used to look at the back section of my mother's tabloids for the saucy stuff and play some more with my person. It became a thing I'd do any time I wanted to get rid of stress. It became a total crutch. It also became a means of searching for adventure.
Amazingly, the first time I scaled that cupboard and did what I did was an adventure, and there was something waiting for me on the top. All of this mirrors the natural life process of climbing a career ladder and finding one's dream on the top. All of this is a faulty or perverse representation of the real thing.
More than that, it shows that shame is often attached to the thing we really love. If you can get someone to love something shameful, the shame will keep them in that space, and the sense of pleasure will keep them going back. But it's the shame we have to deal with first. So a very good tip I have for anyone reading is to go back to that first occasion that you did whatever you did, or were exposed to whatever it was, and uproot the shame, and see why it's so appealing to you and why it's reformed your whole life in a bad way.
I also did a little exercise where I as my older self went up to that little boy on the cupboard and said "Hey buddy, I've got a better idea. Let's go play some cricket in the park."
I loved sport at the time. I loved the fresh smell of a new cricket ball and a freshly linseeded bat. I loved it when older kids or friends' dads would play cricket with us and coach us on how to play properly. So there was always a possible and plausible replacement for addiction even back then, the first time it happened. That' the thing about addiction. It usually begins with two alternatives. A healthy, and a not so healthy one.
Check your self-limiting beliefs every split second
Right now if you're feeling tired or angry or any kind of negative emotion after reading this, this is just a reminder to check in with your feelings and what's happening to your body. Do you feel a great inconsolable sigh taking over? Do you feel as if you're not going to make this mission possible?
If so, I really want you to shout something in victory. I want you to say! "Yeah I'm the king/queen of the world baby!!!"
I think that our traumas, our shames, our addictions, by nature do not want to be dealt with. Who wants to kill a part of themselves; right?
But remember, this isn't just about killing off the negative parts. It's hopefully more about rerouting our fantasies in a rightful and positive and empowering direction.
We are in a better place for self-improvement than ever
I was talking to an older church friend the other day and mentioned to him that we're in a more empowering position than ever regarding courses we can take and things we can do to further our education.
What we want in the opposite sex is really someone who knows their own value. If you can work toward a goal that you really care about, then that's a great start. Tyrannizing yourself is not the point here. If you love it, your love will show. Quite frankly I'm just teaching right now to get to the next phase of my life. I'm not teaching as an end goal. But what's important is that by the end of this whole process, I'll be doing something I love.
Once you're strong enough, move on.
I don't intend on staying in this shoddy old town in Thailand forever. Quite honestly, the people here are mostly small-minded, drink too much and don't think clearly or philosophically. They just drive in their cars for the sake of driving a car, and go to work for the sake of it.
I realize this now that I'm fitter and healthier, and in the coming days I hope the next levels to this whole no pRon thing will become clearer. But all of this is merely to say: Once you're strong, move on. Don't suffer fools. Don't stay in any environment that's not suited to you. The key word here is "Once you're stronger." If you don't follow the process, you might find that you've brought your old self with you. And we're better than that. We're as good as our aspirations.
The "Inside Joke"
And when they all laugh at you or reject you, or don't DM you, a good way to frame it is: "These people have no idea who they're dealing with," Throw your wolf-head up and laugh, laugh, laugh like the illustrious madman genius you are.
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