Saw another lad tonight that I used to go to school with. We were really good friends but that friendship hasn't really carried on past secondary school since he went to another college, etc..


He saw me from over the road and came jogging over to chat. At this point I had no time to think, therefore my thoughts of the past didn't materialize. However, I could tell I was still in an almost auto-pilot state, I wasn't following up on his many questions with questions of my own. Compared to what I can be, I was been a bit of a cunt. But I do not know why.


I felt awkward whilst talking to him, like I was waiting in anticipation for him to trigger some stuff from the past but at the same time, I was making the conversation quite abrupt to help prevent such topics from arising.


I was kinda tense through out the conversation and bearing in mind he is possibly the first person I've talked to from my past that isn't in my social circle now, I think it went well and I definitely took major learning points from it. Mainly, the fact that to him my past didn't matter, he probably remembers it totally differently to me.


So the big point here is: don't dwell on the past, it's not all as it seems.


I feel like arranging a pub meet with him and some of my social circle, maybe also 1 or 2 other lads that I'd find it a personal challenge to talk to. I'd be very interested to find out if most of what I've been holding as pain is actually bollocks.

I've been feeling pritty fucking awesome the last 2-3 days.



The chat with a friend from the past really made me accept that things aren't as they seem. I believe that I already questioned my beliefs on the past to the point where I was close to accepting that I was wrong as truth; but after I'd finished talking to him and all of what had just happened sunk in I realized that in them brief 4-5 minutes I'd fully accepted that my past is nothing to dwell on and that I should focus on the present. It was like flicking on a light switch.



For the first 2 days after this (Friday & Saturday) I was so happy that nobody could knock me down. I wasn't thinking as much and when I did start to think I stopped it fast; ant under the boot style. I approached loads of people, though I didn't class it as 'approaching'. Instead I classed it simply as 'me being myself'. I wouldn't say I was in a fully present state but I was certainly feeling more present; present and optimistic. I was more focused, more aware of my surroundings, my goals became clearer and seemed realistic. My whole attitude started to change.



Today I woke up and picked up my ipod, folder 'RSD - blueprint' - play. It's my 2nd time listening to the Blueprint. I'm only 3 hours into it and a lot of it is hitting me on a totally different level than last time.

"Most people in the world walk through life in a walking daze"

I didn't really understand this the first time. I remember thinking 'well whatever it is I certainly do not do that'. Now I totally understand what he means. The rest of the Blueprint (so far) is making a lot more sense to me.



***A SIDE NOTE***
After all of this happened I've been able to get to sleep so much easier. I use to have to wait for sometimes hours before I'd fall asleep, other times I'd have this really high pitched almost static sound in my head. I believe this was basically me thinking about stuff and that stuff's stuff and that stuff's stuff. This has disappeared and now I'm sleeping life a fucking baby.

I met a Liverpudlian girl at the bus station whilst I was out a few days ago. I approached her, had a great conversation, found out she's 6 years older (who cares) and got her phone number and email (for when she runs out of credit). All fine. Turned the conversation sexual, asking how creative I am etc.. she's wanting an adventure. Apart from the fact that she lives in Liverpool, this is all good stuff.


Today she asked me about my sexual limits. Honestly I've never thought about this before. What are my limits? In terms of what I've already done, what are sexual limits? I don't know, I haven't really pushed at the boundaries. I mean I've had sex in pritty creative places but just sex, nothing that tested any boundaries or at least nothing that tested my boundaries that I'm aware of.


I'm not sure how I feel about limits. This change I'm going through, my life changes, my progression and successes all make me feel that the world is starting to become limitless. I'm doing approaches that even 1 month ago I'd never even contemplate doing.

I feel like I was a grain of sand trapped in a time glass but the glass fell and smashed and the sand was then free to go anywhere and everywhere because it's so small compared to the world it lives in; it's options are limitless.


Just her bringing up sexual limits really made me stop and assess different parts of my life. It was an eye opener. I thought that I was crushing through my limits and boundaries both sexual and in life in general but in reality, I haven't even found them yet.

I didn't really put much thought into sexual limits either, but having sex with a top class hooker last night is definitely a level I'd never played before.

Haha Dan you'll probably venture down that path again sometime, it's an awesome experience.



I think by sexual limits she means threesomes, anal, role playing and all that jazz. I never really classed them things, nor anything I've done, been of sexual limits for other people. I simply thought it was creative sex.

Pritty stupid how a girl asking me something like this could render me speechless; maybe not if I was talking to her face-to-face.


I am happy that I'm not thinking "I don't want to lose her", sex mad and reacting stupidly by saying some chode shit. Instead, I am on a path of progression and improvement, the potential loss of a girl doesn't bother me at all.

Had a date late afternoon with a nice girl, blonde hair and hazel eyes and does the cute little nose twitch.


Starts off well, seems like we both have a big interest in self improvement and she's finding Zumba to be excellent for gaining confidence. - there you go lads, bust some moves.


All's going well. Then she says "I love going out with my girlfriends picking up guys. That's how I met my boyfriend". I just laughed lightly, smiled and said "that's good cos now I can let you down .. Next time we meet let's do a double date." She was taken back by that, shocked. I was too really because before all of my self improvement I'd have crumbled at what she said but now I fucking laughed at it. Looking back at the interaction, this part makes me laugh even now.


A little later we go from the cafe at around closing time and start walking around the town. She then tries another stab. "I have something to confess; when I go out on nights out I find it extremely hard not to bring a guy back to my house". I read both levels of that comment instantly:

• If I go to her house I'm going to be there a while
  
• Congruence test

I bring her in really close, her breasts make me feel like I have man boobs, eyes locked, she's deep breathing and I say "remember I'm taken" and smile with a light laugh. I think at that point I could have probably said anything.



She asks me 3 times to come clubbing with her, the third time she asked we were in the park and I just stopped dead still, looked up at the sky and saw that it was a clear sky tonight with lots of stars. I love this. I lie down on a near park bench whilst she's talking some jibber jabber. I out stretch my arm and take her hand and tell her to lie down on top of me looking up. Looking back at this it was a ballsy move but it didn't register as that at the time. She agrees and we are there for maybe 20 minutes looking at the stars, she quite awkwardly pointed out that a star was turning red, I set her straight by saying it was a plane.


I walked with her back to her house, in the same direction to where I live. At the end of her street she says "come back to my house with me". I tell her that I can't because I'm off to see my girlfriend. She says smiling "ohhh so were still playing those games are we?". I turn my heard close to her's with probably a big grin on my face "I like games, there fun". I give her a kiss in the middle of her laughing and I start walking off. I shout back to her "we'll have to meet up again sometime" she shouts back "this Wednesday. I'll phone you".





This is probably the best way I've handled everything, ever. I left her at just past 12 so it was a good 4 hours we were out together. I decided not to go back to her house right from when she said she takes guys back all the time. This then made me act a bit more ballsy i.e making her lay down on top of me on the park bench. I wanted to leave her without sex, yet but also thinking about me, wanting to meet again, which is why I shouted back to her whilst walking away.


Not perfect by far but definitely fun!

SAY WHAT!

yeah that's quite a biggie.

Kudos to you in handling that.

Well on the road to mastery bro.

I just saw this. Your first sentence sounds about right. The past is the past, learn from it and think about the future. Don't think you need to look further into whether the stuff you've been holding onto is bollocks - deep down you know it is or you wouldn't be talking about it.

As I put in my field report - that girl that used to bully me at School, maybe partially related to my difficulties with women, I bumped into her a few weeks ago. She couldn't have been nicer to me and was genuinely interested in talking to me. That helped a lot.

According to psychologists we don't experience reality directly. Instead we subconsciously delete, distort and generalise information because the brain evolved that way. It's an efficient way to learn to survive in the world. But it has flaws I'm afraid, like most things in the natural world (nothing is perfect). The subconscious can't judge whether the output of this process is good for us or not. In other words it's just as effective in forming unhelpful beliefs as it is at forming helpful ones (helpful in respect of fulfilling our dreams, goals and ambitions in life). In fact the unhelpful beliefs often win out. Think about all the shameful wars of mankind.

The 'missing' information can change the big picture a whole lot. The trouble with past events is it's not usually easy or even possible to get the missing information in order to reassess them in a new light. Memory is even more unreliable because it's not a true record of what actually happened at the time (think how the police take statements from everyone involved in an incident and they rarely match up).

If you can find a way to go back and re-stitch things then that's good, like the examples you both gave.

But if that's not possible you can still put a different frame around things, basically by breaking it down to specifics and giving all the possibilities the same weight as the beliefs you've formed about the events. e.g. It's not that he/she hates you, it's just they were having a hard time / bad day or they might have been envious of you. How did they see it? Was it the mood you were in or the mood they were in. All that is a possible factor.

You can re-frame things in a more helpful way. It's not deluding yourself to do this, within reason, because you don't have all the information to say x caused y.

Some pain in life is inevitable. For example, if you live you will lose people you love. But feeling pain means you are handling it, not the opposite as people tend to assume. Pain isn't necessarily bad. Neither is fear. They serve a function. You have to accept that if you try to avoid these feelings your comfort zone will shrink and you will be less happy as a result. That's not to say you should be foolish. Feelings are there for a reason. You have to heed them but not be ruled by them. For example, someone might have guilt for something in their past. It's telling them to make reparations. But it's not always possible to do that. In that situation the only option open to the person is to forget it. The answer is 'can't change it so forget it' and move on. This is a healthy mind-set to have.

It's holding on to pain or negative feelings for too long that causes the harm. Some people hold onto these feelings their entire life. And it ruins them. You have to break away from that mind-set to progress; to move further toward your goals. Negative feelings are really an indicator that you need to do something, take an action of some sort. So take the action then you will find the feeling evaporates.

If you want to look more into this it's called re-framing in NLP. It's not a cure all by any means but I found it very helpful to understand what's actually going on.

Bumped into a familiar face whilst walking the dogs tonight. 1 of the vets from the vetinary practice I take my dogs to. She's a nice looking lass, fun and full of life.


We talked for a while, my puppy jumped up and muddied her jeans which was hilarious. I told her about my older dog and how ill she is. She then said to me "well I only live over there (points) so if she's ill again give me a call on (her number) and I'll come round your house and help you". I got her number down in my phone and sent her a text so she had mine. I then headed off.


Might be interesting.