Practical guide for getting back to your frame

My last post was not useful. So I want to take this chance to share some notes related to something that worked for me.

While I was developing my sense of self and running my MAP I realized (just like all the others, around the 2 year mark) that all of my “self-improvement” was a covert-contract with the girl and people in general. The rational was something of the “If I get better, than she will love me more and everyone will treat me like a king”.

Once I realized that, slowly but surely I started becoming more and more independent of the responses of others i.e. truly living in my frame. However, there were moments when I felt myself going back to her frame instead of mine.

One thing that commonly happened was me caring about where she was and what she was doing or me worrying that I had been “too much of a jerk” after a nag or after saying a hard “no” to one of her requests. Basically walking on eggshells and worrying about her feelings and perception of me (validation-seeking).

So, I tried a 6 step process that showed to be useful in pulling myself out of her frame. Use what you want and throw out the rest.

1 – Become conscious of your value

The first thing I did was realize my value as a man who constantly pushes himself in the direction of self-realization (you also do, right?). Coming to terms with the fact that no one grows up and that by not being a complete retard you outweight most of the other guys helped me sense all the options (not only with women) that I had, which immediately made me more tranquil. This step is important because a lot of times the options are not the problem, but us not realizing the variety of options we have is.

2 – “Despedestalization”

The next step was to “depedestalize” the girl by remembering that she is just a chick who does little to improve herself. And while I know girls don’t have the same drive as us guys to do so, since this thriving is an attribute I highly value, this immediately lowed her value in my eyes and put everything in perspective.

3 – There is no “relationship”

Realizing that my relationship was no more than me and the girl together to serve each other’s needs protected me from the ego-trap that mentioning “relationships” usually entails. It inputs a bunch of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” which are all forms of manipulating us into acting in a certain way (often against our best interests). u/Red-Curious said it best in “I’m still single … just married”.

4 – Be a man “who gets”

Just like u/HornsOfApathy talks about being a man “who fucks”, thinking of myself as a man “who gets” helped me a lot. So, in this step I just thought to myself that, independently of the who and the how, I would get (in this case) a girl who treated me the way I wanted, either that be the girl I was with or somebody else. This, like step 1, helped with the abundance mentality. Therefore, whatever happens, it’s okay, ’cause I’ll get whatever I want some way, somehow, i’ll figure it out (this goes hand in hand with the oak mental model).

5 – Memento mori

This is one of the stoic tools that I most treasure in my toolbox. Remembering my death and the irreversibility of life immediately makes me more selective when it comes to the people I spend time with and allow into my life and with the things I spend my time with. It automatticaly made me act with a healthy sense of egoism, putting myself and my needs before everything else. When you truly realize that you are just a bag of meat in the middle of the universe and come to peace with that, you’ll not only be much more effective in getting better but also DNGAF will come easier, at least it did for me. So, the girl, the job, the “relationship”, all that faded to the background when, paraphrasing David Deida, you “stop what you’re doing, look up and contemplate the infinite”.

6 – The Scorched Earth Mental Model

Whenever the steps above were not sufficient to get me back on track or if I just wanted to overkill, I made use of The Scorched Earth Operation. And while this is not the situation it was designed to be employed, I found that convincing myself I was single and acting accordingly removed the emotional cloudiness that surrounded me, allowing me to truly focus on what matters: my actions. It put me in the state of total focus in my MAP and everything that was beyond it was either interesting, amusing or funny.