Unusual advice for Self-esteem / internalization question?

I-Bleed-Orange · 2014-03-07T03:46:54+00:00

Let me drop some nueroscience on you. Your brain is made of 3 distinct layers. The reptilian brain, the emotional brain, and the thinking brain.

Thoughts themselves are not that influential. You can think "I am confident", and it wont do much. Why? Because you have a "core" beleif operating in the background. That beleif (well call it "I am worthless") has a large and powerful structure in your brain, that is well developed and links down into the more powerful emotional brain. It has a direct line to your fear center. And when things get linked to the fear system, they get supercharged and made to be super fast. Fear is a matter survival, and more important than any affirmation you may be thinking.

So the brain has a large bias towards negativity and fear. Negative events or thoughts get high priority over positive thoughts and memories of previous successes. Millions of years of evolution has made sure of it.

But the good news is that your brain rewires itself incredibly quickly. You know how they say it takes 30 days to make a habit? What happened is that in the course of 30 days, your brain formed a new structure, strengthened it through daily practice, and as a result this structure has become very fast, strong, and automatic, to where it haooens without you having to try. This can happen with any connection. And remember, a connection can be an action, thought, feeling, or any of the above. A connection can be your self image. Or your beleif that you ultimately will never fail. This is nueroplastocity, and it has the power to change literally everything about you.

One book I reccommend is Feeling Good by Dr. Burns. Its about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Which is the name for a practice of stubbornly challenging all your core beleifs, learning to spot the flaws in your thinking (because almost every negative beleif is based on extremely flawed thought), and looking at the problem in a more objective and realistic light.

social_scrying · 2014-03-06T18:25:00+00:00

You are not alone. This topic is, in fact, one of the hardest topics to tackle abstractly. Explaining why you feel the way you feel is hard, and might be fully comprehensive to your unique scenario. There are a lot of functional things you can do, however, to get over feeling like this.

Do you go to the gym? And by that I mean pour your heart and soul into getting in the best shape of your life. I think we can both agree people who look good will feel good and have a boat load of confidence, but why is this? In my opinion, its a formation of a self centered mental construct. They have something others do not that took a lot of hard work to achieve. They have overcome something that others have not. In this mental state, you can visually see that you have achieved while others around you have stayed static and this feels good.

When youre in college, you are most likely surrounded by piers who have achieved similar academic merits as well as extracurricular achievements. It can make you feel mundane, like you are just another fish in a sea of academics (Im in a med program now, this is a massive sticking point of my own as well). You must try to become more aware of the fact that the bubble that you are currently in is not a good representation of the world we live in. You are probably smarter, better looking, funnier, more social and better with girls than 98% of the population, and its important to remember this.

This concept ties back into the gym idea. You dont necessariliy have to go to the gym to gain confidence (although it helps), but you do need to internalize any concept like it. Pick up a hobby that noone else can do. Join a sports team. These things all do the same thing, functionally: get you in to a "no one else can do what I can" mindset.

RishFush · 2014-03-06T22:09:11+00:00

This means that internally I don't have this self-esteem and thus I can act as 'alpha' as I want, people will always notice that I'm nervous.

I think this is where the real problem is. This was a big one for me at least, and I was very much in your situation. I'm much more confident now though.

The problem is that you don't feel comfortable, or aren't capable of, defending your actions. Either physically or verbally.

I first really started becoming aware of this concept on a ranch trip with a buddy that comes from a long line of Texans. Real rough and tumble cowboy type, extremely confident in most situations. You and me come from suburbia, where designer clothes and money and college majors are worth a lot in social settings. But man, we were driving around in his Jeep on his family's 2,000 acre property in the middle of nowhere and I asked him what to do if we saw a another car or another person. What he said caught me completely off guard, but taught me a great fucking lesson.

"You pull out your gun and ask them what the fuck they're doing!!" And that's where we're from as a species. If him and his family didn't have that attitude, they would have lost that land to Comanches back when they first settled there. A lot of initial Texan settlers got brutally murdered because they couldn't protect their land and family.

And that's the way life is man. The weapons have changed in our modern society and the risks aren't as dire, but the principles stand. People are going to test you and you have to be able to defend yourself. And they should. Weak leaders should not be tolerated in any society.

So what's helped me man, and what I think will help you, is to learn how to defend yourself. I learned how to argue and debate. I've studied enough philosophy and politics and history to have a general idea of which principles work out well and which ones don't. I'm studying Muay Thai and next will be Brazilian Jui-Jitsu and Krav Maga. I've worked extensively on my social skills and my persuasion and networking skills. And I'm working a lot on my leadership and management skills.

My confidence is getting pretty high man and it's rock fucking solid. I'm comfortable with people questioning me and I love when people watch me and judge me because I know I'm doing shit well and I want to teach them how to also do shit well. And if they don't want to learn, or if they're doing it a better way, I'm always down to try it out their way and see what happens. But if they're stubborn and they're trying to live life in a way that I don't agree with (like, if they want to abuse someone that doesn't deserve it), then I'm going to use my power to make them stop. And that's what makes a good, reliable leader that people want to follow. As long as their views align with yours, they're going to follow you and they're going to love it.

Oh man, this got pretty long haha. Well I hope I've helped you out man! I wish you all the best.

joshsway · 2014-03-06T22:25:43+00:00

I think your bigger issue is that you are trying to justify your fear of approaching and fear of failure by over analyzing and over thinking. Just go out there and meet some women!!

ThePUA_Baddie · 2014-03-06T23:07:14+00:00

Why do you care if other people notice how you feel and why are you nervous around women? I think you're over analyzing things. You don't need to read inner game books and I believe you're making excuses to not approach. Start doing some approaches because as you've said before rationally you're a successful guy so you have no reason to think that you are not good enough for women.

StupidWes · 2014-03-07T01:52:28+00:00

It looks to me like you're attempting to use external metrics to determine how you should be able to feel self-confidence. You're looking at it only through what can be quantified. How do you feel about yourself? What everyone else thinks doesn't matter. What do you think about yourself?

Title	Unusual advice for Self-esteem / internalization question?
Author	Neverd0wn
Upvotes	8
Comments	18
Date	March 6, 2014 5:01 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1zqc4n/unusual_advice_for_selfesteem_internalization/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/unusual-advice-for-self-esteem-internalization.1303972 https://theredarchive.com/post/1303972

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