Solve Anxiety Problems

[Glumix]

Just want to give a few tricks to get over your anxiety, whether it is to help approaching, or resolve insomnia problem, speaking in front of a crowd, about sexual performance, when it comes to seducing, keeping your frame, during job interviews or simply while pursuing happiness.

I didn't invent all this. You can read about it in Viktor Frankl book : Man's Search for Meaning. It's a must read in one's life.

There is something called anticipatory anxiety. It is the fact you are afraid of something before it actually happens. You are so afraid of it that the fear actually causes failure. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What happens when you are in that state of anxiety?

First, you really do not want to fail so you are going to put a lot of effort in it, "good" intention in your action. The problem is that you put so much intention that you overdo it and fail. We call this hyper-intention.

For example, you want to approach a girl, you will focus so much on not saying something stupid, not stuterring, etc.. that this is exactly what happens. Or you call your date 6 times a day, or you bring flower at the first date.

How do you solve this?

By switching the focus away from your goal. There are a few techniques to do that:

You can use paradoxical intention, which is focusing on failure instead of success. It obviously requires a bit of humour and self-mockery but it is very effective. When you approach that girl, you focus on actually saying sh!t and stuterring... and obviously, it won't happen.

You focus on the experience instead of the outcome. This is well described in the Book of Pook and pretty much everywhere on SS. Create an habit and do not focus on the outcome of every move you do but on the whole experience. Your goal is not to approach a girl but to approach 20 girls. Pook also describes romance with this and how you should avoid it by focusing on the company of a woman instead of the initial chase.

Second, anticipatory anxiety cause hyper-attention or hyper-reflection when you focus too much on the image you will have if you fail and as with hyper-intention, you focus so much on it that you actually fail because of it.

For example, you are on a first date and you already worry about what you will look like if you do not find something interesting to say. Or you are going to speak in front of a crowd and you worry about what people will think of you if you say something stupid or if you look like you are inexperienced.

That problem can be solved by switching the focus away from yourself. And to do that, you can use de-reflection, or basically you take the mirror in front of you and you move it away so it does not reflect your image anymore.

During that first date, you can focus on how the person reflects in you. You focus on BEING the mirror and you focus on her to see how SHE reflects in you. You focus on giving the experience.

Or if you have sexual performance problem and it causes anxiety (anorgasmy, premature ejaculation, etc...), you focus on giving sex instead of taking sex.

If you get ****-tested, instead of worrying about the image you have while responding, focus on the image the woman has and the reflection you want to give her while she is ****-testing you. You probably want to show her how childish and immature she is, so smile at her and tease her because she just showed you her real personality.

TL;DR:

Solve hyper-intention:
- paradoxical intention create fun and confidence with humour
- focus on the experience, not the outcome
- focus on the company, not the chase

Solve hyper-attention:
- give, do not take
- focus on the feeling you give and on how the person reflects in you
- move the mirror away from you, turn it towards the other person

 

[Huffman]

Thanks.

I was going to read the book, but I can see from the excerpt that Frankl places great emphasis on love, as in loving his wife, and true love as the ultimate goal and tool to endure one's miserable existence.

I'm sure he's correct as in the psychological power of this, but it sounds detrimental to DJ ideas here. What do you think?

 

[Glumix]

That excerpt was probably written by a feminist...

Frankl write about his own experience. He surely loved his wife, who was gased in another camp and he knew about it only years later. But that was his own meaning for life. He also explains that other people had other meaning in their life.

He certainly suffered the loss of his wife and by giving his love a meaning in his book he gave her death a meaning as well. But as everything in philosophy and psychology, you have to make your own interpretations and know the author and his life so you can understand his perspective.

For Frankl, there is 3 ways to find meaning : through duty, love and suffering.

Even as a DJ you should learn about love. Learning about what you despise is often great to be sure you are on the good track in life. At least you will know how it sounds to your hear and you still have the choice to agree or disagree.

But love is absolutely not the subject of his book.

 

[Huffman]

I thought as much. Gonna pick it up.