AnCapJavi

I'd hope I can find someone who takes my insurance. Not having a car right now means I don't have a lot of money. That's why I'm getting the therapist I can right now.

I just started reading Ellis and it's helped a lot. I think a lot of us libertarians can become or were already pretty neurotic. We focus on things we cannot control and drive ourselves crazy. Yes, taxation is theft but when we believe "The state MUST not tax me! If they do I will be very upset and go on and on about it." A more rational belief would be "I would prefer not to be taxed so much, but if I am it's not the end of the world." Even a robber can rob us. It's irrational for us to believe that they MUST not rob us. They can do whatever they want in reality. A huge one that many of us may fall into may be "We must have the society we want now!" Since I got into Ellis' work I stopped caring so much about statists and the state. I think the best we can do right now is make fun of the state. The time to ostracise statists is not yet upon us. I think people who take these hard positions are just painting themselves into a corner.

Had my first therapy session yesterday. It wasn't very fruitful. The therapist thinks she may not be the right one for me. I think I might agree but I wanna see it through a few more sessions before switching. Before I went to her I looked her up and found out she's a pretty serious Christian. I'm an atheist and have some pretty bad history with religion but maybe she can help. I mean it's possible. I don't have a car right now and she's the only therapist that's really walking distance. I've been reading self-help for a LONG time and lately I've gotten into Dr. Albert Ellis and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. Over that last couple of weeks I've been able to identify my irrational beliefs about certain things and not get too upset about certain things any more by using his stuff precisely. Being a smart guy and someone who tends to get very immersed in things, I wanna find a therapist who does REBT in particular since I'm reading about it but it's not absolutely necessary. If I don't think the therapist is sharp or I'd say someone who impresses me with their ability (as I am with anyone I'd listen to about anything) I tend to not wanna take them seriously. Thoughts anyone?

It sounds like to you, right now, playing video games is more pleasurable than exercising. For now, within yourself there's more pain associated with making the changes than staying the same. This isn't a solution but it's something that can give you a boost. I got this from Tony Robbins. 1. Write down the pain you associate with making the changes (exercising etc.). For example It's hard, I'm tired etc. 2. Write down the pleasure you get now from playing video games or putting it off. 3. Write down the pain or what it'll cost you if you and the pain you'll feel if you don't change: What it'll cost you emotionoally, financially, physically, how bad you'd feel and why. 4. Write down the great pleasure you'l get from taking action: How proud you'll be, how great it will be and how (specifically) it will affect your life in the positive. The point is to associate pleasure with what you are avoiding and pain with what you're currently doing. To tip the scale in favor exercise, getting a car, taking action now.

Got my first sales job starting on Monday. It's telemarketing for a company that specializes in SEO, branding, internet presence, etc. Anyone with sales experience wanna recommend books or videos for commission sales people?

Yes in a good way. Slowly after I left religion I started to read stuff to improve myself and of course since I was no longer in the religion I stopped putting any kind of religious pressure on her. We each did our thing but and stopped fighting. She moved away with my mother and we spoke seldom. I wouldn't say she's pursuing self knowledge the way I am but she's been in therapy for years and has been upgrading her relationships. We are talking all the time now. Things are well. I didn't have to be so careful to approach her about it.

Well I talked to her tonight. She said that she has seen me change a lot over the years. She also said that we were all young and we all grew up fucked up the same way and she appreciates I acknowledge what I did. She just graduated college and is looking for her first real job. I'm helping her. We talked about how we grew up so bad but we're getting ready to finally move up to the middle class and beyond where we belong.

I've got a job interview for a job where I can make more than double what I've ever made in one year. 3 weeks ago I would never have thought I was applying for a job with that kinda pay or even in that field. My goals are gonna happen this year.

The stuff isn't too hard but it isn't light passive work either. You have to go back and check on things over and over. Like Ican see myself doing the section on emotions 20 more times. I will actually redo the program over and over again all year long. A danger in my life right now is that I don't really have a support system or friends that are doing the same thing yet. I also can't afford a coach yet either so I'm going to listen to Robbins every day and work on this stuff. I'm too old to waste any more time. Gotta make things happen now.

Up until the December 23rd I had been falling into a depression that got worse and more hopeless each day. I moved across the country, struggling with money, don't like my current job, not sure where to live and how to afford it, my romantic relationship dried out, physical pain, lack of motivation. . . all that. I felt like I was back to square one in so many ways in my life. I was having trouble really sticking to anything that I felt like I had to do to get myself out of the hole but I didn't really see what getting out of the hole really was. I pretty much only knew what I didn't want. Anyway I listened to the call in show where Stef talked to the guy who was having trouble with his astronomy and discipline etc. It's funny that when it came to life skills like goal setting etc Stef mentioned Anthony Robbins as kind of a random suggestion. I remembered Robbins because I had worked very hard on his book Awaken the Giant Within a couple of years ago but found it way too much work. He had journal exercises, practices, evaluation of life, goal setting. . . pretty much everything was in there but I got overwhelmed with work and eventually left it alone and picked up the belief that Anthony Robbins' approach treats the person like a machine. The real problem was that I chose to work on too many areas in my life at once instead of focusing on less at a time. That night I got an e-mail from Robbins' company. It had a video of him talking for 45 minutes. The video ignited some drive in me. I decided that I've gotta fight for my future. Anyway long story short, I got his program called "Get the Edge". I finished it. It's been 10 days and I feel pretty amazing actually. I'm working on my life much harder but it's not even work, it's joyful. The thing that helped the most was that it reminded me of my dreams. It's so true that if you don't have a compelling enough future you won't wanna really do anything. Anyway it's a great program. I don't see how I would be without having completed it. I got over a lot of bullshit. One of my stories was that I was afraid of working sales jobs for a bunch of excuses, so I never really pursued them. Now I've been looking for sales work joyfully and can't wait until I get the sales job that I need. It's only the first step in a set of goals including an internet business, an investment strategy, what has become a daily exercise, gratitude, and incantations practice that has shifted the focus of my mind from what I don't want to everything that I do want and can appreciate in my life, and of course a couple of dreams of mine that I see as totally achievable within a year. These have me very motivated. I wonder if anyone else here has ever done any of Robbins' programs or attended a seminar. I'd like to talk to you. I see so many people who call the show with similar problems to what I was going through and this program helped tremendously. I recommend it to anyone. I do hope Stef would have Robbins on the show. It would be interesting to see them discuss therapy methods. Robbins' stuff is very unconventional for sure but it certainly got me where I need to be right now.

If it brings up anger or anything like that in her I'm not looking to disagree. On the contrary I did her wrong and we've never talked about it. I want to acknowledge how I mistreated her, own up to it and tell her that I'm sorry. We were never close but I would like to have a relationship with her.

Having trouble deciding how to bring it up. My sister in very non-confrontational and I have a suspicion she may be content with things as they are. We haven't argued in years. We live in different states now and have no reasons to ever argue at all any more. In my family we didn't really express affection to each other. Now we do to an extent with our mother but not with each other.

So you were friends for 4 years. When you became friends you had something in common. You grew in a certain direction and he didn't. This has happened to me with friends, family, relationships. It seems like you are angry that you lost a companion but maybe more. There's something I learned to do recently that you may want to try: 1. Write what you would say to him. 2. Write how the conversation would go between you and he, back and forth about how you feel upon first posting about it. 3. Then write a response as him (only) to the whole thing. 4. See what comes up.

I learned about something called the 3-2-1 process from something called Interal Life Practice. (Ken Wilber, AQAL, if anyone's familiar) Basically you find something or someone that produces an emotional response in you and you first: 1. Write expressing your feelings to it or them. 2. Write out a conversation with the person or thing, how would they reply to you etc? 3. Write from the person or thing's point of view as a reaction to you. This brought up so much stuff for me. Here's a short video explanation.

I am looking for help on how to approach my sister about having been an unbelievable asshole to her when we were kids. We grew up the kind of religious that if you quit you're disowned by your family and friends. My sister was 5 and 4 years younger than my brother and I respectively. Our father died when we were very young. As siblings we were always hostile to each other. My sister suffered the most for it naturally. My mother was on welfare, always depressed, and kind of a pushover. We had an overbearing religious prick of an uncle who took over the father role. We had no idea he molested her for years. When we found out we were pretty insensitive to her because we didn't believe her at first. When she started to leave the religion we were pretty hard on her about it. Years later after wasting 25 years doing nothing with my life I left the religion too and had to start my life the best I could. I struggle tremendously still. Despite being intelligent when I was 25 I was emotionally 12, a High School dropout making just over the minimum wage, outside of religious crap and a little chess I didn't know or understand much of anything. My sister and I talk on occasion and it's never hostile like before. She knows I've rejected a lot of nonsense but our relationship is only superficial. My brother and I never speak. . . he's still in it. I don't know how to approach my sister to say how sorry I am and make any amends that I can.