Dubls Mans Up - AM6 i (1-5), ii (5-10)

[Life]

Are you conflicted because you're thinking of doing hard drugs? I would say as long as you're responsible for yourself there's nothing wrong but it's not good for you. It doesn't necessarily help you achieve your goals so what's the point? Just sit back, relax and be yourself

[Dubls]

Are you conflicted because you're thinking of doing hard drugs? I would say as long as you're responsible for yourself there's nothing wrong but it's not good for you. It doesn't necessarily help you achieve your goals so what's the point? Just sit back, relax and be yourself

No, I don't want to do hard drugs. I'm conflicted about being around people who do—and by that I mean those who snort coke or pop pills. I don't want to be around anybody who's doing worse: heroin, crack, or meth. It's a mindfuck how destructive these substances can be and how quickly they can set somebody on a path to ruin.

[Dubls]

I don't know what's happening. I feel anxious, vulnerable, and unconfident. Negative thought patterns are resurfacing. I notice myself thinking and feeling in ways I thought I had conquered. My drive and self-assurance is missing. I had gotten used to feeling a certain level of good. Now it's like my progress from the past year of AM6 is slipping. I haven't felt this bad in a long time.

Resistance? This late into Stage 6? It could be related to what I wrote yesterday about my subjective response to feeling sick, but this is pretty intense.

What the fuck.

[ffaux]

Resistance so late means that you're probably only one run away from fully absorbing AM6 and making it self-regenerating.

[CatMan]

Like Shannon said before to someone else asking about the same thing awhile back, if you have resistance late in the run, another run is needed.

Don't worry, Essy. Stick with AM6, if any one program here encompassed everything a man needs, it's AM6. It has it all, from personal development, to keeping the past from holding you back, to even attracting women. All elements are in there.

Rerun AM6. That's the best course for you. I'm counting the days to rerun AM6, it's an amazing program. Not just as a foundation, but in it's own right!

I'm rerunning starting in the middle of February.

[Dubls]

@ffaux Best response ever.

@ffaux, CatMan:

I didn't think I was done with AM6, but I did feel that I was close. No doubt it is a fundamental program; I just didn't want to run it again right away. I've been frustrated by having to devote 4 of my waking hours to it. This late in the game, I was expecting to coast to completion. I was also looking forward to running OGSF 5G.

A long time ago, I was excited by the prospect of running AM6 three times in a row and being the first to journal about it. I was also concerned about the potential loss of effectiveness by not running the program three times consecutively vs doing so. Three in a row would be an ideal bombardment on the mind. What you guys are saying about late resistance as an indication that the program is almost planted makes sense. Seems like it would be a shame to stop the arsenal.

I need to play devil's advocate too. All of this garbage came up when I got sick (and I still am), and I've written about the conditioned response I have to feeling ill. It's similar to when I had a lot of anxiety and it was always highest in the morning because my mind wasn't sharp enough to fight it. I think it's reasonable that I should be headstrong even when I'm sick. My response to this flu has been excessive, and I suspect that resistance is part of it because I didn't even feel this crappy mentally and emotionally when I had surgery a few months ago—mind you it was in the interest of transforming my body.

I should also point out that I started drinking coffee again regularly (1-2 a day) about 2 months ago. I've had very little caffeine over the past few years because I used to be sensitive to it and it stirred my anxiety. It's doesn't create anxiety for me now, but I have randomly been feeling anxiety over the past month and the odd time I have a coffee, it goes away. I think it's my body expressing a caffeine addiction because the anxiety is similar to when I stopped taking painkillers, and I haven't felt anxiety like that from subs since my first run of AM.

#endrant

[mat422]

I should also point out that I started drinking coffee again regularly (1-2 a day) about 2 months ago. I've had very little caffeine over the past few years because I used to be sensitive to it and it stirred my anxiety. It's doesn't create anxiety for me now, but I have randomly been feeling anxiety over the past month and the odd time I have a coffee, it goes away. I think it's my body expressing a caffeine addiction because the anxiety is similar to when I stopped taking painkillers, and I haven't felt anxiety like that from subs since my first run of AM.

I've got similar issues with caffeine. Or maybe it's coffee. I switched to decaf and it still messed with my anxiety. My experience is the longer I stay away from it, the more my body has recovered to tolerate it. But prolonged use slowly breaks me down. My body just doesn't like it. Which is a bummer because I actually like the taste of coffee more than the caffeine effects. Anyway it's very possible the coffee is causing the anxiety, some people just don't tolerate it well.

[Dubls]

Back to my old-new self today. Past couple days were sobering though. I'm not convinced that was late-game resistance from subs. I haven't had coffee in 4 days and I think I was experiencing a combination of caffeine withdrawal and the responses to illness that I wrote about in post #159; which I need to work on.

[Dubls]

Last official day. Four make up days to follow.

I have to say that Stage 6 has been underwhelming, just as it was the first time around. What's up with that? Both times I've had my greatest moments in the middle stages. I've written less during this run because a) the overall experience has been less profound—which indicates that my ceiling is higher (i.e. progress)—and b) I haven't had as many individual experiences that compel me to write. I haven't internalized all the bullet points of AM6. Good suggestions have been made but I'm not decided on what I'm going to do next.

It actually feels like I'm regressing. Powerful self-doubt and low self-esteem.

[Dubls]

Two observations from the past few days:

I want to improve my mindset when I'm ill. I hate how I exacerbate illness with self-pity/doubt, worry, anxiety, and fear. I want my mind to actually alleviate the symptoms and carry me through illness with confidence and tenacity.

~

I have spoken at length about my non-existent sex life, and it's one thing to bear the burden in silence, but there's a new layer to the onion. I've made a good friend at work and we've known each other for over a year. In the past all my friends were sexless beta tools. I didn't have to be accountable for the action I haven't taken. But this guy is an alpha with a sex life. We've talked about women, he's told me stories, and I've seen him in action. But he hasn't seen me. He asks me; he encourages me, and I talk myself out of it. He doesn't know just how green I am, but I know that he wonders about me. Not if I'm gay but what the hell is up. I'm all talk. My celibacy is not normal. I am deeply and painfully aware of that. The more time that passes, the more he will take notice, and yes I do care about what he thinks in this case. I want the same reality that he wants for me, the one he assumes I should have. I'm faced with a form of accountability that I've managed to evade for years, and it will either push me away or force me to change.

[Dubls]

tl;dr If you want to go straight to the point, skip the small text. However, you might find it insightful/amusing.

It took the Walking Dead to help me realize something. As I was watching the show, I began to picture myself under the same circumstances, and I became increasingly uncomfortable because instead of imagining myself being strong and resilient, I pictured myself feeling anxious and crippled by a sense of impending doom. The thoughts that produced these feelings were that of danger being around ever corner, having to hold myself together so as not to be a liability to others—and folding under the pressure, the stress of having to manage multiple personalities in a high stress environment with the looming threat of conspiracy against me, the point of fighting to survive such a horrible reality—why not just off yourself or succumb to the zombies?, and the overall victim feeling that I'm being encroached upon by multiple forces in a losing battle. Now that's a lot of doom and gloom and it's all hypothetical, but I want to be self-assured enough to imagine myself coping and leading in a scenario like that. If you think about it that show is a metaphor for life because the only guarantee we have is death, there are always forces working against you, and to get anywhere you have to have fight in you. You have to generate your own resolve and have the tenacity to create happiness.


I have debated long and hard about whether to run OGSF or ASC and I've arrived at the conclusion that 99% of my fears stem from an underestimation of (or downright disbelief in) myself. I need confidence, and I need it now.

Enter the rat analogy:

There is a rat in your basement. It shits everywhere. Targeting fears would be like cleaning up the shit. But if you don't deal with the rat, it continues to shit. ASC is the exterminator. First you kill the rat, then you clean up the shit.

AM6.II is officially done. Review to follow. ASC is next.

[mat422]

tl;dr If you want to go straight to the point, skip the small text. However, you might find it insightful/amusing.

It took the Walking Dead to help me realize something. As I was watching the show, I began to picture myself under the same circumstances, and I became increasingly uncomfortable because instead of imagining myself being strong and resilient, I pictured myself feeling anxious and crippled by a sense of impending doom. The thoughts that produced these feelings were that of danger being around ever corner, having to hold myself together so as not to be a liability to others—and folding under the pressure, the stress of having to manage multiple personalities in a high stress environment with the looming threat of conspiracy against me, the point of fighting to survive such a horrible reality—why not just off yourself or succumb to the zombies?, and the overall victim feeling that I'm being encroached upon by multiple forces in a losing battle. Now that's a lot of doom and gloom and it's all hypothetical, but I want to be self-assured enough to imagine myself coping and leading in a scenario like that. If you think about it that show is a metaphor for life because the only guarantee we have is death, there are always forces working against you, and to get anywhere you have to have fight in you. You have to generate your own resolve and have the tenacity to create happiness.


I have debated long and hard about whether to run OGSF or ASC and I've arrived at the conclusion that 99% of my fears stem from an underestimation of (or downright disbelief in) myself. I need confidence, and I need it now.

Enter the rat analogy:

There is a rat in your basement. It shits everywhere. Targeting fears would be like cleaning up the shit. But if you don't deal with the rat, it continues to shit. ASC is the exterminator. First you kill the rat, then you clean up the shit.

AM6.II is officially done. Review to follow. ASC is next.

Lol nice analogy. ASC seems like a good call. I ran it once, I think it was the 4G version can't remember. Anyway it was a really good sub, I found myself taking on tasks that usually filled me with anxiety with ease and procrastination went down too.

Now on the subject of zombies. I'd be right there with you with those feelings. I wouldn't be able to stop those. But you know what? I'd bet you'd be a survivor. And I'd bet you'd be able to handle it more than someone who hasn't encounter much turmoil in their life. Besides I trust the person who admits they are scared more than the person that tries to pretend they aren't.

[Dubls]

Been off of subs for a week and damn does it feel good not to be limited to things I can do with headphones on, or feeling pressured to go to bed so as not to encroach on 8 hours of exposure. Of course, this journey has been worthwhile.

I will rate the bullet points again in the next week. I wanted to leave some time for the program to sink in. Something clicked in my head a couple of days ago and suddenly I am noticeably more driven and disciplined. Where I would normally concede to laziness, I have observed my mind propel me to action, and I've realized that his mindset is a habit that must be developed like anything else. There is a push in these new directions that wasn't there before.

I don't feel as 'on top' as I remember feeling a week after completing AM6 the first time, and I have to say that the last two stages of this run were underwhelming and it felt like the train ran out of steam, despite my program-long devotion to 12 hours a day, and making up for 1.5x missed hours.

I am as good looking as I've ever been in terms of physique, grooming, and wardrobe, which brings me to my next point: I am not comfortable with being attractive. Yet. I simultaneously enjoy the attention and don't know what to do with it. I am treated as if I'm way more good looking than I see in myself. I turn heads everywhere I go. And yet more often than not being conscious of the attention makes me insecure and highly critical of myself. Shakespeare would love this irony. I can't help but think how much of an absolute stud-bull I would be if my mindset was congruent with my outward appearance. I could be one of those guys that sleeps with hundreds of beautiful women. But I am still plagued by shame and self-doubt. So these are the things I'm focusing on next. Still on the path to SM.

[Darkness]

Your post are always substantial , never a waste.