Brain on Porn (Social #2) - DeYtH Banger (a book to read TXT) 📗

get her talking about her values without the line of questioning feeling like an interrogation. Remember, creating a warm, fun environment is central to her getting excited to spend time with you again.

However much fun you’re having, make sure she possesses the qualities that you look for in a woman.

Here are a few tips and conversation starters for dating and making an impact.

 

FIRST DATE CONVERSATION TOPICS 

 

Over all else, the conversation should be about the two of you. You can still keep the conversation fluid and wide-ranging, but choose topics that bring out her values.

An example could be:

“Wow, you’re in great shape. What do you do to maintain it?”

She’ll then let you in on her exercise routine. This question gives her a compliment, allows her to give details about her life, and also gives her a chance to get enthusiastic about fitness.

If that’s a quality you look for in a woman, she’s demonstrated it proudly and you’ve still retained the flirty spark of first date conversation.

Other topics for a first date you can put to great use are films and travel. A person’s favourite film can say a lot about who they are and what they believe it, and experiences of watching a film can draw out anecdotes and reflections on the past that can enrich the dialogue.

Travel is a fantastic hook on which to build stories and show your own worldliness and evaluate hers. Look for not only where she went, but what she absorbed from the experience and the details she took away.

You can also use this part of the conversation to build a library of places she’d love to visit. Prompt her to envision the two of you there. Just setting up those little projected moments creates anticipation in her mind, and makes her want to see you again.

 

Other deeper things you may want to take note of when you’re evaluating her as a potential partner:

What’s her longest relationship? Is she family-oriented or career-oriented?? Is faith important to you? If so, is it also important to her? Does she challenge you or is she passive? What was the relationship between her parents like?

 

The last question, for example, is a pretty good predictor of how she will handle a relationship. People tend to inherit the way they build connections from their parents.

The key to thinking about how to make conversation on a first date is finding out what her joy is and getting her vocal about it.

There’s a few ways you can ask this that will achieve different results.

What’s your joy in life? It’s simple and direct. If that’s your style, it’s an upbeat, positive question that will get her thinking and talking.

When in your life were you most excited? This is more light-hearted, look to draw an anecdote from her and encourage her to relive that excitement with you.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to experience excitement? This is a more sexually suggestive approach, encouraging her to toy with the idea of sexual activity.

I like to use the last option myself, but everyone’s different and you should use whichever style of questioning you find most comfortable. The important thing is to keep the conversation moving fluidly and to stoke positive emotions in your date’s mind.

 

CREATE PROJECTIONS 

 

You want her to be actively excited about seeing you again.

What you need to do to achieve this is create projections and images for her to put together. She will start visualising you as a sexual being and a real option for a future as long as you plant the seeds for her to do so.

When I want to find out about a girl’s family, for example, I could use it to say “I’m great with families, especially mums.” Then, I’d build a fun hypothetical scenario where I met her family for the first time.

You’re prompting her to visualise you in her world. It falls to the man to progress the relationship through its stages, from dating to meeting the family to getting married and beyond, and it’s easier to move things forward if she’s already imagined you in that role. 

You want to lay the groundwork with topics you can come back to later, and introduce the idea of activities you can do together.

 

TEASE AT THE END 

 

Close off a first date by talking about how badly it went.

Keep your tongue firmly in your cheek, and say something like “It’s such a shame how tonight went. I could’ve been at home with a pizza. That was the shittest date ever, to be honest.”

I talk a lot in my courses about pattern-breaking, and this is a classic example. It’s the opposite of how people are expected to act at the end of a first date, and she’ll have heaps of fun with the uncertainty of whether you meant it.

It’s only the first date, and you still have to retain a sense of mystery. Why would a woman want to see you again if you’ve already dumped all possible information on her during the first date.

Have fun, and make a concerted effort to discover her values and the important parts of her personality.

 

Chapter 11 - Anxiety (Higher Levels)

 Why You Worry: Obsessing, Overthinking, and Overanalyzing Explained

 

By Dr. Stein

If you struggle with worry, you’ve probably asked yourself plenty of times: “Why can’t I just stop thinking about this?”  Well in this post, I will explain why.

It’s a common scenario: a concern about the future randomly pops into your head one day. Without warning, this worry comes to dominate your thoughts. You can’t stop thinking about it even if you try.

Although you may know that your concern is irrational, that doesn’t seem to stop you from worrying about it. You might even seek reassurance from others that what you’re worrying about won’t come to fruition. While this may work briefly, the worry always returns.

 

You’re caught in the worry cycle.

 

It can be an incredibly frustrating, overwhelming, and even paralyzing experience. My clients who have this problem will often tell me that the anxiety seems untriggered and random or that they are just always anxious about pretty much anything.

While the anxiety you’re feeling may seem untriggered and random, there IS a clear trigger: uncertainty.

 

Worry is all about trying to resolve and eliminate uncertainty about the future.

 

But as you well know, the harder you try to fight uncertainty, the deeper into the worry cycle you progress.

Here’s how it works: your brain comes up with a worry question. Maybe it’s “What if I bomb my upcoming work presentation and lose my job?” Or “What if I fail my final exam?” You then feel an overwhelming sense of uncertainty about what is going to happen, which triggers anxiety.

So you figure “Ok, if I’m uncertain about this, then the logical thing to do is to analyze it. Then I can predict what might happen and come up with a solution so I’m ready for it. Then I can feel resolved about this and I won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

 

So to resolve the uncertainty, your brain switches to analysis mode.

 

This analysis can take many different forms. You might try to predict possible outcomes in your mind. You could try to reassure yourself why the thing you’re worried about will not happen. You could try to think more logically or positively about it to take a seemingly more rational view. You may spend hours doing online research. Or you may seek reassurance from friends and family members that everything will be okay.

 

Sometimes, these efforts DO work, but only in the short-term.

 

Sometimes, you will reach an answer that satisfies your brain temporarily, thus achieving a short-lasting resolution and a slight reduction in your anxiety level. But then you run into a problem: your brain says, “Well yeah, but what about this?” Your mind ALWAYS comes up with another reason to be uncertain.

So why are your efforts to stop this not working?

 

It all comes down to avoidance.

 

 

Anxiety gets maintained in the long-run by avoiding the things we are anxious about in the short-term (see this previous post for a more detailed explanation of this very important principle). Anxiety is a warning signal from our brain: it’s saying, “Stop! This thing is dangerous, do something!”

The way to decrease anxiety in response to any trigger is to teach your brain that the trigger is NOT dangerous and does not require the warning signal. The only way to do this is to directly confront and expose yourself to that trigger so that your brain learns it is not dangerous. This is the basis for Exposure Therapy, the most effective treatment for all types of anxiety.

Once your brain learns that it is not dangerous (which can only happen through directly experiencing it), it shuts off the warning signal because it is no longer needed. But when you avoid the trigger instead of allowing yourself to be exposed to it, you prevent this process from taking place, and the anxiety is maintained. That’s why avoidance in the short-term keeps anxiety going in the long-term.

ANYTHING you do when you are anxious to try to relieve the anxiety in the short-term GUARANTEES the anxiety will stick around in the long-run.

Let’s go through how this applies to the worry cycle:

 

With worry and generalized anxiety, the thing you are avoiding is feeling uncertain, and the way you are attempting to avoid it is by analyzing and seeking reassurance.

 

Right now, if you have a worry problem, your brain gives you anxiety as a warning signal when you encounter uncertainty. You then attempt to avoid this anxiety in the short-term by analyzing or seeking reassurance to reduce the uncertainty. Sometimes this is successful and you do make yourself feel better, so your brain never learns that uncertainty is NOT dangerous and does not require a warning signal. Therefore, the analysis and reassurance-seeking keep the anxiety going.

 

Even worse, worry questions CAN’T be answered!

 

It is impossible to know the future, so certainty can never be achieved. This means that all that effort spent trying to analyze, predict, and plan is utterly pointless…you’re trying to answer a question that is literally impossible to answer.

So how do you break out of the worry cycle? That will be the subject of my next post, but I’ll give you the quick and dirty answer now:

 

Simply put, you stop trying to answer the worry question.

 

You leave it unresolved.

Allow the uncertainty to be there. Don’t research the question online. Don’t ask your friends and family whether everything will be okay.

Eventually, you will get used to uncertainty and your anxiety will dissipate naturally. Over time, you will get used to uncertainty in general and worry less overall. This answer might sound a bit confusing and maybe even crazy right now, but stay tuned for my next blog post, when I will explain the solution in more detail.

 

 

 

 

How and Why Anxiety Causes Bad Thoughts

 

 

 

Anxiety is more than just a mental health disorder. Anxiety changes your brain chemistry, and has the ability to affect the way you think. Anxiety does this in such a natural way that you may not even realize it's happening, which is why one of the main concerns about living with anxiety is the idea that it can cause you to have bad thoughts.

Bad, negative thoughts are a common symptom of anxiety, and unfortunately these bad thoughts tend to create more anxiety, making it harder to