Question about Dating Mindset...

"Hey Paul, how can I have a better mindset with dating. I've been out of a decade long relationship for about a year now, and approaching women can be mentally exhausting. I do feel some resentment and bitterness to women in general and I'm trying to break that cycle any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks."

So this is a question from awhile ago (lol sorry dude) that I am finally getting too. I think it's a good question for everyone though so posting it.

Let's talk about why negative emotion of any sort happens. As in why is this a thing our brain neurologically does at all?

Bad emotions are designed to motivate us, or to keep us safe.

Pain/fear/discomfort motivates you to take action to get needs met to survive and overtime, do better and thrive. If you take an action to get a need/want met and it fails, the pain can cause you to want to try again and do better. This happens when the brain signals that the goal is attainable.

Now let's work backwards. Let's say the brain is getting the message that the goal isn't attainable. Then the failure to get the need met isn't going to cause the brain to want to put more effort into the goal. The brain is going to cause you to rationalize why NOT to try. The brain will send negative emotions at the idea of trying to attain the goal as well. And if there is a potential bad consequence on top of it, the brain will send negative, uncomfortable emotions telling you to avoid or run or fight or do anything you can to avoid the negative consequence.

Let's apply that now to dating. You go through a bad relationship for 10 years. And the thing is, it probably didn't seem bad at the start (at least at the time). You at one point got your bonding needs met from the ex; and then that degraded over time to where the consequences of bonding became bad for you. And then eventually the bond was broken, and all the pain and withdrawals from that left some scars and trauma.

When that happens, it often leaves a man in a negative bias about women and dating in general because the brain has recieved feedback that you CANNOT get your bonding and sexual needs from a woman without the high price of pain. This puts you in a place of frustration because you have sexual and bonding needs, but getting them means costing you too much. This puts you in a place of depression because you don't feel the effort is going to pay off. And the reason things aren't going to work out is because of women (your brain is telling you but this isn't actually true). So, you are resentful to women. And your brain sends you signals to avoid approaching and dating women through bad emotions when it comes to women in general, and approaching and dating, etc.

You need to look at what I just wrote and here is why. The emotions you have towards women and dating them aren't "real". What is "real" is objective reality and what you EXPERIENCE at the time you are experiencing it. Everything else is not real. Your memory of something that happened is just your mind replaying an experience; it isn't the experience itself. Your dreams or fantasies of what you might experience in the future are all in your mind as well. Your emotions and feelings about things aren't the actual things themselves. The emotions are just signals the brain/body produces to motivate you to go get something, or motivate you to avoid or get away from something.

So all these bad feelings you have about women are bullshit. All these bad feelings about dating are bullshit. And the good feelings and positive bias a person has towards dating? That's all bullshit too. What is not bullshit however are the experiences. What is not bullshit is the results.

So if the results and the experiences are what is real, let's ask ourselves this:

WHAT MINDSET AND EMOTIONS DO I NEED TO HAVE TO GET THE RESULTS AND HAVE THE EXPERIENCES?

Write down a list of things. As you write down things, your brain is going to lie to you and say "that's not true women aren't like that blah blah blah...." STOP IT. Stop asking yourself if it is "true" or not because of how you feel, because it doesn't matter because none of it is true anyway when it comes from a place of how you feel about it. Just write down the emotions and ideas that you would need to have regarding women and dating in order to be able to have fun with them, date them, fuck them, and be in relationships with them. That's it, that is step 1.

So now at this point of writing that list, you are no longer being driven by your emotions. You now have frame (and possibly for the first time in your life for some of you). What makes the thought "True" is whether or not it is effective. That's it.

Let me use an example of how this works. Let's say you have a thought that you think will get you results, and that thought is "all women are sugar and spice and everything nice and can do no wrong" Let's say that you think (in your negative brain) that you have to have a dumb thought like that to be able to enjoy women.

If that is you, then congratulations. You just exposed where you lack in game when it comes to women. The thought "all women are sugar and spice and everything nice and can do no wrong" is not only not true on an objective level, but it points you to getting bad results with women. If you treat every women like she can do no wrong and is on the "everything nice" pedestal, women won't respect you, they won't be sexually attracted to you, and they are likely going to treat you like shit. I could write paragraphs as to why but most of you know why.

So that mental model isn't true, is it? Not only is it objectively not true, but it doesn't get you results.

Let's change the mental model to something like "women can be great and fun to be around but they can also fuck your life up. They are not perfect human beings, so if you treat them as such you are going to be disappointed and hurt. And some women are outright terrible and dangerous. But as long as you long know how to set boundaries and standards while also communicating in an attractive manner, you can weed out the terrible ones and have a lot of fun with the rest; and even grow to love and truly bond with the right ones."

Something like that is true because it in so many ways set's you up to get good results. The surprise you will find when you do this is that what will give you good results always matches with objective reality in some way. It won't be wrong, at least not entirely. But if you focus too hard on trying to be red pill and see truth and all that shit, your perception of reality will be a lie because your brain is tricking you and giving you bad feelings so you will avoid women and avoid harm and so forth. Your bullshit will make you think things are real that aren't. So don't focus on what is "true" or you'll probably lie to yourself a lot. instead focus on "what works" and it will line up with what is true.

So do that assignment. Write down what mental models and ideas and feelings about women you will need to have in order to be successful with them. I won't list these for you; you have to figure it out or the self development won't happen to the degree you want.

After this exercise, you now have an idea of what ideas and emotions you have to have in order to be successful with women. BUT your brain isn't going to just magicallty think that way. Because of trauma and self protection, your brain is going to have negative thoughts and emotions instead. But by doing this exercise, you are at least consciously telling the brain what is right.

The next steps are changing the brain to match the mental models and emotions you need.

The way you will change the brain is through results; but the brain has to change to get the results. OH NO! What's a man to do to get out from between this rock and hard place?

You need to start by getting feedback from the world about women that is positive rather than negative, and that supports the mindset and emotions you will need to have to be successful with them. By getting feedback that goes against your current negative emotions, and by consciously acknowledging it, your brain will start to change.

How do you start getting positive feedback?

It starts with you. Work on your SMV. Fitness, physical appearance, fashion, as well as finances and status. When women start looking at you differently and seeing you as the prize, they will treat you different and will send the message to you that "women want to be with you". This takes your mind from scarcity and thinking that you can't get a woman to want you (and therefore approaching and dating will only result in pain) to abundance and realizing that if women find you attractive, chances are less likely your efforts will result in pain.

Next is work on game and reading women. When you work on this, you are developing the tools to not get hurt by women (because you can avoid the "bad" ones) and by being able to be attractive to the good ones. Your game is how you talk to them, body language, tone, timing, word choice, logistics, etc.

So now you are more attractive to women, you can avoid the bad ones and pick the better ones because you can read them, and you have skills to communicate attractively. THIS WILL GIVE YOU BETTER FEEDBACK FROM WOMEN, AND THAT FEEDBACK THAT YOU WILL BE CONCIOUS OF AND ACKNOWLEDGE WILL TRAIN YOUR BRAIN to think and feel in a way that gets your results with women.

Now, as you are doing that and improving yourself, you are also improving your interactions with women socially. Remind yourself of the mental models and emotions you need to be successful on a constant basis while you do this. Then Approach and build relationships with women who are fun and better to be around.

This isn't even dating and fucking, this is just in general. Just start being social and being around people who aren't shit bags. You aren't expecting women to be perfect or be a certain way and then getting mad if they aren't. You are just seeing women HOW THEY ARE and finding a way to enjoy that.

Last is gratitude. Find ways to be grateful every day as you progress. As you get better, be grateful for it. When in an interaction with a woman, what things can you find about her and the interaction that you can have gratitude for? Learn to find the things to appreciate about women, and discard the fantasies about how women are supposed to act or be. Find the ways to truly enjoy the experience rather than letting the brain default to finding ways to be negative about the experience.

As you go through this process of doing the steps and things above, your dating life and experiences will start to improve, gain momentum, and then eventually be 100x better.

There is a lot more to it then what I just wrote. A lot on the "how to" side of things that any of you really need to be enrolled in the mastermind to get and start rapidly changing your situation. But this here is a start at least and can put you in the right direction.

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