Quote:
Self improvement is masturbation and self destruction is the true path to real change.
I'm going to play devil's advocate with Doc and throw in this argument:
Imagine a shitty, run-down building. You can improve it all you want by adding on cool shit, decorations, new elevators, and etc., but eventually that building will still be a piece of shit. If you really want to change that building, you'll have to demolish it to it's foundation and rebuild the entire infrastructure.
Most guys in the community start off like that run-down building.
"Naturals" like yourself, Doc, on the other hand, start off as decent buildings. It would make no sense to destroy that sort of building to it's foundation to rebuild it. That certainly would not be economical. This is where self-destruction is a bad thing. For you, self-improvement is the way to go.
"Unnaturals" like myself (and most people here) need a process of self-destruction to realize true change. We can't just add cool shit onto ourselves and expect to see lasting improvement. It just doesn't work if we weren't born naturals like you.
I have also tried both ways - self-improvement and self-destruction - and it wasn't until I went through the struggles of self-destruction that I awoke to something real within myself that has been dormant my entire life. I wouldn't have been able to have real happiness without having stripped myself of the layers that held me back.
With that said, I don't think anything David~ said was inconsistent and I agree with his points.
I agree with you that to truly change we must go deeper, absolutely... which is the biggest arguement I have against the entire concept of this thread. What this is doing is using A LOT of negative imagery, and reinforcing limiting beliefs.
The only difference between a natural and an "unnatural" is their beliefs/perceptions... that's it. I could always get girls because I knew I could... even before I ever had, I still knew I could. Same exact reason why you couldn't before and you can now.
Your ego is your best ally or your worst enemy... the only difference between the 2 is which one you choose for it to be.
Your right you need to go through the layers and get deep enough to understand yourself honestly, thats the reason I said ask yourself "why"?
Back to the arguement that some of us have good foundations and bad foundations I completely disagree... we have different beliefs, which create different perceptions, which in turn gorverns the importance or emotional weight you assign to the experiences you've had. I would say that everyone has the experiences needed to be "natural" in the confidence aspect at least. The difference between those who are and those who arent is simply the way they percieve those experiences past and future.
Honestly you can't destroy who you are in the way your suggesting... well perhaps 2 exceptionally skilled hypnotherapists following the February man model could regress you and systematically repress certain memories while embedding and anchoring false replacement memories... but then again the only person that I know of who every successfully implemented a full regressed memory modification like that died almost 30 years ago. And with the whole ethics in therapy thing... I really doubt he'd be allowed to do that sort of work if he had lived in this day and age.
So basically unless we can resurrect Dr. Erickson, we are stuck augmenting and/or modifying our mental process. And have a simple choice... we can do it basically blindly, because someone said the word destruction, and that fellow with multiple personalities, who was banging the crackwhore in the abandoned house in that movie used to say things like that, so it must be good

. Or can look within ourself and discover our true strength, discover that its not just the "naturals" of the world who are strong, discover that we all are if only we would believe in our own strength.
Change your perceptions first... those are like your mechanics. Practicing like crazy when the basics are the same as they always were is such a slow and painful path to take. Image if when you first learned to drive you learned to operate the steering wheel with your mouth, by biting the wheel and jerking your head to the side, then biting the top again and repeating until you'd turned enough... Could you drive this way? probably not to start with, but if you practiced enough you could... but would it ever be as easy as if you just modified your beliefs? If insted you developed the belief that you could steer using your hands... once you had taken the time to away from practicing with your mouth to change that belief, how long do you think it would take to reach a similar skill as you had before with your new more effective "mechanics"? Even if you had learned all the tricks you could do with your mouth to make it work better, tongue tricks, teeth tricks, lip tricks, and practiced within a set schedule weekly... Still the more effective basics will surpass the highly tuned and highly practiced but very ineffecient mechanics.
Again the mindset is the "mechanics" for your life... all the practice in the world wont do you much good until you've got your mechanics.