How to Gain More Control Over Your Mind than it has Over You. (lessons learned after 8 years of confusion)

You want to stop giving into coping mechanisms, procrastinating and being avoidant of the things you truly want to do but that make you anxious.

But, you don’t currently understand why you avoid doing work or talking to women or potential new friends or why you watch porn when you don’t actually desire to.

By the end of this Procedure, you’ll know exactly how to identify avoidant habits and mechanisms you use to cope with tension and anxiety, as well as how to fix it all and start living without doubt, fear, hesitation and therefore start feeling happier starting today.

For me, pornography was a coping mechanism for anxiety.

Anxiety (tension that arises in response to a stimulus) stops us from talking to strangers in public, from being productive and makes us give into social media scrolling and pornography use when we don’t actually want to.

There’s something here you need to understand - coping mechanisms. When I would watch porn as soon as I sat down for a focused writing session, it was the coping mechanism for the tension I felt knowing that the writing would take effort.

Writing like right now ;).

My brain resorted to this harmful content for a variety of reasons, but ultimately it was how I coped with the tension created between the work I wanted to do and the higher-dopamine activity that was only a few clicks away.

I recently posted something on x, “We often give into coping mechanisms because we can no longer stand the tension pulling us between the productive thing we want to do and the indulgence we crave but don't want”. Here’s a visual:

Other circumstances where coping mechanisms come up would be you seeing an attractive woman in public you’d like to speak to, but suddenly pulling out your phone, getting uncomfortable and looking down.

Maybe you do funny things with your hands when you’re having a conversation with someone and you’re making eye contact.

We can stop conducting these coping habits and finally start talking to the people we want to and feeling free to act as we please by Acknowledging, Identifying and Remembering (AIR) these habits.

AIR means to Acknowledge the thought, Identify the story it’s telling and Remember that you are not the thought and by letting it go, things will happen as they’re supposed to.

This is a special technique based on the foundations of Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and is a powerful path towards freedom from intrusive thoughts.

Personally, the AIR technique helped me turn my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) into a massive advantage (read this later) because after working with a Wollongong Psychologist (Gregory Konza) at 11 years old, I realised that I was separate from my negative thoughts and therefore could still be happy and have a good day regardless of what those thoughts said.

For example, the anxiety I felt before going to school would result in plenty of thoughts about how I should talk or behave.

I acknowledged the thoughts, identified the story they were telling, “Ah, there’s the overthinking story again. I’ve heard it a million times”, and remembered that it was just nonsense my brain came up with to protect me.

Thinking about it now, the AIR concept allowed me to embody an entirely new identity, because it was clear that I could choose my state of being.

The quality of my life wasn’t tied to my thoughts, it was tied to how I responded to my thoughts.

Without this technique, your intrusive thoughts feel big and real when they’re not real at all.

They exist purely to make you take avoidant action to relieve the anxiety that arises from a perceived threat.

The threat is often social, because we’re social creatures who care about human connection, status and companionship.

All these realisations were perfect for me, because being someone who’s prone to anxiety, overthinking and introversion involves accepting that your brain works differently to other people.

And that’s okay.

Again, if you read the Procedure I just linked, these mental traits can be more than okay - they can give you significant cognitive advantages over other people.

AIR proved to be a foundation that was strong enough and pointed me on such a path that I was able to make the shaky journey towards the man I am today all on my own without further therapy, which most people who know me consider to be wild.

It’s funny how the right advice can be worth more than years of sub-par advice and talking-therapy.

AIR is now your new coping mechanism for the fear associated with exposure.

Exposure to new social connections, things you want to say and ways you want to behave.

Let’s explore how to start feeling mentally free, happy, social and in-control of your life through Exposure and Adaptation (E&A).

By exposing yourself to the tiger with the confidence of a lion, you can win the battle of tension.

A lion’s confidence doesn’t necessarily need to come from thinking it’s top shit - it may simply feel minimal self-doubt.

You want to talk to whomever you want. At parties. In public. At work. At uni.

You desire human connection.

We can make this happen by letting the doubtful thoughts in our head chatter away, while remembering that they’re just a story deployed by the mind in response to a perceived threat.

The mind tries to make you avoid it by increasing the tension and anxiety you feel as you’re pulled between the perceived threat (thing you want) and the avoidant option (not doing it or a coping mechanism) to the point that you give into the avoidant option since it’s easier.
You’ll notice that the mental stories do 1 of 2 things - they’ll either make the perceived threat seem really dangerous and like everything could go wrong, or they’ll make the avoidant option seem super easy and somehow better for your wellbeing.
You give into these stories and therefore strengthen them. That’s why you’ve been stuck for 2-3 years.

By reverse-engineering this mental process (which can last for hours or only moments), it becomes clear that we can weaken the stories and do the things we want by facing the perceived threats as much as possible.

We don’t force the stories to stop, we simply let them weaken until one day we wake up and realise they’re basically gone.

This might be enough information for you, but if you want to socialise more and without fear, you may be wondering what you’re even trying to get out of those interactions.

Let’s explore the headspace that I’ve found helps me connect the most to people and be myself.

My goal when talking to people is to truly see them and hear them.

To be there with them. No desired outcome. No expectation.

You’ll find that this matches up with the Buddha’s perspective on letting go of desire:

“He [Buddha] realised that this moment [meditating under tree for 49 days] of bodhi or awakening derived not from the punishing of his body… instead… learning the way to extinguish desire,” (W Dalrymple - The Golden Road).

This approach seems to resemble what it means to connect with another human being.

It’s the headspace I have when talking to that pretty girl at a cafe or saying something to that dude at the train station I get a good vibe from.

Understand that everything that’s for you will come to you. Therefore, go talk to that girl and see how it goes.

This also brings into light another important lesson you should be aware of - expectations.

Think about this, would you ever get disappointed if you never expected anything to begin with? Likely not, because what’s there to be disappointed about in that case?

I’ve heard a similar, more pessimistic take on this; “I always expect the worst so that when it happens I don’t get hurt”.

This is a coping mechanism to prevent the same pain this person’s felt in the past. Not good for your state of mind.

Don’t expect anything, but always find something to appreciate. I’m currently an optimist for this reason, but initially that was too hard for me and so I aimed to remain calm and indifferent to whatever outcomes turned out for me.

Indifferent.

You can talk to that girl if you’re indifferent to any outcome, or if you simply don’t expect anything out of it and remind yourself that the more you follow your heart despite the overthinking, the easier this will get over time as your overthinking will decrease.

You may even take life less seriously. That’s it.

Acknowledge, Identify and Remember (AIR) will help you identify patterns in your avoidant and undesirable behaviour so that you can figure out how to stop giving into the thoughts and do the things you want to do.

The thoughts you experience aren’t you. Get to know the stories your mind tells and expose yourself to the fears (ironically what you desire), which will weaken the stories so much that they can’t stop you.

You’ve got the power to connect with people deeper than others can, because you’re empathetic.

You’re in control, as long as you notice the way your brain responds to anxiety and tension.

Best of luck cheeky rascal.

If I’m presuming correctly, you’re at a fairly early stage of overcoming intrusive thinking and anxiety.

Now that you understand these concepts of self-observance, you need to replace the belief that you should be like other people such as extroverts with accepting your mind for the way it naturally works.

Here’s a Procedure that covers it.

If you want to talk to me, you can do so for a small amount of time each day on the Peaky Pines Community Discord.

I’m a busty man. I mean busy.

If you’ve already accepted that your brain works a particular way and you’ve got to make do with what you’ve got, check out the 11 Steps to Social and Happiness Elevation.

The crazy thing is, your brain is not just tolerable, but actually stupidly fucking powerful.

Fill out that form and look at the feedback to see what I mean.

If you want to avoid messing around and just reduce your self doubt, social fear and increase your self confidence as fast as possible without your intrusive thoughts making you feel awful, apply to work with me.

It will save you multiple years of juggling your balls in your hands, less stress involved and you’ll get lessons from my strange life experiences.

Remember, I see you boy.

Riley.

Picture of the week: