Hello beautiful people! I've been giving thought to the topic of expanding human potential (without the use of psychedelics, as amazing as they are), and I'd like to hear your thoughts on how to make this happen?

I'm moving towards lifestyle coaching, to coach people who want to upgrade their lives and expand their potential, and I'd like to hear your perspectives, experiences or stories on what people might find helpful for becoming a better version of themselves.

For example, I recently read in Stealing Fire by Kotler and Wheal that NAVY SEALS are using sensory deprivation (in combination with biofeedback) to cut down the learning time of learning a new language from 6 months to 6 weeks.

I'd especially like to hear technologies and methods like this that facilitate Peak Performance and allow us to upgrade our lives and expand our potential. But even discussion on common practices like meditation and exercise is very welcomed.

Thanks and much love! <3

What makes you qualified to coach other people about "upgrading and expanding" their potential?

Can you please elaborate on the following:

1. Do you have experience in lifestyle coaching, and are you a 'success story'??
2. Qualifications/Books, etc??
3. Social skills, confidence, charisma?
4. Do you want to try a kind of coaching based upon winning psychologies and goal setting alone (lots out there already), or in combination with other means of assistence? and why do you even think that it is necessary??

Ey

I'm using these techniques/therapies/exercises on myself to detox from drug abuse.

That being said, the first thing you have to know is the persons current physiological state.
Certain exercises might have adverse effects on someone with a hearth disease. What would you do in this case? Start slowly? Cut it out all together? Pursue the issue of the hearth?

I'm currently working, and have worked with, Emotional Numbness, Chronic Fatigue, HPPD and the likes of visual disorders.


I would start with a water fast, if all the evidence say's it's safe and the person is closely observed. It should help get rid of the body parts that are degenerative.

After that, the Ketogenic diet should be considered. I won't go into details but on the short term it's absolutely healthy and an awesome tool in our case!

Meditation is a tricky question, as I am not yet experienced in that area (hell, almost 2 years and I still know so little about it) But I am using it to fight Emotional numbness, also when my head feels pressured (like when you put your feet in a shoe that's smaller size?) it helps clear it out. I can pull joyful emotions out when in a deeper state, and slowly meld them in my every day life.

Saunas are very healthy

The Wim Hof method. It helped me immensely, and I still don't know the full extent of it's power. Another cheap and easy technique, fixed my chronic fatigue a year ago!

NoFap is legit. I simply can't go into this in detail, as there is not much scientific evidence behind it, but I am 100% sure a lot of people could use this in the long run to fix themselves mentally and psychically. Emotional numbness? Social anxiety? Try it!

The supplementation part is the most complex of them all. Looking around r/Nootropics I've found a number of things to my liking. Even broccoli sprouts are awesome (Rhonda Patricks videos are amazing) But this is on another level I can't recommend or give advice to others... All I can say is, sometimes it is better to combine supplements with each other. Sometimes it is better to exercise/meditate/wim hof on supplements. And sometimes, it ISN'T.

Microdosing psychedelics is a hit right now and I do think it has great potential and should be very safe for most.

Also try to keep food, sleep, and exercise on a daily basis with enough water to it.

A good 3 month practice of these is what I am aiming for, essentially changing and upgrading it day by day.


As a side note, I would like in turn for people to share their experiences with everything and anything regarding this topic. To observe ourselves responsively, and to fix ourselves (in some cases yes, with medical attention) is definitely better than to have chronic problems later on.

At the moment, not much, apart from self-education and playing with this subject since the last few years. I'm considering an iPEC coaching program in the future. Probably your question comes from the concern that one must've reached their own highest potential before being qualified to coach others. I'm not there yet, and to get to that point through this path makes it even more exciting I cannot wait to reach perfection or I might be waiting forever, though sufficient qualification (that tipping point) is still required.



I'm gathering a compendium of practices (data points) right now to see how this stuff can be remixed. I'd like to make the coaching practice a wholistic system of training - mind, body, and spirit - using 2) modern-day technologies like biofeedback devices and sensory deprivation tanks, in combination with 2) practices like Laughter Yoga, breathwork and meditation and 3) and psychological tools like visualization and auto-suggestion.

Why it's necessary? To accelerate development and see how far this can all stretch.



Thanks for sharing your toolkit! Wim Hof method is in fact amazing and a personal favorite I also find that when I visualize (with music in the background) after Wim Hof breathwork, my visualizations are much clearer and focused.

Are you still continuing this practice? And can you describe in more detail how it affected you/how you use it?



How much experience do you have with microdosing and what are the effects for you? When I was microdosing psilocybin some years ago, I wasn't feeling any effects. But I know it's quite common, especially among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and I don't get it..

Seems like you have many great ideas. Of course, the challenge is in the cross over from ideas to actually doing the stuff. That's a LOT of ideas, and their'in lies the challenge. Perhaps it is even 'too much'?

Good luck with your ideas, you have a lot of work ahead.

Well the thing is, I can only do it if my mind is in a stable state. I have had drug abuse even after HPPD, and sometimes even the slightest substances induced a few days or weeks of permatripp. During this time, there is absolutely No Way I could use the Wim Hof breathing method, same goes for Meditation. When my mind is a liability, it seems to make things worse.

When first time I've done it, It ticked something in my brain, and it actually healed my chronic fatigue. It felt like a small vein in my brain has moved for a single second, and after that I no longer felt tired all the time




This is on my list, but I have not experienced it yet.
The list goes on though. Visual problems? Try joggling for a few weeks.
etc...


Btw, will this be open source? And the collaboration is also open? This could be interesting if yes, an open source database, properly stored and presented, could help a lot of people heal themselves globally.
Especially if the methods are safe cheap and easy to do. Altho, as I've experienced, even the safest methods such as Meditation or Wim Hof can be devastating if set and setting is not right.

I was planning to make a post drug abuse thread on this forum, so if anyone has drug related problems, they could find easy cheap methods to fix themselves, with proper warnings and descriptions, and experience reports.

Of course, I am no doctor, so I don't know how I should handle the subject. If anyone has inquiries on this matter, please share

Actually, my question comes because I think "life coaching" is largely a sham, where people take other people's hard-earned money to essentially tell them to "be better" in one form or another. And, imo, generally speaking, it's one big circle jerk, from the ICF down through all of the organizations they're "accrediting."

Plus, you have to admit, it's kind of funny (and not a real good look) that you pop up on these forums stating "Hi, I'd like to be a life coach, please give me resources I can use." This kind of points to the underpinnings of my earlier point. Life coaches are like substitute teachers who read the chapter the night before the class they're substituting for and then "teach" the material the next day, even though, in reality, they have little- to no-more grasp on the material they are "teaching" than those they are "teaching" it to.

I've encountered more than my fair share of "life coaches" and I have yet to be convinced that they add anything meaningful to the world. Most are just hustlers of one stripe or another, although many of them don't appear to have realized that yet.

A small sum up during my break - This is just a short map, an excerpt!

Most importantly: All the practices (yoga, meditation, drugs, wim,... what ever) are just practices, you have to reach the core!

Facing the "almost fact" that I die (I can only say that I died, when I am dead) --> the fear of death is/as ultimate cause of motivation which --> turns into intention which --> shows itself as "pleasure gain" vs. "aversion avoidance" seeking expression/behaviour.



Faces of risk:
fact = acutal cost/consequence (pain) --> plaesure gain

vs.

fiction = derive an identification from an observed behaviour (suffer).. Because I behaved like x, I am a "failure" --> aversion avoidance


If you are circling in the "pleasure gain - facing facts - pleasure gain - facing facts" circle your are the "peak experience".

Experiment:
Observe yourself in your daily life and just notice everything you do out of an avoidance orientend behaviour, these are all buried potentials.

i) Because I don't want my girlfried to be mad, I do this and that... avoidance

ii) Because I want to live in a precious relationship, I support my girlfriend... pleasure gain

Avoidance implies giving up self-responsibility and self-control in every now, vicitim of the curicumstances.

i) & ii) might seem similar in its obserable reality but are totally different in how it is experienced.

More to find at "A matter of focus" or ask.

tseuq

edit:
One more example..

i) I am doing this, because I enjoy the topic and accept the possibility that SnozzleBerry and others may think that I am a lousy hustler and are going to reject me because of this behaviour (He even might creates an identification/image of myself based on this observed behavour, which is ultimately his own projection). (risk = fact)

ii) I am really interested in this topic and want to add my opinion but I am afraid that SnozzleBerry and others think that I am a lousy hustler and are going to rejects me because of this behaviour, which would just validate my OWN uncertainty about myself ("Am I worthy?" ) or my own misaconception about myself ("I am a loser." ). (risk = fiction = out of an identification)

Lead by example. Do as you say and say as you do.

I agree with Snozzleberry's sentiments about many of these self-appointed "coaches". So often one has to help these helpers with their play pretending of being helpers, or else the whole charade crashes down. Most of the victims are so desperate for the help to be real, that they will do most of the work to continue the illusion of help. So they end up stuck in even more of the role reversal problems that made them feel helpless and in need of helpers.

I disagree with Tseuq on this core idea: the ultimate fear is not of death, but of life. Death is only that aspect of life that the control trip, that we have employed to shield us from life, has least control over.

EDIT:

So anyone doesn't feel singled out for being called a hustler: I think the same about many shamans, spiritual gurus and even many of the officially ordained professional psychologists and psychiatrists. The patterns of role reversal are almost endemic in our culture.

Ah but yes. That can be true.

Seems i was mixing that up with 'self help books', which actually can be useful.

What is behind the fear of life? What do I risk?


The fear to fail and ultimately to die?

tseuq

You as a concept quasi-existing on the surface of your being is a shimmering mirage.

Compassion is not born out of intention to have such.

You cannot help another ever by purposely intending to do so, for the simple reason that you cannot know what's best for yourself, because that depends on knowing what you want, and as a matter of fact nobody really knows exactly what they want, because if they did they would not have become human, because being human is God's/Your way of experiencing illusion, which derived from latin means play.
Behind the play, behind Maya, is that which is beyond linguistic definition.

Exactly where each of us are right now in time, in life, and in place is exactly where we have put ourselves. No circumstance shaped us, no person or organization forced us against our will. We are not puppets to the universe, but expressions, or features, of the whole. There is noone here. If you think there is somehow here, this a hallucination brought on by the confusion of one's sense of self with a chronic sense of muscular strain, of tension in the body. In reality, there is this body, and this body is a feature of the environment, not something outside the system of nature upon which the body can exert an independent will. Whatever your will is is the will of the universe. That will must be informed by a context of clarity, which I am defining as the absence of our false sense of self, as an ego separate from and alien to the whole system of nature.

Any action that is spontaneous is the will of the whole universe.

So when we want to say that what we want to do in life is to "help others" or "coach" or "become our strongest version" or "become better" or "become improved" or "become smarter" or "become a more serene meditator" or "become more loving" - all of it is a big hoax, because behind this drive to improve is the false concept of oneself as a thing which can be improved in the first place. I described in another post recently about how the ego is like a mirage; it is there, it exists, but its reality is artificial. Now all of our efforts to destroy the mirage are going to be futile because its reality is made of light, made of the imagination. The mirage, the ego is a pure hallucination that must be overcome, or better, Seen Through. The persistent hallucination will eventually dissolve once the attention after which energy follows is no longer being pointed at this false idea of self as something to be improved. The thing isn't real in the first place!

The ironic thing is that when you stop trying to improve yourself (and as a reflection of that activity seek to improve others) you become, as a side-effect almost, your best version, which other people will comment as "hey! Billy Joe seems like a success! He's improved! Now let's go ask him to teach us how we can improve ourselves!" ... It's the funniest thing.

My guess is that the fear of life is the result of perinatal trauma.

This would happen long before a person learns to verbalize and conceptualize, even before there is a differentiation between inner world and outer world. At those stages, there is no knowing of "risk", "failure" or "ultimate death".

I don't want to advocate any particular schools of thought or therapists in this area, as you'll likely find a lot of the same role reversal such as I mentioned earlier. But I do believe that considering these notions and their relation to one's own life can be highly beneficial in finding a more fulfilling life.

excellent obsrvations, snozz.
actually, i am yet to see one single "life couch" who is not a scam artist.
apparently, being a scam artist seems like a profitable business. but then again, i wouldn't know from experience, don't have the required skills...
yeah, it's so ridiculous, that those scam artists can't for the life of them perceive their activities as scamming, and that's just one thing of many that are impossible for them to perceive. they have huge gaping holes in their perception of reality, and yet they want to teach others how to improve to get the best perception ever... how is that supposed to make ANY sense...

you don't say.
next time you are robbed, injured, tortured by a person or organization tell yourself that's actually your innermost will doing that to you, and you'll automagically instantly get all that evil's done to you rectified. no?
works for me all the time. not.

I don't even think that these "helpers" are scam artists in the true sense of the word. Any good scammer wouldn't be in that market preferrentially. It doesn't scale and most customers do not have a lot of wealth that can be milked from them. I think most of these cases are really a form of "folie a deux", arising from unconscious emostional needs rather than calculated scheming. Not that there isn't some cleverness and scheming involved, but here, only a limping unconscious is at work, blindly following its emotional needs.

I feel this is a very important aspect of human experience although it might be better explored in a separate thread.

In brief, the birth process occurs as a reflex when women are not systematically intimidated by medical 'authorities' throughout pregnancy, and can often be 77% pain-free. Interference from 'educated experts' leads to a cascade of physiological reactions to the detriment of the process as a whole, leading to trauma for both mother and child. I have first-hand experience of medically induced birth trauma which directly links with physical and psychological difficulties throughout life. So I'm interested...

@pitubo; What do you fear by "fear of life"?

tseuq