Mirror Gazing: Why & How?

No, this is not some psychopathic practice done by crazy people and narcissists who can’t stop looking at themselves.

What I’m about to explain to you is a meditation practice that has been proven to help increase self-esteem and enhance self-awareness.

As mentioned before, the point of this meditation is to couple if with visualization meditation (which I’ll explain in another post) in order to feel more in touch and at peace with yourself. But that’s not all there is to gain. In fact, the main reward you will get from doing these things is an drastic improvement of your determination in achieving your goals and more importantly a better understand of you own behavior which will help you improve your social skills.

Let me explain how.

If you’ve never done this, it might be a bit difficult at the start.

Given that you’re not used to staring at a mirror for so long, your brain might start getting confused and create optical illusions by deforming what you see on the mirror.

But don’t worry about that, you’ll get past it on the second or third time.

While all meditation practices revolve somehow around one’s feelings and emotions, mirror gazing makes it far easier as humans naturally respond better to perceived emotions as opposed to visualized or imagined ones.

Now, what are the steps for it:

- Set a timer (5 to 20min, depending on how familiar you are with meditation)
- Put away all potential distractions
- Look at your reflection in the eye and maintain eye contact

Now as tempting as it will be, do not look elsewhere. If you break eye contact, consider the session over and start again. Which is why we set a timer, so that we keep focused on eye contact until the timer goes off; whenever you’re tempted to break eye contact, remind yourself to wait for the timer.

At first, given the confusion; you might notice that your face expresses negative emotions, which will make you feel self-compassion and a better understand of what you project when confused. As you start to realize this, it will slowly change to more relaxing and soothing facial expressions; which are not a result of you calming down but rather a subconscious attempt of yours to feel for yourself and reassure yourself.

Mirror gazing works in a way where we unconsciously interact with ourselves through body language.

It breaks the ice between what you think and how you behave and offers you the possibility to fully understand yourself inside and out.

Last thing:

Once you’re done, make sure to write down your thoughts after each session. That will allow you to keep track of your progress and review your own conclusions, to consciously act upon them and take action on what needs to be changed.

Next part will be on visualization as mentioned before. And then we’ll have a final part to explain how to use of meditation practices to benefit one another.

I'll be sending this e-mail 15 hours from now approximately.

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Scheduled this post for tomorrow. Hope you all enjoy the read.

PS: Probably one of the longest I've posted here.

Be close enough to yourself enough that you can listen to your inner voice.

That is when you become who you truly are destined to become.

Nothing and No one else matters.

It is you with yourself in pursuit of becoming a better you.

Can you listen to what destiny whispers in your ears?

Can you walk the path God paved for you?

Find yourself anon.

Charm Principles

Be source of people’s attention

Every person is narcissistic at heart. All they desire is to be heard, recognized, and to feel importance. Focus your attention towards them - Listen to the person talk. Amplify their ego with indirect flattery. Rarely indulge in your own narcissism.

Be the source of pleasure

People live miserable lives, tensed & filled with unnecessary suffering. Offer them a sense of detachment from their problems. Use wit and humor to lighten their burdens. If you struggle with it - watch a lot of stand-ups.

Be bold

Timidity is dangerous. Hesitation creates confusion and makes you appear distrustful. Likeability & trust are the foundations of charm. Exude irrational confidence, be bold in your actions & demands. People are drawn towards confidence, because they are themselves insecure. This is a domain where you can fake it & make it. Be subtle there’s a fine line between confidence & arrogance.

Never point out people’s mistakes

Never tell someone he’s wrong, it offends their ego and they begin to associate negative feelings with you. Don’t be the bearer of bad news, no matter how well your intentions.

"Truth is for few, lies are for many…"

When the fallacy is committed blame it on circumstances, never on the person. It was the situation that failed him, not himself.

Keep your political beliefs private

People are ideologically captured. Their political beliefs are part of their identity, when you express differing political beliefs you are questioning their identity. Masses are emotionally invested in their identity, no matter how sound your argument they will consider it as an attack. Furthermore, in the current world you can be cancelled for having certain political beliefs

Be competent

Confidence is the result of competence. Be the master at what you do, it will make you irreplaceable. Moreover, nothing charms people more than being capable of helping them in the movements of despair. The helping hand is rarely forgotten.

Calm and emotional-possession

Be the rock in the moments of chaos, unfazed and extremely calm. In adversity & chaos, when everyone is panicking people find support in someone who’s calm, rational and unraveled by emotions. Learn to control your anger, fear and paranoia.

Humor & Personality

As promised, here is my analysis on how humor affect personality.

Disclaimer: I’d like to point out that what I’m about to say is NOT backed up with any scientific research and solely based on my own experience and analysis (which I’m pretty confident in).

Let’s start.

The thing with cracking jokes is that they most of the time come naturally to one’s mind.

In other words, there is rarely much thought (conscious at least) put into thinking of a joke.

You’ll also notice that the more you try to come up with a joke, the less funny it is.

That is because humor and making jokes come from fast connections that you make in your mind which result in a funny visualization in your head.

Now what makes something funny or not is a whole other topic.

What we want to know now, is what someone’s humor says about their personality and character.

But first, let’s explain why humor does in fact say a lot about someone.

As mentioned before, humor comes from subconscious thought processes that often come in a spontaneous manner.

As such, someone’s jokes are way more relevant to analyze someone’s personality than their properly thought and formulated ideas.

The point here is not to evaluate someone’s level of fun, but to understand what types of connections they make in their head and what type of ideas they think of, that led them to finding something funny and sharing it.

For simplicity & conciseness, we’ll consider 3 types of humor.

- Word plays
- Absurd humor
- Dark humor

1. Word Plays:

This is probably the most innocent type of jokes one can make, they’re also not always funny but they do say a lot about the person that makes them.

One of the things you can conclude about someone who constantly makes such jokes is that they could have some sort of attention deficit.

Let me explain, this is not about ADHD.

How does someone make a word play joke?

The answer is quiet simple.

Word plays come from how words or sentences sound.

That means that the person who just cracked a word play joke has repeated the initial word they made fun of, many times in their head.

That is an indication that said person puts a particular effort in understanding the information they’re given and that they unconsciously repeat said word in their minds to better understand it.

This is their natural way of dealing with information, and from time to time, that repetition will sound similar to something else that is unrelated yet sounds very close.

It is only in such cases that the person is able to make word play jokes.

Another thing we can conclude from the above is that, people who use this type of humor are usually highly invested in their conversations (although they tend to lose focus, which will result in such jokes.)

2. Absurd Humor:

This type of humor on the other hand, shows detachment and intelligence.
Yes I know, it doesn’t sound like it but bear with me I’m going to explain.

To be able to make absurd connections in your mind and make a joke out of it, you inevitably have to be detached from the conversation.

This is a sign that people who make such jokes, are in fact (and as opposed to the previous example) not very involved in the conversation.

They take what has been said to them very lightly and do not value the conversation they’re having.

Another thing to keep in mind is that such people, who behave in this manner, often consider that engaging with others is a waste of time.

They are however able to make fast connections between what’s being mentioned and things that are completely unrelated. Which shows how little they care about the exchange happening.

But that’s not only it.

To be able to have such kind of humor, you must be able to spot slight similarities and points of relatability. As such, as much as they’re not really involved in the conversation, they are able to spot a specific point and relate it to something else very quickly, which is a sign of higher intelligence.

Although, some of you might argue that this is a waste of intelligence.

Statement to which I completely agree.

3. Dark Humor:

I truly believe that, although this kind of humor is the funniest, it’s a sign of emotional weakness and instability.

People with a dark humor, make connections between seemingly normal facts and things that are absolutely not socially accepted.

It goes to show a feeling of resentment and a refusal to comply with social norms.

Although I am someone that is against complying with social norms, this type of humor is a sign of insecurity and attention seeking.

The main goal being making the interlocutor cringe and feel torn apart between discomfort and the funny side of the joke.

It creates such an uncomfortable situation, which makes it even more laughable.

However, as mentioned above, it’s alarming when someone constantly makes dark, pessimistic and/or hateful connections.

As it shows a sign of emotional immaturity.

Will drop a thread on how to spot a manipulator later on 🥂

On Self-Awareness

I often talk about the importance of self-awareness, I also occasionally mentioned a few practices that can help increase and enhance it (like our ongoing series on Mirror Gazing & Visualization, next part dropping tomorrow). I’ve however never made a specific post about the importance and meaning of self-awareness and I believe it’s high time to do so.

First, let’s explain in simple words what self-awareness is.

Self-awareness can be defined as one’s level of understanding of the different traits and behavioral pattern that they tend to have.

Now why is it so important?

This is probably a dumb question but let’s answer it anyway.

The more you get to know yourself, the more you can work and improve it to help yourself become the best version of yourself.

What might sound like a platitude turns out to be an essential aspect of everyone’s daily life.

Pick any topic, I’ll tell you how it’s related to self-awareness.

Social skills? Highly related to it.

Love relationships? Nothing more related to it.

Job opportunities? Of paramount importance.

Discipline? I don’t even need to explain.

The point being, MANY if not MOST people never truly take the time to analyze themselves and connect with themselves to better behave and act in order to optimize their lives and seek their well-being.

At the end of the day, self-awareness is one of the special characteristics of humans. It’s our ability to be conscious of our existence, actions and behavior that makes us different from other species.

As such, those who never take the time to improve their self-awareness behave in robotic manners, and simply fit the mold of programming imposed by society.

It’s because most people lack self-awareness that you see people who are embarrassingly lack originality and uniqueness.

You’ve probably seen me or other people, or even used this word yourself: NPCs.

They’re simply programmed by the matrix and not aware of their own behavior.

In short, be it to build self-confidence, discipline or simply feel better in your own shoes; it’s essential that you work on your level of self-awareness.

That will help you mold yourself into the person you want to be and not simply what you were told to be.

PS: If you need help check this out, you can use the code "basedonia" for a 50% discount.

This is still planned btw

Think about this:

The more thoughts you give to someone, the more mental space they take in your head....

The more you care.

Which applies to other people.

Now think about people who constantly criticize you and try to put you down.

They in fact direct thoughts and energy your way.

Meaning:

You take a chunk of their mental space as they spend time thinking of you.

Why would they do that if they weren't fascinated by you?

You could say they hate you.

But hate always comes from a place of discomfort.

Which comes from projecting our own standards on others.

As such, in many cases, what you believe to be hate, is denial of admiration and fascination over your lack of understanding.

Think about this whenever you think you hate someone.

Find the missing piece that's making you feel negative emotions and fix it.

Even negative emotions can be analyzed and capitalized on for personal growth.

Tip to maintaining a certain level of satisfaction and happiness:

Focus on anything you did well.

Remind yourself how great the results of your work have been; constantly remind yourself of your skills and abilities.

By doing so, you not only force your brain to focus on positives but you also build a stronger self-image.

This is how you do positive self-talk.

Even a "I did my best" is better than "I should have done better"

The former expresses gratitude, the second expresses remorse.

Your brain feels those words and weighs them heavily.

Handwriting and Personality Traits

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I have a passion for body language. Besides my own conclusions on the topic, I’ve found myself researching and reading a lot of material related to body language.

One of the very interesting topics that I stumbled on during my readings is the personality signs and tendencies hidden in people’s handwriting. As much as I believe this to be pseudo-science, I’ve come to realize that I was wrong. These things are used in crime investigations and also by mentalists and psychologist in their analysis of their subjects.

Here are a few things to know about what someone’s handwriting tells you about them:

1- Letter & Word Spacing:

The more space you put between your letters or words, the more likely you are to value freedom and personal space. Someone who deliberately takes space on the paper they’re writing on is someone who values their own independence and freedom. As such, they take all the space they find free. It just makes sense. This can also indicate an ease in verbal communication and expression of their ideas as they are comfortable with expanding in big size whatever they have in mind.

As opposed to someone who leaves little space between their words. This second category of people are either highly intrusive and don’t value other people’s boundaries, or very reserved and shy. The logic behind the former is that people who don’t value free space between their words also don’t value other people’s personal space. As for the latter, the unwillingness to impose themselves and take as much space as they want indicates a lack of self-confidence and/or a lack of confidence in their ability to formulate their ideas. As a result, they will take as little space as they can so that none of the words they write can standout to the reader. It’s a sign they are not comfortable with exposing their ideas and having other people read their writing.

2- Pen Pressure and Weight of Writing:

This is a tricky one.

Because this can vary depending on situations and not on individuals.

Although there are general patterns from which one can draw conclusions.

Generally, the higher the pressure applied on the pen & more weight on the writing, the higher the likelihood of the person being tense and stressed. This can indicate feelings of anxiety and discomfort that the person expresses through their writing as a coping mechanism for what they feel inside.

Oppositely, a light pressure and weight indicate a higher sense of empathy and sensitivity. The unwillingness to apply pen pressure is sometimes a sign that the person is light hearted and highly emotional; although it does not express any sign of negative emotion.

3- Dots on I's

This a straightforward one.

The higher the emphasis on the dot and distance between the letter and the dot, the higher the sense of creativity and detail. People who take a pause to properly dot their I’s are generally people who care about aesthetics and details; as opposed to people who will not put much thought and effort into doting their I’s; whom are usually less creative and more pragmatic. The former cares about the presentation of the idea, the latter cares about the effectiveness in expressing their idea.

A way to confirm this is by debating with both types of people.

While the creative ones will try and use the most fancy words and make their sentences sound pleasing, the pragmatic ones will tend to be more conclusion oriented and care less about their choice of words.

I had doubts about this one, until I tried it (yes I do random experiments on people to better understand human nature, so should you.)

4- Readability of Signature:

The easier it is to read and replicate someone’s signature, the more likely it is that said person is not only highly confident but also comfortable in expressing their ideas. The signature being easy to read is a sign of willingness to be exposed and somehow a willingness to be remembered.

As opposed to people with a very complex signature, whom, on the other hand, value their privacy and are not willing to expose their thoughts and express them.

A general rule is that the ease of reading someone’s signature will often define the person’s introversion or extraversion tendencies.

PS: It’s important to note that these general rules are reliable BUT they do not tell the whole truth. I’ve been hesitating to share this with you as I know some people could rely on solely handwriting to analyze others. As I always say, one sign alone is not enough to reach conclusions about someone. It’s through gathering many clues that you can put together a puzzle. It’s a fun game but it’s also a dangerous one if you’re highly judgmental as you could eventually reach the wrong conclusions.

Also a side note, someone who’s in a uncomfortable position and situation of stress (either being pressured or simply getting caught in a lie) will change their handwriting drastically in a subconscious attempt to be deceptive. Although they themselves could be unaware of what they are doing.

Announcements:

1. As requested by my friend AC, I will be expanding this thread and including the physiognomy of manipulators.


2. The series about Mirror Gazing and Visualization is not done, it's simply taking me more time than I thought I needed as I try to make it as simple and understandable as possible for everyone.

How is this channel still free