Did you come to these realizations by thinking about philosophy, or by some other means?

Having the philsophy there in the background helped, but only in as much as it allowed me to better guide the emotional development that was happening at a more instinctive level. More to the point it allowed me to develop an alternative to the bullshit philosophy that was taught to me as a child. Since my hypocrisy muscles are weak that deveopment is vital.

Let me be clear that some of the thinking that prevents healthy emotional development is that same thinking that would condemn PUA. You may disapprove.

If it was by thinking about philosophy, how did you make the transition from abstraction to emotional change?

Swearing helped. Seriously. But that is me. I am male and all that testosterone pumping around in my blood makes a huge difference in how I go about emotional change. I also never lacked for what I'll call 'righteous anger', for lack of a better term. I could always get angry, and proactively so, with both bullying and bullshit. What needed to change was the suppression of selfish anger. The 'turn the other cheek', 'unconditional love', 'humility' kind of stuff. Since realising that is the sort of thing is actually bullshit used to bully people into compliance it qualified as a trigger for the outrage that I already gave myself permission to have. From there the process of expunging the undesired emotional habits was just a matter of time, counselling, hours in the gym and some martial arts practice.

Your path is probably a different one to mine. I could tell you to watch 'Gladiator' and 'Fight Club' a half dozen times each but that is more of a male-typical approach.