tsuki

If you're interested, Baby driver is a movie that portrays an introvert in a non-stereotypical way. You could also watch some movies starring Keanu Reeves because he's usually portraying an introvert. Neo is a good example of such a character. John Wick is another. They are both pretty badass introverts. Movies are great for studying (and breaking out of) stereotypes. I suspect that you are not yet convinced of your unique and genuine truth. Psychotherapy has helped me a lot.

Being authentic is not about saying every thought that passes through your mind. It's about listening to your body, feeling what is the right thing to do, and actually doing it. It's not about giving into the impulses (but it's also not about suppressing them). It's not about thinking what you should do (but it's also not about being rash). It's about doing things in a deliberate, meaningful and conscious way.

Contrary to popular belief, introversion and extroversion are not about being expressive or not. It's about the direction of energy in the psyche: Introverts recharge when engaging with their interior, while they discharge when interacting with exterior Extroverts recharge when engaging with their exterior, while they discharge when interacting with interior Lack of expressiveness in introverts is only present when they are overwhelmed, when something constantly drains them of their energy. When I was referring to "living under the surface", I meant that you know what your truth is, but choose not to express it. That is equally possible for introverts and extroverts. When you express something, it may, or may not be with alignment with you. It's about living the way that feels right. There is also a very harmful stereotype concerning introverts that they are shy, anxious and asocial. It's not true.

If you live "under the surface", when your true thoughts and feelings are left unexpressed, you are inauthentic. I believe this problem is unique to humans, or at least, a by-product of excessive use of language and symbols.

Today I feel euphoric. I'm totally high. I'm a magnificent creature. When I left work at 4 p.m. I felt a great sense of accomplishment with what I did today and actually a little bit thirsty for more. I completed a stage in my project and I feel confident that my work is well-designed, and resilient. I'm integrating a lot of interesting technologies in one place to solve a specific problem, but I'm working one level of abstraction above it so it gives me a lot of confidence that it is future proof. The program is also modular and it's a great pleasure to work on. Actually, I just noticed that one module is redundant and its functionality can be split apart into others. I don't know why, but it feels amazing to come up with these ideas. It's a purely intellectual pleasure, these sparks of brilliance are unlike anything I experience. For the first time in my life, I actually felt today that I want to exercise. I'm not (and have never been) much of a fitness freak and I don't exercise, but ever since I started doing physiotherapy I know that I'm steadily becoming more conscious of my body. This wanting to exercise was a new feeling. It was not that I thought that I should exercise to feel better, or that I logically concluded based on body scan that it's the right thing to do. I felt an itch all over my body, from my thighs, through my stomach and up to my shoulders, that I knew that could only be satisfied by exercise. It is inexplicable how I knew that. There were no intermediary steps between this feeling and my understanding. Thank you, my magnificent body, for speaking to me so clearly and abundantly. Like I said, I'm a magnificent, euphoric, creature and I like it this way.

https://neurosciencenews.com/vr-body-swap-self-16910/amp/

I've been pondering love recently. I knew for a long time that it is not an emotion, but I now understand why. Emotions serve two purposes - they inform me about my relationship to the world, and they mobilize me to action. When I'm afraid, I know that there is a threat and I hide. When I'm angry, I know that I've been hurt and want to defend myself. In this sense, the existence of emotions allow me to take better care of myself and thus, are the medium through which self-love manifests. Emotions are selfish and love is not any particular one of them. On the other hand, there are emotions that are associated with love and come about in relation to others. For example, there is infatuation, admiration and lust, but these are also inherently self-centered. Infatuation is the attraction to an unspoken promise. A promise that a given person can satisfy our need to be complete (it is also always a call to healing in disguise). Admiration is the call to self-betterment, it has a drop of ambition, or envy in it. Lust is the response to our physical needs and is also inherently about me. None of them go beyond the "I" and are the reason for so many dysfunctional relationships. I think that the true relationship starts when there is a mutual need to go beyond individual selfishness. A need to meet the other in their own playground. I think that love does not come from sacrificing individuals on the familial altar in favor of creating a collective ego. I think that it comes from wanting to give something to the other person that they really need. It is not selfish, and as such, it cannot be an emotion. Any emotion can accompany love when the response to it is appropriate. It requires constant vigilance to our automatic behavior and true understanding of our individual needs. It can only exist in relationships that are conscious and truthful.

Children go through various stages. Being on a higher, more integrated stage does not imply that you will not meet a 3 year old on his level. On the contrary, a more developed person would do that more easily. A stage blue parent could potentially demonize child's behavior and rationalize their abuse because it does not fit their worldview. It is actually traumatize a child if you try to train him to be 'moral' before he is able to. If a child feels that you as a parent are not able to handle their emotions, then they will learn to fear them because they will think that they are too powerful.

I had a few epiphanies relating to ego lately and I wanted to share them. First of all, I'm enjoying some progress in the relationship with myself, or, my sense of self in particular. It all started with understanding of what evil is. Evil is judgement of selfishness. I do not mean that it is evil to judge other people's selfishness, even though that is a selfish act in itself. I mean that there is selfishness, which is to act in my own best interest, and when someone acts in this manner, I can perceive that person as evil. It happens most often when they interfere with what I perceive to be my own best interest. There is a distinct drop in lucidity when it occurs, it's when the child takes the steering wheel, so to speak. Evil is a subjective experience of someone else's behavior. I'm at a loss of words here because I have heard or read these words many times before, but they have not created such a profound shift in the way I perceive human behavior before. Anyway, the shift in the way I relate to myself is that I can see that the ego is neither evil nor good. It is completely amoral. It is not concerned with morality as long as it is not conducive to its survival. It is completely, 100%, innocent. It is literally a child. It is a lion that devours a gazelle because it has to meet its calorie intake. It will lie, steal, rape, murder, manipulate and cheat to live. And I find it somehow beautiful, it brings pure, blinding, white light to my mind's eye when I think of it. I also understood why there is violence in this world. Like, why would a drug dealer break your arms to make you pay? This epiphany came when I was watching "Molly's Game" earlier today. It's so simple. It is not because you don't want pain, because pain is unbearable and that you are afraid of it. No, people use violence to coerce others to make them more selfish. To make them think of themselves first and foremost. Only then, they will become amoral like the perpetrators. This is also why trauma can result in violent behavior. It is because a traumatized person has an subconscious imprint that tells them "you are not safe in this world". This is why it is easy to mistake a traumatized person for the infamous "evil" narcissist. I'm willing to bet that narcissists are so traumatized that they can't even leave the ego overdrive for a second. This is a huge step for me and I'm very glad of this development. It is very helpful for both my individual and couple's therapy.

I'm spending some time alone because my wife went to see her parents and I'm having a lot of insights into the nature of my trauma. I'm deeply afraid to build "physical" things in the "real world" because there were incidents in the past in which my efforts were overlooked, or outright destroyed. That is what had led me to build with progressively more sublime material, ultimately leading me towards philosophy and programming. Basically, my ability to conceptualize very abstract topics was a defense mechanism that protected my creativity when I could not express myself freely. Hmm, this discovery is extremely important to me, but I feel that I'm not supposed to share it. I tried to tell this to my wife over the phone today, but I got annoyed because I felt that she wasn't in the place to receive this message properly. Anyways, I really enjoy just how much my body is sharing with me recently. It's really amazing how it is able to conjure up things that were long forgotten. The other day, I was assaulted on the street again. A guy on a bicycle wanted to punish me for walking on the bicycle lane and tried to straight up run me over. I know that he did it on purpose because he maintained eye contact. Fucking prick. I was lying on my bed in the evening, trying to to sleep, and asked myself why was I so upset? A memory came up about a family gathering when my nephew was just starting to walk. It must've been like 15 years ago. Even though I was not conscious of it at the time, I recognized now that I was jealous of him for being the center of attention when he was just starting to walk. I asked myself why I was jealous of him and another memory came up. It was not a visual memory, not a full-fledged scene, but more like body movement itself. I recognized it to be the first person experience of learning how to walk. I had baby arms and legs and I fell on my back, landing on my diaper. I realized that I was jealous of my nephew because I must have been alone when I was just starting to walk. I think that this chain of memories came about because of anger, a bicycle (a thing to be balanced), and the fact that I had to jump back to avoid being run over. Again, fuck that prick! Today I had a dream from which I woke up crying. I started crying in the dream, in response to the events, and it carried over to the waking state. I don't remember if I ever woke up from a dream this way. It was not a quiet sob, or weeping. I bawed out loud because my cat went missing! I am so happy to receive such gifts from my child (my body)!

Here's an absolutely amazing channel that discusses Avatar (and other fantasy worlds): he has a whole playlist of 27 videos on Avatar so far.

I'd say that he's beginning to transition from orange to green. He has a lot of self-hatred, but at least he's open about it and not taking it out on others like the rest of the fire nation. I don't think that he's supposed to be understood as a character in the conventional sense like the rest of the cast. He is a spirit/god, so he is archetypal. He's more like the essence of yellow itself (will to knowledge), and not a yellow person with all the other stages integrated (or not). I never felt much compassion from him, he was always just territorial about his library. EDIT: Now that I think of it, I don't even think that he's the essence of yellow, which is more like integration. I don't think that he fits the model very well.

What is a "shaman", or a "reiki healer"? It is a person that chooses to perform a certain profession. A "reiki healer" may have no benefit from learning Newtonian mechanics, but a person may be interested in it to transform himself into something different (an Engineer, let's say). When you apply this kind of reasoning to SD you will see that climbing it is a choice that the person has to make. It is, by no measure, an absolute and it will, or will not, resonate with some people. Regardless of what Leo's marketing tells you, there is no shame in not being interested in it. Usefulness is relative to your personal way of surviving. Sorry, I don't understand these two sentences. They seem to contradict each other to me. Good for you!

Newtonian mechanics break down at high velocities, but we still use it for a lot of important stuff. I would be incredibly surprised to see an individual that is completely off the charts with regard to SD. Even if I saw one, it SD would still be mostly correct 99,99% of the time. Models are relative, not absolute.

In whose eyes?

LOL "If someone wanted to scare them, they would have set the house on fire. I don't understand this, I hope that the police clears this up". This is outrageous.

Today was the first time that I actually felt that I was disassociated from the body. Usually, I deduce it through logical reasoning, by examining my circumstances. Today I decided to call my wife when I was having a break at work and she declined the call. I became anxious because I knew that she had a therapy session scheduled for today and I didn't want to interfere with her relaxations. I was also anxious because her therapist is sometimes critical of me and my inner abuser tends to fuel off of that. We had an intense weekend and she was emotionally exhausted, but I didn't feel like I vented at her. I tend to mistrust my judgement here because she has a habit of being dishonest to protect herself from me. Anyways, I was pacing around the balcony at the office and I felt it. I felt this unpleasant feeling and was able to recognize it for what it was. My capability to instantly translate my emotions into conscious experience (thoughts) has increased greatly in the past few weeks. I suspect that this success happened because I was feeling absolutely fantastic in the morning. I had a connection with myself that was unlike anything I felt for a very long time. I feel that my capacity for self-empathy and self-understanding has skyrocketed over the past few weeks. I associate it with my recent spiritual experience where I grasped that the inner child is the body. The boundary between sensations and emotions has somehow collapsed and I can see it as one. This has also helped me to understand the place of reason, and intuition in the greater scheme of my experience. At the moment, I feel this calmness that is somehow similar to boredom, but it's not as unpleasant. Maybe it's freedom? I dunno.

ATLA is awesome.

Obviously, I don't know you, but it really sounds to me like you are not able to see past the stigma of homosexuality that has been imposed on to you. It sounds to me like you are doing a lot of mental gymnastics to convince yourself and your family that you are not gay. The problem is that, ultimately, you are rejecting and demonizing a part of yourself. You will not be happy this way. If swallowing a dick makes you happy, what's so wrong about it? Would it be so bad if you were doing that in a deserted island, just you and your partner? Having an image of a heterosexual man is only sensible of you are relating to other people.

@Buba Your country has a heavy stigma around homosexuality and it is not to be taken lightly. The thoughts you have about your homosexuality are not yours. It must be so difficult to constantly listen to them. When I read your story, I thought that your parents are not ready to face this stigma within themselves so they had to ostracize you. If your financial circumstances allow it, I suggest that you distance yourself from them because they will not help you heal. If you know that you are homosexual, then there is only one way to proceed from here. Accept it, and don't give power to thoughts that bully you.

Just finished a couple's therapy session with the new therapist and I'm wasted. My wife is crying in the other room. We ate a piece of cake each, a bag of potato chips in half and she wanted another bag for herself. It was a struggle for my inner abuser to let us go. My abandonment wounds are taking a heavy toll on my marriage, and they interact badly with my wife's financial habits. I feel at the mercy of my trauma because I don't control the pace of my healing. Even though I'm enjoying some progress, my inner critic demands healing to go faster. I intellectually understand that I'm not guilty of things that I've done because I was reacting to my emotional pain, but at the same time, my inner critic is beating me over it. It's like the line between my heart and reason was cut and there are two distinct entities inside. The emotional part is having a wide swings of moods and the observer is not always there to take care of the ego. I felt fantastic for the past week or so, even had a spiritual experience akin to my recent awakening, but I had a feeling that my wife is hiding her pain. She denied, but surely enough, I learned in today's session that I was not mistaken. I also started to work with my body more. I'm doing physiotherapy for my back and neck pain which synergizes surprisingly well with my psychotherapy. I feel like my body awareness has skyrocketed and I even did some running. For the first time in my life I feel genuinely happy to move and doing it just for the sake of feeling good. I recognize that it's a huge progress. I'm also very happy and thankful for my work. I find programming a much better fit for my temperament and interests. I'm designing and coding a new cryptocurrency exchange in java. Lots and lots and lots of learning - programming languages, modern ways of developing production grade software, various tools and libraries and data infrastructure (databases, caches, message brokers, etc). I'm also working in a team that learns agile development. It's super intense as I'm working in a team with other programmers. This aspect also interacts with my psychotherapy nicely because I can start some new relationships. It's very refreshing to work with very intelligent people that are a bit younger than me. I'm loving it. So, overall, I'm still sticking to my 2020 priority and it's evolving. Lots of work to do. I just hope that we can get through this as a couple.

Leo has a book on autism on his booklist.

Evil is your perception, it has no objective existence. People harm others because they are acting out their own suffering.

False God turns suffering into violence. True God turns violence into suffering.