Eph75

Here are some. They are mostly about investing and aspects connected to investing. But that also will teach you how to think about money. Rich dad, poor dad The richest man in Babylon Think and grow rich The psychology of money One up on Wall Street All very good, but the two first are particularly easy/fun reads as they are using storytelling, might be a good start.

@Someone here Religion serves a function. When the need isn't there anymore, i.e. join/conform where the masses are not united around some level of shared morale, the function needs to be transcended, either by abandoning for some other function that serves developmental evolution, or by changing with time. Ideological religion can evolve to a deeper sense of individualistic spirituality. Or it can evolve to atheism, which itself becomes a function for individualism, that is a stepping-stone towards individualistic spirituality. Function, after function, after function. Serving the inherent need to keep developing. Getting stuck with one function, for the sake of the function and not the development, arrests the development itself. When we're looking at phenomena as function, there's no objective good, bad, true or false. There's only whether it serves the need for development in a sufficient way, or not. If religion helps us transcend developmental evolutionary obstacles, then it's favorable. If it's holding us back, the it's unfavorable. This is easy to see if we're focused on a desired outcome that is "development". What if the desired outcome is something else, for example escape the pains of existence to seek comfort and distance ourselves from responsibity of our own lives (which essentially is resisting development). Then, is religion favorable or unfavorable? Looking at history, you will see different times when religion served a much needed, and required, function. Looking at the world and different societies, you can see that different countries have different needs and require different functions to develop. The question then becomes, which societies are using religion as a function to transcend its current state? And for which societies has religion become a crutch, a means of power or oppression, suppression of change, or otherwise, that no longer serves development. Generalizing, and looking from a developmental perspective, religion was an ingenious invention, in a barbaric time where conformity and control was needed, to be able to create a society that functioned in a better way. Generalizing, and looking at today, religion is more a crutch and holding development back, and it's some new ingenious function we need to evolve. What might that function be, today, that isn't yet fully evolved and not yet fully accepted to create needed change? Connects to the progressives discussion here, where progressive is more the pioneers that being new functions into an existing system. Back in the day, the ones that brought religion into the game were the progressives of their time. Your example of groups split up is a problematic comparison, since all of these groups stand on a foundation that is built on the positive outcomes that religion already has produced. You'd essentially have to reset cognitive development (remove all external influence) and in that sense reboot the non-religious group, to allow that group to evolve through thousands of years, while still in isolation, to get an unbiased result. And, if that experiment even was feasible, I dare bet that they would invent a form of religion as a function to conform their masses, on their developmental journey. Just like religion in various forms, seemingly independent of each-other, have sprung up in different places around the world, while still being fairly similar at the core, driven and shaped by the need to developmentally evolve.

Yes! I never quote Star Wars, but when I do, it's this quote: "Try no. Do or do not. There is no try." Of course this isn't easy, to change something like this there needs to be deep intention, and strong motivation. Extraordinary change require extraordinary measures. Achieving emotional mastery is extraordinary. And the gains are extraordinary (far bigger than anger issues) That's a natural part of the change process, and it makes sense; you came to realize, consciously or subconsciously, that enough was enough, and you compensated. Overcompensation often happens, and I'd stretch to say, with important and "loaded" things that push-back, overcompensation is more the rule than the exception. This is what needs to be unlearned. This is a coping skill, to maintain sense of self and autonomy, by protecting boundaries. But that's where anger is great, useful, and serves an important purpose. Agression is not a useful response. It's the aggression side of this that needs to go, as it's destructive in nature. All emotions are impulses that should go away quickly, except happiness, which dissapates slowly. When we are angry over time, we walk round with cortisol in our bodily chemistry, which has so many negative side effects, psychological, pschysomatic and physical. Maintaining boundaries can be dealt with in more constructive ways, for example impact feedback. Example; "When you keep pointing out my mistakes in my language it makes me feel as if I'm less worthy as a person, as if my worth is reduced to my ability to be grammatically correct." Framing it like this without active/passive aggressivity leaves an imprint in others as "them hurting you". When giving impact feedback it's about letting others know of their action and the impact on you. And it's important to leave it at that, and not get into an argument. If there's an argument, you still lose. The point is to leave the other with a thought. That's a thought that they are likely to take with them. This is especially powerful. If there was an argument afterwards, their lasting thought would be connected to whatever ways you wronged them in or by having that argument. Not the impact they had on you. The grammar example isn't a perfect one, as people commenting grammar is something we're better off not reacting towards, recognizing that there is some need within the other to feel important, or maybe them thinking they are being helpful, by helping you see and correct your grammar. When setting boundaries, we need to we selective, and choose our battles, depending on the severity of that boundary infringement. Not engaging in what's trivial, which is likely a over-reaction based of other more severe boundary infringements. Let's make a distinction here. A) A person with a lot of anger issues go partying every weekend, and keeps getting into fights. This person uses fighting as an outlet of his anger, into aggression, into physically abusing others. That anger release makes this person feel powerful, in control, and it also acts as a pressure release valve. This person gets addicted to exercising that power, essentially finding pleasure in being aggressive. Our brain chemistry works like that, we build addictions within our rewards system. (Extreme example, yes) B) Your example, you feel powerful by setting boundaries, you have difficulty to control your aggression while doing this. You feel powerful because you get a sense of control over your life, by setting those boundaries. That's your Brian chemistry rewarding you for that boundary setting, administering serotonin. That reward is making you come back for more boundary setting, as it makes you feel powerful, and good. This is very different from examole "A", this is healthy power, while "A" was not. Now, the crux here is the agression. There's likely also a bit of power sensation happening based on the aggression. And there's risk that we do get hooked on using aggression also while managing our boundaries, which (think about brain as a trainable muscle) closes the gap towards starting using aggression is other non-boundary-setting situation, as it then brings sense of power. How we manage boundaries matter. We just need to me aware of this, and introspect, into how we use aggression. The end goal is not to use aggression, and find creative outlets. That is, unless it's a life threatening, life-or-death situation, aggression to protect yourself from actual physical harm or injury as a result of someone attacking you. But then we're talking about fight-flight-or-freeze responses where fight require aggression, and will happen instinctually. The possibility is very, very real. But extraordinary, require extraordinary.. Let's make this simple. No. Anger yes! Healthy. Aggression no! Unheatly. Unless it's actual survival. The distinction between the two is important. By losing aggression you don't lose anything, really, you gain something, as aggression takes a toll on you. By losing anger (suppressing anger) you lose everything, as it's connected to maintaining your sense of self. Some would say beating on a punch-bag is a healthy expression of agression. Well, yeah, it's way better than beating on a person. But that's managing aggression outlet. Not emotional mastery. The negative side effects of aggression are still there, needing to be managed, being channalize into an outlet that doesn't hurt others, at best. Great! How would a lovingly radiating person, lovingly set boundaries? (Rhetorical question) It would involve learning to set boundaries without "pouring gasoline and throwing a burning match" onto the problem (which aggression essentially does). And keep remembering, anger is your friend, feel into it, understand it, take action, but regressing to aggression is when we've lost our self-control. Is there room for win-win where boundary setting actually builds relationships and gains respect of others? (Rhetorical question) Some people switch roles when you set boundaries, from being a "perpetrator" to being either "victim" or "helper". Maybe you've seen this in some cases already? Somewhat off-topic, but at the same time not, as this switch happens when setting boundaries and the dynamics in relationships change; "Karpmans Drama Triangle" is a good read-up on this phenomena. (of course, some negative people we should just choose to stay away from, or ignore, but also that can be done without aggression, and instead as a conscious choice) Making this an inward journey puts focus on gaining as much understanding as possible about emotions, conceptually, and observing emotions in yourself. And having that strong intention to move towards mastery. It's hard work, but fully possible. Here's something that helped me towards emotional mastery: When first sensing an unpleasent emotion, say anger, but often it's something else before that, you can stop and ask "it" a disarming question, such as, "hi little friend, who are you and where did you come from". Saying this out loud, if possible, works best. This might sound corny, but that's part of the point, adding some lightness into the process. If we're "dark" in our mind, we need to shift to a somewhat "lighter" mode of introspection. It becomes ritualistic and forces a pause, and a shift, with a note of love and friendliness, into introspection. If you experience emotions as physical phenomena, as I do, shift you focus to the part of your body where that sensation is experienced, and engage into a friendly constructive conversation with that sensation. Over time we catch ourselves in earlier stages of this emotional process, before it gets inflated in the mind. As with everything that is difficult to change, we need to engage with it from all imaginable angles at the same time. That increases the chances of successfully changing our behaviors.

@Magnanimous If anything, Leo's videos is a journey, just like it is for all of us. It might be tempting to skip to the end (current position on his journey), due to instant gratification and all that. Don't. You have your own journey to take which will be fairly represented by watching Leo's videos from day one, and not stressing through them to get to today. This journey is one that takes many years, if you want to embody the information conveyed, through own experience. Knowledge is useless if you don't make the changes in your life. I daresay most people here are in for mental maturation moreso than changing themselves. Slow down, start from the beginning, and make sure that you embody the developmental opportunities that show up. It's not even certain that you will be taking all of this journey. The most important parts for you are the ones at the beginning. Once you get change going you will have your own path unfolding before you. That's more important than following Leo. Start there.

Thanks for sharing that one, it's a powerful one, I'll hold on to that quote ❤️

That's a great start! Sorry, this got long, but it's a complex topic. So regardless of what the trigger is, the work that is needed is within you. The result is that you better manage the anger impuls, and the outcome become at all times more constructive. That's the end game; emotional mastery. This should by no means be confused with emotial suppression, that a no go. It also does not mean engaging in the anger that involves acting out of aggression, which would be destructive. Destructive for two reasons, it births negative side effects in the external world, and, it creates a pattern of more easily channeling anger into agression, every time we allow it to. Our brain builds patterns, it's like a muscle flexing, getting stronger with the type of practice we do, building stronger neural pathways that create strong behaviors that we default to, more easily and quicker, without being able to interact with ourselves inbetween the impulse and a knee-jerk response. That's the first thing that we want to do, to work on creating time/space between the anger impulse and our response, in which we can rationally reason with ourselves to make sense of what's going on. And, based on that reasoning, we can choose the most constructive response that we can come up with. As we do this, we create new neural pathways, that can grow stronger and overshadow our older default pathways, building a strong habit, of being in control of that unfolding. CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) is often used to achieve this, and it's focusing on our cognitive/inner behaviors that produces the our outward behaviors, through which we interact with the outer world; people and circumstances. It's in our cognition that we attach meaning to what happened. And it's this internl world that we can control, and grow towards mastery. Anger (and all other emotions) is based on an impuls that has a message for us, that is useful to us, and that we need to listen to, as it's telling us something, and is calling out for us to take some action. @JonasVE12 already talked about this. Let's make a distinction between anger and anger. There's anger that wants you to take external world action, and this is about someone infringing on you as a person, overstepping your personal boundaries (psysically or mentally), and is calling our for you to establish (or reaffirm) those outward boundaries, so that you maintain (or build-up) your self-worth, self-esteem, and so on. Action: Let others know they've overstepped your boundaries. And then there is anger that is a product of an underlying emotional impulse, where feelings are layered, much like an union, and where the outermost layer is experienced, as anger. Action: Introspection. The first kind is ambiguous, as it's hard to know, without deep enough self-awareness and self-knowledge, whether your outward boundaries that you perceived was overstepped, are healthy or dysfunctional boundaries. Your boundaries may be dysfuntional based on the second kind of anger, where the layer effect as made you overly sensitive towards outside phenomena. Some people are hypersensitive with very dysfunctional boundaries, flying off the walls for everything that happens, typically seen with people that have victim mentality, that perceive the world is against them. Others have let's people infringe on their personal space to such a degree that there's little sense of self left, with resulting low self-esteem and self-worth. People-pleasers and yes-sayers that disregard their own needs are in this risk group. Action in both cases: Working on self to reduce boundaries (first case) , or increase boundaries (second case) , so they are no longer dysfunctional. And to be able to do this, we need to focus inwardly, and not get hung up with others and circumstances, as the change needs to happen within us. Suppressed anger is like a glass of water. That glass keeps filling up, drop by drop, and a lot of us are walking about with full glasses. One single drop, regardless of the significance of that drop, causes an overfilled glass to overflow, resulting in uncontrolled engagement in outwards facing aggression; active or passive aggression. This is why CBT is so important. A) We're not very able to do self-therapy, as our ego is defending our own behaviors, not allowing us to ask ourselves the right questions, let along, producing answers that don't reaffirm the ego. And we're stuck within our own frame so to speak. Although, it is possible, with the right motivation to change, to start building self-awareness and self-knowledge around our anger (emotions) management, to build understanding of what triggers us. B) Therapy trains us around general cognitive behvaior understanding, and being able to learn to choose to leverage our behaviors to product constructive, positive change in our lives. In that sense, it's training in self-management. This is where our focus really matter. If we're externally focus our efforts, we're engaged with blame and justification, removing our own responsibility and ability to learn to manage ourselves. If we internally focus our efforts, we're engaged with blaming ourselves, and feeling obligated to absorb external phenomena. Or a combination of both. The latter build up internal pressure until we snap, until that glass of water is full, and overflows onto "someone". That someone is often not deserving of our "full wrath" being released, as it's often misdirected and exaggerated. If we reach such a point that we focus internally, to create time inbetween our impulses and our responses, we can examine our triggers, choose differently, having more constructive responses, and as a result we create change. We change ourselves, how we function internally, and how we manage to interact with what's external to us. A side-effect from this is that it also changes other's responses to our behaviors (cause and effect), which interestingly can catalyze positive and permanent change within others or your relationship. That means, managing our emotions can and will be hugely rewarding, to ourselves and those around us. Sounds grand doesn't it? It's not easy, it takes dedication and persistence. We need to make a mission out of it. And most of all, it takes the disengaging with aggressive responses to force ourselves to create that space, so that we can keep practicing emotional mastery. Part of this focused effort/practice need to include better understanding emotions, and to be able to go deeper into the different layers of our emotions, to find the underlying emotions that are causing the outer layer emotional expression. Anger let into aggression is our sledgehammer that brings vengeance onto the world. There are reasons why we grab that hammer, and that's what we need to learn to see, what the underlying need is, so that we can work on and understand those needs. We also need to beware, that anger is also a drug, aggression can make us feel powerful and in control. And we might start using it as a drug, to get a false sense of power and control, causing us to feel good about ourselves, that even further shields us from seeing the underlying emotions around which we lack control. Apart from CBT, we need to learn more about emotions and what they are meant for. Tomkins Affect Theory can help with this, and in combination with keeping an emotions journal it can be very effective. Journaling to capture the feelings you've experienced in each day, the intensitet of those feelings, and what might have caused them. Possibly using tools like the "emotions wheel" (Google for different versions and instructions) to help add nuances to our base emotions, helps us to get more "in touch" with our feelings, and build awareness and knowledge of ourselves, and our triggers. Essentially what I'm saying here is that you need to channel the desire to not be an angry person, into building emotional mastery. It's not easy, but it can happen surprisingly quickly, to such a degree that we are able to manage our responses. Moving from catching our anger after the fact, into the moment of engaging with it, and then before, where we can choose not to engage, or to engage constructively. With time, and within introspection, also our triggers grow smaller, and the number of triggers reduces. This is an attempt to point at the start of a process. It's fairly straight forward and a matter of building strong enough intention and motivation to engage with. The complexity is brought by your relationship to each emotion and your history, and the emotional bagage that you have accumulated over a very long period of time. Also, a final note; I just want to point out that "no action" is a perfectly valid action, and often the best action. And sometimes, choosing to take no action in the heat of the moment is what we need to reassess the situation once the anger and adrenaline has settled, at a time when we're more capable to be constructive. While we're "seeing red", we're the least constructive version of ourselves. Yet, this is typically when we either attack others or engage with dealing with and trying to solve problems. Befriend "no action" and "delayed action". Take care

@somegirl If the solution involves fully focusing on yourself and making changes in how you function, are you still willing to make the changes that are needed? Or are you externally focused, looking for changing or interacting with those that trigger you, so that they change their behaviors? Only one of these are in your control.

Perfectly combines; @Leo Gura Distributions are good, yes, distinguishing them allows for seeing the higher level of complexity that helps with the practical side of the equation... @Gesundheit2 ...Which help with moving us to the position where, they're "no biggie".

Coping is definitely not the way, letting go is, eliminating the need to cope. The concept is so simple, but it's not easy. Wouldn't the world be very different if it was? It brings a deeply profound sense of freedom, when this happens. Freedom from self. And yes, of course, your ego won't like it, as it means a ginormous chunk of itself gets discarded when that shift happens. Who are we when we understand that we don't really know anything? We're less - which won't play nice with the ego - and infinitely more, at the same time. Contradictory, paradoxical. It makes it a lot easier to relate to, and helps us to create some easy to accept distance between us and our beliefs. Without implying that we should replace our beliefs with someone else's, as they see it, better beliefs. That would trigger the egos defences. And, we all know intuitly that, it's true. We've proven it to ourselves in the past. Many times. We've most likely just haven't been mindful of it happening.

Not falling for that one.

@Manusia Beware of @Preety_India's response - notice how that strokes your ego? It putting yourself on a piedestal, above what you don't like, as something better or more entitled. Should fire of a bunch of sharp sounding warning bells. Of course, unless ego-stroking is what you are looking for. Has nothing to do with development nor actualization.

@Hardkill The answer to this is simple. Of course, there can't be anything else, and there never was anything else. Progressive has always won every fight throughout history, always. What is progressive morphs, and adapts itself to become more effective to bring about change that is needed. In that sense the progressives are just running the errands of human development and how that development is destined to unfold itself. It's only when one's time perspective is myopic, and with impatience and lack of understanding how much time evolving society takes, that you fail to see that this is inevitable, and has always been. You can compare it with a stock index chart and how it's always moving upward even when times, from a myopic perspective, look grim and the economy appears to be a slaughter house. The next low is progressively higher than the previous lows. Same with this. At times the movement stagnate, plateaous, to build up pressure to make a stronger leap. At times, it takes multiple low lows to build that strengths and find the version of adaptation, progressive self-correction and self-improvement, that allows progress to ensue. It's the myopic perspective and emotional attachment to change needing to happen sooner than later that brings about doubt in the human system's capability to ever evolve developmentally. And yes, the sad part of this is that you and everyone else are just cogs in a system that doesn't guarantee you living the change you long for. Just as the children and children's children of today's generation will experience the exact same feelings as you do; the desire to realize their desired changes in their current society. And so progressives progresses. It's only the being in this moment, in this time, and trying to find an expression that can influence this systemtic machinery in any way possible that helps accelerate this process, to help building a perceived better tomorrow, for someone, not necessarily for you, but for our children, and our children's children. Find inspiration, motivation and joy in that, to stay optimistic and supporting rather than resisting that progress.

@Gianna Stretch that to include also direct experience, as direct experience is an interpretation happening based on current values and beliefs, and is limited by your current cognitive level of complexity, attaching meaning to what you experience. Also that will at some point be proven to be incomplete, incorrect or down-right wrong. Just look at your past, everything you thought you knew, say far into your past, is known to not be absolutely so. Awakening is a good example, turning everything you thought you knew on its head, beginning to operate from some other paradigm or point of reference. Unknowing is the understanding that there is naught but beliefs, other than the experience of experiencing, "I amness". Even conceptualizing what that is, is just that, conceptualization and belief. Unknowing greatly accelerates our development as it makes us recognize that belief is just a vantage point that "is not us", and more easily allows us to let go of that which we hold on to that is anchoring, and holding us back. Even without going to extremes, this is extremely valuable as it brings openness and curiosity, with healthy sceptisism that is "less" biased/ideological. Perspectives (products of beliefs) are no longer ours to hold on to but means to some desired outcome and can be replaced as soon as we allow ourselves to find beliefs that better serve those outcomes. In that sense beliefs are tools, and should be used as only that, tools.

@Manusia Deal with yourself and focus on your emotional management and anger issues as well as your triggers. They're not angering you, it's you angering yourself. Look at this as an opportunity to grow. It's only when you shift focus from externalizing your anger by engaging with some kind of aggression/aggressive behavior, that you can use your anger as it's suppose to be used - constructively. Use this awareness to work on youself and grow yourself to be better at handling the effects of anger, on yourself, and to grow more constructively influential in the process. Don't blame others or justify your anger issues. Gets you nowhere good. They're yours to own. No one else's. So are your triggers. Blue is only a problem if you make blue expression less worthy than something else. It's not "wrong" in itself, it's just a mismatch between expectations placed on "blue" that doesn't take into account that "blue" isn't "blue" by choice but by developmental factors. And it's only when you expect blue values not to exist and try to invalidate their existence that it becomes wrong. Truth is that they are there for valid reasons, and they will evolve when the time is right. The same goes for any stage that is creating some kind of perceived problem. You yourself fall into this group from some other perspective. E.g. mayhap create conflict that could be avoided, create polarization, ramp up aggression within others, having negative side effect on people and society. Better to start working on yourself today than keep expecting others to meet some, for them, impossible expectations.

@ertopolice Make a last post on each social media platform, just stating your intention to quit social media and let people know that if they want to reach you they can find you out there in the real world. It raises the expectation you place onto yourself not to post nor like or comment others posts. Others will know that you failed your intention if you do interact again. It also allows others to understand why you stopped interacting and prevent or minimize any strange thoughts happening with them, as people tend to think everything is about them, and any bad blood from coming back onto you. That I would consider being a "consciously clean break" with social media without burning any bridges, other than the social media one. Of course as already said, uninstall apps/delete links. Getting accounts erased would be an even stronger gesture, especially if you do find yourself checking back too often, or having relapses. I've done this exact thing myself but I do still have my account and I do check it out once in a while, but it's like with everything else, once you've cut the addiction to keep up with everything, and continuously scrolling/refreshing, it turned uninteresting and meaningless, and an obvious waste of time. LinkedIn is more problematic as the networking aspect of that platform has a purpose that can pay off in work life and success, and that's good, but a lot of the content these days seem to be Facebook like material.

It's just something that changes with time. It gets a bit meta on itself, to not be impatient and reducing the experience of impatience. Direction is important, so that you can make a strong connection between the steps you do take, and that direction. If you lack direction then movement isn't perceived going anywhere. It brings a sense of "darting around" , getting nowhere, generating no small "wins", represented by steps towards "something". Again, the direction doesn't have to be perfect. If it is, you're likely over-thinking, which is a kind of procrastination in itself. Focus on creating a sensation of making "some" progress. Not "much" progress, "some" progress is enough for now. You can achieve that every day, do something tangible that represents a clear step, or sub-step of a larger step. Anything can be broken down into reasonable chunks. The beautiful thing with movement is that it gives birth to more movement. It's hardest to get started, and create a strong enough intention to move. Once you get moving, say today/now, you're more likely to take more steps, or a larger step than intended. Manage you expectations, don't create intentions to create too large, unrealistic, unmanageable and demotivating steps. We need wins, and small wins are still wins. It's the procrastination that is the main problem. Start by creating strong intention to manage your procrastination, minimizing or eliminating procrastination. Once you have a solid habit of creating intention and to move, small, but consistently, you can increasing intention, and aiming for larger or harder steps gets easier, without increasing the resistance we feel, that triggers stronger procrastination. A big part of this is to manage the self-talk and the choice of words we use. We need to use words that create intent. Typically we choose words like could, should, must, etc. We essentially do this to avoid creating commitment towards taking action. Yeah, we're essentially sneaky devils even towards ourselves, leaving things we could do as optional, instead of using language that create clear intention around what we will do. Replacing those could's, should's, and must's, with will's changes how our brains look at the task at hand. Ideally we want to reach a point where we have intrinsic motivation, enough to have the disposition towards "needing to", change into "wanting to". The things that we want, we can't stay away from. A part of procrastination, that self-fulfilling prophecy, are the stories that we tell, about what we want to get away from, which actually means we're keeping focus on what we don't want, meaning we're not focused on what we do what, and where we do want to go, and to put efforts into generating change. It's a very energy costly process that gets us nowhere. The best motivation is looking for natural rewards, such rewards we get while being on the journey, to work with the steps, where every step feels is a win, where what we do matter more than where we're going. Where we don't feel impatient about not having reached some destination, and instead grateful for every little piece of the journey, life, that we've made, looking forward to the next one. Essentially building ourselves up to be unstoppable intrinsic motivation generators. Someone who has found their true life purpose, has found their unstoppable intrinsic motivation, not an ultimate destination. Start working on that building up of intrinsic motivation, and intention creation, focus on your next step and what you will do, and by doing what gives you natural rewards in that doing. Expanding our awareness around motivational frameworks and habit building can in itself be motivating, as it essentially educates us around behavior change strategies that we need to have to reinforce behavior changes in ourselves. Pure will-power, without strategies, won't work well over time. It can work as a burst, but without tools that help us, especially when we hit rough patches, which will happen, it's far too easy to quit or get demotivated if we haven't got some strategies that reinforces our intention and will. Coaching models can also help, such as the GROW model. Even if you're not going to be coached by someone else, we benefit from becoming our own self-coaches, and regularly self-coach. E.g. by using the steps in the GROW model we can greatly help ourselves to find clarity, to build motivation, to find or refine our direction, to identify what options there are that could be a next step, and to create commitment and intention around the options are most relevant right now, that we will act on - and by when we will do so. You, just by writing this, have a drive in you, that wants to get moving. You just need a nudge to get going, and to be kind to yourself, no matter what happens on that journey. What will you do, what is a step, that you will take today? You got this ❤️??

@Octagram Eye I admit that I didn't read through all of it, but enough to get a feeling that you identify strongly with this story, with the risk of that identification being a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping you stuck rather than free. I hope I'm not off, and if I am, take it for what it is, or not at all It sounds like you need to challenge yourself to become independent of the story and the characters in this story, and create a life for yourself that isn't dependent on those others in your story. You seem to be aligned with what you want to do, and have a sense of calling in your ability of creativity, storytelling and drawing. Is that a path that you intend to pursue to create the foundation of creating that independence? "Escaping wage slavery" might be the vision, setting the direction, but it's the steps in the set direction that matters. Getting blinded by everything needing to be perfect is debilitating. It's the steps on the path to somewhere that matters, it doesn't have to be perfect, and it never is, but it's movement, fueled by dreams and aspirations. To be able to find natural reward in the journey of going somewhere, rather than the unmet desire of not having gotten there is the way to go. What's a first step that you can take today that represents movement? Maybe a small step, but it's a step that matters. From there it's just about finding the drive to take another step, and another, and... Sense of movement in a desired direction is hugely rewarding, focusing on being a better version of yesterday's self. It's a utopia to figure our your life purpose without having made movement. Life purpose shows up on the journey, or changes on the way. It's a part of the process. Not getting demotivated by not knowing is a mistake. So what if you start of in a direction and than realize that you need a shift? It's never a waste, experience is gained, and most of all, clarity, and the ability to go on moving in a "more true" direction. Internet makes it seem as we should know everything right off the bat, and that we should have what we want now. But that's an illusion. It's the grit that we put into effort that makes us move that gets us somewhere. What that somewhere is, can and will change, as we move, and gain new perspective. Focus on making the journey enjoyable. That's more a mindset than something absolute to hold on to. And have faith, that whatever positive movement you find, today, if the right step, for now.

@Danioover9000 Shifting from looking for happiness in say orange value base, through success, money, status, job titles, your material possessions and so on, and towards looking for happiness by making a difference for people, nature, climate, the world, and so on, is a deeper and "truer" gratification. That doesn't mean that later stage people are immune to mental pathology. Managing your inner processes to be more resilient and less needing of pursuing happiness, finding happiness in being, is more a spiritual journey than related to cognitive and perspectives development as SD stages imply. It doesn't mean that people in each stage wouldn't claim to be happy, by their standards, just that your sense of what happiness is keeps changing as you develop. Looking at happiness indeces and mental illness indices for Scandinavian countries, they show up high for both. Less survival, less "real" problems, and we make up problems in our minds.

@Hardkill Maybe you're looking at this from an unfavorable perspective, which brings about a frustration of change not happening fast enough, rather than bringing acceptance that change cannot happen as fast as one might like. Change is inevitable. It always was. It always will be. But change doesn't happen fast, and not in pretty little sets of undisputable improvements. It's slow, messy, iterative, occasionally regressive, but always moves forward from a larger perspective. It's not about someone passing something that is green that will make a country this or that - which could be done by force, but would never be sustainable. It's not about something controlling the whole, the whole needs to maintain that control on its own. Something green may very well be passed, but that doesn't mean that the people have developed into green. It would rather result in polarization, conflict and excessive resistance that either delays progression, or increases the pressure in the system until parts of it collapses, pushing more people towards changing how they think, while others up their resistance and keep on fighting change. So, differentiate between content - what is, and structure - how that system functions and the parts of that system functions. To be green, and not just to act green because some people in power make "greener" choices, it require a large enough portion of the population to develop into stage green perspectives, values and beliefs, so that green values emerges as the expression of the larger system/whole. It's not about controlling, its about the whole allowing for green to emerge as the unified expression of the values and beliefs that is the sum of the individuals within that ecosystem. The problem with the US, for example is that there is a vast spread of stages. It's a set of more or less separate ecosystems that come together as "The United States", but is less unified or conformed than the appearance of there being "one country" implies. Different parts of the country are very different, greener on the west coast and bluer in say the bible belt, and even red in that mix. It doesn't matter so much, as people are what they are and it shifts focus onto the system itself. The vastness of that spread creates larger challenges than, let say, the country was divided into 5 part. Part 1, assuming being the most progressive lot, would no longer be held back by the 4 other parts, and would also not feel entitled to push part 1 values and beliefs onto the least progressive parts, in order to progress their own sub-ecosystem. Looking at the most progressive part of US and using that as the metric for where the US "should be" is flawed, or "dreamy". Dreamy in the sense that it creates and illusion of the country being close to breaking free and into that stage, but reality is different. But looking at the whole, and you could use Trump election results as one metric, implies something else. The US has a long way to go before "green" can come true. If you'll live to see it, remains to be seen. Solid green? Dreamy. Developmemt isn't clean, it's messy, and doesn't move from one clear state to another, but from one messy state to another messy state. And in that progress, the mess we're in, right now, will be relatively less "dysfunctional" than a messes of the past. The presidential situation in the US is an example of this. It's a mess. The polarities are growing, one part wanting to move forward, wanting change that they desire, and one holding back, resisting being changed. The gap grows, and expressions like "Trump" emerges. Interestingly "Trump" is an expression of the time, of the change resistence of the system. He's not a separate phenomena that isn't related to the system. He's a product and expression of the system itself. It's just so easy to make him out to be the devil, for representing the resistence to change. Maybe in the past, the great presidents were truly different, or just appears different because of a more unified or less widely polarized society, or fewer and stronger polarities, great causes to surge around, or them being products of time and space, where the system was ready and set up for a larger, noticeable shift. Making it so easy to make them out to be the heros, representing the drive for change. Sorry that was long way to say that it comes down to being impatient, and my early morning rants tend to be longer than otherwise When the time is right, new, and great leaders will emerge, making the shift happen, and by being there, at that tipping point, also appearing greater because of the system's readiness to shift. Anyways.. All you can do, is to tend to you own development and try get ahead. Then use that to influence anyone within your sphere of influence, and to expand that sphere of influence, to be the catalyzer that best helps others to develop themselves. So that they can change themselves, not you trying to change them. Their change, and what to change into, it theirs to own. Development, or increasing the cognitive complexity that produces our values and beliefs is what's important, and increasingly healitier values and beliefs will emerge as the product of that development. Do that, and it will spread. It's gritty, messy, takes effort, and you're not likely to be depicted on a future statue somewhere, but these kind of people, that relentlessly work the system from the inside, are the true heros that allowed president like the ones you name to be remembered as great people. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Edit: Just realized this wasn't the OP and went OT Oh the morning haze

@Preety_India Okay, I'm sorry, didn't mean to distract, was more-so just pointing towards there being a choice to fully shift focus from any external phenomena towards the internal world, which is the only factor that you can control, and the rest follows.

@Preety_India If you were to shift focus from the external and from others and onto, into yourself, and focus on your own self-development that can help you to better cope with the expressions BPD has for you, the chain of cause and effect would gradually change the world around you, in a positive direction. As long as you revert to engaging with external triggers, things will burn. What do you think you could do to build coping skills that might help you to handle yourself in a better, more constructive way, and to better understand when the shifts in emotional state happens? Have you tried anything so far? And if so, what change has that made for you?

It can be helpful to find a root cause, but it's as often is with trying to find the reasons why things are, that we look externally to find a justification or blame as to why we are the way we are. There's something here right now that is maintaining that low self-esteem, and it's ultimately not going to be out there, in the external world, it's going to be found within yourself, and that's where the change needs to happen. Changing ourselves is easier when we have a fuller back-story, but at the same time, we're much more likely to justify why we are the way we are, and to assign blame to those external factors. Focusing on what it is we are doing right now that maintains low self-esteem, and changing that behavior so that we promote self-worth is most important. And as we do that, the way we think and the way we see ourselves will change, and with that our view of and the meaning we attach to the past also changes. A god place to start is to become aware of what the self-talk that we're subject ourselves to looks like, and then manage self-talk, by having less of it, breaking negative self-talk and bending ourselves toward positive self-talk. It takes time and consistency. It's not easy. But it does work. If it took you a good portion of your life to get here, to dig your own hole, we have to accept that it will take time to climb our of it. We are in full control of this inner world of ours. Once we stop looking for external reasons, letting go of what was/is, and make it an internal journey of growth, that time can be dramatically reduced. So what is it that is holding on to "what was/is"? Where are you holding yourself back? What are you not doing that you want to do, that you are insecure about? When do you get anxious? Challange that, consistently, repeatedly and you will get more confidence in yourself, and build self-efficacy, a belief that you can succeed if you try. With that confidence that you can pursue whatever you want, and with reaffirming self-talk, self-esteem and self-worth will rebuild.

@Bob Seeker What causes you to "bum out"? There's always an event of sorts. The rest is just coping mechanisms, noise. Resilience is needed. To build great resilience we need an understanding of what lies beneath. It's hard to stand fast in a storm, being torn and tossed about. And it takes great effort. At some point we get exhausted, and break. When in good flow, we are resilient and won't allow ourselves to be "bummed out" by what lies underneath the surface. But bad flow will come, it's a matter of when, not if, and then we need positive coping strategies to "bounce back" from being dragged down by whatever bagage has made itself known. We're only as resilient as circumstance allow us to be. If we carry old bagage in our backpack, it will make itself known at those times. It's better to empty the bagage bit by bit until there's nothing left. At that point, what used to be known as storms are nought but us waving in the wind, with a cool breeze brushing through our hair.

By no means does being authentic mean easy. It takes courage. Courage to be ourselves and not be what is expected of us, or what we think we should be to fit in and be accepted by others. I'm not sure I fully follow but choose to interpret is into this direction: Yes, you do make up or imagine the world based on your thoughts, which is in par with your values and beliefs. These are the product of how you think. Change how you think, which happens all the time to some degree, and you shift your values and beliefs. With that also shifts what is authentic. Authentic means that we need to challenge ourselves. Into that which takes effort and where we feel resistence but know it's right. We need to invest. It's a transition into. In that transitioning we need to challenge ourselves to resist the urges that keep us away from being who we need to be. Minimum effort ≠ Authentic With great ego, comes great struggle. Deconstruct ego and what will be left is a reconstructed ego. We cannot be here and function without an ego. And that ego flows well with what is and authentic comes with the being with that flow.