Ethan1

Yeah, I just quit betterhelp today after 5 months. About to look for a different therapist with more a specific focus. Online therapy is ok. Personally I'd rather it be in person bc it's more investment in the process. You have to know what you want when going into therapy or they'll waste your money and time. My therapist was helpful by mirroring back. She was mostly listening the entire time. Helped me discover some issues. Yet felt like mostly self-therapy. Personally I wanted more depth and insights. Depth psychology seems to be my interest. Most therapists are CBT focused. It helps a bit. I don't think it gets to the root of the problem. I recommend doing 15 minute consultation to see if they seem right. Talk to multiple different therapists to see what seems best. I ended up going with the first person without much thought. Switched to a different therapist few weeks later b/c the therapist seemed a bit arrogent & not open minded. Personally I think my 2nd therapist was overly busy with clients & got overwhelmed with me going too deep on certain topics. Typically therapists want simple clients so it's easier to handle & manage multiple clients. I had to quit bc I felt the therapist wasn't really putting much effort. Self-disclosing all of your vulnerabilities gives the therapist tremendous power & authority over you. Careful with it. Some therapists have big egos. Especially some that have been in it 20+ years and charge a stupid high fee. They're in it for money. It's a business model. We like to think all therapists are good & functional. Most people that go into the field of psychology have their fair share of issues. Some therapists have therapists to sort through their vicarious trauma from others. Some older therapists that have been doing it for a while tend to avoid newer types of therapy. I think a younger therapist usually are fresher and more willing to dive into deeper issues that are more taxing on the mind. Difficult clients typically are weeded out bc it's difficult & not rewarding. Therapist want to help but also are tied with a financial interest. I recommend watching some of this guy's videos. He gives really honest thoughts on therapy & being a therapist. Psychology today is a good place to look for a therapist. Look at the criteria & get very focused on the type of therapy. Journaling is probably the best thing I can recommend for self-therapy. Theres an app called 7cups where people volunteer to listen to each other. It's free chat. I'm sure that could help but it's not the same as paying a therapist who's supposed to help. End of the day, it's your responsibility to fix your shit. Most people will only be able to nudge you towards responsibility & self-discovery/self-awareness so much. Most people only care so much too. https://youtu.be/xz3rsX63epE

I heard mindfulness helps.

Some serious lyrics.

?

@StarStruck Dehydrator just removes water. Water doesn't really do all that much. You can rehydrate if you want. Powder just makes it easier to mix with other stuff & put in capsules.. Typically easier to consume. Mushrooms are like 99. 99% water if I were to guess. If you eat the entire fruit it does the same thing just different texture. Not sure on the chemical side. I'm no scientist or chemist Mushrooms rot if not stored properly. Kinda like most any fruit.

Asking a question about a question.. Meta talk. A high quality question? Here's a website for generating questions in clusters. https://answerthepublic.com/ --- Who, what, where, when, and why. How --- Open ended questions are pretty powerful bc they seek for more information. --- Why questions tend to be very powerful. It's digging deeper Why are we here Why do you Why do I Why is the sky blue .. When is more historical.. When was... When can When will When did .. What seems more.. I have no clue. What was.. What is.. What it do.. What can.. .. Where seems more location based or research based.. Where can we What .. Who questions are more directed at people or self. Who am I? Who are you? Who is God? Who wants Who likes Who's ya daddy .. How questions seem a bit more instructional and breaking things apart. How do I How can we How is this How are you How will this How does time function How did we get here How do .. I'd say how and why questions are pretty powerful. .. I think self oriented questions are insightful. Knowing yourself. .. Breadth vs depth. I guess it depends on how much verticle questioning vs horizontal. If you focus on one topic and ask 1000 questions you'll eventually find something neat. Yet the deeper you go, the less people are interested in talking about it. Vertical questioning. I guess just being curious and exposure. Constantly wondering.. Eventually you end up somewhere that seems high quality. ... How do you find a diamond? ... Could argue the image I sent is wrong. Figured it seemed like something reasonable to add. Some people are pretty interesting.

Let's be real. OK so. We're on a spinning rock out in the middle of nothingness. True? We probably came from a monkey or something. Who knows? You were created by your dad's sperm from him doing some dirty stuff. And your mom has eggs. They magically created you. When they got it on. Birth is like some weird alien process where the baby decides to pop into "reality" . Literally a human inside a human. Apparently were stuck on this rock with some crazy people. People create imaginary concepts and call it real. Countries and states are literally invisible lines. Is this real enough? Then there's this thing called perception. Which makes no sense. Is my perception more real than your perception? Do you know what I am perceiving? Most neuroscientist are clueless to what the difference between perception & reality is. Literally, if you can discern the difference between perception & reality then I'd like to know. What is perception? You see with your eyes? OK cool. Now tell me how that functions? Your eyes magically create reality? OK cool the brain creates reality. Then how does the brain create reality? What is real? Weed. OK cool you smoke weed and think it's like dmt. Have you done dmt? You watch some dude on the internet that makes videos about ideas. Who's to say it is true or false. How do you discern this? How do you know if your perception of reality is true or not? What if there are multiple perceptions of reality? What if you can have part of a truth but not the whole truth? What if your perception of reality is different than someone else's reality? Why so serious? Were all gonna die one day. Shit load of people before us have. Man some information like Recontextualization are pretty interesting. Especially if we recontextualize this conversation. Life is pretty strange. We spend 1/3 of our life asleep. So if you're 15 then you've spent 5 years asleep. That's a shit load of time. What is time? Is time real? Show me Life is a really strange dream. But you gotta wake up to the dream.

Yeah, I just recommend having boundaries. It's hard to know unless someone else is there to see the behaviors. It's also hard to know how you are carrying yourself. When people try to psychologically manipulate or bully. They press buttons bc they know you will react. They want a reaction. No reaction isn't fun. Just show them you're not willing to be pushed around. Reframe the situation. Recontextualize the situation. Learn how to self-regulate yourself. Don't participate in the drama. Distance yourself as much as possible. Request to leave the camp? Surround yourself with better people. Who knows its usually just certain people in the environment. Hurt people, hurt people.

Not saying to force yourself. I'm mostly saying to self-generate energy. Listen to motivational music. Get inspired. It's like you can set the mood and get in the zone. Create desire. I mean, it's like people go to get a back massage. If the place looks like a 711 gas station it's kinda hard to feel inspired or motivated. They set the mood. Candles, soft music, peaceful art. Probably aren't listening to death metal while getting a massage. Maybe at the gym to get in the zone there. I'd probably be really tense with hard core music for a massage. If you room looks boring. Get some cool plants or wall art. Clean up the room. Take baby steps to get motivated. Create an organized system. Throw out junk. Create lists. Order. Organize. Turn the process into something fun. Like gamify it. Reward yourself. When I was young, neighbor would pay me a penny per weed I picked in his yard. I had a blast. Counted tons of weeds. Sounds silly but he turned it into a game. Add some fast pace music and some fog machines + flashing lights +some marketing. Whole neighborhood will be spotless of weeds for a few miles for less than $20 probably I'm talking about perception baby. Turn those lemons into some lemonade. Change the perception. If the setting of the room looks dull and boring. You're probably gonna feel... Happy? Bored? Sad? Angry? Depressed? Why do some libraries look a certain way while grocery stories look another way. While banks look another way. Whole gyms look another way.. Heck van life used to be what people that were broke down by the lake wanted to creep on people. Or painters. Now everyone's doing it and prices on vans are stupid high. Changing the music can change the perception. Peaceful music can create a peaceful vibe. Plenty of music out there to get motivated for different situations. Connect what you're doing to music. Build pleasure with it. If I was going to create a party to create desire and interest then theirs certain things I should do. If I want to get inspired for working out. Buy some bad ass shoes and put them by the door. Make going to the gym fun. Make it exciting. Something to remind that hey I got this to do this. Recontextualize the meaning. If you make it mean, it's hard work, it will be hard work. Change the associations. Don't over do it. Create intention of seeking motivation. Inspiration. Excitement. Desire. Vision. Dream. Whatever works for you. Even this guy can create interest from a group of cows. He literally played some music then built an army to invade his town. He was like the drummer boy for a caliverly. The cows were inspired by him.

Just dehydrated it. Bought a cheap dehydrator and cut it up. Put them in sealed mason jars. Simple process.

Recommend a youtube channel called 90second mycelium. Pretty easy growing lions mane out of a bag of uncle bens rice. Literally grew them under a kitchen sink. Amazon sells the rice for less than $2 a bag. Etsy sells the liquid mycelium for not much too. Did it in an RV while traveling if that tells you anything. Which most places sell rice in a bag. Probably 10x cheaper and get a bulk of the stuff. Just takes a little while to grow. Fun side hobby and super rewarding to harvest. Not much involvement just waiting and harvest the fruit body.

I've cut off my entire family in Alabama back in June 2020. Except for my grandmother that I would talk with. Came from what looked like a good happy family on the outside. Everything looked perfect. Parents were trying to buy my love. It creates a sense of in debt-ness. Yet the emotional attunement and connection completely lacked. So much emotional avoidance. I felt I was losing myself being with them. Went no contact with my parents. Blocked. Lived on the road for a few months in my RV. Living in the wilderness. Living in the most remote places. Alone. Texas. New Mexico. Colorado. Lived there in the winter. Lived in the rocky mountains. Moved to Montana. Didn't know any one. Now I'm in Oregon. I've met strangers on the road that I feel more understood from. Its confusing as hell to have family and a brother but not feel understood or connected. Finally contacted my father after 4 months in September 2020. Didn't really go anywhere. I was still processing my frustrations. Decided to block all forms of contact from there again. Went on til June of this year I opened up communication via email. One full year later... Haven't talked to my mom since June of last year. I decided that email was the best way to go about communicating to focus on solving problems. Yet he was being avoidant the entire time. Still I've had no progress with cooperation. I've been trying to sort out transgenrational or Multi-generational issues. Complex trauma related issues. This stuff is no joke. Recently my dad was willing to do therapy so I'm looking to get this started in the coming week. No telling how this will go. Highly recommend a book called adult childent of Emotionally Immature Parents and a book called C-PTSD by Pete Walker. Some parents don't like Self-differentiation. Most families only want enmeshment & strict obedience to a certain perceptual reality and set of rules. I'm living in a completely different reality than my parents. Took me nearly 28 years to figure this stuff out. It's a grieving process to say the least. Tons of repressed emotions. I mean, I could share the entire dynamic and complexity of Emotionally unavailable parenting. I could talk about this stuff for days. The implications and impact this stuff has is pretty complex. Self-differentiation, individuation, and autonomy are important towards building your own sense of self. ... I'm not sure I'd say the word regret exactly for leaving or full no contact for both parents. Now I do regret expending excessive amounts of energy with a healing fantasy trying to get my perception of reality validated. Trying to change my father. Literally doing everything to win my father's love. Yet I was avoiding my own self-love. Felt like I've spent my entire life being gas lighted. Now regret is tied to a sense of feeling at fault or guilty. I do recognize with detachment that the family system wants to instill guilt. Guilt tripping is a big reason people get locked in the cycle of self-sacrificing and self-abandonment. Especially trauma bonding cycles. Common guilt trip : "If you really loved your family you wouldn't do or not do ___." Now do I regret leaving my family? No, I do feel a deep sense of loss and grief. It sucks to feel cut off from one's family. Honestly I never wanted it to happen. The unworkability in the relationship was extremely frustrating. Typically parents feel more hurt from the estrangement than the child. Parental Estrangement is not a well researched topic. Most therapists are not well trained bc there isn't enough understanding. Most cases people never leave family because the stakes were to high back in the day. These days it's easier to do in developed countries with the internet. Less taboo and less shame compared to 100s of years ago when abandoning toxic families meant death. Especially ostrasisim. I mean, typically the person who leaves feels a sense of empowerment or freedom. Yet a deep loss too. Do I feel guilt? Occasionally, from emotional contagion and "systems feelings" . As you mentioned, obligation is systems feelings. That's their unprocessed emotions that are being projected onto another. That's them. I recognize that it's not rational to take on their emotions. That's emotional blackmail. It's all a way to hoover or drawback in. I'm responsible for my own emotions. Being responsible for others emotions is outside my control. ... In your situation, seems like you are expressing guilt b/c they provided for you in a materialistic way and are fearful of feeling regret? That's their responsibility as parents to meet basic requirements. If not then that's child abuse. If they weren't your family would you still tolerate how they treat you? Say a friend treated you the same way? Sounds like you preassumed that going no contact = regret. As if you hold a belief that you will be regretful bc of social obligations. Which implies that you feel at fault or worthy of blame b/c they provided for you? Now, guilt and shame are the consequences of cutting off family. In bowen family theory it's common that families triangulate and guilt trip to bring about homeostasis in the system. It's natural. They want it to go back to they way it originally was. Most groups do not like change. They teach this in leadership courses. You changing yourself causes them to feel guilt too. Reassigns roles. If they can't own it, they'll project it onto you. That's the whole scapegoat dynamic. It's your decision why you want to go no contact or cut off family. Have to be clear on your intentions. For me it was tons of reasons... Took me nearly a year to discover all the reasons. Postive: Self-differentiation and self-respect. Self-discovery. Self-Independence. Freedom. Clarity. Etc. Negative : Not tolerating disrespect from family. Infantilization. Authoritarian parenting. Polarized world views. Invalidation. Contempt. Disdain. Coercion. Gaslighting. Rigid roles. Belittling. Indifference. Doubt. Avoidance. Etc. I wanted to resolve problems. They didn't. It was a drama cycle. So either I tolerate it or I detach. I decided to leave. Now that I've seperated I've been able to become more self-assured and self-assertive. Self-determined. ..

Therapy is not perfect. It's better than nothing in most cases. There's plenty of holes in the system on so many levels. Yet with time I do believe it will fine tuned & get better. Old ways of doing things are moving along with time. Therapists aren't perfect people. They can have transference & lack self-awareness of their own projections. Bringing in their own biases and problems. Even Jordan Peterson has his own blindspots being a professor. Jordan Peterson is just a normal guy with common human problems. He has social pressure to maintain his social image of "having his life together" inorder to be persuasive. Social proof causes people to view him differently. He's a human. Most people typically that enter into the field of psychology go in with intentions of healing their own emotional baggage. Sorting through all the bags can be heavy. Everyone has their own issues in life doesn't mean there aren't some pieces of a puzzle you can find from others. I think once psychedelics are used in a responsible therapudic way then will we see huge transformations in accessing unconscious beliefs & repressed memories. Modern day therapy has not been around that long. I do believe in the coming years therapy will look completely different than it does now. I'm currently doing therapy online. It helps to have someone to talk to that shows compassion and isn't trying to change you. It helps to have a sounding board to self-reflect and see the inner dialogue. Or if we're stuck in a negative self-talk pattern to have that disrupted with different perspectives. I believe once we feel that the therapy isn't going anywhere its best to find a different therapist. Different people have different perspectives. Helps to get multiple perspectives to learn different tools. Plenty of bad therapists. Plenty of good therapists. Some are both bad and good. I can't persuade my therapist that mushrooms are transformative. I've tried. Does that mean she's bad? Not fully, she's helped me see things that I struggle to fully see. Doesn't mean all therapists think her way. Some are more open minded and some aren't. It's your responsibility to vet what works for you and doesn't. Testing and seeing what works best.

Doing both. Some times it helps to get alternative perspectives. We some times get stuck in self-sabotage or self-avoidance. Which leads to self-destruction or self-harm at worst. Soo... Self-care, self-therapy, and self-love are all important towards being responsible for one's self. Both are beneficial. Some therapists can only see so deep so you know yourself best. Yet at times we might have blind spots we can't see that others can. At the end of the day you are truly responsible for yourself. Therapists can only nudge you to take responsibility or assist. It's your choice how responsible you want to be and how dedicated you are.

Evaluate your relationship with yourself. Look at how you treat yourself. Look at why you abandon yourself. What emotions are being avoided from being felt. Overcome self-abandonment by turning inwards. Most addictions tend to be an external solution to internal pain. Determine where the root of your pain stems. Be honest with yourself. Awareness of what you are turning away from is the first step. Awareness of why. You're aware there's a problem. That's your responsibility to dig deeper and sort out.

That sounds like internalized shame. Complex shame. Shame is rooted in the existenial loneliness and Lack of self-love is shame. Self-hate is essentially just shame. Self-love in my eyes is attached to.. Self-care Self-respect Self-esteem Self-compassion Self-awareness Self-understanding Self-image Self- Self-differentiation From my understanding working on each of these categories helps. Plus, getting to the root of the shame by altering the beliefs. Also, Self-differentiation is a big one to focus on.. Re-parenting yourself. Remothering yourself and refathering to reprogram the self.

Sounds like burn out or low motivation or disconnected inner parts.. Avoidance and escapism is mostly connected to dissociation. Distractions and dissociation is mostly connected to pain. We escape to avoid pain and feel pleasure. Focus on self-care & self-nurturance.. If you spend time escaping its usually related to self-avoidance and self-indulgence. Taking breaks and moving at a slower pace helps. Focusing on mindfulness. Listening to your body. Listening to your needs. Recognize the patterns and determine what the negative habits are giving. Determine in what ways you self-punish or self-neglect. If you keep on "forcing yourself" to do things you dislike or like then that's a form of self-punishment. Forcing isn't being compassionate. Self-care is key. Self-compassion is key too.

Print out an emotional circle diagram. Put it on your fridge. Cover it with tape. Get a dry erase marker and draw lines with emotions that are dominant for the day. Spend time trying to put words to the multiple emotions you feel. Build awareness of the emotions with recognizing the sensations. Sit with the emotions. Process them. Listen to meditations related to particular emotions. Feel them. Listen music that brings out the emotions. Listening to Enya helps bring me to tears when I feel blocked grief. There's other diagrams to get the correct vocabulary so you can articulate the emotions. Just create a system for bringing awareness. Emotions are constantly changing.. Some times there are more dominant emotions. I've been processing mainly sadness. It helps to get specific on the cause then address the main emotion. It's has taken me years to sit with sadness. I've found certain meditations on an app called Insight timer to help nudge myself to release and cry. I mean, literally takes like an hour to get the emotions to come to the surface. Depends on how long you have suppressed yourself. Most men are shamed to expressing their emotions so we learn to disconnect, dissosate, and numb them. All I can say is just be patient and sit with them. Build awareness with your emotions. Then gradually build awareness of others with emotional attunement.

@Preety_India I mostly liked the beat of the music & intense editing skills ??. A little bit about socialism hahah

@Preety_India Yeah, this guy puts some serious work into making the videos with all the editing

@Preety_India I do think that low vibration energy is usually really lavish & pleasurable on the front end. But it takes on the back end. Such as something of pleasure gives on the front end but long term can have consequences of taking. I'd like to believe that those that are corrupt will energetically pay for the bad energy they put out. What goes around comes around I guess. Honestly I don't know much about karma. I do believe things happen for a reason to teach us hard lessons & to learn to integrate the lesson. Learning the hard way. So I guess it's best to learn from the mistakes of another to not fall into that karma cycle?

@Preety_India Yep, I know. Way too gullible lol.. I was wrong because I bought into all the hype & the presentations they had. They put all the value up front. The course was pretty high quality too but still was outdated techniques that were short term strategies & not organic long term game. All in all, I learned a ton from just starting a business. What to do & what not to do. Failing isn't bad. Failing big is bad. I recommend failing with small investments to learn. Not with sunk cost fallicies. I was under the impression based on the social proof of others saying only good things. Not many places on the internet had negative feedback to say. There weren't many people saying bad things because they were being silenced, deleted, and banned from the forum. Of all the financial decisions I've made prior haven't been that bad of decisions. This was me being greedy and naive. I guess it was karma. As of now, my Enneagram is 6 for loyal skeptic. So Id like to think I'm pretty skeptical. Although I do trust wayy to easily focusing mostly on the best of others.