soos_mite_ah

I think I'm either an INTJ or INFJ. I'm actually a scorpio. But if we are talking about astrology I think my virgo venus is to blame when it comes to being picky lol. Yeah that's a balance I have yet to master. I tend to be really cautious about these types of things. I'm scared of wasting my time and having more trauma. Got enough of that to work through because of my parents and upbringing. Don't need any more.

Have any of yall gone to a psychic medium? If so, what was your experience? If not, do you want to and why/ why not? Do yall have any freaky stories about predictions coming true or any stories about crazy outlandish predictions that are so out there it's hilarious? I asked a few questions to one yesterday and I was wondering if anyone else had any experiences just to talk about it.

Yeah I get skeptical of those types. I saw that thread. My dad got a reading decades ago and apparently all of that came true. My mom has mixed experiences, some that came true and some that didn't. Those predictions were specific and relatively out there so any amount of accuracy is wild lol. I've had a reading done recently because my mom insisted. I'm skeptical and the reading didn't blow my mind tbh.

If you don't want me commenting I'll hide my comment. How does that even happen? I apologize if this comes off as rude but I assure you it's coming from a place of curiosity since I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. For me, it takes me forever to find someone I tolerate romantically much less like. I've never been in a relationship.

Why I Chose to Remain a Virgin Honestly I'm just venting at this point. As much as I want to complain about not getting any action and even though I have some shame wrapped around being a virgin, I will say that it was my choice and that no amount of shame or pressure externally will cause me to change my mind. 1. I don't like anyone This is probably one of the biggest reasons. I had opportunities, I just don't like anyone. For the longest time I identified as asexual and I wasn't attracted to anyone at all. Now, I'm attracted to people every now and then but the people who approach me, I have no interest in them. Also it will take more than simple attraction for me to want to have sex. There are lots of people who I think are cute but that really doesn't mean anything tbh. 2. I want to be in a committed relationship first I know that once I start having sex, I probably won't be able to stop. I can't just lose it in a one night stand, because that isn't a reliable source I can keep coming back to. I want to explore my sexuality with someone, not just lose my virginity for the sake of it. I need emotional intimacy. I want there to be some type of romantic element. For me personally, I need that to feel good or feel anything at all sexually. That's what I noticed with my dating experiences. Emotional attraction/ bond > anything physical. I want my first time to be at least somewhat enjoyable. I want to lose it to someone I can trust and someone I'm comfortable with. Those things need to be built. Because I'm a virgin, I do have some nerves wrapped around having sex and I want to make sure this person will respect my boundaries and won't expect me to do things I'm not ready to do. 3. I'm one of those people who will get attached to the person I'm having sex with. Often times firsts do have emotional weight to them. Also personally, my love language is touch so I can see myself being the type to get attached. FWB and casual sex isn't really for me. Like I mentioned before emotional intimacy is important to me. Not all women are like this and that's ok. Women are allowed to have casual, no strings attached sex. But for me personally, that wouldn't be healthy or authentic. 4. I want to have clear judgement when I'm dating. I'm one of those people who can get attached to sex. I know there are some women who get blinded by good dick and next thing you know they are in a toxic relationship or they are attached to a guy who doesn't care about them. I don't want that to be me. I want to have a clear idea of a person's character and intentions outside of sex. 5. Health issues This not a reason anymore but it was a reason why I waited in the past. My period was extremely irregular to where I would go months without having it. If I were to be sexually active, I would have to play this game every month where I ask myself *so am I missing my period because my body is acting up or am I pregnant?* I didn't want to put myself through that anxiety. I have had pregnancy scares despite being a virgin lol. Thankfully I got that taken care of and I figured out what's going on with me. This is no longer a concern. 6. Access to birth control. This not a reason anymore but it was a reason why I waited in the past. I didn't get on birth control until recently due to my health issues. The birth control is supposed to regulate my hormones and let me have a normal cycle. But before all of this, it has been difficult to get on birth control because of my conservative parents even though I wanted to get on it for precautionary reasons (say I got drugged and raped at a party, the last thing I want to think of is *am I pregnant?*). I know condoms are a thing but I wanted to be extra careful by getting on birth control before doing anything because pregnancy is some sci fi shit and I'm not ready to have a kid. 7. I want to make sure I'm having sex for the right reasons. I don't think it's healthy to push myself to do something I'm not ready for or comfortable with because that's what everyone is doing and I want to be relatable. I think that would be an act of self betrayal to waiver on my own boundaries. I don't think it's healthy to want to have sex in order to feel desirable. I want to work on myself and straighten those things out first instead of rushing in and regretting things. But I will say that the main reason I want to have sex is for a healthy reason and that is to explore my sexuality and release anything I'm repressing. I have prioritized other things in my life and as a result my romantic needs were put to the side, that's why I'm a little repressed. And finally I just want to underscore that none of my reasons are wrapped around religion or any amount of repression with my sexuality. If anything, considering the things I want to try, I'd say that I'm fairly open minded and adventurous. I hate how some assume that I think sex is dirty or that I'm dogmatic around sex just because I want to wait. I hate how some people think I'm playing coy and that pick up tricks will change my mind. No, I just don't want to. The whole notion of trying to change my mind or trying to get me to bed feels so slimy and forceful. If I wanted to I would, you wouldn't have to convince me. I hate how people assume that I'm lying when I say I want to wait, especially when they assumed that I was promiscuous because of the way I'm built (being promiscuous isn't bad I just don't like people jumping to conclusions without knowing who I am). I hate how people assume that I'm trying to wait because I'm afraid of being labelled a slut. I don't see anything wrong with having sex on the first date or sleeping around, I just don't do those things because of my personal reasons. I'm not a prude who slut shames others, men or women. My reasons are secular, they honor my emotional needs, and have to do with my physical health.

Shame Around Being a Virgin I was lucky enough to go to a nerdy and progressive school all throughout high school when I identified as asexual. I faced some of the uncomfortable things that asexuals deal with like having people I don't really know too well ask me really personal questions about my sexuality and dealing with how sex obsessed our culture is. A lot of asexuals feel this sense of unrelatability with straight people but also the LGBTQ community. You see sexualized ads, sex on tv etc. and none of it really makes sense to you. The whole concept of how sex sells doesn't resonate (I also found research that debunks that myth but that's another topic). As an asexual, watching everyone being obsessed with sex is like having the Super Bowl happen but you aren't a football fan, except in this case, everyday is Super Bowl Sunday. As an asexual, I didn't see the big deal around sex. I didn't get why people would get worked up about being a virgin as if it was something shameful, as if you were undesirable if you haven't had sex, or worse how some people think you are impure if you are not a virgin. Like...just let people live whether it was a product of their choices or simply a product of timing. There is so much shame and judgement that can be wrapped up in conversations like these. Sex isn't a big deal and that doesn't mean that if sex is special to you or you don't want to sleep around you're making a big deal out of it. It's to say that whether you want to save yourself for marriage, have an orgy, don't care about sex, have sex be an important part of a relationship or whatever tf, it's relative to the person and doesn't say much about them. Just don't judge other people on their choices so long as no one is having their boundaries being crossed. But once I got to college, the feelings of unrelatability heightened. My college has a huge hook up culture and I felt excluded by that. It's like everyone is talking about sex, what they like, what they want to experience, stories about their experiences etc. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm interested in the topic of sexuality and I'm pretty comfortable around it. But a lot of those conversations feel one sided because there is only so much I have to say on the topic. A lot of times I'm sitting there like *oh that's nice glad you had fun... can't relate lol.* And this bred a sense of FOMO, like I wasn't living my best life or that I'm immature and inexperienced. It also doesn't help when guys find out I'm a virgin and say things like "oh you're so boring you need to live a little." I have things that I enjoy doing and that bring me fulfillment. If anything I think it's kind of sad that you define how exciting you are or your life is based on what you do with your genitals. That's how I normally think of situations like this but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't get to me. I recognized that part of the reason why I wanted to go out and have sex despite being asexual and not being attracted to anyone is so that I can relate to my peers and not feel like a weirdo who is late to the party. I rationalized my status of being virgin of hey I'm asexual, I don't really want to have sex if I'm being honest. And the people who know I'm asexual would get it and won't think much of it. My asexuality gave me a sense of protection from peer pressure But now I'm starting to identify as straight, which means I have to deal with the pressure of being a straight woman. I don't have the label of being asexual protecting me any more. I'm 21 year old who is a virgin, who hasn't kissed anyone, and who hasn't been in a relationship. A lot of it mainly has to do with me not liking anyone tbh. But as time goes on, I start feeling more weird and more isolated. Like when I was 16, a lot of this was normal, but at 21 it becomes less so. Sex starts feeling like more of an expectation. Something that I encounter a lot when I tell people that I'm a virgin, that I haven't kissed anyone, or that I haven't been in a relationship is people being really surprised. They're like "oh but you're so smart, and beautiful, and charming, how could someone like you be single for so long?" I hate this so much because there are plenty of men and women with limited dating experience who are perfectly fine as people. It's this assumption that if you aren't in a relationship or you aren't getting action, you are undesirable or that something is wrong with you. That can be incredibly toxic for a lot of people and can create a sense of insecurity or desperation or worse in extreme cases yield to incel ideology. Also just an fyi to any other virgins reading this, there is nothing wrong with you and you don't have virgin written across your forehead. No one knows or cares tbh unless you make a big deal out of it and get insecure. There are also 4 basic reactions that I get when I tell people that I want to wait to have sex. I have a variety of secular reasons for not wanting to jump into bed with someone which I'm going to make a post about a little later. Positive constructive: This guy respects my boundaries and sees me being a virgin as something neutral. He isn't shaming me or fetishizing me. Positive nonconstructive: This guy fetishizes my virginity and likes to have control over inexperienced women. He also slut shames other women with experience or feels intimidated by them. He may or may not be religious. Either way, he is creepy and cringey. Negative constructive: This guy respects my boundaries but sex and having an experienced partner is important to him for healthy reasons whether its because he is afraid of a power imbalance with being much more experienced compared to me, he wants to explore his sexuality with someone with more experience, or that sex is really important to him in a relationship. He and I are coming from different places and he respects that difference as well as his own desires/needs so he politely rejects me because we are looking for different things. He is pretty nonjudgmental. Negative nonconstructive: Sex is really important to this guy. There is nothing wrong with that but the problem comes when he doesn't respect my boundaries and is judgmental. He might shame me for being a virgin by calling me religious, prude, boring etc. He might pressure me or try to change my mind to sleep with him by pulling cheap tricks. Or he will be offended and tell me that I'm an ugly whore anyway. Basically he will exhibit a lot of creepy and cringey behavior. The constructive responses, whether they be positive or negative, don't really bother me. The nonconstructive responses make me uncomfortable, positive or negative. There is a HUGE part of me that really wants to explore my sexuality especially as a newly realized straight woman (that phrase feels really weird tbh). I want to explore sex as a form of both physical and emotional intimacy. But I'm frustrated because I can't find someone that I like. I've had opportunities to lose my virginity, have my first kiss, and get into a relationship in the past but I said no because I wasn't into the guy. Also being locked in the house because of the pandemic doesn't help. The pandemic along with getting older has caused me to feel impatient with all of this. Also, I think my desire to explore does breed a sense of jealousy. I see other people talking about their experiences and I get this uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. It isn't disapproval because I see nothing wrong with what the are doing, but I think it has to do with me wanting to experience those things for myself. Finally, I hate to admit it but part of me wants to experience these things to know that I'm capable of experiencing these things. I see myself as desirable and beautiful inside and out but sometimes I feel that other people don't see me in that light. Men either friendzone me or they want to smash, there is no in between. I wish there was someone out there who saw me in a romantic light so there is both the physical and emotional forms of desirability.

This video really resonates with me

Not at all. I had a theology professor who I'm convinced is at stage turquoise. He spent a lot of the semester talking about nonduality and occasionally would touch on psychedelics. He also spent a couple years meditating in a monastery. I remember he also mentioned that a lot of his colleagues in his department were very materialist and identified with atheism despite doing their work on religion. A lot of them got into the subject because of their interest in history. From my interpretation, a lot of those people also began looking into religion with a critical eye because they were reacting against their stage blue upbringing as they moved into stage orange. What I'm trying to say is that whether your studies in theology manifests in a stage blue way is dependent on your stage of development, the way you analyze what you're studying, and what you're insights consist of.

It can be difficult to discern whether you are doing something to let go of conditioning or you are grabbing on to more conditioning. I think that cross road appears depending on why you want to integrate a polarity. If it's coming from a place of insecurity it can easily spiral into something cringey (like all of the alpha male bs) but if its coming from a place of expansion and love for yourself, then there is a lot of opportunity for growth. I agree with this to a certain extent in the sense that a lot of things isn't 100% exclusive for us and how there is no shame in wanting to look hot so long as you don't feel obligated to out of insecurity. But in my experience, the few women who were doing their makeup from a place of insecurity to attract men, never actually attract men. They just end up attracting women who appreciate their makeup skills instead lol. Because men aren't going to appreciate or understand how well you did your winged liner. Most of them can barely the difference between lipliner and lipstick. They don't care makeup lol. And women who wear makeup know this. They know that men don't appreciate makeup but the keep doing it because it is an authentic expression of their femininity and creativity. Personally, I find doing my makeup every now and then to feel therapeutic, like I'm doing something nice to take care of myself. Men are the last thing on my mind. It's really annoying for some men with big egos to assume that what we do with our appearance is for them and that the world revolves around their interests. Some things have nothing to do with men and some men don't get that. It's similar to how some insecure guys tried to be a body builder because they think it will attract girls because of what they perceive is attractive. Body builders don't attract women, they just attract other gym bros who want to know their workout routine and meal plans. Because most women don't give af about body building and the such. I mention all of this because it goes back to wanting to be this caricature of masculinity or femininity to attract the opposite sex and it ultimately backfires because most people aren't really into extremes and just want to find energies that complement one another. It also doesn't do masculinity and femininity justice because there are so many ways that a person can embody either polarity given their own unique personality. Boxing yourself into a narrow idea of what you think is masculine or feminine strips the creativity and authenticity out of a person's energy. Personally, if I had to put a number on my masculinity and femininity polarity, I'd say that I'm like 60% masculine 40% feminine and I often find guys who lean more feminine more attractive. Like you said,

Talking to a Vedic Psychic Medium So a lot of weird and unfortunate things have been happening to me and my family so my mom being the religious/spiritual person she is thought it would be a good idea to talk to a psychic medium. Then she was like the medium needs to talk to me and my dad as well. I'd say that I have a healthy dose of skepticism with such things. But I was also excited and curious about the whole thing. I looked forward to the phone call all day. I asked her a few question. I can't say that I was satisfied with the answers. This lady talked a lot and she wasn't very straight forward lol. The first question I asked was if I was going to find lasting happiness through my healing and self actualization work. She was super vague but I think it was a yes????.... But we talked a lot about my past experiences and I wasn't too impressed. I was expecting to have my mind blown after she would tell me about things that I didn't mention to her. But most of her insights were inferable given the information I gave her and given her background as an immigrant. The next question I asked was about my career and what my calling was. She gave a straight answer to that one. She said that I was going to be a human rights lawyer who would then go on to have a political career. It felt really out there. I am minoring in human rights and I am passionate about a lot of causes but law school just sounds ehhhh........ not sure about that one. I was hoping I'd have a light bulb come on in my head but that didn't happen. Next I asked about my love life and if I was going to get into a relationship. She went on a whole thing about how she doesn't believe in soul mates and twin flames and how they are tropes that sell well in books and movies. Then she said that I just need to keep my heart open and that I'll find someone eventually because she doesn't see any reason why I would end up forever alone. Vague but ok.... I contemplated on whether or not to tell her that I'm looking for a short term relationship but I decided against it because she talks so much. Tbh I asked this question because I wanted to know when I'm going to get my cheeks clapped. That was going to be my final question but she kept mentioning that I have karma and grief that I'm processing from the life I had just previously to this one and that's why there is a lot of messed up things happening. So naturally I was like "so what happened in my past life that was so bad?" I wanted to know what type of wild things she was going to tell me. She told me that apparently I became an orphan at the age of 7 and then went around begging for food and living on the streets. Then I had 4 kids with a husband that beat me up regularly. I died in my early 30s. And naturally I was like well damn....... That's depressing. I didn't know what to say to any of that.

I guess my whole thing is that masculinity and femininity aren't bs but ascribing them to gender norms and boxing people into a form of self expression because of their gender identity is bs. Aim for authenticity so that you can work towards integration. That will help you be more in alignment than if you were to try to paint yourself as a caricature of what you think a woman or man should be like based on a bunch of social conditioning.

I see masculinity and femininity as a way of defining duality. Like pull and push or external and internal. Sometimes the labels masculinity and femininity can aid in communication and give you an idea of what you need to integrate. Because masculinity and femininity are labels and because both women and men have their own combination of the energies that is authentic to them, I characterize masculinity and femininity as gender neutral. There are men who are naturally more feminine and forcing them to be masculine wouldn't be healthy. Same goes for women who are more masculine and forcing femininity on to them. That said, integration of both polarities can help us move into more balance and cause the polarities to manifest in a healthier way. That's the goal. It isn't to be the most masculine man or the most feminine woman especially if it isn't authentic to you. Again, the polarities are gender neutral. A good example of healthy integration is someone who is really masculine and consequently also carries on a lot of the toxic forms of masculinity. Integration of the feminine can help soften and balance out the toxicity and let that person's natural masculinity manifest in a more conscious way. It won't make that person suddenly lean more feminine if that wasn't authentic to them from the beginning. While we should do what feels authentic, sometimes if we are really off balance it can help going to the other end to see all that you need to integrate or to see if you are suppressing anything. From then you can explore and simply take what sticks and leave the rest. That's what I did when I was integrating my feminine energy. I swung more to the other end for the sake of exploration because I suppressed a lot of my femininity growing up due to internalized misogyny. There are somethings with traditional femininity that doesn't resonate with me such as makeup for example. But even though I don't resonate with wearing a ton of makeup I no longer judge other women who do wear it like I used to. I think it's rather silly now but when I was like 12-13, I thought women who wore a ton of makeup were fake, insecure, or doing it to get male attention but now I see that these women don't actually give af and are doing it to express themselves creatively. For me personally, wearing makeup would feel rather forced tbh so I don't push myself even though I've been trying to step into my feminine energy more. I still think that I lean more towards the masculine side even though I'm a woman. But I have a better idea of where my own polarities lie more since I went out and tried things from both ends.

Turning Competence into an Identity Part 7: Exploration I haaaate how I still have things I'm discovering about this. I don't like being reminded on how deep this problem goes lol. So I was thinking about somethings and I realized that my desire for competence interferes with me exploring my identity because I don't want to make mistakes and waste my time. I'd rather take some time to contemplate what I want and question myself and then take action rather than going out there, living life, and figuring things out as I go along. I think it's good that I try to think before acting so I don't do anything stupid impulsively but I think in some aspects it does hold me back. I don't like admitting that I don't know what I want in some instances. I know I've made posts in the past talking about how I feel unsure about my sexual orientation. And that felt shameful. It made me feel like mess, like I wasn't sure of myself. Of course not wanting to be a mess has a direct connection to me wanting to maintain my identity of competence. I know that exploring my sexuality is a very natural thing to do but I find myself resisting the whole trial and error process. It seems so time consuming and I want to fast forward to when I have the answers. This is also true when it comes to my career and life purpose. I retook the life purpose course and something stuck out to me in the FAQs because all of this is in my mind. Leo was talking perfectionism and not wanting to go down the wrong path in the journey. And he was talking about how we shouldn't be afraid of doing that because even if we have to course correct, we would still learn things along the way that will help us later on in the journey. I find myself having an existential crisis of sorts every other year about wtf I'm doing with my life and if I'm on the right direction. I'd say that I have a bias for contemplation over action which can result in stagnation at times because the time I use thinking I could use for going out there and exploring my interests. I think the reason for this bias and why I prefer thinking is because I have a desire for efficient action. But at the wrong time, the desire to be efficient is at the expense of letting myself explore which actually ends up being inefficient because half-assing exploration can yield in a lot of lost growth

Life Purpose Course To Do List I retook the life purpose course. I found that I have a pretty solid grasp of the concepts, my values, and my strengths. But there are something that I need to reexplore. The last time I took the course, I did it too fast therefore I didn't give myself enough time to contemplate and develop careful answers to the exercises. Even though the same could be said about defining my values and strengths in the hands on part of the course, I contemplated those things a lot after the course which is why they have a better foundation. My current purpose is to find my purpose. Here are somethings I need to do. I'm going to avoid going too much into detail with this because I don't want to leak the content in the course regarding the exercises I need to look into. Things to do/ contemplate Burn through superficial desires and experience life (travel, relationships, parties etc.) Explore my interests and find a way to connect them Find some role models and look into biographies Deal with fears and limiting beliefs Find your niche and medium Build good habits Wake up on time Build structure in life Exercise Networking / seminars Videos I need to come back to: 58 - Life Purpose Exercise #1 (16:34) 59 - Life Purpose Exercise #2 (11:00) 60 - Life Purpose Exercise #3 (11:00) 61 - Life Purpose Exercise #4 (9:00) 62 - Life Purpose Exercise #5 (25:29) 63 - Life Purpose Exercise #6 (17:45) 77 - Going From Abstract To Concrete (31:43) 83 - Finding Your Niche (34:08) 67 - Impact Statement (11:51) 69 - Bringing It All Together (9:56) 70 - The Me Sheet (11:00)

Feeling Unworthy of Connection I found an article that I found really useful. I'm posting it here so I don't lose it. https://www.psychalive.org/nobody-likes-me/

I think that has to do with how much you associate masculinity with men. Something that I have been trying to do in order to have a more integrative approach to masculine and feminine energies is to view the energies as gender neutral to peel back the social conditioning that assigns femininity and things associated with femininity to women and assigns masculinity and things associated with masculinity to men. I found that helps me step into my own authentic expression of the combination of both energies. Yeah I grew up in a similar way. Especially when it came to anger. Even when I tried to express it in a healthy way, I was always seen as bitchy and aggressive. I think for women, emotional repression is in a different context. Women are told to keep quiet and not create a fuss because expressing emotions means that you'll prove the stereotype of women being these hormonal, irrational drama queens correct. But then again, keeping quiet also comes with it's own stereotypes and baggage so you can't win. When it comes to anger, it's kind of like the quote of how men are allowed to react but women can only overreact. I agree. Upbringing and socialization is big. I'd say that it's a much bigger factor than biology since all men aren't inherently masculine psychologically and all women aren't inherently feminine (especially when you consider masculine and feminine energies as gender neutral). Hell, sometimes it can be flipped for some people. But it can be tricky to separate authentic expression and cultural conditioning since it is so prevalent from literally birth.

Accepting the Softest Parts of Myself: Thoughts on Vulnerability A few days ago I talked about my insecurities that I have with my physical appearance. Just writing all of that was really helpful in processing and releasing it. That night I had a thought that was along the lines of this: Isn't it an interesting coincidence that you have trouble accepting your stomach, the softest part of your body? And I have written many posts in this journal talking about how I'm trying to be gentle with myself, trying to accept my vulnerabilities, and trying to work through shame. While I have been doing all of that psychologically, there is a parallel that I observed with my stomach and how it reflects on my body image. I found that accepting my stomach was difficult over the years. It's particularly vulnerable. Physically, again it's softer. My arms and legs are thicker and I have been insecure about not being skinny there but I worked through it by appreciating how naturally rounded, yet toned and muscular it was. But with my stomach, I didn't have that type of redeeming quality. It just felt like a soft blob. It made me think along the lines of how you don't have to find strength in your softness and vulnerability to see the value of your softness and vulnerability. Psychologically there is a vulnerability because I found it difficult to find beauty in this "flaw" in order to embrace it. But that night, I thought, maybe I don't have to see my stomach as beautiful to embrace it and accept it. I then thought that this is a better way to deal with vulnerability and shame where we don't have to approve of something in order to accept it and be at peace with it. I also squished my stomach a little bit and thought about how nice it was to feel, how in a way it made me more cuddly and huggable. Likewise, vulnerability can make us more open to affection and connection from others. Additionally, focusing on how my stomach feels rather than what it looks like I feel helped. I think I can apply this to vulnerability as well where appreciating and feeling into the depth of an emotional experience, even painful and shameful experiences, can help fight off shame because you aren't as focused on how the experience looks from the outside and how that can reflect on your image in the eyes and judgement of others or yourself. And like an un-flat stomach we are compelled to hide our vulnerabilities and flaws in the fear that it isn't flattering, one is physical and the other is social/psychological. Like I know a large chunk of women don't have flat stomachs but everyone hides it and the media sure as hell doesn't represent bodies like that. (Also side note, fuck dressing in order to be flattering. There isn't anything wrong with that if it makes you feel that you can embrace your favorite features but limiting yourself to what society considers flattering in order to get closer to a certain standard of beauty at the cost of self expression and wearing what you want aint it.) Finally, when it comes to a large chunk of women not having flat stomachs, there is a biological reason for that. Most women have a little bit of fat on their stomachs because that extra padding is supposed to protect the uterus and helps with child bearing later in life. Our vulnerabilities also provide us protection psychologically by informing us what is and isn't ok for us to put up with. I also like to have this attitude where I try to view my negative emotions as warning emotions that point to what's going on in my psyche. The only reason why these emotions are given the value label of "bad" is because the ego doesn't like feeling them. Similarly, the only reason why I don't like my squishy stomach is because it doesn't serve my ego's desire to conform to beauty ideals since at the end of the day my ego wants to be desirable, even if it's only in my own eyes and even if no one else cares about what my stomach looks like. I think I have made progress when it comes to my body image as well as my relationship to being vulnerable. While I did know some of these things already, I found that observing the parallels between my stomach and my emotional vulnerabilities was interesting. I feel that seeing my stomach as a physical metaphor to my sense of softness and vulnerability brought me closer to accepting how I look. This comparison helped me view my stomach in a different light in this beautiful yet poetic way. To be honest, if I were to have the option of getting liposuction tomorrow, I can't say that I'd deny it because I still wish that I had a flat stomach. But I think this reflection helped me plant the seeds for more self love both for the way I look and the things I have experienced.

I beg to differ. Women are more allowed to express emotions compared to men. Men are often compelled to hide it more due to a stoic ideal, especially when it comes to sadness and vulnerability. Similarly, women are discouraged from being angry even in healthy and assertive ways. I do remember there being a study showing that men were just as or even more so emotional compared to women but they were less likely to express it. I can't find it at the moment but this article seems to summarize it pretty well. https://www.elitedaily.com/dating/guys-more-emotional-girls/1077730#:~:text=Women are emotional%2C true. But according to a,it comes to being presented with emotional stimuli. I also thought this was a good analysis

David Hoffman has a lot of videos about understanding boomers. I'd highly recommend checking it out.

I took a break from journaling and I have a lot to write about. But before I do that, I'm posting some videos that I liked and thought were insightful as it pertains to where I'm at with my growth.

Why do people in their late teens and early 20s get nostalgic about their childhoods specifically about the media prevalent during that time? This is a recurring pattern I see with a lot of people even if they had bad childhoods. Also does this pattern of nostalgia continue as you get older?

Nitpicking at my Appearance The last post was rather therapeutic so I'm going to delve into this a little more. Lately I noticed that I am nit picking at my appearance. It's super petty since the stuff that I'm picking at isn't noticeable to most people or hell even me unless I zoom in real close. These include: my uneven skin tone and acne marks: Still felt confident even when I had a ton of acne. Most of these marks can't be seen unless someone were to be waaaaaay tooo close to me and put a magnifying glass on my face, the small amount of chub I have in my upper thighs: Super minor, I feel little to no difference emotionally when my legs are slightly thicker or not how I could lose an inch off my arms: Super minor, I feel little to no difference emotionally when my arms are slightly thicker or not the tiny mistake I made when I last did my eyebrows: Literally not even noticeable And none of these really have a big impact on my self image. But I still find myself nitpicking. These things are so minor that I don't even see the worth in changing them because they won't change much. This is so much more psychological than physical. I think this is a reflection of my perfectionistic tendencies. Since I'm taking a break from I guess heavier and deeper forms of self help, I'm getting a backlash of sorts. Before I used to nitpick at my quality of consciousness and my development. Because I'm not focusing on those things as much, those nitpicking tendencies transferred over to my appearance. These come from the desire to present the most polished version of myself. And as much as I want to address this mechanism and get rid of it, that would again feed into the whole eliminating parts of yourself to be polished. Even though I'm taking a break from deeper forms of self help for the time being, I do notice flaws in my character that I can work on improving. And instead of doing that, I'm challenging myself to let those flaws just be. Because they aren't necessarily flaws, I just perceive them as such because of the way I want to come across and my survival interests. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm just trying the acceptance route more nowadays as opposed to the action oriented lets fix this right away route.

Plastic surgery I have been thinking about this topic for the last couple days idk why. I guess every now and then my vanity slips out lol. I know this isn't the most conscious or self development oriented topic but I just want to get it out of my system so I'm not in my head anymore. I have thought about getting plastic surgery many times in the past. I have been hesitant because of the costs, side effects, fears of something going wrong and ending up looking like a more messed up version of myself etc. Breast Reduction: I started thinking about getting a boob job when I fell asleep on the couch a couple years back. I fell asleep in a weird position and woke up to my boobs strangling me. That was scary and uncomfortable lmao. I also get back pain occasionally, I don't like having people stare at me or sexualize me, and I wish I could shop for clothes that I like without worrying whether or not I look like I'm going to sit on the black casting couch. Also I don't like the idea of spending $80 on a fucking bra. But also on the other hand I like the way my chest looks and how it looks in proportion to the rest of my body. Like even though they are big they aren't saggy. Most of the time I can get away with going braless. Again, I like the way they look, I just don't like how society treats me and my lack of clothing options. And that makes me think that maybe it isn't about needing to fix something for me, rather it's about other people. I can deal with the occasional back pain and avoid falling asleep on the couch if I'm going to be honest. Liposuction: If I were to get liposuction, it would just be for my stomach. No matter how well I eat or exercise, I always have a little pudge in that area. I've had it for as long as I can remember. It really effects my confidence and because it's the one thing that I'm insecure about, my mind likes to hyper focus on it. I think it takes up a lot of mental energy and this insecurity has resulted in me having a dysfunctional relationship with my body image if I were to point out a feature in my body. I always feel like I would be a 10 if I had a flat stomach. While I have mixed feeling about getting a boob job, I don't have the same with getting liposuction on my stomach. I don't like my stomach, never really did, don't know if I ever will. My only thing is the cost. I think it would be so much cheaper if I just accepted myself tbh. Lip filler: This is one of those things that crossed my mind as a joke. It's really petty. I love the way my lips look naturally from the front but from the side my top lip protrudes out a little more than my bottom lip and I just want it to be equal. It's super nit picky and I have a tendency to do that with my appearance even though I don't think about it much and it doesn't have an effect on my life or confidence. Wouldn't get this in a million years. This is my inner perfectionist talking lol. Plus needles and injections scare tf out of me. My other thing with plastic surgery is the permanence of it. I have experimented with appearance growing up and most of the time I just want to go back to my old features eventually. In high school I dyed my hair burgundy. It was cool for the first couple months and then I just wanted my black hair back. I liked my black hair before and how it contrasted with my skin, how shiny it looked but I always wondered what I'd look like with red hair and if that would look better. There was also a part of me that saw my black hair as plain. Similarly when I got hazel contacts a couple years back, it was cool for the first two weeks. Then I wanted to go back to my brown eyes because I felt like the lemur from Zoboomafoo. Like my black hair, I also had mixed feeling about my brown eyes and just wanted to experiment. I like how warm and expressive my brown eyes are and how it matches with my hair while standing out compared to the rest of my face. But again, there was a part of me that thought it was really plain and was curious about how I would look if I had different features. Both of these helped me move closer to self love as far as my appearances went because changing my features helped me appreciate the ones I already had. But it's easy to switch out contact lenses and to grow out your hair again. If I did something similar with plastic surgery and wanted to go back to the way I looked before, thing would be A LOT more complicated. On the other hand, I have made a change to my appearance and didn't feel like I wanted to go back. I switched from wearing glasses to wearing contacts. Growing up I didn't hate my glasses but I thought that I looked nicer without them. But I can't say I liked them either or saw any pros for wearing them besides simply not wanting to poke my eye out every morning. I always took my glasses off for pictures. When I switched to wearing contacts, I was surprised by how much mental space was freed up in my head and how confident I felt. My self image became so much more positive after wards. I think if I were to get work done, I probably wouldn't do the reduction because I have mixed feelings about. And I have noticed that when I have mixed feelings and I change my appearance, it's cool for a little bit and then I miss my original features. I would get the liposuction because I don't have mixed feelings about that aesthetically. But my thing is, will it be worth it or am I just being petty. Is this similar to how I feel about my lips because on one hand it's something minor. It's not like I'm trying to lose 30 lbs from this procedure (also I don't think using this as a short cut to weight loss is wise but I digress). But on the other hand it isn't like my lips because this does take a lot of mental energy for me. In the end of the day the main thing stopping me is thinking about how much cheaper and how much easier all of this would be if I just accepted myself fully. Also there the fact that I'm broke because lets be real I don't have a few thousand dollars just lying around.

Comparing Myself Against the Priorities of Other People I had a bit of a backlash in the last couple days. It was for an incredibly dumb reason. There is this person I went to college with who is an influencer and goes to law school. Her account came up on my Explore page and I couldn't resist the temptation to click on it. I went to her page and so many of the insecurities and the shame that I worked through came back up, I felt behind in my life. I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I felt like a failure. It was a mess. I kept thinking *when am I going to have my season of happiness? When am I going to be living my best life?* Next thing I knew I continued spiraling by looking at other people's accounts and comparing myself. After venting about this with a friend, I realized that I was comparing myself against the priorities of other people. The people I was comparing myself to all prioritized school and career above everything else. And don't get me wrong, I know many of these people and I know it comes from a healthy, purpose driven place rather than a place of insecurity and workaholism. But my top priority hasn't been school and career. And I made that decision early on because I knew it was the healthiest thing for me. As proud as I am of that because I know the strength and authenticity it took me to make that decision. But there was this feeling of being left behind because I chose a different path. There is a part of me that saw the trade off between prioritizing self development and prioritizing school and career. They were at odds in many times and sometimes I think that after i finish dealing with my issues, I will have a lot of lost time to make up for and I have to put this extra stress on myself. But then I was like, why am I doing this? Why do I feel this way? It's ridiculous. I'm judging myself on how far I'm on a path that I didn't even take, a path that I technically didn't want to take. I think the reason why I do this is because even though I did prioritize self development over school and career, the people around me always told me that the right decision was to prioritize school and career over everything. A lot of it came from a healthy place where it's like having a good career will give you a sense of contribution and purpose, it will keep you grounded, and it will ensure that you are financially independent which means you can live life on your own terms. But the problem is the implicit notion that came with it in the attitudes of the people who were giving me this message. Especially from my parents it was this sense of *nothing matters as long as you have your career, friends and relationships don't matter, you're basically throwing your life away if you make a boy your priority, don't waste your time on things that won't be beneficial for your college applications. In this stage of your life school has to be your highest priority* I get where they were coming from. They didn't want me to succumb to peer pressure. They didn't want me to get into a toxic or codependent dynamic with a boy and give up all my dreams to follow him. They didn't want me wasting my time on things that weren't going to benefit my future when I could do something else that better serves me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that prioritizing other things shouldn't seem like a death sentence. It shouldn't feel like not prioritizing school means you will have a bad life and that you will be wasting your potential. It's perfectly reasonable to prioritize other things depending on where you are at your life and what your needs are. I know people say life is short, but I honestly think life is long. Especially when you're young, you have time. You can do things at your own pace. You will eventually move into different phases of your life where you will prioritize different things. And that's ok, there is a season for everything. Like I noticed that when I compare myself I tend to get upset over not having things that I technically don't want in the first place. One time I caught myself feeling like a failure when I found out someone I knew was engaged. I don't even want to get married at my age. I guess another thing with me prioritizing self development is that when I do have milestones or when I do achieve a goal, it usually not something that I can show off. I'm not about to walk up to someone and start talking about how I made peace with this traumatic event that happened to me in childhood for example. And I think because of that, my achievements regarding self development can go unnoticed or uncelebrated, making me feel like I haven't done anything with my life. I know for me, if I were to prioritize school and career as my number one priority like the people I was comparing myself to, it probably wouldn't manifest in a healthy way. I shouldn't judge myself and my progress based on what I was told to prioritize. Sure if I judge myself school/ career wise, I'm not doing so great. But if I judge myself according to my own priority of self development, I'd say I made an amazing amount of progress and that I'm doing good for myself. And I think that's more important when it comes to understanding what will actually make you fulfilled.

Even if they are "just jokes" it's worth questioning why that person would find such a thing funny. You don't have to be blatantly racist to be racist. Was just about to say this. Situations like that are uncomfortable. You're not actually funny if you have to be prejudiced in order to be funny. Personally, when I see a friend making racist jokes or being racist, I let them know that I'm not ok with it and try to open a conversation. If the person gets defensive or they continue the behavior, they are disrespecting my boundaries so then I just move on or keep contact in the bare minimum. I don't want to validate this behavior by continuing to stick around.