soos_mite_ah

I have taken the life purpose course twice now and I noticed that I came up with different careers depending on where I was at in the spiral. My core values and the such has stayed the same but the medium and the way I want to manifest those values and ideals have changed. For example, when I was more so in stage green, I wanted to manifest my life purpose through writing and travelling while now as I move towards yellow, I find myself wanting to manifest my purpose through researching the social sciences. I can see how life purpose can change as we develop as a person which is why it's important to stay flexible. What I'm trying to get at is, how do I ensure that my life purpose is solid enough to where it can withstand how I grow, change, and develop as a person so I won't have to have an existential crisis and fully revaluate my career path every two years or so? Is the reason why my life purpose "changed" is because I haven't actually found it yet?

Thought I add onto this thread upon watching Leo's most recent 2 hour vlog. I find a lot of shades in myself in his video. He mentions pursuing self help for the last 8 years and how he needed a break from it so that he can integrate things more and deepen his understanding because rest helps you create more distinctions (after all learning= making distinctions). He also talked about how he was taking care of his health more and how he was doing things that made him forget about actualized.org for a while and how that is helping rejuvenate him. Now, granted I'm only getting a pea sized version of this experience. After all, I'm not pumping out new high quality content every week or taking psychedelics. But I have really thrown myself into self improvement since I was 15 (so for the last 6 years). That has been my main focus. I see a lot of benefits from taking a break from self help. I take breaks for about a couple months out of the year so that I don't feel like I'm on a hamster wheel. But my problem is that I have trouble unplugging completely. Currently I have been more relaxed with the self help where I'm not meditating super regularly, I calmed down on the shadow work, (and Leo taking a break for the last couple months has also been immensely helpful for me to take a break from actualization work as well so thanks @Leo Gura, even your break and your insights in your recent vlog has helped and resonated with me). But I have still been working on my health, on being more gentle with myself, on building more sustainable habits, and reflecting to find my life purpose. It's like even when I do take a break from self improvement, I still find myself doing other forms of self improvement. Unplugging 100% is a challenge for me and I really want help with that.

2/5/2021 Daily Check In I had breakfast today. It was the same thing I had yesterday except minus the eggs. Just didn't feel like having them today. I ate pretty well today. Dinner was a little earlier and lighter than usual. I also bought these protein bars today. I'm trying to get more protein into my diet and I'm aiming for roughly 70-90g a day. I noticed that when I entered my food to the cronometer that if I add a protein bar that's about 20g of protein I can meet my target easily. Also, I can get in some more carbs and calories without eating a large volume of food since those bars tend to be more calorically dense. I'm eating these Cliff Builder's bars. They taste ok, you know as good as protein bars tend to be and they also scratch my chocolate cravings. The only issue that I have is the amount of added sugar (17 g) and the ingredients, but I feel like the ingredients thing is inevitable since it is a processed food. I try to avoid anything processed but I mean I don't have much of that in my diet so I'm sure adding a protein bar wouldn't be the end of the world. The only things in my diet that are processed are this and the Cheerios, which aren't even that bad since the ingredients are decent. Here are the nutrition facts below: Also, after eating this, I caught myself feeling a little bit more sleepy. Not like tired, sluggish, or unfocused but relaxed. I might be misremembering something or I'm just speaking out of my ass but I think I remember seeing something that was along the lines of getting enough protein in your diet can help you go to sleep. I don't know I guess I'll have to see in the next few days. I'm going to try to get my sleep schedule on track so that I can make myself eat breakfast instead of waking up and not wanting to get out of bed. Speaking on seeing what will happen in the next few days, I started my period today. Which means that I'm going to start birth control today. I'm nervous about what this drug is going to do to my body but I'm hoping to god that it helps me with my PCOS. I heard a lot of horror stories about birth control and I'm hoping that I'm not going to experience any of that.

Desire Part 5 Prior to meeting Sean, I went on a date with this guy a year before (I'm not even giving him a fake name because he is so irrelevant). I barely knew him and I was like *eh, might as well give him a chance and get to know him.* Before our date he asked me how comfortable I was with physical touch. I'm very comfortable with touch so I let him know. I'm glad that he asked before hand, thought that was kind. Well half way through our date, we were cuddling on a couch and he almost grabbed my ass. I wasn't physically or emotionally uncomfortable but in my mind I was like *that's not something you do on a first date.....*I grabbed his hand and held it so it wouldn't travel anywhere lol. Physically, I didn't feel good either. I didn't feel anything tbh. A guy I'm not romantically attracted to can literally grope me and I wouldn't feel a thing (positive or negative) but a guy that I'm romantically attracted to like Sean could look me in the eyes and talk to me about economics and I would be blushing (I blush for all types of reasons mainly out of shyness). I guess my point is that if I want to feel anything sexual in a situation in the future, I need to build up some type of romantic attraction or else I'm not going to be feeling anything. Maybe I'm demisexual? My romantic feelings can exist without sexual attraction but in order to feel attraction I need romantic feelings. A demisexual is basically someone who is on the asexual spectrum but feels sexual attraction after they bonded with someone. But then again, feeling physically turned on because say someone whispered in your ear isn't the same as being attracted to them. You can get physically turned on without being attracted to someone. I can make myself orgasm without a single thought or fantasy in my hand just by touching myself in the right way. It's kind of like a vending machine, push the right buttons and you get a snack or in this case an orgasm. But at the same time when I do think about sex I mainly think about the romantic aspects of it. When I do fantasize, I don't think about penetration or any particular position or scenario. I think about mainly making out, cuddling up against someone, having someone run their fingers through my hair etc. I know I'm also really sensitive from the shoulders up, even in a nonsexual context. If someone comes near my shoulder, I automatically have a reflex. For me, sex isn't from the waist down, it's from the neck up. I can't imagine having sex, or I guess good sex to where I feel anything in my body, with someone I don't have some type of romantic feelings for. For me, sex feels like a romantic expression of one's feelings. You can't passionately express feelings if they aren't there in the first place. I know that I'm not the type of person who can have a one night stand or have a friends with benefits relationship with someone and not get attached to the person. Because to me, sex is very secondary. Romance is the main thing. Like I don't even like the way a dick looks (or even a pussy). To me, dicks look like sad sea creatures and pussy's look like fucked up enchiladas. I'm not disgusted but genitals just are what they are. I don't fantasize about a man's or a woman's body either. I can acknowledge when someone is beautiful (like come on, I might be asexual but I'm not blind) or see why someone might be attracted to someone based on society's standards even if I don't think they are beautiful. That's how I feel about a lot of celebrities like Brad Pitt. I get the appeal but he just doesn't do it for me. I never had any celebrity crushes because I simply don't know them, therefore I can't be romantically attracted to them. But at the same time, there are some kinks that sound appealing to me. I like the idea of dominating and being dominated. I like the idea of being submissive because I'm pretty in control and assertive in every other area in my life and it's like I want to embrace this part of myself in the bedroom. I also like the idea of being dominant because I feel like being submissive all the time would get boring and also because I think one of the main reasons why I'm a sub is because I'm a virgin who doesn't know what to do at the moment. I'm pretty sure that I'm a switch. And to me, these things are more so about the situation rather than any particular individual. At first glance I think, yeah I'm definitely not asexual. But then again, someone's sexuality and someone's sexual orientation aren't the same thing. You can take two straight people and one of them might be kinky and one of them might be vanilla. They are both straight but they have very different sexualities. I guess by that logic, there can be kinky and vanilla asexuals under the sex favorable section. There is also the whole thing with me having PCOS. That can mess with your hormones. As I have been taking care of my health more, I noticed my sex drive really coming up. That is really confusing. I know that being asexual and having a high sex drive is possible. Then again, a kinky asexual with a high sex drive who is also heteroromantic is really pushing it....... Maybe I am straight idk!?!?!??!?!! If I am straight, my theory is that I was a late bloomer and then when I was supposed to bloom at around 17 or so, the PCOS came in and intercepted my sexuality to where I kept thinking I was asexual til I was 21. I also have shame surrounding the possibility of me being straight. I'm 21 now and people have been knowing that I'm asexual since I was 14. That's 7 years. Telling people I'm straight and I guess coming out again (can you even come out as a straight!?!??!) makes me feel like a liar. Asexual people are often seen as liars and people with fucked up hormones. Their identity is often dismissed as such or as some type of phase. Most people don't even think asexuality is a real thing. And I feel like me saying that I'm not asexual is me feeding into the stigma. But at the same time, assuming that I'm straight when I'm actually asexual is asexual erasure. Most asexuals aren't these stereotypical prudes that live in a convent. They can appear as other sexualities because of maybe their romantic orientation and they can still be asexual. But then again if I am some type of kinky, hetereo-romantic asexual/ demisexual with a high sex drive, then like I'm pretty damn close to being straight. Or maybe I'm asexual all of this is happening because I feel peer pressure to have sex since at 21 it's considered weird by some people to still be a virgin??? I've had moments where I have felt insecure about still being a virgin. Maybe I'm straight and I have some repression going on since I tend to be overly logical and the PCOS is messing with my urges???? Idk man I'm really confused and I have shame wrapped around this because I don't know what to make of these experiences.

Desire Part 4 Even though my high school was pretty liberal, the same couldn't be said about the college that I'm attending. I honestly didn't feel comfortable being openly asexual because there were a lot of Trump supporting frat bros surrounding me at all times. I also felt this pressure to go out and have sex, drink a lot, and party. None of those things are really me. I went to a couple parties and tried to drink but I honestly didn't enjoy it much. Call me boring idc. But the sex part gets to me at times. Even if you aren't a partier, college is often seen as a time when people really experiment with their sexuality. As someone who identified as asexual, sex felt like it was everywhere. A lot of asexuals describe it as having everyone around you celebrate the Super Bowl while you're sitting here not understanding or caring about football. That's how I feel about college a lot of the time. Even in LGBTQ inclusive places, I still feel like a very tiny minority. Everyone is talking about it and I do feel left out because I don't have much to contribute to the conversation. It's especially annoying when some douche bro tells me something along the lines of "damn just live a little" as if I'm not living my life to the fullest because I'm choosing to stay a virgin. Like sex isn't the end all and be all to life. I have plenty of other things that make me happy and fulfilled. And I'm betting you haven't even made a girl cum once nor do you know where or what a clitoris is. Occasionally I have to deal with creeps that fetishize my virginity by making me out to be this pure and untouched, innocent thing. Fetishizing virginity gives me a very infantilizing, puritanical, and creepily religious vibe. But luckily those guys and the douche bros are in the minority. Most people with any amount of common sense don't care about what I'm doing with my vagina. I also met a guy in college. He was off limits because he is my professor (I'm going to call him Sean again going along with Ari's exes). I wouldn't dare make a move on him because that's messed up and creepy on my part. I did a post about him previously in my journal (page 6). In this post I mainly talked about Sean's personality and how the way he carried himself made me romantically attracted to him. I could see that he was attractive but I didn't feel physically attracted to him. It was the same as Ricky where I can see he was beautiful but I didn't tie it in with sex, kind of like how you admire a painting. I do have aesthetic preferences but by no means are they a must. The traits I mentioned in this post, his wavy hair, his big nose, his beautiful smile, the way he dressed, those are things that I find beautiful in both men and women tbh. And it's not even like a sexual thing. There was this one instance where I felt actual sexual attraction towards Sean. Up til now, I experienced all of the types of attraction above except sexual attraction. It was during finals week. I had a couple questions from the study guide I wanted to ask about. The door to his office is always a little cracked and normally you can just come in. I opened the door and he was talking to another student. He gave me this threatening look that scared the fuck out of me. It was so unlike him since he always had a sunny disposition. He told me "hey I'm in the middle of something can you give us a minute?" I said sure and I waited outside of his office. I overheard the conversation between him and this student. The student was one of the guys that barely showed up for class and he was begging Sean to bring his grade back up. Sean wasn't having it and was like basically saying hey you had all these opportunities, I can't give you another chance. He is normally a gentle person and I guess some people see his kindness for weakness and see it as an opportunity to push on his sensitivity to get what they want. But clearly he has a backbone lol. He later let me in and was back to his smiley, kindhearted self and he apologized for scaring me judging by my face earlier. Nothing went on after that. I just asked him my questions and left. The first picture of Marina was me because Sean looked like he wanted to kill me. The second picture is how I felt when I began waiting outside lol. And at that moment I found out that I'm a sub. It was also the moment when I began questioning my asexuality.

Body Image Update I haven't had posts about my body image lately so I thought I'd give an update. I feel like I'm doing better in regards to my body image now vs like a month ago. I think I have gotten used to trying to pick up on how I'm feeling rather than what I look like since then when it comes to measuring how I'm doing with this life style change. Before, trying to change my eating habits and monitoring what I was eating used to sometimes turn into something obsessive because of my previous issues with body image. I have alleviated a lot of that and I feel like even though my diet isn't perfect right now, as in there is still room for improvement, I'm not beating myself up for it. But I would be lying if I said that I'm 100% confident in my body. I'm still a little self conscious about my acne. It isn't too bad but I do find relief in picking at my skin (bad habit I know) and I'm glad that I still have to wear a mask everywhere because of COVID because that means that I don't have to put on makeup. But my biggest insecurity as always is my weight, particularly my stomach. I always have a little bit of pudge there no matter how skinny or chubby I am at the moment. I had this since as long as I can remember. I never had a flat stomach. My mom always made fun of me for that growing up and she still points it out and tells me how I would be so much prettier if I had a flatter stomach and if I was skinnier over all. Then there is society in general. I know that beauty standards for women change with the decades but no matter what the standard is whether it is the super skinny and tall standard from the 90s and the early 2000s to the curvy standard from the 2010s, a flat stomach is always there even when it doesn't make sense. Because lets be real, if you naturally have boobs and a butt, odds are your stomach isn't going to be completely flat. And I know that the majority of women don't have a flat stomach unless they are really skinny, but when it comes to flat stomachs, that's the only kind of stomach you ever see in the media, whether it is TV or social media. I think part of it is because it's mainly the people with flat stomachs that are posting pictures while the rest of us try out best to hide our stomachs or appear as we are flat (chubby stomach erasure lol). I've had people assume that I had a flat stomach and to me that sounded really weird because to me my stomach is huge and pretty much ruins every picture. I know the vast majority of people don't give a damn what I look like. I'm not trying to impress them. I just don't like the way I look to myself. But I am aware that this standard for a flat stomach is socially conditioned in me. That still doesn't stop me from disliking the way I look. This one insecurity is really at the root of a lot of my neurosis regarding food and body image. I probably said this in a previous post but I swear to god that I would be a 10 if I had a flat stomach. It feels like the only thing stopping me. I try to focus on how I physically feel as opposed to what I look like in this process but I do get the thought that I gained 2 in on my waist creep back up at me. I know that isn't reasonable. I went from a 25 in waist to a 27 in waist. I'm still relatively tiny. I'm tempted to call myself a bigger woman but I know I can't do that because I'm literally a US size 2/4 and people would get mad at me, but honestly I feel like a bigger woman compared to other girls. There are also some clothes that I don't feel comfortable wearing because of my stomach such as crop tops, swimsuits, and just tight clothes in general. I try to wear clothes that will hide my stomach as much as possible. Sometimes I do have to remind myself that I am feeling better health wise, how I have more energy, how my mood is more stable, and how I have a better relationship with food because I still have that intrusive thought that says "well you didn't lose any weight around your stomach so clearly you're not doing enough." I think it's so ingrained from diet culture that skinny automatically means healthy to where we don't emphasize the other factors of health nearly as much. I'm planning on starting birth control in a couple of weeks and part of me hopes that one of things that the birth control will do in addition to managing my PCOS is that it will help me lose weight. I highly doubt that will happen since if anything I always hear that birth control makes you gain weight but then again I also hear that managing the PCOS hormonally will help you lose weight so I have no idea tbh. I just think it's messed up that I thought about losing weight before I thought about managing my PCOS and taking care of my health.

Desire Part 3 My previous view of love, though cynical and rooted in pain, was important in the way I grew as a person. After the whole experience with Pete, I was like *I need to figure out my standards so that I can avoid guys like this.* And that's what I did. I remember one time when I was 14 I was up at night because I couldn't sleep and naturally I started to reevaluate my whole life. Then I pulled out my laptop and started journaling about my standards. I not only addressed what I looked for but what each of those qualities meant and how they would manifest. I still go back to this document if I feel like I learned something about myself or something from my dating experiences. It keeps me accountable and helps me weed through guys who probably don't have the best intentions in mind. Here is an example of what I wrote back then. I will probably post the entire document as a reference later on in this series. But yeah, that whole reflection did help me a lot in high school. It also helped my friends because I essentially became THE person that can sniff out bad intentions in guys before my friends got into any trouble or drama. I did eventually find one guy in my high school that fulfilled all of my standards. Being the emotionally thirsty person I am and since I went to a small school with not that many guys, I will admit that I got fixated with Ricky. He and I were friends and I'm 100% sure he knew I liked him the whole time because I was/ am an idiot when it comes to these types of things. I could go into all of the funny situations I got myself in but I will try to not get off topic. To be honest, I'm not sure if Ricky liked me back. I think I remember him flirting with me a couple times but then I think I was talking to him about something and I said that I wasn't ready for a relationship in general. Because of that he probably kept shit to himself and/or started talking to other people. The reason why I said that despite liking him was because I was very focused on school at the time. I wanted to have a greater idea of who I was. On top of that, I was in a difficult home environment and I thought that *hey I need to get some therapy to fix my issues and get over my depression/anxiety so that I can have better judgement and so that I don't get myself into a codependent situation.* That was all reasonable and I don't regret in the slightest. In fact I'm glad I did that because I was in a difficult place at the time and I wasn't in the place to date. But I will say that some of it had to do with paranoia and the fear of getting hurt again, fear that that I had bad judgement. I took the chance and I let myself get close to this person. Ricky and I shared a lot of personal things about ourselves and got to know each other even though we never dated. And even though I knew we weren't ever going to be a thing, I was thankful that I had a friend. This whole experience also enabled me to be more emotionally open, see what I'm like around a guy in this type of dynamic, and be comfortable with my feelings. I think the last part with me being comfortable with my feelings was the most important part. I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love. I remember one time we were talking about college and what we wanted to do with our futures. Ricky was nerding out about his ideal future and I paused one time and said "you have the biggest smile on your face right now." I felt myself blush and I remember how open my heart felt in that exact moment. Normally in something like this I would probably hide my face but seeing the way he was lit up in side sparked a lot of joy within me to where any shame I would have had in this situation faded away. I simply nodded and said "I know, I'm just happy that you feel comfortable with me to share all this about yourself." Prior to us becoming closer, I was very on edge around Ricky. I wanted to shove my feelings for him in a box and forget about him. But even I suppressed my emotions, it didn't help me get over him. I was so on edge with the thought of me liking someone because I simply didn't trust myself anymore after the last guy I liked. I was afraid he was going to be an asshole. But turns out he wasn't. He was actually a decent guy. We just didn't match up well as far as compatibility went and it just wasn't the right timing in terms of where I was at with my life. He gave me a lot of faith in my future love life, like I could actually find a decent guy and have a good relationship with him. A lot of my cynicism melted away. During all 4 years of high school, I was so tempted to come clean about my feelings and to start dating him but I made the promise to myself that if I were to date at all, that I was going to date from a place of strength and stability and that I wasn't going to date until I got my life together. This was a test of patience and self control. I began contemplating my views on love yet again at 17. I remember one time my English teacher made us write a paper on what we thought love was. Most of us thought this was dumb because we are all so young and we don't have much life experience yet. I remember when this assignment was given, one of my friends blurted out "sir we are 17, the only experience we have in love is guys screwing us over." I had a similar outlook but I got carried away in the existential crisis and I wrote a whole paper about logical and emotional decision making and how emotions and being emotional wasn't the opposite of being logical. I really went above and beyond for this assignment and I even looked up some papers (that's how I got to that conclusion). Doing that research really helped me breakout of my cold, rationalist world view and in turn complexify my view on love. I'll probably put the paper here in a future post. So that was my out look on love. Now switching over to sexuality. During high school, I was pretty sure that I was asexual. Even though I really liked Ricky and thought he was a beautiful person inside and out, I never had any sexual thoughts about him nor was I physically attracted to him. I thought he was beautiful in the way that one might find a painting beautiful. Just because I think paintings are pretty doesn't mean that I want to fuck the Starry Night. I discovered that I had a physical need for touch though but not in a sexual sense. I had about 4 guys that I considered "cuddle buddies" where basically we were friends and we would cuddle with each other when we felt like it. There weren't any romantic or sexual feelings involved, just the desire to hold someone and fall asleep for a while during free periods. I think that's where a lot of my romantic thirstiness stems from. I don't want to sleep with a person, I want to fall asleep with them and have my body wrapped around theirs. I'm in general a very physically affectionate person who is open with touch. It's the way my family is. We're all huggers and even as an adult I don't mind cuddling next to my dad when we are sitting on the couch together. There isn't anything weird about it tbh. My main view on sex at this time was that if you wanted to, go for it but make sure it is all safe and consensual and you aren't coercing anyone. I knew girls who were pressured by their boyfriends to do things they weren't comfortable with. Also, if you wanted to hook up, that's all right too but just be honest about it. Don't lead a guy or girl on and make them think they are in love with you only to pump and dump them. If you want to be a hoe, make sure you are honest and that it's coming from a healthy place. I still have these views on sex now. Also something that was really common was taking the BDSM test where you take a quiz to see what you're sexually into. It's basically and edgy personality test IMO. Even though I was asexual, I wasn't closed off with sex, more like indifferent. There are asexual people who are sex favorable, sex neutral, and sex repulsed. Sex favorable means that the person has a sex drive but doesn't feel attraction. Sex neutral means that sex is just all right. There is no craving or attraction but they wouldn't mind having sex. Finally, sex repulsed means that the person is completely put off my sex. I considered myself sex neutral. I was open to it but it wasn't this super important thing that other people made it out to be. There are things that I'm open to trying but honestly if I never got laid, it wasn't going to be the end of the world. It's like doing the laundry. I don't mind doing it but it's not like I crave doing the laundry. I was very comfortable with being asexual and I was open about it. My high school was pretty liberal so a lot of people were cool with it. I had some weridos try to ask me intrusive questions regarding what I would do if I wanted kids or what will guys think. I also had some creeps be like "I can change your mind" which was pretty gross. I came out to my parents and unfortunately they didn't react so well. It was mainly met with confusion and "you have to keep this a secret" but while they were giving me that lecture I was standing there and internally thinking *I already told everyone I know except for my extended family at this point.* They still can't wrap their heads around it. They barely understand what it means to be bisexual let alone asexual. Every time being asexual comes up in the conversation, it's like coming out all over again and then I have to get into this whole discussion on what asexuality is, that it's a real thing, etc. and it's just a lot of work. I'm planning on never telling my extended family because it will cause unnecessary confusion/ drama and because I'm probably going to marry a guy anyway tbh. The only reason why my parent's know is because I was going to a party and my mom kept accusing me of being a whore and that I was going to end up pregnant (even though these parties were mainly made of girls I knew from school and their sweet 16s). I got mad and I told her that "I don't have any hormones to control. I'm asexual. I don't like men or women." I got slapped across the face she was like "so you're gay!??!???!" I told her that I wasn't and tried to explain but she was like "just go to the party I don't want to deal with this." I later sat her down and explained what asexuality was. She calmed down a little bit though still confused because she couldn't imagine being asexual. My dad handled it better even though there was still a lot of confusion. After that, he basically let me have boys in the house home alone because he knew my ass wasn't about to do anything. I only had two of my guy friends over at my house for a group project one time and that's it. Nothing went on lol because I don't like men or women. They were surprised that my parents just let me be home alone with them because most parent's wouldn't trust their kid like that but then I was like "guys they know that I don't like men so that's why lmao."

2/2/2021 Daily Check In Today was a bit of a crazy day. I woke up too late and I needed to be somewhere so instead of having my regular breakfast I just grabbed a banana and some toast with some dairy free cheese on it an ran. For lunch I had these tacos since I didn't have anything in the house. I felt sluggish afterwards and wanted to go to sleep probably because of the gluten but luckily, I don't feel super bloated because of it. I wanted to eat some cereal and I poured almond milk on it like usual but I ran out of almond milk so I used regular milk. I'm hoping to god my skin doesn't act up too badly tomorrow because of the milk and the tortillas I had from the tacos. Also, I know I mentioned my sugar cravings the day before. Yeah I have not one but two huge breakouts now. I also forgot to mention that on that day I had a slice of regular French bread and a couple pieces of chocolate so yeah.... I noticed that I can have regular bread on a sandwich and be fine or have some cheese or some regular dairy and be ok in moderation but I think I mainly react badly to things that are sugary and French bread in particular. Just something to keep in mind. 2/3/2021 Daily Check In Luckily my skin didn't act up too badly. I have one small break out but other than that it wasn't too bad. For breakfast I had tofu scramble and some toast. Later on in the day I had a dairy free yogurt. I just saw it at the supermarket while I was shopping and I thought *hey I haven't had yogurt in a while might as well get one* The yogurt was ok. Too sweet in my opinion. I checked the label and I think I remember it saying it had like 12g of added sugar so there is that. 2/4/2021 Daily Check In For breakfast I had a couple slices of toast with some peanut butter, raspberries, and pumpkin seeds along with two eggs. I felt pretty good with this breakfast and over all today went pretty smoothly. I know that I have been slacking in these last couple days so I'm going to try to stay more consistent on this journal.

I think I really need something to ground me in my life. It also feels like the logical next step since I will have to start a career soon anyway. I don't want to waste time in a career that isn't a good fit for me. This might sound egotistical but I want to be successful while I'm still young and to me, that means finding my purpose early on so that I can gain mastery in something. I'm pretty sure I have hang ups regarding success since society tends to glorify people who achieved a lot while they are young because success when you're young= you're ahead of the curve= you didn't make mistakes by being dumb when you are young. I also want a sustainable source of income as well as sustainable source of happiness and fulfillment through my work. Like I said before, I'm want to create some meaning in my life because currently my life seems rather bleak. I have also been feeling like a blob of wasted potential for the last few years for a variety of reasons and to me, stepping into my life purpose is finding that potential. I haven't been living my life to the fullest and I believe that finding my life purpose will help me embody my values more.

I'm currently 21 and my plan is to get an internship to build up some work experience and then apply for jobs hoping to god that I don't hate it and that it can pay the bills so that I won't have to ever live with my parents. I know I probably need some more life experience before finding my calling. IDK I guess I'm impatient. I really want to find that purpose and go full force with it. I want more of a sense of meaning in my life. I want to love what I do. I want to get good at what I do. I want to embody my values more. I want to be financially independent. I know from experience that doing something I genuinely like vs making myself do something out of extrinsic motivation that I have to do something that I like or that I will sink like the Titanic.

Desire Part 2 I wasn't straight by default. I discovered this at 14 when my friends and I were playing two truths and a lie. One of my friends told me that they had an asexual friend. I immediately pointed that as the lie among her three statements. She told me that no that statement was true. I was confused. The only context I knew for being asexual is when it came to plants and amoebas that reproduce by themselves. My friend then explained to me that asexual meant that you don't experience sexual attraction. That's when I first began questioning my sexual orientation. I knew I liked guys in a romantic sense, but I never thought of anything in the sexual sense. I searched up asexual online and lot of the stories there mirrored my own, how a lot of people didn't think that they were asexual because they were romantically attracted to people, how they kept waiting to bloom into their sexuality but it never came, and how they thought there was something wrong with them to be indifferent around sex in a sex crazed society. A lot of it resonated with me and I began to think "hey maybe I am asexual." That summer, I watched a shit ton of porn of all genres to see if I would get turned on. Nothing happened. It was boring as hell. I tried masturbating. Nothing happened. After all that I decided, you know what, I guess I really am asexual. I switched schools around this time and I began being openly asexual for the rest of high school. Ok, so now I'm going to be shifting gears a bit. That is the sexual part of the equation, but what about love in general? In middle school I had a very cynical view of love. I had this idea that authentic love was very rare. The reason why I had a really cynical view of love was because there was this one guy that I liked (I'm calling him Pete in this post because he is a dumpster fire and I'm going to be using the names of Ariana Grande's exes from Thank U, Next). I hung around Pete and his toxic group of friends. They were mainly toxic because they based their worth around how many girls they can date and if you weren't in a relationship you were some undesirable loser who was going to die alone. To be honest, I don't even remember why I liked this guy. I guess it might have been because he stood up for me and was generally nice but my memory is a little hazy because it was like a decade ago now. It most certainly not because of looks, even then I thought he was ugly and that he looked like an alpaca but hey that didn't stop me from liking him. Anyway, these guys also had a bad view on women and they basically reduced them down to their looks. I remember I told this guy I liked him and he politely rejected me. That wasn't the hurtful part though. A couple weeks later I found out that he was talking about me behind my back and was making fun of my weight and how he would never date a brown girl (mind you he is also brown so there is a lot of internalized racism) because brown girls are ugly and prude. That broke me at the time. Something like that happened again in college but by that time I was pretty secure in my identity and I brushed it off as *honestly I don't want to date a guy with that much self hatred anyway, the trash took itself out*. But the first time this happened, I was 12. I remember crying myself to sleep, not because he was an asshole but more so because I had the bad judgement to fall for a guy like that. My sense of trust in myself was shattered. One of the ways that I wanted to build up my sense of trust is by leaning into hyper rationalism since I was going through a stoic/ logical phase at the time. I decided that I wasn't going to listen to my emotions anymore. After all, how credible could they be since I fell for such an asshole? During this time I really made it a point to separate the categories of love and lust. To me, a lot of those guys were blinded by lust, they never cared about any of these girls or girls in general. Because I was an only child with not many people I could go to for my problems (also my parents are South Asian so I technically wasn't supposed to be liking boys and wanting to date anyway because of taboos surrounding the subject), I turned to the internet. I remember coming across an article by psychology today comparing falling in love with doing crack cocaine. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-joint-adventures-well-educated-couples/201208/falling-in-love-is-smoking-crack-cocaine That turned me away from love real quick and closed me up. I was like, *damn, falling in love can cloud your judgement that much?!?!?* I didn't want to take part in such mindlessness ever again. This is pretty much a good summary of how I felt about love at this time (around from the ages of 12-16). Very stage orange lol. I was also going through my emo phase at this time and listened to a lot of Paramore. This song describes my view towards love as it was shaped by my family. I still come back to this song because I resonate with it so much. During this time I kept listening to girls my age think that they were falling in love only to have the guy switch on them and dump them because they didn't want to have sex with their boyfriends or worse, pressure them to do things they didn't want to do or move faster than they are comfortable. Mind you, we were 12-14 years old so most of us weren't really thinking about losing our virginities yet. I also had to deal with a lot of guys who asked me out as a joke which messed up my self esteem for a while. I made peace with the idea that I was going to die alone, not in a self loathing way but in a way that like *I need to make sure the other areas of my life are fulfilling, a relationship isn't the end all be all of life.* I was also surrounded by adults who thought that teenagers are these hormonal creatures that get blinded by sexual attraction thinking they are in love and then they end up pregnant. This further cemented the idea in my head that lust and love were two completely different things. That is true. It's important to be able to distinguish your actual feelings for someone and just liking their dick. But I guess where I went wrong is that I began viewing love as this super rational thing in order to be successful and not fall for assholes and in doing so I sacrificed my sense of emotional vulnerability. Also since I am asexual, I wasn't even looking for sex so that wasn't in my mind when I was looking for a relationship. I was sooooo thankful for my asexuality because to me it meant that I was going to have better decision making and not be blinded by carnal desires. My thoughts shifted yet again once I got to high school and I met Ricky (not his real name, using a fake name from Thank U, Next).

Pretty much what the title says. What would you want your 16, 21,30 etc. year old self to know? What would you tell them?

Desire Part 1 I'm going to have multiple journal entries venting and explaining my relationship to my sexuality and how I have been questioning it for about a year now. This might be a little too detailed (maybe not this particular post, but like future posts in this series) just a warning for anyone who would just rather not know. I know for a fact that I'm romantically attracted to men. I can remember as far back as preschool wanting to kiss a boy and hold hands. I most certainly had crushes on boys in my class, would sign my name with their last name in a notebook, and think up romantic situations with the boys I had a crush on when I was bored in school (it was usually a reenacting of a scene from a Barbie movie or getting married). I remember feeling some shame in regards to that mainly because at 5 kids were still really self conscious around the opposite sex and would yell "cooties!" whenever they caught a guy and a girl being friends lol. Then in middle school, things changed. But a part of me didn't. I remember one time when I was in the 6th grade (I must have been 12 at the time) I found someone's English notebook. I knew it belonged to one of the three girls who sat behind me but I wasn't sure whose it was. I flipped through the notebook trying to find a name. That wasn't a good idea. A good chunk of the notebook was Mindless Behavior (for people who don't know it was a boy band) fanfiction of how this one girl was writing out her fantasy of Mindless Behavior kidnapping her and using her for sexual stuff. Ahhhh good ol' 2011 Wattpad days. I remember back then people would write all types of crazy sexual things (I'm pretty sure they still do), usually about One Direction and Justin Bieber and share that online. It was also really bad writing mainly because the people writing them were all like 10-13 years old and clearly have no idea what sex is actually like. In middle school, my friends and I would read fanfic out loud just as a joke because it was so cringy. But in this particular instance, I was uncomfortable. I shut the notebook and gave it to the three girls because I didn't want to figure out whose notebook it was anymore. They were all friends with one another so it was ok. Prior to that, I always thought that people who said things like "god I just want his tongue down my throat" or any notion of getting fucked were exaggerating, mainly because I felt no such desire. Sex didn't make sense, it didn't sound appealing. But after opening that notebook I was like "huh, there are people who like this type of stuff and most of the time they aren't exaggerating. These desires are real. Maybe I'm the weird one." I brushed that thought off. I was certain I was straight. I did like boys after all. Had no inkling of an attraction towards girls. I thought I was straight by default. Yeah that wasn't the case.

Anxiety I need to stop analyzing the source, the causes, and the anxiety I feel towards certain things and brute force my way through it and build my fear facing muscle. All this over thinking and conceptualization, though insightful, is often a higher level form of rumination as well as a type of avoidance because contemplating about a problem takes me away from actually dealing with the problem. Here are some things that trigger my anxiety. Most of these things are really silly and seem very minor and I am aware of it. Nevertheless, for my own sake I'm listing them all out: School My school work especially with certain classes and teachers Emails Applying for jobs or schools Putting myself out there Public speaking The thought of running out of things to say Going out and making friends Having the spot light

Yeah I notice that as well. This forum has a good bit of orange in it, both in toxic and healthy forms IMO.

I'm starting to move towards more self acceptance/ gentleness/ self love type content. Idk, living like a normal person my age. Having hobbies, focusing on my social life, watching netflix, being a normal person. It doesn't have to be a new kind of addiction. I just want to do what is healthy and normal. It's a vicious cycle. I see something that is not very conscious of me, say judging other people, and then I beat myself up for that and go introspect / contemplate about what I just did and where that stemmed for, and then I beat myself up for beating myself up. That's an example. I also tend to feel really down about myself when I'm not mentally in the best place or if I'm depressed. There is a part of me that feels toxic and manipulative for suffering. I believe my thing is that I had this huge phase of inner work/ contemplation/ figuring out what I want and now I'm dying to put myself out there, socialize, make strides in my career, etc. I suppose it's a new phase of self development, one that is more externally focused rather than internally focused. Yeah I have been meditating like crazy and have built up a habit. For me personally, it's becoming a source of escapism in a way.

Shame I have had a lot of shame built up in me in the last few years. I'm going to list somethings I'm currently ashamed of out as an effort to reflect so that I can make an effort to work through it. my grades and performance in school my lack of direction when it comes to what I want to pursue as a career or how to get into grad school my lack of social life my weird hobbies that often involve self development and spirituality how I feel like the trauma aged me how I have been in hermit mode working on myself how I'm taking time off of college to work on my mental health therefore making me graduate a year late not meeting my own potential/ feeling like a blob of wasted potential the fact that I'm on antidepressants my neurosis since I base my self worth on my well being some of the fantasies I want to fulfill in a relationship what I have to say (sometimes I wonder if what I have to say has any value at all) how I have been taking things slow/ not performing like I used to- it makes me feel like I peaked in high school. (I remember in high school I juggled a sport, get straight A's in honor's courses and community college classes, two volunteer jobs, an internship, extra curricular activities, and still had 80% of my energy left that I used to work on myself and my emotional traumas. Now, I can't even get straight A's in college and I have to keep a close eye on my mental health.) questioning my sexual orientation my physical health and how that has impacted the way I look any amount of social awkwardness

2/1/2021 Daily Check In For breakfast I had two slices of gluten free toast with some cream cheese along with an egg with a side of raspberries. My energy has been pretty good. However, I did give into my sugar cravings today. I had one soda and a little bit of honey on a banana. Don't know why I had this craving but yeah that happened. I don't think this is a regular thing that I need to be worried about but it's still nevertheless good to be mindful.

@Thought Art Feeling a compulsion to do something because of neurotic reasons and not being able to stop

1/31/2020 Daily Check In Didn't have breakfast today. Had trouble getting out of bed because I didn't sleep well last night due to nightmares. I have this temptation in regards to whether I stay in bed or eat breakfast but the temptation to stay in bed overrided my general will power. My energy levels though have been pretty good so there is that.

In these last couple days, I realized that there are likely things that I'm missing from my perspective when it comes to understanding pick up. I believe one of my main weaknesses is differentiating the types of pick up (after all learning=making distinctions). I know that when to comes to attraction and developing confidence there are healthy ways to go about it and there are very devilish and manipulative ways as well. Same with pick up. I'm going to explain my point of view and why pick up does trigger me to a certain extent. This is to show people where I'm coming from but also to identify places where I might have blockages, limiting beliefs, and resistance towards the subject. Sometimes you need to know where you stand in order to know which way to go. Here are my experiences with men and why I see red flags in pick up. I'm not saying every woman has this same experience, but it wouldn't be surprising if many of them could see themselves in my situation. Which is why I think it's a good idea of why women are typically resistant to the idea of pick up which can give some people insight for it's limitations. I have had grown men stare at my tits since I was 13 years old. I have been cat called numerous times, and I will say that in none of those instances did I feel safe much less complimented. Having a man who is a foot taller than me tell me that I'm sexy and that I have nice tits randomly in the middle of the night at a gas station is what can give me nightmares. I get being confident and being assertive when it comes to women and going up to a woman you find attractive and tell her that you think she is beautiful or that she has pretty eyes. That has happened to me before and I never felt uncomfortable from those instances. In fact I felt very flattered. What differentiates these two circumstances is that in one circumstance it was purely out of selfish intent and objectification while the other is lead with empathy. Yes in both cases there was a clear expression of I'm attracted to you but I will say that from a woman's point of view, she will have two completely different reactions to these two approaches. To me this expresses the difference between aggression and assertiveness. When I see men being told to be more aggressive towards women, I immediately think of the former instances. There is nothing wrong with being confident, humorous, or out going, and developing those qualities if you think it's going to make you more successful with women but there is a huge difference in regards to how those manifest whether it is in a aggressive way or an assertive way. Also being encouraged to be more dominant can get lumped into aggression rather than assertiveness because of the way women have been treated throughout history as those who need to be subservient to a man. Being dominant in the bedroom is perfectly fine and understandable if that is what you're into but feeling this need to be dominant in a social setting can set off red flags for women. Being dominant can also be interpreted as a disregard to boundaries and being viewed as prey when it isn't executed properly. That can have all type of negative perceptions in the eyes of women and negative consequences for her which I'm going to go into next. Next, I'm going to be talking about being viewed as prey. Most men don't have this experience, especially a regular occurrence of this experience. Again, like many women, I have been seen in a sexual light since I was a very young age. When I was 16 years old I had instances where grown men who are much older than me flirt with me even after I told them I wasn't interested and I was underage. To them, it didn't matter that I wasn't even a legal adult. If anything, to them it was part of my appeal. I've also had men who tried to push my boundaries or get mad at my boundaries. There has been instances where I told a guy that I wasn't interested or that I was busy and he tried to change my mind so I would go out with him or sleep with him. The initial approach might have been fine, but pushing me to do something is when it dipped into creepy territory. Sometimes when I can tell a guy is being too pushy with me, I resort to telling him I'm gay so I can get the hell away from him because like most women, I don't find being pressured as feeling safe. But even then, sometimes guy see it as "oh but I can change your mind, you just haven't had my dick before." Imagine if a gay man told you that after you told him you were straight. The cops would have been called on him. And sometimes in these instances, women are afraid of saying no because sometimes when w e do, we get yelled at an harassed. Some of these women simply don't have a backbone to speak up when they feel uncomfortable and some of them get into situations where they are scared shitless and comply with a man against her own best interests. While I can't relate, I can empathize with that. One time I was on a first date and it didn't feel natural to kiss the guy I was on the date with and I told him that. When I said, I don't want to kiss you right now, this man lost it, yelled at me and told me I was a whore. I got the hell away from this guy. So when I hear this language of women being referred to as rabbits or fish when people say "don't ask a rabbit how to hunt" or "don't ask a fish how to catch them" I think that the person saying that right now sees women as prey to be hunted and conquered rather than human beings to be understood and to connect with and I think that this person sees themselves as a hunter of sorts (again goes back to aggression vs. assertive). Whenever I hear things along the lines of "she wants it but she doesn't know it yet" or "women don't know what they want" while I get that we can have a bias when it comes to attraction, it can come off as if you're saying women don't know where her boundaries lie and if you manipulate her in the right way, you can get what you want from her. And finally, I'm going to talk about the whole concept of asking for it. Whenever a woman wears something that shows even a little bit of skin, often times men see it as an invitation for catcalling and all sorts of creepy behavior. I have had my ass grabbed in public by men I have never even talked to. I have had men look at me as if I'm a piece of meat when I was talking to them because they can't help but look at my boobs instead of my face. And in many of these instances, people automatically assumed it's my fault for provoking these men based on what I was wearing. What I was wearing is not relevant because women get treated this way whether they are covered head to tow in a burka or they are wearing a crop top and some shorts. The common denominator is men who objectify women. I understand that if you are at the club, women are more likely to probably want something sexual because of the context and setting. But even then, you need to treat a woman with respect. Dragging her away (emotionally speaking) from her friends when she clearly still wants to be with them or when she is saying that she has to go to work and can't come by your hotel room is manipulation and pressurization and in some cases can border on assault. Again often times women are conditioned to be nice and passive, even in situation where we are not comfortable because standing up for yourself is seen as being bitchy and uptight. Women can choose to sleep around, she can choose to remain celibate til marriage, or anything else in between. That's up to her and any of those things are fine. But pressurizing a woman to do something other wise in either direction, whether it is remaining "pure" or getting her to sleep around, is out of line and makes women uncomfortable. And often times when we are referring to manipulation, we are referring to this type of pressurization, not the way you do your hair or the way you present yourself in order to feel more confident. Presenting yourself in the best light to where you feel good about yourself is normal and encouraged when dating, but that's not what women are referring to when we mean manipulation. This video is also pretty on point with a lot of the things I have been talking about plus more. I'm just expanding on the part where Leo talks about the female perspective and agenda by showing what that means for a lot of women. I know this was super long and I hope that people can get a better idea of where many women are coming from and why pick up triggers them. I tried to be as detailed as possible so people know exactly what I'm talking about but even then, I still have more experiences and instances that I can talk about in similar depth. As long as this post is, it's only but the surface of the bs that I, and many women, had to deal with men.

Bump

1/30/2021 Daily Check In For breakfast I had a spinach and banana smoothie along with an egg. I didn't want to have breakfast today and wanted to sleep more and since I wasn't that hungry I had more of an incentive to stay in bed but I dragged myself out of bed anyway. I'm pretty sure that's one of the main reasons why I have this habit tbh. Overall my day went pretty well. I don't have much to add.

@Preety_IndiaWhat would be stage green fascism? Stage green appears very anti fascist.