soos_mite_ah

I did the same thing Yeah it really does depend on the person. Alcohol lower inhibitions meaning you're basically an unfiltered version of yourself. If you harbor any desire for violence, violating someone, or desire to show dominance among friends it will slip out. But if your unfiltered version of yourself harbors a desire to go around and tell people how much you love them and being overly happy, that will show too.

Tik Toks and Videos That Just Make Me Happy Sometimes you just need that extra dopamine hit I strive to be this chill and carefree about life. A whole vibe Avatar the Last Airbender just makes me so happy. I watched these two videos so many times and they never fail to put a smile on my face. I didn't grow up with pets so as an adult I naturally want all of them lmao. I really want a cat even though I'm allergic. I don't mind being on allergy meds for the rest of my life lol. Also the little *ploop* sound the guy makes when he gives the puppies a belly rub is so wholesome These two parodies are so satisfying to me for some reason. It just summarizes all the wild shit that has been going on and I'm here for it.

Conscious Unconsciousness I think to a certain extent, being unconscious is something that can help people get through the day in a healthy way. I feel that this might be a little controversial given that we're mainly here to raise our level of consciousness in order to develop, but I also think one can be unconscious in a conscious way. Here are some scenarios that I have come up with: 1. Building Habits: Doing things out of habit is largely unconscious. When we do things out of habit, we do things without thinking. It becomes automatic and we aren't fully in the moment in whatever we are doing. Essentially, we go into autopilot. However, we can consciously choose our habits and evaluate them accordingly. For instance, I can consciously choose the habit to wake up at the same time every day because I find that it will help me be more efficient. At first, it will be hard to implement this habit because I have to consciously choose to wake up at the same time everyday if that is something new that I am doing. Eventually, the conscious choice of this being a habit will turn into something that is automatic for me and therefore having an element of unconsciousness. In order to be consciously unconscious, we need to have an element of choice when it comes to what we are willing to go on auto piolet on. 2. Developing a sense of focus: If we are focusing on something very intently, odds are we are blocking out other things. For instance, as I am typing out this journal entry, I'm probably not thinking about how my chair feels (that is until I mentioned it this very moment). In that way, I am unconscious of how my chair feels underneath me because that isn't the place where I am putting my awareness towards. This sense of focus is a survival mechanism. In the wild for example, you don't want to be aware of the pretty clouds and the crisp air when you are being chased by a tiger. You want to block that out and choose to focus on getting away to keep yourself alive. The key work here is choose. Sometimes when it comes to focus, we can be unconsciously unconscious to where we become defensive without meaning to because the perspectives that are being presented to us goes against our agenda. That is an automatic response to keep us safe, however, in some instances such as trying to be openminded, focusing too much on your own perspective can be detrimental. It's important to choose what we do and don't give our focus and therefore our consciousness towards or else our ego will determine it for us. 3. Avoiding Hyper Analysis: This is something that I have been thinking of in my journey to integrate my basicness especially with clothes. I tend to be very minimalistic with my wardrobe. I have a color palette that I have selected out that matches each other and looks good on me. I have certain styles of clothing that I look out for because I know it will flatter me. I know how to choose clothes according to my life style. I also consider my values regarding fast fashion etc. I'm not the type of person that falls prey to a lot of unnecessary consumption because I am very intentional with my choices which in turn points me towards more consciousness in my decision making. But as I have tried to incorporate more of my basicness, I have tried to let go of some of this intentionality. I'm trying to be more in tuned with what is cute and fun rather than what is efficient for instance. For me that is bold patterns and colors. Granted that I have already integrated intentional spending previously, it's unlikely that I'm going to get sucked into stage orange toxic consumerism. I'm trying not to overthink it and just go with the flow, just let myself be. Not everything has to be super deep and filled with meaning, it can just be and it's ok to appreciate it for just that. Because when you put too much intent and try to be conscious, you're still in the state of doing rather than in the state of being. And sometimes just letting yourself be, whatever your level of consciousness/ unconsciousness is, is the a conscious way of being unconscious. Letting myself be "basic" has become a way to let myself be a little looser and simply enjoy myself with my journey towards greater awareness. Not everything has to revolve around consciousness work. 4. Accepting and Embracing Unconsciousness (Loving the Unconsciousness): This goes along with the previous point. There is nothing wrong with being unconscious. In fact just letting yourself be unconscious and accept that can be more beneficial than fighting that unconsciousness. Granted, accepting can have different meanings. Many people see accepting as approving. For example, accepting your gay child is approving their sexuality and saying it's ok. However, sometimes accepting means acknowledgement, and that acknowledgement can lead to healing. For example, accepting violent crime isn't the same thing as approving it. You can accept violent crime and show great love and compassion for it. That doesn't mean that you're going to be this blood thirsty psychopath. Instead showing love and compassion means that you're willing to take the care to analyze the reasons why violent crimes occur and work towards solutions that decrease the suffering that leads people to harm one another. In other words, you accept the unconscious behavior and you acknowledge the factors that contribute to it. Then, you can use that data to consciously come up with solutions to love the unconsciousness or "evil" to death. The opposite of accepting violent crime can yield to denial of the factors that contribute to crime. It could also lead to a "tough on crime" approach where instead of helping people break the cycle of violence, you insist on harsher punishments for perpetrators. You give out harsher punishments instead of analyzing the issues at hand in a loving and caring manner. This in turn makes things worse because you don't actually address or acknowledge the problem, Instead you partake in retributive justice. I'm not going to sit here and make the argument that "oh you need to be kind to the people who have wronged you because if you don't you're no better than them" or that "you forgive because it's the right thing to do" as if I'm some type of cartoon super hero. If you or a loved one is a victim of a violent crime, it is perfectly acceptable and understandable to be upset. But by punishing someone because you hate the violence isn't going to systemically future instances of violent crime. Sure you fight fire with fire, but you're still not addressing the systemic problems and in doing so you're not taking a preventative approach to violent crime, you are letting future instances to happen. Another really good example I can think of are the differences in acceptance of racism among liberals and conservatives. I would argue that liberals are more accepting of the U.S.'s racist past. That statement would sound absolutely false if you see accepting as approval. However, if we look at accepting as acknowledgement, then that's a different story. Liberal are willing to acknowledge the racism in the American system and point out how the greatly revered founding fathers were slaver owners who committed crimes against humanity. Conservatives on the other hand don't want to accept/ acknowledge America's racist past. It hurts their ego because it presents the notion that the U.S. isn't the greatest country in the world. Instead of accepting this, they want to deny it. They want to deny the existence of systemic racism. They want to deny the possibility that their perspective has a racist bias or blind spot. Some conservatives (Trump), want to go as far to say that we need "patriotic education" where history isn't riddled with how American heroes were racist. And in doing all of this denial, they are letting racism continue on a collective level. In fact, they are willing to let it be a shadow to where they don't want to acknowledge how they could be racist, thus causing them to be racist instead of seeking to educate themselves. In turn, they perpetuate the very thing that they are trying to repress. That's what happens when we are unconscious with our unconsciousness. Instead we want to be conscious of our unconsciousness so we can make moves to addressing it with love instead of projecting things out ward. Accepting that you have a problem without judgement is the first step towards solving it. It's ok to be unconscious. There is no need to demonize it. You don't have to be conscious all the time. Sometimes being unconscious inevitable such as in point #1. In fact in some instance being hyper aware/conscious can be detrimental such as in the case of point #2 and #3. In other cases, that unrealistic expectation of being conscious and perfect all the time can yield to more problems with unconsciousness such as in point #4. In other words, to deal with unconsciousness, you need to consciously love it to death. The act of loving the unconscious is acting with consciousness.

@Mu_ I forgot who said this but someone once said that "There is no such thing as what could have been." I suppose I need more balance in my life regarding internal and external forms of self help.

@kag101 I started getting into personal development for similar reasons as well. For me, I feel like my college experience was more of a "falling asleep" phase in my life where I focused my life inward instead of making a lot of moves in the external. I took college easier so that I can actually take care of myself and work on myself to set a good foundation for the rest of life going forward. That was my intent anyway. As for high school, I did work pretty hard but I still made sure that I had a good amount of time to just get to know myself. I didn't necessarily neglect material success but in my mind, sometimes I feel like I could have achieved externally more if I did more work and less actualizing. I know that I grew as a person internally immensely in the last few years, but sometimes I doubt the actual utility of this. Would I have been more efficient and successful if I did something else or is this setting a good foundation that will be helpful down the line even though I am not seeing the all of the value straight away. Therapy is going pretty well. Right now, therapy supplements and complements my meditation habits and whatever I'm working on with self-help. For me, I think it's a good idea to have a professional by my side to make sure I don't go off the deep end since sometimes I do deal with some heavy stuff and so that I have someone as a sounding board for my insights.

What's the difference between capitalist-socialist hybrid and social-democratic? I feel like I'm missing something because I always thought social-democratic was capitalism with socialist elements balancing it out.

I don't really believe in it. I got into it for the memes and the entertainment of it. But there is a use to astrology and like many perspectives, it is partially true. It can be pretty good in helping you identify different archetypes in your life in order to get to know the ego better before transcending it imo.

@Kalki Avatar Another source that comes to mind is astrokit's youtube channel. She does videos on particular placements. https://www.youtube.com/c/astrokit/videos

I mean, I have meddled around with online calculators like the one on cafe astrology https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php There are quite a few sites like this. You just enter the date and time. Then they'll give you the positions of the planets at that specific time along with interpretations of how it relates to the personality of someone who was born in that moment.

"Maybe I'm closer to grasping the notion of knowing is imbued with uncertainty that it doesn't feel like knowing at all. Maybe I'm grasping the idea of knowing more facilitated by the knower's internal state than by our usual capacity to generate knowing on command." -Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer Extraordinary Knowing I've been contemplating the notion of knowing as a state of mind/feeling/ or being as opposed to knowing as a state of fact

Smart = Safety I have been trying to shed the label of being the smart kid for the last few months. I have made some progress in that I no longer base my self worth on being smart. However, I do notice that this label hasn't disappeared yet. One of the key reasons why that is so is that the smart label shields me from uncertainty. I was told that if I am smart and if I get good grades then I will be ok in life. That message was drilled into me in many ways and consequently I equated good grades to a stable and secure future. Here are some ways I associated good grades/ being smart with security and why they don't make sense. 1. I didn't get beat up as a kid by my mom if I brought home good grades That was horrible parenting on her part tbh. This type of conditioning is arbitrary not absolute. You aren't going to get beat up if you make a mistake in the real world. 2. The sentiment of if I get good grades, I will get a good job, then I'll find a good husband, and I'll settle down and have a family. All of that is dependent on my schooling because it is the foundation. Getting good grades doesn't guarantee anything. There are people who did good in school and who don't have a good job. There are people who did badly in school and turned out ok. It isn't about good grades, rather it is about work ethic. Sure good grades can make some aspects of life easier but it isn't everything. You need to be on the look out for your next step regardless of where you have been. If you made bad grades and its time for you to get a job, you can't dwell on those grades. You need to use/ cultivate that work ethic towards the next step. Grades can be exemplary of work ethic but it isn't the only place where it is present. 3. Being smart go rid of the uncertainty of the future. I'm smart therefore I will be ok. The pandemic has hit everyone regardless of how smart they were. Being smart won't get rid of uncertainty. Sure it can help you cope but you will always deal with some type of problem. That isn't to say that it's time to get hopeless about the future but when we accept pain, we transcend it. 4. Being smart helped me sort out my own mental issues by myself when I had no help It wasn't because you were smart. It was because you were motivated enough to search out sources that can help you. That information enabled you to make enough tools to deal with your current situation. It isn't that you were smart, it was a question of your determination and resourcefulness. 5. Smart helped me evade self deception by cultivating awareness Smart can make you even more self deceived because the self deception is even more sophisticated. 6. Smart means that I can solve my problems and get over it. The emotional piece of coping with problems were ignored in my childhood since my parents couldn't provide for me emotionally. Sometimes you can't outsmart your problems. Sometimes you need to be vulnerable and receptive to healing. Sometimes you need to accept that problems and insecurity are a part of life. Yes it will test you but that is ok because even in your most vulnerable, you're still strong enough to face them. If anything, you are stronger when you are vulnerable because you face the issue in question head on instead of trying to evade it with your smarts.

Is the liberal call to civility a higher consciousness move in the hopes of "if they go low, we go high" or is it an egoic desire to save face and maintain an image of moral superiority. I have been binging on Vaush lately and I believe that he has a point on how a principled failure isn't worth anything. In this video he talks about how some progressives don't want to vote for Biden because they believe that Biden is as bad as Trump and how this is a failure to play the political game (especially around the 14 minute mark) Also in other videos he talks about how democrats wanting to take the high ground and go according to democratic processes is a weakness that the conservatives take advantage of because conservatives don't care about hurting people's feelings or the democratic process as one can see with voter suppression, supporting Trump's fascist tendencies etc. Instead, they are out looking for power which is what the political game boils down to in the end. I do agree to this to some extent because if you are confronted with a bully who is trying to rip you to shreds, literally or figuratively, coming to them and being like "oh but we can work this out, lets see what kinds of solutions we can come up with" is going to look like weakness to someone who seeks domination rather than peace. Maybe calls to civility would have worked back when Romney or McCain were running but that goes out the window with Trump. I do believe that Biden should have gone harder on Trump though I empathize his reluctance to do so when you are faced face to face with someone like Trump. However, I also think his more civil way of doing things rather than going in and trying to dominate the debate makes him look more sane next to Trump and therefore more appealing to moderate viewers so I can see how that can also be a strategy. What do yall think?

I mean you can have an orange job and still have green values. I think another factor is dealing with constant discouragement and setbacks from society as a whole because they aren't ready for your ideas yet. So instead you end up trying to work within the system to generate potential change instead of attacking the system head on. I don't know about the specific example you're taking about with the activist who gets a job in marketing but I know that you can do marketing in a conscious way that take into consideration society, where it's going, and how to appeal to people accordingly. Even though marketing and business is typically orange you can use things like sociology and anthropology to do it more holistically. Typical orange marketing involves saturating the landscape with ads and appealing to peoples desires to trick them into buying your product. I'm also seeing half-orange, half-green marketing that also tries to tie in social issues and their commentary along with their products (such as Nike with BLM and Gillette with toxic masculinity). When marketing comes from a desire to connect and understand people instead of just making a profit, it can start to lean more green. I guess people find more traditional outlets such as corporate jobs to conduct their green ideals through instead of simply marching on the streets and demanding change. Being an activist is still important don't get me wrong, but that isn't the only way to in act change nor should it be if you want change to penetrate every area of society. I think with age, people realize that more and more and then consequently look as though they are falling in line. Also I'd think that with some people, they end up "regressing" back to earlier stages in a way to integrate healthier forms of those stages or to sort out any short comings they might have whether intentionally or unintentionally.

@Forestluv Ok that makes more sense. Thank you for clearing that up. I appreciate it

The Ways I've Grown at 20 Part 3 Part 1 and 2 were to summarize what actually went on. I had to clear my mind because there was so much that happened between October 2019 and October 2020. Now for Part 3 I will be just making a simple list to shorten part 1 and 2 for simplicity. Got over the blank slate feeling Created an identity outside of chaos Connected to a sense of joy that I haven't felt since childhood Stopped having trauma dominate my narrative Stopped procrastinating as much Started taking care of myself more both in terms of physically taking care of myself but also taking care of my environment Learned what its like to be with a guy who actually cares out you Learned how much power and privilege can blind a person from their own perspective (I didn't include this in my previous post but it is something I learned by dealing with people in my classes). Dealt with grief for a family friend and the fears I had with losing my own family Contemplated my own death and wtf I'm doing with my life along with issues regarding mortality Learned about generational trauma and how things work in human rights in south Asia, and how religious conflict works in that part of the world. I also learned about how colonized my perspective of my own background was. Realized how much I have grown since I can't resonate with my family anymore Came to terms how the trauma and growth probably mentally aged me. Stopped being the therapist friend Moved towards more positivity and surrounded myself with more people like that accordingly Dealt with the grief with rapidly changing times includes the shock, the anger, the depression, the meaning making, and the acceptance Started seriously meditating Got rid of my food cravings/ got my diet together Cultivated a healthier relationship with food Cultivated a healthier body image Unpacked my limiting beliefs regarding the school that I'm going to Did a lot of shadow work and unraveled labels from my childhood Dealt with the depression that came along with shadow work Moved into stage yellow in spiral dynamics more Mended my relationship with my parents more Integrated the notion that I don't have to be special to be loved and that this whole thing is the work of the ego Gained responsibility for my feelings by not resorting to blaming myself Tackled a lot of shame regarding taking up space Realized that I needed to change my major Found a better potential path for my future career Addressed some of the social anxiety that came up due to isolation Understood exactly how important discipline is Started addressing imposter syndrome Started addressing trauma relating to academic And finally.... 35. Realized how much I have grown this year by writing things out and how I haven't turned into my 14 year old self after moving back home Sometimes I see this whole situation as something that caused me to regress. I have had times in the past month or so where I felt as though I wasn't growing or that stability and happiness in the future are not things worth striving for since I haven't gotten anywhere. In reality, that is me being consumed in the myopia of my current negative mood which ultimately distracts from the bigger picture in the effort to survive in the present. Even writing things out in this post helped me regain this sense of perspective that I am in fact doing what I need to be doing and that I am still making progress. And I'm so proud of myself for that. I can't wait to see how I grow in the coming year. It also makes sense why I've been feeling this ego backlash. Lately I've been craving more stability and stagnation because I'm tired of everything changing all the time. Truth is, I've grown and I need time to slow down a little and have all of this fully sink in before adding new things to the list.

@Willie @Gidiot Ok so I personally agree with keeping the electoral college because I think that the smaller states still need representation and the highly populated areas shouldn't decide everything on their behalf based on majority. We still have other aspects of the government that is decided by majority vote and the electoral college is supposed to balance things out. Now I don't consider myself conservative in any means and I would have MUCH rather had Hillary Clinton as president but I can't help but think that there is something larger than my personal interests. Sure I as a liberal may not like how the electoral college favors conservatives but that doesn't mean that people in less populated states get less representation. Similarly, I believe the gerrymandering on behalf of both parties needs to be eliminated for a fairer process/ representation even if it means that democrats also lose districts/ seats. I would like to hear additional inputs in regards to this to expand my perspective.

The Ways I Have Grown at 20 Part 2 Mid March 2020- May 2020 So I had to finish my spring semester of my sophomore year at home. I also let go of a friend during this time. Our relationship was slowly coming undone since about November 2019 because we were moving towards different chapters of our lives. I was moving towards more positivity since I have solved a lot of my issues regarding my family and I was more oriented towards positivity and building healthy habits. She on the other hand was still dealing with a lot in regards to her family. There is nothing wrong with that. I was definitely in that part of my journey as well so I understand. I stuck around mainly because for one she was my roommate and two I saw myself as the therapist friend. When we met initially we mainly bonded over shared trauma so it wasn't the healthiest of circumstances. I set boundaries with her in regards to what I am and am not willing to discuss and while she never crossed those boundaries once, the boundaries didn't help because the foundation of the relationship was off in the first place. I thought, hey, maybe once I move back home and get some space from her, then things will turn out ok. It didn't and I had to cut her off. During this time I unpacked why I was the therapist friend. It's for a plethora of reasons ranging from not being raised in a stable environment, my family venting to me about things that I'm not old enough to deal with, having to deal with things earlier than what is appropriate, wanting guidance and therefore giving guidance to people who look like they need it so they don't have to suffer the way I did, having chaos being my defining personality trait for a bulk of my life, and more. I also isolated myself from people who triggered my inner Dr. Phil as well. In this isolation amidst COVID, I healed a variety of wounds that caused me to be the therapist friend. During this time I was also trying to cope with the pandemic. I went through the cycles of grief. I suppose I was grieving the previous state of the world. The whole thing was such a shock and didn't make sense. It happened faster than my ability to process it. First my study abroad plans were cancelled and I was left scrambling for new plans for the summer and then not even a week later everything gets shut down and all of my classes are online. It seemed so absurd and strange. After the shock wore off, I was faced with anger ( didn't really go through the denial phase tbh). I was angry with the people in power. I was angry with how I regressed because I had to move back in with my parents. I was angry with myself for not coming up with better plans for the summer. But most importantly I was scared. I was scared of the possibility of being broke and unemployed, to never fully gain my independence as an adult. Then I moved into the depression stage. And thats where my grades started falling. It was pretty discouraging tbh. I thought maybe, just maybe I was back to normal academically because I put down some good habits and I was doing great emotionally. Yeah... I was wrong. I luckily finished the semester with half way decent grades. Then I went into the meaning making part of the cycles of grief. I was trying to piece together why this was happening, what will humanity look like after this, etc. I went all mad scientist and started researching with enthusiasm. How will the economy look? What does it mean for health care in the U.S.? How will we progress past this. I didn't come into the acceptance stage until July or so. I also decided to start a serious meditation habit where I meditate for anywhere from 1-2 hours daily. Its been paying off I'd say. It helped with a lot of the shadow work that I did in the future and helped me get it together. June 2020-August 2020 I moved into research/ mad scientist mode as a part of my meaning making stage of dealing with grief when it came to COVID. I delved into my studies more and I took two summer classes. It was a very fulfilling experience and I feel like that along with me joining this forum helped me be more solidly yellow. I started dealing with a lot of repressed anger which I worked through. I learned how to integrate anger in a healthy way and better assert myself in this time. Because I'm at home all the time and now that I don't have classes, I was forced to be with my parents all the time. Though I didn't enjoy it, it forced me to mend my relationship with them. I still don't think I can talk to them about many things but my relationship with them has improved. I'm still thinking of distancing myself after I get a stable job but that decision is no longer coming from a place of pain. I really delved into shadow work during this time and I got depressed again. I realized that my entire personality is essentially a coping mechanism that the ego made to survive in childhood. I carry a lot of labels from my childhood until now. I talked about a lot of this in my journal so far. I feel that because I wrote things out and I delved into it more, in a way it healed it. Because awareness alone is curative. I'm still on this journey to keep unpacking it. I also learned on how I don't have to be special or interesting or *insert positive quality here* in order to be lovable. In order to be worthy of love, I just need to be, because well, I am love. I think I unpacked a lot of trauma I had regarding lovability in the recent months. After talking to a therapist more about this subject instead of tackling it on my own, I made an immense amount of progress. I know that I have a tendency to point the blame at myself and assume that "there is something wrong with me." This comes from a desire to take responsibility and do something about the situation. However, blaming and saying something is your fault is not the same as accepting responsibility. Taking responsibility means you are using your ability to respond. Shame weighs as person down and stops them from responding constructively. I feel that I integrated that well towards the end of August. I got rid of all of my food cravings and now currently have a very healthy diet. I'm so proud of myself for achieving this as I was working towards finding and creating a diet that works for me for quite some time now. September 2020 School has been kicking my ass. I'm not off to a good start. I slumped into a state of anxiety and depression with my future and realized that I don't like my major. Luckily this gave me a better idea as to what kind of career I want going forward. Additionally, I had a couple mental breakdowns and I had to self soothe through writing my feelings. It was an excellent exercise in resilience and a good test to see how much I can apply the lessons I learned prior to this occurrence. I got a better guide for my shadow work through my religion class and I have had some insights from that class as well. I also solidified my sense of school spirit and I feel that I have addressed my issue with elitism once and for all. I have gotten out of this anti-social funk that I got myself into because of prolonged isolation. I basically realized that I'm just fine and that I didn't magically turn into an awkward duck during quarantine. I also addressed some of my social anxiety during this month as well and I'm sure I will be ok. I began truly understanding how important discipline is. I let myself backslide in terms of discipline as I moved back home and my structure for my day to day life dissolved with the pandemic. I'm currently in the process of implementing this more but I will say that I had to have a pretty rough fall to learn this lesson. Hopefully I will get out of this semester in one piece. I've also been trying to find stability because the times feel especially unstable with rising fascism in the U.S. It's been a struggle. I also began addressing issues regarding imposter syndrome, my trauma regarding academic performance from 2018-now that I have had to deal with in therapy, and the anxiety of moving into adulthood during an economic depression. So lets see how that goes. While I did learn a lot from September, I will say that this month has been a struggle and an ego backlash month more than anything.

The Ways I Have Grown at 20 Part 1 It's the beginning of October and in every October, I catch myself going into a more reflective state as to how I have grown in the past year mainly because my birthday is in October. God, because of how how crazy 2020 has been, my last birthday feels like it is a world away. I think one of the reasons why it feels like such a long time ago is because of how much I've grown and how much the world around me changed. I'm probably going to go chronologically so that I can get my thoughts straight October 2019- December 2019 I remember feeling like an blank slate of a person. It wasn't in a depressing way where I felt like an empty shell but rather it was much more peaceful. The reason why I felt this way is that I was still dealing with some things regarding burnout from earlier that year. I also cleared out a lot of childhood trauma from when i was 18 and a half uptil my 20th birthday. I held onto that trauma for such a long time that for a while, it fused with my identity. Now that trauma isn't there to inform my personality, I'm here with all this empty space. The question now is, what do I fill it with? I began feeling a little bit more like myself. Not as in that blank space was getting filled but really, truely like myself. I felt as though I could connect to the joy I felt growing up on a super regular basis. I could look back at my past and now acknowledge parts of my life that were more joyful. Before, I could only see the depressing heavy aspects. This is not to say that I only look at the bright side and I don't acknowledge the harsher stuff that happened to me but its more along the lines of "hey these bad things happened but that's not the only thing that happened." The trauma is no longer the dominant part of my narrative. During this time I also cleaned up some of my habits. I stopped procrastinating on my work. I started putting in more effort in my appearance. I paid more attention to my health. I started being more organized etc. I also dated a guy during this time. It lasted for like a month and tbh I wasn't really feeling it but I learned a lot from that experience. I learned what a good relationship with a healthy person felt like and what a guy who actually like you looks like in terms of how he will treat you. It mainly didn't work out because we were in very different places in our lives. He treated me so well. I hope he finds someone good. The year ended with me dealing with a death of a family friend suddenly. It brought the year into a poignant end. This whole time after healing from the trauma I was asking myself "what now since I solved is major issue with my life?" Then this hit me. It pushed me into an existential crisis for like a month. I was like, damn WHAT am I doing with my life? I could honestly die at any moment. I also had a near death experience around this time and it was somewhat similar to the way the family friend died so yeah that made me question things. End of December 2019- January 2020 During this time I went to visit family in India. I also went to Bangladesh for the first time. That was an interesting trip for many reasons. Firstly it made me realize that my family is a mess. The more I grow up the more I realize that the people around me haven't. After I healed through most of my family related trauma, I realized that they weren't the healthiest people to be around. It's like I have done all of the work and they haven't done the same so I naturally outgrew them. Another thing that stuck out to me in this trip was Indian politics. I took a class on Human Rights in Modern South Asia right before I came here. And after taking that class, a lot of things just made more sense. It's like I was actually able to apply what I have learned in real life. As a result, the trip was very educational. Also during this time, the whole Citizen Amendment Act thing was going on and that was interesting to say the least. Going to both India and Bangladesh at this particular time was really interesting in terms of comparison. It showed a lot of unhealthy manifestations of stage blue both societally as well as in the political views of the people around me. In this trip my family did a lot of funeral stuff regarding our religious customs. I'm a religious person but it was interesting just to observe what was happening. A lot of it was really good, healthy stage blue content. I was also happy seeing the fulfillment my parents were getting because it resonated with their inner stage blue selves even though the stuff in question didn't resonate with me personally. During this time for one of the ceremonies, we went to an ashram and stayed there for a night. There was no heating, very little electricity, bugs etc. It was an interesting experience that put things into perspective, not trying to sound like one of the eat pray love people but that's the best way that I could phrase it. Strangely enough, it wasn't much of an adjustment for me though this was the first time for me doing something like this. I guess it's because I'm not super attached to materialism and physical comfort but idk. I just know that the rest of my family that were on this trip were losing their shit. In additon to the funeral stuff that was going on, my dad was also reconnecting with his cousins whom he hadn't seen in decades. I don't know these people so I was just politely minding my own business and watching everyone reconnect. Everyone was so old since my dad is typically the youngest among all of his relatives by at least a decade if not more. A lot of them would also talk about health complications and death as well. It was surreal to watch some of these people's grandkids call my dad grandpa because for one they are like 5 years younger than me and two I don't see my dad as super old even though he is an older parent because of the way he carries himself. It kinda tapped into the whole existential crisis that I was having with mortality earlier in December. For once we also got to do more touristy things in India. I realized that travelling with my parents wasn't the best idea as I grew up because their way of travelling was so different from what I enjoy. It caused some problems. But it was nice to see more historical stuff and understand what's going on (again because of prior study/ exposure). It made me feel like I could embrace my roots more, not in a ideological way, but more of a oh here is a side that i don't acknowledge as often, let me embrace it a little more. January 2020-Mid March 2020 I was living life until then. I was on top of my work. I was killing it. I was working out regularly, getting good grades etc..I was making moves to become much more disciplined with my life. That was my main new years resolution. I realized, hey I'm finally in a really stable place in my life, I like this. There were something that I still needed to work through though and that was the fact that I don't have many friends and that I don't know what I'm doing career wise. During this time, I also was trying to come to terms with the notion that the trauma and then growing from the trauma aged me. It was a period of mourning and a time when I was trying to understand why I don't have many friends. I began doing therapy to figure this out with a new therapist since my regular one was on maternity leave. I uncovered some issues I have had just swimming around in my mind and I found some limiting beliefs I held. This would later turn into my whole thing with shadow work that I pursued up until now. I also decided that after I ease into this sense of stability I was going to put myself out there more specifically after spring break. I was going to integrate everything fully and then put my new and improved self out there. I also planned to do a study abroad trip during the summer and I was like, hey this will let me travel, it has a build in internship, and I will meet more like minded people in my field of study. It's going to be great. I'm finally getting my life together. HHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHHHHAAA And then the pandemic happened

Using Fashion for Self Development Even though things such as changing your style is more like window dressing self development without making deep change, I believe that changing up your appearance can still be a tool for self development. To me it only become window dressing if you see changing the external and the surface as the end all be all without examining the internal. Because lets be real, the external world does have an effect on the internal world and vice versa. I have tried this in the past when I was trying to step into my femininity more in my mid teens. It began with me wearing heels more often and growing out my hair. In a way, I see those as physical affirmations through symbolic femininity as opposed to verbal affirmations someone migh read to themselves every day. Granted I was also doing a lot of inner work regarding opening up to my feelings and undoing my mindsets that were rooted in misogyny so it wasn't like *ok i put on heels and now I can embrace my femininity.* To me, wearing heels wasn't anything I forced. But I was like "ya know what let me try this out as a major part of my wardrobe." I believe that in a symbolic way, it made me let go of this notion of femininity being this weak submissive thing because I felt powerful in heels even though it was feminine. I'm 5'2" so it wasn't like I was towering over people with 2 in heels but I remember thinking I CAN SEE EVERYTHING FROM UP HERE. I wear heels so regularly now to where people just associate them with me and they wonder how tf I do it when really it's literally the most comfortable shoes I own. Then I started growing out my hair. Growing up I always had really short hair and I was like *let me try something else.* I think one of the reasons why I opted to have short hair when I was little was because I "didn't want to be like other girls and conform to society" so there were elements of rebellion mixed in with internalized misogyny though that wasn't the only reason (I was like 12). I thought *hey if I don't like it, I can always chop my hair off again.* And I realized that hey I really like having long hair. I would even say that it suits me better. It made me think oh hey femininity isn't this thing that is meant for everyone else and not you, it can still work for you if you are willing to embrace it. I can say similar things with wearing makeup, liking pink, and surrounding myself with florals. Same thing with wearing more makeup. I remember at one point I had a judgement towards people who wore makeup regularly. Those judgements were along the lines of "oh I bet they are insecure of their appearance and/or conceited." Then I tried it out and now I actually enjoy it. I'm not insecure about the way I look or anything like that but in the morning, it just feels like I'm doing something nice to myself, as if it's something that is extremely relaxing while still waking me up and energizing me. And eventually, those judgements also faded away. I'm trying to do the same thing when it comes to being more basic. As far as my wardrobe goes right now, I would say that it's mainly neutral (black, white, denim, beige) and mauve/ burgundy. My leanings towards dark colors root back to my emo fashion phase which came from this desire to rebel lol. Even though I don't dress emo, I can't say that I completely left the color palette since like half of my closet is black/ dark colors. My closet is fairly small and minimalist mainly because I enjoy the efficiency of a minimalist wardrobe and how everything matches each other so I don't have to make an effort to get ready and match clothes in the morning and still look very put together. Having a minimalist wardrobe also forced me to find clothes that actually fit me according to my body shape because I was looking for quality over quantity which was a huge boost in my self esteem. Finally, embracing minimalism in fashion helped move away from mindless consumption for the sake of consumption. As for being more basic, I simply didn't know where to start because to me basic is just whatever is super popular and common at the time and that can cover a vast variety of things tbh. I've mainly been thinking of a more preppy aesthetic since it the opposite of my emo inclinations from my childhood/ teens. And so I went to the internet to gather intel lol. So the main things that came up were the differences between new england preppy and southern preppy. New England preppy as an aesthetic is more of ralph lauren/ jcrew. Color palate is usually white, burgundy, and red. It's also very polished and put together. I think this aligns more with my current sense of style except for the fact that I'm too broke to afford most brands that are associated with this style and the fact that I normally am more relaxed with my choices. It's more aligned with my comfort zone. Southern preppy on the other hand immediately evokes my fight or flight response lol. It's more bright and colorful and has more of an emphasis of monograms and patterns. I don't mind patterns, I certainly incorporate them into my wardrobe, but I'm not so into it when it comes to really elaborate patterns (unless it's for Indian clothes for special occasions, there I go all out). I find them rather impractical and difficult to match with a variety of clothes, but hey, i can open up and branch out and try to have fun. My first exposure to this aesthetic was when my roommate in college during my freshman year had a Lily Pulitzer skirt. The whole aesthetic isn't limited to this brand but this brand is the one that I had the strongest reaction to. At this time I wasn't even exposed to that designer mainly because I'm broke and because even though I have lived in the south my whole life, I live in the city surrounded by middle class poc. I just remember seeing it and having a Regina George moment where I was like *that is the ugliest effing skirt I have ever seen.* Honestly if it makes her happy, idc lmao its just a skir, the style is just not what I'm used to. But yeah southern preppy is more along the lines of this along with a dose of Vineyard Vines and Lululemons (both brands just remind me of all of them memes tbh lol) s For both of these aesthetics, I feel a strong vibe of elitism. In turn, elitism makes me think of power and what is normalized in society, which is the exact opposite of what I'm drawn to which is nonconformity and questioning thing as far as ideals go. And I think that desire to rebel was what pulled me towards emo and dark colors even though I was ironically being conformist in a nonconformist way (that is just my 12 year old logic that I still have traces of now). I think this reaction also reveals the biases/ prejudices that I have towards people with privilege or perceived privileges. Because lets be real, you can't tell much from the way someone dresses. I've also met plenty of cool people who look privileged af and have this type of aesthetic but I would be lying if I said that I didn't have this split second first impression of them being bubbly, super conservative, and judgmental (which is ironic because I'm the one being judgmental). I think this comes from the fact that people like this would be the main archetypes of people that picked on me growing up and therefore I subconsciously jump to that conclusion. Therefore instead try to find like minded people based on how weird they dress because I perceive myself as another weird kid like them. I also know that I have an orange shadow because of my green desire to dismantle hierarchies. And also you can get these things in a more discounted place, it doesn't have to cost a fortune. While the former is more within my comfort zone as far as design and colors go, the later doesn't have that. The bright colors freak me out because I'm not used to it. I also find the elaborate prints pretty impractical because there isn't much that it would match with in a cohesive wardrobe. Upon further inspection after my first impression of *no it's too bright my eyes*, I found a lot of Lilly prints rather beautiful. I also found them rather uplifting too. However, the thought of wearing it, seems off putting to me. I remember walking into one of these stores and nothing really caught my eye to where I would consider even trying it on. I know all of this sounds super dramatic but these judgments are more subtle irl. I think my first step to step out of my comfort zone and embrace my inner basic is to incorporate more bright colors into my wardrobe. The only restrictions I have towards my choice in clothes as of now is nothing that fits me horribly and no neon, thought the neon one can change. Bright colors is one of the things that intimidate me more fashion wise. I also think that bright colors can be one of the ways for me to embrace the hero archetype more because I tend to want to fade into the background and mute myself out whether it is verbally or hell even when it comes to my clothes as I am drawn to more neutral colors since they aren't super harsh. And of course all of this willingness to be basic comes from me trying to embrace the everyman archetype more. Whenever I think basic, that's the first store that comes up in my mind is Victoria Secret Pink (because I'm not about to drop a $100 on vineyard vines or lululemon) similar to how when people think Hot Topic they immediately think emo. I would add H&M and Forever 21 to the list but nothing fits me from there other than like pants. Sometimes I think the best way to counteract judgement for other people for most traits is to acknowledge, and/or embrace that same trait in yourself. As far as embracing goes, one of the ways I'm going to embrace my inner basic is my clothes.

I completely agree with this. It explains why liberals aren't as willing to go for the jugular in a debate and start ridiculing their opponent like Trump does for instance. A lot of progressives believe that democrats need to be more vicious and have critiqued them for that. From what I understand, it's not being vicious for the sake of being vicious but being vicious for the sake of everyone's future over the fear of saving face. However, what a lot of progressives don't understand mainly because of a lack of exposure to things like spiral dynamics and how consciousness works, they don't see why democrats are reluctant to use lower consciousness means to appeal to the public compared to republicans and instead see it as "democrats are addicted to losing." It could be that and potentially mix of toxic green as well. Another thing that I remember someone saying in a different thread was someone saying something along the lines of "what is considered healthy is contextual" and how what is considered healthy in say the middle ages with a bunch of warlords everywhere is not going to be considered healthy in the modern day. What I'm trying to say is that what is considered constructive in a debate like the one with Trump, isn't going to be constructive in a debate with McCain for instance. Being civil will work in the second instance and is a necessity in order to not look like a lunatic but the same thing can have cons when dealing with Trump where you look like you've been walked all over. Granted what is considered healthy/ constructive isn't always aligned with what is the most conscious since society has to develop on it's own and because healthy/ constructive is reliant on survival. It's also important to draw that distinction and take that into consideration. You can't go in to the middle ages preaching green values like free love and multiculturalism without dealing with a huge backlash collectively with a side of getting your head chopped off. Even though your ideals are more conscious, society isn't ready for it at that moment therefore it isn't healthy/constructive. Instead that type of backlash could potentially be greater and be negative towards overall growth. Similarly with a debate like trump, "playing nice" with him, though it is higher consciousness, can lead to more backsliding because no one is there to stand up to him and therefore his rampaging continues, causing more damage.

Meme Historian This is such a stoner thought but, what if, I became a meme historian. Think about it, in the future, if someone were to look back at the memes of today, they would see historical events, the mental anguish of everyday people, political beliefs, narratives, propaganda, significant pop culture references, and more. What if the requirements to professionally analyze memes involved a background in the humanities and the social sciences (so like political science, history, sociology, anthropology, the arts, etc.). My point is that to someone who lives in a different time period, there is so much to dissect in a single meme. For example: u To fully understand this meme, one needs to understand the generational conflicts that happened prior to the 2016 election. There is clearly a lot of chaos that is happening in the background which represents the amount of polarization at the time along with how the president conducted his governance. Interestingly enough, this meme was created prior to 2020 meaning that this foreshadowed the rising tensions at the time. You also need to understand the symbolism of Hitler and Stalin and how that relates to generational political differences. A lot of the Boomers supported Donald Trump and was labeled as fascist by the young who found parallels between Trump's rhetoric and that of Hitler's. Millennials at the time began recognizing the short comings of capitalism after 2008 and were in search of alternatives like Scandinavian style socialism. However, the Boomers, because they grew up during the red scare, saw the Millennials/ Gen Z's desire to have more social programs to deal with the societal consequences of late capitalism as communist. You also see Hitler here having a higher ground then Stalin representing the fact that the Boomers have more wealth and political power at the time, meaning they have the upper hand. There is also pop culture references in this meme particularly the way that Hitler and Stalin are attacking each other. This is a nod towards the popular anime Naruto. There is also the joker that represent Gen Z which is a reference to Batman. Basically, clown were popular in this generation as a way of articulating the foolery of the times and the collective coping mechanism to use humor in order to process the chaos of the Trump Presidency. Ok but real shit, I can't take myself seriously typing this out. I really want being a meme historian to be a thing.

Sooooo trump caught COVID https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/10/02/trump-tests-positive-coronavirus-melania-announcement-vpx.cnn I mean I know you typically have to quarantine for 14 days but if the next debate ends up being on Zoom, muting him when he interrupts is most definitely an option

TRUMP CAUGHT CORONAVIRUS!!!!!! DON'T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS! SPEAK WHAT YOU DESIRE FROM THE UNIVERSE INTO EXISTANCE!!!!! And while yall doin that, Imma go stock up on some healing crystals for positive vibes.❤❤❤ https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/10/02/trump-tests-positive-coronavirus-melania-announcement-vpx.cnn My manifestation skills are finally paying off lmaooooooooo ???? This is probably the best news I got this year ✌??? I know this is most definitely devilry and I'm willing to own up to it but for now I'm going to bask in the joy

I think that this is the best piece of advice here when it comes to what to do when you don't resonate with your surroundings. Even though it is good to grow and track where you are on your journey using a model like spiral dynamics, I feel that it's easy to make something like spiral dynamics just another man made hierarchy. This happens when we put value judgements on stages and label them as conscious and unconscious and decide who is worthy of connection from there. Don't get me wrong, there are levels of development that are higher quality and resonate better with some individuals, but what i mean by value judgement is along the lines of "I can't connect with anyone because they are too unconscious" or "these people aren't worth talking to because of their level of consciousness." That can get toxic and turn into a competition and not in a good way. Regardless where other people are in their journey, you can still empathize and connect to other people even if you are further along. I believe that hierarchies based on value judgements are what separate stage orange (man made hierarchies) from the natural hierarchies in stage yellow (while stage green is just flattening hierarchies and getting rid of value judgements so you can move to yellow). For instance, lets say you have a test that measures out how smart you are. An orange person will look at it and say that "hey person x is better than person y because of their IQ and therefore person x should be treated better and is more worthy of connection." Stage green will say "person x and person y have the same value because scores don't matter since they are human beings and you shouldn't base a person's value on their IQ." Both of these have a partial truth. Stage yellow and above sees this and says "person x is smarter than person y which can be valuable in certain contexts (like prediction of academic performance) but as far as being human goes, both deserve dignity and respect because they have the same value." These statements for each of the stages may not be conscious but it can be reflected based on how they treat people and what triggers them. I hope that analogy/ example makes sense in how you can apply that to a person's development. Just replace smarts with consciousness and IQ with spiral stages.

12 Jungian Archetypes: Where to go From Here As of 10/1/2020 here is where I stand 7: well integrated 3: needs work on integrating 2 are (-) or more prone to repression which leads to things like judgement and projection 1 is (+) or more prone to inflation which leads to egotism and identifying with one thing too much 2: not integrated at all. The goal of knowing where we stand on the archetypes is to evaluate where we have an excess and where we have a lack of integration in our soul. From here on out, we can evaluate what we can do to more acceptance of every part of ourselves. By accepting contradictory aspect of ourselves, we can hope to reach balance The negative aspect of one archetype will be balanced by the positive aspects of another. Accepting all part of ourselves also negates shadows and therefore unconscious mechanisms. It also helps us move away from repression, which can be a result of not embracing an archetype or not embracing an archetype enough, and way from inflation which happens when we over identify with any one archetype because the other archetypes aren't there to balance it out. I have talked about shadow work a number of times in this journal as it is something that I am very focused on in my self development journey. While a lot of things I have discussed in the last couple of posts are repetitive, I thought it would be a good exercise for me to see how my current shadow work fits into this model. So here are my conclusions: Things I need to do going forward: 1. Integrate more discipline and structure in my life Helps me come into The Ruler archetype and strengthens The Magician (-) come up with a routine start exercising build consistent habits 2. Embrace being a "normie" Strengthen The Everyman (-), weaken The Rebel (+) Also develops The Ruler because mainstream things are more along the lines of societal structures and power dynamics. One of the reasons I was drawn to the Rebel (+) was my dislike of authority and routines binge on more mainstream music, show, YouTube channels, etc. 3. Continue shadow work in order to love myself more completely and build confidence Develops The Hero by healing "background character energy" which ultimately comes from a lack of self confidence Also strengthens The Magician(-) by removing blockages in manifestation Speak up more to heal shyness Develop skills in public speaking 5. Cultivate Your Life Purpose more Develops The Hero and strengthens The Magician (-) because it cultivates a vision Change majors Apply to different internships Figure out my career prospects after graduation