DianaFr

Journaling can't replace therapy but it can be insanely helpful. I have been journaling for two decades as a regular habit and I don't know who would I be without it. As for the trauma work, it's not sufficient, though. I've noticed that my journaling habit has made me very self-aware, so working with other modalities like therapy is easier because I can self-reflect easily, I know myself very well, and when the therapist joins in, the work is just more effective. However, the thing with trauma is - one needs to experience the opposite in order to heal. You can dig up your traumas and reframe the related beliefs, you can also make sense of your trauma-related emotional patterns on paper but you can't recreate the experience you need for true healing. This is a huge shadow for many in this forum by the way. Let us do whatever we can to meditate ourselves out of existence by pursuing high-consciousness stuff and convincing ourselves that we're better than "normies" so we can find a way to cope with our pain. In reality what most people around here actually need is good relationships. Certainly not a new self-help technique. The same is true for journaling as trauma remedy. It is not a solution. Very helpful, but not a solution. As for the techniques, I mostly rely on a flow-of-consciousness style of journaling and rarely use prompts. Just start with whatever I'm feeling in the moment, and the story unfolds from there. I added more specific frameworks, like CBT techniques and other belief-reframing methods when I already had 10 years of experience in freestyling regularly, so I already had a good writing discipline. I don't think it would make as much sense if I started with the specific methods from scratch, because it would make the task too difficult to keep up with and thus less efficient. For me, what worked even better was creative approach and involvment of different creative tools like Tarot cards and creative writing. Wow, that made this work so much more exciting and turned it into a journey rather than a mission with a certain outcome. But that may as well be just me. My mind thrives on symbols and abstractions, and I applied it effectively in my trauma work. Maybe you have your thing as well to in corporate in your journaling practice.

I'm not a digital artist but I've learned one thing that's universal in different industries - no matter how good you are, there will always be somebody better. And that's fine. If you're surrounded by brilliant, talented and skilled people, it's only natural to start feeling uncomfortable because you want to be in their position but perceive yourself as less. But it's a game one can never win. Over the years I've learned it's better to get to know yourself inside and out through your work, develop your own unique way and make your strengths work for you, not against you. Another beautiful thing you can always rely on - as much as you are creating your work, your work is creating you. Just surrender to this often messy, chaotic, confusing and yet so satisfying process of doing your thing and it will take you somewhere. If you give in to the process like this, the concept of mediocracy becomes irrelevant.

Why? Can't God create?

Then what is a human being if it is nothing?

What holds you back from taking action?

Yeah, it's called psychopathy. Complete moral freedom and dead soul.

What is your endocrinologist recommending? What are your blood TSH levels? You are referring to an extremely variable dose of levothyroxine, but you should have a steady dose of it every day, optimised according to your TSH level. I've got this thing as well. I'm taking my thyroxine pill (100 mcg) every morning right after I wake up and that's it. I'm feeling fine. Just trying to remember to do my yearly check-ups and occasional ultrasounds. Do you have any other health concerns that comes with this?

I bet god once had the same realization - it's effing lonely around here, things have no meaning anymore, I better split myself and create the Other for me to interact with 😄 I don't know, maybe you should not look for meaning. Usefulness will do. Your existence might be fleeting, but since you're here and while you're here, you can make yourself useful. You will always exist in somebody's memories and in your contributions to this world. Things are not only turned into dust but also created. It's a matter of perspective.

Yes, pulling yourself out from that purposeless depressive mental state is possible! Having a good quality of life is definitely possible. My story could be a little different than yours, though. I have a C-PTSD, social anxiety, used to have an eating disorder for a decade, and suicidal ideation have been a natural companion throughout all this. I'm in my late thirties now and I could write a whole book about what made me feel better which I'm not going to do now. The main ideas: I accepted I was never going to be 'normal' which allowed me to start building my life for me instead of against me. I made care of my mental health a lifestyle. I will probably always have anxiety, I will probably always be prone to mental breakdowns and will have this intense sense of grief in me forever but that's okay. I'm no less happy because of that. I became really good at listening to myself and experiencing every single emotion I felt. It brought me back to life and the sense of purpose naturally emerged from behind my shadows. I continue to learn about myself through self-reflection. It's also a big part of my lifestyle now. Healing happens in phases. As soon as you're ready to uncover another layer, new stuff emerges. I've made my peace with that as well. I can revisit the same events, the same memories or the same old stories many times, and every time the newfound awareness opens up a new aspect I couldn't see before because I was not ready or didn't have a template for it. All in all, it's a life-long commitment to yourself. There's no rush, there's no end, just patience, compassion, and presence. It gets better, it gets worse, it gets better again. And you get richer and richer as you move through these cycles. Staying depressed and without purpose is a choice, though.

Coaching as a profession is a lot harder than one might think. The market is saturated and because of the ridiculously low level of entry there are many trash coaches out there you will have to compete against (most of them don't even know what coaching is but call themselves coaches anyways). Also, you have to love marketing. 50% of your business will be about that - working on your marketing. If you don't, you simply won't have clients. My rose-colored glasses about this profession has fallen of completely. I realized that the marketing part and the low overall morale of the industry were the deal breakers for me to pursue coaching professionally. It's not to say that my coaching diploma was a waste of time because I'm applying these skills at a different context. Just a word of warning - it might not go as expected if you don't have a strong strategy and the willingness and ability to bite the bullet.

Is this a real life situation or an idea your playing with? And does this refer to an individual relationship or do you attempt to describe a universal truth?

How do you synthesize DNA from atoms and make it come alive? Sounds like science fiction to me. Even if you use the right building blocks to synthesize DNA (not atoms), it's not going to be alive. You will just get ... a lot of DNA. What I mean is - if an organism carries genetic material (i.e. its evolutionary origin can be traced) and can be reproduced or cultured (i.e. it consists of independently functioning unit(s) that under the right conditions propagate and/or exert a biological function in response to stimuli) it is a living thing. Plants have and do all that.

Body in a casket used to be alive. In fact, the ability to die is a good way to distinguish between living and non-living things. Which makes plants belong to living things.

@Saranagata If I can isolate DNA from it and grow it in the lab, it's alive. Period.

What happened to hockey? Where did that certainty go? One realization that I've had - some passions should be pursued just for fun and pleasure. As soon as you turn them into your "purpose", it puts all this pressure and expectation on you which kills the motivation eventually. But it also depends on the person heavily. Some grow by learning to loosen up and go with the flow, others - by learning to commit (which is in fact the two sides of the same coin). Let me ask you one more question - what do you truly want and how do you want to feel?