Judy2

it's too long. and some of them overlap. should i delete it again and come back when i have just 10?

in the life purpose course, i've finally arrived at the section on values assessment last week. i've tried to do some of the exercises but find that it's difficult to get clear on my values. the hardest part is probably that i am supposed to imagine what my "ideal" self would value, which is driving me more into hypothetical "should" territory where i imagine some picture book version of myself....it's hard to say if this would be the authentic me though. for example, i can't get quite clear on how much i actually value community. is it just social anxiety that's in the way, or is my desire for engaging with other people in a communal way naturally low, or something inbetween? it's also really hard to determine if a value is mildly important vs the thing everything else hinges upon for me. and i have the same issue with many other core values as well. i guess it's a bit of a catch 22 because you need to know your ideal self to know what you value, but you need to know your values to know your ideal self. and then this usually culminates in me trying to analyse myself like some omniscient narrator, rather than connecting with myself. any advice on how to gain a bit more clarity? is there any method to make this inquiry simpler, rather than drifting off into too theoretical territory?

Values List Reflection before sharing my values list, i'd like to share some thoughts on it because there are still some points i'm not entirely clear on. excellence: i do resonate with this to some extent, but given that i've suffered a lot from disabling perfectionism throughout my life, it breaks my heart a little bit to tend toward not choosing this? it's probably quite negatively motivated, as in "i need to prove that i am good enough" - so maybe this shouldn't be on my list for now. in general, i've noticed a tendency to select all the values that are the opposite of what my mental illnesses have made me embody throughout the years. ... trust, connection, balance. emotional regulation lol. way to go for someone with bpd. balance: i haven't decided yet if this should be a separate value or a part of "wisdom" - in my mind, wisdom balances notions of balance and equilibrium while also allowing me to demonstrate clarity of opinion and action where necessary. harmony: same question - is this its own thing or can i include it with something else...i mostly thought of it because of the value of beauty. harmony may or may not be a subcategory of beauty. motherhood keeps popping up, but i'm not sure if this counts as a value. ...it's probably more of a goal than a value, and it fuses the embodiment of several of my values (emotional regulation, wisdom, trust, loving connection, holistic health,...)? love: really a confusing value because it's an aspect of so many other values that resonate with me: gratitude, social/relational connection, kindness and respect... but i tend toward having love as its own value as a more spiritual principle, and then again as beauty, kindness and respect, loving connection? gratitude: again, should i list this explicitly/not? truth: i don't know if i value truth that much because it's a bit abstract, but it's better than saying honesty or loyalty because it accounts for the edge cases where honesty might be a rigid principle rather than a helpful tool. but not sure if i need this, if i also have wisdom on the list...which should include all that? consciousness: again, very abstract, i don't even know what's really meant by this...BUT it should definitely be on the list... i just need to define it a bit further. creativity: really not sure if this is "me". i don't typically think of myself as creative. i do think it would make me happy though, to pay a bit more attention to this and find my own ways of being creative. it can even be through cooking, baking, decorating, fashion, make-up, ...so i do enjoy being creative, it's just a matter of finding my own unique ways of going about it. still not sure if it makes my top ten though. so my current draft looks a bit like this, but i might need to make some changes: Love Consciousness/Awareness/Presence: defined as "being more aware of the Dream", seeing the structure more rather than getting absorbed in the content; pausing more often to take a step back and see the bigger picture again. Truth and Integrity: a bit like loyalty and honesty, but broader Wisdom: balance and equilibrium, but also clarity of opinion and action, might also include understanding and curiosity, if these are not separate points Emotional awareness and regulation: joyful embodiment Loving connection and intimacy Respect and kindness Trust: in myself, the universe, others; also defined as loving detachment; sense of groundedness Holistic health: energy, vitality, fitness Harmony Beauty: loving appreciation of a thing's existence; tapping into my potential to enhance my own beauty and the beauty of my environments Gratitude: maybe a part of some of the above; can't say yet. Creativity

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not really feeling great today. still stressed out. i'm trying to tell myself that it'll pass. i'm hesitant to let myself take a break because i know that in the past, not feeling well has led to endless breaks. i don't trust myself to go about this in a balanced way...to have a day off and get back to work tomorrow. but i'm guessing this is what's needed. (btw, trust and balance are on my values list...so i'm guessing this is a sign...ah...)

@Entrepreneur thank you for taking the time to articulate this. it's quite reassuring. i think in general there are a few more nuances to this and it might be a mix of human/okay needs and my overreacting in one way or another. idk. it's always a mix.

Hey there:) A few weeks ago, a video about the heroine's journey was flushed into my YouTube feed. It referenced a quote by Joseph Campbell in its introduction: “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.” Personally, I feel as though "the woman is there - period." is a bit scarce. Not saying this to make any sort of feminist statement. I'm mostly just seeing this in the context of my own life experience, because every time I have been too self-absorbed in my "ornamental" function as a woman, my subjectivity wasn't really in sync. Nonetheless, I feel as though the quote touches on some of the questions I have been having about how to reconcile the intersection between femininity vs. masculinity and more general notions of adulting, self-development, and maturing in life. Coming at this from the other angle, a friend recently told me that finding a life purpose would resolve many of my emotional issues. It is true that I am complacent and irresolute in life. I don’t feel very “autonomous,” I don’t want to start a business, become an entrepreneur, be self-employed, or anything like that. I’m not a huge "gambler" in life. I don’t want my life to be a constant hustle. I value security and thrive in environments where external structure is provided and I am given clear instructions as to what I should do. For example, I was doing well when I was still in school, I loved doing homework and that kind of stuff. And as a young adult, the most challenging aspect has been knowing what i should even do with myself. I wonder if it is okay to double down on this personality trait, rather than telling myself to get rid of it. Is it possible to build a more functional, mature, "adult" lifestyle around this need for containment? Is it possible to somehow reconcile the need for security and "being told what to do" with not just blindly mimicking the sociocultural status quo and being a people pleaser? If so, how? Not sure if this fully articulates my confusion, and I'm aware that I'm probably not asking the right group of people about this issue here. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts anyway.

depends on how you go about it. unfortunately, i think many people start these careers with a good dose of idealism and it's the system (long hours, little time for individual patients, being required to prescribe meds to treat surface-level symptoms rather than curing underlying causes, and so on) that implicitly forces them to drop some of their good intentions. however, there are certainly those who manage to hold on to their idealism and treat patients well despite the flaws of the health-care system. are you working as a nurse or as a doctor? what more do you think you are capable of?

i've asked about this at least three times before, but never managed to fully lay this out for myself and find a satisfying answer, so here we go again:) first of all, i wonder how many hours of rest and relaxation (aside from meal times and sleep) are normal/necessary. this is confusing to me because i'm a bit extreme in how i'm either all depressed, low-energy, and feel like i need way more rest than i actually do, or hyperactive and stressing out about getting things done, so i'm unable to realistically account for the relaxation hours of the day and how i should even fill them in a useful, functional way. this dichotomy also ties in with my difficulties of balancing boredom and stress. aside from that, i'm also curious about the quality of the relaxation people typically get. does watching tv truly recharge people? probably not, but what activity/hobby does, without draining someone even further after a long day? both the quality and quantity of conscious rest and relaxation are confusing to me because my parents have never modelled this well. for example, my mum works full time, but her way of relaxing after work is just napping or low-conscious stuff like watching tv. i wonder if there are things that truly feel relaxing and like they recharge you, without having you go unconscious and basically seeking to dissociate from all of life. i feel as though many people define relaxation and rest after work as a permission slip to "go unconscious" and basically enter a state of oblivion - zoning out, taking a break from existence itself - even though this isn't truly recharging. but then i haven't really figured out how to relax in a conscious way while feeling like it increases my energy again, instead of draining it further. it sounds exhausting to be alert and present with myself all day, but i also feel super bored when trying to "relax" by doing something stupid, unconscious and useless like watching tv....but if i do something useful, it might stress me out again and not be properly relaxing. part of this confusion perhaps also stems from my ambiguous attitude toward being alive and living in the first place, and i don't even know if it's normal to "stay conscious" during all my waking hours...and if there are reenergising ways to go about this. i mean, ideally this should be the best and only way to recharge, but i don't quite know what it would look like in practice. is rest just a matter of doing an activity that's different from whatever else you're doing all day? so, for example, if your job is very social, rest after work can look like self-care and me-time, or vice versa, and if you have a desk job, physical activity is what's needed to balance things out. is rest about balancing out the kinds of activities you do throughout the day, or is there more to it? sorry if this is just a completely unnecessary rumination that would be answered more easily by simply living life and finding out what works for me. still, i would find it valuable to have some people who already set this up in their lives in a satisfactory way describe their reasoning for how much time they spend on rest and relaxation, what they do to recharge and how it's different from (or also similar to) their "productive" hours. thanks♡ and sorry if this is a stupid question.

sometimes i feel really uncomfortable at my gym because whenever classes are being taught, the music is really loud and there's a very loud beep-tone every minute that causes major discomfort. aside from that, it's all good.

hm?

thank you, this is very helpful. i like the moment when i randomly try a guided meditation and my body starts breathing me more than i breathe it. happens very automatically, which is nice. my body knows how to do this, i just need to let it(?).

yes. i thought about it some more and whether i'm stressed or not isn't always a function of how much i'm doing. it's an attitude and has a lot to do with the stories i tell myself about all the things i am doing/am not doing/should be doing and whether i think they'll work out or not. it's also the anticipation of future conflict/discomfort.

i'm experiencing stress and anxiety around applications and all sorts of paperwork i need to get done.

noted:)

@Breathe thank you, i'll check it out:)

okay, so for you it's about balancing the kinds of activities you do to match your personal preference. thanks for sharing:)

when i was a kid, i was bored a lot. if anything, i was anxious to have more responsibilities and act more grown-up. when i look back, i think i had a hard time relaxing already. i remember having very deep contemplations on holiday about how to successfully relax while sunbathing. then i started daydreaming a lot but couldn't really keep my focus, so it was always a bit frustrating. (maybe this is ADD related? i don't have a formal diagnosis, but a therapist has voiced some suspicions.) while relaxing was hard, i certainly had things i was interested in and enjoyed doing. i had a few hobbies like riding horses and ballet (which i'd chosen on my own, they weren't imposed on me or anything), but started getting headaches and abandoned these hobbies. the headaches were real but i'm wondering if there was some psychosomatic influence.

okay i will, in a few days:) i still need to get clear on some of them before that.

okay that makes sense. i guess it's confusing for me because i can be too extreme in both directions. but really the quality of the relaxation/what i do to relax is the bigger issue. most of the time, it's either too boring or too stressful.

i feel stupid for needing to ask such basic questions.

this is a bit embarrassing and such a weird thing to ask. it's also so basic. at the same time, it's such a huge issue in my life? and i wish i could find ways to relax that are truly energising. apparently, i just don't have this skill yet, but it would make a huge difference if i could acquire it. to find purposeful, meaningful ways to relax. to wind down WHILE still doing something that feels precious and energising...(is that a contradiction? i'm not sure.) i feel so weird for needing to ask how this works in the first place. it seems like it should be so obvious, but maybe it's not.

Love is definitely on the list:) but it could actually be split even further, because there's love as in respect and kindness/ intimate connection ...

yes, the question was if it counts as a value. it's true that i still need to work on the precise definition, though. thank you.

the YouTube algorithm is really mean. for a few days now, it's been flushing all these clips from "me before you" my way. i think this is about the saddest movie ever. lately, i've had a lot of time to think about goodbyes, endings, and death. maybe i've grown at least a little bit wiser though, because my capacity to hold all these emotions within myself without tearing completely apart has increased a tiny bit. i've also found out that goodbyes get worse and only feel like they lack romance and splendour when you're trying to reenact all the past interactions that you feel are connected to wherever or whoever you're saying goodbye to. the past moments - the summer walks and the conversations - are past already, and there's no use cramping them all into the goodbye moments. memory itself is enough, and things are lighter if the goodbye is not too packed with heaviness. when the past is already the past anyway, but we can fleetingly look back and see it with a sense of sadness and loving appreciation. the past is the past already, it has been for years....so if anything, goodbyes are a lovely occasion to look back and see Love. ...and a bit of sadness and melancholy, still. which is sometimes tearing me apart, almost unbearably.... almost. which, i suppose, is exactly as it must be, to strike this chord of existential bitter-sweetness.