Matt23

A technique that has been working well for me recently (sometimes wonders actually) is similar to internal-family system's therapy. Basically, you close your eyes (not necessary perhaps though), and use your body sensations and feelings combined with your imagination and thinking to investigate your inner world. For example: I sometimes have these feelings in my body which I am unsure of what they are. So I'll sit, close my eyes, focus on the feeling, and then can work with it several ways. Ask it questions, like "what are you?", "what is your burden?", "is there anything you want or need from me?", etc., and it will often give responses and you can have conversations with it. ... By this point an image representing the feeling has come to mind. Usually an image that resembles what the feeling is about (could be a person or an object, and it can change and move around, etc.). You can also try to bring to mind different aspects of yourself. Like bringing to mind your judgmental self, and perhaps seeing an image of that self in your minds eye. Then you can have the same dialogues with it and try to empathize, understand and help it along like an understanding parent or guide. For me, I've noticed that aspects of myself interact with other aspects. And sometimes they can have big conflicts and misunderstandings between them. So I can sometimes bring two (or even more, though I've not done too much of this one) together to try and facilitate understanding between the two. Get them seeing each others' POV and stuff. Also, you have a Self (or conscious-leader self), which is the conscious one you want to be when interacting with your aspects. Though, other, hidden aspects of yourself can invisibly hijack or project themselves from behind when you are interacting with an aspect in front (I can see how this might be difficult to imagine, especially communicating through words is a bit difficult). ex: I'll be consciously trying to understand or talk to an aspect of myself in front of me, meaning I am visualizing it in front of me (you can also open your eyes and imagine the aspect in front of you or use dolls and objects as projection grounds). Then, I'll notice maybe a feeling that I'm judging, or saying something negative, or that something isn't quite "right" or healthy in how I'm interacting with the aspect. I'll then realize that there's another hidden aspect of myself which I'm not seeing coming through. I can then... Ask all aspects to politely step aside for a moment, reassuring them that it's safe and ok. or, I can bring that new aspect out and contemplate what it's all about and try to understand it and why it's doing what it's doing. keep in mind that all aspects are there for a reason, even though they may be harmful. They may have protected you at one point, but are now not the best way to handle things. It's just like dealing with human relationships; a big part of "fixing" them is simply understanding them, giving them love, reassuring them, and even challenging and questioning the beliefs they operate under. But it seems that It's a lot about understanding, empathizing, and compassion.

I accidently reposted

The actor Richard Dreyfus claims he has bipolar. He's talked about how he takes lithium and that it works quite well for him. Whether it placebo or not, to me, doesn't really matter, so long as the benefits for him outweigh the negatives. I'm not saying individual cases don't get benefits from medications. But I question a generalized, statistical and broad view of medications (and the pharmaceutical industry) which says the benefits outweigh the drawbacks (again, for most people, most of the time). Here's an interesting piece (the first section of it) about how the mice we test drugs on are genetically different then wild mice. Basic story here... Use animals for testing = animals must be relatively close genetically to humans Lab mice = genetically different than wild results from lab mice = drugs not as harmful as they actually are to humans Bret Weinstein is a decently famous evolutionary biologist and professor. He's got a podcast called the Dark Horse podcast. ... To be fair, I haven't looked at much evidence on the other side of the argument. I've been researching more on the anti-pharma side of things. So, I've got that bias probably. But ya... just seems like some pretty credible people are advising that pharmaceuticals can be more damaging than helpful for most people, most of the time.

I can see the wisdom in that and can understand it intellectually. But I've been feeling this vague urge/force I've not noticed before in my life which seems to fall into the realm of: action, doing stuff, making money, power perhaps even, having more experiences, ... having more independence, more things for myself that I own, more... self-reliance for sure... Seems like something I need to explore and be. It's like a budding sense of self-autonomy/reliance and a sense of action leading a firm self-sense/assurance from acting and doing and interacting with the world more. I dunno... it's not exactly clear... but it seems to be wanting something like those things. like I want to get into it (life)... I want to experience it... get messy... just had the image of Arnold as Conan smiling a berserker-fueled smile, savagely eating some meat or something. haha. ... Covid & lacking social interaction may be contributing to it as well

Might not fall into your definition of "healthy" haha Red verging on the psychopathic rather that just plain ol' Red...?

I started a Uni degree last year when I was 27. I see it like "Ok, might as well build up me resume to move me in the general direction I want to go in." Cons Don't spend as much time developing skills, knowledge, and creativity. Don't explore other options outside of Uni as much Might pick up some dogma Pros Gives you a piece of paper that might open up doors in the future Allows some exploration of subjects puts you in contact with people who might have similar interests - future collaborations/businesses together

Yeah, definitely a bully defense.

What keeps you staying? More positive motivations ("I love my wife and kids", "I want to stay", etc.), or more negative motivations ("I'm scared people will hate me if I leave", "I feel I'll be a bad person if I leave", "I'm scared of being ostracized", "I'm scared of hurting them", etc.). What does your heart say?

I just finished reading a book on trauma called "The Body Keeps the Score", but Bessel van der Kolk (a psychiatrist who's been working with trauma victims for ages, though he now uses many alternative techniques and isn't so keen on pharmaceuticals anymore and bashes that industry a bit). In the book, one claim he makes from his personal experience is that much, if not most, mental health issues results from trauma (of one kind or another; from shock traumas to developmental traumas, etc.), and that medications tend to work best for people with mental health issues who have a history of early childhood trauma and abuse (physical and mental/emotional abuse/neglect) rather than traumas that took place later on in life. He also talks about how talk therapy tends to not really work for people with early childhood trauma compared to people who've been traumatized later in life ("later" could mean even early teen years or later childhood years...can't exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure) since they don't have any initial or fundamental feelings of security, safety, and warmth in which they can re-create and remember. This is where he tends to think giving these patients medications may be helpful (though not necessary). He gives several alternatives to medications that can really help people with earlier childhood traumas (EMDR, Neurofeedback, Yoga, Pesso-Boyden psychomotor therapy, and more [I think]). He definitely doesn't advocate strongly for pharmaceuticals, but says in some instances it can help smooth things over.

Here's a documentary relating to the topic as well. Centered on the recent Jordan Peterson psychiatric (benzodiazepine) breakdown. Robert's work is featured here as well.

You might be interested in Robert Whitaker's work. He's a journalist who's studied the pharmaceutical industry for something like 30 or 40 years. He wrote a book called Mad In America Here's a summation: The history told in Mad in America will surprise many readers. In its review of the scientific literature, the book reveals that long-term outcome studies of antipsychotics regularly showed that the drugs increased the likelihood that people diagnosed with schizophrenia would become chronically ill. The book also investigates the marketing of the new atypical antipsychotic medications in the 1990s, and uncovers the scientific fraud at the heart of that enterprise. He's got a website too where he's got articles, studies, and summaries of various mental conditions and treatments, along with their effectiveness. https://www.madinamerica.com/author/rwhitaker/

@SirVladimir How much would you recommend the book, as opposed to only learning from videos n stuff? How much more depth did you get from reading the book? Is there that much more knowledge and understanding to be gained there? Cheers.

Personal journey & Personal contribution synergy The worries of not having talent you seem to express look like they also fit the struggle you want to help others with. To me, helping people with struggles you've personally gone through and find meaning in is a key or great way to passion and impacting the world. It also lends more credibility and mastery in helping others with that issue. What are the other things you're interested in? can you experiment and, yes, "dabble" (evil word ), with these without investing too much in them to get a better feel for what you want? I would hesitate to say that experimenting with different LPs is a waste of time (I dunno if that's what you think or not). The "Buffet" analogy might be good here: If you only ate Greek salad and shrimp at the buffet, you'd never taste steak and discover that steak is actually your favorite food of all time. ... Use theory and contemplation to get a general felt-sense (intuition, heart, passion, excitement) of what you want. Go out, do it and experiment with it for a while. See if it fits (some things may take longer to suss out if it's a good fit or not). Realize there will be drudgery, even in your true passions. Have FUN with it! Enjoy the journey

It also seems like the scientific paradigm uses the argument that "Since we can think and self-reflect, that means we have consciousness.", as opposed to, say, animals. But it seems obvious that animals have consciousness and experience things, even though they might not have thoughts. I never really understood that argument or way of seeing consciousness as synonymous with thinking, since thinking is an experience or activity within consciousness/awareness. Even I've had moments without thinking, but there was plenty of other stuff to be conscious of. Or am I misunderstanding the argument?

Hey. I'm realizing I have still yet to really transcend Red... or maybe I simply haven't integrated it well. Either way, I'd really like some recommendations to help me integrate Red more. Any Red resources, videos, people to study, tips, techniques, things/values/skills to work on, etc.? cheers

@Villager Albert Yeah, I've listened to some of his stuff. I dunno about some of his teachings, I but do enjoy his overall vibe; good mix of humor, lightheartedness, kindness, and depth.

A bit about HAwking I recently read. May be a little off-topic. Just read a bit about Hawking, his childhood and adult life. Seemed like he may have been emotionally neglected in the household he grew up in, and that this probably affected his adult life (along with the ALS; though, the book I'm reading [When the Body Says No by Gabor MAte] suggests that the ALS may have made him more assertive and allowed him to develop his cognitive skills and theories more than other scientists and thinkers since he was sort of excused from regular manual work).

Healthy Red... defending a victim against bullies... Unhealthy Red... maybe a bit excessive

I get the feeling there's Red in here somewhere... Though, I feel solid Red would've just blown him apart at the get-go without stopping to call the niece. "Shoot first, ask questions later."

"Looking at what the leaders of these industries and platforms are doing should tell you something; non of them let their kids onto these platforms. Platforms they themselves helped to create." -paraphrasing

I wonder how much these things can be actually, in reality, 100% be made distinct from each other and not "bleed" and fluidly mix into each other. Our minds seem to be more able to create clear distinctions between things, but is that merely in our own minds (i.e., conceptually) and not actually reality? Or, is mind/concept no different from reality? Thus making clear distinctions a feature or possibility within reality? ex: A rainbow (substitute the different colors in a rainbow for the different models of development, or any other thing you can think of). You can see it and see (or make/project) clear distinctions between the different colors. But, looking closer, you can see that there's actually no line which divides the colors. It's a seamless and fluid transition from one to the other, without separation. Distinct without separation paradox. "Same same, but different." Perhaps this is the same with these models discussed here (and probably many other things in life relating to the mind/concept-reality relationship).

I think I forgot to mention a key piece of the book: the/a key to overcoming trauma isn't in reliving or remembering the past (this can actually re-traumatize people), it's in being able to deal with the painful feelings and sensations you have (in your body) in the present, as well as creating and re-establishing positive feelings and sensations that may be "lost".

Interesting.