How to not let bad experiences radicalize you and make you bitter?

[integral]

It's hilarious how we have to defend ourselves against ourselves.

[UnbornTao]

19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

In the end you ain't doing shit. God runs you. And if God deems you to be bitter you will be bitter over a glass of spilled milk.

Thank God you are God and are running your self. 

 

[Schizophonia]

Being nuanced.

[cjoseph90]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That is solved by a commitment to genuine truth-seeking.

If your focus is to get your epistemology right then you will see that:

1) Negative emotions come from the ego's needs, as a form of survival, and do not lead to truthful perception of reality. Just because you are in pain doesn't make your view any more true.

2) Overgeneraliziation from a few anecdotes to entire classes of people is untruthful. The truth is that there is a huge diversity of different people in the world and no simplistic pattern of which of them are good or bad.

It is true however that long-distance relationships will almost always fail. Because if you really cared about the relationship deeply enough you would change the situation to make it short-distance.

Thanks for the reminder. Number 1 is gold!

[AION]

The key is to not identify with the feelings and thought patterns of a victim. If you make an identity through identifying with situations you becoming your false self which is based on these false patterns that are not based on love, joy, fulfillment and peace.

God's premise is that you are love, joy, fulfillment and peace and you are these because you are, no conditions or evidence is needed to mirror yourself in the image of God which is made in love, joy, fulfillment and peace.

And if you notice you do feel emotions of separation. No foul or condemnation.

Edited Sunday at 06:49 PM by AION

[Spiral Wizard]

22 hours ago, UpperMaster said:

When you get  abused by some black migrants for the 6th time, how to not become racist?

If your wife cheats on you, how do you not become bitter, and adopt harmful ideologies like redpill and blackpill? 

When you get betrayed by a friend continuously your whole life, how can you continue to trust people?

I learned how to do this.

Learn how to process your pain. Easier said than done but extraordinary simple.

Then these situations won’t contract but expand your consciousness and liberate you from keep on attracting them through subconscious self sabotaging patterns. 

Michael A. Singer’s book: The Untethered Soul is a good start. 

Edited Sunday at 07:10 PM by Spiral Wizard

[Leo Gura]

If the suffering is severe it causes trauma. So you would want to look at techniques for processing and releasing trauma. Teal Swan has a good book on that topic.

Of course psychedelics are one of the most powerful trauma-processing tools.

Edited Sunday at 07:13 PM by Leo Gura

[mmKay]

are 

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Teal Swan has a good book on that topic.

Are you talking about " The completion process" ?

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, mmKay said:

are 

Are you talking about " The completion process" ?

Probably, can't recall.

[Carl-Richard]

On 12.1.2025 at 5:14 AM, Buck Edwards said:

I disagree with what Leo said in this thread. Leo is taking the beta approach here, I will take the alpha one. His response claims that negative emotions and overgeneralization lead to untruthful perception of reality. However, negative emotions can sometimes point to very real problems. For example, if someone is feeling angry all the time, it might be a sign that they are being treated unfairly. Additionally, generalizations can sometimes be based on truth. At least partially true. If the same experience repeats, there's a pattern there either in your behavior or in the encounters and you probably need to use that as a context for your future behaviors and fine tune your future behaviors to your survival. For example, the generalization that "most dogs are friendly" is generally true, even though there are some exceptions.

Leo's response also claims that long-distance relationships will almost always fail because if you really cared about the relationship deeply enough you would change the situation to make it short-distance. However, many long-distance relationships do succeed. There are many factors that can contribute to the success of a long-distance relationship, such as good communication, trust, and a commitment to making the relationship work.

While I agree that it's important to be aware of our emotional biases, I don't think it's fair to say that negative emotions never reflect reality. Sometimes, negative emotions are a sign that something is wrong. 

There are lessons to be learned from negative experiences rather than being radicalized by them. You have to find the middle road. Part of the negative experience can make you bitter and you have to avoid becoming bitter but at the same time you shouldn't lose wisdom and you should take the lessons you learned seriously and not allow such experiences to be repeated in your life, the experiences themselves are teaching you how to protect yourself from their outcome in the future. This is the alpha mindset. 

It's great that you're reflecting on these issues and seeking to understand how to avoid negative patterns of thinking. 

Now coming to the OP's main context —

It's completely valid to feel hurt or betrayed after negative experiences. Acknowledging your feelings is the first step in processing them without letting them define your worldview.

Seek understanding, not generalization.  Individual experiences do not represent entire groups of people. Just because you've had negative encounters with certain individuals doesn't mean that everyone from that group will behave the same way. Try to focus on people as individuals rather than making broad generalizations.

1. Learning from these experiences —Instead of allowing negative experiences to breed bitterness, try to extract lessons from them. What can you learn about boundaries, trust, or communication? This can help you grow rather than become resentful. Leo doesn't talk about this very often. 

Here I would state Andrew Tate (although I don't like him at all) but his alpha mindset is sometimes true, though riddled with some epistemic biases. 

Andrew Tate video. I agree with Tate in this clip. 

2. Surrounding yourself with positive Influences. Engage with people who have a balanced and positive outlook on life. This can help counteract negative narratives and provide a more nuanced perspective on relationships and trust.

3. Practice empathy — Understand that everyone has their struggles and experiences that shape their behavior. Practicing empathy can help you maintain a compassionate view of others, even when you've been hurt.

4. Focus on personal growth — invest time in self-improvement and personal development. This can include therapy, reading, or engaging in activities that promote emotional resilience. Building a strong sense of self can help you navigate challenges without becoming bitter.

5. Challenge negative thoughts — When you find yourself thinking in absolutes (e.g., "all relationships end in betrayal"), challenge those thoughts. Look for evidence that contradicts them, such as your own experiences or those of people you respect. Also not everyone is going to have the same experience. 

6. Set healthy boundaries — this is the most important of all. This is exactly what I learned from my own negative experiences and by far this is the exact thing that has helped me the most or I would have landed in a psych ward by now dealing with chaotic situations and unnecessary drama with other people bringing their problems in my life. It's okay to protect yourself from potential harm by setting boundaries in relationships. This doesn't mean you have to close yourself off from others, but rather that you can be discerning about who you let into your life.

7.Stay open-minded — Life is full of diverse experiences. Keeping an open mind can help you appreciate the complexity of human behavior and relationships, reducing the likelihood of falling into radicalized thinking.

By actively working on these areas, you can cultivate a mindset that is resilient and open, allowing you to navigate life's challenges without becoming bitter or radicalized.

Side note — this thread was/is personally important to me. I learned a lot from my bad experiences without being too bitter. Thank you. 

Next time, please make clear when you use ChatGPT to create a response.

[Carl-Richard]

13 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

You assume the only option here is being at the effect of circumstances, whereas in actuality you are the one responsible for your thinking and actions. You yourself get radicalized and bitter; external events might contribute or trigger certain reactions within you but they can't do it for you.

Does this apply to those people in wheelchairs with severe intellectual disabilities who can't speak or move and need to be taken care of constantly?

Edited Monday at 05:39 AM by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

13 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not doesn't change that it is true and has always been.

Speaking of hypotheticals, you can not get robbed, abused, etc. You can take action to prevent that. Even if it occurs, you can trace back the actions that you took preceding the event that led to that "unfortunate" end.

That sounds just as much of a cope as the victim mindset.

One can cope with "im in control of everything and all situations" , when in reality you are not, and there are situations in reality where you cant do anything and where none of your actions will change the outcome.

Its a cope, because you want to tell yourself a comforting story that you can always control things and that you are always in control and you can forget the hard unfomfortable truth that there are certain things and events you have no control over.

Accepting that one has no control over certain things is partly what maturity is about.

Edited Monday at 07:25 AM by zurew

[AION]

Most cutting edge stuff on this topic is from Joe Dispenza. His latest book is crazy.

[NoSelfSelf]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Does this apply to those people in wheelchairs with severe intellectual disabilities who can't speak or move and need to be taken care of constantly?

Moving the goalpost i guess does it apply to those in coma ofcourse not.

But even in wheelchair its your choice how you gonna react to it,you are limited but yet can live around it...

 

[Leo Gura]

Does this apply to kangaroos?

Always the key question.

Edited Monday at 09:14 AM by Leo Gura

[NoSelfSelf]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Does this apply to kangaroos?

Always the key question.

Now mainstream surface level black pill makes sense to me...

[cjoseph90]

@AION What book are you referring to by Dr.Joe Dispensa?

[UnbornTao]

15 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Does this apply to those people in wheelchairs with severe intellectual disabilities who can't speak or move and need to be taken care of constantly?

The condition is one thing; your relationship to it, another. Also, a lot of baggage might get conflated with the "condition," even though it isn't inherently part of it. By the way, I'm not suggesting that this is easy, or common, or that it can be accomplished through wishful thinking. In fact, chances are you'll simply feel victimized, which can be valid at times. But again, recognize your role in the situation and take ownership of it.

Regarding the example you brought up, I'm not saying that responsibility means doing everything yourself, or that help isn't necessary.

Being responsible for one's life and experience, as a principle, isn't dictated by external conditions. Obviously, without legs, you probably won't be able to run a marathon — though, even in that case, you could get implants or take part in a Paralympic-style marathon, or some such. The point is that how you view life and yourself is a subjective overlay on what actually happened, including adopting the martyr's role. It's like a playwright who creates a play while casting themselves as the victim of it. You can observe how people do this in less severe cases, and notice that it's an active process. Three-legged dogs seem totally unaffected by it. Why is that?

Edited Monday at 08:46 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

17 hours ago, zurew said:

That sounds just as much of a cope as the victim mindset.

One can cope with "im in control of everything and all situations" , when in reality you are not, and there are situations in reality where you cant do anything and where none of your actions will change the outcome.

Its a cope, because you want to tell yourself a comforting story that you can always control things and that you are always in control and you can forget the hard unfomfortable truth that there are certain things and events you have no control over.

Accepting that one has no control over certain things is partly what maturity is about.

The principle isn't about control -- it's more profound than that. Refer to my response to Carl above for something more. 

What occurred, the facts, are most often conflated with conceptual addons relative to it -- story, meaning, charge, association, etc. 

Again, two people might suffer the same condition or experience yet react to it in totally different ways. Some people become lifelong therapy clients while others seem to go about just fine, pretty much undisturbed by it. I'm not explaining this very well. 

Moreover, if we consider that we create our selves, wouldn't we also be generating our suffering?

Quote

Responsibility is not the same as fault. Responsibility means being willing to stand for the result of something, regardless of how it came about.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:28 AM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

I bet you could find things to be bitter about -- or any emotional state and disposition for that matter -- in your life right now and in your past story, yet you are not. How come?

Edited 16 hours ago by UnbornTao