The Joy Journal

[soos_mite_ah]

Something I'm Trying to Integrate

 

I feel so blessed to have found this source. It applies PERFECTLY with the shadow work, confidence development, and social anxiety issues I'm working through. I found him after I posted a question with what I'm currently working on and someone recommended me to him. I think the concepts presented in his channel is a good way of developing self worth without building up the ego. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Cravings: My Journey with Food

I have been trying to eat healthier in general for the last couple of years now. A couple years ago, I had a really chaotic life. I always used food as a way to cope with my feelings but during this time I went pretty overboard. When I got to college I didn't feel like myself. I certainly didn't feel good in my body both in terms of looks but also in terms of health. Since then I have been trying to fix up my diet. I wasn't trying to do some type of crash lifestyle change and go from there. I was trying to do things gradually. 

Phase 1 (September to December 2018): Firstly, I stopped using food as a coping mechanism. Instead of eating more, I tried to journal and talk to people in regards to what was going on in my life. That helped me immensely when it came to food. I also started unpacking my issues around eating whether it is bingeing and purging, bad body image issues, etc. I didn't alter my diet all that much but I addressed a lot of inner blockages in therapy during this time.  I was also dealing with other stuff in regards to self development such as trauma and adjusting to college so this wasn't my biggest priority at this time. 

Phase 2 (January to September 2019): Next, after I got my portion sizes under control, I began evaluating what I was eating. I realized that I was eating like trash. I also tried doing intermittent fasting during this time as well. Doing the one meal a day diet helped me evaluate my choices because I was only eating once a day meaning I got to see all of the food I was eating for that day at once. It was an eye opener for me because my choices were laid out in front of me. So during this time I tried to incorporate  more healthy options and also control my hunger so that I'm not craving food 24/7. I also got rid of like 70% of my cravings this way. I tried not to go down the route of restricting but I simply redirected myself to other choices. Eventually, after not eating things like fries, pizza, and chips for a while, I stopped craving them and I stopped having a taste for them.

Around this time I also found out that I'm lactose intolerant. I didn't know this at all until i found the statistics for lactose intolerance and the populations it effects. I then became more mindful of dairy products and how they make me feel. I noticed that I can have things like yogurt and cheese in small amounts but if I try to have a whole glass of milk or more than 1 scoop of ice cream, I just get a mild stomach ache. I would get these aches before but I thought it was normal so I never questioned it. This is also the same with really greasy and oily foods. I don't get a stomach ache but I do notice myself feeling sluggish and blah (for a lack of a better word). I just stopped and it wasn't difficult for me to do so because I was genuinely trying to do things that made me feel better.

Phase 3 (September 2019 to February 2020) : Then I ran into some problems. Intermittent fasting made me restrict my calories too much. It wasn't intentional but it was a side effect. I felt full and satisfied throughout the day and I didn't know that this was becoming a problem until my period stopped arriving. I looked it up and I found out that this can happen to some people who do intermittent fasting. I also found myself slowly drifting towards an unhealthy mindset with eating. I liked that "morning skinny" feeling I had after waking up and not eating for most of the day. I felt this need to restrict more and more. I have been down this path before and I know the consequences so I reevaluated my course of action and started eating 2 meals a day, just lunch and dinner. I have made the observation on this journey that I don't really react well to breakfast so I don't force myself to eat anymore though occasionally when I feel like it, i don't stop myself.  I also tried to go back being mindful of how different foods make my body feel in different ways. I noticed that I also don't react well with a lot of grains in my diet so like most breads and rice. They fill me up and make me bloated to where I don't want to eat at all for the rest of the day. So I have been cutting down on that. I didn't completely eliminate bread from my diet but I keep enough there so that I don't go in the opposite directions and start eating 24/7. 

Phase 4 (March to August 2020): And then the lock downs happened. I had to move back home and my food habits changed yet again. I started restricting my food more and started being more self conscious when it came to my body image because of my family's influence. I slipped into some of my old unhealthy mindsets. Thankfully, during this time I learned about intuitive eating. One of the main takeaways I got is that the more you restrict something, the more you crave it because when you restrict, there is this understanding of scarcity when it come to food and as a result you eat everything in sight because your cave man brain thinks it will never eat again. Say you're trying to get rid of a chocolate craving. If you keep restricting and tell yourself I CAN'T EAT CHOCOLATE  you're going to crave it more since you're still thinking about it (there are also elements of law of attraction here at play). Then when you are presented with chocolate you binge it because you subconsciously think you aren't ever going to see it again because of the scarcity mindset.

The solution to get rid of cravings is counter intuitive. Instead of restricting, you allow it. By allowing something over time the food in question loses its novelty, its specialness, and its element of being a "guilty pleasure." I decided to try this out. The two cravings I have been trying to get rid of this entire time was cheese and chocolate. So I stopped restricting those foods from myself. I let myself eat as much cheese and chocolate for the last few months. At first I was eating a lot of it but then eventually I got tired of these foods. I also did this with any other cravings I had that I would previously suppressed.  The same thing happened. I stopped craving things. But more importantly, I stopped beating myself up for my food choices and the way my body looks. Apparently this can also work with people who have "food addictions" even if you are extremely over weight. Basically, after you completely exhaust your cravings, you stop craving them and consequently your body returns back to its normal state. 

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Now I'm at a place where I have achieved a lot of my food related goals. Healthy eating isn't much of a problem for me. I eat decent portion sizes. I have an understanding of what feels good for me personally (fried foods and dairy occasionally, certain types of grains such as tortillas over rice, and meat like once a day). I don't crave anything  on a regular basis. Not fast food, not anything sweet or greasy, AND ALSO NOT CHEESE OR CHOCOLATE. I'm also really excited for the last part because I swear I have been dealing with a cheese and chocolate addiction forever. I also look and feel like I did before my life went to shit 2 years ago. I feel like myself again and I'm so grateful for that. 

I feel like because I didn't put this on a time frame (like YOU NEED TO START EATING HEALTHY 24/7 FOR THE NEXT 28 DAYS TO ESTABLISH A HABIT) this became something that comes naturally and something that I genuinely want to do rather than a fad. It became more of a lifestyle rather than a habit. I also learned about a lot on how we can get into habits and routines by slowly seeing how this plays out but that's a whole nother post. But yeah.. that is my food journey for the last 2 years. It took me longer than what I expected and there was a lot of trial and error but I'm here now and I'm so proud of myself. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Adult Brain, Childhood Feelings 

I went to therapy last Thursday and I was discussing somethings I have been working on in regards to childhood. There was a memory that was brought up and I had a few tears rolling down my cheeks. 

After the session, I had a number of similar moments. I would remember something that happened to me in childhood and then shed a few tears. A lot of these events related to how I was bullied as a kid. I look back with my adult brain and coping mechanism and say *that is such a tiny problem, why is it bothering me?* My inner child on the other hand is reminded of the pain. It's difficult to explain so let me give an example. 

When I was 8 years old, the kids in my class didn't like me. Someone in my class made up this rumor that I was adopted. I look back now and I think *that literally makes no sense I look too much like my mom to be adopted.* But looking back I remember how much that hurt. I remember feeling so much pain when the kids in my school would taunt me and say things like "see you're so unwanted that your parents didn't even want you." I still carry this feeling of never being good enough and being inherently unlovable. I catch myself crying for a couple minutes not because it hurts right now (like if something like that happened to me at this age, I could easily brush it off) but because I can still emotionally connect back to my 8 year old self. 

I have numerous memories like this. Things that seem innocuous, silly, and not a big deal now but were extremely painful at the time when I experienced this as a child. Most of the time, I don't know what to tell my inner child. I want to say, "don't worry they were insecure" or "just ignore them." But I distinctly remember the adults around me telling me the exact same thing along with "oh they're just jealous."   And I remember not feeling better. 8 year old me didn't know how insecurities could be projected out to hurt people. 8 year old me didn't know how jealousy could cause someone to be bitter towards another person. I also remember this one time where I tried to confront a bully about being jealous because that's what my mom kept telling me and that didn't work. Looking back I'm just like *ok even if that kid was acting out of insecurity, that kid doesn't know it because 8 year olds aren't nearly that self aware* I remember trying to ignore people who were hurting me. That didn't do anything except make me feel lonely and helpless. And then the adults told me to just "tell the teacher" and that just did nothing but make me look weak and made my peers hate me even more. 

I guess I would teach my inner child how to fight back and stand up for herself. But the problem is that as an adult, i still don't know how to do that. Whenever something comes up, I just ignore it and move on. I don't fight, I run away from people that are trying to hurt me. I'm still not good at asserting myself. I want to heal this child and make her feel better but i haven't learned any of the skills as an adult. I just want her to know that she is loved, she is wanted, and her words, thoughts, and feelings matter. And I want her to act and move through the world that way as well. 

[soos_mite_ah]

9 Stages of Ego Development: Reflections

I watched and re-watched Leo's video on the 9 stages of ego development a couple times now. I also read most of the paper that the video was based off of. I saw various things resonating with me across all 9 stages. Because of that I was a little confused as to where I fell in the stages as far as my personal ego goes.

It was especially confusing because I saw myself moving to and from different stages as I grew up from when I was a child. I began mixing up where I was now and where I was then. So I looked through the paper, and highlighted everything that I resonate with at this moment in time to differentiate between where I am now and where I was when I was growing up so that I can have a clearer idea. After this I realized that I'm mainly the Pluralist and the Strategist with a little bit of the achiever mixed in there. 

But I did notice that I have various hang ups from the previous stages. Here are some quotes from the paper that I copied and pasted as well as how it applies to me:

Opportunist/ Self-protective (2/3)

• "They focus on protecting themselves and not becoming a target of others’ aggression. It is ironic that individuals at this level are rarely seen. They are invisible because hiding is a common and sometimes temporarily successful way of dealing with their vulnerability to being bullied, abused and exploited (p.25)."
  • I found this to be a better description for me personally because I didn't relate to the aggression typically associated with the opportunist. Leo talks about that side of 2/3 but doesn't touch on the self-protective side of it. I find myself relating to the self-protective side of 2/3 because of my anxiety issues and the issues I had with bullying and abuse growing up. Often times during my shadow work, I do access this lower state of consciousness and I wish that I could just disappear from society because of my vulnerability. Some times I wish to be invisible because I don't feel like I deserve to take up space. 

Conformist (3)

• "They become preoccupied with finding out the social conventions and rules based on the beginning need to fit in and to be liked. One wants to look “right,” and acceptable, therefore the emphasis is on external attractiveness and appearance (28)."
  • I did go through a phase where I tried to be really keen on social etiquette mainly because I saw myself as this awkward dork who no one liked. I will say that a part of me is still in this phase since I tend to be judgmental over socially awkward people. I still feel that my social skills aren't up to par even thought that is rarely a sentiment that people who see me on the outside have. 
• "Persons want to be “re-spected” which means, “seen” by others (28)."
  • Even though I want to disappear, ultimately I want to be recognized. The notion that I want to disappear comes from being repeatedly ignored and disrespected by people causing me to cope in this way. It irks me when people straight up ignore me or when I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Ignoring me is probably the worst thing someone can do. It can send me into a self-loathing spiral. 
• "To be liked one has to have an attractive social personality. It is important to be nice, pleasant, and accommodating. People are judged by the way they dress and talk and by the proper manners (32)."
  • Goes back to what I said about the first bullet point in this section.
• Not integrating this stage can yield to feeling like a loner, feeling left out (this came from the leo's video series in part 1) 
  • Normally I feel comfortable alone but when I'm dong shadow work and when I'm cleaning up the cob webs of my mind, feelings of loneliness does come up. I really wish I could find my own people. Some times I do think that there is something wrong with me because I can't find my tribe. 

Expert (3/4)

• "Experts are concerned with fulfilling their adult responsibilities and duties and with doing things right. They are very adept at finding new and different solutions, better ideas, more perfect procedures, and greater efficiencies and doing things well. If managed skillfully, their positive contributions can be considerable."
  • For me I think this has to do with the fact that I'm in college and in my 20s. I'm currently trying to figure out how to adult and get a career so that I can become financially free after school and so that I don't have to be dependent on my parents.  Unlike the issues I have in the previous stages, I think this piece has more to do with the circumstances of my life rather than some type of trauma. 
• Not knowing is seen as weak (video pt.1) 
  • Lately I have been experiencing some symptoms of impostor syndrome. I have been dealing with this in college but it has been more noticeable in the last couple weeks. I'm in a competitive environment at this moment and I feel like if I make one misstep, my teacher and my classmates are going to rip me to shreds. 

I'm currently working on and integrating these holes that I have in the earlier stages of ego development so that I can get to the point where I can transcend them. You have to have a healthy ego before you transcend the ego after all. I do however find it interesting that a lot of my shadow work and a lot of the things I'm working on in therapy already has to do with these things. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Cook-Greuter 9 levels of ego development theory.pdf

[soos_mite_ah]

CHUG THE SELF-LOVE JUICE 

Lately I haven't been posting much. I have been really stressed with school and life in general. Whenever I catch myself feeling like absolute trash I write down what I'm feeling, walk away to take care of myself, and then critique what I wrote by hyping myself up and giving myself advice. I also stress eat a lot and I finished an entire packet of brownie brittle in one sitting but this isnt about that (but it was nice not gonna lie). I like to imagine myself as my own best friend and as my own therapist. It makes me feel really self assured, helps me give myself some distance and objectivity over a situation, and helps me learn better because the lessons actually sink in as I write and speak to myself positively. So here it is. I present to yall my most recent breakdown. The red is me during my emotional outburst and the commentary under it is how I'm choosing to deal with it. 

I literally haven’t slept last night because I have been freaking out about what I'm going to do with my life after college.

First of all, we’re already on a bad start. You’re running on sleep deprivation and anxiety. Because of that your thoughts aren’t going to be the best reflection of reality. Take a nap, eat something, shower, and then we’ll talk.

Like I'm not impressive in any way. I'm not going to an amazing school.

Ok your mom literally conditioned you to think that any school that isn’t an ivy isn’t worth going to at a young age. Like literally after your first day of preschool she asked you what college you want to go to and then made you choose between Harvard and MIT even though at that age you didn’t know what either of those places were and you pronounced MIT as mitt (like as in oven mitt). I’m glad that even from a young age you didn’t internalize the desire to get into an ivy league college and were willing to challenge that as you got older by applying to places like NYU but you still carry the internalized belief that unless you go to an elite school, you’re going to end up homeless. This also has to do with the political/ economic structure you grew up in, namely post 2008, which gave you the impression that if you don’t graduate from an ivy with a STEM degree you’re doomed to be working as a coffee barista reading Buzzfeed articles for the rest of your life. Also the fact that you're in a pandemic with the most incompetent people in power doesn’t help. Understand that this isn’t you, it’s internalized capitalism, but at the same time don’t let this be a limiting belief.  You can still go after what you want. Perfectionism is only holding you back.

 And I know that the way you’re acting isn’t typical for you but your true colors and internalized beliefs slip out when you’re stressed and insecure and to that I will say, a college degree is a college degree. You’ve got to stop with this inferiority complex because even though you have been wronged by your strict Asian parents in the past, when you talk like this you sound elitist, pretentious, and entitled as fuck. Stop for the sake of everyone but especially for your own sake because this isn’t great for your self-esteem. Like girl it’s not a good look. I see you breaking out. Chug that self-love juice and have some school spirit because your college is a decent school.

My gpa is mediocre to say the least.

Ok and you can raise your GPA. You’ll be fine. Sure you’re going to have to work hard and not get sleep but if you beat yourself up along this journey, it’s going to take longer and you’re going to be more exhausted. Chug the self-love juice.

I didn’t get a chance to study abroad and get an internship because I was hit with a health issues during the summer after my freshman year and a pandemic during the summer after my sophomore year which cancelled all of my plans.

In regards to health issues, you did what you needed to do. If you pushed through that, chances are the shit that you were dealing with would have extended on for a while. You handled that situation to the best of your ability given the information and the coping mechanisms you had at the time. In regards to the gap on your resume for 2020, I’m sure employers will understand. This was literally global and everyone had to deal with it. And it’s not like you didn’t have plans and you were intending on bumming out for the summer (which you didn’t at all). You had it in the bag and you did what was in your power. I understand that you want to take responsibility for this situation and take control but you need to understand that beating yourself up and putting yourself in a place of shame isn’t going to help you to respond in this situation. Be gentle with yourself. This is the third time I’m saying this and I’m probably going to keep saying this but. CHUG. THE. SELF-LOVE. JUICE.  

Also there is a pandemic happening. There are bigger things happening in the world other than your cancelled trip to Japan and lack of work experience. I understand it hurts and it’s ok to feel that way. This is a difficult time for everyone. But also, keep things into perspective or you’ll end up sounding like the Kim Kardashian crying, diamond earring meme.

And just when I was feeling better about life, i had to move back in with my parents. I'm turning 21 in about a month but I honestly feel like I'm 13 again because I back in my home town, because of the way my parents treat me, and because I'm trapped at home all the time.

That’s normal. It’s normal to feel like you’re childhood self when you’re back to familiar surroundings. It takes most people a while to fully get over that. Also its ok that adulthood feels like a shock to you and that you essentially still feel like a child in some aspects. Think about it this way. You’re always changing as a person. You’re definitely not the same person you were when you were 10 because you’ve grown since then. But you can’t exactly pinpoint where you stopped being your old self and you started being who you are today because the changes were gradual and continuous. That’s why you feel as if you’re still your 13 year old self but I assure you that you are an adult and you can cope with this. 13 year old you wouldn’t be able to hold this down like you are right now. She couldn’t even order at a Chick fil A without turning into an emo, socially awkward, anxious mess. Also she had a lot of internalized misogyny, was in her “im not like other girls” phase, her peak for humor was the 2012 moustache trend and the only adjective she knew how to use was epic. Trust me, you’ve grown since then. You aren’t your old 13 year old self even though you circumstances now may have similarities with that.   

And I get that you get nostalgic over the things from 2008-2012. I see you listening to Kesha more and more while you work out. But keep in mind that nostalgia is deceptive and paints things in rose toned glasses. It easy to look back at your childhood and think it was super easy when really it wasn’t and the only reason why you think that is because now you have the coping mechanisms to deal with the problems you had back then. It’s like math. You look back at the algebra you were working on in the 6th grade and you’re like “wow that was so easy, why was I tripping over 5x+2=12?” when really it feels easy for you now because you know what you are doing but when you were learning it for the first time, you were pressed af.  Same thing with life lessons. You look back now and you’re like “why was I tripping over this trifling ass bitch” but at that age, you were struggling to figure this stuff out because you had a lack of life experiences. Which is why it doesn’t make sense for parents to yell at you for being incompetent because you’re literally just learning. That’s a whole nother subject but you really shouldn’t do that to yourself either.

Also, I understand the fuzzy feelings that comes with nostalgia, but do you really want to go back to this……

Granted we have our own cringy trends in this decade. Like we’re defiantly going to look back at tik tok and cringe at half of this shit. But as far as YOLO and Swag goes, it couldn’t be me lol.

And speaking about pandemics, I don't even want to think about the depression (both economic and emotional that is coming towards me. I'm also reevaluating whether or not i even want to continue with my major and I think I'm essentially wasting my life.

It’s ok to question or even change your major. But don’t just do that, because you think it’s hard. I see that you derive pleasure from seeing how smart you are by choosing subjects that you’re good at (or think you’re good at) and by just saying you’re a finance major. Obviously this isn’t the only reason why I’m majoring in finance but like let me be honest with myself. Also you can do more things with a business degree than wasting your life away in a high paying corporate job that works you to the bone. Not every work environment is like. You’re just surrounded a bunch of really competitive people who, despite having the confidence to assert themselves, they don’t have self-respect to set boundaries and are willing to sell their souls to an abusive boss. They use Linked In like it’s an actual social media site, and they are definitely doing to have a mid-life crisis at 35 when they realize they hate their spouse  and kids or that have no time for them because they were living their lives as if they were in the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah there is something to learn from them, namely networking and knowing to assert yourself but just know that the environment you’re in isn’t reflective of everywhere in society. And remember what your professor told you. You may feel like an outcast in corporate America because you want to make friends and be creative but just know that there is a place for you and that even if people aren’t the same as you or that people hate you, know that what you have to offer is valuable. You are a liberal woman of color with creativity, empathy, and an understanding of how not to take advantage of consumers and workers. Corporate America might resist that, but honey, you are its future. The trends and the political environment is pointing towards that. Don’t forget that. You got this.  Also you’re not going to depressed. I’m not going to let yourself go there. Because I’m going to make sure that you chug that self-love juice.

Like the fact that I need to get out and fully support myself and get a job that requires actual skills which I'm pretty sure I don't have scares the shit out of me.

And it’s ok. We don’t pop out of the womb knowing how to do, well anything. Yes, you’re dealing with a learning curve, but you’re still here to learn and you’re doing what you need to be doing. It will get better. We established this previously. It seems hard now, but it will seem obvious in the future. In fact, future you is probably looking back now at this moment in her memories wondering why you were tripping.

I honestly dont think I'm going to amount to anything and I don't believe that I have anything that I can offer to anyone tbh both on a career but also on a social level.

We established this previously. You are worth it and everything is going to be ok. You have a lot to offer. You may not be in the right place where you feel that and are conscious of it, but it’s still there whether you acknowledge it or not. And it will always be there. Similar to your GPA, you can improve your career. You can make moves. You can do something about this. It’s not like you have a baby now or you have a criminal record, neither of which you can just yeet out of your life. Sure things haven’t been the best in the last couple years, but you can turn things around. It may be hard, it may require a lot of effort, but things like this are reversible. It’s going to be ok. You may feel dumb af now, but remember, you’re here on scholarship. You have work ethic. You don’t even procrastinate anymore. This is how you feel now, but there is evidence against it. The facts conflict with your feelings so get it together and get back into reality. We don’t have the time to be self-loathing. CHUG THE SELF-LOVE JUICE

Socially speaking, you can finesse colleges and your professors on sheer personality alone. The only thing here is that this college isn’t the best fit for you socially. And that’s ok. It isn’t to bash either one of yall. They have their lane and you have yours. It is what it is. Don’t twist this into something that makes you feel like trash. But girl, you and I know that you have a skill and you have character. For god sake you’re self-aware enough to the point you’re talking to yourself and writing things in third person in order solve your problems by being your own best friend and therapist. If that isn’t power, girl I don’t know what is. I don’t want to listen to you telling yourself that there is something inherently wrong with you socially because you didn’t fit in at your small college. I don’t want to hear it because you’re better than this. There are 8 billion people on this earth and even though you’re social distancing, I know you aren’t about to crawl into a rock for the rest of your life and not meet another person again.

I'm super uncomfortable with saying all of this because I don’t feel like I can talk to people about this and because I'm currently going through a phase where I don’t think that I deserve to take up space.

You deserve to take up space. You don’t have to be smart, beautiful, or funny or anything else in the matter. It’s ok to be vulnerable because your worth isn’t based on your positive and negative qualities. When we wrap out egos up like it, we set ourselves up to taking things personally and not looking at things in an objective way. We take things personally because something out there is either picking at an old wound or insecurity or it’s contradicting what you previously thought about yourself. You don’t have to prove yourself in anyway. You’re worthy just for existing.

Edited September 20, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Pumpkin Spice Lattes

For the last couple months I have been trying to shake this weird kid label that was slapped onto me in childhood through shadow work. It's been working well but I think there are some ways that I can expand on dismantling this label. One thing that I have yet to try until now is being more basic or being more of a "normie" (I just don't like this term. It reminds me of incels. So I'm going to use basic).

I'm trying to incorporate more mainstream things into my life style. Some things may include binging on Netflix more, namely shows that are like Friends and New Girl, watching makeup tutorials on YouTube, drinking more Starbucks, listening to the top 40 on the charts etc.  To be honest, I don't know what super mainstream stuff is all I know is that it's not what I typically gravitate towards. Like even as I type this stuff out, it feels weird and unnatural for me. I don't watch shows like that, the main things I watch on YouTube have to do with meditation and self help, and my music is just a very odd mix to say the least.  I feel the resistance. It's not so much that I have judgements over these things or that I don't feel comfortable with it, but it's more of I much rather do something else. 

I guess another aspect of this that feels uncomfortable is that I'm doing this to develop myself. Normally people see developing oneself as going off the beaten path or discovering new ideas, in other words becoming less basic. Becoming basic and conformist seems like the antithesis of this. But for me personally, I feel like I need to be more basic, not for the sake of fitting in with other people, but to fully transcend my "weird kid" label. I think that this label comes with both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex. The way I'm going to describe this is going to be cartoonish simple for the sake of brevity and clarity but I assure you it plays out in a much more subtle way in my psyche.

Superiority: I'm so different, unique, and creative. I'm so much better than everyone who is just a conformist who goes with everything that society says. Look at all of the sheeple. 

Inferiority: I'm so weird. No one likes me. No one will understand me or want to be friends with me. I'm ugly and too weird to mix with everyone. I need to isolate myself because I'm so cringey. 

 And so I guess the best way to stop judging myself and other more basic people is to embrace my own basicness. Being basic feels unnatural and I feel like I'd rather be doing something else but then again it only seems that way because a lot of our preferences are an acquired taste that have to do with the development of our egos. 

I remember some time ago I decided that I was going to embrace my feminine side. I felt a similar type of resistance back then. I figured, hey being a tomboy feels natural to me, I don't want to play around with makeup. While I didn't consciously or intentionally judge traditionally feminine things, there was an air of discomfort around it. I went ahead and tried to embrace femininity anyway. And I grew a lot from that. I uncovered and dismantled A LOT of internalized misogyny. I learned to be more in tuned and more expressive with my emotions. I finally figured out how to dress, do my makeup, and my hair without looking like an absolute disaster. I also found out that I look better with long hair and that doing my makeup is rather relaxing. I learned how to be more vulnerable, how to let other people take care of me. I learned how to not be an idiot around guys and more.

There are some traditionally feminine things that never resonated with me. They  include being high maintenance, being like this archetype of the prim and proper classy lady 24/7 that is largely influenced by elitism and Eurocentric standards, having a maternal instinct (though I am still exploring that one), wearing a skirt, and being super elaborate with my makeup. But for the most part, I can embrace my femininity. Sure I'm still a tomboy at heart who can go camping, be super relaxed, and still take down guys who are a foot taller than me but I have since expanded my sense of self to the more gentle side of me.  

That's what I hope to do with integrating my basicness. I hope to embrace that part of myself and maybe even explore into more mainstream territory to see what I like. But by no means am I obligated to accept everything my way. And also by no means am I obligated to abandon all of the more unconventional things about me. The key isn't to suppress the weird parts of me, it's to expand beyond that. I'm still going to be into self actualization, but I'm also going to be watching the Kardashians. I don't see why I can't do both. And if it doesn't work out, I can always stop. And similar to the way that I embraced my femininity to get rid of my internalized misogyny, I'm embracing my basicness to get rid of my superiority and inferiority complex I got due to the events in my childhood. 

Also aside from my personal stuff, I think there is an important thing I can learn about how normies think. It can keep one grounded and understand the terrain in which consciousness is in collectively. I have seen a lot of the people on this forum overestimate how conscious the average person is and judge them negatively for that. Sure they may be a lower level of consciousness, but they are where they are and they will progress at their own rate. Being lower or higher consciousness is not bad or good given that good/bad are largely an egoic illusory construct. But nevertheless, I do see that sense of judgement. I think It's important to understand what the average person off the street thinks both in terms of seeing how we can raise consciousness and just for regular socialization. For instance I'm  not going to go up to a random person and start talking about how we don't exist, how I am God, and how they need to watch Leo's 2 hour videos weekly. I will look like I'm in a cult. No offense to Leo, his videos are amazing and have helped me immensely but I'm just aware on how things can come across to people who haven't really watched a lot of his videos. Understanding that and instead opting to weave in what I learned from actualized.org videos into regular conversations as opposed to making people watch the channel is one of the ways that understanding basic people can come in handy when socializing. 

Like with all perspectives, the perspective of a basic person is important, just as important as things that aren't mainstream.  What consists of off the beaten path is relative to people according to their comfort zone. For most people the billboard top 40 is considered the path everyone takes with their music taste and everything else is seen as off the beaten path. For me however, that is flipped. For me, the unventured territory is the mainstream one. So catch me with a pumpkin spice latte. 

Edited September 21, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Re-Evaluating My Life Purpose

Recently I have been re-thinking my life purpose. I've basically been in a minor existential crisis state because it just hit me that I am going to graduate college in 2 years and I don't know what I'm doing with my life career wise. Also there were some toxic elements to my original life purpose that I recently discovered and I'm working through that. I'm probably going to write more about that in future posts since right now everything is so convoluted to where I don't even know how to articulate this to myself. 

But there is one thing that I do think about when I think of a solid life purpose. I think of Bernie Sanders. I am inspired by his consistency over the years in terms of policy, opinions, and even his own sense of values. He has been at it in politics for such a long time and I feel that it comes from a very genuine place where he cares about others. Here are some videos of him interviewing people back  in the 1980s. 

 

Also another thing that I found circulating around the internet were these edits of Bernie Sanders that looked like an anime opening. It honestly my favorite thing. The comments for each of these videos also cracks me up

Nothing says life purpose and hero's journey like an anime opening 

Truly the best campaign ads I have ever seen 

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Resistance to Discipline 

My goal for 2019 was to build more discipline for myself. I would say that I was doing pretty good for the first 4 months of the year but after I came back home, I started back sliding. The thing is that the pandemic unveiled how much I needed an external source of structure, like a school day or a set schedule to cultivate discipline. Now, all of that is off the table. My days, weeks, and routines started meshing together like an amorphous blob. Time feels like an illusion. Most days feel the same. 

This lack of external structure made me realize how important it is to have an internal sense of structure and self discipline. I feel this need to fulfill that since I see how necessary it is. But for some reason I also encountered some resistance to that. Even though I see it's need, for some reason I don't immediately want to. I thought I'd introspect for a bit and this is what I came up with. 

My parents exercised undisciplined discipline. This is a term that I found in M Scott Peck's A Road Less Travelled. When discipline is undisciplined, it means that the parent's exercised discipline in neurotic ways by taking it to an extreme. One to the ways this can impact a child is by making them associate discipline with negative emotions and therefore causing them to not want to take responsibility. This resonated with me more than I would like it to.  My parents were rigid in their standards and this makes me inclined to associate discipline with powerlessness, exhaustion, and blame. An indirect consequence of this is a lack of confidence in myself and my abilities. This is because I don't follow through with the promises I have made for myself by not exercising the discipline is need to achieve my goals. 

Also, another thing that I learned about discipline is the importance of consistency and routines.  A couple weeks ago I tried to cram a lot of course work into a weekend so that I could stay ahead in my classes. That didn't work out. I got ahead and I thought I was doing good because I wasn't procrastinating. But not procrastinating is not the same as having discipline. Even though I wasn't cramming last minute, I was still cramming. This time I was cramming proactively That has a lot of consequences in the weeks following because I was exhausted after that weekend and therefore I fell behind. Exams weren't pretty either. I wanted to use this strategy with cramming proactively because it worked for me in the past. It helped me stay ahead of my classes and was very useful for a lot of my social science and humanities type courses that typically had a lot of reading. But with my more math heavy courses, this was counter productive. Any way so I have been really stressed and mentally not in a good place because of this. 

This was a little difficult to come to terms with. I am a very go with the flow person who doesn't like routines and consistency. I don't wake up at the same time every morning. I don't go to sleep at the same time every night. I don't even eat at the same time everyday. I do things as I feel is intuitively fit. I do things while listening to my body and my emotions rather than looking at a clock. I think I started doing this as a reaction towards my parents' rigid life style. It seemed so out of touch with how things really felt and therefore felt relatively unconscious. I resorted to stage green coping mechanisms because of the limitations I saw rather than fully integrating orange and blue notions of consistency, duty, and productivity. I believe that my aversion to routines and consistency also circles back to the stuff I said about undisciplined discipline I said above. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Stability Fetish 

There is a part of me that craves stability. I have made growing myself a priority for about a solid 5 years now. While I am proud of how far I have come as a person,  there is a part of me that desires stagnation. Every year for the last five years has been radically different than the past for me personally. I have grown so much and I have changed so much as well. It's like every year I'm a whole nother person. I think this partially has to do with the fact that I'm still in my formative years. People are typically prone to change a lot during this time because they are young enough to be impressionable to what's happening in the world while old enough to have the critical thinking in order to understand what's actually happening.

I really thought that I reached a place where I am stable and I can chill tf out with this constant state of self improvement. I thought I could lead a normal life without having an existential crisis every so often. After all I got my personal life under control. I have healed much of my past trauma. I'm pretty happy with my life. I'm making goals and achieving them accordingly. I've even got to the point where I can do some shadow work since all that I need to clean up now are the cob webs of my mind.

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Then 2020 happened and the world is pretty much on fire. I was coping with it relatively well but in the last week or so, I have caught myself feeling gloomy and pessimistic. After RBG passed away, things took a turn for the worse with the state of democracy in the U.S. Trump came up with a new nominee, one that will likely try to over turn Roe v. Wade and try to over turn gay marriage. He is also talking about "patriotic education" because apparently the left is taking over history by painting historical figures in a bad light. He also said that he won't guarantee a peaceful transition of power if he loses.

I'm not surprised by any of this. Things have been bad for a while starting from 2015 when Trump even started campaigning. The KKK have had rallies/ protests. The alt-right is empowered. People are in cages. There are travel bans. There are constant scandals in the news everyday. Global warming is silently making moves. People's livelihoods are at stake because of raging capitalism. Brett Kavanaugh is in the Supreme Court amidst #MeToo. All of this was before 2020.

The only thing the pandemic has done is speed up where we were already headed when it came to rising inequality, polarization, and upcoming fascism. The message regarding Trump not peacefully giving up power has been ringing in my ears for the last few days. I can't help but think that we are headed towards a dictatorship. Sure Trump is super incompetent, but so much damage has happened in the last five years (I'm also counting the time he was campaigning because that was also a mess). I doubt it will get Hitler level bad but I'm not sure tbh. 

Regardless, I still have some hope. After unstable times comes a time of a lot of progress right? WW2 led to decolonization. The Great Depression gave us basic social programs. The 60s gave us considerably more civil rights. etc. I feel that about 10 years after the pandemic we will be much more SD stage green because we are being forced to evolve. But until then in the short term we are stuck in this chaos. And all I'm doing is reassuring myself that COVID is a collective ego backlash. 

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But that doesn't stop me from craving stability.  Even though I'm only 20 all I want right now is to get into a relationship, settle down, and get married. I don't want to be strong by myself anymore. I want to melt into a guy who knows what he's doing and have him take care of me instead. I want to surrender. I want to be vulnerable so I can open up to more gentleness in my life. After all the world and it's chaos and my personal life hasn't been so gentle with me. I have this fantasy of being like this 1950s housewife that takes care of things at home while the man does everything else. I just want someone to hold me and tell me that everything will be ok. Even if that is a lie, sometimes I need something to hold on to. 

But it's just that, a fantasy. I know that if I took that path that I would actually lose my mind. I'm very independent mentally and emotionally. I like going after and achieving things. I want to pursue a life purpose.  I also don't like most men and have yet to find someone I really click with so there's also that. Also getting into a relationship and becoming dependent on someone financially is actually hell both logistically and emotionally since the other party doesn't like feeling as thought they are being leeched off of. Because of these reasons, I have no desire to pursue this fantasy. Feeling this way is an anomaly for me. And I recognize that. I had some of these feelings come up around last year. It disappeared earlier this year and then reappeared around June when the world really started going crazy. I know that this isn't what I truly want rather this is a coping mechanism to escape from the chaos that is 2020.   

Edited September 28, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

I feel that this video is super applicable with what I'm dealing with right now. This is probably my third time revisiting this video. 

Around the 27 minute mark, Leo talks about how growing too much can cause a backlash and make you want to shrink away from the challenge for a while. This applies to me because I have grown so much over the years that I'm shying away from growing, particularly when it comes to my career. Instead I want to retreat into this fantasy of being a housewife even though it isn't going to help me in any way. 

Around the 38 minute mark, the video explains how suffering mindfully will help you purify and grow you even more. The main thing that I get from this is that you have the opportunity to grow during an ego backlash the most because you're neurosis are laid out in front of you and therefore you have the opportunity to tackle them one by one.  The goal is to see these backlashes as part of the growth process instead of seeing the backlash as something negative and something to beat yourself up about. I will admit that I'm sometimes tempted to do that especially since my desire for stability seems so backwards and regressive. The key is to be mindful, not judgmental, which is why I find it helpful to write this all out. Understanding that this is an ego backlash and this is a part of the journey helps one not get consumed by it. 

The regressive way to deal with this backlash for me is to go with a quick fix by trying to settle down quickly. But in the long term, this will create more issues because I won't be fulfilled with what I'm doing with my life and I will be dependent on a man which then would sour the relationship and harbor a lot of resentment. Right now I have anxiety with gaining my independence. If I engage in this fantasy, I will still have the anxiety with independence because I never addressed it and instead just covered it up, but now on top of that I would be entangled with a plethora of other issues whether it is logistics or psychological. Logistically, this wouldn't be a good move because if I don't be proactive with say getting work experience, it will be harder to build a career with a large gap on a resume because instead of working, you were busy doing nothing at home. If the relationship gets toxic, there will be no where to go since you wouldn't've gained independence on your own. Psychologically this will also come with a ton of problems ranging from stress to long term trauma. Over all, this is not a type of backlash that I want to engage in. I'd rather go with what's more difficult in the short term which is working hard in school and trying to get through this chaotic time instead of slacking off now and leaning on someone else later on. 

The progressive way to deal with this backlash for me is to build structure and discipline amidst this chaos. After all, this entire time I am craving a sense of stability. Instead of looking for stability outside of myself in like man for instance, it's much more productive to find stability in myself. Learning how to be efficient, learning to have discipline outside of a regular structured day that a college presents to me, etc. will help me grow up and build the skills necessary for a career later on even if the opportunities do not present themselves right away. Right now amidst all this chaos isn't the time to go out there and grab the world by its balls, its time to stand back and work on myself so that when opportunities do present themselves, I will be ready.  Really mastering self discipline will pay off ten folds I don't think I really need to  explain this tbh.  

Ultimately the experiences I am having right now are paving my way to my purpose. I am cultivating the skills I need to execute my future goals in the present. I will get through this and I will get through this stronger than when I first began. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Cheat Codes to Life

Today I have made the consideration to change my major. I'm going to be switching over from finance to management. I haven't officially made the switch yet however I am planning to if things go the way they are right now up til November when I have to make the final decision. These are my main reasons for switching.

1. Management Aligns with my Interests and Life Purpose More Than Finance 

I originally got into finance for two things. One because I was good at math and enjoyed it. Another is because I care about topics like wealth inequality and how to help people get out of their life circumstances financially. 

When it came to being good in math, in the last month I realized that the only reason why I am good at math is because of the resources that were available to me and because my parents pushed me in that direction by sitting with me every weekend and doing problems. As a result, I began enjoying math because it was a subject I was good at. Because all of this happened when I was young, it felt so normal. It felt like the truth. Now, I'm not saying that I hate math or that I'm bad at it, but saying that I'm passionate about it is an overstatement. I mistakened ego for passion. I thought I loved math but really I loved how smart it made me feel, how easy it came to me, how whenever I would do well in math, my parents would shower me with love. But, once you take ego away, math was just like any other subject that didn't resonate with me. Skill =/= true passion.

When it came to notions of wealth inequality, upon taking my finance core classes, I discovered that majoring in finance isn't the best way to achieve this goal. From what I'm learning in class, finance mainly has more to do with statistical calculations and coming up with numbers rather than evaluating the numbers and creating systems accordingly. I care much more about personal finance over the stock market. I honestly couldn't care less about the NYSE or NASDAQ. My management classes on the other hand focuses more on people and how they work together in an organization. This also ties in notions of how resources are allocated towards the workers and other projects. Even though you still have to deal with people in finance, with management it's not mainly focused on clients rather it is also focused on workers. From what I understand, management is more applicable an relevant with the well being people and wealth inequality because it is more oriented around the system of how a company works. While everything in management didn't come naturally to me, because of my interests in the social sciences and human behavior, I'm actually more willing to work my way up to those skills because I'm genuinely interested in it. Skill =/= true passion but true passion -> leads to skill

2. Careers in Management Align with the Lifestyle Choices that I Want for Myself

Because I will be graduating in a couple of years, I have been looking into types of jobs to apply for. With finance, I found things like investment banking, venture capital, hedge fund management, corporate finance etc. To be completely honest, none of those seem appealing to me. On top of that, most of those with maybe the exception of corporate finance have ridiculously long work weeks. From what I've gathered, it's around an average of 60-80 hours each week. This isn't me being like "oh I don't want to work hard I want things to come easy for me etc." This is me saying "hey I don't want my career to dominate my life to where I don't have time for additional interests, relationships, contemplation, and growth." The thing that I find ironic about finance is that one of the first things you learn is that a lack of diversification leads to increased volatility. Sure, we were talking about assets in that instance but I believe that it also applies to life as a whole. In other words, don't put all of your fulfillment eggs in one basket. Find fulfillment in numerous areas in your life even apart from your career and life purpose to supplement your over all life satisfaction. A lot people in finance understand this on paper with their work, but they don't see the same mechanism working for the rest of their lives and as a result put all of their time and energy into work until they lose it or burn out completely. I'm sure that there are some people  that derive a lot of pleasure from a fast paced finance career, but it doesn't seem like the most sustainable option both emotionally or physically. I'll pass. 

Instead, I find that careers in management has a better work life balance. Sure, there will be times where I'll have to put in extra hours but I don't mind so long as it isn't the norm. If anything, having extra down time can help one be more creative and alert meaning they will be able to put in more quality effort.  I'm not opposed to working hard towards a particular goal, I just think there is more sustainable ways of going about it than working 80 hour work weeks. Management still pays well even if it is lower than finance. But that is a trade off that I'm willing to take. I'm willing to give up that opportunity cost for the freedom to have more time for myself, my hobbies, and someday a family. 

3. Management Pairs Better with my Major in International Relations and Minor in Human Rights 

I picked up my second major in international relations and my minor in human rights solely because it interested me. I still kept finance as my main focus as I thought that this is what I will get a career with. The other two were simply garnishes for the  main course. However, upon taking my finance classes, I realized that it didn't in corporate a lot of what I learned in my social science and humanities courses. Management on the other hand does. Management incorporates a lot of psychology as well as sociology. If I focus towards more global business, notions of anthropology and history also come into play when understanding different cultures and power dynamics. While majoring in finance can help me diversify my skills by adding in trading and more calculations, majoring in management can complement my skills in the social sciences for more holistic decision making.  Management ties in my skills in those classes and my understanding of human behavior in a more practical and more marketable way in the job market. Plus, I love dealing with people and institutions.  I think that this is a better way of moving businesses through the spiral because it isn't about how the numbers are being crunched in a stage orange way rather it is how the numbers are being applied in a larger system so that there is efficiency and equity among people so that they can be emotionally elevated and therefore more productive (green/yellow). 

4. The Switch in my Major Isn't that Bad

It would be one thing if I was going from finance all the way to physics. That would definitely lengthen my graduation time and therefore how much money I will owe the school. There would me many more logistical concerns there. Rather, I'm switching majors within the business school. There is a lot of over lap between finance and management since they are both business degrees and therefore require some of the same basic business courses. I'm also not in too deep with finance to where it will be a great inconvenience to major in management. If I switch now, things will still be ok. It's better to stop, wait a minute, take everything in and change course accordingly so you can get to where you want to go  rather than sprint at lightening speed towards the wrong direction only to crash and burn.  

5. Majoring in Finance is Taking an Emotional Toll on Me 

This goes along with #2 when it comes to life style choices. Every time I would look at my course work, I found myself zoning out and having an existential crisis thinking *this is what my life is going to amount to* in a very negative way. I caught myself just not liking where my life was heading and I noticed myself lacking in bright eyed bushy tailed energy. As a result, I have been really having to force myself to do anything, even though I arguably do have the mathematical skills. The notion of getting into a soul crushing job with long hours of punching numbers hung over me. I feel that my mind being reluctant to focus is a form of self sabotage in order to protect me from this type of future. The fact that I have to drag myself to do anything is a sign. It's not a good feeling but those feelings are still trying to tell you something usually in an effort to warn or protect you from something. Sure sometimes it can come out in an unhealthy way and can be an egoic over reaction but sometimes, sounding the alarm bells is necessary however unpleasant.  I believe that these negative emotional states are trying to tell me that if this was my life purpose, hard work is more likely to be a flow state rather than pure grunt work. I have had to deal with classes that were challenging before and though it didn't feel like a breeze, it still felt like a flow instead of a constant forceful push. I'm going to opt to listen to my intuition before my intuition's whisper turns into a scream for help.  

 When I told myself that I'm going to opt to major in management instead, a weight felt as thought it was being lifted off my shoulder. My future didn't feel super grim. I then began thinking *hey, I need to only do this for this semester and get through this, it isn't what my life is going to amount to.* That thought brought me an immense amount of relief, probably to the point where I can get through this semester. I remember getting a piece of advice that said "choose what feels like freedom." What feels freedom isn't always the same as doing what feels easy in the short term rather it is about what will be good in the long term. It isn't a manic, crazy, panicky feeling rather it is one of peace and balance.   And that is exactly what choosing management feels like to me. This is where my intuition is guiding me towards. 

I'm glad that I came to these conclusions sooner rather than later. I feel that the work I have done on myself as well the content/ advice I got from a variety of teachers have helped me a ton. Who knows how long I would have had to deal with this existential crisis or how much longer it would take me to get to these conclusions.  I'm glad that I'm getting these conclusions now rather than say a year from now when I will be graduating or maybe even years down my career. The stuff that some of these teachers have said are really like the cheat codes to life it one actually listens to and applies the knowledge/ advice. I'd say it has paid off considerable and streamlined my growth. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

12 Jungian Archetypes

My religion class this semester is currently talking about the Jungian Archetypes. The whole thing resonated with me so I decided to write out my reflection on it in this journal. In this post I'm going to write out the archetypes (I got them from this website:https://conorneill.com/2018/04/21/understanding-personality-the-12-jungian-archetypes/  but I also wanted to include this in my journal for aesthetics I guess). The next post will be my personal reflection. 

The 4 Cardinal Orientations

The 4 cardinal orientations that the archetypes are seeking to realize are:

• Ego – Leave a Mark on the World
• Order – Provide Structure to the World
• Social – Connect to others
• Freedom – Yearn for Paradise

The 12 Archetypes in Detail

The Ego Types

1. The Innocent

• Motto: Free to be you and me
• Core desire: to get to paradise
• Goal: to be happy
• Greatest fear: to be punished for doing something bad or wrong
• Strategy: to do things right
• Weakness: boring for all their naive innocence
• Talent: faith and optimism
• The Innocent is also known as: Utopian, traditionalist, naive, mystic, saint, romantic, dreamer.

2. The Everyman

• Motto: All men and women are created equal
• Core Desire: connecting with others
• Goal: to belong
• Greatest fear: to be left out or to stand out from the crowd
• Strategy: develop ordinary solid virtues, be down to earth, the common touch
• Weakness: losing one’s own self in an effort to blend in or for the sake of superficial relationships
• Talent: realism, empathy, lack of pretense
• The Everyman is also known as: The good old boy, regular guy/girl, the person next door, the realist, the working stiff, the solid citizen, the good neighbor, the silent majority.

3. The Hero

• Motto: Where there’s a will, there’s a way
• Core desire: to prove one’s worth through courageous acts
• Goal: expert mastery in a way that improves the world
• Greatest fear: weakness, vulnerability, being a “chicken”
• Strategy: to be as strong and competent as possible
• Weakness: arrogance, always needing another battle to fight
• Talent: competence and courage
• The Hero is also known as: The warrior, crusader, rescuer, superhero, the soldier, dragon slayer, the winner and the team player.

4. The Caregiver

• Motto: Love your neighbour as yourself
• Core desire: to protect and care for others
• Goal: to help others
• Greatest fear: selfishness and ingratitude
• Strategy: doing things for others
• Weakness: martyrdom and being exploited
• Talent: compassion, generosity
• The Caregiver is also known as: The saint, altruist, parent, helper, supporter.

The Soul Types

5. The Explorer

• Motto: Don’t fence me in
• Core desire: the freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world
• Goal: to experience a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life
• Biggest fear: getting trapped, conformity, and inner emptiness
• Strategy: journey, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom
• Weakness: aimless wandering, becoming a misfit
• Talent: autonomy, ambition, being true to one’s soul
• The explorer is also known as: The seeker, iconoclast, wanderer, individualist, pilgrim.

6.The Rebel

• Motto: Rules are made to be broken
• Core desire: revenge or revolution
• Goal: to overturn what isn’t working
• Greatest fear: to be powerless or ineffectual
• Strategy: disrupt, destroy, or shock
• Weakness: crossing over to the dark side, crime
• Talent: outrageousness, radical freedom
• The Outlaw is also known as: The rebel, revolutionary, wild man, the misfit, or iconoclast.

7. The Lover

• Motto: You’re the only one
• Core desire: intimacy and experience
• Goal: being in a relationship with the people, work and surroundings they love
• Greatest fear: being alone, a wallflower, unwanted, unloved
• Strategy: to become more and more physically and emotionally attractive
• Weakness: outward-directed desire to please others at risk of losing own identity
• Talent: passion, gratitude, appreciation, and commitment
• The Lover is also known as: The partner, friend, intimate, enthusiast, sensualist, spouse, team-builder.

8. The Creator/Artist

• Motto: If you can imagine it, it can be done
• Core desire: to create things of enduring value
• Goal: to realize a vision
• Greatest fear: mediocre vision or execution
• Strategy: develop artistic control and skill
• Task: to create culture, express own vision
• Weakness: perfectionism, bad solutions
• Talent: creativity and imagination
• The Creator is also known as: The artist, inventor, innovator, musician, writer or dreamer.

The Self Types

9. The Jester

• Motto: You only live once
• Core desire: to live in the moment with full enjoyment
• Goal: to have a great time and lighten up the world
• Greatest fear: being bored or boring others
• Strategy: play, make jokes, be funny
• Weakness: frivolity, wasting time
• Talent: joy
• The Jester is also known as: The fool, trickster, joker, practical joker or comedian.

10. The Sage

• Motto: The truth will set you free
• Core desire: to find the truth.
• Goal: to use intelligence and analysis to understand the world.
• Biggest fear: being duped, misled—or ignorance.
• Strategy: seeking out information and knowledge; self-reflection and understanding thought processes.
• Weakness: can study details forever and never act.
• Talent: wisdom, intelligence.
• The Sage is also known as: The expert, scholar, detective, advisor, thinker, philosopher, academic, researcher, thinker, planner, professional, mentor, teacher, contemplative.

11. The Magician

• Motto: I make things happen.
• Core desire: understanding the fundamental laws of the universe
• Goal: to make dreams come true
• Greatest fear: unintended negative consequences
• Strategy: develop a vision and live by it
• Weakness: becoming manipulative
• Talent: finding win-win solutions
• The Magician is also known as: The visionary, catalyst, inventor, charismatic leader, shaman, healer, medicine man.

12. The Ruler

• Motto: Power isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
• Core desire: control
• Goal: create a prosperous, successful family or community
• Strategy: exercise power
• Greatest fear: chaos, being overthrown
• Weakness: being authoritarian, unable to delegate
• Talent: responsibility, leadership
• The Ruler is also known as: The boss, leader, aristocrat, king, queen, politician, role model, manager or administrator.

  

Edited October 1, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

12 Jungian Archetypes: Reflection 

Key:

• Turquoise: I embody it well 
• Gold: I embody it a little (or too much) but need to work on this more
  • (-): not embodying it enough (+) embodying it too much  
• Underline: this feels very natural to me from a young age to where it's almost like a default. 
• Black: I don't embody it at all

The Ego types

1. The Innocent 

I feel that I really started to embody this in the last couple years after I stopped being depressed constantly and moved out of my house for college. I also began therapy to unpack all of my baggage from home and that ended up making me feel like a much lighter version of myself. It was almost as if I was 5 years old again. I had what I call bright eyed bushy tailed energy and I felt very optimistic and upbeat about life. Its like I could tap into that child like enthusiasm and curiosity again after digging through the gunk that piled up over the years in my psyche. 

2. The Everyman (-)

Upon reading the description, I got the impression of how the everyman is someone who isn't boastful and sees themselves and other people as equal. In that way, I find myself embodying the everyman. I find myself resonating with this mainly when it comes to politics and basic decency. However, the reason why I believe that I could embody this more is because I had a label of me being a weird kid slapped onto me for a while to where it's a part of my ego and I have a shadow. I see myself as strange and sometimes like I can connect to others and relate. I'm trying to embrace more of my "normie" side lately (see Pumpkin Spiced Lattes p.3 in this journal)  so that's how I'm trying to integrate all of this. 

3. The Hero 

To embody this, I believe I need to do 2 things. One is create a more solid life purpose which is pretty explanatory if you're on this forum so I'll refrain from expanding on it a lot. The other is that I need to stop having "background character energy." I know there is the term called "main character energy" that has been thrown around a lot on the Internet. It refers to someone who seems pretty out there, goes on interesting adventures, and is sometimes prone to the tendency of forgetting that everyone has a life of their own because they see themselves as the star of their lives and everyone else as a side character. I'm using the term background character energy to refer to the opposite of this. I have resorted to being the background character in my life to avoid problems and confrontation from my peers. I've always taken the "I'm going to just ignore the annoying people and mind my own business by doing what I need to do." I would say that this was pretty good for me growing up because I avoided getting into drama and other petty problems. But I also never really asserted myself in groups of people. I rarely let myself stand out as a leader. Sure no one hated me, but I didn't have anyone really like me either because I never bothered to put myself out there.  

4. The Caregiver

I embody this archetype pretty well. At one point I embodied it too much and ended up being the therapist friend. I think it's good that I know how to care for people by listening to what they need and acting accordingly to meet those needs. It certainly helps me to connect to people and makes me a pretty reliable source of advice. The excess that I ran into before was that I would rush in and try to help everyone all the time even if the person isn't in the place to receive help because they needed to lesson on their own without me telling them what to do and giving them a predetermined structure. The way I dealt with this is that I set some boundaries with myself and others and proceeded to distance myself from people who were getting codependent. I also began really tapping into this when I developed/ explored my feminine side more in the last few years. 

The Soul Types

5. The Explorer 

I would say that I also embody this archetype pretty well. I have always been very open to experience both intellectually but also physically. I really integrated this as I became more interested in societies and cultures. I've also began being very authentic to myself as I learned about myself and the world. I also have a desire to travel around and get a lot of joy from that. 

6. The Rebel (+)

I have integrated this pretty well though I will say that growing up that this was in excess. I saw myself as a weird kid and on top of that I saw the limitations of conformity based on how my parents tried to raise me in a traditional way (don't question authority, respect elders, etc.). I questioned a lot of norms growing up and sometimes even faced backlash. This has been a crucial part of my growth and it helped me find what is authentic to me instead of rely on society all the time. I also went through a punk phase from the ages of 10-16 so there's that lol. When I was little I had problems with picking my battles but I have since learned to do so with age. I also find myself clinging to my weird kid label and I sometimes find it hard to follow a structure. I have an inclination to this archetype mainly based on familiarity. I believe integrating The Everyman (-) and The Ruler more will solve things.  

7. The Lover 

I have integrated this fairly recently. In the last couple years I have focused my intention towards being more in touch with my feelings and with my feminine side. Before I was relatively closed off and uncomfortable/ fearful when it came to being vulnerable. I have learned to tap into that more and began seeing my vulnerability as something to embrace as a strength because it enables me to connect to others. Also when it comes to embracing my vulnerability and feminine side, nowadays I'm much more comfortable with letting other people take the lead if they want to do something nice for me or do something to help me out, especially but not limited to romantic situations. I remember before a couple years ago feeling guilty whenever someone would go out of their way to help me but I have since gotten over that by saying "thank you" more than "sorry". 

8. The Creator/ Artist 

Growing up I integrated this archetype pretty early on because of the fact that I really enjoy art. When I was little I did a lot of painting and drawing. As I grew up, my creative energy shifted more towards writing and analysis. I think I was able to tap into creativity more because of my weird kid label because I didn't have anything to fear. I wasn't afraid to do things that weren't mainstream because I was already labeled as weird so in a way I didn't have anything to lose. This I would say goes along with the rebel and the explorer archetype because of how it relates to openness to experience. 

The Self Types

9. The Jester

I'd say that I embody this pretty well. My interpretation of this archetype is the ability to not take things to seriously and having your own sense of humor. I wouldn't characterize myself as the class clown but I do know how to have fun and joke around even if it can't be told through my writing. I never really had problems with this whether it was an excess or lack of it. 

10. The Sage

I embody this well. I think embodying this archetype came from me being open to experience and me being depressed as a teen. It forced me to ask more questions and get to know myself and my reality in more depth. This is also the reason why I gravitated towards this site as well as self development as a whole. Before I had a problem with over analyzing things but nowadays I'm pretty confident with not knowing and I don't mind letting myself take things in in my own pace. Other than that, I didn't have too many hang ups along my journey. 

11. The Magician (-)

I've been really into manifestation lately and been cognizant of how my thoughts create my reality. That's what got me into shadow work in the first place. But I will say that I still have quite a few blockages I need to work through which is why I would characterize this as a lack. However, I don't completely lack it because I do believe that I can have a vision and work towards it. I think to further strengthen this I need to cultivate my life purpose and my vision more. In that way, this archetype connects with the Hero. 

12. The Ruler

This archetype really resonated with me, not because I embody it but because I lack it. I don't feel like going too much in depth on it because there is a lot to unpack but referring to Stability Fetish and Resistance to Discipline (both on p.3) sums things up pretty well . I won't reiterate this because it will be beating a dead horse.  I think this also relates to my current taste in more masculine/assertive/ borderline domineering guys because it's like they have something that I don't and if I tap into what they have that means I won't have to go through the work and develop that quality in myself. This is problematic because causes me to get caught up with the idea I have of a guy instead of actually getting to know him as a human being. That's a plethora of other issues that I will probably discuss in a different post. 

Edited October 1, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

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

[soos_mite_ah]

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 

Edited October 2, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

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.  

Edited October 2, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

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. 

Edited October 3, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

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 

Edited October 4, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

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. 

Edited October 4, 2020 by soos_mite_ah