The Joy Journal

soos_mite_ah · April 27, 2021

Shame Around Being Socially Awkward Part 2: Cringe

I have come back to this Contrapoints video a few times because I find it insightful and I think there is a lot of insight I can use to delve into my own psyche in order to reflect on the issues that are bothering me. This time I took notes.

3:00 Cringe is when you notice yourself not measuring up to your own standards and having no self awareness in a certain situation

Yeah I think that's why I socially cringe at myself so often. I have high standards for myself even if other people don't and because my standards are so high, I inevitably fall short causing me to cringe. Most people don't think I'm awkward and cringy but I still find myself thinking I'm awkward and cringy.

17:00-22:00 In this part, Natalie talks about the typical things that get labeled as cringy and how things that people feel contempt towards also gets labeled as cringy. Then she lists out what people typically consider cringy. Somethings that these groups have in common include:

deviancy whether physical, mental, social, or sexual
a combination of passionate sincerity and amateurism
perceived tendency for lack of social composure
obsessive interests and unconventional hobbies
low social status

I think I most identify with groups that have niche and obsessive interests (spirituality) and lack of emotional composure (issues with mental health, being a feminist, having a public journal, fears of appearing crazy).

Masocotization/ Memeification: freeze a moment and have it exemplify a group of people you oppose

Give a cringe worthy mascot so people won’t want to be like that
public ridicule- it’s better to be the one laughing than laughed at
Don’t act like that or people will laugh at you- control human behavior (public humiliation)

My consumption of memes have a large role in this. The first thing I think of when I think of why I cringe when it comes to identifying with spirituality is all of the Awakening with JP videos.

I think the same could be said regarding my shame with being identified with liking self help because I feel like people have a caricature of Tai Lopez and get rich quick schemes in their head.

25:00

Recognizing yourself as having things in common with a cringeworthy person induces self-cringe. Self-cringe can help you change your behavior, beliefs and self-concept
Cringe to exert superiority
Trollshielding: compensating for your own shame by projecting onto others
Also think of scapegoats and how they help us process our own shame and anxiety

46:18 A-log theory of morbid cringe: We form obsessive and addictive contempt for people who have traits in common with us; people who make us uncomfortable because we see something of ourselves in them.

Group representation aspect: Being afraid that other people will cringe at a group that includes you because of how the cringy people are acting

Yeah this resonates with me when it comes to my interest in spirituality. I have talked about how there are some people in this umbrella who believe in things like being fruitarian and being anti vax and basically their pseudoscience clouds any amount of credibility new age spirituality has. Similar to the way Natalie was talking about the things she has in common with cat girls and the contempt she feels about them reminds me of how I sometimes feel about the spiritual community.

Like I'm spiritual, but I'm not one of the crazy crystal people, I still believe in science and rationality and I believe the new age movement has some redeeming points but I'm not so openminded to where my brain falls out. I'm interested in self-help but I'm not one of those idiots who fall for thousand dollar courses and who is a bootlicker who believes that anyone can get rich by simply working hard and listening to motivational speeches. I have a more sophisticated worldview than that because I can take what works and leave the bs behind to create a more integrated sense of understanding.

Well don't I sound like I have a tier 2 superiority complex in that.......

But it's still important to always remember:

1:15:45 “When you point the finger at someone else, you point the finger away from yourself”

So then you get a sense of safety from distancing yourself by being the judger instead of the judged. You pick someone to blame for the issue at hand and point at them and be like "this is the reason why people feel this way about us." Because it's easier to have a tangible villain/ scapegoat than blame some type of vague system for the stigma. Projecting the shame to a scapegoat doesn't address the stigma and just continues the cycle of shame,

Again I see myself in this because I think for me it's easy to point to the crazy crystal people spreading pseudoscience as the ones to blame because new age spirituality is seen as woo woo rather than acknowledge that we live in age dominated my materialism, rationality, and science and that there are limitations to that world view. It's easy for me to point at Tai Lopez than for me to acknowledge the role of being in a stage orange time.

1:18:00 Moderate amounts of cringe can be healthy because it shows that you care about others. It can be a sign of self awareness. There are people who never cringe at themselves and lets just say those people tend to be narcissistic and lacking in self awareness. But as away to not end up like those people, some people go too far in the other direction to where they cringe too much at themselves causing them to have contempt for themselves and others.

"There is narcissism in self hate." - David Foster Wallace. Time spent cringing at yourself is still time spent obsessing over yourself. The solution is self indifference. not hyping yourself up.

Self indifference is the realization that you are not that big a deal. You maybe cringy in the past and you may be cringy now but everyone else is cringy too so nothing matters.

Reminds me of the concept of no self.

I think I could really benefit from Melissa Dahl's book Cringeworthy since it was cited so many times and because I keep coming back to this video. This is also a huge issue when it comes to my self esteem and issues with social anxiety and I think this book can shed some light on that.

Edited April 27, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

RendHeaven · April 27, 2021

7 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Running out of things to say: I know silences are normal in a conversation but I'm nervous when I simply run out of things to say to the other person and I'm nervous that one of those awkward silences will last too long. I feel like it would make me seem uninteresting, as though if I don't have anything to talk about, people will think I probably don't have a life, I don't have interests, and I'm not doing anything with my life. I think the pandemic REALLY emphasized this because I definitely don't have a life now and as a result, I have even less things to talk about. This one thing gives me so much social anxiety.

The next 3 things have to do with symptoms of my ADHD. I manage my ADHD well and I don't have a problem with functioning because I have really good coping skills but I don't like it when it slips out in social circumstances.

Rambling: Contradictory to me feeling self conscious about running out of things to say, I'm also nervous about rambling. Hell, I found myself being hesitant to write long posts in my journal because of this. I'm afraid of things being one sided, the other person being bored or confused with all that I have to say. I don't want to lecture to someone because I think it would be unempathetic, rude, and not conducive to bonding with someone. I've also been constantly told as a kid by my peers and the adults around me that I talk too much and that no one cares about what I have to say and I'm pretty sure that has caused me to retreat and be shy for a chunk of my life.

Interrupting: This doesn't happen that often but I cringe at myself every time I get too excited about a topic or contributing to a conversation to where I interrupt someone. I feel like I'm being unempathetic to the other person and that I'm revealing myself to be a hyper active person with no impulse control. But at the same time, sometimes I feel the need to do this or else the other person will keep talking and I won't get a chance to express my point of view (this is rare though but I still feel bad when this happens).

Talking too fast, stuttering, filler words and not making sense: My mind goes a million miles per hour sometimes. I can have 20 different ideas in a matter of a second. But it takes time to articulate all that and sometimes I feel like my mind moves faster than my ability to express myself. It's the reason why I can't write in journals. I have to type because or else I can't keep up with myself. The thing with writing is that I can organize my thoughts and rearrange them to where they would make sense. With speaking on the other hand... well there is no backspace for my mouth. I'm scared of being seen as confusing, crazy, and not pleasant to be around because of this.

Very relatable. You're not alone

soos_mite_ah · April 27, 2021

@RendHeaven That reassuring thank you

soos_mite_ah · April 28, 2021

Procrastinating on my Purpose

I'm really tempted to procrastinate on getting on track with my life purpose. Before getting on track with my purpose, I have this desire to burn through some of my social needs and become financially free from my parents. All that is fine and good but where I feel like I'm going wrong is this desire to create a cushy life for myself first and then go after a sense of greatness. It makes sense on the surface because you want to have a good foundation and you don't want to get too ahead of yourself. But I think the limits of this is that this approach doesn't always make the most deep, sustainable change in the long term and eventually you are going to have to back track and build a stronger foundation.

I think my temptation falls under this category. My brain is like "ok lets just get a typical 9/5 job now and then worry about this life purpose stuff later when we feel miserable enough to naturally grow past it." But my intuition is all like "ok but if you have a good foundation now and put in that extra emotional labor now to figure out what you really want to do, you can save time and emotional distress later on. Basically, deal with the existential crisis now so it doesn't snowball into something bigger later if you decide to put it off. Take the time to figure out where you want to go so you can start off in the right direction instead of course correcting multiple times."

But there are pros and cons to first creating a cushy life and then going after something bigger. The pro is that you exhaust your more surface level desires and as a result it's easier to tap into your deeper, more fulfilling motivations. It's like climbing up the Maslow's hierarchy. Taking care of the lower needs provides a foundation so that you can focus on your higher needs.

The con to this approach is that you can fall into the temptation of staying comfortable and stagnant to where you undersell yourself and never actualize your potential. You just settle for fine and that's it. And eventually that will erode you to where you have no choice but to deal with it or keep avoiding it and get even more miserable.

I guess the best approach for me is to be proactive with finding my purpose as far as my career goals go while also letting myself exhaust things like my social needs because that will enable me to have a clearer vision with my search.

soos_mite_ah · April 28, 2021

Self Discipline is Overrated Part 3: Discipline Doesn't Work. Here's What to do Instead

I journaled about this topic before but I think this video drives a lot of what I wrote about home as well as add additional points.

soos_mite_ah · April 29, 2021

Turning Competence Into an Identity Part 9: Don't You Just Hate It When Men

I believe that I have this limiting belief around men which goes along the lines of "men are terrifying and will ruin your life."

And I think some of it is justified considering the violence against women. I highly doubt men have to think 5 times before walking somewhere late at night or be told to carry pepper spray and a taser growing up. But I think for me it dips into the prejudice territory because part of me is on edge when it comes to dating. I talked about this when I talked about me having the emotional energy of a feral cat and the concerns I have with dating in the previous page so I'll avoid repeating myself.

I say prejudice instead of sexist because women being afraid and therefore not liking men doesn't have the same power dynamic as men not liking women. I think it can be similar to when POC talk about not liking white people in the sense you can call it prejudice but not racist because again, the power dynamic isn't there to where POC disempowers white people. When women say something along the lines of "I hate men" it usually refers to the scary shit men do because of toxic masculinity and the way the patriarchy sets up norms and institutions rather than hating men because they are simply men.

I remember seeing a tiktok once about how dating advice for women is sometimes unhinged. I'll try to link the tiktok but in case if it doesn't show up for whatever reason, this is what it said:

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeXBkPBw/

Has anyone else noticed that dating advice for women is just like completely unhinged?

Like it's either super old school, cosmo type stuff like "keep things sweet in the bedroom by never advocating for yourself and eating a donut off your boyfriend's dick" or alternatively like new age #savage type stuff like "never show any emotion ever, you will be humiliated, you will be gaslit, you will be abused, and keep a knife strapped to your thigh incase you have to chop off his balls unexpectedly!"

Like how did we get here, like surely there's a middle ground, no???

I know this was exaggerating for the joke but seriously, it's like your options are compromise on your needs and boundaries or be constantly on guard. I remember one time reading a magazine because I was waiting on my mom to get something while I was waiting in line at the supermarket. I flipped to the dating advice section and one of the pieces of advice was along the lines how you need to be extra adventurous and be turned on all the time in the first 3 months of a relationship or else he won't be attracted to you and you won't lock him down. I was 13 at the time and I was like what. the. absolute. fuck. Surely this can't be healthy. People should go at the pace they feel comfortable with and honor their desire/ lack there of instead of resorting to manipulation and games to *make* someone stay.

I also remember reading something recently how you should never tell your man your insecurities, fears, trauma, negative emotions, or stuff that happened to you in the past because he will take advantage of that and use it as a way to abuse you. I think since I'm in a healthier place with being comfortable with vulnerability, I looked at this and I was like..... shouldn't opening up and building a sense of intimacy be the whole point of dating and being in a relationship? I get not revealing that kind of stuff early on because you don't know who you're dealing with and because that stuff can be too heavy too soon but like ever???? even in a long term relationship???? Like damn.. someone has trust issues and walls put up. I hope whoever wrote that finds healing. But I know that if I was in place where I was terrified of being vulnerable, I can definitely see myself taking that advice and running with it.

And then advice on moving on usually can be defined into the categories of "you're a queen, focus on yourself, hyper or self up" girl boss type stuff that completely brushes over your feelings regarding ending the relationship or "HE NEVER LOVED YOU HE USED YOU STOP BEING SO NAIVE" talking about how men are trash.

I obviously fall into the more guarded approach when it comes to dealing with men by resorting to psychoanalyzing people secretly on the first date to scan for any red flags. I try to have this image of competence because I don't want people to take advantage of me. I was unpacking some of my journal entries with my therapist yesterday and I came to this conclusion:

You think your teachers and employers aren’t to be trusted when you talk about mental health or anything that could be going wrong in your life and that you have to be the bigger and competent person because you grew up having to be the bigger person with your parents. By seeing their incompetence, you learned to not trust authority and be super independent because that stopped you from blindly following your parents to hell.

I was talking about being nervous about returning to school and applying to jobs but I think this can also apply to men as well because even though in most relationships there isn't a power dynamic or an authority like in the case of student vs teacher or child vs parent, there is still a power dynamic when it comes to society at large with women vs men. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I see parallels with my mindset and how that bleeds into me dealing with others.

Edited April 29, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · April 30, 2021

Judging My Judgement, Critiquing My Critical Thinking

I've been watching some different YouTube channels lately that resonate with me but isn't the type of content that I usually reach for. Normally, I like videos that have a lot of analysis and insight and are dense in that way. But lately since I've been trying to be more gentle with myself and take a break, I've instead shifted my media consumption to watching channels that resonate with my energy and have some light forms of self help mixed in to it.

I can't say that I'm learning a lot from these channels. Most of the content are things that I know or have implemented in my life but it's more about taking in their energy because I felt like I needed more positivity in my life. But even though I'm not intellectually learning a lot, I feel better emotionally. I've become somewhat of an isolated loner for the last few years but especially since moving back home and I've been working through my issues with my self image, particularly how I tend to see myself as a weird kid because of my interests. I found that seeing traits I have in other people makes me feel like I can relate to people therefore making me feel less crazy

I went from watching videos that brought me a lot of growth, illuminated lessons I needed to integrate, and were really dense with information and insight to watching videos that had a more gentle approach to self help which focused on the basics rather than the complex stuff. At first, switching to these videos felt like a waste of time, like I wasn’t learning anything. I was tempted to play all the videos on 2x speed but I decided against it because my objective wasn’t to learn but to take in other people’s energies parasocially.

Then I was like, that’s my problem. I don’t know how to take a break and let loose to have fun because I got so consumed with working on myself. It feel unnatural to me because I was stuck in this hamster wheel of self development. I then noticed how this has parallels with my real life. I have this thing where the two things I look for in any relationship is “is this person giving me peace of mind?” and “is this person someone I’m learning and growing from being around them?” And those are valid questions but I guess part of me is too cut throat and was caught up with seeing how emotionally intense the growth a person is going to bring me and critiquing/ evaluating them subconsciously rather than trying to connect to that person. In a way, I went too far to one end to where I was walking in with an agenda. But the thing is that I don’t always have to claw for growth. I can take a break, relax, and let myself have fun and do things that are solely for that and serve no other purpose other than giving me a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment through connecting with someone. I feel like switching from my analysis dense media consumption to something gentler pushed me towards being. It’s like the bias that I remember Leo talking about that was along the lines of the ego seeing something as important only because it serves the ego instead of taking the rest of reality into consideration.

I didn't know how much I was hyper analyzing, judging, and critiquing until I switched the content I was watching. Even though those critiques and judgements were more along the lines of evaluation, I think that still took a lot of energy as opposed to if I were to just let myself be and experience the moment. Don't get me wrong, I didn't just switch off my brain, but I did remember that at one point I felt that the amount of thinking I was doing was getting me more anxiety rather than fulfillment. I still find myself getting a lot of fulfillment by analyzing things and gaining a sense of understanding of how the world works. But I think there was an element of it that was in excess and that was unhealthy. I wasn't just letting myself be. I was theorizing things to the point where I was paralyzed to inaction. Overanalyzing gave me a sense of control because it made me feel that I knew what was going to happen next and because I associate a sense of safety with feeling smart. I got that intellectual hubris from my own analysis. I noticed some of these issues come up and I decided to look back at the spiral dynamics stage yellow short comings and they resonated. I took notes on that part a while back and I thought I should include it because it's really relevant to what I've been discussing.

On 10/18/2020 at 3:11 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

Limitations/ Excesses of the Stages (Green and Yellow)

Yellow (1:38:00- 1:45:00)

Can get bogged down in complex analysis (1:39:53). Can develop an intellectual hubris of arrogance (1:39:58)

I addressed some of this in my post "Conscious Unconsciousness" where I discuss my reasoning for integrating my inner basic bitch. I also think this form of the "i'M NOt LiKE oTheR giRls" attitude as it relates of consciousness can be detrimental because there is arrogance and ego involved. However, I'm still in the process of integrating all of this. I decided to copy and paste that specific portion of that post because I don't want to water it down:

Yellow tends to be a cold individualist and a loner which becomes a problem when it comes to actualizing something because they need a team to implement a vision. They become isolated and feel lonely and disconnected (1:41:10). Yellow has a difficulty in building a community/ becoming emotionally distant and forget to connect with people because they are too focused on models (1:41:29)

I have become rather disconnected with other people during my college career where I have essentially immersed myself in models. I am meaning to address that when the pandemic is up and I have more opportunities to socialize. I think this sense of disconnection and loneliness is also causing me to question whether or not self actualization is even worth it since I don't have the best foundation in relationships and external signifiers of success. I think this thread explains that pretty well:

All this understanding will not lead to happiness because happiness isn't found in the mind (1:42:19)

I feel called out and I'm not sure how to handle this at this moment. But I am recognizing the problem more and more because of the way I'm frequently immersed in learning

soos_mite_ah · April 30, 2021

I wanted to repost this and bring it more to the forefront of my more recent journal posts because I think it's really relevant to what I talked about in my previous post.

On 10/10/2020 at 6:51 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

Conscious Unconsciousness

I think to a certain extent, being unconscious is something that can help people get through the day in a healthy way. I feel that this might be a little controversial given that we're mainly here to raise our level of consciousness in order to develop, but I also think one can be unconscious in a conscious way. Here are some scenarios that I have come up with:

1. Building Habits: Doing things out of habit is largely unconscious. When we do things out of habit, we do things without thinking. It becomes automatic and we aren't fully in the moment in whatever we are doing. Essentially, we go into autopilot. However, we can consciously choose our habits and evaluate them accordingly. For instance, I can consciously choose the habit to wake up at the same time every day because I find that it will help me be more efficient. At first, it will be hard to implement this habit because I have to consciously choose to wake up at the same time everyday if that is something new that I am doing. Eventually, the conscious choice of this being a habit will turn into something that is automatic for me and therefore having an element of unconsciousness. In order to be consciously unconscious, we need to have an element of choice when it comes to what we are willing to go on auto piolet on.

2. Developing a sense of focus: If we are focusing on something very intently, odds are we are blocking out other things. For instance, as I am typing out this journal entry, I'm probably not thinking about how my chair feels (that is until I mentioned it this very moment). In that way, I am unconscious of how my chair feels underneath me because that isn't the place where I am putting my awareness towards. This sense of focus is a survival mechanism. In the wild for example, you don't want to be aware of the pretty clouds and the crisp air when you are being chased by a tiger. You want to block that out and choose to focus on getting away to keep yourself alive. The key work here is choose. Sometimes when it comes to focus, we can be unconsciously unconscious to where we become defensive without meaning to because the perspectives that are being presented to us goes against our agenda. That is an automatic response to keep us safe, however, in some instances such as trying to be openminded, focusing too much on your own perspective can be detrimental. It's important to choose what we do and don't give our focus and therefore our consciousness towards or else our ego will determine it for us.

3. Avoiding Hyper Analysis: This is something that I have been thinking of in my journey to integrate my basicness especially with clothes. I tend to be very minimalistic with my wardrobe. I have a color palette that I have selected out that matches each other and looks good on me. I have certain styles of clothing that I look out for because I know it will flatter me. I know how to choose clothes according to my life style. I also consider my values regarding fast fashion etc. I'm not the type of person that falls prey to a lot of unnecessary consumption because I am very intentional with my choices which in turn points me towards more consciousness in my decision making. But as I have tried to incorporate more of my basicness, I have tried to let go of some of this intentionality. I'm trying to be more in tuned with what is cute and fun rather than what is efficient for instance. For me that is bold patterns and colors. Granted that I have already integrated intentional spending previously, it's unlikely that I'm going to get sucked into stage orange toxic consumerism. I'm trying not to overthink it and just go with the flow, just let myself be. Not everything has to be super deep and filled with meaning, it can just be and it's ok to appreciate it for just that. Because when you put too much intent and try to be conscious, you're still in the state of doing rather than in the state of being. And sometimes just letting yourself be, whatever your level of consciousness/ unconsciousness is, is the a conscious way of being unconscious. Letting myself be "basic" has become a way to let myself be a little looser and simply enjoy myself with my journey towards greater awareness. Not everything has to revolve around consciousness work.

4. Accepting and Embracing Unconsciousness (Loving the Unconsciousness): This goes along with the previous point. There is nothing wrong with being unconscious. In fact just letting yourself be unconscious and accept that can be more beneficial than fighting that unconsciousness. Granted, accepting can have different meanings. Many people see accepting as approving. For example, accepting your gay child is approving their sexuality and saying it's ok. However, sometimes accepting means acknowledgement, and that acknowledgement can lead to healing. For example, accepting violent crime isn't the same thing as approving it. You can accept violent crime and show great love and compassion for it. That doesn't mean that you're going to be this blood thirsty psychopath. Instead showing love and compassion means that you're willing to take the care to analyze the reasons why violent crimes occur and work towards solutions that decrease the suffering that leads people to harm one another. In other words, you accept the unconscious behavior and you acknowledge the factors that contribute to it. Then, you can use that data to consciously come up with solutions to love the unconsciousness or "evil" to death.

The opposite of accepting violent crime can yield to denial of the factors that contribute to crime. It could also lead to a "tough on crime" approach where instead of helping people break the cycle of violence, you insist on harsher punishments for perpetrators. You give out harsher punishments instead of analyzing the issues at hand in a loving and caring manner. This in turn makes things worse because you don't actually address or acknowledge the problem, Instead you partake in retributive justice. I'm not going to sit here and make the argument that "oh you need to be kind to the people who have wronged you because if you don't you're no better than them" or that "you forgive because it's the right thing to do" as if I'm some type of cartoon super hero. If you or a loved one is a victim of a violent crime, it is perfectly acceptable and understandable to be upset. But by punishing someone because you hate the violence isn't going to systemically future instances of violent crime. Sure you fight fire with fire, but you're still not addressing the systemic problems and in doing so you're not taking a preventative approach to violent crime, you are letting future instances to happen.

Another really good example I can think of are the differences in acceptance of racism among liberals and conservatives. I would argue that liberals are more accepting of the U.S.'s racist past. That statement would sound absolutely false if you see accepting as approval. However, if we look at accepting as acknowledgement, then that's a different story. Liberal are willing to acknowledge the racism in the American system and point out how the greatly revered founding fathers were slaver owners who committed crimes against humanity. Conservatives on the other hand don't want to accept/ acknowledge America's racist past. It hurts their ego because it presents the notion that the U.S. isn't the greatest country in the world. Instead of accepting this, they want to deny it. They want to deny the existence of systemic racism. They want to deny the possibility that their perspective has a racist bias or blind spot. Some conservatives (Trump), want to go as far to say that we need "patriotic education" where history isn't riddled with how American heroes were racist. And in doing all of this denial, they are letting racism continue on a collective level. In fact, they are willing to let it be a shadow to where they don't want to acknowledge how they could be racist, thus causing them to be racist instead of seeking to educate themselves. In turn, they perpetuate the very thing that they are trying to repress. That's what happens when we are unconscious with our unconsciousness. Instead we want to be conscious of our unconsciousness so we can make moves to addressing it with love instead of projecting things out ward. Accepting that you have a problem without judgement is the first step towards solving it.

It's ok to be unconscious. There is no need to demonize it. You don't have to be conscious all the time. Sometimes being unconscious inevitable such as in point #1. In fact in some instance being hyper aware/conscious can be detrimental such as in the case of point #2 and #3. In other cases, that unrealistic expectation of being conscious and perfect all the time can yield to more problems with unconsciousness such as in point #4. In other words, to deal with unconsciousness, you need to consciously love it to death. The act of loving the unconscious is acting with consciousness.

soos_mite_ah · April 30, 2021

Appreciating Bitterness

So I bought this bar of dark chocolate that is 75% cocoa and has little bits of coffee in each square. It's really bitter and normally I'd be really turned off by it but because I have cut out some carbs out of my diet and been extra mindful of the amount of sugar I've been consuming, instead of just taking in the bitterness, I've been able to be more receptive of the other flavors and notes in the chocolate which is causing me to really enjoy it.

I never had a super unhealthy diet but even by cleaning it up a little bit I did get changes in my taste buds. I know it's a whole thing when people cut out things that aren't healthy that their taste buds get more sensitive and therefore they start enjoy healthier foods more because they pick up on the subtle flavors more.

I think the same can be true with self actualization/ spiritual work as well in relation to your life experiences. When you have an unhealthy life style or you're in an unhealthy circumstance, sometimes you go numb to the negative effects through normalization similar to how your taste buds get used to super salty and super sugary foods from eating processed foods all the time. Getting into a healthy lifestyle whether it is breaking out of old patterns of thoughts or changing your diet can be challenging because you get so numb to the unhealthy circumstance that the healthy alternative tastes bad, foreign, and unnatural literally and figuratively. I think I remember reading a comment on tiktok that was something along the lines of "I sometimes like hanging out with toxic and dramatic people because even though I don't participate in the drama, it's still tea and it gives life a little spice." I think that example illustrates how we get accustomed to unhealthy things in our lives to where we crave them in a way despite it not being good for us.

And eventually, we acquire the healthy taste through the work we do on ourselves and maintaining the healthy habit in question becomes easy because it starts to feel really good. I know personally after cutting down on sugar and carbs that I can't even enjoy milk chocolate anymore because it's too sweet and it doesn't have that much flavor so as a result, I don't have this thing where I have to exert self control when I see chocolate anymore.

When it comes to bitterness specifically, after cleaning up my diet, like I said, I have been able to enjoy really dark chocolate (all the way to like 95% dark chocolate) and appreciate all the flavors instead of having the urge to spit it out just because it's bitter. And I think the parallel between that and self actualization work is how we see obstacles and challenges. Because when you get into a healthier place, even if a certain circumstance is bitter, you can appreciate the circumstance for what it is and still find flavors in the experience you can savor and learn from by just being present. If you are in a less healthy place you're more likely to want to spit it out and resist the circumstance in question causing you to go through more turmoil and bitterness. And it's not that if you are in a less healthy place that you are more sensitive. If anything, the healthier you are and the more healing work you've done by peeling back layers of your psyche, the more sensitive you become. Because not only do you have you have more mastery over your emotions, meaning you can differentiate and discern subtle emotions as they come up, therefore giving you more data points on how to handle a situation, but the experiences penetrate much deeper into your heart because you don't have the layers of trauma and defense mechanisms clouding your judgement and perception of the situation. The difference between being in a healthy or unhealthy state isn't difference when it comes to levels of sensitivity rather it is the difference when it comes to reactivity.

soos_mite_ah · May 1, 2021

9 Stages of Ego Development: Where Am I Now?

I journaled about this topic around the time when Leo first came out with these videos. I decided to revisit them to see where I'm at now since I did work through a lot of things between September 2020 and now. Normally people span 3 or more stages with having one stage as their center of gravity. Sometimes they slip back to previous stages when they are under stress and emotional distress and sometimes they intellectually understand the higher stages but don't fully embody them yet. At September, I mainly was a mix of the Pluralist and the Strategist with the Achiever mixed in there. I also realized that I had a lot of hang ups and issues left over from the previous stages that I needed to work through to create a stronger foundation. Since then I think I dealt with a lot of the issues from the previous stages through shadow work and I have moved up like half a stage from pluralist/strategist to strategist mainly. Here is more information on that from the post I wrote in my journal from back then:

I read through the paper in more detail this time and took more time to reflect on various memories I had from my childhood along with reading my journal entries from back then to get an idea of what kinds of things gave me an existential crisis back then to track my progression. Because I had more time than I did when I was busy with school, I took notes on the original paper whereas before I just read through it, highlighted a bunch of stuff that resonated with me on my laptop, and copied and pasted a few things as it was relevant to me journaling (see linked post).

This is what I came up with this time around in a nut shell:

My Ego Stages Through the Years

Symbiotic: Ages 0-2 (2 years)
Impulsive: 2-8 (6 years)
Self Protective/ Opportunist: 5-8 (3 years)
Conformist: 7-12 (5 years)
Expert: 10-15 (5 years)
Achiever: 15-19 (4 years)
Pluralist: 16-21 (5 years) (I said from 16 to 21 because I'm sure I can smooth out the few hang ups I have between now and my 22nd birthday)
Strategist: 19-???
Construct Aware: 20-???

Where Am I Now in April 2021?

Achiever: Though this isn't my center of gravity, there are still somethings that resonate and that I need to exhaust. I still resonate with self analysis and understanding people being my favorite pastime (p.44). I still need to figure out my career path and become financially independent from my parents (p. 43).

P. 43: "Achievers are more aware of their overall career path and how they got to where they are. At the same time, they trust in the potential to improve themselves through effort, learning and feedback. Feedback can now be listened to without necessarily agreeing with it or feeling one’s whole identity has been diminished. Whether the critic is right, misinformed, or misjudged me, the their response is useful information both about myself and about the critic."
P.44: "Thus, the analysis of others and self-analysis become a favorite pastime and challenge. Many typologies and theories about human behavior come out of this motivation to classify and understand other human beings. From psychoanalysis, to behaviorism, to Rogerian therapy, to Gestalt approaches, many of the major therapeutic schools were born out of the Achiever mindset. Knowing the root causes and reasons for unwanted behavior helps one to fix problems and to achieve better outcomes. Indeed, finding the causes and working out explanations for what one observes are paramount for the scientific, modern method of inquiry and knowledge acquisition." (I don't have an issue with constructive criticism but I will say that I have no idea where I'm going in the next 5-10 years)

Pluralist: I have worked through much of this phase but I notice myself slipping back here at times when I'm less conscious such as times of stress. I need to study epistemology and philosophy to horizontally develop in this stage (p. 54). I have highlighted portions from pages 56-58 as well as 61-62. To move past those hang ups, I need to find my life purpose.

P.54: "The 4th person perspective allows individuals to focus on epistemology, that is, to examine how they came to believe what they believe and feel and how one knows and proves things. The transition to the first postconventional stage is a watershed in so far as it is the first time that the vertical move and the questioning of previously unexamined ideas is no longer supported by society and its chief conventional representatives. Postconventional thinking and questioning assumptions may be taught and encouraged in college courses, but then challenged and or dismissed at work and at home." (I need to look into epistemology when I go back to delving into deeper topics)
P. 56 (resonated with me from 2018 to now): "As Stage 4/5 individuals explore their feelings and motivations, they can also begin to become aware of how easily we can fool ourselves. The possibility of defensive self-deception and culturally biased distortion are now starting to be experienced as ever-present dangers. Given the increasing awareness of one’s own vulnerabilities, persons at the 4th person perspective can exhibit a new, non-hostile type of humor that is directed towards the self. It is based on an the beginning sense of the futility of framing things in terms of right and wrong, provable or disprovable. It also recognizes how easily we can fool ourselves about our motives and intentions."
P. 56: "Cognition: Thus, In the positive, liberated version of this stage, individuals may enjoy paradoxes and contradictions and no longer try to explain them away....Rather than trying isolate aspects of experience into different to categories and analyze them separately as independent variables, Stage 4/5 individuals are looking for connections and subtler clues to what is going on. Useful information can come from many sources that were previously considered outside the realm of scientific inquiry and viewed with skepticism, such as body sensations, intuition, dreams, reflection, and meditation."
P.57: "Individualists often replace the focus on causality (past) and goals (future) of the Conscientious person with a fascination with the immediate present. They need to understand and watch how things unfold. Their attention turns from outcomes and deliverables to an interest in the processes, the relationships and the complex, non-linear influences among variables." (basically me coping with the pandemic by trying to be present and focusing on myself since there isn't anything else I can do)
P.57: "They can therefore become enthralled with watching themselves trying to make sense of themselves. They often withdraw from external affairs and company life, or from ordinary daily routines. Instead, they turn inward in search of their unique gifts or answers to their own burning questions. If they are given room to be themselves and time to experiment freely, they can provide valuable input to the workplace. They find novel ways of looking at problems, or inspire others with their enthusiasm in pursuing their own interests and questions. If working independently, they are likely to fashion schedules and work contexts to optimize their flourishing. Sometimes, they are content to simply live day by day following “their own drummer.” Today’s hippy culture still embodies some of that sense of freedom and self-expression in the company of like-minded others symptomatic of the Individualist mindset." (this is me taking a break from school and trying to figure out my purpose tbh).
P. 58: "Depression at this level has several facets: a) The realistic fear of being reabsorbed, that is sucked back into the “rat race” of the Achiever mindset by the demands of society; b) The dread of a routine work life that does rarely allows for individual self-expression and creativity; c) The concern that one will never find a clear self-definition from which to consistently operate and generate a coherent self sense; d) The deep experience of worry and tensions that come from growing beyond the conventional mindset especially when it comes to intimate relationships."
P. 61:"Personality types: Individualists often prefer to live at the fringe of society, to live exactly the way they want to be. Admired by postconventional people for their spontaneity and unique self-expression, conventional persons may distrust them for being non-conformist and impossible to understand and predict." (this and the quote from p. 58 have to do with my angst with capitalism and how there is a part of me that wants to live out my cottage core fantasies in a farm isolate from everyone)

Strategist: This is my center of gravity as I'm writing this. Everything in this section of the paper resonates with me at this moment.

Construct Aware: This is where my higher self is at. Even though I can cognitively grasp the concepts in this stage, I'm far from being able to articulate it much less embody it emotionally. I need to work on my foundation with more basic forms of self help especially as I'm writing this since I'm currently taking a break from deeper topics because I noticed myself getting burnt out, overwhelmed, and like I don't have the proper foundation to integrate teachings without misunderstanding them and using them in an unhealthy way.

Things to Keep in Mind:

It takes about 5 years to move to the next level if circumstances are favorable and you're openminded
It takes a year if you're doing a well developed program to shift to a new level.
While each person has a center of gravity in one stage, their development can span across 3 or more stages depending on their mood and stress levels.

My Goals/ Sense of Direction Going Forward:

Find my life purpose
Figure out a career path and become financially independent from my family
Get some close friends and hopefully a significant other (focus on after the pandemic wears off and I can get out more)
Learn epistemology and philosophy (this one isn't super urgent but the first 3 are the ones I really need to focus on)

Edited May 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

The Necessity of Acknowledging Progress

Today I went out for a drive just to get out of the house and I drove into a McDonalds because something really random hit me. I was like *you know what, I haven't had a McChicken in a while, let me get one because why tf not.* I'm not a fast food and the only thing that I normally get from McDonalds is either a salad or smoothie. But I was thinking something along the lines of when was the last time I even had a chicken sandwich for them. It must have been at least 7 years or so.

I got the McChicken and I took a bite. It wasn't bad but I don't think I want to have another one in a while. It was just really plain and kinda flavorless in my opinion. But it brought back some nostalgia because I remember from like ages 7-10 or so, I phase where I thought chicken sandwiches were like the best thing in the world. It reminded me on what my diet was like when I was in elementary school.

Elementary school was the time that I had the worst eating habits in terms of how healthy the food I was eating was. It wasn't atrocious, definitely far from the standard American diet, but it is really different from what I eat on a regular basis now. For breakfast back then I would have some cereal, but nothing too sugary unless it was the weekend. It would normally be like sugar free raisin bran because my parents have issues with high blood sugar and buying like 3 types of cereal was an inconvenience. I would save some Froot Loops for the weekend because not having it everyday made it feel special to me lol. For lunch, I had whatever was at school. That's where a lot of my junk food habits came up because it's not like I ever had that type of thing at home. And then at home, I would have whatever Indian food my mom would make from scratch.

Looking back at old pictures, I wasn't fat but I was a little squishier than a lot of the other kids. I got made fun of because of that and the fact that I have literally no upper body strength and because I was a really slow runner, a lot of the kids were like *you're really fat and unfit* and basically I was always the last one picked at any game. Definitely messed with my self esteem at the time. Fast forward like a decade and I still don't have much upper body strength, I hate how cardio physically makes me feel, but now I know that I have a lot of lower body strength. Part of the reason why I appeared squishier was mainly because of my height. I was always short and I guess my weight didn't really distribute like the other kids who were like 4-5 inches taller than me at the time. According to my doctor, I remember this really specifically because my mom always bothered me about it, I was always shorter than average and a little overweight. My doctor would basically give me the same lecture on how I probably eat too much and how I need to be more mindful about portion sizes and stop eating candy, even though I never had a problem with either of those things. At 10 I was around 80lbs and 4'6" (my mom would measure me weekly and criticize me for my weight) which would put my BMI at 19.5 but even though that is technically in the normal range (hell in the lower part of normal), it was higher than I guess the 50th percentile for my age so that's why my doctor was nitpicky. But I definitely wasn't obese. It was always like "you're 3 inches too short of what you're supposed to be and you need to lose like 10-15 lbs on top of that." I just had a lot of people around me overreacting and doing the absolute most. The fact that this was like 2009 is also a factor but Imma talk about that in another post because there is just a lot of unpack there.

And yeah..... all that messed with my self image. Things like that always made me feel like I literally didn't measure up and that there was something wrong with me and it was my fault even though it was mostly genetics. The best part of turning 15 or so when I basically stopped growing is that I stopped having doctors tell me that I'm supposed to be taller to be considered average. I'm 5'2' and I believe that the average is 5'4" or 5'5" so yeah, I'm still 2-3 inches shorter than "what I'm supposed to be." I still have to deal with people criticizing my weight though because according to the BMI I am a little overweight even though I'm still relatively small and I couldn't get smaller unless I did something drastic.

Over the years I cleaned up my diet even more, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for messed up ones because I was insecure about the way I looked. In middle school and high school, I started packing my own lunch mainly because I didn't like the food at the school I switched to so as a result I naturally made healthier lunches for myself based on what was already in the house. It was always something along the lines of noodles with chicken and vegetables with some fruit, or a wrap I made with grilled chicken and vegetables with some carrots on the side, or maybe a salad and some fruit. For dinner it was basically the same. I would snack a little after school with usually some crackers, popcorn, or like one of those mini packs of chips. So overall, not too bad. Like the snacks weren't the best but it wasn't like I was binging on junk food. The worst habit I developed in this time was skipping breakfast. Part of it was me wanting to sleep in more before school but another part of it was because I wanted to cut calories and I didn't know what else to cut. I did go through phases of elimination diets but none of them were sustainable for more than 2 weeks and obviously I shamed myself for "lacking discipline" even though it was literally my body telling me to eat, not because I was a fat pig, but because I was hungry and rightfully so.

I didn't realize that I already ate pretty healthy until recently I had to make a couple changes to my diet for health reasons. I just had to cut out gluten, dairy, and some sugar from my diet. I know that might sound like a lot, but it wasn't super difficult because I didn't have much of those in my diet in the first place. I just had to switch the milk in my smoothie with almond milk, get gluten free bread and lentil pasta, and eat dark chocolate. I also kept a food diary and I had surprising insights about my own habits. Normally when I hear people talking about keeping a food diary, I always hear something along the lines of "I didn't know how bad I ate on a regular basis" and that did happen to me initially but then I realized that *no I actually eat pretty well, if anything I have a tendency of being nitpicky mainly because of the way my mom treated me when I would reach for something even slightly less than ideal.*

Anyway, dramatic detailed backstory aside, let's get back to the McChicken. The McChicken reminded me of the self image I made up at the time while me not liking it that much indicated how much my taste buds have actually changed. The reason why my tastes changing is important is because I noticed that whenever I change my diet, my taste buds get acclimated to healthier foods and as a result junk food just loses its appeal. But even though my habits and my body has changed, my self image never did. There is still a part of me that feels like I eat super unhealthy, that I need to lose weight, and that I need to be skinnier to compensate for how short I am. As a result, I never acknowledged the healthy habits I did implement because I was so caught up with thinking that I'm not doing enough because I don't look like the poster child of health which includes being really skinny and having a flat stomach. I was blinded by my own stagnant self image which caused me to go to extremes when it comes to eating healthy and caused me to beat myself up if I slightly deviated from what I intended on doing. It still doesn't help that my mom critiques me from being too short and too fat or that doctors always tell me to lose weight during yearly check ups. I've changed, but the critiques remained constant which further solidified my stagnant self image.

To tie it in with broader self development as a whole, it's important to acknowledge how far you've come so that you can alter what you do to improve yourself accordingly. Like constantly criticizing yourself and implementing greater measures for something even though you've already dealt with it just because your self image hasn't caught up to where you actually are right now, is a recipe of doing the most to where it gets unhealthy. When it comes to food, critiquing your diet and going to extreme measures because your self image hasn't caught up resulted in a lot of neurotic behavior for me.

I guess when it comes to unpacking the ego like a lot of people do here, I think I had a similar dynamic unfold. I didn't have a super big ego that I needed to dismantle to humble myself and have a more accurate perception of reality. Sure there was room for improvement and I have made those improvements but I started taking more extreme measures to where I got attached to detaching. While the teachings weren't unhealthy, I was using it in an unhealthy way and misconstrued it because I underestimated my growth and saw myself as this egotistical devil of sorts. Taking a break from I guess consciousness work and acknowledging how far I've come has been so beneficial for me in having a more solid sense of identity in a healthy and constructive way as well as I believe having a more accurate perception of myself.

And finally, I think the same can be said about my social skills. I was a weird and kinda socially awkward 12 year old, naturally like many 12 year olds. Even though I've naturally come a long way in my social skills to the point it wouldn't cross many people's minds to call me awkward, partly because of age and natural maturation and partly because of me working on myself, I still see myself as the socially awkward 12 year old because my self image never caught up. With this particularly, I think it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts because then it causes me to nitpick on the way I talk and carry myself when I don't need to which causes me to have this sense of social anxiety.

So yeah, acknowledging your progress isn't always egotistical. It's sometimes necessary to do so in order to know the correct course of action depending on where you are at now, not ruminate on a problem that has already been solved or to not take a solution that helped at one point and basically make it an over kill. Acknowledging my progress has been so important for me when it comes to learning to be more gentle with myself and cultivating more self acceptance.

Edited May 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

Fatphobia in the 2000s

15 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

At 10 I was around 80lbs and 4'6" (my mom would measure me weekly and criticize me for my weight) which would put my BMI at 19.5 but even though that is technically in the normal range (hell in the lower part of normal), it was higher than I guess the 50th percentile for my age so that's why my doctor was nitpicky. But I definitely wasn't obese. It was always like "you're 3 inches too short of what you're supposed to be and you need to lose like 10-15 lbs on top of that." I just had a lot of people around me overreacting and doing the absolute most. The fact that this was like 2009 is also a factor but Imma talk about that in another post because there is just a lot of unpack there.

So just to get it out of my system, I thought I'd journal about fatphobia in the 2000s as I remember it from my childhood. The ideal back then wasn't "thicc" or having a butt. It was the opposite where you had to shrink you ass and be really skinny or else you were deemed as fat, even if you look fine. Looking back at it, we can tell people were taking it to the extreme, but back then it was the norm. I think it was even more normalized for me because I was a child at this time and I didn't have much of a frame of reference. Now I'm seeing a lot of people on TikTok talking about how the standards of the 2000s collectively messed with a lot of people and gave them body image issues.

The things that I see a lot on TikTok are people talking about the following images and the amount of backlash they got from the media at the time:

britney 2.jpg britney 1.jpg jessica simpson.jpg

Tyra, Britany, and Jessica all look like normal healthy human beings in these pictures. First of all Tyra looks like she's relaxed and minding her own business because she isn't posed or photoshopped. Britany still looks fairly skinny, she just got caught at the wrong time and she looks like she ate like a normal person that day. Naturally even if you are skinny and/or have abs or a flat stomach, it's normal to look different in the morning vs at night because of what you do throughout the day. Jessica, honestly looks amazing by today's standard of beauty even if the camera is in a slightly weird angle. But I remember back in the 2000s, people were losing their god damn minds about these images and were talking about how fat they got, how the let themselves go etc. I remember back then not thinking they were fat but definitely thinking they were overweight like there was something wrong with them (mind you I was literally like 7 at this time). But now I'm like THEY LITERALLY LOOK LIKE NORMAL HEALTHY PEOPLE. Also, I'm pretty sure these women have had kids at this point so it's normal for your body. Most people aren't going to bounce back and look exactly like they did when they were in their late teens-early 20s and that is perfectly fine. It isn't some type of moral failing. (That's another thing that bothers me about celebrity culture is that whenever someone has a kid, it's like there is this count down and expectation to drastically lose all the weight and look the way they did before they got pregnant. Like pregnancy, being a mom, and taking care of a kid and your changing body is a whole thing, there are bigger things to worry about than losing all the weight. The fact that a person's body brought life into this earth is a beautiful thing and a very intelligent process and for people to reduce that body down to how it measures up to current beauty standards is messed up IMO).

This stuff wasn't exempt from kids shows either from what I remember.

harper 2.jpg

Tori+trina.PNG.png

Both Harper from Wizards of Waverly place and Trina from Victorious were framed like the fat character. The way that their characters were written were like they were the quirky funny fat best friend to the side character. I remember people poking fun about their weight in the show as well like I think a couple times. I completely forgot about all this but again because of TikTok, I searched up images and part of me was like *I swear they were thicker* because that's how I remembered them. Now looking at them, compared to the main character, they were a little wider but like, not by that much. It's not even a weight thing, it's just their overall body structure and hell their face. Both Harper and Trina look relatively thin. They still look like normal skinny healthy people and so do their co stars. I'm not shaming Selena Gomez or Victoria Justice for being skinny. Selena was literally like 14 and Victoria Justice was always naturally really skinny even back in her Zoey 101 days when she was like 12. My point is that no one was fat and even if some people leaned skinny, everyone was normal but the media exaggerated all of this so much back then because of the standards of that time. Plus I'm pretty sure they were all minors in these pictures and yeah that makes the media exaggerations much more gross.

I always feel bad for women who are in the public eye who get their appearance picked apart, especially when they are minors. I know this isn't anything new or something that only happened in the 2000s but at least now we have something like body positivity adding something to the conversation and to people's perceptions. I guess for me looking back all of this feel more jarring because of how the standard of the ideal body did a 180 from really thin and tall to looking like the Kardashians as well as people talking about body positivity and looking at other indicators of health other than weight along. I think things like body positivity still has a long way to go. Honestly, I haven't met many people, men or women, who doesn't have some type of issue with their bodies. It's so wide spread that it can't be some isolated individual problem. I've had to unpack and chip away at a lot of limiting thoughts I had about my own body and how I judge others over the years. I could honestly go on about this all day.

Edited May 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

My Thoughts on Spiral Dynamics

I think Spiral Dynamics is an amazing model that can aid in understand where you are at in your own personal development but also gage why certain viewpoints and discourses unravel the way they do. I remember when I first found SD in around mid 2018, after watching the whole series, I was like *holy shit, life makes more sense.* Like a lot of the ways I grew as a person, a lot of my existential crisis, they all followed this pattern. Over time it also helped me differentiate between periods of growth, when and why I was backsliding, and what I can work on, or areas of my life re-examine more in order to make it healthier and more efficient so that I can become a more well rounded person with better critical thinking skills. I got a lot of value out of this model in my personal life.

When it comes to evaluating other people, I found myself being able to be more compassionate and more understanding towards people that I disagreed with. In 2018, I'd say that I was pretty green but I went to college that was politically and socially conservative and most people there ranged between blue and orange. There weren't many green people which is an anomaly for college campuses. Initially, my gut reaction was to argue and push back against the conservatives at my school but SD helped me take what was being said less personally and helped me evaluate why they were they way they were. Not only did this help my mental health because I didn't have my butt cheeks clenched the whole time, but it helped me be more empathetic and less divisive.

Finally, when it came to my course work, this was where I couldn't un-see SD. I can list so many examples of this ranging from my business classes to my sociology classes. In my political science class, I remember once we were talking about how before capitalism there was mercantilism in the middle ages where people did jobs according to what their family lineage was and they were serfs under kings and warlords. The transition from that to capitalism along with the thought leaders who evaluated this process made so much more sense when you looked at the process as the global political economy shifting from stage blue into stage orange. In my South Asian human rights class, we had to watch this documentary about the ideals of femininity in different parts of India. Firstly we have this idea of femininity that has its roots from western media and is very consumerist and is concentrated in the cities. This form of femininity is explored by looking at pageants in India. The other form of felinity comes from a traditional religious fundamentalist framework. Both forms of felinity are explored in the documentary and as class we had to dissect the historical and social roots of each phenomenon by looking at how colonialism plays a role, how religious discrimination plays a role, and how western ideals caused a backlash from the religious people but also how it doesn't free people who subscribe to those ideals because something isn't inherently right or progressive just because it's from the west. From and SD perspective, the documentary is evaluating the circumstance from a stage green/ yellow POV and is contrasting stage blue and orange ideal of femininity, how each set of ideals can be both empowering and disempowering in different contexts as well as the parallels that exist between the two ideals. SD has helped me a lot in my studies and understanding concepts deeper.

SD is I think one of the main reasons why I joined this forum. Again, I couldn't un-see it and even though it aided in me understanding the world and providing insight in various discussions both in and out of the classroom, I couldn't just introduce SD because it takes so long to unpack in an accurate way and because it can easily be interpreted and used for bad faith arguments. I joined this forum because I was really into SD and I wanted to talk about it with other people who were familiar with it as well.

Other than SD taking a long time to understand, one of the main draw backs is the natural hierarchy of the spiral and how some stages are more developed than others. There isn't anything wrong with it inherently but I feel that people who don't have a good grasp of stage green, where you break down man made hiearchies, and probably have a lot of orange and blue in their system, they can turn SD in a spiritual dick measuring contest or worst case scenario a case for eugenics.

I don't think I need to explain the dick measuring contest since I'm pretty sure you can find that in this forum of some people being dismissive towards others or people thinking they are *sooooo conscious* because they built up a spiritual ego (I admit I do find myself dipping into that as well sometimes, I'm working on that lol).

But when it comes to eugenics, that's my main concern if SD were to ever become mainstream. Things like colonialism has disrupted the SD development of certain places of the world. The displacement of tribes in the Middle East have to do with why there is so much infighting and so much stage red and purple there. The way colonialism impacted India I believe has kept much of the country more in stage blue than if they were to develop normally through time without Europe stealing their wealth and institutionally messing things up for 200 years. A lot of less developed parts of the world aren't inherently less economically, politically, or consciously developed because those areas have people of color but they are that way because of the way history played out and the way that developed countries exploited the rest of the world for their personal gain. But with SD, given the hierarchy and the incorrect assumption that the higher stages are "better," we risk painting POC as savages and less civilized. You aren't savage or less civilized for being at a lower stage but I can see people misconstruing this if they already have biases against POC. Before natural hierarchies come up, the man made ones need to be fully dismantled or else there is a huge risk of the two blending together to create a racist cluster fuck. Like the dick measuring contests that happen in this forum, SD can be used as a way to shut down empathy because the person talking is seen as less developed and therefore less than.

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

My Thoughts on the 9 Stages of Ego Development

Like many people on this forum, I believe that Cook-Greuter's Ego Development Theory (EDT) is a better model for evaluating individual growth while SD is better for collective growth. I will admit that I have an attachment to SD because I have had more time to toy around with the model and therefore I think it's a good way to get a rough idea about where and how I think I need to grow. I revisit the videos on stage orange, green and yellow like once or maybe twice a year to gage where I'm at and how much of each video resonates with me and my writing.

But upon revisiting EDT, I think I'm going to use this one more because of how detailed it is for an individual ego. I revisited it recently after roughly 6 months after Leo's video on it came out and between now and then I think that the goals and takeaways I got from EDT helped me a lot in understanding how I can grow. To me EDT maps out the existential crisis I have had over the years in GREAT detail. As I was taking notes on the paper this time around, I was recalling different memories from my childhood as it relates to the stage descriptions on the cognitive, emotional, and social level. The paper even goes into the types of language one is likely to use in each stage when it comes to discussing their thoughts and emotions. That's how detailed this is. And I think because of how detailed it is and how individual focused it is (compared to SD which is much better at mapping out collective groups and ideologies), it's difficult to peg people and generalize on a whim or kneejerk reaction. Tbh, given the details especially on how it can coincide with personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings, the only person who can know where you stand is you imo. Figuring out someone's ego development using EDT isn't as clear cut as SD since in EDT it is very common to span across 3 or more levels and have hand ups in each one of them. I think that's why people don't use EDT nearly as much whenever a dick measuring contest happens between different spiritual egos on this forum. But the obvious con of this is taking the time to understand the model and contemplate it to where you can easily discuss it with other people.

This is also one of my favorite quotes I found:

Quote

Quote

Has anyone bought and read the spiral dynamics book by Christopher Cowan and Don Beck?

What do you think about the book?

Thanks!

It's pretty basic imo. They cover the same key points that you'll find in the Actualized series but in less detail. They also didn't address non-linear spiral progress problem, the illusion of "predicting the future" and how relativity breaks the spiral model both in micro and macro view. (I've yet to see someone talking about those issues in depth...)

It's a good summary if you're into the SD and need a refresher from someone other than Leo.

However I'd recommend you moving on to Cook-Greuter Ego Development model instead

- you'll get more out of it and you won't risk the trap of becoming one of the Six Crayons Gang members here that will dwarf your development.

SIX CRAYONS GANG MEMBERS LMAOOOOOOOOOO

Edited May 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

Actually Acknowledging My Progress

I'm always hesitant to acknowledge my progress because I am skeptical of anything I do since I know how much of a problem self deception can be. Earlier in the previous page, I did a post called 9 Stages of Ego Development: Where Am I? and after posting that in this journal, I felt as if I was tooting my own horn. I think part of it is because I have seen people have a misunderstanding of where they're actually at and I don't want to be part of the dick measuring contest. So as a result, I think I take it too far to where I invalidate my own growth. That isn't healthy which I have talked about earlier. Basically, me trying to avoid one self deception trap caused me to fall into another trap lol.

15 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

The Necessity of Acknowledging Progress

So yeah, acknowledging your progress isn't always egotistical. It's sometimes necessary to do so in order to know the correct course of action depending on where you are at now, not ruminate on a problem that has already been solved or to not take a solution that helped at one point and basically make it an over kill. Acknowledging my progress has been so important for me when it comes to learning to be more gentle with myself and cultivating more self acceptance.

I think it's also difficult to acknowledge my progress because sometimes I do inner work but it doesn't externally manifest right away. I think me living with my parents and being subjected to similar surroundings is a perfect example of this. I've been working on myself, sorting all types of issues out, being really proactive in therapy, and journaling. But my parents just see me on my computer to myself, without friends or a career lined up. The wins that I'm having aren't tangible things that I can show off on say social media. I feel like a lot of the progress I'm making is underground and it goes unnoticed and then, I will admit I do doubt myself because I'm not the most confident person. It's like people don't see my progress, they accuse me of being lazy and not making any progress, and then that makes me feel crazy for acknowledging my own progress. I feel gaslighted in a way. And I don't really blame other people because they are just going off of what they see and what they know. They aren't going to know about my inner workings unless I tell them or unless they read my journals which I'm not exactly open to for a variety of reasons. I have talked about this in a different post in this journal.

On 3/27/2021 at 8:01 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

Comparing Myself Against the Priorities of Other People

Like I noticed that when I compare myself I tend to get upset over not having things that I technically don't want in the first place. One time I caught myself feeling like a failure when I found out someone I knew was engaged. I don't even want to get married at my age. I guess another thing with me prioritizing self development is that when I do have milestones or when I do achieve a goal, it usually not something that I can show off. I'm not about to walk up to someone and start talking about how I made peace with this traumatic event that happened to me in childhood for example. And I think because of that, my achievements regarding self development can go unnoticed or uncelebrated, making me feel like I haven't done anything with my life.

I think another factor in me wanting to have tangible proof of my growth is to feel a sense of validity. My ego wants to feel safe in the process, like all my efforts are eventually going to pay off and that I'll be fine. It isn't very good at surrendering and trusting the process and always feeling at peace that I am growing even though all of it hasn't been manifested yet.

And back to the whole point of similar surroundings, I have explored that concept and how that solidifies an outdated self image in that I'm growing but my perception of myself hasn't caught up yet.

15 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

The Necessity of Acknowledging Progress I was blinded by my own stagnant self image which caused me to go to extremes when it comes to eating healthy and caused me to beat myself up if I slightly deviated from what I intended on doing. It still doesn't help that my mom critiques me from being too short and too fat or that doctors always tell me to lose weight during yearly check ups. I've changed, but the critiques remained constant which further solidified my stagnant self image.

Then I think there is the whole "why should be praise you for what you're supposed to do" attitude that my parents had with me growing. Even though I was a good kid and I got good grades, my parent's never acknowledged that because those things weren't special or worthy of praise, they were something you were just supposed to do. I think that impacted the way I treat my own wins and signs of growth. I look at them and I'm like "yeah I'm supposed to do that, it's nothing to be celebrated." I remember when it came to my high school graduation party, my parents had to force me to celebrate. I didn't want to for a variety of reasons at the time one of which because I didn't think this was worth celebrating. For the entire party, I was just cringing at myself because I didn't want to make a huge deal out of it. I think cringing is how I feel about celebrating any milestone tbh. It feels really unnatural for me and it annoys me to an extent when people expect me to throw a party when I don't really want to. I don't feel this way about other people even celebrating my birthday is kinda cringe for me personally because I don't see the point in celebrating if I haven't done anything special or remarkable. And knowing how critical I can be of myself, I don't even know how big an achievement or a sign of growth has to be for me to see it as special, remarkable, worthy of noting, and worthy of celebrating.

I have been talking a lot about me being gentle with myself to balance out how critical I tend to be with myself. And after considering everything I talked about in this post and in previous posts, I think an essential part of me taking strides towards self acceptance and self love is celebrating myself for small things, big things, everything in between, or just existing and being alive for another year. I'm doing this affirmation recently that is along the lines of "I'm inherently worthy of love" and I think that ties in well with what I've been writing lately.

Edited May 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 2, 2021

I found this video a couple days ago and it brought me so much comfort and reassurance. I feel that it also relates to the previous post.

soos_mite_ah · May 4, 2021

soos_mite_ah · May 4, 2021

Journaling Habits and Writing Style

This journal as a whole is mainly a release for me so that I can get anything that I'm thinking of out of my system so that I can see it in a more objective light. It also helps me process whatever feelings and events that are coming up so as a result not only is this a release, it's also a way that I can conduct myself.

Ever since I started this journal, I found that I journal and reflect more often and that has been incredibly helpful for me. I really like the way that I can format my entries on here specifically how I can quote previous posts and link youtube videos that I found sparked joy or gave me a lot of insights with what I'm dealing with. I guess initially there was a part of me that liked to have an audience. In the first couple months of me starting this journal, I would check how many times my journal got viewed. I don't really do that anymore but I guess the feeling of being seen and having people comment was motivating.

Before this journal I had this thing I did where I had a finsta where I would post memes along with post a tiny paragraph of how my week went, something funny that happened to me recently, or just a mood in the caption. It was mainly for my close friends just to keep in touch but I found that much more rewarding than my regular Instagram account. I've since deleted that account and I found myself leaning towards journaling on here more because although I like memes, the writing portion of it was more rewarding for me.

Even before me having any type of social media, I remember when I was around 5-7 years old, I wanted to have a diary or journal because I kept seeing people on TV have one. It would usually be some trope of a character writing in a diary but then having their sibling read that journal and then that character getting pissed off. I remember at the time I liked the idea of pouring out my emotions and thoughts and seeing something insightful out of it but I didn't like the idea of keeping it a secret. I have this memory from when I was 6 and I tried to start diary and then I went around trying to share it with people and I had a kid be like "isn't the whole point of a diary for you to not go around sharing things" and that straight up turned me off from journaling for like a decade because I was like "well I guess it doesn't resonate with me." But then around 16 I eventually got to a point where I had way too many thoughts and it felt like it was too much to process it all in my head and instead I need to have all of my thoughts out in front of me or else my head was going to explode because of my existential crisis. And thus my journaling habit was born.

I think the reason why I was able to consistently write things on my finsta and why I'm able to consistently journal here is because I like the idea of having a public diary. I like being able to connect to others through it and see whenever someone either resonates with something I wrote or finds some type of insight that was really helpful to them.

Growing up I also entertained the idea of being a writer. I really started thinking more about it recently because of the sheer amount of stuff that I write down. I remember once in 2019, I took all of the documents in my computer that consisted of my journal entries and then copied and pasted to a single word document and it turned out to be like 200 pages single spaced. This was along the course of journaling for 3 years. In that moment, I was shocked by how much I wrote because I wasn't intending on writing so much. I thought I was writing sporadically in order to release and analyze my thoughts. I didn't realize how much of a habit it was for me. It also got me thinking *damn I guess I could write a book.*

But then my sense of doubt came back. I guess when I thought about writing seriously, I mainly thought about something along the lines of writing fiction, so things along the lines of writing novels, screenwriting for shows, etc. And I quickly realized that I don't have that type of imagination. At first I thought this was resistance as in, I need to buckle down and learn how to write in an artistic way filled with imagery, metaphors, and other literally devices. But upon journaling here for 9 months consistently, I'm starting to revaluate that sentiment. I don't think that my voice in writing is this flowery piece of literature. Even when it comes to me reading books or watching TV or movies, it's almost never fiction. That's not to say that I have some type of resistance towards it or that I don't see the value of fiction, but it's not something that I find myself drawn to. The media that I consume is much more analysis oriented. I mention media consumption in this because a lot of creatives find their voice, their style, and their inspiration from the work of other creatives. Hell, I find myself much more in a flow state when I'm writing papers for school about something that I'm interested in than when it comes to writing fiction. My mind just draws the biggest blank when I try to make up a story. And I don't think it's wise for me to force something that doesn't resonate with me in the first place.

That said, I'm pretty sure that I can polish up my writing more. I write these journal entries often in a rush because my mind works much faster than my ability to type so as a result I often make typing errors and phrase things weirdly in a way that doesn't make as much sense or could have been more concise. But I'm not trying to submit these journal entries anywhere and it's mainly for my personal development so in my eyes, as long as I can make sense of it and not cringe, I'm fine with it for now. This is a very informal place for me.

But the reason why I'm evaluating my journaling habits and my writing style is because I think it can be connected to my life purpose. Most of the meaningful flow experiences I've had in the last 5 years or so has to do with me contemplating/meditating, me writing, me connecting to people, and me researching whatever the fuck struck my interest at the moment.

Again, there is this sense of hesitation that comes up as I'm writing this, especially as I wrote the previous paragraph, There is a part of me that can't take myself seriously as a writer whether that be in a fictional creative sense or in a research oriented analytical sense. I think part of it comes form me not fitting this mold of what is considered "good writing." It's why I would be hesitant with sharing anything I wrote in this journal to people I know in real life. I write my thoughts raw as they come up in my head. Sometimes that looks like a bullet pointed list and sometimes it's a stream of consciousness. I feel like I don't have much of a consistency when it comes to how I express myself and that can cause people to get confused. And as someone who wants to connect, empathize, and give out content that helps people, confusion isn't exactly an ingredient I think of in the mix because it usually indicates a lack of connection whether it be a message not resonating or ideas not flowing together properly.

And then finally, the last thing that I'm insecure about in my writing is how most of the time I don't have a formal introductory paragraph (unless it's something academic) and I never have a concluding paragraph (even in academic papers tbh). I just stop writing about a subject whenever I feel like I said everything that I had to say. This goes back to the whole thing about what's considered "good writing." And in my opinion, my journal entries here aren't good writing and therefore part of me is nervous about sharing this with people in real life.

soos_mite_ah · May 4, 2021

Also random thought I had while writing about my childhood experience with journaling.

I swear to god that there was a trope in the early 2000s media that was geared towards young girls where the main character would have a diary of sorts and would start the page with a cliché "dEAr DiArY" and then talk about the drama they encountered at school or about some guy they liked. I swear this isn't some type of fever dream I made up and that this was an actual thing that I would see in TV shows and movies.

As I was writing that part in my post, I was cringing at that idea. "Dear Diary" is so cliché and basic and headass. I don't know why this phrase bothers me so much lol.

Edited May 5, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

soos_mite_ah · May 6, 2021

Nothing New Here

So I was reading Atomic Habits by James Clear because I kept hearing people talk about how amazing the book is. I finished reading it and I agree, it is a good book. But unfortunately, I don't feel like I got much from it.

Most of the information that was in the book were mainly conclusions that I came to all by myself through contemplation, journaling, and self observation combined with my interpretations of teachings that I got from other teachers and how I tied it back to habit creation. Basically, the book was everything that I knew and discovered for myself by me overthinking and overanalyzing repackaged into less than 300 pages. While this book is insightful and people rave about how much it helped them, for me personally, there was nothing new here.

I have had similar experiences when watching/listening/ or reading the works of other teachers. That includes school as well. When I got to college, during my freshman year I took a couple classes on anthropology and sociology. A lot of the content came really naturally to me to where I barely had to study the subjects and what I was learning essentially felt like common sense. It wasn't because I took those classes or read books about the subjects before. It was more along the lines that I thought about similar subjects before naturally in my free time as I grew up. Because of my background I had to learn about different cultures and how to navigate different situations from a young age. I was also really curious about why people did what they did and as a result I built up the skills of analyzing and empathizing in a way that enabled me to get the answers that I wanted. Those classes felt very natural to me because the mode of thinking that those classes require or build is the mode of thinking that I operated in for years prior to me stepping foot on campus.

I will admit, I feel rather self conscious typing this out. I feel like so far in this post I have done nothing but brag about how I already know things. But those instances felt really humbling. Like, hey you're not the only one thinking this way, you're not some type of superhuman insight/analysis god, people have already discovered whatever you're thinking about, you're not special. There's nothing new here. I know that sounds rather demoralizing but I can have a bit of a spiritual ego at times so it's sometimes necessary lol. I look back at some of the stuff that 14 year old me wrote and came up with and I swear to god I remember her thinking she was being ~~**so deep**~~ (not to shame 14 year old me, it's natural to be fake deep at that age because your emotional depth perception is starting to develop and as a result even the littlest thing seems like a metaphor. That's a post for a different time lol.)

But there is a part of me that likes feeling special and insightful and that part of me sometimes takes those experiences in a demoralizing light. It manifests as a reluctance to share my thoughts and findings. There is a part of me that desires to come up with something original and groundbreaking. And sometimes when I encounter such experiences, I catch myself thinking along the lines of *hey I'm not discovering anything new, I guess everything that can be known has already been known.* I know just how delusional that sounds but that's the illusion that my mind encounters. It's like you're all excited about something being new and original only to find out that it has been done already. There's nothing new here.

Or worse, sometimes these instances build me up more. It's like *Hey I got to these conclusions by my own devices without spending a shit ton of time on research like the professionals had to. Surely that indicates something like natural talent!!* And then my ego swells up. As I was reading Atomic Habits, somewhere in the middle my mind was like *you know what, I could've probably written this book given the insights I had and wrote down in like 5 journal entries. I wonder how many self help books I could write based on my life experience thus far based on the sheer amount I already write.* But then the self doubt kicks in and is like *ok but even if you did write a book, you wouldn't be contributing anything new or revolutionary so what's the point? Don't kid yourself.*

And then there is this part of me that is like *OMFG FINALLY SOMEONE WHO THINKS ALONG THE SAME WAVE LENGTH AS ME!* It's this feeling of having my inner thoughts and ideas that I accumulated through experience and contemplation finally being seen and recognized. It also gives me a sense of reassurance. Like hey, maybe I'm not insane or seeing patterns that aren't there because I was overanalyzing a situation. Look, science and research backs up my point of view. I'm not crazy, there's nothing new here.

This whole thing is such a weird dynamic for me to where I don't even know how to detangle it. Tbh, I feel like I'm not even making any sense. I've been dealing with this weird feeling of deja vu when I notice lessons I learn from a book or in university line up with an existential crisis I had months or years prior that led me to the same conclusion. I've been dealing with this since like 2018 mainly. There's nothing new here.

The Joy Journal

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