Figuring Out What Feels Right

[PepperBlossoms]

Mysticism feels like it is a rabbit hole where you can look forever and really not know.

Also, if one feels triggered by reading email/text/whatever, change "you" to "one" and it won't feel like it is targeting you specifically but rather people in general.

[PepperBlossoms]

I feel like the nice thing about attending online social mental health therapy groups is that you can try things and mess up and then hopefully the consequences won't be too bad.

Interacting with people is really hard.

...

I think part of the thing with shame goes to a religious upbringing.  Many things are sins and sins are bad and you have to feel shameful for what you did and repent those sins.  Why do we have good and bad, evil and love, right and wrong, rules, laws, codes?  We make them for our own selfish gain and/or for the selfish gain of the community.  It is still selfish in that it is not loving for things outside of the scope of concern quite often.

When you tell someone, "DON'T DO THAT!", it may be more for your own benefit and survival than for the person you are telling it to.

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Part of me is like, well who really gives a shit why reality works?  Like why even bother?  Like, we won't really ever know what is real anyway so why spend so much time?  Because someone dangled the curiosity in front of us and we fell for it and we ran after it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism This website is really helpful for getting a basis for how different groups think.

We may purposefully delete/destroy/change stuff because we want to forget about it, we don't want to know, we don't want to think about it.

If the creator of the universe wanted us to know, wouldn't we know?  So like, maybe we are supposed to not know and just supposed to enjoy the ride.

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Part of me is thinking I shouldn't have left my second company because the pay was decent and there were lots of cool jobs. But then there is the whole toxic part that I was struggling x100000000 with.  

[PepperBlossoms]

Someone users on the forum posted this and I thought the ideas were interesting:

"It does not create a rigidity of direction like the one pointed intellect or bigotry at the idea or impulse like the one pointed vital force.

It is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine.

On love, winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feel sunk in the mire.

On strength and will and mastery, as instruments not of the ego but of the spirit."

"work towards something positive"

"The reason why westerners are lost, hopeless, and beyond help is because they don't have values."

"A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other misleading effects of perception, as individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence."

..

The weird thing about knowing what direction to go is that part of me says that we don't know but yet another part says we have a curious desire for certain directions and those may go no where but that is where we go.  The curious desire may lead to something positive or it may not... it is weird how we have a curious desire in the first place.  Maybe it is because we know that we don't know and we say, meh well this could help me with xyz so I might as well TRY to know more..  I think it may not be that we don't have values but rather we don't think we have options.  We think we are stuck.  or maybe we do actually not have values haha.  I would say sometimes we have a really hard time changing our mind when we get new evidence but sometimes it is so great that we have to change our mind.

[PepperBlossoms]

It is weird at how we can sometimes be SO resistant to listening.  It is like, what is our problem and why are we refusing to listen/engage?

...

It is weird at how I can be super engaged and fascinated by something and then the next day I will be like, meh, I don't really care about that anymore or see the point in looking at it.

[PepperBlossoms]

I was talking with one of my peers and one of the things that my peer said was that she wants to be more selfless and think of others more than herself.

I was trying to think about why this is and maybe I should have asked her some more.

One of the things I was also saying was how sometimes we have to have a really sad, severe reaction in order to change and it may have to happen over and over again because we can't seem to change otherwise.  But sure some could have it where it is positive all the time and still change but I have found that sometimes it has to be negative to have change.

Sometimes we will want to think of ourselves and sometimes we will want to think of others.

I feel like consciousness stuff is bad for survival in the sense that there starts to be so many things that you don't want to do.  But it could be good in terms of trying to be more holistic.

...

I think I don't like talking to people because I really don't like disagreeing.... ugh I guess I just don't like what goes along with it.

..

I feel like a complete asshole after talking to one of my friends.  I feel like I feel like an asshole a lot when I talk to females.  I feel like I am too mean if I speak my mind and there is the idea of just saying nothing and agreeing with them.  But when I disagree with almost everything that comes out of their mouth, what am I supposed to do?  Why is talking to people so hard?  I think maybe some are harder than others.  I guess the ones I disagree with I am just really struggling to talk with.  I don't want to be telling them my opinion on everything if I disagree.  I guess I find that there isn't much to talk about with some people.  Ahh.  I just don't feel good about it!!  Like, talking to people on a forum can be quite a bit easier because there is more time to think and respond.  I don't know how some people are able to talk to so many people and actually enjoy it.  I hate talking to some guys too though so I don't think it is necessarily a gender thing.  Like it will feel like there is really nothing to learn from the other person and I am just getting being an asshole but I don't want to be an asshole and sure there could be stuff to learn but I just really, really disagree with them and think their view severely lacks nuance but sure so could mine...  I guess it is hard when I like digging deep into topics and others don't.

[PepperBlossoms]

One of the users shared this on another page.

I took some notes

it's okay that I am feeling the way I am feeling
you don't need to blame/guilt/shame/reject yourself for your feelings
something in my reality is out of alignment. something is not working
it is the culture, school system, religion, etc.
make it safe
i am still worthy of love no matter what
even if i am causing all the chaos and harm
i love myself even if I will never change/grow
i will get my needs met
love = security
love yourself in whatever you are in
if what we are doing is out of alignment, it will still hurt
it just hurts, i dont want to do it anymore 
make it safe for ourselves to be wrong
we can change and get our needs met
as soon as i realize it is not real, i just change it instantly
there is nothing wrong with me, it was the thing i was doing
i accept me, i will be here for me. 
if what you are doing is out of alignment, it will always hurt
make it right
what you are feeling is leading you to the truth
if you keep on saying there is something wrong with me is not going to get you to the truth
humanity doesn't have it right if it hurts
make it safe even if you are confused, anxious, depressed
i am good no matter what now what hurts
i love myself anyways, i will approve myself anyways
where am i taking love away, blaming others, where can i connect to reality again
feel where the actual pain and pleasure is
i am feeling what i am feeling - i am scared/lost/anxious
THIS is where i am and i am not going to hate myself for where i am
accept that i am thinking feeling responding reacting this way
i am not going to blame/shame myself
there is a good reason for it
it is totally okay
i give myself permission to feel this way
i am not going to tell myself i should not be feeling how i am feeling the way i am feeling
we go into fight/flight when we reject ourselves and cannot understand systems or grow
cannot do change/growht/evolution when in fight/flight
when we feel it is not okay to be how we are the way we are

[PepperBlossoms]

I wonder if part of it is I can see that when I am talking to some people, it kind of turns into a battle of my perspective versus theirs and we don't want to be wrong and then we can feel like if we disagreed or questioned their perspective, that we were not being supportive enough??  Conversations are hard and I am not fully sure what the best way to have them is.  I guess I need to just sit with it some more.

[PepperBlossoms]

I was thinking some more about the zoom conversation with one of my peers and how I was feeling like an asshole/horrible about it.  Here are some potential thoughts:

We kept on disagreeing with each other and then would change topic and then would disagree again and then change topic.  We were changing topics too fast and needed to stay on the topic long enough until we could both kinda come to some sort of agreement.  When you feel like there is disagreement with everything, your reality is not validated and it may feel bad.  However, we are going to have disagreements in perspective with every single person as everyone's life is different but the degree to which the disagreement happens will vary.  Also, if one person is interested in getting to the bottom of things and another is not, that can also make a difference.  Also if the two have radically different beliefs AT THE CORE, that will dramatically make it harder to agree.

"The medication healed me and I am getting off of it."  This part was a huge concern to me because I don't think medication can heal someone.  I think they can use that time to gain skills to help them better cope with life and then get off and then apply the skills but I do not think it is the medication alone.  I asked, "did you develop the skills to handle the symptoms that got you on the medication in the first place so that when the symptoms come back, you can handle it and not have to get back on medication"?  The reply was that "Yes I have developed the skills and if needed, I will just get back on the medication."  I think I was feeling bad because I was questioning her decision and abilities but I was also seeing a huge danger and flaw because her symptoms are schizophrenia, which is a WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLPARK than say depression in my opinion.  I think one problem with schizophrenia is that when someone is really bad with epistemology, they aren't going to have the right skills.. but I am not her and I don't want to tell someone how to live their life.  Her attitude is to not think of herself and be selfless and "hurry up and forgive myself" so that I can get back to thinking of others and just be positive with regards to something we are having trouble with.  In my opinion this is hugely wrong because you CAN'T JUST HURRY UP AND FORGIVE YOURSELF AND MOVE ON.  It doesn't work like that.  It takes A LOT OF TIME, like YEARS AND YEARS to get over some things and just hurrying up and forgiving is not going to get to the root of the issue of whatever got one to feel upset/regretful whatever.  It is like ignoring that one is a bad person so that they can hurry up and focus on everyone else.  Another one is the desire to be happy, happy, happy, positive, positive, positive, selfless, selfless, selfless.  I see this as a huge concern because there is great benefit to seeing negative things and facing struggles.  If all one wants to be around is happy stuff, they are basically ignoring and rejecting very large parts of reality.  Sometimes things have to go to complete shit for us to finally be able to change; the notion of just being positive and love oneself isn't going to quite do it in my opinion.  It is like where someone thinks they are a nice person because they just try to be positive and loving but yet they aren't facing their demons of all the shit they do.

I guess another thing that I had a problem with was that I feel like I am watching a movie I don't want to watch.  Yes I know we are all going to have different things.  The thing is is that she is quite a bit when it comes to Christianity and her new thing she is working towards is to become a teacher at the catholic school in town so that she can talk about her faith.  I guess the thing that bothers me is that I completely disagree with Christianity and especially when it comes to pushing it onto young kids.  I disagree with how Christianity rejects some epistemology and rejects many of the problems that it creates.  Her attitude of happy/positive/selfless is rejecting facing one's own demons.  I just don't really want to be a part of watching someone update me about his/her life which is moving towards aiding in the spread of Christianity.  But there are SO MANY PEOPLE that do this.  It was done to her and now she is going to do it to others.

I guess I am even having problems with Spirituality too and came up with the notion where it is a rabbit hole where we just won't know for sure how reality works.  Spirituality could be just as bad as Christianity but however, I don't think it is in the notion that Christianity is really human focused and focused on the self to go to Heaven while Spirituality is more the entire life focused and will be more "selfless" by nature.  Maybe when she says she wants to be selfless, she doesn't realize that the very religion that she has is what is holding her back.

Part of me wants to say, "hey I think we need a break from talking".  I never ask her to talk and she is the one always asking me to talk.  Many times she tries to tell me how to live my life.

It is quite hard talking to someone you disagree with.  Part of me was wondering if women in general are just really stupid, myself included.  

I was talking with another peer yesterday about how right now, society is doing a large social experiment when it comes to the genders.  This whole gender equality thing is great in terms of letting people try things out but may be doing harm.  I think there could be some truth to men being better at some things and women better at others.  The whole idea of men should be able to do what women can do and vice versa may have not as good results.  Women could think, if guys can do it, I want to be able to do it too, and then they walk themselves into a corner that brings them low self esteem and confidence because they start to notice that their male peers are just naturally much better at it than them.  It then puts the company in a very hard situation because there is the whole "equal pay" thing among genders when it could be that the male output for some things is just MUCH much higher than it is for the female output.  Companies may feel like they have to hire an equal amount of men and women but the women could perform much worse.  The boss is then in a hard situation because they don't know whether to be harder on the female, which she may not like, or have an upset client, which is bad for the company.  It is kinda bad for everyone.  One would think that overtime, if the woman is not a good fit, she would leave the career.  There are SO MANY factors at play though and it could be that the work environment I was in, for instance, was really, really bad when it came to mentoring and without that, I was not able to survive.  The turnover was really, really high.

But I can see that I would get really bored when it came to the calculations because it just felt like it went on forever and it felt like there could have been a better way to do it and I did not have the right information to be able to do it but the information, when I would ask for it, was not given in a clear and concise manner.. but also.. ah okay so I didn't have the right info and the mentors weren't great and so it is hard to say if I would have liked it but then came the whole realizing that I was killing animals/bugs/trees and I was so disgusted I quit immediately.

One thought I had yesterday was, well maybe I am just too low conscious and undeveloped when it comes to communicating with others and maybe I should just not do it until I become more conscious.  However, every interaction with people will be different and just because it feels not so good with one person does not mean that it will feel not so good with another.  Also, we kinda have to do more interacting not less, in order to get better at it.

I can see that my peer's perspective of positivity can be helpful and maybe that is what is needed or her and her diagnosis.  However, for me, I need to be able to see the entire picture and so too much positivity may be rejecting everything else.

I think hmm like okay, I can just not instigate any interaction, which I usually don't.  And then when she asks me to interact, I could either say no.. which part of me would feel bad about doing, or I could not reply, which I may feel bad about doing too.  I am not sure.  I guess this is something I need to just keep on thinking about.

I don't like thinking of people negatively and I don't like having bad interactions but I feel like I am having a hard time.  It could be that we keep on interacting and it gets better in various ways, it could be it stays the same, it could be it gets worse.

I don't really talk to many people.  I gave up on talking to another person as again every interaction was where the other person was telling me how to live my life or criticizing me or my peers.  With another peer, it was kinda the same as the one I have been talking about where the desire is to be happy/positive about everything but then completely rejects/ignores epistemology/nuance and again, I kinda gave up on those interactions to and have kept them to an absolute minimum.

I think maybe Christians want to focus on happy/positive because "bad" goes with "sin" which goes with "hell" and they don't want to go to hell so anything "heavenly" and "forgiving" is key.

I can see the benefit of happy/positive where one is supportive and kind but it may be a useless supportive and kind because it does not have the right nuance to be able to point to the root of the problem.  The idea is "oh this is bad, just leave the situation or medicate yourself" is not doing anything to acknowledge what the actual problem is.

[PepperBlossoms]

Sometimes we need new perspectives, environments, and info and going to what we are used to isn't enough because we need more variety from what we currently have to figure things out.

I put the above on another thread and I just thought it was actually pretty good advice and can apply to quite a bit of things.  Sometimes even though we feel like conversations with others are going really bad, they can still be helpful because they may be providing context and variety.  Even if it feels like it is going shitty, there again, is still the context and variety that you are potentially getting.

But, we will have our limits too of how much we can handle as well and me and limits/boundaries is not very defined.

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I think that part of me felt like an asshole with regards to the conversation with my peer for the following reasons:

I am sensitive to insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements.

The environment that I grew up in didn't seem to like it when I voiced my opinion and so I was kinda encouraged to stay quiet and not say anything that I thought.  Or at least I didn't get good feedback when I would do it..?

The environment that I grew up in would say lots of things that I interpreted as insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements, or unhelpful..?

Maybe I need to change the way I think about comments and stop labelling things as insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements, positivity, support.  Maybe these labels can be inaccurate and when inaccurate, can be misinterpreted and cause conflict, confusion, disengagement, etc.

If I just take everything as bits of information instead of putting it into categories of, oh this is mean, or oh this is pushy.. maybe that would help?

Maybe I am too quick to judge something and when I put it in the category of judgmental, arrogant, aggressive, whatever, I quit listening, interacting, considering.

Maybe I am saying I am the asshole because I am still not used to telling people my opinion and I feel weird about it but also because I was conditioned to not do it.  Maybe I need to find a way to be more mature and care less about how I sound and how the other person sounds and more about the content?  Like, to stop making things so personal and try making things much more impersonal?  Like, okay we are talking about the idea here, not us?

Ah this is really tricky stuff.  I am not sure if the stuff I have come up with is right still.  I guess like I will say, oh I don't like it when people tell me how to live but yet, I do that sometimes.  So I am being a hypocrite.  But sometimes when someone tells me how to live, it is super helpful.  So maybe I need to change my attitude on that?  I don't know!! 

One step at a time!  I feel like it can be helpful to make an initial label as that is an initial guess though but then that guess can be wrong and we can be using the wrong filter for quite a long time... but is it even possible to not have any filter at all?  Part of me thinks there will be a filter no matter what.  

Okay so people are talking.. blah blah blah.  They talk about their day blah blah blah.  They talk about their ideas and thoughts blah blah blah.  We then hear something we disagree with, think is off, or doesn't have enough nuance.  The siren starts going off.  We then think, do I say something or do I stay quiet?  Sometimes there is no thinking and we just do it.  Sometimes we think, "I TOTALLY DISAGREE" but we stay quiet.  Maybe we stay quiet because we have spoken on it before and that DID NOTHING it seemed.  Maybe we don't think and we just react instantly.  Maybe it is better to do the following.  When we see the red siren going off and we say we disagree, don't insult them or question them... maybe just try to get them to elaborate some more?  But we have to be super careful with this because again, we could end up insulting or questioning them.  How does one do that?

"Hey I am getting off my meds.  They healed me."  My alarm went off because I thought - meds don't necessarily heal.  They may buy one time to learn to cope and get new skills though.  I could have either said that or said, what do you mean by heal?  Saying "what do you mean" and then repeating whatever they said is then not posing any insults or questions necessarily - it is getting them to elaborate on what they already said.  Maybe that method will help and then I won't feel the shame/guilt.

So by replacing my comment of "but did you get the right skills so that when the symptoms that got you on the medication come back, you can handle it without having to go on medication" with "what do you mean by the medication healed you?"  This replacement switcharoo then helps me to avoid sounding like I am doubting her ability to have skills and be able to do what she is doing - something that I do not like when is done to me when people are doubting my abilities.  I don't know... I am still not sure.  Maybe I am obsessing over something that doesn't matter because I am not super busy.  I guess the issue is that I have asked people "what do you mean" or "can you elaborate on" before and it didn't go well either... but that will vary with every person.  Ah I still don't know.  Um maybe I am just obsessing over a detail and we all make mistakes with what we are saying.

I think I need to just let it sit and see what else my mind comes up with, if anything at all.

I guess part of me feels like when I get someone to elaborate on something, I am being sneaky because I already have a thought about it and should just jump straight to the thought.  But then my thought could be basing it off of incomplete information and then they may react to my thought when I could have just asked for more info FIRST before giving my thought.  Like, okay if we are talking and everything is fine, I could just say what I think but if I am sensing a complete disagreement, that is when I ask for more info before I give my opinion?

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

A religious person could see a non-religious person and go, they look weak.  They need God.  Look at them crying and suffering.  They don't have God in their life.

However, a non-religious person could say, I am capable of dealing with sadness, suffering, and shit.  I am capable and willing to face problems.  You on the other-hand act like everything is fine and dandy just the way it is and dismiss any problems.  You are the weak one unable to deal with things and just brush them off.  

The person who looks weak with their emotional problems is actually strong in the sense that they are willing to let themselves have emotion.  Emotions other than positive happiness can be really hard to deal with.

Religion could be emotionally stunting people because they cannot listen to their feelings.  They may think "church is boring" and tell themselves, "don't think that."  They may think "I want to have sex", "I don't believe in this", "I don't agree with xyz", or whatever - but then have to shut those thoughts off because that is a sin and God is listening and that goes against what God "wants" them to think.  They have to think what the church tells them to think.

Religion could really fuck people up like super badly.  

My friend said, "I know I am okay because God loves me".  The problem here is relying on SOMEONE ELSE to love you instead of trying to love yourself.  When we rely on being liked by OTHERS inside of just liking ourselves, that can be an issue.

When my friend said that she told her uncle that he was a nice person because he makes jokes a lot, I was thinking, well Hitler could make jokes too - does that make him nice?  Nice is kinda a useless adjective to describe someone unless it is more descriptive - like nice at what?  If someone is good at making jokes, why not say they are funny and a good conversationalist?  I think maybe I am being too picky on this one though.

I think I need to just stop talking to my friend for now.  I think I find ways to disagree with her and I don't like doing that.

A lot of my childhood friends are religious and I don't really talk to any of them.

I feel like ugh I don't like hating on people.. but again that is something that religion preaches.. don't hate and just love.  But hate is very helpful for understanding things and shouldn't be thrown in the trash can necessarily.  

I quit reddit and the news entirely and maybe I just need to quit this person for now too.  I am really not good at setting boundaries and always tell myself, oh stuff will get better, I am just doing something wrong.  Well maybe I do need boundaries.  It seems like I don't really get anything from talking to this person other than finding more thinking methods that lack nuance and potentially more ways of being told how to live.  I may have a shadow because if this part of my life was fully healed and processed, maybe I would not be bothered by it and wouldn't be writing about it.

My friend has schizophrenia and is religious and both of those make me feel like I am not sure what I can and cannot say.  It could be that she cannot survive without the religion.  I however, cannot survive with the religion. HA.  My own thinking lacks nuance at times as well and it is something that slowly develops over time.  

The only way for people who lack nuance to develop it is to be exposed to it.  But I don't like being the person who is correcting/suggesting things.  I feel like I lack the skills and finesse to do it.  It is a whole next level of being a human and I am not there.  I saw a podcast where a black man would talk to white men who were in the KKK (I think it was) and he successfully got several people to leave the KKK but he was very smart with how he did it and patient but stern.  I don't think I am stern quite yet.  I am kinda a pushover but I am getting better at not being.  Society kinda molds us into being pushovers in a way.  Pushovers who go along with the common narrative and don't question or push up against anything.  Our parents do, our teachers do, our religion does. Learning how to not be a pushover can be hard.

[PepperBlossoms]

I think I need to work on my prejudice for religion as well as low consciousness.  All beliefs are a religion in a way and we are all to varying degrees of awareness.  I need to work on mastering relationships.

I am not sure what my "highest potential" is.  All I can think of is that I still have some more books to read and more skills to accumulate.

 

[PepperBlossoms]

I've been reading Healing the Shame that Binds You and I feel like it is SO SO SO helpful.  I think so many of my problems were shame based.  I know this is just one of a billion things but it still is nice to read.

Here are some notes.  I am reading it backwards.

we are told to be emotional, fragile, vulnerable, and men seeking

success is not the only thing to chase. we also don't need to chase anything.
restlessness and lack of inner peace= overactivism

feeling shame for being assertive and voicing our opinion
we feel too much shame to go inward; we can change what we are doing but not who we are
we tell ourselves that we are hopeless, defective, and a mistake
we are conditioned to numb ourselves because to be good, we have to be meek, considerate, unselfish, perfectly law abiding, orderly, obedient.  this goes back to the time of kings, non-democratic, master-slave relationships
we are not encouraged to have inner freedom, inner independence, spontaneity, vitality

we inevitably make mistakes and we feel shameless when we have righteousness and be addicted to that
people addicted to religion because it makes them feel righteous and shameless even though the religion is the source for shame
departure of the standard "should" is deemed sinful.  
deemed more important to ACT loving than to BE loving
sanctimonious - making a show of being morally superior to others

religions either do not allow any emotion at all (rigid, stoic, and severe - that was mine)
or they allow emotional outburts but for a short period of time and only some emotions but not others

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

Examples of shame:

Self shaming/inner critic - you are not good/smart/nice/skilled/experienced enough

The perfectionist/showoff who over does everything so much to where everyone else looks bad by comparison - the religious nut, the class nerd who asks all the questions, the class nerd who breaks all the curves - look at how righteous/talented/hot/obedient I am (one can be trying to make a point that the company is toxic and the coworkers just sit and smile)

The nitpicky person - you did this, this, this, this wrong.  you need to change xyz. abc is not good enough.  what were you thinking when you did xyz? constant emails/phone calls about how you need to change and are not okay the way you are. people giving suggestions without one even asking for them

healthy shame - okay I see a problem and let me try to fix it.  unhealthy shame - this is so bad you are horrible

avoidant shame - i am so sorry did I hurt your feelings (all the time for everything).  no boundaries. not speaking one's mind. not putting one's foot down.  letting oneself get taken advantage of. not listening to one's feelings/emotions/thoughts and just going with what the status quo/authority wants.

shame is good in that it gets us to change our behavior to be better suited for us and everyone else.  It is bad because it can be very restricting, take away confidence, take away one's ability to stand up for oneself and be free

Living life on the wild side; no shame

[PepperBlossoms]

I just wanted to put this here.  I think I am still working on...

self-actualization - lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, spontaneity, creativity, morality

esteem - related to shame/trauma

love/belonging - related to communication, derping

safety - employment/money/entrepreneur

[PepperBlossoms]

I think that I react so badly to anything other than a neutral tone of voice because of the religious idea where anything other than a serious or kind/soft/loving emotion is rejected.  I think I rejected some music, styles of clothes, personalities, etc. because it was "bad, naughty, rebellious" and that goes against the "good girl" thing.  I think I reject insults/criticism/suggestions so much partly because religion was so against that where the only thing allowed was agreement with the religion - I did not know how to handle disagreement.  And I still do not know how to forcibly create disagreement.

....

One of the secrets to maintaining the safety and security for maslow's hierarchy of needs is to just not watch the news.  When you watch the news, you read about all of the lack of safety and security everywhere.  In reality, we are never fully safe and secure and are going to die anyway.  But IDK bad stuff happens EVERYWHERE; but in some places more than others.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I feel like watching the news, having the non-stop loud sound of cars on the road, eating too many carbs, and talking to people can make one sick, fearful, and anxious.

Think of all the people who live near loud freeways/roadways and can hear it in their backyard or even in their home, all of the people who check the news and get negativity from it, all of the people who have bad eating habits, and all of the people who have toxic interactions.

It almost seems easier to live in the middle of nowhere and have your phone turned off and only turn it on once a month to check to see if you got any messages.

Part of me wants to go back to the time when the population was smaller and we lived outside.  When there were no cars, no airplanes, when your neighbors weren't right on top of you, etc.  Life was different then.  It was probably easier to get trapped in various things too though and if you were sick, that was really rough.

I was complaining about religion on here earlier and how people prevent themselves from having certain emotions or thinking certain things but then I thought about how I have been preventing myself from watching the news and realized that it is kinda the same thing.  I overheard maybe the first 3 minutes of a Joe Rogan episode and the other person was talking about war and bombs and that bothered me for quite a while afterwards.  I went for a walk and the entire time I could hear the cars and thought, there are too many tourists here now and it is getting to where there will be more and more people and I need to not do this walk anymore because it is hard to find peace when you hear the cars like that.  I prefer the ghost town feel.  The moment I saw the spring breakers at the grocery store, I was like, ah man here we go.  I wished they could leave because I liked it with it being quiet.

There is so much we have to shut out in order to be at peace.  One can go into depression really quickly and easily.  We have to shut out all the animals being killed, all the pets being shamed and trapped, all the bombs and deaths by police and the military, all the toxic food being sold, all the brainwashing religion, all the depressing news, etc.  So much to shut out.  One basically has to be a hermit and shut off so many things.  I had not been looking into the Ukraine-Russia thing at all.  Part of me was like, well this is stupid and shouldn't even be happening in the first place and me reading about it isn't going to change anything other than make me sad/depressed/scared/angry and so I completely quit the news and Reddit.  I remember I was checking the news constantly about covid and then kinda stopped.  I wonder how much better one's life is without the news.  My mom sent me a photo of my room and all the wallpaper is gone and part of me is like, well my room will never be the same again.

I guess I feel troubled with regards to work.  I am finding low consciousness in just about every career and so I am having a hard time imagining what I should do.  I know I can't stay at my parents' second home forever and if the sell the other one, I definitely don't want to live with them.  Prices of things may go way, way up with inflation and houses are getting more expensive.  I am kinda like, the system sucks, money sucks, the government sucks, jobs suck, so many animals and creatures lives suck, etc.  Think of all the creatures getting eaten alive right now.  Or the dogs getting harassed by their owners.

It is again really easy to fall into depression/anxiety/stress.  All the more reason to stay away from stuff and limit my input... I guess people who are capable of being in all of it are really, really strong.  I think if you look at it everyday, it is not so bad because you are used to it and desensitized to it.  If you don't look at it at all and then get a glimpse of it, it is like, well shit, I want to go back to not looking.

If I do go back to the book I wrote, well that would be another depressing thing to release into the world.  Ah..

I feel like art/music/video games/books/whatever are a great escape from the nightmare of life.

I feel like because of the consciousness stuff, I only have a few career options now.  Counseling/therapy - however, the concern with this is that all the suggestions I give get shut down and I don't feel like I am contributing and living up to my potential.  Teaching - however, the concern is that I am spreading the same information that has been spread for the past 50-100 years and there is nothing new and I am kinda enslaving the students to do whatever I say.  Writing - this one has the most potential, in my opinion, to share my perspectives, but at the same time, people can get books online for free and so will I even make ANY money at all...  Another one I thought of was to work at a vegan restaurant, if that even exists wherever I am, but also, that is not really taking advantage of any of my strengths either.

.............

Umm I guess I feel down because of that podcast about war for the 3 mins and then the sound of the cars which I probably heard for like 1.5 hours.. Uhh it is fairly quiet here in the house so hopefully I can let that "down feeling" dissolve, melt away, and vanish.

Ummm hmm well I guess I can get back to reading the Shame book... or do something else.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I feel like I am very negative.  

...

I probably don't have to feel or think I am negative but that is what I tend to focus on... maybe.

Edited March 19, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I feel like I am almost never in the present moment.  I feel like I am always in my thoughts somewhere else.  I feel like I don't pay much attention to my body and my surroundings.

[PepperBlossoms]

I feel like maybe I am hard to live with.