Figuring Out What Feels Right

[PepperBlossoms]

I decided I wanted to try to feel more.  I covered my eyes and started with my hands.  I realized that I haven't explored my entire body before.  The hands had joints as did the feet.  The elbows had a joint similar to the knee.  There was this rubber outer layer all around.  Some areas of the body were warm.  I realized I believed everything I was told and that I don't know how I got in this body.  I feel like I have landed on a spaceship in a foreign land.  I don't know how this body got here.  I don't know how this body already has all of these structures.  It seems very complex but how am I to know what complex is.  I don't recall designing any of the structures but they seem to be already functioning and put together.  I realized that I've been told everything about this body and this land but that I don't know if it is true or not.  I don't remember how I got here.

I feel like the thoughts are coming from the head or above it but I am not sure.

I have noticed feelings of feeling cold, my stomach feeling weird, needing to use the bathroom, my teeth feeling like they need to be brushed, needing to drink water, sleepy, various body aches.  I am not sure if living and operating with feeling instead of thought is any better than living and operating with thought.  I realized that everywhere I go, the perspective will be the same in that it will be coming from this body.

I realized I don't have to feel everything with my hands but the hands seem to add more information.  I can also notice certain parts of the body and flex and pay attention to those.  I realized that the feet and legs seem very far away from everything else.  Even the stomach seems far away.

I realized everything we are taught in school is with words, thoughts.  Everything that is said at the therapist is with words, thoughts.  We are trained to live in words and thoughts.  How we communicate and interact with others is with words, thoughts.  If we have school or a job that requires us to wake up early, we may have intense feelings to sleepiness but have to ignore those feelings and they may be very, very strong and they may last all morning.  If we are sitting in a desk, we may have feelings of discomfort with our butt and the chair and our back and neck and may have to ignore the discomfort.  If we are talking to someone, we may have a different opinion with how one should be, interact, exist, and ignore the discomfort.  We may go to the fridge and pull out meat to eat and feel a disgust for the animal and ignore the discomfort.  We may have a job interview and be asked questions and put on a face and enthusiasm about the potential job and ignore the discomfort.  We may be asked certain questions or be around certain people and ignore the discomfort to continue the interaction.  We may hear certain loud noises and ignore the discomfort.  We may feel full or have a funny feeling in our stomach and ignore the discomfort, and may so much to where we get obese.  We may think, I don't want to read or do this activity, but then ignore the discomfort.  We may feel that our clothes are too tight but then ignore the discomfort.  We may think, this food is unhealthy, but then eat it and ignore the discomfort.  We may think, this person seems egotistical, or this organization seems toxic, but then ignore the discomfort.  We may think, this outcome is going to require a whole lot of effort, but then ignore the discomfort.  But this is me back in thinking about feeling instead of just feeling.  Feeling feels like it is the present moment.  Thinking feels detached from the external and is kinda like in another dream somewhere else.  

I felt other objects in the room and they had their own textures but I was also sad that I had to move this human spaceship body over to it to feel it; that I couldn't just feel it without moving and changing location.

I feel like this experience could be similar to the "asleep dream" experience.  They both seem mysterious.  I cannot tell if I am just bullshitting myself and, oh yes I know how I got here, I was born; i've been in this body for years; pay attention to what the external world told you to think.  But yet part of me says, well why did I believe that so much?  How is this body already capable of doing so many things?  I don't remember designing the joints, the muscle, the skin.  I don't remember naming the body parts either - where we could have used any name and split it off at any point.

Feeling is just another way to live life similar to seeing or hearing.  Why then the focus on feeling?  Well I guess I think I pay attention to seeing more than anything.  It is an entirely new experience to pay the most attention to feeling.

[PepperBlossoms]

I realized... 

Creating shame; toxic, tyrannical, authoritarian; limited resources; my way or the highway; needy; impusive; reactive (RED) president, teacher, police, parent (for power)

Pre-politics - religious, good girl/boy, adhere to rules; living in shame and repression; does not seek other than what it is told to seek; insecurity; low self esteem; co-dependency; only shows happy/positive/compliant emotions; dissociate (Blue) Theology, police, military (for safety, devotion); teacher/counselor (teaching rules to live by)

political RIGHT - cares about job security, cares about fame, cares about money for self; uses money for cars, homes, boats, expensive sports, clothes, education; COMPETITION, FAME, WINNING; seeking abundance, wants more for self; narcissist; boundaries; (Orange). doctor, lawyer, dentist, scientist/professor/porn/acting (for reputation/money)

political LEFT - cares about security of community - food, mental/physical health, shelter, education, EQUALITY, SUSTAINABILITY; seeking abundance for community; empathy; understanding, listening; supportive (Green) environmental justice, law reform, (doctor/lawyer/therapist for health); scientist/professor (for fixing things)

BUT then it starts to get fuzzy...

then there is the care for exploration, curiosity - books, music, writing, film, art, religion/spirituality, psychology, video games (for beauty/exploration/just because) - (THAT is stage yellow.).. it kinda quits caring about jobs and looking the best; it quits caring about saving the world so much; it cares more about just exploring and enjoying the moment/the day; does not seek abundance; seeks curiosity/beauty/wonder; seeking; questioning; unsure; may do more things for self healing and also have impact on community healing.

I am predicting that when the world is more stage yellow dominant, the need for creative outlets and creative doings will be very, very great.  The creative atmosphere is somewhat a mess where creatives are not guaranteed income or may get paid very little or their work can be obtained for free on the internet.  

Either creatives will need to start getting paid MORE or everything else will need to start costing less or nothing to balance it out.  It kinda isn't fair for the creatives to have their work get downloaded illegally for free whereas stuff like food and medical care still costs LOTS of money.  A stage yellow society will have to address that.  People will care less about working a 40 hour job and will want much more say in how their day goes.  People will not want to work for large corporations anymore I am assuming.  The lifestyle will be much more preferred to do your own thing.  Will there be a way to make this sustainable?  Sure poverty, hunger, homelessness, mental health, physical health, war, etc. will need to be addressed as well.

.....

However, one could do a profession at any of the spiral dynamics stages.  However, their reasoning for doing it will be different as the values, awareness, and goals will be different

Edited March 22, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

One of the things I want to stop doing is being nice for the sake of being nice.  I want to break that habit.  I feel like I have more respect for people who just are whatever they are rather than this niceness.  I have many peers who are nice for the sake of being nice and I really don't like it.  It reminds me too much of stage blue and it doesn't really do much and creates this weird environment where you feel like, okay do we have to be constrained now because we are just going to focus on being nice?  I want to be free and going into niceness creates a trap.  The person who just is may have more respect than the one who is nothing but nice.

I don't know how to explain it. 

But I also don't like the arrogant meanness either, which reminds me of stage red, orange, and green.  (Maybe red, orange, and green let themselves be free in terms of expressing emotions but it does so in kinda a toxic way sometimes.  Red is like the child that gets angry internally and externally whenever it doesn't get what it wants.  Blue is about emotional suppression and doesn't do it at all externally or internally (it is unaware that it is suppressing or that it is suppressed).  Orange may still have suppression externally but internally, it may be toxic with its thinking.  Then you get to green and the emotions don't get suppressed anymore but this time are toxic in terms of wanting what is right for the community instead of toxic like red where it is right for the individual.  Then we go to yellow where we learn how to express all the emotions internally and externally in a healthy way and better understand them and all the feelings and why they are (clinical psychology).

So if there is some middle ground to that in stage yellow..  Where one can go from one emotion to another based on whatever is needed/appropriate.

I was thinking about stage turquoise, if that even is a stage.  It is more a play on reality and exploring different perspectives, beings, ideas about how reality is, what reality is.  That could be considered stage yellow still but I guess the difference is that this tries to go meta of the typical experience.  It is going to have and promote the most altered states of consciousness.

One of the best ways to exercise I am finding is dancing to music haha.  It doesn't mess up your joints and helps you work through the kinks and get your body in a state of flow.  If your stomach/hips are having problems, which mine have been, it seems great for targeting that.

Edited March 22, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

umm I had just noted in the support group tonight how I felt like an asshole when I would open my mouth.  I felt like the way I was expressing myself was like my parents.  Um I am not sure if it is just in my head or not.  It is like I am excited to share my ideas but then I wonder if I am using the wrong tone/energy or am not using proper tactfulness.  

Some other notes.  

Identify what we don't want to do.  Ask ourselves what we want to feel.  One can try laughter therapy when one is sad.  Creativity can be linked to neuroticism.    If it is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.  If you don't try, you never know if you are going to be good at it.

I feel like my feelings of being an asshole are like - I am speaking freely but am I coming off as arrogant, childish?  Kinda like how Trump speaks... I feel like my speaking kinda sounds like that.  I am not sure - I will need to find a girl version.  I feel like when we are suppressed from speaking and then finally do, it may have a bit of bumps.  I could be wrong and that I don't come off as an asshole.  I am not sure.

 

[PepperBlossoms]

I was thinking some more about how I feel like an asshole when I open my mouth.  I remembered the phrase "if something is important, it is better to do it badly than not do it at all".  Well maybe that applies to speaking too.  Maybe when we have something that needs to be said, it is better to say it even if it comes out rude and tactless than it is to not say it at all.  The thing is is that saying hard things is hard and if we don't have any practice doing it, we may feel like it is horrible.

I guess when you are not really encouraged to speak your mind growing up and when you are in an environment where there is a domination of shame of anything that the authoritarian disagrees with, you don't get practice having hard conversations because you just don't do them at all.  You just keep your mouth shut.

So this is something I am just not practiced in.

But me speaking my mind reminds me of some people and I feel like I don't like it when they speak their mind with the same energy that I am currently using BUTTTT maybe there is a subconscious jealousy/envy because they would let themselves be who they are freely and I would not.  I would suppress and stay quiet.  Maybe I was jealous of their ability to say what they want and not really care what the other person thinks.

So even though it feels tough, maybe I need to stick with it some more.  I guess another thing is that I feel like the most of an asshole when I do it around religious people.  I feel like they are the most closed-minded and one would have to have the most tact and walk in the most tip-toeing way around them and I am just not always able to do it.  I guess it reminds me of how the guy who spoke out first against Bill Cosby would just start talking about it and not apologize or take it back, according to my peer.

[PepperBlossoms]

Regarding tact: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/tactful.htm

Create the right environment and think before you speak. There never is a right environment.  Sometimes we think as we speak.

Determine the appropriate time. There never is an appropriate time.

Choose your words carefully. We are trying our best just to say them

Watch your body language. It is hard to watch body language and think of what we are wanting to say

Never react emotionally. If we are saying something that we mean, we may have emotion

I don't know.. sometimes we just have to get it out and it is going to suck or not.  I think I just need to change my relationship with how I think of saying mean shit.  I think I am just so accustomed to being around "politically correct" people and how that doesn't go anywhere that you just have to flounder instead sometimes and just say it.  How does one have tact when talking to devilry?  How does one have tact when addressing rape, corruption, selfishness, dogma, closedmindedness? Sometimes all you can do is just say it regardless of how or when.  If one is so focused on how and when, it may not ever happen.  Sometimes quantity is better than quality.  Tact is like the person who is so focused on their outer appearance rather than what is on the inside, the content of the message.  Sometimes the person is going to be pissed off but at least the conversation got started right?  At least there was attempt.  Tact may care too much about how it looks and not about what it is trying to accomplish.

[PepperBlossoms]

Why is it that unknown, dark things make us feel so bad?

[PepperBlossoms]

I wanted to share this from yesterday's support group.

I thought these were some interesting ideas.

 

[PepperBlossoms]

I think the forum must have some certain maximum upload thing because I wanted to upload some more photos but the file size limitations keep on getting smaller and smaller.  I guess that is why people start new pages maybe?  Ah and then there is the "new posts within a short time frame are limited.  Please wait 89 seconds before submitting."  My max total file size keeps on getting smaller.  I think it was previously at 1.2 MB.  It is now at 0.12 MB....

At first I thought, oh the mods are doing this to me, but no maybe that is too selfish - it may just be the way the site is designed.  It is not me specifically but anyone who posts a lot.  I guess I posted too many images already.

...

I am feeling kinda anxious right now.  I am not sure if I am going crazy with going to so many support groups or that is okay.  I feel kinda crazy not having a job and there is pressure to hurry up and get one... but the only two I can think of other than doing writing to get people to have new perspectives, is teaching and counseling... and both of those have pre-reqs before I can just do them and part of me feels like I am too much of a crazy person to do either one.  I feel like the students aren't going to like me/respect me and that the teaching is going to feel like a waste of time.  I also feel like as a therapist that the clients aren't going to like me either.  I guess in both situations, I feel like I am not going to be liked and that the clients would rather have someone else.  I am not sure if that is crazy.  The thing with writing is that people won't have to interact with me face to face and if they don't like it, they don't have to look at my work.  I guess I have quit writing the book, it has been quite a while now... but I have been attending the support groups and reading clinical psychology books instead.

Ahhh.  IDKKKK.  I feel scared.  Maybe I need to do more physical movement and that is a problem.

I guess I also have quite a bit of notes in notepad that I haven't put anywhere yet.  UGHH I don't know why I feel so like shaken.

I was wondering if attending support groups can get addicting and have the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)... where people tell you about their group and then you all of a sudden feel like you have to attend and don't want to miss out... It is like, how do people stop going to them once they start?  I think maybe my codependency is just really strong.

...

One other thing I wanted to share was this: https://logosmedia.com/links/brain/

It has an example of a bunch of things linked to a bunch of things - I was looking at that but then I started to feel kinda like ahhhh about it and there is a lot of speculative and potentially dark, toxic stuff and I was just feeling bad looking at it.  It felt like a rabbithole where you don't know what is real and what is not and it is just dark stuff, kinda like the war going on right now.

The software is also available which is cool.  But I am hesitant to fully download because it asks for my name/email and I am not sure who runs the organization.

[PepperBlossoms]

One person had said that creativity is linked to neuroticism in the support group yesterday. 

"Neuroticism is the trait disposition to experience negative affects, including anger, anxiety, self‐consciousness, irritability, emotional instability, and depression"

Ahh well maybe this is me.....

"Persons with elevated levels of neuroticism respond poorly to environmental stress, interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and can experience minor frustrations as hopelessly overwhelming. Neuroticism is one of the more well established and empirically validated personality trait domains, with a substantial body of research to support its heritability, childhood antecedents, temporal stability across the life span, and universal presence1, 2."

" Many instances of maladaptive substance use are efforts to quell or quash the dismay, anxiousness, dysphoria, and emotional instability of neuroticism. "

"Neuroticism is comparably associated with a wide array of physical maladies, such as cardiac problems, disrupted immune functioning, asthma, atopic eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, and even increased risk for mortality2. The relationship of neuroticism to physical problems is both direct and indirect, in that neuroticism provides a vulnerability for the development of these conditions, as well as a disposition to exaggerate their importance and a failure to respond effectively to their treatment." I have had stomach problems before where I felt like I was going to die but I am not sure if it was IBS.

"Neuroticism is also associated with a diminished quality of life, including feelings of ill‐will, excessive worry, occupational failure, and marital dissatisfaction5. High levels of neuroticism will contribute to poor work performance due to emotional preoccupation, exhaustion, and distraction. Similar to the duel‐edged effect of neuroticism on physical conditions, high levels of neuroticism will result in actual impairment to marital relationships but also subjective feelings of marital dissatisfaction even when there is no objective basis for such feelings, which can though in turn lead to actual spousal frustration and withdrawal."

"Given the contribution of neuroticism to so many negative life outcomes, it has been recommended that the general population be screened for clinically significant levels of neuroticism during routine medical visits1, 6. Screening in the absence of available treatment would be problematic. However, neuroticism is responsive to pharmacologic intervention1. Pharmacotherapy can and does effectively lower levels of the personality trait of neuroticism. Barlow et al7 have also developed an empirically‐validated cognitive‐behavioral treatment of neuroticism, called the Unified Protocol (UP). They have suggested that current psychological treatments have become overly specialized, focusing on disorder‐specific symptoms. The UP was designed to be transdiagnostic. Recognizing the impact of neuroticism across a diverse array of physical and mental health care concerns, the authors of the UP again note that “the public‐health implications of directly treating and even preventing the development of neuroticism would be substantial”7."

"Neuroticism has long been recognized since the beginning of basic science personality research and may even be the first domain of personality that was identified within psychology1. Given its central importance for so many different forms of mental and physical dysfunction, it is not surprising that neuroticism is evident within the predominant models of personality, personality disorder, and psychopathology."

"Neuroticism is one of the fundamental domains of general personality included within the five‐factor model or Big Five2. It is also within the dimensional trait model included in Section III of the DSM‐5 for emerging measures and models8. This trait model consists of five broad domains, including negative affectivity (along with detachment, psychoticism, antagonism, and disinhibition). As expressed in the DSM‐5, “these five broad domains are maladaptive variants of the five domains of the extensively validated and replicated personality model known as the ‘Big Five’ or Five Factor Model of personality”8."  ...detachment, psychoticism, antagonism, and disinhibition I am not sure what these mean.

...

I think I need to just calm down.  I think maybe I need to stop typing and just stretch/meditate and think that everything is okay.  I keep on coming across more and more things to learn/study/do and it feels overwhelming.  I don't think that being around other depressed people would make me depressed but there is always the possibility that there is a relation there.

It feels like a rush to do do do do do so many things but yet we can only do one thing at a time.  I think I am in FLIGHT and FREEZE coping response but I also do FAWN sometimes too... and sometimes FIGHT....

So much to do.  I need to just calm down.

[PepperBlossoms]

So I am in this "Writing.xxxxx" group and we are supposed to write for 10 minutes about anything and here I am writing about writing.  I usually do not write under a time constraint so this is a new thing.  I can write and write and write but if there is a time constraint, my brain can feel frozen and I am like ahhhh what do I put.  I feel pressure to just keep on typing stuff.  Usually when I write, I am writing about something I am thinking about and I don't want to forget it so I just write it down and then more ideas flow.  I have thought about having a career as a writer but I don't think that I would want to do it where I had ANY TIME CONSTRAINTS or where I was told that I had to write about XYZ because then I feel constricted.  I sometimes get epiphanies that just come and if I don't write them down, I feel like I have to keep on saying them over and over again so that I do not forget them.  The weird part though is that after I write it down, I don't necessarily go back and look at it.

Ummm lets see... I have been posting lots of thoughts.  I've been reading a book about Complex PTSD and another one on Shame.  I partly feel like even though there is a 10 minute time constraint, I need to risk some of the 10 minutes to NOT TYPE so that I can think of some more productive things to write about.  LETS SEE.  This is risky but I am going to stop typing now to see what pops into my head.  Go.

Okay well this popped in my head: The topic of the group is writing.xxxx.  I guess for me, I write to "figure out and explore".  One idea can lead to another and I can identify more and more gaps and things to think about.

I feel like the support groups are really nice because, even though it is all over the computer, we are getting to interact with people who may be having similar problems and it is nice to see that we are not alone and to get a context for how others lives are. 

At some point, writing starts to not feel like healing anymore and it kinda seems like it slows one down.  It can be nice to take breaks and go read books, go on walks, watch movies, etc.  

One of the things with writing is the WHY.  WHY ARE YOU WRITING?  But that goes with anything.  It also goes with, why are you doing what you are doing, why are you thinking what you are thinking?  What do you hope to accomplish.  (I feel like I am kinda just writing to share with the group but everything here doesn't seem new though.)  Epiphanies are like golden nuggets and are super cool and inspirational.  We can get them from picking out words someone says and thinking an inspiring thought about them or just seeing things in ways we never saw them before.  I go in stages where I can have epiphany after epiphany to none at all.

I am not sure what the next 10 years is going to look like now that I left Civil Engineering but hopefully it will be.... I am really not sure... maybe creative? maybe fun.. maybe insightful.  I don't really care about saving stuff as much as I do just exploring stuff.

Edited March 23, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

Next writing prompts in the group meeting:

write about something that you often forget to do:

I often forget to brush my teeth.  I think I decide to forget but I just get too lazy to do it to where I usually end up doing it at like 4 am in the morning when I have woken up and have to use the bathroom (sorry if that is too much information haha)

I will also forget to think of others feelings, of others perspectives, or think of myself being at fault.  Sometimes I also forget to think of reality in an exciting, infinite potential way and get stuck in one way of thinking about it.  I may also forget about how many epiphanies I had to have or how long it took for me to get the ideas that I had and how much work it takes and take for granted what I have achieved when talking with others.  Sometimes I forget to be skeptical of my own ideas or I forget that others have feelings too.
 

describe a time that you learned a valuable lesson:

I was upset at my boyfriend for not being tolerating enough of my freezing but yet this situation would happen over and over again.  He would get angry and I would just want the conversation to be over and end instead of trying to stay in it.  I would want to dismiss the problem and run away from it.  I finally realized that I was derping, which I learned about from a youtube video.  I was choosing to not engage, choosing to not listen.  I realized that I was being rude in dismissing his concerns and I was taking away potential to learn from what he had to say.  It is super weird at how we can brush things off and then say, we are the victim, poor me, stop being mean to me, you are being scary/aggressive/mean.  BUT then that mindset can be a problem because if we take the victim, poor me mentality, we are preventing more things from happening.  Being able to STAY in the conversation and not run away from it is huge because it opens the door for so many more things to talk about and prevents the relationship from dying.  Just showing up and being present can be huge.  

[PepperBlossoms]

Some helpful tips from the support group:

open heart, quiet mind

focus on what you got and not what you missed

sometimes we may forget the lives we touched

other people's criticisms of us sometimes come from their own fears.  it can then be hard to distinguish what is our fear and what is theirs

you don't have to have a reason to be depressed

relationships can change really quickly

some of us are sensitive to questions and may get angry when asked things

suggestion to get to know people first before talking about touchy subjects

refrain from giving advice.  use I statements

feel upset at situations where only positivity is allowed

money and relationships can both be distressing

its nice to be okay with where you are now

always do some sort of selfcare for yourself once a day

we may start to agree with people when they tell us that we can't do something

anger could be a sign that we are being mistreated

Edited March 23, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/-/media/CCI/Mental-Health-Professionals/Depression/Depression---Information-Sheets/Depression-Information-Sheet---06---Fun-Activities-Catalogue.pdf A list of fun things to do when you can't think of anything

Sometimes you have to do the opposite action; do something you have been wanting to do but have never done before; rehearse for success; create your own wellness toolbox with a list of items you can do when you are down; sometimes with social anxiety you need to just keep on getting more practice; have to do selfcare and put yourself first; it is not my job to fix others; when you have creativity, is it just a matter of where you want to apply it

[PepperBlossoms]

There are different types of nice and different types of respect.

It may seem impossible to be respectful to someone and be honest at the same time, for instance.

We need to add nuance to the words nice and respect kinda like how we have different colors and sounds.

Types of nice - funny, quiet, honest, hardworking, loyal, agreeing, talkative, complimentary, brave, taking risks, good looking

Types of respect - I would say it would be similar to the above

I guess the words listed work; it just seems like it is more common for people to use the words nice and respect but the issue is that that can be easily misinterpreted because there are so many different types of nice/respect.

Funny could go with the talkative and agreeing; funny could fit with brave, taking risks, and honest

Honest could be considered an asshole, honest could be considered ridiculous

Is it NICE for someone to be agreeable and LIE or is it NICE for someone to be honest and speak their mind?  What is better in your opinion and why?

Why do we have this pressure to just agree and LIE?  Why not just be ourselves?  Because it feels dangerous, it feels like we are hurting ourselves and will hurt others.  But isn't lying more hurtful though?

So what is it then?

...

One of the things I noted was how it is weird at how humanity in general is so bad at grieving.  Like, how the coping mechanisms can make it worse, or how they just won't grieve at all.  They will pretend there is no grief to be had.

Sometimes we can't lift each other up because we do not agree with what should be lifted up and we do not want to lift up/support something that we do not think should be lifted up/supported.  I think that is why there is tearing down.  It is the derping, the unwillingness to continue to explore, the failure at communicating, the failure to keep going.  We want to hear our voice but we don't want to hear others.  But others speak and we think, they are wrong, and we think that over and over again.  Do we want to encourage, again like lifting up, something we disagree with?  No.  How does one be respectful then when one disagrees?  Again, going back to the different types of respect - there is respect in terms of being honest.  I may be disrespecting your opinion/worldview but I am respecting honesty instead.  Why is that so hard?  Why is that not the norm?  Because when we were younger we learned to shut off and not disagree.  We were too small to put up a fight.  We are bigger now and have to adjust to our bigger bodies and realize that we have more potential than we did when we were younger.

Mental health groups need more comics to just say stuff like it is sometimes.

When advice is interpreted as criticism/judgmental, that is kinda the listener's fault, not the speaker's fault.  It is up to the listener to decide how he/she will interpret something.  I disagree with the idea of validating one's feelings for the heck of validating them.  If we completely disagree, why would we validate something?  I can see that, yes they are valid in that they are experiencing a perspective but to then validate that worldview may make it harder to see anything else.  Why not just say what we think?  We are always going to see what we see but that doesn't mean that we want to keep on seeing the same thing and if it is validated, it could be felt like we have to keep on seeing it that way.

Again, saying that we all deserve respect, well there are different types of respect and would you rather have sweet talk that is lying or honesty that is hard to hear?  I feel like many social norms mold people into being babies and some of it comes directly from the mental health professionals - the people who claim to be trying to help are sometimes just perpetuating the "poor me, I am the victim" cycle.

Pain is inevitable but how you chose to handle it can make a big difference; the story you tell yourself, how you react, the attitude you take on, etc.  We can prepare all we want but it will not necessarily be enough for everything as reality keeps on changing into so many different ways.

Yeah sure we can try to do as much or little as we want while we are live.  Am I living in luxury not working and reading books, stretching, and attending mental health groups?  Is that bad?  Do I deserve this?  I worked for several years and suffered/struggled.  I should be able to take time off and work on myself.  We shouldn't have to work, work, work constantly.  I do not like it how so many jobs require one to do the same thing for most of their life.  I personally live in phases where I get interested in one thing and then I move on and go on to something completely, totally different.  How is one to have passion for a job that is the same their whole life if they do not get to experience the natural phenomenon of being interested in things in various phases?  The work culture is DISMISSING this very thing.  I can see that yes, the longer we stay in something, the more we can notice, the more nuances and sensitivities we can find, etc.  However, there will also be benefits from taking breaks from that one thing and doing completely other things and the way work is set up, that just doesn't happen.  Why can't someone be a teacher in May, then a therapist in June, then a nurse in July, then maybe do teaching once a week, and nothing for the other weeks, then whatever... The problem is that the schooling is long and expensive and it is made very hard to switch from one thing to another and also, with the system, it doesn't really LET YOU switch from one career to another.  Maybe if work was more public and it was more of a sign up system, then you could sign up for what job you are going to do for the week but you could sign up for different ones... 

Mental health stuff has a lot of victim mentality and not enough of taking charge of figuring out what the problem is with me and the environment.  It is like we are SO EXTREMELLY SENSITIVE that we are too weak.  But maybe I am being emotionally numb here.  Maybe that is why we may experience emotional sensitivity like a pendulum where we go back and forth from being super open, raw, and sensitive to being closed off.

There are lots of ways to deal with grief and sensitivity and we have to just keep on trying different ways until we find something that works.

I feel like I tend to focus on similarity and difference in relation to mindset and experience.  Sometimes to relate, we may have to get more creative beyond what our current mindset and experience looks like.

Also, to keep on getting better at something, we have to have imagination and sensitivity for what better could look like.

Maybe we did not get ENOUGH experience with being judged and so that is why we are so sensitive to it.  We often only got the perspective of our parents and close peers but that is very limited as there are SO SO many perspectives of judging.  So we need to lean in to getting judged rather than lean back.  

I feel like my empathy has closed off again.  But I can also see the limitations of empathy where it starts to enable various toxic mindsets.

Also, when focusing on something we lost, we can also think of it in terms of never fully having it in the first place anyway and to move on and see what will come next.

Maybe if anything, the support groups are teaching me to stop being a baby and be stronger?  Does that sound bad?  Or does it sound like someone more confident, stronger, healed, hopeful, etc.?

[PepperBlossoms]

I think we partly have to be numb to our emotions in order to survive.  Being emotionally weak is not going to win us the tennis match or get us to finish the race.  You have to be pushing yourself really hard.  Being emotionally weak is not going to get us to finish reading a book or to get stuff submitted on time, or to show up to the gym, or to stick with the conversation.

I think we have to numb SO MUCH TO SUCH A GREAT EXTENT though that at some point, the pendulum swings and we feel like we are drowning and have all of these emotions that we have been numbing and don't know what to do with or about and have to slowly start to crawl our way out of the well and then we kinda go back to being numb again.

The pendulum of weak and strong swings back and forth and we may keep on getting stronger in some ways but also new things may keep on popping into existence that we are/were not ready for so we get weak again.  The weaknesses are like dents and holes in the armor where we then have to figure out how to patch them up to make the armor strong and whole again.  Maybe the dents and holes were there the hole time but we didn't know they were there because we had not yet been put in the situation that would bring the dent and hole to light.

[PepperBlossoms]

How does mental health therapy/suggestions make one weaker and how does it make one stronger?

Weaker: There could be incentive to tell the person to put oneself first and just leave toxic situations/people instead of stopping to look at all perspectives of the situation and see what the root of the issue is.

There could be incentive to tell the person to get on medication, but they may then just say they are healed from that, instead of looking to see what is going on pre-medication.

There could be incentive to take the victim stance and blame one's family/environment for everything.  Yes those will have an impact but we can't forget that we are partly responsible too.

There could be incentive to validate the person's feelings to make them feel good and empowered even if what they really need is to hear something completely different.  However, it could be that the person is just so sensitive that any sort of comment that questions or disagrees with the person will upset them and have them leave and they will stop further seeking... TRICKY TERRITORY.

Stronger: The person is encouraged to explore their feelings, thoughts, past.  They are looking at things and trying to figure stuff out.

The person may start to see patterns for themselves and also how others are and how they relate.

They could work on gaining more self and environmental awareness and more willingly accept feedback, introspection, etc.

They could work through what they are less sensitive about and be able to take on more and feel better about themselves.  They could become more assertive.

...

I guess we have to gauge sensitivity of ourselves and those we are speaking/interacting with... tone of voice, feeling of authority vs. humble/meek, deviation from the norm they are willing to say, their present emotional state, etc.

Edited March 24, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I came up with a wild thought just now.  It may not be accurate but it sparked my interest.

Just as a bird has to kick it's babies off of the ledge to get them to fly, basically probably an incredibly traumatic experience for the baby bird, a parent may have to traumatize its kid with some form of aggression/masculinity/testosterone/criticism in order for the child to eventually be able to "fly" when it grows up.

If both parents are super sweet to their child, the child may become very sensitive and hateful of masculine aggression and may never learn to be able to deal/interact with it and may ceiling out on their abilities.

Likewise, the child with at least one aggressive parent, yes it may traumatize and hurt the child during their childhood and maybe into adulthood too, but because the child has developed familiarity with this way of being, there may be more potential for them to eventually heal from the trauma and learn to fly and be able to be assertive themselves.

One has to be assertive in order to voice one's opinion, stand up against things, etc.

It could be that girls tend to not "go for nice guys" because subconsciously, the child needs to have a parent with a backbone and a male may naturally be much better at doing this than the female.

The female, in contrast, may tend to be better at showing the child how to have empathy, patience, nurturing mindsets, etc.

The masculine and feminine examples are both helpful for the child to have as examples for them to be able to grow up and be able to interact with and utilize a wide range of emotions and beings.

However, then goes the question, well what about lesbian and gay couples?  There will still be by default, most likely, where one will be to varying degrees, more masculine than the other and vice versa with femininity.

So when I called my father for being a bully, and he refused to forgive me when I apologized about it, maybe I was overlooking the benefits of having been given some masculine interactions.

I AM still not fully sure about this hypothesis.  Again, someone is not going to become a world class ANYTHING if there is not discipline and if one is too sweet, it may not foster enough pressure to try harder.  Go-getters can inspire others to be go-getters too.

I guess one could study people who did amazing things to see what the parents were like and if there is any correlation.  I feel like my parents are on opposite sides of the spectrum where one tries to be super nice and the other tries to be super masculine.  Maybe this isn't something that should be fought.  Maybe it is actually more healthy than psychology gives it credit for.  Maybe this "softness" that people are preaching for is not something we want.

However, the masculine criticism can be off the bar in terms of some of the things it says such as making fun of people for their looks/nationality/race/skin color/accent/etc.  When I was upset because I felt my peer was being mean for saying that my friend cannot become XYZ career because my friend is not smart enough, maybe he was correct in terms of the person's work ethic based on what he had seen.  But we only see so much and there is so much to overlook.

Maybe I got trapped in too much of stage blue/green with being "nice" and I was not seeing the benefits of the rage/freedom/honesty of stage red/orange/yellow.  The niceness can be a trap and prevent one from going further.  But so can being too ridiculous and mean.

[PepperBlossoms]

Maybe with an aggressive parent, some children will be able to heal past the initial trauma and grow to be assertive while others will get stuck in the trauma stage and not go past it and stay "feminine".

It could be that our potential to be aggressive is also based on how aggressive our opposite sex parent is relative to the context of that gender (or it could just be based on the more aggressive one in general regardless of it is the mom or the dad).

Again there could be exceptions to this and this could be completely incorrect as well.

...

Another reason we could be so bad with aggressive/testosterone is because the only person that we got it around was our dad who may not have been around much.  Most of the adults in our childhood were females (the teachers).  It may not be that we are interacting with other grown males until we are at a job and because we have had very little experience around males and so we may be scared of our bosses and other coworkers because we are just not used to the aggressive/testosterone.  It also doesn't help when one is so focused on their studies that they do not interact with others.  The classmates who do have and show their aggressive/testosterone may be shamed and punished by the teachers and one may be conditioned to think that that is bad.

In a way, yes there is talk about society shaming girls for speaking their mind, well I think society also does a disservice for shaming boys for BEING THEMSELVES.  But yes girls will be shamed for being themselves too.

...

My friend who is a teacher had written up one of her students for saying mean things to another student and in a way, this is another example of shaming assertiveness and promoting the idea of submissiveness (a feminine trait).  Even dropping out of school, (going against the system), is shamed - when deviance is a male trait.

Edited March 24, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I was thinking about how we may start to not pay attention in church and dissociate and feel bored and that may translate to not paying attention and feeling bored in other things as well.  These thoughts are because in church, we didn't do much other than just sit and watch the people on the stage do everything.  One also can't be too engaged because they might start questioning things in ways the church does not want one to question.  You have to have your mind shut off or keep your mind extremely disciplined with following and staying within the presented doctrine.  Church has to instill insane amounts of fear, shame, codependency, guilt, etc. in order to keep this up.

..

I was thinking that there could be some sort of mapping where one heals and develops in terms of masculine and feminine.

Children could start off masculine in terms of being free, deviant, doing/saying whatever they want, and being destructive.  The child stars off as feminine in terms of crying whenever on is sad or needy.

Then the child gets punished over and over again by the parent because they are doing things that are not optimal for working together and operating as a family.  The child then drops the masculine extreme of raging and doing what one wants BUT may also drop the feminine extreme in terms of crying when one is sad and needy. 

One is now somewhere in the middle, possibly emotionless and possibly less willing to test the boundaries.  One may be feminine in terms of being obedient to one's parent and teachers (or it could be that the punishing didn't work and one was able to stay in the masculine and was still trying to push for freedom to do whatever one wants - but the parents and teachers will keep on shaming and punishing this behavior over and over again to where one will be pressured to drop that part of masculinity and to have to give in and conform.

The quiet, shy, agreeing, obeying, doormat is distanced from one's feelings, emotions, desires (both masculine and feminine).  One has become a robot basically. 

But then times come up where something is so great that one feels very emotional, either angry (and turns into a bully) or hurt (and one turns into a victim).  One is either moved closer to masculine (anger) or feminine (victim).  

The child has to work on developing one's emotions and skills in order to slowly welcome back in mids and extremes of the masculine and feminine that he or she was shunned from having and using.  

Some guesses for masculine and feminine:

Masculine - assertive, willing to speak one's mind, strength, competition, intellect, thinking, foresight, bravery, bold, competency, analysis, comedy, confidence, risk taking, curious, individual developed

Feminine - Empathy, considering other's perspectives, comforting, endurance, patience, resiliency, loving, feeling, in the now, presence, group developed, disciplined

Somewhere in the middle (weak masculine/feminine) - low self esteem, low confidence, impatient, conformist, doormat, agreeing with others, shy, quiet, low, selfish

Toxic extreme masculine - killing, bullying, racist, abandonment

Toxic extreme feminine - gossiping, jealousy, envy

Hmmm maybe I shouldn't divide these into masculine or feminine.  May I should just divide them into unhealthy weak, healthy strong, and unhealthy excessive.

Unhealthy weak - low self esteem, low confidence, impatient, conformist, doormat, agreeing with others, shy, quiet, low, selfish

Healthy strong - assertive, willing to speak one's mind, strength, competition, intellect, thinking, foresight, bravery, bold, competency, analysis, comedy, confidence, risk taking, curious, individual developed, empathy, considering other's perspectives, comforting, endurance, patience, resiliency, loving, feeling, in the now, presence, group developed, disciplined

Unhealthy excessive - killing, bullying, racist, abandonment, gossiping, jealousy, envy

Or maybe the unhealthy excessive would just go with the unhealthy weak..

Unhealthy weak - low self esteem, low confidence, impatient, conformist, doormat, agreeing with others, shy, quiet, low, selfish, killing, bullying, racist, abandonment, gossiping, jealousy, envy

Healthy strong - assertive, willing to speak one's mind, strength, competition, intellect, thinking, foresight, bravery, bold, competency, analysis, comedy, confidence, risk taking, curious, individual developed, empathy, considering other's perspectives, comforting, endurance, patience, resiliency, loving, feeling, in the now, presence, group developed, disciplined

It can make it easier to look at what to work on and what to achieve.

I sometimes have problems with the bolded items.

low self esteem, low confidence, resiliency - this is getting built up with the mental health group meetings that I have been attending as well as the books I have been reading and the more insights I have been having which allows for more skills

selfish - this one I feel like it is okay to have when one is focused on working on oneself.  It can be hard though when one is interacting with others and so in interacting with others, I can work on the patience, listening, assertive, willing to speak one's mind, empathy, considering other's perspectives, comforting.  I think it will tend to be easier to work on interacting with others when interacting with those that already think similarly to us, which I may already be good at.  The harder part is talking to people that we drastically disagree with in many ways and being able to maintain a proper way of interacting.  The support groups are helpful in that there are a large amount of perspectives, backgrounds, religions (the christian people tend to make their presence of the religious orientation known, as I have come to find).  One interesting thing is how it was noted by one facilitator after someone talking about their Christian God to not bring up religion because religion can be triggering to some people. 

There does seem to be a huge lack of empathy with many of my religious friends where they bring up their Christian God around me and probably others too who are not of that same belief.  I can see it can be hard when your religion tells you that you need to get others to go into it and yet others don't want to listen or hear about it.

...

One of the weird, conflicting things I have with the support groups is that they say, everything here is to be confidential and should not leave the group.  Yes I understand that names of the group and names of participants and participants stories should be kept confidential but, there are many words of wisdom spoken and so I feel like, in order for me to get the most out of attending, I want to write, not the individual personal stories down, but the words of wisdom.  If I don't write stuff down, I may forget most that happened and may not get as much out of it.  So despite the confidentiality thing, I have been taking notes in terms of words of wisdom to keep and to think about later and integrate into various thoughts and ideas.

Edited March 24, 2022 by PepperBlossoms