soos_mite_ah

@Applegarden8 Yes, I'm currently living in a house. I think that has more to do with having thin walls than it does living in an apartment. I've lived in places that had reasonably thick walls which gave me a sense of privacy but I've also lived in a place where the walls are so thin that you literally have to whisper or else the neighbors will hear you. That was pretty annoying and part of me was always paranoid about what the neighbors could/couldn't hear. One time I woke up early in the morning and I heard someone making the bed and folding the sheets. Like the amount of stuff I could hear was creepy. Basically an apartment with walls that aren't too thin is the goal. Yeah the idea of getting tied down, living in a suburb where you have to have a car, and settling for one place just doesn't appeal to me at the moment. Again, maybe things will change for me in a decade or so.

@kinesin That makes sense. I guess maybe the reason why I don't resonate with that because I'm simply not in the place in my life where I want to settle down in one place and have a family yet. Idk, maybe in 10-15 years I might be interested but for now, that isn't in the vision of where I want my life to go.

Embracing the Awkward Part 2: Finding Confidence in Awkward Moments When I realized that I was neither awkward nor not awkward, I decided that I was going choose to focus on the more charismatic sides to myself because that's what's best for my sense of self love and self image instead of focusing on all of my "social failures". Because there isn't anything inherently wrong with me and I'm worthy of connection but to fully deprogram my limiting beliefs, I need to focus on my social wins and times when I did feel worthy of connection to rebuild that part of myself so that I can let go of my limiting beliefs. Because if I keep focusing on how awkward I am, I'm going to create more awkward moments. However, if I focus on the times I was socially competent, I'm going to create more moments that socially flow smoothly. It's just how the law of attraction and just self fulfilling prophecies work. But I also want to take it a step further by finding myself worthy of connection even when I am awkward. I think that viewing awkward people as people who are not worthy of connection is a huge limiting belief. I know plenty of people who can be awkward a lot of the times but they still have friends and a social life. I also know plenty of awkward people who are also in relationships. The last one is something that I want to emphasize more because I think it would be easier to focus on it to prove a point. I think in dating, especially for men, you're always told to be super confident and that being awkward or shy is the worst thing that you can do in terms of attraction. While I do think there is some truth in that, I don't think that's a blanket statement that is applicable in all cases. I know awkward and introverted guys who have girlfriends. I think it has to do with finding confidence in your awkwardness. I have a story that shows a guy who was confident with his awkwardness. So in my first year of college, I was going through this *flirt with everything that moves to get this part of my life handled* phase. There is this one guy that works in my college dining hall. I just decided to flirt with him because why tf not and also since I wasn't attracted to him romantically, I didn't feel like I was under any pressure. I think I just complimented him on something really small and he got really red and shy and he just started stuttering. But here's the thing, that sense of shyness didn't come from a place of shame or self hatred. I think that's why it didn't come off as awkward and creepy. While I wasn't looking for a relationship at the time and I considered myself asexual, I thought that he was absolutely adorable and endearing because of the way he acted. I'd say that it was a million times more attractive than any type of alpha male trying to have a mask of confidence when he's secretly deeply insecure about himself and his masculinity. (also side note, if a guy uses the term "alpha male" unironically, you're immediately branded as an insecure person in my mind ESPECIALLY if you use alpha to describe yourself. It's the epitome of cringe as Contrapoints describes it where you lack self awareness and you don't measure up to your own standards) As I thought about that situation I was like "if I could see this person's awkward behavior and still think that they are a person worth connecting to, why can't I see myself in the same way?" Personally I find that if I find insecurities in myself in someone that has the same trait but I have no problem accepting the other person as a way to show myself the hypocrisy of self hatred. I remember growing up I was insecure about my height so I looked at a friend who was the same height as me and asked myself if I see her as any less worthy or beautiful because of her height. The answer is obviously no so then I would ask myself "well, then why do you feel that way about yourself? Why would you treat yourself worse than you treat others?" I find that this way of thinking helps me unpack a lot of things and I think applying this to my awkwardness is no different. EDIT: Additionally, I think being confident in you awkwardness is similar to being confidence in your ignorance. Because someone who is confident in their ignorance isn't going to double down and defend their worldview if there is something they don't know or they are wrong about (doubling down and getting defensive makes you look more dumb anyway). If they are confident, they can admit that they don't know everything and make peace with that because they still accept themselves in the end of the day. The same goes for being confident in your awkwardness. If you are confident in your awkwardness, when confronted with an awkward moment, doubling down and trying to be more confident will come off as an overcompensation which then will make you look even more awkward. Instead, being confident in your awkwardness means that you can still accept yourself in awkward moments and be at peace.

Embracing the Awkward Part 1: I'm Neither Awkward nor Not Awkward I've been thinking about how I tend to associate being awkward with being unworthy of connection and I have been questioning this unconscious belief. I think the reason why I have this belief is because I always wanted to be one of those people who were a social butterfly who basically got along with everyone regardless of whether or not they had anything in common with them. Don't get me wrong, I was always content with having a small circle and I didn't feel this need to have a large group of friends. I think part of it has to do with how extrovert centric the U.S. is. But I guess somewhere along the way, especially through the school system, I was given this message that if you are really outgoing and charismatic, then you are a leader, you're good with people, you're going places in life. And if you aren't that way, well you're socially incompetent or there is nothing exciting about you. Like I remember growing up having my smart, more introverted friends who were hardworking get passed up on opportunities or even awards in school because the teachers didn't think they exhibited enough "leadership qualities." And for the longest time I thought that I wasn't a "people person" because I wasn't super extroverted and I didn't click with everyone. I think part of me also has this image of what a socially competent person is and when I fall short of that, I tend to internalize it. For example, I don't click with everyone. I can get along with everyone on a surface level, but I'm not like that super enthusiastic magnetic person (you know THAT person). And when I don't click with people, usually because we don't have anything in common, I see that as a sort of social failing on my part. I then start beating myself for being awkward and not exciting enough. Sometimes I wonder if I even have an actual personality because interactions like that leave me feeling that I'm a boring person. And I start feeling like I don't have social skills because I ran out of things to talk about with a person because I don't have anything in common with them. It's not really about me wanting to have a deep connection with everyone I meet rather it's about wanting to have a degree of socially competence that I thought was only reserved for extroverts. I've been trying to break out of this thought pattern of me being awkward. I think it's easy to selectively remember parts of your life according to what you consider yourself to be now. Like for example, let's say that you think of yourself as a creative person. Because of that identity, it's going to be easier to go back and remember moments where you were creative. But odds are, there were also moments in your life where you failed to be creative because no one is 100% one thing. Unless you integrate that uncreative part of yourself, the memories that you have of not being creative are going to be more hidden from your consciousness and you won't have an accurate view of yourself and instead cling on to this idea of being creative. Sometimes, all it takes is to notice those parts of us that we reject or ignore in ourselves. Awareness alone is curative. So in my case, since I have this idea of in my head that I'm boring, that I lack social skills, and that I'm awkward, I tried to find moments in my life where that wasn't the case. I found that even in the times of my life where I would characterize myself as the most socially awkward an shy, I could still find moments where I was really good at dealing with people and was able to get along with a number of different people. If anything, I probably found just as many, if not more, instances where I was charismatic and good at dealing with people compared to when I felt socially awkward and uninteresting. A lot of it just had to do with what crowd I was surrounded by and how well they matched my level of consciousness, spiral stage etc. I have this memory where, I don't remember the context of this conversation, but basically she said something along the lines of " you're actually really outgoing, you just can't relate to stupid or shallow people. You can't relate to them because your efforts of trying to connect to them just doesn't compute in their heads." Looking back, I'm pretty sure this less to do with how intellectual someone is. Like I've met idiots that I connect with and I've met a lot of smart people who I don't click with. I don't think it has to do with intellect rather it has to do with consciousness and spiral stage. Since consciousness and higher spiral stages have a more expansive and inclusive worldview that integrates more perspectives, they can be seen as smarter. For instance I've met plenty of stage orange smart people say some REALLY sexist/racist/homophobic things and I remember looking at my friends before finding spiral dynamics and just questioning "how could a smart person, say something so stupid?" Now I know that it has nothing to do with their intellect, it has to do with how conscious they are. Basically the conclusion I came to is that there is nothing absolutely true about me being awkward and socially inept. Whether I show up that way or not is relative to the context and the people that I'm surrounded by. I also think another thing that helped me was viewing social awkwardness as an emotion rather than a character trait because emotions come and go relative to the situation but character traits can make something seem inherent to someone.

I'm starting to consider this more and more. I know that sometimes I try to take responsibility but then instead turn around and start blaming myself. Distinguishing between responsibility and fault can be nuanced at times but I'm getting better at it. I also watched a video recently and the video mentioned something along the lines of how validation can be incredibly healthy can get help you on your journey towards self love because hearing other people tell you positive things over and over can condition you into thinking positively about yourself the same way that negative things being repeated over and over can also condition you. I think that whenever people see something about wanting validation, people often assume that you're trying to fill a bottomless pit and then as a result you keep seeing advice that's along the lines of "never look for support outside of yourself", "don't depend on others, everything you need is inside you" etc. But wanting validation can come from a healthy balanced place where you need a reminder sometimes but you don't need to be showered with attention constantly. Thank you, I sometimes need that reminder. Sometimes with my childhood, it feels like such a large obstacle to overcome and as a result I catch myself wondering where I would be and how much further I would have gone if this obstacle wasn't there and I could that time I used to deal with this elsewhere in my life. And then I compare myself to this fantasy version of myself which causes me to think about how I can reach that ideal without wasting anymore time. Sometimes I feel like I need to catch up with my potential.

@Raptorsin7 Honestly I'm not really focused on building an audience or making money from this at the moment. Those things would be nice but I'm mainly doing this because I enjoy doing it and I want a place to myself so that my posts can be more organized. I also tried doing youtube at one point and I honestly hated the whole process. It simply didn't resonate with me at all. I don't see myself doing twitch either. I thought about doing a podcast but I think that would be later down the road. Basically, I'm going into this with no expectations and no pressure other than to have fun.

I can totally see that thank you. I'd say that I have that limiting belief in myself as well where I think that I can't date or form relationships until I'm fully healed from every wound from my childhood. Because of that I'm trying to put myself out there despite not having things together and despite seeing myself as a mess. I'm also a big believer of "if you can't love yourself, you can't love other people in a healthy way" and to me that means that I need to work on myself and pick a partner who has done the same so that we have a healthy dynamic. I'm starting to look at that more and perhaps I don't need someone who has their shit together, rather I need someone who has the awareness to actively work on themselves (as opposed to being with him because I see potential). My biggest fear is to make and impulse decision and get into a toxic relationship because I don't want to waste my time and I know just how much of a set back a bad relationship can be. The bold part resonates with me completely even now since I'm stuck in the house with them. Speaking of which, I felt as if I dealt with a lot of issues that I had with my dismissive avoidant attachment style but after living at home and not going anywhere for a year, it's like the issues I had with my attachment style was double downed on. I working on that recently and omfg it helped a lot. I've been opening up more with my friends and while it doesn't feel uncomfortable (it feels like relief), I do catch myself wondering if I'm doing too much or if I look like a mess.

I thought about that before where I was like *am I actually oversharing or do I just think I'm oversharing because I'm so used to feeling like I need to present a certain version of myself?* And that's a difficult question to answer for me. On one hand people think that I'm distant and don't open up but on the other hand if someone asks me "what's wrong?" I have no problem opening the floodgates and express everything that is going on with. I guess I need permission to be open and vulnerable because I don't want people to be weighed down by my issues or me to talk about something when they are dealing with their own thing. When I do get that permission, I feel like that's when I slip into what I label as oversharing. I think a really good example of this is my journal and how long the posts are. I sometimes look at my posts and think "damn, this bitch is going on and on about something people don't care about and is just airing her dirty laundry to everyone on this forum." I never thought of vulnerability in this way. I think part of this has to do with the dating advice that is usually geared towards women. Some of that is really fear based like if you try to be vulnerable you will be taken advantage of, you will be manipulated, you will be abused and to avoid this you have to do everything yourself because your partner isn't going to help you, don't rely on anyone, and you have to be super independent etc. And if you don't do these things, you will attract partners who are toxic and you won't be seen as sexy or desirable because you'll come across as needy. I used to look for dating advice before when I REALLY had no idea what I was doing. But in hindsight, I see that I got a lot of advice that either doesn't apply to me or is really unhealthy. I feel like some advice magnified my dismissive tendencies so I just stopped consuming that type of content and tried to be mindful of my personal tendencies instead. I don't think I really have an issue about fearing conflict regarding communicating what I need and what my boundaries are. If there is any conflict I fear it would be along the lines of one of us going through something while the other basically starts playing therapist or doesn't get their needs met and then that devolving into codependency. Like no, figure out your life and come to me when you're whole. I'm not here to fix anyone nor do I expect anyone to fix me. Honestly I think I could really benefit from having my blind spots and limiting beliefs called out.

@RendHeaven I think that parenting strategy is really normalized and common to where most people don't see anything wrong with it and therefore continue the cycle. I want to say it's a boomer thing but I'm sure generations after them probably still use the same tactic.

Off Days and Punishing Small Mistakes So for the last couple days I've been having an "off day." I haven't really been myself. My sleep schedule is a little weird. I had a couple negative emotions come up unprompted out of nowhere. I showed up to work with the wrong shoes on and I had to clock out, go home, change, and clock back in again (wearing open toed shoes is kind of a safety hazard where I work so it makes sense). And this morning I forgot a zoom meeting that I set up with someone because I got my time zones mixed up. These are all minor mistakes that are easily fixable. But when I made these mistakes, I had a large wave of negative thinking wash over me. The self talk that I was having were along these lines: You're so stupid. You're such a piece of shit. What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you pay attention? This is why no one likes you and you aren't getting anywhere. How can you be so careless? You're so unreliable. You're so incompetent. All of this accompanied by this general sense of cringe, shame and self hatred. All of these statements have one thing in common. These are things my parents would tell me whenever I made a minor mistake as a kid. These minor mistakes can include but aren't limited: leaving my jacket at a friend's house, breaking a glass or a plate by accidentally knocking it over, spilling something on the carpet, spilling things in general, tripping over something, eating one too many cookies, and misplacing something and then spending 5 minutes looking for said thing. And even if they didn't say those exact statements, they would make a sound of disapproval, shake their head, or do something else that basically expresses "god you're so stupid and annoying." I saw a post a couple months back which was along the lines of why punishing your kids or yelling at them for something very minor can be very detrimental to a kid. Because most of these small accidents don't have that many real world consequences and can be easily fixed. There is no point in making a big deal out of it. Just let kids be kids. And if you get yelled at those small mistakes, first of all you're getting rid of trust with the kid because if you yell at them for small things, when someone thing big happens, they'll be too scared to go to you and try to fix it themselves causing them to maybe get into a more dangerous situation. Second, it makes them anxious and overly self-critical which then enforces perfectionistic tendencies. Third, it leads to anxiety around making mistakes and messing up along with a lot of negative self talk which doesn't even do anything to help the situation. I get the mentality of punishing small things so that kids don't get the idea that they can get away with bigger things. I get punishing so that a certain behavior doesn't continue. But these things can easily be done by setting proper boundaries and enforcing them. Also, accidents aren't patterns for behavior. They just happen because we're human. And I think this also goes back to the whole notion that degrading someone isn't the same thing as disciplining them. You can discipline a kid without personally attacking them, talking down on them, or just being plain rude. A very easy way of dealing with situations like these are *oh well, that sucks, it isn't a big deal we can fix it together.* Like you don't have to go into a whole tirade on how stupid the kid is. The first time I encountered an adult who treated me this way was when I lost my wallet on the bus at school. She just told me "l'm sure everything will be fine. You can check with the bus driver and I'm sure your wallet is still there. I'm sure nothing super important was there that can't be recovered easily." I was freaking out and frantically I told her that there was a lot of important things there which included my driver's license, credit card, $10, and my school ID. And to that she replied something along the lines of "that's not a big deal. You can cancel the card and get a new one quickly, you can get a new school id in 10 minutes after school, and you can apply to get a new drivers license after reporting it to be missing in under 5 minutes. These things happen to everyone at some point. It's ok. Yeah you lost the 10 dollars and this whole this is annoying and inconvenient but other than that it's fine really." I was just shocked with how calmly she treated this situation and how she mainly emphasized on how this can be quickly fixed. Because if I told this to my dad, I would have gotten yelled at for 45 minutes on how stupid and irresponsible I was and how he can't trust me with anything. She didn't make me feel like an idiot or anything. She was really reassuring. Now whenever I make a small mistake, I try to have that attitude with myself but because this was only one interaction and I've had countless interactions where my parents yelled at me, my instant knee jerk reaction is to beat myself up for small mistake. This is still something I'm working on.

Just because you met him years ago, doesn't mean you really know him. IMO if it's been that long, it doesn't even count anymore. I mean even if you didn't mean it that way, it can be easily taken that way and it's really important to take that into consideration. Also, devotion without any proper commitment while being in the dating phase looks a whole lot like desperation and not having any standards.

This makes sense. But tbh, people becoming official before the 3 months mark doesn't make sense to me.

Ok I finished watching this video and honestly.... I feel called out. I really thought I finished dealing with the issues I have with my dismissive avoidant tendencies but I guess not lol. I thought it was normal to only want to see someone you really like only once or twice a week. I mean, I have a life and things to do. I don't have the time or energy to see anyone for more than once or twice a week. I thought it was normal to date someone for around 3-4 months before jumping into a commitment. To me that seemed like a normal amount of time to figure out someone's real intentions because people can only pretend for so long. Like for me the first month is me trying to see if there are any red flags. The second is me trying to figure out if the dynamic is healthy and if we mesh together. And the third is to see if I really like this person or not. I remember seeing articles about how most people say "I love you" to each other within 4-5 months and consider something to be a serious relationship by then and that straight up didn't register in my mind. I can't see myself saying those words to a person or consider our relationship serious until it's like a year in. Also, aren't you supposed to fully meet your needs first so you aren't supposed to rely on the other person? Like the way I always approached dating is that I need to have my friends, my school/career stuff, and my personal issues taken care of and fully have my life together before even considering on putting myself out there for dating. I don't see anything wrong with sharing something personal or emotional with your significant other, but I always think that its important to journal/self soothe, talk to your therapist, and talk to your friends (if things get really serious) before going to your significant other. To me, going to my friends always seemed like a last resort, not that there is anything wrong with going to your friends but I normally try to deal with things on my own. As for going to your significant other, that has never been the option for me because I have never been in a relationship so in my mind that is even further down the list if I can't talk to my friends about something. Like in my mind, a romantic relationship is supposed to be fun and drama free. Both of you guys need to have your shit together and keep the situation lighthearted. Don't bring your emotional messiness into a dynamic. If you have mess to sort through either stay away from dating and work with a therapist or break up with the person and work on yourself because it isn't anyone's responsibility but yours to fix your own mess. There isn't anything wrong with helping each other and supporting each other, but that shouldn't be the main thing because or else you're going to find yourself in a codependent, parent-child, or therapist-patient dynamic. None of these dynamics are sexy or fun, much less healthy. I can see opening up more once the dynamic is established in a long term relationship after a year or so because there is lower chance to devolve into the dynamics I mentioned before. But in a short term relationship, I don't see why you would go into anything super deep and personal. I see that as codependence and oversharing.

I agree with @Michael569 but I feel like I can expand on this not from a nutritional, what the food is doing to your body point of view but rather from the point of view of what a person's relationship with food is like in general. It isn't uncommon for people to go on strict diets to feel the need to binge after a week or so. It doesn't make them lacking in discipline or anything of that nature. When you restrict the types of foods you eat, you start creating this novelty factor towards foods that you are restricted from. Basically, you start wanting what you can't have. And when you suppress your cravings, often times you crave more because of the novelty factor. For instance, let's say you're craving a donut. If you give into that crave then and there, you'll have one donut, But if you deprive yourself for weeks, then when you get the chance to eat a donut like on a cheat day or something, you'll be coming from a scarcity mindset and next thing you know, you'll want to eat 5 donuts because part of you knows that if you can't have donuts later due to restriction, you better take everything in now. It's pretty counterintuitive and it might lead to binging more in the short term because you are trying to get yourself out of the scarcity/ restrictive mindset, but in the long term, you'll stop craving and binging foods because it isn't special anymore. Also, there are multiple ways to eat healthy. Find something that works for you and that you fully enjoy. If you don't like celery juice, don't make yourself drink that. If you are eating foods that have a sense of variety and that you genuinely love, you will be more focused on what you can eat rather than all of the foods that you can't eat. Therefore, your motivation will come from a more positive place and you'll be coming from a more abundance oriented mindset rather than a scarcity one. If you keep mentally focusing on all of the foods you can't eat, that's all you're going to be thinking of and that will inevitably lead to more cravings. Finally, I don't know what your relationship to food is, how restrictive your diet is, or how lean you're trying to get. But if I were you, I would try to check in with myself and try to see if your goals are coming from a healthy place mentally. It's easy to slip into the slope that is feeling insecure with our bodies and then altering our diet and relationship with food in the name of being "healthy" when really it's neurotic and unrealistically restrictive. IMO, it's ok to have some restrictions and have some general guidelines on how to eat but I would personally aim for following a diet only 75% of the time rather than a 100% so that you don't fall under the pitfalls of a restrictive mindset and so that you can still enjoy the rest of life without being uptight about food.

As far as the blog goes, I think I'm finally getting somewhere. It still looks like trash and I kinda hate it but it is what it is. The fact that my tech stupid self was able to get this far is to be applauded. And every time I think about how tech stupid I am, I keep thinking about how my parents and relatives assume that I can deal with technology just because I'm young. Like sure, compared to some boomers I'm more technologically capable but if someone shows me the blue screen of death, I'm not going to know what to do. They overestimate my capabilities when in reality I'm probably on the lower end of what people my age can do lol. Things like creating websites, shooting and editing videos, having an aesthetic Instagram feed that doesn't look like trash are all things that I suck at. The only thing I can think of while trying to put this website together is how much I hate it here.

Also my personal take when it comes to relationships is that unconditional love needs to stop being romanticized. I'm not going to stick around and be a ride or die because I'm not ready to die. If someone stops treating me well, idc how much I liked him, I'm walking away and I'm not going to love him. While sacrifices and compromises are normal to a certain extent, I'm also not going to give up things that are important to me for a guy. That usually ends in resentment in a relationship down the line anyway and it's simply not worth it. If a guy tells me to give up everything for him, I'm going to take everything I have and give him up because the person who cares about me and who has my best interests in heart isn't going to put me in the position of choosing him and choosing other aspects of my life I care about. My love (in the romantic, relative sense) is very conditional.

I think it's good that you want to be open with your feelings and express how you feel but based on the fact that you don't know him that well, I'd be concerned about chances of you projecting an idealized version of what you think he's like on to him (rather than seeing him for who he really is) or being codependently attached to him. And when you don't see someone as who they really are, not only can that be disrespectful to the other person, but that can also be dangerous for yourself. There is a certain pace to things and while that can vary from person to person, going in head first like that that quickly usually doesn't end well.

Girl I'd think you'd be stupid or crazy if I heard someone tell me that on a date. That kind of wording can often look like you're willing to bend over backwards for someone at the cost of your own needs and personal boundaries and stick around even if the other person isn't good for you. That's not a good look.

Lotion and better shampoo/conditioner Also exfoliation

This explains my views and my current circumstance perfectly.

@Emerald Yeah of course. I'm aware on your approach towards using shadow work, tarot, and dreams in your life coaching practice and how there is a focus on that. Is there anything you do specific to life purpose?

I have been doing a lot of introspecting on what kind of career/life purpose I want and I'd say that I have a good idea. I know my values, my strengths, the things I'm passionate about, my ideal medium, my over all mission statement, things I've accomplished and overcome, and some of the important experiences I want my life to consist of. I have also journaled about this a lot so there is a lot of content that I have come up with myself through this process. But even with all of this content, I'm having trouble formulating the elements I've come up with into a vision/path if that makes sense. I think I'm at a point where I need someone outside of myself to look at the content I have made in search of my life purpose and help me come up with what I want to do and what would be a good fit. I like to think I've done a lot of work on this regard but I think I need that extra push in the right direction to have that light bulb moment. I'm thinking about getting a life purpose coach to do this so that I'm talking to someone who has expertise on this subject. Should I do that now or do I need to wait and have a clearer vision for myself before going to someone for help? If I should do it now, what's the best way of going about finding the right coach? If you want to see some of my work and reflections, just let me know and I'll link them down below. My journal entries tend to be long and I have a lot of entries regarding life purpose so I didn't want to include like 10 links on this post.

Because men view themselves and other men through the constructs of the male gaze and how they judge other women. They judge women on looks so they expect women to do the same and they go along with the patriarchal notions of what is considered attractive even if that doesn't resonate with most women. What you judge in others are often things you judge in yourself. The guys who are the most insecure about their looks are usually also the ones who bring women down and make the 1-10 scale into a form of absolute science.

What is Authenticity I thought about writing this for a couple months now but I kept putting this off because I wanted my thoughts on the subject to marinate a little more. I also think this would be really beneficial to reflect on because authenticity is my top value. This is something that I have thought about back when I was 17 or so but I feel like the way that I define authenticity has evolved since then. It hasn't changed, but it has more parts now. The way that I thought was the best way to tap into my own sense of authenticity back then had a lot to do with being in touch with my inner child and my inner sense of joy. To me, being in touch with that part of myself was crucial because it basically asked the questions "Who are you when you take all of the social conditioning away? Who are you when you are honest with yourself and cut to the core? Who are you when you let go of what other people want you to be or think you should be?" I was always intrigued by the amount of honesty kids display and how they don't give a flying fuck on whose there. It can fuel a lot of funny stories. I don't have many funny kid stories but I do remember a couple things that I did when I was little. One time my parents got some fish from the fish market and they didn't fully clean the fish because once we brought the fish home, we found a ton of caviar. My mom made caviar that night. I was around 9 at the time and I tasted some of the caviar and I asked my parents what this was because it tasted weird. My dad explained it to me and told me that caviar costs a ton of money and that it is a delicacy that rich people indulge in. And I remember saying something along the lines of "why would you spend so much money on something that tastes so bad?" That annoyed my parents a little because they were here feeling all fancy but the whole status aspect didn't register in my head because that was not the conditioning that I got before. Another time when I was either 3, I remember it being my birthday. I was a happy kid. I had cake, the sun was shining, and as a happy kid who was hyperactive because of the cake, I wanted to go play outside. My uncle was like "no you can't play outside until the sun goes down a little bit." I asked why and he replied with "because then you'll get dark." (Little back story, I was a VERY pale, light skin Indian kid when I was born to where I basically looked biracial and my relatives used to be really protective over that skin tone because of colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards). I asked why again and my uncle was like "because when you get dark, you won't look as good." I remember thinking how dumb that sounded because none of that made sense to me. It didn't make sense why being beautiful was so important and why dark skin wasn't seen as beautiful. Colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards didn't register because I was a literal toddler without that social programing. All I wanted was to have fun and run around outside. So then I just ran out the front door and made my uncle chase me around the neighborhood until he gave up and let me play outside. Now on to the way I decided to extend my definition of authenticity. I do still stand by the inner child version of authenticity but lately I've been thinking on expanding it because I have gotten more life experiences that contradict this. Exploring my sexuality more caused this shift in perspective. For the last 7 years I have identified as asexual because I simply didn't feel attraction towards anyone. I had nothing against sex, it just wasn't my thing. But there was a tiny part of me that felt a little superior, like it was easier for me to be in touch with authentic love and relationships because I didn't have to navigate the shit storm that can be hormones and lust. Going back to the inner child version of authenticity, I felt like I was more in touch with an inner child version of love and that made any romantic feelings I had for someone more authentic than simply being attracted to them on a physical level. I felt like I could make more authentic decisions because I didn't have sex clouding my judgement. But lately as I've been exploring my sexuality more because some things have happened and I'm doubting my asexuality (it's a long story). And what I'm feeling feels very authentic. Then I started thinking that maybe authenticity isn't just some absolute thing that you return to like you return to your inner child but something that is continuously evolves with you. There is relativity in authenticity. What felt authentic to me a few years ago, doesn't resonate with me in the same way now because my needs have changed, my outlook on life has changed, I have been exposed to different life experiences, and I'm in a different stage of life. And the fact that I have changed and strayed from who I used to be doesn't make me fake now nor does it mean that I have lost my way. Because what is authentic to you changes depending on where you are at in your life, being authentic is a continuous effort. It isn't a one and done deal where you make a couple decisions and live happily ever after. Being authentic can require a lot of work, specifically emotional labor. It means you're in touch with your emotions, you unlearn and relearn parts of yourself, you work on your sense of awareness, you are in touch with your intuition. You have to work through various traumas you may have or face fears that were instilled into you. Those are a few things I believe that is necessary to lead a more authentic life but I'm sure there is more. Your level of authenticity is dependent on the quality and stage of consciousness you're in at the present moment. This is how I think that this relative definition of authenticity fits in with the more absolute definition of authenticity in the inner child version of authenticity. I think that relative authenticity can be really helpful for the here and now but I think the absolute version of authenticity is a good sanity check. For instance, with my dating life I can honor my sexual needs and wants but I can also use the sanity check to make sure that I'm not doing anything like making myself be someone I'm not in order to get those needs met and so that my sexual needs/wants don't overshadow any of the other things I'm looking for in a relationship. It's kind of difficult to explain at the moment. I think I need to have more things happen in my life and apply this form of thought so that I can articulate what I'm trying to say.

Thoughts on Blogging I'm trying to make a website on Wix after having their ads be pushed down my throat by all of the YouTubers who are sponsored by them lol. And I can say that so far, it hasn't been fun. I know Wix is marketed as a easy way of making your own website but I'm tech stupid so even this is a struggle for me. I'm pretty sure I can figure it out but still. Part of me wants to give this off to a person who knows what they are doing as far as web design goes but like.... I don't really have the funds at the moment. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have never built a website before. None of my links work. And I have no idea how to make posts on there. I hate it here. Basically I'm left feeling like this. I don't feel like making posts for this blog is going to be super difficult. It's basically going to be this journal in website form tbh since most of my entries on here are pseudo-blogposts because of how long they are. I know that I mentioned that writing is the medium in which I express my life purpose. I feel that this blog is part of that purpose. Even if it doesn't become my main source of income or if it doesn't blossom into a full on career, I really don't care. I'm doing this for fun. I personally think of life purpose as something that is multifaceted. Yes, career is a huge part of it but so is your hobbies, how you spend your free time, your life style, the people you have around you etc. I see blogging and keeping up with my journals here as part of my purpose but not necessarily the whole thing. It would be nice if I got paid for this. Honestly, getting paid to write about things that I'm interested in and write about the things I'm working on in my life is like getting paid to breathe because a lot of it comes so naturally to me. By naturally I don't mean that I have some inherent skill for writing rather instead I mean that writing is very intrinsically motivated for me and requires very little energy because of how aligned it is with my authenticity. I think I only remember a couple days here and there out of this entire year where I felt tired after writing but that was mainly my fault. I wrote 5 full length posts and it was 2 am in the morning and I felt as if I had to get somethings off my chest because it wouldn't come out the same way if I stopped, went to sleep, and woke up the next day. Other than that, I normally feel rested after writing a post, as if I can finally stop thinking about a subject once I create a product that is related to what I'm thinking, that product being a post. Writing these long drawn out posts doesn't feel like work, it feels like a release, my authentic expression. I don't feel like I have to force anything or plow through any resistance because I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I just feel like I'm being. Writing in this journal is something that I would want to do and that I can do consistently even if I didn't get much from it. I was able to do this consistently without anyone getting onto me about it. I didn't get anything from it other than growing as a person, a few people commenting, and a few people telling me how much they like my journal (which honestly means the world to me thank you). I didn't get anything financially from it and the people in my life definitely have no idea that I'm doing this so I didn't get clout from this either. I am a pretty intrinsically motivated person but this journal has been next level for me. Again, posting just feels like being to me and because of that, any extrinsic reward I would get from this would be like getting paid to breathe and exist. You don't expect anything from breathing and existing but if you do get anything, it feels exponentially better than if you got an external reward for doing something you didn't really want to do. That's what I'm trying to get at. There is a part of me that is also nervous about all of this. The thing with this journal is that I have a level of anonymity. I'm nervous about putting something with my name out there, especially something that is half baked. This isn't so much about perfectionistic tendencies rather this is about real life repercussions. A nightmare scenario isn't that my blog gets no views. A nightmare scenario is my blog getting discovered somehow by my future employer, them not liking what I wrote, them proceeding to fire me, and then me not knowing how tf I'm going to support myself. Also, getting cancelled is a fear for similar reasons. It isn't so much that I'm worrying about triggering people but it's more of I'm afraid that if people see controversy in me that it would jeopardize my future plans. I faced this same sense of nervousness when I started writing about more personal topics on this journal as well. While it may seem as if I'm fully embracing my exhibitionistic tendencies, there is a fear of being found out by authorities (meaning teachers, future employers, recruiters doing background checks) and people irl. Not only is there the fear of awkwardness but there is this the fear is them looking at me and going like *well she's a complete unprofessional mess who airs her dirty laundry and personal life to hundreds of people on the internet.* I was able to push through that fear because of the anonymity on here but still, there is a thought in the back of my head that is along the lines of this: *One day I need to delete everything I posted on this website and act like this phase of my life never happened because I'm pretty sure these people can track everything if they do a background check on me. I swear to god that if they do a background check on me and somehow they find this journal, I'm fucked.* Because of this fear and nervousness, I am tempted to put this project off until I'm a more conscious, emotionally healthy, actualized person so that I can have a clean image to my work when I put my name on it. And while waiting until you're in a more stable place in your life in order to do certain things can be healthy and necessary, I don't think that is the case here. Because actualization and being more conscious is an endless and often emotionally laborious and messy journey. If anything, that messiness and finding a way to navigate through it is what makes my writing... well... my writing. So waiting til I maxed out on my development is basically waiting forever and never starting. And I don't think that this would be the most fulfilling choice.