soos_mite_ah

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  1. I found this video a couple days ago and it brought me so much comfort and reassurance. I feel that it also relates to the previous post.
  2. Actually Acknowledging My Progress I'm always hesitant to acknowledge my progress because I am skeptical of anything I do since I know how much of a problem self deception can be. Earlier in the previous page, I did a post called 9 Stages of Ego Development: Where Am I? and after posting that in this journal, I felt as if I was tooting my own horn. I think part of it is because I have seen people have a misunderstanding of where they're actually at and I don't want to be part of the dick measuring contest. So as a result, I think I take it too far to where I invalidate my own growth. That isn't healthy which I have talked about earlier. Basically, me trying to avoid one self deception trap caused me to fall into another trap lol. I think it's also difficult to acknowledge my progress because sometimes I do inner work but it doesn't externally manifest right away. I think me living with my parents and being subjected to similar surroundings is a perfect example of this. I've been working on myself, sorting all types of issues out, being really proactive in therapy, and journaling. But my parents just see me on my computer to myself, without friends or a career lined up. The wins that I'm having aren't tangible things that I can show off on say social media. I feel like a lot of the progress I'm making is underground and it goes unnoticed and then, I will admit I do doubt myself because I'm not the most confident person. It's like people don't see my progress, they accuse me of being lazy and not making any progress, and then that makes me feel crazy for acknowledging my own progress. I feel gaslighted in a way. And I don't really blame other people because they are just going off of what they see and what they know. They aren't going to know about my inner workings unless I tell them or unless they read my journals which I'm not exactly open to for a variety of reasons. I have talked about this in a different post in this journal. I think another factor in me wanting to have tangible proof of my growth is to feel a sense of validity. My ego wants to feel safe in the process, like all my efforts are eventually going to pay off and that I'll be fine. It isn't very good at surrendering and trusting the process and always feeling at peace that I am growing even though all of it hasn't been manifested yet. And back to the whole point of similar surroundings, I have explored that concept and how that solidifies an outdated self image in that I'm growing but my perception of myself hasn't caught up yet. Then I think there is the whole "why should be praise you for what you're supposed to do" attitude that my parents had with me growing. Even though I was a good kid and I got good grades, my parent's never acknowledged that because those things weren't special or worthy of praise, they were something you were just supposed to do. I think that impacted the way I treat my own wins and signs of growth. I look at them and I'm like "yeah I'm supposed to do that, it's nothing to be celebrated." I remember when it came to my high school graduation party, my parents had to force me to celebrate. I didn't want to for a variety of reasons at the time one of which because I didn't think this was worth celebrating. For the entire party, I was just cringing at myself because I didn't want to make a huge deal out of it. I think cringing is how I feel about celebrating any milestone tbh. It feels really unnatural for me and it annoys me to an extent when people expect me to throw a party when I don't really want to. I don't feel this way about other people even celebrating my birthday is kinda cringe for me personally because I don't see the point in celebrating if I haven't done anything special or remarkable. And knowing how critical I can be of myself, I don't even know how big an achievement or a sign of growth has to be for me to see it as special, remarkable, worthy of noting, and worthy of celebrating. I have been talking a lot about me being gentle with myself to balance out how critical I tend to be with myself. And after considering everything I talked about in this post and in previous posts, I think an essential part of me taking strides towards self acceptance and self love is celebrating myself for small things, big things, everything in between, or just existing and being alive for another year. I'm doing this affirmation recently that is along the lines of "I'm inherently worthy of love" and I think that ties in well with what I've been writing lately.
  3. My Thoughts on the 9 Stages of Ego Development Like many people on this forum, I believe that Cook-Greuter's Ego Development Theory (EDT) is a better model for evaluating individual growth while SD is better for collective growth. I will admit that I have an attachment to SD because I have had more time to toy around with the model and therefore I think it's a good way to get a rough idea about where and how I think I need to grow. I revisit the videos on stage orange, green and yellow like once or maybe twice a year to gage where I'm at and how much of each video resonates with me and my writing. But upon revisiting EDT, I think I'm going to use this one more because of how detailed it is for an individual ego. I revisited it recently after roughly 6 months after Leo's video on it came out and between now and then I think that the goals and takeaways I got from EDT helped me a lot in understanding how I can grow. To me EDT maps out the existential crisis I have had over the years in GREAT detail. As I was taking notes on the paper this time around, I was recalling different memories from my childhood as it relates to the stage descriptions on the cognitive, emotional, and social level. The paper even goes into the types of language one is likely to use in each stage when it comes to discussing their thoughts and emotions. That's how detailed this is. And I think because of how detailed it is and how individual focused it is (compared to SD which is much better at mapping out collective groups and ideologies), it's difficult to peg people and generalize on a whim or kneejerk reaction. Tbh, given the details especially on how it can coincide with personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings, the only person who can know where you stand is you imo. Figuring out someone's ego development using EDT isn't as clear cut as SD since in EDT it is very common to span across 3 or more levels and have hand ups in each one of them. I think that's why people don't use EDT nearly as much whenever a dick measuring contest happens between different spiritual egos on this forum. But the obvious con of this is taking the time to understand the model and contemplate it to where you can easily discuss it with other people. This is also one of my favorite quotes I found: It's pretty basic imo. They cover the same key points that you'll find in the Actualized series but in less detail. They also didn't address non-linear spiral progress problem, the illusion of "predicting the future" and how relativity breaks the spiral model both in micro and macro view. (I've yet to see someone talking about those issues in depth...) It's a good summary if you're into the SD and need a refresher from someone other than Leo. However I'd recommend you moving on to Cook-Greuter Ego Development model instead - you'll get more out of it and you won't risk the trap of becoming one of the Six Crayons Gang members here that will dwarf your development. SIX CRAYONS GANG MEMBERS LMAOOOOOOOOOO
  4. My Thoughts on Spiral Dynamics I think Spiral Dynamics is an amazing model that can aid in understand where you are at in your own personal development but also gage why certain viewpoints and discourses unravel the way they do. I remember when I first found SD in around mid 2018, after watching the whole series, I was like *holy shit, life makes more sense.* Like a lot of the ways I grew as a person, a lot of my existential crisis, they all followed this pattern. Over time it also helped me differentiate between periods of growth, when and why I was backsliding, and what I can work on, or areas of my life re-examine more in order to make it healthier and more efficient so that I can become a more well rounded person with better critical thinking skills. I got a lot of value out of this model in my personal life. When it comes to evaluating other people, I found myself being able to be more compassionate and more understanding towards people that I disagreed with. In 2018, I'd say that I was pretty green but I went to college that was politically and socially conservative and most people there ranged between blue and orange. There weren't many green people which is an anomaly for college campuses. Initially, my gut reaction was to argue and push back against the conservatives at my school but SD helped me take what was being said less personally and helped me evaluate why they were they way they were. Not only did this help my mental health because I didn't have my butt cheeks clenched the whole time, but it helped me be more empathetic and less divisive. Finally, when it came to my course work, this was where I couldn't un-see SD. I can list so many examples of this ranging from my business classes to my sociology classes. In my political science class, I remember once we were talking about how before capitalism there was mercantilism in the middle ages where people did jobs according to what their family lineage was and they were serfs under kings and warlords. The transition from that to capitalism along with the thought leaders who evaluated this process made so much more sense when you looked at the process as the global political economy shifting from stage blue into stage orange. In my South Asian human rights class, we had to watch this documentary about the ideals of femininity in different parts of India. Firstly we have this idea of femininity that has its roots from western media and is very consumerist and is concentrated in the cities. This form of femininity is explored by looking at pageants in India. The other form of felinity comes from a traditional religious fundamentalist framework. Both forms of felinity are explored in the documentary and as class we had to dissect the historical and social roots of each phenomenon by looking at how colonialism plays a role, how religious discrimination plays a role, and how western ideals caused a backlash from the religious people but also how it doesn't free people who subscribe to those ideals because something isn't inherently right or progressive just because it's from the west. From and SD perspective, the documentary is evaluating the circumstance from a stage green/ yellow POV and is contrasting stage blue and orange ideal of femininity, how each set of ideals can be both empowering and disempowering in different contexts as well as the parallels that exist between the two ideals. SD has helped me a lot in my studies and understanding concepts deeper. SD is I think one of the main reasons why I joined this forum. Again, I couldn't un-see it and even though it aided in me understanding the world and providing insight in various discussions both in and out of the classroom, I couldn't just introduce SD because it takes so long to unpack in an accurate way and because it can easily be interpreted and used for bad faith arguments. I joined this forum because I was really into SD and I wanted to talk about it with other people who were familiar with it as well. Other than SD taking a long time to understand, one of the main draw backs is the natural hierarchy of the spiral and how some stages are more developed than others. There isn't anything wrong with it inherently but I feel that people who don't have a good grasp of stage green, where you break down man made hiearchies, and probably have a lot of orange and blue in their system, they can turn SD in a spiritual dick measuring contest or worst case scenario a case for eugenics. I don't think I need to explain the dick measuring contest since I'm pretty sure you can find that in this forum of some people being dismissive towards others or people thinking they are *sooooo conscious* because they built up a spiritual ego (I admit I do find myself dipping into that as well sometimes, I'm working on that lol). But when it comes to eugenics, that's my main concern if SD were to ever become mainstream. Things like colonialism has disrupted the SD development of certain places of the world. The displacement of tribes in the Middle East have to do with why there is so much infighting and so much stage red and purple there. The way colonialism impacted India I believe has kept much of the country more in stage blue than if they were to develop normally through time without Europe stealing their wealth and institutionally messing things up for 200 years. A lot of less developed parts of the world aren't inherently less economically, politically, or consciously developed because those areas have people of color but they are that way because of the way history played out and the way that developed countries exploited the rest of the world for their personal gain. But with SD, given the hierarchy and the incorrect assumption that the higher stages are "better," we risk painting POC as savages and less civilized. You aren't savage or less civilized for being at a lower stage but I can see people misconstruing this if they already have biases against POC. Before natural hierarchies come up, the man made ones need to be fully dismantled or else there is a huge risk of the two blending together to create a racist cluster fuck. Like the dick measuring contests that happen in this forum, SD can be used as a way to shut down empathy because the person talking is seen as less developed and therefore less than.
  5. Fatphobia in the 2000s So just to get it out of my system, I thought I'd journal about fatphobia in the 2000s as I remember it from my childhood. The ideal back then wasn't "thicc" or having a butt. It was the opposite where you had to shrink you ass and be really skinny or else you were deemed as fat, even if you look fine. Looking back at it, we can tell people were taking it to the extreme, but back then it was the norm. I think it was even more normalized for me because I was a child at this time and I didn't have much of a frame of reference. Now I'm seeing a lot of people on TikTok talking about how the standards of the 2000s collectively messed with a lot of people and gave them body image issues. The things that I see a lot on TikTok are people talking about the following images and the amount of backlash they got from the media at the time: Tyra, Britany, and Jessica all look like normal healthy human beings in these pictures. First of all Tyra looks like she's relaxed and minding her own business because she isn't posed or photoshopped. Britany still looks fairly skinny, she just got caught at the wrong time and she looks like she ate like a normal person that day. Naturally even if you are skinny and/or have abs or a flat stomach, it's normal to look different in the morning vs at night because of what you do throughout the day. Jessica, honestly looks amazing by today's standard of beauty even if the camera is in a slightly weird angle. But I remember back in the 2000s, people were losing their god damn minds about these images and were talking about how fat they got, how the let themselves go etc. I remember back then not thinking they were fat but definitely thinking they were overweight like there was something wrong with them (mind you I was literally like 7 at this time). But now I'm like THEY LITERALLY LOOK LIKE NORMAL HEALTHY PEOPLE. Also, I'm pretty sure these women have had kids at this point so it's normal for your body. Most people aren't going to bounce back and look exactly like they did when they were in their late teens-early 20s and that is perfectly fine. It isn't some type of moral failing. (That's another thing that bothers me about celebrity culture is that whenever someone has a kid, it's like there is this count down and expectation to drastically lose all the weight and look the way they did before they got pregnant. Like pregnancy, being a mom, and taking care of a kid and your changing body is a whole thing, there are bigger things to worry about than losing all the weight. The fact that a person's body brought life into this earth is a beautiful thing and a very intelligent process and for people to reduce that body down to how it measures up to current beauty standards is messed up IMO). This stuff wasn't exempt from kids shows either from what I remember. Both Harper from Wizards of Waverly place and Trina from Victorious were framed like the fat character. The way that their characters were written were like they were the quirky funny fat best friend to the side character. I remember people poking fun about their weight in the show as well like I think a couple times. I completely forgot about all this but again because of TikTok, I searched up images and part of me was like *I swear they were thicker* because that's how I remembered them. Now looking at them, compared to the main character, they were a little wider but like, not by that much. It's not even a weight thing, it's just their overall body structure and hell their face. Both Harper and Trina look relatively thin. They still look like normal skinny healthy people and so do their co stars. I'm not shaming Selena Gomez or Victoria Justice for being skinny. Selena was literally like 14 and Victoria Justice was always naturally really skinny even back in her Zoey 101 days when she was like 12. My point is that no one was fat and even if some people leaned skinny, everyone was normal but the media exaggerated all of this so much back then because of the standards of that time. Plus I'm pretty sure they were all minors in these pictures and yeah that makes the media exaggerations much more gross. I always feel bad for women who are in the public eye who get their appearance picked apart, especially when they are minors. I know this isn't anything new or something that only happened in the 2000s but at least now we have something like body positivity adding something to the conversation and to people's perceptions. I guess for me looking back all of this feel more jarring because of how the standard of the ideal body did a 180 from really thin and tall to looking like the Kardashians as well as people talking about body positivity and looking at other indicators of health other than weight along. I think things like body positivity still has a long way to go. Honestly, I haven't met many people, men or women, who doesn't have some type of issue with their bodies. It's so wide spread that it can't be some isolated individual problem. I've had to unpack and chip away at a lot of limiting thoughts I had about my own body and how I judge others over the years. I could honestly go on about this all day.
  6. The Necessity of Acknowledging Progress Today I went out for a drive just to get out of the house and I drove into a McDonalds because something really random hit me. I was like *you know what, I haven't had a McChicken in a while, let me get one because why tf not.* I'm not a fast food and the only thing that I normally get from McDonalds is either a salad or smoothie. But I was thinking something along the lines of when was the last time I even had a chicken sandwich for them. It must have been at least 7 years or so. I got the McChicken and I took a bite. It wasn't bad but I don't think I want to have another one in a while. It was just really plain and kinda flavorless in my opinion. But it brought back some nostalgia because I remember from like ages 7-10 or so, I phase where I thought chicken sandwiches were like the best thing in the world. It reminded me on what my diet was like when I was in elementary school. Elementary school was the time that I had the worst eating habits in terms of how healthy the food I was eating was. It wasn't atrocious, definitely far from the standard American diet, but it is really different from what I eat on a regular basis now. For breakfast back then I would have some cereal, but nothing too sugary unless it was the weekend. It would normally be like sugar free raisin bran because my parents have issues with high blood sugar and buying like 3 types of cereal was an inconvenience. I would save some Froot Loops for the weekend because not having it everyday made it feel special to me lol. For lunch, I had whatever was at school. That's where a lot of my junk food habits came up because it's not like I ever had that type of thing at home. And then at home, I would have whatever Indian food my mom would make from scratch. Looking back at old pictures, I wasn't fat but I was a little squishier than a lot of the other kids. I got made fun of because of that and the fact that I have literally no upper body strength and because I was a really slow runner, a lot of the kids were like *you're really fat and unfit* and basically I was always the last one picked at any game. Definitely messed with my self esteem at the time. Fast forward like a decade and I still don't have much upper body strength, I hate how cardio physically makes me feel, but now I know that I have a lot of lower body strength. Part of the reason why I appeared squishier was mainly because of my height. I was always short and I guess my weight didn't really distribute like the other kids who were like 4-5 inches taller than me at the time. According to my doctor, I remember this really specifically because my mom always bothered me about it, I was always shorter than average and a little overweight. My doctor would basically give me the same lecture on how I probably eat too much and how I need to be more mindful about portion sizes and stop eating candy, even though I never had a problem with either of those things. At 10 I was around 80lbs and 4'6" (my mom would measure me weekly and criticize me for my weight) which would put my BMI at 19.5 but even though that is technically in the normal range (hell in the lower part of normal), it was higher than I guess the 50th percentile for my age so that's why my doctor was nitpicky. But I definitely wasn't obese. It was always like "you're 3 inches too short of what you're supposed to be and you need to lose like 10-15 lbs on top of that." I just had a lot of people around me overreacting and doing the absolute most. The fact that this was like 2009 is also a factor but Imma talk about that in another post because there is just a lot of unpack there. And yeah..... all that messed with my self image. Things like that always made me feel like I literally didn't measure up and that there was something wrong with me and it was my fault even though it was mostly genetics. The best part of turning 15 or so when I basically stopped growing is that I stopped having doctors tell me that I'm supposed to be taller to be considered average. I'm 5'2' and I believe that the average is 5'4" or 5'5" so yeah, I'm still 2-3 inches shorter than "what I'm supposed to be." I still have to deal with people criticizing my weight though because according to the BMI I am a little overweight even though I'm still relatively small and I couldn't get smaller unless I did something drastic. Over the years I cleaned up my diet even more, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for messed up ones because I was insecure about the way I looked. In middle school and high school, I started packing my own lunch mainly because I didn't like the food at the school I switched to so as a result I naturally made healthier lunches for myself based on what was already in the house. It was always something along the lines of noodles with chicken and vegetables with some fruit, or a wrap I made with grilled chicken and vegetables with some carrots on the side, or maybe a salad and some fruit. For dinner it was basically the same. I would snack a little after school with usually some crackers, popcorn, or like one of those mini packs of chips. So overall, not too bad. Like the snacks weren't the best but it wasn't like I was binging on junk food. The worst habit I developed in this time was skipping breakfast. Part of it was me wanting to sleep in more before school but another part of it was because I wanted to cut calories and I didn't know what else to cut. I did go through phases of elimination diets but none of them were sustainable for more than 2 weeks and obviously I shamed myself for "lacking discipline" even though it was literally my body telling me to eat, not because I was a fat pig, but because I was hungry and rightfully so. I didn't realize that I already ate pretty healthy until recently I had to make a couple changes to my diet for health reasons. I just had to cut out gluten, dairy, and some sugar from my diet. I know that might sound like a lot, but it wasn't super difficult because I didn't have much of those in my diet in the first place. I just had to switch the milk in my smoothie with almond milk, get gluten free bread and lentil pasta, and eat dark chocolate. I also kept a food diary and I had surprising insights about my own habits. Normally when I hear people talking about keeping a food diary, I always hear something along the lines of "I didn't know how bad I ate on a regular basis" and that did happen to me initially but then I realized that *no I actually eat pretty well, if anything I have a tendency of being nitpicky mainly because of the way my mom treated me when I would reach for something even slightly less than ideal.* Anyway, dramatic detailed backstory aside, let's get back to the McChicken. The McChicken reminded me of the self image I made up at the time while me not liking it that much indicated how much my taste buds have actually changed. The reason why my tastes changing is important is because I noticed that whenever I change my diet, my taste buds get acclimated to healthier foods and as a result junk food just loses its appeal. But even though my habits and my body has changed, my self image never did. There is still a part of me that feels like I eat super unhealthy, that I need to lose weight, and that I need to be skinnier to compensate for how short I am. As a result, I never acknowledged the healthy habits I did implement because I was so caught up with thinking that I'm not doing enough because I don't look like the poster child of health which includes being really skinny and having a flat stomach. I was blinded by my own stagnant self image which caused me to go to extremes when it comes to eating healthy and caused me to beat myself up if I slightly deviated from what I intended on doing. It still doesn't help that my mom critiques me from being too short and too fat or that doctors always tell me to lose weight during yearly check ups. I've changed, but the critiques remained constant which further solidified my stagnant self image. To tie it in with broader self development as a whole, it's important to acknowledge how far you've come so that you can alter what you do to improve yourself accordingly. Like constantly criticizing yourself and implementing greater measures for something even though you've already dealt with it just because your self image hasn't caught up to where you actually are right now, is a recipe of doing the most to where it gets unhealthy. When it comes to food, critiquing your diet and going to extreme measures because your self image hasn't caught up resulted in a lot of neurotic behavior for me. I guess when it comes to unpacking the ego like a lot of people do here, I think I had a similar dynamic unfold. I didn't have a super big ego that I needed to dismantle to humble myself and have a more accurate perception of reality. Sure there was room for improvement and I have made those improvements but I started taking more extreme measures to where I got attached to detaching. While the teachings weren't unhealthy, I was using it in an unhealthy way and misconstrued it because I underestimated my growth and saw myself as this egotistical devil of sorts. Taking a break from I guess consciousness work and acknowledging how far I've come has been so beneficial for me in having a more solid sense of identity in a healthy and constructive way as well as I believe having a more accurate perception of myself. And finally, I think the same can be said about my social skills. I was a weird and kinda socially awkward 12 year old, naturally like many 12 year olds. Even though I've naturally come a long way in my social skills to the point it wouldn't cross many people's minds to call me awkward, partly because of age and natural maturation and partly because of me working on myself, I still see myself as the socially awkward 12 year old because my self image never caught up. With this particularly, I think it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts because then it causes me to nitpick on the way I talk and carry myself when I don't need to which causes me to have this sense of social anxiety. So yeah, acknowledging your progress isn't always egotistical. It's sometimes necessary to do so in order to know the correct course of action depending on where you are at now, not ruminate on a problem that has already been solved or to not take a solution that helped at one point and basically make it an over kill. Acknowledging my progress has been so important for me when it comes to learning to be more gentle with myself and cultivating more self acceptance.
  7. 9 Stages of Ego Development: Where Am I Now? I journaled about this topic around the time when Leo first came out with these videos. I decided to revisit them to see where I'm at now since I did work through a lot of things between September 2020 and now. Normally people span 3 or more stages with having one stage as their center of gravity. Sometimes they slip back to previous stages when they are under stress and emotional distress and sometimes they intellectually understand the higher stages but don't fully embody them yet. At September, I mainly was a mix of the Pluralist and the Strategist with the Achiever mixed in there. I also realized that I had a lot of hang ups and issues left over from the previous stages that I needed to work through to create a stronger foundation. Since then I think I dealt with a lot of the issues from the previous stages through shadow work and I have moved up like half a stage from pluralist/strategist to strategist mainly. Here is more information on that from the post I wrote in my journal from back then: I read through the paper in more detail this time and took more time to reflect on various memories I had from my childhood along with reading my journal entries from back then to get an idea of what kinds of things gave me an existential crisis back then to track my progression. Because I had more time than I did when I was busy with school, I took notes on the original paper whereas before I just read through it, highlighted a bunch of stuff that resonated with me on my laptop, and copied and pasted a few things as it was relevant to me journaling (see linked post). This is what I came up with this time around in a nut shell: My Ego Stages Through the Years Symbiotic: Ages 0-2 (2 years) Impulsive: 2-8 (6 years) Self Protective/ Opportunist: 5-8 (3 years) Conformist: 7-12 (5 years) Expert: 10-15 (5 years) Achiever: 15-19 (4 years) Pluralist: 16-21 (5 years) (I said from 16 to 21 because I'm sure I can smooth out the few hang ups I have between now and my 22nd birthday) Strategist: 19-??? Construct Aware: 20-??? Where Am I Now in April 2021? Achiever: Though this isn't my center of gravity, there are still somethings that resonate and that I need to exhaust. I still resonate with self analysis and understanding people being my favorite pastime (p.44). I still need to figure out my career path and become financially independent from my parents (p. 43). P. 43: "Achievers are more aware of their overall career path and how they got to where they are. At the same time, they trust in the potential to improve themselves through effort, learning and feedback. Feedback can now be listened to without necessarily agreeing with it or feeling one’s whole identity has been diminished. Whether the critic is right, misinformed, or misjudged me, the their response is useful information both about myself and about the critic." P.44: "Thus, the analysis of others and self-analysis become a favorite pastime and challenge. Many typologies and theories about human behavior come out of this motivation to classify and understand other human beings. From psychoanalysis, to behaviorism, to Rogerian therapy, to Gestalt approaches, many of the major therapeutic schools were born out of the Achiever mindset. Knowing the root causes and reasons for unwanted behavior helps one to fix problems and to achieve better outcomes. Indeed, finding the causes and working out explanations for what one observes are paramount for the scientific, modern method of inquiry and knowledge acquisition." (I don't have an issue with constructive criticism but I will say that I have no idea where I'm going in the next 5-10 years) Pluralist: I have worked through much of this phase but I notice myself slipping back here at times when I'm less conscious such as times of stress. I need to study epistemology and philosophy to horizontally develop in this stage (p. 54). I have highlighted portions from pages 56-58 as well as 61-62. To move past those hang ups, I need to find my life purpose. P.54: "The 4th person perspective allows individuals to focus on epistemology, that is, to examine how they came to believe what they believe and feel and how one knows and proves things. The transition to the first postconventional stage is a watershed in so far as it is the first time that the vertical move and the questioning of previously unexamined ideas is no longer supported by society and its chief conventional representatives. Postconventional thinking and questioning assumptions may be taught and encouraged in college courses, but then challenged and or dismissed at work and at home." (I need to look into epistemology when I go back to delving into deeper topics) P. 56 (resonated with me from 2018 to now): "As Stage 4/5 individuals explore their feelings and motivations, they can also begin to become aware of how easily we can fool ourselves. The possibility of defensive self-deception and culturally biased distortion are now starting to be experienced as ever-present dangers. Given the increasing awareness of one’s own vulnerabilities, persons at the 4th person perspective can exhibit a new, non-hostile type of humor that is directed towards the self. It is based on an the beginning sense of the futility of framing things in terms of right and wrong, provable or disprovable. It also recognizes how easily we can fool ourselves about our motives and intentions." P. 56: "Cognition: Thus, In the positive, liberated version of this stage, individuals may enjoy paradoxes and contradictions and no longer try to explain them away....Rather than trying isolate aspects of experience into different to categories and analyze them separately as independent variables, Stage 4/5 individuals are looking for connections and subtler clues to what is going on. Useful information can come from many sources that were previously considered outside the realm of scientific inquiry and viewed with skepticism, such as body sensations, intuition, dreams, reflection, and meditation." P.57: "Individualists often replace the focus on causality (past) and goals (future) of the Conscientious person with a fascination with the immediate present. They need to understand and watch how things unfold. Their attention turns from outcomes and deliverables to an interest in the processes, the relationships and the complex, non-linear influences among variables." (basically me coping with the pandemic by trying to be present and focusing on myself since there isn't anything else I can do) P.57: "They can therefore become enthralled with watching themselves trying to make sense of themselves. They often withdraw from external affairs and company life, or from ordinary daily routines. Instead, they turn inward in search of their unique gifts or answers to their own burning questions. If they are given room to be themselves and time to experiment freely, they can provide valuable input to the workplace. They find novel ways of looking at problems, or inspire others with their enthusiasm in pursuing their own interests and questions. If working independently, they are likely to fashion schedules and work contexts to optimize their flourishing. Sometimes, they are content to simply live day by day following “their own drummer.” Today’s hippy culture still embodies some of that sense of freedom and self-expression in the company of like-minded others symptomatic of the Individualist mindset." (this is me taking a break from school and trying to figure out my purpose tbh). P. 58: "Depression at this level has several facets: a) The realistic fear of being reabsorbed, that is sucked back into the “rat race” of the Achiever mindset by the demands of society; b) The dread of a routine work life that does rarely allows for individual self-expression and creativity; c) The concern that one will never find a clear self-definition from which to consistently operate and generate a coherent self sense; d) The deep experience of worry and tensions that come from growing beyond the conventional mindset especially when it comes to intimate relationships." P. 61:"Personality types: Individualists often prefer to live at the fringe of society, to live exactly the way they want to be. Admired by postconventional people for their spontaneity and unique self-expression, conventional persons may distrust them for being non-conformist and impossible to understand and predict." (this and the quote from p. 58 have to do with my angst with capitalism and how there is a part of me that wants to live out my cottage core fantasies in a farm isolate from everyone) Strategist: This is my center of gravity as I'm writing this. Everything in this section of the paper resonates with me at this moment. Construct Aware: This is where my higher self is at. Even though I can cognitively grasp the concepts in this stage, I'm far from being able to articulate it much less embody it emotionally. I need to work on my foundation with more basic forms of self help especially as I'm writing this since I'm currently taking a break from deeper topics because I noticed myself getting burnt out, overwhelmed, and like I don't have the proper foundation to integrate teachings without misunderstanding them and using them in an unhealthy way. Things to Keep in Mind: It takes about 5 years to move to the next level if circumstances are favorable and you're openminded It takes a year if you're doing a well developed program to shift to a new level. While each person has a center of gravity in one stage, their development can span across 3 or more stages depending on their mood and stress levels. My Goals/ Sense of Direction Going Forward: Find my life purpose Figure out a career path and become financially independent from my family Get some close friends and hopefully a significant other (focus on after the pandemic wears off and I can get out more) Learn epistemology and philosophy (this one isn't super urgent but the first 3 are the ones I really need to focus on)
  8. Appreciating Bitterness So I bought this bar of dark chocolate that is 75% cocoa and has little bits of coffee in each square. It's really bitter and normally I'd be really turned off by it but because I have cut out some carbs out of my diet and been extra mindful of the amount of sugar I've been consuming, instead of just taking in the bitterness, I've been able to be more receptive of the other flavors and notes in the chocolate which is causing me to really enjoy it. I never had a super unhealthy diet but even by cleaning it up a little bit I did get changes in my taste buds. I know it's a whole thing when people cut out things that aren't healthy that their taste buds get more sensitive and therefore they start enjoy healthier foods more because they pick up on the subtle flavors more. I think the same can be true with self actualization/ spiritual work as well in relation to your life experiences. When you have an unhealthy life style or you're in an unhealthy circumstance, sometimes you go numb to the negative effects through normalization similar to how your taste buds get used to super salty and super sugary foods from eating processed foods all the time. Getting into a healthy lifestyle whether it is breaking out of old patterns of thoughts or changing your diet can be challenging because you get so numb to the unhealthy circumstance that the healthy alternative tastes bad, foreign, and unnatural literally and figuratively. I think I remember reading a comment on tiktok that was something along the lines of "I sometimes like hanging out with toxic and dramatic people because even though I don't participate in the drama, it's still tea and it gives life a little spice." I think that example illustrates how we get accustomed to unhealthy things in our lives to where we crave them in a way despite it not being good for us. And eventually, we acquire the healthy taste through the work we do on ourselves and maintaining the healthy habit in question becomes easy because it starts to feel really good. I know personally after cutting down on sugar and carbs that I can't even enjoy milk chocolate anymore because it's too sweet and it doesn't have that much flavor so as a result, I don't have this thing where I have to exert self control when I see chocolate anymore. When it comes to bitterness specifically, after cleaning up my diet, like I said, I have been able to enjoy really dark chocolate (all the way to like 95% dark chocolate) and appreciate all the flavors instead of having the urge to spit it out just because it's bitter. And I think the parallel between that and self actualization work is how we see obstacles and challenges. Because when you get into a healthier place, even if a certain circumstance is bitter, you can appreciate the circumstance for what it is and still find flavors in the experience you can savor and learn from by just being present. If you are in a less healthy place you're more likely to want to spit it out and resist the circumstance in question causing you to go through more turmoil and bitterness. And it's not that if you are in a less healthy place that you are more sensitive. If anything, the healthier you are and the more healing work you've done by peeling back layers of your psyche, the more sensitive you become. Because not only do you have you have more mastery over your emotions, meaning you can differentiate and discern subtle emotions as they come up, therefore giving you more data points on how to handle a situation, but the experiences penetrate much deeper into your heart because you don't have the layers of trauma and defense mechanisms clouding your judgement and perception of the situation. The difference between being in a healthy or unhealthy state isn't difference when it comes to levels of sensitivity rather it is the difference when it comes to reactivity.
  9. I wanted to repost this and bring it more to the forefront of my more recent journal posts because I think it's really relevant to what I talked about in my previous post.
  10. Judging My Judgement, Critiquing My Critical Thinking I've been watching some different YouTube channels lately that resonate with me but isn't the type of content that I usually reach for. Normally, I like videos that have a lot of analysis and insight and are dense in that way. But lately since I've been trying to be more gentle with myself and take a break, I've instead shifted my media consumption to watching channels that resonate with my energy and have some light forms of self help mixed in to it. I can't say that I'm learning a lot from these channels. Most of the content are things that I know or have implemented in my life but it's more about taking in their energy because I felt like I needed more positivity in my life. But even though I'm not intellectually learning a lot, I feel better emotionally. I've become somewhat of an isolated loner for the last few years but especially since moving back home and I've been working through my issues with my self image, particularly how I tend to see myself as a weird kid because of my interests. I found that seeing traits I have in other people makes me feel like I can relate to people therefore making me feel less crazy I went from watching videos that brought me a lot of growth, illuminated lessons I needed to integrate, and were really dense with information and insight to watching videos that had a more gentle approach to self help which focused on the basics rather than the complex stuff. At first, switching to these videos felt like a waste of time, like I wasn’t learning anything. I was tempted to play all the videos on 2x speed but I decided against it because my objective wasn’t to learn but to take in other people’s energies parasocially. Then I was like, that’s my problem. I don’t know how to take a break and let loose to have fun because I got so consumed with working on myself. It feel unnatural to me because I was stuck in this hamster wheel of self development. I then noticed how this has parallels with my real life. I have this thing where the two things I look for in any relationship is “is this person giving me peace of mind?” and “is this person someone I’m learning and growing from being around them?” And those are valid questions but I guess part of me is too cut throat and was caught up with seeing how emotionally intense the growth a person is going to bring me and critiquing/ evaluating them subconsciously rather than trying to connect to that person. In a way, I went too far to one end to where I was walking in with an agenda. But the thing is that I don’t always have to claw for growth. I can take a break, relax, and let myself have fun and do things that are solely for that and serve no other purpose other than giving me a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment through connecting with someone. I feel like switching from my analysis dense media consumption to something gentler pushed me towards being. It’s like the bias that I remember Leo talking about that was along the lines of the ego seeing something as important only because it serves the ego instead of taking the rest of reality into consideration. I didn't know how much I was hyper analyzing, judging, and critiquing until I switched the content I was watching. Even though those critiques and judgements were more along the lines of evaluation, I think that still took a lot of energy as opposed to if I were to just let myself be and experience the moment. Don't get me wrong, I didn't just switch off my brain, but I did remember that at one point I felt that the amount of thinking I was doing was getting me more anxiety rather than fulfillment. I still find myself getting a lot of fulfillment by analyzing things and gaining a sense of understanding of how the world works. But I think there was an element of it that was in excess and that was unhealthy. I wasn't just letting myself be. I was theorizing things to the point where I was paralyzed to inaction. Overanalyzing gave me a sense of control because it made me feel that I knew what was going to happen next and because I associate a sense of safety with feeling smart. I got that intellectual hubris from my own analysis. I noticed some of these issues come up and I decided to look back at the spiral dynamics stage yellow short comings and they resonated. I took notes on that part a while back and I thought I should include it because it's really relevant to what I've been discussing.
  11. I was forced to spend time with my family today and I feel so drained afterwards. I almost feel guilty for this because my family literally didn't do anything and nothing really occurred to make me feel this way. Firstly, I've been stuck in the house with my parents since March 2020. I try to spend as much time as possible by myself but even then I don't feel like I can recharge completely. I also didn't have a great childhood because of the way they raised me and I have spent a lot of time and money to fixing myself and the emotional turmoil they put me through but I have some good things about my relationship with them so it's kind of a mixed bag (don't know if that's relevant to this topic). The thought of me then going out of my way to spend time with my family (we went on a hike) felt draining and annoying. The whole thing felt forced. During this hike, again, nothing happened, I mean we barely talked to each other because we have nothing to say to each other since we are accessible to each other 24/7, but I caught myself feeling annoyed with their presence and wanting to just go back to my room and limit as much interaction as possible. Afterwards, my parent's and I went to my aunt and uncle's house. This is a little background but I hate my aunt and uncle because they are incredibly dogmatic/religious/conservative/ fanatical MAGA supporters, don't know how to respect boundaries (or really know what that even means), and are loud and awkward. Growing up, I would clash a lot with them specifically on political matters. Because I don't really have family in the U.S. my parents would dismiss how I felt about them by telling me that I *HAVE* to like them (and that I'm awful and selfish if I don't) and love them even though that's not how I feel about them because we don't share the same values. Because they don't know how to respect boundaries and because my dad is scared to set boundaries because of his own personal problems, in order to deal with that my family always tells white lies to them so that they don't annoy us and so that they won't get offended. And I hate how in general I feel like I can't be authentic around them. Growing up I was forced to go to their house everyday and then somethings happened in my life and I didn't have to go there everyday anymore and just cutting down how much time I spent with them improved my mental health. That's what I noticed over the years. Anyway, so we went to their house and they didn't do anything that would annoy me or make me uncomfortable. They were just chilling and that's it. But even entering their house, I felt my energy just dip down. Idk, I just don't like the energy around their house or around them tbh. I feel like I'm making a big deal out of this and that I'm being irrational. I can feel this tenseness inside of me and wanting to snap at everyone but I don't out of respect. I don't know why I'm like this and why I can't control these feelings that come up when I'm around them and why I can't act normal. Again they aren't doing anything except existing but I catch myself getting irrationally irritated.
  12. I don't think those are biases tbh. They seem like simple preference and don't get me wrong it's important to be cognizant of what in your environment impacts your preferences. To me, it crosses over to bias and ego when you try to present that preference as some type of absolute truth. Like, it's ok to say "I like Chinese food." That isn't racist. But saying something like "You have to like Chinese food because it is objectively the best in the world and if you don't like it you're stupid etc." is when you dip into problematic category. Or something like speaking English is fine but when you cross over to the territory of hating other people and thinking they are less than because they don't speak English, that's when it turns into biases/ racism. Acknowledging preference is like acknowledging form. Form isn't always something that is egoic, toxic, or something that needs to be transcended. Honoring form can even be a way of being more in alignment because you are acknowledging the unique form of source energy you are.
  13. I agree with this. But there are people who do judge that. That's why I think that the whole "everyone should go vegan and if you aren't vegan you are selfish, hate all animals, and advocate for climate change" argument that a lot of triggered green people sometimes use is really naïve and short sided because there can be many reasons ranging from individual health and the availability of options in a systemic, sociological level that needs to be considered. Yeah definitely do what you can but don't judge other people for not doing the same because you don't always know what's up with them and their lives.
  14. Turning Competence Into an Identity Part 9: Don't You Just Hate It When Men I believe that I have this limiting belief around men which goes along the lines of "men are terrifying and will ruin your life." And I think some of it is justified considering the violence against women. I highly doubt men have to think 5 times before walking somewhere late at night or be told to carry pepper spray and a taser growing up. But I think for me it dips into the prejudice territory because part of me is on edge when it comes to dating. I talked about this when I talked about me having the emotional energy of a feral cat and the concerns I have with dating in the previous page so I'll avoid repeating myself. I say prejudice instead of sexist because women being afraid and therefore not liking men doesn't have the same power dynamic as men not liking women. I think it can be similar to when POC talk about not liking white people in the sense you can call it prejudice but not racist because again, the power dynamic isn't there to where POC disempowers white people. When women say something along the lines of "I hate men" it usually refers to the scary shit men do because of toxic masculinity and the way the patriarchy sets up norms and institutions rather than hating men because they are simply men. I remember seeing a tiktok once about how dating advice for women is sometimes unhinged. I'll try to link the tiktok but in case if it doesn't show up for whatever reason, this is what it said: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeXBkPBw/ Has anyone else noticed that dating advice for women is just like completely unhinged? Like it's either super old school, cosmo type stuff like "keep things sweet in the bedroom by never advocating for yourself and eating a donut off your boyfriend's dick" or alternatively like new age #savage type stuff like "never show any emotion ever, you will be humiliated, you will be gaslit, you will be abused, and keep a knife strapped to your thigh incase you have to chop off his balls unexpectedly!" Like how did we get here, like surely there's a middle ground, no??? I know this was exaggerating for the joke but seriously, it's like your options are compromise on your needs and boundaries or be constantly on guard. I remember one time reading a magazine because I was waiting on my mom to get something while I was waiting in line at the supermarket. I flipped to the dating advice section and one of the pieces of advice was along the lines how you need to be extra adventurous and be turned on all the time in the first 3 months of a relationship or else he won't be attracted to you and you won't lock him down. I was 13 at the time and I was like what. the. absolute. fuck. Surely this can't be healthy. People should go at the pace they feel comfortable with and honor their desire/ lack there of instead of resorting to manipulation and games to *make* someone stay. I also remember reading something recently how you should never tell your man your insecurities, fears, trauma, negative emotions, or stuff that happened to you in the past because he will take advantage of that and use it as a way to abuse you. I think since I'm in a healthier place with being comfortable with vulnerability, I looked at this and I was like..... shouldn't opening up and building a sense of intimacy be the whole point of dating and being in a relationship? I get not revealing that kind of stuff early on because you don't know who you're dealing with and because that stuff can be too heavy too soon but like ever???? even in a long term relationship???? Like damn.. someone has trust issues and walls put up. I hope whoever wrote that finds healing. But I know that if I was in place where I was terrified of being vulnerable, I can definitely see myself taking that advice and running with it. And then advice on moving on usually can be defined into the categories of "you're a queen, focus on yourself, hyper or self up" girl boss type stuff that completely brushes over your feelings regarding ending the relationship or "HE NEVER LOVED YOU HE USED YOU STOP BEING SO NAIVE" talking about how men are trash. I obviously fall into the more guarded approach when it comes to dealing with men by resorting to psychoanalyzing people secretly on the first date to scan for any red flags. I try to have this image of competence because I don't want people to take advantage of me. I was unpacking some of my journal entries with my therapist yesterday and I came to this conclusion: You think your teachers and employers aren’t to be trusted when you talk about mental health or anything that could be going wrong in your life and that you have to be the bigger and competent person because you grew up having to be the bigger person with your parents. By seeing their incompetence, you learned to not trust authority and be super independent because that stopped you from blindly following your parents to hell. I was talking about being nervous about returning to school and applying to jobs but I think this can also apply to men as well because even though in most relationships there isn't a power dynamic or an authority like in the case of student vs teacher or child vs parent, there is still a power dynamic when it comes to society at large with women vs men. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I see parallels with my mindset and how that bleeds into me dealing with others.
  15. Try to tell that to people who might not have an alternative to cows milk like say in a developing country or in a small town. I've noticed more and more people becoming vegan after things like meat alternatives came in because that meant that they can transition to veganism in an easier way without cutting out everything they enjoy eating. Yes, personal change can put pressure on institutions to change but institutional change can lead to personal change. It's like the chicken or the egg argument. One of the big reasons why we aren't as savage as people say in the middle ages or greek/roman times and we aren't pillaging each other is because over the centauries we have built up institutions, norms, societies, and environments that DE incentivizes that kind of behavior and makes them counterproductive to anything we wish to accomplish.
  16. I've been feeling that recently. I've been taking a break from deep/dense topics, started focusing on more basic forms of self help even if I already integrated those lessons, and I started tapping into my authentic interests more without thinking about whether it is a distraction or whether or not it's super conscious. Taking a break does help you be grounded and have a clearer head to soak in deeper content later on. Give yourself a break so you can digest whatever is already in your system without adding more to the mix. That's what I noticed with my break at least. Sometimes taking in content that is dense with information that provokes introspection can lead to burn out emotionally.
  17. I second this. I found a lot of stage green people there. My for you page consists of the following: history facts people doing shadow work to reach higher levels of self love therapists sharing their insights on how to work through trauma, how it works, and how to help people through them feminists talking about social issues and describing social structures memes witches who talk about astrology and make fun of people jokingly animals
  18. So what I'm getting is use your 5 senses to ground yourself in the present instead of getting distracted from pessimistic attitudes from the past and then use that peace to refocus your energy in a positive towards what you are aiming towards. And figuring out where to aim that positive energy can be done using a vision board.
  19. @Raptorsin7 ABCD stands for American Born Confused Desi Some South Asian people assume that if you aren't from the Indian subcontinent even if you are brown that you aren't really South Asian in the sense that your cultural identity doesn't count. The term ABCD carries the assumption of confusion because it assumes that brown people born in the U.S. are white washed and ignorant of their own cultural background.
  20. Self Discipline is Overrated Part 3: Discipline Doesn't Work. Here's What to do Instead I journaled about this topic before but I think this video drives a lot of what I wrote about home as well as add additional points.
  21. Procrastinating on my Purpose I'm really tempted to procrastinate on getting on track with my life purpose. Before getting on track with my purpose, I have this desire to burn through some of my social needs and become financially free from my parents. All that is fine and good but where I feel like I'm going wrong is this desire to create a cushy life for myself first and then go after a sense of greatness. It makes sense on the surface because you want to have a good foundation and you don't want to get too ahead of yourself. But I think the limits of this is that this approach doesn't always make the most deep, sustainable change in the long term and eventually you are going to have to back track and build a stronger foundation. I think my temptation falls under this category. My brain is like "ok lets just get a typical 9/5 job now and then worry about this life purpose stuff later when we feel miserable enough to naturally grow past it." But my intuition is all like "ok but if you have a good foundation now and put in that extra emotional labor now to figure out what you really want to do, you can save time and emotional distress later on. Basically, deal with the existential crisis now so it doesn't snowball into something bigger later if you decide to put it off. Take the time to figure out where you want to go so you can start off in the right direction instead of course correcting multiple times." But there are pros and cons to first creating a cushy life and then going after something bigger. The pro is that you exhaust your more surface level desires and as a result it's easier to tap into your deeper, more fulfilling motivations. It's like climbing up the Maslow's hierarchy. Taking care of the lower needs provides a foundation so that you can focus on your higher needs. The con to this approach is that you can fall into the temptation of staying comfortable and stagnant to where you undersell yourself and never actualize your potential. You just settle for fine and that's it. And eventually that will erode you to where you have no choice but to deal with it or keep avoiding it and get even more miserable. I guess the best approach for me is to be proactive with finding my purpose as far as my career goals go while also letting myself exhaust things like my social needs because that will enable me to have a clearer vision with my search.
  22. I felt like acknowledging my progress in this area of my development.
  23. @Derek White First of all, please don't use the term ABCD. I assure you that I have no problem with my cultural identity and that I'm not confused lol. Read the post. I provided all the relevant details. How? I don't have many expectations from them. I know why they are the way they are but that doesn't mean that things don't hurt or affect me.