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I beg to differ. Women are more allowed to express emotions compared to men. Men are often compelled to hide it more due to a stoic ideal, especially when it comes to sadness and vulnerability. Similarly, women are discouraged from being angry even in healthy and assertive ways. I do remember there being a study showing that men were just as or even more so emotional compared to women but they were less likely to express it. I can't find it at the moment but this article seems to summarize it pretty well. https://www.elitedaily.com/dating/guys-more-emotional-girls/1077730#:~:text=Women are emotional%2C true. But according to a,it comes to being presented with emotional stimuli. I also thought this was a good analysis

David Hoffman has a lot of videos about understanding boomers. I'd highly recommend checking it out.

I took a break from journaling and I have a lot to write about. But before I do that, I'm posting some videos that I liked and thought were insightful as it pertains to where I'm at with my growth.

Why do people in their late teens and early 20s get nostalgic about their childhoods specifically about the media prevalent during that time? This is a recurring pattern I see with a lot of people even if they had bad childhoods. Also does this pattern of nostalgia continue as you get older?

Nitpicking at my Appearance The last post was rather therapeutic so I'm going to delve into this a little more. Lately I noticed that I am nit picking at my appearance. It's super petty since the stuff that I'm picking at isn't noticeable to most people or hell even me unless I zoom in real close. These include: my uneven skin tone and acne marks: Still felt confident even when I had a ton of acne. Most of these marks can't be seen unless someone were to be waaaaaay tooo close to me and put a magnifying glass on my face, the small amount of chub I have in my upper thighs: Super minor, I feel little to no difference emotionally when my legs are slightly thicker or not how I could lose an inch off my arms: Super minor, I feel little to no difference emotionally when my arms are slightly thicker or not the tiny mistake I made when I last did my eyebrows: Literally not even noticeable And none of these really have a big impact on my self image. But I still find myself nitpicking. These things are so minor that I don't even see the worth in changing them because they won't change much. This is so much more psychological than physical. I think this is a reflection of my perfectionistic tendencies. Since I'm taking a break from I guess heavier and deeper forms of self help, I'm getting a backlash of sorts. Before I used to nitpick at my quality of consciousness and my development. Because I'm not focusing on those things as much, those nitpicking tendencies transferred over to my appearance. These come from the desire to present the most polished version of myself. And as much as I want to address this mechanism and get rid of it, that would again feed into the whole eliminating parts of yourself to be polished. Even though I'm taking a break from deeper forms of self help for the time being, I do notice flaws in my character that I can work on improving. And instead of doing that, I'm challenging myself to let those flaws just be. Because they aren't necessarily flaws, I just perceive them as such because of the way I want to come across and my survival interests. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm just trying the acceptance route more nowadays as opposed to the action oriented lets fix this right away route.

Plastic surgery I have been thinking about this topic for the last couple days idk why. I guess every now and then my vanity slips out lol. I know this isn't the most conscious or self development oriented topic but I just want to get it out of my system so I'm not in my head anymore. I have thought about getting plastic surgery many times in the past. I have been hesitant because of the costs, side effects, fears of something going wrong and ending up looking like a more messed up version of myself etc. Breast Reduction: I started thinking about getting a boob job when I fell asleep on the couch a couple years back. I fell asleep in a weird position and woke up to my boobs strangling me. That was scary and uncomfortable lmao. I also get back pain occasionally, I don't like having people stare at me or sexualize me, and I wish I could shop for clothes that I like without worrying whether or not I look like I'm going to sit on the black casting couch. Also I don't like the idea of spending $80 on a fucking bra. But also on the other hand I like the way my chest looks and how it looks in proportion to the rest of my body. Like even though they are big they aren't saggy. Most of the time I can get away with going braless. Again, I like the way they look, I just don't like how society treats me and my lack of clothing options. And that makes me think that maybe it isn't about needing to fix something for me, rather it's about other people. I can deal with the occasional back pain and avoid falling asleep on the couch if I'm going to be honest. Liposuction: If I were to get liposuction, it would just be for my stomach. No matter how well I eat or exercise, I always have a little pudge in that area. I've had it for as long as I can remember. It really effects my confidence and because it's the one thing that I'm insecure about, my mind likes to hyper focus on it. I think it takes up a lot of mental energy and this insecurity has resulted in me having a dysfunctional relationship with my body image if I were to point out a feature in my body. I always feel like I would be a 10 if I had a flat stomach. While I have mixed feeling about getting a boob job, I don't have the same with getting liposuction on my stomach. I don't like my stomach, never really did, don't know if I ever will. My only thing is the cost. I think it would be so much cheaper if I just accepted myself tbh. Lip filler: This is one of those things that crossed my mind as a joke. It's really petty. I love the way my lips look naturally from the front but from the side my top lip protrudes out a little more than my bottom lip and I just want it to be equal. It's super nit picky and I have a tendency to do that with my appearance even though I don't think about it much and it doesn't have an effect on my life or confidence. Wouldn't get this in a million years. This is my inner perfectionist talking lol. Plus needles and injections scare tf out of me. My other thing with plastic surgery is the permanence of it. I have experimented with appearance growing up and most of the time I just want to go back to my old features eventually. In high school I dyed my hair burgundy. It was cool for the first couple months and then I just wanted my black hair back. I liked my black hair before and how it contrasted with my skin, how shiny it looked but I always wondered what I'd look like with red hair and if that would look better. There was also a part of me that saw my black hair as plain. Similarly when I got hazel contacts a couple years back, it was cool for the first two weeks. Then I wanted to go back to my brown eyes because I felt like the lemur from Zoboomafoo. Like my black hair, I also had mixed feeling about my brown eyes and just wanted to experiment. I like how warm and expressive my brown eyes are and how it matches with my hair while standing out compared to the rest of my face. But again, there was a part of me that thought it was really plain and was curious about how I would look if I had different features. Both of these helped me move closer to self love as far as my appearances went because changing my features helped me appreciate the ones I already had. But it's easy to switch out contact lenses and to grow out your hair again. If I did something similar with plastic surgery and wanted to go back to the way I looked before, thing would be A LOT more complicated. On the other hand, I have made a change to my appearance and didn't feel like I wanted to go back. I switched from wearing glasses to wearing contacts. Growing up I didn't hate my glasses but I thought that I looked nicer without them. But I can't say I liked them either or saw any pros for wearing them besides simply not wanting to poke my eye out every morning. I always took my glasses off for pictures. When I switched to wearing contacts, I was surprised by how much mental space was freed up in my head and how confident I felt. My self image became so much more positive after wards. I think if I were to get work done, I probably wouldn't do the reduction because I have mixed feelings about. And I have noticed that when I have mixed feelings and I change my appearance, it's cool for a little bit and then I miss my original features. I would get the liposuction because I don't have mixed feelings about that aesthetically. But my thing is, will it be worth it or am I just being petty. Is this similar to how I feel about my lips because on one hand it's something minor. It's not like I'm trying to lose 30 lbs from this procedure (also I don't think using this as a short cut to weight loss is wise but I digress). But on the other hand it isn't like my lips because this does take a lot of mental energy for me. In the end of the day the main thing stopping me is thinking about how much cheaper and how much easier all of this would be if I just accepted myself fully. Also there the fact that I'm broke because lets be real I don't have a few thousand dollars just lying around.

Comparing Myself Against the Priorities of Other People I had a bit of a backlash in the last couple days. It was for an incredibly dumb reason. There is this person I went to college with who is an influencer and goes to law school. Her account came up on my Explore page and I couldn't resist the temptation to click on it. I went to her page and so many of the insecurities and the shame that I worked through came back up, I felt behind in my life. I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I felt like a failure. It was a mess. I kept thinking *when am I going to have my season of happiness? When am I going to be living my best life?* Next thing I knew I continued spiraling by looking at other people's accounts and comparing myself. After venting about this with a friend, I realized that I was comparing myself against the priorities of other people. The people I was comparing myself to all prioritized school and career above everything else. And don't get me wrong, I know many of these people and I know it comes from a healthy, purpose driven place rather than a place of insecurity and workaholism. But my top priority hasn't been school and career. And I made that decision early on because I knew it was the healthiest thing for me. As proud as I am of that because I know the strength and authenticity it took me to make that decision. But there was this feeling of being left behind because I chose a different path. There is a part of me that saw the trade off between prioritizing self development and prioritizing school and career. They were at odds in many times and sometimes I think that after i finish dealing with my issues, I will have a lot of lost time to make up for and I have to put this extra stress on myself. But then I was like, why am I doing this? Why do I feel this way? It's ridiculous. I'm judging myself on how far I'm on a path that I didn't even take, a path that I technically didn't want to take. I think the reason why I do this is because even though I did prioritize self development over school and career, the people around me always told me that the right decision was to prioritize school and career over everything. A lot of it came from a healthy place where it's like having a good career will give you a sense of contribution and purpose, it will keep you grounded, and it will ensure that you are financially independent which means you can live life on your own terms. But the problem is the implicit notion that came with it in the attitudes of the people who were giving me this message. Especially from my parents it was this sense of *nothing matters as long as you have your career, friends and relationships don't matter, you're basically throwing your life away if you make a boy your priority, don't waste your time on things that won't be beneficial for your college applications. In this stage of your life school has to be your highest priority* I get where they were coming from. They didn't want me to succumb to peer pressure. They didn't want me to get into a toxic or codependent dynamic with a boy and give up all my dreams to follow him. They didn't want me wasting my time on things that weren't going to benefit my future when I could do something else that better serves me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that prioritizing other things shouldn't seem like a death sentence. It shouldn't feel like not prioritizing school means you will have a bad life and that you will be wasting your potential. It's perfectly reasonable to prioritize other things depending on where you are at your life and what your needs are. I know people say life is short, but I honestly think life is long. Especially when you're young, you have time. You can do things at your own pace. You will eventually move into different phases of your life where you will prioritize different things. And that's ok, there is a season for everything. Like I noticed that when I compare myself I tend to get upset over not having things that I technically don't want in the first place. One time I caught myself feeling like a failure when I found out someone I knew was engaged. I don't even want to get married at my age. I guess another thing with me prioritizing self development is that when I do have milestones or when I do achieve a goal, it usually not something that I can show off. I'm not about to walk up to someone and start talking about how I made peace with this traumatic event that happened to me in childhood for example. And I think because of that, my achievements regarding self development can go unnoticed or uncelebrated, making me feel like I haven't done anything with my life. I know for me, if I were to prioritize school and career as my number one priority like the people I was comparing myself to, it probably wouldn't manifest in a healthy way. I shouldn't judge myself and my progress based on what I was told to prioritize. Sure if I judge myself school/ career wise, I'm not doing so great. But if I judge myself according to my own priority of self development, I'd say I made an amazing amount of progress and that I'm doing good for myself. And I think that's more important when it comes to understanding what will actually make you fulfilled.

Even if they are "just jokes" it's worth questioning why that person would find such a thing funny. You don't have to be blatantly racist to be racist. Was just about to say this. Situations like that are uncomfortable. You're not actually funny if you have to be prejudiced in order to be funny. Personally, when I see a friend making racist jokes or being racist, I let them know that I'm not ok with it and try to open a conversation. If the person gets defensive or they continue the behavior, they are disrespecting my boundaries so then I just move on or keep contact in the bare minimum. I don't want to validate this behavior by continuing to stick around.

@Etherial Cat Thank you

I feel that. One time I decided to buy this pack of cosmic brownies out of nostalgia (and because I was craving chocolate) and I was thinking of how when I was 7 or so my friends and I thought they were the shit. Like everyone would try to trade the rest of their snacks just to have an extra cosmic brownie. Then I tried to eat it again when I was 18 and I just didn't get the hype but it wasn't bad. Another time I tried to do the same with a twinkie and that was nasty. There are foods that I wonder how tf I ate when I was a kid. I guess as I started eating healthier and branched out to different foods not only my taste buds changed but so did the scope at which I compare foods to. That cosmic brownie doesn't taste like the best thing in the world when you have tried other brownies. I think that excitement in childhood comes from a lack of experience and not having anything to compare things to subconsciously or consciously. One thing I've been trying to do is see things with fresh eyes and let go of judgement/ comparison in order to be present and take in a moment for what it is. I mean I've seen plenty of people who don't experience those things still get childhood nostalgia in their late teens- early 20s. I think over the years technology has heightened this nostalgia since everything is more accessible. My dad and I found this channel where they have reruns of a bunch of shows from the 70s and 80s. My dad doesn't really get nostalgic over his childhood but he does get nostalgic over his 20s and 30s and watching those shows just brings those feelings more to the surface but in a better way. When it comes to technology and accessibility, I can't bring those things up without talking about the internet. Before you would have to go to your attic and search through old things or ask your parents about what things were like back then but now you can just search that stuff up. For me, if there is something in my childhood that I vaguely remember, I can just search it online. There are so many time I went on Instagram and saw a meme only for it to unlock a memory I forgot I had lmao. I feel that. I started watching a couple episodes of the Fairly Odd Parents a couple days ago. I think it can be a little bit of a backlash. I think moving into adulthood is a very big transition in a person's life because you have been a child all your life and then suddenly, you're not and you never will be. It's a weird experience and for the first few years even if you have adult responsibilities that you are taking care of well, there is a part that makes you feel like you're a kid cosplaying as an adult. That transition can breed all types of problems (imposter syndrome, anxiety of what to do with the rest of your life, depression because you don't have the childlike sense of wonder etc.) and resurface a lot of issues from you're childhood because you're old enough to know what is right and wrong but young enough to remember a lot of what happened growing up. No it's actually really common. I also have a theory about this and how it relates to pop culture. There is a saying that trends come back every 20 or so years. That could consist of anything from TV/ movie remakes to fashion. My theory is that the reason why trends come back about every 20 years is because a lot of young people get nostalgic over their early childhood (that's especially easy since most of us don't remember much and therefore have a very rosy picture of pop culture) and then they bring back trends. Those things become mainstream because youth culture has a huge influence over what's popular. Then there is a feed back loop where you look at the trends, you get nostalgic, you give into the trends, the trends become even more popular and more people get nostalgic. I don't think nostalgia is something you need to let go. Playing club penguin can be a nice break and escape lol. But I think it's still really important to be aware that you might be looking through rose toned glasses and that the past wasn't necessarily all that or else we risk making the same mistakes we did back then or we try to go back when it isn't viable anymore. I think when this is taken to the absolute extreme, you get a lot of conservative ideology and suddenly you're surrounded by a bunch of old people saying Make America Great Again because they want to go back to the 1980s. My dad and I were having a conversation about this. I think it has to do with how you perceive time as you get older. My dad is in his 60s and he was talking about how the last 10 years felt like it went by really quickly but I had a different experience. As someone in their early 20s, those same 10 years felt really long because it's literally 1/2 of my life whereas for my dad it's like 1/6. And plus you're growing, freshly experiencing so many things, and having your life circumstances change when you're young so you tend to grow and develop much more thus making that time feel longer. Like there is a huge difference in where you are in life compared to being 10 vs 20 than from 50 vs 60. This reminded me of something that happened when I was in school. I had a friend who was 17 and he was cringing at what he was like at 14 and my teacher overheard this and was cringing lol. My teacher was like "that was like 3 years a go it wasn't that long ago."

Been feeling lost lately but this made me feel a little more found.

From my experience, a lot of older people tend to be more explicitly racist than younger racist people. But I've met pleanty of people 25 and under who are racist. And it isnt just a small pocket of people. Don't know where you live lol. Progress is much MUCH slower than that. I'm sure people thought the same thing when segregation ended where they thought if the generation of old people died off we'd live in a progressive fantasy.

In addition to this being a critique on green, I also think this perception is a stage orange critique of turquoise. Things like "you are god" or "I'm god" sound delusional when you're at orange or you don't have any background knowledge of nonduality. It reminds orange people of blue, how faith based it was, and how it had this notion of divine rights/ being a prophet.

@Raphael The video emphasizes integration and developing a healthy ego because that is more aligned with oneness and authenticity than a weak ego. I highly recommend checking it out. Yeah an ego that is arrogant, insensitive or not confident is still ego. The video is talking about an unhealthy ego. To get over it, premature transcendence isn't going to help. Instead, you need to build a healthy and strong ego. And I feel that this video is talking about that instead of talking about transcending. A weak, undeveloped ego is the enemy. Mastery over the ego so it manifests healthily is not the enemy. I've had a similar experience in the last couple months. I think this is yet another one of those pieces of advice that can either be helpful or harmful given where you are in your journey.

Thoughts?

No that screams overcompensation and just shows how out of control and insecure you are. It's like those little chihuahuas that feel the need to bark and look aggressive because they are tiny and feel easily threatened therefore they need to assert dominance.

Both are awful. But if it came down to choosing my battle, I'd choose the unhealthy levels of detachment because it will force me to get over him quicker so I can move on and find someone worth my time. If a man is extremely desperate, worst case scenario I might have to get a restraining order or call the cops and then live in fear for a long time. Possessiveness and seeking dominance are also a factors that need to be considered and can be present whether a guy is clingy or unavailable. You can be extremely emotionally unavailable and see the other person as an object that you don't empathize with but you want to have for yourself. That can lead to a huge lack of empathy and psychotic behavior.

I mainly took that as the point that the ego comes up as a survival mechanism and it's not bad or evil for being that way and therefore shouldn't be demonized. I think I remember seeing another video (can't remember what it was) and it was describing the ego as the devil but it wasn't in a demonizing way rather it was on how the ego is like a fallen angel. It's like a guardian angel in the way that it helps you survive and thrive but eventually it falls from grace and become a hindrance when you move into higher qualities of consciousness. Like I'll use abuse as an example. Lets say there is a child who is hyper aware of the emotions people are experiencing around him and he had to develop that skill of reading between the lines because his parents never communicated things to him and punished him for not reading their mind or he needed to catch warning however subtle they may be in order to prepare for an anger outburst. This coping mechanism of being hyper sensitive and empathetic worked back then but when that boy grows up and is in a healthier environment, those same qualities turn into anxiety. I think the ego works in a similar way. I've been thinking about all of this for a minute and these are my thoughts on the subject: Yeah I agree with this. Waging a war with the ego causes more resistance. It also causes more disintegration which is at odds with oneness.

3/23/2021 Being In Progress Part 2 This part 2 is just me copying and pasting relevant journal entries from the previous post I did multiple journal posts on this but I thought I post one of them that summarizes my key takeaways that I intend on integrating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And here it is: I feel like in this last month or so I worked through a lot of shame. Even though I still have problems in my life, I no longer beat myself up for some of them. I see this as an example of being more gentle with myself. I'm proud of myself for that. I deleted all of my social media a while ago and I think that really helped me mind my own business.

3/23/2021 Being in Progress I bolded the stuff that is in progress at the moment and wrote down some stuff that I'm doing on the side as a reference. I haven't completed anything (I mean I came up with this list 3 days ago) but this is a good way to see where I'm at and give credit where it's due. I italicized the stuff that I can't take care of at the moment or that I'm purposefully delaying because of my circumstance.

This thread reminded me of a video I found a while back

Turning Competence into an Identity Part 6: Family Dynamics I can't believe that I forgot to talk about this when I was doing my whole series on competence. The dynamics in my family had a large impact on why competence was something I strived for and how it turned into an identity for me. Firstly, my mom was a stay at home mom who was financially dependent on my dad. She doesn't know English that well and has trouble communicating so she is very reliant on my dad. When I hit around 9, she began depending on me. This whole situation I believe caused me to grow up faster and messed with the whole mother daughter dynamic to where I felt as if the roles were flipped. On top of that, she is emotionally stunted and 10 year old me felt compelled to explain how somethings were right and wrong. I didn't have a competent mother figure and my dad was worn out by how dependent my mom was on him and he would always tell me that I have to be independent and have my life together so I don't end up like her. In some situations, that's understandable but in others it was him catastrophizing or making a big deal out of things. Like I remember one time when I was 8 I didn't close the door to the garage all the way and my dad yelled at me for 45 minutes about how I have attention issues and how I'm going to end up like my clueless and helpless mother with no future if I keep this up. It was a complete over reaction. Which brings me to my next point. I have ADHD and my parents were dead set against getting me diagnosed because they didn't want me to get into ADHD drugs which have a lot of side effects and they didn't want the diagnosis to be on my records. So they tried to "discipline" it out of me. Situations like the one I explained previously played out frequently when I was little. There was an idea that was drilled into my head back then and that was, if you don't have your life together or if you make one wrong move, you life is going to be ruined, you'll be locked in a psych ward, and you'll be drugged. Yeah, that's quite a bit of pressure for someone who is like 8. Next you have my dad, my uncle, and my aunt. They are all pretty emotionally stunted, some more than others. And from a young age I felt like I couldn't trust authority, that I have to figure things out on my own, and that I have to always be the bigger person in a conflict. I think it's good that I compelled myself to think independently instead of blindly being led straight to hell. But it has to do with what is age appropriate. Like thinking for yourself is essential to growing into an independent adult who can think critically, but a small child shouldn't have to figure things out on their own because they didn't have proper guidance. That's a lot to ask for a kid. When it comes to being the bigger person in a conflict, in most equal adult relationship, I believe that ideally people should switch being the bigger person. Sometimes in a conflict you're the bigger person and sometimes it's the other person. But if you find yourself in a situation where you're the one who is ALWAYS the bigger person, it can get tiring because of how imbalanced the dynamic is. You wouldn't always have to be the bigger person if the people around you measured up. I'm sure in my case it's even more tiring because as a child, I'm not supposed to have a super equal dynamic with my parents, much less a dynamic where I'm always the bigger person. As a kid, you're supposed to mess up and have the adults around you come to help you understand. It isn't supposed to be the other way around. I was expected to reach an unhealthy level of competence at a young age. And finally, I didn't grow up with sibling or with extended family in the country. I didn't have anyone I could rely on for guidance especially since the adults around me are so childish. I basically used the internet as a way to cope and find information about whatever was bothering me. I guess I'm lucky that I didn't end up on really weird places on the internet thank to my judgement at the time. That combined with self help and therapy makes me feel like emotionally I basically had to raise myself. I had to be competent doing that if I wanted to have a future. I think a lot of this also impacted how I view having kids and parenting. This is an extreme view I hold but I believe that the vast majority of people should not have children because they are unfit to do so consciously. To me, raising kids is such a delicate process and things can easily go really wrong but people treat it like it's something that everyone does eventually. And that's why we have so many messed up adults. I went through a phase where I was angry at my parents for not raising me better. Not only did I have to figure things out on my own and grow up before my time but I also have to spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on fixing the mess they created. I know that they did the best that they could given the tools they were given from their upbringing. They grew up in much tougher circumstances and what helped them survive in those situations are counterproductive and harmful in the present situation. Survival and what is considered healthy is subjective to the environment you're in. While I was empathetic to all that and was able to forgive them, there was a lot of judgement on my part and how I judged them on their competence as adults and parents. As they say, the things we judge in others are also the things we judge in ourselves. So it's not surprising that I'm nervous about having a family when I'm older because I don't want to be the messed up parent that my kid would have to heal from.

You'd be surprised by the amount of men who dont know and/or dont care and the amount of women who have mediocre to unsatisfactory sex because of it.

The Original To Do List I will update this list, cross things out I've worked through, write entries according to this list. When I finish around 75% of the items on this list (so about 27 items) , I will compile a new one. The items may be vague but details are in my main journal. I like to think of this list as the stuff I'm ~~~***manifesting***~~~ Gain clarity about career/life purpose Retake the life purpose course Get an internship Achieve financial freedom Move out of my parents’ house Cultivate a clear vision (main character energy) Stop demonizing capitalism Stop procrastinating Be gentle with yourself Create more discipline through empathy Heal issues around competence and perfectionistic tendencies Treat yourself and feel comfortable with spending money on yourself Don’t compare yourself to others Work through shame Heal body image issues Do fun self care things like taking a bath, face masks, etc. Build your social life Make friends and get into a short term relationship Deal with social anxiety Stop seeing yourself as weird, inherently unlovable, and unworthy of connections Stop feeling like you have to be 100% perfect in order to be loved Deal with the fear of running out of things to say Get comfortable with public speaking and having the spotlight (main character energy) Get out more, go to a few parties, go to a rave Shadow work Deal with your issues around competence Step into your main character energy by: Romanticizing your life by being gentle with yourself Having a clear vision and purpose Having a social life and getting rid of social anxiety Creating more confidence Deal with spiritual ego Take a break from spiritual content and connect back with your material self Integrate basic bitch energy and stop thinking you’re weird Get out of your head and stop hyper analyzing