soos_mite_ah

Stability Fetish There is a part of me that craves stability. I have made growing myself a priority for about a solid 5 years now. While I am proud of how far I have come as a person, there is a part of me that desires stagnation. Every year for the last five years has been radically different than the past for me personally. I have grown so much and I have changed so much as well. It's like every year I'm a whole nother person. I think this partially has to do with the fact that I'm still in my formative years. People are typically prone to change a lot during this time because they are young enough to be impressionable to what's happening in the world while old enough to have the critical thinking in order to understand what's actually happening. I really thought that I reached a place where I am stable and I can chill tf out with this constant state of self improvement. I thought I could lead a normal life without having an existential crisis every so often. After all I got my personal life under control. I have healed much of my past trauma. I'm pretty happy with my life. I'm making goals and achieving them accordingly. I've even got to the point where I can do some shadow work since all that I need to clean up now are the cob webs of my mind. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Then 2020 happened and the world is pretty much on fire. I was coping with it relatively well but in the last week or so, I have caught myself feeling gloomy and pessimistic. After RBG passed away, things took a turn for the worse with the state of democracy in the U.S. Trump came up with a new nominee, one that will likely try to over turn Roe v. Wade and try to over turn gay marriage. He is also talking about "patriotic education" because apparently the left is taking over history by painting historical figures in a bad light. He also said that he won't guarantee a peaceful transition of power if he loses. I'm not surprised by any of this. Things have been bad for a while starting from 2015 when Trump even started campaigning. The KKK have had rallies/ protests. The alt-right is empowered. People are in cages. There are travel bans. There are constant scandals in the news everyday. Global warming is silently making moves. People's livelihoods are at stake because of raging capitalism. Brett Kavanaugh is in the Supreme Court amidst #MeToo. All of this was before 2020. The only thing the pandemic has done is speed up where we were already headed when it came to rising inequality, polarization, and upcoming fascism. The message regarding Trump not peacefully giving up power has been ringing in my ears for the last few days. I can't help but think that we are headed towards a dictatorship. Sure Trump is super incompetent, but so much damage has happened in the last five years (I'm also counting the time he was campaigning because that was also a mess). I doubt it will get Hitler level bad but I'm not sure tbh. Regardless, I still have some hope. After unstable times comes a time of a lot of progress right? WW2 led to decolonization. The Great Depression gave us basic social programs. The 60s gave us considerably more civil rights. etc. I feel that about 10 years after the pandemic we will be much more SD stage green because we are being forced to evolve. But until then in the short term we are stuck in this chaos. And all I'm doing is reassuring myself that COVID is a collective ego backlash. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But that doesn't stop me from craving stability. Even though I'm only 20 all I want right now is to get into a relationship, settle down, and get married. I don't want to be strong by myself anymore. I want to melt into a guy who knows what he's doing and have him take care of me instead. I want to surrender. I want to be vulnerable so I can open up to more gentleness in my life. After all the world and it's chaos and my personal life hasn't been so gentle with me. I have this fantasy of being like this 1950s housewife that takes care of things at home while the man does everything else. I just want someone to hold me and tell me that everything will be ok. Even if that is a lie, sometimes I need something to hold on to. But it's just that, a fantasy. I know that if I took that path that I would actually lose my mind. I'm very independent mentally and emotionally. I like going after and achieving things. I want to pursue a life purpose. I also don't like most men and have yet to find someone I really click with so there's also that. Also getting into a relationship and becoming dependent on someone financially is actually hell both logistically and emotionally since the other party doesn't like feeling as thought they are being leeched off of. Because of these reasons, I have no desire to pursue this fantasy. Feeling this way is an anomaly for me. And I recognize that. I had some of these feelings come up around last year. It disappeared earlier this year and then reappeared around June when the world really started going crazy. I know that this isn't what I truly want rather this is a coping mechanism to escape from the chaos that is 2020.

Resistance to Discipline My goal for 2019 was to build more discipline for myself. I would say that I was doing pretty good for the first 4 months of the year but after I came back home, I started back sliding. The thing is that the pandemic unveiled how much I needed an external source of structure, like a school day or a set schedule to cultivate discipline. Now, all of that is off the table. My days, weeks, and routines started meshing together like an amorphous blob. Time feels like an illusion. Most days feel the same. This lack of external structure made me realize how important it is to have an internal sense of structure and self discipline. I feel this need to fulfill that since I see how necessary it is. But for some reason I also encountered some resistance to that. Even though I see it's need, for some reason I don't immediately want to. I thought I'd introspect for a bit and this is what I came up with. My parents exercised undisciplined discipline. This is a term that I found in M Scott Peck's A Road Less Travelled. When discipline is undisciplined, it means that the parent's exercised discipline in neurotic ways by taking it to an extreme. One to the ways this can impact a child is by making them associate discipline with negative emotions and therefore causing them to not want to take responsibility. This resonated with me more than I would like it to. My parents were rigid in their standards and this makes me inclined to associate discipline with powerlessness, exhaustion, and blame. An indirect consequence of this is a lack of confidence in myself and my abilities. This is because I don't follow through with the promises I have made for myself by not exercising the discipline is need to achieve my goals. Also, another thing that I learned about discipline is the importance of consistency and routines. A couple weeks ago I tried to cram a lot of course work into a weekend so that I could stay ahead in my classes. That didn't work out. I got ahead and I thought I was doing good because I wasn't procrastinating. But not procrastinating is not the same as having discipline. Even though I wasn't cramming last minute, I was still cramming. This time I was cramming proactively That has a lot of consequences in the weeks following because I was exhausted after that weekend and therefore I fell behind. Exams weren't pretty either. I wanted to use this strategy with cramming proactively because it worked for me in the past. It helped me stay ahead of my classes and was very useful for a lot of my social science and humanities type courses that typically had a lot of reading. But with my more math heavy courses, this was counter productive. Any way so I have been really stressed and mentally not in a good place because of this. This was a little difficult to come to terms with. I am a very go with the flow person who doesn't like routines and consistency. I don't wake up at the same time every morning. I don't go to sleep at the same time every night. I don't even eat at the same time everyday. I do things as I feel is intuitively fit. I do things while listening to my body and my emotions rather than looking at a clock. I think I started doing this as a reaction towards my parents' rigid life style. It seemed so out of touch with how things really felt and therefore felt relatively unconscious. I resorted to stage green coping mechanisms because of the limitations I saw rather than fully integrating orange and blue notions of consistency, duty, and productivity. I believe that my aversion to routines and consistency also circles back to the stuff I said about undisciplined discipline I said above.

The first thing that came to mind was this quote of MLK saying "I fear that I have integrated my people into a burning house." Could this be a possible hint of yellow? It could indicate the insight that America was not fully ready to integrate in the 1960s and in some ways it opened people up to more hostility (or a backlash). The way that I interpreted the quote was that in a way you could avoid discrimination through separation because you're only dealing with people in your own community in your own little section however there is nevertheless an underlying hostility due to a lack of exposure to the other hence why there is separation in the first place. In other words, even though integration is a necessary step, it can open up to a lot of messiness (think of the black people who had to be escorted by the national guard when schools first got integrated). Basically, the ideal situation is to get rid of racism and then integrate in a peaceful way. I disagree with that because as long as there is separation and people are living in isolated groups, it's muuuuch easier to fall into the habit of demonizing the other purely from lack of exposure when given the background of a prior history of conflict. You can also see this in the way that protestants and Catholics are divided in Ireland if you want an example of how segregation can impact social views outside of race in America. It's important to expose yourself to people who are different than you so you can realize just how similar yall are and how the differences are arbitrary (applies to race but isn't limited to it). Yes, desegregation opens up to being more vulnerable when it comes to discrimination because you are along side you're oppressors and because of that there can be a lot of craziness in the short term but in the long term, it's necessary for our collective evolution. I feel that MLK was aware of something along these lines and continued to advocate for desegregation anyway instead of just aborting mission because he knew that greats strides forward can come with collective ego backlashes. aaaaand there are also some stage blue conspiracy theorists who also view the same quote as the following: The people who believe this are also the one's who think that MLK was part of a conspiracy where the US government/illuminati/global elites/reptile people etc. wanted to give black people an idol to control the masses only to kill him so that black people lose their minds and because they would be in a state of grief, they'd be even easier to control. Also there is the narrative that MLK woke up from his "dream" or as the conspiracy theorists call it "mind control" and then started saying things like this and because he said too much, he was shot. Thought I'd mention it because it's a good example of how the lower stages can manipulate the original message of the higher stages for their own agenda/ narrative.

Re-Evaluating My Life Purpose Recently I have been re-thinking my life purpose. I've basically been in a minor existential crisis state because it just hit me that I am going to graduate college in 2 years and I don't know what I'm doing with my life career wise. Also there were some toxic elements to my original life purpose that I recently discovered and I'm working through that. I'm probably going to write more about that in future posts since right now everything is so convoluted to where I don't even know how to articulate this to myself. But there is one thing that I do think about when I think of a solid life purpose. I think of Bernie Sanders. I am inspired by his consistency over the years in terms of policy, opinions, and even his own sense of values. He has been at it in politics for such a long time and I feel that it comes from a very genuine place where he cares about others. Here are some videos of him interviewing people back in the 1980s. Also another thing that I found circulating around the internet were these edits of Bernie Sanders that looked like an anime opening. It honestly my favorite thing. The comments for each of these videos also cracks me up Nothing says life purpose and hero's journey like an anime opening Truly the best campaign ads I have ever seen

I do agree with that. Some really qualities that comes from blue include things such as duty, justice, and stability. Those qualities can be expressed in a unhealthy way such as mike pence type of law and order and the grace of god which then leads to things such as systemic racism. Those qualities can also be expressed in a healthier way such as a Catholic nun who decided to commit their lives to the duty of serving the lord because it is just and promotes stability. With MLK however, I get the feeling that his teachings were more centered around notions of compassion (stage green) rather than notions of justice (stage blue). Definitely he talked about justice but it's still under the foundation of compassion rather than authority. Also it is worth noting that MLK was trying to challenge the hierarchy rather than build a new one. Green likes to tear down hierarchies so that it can achieve equality while when blue tears down hierarchies, it's to build a new hierarchy to mirror it's own interest (think kingdoms over throwing each others structures in order to place itself in power and make a new structure). MLK was challenging white supremacy, but he never said anything about replacing it with something that solely benefits black people and poc. Some white people thought that amidst the civil rights movement in the 1960s because they were afraid that black people asking for equality will lead them to wanting superiority. This is a stage blue projection, not the truth. You can also see the same stage blue projection now in 2020 with BLM where some people misinterpret the movement are like "All lives matter not just black lives" even though that isn't the point of BLM. I think it's easy to confuse green and blue because they both have notions of taking care of a larger community outside of yourself. In the way that both stages are collective, they can have similar patterns except one pattern is more limited (my country, my race, my religion) and the other pattern is more expansive (the world, humanity, all religions).

I mean being religious isn't something that is confined in any one stage. The way I see it, where someone is at in the spiral determines how they interpret scripture. For instance, a stage blue religious person might put more weight on how you need to disown everyone who is not like you while a stage green religious person might put more weight on something like "love thy neighbor" which extends to loving people who are a different race than you. A stage blue Christian is more likely to try to defend slavery using the bible. I have met both stage blue and stage green Christians and even though both groups were religious in the same extent (i.e going to church 2x a week etc.) the way they viewed the world was VERY different. I can't speak for everyone but from my experience the first group was more prone to take the bible literally and was keen on fearfully avoiding anything that will piss of god while the second group tried to approach the bible in a more lenient way where things were up to interpretation since even though the text is there, there is no way to know what god is (at least from the limited human, stage green perspective) The way I see it, religion is a tool. The way you use it and the way that a society interprets it has a lot to do with social and political factors, both of which are linked to spiral development.

@louhad @dflores321 Why would MLK be in blue?

No he seems mainly green (civil rights, equality, addressing systemic racism, etc.) maybe a little blue since he is a preacher in the 1960s and some orange because he isn't solidly green

I would put show Queer Eye in between orange and green (roughly 35% orange and 65% green). This particular analysis of the show however is pretty heavily green.

I've recently been getting into understanding the unconscious/subconscious mind. I was wondering on how to measure how much of your unconscious is left unexplored or how to measure how healthy one's unconscious mind is. I know things like meditation and perhaps analyzing dreams can give vital insight about what the unconscious is trying to tell us. Self development (especially when it comes to moving up the spiral or through the stages) can help reveal and work through the unconscious in a conscious manner. I was wondering if there is anything else that one can use to analyze and measure where the unconscious is in terms of development and how much of it we are aware of.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes For the last couple months I have been trying to shake this weird kid label that was slapped onto me in childhood through shadow work. It's been working well but I think there are some ways that I can expand on dismantling this label. One thing that I have yet to try until now is being more basic or being more of a "normie" (I just don't like this term. It reminds me of incels. So I'm going to use basic). I'm trying to incorporate more mainstream things into my life style. Some things may include binging on Netflix more, namely shows that are like Friends and New Girl, watching makeup tutorials on YouTube, drinking more Starbucks, listening to the top 40 on the charts etc. To be honest, I don't know what super mainstream stuff is all I know is that it's not what I typically gravitate towards. Like even as I type this stuff out, it feels weird and unnatural for me. I don't watch shows like that, the main things I watch on YouTube have to do with meditation and self help, and my music is just a very odd mix to say the least. I feel the resistance. It's not so much that I have judgements over these things or that I don't feel comfortable with it, but it's more of I much rather do something else. I guess another aspect of this that feels uncomfortable is that I'm doing this to develop myself. Normally people see developing oneself as going off the beaten path or discovering new ideas, in other words becoming less basic. Becoming basic and conformist seems like the antithesis of this. But for me personally, I feel like I need to be more basic, not for the sake of fitting in with other people, but to fully transcend my "weird kid" label. I think that this label comes with both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex. The way I'm going to describe this is going to be cartoonish simple for the sake of brevity and clarity but I assure you it plays out in a much more subtle way in my psyche. Superiority: I'm so different, unique, and creative. I'm so much better than everyone who is just a conformist who goes with everything that society says. Look at all of the sheeple. Inferiority: I'm so weird. No one likes me. No one will understand me or want to be friends with me. I'm ugly and too weird to mix with everyone. I need to isolate myself because I'm so cringey. And so I guess the best way to stop judging myself and other more basic people is to embrace my own basicness. Being basic feels unnatural and I feel like I'd rather be doing something else but then again it only seems that way because a lot of our preferences are an acquired taste that have to do with the development of our egos. I remember some time ago I decided that I was going to embrace my feminine side. I felt a similar type of resistance back then. I figured, hey being a tomboy feels natural to me, I don't want to play around with makeup. While I didn't consciously or intentionally judge traditionally feminine things, there was an air of discomfort around it. I went ahead and tried to embrace femininity anyway. And I grew a lot from that. I uncovered and dismantled A LOT of internalized misogyny. I learned to be more in tuned and more expressive with my emotions. I finally figured out how to dress, do my makeup, and my hair without looking like an absolute disaster. I also found out that I look better with long hair and that doing my makeup is rather relaxing. I learned how to be more vulnerable, how to let other people take care of me. I learned how to not be an idiot around guys and more. There are some traditionally feminine things that never resonated with me. They include being high maintenance, being like this archetype of the prim and proper classy lady 24/7 that is largely influenced by elitism and Eurocentric standards, having a maternal instinct (though I am still exploring that one), wearing a skirt, and being super elaborate with my makeup. But for the most part, I can embrace my femininity. Sure I'm still a tomboy at heart who can go camping, be super relaxed, and still take down guys who are a foot taller than me but I have since expanded my sense of self to the more gentle side of me. That's what I hope to do with integrating my basicness. I hope to embrace that part of myself and maybe even explore into more mainstream territory to see what I like. But by no means am I obligated to accept everything my way. And also by no means am I obligated to abandon all of the more unconventional things about me. The key isn't to suppress the weird parts of me, it's to expand beyond that. I'm still going to be into self actualization, but I'm also going to be watching the Kardashians. I don't see why I can't do both. And if it doesn't work out, I can always stop. And similar to the way that I embraced my femininity to get rid of my internalized misogyny, I'm embracing my basicness to get rid of my superiority and inferiority complex I got due to the events in my childhood. Also aside from my personal stuff, I think there is an important thing I can learn about how normies think. It can keep one grounded and understand the terrain in which consciousness is in collectively. I have seen a lot of the people on this forum overestimate how conscious the average person is and judge them negatively for that. Sure they may be a lower level of consciousness, but they are where they are and they will progress at their own rate. Being lower or higher consciousness is not bad or good given that good/bad are largely an egoic illusory construct. But nevertheless, I do see that sense of judgement. I think It's important to understand what the average person off the street thinks both in terms of seeing how we can raise consciousness and just for regular socialization. For instance I'm not going to go up to a random person and start talking about how we don't exist, how I am God, and how they need to watch Leo's 2 hour videos weekly. I will look like I'm in a cult. No offense to Leo, his videos are amazing and have helped me immensely but I'm just aware on how things can come across to people who haven't really watched a lot of his videos. Understanding that and instead opting to weave in what I learned from actualized.org videos into regular conversations as opposed to making people watch the channel is one of the ways that understanding basic people can come in handy when socializing. Like with all perspectives, the perspective of a basic person is important, just as important as things that aren't mainstream. What consists of off the beaten path is relative to people according to their comfort zone. For most people the billboard top 40 is considered the path everyone takes with their music taste and everything else is seen as off the beaten path. For me however, that is flipped. For me, the unventured territory is the mainstream one. So catch me with a pumpkin spice latte.

CHUG THE SELF-LOVE JUICE Lately I haven't been posting much. I have been really stressed with school and life in general. Whenever I catch myself feeling like absolute trash I write down what I'm feeling, walk away to take care of myself, and then critique what I wrote by hyping myself up and giving myself advice. I also stress eat a lot and I finished an entire packet of brownie brittle in one sitting but this isnt about that (but it was nice not gonna lie). I like to imagine myself as my own best friend and as my own therapist. It makes me feel really self assured, helps me give myself some distance and objectivity over a situation, and helps me learn better because the lessons actually sink in as I write and speak to myself positively. So here it is. I present to yall my most recent breakdown. The red is me during my emotional outburst and the commentary under it is how I'm choosing to deal with it. I literally haven’t slept last night because I have been freaking out about what I'm going to do with my life after college. First of all, we’re already on a bad start. You’re running on sleep deprivation and anxiety. Because of that your thoughts aren’t going to be the best reflection of reality. Take a nap, eat something, shower, and then we’ll talk. Like I'm not impressive in any way. I'm not going to an amazing school. Ok your mom literally conditioned you to think that any school that isn’t an ivy isn’t worth going to at a young age. Like literally after your first day of preschool she asked you what college you want to go to and then made you choose between Harvard and MIT even though at that age you didn’t know what either of those places were and you pronounced MIT as mitt (like as in oven mitt). I’m glad that even from a young age you didn’t internalize the desire to get into an ivy league college and were willing to challenge that as you got older by applying to places like NYU but you still carry the internalized belief that unless you go to an elite school, you’re going to end up homeless. This also has to do with the political/ economic structure you grew up in, namely post 2008, which gave you the impression that if you don’t graduate from an ivy with a STEM degree you’re doomed to be working as a coffee barista reading Buzzfeed articles for the rest of your life. Also the fact that you're in a pandemic with the most incompetent people in power doesn’t help. Understand that this isn’t you, it’s internalized capitalism, but at the same time don’t let this be a limiting belief. You can still go after what you want. Perfectionism is only holding you back. And I know that the way you’re acting isn’t typical for you but your true colors and internalized beliefs slip out when you’re stressed and insecure and to that I will say, a college degree is a college degree. You’ve got to stop with this inferiority complex because even though you have been wronged by your strict Asian parents in the past, when you talk like this you sound elitist, pretentious, and entitled as fuck. Stop for the sake of everyone but especially for your own sake because this isn’t great for your self-esteem. Like girl it’s not a good look. I see you breaking out. Chug that self-love juice and have some school spirit because your college is a decent school. My gpa is mediocre to say the least. Ok and you can raise your GPA. You’ll be fine. Sure you’re going to have to work hard and not get sleep but if you beat yourself up along this journey, it’s going to take longer and you’re going to be more exhausted. Chug the self-love juice. I didn’t get a chance to study abroad and get an internship because I was hit with a health issues during the summer after my freshman year and a pandemic during the summer after my sophomore year which cancelled all of my plans. In regards to health issues, you did what you needed to do. If you pushed through that, chances are the shit that you were dealing with would have extended on for a while. You handled that situation to the best of your ability given the information and the coping mechanisms you had at the time. In regards to the gap on your resume for 2020, I’m sure employers will understand. This was literally global and everyone had to deal with it. And it’s not like you didn’t have plans and you were intending on bumming out for the summer (which you didn’t at all). You had it in the bag and you did what was in your power. I understand that you want to take responsibility for this situation and take control but you need to understand that beating yourself up and putting yourself in a place of shame isn’t going to help you to respond in this situation. Be gentle with yourself. This is the third time I’m saying this and I’m probably going to keep saying this but. CHUG. THE. SELF-LOVE. JUICE. Also there is a pandemic happening. There are bigger things happening in the world other than your cancelled trip to Japan and lack of work experience. I understand it hurts and it’s ok to feel that way. This is a difficult time for everyone. But also, keep things into perspective or you’ll end up sounding like the Kim Kardashian crying, diamond earring meme. And just when I was feeling better about life, i had to move back in with my parents. I'm turning 21 in about a month but I honestly feel like I'm 13 again because I back in my home town, because of the way my parents treat me, and because I'm trapped at home all the time. That’s normal. It’s normal to feel like you’re childhood self when you’re back to familiar surroundings. It takes most people a while to fully get over that. Also its ok that adulthood feels like a shock to you and that you essentially still feel like a child in some aspects. Think about it this way. You’re always changing as a person. You’re definitely not the same person you were when you were 10 because you’ve grown since then. But you can’t exactly pinpoint where you stopped being your old self and you started being who you are today because the changes were gradual and continuous. That’s why you feel as if you’re still your 13 year old self but I assure you that you are an adult and you can cope with this. 13 year old you wouldn’t be able to hold this down like you are right now. She couldn’t even order at a Chick fil A without turning into an emo, socially awkward, anxious mess. Also she had a lot of internalized misogyny, was in her “im not like other girls” phase, her peak for humor was the 2012 moustache trend and the only adjective she knew how to use was epic. Trust me, you’ve grown since then. You aren’t your old 13 year old self even though you circumstances now may have similarities with that. And I get that you get nostalgic over the things from 2008-2012. I see you listening to Kesha more and more while you work out. But keep in mind that nostalgia is deceptive and paints things in rose toned glasses. It easy to look back at your childhood and think it was super easy when really it wasn’t and the only reason why you think that is because now you have the coping mechanisms to deal with the problems you had back then. It’s like math. You look back at the algebra you were working on in the 6th grade and you’re like “wow that was so easy, why was I tripping over 5x+2=12?” when really it feels easy for you now because you know what you are doing but when you were learning it for the first time, you were pressed af. Same thing with life lessons. You look back now and you’re like “why was I tripping over this trifling ass bitch” but at that age, you were struggling to figure this stuff out because you had a lack of life experiences. Which is why it doesn’t make sense for parents to yell at you for being incompetent because you’re literally just learning. That’s a whole nother subject but you really shouldn’t do that to yourself either. Also, I understand the fuzzy feelings that comes with nostalgia, but do you really want to go back to this…… Granted we have our own cringy trends in this decade. Like we’re defiantly going to look back at tik tok and cringe at half of this shit. But as far as YOLO and Swag goes, it couldn’t be me lol. And speaking about pandemics, I don't even want to think about the depression (both economic and emotional that is coming towards me. I'm also reevaluating whether or not i even want to continue with my major and I think I'm essentially wasting my life. It’s ok to question or even change your major. But don’t just do that, because you think it’s hard. I see that you derive pleasure from seeing how smart you are by choosing subjects that you’re good at (or think you’re good at) and by just saying you’re a finance major. Obviously this isn’t the only reason why I’m majoring in finance but like let me be honest with myself. Also you can do more things with a business degree than wasting your life away in a high paying corporate job that works you to the bone. Not every work environment is like. You’re just surrounded a bunch of really competitive people who, despite having the confidence to assert themselves, they don’t have self-respect to set boundaries and are willing to sell their souls to an abusive boss. They use Linked In like it’s an actual social media site, and they are definitely doing to have a mid-life crisis at 35 when they realize they hate their spouse and kids or that have no time for them because they were living their lives as if they were in the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah there is something to learn from them, namely networking and knowing to assert yourself but just know that the environment you’re in isn’t reflective of everywhere in society. And remember what your professor told you. You may feel like an outcast in corporate America because you want to make friends and be creative but just know that there is a place for you and that even if people aren’t the same as you or that people hate you, know that what you have to offer is valuable. You are a liberal woman of color with creativity, empathy, and an understanding of how not to take advantage of consumers and workers. Corporate America might resist that, but honey, you are its future. The trends and the political environment is pointing towards that. Don’t forget that. You got this. Also you’re not going to depressed. I’m not going to let yourself go there. Because I’m going to make sure that you chug that self-love juice. Like the fact that I need to get out and fully support myself and get a job that requires actual skills which I'm pretty sure I don't have scares the shit out of me. And it’s ok. We don’t pop out of the womb knowing how to do, well anything. Yes, you’re dealing with a learning curve, but you’re still here to learn and you’re doing what you need to be doing. It will get better. We established this previously. It seems hard now, but it will seem obvious in the future. In fact, future you is probably looking back now at this moment in her memories wondering why you were tripping. I honestly dont think I'm going to amount to anything and I don't believe that I have anything that I can offer to anyone tbh both on a career but also on a social level. We established this previously. You are worth it and everything is going to be ok. You have a lot to offer. You may not be in the right place where you feel that and are conscious of it, but it’s still there whether you acknowledge it or not. And it will always be there. Similar to your GPA, you can improve your career. You can make moves. You can do something about this. It’s not like you have a baby now or you have a criminal record, neither of which you can just yeet out of your life. Sure things haven’t been the best in the last couple years, but you can turn things around. It may be hard, it may require a lot of effort, but things like this are reversible. It’s going to be ok. You may feel dumb af now, but remember, you’re here on scholarship. You have work ethic. You don’t even procrastinate anymore. This is how you feel now, but there is evidence against it. The facts conflict with your feelings so get it together and get back into reality. We don’t have the time to be self-loathing. CHUG THE SELF-LOVE JUICE Socially speaking, you can finesse colleges and your professors on sheer personality alone. The only thing here is that this college isn’t the best fit for you socially. And that’s ok. It isn’t to bash either one of yall. They have their lane and you have yours. It is what it is. Don’t twist this into something that makes you feel like trash. But girl, you and I know that you have a skill and you have character. For god sake you’re self-aware enough to the point you’re talking to yourself and writing things in third person in order solve your problems by being your own best friend and therapist. If that isn’t power, girl I don’t know what is. I don’t want to listen to you telling yourself that there is something inherently wrong with you socially because you didn’t fit in at your small college. I don’t want to hear it because you’re better than this. There are 8 billion people on this earth and even though you’re social distancing, I know you aren’t about to crawl into a rock for the rest of your life and not meet another person again. I'm super uncomfortable with saying all of this because I don’t feel like I can talk to people about this and because I'm currently going through a phase where I don’t think that I deserve to take up space. You deserve to take up space. You don’t have to be smart, beautiful, or funny or anything else in the matter. It’s ok to be vulnerable because your worth isn’t based on your positive and negative qualities. When we wrap out egos up like it, we set ourselves up to taking things personally and not looking at things in an objective way. We take things personally because something out there is either picking at an old wound or insecurity or it’s contradicting what you previously thought about yourself. You don’t have to prove yourself in anyway. You’re worthy just for existing.

I think the 9 stages focuses on the cognitive and emotional line of development while SD focuses more on moral, values, livelihoods etc. There are definitely correlations between 9 stages and SD because your morals, values, and livelihoods are affected by cognition and emotions. However, it is possible to be emotionally/ cognitively in one place but have your ideals and values to be in another depending on your circumstance. For instance the liberal kids in a high school may be nonconformist in a conformist way (the conformist stage in the 9 stages) while having values of equality (SD stage green) even though the conformist stage in the 9 stages correlates more with SD stage blue. That's what I got from it anyway.

I would say that blue would be most like the conformist. However, while there are correlations between the stages of ego development and spiral dynamics, I'd be careful with mixing them together because you can be in a higher stage in the spiral but have some hang ups in the lower stages of ego development. For example, you could be a green person in terms of values but you're emotionally stunted because you went through an abusive childhood which has caused you to want to seek safety in numbers by fitting in (conformist).

Dream Journal 9/10 I had a dream where I was a heart surgeon. It felt strangely natural even though in real life I'm horrible at science and I'm even worse with dealing with blood and people's physical insides. I just did what I needed to do all by myself and then the dream ended. Another dream I had was playing dodge ball in middle school. And for once I wasn't losing hahaha.

Overview I'm currently taking a course in college called Understanding the Self: East and West. This course discusses the nature of consciousness as it is understood through religion and psychology in a cross cultural perspective. My professor has spent 25 years studying consciousness and meditating regularly so I'm interested to see what his perspectives are and how he is going to present this material in an academic setting. I'm super excited about this class this semester and I'm dedicating an entire journal online for it since I find the subject matter pretty applicable to this forum. So far this is what I'm working with and what I'll discuss in this journal: I have a couple essays where I have to write about my perception of myself. The first is in the beginning of the semester and the last is at the end. I have some reading for this class so I'm probably going to write my reflections here about them I'm also going to be noting down any key insights or reactions I have during lecture My professor also recommended we start a habit of meditating and even decided to give us class time towards the middle of the semester to do so And I'm also supposed to be keeping a dream journal for talking about the subconscious mind in class discussions Lets see how this semester goes

Dream Journal Reflection Before creating my dream journal, I had some doubts. I thought I don't get dreams most of the time I go to sleep. But as soon as I set the intention, I did start seeing things, even though many of the events in my dreams are so incoherent that I can't really put it into words. Maybe its because I began noting it down as soon as I woke up? I know there is the notion that everyone dreams but most people forget within seconds of waking up. Maybe its the law of attraction at play because I actually tried to note down my dreams instead of forgetting about it like I normally do. This all reminds me of how my professor told our class "the subconscious mind is willing to tell you things if you bother to let it know that you're open to listening" when we were talking about the dream journals. I also noticed patterns in my dreams. A lot of the content has to do with things that I encountered in my daily life all mushed together in a setting that doesn't always make sense. And the things that my dreams choose are often (but not always) the least relevant part of my day. Yesterday I did watch a couple of pet videos on YouTube. I didn't watch it for long, maybe for max 5 minutes. I also mentioned my grandmother in a passing conversation and thought about her for a minute. I reminded my mom how we need to get a couple things from Walmart sometime in the last week. I read an article a couple weeks ago of how there are kids who don't have access to internet so because of online schools, they are parked outside of places like Starbucks. As far as getting to class, I think that was to serve as a cue to wake up and go to class. I took this nap right before one of my classes. The same things can be applied to my other dreams as well though it's difficult to draw the same conclusions since both the dreams and the innocuous details of my day to day life aren't as fresh in my memory. If there is anything I learned is that the subconscious mind is taking everything in even if you don't recall what is happening. The memory filters through that information and has you remember what is most crucial for your survival and your ego. Those are the ones that remain conscious. As far as repetition goes, if we encounter things time and time again, such as reading a chapter in a textbook multiple times, the mind interprets this as important. The rest of the information, the stuff that the mind takes in but we don't consciously recall goes to the subconscious which then sometimes resurfaces in dreams. Because we don't know what the subconscious mind will and won't take in, it's important to maintain healthy surroundings that send constructive messages of peace and love to have pleasant dreams rather than something dysfunctional because those things can in turn scare the shit out of us in our sleep.

How everything is form of love whether it is coming from an expansive place like the self/ consciousness or from a crude place like the ego/ survival.

I just watched contrapoint's new video and I like how she talks about justice at red and why it emerges and how that turns into a blue form of justice. She also takes into consideration of green forms of justice such as rehabilitation and why a lot of people can be opposed to that because of society's development. I found it really insightful and I thought I'd share it. Not sure whether it should go here or on the higher consciousness resources section. Cant wait for part 2.

Dream Journal 9/8 I was playing with three 3-week-old puppies. They were fluffy, adorable, and with only the intention to play. One kept jumping on me, on cuddled next to me, and one was running circles around me. My grandmother was there and for some reason was terrified of them even though they were completely harmless. I woke up from this pleasant dream wanting to go back to sleep so I could go back to that place. I took a nap later today. During this time I had a dream where I was at the Walmart parking lot. I have a class that I need to go to and for some reason I need to go to the Starbucks for wifi. The parking lot was packed. I began backing up my car and I see a car directly behind me appear out of nowhere. I would have hit it but for some reason that never happened. It physically didn't make sense. Then I went to the Starbucks. There was a lot of traffic and it took forever to get there. Normally it takes 10 minutes to get from the Walmart to the Starbucks but this trip took 40 minutes. I still made it in time so that was good. And then I woke up.

In my opinion, anyone leeching off of their partner or anyone who has their partner leeching off of them (regardless of gender) is not a good look. It can breed codependency issues and can result in a power dynamic. Both parties are insecure af in my opinion. The lens at which it's judged and how people jumps to conclusions can differ with societal context, popular tropes in the media, and roles in society. Guy leeching off of his girlfriend: He clearly isn't independent and that can reflect on his lack of masculinity. She is being a pick me by tolerating this behavior instead finding a guy who can be independent. This connotation of lacking masculinity comes from the context of how the man is supposed to be seen as the sole bread winner in the house since the woman isn't supposed to be the one bringing in all of the money. So that results in notions of gender roles. Girl leeching off of her boyfriend: She isn't independent and can be painted as a gold digger. He is a doormat or a control freak that likes having financial control over a woman (or both). This connotation of power/financial control comes from the context of how historically women weren't allowed to work or heavily discriminated against when it came to high paying jobs so instead the goal became to marry a rich guy. So that results in a power dynamic. These common tropes do have a pattern which is women being on the losing end (though neither party is winning but that's another thing). In the first occasion, she is being leeched off of and in the second she is being controlled. At the same time the man is still in a more dominant position where in the first instance he taking from the woman while in the second he is controlling her. (I'm mainly talking about how these dynamics are painted not what they actually are. I hope this makes sense.) Both of the tropes above and how they are presented can be problematic as all stereotypes can be because it isn't representative of all situations. There are some women who are control freaks and there are also men who are gold diggers. Personally, having an imbalance like that, regardless how you judge either party, to me seems like a recipe for disaster. It seems soooooo unhealthy for everyone involved.

Cook-Greuter 9 levels of ego development theory.pdf

9 Stages of Ego Development: Reflections I watched and re-watched Leo's video on the 9 stages of ego development a couple times now. I also read most of the paper that the video was based off of. I saw various things resonating with me across all 9 stages. Because of that I was a little confused as to where I fell in the stages as far as my personal ego goes. It was especially confusing because I saw myself moving to and from different stages as I grew up from when I was a child. I began mixing up where I was now and where I was then. So I looked through the paper, and highlighted everything that I resonate with at this moment in time to differentiate between where I am now and where I was when I was growing up so that I can have a clearer idea. After this I realized that I'm mainly the Pluralist and the Strategist with a little bit of the achiever mixed in there. But I did notice that I have various hang ups from the previous stages. Here are some quotes from the paper that I copied and pasted as well as how it applies to me: Opportunist/ Self-protective (2/3) "They focus on protecting themselves and not becoming a target of others’ aggression. It is ironic that individuals at this level are rarely seen. They are invisible because hiding is a common and sometimes temporarily successful way of dealing with their vulnerability to being bullied, abused and exploited (p.25)." I found this to be a better description for me personally because I didn't relate to the aggression typically associated with the opportunist. Leo talks about that side of 2/3 but doesn't touch on the self-protective side of it. I find myself relating to the self-protective side of 2/3 because of my anxiety issues and the issues I had with bullying and abuse growing up. Often times during my shadow work, I do access this lower state of consciousness and I wish that I could just disappear from society because of my vulnerability. Some times I wish to be invisible because I don't feel like I deserve to take up space. Conformist (3) "They become preoccupied with finding out the social conventions and rules based on the beginning need to fit in and to be liked. One wants to look “right,” and acceptable, therefore the emphasis is on external attractiveness and appearance (28)." I did go through a phase where I tried to be really keen on social etiquette mainly because I saw myself as this awkward dork who no one liked. I will say that a part of me is still in this phase since I tend to be judgmental over socially awkward people. I still feel that my social skills aren't up to par even thought that is rarely a sentiment that people who see me on the outside have. "Persons want to be “re-spected” which means, “seen” by others (28)." Even though I want to disappear, ultimately I want to be recognized. The notion that I want to disappear comes from being repeatedly ignored and disrespected by people causing me to cope in this way. It irks me when people straight up ignore me or when I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Ignoring me is probably the worst thing someone can do. It can send me into a self-loathing spiral. "To be liked one has to have an attractive social personality. It is important to be nice, pleasant, and accommodating. People are judged by the way they dress and talk and by the proper manners (32)." Goes back to what I said about the first bullet point in this section. Not integrating this stage can yield to feeling like a loner, feeling left out (this came from the leo's video series in part 1) Normally I feel comfortable alone but when I'm dong shadow work and when I'm cleaning up the cob webs of my mind, feelings of loneliness does come up. I really wish I could find my own people. Some times I do think that there is something wrong with me because I can't find my tribe. Expert (3/4) "Experts are concerned with fulfilling their adult responsibilities and duties and with doing things right. They are very adept at finding new and different solutions, better ideas, more perfect procedures, and greater efficiencies and doing things well. If managed skillfully, their positive contributions can be considerable." For me I think this has to do with the fact that I'm in college and in my 20s. I'm currently trying to figure out how to adult and get a career so that I can become financially free after school and so that I don't have to be dependent on my parents. Unlike the issues I have in the previous stages, I think this piece has more to do with the circumstances of my life rather than some type of trauma. Not knowing is seen as weak (video pt.1) Lately I have been experiencing some symptoms of impostor syndrome. I have been dealing with this in college but it has been more noticeable in the last couple weeks. I'm in a competitive environment at this moment and I feel like if I make one misstep, my teacher and my classmates are going to rip me to shreds. I'm currently working on and integrating these holes that I have in the earlier stages of ego development so that I can get to the point where I can transcend them. You have to have a healthy ego before you transcend the ego after all. I do however find it interesting that a lot of my shadow work and a lot of the things I'm working on in therapy already has to do with these things.

Adult Brain, Childhood Feelings I went to therapy last Thursday and I was discussing somethings I have been working on in regards to childhood. There was a memory that was brought up and I had a few tears rolling down my cheeks. After the session, I had a number of similar moments. I would remember something that happened to me in childhood and then shed a few tears. A lot of these events related to how I was bullied as a kid. I look back with my adult brain and coping mechanism and say *that is such a tiny problem, why is it bothering me?* My inner child on the other hand is reminded of the pain. It's difficult to explain so let me give an example. When I was 8 years old, the kids in my class didn't like me. Someone in my class made up this rumor that I was adopted. I look back now and I think *that literally makes no sense I look too much like my mom to be adopted.* But looking back I remember how much that hurt. I remember feeling so much pain when the kids in my school would taunt me and say things like "see you're so unwanted that your parents didn't even want you." I still carry this feeling of never being good enough and being inherently unlovable. I catch myself crying for a couple minutes not because it hurts right now (like if something like that happened to me at this age, I could easily brush it off) but because I can still emotionally connect back to my 8 year old self. I have numerous memories like this. Things that seem innocuous, silly, and not a big deal now but were extremely painful at the time when I experienced this as a child. Most of the time, I don't know what to tell my inner child. I want to say, "don't worry they were insecure" or "just ignore them." But I distinctly remember the adults around me telling me the exact same thing along with "oh they're just jealous." And I remember not feeling better. 8 year old me didn't know how insecurities could be projected out to hurt people. 8 year old me didn't know how jealousy could cause someone to be bitter towards another person. I also remember this one time where I tried to confront a bully about being jealous because that's what my mom kept telling me and that didn't work. Looking back I'm just like *ok even if that kid was acting out of insecurity, that kid doesn't know it because 8 year olds aren't nearly that self aware* I remember trying to ignore people who were hurting me. That didn't do anything except make me feel lonely and helpless. And then the adults told me to just "tell the teacher" and that just did nothing but make me look weak and made my peers hate me even more. I guess I would teach my inner child how to fight back and stand up for herself. But the problem is that as an adult, i still don't know how to do that. Whenever something comes up, I just ignore it and move on. I don't fight, I run away from people that are trying to hurt me. I'm still not good at asserting myself. I want to heal this child and make her feel better but i haven't learned any of the skills as an adult. I just want her to know that she is loved, she is wanted, and her words, thoughts, and feelings matter. And I want her to act and move through the world that way as well.

Dream Journal 9/6 I am entering this late because I wrote it down on my phone and forgot to immediately transfer it over to my computer. Also, I haven't been recording dreams in the last few days because my dreams lately have been so incoherent and so forgettable that I just didn't know what to write. I go to a large city all by myself. For some reason there is no traffic and all of the roads go up and down a bunch of hills. There is this Disney world that also has elements of Avatar the Last Airbender there (even thought that show is with Nickolodean). I then ran into a bunch of people i know. We hand around there and go to a few fun houses. Then we went to a museum not too far a way. Then night falls and we both decide to travel together to the country side. We began driving and eventually we take out our bikes. We then rode those bikes on the dirt road. Despite only about an hour passing since we started riding our bikes, the sun began to rise. The sky was painted with orange and shades of purple. And for some reason I saw four moons in the sky together. The two on the outside were full moons while the two on the inside were crescent moons. I stopped to admire how beautiful the sight was. There are also a bunch of strangers that were on the road riding along with me was well. One guy said that he is about to get married and has a 3 year old daughter. There was also a teenage girl with her boyfriend. We all discussed our lives and our stories together and gave each other advice.