Figuring out what I want to do with my life Part 1
The other day I decided to have a thought dump on things that are related to finding my purpose and figuring out what I want to do with my life and who I want to be. I went back and forth on whether or not I should put this in my journal because this felt weirdly personal (ok I know this is supposed to be personal but I'm just saying the hesitation is weird on my part considering the things I have shared on here). I'm probably going to journal for the next few days and then run through the life purpose course material again to see what else I can ask myself to figure my life out. 
Top Values:
Authenticity Awareness Justice/Truth Empathy Joy Peace Creativity Connecting with people Learning Freedom Purpose Statement: Understand and Improve the Human Condition
Flow Experiences
Journaling on a regular basis   Writing and researching a topic that I care about whether it is for school or for myself Having meaningful conversations with people Drawing* (I tried doing this again and I didn’t get into the flow state like I used to as a kid, but I guess doing something creative and detail oriented) Contemplating my life / analyzing myself / working on my life through self-development Things are important to me:
Travelling, experiencing different cultures and ways of life  Deepening relationships, spending time with others, eventually having a family Having creative expression that connects with others (mixing empathy and authenticity) Learning and getting genuinely educated (those moments when you learn something, and you see life in a different light and a lot of things starts making sense) Contribution to a social cause and helping people be more empowered Meditation, contemplation, downtime Authenticity/ humanness Causes I care about and things I find interesting:
Wealth inequality Access to health care Access to quality education Public Health Art, pop culture, and it’s impact on a collective Businesses and how they can organize themselves better to maximize their potential and treat their workers well at the same time and how those things are one and the same Proper workplace treatment: making sure people get paid a fair amount, there is no discrimination, working conditions are good, people feel a sense of fulfillment in work Psychology and mental health Intersectional feminism Money psychology Personal finance The social sciences: psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, political science Analysis and dense pieces of media Spirituality and self-development Things I like doing and why I like them:
Nerding out on whatever topic I’m currently exploring: My ADHD puts me in hyper focus when I find a topic I’m intrigued by and I get into a flow state easily Writing: I enjoy expressing myself and my thoughts (especially with an audience, real or perceived). It also helps me organize my thoughts, clear my head, and come up with insights. It’s the biggest contributor to my sense of self awareness and my ability to grow as a person. I also enjoy psychoanalyzing myself lol. Hanging out in coffeeshops, people watching, writing, reading, eating or drinking something: I like the atmosphere, the smell of coffee, how leisurely it can be or how it can encourage productivity. I don’t even care about the coffee to be honest. Whenever I’m there, I either feel peaceful or productive. I can either tap into the part of me that likes to meditate and introspect or the part of me that likes to get shit done. Going to arts and science museums: I like hanging out in these places because I can be lost in my thoughts, find random interesting things here and there that makes life more exciting, or just let myself be. I can be spacey and have this meditative sense of calm about me when I’m by myself and this is my favorite place to tap into that. Having good conversations with friends: I enjoy listening to other people’s life experience, empathizing with them, learning from them, having fun with them, getting new ideas from them etc. Trying to understand their perspectives and getting a taste of their humanity is something that resonates with me. Travelling or reading up on different cultures and their norms: I like looking at the world through different perspectives and seeing how those perspectives can be either similar or different from one another. I also like seeing all the ways you can do something, and the ways humanity got creative in their traditions or their survival. It brings out the creativity and the desire to explore in me. Creating made up scenarios in my head that I’m manifesting lol: I like how I can be imaginative and let my mind wander. I like seeing what it comes up with a lot of times. Sometimes this can be escapist or a way of coping with not having something in my life so I should be mindful of that. Skills and strengths in general:
Writing Dealing with people with empathy and patience Giving people advice Reading people and being a good judge of character Creativity and problem solving Sense of self awareness Critical thinking and just analyzing things in general Being by myself for long periods of time Drawing Having a good sense of judgment (well most of the time) Being organized (keeping my space clean) Being good with money (spending, budgeting etc.) Being dedicated to something that I care about or have a vision for Setting goals and resolutions for personal development Having an existential crisis Things that I have done that I’m proud of:
Committing myself to self-development at 16, working through the issues I had to deal with from my difficult family, dealing with the generational trauma I was born into, and figuring out my life in general. There are so many different facets to this because I had to work through A LOT of trauma, and I did most of this work independently. (*I’m still working through this but I’m proud of the consistency I have had in my journey and how far I’ve come. My purpose for the last few years is to develop myself and build a solid foundation for happiness. Dealing with my family has been one of the biggest issues I had to deal with in my life so far) Having the discipline to journal very regularly for the last year or so (and just building up that habit in general since I was 15 or so). This has been such a good habit that I implemented, and I love how it’s a great tool for my development as well as a creative outlet Things that I want to aspire towards:
Working on myself so that I can be the best that I can be and so that I can have a solid foundation for happiness, fulfillment, and emotional strength. I can handle anything that life throws at me. Living and working in New Zealand  Having enough money to never worry about that and have my needs covered. Being financially independent and carefree. Being self employed and/or be in a high-quality workplace where I’m learning new things and I’m in a healthy environment.  Having a free and flexible schedule to travel and spend time with people I care about A solid friend group and an amazing significant other that meets my standards and desires A family eventually. I want to be an amazing mother and raise the kid in the best way I can so that the kid has a good foundation for his/her life. I have so many ideas of how I want to be a conscious parent. Having a few books in my name

Emotionless = Cool 
I've been thinking as to why once I started displaying a more positive outlook on life that people started seeing me as less relatable and even annoying. I talked about this in a previous post. 
And I've been thinking about how people in their teens and early 20s have this implicit, and sometimes explicit idea that to be cool you need to be emotionless. Honestly I might be talking out of my ass on this one and I don't know if this is just me lol but I feel like I need organize my thoughts. 
I remember growing up hearing the people around me say things like "I only allow myself to be emotional for 5 minutes a day max and then I gotta be a bad bitch", "emotions are gross, don't fall in love, that shit is cringe", "everyone annoys me, I hate everyone", "ugghhh happy people". or simply this "I don't care, the world is shit, nothing matters, idgaf about anyone or anything" attitude. And like from the ages of 13-18 this shit just seemed normal and like common sense. But ever since I got therapy and got to a more bubbly, optimistic place in my life, I looked back at these sentiments and thought *damn, some of yall need therapy.* Even if for some people this isn't coming from an authentic place and people are just posing to be like this, why is this even considered quirky and cool?  I've also encountered people who almost brag about how emotionless they are and how they are borderline sociopathic (these people aren't actually sociopathic based on my encounters with them). Or I've heard people brag about how they haven't cried in years and how they barely feel anything anymore and honestly nowadays I'm just sitting here like *uhhhh.... maybe you should get that checked. That sounds like trauma.*
I think there are a lot of different things at play. I think a lot of older adults look at teenagers and young adults as these hyper emotional, hormonal nut cases and then some of those people want to push back with an attitude of apathy and emotionlessness masquerading as rationality. I think there is the whole thing with toxic masculinity for guys to push down their emotions to seem strong. And even though women are typically allowed to express emotions and be more vulnerable compared to men, there is still a sentiment that if a woman is being emotional whether she's angry, sad, or really really passionate about something that she is hormonal and proves that women are irrational and crazy and therefore can't be taken seriously. Then there is the desensitization from the 24 hour news cycle constantly feeding people with the awful things happening in the world. I know that whenever I see a mass shooting on the news, I haven't had a normal response to it since 2013. Part of me is like *it is what it is, just another day* because there is only so many times you get the same story until it becomes normalized even though it is far from normal.  
I know that I've mainly talked about expressing negative emotions in the previous paragraph, but when you have that emotionless, closed off attitude with your emotions, you can also throw out your positive emotions as well. It's like being phased by negativity and bothered by things in your life is written off as being a cry baby and that you need to suck it up and deal with it. As a result, rather than feelings of negativity getting normalized what gets normalized is this sense of apathy, which also pushes aside feelings of positivity. In addition to that, because numbness is pushed due to the normalization of negative events, happiness can start look like insanity. (Negative feelings aren't normalized but negative events are). Then you start getting the "eww happy people" or "uggh this person is doing too much, why are they so positive, calm tf down" sentiment. 
I remember encountering these sentiments as early as elementary school. I remember other children made fun of me for being happy and really nice to people. Then in middle school, and high school I got angsty and pseudo-emotionless but then I returned back to that bubby happy self I was as a kid in college. In college, I noticed that in my more liberal arts classes, this was seen as a good thing but in my business classes, while I wasn't getting picked on, I still encountered that same stank attitude I had to deal with in elementary school. Me being in the business school in a way made me feel like I was 8 again.  I did write about some of this in a previous post but here is a part that resonates with this post today: 
And that's the thing, why is caring about people seen as uncool and cringe and why is having a lot of topics you're excited about and having a lot of hobbies come off as "too intense" for people? This might be my high scores on agreeableness and my openness talking, but I simply don't understand that. To me those things are essential in living a full life where you're happy and fulfilled. Isn't that the goal? I don't want to be dead in the eyes all the time. I've been there and it isn't fun in the slightest.  I know my personal bias is involved, I'm just having a hard time stepping out of it. To me, that's unusual because I was on the other end of the spectrum not to long ago where I was like "eww happy people." I guess from what I remember is that there is an assumption that bubbly happy people are fake, shallow and lacking in depth, delusional, and detached from reality because they don't have the same perspective of doom, gloom, and apathy as you do. Goes back to the whole thing with negative events being normalized but not necessarily negative feelings.

A FEW MORE POSITIVE CORE BELIEFS: I have had some years of working with both the Sedona Method and The Work (Byron Katie) on and off over the last approximately 8 years, so I'm very familiar with both systems. The latter method being much more simple, but it doesn't dig in as deeply as one would like it in my experience. Noting again, when it comes to affirming positive values or core beliefs, it's important to focus on the core feelings and associations of these beliefs which is where most of the real power tends to come from, and less in the superficial overlay kind of way, like this is a thought/ concept about a feeling/ belief. No. In my experience, that doesn't do very much both in terms of tangible outcome and from observing the phenomenon carefully in direct consciousness process-wise. It's better to feel it viscerally in your gut or in your heart. For this reason, the emotional association and what is emotionally invoked by certain phrases is arguably more important than the phrases themselves. It's a very personal process.
I've worked on tons of different core beliefs like this with different phrases in relation to addressing specific issues, though I'm not sure if compiling a whole library of them would be useful to anyone.
-I am strong (note: depending on your base associations, you might have to do some disentangling here. Sometimes a term is so loaded with cultural and personal emotional associations that it can be better to find an alternate term that resonates more in the right way, for example, I am powerful works better for because I used to associate strength heavily with the ability to take shit and be long-suffering and I could not disentangle it emotionally from where I was, so I simply put it down. Do you really want more of the same here?
-I am free (free is a feeling first in this context and perhaps nothing else, and not a concept or in relation to social rhetoric (here in first world, European and Anglo cultures, the idea of "freedom" is probably one of the most notoriously loaded words ever. So it does have a strong emotional charge collectively (when you say the word freedom: does it invoke a strong response in you? If so, what and why?) If so, you have a sort of emotional-cultural entanglement which dictates your associations and what they mean, often at a semi-conscious level; as in, what you/feel is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As long as you feel a strong and clear association though, as in it means and feels what you think it means clearly (so you are not emotionally dissociated); it should work at least with getting starting with the process of unraveling.)
-I can handle reality effortlessly in all its forms. (This also works pretty well and is less abstract and distant-feeling than "I am totally responsible for my reality", which tends to skew more towards the blame/ emotional burdening side which you making a new issue for yourself.)
-I am safe enough to be... >insert emotion or expressive issue<. (e.g. I am safe enough to feel angry, hurt, afraid; in the case where you cannot express an emotion fully or allow it to flow. This is usually manifested as stifled self-expression veering on the side of unconsciousness or it may not show up in direct consciousness at all. I have some experience with reading and making emotions/ thoughts that do not come into direct consciousness, perhaps I can do something with this a bit later. I went through a period some years ago where it was important to me to say this because I grew up in a very inhospitable, suppressive, and rather authoritarian emotional environment. So there were a whole host of emotions I did to feel safe or appropriate to express.)
-I AM PURE (I would recommend this as an alternative to “I am innocent/ blameless” overall because innocence/ blame tends to be in reaction to something, and so, on a level of behavioural programming that is usually subconscious, you will need something to be blameless against, which then may either create certain situations that inconveniently and sometimes aggressively manifest in your reality for you to react against. Even if you push back in your own reality either against circumstances or your own reactions, think of reality as being preframed for you from the outset (this is the premise of changing reality through preconscious programming). “Pure” suggests that there was never any emotional issue in the first place. THAT is what you want to aim for.)
-”I create the best of all possible worlds” (as opposed to the well-known phrase coined by the philosopher/ mathematician Leibniz, “this is the best of all possible worlds”. This is a good one for hypnosis too as you frame yourself as coming from the position of intrinsic power even if your reality does not reflect that in feedback always. Which is probably won't. Every incarnate being must first reconcile with reality to accomplish anything, and who gets their way all the time anyway?)
 
UNIVERSAL JUDGEMENT: Here's an exercise: take every judgment and projection you make towards someone and project it back towards yourself. This is one of the most important aspects of Byron Katie's “The Work” which is called “the turnarounds”. The elements that precede it involve consciously identify circumstances and emotions essentially in order to imbed yourself in the process of identifying with them fully before you dispel them (or, making the unconscious and semiconscious conscious by digging it up).
The thing is that even if what you are projecting towards others isn't actually a direct reflection of your own self-image, it still works.
So what this helps you do is to develop a more flexible sense of judgment. You could call this something like “discernment”, but I myself don't think the term judgment has to be used in such a negative way, as this itself tends to become “judgment against judgment” which does not free you from the grips of it; it's an attitude and emotional approach thing first.
So say you feel like someone doesn't respect your boundaries. When you have a little time and space, you can work on this.
 “You don't respect my boundaries”
1) I don't respect my boundaries.
2) I don't respect your boundaries.
3) You do respect my boundaries.
Then you do your best to think of three reasons why each statement might be true, coming from a perspective of emotional openendedness. (Like if you're not willing to play along, of course it's not going to work so well.)  Sometimes you won't think of three examples or what you think of will really be a stretch, but the point is to stretch your perspective and to make it more expansive and accommodating while letting go of your fixation on one particular perspective/ judgment. Because let's be honest, the reason why you do this type of work in the first place is because leaving it there and watching the same patterns play out over and over doesn't feel good, and holding a grudge doesn't feel good either. It works very well for this specific thing which is reactive judgment (that is often defensive in nature) against others. Though in my experience, if you are mega hurt to the point of severe dissociation or severe heartbreak, this doesn't quite work so well. Just make yourself feel better in a more direct way because this probably won't do that for you. Often you can't let go of a major hurt because the shock hasn't worn off, and so you can't even face it fully anyway in any kind of legible conceptual way. It's just not happening like that, unfortunately.
THE REFERENCE: https://thework.com/2012/11/sharing-your-turnarounds/  (You can read about the whole process here, and also download all of the materials for free.)

GASLIGHTING: A LIST OF CORE BELIEFS: I wrote this list up quickly because it seems like a number of people have an issue (often reoccurring) with this experience of gaslighting. Now I myself did not grow up in a hospitable environment emotionally, at all; but from my understanding of how it works just generally and from different angles, there is no way to deal with the issue of having the experience of people perpetually fragment your perception of reality without building yourself up and repairing your relationship with yourself. So don't think of it as boundary building ultimately, although it will help with that, as putting up boundaries is usually thought of in a reactive sense. You want to do this preemptively. Grab a journal and script these out, or say it aloud everyday until you actually start believing it and it becomes engrained into your reality through repetition, or practice self-hypnosis if you are able to. Don't just bring up these points in normal consciousness as a reaction to some perceived threat (whether, past, future, real or projected), but it's something that you should invoke strongly in an emotional way in your core. Just because. There is a sense of core power that perhaps we could all benefit from building up. (WHY you do things matters, truly.) That you do it everyday is very important; you don't become negatively conditioned overnight, so changing, while it may actually be much quicker than it took to learn negative habits; it still takes time and energy.
Also: you can have a decent or pretty good relationship with truth, clarity, etc., and maybe you could still use affirmation. You know? (Particularly if your psychoemotional functioning isn't really naturally building you up more.)
 
-I see clearly. I see and feel the truth clearly. I see the whole picture.
-I distinguish between truth and nontruth effortlessly. (It's important to feel this and that it matters in good spirit, so genuinely.)
-I sense people's true intentions effortlessly.
-I can protect myself. (In relation to this: I am worth protecting.)
-I have a fundamental sense of power and significance. I matter.
-I know who I am and what matters to me.
-I can be seen, heard, felt, understood properly. (we mostly all have this and THIS is why we get into pointless arguments a lot of the time, when emotions get involved. Affirm this preemptively.)
-I have the space to be seen/ felt/ supported in my negativity. (Alternatively: I have the space/ right to feel negative emotions. (If this is an issue.)) (If you feel generous: others also have the space to be at the same time that I do. This is a good example of developing an interdependence rather than an "independent (or exclusionary) mindset.)
-I am sane, stable, grounded. I am open and receptive. (And neither of these traits are in contradiction with each other. A really important point is to not define positive qualities against each other.)
-I can trust myself fundamentally. I am worthy/ deserving of being trusted. (Two sides of the same coin.)
-I matter. My perspective matters. My feelings matter. (In my own experience, for when I don't feel anything; sometimes I get a bit aggressive and have written things like I FUCKING MATTER over and over again. The point is to FEEL something and to identify with it where you previously don't at all. That's where mostly all the power comes from. If it feels like empty words, how effective is it in comparison, even if it does have some power especially by the habit of repeating the thought over and over again?)
-I can handle doubt, fear, anxiety, etc. I can handle contradiction, disagreement, social friction, conflict, etc. (Pick whatever feels most relevant to you emotionally/ intuitively.)
-I don't need people to approve or agree with me to matter. (I don't need people to approve/ agree with me to see the truth.)
-I am totally responsible for myself, my reality, my feelings, perception, and also the results of these. (Skip this one if it's too abstract, perhaps. But since “responsibility” is often tangled up with the notion of “blame”, see the one just underneath; it's quite important:)
-I don't blame myself for bad things that happen to me. (So a lot of negativity is caused in direct reaction to this often at an unconscious level, as in, you lash out at someone who you feel is blaming you (they may or may not, but the point is repairing your relationship with yourself first because it's more important than whatever else anyone else is doing ultimately.) I deserve to be good, happy, to feel free, etc. I am not to blame for bad things that have happened in my life, my childhood, etc. (it's important to feel this on an emotional level especially if you DO tend to blame yourself a lot.)
-I repel people who do not have my best interests in mind or heart (if you are so inclined, but if you are open (as in, nonresistant) enough and your core beliefs and sense of self is strong enough, you will actually naturally repel this anyway. At least in theory; reality sometimes has some kinks to work out.)

 

https://www.objectivepersonality.com/ = their website
https://www.youtube.com/user/DaveSuperPowers = their YouTube channel
 
Basically, they're trying to really track personality types (based off Myers-Briggs with some additions) with the scientific method.  they've been doing it for 10 years and have typed up to 2500 people with their system with 90% accuracy (accuracy meaning that, out of the 512 subtypes they discovered below the Myers-Briggs 16, when they both type a person separately, they get the same type 90% of the time).  
You can get typed by them, but you have to subscribe to their website which is $20 a month for two months and start to learn their stuff more in-depth.
They're pretty funny as well. 
But ya, highly recommend if you find the whole personality typing community being a bit ungrounded and "woo".  

About Selfishness
Everyone is selfish in its own way, it means that: a homeless person is selfish, a rich entrepreneur is selfish, a climate activist is selfish, a scientist is selfish, a gardener is selfish, enlightened masters are selfish, Leo is selfish, I am selfish, you are selfish, etc.
They are different degrees to selfishness, the scale is from low conscious to high conscious:
Low conscious selfishness: the self as an individual human being, the most selfish individuals can become agressives High conscious selfishness: this is when someone realizes that he/she is the only thing that exists and perceive everything as himself/herself and therefore only care about himself/herself but in an universal way

Yale has a popular course on coursera called "the science of well-being" : https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being?action=enroll&authMode=signup&authType=facebook
wanted to know people's thoughts on it 

I just realized; conscious politics is also including the removal of collective karma.