Judy2

if you allow yourself to feel your emotions more consciously, they won't build up as much and won't overwhelm you in the moment. so the task is to register and deal with the subtle anxiety that starts building up before it completely overwhelms you. you can also start introspecting in a quiet moment what fear is and what it is that you are generally afraid of in life. and sometimes the best way to defeat fear is to run toward the monsters and give them a big hug. when i had a panic attack earlier this year and a psychologist talked to me, he had a very strict tone and wanted me to recite what exactly had happened in the moments leading up to the attack. i didn't find it helpful at the time, but maybe there is something to this strategy. other than that (shocker, i know): have you considered getting therapy/counselling? if it's not accessible to you, there are also many resources online to help you learn about your nervous system and how to calm it down. you can google the butterfly hug and other vagus nerve stimulation exercises. other things that might help are grounding yourself through hot and cold showers, running up and down the stairs, looking for 5 blue things in the room, then 4 orange ones, 3 red ones, 2 yellow ones, 1 black one (or any other colour and you could also include other senses, like saying 5 things you see, 4 that you hear, 3 that you feel, 2 that you smell, 1 that you taste). ground yourself through your senses (strong smells like coffee beans, vinegar; intense flavours like chilli, lemon, or sour candy; the visual exercise i described above; or physical stuff like running, squats, hot and cold showers, sucking on ice cubes or running ice cubes across your skin until they melt - the physical stuff probably works best for states of anxiety, the others might not work for you). i've also had a handful of panic attacks due to excessive caffeine consumption lol. in case this is you, you know what to change:) sorry for the advice:)

i've been observing my inner monologue and it sometimes seems as though it's more of a dialogue. like there's the inner voice just rambling thoughts all day long, and some kind of responder going "true", "yes we should do that", "are you sure?", "not really, right?", "but i also feel that....", but maybe this "responder" is also more emotional/me trying to sense any sort of reaction that my system may have to a given statement. or maybe it's just the (illusory) thinker/perceiver divide that i become aware of in these moments? is this just me sensing the individual "parts" that my self consists of, or how would you describe this phenomenon? idk what's the broader significance of this, it's just something i've been noticing. perhaps it speaks to how much i'm generally identified with this voice in my head. when i'm at the gym doing cardio, it's a unique situation because i can basically tell myself "look, i don't even have to do anything right now" because all i have to do is endure a bit of physical pain, but finally my inner voice isn't required to achieve anything in that moment (other than dealing with the boredom). it's kind of fascinating how much bs my thoughts keep rambling all day just because they don't have anything else to do lol. it's like all they can do is talk, and so they talk, and talk, and talk. when i'm still sleepy in the mornings, and my brain starts talking, sometimes i'm more likely to see how nonsensical all of it is, and how i'm just making random statements in my head. any thoughts on this? what is your inner monologue like if you have one? is it totally coherent or a bit scattered, like mine? i know that not all people have an inner monologue. some also aren't able to imagine visuals inside their head due to aphantasia. i have both the visuals and the monologue, with greater emphasis on the monologue/inner voice.

this may be true at the moment. it may even have been true for quite a while. but it's not a universal truth about you. was there ever a point in life when things did come easy to you? what did you enjoy doing as a kid?

@UnbornTao i remember that Nahm used to point out the two mes/yous a lot.

except for a few instances of feeling energised and many instances of feeling stressed, i've been feeling so bored these past few days. so bored. such a weird problem to have.

thank you, @SimpleGuy i've watched the episode, but i don't think Leo will be mad:) he'll probably think it's good that i came up with something on my own, rather than copying from his videos. the words chosen for the values list have to make sense to me personally, and i find truth almost too abstract, like i don't even know what's meant by that. besides, there's not much use in making it all look good on paper if it's not helping me navigate my lived experience, which is what ultimately matters. being a good person "on paper" and "in theory" doesn't really do much for anyone.

@SimpleGuy infj.

@Joshe the course makes the distinction between positive vs negative motivation, too.

the song is already 15 years old, but i've never watched the video before. really sad. sadder even to know that this is what everyday life looks like for so many women.

yeah it's been recommended to me before:) i started reading it and will finish it in a bit.

ok i'll try it out:)

sometimes it's so loud that i have to ask the people i'm with if i already said that thing out loud or only thought about saying it. but i realise that's not what you're asking:) i will try to feel more into it. also not what you're asking, but thoughts are fascinating because where do they even take place?

i had an lsd trip a few years ago where i was shocked for half an hour because i figured out i had never seen a single thing in my life, and i can't see. it felt like such a familiar insight, like i'd only forgotten about it some time ago, but i had known this before and it was just shocking to remember. really cool:)

yes. i forget about it often, but Life is much more real and immediate than the finite person that i think i am. like even (and only) now. i [perceive] my surroundings and the body and the thoughts....so if anything, i am (my) Life, rather than some conceptual person at the interface of some external separate world i'm "interacting" with. it should be obvious but we overlook this so often. Life is a much simpler, united notion, as opposed to the conceptual separate self that is interacting with a separate world, undergoing a constant process of perceiving, doing, interacting.

isn't it the case that schizophrenics outsource this voice in their head more and experience it as intrusive?

i think i don't really know what schizophrenia means.

it's funny because i feel a lot of boredom during cardio, and then the one thing i could do is make calculations with the time and speed and distance, but my math brain shuts down when i'm running.

put like that, it sounds scary.

@Joshe how else am i supposed to know then? it took me a really long time to start figuring this out and now it's all wrong...

yeah, people differ a lot in that regard...

i've asked about this at least three times before, but never managed to fully lay this out for myself and find a satisfying answer, so here we go again:) first of all, i wonder how many hours of rest and relaxation (aside from meal times and sleep) are normal/necessary. this is confusing to me because i'm a bit extreme in how i'm either all depressed, low-energy, and feel like i need way more rest than i actually do, or hyperactive and stressing out about getting things done, so i'm unable to realistically account for the relaxation hours of the day and how i should even fill them in a useful, functional way. this dichotomy also ties in with my difficulties of balancing boredom and stress. aside from that, i'm also curious about the quality of the relaxation people typically get. does watching tv truly recharge people? probably not, but what activity/hobby does, without draining someone even further after a long day? both the quality and quantity of conscious rest and relaxation are confusing to me because my parents have never modelled this well. for example, my mum works full time, but her way of relaxing after work is just napping or low-conscious stuff like watching tv. i wonder if there are things that truly feel relaxing and like they recharge you, without having you go unconscious and basically seeking to dissociate from all of life. i feel as though many people define relaxation and rest after work as a permission slip to "go unconscious" and basically enter a state of oblivion - zoning out, taking a break from existence itself - even though this isn't truly recharging. but then i haven't really figured out how to relax in a conscious way while feeling like it increases my energy again, instead of draining it further. it sounds exhausting to be alert and present with myself all day, but i also feel super bored when trying to "relax" by doing something stupid, unconscious and useless like watching tv....but if i do something useful, it might stress me out again and not be properly relaxing. part of this confusion perhaps also stems from my ambiguous attitude toward being alive and living in the first place, and i don't even know if it's normal to "stay conscious" during all my waking hours...and if there are reenergising ways to go about this. i mean, ideally this should be the best and only way to recharge, but i don't quite know what it would look like in practice. is rest just a matter of doing an activity that's different from whatever else you're doing all day? so, for example, if your job is very social, rest after work can look like self-care and me-time, or vice versa, and if you have a desk job, physical activity is what's needed to balance things out. is rest about balancing out the kinds of activities you do throughout the day, or is there more to it? sorry if this is just a completely unnecessary rumination that would be answered more easily by simply living life and finding out what works for me. still, i would find it valuable to have some people who already set this up in their lives in a satisfactory way describe their reasoning for how much time they spend on rest and relaxation, what they do to recharge and how it's different from (or also similar to) their "productive" hours. thanks♡ and sorry if this is a stupid question.

yeah: ) but ideally, i'd want to feel obligated to stick to some person's yoga and meditation schedule they set up for me, and be in an environment with little distractions.

@Bjorn K Holmstrom i'd love to go on a yoga retreat next year, but they're all so expensive. do you know one in Europe that you would recommend?

okay, thank you:)

i might be wrong but i think many sleeping medications have antipsychotic effects. to quiet the mind. *not that many, but it's a thing.