Judy2

i have been experiencing some subtle anxiety all day, and whatever actions i took to sort things out weren't really enjoyable or relaxing either. i feel like i'm in some sort of full-body cramp, unable to let go or relax...anxious, worried, panicked about what i need to do to make things okay again. i was gonna say that i should do my daily hour of simply trusting now, leaning back, and so on. now, while writing this, i'm not sure if i can. even though worrying isn't exactly efficient, either. i hate worrying. it's ruining my entire life. there's always a new thing to worry about, too. it's not like it ever ends. so i might as well relax, or at least give myself some formal permission to do so. relax tonight, and take action again tomorrow....but never forget to relax inbetween, because that's at least half the work? but i'm still so resistant to it. i'm not sure if i can do this. balance sounds nice in theory but i just can't, i'm not safe.

today, i woke up in the early morning hours, and when i went back to sleep, i had a lucid dream. the dream started a bit uncomfortable at a hair salon with some hair stylist who was a bit weird...eventually, we walked down an elaborately decorated staircase, and as i felt the discomfort, i knew that it was my mind constructing it, nothing externally imposed upon me, and so i was able to change the impressions. it didn't last for long, and i didn't really do anything crazy after that. i think i dived into the solid floor (because that was suddenly made possible, to break free from the physical constraints i'd discovered to be imposed by my mind alone) and ended up in a new environment while maintaining a subtle awareness that it was all imaginary and less physical and rigid than originally assumed...but that's about it. anyway, it reminded me of a similar dynamic that tends to occur when i'm about to fall asleep and images start popping up in my head. sometimes these images are associated with discomfort, something not working out the way it should, like a bottle breaking on the concrete....and then i'm close to feeling despair about that, but remember that it's just a thought, nothing physical has taken place, and so if i want to i can simply let go of that thought and create a new one where everything is whole and harmonious again. what a lovely realisation, somehow:) maybe i should see this in the waking dream more often, too.

maybe you can generate some original thoughts on this issue.

Love (in the universal, spiritual sense, but in its implication to everyday life) Consciousness/Awareness/Presence: defined as "being more aware of the Dream", seeing the structure rather than getting absorbed in the content; pausing more often to take a step back and see the bigger picture again. Wisdom and Truth: balance and equilibrium, but also clarity of opinion and action. might also include understanding and curiosity, if these are not separate points. including truth and integrity here as well....not sure if this point is too crowded then, but if i list truth separately, it's a bit too abstract and i don't know what it means for me. i like truth better than honesty and loyalty because these two seem a bit rigid and ideological, whereas wisdom and truth maintain a certain cognitive flexibility and agency. Emotional awareness and regulation: joyful embodiment (rather than judgement and self-rejection) Loving connection and intimacy Trust: in myself, the universe, others; also defined as loving detachment; sense of groundedness; image of being leaned back, relaxed, non-anxious, and just trusting that things will go well. Respect, kindness, empathy Holistic health: energy, vitality, fitness Beauty: loving appreciation for a thing's existence; tapping into my potential to enhance my own beauty and the beauty of my environments. my notion of beauty includes harmony, aesthetics, order, and cohesion. and i'm applying this to all senses, not just visual beauty or physical appearance. i wish to recognise and create beauty in many other areas as well....music, nature,... Creativity: not sure about this one...still a bit ambiguous. i don't commonly think of myself as the most creative person, but i can see the value in being creative in unique ways. @Leo Gura i'd love to see your list, too, if you're willing to share it

Values List Reflection before sharing my values list, i'd like to share some thoughts on it because there are still some points i'm not entirely clear on. excellence: i do resonate with this to some extent, but given that i've suffered a lot from disabling perfectionism throughout my life, it breaks my heart a little bit to tend toward not choosing this? it's probably quite negatively motivated, as in "i need to prove that i am good enough" - so maybe this shouldn't be on my list for now. in general, i've noticed a tendency to select all the values that are the opposite of what my mental illnesses have made me embody throughout the years. ... trust, connection, balance. emotional regulation lol. way to go for someone with bpd. balance: i haven't decided yet if this should be a separate value or a part of "wisdom" - in my mind, wisdom balances notions of balance and equilibrium while also allowing me to demonstrate clarity of opinion and action where necessary. harmony: same question - is this its own thing or can i include it with something else...i mostly thought of it because of the value of beauty. harmony may or may not be a subcategory of beauty. motherhood keeps popping up, but i'm not sure if this counts as a value. ...it's probably more of a goal than a value, and it fuses the embodiment of several of my values (emotional regulation, wisdom, trust, loving connection, holistic health,...)? love: really a confusing value because it's an aspect of so many other values that resonate with me: gratitude, social/relational connection, kindness and respect... but i tend toward having love as its own value as a more spiritual principle, and then again as beauty, kindness and respect, loving connection? gratitude: again, should i list this explicitly/not? truth: i don't know if i value truth that much because it's a bit abstract, but it's better than saying honesty or loyalty because it accounts for the edge cases where honesty might be a rigid principle rather than a helpful tool. but not sure if i need this, if i also have wisdom on the list...which should include all that? consciousness: again, very abstract, i don't even know what's really meant by this...BUT it should definitely be on the list... i just need to define it a bit further. creativity: really not sure if this is "me". i don't typically think of myself as creative. i do think it would make me happy though, to pay a bit more attention to this and find my own ways of being creative. it can even be through cooking, baking, decorating, fashion, make-up, ...so i do enjoy being creative, it's just a matter of finding my own unique ways of going about it. still not sure if it makes my top ten though. so my current draft looks a bit like this, but i might need to make some changes: Love Consciousness/Awareness/Presence: defined as "being more aware of the Dream", seeing the structure more rather than getting absorbed in the content; pausing more often to take a step back and see the bigger picture again. Truth and Integrity: a bit like loyalty and honesty, but broader Wisdom: balance and equilibrium, but also clarity of opinion and action, might also include understanding and curiosity, if these are not separate points Emotional awareness and regulation: joyful embodiment Loving connection and intimacy Respect and kindness Trust: in myself, the universe, others; also defined as loving detachment; sense of groundedness Holistic health: energy, vitality, fitness Harmony Beauty: loving appreciation of a thing's existence; tapping into my potential to enhance my own beauty and the beauty of my environments Gratitude: maybe a part of some of the above; can't say yet. Creativity

not really feeling great today. still stressed out. i'm trying to tell myself that it'll pass. i'm hesitant to let myself take a break because i know that in the past, not feeling well has led to endless breaks. i don't trust myself to go about this in a balanced way...to have a day off and get back to work tomorrow. but i'm guessing this is what's needed. (btw, trust and balance are on my values list...so i'm guessing this is a sign...ah...)

@Entrepreneur thank you for taking the time to articulate this. it's quite reassuring. i think in general there are a few more nuances to this and it might be a mix of human/okay needs and my overreacting in one way or another. idk. it's always a mix.

Hey there:) A few weeks ago, a video about the heroine's journey was flushed into my YouTube feed. It referenced a quote by Joseph Campbell in its introduction: “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.” Personally, I feel as though "the woman is there - period." is a bit scarce. Not saying this to make any sort of feminist statement. I'm mostly just seeing this in the context of my own life experience, because every time I have been too self-absorbed in my "ornamental" function as a woman, my subjectivity wasn't really in sync. Nonetheless, I feel as though the quote touches on some of the questions I have been having about how to reconcile the intersection between femininity vs. masculinity and more general notions of adulting, self-development, and maturing in life. Coming at this from the other angle, a friend recently told me that finding a life purpose would resolve many of my emotional issues. It is true that I am complacent and irresolute in life. I don’t feel very “autonomous,” I don’t want to start a business, become an entrepreneur, be self-employed, or anything like that. I’m not a huge "gambler" in life. I don’t want my life to be a constant hustle. I value security and thrive in environments where external structure is provided and I am given clear instructions as to what I should do. For example, I was doing well when I was still in school, I loved doing homework and that kind of stuff. And as a young adult, the most challenging aspect has been knowing what i should even do with myself. I wonder if it is okay to double down on this personality trait, rather than telling myself to get rid of it. Is it possible to build a more functional, mature, "adult" lifestyle around this need for containment? Is it possible to somehow reconcile the need for security and "being told what to do" with not just blindly mimicking the sociocultural status quo and being a people pleaser? If so, how? Not sure if this fully articulates my confusion, and I'm aware that I'm probably not asking the right group of people about this issue here. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts anyway.

depends on how you go about it. unfortunately, i think many people start these careers with a good dose of idealism and it's the system (long hours, little time for individual patients, being required to prescribe meds to treat surface-level symptoms rather than curing underlying causes, and so on) that implicitly forces them to drop some of their good intentions. however, there are certainly those who manage to hold on to their idealism and treat patients well despite the flaws of the health-care system. are you working as a nurse or as a doctor? what more do you think you are capable of?

sometimes i feel really uncomfortable at my gym because whenever classes are being taught, the music is really loud and there's a very loud beep-tone every minute that causes major discomfort. aside from that, it's all good.

hm?

thank you, this is very helpful. i like the moment when i randomly try a guided meditation and my body starts breathing me more than i breathe it. happens very automatically, which is nice. my body knows how to do this, i just need to let it(?).

yes. i thought about it some more and whether i'm stressed or not isn't always a function of how much i'm doing. it's an attitude and has a lot to do with the stories i tell myself about all the things i am doing/am not doing/should be doing and whether i think they'll work out or not. it's also the anticipation of future conflict/discomfort.

i'm experiencing stress and anxiety around applications and all sorts of paperwork i need to get done.

noted:)

@Breathe thank you, i'll check it out:)

okay, so for you it's about balancing the kinds of activities you do to match your personal preference. thanks for sharing:)

when i was a kid, i was bored a lot. if anything, i was anxious to have more responsibilities and act more grown-up. when i look back, i think i had a hard time relaxing already. i remember having very deep contemplations on holiday about how to successfully relax while sunbathing. then i started daydreaming a lot but couldn't really keep my focus, so it was always a bit frustrating. (maybe this is ADD related? i don't have a formal diagnosis, but a therapist has voiced some suspicions.) while relaxing was hard, i certainly had things i was interested in and enjoyed doing. i had a few hobbies like riding horses and ballet (which i'd chosen on my own, they weren't imposed on me or anything), but started getting headaches and abandoned these hobbies. the headaches were real but i'm wondering if there was some psychosomatic influence.

okay i will, in a few days:) i still need to get clear on some of them before that.

okay that makes sense. i guess it's confusing for me because i can be too extreme in both directions. but really the quality of the relaxation/what i do to relax is the bigger issue. most of the time, it's either too boring or too stressful.

i feel stupid for needing to ask such basic questions.

this is a bit embarrassing and such a weird thing to ask. it's also so basic. at the same time, it's such a huge issue in my life? and i wish i could find ways to relax that are truly energising. apparently, i just don't have this skill yet, but it would make a huge difference if i could acquire it. to find purposeful, meaningful ways to relax. to wind down WHILE still doing something that feels precious and energising...(is that a contradiction? i'm not sure.) i feel so weird for needing to ask how this works in the first place. it seems like it should be so obvious, but maybe it's not.

Love is definitely on the list:) but it could actually be split even further, because there's love as in respect and kindness/ intimate connection ...

yes, the question was if it counts as a value. it's true that i still need to work on the precise definition, though. thank you.

the YouTube algorithm is really mean. for a few days now, it's been flushing all these clips from "me before you" my way. i think this is about the saddest movie ever. lately, i've had a lot of time to think about goodbyes, endings, and death. maybe i've grown at least a little bit wiser though, because my capacity to hold all these emotions within myself without tearing completely apart has increased a tiny bit. i've also found out that goodbyes get worse and only feel like they lack romance and splendour when you're trying to reenact all the past interactions that you feel are connected to wherever or whoever you're saying goodbye to. the past moments - the summer walks and the conversations - are past already, and there's no use cramping them all into the goodbye moments. memory itself is enough, and things are lighter if the goodbye is not too packed with heaviness. when the past is already the past anyway, but we can fleetingly look back and see it with a sense of sadness and loving appreciation. the past is the past already, it has been for years....so if anything, goodbyes are a lovely occasion to look back and see Love. ...and a bit of sadness and melancholy, still. which is sometimes tearing me apart, almost unbearably.... almost. which, i suppose, is exactly as it must be, to strike this chord of existential bitter-sweetness.