I don't know what I don't know

[tsuki]

28 minutes ago, jbram2002 said:

Sidenote: Weight loss update. About 6 lb in less than 2 wks. That's a lot better than the 1 lb/wk goal that the doctor gave me, so hopefully I'm doing something right.

Great job man! Keep that up.

[DrewNows]

I like the awareness and reflection I read here in your latest update, gonna comment more after my nap. 

(2nd time writing this ?) didn’t get  that nap but instead chose to go help out my uncle

enjoyed the contemplation on your weight loss endeavor and it reminded me of helping a friend train to be stronger/more fit for soccer

 Here’s questions you can ask yourself: what does the health of your body mean to you? Do you see fitness/hard work and healthy eating to be an act of self love? What does self love mean to you and how do you practice it? What are the benefits of creating a healthy body? 

The quantity and quality of the food you consume affects health more than the amount of fitness/hard work done ime 

awesome realization about questioning the purpose of the emotions that arise. Teal said when we get triggered to feel “upset” we can see it as “set up” by the universe to look into and learn why we have them 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by DrewNows

[jbram2002]

Hmm... @DrewNows let's see what I can come up with for answers to those...

1) What does the health of your body mean to you? The health of my body means longevity and potentially a little less chronic pain. It means I'm less likely to gain a serious health condition like diabetes or heart issues, etc, which are rampant in my family. It also means it's easier for me to spend time doing things my wife enjoys, like hiking, or I'll be more able to take the kids on vacations that require a lot of walking.

2) Do you see fitness/hard work and healthy eating to be an act of self love? No. I see fitness as painful, and healthy eating as denial of things I want. I should probably try to see it otherwise, but in all honesty, it's hard to force my mind into that paradigm. Aerobic exercise is painful during, and weight lifting is painful for a long time after doing the exercise. Healthy eating means I have to give up stuff that I want, and healthy food in general tastes a lot worse. However, I try not to focus on these negative aspects because in my experience, they haven't been helpful to focus on. They just act as distractions.

3) What does self love mean to you and how do you practice it? The most "self-care" I do is mental relaxing things like video games or creative efforts (writing). It's hard for me to call that self love, but it helps me unwind from the stresses of work. On the other hand, I guess I don't really have much of a definition of self love beyond self care. I have a hard time associating love with self still.

4) What are the benefits of creating a healthy body? I think I largely answered this in question 1, but there's also a lot of positive mental things that can come from it. Feeling more willing to love myself might be one of those things, but it's not really a specific goal of mine. 

In regards to the quantity/quality of food being more effective, my doctor told me about the same. I believe exercise plays a bit of a role though. I have a largely sedentary job, so any sort of exercise will boost my metabolism, hopefully. I've also been feeling a lot more exhausted mentally lately. I think it's partially because I'm dieting which means my body is eating up energy stores. Mandy says that dieting and exercise should make me feel more awake, but I've never felt that personally.

Side note, super hungry right now, but I'm avoiding snacks until supper. Which hopefully will be soon. 

[DrewNows]

A few thoughts: self love can be simply creating opportunities to do things that make you feel good (maybe they will increase your self esteem, like exercise tends to do, or maybe it makes you feel good doing things with or for your family)

recognize that everything you do is selfish, even those things you claim to do completely for others as you’ve self sacrificed, making their desire more important than your own. 

So there’s creating healthy habits.  Things like giving yourself time to process emotions/stress, being honest with yourself and your intentions, not self shaming or recognizing when you do, fully committing to what you plan to do, using simple breathing techniques (stomach breathing) and emotional processing to lower stress, will greatly reduce food cravings and raise mindfulness

btw these are all self love aspects im either doing, wanting to bring back or starting in my own life. I’m a stomach

ill add this: recognizing your forms of escape/coping mechanisms, simply to bring awareness into the activities like gaming and watching shows, it’s not about eliminating these activities but recognizing when they are being used to avoid facing your own inner demons. Maybe next time you’re watchin a show you will also be doing stomach breathing and noticing emotions/state of mind. I’ve been bringing new levels of awareness into all my activities (so even work) and it’s creating a beautiful experience always full of unsuspected insight and love 

Edit: if you enjoy podcast, “spirit purpose and energy” has some awesome content for getting in touch with you feminine side 

Edited June 1, 2019 by DrewNows

[jbram2002]

The good news is that I don't have any cravings that feel indomitable. They're just things in the back of my mind like "Man, I really wish I had another glass of milk" or so on. I try to give voice to them as well so I can recognize that they're cravings and not required for happiness, etc. As for being aware during activities, I tend to not really have negative outbursts of any sort, except when I know I've personally messed up. For example, was running FF14 today, and was in a voice call with three others in the group. I was the healer, and the tank dropped down to 58 HP (out of 6000) before I could land a heal. If you know much about the game, you know that's about an 1/8th second away from death. I simply calmly healed him up. The tank said if he were the healer, he would have been panicking and shouting, and he was surprised at how calm I was able to be. My response was basically, "Well, you didn't die, so everything's fine."

Contrast that with the last time I played Overwatch competitive... every death was my fault. I could always see just moments too late how I could have fixed it. Fists pounded on the desk, frustration with self, all those things. But I never got to a "tilted" state. My response was "I can do better." So next spawn, I simply tried harder, focusing on where I failed. 

It's a lot harder to focus on breathing and such when you need to do the mechanics of the game, though. I tend to play more than watch.

As for the last sentence, I think if anything, I have a harder time getting in touch with my masculine side than the feminine side. 

[DrewNows]

An interesting turn this discussion has taken

As long as cravings arise, they do serve a purpose as being a message to you. Your lack of self esteem is the issue right? Does playing the game give you self esteem? I mean you express no fear, no worry or stress. Seems this is an escape. Maybe you played games as a kid, do you think you expressed/would have expressed yourself differently as a kid experiencing the game more emotions, being loud and excited, sad, expressive etc? These emotions DO NOT necessarily have to impact your playing abilities, as you seem to well know! Attention on breath is simply how to create that space of awareness, during times of breaks in the game you can simply notice your style of breathing, is it coming from the chest or stomach. Chest breathing is more susceptible to feeling anxious and stressed. We always have the space of awareness available without having to actually focus on it, Outward focus causes us to lose the inward awareness

my challenge to you: Why don't you practice expressing your emotions purposefully/meaningfully during your gaming sessions, and i mean all your emotions, the happy, sad, angry, worry, pain etc BUT take the "backseat" in your awareness of all the thoughts/emotions/sensations during the entire experience. The point of this is to help you understand how you suppress emotions unknowingly and fear/avoid/shame yourself with the negative emotions, and also to realize you can feel both pain and suffering in a good way. 

edit: excited to hear how this little experiment may go for you, It really is a beautiful thing to experience yourself entirely 

Edited June 2, 2019 by DrewNows

[jbram2002]

On 6/1/2019 at 10:21 PM, DrewNows said:

Does playing the game give you self esteem?

I'm not sure. If I do a good job, I feel good about it. I like receiving commendations from other players. If I do a bad job, I feel bad about it. I'm simply not a super emotional person as far as expressing it. If I feel like I did really bad, I definitely get the emotional side of it, and there are times where I feel exhilarated over a positive outcome.

So in that sense, I definitely feel and express emotions, just not loudly or to the same degree as some people who are very emotional. The same person I was talking about plays D&D with me, and he complains constantly whenever he rolls poorly. I complain once in a while, but you can't really affect random numbers. If you could, the game would be less fun. I enjoy chatting with my friends while playing, usually meming or jokingly telling each other how trash we are. You know, standard friend stuff. But I'm also willing to tell someone when they did a good job, or to give suggestions if they ask for it. I'm also the first person to admit that I'm not great at the game myself.

On the flip side, I don't weigh my self-worth on how good I am at gaming (partially cause I'm not great at gaming, as I just play for fun in most games). It's fun to do well. It's less fun to struggle and flounder in a game.

On 6/1/2019 at 10:21 PM, DrewNows said:

during times of breaks in the game you can simply notice your style of breathing, is it coming from the chest or stomach.

I tried to focus on my breathing randomly throughout the day yesterday. Basically, whenever I thought about it, I would examine how I was breathing. I was taught how to breathe as a singer during high school, so I typically breathe through my stomach 90% of the time anyways. Oddly enough, I found when I breathe through the nose, I often tend to do chest breathing instead of stomach breathing if I don't focus on it. Might be because it's rare that you breathe through the nose while singing? 

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to put your challenge in action yet. I'm a little hesitant to do so in multiplayer content because focusing on not-the-game could make them have a less pleasant experience. I'll see about enacting it at some point doing more mindless things though.

[DrewNows]

2 hours ago, jbram2002 said:

I found when I breathe through the nose, I often tend to do chest breathing instead of stomach breathing if I don't focus on it. Might be because it's rare that you breathe through the nose while singing?

I would love to hear what you find out about this if you decide to research it. I played the saxophone as a kid, but i still mostly breath through my nose and only ever do stomach breathing unless i feel tense or anxious from something. 

2 hours ago, jbram2002 said:

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to put your challenge in action yet. I'm a little hesitant to do so in multiplayer content because focusing on not-the-game could make them have a less pleasant experience. I'll see about enacting it at some point doing more mindless things though.

I think i offered unhelpful advice with the challenge i suggested. You can simply bring observation (nonjudgmental or without analyzing) to your game play/interactions and see if you have any realizations or insight. Later reflect on what you noticed, maybe you can figure out some of your shadows

Why do you think you have such a strong need to please others? See if you can notice this quality and your role in your dynamics with friends while gaming. 

 

[jbram2002]

2 hours ago, DrewNows said:

Why do you think you have such a strong need to please others? See if you can notice this quality and your role in your dynamics with friends while gaming. 

I've already examined this in regards to gaming, I believe, although possibly not enough. I believe it's because in cooperative games, people who act like assholes are my least favorite people to play with. The games are simply more fun when people get along, and you're a lot more likely to win.

I've been told that I'm too nice in some regards though. There's one D&D game I've been in where I was pretty unhappy with the game for nearly a year. But I didn't want to drop the game because I've known these people for a lot longer than that and this was my only way of connecting with them. I finally decided to stick with the game, and now I feel like that decision is being greatly rewarded. The annoying things are being less of an issue, and I'm connecting with them more over a different game. For the first time in a while, I actually feel like I have friends again. 

I tend to play supportive characters in games as well. Healers and Tanks, usually. If my only focus is beating up the enemy, I'm just not having fun. There's a lot of other things that I can do in cooperative games like FF14 and Overwatch. I can control my team's positioning and greatly increase our chance of success as a tank, and I can keep my team alive and pushing forward as a healer. If I play a DPS, I typically go for a supportive style, such as Bard (FF14) or Soldier 76 (Overwatch, he has a heal). It's simply what I enjoy more. If I'm focused solely on DPS, I feel like I'm less helpful to the team as I'm not the best player for that slot, so I just feel like I'm dragging everything down and unable to perform to the standard I expect of myself.

Instead of looking at this as low self-esteem, I think this is more that I know my weaknesses in those games, and I don't really have the opportunities to improve them. In Overwatch, any sort of coordination basically requires voice, which I can't do during most of my free time. When I do get a chance to do that, everyone else tends to grab DPS first. In FF14, DPS queue times are extremely high, so it's simply faster/more efficient to play healer or tank.

[DrewNows]

@jbram2002 you guys should move to a big city. Maybe you need real friends. It is hard for me to understand this gamer jargon but none of it means anything. Are you happy being you? You need to focus on the aspects you wish to change, and start identifying the root. Honestly i am not sure what you wish to accomplish in being on here. I feel as if im in the same boat, but I know what i am and it goes beyond all my beliefs. I would really enjoy seeing you and mandy doing some shadow work together, even making a vid

All the best man 

 

[jbram2002]

Words of wisdom from my wife ten minutes ago: "I'm enlightened, you're not. Shut up."

[DrewNows]

5 minutes ago, jbram2002 said:

Words of wisdom from my wife ten minutes ago: "I'm enlightened, you're not. Shut up."

? I just realized today that I’ve been often stuck comfortably in my own shadow of self abandonment since “awakening”  

apologize for giving you crap and advice yesterday man, really just wanted to say that 

[jbram2002]

Mandy says I need to post this video that I made over 8 years ago about what it means to be a man.

 

Edited June 5, 2019 by jbram2002

[jbram2002]

@DrewNows Hey, no worries! I haven't really had much of a chance to sit down and digest what you wrote yet, although it's been on my mind most of the day. I always appreciate advice coming from a positive place, even if I don't always follow that advice. 

20 hours ago, DrewNows said:

Honestly i am not sure what you wish to accomplish in being on here.

I think once I figure this out, I may no longer need this place as much, if that makes sense?

Also, the "I'm enlightened" quote was definitely not directed at you. We both just thought it was funny after she said it.

Edited June 5, 2019 by jbram2002

[mandyjw]

I didn't even know that video existed until tonight when he mentioned it. I laughed so hard. 

[DrewNows]

Watched the video before I went off on a bicycle ride, suppose I wanted to let it marinate in my mind without giving it any attention.

Your shadow is may be “acting like a jerk” ?  some sort of aspect you didn’t approve of from one of your parents quite possibly. Ever watched Leo video how to stop caring what people think? 

To embrace your masculine and create healthy boundaries, being a jerk, showing agression is exactly the right thing to do 

Also the video is quite good for understanding you beyond your writing Jb.

I didn’t think the enlightened quote was directed at me at all don’t worry. We are all enlightened in my book, but we can still continue to increase this awareness as much as we’d like...to be conscious of Truth is simply that unchangeable thing people completely overlook and some are better at embodying it in their life

 

 

Edited June 5, 2019 by DrewNows

[DrewNows]

You guys may enjoy this if you haven’t seen it. I sure did 

 

[jbram2002]

I had an interesting dream this morning. I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but for some reason it's stuck with me when most of my dreams go away. The dream was set in a D&D setting, which probably is saying that I play it too much ... but I'll try to present it as I remember it and its original form. 

My party and I were stranded someplace. We were rescued by a group of natives, and they took us in, fed us, and taught us how to take care of ourselves in an unknown land. They had this special tool that they used in their food preparation. I can't remember all the details, but the land seemed aquatic in nature, and I believe this tool was used on shellfish.

Finally, we were able to leave, and I talked to the head of the tribe, an old kind lady. I asked her if I could have one of the tools, and she said yes but it cost 800 gold. I said I couldn't afford that , so she offered to sell me a broken one for 100 gold. I had a tinker's kit with me, so I knew I could affects the broken tool , so I accepted and handed her the 100 gold . She then handed me back 99 gold. When I asked why, she said your gold is like copper to us. For some reason then, I wrapped her in a big hug and began to cry. That's when I woke up.

I have some of my own interpretations on this, but I'm interested to hear what everyone else might think before I say them.

[tsuki]

17 minutes ago, jbram2002 said:

The dream was set in a D&D setting, which probably is saying that I play it too much

Your mind is just trying to speak the language you're familiar with. I'm saying this because you seem to have a lot of guilt associated with being a gamer and it's painful to watch you beating yourself over it. I'm willing to bet that it has been picked up in your childhood like it was in my case.

26 minutes ago, jbram2002 said:

I have some of my own interpretations on this, but I'm interested to hear what everyone else might think before I say them.

If you're shy - don't be. Only you can understand your dreams, they are a message for you.

[jbram2002]

51 minutes ago, tsuki said:

If you're shy - don't be. Only you can understand your dreams, they are a message for you.

It's more that I want to hear others' views on it unclouded by my interpretation. 

52 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I'm saying this because you seem to have a lot of guilt associated with being a gamer

I'm not sure if I have guilt about playing games... just about the amount of time it takes to do so. Mandy really doesn't like me taking time for gaming, although she's been gracious enough to let me continue my D&D games for several years. It's pretty hard to find time during the day for anything else, and when I try, I usually get yelled at. That particular statement that you're replying to was a bit more tongue-in-cheek than actual guilt though. 

Looking at my childhood with games, I'm not sure if I felt any guilt over the games I played. My parents were rather restrictive on both the types of games played (no Pokemon, no fighting games including Smash Bros, nothing rated M) and limited the time more than I liked, but they never shamed me for it. I never really felt shame for gaming until much later as people continue to say how gaming is for children (it's not) and that adults playing games is immature.