clyde

I feel hopeful and excited when I see extremely high levels of confidence in oneself and simultaneously, confidence in the potential for compassion and wisdom that every living being has.

Inspiration: I've started thinking of inspiration as a distraction. I get inspired when I'm high on caffeine; or when I am trying to focus on one thing for a long period of time, inspiration regarding something completely unrelated will show up and encourage me to abandon the object I'm trying to focus on. That's how inspiration shows up for me in smaller chunks of time, but I do feel elevated by demonstrations of capability beyond my current capacity. I've been inspired by demonstrations of techniques such as: non-violent communication as described by Marshall Rosenberg the cultivation of compassion and non-judgment that I've seen in Buddhist monastics I had an interesting session with my therapist which was derivative of Internal Family Systems; I found that experience inspiring. demonstrations of motivational interviewing the Asist model of suicide intervention has demonstrated well for me. All of these are contextual and I have been located in the contexts where they were applied in a way that gave me a sense that there was something of use that I could learn to be more capable in the ways I want to be capable.

I've come to similar conclusions. I have learned a lot about how to communicate effectively and empathically with folks and those skills do not translate well to text. And like Zeusthecat, I have a lot of gratitude for the conversations that were had here. I did learn a lot about my unacknowledged biases, but the tendencies of group-think, divisiveness, and consumer/fandom banter that is noise to me (because I don't really have much interest in pop-culture anymore) eventually changed where I wanted to spend my time. This is not specific to Idle Forums, but to all the online communities I chatted with for extended periods of time. In-person interactions are much more easy for me to access now due to a change in my geographic location, if I was still living in a rural place then I might still have the need to post.

I fell off before February ended, but this was a helpful exercise for me. I quickly remembered some of the things I prefer about this format. I've looked a little bit into possible other forums to join, but as I think about what I want, I'm thinking that a local weekly writing group may make more sense for me. I won't get written responses, but I think sharing medium-length essays and some discussion around them is what I really want. And in-person is so much more attractive to me than online. I currently have that option because I live in a city.

Today is the last day of my 10 day Happiness course. My review is that it focuses on accessibility. I think the low-hanging fruit matched with daily reminders approach is wise. While most computer games focus on spectacle and instant feedback, this one relies on the player to commit to being aware at least twice a day. While that doesn't seem like a big ask, it kinda is. And so the accessibility is a reasonable emphasis. They are going to send me a recap tomorrow and besides an invitation mid-session to join the larger organization that this is part of, I haven't seen references to anything outside of the 10 exercises at all. That is a different experience than I usually have reading non-fiction self-help type stuff. Often when I read I will end up spending a weekend researching something that was mentioned in passing. I'd recommend 10 Days of Happiness for its low-investment potential for significant impact. I think it would ve best to do it with a friend if possible.

When we are interacting with these large and complex systems that have such alienating influence on our lives, there is a need for play. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday than to see if you could win a local elected position.

You discovered a significant barrier of entry that changed the cost/benefit equation for running. It sounds like you have a good handle on what your capacity for time and effort is currently. Sounds really disappointing and frustrating to find all that out after deciding that there would be some benefit to being in that position. I'm wondering what your motivation for running is.

Today's tip was something along the lines of "If you are berating yourself, pretend that you are talking to a friend and treat yourself as one." I had a nice moment with this when my negative self-talk was "I'm procrastinating." My interpretation of the instructions led me to offer to myself some companionship in doing the task I was avoiding. Since am one person, I kinda assumed that I can't provide companionship to myself, BUT APPARENTLY I CAN in some instances anyway, like today. It totally worked. I was like "We are going to do the thing together." And it was actually better than doing it alone.

I remember someone on this forum asking at some point who our heroes are and that they were dismayed when multiple people were saying that they don't have any. I think this is an interesting topic (though I'm having trouble finding that discussion). I'm hesitant to have heroes because they may... is milk-shake duck still known? But at what cost! I want heroes now and I'll just not agree with everything they do or say. I'm clearly celebrating something they are doing rather than everything they do. And I'm going further and further into the idea that heros are not actually achieving what they are famous for, but they are convenient personifications of a bunch of effort from many coming together. So, for my first hero I'm going to shout out Baba Amte who helped start a leprosey colony that turned into a large commune that seems to focus on accessibility.

Yesterday I learned that just because someone breaks down and starts weeping when you ask how they are doing and if they want to talk about anything, that doesn't mean that you aren't providing comfort and support. It just means that some self-empathy might be helpful as I'm providing non-language empathy to another.

One thing I'm noticing is that I receieve my email which includes an assignment for the day, and my first reaction is something like "I don't need to do this because I already do this all the time." That attitude is kinda suspect though, so I ask myself "What could I do that would show that I am treating this day as if it is especially emphasizing the subject of the assignment." So for instance, the activitu for today is exercise. But I already planned to exercise at 4pm. So I took the assignment literally and came up with an exercise that I would like to do. An extra one. So I'm going to do some light calisthenics like bird-dogs and planks along with already planned strength-training today.

Delighted. I'm thinking of being delighted as a endearing and somewhat whimsical look at gratitudes for local, present connections with others. Like, I'm delighted that I had coffee (decaf) with two friends today and that we talked about our views on death.

Today I learned that a friend and mentor of mine sees self-care well-being body-embodiment type stuff as an act of resilient agency in the context of for-profit medicine and that he wants to learn more about health to be of more use as a radical. I found it inspiring in the particular ways it was presented today which is hard to explain clearly. I'm thinking of this in the context of Tai Chi and yoga at the community center.

I am grateful for y'all's interest.

I did the first activity this morning. It took about 2.5 minutes to watch the video and about 2 minutes to answer the questions. It is suggested to keep my eye out for things that I'm grateful today based on the exercise. I'm skeptical that I will remember to do that without explicit reminders.