My Take on Honesty

Posted on November 15, 2023 by admin

I’ve thought a lot about honesty over the past few years. Since there’s been a lot of time for my thoughts around it to settle, I’m ready to talk about it in this post. Here’s my take on honesty.

Before I go further, I’ll say what I mean by “honesty” as it seems to mean different things to different people. I consider honesty to be saying what you consider to be true. As for truth, I consider that to be that which is in alignment with reality. That means that honesty and telling the truth are two different things. Nobody knows the entire truth, so even if you believe everything you say, you might still say something mistaken and thus fail to tell the truth. I wouldn’t consider that lying, however, as I consider lying to be saying something you believe to be false as if you believe it were true.

Contrary to what some maintain, I reject the notion that avoiding saying what’s on my mind is lying. Similarly, I reject the notion that “honesty” requires saying everything one thinks. If I were to do that, nobody would tell me anything in confidence as I would share everyone’s secrets. Nor would I be able to protect someone in a dangerous situation by withholding information (such as refusing to tell an abusive person where their spouse is hiding). Also, in many cases, I would never stop talking as I often have many things going through my head in any given moment. Most of what I’d say wouldn’t make sense to anyone else as what goes through my head is a lot of random stuff that somehow makes sense to me; I usually have to pause, gather myself, and figure out how to phrase things in an effective way before speaking if I want anyone else to understand me.

All of the mindfulness practice I’ve done has shown me how insane the mind can be and helped me take it less seriously. Since most of what goes on in my mind is unreliable, I keep it to myself more often than not. Saying everything I think would be placing way too much importance on things that aren’t worth thinking, let alone saying. This gets even worse if it’s done during a hostile exchange. When emotions run wild, the first thing that pops into one’s head is often inaccurate and hostile. At least some of the time, that also results in the person saying things that they don’t really mean. That sort of approach in the heat of the moment weakens and, eventually, destroys relationships by turning conversations into fights and further escalating fights into wars. In contrast, an approach based in emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and effective communication can deescalate fights into conversations and strengthen relationships. I do my best to choose the second approach, although I’m not always successful.

Speaking honestly doesn’t have to be brutal, despite what some think. I suspect that those who say every cruel thing they think are just using “honesty” as an excuse to verbally abuse and take out their pain on others. Those I know who have acted this way have also been hypocrites in that they feel entitled to verbally abuse everyone else as much as they want but they can’t handle even a small amount of criticism, even when it’s phrased as politely and gently as possible. There’s no reciprocity in conversation with them; they can bulldoze everyone else but everyone else has to walk on eggshells around them. If they truly valued the type of “honesty” that they so freely give to everyone else, then they’d gladly accept it in return. The fact that they don’t is one reason that these kinds of humans don’t stay in my life very long.

Not everything requires a response. The further I go with my mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices, the less inclined I am to respond compulsively. If what I’m thinking is correct, beneficial, kind, funny, or otherwise valuable, then I’ll probably say it. If it is none of the aforementioned things, there’s no need to say it as doing so would likely make the situation worse. I’m not going to bully someone, particularly not someone I love, by intentionally speaking cruelly and then saying “I’m just being honest” after deliberately hurting them, especially since so many struggle with mental health issues. Honest speech can, and should, come part and parcel with compassion, consideration, and love.

I dislike any approach to communication that puts significantly more emphasis on speaking than listening. Among other issues, that can result in interrupting others, little to no appreciation of quiet moments without words, reacting instantly instead of pausing before responding mindfully, prioritizing thoughts over feelings (even though thoughts are often inaccurate, especially when emotions are running rampant), and reacting to negative assumptions based on the first few words instead of taking the time to listen to the whole explanation before asking clarifying questions. All that serves to do is make good situations bad and make bad situations worse. I’ve seen it firsthand more than enough times to know that for certain.

There is certainly value to honesty. Admitting I don’t know or understand something is a quick way to learn more. Likewise, if I didn’t hear what someone said, saying so gives them a chance to repeat it until I do. Saying how I’m feeling also lets others know if I want help, space, interaction, etc. I’d much rather say “I’m going home” when I’m ready to leave than stick around for a long time in a conversation that I didn’t want to be part of in the first place. The longer I stay somewhere I don’t want to be, the worse I feel, and the less effectively I can interact with anyone. Plus, all good relationships require trust, and lying is one of the fastest ways to destroy trust.

If someone is pressing me for information that I either don’t have or don’t want to share, I appreciate being able to say, “I don’t know,” “No,” or simply decline to answer. When someone once kept repeatedly insisting I tell her something I didn’t want to share, even after I repeatedly said “No,” I was able to maintain the boundary I set instead of giving in and talking about something I wanted to keep to myself. Being able to decide what I do and don’t say (along with what questions I do and don’t answer) is extra nice after an upbringing that largely consisted of others forcing me to speak when I wanted to stay quiet or making me say certain things even when I didn’t believe them.

Genuine behavior is more important than saying everything that pops into one’s head. That genuineness extends to how we relate to ourselves as well. Lots of folks ignore their emotions and try to hide certain things from themselves. No wonder there’s so much anxiety, rage, depression, and other issues. Being true to yourself with yourself is the path to peace. While humans often disappear behind one or more false selves, whether alone or around others, animals are masters of being their true selves. My dog Sawyer was always genuine, whether he felt content, upset, or anything else. He was never cruel with it and was always quick to show me love in a variety of ways. I wish everyone in my life followed his lead. My closest friends do their level best, thank goodness.

Widespread tendencies to go overboard with “honesty” seem to be an overcorrection in response to many years of expectations to keep quiet about emotions, concerns, and things one wishes to see change. It’s incredibly difficult to find the sweet spot after growing up with little to no emotional intelligence, mindfulness, or effective communication. Those who had a healthy upbringing are fortunate and can often help the many who didn’t, including me. That creates the possibility of finding the higher, middle way between saying too little and saying too much. I hope that third way will be found in the near future and become standard.

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Boundary Hacks

Posted on November 8, 2023 by admin

Boundaries seem to be more important than ever. As difficult as they can be, there are hacks out there for using them effectively. Robert Cialdini includes a lot of tools to protect against unwanted influence in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. There are many posts on social media that include boundary statements (although some of them confuse boundaries with punishments). Upping my boundaries game has been crucial since my dog Sawyer died, particularly with those who’ve attempted to pressure me into adopting another animal or doing other things before I’m ready. Here are some things I’ve found helpful for setting and maintaining proper boundaries.

  1. Give yourself permission to act. At some point, I realized that much of my interactions with others involved seeking their permission, either directly or indirectly, to change the subject, get more room to talk, or end the conversation. That was followed up with the realization that I don’t need that permission from anyone other than myself. While I’m still working on this, I’ve already gotten better at limiting what I’m willing to discuss, with whom, and for how long. I’ve also gotten better at leaving an event when I’m ready to leave. It’s been so freeing to give myself permission to do all of this instead of hoping to get it from someone else.
  2. Minimize the interaction. Countless times, I made the mistake of continuing to interact with someone after it became clear that they had no interest in what I wanted. Since I realized the futility of this, when I find myself in a similar situation, I say “No” or “No, thanks,” move on, don’t wait for a response, and ignore them if they keep persisting after all of that. They can’t push me around if I avoid interacting with them.
  3. Keep the response simple. If you say “No” to a pushy person, don’t give them a reason. They can easily use any reason you give them as a foothold to control you further. This can result in a lengthy exchange that tires you out and makes you more likely to go along with them just to end the exchange. The less you say, the better.
  4. Take the pressure off yourself. It’s much easier to act effectively from a place of peace than from a place of stress. Take some deep breaths, relax your muscles, and, if you can, sit or lie down. After you’ve relaxed some, use a short statement that relieves even more pressure (“I’ll decide later,” “I’d rather not talk about that,” “Can you ask me over messenger? I’m ready to go home, “Because”). More often than not, you don’t owe the other person anything in an interaction, including the interaction itself. That knowledge alone can take a huge amount of pressure off of your shoulders and give you the freedom to decide how you want to interact, if at all.
  5. Never give a reluctant “Yes.” A rule I’ve set for myself is to never begrudgingly agree to something, no matter how trivial. If I say “No,” I’m sticking to it, regardless of how much begging, persuading, manipulating, or anything else someone does in the hope of changing my mind. Agreeing to something after being pressured into it makes it easier for it to happen again and harder to prevent it. Sticking to that hard line makes it easier the next time.
  6. Move at your own pace. If you’re going to interact with someone, take your time, ask clarifying questions as needed, and only answer questions you want to answer. Don’t let anyone make you give an answer that they want to hear or make you answer at their pace. I often need to take a bit to think or make space within myself before I can answer involved questions or put my thoughts into words. Sometimes others will try to hurry me along. I’ve gotten much better over the past year or so at taking whatever time I need to come up with an effective answer. This occasionally involves saying “Hang on a minute” or something else that lets them know I need time to respond. If they keep pressuring me to respond immediately, I’ll usually either double down or end the interaction.
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How to Comfort Someone Effectively

Posted on November 1, 2023 by admin

There is a lot of pain in the world. Many humans and animals seek out comfort in other living creatures when they feel extremely upset. Animals are pretty good at comforting those in need, especially domestic animals. However, humans are hit or miss in this area. Let’s explore this.

Effectively comforting someone is about finding out what that person needs and meeting those needs as best as possible. This can be difficult since everyone is an individual and what works well for one may be awful for another. Fortunately, there are ways to figure out what works best for any given person. The best way to start is by asking what the other person wants and needs. This is such a simple thing yet hardly anybody seems to do it. Most folks I know will start by immediately giving advice, talking about their own problems, criticizing the person who feels upset, trying to get them to “look on the bright side,” etc. I understand this to a point as I often used to do similarly before I learned of a better approach. Since then, I strive to start out by asking questions before doing anything else. That lets me know right away what they want and lays the groundwork for a plan to help them get it (if I’m able to do so).

Some are excellent at knowing what they want and need and are able to make it clear from the start, in some cases even before any questions are asked. Others may know what they want but struggle to vocalize it, and still others may not even know. In the second and third cases, it may help by offering possibilities (ie “Do you want space, advice, someone to listen?”). It can also be helpful to eliminate options that the person definitely doesn’t want (advice, lots of physical activity, a hug, etc.). When the person feels sufficiently overwhelmed, however, they may not want to even begin figuring any of that out yet. They might ask for some alone time, someone to sit quietly with them, a listening ear, etc. Whether they volunteer this information or it comes as an answer to one or more questions, the answer they give is the proper step for that moment. A larger plan can be created later once the person is feeling much better.

I’d like to talk about a common approach that gets a lot of mixed responses. Suppose A is feeling upset and looks to B for comfort. B responds by saying “I can relate to you. I went through the same thing a few years ago.” I’ve seen that more times than I can count. Some find that they feel heard, seen, or understood by others bringing up similar experiences. Others feel ignored, upset, and left out when this happens. Since this post is all about comforting someone in whatever ways work for them, I think it’s best to ask someone whether or not they’d like this approach instead of automatically starting with it.

At this point, I only show someone who’s struggling that they’re not alone if they request it. This is mostly due to my dislike of others bringing up their experiences in response to my telling them I’m having a difficult time. On many occasions early in my life, sharing a negative experience resulted in someone responding with a lecture, yelling, shaming me, acting violently toward me, or turning the focus onto themselves; those old wounds are triggered every time I talk to someone about my pain and they bring up their own pain. Additionally, nobody else knows what it’s like to be me and I don’t know what it’s like to be anybody else. I have no concept of their pain and they have no concept of mine, so anyone who thinks they know how I feel is mistaken. Hearing about someone else’s pain when I already feel upset also tends to make me feel worse because then I feel bad about them feeling bad. That’s why I heal best when I’m alone and prefer someone talking about my issues instead of theirs whenever I do seek comfort from others.

There are ways to show understanding without putting the focus onto oneself. The best one I’ve found is through empathic listening, which is listening with the intent to understand what someone is saying. Once someone has explained their situation, empathic listening involves putting what they’ve said into one’s own words and repeating certain key phrases. If correct, the person knows they’ve been heard and understood; if incorrect, the person can clarify as needed until understanding has been reached. It’s also useful to use phrases that involve seeing and hearing what they are saying (“Sounds like you hated that outcome” and “It looks like you’re feeling better now.”). While this can be difficult to learn, it gets easier with practice, and it eventually becomes second nature. An excellent example of this occurs fairly early in the movie Inside Out. A real-world example comes from Marshall Rosenberg, who was a master of empathic listening.

It took me a long time to move away from putting the focus onto myself and into using methods that show others I’m listening while keeping the focus on them. It still sometimes takes a conscious effort to use what I’ve learned instead of what I grew up using. Nonviolent Communication, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Never Split the Difference, and Crucial Conversations all talk about the importance of listening, especially the first three. However, I found it difficult to use the tools those books gave me while my emotions were still running amok. That didn’t change until I released a ton of pain and gained a great deal of emotional intelligence after practicing the letting go technique I learned from the book Letting Go. That allowed me to pause, take a breath, and take a more effective approach. It then became much easier to truly listen, take the time to put together a proper response, and focus on making both myself and the other person better off through that interaction.

I often got quiet around my dog Sawyer whenever I felt upset. He knew when I needed some comfort and was excellent at giving me that quiet, gentle support. Additionally, he never turned the focus toward himself, felt angry with me for feeling upset, lectured me, abandoned me when I needed him, or anything else along those lines. He taught me a lot about being there for others in need, and I still use that stuff when I can. Those who’ve experienced it firsthand have seemed to appreciate it and find it useful to their healing. I truly hope that’s the case. I also hope that I get better at doing this and that it becomes the norm rather than exception wherever humans roam.

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Avoiding Drama

Posted on October 25, 2023 by admin

Life without drama is my ideal. By drama, I mean that which causes more trouble than enjoyment for me and those close to me. Even if zero drama isn’t attainable, I’d like to get as close to it as I can. Here are some things that have helped me on this quest.

Broadly speaking, there are two sources of drama in my life: me and everyone else. Although I can’t do much about the second source, I can do a lot about the first. One simple thing I’ve found quite useful is to avoid dramatic works. It’s so easy to get caught up in endless amounts of dramatic TV shows, movies, books, news broadcasts, etc. Engaging with those sustains the dramatic inner programs that were handed to me at a young age as well as makes me more inclined to seek out even more drama, whether it’s through media designed for that purpose or through my interactions with others.

Speaking of my interactions with others, there is a great deal I can do with regards to my own actions. I strive to avoid talking negatively about others behind their backs, spreading rumors, being relentlessly negative, taking out my pain on others, starting fights, escalating fights, making assumptions and running with them, making sarcastic or snarky comments, manipulating others, saying cruel things, and talking endlessly about issues instead of actually resolving them. More often than not, simply not doing any of that prevents any given situation from becoming worse. It also makes me feel better whenever I take the high road as opposed to following a negative desire.

Beyond avoiding all of the above, it’s also important to avoid those who do them. Even if you never do anything from the previous paragraph, spending time around those who do some or all of it will make your life worse. If you’re not careful, you might unintentionally adopt one or more of those behaviors. For example, after spending lots of time around some folks who spoke negatively about others behind their backs, I found myself doing the same. It took realizing this, getting away from those people, and losing the desire for that behavior in order to rid myself of it. Although it still comes up at times, it hardly ever happens anymore whereas it used to happen quite frequently.

It’s been especially important for me to get away from those who, rather than resolve issues between themselves and others, choose to keep them going endlessly by fighting. To quote Eckhart Tolle, “Egos are drawn to bigger egos.” This is most easily seen when two humans who love to fight interact with each other. Two individuals I used to know took this to the extreme. Not even the smallest, simplest issue could be talked through peacefully, especially with one individual in particular. Instead of taking a civil approach to a disagreement, she’d escalate the situation into a fight in which she’d ramble, rant, and curse at length (the longest I saw went on for over 40 minutes) while constantly interrupting and making negative assumptions about what the other person was saying instead of hearing them out. All the while complaining about being “burnt out,” which, if she actually was burnt out, she wouldn’t have been able to fight. My life is infinitely more peaceful without her and everyone else who uses their trauma as an endless excuse to hurt others instead of healing that deep-seated pain so that they no longer hurt themselves or anyone else.

Earlier in this post, I said there isn’t much that can be done about the second source of drama. One thing that can be done is to set boundaries against those whose primary purpose in life appears to be to create drama. That either prevents me from receiving their negativity or at least minimizes it. This is a much better option than attempting to persuade or even force them to change their behavior; doing that has almost never succeeded, but it has kept me on the receiving end of a lot of pain and negativity.

Fortunately, there are still some humans who lift up others with their words, help people where they can, don’t share someone’s private information without permission, make jokes at nobody’s expense, can civilly work through issues with those close to them, and, if they can’t make a situation better, they at least avoid making it worse. Those kinds of humans bring out the best in everyone around them and make the world better. They are wonderful alternatives to those who make the world worse.

As I’ve likely mentioned in multiple past posts, I have no patience at this point in my life for relentlessly negative humans. Losing my dog Sawyer made me immensely more vulnerable to pain and also removed the greatest source of unconditional love I’ve ever known. Without him, the slings and arrows of the negative folks hit harder and take longer to remove. Even with all of the healing work I’ve done, I still find myself more susceptible to that stuff than I’d like to be. As such, I avoid the dramatic folks as much as possible. I feel thankful to have as much leeway as I do in that regard. I hope that continuing my healing journey will allow me to fare better when I do cross paths with one or more extremely negative humans and am unable to leave them right away. At this rate, I believe that is exactly how it will go, and I look forward to it.

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Positive and Negative Humans

Posted on October 18, 2023 by admin

I’ve lost track of the number of humans I’ve met in my life. Considering how many different circles I’ve been in for school, work, volunteer, social, and hobby stuff, it’s probably in the thousands. As such, I’ve been around plenty of negative people and positive people alike. I’ve seen firsthand many times the impact each type has on a variety of situations.

Before going any further, I’ll clarify a few things. When I talk about negative people, I don’t mean those who feel bad at times. I’m talking about those who have made negativity a way of life and attempt to push their poor attitudes onto all of those around them. Similarly, I’m not talking about positive people as if they always feel good and never feel bad. I mean people who feel good more often than not and who do good wherever they go. With that in mind, on with the post.

Suppose you had to lift a heavy object. While you could manage it alone, it would take a long time and put you at risk of injury. Now suppose someone else helped you lift it. Together, you could get more done in less time and at much lower risk to both of you as well as the object. The more people there to help, the easier, safer, and faster the work would get done. This is what it’s like being surrounded by positive people.

In contrast, suppose the only people around were both unwilling to help you lift the heavy object and also attempted to talk you out of lifting it. Some of them may even try to physically prevent you from lifting it. The more people doing that, the lower the chances of anything good getting done. That’s how it is to have a lot of negative people around.

Negativity can dramatically increase as even one extremely negative person enters a situation and dramatically decreases once that person exits the situation. Having just a handful of those kinds of people around makes it much harder to feel good or accomplish anything worth doing. You might know someone who complains in almost every sentence. If so, then you’ve experienced how frustrating and draining it is to be around them. You might also know someone who says something uplifting on the regular, like Mister Rogers. The calming reassurance that flows from those kinds of people is so soothing and beneficial for productive activity. Whether things are going well or they’re going poorly in any given situation, having positive people around makes whatever is happening much easier to handle. Those people make bad situations bearable and good situations great.

Having a lot of positive people around you makes it easier to remove burdens and bear the burdens that can’t be removed (or that take a long time to remove). Think back to a situation you were in that seemed hopeless until someone noticed a solution that everyone else had missed and thereby resolved whatever problems were happening. That one person did what everyone else, both separately and together, failed to do. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone in a situation were committed to finding and implementing solutions.

My dog Sawyer was a huge source of positivity. Even a brief interaction with him would make me feel much better, especially if I was going through a hard time. His death was a huge blow in so many ways, especially from the standpoint of positivity. Since he died, I’ve made a point to distance myself from excessively negative humans. This was pretty easy since I had hardly anybody like that in my life toward the end of Sawyer’s life. Further, I haven’t let those who’ve told me that “the pain never goes away” adversely affect my healing journey. In fact, I’ve proven to myself that those words are false as the pain has almost entirely gone away thanks to all I’ve done over the last year and a half. This shows that, at least to some extent, I can refuse to accept negativity from those around me. While I haven’t mastered it, I’m getting better at it every year, along with reducing the negativity I put out. That feels good, and I hope it does good in the world.

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Why Change Is Hard

Posted on October 11, 2023 by admin

All societies change in some ways over time, although those changes are often gradual and can be in either a good or bad direction. It’s incredibly difficult to intentionally change anything about society in a healthy way. While there are many reasons for this, one that often gets overlooked is the fact that to change one thing requires also changing many other things.

As an example, consider what would happen if everyone consistently got enough quality sleep, which is something Matthew Walker strongly advocates in Why We Sleep. Some of the benefits would include fewer total deaths, fewer diseases, fewer car crashes, better outcomes in hospitals for both patients and staff, longer lifespans, greater quality of life, less stress, improved relationships, and better school performance. In addition to immediately solving many existing problems, there would also be a much greater likelihood of solving many other problems. With that in mind, why is sufficient quality sleep the exception rather than the norm? I think the main reason is because of all of the societal changes that it would take to make that happen.

Some of those changes include different start/pickup times for school; changes in the start/end times of work shifts, flexible working hours, no shifts longer than a certain length, and taking breaks early in the afternoon for a nap; no more late night parties, games, excursions, study sessions, or anything else; different types of lighting and use of lighting, especially for devices that emit blue light; decreased use of technology, especially devices with screens; better stress management; less use of alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs that interfere with sleep; no more daylight saving time; major changes in travel between different time zones; and altered expectations around when things will be finished, including construction projects, the arrival of delivered products, etc. Imagine how hard it would be to change any one of the above. Think about all the resistance, fighting, and transitional challenges that have appeared whenever there’s been an attempt to make even one minor change in society. Now imagine trying to change everything on the above list.

There is always resistance to change, particularly when a change comes by force. However, even changes that are voluntary and would make things better for everyone are still resisted due to the status quo bias. The status quo bias involves someone thinking that the way things are now is the way they should be or inevitably will be, and that makes them reluctant to even attempt major changes. There is also the fact that so much of societal activity is built on habits, and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg discusses how habits are essentially shortcuts that allow us to save brainpower for more strenuous tasks. Because of this, ingrained habits are incredibly difficult to change; the longer they’ve been ingrained, the more likely they are to be permanent. As hard as it is for an individual to change habits, it’s vastly harder for everyone in even a small society to change habits around anything, much less everything in life.

These are some causes of the difficulties in trying to make large-scale positive changes. At this point, I focus primarily on making things better in my own life and in the lives of those close to me. My focus for most of this year and last year has been healing from losing my dog Sawyer. That has gotten me to a place emotionally such that, regardless of how anyone else acts, I feel pretty good most of the time. Aside from making my own life better, the benefits of this can spread to those with whom I interact. Just as a bad mood is contagious, so is a good mood. If I’m feeling good and treating others well, that will positively affect them and everyone who crosses paths with them. Even if this produces no massive upheavals in society, it still makes the world a slightly better place. That’s all any one person can do: make the world slightly better or slightly worse. I’m trying to make it slightly better. How about you?

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My Take on Taking up Space

Posted on October 4, 2023 by admin

Sometimes I see or hear messages about “taking up space.” Although they’re occasionally in line with my approach to this, they’re usually vastly different. I’d like to explore some of my thoughts on this, including how it can be done well and how it can be done poorly.

To start, taking up space applies to one’s own space, not to someone else’s space. Aside from feeling upset when being on the receiving end of someone else taking up my space, I dislike seeing it happen to anyone else. Before giving examples of what I consider to be properly taking up one’s own space, I’ll give some examples of taking up someone else’s space. This can be done physically, such as getting much closer to someone than the person is comfortable with or violating their physical boundaries after they’ve been verbalized (such as hugging someone who has just said they don’t want to be hugged). Not everyone is ok with being physically touched, and even those who are comfortable with it tend to prefer giving permission for it and ending it when they are ready for it to be over.

Some examples of verbally taking up someone else’s space are interrupting others, not letting anyone else speak, repeatedly asking someone prying questions after they’ve said they don’t want to answer them, and trying to force a difficult conversation with someone after they’ve said they aren’t up to it at the moment and has asked to return to it later. Verbal space violations can be especially difficult to counter if one can’t get a word in edgewise to ask for more room to talk, change the subject, or safely express their feelings in a tense situation.

Similarly, properly taking up space can be done both physically and verbally. Examples of physically taking up space are staying where you are without moving if someone else is nearby and can easily get around you, moving away from someone who is making you feel uncomfortable and continues doing so even after you’ve asked them to stop, leaving an event when you are ready to leave without apologizing or needing permission to go, and moving out of someone’s way without apologizing if they request to get by. The last point is something I’ve gotten better at; I used to subconsciously believe that it was wrong to accidentally be in someone’s way, so I would take up as little room as possible and apologize when someone wanted to get by me, as if I was in the wrong for simply existing somewhere. I sometimes see folks apologize on occasion for this and I always hope they know that they’re doing nothing wrong by being where they are.

Verbal examples of taking up your own space include finishing what you’re saying even if others attempt to interrupt, using words to set and maintain boundaries, and letting someone know if they’re making you feel uncomfortable and asking them to stop. All of those are best done sooner rather than later. Although it can be tricky to find the courage to do them, the earlier they’re done, the better the chances they can be done effectively; waiting until one’s breaking point often results in yelling, fighting, hurt feelings, and strained relationships.

Examples of taking up space that could fall into either category or a different one altogether include not needing permission to exist, interacting with others in ways that are good for everyone involved, and doing what’s good for yourself without having to get someone else’s approval.

One reason it can be so difficult to find proper balance with all of this is because almost everyone seems to have been subjected to poor examples of boundaries during their formative years. Additionally, there is often punishment for kids who attempt to take up their own space or set boundaries with their parents, siblings, extended family members, teachers, classmates, and so on. Some folks who were punished early in life for taking up their own space may overcorrect later on by going beyond their own space to the point that they take up the space of others. On the other extreme, folks punished for taking up the space of others may think they can’t rightly take up even their own space. It can take years of healing and working at this to learn how to take up one’s own space while letting others do the same with their space.

My dog Sawyer helped me learn how to take up my own space while respecting the space of others. He gave me clear indications whenever he wanted to be by himself, sit or lie down with me, go outside, and so on. As our friendship grew, he also got good at knowing when I needed support and when to give me space. Although these signals could be given aggressively from both of us early on, they gradually became more subtle as we grew closer. Sawyer’s examples showed me how to set and maintain boundaries effectively without going overboard, and he did this better than most humans I’ve seen teaching these.

This can still be challenging at times. I’m grateful to have gotten as far as I have with it, and I’m glad that I generally make good use of the opportunities to practice boundaries and taking up space as they arise. It’s hard to tell how anyone else is doing. Taking up the space of others and not taking up one’s own space are both incredibly difficult to avoid after the difficult upbringings that so many have had. Generally, overcorrection seems more common, at least from what I’ve seen over the past few years. In time, I hope I and everyone else can fully settle into our own spaces with proper boundaries.

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Birthday Thoughts

Posted on September 27, 2023 by admin

I recently had another birthday. Up until 2022, my birthday was one of my favorite days of the year. I’d look forward to it for over a month, think about what presents I might get, and usually have some big celebration. All of that changed last year.

Losing my dog Sawyer in early 2022 made the rest of that year incredibly painful. My birthday was no exception. As painful as it was to have my first birthday without Sawyer since 2010, this birthday seemed like it would be more painful. Knowing that this would be my second birthday since Sawyer’s death, and that every remaining birthday would also be without him, hit hard. Sadness, frustration, and depression leading up to the big day were higher than they’d been in a long time. The depression got bad enough that I cried more in the days leading up to my birthday than I had since any birthday aside from the one in 2022.

Fortunately, to my surprise, the day itself turned out to be lovely. Despite a heavy downpour of rain and some lingering pain from missing Sawyer, I felt good for most of the day. I slept fairly well, had a decent start to the morning, and got a lot of nice things and hardly any bad things throughout the day. This year’s celebrations, if you can even call them that, were even smaller than last year’s. I went a few places with a few close friends in 2022. This time, I stayed home most of the day. My only treks outside the house involved a brief afternoon trip to the pet store (where I pet two hamsters and got to boop a ferret’s nose) and a nighttime neighborhood walk. Additionally, I had hardly any in-person interactions. I did talk via phone and video chat with four wonderful friends. Also, shortly before my birthday, I got to visit with a friend and her pup, both of whom had just moved back after being away for about a year. That was a wonderful gift.

Aside from the pet store visit and calls with friends, it turned out to be a pretty normal day for me. Doing everything at my own pace and mostly keeping to myself made for a chill, enjoyable experience. I might be feeling up to going bigger next year, but this year, keeping things small and simple were exactly what I wanted and needed. Feeling at ease for most of the day and going to bed feeling content reassured me that I had made the right call for how to spend this birthday.

I’ve heard several people say that their thirties were better than their twenties. All the struggles, emotional issues, self-image problems, and other unpleasantries went away and they were replaced with greater stability, peace, and satisfaction. I’m hoping that’ll be the case for me as well, given how insane the past ten years have been and how painful the past three years in a row were. It’s still early to make any bold predictions, but this new chapter of my life is off to a good start. Who knows? The remainder of this year could be my best year since 2019, and this new decade could be the best of my adult life. Here’s hoping.

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Introversion and Extroversion

Posted on September 20, 2023 by admin

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Which one am I? Let’s explore this.

First, some definitions. The two most common definitions I see for each word involve either shyness or how one feels after socializing. “Introvert” is usually defined either as being shy or feeling drained by social situations, and “extrovert” is usually defined either as being outgoing or feeling recharged by social situations. Although either definition can work here, I’m approaching this post from the definitions involving either feeling drained or recharged by socializing.

Although others have often characterized me as an introvert, I have several problems with that, aside from the attempt to put me into a box instead of getting to know me better. I often feel more energized after being around kind, easygoing humans; I almost always feel drained after being around cruel, stressed humans. Sometimes I feel better after talking with some of my best friends when I feel down, and other times I only feel better if I get time to myself. Does that sound like extroversion or introversion? It sounds like neither one to me. I think those terms are useless because, at some point, everyone has been in one the above four situations. Also, I bet that even the biggest self-described extroverts still need and appreciate alone time. If nothing else, they must appreciate getting away from humans who make their lives more difficult.

This whole approach seems to be an example of the false dichotomy fallacy, which occurs whenever a limited number of options are presented as they only possibilities when there are actually more options available. I think both extremes of introversion and extroversion are due to an overactive sympathetic nervous system brought on by trauma early in life (and sometimes even before birth due to inheriting trauma from one or both parents). If that’s correct, then healing that trauma will allow the parasympathetic nervous system to engage, which will drastically alter an individual’s sense of self and all of that person’s relationships.

If someone’s inner voice is especially prone to guilting and shaming them, then they may seek excessive interactions with others to drown out that voice. That could explain why, when there are external distractions to focus on for hours at a time, some people feel more energized around others; when they’re alone and constantly listening to that negative inner voice with few to no distractions, they’d feel drained. In fact, someone once told me this very thing about her experience.

Similarly, some people have a negative inner voice that becomes most active around others. If someone is quite good at ignoring that voice when alone but keeps being confronted by it when socializing, then it stands to reason that they would find social interactions draining and solitude refreshing. That is essentially my own experience.

There’s also the fear I’ve had from a young age of being brutally punished (particularly by being hit or yelled at, or both) if I do something someone else dislikes. This fear is especially present in new situations, around humans I haven’t yet met or gotten to know, and when I’m around anyone who seems to be feeling frustrated. When I’m alone, that fear is either nonexistent or at least minimized. I’m certain that that’s another huge part of why some social situations can drain me while time to myself recharges me.

Some folks have said that they’ve gotten more social over time, especially after healing from trauma. When all the pain that weighed them down for so long is gone, they are able to prevent or at least minimize feeling drained after interacting with others. Others say that they’ve gotten less social over time. This can sometimes result from trauma they’ve experienced, which puts them on edge constantly and makes them feel drained much more easily from social interactions.

This reminds me of one of the central points of The Celestine Prophecy: humans have forgotten how to fill themselves up, so they attempt to either take energy from others or prevent others from taking their energy. It’s interesting to see this play out in the real world. Humans will go to incredible lengths to either force others to interact with them or force them to stay away. I do this as well, although I haven’t always. I had much more courage overall as a kid than I do now. Sometimes I get a flash of that courage; in some cases, it’s more than a brief flash.

When I let go of a ton of fear in late 2021, I went for about a month without getting drained from any social interactions. There was little to no fear during that time, so I dropped my guard no matter who I was around or what I did. Keeping my guard up takes a lot of energy, and I’m convinced that feeling comfortable enough to drop my guard was why I felt much more energized during that time. In addition to having much less fear to suppress, I also didn’t feel worried about how any interactions went. It was pretty easy during that time to either shrug off interactions that were suboptimal or shift them toward a better direction. Also, it took no effort to say or do anything in those interactions. It was as if I instantly knew the best thing to do. I felt indestructible that whole time.

In contrast, my guard was up almost constantly last year due to insanely high levels of fear and pain after my dog Sawyer died. Sawyer did so much for my emotional and mental health. In addition to making it easier to go out into the world, he also made it easier to bounce back from interactions with cruel humans, unmet expectations, injuries, and other painful experiences. Now Sawyer is not here to start my day off well before I go out, and he’s also not here to make a bad day better (or a good day great). Without him, I felt much more afraid of running into negativity. Managing that fear takes a huge amount of energy and can make even brief interactions with others incredibly draining.

Now I’m somewhere in between those extremes of courage and fear. Occasionally I feel nearly as courageous as I did in September 2021, and other times I feel as afraid as I did for most of 2022. I feel best when I interact with animals. They give and take roughly equally, and they always put a smile on my face and make me feel better afterward than I did beforehand. With humans, I feel best around those who are the most like me. I’m likely to get along well with anyone who does lots of listening without much talking, enjoys silence, gives others room to share, and talks about things that whoever they’re talking to also wants to talk about. I rarely feel drained after interacting with those kinds of folks and sometimes I even feel better. On the flip side, I’ll most likely not get along with someone who monopolizes the conversation, talks over everyone, never lets more than a few seconds of silence go by before resuming speaking, and talks only about their own interests. I will feel drained if I spend more than a few minutes interacting with anyone who does that.

In addition to the above, I feel best in any given interaction when I operate as I like. That includes staying quiet when I have nothing to say, talking at my own pace, pausing to gather a response before responding to what someone else has said, and leaving situations when I’m ready to leave. I feel bad when I attempt to force myself to speak, match pace with someone who speaks more quickly than I do, react immediately after someone finishes talking, and stick around well past the time I want to go. Essentially, the more I act differently than how I truly am, the worse I feel. The more I act in alignment with my true self, the better I feel.

I much prefer this way of looking at complex human personalities and relationships to the simplistic approach of putting everyone into one of two categories. Even though some folks close to me have expressed similar sentiment in the past, I still see lots of humans trying to fit everyone into a box. I hope that a more nuanced look at this stuff will become commonplace over the course of my life. Only time will tell which way it’ll go.

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Life Buffet

Posted on September 13, 2023 by admin

I enjoy a good buffet on occasion. There’s something nice about being able to pick out the food I want, avoid what I don’t want, and choose the portion sizes that work well for me. That buffets are generally self-service and that there are ways to make the most of them are added bonuses. I often wish life were more like that. A life buffet, if you will.

The life buffet I have in mind would be similar to a regular buffet, except that instead of food, your life would be up for the taking. No matter how old you are or how much life you think you have left, imagine that your whole life is laid out in front of you. Everyone you’ve ever met, human or animal, living or dead, is there. Every experience you’ve ever had, every place you’ve ever been, and every version of yourself are all before you. You get to go through it all while deciding what you want to keep and what you want to avoid.

You could approach this in a variety of ways: as if you were designing a life after death that you’d want to live in forever, thinking about how a perfect year on Earth would look for you, designing something you could use to plan your retirement, etc. You might pick the times in life when you were healthiest, felt the most content, had all your loved ones (friends, family members, and animals) in good health and saw them regularly, were financially well off, etc. Similarly, you might avoid the times when you were the unhealthiest, felt the loneliest, were worst off financially, etc. Also, you could retain any lessons you learned during difficult seasons even if you chose to leave those seasons out of your life buffet.

For the general outline, I’d pick 2018, as that was the best year of my adult life. Almost everything in that year was wonderful or was moving in that direction. One of those wonderful things was getting to talk to one or two of my best friends on the phone almost every night. Another amazing feature of that year was how, despite being busy, I still had enough time and money to travel, go to weekend swing dance workshops, buy some nice things for myself and others, and have countless lovely day trips and micro adventures. Additionally, 2018 was the year my work capacity was its greatest: I lifted weights 3 times a week, danced 2-3 times a week, juggled often, and had a physical job that involved moving around heavy appliances. Above all else, my dog Sawyer was still living happily and healthily with me all throughout 2018. Even though I didn’t see him every day due to some traveling, we still spent all but a handful of days together that year.

Speaking of Sawyer, he would be back and better than ever. I’d give him the body he had when he was physically healthiest so that we could do all the fun activities again, like running around the backyard together, going on walks, playing for long periods of time, etc. However, since his health declined over the years as we grew closer together, I would give him the spirit he had when our friendship was strongest. That way he’d get the best of both worlds and we could live together in ways we never could before.

Physically, I’d want my body from when it was the strongest it’s been thus far, my hair from early high school, my beard from either 2019 or early 2022, and my eyesight from back when I was a little kid who didn’t yet need glasses. As for the inner stuff, I’d pick my current emotional intelligence and communication abilities, my indestructible sense of peace that lasted from late August through late September 2021, the memory and intelligence I had prior to a bad head injury in November 2021, and the positive sense of self I had before loads of trauma set in.

For family, I’d have my grandparents when they were all alive and well, and the close family members who’ve consistently treated me well throughout our relationships. As for friends, I’d pick the ones from each phase of my life for whom the relationships were at least good from beginning to end (or which continue to be good, for those friendships that are still going). I’ve had enough experience with abusive humans and have weeded enough of them out of my life over the past few years to know better than to bring any of them back just so they could spoil my life buffet. Only those who’ve been consistently kind to me make the cut.

There are plenty of details I’m omitting, and I might make some changes to the above if I could actually design my life in this way, but this is a good overview of how I’d approach my life buffet. The best times in my life have always been full of wonderful humans, animals, experiences, and things, in addition to having little to no negativity. That’s why I’d go for as much of the good and as little of the bad as possible. How about you? What would you include, and what would you exclude? More importantly, once you’ve got that figured out, how can you modify your current life to better match your ideal life?

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