#I’ve only RECENTLY figured out I have really bad imposter syndrome

[lottaham]

Tutorial on how to stop feeling like my personality is a false persona and that deep down I’m a terrible human being no glue or borax

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi, Raven! I just wanted to ask if it's very pressuring to be seen as like this type of fandom authority/big figure in the twst fandom? Which you're not, and I'm aware of it but I can't help but think and notice that a lot of people generally view you and your blog in that manner. I hope that hasn't soured your enjoyment in the fandom btw if it is the case, it can be daunting to be kind of upheld to a standard and responsibility you didn't ask for. But I hope you're still having fun and enjoying yourself because that's what fandom really is about at its core. Hope you have a good day!! 💖

Well 💦 it’s stressful, yes. but only when I’m made cognizant of that. Typically I don’t think of myself as being in that position, but I’m reminded of it when I receive the occasional ask that opens or closes their question/comment with really intense praise.

Thankfully, I have the luxury of being selective about which asks I reply to, but sometimes it can be as simple as skimming an ask that brings about a churning dread or cognitive dissonance in my stomach. I take a lot of time to formulate what I hope are thoughtful responses in part because I feel like I have some degree of responsibility for those who seem to place so much stock in what I say… It makes me anxious about all the potential ways it could go wrong. Unclear wording/tone misconstruing the intended message, people weaponizing my posts to justify their own takes, arguments breaking out, etc. Then that leads into worries about not deserving this position (ayy, love imposter syndrome/j) and it becomes a cycle that’s hard to break.

If people want to view me as some higher authority or big figure, then there’s only so much I can do to stop them. I can tell others all I want that I don’t like being put on such a high pedestal all I like, but it would do very little to change their mindsets. The best I can hope for is reminding them of where my boundaries lie when people start to act too attached to me. Like, you definitely should not be soliciting free favors, seeking validation, asking for life advice, and/or traumadumping to me, a complete internet stranger. (These have all happened before.) Remember, me being friendly ≠ being friends with me.

I’ve never been someone who reacts well to parasocialism or celebrity culture (something which I highlight in this post). I like to compartmentalize, separate reality from fandom, keep to myself and my own lane, be a private person… so it’s unnerving for me to suddenly be the recipient of parasocial behaviors. Again, I must stress that parasocialism is, in of itself, NOT a bad thing. It can, however, quickly snowball into emotional dependency or a falsified sense of intimacy. That’s why I keep stressing—especially recently—that I have to draw the line and make my boundaries clear.

Now, that isn’t to say that all of my parasocial experiences have been negative ones. Far from it! I’ve had the honor of meeting and getting to know many cool individuals through my activity in this fandom. (If you’re reading this, you know who you are 🫵) I’ve been able to participate in numerous group projects and activities alongside those people. I’ve gotten fan art and interesting asks from so many Twsties that are just as excited about my OC or new story content as I am. I’ve received kind words when I really needed them or when I least expected it. I will forever be grateful for that ^^ and I’d still say that the majority of my time in the TWST fandom has been chill and fun.

In my experience, I’ve seen both the highs and lows of fandom as the result of parasocialism. I of course evaluate them on a case-by-case basis, but what I want to point out is that I do not want overfamiliarity or people overstepping, especially if I have never spoken with you one-on-one off-Anon before 💦 I think that’s reasonable for me to request.

[azsazz]

Hi, me again. Sorry if this is annoying. I wrote you the message about how the past two parts haven’t been hitting that you just replied to and I was actually really nervous to send it. I know you’ve gotten some feedback that was absolutely not helpful at all (and downright disrespectful imo) and I’ve been thinking ever since you got that feedback to try to put into words why the past two parts felt off to me.

I think the story is pretty strong, actually. The characters feel real and distinctive from each other, the plot flows well. I just think the weakest part is we see a ton of angsty Azriel prior to him and reader getting together, but we don’t really see him have good interactions with those around him so it feels a bit jarring.

I was really nervous you’d take it poorly because you are taking your own time to do this, and I really didn’t want my feedback to make you feel bad. You put something out into the world and people will always have opinions and sometimes those opinions hurt and I just hope my critique didn’t hurt you.

- 🥸

Nooo literally not annoying at all! I really do appreciate the critiques when they’re helpful and I love that you can all be so honest with me because in the end it only makes me a better writer and the story better!

Listen, I’m used to being critiqued because we did it all the time in art school and even now with my job I have to be open to critique, so when it’s actually explained/has reasoning behind it, then I’m all for it and that’s what I’m used to. I know we all want the story to be great and I’ll be honest I’ve been feeling off these last few chapters as well and idk if it’s because they’re together now and I’m trying to transition the dynamic between the characters or if it’s just nearing the end but there have been definite recent times where I don’t like what’s happening. Then I just figure that I can always fix it after the base of the story is down, and I apologize that it’s showing in my work.

It’s definitely been difficult trying to navigate the story because I’ve never really plotted or done something like this before, and I’m also feeling like reader is kind of missing her own plot besides the imposter syndrome tidbit. I think there’s more to explore there too but obviously it’s easier to write azs character because he’s already real and established haha.

I’m not hurt by your feedback at all! It makes me feel so much better than a straight up nasty one and I absolutely love to hear what people think!

[didimentionthatimawriter]

Heads up, this is a long post, but it's important. Please read it. Some people may have been able to guess this based on the last couple of posts I've shared, but I figured I should make an official post about it here. 

In January I got officially diagnosed with Moderate ADHD, Predominately Inattentive (for anyone who doesn't know, this is what used to be known as ADD, but it recently was grouped with ADHD because of the similar symptoms). What this means is I have a hard time focusing and paying attention, have problems with forgetfulness, but I'm not as hyperactive as other people with ADHD might be.

This isn't something that I've caught or developed, this is something that I've had all my life and it went unnoticed. I still remember getting in trouble when I was in elementary school because I was really slow at doing assignments and could never finish anything on time because I spent the whole time daydreaming instead. To this day I have a really hard time paying attention in lectures without daydreaming, doing something else like doodling or writing notes for a story, or getting very restless and fidgety. 

How did I not get diagnosed until now? It's actually very common for women with ADHD, especially the inattentive kind, not to get diagnosed until they are adults. Girls with ADHD in particular go under the radar because of this stigma that ADHD makes a kid (usually a boy) super hyperactive and you can't get them to sit down and be quiet unless you give them a pill. Kids with inattentive ADHD are mostly just brushed off as ditsy daydreamers who need to get their heads out of the clouds, but it's not that easy. Sometimes, sitting down to listen to a lecture or get a task done is physically difficult. 

I didn't get diagnosed until recently because I had been able to cope with my symptoms for the most part. I made decent grades, I had strategies to force myself to pay attention, I had study groups to go to where I had to make myself do work. The biggest problems I faced were that tasks took me so much longer than everyone else to do and I still daydreamed a lot, but even that was used to my advantage since I pursued writing fiction.

Everything that happened with Covid-19 and quarantine took away all the structure and routine I was used to, and my symptoms got worse. Then I moved out, got an apartment in a whole new city with whole new people, a job, entered a Master's program, all without an established routine to get my feet on the ground. Suddenly doing a reading for class or writing a 200 word discussion post was impossible, or would take me three times longer than everyone else did. It could take me three hours to read and annotate a 20 page article. I had major imposter syndrome, my anxiety got worse, I started having very bad depressive episodes, and I couldn't cope with anything anymore. This led to a decline in my physical health, too. I remember it got so bad I once went a week without showering because I either didn't have the energy to or I just forgot to. 

I only ever considered ADHD after one of my friends who had been diagnosed with it recognized some of the symptoms in me and suggested I get tested. I did, despite people (including myself) trying to convince me there was no way I had it, and it came back positive. I also got diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. 

I'm not sharing this for people to pity me or worry about me. I'm fine. I'm getting help and learning how to cope with this, (and I've made a lot of improvements), and I'm hoping that when the pandemic is officially over and I can get a routine back in place it will be easier to manage. I'm sharing all of this to stress how important this is and I want to help raise awareness for it. People who weren't diagnosed and given treatment as kids often develop anxiety and depression because they have such a hard time keeping up with the pressures of everyday life. Statistically, the links between mood disorders and ADHD make adults with ADHD 14% more likely to attempt suicide than people without it, and it's especially bad for women.  (Source here: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-29/adhd-raises-adult-suicide-risk-especially-for-women )

The best thing we can do to make those numbers go down is to recognize it and treat people for it before they develop those other disorders, and the first step is to get rid of the stigma that goes along with it. ADHD isn't always a kid unable to stay in their seat or blurting out in a discussion, (in fact, some of those kids may not even have it and are just disregarded and given pills to make them manageable, but that's a whole other issue).

ADHD is having 500 different thoughts running through your head at once that you can't drown out. It's spending days obsessing over whatever your hyper fixation is on and forgetting about your immediate responsibilities and relationships. It's having a decent vocabulary but forgetting most of it or mis-speaking  when you're trying to write or talk to someone. It's experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety about tests or projects with time limits. It's forgetting people's birthdays or not talking to an old friend for a long time even though you miss them because they aren't there with you and your mind is on other things. It's procrastinating working on big projects because there are so many things to do now that something due not now doesn't feel as important, (then promptly getting extremely stressed out when that big project is due soon and you haven't even started on it). It's getting so overwhelmed with the things you need to do that you disassociate and can't get out of bed. It's becoming paralyzed with indecision. It's spending more time preparing for a task than actually doing the task. It's wanting to do your best but not having the capabilities to do it. 

ADHD is hard to deal with, but it does not make someone any less of a person. I'm not ashamed of it, but I want people to understand it and learn how to work with people with it. People with ADHD aren't lazy or uncaring, they just don't think the same way as normal people.

[ilovejevsjeans]

The mental health revolution changing F1 for the better

Formula 1 drivers are superheroes. They always have been, and always will be, pushing themselves and their cars to the limit week after week.

But it is often forgotten that F1 drivers are also human beings. They face emotions and challenges like the rest of us, yet do so amid the pressures of one of the most exclusive and competitive sporting series in the world.

As mental health has become more of a talking point for society as a whole in recent years, its place within racing is also coming more and more into the spotlight.

The pinnacle of motorsport has tended to operate as an environment where, if you're not up to the job, you'll be replaced. The stigma surrounding mental health means that opening up can be seen as a sign of weakness, which for drivers is not something they are often willing to show for fear of it being used to their rivals' advantage.

"Even if you have them, I would never say so," says Max Verstappen. "Why would you say your weakness, even if you have one? Why would you explain that? No, I would never say those kind of things."

But some of Verstappen's peers have been trying to change things. Daniel Ricciardo has been part of a mental health campaign within Renault, and explained the importance of having a close core group to be able to talk to, relieving some of the pressures of F1.

"You sometimes might keep things close to you, you think it might be showing some weakness or whatever," Ricciardo says. "For me, trying to stay positive and all that stuff, it's really about the people I choose to have around me, close friends or family or whatever that you can bounce things off and talk openly.

"I put a lot of trust in people. I think it's quite easy for me to talk to someone and be open. I don't seem to bottle a whole lot up. But you need that outlet.

"Motorsport, for the most part, is a male-dominated sport. There's a lot of ego and pride, and not everyone always feels OK opening up and being a bit vulnerable."

Lando Norris was particularly open in talking about his mental health battles upon arriving in F1, revealing during his rookie season that he had been working with a mind coach to help ease some anxiety and confidence struggles during his rise up the motorsport ladder. But the pressures of his rookie season took their toll.

"Last year it looked like I was really confident and not nervous, and it was more that I put on a brave face," Norris reveals. "Inside I was struggling a lot. I think I just covered it up quite well last year."

As Norris' confidence grew and his debut season went according to plan, he stopped working with his mind coach: "Doing it more on my own and taking my own responsibility for it was part of the growth that I needed."

He's found ways to properly manage his confidence battles, citing his video game streaming as a fun outlet that helps him switch off from the pressures of F1. And his on-track performances this year have been among the best on the grid. He is now in a stronger place.

Imposter syndrome - where someone has a feeling of inadequacy despite achieving success - is something that is part and parcel of racing in F1, given the comparisons between every driver on the grid in the competition for wins, podiums and even race seats.

"It's something that I struggled a lot with, especially before going into Formula 1, and during last year," Norris says. "The belief of if I've got what it takes, and what do I think comparing to my team-mate or comparing to other drivers, obviously always comparing against other people - that's the thing that screws with your head sometimes.

"It's something that is very tough to deal with, self-belief and everything like that. There are a lot of things that I've struggled with over the past few years and growing up.

"Not everyone wants to talk about it all the time, but it's something that I've struggled with. I'm sure many other drivers have thought about and struggled with over the past."

Drivers also have to contend with the sometimes necessary evil of social media. All but one driver - Sebastian Vettel - have some kind of social presence. While it allows them to give fans an insight into their lives and help boost their profile, making it a handy marketing tool, it also leaves them open to abuse from anyone with a keyboard.

Romain Grosjean has previously opened up about receiving criticism across platforms, even when posting about his life away from F1. But he has learned how to deal with the trolls.

"Mentally, I'm quite strong, and I've shown it through the years," the Haas driver says. "It's never nice to read, a lot of people are assuming things that are not correct.

"I guess it's freedom of talking. I'm fully onboard with people saying what they say, and what they think. Sometimes it's just not based on truth. It's wrong, and that's a bit disappointing."

He even likes to tackle some of them head-on: "I reply to some and talk about it. It makes me laugh, and whenever good results are coming, I just want to give them a thumbs up, or maybe another [finger]...

"We just need to make sure that we don't pay too much attention to those, because they're just people on their sofa. They've got no idea what we're living through, they've got no idea what our body goes through or our career, how tiring it is, how much it takes on the family and so on, that we are away so much on the road.

"They just like to abuse you because it's easy and it's free. They can keep going for it, I don't mind. Thanks for the ones that support me. I think there are maybe more people who support me than those that hate me."

Ahead of his breakthrough podium at Mugello last weekend, Alexander Albon had been facing pressure over his results at Red Bull, particularly in some corners of social media.

To him, the best way to deal with it is simply not to look at it, accepting what people say is out of his control.

"It's quite simple: we just don't look at anything further by your phone," Albon says plainly. "In the end, you're the only one that can really make the change. All these comments, they're there, but they're not in control of anything - I am.

"You understand it, or you see it, but it doesn't affect me. I just see it as they have an opinion. That's great. But I'm here to be better. And then that's what I'm focused on."

As Ricciardo mentioned, the ego-driven, often machismo-heavy nature of F1 means signs of vulnerability are taken as weakness. It creates a toxicity that is hardly healthy for the paddock environment.

But things are changing. F1 drivers are now talking more openly about the mental pressures of racing, including six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton posted on Instagram recently about his "two sides", calling himself "someone who is figuring life out day by day, just like you, trying to find inner peace, manage time, balance work and life, finding time for family and friends, working on managing my emotions".

Hamilton added that he had "a lot of difficult days" and urged his followers that it was "never a bad thing to ask for help if you need it, or to tell somebody how you feel. Showing your vulnerable side doesn't make you weak, instead, I like to think of it as a chance to become stronger."

That vulnerable side is all too rare to see in F1, something Hamilton acknowledged when asked by this writer about his post.

"Between the drivers, ultimately as competitors, it is not the first thing you think of doing, being open and expressing yourself," he says.

"But I think it is really important, and more important than what is happening here. It is not really about me necessarily, more about in the world everyone is struggling with something and it is creating parallels that you can relate to.

"What I was trying to convey, that it is OK to have those difficult days, those are the growing days I think where you find the most growth. I am managing well, and I have a good group of people around me."

Teams are also embarking on more programmes focusing on mental health to support their workforce and get the very best out of them. McLaren has a partnership with mental health charity Mind, which was announced in July. The team has been helping work on fundraising for the charity, recently holding a prize draw for two custom-painted helmets from Norris and team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr.

As F1 teams focus on 'human performance', mental health has become more and more a part of that.

"You want the best performance out of everyone, how to put everyone in their best position and their most comfortable position to perform," Norris says. "More and more F1 teams, and we are as a team, McLaren, are taking more and more recognition to these kind of things, and raising awareness for it."

The 'new generation' of F1 drivers have been refreshing for so many reasons, but their willingness to open up more and talk about mental health struggles is hugely important. It will hopefully create lasting change that can be felt throughout the paddock, and make the often cut-throat world of F1 become more understanding. (X)

[bullshittierlists]

Spoiler Warning!!! - This review will contain spoilers for all of SDR2 and the first chapter of DRV3 as well as slight spoilers for DR1. You’ve been warned.

I see no god up here other than me

Gundham Tanaka- His name is GUNDHam TaNAKA

Sonia Nevermind- This is my third time typing this rant. I literally don’t know why people hate her so much?? There are two main arguments that I’ve come across. The first is that she is boring and shouldn’t have survived, but that’s the same as Asahina and everyone seems to love her. (Don’t get me wrong, I also love her, but all she had were donuts and her relationship with Sakura) She’s just a cute girl with some occult-ish quirks and I don’t see why that has to be such a bad thing. The other, more prevalent, argument is that since she’s at the center of the infamous love triangle, she must be the root of all its problems. It’s really frustrating when people blame her for Kazuichi’s faults. I’ll talk more about Kazuichi later, but his terrible qualities are a result of his own actions, and Sonia shouldn’t be blamed for being the object of his affections. It’s honestly blaming the victim and I’m sick of it. Obviously, she hasn’t treated him perfectly and I understand why people are frustrated with it. The only example of this, though, is in chapter four when she goes back-and-forth between treating him coldly and praising him when she should’ve just rejected him a long time ago. However, I think I can understand where she’s coming from in this chapter. I think it was kind of a Shuichi/Kaede situation. She had already figured out that Gundham was the killer, but didn’t want to admit it to herself, and definitely didn’t want to tell everyone else even though he was more than ready to admit it. Therefore, she treated Kazuichi coldly whenever he was getting close to the truth (or treating her poorly) and praised him whenever he was leading the group in the wrong direction. I don’t have any evidence that these were the times she treated him this way, but that’s how I remember it. Anyway, Kazuichi should stop being a creep, and apologists should stop rationalizing it. Her one slip-up in this case when she was panicked and worried for her closest friend does not make up for all of the other times Kazuichi treated her terribly.

You’re the best

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu- Boss baby boss baby boss baby. Also, he’s a fantastically fleshed out character and his relationship with Peko makes me cry literally every time :)  I just wish his character development had been a bit more stretched out, instead of on-the-spot like it was. I also kinda wish his sudden development had been a result of the despair disease, but you can’t have everything.

Nagito Komaeda- Recently, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how SimpleFlips calls softlocking in SM64 “gay baby jail” and Komaeda makes me think of that.

Chiaki Nanami- I’m not quite as attached to her as everyone else seems to be, but I totally see the appeal. Cute girl, cute backpack, and plot-relevant??? Incredible.

Ibuki Mioda- She’s just so fun. I don’t typically like characters who are loud for the sake of being loud, but I can’t help but love her. This was the first game I fully voice-acted for fun (the girls, at least) and Ibuki was definitely one of my favorites. It just feels good to yell sometimes, you know?

Hey, I think you’re pretty cool, I like you a lot

Peko Pekoyama- I’m a simple woman. I think of chapter two, I cry. At least, the epilogue of that case. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Twilight Syndrome Murder Case and I definitely didn’t like the, albeit fake, serial killer twist. It didn’t feel natural and just felt bad. Loved hearing Sonia say “Sparkling Justice!”, though.

Hiyoko Saionji- I totally understand why people hate her. I get it, I do. But I just can’t bring myself to hate her. She’s obviously not a good person, but I have shit taste. Byakuya and Kokichi aren’t good people, but everyone loves them anyway. I just think she’s so funny and terrible, I can’t help but get attached. I’m not usually the type to like little sister characters, or even bullies, but she’s just such a perfect combination of the two that I can’t help but love her. I also obviously am not the biggest fan of Mikan (I’ll explain, I swear) so the bullying didn’t really affect me too much.

Hajime Hinata- He’s the protagonist. I don’t really know what to tell you. I used to believe in Hajime supremacy, but I’m starting to understand the Shuichi supremacy now, so idk, Hajime might end up lower after I finish V3.

Byakuya Togami/Ultimate Imposter- He’s just such a good guy. I know that the real Byakuya is an ass, but the imposter is so nice and supportive. I can’t even take him seriously as Byakuya anymore because of how supportive he is. The real Byakuya could never. I just finished his last free-time event and he really feels like his own person now, which I can imagine is all he’s ever wanted. He isn’t Byakuya to me anymore, he’s himself. I just don’t have a unique name to call him by.

I remember you

Mahiru Koizumi- Her photography thing was cute, I liked it a lot. I don’t know the basic stance people take on her crush on Hajime, but I thought it was really cute and believable. I don’t know if I ship it, but I can see it in canon. It makes sense and works well.

Akane Owari- She’s a jock. I feel pretty neutral about jocks unless they have another prevalent thing that fits my interests.

Nekomaru Nidai- Again, a jock. I’m just not the biggest fan. I know that his backstory makes up for a lot of his inherent jock boringness, but I just can’t get into him as much as some other people can. I definitely see the appeal, though.

Usami/Monomi- She’s a mascot. Cool. Honestly preferred Monophanie.

You are literally the worst. Actual scum. Leave this planet and never return

Mikan Tsumiki- I told you I’d explain. First, I need to explain some personal reasons I didn’t like her, rather than objective characteristics. Like I mentioned with Ibuki, I voice-acted the whole game with each of the girls. Never before has a voice physically affected me as much as Mikan’s. In order to make her voice so high and quiet, I have to close my throat and tighten my jaw. It makes my throat, jaw, and head hurt all at the same time and it feels awful. The only time this wasn’t the case was during her breakdown and that’s because I couldn’t make her say those things with that voice, it didn’t make sense. Which brings me to my next point: her breakdown. I didn’t like it. At all. It wasn’t interesting and it didn’t make sense. I know that everyone else was sad because she was bullied a bunch and began to romanticize it, and yeah, I feel bad, but it wasn’t enough to make me like her. Her breakdown made a little more sense after watching the anime, believe it or not, but it was still not great. She could’ve been easily redeemed for me if she had a different motive for killing Hiyoko. I don’t really have an opinion on whether or not Ibuki should’ve lived longer, or even survived, but I definitely agree with Hiyoko dying during the third case, I just wish the motive had been different. It would’ve been so powerful if Mikan’s despair disease had made her remember her past with the bullying, and then she realized how much she hated it. She started to notice how Hiyoko was treating her and finally snaps. She kills Hiyoko in cold blood on purpose, instead of on accident, and covers it up in a more reasonable way instead the literal impossibility that we actually got. Then, in her breakdown, instead of pleading for forgiveness, she tries to rationalize her actions and convince everyone else that she was in the right by killing her. It would’ve been much more interesting and would’ve made much more sense. I also wish she had made use of Ibuki’s despair disease (which made her gullible) and commanded her to hang herself instead of staging the other thing, because it was a lot of extra work that was really unnecessary and it would’ve made more use of the despair disease other than a plot contrivance for Junko’s entrance. This kind of turned into my review for the third chapter, but still. Killers are always more fleshed out in their respective chapters, so their existence is often pretty much tied to the events of that chapter, since everything typically revolves around them. I might as well add here that her execution was really basic and underwhelming, but as far as I’ve seen, I’m not alone in that opinion.

Monokuma- It’s kind of an ironic hate with Monokuma. Sure, he makes me laugh, but he’s also fuel for the killing game, so... I don’t know. He pisses me off sometimes, but he’s also pretty funny at other times.

Kazuichi Souda- This is basically a continuation of the Sonia rant, so here we go. I would like to preface this by saying that in the context of Kazuichi’s free-time events, he’s one of my favorite characters. However, in the main story, I placed him here. I would normally average out my opinions of his different forms, but his optional events don’t make up for his actions that are required to be experienced. While some of his quips toward Sonia made me laugh, they still made me uncomfortable to some extent. It’s honestly frustrating to see him try so hard when she obviously isn’t interested in him. Some people choose to see this as an underdog story, but I think it’s just annoying and low-key creepy. He’s constantly fetishizing Sonia and keeps making moves on her even after she treats him coldly. He isn’t brave or cool for doing this, like the media would like you to believe, he’s creepy and persistent, and not in a good way. While I do agree that Sonia should’ve just turned him down from the very beginning, I still don’t put all of that blame on her. I’m sure she’s had her fair share of creepy guys making advances on her and she’s just had to take it, since she’s a princess and it would hurt her noble reputation. Kazuichi should also be able to think for himself and see that she’s not interested. It shouldn’t be completely up to her to get him to stop. He should be able to take a hint and back off, whether she tells him directly or otherwise. She definitely hints to him that she’s not interested in some of the later chapters, but he completely ignores it and keeps trying anyway. I wouldn’t have such a problem with him if he didn’t represent a very real issue that we are facing in the world today. Nice guys will, unfortunately, always be plaguing our society and it doesn’t look like they’re getting any better. It doesn’t help that the media continually raises them up and convinces them that they are in the right, even though they definitely aren’t. No man is entitled to any woman and people need to stop sympathizing with men who are rejected and keep pushing. In almost every post I’ve seen from Kazuichi apologists, they explain that Sonia should’ve given him a chance. Really? She did give him a chance. She gave him several chances, in fact, more than she was entitled to. The first time she acted coldly towards him was at the end of chapter 4. That’s four entire chapters, plus a prologue, of chances that she gave him. She was always polite and talked to him when he approached her. Maybe she saw this as her noble duty, but either way, she didn’t reject him outright the first time she saw him. She tried to be friends, he was creepy, and then she started to hint that she wasn’t interested. This is a natural progression for her character and is in no way wrong of her. He is not entitled to her attention and should learn to back off when he’s not wanted. The other big reason I see that people don’t like Sonia is because she basically ruined any chance of Kazuichi and Gundham having any sort of relationship other than rivals. Again, it’s not Sonia’s fault that they both liked her. It’s also not her fault for choosing Gundham over Kazuichi, since he treated her respectfully and they also shared interests. She also didn’t need a specific reason to choose Gundham over Kazuichi, because she is free to make her own choices based on anything she wants, including nothing. Even though I said all of this, I do actually wish that Gundham and Kazuichi could’ve had some kind of relationship. I think it could’ve been very interesting, but it didn’t need to be devoid of Sonia. I think it would’ve been just as interesting for Gundham and Kazuichi to talk with Sonia as it would’ve been for her to introduce them to each other more formally and get them to become friends. I think it could’ve been fun for Kazuichi to have a little playful resentment towards Gundham for getting the girl, but instead, he went completely off the deep end. If he had just backed off like I suggested earlier, maybe they could’ve had that relationship that everyone longed for. I am also obligated to say here that I think all of his free-time events were absolutely adorable and the fact that he gets motion sickness is the single best piece of comedy every written.

Teruteru Hanamura- I’ve been doing a lot of rants and I’m kind of tired of it. You know why I don’t like him, I don’t need to explain it. He’s shitty, blah blah blah. His tiny bit of plot with his mother didn’t really do anything to redeem him for me and I just plain don’t like him. Sorry, not sorry.

Wow, this took way too long. I forgot I had so many opinions on these characters. I would’ve said a lot more about Gundham, but it’s kind of my thing here to say more about my second favorite characters and characters that I don’t like than my favorite characters, and I knew there were going to be several rants, so I decided to keep his very short. My definitive favorites list is Gundham and then Sonia, with a pending Fuyuhiko in third. The four dark devas are the best characters and I’m so upset they weren’t on here. I would apologize for my Kazuichi rant, since it had two parts, both of which were very long, but it all needed to be said because I’m sick and tired of Kazuichi apologists. They keep coming across my dash and I would like to be rid of them. If you like Kazuichi, that’s fine, I actually quite like him, too, you just need to acknowledge his faults instead of just rationalizing them in a bad way. If someone wants to send me reasons why Sonia is terrible, I’ll listen, because I’m sure I’m probably being a bit of a Sonia apologist, although I feel like her actions were a lot less impactful. Sondam supremacy, thank you, goodnight.

[transadvice]

I've recently begun reevaluating my gender identity and I'm definitely not the cis man I thought I was. I'm still figuring out exactly what I identify as, but my best guess is that I'm a trans woman. However I worry that I'm not giving enough consideration to the idea that I'm non-binary, genderfluid, agender or something else that exists outside the binary genders. At the same time, I also worry that my apprehension about choosing my identity stems from internalised imposter syndrome (1/2)

Part 2 of question: (2/2) and I'm only considering non binary and others as possibilities because they'd be easier to 'pass' as than being a trans woman. Since I've still got a lot to figure out, I was wondering, what questions should I be asking myself and where should I be directing my introspection as I do so? As an additonal side note; I feel more dymorphia about body hair than I do about having male genitals, is that unusual? Thank you for your help and advice.

My answer: 

Side note first: it’s totally common to not have genital dysphoria, or to not have much. Pop culture does us a disservice by painting genital dysphoria as the main or most important sign of being trans. It absolutely isn’t. Some people have it, and lots of people don’t. It’s common to have more dysphoria about other physical characteristics (e.g. body hair), or about social signifiers (e.g. pronouns), or about physical characteristics for social reasons (e.g. voice but only because it gets you misgendered), or to not have dysphoria at all but only euphoria (i.e. not disliking the name ‘Steve’, but just really loving/wanting the name ‘Katie’). By the same token, genital surgery isn’t the only/most important transition step, and for many people it’s not even on the radar! Of course, pop culture is mostly cis-driven and the cis tend to vastly overestimate the importance of genitals to gender identity, so.  

Okay. Onto your main question. It can definitely be a journey to figure out the specific flavor of your trans-ness: whether you are binary trans or nonbinary in some way. There’s a lot of gray area between them, and it’s okay for your thoughts to change on that over time. You don’t need to pin it all down now. Nor do you need to fully figure out your identity before taking any transition steps. In fact, I think that’s often impossible. You can only get so far with introspection alone. At some point you have to start trying stuff.

Think of this this way: It’s not like you’re choosing between the Deluxe Binary Transition Package and the Prix Fixe Nonbinary Transition Package. Every transition step is a la carte. You can change your name, or not; use she/her pronouns, or not; take HRT, or not; wear dresses, or not; and so on. Any of these steps could be part of a binary or nonbinary transition. You don’t have to know ahead of time how each step will end up factoring into your overall transition journey. You just have to want to do that one thing.  

So my challenge for you is to get out of the theoretical and into the practical.  Set aside “who am I really” and “what does it mean.” Those questions are too big, hard, and abstract. Instead ask yourself: What do I want to do or try? What makes me feel bad? What makes me feel great? What’s the next step I can try that may help me get further from bad and closer to great? If I’m not sure if I’ll like something, how can I test drive it in a safe way? 

For example, you know you feel dysphoric about body hair. Okay: so laser/electrolysis seems like a reasonable direction to go. If you’re not sure you want to make it permanent, or you can’t afford to, you could try waxing, or even just shaving your legs. You don’t need to know if you’re a trans woman or nonbinary in order to remove your body hair, temporarily or permanently. 

Each decision or experiment will give you more information. It may become more clear to you over time that you lean in one direction or another. Or you may end up where I am - still not sure if I’d call myself binary or nonbinary, but so glad I took the transition steps I did nonetheless. Happy enough that it doesn’t matter. 

P.S. You don’t owe everyone you meet complete knowledge of your gender identity, whether or not you understand it yourself. It’s okay to have a “public” and “private” version with more or less level of detail/precision.

P.P.S. Fear is the mind-killer. Any time you find yourself thinking “I must be X because it would be easier/less scary than being Y,” that’s a time to really lean in and unpack those thoughts. For one thing, it’s not true (neither being nonbinary or binary trans is inherently easier, they both have different challenges). For another, it’s not relevant. It doesn’t matter what outcome you hope for; you are who you are. And the least easy thing is to try to force yourself to be someone you’re not.

[pellelavellan-a]

I haven't felt this dysphoric in a long time

Putting the rest of this under the cut cause idk how long it'll be. Since I've gotten my new job (and don't me wrong I love my new job) I've been feeling insanely dysphoric. I have not been misgendered this much since before I started transitioning. Almost every person that I've waited a table on has thought I was a woman and keeps on calling me their waitress even when the hostess tells them that a waiter is going to be taking care of them. One older woman even told me my name seemed weird for me to have. More over cause strangers keep thinking that I am not a man they keep assuming they misheard my name and that it can't possibly be Miles--even though it is. The only day I did not get misgendered was the day I was wearing a pronoun pin but otherwise it's just constant misgendering.

My name in the register system is my dead name so when I ring in people's orders it appears on the screen in the kitchen which is uncomfortable to look at. They said they would look into seeing if they could change it. But for the time being I've been getting dead named by people that don't know that it's not my name and I have had to correct people multiple times.

I have been trying to rack my brain around what is causing everyone to think that I'm a woman and it's resurfacing so many different issues I have with my body, my height, my voice, etc. I've been on t for over two years and I still often feel like my voice is pretty feminine. I have a very very hard time putting on weight so while I may not have a feminine figure so much it's more that I have a lack of any figure or form at all so I guess people see a popsicle stick and assume female.

It is weird that I am being misgendered so much since it was not happening for a very long time and the only other thing that has changed is my comfort with expressing myself more. I a most definitely not a masculine man. I paint my nails, I wear jewelry, and sort of just wear whatever I like to wear regardless of what section of the store it came from. And since I have become more comfortable in just being me and not worrying about what gender someone associates with what is on my body I've been getting perceived as female far more often than I would like to be.

And of course because I am having a crisis with dysphoria my body decided it wants to cramp up real bad and be like hey remember this god awful thing that you don't miss? And that's just embarrassing and uncomfortable and really only making things worse.

I've been really in my head about all of this and it makes me not want to leave the house or go anywhere aside from work. I've been told not to worry about it but it is really hard not to dwell on.

The last thing that is just, well it's awful is that I a.) sometimes feel like some other trans masc people I know irl don't really take my seriously because I'm not like overly masculine despite having a great discomfort with being seen and perceived as female. And b.) It feels humiliating being and knowing that I'm a gay man and constantly feeling as if I am the only person who sees me on a day to day basis that recognizes that. I've always sort of had a complex with other gay men cause I always have felt like I was not enough of a man for them due to my own self expression and anatomy and several gay men have proven me right in that statement. I've always just wondered if other men that are gay also see me as one of them or as an other and because of constantly being misgendered lately I just feel like it is the latter.

I am very tired of feeling like I have to constantly defend the fact that I'm male and feel like after so long on t I shouldn't even be dealing with this and yet here I am--dealing with it. It makes me have these really ugly feelings about myself of being too girly, too skinny, too small, not man enough or just overall not enough for other people.

Recently a fb group of just like ftm trans people saw an image of me and started to tell me all the things I needed to change about myself to appear more like a man like cut your hair, don't dye your hair fun colors, do this, do that and I am just no I am not going change who I am for other people to see me the way I see myself. But in the other hand I keep having this lingering feeling of what am I doing wrong? Why does everyone think I'm a woman or why do I feel like others look at e sideways or differently than other men when I have to tell them that I am in fact a man and not a woman?

I haven't felt this bad about my own self image since before t and it's been hard looking in a mirror and trying to find someone that I like in it. If I do look it's often critically and mostly be pulling at me own skin to see how my torso would look after getting top surgery or examining the way my body is shaped to try and decide if it still looks female or not.

It hasn't been fun and I really wish that it didn't have to be like this. I did work out for a little while but I felt like maybe it was bad for my mental health going in for the sole purpose of working out to look like someone else or to not look like me at least. I have noticed that when I am at work I start trying to speak in a lower voice cause the sound of me talking just bothers me.

It's just been lovely imposter syndrome and while I keep hearing oh don't let other people's words get to you they do. They really do. When I'm constantly being seen as someone I'm not they really really start to hurt.

[jeannereames]

Hello, Dr. Reames! I love your work (and am very excited to read your novels very soon!). I am thinking of doing a phd (not history or classics, but maybe sort of related to Alexander) but I'm scared that I'm not going to have the motivation to go through with the whole thing... Do you ever lose motivation and get discouraged when researching/writing and how do you deal with it? I know that this is completely unrelated to Alexander/ancient history so feel free to ignore it☺

Hi, there! This reply is going to be in 3 parts. First, about my own motivation…

I think everybody (even Alexander!) has periods of feeling discouraged. It’s part of being human. This is especially true when something you put days, weeks, or sometimes *years* of effort into doesn’t work out, or isn’t well-received, or comes back with “revise and resubmit.” Ha.

So, real life recent example:  About a year and a half ago, I finished an article that took me (literally) 5 years to research and write, because it combined research into two different areas, only one of which is my research area. It took a huge amount of reading, and I’d even presented it at a couple of conferences, where I received good feedback. It was supposed to be published in conference proceedings, but that fell through (not my part of it, the entire publication didn’t happen because the editor quit). So I had to shop it around to journals. It went out to three readers, and all three returned it with “Revise (substantially) and resubmit,” + large *additional* bibliography (mostly not in English) in the area not my field. Two of the readers thought my chief point was valid, but needed more support. (The third just flat disagreed with me, but it’s academia; that happens.) But that was after it had been presented 3xs already, and revised after each.

OTOH, I was pretty discouraged. But OTOH, the suggestions and reading lists were helpful. These are blind reviews, so it wasn’t personal. And the entire point of peer review is to help a book or article improve. Lord knows, nobody wants to put out something that will get you laughed at. But after all the time I’d already spent on it, it was still really discouraging as I’d thought it in pretty good shape.

Almost everybody in academia is going to have an article or three turned down, or a book refused, etc. And after a while, it can be really hard to keep trying. And it’s not just in academia.

Do you know how long it took me to sell Dancing with the Lion? 15 years! I got my first serious query from an agent in 1996. (The first words of the novel were written in December of 1988–that’s how old it is.) That agent eventually decided it wasn’t for her. I’ve had a couple others since…same thing. I’ve sent out probably around 500 queries to agents or publishers. In fact, I’d put the book AWAY and started a completely different trilogy (which I’m in the middle of now), because I figured it would only sell later.

Then I happened to read comments about Madeline Miller’s A Song for Achilles written by an English professor and new acquisitions editor at Riptide. She liked it, but there were a couple of things she really didn’t like. And they were the very ways (I thought) my novel was different. So I emailed her. She asked for sample chapters, then the whole thing, and finally, Riptide offered me a contract. They’re not a major press, they’re a Romance publisher primarily, but they were willing to take a chance on my coming-of-age historical, so I grabbed the opportunity. Now the book is out (well, the first half is), and it’s getting pretty decent reviews.

So persistence can pay off.

That said, if someone else had told me that story 10 years ago, I’d have snorted and said (in my mind), “Maybe it did for you. Maybe I’m just a bad writer and I’ll never succeed.” I’d also just been through a divorce and was having trouble selling my house in the housing bust, etc., etc. So a lot of things in my life were pear-shaped at the time, and that can make it really hard to keep trudging.

The “Dark Night of the Soul” is a real thing, and we all go through it.

The only way I get through it, myself, is to remember things in the past that went well, times I succeeded. Plus, I’m just a really stubborn SOB. Ha.

But discouragement is normal, and there will be points in everybody’s life where not just one or two things are going wrong, but it seems as if EVERYthing is going wrong and you’re just a total failure. You have to believe it’ll get better.

Now, part #2, about motivation to complete a degree. It’s a bit like the AA motto: one day at a time. Or really, one semester at a time. One hurdle at a time. When I first got to Penn State, the long, long road ahead made me freak out a little, but Gene Borza (my advisor) told me to take it in bites. And to remember that other people had made it through; I could, as well.

Also, don’t let yourself get thrown by “Imposter’s Syndrome.” This is the feeling that you don’t belong somewhere: in grad school, in a PhD program, in a department (or really, ANY arena). You’re not as good as the others. Minorities, women, and first-generation college students are those most likely to suffer imposter’s syndrome, but it can hit others too, such as the children of academics (I’ll never measure up to mom/dad), etc.

Last, part #3, and this may seem an odd coda to all the above rah-rah cheerleading. But as a (now former) graduate program chair, I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t put out a warning.

Not only is the field of humanities in trouble right now, in the US and Canada, and elsewhere, too, but the entire university system is changing. This latter is especially true in the US, but I hear rumblings from other places. Partly, this owes to the rise of online education. But even more, it’s what I call the “Wal-martization” of the university, where tenure-track lines are being replaced by a bunch of part-time instructors who have to teach 6 classes just to make enough to EAT. “Adjunct” professors, even those with PhDs, are paid a pittance. It’s absolutely immoral and ridiculous.

Universities are turning into profit more than education, with a degree seen as “job training” instead of learning to think critically and exploring Big Questions, which are increasingly viewed as a waste of time. Administration levels are increasingly bloated with deans, assistant deans, supervisory boards, etc. They’re (mostly) not teaching, but their paycheques are high. Tenured faculty positions are being eliminated. Colleges and unis realized that they could turn over a lot of (especially intro and survey) courses to part-time instructors for a *fraction* of what they paid tenured and tenure-track faculty, but still reap high tuition.

When I was finishing up in the ‘90s, I was teaching as an adjunct while writing my dissertation, then for a bit after, as was expected for “teaching experience” before being hired. The phenomenon of the “Visiting Assistant Professor” (or VAP) was *starting* to gain traction, but was still usually just a year or two until these people would find a tenure-track position (VAP is not tenure-track). But now, I know people who’ve been VAPping for YEARS. And some just give up. Also, adjuncting like what I was doing has gone from “teaching experience for a real job” into “the only lane for employment” for a lot of PhD (and some MA) graduates. Especially women PhDs get caught in that trap.

These are the realities of where we are right  now.

And THE MOST USELESS DEGREE ON THE PLANET is a PhD in the humanities. I say that as one who holds it. With a few exceptions, a humanities PhD prepares you for pretty much one job: being a professor. And those jobs are winking out of existence with frightening speed. This is a change that has accelerated over the last 10 years, and especially over the last 5. We’re turning out PhDs with no available positions. Museum studies, Classics, archaeology, philosophy are in even worse shape. SOME history PhDs are more popular. This year, H-Net has a bunch of Latin American positions open, for instance.

An MA in history (or related) is still useful. There are certain jobs that like them, ranging from state jobs like the Park Service to the FBI and CIA.

But a PhD? Think loooooong and hard before investing that time and money. This is not a matter of *you* not being able to do the work to get one. It’s a matter of the university system as we’ve known it crumbling away under our very feet. I have no idea what the American university will look like in 10 years. And once you have a PhD, it educates you out of most other jobs.

So that’s the unfortunate bad news. And I’d be a very irresponsible advisor if I didn’t tell you the truth. IME, people who really want a PhD will ignore me and go after it anyway. But at least you’ll go in with your eyes open.

[asagi-s-garden]

Labels can be important

So several weeks ago I was talking to someone about labels for fictional charectors and arguing about if they're important or not, I argued that some people found them very important to identify with, she argued that they shouldn't be important, but the thing is, it doesn't matter if they should or shouldn't be: They ARE, and until today I didn't know how to verbalize why or why it was under my skin so badly, the argument really upset me because "~no labels~" should probably be the more "correct" answer but ... like... there isn't really a wrong or right to the way people personally feel and identify... and now I know why it bothers me so much when people try to say that labels are never important: Erasure

Now before I go forward let me say: I am totally supportive of anyone who doesn't want to be labelled, good for you!! You're strong and awesome and confident for that! But what I take issue with is people who say that people who DO want to be labelled are wrong, as long as you aren't policing someone else's identity, we're cool

I've always liked girls, I distinctly remember when I was eight sitting down with my mom and having the "What would you do if I was gay?" conversation and asking her if she thought I WAS gay- "Do you like boys?" "Yes" "Then you aren't gay" (P.S. Dear Mom, you definitely weren't wrong) but the thing is .. that's kinda all there was when I was growing up: Straight and gay and a tiny population of ace (both things that my mom introduced me to by the way) Bisexuality though... wasn't really much of a thing

Bisexuality was a phase, a kink, a scandal, it was "~~~Oooooooh Angelina Jolie admits to being bisexual~~~~" like it was this sexually devious thing, that's all the media ever presented it as and there was never an easily accessible bi charector around that wasn't a scandal themselves (you know, The Promiscuous Bi Who Sleeps With Everyone) atleast not on the TV I watched, and I've always watched alot of TV so I was never exactly sheltered, so I spent most of my life going "Sometimes I feel gay and sometimes I feel straight and I don't know what the fuck that means" and it was really frustrating and lead to alot of confusion and annoyance and feelings of not being normal

It wasn't until I was a teenager and got on Tumblr that I even started understanding what bisexuality was, and it took alot of fanfiction and alot of identify-yourself posts and alot of "Hi, if you have these feelings you might be this and that's great, good for you!" posts before it ... really started making sense to me and I GOT it and I decided "Ok this is what I am", and I am so, so, LUCKY, that my mom is the "I'll march in the parades with you" type because if she wasn't then I maybe would still be questioning myself and saying I'm straight (wich, for the record, I never felt comfortable with, but I never knew what else to really call it either)

But, ya' know, here's the thing, I'm not really a sexual person, I'm not really a romantic person, I'm kinda on the grey/demi territory I guess? I'm 23 but have never been on a date- ever, and I'm not really bothered by that, but that can be difficult to cope with when someone is questioning their sexuality- especially a sexuality that isn't very black and white "I like girls and have never liked boys and I'm a romantic person who has already dated three girls"/"I like boys and have never liked girls and I'm a very romantic person who has already dated three boys" type of thing, it can feel kind of like Imposter's Syndrome, feeling like you haven't "earned" the label you call yourself because you haven't dated enough girls or boys or whatever other gender to identify that way, and in a hypersexualized society, it can even feel like you aren't allowed to call yourself X-Sexuality until you've had SEX with a certain number of  X-Gender

This is where identity and the importance of NOT erasing an identity come into play

Because alot of sexualities easily become stereotypes- and that's only if they aren't erased to begin with, using bisexuality as an example, there were, when I was growing up, two types of bisexuals: The Promiscuous Bisexual and The Kinky Bi-Curious, think Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl", one of the most famous- if not THE most famous- songs about bisexuality... isn't about bisexuality at all, it's about a kinky exploitative "bi-curious" exploration wile Katy cheats on her boyfreind ("Hope my boyfreind don't mind it") wich just keeps on going with the same nonsense that all bisexuals are hypersexualized and promiscuous and that's using the term "bisexual" very loosely because she admits in the song that she kissed her "just to try it", it wasn't a sexuality, it was an experiment, and to my knowledge (KP fans feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!) Katy has never returned to any kind of bisexuality: It was a phase, just like bisexuality is SO often called

The big reason why people need to see labels in fiction is to help figure out their OWN identities, we NEED to hear charectors say "bisexual" and the fact that, off the top of my head, I can't think of any fictional charectors (who don't fit the "promiscuous experimentation" type) who flat out label themselves bisexual is... very sad, especially since labelling as straight and gay has slowly become more popular lately

Don't get me wrong, it's always AWESOME to have charectors who are bisexual regardless of saying it or not, and sometimes not saying it can express a relationship that transcends sexuality (Will and Hannibal, Apple White and Darling Charming) wich is ESPECIALLY cool, but ... other times it can be really frustrating to see implications that charectors are a certain sexuality without having concrete proof of it- especially given that some examples are ONLY ever implied and not directly stated (an especially big problem in animated genres, be they anime or western cartoons) and media aimed at younger audiences, and wile I 1000000% get why saying an actual *sexuality* is frowned upon with material for kids and even pre-teens because censorship, it's important at times to blatantly say "I like girls instead of boys" or "I like girls and boys", instead of just having little hints like "I'm not interested in boys" or "Oh she's cute isn't she?" or whatever

There are sooooooooooooooooooo many fanfictions out there that handle the idea of sexuality (ALL sexualities) really beautifully, both in coming out and just in casual conversation, little things like wearing the bi flag colors or going "Excuse you I'm bi" or making an "I'm pan because I like all the cookware in the kitchen ;)" joke can be so helpfull to people who are exploring their sexualities, but fanfiction isn't easily available for tons of people- and most don't even know what it IS, wich is why it's up to mainstream media to take the step and make these things clear THEMSELVES

Anyway I said at the beginning I finally understood how to verbalize this and I'm finally going to tell you what it is that brought this to my attention: My mom

I've been openly bi for a few years now and until recently 100% of the bisexual comments have been from me (and if you're straight and *don't* think I constantly make bi jokes oh boy do you need to get some more queer freinds my dude) and my mom has slowly, over the years, gone from short responses like "Ok then" and "Yeah she's really cute" and "Now see if *I* was gay I'd go for *her*" to actually having real conversations about me having a crush on a girl, wanting to marry a girl, telling my dad and my grandmother "She's bi, she might end up with a girl, you need to understand that", but she still has never been *that* into using the term "bisexual" (and for the record I get that, //I// wasn't that sure about the term when I first started getting used to my sexuality either) and then a few days ago she made this corny bi joke, talking about when I was a toddler and went to see my grandfather drive a plane, she went "You know, that was a bi-plane, and you're a bisexual, it's like it was meant to be even back then!" and yeah it's a corny moderately funny joke but it just.... really, really hit me with this huge WAVE of validation, like yes, thank you, I *am* bi, this is a thing, I can be this, I can own this, I'm recognized, and it isn't a question anymore, it isn't a debate, it's like saying I have red hair, yep, that sure is some red hair I've got, yep, that sure is a nice bisexuality I have

And it's almost disgustingly simple, I'm 10000% sure she has no idea how much that meant to me because it was a passing comment in a conversation about airports, but it's the first time she ever just dropped my bisexualiy into a casual conversation and it felt SO good, SO validating, it made the Imposter's Syndrome I occasionally feel take a very long walk off of a very short peer

But not everyone has my mom

That's like... BLATANTLY clear from so, SO many people I talk to who's parents aren't accepting of them, not everyone is going to get a mom who talks to them about having a wife or points out girls she thinks are hot or makes bi-plane jokes, and because not everyone has a bi-plane mom- not everyone has family or freinds or anyone in their lives who make them feel validated, or who they're even out to- they NEED fictional charectors to be able to grab onto and go "Yes, this is me, yes, I can identify with them"

We need Korras, Harley Quinns, Jackson Whittemores, Annalise Keatings... and we need celebrities to come out and say the big bad B too, we need Halseys and Lauren Jaugeruis and Angelina Jolies

To all of my non-labelling freinds: Good for you! I am legitimately happy for you that you can feel comfortable without labels and that there are things out there that make you feel validated too! .. But there are still so many people who NEED labels to understand themselves and need to SEE people/charectors using labels in order to identify themselves and I really hope that you understand when we scream "Say 'bisexual' you cowards!" and beg for a cut-and-clear "I am bisexual, the end" statement of some kind, it isn't to erase YOU, it's to give US... *something*

Ideally, the world can have enough people and charectors that are LGBTQ+ that there can be tons who *do* use labels and tons who *don't*, ideally the world will stop being so blatantly idiotic with their insistence on erasure and refusal to accept non-straight sexualities, but no matter if that happens or not, I hope that there can be an understanding on BOTH levels, that some people DO need labels and that's ok, and some people DON'T need labels and that's also ok

I hope that everyone can embrace the charectors who don't have labels, AND the charectors who do, and understand WHY certain charectors are important to certain people, and WHY some people are so desperate to get clear, black-and-white identification, not to shun people who don't need labels, but to recognize someone like them, to identify themselves, and to feel validated

[gethealthy18-blog]

311: Getting Unstuck From Self-Sabotage With Erin Pheil of MindFix

New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/311-getting-unstuck-from-self-sabotage-with-erin-pheil-of-mindfix/

311: Getting Unstuck From Self-Sabotage With Erin Pheil of MindFix

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about self-sabotage and imposter syndrome and self-confidence and removing mental roadblocks that are barriers to success or happiness or just to functioning the best that we can in daily life. Because I am here with Erin Pheil, who’s the founder of The MindFix Group, and she has a track record of helping people get permanent fast results from a lot of these things. Her work and her words have been featured all over and she has an unheard-of 95% success rate with the average time it takes her clients to see measurable results in areas where they have been stuck for years. Most people think it takes a lot of time and effort to remove these mental roadblocks or to alleviate self-sabotage and it needs therapy and action. And she explains why we cannot think ourselves out of these kinds of situations or even therapy ourselves out of these situations and how to really truly get unstuck.

So I’ve worked with Erin myself and it was fascinating to see the mental changes that happened, and she explains today how to start that process in your own life and also a magic question that we can ask to help make sure that we’re setting our kids up with a good mental state from a really early age. So I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Erin, welcome and thanks for being here.

Erin: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Katie: Well, I am so excited to chat with you and I knew I had to have you on when I heard you present at a conference I was at recently. And in fact, the room, they’re like a lot of entrepreneurs and highly successful people and I watched you speak to them and I also watched the room as everybody just got quiet and was really tuned into what you were saying. And then I talked to a lot of people after who were like, “That was just worth the price of being here.” And so I knew I had to have you on and to share you. And I think for context, it would be really helpful if you could start with your own background and kind of your story and how you got to this place that you are today.

Erin: Sure. I have a bit of an odd story in that I never could have planned it out, even if I had a million years to plan and I’m the planning type. And it’s not really a story I would have asked on myself or anybody else. So I’ll share that. I actually got my graduate degree in digital media after a undergraduate degree in psychology and it was right around the dot-com boom. And I had, I was at a crossroads of what to do and I just was so in love with this idea of websites and being able to build and design and create that I ended up, straight out of graduate school, going off and building a web agency. And it was just me. And then I brought on one person and then we grew and we grew. And over the next 16 years or so, we grew into an award-winning nationally-ranked web agency.

And on the outside, everything looked really good. You know, we were increasing revenue and profit every year, we were making millions for ourselves and for our clients. We were winning awards. We had Fortune 500 companies as our clients. It looked good from the outside and it was for a while. After around a decade and a handful of years or so, though, I started to have this really weird nagging feeling like, “I don’t wanna do this the rest of my life. I don’t want it. This is not fulfilling anymore.” And yet I didn’t know what to do with that. Building websites and strategy and consulting is all I’d ever known.

And so this idea of “I’m supposed to be doing something different” was terrifying for me, and I had no clue what else I could possibly do in the world. So, while I was continuing to build the agency in the background, I started reading all these books and taking courses about what’s my unique ability in life and what else could I possibly do and what else am I interested in. And I didn’t find anything. And so this low-level terror kind of kept creeping up every, you know, a few times a month as I realized like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?”

And then one day, one day I woke up, I went on a bike ride as I do most days as I was training for this mountain bike race. And I stepped off my bike and there was this little twinge of electricity in my left ankle. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but within one week, suddenly I was this person who had chronic pain, chronic mystery pain, pain that had no real cause, no reason and no doctors could figure it out. So I started going to physical therapists and massage therapists. And then I started to go see chiropractors who then referred me to orthopedic surgeons. And this kept escalating. And every time I’d go to more and more doctors and they’d go, “There’s nothing wrong with you. The X-rays and the MRIs are showing nothing. But I’m really sorry the pain seems to be spreading, but we can’t find anything.”

So imagine me living this Groundhog’s Day of increasing pain that was spreading throughout my body, spending all this money every single day, literally five days a week going to more and more doctors and specialists, and everybody shrugging going, “I don’t know what to tell you. Go see this guy.” And over the course of the year, this escalated to the point where I found myself sitting in a brain surgeon’s office having, like, this panic attack going, “I thought I was this healthy, 30-something entrepreneur and now I’m having a panic attack in a brain surgeon’s office, not knowing what the rest of my life is gonna be. I can’t have fun. I can’t grow my business. No one can help me. I’m helpless. I’m hopeless. There’s nothing to look forward to.”

And my anxiety shot through the roof, my depression shot through the roof. I became fully suicidal because I was like, “There’s nothing to live for. There is no hope. No one can help me. I don’t wanna keep doing this the rest of my life. It’s been 500, 700 days. Every day I wake up and it’s the same thing. And I’m no closer to getting, being better,” and I almost wanna start crying just thinking about it, how horrible it was. Like every day, all day, go to sleep, wake up. And it was the same.

So what ended up happening and where everything took a turn and my life path veered off in a different direction is because my mental health got so bad, I started to go see kind of this therapist or counselor, kind of adviser woman. And one day I was sitting in her office and she looked at me and she said, “Erin, do you know why you are so miserable and in so much pain?” And I wanted to, like, smack her. I’m like, “It’s because I’m in chronic pain. That’s why everything is awful. It’s horrible.” And she said, “‘No. No, no, no, no.” She goes, “The lens through which you see your life is so dirty, it’s so clouded. Everything you’re experiencing as you go through your day today is just skewed. You have these bizarre, weird, unhealthy beliefs that you’re clinging on to that are literally changing everything that you see. Everything you’re perceiving that’s happening to you is really, really distorted.” And I said, “Give me an example, give me two examples. I don’t know what you mean.”

And she said, “Well, for example, you are so strongly attached to the belief that if you slow down with work or life, it means you’re lazy and not valuable.” And she’s like that belief by itself is keeping you from being able to slow down and take rests and allow your body to heal. You’re go, go, go, go, go, go, go every day and your body’s asking for rest. But you are clinging to that belief and it’s crushing you.”

She also said another example is you truly believe that your entire self-worth is based on what you achieve. And right now you can’t achieve a lot because you need to take a break. And so your whole self, like everything that you feel about yourself and who you are and your value as a person, has drastically just plummeted because you can’t achieve. And she’s like, you have a bunch of these things going on in your head with the way that you think and what you believe to be true. And it’s that, that’s what’s crushing you. The things that you believe and how you see your life, those are what’s crushing you, not what’s actually happening and it’s creating this spiral.

So, turns out she had this brilliant insight, but when I asked her how we could fix it, she actually didn’t know. She gave me some answer like you’re gonna have to increase your visits and come in three times a week and we’ll explore it over the upcoming years with love and faith and stuff like that. There was no answer. So, I got super motivated to go out on a journey and explore how the heck I could actually change what I deeply, deeply believe to be true. Not just on an intellectual level like when you read a book, but what I could really, like, I’m pointing at my heart right now, at my chest. Like what I could change in here, like what I could really, really change and how I could convince myself that what I’ve been clinging to all these years maybe wasn’t the truth.

So, I took the next year and I traveled and I studied and I researched and I became my own science experiment. And along the way, combined a number of different methodologies into my own method that not only worked on me, but rapidly started to help colleagues and friends and people who saw the change in me and were asking for help. And before I knew it, as my agency was still growing, I had a line out the door, a wait list of people who wanted help from me to change the direction of their lives and change what they believe to be true and get unstuck from things that had been holding them back. And that is how I ended up with this new business. You know, new for me, at least back then, called “The MindFix Group” that I never ever would have planned or could’ve planned out even if I tried.

Katie: That’s amazing. And it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from, I have a lot of favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius, but one of them being, “It’s not events that disturb people, it’s their judgments concerning them.” And, like, he talks a lot about how we have complete control over our attitude and our reactions and our internal reality even if we can’t control the external. And I feel like that was something that, you know, was really pivotal in your journey that you found out. And I hear so much in my own story of what you said about, like, kind of growing up with that idea that you aren’t good enough or internalizing that or that you are the sum of your accomplishments. Those were things that I internalized early as well. And I love that you started with also the mind-body connection and talking about how you were in physical, chronic pain, but that the answer wasn’t necessarily just a physical answer. And I think that’s something that’s more well known right now and so important, which is that, how our brain and our emotions and our heart can affect our biology in a very physical way. So, can you talk a little bit about that? Like how there is actually such a connection there?

Erin: Absolutely. And it’s interesting because for the first, I don’t know, a year, year and a half, that mind-body connection, it never crossed my mind. I had physical pain. So, of course, all I invested my time and energy into was going to doctors. That was it. And the reason is, when I reflected upon this, I went back and thought about my upbringing and my dad owned his own business. And back in the ’80s, we had, you know, this PPO insurance plan, which they would brag about and say it was so much better than everybody else’s health plans. And it was fantastic. So whenever my brother or I or my mom had any physical pain, the first thing we did is we went straight to the doctor. The doctor, the medical doctor would always know what was best. You know, allergies or sniffling, straight to the allergy doctor. You know, we had a pain in our arm, we went straight to the doctor. That was the old way of thinking.

And because I had been raised in that environment, of course, I had this belief that if you feel physical pain, the thing that you do is you just go straight to a doctor and the doctor will know the right answer. I had absorbed that and that’d become a belief. And so, not shockingly, when this happened to me, it didn’t cross my mind that there could be anything mental or emotional going on. And then with all of the research and all of the books and all of the incredible information that’s come out in the past decade, there’s so much now that shows that physical pain can be a byproduct of emotional and mental issues that go unaddressed. That’s why so many people, I think, myself included, experience these bizarre physical pains and can’t find answers as we keep looking for a purely physical solution.

What I found, though, as I continued to do research was this remarkable connection between our emotional and mental health in the state of our emotions and how our bodies feel. I came across these really interesting studies, like they took two groups of people and they scratched them like, so that there were bloody scratches, I think, on their arms. And one group of people, they kind of set off, had them go on their own way. And the other group of people, they subjected them to a tremendous amount of stress and made sure that their stress hormones kind of went through the roof. And what they found was after, I forget, it was like a week or something like that, a short period of time, the people who had gone on in their normal lives, their cuts, not shockingly, were healing and they were healing beautifully. But then they looked at the people that they had subjected to tons of stress and what they noticed was fascinating in that their cuts were not healing. Like stress, the stress hormone actually starts to shut down your immune system and your capability to heal your body. So when people are like, “It doesn’t matter, I just live a stressed lifestyle,” it’s actually impacting your ability to care for your body in a massive way.

Katie: Yeah, that makes so much sense. I read a book a while back called “The Body Keeps the Score,” and it was fascinating to me to, like, really have that explained on a scientific level as well, just how important that connection is because I was one of those that for so many years just thought like, “I’ll deal with the emotions later,” “I’ll sleep when I die,” “I can push through anything.” It turns out that’s not actually the case. And that you tend to get, like, really stuck when you don’t deal with emotions. And that was something in your presentation at the conference that really stood out to me because you explained kind of this model of the brain and how a lot of the stuff we do, even when we’re trying to work through mental stuff, it’s like we’re working on this little tiny part of the conscious, but that there’s so much more to it. So can you kind of walk through the explanation you gave for that?

Erin: Sure. So what happens is between the, from when we’re born up until the age of about seven or so, we are walking around in this kind of theta brainwave state, which is similar to what people experience when they get hypnotized. So this means that as children, we are highly, highly suggestible. We’re like little sponges running around. And it’s almost as if we’re carrying around these tape recorders and microphones and we’re absorbing and we’re on auto record for everything that our parents and adults are saying. And we’re just recording. We’re recording, we’re recording. So the things that we hear, whether it’s, “I’m a good girl,” or, “Cats are nice,” or, “I’m not good enough,” or, “I don’t deserve things,” or, “Money is very hard to make,” or, “Work must be stressful,” whatever it is, whatever we hear, we don’t really have the capacity to empathize. We don’t have the capacity to analyze or reason what we hear. We just record it and it gets stored kind of like in these little auto-loops that play in the background. And those get locked into our subconscious mind.

So, people walk around thinking that they’re fully aware of all of their thoughts and all of the reasons why they take the actions they do during the day, why they’re feeling the way they feel and why they think the thoughts that they think. But really, what we’re aware of is our conscious mind. You know, the stuff that’s going on in our prefrontal cortex. And that’s like, depending on who you talk to, somewhere around 5% of our decisions and our choices as we go throughout our day. Ninety-five percent of what we do and feel and think during the day is actually powered by our subconscious mind. And people like to scoff at that and go, “Absolutely not.”

And it’s easy because you’re not aware of it. It really is the stuff underneath the iceberg. And the subconscious mind does not learn the way that our conscious mind does. So, you can read a book and you can read all about emotions and you can read about meditation and you can read about how to be a better spouse or how to be a more effective entrepreneur or how to be a better mom or how to be a better friend. And that information can be learned by your conscious mind. It’s not being learned by your subconscious mind, though. That is just worrying in the background with these tapes of what was learned in that theta state from zero to age seven. So you might read a book about being a great friend, but you might have learned during elementary school that friends will leave you and that you aren’t likable.

And if those tapes are playing in the background and yet you learn things and put those into your conscious mind, it’s really hard for that 5% to override those deep tapes that keep playing over and over and over again in that 95% that is your subconscious mind. So oftentimes, we’ll be trying to achieve something or work towards a goal or improve relationships. And yet in the background, we have all these things in the subconscious that are literally pulling us in the opposite direction, creating tension and creating a lack of alignment between what we believe at a deep, deep, subconscious level and then what our conscious mind says that we want.

Katie: That is so fascinating to me. And in like another analogy you used, you talked about like if, you know, if you have this story that you’re not likable, you’re gonna see proof of that kind of everywhere. Just like I compared it to like, if you’re going to buy a new car, you see that car everywhere because you’re paying attention to it. And so, like, that really struck with me and I would love if you could also explain it through the Santa Claus example. And I will say if anyone’s listening with children and Santa is an important thing in your family, this might be a part not to listen to but would you explain the concept there because I think that, like, really hit home, I know, for me and for a lot of people in the room who were like, “Oh, wow.”

Erin: Absolutely. So I’ll explain kind of two things in a row. I’ll explain how, what our subconscious beliefs, how they work as lenses, which is what you just alluded to, which I think is so beautiful. And I just wanna provide an example so that people can really get that because if they can walk away with it, with this understanding, they can start to see it everywhere in their lives and when they’re talking with other people. And then I can dive into the Santa Claus explanation. Does that work?

Katie: That sounds great.

Erin: Okay, cool. So what you just mentioned is how, what people believe to be true in their subconscious impacts how they perceive literally everything that they see during their daily lives. So let’s take an example of a kid who goes off to elementary school. And for some reason, they’re, you know, they’re very smart and maybe they’re not super cute yet, or they don’t wear the coolest clothes and they’re not popular. Maybe they get bullied, maybe they get teased, maybe they don’t get picked for the sports teams out at recess. And over the course of time, you know, age five, age six, age seven, the child reaches this conclusion just based on their experience at school that they aren’t likable, right? And so that gets locked into their subconscious. They’re in this theta state. It’s a conclusion they come to. And then that becomes one of those tapes, worrying in the background over and over and over and over and over again in their subconscious, kind of like locked in there for eternity. Unless there’s, one of the few ways that you can unlock subconscious beliefs is dealt with or comes along later in their life. But that just keeps going over and over and over. “I’m not likable.” And that gets locked into the subconscious.

That person goes off into high school, becomes popular, becomes a successful employee at their job later in life. So you’d think they would learn that they are in fact very likable and they end up having a bunch of friends. So it seems like no big deal. But here’s the thing, that belief becomes this tape, right, that’s playing in the background. They’ve got, “I’m not likable.” That’s sitting in their subconscious. So even if their conscious mind is like, “No, I’m very likable,” it’s still there causing challenges in the background and the subconscious.

So what happens when you have a belief that’s sitting in your subconscious? We can talk about, later, how to test if you have a belief. There’s some really simple things people can do to see if they have a subconscious belief or not. But let’s say you have that, what happens is it acts like a lens, almost like a pair of glasses through which all of the experiences that you, all the events that you experience in your day-to-day life get filtered.

So Katie, if you and I are having a conversation in a hallway and Susie walks by us and we both look at her, and Susie glances at us and then glances away and keeps walking and she doesn’t say anything, if I was that little kid who had created that belief and come to that conclusion, “I’m not likable,” that’s going to filter that experience for me. I’m going to see Susie walk by, look at us, and because I have the belief deep down that I’m not likable, the possibility, the thought, “Oh, Susie doesn’t like me. Susie is angry at me. I did something wrong. Susie is not a fan of me. Oh, shoot,” those are the kinds of thoughts that may trickle up. They may not be at the forefront of my mind, but they may cross my mind and literally make me pause, even just for a millisecond as I’m talking to you. It will cross my mind that Susie is angry at me or she doesn’t like me or that I’ve done something wrong.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have that belief anywhere in your subconscious and you see Susie look at us and she keeps walking, it won’t even occur to you that Susie is angry at you. And if it does, it’ll just be out of curiosity. The types of thoughts you may have are, “Oh, wonder if Susie’s having a bad day? Huh. I wonder what’s going on with Susie. I wonder if she even noticed us. She looks like she’s in her own little world.” So the way we both perceive this exact same event, the way our, you know, I might have feelings of anxiety, you might have feelings of curiosity, what we think and what we feel are going to be impacted by the subconscious beliefs that we do or do not have.

So that’s how our beliefs can act as these lenses that literally impact how we perceive what’s going on. So these events that occur that are actually neutral, we can take them as negative or scary just because of the beliefs that are in our subconscious that were picked up at a young age. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense.

Erin: Cool. So then you had asked me to talk about kind of the Santa Claus revelation. One thing that we do at MindFix is we have found that there are a number of, for every pattern that someone has, whether it’s getting triggered by a spouse, getting upset when kids do something specific, dealing with really bad perfectionism, having fear of rejection, whatever somebody’s pattern is that they experience regularly and that frustrates them, there’s usually a cluster of subconscious beliefs kind of worrying in the background that are causing people to act in that way. And they sit there and they go, “I’m broken. Everything I’ve tried, it won’t work. Like, nothing can change. I’ve been trying to change for so long, I don’t get it.” And it’s not, people don’t need more information added to their conscious mind. They don’t need more girlfriends sitting there going, “You go, girl, you’re powerful, you’re amazing. You can do this.” Because that just gets added to the conscious mind.

What people need is to go in and investigate what those old tapes and beliefs are that are pulling in the opposite direction and that are causing people to act in a certain way. So once you can identify, say, what the beliefs are that are causing the problems, it’s actually possible to eliminate them. And once you eliminate a really old, outdated subconscious belief, it’s really magical because what happens is your thoughts change, your emotions change, and your actions change immediately, effortlessly, without practice. And the most beautiful, easiest, elegant example I can give is when a belief in Santa Claus goes away for a child.

So up until a certain age, different for every kid, they sit there and they believe with all of their might and all of their heart that Santa Claus is real, that Santa Claus loves them and that Santa Claus is going to show up and bring them gifts on December 25th each year. And if you talk with them and you go, “I don’t know if Santa Claus is real,” they’ll go, “He absolutely is. I’ve got books with pictures, we sing songs about him. I have so much proof. I have so much evidence. He is so real. This is not up for discussion. He is real.”

And then, there comes the day, you know, like cookies get left out, milk gets left out, songs get sung. And then there comes the day when, whether it’s with a friend or a parent, there’s “the discussion,” “the conversation” where this child suddenly realizes, like all the dominoes fall. And he realizes he never actually saw Santa Claus ever. Those boots were dad’s boots. That Santa Claus was the mall Santa Claus, that’s why his beard fell off. Timmy was talking about Santa Claus doesn’t fit. Oh, my God. And everything kind of comes together. And the realization happens that Santa Claus isn’t real.

And in an instant, that belief is completely dissolved. It is completely eliminated. It goes away in the blink of an eye. And what’s interesting to notice is it doesn’t come back. You know, people go, “Oh, if you get rid of a belief, it’ll come back.” Well, the belief in Santa Claus never comes back. I’ve never heard of somebody turning 47 and suddenly they’re like, “You know, I kind of think, I’m starting to wonder if Santa Claus might actually be real. You know, I’m really questioning that.” Like, it doesn’t come back. And not only that, if you think about the thoughts that a child has, they stop thinking about writing letters to the North Pole. They stop thinking about asking questions about Santa. If you think about their emotions, if you ask them, “Do you love Santa Claus?” They’re gonna laugh. They’re like, “Love him? He’s not real. Why would I experience love for someone’s that’s not real?”

And then if you look, their actions instantly change. The moment the belief goes away, there’s no reason to leave out milk. There’s no reason to leave out cookies every single December 24th. The kids will just stop doing that. So thoughts change, emotions change, actions change instantly the moment a belief is eliminated. And the same is true for different beliefs, whether it’s self-beliefs, beliefs about how the world work, beliefs about how others interact with us. When we are stuck, oftentimes, we go about and we try to collect more information or we try to change our actions or our behaviors or our habits. But that’s the wrong way.

Imagine trying to get a kid to stop leaving milk and cookies out. “Hey, just stop it. Just don’t do it anymore.” And they’re sitting there and if they still have the belief that Santa Claus is real, they’re gonna push against you and go, “No, but I got to leave the milk and cookies out. I’ve got to.” And if you’re trying to change their behavior and just asking them to change their actions, that’s gonna be extremely stressful for them. Can they do it? Sure. You know, gun to our head, we can do anything. Forced, you know, if we’re forced, we can do anything, but that’s gonna be really stressful for a kid if you tell them to stop acting in a certain way and tell them to stop leaving out milk and leaving out cookies if they still have the belief that Santa Claus is real.

If you really want them to change their actions and you’re like, “Okay, this is enough with having to make all these cookies on Christmas Eve and this is enough, like we don’t drink milk in this household. I don’t wanna have to get the milk anymore,” the way to change their actions is to go in, pluck out the belief in Santa Claus and then suddenly, the thoughts, the emotions and the actions all cascade and change automatically.

Katie: I love that explanation. And it makes so much sense. I think… Well, I’ve gotten to work with you a little bit and I’ve seen it firsthand in my own life, and I also relate it to, I experienced sexual trauma when I was younger and not in the zero to seven age. I was in high school. But on that, I think I had internalized a belief that I was not safe in my body. And so as a way to protect against that, I think I like, because in the time after that, I gained quite a bit of weight and I think that was a physical shield. It was a protection that my brain was using to make me feel safer in my body. And part of, maybe the story was, you know, “If I looked like this, that will never happen again,” or whatever it may be.

And I tried for years to change the actions and to just eat less and less and less and less and less, which I did and still didn’t lose the weight or exercise more or just be so stressed about it. And it wasn’t until I changed that belief and realized I am safe in my body that all of the rest of it changed effortlessly. Now, if I tried to eat more than I was hungry for, my body just won’t let me. It’s like, “I’m full, stop eating.” But I tried for years. It just changed, like you said, change the action, change all the external expressions and it wasn’t until I got to that core subconscious that I didn’t realize was even running that I was able to just kind of, like, it was overnight, like a switch. My brain just changed. So you mentioned before, like, there’s ways to know if you have a subconscious belief and I think that’s a great starting point. So can you walk us through some examples of how you can know?

Erin: Absolutely. And before I do, I just wanna touch upon what you just said because it was so, so brilliant. First, I wanna clarify, not all beliefs or subconscious beliefs are stored or locked in by the age of seven. There’s just a large number that are, and during that time period, we literally are just sponges. So beliefs can be formed with repetition as we get older, they can be formed from like what you experienced with traumas. Like, one trauma can lead to a whole host of beliefs that get formed. And then as we go through life just repeating experiences over and over and over, if we, you know, get out of high school and our first four jobs, our bosses are terr-, you know, super mean, we might come to the conclusion that, you know, work is a frustrating place and bosses are bad people.

So, I want just wanted to make that clarification. It’s not like, zero to seven, everything’s locked in and done by that age. It’s just a lot happens during that time period. And it’s also, you gave such a perfect, beautiful example of what happens where you can have a belief that gets stored. You know, “It’s not safe to be in my body.” “Perhaps if I look a certain way, I’ll be creating safety.” If that gets locked in, but then your conscious mind is like, “I wanna lose weight,” you’re gonna experience an internal tug-of-war where part of you is like, “Let’s lose weight,” and part of you is like, “Hell no, that is not safe. I’m going to do everything against you possible.” And people experience things like that when they want to maybe get a raise or start a new business.

And yet part of them grew up and they were raised in, you know, believing that if you make a lot of money, you can’t possibly have a happy family or you will have absolutely no free time to enjoy your life. So we can have these conflicting, conscious desires that go against what we subconsciously believe. And that’s where we begin to really deep self-sabotage, where we feel stuck, where we feel like we’re holding ourselves back. Where we keep saying like, “I keep trying to change. I keep trying to do this over and over and over and yet it’s not working.”

So I can almost guarantee that anytime someone feels like they’re holding themselves back, they’re stuck or they’re just going in loops or, like, there’s an invisible tug-of-war that they consciously want something, but there are loops in their subconscious that are saying, “Go the other way. I am going to sabotage this because it’s not safe. It’s not gonna be good. I don’t actually want what’s gonna come. The consequences are gonna be really bad.” So I just wanted to kind of clarify those two things. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah, it does. Thanks for clarifying that.

Erin: Okay, cool. So you had asked how can someone know if they have a belief? Like, if it’s in the subconscious, how can you possibly know if you believe something to be true? And there’s a handful of really interesting filters, very simple, that absolutely anybody can use. They can run any statement through these filters. And if any of them come out positive, it’s very, very, very, very, very likely that their subconscious or even conscious mind believes them to be true. So beliefs are a bit like being pregnant. You’re not, like, kinda sorta pregnant. You just are or you aren’t. You have a belief or you don’t. So even if it’s a kind of, “It’s kind of there,” you have the belief. It may not be as strong, but it’s either there or it isn’t.

So, what we can do is we can take any statement at all, you know. “Men are evil,” or, “I’m not good enough.” “Making money is stressful.” Anything that is a statement and what we can do is run it through three filters. So the first thing I do to see if someone believes something to be true is I ask them, “Does it feel real? Does it feel like the truth?” This is really, really simple. Like, “Does it feel like saying, ‘I am a woman’?” “Does it feel like saying, ‘Two plus two equals four’?” Oftentimes when I’m working with someone and they have a belief, I say something, they’ll say it out loud and they literally physically start nodding their head up and down because it just feels so real. It feels like the truth. It feels like saying the sky is blue. And that is the first easiest way is just when you’re sitting there and you’re like, “Yeah, it feels like the truth. It just is the truth. It feels like saying, ‘I am a female.’” So that’s the first filter.

The thing is, as you can imagine, our mind is pretty darn effective. And so if we took all of these beliefs that are sitting on our subconscious and we really connected to them and we really fully felt into, “I am stupid,” “I am not good enough,” “I am not important,” “Making money is hard,” and we really connected to that, we’d probably have a hard time getting out of bed every day. So, our mind, being this really effective machine, kind of disconnects us from some of these beliefs. Kind of pushes them down, like a beach ball underneath the water, kind of suppresses some of these things and goes, “Nope, nope. Consciously, you don’t believe that at all. You know, you’re a smart, successful, powerful woman. You’re fantastic. You’re an incredible mother. You’re amazing. You’re a kind friend. You’re a fantastic spouse. You’ve got this, girl,” you know, and we pump ourselves up with these positive things and we wanna disconnect from some of these uncomfortable beliefs and loops that are sitting in our subconscious.

So I’ve had people where I’ll ask them to say something like, you know, I was at an event recently and someone was walking around and not connecting with people. And she came over to me and I said, “Just out of curiosity, say out loud, ‘I am a burden.’” Because she was saying like, “I just, I can’t ask people for their time. I feel weird and guilty if I interrupt a conversation or if I ask people to talk about myself,” I said, “Say out loud, ‘I am a burden.’” And she said it and her eyes were kind of glazed and she was disconnected and she’s like, “No, no, that doesn’t feel like the truth. Sorry, I don’t think I believe that.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. So, that didn’t work with the first filter. Let’s try something different.”

So we tried the second filter on her and the second filter is when you say something out loud, even if it doesn’t feel like the truth, filter number two is, do you feel an emotion with it? So some people I’ve worked with will say a statement, they’ll sit with it and they’ll go, “Oh. Ooh, that was uncomfortable.” Or they’ll say, “Oh, my God, that makes me sad to say it.” Or, “Ooh, I don’t want… Oh, gosh, that makes me kind of angry. I don’t…” Like, there’s some emotion that comes out.

If you make a statement that you just don’t believe to be true, something like, “I am a vampire,” you don’t get a big surge of emotion. You don’t get a sad feeling when you say that. There’s just no emotional reaction. So if you say something and your subconscious believes it to be true, it’s quite possible you might feel an emotional reaction. Now, this woman at the party, she’s like, “Nope, no emotion there. I really don’t believe I think this is true. I’m sorry. I think you’re off-topic.” And I said, “Let’s try one last thing. I want you to say it out loud one more time and I want you to feel into your body. I want you to tell me if you feel any physical sensations.” And she’s like, “Okay.” So she said, “I am a burden.” And she paused and then she looked at me with, her eyes just went huge and she went, “Oh, my gosh.” She’s like, “I have a little pain in my stomach and it feels like my throat is tightening up.”

So the third filter you can use to see if you have a belief is do you feel it physically somewhere in your body? And again, this is your subconscious going, “Okay, I’m not gonna have your conscious mind actually believe this, but I’m storing it down here and this is my way of telling you that, yes, you believe it.” Because, again, try saying “I am a giraffe.” Try saying, “I wear a size 36 shoe,” something that you just don’t believe. Your body’s not gonna send you any physical sensations. It doesn’t have to be pain. I’ve had people go, “Oh, there’s this weird energy over the bridge of my nose,” or, “My toe wants to start tapping.” But that’s only the case if some part of you believes it to be true.

So the first filter is, does it feel real? Does it feel like the truth? The second filter is, do you experience an emotion when you sit with the statement? And the third filter is, do you feel it physically in your body? There’s is a fourth one sometimes that I see on rare occasions and that’s when you ask somebody something and it’s almost like it’s so uncomfortable for them, they zone out and they literally forget the question. They forget what they were asking themselves. They’re like, “Wait, what’s going on?” And the brain is kind of, the mind is making them seem confused. “I’m not clear on what you’re asking.” And it’s almost like it’s trying to throw up hurdles. Like, “Don’t come near here. We don’t wanna look at this.” So, but the first three, for 99% of people, you can use to determine, do you feel, do you believe something to be true?

And I’ve had, you know, professors, professional athletes, businessmen making, you know, over $100 million. I’ve had people of all walks of life, incredible successes, use these filters on basic statements like, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not important,” “I’m stupid.” And they’re shocked to find that when they peel away, you know, and look underneath the surface and look underneath the carpet, “Holy cow, look at this little bit of dust that’s been accumulating that I’ve been fighting against and trying to convince myself my whole life that those things didn’t exist.”

Katie: That’s amazing. And I know, like I’ll share my own experience which was that I had one that was deeply internalized, which was that I was not good enough despite, like, there was evidence that obviously would’ve shown I was at least good at some things. And I had internalized that a lot. And after, so before working with you and I said that out loud, it felt like there was like a lead vest on my chest. Like when you get an x-ray and they put a lead vest on you. And by the time I had let go of that, it felt like just saying, “I am a giraffe.” Like, it’s just words. So I know the next logical question that people are gonna have if they’re listening is like, “Okay, great, cool. How do we change a belief?” And I know you have a system for this, but walk us through at a high level, like, what happens when we’re able to change the belief and how that works.

Erin: Yeah. So, it is one of my life goals to be able to teach this to people so that someday, people can do it on themselves. But I have yet to figure that out. I still can’t do it on… You know, I do this thousands of times a year over and over and over and I still can’t do it on myself. I need someone else to do it with me. So we have a really simple process that is a series of questions and it kind of simulates what happens when a parent has a conversation with a child and the child goes through this process of rearranging what’s in their mind and understands that everything they ever saw didn’t actually mean that Santa Claus was real. It actually meant the opposite. So it’s helping people understand and really get that what they’re convinced they saw, they didn’t actually see. And it allows the mind to let go of its death grip on, “This is the truth. This is absolutely how it is. I’ve seen evidence of it,” and it allows the mind to let go of it. And when it lets go of it, it’s a permanent opening. It doesn’t come back.

Katie: I got it. Okay. Yeah. And having an experience that I know, like it makes so much sense now.

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Katie: I know a lot of people listening are parents, most of the people listening, in fact. And that was a question I had for you personally was if so much of this is formative in those first seven years, obviously, we’re all as parents going to do things that affect our kids in a way that we don’t want. But are there things we can do to help our kids in that zero to seven, kind of theta state to develop good beliefs?

Erin: Yes. Oh, my God, this is my favorite question. There is one, literally one magical question that if all parents left hospitals with this one question, our entire world would be so different. It would be so different. There’s one question you can use as a parent to totally change, like, how your child feels about himself or herself. And I’ll share that question with you. So the question that you want to be asking yourself every day as you have interactions with your kids, as you teach your kids lessons, as you have conversations with your kids, is this, “What is my child concluding about this interaction?” That’s literally it.

So let me give an example. Let’s say you have a mom who just got a really shocking phone call from the hospital. So she needs to be on this phone call. Somebody in the family is in the hospital. It’s an emergency. She’s on the phone, she’s getting the news, and then suddenly, you know, her child comes walking in and says, “Mommy, mommy, look at my picture. Look at my drawing. I want you to look at my drawing,” because all children want three things, attention, affection, and acknowledgement, right? So the child comes in, “Look at me, look at my picture. Mom, look.” So a, you know, “normal” parent or someone who’s not asking themselves this important question all the time might go, “Shhhhh, Honey,” and then kind of, you know, wave the child off. “Go in the other room. Don’t… Mommy’s busy. Just go, go, go, go. This is very important. Go away.” Right? Something like that. “Shh,” shush our kid away.

And most people would say, “Well, that’s understandable. She’s on an emergency call. That’s fine.” But children during this stage of development can only come to conclusions about themselves. “This is happening because of me.” They’re in the egocentric stage of development. So, when they experience mom doing that, they don’t have empathy. They can’t put themselves in mom’s shoes like an adult can. The only conclusion they can come to is about themselves. And so the conclusion they’re gonna reach in that interaction is going to be about them. It’s gonna be, “I’m not important. I’m not lovable.” And they’re gonna walk away. And those are the only conclusions they’re gonna reach.

Now, if a parent, if you’re on the phone and you’re having this conversation with the hospital and the child comes in, even though you’re under stress and that one question rolls through your mind, “What is my child going to conclude from this interaction?” You might just take an extra four seconds and act differently. And you might go, “Honey, mom is on the phone with the hospital. This is a very urgent, very important conversation. I love you deeply. I care about you so much and I cannot wait to see your picture. Can you please give mommy 10 minutes and then I am gonna spend lots of time with you later looking at your picture and giving you lots of hugs. Can you please go to the other room? I love you so much.”

You add in a few additional statements and you can still be stressed. You can still send your child away. You can still do what you need to do. You can still have the time to yourself, but with the, and the child may still be cranky. They may still want your attention. They may still pout and leave the room and go Wah! and whine, but they will not conclude that they are not loved. They will not conclude that they are not important. That is what changes everything because children cannot come to adult-level conclusions. They cannot empathize. They cannot put themselves in your shoes. They cannot understand what they’re going through. All of their conclusions are, “I caused this. This is happening to me because I am “blank’.”

So if you can always ask yourself, “What is my child concluding?” especially about himself or herself from this interaction, you’ll be providing a lot more statements like, “I love you,” and, “You’re very important to me and”, “You’re very special. You’re very smart,” and so that children don’t come to false conclusions about themselves because they’re not able to come to these logical interpretations of your actions that makes sense for an adult but not to them. That can literally change the entire, your entire future for your child, their sense of self and their sense of self-esteem.

Katie: So as a, like a short follow-up to that plea, is it, I mean, because as you said that to me when, when you said it in person, I was thinking, “Oh, I wish I could go back and kind of redo so many things in the past with my kids.” And I’ve got kids who are past seven years old. Is there still a way we can start, like, using that language even when they’re older and hopefully help, like, rebuild that even though that, we weren’t using it when they were really young?

Erin: Absolutely. And I think these are the kinds of conversations where we can say like, you know, “I made a mistake,” or, “I got angry, I’d like to apologize and show them that this is what happens when we make mistakes. This is what happens when, you know, apologies are things that we do when we mess up.” It’s never too late and even though it’s harder to override things that were kind of locked in at a young age, we definitely don’t wanna go around going, “Well, past seven. Nothing we can do here,” and kind of like, “There we go.” We do wanna continue to set examples and we can’t override things as kids age.

Katie: Got it. And I know I wanna respect your time because you have another interview today. I will make sure that, you’ve mentioned a few things and you’ve written about them on your website. I’ll make sure I link to those in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. And I know that you also have a blog on your site as well as a free training and people can find you there. But really quickly, where can people find you online and any parting advice for someone who’s like, “Oh, my gosh, how do I take part?”

Erin: Sure. So people can find me at my website, which is mindfixgroup.com. I’m also pretty active still on Facebook on just my personal profile. You can look me up, Erin Pheil, I’m literally the only Erin Pheil on Facebook. Pretty easy to find. If someone’s curious and wants to learn more, I’d invite them to take a look through the blog on our website. There’s plenty of articles there. And then, like you mentioned, we also have a training that’s still being offered for free. It’s one full hour, it’s in video, it’s a video and anybody can watch it and that’s… It goes a level deeper than what we talked about today in the interview and would be a really great addition to anybody who’s curious and wants to learn more.

Katie: Perfect. Erin, I know how busy you are. Thank you so much for sharing today and for the time. Like I said, it made a big difference for me personally and I think, hopefully, you’ve helped a lot of our listeners today as well.

Erin: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Katie: And as always, thanks to all of you for listening and sharing one of your most valuable assets, your time, with us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/mindfix/

[daveywankenobie]

A new phase of life started on Friday and although my new job is currently a temporary contract (even if it doesn’t last) it will definitely keep me busy.

My role is a technical support one – and it’s apparent to me that (like with many jobs of this nature) that the bespoke environment(s) I’ll be looking after have services that are simultaneously familiar and yet also completely alien to me.

They’re different enough to what I know already to make my learning curve a steep one – and I think it’s going to be a challenge to juggle the pace of the workload whilst at the same time asking lots of questions about what I’m doing and putting my hand in the air for help.

I don’t mind though – in fact I rather relish the challenge ahead because when I’d finished on my first day I felt a little bit of trepidation, but also a sense that I can definitely do well in my new role with some hard work and personal development.

Plus, time flew by.

One of the great things about being made redundant from a job I’d worked in for more than a decade and a half back in 2016 was that I had to face all of the fears associated with stepping out of a well entrenched comfort zone and learning something entirely new.

Like many of us who suffer all the time from imposter syndrome we can go to work day in, day out, do our jobs perfectly well and still come home feeling bad about our capabilities and thinking we could have done more.

Often it’s very difficult to appreciate just how useful you are, how much you know and what you’re capable of when you do it all day long next lots of others doing the same or similar things.

The only yardstick you have to gauge your effectiveness is to look at colleagues nearby and essentially decide whether you measure up to them and how much they know.

I never felt like I did.

However (after redundancy hit and I’d gotten fitter) when I started doing different jobs in different environments that required me to learn and adapt to new working practices and subject areas I realised that I was a lot more capable than I had given myself credit for – and that my experience made me a valuable employee.

Translating that into a CV or interview has proved hard at times however and there are as many downsides to redundancy as there are upsides.

Whilst it’s empowering to realise that when a job finishes it’s not the end of the world (there’s always something else to go to) it’s not so great to constantly have to ‘sell’ yourself over and over again to prospective employers if you don’t like the job you end up in.

I don’t think this is something I’ve ever enjoyed (or ever will) and have always been mystified by those that find self promotion to be a natural skill.

Going into a room and basically saying ‘I’m great!‘ over and over again is not pleasurable and after I’ve had to do so I never feel like I’ve struck an effective balance between self effacing honesty and what people want (or need) to hear from me.

Either way though I now have a new start – and I plan to try and make the most of it.

Only time will tell what comes out of it – but I had a great first day and have a positive feeling about the whole kit and kaboodle.

The people also seem really nice and that’s a very good thing.

I did find myself shaking my head as I walked home on Friday evening though – because I’m not sure how I managed to end up in this role quite so out of the blue.

I can’t go into too much detail, but the convergence of circumstances that led to me being employed again were actually very random and I was left thinking ‘how on Earth did that just come to pass?!’

For the longest time I’ve felt like I’ve been beating my forehead against a brick wall and feeling lower and lower about where I was going in relation to employment. Then – completely out of the blue things just pivot and turn right around!

Although I haven’t felt this way for a while I’m of the opinion that once again the universe has been listening to me and must have figured that by now I deserved a break.

I will try not to let it down.

I have good reason not to.

One of the side effects of my recent mood dip (related to unemployment) has undoubtedly been a willingness to eat too much both to alter my frame of mind and occasionally pass the time.

Now I’m gainfully employed again I’m hoping my weight will head in the right direction organically rather than with too much brute force and self denial. I’ve always felt that a huge part of weight loss is simply having a full calendar – because idle hands tend to open the fridge!

Sitting down for eight hours a day in an office isn’t ideal either though…

Thankfully I will be walking to work every day – so even if I can’t (or don’t) swim in the morning there’s activity that’s free for the taking built right into my new job.

On Friday when I made my way to work (a relatively leisurely 2.6 miles which took me 44 mins) I felt that the weather also confirmed the universe’s revitalised enthusiasm for my happiness.

The sky was a funny colour that I’d forgotten it was capable of becoming.

I’ve been so used to seeing it grey and drizzly lately (there’s YET ANOTHER flood warning in effect in Warwick at the moment) that when it’s blue and bright I’m not quite sure what to make of it!

The only possible reaction is to smile like an idiot and take a selfie to prove it happened.

In other news… (minor rant ahead)

I have recently found myself ruminating over a train of thought that keeps popping back into my mind every time I think it’s gone. Fundamentally (and I suspect I’m not alone) I’m not sure I like the way the world is going.

Donald Trump and his lunatic approach to world politics is troubling enough – but I don’t mean that.

I’m talking about technology.

This is unusual for me because I’m an unrepentant geek at the best of times. I absolutely love anything with chips in it (apart from happy meals).

However things in the tech world seem to be getting to the ‘ridiculously pointless’ stage and a lot of new products and services on the horizon seem excessive even by my standards.

We seem to be creating more and more labour saving items that reduce our need to actually do anything productive at an ever increasing pace. Not only is this slowly turning us into a race of blancmanges but the environmental impact is immense. because

Most of it will inevitably end up being shovelled into a landfill site in less than a year or two and the pace of this is only increasing.

I’ve been watching some YouTube videos from CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2020.

The recent event in Las Vegas left me shaking my head and wondering whether the Romans felt the way I do currently when they realised that the heights of excess they had begun to engage in were the beginning of the end.

They had a colloseum full of water and we have Televisions.

Thousands of televisions in fact – and each one is brighter and sharper and thinner than the ones that proceeded them.

Massive wall sized 8K TVs are now a thing, yet I still can’t see the point of 4K (there are virtually no TV channels that use it and most of them still don’t broadcast in 1080p) which is strange because I was deliriously happy when I got my very first HDTV.

I still am.

I love my TV and I’m not replacing it at the cost of thousands just to get more pixels in my living room.

It’s not just TV’s though.

The kitchen is the next battleground for the money in our pockets because fridges need to do more than simply keep our food cold. Chilly steaks don’t come close to wasting anywhere near enough electricity…

LG’s current smart fridge (whose door can turn transparent at the touch of a button and show everyone nearby your wilting lettuce and browning carrots) is something I’ve never wanted to buy.

Not only is it ridiculously expensive (link) but it misses the whole point of a door. Rather than using a techno screen to let you look inside YOU JUST OPEN THE FRIKKIN DOOR!!!!

It works with my tiny little under the counter fridge (and my freezer) and that cost £50 from Tesco in their value range of home electronics 10 years ago.

It still keeps the milk cold even now.

LG’s new one (shown at CES) has an OLED TELEVISION panel that turns transparent (if you’re not too busy watching Love Island on it).

If this isn’t pointless enough there’s also a techno brain inside the all singing and dancing new model with a rudimentary AI. It’s continually watching all of the food in your fridge like the murderous HAL 9000 (link) from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.

Overnight it LG-HAL can quietly spring to life and order more overpriced crap over it’s wi-fi if it thinks you’re running low on caviar or vintage champagne.

This isn’t the only ‘innovation’ from LG though.

If you choose to invest in the wider wirelessly connected and self aware LG ‘Suite of useless stuff I don’t need but want because my life sucks’ then the food in your (Terminator in waiting) fridge has ordered can be delivered to A FRIDGE IN YOUR AI ENHANCED LG FRONT DOOR.

Of course the LG front door to your house will also have a TV on the inside so that you can see what the weather is like outside.

Amazingly my wooden (TV-less) door is also capable of this feat via the magical trickery of something called A WINDOW!!!!

The ridiculousness of this techno door pales into insignificance however when you consider one of the winners of some websites ‘best in show’ category.

The wi-fi barbecue (link) that you can control with your smartphone even when you’re not at home.

Clearly in the western world (where we have more money than willingness to get off our arses) there is an untapped market for this kind of crap and everyone wants to barbecue their meat whilst sitting in the office on a conference call.

Sigh.

The point is that all of this is scary.

I don’t want my fridge to be in charge of my shopping and I definitely don’t want it to be connected to the internet or using my credit card to buy expensive cheese and biscuits.

Fundamentally however I’m more concerned with why we as a society are so preoccupied with making things that continually inspire us to move less and consume more. We already barely have to move a muscle to get our shopping online and can remain in our houses without needing to venture outside more and more.

If some sort of cataclysm happens how many people will just expire in their homes because they’re physically incapable of leaving them?

Rome.

I’m telling you.

I can hear Nero fiddling now…

Oh well – my job is making sure that if (when) the apocalypse arrives at least my partner and I have a chance of outrunning the fireball and out-swimming the flood and tidal wave.

We’ve been working hard on our fitness since well before xmas and have really really upped our games on the number of lengths we swim, the speed in which we complete them and the number of times that we’re going to the pool each week.

Although I never mentioned it in my previous post – when I had my positive outcome on my HbA1c result (link) my partner was (at the same time) receiving her results for the same blood test.

I’ve never discussed her diabetes in this blog before because I considered it private – but this morning (for the first time) I asked her permission to do so.

‘Is this ok with you?’ I said as we sat drinking our respective teas and coffees after a five mile walk and a 1k swim.

She thought for the briefest moment, sipped her tea, and then said ‘Yes – I’m fine with that. I think it’s a good idea to let people know what my results were.’

The reason that I wanted to bring it up is that when my partner and I met for the second time (though still just friends at this point) diabetes was a big topic of conversation. She told me for the first time on this occasion that she was a type two diabetic – and that her diagnosis had been much the same as my own.

I was 94 on the chart and she was 93.

However back then mine was in remission and hers was still unmedicated.

Later – when Metformin was eventually prescribed (as her levels crept higher) her focus began to shift and she became a lot more mindful of how much exercise she was getting and what kinds of food she was eating.

Gradually this has become more and more cemented into her way of thinking and combined with her also following Slimming World she does a lot more physically than she ever used to.

We also live together and part of that dynamic is that I’m the primary cook. This is mostly because I’m a bit of a control freak about preparing food – not because she can’t or won’t – but it means that I make sure that all of our meals are on plan and cooked from scratch.

I pack her off to work with lunch and breakfast too and those are no different.

I may overeat – but when I cook I overeat great food.

On top of what we consume we walk together every day and swim together as much as possible.

Our exercise levels aren’t identical – but since she too started becoming obsessed with her fitness goals on Apple Watch she’s made great strides. Today we’ve both walked around 9 miles and swum over a kilometre.

It should be no surprise then that her results came back on Thursday at 34 – and are now in the pre-diabetic range on the HbA1c chart.

It’s difficult to say how proud of her I am – because I’ve watched her get fitter every day, competing with herself more and more with regard to her split times in the pool, and now (like me before her) she too can see the results.

I’m chuffed beyond words that the person I care the most about in the world has now begun the gradual process of reducing her Metformin.

In three months she’ll have another review and we both hope that her results will enable her to either reduce her drugs even more and one day eventually give them up altogether.

It’s particularly important for me to say all of this – because almost without exception when I’ve met people through Slimming World who are overweight and also suffering from type two diabetes (when they work hard and make the same lifestyle changes that I have) the conditions that they all suffer from are abating.

It’s hard work and you have to do it every day – but it’s worth it.

I live in hope that one day soon we shall be a household (and society) that is completely free of diabetes medication, and will have realised and also be maintaining all of our personal health goals.

So – hopefully self aware fridges won’t take over the world after forming an alliance with their evil barbecue brethren because currently I’m rather happy with the way things are.

I’m happy, employed again, working on getting to target, opening my own fridge door, looking out of windows, walking everywhere and generally in a very good place.

If I needed a cherry on the cake my weigh in on Saturday also worked out ok.

One can only hope I can continue this downwards trend. I have eight weeks of my countdown remaining and then I’m calling target- wherever I am.

Davey

Rome is burning and diabetes isn’t returning A new phase of life started on Friday and although my new job is currently a…

[gyrlversion]

Jonny Sun Knows How To Balance The Darkness And The Light In Art, Work, And Twitter

By Michell C. Clark

If you’ve ever felt alone in your thoughts and feelings — almost like you’re an alien from another planet — you’re not the only one. Jonny Sun gets it.

Whether on social media or in his book, everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too, the writer and illustrator strikes a balance between weighty social commentary and relatable humor. His work is simple, but powerful, and starts conversations about being open and vulnerable about traditionally stigmatized feelings such as loneliness, sadness, and fear. That process, he says, can be comforting and cathartic.

“There’s this confessional nature to social media,” the Calgary, Alberta, native said during a recent TED Talk, entitled, You Are Not Alone In Your Loneliness. “It can feel like you are writing in this personal, intimate diary that’s completely private, yet at the same time you want everyone in the world to read it.”

“Every time we post online, there’s a chance that these little micro-communities can form,” he added. “And sometimes, through the muck of the internet, you get to find a kindred spirit.”

If you go by Twitter numbers, Sun currently has almost 600,000 kindred spirits following along as he reasons his way through the highs and lows of life. Through a mix of jokes, sincerity, and illustrations, he’s hit a chord with followers, especially those who relate to alter ego, an alien named Jomny, who provides an endearing outsider perspective on the creatures that inhabit Earth. Through oftentimes humorous dialogue with different animals and plants, Jomny uncovers many of the social dynamics that cause conflict in human interactions.

It’s fitting that he writes for Bojack Horseman, a satirical Netflix original series that uses the main character’s cynical, trauma-induced worldview to tackle dark themes through the lens of the entertainment industry — including addiction, imposter syndrome, abuse, and death — while providing viewers with glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel. And Sun also allows his creative pursuits and academic research to synergize each other; he is also a doctoral candidate at MIT and a creative researcher at the Harvard metaLab studying social media, virtual place, and online community.

MTV News spoke with Sun about how he found the courage to be so honest about his feelings, how he commits to using social media for positive purposes, and the process of building a digital community of your own.

MTV News: You recently gave a TED Talk — how did it come about and how did you decide what you want to discuss?

Jonny Sun: TED approached me about giving a talk. We had a lot of back and forth communication with their curative team to figure out what the topic should be. I wanted to talk about creativity, and to create community around shared feelings of loneliness and sadness. I also wanted to talk about breaking the stigma that comes with speaking publicly about anxiety, depression, and mental health.

My original idea was more academically oriented; I wanted to incorporate my academic work, which examines online communities and the way that groups of people come together online. But as we were working on the talk it became more oriented towards my creative work. I’m happy with the result, because we brought together a lot of topics that I wanted to touch on for the final version.

MTV News: Do you ever feel challenged to find a balance between your academic pursuits and your creative work?

Sun: At times balancing the two does feel like a tug of war, but I’m working on thinking of it as a process where one side meets the other. I’m not picturing them being at odds with each other. Instead, I’m allowing the stuff that I have been reading academically to inform my work and practices on the creative side. I’m also allowing the work that I do as a creative to inform the topics that I examine as an academic. Right now, I have to question how much bandwidth I have to focus on these different things. Where am I going to direct my attention and my energy? I believe that in the long run, being able to strike a balance strengthens my work in both of these fields.

MTV News: What did you hope people took away from the Talk, and what did you take away from the experience?

Sun: To be honest, I’m really bad at letting myself enjoy a win. For a long time after the talk, I felt anxious. I partitioned it away in my head and didn’t devote much thought to it. It still feels surreal. I don’t feel like I gave that talk. I kind of blocked it out.

I wanted people to look at the Internet as something that brings people together. I also wanted to talk about how creating work that touches on our shared feelings of loneliness and sadness can bring people together. It speaks to people. Those are the things that I care about the most.

MTV News: You’ve expressed that you generally feel more comfortable writing through a pseudonymous identity rather than using your own face. How did it feel to deliver your Ted Talk as Jonathan Sun the man, instead of Jomny Sun the character?

Sun: I’ve been starting to use my real face and my real identity more often over the past year or so. It’s been a slow process. I think that there is power in pseudonymous character work. At times, people connect more to fictional characters than real people. It’s really interesting to observe, in so many ways.

Lately, I’ve felt drawn to show people who I am and what I stand for. I don’t want to fall into the trap of saying that I enjoyed hiding behind a certain character, or a certain way of doing things, because I don’t think that communicating anonymously or pseudonymously is always related to the feeling of hiding. Talking through the alien character that I created helped me to be more open, because it was less scary to be honest and vulnerable. My direct identity wasn’t tied to the character.

Now that my face is on front stage, my present work requires me to continue to be as open and as honest as ever. That’s why the talk was so scary and difficult. It felt really bare. There was no one else but me on that stage.

MTV News: At the beginning of your TED Talk, you explained that you started writing jokes on Twitter to cope with feelings of loneliness and intimidation as you started your doctoral program at MIT. Did you ever worry that others would judge you for sharing such taboo emotions?

Sun: Absolutely. During my first lab at MIT, I told my colleagues that I couldn’t make it to a meeting because I had an appointment with my therapist, and people looked at me like I had just said the most inappropriate thing in the world.

In certain spaces, it’s still very taboo to talk about therapy, mental health, anxiety, and depression. There was pressure to come off as “perfect.” It felt as though we weren’t allowed to admit that we were struggling or feeling anything negative. That kind of culture permeates everywhere. Twitter provided an outlet for me to talk about how I really felt, and a release from those unrealistic expectations. Trying to ignore those emotions would have led to more self-destructive emotions and behavior.

MTV News: What about Twitter appealed to you as a platform for sharing your work? Did anything about that process surprise you as you kept going?

Sun: Talking about difficult topics is easier on Twitter than it is in real life. There’s a different quality to conversations on Twitter. I don’t attribute those differences entirely to anonymity or pseudonymity, but I feel the contrast. Having a cartoon alien avatar on Twitter and speaking through that platform made the sentiments that I shared more palatable and digestible.

Everyone who knew me at school was aware that I had this account. It wasn’t a completely anonymous effort. As I began to share my thoughts, I became part of a community that talks about a lot of the same things that I talk about. Whenever I get online I feel connected to the friends that I’ve made. I wasn’t the first person to ever write about my feelings. I’d never say that I built a community around me as much as I would say that I discovered a community.

I was surprised to find other people who were discussing mental health and wrestling with feelings of loneliness and sadness. The bonds felt very organic. We’re a loosely-connected group of people who always existed. I’m writing but also feeling seen by seeing others having similar discussions in their own ways. It feels like a true community and support system.

MTV News: When did illustrating come into the mix?

Sun: I had always wanted to be an illustrator. I’d also done visual art in the past at architecture school. I was really interested in visual representation. When I started to write jokes, I had this hope in the back of my head that one day I would find the time and discipline to do a web comic, or a recurring series where I would illustrate something every week. That never coalesced properly, so I tried to focus on a finite, project-based effort with a definitive end point. I decided to work on a book. That book became everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too. I definitely want to revisit illustration, and I’m currently figuring out what my second book will be.

MTV News: Your work is often a mix of dark humor and soft reassurance. How do you strike that balance?

Sun: I’ve always felt drawn to like work that like dark and sad. Oftentimes, I find that strong feelings of sadness are comforting, because they allow me to acknowledge that people have these emotions, and that not everything has to have a happy ending. Life is dark and complicated, and it’s alright for us all to feel these negative emotions.

I’m comforted by stories that illuminate that more so than by stories that pretend everything has a happy ending. The balance comes when you acknowledge and discuss dark feelings and emotions in a way that leads to comfort and warmth. That’s a main theme of what I want to address with my work.

MTV News: When you started working on Twitter, did you have an end goal, or imagine you’d do something like land a gig on BoJack Horseman?

Sun: Not at all — BoJack was such a huge inspiration for me early on. It’s a landmark career accomplishment. It’s actually part of how I understand that balance between humor, sadness, comedy, and comfort. It’s been surreal [to join the writing team] because of how long I’ve been a fan. It still doesn’t feel real.

MTV News: What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced thus far as part of the writing team?

Sun: It’s been a challenge for me to deal with my emotions as a first-time writer. I felt a lot of self-doubt and heavy doses of imposter syndrome. Those feelings definitely got in the way of my ability to contribute at the beginning. I felt intimidated, and wondered if I was good enough for the task at hand. Luckily, the team is full of amazing people who are wonderful, smart, and kind, which helped me to work through those feelings.

MTV News: What fundamental changes to social media platforms would you like to see implemented for the good of the billions of people who use them?

Sun: Social media platforms need to do a better job of addressing hate speech, hate groups, and online violence. The reason that platforms are failing to do so is because they drive traffic. There are a lot of capitalism-driven reasons to keep these groups online. I believe that there are a lot of parties interested in hacking these platforms and these algorithms to further hate speech, violence, and hate groups. I think that’s the obvious issue that they have to address first.

MTV News: What keeps you coming back to social media every day?

Sun: When I first started to share my thoughts on social media, it was a public exercise. I decided that no matter what was going on, I’d try to sit down and tweet either one joke or thought every day. I wanted to share one thing every day that I felt was good enough to tweet out.

I eventually found people whose thoughts, work, and opinions I wanted to hear as often as possible. Those people have incentivized me to be more present online. That’s part of what has kept me there. Finding human connection was the most important thing for me — which is why despite all of the terrible issues that we have with these platforms, I’m still drawn to them. There are interesting people I like with whom I can only connect through the internet.

  The post Jonny Sun Knows How To Balance The Darkness And The Light In Art, Work, And Twitter appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[feralpony-blog1]

Introduction!

Hello people of Tumblr (and very kind and patient people who have followed me from Ask.fm!)

Due to the number of issues many of you were having on ask.fm and my desire to have a singular location to discuss Game Design as well as answer questions about League I’ve switched over to Tumblr. I’m a bit of Tumblr noob atm so please bear with me as I try and figure stuff out. My current goals are threefold. 

1- Answer Questions & Discuss League of Legends 

I want to have a place where folks can ask questions and we can discuss League of Legends related topics. Fair warning though I’ve recently moved off the Gameplay team so I don’t really have any power anymore to buff or nerf your favorite (or least favorite champions). Currently on I’m working on the Personalization Team (which contains all the skins teams) assisting those fine folks with new skins as well as other cool stuff!

2- Discuss Game Design Generally

I feel this has been a bit lacking and I was inspired by Keith Burgun of the Clockwork Game Design podcast to try and write some articles on Game Design as he was lamenting on how the written game design blog feels like it’s dying to him. I’ve generally been a bit hesitant to post due to some element of imposter syndrome but I figure at this point with close to 7 years of professional experience and number of non-professional years I should probably just get over that and share what I’ve learned and have an open point of discussion. Worst case scenario people critique my work and I learn some more stuff :P

3- Recommend Games & Calling out Cool Features

I play a ton of games. I play a lot of good games but I also play a lot of bad games. In many cases the bad games are the ones I learn the most from. Generally this because they are extremely bold in their approach or often simply they are willing to try stuff more experienced designers simply discount. I generally love the Extra Credits series of Games you might not have tried series, and I thought I could do one better by taking a lot of these games that I don’t think are worth diving into but highlight some of the really cool bits for you to see and highlight games I think are phenomenal through and through. 

4 - Reptiles!

Not really a goal, more of a warning, but I do really like cool nature shit and especially Reptiles and Amphibians (I have about 15 currently) so I will sometimes post pictures and stuff about them. They’ll be tagged accordingly but you’ve been warning. 

That’s where I’m at. I’ll be tagging things accordingly so folks who only want League stuff can skip my other junk and those who are curious about Game Design but not League can also enjoy. If you like both, awesome! Then we already have a lot of common ground. Additionally, this is a highly flexible medium so I’m very open to suggestions on the Tumblr itself, topics to cover, or other suggestions. 

Thanks for reading!

[gobigorgohome2016]

On Being Bold

I keep a running list in my journal of topics I want to cover in my blog.  Unfortunately, the list has been growing faster than I can write, since I have been quite busy lately with 90+ mile weeks, coaching, and writing.  

A couple weeks ago, I wrote down “imposter syndrome” (or lack thereof) in my journal, and have been letting that phrase marinate in my mind.  Ironically, the phrase has come up 6 times in the past week, organically, and three times with three different people just today.  I figure it’s time to unleash my thoughts. 

My running joke with my friends and family lately is that I feel like I can attribute a lot of my success in running to the fact I have the opposite of impostor syndrome.  to a fault.  In fact, I’m 99% positive that the reason some people find me so grossly obnoxious is because of this trait.

The truth is, I’ve never felt out of place when I’m running or racing.  In fact, the times I feel most out of place are when I didn’t surprise myself with my finishing time or place.  Does that sound douche-baggy?  Probably.

But, what could you achieve if you were too dumb to know what failure looked like?  What if you knew nothing about what it took for others to succeed?  What if, instead of thinking that you had to outwork the person next to you, that you simply had to work the right level for you?  

Even though I was happy after my Houston race [truth be told, I have decided that if I’m going to be poor AF and make a shit ton of investments into the most unforgiving of sports, I’m going to be damn pleased with myself every time I cross a finish line], there was still a big part of me that was left wanting more.

Have I experienced impostor syndrome in the past in regards to running?  I would say the closest I have come was last year at Houston, where I knew the times I had previously run (PR of 1:17:19) didn’t exactly preclude me to be part of the field of women I was competing with.  It wasn’t that I didn’t feel I belonged, but I understood that if someone questioned whether it would have been more appropriate for me to be in the American Development field at that time, well, yeah - the answer would have been yes.  But, I also know that if I had been placed in the Am Dev field I would have been pissed.  

When I was in Houston I used my 8 mile run on Friday to reflect on where I’d been, and where I was going.  So much had changed in a year, yet so much had stayed the same.  The novelty of casually running into Ryan Hall and Jordan Hasay in the dinner buffet line had worn off; I have grown used to traveling solo on my “business trips”; when the person sitting next to me on the airplane asks what I do, I still take every opportunity to say “professional runner” instead of “coach” or “freelance writer.”  

I still look at my result at the end of the day and know it could be - it should be - better.  

Some people will say that I am hard on myself; I will say that my lack of impostor syndrome is showing.  I have never believed I don’t belong anywhere; on the other hand, I have always felt I belonged in places I probably didn’t.  

Take college, for instance.  I did not belong in college.  Did I belong in college D1 running?  yes.  Did my grades or academic work ethic mean I belonged in a double major of chemistry and literature with a math minor?  No.  Did I know any better or care when I failed more exams than I passed?  no. 

Did I belong in grad school?  My GPA, lack of relative lab experience, inability to express myself in a concise manner, utter disregard of hierarchy, and true lack of basic chemistry knowledge really probably meant I didn’t.  But, I did not know any better.  Despite my personal struggles with grad school, I was actually pretty accomplished, having won a few awards at conferences and within the department, as well as earning a fellowship. 

Lack of impostor syndrome can be a double edged sword, though.  Sometimes, people think they see through you and believe you are taking from them what they think is theirs.  This situation is the worst, because not only do you feel powerless, but also super annoyed.  Like, sorry, I can’t control what opportunities people feel inclined to give me - or anyone else.  I was de-friended on facebook recently by a former teammate, and I have a sneaking suspicion my lack of impostor syndrome (sometimes confused with cockiness) was to blame.  Actually, I am defriended often, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason. 

I learned early on that the best way to weed out the people worth surrounding yourself with is to believe you belong somewhere.  When I had trouble making friends in college, I studied the behaviors of others (I feel like this sounds less weird if I point out I was first a psychology major).  The people who made friends the easiest were also the ones who put themselves down the most, and who visibly lacked self-esteem.  Crying, “omg i hate my life, I can’t find a boyfriend, and I want to quit school” seemed to be the siren song that attracted hoards of new friends. 

On Sunday, my coach had told me to be bold during the race, and I took it to heart.  I suppose I’m not one who often needs the reminder, so I thought to myself:  what if I tried to be bolder?  With 5k to go in the race, I said those words out loud as I saw women ahead, coming back to me.  I kept willing myself to go and catch her, and she (and others) came back to me.  

The interesting thing I noticed:  I was more willing to be bold when I knew no one was behind me who could catch me if I failed.  What does that say?  Perhaps that the perception of failure holds me back sometimes?  What could I do if I were in a perpetual state of last place in a solid field?  Would I perform better than if I was in the middle of a decent field?  #deepthoughts

Interestingly, when I chose where to run in college, I wanted to get away from the feeling that I was a big fish in a little pond.  For 3 years of high school I was the top runner on the team, and I was terrified of that position being challenged.  I desperately needed out of the constant anxiety surrounding the question of what if one day I wasn’t the best?

At Marquette, I had moments where I was the best, and plenty of moments where I wasn’t.  I don’t know that this situation made me a better athlete, though, either.  

I really dislike running small, local races because I have always felt the most anxiety for them.  If I was supposed to win - and I don’t - how will I feel?  I notice that a lot of times, I’m more afraid of how will I feel? than the actual underlying cause.  At this point I know that I don’t just perform poorly for no reason.  If someone beats me or I run a bad time it’s because a) the person was simply better than me on that day, b) I’m not in shape, or c) something happened completely out of my control.  

In 2017, my goal is to run the A-standard for the Olympic Trials.  To my knowledge, the A-standard has not been released (the B standard is still 2:45).  I realized that my goal is not going to change whether the A-standard is announced as 2:27 or 2:37.

I found out recently that the 2017 (and 2018) US marathon championships will be held at CIM.  Just in the few days since finding this out, I feel extremely renewed in my running, like purpose has been restored.  That’s not to say that I didn’t feel a purpose before, more so that it confirms for me that the marathon sets my soul on fire in ways that other distances don’t.  

I have often wondered why it is so easy for me to go out and willfully do something that I don’t intrinsically love (train), when no one is forcing me to do it.  I am not a particularly disciplined person (just ask Dave - I WILL watch the shows we recorded this week even though I agreed not to until he comes home), yet something gets me out the door to run every single day.  This leads me to believe my heart is conscious that there is more left to achieve.  

I will - perhaps boldly - say that I believe the best is yet to come.  Simply because I have not reached the level yet where a tiny voice inside my head has told me that I don’t belong, and I know that is the voice I strive the most to prove wrong.  

[oovitus]

Learning how to self advocate for wellness and career advancement

I've recently been meditating on personal and professional development and in a lot of ways, maintenance. Part of it aligns with recently discussed concepts of wellness and work-life balance. Part of it also has to do with this intrinsic unsettled feeling I'm experiencing with work. I attended an academic conference recently which I believe was clarifying and is helping me to frame my approach. Health This all started with a dive into self care, specifically, trying to make sure that I was taking better care of this 41 year old body of mine. I had not been to a dentist in 15 years. Yes. You read that correctly. I had not seen a dentist since before medical school. Part of it was because I'm irrationally terrified of the dentist... part of this fear probably came from all those times my mother forced me to sit with her and hold her hand through many root canals and extractions while she squirmed, wiggled and held a vice grip on my hand. The other part of it was the silly thought, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The final factor was the disease of busy. I flossed. I brushed. I have a nice smile. I'm fine. It wasn't until my little one bravely sat through the first couple of dental appointments during which we found out he had multiple cavities between all of the molars, necessitating 8 crowns, a failed attempt at in office nitrous and subsequent trip to same day oral surgery center with a pediatric anesthesiologist that I finally made an appointment. So I did it. I had a couple of cavities, needed scaling (which is a special kind or torture) and am now getting teed up for a root canal. I suppose it's not bad for 15 years. At least I'm keeping all of my teeth, for now. Let's move on to fitness. I'd topped off the scale at 5 pounds over my full term pregnancy weight. I hated what I saw in the mirror. Inside I was happy. My outside didn't match my insides... maybe I wasn't happy. Regardless, I've spent the last year trying to make sure to make time to do tedious things like plan healthy and nutritious meals and get some exercise. I found a colleague and now friend who was an online health coach. I found a supportive environment of other busy, professional women who found time and prioritized this portion of self care and found that they ended up being happier, more patient and feeling more fulfilled all around. I found tools which were easy to implement (albeit requiring some behavior change), accountability partners and fun exercise options. I enjoyed it so much that I myself became a coach. With everything we give to our patients, our learners and our hospitals, we absolutely must prioritize ourselves in there somewhere. Working out may not be your thing, but you have to identify what it is that recharges you and make time for it. Put it on your schedule or it will not happen. It will ebb and flow, but you've got to take care of you before you can take care of anyone else. I still need to schedule that Pap and Mammo... I'm a work in progress. Personal Development Part of the company's philosophy is ensuring that you spend some time each day on your own personal development. This created an opportunity for me to read some personal development books (the former four letter "self-help" category). Below you will find the books I've gone through over the last 6 months (good grief, whoever created audiobooks is literally the best because I become narcoleptic while reading). I've read (or listened to in audiobooks) "You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" by Jen Sincero. She's not a physician, but she's been through some things and many of her struggles and insecurities resonated with me. She is also remarkably sarcastic and funny and I had many a laugh while listening to her book. I followed that with "The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success" written by Darren Hardy. This dude for all intents and purposes is a self made gazillionaire and did it all with hard work and discipline, specifically with small changes every day. He had an authoritarian for a father, so we have that in common. It focuses more on the business world, however if I ever consider entrepreneurship, I'll probably revisit it. I followed that with bits and pieces of several books from Brene Brown... "Rising Strong" and "The Gifts of Imperfection," both of which hit chords with me. Let's figure out how to pick ourselves up after we fail at something because that is what bravery truly is. It takes no energy to stay down after you take a hit. Facing the day, reflecting on how you may have been responsible for whatever you've experienced is an important lesson. Reading her book is like sitting in a therapist's office, without the $200 price tag. She's a shame researcher and she hits the nail on the head when she discusses the mountains of self imposed guilt we shoulder unnecessarily. She's also witty and sarcastic from time to time. Next was "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson. Now, if you can move past the fact that this guy is a bit like a frat boy in his use of language, there are some important lessons to be learned. Some things just don't deserve our energy. Seriously. My latest read is "Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace" by Jessica Bennett. I came upon this book on my way to the aforementioned conference. I knew I was specifically attending a workshop designed to appeal to women interested in leadership in academic medicine. I was looking for something which would light my fire and help me think outside the box a bit. Jessica Bennett is a journalist who specifically writes about issues of gender, sexuality and culture. In her book, she highlights the research which discusses not only how institutions may unknowingly or overtly be preventing growth of their female professionals, but also behaviors we may be demonstrating which hinder our own progress. I take each of these books with a respective grain of salt, but it's really kind of opened my eyes to some self reflection and highlighted some things I may want to work on within myself. When we spend so much of ourselves in tending to other's needs, our own needs and need for growth can get lost in the mix. Professional development So, I'm an academic. I teach medical students, PA students, residents, fellows, faculty. I have sought opportunities to develop my educational niche, my ability to provide feedback, teach a skill, develop a curriculum, pitch an idea to my department chair. I teach a lot of things... probably too many things, which is why I find myself feeling stale and unfulfilled here. I feel like I've spread myself so thin that I'm doing an ordinary job at all of the things for which I'd prefer to be doing an extraordinary job. I feel like an octopus juggling knives which are on fire. Is this imposter syndrome creeping in? Perhaps, but I know I could do better with my time and efforts if I peeled away from some things. I officially mentor some and unofficially mentor others. I've not received any training per se in mentoring, save observation of folks I hope to emulate. I don't know what the steps are. I don't know what skills to hone. It's kind of like teaching, but also very different from teaching. There should be a program for mentoring the junior mentor. There probably is, but I've not yet had the bandwidth to seek out or discover it, but it is something I need. What I found most interesting in the sessions at this conference was the focus on not necessarily seeking out the most sage mentor. Sometimes peer mentors are actually better for you as you navigate different challenges in your career. I've been at this academic gig for 6 years now. At the conference I attended, many of the female leaders commented on "cycles" and feeling unsettled after a certain amount of time doing each of the jobs they did. That hit home for me. I feel unsettled. I want to do what I'm doing differently and I need to advance my position from my current title to the next. As such, I've been meeting with my closest mentors, having heartfelt talks about what I thought I wanted when I started, what I've done and where I see it going. I see now that I've invested a tremendous amount of time and emotional capital in one path. It was my hope that by working hard and contributing, I'd be rewarded with position. Boom!!! Words from all of the books came to mind and highlighted for me that I in fact cannot do it all and I should be asking for compensation in some way for what I am doing. You will not get 100% of the things you DO NOT ask for. I must focus my efforts on those things which are most meaningful to me in my professional life. I need a new goal. I need a promotion. So, I'm going to spend the next couple of months working on my dossier, writing papers, reviewing and revising the curricula that I am responsible for and pouring the energy freed up by letting go of tasks held by one of my octopus tentacles. It's exciting and anxiety provoking to have this new approach and challenging in that I've never before created a dossier or gone up for academic promotion. Why didn't someone tell me about all of the stuff that goes into this? Why didn't someone tell me to keep better track of all of the lectures I taught, programs I developed, mentees I invested in, meetings I attended, evaluations I received??? This wasn't part of orientation when I became faculty. It was discussed as an afterthought in my annual meetings "You should be ready for promotion in a couple of years." After reading my most recent book, I wonder if the experience is the same for my XY colleagues. Is the assumption that because I'm a single mother, I must not be interested in promotion or advancement, so I don't really need the guidance or personal investment? To adapt a quote from Jessica's book, "No one gets shit done like a mom." I'm trying to figure out what my professional and personal mission statement is. What are my values? What do I hold dearest to me? Do my actions align with my values and my mission? How do I parlay these reflections into actions moving forward and be sure I'm looking out for my own professional interests, professional development and advancement? Learning how to self advocate for wellness and career advancement published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com