#not a group consciousness

[explode-this]

What To Do If You Accidentally Took a Sip of Alcohol or Ate a Boozy Cookie When You’ve Had Problems with Substances, But You’ve Also Been Convinced You Have a Disease and Subsequently Are More Afraid of Yourself Than a Purse Dog is Afraid of Being Out of the Purse: A Holiday Guide

1. If it was accidental, it’s not your fault.

2. Even if it wasn’t accidental, it is not the end of the world. If you have been convinced of some form of black and white thinking, like “one drink might as well be 1,000,” know that this is a built-in “failure guarantee.” It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that ultimately gives you permission to binge by way of Doomerism. Do you want that kind of negativity in your life? Say no way, man! to anyone who has cast an edict of weakness upon your entire “constitution” with silly ideas like that.

3. With that in mind, this kind of notion can really imprison you psychologically, so the panic you might feel is real. Find something calming to do until you’ve come down from it. Phone a friend that doesn’t believe in the disease hypothesis and can talk you down from irrationality. Play a game. Go for a walk. Do a jigsaw puzzle. Color in a coloring book. Get a Where’s Waldo book and look for the weirdest shit in the pictures. Try a new podcast! Listen to audiobooks! I don’t know, what do you like to do that’s been deemed off limits by a religious mentor/sponsor? What have you been convinced is stupid and childish but doesn’t hurt anyone else and actually brings you great joy? Do that thing. You’re allowed to do things that make you happy, you know.

4. For doorknob’s sake, resist going to a “meeting” upon a “failure.” You might find some measure of sympathy and reassurance in “the rooms,” but you’ll also be surrounded by people who think the sky is falling if they pass someone smoking a joint on the street, freaking out about “contact highs” and whatnot, and that mindset is infectious. You need people in your life who have not been thoroughly indoctrinated and can see through—and thoroughly reject—the premise of the program. You certainly don’t need to hand in any “chips” and start over. Consider the contradiction of a phrase like “progress, not perfection” being in the same place as “you fucked up, now hand in your medallions and start over from step 1 because our goal of abstinence from substances actually constitutes a goal of perfection.” We are human beings. We fuck up. Fucking up once after months of not fucking up does not take those months away from you.

5. If you’re still thoroughly convinced that a meeting, calling a sponsor, or reading the “Big Book” are the answers, I’d like you to seriously consider this: read Chapter 8: To Wives, and then this analysis. Among other things, Bill Wilson was a craven butthole who wanted to control every step of the narrative—he was too dishonest to let his wife, an actual wife, write the fucking chapter! If a book was published today with portions addressing a given demographic as a member of that demographic that turned out to be written by someone decidedly not in that demographic, there would be an uproar and it would throw the entire publication into question—yet somehow this chapter is yet to be removed from the Sacred Text. If one portion of a book is just made up fuckshit with no research involved, written in the voice of someone the author is definitely not, then that is fiction. This might imply the rest of the book is fiction. Approach things with a critical eye, especially if you’re been told not to look at it too deeply or look into anything other than official backstory. If you’ve been advised that outside opinions will put you and/or your “recovery” in jeopardy, that’s an indicator of coercive control. A spiritual practice requires a measure of skepticism and should be checked against people who don’t believe in it once in a while for perspective. If your practice still seems reasonable when you do that, carry on! But if your intuition says otherwise and is tugging at the hem of your mental sweater like a snot-nosed little kid asking if they can play on your phone, maybe listen to it.

6. This is basic advice for pretty much anyone, but don’t take yourself so fucking seriously!

7. To that end: get a Party City-ass blonde bob wig like this one. Remember He-Man? He… had… the POWERRRRRRR! So do you. So put the wig on, prance around your living room to this video, and channel that shit. Keep the wig around for any occasion upon which you need to remind yourself to not be such a dour bitch about this silly thing called life.

7a) This is not power over everything and all things. This is power over yourself, your situation, and your decisions using rationality. You can absolutely believe in some kind of deity or “power greater than yourself” and still have enough respect for your own autonomy that you take responsibility for yourself by claiming and owning your own power to do or not do things.

8. You are better than not believing in yourself or your ability to just get on with life. We’re all vulnerable creatures, but one group with a specific behavioral/compulsion problem is not inherently more cursed with difficulty than another. Loads of people grow out of serious problems simply because they stop needing certain coping mechanisms, or they get bored with them, but when you put that label on yourself for life—like calling yourself an alcoholic even if you haven’t had a drink in a decade or more—you’re dragging yourself down and inhibiting your own growth. I might sound unsympathetic, but believe me, I’m not. I was a pretty serious bulimic Back in The Day, and it took a lot of work and learning how to love and believe in myself to get past the compulsive need to medicate with food, but I think if I’d clung to that identity as a marker of self I’d still be freaking out over eating the “wrong” things and throwing up every day. I’d probably be dead, quite frankly. Part of recovering (not being in perpetual recovery, but recovering) from an eating disorder meant giving up judging myself and others for body stuff, eating habits, etc., etc. I also had to stop hanging around with just the women in my therapy group. If you limit your social circle to other people “in recovery” you might throw away perfectly good people who could lend valuable perspective when you need it most, or who will love you regardless of your status in program or “in recovery,” because they aren’t adhering to a set of weird social rules you have come to accept as regular. In my case I needed people who didn’t freak out about calories, judge what other people ate, and talk about food all the fuckin’ time. It was good for a little while to talk with people who shared my problem, but the longer that went on, the harder it was to stop being bulimic.

All of this to say: you are fine. You are better than fine. You’re amazing. Life is something that kind of happens to us—our parents may have chosen to have us, but none of us decided to exist. We do the best with what we’ve got. Sometimes we’re raised by people who handed down shitty coping skills or caused us to find brand new ones. That doesn’t mean you have to be that thing forever. Like, did you ever have an aunt or uncle you only saw once in a while, so they treated you at 17 like you were the same person as you were when you were 6? Remember how limiting and weird that felt? You’re allowed to grow, change, and reject labels that keep you down. If abstaining from a substance or a certain kind of food helps you feel safe then I’m not coming down on that. But it doesn’t have to be your whole self. You are not your “sobriety.” You might feel fragile sometimes but I promise you, you are strong as fuck. And anyone who encourages you to stay in a fragile mindset of powerlessness over an inert substance is not your friend.

Now let’s put on our blonde fuckass bob wigs and scream at the top of our lungs: WHAT’S GOING ONNNNNN?! HEYYY YEAH YEAH YE-HEAHHHH!

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[moonzshiftz]

GUYS I FINALLY MADE MY FRIEND BELIEVE IN SHIFTING I CANT BELIEVE THIS

HE'S ON SHIFTBLR RN😭

SO THIS IS YOUR SIGN TO FORCE ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO GET INTO SHIFTING SO YOU CAN GROUP SHIFT TO A BETTER CR AND BE HAPPY

[haggishlyhagging]

This introduction can serve as a working sheet for a beginning consciousness raising group.

The typical consciousness-raising group is composed of six to twelve women who meet on an average of once a week. Groups larger than ten or twelve are less conducive to lengthy personal discussion and analysis. The consciousness-raising process is one in which personal experiences, when shared, are recognized as a result not of an individual's idiosyncratic history and behavior, but of the system of sex-role stereotyping. That is, they are political, not personal, questions.

Generally consciousness-raising groups spend from three to six months talking about personal experiences and then analyzing those experiences in feminist terms. Thereafter they often begin working on specific projects including such activities as reading, analyzing and writing literature; abortion law repeal projects; setting up child care centers; organizing speak-outs (rape, motherhood, abortion, etc.) ; challenging sex discrimination in employment, education, etc.

The following is a list of topic areas generally discussed. Although listed by week, they are not in any particular order, nor is it necessary to rigidly adhere to a one-week/one-topic schedule. The questions are examples of the kinds of areas that can be explored.

Week 1 GENERAL: What are some of the things that got you interested in the women's movement?

Week 2 FAMILY: Discuss your parents and their relationship to you as a girl (daughter). Were you treated differently from brothers or friends who were boys?

Week 3 FAMILY: Discuss your relationships with women in your family.

Week 4 CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE: Problems of growing up as a girl. Did you have heroines or heros? Who were they? What were your favorite games? How did you feel about your body changing at puberty?

Week 5 MEN: Discuss your relationships with men-friends, lovers, bosses—as they evolved. Are there any recurring patterns?

Week 6 MARITAL STATUS: How do (or did) you feel about being single? Married? Divorced? What have been the pressures—family, social— on you?

Week 7 MOTHERHOOD: Did you consider having children a matter of choice? Discuss the social and personal pressures you may have felt to become a mother. What have been your experiences and thoughts regarding such issues as child care, contraception and abortion?

Week 8 SEX: Have you ever felt that men have pressured you into having sexual relationships? Have you ever lied about orgasm?

Week 9 SEX: Sex objects-When do you feel like one? Do you want to be beautiful? Do you ever feel invisible?

Week 10 WOMEN: Discuss your relationships with other women. For example, have you ever felt competitive with other women for men? Have you ever felt attracted to another woman?

Week 11 BEHAVIOR: What is a "nice girl"? Discuss the times you have been called selfish. Have you ever felt that you were expected to smile even when you didn't feel like it?

Week 12 AGE: How do you feel about getting old? Your mother getting old? What aspects of aging do you look forward to? Fear? Do you think it is a different problem for men and women?

Week 13 AMBITIONS: What would you most like to do in life? How does being a woman affect that?

Week 14 MOVEMENT ACTIVITY: What are some of the things you would like to see the women's movement accomplish?

-‘Consciousness Raising’ in Radical Feminism, Koedt et al (eds.)

[chunkymamatam]

honestly shifting trauma is so overlooked its crazy

I agree. Like I know not a lot of shifters want to talk about how fucked shit can get but like it gets scary out there and I feel like it’s so irresponsible to pretend it’s all glitz and glamor.

Like genuinely I feel like a lot of people don’t understand just how real it is. Like obviously it’s as real as ours but it’s a really difficult thing to fully comprehend until you’ve actually done it. I worry so much for people shifting to places like Attack on Titan. Like are you prepared to see your friends get eaten alive in front of you. “Oh I knew that they were gonna die so I’ll be fine” these are real people you’re going to be in close proximity with you’re most likely going to get attached to in some capacity and even if you’re not it’s difficult to watch people die in front of you. And that goes for anywhere with any kind of violence. In Demon Slayer I almost threw up hearing and smelling demons, humans being devoured, etc. and it’s going to stick with me forever. I might not always think about it but when I do it fucks with me. The violence I’ve been forced to commit on other people because my life was on the line in most of my DRs fucks with me too.

I feel like we should talk about it more and we just don’t and it’s really upsetting cuz now I feel like I’m crazy for being so shaken about it, or being devastated by a friend’s death. Why should I feel weird for not being over the fact I was fucking strangled. Idk it just upset me that everyone wants to act like it’s got no flaws

[pinkyprncss]

if anyone wants to groupshift to squid game 2 please message me so we can groupshift there!!

me when I find group shifting friends:

[daily-hanamura]

[misty-00]

It's getting me so confused that everything is so simple.

Everything I’ve read on Tumblr says that shifting is a very simple thing and that I am limitless. Yes, this is comforting, and as a shifter, I know it should reassure me. But here's the thing: when I succeeded before, I did it with limiting beliefs. Everything was more guided. I had a roadmap. But right now, I don’t have a roadmap. That roadmap is now me. And I can’t begin to explain how much this puts me in a deadlock. Even if I return to limiting beliefs, it doesn't work. Somewhere inside me, there's a voice telling me that this thought is limiting and completely unnecessary.

I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve successfully shifted a few times, even done mini shifting. But for the last 8-9 months, I’ve been wandering in a deadlock. I hate saying I can’t succeed, but unfortunately, I can’t. I think being limitless is bothering me. Yes, it sounds strange, but being limitless means that, since I haven't even figured myself out yet, I need to find my own shifting method. Right now, I’ve started using the 10k affirmation technique. Even if it’s a limiting belief, I think it will work.

If you have any comments or advice that could help me with this, feel free to share. I just wanted to get this off my chest.

[amplexadversary]

what the fuck

Okay so G Gundam, a show that uses a playing card motif for its characters, gets one (1) piece of art in a set of promotional materials with a playing card motif

But fucking Wing, which does not use this motif gets TWO????? How the hell is that fair????

That slot should have been Sai or Chibodee!!!!!!

[geddy-leesbian]

in the past few days I've written two very different scenarios in which Leon loses consciousness due to being a moron and wakes up to Luis healing him not sure what this says about who I am as a person

[goddessofroyalty]

How is everyone dealing with Isha's muteness if she's the youngest Vanco kid? Even if Zaun is pretty accepting of things like that Piltover probably isn't.

This does a little depend on what is causing the muteness. Because if there is a physical cause for it than we add it to the list of reasons Silco's mad at Piltover and then they're waiting until she's old enough to decide if she wants to get a prosthetic.

The thing is how I read it in the canon is that there isn't a physical cause for it she's just a mute kid. Which of course is something that tends to be more common in youngest children of big families, especially when there is a significant age-gap between them and the older children (they can rely on their big siblings being their voice for them).

And as it isn't because of a physical injury (caused by Piltover's pollution and the inequity between their cities, etc, etc) I think the Zaun side and especially the family is very neutral on it. She'll talk when/if she wants to. She can still make herself understood especially to the extended family (so like Benzo, Ekko, and Sevika as well) that's all that matters.

They will try and encourage her to talk (some more than others - Silco probably does the most because parent and a bit more wanting his Children To Have A Voice than Vander) but it's the very low stakes thing when it's not about something important, there's plenty of time, and easily moved on from if she doesn't way. At this stage they don't know if it's just who she is or if it's the result of not having the chance to speak for herself because of older siblings constantly talking over/for her or anxiety, etc.

The problem more comes when they're in Piltover. Because that's where people are more pushy about trying to get her to speak. So she tends to be a bit clingy to her family members. Honestly she probably gets a reputation for being shy to those in Piltover which is a bit funny to her family because she's actually a pretty bold child.

[cyanloves]

GUYSSSSSSSS!!!!! IS THERE ANYONE WHO GROUP SHIFTED?????

Plsssssss tell me lil tea, don't need to be detailed, I just wanna know how it is like

(I'm planning to group shift with my friend tell me ur experiences pls ❤️ I need motivation 😔)

[moonzshiftz]

i need shifter friends hmu pls

[bleeding-hart]

some sketches

based on @theicarusconstellation's writing

I keep thinking of details I left out and stuff I need to fix but if I let myself do that I'm going to go insane so we're leaving it at this

Also some Sirius because they're a fucking king and we love them (I very strongly hc them as genderqueer and using any pronouns, but specifically he/they/she/it)

The dress was a bit of a failure but hey it looks like fabric at least I think maybe

[chunkymamatam]

Ok! Thank you! And may I ask how many times you have shifted?

I never really kept count through numbers just places I’ve gone. I’ll list some that I’ve gone to so far.

Therapy DR(I suggest everyone have one of these honestly 😭)

MHA(4 DRs)

HxH(many MANY DRs)

Pokemon

Stardew Valley (3 DRs planning more)

TBHK(1 DR and I will never go back)

Demon Slayer (3 or 4 DRs)

Obey Me (Nightbringer too I consider them all one DR)

Sugar Apple Fairytale

JJK

Twisted Wonderland

Apothecary Diaries

Helluva Boss

Security Breach

JJBA Part 2

There’s definitely more that I’m just not remembering but yeah. You don’t have to shift to realities based in a universe that’s fictional in this reality. You can also just shift to parallel realities that are based in a universe that follows the rules we have here in our current reality. It’s not just going to our favorite stories but it’s really fun to do imo. It comes with its bullshit as does ours but still.