anna 🟢

spirituality is heartbreaking. you have to use the heart to grieve its chains. you break the heart out, and out, and out, until it's the whole field, everything, everywhere, dizzying and stupendous and inescapable. you realise it was never in chains. you were just squeezing it

you can get so addicted to the pleasant feeling you get when you sense that something “might” happen that you end up completely mistaking potentiality for reality and never move towards realizing these potentialities because contact with reality isn’t as pleasant as fantasizing

this is true but the more you're around those locked-in friends the more you practice being the person they know you to be and if you like yourself like that, this seems long-run better than being hundreds of different people

@FU_joehudson when I notice myself doing this I tune into my body and feel the fear that's usually there. and untighten around it if I can

Hot take: Positive self-talk is often just criticism in disguise. If you need to tell yourself 'I'm good enough' to act like it, that statement is confirming you don't believe it. It's a pep talk. And pep talks are for people who need convincing.

The origin of conspiracy theories: 1) Our world is incredibly complex and opaque 2) But we have a thirst to make sense of it 3) So we turn to theories that we cannot test out 4) Over time, some of those theories start to spread, because they are good at *grabbing attention*

The experience of reparative guilt is like finding out you're not a car with only a gas pedal, you also have brakes. It's a profound relief and restores self esteem like nothing else, to find yourself being capable of love and willing to face the consequences of your actions.

@sarabollman ...and what we get is pretty good! bossy makes a great side dish

I’ve been a bossy, sanctimonious, know-it-all on here lately and that’s not my favorite version of myself either but you get what you get, okay?

wondering if this is another deep okayness update

i feel like there was Some Big Problem i was trying to solve all the time and right now i don't seem to be trying to solve it and it also seems likely it waa fake

@jurekmc par example. 3x5"s

@annafordable What are index cards??

i wrote these out on index cards and put them on my door a year in a deep depression 15 months ago. they were a genuinely generative framing for me, thank you

@rachelclif near enemies

examples of counterfeit versions of the thing you actually want: -a relationship that looks good but feels wrong -work that makes you high-status and rich but leaves you feeling hollow inside -connection without safety and intimacy -sex without love -love without desire

80% over my last ex now i think. just 10% to go before I'm over them enough to do the remaining 10% via a new relationship

or it's even strategic. excessive emotionality can b an adaptive response to get something or to maximise costs of ignoring the signal. it's not "dys", it's working as intended

Falling out of love with dysregulated as a term. Not sure I have a better emerging way to talk about it though. Ime dysregulation is often over-regulation, the word doesn't capture that.

note the difference between "keeping a hope alive" and "allowing a hope to arise and not feeding it when it does"

@TheGreenMaen index cards will never be beaten as a visualisation technology

Synchronicity, I just opened grok to ask it to identify some good software for creating diagrams that display connections between knowledge domains and skills so as to better focus my time on domains that need work rather than niche topics I already know a lot about. And I saw this post.

@IkkyusDen Dan Brown's attachment book agrees with you on that last point, for disorganised attachers he specifies a parts work like thing but with the goal of unification

I still think it can be reasonable to work in a parts frame where they naturally emerge, i.e. in inner conflict. But IFS hypnotically induces them where they haven't been discrete before, which I think is bad. The motion should always go towards merging into a coherent mind.

I used to recommend Anne Weiser-Cornell's "Inner Relationship Focusing" over the original Gendlin because her parts worky adaptation seemed a bit more versatile and teachable. No longer; I now think parts work adds technical debt that Gendlin focusing+Core Transformation skips.

@credorelief i wonder if you've seen the DMM? which is a developmental model of attachment theory. kinda different to the other ones you listed but ime has been really useful in getting more integrated

but a developmental model (e.g. kegan stages, tantra, or enneagram lines of integration) actually shows you a direction to move in, not just “learn to feel safe” but “become more whole in general” more on the kegan stages/tantra angle here: api.omarshehata.me/substack-proxy…

attachment theory is a dead end

@leahprime i love this post but I'm also so confused, lol. would you recommend a starting point to this kind of magic?

magic is a “way of looking” that develops and masters the skill (and it is a skill!) of identifying these levers. all things (businesses, relationships, etc) are systems, and all system have levers that can be manipulated to optimize towards particular outcomes it’s incredibly simple, but it is not easy. it demands intentional practice, like any skill. as this skill improves, so too does the skill in knowing what lever to pull, when, and how after learning the basics of these systems (and metasystems), it’s impossible to “unsee” these levers. the malleability of perceived reality - and one’s experience - becomes obvious it also becomes obvious how when one fails to develop this skill, one becomes the unsuspecting bit part in supporting and enabling the success of others who have mastered this skill in other words: if you don’t know how to pursue your will, someone will use you to pursue theirs

after extensive investigation i have come to realise that i am often more deeply concerned with managing my image than i am with my own satisfaction :/