Michón Neal's Blog, page 39
December 25, 2012
Bah Humbug! Slut shaming
Reblogged from seattlepolychick:
I am just not feeling all this holiday-ness. Bah humbug. I wanna write about something else. Ah.. Slut Shaming.
Great Date and I had a rambling all-over-the-place conversation last night and ended up talking about our “numbers”. I think at some point we already disclosed our numbers and Great Date DOES NOT CARE about my number. That’s nice and far too unusual.
This is one phenomenon I've always had trouble understanding. Just the thought of a woman enjoying sex or sexual behavior seems to be a big no-no to people, as if it's the most impossible thing. Unless they are actually sex addicts, though (who actually get very little pleasure from sexual acts), real people who have relations with many others has been something that's happened since humanity first existed. As long as everyone is being safe, sane, and consensual it really is no one else's business! The hypocritical attitude toward men and women who have had lots of partners is one of the most ridiculous and bizarre set of beliefs. My number is nowhere near Seattlepolychick's yet ant number other than 0 appears to push people's buttons. I urge you to never take on unearned guilt. You're the only one living your life.
Merry Christmas (totally random, I know)
December 21, 2012
Day (369) - My Life
Reblogged from The Better Man Project:
When I was talking with someone the other day in describing a snapshot of the things that I have been through over the past three years…I created this analogy that I want to share with you. I also want to share it because I think it applies to a lot of people. Everyone really goes through the same things in life they just have different details.
This is another beautiful post by Evan Sanders. He is a wonderful inspiration. If you would like to find motivation, he is willing to be your life coach for free. Just send him a message through his Facebook page or via email. Get your life together, spread happiness, and live beautifully!
December 19, 2012
Finally, an online retailer with something for everyone
With Yiftee, online gift-giving goes local.
FORTUNE — Had it with the gift card epidemic? In search of something truly personal this holiday season? A new startup, Yiftee.com (a mashup of nifty and gift) is here to help.
Founded by Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs Donna Novitsky and Lori Laub, both of whom have launched several successful businesses, the online platform lets you give a friend a gift from a small local store—say, a peppermint latte from your favorite café or a spinning class at the gym down the street—without having to go through the hassle of contacting the proprietor and having them take your credit card info.
A new way to gift for the holiday season and perhaps also to help out disaster survivors.
December 18, 2012
Shift to Peripherals
There are people out there who hurt others. They tease, they taunt, they bully. There are others who hurt people unintentionally. They break your heart, they let slip a crass comment, they behave carelessly. This can leave a person feeling pretty low about themselves. It can result in a person’s focus being swallowed up with the pain. In this situation the best action to take is to shift peripherals.
This isn’t the same thing as denying the pain. It is the practice of stepping back and letting it go. Instead of focusing on these people and situations you shift them to the side of your vision. They will still exist but you will still have use of your focus to direct toward your end goal, your work, your life. When hurtful things are pushed to the side you can still step forward and act in useful ways.
Because these issues don’t disappear you can begin to work through them. Because you have put that distance between you and the hurtful person you can begin to heal from it. In treatment for PTSD it is common practice to relive an experience in a safe space until it’s effect is lessened. You can create this safe space for yourself by regaining your focus. You can also avoid the dark path of denial by keeping the experience in the corner of your eye. It is present yet not overwhelming.
An added benefit is that you can always reengage the person when they go too far. When they are in your sights, if they move in a threatening way you can take action. You can defend yourself, correct them, or remove yourself from their vicinity. Take a deep breath and find your focus again. The things you want most. The life you want to create for yourself. The people you love. Your love for yourself Abbe all of your best qualities. You maintain your power because they are not your main focus. You can also deal with them because you remain aware of them.
It might surprise you to know that I actually have rather terrible vision. I have to wear corrective lenses or the world becomes one big blur of colors. However, I an an extremely visual person, which is why I find these visualizations helpful. When something is visualized it becomes easier to manipulate. It presents a controllable variable.
This exercise in particular assists one in maintaining the vision of the self when one is hurt. Whatever model you identify with, it should serve to make you stronger. Is thus visualization helpful? What tweaks can you personalize it with? What is your main coping mechanism and how well does it serve your best interests? Do you run away? Do you ignore the person? Do you find time later to work through it?
December 16, 2012
Einstein’s Gift for Fantasy | The Creativity Post
This is pretty much my process. It is always wonderful to know your are not alone. I’m not Einstein, but my imagination is a living thing and I love figuring out how to make the impossible possible. Enjoy! http://www.creativitypost.com/create/einsteins_gift_for_fantasy
December 15, 2012
Vision: Zooming In and Out on Reality
The human brain is set up to apprehend a physical world. Our senses measure distance and pressure. Yet when it comes to the mind apprehending itself, many can feel rather lost. Personally, I find visualization helpful. Every thought is a physical entity that I either move towards and build up or move away from and let crumble and decay. My mental world is as physical and weighty to me as that I experience with my other senses.
With this view, I can either zoom in or zoom out on different facets of reality. I can distance myself to grasp a larger view and temper my emotions or I can zoom in and submerge myself in a powerful experience. This way, being rational and being emotional are not separate ways of being but rather two sides of the same coin that is my complete and total experience. They are two extremes along the same axis.
When a person is too far along the zoomed out part of the axis they are considered either psychopathic or sociopathic. When they are too far in the zoomed in direction they can be considered schizophrenic or bipolar (which I have). It is apparent then, that balance somewhere in the middle is best. I’ll talk more about my idea of balance in the middle another day but I will at least say that’s a flexible assurance instead of a rigid one.
For each item of reality-whether an object, a person, or a topic-we can choose the distance from which we view it. We gain objectivity by scaling back to a rational distance and subjectivity by dialing up to a closer place. Closer ideas are larger in our minds, tend to have a strong emotional component, and can subsume our sense of who we are. Ideas that are further away are smaller, tend to have a strong logical component, and can give us a bigger sense of the world.
This may not work for everyone (due to neurodiversity-the natural differences in the way minds operate) but it helps me maintain control when my mania or depression slip toward the dark side. It reminds me that I can choose my mental distance and find a more appropriate level when I encounter the world. It lets me focus on finding a more useful point of view and sometimes even planning a better way forward.
What mental models are useful to you? What helps you to improve your decision-making or your empathy? What ideas are harder to distance yourself from and which do you need to zoom in on?
December 14, 2012
USA TODAY-Tragedy
When being anti-life finally boils over. This is tragic. My heart goes out to the families
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1769367
December 13, 2012
An Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Mental Model
I’d like to establish a metaphor. It is my hope that it may help integrate some facets for someone out there. Is we think of our actions as the Executive Branch, our emotional state as the Legislative Branch, and the mind as the Judicial Branch, we can arrive at a way of operating that is consistent through and through.
Our actions tend to be automatic. They follow naturally from our deeper beliefs, or whatever rules we’ve legislated for ourselves to abide by. Actions tend to be easier to change, at least initially. We walk, talk, and perform many other physical actions without much thought most of the time. The capacity for action is a lot like the personal Executive Branch. It requires an immediate response based on a rapid assessment of a given situation. Many actions arise from the heuristics each one of us believes. The Executive Branch just does, without going too deep into the why.
The personal Legislative Branch is one level down and can hinder or help the Executive Branch by providing guidelines. Our emotions give us a sense of right and wrong. We develop many of our beliefs and values based on how each idea resonates with us. Our (deeper) emotions provide us with information on whether or not we are following our own rules.
The personal Judicial Branch consists of the mind’s interpretive ability. It is another step down and the final arbiter of our beliefs and actions. We come to conclusions by either rationalizing our behavior and beliefs/emotions or by rationality. When we rationalize, we excuse a potentially harmful belief or behavior. When we exercise rationality, we can then look to the Legislative Branch to amend, update, or otherwise tweak our beliefs.
As with our government, each branch must operate together. A change in one aspect requires a synchronous change in the others, or else the result is an incomplete change and a reversion to the old way. Each aspect has the power to check another by simply examining how well each one matches up. Where there is discord there is pain, confusion, and often some form of lie.
As always, the human is an integrative animal. We have the ability to categorize, delineate, imagine, operate, conceptualize, and all sorts of wonderful other attributes. We naturally seek out patterns and differences. Sometimes we tend to fragment and compartmentalize ourselves. The different personal Branches lose their communication or get their wires crossed and we break down or go insane. Integrity requires mind, emotions, and actions to not only be of one accord but to be transparent as well.
What do you think of this model? Does it help you understand yourself or others better? Does it make it easier to change your mind, your heart, or your behavior? Please let me know. Have a wonderful day and integrate yourself!
December 9, 2012
Stoned to Death
Another in the Anything Other Than Straight series by Dan Pierce. It’s a powerful read. I found myself at this point and I survived. People don’t always realize how poisonous their words and actions can be. It is awful that anyone should ever feel so hopeless or fearful that death is an option. People who spit Vernon may never go away but there is always the option of realizing that your voice is worthy, that love is louder, that the only person who can determine your worth is yourself. Please, don’t ever let anyone else belittle your inherent value. And don’t pass along any venom to others. Everyone has a struggle and must find their way. We don’t need to make it any harder. http://www.danoah.com/2012/12/stoned-...
December 6, 2012
Emotional Wave
I’m going to get a little mushy. Yes, I’m going to talk about feelings. It seems as if most people learn to send their emotions past each other. They tell their friends more then their spouse, strangers more than their family. We’re getting better at growing knowledge and new technology but we don’t seem to know how to be honest about our feelings. This ends up causing many problems because emotions still find a way out. They just tend to be fired at those who don’t deserve it. See, everything that we do and feel has some physical counterpart. Most of the time people don’t consciously notice that they notice it.
For instance, did you know that you can tell if a person is trustworthy just by smell? Of course, humans spend so much time disguising their natural smells that now we just mostly confuse each other. People seem to love to talk, yet the vast majority of communication is nonverbal. With all of the ways that humans cover, hide, and mislead is it any wonder so many of us are nervous around people? We are literally disguising ourselves when we go into public. Many people display themselves as they wish to be seen and not as they actually are. Yet there still remain ways to see through this, to find the original underneath the veneer. This can be given away in tics, in rhythm, in smell, or in the emotions you feel.
The more often someone hangs around you, the more ably they can accurately guess your emotional state at a given time. Most of the information they gather is from your nonverbal clues. Even when guessing about strangers we are usually accurate. This is one reason why politicians, actors, and others in the spotlight are taught for hours, days, and months how to control their body language. Even then, their microexpressions can give them away. I tell you all of this to say that it is very hard to hide how you are feeling.
The way I envision it is that each person has a particular frequency. They have their own normal “vibration”: their voice, their affect, their stance, their behavior all have a normal range for them. Whenever something is “off” about a person, we sense this. Even if we can’t exactly pinpoint what it is or how we know, we can tell that their frequency is off. This is usually a deception of one kind or another; it may not be as big as a lie, it could also just be a burden, or it could be a bad idea. Magicians, mystics, and mediums become masters at reading body language or alternate signs from people. They pay attention. I find it a great shame that those who would finagle money, time, or resources from people can read honest emotions better than the people who matter most. The con man is so good with emotions that he can manipulate them in order to get what he wants.
A lot of us seem left without recourse, without satisfactory ways to defend ourselves, without being able to be most honest with the people who matter most. Some of us end up fearing emotions, fearing strong emotions. We keep them in check, for the sake of work, for the sake of another, for the sake of our reputation. Until we can deal with our emotions healthily, we’ll keep hurting one another, keep falling for the con man or the abuser, keep feeling lost and alone. I never understood how intelligent people kept falling in love with terrible people, why good people kept losing money and goods to con men, why being emotional was seen as a weakness. Most of us are left looking at what emotions devolve into when they have no proper outlet: into jealousy, rage, psychosis, despair, paralyzing fear.
It’s like the only emotion it is safe to feel is fear. Fear without an actual source. Just a general sort of panic or dread over everything. People become unable of experiencing good emotions without another one dragging them down. Other people burden their friends, family, or strangers with their emotions. Feelings are treated as things that are passed around, as things that can be dumped on or taken from another. Emotions are not transferable. Only the person experiencing them can deal with them effectively. Own your emotions; don’t confuse them for someone else’s reaction, don’t confuse them for a moral stance, and don’t ignore them.
Our emotions are like super-quick thoughts. They sum up our beliefs about something else or ourselves. As our beliefs change, our emotions respond in different ways. They teach us more about ourselves than anything else. It is possible to acknowledge them without being sucked into them. Remember, you still have a mind that can think. Try not to let your emotions decide; that’s not what they are for. Let your mind, your heart decide, and the appropriate emotions will accompany it. No matter what you are feeling; you are alive! Be honest with the people who deserve it but don’t make them pay for what you’re feeling. It’s not their responsibility to change your emotional state.
In what ways can or do you own your emotions? Have you ever fired an emotion at someone (love, anger, fear) and expected them to deal with it? Has anyone ever taken advantage of your emotions to trick you? What do you think we could all learn about our emotions and how can we channel them in a productive way?
