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I don't see the point in the whole charade of "use words, colors and body parts to describe what you feel" - okay, I'm aware of what I feel, and I've assigned s

I don't see the point in the whole charade of "use words, colors and body parts to describe what you feel" - okay, I'm aware of what I feel, and I've assigned some arbitrary positions on my body to my feelings. Now what? Do that every day? It feels patronizing and seems like just a way to distract myself. Might as well spend my time playing Factorio, it'll distract me as much. I hope there is some crucial factor that I don't understand yet, and that someone will explain it to me in a reply. Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake. --- Due to the negative tone of the above comment, I feel I should point out that it is a criticism of (or attempt to understand better) the concept, not the website itself. The website was very smooth and easy to work through, the author must have put a lot of effort into making it. Kudos, and if it helps people, that's a good thing regardless of my opinion and understanding (or lack thereof).

comfypotato 4y ago
It's a very soft science (and is very helpful to admittedly soft folks like me). I found value in forcing myself to realize positive emotions in light of the overwhelming stress that I'm currently under.
SuoDuanDao 4y ago
To my way of thinking - and in no way does this mean it works for you - different parts of the mind are like different programs running on one computer. They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. Book #3 in my linktree talks a lot in this vein if you find it an interesting metaphor.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. So the purpose of the exercise is to communicate information between different parts of the brain? Does it really help? If so, do you have any explanation for the underlying mechanisms? Metaphors are convenient, but unless they're a proxy-explanation for some harder-to-understand mechanisms, I don't really see their value...
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    Not the brain, the mind. Subtle difference there. The mind is more than a singular entity, it is made up of a lot of processes each with their own evolved purposes and ways of looking at things, but also their own limitations as regards expression of their state. Understanding what each part is saying, and why it is saying it, can help integrate and align the components towards the same goal. Think of it like a meeting, where everyone there has their own narrow view of what's going on in the business and what they think needs to happen is based on that, so during the meeting you're sharing all your different perspectives so you can make an informed decision and orient everyone towards a plan of action. Doesn't always work and not everybody walks away happy, but they're generally satisfied with at least being heard.
    - dwringer 4y ago
      As far as I understand this is one of the underlying benefits of making art in a theraputic session. There is a nearby former state mental hospital that now gives tours, and part of it is a museum of artwork that patients made - it is some very powerful stuff. Something fascinating I think we're just getting to the point of being able to explore is taking the words, colors, artistic expressions, etc. that we come up with in examining our emotional state, and feeding them into an AI like stable diffusion. I can't help but think there is real potential here that could be very empowering to patients and help people manage their thoughts and emotions in a personal, healthy way.
jefc1111 4y ago
I haven't read any of the comments besides yours yet. I'm a pretty cynical person - I am drawn to skepticism in a discussion, hence wanting to reply to your comment. I went through the exercise in the link and found it really interesting. I wasn't particularly interested in the final output, or in making my own practise out of it. But it was valuable finding some nuance in 'how I feel'. I chose 'good' but when I split it into 3 different terms it didn't look so good, so I took a short break, which is something I should do more often. So I guess for me there were two crucial factors. The process was more important than the output, and I gained value from it without considering I'll ever do it again.
dorkwood 4y ago
> Now what? Do that every day? It feels patronizing and seems like just a way to distract myself. Might as well spend my time playing Factorio, it'll distract me as much. What are these things a distraction from, in your opinion? I would have thought introspection the opposite of distraction.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  My assumptions are: 1) that the website is directed towards people who struggle with general feelings of discontent 2) that the purpose of the exercises is to help people feel better So it would be a distraction from the feelings of discontent. You feel discontent, but you assign them color, body part, etc., in other words, you externalize them, which I suppose distracts you from the thing you're feeling. In what way is it supposed to encourage introspection?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > In what way is it supposed to encourage introspection? You actually pay attention to how you’re feeling. Hopefully you do it on a regular basis so that you get better at it, it comes more easily, you do it faster and with less effort and sometimes you slip into it unconsciously as a matter of habit. Some people are easily and unconsciously in contact with their emotions, as others are with their bodies. Others aren’t. I am much more aware of my posture and breathing for years of running, yoga and weightlifting. Even though I do far less of all of those than I did before I had children I know my body much better now than I did at 20. Some people need equivalent things for emotions.
    - bheadmaster 4y ago
      > You actually pay attention to how you’re feeling I see, so it's similar to the mindfulness concept taught in Gestalt therapy? I guess that's why I don't like it - paying attention to how I'm feeling doesn't really change the way I'm feeling, which frustrates me, because I'm expecting it to affect my feelings, when in reality... it just makes me more conscious, and things stay as bad as they were before. Assuming it's not supposed to change how you feel (directly) - what is the purpose of being conscious of how you feel?
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I think the main goal is to make you think about how you're feeling, instead of suppressing it ("I'm fine / it's nothing") and/or pushing it away ("it'll pass, it's just a shit day/week"), because that will just maintain the status quo.
prohobo 4y ago
The website just tries to teach the first part of emotional intelligence, which is to interrogate what you are actually feeling, so that you can find the real problem (if any). This is really basic, but it's well known that people who are stuck with certain emotions (and behaviors) can begin to transform them by: a) understanding what the feeling is, and b) why they are feeling it. Once you have that information, and are sure of it, you can extrapolate where it's coming from and correctly associate it with your real situation/problems. Often that means lessening the burden of the emotion because you realize it's "just X". For example, a couple of years ago I started to have panic attacks when ruminating about weird things like the infinite vacuum of space, the simulation hypothesis, the nature of sensory signals, etc. Then I thought about why I would get scared and how I felt that fear, and realized it was because I was scared of being disconnected - essentially afraid of being alone. I recognize that as the true fear, and it's a lot easier to manage than "nothing is real and nothing makes sense", which is essentially just my imagination extending that base fear. Of course the truth is that the pandemic era caused a lot of alienation, created deeper political and cultural rifts, and destabilized the entire world. That's my actual situation, so it's no wonder I feel that way, and I can address it however I see fit. It's a way to ground yourself and break out of things that hold you back mentally.
- paganel 4y ago
  You were lucky because you could act on your fears, but many of the people can’t. A person having to hustle with two jobs because that’s the only way that she can afford child care or to pay down student debt doesn’t get much help from being told: “you’re sad because you’re being materially exploited”. There’s almost nothing that that person can do to improve her situation in the near term. As such, many of those people deliberately choose to ignore said material realities. The great lines from Pulp’s “Common people” are an example of this attitude: > You'll never watch your life slide out of view > And you dance and drink and screw > Because there's nothing else to do
  - prohobo 4y ago
    I always thought the line was "you'll never watch your life slide right out of you" which hit me hard. Of course, distractions and addictions are our coping methods du jour - but they are backward escapes and keep us stuck. We need to get people to break away from those behaviors and get on the hard road of self-actualization, and those who have an easier situation should be the first ones to do it.
komali2 4y ago
I used to, and still do sometimes, feel similarly about "things like this," I think as you're feeling now. I would describe myself as extremely cynical, would you? Do you feel similarly about the following? I do / did: 1. Mindfulness 2. Religion 3. White lies 4. Meditation 5. Astrology 6. ENTP whatever that pop psych test is 7. Sharing feelings 8. Psychology 9. Being very supportive of someone making obvious mistakes 10. Description placards on abstract art 11. Professionalism 12. Using the word "spaces" i.e. "creating spaces for contemplation" This is just me thinking out loud, not necessarily describing you here, but I've noticed that I myself share a sort of way of thinking with the 4chan / net-present crowd I grew up with. I'm not sure if our personalities drew us to similar places on the internet, or if we were sort of fostered into a similar set of personalities because of the nature of these environments and cultures. My best effort to define this vague sort of culture / personality / ideology is a sort of radical valuing of the truth, and seeking truth in all things. > Sure it's rude to call him fat, but if I was fat I'd want someone to tell me, how are we supposed to get better if we don't know what's wrong with us? > Depression is bullshit, everyone feels sad, you're gonna pay a psychologist 200 bucks an hour to tell you that? Life sucks, so it goes > Yeaaah I'm not going to "talk about my feelings," that sounds like a waste of time, let's just go do xyz instead I would feel angry if someone suggested meditation. What a fucking joke, sitting around doing nothing for 8 minutes to an hour? Come on. I would see people being really supportive and roll my eyes. "Yeah right, secretly they hate eachother / judge eachother. Take food away from both of them for just two days and watch how quickly they'll stab eachother in the back." Again, this is not me describing you, your comment just happened to remind me of how I used to be. Looking back, I don't understand why I was so full of hate, judgement, and arrogance. I really believed that the happy people HAD to be lying about it, because I wasn't happy. I really believed everyone was secretly judging eachother, cause that's what I was doing. I really believed that various psychological techniques just had to be total bullshit, because I never genuinely tried them in good faith, and just assumed they were konk science. I learned over time that being aware of my feelings was important and difficult, and that the various strategies I assumed were bullshit (like the ones in this post) actually can be interesting and effective ways to learn more about myself, if I set aside my anger, hatred, judgement, and genuinely tried them. I realized I was carrying a LOT of anger around, some of it directed at me for having insanely high standards for myself, my morals and values, and my failure to live those standards out perfectly, a lot of it directed outwards at other people for not being the way I thought people should be. Regardless, activities like this, silly though they may be, were all tools in a toolbelt of self discovery. As a general rule I've learned that new skills and experiences are earned through discomfort or suffering of some kind, and thus naturally to develop myself, my Mind, my personality, I had to suffer through some stuff I really thought was just so stupid, and some of it I still do, but I try to keep an open mind and do genuinely find myself surprised at what I learn when trying these things out. If I stop assuming I already have all the answers and give an earnest and good faith try to some of this stuff, I learn. That's basically the TLDR.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
I think a lot of people just lack the ability to analyze their own mind and a lot of therapy is oriented towards that. Personally I think I'm rather good at analyzing my own thoughts and feelings and so I find exercises like this pretty useless and silly. Like "who knew you could feel more than one emotion at a time?"... people don't know this? Hell, a lot of the time I feel entirely contradictory emotions simultaneously, it's incredibly common. During a session recently my therapist said something like "that sounds like depression" and I responded "yes, that's kinda my default state. Labeling it doesn't make it go away and just because these thoughts come from a place of depression doesn't mean they are wrong" and she seemed a bit confused as to how to proceed from there, like just pointing it out is enough for most people or something.
hgsgm 4y ago
Why would you react to a new-to-you idea put forth by well-respected people with a good reputation, by rushing to announce that you don't understand it and disrespect people who do? Is that a good way to "hope there is some crucial factor that I don't understand yet, and that someone will explain it to me in a reply."? When someone posts a comment about physics or math that you don't understand, do you also think "Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake." ? "When you are surrounded by jerks, maybe you are the jerk". Ironically, the behavior or you exhibit -- lashing out and being upset and not having an awareness of why -- is the issue the OP in addressing.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > Why would you react to a new-to-you idea put forth by well-respected people with a good reputation, by rushing to announce that you don't understand it and disrespect people who do? I find that the easiest way to get explanations is to be direct about what I don't understand. In this case, I don't understand the bigger picture of the whole concept - I just feel that it's bullshit. If someone is going to explain it to me, I think it's useful for them to know where exactly I'm standing, rather than to tiptoe around with fake politeness. I don't care much about reputation of people - if their reputation is valid, my opinion of them won't matter in the big picture - I'm just a random person on the internet. I care about ideas themselves, no matter who expressed them. > When someone posts a comment about physics or math that you don't understand, do you also think "Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake." ? If I feel that someone is bullshitting (e.g. posting a "proof" of Riemann hypotheses for hundredth time), I'll express how I feel. It's the way I feel - it's not an attack, just expression of my feeling, and I think there's nothing wrong with it. If you're bothered by how I feel, that's just the way you feel, and it's okay. But I'm allowed to express it as much as you are.
sph 4y ago
My therapist is fond of a similar exercise and I've learned to adopt it. While it may seem a waste of time, visualizing an emotion, giving it a colour, consistency, texture, material lets you be an observer to it. By forcing yourself to study it, you need to step outside of its bounds, separating the you from the emotion itself. That distance you have created and held for a few moments is a welcome relief and often makes it apparent that you are a separate entity from your pain. The further away you are from it, the less painful it is. And the more you look at it, the weaker it seems. At the end of the exercise you are more aware that whatever tormenting you was just a fleeting moment with little power over you. I find it is a brilliant and incredibly powerful concept to internalise. You can find this is the exact idea expressed in stuff like Dune's Litany Against Fear (by reciting it, you are visualizing your fear as a third party, outside of you), or meditation (remaining a passive observer to your thoughts)
superb-owl 4y ago
I agree with most of the other replies, so I won't belabor the point that learning to properly introspect is hugely valuable. But I will say that Factorio is terrible for my mental health. It's super fun, and in small bursts it can be great. But it's a crutch on par with alcohol for me. I tend to binge when bored or unhappy. I'd encourage you to find other ways to deal with whatever it is you're distracting yourself from. Using tools like the above, or meditation, can help you confront and neutralize it.
jrochkind1 4y ago
So I was just reading a book that talked about this in a way that was powerful for me, so I'm going to post an excerpt below. It's from _Your Resonant Self_ by Sarah Peyton. Warning, it's self-helpy, yup. It's interesting to me that you think focusing on your emotions might be a way to distract ourselves, it makes me curious about distract ourselves from what? I think some people find they actually spend a lot of time distracting themselves from their emotions, so naming and describing and locating their emotions is kind of the opposite of distracting themselves. (But distracting yourself can be a fine thing and useful coping mechanism too; in fact Peyton includes "distraction" as a method of "self-regulation" in the same section on "self-regulation" I'm about to quote from. but, I think, a different thing than naming emotions). Anyway, I'm no expert and I'm not trying to convince you, if it's not something that seems to resonate with you, then maybe it's not for you, right now anyway. But since you asked, I figured I'd post an excerpt from the thing I was just reading that touched on what you are asking about, in a way that really struck me -- although I don't know if just these few paragraphs will be as striking as the whole book so far as been on me! > If you have doubts that talking about feelings will help you, you are in good company. Research shows that most people don't believe that putting words to emotions helps at all. People don't think that it makes things better to name what's happening, even though the effectiveness of that approach can be seen with fMRI. Perhaps this is because many people cope by paying no attention to their emotions or their bodies and the naming of feelings is unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable. But the experience of naming what is happening not only works to calm us down; when it is done with a caring other it can also create relationships of warmth and trust, no matter how old we are. Bringing these relationships inside (importing them into our own brain and carrying them there as a memory) helps people feel more secure in the world. This can have unexpected long-term benefits, including improving immune system function; the sense of meaning and purpose in life; resiliency in the face of trauma, depression or posttraumatic stress; and relationships with others and with ourselves… > …Putting words to inner experience is helpful in another way, too. When people can't read the messages being sent by the body, they are in what scientists call alexithymia, or body blindness. Did you ever meet anyone who was stressed out and angry but didn't seem to realize it? They might not even have known that they had an increased heart rate or tension in their belly or that their eyebrows were pulling together. These people have a hard time knowing what their emotions are, let alone being able to talk about them. When people don't know what they are feeling, there's nothing they can do to remedy the situation. People who are body-blind show increased stress on their immune system and have a harder time with their relationships. There is also a link between being body-blind and being depressed. These people also suffer more from posttraumatic stress, and some research even shows that they have shorter lives. > To sum up, developing a conscious practice of naming emotions is one of the sweeteest and most counterintuitive forms of self-regulation (in which the brain takes care of itself without accessing external behaviors or substances, as opposed to self-management, which uses work-arounds such as addictions). When naming emotions is done with warmth, it can foster the mothering relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala that securely attached children receive from their childhoods. Happily, as people start to name what is happening, they can learn to accompany themselves through emotional experience and support themselves and their immune systems while doing so.
aklemm 4y ago
Eventually one reaches a point where one has to take responsibility for one's emotions and emotion-driven behaviors, and many people discover at that point they have no idea how to do that. Anyone not needing help in this growth is either enlightened or ignorant.
teucris 4y ago
I like to think that contentment is NP-Hard in that at its core, the only way to find it is to continually strike in the dark until you land on something that works. However, like many problems, there are strategies for optimizing the search, i.e. heuristics. Give the feelings descriptors and you get heuristic parameters when there were none before.
maroonblazer 4y ago
I discovered a book back in the 90's called "Focusing" by Eugene T. Gendlin. It's about paying attention to your body. Not just the obvious parts - arms/legs, etc, - but including your thoughts and feelings. I found it extremely useful for dealing with nearly any kind of emotional discomfort or stress. The OP is of a piece of that. Here's a short 12 minute video with the author of the book describing the process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjhf_qUklSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjhf_qUklSc
nonfamous 4y ago
I’m going through a lot in my life right now, including the recent death of my husband. As one data point, I found this exercise enlightening to better understand what I’m feeling.

comfypotato 4y ago

It's a very soft science (and is very helpful to admittedly soft folks like me). I found value in forcing myself to realize positive emotions in light of the overwhelming stress that I'm currently under.

SuoDuanDao 4y ago

To my way of thinking - and in no way does this mean it works for you - different parts of the mind are like different programs running on one computer. They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. Book #3 in my linktree talks a lot in this vein if you find it an interesting metaphor.

bheadmaster 4y ago
> They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. So the purpose of the exercise is to communicate information between different parts of the brain? Does it really help? If so, do you have any explanation for the underlying mechanisms? Metaphors are convenient, but unless they're a proxy-explanation for some harder-to-understand mechanisms, I don't really see their value...
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Not the brain, the mind. Subtle difference there. The mind is more than a singular entity, it is made up of a lot of processes each with their own evolved purposes and ways of looking at things, but also their own limitations as regards expression of their state. Understanding what each part is saying, and why it is saying it, can help integrate and align the components towards the same goal. Think of it like a meeting, where everyone there has their own narrow view of what's going on in the business and what they think needs to happen is based on that, so during the meeting you're sharing all your different perspectives so you can make an informed decision and orient everyone towards a plan of action. Doesn't always work and not everybody walks away happy, but they're generally satisfied with at least being heard.
  - dwringer 4y ago
    As far as I understand this is one of the underlying benefits of making art in a theraputic session. There is a nearby former state mental hospital that now gives tours, and part of it is a museum of artwork that patients made - it is some very powerful stuff. Something fascinating I think we're just getting to the point of being able to explore is taking the words, colors, artistic expressions, etc. that we come up with in examining our emotional state, and feeding them into an AI like stable diffusion. I can't help but think there is real potential here that could be very empowering to patients and help people manage their thoughts and emotions in a personal, healthy way.

jefc1111 4y ago

I haven't read any of the comments besides yours yet. I'm a pretty cynical person - I am drawn to skepticism in a discussion, hence wanting to reply to your comment. I went through the exercise in the link and found it really interesting. I wasn't particularly interested in the final output, or in making my own practise out of it. But it was valuable finding some nuance in 'how I feel'. I chose 'good' but when I split it into 3 different terms it didn't look so good, so I took a short break, which is something I should do more often. So I guess for me there were two crucial factors. The process was more important than the output, and I gained value from it without considering I'll ever do it again.

dorkwood 4y ago

> Now what? Do that every day? It feels patronizing and seems like just a way to distract myself. Might as well spend my time playing Factorio, it'll distract me as much. What are these things a distraction from, in your opinion? I would have thought introspection the opposite of distraction.

bheadmaster 4y ago
My assumptions are: 1) that the website is directed towards people who struggle with general feelings of discontent 2) that the purpose of the exercises is to help people feel better So it would be a distraction from the feelings of discontent. You feel discontent, but you assign them color, body part, etc., in other words, you externalize them, which I suppose distracts you from the thing you're feeling. In what way is it supposed to encourage introspection?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > In what way is it supposed to encourage introspection? You actually pay attention to how you’re feeling. Hopefully you do it on a regular basis so that you get better at it, it comes more easily, you do it faster and with less effort and sometimes you slip into it unconsciously as a matter of habit. Some people are easily and unconsciously in contact with their emotions, as others are with their bodies. Others aren’t. I am much more aware of my posture and breathing for years of running, yoga and weightlifting. Even though I do far less of all of those than I did before I had children I know my body much better now than I did at 20. Some people need equivalent things for emotions.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    > You actually pay attention to how you’re feeling I see, so it's similar to the mindfulness concept taught in Gestalt therapy? I guess that's why I don't like it - paying attention to how I'm feeling doesn't really change the way I'm feeling, which frustrates me, because I'm expecting it to affect my feelings, when in reality... it just makes me more conscious, and things stay as bad as they were before. Assuming it's not supposed to change how you feel (directly) - what is the purpose of being conscious of how you feel?

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I think the main goal is to make you think about how you're feeling, instead of suppressing it ("I'm fine / it's nothing") and/or pushing it away ("it'll pass, it's just a shit day/week"), because that will just maintain the status quo.

prohobo 4y ago

The website just tries to teach the first part of emotional intelligence, which is to interrogate what you are actually feeling, so that you can find the real problem (if any). This is really basic, but it's well known that people who are stuck with certain emotions (and behaviors) can begin to transform them by: a) understanding what the feeling is, and b) why they are feeling it. Once you have that information, and are sure of it, you can extrapolate where it's coming from and correctly associate it with your real situation/problems. Often that means lessening the burden of the emotion because you realize it's "just X". For example, a couple of years ago I started to have panic attacks when ruminating about weird things like the infinite vacuum of space, the simulation hypothesis, the nature of sensory signals, etc. Then I thought about why I would get scared and how I felt that fear, and realized it was because I was scared of being disconnected - essentially afraid of being alone. I recognize that as the true fear, and it's a lot easier to manage than "nothing is real and nothing makes sense", which is essentially just my imagination extending that base fear. Of course the truth is that the pandemic era caused a lot of alienation, created deeper political and cultural rifts, and destabilized the entire world. That's my actual situation, so it's no wonder I feel that way, and I can address it however I see fit. It's a way to ground yourself and break out of things that hold you back mentally.

paganel 4y ago
You were lucky because you could act on your fears, but many of the people can’t. A person having to hustle with two jobs because that’s the only way that she can afford child care or to pay down student debt doesn’t get much help from being told: “you’re sad because you’re being materially exploited”. There’s almost nothing that that person can do to improve her situation in the near term. As such, many of those people deliberately choose to ignore said material realities. The great lines from Pulp’s “Common people” are an example of this attitude: > You'll never watch your life slide out of view > And you dance and drink and screw > Because there's nothing else to do
- prohobo 4y ago
  I always thought the line was "you'll never watch your life slide right out of you" which hit me hard. Of course, distractions and addictions are our coping methods du jour - but they are backward escapes and keep us stuck. We need to get people to break away from those behaviors and get on the hard road of self-actualization, and those who have an easier situation should be the first ones to do it.

komali2 4y ago

I used to, and still do sometimes, feel similarly about "things like this," I think as you're feeling now. I would describe myself as extremely cynical, would you? Do you feel similarly about the following? I do / did: 1. Mindfulness 2. Religion 3. White lies 4. Meditation 5. Astrology 6. ENTP whatever that pop psych test is 7. Sharing feelings 8. Psychology 9. Being very supportive of someone making obvious mistakes 10. Description placards on abstract art 11. Professionalism 12. Using the word "spaces" i.e. "creating spaces for contemplation" This is just me thinking out loud, not necessarily describing you here, but I've noticed that I myself share a sort of way of thinking with the 4chan / net-present crowd I grew up with. I'm not sure if our personalities drew us to similar places on the internet, or if we were sort of fostered into a similar set of personalities because of the nature of these environments and cultures. My best effort to define this vague sort of culture / personality / ideology is a sort of radical valuing of the truth, and seeking truth in all things. > Sure it's rude to call him fat, but if I was fat I'd want someone to tell me, how are we supposed to get better if we don't know what's wrong with us? > Depression is bullshit, everyone feels sad, you're gonna pay a psychologist 200 bucks an hour to tell you that? Life sucks, so it goes > Yeaaah I'm not going to "talk about my feelings," that sounds like a waste of time, let's just go do xyz instead I would feel angry if someone suggested meditation. What a fucking joke, sitting around doing nothing for 8 minutes to an hour? Come on. I would see people being really supportive and roll my eyes. "Yeah right, secretly they hate eachother / judge eachother. Take food away from both of them for just two days and watch how quickly they'll stab eachother in the back." Again, this is not me describing you, your comment just happened to remind me of how I used to be. Looking back, I don't understand why I was so full of hate, judgement, and arrogance. I really believed that the happy people HAD to be lying about it, because I wasn't happy. I really believed everyone was secretly judging eachother, cause that's what I was doing. I really believed that various psychological techniques just had to be total bullshit, because I never genuinely tried them in good faith, and just assumed they were konk science. I learned over time that being aware of my feelings was important and difficult, and that the various strategies I assumed were bullshit (like the ones in this post) actually can be interesting and effective ways to learn more about myself, if I set aside my anger, hatred, judgement, and genuinely tried them. I realized I was carrying a LOT of anger around, some of it directed at me for having insanely high standards for myself, my morals and values, and my failure to live those standards out perfectly, a lot of it directed outwards at other people for not being the way I thought people should be. Regardless, activities like this, silly though they may be, were all tools in a toolbelt of self discovery. As a general rule I've learned that new skills and experiences are earned through discomfort or suffering of some kind, and thus naturally to develop myself, my Mind, my personality, I had to suffer through some stuff I really thought was just so stupid, and some of it I still do, but I try to keep an open mind and do genuinely find myself surprised at what I learn when trying these things out. If I stop assuming I already have all the answers and give an earnest and good faith try to some of this stuff, I learn. That's basically the TLDR.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

I think a lot of people just lack the ability to analyze their own mind and a lot of therapy is oriented towards that. Personally I think I'm rather good at analyzing my own thoughts and feelings and so I find exercises like this pretty useless and silly. Like "who knew you could feel more than one emotion at a time?"... people don't know this? Hell, a lot of the time I feel entirely contradictory emotions simultaneously, it's incredibly common. During a session recently my therapist said something like "that sounds like depression" and I responded "yes, that's kinda my default state. Labeling it doesn't make it go away and just because these thoughts come from a place of depression doesn't mean they are wrong" and she seemed a bit confused as to how to proceed from there, like just pointing it out is enough for most people or something.

hgsgm 4y ago

Why would you react to a new-to-you idea put forth by well-respected people with a good reputation, by rushing to announce that you don't understand it and disrespect people who do? Is that a good way to "hope there is some crucial factor that I don't understand yet, and that someone will explain it to me in a reply."? When someone posts a comment about physics or math that you don't understand, do you also think "Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake." ? "When you are surrounded by jerks, maybe you are the jerk". Ironically, the behavior or you exhibit -- lashing out and being upset and not having an awareness of why -- is the issue the OP in addressing.

bheadmaster 4y ago
> Why would you react to a new-to-you idea put forth by well-respected people with a good reputation, by rushing to announce that you don't understand it and disrespect people who do? I find that the easiest way to get explanations is to be direct about what I don't understand. In this case, I don't understand the bigger picture of the whole concept - I just feel that it's bullshit. If someone is going to explain it to me, I think it's useful for them to know where exactly I'm standing, rather than to tiptoe around with fake politeness. I don't care much about reputation of people - if their reputation is valid, my opinion of them won't matter in the big picture - I'm just a random person on the internet. I care about ideas themselves, no matter who expressed them. > When someone posts a comment about physics or math that you don't understand, do you also think "Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake." ? If I feel that someone is bullshitting (e.g. posting a "proof" of Riemann hypotheses for hundredth time), I'll express how I feel. It's the way I feel - it's not an attack, just expression of my feeling, and I think there's nothing wrong with it. If you're bothered by how I feel, that's just the way you feel, and it's okay. But I'm allowed to express it as much as you are.

sph 4y ago

My therapist is fond of a similar exercise and I've learned to adopt it. While it may seem a waste of time, visualizing an emotion, giving it a colour, consistency, texture, material lets you be an observer to it. By forcing yourself to study it, you need to step outside of its bounds, separating the you from the emotion itself. That distance you have created and held for a few moments is a welcome relief and often makes it apparent that you are a separate entity from your pain. The further away you are from it, the less painful it is. And the more you look at it, the weaker it seems. At the end of the exercise you are more aware that whatever tormenting you was just a fleeting moment with little power over you. I find it is a brilliant and incredibly powerful concept to internalise. You can find this is the exact idea expressed in stuff like Dune's Litany Against Fear (by reciting it, you are visualizing your fear as a third party, outside of you), or meditation (remaining a passive observer to your thoughts)

superb-owl 4y ago

I agree with most of the other replies, so I won't belabor the point that learning to properly introspect is hugely valuable. But I will say that Factorio is terrible for my mental health. It's super fun, and in small bursts it can be great. But it's a crutch on par with alcohol for me. I tend to binge when bored or unhappy. I'd encourage you to find other ways to deal with whatever it is you're distracting yourself from. Using tools like the above, or meditation, can help you confront and neutralize it.

jrochkind1 4y ago

So I was just reading a book that talked about this in a way that was powerful for me, so I'm going to post an excerpt below. It's from _Your Resonant Self_ by Sarah Peyton. Warning, it's self-helpy, yup. It's interesting to me that you think focusing on your emotions might be a way to distract ourselves, it makes me curious about distract ourselves from what? I think some people find they actually spend a lot of time distracting themselves from their emotions, so naming and describing and locating their emotions is kind of the opposite of distracting themselves. (But distracting yourself can be a fine thing and useful coping mechanism too; in fact Peyton includes "distraction" as a method of "self-regulation" in the same section on "self-regulation" I'm about to quote from. but, I think, a different thing than naming emotions). Anyway, I'm no expert and I'm not trying to convince you, if it's not something that seems to resonate with you, then maybe it's not for you, right now anyway. But since you asked, I figured I'd post an excerpt from the thing I was just reading that touched on what you are asking about, in a way that really struck me -- although I don't know if just these few paragraphs will be as striking as the whole book so far as been on me! > If you have doubts that talking about feelings will help you, you are in good company. Research shows that most people don't believe that putting words to emotions helps at all. People don't think that it makes things better to name what's happening, even though the effectiveness of that approach can be seen with fMRI. Perhaps this is because many people cope by paying no attention to their emotions or their bodies and the naming of feelings is unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable. But the experience of naming what is happening not only works to calm us down; when it is done with a caring other it can also create relationships of warmth and trust, no matter how old we are. Bringing these relationships inside (importing them into our own brain and carrying them there as a memory) helps people feel more secure in the world. This can have unexpected long-term benefits, including improving immune system function; the sense of meaning and purpose in life; resiliency in the face of trauma, depression or posttraumatic stress; and relationships with others and with ourselves… > …Putting words to inner experience is helpful in another way, too. When people can't read the messages being sent by the body, they are in what scientists call alexithymia, or body blindness. Did you ever meet anyone who was stressed out and angry but didn't seem to realize it? They might not even have known that they had an increased heart rate or tension in their belly or that their eyebrows were pulling together. These people have a hard time knowing what their emotions are, let alone being able to talk about them. When people don't know what they are feeling, there's nothing they can do to remedy the situation. People who are body-blind show increased stress on their immune system and have a harder time with their relationships. There is also a link between being body-blind and being depressed. These people also suffer more from posttraumatic stress, and some research even shows that they have shorter lives. > To sum up, developing a conscious practice of naming emotions is one of the sweeteest and most counterintuitive forms of self-regulation (in which the brain takes care of itself without accessing external behaviors or substances, as opposed to self-management, which uses work-arounds such as addictions). When naming emotions is done with warmth, it can foster the mothering relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala that securely attached children receive from their childhoods. Happily, as people start to name what is happening, they can learn to accompany themselves through emotional experience and support themselves and their immune systems while doing so.

aklemm 4y ago

Eventually one reaches a point where one has to take responsibility for one's emotions and emotion-driven behaviors, and many people discover at that point they have no idea how to do that. Anyone not needing help in this growth is either enlightened or ignorant.

teucris 4y ago

I like to think that contentment is NP-Hard in that at its core, the only way to find it is to continually strike in the dark until you land on something that works. However, like many problems, there are strategies for optimizing the search, i.e. heuristics. Give the feelings descriptors and you get heuristic parameters when there were none before.

maroonblazer 4y ago

I discovered a book back in the 90's called "Focusing" by Eugene T. Gendlin. It's about paying attention to your body. Not just the obvious parts - arms/legs, etc, - but including your thoughts and feelings. I found it extremely useful for dealing with nearly any kind of emotional discomfort or stress. The OP is of a piece of that. Here's a short 12 minute video with the author of the book describing the process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjhf_qUklSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjhf_qUklSc

nonfamous 4y ago

I’m going through a lot in my life right now, including the recent death of my husband. As one data point, I found this exercise enlightening to better understand what I’m feeling.