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nagitoandkokichioneshots · 3 years

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Hi!!! I wanted to get your opinion and thoughts about what exactly goes through your mind when writing a Nagito fic. I see many people just portray him as a 'uwu hope boi' so I just wanted to your opinion about writing him, or just him in general. Thank you

Mod Mikan: Hello nonnie! So, I don’t know if this was towards a specific mod, but I assume you’ll take any mod so here’s Mod Mikan’s personal thoughts about him. I’d like to say that I figured out his character pretty well, but then again, Nagito can be interpreted in many ways, so don’t take my word for it when I say I believe I’m an expert

So, even though I’m a hardcore Nagito simp, I don’t neglect that, like everyone else, he has his flaws too. While Nagito is usually polite, quiet, and collected, he can be mean when he wants to. But he’s not mean just for no reason. I picked out that he’s only mean when

a) Someone is talentless

b) He doesn’t mean it

c) Someone was/is a shit person towards him

Post-dead room Nagito is a popular example and one of the rare times Nagito is an utter dick. Cause, let’s be real, Nagito is a really nice guy most of the time. He comes off as crazy and creepy during his FTD episodes (yes, his ‘hope rants’ are legit his dementia complying to his coping mechanism, which is hope), but he has the best intentions at heart. When I first came across ‘post-dead room Nagito’ I thought he just finally snapped from how badly he was treated by the others. I was a huge simp, so I was rooting for him, cause he was giving the Ultimates what they deserved. But when it was revealed that Nagito figured out they were remnants of Despair, that’s when everything clicked. I also like to believe that Nagito’s actions also stemmed from him just flat out losing it. Mixed with his mental illnesses, his life trauma, the intense atmosphere from the killing game, and holding valuable information that no one else knew (or would even believe him on), it’s pretty understandable he’d go crazy. I’m not defending him, cause what he did was still wrong, but I’m saying his actions had reasons and the best intentions for ‘world hope’

Nagito is also bluntly honest. But an honest person isn’t exactly ‘nice’ all the time. He will say what is on his mind and not dance around the truth. Some of it may be caused from his dementia, some of it is just him being a honest person in general. I don’t remember exactly what he said but in the game, he insulted Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi on accident. He later realized that Fuyuhiko was offended by his words and he apologized. But he didn’t know Kazuichi was offended by his words, so he didn’t apologize to him. But Nagito will unintentionally be mean. I feel like if he had an SO, that would be someone he deeply cares about and would apologize because he hates seeing his love hurting because of him. Even if he doesn’t understand what he said, he’ll still say sorry because he truly does care and means well at the end

I won’t get into Nagito being mean to talentless people since I already did a whole post about it. Tumblr is being funky for me, so I can’t exactly link it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that far of a scroll down if you wanna see it. If you can’t find it, ask me for the link and I’ll do my best to try to link it ;). But anyways, long story short: I personally believe Nagito can have a normal relationship with either a talentless or ultimate person, but time is key. Even though he can be an asshole towards the talentless, I think some of it is just his self hatred being projected onto someone else that’s ‘his equal’

When I say Nagito is an honest person (Even his VA admits he’d be an honest person), I’m not denying that he doesn’t lie. He lied many times in the game. But he never does it for his own benefit. It’s even stated in his wiki page that he will never lie for himself, rather for the ‘greater good’. His plans are never for himself and even though he can be extreme at times, it will never be for him. He’s always thinking about others and--yes, he will do things his own way and make things go the way he wants to--but at the end, it’s all for someone he cares about, never for himself

In the famous episode in the anime where he plans to bomb the school so his classmates can get out of taking their finals, did everyone forget that his first plan was just to talk to Chisa and ask her to move the test? She said she couldn’t cause the media was coming already. Guess what? Bombing the school was never his original plan. While I can think of many....many other ways to post-pone the test, Nagito is crazy. But he has a good heart

As someone that has mental illnesses herself, especially something that’s a close related disease with FTD (I have OCD, which is pretty similar in comparison) I cannot stress just how much a mental illness can take over someone’s thought process. I did a whole FTD analyze during my own time, but I’m not sure if I ever posted it on this blog. If you wanna hear my thoughts, just ask me for the link and I’ll send it to ya, along with the Nagito X Talentless!SO post ;). But again, I’m not using his FTD as a ‘get outta jail free card’, but it does ‘aid’ in his obscure way of thinking. I personally don’t mind when people portray him as a cinnamon roll, cause I kinda do, but then again, not in the traditional sense

As in, he’s not an ‘uwu precious cinnamon roll that did no wrong’ rather he’s a ‘hey, this guy had the best intentions in his heart, but his actions went down a wrong path’. Honestly, he needs a good therapy session, a self-help book, and a SO who is patient and understanding of him :)

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I personally believe he’d be the best boyfriend. Yes, he has his flaws like everyone else, but key word: Everyone else. He’s not perfect, but I honestly view him as someone that would give a relationship with someone he truly loves his all and best. It’s canon he will push people he cares about away because his luck can hurt them, but in a romantic AU where he IS in a relationship, he would try so hard, it would be cute. He wouldn’t think he’d the best at comforting people, or showing his love, but honey--he is! He’s constantly praising the ultimates and expresses his love is--*coughs* extreme ways--but overtime, if his SO teaches him to tone it down, his actions and words will be enough reassurance for his SO

#Mod Mikan speaks!#Mod Mikan's thoughts of the day

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houchlife · 3 years

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Top 7 Law Of Attraction Tips To Manifest More Of What You Want!

By Heather Mathews Author of Manifestation Miracle “Everything is within your power, and your power is within you.” ― Janice Trachtman Charlie, a stay at home dad, works out of his living room while looking after his three-year-old toddler. As a social media consultant, he depends on his laptop to make a living. The problem is that his beat up computer was as old as his kid, and it was always glitching on him. So Charlie kept focusing on getting a new computer – a 13-inch Macbook Pro in particular. Eventually, his old laptop gave out, which made him panic a bit. So Charlie went online to look for another one while having the shiny new Macbook in the back of his mind. After hours of searching, he couldn’t find a reasonably priced model. So he was about to settle on another type of laptop and was close to closing the sale. But at the last minute, Charlie decided to check the price listings for a used version of the computer that he REALLY wanted. And just like that, someone was selling a six-month old Macbook Pro for a price significantly cheaper than a store-bought one. So Charlie got what he wanted, and at a better deal than he had hoped for! Now, Charlie’s incredible stroke of luck seemed like a fluke to him at first, but then another awesome thing happened shortly after. You see, Charlie was also looking for a new job because he felt stuck in his current one. So he had his sights set on another company with a position in mind. The truth was that he wasn’t all that confident he was even qualified for the position, but he went over the job description again and again. Charlie even printed the job ad and put it on his refrigerator door so he could see it every day. A couple of weeks after his interview, he got a call from the company and said he got the job. On Charlie’s first day, his new boss told him, “Honestly, your skillset isn’t an exact match for what we were looking for. But I really liked how you did at the interview…and besides, we can train you for the other things you need to learn, anyway. You have a great attitude and that’s more important than being 100% qualified for the job.” Click Here To Discover the Lazy Person’s Secret To Get Everything You’ve Ever Wished For Is It Coincidence - Or Something Else at Work? It’s easy to brush off Charlie’s streak as plain dumb luck, but could he have WILLED his good fortune to happen? After all, the common element between getting his new laptop and the new job was that he focused on both things intensely. Charlie kept it in his thoughts all the time. More than that, he created a detailed picture of his desired state in his mind. He imagined what it would be like to hold his new laptop and how he’d feel working in the new job he was aiming for. Charlie visualized both scenarios so vividly that he could almost taste it. Whether he knew it or not, he was putting the basic principle of The Law of Attraction to work - and it served him well. As the name implies, this law decrees that “like attracts like.” There’s a global movement behind this belief, and it says that the kind of thoughts you send out to the Universe emit a certain frequency – be it helpful or harmful. And you have the power to control the wavelength you operate on, which in turn attracts circumstances that match your energy. So by focusing on positive outcomes and giving out positive vibrations, you can turn your thoughts into a tangible force of good in your life! On the other side of the coin, dwelling on the negative aspects of life and focusing your attention on the things you resent attracts even MORE negativity into your world. Like Charlie, you can think of something specific you want, and hold that image in your mind. Create all the details that bring the picture to life, then believe that you already have it. When you go about your day thinking that the object of your desire is already a matter of fact… …this sends out a clear, strong message to the Universe that you truly WANT and BELIEVE it. But this is just the tip of the iceberg; there are other ways to raise your frequency even higher. By following these 7 Tips to Create the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of, you’ll naturally attract everything you’ve ever wanted – and MORE:

#1: Set aside time to focus on what you desire

The first habit is simple enough: give yourself at least 5-7 minutes daily to visualize the things you want to turn into reality.

You can do this by finding a quiet place to contemplate, then sit upright with your eyes closed. While keeping your desires front and center in your thoughts, breathe deeply in and out.

Focus on your breath and the sensations your body is feeling, and use that as anchor to keep your thoughts from straying.

If your mind does go on a tangent, gently bring yourself back to your breathing AND your desired future state.

You’ll get a lot of benefits from doing this for just a few minutes every day. For instance, many studies have proven the stress-reducing properties of meditation.

A study at the Massachusetts General Hospital showed that people who tried their meditation program experienced significantly less health problems than before.

They ended up not having to see a doctor or go to the emergency room, saving them about $2,300 in medical costs for EACH person!

On top of that of course, meditation also helps you keep your eye on the prize and give you the determination to make it happen.

Some people however, have trouble meditating and get easily distracted.

If you need a little guidance with this habit, I’ve got a special gift for you – but more on that later…

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#2: Be grateful and practice gratitude

Ever hear the expression “Thank your lucky stars”?

Back in ancient times, people believed that celestial bodies played a huge role in someone’s destiny.

Today, many still believe that these same external forces affect our lives.

The Law of Attraction draws from this belief, and it states that we should be gratefull whenever the Universe sends something good our way.

This is another way of fine tuning your frequency. When you actively pay attention to the positive things that happen around you, it acts like a magnet that attracts similar things.

And by being thankful for your blessings, you’re sending a powerful message to the Universe that essentially translates to:

“Thank you, that was awesome! More please!”

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#3: Take a leap of faith

The main challenge that people have with manifesting their desires is dealing with the world of the intangible.

It can be daunting (and even discouraging) to imagine a future outcome that hasn’t happened yet.

It takes some faith to push past that hazy uncertainty, and not everyone has it in them to do so.

So you need to check your inner Doubting Thomas at the door for a moment and appreciate how other people have used the Law of Attraction to succeed.

Consider the great figures from the past: Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie, Vincent Van Gogh and Nikola Tesla.

All of them were shining examples of how they used their mind and willpower to create something valuable in this world.

They raised their own frequency and as result, had a different energy from the rest of humanity.

Even though they’re gone, their legacy lives on, and we can still feel its impact today.

It’s all because they took a brave step into the unknown.

Even though they couldn’t see how their work would ripple through the next several decades, they still powered through.

The skepticism that people have is the result of growing up.

As you get older and have more experiences, a certain amount of jadedness sets in.

That’s why you won’t find any of that in kids. Just think about how children play make-believe.

When they yell, “The floor is lava!” you can bet they’ll be scrambling for the nearest couch or chair to avoid getting “burned.”

On a certain level, they TRULY believe that the floor is literally molten rock.

They can see the hot, glowing lava, burning everything its path…

…and they do everything to stay out of its way.

That’s the power the mind and imagination in action.

Learn how to see the world on this level again. That way, you can see a bright future before it happens – then go on to make it a reality.

Click Here To Learn How to Force the Universe to Manifest Your Dream Life

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#4: Keep on keepin’ on

One of the realities of this world is that you can’t eliminate adversity.

It’s always going to be an uphill climb at some point, especially when you’ve just taken on a new challenge.

You’ve been eating right and working out, but the pounds aren’t quite flying off as you’d hoped.

You started a side income project, but your cash flow hasn’t been anything more than a trickle.

You’ve tried beating your depression with exercise, therapy and medication, but the dark thoughts still charge at you like a freight train.

That’s called RESISTANCE.

It will always be there, even as you dig deep and do everything in your power to manifest the reality you want.

Being a grown-up means expecting those external circumstances to work against you.

Your best response? PUSH BACK.

Keep your inner world together, and the outside world will follow suit.

Dumbledore once told Harry Potter, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”

Remember: the hero of the story is never a one-person army.

Harry had Hermione and Ron.

Luke had Obi-Wan and Yoda.

And you don’t have to fly solo in YOUR journey.

Think about the people in your inner circle – are they giving you the energy, motivation and inspiration to succeed?

If the company you keep sneers at growth and being better, maybe it’s time to look for other friends to round out your squad.

Seek people who lead by example and can show you how to overcome that resistance in your life.

Learn from them and let their enthusiasm rub off you.

While you’re at it, use technology to connect to like-minded folks who can help you in your quest. Open your phone or laptop and fire up YouTube, Vimeo or any other video streaming site.

TED talks, self-help lectures and tons of other empowering content are literally at your fingertips.

The Universe has too much abundance for you to ignore.

We’re part of a vast human network, and our collective energy affects everyone else in ways we can’t yet fully comprehend.

This network has always been around; the Internet merely accelerated it. Tap into it and unleash its power.

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#5: Tune out your Negative Ned (or Nancy)

There’s always that voice in the back of your head that kicks in when life gets tough.

It loves whispering things in your ear, usually at the height of your frustration and despair:

- “You totally blew that one, why do you even bother trying?”

- “You had one job and you screwed it up like always…I’m not even surprised.”

- “Getting back on the horse, are we? I give it a week before you go back to your old ways. Better to quit while you’re ahead!”

- “You actually thought he was complimenting you? Oh, bless your heart…it’s called ‘small talk’ and ‘being nice’.”

If you’re like the rest of the human species, you’re going to run into those nasty folks called insecurity, self-doubt and fear.

They’re going to take up space in your head and try to drown you out with their noise.

Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and scholar, knew this well. It his poem “The Guest House”, he spoke an ancient truth about the human condition.

He likened all our thoughts and feelings – both good and bad – as visitors who stopped by the guest house of the soul.

And this line struck me the most:

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.”

Once I understood what it meant, I realized that I didn’t have to resist it. I could simply let my obnoxious guests do their thing, and see them out.

It’s not about covering your ears and going, “La la la la! I can’t hear you!”

Acknowledging their existence in your head is NOT the same as letting them win.

The world’s greatest achievers go through bouts of darkness and anger like everyone else.

The main difference is that they use their failures as material for an instruction manual called “What NOT to Do and How to Do It Better The Next Time Around”.

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#6: Ditch your story

You shouldn’t stop at managing your negative thoughts, however. You need to peel back another layer and go deeper.

Here’s the thing: you grew up on a set of beliefs, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Your parents, teachers, friends and pretty much everyone you knew growing up contributed to your programming.

You don’t know it, but you operate on this programming on a daily basis.

And it influences every decision you make – and how you choose to see the world.

Now this can be a good thing if you grew up around people who were positive, motivated and had a good outlook on life…

…but this is the real world we’re talking about, so NOT everyone had that kind of effect on you.

Somewhere along your journey, someone discouraged you in a subtle way, or put some sort of label that you can’t shake off.

Words like “Underachiever”, “Oddball”, “Loser”, “Nerd”, “Small Fry”, “Ugly Duckling” and “Black Sheep” come to mind…

…and each one is damaging in its own toxic way.

Sadly, most people carry this invisible weight their whole life.

But starting today, you can lay those bricks on the ground and walk away for good. You don’t have to carry that weight for anyone, especially not for THEM.

Stop living your story based on the false narrative that your negative programming created.

All those preconceived beliefs need to go if you want to attract happiness and prosperity in your life.

I’ve seen people achieve INCREDIBLE things – even the impossible – just by doing this one thing.

Lionel, a heroin addict from Michigan, was in and out of jail for the longest time.

But after overdosing within an inch of his life, he decided to ditch his old story.

Even after everyone gave up on Lionel and called him a “screw-up”, he turned it all around.

He let go of the labels that people had been putting on him for YEARS…

…and Lionel decided he didn’t have to be any of those things anymore.

Lionel created a NEW story for himself – one where he was finally free of his crippling addiction and lived a clean, sober life.

What kind of story do YOU want to live out?

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#7: Make your affirmations “pop”

You might have heard of people making declarations about themselves to manifest them as truth, and not just as an opinion.

When you affirm some truth about yourself, it validates the awesomeness within you.

Words of kindness heal the soul and help forgive past failures.

In short, it’s about LOVING yourself.

After all, you can’t give what you don’t have.

However, saying “Boy I sure love myself!” doesn’t quite do the trick.

To make your affirmations stick in your subconscious, it needs to have a little something extra.

Don’t stop at “I love me!”- take it up another notch to really drive the point home.

Try these on for size:

- “I love myself so much that I want to use my gifts and share them with the world. I want to take this love inside me and use it to lift other people up.”

- “By sharing the love I have, I possess the power to change myself for the better, and the world around me.”

- “I am love, light, peace and prosperity. Anger, hate and scarcity have no power over me.”

- Aside from loving yourself, you can also infuse a dash of humor in your affirmations. Who says you have to be so grim with his Law of Attraction stuff, anyway?

When you add a bit of levity while you affirm yourself, it shushes your Negative Ned (or Nancy) into silence.

Try coming up with statements like these:

- “I’m so awesome that I kick mediocrity in its big fat butt!”

- “I’ve come here to be awesome at everything I do and kick major butt. And I’m all out of butts to kick.”

- “Did you say something, self-doubt? Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my awesomeness!”

It’s all a matter of finding the right attitude and tone that suits you. Take a crack at making these affirmations, and you’ll soon find your true inner voice.

What matters is that you inject your affirmations with a serious amount of attitude, and above all, ENERGY.

Without that energy, you won’t give your messages enough “juice” to reach the Universe and show up on its radar.

Those who practice the Law of Attraction often combine these affirmations with their meditation sessions to hit two birds with one stone.

And the results are nothing short of phenomenal.

Now, about that gift I promised you earlier…

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oakandcirrus · 4 years

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okay so i saw this thing asking queer christians what it was like to be queer and in the church and im feeling inspired to make my instagram like,, a good, safe place and a resource for queer people. like linking the trevor project and having their hotline there. like i just wanna help queer people. esp queer people at my church bc there have goT to be other closeted gays there.

so my plan is to be the resident out and proud gay at my church so that queer people in the closet will hopefully feel safer there, and i’ll try and befriend them so the pastors don’t talk to them and hopefully i can stop other queer people from going through the same trauma i went through.

i wish i could just openly talk on my instagram about my experiences being gay and in the church but i have Fear. i am terrified of my church honestly. im still healing from the pain and i’m scared of the repercussions that might come from speaking out against it. especially because i’ve been there for years. i’m the main photographer for the youth group, i help run the social media. i have to keep any relationships secret or i’ll get kicked off of leadership and all of the teams i help run. plus if my mom finds out— i don’t want to think about what would happen if she found out. it just really fucking scares me and i feel trapped. but i’ll just have to try my best to heal from it and move on. and i’ve never talked about it. not entirely. so,,,, im going to. maybe it’ll help me heal. or maybe my experiences can help someone reading this right now. um okay,, here we go.

trigger warnings: depression tw, homophobia tw, self harm tw, suicide tw

so it happened in december. i cant believe it was more than six months ago and it still hurts sometimes. i thought i was done healing but apparently im not so that kinda sucks. but writing this now feels like pouring alcohol in a wound, it hurts but now that the wound is clean it can start to get better.

my experience in church is full of mind games and fake acceptance and trying to confuse with biblical terminology. they told me, “its okay to have a same sex attraction” (that’s what the church says instead of gay or lesbian). And they told me, “what you’re feeling is unhealthy but with God™️ and us (pastors) mentoring you, you can get better”. my church feigns love and acceptance but then they turn around and say things like that.

i get that in some churches it isn't like this,,, but its like this in mine and it hurt when it happened and it’s still hurting. i can’t verbally talk about it and not start crying. and i feel kind of stupid for crying over it and for letting it get to me so much. it doesn't feel like real trauma bc it could've been so much worse for me. so much worse.

there weren’t slurs or gossip or rude comments. no one was saying that i wasn't welcome there or that i was going to hell,, but it was absolutely not a safe place for me to come out, it isn’t a safe place for any queer person to come out. when i came out my closest friends told me “you’re so strong and brave for telling us” and there were i love you’s all around but that was where the acceptance stopped.

there were talks alone with the pastor and “friends” talking to him behind my back or making me go talk to him about my sexuality. they made me come out to him. i came out to one of my closest friends at a service one night. (i didn’t know it yet but she was gay and then she “got healthy” after talking to the pastor and going to therapy) she said that she was “so proud of me” and told me how much she loved me and then she added on “now you can get better, now you can start healing.” then she took me to the pastor and made me come out to him when i was absolutely not ready for anything close to that. i left church that night feeling like i had something valuable taken from me. like someone just ripped me open and took something that wasn’t theirs to take.

and then my mental health, which wasn’t good in the first place, just fucking collapsed. for 6 months. but we don’t talk that. or rather the church doesn't want me to talk about how i was crying during classes because of what the bible said about being gay. about how the church taught me that my feelings were unhealthy and that they needed to be healed. how they told me that i was unhealthy and my feelings were wrong and if i acted on them i would be committing a sin. hearing that narrative constantly drove me into a major depression. I started cutting again. I daydreamed about ways i could kill myself because if it was a sin to love men than my life wasn't worth living.

but somehow i made it out alive. bruised and beaten and scarred but alive. i woke up every day and i tried. and as stupid as it sounds supernatural helped. supernatural helped a lot. watching supernatural got me through the miserably long days and made me laugh. i read fanfics about healthy, loving relationships between men (or a man and a genderless angel in a man’s body) and they showed me that loving men is not sinful. jared taught me that i am enough and that there is nothing wrong with me. jensen taught me that the life i want is worth fighting for. and misha. every time i wanted to add to the ugly slashes on my wrist i would think of misha and how he would hate to see me cutting. i know it sounds really really dumb and i kinda feel like an idiot for admitting that but hey, i made it and i am so proud of myself for it.

but even now, as much as i am comfortable with my sexuality and who i am, i cant talk about being gay or talk about a boy i like (that i really like . i cant exist as i am. they want a watered down version of me. they want a silent queer person. there but not making noise. and they shove me back in the closet, assuming i’m still going to live a heterosexual christian life. they tell me “its alright to be tempted, you can have a ‘same-sex attraction’ [because that’s what they say instead of gay] but make sure you don’t act on it because that’s a sin. god wants you to follow his [the church’s] plan for your life.” this isn’t support. this isn’t acceptance. this isn’t the “unconditional love” that the church claims to have for everyone. it hurts people. it almost killed me.

and that’s why i have to keep my head up. that’s why i have to stay where i am, at least for now. i have to. i need to. because if i can stop what happened to me from happening to even one other person, then maybe it will hurt less. maybe stopping it from happening to someone else is how i heal. maybe all of the pain would have been worth it.

if your reading this right now and you’re struggling, maybe looking for a sign. this is your sign. you are loved. you are so immensely, immeasurably loved. i love you. i believe in you. and i promise, it gets better. it might take time but it does. just focus on keeping yourself alive. drink some water. eat if you haven't lately. get some sleep. you’ve got this.

The Trevor Project

TrevorLifeline: +1-866-488-7386

PLEASE!!!!! FEEL FREE TO ADD MORE RESOURCES !!!!!!

#personal #very personal #homophobia tw #self harm tw #suicide tw #tw depression #long post #christianity #church #gay #lgbtq #lgbt #lgbtqia #queer #august speaks

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bentonluna · 4 years

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Top 7 Law of Attraction Tips to Manifest More of What You Want!

By Heather Mathews Author of Manifestation Miracle

Everything is within your power, and your power is within you.” ― Janice Trachtman Charlie, a stay at home dad, works out of his living room while looking after his three-year-old toddler. As a social media consultant, he depends on his laptop to make a living. The problem is that his beat up computer was as old as his kid, and it was always glitching on him. So Charlie kept focusing on getting a new computer – a 13-inch Macbook Pro in particular. Eventually, his old laptop gave out, which made him panic a bit. So Charlie went online to look for another one while having the shiny new Macbook in the back of his mind. After hours of searching, he couldn’t find a reasonably priced model. So he was about to settle on another type of laptop and was close to closing the sale. But at the last minute, Charlie decided to check the price listings for a used version of the computer that he REALLY wanted. And just like that, someone was selling a six-month old Macbook Pro for a price significantly cheaper than a store-bought one. So Charlie got what he wanted, and at a better deal than he had hoped for! Now, Charlie’s incredible stroke of luck seemed like a fluke to him at first, but then another awesome thing happened shortly after. You see, Charlie was also looking for a new job because he felt stuck in his current one. So he had his sights set on another company with a position in mind. The truth was that he wasn’t all that confident he was even qualified for the position, but he went over the job description again and again. Charlie even printed the job ad and put it on his refrigerator door so he could see it every day. A couple of weeks after his interview, he got a call from the company and said he got the job. On Charlie’s first day, his new boss told him, “Honestly, your skillset isn’t an exact match for what we were looking for. But I really liked how you did at the interview…and besides, we can train you for the other things you need to learn, anyway. You have a great attitude and that’s more important than being 100% qualified for the job.” Click Here To Discover the Lazy Person’s Secret To Get Everything You’ve Ever Wished For Is It Coincidence - Or Something Else at Work? It’s easy to brush off Charlie’s streak as plain dumb luck, but could he have WILLED his good fortune to happen? After all, the common element between getting his new laptop and the new job was that he focused on both things intensely. Charlie kept it in his thoughts all the time. More than that, he created a detailed picture of his desired state in his mind. He imagined what it would be like to hold his new laptop and how he’d feel working in the new job he was aiming for. Charlie visualized both scenarios so vividly that he could almost taste it. Whether he knew it or not, he was putting the basic principle of The Law of Attraction to work - and it served him well. As the name implies, this law decrees that “like attracts like.” There’s a global movement behind this belief, and it says that the kind of thoughts you send out to the Universe emit a certain frequency – be it helpful or harmful. And you have the power to control the wavelength you operate on, which in turn attracts circumstances that match your energy. So by focusing on positive outcomes and giving out positive vibrations, you can turn your thoughts into a tangible force of good in your life! On the other side of the coin, dwelling on the negative aspects of life and focusing your attention on the things you resent attracts even MORE negativity into your world. Like Charlie, you can think of something specific you want, and hold that image in your mind. Create all the details that bring the picture to life, then believe that you already have it. When you go about your day thinking that the object of your desire is already a matter of fact… …this sends out a clear, strong message to the Universe that you truly WANT and BELIEVE it. But this is just the tip of the iceberg; there are other ways to raise your frequency even higher. By following these 7 Tips to Create the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of, you’ll naturally attract everything you’ve ever wanted – and MORE: #1: Set aside time to focus on what you desire The first habit is simple enough: give yourself at least 5-7 minutes daily to visualize the things you want to turn into reality. You can do this by finding a quiet place to contemplate, then sit upright with your eyes closed. While keeping your desires front and center in your thoughts, breathe deeply in and out. Focus on your breath and the sensations your body is feeling, and use that as anchor to keep your thoughts from straying. If your mind does go on a tangent, gently bring yourself back to your breathing AND your desired future state. You’ll get a lot of benefits from doing this for just a few minutes every day. For instance, many studies have proven the stress-reducing properties of meditation. A study at the Massachusetts General Hospital showed that people who tried their meditation program experienced significantly less health problems than before. They ended up not having to see a doctor or go to the emergency room, saving them about $2,300 in medical costs for EACH person! On top of that of course, meditation also helps you keep your eye on the prize and give you the determination to make it happen. Some people however, have trouble meditating and get easily distracted. If you need a little guidance with this habit, I’ve got a special gift for you – but more on that later… #2: Be grateful and practice gratitude Ever hear the expression “Thank your lucky stars”? Back in ancient times, people believed that celestial bodies played a huge role in someone’s destiny. Today, many still believe that these same external forces affect our lives. The Law of Attraction draws from this belief, and it states that we should be grateful whenever the Universe sends something good our way. This is another way of fine tuning your frequency. When you actively pay attention to the positive things that happen around you, it acts like a magnet that attracts similar things. And by being thankful for your blessings, you’re sending a powerful message to the Universe that essentially translates to: “Thank you, that was awesome! More please!” #3: Take a leap of faith The main challenge that people have with manifesting their desires is dealing with the world of the intangible. It can be daunting (and even discouraging) to imagine a future outcome that hasn’t happened yet. It takes some faith to push past that hazy uncertainty, and not everyone has it in them to do so. So you need to check your inner Doubting Thomas at the door for a moment and appreciate how other people have used the Law of Attraction to succeed. Consider the great figures from the past: Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie, Vincent Van Gogh and Nikola Tesla. All of them were shining examples of how they used their mind and willpower to create something valuable in this world. They raised their own frequency and as result, had a different energy from the rest of humanity. Even though they’re gone, their legacy lives on, and we can still feel its impact today. It’s all because they took a brave step into the unknown. Even though they couldn’t see how their work would ripple through the next several decades, they still powered through. The skepticism that people have is the result of growing up. As you get older and have more experiences, a certain amount of jadedness sets in. That’s why you won’t find any of that in kids. Just think about how children play make-believe. When they yell, “The floor is lava!” you can bet they’ll be scrambling for the nearest couch or chair to avoid getting “burned.” On a certain level, they TRULY believe that the floor is literally molten rock. They can see the hot, glowing lava, burning everything its path… …and they do everything to stay out of its way. That’s the power the mind and imagination in action. Learn how to see the world on this level again. That way, you can see a bright future before it happens – then go on to make it a reality. Click Here To Learn How to Force the Universe to Manifest Your Dream Life #4: Keep on keeping’ on One of the realities of this world is that you can’t eliminate adversity. It’s always going to be an uphill climb at some point, especially when you’ve just taken on a new challenge. You’ve been eating right and working out, but the pounds aren’t quite flying off as you’d hoped. You started a side income project, but your cash flow hasn’t been anything more than a trickle. You’ve tried beating your depression with exercise, therapy and medication, but the dark thoughts still charge at you like a freight train. That’s called RESISTANCE. It will always be there, even as you dig deep and do everything in your power to manifest the reality you want. Being a grown-up means expecting those external circumstances to work against you. Your best response? PUSH BACK. Keep your inner world together, and the outside world will follow suit. Dumbledore once told Harry Potter, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” Remember: the hero of the story is never a one-person army. Harry had Hermione and Ron. Luke had Obi-Wan and Yoda. And you don’t have to fly solo in YOUR journey. Think about the people in your inner circle – are they giving you the energy, motivation and inspiration to succeed? If the company you keep sneers at growth and being better, maybe it’s time to look for other friends to round out your squad. Seek people who lead by example and can show you how to overcome that resistance in your life. Learn from them and let their enthusiasm rub off you. While you’re at it, use technology to connect to like-minded folks who can help you in your quest. Open your phone or laptop and fire up YouTube, Vimeo or any other video streaming site. TED talks, self-help lectures and tons of other empowering content are literally at your fingertips. The Universe has too much abundance for you to ignore. We’re part of a vast human network, and our collective energy affects everyone else in ways we can’t yet fully comprehend. This network has always been around; the Internet merely accelerated it. Tap into it and unleash its power. #5: Tune out your Negative Ned (or Nancy) There’s always that voice in the back of your head that kicks in when life gets tough. It loves whispering things in your ear, usually at the height of your frustration and despair: - “You totally blew that one, why do you even bother trying?” - “You had one job and you screwed it up like always…I’m not even surprised.” - “Getting back on the horse, are we? I give it a week before you go back to your old ways. Better to quit while you’re ahead!” - “You actually thought he was complimenting you? Oh, bless your heart…it’s called ‘small talk’ and ‘being nice’.” If you’re like the rest of the human species, you’re going to run into those nasty folks called insecurity, self-doubt and fear. They’re going to take up space in your head and try to drown you out with their noise. Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and scholar, knew this well. It his poem “The Guest House”, he spoke an ancient truth about the human condition. He likened all our thoughts and feelings – both good and bad – as visitors who stopped by the guest house of the soul. And this line struck me the most: “The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.” Once I understood what it meant, I realized that I didn’t have to resist it. I could simply let my obnoxious guests do their thing, and see them out. It’s not about covering your ears and going, “La la la la! I can’t hear you!” Acknowledging their existence in your head is NOT the same as letting them win. The world’s greatest achievers go through bouts of darkness and anger like everyone else. The main difference is that they use their failures as material for an instruction manual called “What NOT to Do and How to Do It Better The Next Time Around”. #6: Ditch your story You shouldn’t stop at managing your negative thoughts, however. You need to peel back another layer and go deeper. Here’s the thing: you grew up on a set of beliefs, whether you’re aware of it or not. Your parents, teachers, friends and pretty much everyone you knew growing up contributed to your programming. You don’t know it, but you operate on this programming on a daily basis. And it influences every decision you make – and how you choose to see the world. Now this can be a good thing if you grew up around people who were positive, motivated and had a good outlook on life… …but this is the real world we’re talking about, so NOT everyone had that kind of effect on you. Somewhere along your journey, someone discouraged you in a subtle way, or put some sort of label that you can’t shake off. Words like “Underachiever”, “Oddball”, “Loser”, “Nerd”, “Small Fry”, “Ugly Duckling” and “Black Sheep” come to mind… …and each one is damaging in its own toxic way. Sadly, most people carry this invisible weight their whole life. But starting today, you can lay those bricks on the ground and walk away for good. You don’t have to carry that weight for anyone, especially not for THEM. Stop living your story based on the false narrative that your negative programming created. All those preconceived beliefs need to go if you want to attract happiness and prosperity in your life. I’ve seen people achieve INCREDIBLE things – even the impossible – just by doing this one thing. Lionel, a heroin addict from Michigan, was in and out of jail for the longest time. But after overdosing within an inch of his life, he decided to ditch his old story. Even after everyone gave up on Lionel and called him a “screw-up”, he turned it all around. He let go of the labels that people had been putting on him for YEARS… …and Lionel decided he didn’t have to be any of those things anymore. Lionel created a NEW story for himself – one where he was finally free of his crippling addiction and lived a clean, sober life. What kind of story do YOU want to live out? #7: Make your affirmations “pop” You might have heard of people making declarations about themselves to manifest them as truth, and not just as an opinion. When you affirm some truth about yourself, it validates the awesomeness within you. Words of kindness heal the soul and help forgive past failures. In short, it’s about LOVING yourself. After all, you can’t give what you don’t have. However, saying “Boy I sure love myself!” doesn’t quite do the trick. To make your affirmations stick in your subconscious, it needs to have a little something extra. Don’t stop at “I love me!”- take it up another notch to really drive the point home. Try these on for size: - “I love myself so much that I want to use my gifts and share them with the world. I want to take this love inside me and use it to lift other people up.” - “By sharing the love I have, I possess the power to change myself for the better, and the world around me.” - “I am love, light, peace and prosperity. Anger, hate and scarcity have no power over me.” - Aside from loving yourself, you can also infuse a dash of humor in your affirmations. Who says you have to be so grim with his Law of Attraction stuff, anyway? When you add a bit of levity while you affirm yourself, it shushes your Negative Ned (or Nancy) into silence. Try coming up with statements like these: - “I’m so awesome that I kick mediocrity in its big fat butt!” - “I’ve come here to be awesome at everything I do and kick major butt. And I’m all out of butts to kick.” - “Did you say something, self-doubt? Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my awesomeness!” It’s all a matter of finding the right attitude and tone that suits you. Take a crack at making these affirmations, and you’ll soon find your true inner voice. What matters is that you inject your affirmations with a serious amount of attitude, and above all, ENERGY. Without that energy, you won’t give your messages enough “juice” to reach the Universe and show up on its radar. Those who practice the Law of Attraction often combine these affirmations with their meditation sessions to hit two birds with one stone. And the results are nothing short of phenomenal. Now, about that gift I promised you earlier… To make the MOST out of your meditation, I’ve got a series of audio tracks to help you manifest incredible benefits in your life. If you want to be the picture of health… …naturally create wealth wherever you go… …and enjoy authentic, fulfilling relationships… …you can achieve ALL of that by simply claiming your FREE gift below: 100% FREE Meditation MP3 Audio Tracks – DOWNLOAD THEM HERE

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pessimisticlatte · 5 years

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Hey guys, this is a little off topic for me but here goes:

So, hi Timblr. My name is Imogen but I go by Rosie or Midge, I’m 17 and I live in Australia. A bit of background on me, I live with my parents, my little sister and my two animals, Tabby who is a ginger tabby cat (creative, I know) and MeiMei who is an apricot (fancy word for ginger) toy poodle puppy. At age 6, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorder and anxiety, then at age 14 I got diagnosed with depression and panic attacks, and only this year have I finally gotten my diagnosis for Attention Defecit Disorder (ADD). In May last year, my parents decided to invest in my puppy, MeiMei, as a therapy animal for me because I don’t cope with being alone very well. MeiMei is 9 months old and still has a lot to learn but she is my most favourite thing in the world.

Now, I’m going to get to the real point of this. The organization known as PETA likes animals...or so they think. For a company with an 80% kill rate and a singular braincell between all of them, they claim to love animals. Redundant, I know. Now, I’ve been thinking about PETA’s little kill vans, that they drive around neighborhoods like mine (not mine specifically) looking for animals like Tabby and MeiMei. Tabby likes to spend her days outside, I live in one of the areas in my city where we don’t have a cat curfew or mandatory rules for keeping a cat indoors to protect the wildlife. Now, Tabs has bells on her collar, and she’s not as graceful as she likes to think she is, so she generally doesn’t catch anything. The occasional mouse, but she gets those things from the storm water drain that she frequents. MeiMei can’t come to school with me, even though she’s a therapy animal, she’s a little too young and not well enough trained (she’s only 9 months old and we’re training her ourselves), so she spends her days in our pretty large backyard doing whatever 9 month old puppies do for 7 hours a day while I’m getting my education. Picture of MeiMei below:

Being a puppy, little Mei is by no means quiet and we are taking precautions to train her not to bark at everything, I still love her to death though. I know that in some places in the United States, PETA likes to go looking for animals like my puppy and my cat. They drive their little kill van into the street and pull out their comically oversized binoculars to look out for animals. Now, animals with collars are generally pets? Correct? Not in PETA’s mind. A few years ago there was a lawsuit filed against PETA after they wrongfully euthanised a young girls chihuahua, now I don’t know a lot about this story but I did some reading. This little dog, Maya, who was minding her own business out the front of her home was taken and put down without a single attempt to be returned to her family and her owner, who was a 9 year old girl. Generally, there’s a grace period between when you catch an animal registered as a pet and when you can legally put it down, now PETA didn’t wait for this grace period to end. They didn’t even go looking to see if Maya’s family might be missing her before they ‘mercy killed’ this poor little dog. Yes, a lawsuit was filed and, yes, the family won, but all this proves to me is that PETA, as an organization who say that they love animals, thinks that they are replaceable.

I have had Tabby for 7 years. We got her when both she and my little sister were about a year old. Tabby has a place in our family, she comes to the door and meows at us asking for pats and little bits of meat. At night, she sleeps on the bed next to my mum and doesn’t stop purring the entire time. This cat lives a happy existence knowing that she has a home to return to with food and water set out for her and somewhere warm to sleep with someone who loves her. In her own way, Tabby is my mums therapy animal because my mum has a hard time coping with stress and sometimes needs a little comfort from our animals. Tabby is not replaceable. If she was killed, there would not be another cat in the world, no matter how identical or how cute, that would fill the hole in my family’s heart. My big sister was the one to convince my mum to get us get Tabby. And, 7 years later, Tabby is family. The memories with her are irreplaceable. The sound of her purring and the softness of her fur after a shitty day is irreplaceable. You could give me all the money in the world to compensate for her being taken from my family but it wouldn’t fix the hole that would be left by her absence.

We’ve only had MeiMei for 7 months and I don’t know what I would do if I came home and she wasn’t there. I already get anxious when I can’t find her in our backyard, can you imagine how I would respond if I came home and she wasn’t there at all? Now, PETA and their little kill vans think they’re doing the right thing because they see animals being pets as another form of ‘involuntary bondage’ (The Guardian, 2017, though the statement was made in 2014). Do you think that my dog, my sweet, energetic little puppy would survive out in the wild? The answer is no, and the only thing that PETA could do to change that fact is go back thousands of years and stop dogs from evolving to protect and love the humans who feed them. We love our pets, they are as much a part of us as we are a part of them. Your animal may be a part of your life but to them, you are their life.

I wonder how many people PETA has deprived of their therapy animals because they think they’re justified in their murder. I wonder how many people will go home, even after reading this, to find that PETA has swept through their neighbourhood, combing for animals and has deprived them of their pet. As I keep saying, pets are not replaceable. Just like children are not replaceable. Just like any goddamn member of your family is not replaceable. ‘Oh look, grandpa’s dead, his life insurance means that we get $20,000, so I guess this means that we can go and get a new grandpa and make new memories’, it doesn’t work like that? Does it?

I’m not even going to begin my rant about PETA attacking wholesome Australian legend, Steve Irwin, because that’s a fight I’ll probably take to Twitter, but if you’re looking for someone to support who actually loves animals, look no further than the Irwin’s. Terri, Bindi and Robert have made it their mission to continue Steve’s legacy and, frankly, they know what conservation is. Animals are important to our way of life. Not just as sustenance for those who eat meat but also as pets and valuable sources of scientific advancement. The insulin that people with diabetes could be using in the future comes from pigs and cows and will be refined for human use. It’s not just the clothes you wear or the meat you choose to eat, it’s the animals you let into your home and love like a child. It’s the animals that you learn about on documentaries, it’s the animals that you fight for when their homes are being torn apart. PETA may think that their killing is justified but maybe, just maybe, they should sit down and watch a Steve Irwin video and see what someone who loves animals actually looks like. They could even watch any number of interviews with him or about him from his wife or children. My personal favourite is Terri’s interview with Aussie Comedian, Ahn Do, on ‘Ahn Do’s Brush With Fame’, you can find it on YouTube, I think (if you’re interested). Instead of supporting organizations like PETA who badmouth people who have actually done good things, support people like the Irwin Family and Australia Zoo, Nathalie Boltt (Penelope Blossom from Riverdale) who fights to stop the production of palm oil, Aidan Gallagher (Number 5 on the Umbrella Academy) who is a UN goodwill ambassador who fights for cleaner oceans (you want someone driven, he is so driven! He’s a vegan at 15!) or maybe even any number of the activists out there who are making a difference, some of them are as young as my little sister, nowadays.

You can make a difference too. This isn’t just about your pets, though you should hold them close and love them with all your heart, it’s about all animals. This is our earth. Our home. And we only get one. Organizations like PETA who claim that they love animals and claim that they’re helping, aren’t. The smallest difference you can make is in your own home. Adopt, don’t shop. Donate money to people who will actually help the environment and help protect animals. Don’t stand for PETA’s preachy bullshit because it’s their name in the media and not someone else’s. Fight back, rise up, this is our world and the animals have to live with the consequences of what we do to it.

Think about how many animals PETA has killed (mainly illegally) with their 80% kill rate. Think about how many children they have scarred by turning up to their birthday parties covered in fake blood and mostly naked screaming about how the children were muderers. Think about the people that they scarred in the Sydney CBD a few years ago by holding a barbecue and making it look like they were cooking a real dog. Are these the people you want to support? Shock tactics can work to get people motivated, but you’ve got to know if their reasoning is worth your time or not.

Fuck PETA.

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pathhyena · 6 years

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Depression: It bad

This might be an awful idea, but hyenas sort of thrive on those so who knows.

Hi everyone! Hey what’s been on the news lately?! Right, suicide. That sucks. (Great start hyena). I didn’t know the folks who passed very well, but I remember when Robin Williams took his life, and that threw me for a loop. Celebrities are weird because we have some connection to them even though they’ll likely never know we exist. We sort of support them en masse and they serve an invisible army hungry for their content. When they pass away, it hurts, because we have that powerful emotional one-way connection. I get that.

The bad news is that’s going to happen a lot. It used to not happen as much because we only had radio and TV and 30 channels so the celebrity delivery pipelines were relatively small. That’s why the news still announces every death in the mornings. Today, with social media, fandom structures, indie streaming, a million channels, and more movies and music delivery streams than ever, the number of celebrities has exploded. This is really cool because now there isn’t some centralized control over who we get access to, it’s really nicely wide open. What this also means though is that in the coming years we’ll hear about a lot more passing’s of really cool people. I think to a limited degree we saw this with Bourdain, whose content was delivered on an expansive cable frontier, and Avicii, who benefited from less centralized control over music. These are still all- stars in their fields, so they may be weak examples, but I just think we’ll see a lot more of this down the line.

Celebrity life is really crazy. It’s demanding. They read a lot of critical reviews of themselves as people, and sometimes the motivations that drive you towards fame are also internally destructive. Creativity as a force is often (not always!) cruel, and the drive to find approval from a mass audience often comes along, and often doesn’t come from the greatest places. Even far removed from who we were as teenagers, our darker angels live within us for decades. We all get better at dealing with them, but they certainly still exist.

When a celebrity takes their own life, there is a documented spike in suicides across the world, most notably in demographics similar to that individual. Partly this makes a lot of sense: someone we understand who looks and feels similar to ourselves lost their daily battle, and maybe it’s okay if we do, too. I heard a sociologist on NPR explaining that suicide is now normalizing, and that struck me as odd. I don’t know how it seems to other people, but it’s always been a glaring option to me. I didn’t need news articles to tell me it was an option, it’s something I used to think about.

Suicide is a thing a lot of us think about, and that doesn’t make us weird. It’s an odd existential exercise that the brain sometimes likes to meander into then shriek away from. Like how when I’m high up I think, wow that jump would suck (I am consequently scared of heights). That’s not all that abnormal, I don’t think. The issue comes when the exercise becomes less thought and more dangerous solution, less pondering and more considering. Some folks don’t feel like they have a lot to lose, even though realistically we have everything to lose. Decades of die rolls and adaptations and new friends around a corner we can’t see, but in that moment none of that seems likely, or maybe even all that great. We as people can’t help but view the entire span of a lifetime but through the lens of today, of right now. Tomorrow is forever away.

People keep begging us online to remember how valuable life is, they keep sending us suicide hotline numbers. One tweet I saw going around had the number for every country, in case someone speaking English in Turkey needed the suicide hotline for their nation. I have to be honest, I don’t know how qualified I am to respond to these; I haven’t felt a considerable level of suicide drive since I was 23. I didn’t want to take my own life since it would probably hurt and also it would make my mother sad and that would suck, but y’know if something would have magically end my life painlessly and without fault assigned that would have been cool. Nothing magically made that better but time, but I also had a lot of good friends to talk me through the really crazy thoughts.

I made very little sense back then. (I make only slightly more now.)

What I tend to find with depression is that it ebbs and flows. That’s not true for everyone, I’ve read, with the worst cases being times where apathy sets in and just stays for years. In that scenario nothing is good, nothing is bad, and everything is nothing. It’s a familiar numbness to the entrance and exit of a depressive wave. I think the brain just burns out, and it takes a while to recover. But there’s a period for a lot of us where it’s just really harsh, and I think that’s what those hotlines are for. Maybe you don’t have anyone you trust to talk to about something, you don’t have an emotional connection, and distant tweets from distant strangers don’t do it for you. That’s otherwise really hard, because you have to get through it on your own. I’ve had those nights too. It’s certainly possible to recover from the really bad times on your own (if not required sometimes), but it helps to have a receptive mind on the other end of your painful thoughts. Just something on the other end to reflect and consider. Sometimes that can turn things around, but usually it doesn’t. It’s good at getting you to the next clear moment, where maybe you can recover, find some respite.

And here’s the thing with going to a friend for help – they often want to “fix” you. And it doesn’t work, and then after a few more rounds (this stuff comes in rounds usually), they get frustrated and they check out. Even the good friends do, they just get exasperated. Okay this definitely isn’t true for ALL friends. But here’s a hint to the good allies out there: You can’t fix someone with these issues, we must work them out for ourselves.

“You only talk to me when you’re depressed.” Yes, because that’s the only time I’m in enough pain to overcome debilitating social anxiety.

“You don’t really say anything.” I don’t know what to say, all my thoughts are awful.

“Why are you so negative all the time.” Why is the sky blue.

“This is really hard to hear every week.” I know. I know that, and I feel bad talking to you, I just don’t know what else to do.

And therapy isn’t a magic bullet. You need a good therapist, and sometimes the right drug combination and that’s its own mess. I encourage folks to take this route, but it’s not a fast lane. You often need a mix of stuff. You need exercise so your body doesn’t get sad on your brain’s behalf, friends to get you through the hard times and share your realizations, helpful information to help you fight your battles more strategically, an ability to adjust your tactics when you’re in a good place, and sometimes professionals who can help you understand what’s going on. You may be helped by medication that can help you find clarity.

That’s a lot! And it takes years, and I know that’s frustrating. Humans live for decades, and even through your bad years you often add a lot of value to the world in weird little uncelebrated ways. We can even have a lot of worthless years and find our way to a net positive life. It’s just hard to see that. You have to take it on faith. I’m not much for hope myself, I’m weird that way. But some things you have to take on faith. If you keep fighting, the probability is over time you can find the tools to make it just a little bit easier. And sometimes that’s all we need. We don’t need to be “fixed”. Just make things a little bit easier. And then we can start from a better palace, another foothold in this mountain climb.

We need people to help us be okay with the tumbles, though. There will be a lot of setbacks. Recovery is a long game.

And maybe this is morbid, but consider Robin Williams for a moment. He struggled constantly, and in the end, he “lost”. He went a long time though. If it was cancer, we would have celebrated his valiant struggle. It wasn’t, though, it was self destruction, so it feels like just this great, avoidable loss.

It isn’t, tho. Depression is much like cancer, there is a physical cause, and just because we overcome it psychologically that doesn’t diminish how difficult that is. When you think, when you process ideas or even daydream, you literally change the physical construction of your brain. You rewire. There’s a physical change. When we learn to work with and around our depression we are literally adapting to difficult wiring with re-routed wiring. Depression is a physical malady. When someone loses their struggle, it’s very sad.

But it’s not their fault. It’s not our fault. It’s no one’s “fault”. Sentience is so complex. There are millions of adaptive super computers we call brains and sometimes they have difficulty and we struggle. The tragedy, I feel, is when someone loses to a “spike” – those moments that inexplicably are so much worse. That’s what the hotlines are for, y’know. They get you through those potentially fatal spikes, and maybe there’s a longer term way out.

There are people that have died because they didn’t have someone with an emotional connection to talk to. That’s a stark truth. Now someone to talk to isn’t going to fix anything, necessarily, but if you have a really harsh downswing, and there’s no one there, it’s so easy to give in to the reality your troubled mind constructs. How do you overcome a misperceived reality when your own mind is telling you what’s real? That answer is complicated. We have a lot of minds in us, and we can sort of call on our other sections of thought to help get us through. We can find our way through creativity, practiced mental exercises, or even forcing ourselves to think logically through a mental storm. Those are tools we learn how to use, but they’re hard to use when the awful part of the brain is literally screaming at us. Like trying to have a conversation with a screaming baby behind you on a plane. What helps a lot in the really bad times is another person to sort of generate words for us, and that’s why the good friends are so important.

But we also burn those friends out, and you sort of need a network to spread that responsibility around. But so often it’s hard to trust, and without vulnerability you can’t really care about the person on the other end. Without a fully functioning personality it’s difficult to find that bigger network. People are also stressful and sometimes awful. Sometimes they even make stuff worse.

This sounds like a lot, right? It sounds hard. It IS hard. Folks should understand how Catch 22 in nature depression is.

I have several people who only talk to me when they’re just really, really depressed. They don’t say they’re depressed usually, just small talk, and we banter, and they feel better. Lonely is it’s own kind of hell. I’m okay with these folks, to be honest. I don’t mind being that person. I’m glad I can help in little ways. Maybe it adds up.

I mean I’ve also had people just message me with no effort every day and they’re basically using me as a background television station because they’re bored, and that’s less great. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other.

Anyway I’ll finish with this. Depression isn’t your fault, and feeling like you’re at wit’s end isn’t weakness. There is something wrong with you but it’s your fault as much as it’s someone’s fault for getting the flu. Now there are dumb things you can do when you get the flu – you don’t go run a mile or stop drinking water, right? There are basic measures to be taken, and that’s true for depression. Don’t indulge your demons and try to take care of your body when you’re able (your body can create it’s own depression). When the flu wears off we do things to recover and get back to 100%, and when depression gives us a break we should be documenting, pondering, and trying to fight our awful thoughts.

Another good flu analogy is seeking mental healthcare (which yes I know is not a great system today) makes sense when your brain is that ill. As with any physical malady, and no amount of willing it away is going to fix it. Telling someone with a 104F fever that they should suck it up is about as helpful as feeling like you shouldn’t need to go to a therapist because we should all be Very Strong People.

If you’re basically fighting the good fight, the overall tenor of where you are today is absolutely not your fault. It’s not a weakness, you don’t suck. You’re given the life you have by who you are and who you were.

Today is yours, and you can control how you react to today. Yesterday is already fucked, and that’s okay. You’re you today. The point of today is to make tomorrow a little better.

To that end, I’m okay with being someone’s desperate cold call on the way to oblivion, which is to say that if you just can’t stand life anymore and you don’t have anyone, it’s okay to message a hyena and say like, “fuck I don’t know what to do, you wrote that I could say hi to you and I could unload and you wouldn’t eat me (that might be a lie, that last part), so I’m taking a risk.” (You don’t have to curse.)

Now I know it’s a shitty thing to say, “Hey if you need someone come talk to me”, cause people are utterly fucking terrifying and how do you talk to someone you don’t know well, especially if they’re “fandom popular” (which has it’s own complications). What if you’re wasting someone’s time, what if you have nothing to say, what if you say something dumb, etc.

If I can’t talk right now, I can tell you, and I think you’d understand. If you have nothing to say we can talk about curtains. You can’t waste my time unless you’re just doing the bored no effort “I’m fine but entertain me” thing people sometimes do when they’re younger and haven’t figured that part out yet. Beyond that, honestly I’ve been where you are and the quality of conversation doesn’t even have to be great, it just has to be someone else out there. I’ll read your words and respond. I can’t be your best friend, and I’m sorry about that, but let’s be honest we’re not looking for best friends we are literally looking for anybody to show some compassion and care about our struggle, even if just briefly.

You may not know me except for reputation, or tweets, or even just this dumb tumblr post. That’s okay. You can look at my tweets and see that maybe I am weird because I think I am a hyena online and paws are pretty cool, and if you don’t think I’m awful (enough) and you really need someone, say hi.

As a disclaimer obviously if we have a prior history this may not work, because I am a person you have history with and am not actually a volunteer stranger on the end of a phoneline.

Dear person in a Very Bad Place: I may not be able to find you in time to say the right words. If you reach out to me, *I* may not have the right words. But we can try, and at least that’s something. I might be at work or laggy or depressed myelf, but I can tell you that, and I trust you to not take it so personally because you are a people and I am too.

If direct contact is scary, send me a reply on Twitter. We can use a code phrase, it can be “Foxes are very strange.” It’s true. As a corollary, sometimes my notifications get slammed and I might miss that (Twitter is bad at volume delivery), but I wanna still offer it as a sort of option.

Life is hard. I get that. If I can make your struggle a little easier, and you’re in a bad way, maybe I can help.

I feel like this is probably true for a lot of people on Twitter, and I bet there are folks who will read this and might reply “Hey me too, I would like to be this person too”. I don’t want to name names cause I don’t want to volunteer people who may not be in a good place themselves. You never know people’s lives.

ANYWAY, thanks for reading 3000 words, have a gold star. I hope any of this was helpful, and I mean the thing at the end except for the not eating you part. I have a reputation to maintain, you see.

@pathhyena on Twitter

P.S. I am especially bad at tumblr comments because I am extremely old.

Also adding ten more words to make it exactly 3000.

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medicosco · 3 years

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Benefits of therapy:

In a society that is often focused on material things, it’s easy to justify spending that improves our attractiveness. We have a natural incentive to care about what we look like: physical appearance is emphasized as the end-all-be-all virtually everywhere we get our media. We buy gym memberships to look a certain way, as though mirroring the physical perfection we see in the media will magically make us happy. Going to the gym is also seen as the main route to “getting healthy” – and improving psychological health is not emphasized in the same way. Why?

Likely, the reason why psychological health is deemphasized is because improving it isn’t seen to have the same effect on our appearance as the gym. However, even the claim that therapy doesn’t impact our appearance can be contested: research has shown that our mental health affects how others perceive our physical appearance – and whether they want to befriend us (Rosenblatt & Greenberg, 1988; Chancellor, Layous, Margolis, & Lyubomirsky, 2017). Another (perhaps less superficial) argument for the importance of a therapy is the buoyancy effect. Therapy helps us through difficult times, which are inevitable given that life is unpredictable, often strange, and frequently painful. As a protective factor, therapy can help smooth the bumps in the road – as well as make a good thing even better. Intrigued but not yet convinced? Read 5 reasons how therapy positively impacts long-term psychological health.

1. Therapy can help you learn life-long coping skills. Great, you’re thinking, but what exactly are coping skills? Coping skills are anything that helps you through difficult times, whether it’s not getting the promotion you deserve, anxiety about driving, or the death of a loved one. Therapists are educated and trained to help foster the natural coping skills everyone has. Coping skills will look a little different from person to person because everyone is unique. For example, I’m a writer, so I like to journal my thoughts as a way of coping – but someone else might find aromatherapy and bubble baths to be more relaxing. We’re all different, and that’s okay – but it also means that there is no “one size fits all” coping skill.

Therapists can also teach coping skills that might not be as innate. For example, cognitive behavioral therapists will often teach their clients that what they say to themselves has enormous influence on how they feel & how others respond to them. Attachment-focused therapists might ask their clients to think differently about how they interact with people in their lives. Person-centered therapists encourage their clients to treat themselves with unconditional positive regard and practice radical self-acceptance. Regardless of the modality of therapy, the idea is to bolster your personal strengths – often using evidence-based practices the therapist has taught you. Psychologist Rob Winkler agrees, asserting that “better coping leads to better responses and better responses lead to better experiences, which create more opportunity and prosperity in all aspects of our lives.” So while it may not seem as exciting as getting six-pack abs, learning coping skills improves your life exponentially in the long-run.

2. Therapy can change how you interact with people in your life – in a good way. Sometimes we’re not aware of just how many ways we’re negatively impacting our relationships. We might snap and call our partner names when we’re mad and then forget about it after the fight, not realizing the effect that it has on our partner. On the other side of things, maybe we’re so used to keeping our feelings bottled inside that we have a hard time being assertive with the people we love. A therapist can help balance the way we communicate with our loved ones to improve our relationships. For example, for a client who has a hard time being assertive, a DBT therapist might teach the “Dear Man” skill. In a nutshell, “Dear Man” is a skill that helps a client describe what they want and advocate for themselves in a non-judgmental way.

It can also be useful to hear another person’s input on the important relationships in your life. Are you getting what you want out of your partner – do they make you feel fulfilled? Are your expectations reasonable, or do you think that your partner should be your everything? Or maybe you’re doing everything “right” but there are still ways you could make your connection stronger. A therapist, especially a therapist specialized in family and relationship counseling, can give you the tools and support you need to make changes that will positively impact your relationships. Increasing the positivity of your relationships builds to a more fruitful long-term future – because when it comes down to it, life is about having fulfilling relationships with the people you love and being able to successfully navigate relationships with people you don’t.

3. Therapy can make you feel happier. True happiness is an elusive thing, and many times people chase the external – money, success, a fancy car – to try to achieve it. Even though it’s an old cliché, there’s truth to the statement that money can’t buy you happiness. Having too little money can cause unhappiness, but money doesn’t have an inherent value that makes our lives more fulfilled. Buying fancy things might give us a temporary thrill or a sense of satisfaction; however, these feelings don’t last and tend to scratch at the surface of true happiness. No one has ever claimed, for example, that the meaning of life is a car; the meaning of life is thought to have more breadth and importance than that.

So how does therapy help you feel happier on a deeper level? Talking over your past, present, and future with a therapist can lead to greater self-understanding. While self-understanding doesn’t always imply self-acceptance, it is the first step towards truly embracing who you are at the core. A related concept is self-compassion. Greater self-compassion helps you handle the bumps in the road that inevitably happen in life without getting stuck in a mire of negativity. Therapists, especially person-centered therapists, often emphasize self-acceptance and self-compassion – and talk us through techniques for increasing both. Learning self-compassion in therapy has tangible benefits: High self-compassion has been found to lead to more health-promoting behaviors (Sirois, Hirsch, & Kitner, 2015), nurture well-being (Neely, Schallert, Mohammed, Roberts, & Chen, 2009), increase empathy and altruism (Neff & Pommier, 2012), and provide a buffer against anxiety (Neff, Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007).

4. Through its link to happiness, therapy leads to more productivity. In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor explains how positive emotions lead to greater productivity: “Happiness gives us a real chemical edge…How? Positive emotions flood our brains with dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that not only make us feel good, but dial up the learning centers of our brains to higher levels” (44). In other words, feeling positive emotions allows you to work harder and learn more because of the “feel good” chemicals in your brain. While productivity isn’t everything, most of us have too much to do and not enough time to do it, especially those of us with demanding jobs or those of us with kids. Increasing your levels of happiness—and with it, your productivity—not only helps you in your career but also helps you cope with the messiness and hectic pace of life.

Therapy can also help you discover obstacles blocking you from performing at your best. These types of road blocks (e.g., perfectionism or overthinking) are challenges a therapist can help you work through to find an effective solution. You and your therapist can also discuss time-management skills and whether changing negative long-term habits—such as poor prioritization or inaccurate assessments—could help with your focus and productivity. These types of changes can lead to long-term benefits such as increased work performance, greater feelings of self-efficacy, and improved relationships. For more information, check out Shawn Achor’s TED Talk “The happy secret to better work.”

5. Therapy can help improve chronic stress. The ways that therapy can improve long-term stress are numerous. A therapist can teach you methods of calming your body and mind, which might include techniques such as guided visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, and deep breathing. Therapists can also help problem-solve the sources of your stress and teach you stress-reduction techniques. They can introduce you to new concepts such as radical acceptance – that many things in your life are beyond your control and acceptance is the key to reducing your suffering. Best of all, once you learn these techniques, you carry them with you into the rest of your life. In other words, stress relief in the short-term can build into long-term patterns of stress management.

Crucially, a therapist can also be a sounding board who listens to you talk about your life and validates your feelings. This isn’t the same thing as agreeing with you and supporting your every decision, but it can be more valuable – because it nurtures the idea that you’re important, your feelings are worth listening to, and you’re understood. Social support has been shown to be essential for mental health, and, perhaps as importantly, lacking in situations where mental health issues are present. In both the short- and long-term, social support soothes the mind and improves health– as evidenced by numerous studies (Berkman, 1995; Cohen and Janicki-Deverts, 2009; Umberson and Montez, 2010). In short, therapists are effective social support, and feeling supported leads to greater psychological health.

I hope that this blog is an invitation to reexamine how we consider therapy in a wider context. Our culture is ready to accept going to the gym as a way to improve physical health; why not embrace therapy as a way of improving psychological health? Think of therapy as a method of self-improvement, a life-affirming way to make positive changes instead of stagnating. Therapy is not about fixing something that is broken: instead, it is about embracing what we have in order to reach our full, prosperous potential as human beings.

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thrivous · 4 years

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For the first time in all of history, defeating death from aging and extending healthy lifespans seem to be attainable goals. Based on my research, I think we'll all have the option to choose life extension sometime over the next twenty or thirty years.

Robust technologies are being built all around us. But what you may not know yet is many of them are aimed directly at extending our healthy lifespan far longer than 120 years.

Combinations of gene therapy geroprotectors may increase our maximum lifespan to 150 years [1, 2]. The SENS approach may reverse and prevent aging, along with rejuvenating biological damage, to maintain indefinite lifespans [3]. Nanotechnology may target every cell in the body, fulfilling the true definition of "precision medicine" [4-5]. And we may develop indefinite biostasis technologies [8, 15, 16].

Imagine extending consciousness through direct and indirect, as well as short and long distance, brain-computer interfaces [6-7]. And beyond combatting death from aging, artificial general intelligence could help us decrease crime, mitigate catastrophic risks, and solve many other persistent problems [9-14].

All of this requires a great deal of capital to research the hard science and develop the technology. And I doubt more than a handful of politicians have even considered the possibility that we could defeat aging in the next few decades. So, because we probably can't expect governments to subsidize age reversal and life extension research anytime soon, we'll need to find the necessary capital somewhere else.

Lucky for all of us, quite a few wealthy individuals have been targeting this problem. Below is a list of the ultra-wealthy, along with brief elaborations of their impressive efforts to extend our healthy lifespans. I sincerely hope these individuals motivate other wealthy and non-wealthy individuals to enter the life extension industry, to help us all in the war against death. I introduce to you some of the most important investors of our time.

Martine Rothblatt

Martine Rothblatt is one of the most impressive individuals our world has ever seen. She is commonly considered to be the richest executive woman in America. And, as of 2019, Forbes set her net worth at $320M [17].

After creating a highly successful company, SiriusXM Satellite Radio [18], Dr. Rothblatt gave it up. She needed to use every valuable second of her time to save her daughter’s life from a rare lung disease, called "pulmonary hypertension" [19].

After Dr. Rothblatt and her team of scientists saved her young daughter’s life, the next logical step was to build what may have been the first life extension biotech company, United Therapeutics [20]. The initial focus of the company was to defeat her daughter’s disease. But shortly after, her passion to save lives extended to everyone. Now she and United Therapeutics build and invest into many robust medical technologies and herald some of the most incredible science that will significantly help in the fight against death.

Dr. Rothblatt noticed most Americans are on the organ transplant list. You can double check on your drivers license whether you have a pink dot. The dot tells doctors you are willing to donate your organs to research.

Sadly, a majority of the organs that have the potential to be transplanted are instead thrown away. That's because they are damaged too much during the dying process.

So, for the past few years, United Therapeutics has been refurbishing discarded lungs. They stream the refurbishing process to transplant surgeons in real time, so the surgeons can provide instructions to the refurbishing doctors. Once the transplant surgeons approve, the refurbishing doctors send the organs.

To cut down on the burning of fossil fuel from the helicopters that transport refurbished organs, Martine invented the first electric helicopter [21]. If that doesn’t sound impressive enough, Martine was one of the first individuals to invest into developing human level AI robots [19].

She also invests in xenotransplantation and 3D bio-printing organs [22]. Recently at a Forbes conference, Dr. Rothblatt stated that, in the 2020s, United Therapeutics will offer viable xenotransplantable human-pig hybrid organs to the public. And in the 2030s, she will disrupt her own xenotransplanting technology by introducing 3D bioprinted organs [23].

Some other big pharma and biotech CEOs would oppress disruptive technologies. But because Martine is a genius businesswoman, she understands that innovation is an easy side to choose. Innovation will inevitably disrupt the archaic. So she might as well make innovation her business model.

Hopefully more biotech and big pharma leaders take notice of Martine and follow her lead. Hopefully their companies aren't disrupted, so they can save more human lives!

Jim Mellon

Jim Mellon is a billionaire British entrepreneur, philanthropist, and investor. His recorded net worth is ~$1.3B [24]. A few years ago, he discovered the life extension industry. And he didn’t waste a second of time before deciding to get involved.

Mr. Mellon has collaborated with researchers like Dr. Aubrey de Grey. He recently brought together an impressive team of researchers at his anti-aging company, Juvenescence [25]. He wrote a book on the promises of health extension [26]. And he launched one of the most awesome annual anti-aging conferences [27].

Mr. Mellon isn’t a passive investor. He doesn’t just throw money at age reversal and life extension research, and then sit back and watch what happens. Instead, he is investing AND getting involved in the movement. He wants to understand and direct the research, so he can play an active role in defeating death.

Mr. Mellon has become a leader in the life extension industry in such a small amount of time. And I'm eager to see what Juvenescence develops in the near and long term!

Dmitry Itskov

A Russian billionaire and media mogul [28], Dmitry Itskov was one of the first to make serious moves in the life extension industry. Like Jim Mellon, Mr. Itskov plans on investing a large sum of his own money AND be directly involved in the development of life extension research.

You can just feel his passion for life extension every time you listen to him discuss it. In 2013, he held a conference, called the "2045 initiative" [29]. Many of the most influential advocates of life extension gathered to provide tutelage, on stage, to an impressive crowd [30-34].

His company is relatively secretive about what they are developing. But, early on, the 2045 initiative shared a great road map to defeating death. I can’t wait to get my first avatar from Mr. Itskov’s company [35]!

Chan and Mark Zuckerberg

One of the most impressive couples on our planet, Chan and Mark Zuckerberg recently set out to cure and manage all disease in their child’s lifetime. They are investing most of their Facebook shares into this endeavor via a biotech company, Chanzuckerberg Biohub [36].

Like the others above, they don't just invest. Dr. Chan is a medical doctor and Mark is a software engineer. Together, they have the potential to play one of the biggest roles in the defeat of death.

Among their first projects is a full cytometric map of the ~200 cell types that make up human bodies. They call this the "Cell Atlas Initiative." Imagine a real-time map of trillions of cells and many, if not all, of their inner workings. They'll likely begin with simple snap shots, but this could still be some of the most valuable data on our planet.

Their other research efforts include an infectious diseases initiative, a technology initiative, and an investigator program. In 2019, they announced their goals and some of their researchers discussed the company [37]. I'm so excited to watch their work.

Osman Kibar

Osman Kibar is an entrepreneur and inventor, with numerous successful biotech companies under his belt. As of 2018, he had a net worth of over $430M [38]. And he has become a power house in the life extension industry with a company called Samumed [39].

Samumed is doing some excellent regenerative medicine and is targeting age-related diseases. Dr. Kibar has taken the bold step of developing therapies that manipulate the Wnt signaling pathway, which not many have had success in manipulating. In 2018, Dr. Kibar presented at Singularity University and hinted at the incredible success that Samumed has already had [40].

Dr. Kibar is a CEO and a scientist. That's a powerful combination. And I'm excited to watch Samumed develop and help us all in the fight against death.

Bryan Johnson

Bryan Johnson is an entrepreneur and investor. He has a net worth of over $400M [41]. He's not just spending his money on cars, yachts, fancy clothes, or a couple islands. Instead, he made the impressive choice of dedicating ~$100M into developing brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies at his company, Kernel [42].

After listening to many of his talks, it's easy to understand that he's not playing around. He fully appreciates how fundamental the human brain truly is to our existence.

Our brain creates a simulation of our reality that we all experience in front of us. All the tastes, objects positioned within space, your love for your wife and children, daily stresses, the smell of cheese, your understanding of mathematics: everything has to be simulated by the brain. So the possibilities are astounding, when you really start researching BCI.

From what I understand, Kernel plans on developing BCI tech so we can increase brain health, along with augmenting our intelligence. I hope that Bryan works on extending our consciousness into computers.

Just imagine how incredible that could be to connect our brains to the Internet. What if we could easily comprehend all scholarly peer-reviewed literature, the same way we currently comprehend 1+1=2? Maybe it sounds silly, but I think that's a goal we will achieve eventually. And there's increasing evidence that "eventually" may be a lot sooner than many think.

Imagine combining this great wealth of knowledge in a meaningful way: to augment all our creativity, our love, and our politics. Everything would change.

What if we could each comprehend medicine, economics, synthetic biology, astrophysics, robotics, artificial intelligence, and mathematics? And what if our comprehension included not just primary literature, but also the wide breadth of secondary literature?

What if our minds could traverse the Internet of Things, as if it were merely a single thought? Attempting to imagine all of this, I wonder it it's not like an ant trying to imagine what it's like to be a human.

Mr. Johnson also knows how important it is to engineer a sort of security system for our brains. We wouldn't want our brains hacked using the same technology that enables enhancement. We might not ever be the same after such a horrific event.

Google

Google has been around for decades and has developed into one of the most powerful tech companies on the planet. They are leaders in search, quantum computers, AI, self-driving cars, and so much more.

In 2012, they decided they wanted to become a leader in preventing and reversing the aging process. And they launched Calico [43].

The research they’ve shared with the public so far hasn't been too exciting. But they have a very impressive team. And, given their track record, it's probably only a matter of time until they become leading figures in the life extension industry. I hope to live indefinitely with Calico.

Peter Theil

Peter Theil is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. He has developed many impressive companies. And, as of 2020, he had a net worth of $2.3B [44]. It’s great to see his genius and personal money aimed at preventing and reversing the aging process [45].

Mr. Theil's involvement in life extension, so far, can be described as "passionate," at the least. There's a rumor that he employed heterokaryonic parabiosis, regularly injecting young blood in hope of slowing down the aging process. The rumor probably isn't true [46]. But if it is, I imagine he got excited from some of the relatively successful mice studies that reversed some aspects of the aging process [47].

I think the research related to injecting young plasma for age reversal isn't developed enough for confidence in self-experimentation. And there's more promising research related to other anti-aging injections, such as mesenchymal stem cells at the Panama Stem Cell Institute [48].

But Mr. Theil has demonstrated a passion toward life extension. And I imagine we'll be hearing much more about that.

Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is the founder and CTO of one of the most successful computer companies, Oracle [49]. He has a net worth of $68B. And he was one of the first big investors in anti-aging research.

Mr. Ellison is known for being one of the most ambitious leaders of our time. So just imagine his expertise and passion directed at extending lifespan for everyone.

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is the founder of many impressive companies. And he currently has a net worth of $150B [50]. He is one of the biggest investors in preventing and reversing the aging process. His most recent investment was in Unity Biotechnology [51].

Sadly, Mr. Bezos is not known for being as active in the life extension industry as many of the others discussed above. But, given his net worth, he has clearly learned something about business that most of us haven't. And it would be amazing to see even more of his efforts directed toward life extension!

Other Notable Individuals

Below is a non-exhaustive list of others that are pushing the life extension movement forward as much as, if not more than, those listed above. All of these impressive individuals, in various ways, are supporting or developing this most salient research.

Anthony Atala

Aubrey de Grey

Ben Goertzel

Bill Andrews

Bill Gates

Craig Venter

David Sinclair

Elon Musk

Eric Drexler

George Church

Laura Deming

Luhan Yang

Masayoshi Son

Max More

Naveen Jain

Neil Riordan

Peter Diamandis

Peter Voss

Ray Kurzweil

Sergey Young

Conclusion

The combined effort of these individuals may seem like a lot. Globally, trillions of dollars are invested into research to defeat the diseases that inflict us. But it's not enough. Development of treatments is still slow because human biology is extremely complex.

So we need the other 2K billionaires and 14M millionaires around the globe to step up to the plate. We need them to become part of this list of individuals who are applying their resources to defeat death.

Most governments have barely expressed even a hint of interest in reversing aging and defeating death, let alone subsidizing related research. So we can't rely on them for this purpose. We must take it upon ourselves to pursue the hope of giving everyone the option to live indefinitely.

I expect that life extension will continue to become mainstream. And scientists may soon experience a phenomenon that Peter Voss calls "financial escape velocity." It's the idea that people will throw money at life extension science as fast as they can.

Why will people do this? We'll do it because most of us won't want to age and die in an expensive car when there's a realistic alternative. The goal of defeating death is among the most noble goals that our species has ever conceived.

I sincerely hope that, wealthy or not, you'll take the time to learn more about this research. Maybe you can help us all realize life extension. I look forward to living with all of you forever!

References

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Vera E, Bernardes de Jesus B, Foronda M, Flores JM, Blasco MA. Telomerase reverse transcriptase synergizes with calorie restriction to increase health span and extend mouse longevity. PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e53760. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053760 https://go.thrivous.com/30AvVOC

NHUAR

Robert A. Freitas Jr. (1998). "Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell". Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobil. Biotech. (26): 411–430.

Drexler, Eric. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. Doubleday. 1986.

Neuralink. 2016. https://go.thrivous.com/2AV8LYl

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OpenAI. 2015. https://go.thrivous.com/30xVbF3

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#65 Martine Rothblatt. Forbes. 2019. https://go.thrivous.com/2XU1i4Y

Bio: Martine Rothblatt. Lifenaut eternalize. 2015. https://go.thrivous.com/2UAlCGx

TED. Martine Rothblatt: My daughter, my wife, our robot, and the quest for immortality. YouTube. TED. May 18, 2015. 21:04. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTJpJlVkRTA&t=5s

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Martine Rothblatt. First ever two-person electric helicopter flight. YouTube. March 4, 2017. 8:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2_vGou5194

Reed, Tina. (2018). Martine Rothblatt's theory of evolution. Bizjournal. https://go.thrivous.com/2YqI7yv

Forbes Live. Healthcare Summit 2017: Transformations: An Interview With Martine Rothblatt | Forbes Live. YouTube. December 1, 2017. 22:18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYkjyIjcW7E

Kanter, Jake. (2018) A billionaire biotech investor says Facebook will be decimated by its disastrous data leak. Business Insider. https://go.thrivous.com/2XQScWt

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Segal, David. (2013). This man is not a cyborg. Yet. New York Times. https://go.thrivous.com/2Arwqjg

2045 Initiative. Dmitry Itskov — GF2045: On The Path to A New Evolutionary Strategy. YouTube. March 7, 2015. 12:21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uH5JeMRYo

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Originally published at thrivous.com on June 11, 2020 at 02:50PM.

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cpeacephoto · 5 years

Photo

Going through photographs I can’t help but notice how often we make life harder for ourselves. When we’re young it’s so important that the people we’re with are one of the “cool kids”, or that our parents approve of them. There is so much pressure to ensure our lives are perfect or horrible things are somehow going to happen.

Take these images for example. These people were all doing the color run. The whole marathon isn’t being physically fit. It is not about coming in first, running the fastest, raising money for some charity, or anything else. It is just a bunch of strangers who showed up to make it to the various color stations and do something that just made them happy. They did something that for a moment in time, was a moment. They got to have an experience. In some ways they got to be a little vulnerable and they got to be apart of something.

Maybe it’s just the time of year. But it has me thinking about life, and relationships. How we make our lives harder.

I don’t understand why we make life harder. Why everyone tells you what you should do like there’s some sort of logic to it. Or like it’s somehow divine wisdom. A bitter medicine that you just need to choke down and accept.

Like we wear makeup because we’re told it’s what people do. We buy her flowers on valentines because we’re told it’s supposed to matter and be the right thing to do. We’re told adults like to drink coffee, beer, and whine. When something horrible happens you’re supposed to drink. You’re supposed to hook up, party, date around, play the field, and sow wild oats. You’re supposed to see other people. You’re supposed to have one night stands and enjoy strip clubs and dirty movies. When you break up you’re supposed to hate that other person. You’re supposed to never talk to them again and when you talk of them it’ll only be badly. You’re supposed to never look back. You’re supposed to know or at least feel that they are “toxic” or a narcissist, and it’s all a part of some grand evil ploy to have power over you and hurt you. They’re supposed to like your friends and vise verse

They tell you things like you’re supposed to let go, move on, and forget them. That relationships are supposed to be easy, just magically and effortlessly work. And that if you still care about other people or if you’re trying to make things work that somehow something is wrong with you. That you need medications and therapy. Particularly if you care for someone more than yourself, or if you care for someone that clearly doesn’t care about you. That you just need to date other people, sleep around, get drunk. That you’re supposed to pretend they didn’t exist. Throw away all the things that remind you of them like gifts and photos. Block them across all social media. Put out restraining orders. Anyone looking back is a stalker, and obsessive. That you are attention seeking. You only miss the idea of them. That you’re only interested in what’s familiar because it’s easier than doing the work of becoming familiar with someone new. That if it didn’t work before it didn’t for a reason so don’t go back. That you’re only interested because you’re lonely. Because you're scared of turning 40.

Everyone else seems to know exactly how you should think and feel. That if you deviate, or if other people involved deviate, that there’s something wrong with the person deviating.

I don’t understand that.

By living on everyone else’s rules we make our lives unnecessarily hard, and painful. We end up missing out on experiences and people that we wouldn’t have had to. We begin to doubt people, look for reasons why they shouldn’t be around. Resent them.

Yes, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. And yes, there’s nothing that says you have to be with anyone at all. Lots of adults don’t end up with their first, second, or even fifth choice and lots of adults spend their entire lives alone. But why push people away unnecessarily? Why is it some rite of passage to hurt people we don’t want to? Or ourselves? Why listen to the crowd when they aren’t the one that hurts or misses out because of it? If someone makes you happy on some level, is it worth keeping them around? Even if just on that level and maybe not another?

When we listen to the crowd we end up creating an expectations of how things should be. “I’m not pretty unless I’m in makeup”. Which isn’t true. You’re pretty just the way you are. “I’m a boy so I have to buy her flowers on Valentine’s Day, or else I’m not trying”. No, you don’t. She may not like flowers. And it shows a lack of really knowing what interests her.

This false expectation of what should be causes us to value things that aren’t really relevant, or even realistic. Like the approval of the crowd. That relationships should be easy, pain free, and just not require work. That someone who isn’t making you absolutely happy 100% of the time somehow isn’t worth it. That someone has to be something specific like have a certain job or financial income, look a certain way, and not be someone you’ve known before.

I can’t help but think my generation is doomed. Trained to believe in false and unrealistic expectations by movies, television, and the ability to basically shop for friends, sex, and love online. 10 seconds to make a decision if it’s worth the effort of sending a less than 140 character text message or not.

Humans have been around a long time. Relationships have been around a long time. Mental illness has been around a long time. Even everyday ordinary anxiety, depression, and other feelings have been around a long time. Every human that has ever existed was basically making up life as they go. Reacting to what they thought they needed to survive based on an ever growing complicated and artificial environment.

When I think back to our grandparents generation there’s so many stories of people celebrating their 50 or 70th anniversary. They found their partners young in life and they stuck to it. The stories are not fairytales of happily ever after. There’s anxiety, fear, doubt, pain, and disappointment in there. But there’s also love, respect, appreciation, kindness, loyalty, humility, and forgiveness in there. When you look at their stories you find 2 people who like all those before and after them, were making it up as they go. They didn’t know if they found “the one”. And they didn’t know what they were doing about anything. Themselves, their relationships, what the future would bring, what they’d do for work, how they’d survive. They didn’t know what it was like to be married or what it meant to be a parent.

But they worked at it. Every day. Some days they failed. Someday they really hated each other. Sometimes they lost their job and were scared to tell their spouse. Sometimes they yelled at their kid and just felt awful about it later. Sometimes they felt like parenting should just be easy and come natural. Sometimes they’d have a partner who was moody for days. Sometimes they didn’t really feel like being intimate. Sometimes people felt like they wondered if there was a better fish out there if they had just waited long enough. Sometimes they had spouses who fell into addiction, or made poor choices of investment or legal troubles.

Yes real relationships have fights. Sometimes knock out, drag out, fights. That don’t get fixed overnight. And while no one should ever go looking for a fight, and too much fighting IS a problem, having fights even hard fights doesn’t mean everything is bad. Or that it means it’s not meant to be. You’re not just the couple, you’re still you. There’s still miscommunication, your needs, their needs, expressing yourself. The fight isn’t the problem. If you can have that fight and still deeply love them, champion them, feel the world is lesser without them, then you do the work.

People aren’t perfect. But the generations before us worked it out. Over time they grew to know that someone who kind more times than not is valuable. Someone who does things because they are concerned about you matters. Like someone who hates sleeping on the left side of the bed but does it for you. Or who buys the occasional strawberry just for you. Someone who sleeps on the couch just to not get you sick, or wears an ugly sweater around people who are your friends and not theirs just for you. They learned to be patient with each other and themselves. They learned to own their mistakes and say sorry, as well as to forgive the other person. They learned that it wasn’t wrong to be mad, hurt, or sad from time to time. The other person really wasn’t going anywhere. They learned to appreciate someone who really wasn’t going anywhere. They put in the work. They made it work. Together.

Why is that wrong? Why is that labeled now as mental illness? Or “toxic”? Why aren’t you supposed to care for people you used to know? Why does the crowd have to approve?

If you care for someone, you care. It shouldn’t matter what others think or feel about it. It shouldn’t matter what the expectations should be. It shouldn’t matter if this person measures up to the voices of the crowd. Life is a long time. At the end of the day school, work, and politics, don’t really matter. That one thing they said or did a million years ago over nothing shouldn’t matter. When all is said and done, if they make you happy isn’t that all that matters? If it’s someone who accepts you when you’re not feeling your best, forgives you when you make them mad or hurt them, is happy to just be in the same room with you. If it’s someone who at the lunch line always makes sure to take care of you too. Then why does any of this other crap matter? Why do we have to build up rules, expectations, myths, supposed mental illnesses, to make life harder? Why do we have to take this “all or nothing” and “never look back” mentality? It’s never too late for hello. Why do we have to deny ourselves joy and people in our lives? Why is it now wrong to just be happy, or to put the work in like our grandparents did?

Life can be summed up in three words: it goes on. Regardless if you want to participate, regardless if the crowd approves, regardless if you lived by the rules of others. Regardless what happens in our lives. That also means people live their lives. Be it fully, happy, etc., or not. Life is going to go on regardless how you live your life. People change over the course of their lives as they adapt the environment they live in and the choices they make. And people stay the same based on how they truly think and feel. People are by definition, imperfect.

But I can honestly say that yeah, in some ways my life has moved on. However the parts of me that I think mattered, have stayed the same. And there are certainly people in my life who I’d give anything to reconnect with on some level. Because despite being told it’s wrong or all the other rules…I still care. And I still want to care. I’m not going to apologize for that. I still think putting the work in was always and always will be, worth it. Even if it wasn’t always fun or pain free. Even if it wasn’t going to be the same. Because that’s just who I am. Despite all I've been through, all the places I've been, all the people I've met. After doing all the things the crowd told me I had to do, find myself always back at who I am. I'm the guy who when he said forever, meant it. When he said no matter what, meant it.

And I don't want to talk to them about the past, or to talk about pain. I don't want an apology, or to spend my time apologizing for things long gone. I don't want to ask them how they are with new people. Only a fool waits 20 years to talk about somebody else, or to talk about something that was blown way out of proportion over nothing.

I just want to talk to them about their day. See if they're still doing art and tell them how wonderful that art is. I want to know how they're thinking or feeling about life at the moment. Know they're okay, and happy. I just want to be who I've always been. The guy who liked them for them. Forever and always.

https://youtu.be/ODocRLIVV6k

#colorrun #anchorage #alaska #lostlove #letgo #beyourself

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ihealthlove1-blog · 5 years

Text

Crazy Talk: My Therapist Suggested I Commit Myself. I am Terrified.

As somebody who’s been twice, I have lots of advice for you personally.

While he is not a certified therapist, he’s got a lifetime of experience living with the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He’s learned things the hard way to ensure you (hopefully) do not have to.

Content Note: Allergic hospitalization, suicide I’ve fought with treatment-resistant melancholy for a lengthy time, and that I really don’t appear to be getting improved.

I have been suicidal for weeks, although I don’t intend on murdering myself, my therapist recommended that I still go to a medical facility for longer care. I am scared, though.

Whenever people ask me about what it’s like to be psychiatrically hospitalized, ” I don’t beat around the bush: “It really is the worst vacation I have ever taken.”

It’s a vacation that, by the way, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing double. And that I couldn’t even set my vacation photos upon Instagram, because they took my phone off. The nerve!

If I had, though, it probably would have appeared something similar to that:

(Could you tell comedy is just one of my own coping skills?)

If you are feeling scared, I apologize completely with all the worries that you’re speaking about. The media has never exactly done us any favors in this regard.

When I pictured’psychology wards’ (you know, before I was actually in one single ), I guessed them at precisely the exact same way you’d remember something from the horror film — together with padded rooms, yelling patients, and nurses strapping people down and sedating them.

As striking as that sounds, those sensationalized stories are my sole point of reference up until there.

The reality, though, was not the horror film I had imagined.

My walls weren’t padded (though that sounds comfy), patients were somewhat more likely to become more friendly than screaming, and the most play we’d was talking who had control on the remote every evening once we saw television.

That’s not to imply this was a delight. Being hospitalized was uneasy — and in most ways scary because it’s unknown in every manner. I tell you this to not scare you personally, but instead, to prepare one and also allow you to establish the correct expectations moving in.

The large alteration has related to control, which everybody has a different reaction to.

You don’t have complete control within the food that you eat, where you sleep, even when you’re able to use a phone, your schedule, and in some instances, when you leave.

For a few, having the ability to give up the day-to-day preparation and let someone take control of this really is a relief. For many others, it’s embarrassing. And some times? It’s only a little bit of either.

The area I enjoyed the least, though, was that the impression of being under a microscope. That feeling to be under observation at each moment (and with it, a lack of solitude ) wasn’t an easy task to handle.

I sensed pretty mentally prior to being confessed, but I felt like a full-on nut job when I noticed someone using clipboard-carrying notes about how much food I had left my own tray.

So yes, I will not sugar coat it: Hospitals are uneasy regions. That also did not stop me from moving back another time when I had to though. (and when you keep reading, I’ll give you a few tips to make it easier, I promise.)

Therefore why did I go willingly? And twice, no further? That’s a legal question.

Why will anyone, really, if it has such an uncomfortable experience?

The simplest answer I can offer is the fact that sometimes what we will need to perform and exactly what we would like to do will be two very different things.

And what we prefer over-rides our judgment concerning what we desire, which is the reason why outside remarks — like the therapists — are so valuable in retrieval. Few men and women are excited to visit your hospital for just about any reason. But basically just did exactly what I wanted to do, then I would be eating Sour Patch Kids for snacking and breakfast children’s birthday parties so that I could make use of their dream home and eat their own cake.

To put it differently, I would probably get arrested for trespassing.

I went into the hospital as the emotional and mental anguish I was experiencing had been much significantly more than that I could manage. I needed help, even though I did not need to receive it in a hospital, then I logically understood which was where I was likely to find it.

If you’re able to imagine this scene waltzed right up into the emergency room and said very quietly, “I wanted to jump in front of a train, so I came back here ”

It isn’t a conversation I ever imagined myself with, but then again, few individuals actually anticipate a mental breakdown or write a script to it.

I could have said it casually — and probably fearful the sh*t out of this attendant — but down deep, I was fearful.

It is probably the bravest thing I’ve ever done. And I have to be fair with you, too: I can’t promise you that I would still be living if I had not made that choice.

You do not have to be on the edge of death to visit the hospital, even though.

Maybe not knowing your therapist so I can not say for sure an inpatient stay was recommended (if you aren’t sure, you’re allowed to ask, you know!). I do understand, though, it’s perhaps not just a recommendation that clinicians create softly — it’s simply suggested if they truly feel it’s going to be on your benefit.

I know know, it’s tough to imagine that anything good could come out of it.

However beyond just”staying alive,” there are some important advantages to psychiatric illness that we should chat about.

In case you’re on the fence, here are some things to consider:

You will have to concentrate on you. I predicted it a vacation, didn’t I? No texts answer, no-work emails to juggle — that really is an occasion when you can concentrate completely in your self-care.

You receive an extra pair of health opinions. A brand new clinical team, and so, a pair of fresh eyes can result in a remedy program or even a brand new diagnosis that jump starts your retrieval.

Short-term handicap benefits become more accessible. In many places, short-term handicap benefits become much simpler to get when you are hospitalized (and you’ll have social workers who’re there to assist you to navigate this approach, too).

You are able to reset your regular. Psych hospitals follow pretty consistent schedules (breakfast at 9, art therapy in the time, group therapy AT1, etc ). Getting into a predictable routine can be simpler than you’d think.

Medication changes can occur faster. If something isn’t working, you may not have to wait three weeks before your next appointment with a psychiatrist.

You don’t need to pretend you’re not really a mess. Everyone else is sort of expecting you to be always a wreck, right? Go ahead, cry if you would like to.

You are surrounded by those who”have it.” In meeting other patients, I found kindred souls who could understand what I was going through. Their service was just as helpful since the medical staff’s, or more.

It’s usually safer than being alone. I couldn’t exactly jump in front of the train when I couldn’t leave the ward with a key, now could I?

That said, it’s difficult to know just how to get ready for a stay in a particular hospital, as each one is different.

But in case you’re declaring yourself these are a few basic tips which will make the experience better:

Packs a suitcase (or duffel bag)

This made my 2nd hospitalization therefore far better than my original.

Bring plenty of pajamas with drawstrings removed, more panties than you think you’ll want a light blanket, and also any soothing activities that do not involve sharp or electronics objects.

Designate a service team

Is someone willing to remain in your apartment and keep things tidy (and, when you’ve got animal companions, then keep them hydrated?). That would be communicating with your workplace updates are needed? Who is your”public relations” person if people start wondering why they’ve not heard from you in a little while?

Think about what you’ll need help with, and don’t be afraid to reach out and have your loved ones for support.

Write down the phone numbers you’ll need

More than likely, they’ll require your mobile off. So if you can find people you will want to call, however, you do not have their phone numbers memorized, it’s really a good idea to get them down to paper and have them.

Stop by way of a bookstore or library

What electronic equipment you can or can’t have varies by hospital, but many err on the side of a full-scale electronic detox.

Do not despair, though! Move”old school” along with your entertainment: Graphic novels, comic books, puzzle books, and self-help books were my very best friends when I had been hospitalized. I kept a diary, too.

Make (little ) programs for the future

I knew after my initial hospitalization I had been going to find a brand new tattoo to remind myself of their potency that I showed in my recovery. In case it will help, keep a running list of what you’d love to complete once you get on the other hand.

Outline your expectations

What would you like to get out of your hospital experience? It is helpful for you to have some vague idea of what you are searching for, and also to communicate it to your providers as best you can.

What improvements do you will need to find — logistically, mentally, and physically — for your own life to be much more manageable?

Plus one last thing, before I get off my soapbox: If you do go to the hospital, then do not rush your restoration.

This is actually the very best advice I will give but it is going to be one of the most counter-intuitive, too.

I know that the rush to receive the hell out of there because that’s just what I did the first time — I put on quite the show to become released early… well until I was actually prepared to leave.

But hospitalization is, quite literally, building the base for the remainder of one’s recovery. You wouldn’t rush the foundation of a skyscraper, would you?

” It was not a good year after I had been at the back of an ambulance, able to experience the process for the next time (with an increase of salary lost and medical debt accumulated — what I had been trying to avoid).

Give yourself the best opportunity for achievement. Arrive for every group, every semester, every meal, and every activity you possibly can. Follow the recommendations you’re awarded, including follow-up maintenance, to the best of one’s abilities, too.

Be ready to try everything — even the material seems dull or unworthy — once, if not double (just to be certain you have beenn’t only grumpy the very first time because, hey, this happens).

And trust me, your clinicians do not desire one to remain in the hospital no more than you need to be there. There’s no benefit in providing you bed when someone else might need it longer. Trust the process and remember this is temporary.

As with every other health struggle, some times more involved care is necessary. That is a fact of life and never a reason to be embarrassed.

If you end up hesitating as you’re stressed what others may think, I would like to gently remind you that nothing — and I mean nothing at all — is much more crucial than your well-being, especially during a mental health crisis.

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thistherapylife · 7 years

Note

Do you have any advice for starting field placement? I start this August and am terrified I'll screw up or get too attached to my clients.

Hi anon!

Yay! I looooove asks from therapists or from those trainings to do so. I wrote about this here so this is a more expanded answer but will be similar. @othersideofthecouch answered this here. My answer isn’t going to be perfect and it’s coming from my experience so it’s just as flawed as everyone else. Also I know a lot of folks in therapy who aren’t therapists read this so a heads up - this may be okay for you but it may not. If it feels like too much, bounce out! Take care of you! {This is also like the world’s longest post so just fyi}

Take some breaths - all the shit you are going to be passing along regarding anxiety management, you are passing it on cause it works. So use it. Use the mindfulness and DBT techniques you know. Laugh with your peers, use your supervision and if you have it, use your field placement class if you are still in graduate school. Remember that you are the therapist and they are the client - when you the person is showing up with the room, it needs to be for a reason. I’ve seen therapists who have used sessions to spend the whole thing talking about themselves and it sucks. Remember that your clients don’t owe you trust - you have to earn that. OH and please for love of everything read this post by @cps-oteric if you are going to do any work with social worker “in the system.” You also may want to take a look at your social media accounts prior to starting.

The best advice I got in grad school was a professor (who continues to be one of my mentors and leads my consult group). They laid it out: “You guys are going to fuck up. Every. Single. One. Of. You. Will. Mess. Up. It’s going to happen. Because you are human and your clients are human and there is room for mistakes. Now, I’m not talking about the mistakes you have a choice over - the stuff you guys covered in Law and Ethics. That you should always be aware of and strive to prevent. But the accidental mistakes? The mistakes of inexperience? Those can be incredibly valuable for your client too. Part of our job is give people a different experience - to own up when we fuck up and do the repair work with the client.”

Why was this the most helpful for me? Because it gave me the space to feel like it’s okay to make mistakes. It wasn’t okay to ignore those things or be intentionally fucked up but that I didn’t have to be perfect. I “fucked up” early in my first field placement - I had to call out unexpectedly. I did the right thing and called my supervisor, let them know and called the location I was supposed to be at that day. The site was supposed to let my client know and they didn’t. For the client, this is was major thing and we ended up doing a lot of repair work around but in owning up to the experiencing be shit for the client, even though that wasn’t my intention, was a huge deposit in the proverbial trust bank and was new experience for the client. I didn’t apologize for taking the time - I needed it full stop - but I did apologize that it wasn’t communicated effectively to this client and validated/normalized the feelings that came up. It’s also important not to let your anxiety/discomfort/fear etc. around messing up, compound the mistake - which is why I am pretty into therapist’s knowing their own shit. tldr; You are going to mess up but explore it with your supervisor, your mentors, your cohort. You won’t be a perfect therapy robot.

As to the second fear - look at what you mean by attached. What’s the fear there for you? Often, it’s around not being able to keep your clinical hat on because you will be too close and/or that it will hurt when you leave. There will be probably clients it hurts to leave. Leaving my last job, I had a couple of clients - man. I still think about them and hope they are doing well. There are a couple of clients right now, who if I left my agency, it would hurt to leave. And I’m not talking about being devastated or anything would indicate an over attachment where you don’t keep that clinical hat on but when relationships end - it can be sad. Relationships have two sides, that connection develops no matter your modality - I can’t speak of all therapists here for sure. But all of the therapists I know personally and many of the therapists I’ve take courses from have experienced attachment in some way. Often, your clients will leave their fingerprints on you. Some in dust and some tattooed. Process your countertransference around this. Sometimes, in grad school, you get the idea that countertransference is all about the start of an ethical breach (or my Law and Ethics professor was just a royal asshole which is a distinct possibility). You will have feelings about your clients - positive, negative and in between - and sometimes - right at the beginning especially for me - I thought grownup therapists had all their shit together and they didn’t have feelings about this shit which like WHAT?! No. You get better at riding those waves that’s all. It’s more like “oh yup, this client’s mom is making me feel X” or “this client is bringing up frustration because of x and I know that and that’s just me. Gotta bring that to supervision/consult group/therapy”

It will depend on your placement and other factors. If you are working on a MRT or in a hospital, then you are will be affected by your clients, for sure, but your attachment may be different than it is for others with more long term placements. One of my really good friends from graduate school loves working on mobile response because she likes engaging with folks for a short period of time and has never had a desire to do the more long term work. I ended up being hired by my first placement so I had the opportunity to work with some clients for multiple years. And sometimes the length of time doesn’t matter. I saw a client for I think 2-3 times? Somewhere in there but no more than 4. But there was something about that client and those sessions that will stay with me forever. (I talked about this case in therapy when it was happening and I have a decent idea why). So your mileage will vary.

Do your best to take care of yourself. Put your cases and clients, lovingly away at the end of the day. Set good boundaries with your agency and placement. Yes, you signed up to do a job but they don’t own you 24/7. Hang out with your friends, your family, your partner, your cat - whatever you love. Grab a coffee or a dinner with a friend or a cohort member. Have good boundaries with your friends. If you aren’t sober/working on sobriety, go to team happy hour and if you are, advocate to have a team activity that’s not a bar. Use your supervision. Reach out to mentors if you don’t think the placement is a good fit. Don’t forget to eat. Move your body. Watch TV or read a good book or garden or run or goof off on the internet but do something for you. SLEEP. If you are on meds, take them. If you can make it work (I couldn’t most of my traineeship and regret it), find a therapist. Tell ‘em you are starting your placement and some will dip low on the sliding scale cause we’ve been there.

You made it to the end of the this post! Gold Star! This isn’t a master post for starting therapists but it’s a start. Check out the “keep yourself warm therapy posts,” “for therapists,” “new therapists,” “baby therapists” posts if you want more :) Best of luck anon. I’m rooting for you. Update me if you remember!

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