Make Your Damn Bed

"Being nice is primarily a way of manipulating people and situations." - John Bradshaw "Perfectionism flows from the core of toxic shame. A perfectionist has no sense of healthy shame; he has no internal sense of limits. Perfectionists never know how much is good enough. Perfectionism is learned when one is valued only for doing... Condemning others as bad or sinful is a way to feel righteous. Suc...

Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people “I’m fine,” when I felt like the world was caving in on me.  Toxic shame is true agony. It is a pain felt from the inside, in the core of our being. It is excruciatingly painful. - John Bradshaw John Bradshaw's websi...

Sometimes, "“I feel shame” comes to mean “I am shameful, deficient in some vital way as a human being.” Shame is no longer one feeling among many, but comes to constitute the core of oneself. Internalized shame creates a frozen state of being. Shame is no longer an emotional signal that comes and goes. It is a deep, abiding, all-pervasive sense of being defective as a person. This core of defectiv...

We can't heal what we don't feel. Unfortunately, one of the greatest powers of toxic shame is that it creates automatic, unconscious defenses: like Idealization, repression, denial, dissociation. So most people don't heal this shame and end up passing it down to their children, through hierarchal power structures, coercion, and denial. Dysfunctional Family Rules : Chaos or Control, Perfectionism o...

The more one experiences shame, the more one is ashamed, and the beat goes on. It is this dead-end quality of shame that makes it so hopeless. But it's not hopeless, it just feels like it. “Without feeling, nothing matters, and with feeling, anything can matter.” - Silvan Tompkins When you internalize toxic levels of shame, you create a "false self" to cope. It takes lots of energy and hard work t...

“Without feeling, nothing matters, and with feeling, anything can matter.” - Silvan Tompkins When you internalize toxic levels of shame, you create a "false self" to cope. It takes lots of energy and hard work to live a false self. John Bradshaw's website . Buy the book, Healing the Shame that Binds You Read the TOXIC SHAME article from Very Well Mind . Read Julie's Medium Blog . Support JULIE (an...

Toxic shame is a deep feeling of worthlessness and self-hatred often starting in childhood due to trauma or neglect. Deconstructing internalized toxic shame is an intense and overwhelming process, but it's a rewarding one. Read the TOXIC SHAME article from Very Well Mind . Read Julie's Medium Blog . Support JULIE (and the show!) Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON . Get an occasional pe...

Analysis paralysis is a natural response to stress, but there are many ways to manage it. Respect the "thawing" process: this takes time. Ground yourself: breathing exercises, noting exercises, etc. Practice physical release: dance, shake, sing, yell, etc. Get therapeutic help: Practice healthier coping skills, uproot deeper issues. Read the PsychCentral article. Read Julie's Medium Blog . Support...

Inaction is not neutral.  I know I’m capable of great things but I am too afraid to do anything I want to do because it is easier to do nothing. It feels safer to do nothing but it’s not. Inaction is not neutral.  Just because I can’t solve every problem doesn’t mean I can’t solve any of them.  Its easy to criticize the problems and the issues and the systems even, and blame my inac...

Having a broken heart means you still have a heart. Feeling painful feelings means you can still feel. It's all part of the process of processing. "Keep my anger from becoming meanness. Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity. Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking. Keep my anger turned towards justice, not cruelty. Remind me that all of this, every bit of it, is for love. Keep me fierce...

This war is a ponzi scheme by people who use "rapture accelerationism" as a manipulation tactic. People ARE resisting, but we need to address what's really happening if we want to resist it properly. Professor Jiang's "Predictive History" Youtube . Wikipedia on Professor Jiang Xueqin Penn Live article on Jiang's predictions . Read Julie's Medium Blog . Support JULIE (and the show!) Support + get s...

"By highlighting psychological patriarchy, we see that everyone is implicated and we are freed from the misperception that men are the enemy. To end patriarchy we must challenge both its psychological and its concrete manifestations in daily life.  To end male pain, to respond effectively to male crisis, we have to name the problem. We have to both acknowledge that the problem is patriarchy a...

"No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny. The laughter is itself a weapon of patriarchal terrorism. It functions as a disclaimer, discounting the significance of what is being named. It suggests that the words themselves are problematic and not the system they describe." - bell hooks Read the bell hooks work: understanding patriarchy . Read Julie's Medium Blog . Suppor...

Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation. Yet most men do not use the word “patriarchy” in everyday life. - bell hooks By highlighting psychological patriarchy, we see that everyone is implicated and we are freed from the misperception that men are the enemy. To end patriarchy we must challenge both its psychological and its co...

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is it...

"We're all losers until we win." - Astra Taylor "Change itself becomes invisible when your timeframe is shorter than that change and the short term view breeds defeatism and despair... The short term view breeds incomprehension and ineffectuality." - Rebecca Solnit Rebecca Solnit's blog + newsletter: https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/ Rebecca Solnit's Books: https://www.rebeccasolnit.net/bo...

The source: Feel your feelings "This zine is all about why it’s important to cultivate the capacity to stay with our feelings, and how we can go about doing that. Hopefully working through the zine will help you to figure out your own emotional landscape (which feelings you tend to prefer, and which you tend to avoid). It’ll also give you several possible practices for learning to stay with your f...

The source: Feel your feelings "This zine is all about why it’s important to cultivate the capacity to stay with our feelings, and how we can go about doing that. Hopefully working through the zine will help you to figure out your own emotional landscape (which feelings you tend to prefer, and which you tend to avoid). It’ll also give you several possible practices for learning to stay with your f...

The source: Feel your feelings "This zine is all about why it’s important to cultivate the capacity to stay with our feelings, and how we can go about doing that. Hopefully working through the zine will help you to figure out your own emotional landscape (which feelings you tend to prefer, and which you tend to avoid). It’ll also give you several possible practices for learning to stay with your f...

The source: Feel your feelings "This zine is all about why it’s important to cultivate the capacity to stay with our feelings, and how we can go about doing that. Hopefully working through the zine will help you to figure out your own emotional landscape (which feelings you tend to prefer, and which you tend to avoid). It’ll also give you several possible practices for learning to stay with your f...

Every group is different, shaped by local needs, but all share common goals: ecological justice, boosting local economies, and strengthening community connections.  The resource: Small Practical Project Ideas And: https://transitionnetwork.org/ Read Julie's Medium Blog . SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!) DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief Fund GET AN OCCASIONAL...

title credit: Alkaline Trio or read today's episode, here . The only thing that has helped me to stop doom scrolling was remembering that worst people in the world want me to doom scroll. We've become inundated and confused and overwhelmed and scared. And that's by design. They're banking on us disconnecting. They've invested a lot in forcing us to tap out. I don't like people telling me what to d...

"Easy to spot a yellow car when you are always thinking of a yellow car. Easy to spot opportunity when you are always thinking of opportunity. Easy to spot reasons to be mad when you are always thinking of being mad, You become what you constantly think about. Watch yourself." - @CryptoSeneca Red Balloon Post on Tumblr Mary Oliver 's poem: Don't Hesitate Priming on very well mind: https://www.very...

What is the most you'd pay for lunch? What about baby formula? What about an uber home when your battery is on 1%? Those numbers will be different depending on your mood, location, and personality. Dynamic Pricing is a way for companies to exploit us out of the most possible money, by creating a personalized "profile" they can use to manipulate you into more profits. This is a form of priming that...

How do you naturally prime yourself for your day? Brushing your teeth to feel refreshed, playing hype music to get in a better mood, opening windows to let in fresh air. These are all forms of priming that affect how our mind feels going into things. We associate familiarity with ease. What do we do when people use priming with negative intentions? "Start by cultivating environmental awareness. Lo...