Narrative Responsibility

When two people look at the same situation and come to different conclusions about what ought to be done, each of them can easily read the worst into the other's perspective. And Western culture encourages a binary right/wrong mentality. Psychological type provides and alternate narrative that allows you to ask what else might be going on. It functions as a "lawful neutral" story that describes ra...

Are you living your best life? That question is a personal development mainstay. But what does it really mean - and is it really the best question to be asking yourself as a guide to living well? 

In tabletop games, the dungeon master, or DM, sets up storylines for characters to play through in order to gain XP points, level up skills, and just, you know, enjoy experiencing. All too often we try to be the DM for our own lives. But the DM isn't a player, and we have a whole universe able and willing to act as our DM...if we can let it. What are some of the obstacles to trusting the universe...

In an attention economy, attention equals currency. What are some of the reasons for this? What are some of the innate hazards of living in attention economy? How can content creators and information curators act ethically in a system that fundamentally rewards selling vices rather than virtues? Buckle up for a deep dive into the social philosophy you signed up for when you subscribed!

Shadow work often creates a sense of displacement inside the self, while the egoic identify dissolves and re-forms. How do we lean into this instead of resisting it? Are there any tools you can carry with you on an expedition to Mordor, to make the journey less distressing? Are there ways to nourish yourself even when you are deep in your Shadow? Can you, like Sam Gamgee, pack some metaphorical po...

The Shadow...is that like Mordor, or something? Let's see, all the best monsters, the painful searing truth revealed by an all-seeing gaze, and a volcano hot enough to melt your most precious pretensions?...yeah, basically. Don't forget to bring your Sam!

A sneaky bonus episode to conclude the discussion of correspondences between the MTBI system, Jungian cognitive functions, and my growth alignments chart! What happens when you have a "split personality" where your favorite psychological lens fits into one style of growth, but your second-favorite fits into another? Or when you have a personality type made of a dominant and/or auxiliary function t...

In which we continue our comparison of MTBI type preferences and RPG growth alignments! Today, in Part II, we explore the Jungian cognitive functions for Judging: Fi (introverted Feeling), Fe (extroverted Feeling), Ti (introverted Thinking), and Te (extroverted Thinking). Interestingly, this aspect of type yielded a different spread in our categories of Controlling, Envisioning, and Emerging appro...

Let's expand our understanding of the MTBI system AND our RPG style growth alignments chart by looking for the correlations between them! There will be two episodes on this topic. Today, in Part I, we explore the Jungian cognitive functions for Perceiving: Si (introverted Sensing), Se (extroverted Sensing), Ni (introverted iNtuiting), and Ne (extroverted iNtuiting). Any guesses where they fall on...

A personal account of growing up as "the odd one out" in my family and culture, looked at through the lens of emotional belief interpretation and then through the lens of MBTI preferences. Complete with feelings and poetry! 

One of my very favorite "narratives," if you will, is the MBTI/Jungian personality type system. It is a cornerstone of my understanding of the human mind and a really helpful roadmap for our unfolding development. Take a dive with me into the basics of the system! 

Perspective shifts are basically the awesome cousin of ego deaths that you actually want to invite to the party. What exactly are they, why are they such catalyzers for change, and how do get more of them?

Conundrum: how do you solve a problem, when that problem is defined as outside the bounds of the possible and is therefore innately unsolvable? Do you need to venture beyond the boundaries of Euclidean space-time? Or just re-think your assumptions about the (im)possible?

Now that we've learned the framework of Attachment Styles, let's apply it! RPG character class usually correlates to what we think of culturally as "personality traits" - are you funny, charming, shy, etc.? - and attachment styles actually have quite a big influence on the traits we express with others. Where do you get to boost your scores? ...and what do you have to lose to compensate?

A resource review/recommendation for the new book LEARNING LOVE by Thais Gibson with Sjorland Gibson. Includes a quick and dirty overview of attachment theory and a bit about my relationship (heh) with that framework. 

Hot take: a "gratitude practice" is less about feeling gratitude, specifically, and more about finding the good in your life to counteract negativity bias. A quick overview of why and how to count your blessings in a way that will actually change how you feel about your life!

Traditional New Year's resolutions set us up for failure, because they focus on using ego to control emotions. Align your resolutions to your underlying emotional needs, and you have endless fuel to stick to them because they will feel like gifts to yourself! 

Holiday traditions often feel less like joys and more like obligations if we haven't taken the time to curate them against our personal values and needs. What can we do differently, and why might we want to?

In the RPG of life we don't get to just kill off a character and build a new one once we understand the game...we have to build a change from where we are. How can we plan that out for maximum effectiveness?

Change is one of those "simple but not easy" processes. Take a look at the underlying reasons it can be so hard with psychological math. Spoiler: effort, time, and degree all play a part in how to formulate an effective change!

Our consciousness experiences time as one endless now...but not all nows are created equal! Explore some of the ways and whys we can get out of sync with time as kept by the clock.

Going back to the past to change the present is just science fiction...OR IS IT? Continue exploring the human relationship with time via healing practices that parallel time travel.

An extra thicc discussion that unravels and re-weaves the human experience of time as more fluid and multi-track than linear.

Expanding upon the personal growth moral alignments chart with ways you can grow now that you know your starting point. Includes thoughts on why change AKA growth can feel scary and hard.

A personal example of how I formed an untrue belief and how I dismantled it by testing it against reality. Bonus: compassionate extrapolations about why performing that kind of test can be painful and confronting.