ED4AW - Dialogue with Other Versions of Me

Hello! Welcome to my blog. If this is your first time reading this, how it works is this; I pick a topic and I write about it for 7 days. I've been doing this for about 7 years now. I always notice a refreshing change by the end of the week, I do this for me and I'm not sure if people find it interesting or helpful, but I share it on here anyways hoping someone might. 

I have been journalling a while longer than that though. I have gone into the attic and will be reading through my old journals, having a dialogue with previous versions of myself. Every time I think I remember my life clearly, I am floored by an old tweet or an old photograph; I don't remember anything. And yet so much of what is propelling me forward is from that time. 

Each Day for a Week I will be writing letters to previous versions of myself from my journals. What would I like them to know now? What would they say to me if someone asked them to write a letter to the future?

Day 1, 19/01/2026 - Knitting my Life Together

I've opened the journal and some paper has fallen out. A detention letter from when I was 16; I was always late and getting detentions. A mind map I made for codependency. I literally remember how I fell down that rabbit hole; I was like "Why does it feel like I like everyone more than they like me?", I googled this. Google said I lack self-awareness, and somehow this brought me into learning about codependency and enmeshed realities. 

Don't beat yourself up all the time I wrote down, I still do that a lot I'm afraid past-version-of-me. But it has improved, a lot. I have a habit of doing it without noticing, which is not great. Anyways. 

So, onto my actual journal (this mind map fell out of it). 

I was writing about how I got bad grades, and my mum was disappointed. I want to do well in school so I can look after her. I wrote about hanging out with a friend I made J. J is into punk rock music. 

Things I would tell kid me from 2014:

Hey! You actually bumped into J at a party not that long ago and he was really happy to see you.

I still have a lot in common with me from 2014, I don't know if that's a good thing or points to stunted development. 

Despite everything going on you still were trying to be a good kid; you were trying to stay strong on your values; I'd say I'm still reaping the benefits of this. 

You're still friends with the Jewish kid and the Italian kid and you did end up going to music festivals together. 

You did become a corporate mastermind in the end. 

You still struggle with holding yourself accountable but it's improved; impressive that you picked that up as a weakness so early on.

You do not have to worry about being too nice anymore!!!

You still spend too much time online wanting to hear from people because you are thinking about them.

When you're sad you still insist that it's just physical pain but 'mentally you're okay'.

You were such a dating skeptic, but I think that was just your way of making it easier to be alone. 

Now between me and you, the reader.... 

Reading my journal from 2014, I can see that I was an unsupported and extremely isolated child. I was journalling as a way of knitting my life together, knot my knot. Creating some sort of webbing, structure, scaffolding where there was nothing. Maybe that's why it's so easy for me to slip into abstraction and fantasy, because I had no options. I had to make something out of nothing, weave yarn into gold. 

Whenever I do come across something I grip onto it with everything. 

And being left with nothing, and forced to knit life together knot by knot, I'm always desperate for connection. Maybe in this knitting analogy connections help me to understand what the final product might look like, where to add knots. 

Your brother being a bully affected you more than you realise; even though your relationship is better now. You internalised a lot of it.

I'm thinking about how I might need to craft who I'm becoming next. A lot of who I am now is yeah, the work of a child who had nothing. They did their best, they had to. I'm still knitting life together, loop by loop. Maybe it's starting to look like something now, a scarf?

Day 2, 20/01/2026 - You Have Made a Disturbing Amount of Progress

Still reading the journal from when I was 16 but getting to the end of it. I still have so many of the same issues, fear of people leaving me. Now it's not so much my platonic friends, it's more in a romantic context. But you are seeing someone very nice at the moment, which is why this is being written on Day 3 first thing rather than Day 2. You are growing a lot as part of this process. 

I wrote down that I need to face my childhood issues and be honest about the origins of my codependency.

"Boundaries are what differentiate me from other people" - yesssss.

Will I always be in a stage where I look back on myself disappointed? - No, I appreciate you past-version-of-me, you tried your best with the cards you were dealt. I am very proud of you.

I was disappointed at people bailing on my birthday - You've had beautiful birthdays since, including one where you sang and played guitar in public, could you ever have dreamed of this?

Looking back, I want you to take nothing anyone did personally. Not because, "this person's actions do not mean they think less of you" (they might), but because what's the point in engaging in that idea? Where will you end up? I've seen the future of your relationships with those people you were so desperate to make time for you; they end up never being for you. Just a lot of heartache and wasted time. If you visit a store and it's empty I hope you would leave.

I wanted to lose weight; you lost a lot of weight in 2020. There was a global pandemic.

Day 3, 21/01/2026 - Been Writing About the Same Stuff for Years

So it seems I didn't journal at all when I was at uni or I lost those notebooks. After 2015, all of my notebooks start from 2020, when I would have already graduated. 

Wrote abut some books I wanna read; how music works by David Byrne. Blood Sweat and Pixels.

I wrote about how I catastrophise a lot - I have improved so so much with this. 

Maybe I should make it a practice to meet people where there at - something I wrote.

I was always thinking about how I might prevent bad things from happening by being hypervigilant: "yeah it's a prison but at least I can see all four walls".

I also wrote that "everything you are trying to prevent is where the real living happens." Errm okay. I guess this is a note about stepping out of your comfort zone.

I need to heal my relationship with others, not for their approval but to feel safe in the world. 

My problem is that I'm impatient, frustrated over things I can't control I have to accept that things may not happen according to how I want and on my preferred timeline. 

It's not about action or in action, it's about taking action from a place of surrendering everything - clock it.

Theres something innate in me that pushes people away - people made you nervous and people get nervous around nervous people.

No community has claimed me as their own, I feel like I don't exist. It gets so much better for you wow.

People are superficial; this feels like a lazy answer to a lot of my social issues - this is the truth past-version-of me; people don't warm to things they don't immediately recognise. Humans need a box to put things in, and you probably exist in a cardboard tube. This might be superficial but it's human nature

There's some HTML code in my notebook; wouldn't you know that you're studying computer science at the moment? Wow.

Sometimes I think I've explored all the options and maybe the only one left now is to choose to be happy. Like... man. Is this the shift I've been looking for? I've tried for years to be 'realistic', not too optimistic, lest I get let down.

Yes, I'm basically talking down on the fact that I journalled for many years; what I will say is that it improved my writing, it improved the quality to which I narrate my own life. It added language to things that were hurtful and I had no language for. But 5, 10 plus years later I'm still writing about the same issues!!!

Why do I feel the need to prepare for every moment? Why does every moment require that I have done some work in advance, lest it bowl me over? At one point it was definitely important that I did this because I was sensitive, vulnerable, volatile; I needed cushioning. 

But now I can see that writing doesn't necessarily make any of the feelings go away; maybe this is making a case for just choosing to be happy, but there's some hesitancy.

I did some art therapy to understand this better. I think the art was me inside a womb. I'm frozen in time, I don't perceive life in the order it happens. This art pointed to an unmet need to "live life in real time instead of always abstracting, projecting, pretending time isn't real etc."

You've done enough preparation and now it's time to live life from front to back; it's time to take off the parental controls.

I might also feel stuck with certain emotions from when I was younger because I'm always in preparation mode. Something like... you have to allow life to catch you by surprise. I think that's the only way to move out of these feelings. When you spend months, and weeks projecting and planning, your feelings have so many hang ups and dependencies. I do believe that feelings are meant to be 'digested'. 

My issues are my issues, maybe the exercise is to choose to be happy despite them. Because over the years they have not gone anywhere. 

I found this tiny buddha article after googling: can we choose to be happy? Choosing Now to Be Happy: Why the Conditions Are Never Perfect - Tiny Buddha

Key takeaway for me atm is that there will never be the perfect conditions. Maybe I stay in the womb, planning, projecting, prepping but it doesn't feel like the right condition to leave yet. Maybe there is no right condition, maybe every condition is the right condition; to not feel like life needs to be rehearsed, that I need to prepare for impact or potentially being let down. 

Day 4, 22/01/2026 - Considering Never Journalling Again!

I genuinely am still writing about the same issues. Still in pain.

Day 5, 23/02/2026 - Birds eye view

I was talking to my mum, and I asked myself what I would advise her if we swapped places. I said I would encourage her to witness and remember, rather than do and fix. Don't consider things in a 5 second or 5-minute window, but a broader view. Consider what you've been spending years working towards, and goals/ambitions you've set for yourself in the future. Stop taking things in your life for granted, this might require some temporal shifting; think back to you a few years ago, think about how you would feel in the future if you achieved your goals. 

I changed the word to witness from see, to articulate the increase in weight, significance, and presence.

Day 6, 24/01/2026 - Pain Doesn't Mean You Aren't Healing

From my 2024 journal:

"See amazing things for what they are, stop trying to simplify the world. Witness and not see"

I was reading a journal from 2024 about things that are wrong with my life, according to me at the time. Got to page 10, I was like cool. Accidently flipped forward in the journal, I went all the way up to 38!!! If I could only tell past-me, that I'm laughing my head off at this. She probably didn't find it funny at the time. A lot of the things in the list I have made a lot of progress on.

I'm going round and round I'm still writing about the same stuff; I don't think I can erase these issues. Now that I think about it, all these vulnerabilities are only emerging recently because I've started dating someone again. Is dating the thing that invites you to put all your learning to the test? Is it a test? Is it meant to be one?

Maybe I need to start from a different position when journalling. Before I was very much writing to cope better with my circumstances and give myself more internal real estate to work with. Maybe I have graduated from this, maybe I have passed the ultimate test.

Maybe this week is meant to be about releasing and letting go. When you don't have the intel/experience/confidence you hold on to everything. Perhaps it is a type of hoarding. What if I end up needing this?

After many years I know now which thinking patterns pay their way and which kind of lead me nowhere. 

Maybe what I should be repeating is things that help me to see and remember, things that keep me in the posture of seeing and remembering. There's a guy who said being happy is like going to sleep; you can't force yourself to sleep but you can set up the conditions for sleep and model what someone who was about to fall asleep might do. 

I'm thinking about why exactly did writing about the same topics for years and years help me?

TO BE FAIR, it never felt like I was really moving the needle with my writing until I moved to this 7-day journal format. Maybe it is a practice of releasing, shedding, deliberately forgetting.  Maybe it's a way of witnessing what matters and what stands the test of time.

I also did the artists way in 2024:

Letter from me at 80 to me now

There are things right now that feel like they're eclipsing your whole life, but once you get to my age there won't even be the language left to describe these things. There are so many beautiful experiences waiting eagerly to meet you. Time spent worrying about your life now is most likely time wasted. Everything feels like it's in its early stages because it is. You can't rush a fruit ripening, or a baby animal maturing, so don't let your mind reach too far in the future or rush to worst case scenarios. Create, and witness joy magic and wonder in real time. Don't rush. Everything happens exactly as its meant to. The course of life is bigger than us and already plotted out. So, whether or not you fight against life's current, it just is what it is. Treat every moment with the respect it deserves and is entitled to; remind yourself that some don't deserve a lot. Life is a miracle. 

Letter from 8 year old me to me now

Dude. You... I can't even get the words. You have achieved something miraculous. A real miracle. Wonderful. We are truly, finally at peace. We have the luxury of peace, stability and predictability. It's all I ever wanted, everything else is a bonus. We can fully inflate our lungs, we can notice the softness of our skin, we have not just one person but several people who understand us and take genuine interest in us as a person. We can look in the mirror. 

1) Some art therapy to uncover why anger is the feeling specifically. Why I feel so strongly, and with such certainty, that an injustice needs to be corrected. 

So, in my art therapy the central character was wounded with their eyes closed, it was like the wound was almost protecting them from the outside world. It surrounded them. My response to this art is this; healing doesn't promise to never hurt, wincing and experiencing pain is not evidence that you are not healing. I think what helps with healing is stability and consistency, not being so restless. Sticking to the same set of ideas, being a bit more organised. Over time, you begin to heal. Take on the posture of the person you would like to heal into. 

My emotions can actually make me wince in pain. I don't think pain is meant to be a prison rather a utility you acknowledge and then move on from. And remember, you are choosing this so that you can grow. It will require trial and error.

2) imagine for a second that the bad things I think people think about me, they actually do think that. What would change?

If these things are actually true about me, I can't help who I am. I would reinterpret them. Being desperate means I want something badly, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting something badly. Being desperate means I have a higher risk appetite for things I would do to meet my needs. This isn't always a problem, being pathetic isn't always a problem.

It's all about resolving the tension. Conflicting beliefs and ideas cause tension, tension prevents healing. Organise your mind, pick something. Resolve the tension. In the example above, the central idea is acknowledging my choice and agency, putting myself at the front of my life. Not being at the world's or other people's mercy, my worth not being dependent on what people do at their discretion. 

These insecurities are like clouds floating over a central unblemished core, that's how it should be anyways. I think that's how you know your boundaries are intact.

I'm also going to write about the new direction I need to go in. Journalling the way I have over the last few years was at one point, a new direction; prior to this I would journal in a different way, whatever was helpful at the time. So, what would be helpful for me now?

Witness and remember, rather than do and fix - is a good shout, I like it better than ''practicing gratitude'' and ''just being positive''.

Take on the posture of the person you would like to heal into - I like this very much too.

Don't consider things in a 5 second or 5-minute window, but a broader view. Consider what you've been spending years working towards, and goals/ambitions you've set for yourself in the future. 

Maybe it's having pride in the things I do have, that I need to work on. This was so easy when I was a kid, you got a new games console, and it was literally a high that could last weeks. I can still recall what it feels like as an adult, what was different back then? I made a mind map and tried to extract some common themes.

First thing I'll say is that these things don't have a common theme, but I did only focus on one thing at a time. I wasn't flitting around; there was a central focus. Organisation! 

You focus on less things and it's easier for you to take on the posture of a happier person. 

Maybe life is the same as business; focus on one thing or you die. Maybe right now I'm in the middle of an identity crisis because I put my career first but quickly learned that wasn't a good idea. 

I don't know, perhaps I will flit around forever. There are too many options. 

And you know what it's okay to feel confused, it's okay to feel like I don't know what to do with my life or what my future direction is. This is part of the journey. No one said healing wouldn't hurt. 

Day 7, 25/01/2026 - Conclusion

Pain doesn't mean you aren't healing.

Listening to some BB King, music really is medicine. I really am shifting. These people didn't run from their pain they alchemised it in an incredible way, arguably one of the most incredible ways in human history.

Blues music is the perfect model for reaching the end of a dark feeling and not letting it bowl you over, maintaining your dignity. Your sovereignty! Anyways this is not a blog about music...

I had a dream last night, it was restless and uncomfortable. I looked in the mirror and it didn't look like me, I looked grotesque. From that dream I picked up a could of things:

I need to update my self image or something, I need to not have selective vision and see myself how I really am. Witness and remember rather than do and fix.

My main problem is a kind of vision problem or hallucination; this is what is causing tension and disorganisation. I don't trust people. I do not trust that people take me seriously. I feel like I am living a simulated life, people are lying to be because I am not good enough and they don't want to be the one that crushes me... or alternatively they are getting something out of me.

The raw wound that guides both great decisions and terrible ones is a fear of not being recognised, I think.

Sensitive to people not taking me seriously because it also suggests that they thought I was too much of an idiot or too desperate to tell when this was happening.

I'm so sensitive and I constantly push and push and push for people to demonstrate that yes, they are taking me seriously. 

Being able to discern that people are taking me seriously is an unstable concept for me; it's like it isn't tethered to anything. 

I anticipate that people will treat me with contempt because for a long time they did, sometimes they still do but when it's in my face I just find it funny.

I'm thinking about the collective image that I believe other people have of me in their mind:

• It's an unclear image, like trying to recall the face of someone you met once a very long time ago or someone from your childhood. 
• Or this person is disorganised, an idiot, should not be taken seriously. 

I don't know what to do. When I get insecure these are the beliefs I'm battling against. 

People that care about me wonder why I'm so sensitive about this but if only they could understand what was happening to me, all around me, every single day. And I have to carry it with me alone because everyone has moved on or pretends it didn't happen like... it tracks why I'm like this.

Now that I have some more information about this, I did some art therapy to better understand what might help.

Finished!!! That took forever.

I interviewed the art;

Who are you? Love is in different rooms.

Where did you come from? Acknowledging that love is assorted.

What do you need? Acknowledge both connectedness and the separateness. Let people in but maybe draw some boundaries. Not in a constricted way, but in a 'let's not rush to put everything in the same room' way.

What have you come to tell me? People do love you, people do take you seriously. We have to be responsible with how much of our story, past-present-future, we hand over to other people. Also remember there's so much we keep for ourselves; there's so much we can offer ourselves. We have the tenure, the minute details, even non-verbal details. We are best placed to be fully honest with ourselves, fully present with ourselves, and articulate what's what, give ourselves the best.

I even came up with extra questions that were not included in the original video for the technique : Art Therapy Exercise - Exploring Emotional Needs

I drew the art because I didn't feel good about people not taking me seriously, the part of the art that reflects this is the big heart in the centre of the art. A bigger heart makes it easier to funnel things into there that shouldn't be in there.

I also felt conscious about centering things I ought not to, the part of the art which reflects this is the fact that the character in the middle of the art (me) is at an intersection of all the 'rooms' in the art.

According to this art, what I should strive to do going forward is not let everyone so far in.

I am late to the party on this because I had learned to indirectly try to control and influence situations and was not aware of any alternatives to this. 

According to this art, an accurate but maybe disappointing assessment of my situation is you don't let everyone into your most vulnerable rooms without the time or equivalent experience.

These little hearts will never feel as big or close as your own, and everyone is in their own rooms doing their own thing. 

I don't want to write too much more. What now then?

Do I feel constricted by trying to show up the same in every room? Bring everything, into every room. Am I being constricted by how accommodating I'm being?

So, what does this mean now?

Maybe I need to bet on myself more, follow my own voice. It is risky, but it is something I need to do, I had a dream I was on a tram, with an indiscriminate group of people, some from my past, some from my present. My shoe fell off and slipped under the tram, I had to get off the tram and go get it. I think this dream speaks to not holding capacity indiscriminately for members of the public. Following my own tracks. Not being too accommodating. Putting myself first.

What does the person in the art need to know/do? Take yourself out of the situation where everyone is cutting across you and, in a position, to easily receive from you, you need to come up and out of that. 

I think I'll leave it there, whoever got to the end of this congratulations. This was not easy to write, but just because something hurts doesn't mean you aren't healing.

Until next time!!!

ED4AW - Maybe Everything's Fine, idk (Less Escapism)

Hello, welcome back to my blog. Welcome for the first time if this is your first time.

There are a few things I am trying to address with this week's post. Acceptance, gratitude, rejecting grind culture, being present, relinquishing control. 

I've journaled, and art therapied a lot about it. Here is my 'chain of thought' so far:

I am in the soul crushing position of hedging a lot of hope and expectations on something I have no control over. My therapist told me I'm over significant about things and I agree.

Feels like everything is fine, but also everything is completely wrong.

Did some art therapy: the art was called "hyper focus tunnel vision". It came from the need for something that would "make all the pain worth it". The art represents the unmet need of creating a solid base in what is true and current; seeing the value in their real life, being where their feet are.

The art was a long, dark, tunnel with a literal light at the end of it. Light at the end of the tunnel. This piece of art needs to be reminded that life isn't all tunnel, rewarded by the brief moment of excitement you get when you finally reach the end (that also disappears once you realise the chase is over). You can take the scenic route. Both routes end up at the same place (a little further along in life with more info, experience, and age), one having a hyper focus and the other allowing you to enjoy getting distracted, doesn't mean you end up at two different places. 

"With my eyes glued to the prize, I'll miss the scenes of my life."

It seems something has gotten mixed up; the in-between, the journey, is the point. It is not just a tunnel. It is not just a means to an end. The end goal was never the point, it's just where you end up whilst on the route. Trauma might have made us think otherwise, and I suspect that the same mechanism is running on autopilot, but things are different now. 

So, what am I writing about this week? 

"Entertain, for a moment, that your life is working exactly as it should. Nothing to do, nothing to change. What can you achieve with the things in your life once you appreciate them for how amazing they already are?"

I'm not saying you should just sit around and not try and self-actualise, not at all. I think that restlessness that comes with feeling like we aren't where we need to be yet is almost always a result of hyper focusing on something that is out of our control. Whether you hyperfocus on something you can't control or stay present in your own life, you will end up at the same place.

I think the thing I am hyper focusing on is the sense of fairness in my life, or rather unfairness. I believe that things should change so that they become fairer. Each day for a week, I am going to imagine that the current state is the optimal state and take a more scenic route. 

Day 1, 05/01/2026 - Hold Fast and Stop Trying to Escape

Caveat for day 1, I'm saying a lot of things that feel helpful but it's still aspirational and there's still work to be done on them.

So by the end of day 1 I realised the issue is this: having a desperate need to escape. This is quite a lot of progress to make on day 1 to be fair.

It started off with me thinking about this feeling of wanting things to be fair; wanting to desperately escape into a world where things were fair. Where I feel like I'm finally getting the nice things I deserve.

I don't want to sit with the reality or the responsibility of accepting that maybe, this is as fair as it's going to get, and this is as fair as it needs to be. I'd rather project expectations of being uprooted out of my life and into something better onto another person and block the rest of the world out. 

I realised that the work of feeling safe in your own life is an investment of energy, resources, time and money. I don't think it accepts being short changed. I don't think it's very easy.

I think a lot of the time I am actively trying to escape or at least ready to escape. It's remarkable how much the mind can exist outside of reality, it's like a high-functioning mental illusion.

I thought about how the default is, actually, that I am safe and healthy where I am and nothing needs to change. That's not to say nothing ever needs to change and this is where I will be forever; it just means that wherever I go, however I feel, this is where I start. This is my secure base.

And if I am going to step out from that, I need to think about if there's any point. Every time you entertain a thought that all the great things in your life are not enough, it is like you are negotiating with terrorists. 

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

These thought-terrorists try and trick us out of our ability to choose, out of access to our options.

Nothing should make us feel like we need to get up and out of a good spot we already have; whether that thing is good or bad.

I say to my insecurities "I am not moving". And hopefully that is enough. 

Being grounded in reality means confronting the urge to flee. 

Man I think it's crazy how people traumatise kids into feeling this way. Like their body was pushed so far into feeling in danger that it was left with barely any options. An utter emergency.

Who was it that said we take having options for granted? I watch too many YouTube videos and I will never remember who said this.

Day 2, 06/01/2026 - You Only Set Out to Survive, But Conquered a Whole Country (and forgot)

I'm writing about living in reality. I'm thinking about when I will finally get justice. I'm thinking about how I shouldn't let that strong desire for justice trick me out of my access to choice. I project on to people the possibility of my life finally becoming fair. I think that's what I want most in the world. The raw wounded part of me that wants this, I don't know what to tell her in the meantime. I focus and fixate on it, what can I say my brain is doing what it's doing. It's just my own thoughts, they aren't inherently dangerous (I appreciate this is a loaded statement and acknowledge that thoughts can become dangerous), but this is a helpful way of framing things for me, right now. It's just me, my thoughts, things my brain is doing. Surely, I'm not that scary...?

I'm thinking about that projection onto people: "This person could be the chance for my life to finally, be fair." if I reframe it, describe it with more of my internal language, which unmet need is it pointing to?

"The need to feel like someone can be proud of me, that I should be celebrated, honoured, appreciated, for who I know myself to be."

A lot of restlessness around this idea of fairness comes from an urge to make things fair. Maybe a better approach is to notice the already fair things around me? Smaller Scenes of Celebration.

I am skeptical of this approach; sounds like it could fall apart easily. But why? Let me think about this:

Noticing fair things around me. For the longest time I thought this nirvana of fairness could not be where I currently am. It's somewhere I have to 'get to', not realising in the process of getting there I'd reclaimed so much land. I'm using reclaimed here rather than conquered because as much as some areas are new, others are old areas that have taken on a new identity in my pursuit of fairness. 

I wrote down Boundaries and Borders, I was scratching my head like "What did I mean???"  I think I was talking about, not venturing past the territory you've already claimed. Why would you? You have so much space where you are, you worked hard to get out. It's within your domain. It's when you venture into unfamiliar territory that you are more likely to feel stuck and confused. 

You definitely have the option of maintaining the pursuit of into foreign lands, but it is an option like many others. You are no longe desperate for food, no longer desperate for water; the outstanding needs that pushed you to make the journey in the first place. 

Going into foreign lands should be considered 1 option of many (many better ones mind you); don't be so fixated on escaping that you lose sight of the viable options all around you and right in front of you. This is moderation; not putting all your hopes and dreams into one basket, or at least acknowledging that our emotions can make us feel like we only have one basket.

You conquered a country and forgot.

You claimed so much land that you've moved out and past the thing you were desperate for in a multitude of ways. Narrow thinking can make it hard to acknowledge this. 

Day 3, 07/01/2025 - Whilst You Were Conquering New Land You Formed Allies

In my quest for a fairer world, though I may not have reached my final destination, along the way I have recruited people who also share the same vision as me. Who also want me to get what I deserve. 

Sometimes it's so easy for us to feel isolated and alone. 

Day 4, 08/01/2026 - Correcting Your Posture is Not Easy

Why is all there is, not enough? It's a question to consider for sure. 

I love fantasising and escaping. Otherwise why would I do it so much. I love adding layers and illusions to life. But when I do this it makes me thinking that perhaps I don't have the present moment at the right scale. Maybe the present moment is not at the right scale because when you're fixated on a fantasy that isn't real it blocks most of everything else out; only slithers of reality make it in.

And because there's so little of reality making it into your view, it doesn't get a say. You end up getting dragged around by visions of things that aren't actually real; it's a type of restlessness.

It's easier to mature, ripen, grow when you aren't restless and moving around all the time. But that 'sitting in it' really sucks. It's like correcting your posture, and it takes some getting used to for sure. 

When you're fixated on the fantasy, it's like you'll want to leap as soon as it feels like you're getting too far from it, or when you've almost reached it. I don't want anything dragging me around.

These things that make you want to jump are fleeting, they're like ether They aren't real. You know what is real and not fleeting? The scenes of your life. 

Day 5, 09/01/2026 - We Want to Bury the Bad Things That Happened to Us

Accepting that things might be fair enough as they are or will have to be fair enough as they are, feels like being able to withstand the impact of a cannon ball. Being strong, and sturdy, and stoic. I don't want to do that; I want to be able to tell the world how much it let me down. I may not be able to get justice, but I can at least articulate the injustice, I should be allowed that much. Otherwise, it isn't fair.

I have to absorb the shock and stop it from spilling out everywhere. No one showed me how to do that. Doing this requires holding two conflicting ideas together at once and I just don't know how to do that.

I'm reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. It mentions how everything you do is a diary, you're babbling away all the secrets of your life with whatever you do; walk, talk, write, eat. It cannot be hidden. 

Everything you do is a self-portrait.

And this was kind of a relief. It made me feel like I need to stop running from my life, really. When I am escaping into fantasy, I think I'm trying to imagine myself in a version of my life where these feelings do not exist. But your life is a diary. You cannot outrun your life, you cannot conceal your life well enough to live in a version of reality without it, your life. 

Every time you wish things were different you are denying the current version of your world; you want to live a version of life where you don't have to worry about all the things that come along with reality. But you can't turn away your own life and your responses to life. You've got to anticipate all the ways you could feel about anything; "I have been expecting you". This is the best approach, no matter how dark and prickly these feelings might be, how much they trigger our fear that we haven't made enough progress, and we aren't close enough to the life we want. Whatever it looks like, welcome it with open arms; "I have been expecting you". I don't think the feelings are the problem, but rather the interpretation of them. In particular how much this interpretation deviates from or converges towards our ideal version of the world.

And it can also work with getting lost in an idea that is far away and fantastical and not real. It's a fantasy, and slightly out of reach, just beyond your fingertips because there are real feelings of insecurity and undeservedness around that thing you may want. But when we get lost in the dream of it, we are again pretending those feelings aren't real. 

Day 6, 10/01/2026 - You Still Have to Come Home at the End of the Day

My therapist used to mention a secure base, and how I needed to work on fortifying mine basically. After all the fantasising and fixating, things we hope would happen, catastrophising, we still have to return to our normal life.

I've started writing in my physical journal for this because everything is allover the place and I'm wondering what I do next.

This Chuck Palahniuk book is really great. It mentions how things don't mean much in isolation. It's only when we connect the dots, see the relationships between things. It's networks and relationships that make anything worth anything. We can build a web of ideas that is more helpful, less helpful, was helpful at one point but is not helpful anymore. We should aspire to not let anything trick us out of ability to build webs in our favour.

Trick us into oversimplifying and seeing too few nodes. Trick us into skipping important nodes out. 

A network like this is load balancing, not attributing too much weight to something and not enough to other things. It helps us to stay honest, it helps with moderation. 

Seeing things like a web gives me more room to breathe, helps me be kinder and gentler. Things aren't small and significant, they're connected to all the other seemingly small and significant things in my life to make up the greater picture of the scenes of my life. Idk, for some reason this helps me resist the urge to run away from my life. 

It's part of the web; things that have happened, things I would like to happen, feelings that feel empowered, feelings that make me feel ashamed, the urge to want to run away, feeling like I shouldn't have the urge to run. Whateverrrrr

Day 7, 11/01/2026 - Conclusion

Small things matter, instead of wanting to skip steps and change things in big sweeping actions, appreciate where you are. Build a web, node by node. Life was only ever incremental.

At the moment your living life quantum by quantum, and it's in your best interest to have capacity for whatever comes along with these little pieces. 

Like where are you going? Where you are is the best place for you to be.

You can't bury any of it, so you may as well be the position that you're going to take a step back and observe without judgement. Be the cup, the container, instead of identifying with what's insid eit (is this a good analogy?).

Forming an opnion on any pparts of ourselves makes it hard to move forward because we can never make a fully fair judegment on ourselves. Life is fluid, life is a stream, life is always moving. You think you have a static web of ideas but an extra node can always be added. Life never stops moving but you stop moving when you oversimplify it and think "it must be this way". 

People may have formed static opinions of you, but this was never fair. And you ought to have never taken it on for yourself. 

On day 7 I did a bit of art therapy. I was frustrated that I felt like I couldn't move on from shame. The sketch was dark, confined, like a prison. 

I could never be free from judgement it felt like. Even when I was alone, there was self-surveillance. Me taking on what had been done to me by other people.

We have to understand that being in this position is something around trust. The world doesn't trust you'll get it right the next time, you also don't trust you'll get things right. Everything you do feels like it's scrutinised and examined, first by others, then by yourself. 

This piece of art had a desire to feel like it was finally being taken seriously; that there had been enough scrutiny. That a final opinion doesn't need to be formed about everything it does. This piece of art believes in a near future that this scrutiny will finally fulfil its purpose; things are fine as they are and it doesn't need constant course correction. Finally, some space to itself and a break from the judgement. 

I can expand out the web of ideas finally; to things that acknowledge I'm not a lone actor, some things are out of my control, I can't be attributed all the blame for something, maybe that thing isn't even that bad. 

This is the only time I get for my life, my real life. 

What has any of this got to do with not wanting escaping from my life?

You want to escape from what feels like a small life into a bigger fantasy but ideas, like people, don't mean much in isolation. We need to connect the dots, identify the relationships between these concepts.

It is important to acknowledge that our life history may have put us in tunnel vision mode; rather than see these ideas as a load balancing network, moderate, evenly spread, bigger, kinder. Seeing thoughts, feelings, ideas as a evenly spread web means nothing can trick us out of ability to choose, out of our autonomy. 

It also helps us to recognise that our current life is actually enough.

When we focus on the connections between two or three things, and block everything else in our lives out. What helps us to avoid this is trying to avoid forming an opinion on these ideas; someone might call this detachment. If you and your ideas are a cup of water, observing them is like being the cup and gently holding the water. Why should any one idea or thought be more significant than the other? This is not rhetorical; you have an answer to this question. And this answer should also blend into the water. Remember you are just the cup, the container.

Everything you do is a self portrait; I think that's genuinely beautiful.

If you got this far, I hope you are kind to yourself, I hope you build a beautiful web of things in your life that is nourishing and helps you. I hope you can feel more like a container for all your feelings and thoughts and not the stuff inside. 

Cheers!

ED4AW - Video Logs All Week Long

Hello, welcome to my blog. Welcome back if you've come across my page before.

I have made a private Tik Tok, and I'm going to document my life I suppose. A change up from my normal reflective practice of journaling. It'll be great I'm sure.

I'm generally camera shy, but when I think more about how I present myself to the world, and ways of putting myself out there, I feel that this is something important and it will help a lot. I realised a bit late that the superficial stuff does matter actually, and to assume otherwise is naïve

Day 1, 08/12/2025 - Intergalactic Cable

I didn't film myself a lot therefore I don't watch a lot of footage of myself, for some reason the phrase intergalactic cable came into my head I don't know why? it made me realise that if I can relate to myself I am a relatable person. A lot of the time I think of myself as so fringe, such an isolated case, not able to connect to people not able to relate to people But when I was watching the footage back I was like wait that isn't true And naturally it wouldn't be true on a planet of 8. billion people. If I can relate to myself there is someone out there who can also relate to me, I am relatable. I am not an island within an island.

Day 2, 09/12/2025 - Not Bad in a Special Way

I wrote down in the Notes app in "in the best possible way you are not special". I have no idea what I meant by that. OK, I think what I meant is that the things that I am self conscious about are not exceptionally bad. They're not bad to the point where there's actually something special about how bad they are, and it's a waste of time to think these things are bad enough to be special. I'm running but I'm not going anywhere. And the reason I'm not going anywhere is that You can change many things about yourself but only to an extent, there are constraints. Some of these constraints are beautiful, your essence. It could be a constraint in the sense there's an urge to change your essence, which can't really be changed... it might arguably be the best thing about you. There are constraints which mean that can't happen Right now, it will take a while, there are constraints that mean the change can't happen where you are. 

Day 3, 10/12/2025 - What is the End Game?

I don't feel confident on camera because of my appearance but practically what am I meant to do next?. What is my end game? I just don't think about this enough. Upon viewing footage of myself I'm finding that an unmet need is surfacing. I've made myself blind to something, there's hesitation to see is what is unearthing all of these weird feelings about appearance and being on camera. I definitely haven't put enough language around any of this. I Look at vibrancy as something I want, surely I can have it but I don't know how. But I know some of the process is in my control.

This vibrancy is something denied myself of or told myself that I can't have, And I'm outsourcing my interactions with vibrancy to other people. The world makes it hard to belong to yourself, when you take a step back and watch footage of yourself it makes you think more about what this person might need, what might make them happy. This person is you.

What is the end game and what can I do?

On day 3. I'm thinking about lack of belief in my own ability, Lack of faith in myself to self actualize and self satisfy. I'm thinking about how a lot of the time I deny myself of something, I don't even give myself a chance. I'm thinking about why I hide myself so much while still being out in the world, which doesn't actually make any sense. You should dare to believe nice things about yourself.  The best version of yourself is something you have to put on like clothes, as a suspected neurodivergent person maybe this isn't intuitive.

I don't really know what I'm saying on Day 3 to be honest. It's a bit abstract. 

The place that you have in the world is one only you can fit in so fit into it with dignity. 

Day 4, 11/12/2025 - Close the Loop

I feel like I've orphaned parts of myself off. And that's apparent from just looking at how I am on camera, it seems like I'm holding something back.

Close the loop and give yourself full access to yourself. You shouldn't be closed off from yourself.

Here's a nice Tik Tok on this topic: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRNuFsL3/.

Day 5, 12/12/2025 - Comparison (is the thief of joy!!!)

I also noticed that I am dehydrated by watching videos of myself and started drinking more water which is a win. I said to myself that I am comparing myself to people. On the topic of other people I thought about I don't allow myself to hope, I don't allow myself to 'participate' in the world. The nice qualities I have, they're harder for me to acknowledge in myself but I acknowledge them in other people very easily. It made me think about dialectical thinking, which I don't do enough in a way that benefits me but I can do it quite easily for other people. It means 2 things that are potentially conflicting in your mind at the same time (but this being fine/sitting in the discomfort of it) . It's about taking a more balanced view of things,  I tend to have a very biased view of things pertaining to myself.

Day 6, 13/12/2025 - What happened to inspiration?

I'm not sure if I've written about inspiration before but I feel like I have in previous blog. I had a uni assignment so not much time to write about anything today, I was thinking about how I would like more frequently to be snapped back into how amazing life is and how amazing different parts of life are and to have more of a focus on the details, and not taking it for granted. A lady was talking on TikTok about how her son died and she spoke to a medium about it, I don't know how real how much I believe in mediums but I really appreciated the story and how she described very specific details of the story and it was like each detailed shined. Every little detail is important, maybe that relates to me filming myself and watching it back because being numb to everything, as a coping mechanism, means I'm not paying attention to the details enough. I'm not in awe as frequently as I ought to be.

Day 7, 14/12/2025 - You Matter

I was thinking today about why there's such an unnerving feeling filming myself and then watching the footage back. It's because I have doubts about how much I matter, it is a sensitive area for me. I think it's important to create and capture (which we did intuitively and easily when we were kids, mind you), so that we can have reference points of ourselves. It's almost like bookmarks we can go back to but for ourselves, letting us know that we do matter, we did make an impact, there is a place for us. 

"I think it's important to create and capture (which we did intuitively and easily when we were kids mind you), so that we can have reference points of ourselves."

You deserve to be a reference point for beautiful things, and you can perceive good things because they relate to something you already have and already are. 

It's extremely sad that past trauma can make holding on to yourself feel hard. Impossible even. But reference points can keep you tethered 

Don’t abandon yourself, the work doesn't stop, it's like parenting an actual child. It becomes easier with practice. 

It's quarter to 1am so I'm not writing too much more after this. Filming yourself and watching the footage back reminds you that you are relatable, it creates queue points in your mind for how the beauty you observe in other people is also something you have. Depending on what type of trauma or past experiences you have had, something might have made you feel inherently cut off and unrelatable, but you need to understand this was 'staged', and as part of this 'theatre' you were denied your humanity and in response stopped noticing other people's, starting labeling them as 'good' or 'bad' and limited your grounds for connection. Staged is a keyword because there's nothing to stop you from now setting up your own stage and telling a new story, you relate to so many beautiful things in this world and you are connected in every way. 

If you got this far thank you for reading. 

Some parts work I did in my physical journal is below but I can't pin down how relevant it is to the main topic !

Part A: "Yes we have all this fear but what can, and what will we practically do about it? Ruminating is frustrating, desperate, and repetitive. Surely, we just want to be happy?"

Part B: "I don't trust that anyone holds us in high regard, we don't appear in their mind's eye, they are fake, we are nothing to them, and this is a frustrating and pathetic position to be in. It seems like there's nothing we can fucking do except perpetually suffer!"

Part A: You might have to do that thing that feels uncomfortable and awkward but will put you in good stead. Running on autopilot isn't working out too well.

Part B: I'm not just going to repress my feelings, they are valid.

Part A: We can work together, in fact we need to work together. Meet in the middle. 

Part B: How?

Part A: Let's first acknowledge that we both want to be happy, and that feeling like we don't matter to be people is a legitimate feeling. Let's also acknowledge that there's plenty of evidence to say otherwise though too...

Part B: Yeah, but when I get emotional, I'm really not thinking about the evidence, my emotions do fluctuate. Sometimes I feel fine sometimes I feel all consumed. 

Part A: That might be some evidence to consider also or 'anti-evidence' rather; something you feel so sure about in the moment, but it actually comes and goes with the tide of emotion.

Part B: Okay but it's still not clear what I'm meant to do with all this.

Part A: I think it's 'choose your best most loving thought in the moment', ideally based on evidence'. Evidence, things that are definitely true. For example, how I solve a puzzle is I split the information into things I know are definitely true, and things that are bit blurrier and could be interpreted in multiple ways. 

I double dare you to lean into those loving thoughts and let your guard down. The kind of thinking we feel is protecting us, promises a single best choice to keep us safe; this time and all future times like it. Unfortunately, this is an oversimplification, it is not a precise process. 

Part B: I don't know if that's something I'm ready to do.

Part A: That's okay; we can acknowledge that it isn't a skill set we have yet. Yet you are also hesitant to take other actions too. What do you actually want? What do you actually want to do?

Part B: I don't mind, I don't care... but I hate how everything feels urgent, I hate how I have a desperate need to bowl everything over. I wish it was easier for me to sit and wait, get on with life, let it open up to me.

Part A: I'm sorry you feel that way. When you observe that quality in other people, what do you feel like is going on for them?

Part B: strong willed and stubborn, to the point that they can't see anything else. They will never back down, they will never concede. They feel like they have to be like this because they will never truly be safe; there will always be a risk that the initial injury of being discarded and disregarded, will happen again. 

Part A: And what would you say someone like that needs?

Part B: You' don't really want to have a stake in what anyone else does, but you want to have a strong position on your own internal process. You want your approach to be tactful, that is what I Part B and you Part A have in common. It's more aspiration on the Part B side. People are a bag of uncertainty; my child self took a blanket approach of labelling everyone as nice or dangerous, but this was due to a lack of experience. I want to know that whatever people present themselves to be I will take a precise approach and run things at my own pace rather than at the pace of outdated stories. I will say this: feelings of unsafety now are exactly the same as the initial injury, so I will give myself grace, but I have to trust myself to use more precise tools now that I'm older and wiser. Dismantle my old tool kit which served its purpose but is no longer appropriate. 

Part A: so we both want to be safe, but it's important to be tactful and not impulsive. We deserve that much. 

Part B: this all sounds great on paper, but the feelings come and they're so intense. 

Part A: but they will eventually fade out; better to ride the wave than get tempted to control it or deny that it's even there. When you mentioned having an aspiration to use better tools, I'm hearing that you would like to be a better surfer. 

Part B: I don't feel capable, I don't feel like I don't have enough of what's needed not to be wiped out. 

Part A: but part of you disagrees with that, that's why you're on the board in the first place. As hard and as risky as it is you still got on there. You've claimed it, don't you know that your brain doesn't know the difference between anticipating a win and actually winning?

Part B: I will try to believe in my ability to use better tools, but it will probably take time and practice.

ED4AW - Being Rejectable Isn’t The Only Thing About Me

Hello and welcome to the blog! Welcome back if you aren’t new.

Did you hear that people who have gone through trauma growing up have a similar brain under MRI to those who have survived war??

I see it completely. You have to survive based on limited information, conflicting information. You turn into a fine tuned machine, fine tuned to what I’m not sure, but many, many things are tuned out as a consequence. 

“I’m prone to feeling unseen and unimportant. At any moment I can begin to feel like just a ball of sinew with eyes.”

A better way to go about things was not modelled to me…

Art therapy is great for understanding your feelings, parts work is also fantastic. Another great method is sitting with the feeing, and trying to relate it back to older and older memories until you reach what feels like the first one or first ones.

For me, the feeling was being easily rejectable. The issue with it is that I’ve spent so many years feeling like not only was this the first thing people notice about me, or the most important thing to know about me (like a brand), but it was also deserved. I did something to warrant being rejectable. Whether it was on purpose or not, this was it. It totally eclipses everything else about me, most of my time and energy goes into crafting a redemption story.

It’s so big and so much of my focus and it leaves me living a life on the edges. It has left me emotionally impoverished, it has left my self concept impoverished. 

It’s so much baked into my beliefs, and how I do many things. It can literally cause me to start sweating completely out of nowhere. 

I would compare the feeling to walking a tightrope, or along the thin edge of a building. I suppose that's all I was allowed to leave myself with once 90% of everything about me was proving I’m acceptable. Proving I’m redeemable. I will say being like this has made me a hard worker. But it isn’t helpful in my personal life so much.

I think there are probably loads of people like this, who have made being acceptable and redeemable their life source and the focus of their life. Never allowing the wound from this to properly heal, and in turn letting it guide all of their actions. 

I still think to when I was a kid, and it felt like I was doing everything wrong. and everything wrong that was happening to me was deserved. This feeling is dull, it’s flat, it’s heavy, it’s like something I wear around my neck every day. And why was a kid left to carry all of that alone anyways?

And here I am perpetuating it still what the fuck. 

Where ever or however this started is nameless, faceless, shapeless. Everyone was part of it, no one held accountable. I don’t know what the threat looks like, so everyone becomes one. Great Tik Tok related to this here:https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdKdTnWF/

So what now?

Now that I’m ‘furnishing’ what these feelings look like, feel likes, adding colour, adding shape, textures, perhaps I can take a step back far enough to challenge it. Perhaps. 

I have images in my mind of placing a very heavy load on someone who is just a kid. Do I feel like a kid? Not necessarily, that’s not quite right. We all have a kid somewhere inside of us. Maybe I’m multiple people in one. Parts work.

You have part of you that’s a kid, that’s going to take on the burden without asking questions because they don’t know any better.

Then you have part of you that says “This is what we have to do to survive. Not only survive but achieve our goals.” This part actually acts like they had something to lose, this part actually had to pay attention. This part made the choice to develop an intimate understanding of cruelty, so as to protect myself against it.

I don’t know how accurate any of the archetypes are, but the more I can flesh out the detail of this, the better I will be able to pick a story that works better for me.

Circling back to the idea of being easily rejectable, or more so that my rejectableness is what stands out the most to people…

I’m thinking about where the strength to cling to feeling rejectable comes from. I am so used to being the only person in my own in my corner. Doing my best to defend a little flicker, a little flame. I wouldn’t necessarily say the world was always trying to blow it out, but there were more reasons for it to be extinguished than to be sustained.

Once this redemption arc plays out I will finally be safe. I will finally be at peace, it will all be worth it.

There is a beautiful, shining, blemishless dream behind deprived actions and the depths of all despair.

The idea of people wanting to stay away from me hurts my feelings. It’s the redemption arc thing. It makes me feel like people only want to give up a slither of themselves whilst I’v already offered up everything about myself. I only deserve a slither of people.

I did live a life where believing in myself was seen as the improper choice, I was seen as crazy. It took a lot of gripping to maintain what was left of my self concept, and hold on to that little flicker flame. It took a lot of gripping, very tight. It was not comfortable so I had to grip harder, it was more of a challenge. I was living in a way that was unnatural and misaligned. Unnatural and misaligned; I had to navigate life despite having multiple conflicting versions of it, constantly darting back and forth between what felt solid. All the while desperately clinging to some sense of control, something that felt predictable.

I don’t think many people grasp what it’s like to live in chaos and uncertainty for an extended period of time. I think one of  the biggest impacts is respect becoming rubbery. Loads of things becoming rubbery, meanwhile I would have benefitted from some boundaries and some hard stops, to protect myself. There are no rules, so you have to make your own. You are making them based on limited information on account of your age, and how upside down everything is. They offer structure, but once you’re out of that environment, it’s like clearing your garden by burning everything…. Maybe.

So now I’m grappling with the fact that I give up all of myself and my all is not enough. I don’t know if the problem is what I’m giving up, or maybe the fact I think it guarantees anything. But putting everything about myself in the hands of other people is not great. I know it isn’t everything about me, but I’ve made redemption such as large component of my identity that when I seek approval from people, I am actually giving them everything about myself. 

Now you feel like your all means nothing to someone, don’t put everything about yourself in other people’s hands. If you already have, take it back. Or at the very least realise there’s so much more to you than what you’ve given over to them.

There’s more to me than my aspirations to be ‘easily redeemable’.

I never needed redemption from others. I have always been enough by myself, I can redeem myself. 

Where did I learn to keep nothing to myself and nothing for myself? So easy for me to submit and give everything away.

Where did I learn this was something I had to do?

I interact with certain people like “You’ve got something of mine”. 

I’m thinking about how going forward I shouldn’t leave so much of myself with other people. 

Not only do I have to give parts of myself away easily, but also quickly. I aim to not only be easily redeemable but quickly redeemable. It means that maybe, I’m working on a different mental clock to other people.

Easier to consume…

I think this leaves me doing a lot of waiting around. I think it leaves me head filled with thoughts of other people, and their motivations and what they might do next.

I am constantly giving parts of myself away. Shedding… where is the integrity that is meant to hold it all together? It’s unstable.

I need to slow things down, correct my mental clock. Seeking approval is like the fast food equivalent of a dopamine hit. I’m looking for a slower burn, what can I do for myself? Set the tone, set the precedent, assume better things are happening for me. Can I do this? It’s not a guaranteed hit in the same way seeking approval is might be. It will take more time. Perhaps this is why I’m hesitant.

I found a great video related to this topic, I will link it later.https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdTPMvCy/

It’s about the wound of not feeling chosen. For me it’s a wound of looking for approval, waiting on other people let me know I’m okay, acceptable, redeemable. Currently a big part of my self concept, and something that I do chase.

A protective part is born to protect me from the feelings of this brand (easily rejectable, and all my own fault). The protector has learned to over function, people please, and further down the line, some unhealthy coping mechanisms.

That part seeking approval needs to finish and resolve these feelings, your defences are hyper vigilant and attempt to protect you but they never actually address the source wound. 

How is it resolved at the root? You have to turn towards the source of these feelings. You have to be the adult in the room and hold space for these feelings. 

Day 2 04/11/2025 - Child Me Has a Direct Hotline

My wounded inner child has a direct hotline to get in touch with me, we have discussed things at length and I am holding space for their feelings. Now that I am addressing the big scary monster that is -never-being-redeemable, I can address the question: Who am I when I don’t need approval?

This was easier to answer when I wasn’t self aware and didn’t care about approval, or always assumed I would never get it.

I thought about having a ‘nothing to lose’ mindset. When you have nothing to lose, it also means you have everything you need. Consequences do not phase me, as even they belong to me. I take actions owning all of the consequences.

When you hand parts of yourself off to others people, they mean less. They become meaningless. It means something different to them. And what it means to them does nothing for you.

If you hand over parts of yourself to other people, you feel worse off if they take those parts with you with nothing in return. You feel like you’ve lost something. 

You’ve lost an opportunity, a possibility has shut down.. 

You took away the possibility of being complete, and I am always chasing, longing for, holding out for the possibility of being complete finally. It always feels out of reach, my fingers are always reaching out to touch it but never make it. You are making me endure again when I finally could have gotten some relief.

I spoke to my therapist today about this blog topic. Who am I outside of needing to be redeemable enough ?

understanding your brain chemistry isn’t done to fix it, but I makes it easier to explain yourself to ourself. When you’re a kid, you are not able to abstract out like that, take a step back and look at your life, your behaviour, your actions. You're just living. 

There is neuroplasticity and you can repair your brain circuitry. Give yourself another chance. Childhood is where your fundamental brain chemistry is being formed. He recommended providing myself with little reminders where I can.

Reminding myself that the kid who went through things back then, will now always has a trusted adult that will hold space for the and acknowledge their feelings. 

reminding myself that I do not deserve to be treated badly. reminding myself of my great qualities. All the mushy things, it’s almost like we’re giving ourselves  second chance, a do over. In a kinder way, in a more generous way. Not I a panicky way, trying to extract love from someone who doesn't love us in order to prove something about ourselves.

Day 3, 05/11/2025 - No one is special, but everyone is special. 

I went out so I only have what was in my phone :

They only thing other people have that I don’t is the perceived ability to redeem me because they aren’t me

How much of my identity is things that haven’t happened yet? How much do I identify with chasing and reaching for things? 

I can choose not to identify with that anymore.

It makes up so much of my world view, what should I be doing instead?

Maybe things are back to front.

I’m abstracting out and overthinking when I shouldn’t be and vice versa. 

Need to come out of the default of thinking that anything needs to happen for me to be happy.

I am not missing anything.

The story for so long was, things are missing because I chose poorly, or I am poorly. 

We can’t all be special, so what are we?

Day 4, 06/11/2025 - Your Stuff is Your Stuff without other people. 

The highest highs and the lowest lows

Snatch it, articulate its meaning in your own sovereign world.

Yearning wanting reaching ain’t bad, but it belongs to you. Have you listened to R & B ?Skilled in articulating what it’s like to not get what you want. 

This feeling never has to find anyone. 

Day 5, 07/11/2025 - Focus on What Strong Not What's Wrong

I'm always looking for whats missing. Focusing on what's strong rather than what's wrong means you allocate things the appropriate amount of attention and weight. You see things for what they are without distortion. Without your mind distorting things something else so they can be bent into what you want. 

I've written about adjusting volumes before, turning down the volume on some things and up the volume on other things. 

I'm also thinking about the importance of having a sense of humour. Humour helps us to engage with honesty in a safer way, see things for what they are with a buffer. 

Day 6, 08/11/2025 - Uni Work

I had a uni deadline this day so not much happened to be honest. I definitely feel like I can't distract my way out of the prickly feelings around this. I have to confront them.

Day 7, 09/11/2025 - Conclusion

I don't blame myself for making not-being-rejectable a big part of my identity. I'm realising that although this was an effective coping mechanism at the time, it is an unhelpful oversimplification. It's time to start loosening up the knots around this and loosening up some of these associations. Oversimplification means everything goes into wide sweeping buckets (I have also written about his concept), and idk maybe it's time to use teeny tiny buckets. infinitesimally small buckets.

I'm thinking about how by using small buckets I'm less likely to make parts of my story dependent on other people; that association is lazy. What I need is nuance, specific to people and interactions, niche, special. 

I'm thinking about approaching things from a place of love and detachment . Rather than using sweeping assumptions, I take  step back so I can observe how things happen naturally.

So now what? I feel like my rejectable-ness as a component of my identity has shrunk , there is more to me than that. I feel like, after all the journaling, parts work, art therapy, at the the end of the day you just have to get  out in front of your life and decide. 

I don't need proof from other people that I'm whole and don't need redeeming. Can I believe that I can have interactions with people outside of this dynamic? Yes.

But it takes being brave to believe it, it’s something I have to actively step into.

I also think there’s something about being more attuned to how things are rather than how we’d like them to be. The actual version of us rather than the version of us we believe that someone else’s approval makes us into. The reality over the fantasy. 

Love has capacity for the fact that life is ever changing, and fluid. By time you’ve described something it needs a new description. Love is not intimidated by any of this.

That’s the end of the blog, thanks for reading.