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1. I think I gained a new appreciation for language in general as well as a few techniques to help with speaking more and expressing myself more clearly. A few examples are the emphasis on word pronunciation and describing an image in my mind.
2. I noticed that throughout the session I was speaking more slowly and deliberately. The atmosphere was very playful, experimentative, and nonjudgmental so I felt free to try new things and explore what I was feeling. I feel like I left the session with a new wave of courage to speak and express myself more creatively.
3. I’m curious in learning even more about how creative speech is used in storytelling. Particularly the different styles and how it differs and stays the same throughout diverse cultures.
My purpose is to bring good conversation to myself and others and experience a sense of community that results.
I am judgmental, I constantly monitor and critique everything about myself and think others are doing the same.
I live freely and unencumbered without the constraints of judgement.
I think that stubbornness and indifference are two extremes that are extremely common for me to live in. I think the best way I can explain it is that if I’m too magnanimous I can fall into indifference because I’m giving too much of myself away and it’s hard to care. If I’m too self-disciplined I can fall into stubbornness because I don’t want to give any of myself away or open myself up to love. I think a good balance for myself could be allowing myself to be magnanimous and love freely, but also incorporate some self-discipline and practice self love.
A time when I was at my best was when I was working with other people without being anxious or self-conscious.
What I enjoy doing the most is discovering a new interest or fascination for the first time.
When I have the most energy is when I’m working on a spur of the moment creative project that I’m passionate about.
I define discernment for myself as the ability to gauge information or situations and tell what’s important and what’s not.
I can struggle with being overly discerning at times and not wanting to communicate and share information with others. Especially about myself and my personal life, even when it would probably be prudent to share. Which can send me towards the extreme of secretiveness, and because I have complete control over information that no one else has this can give me a sense of false power.
One way I might try to avoid talking about myself is by talking about other things or people. This can lead to communicativeness without discernment and becomes gossip. Never talking about myself and focusing completely on other matters and topics of discussion could lead to a sense of false powerlessness.
I think my most common saboteurs for me are Judge, Controller, Avoider, and Pleaser. I constantly judge and berate myself as well as attempting to control situations that I don’t like. I avoid anything that makes me uncomfortable and I often tend to try to please other people.
I would say my most common enemies of learning are “I don’t have enough time,” “I should already know,” inability to admit I don’t know, and addiction to answers.
I think I would offer myself advice on how to find balance between doing nothing and doing everything, since that’s the state I currently seem to be in. I’m having trouble finding the motivation to do things, and once I do I can’t seem to stop trying to get absolutely everything done. I would tell myself to still get things done and keep looking for new opportunities, while still allowing myself time to relax.
I should probably start with engaging with more people in general. I’m going to stick close to the people I know already support and encourage me, and tentatively start searching for more by looking for those who share my values and passions.
A rule that I set for myself is always to try to always appear happy and friendly to other people. Although there are good intentions of not wanting to appear rude to others, it’s an unfair expectation to place on myself. A more improved rule might be to not intentionally be rude or unfair to people while still honoring my own emotions by allowing myself to express them.
When considering the things I couldn’t not do, concepts about emotions and the many different aspects of life came up for me. I tried to display those concepts and what would happen without them in this poem I wrote.
“I need light. I need darkness. I need color.
I need laughter. I need sorrow. I need joy.
I need to feel the things that I feel.
Because what is left without these things?
Nothing, you might answer.
Not nothing, but the absence of everything.”
Something I think is lacking in my at home learning environment is that I’m always alone and working without much a schedule. I try to combat that by occasionally working on school/classes at the library or with a friend. It helps a little, but sometimes it’s still difficult to get things done in such a solitary and somewhat disorderly space.
I have low energy a majority of the time. Procrastinating less, moving around, waking up earlier, and having a more optimistic attitude are some easy ways I’ve tried to energize myself this week. I also found out that anxiety is a really motivating and effective method. When anxious about something my nervous energy surges immediately.
People yelling and fighting (especially in a non-respectful and/or out of control manner) is a really upsetting trigger for me. I tend to avoid that at all costs. A more positive trigger that I have is compliments (especially from people I admire or respect).
I frequently find my head and heart out of coherence with each other and my body tends to get caught in the crossfire. What usually happens is my heart wants to do something and my mind overthinks that thing, and as a result my body doesn’t know what to do. I can usually eventually balance into some semblance of coherence, but noticing is the first and one of the hardest steps.
A beneficial habit I have is walking and pacing everywhere. At first I didn’t recognize this as a beneficial habit, but I like moving around when I think. It can help me to energize myself and find clarity when I’m moving or exercising.
A negative habit that I noticed is simply avoiding the things I don’t want to do or confront. The consequences of that are the things simply pile up and sitting there while I procrastinate (until I eventually have to end up doing them anyway). Also by avoiding things I miss out on important experiences and lessons.
I’m not an overly courageous person, but a lot of the time I do have an abundance of carefulness. Because of this I think I tend to veer towards the extreme of cowardliness. I really hate buying and returning things at stores because of the in person aspect (thank goodness for self checkouts). Since I’m being careful but not courageous I find myself overthinking and generating more fear, causing me to avoid walking up to a cashier. I can also occasionally experience to opposite extreme of the star by not thinking things through before I jump into them, but that’s a much more uncommon occurrence.
I think to move forward in the virtue I have the carefulness part down, but finding courage and balancing the extremes are the next steps. To motivate and find courage I like the quote “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” (- Franklin D. Roosevelt)
When I am in fulfillment my happiness and overall mental health won’t be contingent on other people.
Wicked, twisted tree
The dead seated among the living
Dark branches outstretched
Waiting for dark to alight
Trunk spiraling down
Towards the root of all evil
Where darkness is born and dies
(My original poem)
I am a wicked, twisted tree.
I am alive as if seated among the dead.
My being reaches out, waiting for dark to alight.
I spiral down toward the root of all the evil, of pain, trauma, and foreign energy.
Where darkness is born and also dies.
I am a tree.
(Kim’s rewritten version)
Roots: Creativity, avoidance, solitude, introversion, and imagination.
Trunk: Family, friends, space, humor, music.
Branches: Clear communication, my own space, peace, a job I love, financial stability.
Leaves/Fruits: (although I did not have time to add these to my tree, I’m going to list some that I would have added if I’d had the time) practicing, finding some semblance of calm and patience, believing in myself, and building courage and ambition.
“Inability to admit that I don’t know” and “I should already know” are two I struggle with because I find myself very self-conscious in a lot of learning situations and I don’t like drawing attention to myself or coming off as unintelligent to other people. Essentially focusing on the people around me and what they think of me rather than my own learning.
“Addiction to answers” is me not caring about learning or the process of doing something. I just care about getting it done quickly or getting the right answer that I disregard the more important aspects of learning. It can feel more gratifying to simply know the right answer instead of actually understanding what’s being taught.
“I don’t have enough time” comes from me procrastinating learning (and countless other things) because I’d rather be doing other things or I don’t think it’s worth it to at least get a little bit of work done. It took me a long time to understand that even working on something for 5 minutes is monumentally better than not working on it at all.
