The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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Its entirely to take some load off your mind.
Think of it this way. Most service workers are not going out of their way to make you feel good. Some of them are, but most are just doing a job. They are not even thinking about your comfort at all. Likewise you should NOT return a favor that wasn't given to you.
One thing that helped me with social anxiety was having a balance sheet in my mind. If I knew the other person wasn't going out of their way to give me a good time, I don't need to do it either. Your default state now is to provide everyone with a pleasant experience, but that comes at a mental strain cost.
You must understand that a retail worker can only do so much for you. There is a cap. Unlike a friend, parent or lover, there isn't a potential infinite good a strange retail worker can do for you, and as such you would be tipping the scale far too much against yourself if you care too much about how they feel about you.
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