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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3315 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for March 29, 2023

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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).

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It’s not a habit you can practice or force yourself into if you want deep change.

I don't think this is true, really - you can just 'change your personality' by acting differently. That people usually don't is because their desires, knowledge, situation leads them to particular modes that they, at least locally, 'want' to stay in. If you're an "introvert" and start spending a lot of time on social stuff ... you're now an extravert. If you're an "extravert" and just decide to spend a lot of time reading, doing work, instead of being social ... now you're an introvert. I've done both for extended periods of time, and there wasn't any meditation or transformational experience necessary.

This depends on what you mean. I’ve found I can certainly act differently over a period of time and the act becomes easier, but without conscious effort/a good mental state I would revert to prior behaviors and modes.

The sort of change I’m talking about is on a deeper level and doesn’t require any mental upkeep so to speak.

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