Something I learned from Freedomain Radio and Stefan Molyneux : Slowing down

Slowing down and remembering myself in the moment is difficult but important and I think I can get better at this. I found myself looking in a mirror tonight and wondering why I felt anxious and defensive. My mind was creating self defense scenarios where I was answering for myself and defending my position but there was no immediate danger. I felt that my intellect would be challenged and I was bracing myself for these fantasized adversaries. When I thought about this as a curious fact I took a deep breath and remembered who I am. Or tried to remember who I am as I am still discovering who I am. 

I believe that slowing down my thoughts and trying to understand them and even throwing them away sometimes helps me to feel my emotions and discover myself. I am learning to recognize when intellectual justifications start to spill out of my mouth like rabid wasps that I need to slow down and remember myself in the moment. Remember that if I am responding based on learned behaviors and that the only way to change is to recognize these behaviors and accept them as a fact but not that the conclusions that my brain interjects to justify these behaviors are not facts necessarily. 

When I find myself on a verbal roller coaster of prescribed talking points and repeated explanations or defending myself against imagined foes I try to remember try to relax and feel my emotional state. I try to identify my environment and those around me and I try to remember how and who I want to be. I want to be calm and patient. I want to have clarity of thought so that I can express myself honestly. I don't want the pace everyone around me to dictate how I will respond or how I should feel. If someone else is angry or uncomfortable I do not need to instantly try to blame someone or create an story explaining it all away. I really don't know what's causing these emotions and the person expressing them to me probably doesn't know exactly why either. I should be curious and ask questions. Find out more and think more about the facts and the conjectures and...  

Freedom is better than Ambition

I have been trying to understand why I am not motivated to do greater and more lucrative things and why I'm mostly content in my life financially. I make enough money to live and my debt isn't out of control and yet part of me wonders why I do not long for more.

I was verbally and physically abused as a child. My father yelled and screamed at everyone in my family. My mother used to throw things, like clocks, at him and I was told that he hit her once. I remember how my father would start to drive faster when he was angry. My father spanked me and sometimes with implements like this paddle with holes and names on it. My mother spanked me as well with spoons and spatulas.  So my entire childhood was a series of frightening moments that were completely unpredictable. I was in perpetual alert mode most of my childhood. 

After my parents were separated and I would appear for my court ordered visitation with my father I was always very afraid of his potential for violent outbursts and his feverish religious rants. He would simultaneously rant about how GOD wants this and GOD wants that and demean my decisions, opinions, ideas and general sovereignty. He was GOD by the way. I remember when I was about 13 we were in a Fred Meyer and he tried to hold my arm to detain me and I yelled out that he was hurting me to scare him into letting me go. He would hold me hostage in the car and rant and yell about how horrible everything was and how no one was doing what GOD wants or some other nonsense. 

Eventually I graduated and moved to Portland and soon to Eugene. He has remarried and lives in Texas with his christian accountant wife who supports him financially. She isn't a Christian Accountant, she's and accountant who is also a christian. Just wanted to clarify. 

I think that soon after my parents were divorced I started to feel less and less stressed and worried about my father and his rage. Slowly I began to relax and began to live life more freely.

So, I think that when the monster in my life was no longer a threat I became somewhat content. Maybe not fully content but with at least a relatively stable amount of peace I became alright with just living and not judging myself based on expectations for the future. Any of my childish dreams to be a fireman or architect were at least temporarily if not permanently squashed by my childhood monster. I do not desire a lot of money, just enough to control my life to live without horrible people in it. To be able to decide who to share my life with is very important to me. To be able to express myself without shame or retribution is very important to me. 

When I was young it never occurred to me that if I was really good at something that I could put my skills to use for the world. It definitely never occurred to me that I should become rich or famous. My dad is an intellectually stunted and lazy artist and my mother is an intelligent workaholic. I am a little of both. 

On Fear. Again.

I wrote a note about fear about a week ago but it was erased when I decided to purge my phone of pictures and videos. So I will try to rewrite it from memory and see how it turns out.

I hate when people say that fear is the problem. That "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." I do not believe this. I think that these are the words of a manipulator trying to have you suppress your instincts and go against reason. Those who do not wish you to fear war and inhumanity wish for you to embrace it. To embrace the violence inflicted in the name of patriotism and nationalism.

Fear is a biological response to danger. This emotion is responsible for the continuation of our species. We fear death and disease and so we invent medical science. We fear tigers and we run away and invent the spear. Fear is a change in physiology that responds automatically to ensure survival through the release of hormones, neurotransmitters, and other biological mechanisms. These allow the person to run quicker, think faster, or see better. But too much fear and the inability to escape or fight back can be detrimental to the psyche.

Fear is an essential part of the human experience. It indicates danger and helps a person make decisions. I think that hate is a reasonable response to fear. Hate allows one to fight back and protect one's self. And I think the opposite of fear is love. We cannot love and fear the same person. Just like we cannot love and hate the same person.

When I was young I was in a state of perpetual fear. When my parents would yell and scream at each other I was in fear. When my dad would rant and rave at me about how god thinks this and god thinks that I was in fear. When my dad would yell and beat my brother I was in fear. When my brother would beat on me or when his friends would hit me I was in fear.

I am now trying to understand the difference between my past and my present and future. I have no reason to fear my dad or my brother or bullies or anyone in particular. I have no enemies and I am responsible and mostly law abiding. I do a good job at work, I could do more, but nothing to fear there. I am afraid of being a victim of crime and/or violence. The odds of me getting raped are pretty low.

So what am I afraid of? Why do I bite my nails all day and night? Why do I dread confrontstion and worry about getting fired?

I believe that my body has adapted to an environment that was full of unpredictable violence and abuse. I am in a persistent state of vigilance and skepticism. I do not trust people right away and I am cauteous in public. I act as if at any moment I could be in a life or death situation. But it seems that the more I understand this phenomenon and understand how my past is not my present or my future the more I forgive myself for being afraid and the more I can see things are not so scarey anymore.