Why it is important to be in touch with your feelings?
When you are in touch with your own feelings, you...

• ...become a more real and authentic person.
• ...become more honest with yourself about who you are, where you have come from and where you are going.
• ...begin to be more willing to take risks and become more vulnerable and intimate in interpersonal relationships.
• ...cease being in denial, about what is really happening in your life.
  ...no longer pull in and hide, so that you become invisible to yourself and others.
• ...take the risk of no longer disassociating or becoming numb, when things are going on in your life which are negative or overwhelming.
• ...make yourself stay conscious to the reality of your life, so that you are able to recall or remember it in the future, rather than to have no memory of it.
• ...push yourself to have a broadened or enriched emotional vocabulary, to describe the experiences of your life.
• ...cease viewing life from a black or white perspective and become more willing to take the gray into account.
• ...open yourself up to grieve the losses in your life, so that you no longer use denial, repression, suppression or delusion, to describe your life the way you wanted it to be, but rather describe your life the way it really was.
• ...allow yourself to become a congruent healthy human being, who uses rational, reality-based thinking to assist your feelings, to become rational and reality-based, so that the actions and behaviors which follow, are also rational and reality-based.
• ...are open to the spirit of your inner child, who allows you to enjoy your life to the fullest, without the constraints or restrictions of how you "should'' think, feel or act.
• ...live life moment-to-moment, day-to-day, and become reasonably happy realizing that feelings are a natural, human process.
• ...begin to accept that feeling all feelings is OK and that there is no right or wrong feeling.
• ...become open to experience the full continuum of emotions, from the most painfully negative to the most exhilaratingly positive.
• ...grow in the ability to listen, understand and be empathetic to other people's verbal and nonverbal expressions of feelings and emotions.

There are three major reasons why you may currently be out of touch with your own feelings.

1. Non-feeling personality pattern
   This pattern is also known as alexathemia: the absence of feeling, emotionally laden vocabulary and experience.
2. Pulling-in personality pattern
   This is a withdrawal pattern, in which you resort to a low profile or invisibility, to hold in emotions, in order to avoid being dragged into the conflicts and troubles going on around you in life.
3. Disassociation
   This is a survival pattern of becoming numb or disconnected from the emotions that accompany an event which is unpleasant, threatening, abusive, violent, uncomfortable or challenging to you. This pattern enables you to terminate an association with the event so as to survive the event and get on with your life.

Affirmations
The following are positive, rational, reality-based affirmations you may want to use in mirror work and journal writing, in order to facilitate your ability to identify and express your feelings:

• It is healthy to feel your feelings.
• There is no such thing as a right or wrong feeling.
• All feelings are OK.
• It is OK to feel what I am feeling now.
• No one can take what I am currently feeling, away from me.
• I have a right to feel my feelings.
• No one can judge me wrong for feeling the feelings I experience in my life.
• It is OK to have negative feelings and to identify and express them freely.
• I am feeling feelings every second of my waking hours.
• Identifying and expressing my feelings makes me a real and authentic human being.
• No one can deny me my feelings.
• No one can tell me how I should be feeling.
• No one has the right to make me feel bad or guilty for the feelings I am feeling.
• I am more alive and vigorous when I am in touch with my feelings.
• I have a right to have my feelings be visible, seen and heard by others.
• I will no longer hide my feelings and emotions from myself and the others in my life.
• I deserve to give and receive honest feedback about my feelings toward persons, places, things and events in my life.
• I deserve to have my feelings listened to by others.
• I choose to feel my feelings, be they positive or negative, so that I cease being numb to my life.
• I have the right to experience the grief and mourning emotions which I will feel as I face the losses in my life.
• I will heal and grow as I become more in touch with my feelings.
• I will "grow down'' more as I open myself up to get in touch with my feelings

How to improve the identification and experiencing of your feelings
To help you get in touch with your feelings you can do one or more of the following.

• Keep a daily feelings log.
• Keep a daily journal, identifying what happened to you in the day and how it made you feel.
• Work on identifying the losses you experienced in your life and grieve the loss of them, by using the strategies for handling losses in Tools for Handling Loss.
• Do anger workouts on an as needed basis and do the anger work strategies as identified in Tools for Anger Workout.
• Use effective listening and responding techniques in your communications with others, so that you are able to express your feelings, listen to and understand the feelings of others, and respond to them to reflect this understanding. This work is more fully explained in Tools for Communications.
• Read books about others whose life histories are similar to yours and see how they express their feelings about their life experiences. Use these others' words as role models for your own emotional expression.
• Attend a weekly support group, to experience the active identification of feelings in the giving and receiving of support. Use The SEA's Manual to help you and others to conduct your support program with a SEA's program emphasis.

Steps to help you get in touch with your feelings.
Step 1:
In your journal, identify what obstacles currently keeps you out of touch with your feelings. Such as if you have any of the following:

• Non-feeling personality style
• Pulling-in personality style
• Disassociation

Once you decide the obstacles, then describe specific events from your past where you used these styles of behavior and how they helped you survive those events. Then, looking at your current life, describe for yourself how these survival techniques are no longer productive for you.

Step 2:
Once you have identified the obstacles to being in touch with your feelings, then identify in your journal what messages you have given yourself in the past to keep you from identifying, experiencing or expressing your feelings.

Step 3:
After you have identified the negative messages you have given yourself to keep you out of touch with your feelings, then in your journal identify healthy self-affirmations which will encourage you to identify, experience and express your feelings on a daily basis.

Step 4:
Use your affirmations for getting in touch with your feelings on a daily basis and then in your journal for the next thirty days keep a "Feelings Log.'' Use the following directions to do the Feelings Log.

Step 5: If after 30 days of keeping a "Feelings Log'' you are still not better able to get in touch with your feelings, return to Step 1 and begin again.

Feelings Log Directions
1. In your journal on a daily basis for the next thirty days, record feelings you are experiencing.
For each day record distinct parts of the day for which you are identifying feelings.
For example:

• Morning--rising and breakfast.
• Morning--at work (school, home).
• Afternoon--lunch.
• Afternoon--back at job (school, home).
• Early evening--on way home.
• Evening dinner.
• Later evening.
• Pre-retiring to bed.

2. For each part of the day, identify the following:

• What I was feeling.
• The stimulus for the feeling.
• What, if anything, I did as a result of this feeling.
• How others reacted to what I did.

3. To help you identify the feelings experienced, use the list of feeling words below.

Feeling Words
Use these lists of words to help you try to get in touch with your own feelings. Also use this list as you listen for the feelings of others in your conversations. Try to identify what you are feeling and at the same time try to identify what the other person's feeling.
Positive Feelings
Love, affection, concern, interest, absorbed, altruistic, brotherly, congenial, admired, amiable, caring, conscientious, adorable, benevolent, charitable, considerate, benign, cooperative, big-hearted, compassionate, cordial, agreeable, honest, comforting.
Negative Feelings
Depressed, sad, abandoned, despised, horrible, pathetic, alien, despondent, humiliated, pitiful, alienated, aching, disliked, impatient, skeptical, afflicted, displeased, imprisoned, speechless, agonized, dissatisfied, injured, strained, anguished, doubtful, bullied, shaky, worrying, embarrassed, shocked, abused, diminished, ridiculed, belittled, flimsy, fuming, irritated.


Source/Bron: Getting in touch with Feelings

Ik heb het een beetje moeilijk.
Ik weet niet wat ik wil met m'n toekomst, maar om daar naar te kunnen kijken, moet ik eerst focussen op het heden en wie ik NU ben. Daar heb ik geen idee van.
Ik wil heel graag anders zijn dan ik was; eindelijk dat goede, blije persoontje worden naar wie ik streef te zijn. En niet meer de depressieve pessimist.
Daarvoor zou ik met een schone lei moeten beginnen. Dat jullie me practisch pas kennen, komt dus goed uit. Ik moet wel zeggen dat jullie me nu al beter kennen dan een heleboel mensen. En buiten familie ook de enige, geloof ik. Anonieme of kilometers-ver-weg-zijnde internet figuren niet meegeteld. Daar heb ik ook al lang geen contact mee.

Ik zou nu natuurlijk wel kunnen doen alsof ik gewoon ben wie ik ben, maar wie ik was en ben geweest zal altijd wel een deel van me blijven. Voor mij lijkt het dus logische dat ik pas m'n volledige zelf kan zijn, als ik 'accepteer' dat ik ben geweest hoe ik was.
Het klinkt misschien als een hoop overdreven gedoe, maar wie weet werkt het wel. It's worth a shot. En als ik gewoon doe alsof ik er niets mee te verliezen heb, zal ik het misschien nog kunnen vertellen ook. Schamen zal ik me sowieso, maar daar kom ik wel overheen.
Ik zal binnenkort een samenvatting proberen te geven van waar ik me allemaal over heb opgefokt en dat soort dingen. Als dat iemand zou interesseren dan, zoniet dan heb ik het tenminste uit m'n systeem, voor mezelf.

Ik heb een beetje voor mezelf duidelijk gekregen dat het (volgens mij dan) gaat om het verleden af te sluiten, duidelijk krijgen wie en hoe ik ben en een beetje een beeld van m'n toekomst te krijgen. Ik denk dat ik dat ook zo in die volgorde moet doen, ongeveer dan. Ik had wel door dat ik nu toch wel heel erg anders ben, hoewel sommige dingen zich op het moment lijken te herhalen, maar beetje bij beetje ben ik zo erg veranderd dat ik even moet bijmeten hoe anders ik ben en waarin precies.

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M'n leven bestaat nu echt alleen even uit school, schrijven en praten. Wauw. Ik ben echt opnieuw aan het beginnen. Het jaartje geen school is dus best perfect geplanned.

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Op het moment mag ik mezelf echt totaal niet. Ik vind mezelf een irritant, egoïstisch, dom zeikwijf. Misschien wel omdat ik irritant veel loop te zeiken over m'n domme kwaaltjes. Misschien juist door opmerkingen zoals de vorige zin. Ik weet het niet, misschien zit het allemaal wel alleen in m'n hoofd en komt het juist omdat ik tegen mezelf loop te zeuren de hele tijd. Het is gekmakend.
Hoe dan ook, ik moet zeggen dat ik dit wel herken uit een eerdere tijd. Het verschil is dat ik mezelf er toen zowat om ging haten en vast ook in zelfmedelijden ging zwelgen (ja, het was walgelijk). Nu kan ik dat zo veel mogelijk overslaan en gelijk doorgaan naar het deel waar ik er wat aan ga doen.

Mental Dilemma II - Even more Celebral doodookaka

In the previous text I wrote some things about love and friendship. About the wondering whether or not to take the first step in, for example, trust. Opening up is a damned hard thing to do sometimes and it's not nothing of course.

It doesn't take a lot of experience in life to know not everyone can be trusted. Trusting no one isn't the way to go either though. There are always two ways to look at it. Someone can be seen as a naive and dumb or as being courageously open. Someone else can be mysterious and preserved for not letting others in or just plain paranoid.

Ultimatums (usually) don't work. It's all about finding balance, the middle... You've heard it before. This generally goes for everything and also comes naturally to some people and has to actually be taught to others.

Considering some things, it's not easy. Discussable points for examples, because they are, as stated, discussable. The 'what is right and what is wrong?' kind of questions. Yeah, the moral and ethical stuff.
Those matters always depend per situation, considering motives and reasons. But overall you can't really have an honest view or opinion on that, unless you've at least tried to see things from both sides. And being able to see both ways (positive/negative) about both sides (right/wrong) isn't always easy and so, most people don't. If you would, you'd be doubting a lot. I know I do. I wonder a lot.

How can you stand steady, if you don't know why you find what you think? Should you not be considering both sides before being able to decide what is wrong or right? It wouldn't be fair if you didn't. But life isn't fair anyway... If everyone would do this it still wouldn't, because we'd all still have different opinions. And we're entitled to those opinions. Having everyone being able to back up their opinions with arguments, would only lead to incredibly poshed up lawsuits, with little use of lawyers, leading nowhere.

Seeing both sides. People who are trying to help you, but are actually in favor of the other side, always push that. (Bunch of know-it-all's, trying to passively grow their opinion on you.) Guess they're right, but still...

With a religious background, deciding on moral issues can be harder or easier. You can follow and just go with it, embrace the comfort. Or you requestion everything. That's a difficult, time consuming task, considering all the different possible interpretations of religious statements and all those many views that come with that.
Also, the origins of that religious background (parents or caretakers, most likely) and the fact that it probably has been with you since birth, make it all the harder to question. It's a part of you.

Next to the fact that all this is hard enough on its own, something else important plays a big part too: life goes on. It doesn't wait. And every day is weird if you don't have a secure opinion on things. You get new influences all the time, which can sometimes help, but usually only make everything more difficult.



Think, think, think! For your own sake think! But don't think too much, you'll lose yourself. And don't listen to me, think for yourself...

Mental Dilemma I - Philosophical Brain Feces

I feel like I'm not being grateful enough, more selfish and kindof greedy. I don't want to be that...
On the other hand, I've already been in the place of being the supersweet, nice girl. The thing I hated about that, was that everyone got some weak, soft image of me or I felt like I let people walk over me. Which was both wrong.

I like almost everyone at first, after that I either easily dislike them or keep liking them. Loving is hard, but hating is harder. I don't not care. But right now, I feel like I'm giving the impression of a bitch. Maybe I don't give that impression. Maybe it's because inside I really DON'T care, but I do want to. I don't know.

Now, you might say or think that I shouldn't care about what other people think of me. You're not completely wrong. But I SHOULD care about what the people I (want to) care about think of me.
They already care about me for who I am. I should appreciate that and not take that for granted. Not let that go to waste either.
And sure, that's no problem when it comes to just being friends, hanging out, chillin... But it's the hard times that show how real a friendship is. How well do they trust you? Do you trust them? Will you be there for them? And how about even when they're not there for you (first)? Will they always be the one that have to invest in the friendship before you do?
Greed isn't just about money or things. It's about everything, it's about (not) giving and (not) taking.

I once read something along the lines of 'if you truly love someone, even if they don't love you back, they're not worthy of your love'. But that's not how it works, is it? Isn't truly loving someone equal to unconditional love?
Love should be something on its own. It shouldn't be about 'loving someone because...' (fill in the blanks). It should be about loving someone. Period. Sure there are things to like and love about someone, but love for a person should be apart from that. Because people never stay exactly the same, they change. Unconditional love... But that is a pretty high standard, though, isn't it?
Growing apart due to change, is different from not loving someone anymore.

I suppose that's why changing is scary too. It'll result in one of those 'moments of truth': when you see who will actually stand by your side. If people are going to give you a hard time because you're now different than before, how they'll look at you now... (Maybe that's where prejudice and stereotypes come from: family. They're pretty much obligated to spend time with cousins at parties and such, so they're bound to get an impression. That's a whole different topic though.)

Changing should happen naturally and unnoticed. When you do realize it, it best be because you chose to change. Otherwise it will downright freak you out. Whether it's positive of negative won't matter. Going through changes consciously all of a sudden, will make you realize, you're not who you were anymore. Do you control yourself? Is this (still) your life? Are you becoming who you want to be? The changes and decisions already made, were they really yours?

Letting it happen might be the best thing to do, but keeping in mind 'the butterfly effect' it'll probably affect your entire life and mistakes aren't always easy to fix. Sure you'll learn from them, but rather safe than sorry, right? So you might as well do your best to change in the way you want your life to be.
But the fact that not everything can be controlled, can be quite hard to accept and is easily forgotten.
One should be able to control their own life, right? Wrong.
One should be able to control who they are though, right? Right!
Of couse, being who you are, is a big part of (your) life and how it will turn out too, but life is something no one can control: life happens. And then change happens.

The thing is, when out of the blue, you realize you're changing while it's been happening for quite a while, you get ripped right out of your safest safety-zone.
I mean damn, if you just walk the earth, letting yourself always follow other people, you never really had a mind of your own. At this point in life, it must be a real shocker. And if on the other hand your mind is the only thing that's really yours, it's a double sucker.
Either way, there's chaos. You're looking at a dumpyard of all your thoughts and opinions, things you considered, reconsidered, all your rights and wrongs, moral standards, ethical issues, matter of importance of things, responsibilities and so on, and so on...
All the plans and ideas you had for the future, are they still what you want now? Are they really? Or does that belong with who you used to be?

It's hard to say. Sometimes you're just going trough a small change and only tiny little things become different, that's not that hard to accept. You do some self reflecting and overall, you'll stay basically the same. Maybe even change back eventually. All that changing forth and back, or in other cases changing on and on and on ('going through fases' as people like to call that), might get you to lose yourself at some point. When you found out that happened: brace yourself, it's gonna be hard!

I guess changing is like being pregnant: sometimes you don't know who (or what) caused it and you don't find out either till much later, when you realize something is different about you. You don't know if you like it or not, but it happened, it's done and the question rests whether or not it can or will be undone. Moral issues get in the way, ethical questions fire away. It's overwhelming, but you have to decide, whether you have time for that or not. For some it's simple, for others it's really not.

Everyone changes, less decisive people maybe more easily or more often than others, but that's what growing up is. It never stops...
/bash/
Usually people telling others to grow up, need to just shut the fuck up and go by their own words. Snotty, egotistical, stuck up bunch of snobs. If anything, those people should be telling others not to grow up, since obviously they haven't yet either.
/bash/

So that's pretty much it about changing... Now getting all this to work out, figuring out who your are, that's the hard part. That's the bothering part! You can't just go making a list about everything in your life and check how you feel about it, can you? I need to figure this sh*t out.

Bottom line: growing up sucks balls. Super-galactic-mammouth-jawbreaker-choking-hazzard sized. Balls.

Hey, hey, hey!

Okay, forget whatever I wrote in the last few posts and let me tell you in a nutshell what happened so far:
I've had a boyfriend, broke up, can't stand him now, Drama at home cause they found out about him, my mom hallucinates a whole lotta crap when she wants to overreact, The Drama messed me up good and after almost six months (5.5), it's still in my mind...
Now a new year of school has started: I'm slowly getting familiar in Weedworld (*flashes a peek at blogname*), I am slightly in like with an M named person. Q never met M, hardly knows anything about M, but doesn't like M, cause M's "a druggie". I'm really disliking Q for it, we're really growing apart. And then I'm also breaking my head about what I should study next year.

So, now you know that, let's talk about things with a somewhat less depressing undertone!

Yes, yes, it's that time of the year again, that month, November: I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again and this time, I planned on finishing! The only problem with that, is that I barely have an idea or plot to be writing about. It starts in 3 hours and 15 minutes. Is there anyone out there that can help me with this? If so; just telepathically send me a message.

And lastly, I'm back to working on my goals again.

School

I've been thinking. About school. And about why no one likes it. (No, I'm not a teacher, still go to high school myself.) I'm not saying that I love school, but I don't hate it either. I developed so much there! Internet was a great, huge help for me, but since "07, school has been too. After all, I know my best friends from school.
Besides social development, which most people hardly think about, school is mainly known for studying, learning and the most notorious of all: homework.

I'm a 'look it up on the internet' kid. In the old days, I guess I would've been one of those people that's in the library all the time. Maybe. Or not? Because (not to stereotype library kids, but) I'm also very social and I do like sports. I like gaming and writing, drawing, painting and riddle like things (thinking). I'd love to travel the world some day and learning new languages is pretty fun! (Or does that sound really geeky anyway?)

What I'm trying to say, is that I like all kinds of things and most of those things involve learning. Yes, that thing that you do in school as well (except that you don't do it, because it's mandatory and therefore don't like it, of course :P).
I didn't realize that until recently and shortly after being aware of that, I also noticed that almost all of the things I (and a lot of other people) do and like, can easily be related to schoolsubjects.
Traveling? Geography!
Skateboarding? P.E.!
Contortion? P.E.!
Writing? English/Dutch!
Drawing and painting? Arts!
Thinking games? Maths or philosophy!
Learning another language? Well, I'm almost sure they teach a second language in every school (at least here they do, I get German, which is a third language, even).

Like those things, there are tons of other fun things that evidently have to do with a subject, given in school.
So I wonder... why? Why can't school be more fun than it actually is? And what is it that schools seem to do, that make us want to go to that school (I'm talking about when you go to an open night, when you change schools or on TV or something)?

Fun. That's exactly what it is. They make up fun activities the kids can do while they roam through the polished up school (and really, my cheap-ass school actually does that, only when parents are supposed to come over for an open night or something).
But that's all just to lure those kids into wanting to go to that school and have the non expecting people pay the greedy *fill-in-some-creative-word-here*.

Truth is, there are never great, fun, exciting activities like that. Not at all! There are just boring classes, just like in any other school. What makes one school more fun than the other one, are simply the people. The teachers and the other students.
Of course, there can be activities. But in my experience, no one wanted to do them, before even knowing what it was we were going to do. Are kids "these days" just really that pessimistic, that depressing or just plain boring?
Instead of whining, why not try to see the fun in things and try to make the best of it, trying to have a good time, since, if you think about it, it's not thát bad?
I know I'm probably sounding like some perky, optimistic, happy hippiekid, with a rainbowshirt and happy little ponytails. I'm not. In fact, I can be pretty darn pessimistic, sarcastic and aggressive at times. (I try to avoid that though.)
But mainly, I'm all about the fun. I don't see the point in (acting like I'm) not having a good time. It's such a waste of time! You only live for so long. For now, most of the time you'll be spending in school. So, being cranky whenever you're at school or doing something for school, would be SUCH a HUGE WASTE OF TIME! Time that you're never going to get back. Not ever again!

But, I'm not putting all the blame with my fellow students of course. Like I said, so many things that I and many other people do, can be related to school things. Then seriously, WHY are those classes so boring all the time? It really seems to me that those *insert-another-creative-word-for-people* are deliberately trying to make our school lives miserable.

At geography, why didn't they ever teach us places with funny names? There are actually places called Fucking, Hell, three places called Anus... Come on, why aren't they telling us that?

In arts class (well, this is probably different in most schools, but) why don't they teach us the techniques to draw certain ways? In my school all we get is a damned assignment. But the techniques, the secrets, the tips, everything interesting... We'll just have to figure that out ourselves.
Why not teach manga as a basic? It's said to be the second easiest way of drawing (expressionism/kindergarten stuff taking the first place). A lot of people want to learn it, then why not teach it? Give extra credit or another assignment to kids that can already do it or are good at it and have tips and things to provide for the class.

At gymnastics, why always dodge ball? And if your school is ancient, you might be thinking: why always rope climbing and running around six fields? Just give us something to look forward to, already! Invent some new sport. Have us invent a new sport! Introduce us to an uncommon sport.
At least explain to us about exercising. How many people want to lose weight, but don't know exactly how to or aren't doing the right exercises? Well, I can tell you; a lot! Learning this stuff in school would benefit so many people. Especially in America it could help with the tremendous obesity problem.
Otherwise; just let the kids choose one or two sports, have a warming up together and then, instead of letting everyone do things only three kids like/are good at, let everyone just do the sport they chose. Okay, sure there'd have to be more teachers to watch over all those kids, all of them doing different things. But instead of spending the schools money on all that equipment, that's hardly ever used, send the kids to some sportsclub or something!
Just build one huge gym, especially for schools. One gym per *depends on how many schools there are in a certain diameter*. One that has things that include equipment for most of the interests of the kids (for example a mini skatepark, a little fitnesscenter, a pool, stuff for the the gymnasts and the dancers). For this idea there would have to be teachers too, of course, but with all the schools that share that gym, there's bound to be at least ONE teacher that knows how to handle one of the sports. And otherwise, at least there are enough teachers to keep an eye out for falling kids and everything.
Because of all the different schools, there are also a lot of new people to meet.
After school, in weekends (at least on Saturday) kids (and teachers) could go there, they'd just have to show their schoolpass and can go in for free.

Well that was my incredibly sudden burst of whatever.

The point I'm trying to make, is that school can be fun if we make it fun, but it can be even more fun if the school makes it more fun for us. Sure there can be certain things that are essential to learn for a future career, but how about mixing that up with some of the more fun stuff in the subjects, huh?