Narrative Responsibility

Or, Why Would You Want to Share Your Story, Anyway? Well, the tl;dl is that people both want and fear being seen as they are in equal measure. So, then, was Sauron's bigger sin making the One Ring itself, or looking right through everyone's egoic defenses? Is there an ethical way to navigate that power?

An ethical topic to consider in the age of social media and content creation: Does your story belong only to you, or do others have any rights over it? Under what circumstances might it be valid to honor – or ignore – those rights? Are there times when the rights of the society one belongs to might outweigh the rights of the individual person/s involved? 

Settle in for a double-length episode of Storytime with Auntie E where I talk about how I got diagnosed with ADHD in middle age, why it wasn't caught any sooner despite some pretty obvious-in-hindsight signs, and how it has shifted my view of both the past and my present experience of self. It's rambly. It spans a quarter century of living. It feels mildly self-indulgent to spend 45 minutes teeing up a 5-minute example of retrospection's endpoint but that is actually how retrospection works, so...sit back and trust the process!

Some thoughts about our cultural concept of innocence, specifically the innocence of childhood, and an outline of the authoritarian parenting style, and how these are playing out in current events. Bonus reminder of how reality paradigms are formed for individuals and cultures, and how they can be updated. 

A sort of companion episode to "The Frogs, the Poets, and the Fools." Is thinking a broad or specific verb? Should it be used only for analytical and logical tasks, or can it also be a more organic and integrated process? Come settle the debate between competing meanings and maybe learn a few new ways to use your mind…whatever you want to call them!

Some thoughts about comprehension, the inadequacies of language, and the fundamental pointlessness of generative AI for translating individual human experience into a form someone else might possibly be able to understand. Bonus content about what it means to understand courtesy of an ongoing debate with my yogi friend.

Did you know that fiction is one of the best tools we have for deeply understanding another person's experience of consciousness? Pull up a chair, it's story time with Auntie E, and she's got a tale of science fiction, splintered focus, and how Murderbot's view of its own system helped solve a problem that six years of test-iterating couldn't....

The mental load of CARING about the emotional and existential experience of everyone in a household is often carried by women. This invisible burden contributes to heightened stress and poorer mental health for women, functioning analagously to a "pink tax" paid in order to have a family. Let's dream of a future where that isn't true - and talk about some strategies to bring us closer to that dream.

Our relationship to our own MBTI type - as well as other type preferences - is often a result of the family and culture we grew up in. Those experiences impact what we seek in adult relationships and how well we can relate to different personality types. Type alone is never enough to answer compatibility questions. It is ALWAYS type plus context!

So...what kind of relationship do you want? What roles do you want to play in your romantic partnership? And how might you show up differently in one relationship vs. another? Come explore the types of intimacy in more depth - it's the relationship parallel to our unfolding mandala of self. 

Part One. Because there is just too much that goes into the question of why you should date any particular person than their MBTI type, and also because there is more that goes into how you view someone's MBTI type than your own type. Today we dig into the two most common dating strategies, "opposites attract" and "like calls to like," and how each of them might look at Jungian cognitive types. 

A somewhat pedantic ramble about what is meant by "thoughts" and "thinking" and "emptying the mind" in the context of mindfulness practices. Bonus content: the actual point of mindfulness, why equating mindfulness with discipline supports the patriarchy, and a side quest into the nature of conscious awareness. TL;DL? Go stand by a field and listen to the frogs. 

We all know the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, is 42. And we know the best approximation of this canonically unknowable question is "How many roads must a hu/man walk down?" What does that really mean in practice? What does it mean to be a human who has walked those 42 roads? What might those 42 roads be? And does it matter HOW we walk them or simply THAT we walk them? 

ADHD and disconnection from the body amplify and reinforce each other. Disruptive ADHD symptoms make the body less comfortable for the conscious mind to inhabit, but being disconnected from the subtle signals of the body makes managing ADHD symptoms harder. What's an ADHDer to do? 

CW: language, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and unwanted sexual attention. Western culture has a terrible history of treating the female body as an object that exists for the pleasure - or displeasure - of everyone except the girl or woman who inhabits it. Her body is a safe place for her to inhabit only so far as it earns her safety and approval from the people and society around her. So splitting her sense of self off from her body makes sense. Her body becomes an object to her, too, and not one she is incentivized to treat as inherently worthwhile or precious. 

We do not exist as islands unto ourselves. We are plugged into cultural systems of belief and behavior, and those systems deeply impact our relationship to ourselves and what we internalize as normal or ideal. Moreover, those systems are often inherited from times that have little or no relevance to our modern perspective, yet the echoes of their beliefs linger in our institutions and language. This episode explores the link between the time that built our modern institutions and how we relate to our bodies in the present time.

Geting more movement getting more into your body is often pushed as a panacea to many health and mental health issues. But exercising in a way that makes your body uncomfortable or even distressed has the opposite effect from what is intended, and drives you further OUT of your body and out of alignment with your inner truth. Luckily, you can change your underlying philosophy around movement and activity to get a better result - at least in terms of integration between your two selves!

Ever heard the phrase "get out of your comfort zone" and just felt something in you just tense up with rejection at the thought of doing even more than you already are? Maybe your discomfort zone isn't about doing more, but rather about doing less. Let's examine what conditions inside the environment of your own body that you've normalized, and see if they are, in fact, optimal conditions for growth. 

If we're gonna talk about letting go of copes, we gotta talk about why we were doing them in the first place. Which means looking at the schism between our "self that acts" - our conscious, egoic self - and our "self that is," the gentle body self that has to come along for the ride with whatever our action-self chooses. The body: your original ride or die. Who knew?

When was the last time you critically examined your relationship with alcohol - or any other substance - and considered sobriety? Pull up a chair for storytime as I walk you through my journey of being sober-curious for most of the past two years. I share what I've observed in myself and American culture, what I've learned helps to reinforce the decision to abstain, and what I've decided about alcohol's place in my toolbox of coping mechanisms. 

Part two on the topic of comfort eating, or emotional eating. This is the section with practical action steps for using the coping mechanism of comfort eating in a way that serves you better, finding other tools that you can use instead, and some of the specific dynamics you can watch for in your own body if you're still not convinced comfort eating is a problem. 

Comfort eating - or emotional eating - is a means of soothing ourselves in times of distress. But it can quickly turn into a habit, or even an addiction, that wreaks havoc on our physical health long-term. How does it get started? Why does it persist? And, really, what IS so bad about it? This is part one of a two-episode arc on this issue!

My most controversial opinion: talent does not actually exist. What we call "talent" is higher than expected skill development at a task or higher than average capacity for an underlying cognitive function. This is a distinction worth making when our cultural narratives of talent as innate and fixed can inspire or deter someone from pursuing a goal.

Every experience that we have can be judged as good/bad, worthy/unworthy of the coin of time we spent on it...or it can be viewed more neutrally, simply as a resource. A resource for what? Skill-building, discernment, wisdom, character.... We can even think in terms of our RPG character levels, and consider what experience points we might be able to gain from something we lived through. Let's talk about what we can do with what the DM of our life - whether our past self or the universe - gives us to work with!

Our psychological type - our MBTI type preferences - has a profound impact on our relational needs and capacities. That is, how we tend to want to be related to in order to feel acceptance, connection, and intimacy with other people, and what we have a lot of energy for doing with other people to meet their needs. Let's unpack the eight Jungian functions' relational needs and consider whether we're describing features or bugs in the operating systems of ourself and those around us!

When two people look at the same situation and come to different conclusions about what ought to be done, each of them can easily read the worst into the other's perspective. And Western culture encourages a binary right/wrong mentality. Psychological type provides and alternate narrative that allows you to ask what else might be going on. It functions as a "lawful neutral" story that describes rather than judges both sides and offers principles and ordering that apply across situations.

Are you living your best life? That question is a personal development mainstay. But what does it really mean - and is it really the best question to be asking yourself as a guide to living well? 

In tabletop games, the dungeon master, or DM, sets up storylines for characters to play through in order to gain XP points, level up skills, and just, you know, enjoy experiencing. All too often we try to be the DM for our own lives. But the DM isn't a player, and we have a whole universe able and willing to act as our DM...if we can let it. What are some of the obstacles to trusting the universe to be your DM? What are some of the benefits?

In an attention economy, attention equals currency. What are some of the reasons for this? What are some of the innate hazards of living in attention economy? How can content creators and information curators act ethically in a system that fundamentally rewards selling vices rather than virtues? Buckle up for a deep dive into the social philosophy you signed up for when you subscribed!

Shadow work often creates a sense of displacement inside the self, while the egoic identify dissolves and re-forms. How do we lean into this instead of resisting it? Are there any tools you can carry with you on an expedition to Mordor, to make the journey less distressing? Are there ways to nourish yourself even when you are deep in your Shadow? Can you, like Sam Gamgee, pack some metaphorical pots into your backpack and stare Sauron in the eye while you eat some stew?

The Shadow...is that like Mordor, or something? Let's see, all the best monsters, the painful searing truth revealed by an all-seeing gaze, and a volcano hot enough to melt your most precious pretensions?...yeah, basically. Don't forget to bring your Sam!

A sneaky bonus episode to conclude the discussion of correspondences between the MTBI system, Jungian cognitive functions, and my growth alignments chart! What happens when you have a "split personality" where your favorite psychological lens fits into one style of growth, but your second-favorite fits into another? Or when you have a personality type made of a dominant and/or auxiliary function that can shift between two growth styles? Or when your personal energy reflects a method of growth that your functions might not match? 

In which we continue our comparison of MTBI type preferences and RPG growth alignments! Today, in Part II, we explore the Jungian cognitive functions for Judging: Fi (introverted Feeling), Fe (extroverted Feeling), Ti (introverted Thinking), and Te (extroverted Thinking). Interestingly, this aspect of type yielded a different spread in our categories of Controlling, Envisioning, and Emerging approaches to growth. Any theories why? 

Let's expand our understanding of the MTBI system AND our RPG style growth alignments chart by looking for the correlations between them! There will be two episodes on this topic. Today, in Part I, we explore the Jungian cognitive functions for Perceiving: Si (introverted Sensing), Se (extroverted Sensing), Ni (introverted iNtuiting), and Ne (extroverted iNtuiting). Any guesses where they fall on the growth alignment chart?   

A personal account of growing up as "the odd one out" in my family and culture, looked at through the lens of emotional belief interpretation and then through the lens of MBTI preferences. Complete with feelings and poetry! 

One of my very favorite "narratives," if you will, is the MBTI/Jungian personality type system. It is a cornerstone of my understanding of the human mind and a really helpful roadmap for our unfolding development. Take a dive with me into the basics of the system! 

Perspective shifts are basically the awesome cousin of ego deaths that you actually want to invite to the party. What exactly are they, why are they such catalyzers for change, and how do get more of them?

Conundrum: how do you solve a problem, when that problem is defined as outside the bounds of the possible and is therefore innately unsolvable? Do you need to venture beyond the boundaries of Euclidean space-time? Or just re-think your assumptions about the (im)possible?

Now that we've learned the framework of Attachment Styles, let's apply it! RPG character class usually correlates to what we think of culturally as "personality traits" - are you funny, charming, shy, etc.? - and attachment styles actually have quite a big influence on the traits we express with others. Where do you get to boost your scores? ...and what do you have to lose to compensate?

A resource review/recommendation for the new book LEARNING LOVE by Thais Gibson with Sjorland Gibson. Includes a quick and dirty overview of attachment theory and a bit about my relationship (heh) with that framework. 

Hot take: a "gratitude practice" is less about feeling gratitude, specifically, and more about finding the good in your life to counteract negativity bias. A quick overview of why and how to count your blessings in a way that will actually change how you feel about your life!

Traditional New Year's resolutions set us up for failure, because they focus on using ego to control emotions. Align your resolutions to your underlying emotional needs, and you have endless fuel to stick to them because they will feel like gifts to yourself! 

Holiday traditions often feel less like joys and more like obligations if we haven't taken the time to curate them against our personal values and needs. What can we do differently, and why might we want to?

In the RPG of life we don't get to just kill off a character and build a new one once we understand the game...we have to build a change from where we are. How can we plan that out for maximum effectiveness?

Change is one of those "simple but not easy" processes. Take a look at the underlying reasons it can be so hard with psychological math. Spoiler: effort, time, and degree all play a part in how to formulate an effective change!

Our consciousness experiences time as one endless now...but not all nows are created equal! Explore some of the ways and whys we can get out of sync with time as kept by the clock.

Going back to the past to change the present is just science fiction...OR IS IT? Continue exploring the human relationship with time via healing practices that parallel time travel.

An extra thicc discussion that unravels and re-weaves the human experience of time as more fluid and multi-track than linear.

Expanding upon the personal growth moral alignments chart with ways you can grow now that you know your starting point. Includes thoughts on why change AKA growth can feel scary and hard.

A personal example of how I formed an untrue belief and how I dismantled it by testing it against reality. Bonus: compassionate extrapolations about why performing that kind of test can be painful and confronting.