Rena & Byakko notes++

[TB]

typing late pr since i wanted to do that weekly but things didn't go according to plan sunday or yesterday

 

Tulpa Section

Switched with Byakko middle of Friday into Saturday. She is feel more back to normal, though I think we noticed some differences. I think she can pretend to be me with some friends a lot better than she used to. i don't know if this is also a bad thing, like she is used to my feeling of baseline more such that she will more easily fall into traps i do, but not sure about that. she was more productive than i had been being, i think. she also is more likely to do things i want to do without thinking. i guess i feel like i have to figure out how to do some things, like draw more interesting stuff, but she just draws more interesting stuff. i like the idea she started with drawing eara being a waitress in a restaurant. old rps would start with her in that position. that wasn't the case in our recent rp i started with friend, but i can see how it could still be cannon

 

she is more resilient though, she after pretending to be me for a while, was able to go back to doing her thing, so that's good. i should assume the mind is just more flexible than it used to be and she is capable of more, than worrying if there is a bad sign secretly

 

sunday rena switched in. her day of drawing got obliterated, but she had an amazing metta meditation (so did byakko the previous days, but poor sleep made them more dull, but still interesting) and that amazing walk

pictures rena took:

Spoiler

 

 

this was taken with a sniper scope level of zoom lol. these are the ducks/geese i talked about that i used to always see. they are smaller than in my memory. memory version of them i guess are sized at their perceived threat level like a WoW mob lol

 

this is one of the views at the end of the walk

 

 

here is a path into a forest while walking on the road. i've never gone far down there before, and rena wasn't about to during her sunday walk because the sun was going down so wasn't about to get lost in an unexplored forest at night lol

 

Meditation Section

-byakko- i can pull metta to any part of the body by dragging it with attention and intention, and infuse it with other sensations

 

-rena- i can generate metta by imagining pink christmas lights inside of me lighting up

 

-tb- i can watch the dalai lama send out metta in a vision and discover the shape of samsara and cosmology by tracking all the places it went

 

metta has been important lately. i think us following the metta course is starting to have noticeable benefits on daily life. rena's walk was pretty metta infused. and due to being able to better do metta meditations where it feels smoother and more pleasant, and more of the body is saturated in it, i realize metta feels like it has the same protective psychological quality that alcohol and xanax has lol, but no downsides whatsoever, other than it requires a lot of time and mental training to have the skills to produce, and it sometimes works less well than other times for unknown reasons, but over time it should get more powerful and more consistent, and easier to call on, so if it can serve purpose and do the one good thing xanax and alcohol would do, which is feel safer to perceived social consequences of a bad interaction, that is great

 

metta btw is a sense of loving kindness or well wishing for yourself and everyone, that can be cultivated in meditation. it's 1 of the 4 brahmaviharas. which hmm, i'm curious about what happens if i try to cultivate other ones as well, but no one ever talks about the others. others being karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy), and upekkha (equanimity). i cultivate equanimity incidentally through meditation practice in general i guess, but i think an upekkha practice probably cultivates it more intentionally.

 

Mental Health Section

hoping walk rena took can become a regular thing and contribute to improving mental health, and i think metta improving is my main bet for improving mental health right now. i see my therpist tomorrow though, so we'll see how that session goes. several weeks of not seeing therapist because either they were sick or i was sick so it's been a while, but the last session the thing he said to do was message the art senpais i talk about. i only managed to message the less scary one so far, that just doesn't respond anymore, so i don't know how they are doing. i don't know if they are avoiding me, avoiding people in general, or something happened that it is impossible for them to see or respond to messages, or if they abandoned that discord account.

 

i haven't tried using metta to see if i can interact with other senpai better, the one that scares me and i probably have trauma towards/from. if i am actually traumatized by them idk if it is always a good idea to try to even pursue a better relationship with them, or if i should try to just find new people with fresh starts to talk to, but i don't think they are a bad person or anything, and i just have a sensitive mind that was way more hurt by negative interactions with them than a normal person would be. my mind seeks validation from them pretty heavily though. they are the main person who if i can get a compliment out of them, it feels super profound and meaningful, as they aren't easily impressed and don't give compliments out just to be nice. i'm unsure if i am ready to tackle messaging them, or even experimenting with how my mind reacts to them when metta is also present. i'm feeling really anxious just thinking about it typing it

 

i am wondering if i should tell my therapist about my tulpas. what are the pros and cons to therapist knowing about them?

 

i think the end of the metta course involves instructions on how metta can apply to IFS, so i think once i finish the course, i may be better equiped to do a more powerful version of IFS. i feel metta would process the pain of trauma a lot more pleasantly and perhaps effectively. trying to process it with Self when there is a facilitator is cathartic but intense and hard to do, trying it with Self by self sometimes results in just feeling traumatic feelings and failing to generate Self

 

overall i feel kind of in a weird no man's land between feeling very good and edge of an abyss lol. i had some days with a lot of despair last week, but metta, and byakko's drawing she started and rena's walk all has me hopeful and in a good mood

 

Drawing Section

mentioned byakko starting a neat drawing a couple times. and animation i also started working on is nice. felt good about doodle of lucilyn and ringgggg. i felt it diffused situation, so i feel like a drawing wizard

 

i need to remember to try painting again as soon as possible, and check out bob ross and maybe other resources. my one senpai who doesn't answer anymore would also be helpful, they inspired me to try painting because i like the ones they make and thought it was cool they do physical and digital. but it's sad idk where they are

 

i am happy with drawing i did at work trying to recreate from memory byakko's drawing. byakko's had more technical work with perspective while drawing the room, but i liked how i inserted other characters and reoriented one in a way that looks cooler, so whoever works on the digital version next may change some things based on my paper sketch of it

 

Health Section

seem to have been losing weight, though sunday friend's mom gave me food, though a lot of carb heavy stuff, and some stuff idk how to count calories for like leftover sphagetti, so idk if i have been going over. jump roping mildly has been nice. rena and byakko seem more motivated to do it than me. i've messed up yesterday and today. idk if that is me or work nuking adhd brain. got an exercise mat a while ago we haven't used still yet. i guess a slight anxiety barrier to rolling it out, that's hard to explain

 

idk how one can weigh 161 one day and 168 like 3 days later, i didn't eat that much seriously lol. it's also super lame if one can really gain like 7 pounds in 3 days but it is like max difficulty to lose even 4 pounds in 7 days. slight curse of beggars can't be choosers i guess and the food i was given is easier to just eat excessively unnecessarily, but i think it is just me timing weighing myself poorly too. i think 163 must be closer to the average weight i have and 168 is from stuff inside me, but 5 pounds of food/water seems like a lot, and i don't eat to 100% stuffed or anything.

 

the walks are most interesting. to do the walk we used to do, which was 15-20 minutes, we have to walk an hour and 20 minutes or more (cuz we were walking fast), so that's much better exercise and beyond just negligible amounts, if we do it almost every day

 

----

i feel i did a poor job organizing this pr but at least i got it out there i guess. hopefully someone can write a new one next sunday. by then i can say how therapy went, and if there is any news with the metta thing. probably things i forgot to report but oh well, i'll add them if i remember them

[TB]

shorter less formal update because tired and lazy

 

i'm considering switching for the rest of the week

 

drawing going slow but i do it almost every day still at least. getting some likes on posts on bsky

 

last therapy session the therapists had me do a roleplay with him of buying stuff. i'm not sure why he wanted to do it, i guess so he could tell me i did fine, since i was talking about how interactions like that can cause me anxiety. it doesn't matter if i intellectually have no investment in the interaction and know that my interaction was normal, or even slightly awkward interactions not mattering. it's still just an issue that i'm dumped with painful and undesirable chemicals in those situations no matter what i think of it. being told i am fine doesn't really make the anxiety 0, though thinking i am not fine will make it even worse, but thinking i am fine still leads to some degree of unpleasantness that makes it difficult to feel content or free socially. and most interactions are by default worse than that because they are more random or unpredictable, as ordering something can be rehearsed and predicted for most part, unlike a random conversation.

 

i feel only thing that might help is if my metta practice can continue to improve and not decline, and if i mix metta with IFS, exposing parts to sense of metta. it probably will take a lot of time, but i am experimenting with infusing the felt sense of metta with painful sensations related to things that trigger me or bad memories. also trying to associate feelings of metta with different people, so that maybe instead of feeling anxiety or panic when exposed to them, i will feel loving kindness instead and be relaxed and feel safe. i already know it doesn't seem to matter what i think or believe consciously when it comes to the emotions felt. somehow those negative emotions need to either go away and be replaced with more positive feelings, or some other situation where the negative feelings somehow don't lower the quality of life whatsoever due to total dispassion on whether i feel good or bad and the bad feelings being not problematic whatsoever. i think the tendency for meditation is after the bad feelings become less problematic, that's when they start to go away on their own, and they are kind of sustained by the fact you have a problem with feeling that way.

 

i'm hoping infusing metta with everything i sense in my experience, especially things that make me feel bad, can heal these limiting feelings and allow me to be myself without fear or regret

 

never walked since rena walked sunday before last, so that is unfortunate, but i still feel like i want to walk. i thought i want to walk as the sun rises, but it's difficult to wake up that early, especially when it takes so long to fall asleep. and the medication that makes it easy to fall asleep fast, also makes it even harder to wake up, so i'll still sleep past the morning, because it's hard to not just sleep 12 hours when i take that medication

 

also, i feel byakko and rena can generate more intense metta than me, though when we all 3 sat in the same place, the metta generated seemed super powered. when they aren't sitting in me, i can tell when they generate metta even if i don't feel it directly, though sometimes i also feel it directly

[Rena Bonnie]

Sorry for the late update! (if anyone cares lol) I do want to keep up with this to track progress and what we are doing still though

 

Tulpa Section

I think Byakko is still improving and pretending to be TB when she needs to, so doesn't have to switch out unexpectedly and feel tired for no reason as much. Still unsure if there are other externalities to that

 

She also a couple weeks ago had an experience/vision/memory of her grandmother teaching her about bullies when she was a small child. We think her grandmother was a lot like her and she got a lot of her innate wisdom from her. It might be a lot to type to detail everything, but it involved categories of bullies and how one might deal with them, though in the end it involved telling her how important it is for her to be strong to bullies so she can also stand up for others who don't have that capability, and warned her the kind of damage a bully can do to someone. We became emotional after realizing it is kind of like she was given that lesson to use for meeting TB, like some destiny. Both in her world she comes from and now in real life.

 

Also, this isn't technically tulpa related, but some days ago while laying in bed to sleep, we had a kind of religious experience again, with Eara and Tayomi visiting again. It happened when I flipped over to the side TB sleeps on to see Eara instead of TB, then Eara and TB had probably the longest interaction they've had, that involved Eara absolving TB of any feelings of guilt she has for her, as she has feelings of guilt for the abuse she feels she's put Eara and Tayomi through when using her as a coping mechanism growing up, since she perceived it as bad things happening to Eara instead of her, as she would kind of "wear" her going through life.

 

TB also feels guilt for the low quality of life we had to unfortunately go through the first perhaps 5-6ish years of my life, and some ways they or her mind might have treated me as I was growing up, as they can see how it has changed me in ways they did not intend or wish for. I have feelings of frustration somewhat, but I do not blame them whatsoever, and don't regret any second of it, so hope they can understand that.

 

Meditation Section

Still benefiting from metta practice, though the quality of it day by day can vary. Sometimes it is effortless to infuse whole body and even spaces beyond the body with sensations of metta, and other times it is difficult to invoke.

 

Byakko yesterday did a meditation on suffering. It was basically what Culadasa describes as purifications that happen naturally stages 4 and 7 typically (though can happen at any stage or time), but in that case, kind of deliberately initiated, which I don't think Culadasa suggests, but Roger has given us very helpful advice so trust it is helpful. Also, Byakko is the best and most built for such a thing, as she processes difficult emotions differently than us, so it is much less likely to turn into  a torrent of self loathing, and be something she accepts and allow to fit in her experience without distress.

 

After the baking in bad feelings for the guided part, she began a visualization intuitively where she was in her home world of Alarkae in front of portal to Sanctuary (home base for the heroes in TRC). Our troubled feelings/surfacing trauma kind of took the form of a bunch of rowdy and angry and armed goblins. Sometimes we've seemingly solved unconscious difficulties by imagining the badness as monsters that Byakko and I may go in and slay, though for these goblins she took an approach of compassion, and didn't beat them up, instead tried to calm them down by getting their attention using her Ki like magic, and sending them all metta, and trying to understand them and their frustration and sympathize with it. Goblins in fiction are often seen as a sub-race and can often get violent, so I think they represented this body/systems feeling of inferiority and distrust of others, so she wanted to interact with that not in a reactionary or violent way but with understanding, and try to show them there is another way. So she marched with them, and also us, to the Elf Kingdom, along the way standing up to fears and insecurities TRC TB has went through in the space (like once a dullahan chased tb down that road, byakko had also almost became a snack for gryphon babies, also tb has felt regret ignoring a desperate person just because they were paranoid they were faking and would betray them, etc). It was kind of awe inspiring. Byakko felt like that scene in Dragonball where in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, Chappa Ou has a rematch with Goku, someone they wanted to finally defeat as they had previously in the 20th Tenkaichi Budokai pulled off a flawless victory in the tournament. But in that rematch, they realize just how much Goku has grown and cinematically in the anime at least, it is visually represented with Chappa Ou seeing Goku as a literal towering giant that they can't hope to even touch, despite that size different not being literal. So when something like the Dullahan on their horse shows up to Byakko, she's towering over it and doesn't even have to move a muscle and it dissolved.

 

Once reaching the kingdom, she basically had to deal with the Elves being their standard Elven supremacist selves and confidently counter their immense feelings of superiority over her and the rest of us and all the goblins we are leading. They said nasty things to all of us, and she brushes it off nonviolently and continues to do what she has a right to, which is exist in the world as free as anyone else, words not having any power to deter our actions, and disarming any threats of violence without touching anyone.

 

She then went to a store owner that sells jewelry, and bought a sapphire gem, ruby gem, and (idk why yellow gems are) gem. It was an awkward interaction because we entered the shop not knowing exactly what we wanted or what we were supposed to do, so a situation we would not normally have confidence in, but she didn't need to know to just try, and being given a hard time by the shop owner didn't make her lack confidence. She was able to gracefully and confidently navigate an unknown situation made needlessly stressful by a jerk, but still get what she wanted by just intuitively saying what makes since to her in the moment, without criticizing her unpreparedness or blaming herself for not knowing, because you have to figure out somehow, so shouldn't be afraid to ask or just try things and see what works. There is no sin or shame in that, no matter how much our mind wants to act like there is. I believe these gems (colored after our eyes) were given to the goblins.

 

She then went further in the city and bought a bunch of runes and tablet spells from runescape (we forget what they are called). After that, she jumped up on top of a statue of what appeared to be an Elven king, sitting in a meditative posture on one of the spikes of the crown kind of like vegeta when he trains on yardrat. (tried uploading a picture but it isn't seeming to work, just google vegeta yardrat if you are curious i guess) except using her tail instead of toes on the spike. From there, she shot a bunch of pink blasts out of her head (kind of like majin buu's genocide blast), but instead of for genocide (something tb's joked about with the elves in the past because of how horrible they consistently are to them and everyone they seem to meet that isn't an elf lol) it was metta, so it was king of like that episode of courage the cowardly dog where the guy shoots canon balls of depression at everyone, except it is ones of happiness, hoping to open the hardened hearts of all the elves in the kingdom. I suppose this represents a sentiment of well wishing for people TB would otherwise feel legitimate hatred for and wish suffering upon typically, as they can feel vindictive towards people that hurt them, but that's a rough way to live. They don't actively think about hatred lately, but have in the past, so there is evidently a lot of karmic damage still remnant in this body's system from all the hate this body has experienced.

 

We hope this visualization helped, though we suspect it isn't an insta-fix for everything obviously, but Byakko seemed satisfied, and we will look to doing similar things again. We aren't quite sure if it is productive to rehearse the same thing, or if new things will just come up. This is why we said we felt we did something similar to what Ranger described for healing trauma, but we are unsure how similar or not it is.

 

Mental Health Section

Last therapy session uh... went a little awkward because we kind of suspected we offended our therapist, because TB did a semi rant when they kept bringing up IFS therapy, but there conception of IFS therapy seems to be a misunderstanding, as they think it is simply understanding different moods/emotions as people, and to talk things out and find solutions to their problems, when IFS therapy is actually a trauma therapy that is supposed to reduce the compulsion to maladaptively cope with things because Exile parts create Protector parts that jump in and do things to protect them, whether or not it is harmful overall, because they while having good intentions can be misguided, and conflict. So that means, there are just strong emotional barriers that need to be disarmed so one can actually even attempt to try another way. Giving theoretical solutions to a problem is worthless when someone can't act on any of it because trauma makes it impossible. Protector parts will still do what they do, and that often involves shutting down other ideas, so there is no solution to be had with theorizing or intellectualizing the problem and coming to solutions. IFS therapy has to actually occur, which would disarm protector parts and allow one to be Self lead, and when Self lead, one can intuitively solve these problems effortlessly in theory, as they aren't being controlled by their trauma.

 

They seem to not understand that, so TB explained it to them, but they seemed kind of bugged by that based on their tone of voice, and uncharacteristically at the end asking us what we think of their therapy or session, which isn't something they've asked before, so we sensed insecurity in their question. That said, they did give an idea that seems useful, and that was to see uploads we want to comment on but can't/can't think of anything, to imagine it if it was our own upload, what would we want others to say. This was an interesting idea, so we tried it. It doesn't quite work as much as one would hope, but Byakko was able to make 8 comments that day anyway, so it seemed to help somewhat. Though it also helps it was Byakko who is just generally less concerned of how she is perceived, and also she was metta infused, so it is hard to tell how much it is that advice helping and how much it is metta just being better than any medication in practice.

 

Finally, last night feels like a bit of a setback to progress mentioned in meditation section. Well Byakko doesn't see it that way I guess, because in the visualization described, she did say that there will be people who don't like what we do or say, or who we are as people, and people will give us a hard time, and we are to just worry about those scenarios on a case by case basis WHEN they happen, instead of preparing for them/trying to avoid them. The lyrics of CHALA HEAD CHALA came to mind: "Nayamu jikan wa nai yo! Dokoka ni hisomu.... bikkuri ni aitai kara!!" which means "There's no time to worry/feel sad/be down! Because the surprises we want to meet are hidden out there somewhere for us to find!". Basically, if we go about our life worrying too much about if something we do or say will result in a bad interaction, we just won't be able to live life, because we will avoid situations altogether. It's not even that we should think nothing bad will happen, or try to figure out the right way to do things, because neither of those ways of looking at it will ever work. We WILL fail and have bad things happen, but there is no time to worry about it, lest we miss out on everything good that will also happen.

 

This is hard to swallow, because we do desperately want to just do everything right and have a frictionless social life where no one has a problem with us, and no one judges us or says things that hurt our feelings. But if we continue to believing that is necessary for us to live life, we will never be ready to live life. The question though now is, how can we actually be okay with this in practice? Well, Byakko will continue to help us with that. Things like the suffering meditation probably help. Also perhaps philosophies such as what a buddhist monk once said in regards to how he deals with attachment, he brought up an example of a cup he is fond of. "In my mind, this cup is already broken, so I'm not worried about it breaking." This is a hard line to walk, because this can be interpreted as pessimism, but it shouldn't be. Pessimism is something TB picked up as a solution by mistake, thinking assuming the worst outcome ahead of time would save them from disappointment, but instead it makes you just fear everything will go wrong. This is the near enemy, as Buddhists would say.

 

What is the proper interpretation of that lesson is acceptance. You can enjoy the cup now and just be aware it isn't guaranteed to be there forever and you are okay when it is time to say bye to the cup. It would be a mistake to think you should shield yourself from enjoying the cup, or feel apathy towards the cup, because you come to some misguided idea the cup is already gone, or that enjoying the cup is dangerous. That is the state of mind of a Yogi reacting poorly to the Dukkha Nanas (Knowledges of Suffering), which create Dark Night Yogis, which are edgy individuals that destroy theirs and everyone around them's lives. Those who become enlightened can see things properly and more wholesomely, and it can be difficult to get right or truly understand this nuance. The Buddha said Awakening is extremely subtle, too subtle for worldly people to be able to understand or learn, and we see what he means. Thankfully he changed his mind and started teaching people, and they could teach people for many generations for thousands of years, so it can reach us today, even if the first time TB was exposed to it, they took it the wrong way and saw it as nihilism and idiotic (people reacting this way is precisely why the Buddha almost didn't bother teaching it to anybody).

 

It takes a lot of meditation to understand this, because we thought we did in the past, and had some sort of intellectual knowledge of it... So it feels weird to not be saying anything we could ever tell to our older self and have it be like "wow it'd be great if our past selves knew this". We did, but it isn't the same as an experience of it, or a realization of it. Intellectual Knowledge -> Experiential Knowledge -> Realization. We currently are somewhere inbetween Intellectual Knowledge and Experiential Knowledge, The Experiential Knowledge requiring what we can only describe is super human levels of awareness we can only generate in good meditations, which is difficult to describe to people who have not experienced it themselves, and took us probably about 1000 hours of meditation to experience.

 

Semi tangent I went on 4 paragraphs ago. I wanted to mention that last night was kind of lame to me, lol. Byakko wasn't upset or made upset, but she had experienced edgy feelings all day and was trying to transmute it into more positive energy having fun on LOTPW lol, and found being given a hard time interesting. It was more comical and curious to her, but when I saw it being a much bigger thing than I thought and other people being involved, I got kind of indignantly angry and somewhat rudely but still consensually came to the front to defend TB and Byakko/our system. Not to bring up old grievances, it's behind me now, but I can still feel the edge in my body even now, and we know a lot of our issues aren't intellectual but trauma related, so we are not yet certain how our body/nervous system will respond to that in the long run. It still seems like progress though? Or it might just be me, but usually if TB was in a similar situation, she very quickly becomes extremely depressed and self loathing and begins to hate herself and may even resort to awful coping things like TW: self harm) for example. I do not know if she would have if she happened to be in the front when something like that happened, but Byakko was and seemed more so just annoyed rather than something insidiously toxic, and annoyance for her is much less a big deal than it is for me or TB, however, I did not like how she was feeling so uh... idk what happened, I guess we feel very protective of Byakko even though she doesn't necessarily need that(?), and I can only describe it as going into some sort of Mommy mode and standing up for her. So... I hope I handled that alright, but from our perspective, while it is edgy and annoying, I felt kind of heroic from my own view, and that's much better than a typical reaction this body/mind system may react with if say TB was in the front and instead can't stop thinking about jumping off a bridge or something, as when her mind goes south, it does so sharply and she starts to have difficulty controlling herself, and it can be hard to shift the rails in any way when she enters self destruction mode. We are so glad drinking seems permanently behind us, because it does not take that bad of an interaction at all for them to immediately dissociate and resort to getting wasted or something else bad.

 

All that to say, overall I think this was a very good experience, as dark or edgy as all that sounds, it was said to serve a greater context by comparing to what could typically have happened. But at the same time, I don't want to underestimate our trauma and how negative interactions have long term negative effects, which I seem to be experiencing right now, but it is being experienced in a non self-destructive way. All I can say is I am very thankful for Byakko, as without her, typically scenarios like this don't go so well.

 

Drawing Section

uhh... we made a painting, and Byakko successful got close to 4 hours, though we are still struggling to crack that, and today doesn't seem like the day it will happen because I spent like 3 hours on laundry, and a long time on this. It's nice having a portrait of Eara next to Tayomi to watch us while we sleep.

 

The finished painting seemed to get us at least 3 watchers on deviantart, and 13 likes on bluesky compared to the 14 my unfinished version got, but i think that is because our friend hasn't liked it yet, so essentially it has done equally as good, except even better, because I think it got us more bluesky followers as well, which the unfinished version did not get us.

 

Health Section

Walks and stuff. Trying to at least every Sunday. Byakko would have if I didn't switch in, which is my fault. She didn't sick me on anyone or anything, that was my own choice. The mind's flexibility will vary so sometimes it is easier or harder to switch back, so I feel a little bad she doesn't get to finish her fortune by walking north... unless I do that. But I honestly don't feel very much like doing a walk.

 

Byakko likes to watch youtube videos standing up now, until she remembers she should be drawing and that is a large reason we sit a lot lol. Also, still jumproping a lot (for what we usually do anyway, it is still very little), but some days we miss it. Poor sleep increases chance of days being throw aways drawing wise, as well as exercise wise. We are working on it though. Byakko also likes to intuitively do Chi Gong randomly.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who has made it this far. 🙇🏼‍♀️

[Lucilyn]

👍👍👍 and 👍

for Health - can you not walk on other days? waiting a whole week to make up a missed walk opportunity is extreme (well, that's not "making up", that's just continuing)

I don't think you really "miss" a fortune in just a few days' time like that

not that you're actually guaranteed to see anything interesting/have a good experience following it anyways lol

[TB]

1 hour ago, Lucilyn said:

👍👍👍 and 👍

for Health - can you not walk on other days? waiting a whole week to make up a missed walk opportunity is extreme (well, that's not "making up", that's just continuing)

I don't think you really "miss" a fortune in just a few days' time like that

not that you're actually guaranteed to see anything interesting/have a good experience following it anyways lol

thank you

 

hmm we could try. i guess the main fear though is traffic. we think sunday has the least cars out during the day. and saturday may also be like that, but that is usually when we have to play pf2e and that drains me somewhat and takes a good chunk of time, so it just doesn't feel as intuitive to want to do anything else. but we do want to get to a point of walking every day like we used to. perhaps we will try wednesday evening, assuming monday and tuesday after work is untennable (i'll probably be walking a lot at work anyway but that's not really good for sights or fresh air most of the time)

[Lucilyn]

if you can deal with one car you can deal with a few cars, right? and the time of day matters a lot in amount of traffic

and optimally a walk actually reduces your stress for the day and would be good to do on the same days as other things, though I guess if brief social interactions stress you out that's not great, but I still think the physical effect of walks reducing stress is considerable

[Rena Bonnie]

Tulpa Section

I've made an attempt on being switched in for a week or longer. I forgot when I switched in, but know by saturday or sunday it would have been at least a week. looking at old messages, I think it's already been a week actually, so that would be a week and a half if I make it that far. It's been an interesting experience. The mind can get tired and weird. After so long, it almost is like it wants to revolt that tb hasn't been fronting for so long, but then it calms down again. Next week we were going to try and have Byakko do the same

 

I also wanted to use my time switched in to try to better the self in some way, so that things are easier for all those who are switched in after. The practice of trying to infuse metta into anything that causes mental pain has seemed important

 

Meditation Section

I noticed something recently. I can only describe it as maybe what the feeling associated with what dispenza calls coherent brainwaves, and/or also a unified mind that culadasa describes. meditation always felt like sitting down, doing a technique over and over to try to get a stable attention, and enough awareness to protect the stable attention. after recent meditation experiences, i realize what all of that is trying to create in experience, and can kind of think of the thing it is trying to result in, rather than just thinking of the techniques. Kind of like a short cut. It may not always work, but I think being aware of whatever this is probably helps with settling down faster and achieving whatever state is trying to be cultivated sooner

 

Also, the rumbly feeling and something-about-to-happen feeling is able to be recreated a lot, but it doesn't turn over into whatever it implies still. Want to listen to rob burbea's talks on the jhanas, and see if it gives any hints to how to fall into one.

 

Mental Health Section

mettafying negative experiences seems to be the best bet for this. and also just trying to do the things we want to do, even if they feel yucky. easier said than done, but i try to look at it as kindness to future selves to do these things

 

our therapist never really seems to answer our question about possibility of getting an IFS therapist with our insurance. Anytime tb has asked that, it usually results in them saying something that implies they will just try to do that style of therapy, but then they don't do that at all because they have no idea what it is, and they start just doing talk therapy. they also suggested prayer when i brought up meditation as being helpful to us. it's funny they were talking to me specifically, because i have actually prayed once or twice relatively recently (within past few months), so it isn't something i'm totally uninterested in, but it felt a bit uncomfortable because i wasn't sure of their intent on that. sometimes people can think godlessness is the source of mental issues, or may think interest in other religions that are not christianity as being a source of it. it's honestly hard to tell. he seems trained to be a therapist insofar it comes with being subtle and gentle and stuff, so it makes stuff like that harder to detect. but we do often sense a lot more communicative information beyond just the surface level of their words and expressions. we don't know if it is imagined or not

 

after bringing up prayer, they also brought up the concept of faith in general, and said it applies to everything kind of. like if we were to message someone, it's good sometimes to have faith it will go well. maybe that can be good. though anything that implies an assumption it will truly be good is a bit aversive to us now. tb used to focus a lot on making social interactions go well, and there doesn't seem to be any way to guarantee that. whether we aren't competent enough, or someone else just being sour, or whatever other reasons, bad interactions happen. so we want to become resilient to bad interactions, but without falling into apathy or dissociation. still very tricky. i think meditating more is only thing that will do it. i have not much faith therapy with our current therapist will lead to much help there, and it doesn't seem like we'll get help getting access to IFS therapy, so i just continue to do it informally on our own when the chance arises.

 

one thing is this body's anxiety with roleplaying. trying to overcome that... it can be hard to generate metta while thinking about that anxiety.

 

Drawing Section

a few days of very little drawing occurred recently, so that sucks a bit. and last upload was not popular at all, though we did get a new watcher, so that's nice. just remembered, i was going to see how gallery system works in deviantart, and put our best things on featured and everything else in something else. then we can upload more often, saving the best for featured gallery, perhaps

 

commenting can still be hard to keep up it seems. or it was just that byakko was doing that, and tb and i are less... effortlessly able to do that. i'll see what i can do later.

 

Health Section

missed a lot of walks. might have not helped last walk, minus towards the end, was a bit more stressful and less enjoyable. it becomes easy to justify reasons to not take a walk, especially when there are so many other things you want to do anyway. hopefully we take another one soon

 

still jump roping, typically in the morning but also at random times, though we need to increase volume of it. we stand  in front of desk occasionally, and are not still while standing

 

[Tewi]

You should justify-not-walking less.. I think it helps physical and mental health a fair bit.

 

And, I don't think any therapists in your area are qualified to do any non-basic therapy, no matter how much you ask them to. Probably need a bigger city or wealthier-state town for that sort of thing, and even then there's no guarantee (with a given therapist), though I think they'd do better than yours so far.

Edited May 29, 2025 by Tewi

[Rena Bonnie]

1 hour ago, Tewi said:

You should justify-not-walking less.. I think it helps physical and mental health a fair bit.

Oh, I agree with you. It can just feel like a big task to take on, and the effort of trying to get in the mood to face whatever unknown things we might come across can at times seem less worth it than just drawing more or anything else really, in the moment at least. It's more complex than that, but whatever it is, it results in missing out on doing it. If there weren't people/cars and having to awkwardly figure out if we will walk around cars into middle of street or through people's yards to be out of way of cars etc... it would be really easy to walk every day. Since that isn't possible, it seems to happen on days we feel more resilient and up for it. Even more so if it isn't good to take anxiety meds for it.

 

And some places cars can be really weird.. certain times of day, it is extremely difficult to see inside someone's car, and some cars are hard to see in anyway. and then you come to a road you have to cross and a car is coming, and we just want to wait for the car to go by, but they slow down and stop, and it can be confusing if it is okay to walk out in front of them or not. it's always a really unpleasant situation, and last walk i took it happened particularly awkwardly. eeh. then you end up having to do weird things to try to make the cars just go, like pretend you are walking somewhere else, to then go back the way you wanted to go originally once they leave, and you start wondering if you are actually a human like everyone else, lol. i feel butterflies in my stomach even thinking about it

 

1 hour ago, Tewi said:

And, I don't think any therapists in your area are qualified to do any non-basic therapy, no matter how much you ask them to. Probably need a bigger city or wealthier-state town for that sort of thing, and even then there's no guarantee (with a given therapist), though I think they'd do better than yours so far.

there does seem to be IFS therapists in our town and nearby towns when googled, but they will not directly answer if it is possible to get one of them as our therapist even if we are in the program we are in. So I must assume no, I guess. Or we have to ask 3 more times before they give a more direct answer. Communicating with people can be flustering and difficult.

[Tewi]

Oh, well I was referring to getting an existing therapist to do a new unique style of therapy, if you can get one who advertises they do it then that'd be good.

 

And yeah, while you may not want to very slightly inconvenience drivers, you do have the right of way and any remotely decent driver will stop if there's any chance you might walk in front of them.

While we do let them go first sometimes (we just stop before they get to us, and then maybe take a step back (looking at them/their car, not away), but optimally you should hand-wave them as a go-ahead), have you considered just... going? It sure doesn't sound like trying to let them go first works out for you guys, so if it's obvious they're yielding to you, just walk a bit faster like people normally do, yeah?
I mean, most people just keep their normal pace, but our family's always walked faster to get out of their way sooner. I think it especially assuages any annoyance certain stressed-drivers have if they see you noticeably speed up for them, so if they're yielding first you should just do that, an awkward "No, go ahead" doesn't really save them much time and to be honest, in a subjective way, I don't feel like it even feels as good as just seeing someone speed up. Like the 3 seconds saved is counteracted by the cognitive effort of determining that you're letting them go instead of waiting, lol.

 

tl;dr If a driver yields for you, just go (faster, if you want to be nice)

If you're not actually crossing, then hand wave them

Edited May 30, 2025 by Tewi