AND YET A TRACE OF THE TRUE SELF EXISTS IN THE FALSE SELF

“You seem to have made a series of miraculous recoveries, but that doesn’t change the fact that you experienced trauma. You’ve recovered physically, but have you recovered mentally? …Adverse childhood experiences, or childhood trauma can have a lasting impact on how your body responds to stress. This can affect your social, emotional, and physical development. When humans are in crisis, the brain releases the hormone Cortisol; your heart races, your muscles tense…I think all these experiences have been subjecting your body to a harmful amount of stress, and that’s affecting your body’s ability to respond to new forms of stress in a healthy way! You’ve been dealing with genuine threats from such a young age, that your body is now responding to minor threats as if your life were in danger.“”

— Dr. Maheswaran, finally saying what fans have been talking about for months

Self-Discipline Isn’t Always the Answer

So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.

Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.

I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”

And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone! 

I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.

This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that. 

Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener. 

Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”

TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.

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Tw homophobia/transphobia

I am turning off messages and anon until the end of june. I recommend you all do the same on ALL social media.

original tweet

mainstream indian media is not covering this ofcourse. they'd rather cover news about a stone drinking milk than climate change intiatives done by little kids like licypriya kangujam and ridhima pandey.

Fallow deer and honey mushroom

(I am not as active on here anymore. I am mostly active on Instagram (@ twicoff) and Twitter (@ ttwicoff)

May 2020 Illustrations ヽ(• ‿ •)ノ

If this resonates with you at all PLEASE, for your benefit, go read this tweet thread on “fawning”

Sometimes wanting something is more fun than having it