PDProject

Article 5 - "Show That You Care"

Written and narrated by Yunus Skeete

https://www.pdproject.co.uk/pdposts/5

Article 4 - "Who are you being?"

Written and narrated by Yunus Skeete

https://www.pdproject.co.uk/pdposts/4

Article 3 - Attention Management

Written and narrated by Yunus Skeete

https://www.pdproject.co.uk/pdposts/3

Article 1 - Emotional Assumptions

Written by Eloise Wroe-Wright, narrated by Yunus Skeete

https://www.pdproject.co.uk/pdposts/2

"A drastic change in perspective" - Helping a homeless man taught me the most about what is important and creating the life I want. It presented me with insights into what drives me, where I derive my fulfilments and how I can most effectively live my identity.-   (00:07:37)

"I can't choose my life based off of impulses and snap responses" - Surely, at some point, I need to start listening to myself, however?-   (00:14:55)

"Knowing your internal narrative and finding an external narrative that sits well with that" - Even if we know who we are and what drives us, we still have to find somethin we can follow which aligns with our identity.-   (00:23:19)

"How do you know that you're doing the right thing?" - When it comes to creating the life we want and following our paath, there is no correct answer. That doesn't mean w shouldn't search for one. -   (00:34:57)

"Knowing your internal narrative and finding an external narrative that sits well with that" - Even if we know who we are and what drives us, we still have to find somethin we can follow which aligns with our identity.-   (00:23:19)

Intuition - When we develop, it seems to alay all of our anxieties and solve all of our problems. When we don't, it can feel like we are constantly lacking our north star.-   (00:36:13)

"Is that a poison that you need to release as a result of your lifestyle?" - A lot of what we end up needing is as a result of problems we created for ourselves somewhere else in our life. We talk about living lifestyles that prevent, rather than cure, problems.-   (00:42:45)

"If this is out of your comfort zone, this is not for you" - As much as commitment and following things through is imperative, do when know when to twist rather than stick? If not, how do we know if we should be here doing what we are doing?-   (00:43:24)

"That's just not where my powers lie" - We can look everywhere but ourselves to find what we want and what we see value in. At some point, we have to realise that that is not us, and it may never be. For me, I have been learning that there is nothing bad with that.-   (00:51:17)

Diversity and healing - How much do we sacrifice my ideologies for our comforts? Launching too far into the unknown can leave us feeling isolated and stranded outside of our comfort zone. How do we reconsile this when it is in line with our ideologies to make sure we are living a life suited to who we are and the environments we feel comfortable in.-   (01:09:03)

Article 1 - Emotional Assumptions

Written and narrated by Yunus Skeete

https://www.pdproject.co.uk/pdposts/1

"EQ vs IQ" - there is real value in our emotions. They need not merely be the recoil against life that we often give them credit for, if we can learn to read and understand them in ourselves and others, they can provide us with the ultimate clarity, meaning and direction. Ultimately, this requires us to develop our EQ - our emotional intelligence. (00:02:53)

"Resilience isn't feeling less emotion, it is feeling the emotion and just knowing what to do with it" - For many of us as students, our emotional development has only been a journey a handful of years long. It is very easy to yearn for the days where everything was easier, and nothing affected us as much. Our emotions cannot go away however, and this should not be our ideal for resilience. (00:08:36)

"Personal politics and emotional significance" - it is the relationship we have with our emotions that defines how our life feels. (00:13:35)

"Expression, emotional silence and perspectives" - When we adopt the councillor’s role, we often yield our role as an expressive mouth to be the set of ears others need us to be. This can lead us to sitting on this pile of our own problems, reflecting that the struggles shared with us pales in comparison to the severity of our own. What we often forget is that people are unlikely to share their deepest and darkest problems, they will often only share the ones that you can help with or that they are comfortable with you knowing. (00:17:17)

"These aren't obstacles, these aren't enemies" - emotions aren't something to circumnavigate, they are something to work through, not run through, but to sit with slowly (00:23:39)

"When it comes to emotions, things, for me, settle rather than are resolved, and it is once things have settled that you can see where you need to go" - Our emotions have a habit of presenting themselves in obscure ways, but it is the EQ - our emotional literacy and intelligence- which enables us to decode it and which enables our emotions to heal us. (00:25:57)

"We have these [emotional] feeders the whole time" - our emotions direct us in the most obscure of ways, that may not be the 'this is not your path' we are looking for but rather a 'I have woken up in a bad mood', 'I have to revise again', 'I am inclined to be angry and shout at this person' or 'I am inclined to judge'. It is once we have invited it into the room and things have settled without us trying to alter or suppress them that we can take heed, decipher and redirect. (00:27:18)

"Is my emotional response in proportion to the severity of the situation?" - It is apparent how too large an emotional response can be unwarranted and destructive, however, contrary to the agendas of many of our coping mechanisms, too little of a response can be just as dangerous. (00:33:51)

"We need to dissipate our emotional energy" - A lot of our emotions are suppressed due to us deeming them morally unvirtuous. However, if not used to heal us, that emotional energy will harm us, it is up to us to define how we seek to release that pressure. (00:39:37)

"When it comes to our emotions, we are judge jury and executioner" - In how we process what is going on, we evaluate and we react, our emotional intelligence lends itself consulting those to the correct degree. We must ensure we have the full picture, are receptive to what actually is going on, and respond to the correct degree, to do this, we cannot suppress our emotional responses, but we must judge constructively. (00:50:47)

SHOW NOTES:

Episode 10 - Personal Politics

Episode 10 discusses a feeling of political paralysis; new year, different vote, same problems. When our vote is one of millions, it is easy to feel like we lack influence over our lives when  we deal with politics on national scales. This fortnight, we explore finding ourselves and uur path through investing in more local and personal contributions to regain a sense of control in a seemingly stagnant political system. 

How we seek to uphold our civic duty - in a democracy, the power lies in the hands of the people, so it is partially up to us to run the country. Many of us do that with a vote, but how do we seek to engage with these duties on a daily basis within our sphere of immediate influence? What can we fix ourselves rather than wait for things to change around us?

Is this a domain which we can influence? - common is the feeling that our contribution is drowned out by the noise of the nation.  In a world of six degrees of separation, the potential for our message to inspire is far more limetless than it may seem, it just depends how we seek to communicate it.

National or personal politics - we can influence the face of things, but we can also influence the feel of  living in our society on a daily basis. Which is more important and are we giving both due consideration?

We experience life through our lens and we live in  a nation of individuals - influence on a national scale comes down to individual shifts in each and everyone of us across the nation. If we want a more accepting society nationally, is the first place we need to go to mass communications or to ourselves?

We interact with ourselves primarily and then the immediate sphere around us - we rarely interact with society on  a national scale rather than a personal one.  Which should we take more responsibility for influencing and how do we ensure that neither are neglected?

What is realistic to expect from ourselves and others? - what we feel we are entitled couldn't have a larger influence on what it feels to live in our society. Analysing what is truly important and what exists within our domain of influence may reshuffle our perspectives.

What are the prerequisites for a happy, fulfilling life? - how dependent  is contemptment and fulfillment on the state of national politics around you? How much can we let whether or not we will be able to afford a house, use our passport in the EU, or pay more in taxes dictate how life feels for us?

Standing for something, not against - it feels as if people know more what they are against and why than what they are for and why. Contradictarily however, we are often ignorant to what we are against and how our ideoligies can effectively be shutting down others' opinions and libities. Was the last time we voted because we truly believed in something rather than because we could not stand the prospect of the opposition?

Personal politics, morality and direction - how do we know that we and our ideologies are actually of benefit to all? Most of us think we are doing the right thing, but so do the people who most passionately object to us.  Where do we go from there?

SHOW NOTES:

Looking to our past for context - Our upbringing defines the person we are and how we connect and develop.

Awareness of vastly different dynamics - It takes constant contact and effort to sustain familial relationships optimally. A lack of contact changes everything.

Attachment types - For the closely attached, distance can be painful, for the distant, distance can be fatal. Distance will often strain relationships and magnify their problems.

Shifting landscapes - What we come back to may seem similar but the clock was still ticking whilst you were away. Often, landscapes have shifted drastically and a lack of appreciation of this can leave us tactless and prone to stirring conflict.

Show that you care - The times we have together are  fewer and hence more important. Opportunities not taken to show that you care represent much greater losses.

Managing conflict and fleeing to independence - Leaving things on a bad foot can leave a sour tone festering for a long time. We don't get to choose our family and we can't turn off our commitment to them. This often means the only option we have is to bite our tongue and pull together because we don't want to be spending the next 60 years pulling in opposite directions.

Some problems are too big to be dealt with over an Easter break or a summer - Leaving them till another chapter in your life seems like the only feasible option, but it certainly doesn't come without consequence.

Support networks - Our family can be our most robust support network, but that mandates keeping them in touching distance and taking them along for the ride. For many, this proves more difficult at university which is why our approach to doing so needs to be more intentional.