The cumulative effect of small stressors, and how they bring back negative inner narratives. This episode is something I wrote in 2015, when I was working through my eating disorder and just beginning to learn what it means to take care of myself so I could extend care to others.

Blog post: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/we-live-in-a-pixel

Life is a picture, but you live in a pixel: https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/life-is-picture-but-you-live-in-pixel.html

Hugs being good for our health: http://youtu.be/GW5p8xOVwRo

Abel brought his best and got more. Cain didn’t, destroyed his ideal, and was left with less, his lineage becoming murderers.

Abraham gave his best, and got it back.

He sacrificed his best to what is highest.

JBP also was talking about the Pieta, the mother’s crucifixion. The job of the mother being to offer her son (her best, herself) to the world, for it to have its way with him.

So doing, our sons become men, able to contend with the brutality and complexity of life.

We let go. Completely. Mary’s left hand is raised, perhaps for hope, perhaps to symbolize letting go, perhaps in worship.

Jordan Peterson eloquently tied this into becoming friends with one’s adult children. How does one accomplish such a thing? By raising, then releasing them.

Jesus Christ operated entirely by invitation, never by force.

This is the same way your adult children come back to you as your friends.

“The complete abdication of force.”

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/notes-on-jordan-b-peterson-s-april-23-2024-lecture-in-austin-tx

When I see someone dedicated to their craft, I am drawn to their character. When I see someone who’s been willing to buck the status quo of comfort and complacency, delay gratification in any way, alone if need be, I become less afraid of success and the loneliness that I previously perceived would accompany forward momentum.

These single-minded growers keep me inspired, by the fact that they are doing it for themselves. I don’t want to miss out on progress, excitement, and new learning.

They show me what is possible, and they prove that the common doesn’t have to be the inevitable.

The best thing they are doing to create a positive impact on the people around them is to become their best self, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and physically. And that’s not even why they’re doing it!

They hold me accountable by their very existence.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/accountability-i-don-t-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Compose: To put together, construct.

Confidence: To have full trust

The etymology of these words reveals why we are so drawn to confidence and composure, and can be found here: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/composure-and-confidence

These things happen iteratively, laboriously, and always intentionally.

Love and self control combined?

That's power.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/on-defibrillation

A spectrum of modes with which to operate in our worlds:

Isolation > Self Sufficiency - Dependability - Interdependence > Codependence

How do we avoid the extremes, build a strong sense of self, and stop feeling at the effect of all of the opinions around us? How do we fortify our own confidence, so we can relate from a place of strength? What is the bridge between the extremes of isolation and codependence?

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/self-sufficiency-and-interdependence

Beauty tells you to be more than you are. Beauty tells you to aspire to that which is beyond you.

What bothers you? That’s what calls you forward into who you could be. That’s what calls you forward into participating in the process of setting the world right, and there’s meaning in that.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/overwhelmed-by-beauty

Healthy non-sexual physical touch has been banished from proper society. We are the only primates who live this frigidly.

Where did the innocence go?

Why do we automatically conflate feelings of appreciation, understanding and admiration with a desire to consume or own the person?What if we could love without seizing and grasping at the object of our affections? What if we learned to do that so well that we could give love and true encouragement to everyone we interacted with, while also being able to drink in the inspiration of a beautiful mind, to admire a capable body, to curiously study a vast and intricate soul? What if doing so expanded all of our hearts, emboldening us toward our own personal challenges in the process? Innocently, purely, seeing each other’s value?

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/connection-consumption

What are they distracting us from?

Dis:

The dis prefix is a negative prefix that means “not, or none.”

Traction:

1. The force that causes a moving thing to stick to the surface it is moving along
2. The power that is used to pull something
3. A way of treating broken bones in which a device gently pulls the bones back into place
4. The support, interest, etc., that is needed for something to succeed or make progress

Distraction:

The preclusion and impossibility of stability, grounding, momentum, power, movement, alignment, and progress.

......No big deal.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/distraction

I am where I am supposed to be.

There is a path set before me, each choice leading to the next, that only I can walk. Only I can play these roles and exert this influence on the quest unique to me. Nothing is wasted.

It’s a mandate.

It’s a beckoning to come out of the shadows, shake off the fear. To be fully engaged in now, and use the past as fuel to walk boldly into an unfamiliar future.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/fully-alive