This comment thread contributed to a substantial personal update for me over the weekend. I noticed ways in which I was out of integrity with myself. I’ve moved a lot closer to something like a radical honesty practice over the weekend, and it has worked out pretty well so far.
I stopped blocking my perception of my own suffering, and noticed that my mind-body is full of grief and fatigue. Naturally, noticing thing caused it to start showing up in my body language, and I also started talking about things that were bad for me. It turned out that while this was sometimes upsetting for the people around me, it also allowed us to negotiate in better faith than before.
I think I’d been suppressing this in part because it seemed like the people around me couldn’t handle it. This still might turn out to be the case sometimes, but I myself have sufficient privilege to be able to safely handle other people not being able to handle it, so I may as well not destroy my soul :)
I feel physically better.
Thank you for holding me to account. Jessica, I know you didn’t explicitly target your intervention at me, but your comments here were sufficiently interpretable for someone trying to learn from them to apply them to their personal situation anyway.
This comment thread contributed to a substantial personal update for me over the weekend. I noticed ways in which I was out of integrity with myself. I’ve moved a lot closer to something like a radical honesty practice over the weekend, and it has worked out pretty well so far.
I stopped blocking my perception of my own suffering, and noticed that my mind-body is full of grief and fatigue. Naturally, noticing thing caused it to start showing up in my body language, and I also started talking about things that were bad for me. It turned out that while this was sometimes upsetting for the people around me, it also allowed us to negotiate in better faith than before.
I think I’d been suppressing this in part because it seemed like the people around me couldn’t handle it. This still might turn out to be the case sometimes, but I myself have sufficient privilege to be able to safely handle other people not being able to handle it, so I may as well not destroy my soul :)
I feel physically better.
Thank you for holding me to account. Jessica, I know you didn’t explicitly target your intervention at me, but your comments here were sufficiently interpretable for someone trying to learn from them to apply them to their personal situation anyway.
Benquo, this is really great to hear. This is a shift I went through gradually throughout 2017 and I think it’s really important.