This is really good! I was fascinated by how similar acceptance therapy is to stoicism. They're basically indistinguishable (if you don't count all the "inner soul" and "rational universe" stuff...
This is really good! I was fascinated by how similar acceptance therapy is to stoicism. They're basically indistinguishable (if you don't count all the "inner soul" and "rational universe" stuff in stoicism.)
I have also found that personally I stopped being bothered by most little stuff after experiencing bigger stuff. Not that I would wish my experiences on everybody, but I do think there's something to be said for perspective. Mission trips, WWOOFing, the American Peace Corps, etc.. there are a lot of ways to get exposed to just how difficult life can be in a way that I think can often be adaptive and helpful.
"once you’ve been to hell and back, that’s enough it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man." “Lost” by Charles Bukowski https://wordsfortheyear.com/2014/02/12/lost/
"once you’ve been to hell and back,
that’s enough
it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man."
In my personal experience, if a mild annoyance like spilling a drink or stubbing a toe has put me in a bad mood, there's something else going on. Sometimes it's because I'm actually stressed about...
In my personal experience, if a mild annoyance like spilling a drink or stubbing a toe has put me in a bad mood, there's something else going on.
Sometimes it's because I'm actually stressed about something much more serious, and it's coming out in these moments.
But if I find myself getting annoyed by little things and I don't know why, it almost always turns out that I'm underslept, dehydrated, or coming down with a cold or something. Irritability is one of the earliest signs that I'm neglecting my health and need to take things easy until spilling drinks goes back to being funny.
Sleep is a huge one for me, I can tolerate most other discomforts as long as Ive slept well. Life is hard as an autistic person because I notice things that no one else does because I cant filter...
Sleep is a huge one for me, I can tolerate most other discomforts as long as Ive slept well.
Life is hard as an autistic person because I notice things that no one else does because I cant filter out sensory information every tiny thing is front and center all the time for me so those minor annoyances are actually huge problems front and center immediately all the time and I cant escape.
But if Ive at least slept, I have the energy to fix whatever it is.
I have this issue, as well. I have no idea if I'm autistic, but things do tend to happen and I can't help but focus on them, which causes me great annoyance. But sleep, yeah. I used to stay-up...
I have this issue, as well. I have no idea if I'm autistic, but things do tend to happen and I can't help but focus on them, which causes me great annoyance.
But sleep, yeah. I used to stay-up late all the time and tried to continue doing that when I got into my 30's and had kids and it just doesn't work, I'm a miserable person if that happens and I can't cope with anything. Now I just go to sleep if I'm tired, because I know nothing good is going to come of me staying-up late anymore.
Part of growing up for me has absolutely been the ability to be like “nothing good can come from this” when I think about doing things that sound fun. For example, I play pool with my friends at...
Part of growing up for me has absolutely been the ability to be like “nothing good can come from this” when I think about doing things that sound fun.
For example, I play pool with my friends at this sports bar on occasion. I used to sometimes go to the night club next door when that bar closed at 12, and nothing good ever happens to me at that place.
It feels like a level up cause 20s me definitely made the same mistakes over and over.
Been thinking about this a lot lately, listening to various discussions surrounding these kinds of topics, and radical acceptance and adjacent ideas really touch on those points. Ways of not...
Been thinking about this a lot lately, listening to various discussions surrounding these kinds of topics, and radical acceptance and adjacent ideas really touch on those points. Ways of not taking things personally automatically. Not creating more internal suffering for yourself unnecessarily. Realizing in some ways that "you are not your thoughts". Treating both a nice comment from someone and a mean comment from someone else as sides of the same coin, and not letting that coin itself be the primary means of seeking happiness or an oversized impact on you negatively, etc. Finding a type of peace that comes from within and isn't contingent on the fleeting things happening externally. Seeing consciousness sort-of as a screen that the movie of life is playing itself out on. Seeing others as yourself / imagining every person as if it were you living a different life. Less about thinking of one of these as the perfect lens to view life through and more as tools to recognize something (the recognition being more important than the tool)
People can sometimes stretch these things into places they shouldn't go, or reach the wrong conclusions- or infer the wrong things from them. I get it- it's easy for our brain to latch onto the limitations or exceptions or whatever, but I think there's a lot of value in many of these ideas and applying them to daily life, even just in small ways- just at a baseline level. Nothing "woo" or weird or dogmatic or religious or anything, just different ways of approaching our moment to moment experience of consciousness and the world.
This is really good! I was fascinated by how similar acceptance therapy is to stoicism. They're basically indistinguishable (if you don't count all the "inner soul" and "rational universe" stuff in stoicism.)
I have also found that personally I stopped being bothered by most little stuff after experiencing bigger stuff. Not that I would wish my experiences on everybody, but I do think there's something to be said for perspective. Mission trips, WWOOFing, the American Peace Corps, etc.. there are a lot of ways to get exposed to just how difficult life can be in a way that I think can often be adaptive and helpful.
"once you’ve been to hell and back,
that’s enough
it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man."
“Lost” by Charles Bukowski
https://wordsfortheyear.com/2014/02/12/lost/
A lot of great things in the article, but the radical acceptance prompts really resonated with me, especially the last one:
In my personal experience, if a mild annoyance like spilling a drink or stubbing a toe has put me in a bad mood, there's something else going on.
Sometimes it's because I'm actually stressed about something much more serious, and it's coming out in these moments.
But if I find myself getting annoyed by little things and I don't know why, it almost always turns out that I'm underslept, dehydrated, or coming down with a cold or something. Irritability is one of the earliest signs that I'm neglecting my health and need to take things easy until spilling drinks goes back to being funny.
Sleep is a huge one for me, I can tolerate most other discomforts as long as Ive slept well.
Life is hard as an autistic person because I notice things that no one else does because I cant filter out sensory information every tiny thing is front and center all the time for me so those minor annoyances are actually huge problems front and center immediately all the time and I cant escape.
But if Ive at least slept, I have the energy to fix whatever it is.
I have this issue, as well. I have no idea if I'm autistic, but things do tend to happen and I can't help but focus on them, which causes me great annoyance.
But sleep, yeah. I used to stay-up late all the time and tried to continue doing that when I got into my 30's and had kids and it just doesn't work, I'm a miserable person if that happens and I can't cope with anything. Now I just go to sleep if I'm tired, because I know nothing good is going to come of me staying-up late anymore.
Part of growing up for me has absolutely been the ability to be like “nothing good can come from this” when I think about doing things that sound fun.
For example, I play pool with my friends at this sports bar on occasion. I used to sometimes go to the night club next door when that bar closed at 12, and nothing good ever happens to me at that place.
It feels like a level up cause 20s me definitely made the same mistakes over and over.
Been thinking about this a lot lately, listening to various discussions surrounding these kinds of topics, and radical acceptance and adjacent ideas really touch on those points. Ways of not taking things personally automatically. Not creating more internal suffering for yourself unnecessarily. Realizing in some ways that "you are not your thoughts". Treating both a nice comment from someone and a mean comment from someone else as sides of the same coin, and not letting that coin itself be the primary means of seeking happiness or an oversized impact on you negatively, etc. Finding a type of peace that comes from within and isn't contingent on the fleeting things happening externally. Seeing consciousness sort-of as a screen that the movie of life is playing itself out on. Seeing others as yourself / imagining every person as if it were you living a different life. Less about thinking of one of these as the perfect lens to view life through and more as tools to recognize something (the recognition being more important than the tool)
People can sometimes stretch these things into places they shouldn't go, or reach the wrong conclusions- or infer the wrong things from them. I get it- it's easy for our brain to latch onto the limitations or exceptions or whatever, but I think there's a lot of value in many of these ideas and applying them to daily life, even just in small ways- just at a baseline level. Nothing "woo" or weird or dogmatic or religious or anything, just different ways of approaching our moment to moment experience of consciousness and the world.