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Help me find a purpose in my career

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 55 total)
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  • #409856
    humour
    Participant

    ” (… I am this someone)” – that’s so kind of you Anita.

    Now, I have the freedom to take my own course. Also, I am more cheerful.

    Yes, Tee. I am open to being prodded further. Thank you for all the help..

    #409860
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Good to read that you are more cheerful, Humour!

    anita

    #409871
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear humour,

    You’re welcome. I am glad that you don’t mind my prodding 🙂

    You’ve said that your go-to emotion is usually anxiety:

    Since I have a slightly turmoiled background, I don’t understand the so called “normal” stuff. My go to quality is usually anxiety.

    I am anxious in situations that does not require me to be.

    So, in situations that would require a different reaction, you still react with anxiety, right?

    It occurs to me that those might be situations that would require assertiveness… I am saying this because of what you wrote in 2016 and 2017, which anita kindly put together in a previous post:

    I’ve had a challenge with being assertive because I feel that I might ‘hurt’ people. I take the hurt upon myself without speaking out. Once I am assertive, I get all sensitive thinking I hurt the other person (Oct 2016)

    I want to be able to take care of myself and be less of a martyr. I am getting frustrated with regrets, things not turning out the way I wanted it to, my efforts not being recognised, me not able to meet my own expectations, people pleasing. I’ve had enough! (January 2017)

    You wrote back then that you’ve got a problem with assertiveness, because you believe that if you’re assertive, you will hurt the other person. So you rather don’t speak out…

    This might be still happening at your workplace, when your colleagues put you down, and you don’t say anything. Instead of reacting in some way, maybe defending yourself, you rather contract and the only emotion you feel is anxiety?

    If so, I think the anxiety – which is your go-to emotion – became a guardian for your anger. It keeps the anger (which would be a natural reaction) in check.

    This anger would tell you what is acceptable to you and what is not. It would signal that your boundaries have been crossed. But because you don’t want to feel it, you also don’t know what is acceptable and what is not. And as we’ve discussed earlier, this means you also don’t know what is “normal”, i.e. what is a normal reaction in a given situation.

    Does this seem plausible? That anxiety may be blocking your healthy anger, which would otherwise signal you that your boundaries are somehow being violated or that your desires aren’t respected?

     

    #409872
    Tee
    Participant

    Ooops, something happened with formatting, let me try again:

     

    Dear humour,

    You’re welcome. I am glad that you don’t mind my prodding 🙂

    You’ve said that your go-to emotion is usually anxiety:

    Since I have a slightly turmoiled background, I don’t understand the so called “normal” stuff. My go to quality is usually anxiety.

    I am anxious in situations that does not require me to be.

    So, in situations that would require a different reaction, you still react with anxiety, right?

    It occurs to me that among those might be situations that would require assertiveness… I am saying this because of what you wrote in 2016 and 2017, which anita kindly put together in a previous post:

    I’ve had a challenge with being assertive because I feel that I might ‘hurt’ people. I take the hurt upon myself without speaking out. Once I am assertive, I get all sensitive thinking I hurt the other person (Oct 2016)

    I want to be able to take care of myself and be less of a martyr. I am getting frustrated with regrets, things not turning out the way I wanted it to, my efforts not being recognised, me not able to meet my own expectations, people pleasing. I’ve had enough! (January 2017)

     

    You wrote back then that you’ve got a problem with assertiveness, because you believe that if you’re assertive, you will hurt the other person. So you rather don’t speak out…

    This might be still happening at the place your work, when your colleagues put you down, and you don’t say anything. Instead of reacting in some way, defending yourself, you rather contract and the only emotion you feel is anxiety?

    If so, this anxiety – which is your go-to emotion – became a guardian to your anger. It keeps the anger (which would be a natural reaction) in check.

    This anger would tell you what is acceptable and what is not. It would signal that your boundaries have been crossed. But because you don’t want to feel it, you also don’t know what is acceptable and what is not. And as we’ve discussed earlier, this means you also don’t know what is “normal”, what is a normal reaction in a given situation.

    Does this seem plausible? That anxiety may be blocking your anger, which would otherwise signal you that your boundaries are somehow being violated or that your desires aren’t respected?

     

    #409873
    Tee
    Participant

    Just a slight correction in the last paragraph:

    Does this seem plausible? That anxiety may be blocking your healthy anger, which would otherwise signal you that your boundaries are somehow being violated or that your desires aren’t respected?

    #409884
    Peter
    Participant

    Dear humour,

    I like your username. I wonder what lead you to chose it.

    I feel sad about all the wasted years of my life. I wish I could go back in time and change many things.

    I don’t think purpose has much to do with the stuff you do not when YOU are Purpose

    We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about

    People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning (purpose) for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. ― Joseph Campbell

    Believe yourself to be Purpose and everything you engage with will be a experience of being alive.
    Life in the moment is as the should be. Seeking purpose outside oneself is like trying to grasp air with your hands. You are where you should in order to take the next step. Everything experienced is never wasted time.

    As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off.
    Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance.
    Having a sense of humor saves you.” ― Joseph Campbell

    #409886
    Peter
    Participant

    sadly editing is no longer allowed

    Believe yourself to be Purpose and everything you engage with will be a experience of being alive.
    Life in this moment is as it should be. Seeking purpose outside oneself is like trying to grasp air with your hands.
    You are where you should be in order to take the next step.

    Everything experienced needed to be experienced so never wasted time.

    #409891
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear humour,

    the notion that anger is a useful signal came from Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist, who often uses the Bible to explain psychological concepts. In his youtube video “Anger is a signal, not a solution“, he explains that it’s okay to feel anger, but that we should first examine it before we react. So feeling anger doesn’t mean acting aggressively, in ways that hurt others. Not at all.

    I’d link the video here but tindybuddha doesn’t like links. But if you go to youtube and look for the title, you’ll find it. I highly recommend it because I think it relates to your situation.

    As for the topic of purpose, I also believe that looking for purpose outside of ourselves, i.e. detached from our innermost being, as Joseph Campbell put it, will not lead us to happiness and fulfillment. But we need to be in touch with our “innermost being”, i.e. our true self. And for that, we need to know our values, our preferences and our boundaries too.

     

    #410164
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Humour:

    Sometimes, without realizing it, I am very verbose: I use too many words and I repeat myself. Today as I started to read my own long, Nov 8 post, I got lost in my verbosity and lost the motivation to keep reading. When I typed that post a week ago, I did not feel lost, but today I do, and I figured: you might have felt lost in that post as well, and that’s why you didn’t respond to it. If this is what happened, please let me know, and I will be glad to repost with way, way fewer words and simplify that post so that it will not be difficult and frustrating to read.

    anita

    #410219
    humour
    Participant

    Dear Anita & Tee,

    I got a little caught up with work and could not reply immediately. I did watch the video – “Anger is a signal and not a solution”. The points that caught my attention are, be aware of your emotions, embrace/feel it, do not react impulsively and that we are responsible for our situations and emotions(maybe not always- but the way we react- yes).

    Anita, I appreciate the help that you have rendered whenever I need it. Please stick to your writing style which is verbose. Its very kind of you to think of accomodating my needs even in matters such as these.

    Currently I listen to a lot of music to let my emotions dissipate in a healthy way but have caught the negative habit of binge eating too.

    “As for the topic of purpose, I also believe that looking for purpose outside of ourselves, i.e. detached from our innermost being, as Joseph Campbell put it, will not lead us to happiness and fulfillment. But we need to be in touch with our “innermost being”, i.e. our true self. And for that, we need to know our values, our preferences and our boundaries too.”

    I will read up what Joseph Campbell had to say about life’s purpose. Now that my environment is more peaceful and me having a lot of headspace unlike in the past, i am able to think more clearly so that I can work on myself. Perhaps with a little guidance, inner pondering and observing people whom I look up to/those who have had quite a normal upbringing, I will be able to lead a much more fulfilling life.

    #410224
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear humour,

    I am glad you’ve watched the video and found it useful.

    The points that caught my attention are, be aware of your emotions, embrace/feel it, do not react impulsively and that we are responsible for our situations and emotions(maybe not always- but the way we react- yes).

    Yes, I also liked how he explained that it’s okay to feel ALL emotions, including those we might not necessarily like, such as anger. Once we feel it, we can examine whether it is justified (whether the fault is in us or in the other party) and what to do about it. I really like the idea of anger as a signal, and that we should neither suppress it nor react impulsively on it.

    In my last post I played with a thought that maybe anxiety – which you say is your go-to emotion – might be blocking and masking your healthy anger. Because you might feel uncomfortable/guilty to feel your anger. Do you think there might be some truth in it?

    Currently I listen to a lot of music to let my emotions dissipate in a healthy way but have caught the negative habit of binge eating too.

    I’ve suffered from an eating disorder for many years, and I know that binge eating or any other disordered eating usually serves to soothe ourselves. To soothe the pain of e.g. not feeling good enough. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I didn’t know it was a way to soothe myself. So I judged myself harshly, hating myself for being so undisciplined and such a freak. Each ED episode reinforced my belief that I was unlovable, that there was something terribly wrong with me….

    Many years later, I came across the concept of the inner child, and I realized how starved for love that little girl was… but instead of love, I was giving her food – a lousy surrogate for love. Once I gave her what she really needed – love and compassion and acceptance – that’s when my ED went away. It was a gradual process, it didn’t happen overnight, but the key moment was getting in touch with my inner child and meeting my unmet emotional needs.

    Now that my environment is more peaceful and me having a lot of headspace unlike in the past, i am able to think more clearly so that I can work on myself.

    You’ve mentioned that you don’t live with your family any more, if I understood well (“my family has split up and we don’t get on each others’ nerves anymore“). You also mentioned in June 2017 that you might get married later that year. Would you like to share some more about that? I am confused whether you’ve split up from your family of origin or perhaps your partner? Sorry for prying – please only share more if you feel comfortable talking about it.

     

    #410239
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    Your kind reply made me smile, thank you!

    You wrote in your most recent post (Nov 17, 2022): “Currently I listen to a lot of music to let my emotions dissipate in a healthy way, but have caught the negative habit of binge eating too“.

    Back in Oct 2016, you mentioned your desire to make good memories 3 times: “I feel like making good memories.. I finally want to make some good memories in life and make friends… I’ll work on making good memories”.

    In January 2017, you wrote: “I want to get back to being cheerfulI want to find love, freedom, joy within myself and without… I want to forget everything, be reborn and just have fun”.

    In June 2017, you mentioned good memories again: “Just to set a context, I want to a write a line or two about my family… we never made any memories…  All of us have been depressed on and off.we have intimately suffered as a family… I wish there were good memories… I want to be joyous, healthy and have fun”.

    It seems clear to me that what motivates your binge eating (same as has motivated my own past binge eating) is to substitute the bad memories of your childhood with the good feelings involved in eating;  to no longer feel the familial depression and intimate suffering and instead, to feel good, cheerful, to feel as good as love, freedom, joy, health and fun feel (all the words you used).

    I suffered from binge eating for quite a while, and I will be glad to share about my struggles with it and how it came about that I no longer binge eat. If you are interested, please let me know.

    anita

    #410240
    Peter
    Participant

    I might recommend Joseph Campbell ‘Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation’

    Campbell defined myth as “other people’s religion.” But he also said that one of the basic functions of myth is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a sort of travel guide or map to reach fulfillment — or, as he called it, bliss. For Campbell, many of the world’s most powerful myths support the individual’s heroic path toward bliss.

    In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell examines this personal, psychological side of myth.  Here he anchors mythology’s symbolic wisdom to the individual, applying the most poetic mythical metaphors to the challenges of our daily lives.

    Campbell dwells on life’s important questions. Combining cross-cultural stories with the teachings of modern psychology, he examines the ways in which our myths shape and enrich our lives and shows how story/myth can help each of us truly identify and follow our bliss.

    Another book you may like is  “Reflections on the Art of Living – A Joseph Campbell Companion” by Diane K. Osbon

    #410512
    humour
    Participant

    Hi Anita & Tee,

    Thank you for sharing your struggles related to binge eating.

    I do want to get out of the cycle of binge eating, even if it is gradual.

    I usually don’t get angry easily, yet I will think on the lines you have mentioned, Tee.

    Actually the split is in my family of origin and it was natural, due to death and my sibling moving out after being marriage. I am looking out for a partner but haven’t been successful on that front.

    Hi Peter,

    I saw a video titled “Finding your bliss” by Joseph Campbell. He describes purpose in a spiritual sense. Materialistically speaking, I used to work in a place which made me very happy but was not high paying and therefore now I am compelled to work in a field which offers high compensation but I think I am not happy (not entirely sure though). I will read up more on what Joseph Campbell has to say about purpose & the art of living

     

    #410521
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    You are welcome!

    I do want to get out of the cycle of binge eating, even if it is gradual“- if you want to talk about binge eating with me, I will be glad to share my experience. Before I do, if you are willing, you are welcome to describe in some detail your personal binge eating cycle: what do your binge episodes consist of, when do they happen, what feelings precede it, and what feelings follow it…?

    anita

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 55 total)

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