Instructor: Rainsong
Date: January 19, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: The Pink Elephant Problem (suggested by Rose Cinderfall) -Saturday, 19 January, 2019 scheduled for 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time but actually starting at 5:30– text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong — Search LECTURE58
Europe: man i missed these lectures, awesome
Rose Cinderfall: they’re so good \:)
Rainsong: I’m glad they are enjoyed
Europe: absolutely, they’re always very elucidating and inspire a lot of good discussion
Rainsong: “…What am I supposed to do about the fears fueling stuff?…How can I neutralize it?”
Goatmistress: Think a new thought?
But that’s too obvious. Nobody wants to hear that.
Rose Cinderfall: indeed… i’m looking more for a method to make the fears not do anything, no matter how much they assault me
no matter how vivid the imagery
Rainsong: And I have a few of those for you (and anyone else who wants ’em) to try
Goatmistress: That’s what Rain will teach you
I wouldn’t want to spoil the lecture by giving my own thoughts on it (which are probably darn close to Rain’s)
hehe
Rose Cinderfall: i should add, not just fears but also thoughts of things i don’t want to cause
Europe: possibly unpopular opinion here, but worth saying regardless; if you consume marijuana, there’s probably a chance that this is contributing to such runaway thoughts. i used to be in this situation myself and it wasn’t until i quit, then attempted to smoke again many years later that i realized it
Rose Cinderfall: well… i’m not on marijuana, i just have a bad anxiety problem
Europe: i see, then it doesn’t apply in your case 🙂
Rainsong: Good to have it in there, though.
Rose Cinderfall: yeah! this is for anyone who might read this..
Rainsong: We’re kinda neutral on the pharmaceutical question here, for the most part. But much of the research that has been done – by folks with no interest at all in the legality – has mostly shown no advantage to pharmaceutical assistance with commonly available substances
Rainsong: Anyway, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to another psionics seminar here at the social club.
Rainsong: We’ve started earlier than our scheduled time. On the other hand, it’s not exactly unusual for folks to join in partway through for various reasons. And it’s a text-format, so they can read back if they want to.
Rainsong: Our topic for the evening is the problem of “thoughts you can’t get out of your head” interfering with or prompting psionic effects you don’t want, and the effects and control of emotional responses to stuff….more or less
Rainsong: Also, please keep in mind that there are many entirely valid and workable ways to do psionics. What I teach is predicated on a) what I do, and b) what I can convey in textchat without causing too many fatal errors
Rainsong: Yes, there are also many ways that don’t work. But mine are definitely not the only ones that do
Rainsong: Also, any given method may or may not work for any given person.
As Goatie puts it: your mileage may vary
Rainsong: Questions and/or commentary before we proceed? I’ve sort-of pasted one above, that prompted our starting early tonight. Anyone/anything else?
Europe: i’m good, just interested in your take
Rose Cinderfall: none from me for now
Rainsong: Alright…
We’re discussing real-world psionics, as usual.
Rainsong: But, this is the stuff that figures heavily in the “explanations” of what psionicists do, in rpg rulebooks from the 1970s and 80s, too. In fact, it was much of what separated the characters from the magic users and clerical types…. Wrestling with proverbial demons, rather than real ones.
Rainsong: Well, the games got this part right. Sort of. (Other energy-workers/magic-users also have this problem)
Rainsong: Because we can use emotions to add strength to what we’re doing, it’s pretty obvious that emotions affect stuff.
Rainsong: It’s certainly possible to broadcast a shockwave of intense emotion. And even folks who’ve never done deliberate energy-work in their lives – and haven’t even heard of it – routinely broadcast loud emotions unintentionally.
Rainsong: So, it’s certainly something to be aware of.
Rainsong: In fact, rather a lot of “poltergeist” activity is or appears to be accidental pk by folks whose emotions are out of control (or hormonal fluctuations, resulting in emotions are out of control)
Rainsong: I leave to your imagination the results of an irritated telekinetic with PMS.
Rose Cinderfall: laughs
Europe: As a married man, I both laugh and resent that notion.
Go on. Lol
Rainsong: As a female telekinetic, let’s just say I’m speaking from experience here
Rose Cinderfall: wouldn’t want to be in the same room
Europe: I’m not doubting the notion, I’m saying I’ve seen it
Anyways
Rainsong: So, part of what we will be discussing this evening is taking voluntary control of the emotions.
Rainsong: The other part will be about those out-of-control thought patterns.
Rainsong: Before we get to either of those, however, we’re going to discuss the idea of accidentally doing something harmful while projecting…
Rainsong: … because I believe that was the concern that prompted the topic request in the first place.
Rose Cinderfall: …one of them
it was about causing things one doesn’t want, in general. including while projecting to someone
but it also includes energy work (causing someone to feel bad, for example), and PK
Rainsong: Fair enough.
Rainsong: While an uncontrolled thought on its own won’t cause things to happen, focusing on it a lot while also having intense emotions (fear and anger are the most common for this… the related “frustration” is also a prime suspect) can make things happen.
Rainsong: So, yea, it’s a real problem. And in some cases, especially early on, the only sure way to prevent it is to avoid whatever prompts the fear and thoughts. (To use your example from earlier conversation today: unannounced astral hugs)
Rainsong: However, that’s not the only option
There is a mental exercise for deliberately switching out one emotion for another. It’s safe and relatively easy, and so it’s worth a try
Rainsong: taking a moment to nab the website of the folks who came up with this one
Rainsong: https://www.heartmath.org/resources/heartmath-tools/
Rainsong: And the specific exercise I recommend is the one for pre-schoolers: https://www.heartmath.org/resources/heartmath-tools/shift-and-shine-technique-for-ages-3-6/
Rainsong: and this one: https://www.heartmath.org/resources/heartmath-tools/notice-and-ease-tool/
Rainsong: You know, it’d make more sense I think, to take a look at those two (they are short) and ask any questions that arise from them.
Rainsong: Let me know when you’ve taken a look, and then we’ll continue
Rose Cinderfall: i started reading them the moment you posted them. i’m on the 3rd link
Rose Cinderfall: done. ShadowRain posted this a few days ago, you pretty much want us to do this? https://elodieunderglass.tumblr.com/post/174834482689/on-the-validity-of-recognizing-emotions
Rainsong: No. Although you can thank ’em if you want to. Why not? The idea is to change the emotion to a positive one (or two make the initial emotion milder, if you prefer), rather than to just recognise it
Rose Cinderfall: okay
so.. i’ve taken a look. any others who are reading it?
Rainsong: And notice the kid one changes whatever they’re starting from to love and happy?
You can choose something else to change it to, of course, but those make for a pretty good default.
Rainsong: Any other questions arising from those?
Rose Cinderfall: ….yes, actually…
that’s pretty much what i’ve been using when the fears assault me
try to think of ones i love, and of things i do want
but… it doesn’t work so well. It’s a constant game of mental tug of war
between the imagery of what i don’t want, and what i do want… or in this case, the positive thing, the ones i love
Rainsong: Ahhhh. Okay. Found the issue. There’s a piece missing.
And it’s fixable 🙂
We’ll get back to the thought part
Rainsong: For this, the reason the kid is told to think of someone or something they love is to call the feeling to mind so they can remember what it feels like
Rainsong: The kid can (and usually does) send this feeling to someone, also. But they don’t actually need to. And the someone isn’t necessarily the one they were thinking of to call the feeling to mind
Rainsong: Practice deliberately feeling love and happiness when you don’t need it, and this gets easier
Rainsong: It’s even okay to start off by faking the emotion, as though you were going to use it to add oomph to something else
Rainsong: Hmm. Have I completely lost you with that?
Rose Cinderfall: no
that makes sense
Rainsong: (Also, @Goatmistress re your earlier comment: Your opinions and ideas are always valued here)
Goatmistress: Thanks!
Rainsong: So, Rose: I’d suggest trying the Shine-and-Shift one a few times a day, to practice it, and then see if it helps when you need it.
Rainsong: I’ve found it useful, personally.
Rose Cinderfall: your version of it? Where I practice feeling love and happiness, not necessarily with that exact method?
Rainsong: Another one that is useful for dealing with emotions is EFT, which we’ve discussed before. The original textbook for EFT (pages 15-27 or so are the useful bits): https://web.archive.org/web/20160220065506/http://www.spiritual-web.com/downloads/eftmanual.pdf A shorter one that is still thorough and helpful (pages 4-15 are the main explanation): https://web.archive.org/web/20100215025853/http://www.thetappingsolution.com:80/TappingSolutionEbook.pdf
Rainsong: Rose: Practice feeling the love and happiness part, and then follow the directions in the breathing exercise to let those emotions replace whatever emotion had been being felt
Rainsong: So, once you’ve gotten the hang of calling the “love and happiness” part to mind, try the exercise as written when you’re feeling bored or nervous or fearful or annoyed
Rose Cinderfall: the breathing exercise from that website, or the one Europe explained?
Rainsong: The idea is for the “love and happiness” to flow in with the breath to push the other emotion out
Rainsong: The Shift and Shine one from the website. I haven’t read most of today’s log in the main room, so I don’t know which one Europe explained.
Rainsong: Europe: Does it sound like your exercise would also be handy for changing out an emotion?
Rose Cinderfall: [11:04 AM] Europe: Rose, do me a favor; take a deep breath through your nose, hold it for several moments, feel the sensation beginning to radiate from your chest. Once this begins, tell us what thought you’re having
Rose Cinderfall: and then eventually i breathe out when i feel like it. It’s the first breathing exercise that actually works for me, but that’s very personal and not applicable to every reader of this lecture
Rose Cinderfall: (i pasted it because Europe doesn’t seem to be present)
Rainsong: Ahhh. Thanks. That is also an excellent breathing exercise, but it is not the same thing.
Rainsong: I think it would be to your advantage to practice both. But not at exactly the same moment.
Rainsong: a couple of interesting papers, for those who like academic stuff: https://www.heartmath.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Johnson_Johnson_Diabetes_Study.pdf and https://memberfiles.freewebs.com/36/89/39558936/documents/facilitating-emotional-self-regulation-in-preschool-children.pdf (I have no connection to the HeartMath people. I just find their stuff useful)
Rainsong: We’ve discussed EFT in depth at various times, so not much point in taking up seminar time in the basic description of it, either. But do you have any questions about it?
Rainsong: You might want to try something along the lines of “Even though I have this fear of hurting people whom I astrally hug….”
Rose Cinderfall: well… my main problem with EFT is memorizing the whole process, it’s quite a lot to remember. Do you have any advice about that?
Rainsong: Don’t memorize it? Use a one-page cheat-sheet instead?
Rainsong: http://www.centerforinnerhealing.com/eft/eft_on_a_page.pdf
Europe: Sorry, I’m half here atm
Rainsong: Not to worry, Europe. That’s fine.
Rose Cinderfall: so.. since i’m making this so confusing for myself for some reason, please allow me to recap it and see if i understood everything correctly..
Europe: QQ; EFT stands for?
Rainsong: Emotional Freedom Technique
Europe: Got it. Thanks!
Rainsong: (not to be confused with “electronic fund transfer”… Or a juvenile newt)
Rose Cinderfall: I am to use the methods for “summoning” an emotion that I normally use for adding to oomph, therefore skipping Step 1 of Shift and Shine, replacing Step 3 (“heart feeling”) with that other method, and doing Step 2 (“heart breathing”) as the final step?
Rainsong: The book that Gary Craig initially put out (and the first EFT link goes there) is free and legally available for download. The production is… amateurish at best, and comes across as flaky as hell. However, that method has shown good results in treating phobias and PTSD
Rainsong: Rose: That’ll work, yes
Rose Cinderfall: okay! 😀
Europe: Thanks for that, I’ll check it out
Rose Cinderfall: and I am to do that whenever i’m thinking these fearful thoughts of what i don’t want to be causing?
Rainsong: EFT can be used to get take the emotional baggage out of a thought you’re stuck on, which can un-stuck it, too. “Even though I’m still thinking about (whatever the thought is)….” or “Even though I keep thinking about (whatever the thought is)”…
Rainsong: Rose: Practice the Shift and Shine so it’s nice and easy to do. And then, yes, use it when you’re feeling fearful because of those thoughts
Rose Cinderfall: okay.
Rainsong: And use the EFT cheat-sheet to see about getting rid of the unwanted focus on the thought itself.
That’s where I’d suggest starting from.
Rainsong: Also effective for getting around the “stuck on a thought” problem? Find another thought to replace it.
Rainsong: Here again, start out when you’re not in the middle of a problem. Find a catchy tune, or a pretty/interesting picture, and practice re-creating it in detail.
Rainsong: (It can be helpful to also make a gesture with your hand when you practice that. For example, clenching a fist or crossing the first two fingers. Something easy)
Rainsong: Then, when an unwanted thought comes up, make that gesture and re-create the tune or picture
Rainsong: Although it can be very effective, this one is much more difficult than the EFT approach, for many people.
Rainsong: Questions at this point? Commentary?
Rose Cinderfall: how am I supposed to use EFT in such a moment where i am struggling to not think of things i don’t want to cause? Considering the EFT process takes quite a while and is a complicated process with very precise steps?
Rainsong: Not at the time, no. Beforehand. You’ve mentioned thoughts that happen and cause problems. So do EFT about/on them before they come up again
Rose Cinderfall: ohh, okay, that makes sense!
so use Shift and Shine in the moment the thoughts happen, and use EFT preventively?
Rainsong: Yes
Rose Cinderfall: okay
Rainsong: Okay, so this ended up going in a slightly different direction than planned, but I think we’ve got some useful bits happening
Are there any questions, comments, suggestions, new ideas to add?
Goatmistress: I liked it.
Rose Cinderfall: was that everything that was planned for the lecture?
Rainsong: “Planned” was “things that can be put into action now and over the next few days to solve Rose’s problem”
Rainsong: The precise nature of the problem was a bit different from what I was originally thinking it was, and so adjusted the advice accordingly
Goatmistress: There are no problems, only solutions.
Rose Cinderfall: i’ll be trying them, and hoping they work, but i’ll be honest, at this point i don’t see how this will solve it
but i’ll try them anyway and hope it does work
Rainsong: Hmm. So, does this mean I’m still mis-interpreting what the problem is? (That’s entirely possible, obviously)
Rose Cinderfall: ..yes, perhaps
Rose Cinderfall: though what’s kind of annoying is that i’m in a weird state today, that’s making it harder to think clearly, making it harder to understand the entire lecture.
Rainsong: If you stop obsessing on the thought and get rid of the intense emotion (fear, in this case) the stray thought and emotion shouldn’t produce an effect
Rainsong: It is bad luck to be superstitious, because focusing emotion on a long-held thought can make the thought become reality
Rainsong: Especially something like your hug-to-damage possibility
Rose Cinderfall: …and it is the emotion, not the focus itself, that does it?
Rainsong: Combination of the two. The emotion “powers” it, and the focus “directs” it
To do something deliberately also requires intention
But, as in the poltergeist examples, sometimes things happen below the “intentional” level
Which of course brings us to an obvious question:
Have you accidentally hurt anyone, or are you just worried that you might?
Rose Cinderfall: i have, once
according to that person
but she said it was when i was freaking out really badly about accidentally doing it
and 99% of the time i don’t actually cause it
mostly, i’m just very worried that i might.
Rainsong: As a backup plan, which I know you will not like, you could make a Shield around yourself to prevent accidental contact
Rainsong: I’m guessing that more than 90% of empaths hate using Shielding to prevent contact
Rose Cinderfall: ..you’re correct in that i will not like that
Rainsong: It’s an option, though, if all else fails
Rose Cinderfall: that’s true
Goatmistress: Like wearing a blindfold
Rose Cinderfall: i have more questions about what you were saying earlier though (and i am sorry about being so.. dense… about this particular subject)
Rainsong: I’ve placed inverted Shields around empaths who were throwing a lot of emotional stuff around, before. Absorbing, if their assaults were accidental. Mirrored, if they weren’t
Rose Cinderfall: If i were to be focusing on such a thought (“harming the person i’m near to (via projection)”), and seeing imagery of it… if there was only focus but the emotional load was absent, would it still accidentally happen?
Rainsong: This is exactly the right time for questions. It’ll be easy to find the answers again later. 😀
Can you give me more detail about the thought itself?
Rose Cinderfall: okay. I’ll provide the full example
Rainsong: (It affects what the answer to your question is)
Rose Cinderfall: In this example: I’ve projected towards someone using Partial Projection aka Remote Presence. I’m near to them, and i’ve verified that they can feel my touch and that we’re actually interacting and not just text roleplaying. I then think of what i don’t want to do – hurt that person, for example by astrally “stabbing” them. I see imagery of that which I don’t want to do… Normally, with that would be coupled a lot of emotion, one of which is fear.. the others are sadness and a general feeling of “please no, i don’t want this”. But if I were to be thinking of that action I don’t want to do, and seeing imagery of it, without the emotional load (fear, sadness, and so on) being there.. Would it still be causing anything, or is it in that case, as I said in my original question.. neutralized? no chance of it causing anything? completely harmless?
Rainsong: It’s much less likely to happen without the emotional load.
Still possible. Better than “no, I don’t want to do this” would be “I want to (do something else, specific) instead”
Rainsong: Because the part of the mind that seems to do the accidental stuff does not process negative grammatical structures. It would understand “I don’t want to do this” as “I want to do this”
Rainsong: So, again, choose something else ahead of time, so you can call it up immediately. “I want to give them a nice shoulder rub instead” or whatever.
Rainsong: Or “I just want to stay over here and chat”
Rose Cinderfall: well… that’s also something i do (think of what i do want instead of what i don’t want), though usually i’ve been thinking of the opposite of what i don’t want (thinking of stabbing? think of healing instead) – but again, it becomes a mental game of tug of war, constantly fighting to get my focus onto the thought of healing instead of the thought of stabbing. And.. that’s really exhausting, too.
Europe: rain just nailed it entirely
positive redirection
Rose Cinderfall: would it be different if i instead, like you suggested, chose something ahead of time, that wasn’t the opposite of what i don’t want?
Europe: also, may i interject for a moment, @Rainsong?
Rainsong: Rose: As long as it’s phrased positively, it can be whatever you feel like
Rainsong: Europe: please do
Europe: ok, rose, this is one i find particularly useful; when you hear or think of a word, as we all do, we conceptualize it for what its underlying, integral value is
Rose Cinderfall: well.. in that case… that doesn’t seem to work for me. I try, but the fearful imagery keeps popping up, “stealing” my focus back to it. So I redirect my focus back to the positive thing (opposite of stabbing – healing), but the imagery keeps popping up. And so, my focus swings back and forth between positive and negative
Europe: try not to use words when avoiding thoughts but, rather, the concepts that you associate with those words
it’s far more effective and efficient when you handle your internal thought processes without effectively castrating them by giving them an inherent linguistic value
it sounds far more complicated than it is
but you know your mind, you know the associations and connotations you have between words and the concepts which they embody
words are entirely meaningless beyond the conscious layer of cognition and ad-hoc conversation
Rose Cinderfall: so you mean, thinking of the concept behind the words, when trying to redirect my thoughts towards the positive?
Europe: bingo
Rose Cinderfall: yes, that may be faster…
Europe: it is faster, and it is easier once you get the hang of it
we all know happiness as a word, and that word holds the essentially same relativistic value to everyone
but you, you know inside yourself what that happiness feels like
that’s far more visceral and effective than the abstraction of the word
Rainsong: And, it’ll both be easier and more effective once you have the emotional part in hand
Europe: ^
Rose Cinderfall: so then i’d be getting to the positive thoughts faster while stuck in that “mental game of tug of war”..
Europe: in my personal opinion and experience; yes
Rose Cinderfall: …but i’d still be bombarded with the imagery trying to steal my focus away
Europe: that’s the thing though
not enough people realize the significance of emotion
that emotion has the power to guide away such visualization
this all goes back to emotions, no matter which way you slice it
Rose Cinderfall: so are you saying, that when i get more control over consciously inducing emotions, emotions like happiness will reduce the bombardment of those thoughts that try to steal my focus?
Europe: think of a difficult moment in your life, but where you were also happy, and then try to consider that same difficulty in a time when you weren’t happy
it didn’t feel so bad if you were happy, right?
Rose Cinderfall: right
Europe: right, so our thoughts, especially the heavy, unpleasant ones
they tend to weigh us down far more when we are not happy
controlling your emotional state, in all reality, will not remove your visuals, but they will counteract their significance
if you have a bad visual, and you know it is bad, but you’re too happy to pay it much mind, you’re significantly lessening the impact of that visual
both internally and externally
the same is true in reverse, we tend to take difficult situations and exacerbate them to points where they may be far more significant than they may be otherwise, or realistically
Rose Cinderfall: so basically, if i’m seeing such a bad fearful visual of a thing i don’t want to cause, but i manage to induce and feel happiness while seeing it, instead of fear, then that thing i don’t want to cause won’t happen? and there would be no chance of me causing it unwantedly, then, either?
Rainsong: Much, much lower chance. In fact, without the fear backing it up, the visual’s less likely to show up, too
Europe: not necessarily, many things are beyond our control. we may be learning to harness the power of the mind, but we are mortals. this is inevitable whether or not you practice psionics. but, you can effectively cancel it out by just not feeding it
Europe: and yeah, rain is right, your psychological state significantly impacts your internal visualizations
i’d like to point to this article
one moment to find it
Europe: https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/
Europe: if you consider schizophrenia, not really pertinent to this discussion (at least, we all hope), schizophrenics often suffer from auditory hallucinations in which they hear voices
Europe: people in america are prone to hear abusive, toxic, even life threatening voices
but people in, say, india, for example
they tend to hear happy, or positive voices
in all circumstances, schizophrenia or otherwise, you can make good bad, or bad good
depending on your perception of it
even ingrained tendencies from childhood can be completely rewritten
with significant effort, but can be done regardless
Rose Cinderfall: makes sense
Rose Cinderfall: Rainsong: How low of a chance are we talking? When fear and other negative emotions are not being fed to the thought and imagery, why would there still be a chance of it being caused accidentally? In that example of astrally stabbing
Europe: i think you’re getting too caught up on the possibility
we live in a probablistic universe
there are an infinite number of possibilities
but your intent is significant
here, give this a read
you may find it beneficial
Europe: https://www.intrusivethoughts.org/
Rose Cinderfall: thank you, i’ll take a deeper look at that sometime.. someone sent me a link on that site, an article about Pure O OCD, which seems to be what i’m struggling with
Rainsong: Rose: I’d call it very low. Negligible, even, seeing as it’s only happened once with the fear there.
Rose Cinderfall: I mean, there is consciously causing something psionic, which if you’re doing well there’s a very high chance of it happening.. Then there’s the freaking out i keep describing. And then there’s not focusing on doing psionics or energy work at all, and instead focusing on, say.. watching a movie. In the latter case it won’t ever happen as far as i know. The chance is so low that it won’t happen by your hand. Is the chance as low as that example where one is watching a movie?
Rainsong: Around there, yea
It’s non-zero, but very low
(the movie one is also non-zero)
Europe: btw, i’m not making any diagnosis or suggestion about compulsitivity
it’s a beneficial read even if you don’t experience this
Rose Cinderfall: so, hearkening back to what you said earlier here:
Rose Cinderfall: “I then think of what i don’t want to do – hurt that person, for example by astrally “stabbing” them. I see imagery of that which I don’t want to do… Normally, with that would be coupled a lot of emotion, one of which is fear.. the others are sadness and a general feeling of “please no, i don’t want this”. But if I were to be thinking of that action I don’t want to do, and seeing imagery of it, without the emotional load (fear, sadness, and so on) being there.. Would it still be causing anything, or is it in that case, as I said in my original question.. neutralized? no chance of it causing anything? completely harmless? [1:38 AM] Rainsong: It’s much less likely to happen without the emotional load. (feel free to create a link that just scrolls back to the relevant part on the page, in the finished published lecture)
Rose Cinderfall: when you said much less likely, is that kind of “non-zero, but very low”, as in the movie example… what you meant?
Rainsong: nods Roughly “watching a random movie” levels, yes
Rose Cinderfall: okay. So as a recap (gosh, talking about this subject makes me feel low on intelligence.. there have not been many subjects in energy work, so far, that I am having such a hard time grasping), Without such negative emotional load, the thought of what i don’t want to do won’t be fueled by it, reducing the chance of me causing that to near-zero, “watching a movie”-level? AND With positive emotional load, it also reduces the fuel to the thought i don’t want to do, to near-zero level? And then, that doesn’t make sense, because positive emotions can also charge something with oomph?..
Rainsong: Some topics are more difficult than others. Not to worry.
Rainsong: Positive emotions are also more difficult to use to fuel things.
Why? I don’t know. (Possibly connected to an evolutionary purpose for psionic ability – it occurs in a lot of very different species, after all)
The positive emotion is also more likely to re-direct what you’re thinking about to something less stabby, too
(Unless you’re a fan of stabbing. But if you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?)
Rose Cinderfall: (indeed. In fact, the more i love someone, the worse this problem of fearing accidentally harming gets)
Rose Cinderfall: so..
Rose Cinderfall: “Without such negative emotional load, the thought of what i don’t want to do won’t be fueled by it, reducing the chance of me causing that to near-zero, “watching a movie”-level? AND With positive emotional load, it also reduces the fuel to the thought i don’t want to do, to near-zero level?” ^ These are both true?
Rainsong: Yep
Chirotractor: One thing I’m thinking of
and I’m a little iffy on it so some clever person feel free to countermand it
Rose Cinderfall: i’ll wait with what i was typing until Chiro finishes
Chirotractor: Just push the feeling and image forwards as a communication instead of an action
Rose Cinderfall: i don’t understand what you mean
Rainsong: I believe he means to turn the image and emotion into a telepathic Sending.
Rose Cinderfall: ..nope, i think that’s a bad idea
that would likely have me harming people via telepathy
Rainsong: It’s a coin-toss (even chance) as to whether it would solve her own problem, and her person there would probably take it as a threat
However, for some situations, it can work really well.
I just don’t think that’s likely to be Rose’s best option right now
Rose Cinderfall: useful for anyone reading this lecture, though.
Rainsong: Thanks for suggesting it, though, Chiro
Rose Cinderfall: so what i was typing:
Rose Cinderfall: So, then, the key is to regulate my emotional state while these thoughts pop up.. that removes the fuel to the thoughts, making them have a near-zero chance of causing anything… that is the key of the lesson of this lecture.. yes? And the using EFT before i get into a mental game of tug of war, in order to reduce the thoughts popping up.. is an added bonus, to reduce the frequency of those thoughts? But even if I were to apply only the key lesson, and not the EFT one, it’d effectively solve the problem? (I’d like an answer to every question here individually)
Rainsong: Yes. Yes, although I still think it’s a good idea as a backup. It should, yes… but, again, I’d still recommend the EFT as a backup
Rainsong: I’m a firm believer in redundant systems, when safety and psionics are involved
Backup plans are my friends
Chirotractor: The more things you have to do that aren’t indulging your worry the less reason there even is to worry in the first place
Rose Cinderfall: I agree, and it’s good to know that regulating emotions like that would be enough to solve the problem
Rose Cinderfall: okay. So i’m just gonna summarize all this (this was quite a long discussion), then ask using that summary whether i got everything correctly, ok?..
Rainsong: Sure
Rose Cinderfall: The key is to consciously induce a positive emotional state (such as love and happiness), and have it replace the negative emotions such as fear. This, while thoughts of causing unwanted things, and thoughts of unwanted things happening, pop up. That removes the fuel (that fuel being the negative emotions) to the thoughts, making them have a near-zero chance of causing anything.
The way to alter the emotional state is by using a modified version of the Shift and Shine technique, that goes like this:
1. Induce a feeling of love and happiness using one’s preferred technique
2. Focus on the heart and pretend to be breathing in and out of the heart
3. No need to send the feeling to someone else, so basically no step 3
Positive emotions will not fuel things I don’t want to cause.
EFT can be used when not struggling to not think of unwanted actions, to reduce the frequency at which these thoughts pop up in the future..
Regulating the emotions like that can also make the unwanted thoughts pop up less.
It helps to think of the concepts of thoughts (such as the concept of healing, instead of the word “healing”) instead of the more indirect words defining those concepts, in order to get there faster and get the upper hand in that “mental game of tug of war”
Rose Cinderfall: any of that incorrect?
Europe: looks good to me
Rainsong: For the Shift and Shine part: bring to mind the feeling as strongly as you can, and “pretend” the emotion is coming into your heart from the sun, with each of the breaths. The movement part makes the thing easier to do
Rainsong: Otherwise, looks good
Rose Cinderfall: Okay. Now while I don’t want to drag this on any longer, there is still one part of that summary i don’t understand. Should I ask that here or in social-hall?
Rainsong: Makes sense to keep it here.
Goatmistress: Yeah that’s a good idea, Rain. You don’t want to actually connect the positive emotion with what you don’t want.
Rose Cinderfall: “Positive emotions will not fuel things I don’t want to cause.” ^ I still don’t understand this one
Goatmistress: You’re seeing the positive coming in from the sun, so you’re not vonnecting the postive with the undesired outcome. You’re using the positive to displace the fear that IS connected with the negative outcome.
Does that make sense?
Rose Cinderfall: ..no, sorry, it doesn’t 🙁
not as an answer to that question, at least
Chirotractor: Obviously the best course of action is to repress your emotions so much that it takes active concentration to be aware of them.
Europe: :facepalm:
Goatmistress: That would take all the fun out of life
Wayfarer: But also the not fun!
Rainsong: But also, for some reason, positive emotions take more effort to use as fuel
Wayfarer:
Rose Cinderfall: but so much more effort that it becomes a near-zero chance of causing?
Chirotractor: … was the sarcasm not clear?
Rose Cinderfall: …i too am annoyed by my denseness on this subject >.<
Europe: the facepalm was more geared towards the fact that we made it so far without sarcasm
Europe: lol
Rose Cinderfall: i mean, i think anyone reading this lecture would’ve grasped it already a few pages ago
Chirotractor: sorry.. I was distracted for most of this
Wayfarer: The denseness comes, in my opinion, from trying to make this an intellectual problem that you need to solve by understanding some intellectual point from a manual, rather than a practical application that you solve by actually applying the things.
Europe: ^this
so much this
Chirotractor: just feel it out mah dude
Goatmistress: Yeah, using emotions as fuel can be a very complicated topic, but this is just a specific application of it here.
Chirotractor: 😛
Rose Cinderfall: i do have that “manual” almost complete, in the form of that summary up there…
in my eyes, the final piece of it is understanding that question about positive emotions being or not being fuel
Chirotractor: (Also positive emotions are easy to use specifically for very broad and slightly vague things)
Wayfarer: In the monasteries they don’t answer questions like “how does the application of mindfulness actually bring about inner peace” by like, getting out a neuropsychology textbook and also delineating the ways in which it benefits us to have emotions grounded in the actual state of things and to acknowledge them as transient and ephemeral psychological states. They answer that question by saying “heyo great question, meditate and see if it works for you.”
Goatmistress: hehe
Rainsong: Rose: They are, but they are much more difficult to use, such that they almost never fuel things accidentally
Wayfarer: In this case the theoretical information about how an emotion is functioning as a fuel isn’t going to be the piece that cracks the code and instantiates the intellectual knowledge into reality. It’s just going to be a manual that, unpracticed, doesn’t give you any result.
Rose Cinderfall: Rainsong: but positive emotions do seem usable to cause things i do want? for example when healing someone, that’s usually backed by positive feelings such as love
Goatmistress: That’s true
Rose Cinderfall: … but now that i think about it, i don’t think trying to cause the stabbing of someone while fueling that with love, would work very well
Europe: it definitely shouldn’t, not unless your name is Abraham
Wayfarer: Put another way, there’s a reason why car repair manuals don’t actually include the calculations necessary for balancing the catalytic converter vis a vis oxygen reaction. You just need to know where the catalytic converter is, and how to change it. The reason is that mechanics don’t need to know the ins and outs of chemical catalyzation – and if you don’t change the converter until you understand that chemistry it’s going to be a lot longer before your car’s emissions are improved.
Wayfarer: VIolence done out of compassion is possibly by highly realized beings. But they don’t become highly realized beings by coming up with a complete synopsis.
Or even in one lifetime, for that matter, but that’s neither here nor there.
Goatmistress: I’m like you, Rose. I like to understand the why of everything. But it’s just too big a topic for now.
Rose Cinderfall: :facepalm: okay Wayfarer, if approaching this so precisely like a manual is the wrong way to go about it, then what should i do instead with what Rainsong explained in this lecture?
Rainsong: Yep, positive emotions can be used, for example, in healing. But unless you’ve very deliberately set it up to do so, it doesn’t happen by accident. Still don’t know why
Wayfarer: Put fairly bluntly, there’s no academic shortcut to solving problems that involve emotions. You’re just gonna have to employ the techniques involved and see if they resolve your problems and, if they don’t, adopt, adapt, and improve on that. And if they do, job done, and you didn’t have to solve the problem.
Wayfarer: Uh
Europe: well
Wayfarer: Okay put extremely bluntly: actually practice the stuff.
Is what you should do with it.
Europe: so you should be going about it like the way Rainsong explained it
but going about it
not thinking about it
think of it like this, if theory was enough, you’d be able to get a top dollar job straight out of college. there’s a reason employers ask for experience
Wayfarer: So a few months ago, I took a class called “the transpersonal relationship” targeted at counselors looking to adapt transpersonal techniques into their therapy. And I was expecting an academic course. I was expecting to learn about it, rather than to learn it experientially. And I was a little annoyed when the class started off with like, “do these yoga poses in the morning and do these grounding and centering exercises in the evening” and so on.
Rose Cinderfall: Rainsong: wow, that’s interesting… So positive emotions only fuel that which you actually want, not the things you don’t want to be causing by accident?
Europe: you learn things, ways of addressing situations that theory can’t or didn’t teach you
Wayfarer: Because I was expecting an academic thing and I got a practical, experiential thing. But in this scenario we can’t really be upset by that, because, well, you’re looking for practical solutions to practical problems. So like, do the thing.
Rose Cinderfall: yeah, you’re right, Wayfarer… i’ve got the summary now, i guess i’ve just gotta.. have faith in “Positive emotions will not fuel things I don’t want to cause.” being true, while i practice it?..
Wayfarer: And just to continue with examples, I’m huntin’ some monsters in a game right now. And I can explain to you how to fight a Nergigante or a Kushala Daora, right? Like I can explain all their moves and all your moves and the right timings and how to dodge their attacks and all that shit. But until you actually log into the game and so on none of that will make sense. You’ll be like “oh but how do I actually mount with the overheads?” And I’ll explain “oh well overhead attacks build mounting on a meter…” and you’ll say “oh but how do I do an overhead attack?” and I’ll say “well you can use a ledge and…” but at some point you just kinda have to play the game.
Wayfarer: Also, Monster Hunter World is a v good game.
Capcom pay me for the ad tia
Rainsong: Or really dive into the EFT and get rid of the fear. But that gets tricky on its own, unless the fear is very specific and easy to pin down. In this case, I suspect that something else is under-lying the fear of stabbing folks accidentally. So, I’d want to have both approaches in progress.
Wayfarer: Just practice it and see if it’s true.
Europe: @Rose Cinderfall i think your big problem is that you’re afraid of failure, but failure is inevitable and the experience from that failure is what will give you the knowledge to not do so in the future
Wayfarer: Like maybe it is true and maybe it isn’t true but how does someone telling you it’s true make it any more or less effective to you in your real life?
Europe: the easiest way to find out how things work is by finding out how things don’t work
Rose Cinderfall: Europe: That’s because of having lived by Theory 1 (i explained that one in Social Hall) for most of my life, and then it failed, and that made me…. wary
Wayfarer: I mean I could have come in here and just been like “it’s true” and you’d have either tried it or not. So I’m just saying, try it as is and find out for yourself if these things work. And they should work. But if we just tell you “these will work” you don’t actually know any better than you did before. You just think you do.
Rainsong: And if either EFT or Shift and Shine turn out not to be effective for you – there isn’t much that is effective for everyone equally – having two things makes it twice as likely to get success
Rainsong: I still have no idea where you got the idea that Will would win over Emotion and/or subconscious stuff…. but yea, changing worldview is disorienting in itself
Rainsong: There are other things to try, too. But start with the easy ones. (yep, these are the easy ones)
Wayfarer: This might be a good time to point out that psychologically saying you will do something actually induces the same dopaminergic “hit” of completing the task that doing it does, and so in many cases when someone says “I will do such and such” or “I plan to do such and such” that is a way of pacifying the anxiety that comes from actually having to do such and such, but without resolving the problem it puts us into a loop where we just say we’ll do things, temporarily feel better, then feel worse later because we got no good result.
Europe: @Wayfarer as a procrastinator, i resent you for that. i’m totally gonna let you have it…. later.
Wayfarer: So if you say “I will practice these things, but…” what I am reading is “I am probably not gonna do this stuff because I am already telling myself it is done in my head…” And because I’m over here advocating for experiential knowledge over intellectual knowledge, I am happy to report that I have observed this process in action in myself for sure.
Europe: XD
ShadowRain: (It’s like trying to make up for muscle memory with exactly memorized play by play of what muscles need to be used. You don’t drive a car or do gymnastics by memorizing in what order to fire each muscle and repeating it to yourself. You do it by trying, noticing mistakes, adjusting, trying again, over and over until you’re doing it correctly.)
Rose Cinderfall: Yeah, that happened to me a ton in 2017, i used to do that a lot in Social-Hall.. say i’d do something and then postpone it endlessly
Wayfarer: Hell, every day I’m waking up right now going “today I am definitely going to work on writing this program” and I have written uh… well the framework is there. So you know, I’m as much a victim of this as anyone. 🙂
Europe: ain’t that the truth
Rose Cinderfall: so instead i’ll say… i want to try these techniques and practice them and seeing how well they will work for me
Europe: don’t say you want to
just do it
best case scenario, you have success. worst case, you poke someone in the eye with a psi pencil
no worries
Rose Cinderfall: …well i’m in a bit of a bind, i’m too sleep deprived to do it right now (it’s 03:23), and if i say i’ll do it tomorrow then that’s that same postponing behavior
Europe: oof
Rose Cinderfall: …but i’ll try to bypass that and do it anyway, right now
i’ll try the shift and shine…
Rainsong: The Shine thing only takes a minute or two
🙂
And, bonus, it should be easier to sleep well, with positive emotions happening
Wayfarer: I will float this out here too:
feeling good feels good.
So like, there isn’t really a good reason to not want to be happy and use happiness rather than other emotions. The emotions we routinely generate become habitual. A good way to be happy is to practice being happy.
And if you don’t want to be happy, then uh I mean why are you trying to solve problems? Just be miserable and have lots of problems. It’s easier to be miserable if you have lots of problems so I mean, that’s free.
Rose Cinderfall: okay, i just did shift and shine outside of the mental game of tug of war…
… i do want to be happy :sweatsmile:
there is sometimes pesky subconscious self-hate in the way that seems to not want me to be happy… but overall i want to be happy, and that self-hate is a subject for a therapist
Chirotractor: Feeling bad is just so much more stable though. Very handy for avoiding some other specific bad feeling
Rose Cinderfall: i’m having trouble recalling a truly happy moment..
Wayfarer: Being miserable is free in hellworld so there is that.
Rainsong: If you have to fake it, find a happy moment from a movie or book
Chirotractor: What’s the last time you saw a puppy?
Rose Cinderfall: ..weeks ago, somehow
Chirotractor: was sorta assuming seeing a puppy would be a happy memory
Rose Cinderfall: it is 🙂 memories of dogs and cats and animals…
Rainsong: So, think of puppies and kittens and so on
Rose Cinderfall: ..a memory of sleeping under a table next to a dog, when i was a child giggles
i was, and still am, weird
yeah, that made me smile
Rainsong: Um, Rose? You’re in a psionics community. “Weird” is practically a pre-requisite
Europe: Yeah, pretty much.
Rainsong: But, Puppy! :dog:
Chirotractor: idk what you’re talking about I’m totally normal
Europe: People see me as relatively normal, and for most intents, I am. The moment I drop psi as one of my interests? Insta-crackhead. If people think you’re weird, you may or may not be, but chances are they’re just a sleeper.
Rose Cinderfall: also, i just discovered that the main memory i got my happiness from, is one that eventually turned sour and depresssing
so.. i can’t fall back on those memories
hmm… even when not talking about psi, people seem to find me not-normal. I’m a bit… awkward?
anyway, not relevant to the lecture
Europe: That isn’t true at all btw. Just because something from a memory went sour doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the beauty and happiness of when it wasn’t.
Rose Cinderfall: … i can’t think of those beautiful times without thinking of the sad ending
Europe: You don’t have to remove the thought of it going sad though, is what I’m saying
You can just choose to give the good memory more strength.
Rose Cinderfall: that’s hard when even thinking of the sad ending through the good memory, makes me nearly cry
Rainsong: Or, again, as a backup, use something from fiction.
Rose Cinderfall: i guess i’ll use the memory of that dog under the table
Rainsong: Build up the scene in your mind – preferably in first person – and use that. It’s a handy trick for actors and it’s a handy trick for psionicists
Rose Cinderfall: for now
Rainsong: More often used for sending emotions, but also usable for this.
Rainsong: Puppy 😀
Rose Cinderfall: it’s especially nice because i was in an environment with people i didn’t like, but.. it was just me and the dog under the table, and it was peaceful
Goatmistress: That sounds great
Rose Cinderfall: i love animals
Wayfarer: If “I stopped being happy about it eventually” was a criteria for defining happiness literally nothing ever could be happy because all things are impermanent including emotional states.
Rose Cinderfall: ..so now i visualise these feelings coming from the sun into my heart
okay, i did that, and the breathing
Europe: What Wayfarer said just now is far more important and relevant than it might seem at first glance
You should not disregard it
Rose Cinderfall: Wayfarer: the thing is… the reason in those memories behind it all being so happy… got inverted in the end.
now that same reason to be happy is a reason to be sad
Wayfarer: But for a while it was a reason to be happy. Okay using another monastery example, there’s a sect of Buddhism that is basically for profit led by a guy named Michael Roach. He’s a jerk and nobody likes him and he’s been disrobed. But sometimes people become Buddhists through his centers and teachings.
Wayfarer: Later they find out, okay, that guy was a dick, shit. But that doesn’t mean Buddhism is bad and that they should become Muslims or something. And! They still took vows from him (or his people) and so he is still their teacher.
Wayfarer: So the answer isn’t to go “fuck that guy, my teacher was bad!” He still did them a kindness and brought them to the path, right?
Wayfarer: You had teachers who in the end dicked you over and things you thought you knew you didn’t know, but they still taught you for a while and you were still appreciative of it at the time. You can’t make any of that shit go away by not believing in it any more, and you can’t change that it happened. So you can be miserable, or you can accept that you were happy for a time, and then situations changed, and okay.
Europe: (short detour; the dude’s name is literally roach, that’s hilariously appropriate to the persona you described)
Wayfarer: There’s actually zero reason to be sad about things that happened in the past if they are truly in the past, because, well, things in the past are gone and why should we be sad about things that aren’t the case now?
Wayfarer: Now, there are still repercussions you’re feeling and working through and this is not meant to invalidate the reasons to feel sad, which as I said happened and cannot be made to go away by just not believing in them. You have every right to feel sad about those things and if you do that is normal and even healthy.
Wayfarer: But, you don’t have to invoke that sadness. Basically, “happy” and “sad” are not binary conditions and you can be happy about something with sad elements, or sad about things with happy elements.
Wayfarer: I am sad that atrocities happen while happy that people oppose them and try to make the world a better place. I’m sad that people suffer while happy that I can help them. I’m sad that people’s houses burn down but happy that myself and others can volunteer to rescue them. I’m sad that people get sick but happy that we can treat them in hospitals.
Wayfarer: We heavily, heavily pathologize ourselves when we oversimplify emotional things, but we tend to oversimplify emotional things because we learn them as binary conditions. You can be angry and happy and frustrated and annoyed and excited and eager all about the exact same thing, because everything is complicated in this world.
Wayfarer: It is a pernicious habit of the Western mind to think “I am sad, therefore I cannot be happy” or “this thing makes me angry, therefore I cannot be calm.” A huge amount of therapy that people pay many many hundreds of dollars for basically boils down to “maybe we should take the time to figure out our feelings about things rather than labeling them with the first thing that comes to mind and going with that.”
Europe: Practical example: one of my oldest, best friends took his own life last year. It was devastating, painful, I was wrecked, and furious, and just not well over it. Despite missing him, I look back on the memories I have with him, and they were some of the best times in my life. Even though it hurts, I have such powerfully happy memories from our various adventures that I can find joy in them.
Rainsong: I’m sorry for your loss, Europe
Wayfarer: Like, the curative factor of therapy comes from just talking out a situation. So yes, you have had conditions in the past where you were happy and later they became conditions that made you sad. But the sadness doesn’t erase the happiness. That happiness still happened!
Rose Cinderfall: i’m sorry for your loss, too, Europe..
Europe: It’s okay. He was pretty troubled and now he is at rest, but the point still stands; I’m more happy that I knew him than distraught that I’ve lost him
Wayfarer: Thanks for sharing the example. I have a lot of things from my past that were cruel injustices but I don’t benefit much from thinking “I was wronged, I used to be so miserable as a child,” etc. I was coping with the hardships of reality through alcohol back when PsiPog was fresh and new, but that doesn’t erase any of the good memories from the time. Hell, it makes them stand out stronger. But Europe’s example is apropos I think.
Wayfarer: The tl;dr is that you have to allow yourself to feel all the emotions and not just consider them binary things. And I apologize for coming back repeatedly to Buddhism but the whole religion is exactly about untangling this exact thing, so it’s appropriate here I think: you can be content and satisfied and happy and free from suffering while undergoing incredible hardships and starvations and deprivations and injustices because your internal reactions are not equal to the external circumstances.
Wayfarer: That is, you can be sad that you lost your friend while happy that you had a friend and you don’t have to be suffering through either of those emotions. But that’s only true if you accept that things are more complicated than “this was a good thing then it became a bad thing.”
Rose Cinderfall: that makes sense
but isn’t that a problem when you’re trying to invoke purely happiness & love for the Shift & Shine technique?
Wayfarer: Download the entire “Family Tree” series of albums by Radical Face and just realize that all that music, ups and downs, songs about love and anger and loss and gain, came from one guy’s life experiences extrapolated into a fictional family. Just think about that, because that’s how he’s dealing with sorting things out.
Europe: We aren’t robots, you know? Would pure happiness be more human, if it completely removes everything else attached to it?
Rose Cinderfall: no..
Europe: Even a bittersweet memory can be a beautiful one and still convey good.
Wayfarer: No, why would it be? You’re invoking purely happiness and love, but you’re invoking it into you as you are so I mean, there’s gonna be other stuff in there. If I give you a book and say “just read and pay attention to chapter 1,” the fact that there are more chapters surely doesn’t interfere with your reading and attending to chapter 1, does it?
Europe: It was more rhetoric than anything
Goatmistress: It puts us at choice about how we look at a memory. You can still choose to remember the happiness there.
Europe: I lean heavily on rhetoric and metaphors when I try to share perspectives
Wayfarer: Also, for the purposes of invoking happiness, when we say “a time when you were happy” it doesn’t have to be like, a period of time. Like an era or something.
Like literally the time you got a text message asking if you were okay. The emotion that that evoked, how about that one?
Rose Cinderfall: that made me feel cared about and happier
Europe: There you go
That’s all you really need. There are no pure emotional spans in anyone’s life. It’s messy, it comes with many ups and downs
Wayfarer: Like, sorry to partially leak DMs or whatever but like, this exact moment: 4:00 PM] Rose Cinderfall: oh! i understand. Okay! Thank you :smiley:
Wayfarer: The way you felt when you typed that, without any of the context at all because it’s not necessary. That’s happiness.
And some of this will come up next week in that lecture, but as a preview: have you ever sat and just sussed out the emotions happening at any given time in a very brief instant?
Rose Cinderfall: no
Wayfarer: Like just really put it under the microscope and taken out each little piece and thought “what is this one? Is this happiness? What is it if it’s not?”
Wayfarer: Right, not many people do. We don’t tend to develop a very strong emotional vocabulary. A lot of therapists focus on that early on, especially when working with kids. When I worked in pedipsych, we did this a lot. “How do you feel?” “I’M ANGRY.” “Okay but that’s not helpful, what else? Describe the anger. Are you frustrated? Indignant? Irritated?”
Wayfarer: How do we expect to work well with emotions when we don’t even know what different emotions are because we’re using like five emotions words total to describe a hundred different states?
Rose Cinderfall: no… but i’m struggling to stay awake.. i want to try the shift & shine after i deliberately put myself into a situation that triggers the mental tug of war, and then collapse into sleep. I want to continue the lecture, but… i’m really struggling to stay awake, just a pity we can’t continue this tomorrow because it’s a lecture
Wayfarer: Uh
Goatmistress: The lecture was over long ago
Wayfarer: The channel will still be here. We can roll with it. The tags will still be here, even. We could do a week long lecture in here if we wanted.
Rainsong: We can continue the conversation anyway.
Goatmistress: group therapy or whatever.
Rose Cinderfall: thank you so much, all of you..
Rainsong: You don’t need to evoke the tug-of-war thing for trhe Shift and Shine
Rainsong: Good night/morning, Rose
Wayfarer: The restriction on idle chat in here is just to make sure things stay topical. And at any rate, yeah, just go “right so picking up from yesterday” in social hall, or whatever. The world is complicated!! It’s not just binary states of lecture and not-lecture, talking and not talking!!
Goatmistress: The world is messy and imperfect.
Rose Cinderfall: the world is complicated and I overthink pretty much everything there is in the world
while simultaneously also being somehow good at simplifying many concepts people usually do in really complicated ways
o.O
Europe: But the world can also be as beautiful or ugly as you let yourself believe it is
Wayfarer: I’m a pacifist and yet I am slaying digital monsters! The guy from the You’re Fired TV show is the most powerful man in the world! Nothing makes sense!
So don’t try to make it. 🙂
Rose Cinderfall: let’s continue later then.. hopefully tomorrow
thank you so much, everyone. I didn’t think i’d find a group willing to tackle this with me, given how long it takes and how hard it is for me to grasp
Europe: On that note, let me leave you with the single most simple, and important thing I can tell you
Goatmistress: This has been a really great session, whatever we want to categorize it as.
Europe: It’s gonna be ok.
Rose Cinderfall: t..thank you, Europe..
Europe: No problem
Rose Cinderfall: good night, all
Goatmistress: Take care, Rose
Europe: Good night and sleep well
Rainsong: Be well, all. Thanks for participating. Good night/morning/whatever
ShadowRain: 5 hours, 15 minutes. That’s gotta be some kind of record
Rainsong: Possibly. I don’t think any of the RV classes went beyond four. And those are the long ones
Rainsong: good night 🙂
Europe: That’s just because I haven’t been here, cracking the whip at folks. I’ve spent entire days practicing lol
ShadowRain: Good night Rainsong
Goatmistress: Practicing RV?
Europe: Yep
Kate Embers: I have a question regarding the shield method to basically contain me.
Is there any specific way to make them really strong against this specific kind of outburst?
With the added power from the emotions I usually blast through all walls.
Great lecture btw, thanks :3
Rose Cinderfall: @Kate Embers you were the one Rainsong contained?
Rainsong: No, Rose.
Rainsong: Kate: Simplest method is to program the shield to convert any incoming emotion to fuel for itself.
The more it gets hit, the stronger it gets