We’re all animals, whether or not we want to believe that is simply a fact. And on top of that we are stressed the fuck out which pushes people, to vary degrees, back towards monkey brain. I consider myself pretty self-aware and therapy has proven that but oh man did my last job do a lot to leave me defensive and short with even the people I care about.
There’s that phrase “you can’t logic someone out of an argument they didn’t logic themselves into” that very well encapsulates the idea that trying to force some higher intelligence, some emotionless, robotic reasoning onto people does very little to actually help(though it should help more than it does and I’m disappointed in people running on pure, angry emotion all the same).
We need to stop acting like we aren’t the way that we are, it just hurts us. I’m not saying we need to excuse bad behaviour because, unlike wild animals, we have a great capacity to know better and adjust, but we do need to be more ok with the reality of ourselves.
To add to this, you can do this to yourself as well. Reward yourself for the right behavior, tell yourself your did a good job, etc. It’s (I’m guessing) harder than extrinsic motivation, but it still works. Take advantage of having a stupid lizard brain under all the stuff that makes us human.
We very likely conditioned ourselves to hate ourselves, and it so clearly works, so absolutely we can use those same tools to teach ourselves to be kinder as well.
I spent a whole year writing a journal and that basically put it in writing that things weren’t quite as bad as I had thought. Even without doing it now my mind will go to better places automatically because I built up that reaction and understanding.
I feel like this was ultimately the point of the love yourself movement. I don’t know how you could convince yourself to love yourself without conditioning yourself to do it, too.
We’re all animals, whether or not we want to believe that is simply a fact. And on top of that we are stressed the fuck out which pushes people, to vary degrees, back towards monkey brain. I consider myself pretty self-aware and therapy has proven that but oh man did my last job do a lot to leave me defensive and short with even the people I care about.
There’s that phrase “you can’t logic someone out of an argument they didn’t logic themselves into” that very well encapsulates the idea that trying to force some higher intelligence, some emotionless, robotic reasoning onto people does very little to actually help(though it should help more than it does and I’m disappointed in people running on pure, angry emotion all the same).
We need to stop acting like we aren’t the way that we are, it just hurts us. I’m not saying we need to excuse bad behaviour because, unlike wild animals, we have a great capacity to know better and adjust, but we do need to be more ok with the reality of ourselves.
To add to this, you can do this to yourself as well. Reward yourself for the right behavior, tell yourself your did a good job, etc. It’s (I’m guessing) harder than extrinsic motivation, but it still works. Take advantage of having a stupid lizard brain under all the stuff that makes us human.
We very likely conditioned ourselves to hate ourselves, and it so clearly works, so absolutely we can use those same tools to teach ourselves to be kinder as well.
I spent a whole year writing a journal and that basically put it in writing that things weren’t quite as bad as I had thought. Even without doing it now my mind will go to better places automatically because I built up that reaction and understanding.
I feel like this was ultimately the point of the love yourself movement. I don’t know how you could convince yourself to love yourself without conditioning yourself to do it, too.