A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Marlen
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by Marlen »

Hey David!

Cool to see you writing again, a suggestion is to copy+paste the writings here so that no matter what happens to those links, we got the actual words here

Enjoy
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Leila
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by Leila »

Hey David - cool to see you around again! I look forward to reading more!!
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DavidTDuncan
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by DavidTDuncan »

Day 4: Confronting My Fear of Statistics – Part 1

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I have started doing a Journey to Life blog before, but I found it difficult to stick to one particular subject before moving onto something else. I felt like I wasn’t doing it properly. Like now, I don’t think I am done with what I was writing about in Day 3, but now and for the next three weeks my focus is totally on my Introduction to Psychological Research unit and the lab report that I have to do which is due on Friday the 14th of October. This is the all-consuming point in my life right now, more than anything else. So even though I am no way through the points in regards to women, who I am in relation to statistics is what I’m going to write about and work through in this blog for the time being.

This is going to be a multi-part series of posts.

I am absolutely petrified of statistics. I have many reactions to it, mostly in regards to the lab report.
The first reaction I have to doing statistics is anger – I am angry that I have to do this at all, angry with the components of the unit, angry with the information, and angry at the meaninglessness of it all in comparison to what I actually find meaningful and interesting in psychology and life in general. I have NO interest in statistics. I enjoy the findings of the research and applying them in real life but I don’t want to conduct research myself. By having to do this unit and the lab report I feel trapped, like I can’t enjoy life until it’s done and I’m free of it. Despite how angry I get as a reaction to statistics it doesn’t change the fact that I still have to do it. I also experience sheer frustration that I have to sit for hours on end with statistics work – it is the LAST thing I’d ever want to do. I’d rather read entire textbooks than do this – at least then I might learn something that I find is useful and practical in the real world.
The second reaction I have is that of helplessness. I feel that I have a tenuous grip of understanding of the material and I just don’t know what I am doing enough to do it well. It is this uncertainty within me that creates the fear that I’m going to fuck up the lab report. The anger combined with the helplessness makes me want to pack it in, but I’m not going to do that. I can’t, because this unit is essential to my whole degree – it has to be done.
The third reaction is boredom and disinterest: boredom of – and disinterest in – the statistics itself, and boredom of the stiflingly isolated lifestyle this unit imposes upon me. For the next three weeks, besides being at work or at the gym, I will be isolated with this lab report, as it is going to take a lot of time and I can’t collaborate with anyone else. I have already spent quite a lot of time with statistics so far but these next few weeks are going to be very intensive – there is a lot of work ahead.
Fourth is the desire to procrastinate. I know how to deal with this point, and that is to do the work early even if I don’t feel like it.

Basically, it feels like it has taken over my life for a short time. I have probably made it more difficult by allowing these reactions, so I need to look at these reactions and release them.


Self-Forgiveness

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear statistics.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that statistics is far too difficult and confusing for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be petrified by fear of the lab report.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I just don’t know how to do the lab report.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be frustrated that I am stuck alone for weeks having to do the lab report.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dread having to read the research articles that I need to summarise the previous research in the introduction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dread the fact that almost every free minute that I have in the next three weeks has to be dedicated to working on the lab report.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make statistics a heavy burden in my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react in panic and fear when sitting down to do work on statistics, due to me being uncertain that I fully understand what I am doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel uncertain of what I am doing in regards to statistics work.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to equate isolation with statistics with being stifled, depressed and stuck.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become depressed as a result of having to work alone on statistics.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the SPSS program as a result of me not quite understanding how it works.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear writing up the “Results” section of the lab report as a result of not being sure of how to do it.

I will continue with more tomorrow night.
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DavidTDuncan
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by DavidTDuncan »

Day 5: Confronting My Fear of Statistics: Part 2 – Workload, Productivity and Rest + Reactions to Reading Research Articles

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I’m finding now that it’s important to have a work ethic, and that I need to be consistent each day and put a lot of time into what I need to get done. The lab report is big and will take a lot of time. I can’t afford to spend time ‘relaxing’ by doing things like aimlessly surfing the internet, watching movies and documentaries, or doing anything else that isn’t really that important as a distraction to what I need to be doing. It isn’t a smart use of time. I can do those things when all of the work is complete.
I can more effectively relax and rest by writing in here each day when there is the opportunity. Writing and self-forgiveness is the ultimate expression of rest.
So I’m going to spend the days working on the lab report, working at my job, going to the gym and doing all of the other things I need to do. At night, when I’m done with everything for the day, I will do my writing and self-forgiveness here, and in the Desteni I Process Lite when there is the time. That is enough for now, until I’m done with the university work.

Self-Forgiveness

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be intimidated by the workload involved in doing the lab report.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel overwhelmed by boredom when reading the research articles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel and believe that there is no way I can be comfortable and at ease when reading the research articles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel discomfort and frustrated when reading the research articles and going through the scientific terminology and wording.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate the research articles that I have to read.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel depressed that my life now consists of being alone reading research articles that I’m not interested in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel bored when reading research articles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience frustration when spending a lot of time reading research articles and finding that the paper did not discover anything that is very interesting or meaningful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react in despair when sitting down reading research articles, in feeling that I am wasting my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realise and understand that by accepting and allowing these reactions within me I am only making things much more difficult for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be in the ease of the breath when reading research articles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project blame onto the lab report and the research articles for how I experience myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist working on the lab report as much as possible without wanting to distract myself with something else.

I will continue tomorrow.
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DavidTDuncan
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by DavidTDuncan »

Day 6: University – Part 3 – My Experience of Studying Psychology

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In my life I am interested in what it means to be the essential self – to really know myself deeply to the core, and to be at touch with the substance of life. I’m interested in what it is and means to be deeply at peace on the level of being. I find that this is the most important endeavour in life, as it brings me to the realisation that this essential self or substance is linked to all life.

While studying psychology at university I have not found much emphasis on supporting people to discover their essential selves and the potential that is available to us. I have not found much useful information in the research done to help people come to this sense of peace and being at home in themselves. Psychology should be about these things above and beyond anything else. It should not be a diversion of largely useless and distracting information and theories. If there IS something very useful mentioned, like from Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, this research is overlooked in comparison to the scientific, empirical research that has been conducted. Where we COULD be focusing on self-actualisation and what it means to be self-actualised, instead we spend a lot of time studying empirical research on theories and psychological phenomena and learning about the scientific method. While some of it is important and interesting it seems like it is too much pointless knowledge and information and not enough of anything deep and substantive that will really transform people’s lives.

So because of this studying to me can seem like a massive waste of time, besides earning a degree at the end of it all. I can feel more DUMB as a result of heavy sessions of working on assessments and taking in so much useless information, and I know I can learn MORE from reading a few good books and by actually applying what I already know. But psychology is all about knowledge, information and statistics. It all exists and stays in the head. Psychology doesn’t emphasise listening to your body and existing in tune with the breath and the physical. It doesn’t seem to recognise what it is to be here with and as the physical. It may as well not exist to these academics and researchers who seem to think that they know so much. If we could have a two hour psychology lecture each week where everyone is taught to stop thinking and get out of their heads for a change, breathe and be with the physical, I am sure everyone would find that they have finally, at last, learned something useful and meaningful that really changed their lives while at university.
Marlen
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by Marlen »

Hey David! Cool you're studying psychology, I have heard similar stuff from the others that have studied it and seen these aspects that you mention, though it is for sure a credential you can use to then integrate new aspects into psychology later on, more related to the kind of support that you can see is supportive here, so keep sharing about it! I'm sure many others will be able to take this point of experience from you in a supportive manner.

One note as well is if you can also share a link to your blog using directly the one that has the url to it, example: https://aselfactualizersjourneytolife.w ... sychology/ because the other one takes one to the wordpress reading site and I'm not sure if those without a wordpress account can access it.

Thanks and keep on sharing!
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DavidTDuncan
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Re: A Self-Actualizer's Journey to Life

Post by DavidTDuncan »

OK thanks Marlen, I didn't realise that the other link didn't work properly for all people.

In posts to come I'll write about my conflict with studying psychology and whether I really want to do it. It's not a lot of fun to study, and there is a long road to get through into masters and to become a PhD. But I know that I could make a difference doing this. Bernard urged me into studying psychology and eventually helping to integrate the DIP into its frameworks as a proven therapy to support people. I suppose I have to have that as a long term goal in order to keep going - there is no way I'd be taken seriously if I don't have the credentials. I'd love to do something like life coaching instead. Maybe I can do both. This is something I need to work out.
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