The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
Well, you asked, but our experiences are probably a bit dissimilar. If I make a list with on one side, pleasures and joys, and on the other, pain and distress, it’s going to be a blowout for the light side. I experience very little pain, and pleasure from for example eating, alone, is already greater.
On a less rational level, as a kid one of my parents was constantly talking about suicide and it made me anxious that they might go through with it. I decided then I would never commit suicide if I could help it. Not only that, but I would make sure that everybody knew I was always happy and anti-suicide, to spare them the anxiety.
I made up rules that ‘allowed’ me to commit suicide if : I didn’t waver in my suicidal wishes for a year, plus, I called my parents and best friends and told them I was suicidal at least a month in advance. Or excruciating constant physical pain for two months. The closest I came to testing them was after an operation, but even then I rejected the idea immediately.
As far as I know I’ve always been a relatively happy kid, but it’s possible this personal philosophy through a sort of mirror effect, by forcing a smile, has made me happier. On that subject, one day, I decided I wouldn’t cry anymore, like I suppose most boys (though in my case it was again prompted by the sight of my crying parent). So I recorded a list of mostly absurdist jokes that I would recite in front of a mirror whenever I was crying. Inevitably I would laugh, and seeing myself laugh-crying I would laugh even harder. It worked. But now when I see people cry I have an urge to laugh, which is less than helpful in certain situations, like a funeral. Ah whatever, worth it. Life is weird.
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