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@the-g-recipe
My Articles
Psychological Traumas and Laws of Physics 19.12.2021
Safety In Relationships 21.11.2021
Toxic Positivity 27.08.2021
Why We Do Stuff 20.07.2021
The Good Conflict 29.05.2021
The Imposter Syndrome 20.04.2021
Dealing With Unworkable Ideas 14.04.2021
What’s The Worst That Could Happen? 11.04.2021
Life’s Ultimate Challenge 09.04.2021
On Having And Achieving Big Dreams 08.04.2021
Full color version :)
6 Common Habits That Are Actually Toxic
Psychological traumas and laws of physics
Note: This article was inspired by Mark Mason’s book “Everything is f*cked”
Physics is awesome, it’s the science that explains how the universe works! it explores everything from atoms to space and even dimensions that extend beyond the human abilities. But did you know that some physics laws can be applied to our mental state? Today I will use some of these laws to show how to deal with old traumas.
Newton’s third law of motion:
“For every action there is a reaction equal in magnitude and opposite in direction”
Photo by Nadir sYzYgY on Unsplash
This law explains how we react to traumas. When traumatized, our mind tries to defend itself and form defense mechanisms as a reaction. However, those defense mechanisms are not always healthy. Keeping using them can actually cause more damage in the long run.
So what happens is that the way we view a trauma changes our values and the way we see the world. consequently, our values change the way we act.
For example, if someone got into a bad relationship where they were ridiculed for their thoughts, met by judgement or anger when expressing their emotions; they might think that “I’m wrong for expressing my emotions” then they might develop a habit of not talking about their emotions. This is the brain’s attempt to avoid the negative feelings that become associated with the act of expressing one’s self. This would work for a while in the current relationship but on the long run, it will make them frustrated and force them to cope with stuff that angers them because they don’t speak about it anymore. Ultimately the relationship fails but the brain keeps holding on to the defense mechanism developed during that experience because it thinks that it works. This means that they will get into a new relationship relying on not expressing their emotions which will make them unhappy and will frustrate their new partner causing them to develop some unhealthy defense mechanisms as well. This takes us to the second law.
Newton’s first law of motion:
“A body will stay at its current state unless acted upon by another force”
Photo by Arron Choi on Unsplash
In physics, this is the law of inertia but this also is applied to our mind and mental state.
The defense mechanisms that the brain creates become its current state. They used to work before so why would the brain change them? The brain will actually resist change because our brains tend to stick to what they know because it seems safer. This means that something new needs to happen that shows the brain how its current state is not valid anymore and that it needs to change.
This not easy and it requires practice to change the way your brain sees the world. However, it ultimately goes to the narrative or how we view the trauma.
Recovering from traumas:
Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash
Changing the story of what happened: Going back to the previous example, instead of thinking “I’m wrong for expressing my emotions” one can instead think “My partner is wrong for not allowing me to express my emotions” this will lead the brain to question the new values it formed and try to form new healthier values which will consequently convince it that it might need to try something new.
Retrospective critical thinking: Another important thing that helps is to think about what the values and actions associated with them have caused. By doing this or that, what did you gain? how was the outcome of that? is it still working as expected? so in our example, it can be like “I didn’t tell my new partner that doing X hurt me, so they did it again and I’m frustrated”.
Trial and error: After starting to see that maybe the old way is not the best way to deal with stuff, one should start trying new methods and see how they work. This will require a leap of faith and taking risks but it’s essential to find a healthy way of dealing with one’s negative feelings. In our example, one can think “Maybe I should try to tell my current partner that X hurts me and see how they react” since we have changed the story in the first step, you know that your old partner was wrong and not you, you have new values now so it gets easier to put faith in your new partner and talk about what you’re feeling to see if they are actually like the old partner or not.
Conclusion:
The stoics say that you have no control over what happens but you can control the way you think of it. This is one of the best advice in dealing with traumas. You cannot change what happened and you cannot change how others act but you can change the way you think of it in order to feel better and act in a healthier way. In the end, it’s all about the narrative.
Why we do stuff
I was born in the 90s so most of my memories of my childhood are in the early 2000s. Back then, I used to read a lot and I mean A LOT. I also loved martial arts so I started attending kung fu classes and I was good at it.
image by Sincerely Media Currently, I don’t remember the last time I have finished a book. I don’t do any organized sports and since I graduated, I only learn stuff that I need to improve my skills for the market. Instead, I’m either on instagram, twitter or watching some movie online. I have also caught myself buying stuff that I know I don’t need and I just don’t enjoy other activities as much as I used to. I also noticed that my attention span has become shorter than it used to. To understand why that happened, I knew that I needed to understand what motivates people to do anything and why I stopped being motivated to do activities that I used to enjoy.
What motivates people to do anything?
image by HalGatewood.com
In short, the reward system of the brain produces dopamine which is responsible for making us feel better. This has been crucial for our survival as a race so for example, you get dopamine when you eat or have sex which are both essential for our survival. However, Dopamine has been exploited by humans to keep others hooked to their products and that brings us to the second question.
Why I stopped being motivated to do what I used to enjoy
The answer to that is instant gratification. As we learn more and more about dopamine and since we live in a capitalist society it was natural that it would be exploited by companies to make more profit. Applications are designed to keep you online for as much as possible to watch more ads and in turn they get more profit so in free applications you are the product. For example, social media apps use algorithms to show you what will give you more satisfaction instead of what you conciously seek to see.
Nowadays none of the major social media applications show you only what you subscribe to, you are instead constantly bombarded with new content that keeps you hooked for hours and hours through the “Explore” sections.
Marketing strategies have also shifted from “This product is good for you and will help you to do this or that” to “You need this product to be happy” This is also instant gratification since in the first narrative you might or might not need to do what the product is designed for but in the second narrative you always need to be happy so why wouldn’t you buy it? An obvious example of that is the apple iphone ads. the first iphone commercial focused on how you can do more with it. But currently, getting the latest iphone is a social status regardless of it being able to do more
There are so many more examples I will probably cover some later in more detail but the point is, our brain is manipulated to keep us hooked or buy other stuff and the problem with that is how easier it is to get dopamine by using social media, watching digital ccontent or buying something new compared to doing a sport, reading or focusing on a hobby.
We are not in control of what we do
image by camilo jimenez
We no longer do what we want to do or what we need to do to become better. Instead of spending hours reading a book, we can easily get more dopamine by watching a movie on netflix or scrolling through instagram. We no longer need effort to get dopamine which makes our brain addicted to stuff that give us instant gratification and renders other activities boring since they don’t give us as much dopamine and certainly not as easy. We keep getting distracted when we work or when we read and we are never really living the moment. We no longer do an activity because we like it but often we do it so we can post about it later to get dopamine from others reaction to it. We no longer buy what we need but we buy what would give us more satisfaction when we buy it. We don’t even eat what we need but we eat stuff that we know are harmful but they give us more dopamine. Adding to that our use of drugs and alcohol which are also quick sources of dopamine.
We must always keep in mind that our brains do not know what is harmful for us. They crave stuff based on how they produce dopamine regardless of how useful they are. Next time you want to do something be mindful about it: do you really need to do it or is it just for the dopamine? Try doing more useful activities that are rewarding on the long run rather than being stimulated all the time by constant doses of dopamine. This is how we can regain control over our lives and do what truly matters.
Maybe it’s time to find longer lasting ways to boost dopamine.
The thing is there already are a lot of ways to boost dopamine and most of them are actually beneficial. They just take more effort to achieve.
Safety In Relationships
Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash I think the most important thing to have in a relationship is safety.
Feeling safe in a relationship is when you know that your partner will be with you no matter what and that you don’t have to think so much about every move you make because you know that they love you enough to forgive you, give you the benefit of the doubt and help you become a better person. There is a difference between doing something because you want your partner to be comfortable and doing it because you’re worried that they might leave you otherwise.
Safety is being able to talk openly about how you feel -specially if it’s something negative about your partner- without being worried about them leaving you for it.
Safety in a relationship is when you know that your partner is on your side not against you even during your fights . It’s when you feel that you’re arguing to make it work not to try and give them reasons to stay. Conflicts will inevitably happen and if during conflicts you find yourself worried that they might leave you then you’re not feeling safe.
Life is hard so when you don’t feel that kind of safety with your partner it just gets a lot harder. Your partner should help you overcome the hardships of life and at the very least you should always know for a fact that they will always love you and you should never be scared that they might abandon you one day if you said something they didn’t like or made a mistake.
A relationship can last if both partners feel safe but it can never last if either or both of them don’t feel so no matter how strong their love is.
I’d divorce him too lmao
It’s never JUST about the tomatoes.
Basically!
Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: He’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.
The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that.
These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow-up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in 10 of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of 10, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.
Those who showed genuine interest in their partner’s joys were more likely to be together.
Greenland Expedition by :
© N. Bondarev
Toxic Positivity
During the past years, mental health awarness has been surging. People started talking about the dangers of mental illness, how it must be treated and how to support people with mental illness. This is great of course but with that awarness people started talking about thinking positively and how you can always be happy if you only think positively about your life. In this post I will talk about how this way of thinking might not be the best option and how it can do more harm than good.
Photo by Victor on Unsplash
Toxic Positivity
First of all, let me explain when positivity is toxic.
Being positive about life is generally good. But when you are always expected to be positive no matter what or to always have "good vibes only" that's when being positive becomes toxic.
This is not the same as optimism because unlike optimism, toxic positivity doesn't encourage you to have hope for the future no matter how bad it is right now. Instead, you are encouraged to reject negative emotions completely in favour of happy emotions.
Why is it toxic?
The problem with that kind of positivty is that:
Instead of acknowledging negative feelings and dealing with them, it rejects them completely. It makes people believe that they should not have negative feelings to begin with.
This can push people to keep chasing highs so they would always be happy which raises the expectations from one's self to unrealistic standards and in turn adds pressure on them.
It raises the expectations of how you should feel about your life, your friends or your partner which will leave you unsatisfied and can easily add pressure on the people around you to make you happy which makes you toxic to them.
That being said, should we have negative emotions?
Negative Emotions
The problem with toxic positivity is that it divides emotions into positive and negative where you should always have positive emotions and reject negative emotions. However, that's not realistic at all. Having all kinds of emotions is normal because emotions are felt as a response to the ideas we get. By trying to reject negative emotions you are in turn trying to reject the ideas that give you negative emotions which is not necessarily healthy. Instead, you should divide ideas to workable and unworkable ideas focusing on workable ideas and getting rid of unworkable ones.
Workable and unworkable ideas
This distinction is not in anyway related to how the ideas make you feel. Instead, it focuses on what you can achieve by listening to an idea.
Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash
An idea that gives you a negative feeling about work for example is probably workable because it lets you know that you need to change something about your work. However, thinking about your ex who cheated on you is not workable because there's really nothing you can do about it so you should not dwell on that idea.
Similarly, an idea that gives you a positive feeling about a new project probably means that you should keep working on the project so it's worth it to focus on that idea. However, a positive idea about how you are more important than all those around you will make you toxic and you should get rid of it.
More on workable and unworkable ideas here
Now that we established that all emotions are normal (including negative emotions). How should we deal with them?
Dealing with negative emotions
The first step is to acknowledge that you're feeling negatively. Never try to supress your negative emotions. Allow yourself to be sad and accept that you're sad. Don't try to force happiness on yourself because life doesn't work that way. However, you must understand that beign sad should not stop you from continuing your life as usual. You should keep doing the things that make you happy and that match with your values. Do you love hanging out with your friends? do it even if you're sad. Do you usually workout? keep doing that because it matches with your values.
By doing that you give yourself the time you need to feel sad with no added pressure to be happy which makes it a lot faster and easier to recover and you eventually come back to your old self.
Photo by Ball Park Brand on Unsplash
By doing that you give yourself the time you need to feel sad with no added pressure to be happy which makes it a lot faster and easier to recover and you eventually come back to your old self.
Conclusion
To sum up, you should never add pressure on yourself to be happy and you should not supress negative emotions in order to be happy. Being optimistic is about accepting hard times, understading that they are temporary and having hope for the future so normalize negative emotions and allow yourself to be sad. Accept it but don't let it stop you from doing the things you enjoy and that match your values.
Been a while since I last bought new books. I’m glad I was able to make reading a habit again.
من هو الصاحب بالجنب ؟!
أتعرفون من هو الصاحب بالجنب؟
وما قصته؟ تعالوا معي ..
من أعاجيب الوصايا القرآنية وجوب الإحسان إلى الصديق، وذلك بقوله تعالى:
﴿والصَّاحِبِ بالجَنْب﴾
من الطبيعي أن يوصي القرآن الكريم بالإحسان إلى الوالدين، وذوي القربى، و اليتامى، و ما إلى ذلك..
لكن أن يوصي بالاحسان إلى أناس احببناهم في سيرة حياتنا، مروا علينا مثل الطيف على مَرِّ هذه الحياة الطويلة..
هذا هو العجب، الذي يجعل الإنسان ينبهر لعظمة القرآن الكريم وعظمة مُنزِلِهِ سبحانه وتعالى..
فقد أوصى القرآن الكريم بالإحسان إلى الصاحب بالجنب في قوله تعالى من سورة النساء:
﴿وَاعْبُدُواْ اللّهَ وَلاَ تُشْرِكُواْ بِهِ شَيْئاً وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَاناً وَبِذِي الْقُرْبَى وَالْيَتَامَى وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَالْجَارِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى وَالْجَارِ الْجُنُبِ وَالصَّاحِبِ بِالجَنبِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُحِبُّ مَن كَانَ مُخْتَالاً فَخُوراً﴾ [النساء36]
والصاحب بالجنب هو :
1. زميل الدراسة
2. رفيق العمل
3. المصاحب بالسفر
4. من جالسك في مسجد أو مؤتمر أو غيره..
5. كل من وقف بجانبك في موقف مهم لك في الحياة..
لكل هؤلاء أوجب القرآن الكريم الإحسان بعد أن جمعهم بصفة واحدة هي "الصاحب بالجنب"
فيا له من كتاب عظيم، يوجب على الإنسان الوفاء لكل من أحسن لنا، مهما صغرت الفترة الزمنية التي التقيناه فيها.. فسبحان الله العظيم
اللهم أسعد كل صديق وكل رفيق وكل صاحب وكل زميل وكل جليس صالح وكل من جمعتني بهم هذه الدنيا الفانية سعادة في الدنيا والآخرة واجمعني بهم ووالدينا وأهلينا وأحبتنا في جنة الفردوس الأعلى."
“It is better to be yourself and have no friends than to be like your friends and have no self.”
— Unknown (via thoughtkick)
Why we do stuff
I was born in the 90s so most of my memories of my childhood are in the early 2000s. Back then, I used to read a lot and I mean A LOT. I also loved martial arts so I started attending kung fu classes and I was good at it.
image by Sincerely Media Currently, I don’t remember the last time I have finished a book. I don’t do any organized sports and since I graduated, I only learn stuff that I need to improve my skills for the market. Instead, I’m either on instagram, twitter or watching some movie online. I have also caught myself buying stuff that I know I don’t need and I just don’t enjoy other activities as much as I used to. I also noticed that my attention span has become shorter than it used to. To understand why that happened, I knew that I needed to understand what motivates people to do anything and why I stopped being motivated to do activities that I used to enjoy.
What motivates people to do anything?
image by HalGatewood.com
In short, the reward system of the brain produces dopamine which is responsible for making us feel better. This has been crucial for our survival as a race so for example, you get dopamine when you eat or have sex which are both essential for our survival. However, Dopamine has been exploited by humans to keep others hooked to their products and that brings us to the second question.
Why I stopped being motivated to do what I used to enjoy
The answer to that is instant gratification. As we learn more and more about dopamine and since we live in a capitalist society it was natural that it would be exploited by companies to make more profit. Applications are designed to keep you online for as much as possible to watch more ads and in turn they get more profit so in free applications you are the product. For example, social media apps use algorithms to show you what will give you more satisfaction instead of what you conciously seek to see.
Nowadays none of the major social media applications show you only what you subscribe to, you are instead constantly bombarded with new content that keeps you hooked for hours and hours through the “Explore” sections.
Marketing strategies have also shifted from “This product is good for you and will help you to do this or that” to “You need this product to be happy” This is also instant gratification since in the first narrative you might or might not need to do what the product is designed for but in the second narrative you always need to be happy so why wouldn’t you buy it? An obvious example of that is the apple iphone ads. the first iphone commercial focused on how you can do more with it. But currently, getting the latest iphone is a social status regardless of it being able to do more
There are so many more examples I will probably cover some later in more detail but the point is, our brain is manipulated to keep us hooked or buy other stuff and the problem with that is how easier it is to get dopamine by using social media, watching digital ccontent or buying something new compared to doing a sport, reading or focusing on a hobby.
We are not in control of what we do
image by camilo jimenez
We no longer do what we want to do or what we need to do to become better. Instead of spending hours reading a book, we can easily get more dopamine by watching a movie on netflix or scrolling through instagram. We no longer need effort to get dopamine which makes our brain addicted to stuff that give us instant gratification and renders other activities boring since they don’t give us as much dopamine and certainly not as easy. We keep getting distracted when we work or when we read and we are never really living the moment. We no longer do an activity because we like it but often we do it so we can post about it later to get dopamine from others reaction to it. We no longer buy what we need but we buy what would give us more satisfaction when we buy it. We don’t even eat what we need but we eat stuff that we know are harmful but they give us more dopamine. Adding to that our use of drugs and alcohol which are also quick sources of dopamine.
We must always keep in mind that our brains do not know what is harmful for us. They crave stuff based on how they produce dopamine regardless of how useful they are. Next time you want to do something be mindful about it: do you really need to do it or is it just for the dopamine? Try doing more useful activities that are rewarding on the long run rather than being stimulated all the time by constant doses of dopamine. This is how we can regain control over our lives and do what truly matters.
how to deal with mental fatigue
Hi, it’s werelivingarts! Exam season is coming so soon, and some of us might deal with a lot of stress and mental fatigue while preparing for the exams.
Here are some tips on how to prevent and deal with mental fatigue (before it becomes too serious and leads to burnout). Exams are just ways to test your knowledge and understanding, so please do not expect too high and take care of your health! 🌿
Hope that we would all do well! 😊
The Good Conflict
Sam and Bob are roommates. Bob is very neat and he takes really good care of his stuff while Sam... not so much! One day Bob comes home late from work and sees that his favorite mug is in the sink while he has told Sam before not to use it. Bob: “How many times do I have to tell you not to use my mug?”
Sam: “It’s just a stupid mug grow up” You know what that was? that was the start of a conflict that would end by one of them moving out for good. Conflict is always there with different levels, sometimes it’s as simple as deciding where to eat while other times it’s about politics, our personal lives or about work. I used to really hate conflict and it used to make me so stressed and frustrated whenever it happened. However, I have noticed something interesting about it.
photo by Sebastian Herrmann What I have noticed about conflict is that it is a normal part of our interactions because people are different and they have different experiences. Subsequently, people will often react differently to the same thing. In fact, conflict is an essential and beneficial part of our lives. Without conflict we would not have different ideas and different ways of solving problems. Imagine listening to the same song for your whole life or watching the same movie over and over again. That’s how a conflict-free life would feel. Conflict itself is actually good because it means that people are comfortable enough to express their thoughts and sharing their ideas. So why do we have negative feelings about it? After some thinking, I realized that I was never stressed about a conflict itself but I was mostly stressed by the way it was handled. When poeple are faced with different ideas they can feel attacked and feel the need to shoot back to defend their ideas, thoughts and beliefs. Those feelings make us very emotional and can escalate to being agressive in expressing ourselves which associates conflict with bad feelings and handling the conflict this way makes it destructive rather than constructive. To make conflicts constructive, we have to try to be objective and understand the other side’s point of view without taking things too personal. We should also learn how to deliver our point without attacking the opposing side. More importantly, we need to understand that someone being different is a blessing because by expressing themselves we get to see matters from a new perspective.
One trick that I learned to handle conflict better is a simple change in what is being said. The change aims to help the other side know why we might be negative about what they are saying or doing while simultaneously allowing them to better express themselves. Instead of saying “you’re making me angry” or “you’re impossible to deal with” try saying something in the line of “you did A which made me think B and that made me feel C”. Let’s go back to Bob and Sam’s argument and see how it can be handled better.
Bob: “Sam. When you use my mug after I told you not to, you make me think that you don’t care about what I want regarding my stuff and that makes me feel like I have no privacy at home” Sam: “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way it was just the closest mug in the cupboard when I opened it. I will be more careful next time.” See the difference? By shifting the conversation to his own feelings instead of acting out on them, Bob helped Sam understand why the mug is important to him and he also allowed Sam to defend himself without feeling attacked. More often than not, when people understand how their actions make us feel they will be careful as most of the time nobody means to make others around them feel bad because of them, specially if they are close. In short, whenever a conflict arises, we are in full control of how it ends. What we say and what we do can either escalate to a loop of shaming each others or make it a productive conversation that would help both sides gain new perspective.
