Don't think of dealing with your ego nor should you worry about being right or wrong when something comes up regarding your ego when meditating. Also, when meditating, you overcome mental/emotional blockages which naturally makes you energetic. Don't get attached to conclusions and stay calm after you experience a mental shift.

There is too much analysis of mindfulness and meditation. So you'll end up with analyzing yourself too much while looking for that glorious state of detaching your self from your self to get into that witness mode and apply all the philosophies, ideals, influences crammed into your head to each thought you have.

So my suggestion is while meditating, drop all that stuff, sit alone at home/indoor, or quiet outdoor area, and just be meditative while listening to your breath instead of "meditating", and trust you understand basic human decency. Being yogic-like, or whatever, doesn't mean you have to be what people commonly think that means. Just be you.

That's how I've always viewed yoga/tantra as at it's core. There is more to yoga and tantra than that but there is no need to go there unless you're interested. For most people, they just want to de-stress and heal their mind and body and be themselves. The regular practice of meditation like this extends into regular activities and has improved my productivity, tempered my reactivity to shit, etc.

I attribute that to strong judgmental attitudes towards people for making mistakes, not fitting in, etc. It creates a nasty feedback loop that has taken society a lot of time to overcome and we're not all the way through.

Use the slider at the top right. It controls the overlay transparency. It's not ideal but it works to identify the darkest parts.

Rigid shoes are not strictly “better”. Arguably they are in many ways worse, stunting development of small stabilizer muscles throughout the foot and lower leg (through disuse), reducing flexibility and dexterity, encouraging poor posture, and leading to various kinds of injuries especially among runners (heel-striking when running puts a lot of repetitive shock on all of the hard tissues from the heel up through the hip, even when wearing very padded shoes). Shoes with even slightly raised heels in particular lead to reduced ankle flexibility, which impairs squatting and jumping (this is compounded by a lifetime of sitting on European-style chairs for hours every day). They also tend to not be very foot-shaped, causing blisters and cramping people’s toes inward: adults in rigid-shoe-wearing places end up with really weird shaped feet, bunions, etc., sometimes requiring surgery to fix. I suspect that many mobility problems among the elderly are caused or exacerbated by a lifetime of wearing rigid shoes. Maybe less importantly, they lead to much louder footfalls.

Their main advantages are (a) they are more waterproof, (b) they are more durable (especially on hard rough surfaces canvas or thin leather shoes wear out quite quickly), (c) they offer some protection against sharp objects that you otherwise have to pay more attention not to step on.

TL;DR: Wearing flat shoes fixed my feet.

My orthopedic doctor had me switch from arches and heels (typical running and dress shoes) to flat souls and minimal pressure on the back of my heel (flip flops, Keen sandals, those thin shoes from New Balance). It both helped clear my plantar fasciitis and my flat feet got some arches.

I disabled all facebook notifications and I don't get wrapped in other notifications. I just check in on stuff from my desktop when I feel like it instead of feeling compelled to do so. If waiting in a lobby then I might do something on my phone or just cross my legs and meditate (yeah I'm odd).

What I do is disable all email and desktop notification on every site I go. It's not worth the mental burden.

So now, what am I supposed to think of all those claims that the flu vaccine is essentially a step or two behind nature.

Then, for me, I worry about the adjuncts and other stuff added to the standard vaccines as I have autoimmune problems. There are alternative vaccines that are available but I don't remember their efficacy.

So I refuse taking vaccines unless absolutely necessary until I see viable alternatives without aluminum, any kind of mercury, and so on.

These fears are based on bad science. The alleged "toxins" in vaccines are either present in microscopic quantities - micrograms or less - or were simply never there in the first place. It's like worrying about "sugar being bad for you" - which it is, in large enough amounts - because a single grain of table sugar got into your cereal. Details: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about-vaccines/

That page was interesting. Yet, I keep seeing conflicting reports stating that the removal of thimerosal from vaccines to be exaggerated, etc.

I can't imagine how difficult it would be to be that sensitive to aluminum. I handle so many aluminum objects every day, it seems impossible i wouldn't consume some tiny amount daily, accidentally. Not to mention baking powder and cheese.

> Science is a tool for explaining what we observe. There is almost always more than one plausible explantion for any observation, and so it’s the job of the scientist to pit these against each other and see which comes out on top.

That is such a crude way to go about things.

It's been suggested before that there are larger influences from society on how men and women should act and live their lives. I still believe that. I don't think we've made a lot of progress on gender issues. A lot of them still lurk under the surface and the PC culture shields them and prevents discovery and resolution.

A lot from when? In the 80s, a woman couldn't get a credit card w/o her husband co-signing. That's a pretty huge access to money they previously didn't have.

I see it was a matter of how you view your self-worth in the face of a mistake. Society in general likes to put one down for making a mistake regardless of how small or insignificant.

And one's inner dialogue tends to be the nastiest critic and chips away at motivation when learning something new.

It doesn't help that many humans tend to put down others more easily if they perceive them as weak regardless of similar or different identity. Being of the same age, gender, ethnicity, etc. doesn't matter. And people strive really hard to reframe their perspective to view others as weak too.

This is fascinating. I have for a long time been the introverted socially incompetent and weird (partially) one.

A lot of that has changed for me recently. Going to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a year now and doing more yoga has really helped me to figure out a lot of traumatic issues from the past, especially with racism during childhood.

It's really reduced my fear of socializing with people. I'm now somewhere in between extrovert and introvert and I've noticed that self-disclosure happens a lot more and interactions have improved with strangers. Even small talk happens now and then. I've always hated small talk.

I don't like the extrovert/introvert/attachment type labelling though. Reading on them or discussing them with others has some kind of effect of boxing you in to self-limiting thought patterns. It can be a good starting point to figure things out, but I implore people to not think you're stuck in your ways.

i just want to point out the danger of associating introversion with social incompetence because the association is a poorly realized stereotype. it is entirely possible and not uncommon for an introvert to be highly socially competent.

introversion and extroversion are more descriptors of how one handles mental energy than ratings of social competence and degrees of shyness.

for example, i can be very social and outgoing at parties, but they completely exhaust me, and i don't like them. i am introverted because i prefer to direct my mental energy in a more inward, reflective way, and any process that impedes that (e.g., a party) can be very exhausting. it has little to do with how well i can handle myself socially.

A good example is Audrey Hepburn. Movie star, UNICEF Ambassador, yet she said,

“I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel."

> I'm now somewhere in between extrovert and introvert

I was in a class a year or so ago and everyone had to align themselves to a side... introvert or extrovert.

I tend to zero out on those things because I have worked pretty hard at being social. But when the instructor said "extroverts are energized by social interaction", "introverts are drained" it was very clear to me where I stood. The bigger the crowd, the harder it is (for me).

I like people. I like going out and doing things. Until I don't. Then I need my space. It really is hard to grasp that people have entirely different ranges of physical and emotional responses to social interaction.

I'll tell you what though... the more people I have in my life regularly the happier on the whole that I am. That's why I've worked at being social. It's not always easy. Sometimes it's a drain. But it's important.

The current thinking among Jungian type professionals is that I/E labels can be misleading because everyone has access to, and opportunities to develop, both introverted and extraverted aspects. However this kind of change comes at the cost of some mental unrest, and because "home base" consists of two paired E&I attitudes each in one of four functions, we are advised to leverage those two first.

Introversion is my dominant attitude, but I can pair a strong extraverted thinking function (my #2) with that to overcome problems that may require an extensive, as opposed to intensive, approach. So Jung might call me an I, but I'm well-advised not to imbalance myself by resting all my weight on it. Also, extraverted thinking has relatively little association with sociality even though it is extraverted, but it can sure help me research ways to develop healthy relationships. HN is also in general a highly attractive source of information for those who naturally value extraverted thinking, or "facts concerning externalities". It makes sense that we'd eventually work around to blind spots like relationships here. :-)