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1219 || the social withdrawal cycle
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There is a feedback loop that seems to happen whenever I’m spending more time alone. I notice that my need for connection seems to dissipate as my anger towards humanity inflates. Psychologists have noted this through various research and confirmed that “lonely individuals tend to think more negatively of others and see them as less trustworthy.”
If the feeling of loneliness really worked as it should, it would prompt prosocial behaviors that fulfill our need for belonging. It’s like a craving. Our bodies are craving social connection, so we should then seek it out to rectify that craving. But unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Especially for me.
Basically, when you feel lonely, you probably also feel more depressed, which means you’re not feeling like your most “you, you”. And because you feel a bit unpleasant, it can exacerbate these issues.
Scientists have long studied the correlation between depression symptoms and loneliness, but there seems to be less focus on the cyclical nature of these implications.
The study I’ve been referring to did its best to track the associations between these feelings of loneliness and prosocial behaviors.
Apparently this means the results from this study came with two distinct findings:
Loneliness often comes with:
An increase in motivation to support others, but a poorer interpretation or execration of that social contact.
That idea that we want + seek out connections but feel an absence of soothing and support still, is the part that tends to push us further in the cycle of loneliness and despair.
I thought it was interesting though, that it wasn’t just relationships with others we tend to be more negative about, when we’re lonely. According to the study, we also tend to evaluate ourselves more negatively as well. This lower sense of self confidence means that the odds are stacked against us.
We feel lonely, so we feel more insecure, AND we feel more hesitant to let others in, which causes a validation of those negative biases.
THE RESOURCE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75712-3
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1835 || life is unfair so i choose not to be
10:07|Nature is indifferent to my interpretations of morality and justice. We humans tend to moralize everything, but not everything has a moral. Every ending doesn’t have to feel like a punishment for bad behavior. This means that some of the most painful things that have happened to you had absolutely nothing to do with your character. You didn’t make mistakes and fail and deserve some painful outcome. There is power in grieving when unfair things happen to you, but there is no use in blaming yourself or asking yourself what you could have done differently beyond acquiring some wisdom for the future. If I find myself taking things extra personally, I try to remind myself that the universe doesn’t work like that. Existence is confusing and chaotic and strange and unpredictable. When something bad happens it can be really easy to wonder why it happened. What we did to deserve it? Why everyone else seems to have it better and we are the target of such a painful reality? Nature doesn’t work in just or kind or loving ways. It happens because of countless factors coming together in a moment of chance. Some consider this luck, but I don’t think of luck as something some people have or don’t. Sometimes, the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to explain the why, and there is no grand moral story at the end. THE SOURCES: https://blog.dharma-renaissance.org/philosophy/how-to-face-suffering-and-moral-crisis-through-dharma/https://timeslife.com/life-hacks/why-do-good-people-suffer-bhagavad-gita-insights/articleshow/118564088.htmlRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1834 || we don't know what we don't know
11:14|You don't know what you don't know, but the curse is that you think you do. If we make a good choice that works out badly, we are often very harsh on ourselves for making that decision in the first place, even though the results are only obvious after the fact, we will still blame ourselves for not knowing the future. The hindsight bias pushes us to avoid risks, but it also brings undeserved rewards to irresponsible risk takers. We are all trying to see the world as a tidy, predictable, and coherent place, when it isn’t. Unfortunately, you can’t predict or control the future, no matter how lucky you are. THE SOURCES:Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slowhttps://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Exploring_WorldviewsRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1833 || lesson on evidence
11:27|Where might your current worldview be holding you back from the truth?THE SOURCES:https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Evaluating_Evidencehttps://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Virtues/Humility/Being_99.9%25_Ignoranthttps://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Exploring_WorldviewsRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1832 || awe vs. focus
11:08|We shouldn't be seeking focus, we should be seeking reverence. Depth and fulfillment comes from awe. Our culture is obsessed with optimization, but that only disconnects us from our humanity. Focus keeps us. Reverence stops us in our tracks. Awe makes us more generous, loving, connected, patient, and abundant.Create space for awe by staying present and avoiding avoidance. SOURCES: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/awe-the-most-incredible-emotion-and-its-spectacular-effects/https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_do_we_feel_awehttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-right-words/202407/why-we-need-awe-and-8-ways-to-find-ithttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/emotional-behavior-behavioral-emotions/202608/awe-is-an-amazing-emotion-but-do-we-know-what-ithttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-circle-of-compassion/202608/the-opposite-of-distraction-is-not-focus-its-reverenceRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1831 || strategic anticipation
10:44|Our brains are future oriented and this can manifest into anxiety or anticipation if we're not strategic with it. Obviously, our current society has a lot of us focused on survival, which means most of our future thinking is filled with dread and hopelessness. This means we MUST deliberately create anticipation through planning small things that we can look forward to. Looking forward to something good releases feel-good hormones in our brains AND teaches our nervous systems that there is some good to be had and felt. It trains us to be more hopeful and nurtures an upward spiral, as opposed to the constant downward spiral most of us feel so stuck in. Planning a vacation is sometimes the only time you imagine yourself having a good, relaxed time, detached from work and everyday stressors, but you can imagine this without the vacation, and still reap the benefits. SOURCE: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-forward/202607/the-art-of-anticipationRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1830 || curse of knowledge
11:02|Hindsight is 20/20, but understanding the person you used to be (without the knowledge you have now) is so damn hard. Give yourself some grace in the learning process. You're not stupid, you're learning. SOURCES: https://youtu.be/2y5NfYwoTeo?si=vyyHCtptsSH7zpcjhttps://verybigbrain.com/psychology-thinking/the-curse-of-knowledge-why-experts-struggle-to-explain-simple-things/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledgeRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1829 || avoiding disappointment in relationships
10:50|The squeaky wheel gets the grease. THE SOURCES:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/202608/why-people-disappoint-us-in-relationshipshttps://psychology-spot.com/cognitive-miser-definitionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_misehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effectRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1828 || the thinking trap
12:22|A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is". THE SOURCES:https://psychology-spot.com/cognitive-miser-definition/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_miserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effectRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.1827 || cognitive misers
09:51|the human brain doesn't prefer to expend extra cognitive effort, it will always take a shortcut, where possible. the less you analyze this reality, the more likely you are to fall into "cognitive laziness" which can reinforce stereotypes and keep us trapped in limiting world views. THE SOURCES: https://psychology-spot.com/cognitive-miser-definition/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_miserRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.