Narrative Responsibility

Part two on the topic of comfort eating, or emotional eating. This is the section with practical action steps for using the coping mechanism of comfort eating in a way that serves you better, finding other tools that you can use instead, and some of the specific dynamics you can watch for in your own body if you're still not convinced comfort eating is a problem. 

Comfort eating - or emotional eating - is a means of soothing ourselves in times of distress. But it can quickly turn into a habit, or even an addiction, that wreaks havoc on our physical health long-term. How does it get started? Why does it persist? And, really, what IS so bad about it? This is part one of a two-episode arc on this issue!

My most controversial opinion: talent does not actually exist. What we call "talent" is higher than expected skill development at a task or higher than average capacity for an underlying cognitive function. This is a distinction worth making when our cultural narratives of talent as innate and fixed can inspire or deter someone from pursuing a goal.

Every experience that we have can be judged as good/bad, worthy/unworthy of the coin of time we spent on it...or it can be viewed more neutrally, simply as a resource. A resource for what? Skill-building, discernment, wisdom, character.... We can even think in terms of our RPG character levels, and consider what experience points we might be able to gain from something we lived through. Let's talk about what we can do with what the DM of our life - whether our past self or the universe - gives us to work with!

Our psychological type - our MBTI type preferences - has a profound impact on our relational needs and capacities. That is, how we tend to want to be related to in order to feel acceptance, connection, and intimacy with other people, and what we have a lot of energy for doing with other people to meet their needs. Let's unpack the eight Jungian functions' relational needs and consider whether we're describing features or bugs in the operating systems of ourself and those around us!

When two people look at the same situation and come to different conclusions about what ought to be done, each of them can easily read the worst into the other's perspective. And Western culture encourages a binary right/wrong mentality. Psychological type provides and alternate narrative that allows you to ask what else might be going on. It functions as a "lawful neutral" story that describes rather than judges both sides and offers principles and ordering that apply across situations.

Are you living your best life? That question is a personal development mainstay. But what does it really mean - and is it really the best question to be asking yourself as a guide to living well? 

In tabletop games, the dungeon master, or DM, sets up storylines for characters to play through in order to gain XP points, level up skills, and just, you know, enjoy experiencing. All too often we try to be the DM for our own lives. But the DM isn't a player, and we have a whole universe able and willing to act as our DM...if we can let it. What are some of the obstacles to trusting the universe to be your DM? What are some of the benefits?

In an attention economy, attention equals currency. What are some of the reasons for this? What are some of the innate hazards of living in attention economy? How can content creators and information curators act ethically in a system that fundamentally rewards selling vices rather than virtues? Buckle up for a deep dive into the social philosophy you signed up for when you subscribed!

Shadow work often creates a sense of displacement inside the self, while the egoic identify dissolves and re-forms. How do we lean into this instead of resisting it? Are there any tools you can carry with you on an expedition to Mordor, to make the journey less distressing? Are there ways to nourish yourself even when you are deep in your Shadow? Can you, like Sam Gamgee, pack some metaphorical pots into your backpack and stare Sauron in the eye while you eat some stew?