Posts

Nonverbal thinkers: how do you experience your inner critic? 2021-12-11T00:40:33.550Z
Are there any websites that collate useful psychological study results? 2021-09-05T21:45:44.032Z
Shame: Authentic & Applied/Manufactured Shame 2021-08-18T21:37:11.118Z

Comments

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Gauging the conscious experience of LessWrong · 2021-09-29T20:00:19.987Z · LW · GW

Similar! For me I remember the first letter and the general 'shape' of the name most prominently, so knowing the spelling helps me get the length/shape right primarily, and add in a few pepperings of vowel-bits to round out the whole thing.

This does end up with some names feeling nearly identical in my head — like Stacy and Tracy have the exact same word-shape. (I have better examples but they aren't random-access to maybe I'll edit this in a week or something if I think of them)

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Gauging the conscious experience of LessWrong · 2021-09-29T19:17:58.484Z · LW · GW

I have #1 but if I pay attention the fuzz is actually on all the time over everything. The white background of this page has the distinctive patchy-blobby fuzz going on. How strong this is varies.

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on The Best Software For Every Need · 2021-09-21T18:45:27.070Z · LW · GW

Having used both PyCharm and VS Code for quite some time now, but working for a bootcamp that uses VS Code, I've switched to mostly using VS Code for things. It is certainly missing a few nice things from PyCharm, but here's a few comparisons I notice often:

  • Much less resource intensive
  • Much faster startup time (so I can use it for quick text edits with the power of IDE text editing)
  • Almost-as-good debugger (the interface arrangement is just a bit worse, but functionality is very similar for my uses)
  • Strong extension ecosystem
  • Especially well-tuned for web development languages (HTML/CSS/JS, and TypeScript, which has first-class support)

It is not as good at working with Python as PyCharm, but it's passable. The advanced language-aware features (like smart refactoring / extraction of code) work OK but are a little crunchy at the moment.

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on How feeling more secure feels different than I expected · 2021-09-19T19:15:14.383Z · LW · GW

What parts of https://attachmentrepair.com/ did you get value out of in particular?

Any other specific methods of internal work that you recommend for this kind of self-work?

(This whole area is my main special interest for hobby study, though I still have a long ways to go in my own personal progress, so I will eagerly look into any number of resources that come recommended from people who got real value out of them)

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Shame: Authentic & Applied/Manufactured Shame · 2021-08-23T02:09:31.149Z · LW · GW

Perhaps the thing to make right is to make yourself better able to take advantage of that kind of thing in the future when something similar comes up down the line?

You can always only ever change the future, so mostly I find "what must be made right" is my future behavior around some situation that I've not been acting my best in. I find that really freeing, myself, since it explicitly maps to how there is no sense in beating yourself up about the past as long as you've adjusted your behavior to be better for the future. If you've acted sufficiently on your shame in that kind of way, that's enough to let yourself release your shame because you've done all you can do to make it right.

For social situations where someone specific was wronged, stuff like apologies can help repair past damage, but I think that mostly just applies to social things. Maybe with yourself if you find that helpful to apologize to yourself about things (some might, some won't).

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Shame: Authentic & Applied/Manufactured Shame · 2021-08-22T18:38:09.623Z · LW · GW

Context on the timing: I wrote that note about dancing shame about a month ago when I first drafted this post, which was maybe a day or two after having that thought initially.

For the shame around dancing, where I'm at right now:

- I was able to stand up just now (in the privacy of my own room) and do some dancing without much shame coming up at all, which wasn't something I could easily do before. I'm actually slightly surprised by that just now; I expected it to be harder/worse before I got up and did it. Other feelings are coming up when I do it more, but mostly not shame, and I think in a good way that might help me process those other feelings. Nice.

- I still definitely expect to have some struggles around dancing around other people; there's still some  trauma-shaped fear of people applying shame, which I don't think is well founded but is there nonetheless. I still have more work to do on that front. Maybe I'll try out dancing with my partner later and see what material I get to work with, there.

But as far as I'm concerned, that result is a huge victory already! Using dance to process other feelings was one of my major [things I want to unlock] goals of late, cause I know dancing can be hugely useful for other people in processing emotions and trauma-stuff in particular. I'll have to play around with that more today and see what I can get from it.

Thanks for asking this question! I hadn't actually queried where I was at with dancing by trying to dance until just now, and didn't expect as much change as there apparently was.

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Shame: Authentic & Applied/Manufactured Shame · 2021-08-18T22:29:01.615Z · LW · GW

Huh. Yeah, that is interesting, hadn't seen that before.

What that makes me think of with respect to McLaren's definitions is the difference between the appropriate response to authentic shame ("what must be made right?"), and the usual Obstructed response to applied/manufactured shame — what I think of first is doing a sort of "performative penance", to assuage the social aspect and get social forgiveness without making any actual behavioral changes, probably internalizing it for a while afterward.

But McLaren does mention the exact opposite being a possible outcome too, of loudly not paying penance at all and declaring that there's nothing to give penance for anyway, which is what your linked article sounds a lot like. I and the people around me are so used to the first Obstructed response that I wasn't sure what the second would look like exactly, but that article is a great example. I think that's what happens when you decide that all shame, authentic and applied/manufactured, is bad for you and needs to be thrown out all together.

Distinguishing between the types seems to be the main thing that lets you not be racked with external shame while still owning your own authentic shame. (or at least, it's feeling like that for me so far)

(If this seems like I'm going a bit far to try applying this to everything, that's because it's my general strategy when given a new hammer; see what around me is close enough to a nail for it to be useful ;) )

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Imaginary reenactment to heal trauma – how and when does it work? · 2021-07-20T23:47:51.632Z · LW · GW

This makes me think of IFS, and how the symbolic unburdening ritual the standard IFS procedure includes only really does anything if you've managed to coordinate with your Protectors well enough for them not want to jump in the way / disrupt it, and if you've connected with and empathized with the Exile strongly enough for the symbolism to resonate for the exile, and for the exile themself to feel ready for and want the changes an unburdening would entail.
Without all those pieces in place, it does end up falling flat and doing approximately nothing except maybe feeling nice for a brief period — because in essence you're just doing some thing over here on the side in a way that isn't actually interacting meaningfully with the parts it's supposedly meant to heal.

Getting all of these pieces in place is actually quite hard and takes a lot of extended inner relationship-building and development of understanding, as far as I can tell. I'm still working on it myself, and have only had little bits and pieces of successful unburdening type results so far.

Comment by Phoenix Eliot (phoenix-eliot) on Is there any plausible mechanisms for why taking an mRNA vaccine might be undesirable for a young healthy adult? · 2021-04-09T18:00:29.526Z · LW · GW

What is polyethylene glycol resistance? Google isn't turning much up. Or do you mean sensitivity / allergy?