{"id":13812,"date":"2023-06-18T20:39:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-18T20:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=13812"},"modified":"2023-06-22T19:25:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T19:25:25","slug":"one-foot-introspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2023\/06\/18\/one-foot-introspect\/","title":{"rendered":"one-foot introspect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wrote a 300-page ebook titled Introspect that I\u2019m really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. I\u2019d estimate maybe 20% of people have read it proper all the way through. Dozens of people who\u2019ve read it have said really wonderful things about what it helped them do. I\u2019m confident that if more people read it, that would be a good thing. As a marketer by profession, I know that what that means is that it needs marketing. That means\u2026 talking about the book, in ways that are smaller than the length of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I could write: Introspect x LotR, Introspect x ATLA, Introspect x Moana. I tried to summarize the book in a sort of poetic paragraph about coming home to yourself, but I\u2019m not obsessed with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Your (worst) problems are likely not what you think they are.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you\u2019re stuck, there\u2019s likely a good reason for it. There\u2019s also likely an additional good reason why you\u2019re avoiding the first reason. (It\u2019s typically some form of fear, which is trying to protect you. The ultimate fear is often a fear of death\/loss, and\/or social death. For many, the latter is often more frightful than the former.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Self-love isn\u2019t just bubble baths and spa days, it\u2019s about confronting the \u201cmonster\u201d within yourself that you have ostracized for being shameful, cringe, dangerous, gross, grotesque \u2013 and embracing <em>that <\/em>part of yourself. (Notice how common it is for people to feel that they \u201chave\u201d to ostracize a part of themselves in order to avoid being ostracized by others in turn.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Most attempts at such confrontation go badly because of inadequate preparation, guidance, encouragement. There\u2019s a good reason why you locked up a part of yourself away!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The inward journey towards confronting that \u201cmonster\u201d requires reliving your worst experiences. This is painful and scary and you have to set aside time and space to do it. You can choose not to do it (most people put it off), but if so, then the confrontation will likely happen someday when most inconvenient, in ways that create a worse mess. I wish that wasn\u2019t true lol but it often is<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Beating yourself up about any of this sustains the status quo. You have to give yourself space to make mistakes and learn from them. Some artists and musicians are absolute masters at this and everyone should listen to them more (Victor Wooten and Kenny Werner are my fav gotos). It can be extremely healing just to inhabit or witness a high-trust space of forgiveness, openess, curiosity<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Foreboding boredom (not talking about pleasant idleness here) is the quiet horror of knowing you have burnt the part of yourself that desires. The problem isn\u2019t that there\u2019s \u201cnothing to do\u201d, the problem is typically that you don\u2019t want to do anything, and additionally you don\u2019t want to admit this to yourself. It\u2019s self-resentment. It may be easier to see if you think of it as the angry silence after a fight between family members. Boredom is the face-saving cover story to avoid admitting anger, sadness, disappointment, etc \u2013 all of which can imply weakness, failure.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You\u2019re unlikely to solve these problems by anxiously ruminating on your problems and what a woeful sinner\/failure\/loser you are. You have to continually return to what you love, what you think is beautiful and good. There\u2019s a reason couples councillors tend to ask \u201chow did ya\u2019ll fall in love in the first place\u201d. There has to be something worth fighting for, or the fight isn\u2019t worth it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There really is a light in the middle of all the darkness. There is peace beyond all the pain. Those who have made the journey know this, and we\u2019re always trying to be a beacon for others like ourselves to know the same. But, of course, they won\u2019t see it until they\u2019re ready to see it. Which is also fine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote a 300-page ebook titled Introspect that I\u2019m really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. I\u2019d estimate maybe 20% of people have read it proper all the way through. Dozens of people who\u2019ve read it have said really wonderful things about what it helped them&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3AM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13841,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812\/revisions\/13841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}