Basically just focus on staying present and not letting yourself get carried away by your internal monologue. It’s infinitely harder than it sounds. You can close your eyes, focus on a specific spot in a room, focus on your breathing, anything to keep yourself present and focused. Keep your mind empty as best you can.
The best advice I ever got was, when you have an intrusive thought during meditation, to acknowledge it, and let it fade away. Don’t focus on it or criticize yourself for it, as that will usually only make it harder to refocus yourself.
Meditation is super helpful for a lot of reasons, but for me personally it helped a lot with negative thinking and mental traps (like catastrophizing and stuff). It helps you to be more aware of when you’re getting carried away by thoughts, and how to push them aside and be present.
Look into mindfulness if you’re interested, it’s helped me a lot.
It’s completely free if you own Fallout 4, like Enderal for Skyrim.
It’s a mod that effectively makes Fallout 4 a new game. It’s set in its own world, has its own story, and has its own unique mechanics.
Some people are even saying it’s the best Fallout since NV.
Edit: If you’re curious here’s a link to the site. You can grab it easily from GoG if you own Fallout 4 over there, it’s a bit more involved if you have the Steam version.
Yeah that’s genuinely a tough one. If my family were a part of the cult (thankfully they’re not) I don’t think I’d be able to cut them out outright. They’re misguided, brainwashed, but maybe those words are just my excuses to downplay the horrors they condone/believe, that they’re just my way of justifying keeping them in my life.
And then when I try to picture a nazi family back in Nazi germany, and the one member of that family realizing the horror of it all, instinctually I want them to cut ties or fight against their family, not turn a blind eye simply because they’re related. That feels gross, until suddenly I try to imagine myself in the same situation, with my loved ones, and suddenly it’s infinitely harder.
I hate this, and am forever grateful that I don’t personally have to deal with it. My heart goes out to those with family members that have been sucked in.
Exactly this, like obviously you should exercise, but when it comes to losing weight it’s really the diet that matters most.
I actually, within the span of about a year, went from 280 to 179 lbs through diet alone, I literally did no exercise. I’m 6’ btw.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t exactly recommend that, without exercise you’ll also be losing tons of muscle. But my point is that diet is incredibly powerful.
it would be overly simplistic to claim direct causation
Considering one simply wouldn’t have happened without the other, I have to disagree. I agree that maybe these people may have a predisposition to radicalization, but the fact remains that said predisposition was only exploited because of the events prior.
Bigotry, in some ways sadly, isn’t something that one is born with. It’s something that people develop, whether it’s from their parents, environment, or they’re radicalized over time as they explore toxic rabbit holes online. Whatever the case, these people at one point were just like anyone else. I’ve seen it happen to genuine, loving, progressive people firsthand. It’s tragic.
So, at least the way I see it, a family member learning that someone close to them has come out, being ignorant of it and looking into it online, and then finding themselves in radical spaces, isn’t an outlandish idea. I’d wager that a lot of radicals probably began their descent from an innocent enough place, only to get deeper and deeper until it was far too late.
And of course! Regardless of any of this, I genuinely wish you all the best.
Huh? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but I’m not blaming the people who criticize cults. Lol I’m one of those people, fuck cults. Maga in particular.
And as for your example, it’s hard to make a cause and effect argument when the cause is something that didn’t happen.
A better example would be if someone told someone else that the earth is round, so that second person decided to look into it. Through that, they stumbled upon the flat earth theory, and eventually got sucked into it.
In that example, the person only became a flat earther because the other person told them the world is round. Is that the second person’s fault? Are they to blame? Absolutely not, they were just stating a fact. But the reality is that that event led this other person into becoming a flat earther. That’s just what happened.
And genuinely I’m sorry, I hope your family, if you decide to come out, accepts and loves you for you. I’ve sadly known quite a few people who have had to deal with fallout from that, especially those living in more southern states. It’s heartbreaking. I’ve also known people whose family’s love them to death and barely bat an eye. So whatever you choose, choose what you need, what makes you happiest, whatever that may be.
And in case my point wasn’t clear, or it sounds like I’m saying something else, let me be clearer: It is absolutely not their fault. Not in the slightest. Their family’s toxic bs is their family’s alone, it’s not their burden to bare.
I’m not excusing anything, I’m saying that in reality events lead to other events. This is just how things work, it isn’t an opinion or a slight, it’s objective fact.
Anyways, please reread the end of my last comment to you. I really can’t spell out any clearer that the victim is in no way to blame.
Are you high? You didn’t post this, and you’re the one who replied to me first.
I’ve literally said multiple times that nobody is to blame, I’m genuinely starting to think you’re trolling or just looking to get into an argument for some reason. I’ve probably said that nobody should feel any guilt whatsoever, that they did nothing wrong, at least three separate times now.
Luckily, despite Bethesda’s blatant attempts to indefinitely stall the release with their conveniently timed updates and lack of heads up, GoG stepped in and saved the day.
So currently Bethesda can’t do anything to break it, even with updates. GoG allows players to play older versions with no risk of forced updates, and even if you’re on Steam, the team has made a downgrader and instructions on how to stop automatic updates.
I agree, but I don’t think OP is an idiot, imo it’s a totally valid response to have. I mean think of all the people that have come out, had their families lose their minds, and then be directly blamed for it.
Seeing a title like this and assuming that it’s assigning blame, even when its Vivian herself just stating the chain of events, is understandable when this is such a problem in the community.
I agree that it should’ve been stated in the article, I’m not apologizing for them not doing so. I’m just reiterating what his daughter’s perception is, and that the reality of that isn’t “wrong”, as it’s entirely possible that his descent, if it was a descent, happened as a result.
Once again, this is literally how she saw things play out. That’s all the information we have, anything else is speculation, including the notion that he was like, born a bigot. Unfortunately these toxic ideas aren’t born with people, they’re infected with them at some point. And like I’ve said, I’ve personally witnessed it happen to genuinely terrific people.
So unless we all plan on ignoring Vivian’s own words, I don’t think there’s much more that can be said. And regardless, none of this was my point anyway. My point was literally that the title of the article isn’t wrong, and that something being caused by another can be possible without anyone being at fault for it.
That’s entirely possible, but more than once I’ve seen genuinely great, kind-hearted people get sucked down toxic rabbit holes. Extremely liberal, open people getting slowly warped over time.
Hell, most of the time they don’t even realize it’s happening. I used the example in another comment, but it’s like someone indoctrinated into a cult. They didn’t exit the womb a cultist, this wasn’t always who they were. This happened to them at some point.
Caw!!!