(I just noticed that I have been writing sillyness instead of silliness).
I confess that in order not to complicate things, I have been holding back a point that may simplify (or complicate more ) things for you now.
As far as I had seen in Richard’s writings before this diagram, he most commonly referred to seeing or feeling the silliness of feeling bad, the silliness of having happiness/unhappiness usurped, etc., not the silliness of the trigger.
Yes well this is the very thing that I have been trying to clarify for myself. After reading @claudiu’s and @henryyyyyyyyyy’s recent posts I came to the conclusion that it is not feeling bad in itself that is seen as silly.
This is because as @henryyyyyyyyyy mentioned, when I am feeling bad there is a feeling that I am justified in feeling this way, without finding out what it is that I am feeling bad about I cannot sincerely see it as silly, I can only split myself in 2 with 1 part feeling like he is justified in feeling bad and the other trying to force feeling good.
What @claudiu wrote I think is also very on point, that finding the trigger is a necessary but not sufficient step. As in it is once the trigger is located that I have the opportunity to see the silliness of letting X take away from my enjoyment and appreciation, provided that the seeing is genuine and that ‘I’ am fully on board with this seeing.
Also reading the text in the blue box Richard states that "Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed (find the trigger step), and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is (Seeing the silliness step) – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good … but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. (nipping in the bud step)
My understanding of the above is that it is specifically finding the trigger which sets the whole thing in motion. And I guess the silliness refers to both the trigger and having feeling good usurped. As in it is silly to let X take away feeling good. It is not just that the trigger is silly or that not feeling good is silly, but it is that having your happiness usurped by X is the silly thing!
Ie identify the trigger can lead back to bad feelings or overwhelmed , as can trying to get back to neutral. At any point you can set it aside and back to start … and you can only see the silliness after identifying trigger.
I actually thought we were done iterating but it seems people are finding it helpful. I think it’s worth having as accurate a thing as possible, while keeping it as simple as possible… it’s not easy or trivial. but based on the feedback seems worth it
Yes @claudiu I fully agree it’s not trivial at all, my own practice since this thread has been supercharged haha! it’s been mega useful for me so far. When I have a chance later I will send a link to the website I am using as well as the most recent diagram version. This will allow everyone to have a play with re-arranging it in better and more concise ways.
Maybe once I have had a little break from the amendments I will do more too, I was only saying to @Sonyaxx last night that I am done and hanging up my gloves for any more changes, but looks like there might be more
Ok so I am starting to go down a slightly different avenue with this, I thought instead of making it look more complex, to try to instead simplify by using visual aids.
So I have reshuffled the pathways in such a way that now one can miss the trigger → go into ‘overwhelmed’ → neutral and from there they now have a clear option to ‘identify the trigger’ and then proceed into ‘see the silliness’ and eventually ‘feeling good’.
The other main change I have done is categorising the arrows themselves to represent the typical pathways one may follow :
The green arrows represent the Plan A, (the ideal scenario) - they are the pathway where one continues feeling good and climbing up the felicitous ladder.
The blue arrows show the successful application of the tools in order to get back to feeling good - they are not the ideal scenario, after all one only applies the tools when one has wondered off the way, however they are still the ‘preferred’ option over the red arrows.
The red arrows show primarily the disruption to the application of the method by various feeling factors. One is best served to avoid following those paths however they will inevitably happened and one learns how to navigate out of them quickly and efficiently.
The grey arrows are more for things that aren’t really tools but more like a ‘break from trying’, until one is ready to feel good (green), apply the tools (blue) or face the gauntlet again (red)
This is just an idea for now but I think this could be useful in adding more specific options whilst still keeping simplicity.
Yeah I think the colour thing worked out pretty nice, I might also include a legend somewhere on there so it summarises the green, blue, red, grey idea, sorta like I did above.
I have the latest versions of the chart saved as a file which opens on that website but I am not able to attach it here for some reason I think the file type is not supported. It is a ‘drawio’ file.
Actually I just realised that the already existing 3 text boxes (green, red and blue) explain the purpose of the coloured arrows.
As in the green box explains what the Actualism method is. The green arrows are all about the successful application of the method.
The blue box explains the process of seeing the silliness of feeling bad so that one is back to feeling good. The blue arrows demonstrate the successful application of the tools in order to get back to feeling good.
The red box describes that the goal is the minimisation of both the bad and good feelings and a maximisation of the felicitous feelings. The red arrows demonstrate a situation where one is trapped within a feeling pattern and takes steps to minimise or navigate out of it.
Ok! I took my crack at it – what does everyone think ??
If the reception is good then I can tidy it up, optimize the space etc…
A few things I like about it:
‘neutral’ is an answer to haietmoba as well
the trigger comes from enjoy&appreciate as a whole instead of just feeling good
after the trigger it goes back into haietmoba as you can be feeling neutral after trigger, not just feeling bad… so you first figure out where you landed. i initially did this just to optimize the lines on flowchart but i think it makes sense technique-wise too
the enjoy&appreciate → trigger → nip in bud → enjoy and appreciate loop is very small
it has you getting back to neutral before trying to identify & see silliness of the trigger
there are many lines going back to feeling neutral/feeling bad while trying to id trigger or see the silliness… or even focus getting back to neutral… which matches my experience quite well when in the grip of these things
i like the quote of “no one forces you to be happy” and if you want to really abandon actualism you can …
EDIT: Some downsides:
there’s no “set it aside” from the neutral… like the ‘distract yourself to get back to feeling good’, if one is feeling neutral that might be a simpler way to get back to feeling good, than seeing the silliness…
I think the tricky part is that ‘seeing the silliness’ is different than ‘investigating the issue’. “Seeing the silliness” is just seeing that it’s silly to let that specific trigger take away from feeling good. Like “my partner said X and this triggered Y insecurity…” ok. Is it silly or sensible to let your partner saying X take away from feeling good? It’s just somebody saying this or that. You can see that it’s silly… but to untangle the Y insecurity can be a much deeper investigation and that would be something to do only after getting back to feeling good.
About the “universe does not force anyone to be happy” quote, it may come off as ‘mean’ or belittling - like if you’re overwhelmed then you’re doing something wrong. But my intention is more to convey that there’s no requirement to feel good, to take away that moral element of it…
Added actual vs affective enjoy & appreciation… and any box going to any other box to show that PCE can be spontaneous (you don’t have to run the full gamut)
a ‘thing to do’ of ‘enjoy and appreciate’ coming out of the ‘enjoying and appreciating’ to make that feeling-good feedback loop clearer
tidied up HAIETMOBA box a bit to make the things coming-out-of-it a bit clearer
added “can’t id trigger” option too
I like this version best so far, but as Kuba said earlier the really relevant part is what people will find useful
I like the last one the most so far. The green box is really good I think, especially with the addition of PCE being in a category of its own.
The main difference I can see so far with your diagrams vs my framework is that yours seem a lot more comprehensive in terms of almost walking one through of what to do at each step.
Benefit of that is a lot more direction/help along the way and an answer to almost any possibility. The potential drawback could be that with more and more options one could get overwhelmed when first applying it.
I have to say though it’s tricky for me to look at it properly as I have been so stuck in my head with the particular framework that I have been using. Now I need go come out of the box haha.
I’ve printed out one of the versions of the diagram and it’s actually really nice to have something physical like that to hand, now I can print hundreds and start sticking them to peoples windshield wipers
haha i know what i’ll do when i get home later – i’ll add another box from the ‘cant see silliness / cant identify trigger’ to “Discuss it with other actualists on http://discuss.actualism.online”
) things for you now.
