How do I tap into this gentler frequency? I am stuck on aggressive.
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2026
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Mental Health
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When I think of something that happened during the day that was cringeworthy I tell myself, “You are so stupid!!”
When I catch myself doing that I now stop and say to myself, “No you’re not.”
Oddly, this derails the shame spiral and allows me to stay positive.
I had this weird "epiphany". It wasn't that I suddenly had self love. It was that I realized that I'm a human being. You're a human being too. We're not fucking robots. We have feelings, flaws, etc. We're fucking electrified meat for Christ sakes! Of course that shit ain't gonna make a lick of sense half the time!!!
I used to berate myself for "knowing better" than to do X, Y, Z. "Knowing better" is absolutely not the same as being some sort of perfect android. It just means we have a higher level of cognition than other animals. But we still are that...animals. Clueless meat suits that are bumbling along in this world pretending that we know what's up. We don't. We have very intense feelings, urges, desires, etc. Because we are living beings.
Use that higher level cognition to strive to be better, but also recognize that your flaws are what makes you human. If you had no flaws, I'd dare say you simply wouldn't be human.
Dunno if that made any sense. But essentially, I made a sort of mantra out of the phrase "you are a human being". I would remind myself for months and months until it stuck for good.
This but self flagellation.
If my brain could read this it would ignore it and instead play that 10 hour loop of someone fucking the love of my life
Ive gotten into the habit of rewording what i thought, into something that i still think is true but more kind. Its done wonders for my mental health.
Or sometimes I reject a thought and just let it leave, as I deal with a loooot of instrusive thoughts.
But do I want to?
It's not that I'm hard on myself.
It's that the world is exceedingly comfortable with telling people, in small socially acceptable ways, how inadequate they are, and that's especially true of the ones we're closest to. For instance, on Friday night I was in another town watching my nephew play a high school football game with a bunch of my brothers and their in-laws.
Over the course of the night I had my dick size made fun of by one brother and my brother's father-in-law made a comment "we got the good one" (inferring that I am not the good one), and this was just a few hours of a sporting event.
I don't see them often so I didn't make a thing of it. I probably won't hang out with this group again until there's another funeral. And, having had my heart broken innumerable times, my emotional armor is pretty good. I expect the worst out of people so I'm not generally disappointed.
That said, our species is and will always be awful to each other in basic ways. If you've ever been a fat person, gay, or a minority you know this better than most.
Very. I have very thick skin and a strong desire to be the best possible version of myself. I can handle some self-ribbing in pursuit of self-actualization.