How are you feeling?

[Andrian]

I'm trying to keep up with what's going on in the world but in my free time I prefer to exercise a bit, read some books, at the moment i'm reading again the Wave series which is an awesome experience.

One thing I'm trying to keep at bay is trying to anticipate and worry about what's gonna happen in the near future to all of us considering the current geopolitical circumstances. I'm not in denial, I'm aware that in a few months i may be out of work, though, thinking and worrying about it may make the outcome worse. So, in my case, I'm living one day at a time.

 

[SlipNet]

How is everyone managing their free time since things started to escalate in Iran?

How much is too much when it comes to keeping up with what’s going on?

There’s a part of me that says, “give it a break and spend some time doing other things,” but I want to keep up to speed on everything.

I’m guessing it’s the same for everyone else here, too.

I dedicate around an hour or so to catching up with the latest news; I follow Jeffery Sachs, Douglas McGregor etc, to get decent perspectives.

Recently I've found that I don't need to obsessively follow each new development, so I've made time for other activities. You know, life is short, and I have other things I love to do, such as music, drawing, watching classic films etc.

 

[3DStudent]

I was already overwhelmed with life and keeping up, so not much has changed. I do worry a bit more, especially if on twitter too long (my feed has a lot of doomer posts). And I'm anxious about the future but it seems I'm the only one in my family and so the worry and prep concerns all fall on me. And If I'm honest with myself, I don't have much free time, and should just rest or get to bed as early as possible.

So yeah, I was also wondering if people are taking daring chances like it's the end of the world and you're the main character? Though maybe there's still time even after things settle to complete one's bucket list. Who knows when it's really the last chance?

And I've been meaning to post about vacations/holidays and I don't think there's a thread about it. I just feel like that's a way to get a break from things. But I'm not sure you ever get a break from yourself.

 

[Aliana]

How is everyone managing their free time since things started to escalate in Iran?

How much is too much when it comes to keeping up with what’s going on?

There’s a part of me that says, “give it a break and spend some time doing other things,” but I want to keep up to speed on everything.

I’m guessing it’s the same for everyone else here, too.

I am keeping up in general, but have decided to be less obsessed with it. I am limiting my doom scrolling on X, as I realized that I see the same things over and over, and it's not helpful for one's mental health. Instead, have made a concerted effort to find productive things to do with my time when I am not working. Most days i wake up feeling like - oh no...still here in a hellscape with crazy people in charge of the world. I have to get up and tell myself that this is not a permanent state, just a cleansing and i need to carry on because at some level I chose to be here now, so i need to figure out why and get on with it. Every darn morning...ugh.

 

[Gwenllian]

There’s a part of me that says, “give it a break and spend some time doing other things,” but I want to keep up to speed on everything.

I’m guessing it’s the same for everyone else here, too.

Yes, the same here. There are a few accounts on Twitter which I follow religiously. But at the same time I do some gardening especially when the weather is fine and I am reorganising my supplies, stocking up a bit more and clearing out old stuff. Time away from my computer keeps me sane, especially because it is so painful to follow the news and witness the destruction and suffering. I have never been more grateful for the romance novels as I very much need to recharge every day, so I can continue to bear witness. Somehow it feels very important to be a witness to all of this.

 

[Asa]

So glad to know Eva is improving. Your beloved daughter is teaching you on many levels - and always will be.
I had a similar experience with my son when he was born, ended up learning about natural health / using homeopathy. None of my family were sick after that.

Antibiotics have a time and a place, can do wonders, I am not advocating not to ever use them, but it is also good to educate yourself / seek natural alternatives / use preventative natural healthcare. 'Knowledge protects.'

I was thinking, while reading your posts:

1) causes of pneumonia

The above are the first things to consider: is there mould in the house somewhere we have missed etc. Think: any roof leaks, or leaks in wet areas. If you think there is any don't use bleach because that makes it worse later. There are natural things you can use, including alkaline salts specifically for killing mould, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, clove oil. Windows often have mould on the inside panes because of us breathing, coughing sneezing, pets etc.

2) metaphysical connections to health conditions.
Pneumonia, lungs = grief, inability to take in life : The Spiritual Cause of Pneumonia

I think of what I have witnessed in Gaza and can only imagine how that would have affected me if I was pregnant or a new mother. Any anxiety and concerns you and your wife may have could be picked up on and 'decoded' by Eva. I don't mean you 'gave her pneumonia', but as our bodies are constantly decoding information, children who are in our energetic field will be decoding information the same way we do subconsciously. There is so much stress and anxiety in the world at the moment, and a great deal of grief, so little ones who are so sensitive are likely to decode this on some level.

So important to keep our own energy as clear as possible, remain calm, reassuring, inspired. Singing and humming to babies is important too I think, having them in nature where they hear the joy of the birds too. Natural sound is natures' vibrational healing.

Maybe some of this is helpful. I hope you have your beloved family all back together very soon.

That's an awesome post, thanks. And quite possibly apropos, as I've shared elsewhere about the impact of recent events, particularly the Cs interpretation of the Epstein files, upon me. And my wife consumed a lot of content around the Gaza tragedy and experienced a lot of grief of her own. I will strive to contain it and aim for mindfully attaining the states you set out. Many thanks.

She is not fully healed yet, and it's been tough. But she is getting there. And the difficulty has somehow opened me to a deeper appreciation of the beauty of life, particularly for spring here where a wonderful explosion of life has occured in recent weeks. Id dearly love to share in that with Eva. And with your words in mind I will try to use that to inspire my state for her sake as much as mine

 

[Turgon]

I want to know what's happening in the world, but some days need to take a step back from it. I've just picked up a romance novel for the first time in ages and it's been nice to read. There's an anxiousness about what the future holds and what needs doing in the midst of all this. When living in the country, I enjoyed working with my hands, fixing old furniture and repair work. There was something decidedly satisfying about it. Physically working on a project and solving whatever issues arose would help to process and move through whatever it was I was feeling or thinking, giving the energy an outlet, but since moving back to the city, don't have the space for that. So, find cleaning my apartment and cooking the next best thing.

 

[Fluffy]

How is everyone managing their free time since things started to escalate in Iran?

How much is too much when it comes to keeping up with what’s going on?

There’s a part of me that says, “give it a break and spend some time doing other things,” but I want to keep up to speed on everything.

I’m guessing it’s the same for everyone else here, too.

I’m trying my best to embody the ‘enjoy the show’ comment the C’s made. It’s a roller coaster of thoughts and emotions which inevitably turns into throwing all my trust into the wind and allowing whatever will be to be without trying to anticipate the outcome. I can take a bit to get there though. A massive fear I have is not being able to feed my children.
In a wonderful turn of events my partner has begun to really see (at an earthly level, he does listen when I talk about the hyperdimensional influences, though I don’t know what he’s thinking, I don’t ask either, I’m just glad he’s seeing the evil, lies and distortions in how the elites and their minions operate) so when I proposed we need to make sure we are stockpiled with supplies of food and other essentials he is completely on board, we cleaned out under the stairs and build a big pantry to store food, it’s not full yet but it’s on its way, knowing we can feed the kids is a huge comfort to me, it is helping me to ‘enjoy the show’ easier.
I feel it essential to keep up with what’s going on, it’s a ‘have to’ rather than a ‘want to’, a family member said to me to have a look and then bury your head back in the sand, I just can’t because my mama instincts put me on high alert, I gotta be just a little bit ahead of the curve if I can be. I really try not to overwhelm myself with what ifs, taking action instead of (or to dissipate) worry is the best approach. I don’t know why looking at the sky helps but I go outside and look up and just trust those guys know what they’re doing
and ask ‘what I can do’… the best advice, just be like normal and do what needs to be done. Might be a big oxymoron but I feel a calm panic… like this is it this time, no turning back, I hope I’m ready for it.

 

[iamthatis]

Amidst the chaos in the news, I've rationed my news intake to two times per day, in the morning and at night. I find it's helped a lot. I also do 8 Brocades of Silk Qi Gong every day (even when I don't want to), and at my last session the acupuncturist remarked that all my meridians are flowing much better than before. Gardening, building, visiting people I care about... these are all helpful.

I've also sat down and asked myself what makes my life worth living, what calls to my Soul. The answer is is usually the same - what calls to my soul is Beauty. So I have been enjoying stories and poems more, started drawing again, and am playing more music. I've had to ask myself this Soul question a number of times, because the personality and it's connection with the cultural environment tends to build in frequency and pull me in a different direction if I'm not careful. Even if I am careful, it's hard to see the Beautiful in the quotidian day-to-day. But I think it's vital to cultivate this way of Seeing.

From the author Martin Shaw:

Hello there. And welcome to Jawbone. So today I'm going to do something a little different. I am going to talk about the trouble with beauty. And I will be primarily reading. So you will see my eyes moving about a bit and then breaking off and improvising. Such is my inclination. So let's crack on.


I think that the trouble with beauty is twofold, at least. Here's the first trouble. That beauty would be seen as ornamental, dull, and a bit vacuous. And most of us don't feel beautiful at all. That it is a long resolved set of ideals that create a kind of hierarchy that doesn't have any nuance or depth to it. And at some point when we were kids, we were exposed to these values and we found ourselves significantly lacking.


But it's something that creates a rather generic world around us. And it is beauty not as an inner realization, but a rather vacuous rule of thumb. So this is the kind of thing that, over time, is going to have us folding our wingspan to hide our appearance because our appearance doesn't make the grade. So it is beauty or beauty is tyranny, and that kind of thing is going to create a long dragonish tail that drags behind it.


And for that kind of thing to thrive, it has to diminish anything that is not it. It is always hungry because it is always starving.


Do you remember the story of the Lindworm? That old fairy tale in which we find out that we have an exiled twin who was lobbed into the forest the night that we were born and abandoned and marginalized. They grow up in the treeline as we kind of prance about with all the advantages that modernity gives us. But they're not in the castle, are they? They're out in the forest and they watch us, and they don't watch passively. They brood and they glower and they grow scales and they plan their revenge.


Now, the interesting thing is, I think many of us have both characters rolling around inside us. And so there is part of us playing the game of vying for affirmation and popularity. But there's another part of us that doesn't buy it for a minute, not any of it. And we live in the forcefield of these very different outlooks. That alone is tiring.


So I think as we get older, we do recognize that the beauty of a pageant queen. Do we even have pageant queens anymore? Or a chiseled movie star? That is no kind of definition of beauty for anyone with even half an imagination. But if those ideals enter the psyche while still in its formation, and they will, then we will most likely feel kind of lacking. And what do we do? We get uncomfortable feeling like we're lacking. We either shrink away or we develop what in myth is called a Puritan complex, or a poor Perella complex where we develop some sort of flighty persona where we fly over the encounter of loss.


And one way or another, you know, all of this is going to make beauty really hard to trust. It is going to start to feel like an untruth. So this would be a kind of beauty that it just makes sense to wake up from, to be absolutely un-spelled by. And I'm not going to be referring to this kind of beauty for most of what we're doing today.


I think in the end, this kind of thing, if you get hooked into it, is inhibiting. It is depressive, it is constricting, it is grubby, and it is not to be encouraged. I say that as a parent, but there is another kind of beauty tucked away.


So another story. Tristan and Isolde. Do you remember that one? Now Isolde is described as having a beauty that makes other people more beautiful when they behold her. Now isn't that marvelous? Her beauty is actually infectious. And in Irish stories of Finn MacCool, Finn MacCool has a buddy and he's called Dermot, and Dermot is known as having a love spot on his face that when you glimpse it, you cannot help but love him.


Now it's not really to do with him being cute. It's to do with the love spot. And I think in our lives, when we glimpse somebody’s love spot, it's that moment when we see them doing what they really love doing. And it is transformational. It is a kind of cracking open. And what makes them beautiful, as diverse as a weather pattern or the movement of a bird across a Norfolk field. This is beauty as eruption from the interior, not an outer set of visual conditions. I'll come back to this. This is beauty in all its unexpected, diverse and quixotic manifestations.


And I mean, who knows? Maybe it's Isolde’s harp playing that makes her so beguiling. Maybe it is the gurgling brook of her laughter. Maybe it's Dermot's skill with a story that makes him so damn attractive. We leave their company blessed. We leave their company changed in a way.


So, you know, the problem with that, of course, is we're going to go away and think that we're in love with them, rather than what is actually being transmitted through them at that moment. I wonder if it would be more accurate to say of somebody like that beauty has them, then they are beautiful. That would be an Irish way of thinking about it.


So now we come to the second kind of trouble, the more productive trouble. This is trouble with consequence because when you've met an Isolde or a Dermot, they open a door to both delight and to longing. And we witness for a moment—I really think this—what stands behind them, what they somehow stand for. And that's going to encourage us to figure out, well, what do we care about? How do we earn our name? What will be our art and our skill in this life?


This is an old bardic question. What will be our art and our skill in this life? So to be infected in such a wonderful way may bring the poet's realization to our door that we have to change our life.

Here I think he's referencing Rilke's poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo:

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

So I don't think this kind of beauty you're going to see necessarily in TikTok videos or movie definitions. It is usually quite specific and often a little eccentric. It's a recognition from the inside, not a template delivered from the outside.


It was Edgar Allan Poe that wrote the beauty is not a quality, it is an effect. Beauty is not a quality. It is an effect. That's how we note its arrival. And what did Poe call it? He called it an elevation of soul. When you experience this beauty, you encounter an elevation of your own soul.


And I think, again, what we regard as beautiful is a very site-specific encounter. It's very bespoke. You could marvel at a chipped tooth or a loosey goosey train of imagining, or some show a character that brings an unexpected swoon to your day. And beauty can be absolutely quietly ordinary.


So I'm a fan of this kind of beauty. This kind of beauty is the waking up kind. This kind of beauty is that becoming a real human being kind. This kind of beauty makes you a little bit dangerous because you're a little bit unpredictable. It means you don't swallow fake news from your own psyche because we are capable of self-hypnosis without the world getting even involved.

I've found a certain open and exploratory mindset helps locate Beauty in the everyday. The mindset itself can be traced in tons of different sources, fiction and philosophy, etc., but the one that comes to mind is from what I recall of the Situationists in the 60's, who were trying to find a way to throw off the disenchantment of the world imposed by the grid of bureaucracy, efficiency, and runaway left-brained architecture and archetypes. They would go into the grid consciously and try to see the living heart within it, to see it with the eyes of Romanticism, sort of similar to Wordsworth's sentimental old poem Composed on Westminster Bridge about dirty old London in early morning:

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The Situationists called this the dérive, or drift. This is also what Irene Lyon recommends in her somatic trauma therapy course - go out on an adventure! Leave behind the to-do list, and for one short span of time, go for a ramble, and allow the eyes and feet to carry you, keeping how you FEEL at the centre of your awareness, and keeping the rational mind and it's worries in check. Don't walk or hike or huff and puff - drift. It could be in a familiar place, but seek to see with new eyes. Look in different directions. Stop and listen. Do you know the names of the trees? The birds? The bushes? Engage all five senses and stay in the body. Notice the breath. And keep going. It's sort of like cultivating a mindset that a miracle could happen at any moment, and holding that close to the chest while out and about. Often I've found that the miracle is the world itself.

 

[Harmony99]

I am really happy for what is currently happening to Israel. This world will never be a better place with Israel exerting such dominance. It’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all these Bombshell and Explosive headline on the war. I spend some time on X to get faster update. I tend to give myself a break of a day or two from YouTube to properly conserve some time for reading and other important stuff. I am trying to manage my time as apparently this war seems to be heading beyond summer.

 

[meadow_wind]

How is everyone managing their free time since things started to escalate in Iran?

How much is too much when it comes to keeping up with what’s going on?

I've always hated geopolitics... such a waste of time. I only started paying attention to it around jan 2020 (Covid era), and since then, it's back to minimal time investment (usually less than 20 min). I have better things to do. If I were to die tomorrow, I'd rather have spent my time doing something I enjoy, such as playing piano, rather than listening to mongrels and stupidities.
Anyway, I have to manage my time tightly and stick to my "plan" if I want to reach my reading goals, adding to this regular life chores, family, keeping up with the forum, etc.

I've also sat down and asked myself what makes my life worth living, what calls to my Soul. The answer is is usually the same - what calls to my soul is Beauty.

I second that!

On another note, the past month, I've been dealing with a digestive flare that I created by cheating too many times with prohibited tasty foods. Overall, I'm getting better at controlling myself, and I had been doing quite well for a few months: little cheating, little flares... Then I kinda went overboard big time, indulging in everything I love but can't have. I now understand how an alcoholic feels!
I think the best solution might be to not buy/not keep at home ANY prohibited food (and my daughter is not happy about it).

I usually pray before bedtime and early morning, but I'm now so low energy that I fall asleep 2 min after starting to pray. This might make me vulnerable, so I need to step up!
I hope members are able to protect themselves as best they can.

 

[MassiveShoutOuts]

I think theres a fine line between being informed and being overinformed. Covid got me pretty radicalised pretty fast, like having years worth of information digested in months-and that was ongoing for a few years. I don't really think I could ever be 'up to date' with the amount of info being released daily, and trying to take it all in reminds me of my parents watching the news when I was a kid.
Its like nothing in the world has really changed, we just have the opportunity to be aware of EVERY LITTLE BIG THING, now. That's just overwhelming and what it does to my mental space....it can ruin the bliss of a sunny day, or kill motivation to do the things I enjoy.
Thus, I'm having a break from over indulgence on the horrors of the world. Surely, they'll still be there when I come back lol.

The future is the future and it has always been uncertain. That being said, I don't really rate making plans after covid exposed that all plan-making can be in vain if the 'powers-that-suck' choose to flip the world over.

Overall, I think we truly live in the most amazing time. Its like an era of compression of all previous-eras: What used to take decades or centuries can happen in a fraction of that time now. Think wars, revolutions, the collapse of great empires. Its like everything is speeding up to reach and teach as many people as much as it can. I see it as a cycle of time coming to a close and so its desperately wrapping up all unfinished business, lessons, karmic debts, etc.

And here I am making a Lasagne and contemplating if travel insurance is necessary...

 

[987baz]

Like most others here, it”s a fine balance between being overwhelmed and not keeping up with what’s happening in the world. When I feel it’s too much, I just scroll the Sott telegram and watch newsreel, keeps me up to date FWIW

ATM, I’m feeling what I call “processy” I had a deep session with my kinesiologist on Monday and some times after my monthly session I feel like I need to let the emotions and energies do their thing. I tend to feel more anxious and slow for a few days. It also goes up and down, I feel it in my body, which changes depending on the emotion, I feel quite restrictive this time, like I’m holding my breath which is a new one. Pipe breathing helps and I continue to remind myself that it will pass and that faith in DCM and the forum feels supportive and gives me hope. I try to interrupt my overthinking and focus on gratefulness and letting go of anxious thoughts, sometimes it’s harder than other times for sure, especially when the “symptoms” are more physical, well at least they feel more physical. I try to be compassionate to myself, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as I know that this is making me more resilient, and pitting another step up the spiral, it’s ok to feel uncomfortable all that I do and feel adds to the collective experience

 

[katak]

Before Easter, I went to a garden center to buy some flowers for my garden. As I was leaving the store and loading the flowers into my car, a woman approached me asking for money, saying she wanted to buy food. I get approached by people asking for money at stores a few times a year. Since I was on my way to the grocery store, I offered to bring her some food if she had nothing to eat. She agreed. In the store, I bought her the food she asked for, plus a little extra. I also tucked 20 euros into the bag. Somehow, I felt a sense of guilt for not wanting to give her the cash directly. What if she really needed it? I handed her the bag of food, muttered a comment hoping she wouldn't have to do this again next time, and drove off.

The first thing that crossed my mind once I was back in the car was what a stupid thing I had said. I didn't understand it. Immediately after, it occurred to me that this same thing had happened before. A sense of déjà vu—an identical situation from about ten years ago, with the same woman and the same store. Even back then, ten years ago, I had acted in exactly the same way.

On the way home, I felt unsettled. I couldn't understand why. I spent the entire drive analyzing the situation and arrived at this conclusion: I could have just given her the money as she asked—maybe she would have bought food, maybe alcohol, it’s hard to say. Internally, I don't want to support or provide money for things that aren't good, like alcohol or drugs, and that was the reason I initially refused. I ended up buying her the food she asked for and even tucked the money she wanted into the bag, so I should have felt good about it. I hoped it was a good deed. But it wasn't. I just realized that not giving her the money would have likely left me feeling like a selfish and heartless person if she truly needed help. Yet, when I do give her the money, I still don't feel good—presumably because I have the feeling that she is exploiting many other people in this way. That it isn't sincere, and ultimately, it doesn't even solve the woman's situation.

I feel that this situation has no solution in terms of whether to give or not to give, because both options lead me to a bad feeling. It seems to me that the solution would be to maintain distance, which I didn't do, and subsequently, I was so tired and exhausted for two days that I couldn't do anything but lie down and rest. Another thing was that I looked the woman in the eyes, and after that, I felt uncomfortable inside. I don’t know, perhaps one needs to be more cautious about whom we look in the eyes.

I would be grateful for your insights and ideas. Have a lovely evening.

 

[nicoleblalonde]

Before Easter, I went to a garden center to buy some flowers for my garden. As I was leaving the store and loading the flowers into my car, a woman approached me asking for money, saying she wanted to buy food. I get approached by people asking for money at stores a few times a year. Since I was on my way to the grocery store, I offered to bring her some food if she had nothing to eat. She agreed. In the store, I bought her the food she asked for, plus a little extra. I also tucked 20 euros into the bag. Somehow, I felt a sense of guilt for not wanting to give her the cash directly. What if she really needed it? I handed her the bag of food, muttered a comment hoping she wouldn't have to do this again next time, and drove off.

The first thing that crossed my mind once I was back in the car was what a stupid thing I had said. I didn't understand it. Immediately after, it occurred to me that this same thing had happened before. A sense of déjà vu—an identical situation from about ten years ago, with the same woman and the same store. Even back then, ten years ago, I had acted in exactly the same way.

On the way home, I felt unsettled. I couldn't understand why. I spent the entire drive analyzing the situation and arrived at this conclusion: I could have just given her the money as she asked—maybe she would have bought food, maybe alcohol, it’s hard to say. Internally, I don't want to support or provide money for things that aren't good, like alcohol or drugs, and that was the reason I initially refused. I ended up buying her the food she asked for and even tucked the money she wanted into the bag, so I should have felt good about it. I hoped it was a good deed. But it wasn't. I just realized that not giving her the money would have likely left me feeling like a selfish and heartless person if she truly needed help. Yet, when I do give her the money, I still don't feel good—presumably because I have the feeling that she is exploiting many other people in this way. That it isn't sincere, and ultimately, it doesn't even solve the woman's situation.

I feel that this situation has no solution in terms of whether to give or not to give, because both options lead me to a bad feeling. It seems to me that the solution would be to maintain distance, which I didn't do, and subsequently, I was so tired and exhausted for two days that I couldn't do anything but lie down and rest. Another thing was that I looked the woman in the eyes, and after that, I felt uncomfortable inside. I don’t know, perhaps one needs to be more cautious about whom we look in the eyes.

I would be grateful for your insights and ideas. Have a lovely evening.

There are many layers to your experience but something I can offer that might help is: you are not responsible for how that person chooses to use what you gave them. In addition, release the expectation you hold about how you would like your money spent once it’s given to another person.
An example would be if a relative gave you $20 for your birthday but said you can only spend it on x,y,z… it’s a sort of control energy attached to the giving.