villagewisdom

I'll give a little of my personal experience here. Stef's take on women's weight issues doesn't work for me and I can't think it would work for any women that has body image issues. Weight is not a matter of will power for women (for the most part). It is nearly always body image issues that are the driving force. The need to be attractive to survive drives it. Even women with normal body weight can and do have body image issues. They just handle it differently than those that are overweight. And no matter how much will power a woman has, she will eventually cave when the shame gets loud enough. The basic problem I have seen is connecting morality to food. This manifests in judging food as either "good" or "bad". And should a woman partake of the "bad" (whatever that means in a given moment), she ultimately judges herself as bad, evil, unworthy, a failure, useless, weak . . . . fill in the blank. She thinks she deserves to get kicked out of the tribe for bad behavior. You didn't mention her issue, but I'll take a guess here. Binge eating and binge exercising are particularly widespread issues in women today. My theory on this is the survival instinct is still very strong and stress of any kind can activate the "fight or flight" survival mechanism in women. Specifically, the restriction of food at any time activates that survival mechanism. The need to eat and store fat for a coming bad time gets stronger and stronger the longer restriction is enforced. The binge eating issue manifests when restricting food or "treats" in order to reach a weight goal. Many times that goal is unrealistic. Sometimes it is simply the fear of gaining weight that will drive women to binge eat or binge exercise. The binge eating or exercise is initiated after "falling off the wagon". Sometimes weight is lost, sometimes not. Sometimes weight is lost and immediately binged back into existence. Sometimes a woman who looks to have a normal weight is actually exercising 4 or 6 or more hours a day as she calculates how many calories she needs to burn to compensate for those 3 candy bars or dozen donuts. It equates to lots and lots of eliptical time that can cripple an otherwise healthy body. But always, always that drive to eat and relieve the restriction of "lean times" and return to the safety of abundance is screaming like a banshee in her head. The real kicker is tying it to morality. Once that drive to eat reaches a fever pitch and she must have just one bite --- well, it's all over then. The illogical, emotional mind retakes control and tells her "well, you've had one bite and ruined everything You might as well eat the whole thing. And while you are at it, why not take advantage of your momentary lack of control and eat a whole bag of potato chips and a couple of candy bars. Then wash it down with a Coke. You have to start over anyway so get in all the pleasure you can now before restriction reasserts itself and you lean times are upon you once again. Then the cycle repeats. I broke the binge / restrict cycle by removing all restrictions on eating. I know it sounds counterintuitive but it actually works really well. Remove the restriction and you remove the need to binge. I had a coach who got me started. I've helped a few others as well. You do not have to be diagnosed with anorexia or bulemia to have issues with binging and purging. There are elements of addictive behavior involved. In order to heal from this cycle it requires letting go of the need to be thin. Few women can actually do this. Included in their own emotional issues with body image is the need to be attractive to survive. This part of it is very hard to recognize and even harder to overcome. It requires surrender to the idea that you may be fat for the rest of your life. It requires accepting the absolute worst case scenario. It requires letting go of any control of your weight PERIOD. I'm still overweight but not binging my way back to obesity. I don't diet. I'm taking the systems approach (ref Scott Adams). My life plan now revolves around eating when I am hungry and stopping when I'm not quite full. I don't make that goal most of the time but it's there in front of me whenever I choose it. If at any time I try to force myself to this plan, just as with any other "diet", I will binge on the other side. So I surrender and stick with the systems approach. I'd rather be fat and at peace than restrict / binge and live with intense shame for the rest of my life. I've simplified it here but I believe I've covered most of the key points. My heart goes out to your wife. Everyone thinks it's will power. They have no idea. None.

There are way too many possibilities to this scenario. He likely had hundreds of thousands of thoughts from the time he entered the mall to the time he ate. And those thoughts are in addition to thoughts that led him to go to the mall in the first place. He could be influenced by his habits. He could be influenced by his body signaling hunger. He could be a compulsive shopper and eataholic testing his resolve. He could be looking to fill some hole in his life or he could have simply planned his day before leaving and executed his plan. Hundreds of thousands of thoughts went into the decision. Some were conscious, most were not. Most are just running like water. I have seen data estimating anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 thoughts per waking hour. Most are not even noticed any more than than the air that we breathe is noticed. It is the noticing of the thought that makes it a conscious thought. That leads me to the question of whether the unnoticed thoughts are unconscious or subconsious? Here's my theory. Any thought that is unnoticed and then becomes noticed was unconscious but has become conscious. What I mean by this are all of those thoughts that are seemingly endless that carry the voices of our many ideas about ourself. I'm "this" or I'm "that" or I'm "like this or that". They are the thoughts that we live with every day upon awakening. We can know exactly what these thoughts are if we pay attention to them. An unconscious thought can become a conscious thought -- and vice versa actually. Repetitive activities lead to creating unconscious thoughts that just run their program and we can brush our teeth without really thinking about it. Subconscious thought would always be "sub" or "below" conscious awareness. A hunch, a feeling, an urge to go one way or another. A drive to be a musician or engineer or teacher would be subconsious. A subconscious thought would always be there as an urge or desire coloring our choices but unidentifiable as a specfic thought with sentence structure and story. "I just want it and I don't know why" is an example. This might be distinguished as follows. Do you desire the career or is there an unconscious thought pattern of choosing a career based on "following in your father's footsteps". You may desire that career or you may just do it because it is expected. The desired version is subconscious. The expected version is based on unconsious thoughts of yourself based on your "father voice". It could also be both. Great topic.

See the image below for those who voted for Trump. It's a larger sampling of possible FDR supporters than Alex Jones and Ron Paul. While Stef does have supporters on the biggest-government-possible-selling-the-country-to-illegals-left, they would be much fewer in proportions to those looking for less government in their lives and National soverienty. That last group would have voted Trump. At the very least they would have voted for "anyone-but-Hillary" or stayed home. All my opinion, of course. I don't have Stef's data to support my conclusions. I based my conclusions on my experience with listening to the call-in show and reading comments on YouTube videos. But, my most prominant thoughts leading to the formation of my opinion are based on who would subscribe to the content that Stef publishes. My conclusion there is very, very few lefties. They might listen to a few podcasts here and there or watch a few videos or small clips and even share a few with ignorant comments. But I deduce that most lefties would not lower themselves to subscribing and donating to support a show with content that is currently in direct opposition to their various agendas. It would offend them to do so. It small blue dots around the map are where there are either city-centers like a state capital or where a university exists.

Why is Texas special?

What reference do you use for 20+ senses? What you describe here are experiences and most are recognized through the sense of touch.

females = subconscious / unconscious aspects of you daughter = young or immature idea of yourself depending on age running away = running away from yourself lighting = level of awareness Personal relationships with the opposite sex offer opportunities to see aspects of yourself of which you would not otherwise know. That is what you are running from. She keeps up and is still there so there is some awareness that you can't really get away from yourself. It's like you are playing cat and mouse with your desire to understand who you are. What happened when the dream changed?

Thanks for posting this. The pro-vax/anti-vax argument is not over. Just like climate change. The statement that 97% of scientists agree is repeated to often as to be nauseating. And the science is settled and so on. There is an agenda. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I think there is definitely some value there. But I simply cannot get past the amount of money spent trying to debunk claims. The setting up of the vaccine court to make payouts for something that is claimed to be harmless and completely safe is HUGE. The AVERS website available via the CDC is HUGE. I have yet to see these things debunked.

For viewers residing outside of the United States, did you know the GRAMMYs can be viewed in more than 170 countries around the world, including, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, France, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, and throughout Africa and South America, among others? Make sure to check your local listings for specific broadcast information

Ranking not sales. But why is your default that sales would be limited to the US?

Had to look up Omega Female -- not a lot out there on the topic that was worth anything. It certainly makes sense that I am an outsider.

I can describe myself almost exactly the same way. My daughter, however, is very different. She once yelled at me in great anger something like, "I worked hard to be the most popular girl in school and YOU MADE ME MOVE." I was startled that it was that important to her. There is a very long story there and obviously I was not connecting with her in a very useful manner and am working on healing our relationship. There is a lot there that I won't go into here. My point is that for many women this is really, really important. And to me it was completely foreign. My daughter currently has several very close relationships with women that she has had for years. I am also able to connect with her now, but it takes effort and persistence on my part for her to open up. When she does it is a wonderful friendship. I still feel like there is something wrong with me. I never had ANY female friends -- or friends at all for that matter. Even now, only my daughter. I only wanted that one strong bond with a man and I wanted lots of children. My 2 older brothers, my sister and I were all close in age and played together a lot. However, I also found myself playing alone much of the time. They just didn't see the world the same way that I did and so were not interested in the same things as me. And vise versa. I wasn't really interested in what they were interested in either. Recently I had an interaction with my sister-in-law where I think she was trying to connect with me or to get me to connect with her. She was trying to convince me to color my hair (it's been silver-gray for many, many years) and was suggesting some "fun" ideas. I've never been interested in that either. Never wore any make up but a little mascara and sometimes blush. I don't shop. I don't do much of anything that would be considered "girly". Well, I do love to cook and knit. But I did not really respond to my sister-in-law's attempt at interaction mainly because I simply wasn't interested in changing my hair color. I did not see it as fun at all. I saw that it would require me to do a lot of stuff with my hair later to get it back to its original state. But she would have just colored it some other color and so on. I simply had nothing to say. I thought about faking it and just pretending to go along, but I'm not good with that. I value honesty and have a great deal of difficultly being anything else. Interacting with other women at this point would require me to learn lots of stuff about hair and nails and makeup. I have no interest in that. I would much rather read a good book on something like --- philosophy. And then have a really deep discussion about what I read and how I might approach my life differently or alter a long-held belief because of some new revelation. That really, really interests me. A different sister-in-law was hospitalized for a mental breakdown -- and this was many, many, many years ago. With her therapy it was recommended that she speak up about things that bothered her. I went to see her in the hospital and she said to me, "All I ever wanted was to be your friend." I still think about that from time to time. I don't know what she wanted that I did not provide. I thought we interacted well together but she obviously wanted something more. If I had the awareness I have now I would have asked her some questions about she expected from a someone she would call "friend." I, too, am completely satisfied with my relationship with my husband as my best friend. Sometimes I still think about consciously trying to have relationships with women and even speak about the importance of this often in my podcasts. Based on study and interactions over the years, I think that strong female-to-female bonds are really, really important for most women. They need someone to be emotional with that will understand and not judge them. I provide that for lots of women. In fact, in my younger days, I was the go-to person when women needed to talk. But they were not what I would call "friends." I am an alpha female for sure. I dominate a room just by walking in and being there. If I do have conversation, I will definitely be a prominent voice. Now that I am writing about this, there are other things that are coming to mind. Other women are intimidated by my very presence for the most part. I don't understand this but I am very aware of it. I don't know where I got this "power" but I am definitely a self-empowered woman. Anyway, I have wondered often (but not with enough motivation to pursue it) if it was the Dunning-Kruger effect and I just don't know what I don't know about female friendships. And perhaps I should educate myself and practice. But then life happens and I have things that I really love to do and only so much time in a day. It's not likely I'm going to change this unless someone gives me a really good reason. I'm open to hearing some here.

For the most part we spend a good portion of our days judging and interpreting the information that we receive through our senses. We judge whether it is "good" and will provide pleasure or "evil" and therefore painful and to be avoided. But there is indeed so much more information available to us if we could but see all of that stuff that is received unconsciously every single day. While studying metaphysics, I was assigned an exercise that I practiced daily that was really awesome. It was designed to train the mind to notice more. I was amazed at what I could "see" with just a little practice. I learned some pretty amazing things by training my mind. I learned a whole lot about myself and about the limitations we impose on ourselves simply because we were never taught to exercise the mind in the same way that we exercise the body.

Hello FDR friends. I just published a podcast episode on dreams. Please have a listen and comment. http://villagewisdompodcast.com/vwp062-the-significance-of-dreams/ Thanks in advance for listening

You may be droning on a little bit.

Perhaps it does. If it does, "itself" would likely be so far above us in knowledge of the rest of the universe as to render us equivalent to ants in awareness. And if it does, will it give a rat's ass about how its choices affect you or just expect you to go along for the ride with its superior intellect? And to the OP, everyone will have a different perspective. How could they not? Me thinks you spend too much time thinking about creation and not enough time doing the creation. If you want to choose, then choose. If you think you have no choice, then do not choose. It's your choice -- but I digress.

My thoughts run along a different line. I'm so thrilled that this kind of call gets posted all over leftist media. Stef is changing the world one awakened mind at a time. Or in this case, can I say hundreds or thousands of minds? That might be a lie but I'm going with it. There are many on the left that will experience cognitive dissonance from listening and one day will wake up with a completely changed perspective on the world. Persuasion at its finest. Thanks Stef (and Mike) for all you do for the world.

Awesome communication and negotiation skills need to be part of every relationship or learned along the way. There will always be challenges and each person will likely learn and grow throughout their lives. Look at the changes in Stef's positions on various topics as he gained new information. Do you think that his wife and daughter just go along with no input? I think not. It is the ability to communicate effectively and renegotiate as life happens that keeps the partnership alive and well. It is both parties keeping an mind open to new information and a willingness to change that determines whether the relationship lasts. I know I'm simplifying here. I'm only addressing what I see as the root of your question. Life changes in every moment. Both parties need to have those qualities of being willing to learn, change and grow as needed using great communication and negotiation skills. In my opinion, finding out whether your partner is skilled at negotiation (or willing to learn) and willing to change is even more important than knowing what they value.

I heard 40 total. Of these 1 republican and 39 dems. The dem electors were already committed to Hillary as far as I know. It's smoke and mirrors IMO. Similar to polls telling you over and over that Trump was behind designed to make you doubt.

I agree with thecurrentyear, inspiring.

I have taught this to those with ADD with great success. Even two months of daily practice can produce noticeable improvement. It requires 10 minutes' practice every day. Daily Concentration Exercise Tools: candle, paper and writing instrument, timer 1. Light candle 2. Place paper in comfortable writing position, point of pen or pencil in place 3. Focus on candle flame 4. Each time you notice your attention is not on the candle flame, make a mark on the paper 5. Focus attention on mark, then move attention to candle flame 6. Continue for 10 minutes The point of this exercise is not the number of marks on the paper. Any given day you may have many and another not so many. That tells you nothing. You could have been very focused but you also could have been distracted for long periods of time. The point is you being in charge of your attention. Should you choose to use this method, let me know if you have questions or if you need feedback during your practice.

It indicates that it is the women raised to believe they can have a career and be (absentee) mothers who are actually quite uneducated in what is required to be either.

My advice is call the show. There is so much in the sentences that you have shared so far that are beyond the scope of finding useful information on this forum. This is about the child, not whether you are right or wrong or entitled to "rights." Again, my opinion, but your "rights" are not relevant.

Sorry for your loss. I can't imagine that pain. There is so much there to process. The grief is no less than any other loss of a loved one. Do you have support? If not, I strongly urge you to get that before anything else. I'm sorry for the difficulty with the mom. Her disregard for your pain is the most concerning part of your post. It makes for a difficult road ahead for you. It sounds overwhelming to me. You seem very smart, honest and informed and are likely up to the challenge you have chosen. But OMG. I don't know this woman or you but will offer my insight based on the information you presented. I'm going to approach this from the perspective of you wanting to have a mutually respectful relationship with her -- which will include a willingness to defer to her preferences in the raising of her son. That understanding will offer you a great perspective as you continue to develop your own ideas of who you will be as a parent. Before addressing that, this is where I would start to try and heal the breach. I would offer my hand in friendship. I would meet with her. I would do my best to let her rave until she has emptied her cache of emotions without responding. Let her go on as long as she feels she needs to. Offer your support for her feelings only. No judgment of her feelings. No defense of your position. This is what women used to do for each other as a matter of course. We acknowledged feelings without judgment, allowed them to flow freely until they are spent. In order for you to be able to do this without reflexively defending your honor, you will need to be able to call on your own sense of value and knowledge of who you are as a person. That frees you to understand that her spewing of emotions and verbal attacks do not reflect who you are. They reflect who she is in that moment. Keep in mind that it does not reflect who she is in every moment. Once the emotion is spent, you can have a conversation. This would be better accomplished by a close female friend, but I have my doubts as to the availability of such a person in her circle who possesses the skills to help. I am assuming you are willing to do whatever it takes to make this work. As Stef has presented many times, relationships with single mothers -- and single fathers, come with lots of challenges. While I do not support verbal abuse, I am fully aware of how uneducated women are about their emotions and how to work with them. In general, women work against emotions, trying to stuff them down, and then they explode when the pressure limit is reached. I am fully aware of how deficient the structure for a circle of feminine support is lacking in the lives of women. You say she has an established career. This emphasizes to me that her emotional outlets are restricted. The kind of emotional support I am attempting to present here is missing in the lives of nearly all women today. They look for it in their men and destroy their relationships because of it. They try to force society to provide it and support socialism in the process. I work everyday to try and bring this knowledge back to the hearts of women today. We women need each other. We need to study and understand what it means to be a woman that is full of emotion all the time. Women cannot ignore emotions, push them inside, and pretend that they can develop reason to overcome this basic nature. It's not going to happen. For women, reason is only available after the emotional charge is released. Ideally, emotions flow freely and "a bomb" needing release is never created. In the end, the conversation you will want to have with her is to find out what her plans are as a parent and perhaps help her meet her goals. Of course, that depends on what those goals are. Some may be very contrary to your own. That presents a different set of challenges. These are all my opinions of course. I hope there is some tidbit in there for you. I personally would be emotionally unable to address this woman and her issues while grieving the loss of a child. Again, my condolences and let me know if YOU need any support.

Will you share the reason for your Clinton vote?

Interesting thought project. Though it led me nowhere and did nothing for the cultivation of myself as a human being, it was still fun and entertaining. The mass hysteria of the left after the election is a "real" thing and a shared illusion. But does it exist? How can it be that things are "real" and an illusion at the same time? It exists as long as people believe it exists. If an experience exists long enough, it takes on life of its own and history is written to reflect it. 500 years from now, what will people believe is true about 2016 and the historically recorded hysteria after the 2016 election? The people are real for sure. The events recorded are real? And so a belief system is created and takes on a life of its own. What about truth? Is that a belief system, an illusion, or a religion? Or is it something else entirely? 2516's truth might overturn 2016's truth. Are any experiences we have as humans real? Or are they all simply mind constructs? Am I a figment of my imagination?