The State of Us & Our Things

[Froggy Fool]

Please post the rest or my minions will attack you.

 

[Old Thunder]

Haven't gotten enough likes yet.

 

[Froggy Fool]

UGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH......

Like Old Thunder's post please. Or not. The choice is yours.

 

[LittleJerry92]

It's mine, it's mine, it's mine, who's choice is this?

The choice is yours, the choice is yours....

 

[D'Snowth]

UGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH......

Like Old Thunder's post please. Or not. The choice is yours.

 

[jvcarroll]

Well, I've been working even longer hours, through seasonal illness and applying for an additional job. That's why I've been scarce, but I admit to loving being this busy. Good thing, because working Americans like me are going to have to get used to this unless/until we can solve the problem or Republican greed and middle American Republicans' ignorance about how exactly they're being hosed by the very people they've been voting for. Anyway, I've been trying to follow things here. I'm just so glad the remaining DST figures are going to finally be released. The team worked very hard on those. And even the several people here, the negative nellies, who were the harshest critics of those (and, to be honest, every other Muppet product on the market ever made) seem to be excited about them too. Yay that! Lets hope Chef sells enough units so that we can at least get Teeth and Zoot. We need those badly! M'kay, y'all. Back to work. Maybe I'll stop by in days to come. I've never been this busy nor this happy in a long time. It's amazing how less stress there is in one's world when there's no time for it. WOCKA!

 

[jvcarroll]

I guess this thread is still here. I thought it was deleted too, so I'll put the post I put in another thread in this one: No matter what people say to us or how people treat us - it is OUR RESPONSIBILITY how WE RESPOND! That's what defines us, not other people. I recently rediscovered my values and have doubled down on them. Conflict is life. There's nothing wrong with it. When others don't show us grace, it is paramount that we demonstrate grace to them. Here are the values I rediscovered. I'm making it a point to revisit them at the beginning and end of each week. Frog Bless!

SKILLS FOR AUTHENTIC GROWTH​

Excerpts from The Velvet Rage Second Edition​

SKILL: LIFE CHOICES

THE PERSON I WOULD BECOME: Make decisions based on what the person you wish to become would do in the same situation.

INNER PEACE ABOVE ALL ELSE: Ultimately, the goal in life is inner peace. How does this choice contribute to your inner peace?

NEVER REACT WHILE FEELING AN INTENSE EMOTION: Delay making a decision or reacting while feeling an intense emotion. Distract yourself until the feeling subsides, then decide what decision or action should be taken.

CONTENTMENT OVER APPROVAL: Populate your life with investments of time and emotion that increase your contentment rather than eliciting acceptance and approval of others.


SKILL: INCREASING POSITIVE EMOTIONS

ACCEPT REALITY ON REALITY’S TERMS: Seek to see reality as it is rather than as you wish it to be.

ONE THING, ONE PERSON, ONE CONVERSATION IN THE MOMENT: Give your full attention and focus to that which is before you in this moment.

TAKE A NON-JUDGMENTAL STANCE WHENEVER POSSIBLE: Limit the urge to classify everything in life somewhere between good and bad. “It is what it is.”

OBSESSING ABOUT PAIN CREATES MORE PAIN: The continuous recitation of painful feelings, stories and memories brings only temporary relief and, in the long term, increases your pain.

WALK YOUR WAY OUT OF DISTRESS: When feeling particularly distressing emotions, the only way to decrease pain is to force yourself to act contrary to the emotion.

RESPECT YOUR BODY: Care for your body as a precious possession.

NO FEELING LASTS FOREVER: Emotions are only temporary and all will eventually pass.


SKILL: RELATIONSHIPS

DON’T LET YOUR PHYSICAL ATTRACTION BE THE FILTER BY WHICH YOU ALLOW PEOPLE INTO YOUR LIFE: Approach and cultivate relationships with people who are authentic and validating rather than just those who are cute.

BE RIGHT OR BE HAPPY: Relinquish the urge to always be “right,” and instead attend to the needs of your relationships.

ALWAYS LOOK FIRST FOR THE INNOCENCE OF OTHERS: No matter how difficult another person may be, he is doing in that moment the best he can do.

IN CONFLICT, ALWAYS ASSESS YOUR REPSONSIBILITY FIRST: Resist the urge to blame another for a conflict, and instead first assess and own your responsibility.

KEEP YOUR INNER CIRCLE SACRED AND SAFE: Carefully guard and assess those individuals you allow into your inner circle of intimacy. Their influence is monumental.

VALIDATE WHAT IS VALID (AND NEVER THE INVALID): Seek to find the truth in another person’s experience and reflect that back to him or her.

OWN YOUR SIDE OF THE STREET: Own your feelings. No one else is responsible for how you feel.

SPEAK TO THE OFFENDER FIRST (INSTEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE): In a conflict, seek to speak to the offender before discussing the conflict with others.

LIVE IN INTEGRITY: In all interactions with others, be compassionately and deliberately honest.

DEFAULT TO FORGIVENESS RATHER THAN RESENTMENT: When disappointed or offended by others, allow the other person to hold a different point of view rather than closing your heart to him or her.

EMBRACE AMBIVALENCE: Seek out and embrace the omnipresent competing feelings about all things in life. This is a hard one to wrap the brain around, but we don't have to have 100% feelings about anything. In fact, it exposes the humanity in us not to.

 

[newsmanfan]

This seems like a good thread to post in today.

Anthony Bourdain has committed suicide, in case you missed the news this morning. For me this comes at the end of a hard, depressing week full of struggles and crises. There are tributes all over the web today from his friends and fans, and one of the folks I respect on twitter (@erinscafe) pointed out that it's a shame he can't read any of them...and that it's always good to thank people in your life who have helped you, who have been there when you were down, or who just do good being themselves every day. People who make the world better just by being in it, as Bourdain did.

Please, take a minute today to thank someone. Remind them they are appreciated, cared about, loved.

The past couple of years have grown darker and darker for this country, and it feels lately like those of us who actually care about each other are being ground down systematically. If I didn't have my partner right now, I know I would be in a very lonely, very dark place. In the past, more than once, I have considered and attempted suicide. Depression is not fake; suicide is not cowardly. Life is frogging HARD.

So if anyone here feels like they have nothing to stick around for, please talk. Talk to a friend, or to someone you trust, or if you have no one, call a suicide hot line. No one will judge you, or push you aside, or try to plaster platitudes over you. Just reach out.

And everyone: tell someone thank you for being their awesome self. You never know how much the simplest gesture will mean.

 

[D'Snowth]

So I'm bumping this thread, because it's finally been confirmed what was concerning me for a while: the current political climate has brought me back to being the negative pessimist that you guys used to always accuse me of being in years past.

I honestly feel miserable. It actually felt good to finally break away from the pessimism and cynicism that consumed my life a few years ago: having stability in my life, and things were going well, I no longer had to let negativity hold me back and shape my life. I was a happy person, I was at peace with myself and life in general. Now I'm right back to always having to assume the worst and deal with hardships and misfortunes because of what's going on in the country in the hands of Trump; I'm back to feeling miserable and hopeless all the time, and I'm really sad that I feel this way again. I used to think being negative and pessimistic (or "realistic" as I used to call it) was basically the character that I was shaped into, rather than it being a state of mind . . . now I know it's a state of mind, but at the moment, there's nothing I can do to turn that around - as long as the current political climate is what it is, as long as those of us in middle and working class continue to suffer, there's nothing I can do.

Just in 2019 so far alone, I haven't been able to afford groceries much of the time, so I've had to get groceries from food pantries and poor houses; I haven't been able to afford to eat solid food except for maybe once or twice a month, so I've lost about fifteen pounds; I fell behind in payments to my storage unit and almost lost the contents in there (including my old puppets, designs, conceptual artwork, scripts, etc.); am currently a month behind on my health insurance payments; am currently having to have meals on wheels delivered to me every week.

On top of that, my dad had cancer last year, so my folks and I have some medical debts with that, and even though he's cancer-free now, he's now got blocked carotid arteries and the'll have to undergo surgery for, so that'll mean even more medical debt. There's also family drama going on between my mom and aunt right now over property left to them by their grandmother, and things are just crappy all over.

So, I mean . . . yeah, life sucks right now, and I hate that it is, but . . . that's just what's going on right now.