Better than Your Textbooks!

God answers prayers in some very strange ways sometimes... Who ever would have thought that the answers to my problems would be presented in my stress management class? I sure as heck didn't. But, I'm feeling better about life in general now, thanks to that class.

The whole class was about stress and spirituality. This was a rather interesting topic. I had no idea that we would discuss the spiritual health of our souls in any college class. But I was glad we did. Spirituality and religion are completely different subjects, although spirituality can be expressed through religion. I know some of my friends and I have talked about this before, but I didn't realize that someone had written a whole entire chapter in a psychology book about it.

One point I found rather interesting, but I am also skeptical about it, is a study that someone did where they showed the affects of words on ice crystals. It was strange, not gonna lie. And I'm still pretty skeptical about this effect, but I wonder if it's true. In the experiment, positive affirmation statements created beautiful crystals, whereas negative statements created less attractive crystals. They also studied the affects of music and got similar results. So, I don't know exactly what to think about this study....

I definitely believe in the effects of words and music on the soul. I believe that mental and psychological issues cause just as much stress and take just as much energy as physical issues. Researchers have started doing studies that indicate that the amount of glycogen in the brain decreases with mental stress (such as willpower, traumatic situations, etc.). This goes to show that mental and psychological issues really do take energy from people. It's a rather interesting study, if you ever care to research or write about something in psychology.

Another topic we looked at in class was spiritual healing. We looked quite a bit at forgiveness. Here's a concept I never considered before. Forgiveness is only for oneself. Keeping in anger, aggression, and hatred hurts only whoever is holding the grudge. The person who did the wrong never knows about the anger, the built up tension. It only matters to the person who either can't forgive or is trying to forgive. So, that was a good study. Something worth knowing, even for someone who isn't a psychology major.

Well, if you cared enough to read this, I'd really appreciate to know what you think. If you have views, it might be fun to discuss them. Anyways, I doubt anyone will actually do that, so I hope you enjoyed reading! It's better than a textbook, right?

Disappointment? Life? Lack of sleep?

Do you ever get in that, "I hate life" mood? I'm not quite there yet, but that's where my mood is surely headed. Hopefully I can turn that around by doing productive work. I need to focus on school... and church. Stop worrying about the little problems in life. Because that's all they are, little problem. Simple things I shouldn't worry nor care about, but I do.

I need to find a way to change. To learn to cope better with stressful events in my life. Any suggestions? Well, I probably wouldn't follow any advice even if it was given to me.

I'm tired. Probably should go to sleep, but I doubt I'll be able to sleep very much tonight. Too many things on my mind to think about. Oh well, at least getting offline will help me figure things out. Hopefully.

Social Psychology

Social psychology = best class ever! I am loving what I'm starting to learn in this class. We're talking about "the self" and it seems like an introspective class that helps me figure out my innermost thoughts and feeling and why I think, feel, and act as I do. We talked about a concept today that I had never thought much about before. Self-regulation.

Basically, it's another word for self-control. Anyways, we're just starting to discuss goals and choices. We're talking about the "now vs. later" choices and I wish I knew if I had good self-control as a child. Researchers have done tests to show that children who have self-control tend to live better lives than those who do not develop self-control. 'Twould be interesting to see what my level of self-regulation is at this stage in my life.

You, yes you reading this blog entry, should take a social psychology class sometime. You really learn a lot about yourself, and it's a great way to learn about self-discovery. I've learned why I do a lot of the things I do; the different motivations that drives us, as a human species, to pursue our dreams. What makes us different and unique compared to other species.

Ya, I have fallen in love with social psychology. That's basically it.

Hot Tubbing, Life, Reality

Tonight, me and some friends had a hot tub party. I think it's now a tradition because I've had a hot tub party every year for the past 3 years on homecoming night. Which is strange since I don't to to PV anymore, but still. It was originally planned because one of my friends wanted to go to homecoming but her date backed out; well, she got asked by someone else. I was set on having friends over though, and hot tubbing sounded like a good idea, so I went with it.

Nothing exciting happened. It was pretty normal - just chatting and laughing. More or less a night wasted. I could have been reading my textbooks. Dang. I guess I'll just have to catch up on my reading tomorrow.

I feel as if I'm going nowhere. As if nothing is going to happen for me, even though I try to make my life meaningful and productive. I guess I missed out on the whole social side of high school, and therefore, I didn't learn how to socialize very well. It's starting to catch up to me now. I can casually talk with a lot of different people; I just don't care for small talk. It bores me. When I chat with others, I like my conversations to be meaningful and thoughtful. Maybe that's why I am so bad at making new friends. Acquaintances, I have plenty of those, but real friends - those are much more difficult to find. And personally, I don't want to exert my energy trying to become friends with someone just to see the friendship end in failure.

Looking at different things realistically is not a pleasant outlook all the time. I wish I was more of an optimist than a realist. At least I don't always look at the pessimistic side of everything.

Life is boring. It's the same thing day in and day out. I need some excitement; something to change things up a little bit. Something out of the ordinary. New. Adventurous. Thrilling.

I want to be a true rebel. For all Dixie students, you probably know what this means. For others, you might too. No more elaboration from me though. I must get to bed because I'm going to a farewell in the morning. It is for Casey and I'll be sad to see him leave. But, he's going to be a really good missionary - hopefully. I'm just tired of everyone leaving.

Self-Compassion Views

Yesterday I had the most interesting discussion in one of my classes. We were talking about self-esteem, self-compassion, moral values, agression, and stress. The whole idea of the class was to read these articles and figure out how they all related to one another. And, I have a new direction I want to take! I'd always thought I would go into psychological research with something to do with development psychology or something like that, but now, I am most definitely going to try to study social psychology. And it's because of one specific subject: self-compassion.

A lot of people probably don't know the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion. Basically, self-esteem is a very debated topic in psychology where some psychologists believe that low self-esteem is bad, but also that narcissism (extreme high self-esteem) is bad. They've tried to show that low self-esteem creates aggression and behavioral problems. This has a small correlation, but it's not really significant. One of my professors actually believes that self-esteem has very little to do with behavioral problems, and I agree with that theory.

On the other hand, people low in self-compassion generally blame themselves for problems in their lives, and do not know how to deal with inconsistencies between their inner mental state and outer physical world. Self-compassionate people understand that they do make mistakes, they have adversities in their lives, but they also realize that beating themselves up over these problems will not solve anything. They tend to take rejection and failure better than those with low self-compassion.

So, here's my theory. Self-esteem doesn't really have an affect on behavior; rather, self-compassion is the underlying agent to behavioral problems. It makes sense. If people dwell on the mistakes they make, they won't care to progress in life. But, if they can learn from their mistakes and move on, they will progress in life. This seems like common sense.

I know I had more insights to this subject last night, but I can't remember them right now... I should have written them down. This very possibly could be my independent research project someday. Perhaps even one of my research studies in grad school. Who knows...

No matter what, I'm excited to learn more about self-compassion and self-concept. It fascinates me!

Please Don't...

The world is barren
My heart is gone
A desert land
Once whole, now wrong

I ran away
Escaped to return
The death and gloom
Your absence burns

My need for you
Grows greater still
As longing taunts
My loving will

Reach out to me
Just one more time
Give me this last
Peace of mind

I miss you now
More than you'll ever know
Listen close, dear
Please don't go.

Content, Green, Hugs

I'm content. Life isn't great, but it's not really that bad either. Something I've been realizing lately is that everything doesn't have to end up perfectly. I can get through difficult situations because I know I can handle anything life throws at me.

I must say that my friends are amazing. Tonight, Nicki brought me cookies for no apparent reason, just because. I love my friends! Without friends and family, I don't know how I'd survive this life.

Life is good. I am finally getting into the groove with my classes. Some textbooks are extremely hard for me to read, but I deal. I finished my 2 papers today. Still need a second opinion on them, but I'll get that tomorrow. So, I've realized I love social interaction. I thrive on my weekends of talking and hanging out with friends. I look forward to chatting and texting and blogging. Maybe it's just that I need to restate my feelings out loud (or through typing) to actually know what I'm going through.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been writing a lot lately. I think I'm going to write a song soon. A country song, of course. About life and love and the lack of... haha. I need the lyrics, then the music. Hmmm... this might get interesting.

Anyways, did you know my favorite color is green? Well, it is. My room is also green and gorgeous. I wish I could just be outside all the time. Thankfully my curtains let in the light in the morning and afternoon. At night though, it's kinda creepy because if I have my light on, people can see through my window... I need to fix this. Don't want any peepers.

I have a lot to read tomorrow. But, at least I don't have to write any more essays until this weekend! You know that feeling you get when you accomplish something? That's what I'm feeling right now, but I really haven't even accomplished anything other than actually getting my papers written.

I still need a real hug. I've been missing physical contact with people. We've learned in my adult development and aging class that physical contact helps cognitive processing. So, I need to start touching more and getting out of my bubble. We'll see if that actually happens or not...

Life is good-ish... We'll see what happens later to see it that holds true.

Haha, I just wrote my title, and if you take out the commas, it is "content green hugs"... It reminds me of environmentalists. Let's not go into that topic tonight though (in fact, I don't think I ever write about politics on here... hmmm). Lol. Randomness!