I have a roster of people who I imagine smiling at me, which I use to reward myself with: when I do something clever, I imagine a friend of mine whose intelligence I respect smiling at me. When I need comfort, I imagine my parents or my most accepting friend smiling at me. When I need excitement, I imagine a particular crush smiling at me.
I found Valentine’s point about self-rewarding ‘feeling like bullshit’ to be true in much the same way that you can’t tickle yourself. But then, I used his ‘simulate an event; feel the emotions’ method to simulate someone else rewarding me, and it seemed to work.
Caveat: I have only been using this for the few days since minicamp. It may have medium or long-term effects on my relationships with the people I imagine, although I predict they will be positive effects.
Slight Tangent:
One thing I’ve found that helps me in my relationships, is when I see a friend of mine, I mentally recall all the feelings of happiness and shared bonds and good times with that person, and try and put that into my face and smile, and send that at them.
I’ve also tried to explicitly compliment people (before, I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!)
I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!
It took me until very recently to realise that this habit is actually bad: it creates situations where I act like I’ve complimented people (because I thought of it) and they act like I haven’t (because I haven’t verbalised).
Something less; people risk their status when they say or do or display some praise-worthy thing, and they need affirmation that they gained status (via compliment). I act as if I’ve already affirmed their status (going on to the next topic, bringing up a compliment-worthy thing of my own), which looks to them like I’m denying their status (because they don’t see the praise that’s in my head).
I have a roster of people who I imagine smiling at me, which I use to reward myself with: when I do something clever, I imagine a friend of mine whose intelligence I respect smiling at me. When I need comfort, I imagine my parents or my most accepting friend smiling at me. When I need excitement, I imagine a particular crush smiling at me.
I found Valentine’s point about self-rewarding ‘feeling like bullshit’ to be true in much the same way that you can’t tickle yourself. But then, I used his ‘simulate an event; feel the emotions’ method to simulate someone else rewarding me, and it seemed to work.
Caveat: I have only been using this for the few days since minicamp. It may have medium or long-term effects on my relationships with the people I imagine, although I predict they will be positive effects.
Slight Tangent: One thing I’ve found that helps me in my relationships, is when I see a friend of mine, I mentally recall all the feelings of happiness and shared bonds and good times with that person, and try and put that into my face and smile, and send that at them.
I’ve also tried to explicitly compliment people (before, I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!)
It took me until very recently to realise that this habit is actually bad: it creates situations where I act like I’ve complimented people (because I thought of it) and they act like I haven’t (because I haven’t verbalised).
What does “acting like you complimented someone” entail? Expecting them to show gratitude? Or is it something more?
Something less; people risk their status when they say or do or display some praise-worthy thing, and they need affirmation that they gained status (via compliment). I act as if I’ve already affirmed their status (going on to the next topic, bringing up a compliment-worthy thing of my own), which looks to them like I’m denying their status (because they don’t see the praise that’s in my head).
This seems like a brilliant add-on!