Post by MA₿
Learned helplessness is a psychological state in which individuals come to believe they have no control over events, even when change is possible. It’s happens when you learn that your actions are futile. After repeated failures or uncontrollable stressors most humans will stop trying to improve their situation. Believing nothing they do will make a difference. Often we learn these things in childhood when it’s easy to control us. Example: When elephants are young they are staked to the ground and unable to move. When they get older they can easily rip the stake out with their powerful legs, yet they don’t. They remain staked, because they have the memory of their actions being futile. This is how a tiny piece of wood and string can keep one of the most powerful and intelligent animals on earth subdued. We humans are no different. Think about where you’ve learned to be helpless. What actions do you believe are futile? Where do you think you have no power? What type of things seem impossible to change? These are the areas you need to confront and begin taking action in. Forewarning though it’s going to be painful as fuck, you’ve spent a long time building up psychological resistance and there’s a real cost to undoing it. But if you can undo it you should. The rewards are worth it. Godspeed.
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💯 Break out of that “…tiny piece of wood and string…”!
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I often think of this image. Very similar message
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Self-limiting beliefs.
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People with no spiritual beliefs are much more prone to this behavior. PS: the stake and string will have to also increase in size as a larger and larger elephant will simply just get up to stretch and pull the stake up and break the string. That’s the elephants advantage, and the same goes for a
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The state hates people like this. The state hates independent citizens. Fuck the state.
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Realizing some of this through the use of psychedelics in college was a very interesting time."You mean, I can just DO things?!" The trick, of course, is balancing what you can do with an understanding of what you should. I won't pretend that balance came without some work, and probably always will
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Great encouragement—thank you! I’ve been working on this for years and have really had to put in the work. You’re right—it’s not easy, but it’s so worth it! For me, I learned helplessness when I was deeply involved in a religious “institute.” That’s where I was taught to doubt myself, to never que
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No HODL, I’m not gonna do jiujitsu!
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My preteen daughters are amazing humans, academic titans, but they can't clean their rooms. I accept my failure as a parent for that, but how do I fix it?
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Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. I say just let it go.
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I tend to agree, but my wife does not.
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I've seen this experiment somewhere in rats before. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1150935
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