While I enjoy learning about defense mechanisms of all kinds, I've taken an interest in the healthy defense mechanisms which to me illustrate healthy ways of coping and something to strive for. We all do deal with rough times but there ways we transform dark difficult situations into something really positive. On Wiki they are known as level 4 defense mechanisms and even though I studied psychology, I didn't even know they existed for a long while.I thought ego defenses were mainly negative and ways of avoiding an issue that's too trying for us to deal with alone, but it's nice to know there are healthy defenses as well.

This is the list and description of level 4 defense mechanisms found on wiki:

"Level 4 Defense Mechanisms

These are commonly found among emotionally healthy adults and are considered the most mature, even though many have their origins in the immature level. However, these have been adapted through the years so as to optimize success in life and relationships. The use of these defenses enhances user pleasure and feelings of mastery. These defenses help the users to integrate conflicting emotions and thoughts while still remaining effective. Persons who use these mechanisms are viewed as having virtues.

These include:

• Altruism: Constructive service to others that brings pleasure and personal satisfaction
• Anticipation: Realistic planning for future discomfort
• Humor: Overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) that gives pleasure to others. Humor, which explores the absurdity inherent in any event, enables someone to call a spade a spade, while "wit" is a form of displacement (see above under Category 3). Wit refers to the serious or distressing in a humorous way, rather than disarming it; the thoughts remain distressing, but they are 'skirted round' by the witticism.
• Identification: The unconscious modeling of one's self upon another person's character and behavior
• Introjection: Identifying with some idea or object so deeply that it becomes a part of that person
• Sublimation: Transformation of negative emotions or instincts into positive actions, behavior, or emotion
• Suppression: The conscious process of pushing thoughts into the preconscious; the conscious decision to delay paying attention to an emotion or need in order to cope with the present reality; able to later access uncomfortable or distressing emotions and accept them"

I'm especially interested in Sublimation and how it can be useful to me. (when I didn't know the proper word, I called it channeling, and I think I was talking about the same thing. And I used channeling mainly for artistic expression, rather than emotional healing) I think it has great potential in writing and art and probably other areas. I will be researching this more.

Humor is another favorite of mine. I'm used some of these other positive defenses as well.

 

To me positive psychology is much more than simply thinking positively or looking on the bright side. By this term I'm not talking about psychology that blindly tells you every thing's going to be OK and glosses right over real issues and our shadow side. I don't think false assurance, especially without depth, does anyone much good. I'm not afraid of delving into my own darkness, healing it and transforming it into joy and light. But I believe we need to get there by thoroughly exploring our dark side. We need to be honest with ourselves and face our sorrows, not ignore them but then use our self understanding of our complete selves to transform.

On the other hand, dark negative psychology that dwells upon our flaws and defects and claims we are doomed to be haunted by them for our entire lifetime is not helpful either. I have one friend who looks at everything and thinks even the most innocent action is some sign of dysfunction even when it is purely an innocent gesture or expression of kindness. And it gets old after awhile. I could be naive in this but I hate seeing people as doomed or beyond hope. I refuse to give up on myself or others in this way.
I've also been through a trying situation where the other person saw me as seriously flawed/doomed when I shared a darker aspect of myself. As soon as he found out about this part of me, his view of me totally changed and all my assets went out the window in his mind. He forgot that I was still the same person I was before he knew and all of a sudden I was defined by that issue. I for one was very resistant to that kind of negative attitude and know that defining people by their flaws does way more harm than good.

I like psychology that believes in the remarkable strength and courage of the human spirit and helps us discover our virtues and potential. I believe in both bringing out the best in people and discovering one's dark side and becoming comfortable with it. My favorite psychologists are Jung and Carl Rogers (as well as many of the humanistic psychologists). All of these people serve as great models of compassion toward the client/person we are counsoling. And I think this is of utmost importance. Encouraging positive thinking alone can be shallow. (though it can be great at the right time and with all these other qualities in place.) What really counts is believing and caring about the potential of the client and treating them and their feelings with respect and working towards self actualization together. This is one of the reasons why I like the idea of Person-centered therapy. I believe people really respond best when we care for the whole person, accept them first, and believe in their full potential and work together to get there. Dismissing their darker emotions without having compassion for the patient and the situation misses the point and is not really a positive experience for the other person Compassion is key for transforming dark into lightness and some people actually need more time to mourn and heal and work through their shadow.

I still consider myself a believer in positive psychology even though my views might lean moe towards realistic/balanced.

I search for beauty and expressive potential in my life and find it very frequently, sometimes in the simplest things that others miss. And I'm often touched by what I find. To me, everything can be art or have artistic potential in the right light. Of course there is beauty in the extraordinary, but there is also something extraordinary and beautiful in the mundane. Sometimes what I see inspires me to turn my inspiration into something creative, and other times I just want to be fully in the moment and enjoy the beauty for what it is. Both ways are beautiful.

I take in beauty through all my senses, not just my eyes. As a musician I'm of course very sensitive to sound in this way and often see musical potential in everyday sounds.

Expression and expressive potential is the force behind everything artistic. So when I take that into consideration, I can definitely include emotions as having artistic potential. In fact emotions may be the root of most all the other beauty, or at least it is for me. There are several levels of beauty, but the inner most ones strike a powerful chord within you and touch some kind of emotion.

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"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears" ~ Edgar Allen Poe

I've noticed my focus has been scattered lately, and I haven't been able to have that many intense moments of razor-sharp focus where I discover profound insights. And consequently, I'm feeling slightly dull.

So I'd like to regain my focus and center myself and center my focus again. I'm starting to learn about meditation, but I still have much more to learn. I think this can be helpful with centering (because after all, that is one of the main focuses of meditation) and I'd like to know of any meditations that focus specifically on centering scattered energy. If I find this on my own I'll definitely share it here.

I've recently listened to an awesome CD on self actualization and it suggested creating a notebook of images and symbols that are very meaningful to you. I actually decided to do this project online and I've just started this folder on Gaia comprised of meaningful images, this project is just getting started but I'm already finding it incredibly meaningful and I totally recommend it to all of my friends here.

For several years, I've been agnostic and quite content without a strong spirituality, at least in a formal sense. I'm still quite content with being agnostic, but lately I've also been craving a deeper spiritual connection of some sort and I've been wondering if I already have it and if I do, how I can deepen it.. Spirituality is one of those terms that can be defined in many different ways. For me it means a deep meaningful connection anything outside the self, but at the same time this connection also reaches deep within the self and makes us whole in a way. (I know that's really not to specific yet but maybe it doesn't need to be and if it does I'll hone it as I learn more.) 

For me I've found this connection in several places, One of them through the arts; both as a creator and an appreciator. My preferred mediums are music, photography, painting and poetry on the creating end of this. I can connect to just about anything that's deep and beautiful and my appreciation and connection to beauty spans across many mediums. Creating music is an especially strong spiritual experience for me. There are moments where I just know i'm so connected with both myself and the world at large and when this happens I'm just in the moment feeling completely focused and alive.. I can also experience this when I'm taking pictures or just immersed in the creation or enjoyment of something beautiful. I both lose and find myself in the flow and it's an amazing experience. It's just hard to put into words.

Another area for me is connecting with humanity. When i discovered humanism, and identified with it, there was immediately a strong connection.  We are all connected through the shared experience of humanity/life (don't want to leave the animals out) and we each have amazing potential to bring light and joy into each other's lives and synergy is such an amazing force. I'm also quite passionate about human rights and bringing the world together and dismantling the walls of prejudice and pretenses that bar some beautiful potential connection. I also connect with humanity on a personal level in addition to a spiritual/idealistic level. I can get so energized by a conversation or by being around close friends who I connect to.  All of this, to me, is very spiritual. This is why I call myself an agnostic humanist instead of just an agnostic.

i also find connecting to symbols and archetypes and using them to connect to ourselves and others be spiritual as well. I'm going to leave it at that for now, but fill in the blank spots as the ideas emerge

I'm still interested in both deepening and expanding my sense of spirituality, perhaps branching out into other areas. I've recently become very interested in mindfulness and meditation and I've always been interested in Buddhism and want to continue to explore and discover this.

I've always been quite sensitive all my life and i think of myself as quite absorbent of human energy, for better or worse.  When I go into sponge mode, I soak up nearly everything around me, positive or negative. When I pick up on joyful positive energy, it lifts me up and fills me with this joy that's often not containable. I feel very much alive and very much a part of the human experience. I feel like I'm connecting to the whole world around me. Needless to say, this is an amazing feeling

When the energy's negative, I have a similar experience with the connectedness, but instead of the joy there's this crushing darkness that fills me. Sometimes, if it's a dark energy and a friend is suffering, I often feel sad and compassionate. The mood is different based on the the energy I pick up, but there's usually this strong sense of connectedness regardless of what the energy is.  The strange thing is I love that feeling of connectedness weather the energy is dark or joyful

A friend commented on this and says this is an awful way to live. I'm not sure about that. I mean, yes the darkness can be hard, but I do love the feeling of connectedness to others and it's not something I'm ready to give up. Maybe I don't want it all the time though. I'd like to have a metaphorical filter that will allow me to filter out the part that are not conducive to my personal growth and are not helpful. Sometimes pain can be very helpful, though picking up too much of it gets to be overwhelming.

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Rusty chains suffocate the remains
Of my heart’s burnt dreams
Choking what little hope I had
As my world turns numb and gray

Devoid of color, passion and life
Bars of steel wrap around me
Entrapping me in apathy’s abandoned prison
I slam the gate on emotion
Forgetting everything that’s been
Years of nothingness pass me by
~
Poking through my chains
A bloom of red graces me with a smile
And vibrant crimson unfolds from emptiness
A kiss of hope, blooming in color
Upon a slate of bleakness

My walls of cynicism begin to crumble
For beauty has broken in
And awakened the joy locked within my heart
Emotions begin to pump through my veins
and love radiates through once more
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Poem notes:

The freedom I describe here is the freedom to love again, and connect with what we are passionate about in life. We can sometimes use apathy as a prison and cut ourselves off from feelings and from what we love.

This poem is based on my own personal life. I faced a handful of disappointments went through a very aimless apathetic period where I tried to convince myself that love and passion for life were not essential for me but I was going along, trying to get by, but something felt so empty. But I had lost touch with what was missing.

Then there were several sources of inspiration. My main one came because someone following their dream and living passionately and joyfully entered my life and inspired me to do some deep soul searching and connect with my dreams and passions. And now I'm following them, not only that but joy and enthusiasm have radiated through other areas of my life and I truly feel alive again, and I feel free to love and live passionately. It's an amazing feeling and I'd like silently dedicate this poem to that person.
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Additional thoughts on Apathy:

Though my poetry muse is not visiting me these days, this poem and the ideas behind this poem continue to inspire and transform me. Apathy is stagnent and  it lulls you to sleep and for extended periods this can be dangerous both on a personal level and a world level. It really does feel like a grey barren landscape and suffocates forward movement. I believe it is of utmost importance to stay connected to our hearts, our visions, ourselves, each other and the world around us. When we are connected, we are aware and when we are aware we have momentum and motivation to move forward and create a beautiful future.

One habit I have (but am working on breaking) is to disconnect from something that dissipoints me and pretend I didn't care about it before the dissipointment, or find something new to distract me. For example in love, if I've had a painful breakup or a major dissipointment, my first inclinition is to swear off love (even the idea of love!) for awhile and do without. But then I slowly realize that I am slowly becoming dead inside. This is what it's like when we cut off something that we value deeply. As I started to reawaken I discovered this pattern and I intend to break it.  My goal now is to stay connected to my dreams and connected to what my heart cherishes. This doesn't exactly mean holding onto the past or being out of touch with reality. To me it means riding with the dream through it's ups and downs and embracing each emotion that comes with our connection and having the will to do nurture and shape our dream when it needs it and never giving up when  something is that important to us. From now on, I want to be passionate and connected with everything that matters, and this principle can apply on so many levels.

I have several goals in being here.
I hope that by being here I will: connect with more like-minded people, discover my own inner strength, connect with ideas I'm interested in, discover ways to make my dreams reality and be a catalysis for change, connect with the world, inspire, and be inspired.

I have a wide variety of idealistic interests and I plan on blogging about those later. I also hope to make some friends here, so feel free to add me if we share interests or if you connect to me.