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When you use the phrase "keep it together" for yourself or another person, what sort of unmanaged emotional regulation breakdown are you generally anticipating and trying to head off? (as in... giving in to fear, loss of composure, choking towards the end of a competition etc)
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Add it to various other constructed selves: Aspirational self: what you hope to be Presentation self: the one you perform on Facebook Bureaucratic self: the one easily embodied on autopilot under normal conditions but takes high effort to hold together under stress
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You could measure your stress level by how aware you are of your bureaucratic self. It’s a vector: Magnitude: how hard it is to hold it together Direction: what you’re not giving in to
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Whenever I go for a physical, the doctor asks something like “How are you stress levels?” Never know how to answer. Feel like saying, “Of course. Life is stress. Who knows what level but I’m handling it.”
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You can measure cholesterol, cortisol. sleep quality etc but not “stress” per se. That’s in a nightly TPS report submitted by your amygdala to prefrontal cortex and promptly forgotten.
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