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Reader Says |
Ed Says |
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010 6:22 AM Inspirational Video - Featuring Geese Hi Ed, I studied with you in Incline in 2000 (was there when you were involved in campaigning for school board). This video -to all the people you have helped and touched with your mind, and heart. I know all is well, and I bid you a very fine day! Your friend, student, and fellow trader, Click here to watch the video. |
Thank you for the link. | |||||||
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:44 AM How to Cut Carbon Emissions 10% - no Pressure Hi Ed, You might like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k |
Thank you for the link. | |||||||
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:44 AM Mandelbrot's Fractals Hi Ed, I thought you might like this BBC slideshow of Mandelbrot's fractals in beautiful pictures. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11560110 |
Thank you for the link. You might like to check the Fractals link, above. | |||||||
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Monday, October 18, 2010 Tribe Report - More Intimacy and Less Stress Dear Ed, At our most recent tribe meeting of 10/7/10, three members go on the Hot Seat. The first Hot Seat is about a member's relationship with her sister, and sharing the work of caring for their terminally ill mother. During the role play, I play the sister. Initially we are talking over the phone, and it becomes clear that intimacy is VERY difficult to achieve over the phone. There is so much missing. Face to face, you can look someone in the eye, you can feel and see their vulnerability and sincerity and their willingness. Over the phone that is very hard to pick up. A valuable lesson for me. The member role plays talking to the sister, and working to get a face to face meeting. In the face to face meeting, (in my role as the sister) we are able to send and receive feelings to each other. The other tribe member's feelings are real and genuine. She looks me in the eyes and sends her feelings about her dying mother, and it grabs my heart, and we are connected. It is very powerful. Another member on the Hot Seat recalls an incident as a young child, where he trades a coin for some glass lenses. The child is thrilled and happy with the trade, until his mother asks him about the lenses, and harshly disapproves. The little boy is sad, deflated, crushed. It is hard to watch the boy cry from the mother's criticism. I feel heavy sadness. The boy is so young and innocent, and desperately wants to share the joy of his trade, together with his mother. Through role play, the boy is able to achieve a much better outcome in the interaction with this mother. He is able to tell her how he feels and there is a connection between mother and son, a sharing that had never existed before. I feel joy and a release of tension and pressure from my shoulders. In my own life I continue to make the effort to send and receive my feelings with my family and friends. It is becoming more natural. My relationship with my wife of 8 years is more intimate than it has ever been. My judgments about her continue to decrease on a daily basis. I accept her, right now, for who she is. She is pretty and smart and funny, and I am seeing it more than I ever have, even when we first started dating. My biggest improvements continue to be with my children. I spend a lot of time with both of my boys, while my wife works and goes to school full time. I sometimes feel frustrated when they argue with each other, or they are both wanting me to do two different things at the same time. But the more I talk about my feelings with my children, and the less I judge them, the less frustrated I feel. I continue to feel more and more relaxed as the weeks pass. In my past I am so accustomed to feeling stressed, that now, once or twice a day, I stop and think, "Man, isn't there something I should be stressed out about?" So I think for a few seconds, but there is nothing! My stress and anxiety are at all-time lows. Thank you Ed, for giving me the resources to live a fuller, more satisfying life! |
Thank you for sharing your process.
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Monday, October 18, 2010 Playing with Music - Classical with Comedic Flare Ed, You might enjoy this. http://www.flixxy.com/classical-music-comedy.htm |
Thank you for the clip. | |||||||
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Monday, October 18, 2010 Private and Public Property - Choices Ed, I think this video hits the nail on the head. It gets to the point of politics. |
Thank you for the clip. You might consider taking your feelings about <private property> to Tribe. | |||||||
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Monday, October 18, 2010 Tribe Report - Moving Closer with Family Hello Ed, The meeting begins and I start to realize that this is our next to last tribe meeting and become sad and happy it seems at the same time. I tell the group how much this process and their support has meant to me. I become overwhelmed with emotion and cried as I spoke and I felt good about that. The first tribe member who takes the "hot seat" describes a situation in which her sister has called her up to tell her that she can no longer help take care of their mother who is dying of cancer. The tribe member relates her feelings of anger, hurt and rejection. In the role play, I play the tribe member, I have to re-play my part because I don't express enough anger. I realize that I tend to suppress anger in my own life and that I have a judgment about that feeling. Also, during the role play, when speaking as her sister and sharing our feelings I feel a change in the dynamics of the relationship from being adversarial and shutting down emotions to a more intimate tone so we could work together to help her our mother. I can relate to this tribe member's situation because I took care of my dying mother and it was such a huge burden. I wish that I had the intimacy-centric resources that I have now. I could have reached out better to my brother for help and related my feelings about my mother's death. When the tribe member did her role play and shared her feelings with her sister she experienced the same shift in the relationship and was able to feel closer to her sister. The next tribe member to take the "hot seat" related a situation in which he exchanged a coin his father had given him to a next door neighbor kid for a box of lenses that he liked much better. When he showed his mother what he had traded for she scolded him for trading the coin. During the role play, I played his father who gave him a coin he had picked up at a trade show. As I played his father, who coldly gave his son the coin I felt like I had to suppress all of my feelings to play the role. This brought up sad feelings for me because I couldn't express any feelings for my son. Then during role play when the tribes man was sharing his feelings with his mother and she was sharing with him another tribes member interrupted the member's process by saying that it was okay for him to hug his mother. The tribes man became angry and played out a role with his father because whenever he and his mother would become close his father would interject. I can relate to the feelings this tribe member felt because sometimes my mother would scold me over something I had done. Then I would feel guilt, rejection, isolation, and pain. I have a positive report, I will be meeting my brother and, hopefully, a cousin that I haven't seen for seven years before the next tribe meeting. I am looking forward to this occasion. Thanks, |
Thank you for sharing your process. | |||||||
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Monday, October 18, 2010 The State Ed, Mafia is a five letters word. It utilizes racket and extortion to serve, help and protected a great variety of people over the years. If you pay somebody extorting you, both parties may be sentenced to jail. State is a five letters word. It utilizes taxation to carry out many functions including welfare and public services, helping elderly and unemployed, protect property of its citizen. If you DON'T pay taxes, you may be sentenced to jail. |
You might consider taking your feelings about <taxes> and <authority> to Tribe. | |||||||
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Sunday, October 17, 2010 Workshop Brings Up Pro-Crastinating Ed, I was called away on meetings all last week and was planning to send the registration in as soon as I returned. I see you have raised the price. The total cost of the workshop was reaching the maximum I felt comfortable paying. I am attaching the 3 short essays showing I had completed them but was unable because I was surprised I had to be gone on meetings. I would be happy to air mail the payment and registration tomorrow if you are willing to accept the original cost. If not, I understand and will wait until November to make a final decision on attending. Regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process. I see you are no ameteur crastinator. You might consider taking your feelings about <being a little late> to Tribe (or to a Workshop if you get a round tuit.) Alternatively, you might consider putting this off for a while .
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Sunday, October 17, 2010 Practice Modalities Dear Ed: I respond to FAQ response to my email "Practice!" I improve my trading behavior over the years in various ways: I read, I trade for a firm, I trade for myself, I meet better traders, I join a tribe, I borrow ideas and I test my ideas. I experience exposure to a quantity of ideas and information. I simplify. I practice when I use methods of modifying behavior to approach a new target. I model traders with better returns, I synthesize concepts, I adapt and test ideas that I can apply. Sometimes I mold my ideas to myself, sometimes I mold myself to my ideas. The part about molding my behavior to my ideas is what I call practice. Your question, Ed, furthers my quest to further articulate "how to" or, "how I" practice. My Modalities of Practice: Linguistics Visual-Motor Rehearsal Kinesthetic Awareness Emotional Awareness State dependent learning. Examples: Linguistics: I practice self-statements of the target behavior. I refine potent sayings more specifically. "Cut your losses" to "I cut my losses short" to "I always initiate a closing order when a trade's profit equals -1% of equity." What a mouthful! VM Rehearsal: I rehearse the behavior. Since my trading is semi-automatic (I automate entries and manually close trades) I rehearse the scenario: at my desk, certain time of day, I visualize the price point on the screen, I rehearse closing the trade. I rehearse the aftermath, I rehearse the feelings the come up during and after the process. Kinethetic Awareness: I note how the behaviors feel tactically to actually perform, and include them in the practice simulation/rehearsal. I say it helps when you feel it. Emotional Awareness: I know from my education that when I follow my system, I experience feelings. These feelings are not always pleasant. I recall tribe education. I use that to create small tribe now. I send to a friend periodically and check in with these feelings periodically as part of practice and conditioning good trading behavior. State Dependent Learning: I am aware that mental/psychological/emotional states during rehearsal can be good predictors of actual performance if performance state is similar to practice state. I use knowledge from one degree in psychology with emphasis on theories of learning. I seek to incorporate more elements of this in my practice and conditioning. I attempt to cross over other areas of my expertise and the facets of this type of learning to trading. Two examples where I have been a good to excellent performer and have either naturally or by design used these modalities to improve are in the areas of playing tennis and writing/performing music. Trading seems more difficult to engineer a viable/followable practice routine because it can miss the auditory and kinesthetic aspects of learning that music and sports so naturally provide. However, I work to improve this area. Thank you for providing a venue to help me crystallize my behaviors and the information you share about this process. |
Thank you for sharing your process. You might consider running some role playing exercises in your Tribe to practice your loss-cutting and other trading skills. |
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Sunday, October 17, 2010 TT Austin Contact Address Not Working Hi Ed! It's been awhile back since I have practiced TT in [City] as I travelled all over the world. I am looking to re-experience the process again. I am inquiring about the Austin Texas group leader but his email ... is not functioning. Do you happen to have his updated contact information? Cheers, |
Thank you for the catch. I currently run the Austin Tribe. The Austin TTID information is now current, above at Tribe Directory. We start up with a new series in January. |
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Saturday, October 16, 2010 Wants Clarification about Workshop Dear Sir or Madam, I am very interested to attend the workshop in Austin this December. Regarding the essay, could you please give me more detail/a definition for intimacy-centric/control-centric and causal model/system model? I was not able to find an explanation. How get informed if I could attend the workshop? During the last years I have done my Practitioner and Master Practitioner in NLP and have worked as NLP Coach with Charles Faulkner in Winter Park CO. Many thanks for you help! |
Thank you for your inquiry. The Workshop link (above) now has some examples at the registration page. | |||||||
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Saturday, October 16, 2010 Dealing With Invasion Hi Ed, This incident happened approximately a month ago. My 5yr old daughter is molested by a 15yr old foreign student we host. This occurred while my wife was in the house. My wife found out from the things our daughter was saying. My wife immediately called the school and had the boy removed. I don’t really know what I feel. Disbelief, denial, violation, guilt. My wife has a good cry on my shoulder. I feel guilt. I think about intentions = result and wonder if I somehow brought this onto my family. I realize this is silly and I have no ability to control this boy’s behavior so I can’t be responsible. I am surprised that I don’t really feel anger. I feel more of a kind of sadness and disappointment. I recall an almost forgotten incident that happened when I was a young teenager. I inappropriately touch my sister who was about 5 years old at the time. I am about 13 or 14 at the time. I feel a lot of guilt from this and I notice these feelings surface aggressively when thinking about the event that has occurred with my daughter. I call my sister and tell her about the incident with my daughter. She is horrified and very supportive. I tell her about the incident I recall having with her. I apologize to her, I knew something was wrong at the time. I apologize and ask her for forgiveness. She says she can’t even recall anything. She tells me not to worry and that the situation is not quite the same as we are brother and sister and some experimentation is normal. I feel a huge sense of relief and of support from her. I am very grateful. I write a letter to the boy and let him know how disappointed I am and how inappropriately he has behaved. I resolve not to avoid my feelings. I go to a meeting with the boy. I notice my voice quivering and my hands shaking as I read the letter. A teacher translates. I leave. I go to the car and have a small cry, as some feelings come flooding out. It is more of a wail into the steering wheel. There are not many tears. The noise I make surprises me. I feel proud that I have done something. I have not tried to suppress or avoid my feelings. I tried to go with them as they came up. I feel I can start to move on from the incident. I am very surprised at my lack of anger. I feel I should have been angry, very angry. Friends I shared with said they would have killed the boy, but I don’t feel like that. I wonder if I have an anger judge, I don’t think so as I know when I am angry. We talk to my daughter and let her know she can talk about it, we tell her it’s not her fault and that no one should touch her. We tell her we love her and she can talk to us and tell us her feelings. She tells us what happened and talks about the incident, to her it’s as if her private bits are just the same as a toe or an ear, She is fine. Over the next couple of days I notice that my daughter is her usual bubbly cheerful self. It’s just my wife and I who seem to have a problem. We talk and decide if it’s not a big deal for my daughter, then we should not make the incident into any bigger a deal than necessary. We decide only to talk about it in her presence if she wants to do so. We resolve to take our cues from her. We get a lot of support from family and friends who rally around us. I feel genuine support and caring. I feel a lot of intimacy grows from this sharing. I notice that I appreciate every little moment I spend with my children. I appreciate this much more than before. I realize that every moment could be the last. I appreciate and enjoy them in the moment of now. I feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful family. Thank you for your support. |
Thank you for sharing your process.
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Friday, October 15, 2010 Moving Forward with Back-Testing Hi Ed! I have decided to buy the [Back-Testing Software] system so my back testing will be more efficient. It feels like the right step for me right now even thought the cost is high. I am afraid I will be standing on exactly the same place in ten years if I don´t do something. Buying this program is pushing me in the direction of my goal - to manage money in a trend following fund. Regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process. | |||||||
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Thursday, October 14, 2010 Pattern Recognition Hi Ed, On the Trading Systems Project section. I am stumped as to what you mean by Pattern Recognition? How do you use pattern recognition in a trend following system? Thanks |
Some examples of patterns are:
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Thursday, October 14, 2010 Real-Time Feelings My feelings on a real-time basis: hurt and angry; my face is hot and my heart is beating rapidly. Anxiety; depression: weak legs; heart pounding so loudly I can hear it. I'm enjoying it. |
Thank you for sharing your feelings - and for beign willing to experience them in the moment. | |||||||
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Thursday, October 14, 2010 Chinese Multiplication Hi Ed, You might find this approach to multiplication interesting. Click here for video. Regards, |
Thank you for the clip on another way to do things. | |||||||
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Thursday, October 14, 2010 7:07 AM Tribe Report This tribe session, there is a role play between the hot seat person and his mother and father. The experience is similar to my own parental relationship. The experience moves me to realize the father's imprint on his son's life. Even from the grave we feel the impact of our fathers. My father impacts me more than I realize. Growing up, it is dad who reflects back who I am, I see myself thru his eyes. I feel the control of my parents. I feel that I want my dad to ask about how I feel about my activities, how I feel about making a trade, to hear me out, hear my opinions, find about my life, my world. In regard to my children, I want to make sure that they know that they are highly prized and a gift. I feel led to talk, connect, say helpful things to them, to model what I desire in them. I have intimate communication with my wife to discuss control elements, patterns in our family, and how we look to our fathers to find out how valuable we are and how expressing feelings alters heart attitudes, breaks impasses and leads to reconciliation and restoration. Regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process. | |||||||
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Wants to Help with TSP Is there any way I could help finish the TSP section of the site? I would really love to learn from you. Thanks, |
Yes. Perhaps we can learn from each other. | |||||||
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010 Tribe Report Ed, We start the meeting and ask if anyone has an issue they would like to work on. The first person to work remembers when her sister calls her and tells her she is not going to take care of their dying mother any more. She is stunned and feels hurt and abandoned. She does not know what to say. We role play the phone call with other tribe members to let her see other ways of handling the situation. Everyone decides that in this situation a face to face meeting might work better for her so she practices how to effectively ask for and get a face to face meeting with her sister when her sister just wants to disconnect and quit. She then role plays how to share her feelings with her sister in that meeting and how to receive her sisters feelings about the situation they both face. She likes the new resources she learns. The next hot seat the tribe ask the person if he is willing to work on his issue. He responds with a very weak yes. After awhile it becomes clear he is unwilling to tackle this issue at this time. We then ask if anyone else wants to work. One member looks for an issue and says he is not happy with the mess on his desk and in his garage. He just can not seem to bring himself to throw things of value away even though he no longer wants or needs this stuff anymore. As he talks he remembers an incident where he trades a coin his father had given him for some cool lenses. When his mother ask him where he got the lenses and he told her she scolded him for the trade. As he worked on the issue with his mother another member interrupted him and told him he could hug his mother. He got angry and stormed out then came back in yelling at the member who suggested this. As he was yelling he remembers his father used to do the exact same thing. Every time someone tried to express emotions he would interrupt or disrupt the connection. When this happened I was concerned we had messed up the members process and wondered how we would be able to fix it. At the checkout we discovered this pattern was exactly what the father used to do and the person interrupting picked up on that. It is interesting how the tribe members just seem to know what to say and do to authentically reproduce the environment necessary for the process to work effectively for the person on the hot seat. One thing I have learned in these sessions is when we express true feeling about how we feel we get good results but every time we blame, criticize, or make the other person wrong for feeling or being the way they are the situation gets worse. They shut down, get more angry or do more of what we did not want them to do in the first place. |
Thank you for the report. | |||||||
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Monday, October 11, 2010 Portfolio Rebalancing Research - CC Generator Hello Ed, I do not yet have anything to report on the portfolio rebalancing project; progress is slow as I fit it around my other work. I notice a contributor writes to FAQ about continuous contracts on October 7 with the heading, "TSP Continuous Contract - Last True Gold". In answer to that: I have some experience in trying to figure out how the CSI back adjuster is working. My research indicates that it does not always roll on the day I expect from the settings, additionally it posts incorrect prices for the Open, High, and Low of the rollover day - calculating these from the new, rather than the expiring contract, even though it is set to roll at the close. I suspect the continuous contract generation code is not written by a trader. The seemingly inconsistent selection of roll dates alone may explain at least some of the discrepancies your contributor is seeing. These can be large, as any discrepancies in back-adjusting are cumulative. I am happy to assist you in testing the revision of your continuous contract generator. Regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process and for \the information on
continuous contracts. Portfolio rebalancing is inherently a counter-trend strategy, the main purpose of which may be to medicate fear of trend. |
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Monday Oct 11, 2010 First Hot Seat Ed, I attend my second tribe meeting ... Although I am very comfortable with all of the Tribe members, I am extremely anxious because I know I will be on the Hot Seat tonight. My leg will not stop shaking and I keep wringing my hands. After the check-in, I volunteer to go on the Hot Seat. I know that I do not know how to send and receive feelings. I want to learn how to do this. I relate a situation in which my sister calls and informs me that, after six months of sharing the responsibility for caring for our terminally ill mother who lives 1500 miles away, she can’t and won’t do it anymore. I am stunned. After a very brief conversation, I abruptly hang up and proceed to make all of the alternative arrangements for our mother’s care myself. I am angry and sad. How can she be so selfish? [In the Tribe meeting] we then engage in some role playing. One of the tribe members plays the role of my sister. Instead of becoming angry, I ask my sister if she is willing to share her feeling with me. She agrees and tells me that she feels too much pressure because she has a son in high school and a husband for whom she must also care. I ask her if she is willing to listen too my feelings in turn. She acquiesces. I tell her that I also feel a great deal of stress because I have a spouse, a job and am getting my MBA. I also tell her how sad I feel because our mother is dying and I know we don’t have much more time to spend with her. The situation resolves when we understand each other’s feelings and agree to work together to find someone who can stay with our mother in her home. This is the first time that I have been able to actually share feelings with someone. I understand what it is like to make a connection and communicate. I also understand that it is a more effective way to get things done. The second Hot Seat situation involves a Tribe member whose relationship with his mother is defined by her emotional inaccessibility. This is the perfect extension of my Hot Seat experience and provides a major insight into how rewarding it is to be emotionally connected to someone else. I am selected to play the role of the Tribe member’s mother. The Tribe member describes a scene from his boyhood in which he trades a “coin” given to him by his father for a number of lenses. When he tells his mother about the trade, she rebukes him harshly and he feels sadness and rejection. The Tribe members encourage him to share his feelings with his mother instead of shutting down. When he communicates his feelings, she tells him that she wants to be close to him. This role playing exercise seems intensely real to me and I realize what a gift it is to receive someone’s feelings. My sister’s birthday is the Saturday after the Tribe meeting. I take her to lunch and notice that we are sharing more. As I become more open, she responds in kind. Since the Tribe meeting, I am able to use my new resources in another real-life situation and achieve a significant break-through. I try to be more open and aware of my feelings and the feelings of others. I am very grateful for new opportunities to share feelings and don’t want to go back to my old emotionally isolated mode of communication. I am very thankful for the support of the Tribe members. |
Thank you for sharing your process.
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Monday Oct 11, 2010 New Addition Hi Ed, Thank you for supporting me in achieving my right livelihood. I feel a lot of joy about where I am in my life at the moment. Regards,
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Thank you for sharing your process - and congratulations on expanding your Essential Tribe. | |||||||
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Monday Oct 11, 2010 Wants Active Tribe Hi Ed, I have been trying to visit one of the local Trading Tribes in the [City] area with no lock. I have emailed both leaders with no response. Do you know if they are still active? Thanks |
I do not monitor or manage individual Tribe activity, except through contributions to FAQ. I occasionally survey the Tribes to find out which ones are active so I can cull the list. | |||||||
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Monday Oct 11, 2010 Nothing for Two Days - and then Sticky Hi all, I'm happy to say that in September I stick to my system 100%. Well, I didn't trade the first 2 days (as I reported last month), but after that I stick to my system. Again, thank you all for your support, it's really helping me to be accountable to this group. Best, |
Thank you for sharing your process. I wonder if skipping two days is part of your system. |
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Monday Oct 11, 2020 Too Sick to Share Feelings Ed: I'm writing to thank you for your analysis of my case. I've spent some time thinking about my situation. I found that in my youth, I decided not to show my feelings. Probably due to my dad. I appreciate your input, and that of the other tribe members. With regard to your recommendation to look for a therapist, I found a couple. But now medical issues have prevented me from pursuing a remedy, at least for some time. |
Thank you for sharing your process.
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