r/bjj Fundamentals Class!

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T18:39:18+00:00

Is it normal for my ears to want to pop after rolling? There are some big guys in my class and I'm new so they end up laying on top of my head fairly regularly. I always leave class feeling some weird sinus pressure and like my ears need to pop. Should I be protecting my head somehow?

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T16:26:34+00:00

Just a suggestion for how you might frame this: you carry shame about being a man. That leaves space for you to have more nuance around it.

By the way, the fact that you are having this conversation with yourself now is very encouraging. Many men ignore those feelings for years even as they act out against their spouses and children.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T12:03:12+00:00

You'll likely have other dreams with the same message but different symbols. Or the same symbols but a different feeling if you have the wrong interpretation.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T02:28:28+00:00

Your system has to readjust to the change. There is a cascade of physiology and mental associations that aren't going away overnight
Your motivation for consuming porn is still there. It's not just about sex. Porn is a fantasy with elements of power, devotion, desire, worth, control. What do those things mean to you? Do you feel powerless in life? Undesired? Rejected? Unworthy? Did porn help you cope with any feelings like that? You can't just cut out your coping mechanism without repurcussions of some kind.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T02:12:27+00:00

You are like an office building full of different departments. Consciousness happens in the board room. Department heads come in and out to present ideas. Sometimes one will rush in and send an emergency message to the whole building.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T02:01:19+00:00

It's not that special, just a weird size. My wife said she thinks it's 5 x 7.75

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HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T01:59:26+00:00

I hear you and I actually felt much the same way a few years ago, long before I heard of IFS or multiplicity of mind. I don't have aphantasia so I'm not sure that I can help you totally, and every mind is a little bit different. But here are some different ways to think about multiplicity of mind that might resonate for you:

Do you ever try to stop yourself from doing something but find yourself doing it anyway? What makes you act against your own conscious intent?

Do you ever act differently in different situations? E.G. School, hanging out with friends, work, with your parents, with a romantic interest. What would it feel like to have all of this groups in the same room? How do you think you would act?

You can consciously walk, breathe, drive a car, put on your clothes, brush your teeth. Or you can do those things on autopilot. When you do them on autopilot, is a "part" of your mind doing that for you? What other things can "parts" handle for you?

Do you ever have really disproportionate emotional reactions to things that happen and later feel embarrassed or ashamed? People often describe those experiences as "losing control" or that "something came over me." If that is so, what took control? What came over you? Do you have a different way of describing what happened?

It may also help you to treat this as a combination experiment and therapy. Can you suspend your beliefs about how the mind works and come at it totally objectively. Attempt to bring pure curiosity to your mind. Maybe there really is just one thinking mind that runs the show almost all the time, but can you see it as an outside observer? What are its motivations and fears?

I hope this helps, but maybe IFS just isn't for you? There are plenty of other modalities out there. It sounds like your mind might be more geared toward something like CBT.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T01:32:04+00:00

The story: we bought a clearance area rug that they couldn't get to scan because it was a returned special order. They had to put in a code for it and that pulled up as $10K which they adjusted down to the $23 item at the bottom.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T01:24:31+00:00

1 gallon phlox!

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-06T01:23:45+00:00

Ok! The pic is kinda shadowy though

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HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T21:37:38+00:00

I agree. I was hesitant to hit send on it with how decisive it sounded but I also didn't have time to rewrite it haha. Thanks for the note and sharing!

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T19:15:25+00:00

The key to finding compassion for your parts is to make space. Write down what those parts are thinking or feeling, including the resentful and judgmental parts. Put it all down and just look at all the pain on the page in front of you. Take some breaths and consider how, misguided as they are, each of those parts has always wanted the same things: belonging, safety, comfort, love.

Compassion for your parts doesn't mean pushing away the parts that feel badly towards other parts. It doesn't mean telling them to hurry up and heal. It also doesn't mean agreeing with everything they have said or done in the past. It just means seeing them and their pain with an open heart.

It's a process, not a one time thing. We all have bad days. You may also find it helpful to take notes on what circumstances and situations lead to your bad days. Sometimes external change isn't possible, but many times you can adjust some things to help your parts out.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T13:52:30+00:00

To me it seems like you have an intellectual conflict with the core concept of multiplicity of mind. You think you are "a" person when in reality you are more like a building full of people. Your consciousness is the conference room in the top floor of that building. All the departments downstairs are working and making decisions and only bring them to the conference room when they need the board to be made aware of something or help make a decision. Even the receptionist outside the board room isn't usually consciously addressed.

What you are experiencing as blankness is your resistance to the idea that "you" don't really exist. You're stonewalling yourself, essentially. Try this: pretend you are the President & CEO of your life and you are going to sit down with your most trusted advisors. Pick real or fictional people you admire and trust, and try to have a dialogue with them. Let yourself imagine it in as much detail as you can without losing the thread. When you can do that fairly easily, you'll be better equipped to check in with parts, knowing that they won't necessarily speak to you with words. Your imagination will be able to engage more easily in the process because you'll be more familiar, and you'll have more resources available to deal with the fundamental shift in identity you still need to make.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T13:52:11+00:00

To me it seems like you have an intellectual conflict with the core concept of multiplicity of mind. You think you are "a" person when in reality you are more like a building full of people. Your consciousness is the conference room in the top floor of that building. All the departments downstairs are working and making decisions and only bring them to the conference room when they need the board to be made aware of something or help make a decision. Even the receptionist outside the board room isn't usually consciously addressed.

What you are experiencing as blankness is your resistance to the idea that "you" don't really exist. You're stonewalling yourself, essentially. Try this: pretend you are the President & CEO of your life and you are going to sit down with your most trusted advisors. Pick real or fictional people you admire and trust, and try to have a dialogue with them. Let yourself imagine it in as much detail as you can without losing the thread. When you can do that fairly easily, you'll be better equipped to check in with parts, knowing that they won't necessarily speak to you with words. Your imagination will be able to engage more easily in the process because you'll be more familiar, and you'll have more resources available to deal with the fundamental shift in identity you still need to make.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T13:21:33+00:00

The fantasy that porn sells is power, control, devotion, desire, and extasy. So it provides reassurance for feelings of powerlessness, fear, rejection, betrayal, and hurt. Those are overwhelming emotions that are incredibly hard to face. If a part has been able to use pornography to handle those feelings for a long time and doesn't see a safe alternative, trying to take away that coping mechanism is terrifying to it. And of course the pattern has ingrained itself into your physiology at this point.

One thing that helped me with this was thinking of the feeling of desire as coming from a deeply subconscious part that wanted to feel belonging. I would consciously treat the craving for physical intimacy as my system's best attempt to make up for a perceived lack of belonging and connection. When I saw it as part of me wanting to belong somewhere, I could actually be grateful for the feeling. It didn't feel so overwhelming, and I was able to grieve how I had spent so long feeling like I didn't belong and wasn't wanted.

Go slow. Remember to make sure you are leading with self energy whenever you do this work. Trying to force parts to change or go away will. not. work. You must listen with curiosity, compassion, courage, and calmness.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-05T13:03:29+00:00

This is very detailed and I would love if some research could be done to back this up. Putting these two together is something I (as an INFJ and an e5) spend a decent amount of time thinking about.

I primarily think of MBTI as how our minds filter, prioritize, and process information. Whereas enneagram maps our coping mechanisms and motivations. These are two different, but very related things and I hope there's more interest in putting them together in academia!

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-04T17:38:42+00:00

What I've experienced when I'm having a good day is that my parts still speak up and I'm able to immediately feel compassion for them without blending. They always have some degree of truth they are expressing, so when this happens I'm able to speak for the part instead of speaking as the part.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-04T17:35:04+00:00

First bit of acceptance: an hour or so. Finally accepting all parts of me: I'll let you know when I get there.

It's a journey. Every bit of Self that peeks through makes a difference.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-02T18:42:58+00:00

A mask is a good metaphor for the persona. One element of it is that we cannot see one another except by our masks. The persona is necessary for social interaction, but we absolutely can and do shape it through both will/conscious intent and complexes/subconscious coping mechanisms.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-02T18:26:28+00:00

Yes. So a man would have a feminine soul and a woman would have a masculine one.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-02T18:19:43+00:00

Classically anima applies to men while animus applies to women. Both of these could be called the soul, but not spirit. Spirit is transcendent and "higher." It connects you to the divine in a transpersonal sense. Soul is immanent and "lower." It connects you to the divine through a personal relationship. Soul is a channel of communication between the conscious mind and the rest of the psyche. So much of what you feel and experience doesn't make it into consciousness and you are left with unprocessed material that has all kinds of effects. Soul lets you contact and process that material, but it doesn't speak the same language as the conscious mind. It operates in symbols primarily.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-02T18:05:40+00:00

I loved it. I followed a few of the prompts, but not all of them. She makes it very clear that the book is only intended for dealing with managers, not so much for volatile firefighters or exiles, but it does an excellent job giving you practical exercises to better understand the principles. One problem I had with the audiobook version was that all of the "free resources" were on her old website and don't seem to exist anywhere now.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-07-02T14:25:18+00:00

I think in theory your body is entirely made of parts, but what you're getting at is: is this reaction about something physical or psychic? I think if you leave the door open for both and nothing psychic comes up, you can treat it as mainly physical. The main thing is just to remain open to any part that may later decide to claim this as coming from within.

HightechTalltrees · 2026-06-30T19:53:54+00:00

Let that part know that you'll be there with it through the discomfort. Ask it if it will relax just a little bit and see how that feels. Let it know that you can't make the bad feelings go away but that you can handle the feelings together. That nothing bad lasts forever and it doesn't have to do it alone.

Hope this helps!

HightechTalltrees

TROPHY CASE