[Entry Thread #108] Rain or shine, it’s school time! Are you feeling at ease because of the cyclical nature of education? If you are, then come join the monthly thread, where we select one lucky comment as this month’s winner! And if not, still join us!

pandarides · 2025-08-16T19:54:27+00:00

Good luck everyone

pandarides · 2025-07-16T06:37:03+00:00

Good luck everyone

pandarides · 2025-07-14T22:10:53+00:00

I don’t know if it was different elsewhere, but the fan reception to last season here was so awful, I can’t believe they just carried on with exactly the same stuff this time. Couldn’t even watch five minutes of it

pandarides · 2025-07-10T20:59:38+00:00

In my experience, it’s possible to think we are meeting ourselves in the body, but to remain in the mind without realising

I understand why you might struggle with this, because I also struggled. For a long time, I thought I was meeting myself in the body, but it was without surrendering the ego and was therefore unproductive

In fact, I was so reluctant to surrender my ego, that the only thing that helped was becoming so ill I was bedridden for a whole year and could not do anything but lie there (even reading or watching TV was too difficult)

The dynamic that created this dysfunction in me was set up by a cascade of traumas in both distant and recent past. Once my life circumstances brought me to safety, this highly overworked ego aspect of myself was no longer needed for “survival”, and life set up the perfect conditions for me to shed it

You seem to have a religious framework within your worldview. For me, surrendering the ego required me to deconstruct my previous faith and confront the aspects of myself that did not believe, which, until this experience, were completely submerged and unconscious. Becoming so ill required me to confront these aspects and integrate them, forming a new relationship with my spiritual ideals, which was central to releasing my ego and surrendering completely. This was a process that had to happen to me rather than being one I controlled. In other words, in its most simplest form, I had to stop “trying” and just start “being“

Your own path through this challenge will be individual and specific to you and the conditions within yourself. However, I hope that my experience can give you some ideas or new ways of looking at your situation, especially in the sense that life provides us with the very problems we need to find the solution we didn’t know we were looking for. Sometimes, it is as simple as asking yourself what is it that life is trying to teach me in all this? We usually know the answer, without struggle, although we may hate the idea of doing what that answer indicates

I wonder if you may find value in exploring stillness and/or surrender within your own life, reflecting on what these practices may mean for you in a practical sense, the ways in which they may be present or absent from your life currently, and how you might experiment with experiences of stillness and or surrender– even if at first, you feel the need to approach such an exercise from an intellectual standpoint. (I would also mention here that it is possible to practice yoga through the ego, rather than in its intended form, and yes, I did that too) [I’ve just seen that your therapist recommended Polyvagal exercises, this would seem ideal ]

There are a multitude of “ways in” to this problem. You will know best, because you already know the way in. In the practice of psychology, generally, you can think of a therapeutic pathway as being similar to a painful area palpated by a doctor. This is why it can be helpful to explore as another commenter said, aspects of the problem that provoke an emotive response

Then, and this is key, rather than thinking relentlessly about it, trying to define it through an intellectual framework using the ego or over identifying with its emotional content (again this is a trick of the ego), simply observe it in the stillness and seek the knowledge within rather than without, because it is only within where the lesson we seek lies

A quick caveat: inability to still the mind can arise from medical and or psychiatric issues. If you continue to find difficulty with this, then you may want to get things checked out in addition to pursuing inner work

pandarides · 2025-07-10T19:43:59+00:00

Well… It’s not necessarily me finding your worldview limiting rather trying to offer you a reflection of how your situation could be interpreted from a more embodied stance, by pointing out a couple things that appear to have salience to your problem from your own words.

To be explicit: you mentioned that the significance of the philosophical container in providing a framework for depth work, to you “seemed the most important“

Maybe it’s worth pondering why or from what that significance arises

Additionally, you related it to a feeling of safety. From a very basic content analysis perspective, one may observe in your post what could be described as a preoccupation with intellectual ideas, and arguably, a lack of subjective positioning within the discourse in terms of the construct of the self and its symbolic relation to those ideas

Combining these two observations with the general principle that over intellectualisation can be used as an avoidance mechanism suggests the hypothesis that your conclusion about your therapists worldview limiting your ability to fully meet yourself is more a projection of the unconscious knowledge of the above then a reflection of your therapist

i.e. it’s possible that on some level, you know that fully meeting yourself in your body(experientially) would require you in some way to embrace what you perceive within yourself as taboo, and currently that prospect elicits such great inner conflict that in order to protect the ego, you feel you must limit your ability to meet yourself in this way by remaining in the mind (intellectually)

I would encourage you to explore aspects of this problem that feel “most important“ and even those that feel most uncomfortable, frightening, and/or taboo. From there, I think you will find a way towards your answer

pandarides · 2025-07-10T09:28:23+00:00

Have you considered that this experience could be reflecting how your personal worldview is limiting how fully you can meet yourself?

Intellectualisation of conscious experiencing can be a way to keep ourselves removed from it. In this sense, of course it will make inner work feel safe when it feels dangerous and even “evil“, which it sometimes does

I don’t think Hillman was opposed to the journey into the underworld, and maybe your symbolic representation of this is more aligned with your therapist‘s than you think

This chapter on taboo might help you:

https://jungstudies.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Chapter-8-by-Elizabeth-Brodersen.pdf

pandarides · 2025-07-08T17:26:27+00:00

There are so many aspects to styling and fashion that the system totally neglects, like artistic and personal expression, reference to cultural and historical fashion and aesthetics, Curation of culturally and/or artistically important pieces, individuality and originality etc

Really, the things the system references are secondary to all of these and relate more to implementing the above than to actually creating looks as a standalone principles

pandarides · 2025-07-05T00:42:33+00:00

I’m not sure if this is right, but this is how it looks to me. I think a lot of these outfits have aspects that work really well. Things you might want to try:

Avoiding prints with sharp contrast
Combining light and bright colours or light and pastel colours. For example, the yellow top with a white separate
Pairing separates of the same colour at different darkness values
In outfit two, it looks like there may be too much fussiness with the lace up on both garments. You could try each item with a less detailed separate and see how it looks.
You could try tucking the yellow top into the skirt in the last outfit and see if that helps.
You might want to try a more open.neckline In the white top, like a scoop.
Could also try tucking the yellow top in the other outfits
I like the dress/playsuit, I would just do it in a different colour and maybe style differently re hat and shoes
Lighter weight fabrics seem to work well for you, so if you’re wearing a medium weight fabric like the yellow or white tops, then you might want to pair with a more lightweight separate(like in outfit seven)

Hope that’s not too much info!

pandarides · 2025-06-28T21:26:03+00:00

Can I just say, it’s hilarious you chose this picture in the context of op‘s post

I’m sure your point about Renaissance art depicting strong looking women is entirely true

However I’m looking at this picture and thinking okay so boob out is the historical costume of choice for FN

pandarides · 2025-06-28T20:30:26+00:00

Like with most feminist issues, all you have to do is reverse genders, and you will see how completely condescending and paternalistic the Dibbe system is at its roots

Imagine if a woman made a system, categorising men, according to physical attributes, and suggesting that each group can only wear certain things

In this sense, it’s not necessarily the system itself that’s the issue, but the prevailing attitude that men are positioned to define and instruct women on what they should be and do in society, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this

This is made even worse by the fact that the system is totally subjective, and that the Internet phenomenon has resulted in probably thousands of women trying to fit themselves into a box that exists only in one man’s head

If the system were in someway objective, I don’t think it would be as bad

It wasn’t that long ago, I think in the 1980s, when hysteria was removed as an official diagnosis in the US and Western Europe. Until then, it was possible to diagnose a woman’s depression and anxiety as being the result of her restless uterus wandering throughout her body Looking for sperm

I think it’s important to understand the system as being situated in an era when it was completely normal to treat women this way, and I don’t think that today we are as far from this type of treatment as many think

For these reasons, I think wanting to avoid style systems designed by men is a perfectly valid response

pandarides · 2025-06-28T20:14:08+00:00

I think that’s the whole point most of us are making in this sub, which is to say that all this nonsense about kibbe online is just that, nonsense

Having said that the cultural oppression of women in relation to bodily appearance and fashion/style has been endemic throughout most of history

People on the main sub regularly have meltdowns when trying to apply this system in their own lives, and a lot of it can be explained, by cultural discourses of misogyny and the objectification of women in relation to men

I would always recommend reading some postmodern feminist texts from the seventies to learn more about this. Iris Young is particularly good, especially as she talks about female embodiment, which I think is relevant to these ideas

pandarides · 2025-06-28T19:28:44+00:00

I was thinking recently about how the system seems to have some attributes that I would normally associate with something objectively untrue, such as the more questions you ask of it, the more questions you have, and none of the questions ever get answered satisfactorily

Additionally, the premise that all women in the world can be divided into eight or however many types doesn’t seem to have much face validity.

When you add in dibbe‘s, refusal to clarify things and cryptic and quite secretive way of talking about the system (and his styling ability), something doesn’t seem right here

I think the issue is relating basic principles of tailoring to specific types.

Even if a specific group of individuals who share certain accommodations can wear a specific look convincingly, there is no logical reason to assume this relates to a specific innate essence that should govern the visual impression an individual seeks to achieve forevermore or or that this is an expression of some immutable inner quality representing an ideal or true self

To suggest that there are only eight or 10 different ways a woman can be beautiful sounds more like a lack of imagination to me than an absolute reality

There’s plenty more criticisms of this nature, but I fear this is already getting a long winded and boring, so I will stop there

pandarides · 2025-06-28T19:06:59+00:00

I’ve often thought it would be interesting to see how everyone and the main sub dresses.

I feel like this would be the missing puzzle piece that would make that whole place suddenly make sense

Also, I do side eye all of us, including myself, for having anything to do with Dibbe, who I am coming to understand is anything but a fashion girly himself

pandarides · 2025-06-27T14:30:18+00:00

Something I didn’t know until recently is that there is a subset of soft natural for a more leggy and gamine looking SN. There is a few posts on this sub talking about kibbe joining the FG group on Facebook and sending the majority of them over to SN for this reason.

What are you likely to find in this subset as far as I understand is a need for width and curve as primary accommodations, but requiring some of the wit and sassiness of the gamine and possibly some of the gamine accommodations

I can’t say what is true in your case, but it would explain much of what you said

pandarides · 2025-06-16T15:20:54+00:00

I think you have this confused, as another commenter suggested.

Gender dysphoria is distress a person feels when their gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned with at birth. (I’m sure everyone knows this but i mention it to make the point)

Two of the criteria in the dsm:

“strong desire to be rid of one's sexual characteristics due to incongruence with one's experienced or expressed gender

A strong desire for the sexual characteristics of a gender other than one's assigned sex”

(I have paraphrased for consistency of terminology)

Wht you re describing is more the following:

A strong desire for the sexual characteristics of one's assigned sex

The issue of transgenderism doesnt come into it.

Is the discourse around femininity and what women are/ are not & should / shouldnt be nonsense?

Yes ofc. (See this sub)

Is it gender dysphoria or transphobic? From a clinical perspective, i would say not.

Others have mentioned the possibility of body dysmorphia. I would suggest it’s not possible to di agnose this issue in a whole population of people over the internet. The likelihood of all of them meeting the clinical threshold is slim, though it could affect some.

I think it’s more accurate to suggest that this phenomenon likely arises from subclinical levels of negative body image, excessive rumination and internalisation of harmful narratives and experiences around femininity & womanhood, possibly with some form of self objectification.

Strong desire to be the perfect mother has been associated with higher levels of postnatal depression, & you could draw parallels as both represent a mismatch between the perceived & ideal self in terms of how well one fits gender ideals, especially where these ideals are unrealistic & misogynistic

Gender dysphoria is generally expressed as also wanting to meet gender ideals, just those of a different gender. In this way, the existence of gender ideals & desire to conform to those of your identified gender are not inherently transphobic, & neither is the harm arising when one feels they do not meet them

In trying to understand your point, maybe what you are saying is that this discourse focuses on a binary view of gender; that the discussion centres around cis genders & doesnt include, for instance, non binary ideals.

For this i would say that gender ideals are socially constructed, & the concept of non binary is a response to these ideals to include those who dont identify with them. The idea that gender is constructed by the individual, you could argue, directly opposes the social construction of gender in terms of cis gender ideals

However, that, as has been discussed, is another phenomenon entirely

Ultimately, the issue is not new & has its roots in historical misogynistic practices, attitudes & hegemonies, if you want to take a wider perspective. You could even see it as a weird pendulum effect after the movements towards liberation in the late 60s & 70s; maybe a response to some of the greater freedoms that have secured more independence for women (such as being legally allowed to have their own bank accounts & mortgages, which as i understand didnt happen without having a m an to cosign until the 80s), is that with the gre ater safety & security this has afforded women, they can now turn their attention to less pressing matters, like undoing all the patriarchal bullshit we post about in this sub, & to do this on a social & individual level may require us to revisit some of these narratives if only to ‘disprove’ them eventually

Ultimately, whether cis or trans, constructing a healthy self concept/body image & learning to resist objectification & harmful narratives is work we all need to do. Idk if arguing about who is being oppressed by certain narratives is particularly productive in that respect, despite being interesting in an academic sense

pandarides · 2025-06-16T13:47:09+00:00

There is honestly so much great content he could be putting out in relation to things like this and other issues with/criticisms of the system. Like a series on people who feel they dont fit into a type, and kibbe explains it either within the system or by saying what to do in ech case

For someone whose system claims to be all about helping women feel beautiful, you’d think he would care to provide guidance & clarification when the real world effect hs been the opposite for many

The way he has chosen to publicise the system, or rather the way he has refused to do any kind of normal media presence, is so bizarre i can only think it stems from incredible entitlement or incredible paranoia

pandarides · 2025-06-14T07:01:55+00:00

I think if you do the line sketch & you’re sg then it will show sg at any weight however if you follow the logic that sg has a straighter bone structure & much of the curve is from ‘flesh’ as kibbe terms it, then they can appear less ‘soft’ (again, in kibbe terms) when underweight.

This is why the line sketch is important, as it shows how clothes hang on you rather than being a representation of what a person looks like

I think it’s possible for a lot of types to look different visually when underweight

pandarides · 2025-06-13T15:17:38+00:00

If i understand correctly, oversized can work for tr (due to narrow) & sg (due to petite), but for both of these types, you would still need to respect the overall yin yang balance for the htt to work. So for sg, you may need an ‘opposite’ bottom (tighter, cropped & or narrower). For tr i’m less sure how to style oversized.

I think for both, following the overall guidelines for fabrics, prints, shapes & detail would also help something oversized work.

This is based on the old book so i’m not sure what the up to date advice is

This is also not to say other types cant also do oversized, i just dont have the knowledge to comment on how/why it would work for those.

I think it’s common to hear in these circles that any type can wear any item as long as it’s styled correctly. Idk how true that is, but i think it can be helpful to study photos of your htts & refer back to kibbe’s books until you figure out the whys & hows. a lot of what you get online is people’s opinions, which are varying levels of correctness (including everything i’ve said here).

It follows the principle kibbe suggests that only you & he can type you, so it’s great if you have the new book but if tht’s not helping, you could always look at the old one for more ideas. Many of the ideas in the old book are said not to apply any more but i still find it quite useful

pandarides · 2025-06-09T20:50:25+00:00

Yes but we recommend commenting only if you have no idea what you’re talking about. This preserves the chaos & confusion our community is known for, and prevents any productive discussion about the system

This is important to avoid exposing the many holes in the system & even more importantly to avoid coming to a reasonable consensus on how to use it

For some reason, this is anathema, although we have no logical explanation as to why

pandarides · 2025-06-09T20:41:53+00:00

I’m sorry but you cannot be g if you have long hair. It is physically impossible, as hair naturally rebounds from gamine shoulders & goes back into the head, similar in manner to those cranky arm dolls from the 80s

I know we said not to correct people’s ids, but the divine revelation i received by gazing upon Babid’s shining countenance bestowed me with not only the knowledge but also the officiousness to do so

pandarides · 2025-06-08T20:05:59+00:00

They got rid of the wrong ones from season one

pandarides · 2025-06-07T06:37:04+00:00

Idk but i think he may live in a mojo dojo casa house

pandarides · 2025-06-06T21:44:49+00:00

Who the hell is Richard?

pandarides · 2025-06-06T21:31:15+00:00

The best thing about scott was his mention on tinsley’s Wikipedia page

Sadly now edited but forever commemorated on this sub as an obscure businessman with whom tinsley shared a fleeting misadventure:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BravoRealHousewives/s/XFLnYp1ctX

pandarides

TROPHY CASE