I admit I have not read her books, just watched several of her videos, including the TED talk on vulnerability. Every time I think I finally understand her point, she says one more thing that makes me realize I absolutely did not. I need a translation, or to learn enough "Brown-speak" that I can make heads or tails of it.
A helpful observation. I will look for one and see if it is any better.
Brown-speak = Brown noise, as far as I can tell. OK, perhaps not quite as random. There are definite patterns in the randomness.
this doesn't resonate with me, and I don't think I would want to live my life in the ways suggested here. It's been mentioned that it isn't for everyone and I am definitely one of them. I have heard this elsewhere recently, and I remember it being suggested. I'm sorta surprised though because this is pretty obviously something I wouldn't really do. I mean I get it, and it can work for people, but I think is too passive and ignoring of problems. It also sounds really preachy/haughty and implying that "this is the most ideal way to live" and I really hate it when lifestyle instructions are worded that way 
. There is no one end all be all way to live.
I am quite tempted to print that out and add it to my fridge.
See, I don't actually disagree with the agreements themselves as guidelines for living. I am very mindful of my words, spoken and written, I take very little personally, I do my best to question assumptions and at least identify the ones I choose to make, and I try to learn from failures rather than beating myself up over not being perfect. I'm sure I don't live up to these any more than the next person, but at least I see their validity and do try.
to doing 
to your own self deliberately and in cold blood, but it is what I found when I got into the INTJ reading research state which looks like this: :bookish: 
Yours is the most useful post I have seen to date on this topic. Now, at the risk of looking like a complete idiot, I am going to ask a really lame question. (OK - a series of them.)
) but I feel empty and I don't experience life so fully, there are less wonderful highs and less lows, it's like living on tranquillisers and then my reaction is to allow the next random emotion (whether positive or negative) to come in fully and overwhelm me, like a winter storm or a dam burst...and that is too random, and may not even reflect or emote the true me at all properly to anyone around me. For a higher mood over time I have found (at this time in my life and from a couple of years ago and continually since then I have learnt and relearnt and discovered different aspects of this process and I am not done yet...but I am well on the way) that I have to make time to 'listen to my emotions' which is deciding which emotions to allow in to me from the constant liquids arriving and available to me. Then to deliberately make myself vulnerable to explore them in whatever way is appropriate (can be by asking questions of them or of myself, can be by allowing them to slosh around, can be by trying to verbalise them to someone else or write about them, or possibly by using them as an inspiration for a random painting or drawing, but I find that less insightful as a method, though it does dispel the emotion I have chosen to sit with). In doing these activities fairly deliberately and regularly I am adapting better to everyday situations, I am asking better questions in this realm, I am understanding my own history better and finding healing and courage to face my demons and I am becoming more flexible as I get older, not less flexible, I am not solidifying internally in the way that many folk do because they get fossilised by stuff that has happened to them that they can't deal with, so they lose flexibility.
This was interesting. I appreciate the level of detail. I find the risk of looking like an idiot, or at least ignorant, is easily tolerated, at least in connection with subjects where I really am ignorant. The best way to learn is to admit I don't know and am trying to learn. The only shame is in wilfully remaining ignorant. Now a few more questions.Nice. I like how you point out you are taking a risk in asking the question!
Now look, I'm an INTJ and I've used myself as an experimental subject in this stuff, so I am convinced it works. But in my head I absolutely have to have a set of precise definitions and I can't live internally with the vagueness of some of the explanations. Yours is a great question and it is spot on...also it is how I would have seen the risk from the point before I attempted the risk. Exactement, to use the French word.
If you will let me define terms my way, and I'm not quoting any books here, this is how I see it in my language. I use Ni so I will add visuals, however daft they look in writing.
Define terms.
Trigger - a context (event, presence, situation, person etc) which causes or induces a reaction
Emotion - the 'liquid flow' of reaction caused immediately by the trigger. I cannot control this, it happens inadvertently inside me due to the trigger. Some are pleasant, some less so, such as fear, joy, anger, disappointment, cherishing and so on. I experience this in what I view as something akin to interstitial spaces inside me but inbetween the actual particles of me, so to speak. Like a warm bath, or water mixing with wine...I am in the emotion but I retain my own self inside it, and have choice whether to receive it and go with it or how to react to it.
Value - a concrete statement about what I have decided is important in life longterm, unlikely to change within the moment. Such as 'people are valuable and fragile' or 'it is important to be nice to people' or such like items. (The four agreements would fall into this category for me, it seems like they are four value laden statements.)
Feeling - Allowing an emotion in leads to a feeling, which might remain for some time like a day or several days, and these feelings stick with the memory of the event eg I enjoyed our banter last Tuesday, I was ashamed of my outfit at the dinner party. There is a step of choice between the emotions which fly in and out quite fast and change quite fast, and the feeling I choose to remain with and experience. Sometimes staying with an unpleasant emotion (why did him saying that make me feel afraid this morning...) and allowing it to sit around (to me this is more like allowing it to swill around, but they seem to say 'sit with' I have noticed) inside me for a few days may yield interesting new information, but is an uncomfortable and possibly a vulnerable or risky step, not undertaken lightly or easily.
Mood - the 'depth of the tank of liquid', so a low mood is a compilation of, or an integration of (ie find the volume) the feeling function over time. If I haven't allowed many feelings in, then my mood is calm and I can think clearly (INTJ preferred state
To answer your question. I think the true risk is therefore actually that 'you lose a part of yourself' - that particular trigger of a particular situation has always caused you to become tense, let's say and that tenseness has become familiar, it's become a 'go-to' state innerly which is actually familiar and comfortable to you **even if it is logically wrong and also inappropriate for today's situation**. The risk is the loss of that comfortable inner state and the certainty of being right inside, as in 'dinner parties always make me feel tense' for example. People defend these kinds of statements in many ways, but that is because they don't want to take the risk of inner change which risks losing a bit of what they are comfortable with, at least, that's how I see it. I'm not condemning anyone, mind you, because this kind of processing is downright hard work and to me it has felt like doing it and finding out how it works without a road map and in a world of ill defined terms populated by excitable emotional types who know how to do it themselves and know the benefits of it but who can be rather helpless as teachers and guides because if you can do something by instinct you can't teach anyone else in any systematic way. But if my explanations are any help to you I'd be interested to know how you get on and over time whether you (or indeed anyone else) wanted to add or refine them.
I try to avoid this sort of leakage as much as possible, and from what I can tell, do quite well at it. Definitely a learned skill, acquired at an early age. I don't do it to keep from looking imperfect, but simply to keep my emotional space to myself as a matter of privacy. I consider my emotions personal, and see no need to share most of them outside of my "inner circle". If they don't need to know about whatever caused the emotion, they don't need to know about the emotion itself.
How do you deal with these "emotional boulders"?
This is a great example, because it goes to the root of some of my strongest reservations about all this. I am still trying to figure out what the benefit will be of doing something like what you describe here. What do I get out of chatting with people whose company I don't enjoy at an event I would prefer not to attend to begin with? For that matter, does it even do any good for anyone else (no need to be selfish here)? I have endured such situations in passing, e.g. to please my mother or not to disrupt a funeral or other family event, but that isn't the same as trying to integrate that "new self" into my existing self. Moreover, I can't see how doing so would "reflect more of the true me" in any way. It would be sacrificing the true me, and if I am going to do that, I want to make sure the benefit is worth the cost.
I would be happy to try this. In fact, I have been looking for this sort of nuts and bolts suggestion. I'm having a hard time thinking of an example, though. I'll post again when I come up with something.
I found Gifts of Imperfection in the library and am now reading it. I will post some thoughts when I am finished.
