Anil – Self-Help Literature (ENG 3402: Topics in Literature)

Class notes May 20, 2021

Presentations

Maria- Self conscious of our emotions. Is it good?
What is consciousness? The state of being aware of ur surroundings, thoughts feelings, sensations.
Emotions are brief physical response to stimulus. (blood flow, brain-activity) .
Feeling mental associations, they can not be measured precisely.
Self Conscious I. Self Conscious emotions II
Self Recognition. Understanding of social standards and rules
Embarrassment Pride

Good Side- acknowledge his/her accomplishments and flaws.
Bedside- overwhelming & Blaming

Niyomi- Practice self love
Self love state of appreciation can be different face for each person.
Practice self love-make more mistakes, embrace your past.
Root-self awareness, better understanding.

Aryanna- Self care look like for lower class?
Origin- concepts of self care date back centuries.
Root- Maslows hierarchy of needs.
Increase expansion of the industry.
BIPOC- Blank, indigenous, people of color.
Self care for everyone. Self care is not an excuse to tune out social issues.

Robby- How to obtain acceptable physical health.
Look like, feel on the inside.
Diet, medicine hygiene.
Medical-frequent doctor checkups.
Sleep- Avoid under or over sleeping. Plan a realistic bed time. Take care of good sleeping environment.Exercise daily.
Fitness, mental, physical and time preparation. The importance of commitment.
Conclusion-Understand the value of motivation and commitment. Educate yourself. Take part in Hygiene, medical, sleep, diet, and fitness actions.

Self esteem during the adolescent period

Self esteem is a general perspective on self worth/value. It is how you generally feel about yourself. Over the course of your life, being a child through adolescence and as a teenager into adulthood. All of us have had this question at least once in our lifetime. Who am I? We grow and define who we are but it might not be such an easy or fun task. Some of us may judge ourselves based on how we look. How much do we weigh? Our physical appearance, a disability can weigh heavily on it, and social surroundings. These are just tips on what can make or break your self confidence. However studies show that schools and family make up a huge part of it.
When anyone with low self esteem, they might not feel as motivated to do simple everyday activities. Positive psychology is a study which focuses on what can make life so enriching by having your individual mind and body active and energized on life. This can be a major challenge with someone who struggles with self esteem. Making your own goals and bettering yourself serves as a challenge to them.
Some things that could help someone with low self esteem could be a strong supportive cast. This can help them set aside minor goals they can achieve resulting in an outcome being positive. They can then use this as a stepping stone for something bigger and better to achieve. Their fear of failure could lessen with the support of someone by their side which can also boost confidence. You could also move yourself out of a surrounding that doesn’t make you feel comfortable, safe, or good about yourself. To sum up everything that has been stated so far, self esteem is the self regard for your abilities.
Untitled presentation-2

Research Project + Presentations

Self Esteem Project Abstract

Self esteem is something that everyone struggles with at least once in their life. It does not matter where you are from, who you are ,how big or small you are, or what you stand for (your beliefs). In particular self esteem in the early adolescence period can affect many things including the following. Families, schools and the lifestyle of an individual which play a key role .The stability of handling your personal skills, the ability to interact with peers and the ability to boost self-efficacy. Self esteem can simply affect your perspective on life, it also tends to be the lowest in childhood as it can gradually increase during the adolescence period as well as adulthood. With this being said, self esteem is much similar to stability of personal traits over time (variation of change over time). If you have a firm/healthy handle on personal traits, you may have a firm handle on your skills. Success in school as well as receiving support from peers all contributed to help compensate for family problems and would help boost self-efficacy.

As anyone with low self esteem may feel less obligated to make or reach personal goals for themselves. Having a firm supportive cast can change the mindset of the individual and the response toward their goals or overall perspective and approach on any or all situations resulting in an outcome being positive. Depression in early adolescence increases sharply from around 2% to 18% in early adulthood. Low self esteem has been an important factor that lead to vulnerability in depression.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lrU-Uxu4wkiwEknhAJjCQLZ9i1hqZW9YVF1sA0wgyck/edit#slide=id.gd643ff05ba_0_0

Self Esteem in Early Adolescence

Self esteem can be described as how you view your own personal value. What you personally believe in yourself. Sometimes it can be linked to why you enjoy the things you enjoy or it could not be the things you enjoy. Who you have around you (your company).There are much more that can contribute to it like body weight, depression, media or even your childhood but those are just simple ones. One primary factor of self esteem determination can even be the clothing you choose to put on your body which is linked to bodyweight. I believe the Self Help Industry and Self Esteem are cousins to each other in this category and another reason why I choose to learn about this topic such as self esteem is something that we all struggle with at least once in our life.
Below I have four articles that deal with self esteem. Self Esteem in early adolescence as a predator of depressive symptoms in late and early Adolescence , What is Self Esteem, Families and school may play key roles in promoting Adolescence self confidence and last one at least, in Children and adolescence Low self esteem increases materialism. All three of these articles talk about different versions of self esteem, different ways it can be brought up from Adolescence to adulthood if not cured and he damages it can bring and self esteem identified by self worth. These articles also talk about how to cope/cure it. Different side effects, and a couple different theories brought out.
The first article “What is self esteem” by Kendra Cherry, she talks about self esteem as an overall value of “personal value” by giving different factors such as self belonging, identity and feeling of competence. Kendra also states that self esteem tends to be the lowest in childhood as it can gradually increase during adolescence as well as adulthood. This makes self esteem similar to stability to personal traits over time. If you have a handle on healthy self esteem, you may have a firm handle on your skills. Having a realistic and appropriate expectation on themselves and their abilities. People with low self esteem can feel less about their abilities and may doubt their decision making process. They might not feel motivated and able to reach their goals. The feeling of unworthy and lovable may come into existence. All of these different factors play a role in the self help industry by defining your individual expectations, individual needs as well as goals.
My second article “Self esteem in Early Adolescence as a Predator of depression symptoms in late and early adolescence” M.Masselink, E.Van Roekel and A.J. Oldehinkel. According to this article, it talks about the prevalence of depression as it increases sharply from around 2% in early adolescence to around 18% in early adulthood .Many factors contribute to this surge and the contribution to depression during adolescence. They say low self esteem has been an important factor that increases vulnerability to depression. In many research studies, it shows that low self esteem and depressive symptoms often occur among adolescents. The article states that “Self esteem levels tend to decrease in early adolescence and increase in later adolescence but those who have lower levels of self-esteem than others at one time point are likely to have lower self esteem than others at the following time point as well”. They say this is because self-esteem is stable and enduring vulnerability. Many of the development challenges that adolescence face revolve around their position in their environment. Challenges such as moving from school to school, new networks, challenging relationships with family members, adapting to more of an adult role over the course of the time.
My third article “Families and schools play a key role in promoting adolescent self-confidence” by Pen state. Many studies examined the variety of affected adolescents` self efficacy. This article stated a rage of ideas dealing with family, schools and human development. This is a quote from the article that states” They found that adolescents who frequently witnessed their parents arguing or engaging in other forms of conflict experience lower self-efficacy later on”. They are saying who witnessed their parents argue when they were in the adolescence stage carried over to when they are older and it had a cerian effect on them. However their success in school as well as receiving support from “peers”, this was able to help compensate for family problems and would help boost self-efficacy. The healthier you are with your partner, the better you are off with your child.
My final article “In children and Adolescents, Low Self-esteem increases Materialism” by the Chicago Press Journals. This article talks about materialism increases during adolescence but decreases in late adolescence during the transition into young adulthood. In a forthcoming study, they found that children of different age groups self esteem increase from Middle childhood(8-9 years old), to early adolescence (12-13 years old) but then declines during adolescence until the end of highschools. They say this materialism, which increases in early adolescence but decreases in late adolescence which transitions into adulthood. “Our results indicate that simple actions to raise self-esteem among young consumers can have a dramatic impact on expressions of materialism” Chaplin and John write. “By priming high self esteem, we reversed the large drop in self esteem experiment by early adolescence, thereby reducing the steep rise in materialism among this group”.

Sources
Cherry, Kendra. “‘What Is Self Esteem.’” Https://Www.verywellmind.com/What-Is-Self-Esteem-2795868.
Masselink, M., et al. “Self-Esteem in Early Adolescence as Predictor of Depressive Symptoms in Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood:The Mediating Role Of Motivational and Social Factors.” Https://Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Pmc/Articles/PMC5878202/.
State, Penn. “Families and Schools May Play Key Roles in Promoting Adolescent Self-Confidence .” Https://Www.sciencedaily.com/Releases/2019/03/190313114739.Htm.
Chicago press Journals, University of. “In Children And Adolescents, Low Self-Esteem Increases Materialism.” Https://Www.sciencedaily.com/Releases/2007/11/071112133809.Htm.

Self Esteem

My research topic will be on self Esteem

What-is-self-esteem-2795868

Self esteem can be described as how you view your own personal value. The article states different factors that can contribute to the idea. Self esteem can be lowest in your adolescence and could possibly carry on through adulthood. Self esteem can impact your everyday life resulting in decision making, your emotional health, relationship, as well as motivation.

Low self esteem can lead to feeling down on sunny days. They might not feel motivated to do everyday activities (you would buy more and more just to fill that void of affection that is missing from yourself). Certain issues with relationships and their personal goals can affect their self worth as well as simple things such as feeling loved.

High self esteem can be considered as overestimating yourself, (you might think you are better than you are, full of yourself). They could as well struggle, or block themselves from self growth because they think they are “perfect” already so no need for growth.

Factors that can affect self esteem:
-Body weight
-Disability
-Family’s genes (genetics),history
-Social/economic status
-Education status
-Job
-Career
-Life
-Relationship
-Sexual orientation

I will be able to compare and contrast the different modes of self esteem.

Class notes Tuesday April 20th 2021

We first discussed who will be presenting in order of first second and so on.
The order was
1-Courtney
2-Niyomi
3-Me
4-Robby
5-Crystal
6-Ajah
7-Maria
8- Reem
9-Aryanna

We talked about explorative research-learn the landscape key terms-second round of research (redux)
A good website to use would be Google Scholar

First presentation would be Courtney and her Topic was Schizophrenia vs Meditation.
-Some would characterize as crazy.
-Mental Atrophy (loose part of your brain).
-Psychosis
-Painful memorize.
-Insomnia ,Negative side effects of meditation
-Different side effects of meditation were listed.
-Warning about mediation (precautions and negative side effects).
-Schizophrenia is widely understood.
-Mistreated
-A book called living thoughts (encouraged everyone to take a look at it)
-Meditation can be abused.

Introducing the topic (interest, significance-linking two terms together; research- question, introduction; citations, connect the dots (the “so what”)?

Niyomi went next.
First article talked about The lost art of concentration.
Second article talked about you will have the emotional reboot.
Third article talked about Stop beating yourself up.

Need citations for sources (both in-text and works cited at end)-but also integrated in to the discussion. Introduce the title, author, in the discussion, Each slide is like a body paragraph (each with a main idea, topic sentence/claim, evidence/analysis).

I then presented last. My topic was Finding yourself.

Who are you?
This question can come up a-lot and in a variety of different ways. You and only you know the answer to this question. Not a parent, sibling, teacher no one.

My first article talked about the past and how it has different ways of shaping you into who you are today. Painful early experiences carve you into how you define and defend yourself.
We grow up feeling on the defense or resistant to trying new challenges. According to the article, we need to get down to the root of what us causing this in order to break it.

My second article talked about Finding yourself is harder than you think.
You often reference other when people when you are discovering yourself.
According to the article you define you, no one else.

My third article discussed why finding yourself is important for a fulfilling life.
Doing things on your own can be beneficial to you.
Travel, it opens up your mind to new things.
Spending time alone, just to look and reflect on yourself and your thoughts.

We need to in other words, do a deeper dive in to our research. Next Class we will continue working on our presentations.

Finding yourself

Who are you? I feel this question comes up alot when dealing with anything. It can come up when terrible things happen or good things happen. In my personal experience, that question comes up when you are trying to figure out what you are truly destined for. I personally believe before you are born you are destined for something, and throughout your life, you work things out, create new things, even try out new things just to figure out what it is. When I say “things” mean situations, goals to make for yourself to figure out what you like vs don’t. Engage yourself in sports, literature, etc. You could turn out to be a personal athlete. Or an author of many award winning books.

An article about “A guide to finding yourself” by Psyche alive talks about our past and how it has a way of shaping our lives. “Painful early experiences often determine how we define and defend ourselves”. What that exactly means in other words is it would filter out who you are and why you are shaped or colored to one side. “ We could grow up always feeling on the defense or resistant to trying new challenges for fear of being ridiculed”. According to this article, to break this behavior we have to know what’s driving it so we know what that’s the source of our most limiting and or self destructive tendencies.

Another article that called “Finding yourself is harder than you think” by Trevin wax. In this article she talks about discovering yourself is impossible unless you reference other people. I feel like that is very true because it states in the article” when you are most dedicated to standing out and being different from others, you are still defining yourself in response to others”. This is true because anyone can admit that, whenever you are trying to fix yourself, where it’s your personal strengths or even the clothes you put on your body, you will always have In the back of your mind, the simple words” would this look right” meaning what would other people think?

In my third article it talks about “Why finding yourself is important for a fulfilling life” by TBD. They talk about different situations and why it is beneficial to your personal being. Spending time alone, traveling, trying new things and loving who you are.
Loving yourself talks about you are born with the skin that you are in now and that is never going to change. It’s important to learn to love yourself. The media gives you unrealistic goals of how we should look. Trying something new whether its an exercise class or some new food or even simply as new as home decor. It can give a fresh start to your life and can become exciting according to the article. Travel does wonders to open up your mind to experiences new things. Spending time alone is one of the most refreshing and reflecting things to do. It’s just you and your thoughts.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13u3o3OITRZOQN0MrDColUYtKmWkQo1aJsMurvS2wu5o/edit#slide=id.gd31eadb406_0_10

https://www.psychalive.org/finding-yourself/

‘Finding Yourself’ Is Harder Than You Think

Why Finding Yourself Is Important For Living A Fulfilling Life

The 40th Annual Literary Arts festival -2021

This festival consisted of several different students sharing their thoughts and own personal experiences on COVID-19 and what they got out of it. They shared their vulnerability and reflected on their situations. I will list and describe 4 students out of many that stood out with their personal experiences.

The first students name is Henry and his video he talked and showed about his daily life routine out of City Tech and how COVID really pushed him to the wall. It changed up his entire lifestyle.

The second student name is Chris and his story really hit me. His story was about working full time while going to school. He worked in the medical field and reveal a relationship with one of his patients he had got to be really close with. His patient had bone cancer and resisted any type of medical treatment, meaning no pills, nor medicine. He had sat down to watch the Kansas city Chiefs playoff game that would soon send Kansas city to the world series. He had asked his patient if he was a football fan and his patient replied to him, “I am more of a track kind of guy”. That question would lead them to a start of a conversation about track and field. Later he would leave the hospital that day after checking on his patient being fast asleep with the hospital wearing an oxygen make and tv on. The next day he would come to work and realize that maybe his patient had switch rooms so he went on to find out what room only to hear, his patient had passed away in the morning. He said he would never forget the last conversation he had with him.

The third student name Damitreze talked about him living in two different worlds. Black and white. He had shared two different encounters he had with police where he was searched with no probable cause. After these two situations, he-came across the idea that maybe he had fit the description.

The forth student named Jesus and he shared his experience spending time in the summer with his friends. Resulting the death of George Floyd, he joined the protest

The last student name Farouk demonstrated 2 paintings on Racial movement.

Class notes April 13th

Starting out class discussing who will be doing class notes for the following week.
April 20th Tuesday I will Be going again
April 22nd Thursday Reem
April 27th Tuesday Ajah

Discussed our personal Blogs
Needs to be categorized Appropriately (correct if needed)
Title to focus your attention
Title your blog so its specific to your post

Challenge yourself going forward

Reflecting on our personal Projects / Checking up on how it is going.
The goal is to be complete
Quality and insight
Consistent and engaging
Your blog needs to be clear. Must show date, time and category. What session did you do?
Challenge yourself to engage.

We then divided into groups to discuss the articles which we identified key points.

Ronald Purser
-Meditation is more like (focus on) self control.
-Everything is not what it seems.
-The way mindfulness is attached

Forgetting about yourself/ it is not what it seems.
“With its promises of assisting everyone with anything and everything, the mistake of the mindfulness movement is to Present its impersonal mode of awareness as a superior or university useful one”.
“Magic Panacea”

Majority of Apps have have a subscription meaning mindfulness has been oversold and commodify.
Trending the symptoms, not the Root cause Chief Happiness officers.

(Purser) Treating the symptoms, not the root cause

“But anything that offers success in our unjust society without trying to change it is not revolutionary – just helps people cope. In fact, it could also be making things worse. Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live. And yet mindfulness zealots believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgment has the revolutionary power to transform the whole world. Its magical thinking on steroids”.

“Mindfulness, like positive psychology and the boarder happiness industry, has depoliticized stress”.

Next class will be the People choice and who will be attending the 40th Annual literary Arts Festival-2021, have your blog up and ready for discussion.
Continue on with your meditation project.

Mindfullness

After reading these three articles, they are quite similar but also quite different.
“The Mindfulness Conspiracy”, Ronald Purser talks about social theory and transformation and change. He says in our modern day mindfulness, what it does for us. Clears our mental state which helps us think and be better. All of these practices comes back to the spiritual philosophies when he thinks about Buddhism and Yoga. Mindfulness in its form helps with the idea of Capitalism. He says our situation we are living in is exhausting in other words. It is killing everything around us slowly. Making our mental state and judgment compromised in other words.
In the article “The Problem of Mindfulness” Sahanika Ratnayake. With her having her masters in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, she says mindfulness was very much in the air. Being raised as a Buddhist in two places, she has a long history with meditation although it has a-lot to do with her and cultural Catholics. At the university she learned psychotherapy to cope with her stress. She later found herself attached to schools or approaches marked by buddhist philosophy and meditation one of which was mindfulness. She was able to escape free and relaxed and able to step away from her feelings. Something about the mindfulness practice left her cultivated and encouraged and engaged with her emotions which turned out to making her feel free and estranged from life.
In the article “The mindfulness Revolution”,Kate picked talked about mindfulness and different techniques that associated with philosophy. Meditation is considered an essential meaning of achieving mindfulness which can simply be achieving your full attention of what you are doing.”One can work mindfully, parent mindfully and learn mindfully. One can exercise and even eat mindfully”. I guess she is trying to say, it is two different levels of doing someone when you are in the present vs when you are in the not pass but when your mind if not present. She also gives different examples of what mindfulness can be classified as. ” Engineers who write code often talk about being in the zone, the same way a successful athlete can be , which mindfulness teachers say is the epitome of being in the past and paying attention”. In other words of something I mentioned earlier.

Author: Anil