Thanks for being on track with the title!
Just to say that cacao butter is sooo expensive, that I keep it for eating!

And I notice that none of these oils are polyinsaturated!
Avocado and olive are both monoinsturated...

I wonder about the price of castor oil, and also its medicinal use.... I would like to make some oil for local use on the liver, warm with a cloth....

So I wanted to say that there is another CRITERIA to choose the oil:
good for soap,
...but not "much better for another use"!

Linen will definitely do it here... I can have water now and then dry for the finishing of the plant.
But I know that the one for eating seeds is not the same! I will see just in case there was a local variety. Also, the island used to produce silk! Cotton I do not think so, but they sell plants for their beauty in some plants shpos.

I had already look at cotton, and it seems complicated to select a variety. I think it is like a mallow/malva, so a sort if hibiscus, thus perenial does not surprise me!

I do not go under 8ºc but this is not enough for cotton to grow. Between 16 an 20ºc most days, and can be hot if we have calima from Africa, so quite irregular. I definitely need to grow it as a summer crop!

With an oceanic climate, yes we have quite a lot of humidity in the air, often around 70% even in summer. I still have to observe more about dew, as I have seen it irregular. Mostly on my plastic water pipes which is cool!

That is already a good explanation!

I will also have to look for how much is a yard.... I am a metric person and also º C etc!
Just European....

Here I can have mulberries.... and they are trees, so I like this crop! And I think many animals can feed on this leaf...
I also think the larvae is edible to humans, not only to hens....
But if the worm comes out, it breaks the thread, so I dont know if we can get both food and fiber....

I have a sort of nettle in winter, but it is a short plant to my knees...

ok... so I live in the canary, depending on irrigation year long. Of course we have some rain in winter, as a meditarranean / oceanic / ever-spring climate.
But no rain at all in summer.
Now we might be having our last "real rain" until september or even october!

If I understand well, hemp is asking for more water in summer?
Linen might be the less demanding, if my soil keeps some humidity from spring?
And then cotton as second choice?

I have taught this for fun to children, with dog wool!

I have also seen women using this spindle in Peru, and it takes no time, as they actually do it while doing something else such as walking! Yes, they have their hands working exactly as people making a jumper while watching tv....

Hands working alone!

That makes it worth while as it takes no extra time. But how many years of experience and what if we start "old"?

I am more sceptic about rentability of making clothes than food at home...
How much do we need to invest in equipment if we buy it all?
If this does not have use all year long because we are not professional, that is a lot of equipment on earth that serves little....

For 1 towel, how many plants do you need? And how long does it take you to prepare the cotton, spin it and weave it to get your towel?

Does she cut all the sides and remove the central stem?
I would not have thought about this, wahoo!

Which of the 2 is more accessible to home growing and processing? I mean the surface and what it gives + the easiness or difficulty for beginners to prepare the plant and then use the fiber....

Cotton, linnen, hemp, nettle.... Can they be put in an order of ease/accessibility for realistic use at home scale?

And also, is there any comparison with silk and wool?
Wool is a side product when you have sheep as I have.
What space for silk, as we have to grow their food.... Does producing silk allow to produce the insect for food?

Does cotton need more water than hemp and linen in respect to the quantity of fiber we get?

I have the climate for cotton I think, but not much water here....

Lina Joana wrote:Personally, I’m not worried about omega 6 in my soap. It occurs in food, and we are talking about something that gets rinsed off quite quickly, not a lotion. If the soap smells nice, and my skin feels fine, I feel like I’m probably fine. Naturally, everyone needs to make their own determination on this.

Oh I think you are right for soap!
I would be more careful about massage oil for example.

I still wonder about using oxidized fats that are no more ok for eating.... Maybe no problemm either, for the same reason?

I would really like to know what surface gives for making what.... and how much.
What linen surface gives a dress? And how much for bed sheets?
Is it the most affordable crop for clothing?

Fatty acids seem to enter the skin as well as through the guts... So I would avoid any of the high omega 6 oils! And would favor saturated and mono-insaturated fats.
Thus lard, tropical fats and olive oil.
Also think about laurel oil as in the Allep soap.

Logically, it seems we should avoid oxydized fats, but this is just a guess, and maybe they are ok? For eating they are NOT, that is why I doubt...
Maybe ok to recycle fats for loundry? ....and not for body use?

Mike Jay wrote: welcome to PEP/PEX!  Setting up your own PEX would be awesome and contribute greatly to permaculture taking over the world.

Since PEP is Permaculture Experience according to Paul, you could just call yours PEC if you want.

lol it seeems that mine is already done ! PEX !!!

One of the needs brought up by Paul is very valid: I would love to share my land and I have no children!

Until now, I kick off people each time quicker, like in a week, at the 1st thing they do that does not match my 1st security rule:
- Initiatives must be preceded by telling them and checking if they are appropriate, because of all the newcomer does not know about the place.
If a person does not follow what they have been told, thinking they know best, they are just ...dangerous.

Apart from knowledge, there are also some general behaviour rules that have nothing to do with the persons but the PLACE:
there is always one person who knows it best, even iff the person knows the job to do less.
Until the new person knows it GLOBALLY, it is impossible to have full initiatives, however many experiences you have in another place!

Some training about how to get used to a new place would be wonderful...

For those who can propagate sweet potatoes from stems:
- make a loop and cross the stem like an alpha letter.
They will grow more tubers and make more roots quicker.
Burry the "lasso" horizontally with some leaves outside.
Roots appear at each place where you cut leaves  on the burried stem.

Mike, here we can have 3 rounds of potatoes per year!

About purple potatoes that don't have the green skin when exposed to light... are you sure, or is it just that the color is hidden by the violet flesh? Or do you really think that the antioxydant makes it impossible to put saponin there?

Is it overall containing less saponins? (which in that case makes it interesting for people who prefer to stay away from solanacea...)

My andeans tubers all died. My place is not hot but still not cold enough! Over 30ºc they suffer...
I had ulluco and oca and another one....

Chayota is great and fantastic to make orange marmelade.
I have air potato, it also has an edible root.
Galangal yes, super good grated to make an egg tortilla!

I am sceptical with the word "perennial" because we eat the root...
- If you want sweet potatoes, you have to collect all and replant the stem.
- If you plant yacon, you have to replant a bit of the top and start the whole plant again.

Jerusalem artichoke is perennial even if you try to harvest all, it regrows! Same or almost, with comfrey. Just leave a piece...

I also agree about elephant garlic, because when you pull the big one, you will leave the little bulbils in, so no work = yes that is perennial!

Chris Kott wrote:The best course of action for those sensitives would be to develop mental barriers or techniques that would allow for selectivity.

This is a mental theory and a nice wish!
This is like asking the eye diaphragm to shut and open quicker. And also that would make life a permanent vigilent state...

The mental part is not the one that is touched first by bad news... and people who make themselves tough with some sort of mental barrier might be the ones that will develop stress induced body tensions... I have been following these sort of studies for the last 9 years... Have a look at the thread I made and I psoted the link above, and there I have posted names to look for and a link right now, showing how complex and surprising it is to scientists!

As for the point about trauma, or for people thinking they had none, or none major ones, here is a quote from Veronique Mead who does trauma study - you can look for her blog -

"Scientific American on multigenerational trauma effects - some new clues about how a father's stress before his child's conception can influence his baby's stress responses and brain development. Some of it does indeed appear to be epigenetic as has been suspected."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dads-stresses-get-passed-along-to-offspring/

I have read about the results of more studies like this, including that healing is transmitted too, in ways that are still mysterious. But it has been checked at DNA levels, to tell you how scientific they are about it and how much they search! But the best definition of trauma is not about the event, it is about the memory in the physiology. It means that nobody has been able to relate the intensity of an accident to its consequences in a totally previsible way. For those who know about the impact of having virus, sibo, mycotoxins issues, heavy metals or retinol overload... all this can also trigger reactions which deprive us from part of our energy, making us more sensitive to other stresses!

Also, Dr Naviaux is the one to search about, for his reasearch about the CDR - Cell defense response. I will post links when I find... The resume is that many things, from trauma to toxins, are all druming on the same bell, the CDR, whatever the hammer is!

Here is an example of good news!
https://homegrown.co.in/article/803469/an-assam-based-entrepreneur-has-invented-leak-proof-eco-friendly-bamboo-bottles

that I prefer to the email from the grow network that had as a title "xisca, Last year, "superbugs" killed 700,000 people worldwide..."

Yeah for the eco-friendly bamboo bottles!

Nina Jay wrote:Did I understand correctly that the sensitive people have a more active ANS (Automatic Nervous System)?

No, we all have an active ANS because it is running all the normal physiology of the body like a chief of orchestra.
But we all have differences in the activity of our ANS, and this is for sure more complex than we can imagine...
Also the cells also have responses and they have no ANS though have similar reactions. The ANS is made of cells.

Our bodies have rythms, and the ANS more than any system as it is the electric system. So it can be disregulated, whatever the cause. We also have different basic regulation from the start, and I don't mind to know the cause actually, because we do not need to know it for regulating the system, What is important is to adapt and change what is needed when we can.

What is complicated to understand is this point:
We can use our mind to do something, to decide, but NOT to modify/regulate/rewire the ANS. We have to choose what we do according to a possible result, but it must happen by itself. So we hurt people each time we ask them to make an effort for controlling a behaviour. We can short term only. The tools commonly lacking are about making things fluent and dissolve "knots" that prevent the normal flow.

Nina Jay wrote:Do you think sensitive people have a certain (evolutionary?) role in human communities? Like for example the stallions in horse herds are more alert and sleep less so the mares can eat in peace without worrying so much about predators?

Or do you think it's just a result of traumas that some people are more sensitive than others?

Or both/ either?

I have not even mentonned the word trauma, for 3 reasons:
- The ANS has been associated to "reaction to trauma", and this is a small part of the reality. We just notice the ANS less in its normal functions!
-  "trauma" has too many meanings and we do not all considere the same things as traumatic. Also, is the meaning about the event or about the defense reaction of the ANS?
- There is also some science behind transmissions from our ancesters, not only of trauma but of healing.

I stay very biological, so the ANS is a system that works with other systems in the body, so it can for sure be hurt and repaired. We do this all the time. I just want that this system be considered as much as other systems, becuse it does follow some rules.

Yes we all have roles, different ones, but I cannot say that this is evolutionary nor coming from sensitivity only, just that we have to interact with others according to who we are and what gifts were given to us. Sensitivity is not a "problem" but a feature, so each person can decide if it serves them or not, and what can be done to keep the good aspects but suffer less of other aspects (like being able to stand news as we talked in the other thread).

That is why I insist that when you heal some pain, you do not loose any gift that life gave you because you adapted to traumatic events.

What I can say is that accidents indeed impact our well being and that the way some cultures are organized makes it less easy than in other cultures to recover. That is why I mentionned some differences between us an animals. We'd better be like sheep and look for contact to feel better for example! Unfortunately some people know how to manipulate, and will profit of the need of contact inorder to ake us do what we would not do on our own. This is manipulation and does not mean our tribal and social engagement system is a defect!

The social engagement system is a feature of the ventral branch of the vagus nerve, parasympathetic so for rest and repair. It is well studied by Steven Porges in his polyvagal theory. And it is also well studied by children who know they feel better, when ill in bed - when a nice mom is sitting on their side and putting a hand on their forehead! Pets also have no shame in looking for the better places on our lap! What is it about? Feeling good.

Then plants do not rely ONLY on "milking bacterias" or else they would never grow in comercial sterile medium!

But after all, they want to live and set seed, so they might do so with less than optimum...

My first thought was for the advise to sow in pots with sterile medium! How on earth are plants managing to grow there? Is there anything different at their beginning of life?

It seems too that then bacterias grow in hydroponics? Or what is happening in that case?

Is there anything special we can think of, like when doing culture rotations? How lost are bacterias when their favorite hosts have migrated to another garden? We rotate to starve pests who cannot find their food, but does it starve bacteiras? Do they say how fast they travel?

I have never rotated cultures, as it was not compatible for me with my micro-climates and with companion planting. At least I can drop any guilt (I had none anyway...)!

The new thread is live here!

https://permies.com/t/103023/Organic-Intelligence-takes-care-people

I am not sure I posted it at the best place but I had to make a choice!

"Organic Intelligence" has been coined by Steven Hoskinson. Part of its roots are in Somatic Experiencing from Peter Levine. Soma means body.

I used the best term I thought about in relationship with permaculture, and also because we can instinctively understand what it means. When we discover a bit more of the biology and physiology of ourselves, animals and plants, we deeply know that there is more intelligence there than only in our "I think, so I am"!

We cannot deny that we can see around that non organic chemistry is less efficient than organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is all that contains carbon atoms and forms organisms. LIFE. Carbon organizes life structures and specific-to-species fractal forms that multiply, grow, extend, repeat themselves. Permaculture is more than about organic agriculture, because it sees the necessity of design, which for me means organisation, or even upstream organisation. Not only our thinking brain is not the only organising master, but it is also part of our physiological/organic body. Some brilliants minds concluded that we have to use this mind to tend creation as other living beings do, and that we have to take care that our brilliant mind can also go too far into some organisations that in the end start to disorganize the biology on earth.

If we speak of intelligence, we mostly think of "reason", though we can see now that plants develop a form of intelligence that is not a brain form of intelligence. Talking about animals that have a brain, then we considere intelligence mostly according to the size of the neo-cortex. But what can we think of an intelligence that is not able to see that it is loosing something when it gets seemingly more? What can we think of an intelligence that is replacing instead of adding? And is this intelligence the one that is running all life? Obviously not.

Science already brings us with enough answers to considere, if we can use this cortical intelligence to considere that there was some intelligence before we developped this one. We know we have a tri-une brain but since before we know this, history has made us despise part of our humanity and focus on what makes us different to other species. Now we can also considere that we have an organic intelligence that is not only the CNS - Central Nervous System - because aside the cortex, we have the limbic brain and the ANS - Autonomic Nervous System - and this one is the more ancient.

Each older part of the NS is still preemptive upon the next part, which means that energy goes to the ANS, limbic and cortex in this order. Who has noticed they cannot think as good when they are either tired or fighting a disease with fever, or triggered by some urgency? Who has noticed that they have said or done things they regret, when their anger goes down? (or somebody else, if you don't) What is less easy to notice is that when we use our powerful cortex to repress other needs or some "steam coming out of our pressure cooker", we are stocking up in our biology. Our society/culture has build some wonders, but has replaced some "needed needs" instead of adding the new advantages to the old ones. We could make a list of what we dropped instead of keeping it...

I have to make short cuts because this is a post, and because more informations is available elsewhere.

Do we take care of the people so well ? In a way yes, but we could do better for sure. We already talk in this forum about taking care of our food production and of the necessity to keep eco-systems for the future. Taking care of our Organic Intelligence directly, would be the theme here. What can we do in order to regulate our regulating system? How can we use our reason for making better choices here? This ANS is autonomic, which means that the cortex does not have a real direct influence upon it, though we can decide to do certain things that will allow the ANS to do its job better. Synchronicity, regulation, self-regulation, resilience, so that all our other body systems that depend upon the better health of the "chief of the orchestra" can work better.

The result is that we can get more energy for action if we regulate our emotions, that are themselves regulated by the ANS and our physiology. (of course there are also feedback loops that hide the order of importance of the 3 parts of the NS). What makes a difference for our physiology is the sense of danger or security. According to this security scale, our ANS works differently. And as the ANS is in charge of our life, it will automatically direct our energy to the alert system about what's wrong! It is needed, but not all the time. Animals in nature might live in more danger than us in a way, but they are also getting more clear clues about when they are in danger, and when they are secure. Also because we can project more into the future, we can be more triggered by danger than what is a clear present danger.

Many people have become quite sensitive, so that they can detect danger earlier. Many people have also suffered from threat and violence from beings of their own species: Compared to animals, we do not suffer that much from other species. So we miss what they often do not: support from contact, which is precisely a big part of what our biology had developped in order to let the needed time to our ANS to recover after an acute episode of threat. Instead of time and understanding, we are often told to hurry up and not take time from others! How much contempt we have for sheep for example! But the main thing they do is to be physically close, because herd species rely on this more than other resources and abilities, to recover and be able to go on living. They can focus again on eating and living until the next threat. Isolate them, and their ANS cannot do its job. Our ANS is also in difficulties when we have to recover alone. We are a tribe species. And we are also a dancing and singing species because creating a rythm together is helping us to connect and not hurt each other. Instead, we often have to walk among unkown persons and have to act as if we were among friends. We make tribe through the World Wild Web (I leave my initial typing mistake on purpose!), but the way we have to find jobs make us live so often out of not only our tribe but our close familly.

Sensitivity has a lot to do with being alert and even hyper-vigilant, and it is nergy taxing. It can seem strange to stay sensitive even during the moments of better safety, and actually it seems as if the system tells "us" "Why would I go down if I have to go up so soon again? I decide to stay up there, or go down very little, so that I will have less effort to do to go up again." We really need to feel secure enough and to go down to a resting enough state. Being secure is not enough, we need to FEEL secure, in our body, in our biology. If we have lived too long in a relative lack of security, we can even have a less good immune system, because it was not alloted the right amount of energy. No enough was available. So you might result in a slower metabolism for saving energy reasons, or you might have issues with tiny aggressors like virus or fungi or food toxins etc. then you are in a circle that is more difficult to escape from. Do not worry though, your system is making its best and has adapted for your benefit.

Now where are the solutions that are in the problem?

Remember that your ANS is also your life guard and that is thus more prone to focus on "what's wrong" than what's good? When we ARE safe though we do not FEEL safe, we might not even notice all this because our culture has never taught us to pay attention to the ANS signs. We even learn that the ANS has only to do with organ functions and "instincts" and has to be controlled, instead of having freedom to do its job. We can actually practise to notice what's good. Ask anybody "How do you feel, in your body?" (meaning not about emotions, you see, we have only 1 words for those 2 meanings!) and they will answer with a pain or a tention here and there in their body. Ask anybody to ay attention to their posture or their breath, and they will modify it! The good news is that we can also practise to pay attention to our physiology without changing it. Then we can also notice that it can change on its own, and that it happens alone, without control.

This is close to an art actually. It needs conscious practise before it can happen fluently, a bit like playing music. In some culture they still all know how to sing and dance, and they probably still have more practise than us about feeling the body so that it can do its self-regulation and settle down to a real resting state. All in life has wave shapes, especially what touches our senses, like light and sounds. Our nervous system and our cells are also electric in nature, with all those minerals that are either - or + and that creates movement, life. We live according to a circadian rythm and a seasonal rythm too. We love surfing or just watching waves, or creating waves with a stome we throw in water, watching the circles expand. What our real nature wants is to expand too! We feel pain as circles going towards us and our energy is contracting. All we want is to expand again and feel our joy as circles in the water.

The best way our intellligence can help, is by deciding to not take the role of the other parts of the brain but to communicate wisely. Our cortex speaks in thoughts and words, our limbic brain's language is emotion, but our earliest mother tongue is the felt-sense. It communicates through sensations and maps the world around us, allowing our organic life to move inside us, allowing our behaviours to happen too. Both science and practise brings us enough knowledge to bridge the gap of all that we have not paid enough attention to. It is there and it has always been and is still taking care of us even when we do not know it.

We can make its job easier, and we can also repair ourselves when we have suffered more than we could repair until now. We will not loose any of the abilities that we developped thanks to be sensitive! Those abilities are real gifts and we keep them.

If you already have found the ability to control and manage any unpleasant nervous state, you can still learn something else, which is how to let this happen without the effort /tips/tactics that you have found, so that it gets easier and save your precious energy for something else!

You can list techniques that have the ANS and the soma at their roots. There are already more than one, and though most of the ones we have access to are more or less 20 or 30 years old, they usually match many traditional ancient techniques. For cultural reasons, we have not often managed well to use ancient techniques, but when you know that they all address the regulation of the ANS, then you can more easily use them with steeady success.

Apart from Organic Intelligence and Somatic Experiencing, you can also look at Somatic Practice and ISP.

Bodywork methods like Feldenkrais and Rolfing and biodynamic cranio-sacral are also very much taking the ANS into account. I have not investigated them that much but I have noticed other techniques that take the ANS into account, like the Nemechek protocol for SIBO, or Hanna Somatics.

And without mentionning it specifically, I am sure that a lot of permies already had noticed a lot of this through their contact with nature and especially animals, but also plants now, through awareness about soil webs. All beings, all life, have evolved from the same roots and is expanding from a similar basis, though trunks and branches have separated into many twigs, leaves, spines, flowers... and primed us with all this beauty around, that we can look at better every day, for our enjoyment and our feeling to be part of the mystery of creation. Our ANS is what best in us talks the same language as the nature we can admire around us.

Nina Jay wrote:

Chris Kott wrote:I used to have hypoxic episodes where I would almost lose consciousness, the most extreme symptom of an anxiety disorder. I didn't realise that as I became increasingly anxious, I wouldn't exhale completely, until my lungs were full of spent air, but my muscles were so tense I couldn't exhale, and I had no room for fresh air.

I still get anxious, but I recognise the symptoms early enough that I can circumvent the hypoxia. So I know that it is possible to reason through even physical manifestations of paralysing psychological stress.

I agree, it is possible to reason through psychological stress. I do it all the time. It's just that it's exhausting for me because of my sensitivity: there's so much to reason through

There are techniques that help with this, I've personally only scratched the surface of the subject, but I'm learning more of those techniques all the time and it's fascinating and empowering.

I read with keen interest everything Xisca Nicholas wrote, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Maybe I or someone else might even start a separate thread for all the ways one can handle the sensitivity and function better in our not-so-sensitive world.

I am available to work on this with who wants to, because yes we can design something for the care of the people!

Please do not view it through the prism of "negative" energy only, because is it a protection system of our body! Reasonning to control it is available to some people but not all, and can also freeze deeper. (I would compare to our body stocking toxins that cannot be removed. Better than letting them free, but they are still there and stocking up has a maximum) Catching the water is a first phase, but be HOPEful that most leaks of the roof CAN be repaired, because our body was designed to do this, and we just sometimes mess up and do not let the right conditions establish themselves for the body to do its job quietly. We do not have defects but a type of biology/physiology that needs respect of the "mode of use" like any other species including plants.

Permaculture means to respect the biology and work with it. Same as we discover plants roots network, working like a "brain", we know we have 3 parts of the brain, and the ANS is 1 of the, I think 12, systems of the body. The ANS is also the "antenna" that connects us to the outside energies, and one part known as the ventral vagal branch is responsible for connexion in mammals and seemingly birds too, allowing the feeling of empathy and pleasure to be connected.

We can easily understand that this has been wounded when we felt betrayed or abused for example. Of course NEWS are often about what some humans have suffered because of other humans! Can you compare it with the feeling you have if you see one of those videos showing humans or animals helping other humans or animals? You heart melts! And this does not make our heart bland and weaker, but gives us strength! This is the power of the ANS! This NS - Nervous System - is far from being "automatic and stupid"! It is indeed autonomic so that it can be like a computer program and manage all that we have to do, and free our cortex brain for the other type of intelligence we humans have developped so much.

Our culture has just passed the limits of wanting our cortex to do too much and despise what is autonomic, though it makes us live and is life saving and life organising. Yes it works like a marvelous software to make our body adapts to inimaginable complicated situations. This is why I admire the coining of this expression "organic intelligence"! We need access to this science as much as soil science. And who better than permie people can use this art?

Chris Kott wrote:I still get anxious, but I recognise the symptoms early enough that I can circumvent the hypoxia. So I know that it is possible to reason through even physical manifestations of paralysing psychological stress.

So maybe I am, in part, a sensitive person. I just realised early on that I couldn't  function either paralysed by my fear, or paralysed by utter disconnection from the world in which I live.

Let us not mollycoddle our sensitivity, and cherish it as a prize. Being intuitive and emotionally available and connected is a treasure. Embracing the kind of sensitivity that leaves one utterly incapable of reason or action isn't to be lauded, in my opinion.

-CK

I am sorry if it is hard that I offer some of my training without the complete training, as I cannot do more in posts! I can point to the words you use, to show you where is the sensitivity, and show that "staying informed" is at another place.
We are sensitive because of our ANS (Autonomic Nervous System), and information arrives at the cortex/reason/intellect. But informations also go to the limbic (emotions) and also to the ANS! We have 3 parts in our brain, it is called triune.

I understand what you did, but science about it would not call reason what is awareness! You recognize the symptoms so that you can do something about it. Beyond what you do, you have certainly felt that something was evolving inside you, on its own. We have what is called an inner wise or an organic intelligence! This is the ANS at work...

Yes you are sensitive, so sensitive that for feeling less, your system chose to freeze sometimes and in some cases, for your good. This is like the fuses of the electric system! It is a protection.
AND ALL THIS THREAD IS ABOUT PROTECTION!

About your last sentence... well, it is not that much about embracing or that it is to be lauded, but that the reactions of the ANS are there. Each person tries to find solutions and tips, but what we know about how we work shows the limits of the cortex, and that each part of the brain must do its part without doing the job of the others! It is not so nice that we can find ourselves incapable of reason or action, but it does happen. It can be acute or chronic, like anxiety.

So when I say this is about protection, I just refer to the title of this thread: sensitivity needs self-care. Staying informed is also self-care, if we considere that it can create anxiety if we do not know what happens around!
So I like that this is taken to us for reflexion: how can we combine the 2 and create as much feeling of safety as we can? FEELING SAFE is of paramount importance to function as live beings! Ok, we are in the forum of politics, so I can even say that left and right might be how people do not agree about what make them feel safe!

At the moment we have this to solve:
- If I get no news, I do not feel that safe.
- If I get the news the way they give them to us, I do not feel safe at all!

My way to go is to not need the news and think that if I cannot change something, I'd better relinquish...
As long as I am not accompagnied enough to feel secure, I do not fight. If I feel fight desire inside, well I can find local ways to DO something... Everything feels better to me than being in a battle where I will have to surrender, because the fight will still be inside, or I might loose all my energy and remain worthless...

And yes I would do something with others, to obtain that at least in permaculture, they stop using the common triggers that are made to become consumers, using our fears and hopelessness. I am all about having hope and doing things together, but not that it be used as manipulations.

Chris Kott wrote:I don't think that sensitive people do themselves any favours by what is essentially sheltering themselves from the world.

I am not but I respect what people feel best for themselves without offending them for what they decide to do for their own good!
Yes, they do themselves the best favour they can!
In matters such as individual sensibility, we cannot fully understand others so the best is to believe them about what is good for themselves.

If I imagine new as "bombarding us with damaging emotions", our individual system will choose the possible reaction, and this is not the mind that chooses! So the reaction will be fight flight or freeze or fawn (for the 4 Fs though I do not like the words), and nobody can contest this sort of choice. Some people will go against their choice and will prefer to make some sort of sacrifice for a cause, but this is a personal decision...

Tereza Okava wrote:Xisca, you said something that I noticed too. I love to follow the homesteading/permaculture folks on youtube, it is a great resource and blessing for me, but I have a real hard time with the fear-based clickbait (and fearful language).

Thanks I feel less alone!
I was desperate "ho no, even in permaculture..."
I have twice sent a message saying that I was going to unsuscribe if they were going on with the same type of email, so I did, as anyway I got no answer... If we could get that they change this point, I would be so happy!

Thanks everybody for all the courageous and personal answers! I can feel how much our emotional parts are touched by this subject, and feel the sadness of the maybe impossible choices between information and keeping some kind of strength for doing all the positive things we can do for the world!

Lina Joana wrote:For me, as someone with a liberal bent in the USA, watching the “comedian” news shows often works. I’ve done less of it lately, but I find the YouTube clips of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight often cover serious issues, well researched, that I’m glad to know, about in a way that doesn’t make me super depressed. Of course, it only works if you like his style and politics. I think there are several other shows like that with different hosts. If you find one you like, It can be helpful- though probably not always the top headlines.

Yep very good! Whatever uses humour and makes you laugh even at serious things is discharging the anxiety of what we feel powerless to change !
That is why we like humorists and why they so often make us laugh at ourselves or our culture!

Lately it has become more and more difficult to laugh because some people feel laughed at, instead of laughing together.

Nina Jay wrote:
I've found a few news media that I can follow without too much anxiety:

- Permaculture Magazine. It's mostly about positive things but also about the bad news. The bad news are combined with what one can do about it, so I'm not left feeling as helpless and powerless.

I had signed up for the news letter of Marjorie Wildcraft and had to resign because too many titles were fear based! (I can stand them but I disagree, and I will explain below)

Even if there is a given solution after the alarming title, why do we have to clic because of a negative reinforcement (R-) instead of a positive reinforcement (R+)?

For those who do not know, positive and negative mean there + and - so plus and minus.... nothing to do with positive and negative in the common sense. The signs + and - have 2 meanings!

So, the sort of news you are looking for are the ones based on R+, which means they add a pleasant feeling.
The news you are NOT looking for are the ones based on R-, which means they remove an un-pleasant feeling.

And the news that first try to make you afraid, do so because they want you to read/hear them in order to remove the un-pleasant feeling they first created!

Sorry, this is exactly what Paul tries to avoid when he says to not be angry at bad guys.... I fully agree with the idea to not fall into the common copywriting that exploits the feeling of alert/urgency to make you act! Our culture is actually addict to negative reinforcement, because it succeeds at making you active even when you are already exhausted. And the usual action that they want you to have is *clic*!

(copywritting is the art to write those texts we receive and that exite us to do something by creating an emotion such as fear or curiosity, and the anxiety to loose something if we do not clic)

How do I get news? If something is important enough, everybody will be talking about it! But little by little you can also get out of the fear to miss something important, and focus through R+ ! Which is whatever gives you satisfaction, pleasure = something more than the satisfaction of having things done.

We get addicted to something when it removes an un-pleasant feeling, so this is R- (reinforcement of a behaviour that removes something unpleasant). This is quite tricky to make the difference with R+, which is the reinforcement of a behaviour that adds something pleasant. In both cases a behaviour is reinforced, but through very different pathways in our body. We are litterally wired to hear an alarm bell when we feel some threat to our well-being, and we have to do something to remove the bad feeling. The best known remedy for addiction is connexion. Connexion is what gives us our best R+ in life.

Addictions are self-reinforcing in a loop. At the beginning they can be R+, but as their effect goes away, you get anxious if you are going to get what you need. So if you notice you relax when you first smoke, shortly the lack of nicotine (which looks like acethylcholine for the body receptors) will create an unpleasant state that will need more nicotine to go away. So from R+ you switched to R- !!

I like ceramic because getting some iron is not so good.

(electric sensitive people seem to have some problem of non organic rion or copper overload)

From my experience with ceramic knives, they cannot be sharpened and do not cut well after some time of use though... I still PREFER ceramic though, because stainless steel brings more than iron: chromium and most of the time NICKEL!

(guess what means 18/10 added after stainless steel: this is the % of nickel and chromium)

If using natural wood, I would put borax and oils against insects...

I have just found some saw dust under some wood pieces!

Remember that linen oil has dessicants even when they do not list the ingredient, so I would use food-grade linen oil. Some mix it with turpentine...

-

And using tools and spoon or forks are ok for me if recycled because useless for their former use, or else... nice and romantic but not very perma!

Tereza Okava wrote:I know that there are many, many, cool things in this thread that merit a more thorough and intelligent response, but the first thing that jumps to mind is an article I read recently entitled "Iron Is the New Cholesterol" that left me thinking about the whole iron thing a LOT. (after some tattoos, surgery, and travel to problematic regions, I haven't donated blood in about 2 years, and I'm getting itchy to do so.)
You might find it interesting.
http://nautil.us/issue/67/reboot/iron-is-the-new-cholesterol

I mentionned above that there is a thread by Paul about specifically iron issues, and I posted there a bunch of resumé about what to do for low or high iron, as it has to be tested.
https://permies.com/t/50961/Swords-Iron-Missoula-Blood-Pie#828503

Donating blood of course, but there are more options and it is also possible to limit iron absorbtion for people who tend to overload. Do the reverse to increase iron! You need to test, no way to know without testing, and both excess and deficiencies are possible.

The richest food are liver and oysters. If you need more iron, go for older animals like beef. And eat carpaccio: raw beef with lemon juice, as the acidity + vitC will help to assimilate iron.
If you want to eat liver and limit iron, eat only young calf and young animals' livers in general.  Shell have copper instead of iron, if you want to eat animals with less iron.

What boosts iron intake/assimilation:

- Paul likes cast-iron pans.... Does the oily film protect, or... Cooking in iron pans can add from 30 to 500% additional iron to your meals.
- Vit.C
- copper and manganese.
- lactic acid and citric acid.
- drinking alcohol without eating.

What limit iron assimilation when eaten with an iron-rich meal:

- Phytic acid as in cereals.
- Tannins as in berries.
- polyphenols such as in chocolate, coffee, or tea.
- Red wine with meat.
- turmeric.
- Soy.
- zinc as a supplement displaces iron. It is different from the natural zinc in meat, which barely compensate the meat iron content.

So you can stay a meat eater and help to not get too much iron by drinking coffee with meat (cooked in turmeric!) and have a glass of red wine and then eat some blueberries!

Also, it is not totally true that we need to loose blood as the only way to loose iron, as some iron is found in sweat. Of course that would work over a longer period of time, but it seems that we need sun on our skin also for infra-red light to irradiate the blood that comes under the skin in the sun, to lower iron. Thus the sun acts in 2 ways: IR and sweating. As we accumulate with time, it may mean that we are neglecting some daily ways to lower iron.

paul wheaton wrote:

Travis Johnson wrote: Like you, I have incredibly high iron. Interestingly blood-Letting is the only way to alleviate it, even in 2019!

But what causes it? You never really got into that, so I thought I might add to the conversation...

I wrote about it a few years ago

http://www.makeitmissoula.com/2015/10/swords-iron-missoula-blood-and-pie/

I donated blood a bunch of times and felt way better.   And then I had my blood tested again and I was fine.

So, donating blood is probably safer than trying to get into a bunch of knife fights.

Even more, it is on permies here https://permies.com/t/50961/Swords-Iron-Missoula-Blood-Pie#410609
and it might be that matching the titles by moving posts about iron to this other thread be a good idea and simplify the search task in the forum too!

Donating blood is the best but not the only way to lower iron, and prevention is also possible, or a few tips help to not get high again.
But I will post it in the other thread!

And now we know why you love PIE!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:I don't know if it is physical or psychological, but there are times I feel like I can't start doing certain things, allthough the are high on the priority list. It could even be because they are high on that list ...

Yes I agree that when there is high priority, there is higher stress thus a higher reaction. About being "psychological", I always smile back at people and say "Yes, and our head is in our body!". So this is physical because it touches a system, the nervous system, as important a system as the digestive or respiratory or immune systems etc...
Physical or psychological, anyway our body is wise and the reaction is PROTECTIVE and that is why it is so strong, it is like the fuses of the house electricity, and if I self-quote from my long post:

And fear/anxiety are from sympathetic activation, which then causes the protective reflex to not dive into what can be taxing on the system, unless we get to do the challenging task with somebody.

As this is about energy, it is about energy suckers and build ups of different ones.

Nina Jay wrote:A big energy sucker for me,  the biggest by far, is relationship trouble.  

I think it is an energy sucker for everybody ! It matches the fact that the reverse, like pairing to do something, is helpful. The ventral branch from the 2 branches of the vagus nerve is said by Steven Porges to be responsible for social engagement, and helps to not be overwhelmed by stress. That is also why we know we are still wuite ok as long as we can take care of children or animals. They even help by sustaining our motivation to be active actually.

Nina Jay wrote:For me the most efficient solution is do wake up early. Another energy peak for me is about 18 o'clock

Have you noticed any rhythm in your energy/ concentration/ getting stuff done  -levels?

Yes and this has to do with circadian rythm, thus cortisol daily curve. So this has to do with our energy levels, and when we dont have enough energy, we cannot handle an extra burden of stress. It is real biology! We all react right, according to our biology in all its differences and specificities.

- our body reacts differently according to the sense of security or threat. =  Action + rest in security, become fight and flight + any form of freeze in threat, even if it is the fear of something that can happen or a memory. We just have to TRUST others and ourself about our reactions even when we don't understand them. We have an organic intelligence through the ANS, which is the only body system that is often dismissed nowaday.  We have been told it is only about instincts and instinctive defense movements, but it is actually running all that works alone in our body, mainly the organs and cells, which is not little.
- it is not about only one thing but more often about many little things piling up.
- Relationships are protective if it is presence and support without depriving us from acting. The effect is usually bi-directional, it serves both.

The post was even interesting... So I read it all of course! I was in shock when I saw there had been no answer!

It has happen many times to me to have an important task and when I manage to do it (for me, last minute is the pushing factor! Or pairing when possible), then I tell myself "Ho, I have seen how easier than I thought it was, and next time I will have no problem!"
...which proved wrong each time!
So I think that it just feels too big for part of our system/body, and so I have also found another trick...! I find another trigering stuff to do, and I do the first one to avoid doing the second! Another tip is to start to just do one bit, or have a look at it, and eventually the rest will follow.

paul wheaton wrote:The very most important part of this bit of writing is that by defining "the P key issue" I have given a problem a bit of tangibility.  It is less of a ghost that is haunting me, and more of a physical entity I can now wrestle it to the ground.  

...Despite being the very highest priority, I kept working on everything besides that.  ...  Poof - it's done.  20 minutes.

"The P key issue" is where there is some sort of bizarre, psychological block that gets triggered from time to time.  The P key issue has a volume knob on it, and it can be turned up or down by certain foods or life choices.  At the same time, pair programming crushes the P key issue every time.

It is not so much psychological than a feature of the Autonomic Nervous system (or this is a mere question of vocabulary choice!). And the ANS reacts very well to paired work! It even the best tool ever, we are social in nature because of the neurone mirror and more... Actually it has to do with the ventral part of the vagus nerve, which gives it an even more tangible aspect!

It happens that this part of the nerve works:
- less good when our body is under attack (food or life style or mold or virus and more)
- more good when we are with somebody.

Exactly what you have noticed, and confirmed by science.

So it is called psychologic, but it is a "physical entity" as you call it, I like the expression, and nothing so mysterious when explained, though not taken into account much.

Dave Burton wrote:For me, a lot of this comes down to fear and anxiety. Also, for me, some of it comes down to joy and fulfillment, too.

Same answer, yes! And fear/anxiety are from sympathetic activation, which then causes the protective reflex to not dive into what can be taxing on the system, unless we get to do the challenging task with somebody.

Ho by the way... I usually have this sort of syndrome when I am fluidly going forward for a nice project (joy and fulfilment!), and then bam, there is "something that should not have to be done but that has to be done for stupid reasons", such as filling administrative papers. So it activates some frustration or even anger that I should not be loosing my precious energy on this or that...

Jay Angler wrote:Another Vitamin 'gotcha' for us northern people is Vitamin D3.
I did some sunbathing and things got better.

You need to sunbath very close to midday and with the sun at 50º high on the horizon, so you need to find the table to know the dates and hours for your area.
Then be careful with supp, as our body can also downregulate vitamine D for a good reason:
If we are too high in calcium and too low in Phosphorus, the body does not want VitD because it would add some calcium! The way to check this out for not much money is a hair test giving you all your minerals as you have them in tissues and not in the blood, as this is useless to know what the body maintains at the right level for life reasons. What is important are our tisssues content.
People with fibromyalgia and other stiffenings are the ones that may be concerned by having too much calcium in soft tissues, mainly because the body sends calcium there to slow us down and avoid anxiety. Calcium is a calming mineral.

Maybe all that is called "procrastination" also has some cause, as you have found for yourself and that you do not call "procrastination"?

There are many allergies and metabolism issues other than dairies and iron of course, as it can be excess copper though too low organic copper, which will give sensitivity to electricity, and then you will taeget only electricity though it also has a cause behind! It can be molds, toxic metals, so basically the body will resist, until there is a bit more stress or a job that is not very motivating to do. It will be said "Ho, this is stress", though stress will only be the trigger that shows you have to find what is the deeper issue!

So find the cause, but also the causes, and the causes of the causes!