Course 3: PL 102 - Denial & Distractions (Discussion 3)

@GlenM

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1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial is denying something that is happening to avoid the truth that might be harsh

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

Most of our habits such as driving and walking lies in our unconscious

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

a)Social media would be the most powerful distractions as it is very addicting and releases a lot of good dopamine into the body which makes the person continue using it.

b)Food

c)Offline distractions

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@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial is a process to minimize anger, pain, anxiety or other uncomfortable feelings that operates in the unconscious part of the brain as a result of past experience/s from our interactions with the world.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

It is a pattern/ concept that we have mastered or a form of defence mechanism to calm an anxiety that is created by repressed unconscious feelings which build from our interactions with the world.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

The top 3 are: online distraction, sleeping, café au lait

Most powerful one for me is online distraction because of the easy accessibility and a wide range of options. It has become even more made sense now with the pandemic.

"What do you need to distract your mind? Could it be books? movies? learning? yoga? praying? shopping? writing? You name it, we got it", said The Internet.

"Oh you miss volunteering for a good cause perhaps? or in dire need for a compassionate listener? We know just the right place. Just sit comfortably with your cups of tea. You'll need 7 for this", The Internet added. 😁

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

I would define denial as not accepting or just avoiding the truth purposefully.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

The unconscious can be a learnt behavior.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

I believe that Social Media, Food and Accomplishments are the top 3 distraction systems.

Social Media is the most powerful distraction. It is so much addictive that many a times we don't even realize how much time we spend there.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

A coping mechanism which can be both helpful and unhelpful. It seems to be about denying your fears which can help you to persevere but it can also impede your growth if you cannot come to terms with reality once something has occurred.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

We grow up unconsciously changing ourselves in response to culture, repressing the aspects of ourselves that don’t conform and letting our environment define who we are.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Social Media is the most powerful in my opinion. It has such a detrimental impact on mental health because it is based on social comparison. It teaches us that our worth is defined by the number of likes we get. It also makes us less in touch with reality. We are wasting our time scrolling and getting immediate gratification with social media , and changing our attention in the process. We can no longer tolerate boredom, we struggle to read, we are more impatient… the list of negative consequences is endless...

Wealth is another distraction. We have grown much less considerate as a society because of the addiction we have to wealth. After a certain point, your happiness doesn’t increase with an increase in your salary as your basic needs have been fulfilled. As they say, money doesn’t buy you happiness and it makes you lose sight of what gives you purpose in life.

Accomplishments are the final distraction system I’d place in the top 3 because a focus on performance rather than learning results in less work engagement and creativity declines. Our society has become incredibly competitive, making us forget that we are worthy in the very fact that we are alive - not because of level of productivity. An obsession with accomplishments eventually reduces your happiness because you never feel happy unless you have done something ‘worthwhile’ and you lose sight of things that give you meaning in the process: you just want to accomplish things for the sake of it rather than doing something because it gives you value.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

To me, denial is the avoidance of reeality, it is the ignoring of circumstances as a self defence mechanism. It is a shield against the world so one does not have to face or deal with the problems they have by ignoring their existence.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

That the things that operate outside of out awareness effect us deeply and regularly. It is a learned skill that can come from our childhood without even knowing which events sparked our behaviours and regulated thoughts. While it is possible to change the unconsious behaviours and thoughts later in life, it takes active effort to do so. It, being the unconscious, stays on the surface not in the core.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Food, Online distractions/Social media and Online Gaming.

Online distractions seem to be the most powerful systems since it is designed to be that way to take advantage of people's psychological mechanisms. Food is a powerful distraction as well, but it is easier to justify the action of eating and grocery shopping as opposed to internet based social media and gaming which encourages isolation and can effect how the brain works unconsciously by subtle manipulations.

How would you define denial in your own words?

Knowing the truth about something but pretending that it isn’t so and ignoring it

What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

That it can be a learnt behaviour

What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Social Media

Mobile Phones

Internet

I feel that mobile phones are the most powerful distraction. The reason I think this is because all you have to do is look around you. Everyone has a mobile phone, everyone is looking down at them. It is almost now a automatic reaction to reach for your phone regardless of what it is that is happening.

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

i would define denial as refusing to believe the truth

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

onced something is mastered consciously it is moved to the unconscious mind.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

​​​​​​​-online distractions

- food

- accomplishments

i feel as if online distractions is the most powerful system because it has such an extensive platform. there is so much possibility when online.

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

I would define denial as not being able to accept something that happened in the past

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

The most important thing i learned about these things is that these maybe behaviors that we learned through a long span of time.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

I believe social media, entertainment, and smartphones are the top 3 distractions systems. I believe the smartphones are the most powerful out of all because it's constantly taking away that special human connection.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial is when we come across something that we fear or that hurts us so much that we don't want to face it or want it to be real so we act like everything will be ok and what we're going through won't turn out so bad and we might even act like it never happened, like this reality is a nightmare that we're going to wake up from very soon. This might happen when a close person dies or gets very ill, any upsetting or suddenly terrifying and traumatizing thing happens or even when we make mistakes but deny them so we won't have to face the painful consequences so this might alter our personal growth

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

I learned that we all have things that were labeled "bad" or "unacceptable" by others and they go below the surface so we could fit in or make people accept us more and this makes us lose parts of ourselves and feel threatened whenever they surface in bad ways. Sometimes the untold feelings surface in more ugly ways that we try our best to hide them because we believed that they will never be accepted, that we need to hide them so we don't risk losing people or getting judged and this makes our personality weaker everytime, it builds insecurities and anxiety which is then balanced by denial so sometimes denial is good but too much of it is toxic.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

- Food
- Social Media
- Celebrity news

I believe that Social Media is the most powerful one because people tend to crave wanting to see different things they can't see nor experience in real life and whenever any person feels sad or bored or lonely, they immediately check their social media to see other people's lives which may cause them to want to live that life, they start getting so engaged and the notifications increase. They might get addicted to it and want to live other people's lives so bad and start comparing it to theirs. Whenever they feel negatively, they get more engaged to social media and use it as an escape from real life problems.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

I would say that denial is the unwillingness of someone to accept that something has happened.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

I learnt that when an activity is repeated a lot, it is moved from conscious action / memory to unconscious action / memory. Like when learning how to ride a bike, you had to consciously pay attention and try to learn how to ride the bike. However, after a while, you no longer think about how to ride the bike before you get on it, it just happens. So things which operate in the unconscious mind are repeated actions which have been remembered an.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

1) Social Media - Social media is everywhere for most people, it's super accessible and most people have phones where they can get to it. It's definitely really distracting since you can do so much on it, talk to friends, watch videos, listen to music, call friends, loads of things. It's the most powerful I think because of how easy it is to get in social media.

2) School work, when being in school, you have many things that can distract you from other things. Doing work, being with friends, listening to teachers. This is quite powerful since most people go to school or work, so that would be for a lot of people.

3) Relationships - Many people in relationships put most of their focus onto the other person in the relationship, they spend time with them, this would be distracting because you will be occupied more often and therefore not able to think so much about other things.