20 around the world - 🐝  (10 with left hand behind, 10 with right hand behind - my left wrist didn't like those first 10)   Played the Daft Punk song during this, for shits and giggles... 🤣

I resonate must with vedyn, healer, and knight. I care deeply about my people , and want to encourage and help them. I think with strengths also comes weakness. The weakness of these traits is we can begin to think it's our job to  somehow fix people and their hurts. And truth is we have no control over it.   Good relationships  with people are when you are both working on improving yourself,. The catch is what that person thinks they need to work on may not be what you think they should work on.😀 And if you are a knight it's learning how to embrace your strong values, yet also being companions alongside those who do not share those same values.

In hindsight, I feel like the answer was obvious.

No, I was thinking he was bigger. Comparing him to the other rocks, he really isn't big. They can grow huge.. Yes, of course he sings the American National Anthem that is why he is an American toad😀

It's in my forum profile under Character Details - Location

Where indeed?  I can't believe it's almost October!  Are you looking forward to recovery week or it it be hard to keep from running?

My that looks cozy. I wish my evening plans involved drinking a warm beverage and catching up in my log book.   In reality, I will be moving stuff. Right now I am avoiding writing emails.

I came across this video and it really got me thinking.  I'm hoping it gets other people thinking.  The thing is, I decided to watch it because of a client I had and also because of one of the roommate's being directionless.  I figured, 'I'll watch this and maybe it will help me have a different perspective or way to try and convey the knowledge that I have and help them'.   The thing is, this has me through a loop.   The video:   The video is short and worthwhile in it's entirety.   Being a therapist, the first option was 'The Healer' and I identified with that whole-heartedly.  But then I started watching the other ones.   The Builder - builders are constructors, CEOS, love technologies and creating foundations.   The Artist - envision and create art. Individualist with passion for crafting, performing, and aesthetics.   The King - you lead your people with love and power.  Power doesn't come from force, it comes from serving others. Strong social skills.   The Knight - following strong values and who serve those with justice and honor.   The Vedyn - seeker of truths, sage, loves discovering knowledge and teaching it.   The Goldsmith - money and trade, exchanging goods and services.   The questions to ask: What brings you most joy in life? What makes you feel most alive? That's the archetype.   As each one came up, I could make a case for me being that archetype which makes me wonder if people can have more than one archetype, or if people change archetypes over time.   The Healer - What brings me most joy in life/feel alive?  I love being able to heal people.  I love when they make connections in their mind with what is going on in their world.  The spark of 'they get it, they get it' and then knowing that I was able to do this for them, to better their lives: that brings the most joy/feel alive.   The Builder- Years ago when I was on the forums, I wanted to serve and build one of the guilds.  That turned into becoming a GL and seeing people network and make friends with each other, find commonalities, and foster an environment of helpfulness and motivation made me feel the most joy/feel alive.  There's a reason I was on here 5, 6, 7+ hours a day, every day, and that's when I lost 120 pounds.  The connections were built and being a builder and being within that environment was the most beneficial thing for me.   The Artist - An individualist with a passion for crafting, performing, aesthetics?  I've worked with paper mache, clay, wrote a book, RPG Fanatics accountability storyboard, paint pictures, paint miniatures, craft miniatures, and more.  I just worked on a painting with a client earlier today.  Seeing the ideas that I have, having them swirl around in my head for hours, days, months, even some ones that I haven't expressed yet (for literal years) brings the most joy/feel alive.   The King - leading with love. And the idea that serving is what empowers others which then empowers you.  This can be overlapped with The Builder stuff I said.  At no point did I think I was better and I've never been cocky and thought 'I'm the best' and wanted power for power's sake.  In all avenues where there is a collective, I end up being the person who starts doing the lion's share of the work and then I sort of end up being 'elected' as 'king' in a group project in school as well.  Those who want power don't deserve it, and the way it's expressed in the video really resonates with me.   The Knight - Something interesting about this one is that knights with no one to serve are miserable and in a way, I can understand this.  Perhaps in my relationships, this is true as well.  And when I think 'serve', I think 'enforce and try to make the best of'.  At least that's how I see it.  When there is nothing to tie myself to per say, I feel a sense of hopelessness.  Many times my depression can be seen as stemming from this.   The Vedyn - I love learning.  I love feeling like something 'clicks' in my head.  I'm always rumination and making connections to various systems and thoughts.  It's how I end up explaining things to people in therapy, like when they get frustrated about not making changes fast enough: I will tell them that it's like working out at the gym and that you can't run 500 miles the first day or benchpress 300 pounds.  You have to start small, make incremental gains, and that when doing these emotional/mental exercises, it will cause pain.  But pain is the growth, just like when you work out and are sore the next day.  You're intentionally making micro-tears in muscle fibers that then replicate the cells next to them and create more muscle fiber.  Such is with emotional and mental mastery.  That's just one small example - I think about stuff like this constantly and as I learn, I want to teach. I want to share.  I want to teach others.  At one point, I thought about becoming a teacher before choosing my current therapist path.   The Goldsmith - This one is really the only one that I don't resonate with at all.  The thing is: this is what my client would resonate with, which makes me wonder if maybe that is why he still feels lost: all the other paths are ones that make sense to me because in some respects, I walk them.  However, not this one.  More food for thought.   Back to the questions to ask: What brings you most joy in life? What makes you feel most alive?   Healing makes me feel most alive.  Building makes me feel most alive.  Creating makes me feel most alive.  Serving/leading make me feel most alive.  Learning and sharing it makes me feel most alive.  There's overlap with these things.  I love learning because then I can share it.  In order to share it, I express it through art.  Sharing it helps heal.  Healing helps serve.  Serving builds respect and shows leadership through leading by example.  In essence:  The Vedyn leads to the Artist, which leads to the Healer, which with repetition leads to the Builder, which then leads to the King.  Taking all of the information, then expressing it all and hoping others will learn from it, and that exchange from nebulous information into various forms of expression and understanding then leads to building a better environment/community, which in turn creates a cyclical nature and turns into leading.   If you are in touch with yourself, I wonder if the most holistic version, the Self-actualized person, would feel this way about most of the archetypes.  I also wonder which of these has the most pull.  Like, I'm simultaneously doing many of these things and the builder/king archetypes are sort of a systemic reaction to the other ones.  And maybe that goes back to the thoughts I was having in the last challenge with how things have changed on the forums - I feel like I'm at a loss of where to start (the knight) and maybe my weakness in relationships also points to this.  I want the best for everyone, including the person that I'm with; and when they aren't doing their best, it feels like a slight against me. I'm trying to take the knowledge, trying to create, trying to build; but if there isn't an equal reciprocal reaction in a relationship (which there never has been with past partners) it makes me feel devastated.  Maybe the Knight is my weakness: something I try in vain to pursue and work on but it just *isn't* me.  Which then makes me wonder if the thoughts in the back of my head are true all along, that doubt me and say that I never should bother being in a relationship with someone. Maybe I'm casting my dice into the lot with a person that is going to disappoint me, and in the end, I'll feel cheated and I'll be less than as a person because of it.   Damnit, I have clients.  I'll cut it here.      

Clarification requested. Do you have something new for us based on what we decide or do we pick one of the new bulletin board posts (explore for tunnels if traveling further into the hills)?

He's already in camouflage. Can't tell if he's packing heat, might be a concealed firearm. 😜   Think my nameless fighter will join the other herb gatherers in exploring the path.