Originally Posted by
atomic sagebrush
it is a major sway factor, though. That's the ONLY reason I bring it up because it's confusing and is by no means a magic bullet so there are plenty of exceptions and it takes an excessive amount of my time. If it didn't matter I would not even mention it but it DOES matter.
"Stress", that amorphous term, sways pink. But being a control freak and putting YOURSELF through lots of self-inflicted stress over details that are a) easily accomplished and b)largely meaningless and are basiclaly things we do to feel that we are in control our universes instead of accepting the reality that we really never are, sways blue. But we perceive these things to all be "stress" and so when I try to explain this to people, they don't get it because they don't differentiate between stresses that are external and those that are internal.
Being in a situation where you feel absolutely no control over your life/environment, like you've suffered a loss, are tormented at work, suffering health issues, things you cannot control and you have to basically force yourself to accept and endure them because we have no control over them, sways pink. This type of stress has been shown to sway pink in studies. But on the other hand, having the type of personality that is constantly trying to control EVERYTHING in the arenas that you deem important can FEEL very stressful but you never have the loss of control that accompanies the kinds of stress that sway pink.
Like, right now I have a project going to crochet Christmas scarves. I am feeling a fair amount of stress over this project (which I have taken on entirely by myself, the people who I am making scarves for do not even know about it and so any disappointment is entirely on me and is not coming from anyone outside of myself, and if I decide tomorrow not to do it any more, no one will ever know). Yet despite the stressfulness, I feel a little boost every time I get something done on it. So I'm stressed but constantly succeeding in lots of little ways and every time I do, I get a little reward of...something. I don't know exactly what that reward is, but I get it when I write an essay on this site and alphebetize my Campbell's soups too, LOL. It's like a reward and something about this project, stress, reward cycle is swaying blue somehow.
Not to mention the drive I feel to always be doing these kind of projects anyway, which is HUGE and out of all proportion to what other people seem to feel. my mom reads a book and I"m just like "My Gosh WHY, don't you have a million things to DO" even though I would really love to sit and read a book today and some of the things I "do" entail getting to a higher level on a video game, LOL. I have literal resentment when my husband wants to do relaxing things like watch movies or go to the lake because I have all these things I have a burning desire to do, even though those things are hard work, because I am getting some charge out of it that is completely more rewarding than doing anything "fun".
But part of what makes this personality stuff so hard to see clearly is that everyone does these types of things, and for some of us (ME) we get so caught up in these detail oriented accomplishments that are largely meaningless (like getting to a higher level on a video game) that we ignore lots of other details (like housework, important clerical tasks, LOL). In favor of doing all these superridick projects most of which no one ever even sees so from the outside we may appear to be disorganized disasters but on the inside there are tons of dreams and schemes and plans all in various stages of completeness. And we like to do all these things OURSELF with no help from anyone ever. What these dreams and schemes and plans are vary wildly by individual so there are no concrete things I can point to and say "it's this thing! it's that thing!" It's whatever the thing is that is the thing for you.
Blue swayers are often very together and focused (the Sloane factor) which to outward eyes may seem like they are control freaks, but that's not what i perceive. Blue swayers (girl moms) are able to be so together and focused not because they are controlling every detail but because they are good at letting go of the things that are unimportant and focusing on the obvious and necessary things to get them out of the way. They don't do things that are unimportant to do and are willing to let things go and/or turn over responsibility of things to other people even though they may not always like the way they do them.
So when it comes to swaying, what I see again and again with pink swayers is them hunting down every single detail that they can come up with and wanting to incorporate it into a sway. It is VERY difficult for them to let go of things and the reason is because (and I know this since I am one myself) we want that little boost, that little charge of reward emotion when we think we've crossed something off the to do list. We think that the more things we do, then somehow we are "earning" a reward of getting what we want and while this does actually work in many arenas of life, in swaying pink it DOESN"T work because something about all that sways blue in a big, bad way. I can almost, but not quite pick out the people whose sways are not going to work out because of this. If they send me pages and pages of questions about meaningless things, argue with me about every detail in their sway plan or in the diet - even things that cannot possibly matter, if they make schedules and keep diaries and chart their cycles for years in advance and freak out about the smallest thing not working out, that kind of thing. They want to control for everything and believe that they actually CAN, lol. So my advice to these people is just to chillax as much as possible and focus on the things that really actually are swaying and much to my great happiness, the past year I've been surprised quite a few times when people who I was thinking "augh that one's gonna be an opposite" ended up getting girls anyway so I really do want to point out that you guys, even with your control freaky personalities, can have swaying work for you. Just don't get carried away with the little meaningless details of it all.
What I see again and again from blue swayers is feeling overwhelmed by the idea of swaying, not even wanting to try because it feels undoable to them, putting it off indefinitely - I've had swayers doing HE Diet for a year and gaining tons of weight because they were so scared to try. Blue swayers are much more worried about getting it wrong because they feel they can't control things that are inherently uncontrollable, whereas the pink swayers are more like "not only will I not get this wrong in even the smallest detail, but I will do this better than atomic has ever dreamed of! mwa haha" (the evil laughter may be only in my imagination.) Conversely some blue swayers think swaying is just kind of open for interpretation since none of us can really control anything anyway and so it's really no big deal and they don't really need to do anything too hard or annoying since it's all out of our hands anyway. Blue swayers, interestingly, will often expect me to do much of the work for them and at times will even ask me "Why aren't you helping me more?" (a question I would literally never ask anyone at all ever because in my boy mom way, I see asking someone to help me - even when I have hired them to do so - as a sign I have failed as a human being LOL). Today - and please if you see this, dear poster, don't hold this against me - I'm not telling tales out of school, I'm just using this as an example to help other people - I had a blue swayer request that I go onto Amazon and pick out things they should buy and send them the links to make it easier for them. I would just never personally ask anyone to do that and the main reason I wouldn't is not because I think it's in any way wrong but because I'd think "well, I bet I could find those things cheaper, maybe even better versions of them, plus I could buy these things I needed for my scarf project at the same time and only pay shipping once..." etc etc etc. I would just never want to turn over any control of anything, no matter how dumb, to anyone else if I could possibly avoid it.
So long story short, too late, uncontrollable stress where you can't do anything about it and just have to learn to live with it sways pink. Being a control freak sways blue. But because being a control freak involves so much massive stress it is very hard to tease out when you're experiencing "stress" how it might sway and it's certainly NOT something I can give you a straight answer about because it's very likely different for every individual.
