Tag: feelings (Page 1 of 2)

Shame.

November 4, 2020 / MelKai23 / 0 Comments

One of the worst moments of my life was winning the grand and oh-so-important title of Homecoming Queen. I know this sounds ridiculous, however there are two main reasons why this day sucked so royally…For starters, I had no idea until that moment how truly mean people could be. Even friends that I was used to having in my corner were not, and I was blindsided by this. It was a time in my life of being very hurt, confused, and emotionally drained. I knew back then that homecoming was not something people remembered or that even mattered after high school. And frankly, I did not care whether or not I ‘won’ anything like that. But winning was the best thing that could have happened to me, because experiencing this kind of hate made me realize how important friendship is. I recall telling myself that I would never make anyone feel the way I felt. I decided in that moment if I am anything in this life, it’s that I will be remembered as a damn good friend.
The second reason this day sucked was because people I was not close with at all or spoke to much were the ones that were there for me. I was so grateful for them, but immediately felt an intense amount of guilt for not noticing or spending more time with these people throughout high school. That guilt has carried into adulthood, and I sometimes find that the guilt starts trickling into the most damaging feeling of all; Shame.

One thing we know about guilt is that it co-exists with shame. I still have small, random moments of feeling shame over that experience in my life. My thoughts go something like this, “what kind of person was I that I did not thank them more for being so nice, or that I didn’t spend time with them? I wonder what type of person they think I am. Did I hurt their feelings? Did they regret being so nice to me?” …Isn’t this absolutely ridiculous? The shame I still hold onto for something so small and irrelevant upsets me.

We all do this. We feel badly for so many things we did or did not do, or messed up, or regret (guilt), and then start to allow that guilt to define the type of person that we are (shame). Guilt is the feelings associated with I did something bad (the behavior), whereas shame is the thought that I am bad (self worth). Often times our guilt turns into shame…But it is so important to separate our behavior from who we are as a person.

It’s also important to understand that guilt is how we feel we have affected others, whereas shame relates directly with our feelings/beliefs about ourselves. Guilt is where we feel responsible for something we did, and shame is the painful awareness we are flooded with when we feel we are ‘improper’ or are now damaged in some way. The feelings we get from chalking ourselves up to being ‘damaged’ can be so overpowering and painful that it fogs our ability to further develop our sense of purpose, confidence, and worthiness. Once we move past the healthy feelings of guilt (empathy and recognizing that we feel badly for hurting someone) and into this feeling of being less-than (shame) is when we stunt our ability to grow. It’s when we listen to the internal beliefs we have about ourselves…The little voice that says, “I knew you couldn’t do it”, “I knew you’d fail”, or, “no one will ever love you”.

I am surrounded by shame, not only because as a female it’s unfortunately such a societal norm to feel shame, but also working with victims who are often blamed for the abuse they have experienced…Being told countless times by society that they had a choice or ‘asked’ for it, or are questioned for their decisions. Through these victims, I continually see how much shame interferes with personal growth. It is devastating to watch shame take over someone’s whole being and sense of self, and cause them to continually face the downward spiral of self hate. This is where people feel unworthy, self-loathing, and a sense of not belonging. There is nothing productive about shame because it’s where we become self destructive, careless, and defeated.

Take-Aways:

It is so important to separate person from behavior. Labels lead to developing a sense of shame.
Surround yourself with people who do not judge, blame, or label.
Tell yourself you love yourself, daily, and why. If this is hard or awkward for you, I would challenge you to have an honest conversation with yourself and unpack that. Find where the why is and start to explore reasons to love who you are and what you bring to the table.
Be more aware of positive/negative self talk. When you mess up, do you say, “I should not have done that”(guilt), or, “I am not a good person” (shame)? Focus on your behavior and how to change/learn from that, but you do not need to correlate that with the kind of person you are.
Think about all of your positive qualities, and then think of your flaws. If it’s uncomfortable or difficult to think of your positive traits, and/or your flaws list is larger and easier to talk about, work on changing that. Life is too short not to love who you are and celebrate that each and every day.
Talk about it. We cheer on people around us when they are vulnerable, yet we don’t want to do it ourselves. It feels scary, foreign, or like people will judge us. But talking about it helps us recognize and work through it, gives the shame less power in our brains, and provides some relief. We continue to go down the rabbit hole in our heads when we stay silent.
Accept that you are going to mess up, hurt people, embarrass yourself…These are normal experiences and we will never outrun them.
Learn what your triggers are…What are some environments where that little voice likes to chime in? Prepare yourself for this and be vigilant about identifying the feeling before it expands.
Quit apologizing for everything. We say sorry for being who we are, or for things we have no control over. Focus on and work towards letting go of this habit.
Do not give shame space in your head. You are lovely, just the way you are, but the key is that you believe it too.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change~

-keep shining

Blogs about guilt:
Guilty Conscious
Free Yourself From Guilt
Color Outside The Lines

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Treat Yo’ Self

August 9, 2020 / MelKai23 / 0 Comments

When is the last time you celebrated yourself?
Told yourself that you’re proud?
Gave yourself a compliment?
Told someone about a recent success of yours?

We are pretty incredible, yet we always find ways to downplay our accomplishments, or find our flaws rather than focus on all we bring to this world.
Why are we embarrassed to celebrate ourselves? We practically despise recognizing our successes, or God forbid, talk about any of our skills or positive attributes. It makes us uncomfortable to put ourselves first when we should be recognizing how bad*ss we are.
You are unique. Your contributions, in whatever form they are, matter. You are worth celebrating. Therefore, treat yo’ self! Do not let yourself fall into the trap of believing that it’s not okay to talk about, celebrate, or recognize yourself. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make and one of the deepest pains we feel is when we deny our own positive attributes and accomplishments because we believe it is for the benefit of everyone else’s comfort. And that is simply not true. We are worth celebrating, and we must take some time to treat ourselves for all that we are.

Here are some ways I try to celebrate myself…

Affirmations
I know, this first one is super ‘social workey’, but it is true and is a hugely underutilized self care technique.
What do you want in your life, what do you desire, how do you want to feel, what do you want to believe to be true, and what do you want to remind yourself of every day? The answers to these questions can be found through daily affirmations. Write down a few goals you have for your life, what you want to see happen, and be specific. Or tell yourself a few things each day that make you feel good, proud, happy, sexy, successful…whatever it is you want to believe and remind yourself. Affirmations can simply be an acknowledgement of all the good that you are, and visualizations for what you’d like to see happen.
If this is challenging for you, just Google ‘affirmations’. There are many websites to help you understand and incorporate this into your every day life.

Give Yourself Permission
To do whatever it is you want. Take a break, say no, put yourself first, skip the gym, change plans…It’s going to be OKAY. Can’t we all just make it socially acceptable to give ourselves permission, and everyone else be understanding of that?! Cut yourself some slack, take a breather, and give yourself permission to look after you. This can also be giving yourself permission to love your body, forgive your mistakes, trust yourself, and let go of anything that no longer serves you.
Recite this sentence right now and see what comes to mind; I give myself permission to _________.
Doesn’t that feel GOOD?!

Allow Yourself To Give AND Receive
Yes, I know, how dare the thought come into my mind to tell you it’s okay to receive. How dare I suggest that we deserve to be complimented, to be given gifts, to be offered help. *GASPS*
Reread this sentence a few times…You are not taking away from anyone else by receiving. We can give and receive equally, and you accepting the giving side of others does not mean you’re selfish. In fact, by being open to receiving you are bettering yourself and those around you because you are more balanced. You must have both in your life to be the best you that you can be. Life will eat you alive if all you do is give to others.
We have all experienced relationships where someone would just take from us. We also have all experienced relationships where someone would refuse to ask for or receive help. These relationships are draining, and frankly annoying. Do not be this person (yes, I am talking to you, KAREN!), and also do not accept relationships that simply take from you. This is an area where you can give yourself permission to remove toxic relationships from your life.
Accept compliments, accept gifts, accept help, accept love. And also give because you enjoy it and it makes you feel good.

Take Opportunities
Guess what? You are worthy of all the opportunities that come your way; take them. You deserve it. Opportunities fall in your lap because they are absolutely meant to. And if you missed one, do not fret, there will always be more if you believe that you deserve them and open yourself up to experiences. By utilizing affirmations and finding balance, I can assure you opportunities will seem to start falling out of the sky. You are worthy of all the good that comes your way.

Celebrate Yourself
Yes, it’s okay to celebrate YOU. Sometimes it can be as little as buying your favorite coffee after you kicked a** at work, or simply because you feel you deserve a little self love and enjoyment of the little things in life…What are things you can do to remind yourself of how awesome you are? How can you celebrate yourself and make it a part of your routine?
This is different for everyone. It can be that coffee treat now and again, it can be to share your awesomeness with someone close to you, it can be to write it down, or it can be to share it widely on social media. The sky is the limit to how you celebrate your life, but always, ALWAYS, make time for this. If you do not acknowledge why you are here, then what is the point of living? You are here for a reason, celebrate that! Shout it from the rooftops if ya want, hunny!

Be Thankful
I know, this sounds obvious, but we overlook it often. If you find all the things going right each day, it brings about more abundance in your life. If you notice all the positivity that surrounds you, you’ll continually start to focus on all the good. Don’t you want to wake up and enjoy each day?
It is easy for us to point out and focus on the few setbacks we experience each day, and we always find something to complain about. If we focused half of that energy on seeing how 99% of our day is actually going well, we would be happier, plain and simple. It can be as little as finding a convenient parking spot, and taking a second to acknowledge how grateful we are. It can be to think about or write down 10 things we are thankful for today, and do this every morning or evening. It can be to smile at the thought of having your health, your family, a stable job, a lake home, an easy day at work, hitting all the green lights on your drive, receiving a compliment, eating a good meal, getting a good grade, receiving a gift…These are things that happen to us every day that we lose an opportunity to celebrate because we overlook. Amidst the chaos and tough times, there is so much to be thankful for!
(If you need some motivation and reminders, check out my Happy Things Thursday posts!)

Find Balance
Work is great because it provides us a sense of purpose and direction, but it is not the most important thing in our lives. If we have tunnel vision only looking towards the value of the dollar and our work ethic, we are missing out on what life is truly about. Our successes should just be a portion of life, as we are not here to work hard and die. It is upsetting to me to watch so many people going through life this way; wanting to work too hard now to play later in life. But what about the fact that we can have both, now and later on? We cannot give work all of our best effort if we do not stop to have fun and take a break once in a while. It is not good for our mental health as this is where we get bitter towards work. Do not let this happen…Not only do you start to burn out from your career, which you worked so hard to achieve, but you start losing interest in everything outside of work too. We start to hoard guilt over not working and being productive 24/7, and then feel anxious anytime we try to relax.
Repeat after me, it’s okay to waste time.
Say whaaa?! Yes, we can do nothing AND benefit from it. It restores us and gives us a brain break. We benefit from checking out from life, because it’s all about balance. Just like we need to give AND receive, we need to work AND play because this is when we can truly be our best selves. We cannot inhale without exhale; we need both to breathe. We cannot get to our destination if we don’t stop AND go; we need both to drive safely.

Life is incredible when we ease up, celebrate who we are, find purpose through our work, be grateful, accept kindness from others, and jump at new opportunities. Oh ya, and watch some Netflix and eat the damn donut…You know, treat yo’self.

When you celebrate yourself, you celebrate life~
-keep shining

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Guilty Conscious

April 19, 2020 / MelKai23 / 0 Comments

Why do we insist on allowing guilt to run our lives? We all do it, we all fight it, and yet we all fall victim to the guilt trap. There is nothing that consumes someone’s life quicker than guilt. As humans, we are full of guilt and are taught to feel guilty at a very young age…And guilt is a weight that will crush and control you whether you “deserve” it or not. It is so painful. And why would we want to choose to live with such pain if we do not have to?
We use guilt to get our way, to make decisions, to coerce us into settling into social norms, to punish ourselves, and to assume we are experiencing some negative karma because of choices we make. We put so much effort into allowing guilt to be a piece of us because we feel like we owe it to others or a higher power to feel badly for every inch of our lives. We need to stop looking at situations with the attitude of, “what did I do wrong?”, “how can I fix this?”, or, “I feel so badly for causing this emotional reaction in someone else”…Where in that equation do we take into account our wants, needs, and feelings? We allow guilt to come first, and we ignore our feelings and our ultimate truth. Guilt causes us to hide or ignore pieces of ourselves that shouldn’t be suppressed.
How can we use guilt to our benefit, how can we remove guilt and instead use it to make the most of any situation? For example, whenever I make a decision that I know will affect others, I have to constantly remind myself that their reactions and emotions to my decisions are their reactions and emotions to own. I do not have control over nor am I responsible for how someone feels or reacts. Instead of thinking about what I did wrong or how to avoid hurting or shocking others, I instead think thoughts like, “what am I learning from this?”, “what are they learning from this?’, “this is their journey”, and, “why are they in a position to be learning from me?”…I give my guilt back to the universe or higher power to decide what its purpose is, and I truly believe that. I think about what guilt can do instead to help inspire or provide hope to me in ways I could not have dreamt of if I would have allowed myself to view it solely as something to feel guilty about. I take all the energy that I would have wasted on feeling guilty and instead use it to transform and create more possibilities for myself and those around me. Trust me when I say this is a work-in-progress, I have to work at this every day…I think I can speak on behalf of many of us in the helping profession when I say that we take on other people’s reactions and feelings as our own. We struggle to differentiate our wants and needs from others as we feel guilt for putting ourselves and our truth first. I struggle with this every single day.
Guilt keeps us paralyzed, keeps us in the boxes that society has put us in, and makes us second guess any amount of change that could be good for us. Guilt can either keep you from growing into your own, or it can lead you into making some pretty incredible changes in your life, and the choice is yours…How powerful is that? Guilt can simply be a reminder to just do better next time, and then we move on…Doesn’t that feel freeing? Quit trying to live to everyone else’s standards and expectations, because you will never meet them.

And ladies, we were born guilty. We are taught to feel guilt if we aren’t married with children by age 25 or don’t want children at all, we are taught to feel badly for being too assertive, to feel guilt for turning down the individual at the bar who bought us a drink and then felt entitled to take us home, or feel badly for “ruining” the offenders life who abused us and we pushed back against them. Guilt is something that has been engrained in females to feel in every aspect of their lives.…You do not owe anyone outside of yourself a damn thing. There, I said it!

It is important to note that guilt is a normal, natural emotional response. We have all gained insight and knowledge from feeling guilt. Guilt motivates us to be more responsible, to live in the discomfort of making mistakes, to apologize when necessary, and to make up for a wrongdoing. The problem is that many of us suffer from inappropriate amounts or excessive guilt. We use it too often. We even use it in how we parent/teach children…”it makes me so sad when you do not eat your peas”, thus making children feel badly on behalf of us when they do not do what we wish them to. Why do we do this? Why are we so set on having to motivate others by making them feel badly? This is not how we want to live our lives.

At the end of the day, how can we take the guilt and use it to our benefit? Aside from looking at guilt through this more positive perspective, how can we remove the guilt even further or let go once the problem resolves? I think it is so important to remember that we are all human, we all have moments of poor judgement and mess-ups. And if we didn’t, how boring or stagnant would life be? Mistakes are where we grow and learn what to not repeat again, how to regain ourselves, and how to do and be better. Ask yourself if the guilt you feel is appropriate and what its purpose is. How can you use it to your benefit?…We can also simply just accept the mistake, make the change, and move on. We do not need to punish ourselves. Recognize that you are not perfect, and that is okay.

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn’t~

-keep shining

Others blogs about guilt: Free Yourself From Guilt, Color Outside The Lines

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Feeling Into Your Thinking

August 27, 2019 / MelKai23 / 0 Comments

Feelings…Feelings, feelings, feelings! We are full of ‘em. Every single thought we have has a feeling attached to it. Often times those feelings are emotions we stuff deep down instead of dealing with them…And there’s a huge myth out there that goes something like this; if we avoid our feelings they don’t exist and they will eventually disappear.
We avoid circumstances (people, places, situations, conversations) that bring about emotional reactions we don’t wish to experience. We ‘avoid’ with the assumption that the feelings associated with the circumstances will go away. The fear associated with feelings, and inability to handle the feelings, seems to be easier to deal with if we try to forget their existence in our minds. Instead, if we feel into the fear and face the emotion, we can diminish the fear and understand the emotion; thus, removing the need to avoid. This also allows us space to understand ourselves better and live life more freely rather than by what we think we should be doing.
Feeling into the fear allows us to better recognize and work through our emotion and be more honest with ourselves. We are so fearful of feeling. We would rather not know the outcome or avoid having to come face to face with making difficult decisions. What we forget is that our emotions tell us so much about ourselves and what we want and need to do. And we also forget that these emotions don’t just leave us alone. If they are unresolved, they will continue to build, nag us and give us this feeling of ‘what if’…
It’s okay to feel what you are feeling. But when our feelings are different from where we want them to be, we don’t want them to exist.

No matter what thoughts we may have, whether we want them to exist or not, your life can still bring you joy. It doesn’t matter which path you meander on, no one can take away who you are. Facing and owning your feelings is a part of life’s purpose. And the best part? No matter the emotional turmoil and confusion and no matter where life brings you, you can always have joy. That’s because no one can take away your self worth, your love, your happiness, your mindset, your journey. These things have and will always be yours. Knowing that is what makes life worth living.
Typically problems arise because of how we think about these things. There is so much self pressure to retain things a certain way that we focus more on thinking about controlling these things (self worth, love, happiness, mindset, journey) based on where we think we should be, rather than listening to our inner wisdom and emotional responses. We are constantly in a state of avoiding thoughts and honest conversations with ourselves about where we are at internally. We are scared. We don’t want to complicate things. And we forget that we already own all of these wonderful things that have and will always be ours. Regardless of our feelings, we can still have self worth, love, happiness, a healthy mindset, and our journey. So what is there to fear when the things we fear most are ours to have if we want them? It goes back to this myth that if we keep our feelings stuffed deep down, we can avoid them and just keep on our current path of comfort and deal with the floating thoughts of ‘what if’. Avoiding our emotions tricks us into thinking our feelings have dissipated when actually, they are waiting to rise to the surface to be dealt with later.
We pay so much attention to ‘controlling’ our thoughts, thus ‘controlling’ and hiding our emotions. But who wants to hide? Who wants to cover up who they really are? Who doesn’t want to learn about themselves? The obsession we have with control causes us to avoid listening to our gut and our inner guidance. But it’s this inner guidance and wisdom that is where we come from, and without it you would not exist as your unique self.

Recommendations:
Give yourself time, but not too much…
Time can be related to avoidance. There’s a balance between giving yourself time to understand and process your feelings, and then deciding what to do about them. If we wait too long to take action, we start resonating too much which can cause more fear, anxiety, and even anger. We don’t want our feelings to eat up our energy. Coming to terms with our feelings is supposed to be a healing, uplifting, and refreshing experience, even though it can feel scary.
Also give yourself time after coming to terms and acting on those feelings to let the dust settle and see how things effortlessly blossom thereafter.

Allow plenty of space for silence…
We forget how noisy our world is. Nothing has been more powerful in my life than giving myself space for thought. No music, no background noise, no one else around…
Let yourself experience those floating thoughts that come through, and do so without any distraction. I feel so refreshed after spending time in complete silence, and it has helped me get to know myself. There is no greater feeling than looking forward to silence and the experiences of your own thoughts. Enjoy times of silence, and be your own best friend!

Journal and meditate…
I know I know, I always get a few eyerolls here. BUT, hear me out…Just take the time to write and process through the feelings we do not even realize are there. This is where I take moments to pause and focus on the feelings I forget about because I am so busy thinking about everything else. Journaling is a great way to understand pieces of you that you didn’t know existed, and adding meditation helps to let go of everything aside from what’s in front of you right now. Take the time to stay present rather than stress over all the thoughts we have flying through our mind each day.
Let yourself go here; don’t control what comes through the pen or what emotions come up when you meditate. It’s your time to give back to yourself, and you owe it to yourself to have that quality time.

Be honest with yourself…
Spending more time in silence, journaling, coming to terms with your emotions, etc. cannot happen if you don’t let go. Being honest with yourself is huge. Feel into the confusion, those fears, hesitations, conflicts, and questions. If you can’t be honest with yourself, how do you expect to move forward and enjoy every aspect of your life? Let your guard down with yourself, it’ll be okay.

Understand that your thoughts are just thoughts…
Thoughts drive our feelings, so taking a hard look at how your thoughts affect your feelings is crucial. Sometimes if we change our thoughts and perspective on a situation, our emotions change, too. Our thoughts are what drives our perception of the world and how we feel about it. And just because we think a thought, that does not mean we agree to it or believe it. Thoughts can just come and go, and we do not need to feel into every fleeting thought in our mind.

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking ~

-keep shining

Similar blogs:
It’s Okay, Guilt, Control, Failing, Self Forgiveness

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Finding Peace Through Pain

December 9, 2018 / MelKai23 / 0 Comments

The entire concept and culture around emotional pain completely fascinates me. We hurt a lot as humans; it’s a part of our growth and resiliency while we venture through life. And most of the pain we deal with day to day is our thoughts. What is fascinating to me is that we choose to let pain burden us, and because of that we experience things like confusion, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fear, anxiety, anger, rejection, humiliation, perceived failure, mood swings, guilt, shame, and self-blame (to name a few)…And to add to this long list, pain causes us to mentally rewind time, replay situations, ruminate, and wish for different outcomes. AKA-we are constantly and subjectively experiencing mental suffering. And do you know the worst part is? It’s addicting…

It’s easy for our minds to focus on and discuss the negative; what isn’t going well, what hurts, what upsets us, what we don’t like. Our minds are hardwired to have a stronger focus on and easier pull towards pain rather than happiness and optimism. It’s engrained into our cultures and entangled in our every day life to focus on negativity…It’s contagious to experience pain because it helps us relate to others and gives us something to talk about. We are motivated by pain and negativity, and we gravitate towards focusing on others’ pain and negativity more so than what is going well in their lives.

I am constantly being asked how I manage pain from my personal life experiences as well as the secondary trauma I acquire from helping those that have endured horrific pain. I did not realize how much pain could gradually seep into my life until working in a career filled with it. That being said, I have come to live by a few very important rules regarding pain and how I ensure it doesn’t control me…

First and foremost – every painful, broken piece of us doesn’t need to be analyzed, collected, or remembered… Some pieces need to stay lost because they don’t belong to us, they happened to us. Let the pieces go. Move forward, and do not hold onto these things. Do not claim the pain, just understand that it was an experience. And as hard as it is, do not tie emotion to it. It just is, and let it be just that.
Change your beliefs about the pain. We cannot experience love, humility, positivity without an understanding of gratitude. And without any pain, we would fail to see how great life can truly be. How can you look at the painful experience as a learning curve, or a helpful step in the right direction? What positives can come out of this pain? How can you change the belief about the purpose of the pain to help it motivate you?
Do not run away from pain, allow yourself to feel everything. Be present with your feelings, allow whatever it is that wants to come up to do so. Do not be embarrassed; purge the emotion. This is how we move forward, otherwise we stuff things deep inside to be dealt with later, on top of all the other pain we try to avoid. Embrace what you need to feel; it helps to understand and accept the pain… A very good tool for this is meditation.
Slow down. We cannot allow ourselves to feel if we are constantly going at a pace of 100 miles an hour. Give yourself time to breathe, and figure out how to move forward with these painful experiences. I am guilty of purposefully going 100 miles an hour so I do not have time to ruminate on pain… It’s how I distract myself, and it is not healthy. Take time to be with yourself, and work through the pain before it gets stuffed deep down to come up later. And trust me, it will come up later.
When you are right in the muck of your pain, ask yourself if there’s any piece of this that you can control. If the answer is no, you cannot control or change anything about this, then learn to let it go after you process through it. *Meditation is super helpful here also*. We cannot hold onto pain that serves us no purpose. If we can’t make any positive changes, and if the situation is not in our control, we must move on and move forward. What other option do we really have?
And lastly – how can you make your pain a part of you? Always remind yourself to use pain to your advantage. Remind yourself that pain makes you who you are, and it has helped to develop you into your current self…Your soulful, resilient self. And isn’t that a beautiful thing?

You are never more than one thought away from peace~

-keep shining

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Treat Yo’ Self

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