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LIBERATE your emotions
For FREE, no ads, no tracking. We will never know who you are or what you write. No personal data is ever collected. THEMES gives suggestions of possible approaches to using this site. It includes WARNINGS for those with mental health issues. FAQs gives details of Privacy and Security / why this site might be beneficial, and info on the SURVEY and Wellbeing scores.
TO START
TRY NOW, then read more below. [This site is in a testing stage]our community:We encourage you to JOIN our Community. you will then be able to monitor your wellbeing and to become a citizen scientist. After joining > You will be welcomed by a name of your choice. > After writing, the RESULT page will now show data for the latest session plus your totals over time. > You may participate in our research SURVEY every two weeks. This is designed to see if there are any therapeutic benefits [or disbenefits] associated with using this site. At the moment we are not making any such claim. > The SURVEY monitors your WELLBEING and provides you with a history. > After you have completed 5 surveys we will certify you as one of our Citizen Scientists. For this to happen you need to allow your browser to store some information in Local Storage, which will show up as a cookie. Details in the FAQs page.to join the communityWe suggest you do not use an ingonito tab, as the Local Storage will be lost when you close the tab or the browser. WRITE your chosen name in the box below and CLICK on join. This will enable the storage of the information on your browser.donateWe do not have any ads on our site. Please consider making a donation if you find this site beneficial. Thanks.THEMES Some suggestions of how you might use this site. Write or dictate. For as long as you choose, as often as you choose.CONTENTS passions being positive stress /anger /hate feeling low worries guilt /dark secrets phobias /fear of acting deep seated fears relationships letting go free writing wellbeing passionsCelebrate what arouses your passions, brings you love and joy, drives you in life. Your feelings of desire. The joy of being with someone, of achieving an ambition. Of music or art, of playing and maybe winning. The joy you find in fantasy and dreams. Recognise the joy you bring out in others. Writing will reinforce these feelings, affirming what is working well. If you are not so cheerful these days recall happiness from past times. Writing about it may shift your present mood, realising joy is possible. back to topbeing positiveFeel good about yourself and others. Congratulate yourself on what you have achieved today, even if it is very little. Acknowledge the things that have gone well, have made you smile. Your positive interactions with others. Be grateful for what you have, your skills, the people you know. Being compassionate may bring you closer to other people. Self-compassion will make you more accepting of your faults. Affirm that you are a worthwile and likeable person. Having a positive approach to life is known to enhance your wellbeing. back to topstress /anger /hateThe pent up stress you are under. Your anger, your hate, any desire for revenge you may have. The bottled up resentment against people who treat you badly. Your despair at the state of the world. Time to let it all out. Feel the passion as you write. Feel the relief when you destroy it. This catharsis is known to be good for you. back to topfeeling lowYou may have no one you can turn to to console you. You may feel lonely, unloved, sad or depressed. Have low self-esteem. Perhaps suffering from a break up or grieving. Writing here may make you feel a little better. Especially if you can envision any silver lining to the clouds. back to topworriesHere you can unload your worries, whatever is causing you distress. With a problem don't just look at the worst possible scenario. There will be a full range of posible outcomes. Some problems can be dealt with if you have the courage and help. Others not. You may find the message in the serenity prayer helpful, whether your religious or not. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.[Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971).] With your problem You might be able to find some action you could take as a first step in a chain to deal with it. Write what you might do, and repeat until you have the confidence to do it. You are not alone. There are many like you, struggling and sometimes overcoming difficulties. back to top guilt /dark secretsFeelings of guilt or shame. Wrongs you believe you may have done. Perhaps there are dark secrets in your life you can never tell to anyone. Things only you know about yourself. Bear in mind some feelings of guilt may stem from your moral upbringing, over which you had little or no control. Here you can unburden yourself. As in a confessional and know that it will be in complete confidence. As you actively destroy the writing, a weight may be lifted from your shoulders. back to topphobias / fear of actingThere may be things you wish you could do. You may be held back through shyness, lack of self-esteem or simply fear because it something you have never done before. There may be things that others take in their stride that you do not even think of doing. EMPOWER yourself. Write a simple first step in the process of doing something and visualise how you would make it happen. Then when you destroy the writing feel the satisfaction that would come from having done it. If it feels good, repeat until you feel confident of taking this first step. When you are ready just take this step. Repeat as necessary. WARNING: If you feel suicidal, ignore this and seek support. Go to suicide crisis lines The UK and USA are near the bottom of the list. back to topdeep seated fearsIn the past your confidence and spirit may have been crushed by those more powerful than you. Where there may have been incidents that may be the source of present fears. If you feel safe, revisit an incident that has affected you. This time armed with safety, confidence and a sense of justice. Now you can rage against those who were once more powerful than you. Release the anger now that was not released then. From your present safe standpoint you will be creating new neural pathways in your brain. Over time the new safe pathways may override the established ones. The threat that the past holds over the present may fade. The present may win. WARNING. Explore the unknown and any buried feelings with caution. If you feel you are leaving your comfort zone, stop. Only continue at a time when you feel it is safe to do so. back to toprelationshipsYou may live in harmony with the people around you. Or there may be tensions inside your family, with your friends, your relationships. You could explore what you might do on your part to improve things. Partners could each use truefeelings on their own device to explore what they need and what they wish to give. Later they could use that as a basis of a discussion. Someone may hold a coercive or abusive power over you. You may have a sense of relief when you are away from someone. You could explore how you could remove yourself from a bad situation. How would it feel if you were to be successful. back to topletting goYou may be overwhelmed by all you have accumulated. People, responsibilities, stuff. Stuff may be easiest to deal with. Choose something you no longer really need and write how you could pass it on or get rid of it. As you destroy the writing feel the power of being able to dispose of it. Repeat until you feel confident of being able to do it. Self-esteem and confidence may grow. There may reponsibilities you would rather not have to deal with. Is there a way you can remove yourself and still maintain your integrity? And people? You are lucky if you have good friends and relationships. But if there are any who are bad for you, bring you down, lead you where you don't want to go, have the courage to choose who you want to be with. back to topfree writingThis is the exciting point, here you are entering the unknown. The technique for self-discovery. Just write or dictate how you are feeling or what is on your mind now. See where your attention goes, what you focus on, what is brought up from within. Do not worry about grammar or spelling. Do not edit as you go along as you produce perhaps a stream of conciousness. This free writing is ephemeral and will soon be destroyed. Buried feelings may more easily come to the surface. A little like figments appearing in a dream, knowing most are destined to be lost. When you have finished, perhaps relect on what you have written before destroying. This is the essence of self-discovery, the route to understanding more about your self, rather than just being what society expects of you. WARNING If you become upset, it would be better to stop using this self-discovery approach. Creativity. Use this free-writing technique to stimulate new ideas. Plan how you might move forward in your life. Unleash your creativity for any project you may have in mind. This is a technique that is known to work. back to topwellbeingWellbeing is not just about being free of problems. It is about fulfillment and having a flourishing life. Pursuing some of the following is recommended. CONNECT - to bond more deeply in relationships and to form a good support network.BE ACTIVE - when you have the opportunity. BE CURIOUS - be aware of the world around you. Reflect on what you are experiencing. KEEP LEARNING - stimulate yourself by learning something new. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. It will help your confidence. GIVE - of your time, of your self, to those around you. Smile. The following link gives helpful advice on wellbeing Greater Good - Berkeley You can write here what initial steps you might take to make your life more fulfilling. back to top There are no ads on this site. If you have found this site helpful please make a donation to the creator of this site, John Griffiths. This will help to maintain the project. Thank you. 
Click on one of the buttons below to nake a one-time DONATION in GB Pounds or US Dollars.
To DONATE a diffeent sum you will be able to EDIT the amount when your PAYPAL opens.
There are no ads on this site. If you have found this site helpful please make a donation to the creator of this site, John Griffiths. This will help to maintain the project. Thank you. FS = Wellbeing Score S = average No of Sessions /day W = average No of words /day T = average time spent /day in min [Since the previous survey ]
Follow @truefeelings b] For those exploring - by being transitory, feelings and thoughts that are normally buried may come to the surface more easily. c] For those confronting fears – over time the conscious act of writing and destruction will create new neural pathways in the brain. These may take precedence over the original associations. We invite you to participate in our survey every two weeks to test if the site has any effect, beneficial or otherwise, upon users' wellbeing and psychological health over time. CREATOR This site has been conceived and created by me, John Griffiths. I studied Natural Sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge, followed by a period working on a PHD at UCLA in California in the late 60s. I was working under W F Libby, who had won a Nobel Prize for developing Carbon-14 dating. Whilst there I became very introspective, directing my querying mind upon myself. I was very free in developing ideas for experiments, but after building exploratory equipment would shrink away from completing the idea in practice, finding some excuse that it would not work and enthusiastically start working on something else. Similarly in relationships with women I would initially be very infatuated, and then need to escape. I used to live in fantasy a lot of the time, having the glory of being a hero, and escaping from opponents. In the end I was overcome by my introspection and came back to England. I did various jobs whilst I tried to be an inventor. I had a book published to help one solve crosswords – Cassell's Crossword Finisher - which was successful. I considered I would be cured when I could act freely. I invented a magnetic printing set, Magnaset, formed a company and set up a factory to make it. It was in the Design Centre and in many shops. But there was a recession on and I ended up bankrupt. In the High Court I appeared in person and claimed the bank had gone back on its word. The High Court tended to favour the bank. I kept appealing and winning. This escalated until it reached European Commission on Human Rights. But to no avail. I had been upset, because this time I had seen a project through to the end and I believed that it had been screwed up by someone other than myself. The court proceedings had been an exercise in seeking the truth, and revenge. Over this time I was in some kind of therapy, personal at the Tavistock and in group therapies. Later I was dangerously ill with septicaemia after I became infected during a heart procedure and was terrifyingly psychotic for a month in the heart hospital. So I have had some experience of psychological problems. Since then I have been the Chair of a charity where unemployed people could learn how to use a computer. Later I was Chair of a group promoting safe cycling in West London, and through that organised an environmental festival over 6 years, the Greenfest West London. I took out the domain name truefeelings.com some 25 years ago. I had intended to develop it but was worried about the libel problems that could arise if people published how they truly felt. Finally I have conceived of using the domain so that people can express themselves without offending anybody. To launch the survey during testing period CLICK BELOW To test certify during testing period CLICK BELOW CREDITS HAMBURGER DESIGN Thanks to: mranenko for the hamburger design - MIT license. https://www.cssscript.com/basic-hamburger-toggle-menu-css-vanilla-javascript/ FLOURISHING SCALE (FS) Permissions: The scale is copyrighted but you are free to use it without permission or charge by all professionals (researchers and practitioners) as long as you give credit to the authors of the scale: Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2009). New measures of well-being: Flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 39, 247-266. https://eddiener.com/scales/9 FAQs CONTENTS privacysecurity local storage the back arrow possible benefits of using truefeelings the survey privacyWhat is sent from your device to truefeelings.com IF YOU HAVE NOT JOINED THE COMMUNITY When you write and click destroy, the following information is submitted anonymously to the server to establish how the site is being used. If you are not connected to the internet, nothing is sent. a] number of words/ time taken to writeb] your time zone – to tell what part of the world you are in. c] your screen width -are you using a phone or a larger device. - we also log the time the information was received by the server in the UK WHEN YOU JOIN THE COMMUNITY When you join the community a notification is sent to the server that someone has joined, along with your time zone and your screen width. AFTER JOINING THE COMMUNITY. When you write and click destroy, and if you connected to the internet, the information shown above for those who have not joined PLUS the total number of sessions the total number of words written the total time spent writing the number of days since you joined the Community. This additional information is updated to your Local Storage as part of your history, whether or not you are connected to the internet. WHEN YOU LEAVE THE COMMUNITY When you leave the community, ie delete local storage, if you are connected to the internet, a notification is sent to the server that someone has left, along with your time zone and your screen width. back to top securitybefore you join the community The site shows up in the address bar as truefeelings.com with a padlock in front of it. If you click on the name it shows as https://www.truefeelings.com https [Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure] means data is sent from your device to the server covered by SSL, secure socket level, which means all data is encrypted when sent over the internet. If you click on the padlock it should indicate that no cookies are in use. AFTER YOU JOIN THE COMMUNITY If you click on the padlock it should now indicate that 1 cookies are in use. If you click on Cookies it should saywww.truefeelings.com Double click on that and it should say Local Storage Double click on that and it should say https://www.truefeelings.com back to top local storageLOCAL STORAGE is a part of your browser and a space is reserved for this website. Local storage will save some information in pairs, a key and a value separated by an equals sign. Pairs are separated by a comma. The keys we use are fname, startDate, tWords, tTime, joined, surveyNo and sessionNo, and all these values are numbers apart from fName which is the name you chose. When you submit a SURVEY some further keys are added - see below. WHAT'S IN YOUR LS. To find out what is being stored in your Local Storage for this site simply click on the button below. This will copy the contents of your Local Storage to the RESULTS page. This will not affect the contents of your Local storage. TRANSFERRING LS TO ANOTHER DEVICE. If you are changing your computer or mobile you can move the Local Storage to your new device. Copy the LS as above to the results page. Then copy the text to an email or file that you will have access to on the new device.On the new device open truefeelings.com. It should greet you as "Hi guest". DO NOT JOIN the community. Then into an empty WRITE page copy the text from the saved file. If an email added some footer to the text remove that. Then click on RESTORE LS from WRITE. When you refresh you should be greeted by your name. LEAVING THE COMMUNITY You will need to DELETE LOCAL STORAGE for this site, removing all your history from this device. Your chosen name, your history of use, and also your WELLBEING history if you have taken a survey. You will no longer be able take a SURVEY on this machine. To LEAVE click on the button below. This will remove your user name and all your history of use of this site.
ARE YOU SURE?
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the back arrowThis site is written in HTML [Hypertext Markup Language] and JS [Javascript]. HTML is the framework of the page layout. Javascript controls how the site functions, and which parts of the site are visible. There is only one page on the site, and when you click to go to a new area that section becomes visable and the previous section disappears. When you click on the back arrow it takes you to the last page, which in this case is usually the previous website. back to toppossible benefits of using truefeelingsEXPRESSIVE WRITING Psychologist James W. Pennebaker studied the therapeutic effects of Expressive Writing. The following paper gives the background. Expressive Writing in Psychological Science / James W Pennebaker /First published October 9 2017[link to Journal - it will open in another tab] Psychologist James W Pennebaker answers a question in the magazine Scientific American - March 2016 Does Confessing Secrets Improve Our Mental Health? The answer includes Any type of open and truthful disclosure reduces stress and helps individuals come to terms with their behavior. It is not coincidental that some of the most powerful people or institutions in many cultures encourage people to confess their transgressions. And there is very strong evidence that writing about upsetting experiences or dark secrets can benefit your mental and physical well-being. [link to SA article - it will open in another tab] WRITE AND DESTROY In his book “Back in Control” 2012 ISBN 978-0-9882729-0-3 David Hanscom MD, a spine surgeon states at p159 Free Writing The first thing I have my patients with chronic pain do is to simply start writing down the negative thoughts and then immediately destroy this piece of paper. I call this technique “free writing.” Discarding the paper allows you to write with complete freedom. … It's not about psychology; it's about reprogramming your nervous system. back to top the surveyPURPOSE The purpose of the survey is to find out if the site has any therapeutic value. We will look to see how your answers change over time. Ideally we would like you to take the survey again every two weeks. QUESTIONSThe questions are in 5 sections. Not all sections are presented to you on a given occasion. this is to keep each survey as short as possible.
1] FIRST TIME How you heard of us / Country / age / gender – as results may depend on them
and so
and so on ... PRIVACY WHEN you submit the survey the data is sent anonymously to our server over the secure SSL link. On the server it is stored securely. As the data cannot be traced back to you it does not count as personal information under data protection rules. DATA SENT
The information sent when you SUBMIT the survey: LOCAL STORAGE UPDATE
After your first survey the following KEYS are added to LS
surveyTime1 - time of you first survey Also the following KEYS are added and stored in Local Storage to allow us to construct columns in your SURVEY HISTORY. These are: colDate: date of the surveycolFS: score in the Flourishing Survey colSessions: number of sessions/day since the last survey colWords: number of words/day since the last survey colTime: time spent/day since the last survey It is extremely unlikely for the values in LS for this simple site to be attacked. However if you are concerned you can delete the values of your present and all your previous FS scores for your SURVEY HISTORY saved in LS and replace them with an “X”. This does not affect the values that have been sent to the server. WELLBEING and the FLOURISHING SCALE Wellbeing is not merely the absence of illness or distress, but rather a state of optimal functioning and flourishing in various areas of one's life. This includes physical health, emotional wellbeing, social connections, and overall life satisfaction. Using our survey, you will be able to monitor how your wellbeing varies over time. We use the Flourishing Scale as a measure of a person's wellbeing. It has 8 questions. Each question has 7 possible answers, scoring from 1 to 7. The scores are added to give a total score that could range from 8 to 56. The original test of the Flourishing Scale was carried out on a population of students from USA and Singapore. Here is a link to that paper. [link to original document - it will open in another tab] ANALYSIS OF THE SURVEY The startTime when you joined the the Community and the surveyTime1 of sending your first survey are stored in your Local Storage. Each is given to the nearest millisecond, and there is very little chance that anyone else will have the same pair of values. These two times are sent with each survey and a surveyKey is constructed from them. This enables us to link surveys together as coming from the same source, though we have no way of identifying who it is. Over time all the surveys coming from the same source can be linked together as a chain. The data will be analysed to see if and how the use of the website has an beneficial effect. It may be quite complex to separate an effect from background changes, and it will need a sophisticated approach. There needs to be some form of control for the survey, as the scores in the FS tests may be varying over time due to factors other than use of this website. One possibility would be to compare the results of those who wrote more with the results of those who wrote less. Initially we expect to monitor the survey in house. Later on we hope that a University Department will analyse the data. We will announce when any results are available through social media, and where they can be found. back to top
SURVEY
Name: Status: TRUEFEELINGS SURVEY
How did you hear about truefeelings.com?
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS Which country are you in? NOTE: if not listed, Other Country at bottom of list Country Gender Age
ABOUT YOU
The reason for asking this set of questions is to find out if the site is helpful for people with different backgrounds. Also by repeating these questions every two months we can see if there is any change in you. It would be helpful if you would answer all the questions. Click on the appopriate answer to change from the default "no".
Do you believe you have problems in any of the following areas?
HOW YOU USE THE SITE
OUR PHQ-4 QUESTIONS [for testing if using our site is associated with any changes in your anxiety or depression over time]
Credit for PHQ-4 on the ABOUT page
PHQ-4 has 4 questions Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems? Q1 Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge Q2 Not being able to stop or control worrying Q3 Feeling down, depressed or hopeless Q4 Little interest or pleasure in doing things YOUR WELLBEING SURVEY The flourishing Scale (FS)- 8 questions, the total score is your WELLBEING result. Credit for FS on the ABOUT page Q1 I lead a purposeful and meaningful life Q2 My social relationships are supportive and rewarding. Q3 I am engaged and interested in my daily activities Q4 I actively contribute to the happiness and well-being of others Q5 I am competent and capable in the activities that are important to me Q6 I am a good person and live a good life Q7 I am optimistic about my future Q8 People respect me
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