Re: Day 8 of Water fast

Hi Willow,

Yes moving threads to the debate forum seems to be working well, it keeps them out of the way of support and allows people to voice their opinion.

I meant do another post as a FAQ, a sort of "how to boost your self esteem". I am not sure that all would agree to it being related to Water Fasting though, although I think it is really important.

Speaking generally (and freely as this is the debate forum), I have to admit I feel uncomfortable about seeing posts in which people describe themselves in what I see as situations of sadness despair and misery. Plus I get frustrated when people pin their hopes on any religion for salvation, when I can see practical steps they can take to help, eg get out more, get fit (yeah I know, I'm a fine one to speak), try something different and find the "god" inside themselves. So I tend not to comment or read such posts, which are often long, if anything I may make a flippant and funny comment, so that at least I think I have tried something.

I tend to address the more practical issues about fasting, and I know mainly about weight loss stuff, from my own experience. I guess I don't like dealing with emotional issues in a public forum, but I know that some here do like giving support on that and probably do it well, so I understand that some people are OK with this.

Also some people are more fragile than others. I didn't really think that the two anonymous posters asked anyone to stop posting, prior to the person concerned declaring that they would (though they said this before and came back, so I hope they do again). I thought they were relatively mild rebukes, and there were some positive suggestions. Compare them with other comments made recently such as "blog off", "give god a rest" "in future will just avoid your posts" and so on. I think the difference was mainly in the person who the comments were directed to.

Anyway, lets hope it can be resolved. It's always sad when someone leaves a forum on a negative issue rather than "hey I've done it!"