Day 379: Waking up efficiently

13012014

I am once again checking my sleeping patterns. I have been having plenty of sleep lately and I've felt guilty about it, thus trying to force myself to sleep less through different methods and failing every time. I realized that the guilt is a major issue here, because whenever I notice myself having slept “too much” - whatever my definition of “too much” is – I sabotage the way my day begins by feeling bad about the rest I've had.

I've come to understand that when I want to stay in bed after initially waking up there are two possible reasons for it: a) I am actually tired and need more rest, or b) I do not need rest but simply enjoy being in bed. The bed is comfortable and warm, especially now when it's winter and my apartment is a bit chilly, and being inside the covers is a physically enjoyable thing to do. What I need to look at, though, are the consequences of staying in bed. Sometimes just hanging out in bed might be a good way to rest and recover even when I'm not sleepy, but mostly what I end up doing is falling into a dream-state and sleeping more, thus confusing my body.

So I guess I could say that my need to stay in bed can be physical or it can be mental – it can be the need of the body or the need of the mind.

One thing I've noticed to make me want to stay in bed and escape beginning my day is when I have no designated task for the morning: no work, no lecture, no meetings, just independent tasks that I have to schedule and arrange myself. This is something that I can practically change through planning. I almost always know my schedules in advance, so what I could do the previous evening is decide on at least the first task I will tackle in the morning. This would make my days more efficient and also give me a sense of meaning, which I now feel I am lacking. The work I do now with my studies is so abstract, so non-concrete that it is difficult for me to feel motivated to do any of it when I do not see the results in the physical. Maybe I could integrate some dimension of practical application to my studies that I do not yet have.

Ok, tomorrow: self-forgiveness, re-structuring and commitments.

349-350: Why write?

13-14112013

I have had trouble with daily writing ever since June. Back then I was backpacking in Asia and Oceania for a few months, and ever since I left I faced increasing troubles keeping up with the writing rhythm I had started building for myself 10 months prior. I think it was in Japan where I started to “give up” every other day or so, and I felt really guilty for doing it, which exposed my fear of not being accepted / being excluded if I did not keep up the writing rhythm I had committed to. This showed me that I had not made the commitment to write purely for myself but that a part of the decision had been fueled by the need to belong to a group and be recognized as someone “worthy” for the group.

I continued to write every other day or so, being preoccupied by whatever was going on while I was traveling and worn out by the constant instability of my environment. Before the journey I committed myself to use writing as a method of keeping myself stable regardless of my environment, and to that purpose I mainly utilized it, clearing myself out to survive my day-to-day. This experiment showed me the fact that if a being is lacking in basic needs (shelter, nutrition) there simply is no energy left for any kind of “self-development”.

Something changed when I came back home. I am not sure if it is me perceiving my environment to be stagnant (which it isn't – it just isn't changing from one extreme to the other in the matter of days or hours) or maybe the fact that the professional projects and self-development tasks that I'm working on are to be finished in long-term (I'm talking lifelong stuff here). Somehow it feels as if things are “going nowhere” even though they are; it's just so gradual that sometimes it's difficult for me to see the relevance. A part of this experience may also be true, because as I have explored some points in private writings, I see that I still expect things to just “happen” to me instead of me actively creating them and making them happen. So in ways I am stagnant, whereas in some ways I perceive myself to be stagnant.

It has been difficult for me to keep up the daily writing, and sometimes I have only written once or twice a week. I have seen the results in my living. I am confused with myself, I am less structured, I don't know what I'm experiencing, I don't seem to be making any progress, I don't see much practical change. When I started with this project of writing about a year ago I was going through a crisis phase when I had A LOT to go through, many things to write about, many potential growth points opening up – and thus it also felt like I was achieving a lot through writing. Now that my life is not in a crisis (as I have learned how to prevent myself from messing up my life, lol) and things seem all smooth and fine, I am not as motivated to write, because I don't see the point. It's like I already believe myself to be “enlightened”, which I know to not be true, oh god no, lol. Because I am less bothered by my fuck-ups in my everyday life I don't really spot them unless I specifically attempt to do so.

And this is exactly why it would benefit me to go through the effort of writing every day, be it just a tweet, a short description of what I went through or an assignment in my DIP Lite course. What I struggle with here is self-criticism. Even now I have decided to not publish what I have been writing yesterday and today because I thought that the text was just not “good enough”. I have already written a little about my self-expectations concerning this blog (the length, structure and content of a blog post) and I know that these expectations limit me from 1) expressing my experience in writing as it is because I expect my self-expression to fit into a specific format, and 2) publishing the text because I fear that others will judge it for not being in a specific format.

Another thing is that I have created a resistance towards writing self-forgiveness. Whenever I write something and face the point where all I have left to do is SF, it's like I face a wall where writing myself out feels like a huge burden that I just can't be bothered to do. This is where I have made a structural pattern a burdensome “must”, when in fact the structure is there to support me to have clarity within and of myself. Whenever I do write (or speak) SF, I feel lighter afterwards, as if there'd been some kind of a release. I don't know if reminding myself of the “reward” during moments of resistance would help me through: they might as well just cause me to expect to feel relieved, ending up in disappointment of there was no relief after writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, while traveling and being on a “holiday”, to create a pattern where I justified myself “slacking off”, “letting loose”, “taking it easy”, “relaxing”, “not worrying” and “resting” with the fact that I had worked so hard the preceding months.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to work myself towards exhaustion and burn-out, not realizing that as I “tipped the scale” to the other extreme it would eventually tip to the other extreme as well, and that I am NOW facing the consequences of how I worked a year ago – I am reaping what I sowed – as powerlessness, unwillingness, lack of motivation and self-centeredness (comfort-orientation as opposed to the discomfort I went through while working my ass off).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the consequences of my actions will follow me in long-term.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already had enough rest (the polarities have balanced out), and that if I do not get myself moving I will stagnate within the belief that “I can't”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to write for an “audience” to seek for acceptance instead of writing for myself to find self-acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse public writing to be such where I seek for a response, not realizing that public writing can be an act of expressing and sharing myself that is valid in itself even without a response.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my self-expression is valid only if it gets a positive response, not realizing that self-expression (me standing within myself and moving myself within and as self-honesty) is valid in itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a validation for my self-expression because I have not been OK with “who I am” (who I see myself to be within the act of self-expression) – because I have judged myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not wanted to face myself in self-honesty and accept who I am now as the reality that is, to seek for validation for who I have presented myself to be in public writings, feeling “energized” upon receiving validation and feeling confused and frustrated upon not receiving validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the amount of comments and +1's to validate the “me” I present within a blog post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not write about things that I fear admitting to, not realizing that it is those points exactly that I should be writing about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge and deny what I see of myself and thus refuse to write about it, admit to it, accept it, stand as who I am now and share what I have seen and learned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to forgive myself (release) I first need to apologize to myself (expose).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I am scared to talk publicly about a point, I shouldn't push myself to do so, as this is a sign that I have not really apologized to myself (exposed myself, admitted to who I am, stood within my flaws), forgiven myself (self-acceptance, release) nor made a commitment (decision to move).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on writing on days when and as I have believed and perceived myself to have been “too tired” or “too busy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not plan my schedule to include daily writing and to thus already decide in the morning (or even days before!) that I am not going to write, thus in the evening giving myself excuses such as “I'm too tired to write now” or “I don't have time for this now” to feel as if my planned laziness was justified.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that instead of allowing my avoidance to end up with the same outcome every day I can prevent this by planning my days in such a way that leaves room for writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my writings to my previous writings – or more specifically, to writings that I have received positive feedback from AND felt satisfied with myself – and thus make my current writings appear “less” in comparison to these older writings and judge myself for not reaching my standard.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created the standard of a “good text” based on the experience that I had while/after writing it and the impact it had on my life, and not on the structure, length or coherence of the text itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the experience of release and relief whenever I write, not realizing that epiphanies don't just happen every day but need to be built through consistent work, and that even then they might never again feel as “overwhelming” as some of the realizations I have had while writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to long for the feeling of having a big realization/release because I am not at ease within every moment of my living. (All the more reasons to keep on writing, then.)

I commit myself to write every day.

I commit myself to publish even a little bit of what I have written during the day, be it a short summary on my blog or a tweet on my twitter account.

I commit myself to plan my days in such a way that allows me to write, taking into consideration the writing circumstances (stability, peacefulness, time) and the writing methods (computer / pen and paper / video or voice logging).

I commit myself to explore and experiment with how to move myself when I stagnate, and I commit myself to write about moving myself through resistance.

I commit myself to utilize daily, weekly and monthly structuring to support myself to move myself.

I commit myself to embrace supportive routine and to explore how to make my current routines more functioning.

I commit myself to write for myself, writing from the starting point of “talking to a mirror” instead of “talking to a crowd”.

What helped me out when writing this was Joe's blog post, thanks for the support!

Days 337-338: Getting out of bed because "important stuff awaits"

19-20102013

Still looking at the point with sleeping and waking up. Thanks to what I wrote before I have no longer been skipping morning classes, but there's still a problem with not getting up early even without something to “force” me out of bed.

For example, today I woke up around 10am after about 6 hours of sleep. I regained consciousness, I sat up to check the time, I felt awake and thought “I could get up already even though my alarm goes off in an hour”, but then, for some reason, I laid back down and fell into a dream state where I didn't really rest but just dreamt a lot. This pattern repeats over and over again, morning after morning. I regain consciousness after about 6 hours, but because I am not fully alert right away I think “I can sleep a little more” and suddenly I notice I've slept for 9 hours. This is not cool. I know I do not need the extra sleep after that 6 hours when I naturally wake up, and now I'm here to write to support myself through those moments of almost getting out of bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to stay in bed because it's warm under the blanket whereas my apartment feels very cold.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of the discomfort of feeling cold when getting out of bed and use it as an excuse to stay in bed even though I do not need to stay in bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the coldness wears off after I get out of bed and move around, and that even though the moment I get out of bed feels “the worst” because the coldness hits me and my body goes into a momentary shock, the sensation of coldness will not last when and as I move myself and/or exercise, eat breakfast and put on enough clothing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that coldness is not a valid reason to stay in bed because it's a practical issue I am fully capable to take care of without much effort.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to excuse myself to stay in bed by thinking “I don't have anything important to do”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “important tasks” to be things that have something outside of me to “please” - employers, teachers, clients, an audience – and to thus not be motivated to do things that do not have an external “audience” to satisfy but would only serve my (and others') well-being without external validation, acceptance or reward.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to the validation, acceptance and reward I get from outside of me (as learned in childhood) and to thus ignore self-validation, self-acceptance and self-reward.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be motivated to do things that are self-driven because it has required more effort to make those things rewarding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be motivated to write my blog because I rarely get direct feedback from the people who read it (easy reward) and because it takes a lot of time to see the results of writing in my everyday living (hard reward).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be motivated to exercise because I don't remember how good it physically feels immediately after exercise (fast reward) and because the long-term results of exercise – the strengthening of my body – only appear after consistently exercising for long periods of time (slow reward).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the push of effort I have to make in order to exercise so that I forget the fast and the slow rewards it gets me.

When and as I resist exercising because it feels like “too much”, I commit myself to stop, breathe and remind myself of the fast and slow rewards exercise gets me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel compelled to stay in bed because it has been a comfortable escape from my life which has been taking on a new structure, using up a lot of my energy and time, making life seem “chaotic”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to this escape routine – which may have been useful in the beginning of this life change so that I could “recharge” - not realizing that this routine has served its purpose and is no longer valid as it's now keeping me from utilizing my time properly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I would have a lot of useful and enjoyable things to do with that extra time not spent in bed, such as writing, reading, exercising, making music, cooking, cleaning, sewing and getting back to visual arts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “important” tasks and activities to be such where there is external validation, not realizing that the amount and source of validation that I get from an activity says nothing about its actual relevance to the well-being of All.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a task/activity is “important” only if there is an external “demand” that will be rewarded with external validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my definition of “importance” (stuff that needs to be done) dates back to my childhood when I sought to compensate for my low self-esteem by doing well in school and hobbies and getting validation from my parents, teachers and audiences – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this definition is no longer valid as “what needs to be done” is no longer (and never really was) to create myself a temporary illusion of self-worth so that life wouldn't feel like shit but is now instead to live as self-worth that I structure, create and support myself as this will benefit All Life, myself included.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that getting out of bed when I have had enough rest is important because through this act of self-discipline I support myself to become an active director of my own life, no longer floating around passively and responding to impulses but being the impulse as a self-directed principle.

I commit myself to challenge myself to no longer sleep in and to get myself out of bed when and as I wake up naturally after about 6 hours within and as the realization that through this action I build myself into a self-disciplined and active participant and director of my own life.

I commit myself to cut myself some slack when and as I actually need to sleep more (when I am sick or using up more energy than usual) and to utilize SF and writing for the possible guilt and regret for “wasting my time” on sleeping.

I commit myself to get myself out of bed on cold mornings by walking around, moving my body, stretching, making myself a warm breakfast and getting dressed.

I commit myself to investigate my definition of “importance”.

Day 333: Sleeping patterns

12102013

Artist: Lucian Freud

During the past couple of months – ever since I returned from the trip I made during the summer – my sleeping rhythm and routine has regressed. When I first got back home I allowed myself to sleep as much as I wanted because I actually needed it: I was recovering from three months of constant environmental instability and physical strain. I made the mistake of allowing this to become a tendency. I've given myself permission to sleep 8 hours a night or more even though it's become clear to me that I don't nearly always need that much sleep. I've made it “impossible” to get myself out of bed when there's nothing forcing me to do because according to some excuse I “need” lots of sleep or “get to” sleep in, and then I end up spending the last two hours rolling around half-awake in a tormenting dream state. I feel tired and heavy when I get out of bed instead of being refreshed and rested.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify not getting out of bed when I first wake up after 5-6 hours by thinking I need to sleep more.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify sleeping in because the moment when I do come around after 5-6 hours of sleep doesn't “feel like” I have awoken, not realizing that I have defined “waking up” to mean that I feel fully alert yet heavy and disoriented, because this is how I feel like after 8+ hours of sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not remind myself in the moment where I come around after 5-6 hours of sleep that the tiredness I feel then dissipates when I get up and breathe myself back to this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I need to sleep 8 hours every night, not realizing that I have shown myself that this is not in fact true even though I may occasionally need 8 hours of sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to base this belief on my experiences from last year when I slept about 6 hours a night, worked 15-18 hours a day and ended up extremely worn out, not realizing that my weariness then was not caused by little sleep alone but also by the workload and stress I was under – and that I still survived with 6 hours of sleep a night.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not challenge this belief by setting my alarm to wake me up after about 6 hours, deciding to get up and seeing how my day turns out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold my current sleeping pattern by always setting my alarm to wake me up after about 7-8 hours, not realizing that even 7 hours is often too much.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “get to” sleep a lot now that I don't have to go to work early every morning, not realizing that even though there is no one “demanding” for me to get up and do something, I would in fact have plenty of things to do if I did get up earlier.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe an perceive that I have “the right” to sleep in because I've already “done so much”, not realizing that if this “right” makes my contribution to the world less and doesn't really serve my actual benefit either, it's not a “right” but an excuse to stick to my comfort zone and be less than who I am / could be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to skip morning lectures after a night shift because I have believed and perceived that I “need” to sleep a full 8 hours a night, not realizing that by doing this I disregard the opportunities the university offers me in the form of a lecture.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to skip morning lectures as I have believed and perceived that by sleeping less than 8 hours I am not “fully alert” / “at my best” to learn anything during a lecture, not realizing that by thinking “I am not alert” I will cause myself to be more tired and less focused and will not even give myself a chance to try if I would in fact be able to learn something during a lecture despite the little sleep I've had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a lecture is not “worth” getting up for, not realizing that a lecture is a rare chance learn socially and receive some mentoring, as most of my study time is independent and solitary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place my momentary comfort (sleeping in) above long-term benefits (learning).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my disorganized living into sleeping so that there would be a little less left of the chaos that awaits me outside the bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take this opportunity to create new supportive structures into my life (e.g. morning exercise) because it has been easier to just sleep and escape the question: what do I want my life to be?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the “chaos” my life is in and thus escape it into sleep, not realizing that I am able to harness this chaos and turn those opportunities into beneficial patterns, habits and structures that I will be happy to wake up to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear chaos and “freeze” within chaos, turning this panic reaction into anxiety which I then escape into entertainment (multimedia, sleep, food, socializing) – not realizing that I can in fact stop, breathe and ground myself into my own stability point and from that stance observe the chaos and create a structure to manage my life through.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear waking up because there are many things I need and want to be doing but have no structure to doing them.

I commit myself to try out sleeping less a night by setting my alarm to wake me up in approximately 6 hours and doing either half a routine of yoga or a half-an-hour walk/run outside (or a little less if I am in a hurry) straight after waking up without having breakfast. (Exceptions allowed if I am sick.)

I commit myself to cut down on snacking before going to bed by rather drinking water/tea than eating.

I commit myself to show myself that fasting first thing in the morning / last thing in the evening actually supports my well-being as my body doesn't get overloaded with food.

I commit myself to make “to-do” -lists of the tasks I need to do and design/revise each morning how to get them done.

I commit myself to explore how to make studying a part of my daily routine and how to structure the reading that I have to do.