Day 380: Continuing on Waking up efficiently

15012014

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for sleeping “too much”, not questioning my definition of “too much sleep”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define 6 hours of sleep to be the ideal amount of sleep with no real evidence of this actually being the amount of sleep that my body needs to recharge, thus also defining less than 6 hours as “too little” sleep and more than 6-7 hours “too much” sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my ideals, not realizing that my ideals have not been constructed according to the physical reality to function as goals that support my living, but that I have instead constructed my ideals based on what others appear to be doing and what I ought to do to be as good as others – to be accepted by others – to not be less than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I cannot construct my sleeping patterns efficiently, I will have failed as a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure my worth based on how efficiently and supportively I structure my life, thus feeling like a failure when something doesn't work out (such as sleeping at the moment), not realizing that my definition of “supportive structuring” is based only on how much I get done / how much I achieve or accomplish, thus ignoring e.g. my physical and mental well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I sleep more than 7 hours I am “wasting time” that I could instead use on “getting stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body might need more than 7 hours of sleep depending on what it's recovering from, and that forcing myself out of bed without sufficient rest is to compromise my health as well as my ability to “get stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that “getting stuff done” (work, study, whatever tasks I have) is sustainable when and as and ONLY when it's done in consideration of the physical reality – such as the well-being of my body, the physical organism I inhabit.

• I commit myself to stop compromising sleep, rest and recovery in order to achieve merit in the eyes of others.
• I commit myself to arrange myself enough time for sleep, rest and recovery; In cases where I need to momentarily compromise my sleep/rest, I commit myself to arrange myself time to recover from this compromise sufficiently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are two kinds of tiredness – a physical and a mental tiredness – and that when I wake up in the morning I am able to discern between the two, and thus also able to understand and decide whether to stay in bed or to get up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when I have woken up in the morning, to ignore my awareness of the fact that I am mentally tired and continue sleeping regardless of my awareness of this fact with the excuse that “I have nothing to do” - “I might as well sleep more”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I stay in bed out of mental tiredness I am escaping something in my reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that getting out of bed is a burdensome task, thus anticipating the moment of getting up and all the things I need to do, thus creating a desire to stay in bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning routine (washing up, yoga, cleaning the dishes) because I have found some of the tasks difficult and burdensome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning yoga exercise because often when I do it I need to push myself over a threshold out of my comfort zone even though I know my entire body will feel better after the yoga.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to the resistance towards yoga, thus skipping some mornings and eventually not doing it at all, thus also making it easier for me to give in to the resistance to get out of bed at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that expansion and growth requires constant pushing and discomfort before it becomes an effortless part of my living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to integrate yoga and exercise into my living – a form of physical self-care – I need to unwind the roots and habits of stagnation I have grown and become tangled up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that slouching, dragging my feet, sitting down and being still in the morning when I wake up is a habit of not moving – a habit that I can change and replace with another – and that I have learned this method of waking up by observing the people I grew up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my family's culture of waking up – making oneself as comfortable as possible to “soften the blow” – is not the only possible way of starting one's day.

• I commit myself to do my yoga routine each morning, unless I am physically unable to do it (sickness etc), as I now see, realize and understand that getting used to this small push every morning I get myself used to discomfort, thus supporting myself with all situations where I need to deal with discomfort in order to grow and expand. (This is pretty cool now that I think of it this way!)
• I commit myself to expand my yoga routine little by little, adding one move to the routine when and as the routine needs more physical challenge.
• I commit myself to experiment with other forms of morning exercise, such as taking a walk or running.
• I commit myself to do something physical every morning before I have breakfast.
• I commit myself to explore what else I could do before I have breakfast, for example writing, studying and meditation.

Also, an idea I got in the last post that I want to try out:

• When and as I do not have anything to wake up to the following morning - such as a meeting, a lecture or work - I commit myself to go through my tasks for the day in the previous evening and decide on the first task I will tackle the following day.

It's been working out well so far!

Note to self: the word "efficient" has a negative tone to me, and using it here makes it feel as if waking up "efficiently" couldn't be enjoyable but that I'd be gritting my teeth while doing it, lol. I'll return to this word and the concept of efficiency in posts to come.

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.

Days 345-346: "Doing nothing" and heaviness - SF on day 344

3110-02112013

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to direct myself in each and every breath of my living by escaping the feeling of heaviness I have created through self-judgement into activities that amount to nothing in this reality that is shared by all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when these moments of curling up into a comfortable, solitary spot to do something with no substance or relevance occur, I am not directing myself within and as the principle of “what is best for all” but that I am instead directed by the desires I have created within and as self-interest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-interest doesn't actually bring about what is best for me because it doesn't consider what is best for all, which is directly tied to what is best for me as an individual.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the word “self-interest” means self-care, not realizing that when my focus (interest) is solely on myself I am not considering myself as a part of a whole but rather perceiving myself to BE the whole, and that when I do not consider myself as the particle of reality that I really am, I am not taking care of myself in the best possible way but neglecting some (possibly important) perspectives on how to care for my well-being by considering the entire reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for a release from the experience of heaviness - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to “do nothing” to compensate for “doing everything”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create myself the feeling of “doing everything” (being burdened) by judging myself to be “not good enough” - doing too little too slowly and too poorly – never doing “enough” and feeling like I'd have to do “everything” to be “good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I cannot do everything because it is physically impossible, and that my standard of reaching all of my goals is unrealistic and thus not supportive at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself goals that are unsupportive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not utilize planning and setting goals as a structure to motivate me and support me to finish difficult long-term tasks, but that I have instead used planning and goals as a measurement of my own worth, mainly to tell myself how “little” I am now and how “much” I could be in the future, not realizing that even though the purpose of this method has also been to motivate me to act, the source of motivation in this method is fear (“what I am now is bad – I must become something better to avoid consequences”) instead of motivation coming from the realization of who and what I am and what it is I am capable of.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use self-judgement to motivate myself to become “better”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that self-judgement is necessary for me to learn from my mistakes – that I must show some kind of “regret” for my mistakes and diminish myself in order to make it clear that I understand that I made a mistake and that I will not do the same mistake again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that expressing remorse through self-diminishment is necessary so that others would not get angry at me.

• The memory of me around 4-5 years old dropping eggshells into batter and my mother reacting with sharp and loud words that told me I had made a mistake – mom exerting her emotions on me - I was frightened by her attack on me – felt horrible emotionally, started crying and ran away.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become overwhelmed by my responsibilities and thus make it feel as if I am “doing everything”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is impossible for me to do “more” than what I am capable of, and that whatever I do I am in fact able to do – meaning that when I do things that make me feel heavy I am not in fact doing “too much” but acting through resistance and making possible tasks feel impossible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist my responsibilities because I have made them feel “heavy” through self-judgement: I perceive myself to be a failure already so I don't even want to try.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, believe and perceive that when something feels heavy and difficult, “I can't do it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when a task feels big and heavy, I am small and unable in comparison and “incapable” of getting the task done – not realizing that starting, working on and completing a task is a matter of breath-to-breath movements, which I am capable of assisting and supporting myself to carry out when and as I am standing within and as breath grounded in the physical.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that writing my blog is “too much”, not realizing that in all simplicity all it requires is that I arrange a comfortable environment for writing, open a blank text file and start putting down words one letter at a time about what I am experiencing at the very moment.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my writing by setting myself a standard according to which just writing about my current experience is “not good enough” but that I would need to come to fundamental realization about myself every single day – not realizing that sometimes I get so “stuck” that it is required for me to write through the daily grind before seeing the “big picture” of what is going on with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that reading my school books is “too much”, not realizing that studying these books, no matter how many, is simply a matter of arranging myself a comfortable reading spot, having the book and pen and paper with me, getting the basic outlines of the book through the introduction and the index, and then simply reading one word at a time, one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time, and making notes as I go.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my studying by setting myself a standard according to which I'd need to read a lot of pages at once and get the task done as soon as possible because of the amount of reading I need to do, thus not even trying when I'd only have a little time to read or when I believe and perceive myself to be “too tired” to absorb the information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that taking care of housework is “too much”, not realizing that all these tasks are really simple (washing the dishes, watering the plants, taking the trash, cleaning the floors) and only require me to move myself one inch at a time, no matter how slowly and gradually.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage myself taking care of my household work by believing and perceiving that “I'm too tired to get on my feet”, thus never even trying to stand up, breathe myself into stability and move myself one inch at a time to gradually get the chores done.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself to have “failed” in the discussion from the previous day, carrying this self-judgement with me unaddressed until the next day and thus accumulating the experience of being a “failure”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like the discussion was a “failure” because some points were left unresolved, not realizing that because there is/was a chance of still resolving those points and thus correcting my behavior, no such thing as “failure” has (yet) happened and can still be fully avoided.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that not all points can be fully resolved within a single discussion and that processing a point may take time and several discussions before a conclusion is reached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to carry full responsibility for a discussion that happened between two participants and feel guilty for “not making it work”, not realizing that I am not responsible for how the other person behaved within the situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear disappointing my employers by making a mistake and thus appearing “unworthy” of their trust and appreciation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about “failing” at work every time I do something that I know to include a chance of “something going wrong” - not realizing that basically any action I commit at my work place (even just walking from point A to point B!) includes the possibility of some damage happening to my work place (I could carelessly tip over a chair which could break when hitting the floor) – and that because the possibility of something getting damaged is always present whenever I am at my work place it is not relevant to be mindful of the “dangers” because my employers have taken a conscious risk there by opening a business that includes other people using your property unsupervised.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that some of the risks of “things going wrong” are such that I could easily prevent, for example by taking the cash register key with me when I go get stuff from the storage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about not being nice enough to the customers and causing them to not want to come to the bar again, not realizing that in order to make people feel actually welcome I need to be myself unsuppressed with any and all customers instead of wearing a polite “nice persona” out of fear of myself not being “good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by suppressing myself at work I build the bar into a place of self-suppression, making customers feel tense and unwelcome, whereas by not suppressing myself and by expressing myself unlimited I build the bar into a place of self-integrity, self-honesty and real human interaction, which might alienate some but work in everyone's favour in the long run.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to wear a “nice personality” at work because of how I have experienced the feedback of one of my employers, not realizing that I don't need to wear a mask to be kind, considerate and friendly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for making mistakes at work, not realizing that self-judgement (“I am so stupid”) works as a defense mechanism to not take in the feedback and actually consider how I could improve in my job, because here I use self-judgement to distance myself from who I was when making the mistake (myself) by creating a character out of who I was when making the mistake (“stupid”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that making mistakes is unavoidable, and that when and as I make mistakes I will best “redeem” myself by stopping to consider who I was when making the mistake, forgiving myself for the mistake and reconstructing myself so that I will not repeat the same mistake again (but instead make new kinds of mistakes, lol).

When and as I receive feedback at work about something I could improve on, I commit myself to stop, breathe and consider who I was when making the mistake. I consider the reasons for why I should change my behavior and make sure I see why it is necessary I change. I then forgive myself for the mistake and, if necessary, build a mind pattern that will remind me to change my behavioral patterns when and as the action is at hand.

I commit myself to investigate the characters, personalities and masks I carry with me at work and to release them in writing, self-forgiveness and breathing.

When and as I think I have made a “mistake” or “failed”, I commit myself to look at how the situation could be corrected instead of reveling in self-judgement as I see, realize and understand that self-judgement doesn't contribute to finding a solution in any way whatsoever.

When and as I feel like “doing nothing” - I stop, I breathe and I ask myself why I feel like “doing nothing” and what it is I should be doing but resist instead. I check myself for the feeling of heaviness / being burdened, and if the experience of heaviness is here, I realize that have accumulated it through some kind of self-abuse. I check my recent past (last 48 hours) for self-judgement or other kinds of self-abuse and self-neglect. Instead of “doing nothing” and escaping the heaviness I have created, I deal with the origin of the heaviness in whatever ways I can – breathing, resting, speaking, writing, discussing – and release the points I come across in self-forgiveness.

When and as a task feels like it's “too much” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that by making something seem “too much” I make myself appear “too little” in comparison. I realize that this is not in fact true and that through practice, patience and consistency any task is possible for me to undertake: any task is one with and equal to me. I breathe and I stabilize myself, and I look at the task at hand to map out the steps that lead to its completion. I evaluate the amount of time and work required for each step and according to this self-honest assessment of reality I make a plan on how to get the task done. I then proceed onto the “first step” and give it my full focus without worrying about the next stages of the task.

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.

Day 317: SF on Day 316: Loss of direction

17092013

I'm going through the video log from yesterday.

“my life is going well”

• what is “well”? What is my definition of a life that is “going well”?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that one's life is “going well” when one has something meaningful and enjoyable to do, here creating a separation between a “good” life and a “bad” life, thinking that the “bad” life without meaningful and enjoyable activities is not life worth living, not realizing that if one's life does become what I have defined as “not good” (“not going well”) it is a challenge one has brought upon oneself and that it is definitely worth living through – not getting stuck into – as this, too, is LIFE as life is in every moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that now that my life is “going well” (I have something meaningful and enjoyable to do) I should also feel happy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like there's “something missing” from my experience because even though my life is “going well” I don't have that feeling of happiness and euphoria, being uplifted and excited – not realizing that I base this expectation on previous experiences in my life where my life has felt “perfect” for a while as I have both had something enjoyable to do AND I have had that feeling of happiness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the feeling of happiness is required for my life to be fulfilling, not realizing that happiness as a feeling is an outflow of who I have lived as before the happiness, that it is the polarity of the negative feelings I have felt before, and that happiness surfaces to balance out the negative in a cyclic manner when I live within the negative-positive emotional loop – and that therefore when I release that emotional cycle and no longer live within, as and according to it and instead live within and as stability, the positive feelings that I crave for (as opposed to the negative feelings that I resent) will cease to exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to long for the feeling of happiness because I have defined it to be an indicator of when my life is “going well” and I don't have to worry about myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what actually indicates that I am living as LIFE and self-expression, as a being one with and equal to this reality, is stability: not being thrown around by both positive and negative feelings and emotions.*

* Not to confuse this with self-suppression, where one would be denying one's feelings and emotions and refusing to express them: a non-emotional “steel mask”. Feelings and emotions are an indicator of who we are at the moment, and thus when and as they surface they can be channeled in a non-destructive way and then, as they are out in the open for oneself, investigated and forgiven and eventually released. Stability is where emotions and feelings do not direct you, and where you do not lose sight of yourself in the middle of emotional turmoil.

I commit myself to stop to investigate any experiences of dissatisfaction that surface in me by asking myself if there is an expectation that is not being fulfilled.

I commit myself to slow down to enjoy feeling like “nothing” (no emotional experience affecting my state of being) by exploring my world as from this state movement is most effortless – or at least my boundaries are easier to detect – which is a great opportunity to expand myself.

When and as I get dissatisfied with “feeling nothing” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that I have defined a “satisfactory living” to be one where I am living within a positive emotional experience. I realize that the lack of a positive emotional experience is not a “bad thing” and that “feeling nothing” (not having a positive or a negative emotional experience) is an indicator of stability, no matter how momentary. I utilize self-forgiveness to release the dissatisfaction and I embrace the moment as described in the statement above.

--

“During [my travels] I made a lot of decisions to change my daily rhythm, my life style, and I've been living out those decisions, at least some of them. I'm still not working completely well with some of the points --.”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself after I got home to get comfortable with not exercising as I no longer “had to” keep on moving every single day [when I traveled I carried a heavy rucksack with me and mostly walked around A LOT].

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards physical exercise because I “had to” do so much of it during my travels.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I did not “have to” move as there was no outside force that would have actually made it compulsory for me to physically move myself, not wanting to carry responsibility for my decision to move physically (in theory I could have just staid still other than walking in and out of airplanes) as this decision caused me weariness and discomfort.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame “others” for “expecting me to move”, not realizing I was projecting my own demands and expectations for myself onto others so that I could avoid carrying responsibility for this self-expectation that wore me out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created this resistance during my travels by not allowing myself enough rest to compensate for the physical and mental strain that I went through.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to my home because it offers me so much comfort – soft and clean places to sit and lie in, enough entertainment to last me for the rest of my life, fun activities and hobbies, good food that I have chosen to supply myself with – not realizing that by creating a desire to stay home and be as comfortable as possible I limit my life extensively as outside of my walls there is an entire world of people and places to explore.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to narrow my physical comfort zone down to my apartment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist going out for walks without a destination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist going out to meet people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist exercising (full yoga routine, jogging, dancing).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist practicing violin and piano playing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist singing practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist making music.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to my resistance and desire for comfort by giving up when I “don't feel like doing it”.

I commit myself to step by step work my way out of my comfort zone by not demanding everything of myself at once but utilizing the moments that I see to start out with something small from which I can expand through consistent practice.

• with yoga: do a little each morning before breakfast and grow the amount weekly
• with meeting friends: meet at least one friend a week other than in school or at work
• with outdoors exercise: have at least one aimless walking trip per one week
• with music: have at least one practice session per week, be it any instrument or form of music
• with singing: sing at least one song a day

I commit myself to have mercy on myself so that I will not demand too much of myself – yet, I commit myself to hold on to the list above as I see, realize and understand that doing at least this small amount per week/day will activate me.

I commit myself to make a timetable for these activities if necessary to support myself to actually push through the resistance and get moving.

Day 246: Doing nothing

30052013

One challenge I set for myself when I set off to travel was to break away from my usual routine of working throughout my waking hours and to teach myself to just be and do nothing. I realize that stress is a big problem for me because I do not know where to draw the line in-between recreation and escapism, and so I feel guilty for every bit of non-work and push myself to work more from the starting point of fear.

So at first I noticed a tendency to think that now that I am here on the other side of the globe I should not “waste” a single day. I pushed myself to go sightseeing and stuff and tried to make “each day count”, so that within every day I would get an experience that would make the day feel meaningful. Many times I did, and even really small and seemingly insignificant things would give me that experience that “all right, today I lived”. For example, one day the most awesome thing that happened was that I ran into a dog in a forest and hung out with the dog for a while. Not much else happened during the day, but it still felt like I had actually learned something.

Now in Tokyo there have been days where I have felt like nothing has been happening. I have staid at one place for an entire week, not moving around every two days like before, and I have given myself time to just do nothing at all. I have done small everyday things like gone to the supermarket and walked around a park and sat in a library and sung karaoke. I have sat down with other people here at the hostel eating and drinking and talked. And at the end of the day I have felt guilty about it: Today I did nothing. Did I learn anything? Did I grow at all? Who was I today? Has it been four days already? What the fuck did I even do yesterday? Was it really five days ago? And so forth.

It has been really good to stop because I have thus been able to see more clearly what it is that moves me in my “normal life” (a term/concept I have come to question lately). But I am not sure if what I'm doing is entirely a good thing. Tokyo as a tourist environment is not very enabling if one doesn't have the money to shop and dine in restaurants, so I have perhaps been passivated by my environment which is “lacking” in possibilities for activities. But here I forget that I am able to come up with some ways to utilize whatever happens to be here – I just have to actively get up and do it.

So enough of this bullshit. If it seems that my environment is not “offering” me enough stuff to do, then I've got to get up and do something and make it worthwhile. I am not here to live on a hyperdrive for three months, sucking in the culture of other countries as if it was the last thing I'll ever do – I am here to live as myself within and as breath within the possibilities of the environment I am in, not to compromise myself and feed off on experiences and energy kicks. So just live as I would live in a familiar environment, moved by necessity and opportunity; allow myself the time I need to get my shit together. It's not about achievements but about who I live as within all this.

SF up next.

Day 214: Resting

24042013

from a play; me on the right.

How do I know when I actually need rest and how should I give it to myself?

The answer to the first question is relatively easy: listen to your body and don't be fooled by the mind. Lol. Listening to one's body is done by stopping, breathing and allowing oneself to be fully aware of one's physical experience. For example, last night I didn't really notice myself to be tired and completely ready to go to bed and fall asleep until I stopped myself, told myself to stop working on my tasks and sat myself down with a cup of tea and nothing else to do but to drink the tea. This is when I became aware of the fact that my muscles were sore, and this is where my eyes started closing immediately when I stopped myself from rushing around and stopped my hurry-busy-overload-mode. I realized that the fact that my physical was giving me these signs meant that I was indeed in need of rest, and so I gave myself rest. Had I followed my mind I would have continued working and perhaps collapsed sooner or later – if not during the night, I would have run out of steam today had I not slept enough.

But the second question I proposed is more tricky, because the experience of something being “rest” or “relaxing” or “not demanding” is subjective and also relative as compared to that which one is taking rest from (i.e. work, tasks, responsibilities, burdens, obligations etc.). I just got to thinking about this when I had been studying for a couple of hours, noticed myself to be getting weary and stiff from working and realized that I needed rest – but then I started conflicting with myself as I did not know how to give myself rest. My first thought was to lay down and play video games – but then I thought of yoga because my back was really screaming for it – and then I thought: “but yoga isn't rest” - which I realized to be a value I have assigned yoga: [exercise = work], so [yoga = work] as well. I then went on to do yoga because I saw that it could actually support me to recover and heal from my day of work, which in the long run serves me more than playing video games, which is just sitting still and entertaining myself with mathematical stuff – which does hold value at times, but this wasn't what I needed at this moment.

So I guess there is no “right way” of resting or a perfect pattern to follow, which means one has to make the assessment individually for each situation: what is it that would right now assist me in recovering from this specific kind of fatigue? If the tasks one does vary, so does the “damage” done in the process – and so does the method of recovery. If I had just run a marathon I don't think yoga would be the optimal choice for recovery then, lol.

Right, to re-define the word “rest” for myself.

Dictionary definition: cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself or to recover strength; allow to be inactive in order to regain strength, health or energy. (Source: Oxford dictionary)

My old definition of the word “rest”: to be lazy, unproductive and passive; to not give one's all at every moment; to slack off; to justify inaction with imagined weariness.

My new definition of the word “rest”: to live as one with and equal to one's physical body and to take care of it's needs and requirements by allowing it the appropriate way of recharging and recovering from a preceding activity that has caused the body to become stressed, weary, tired, damaged and/or worn out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my physical body has its inescapable limits, be they permanent or temporary, and that in order to keep myself healthy, stable and fully functioning I have got to live according to these limits as there is no way to “transcend” the physical reality for as long as I live within this body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for giving myself rest as I have felt ashamed for my past where I escaped my reality into sleep and entertainment – a state of almost constant rest – and have wanted to “make up to” the opportunities I wasted during those years of escapism by not resting at all or resting as little as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it is possible to “make up to” the mistakes of my past, not realizing that these mistakes have already been done and that I cannot “work extra hard” within the present moment to live both for my past and my present as all that my physical body allows me to do is within the borders of the present: I can only live a full NOW, not a full yesterday or tomorrow.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign rest a negative energy charge through guilt and shame, not realizing that rest is neither positive nor negative but a requirement of the physical reality – it is what is here – a tool that can be used and/or abused.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that even though the boundaries of one's stamina may be pushed further, there is still a certain limit for how much I am able to do right now and that this limit cannot be crossed – and that this is what makes it impossible to “make up for” my past inaction.

I commit myself to gift myself with rest when and as my physical body indicates it requires it.

I commit myself to find ways to be more sensitive to the needs of my physical body – firstly by building myself a foundation from breathing and moment-to-moment self-awareness.

I commit myself to trust myself to spot the moments when I would be abusing rest to escape my responsibilities as I see, realize and understand that I am capable of noticing when my starting point for resting is not in my physical but in my mind.

I commit myself to realize that fatigue from studying is also physical as it is stress for the brain, and that the fact that the brain is located in the head doesn't mean that this fatigue is some trick of the mind which I have thought to reside in my head – which is starting to look more and more like a fallacy as I'm starting to see, realize and understand that the mind is integrated into the entire body – and that the fatigue caused by studying also requires some form of rest and recovery, whatever that may be.

I commit myself to reserve time for resting in my daily schedule.

Day 212: Too stressed to lay myself down

22042013

Today I faced an odd experience that consisted of intense physical pain, exhaustion, anxiety and possession-like restlessness. I tried to write throughout the experience and it helped me keep a track of what was going on. The experience that had been here all day finally faded when I had taken a two-hour nap and done the following self-forgiveness:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not have a break when my physical indicates I need it with obvious weariness, sleepiness, heaviness, fatigue, pain and tension.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe and thus forget my physical when my physical is sick and instead try and find the reason for my sickness from the mind through reasoning and logic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not gift myself with rest when and as my physical body is sick and indicates it has not yet fully recovered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself enough time for rest when recovering from a physical sickness and instead push myself to work before, during and after the most intense period of sickness, not realizing that by doing this I only prolong the sickness and disable myself from healing effectively and wholly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the fact that I become sick in the first place is a sign of a malfunction in the body, which in this case has come about because of neglecting myself, and that this sickness will continue for as long as it takes for me to sort out this point of self-abuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is to “rest” when I play video games, watch TV series and eat plenty of treats, not realizing that this doesn't actually serve the well-being of my physical but only entertains my mind.

I commit myself to try out how it would affect my recovery if I replaced TV and video games with reading and eating treats with drinking lots of water / herbs and moderately eating healthier stuff, such as vegetable food, fruits, unsweetened yoghurt, oats and rice.

I commit myself to experiment how it would affect my healing process if I shut down all electronic equipment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create resistance to work by stressing about my work, not realizing that I make it more difficult for myself to work when I stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will screw it up”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform and that I will have caused it with my own stupidity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I have caused myself to become dependent on the financial support of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am making a mistake.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others as “stupid”, “dumb”, “irresponsible”, “childish”, “self-centered” and “ignorant”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions and to not assess my doubts from a practical viewpoint.

[These fears I'll continue with in more specificity. Cool that they're beginning to open up.]

I was then able to continue with my studies and I had some fresh air, did a little yoga and now I feel immensely better. The possession has faded and I've returned myself to stability. I now continue with the following SF:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance to take naps even when my body clearly states it to be necessary because I have defined that “naps aren't for me”, thus enforcing a relationship of refusal and separation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that sometimes the body does require more sleep – in this case due to self-imposed stress and fatigue – and that then the rest must be given, even if it's in the middle of my day, or the consequences will be even worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a self-image where I am “more” because I sleep as little as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot” to be “lazy”, “escapist”, “self-centered”, “unambitious” and “limp”, thus creating a resistance through all these negatively charged definitions to not “sleep a lot”, whatever I may define “a lot” to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot / too much” to be when one sleeps more than 6 hours or sleeps during the day, as I have not realized that sleeping more than 6 hours and/or sleeping during the day may sometimes in fact be necessary.

I commit myself to give myself sleep/rest when my body indicates it to be necessary, not trying to multitask during the rest by reading, writing etc. while I lay myself down, but by putting everything I am doing off of my hands and allowing myself to stop and fully exist within the time that I dedicate for resting.

What eventually got me through the painful experience was self-forgiveness followed with physically moving myself out of the jammed situation. I wrote, I got up and I went out, and when I returned I changed my physical position within my apartment, which worked out awesomely. Remembering to breathe was also quite helpful!

Days 161-162: I have to keep moving

01-02032013

a self-caricature: "What do you mean, 'aren't you tired'?!"

Yesterday I had had somewhat of an intense day when in the evening four hours before my usual bed time my body shut down and refused to move anymore. A pain had been accumulating in my left shoulder, and once the pain spread out into my left ear and a burdensome fatigue arose I realized I have to stop. I was completely surprised by this, because to me my day had seemed pretty usual: work in the morning, studies and writing in the afternoon, more work in the evening – and I hadn't even had to leave the house so my environment had been peaceful and ordinary. So I laid myself down and allowed myself to just stop, and when I had actually stopped and felt my physical stabilizing itself as I focused onto my breath and let go of my tasks (all the physical pain disappeared within minutes) I realized I hadn't really allowed myself to stop in a long while.

I have been very busy and had a lot to do in a short period of time. So my daily, weekly and monthly schedule has been pretty much the same for the past two months, ever since this year begun. I'm realizing this routine is taking a toll on me. I feel like I'm running in a hamster wheel with no escape even though I know this will end relatively soon – the treat of freedom waiting for me at the end of this narrow tunnel just isn't enough of a motivator for me to squeeze through. I'm halfway there and I'm getting hopeless because I don't look at all the things I have actually gotten done and instead mull over the list of things I still need to do. I crave for entertainment, rest, relaxation, sex, intimacy, socializing, food, sugar, sleeping – any and all the things I find relaxing and enjoyable - more than ever because I am not allowing myself any. I'm eating myself up with no rewards – like a slave working with whippings in place of sleep.

I realize this dramatized view I'm living as is the cause of me resisting my tasks, which is why I crave for release to balance things off. There is resistance because the things I need to do are not the things I would want to do. I tell myself “I don't want to do this” as I work and create obstacles where there aren't any. Why do I do this even though I know it will only make working harder and slower?

So last night and today I've been giving myself a break by resting when possible and when it seems like I need it. I've tried to return myself to only concerning myself with those tasks that are at hand and setting aside those that aren't. This has allowed me to focus more on what I'm doing as I'm not stressing about everything else. I used to have backchat about rest where I would debate whether it's necessary or not, but now it's been gone for a while. Maybe it's about realizing the difference between wanting to rest and actually requiring rest, as when I create a thought about resting and the desire to rest I am already acting upon mind energy even though the original impulse to rest would have been real, because I then also create the polarity: fear of not resting / resistance to continuing work.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop and listen to my physical body when it tells me it requires rest – rest here meaning perhaps just stopping, breathing and lying down for a while.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to rest because I have a lot of work to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise my health by not stopping to listen to the requirements of my physical body, continuing to move feeding off on mind energy, not realizing the consequences of this in the long run are devastating to my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep myself running on mind energy even though my physical requires rest because I have a lot of work to be done, not realizing that as I feed myself with mind energy as thoughts that keep me going – “you have to do this”, “a little more and then we're done”, “you can't stop here”, “you've got to finish this”, “you could spend this moment more usefully”, “I can't waste my time with this” - I am eating off of my own flesh and thus the quality of my work will suffer as well as I am not working from within a healthy body that is able to live up to its full potential.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pose demands, threats and manipulation to myself within my thoughts, not realizing that this is not supportive at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that when I push myself to work using my thoughts I get things done more efficiently, not realizing that real efficiency is when the engine runs smoothly and well-greased, in other words, when there is no resistance and only pure movement and thus no pushing required.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not face and direct my resistance concerning the tasks I don't want to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to work out of the sense of duty because the things I don't want to do are things I have promised to do months ago and because we are in a situation where I cannot leave my tasks without tens of people suffering.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the suffering of others as a motivator because it is something I fear and will move to keep away from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I fail my tasks or drop them completely the people that would carry the consequences would resent, hate, despise and bad-mouth me and be very angry and disappointed with me and that I would be alienated from these people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to express my will to no longer take on more tasks like this and instead focus on what I actually find relevant because I fear I will face anger and all sorts of forms of aggression springing from it, as well as manipulation, passing guilt and blame and all other tactics that have already been used on me and on others by these people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the manipulation attempts of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the reactions of another to my self-honest self-expression, this implying I am not certain in what I express – I am not certain in myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the reactions of another personally because she blames them on others so assertively.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect another to react in the way I have seen her react before and prepare myself accordingly, not realizing that no matter the likelihood I cannot know what will happen in the future as everything is created HERE in the moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I can affect the outcome of the situation by focusing on myself, my stance and my starting point and by trusting myself to be able to communicate with another in a way that aims to solve any and all conflicts – that I do have directive power over the interaction even though I don't have all of it.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire positive experiences as energy to balance off the stress I experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my desire is justified because I stress, not realizing that here I am blaming the stress on someone else (the ones I am working for / the world / my ambition and honor as entities) instead of carrying responsibility for creating the stress myself, which invalidates the justification.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my stress on theatre because I am working on big, time-consuming projects for the theatre.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my stress on the world for “demanding too much of me” because I “have to” work at a paid job which I find a waste of time when I'd have “more important” unpaid stuff to do – not realizing that even though this world system of paid slavery really sucks it is my system and that if I want it to change I've got to work to change it myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to excuse and justify my stress by thinking of myself as an honorable person who keeps her promises, glorifying my suffering while also separating myself from myself as the creator of the stress and the one who has the power to stop the stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give into my desires when I have accumulated them for long enough and see them to be justified because of my great suffering.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for external comfort when I am in internal turmoil, not realizing that the only way to bring about lasting change is by stabilizing myself into a platform of self-comfort, self-support and self-assistance – not by treating the symptoms and ignoring the cause.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate my stress for such a long time that I create and fulfill desires in order to deal with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop to address my stress sooner.

I commit myself to return myself to breath whenever I notice I am not breathing by taking a deep breath, stopping to explore my breath as it moves my body, enjoying the moment of nothing but breathing, realizing why breathing is supportive, forgiving myself for falling out of breath and carrying on with whatever I was doing.

I commit myself to stop myself completely when I would least want to, as this resistance to stop is the indication that I am not moving as breath but as the mind, and to explore what this act of stopping brings about.