Thittato

Cold shower, and 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today as well. Just finished the breathing right now. So nice. Still a lot of processing around this whole skydiving thing. I've been reading some articles about the relationship between meditation and skydiving today. So interesting! Maybe one would think that skydiving is more of a wild and crazy type of experience, but actually many people describe it as much closer to meditation it seems like. It doesn't matter so much to me right now whether I will actually become a skydiver myself (which is very likely btw,) but it seems to be its own reward to process my fascination with this thing on a mental and emotional level. I can totally accept that a few of us are pioneers and explorers collecting interesting experiences for the rest of us to be entertained, educated and inspired by, without the big majority of us actually needing to do those things ourselves. I have like a really fun new phenomena to continue to explore on youtube and through reading articles about it these days. It is always so interesting when you start to get the overview over a phenomena like this. Like who are the leaders and influencers in this field, how are they related to each other, and what do they think about the various disiplinces in this sport, how have they turned wiser as they have matured in this sport, what kind of perspectives does it shed on their lives, etc. So much to explore! It also sheds some very interesting perspectives on the risk-taking that I have to take in my own life. Like how to plan certain operations. I'm planning on jumping from the fence around the half-pipe down into the half-pipe on rollerblades as soon as I feel that it is responsible. I can already jump when I sit on the fence and have my feet standing at the ledge half-way from the top of the fence, but soon I would like to stand and balance on the top of the fence and jump down into the half-pipe, so now I'm training for how to make that possible. I will just have to get very comfortable jumping from this halfway step, and also drop a lot from all the tallest drops around in the skatepark, and eventually I will become so comfortable dropping from tall places that I would want to push it further because I feel so in control at that point. My other ambition is to be able to do a frontflip in the halfpipe. That probably requires even some more training - but both these goals are related to each other. The control I will feel from being able to accomplish the first one will help me with the second one, and vica versa. It is very interesting when the mind lets go of frustrations and limiting-believes and instead starts to focus in on ones ambitions and finding joy in having such ambitions. The mind expandes into future possibilites, and how to manifest those possibilites, instead of shrinking down around limiting-believes. With skydiving now I'm mostly thinking about how afraid I am of it, but probably soon I will start to dream more about how fun and rewarding it would likely be.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today. I woke up and was very tired after these 4 night-shifts. Immediately some of my Chess-buddies called and wanted to play Chess online and on skype together. I joined them for a couple of hours, and then I saw another extreme sports documentary on Netflix, by the same guy who made the Don't Crack Under Pressure series, but this one is called Hooked on Life, but pretty much the same crew and the same theme. And then I did 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing just now. I think the common theme for everybody who wants to push their own limits, whether it is in sports, art, music, meditation, love, etc, is just this longing for expansion. To break out of the limited sense of self and to feel whole and expanded. Many paths, but the same yearning. Maybe it is as simple as that. And then there is the balance between just surrendering into life and accepting it as it is now VS. longing for those expanded states of mind, and somehow you need both, but the balance is not always easy to figure out. Even in the peak-moments of life there is very much a sense of surrender and just being at one with the groove. I've had many experiences where everything was set up to be pretty cool, but somehow there was some resistance towards that experience that sabotaged it, especieally this can happen if one is jamming together and one had really big expectations towards the jam, but then it turns out one couldn't find the groove immediately - fortunately with experience one learns to work through this resistance and in many cases it dissolves if one continues. I've experienced this a lot in the skatepark lately. It takes some time to warm up and get into the groove. Maybe there is some conflict in me between these to sides of my self - the boring side and the ecstatic side. Maybe it is as simple as that sometimes I need to sit by the ocean and just look out into the sky and enjoy a coffee, and other times I need to do something more extreme. Sounds pretty simple. Everybody has those different sides to themselves. My problem seems to be that I identify really hardcore with whatever I'm doing in the moment, and that makes it difficult to integrate all these different types of polarities. In the end I think it is just a matter of giving up control. Just letting everything be as it is. Did I choose to sit here and write these things, or did it just happen? When I'm in another moment, it also just seems like somehow it just manifested by itself and somehow I'm just there and have to surrender into it. Maybe life is inherently a conflict. What would my life look like if this conflict dissolved? In that question I think the answer to what to do next lies. Just let it happen.

Completed those 3 rounds just now. I get such a buzz after having worked night-shift. Maybe that is why I like it. Anyways. It is pretty nice to do the Wim Hof breathing method in that buzz. And it is a nice way to balance that buzz and become ready for sleep.

45 min meditation today, and then a cold shower. So nice. Last night working night-shift 4 days in a row. I think I will do 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing when I come home again.

And then also today 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing now before I'll go to bed after having worked night-shift. This was the 3rd night in a row. One more night to go. Such a good atmosphere at my job these days. I love working with the group I'm working with this weekend - our chemistry is just really nice. So I came home inspired, and now I have been watching extreme sport documentaries and skydiving and wingsuit flying on youtube for a couple of hours, and it is time to go to bed and I needed to seal off this awesome day and night with some rounds of breathing. Also I finished the 3-part documentary on Netflix on extreme sports called Don't Crack Under Pressure. It is 3 movies lasting for approximately 1,5 hour each. So awesome and inspiring watching those cool people pushing the bounderies of human experience through various extreme sports. So glad I got back into snowboarding and rollerblading again, and how I relate it back to my spiritual practice, and how I now might also go into skydiving myself, but even if I wasn't going to go into skydiving I have my own reference point in extreme sports with snowboarding and rollerblading, and it is actually pretty fucking abundant just exploring these types of sports as a spectator as well, like next to my own snowboarding and skating. My number one favourite thing they always say about these people in these documentaries is "he had such a passion for life." A lot of them also has a very interesting philosophy about death. They say that would rather die doing something they love, than live an unfulfilled life, especially since we are going to die anyways. That is something I can calm myself down with should I go into skydiving. Skydiving is pretty low-risk, and they say that your are far more likely to get killed on driving to the dropzone than when you jump out of the airplane. But still, it still feels like a pretty vulnerable situation throwing oneself out of an airplane, and I think it is better to have the attitude that you are actually willing to die doing this (which is very unlikely to happen) than to do it in a very fearful state praying for the canopy to open. I think my attitude in life should be: "If this is the time to go then this is time to go." Not that this is energetically what is going on in myself. I'm still very much clinging on to life. But I like to start to challenge this clinging more. I think I should be more ready to go when that time comes. A lot of people have said that spiritual practice is about learning to die well. I'm far from settled about the issue of mortality, but I like how my interest in extreme sports brings this issue closer into my life in what I consider a healthy and balanced way.

45 min meditation today, and then a cold shower. Very nice. Seems like sometimes I need to do the Wim Hof breathing, and sometimes I need to do my regular meditation. Both techniques are centered around the breathing process, so I think they complement each other very well.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and a cold shower today. Very nice.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today.

Had to do a 3rd session of 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today as well. So nice. I'm going to work night-shift for 4 nights in a row now, so maybe I'm loading up for that. It was nice with some days off work now. Managed to do a lot of fun stuff and get my mind on other things than just work.

2nd session of 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today. So damn awesome. I went to the skatepark with my bestfriend this evening. Finally it is open again. It was super-ultra-awesome. Then I came home and played Chess online together with my Chess-buddies on Skype for the rest of the evening. That was also super-awesome. And now I just had to do a second session of the Wim Hof breathing to ground all this awesomeness. I felt ecstatic while doing it, and paradoxically also very calm at the same time. But the skating was the best. I've been in much process lately, and the skating can really shake it loose like few other things can and bring me into a very expansive mind-state.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and then cold shower. Nice, nice, and nice.

45 min meditation today. I needed to just sit and enjoy stillness and rest.

3rd session of 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing for today finished. So nice, and needed, today.

Cold shower today, and then I did 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing afterwards. Wim Hof says to do the breathing before the cold, but I find it pretty nice to do it afterwards as well. It seems like I can go deeper into the breathing when I have first been in the cold, especially since showering is a nice way to shake off the morning-grogginess. It was super-nice to do 3 sessions of breathwork yesterday - I could feel I had a lot more punch in the breathwork I did today because of it. I will do 3 sessions today as well. There has been a lot of process lately, so it is nice way to clear out my system and get my power back.

3rd session of 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing for the day completed. Wow. That was nice.

3 more rounds of Wim Hof breathing today. I think I will do a 3rd session later as well. I need some extra punch to my spiritual practice today.

No practice yesterday, except for a lot of guitar-playing. Today: Weight-lifting, cold-shower and 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today and a cold shower (untimed). Very nice. Maybe now that I have trained with time during this 20 day cold shower all the way up to 3 min and 10 sec, maybe now I can just do them untimed according to what I feel like. I'm thinking about at some point to start to do the breathing exercises untimed as well. Regarding skydiving. I'm still very interested in it, so regarded that course in the middle of August, I think I will just have to give it some space to see whether that is the right thing do to or not. No rush to decide. I'm following a lot of skydivers on instagram, and watch a youtube video about it every now and then, and it seem so fun and awesome. So I guess I can just keep it open for now. At the very least it is a very interesting interest as a spectator and as entertainment seeing all these people exploring how far they can push human activity. But maybe I will get into it too.

Finished last day of second 20 day cold shower challenge. 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and 3 min and 10 sec in the cold shower. I guess I was quite high here in the middle of the challenge with the sense of mastery at my job and the reflections about possibly wanting to become a skydiver. I was also working a lot of overtime last week, and I still feel tired from the combination of all of this that has been going on lately. But the tiredness was worst yesterday and the day before yesterday. Now it is like I'm starting to land from this whole trip I've been on lately. This challenge started as a curve, with it building up gradually, and then there was a peak of energy in the middle, and then a decline. It wasn't only necessarily related to the Wim Hof method. I tend to go through these cycles anyways, but I think there was a clear correalation. When I gather my focus around something like this energy tends to build up. Still it felt smoother and more stable than when I did this the first time. And the crash, yes, it was a little crash, wasn't all that dramatic. It is not so clear I should still go skydiving. I mean, I still have my vacation set up so that I could go and do a 2 week course in the middle of August if I wanted to, but like how I feel now, in a bit more sobered and grounded mindstate, it is still quite clear that there is a feeling of lacking purpose and direction in life. Skydiving could potentially be a cool addition to my personal study in the correalation between spiritual practice, extreme sports, and flow-states, and maybe that has something to do with my purpose, but also it somehow also feels like an escape from what I should rather be focusing on, ie. finding my real purpose. It seems to be this I'm always coming back to. So the whole challenge was sobering. But I think this whole burst of energy I experienced and all the different landscapes in my mind that was opened up because of it will lead to some kind of integration. Especially reflecting on job-mastery was very helpful. There is a sadness that always comes when a high like this fades and I return back to vulnerability. But I think this vulnerability is where growing up happens.

3 more round of Wim Hof breathing today. Very nice.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today as well, and then 3 min and 10 sec in the cold shower. Tomorrow is last day of this challenge. I have been very tired yesterday and today. Had a lot of night-shifts last week. But the cold shower was still very refreshing. Interesting this time with this challenge is that I don't feel going into the cold makes me weaker if I already feel weak. I'm not sure what to do after I finish this challenge. Probably I will take some days to decompress like I've done before. The interesting thing with both Wim Hofs breathing technique and his focus on the cold water is that they are both highly addictive, and especially in combination. Earlier I was thinking that I was going to go back to my regular meditation once this "winter focus" was over, but then the addiction to this method has brought me back again and again.

Chogyam Trungpa has a famous quote about the spiritual path: «Better not to begin. Once begun, better to finish.»

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and 3 min and 10 sec in the cold shower. So nice :-) This is like doing spa every day.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, 10 sun salutations, and 3 min and 10 sec in the cold shower. It has been seeming lately, that something in my psyche is getting further into balance. I had bipolar tendencies before. Like I would get really high, and then I would find some idea or mental concept or something and go crazy with my mental masturbation around it, and then I would wake up the next day feeling really burned out and sick of the whole thing I was so inspired by the day before. Now that skydiving is my focus, it doesn't seem like I milk it too hard as a mental concept the way I used to do with these things before. Like the attention and focus that I give to it is seem to be in balance with what it is natural that my relationship towards it is at this point. I guess I'm not trying to hype myself up to be more into it than I need to be at this point. It is like an interesting subject that I'm just studying at this point. It is not like it is the one and only savior that if I can get into it my life will finally end up in heaven instead of hell. So in other words my desperation seems to be gone. My life is fine right now, too. I guess this is why I used to fall so desperately in love before. It mistakenly seemed like I was so close to what would be the savior in my life. So close but so far at the same time. This same thing happened over and over again with the Wim Hof method this winter as well. Like getting a huuuuge kick out of ice-bathing and breath-work and then watching Wim Hof interviews and just trying to squeeze as much out of it as I possibly could. But it seems like I managed to ride out those waves successfully, and now I don't get so high from it, although it still makes me feel very fresh and powerful, but I guess it has turned into something I would say is more stable. Very interesting. Self-love and self-respect is growing, too. I'm finding love in the simple sense of being. Well. This has been a very interesting second 20 day cold shower challenge so far. Only 3 more days to go. I'm looking forward to wrap it up and make a summary out of what this process has been for me. Feels like something that has been intensely rewarding so far.

And here are some of the coolest skydiving photos I’ve found so far. Just had to include them :-)