Thittato

45 min meditation today. Dealing with some vulnerable material still. Experiencing resistance towards these feelings, and then still trying to surrender into it. There is always a sense of power that comes when the resistance dissolves and I merge with what I resist. Didn't fully happen today, or yet, but it partially happened, but maybe I get closer to it through reflection on this process as part of the after-process. This is one of the things I find the most interesting about meditation - how things we would normally like to avoid can actually become fuel for the meditation. Burning emotional pain can through meditation become transmuted into burning passion and power. Another interesting thing about this after-process - Even though I didn't get all the way through into the experience of merging in todays session, there is something about setting that intention, and working towards that experience, that puts things into motion, so that my body/mind complex will continue to work through this experience as I go about my day.

One more month without alcohol 30 min meditation today as well. Surrendering into vulnerability. Interesting how some vulnerable material came up as soon as I reached my winter-bathing goal and took a break from the Wim Hof method. I have not decided yet whether it is a longer or shorter break. It has been a really awesome winter, and a really great cleansing, but I somehow suspect that by using that method I manipulate my physiology so that I get into a very awesome state, but I also think I loose touch with my vulnerability. Like I bypass it. So whether I go back to it or not, at least I'm going to spend some days to feel through whatever needs to be felt. Isn't it always like this? One pump oneself up to reach a goal, and when that goal is reached there is a sense of accomplishment, but also very often an anti-climax. Like what now? Before New Years Eve I decided that January was going to be a detox month. I still drink too much alcohol. I think I'm in the danger-zone of becoming an alcoholic. It is not that I usually become insanely drunk, but I just love the whole culture of alcohol too much. Like I drink 3 or 4 times a week, and I bond with a lot of others who have the same drinking-patterns as me, and we seem to enable one another, and it seems like the ones I bond the most with are also the ones who seems to have a drinking habit which is potentially escalating. I would say that we are pretty cultured, but that just makes the alcoholism in it harder to detect. So I figured I needed a dry January. Ice bathing and the Wim Hof method helped tremendously with this. So I was so inspired I prolonged it to last for February as well. And now I'm doing March without alcohol as well. So I'm thinking that in order to quit the alcohol I needed something else to replace it with, so I became pretty gung-ho about ice-bathing. So probably I'm now facing some of the vulnerability that was bypassed by that gung-ho-ness. But the whole Wim Hof experience was a pretty awesome cleansing, but I think I'll return back to my normal vipassana meditation now.

30 min meditation today. Surrendering into vulnerability and humility.

33rd session of winter bathing this season 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and then I went down to the beach to bathe. Swam for a longer distance today. It was super-awesome. We met a group yesterday who does winter bathing together every sunday at 14:00 (and other times as well). Today we were over 20 people and the atmosphere was extremly good. Felt like summer, almost. They were playing the Baywatch song before we all went down into the water, hahha....... It felt like a party. Nice way to kick of the last day of the last Winter-month. Now I’m wondering about whether I should continue with the Wim Hof method, or if I should just go back to my regular vipassana meditation practice. In a way this 3 month project has been perfect, and maybe I’ve gotten my dose of Wim Hof for now, but on the other hand the results on my mental well-being has been so awesome, so why not just continue? I’ll let it sink in for a bit before I decide on anything.

32nd session of winter bathing this season Ok, challenge completed, and winter-season finished! Best winter so far in my life! December: 10 winter baths January: 12 winter baths February: 10 winter baths + the 20 day cold shower challenge starting with 1 min and 15 sec showers and building up to 2 min cold showers for the last 5 days. Plus I've done at least 3 rounds of the Wim Hof breathing technique every day since 11th of January (except for one day where I was a bit knocked out because of the Corona-vaccine).

31st session of winter bathing this season 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing this morning, and then I walked down to the beach to do my bath. So awesome. I have started to swim some more now instead of just standing still submerged in the water. It is a nice variation. Met a group of old ladies today as well down there who where also bathing. Pretty fun to encounter some fellow winter bathers. In a couple of hours I will go down there again with my friend for a second bath. Looks like the sun will be shining by then. Now I'm wondering if I will just continue to bath throughout the whole spring. I mean I only live a few 100 meters from the beach. It is pretty awesome. It feels like it is becoming less and less of a mental and emotional investment. This winter I have really succeeded about getting the quantity up. Last winter my pattern of getting extremly enthusiastic about something and then milking it too hard and getting disgusted by it was still dominating, and it prevented me from getting the full benefits out of it and making into an integrated thing, but now there is much less fuzz, although I am writing about it here every day hehe...... :-P

30th session of winter bathing this season So I did a second bath today. Me and a friend went down to the beach together. So nice. The sun is shining, and it feels like early spring and people looks happy. It was extremly good to come up from the cold water into the sun and the spring-like atmosphere. Didn't need to put my clothes back on immediately. Usually I take a warm shower when I come home, but this time I'm skipping it. It is nice to just prolong the experience by letting the body warm up in room-temperature.

29th session of winter bathing this season Started the morning by walking down to the beach to bath, then I came home, did a warm shower, and then did 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing. Not feeling strange anymore after the vaccine. Gosh, that was three days of feeling strange and halfway sick that started the day after I got the vaccine. Fortunately with this vaccine, Astrazeneca, the strongest reaction is usually after the first dose, so I expect the second dose to give a much lighter reaction. I also read in the news today that many people are surprised the vaccine gives such a harsh reaction. Well, that surprise certainly came to me as well. Interesting for this whole winter has been about this winter bathing project. This summer my project was to do vipassana meditation for 45 min per day. I like having projects like these for the various seasons. I wonder if a specific project for spring will become apparent. I also wonder at what extent I will keep up my Wim Hof practice as the weather gets warmer. After last winter it eventually died out until this next winter came. Maybe it is like a seasonal thing for me. Or maybe I will continue with the cold showers and the breathing technique. Let us see.

28th session of winter-bathing this season and completion of the 20 day cold shower challenge (plus getting the Covid-19 vaccine). Yesterday: 5 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and 2 min in the cold shower. Today: 6 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, then I went down to the sea to do my winter-bath, came home and took a long and nice warm shower, and then I ended that shower with a 2 min cold shower. So now the 20 day cold shower challenge is finished, and I only got 4 more winter-baths to complete in order to do those 10 winter-baths in February as well together with this 20 day cold shower challenge. I was getting the corona-vaccine on monday, and thas was pretty rough, on tuesday I was getting fever, headaches, feeling nauseous etc, and today (thursday) I still have a headache and I feel a bit clogged up in my head but starting to feel almost back to normal again, so I didn't feel like doing any cold exposure on tuesday, and yesterday it took a while before I was getting my motivation back to get into the cold shower, so I was wondering if I was going to make that commitment I was making in my last post which I wrote in the evening the same day I took the vaccine but before the side-effects started to kick in. I was a bit shocking how rough this vaccine was. It was like a mild flu. I wasn't sure whether it was a good idea either to keep up this Wim Hof practice while my body was working with this vaccine either, but I figured since I've been doing cold-exposure for almost 3 months now that is my normal state so my body is already adjusted to being in this cold exposure process so the only new thing was the vaccine, so when the fever was gone again on wednesday I felt like keeping up the cold exposure again. But this means, in order to complete this goal of doing 10 winter baths in February I will have to do two winter-baths in one day, but that should be fine, especially now that the cold shower challenge is out of the way. I'm still a bit shocked how this vaccine managed to threw me out of this really good flow I was in, but I believe in the official version of this pandemic, and I believe the vaccines are a really good thing, and I would much rather have the expected side-effects of the vaccine than getting the real thing which could potenially lead to all sorts of nasty side effects. Although, I'm pretty sure my body would have been able to handle Covid-19 pretty well too, especially since I've been focusing so much on the Wim Hof method this winter. But at least now I feel safer than I would have without the vaccine, and I'm glad I just went and did it instead of spinning around in doubt forever, and it feels good to be willing to take that risk and contribute to getting this thing under control.

27th session of winter-bathing this season OK, it is fucking ON! 2 min cold shower in the morning, and then in the evening 4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing before going down to the sea to do my bath. I commit to my goal of completing simultanously 10 sessions of winter-bathing along with the 20 day cold shower challenge all within February. Only 5 more winter-baths to go. And only two 2 min cold showers left before I have completed the 20 day cold shower challenge. I will also continue to do the Wim Hof breathing, at least 3 rounds every day, for the rest of this month, as I have been doing since 11th of January. 10 winter baths in December, 12 in January, and now this to really round off what has been a really inspiring study of the Wim Hof method this winter.

4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, and then 2 min in the cold shower. Love this practice. Only 3 days left of this 20 day cold shower challenge. Wonder what I will do next. I’m toying with the idea of squeezing in 10 winter baths in total in February as well. I’ve only had 4 so far. I had 10 winter baths in December, 12 in January, and for February I switched over to this cold shower challenge, but would have been awesome to complete both this 20 day cold shower challenge and 10 winter-baths in February. I started doing the Wim Hof breathing daily from 11th of January, so this whole Wim Hof exerience got pretty substantial this winter, and if I round it off with also getting in some good winter baths her at the end of February, well, that would be something. I will see how my stamina feels in the coming days.

26th session of winter-bathing this season So before I'm going to bed for this day (it is early in the morning now, I'm staying up the whole night to prepare myself for working night-shift) I felt like going down to the beach and do a bath to round off this day. So nice. My mind becomes much more still when doing the cold exposure as a bath compared to doing it in the shower. But it is really nice getting extensive experience with both cold showers and cold baths. They complement each other really well.

5 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, then a session of weight-lifting, and then 2 min in the cold shower. 2 min actually starts to feel pretty substantial.

3rd week of 20 days cold shower challenge completed 4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and then 1 min and 45 sec cold shower. Now 3rd week of this challenge is completed. This is much better than when I did 10 winter baths in December, or 12 winter baths in January. Now I'm cold showering at least 5 days per week, and making it into something almost daily I think are increasing the benefits much more. I'm not going to take a break between the weeks this time, so 4th week just starts tomorrow and then it will be 2 min of cold showers. That should be no problem at all.

8 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and 1 min and 45 sec cold shower before I went to work, and when I came home I did both weight-lifting and yoga, and then I did another cold shower for 1 min and 45 sec. This totally rocks! My mind is just so much clearer. I think so much clearer about everything in my life.

4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, and then 1 min and 45 sec in the cold shower. Some resistance towards the cold shower today because I was stretching it quite far yesterday, but after 4 rounds of the breathing I was getting my strength and motivation back. Yesterday I first started the day with 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, and then I went into the forest with 3 buddies to ice bath together and burn a bon-fire. On the way in we started talking about creating a mens group, and how going into the forest like this was the perfect kind of setting. As we came to the place we wanted to make into our camp it was so cool how we organized. Two of us made up the fire and gathered more new wood for it, and two took axe and showels to remove the snow from the ice and start to make a hole. After the bath and when the fire was burning steadily we had a sharing around the fire talking about stuff you would talk about in a mens group. I was so inspired by being in the forest in front of a fire, so when the others had to leave I stayed on for quite some time. And then when I came home I didn't feel that I had had enough, so I went down to the beach to do one more ice bath for the day, and holy schmokes what a kick I got out of that. I haven't quite gotten used to ice bathing together with other people yet. It has been like this ritual I'm doing by myself where I get into this really meditative state. When there are others around there is so much more stuff going on around the whole situation that my focus gets more scattered, but sharing it with others also gives a lot of inspiration, so I can probably soon adjust to getting into my meditative state also when doing it together with others.

4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, then 10 min of meditation, then 1 min and 45 sec cold shower, and then 20 min meditation. It is getting easier to integrate my vipassana-meditation into this routine, and that felt like a huge added bonus. This is like my normal vipassana-meditation but with some really cool added tools to it. It is also really nice to ride out the inspiration of starting something new that kicks up a lot of energy, and cold exposuere therapy certainly in itself kicks up a lot of energy, but to ride it out and integrate it back into my regular practice, so that I haven't really left my old practice and started on a new path, but I have just added on more cool stuff to the practice I was already doing.

4 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, and then 1,5 min cold shower. Tomorrow starts the 3rd week of this challenge with 1 min and 45 sec cold showers. That should be no problem at all. I’m just going to power right through the last 10 days without any pause. This challenge is a bit unclear, because it is divided up into weeks where you do at least 5 days of cold showers per week, but it is called «the 20 day cold shower challenge,» but it lasts for 28 days when you include those 8 days when you can have a pause from the cold showers if you want to. Well, for the last half of this challenge I’m just going to see it as 10 consecutive days, where as the 5 first days will be 1 min and 45 secs of cold shower and the next 5 days will be 2 mins. It seemed nice with two pause days per week when I started this challenge, but I don’t need it anymore and I crave the cold water on those days when I decide to stay away from the cold and end up doing the cold anyways. I don’t feel exhausted from the cold anymore either. At some points before I sometimes started to find it wearisome, but not anymore. It is just a really nice routine now that I’m well-adjusted in regards to. Today in the cold shower I also focused much more on my breathing. Like breathing very deep and slowly. That was very interesting. I’m going to continue with that focus.

Wow. Such a beautiful practice today. First 10 sun salutations, then 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, then I was doing three different yoga-poses and spending 5 min in each of them, also doing one round of Wim Hof breathing in the last of them (the childs pose), then I did 1,5 min cold shower and then I meditated for 10 min in full lotus. It all just so naturally seem to flow together these days. The breathing exercises has certainly been a very clear bridge between my yoga and meditation practice, and the cold showers, damn, they just give so much energy and inspiration to the whole thing.

Second week of 20 day cold shower challenge completed Love this structure. At least 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing every day, and then at least 5 days of cold showers per week. Glad that the honeymoon phase is over, too. I don’t walk around thinking so much about Wim Hof outside of my practice-time, but this practice has become an integrated practice that I’m just looking forward to every day.

Today I did 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, 10 min meditation, then 1,5 min cold shower, and then 20 min meditation. No warm shower today either. Those 20 min of meditation after the cold shower felt so awesome. Even though it has felt like the "honeymoon phase" with Wim Hof is over, it is nice that I can always step it up a bit more, like getting rid of warm showers altogether, and then the whole thing will continue to feel very powerful. And even though I'm saying stepping it up a bit more it feels like I'm taking this pretty slowly, but that is because I so easily become high on stuff like this and start to do it too much so I'm aiming for consistency and stability. But I did a second cold shower yesterday, and this evening I'm going to ice bathe in the sea with two friends, so I guess I'm pretty into it. Glad the mania around it has calmed down, though.

3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, and then I did 10 min of meditation before I went into the cold shower. 1:30 min in the cold shower today. Today I tried to cold shower without doing a warm shower at all. It was pretty awesome. My skin has been drying out because I take way too warm showers as a preparation for the cold shower so I needed to change something. It felt so awesome just skipping that whole warm shower thing, and actually when I came out of the shower I felt warm, especially when I was using the towel on all part of my body with lots of energy. This was much smoother than doing a warm shower first. It takes much less time, and the feeling of freshness is even greater. After that I meditated for 30 min in full lotus. I've been working on the full lotus again lately. It is something about how utterly composed and collected the body feels in full lotus that is really appealing to me, so I will continue to work on it. Seems like my knees can handle it now. I always used to get trouble with my knees when I worked on the full lotus before. I had a mild depression going yesterday, which I woke up with today as well, but during my breathing exercises I was getting into a state of surrendering into it, which was really nice, and after the cold shower it was totally shaken off. So interesting how I always start to fight it and forget about surrendering, but I guess it is a natural process that needs to run its course so I can't just skip fighting and jump directly into surrendering until my body and mind is ready for that.

Started this day with 10 sun salutations, then 10 min of meditation, then I did 6 rounds of Wim Hof breathing, then 30 min of meditation, 10 more sun salutations, and then I finished with 10 more min of meditation. Feels like the Wim Hof breathing is the foundation for my practice now, and then everything revolves around that. The breathing exercises feels like a very nice bridge between physical exercises and meditation.

Haha, yes, very difficult not to preach :-P So awesome that you have been doing cold showers for 2 years!

First week of 20 days cold shower challenge done. Did 5 rounds of Wim Hof breathing today, and then 15 min of meditation. Feels like the honeymoon phase with this method is starting to fade, so I'm glad I have this structure established now to help me deal with the resistance I now encounter. Encountered a lot of resistance today as I woke up, but now that I'm finished with my practice I feel great.