Thittato

45 min meditation today. My girlfriend has been here for 2 weeks now and it is really nice, but I find it hard to keep my meditation and guitar-practice going while she is here. Fortunately she is interested in ice-bathing, so we have done some ice-bathing, sauna and cold-baths together, both outdoors and in the local spa, and that is sort of my meditation practice these days. This weekend I'm working night-shift the whole weekend, so she decided to do some tourist-explorations on her own, and went to the capital of my country for the weekend. And oh my gosh, it was so nice with some alone-time now, and some time to meditate. But I'm also really proud of her that she is this independent. She is also into music, so we does some playing together, and that is really nice, but all this doesn't really compensate for how my meditation and guitar-practice suffers when I'm with her. It is totally my own responsibility, but it is just really hard to choose discipline when she is so fun to be around. But I'm trusting that this will balance itself out over time, and relationship-practice, and being aware of the potential triggers that are arrising in our interactions, is a really good practice for me right now I think, and fortunately it seems like we are both two pretty stable persons, so the tensions in our relationship doesn't lead to too much drama, like it used to be with my ex-girlfriend when we were both unstable. Anyways, my girlfriend will return home to Brazil friday in one week, and my job-schedule made it possible for me to join her in travelling to Brazil for 12 days, so that will be super-nice. We are even on the same airplane.

45 min meditation today. Very nice <3

Ok, my two first shifts completed in my job, and now I'm having 5 days off. My girlfriend is arriving on Sunday evening, so it will be nice to have some days off while I'm welcoming her and preparing my appartment for her stay. Also I'm happy with the way I've been sticking with my guitar-routine after I came home. Things are growing. I like the winter back home, so that is not a problem to acclimate to. Actually Brazil started to feel a bit too hot for my taste. So it is really nice to cool down here with winter. My girlfriend bought her ticket when she said she was going to, she just didn't send me any confirmation, so I'm glad I was able to just relax into the uncertainty I was feeling about us making this transition without creating any situation with her. In general it is really awesome to be back home - especially now that she is also coming. It is really good to be back to my life. So there will be a lot of processing to do to land this whole journey, but as long as I do all the things I need to ground myself back into my home-town life, I think things will be fine.

Back home after a 3-month ashram stay in Brazil Started the day with 45 min of meditation. I arrived yesterday, and immediately signed up for a month a the local spa-bath where they have sauanas and cold-baths again. I'm in northern europe so it is winter here and I'm going to get back into the routine of winter-bathing as soon as I have acclimatized. I also met a woman early in my stay in Brazil, and she became my girlfriend, and supposedly she is going to come to visit me already this weekend, but I'm sensing she is having some doubts because she doesn't confirm yet that she has bought the ticked she has said many times that she is buying. I think the relationship could potentially easily break down now that we are no longer in the same place, but I'm going to do my best to keep her as I'm navigating this transition, and if we could make it so that she comes for 3 weeks as planned that would be really awesome, but if not, I'm going to do my best to navigate this transition with as much wisdom as I can. Unfortunately I'm going back to my job already this evening, but I have my routines for plugging back into life here in my hometown. Already I have: - Been back to cold-exposure in the spa-bath. - 45 min of meditation. - Re-established my guitar-studies.

I'm in Brazil as part of a pilgrimage to drink Ayahuasca. I live in an ashram for 3-months, having a break from my life in Europe, and here we have regular ayahuasca ceremonies as part of the schedule together with other activities like yoga and meditation. So in this ashram I've met a woman I have very strong chemistry with, and we have been dating for a month now. However, for some strange reason she is very sceptical about ayahuasca, even though she visited this ayahuasca center (she came here for massage therapy). So her sceptisism has been turning into a problem for us. She can be pretty unreasonable too, questioning whether I'm addicted to this stuff and so on. I really like her, and there is very strong chemistry between us, but this issue is almost turning into a deal-breaker. We are going to spend our 3rd weekend together in a row this weekend, staying in her appartment from friday to monday, and we have a lot of fun stuff planned. I know this is probably going to become an issue again at certain phases of our interaction that will probably almost feel like breaking-points of our relationship. I'm wondering for this time if I can rather try to navigate our conversations and activites around other things rather than accepting intellectual explorations around the phenomena of ayahuasca. I'm a reasonable and responsible guy, so I give good explanations for everything she is asking about, but her sceptisism and negative attitude remains no matter how good explanations I give. Any tips on what to do? It is pretty sad that what would otherwise almost have been a perfect relationship, or the start of a really good relationship, can be sabotaged by such a silly disagreement like this. If she had not been such an awesome person in so many other ways it would have been impossible to tolerate her ignorance on this topic, but it is hard to let her go just because of this when I like her so much.

1,5 hour meditation this morning. Very nice. I just arrived at an ashram where I'm going to spend some time, and it is very peaceful here, so it was super-nice to land with this morning-meditation.

45 min meditation today as well. I think maybe I'm starting to burn through that layer of "resistance and emotional pain" that has been present lately. At least there is more a feeling of empowerment regarding it, and less victimhood, which is very nice.

45 min meditation today as well. Resistance and emotional pain.

45 min meditation today. Very nice flow. When I was getting ChatGPT to summerize my understanding of meditation, he didn't quite get something crucial about this point: 8. From Challenge to Empowerment: - When facing resistance or victimhood, delve into the experience, recognizing its impermanent nature, transforming challenges into sources of empowerment. What my experience is is that when I go really deep into something challenging happening in my experience that challenging experience, the energy of it, gets transformed into nutrition for mye spiritual development. It is extremly interesting. What I resist the most is actually food for my well-being. So there is frequently an emotional sense of vicimhood in my being, sort of like "Why is this happening to me?" But when the resistance drops and I go fully into it with my meditation technique, I start to groove on those sensations.

Yesterday: 45 min meditation. Very good flow. Today: 45 min meditation. Resistance and distraction.

45 min meditation today as well. I was discussing my Vipassana Meditation Methodology with ChatGPT before I sat down today, and made him summerize how I meditate: 1. Acknowledgment and Resistance: - Identify challenging emotions, resistance, or victim roles within yourself. 2. Shift from Resistance to Acceptance: - Release resistance and embrace the experience without judgment or avoidance. 3. Objectification through Vipassana: - Utilize Vipassana meditation to objectify and explore the layers of your mind. 4. Recognize Perceived Solidity: - Understand the perceived solidity of experiences, such as pain or challenging emotions. 5. Tune into Impermanence: - Cultivate an awareness of impermanence through Vipassana, seeing the dynamic, flowing nature of sensations. 6. Integration with Chi Energy: - Notice the intertwining of impermanence and chi energy, viewing them as different facets of the same unfolding process. 7. Peeling Layers Like an Onion: - Continuously peel layers of the mind, revealing deeper aspects for exploration and understanding. 8. From Challenge to Empowerment: - When facing resistance or victimhood, delve into the experience, recognizing its impermanent nature, transforming challenges into sources of empowerment. 9. Apply Insights to Daily Life: - Extend the insights gained through meditation into your daily life, influencing how you perceive and respond to both inner and external experiences. 10. Consistent Daily Practice: - Maintain a consistent daily meditation practice to stay attuned to the ongoing process of self-discovery and transformation.

Yesterday: 45 min meditation Today: 45 min meditation

45 min meditation today as well. Super-nice :-)

45 min meditation today as well. So nice :-)

45 min meditation today. Same momentum as yesterday. Very nice.

1 hour meditation this morning. Really amazing sit. Chill, presence, ease, well-being, simplicity.

45 min meditation this morning as well. This meditation was super-awesome. Among the best of them. Super-concentrated, and with a natural momemtum that was there as soon as I sat down. And then I went to work and the flow in doing my job was really nice today. After that I spent 4 hours at the local spa-bath. Cold baths, warm baths, saunas, etc. So nice.

45 min meditation this morning. Very nice session. Been going through some emotional processing lately, and it is very obvious how much meditation supports this processing.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice :-)

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice. I've been integrating praying into my spiritual practice. It is very nice. Feels like I'm more and more turning into some kind of multi-religious/spiritual person drawing upon inspiration from all religious and spiritual traditions.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice. My spiritual practice feels very focused these days.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice :-)

45 min meditation today. Sooo sweeeet. Then a long period in the spa with saunas and cold baths where I also did 10 sun salutations.

Yesterday: 3 hours in the spa - saunas, warm baths, cold baths, etc. I was sitting or lying and meditating for the most part. Today: 45 min sitting meditation.

This weekend: Meditation retreat with bhajans Monday: 10 sun salutations Today: 1 hour meditation