Thittato

Thank you! Always nice when someone can relate ?

Seems to be working out well building up a habit of sketching naturalistic style every day. I’m building it up slowly by starting with simple objects, and then I’m going to advance gradually. These are 3 portraits I did in 2013 right after art school. They are sort of the peek of what I could do naturalistic style, and I’m pretty far from this today, but I think it will be quick to warm up to this again with daily practice. Not saying these are the best either. I had to really force myself to do them because of all the traumatic restlessness I was in those days, but I think now it will be easier to settle down into this habit, and that I will experience much more of a gentle flow. In fact drawing today was much more of a gentle flow. It only takes some will-power to sit down and do it, but once I have started it is usually pretty soothing, especially when my expectations doesn’t kill me as they used to do before. A very interesting thing with drawing naturalistic style, and this is how it relates to meditation, and that is that I get out of my head and into my senses when I do it. Actually it is that same kind of resistance as before meditation before doing it, but as with meditation, when the resistance to just do it has been overcome I’m usually just very glad I finally sat down and did it.

This journal has developed from being focused on healing myself to being focused on finding my purpose. I believe creating art should have / would have been my purpose if I hadn’t been so traumatized and needed so much healing for so long to get myself together. Now I have an up-coming exhibition, I have an art-studio, and I’m sharing that studio with a really inspiring friend which I’m also having this exhibition together with, so there will now be plenty of time to figure out if this is really my craft, or if it will be possible to make this into my craft. Feels like this is really what I should have been focusing on getting together all these years, but I guess that if I just focus on getting it together now I will find a way somehow. There is probably many different directions that this could take. One of the most important things I will work on improving is my drawing skills. I’ve made a style out of improvised drawing where I put much more attention onto the composition and the wholeness of the drawing itself, but not so much on classical drawing skills. My style is pretty naivistic, but I do put a lot of work into it still and my drawings are really rich with details. Still I want my skills to improve, so I will start to sketch daily trying to improve my ability to draw naturalistic as well. The style I already have can probably continue to develop along with more dedicated efforts to improve my naturalistic abilities. In fact if I got really good at drawing naturalistically I think my self-esteem as an artist would improve dramatically, and I think it would give me a lot more freedom to improve my style. Fortunately I already did one year of art-school where we improved our naturalistic abilities with drawing nudes and portraits almost every day, so I had a breakthrough with this during that year, and now I just need to bring it back up again and make it into a routine. It will probably be a lot easier to develop good work habits now that I’m much less traumatized. I’ve always been so restless before when working on my drawings, even though I’ve returned to it again and again, but with sooooo much frustrations, but I believe this time I can overcome these frustrations and instead develop good work habits. Basically I already have a well-developed style as I have been drawing my whole life. Now I just need to make the whole thing professional. Adding one of my latest sketches to put a visual symbol to this whole post. This is what drawing has always been to me. I go through some internal process, and to get like something external that I can relate it to, or to sort of objectify something internal I make an external symbol out of it, to get some distance, but also to take something that felt like something chaotic inside and to organize it into something as an act of devotion to existence. It is a form of prayer. I should develop a really clear understanding about what this process is about. Why I do it, and why it continue to happen again and again, and what kind of meaning I put into it.

Not much writing here lately, but lots of good things have been happening. I have been getting a studio together with a really nice friend who is drawing in the same category as myself, she is just starting up herself, but she has the guts to get herself frequent exhibitions at local café’s, festivals, and help various musicians with their art-work, etc, and I’ve gotten a lot of good advice from many different people regarding my creative frustrations. Basically everybody is just advicing me to «push on through» to try to see what lies on the other side of this frustration. I know a lot of people who have creative ambitions but who doesn’t do what they really want to do because of this frustration. And I also know a lot of people who have gotten succesful - who regularly have exhibitions, concerts, have gotten their poems published, etc. It just seems like the difference is that those who are successful just doesn’t give up and they find a way to deal with these types of frustrations. The other category usually gets stuck in too much drinking and/or drugs, lack of self-esteem and unhealthy relationships that drain all their energy. So it is not really a choice. Or the choice is: Figure out what one wants and go for it, or become miserable. I can also see a clear difference when I look at my own drawings now. The question I have in my mind is much more: «How can I make this look really cool?» instead of getting stuck in self-loathing, and when self-loathing happens it is easier to identify it, and find a way to calm down and continue. I guess it is much easier when one is commited to the process. Even if one day feels unsuccessful one knows that one will continue the next day and that that day will be different.

20 min yoga at home guided by a youtube-video this morning. I had a big release yesterday regarding that art-frustration that I mentioned, so when I woke up I had a lot of power to put into this short yoga-session. Feels really awesome when there is this extra gear that makes me put a lot more power and depth into all the poses. I was sitting up late drawing last night and I was very frustrated, but then I found a really cool track to listen to while I started applying charcoal to one of my drawings, and suddenly everything started to feel much more organic and flowing and powerful. My art-making process has so far been very hit or miss, because I get very manic when I think I make something cool, but then this frustration hits and I just think that it is all a bunch of crap so I just try to escape, but I can’t because I’m always doodling on whatever I can find but it doesn’t really go anywhere because the whole process is so bipolar, but now I think I can find a way to push through this frustration and make the whole process much more consistent, and then I think I will start to feel the momentum increase and I would imagine that would bring in more a sense of mastery. In the larger picture everything is going to be a lot of experimentation, so there is going to be both a lot of really cool pieces, but of course also a lot of crap and failed experiments, so that is just to be expected, but by not judging myself too harshly based on anyone single piece, it will be a lot easier to just allow this experimentation to expand to its full potential. Also on any one piece there is usually a point where I feel that it is going down-hill because I took too big a chance of some kind, but then the dramatic rescue-operation sets in, and usually I can bring it back to balance again. Without taking these risks it probably won’t get much of any authentic feel, so probably by gaining even more self-esteem on my ability to activate the right rescue-operation, I can probably gain a lot more freedom in all my artistic attempts. Now I’m going to the bath-house to cool myself down in the cold-baths as I am a little bit too manic again :-)

90 min heated Jivamukti yoga class yesterday. Today I was just frustrated, so I went to the bath-house and did some cold-baths and sauna. It helped a little bit. I’m drawing a lot these days, and I get periodically extremly frustrated in my attempts to make art, but there is no way around it, as they say in gestalttherapy «the only way to get over is through.» I think I’ve given up too early before. Which is to say, I’ve never given up, because it is impossible to get rid of this activity, but I try to distract myself with something else when I hit this frustration again and again, so I better just be prepared to work with this whatever it is.

45 min meditation today. Didn’t quite get myself «into gear,» probably because I was a bit too tired to settle down into a steady focus, but at the end of the meditation it was getting more comfortable. Was halfway grooving on a lot of awesomeness, and halfway feeling resistance since I wasn’t getting the momentum going.

No meditation today. Woke up and had gotten a cold and have just been sleeping a lot, but I have been doing a lot of organizing in my home. Regarding this exhibition that I’m going to have in November I have been pulling down all my drawings from that pile that they were stuffed together in on top of one ld my closets. There were also a lot of clothes on top of that closet that now I have found a better home for, and wow my home feels so much better after that pile of stuff has been organized. I’m no longer going to have a pile of anything on top of that closet - it just really clogs up my whole sense of spaciousness in this appartment. Having my various drawings lying around and having at various places on my wall in an organized way just totally added to a good sense of orderliness even though my appartment is very full, but it feels like a very good active work-process where something that was before just a dark corner of chaos and guilty conscience is now put into a healthy flowing system. As part of this exhibition I’m going to read Alex Grey’s book The Mission of Art again, so that I get both the philosophical frames around this along with the social and physical structures. I’m going to make my cute little artistic activity into a complete process. If I can have this whole process as something that I have a good overview over and with all the right support-structures, then I think I can kind of just surrender into that structure and just be currious about where it will naturally lead me. I was talking a lot last night with an established artist here in town about just trusting the process. Well, she shared me a lot of her insights on that matter - that one doesn’t see the full picture to begin with but it is something about just trusting where the process goes and some kind of mystical intelligence will sort of work on seeking some kind of release to a problem or artistic challenge that one is intuitively seeking to figure out. Made me really think that I don’t really have much choice in this - there is just some kind of expression that wants to be expressed through me - seemingly through the medium of drawing right now. All I can do is just to facilitate a good space for this process to come through, and if I don’t, if I try to fight it, then I will feel miserable and clogged up and stuck. Just be getting into this focus I seem to attract more and more people that can help me with this process by sharing their insights on it and lots of very interesting conversations. It seems very right right now that I wasn’t going to become a therapist and therefore it was wrong to study something that was not alligned with my purpose any longer, but that it was good to complete those first two years of that education in order to deal with my own traumas. Gosh, I was so frustrated before I got this exhibition, but now the right set-up seems to have been established in order to get this process flowing. I think one needs to be a total geek on all parts of this process to really get it to flow - to seek maximal expansion to all parts of the process, and to allow oneself to really clear out all limiting beliefs. My expression is pretty abstract, but I also have a lot of experience with figure-drawing, and right now I want to be skilled at all kinds of expressions, both abstract and more figurative stuff, in order not to close myself down into something that is limiting, so I will take up naturalistic drawing again as part of this process.

20 min vinyasa flow guided from youtube today. I did it together with a really hot female friend, and afterwards we cuddled on my sofa for 2 hours while we listened to chill mantra music. Was really soothing for my broken heart. Also yesterday I drank some beers with another really cool female friend, while we were drawing together. We had such a good time together that she invited me to exhibit together with her at a local art festival here in town that is going to be in November. I felt really up for it, and it feels like exactly what I need. Feels like all this frustrated creative energy has now found a destination to channel itself toward. So excited. I even was at a meeting at my job this evening and my boss was so happy with me giving me a lot of positive feedback. My contract is only 30 %, and then I work extra by being on-call when someone gets sick or there is an extra need, so usually it amounts to 100 %, and I prefer it that way because I like the freedom - it is like being a freelance social worker. My education is social worker, and he can only give permanent 100 % contract to nurses, but today he wanted to give me another 50 % daytime contract for half a year. The 30 % that I already have is permanent. Pretty awesome. So it feels like it is all coming together - both my yoga, my art, my job, and my relationship with women is improving. Now I just need to continue to practice yoga so that I don’t get carried away but so that I can maintain a good foundation for stability in my growth-process. Also, best of all, my mom invited me out for dinner today and she has also gotten a yoga-kick very suddenly!! I’ve tried to recommend it to her, but she didn’t really latch on, but now her eyes has very suddenly opened up to Restorative Yoga, she is going to one of my teachers, and I think this will be really good for her health, so it makes me very happy that now she has found such a good way to take care of herself.

75 min Iyengar yoga class this morning. Really awesome. I feel very vulnerable around this art-thing so it was very nice to feel the power and support that comes from yoga. It as like I haven’t allowed myself to dream big for myself. As if I was going to sit around as a little boy with my cute little hobbies for the rest of my life. I think I will have to make drawing into my second job for a long time. Or actually it is my number one job. The social worker job is the one that pays my bills, but my true passion lies in the art. And I shouldn’t make my yoga/meditation practice into my job. That is my exercise, which of course is very important. I will experiment with this «configuration» for a while, and also do other necessary steps and research to figure out this purpose thing. I think everything will be much easier this way. I have two jobs and one yoga/meditation practice. Simple as that.

More on my drawings Finished with three nights of working night-shift. Was pretty high in my mood when I was finished, so I went home and had a nice drawing-session before going to bed. Then I overslept and didn’t reach my yoga class, and just arrived in time for pub chess, and now I had another drawing-session before going to bed again. I think my art is really where I’m the most stuck in my life. It totally is. I don’t think the end-result really matters, but this frustration has to be dealt with in one way or another. To boil it down to the essence - something that is obstructed needs to be expressed. And so far it seems I just need to put in a lot of consistent work into my drawings to get this expressed. There needs to be a sense of mastery around this process that has so far been lacking. I often think what I do is shit, and other times I think it is pretty awesome, but basically I’m too identified with any one drawing at that particular point making it into a proof, or lack of proof, for my self-worth. This needs to change into a greater understanding for the whole process, and that any one drawing is not what matters, but what matters is nurturing this process until it starts to really bloom. I don’t really think I’m far from seeing this process tip over into something much more rewarding and far less frustrating. If everything so far has been play and experimentation, now is the time to make something more out of it.

Embodiment 35 min sitting meditation today, then I did some handstand exercises and then I did 10 sun salutations. Now I’m at night-shift again, and I feel very open and expansive. Some of the clogged up stuff has been cleared out. I guess the whole conclusion to this meditation VS. yoga dichotomy I’ve been having is that I need both. It is very clear that meditation most of the time gives me much deeper spiritual experiences, but I need the yoga to get them integrated into my body. Embodiment is my favorite word today.

Had the opportunity to meditate for 1 hour and 40 min this night-shift and wow, that was really amazing. Feels like I’m synchronizing up with my experience so that I can actually own my experience instead of feeling victimized by it. There is like this tantric experience that when I go into my suffering for long and deep enough and just really surrenders to it it actually transform into pleasure and joy. I feel on top of my experience. When everything feels wrong, if I just actually open up to that experience deeply enough it will transform into everything feeling right. This is a lesson I’ve experienced many times, but it has never been permanent. Experience clogs up again and again, and I just got to keep on keepin’ on penetrating stuck material so that it dissolves into flow. This seems like a good opportunity to quote one of my favorite poems: Unconditional Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere; Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within; Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the universe; Surrendering into emptiness, I find fullness without end. Each condition I flee from pursues me, Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed Into its radiant jewel-like essence. I bow to the one who has made it so, Who has crafted this Master Game. To play it is purest delight; To honor its form–true devotion. – Jennifer Welwood

20 min vinyasa flow today guided from youtube. Just got to continue with this. I’ve been too much in my head for too long, and even though meditation has given me some great results, the energy it has generated has a lot of times contributed to my mental obsessions, or been hijacked by my mental obsessions, so yoga is really the way for me right now to make all this more integrated into my whole being. As I’ve been writing about before I’m sensing a new type of groundedness is growing.

No meditation today. Been sleeping all day as a preparation for working night-shift. This journal started with me describing these various cycles that I go through, and nothing is new there. It feels so strongly while it lasts, and then when it is gone and something else takes over it doesn’t feel so important. Pretty strange, but there is less conflict about it I think. From a meditative point of view I just got to continue to ride out these cycles, identifying how the tension feels in my body. I think a lot of yogis has struggled with this. One of my meditation teachers used to be a professional musician, and then it just faded and now he is teaching meditation full-time and doesn’t seem to be struggling at all with some kind of unfulfilled creative urge. Another one of my teachers gave up his life in the theatre and retreated permanently into ashram-life. Others seems to combine meditation and an artistic life pretty well. Not really sure what my life is going to look like. The thing with art seems so extremly important when I get one of these «attacks» but then it cools down and I’m fine just surrendering to my life just as it is right now. Probably the most important thing is just to feel it out, and then I trust the answer will come by itself.

Resilience Woke up this morning, and just felt that my art is like utter shit, haha. Then after some agony and shit I sat down and started drawing and it was really nice. I’m just waaaaay to depended on my mood when it comes to this, and I just think waaaay too much about it. I think the whole thing would be settled if I just did it more and thought less about it. I hope to gain more resilience. Actually I think that is what yoga has given me more of. Both in this reluctant totally unsuccessful romantic encounter haha. It is usually waaaaay worse emotionally. And I’m more resilient in my job. I can handle some pretty crazy shit pretty well. So I just need to become more resilient in my art as well. That is my intention for today. No yoga today btw. I’m having a break.

Lack of purpose / finding my purpose I think the root-problem in my life is lack of purpose. I can’t just keep meditating, doing yoga, and journaling on these frustrations and then they will suddenly go away at some point. I think I’ve made yoga and meditation to an end in themselves when for me they were supposed to be means. Unfortunately, and this fucking sucks, but it always comes back to visual art. I’m always drawing, but it is at a low-boil. I’ve never given it my 100% because I’ve never believed in myself, but it always comes back to this, so I reluctantly think this is my purpose. Somehow I just wish I could get away, but I can’t. First and foremost it is not really about making it into a living, but what it is about is bringing it to the next level. To make it flow and flourish. I think when I’ve been having this yoga kick, or Chess-kick, or any other kick, that I’m trying to escape my true nature and make same kind of false identity around something else. Yoga is good, but at very maximum, and this is probably too much for me, I only need to spend an hour a day doing it. I don’t think teaching yoga speaks to me. It is more something I’m doing for myself. So the uncomfortable truth is that I’m a very unfulfilled artist that feels like a failure, and I’m just trying to escape this fact. The good news is I think getting my art to flourish is not far away. I’m pretty much drawing every day, and I have always been, so I just need to bring a little bit more power and focus and confidence into this. The good news is also - I have most likely already identified my purpose, so I just need to go for it. The good news is also that it always comes back no matter how unstable I feel in my direction in life. I think the more I give to it the more it will give me back, so that will probably counteract this feeling of floundering that I have. A friend of mine just gave me this concept that passion comes from mastery, and not the other way around as we usually think. So by getting more into a sense of mastery I will probably get my fire going again. There is not really anything to loose here. Worst case is that art only continues to be a hobby for the rest of my life, but even if that is so I still strongly desire to see the fire that I put into it multiplied with thousands. If it was only meant as a hobby for me I’m going to make into a fucking awesome hobby. I think I’m at a tipping point here. I could really soon see the energy I put into it generating new and fresh inspiration instead of frustrations. Just today a really cool and social person who was part of arranging that yoga-festival that I was at sought me out because he had heard about my drawings and wanted me to create something for him that he could get as a tattoo. That is pretty fucking awesome. Somebody wants my art on his skin for life. That’s like the best compliment someone could ever give me. And the best thing is this time I didn’t procrastinate either. I sat down tonight and made a sketch for him. I could here that stupid old voice going on inside me «oh gosh, why can’t he find someone else to bug with this?» but I overpowered it and instead it was really fun to challenge myself and create something for a medium that I’m not used to. So yeah, when I get the groove going with this I think I will get the fire back in my eyes. And this time it is going to be a fire that keeps burning for a long long time.

Last day of my one month pass at these three yoga studios. Of course I’m going to buy a pass for one more month, but it is kind of symbolic, so I decided to celebrate with taking two classes just right after each other with the same teacher. First 90 min Iyengar yoga, and then 60 min Restorative yoga. But what was even more symbolic was - holy shit - the woman I just had a crush on was also there!!! I felt rejected like hell and almost didn’t want to look at her, but she came over and gave me a hug as if nothing had happened. So we sat down and chatted a bit after class. I thought she had left by now, she is moving to another city, so I totally didn’t expect to meet her in a random class, but apparently she is back home for two more weeks. I think I could pick up from her energy that she is no longer single, where as last time we hung out she had that single availability to her. I’m still very attracted to her, but that spellbound crush kind of thing that takes away all my power seems gone. Anyways, now it feels so, but not during class. That was hell, but fortunately I managed to stay cool. I guess I can only conclude with that I wasn’t ready when she was, and that she found someone else that was. Although it is tempting to give it one last try now that I don’t feel spellbound and can act like my normal self again. She seems like the type of woman who is always involved with someone but it doesn’t seem to become all that serious. The happy go lucky kind of woman always flirting with someone. I guess I’ll just have to see what I feel inclined to do. Maybe she could sense my sort of apologetic way of asking her out, and maybe if my energy is more non-chalant it gives of a very different vibe. Or maybe not. At the very least this one month of yoga-studio time really gave me a good opportunity to really knead this spellbound stuff out of my body, and now I feel that my power is back at the same time that I’m very attracted to her. Maybe something more happens with her, or maybe not, but I hope this lesson will be possible to transfer on to my next love interest because I usually get totally spellbound - like struck by ligthening - when I get a crush on someone, and at the same time I’m so damn reluctant to become interested in someone before I get this crush - so it is very much an all or nothing kind of thing that doesn’t help me very much in dating. Anyways, it was an interesting experience this whole month. Maybe my emotional body is getting stronger and more robust because I think in overall I feel like my reaction to this whole crush-thing is becoming a little bit more normal, and a little bit less like the type of intense emotional panic that happens for someone that used to be as traumatized as I was. Like some kind of crazy postttraumatic stress reaction kicks in just because I happen to like someone. It always used to be like that, but maybe I’m gradually riding it out with of course some re-lapses on the way. Just got to be patient with myself, and everyone else! Namaste!

75 min Restorative Yoga today. Feels like I’m starting to get used to this romantic potential not being a potential anymore. I went to beach yoga with her a couple of times this summer. She was inviting me, and seemed to chase me. I was resisting getting into anything with her (for some stupid reason I don’t know why) but suddenly I had a crush on her despite resisting, and then I just knew that the power balance between us had shifted and that she would no longer be currious about my anymore. Probably also because I didn’t act when there was an opening for it. Anyways I’m pretty sure this is why I got that one month pass for these three yoga studios and also why I went to that yogafestival. I just knew intuitively that I still have this reactive shit in my body still, and that I have to work it out my body through yoga. I fall so madly and quickly in love when it first happens, and at the same time I resist it so badly as well, so it is really hard to develop natural chemistry with anyone because of this ON / OFF pattern. But anyways, it seemed to go easier on me this time than before, so I think it was just a good opportunity to trigger out some of the last grief and not feeling good enough around this stuff out of my body. I feel much lighter already. Now I can go back and enjoy my yoga practice again, relax, and wait for whatever romantic opportunity presents itself next time.

45 min sitting meditation today. This has been one of those days where everything has felt wrong. Meditation offered a little bit of relief, but not much. Probably feeling rejected has triggered this. At the very least I’m glad there is little need to elaborate. Before I would have been going on and on endlessly, but now I can simply conclude it has been one «one of those days.»

Today my meditation was done singing mantras together with a group of 30-40 people for 1,5 hour. Was feeling a lot of resistance at first, but felt like my attitude towards resistance has gotten more grown up, so I quickly just surrendered into it (even though it continued for quite a while). Much better to just be with the resistance instead of freaking out.

20 min vinyasa flow guided from youtube today as well. I’m a little heartbroken because I got rejected by my crush. I think she was chasing me for quite a while, but I didn’t catch on before it was too late. So she ghosted me when I was actually starting to get interested, whereas up until this point she was the one initiating contact. I haven’t had much contact with women lately because I’ve been going through so much stuff, but now I think my positive and out-going vibe is starting to come back since I’m finished with this very demanding therapeutic process, and all this yoga is really boosting my sense of flow, so probably it is just good to get rejected just to get used to that again so that I don’t take it so personally. Anyways, I’m going to the bath-house to try to sweat it out in the sauna and to increase my sense of masculinity in the cold-baths. It is funny - I meet a lot of people who are inspired by Wim Hoff when I’m there.

20 min vinyasa flow guided from youtube today as well. Just a lot of gratitude today. And I love the discipline of this. Discipline is what I need more of in my life. Especially since I have so many interests that keeps pulling me in all kinds of directions.

20 min vinyasa flow guided from youtube. It felt more like a flow today than before, and I’m also much more connected with my breath through-out the practice.

90 min Iyengar yoga class today. What I noticed today is that I don’t feel awkward in class anymore. Besides that I started skateboarding on longboard yesterday, so it was pretty cool to cruise to the yoga-class, and then afterwards I cruised over to a pub to play Chess with a friend, and then back home. Never done skateboarding before, but I do snowboard, so longboarding seems like a really awesome way to transport myself around here in town. For one thing it is more fun and quicker than walking, and when winter and snowboarding season comes I think it will be pretty cool to see what doing some kind of board also in summertime will do to my snowboarding. Been really starting to feel lately that wow, 3,5 year in intensive therapy is actually over and that it probably gave me the desired effect. For one thing it seems like I start to attract much more healthier friends than all those stoners I grew up with and that I had a lot of unhealthy co-dependence shit going on with. Basically I just have a huge kick on lots of activities and I’m starting to notice that straight people are not as boring anymore as I used to think they were. I’m even connecting much better with all the mainstream people at my job. So yeah, I will definitivly buy another one month pass at this yoga-studio when this one is done, because it is simply just awesome. I think this is exactly what will change me from someone who has for a very long time felt «half baked» on the spiritual path into someone who is actually cooked all the way through.