Rainy Sparkle

I'm afraid of responsibility, commitment and failure. They are all connected. The bigger the risk of failure the more I avoid responsibilities and commitment. Committing itself is a risk. Why I don't believe in myself? I feel like I've got nothing to give, I'm useless. Someone else is anyway always better at this. It's better that someone with more skill does it. Urghh. I'm feeling anxious. I'm going up and down so fast. Everything is pointless and nothing will ever change vs I'll reach the sky & beyond. But if I don't give up now, I'll exceed myself. I'll make a crack to some limiting beliefs. Maybe even break it for good, who knows. I don't need to think about weeks, months, years right now. Day by day, moment by moment. What can I do today, what can I do now to move forward? *** Total time meditated this year: 27h57min Books read/listened this year: 6

Been figuring out a bit my starting level in exercise. Yayyy, numbers. My current body weight: ~41 kg Resting heart rate: ~70-80 Sit-ups in 30 sec: 6 Push-ups in 30 sec: 0 Squats in 30 sec: 7 Walking/Running: 1,3-1,5 km (a bit less than mile) in 14 minutes, mostly quick walking, one 1-2min running phase. Heart rate during quick walking: ~140-150 Heart rate during running: ~180

Just dumping my thoughts. I saw a lot of dreams last night. I don't remember almost anything about them, but in one dream I was walking on a road that was flooding. That's all. The road, the flood and walking in it. I don't know the reason, nor the emotion. Was I afraid? Or feeling brave? Was it accident or decision? It felt meaningful. Was I trying to save myself or someone else, where I was going and why? I was somehow determined in my movement. Running away or trying to reach? The road and walking on it is not an uncommon element in my dreams. Which is not weird per se, since I actually walk a lot. If I extend it, some kind of path is not uncommon. It can be a tunnel, or some kind of passage inside a building. I'm always going somewhere or trying to get away from somewhere/something. Trying to find something or solve a mystery. What is interesting, is that every time I remember any kind of path as an element in my dream, I find that somehow meaningful. Why? The flood is kinda new element itself. But if I expand that, having some kind of issue combined with the path/walking is not uncommon. But the thing is, I don't remember was the flood issue in my experience. It could have been a good thing. What if it was an path of wisdom and not obstacle? For example. I find water so powerful. Water is inspiring. It wasn't necessarily a threat.

Being on phone while doing something else = (Telling myself that) I don't value the activity in question enough to give it my full attention Doing too many different things simultaneously = (Telling myself that) I don't value/respect/care those activities. I don't want to invest in them, I want them done (fast). Splitting tasks into smaller manageable tasks = Teaching myself that I can complete a task. Giving clarity to what to do instead of freezing. But also a change to slip into multitasking. What are the differences of multitasking and task splitting? How do I recognize them? How to avoid? Why to avoid?

Two observations. There seems to be connection between the reality and my mind. The patterns in interaction in reality and in my mind are similar. Total time meditated this year: 27h35min Books read/listened this year: 6

Thank you for saying this. It means a lot to me.

I did a cheat. I have this notebook I use as a to do-list. I draw squares in groups of fives. I write my tasks and when I've done something I mark X in the square, draw a line over the task and highlight it with a marker. I use different color every day, always in same order. So, I was busy yesterday. Like in a way it's a real reason I wasn't able to be that productive around home. I didn't write anything in the notebook. That doesn't mean I didn't do anything at all, even though I admit that I didn't do much. I just didn't write down any of the things I did. So technically I lost my streak in that. So I wrote down one routine I did yesterday and marked it done. I don't feel like I should be doing it this way. I should have just honestly taken the loss. I don't like cheating to win. It doesn't feel the same. I told myself that there's reasons why it's better to do it. Like "if it's better to your stability and encourages you to keep going, then do it". But now it just feels wrong. I'm trying to learn to be honest to myself and to be my authentic self and even though I honestly think it helps my mentality with productivity and stuff like that, it's a step in wrong direction in other "work-area". What is done is done either way, I can't change it anymore, I just "over think" this, because I see this is an opportunity to learn something important. Anyway, I finally bought a calendar. I try to make it work this time. Probably I need to learn some habits that encourage with that. To-do list -notebook might be one thing that encourages it. *** I need to process this. Not because I wanted to disagree or argue about that statement, prove it wrong or anything. It just provoked strong emotions in me. I'll come back to this later.

One of the biggest might be victim mentality. It's tricky, because I feel like I need to give that part attention, love and empathy to heal, but at the same time I understand that I need to let go of that mentality to grow. Being black & white in certain things, like taking one minor misfortune/hardship as an ultimate evidence that I indeed am a total failure and worthless and don't deserve anything good. Mean self-talk, self-sabotage There are more, but these came to my mind now.

Last night something happened in my mind. I spun into a some kind of negative mindset. I was frozen. And I couldn't see what's wrong or what's going on. Today I woke up, like usually. Started the day as usually. But the feeling came back. I felt uninspired and unmotivated. I made a decision that I thought others wouldn't respect at all. I decided not to push myself. I felt like that was the right decision, but I was still ashamed. They will think this is weakness. I got really quick glimpses into the thoughts of that kind going on in my head, but I wasn't able to get hold of them. I sat down and said to myself that I'm willing to understand what's going on. I'm willing to listen. I'm open to feel inspired again. I got a tiny vision of osu! (rhythm game). It was so fast that I almost didn't even notice it. I didn't know if it's just the slacker trying to trick me or if there was actually something, but I was like oh well, I asked something and said I'm open to it, so let's try. Something interesting happened. I started to get thoughts that are related to the game in question and those thoughts are associated in a way to the emotions I were feeling. I'm not good enough. My progress is not fast enough. I'm so much worse with tablet than with a mouse. Something clicked in me. I closed the game, did some minor things, but I was still feeling way off. Got my headphones, lied down on the floor and started to meditate. I fell in some weird state of consciousness, somewhere between being awake and being asleep. My mind played me strange visions. One of them was a massive advertisement sign (or then I was reaaally tiny) that fell on me by surprise. There was a circus-like booth, that had face and wheels and it ran away me like I was its worst enemy. Then I was in desert-like environment and there were animals, predators and preys. I was one of the preys, but I wasn't afraid of the predators. I got a strong feeling that you need to be another one. But then there was this contradicting feeling that I don't need to be either one. I started to change my form. I was shadow & liquid like taking a more human like form, but it wasn't human either. I opened my eyes. 47 minutes had passed. I felt completely different. I was inspired. I was confident. There's something that I realized during the meditation, but I can't express it well in words. But I'm the creator of my own life. I felt empowered. Tl;dr, the productivity part: I cleaned the rest of the kitchen, cooked and read 1 book from cover to cover. I pushed myself a bit in ends. This was amazing day, in so many levels.

First video: I was annoyed. It felt like personal attack towards me. I don't know how, but it was something in a way things were presented that triggered me. Plus, I felt like I'm being emotionally manipulated. Second video: There was something in a way things were presented that I didn't feel annoying at all. He sounded more convincing, because it wasn't so aggressive. I don't know, what now? How can I take this comparison deeper? I don't feel like I reached awareness on anything.

The hurry is a state of mind. It's a control freak inside my head trying to tell what I MUST do in certain amount of time. The stress was getting our of hand. I was trying to do things in a slight panic, my mind was racing, even my heart was racing. I stopped what I was doing. A voice in my head told me that I remember reading/hearing that if you're in a hurry, meditate. I knew what to do. Meditated 16 minutes, calmed down. Continued with my do-state and tried to slow down my pace. Showered, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, brushed my hair, dressed up, did some minor tidying around the house. I don't need to do anything. I'm allowed to do something. And I did all kind of stuff what "I can't do in so little time". Ha-Ha! I won this round. Me 1 - Accuser of the mind 0. Now I'll get ready to leave the house in 30 minutes, go to the library and do some socializing.

Yesterday I cleaned food cabinet in the kitchen and started reading a new book. Ended up moving the meeting. The rest of the evening was mainly being stuck in doing "nothing in particular". I was tired and unmotivated to focus on anything, but I wasn't tired enough to go to sleep. The more time passed the more tired I was. Was super hungry. Decided to cook some pasta with cream, nutritional yeast and peas before going to sleep. I was finally tired enough. One thing is, I wasn't angry at myself about "idling" the rest of the evening. In all honesty, I was disappointed, but I wasn't angry. These kind of situations are typically those where my mind starts to tell me that I'm a failure, disappointment, should have done this and shouldn't have done that. You could have done better, yet you didn't. What a miserable piece of ****. And I start to feel guilty and anxious and my good flow is gone. I crawl into my negativity pit. I can't do anything. Should have known, shouldn't have even tried. But the thing is, I had done so much during the day. Who cares if I didn't do anything particular in the evening? Who? My negative side of the mind, if I let it take control. I don't. I can see what all kind of things I could have done instead during those hours, but I didn't and that's that. Moving on. I can forgive myself. The other thing is that, yeah, I realize that my pasta wasn't dinner of 5 stars or anything. But I'm still proud of myself. It brings me joy that in that tired and unmotivated state of mind I LITERALLY TOOK A POT, PUT WATER IN IT, COOKED PASTA 10 MINUTES. ADDED MORE STUFF. STIRRED, WAITED MORE. I can't believe myself, I don't know what kind of miracles happened. I mean, what I usually have done in those situations is less than that. I might not eat at all. Or then I do something that is currently easiest to do, which usually means instant noodles with mayonnaise. Which is fine, it's food, it has calories, it's better than nothing. But yeah. The choice of dinner now was improvement. It was hard to fall asleep. I don't know why. I was tired. But I eventually did after some hours and now I'm here again. Stressed. There's limited time frame today. Not going to let it stop me however. I can handle this.

It wasn't raining so went outside for a walk. Almost instantly it started to rain, but decided to keep walking anyway. Walked about 15-20minutes. Did 30min meditation. Thunder was a nice & unexpected spice to that. It felt weird, but not in a bad way. Got a feeling that I want to go standing under a torrential rain, but hesitated a bit too long because of the thunder so I was late from that. Thankful for myself anyway that I really was willing and allowing myself to actualize this kind of impulse that I usually suppress. Did some stretching and laughter yoga. Laughter yoga felt a bit awkward, but I think that's one of the reasons I want to do it again. There's some kind of blocks that stop me from being fully authentic with my expressions, so I think practicing this kind of thing helps with that too. Getting hungry, time for a snack I think.

Woke up around 4:40am. I have eaten a breakfast. It was only a yoghurt and a glass of apple juice, but it was my best take with breakfast today. Now eating lunch. Been washing clothes this morning. Finished the book I was reading. I also cleaned kitchen drawers. Going to take a walk after I've eaten if it's not raining. I have a social meeting later, but there's several hours "free time" before that. Probably I will continue doing household chores, go to shower and meditate. Also thank you @BipolarGrowth for your nice words. : )

I just realized that I'm gatekeeping happiness from myself. I've created an idea, an image, a thought of what it means to be happy. I'm telling myself what I can and can't feel & experience to be happy (in other way, to be a representation of that thought I have created). Therefore it has come impossible to me to tell myself I can be happy now, or whenever. If I have tried saying that, it feels like a disgusting lie. I don't believe it. But if I have another thought and it's about a past where I have never been truly happy, it means that according to that thought, I don't believe I actually even know what it is like. So why on earth I would create any limitations to that? "I don't know what it is, but it is not this and that". I wish not to forget about this insight, it feels important. It feels like a get out of jail free card. Thank you.

Woke up semi early and as my first thing in the morning I hopped into shower. It was nice to do something that feels good. After that I drank my morning coffee and did all other routines I currently have, while continuing my to-do list "project". 8 days streak with that, but I've done stuff couple of days longer. Took a 2 hour nap and woke up again around 10am. I've been walking several times today. Walks were mainly short, one of them was 45 minutes. I've done basic household chores, but I also cleaned my coffee machine and water boiler and that was awful. Especially the coffee machine. It was in disgusting condition, if I'm being honest. Wanted to give up several times, but I didn't. Went to the store, bought a whiteboard. I'm not completely sure yet how I'm going to use that to benefit in my growth, but I'm sure I'll figure that out eventually. Been eating well and several times today. And I mentally allowed myself to do so. Not feeling guilty. Food is good. Reached 2/3 mark in a book I've been reading. Recently took another shower, because I felt disgusting. Sweating so much in this weather. Now I'm ready for some evening routines and then heading to bed and (hopefully) rise again like a Sun tomorrow morning! :-)

Nothing important to write, so I'll just drop update on meditations here. Total time meditated this year: 25h47min

I've struggled with resistance today and I haven't had a smooth flow doing stuff, but anyway, so far I've done some minor household chores and gone through part of my Pokemon Go inventory. Will continue both through the day & I'll go for a walk at some point. Currently planning to walk at least 15 minutes, but if I'm feeling okay, I might walk longer. (I was recently sick so my physical well being might have not fully recovered yet)

I'm still feeling anxious. It's not extremely severe, but that feeling being constantly present makes me feel like I'm suffocating. My mind feels clouded and foggy, thoughts are not flowing. There's too much I need to remember all the time. It creates stress and overload. Easy answer to this is to just use calendar. I've been asked several times why I don't use one. But it's not like I've never tried it. I try it from time to time. It doesn't help anything if I don't end up a) writing everything in the calendar b)remember to look at it. Sometimes it frustrates me how these kind of simple things are so huge obstacles. I mean, it sounds so simple. It sounds so simple that it's hard to even understand how it can be any kind of problem in a first place. But it sure doesn't feel that simple and easy. I feel like I'm a jar full of marbles. There's no space for new marbles, but they keep coming. And every time, something drops and rolls somewhere out of the jar, out of reach. My mind is stuck in a traffic jam.

I've been feeling anxious and miserable since yesterday evening. Some of my self-judgmental emotions & thoughts got to the surface with memories of some situations where I've felt the same way. I felt like I'm terrible person who can't take into account others. I felt awful and guilty of not being able to show respect, thankfulness and excitement for others. "I'm self-centered piece of s*it, I don't deserve anything good from others, because I'm not able to give anything good to others myself. It is not right to need, expect or want to be treated in a good way, because I'm such a failure as a human myself. Why am I the same I don't want others to be?" I was talking about this to my boyfriend. I just needed to. I was afraid. I was doing some work before to get my emotions back to surface, but I was terrified. I felt like losing control, I wasn't able to stop my voice cracking, I wasn't able to stop tears flowing from my eyes. I was ashamed. But I told what I feel, what thoughts I had. And nothing bad happened. He wasn't mad at me. He didn't shout at me. He didn't say I shouldn't feel the way I feel. He didn't try to "fix" my emotion to something "better". He just hugged me, and I felt accepted. I felt accepted and loved the way I am. I didn't even realize it before writing it now. But today, the shadow of anxiety has lingered on me. I've been short-tempered and got frustrated easily. I tried reading one book I have from library, but it is written in a weird way and I had trouble understanding the connection of the words. I got angry at the book. I THOUGHT THAT YOU WILL HAVE SOME QUESTIONS TO CONTEMPLATE BUT I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING. I felt like I want to meditate, but at the same time I felt like I'm in the state of mind where I'll get frustrated and angry about it too. I need to calm down and listen to myself - blablablablaaa yeah right, as if. But I took my headphones, went sitting on sofa, put on some instrumental metal, closed my eyes and just listened to it. I was sinking into thoughts a lot, but what's interesting is that they were somehow new. They were related to things I feel when I'm alone/around people and how I feel about myself in those situations. One song was more than just something in background. Mental images filled my head and I felt the music, instead of just hearing it. It was chaotic and destructive, but at the same time "evilly satisfying". I was dancing in chaos in my mind. For some reason, I started to think about "1 minute." The potential of one minute. The urge to test what I could do in 1 minute got so strong that I was distracted from my meditation back to this reality. I felt anxious, but I took my "put my life together"-note book and set timer to 1 minute and started testing. After a while I wanted to look back and flip through the note book. I felt sad about it. Maybe disappointed too. I realized it's been almost a year now, when I got this strong inspiration to actually put effort to fix my problems for good. The first page said "DONE, not perfect". I read it somewhere and thought I want to put it in the first page to remind myself that this notebook is not meant to be tool to satisfy/dissatisfy my perfectionism, good hand writing or order isn't the priority of focus. It was also supposed to be a reminder to my general life attitude. Nothing is ever good enough, I am never good enough, there's problems and something to fix everywhere. I exhaust myself with this mindset. The next pages had mind maps, daily hour wheels, morning/night routine planning and reflection about it. I could remember how excited, inspired and determined I was at that time. I was in a snowball effect and things were getting better. But that didn't last. Now I don't feel like anything's changed. It's all the same. I chase for a fix to the same problems, answers to the same questions that I've been looking for all my life, since I was a kid. I don't know which one makes me feel more sad, that kid being already so lost, or me being still that lost kid. I'm so busy chasing the answers to how to live a life that I actually forget to live it. I'm so obsessed to problems and issues and finding solutions that I don't see good things that already exist. It's not that nothing ever changes, it is not that 'I' never change, it is my attitude towards experience in general that doesn't change. I need to feel this or that to live a happy life. The happy life is always something that's not possible now because it needs something that I don't currently have in my life, because I'm not happy now. That statement is true for me in my current experience (representing my current feelings & beliefs of my reality), but it doesn't actually make sense. Why am I even trying to be happy, if according to that statement I won't ever be able to be happy anyway? I believe that I am able to be happy. These thoughts need some work, there's an issue. And here I am again, finding problems. *** Total time meditated this year: 23h58min Books read/listened this year: 4

I don't know. I feel like I have nothing important/meaningful to write. I feel somehow stuck. So I'll just write without any goal and probably without common thread to see if it helps. There's been a lot of anxiety lately. I don't know if it's because there's been so much going on and is because of the stress or if it's something else. At the same time I got more energetic while it's been sunny and warm. Odd combination once again. Last week was hard to my cognition/memory. I completely forgot stuff and meetings and it created even more stress. And self-disappointment. There's been more "social confusion" lately. Not sure if it's because there's been more and more variating social interaction lately or because of my social insecurities coming more on surface. I've had hard times understanding or expressing joking that's not obvious and sarcasm. It feels like I've been completely blind to some hidden "I don't say this seriously, I don't literally mean what I say" cues and started talking seriously about the topic. Or then I've recognized that I got some odd feeling about something and start to think that "ohhh, maybe this is the case where they're not being serious", try to continue the topic joking as well only to find out that this person wasn't joking this time. Or when there's insults that are just jokes and I try to involve myself in it, I end up sounding weird even though everyone else was laughing to similar things seconds before. It feels like I kill the fun only by existing somewhere. I've also heard that I sometimes come off as rude or abrupt when I try to express myself being thankful or when I feel like soft and warm in my head. Also I've been in situations where my excitement is read as being angry. It feels so odd that my emotions are so strong, but somehow I seem to lack skill to express the "positive realm" inside myself completely around people. It's almost like my "social face" only has "no emotion" and "negative emotion" modes. I don't know why I'm so afraid of letting go of holding back my goofiness, excitement, joy, happiness etc. When people meet me first time, they get completely wrong image of me. That I'm quiet, serious, down to earth, mean, have minimal to zero inner life, stable, calm etc. It's not only that my image of myself is different, it's also that people have pointed out that I am completely different than the first impression they got from me. But at the same time, so many random people often engages in conversation with me. Not like daily basis, but it's not uncommon. I'm on my guard all the time. I'm constantly scanning my environment. I'm sensitive and I get hurt easily. People have mocked me about that. People have used that against me. I feel vulnerable. I don't trust people to not hurt me one way or another. That's unfair preconception. I'm starting to feel like thinking about this right now is waste of time. I mean, yes writing about this helps to see more clearly what thoughts I currently have in my mind, but I'm not going anywhere with this. I know that these kind of thoughts exist and I feel like I'm just repeating the script of mind that I've read thousands of times, not really contemplating or seeing what's going on. Not understanding the meaning of these thoughts. And I don't know if it's true or if it's just me being so demanding to myself. The feeling of not being good enough. *** Total time meditated this year: 23h18min Books read/listened this year: 4

I want to stay in contact between meetings. If I'm interested in you, I want to spend as much time as possible interacting with you. I want to have a mutual life with my partner, not just two separate lives side by side. The texting can be overlooked in relationship, if the intensity needs are otherwise met. But if I'm just getting to know someone (especially online), trying to convince me into meeting without zero interest in texting me first can look like a trap to me. First of all, you don't seem to be interested in as intense relationship as I am because you just want to set a date instead of actually starting to getting to know me meanwhile we're setting a date and waiting that to happen. Or then it can look like you're only after sex, because there's such a rush to just see live AND there's no interest in texting. But it's also a way to try to stay safe. Bad experiences. It's not failproof method though. I can't talk for other girls, but this is how I see it.

Maybe I made poor wording choice there or something, but I agree with what you're saying.

I feel like I might have some subconscious judgements about people/things. My emotions aren't aligned with my thoughts. I've always felt that I'm not understood so I developed the want to be the one that understands. But there's so much that I don't understand. It frustrates me. I try bypass what I'm feeling about something to see something from another angle or to understand something I find hard to relate. But I don't realize that I'm still having my emotions coming through. I'm trying to think in a way I don't find true in an emotional level. That creates contradiction, which is exhausting, annoying and confusing. I consume online conversations I already know I disagree. I feel already triggered when I start reading them. It doesn't matter what I'll be telling myself at that point, because my emotions have already decided how I feel about it and what is my 'inner true opinion' about it. What is really happening is me giving fuel & justice to some buried anger, not opening myself up to new opportunities to understand more.

I have difficulties relaxing my body (& mind) on command. Progressive muscle relaxation helps.