Rainy Sparkle

I get the feeling that something is "off", but I don't know what or why. It does feel at least partially inauthentic. However, I'm not sure if it's because of the person actually being inauthentic or is it issue in myself. I'm unable to "feel what she feels". Her expressions and tone of voice feels somewhat forced. There's something similar to my video introduction we had to do for English class in school. The way I was in the video and the way I talked were practiced act. So I could be projecting that. I don't know, I don't seem to be going anywhere with this.

Masturbation gives pleasure and pleasure is addicitive, for me at least. When the urge comes, it's nearly impossible to not masturbate, which is almost daily and sometimes several times in a day. I've noticed a pattern. There's expectations of high level satisfaction. You feel nearly forced to act to get there, but when you finally do, nothing really happens. The peak was not as high as expected, so you stay unsatisfied and you want to do it again and again and again, only to notice that the peak is lower and lower everytime you get there, but you're still urged to keep doing it. I don't know about nofap, but it could be possible that limiting the amount you masturbate and doing it more mindfully could result with more satisfaction from it. If that counts as benefit. I haven't been really able to test this idea, because I've had issues with resisting expected pleasure in general.

# How to build a routine When I was a child, I wasn't happy how my life was. I didn't sleep well. I was sad and anxious all the time. I didn't brush my teeth regularly, I didn't brush my hair regularly, I didn't take care of my room. I was ugly. I wasn't good at school. I didn't get positive attention from my crushes and I didn't have a lot of friends. I was bullied. Exercising in school / in front of others was embarrassing. Doing anything in front of anyone was embarrassing. I didn't feel like I was understood. I didn't feel worthy. I didn't feel loved. I didn't feel I belong. I felt like a failure who isn't good at anything. I felt like my thoughts and feelings don't matter. I didn't want to be a child, because my experience was pointing out that if you're a child, nothing you think or feel is valuable. I didn't want to be the way I was, I wanted to be something else. I daydreamed about celebrities who would come to my life and do a makeover to me and my life. I daydreamed about being a celebrity because I thought that they can be whatever they want to be and they are still popular, accepted, adored and valued. I created an imaginary friend who was the perfect version of me and I also had this "bad" imaginary friend who was the manifestation of all kind of problems I could think of back then. I tried to make myself better by writing down self-help guides for myself. I tried using magic. I wrote diary and I tried to create systems how I would write. I did contemplations. I created "emotion school" for myself. I tried to be more confident by changing my attitude and my actions. I explored ways and systems to be better at school. Later I created "an evil reflection" who hated me for being so weak, emotional and incapable of living a life. She thought that she's the queen who has the right to crush everything and everyone in order to finally get their success. She was angry at me because I couldn't live like she wanted and I didn't let her take my place. I fought to keep her behind the mirror. At some point I trapped myself somewhere in my body/in my mind. The "real me" was somewhere deep, not expressing themselves, just watching as some kind of fake myself was living my life. My identity got so shattered that I didn't even know anymore who I am. It started as an survival method. The change was essential. The belief of possibility of change was essential. It was all I had. I created this ideal me and ideal life, but got blinded on the way and lost the connection to my actual self, whatever that is or if that even is. My life became a manifestation of problems and self-help, self-growth. The endless cycle of those. My purpose of living narrowed to being the solver of the problem of living. It wasn't anymore about something in my life, it was my life. It became my whole and only identity. But how could I or anything ever truly change in that frame? The change would mean giving away everything I know I am and everything I know life is and thus giving away the meaning. Fear of facing the thought that what if I truly am nothing. Why does all of this matter? It sheds a light on the topic from a different angle. But now to the actual question: How to build a routine? - Understand where you are coming from - Understand where you are now and why - Understand where you want to be and why - Understand what needs to be or not to be, to remove the space between now and ideal then - Generate ideas, but don't get attached to them - Observe yourself, be mindful - Understand what works and what doesn't and why, be ready for trial and error - Define how you see yourself and change the way you see yourself (if necessary) - Don't be attached to an identity, don't take your self-image as an absolute truth - Define your idea about what routines are and change it (if necessary) - They are not something I'm trying to do or achieve, they are part of who I am because they are expressions of myself and expressions of how I view myself and the life - They are expressions of self-love and self-care - Don't limit your freedom: Don't be too strict or black and white, give room for change, variety and spontaneity - Don't make failure your enemy, because it's your best friend: It tells you something you wouldn't have otherwise seen - Drop the "everything and now" attitude - Drop the victim mentality but don't deny your bitter feelings, MAKE PEACE WITH THEM - Be authentic, be honest with yourself - Understand that your feelings, thoughts and actions matter - You need to value yourself to really believe that you deserve better, if you don't think you deserve anything good, how could you change your behaviour in a such way - Stop self-sabotaging because it only maintains the image of someone who deserves to be treated badly - Don't expect that someone else lures you out of misery - Question your motives and beliefs of change - Act and think in a way the "ideal you" would act. Stop wanting to be that ideal, start to be that ideal - Make note if your ideas are realistic, but don't stop dreaming because you or someone else says something is impossible - If someone says you're not able to do something, DON'T BELIEVE THEM JUST BECAUSE THEY SAY SO - IF SOMEONE ELSE SAYS WHAT YOU WANT OR DON'T WANT, DON'T BELIEVE THEM JUST BECAUSE THEY SAY SO - They are probably just trying to invisibly sell their own ideas and wants to you and make it look like your idea - Adopt ideas if they truly fit for you - You don't need to want something you used to want and you can want something you didn't want before - Change your idea of perfect - Be profound with your plans and contemplations of the topic, dedicate yourself to your cause, but stop over complicating stuff, just live your life, really.

How to be responsible? Being responsible doesn't mean actions that are motivated by fear of consequenses or following moral norms because "that's how responsible adult is supposed to do". It is understanding the consequenses of actions, making a conscious decision to aim for a certain consequense and changing your approach based on the result if needed. It is taking the ownership of your life. It is being the artist and seeing your life as your artwork. Don't try to find someone/something to blame Understand reasons and actions behind situations, but focus on what you can do about it Ask for help when needed, but don't expect to be helped When you do/don't do something, be aware of why you do it Don't act mindlessly Be aware of consequences Be decisive If you feel like you're not able to make decisions, you'll feel like your actions don't have positive meaningful/significant impact on your life "Something negative happens anyway no matter what I do, why be responsible?" Know your goals and what is important To focus on things that actually matter and to know what you want to achieve with your actions Know yourself Trust yourself Forgive Be patient Learn from mistakes Mistakes are opportunities for growth. Growth gives you more tools to view and sculpt your life Be able to tolerate experiencing something you perceive as negative Don't give up if something is hard Keep your promises Be on time / Do things on time Because it affects how you view yourself. Constantly missing deadlines creates a feeling that you're not on top of your life Be honest Admit if you're wrong Question yourself

What is clarity? (30 min) Being aware of patterns Experience is not blurry or dull Smooth thinking Sense of direction Sense of meaning Feeling connected Noticing details and nuance without forgetting the big picture Being able to zoom in and out Not being blinded by own perspective Being able to think deeper Seeing experience as art Being able to focus Being able to notice "signal from the noise" Calmness Good intuition Being able to be decisive Being aware of intentions / motives Being aware of consequences Holistic thinking Recognizing bias / beliefs, not being deceived Flow Honesty Being authentic Self-knowledge and emotional skills Flashlight in the dark, a compass in the path

Anything that is said about you is meaningless in the end Some will say you're deep, some will say you're shallow Some will say you're unique, amazingly extraordinary, some will say you're just regular girl And Someone will say you're a stain in a perfect painting But imperfection is perfection and perfection without imperfection is imperfect So Everything is perfect anyway

I feel like there should be some kind of clear direction where I’m going with this journal or with this post but there’s not. I don’t even know what’s the best way to make a starting point. There’s so much going on within my mind and I feel like I lack the ability to filter out what’s important to focus on. Oftentimes it feels like I’m randomly jumping to a different pages of catalogue. Back and forth. Oh hey, it’s the same page again for the fifteenth time. I’m losing track. If it even ever was there. I’m nervous and anxious. Am I going to do this right? Is there right way to do this? Is it useful at all if I just bathe in my thoughts mindlessly without clear intention of why I’m doing it? Maybe I’ll find it out later. I don’t think that should be stopping me from starting to write down my thoughts and journey. Writing a public journal wasn’t a big deal for me when I was younger. I used to have a blog where I wrote about my thoughts, feelings, and mental health problems. I wrote about those things using beautiful, figurative words and language. Even today, I don’t feel like it was because I wanted to romanticize shit. I did that in my personal diary, too. Well, of course that might be a defensive thought and I was in fact doing exactly that. However, for now, I feel like it was my tool to deal with those things. Gate and a pathway to put my inner world into words. But then, some people relatively close to me found out about my blog. I don’t remember how I found out that they actually were guys I knew. They anonymously commented mean things to my writings. I tried not to care about it, but I felt bad. Their intention was to hurt me, and they thought it was fun. I’ve later heard that it started from a stupid idea and that those guys were bitter for me. Whatever the cause, I ended up stopping writing publicly at some point. I’m scared of it. I’m afraid of all the possible judgements I might get. That I’m stupid, making stuff up, seeking for attention and whatever. I’ve been accused of lying because I’m too open about stuff. I’m afraid of that I’m still going towards closing myself in even more. That doesn’t feel right to me. So maybe that's one of the reasons I'm doing this. Sometimes I feel like people are toxic spikes. Why it seems so that people are so mean to each other and get mad about whatever reason someone else does or is. There’s massive amount of hate going on towards everyone and everything. That makes me feel all kind of things. It makes me insecure, defensive, mad, angry at myself (because I’m having negative thoughts towards other people), sad. I wish I could heal all these people. I feel like everyone has so much pain and wounds inside. And I feel like so many don’t even admit it to themselves. Why am I seeing suffering everywhere? Is it really there, or is it only my own toxic perception about the world and people? Am I only reflecting my own suffering? I’m aware that my thought process goes a lot with how I “feel like”. I feel like I’m addicted to my feelings. There it is again. Lol. If I try to wear out my habit of looking everything via emotions, I feel like (Really now??) nothing makes sense to me anymore. I feel attacked when someone points that out. I’m defensive about my feelings, whatever they are. I admit that I’m identifying too much with my feelings, even when it’s not beneficial to me at all. But what else there is to identify myself with? Someone would probably say that you shouldn’t identify with anything. But why there is this intense craving and longing to be able to identify as being something or someone? I feel like a void. I feel like I’m an empty and infinite void. I feel like I am, but I don’t know who or what I am. There’s always been this lack of bright sense of identity. Even though I have this weird sense of self, and all these things I attach vaguely to it, it still feels similar to any other feeling at the end of the day. It feels like all there is in my reality is just an infinite loop of feelings and if those feelings are taken away, there’s nothing else left. Literally, not figuratively. Not even me, because that’s a feeling too.

36 (fear) + 32 (avoidance) = 68. You suffer from marked social anxiety. I need to contemplate this. I need to figure out how to deal with these things since I rarely find any motivational confidence advices helpfull.

Everything is falling apart. Everything I have been thinking I am or am not (as person) is being torn away. Those ideas of 'good' or 'bad', ideas I've been chasing, ideas I've been trying run away from. I feel like I'm floating in a spinning pool of emotions, thoughts, ideas of myself, ideas of reality. I'm trying to fight back, but everytime I do so, I feel like I'll drown. I'm tired of caring so much, I'm tired of feeling so much, I'm tired of fighting for having control, but I'm afraid of giving in. Love is not finite. I can't understand why it brings so much suffering with it. Is it even love? Does love even really exist or is it yet another idea? Blah blah blah. Everything is nonsense.

Total time meditated 2022: 76h 25min Total time meditated this year: 10 min *** I had a challenge. I tried to get 100 hour mark by the end of the November. Ended up focusing too much on numbers and the whole point of meditation kinda got forgotten. And I clearly didn't "win" my challenge. New start. No challenges right now.

Total time meditated this year: 74 hours Books read/listened this year: 14

Total time meditated this year: 52 hours Books read/listened this year: 10

I'm looping. My thoughts, actions, everything loop on repeat. When I'm at gym, I don't think who I am or what I am like. Certain limitations might increase creativity/imagination by forcing you to come up with creative solutions. Some thought/association paths are interesting and surprising. Started to have thoughts of meditation being boring and/or waste of time. Heightened clarity of how I use my time Decreased "mystical experiences" during meditations New layer of inability to relax and to let go of things that "needs to be done" encountered Main area of interest of growth and development shifted I treat everything as individual projects and not ongoing systems Total time meditated this year: 46 hours 30 minutes Books read/listened this year: 10

Some days ago I wrote in my diary this: I feel bad about myself. -- I'm aware that it is some kind of emotion now and not the truth. I just want so much that I'd feel good with myself and I've been working on it, but why it most of the times feels like there's no progress? Life goes on, everything is well. But why do I always feel this way? Or do I? With that question, I started to acknowledge the change that in that moment I had some kind of twisted vision of my reality. I might have recognized that there's something weird with my thought "always", which triggered the question. I've since that observed my emotional flow differently. It goes high and it goes down, several times a day, every day. Not news. But when I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good and see the present and look into future with optimism. When I'm feeling down, I look in past, but only focus on times when I've felt down. Today I'm feeling bad. Yesterday I was feeling down. Every day I've felt this way. --> I'm always feeling this way. Nothing is changing. There's growth in both mindsets. The growth is more visible in positive mindset. There's growth. Everything is constantly changing. I'm not always feeling down. Remember. *** Total time meditated this year: 41 hours Books read/listened this year: 9

I've been crying a lot lately. It's like I've rediscovered some emotional layer in me, that I've been trying to deny and destroy, but only managed to hide somewhere deep. It feels so empowering and liberating to just let all that emotional pain come out. See it, feel it. Be present in it. Not all crying has been from pain, it comes from love, too. I've been thinking about this lately and I've come to a point where putting happiness as end goal feels pointless and limiting. At least the way I see it now. I see everywhere statements such as "Don't try to be happy, be happy". And I see the first part of it. But whenever I stop to think about it and ask myself, overall do I consider myself to be happy, the answer is no, I can't say that. I can't find the overall happiness from my experience. Having happiness as my goal, I'm creating baseline and/or contrast to the present moment, because I start to rate how good my life is based on how close I am that happiness instead of just seeing what is. No matter how well everything is in my experience, it's never well enough because it didn't make me happy. What that even means? Do I have to be happy? I'm having a hard time verbalizing my experience around this. It almost sounds like I'm seeing happiness as some kind of bad thing now, but that's not exactly what I mean. Through all my life, I've held a belief that even though I'm not happy now, I can be happy somewhere in future. It's been my dream. I want to do everything I can to be happy. It's been necessary for my survival. It's been my driving force. Even though everything is collapsing now, it doesn't need to be that way always. But right now, I'm standing in a place where that mantra has lost it's meaning and become limiting. It's feels empty, pointless rule. I'm on an edge of letting go of that, and boy it feels scary. I have fears, what if I lose every meaning in life? What if I push myself to a dark place for eternity? What if I lose my will to live, what if I lose my enthusiasm? I feel like that's all I have. It's been my purpose in life, to become happy. It feels like letting go of that leaves me with nothing. No purpose, no meaning, no goal, no (figurative) solid ground under my feet. It feels like letting go of it is like destroying everything I've build. And I I have to start again from beginning. Still, it feels like the leap I need to do. *** She's walking in the darkness Blindfold tightly on her closed eyes She opens her eyes, but still Sees nothing The ground beneath her feet Vanishes And she falls She falls and falls and falls Into never ending void of darkness And nothingness Oh, how I wish I could tell her That she is the light Oh, how I wish I could show her That she's not falling Because she can fly *** Total time meditated this year: 37 hours 30 minutes Books read/listened this year: 9

Total time meditated this year: 35 hours 30 minutes Books read/listened this year: 7

Are people still doing this? The thread has been so silent lately. Some days ago I challenged myself to meditate ~5 hours in a day. It's part of bigger challenge. I'll tell you, it wasn't easy. But I did it. I cut the whole time in smaller parts and completed it during the whole day. I did last parts before I went to sleep. And when it was completed, I felt like I just did something impossible. I mean, I knew it is possible in theory, and I believed I'm able to do it in practice, but my mind was the challenge. Meditating itself wasn't mostly that hard, but turning away from everything else I would have wanted to do. And it was harder and harder every time. The last 30 minutes were hardest to get done. It was getting late, I was tired, focus was shattered. It is funny how there is so many other things where the finishing part is most challenging mentally. For example walking long way home. When I lived in my last apartment, I used to have a certain point in my route where I was about 15 minutes away, where I started to feel like I'm done. I did second version of the habit tracker. There's so many spots that are not completed. I don't feel like the fault is in my tracker, but obviously I'm not sure. I feel like it's been more about the ability to use my willpower to choose to start doing certain things. It's like the willpower "muscle" is exhausted and cannot lift even a light weight. But what is interesting, I have done a lot of other things, and have been able to use the willpower to finish things. On Saturday, I changed the order of living room furniture. On Sunday I cleaned almost my whole house. It took the whole day. It was mostly rousing/exciting (I'm unsure about the correct word), but I really had to push myself to finish it. Well, this gives me again a subject to contemplate. Have a nice week everyone. <3

Total time meditated this year: 30 hours Books read/listened this year: 7 *** Dear teenager Rainy Sparkle, I am crying as I write this. By telling this, my intention is not to say that what ever I'm feeling now is more important than what you're feeling. But if that's how you feel about it, it's okay, and I understand well why. I just want to tell that I've understood that it is okay to show emotions, it is okay to cry. I'm here to tell you that you will get through everything. It is hard to believe. You're living in a hell, completely alone. I am so sorry that I abandoned you. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for you when you needed me most. I was the only one you had, but even I turned my back on you. I understand why you hate me. I understand why you're so angry at me. And it's okay. What I did wasn't right. I suffocated your inner shine. I suffocated your dreams, all your inspiration. I suffocated you. I never appreciated your talent, your passion or the depth you had in you. I see it now. There's a lot I could learn from you. You are being more true and more authentic than I am. You are closer to the truth than I have ever been since. You're just lost and so alone. I hope you can forgive me, but the path is yours. It's about your emotions and not mine. You have the right to be angry at me. I don't want to force you to change how you feel. But whenever you're ready, If you will be, I'm here. I understand that it's hard to trust me after all things I've done and said to you. You don't have to prove me anything. You don't have to prove me that you're valuable and that you deserve love. It is me how needs to prove you that you're valuable and lovable as such. That you can be loved unconditionally. Because I do love you.

The gym membership and first time in gym done yesterday! I feel so brave. It hurts everywhere in my body now, but I feel good. Can't wait to go again. I also planned a habit tracker for myself for the next week. This is something I've done several times in past, doing trackers, planning routines, etc. But I haven't been patient enough to start from small and focus on building the foundation first. Last time I did this, I tried to take into account this and not take too big piece at once. I started from writing down what were my current routines, and did minor changes to them. Good idea, really, but I still ended up trying to change too much at once and everything fell apart. So, here's the habit tracker for the next week. This is the beginning and my plan is to refine and develop this from this point.

Drew today after a long time. I'll go for a walk next and after that I'll start cleaning my art & random stuff cabinet. Been procrastinating doing that way too long.

Minor cleaning today, body weight & dumbbell workout + some osu! practice today. Been walking ~71km this week. That's surprisingly much, I haven't often reached even 50km lately, even though I have felt like I've been walking a lot.

When you feel like some is acting disrespecting/hurtful towards you and when they say things like "But it was meant to be helpful for both of us/you", it feels dismissive. It feels like you've being told that you shouldn't feel bad, because my intention was good and as long as my intention is good, it doesn't matter if I'm acting hurtfully. Keep an eye to your own thoughts of that kind. There probably are some. *** Total time meditated this year: 28h15min Books read/listened this year: 6

That is progress, and that is what should be seen. I think it has been necessary for me to understand that there is no such thing as reaching best possible outcome, because you could always do better. But what I meant, is that if you don't recognize the growth you're doing now, if you don't see that you're doing better than before, it's easy to get trapped to only see that you're doing worse than your ideal. This has been crucial for me to understand why it is silly to define being/doing good, when I reach point x. Because when the point x is reached, there comes new point, which defines when I'm good. With this kind of mentality you can never be good. Obviously though, there are some things, that are limited to best scores by default, like school exams. Any of this isn't meant to claim that aiming higher or better results, or seeing that you could do better is bad. The point is that if it's being used as only tool to measure progress, there's a risk to become blind to the progress.

I don't really know, how to express myself in a way I want. I'm afraid of that I sound wrong or that I'm trying to argue or somehow dismiss what you said. That's not the point of my message though, because I totally agree with that. I am probably way more capable than I can even image right now. I just wanted to say that the potential I see, might become limit as well. That is when I forget to notice and give credit to work I do in present moment and fall into staring too intensively into future. It easily turns back to "I am not good enough". But there's no point where I could reach "good enough" point with bettering my results and pursuing my potential, because the limits go further. Therefore I am never good enough. I'm always behind. I can never reach my potential. Seeing that while being in some kind of negative emotional state can become unmotivating and paralyzing. I admit, that I'm very sensitive to thoughts of not being good (enough) and that's one of my mental work areas. I don't know if anything I said applies to anyone else or not.

Finished cleaning the bedroom. Cleaned the clothing cabinet, dusted everything, vacuumed the bed and floor, changed sheets and mopped the floor. I've also done some daily cleaning. Been walking a bit also. Going to buy gym membership from the beginning of the next month. I'm nervous about that, but won't let that stop me. : )