TakeCare

WEEK 25 DAY 173 Woke up, drank lemon water sat down to meditate. Towards the end I felt so sleepy i laid down and fell asleep for 15 minutes. Woke up because it was cold and decided to go back to bed. Slept for another 30 minutes. At work felt terrible. 0 motivation. Yoga class was very difficult but after the practice I slowly started recovering the balance. DAY 174 I almost skipped my morning routine. I woke up in time but after drinking lemon water did not really want to do anything. It felt meaningless. However I go my shit together and tapped into my will power resources. Even though I felt good afterwards I had some cravings for a smoke. It is still morning now, I will update on how the day went. I have a feeling it might be somehow different. --- And the day was amazing. I realised that yesterday whatever happened I found the way to project it in a negative way. Today I was energetic, productive although nothing has really changed from yesterday. I know it is very obvious amd there is no very deep insights but Jesus Flippin Crust emotionally it was completely different day, completely different life. DAY 175 When I turn on cold water there arises a strong feeling inside me which has similarities to fear. Immediate switch from hot to cold hits my body with shock to which I got quite used to but there also arises a strong emotion which has always happened but I noticed it much more clearly this morning. I noticed that I have been cracking fingers from time to time these last few days. Will keep my eye on it. How to do things with ease? Should I even try? Trying itself kind of implies that there will be struggle, that failure is a posibility. Maybe I should just do it. Well, I tried multiple times today. The patterns are strong though and I kept coming back to feeling tension at work. It was not very significant, I did not feel stressed but I was almost always tense in the background. Doing things with ease, being at peace is not a goal, it is a necessary requirement for doing anything at all. --- I am cracking my fingers more and more often. If it goes on I will have to revive crack-counter for the next week. DAY 176 It has been a while since I woke up so easily in the morning. Felt relaxed and peaceful. I saw my mind starting to look for something wrong. In some way I felt uncomfortable. I am not used to feeling fully peaceful so my mind did a good job at finding "something wrong" or rather creating "something wrong" since all those thoughts had nothing to do with reality whatsoever. Yoga class. Amazing. I do not understand what is happening exactly but first I start feeling negative emotions. Something starts triggering anger in me. Sometimes external stuff, sometimes internal. Sometimes I feel a bit frustrated when I notice what kind of thoughts I am having at that particular moment. I attempt to observe, I remind myself that I am not my thoughts, but still it triggers negative emotions. Then I try to remind myself that I am also not my emotions and so on. Many little things happen why going through various poses. I often gradually calm down and after class I feel great. I feel peaceful and refreshed. Today after yoga I felt it particularly strongly. Life is crazy. DAY 177 Got triggered in the morning while I was getting ready for my trip. I could not find some stuff that I really needed. I did find it eventually after acting like a moron for a while. I was intoxicated for 16 hours this particular day. Since I drink so rarely I thought I will be totally smashed but somehow managed to balance things pretty well. Drank a lot of water, ate relatively fine. Left a snow angel after sauna. It was not really that cold thanks to cold showers. I knew this was coming and I was not trying to avoid it. It was a special occasion which was celebrated with a group of people in a way that is very common in my country. DAY 178 Hangover was mediocre. Felt really melancholic throughout the day. Did not socialize much although most of the time was spent among people. DAY 179 Day lost. Gaming all day. Still have not completely recovered after a party, felt lazy and unmotivated. WEEK 25 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Not too good (4/6) Affirmation habit - Check. (5/7) (good, but not good enough) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - This is definitely not good (4/6). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Failure (3/6). Cold shower - Check (7/7) Others: No gaming - Fail (Sunday lost) Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check but worse than usual Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts Well week started really well but I was not ready for the party. Recovered slowly which led into spending time in stupid ways. Still feeling pretty terrible. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 24 DAY 166 Reached an unsettling level of confusion but it did not stay long. It all happened after yoga where I really pushed myself hard. Towards the end I felt as if I might puke. It all ended well though and the refreshing effect of yoga was simply fantastic. Today I remembered few experiences from my childhood. I remembered few deep moments where I really felt that all what is happening is just me. It is all in my head and there is really nothing good or bad. It is easy to rationally think that but these were strong and meaningful experiences that might have had an enormous impact to my further growth. As an old Greek once (or more likely twice) said: learning is remembering. DAY 167 Could not find yoga mat in the morning. Every minute wasted resulted in having less time for learning. I noticed myself getting angry or at least irritated. It passed, just as all feelings do. I did not forget about affirmations this morning, thanks to my shampoo bottle. It is a crazy time at work right now. A lot of deadlines, some people shouting and swearing and some people doing their best to get stuff done. Day was relatively peaceful despite of what was happening around. The way missing yoga mat triggered me in the morning looks pretty hilarious now. DAY 168 No entry. DAY 169 Very full-program day. There was a social gathering at my place. I made me think that it would be a good idea to socialize more and meet new people or get to know better one's that I have in my friend circle. DAY 170 Friday. Work work work. I listened to Sadhguru a lot today and few days earlier. What a profound human being. I will be watching and listening a lot more. I made a very concrete commitment to not play any computer games this weekend. I played at least one day in last three or 4 weeks I think. Looking forward for the next two days. A note - it easy to mix up message with the messenger. It might be easier to receive the message when it is detached from the messenger. DAY 171 I wondered how much my meditation practice differs from strong determination sitting. I put a little bit extra effort and did not move at all. 30 mins of sds did not seem that difficult. I had more trouble staying at peace with my mind. I do not know why but if I sleep longer I generally having to go through an emotional pit during first few hours after waking up. Sometimes I used to guilt myself for "wasting time" with an excess sleep but this morning the source of my emotional challenges was not it. Nonetheless, I have no clue why it happened. Extreme cravings for gaming arose in the evening. Unless I have to work on weekend I struggle with the way I spend my time. I had time to meditate some more today but I did not. There is a subtle web of lies that I tell to myself. I had some insights in the evening but I ind it difficult to put it all in words at the moment. DAY 172 I woke up really late this morning. I am not used to that. It feels terrible I will tell you that. I just had an hour of intense cravings for gaming. I feel very conflicted inside. I am not a teenager who has too much free time and is looking to "kill" it. I have two days per week at most where I can more or less freely choose what I want to do and I keep coming back to the same old option. For once I committed to not playing this weekend and I barely managed that. It was very close. Barely managed to evoke enough will-power to resist. I am addicted to stimulation. It comes in forms of youtube, gaming, smoking, sometimes food, coffee. My consistency is fragmented. Better than it has ever been but still very much interrupted by various addictions. I thought a lot about intuition these days. There was a moment where I felt that I have already made all decisions in life and the only thing that has remained is me trying to resist them. If I would follow my intuition I would be aligned with those decisions. [Matrix reference] Neo was offered a candy by Oracle and he asked her: But how do I choose if you already know my choice? And she said: "You did not come here to make a choice, you have already made it. You are here to try to understand why you made it". WEEK 24 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check (5/6) Affirmation habit - Check. (5/7) (good, but I am going to focus on this more) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check (5/6). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Failure (3/6). (Tough) Cold shower - Check (7/7) (haven't missed a day since this was started) Others: No gaming - Check (Finally! Required a great effort) Limited social media time - Somewhere in between (weekend was out of balance on this matter). Eating healthy - Check (though there were some sweets on weekend) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts I came to the realisation that I do not have courage to fully follow my intuition. There are various social / logical structures and emotional patterns that resist intuition. To sum it up it can be labeled simply as "fear". Fear of failure, fear of losing something that I have now, fear of change, fear of risk, fear of being rejected and so on. Although I have developed some important habits I still often feel like I am walking in circles. Yes, the circle got bigger but I do not fully commit to one direction. Some of the stuff I do goes against what I am trying to achieve or realise. Shit. I want to go to the next level. I want to seriously dedicate myself to what I truly value the most. I want to reorganize my priorities. There is nothing holding me back without my permission. There is only me in my way. I need to remember that I can start only from the point where I am right now. I can not start from the next level of consciousness to get to even higher level. It takes time. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 23 DAY 159 I woke up, smoked my last two cigarettes and committed to quitting smoking again (now when I look back on it few hours later it seems like a stupid way to quit but oh well, that was exactly what happened). Yoga class was very special today. As usual after a weekend spent in a brainless manner during Monday's yoga class the stream of negative thoughts opened. This time I was very present and extremely sensitive to all the trash coming out. I felt as if I have been gone for a month. I felt as if I forgot why I have started it all in the first place. It felt as if I was out of touch for quite some time. I will not smoke. I want to do things that matter the most for me. I do not want to spend half an hour or more on facebook everyday. I had this under control but it kind of slowly crawled back into my habit list. I do not want to be driven by addictions. I do not want to meditate because "I have to". I do not have to - I want to, although quite often it feels as if I would rather sleep longer or do anything else but meditation. Almost half a year have passed and I had many new experiences. I learned a lot about the concept of spirituality and various approaches to realizing enlightenment. I had installed new habits and got rid of few old ones. I have grown significantly but lately I have struggled a lot. I want to renew my commitment. I want to keep building on the foundations that have been laid down. I am unstoppable because there is nothing to be stopped. --- Guys, I came back home and smoked two cigarettes. Bought a rolling tabacco as if it is less harmful to me. This is how fragmented my reality has became. DAY 160 Did not smoke this morning. Starting once again. At the moment I am at work dealing with cravings. It was expected but still... Shit. -- I feel that I will smoke at least one. --- I rolled three cigarettes this evening. That is it for today. Feeling better already because I smoked only in the evening. Going to meditate now because I did not manage to wake up at 6 o'clock this morning. -- Meditation was good. A lot of thoughts about work were spinning round and round in my head but I feel refreshed nonetheless. DAY 161 There is so much happening around me. I do not mean that something has changed - it has always been this way. Once I get into state where I notice more I can barely handle it. Just so much. I open up a little and it overflows. I feel resistance that prevents me from experiencing the life as it is completely. It is so vague but it is there. Leo chose a perfect time to make a video about dealing with confusion because there is a lot of it. I dreamed that I broke up with my girlfriend. Through all the pain and uncertainty I felt some sort of happiness arising. This feeling still haunts me. I may be feeling a bit guilty because I felt that way or it might be because I have moments where I think how life would be different if we broke up and it went to my subconscious resulting in this dream. --- Yesterday I drank only one cup of coffee. Today I did the same and it felt just fine. Actually, the coffee makes me thirsty and it is not that delicious as I remember (I still drink it without sugar). When one addiction goes out of control others often follow. For few weeks I drank 2 cups of coffee (sometimes 3) everyday. DAY 162 During yoga class the swarm of thoughts has raged like crazy. I am seriously not sure if I can take it for a long time. I think that might be the reason why I took a step back. I started noticing more and it was too much to handle. Old patterns have reemerged and "saved" me from having to deal with my thought machine. My crazy restless super-productive random thought machine.. I keep coming back to the idea of doing things with ease. Trying to control less and observe more. DAY 163 I overslept today because I talked with my girl for couple of hours before sleep. That was unusual. I skipped my morning routine and felt bad about that but did some yoga and 20 minutes of meditation during lunch break. I noticed that one of the things that impacts my emotions a lot is that I often worry that I might not be doing things "good enough" or that I am not doing as "good" as my co-workers or bosses might want. I built a big part of my ego on being able to perform well and whenever I feel like I might be doing "poorly" I start to worry a lot. Together with it comes tension in my body. That is a good indicator when I am not aware of my thoughts. DAY 164 I have slept one hour longer than planned and felt a little bit bad about that. I was aware of that and just tried to feel it (although I logically reasoned that it is ok and does not really matter). There was some resistance during morning routine throughout breathing exercises, yoga and meditation. I actually cut meditation five minutes short because towards the end I was unable to focus. Later I contemplated about the circumstances in which one grows. I thought that if I were my father I would probably have two marriages that have been unsuccessful. If I were that guy outside with a hangover and bottle of beer in my hands I would probably be doing the same - drinking at 10 in the morning. If I were born and raised as a jihadist I would probably thrive in cutting off heads of the infidels and so on. At some point I became aware that I feel a little bit guilty that I cut meditation five minutes short. I was aware and the feeling was not pleasant. I have just noticed that there was an excessive tension in my body. I relaxed and it has just came back again. And here I sit, trying to feel it all without an inner demand for it to feel good but it is there. I want to feel good more often than I want to see reality for what it is and that is exactly what it is at this particular moment. Trying to take a step back from the one who took the step back to look at what is. Lol, this is endless. Will be going to get a Christmas tree today. DAY 165 Lately it has became a habit to end the week by playing computer games. Day lost. WEEK 23 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check (6/7) Affirmation habit - Failure. (2/7) (do I even try? still no. just do not remember at the right time) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check (6/7). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Failure (?/7). (I have to clarify this goal) Cold shower - Check (6/6) (yes I did not shower on Sunday, too busy gaming) Others: No gaming - Failure (Sunday lost) Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts The very length of daily journal entries communicate very clearly that my focus on self-development has improved. One interesting insight. Once you notice more you also notice more emptiness where that new idea that you just discovered does not appear. This made me realize that I am more than I experienced before at the same time I am less than I experienced before. When one grows he also becomes smaller. That is probably the way to reach ultimate destination when you become one with everything and nothing. I still struggle with smoking - I smoked less but I am unable to quit completely. It is not something I want consistently, it is something I want sometimes. This does not work. It is easy for a man who ate a cake to say I won't eat cake anymore but it is difficult to say I won't eat it if you have had no sweets for a month and cake looks amazing. When I smoke too much I always wanna quit. If I keep my smoking balanced and smoke only after work - I do not worry about it much. Weekends are a different story. It is more difficult to find balance when it is a day off. Goals Affirmations. I will put a mental trigger to remember. I will stick something to my shampoo bottle so every time I wash my head I remember to do affirmations. Learning in the morning is a bit tricky. At least few times a week I go to work earlier and do not have time for learning although in some cases working also teaches me stuff. I have just made specific list of stuff I want to read or memorize. I just need to be more disciplined. If I go to work early I won't count it as a missed opportunity but if I go on time and do not learn anything this will count as a failure to complete the goal. Thats is for this week, Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 22 DAY 152 "There is something in you that did not begin and will never end." DAY 153 I learned a bit about multiple intelligences and developmental lines that anyone experiencing growth in certain areas goes through. It still seems a bit too abstract. Distinguishing between intelligence and skill is also not always entirely convincing but there is still more material to read/listen on this topic. Did well at work - not much tension and high level of productivity and focus. DAY 154 Barely had any time for myself except the morning. DAY 155 In the morning I once again thought a lot about smoking and how the time to quit is coming. I thought to quit on 2017 but there is still alot of time. Then I thought about quitting from December. In the end I have decided that I will quit after I finish all the cigarettes I have at home. After shower I went to smoke and finished one of the packs I had and decided that I will not open another. Just like with cold shower - it is never a good time to do it. Also, there is no need to reason much, just let it happen. So here I sit and type at work just after my first strong wave of cravings for a smoke. I have failed the same day after 8 hours. DAY 156 No attempt for recovery. DAY 157 I have visited my home. Chilled for entire day. Watched some insightful videos about awakening and understood it all in a new light. DAY 158 Had a serious fight with my girl for totally ridiculous reasons. I won't go into details but I am 100 % sure that it all could have been easily avoided if I had not played computer games for an entire day. I feel stupid. WEEK 20 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check (5/7) Affirmation habit - Failure. (1/7) (do I even try? no.) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Close to failure (4/7). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Failure (3/7). Cold shower - Check (5/6) Others: No gaming - Failure (Weekend lost) Limited social media time - Failure. Eating healthy - Failure. (did Ok but weekend was a disaster) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts For a couple of months I felt as if smoking is preventing from moving forward. It is an addiction after all even if it is relatively in control (most of the time) it still causes a lot of negative inner dialogues and conflicts. Although, to be honest, lately it went out of control. I went out of control. "steps taken forward, but sleep-walking back again" Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 21 DAY 145 More and more often I feel an urge to do something drastic. To defy the circumstances. It mostly happens when old negative patterns manifest in one way or another. The state of defiance helps me to get out of them. To do something else, something new. Sometimes when I think that I got stuck or some external circumstance prevents me from doing what I do or being what I am I understand how self-made it all is. DAY 146 Felt sleepy for the first half of the day. Did not gave in in to that feeling though. After breakfast I did not eat for 8 hours (except one apple) and I did not feel hungry in the afternoon. I did not feel particularly stressful and there were not other reasons for me to feel this way. I was used to getting hungry when the usual time of lunch or dinner was approaching but lately I have been feeling less and less of that. Not sure is that a good sign or a bad one. I feel fine though, gonna keep an eye on my nutrition. DAY 147 Burned out at work. Today I experienced a lot of tension. This made me realize how well I was doing at work past few weeks. Remember that "pressure on chest area" which I often was mentioning? I did not happen for quite a while and it did not happen today. Yes there was tension but it did not grow into physical discomfort. Life is moving forward and sometimes it can be easy to miss opportunities to appreciate the growth and progress. DAY 148 DAY 149 DAY 150 DAY 151 Empty space. WEEK 20 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check (5/7) Affirmation habit - Failure. (2/7) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check (5/7). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Somewhere in between (4/7). Cold shower - Check (7/7) Others: No gaming - Failure (Sunday was lost again) Limited social media time - Failure. Eating healthy - Check. (mostly good food except weekend) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts I am losing my passion for journaling as you might have noticed. I still meditate, do yoga but I miss a day here and there. I mostly eat good food but I eat some crap here and there. I still learn some new stuff, mostly from Ken Wilbers material but I often feel lost and stuck. I somehow found a place for cold showers in my routine. That is one positive thing that happened surprisingly naturally. I smoke a lot though. Thats it for now, TakeCare

WEEK 20 DAY 128 Here we go. During yoga I was very focused and all the sudden all the negativity I kept inside poured out in a form of negative thoughts. It happened and it passed and here I am. Day was difficult but I was ready. Recovering. DAY 129 Felt hyped and energized which resulted in a very productive day. Thoughts about quitting smoking made me want to smoke even more. I am having sensations that clearly tell me what my body needs and it is definitely not smoking. DAY 130 A lot of thoughts about women today. No particular reason there that I am aware of. Also I was thinking about placing myself in all sorts of challenging situations. Feeling readiness for more growth and more challenges. DAY 131 Nothing special. Exercised, meditated, worked, got tired and went to sleep. Felt a bit dull. DAY 132 I had an amazing meditation today. I went deeper than usually and experienced a really sensitive and present state of awareness. While doing yoga I had some sort of resistance. It takes effort and sometimes it just does not come easily. I decided /observed that my routine is happening no matter the circumstances and it did. Interesting note is that I did not use will power. Decision was so pure that it all just happened. I watched the resistance melt and it did not feel like I was pushing through it. I had some beautiful insights on present moment and attachment. It were already familiar ideas that have manifested in a new way. DAY 133 I had a strong reality spike today. It seemed that all the emotional disharmony can be outgrown more easily than I initially expected. I have been reading various Ken Wilber's materials lately. More and more often I notice how different human development levels are appearing in front my eyes in certain situations. I am just starting to grasp it but it already seems to be an interesting thinking framework that explains so much of the things I have always struggled to put in one coherent system. DAY 144 Potato day. That's what it was. Lazy and low-consciousness. WEEK 20 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check (6/7) Affirmation habit - Failure. (Forgot completely) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check (6/7). Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Check (5/7). Others: No gaming - Failure (Sunday was lost) Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts Got back on track. One day was a bit counter-productive but there is one thing that I have almost forgot to mention. Cold showers! Oh yes, every morning this week I finished my shower with a burst of cold water. There were mornings where I felt that I need to "get ready" and my way to get ready was immediately switching water from hot to cold. I felt as if I trolled myself. On Sunday I thought: "well, I won't do it today, really not feeling like it". Then I said to myself: "Ok, it is up to you after all" and turned on cold water giggling maniacally as a masochist. Lol. Gonna keep doing this. Feels really good afterwards. New goal - Ending shower with at least 10 seconds of cold water. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 19 Low consciousness week with attempts to get back on track. DAY 127 Monday day off. Finished all the work late and therefore woke up late. Felt happy and decided to rest today. That’s what I did. What I did not do was meditate and exercise. DAY 128 Tuesday day off. Had to visit relatives. I say 'had to' because it is a tradition. It is not a happy Halloween here (although it is popular between younger people) but it is a day to pay respect to the dead. Most of the time spent in a bus or a car. Did not meditate or exercise again. DAY 129 I was late to work this morning. Turns out it is easy to fall off track. DAY 130 Attempt to restore morning routine. Meditated for 15 minutes and then went back to bed. I can say that it is the autumn. It is cold and vet. Almost everyone here uses this excuse from time to time to explain why they feel a certain way. DAY 131 Finally successful morning routine. Work was tough but I was tough too. Things hung in balance for the most time. DAY 132 Another family obligation was completed today. Day was interesting. A lot of communication with other people. DAY 133 To finish the week I played computer games whole day. Fucking disappointed. WEEK 19 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Failure. Affirmation habit - Failure. Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Failure. Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Failure. Others: No gaming - Failure. Limited social media time - Failure. Eating healthy - Two days of total failure. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts Shit. It is not the first time where after very hard period through where I do really well I have a more relaxed time which ends up in low consciousness activities, not following through, eating shitty food and in the end hating myself. All these entries were written in retrospective. That is the reason why they are so short. For the first time since I have started it was not only that I did not manage to follow through but there there moments where I did not want to follow through. I did not want to meditate even after experiencing how much of the positive impact to my life it has created. I just did not. That is it. We will see what next week brings, TakeCare

WEEK 18 DAY 120 A lot of crazy dreams once again. Did not feel like rest. Argued with my girlfriend in the morning a lot but we managed to end it all on a good note. I noticed that my sitting posture is not as good as it used to be. More and more often I notice myself sitting in all kinds of funky ways and today I also felt some pain in my back. That is a strong indicator that I need to work on it once again. DAY 121 Morning required active effort. It was tough to complete the routine but somehow I managed. This was the case where pure will helped a lot. In the evening I felt so damn tired. I was agitated and impatient. I really got deep into these projects that I have to complete until the end of the month and somewhere deep down I probably believe that it is a good reason to get all stressed out. DAY 122 This morning I reconnected with myself during morning routine. I felt present once again. Yesterday's worries about the work I have to do did not bother me throughout the day. An interesting note is that I got triggered at work when a colleague kind of made fun of me indirectly. I wanted to respond but I just stood there and tried to soak it in. Wow I got furious inside. Seriously, it was a minor comment but it did hurt my ego a lot. My external reaction was smooth and polite but inside it was a mess. Today I accidentally met a friend who used to be smoking pot everyday and had a really lazy life. He seemed different and after I asked he told me that he was not smoking neither pot nor cigarettes for the last four months, he bought a car and now trying to earn money as an "Uber" driver. He seemed excited and I do not remember him ever being excited. Later on when I thought about him I realized that I was primarily focused on myself when we were communicating. I did not focus on that his life has changed a lot but focused on myself trying to create some sort of positive impression. I still am surprisingly self-absorbed at times. DAY 123 I had a complicated situation at work. Few days earlier I found someone's mistake and I fixed it. Later turns it it was not a mistake. Well, some of it was, but most of my changes actually made things worse. Nobody had figured that out at that time but I had to fix it again as soon as possible. It was quite complicated and I had very little time. There was some panic in the air lol. I remember at one point I was so tense that I just couldn't think. I was looking at the information and just couldn't say if that is correct or not. In the end I sorted everything out and sent all the necessary emails. Now I am at home and I feel like I need to check everything once again to be sure it is alright. I am still working 10 hours everyday. 3 more days and it should end. DAY 124 I remember yesterday before sleep I had thoughts about what I have to do tomorrow and the uncertainty if I will be able to make it happen. Today I came to work and it turned out there is much more things to do so now I have certainty - I wont make it. The thing is that situation is "worse" than I expected but I feel pretty much the same. The point I am trying to make is that worrying does not have much to do with what actually is happening around me. DAY 125 & DAY 126 Weekend was all about work once again. It has been the last days before deadline. I worked for 11 hours on Saturday and 13 hours on Sunday. Not much has happened besides me sitting in front of computer. I have managed to fully complete morning routine both days so that helped me to stay on track. On Sunday morning after meditating I was contemplating about my current situation and had one pleasant realization. I remembered being a kid and craving for approval from other people so bad. It was the sweetest thing I could have at that time. A lot of stuff I did was done with an intention to be noticed and to get compliments. Now I am getting more and more self-reliant and that need is getting less and less relevant. I understood, that in a way I am getting that self-approval from myself and I do not need it from anyone else all that much. I used to be constantly making grand plans and constantly failing which eventually drove me to low-self esteem and actually hating myself and people around me. Now I am more and more often aware of how good it feels when what I think aligns with what I do. WEEK 18 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check. Affirmation habit - Failure. (inconsistent) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check. Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Check. (because of circumstances it has been working, not learning though) Others: No gaming - Check. Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Thoughts It is over! I finished all projects in time. I have a day off on Monday and Tuesday so finally after two week craziness pace will normalize. In the future I will try to avoid situations like this. It was too much work. I proved for myself that I had enough stamina and emotional stability to work 10 hours for straight two weeks without a day off but damn I do not think it is worth it. I feel really tired and I do not have much else to add. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 17 DAY 113 "Confirming your belief systems does not get you closer to truth." - That is a strong quoute. It was a tough morning. Struggled with meditation a lot. During the day I decided to go all horse crazy with affirmations. I have lot of negative thinking, right? These are thoughts that just happen. Some time ago I learned from Brian Tracy that you can only think about one thing at a time and what is the most important is that when you think about that one think you can't think about anything else at that moment. If I do affirmations I cannot have negative thoughts. Since I do positive affirmations this eventually will lead to more positive thoughts happening on their own. DAY 114 Also, today I have found out how many side projects I have to complete until the end of the month. This is going to take most of my free time. I will have to adjust morning routine for this. DAY 115 I was thinking less today. Somehow it just happened. I was more motivated, analyzed less and acted more. DAY 116 Today towards the evening the tiredness kicked in big time. A little less sleep than usual and more work throughout a day did its job. Tomorrow I will have my full morning routine. These last two days gave me a new perspective on how important it is to just take your time and do not think about how long morning routine lasts. It was also a good indicator that I was flexible enough to not experience much difficulties in having a shorter morning procedure. I did not feel bad or that I was loosing something I simply knew that it will be done this way. Usually I struggle with these kinds of shifts because I sometimes focus too much on getting that check mark of 20 minute yoga or 30 minute meditation or even 10 minute breathing exercises and so on. What matters is what one experiences. DAY 117 Morning routine was amazing. No rush, just being. What I noticed about meditation is that very often first 15 minutes are real smooth and second half has a lot of distractions. It is almost always like this. Although today I had a very peculiar experience where everything has disappeared for a while. It felt as if space became flat in a vertical direction. There was nothing ahead or behind. It was as if I was sleeping while totally awake. These are words and they distort what I am trying to communicate here. Oh well, I can sum it up by saying that II had a deep and new experience this morning. DAY 118 This morning I had a refreshed realization about how much things have changed since I started this journal. How my view towards the life has changed, how much my awareness has grown, how much emotional labour I have put in to get to where I am now. I felt really grateful to all the circumstances that eventually led me to this moment. I used to always was so hard on myself and moments of self appreciation barely ever occurred. The environment in which I have grown taught me how to compete but did not taught me how to express my emotions and be vulnerable and openly grateful. I kept everything inside, I struggled trying to keep external circumstances under control and in general I had a lot of strong black&white opinions which I imposed upon the world. Things are slowly opening up. It is so gradual that it is difficult to see it everyday. It is like a child relative which you see only once a year and every time you want to say: wow, you have grown a lot. Well, this morning there was a "Christmas experience" for me. Life have changed drastically. I see a lot of struggles in other people journals but Jebus flippin Crust you people are all working on yourself! You all are making yourself work emotionally by your own choice. Honestly, you are all heroes. DAY 119 I had an interesting tour through various fears this night. I dreamed that I forgot to go to work and my boss called me asking where I was. I dreamed that I was in a small medieval looking room under ground and I was afraid it will all collapse on top of me. It did not though. I dreamed that I jumped from the bridge into the lake and there was a plank floating on the surface. It had a big nail in it and as I hit the water it went through my heel. I tried to move as little as possible so that it wouldn't tear my feet completely. I dreamed that I visited my father during the weekend. We got into a serious argument and I was so mad I went to pack my stuff and get ready to leave even though I have arrived just minutes earlier. Wow, that was a lot to take in one night. Funny thing is that these dreams are not "bad", I am actually glad that I had them. There is some stuff bubbling inside and it has to express itself one way or another. By bringing my awareness to these experiences and not rejecting them I can grow. And who knows, maybe some time later I will be blessed with some pleasant dreams. WEEK 17 REVIEW Goals Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. (same as last week, kind of forgot it during the weekend) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check. (couple of days meditated for 20 minutes because of adjusted morning routine) Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Check. Others: Absence of video games- Check. Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Also a huge progress on side projects. To sum up it was an amazing week ! Thoughts It has been a crazy busy week. Next one is going to be pretty much the same and after that pace will normalize. I do not have something special to share to sum up this week. I guess I am just too tired today. One more thing to note, there is something happening to my reflection in the mirror. It has been smiling more often lately. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

@iago iriarte arhatha Thank you for the support! WEEK 16 DAY 106 Morning routine completed successfully. I do like doing breathing exercises in the morning. Really helps to wake up and energizes the body. Day at work was very unusual. I can strongly feel the after effect of the retreat. My mind keeps flashing back to retreat experience. It was quite difficult to sit in front of computer for 8 hours. I attended yoga lesson during lunch break which also felt very different. Everything is different. I do need some time for things to settle down. In the evening I felt very tired. DAY 107 It was a bit difficult to wake up at 6 am, nonetheless, I can see this morning routine becoming a very strong habit. I can feel it throughout the day. It makes me take a step back and see things from a higher perspective. Less attachment. I noticed how difficult for me is to accept that I have some specific limiting beliefs and it is ten times more difficult to transform them to something that brings harmony to me and the environment. I handled my work better today. Things are still not the same as it were before holidays but I mean it in a positive way. Something happened but understanding of happening is still rather vague. DAY 108 First 20 minutes of meditation were super solid. My sitting posture felt natural, legs crossed, no tension, back straight. Mind was quiet. I felt the space inside being able to contain more (very abstract but that’s the closest I can get with verbal expression at the moment). Later I was very conscious of how all inner dialogues, discussions and conflicts begin. It was quite obvious where all the tension comes from - I argue with myself constantly. It was a third day in a row where my dreams were damn unsettling. All kinds of ridiculous intense negative experiences. The only reason I can come up with is that the holidays are over although going back to work does not feel negative. DAY 109 During yoga class as I got more and more tired I was looking forward to the end of the class when I can lay down and relax. Ironically, yoga is all about being here and now. I thought about all self-development work and reasons behind it. I believe most of the people (including me) start with an intention to "be happy" which is ironic because lately it seems for me that best way to make oneself happy is to stop trying to make oneself happy. Same might go for reaching enlightenment - stop trying to reach enlightenment. No statement is absolute including this statement. Though there is one idea that gets very close to absolute and it goes like this: "life is exactly what it is". I do not doubt it just because I have not yet find a way to doubt it. I tried speed-reading today. I spent 45 minutes to get through 150 page book. There was a decent amount of pictures and that saved a lot of time. In the end I had a decent summary of the most important points the book had. Just in case you might be wondering, this book was not related to spiritual growth. That would not be a proper material to speed-read in my opinion. DAY 110 Sometimes peculiar moments occur where reality becomes super real. I call them "reality spikes". I felt super hyped after morning routine and felt strongly conscious. Later I experienced a sudden and immense drop from high consciousness to awkward and intense moments at work. At work it has slowly started again. The anxiety, strong sense of physical pressure on chest. I managed to observe more than I usually do in this state but it is very difficult. Today I noticed myself often being paranoid because I might be working too slow. I do everything very meticulously because it is important in my profession but there are guys in the office that can do things faster but they leave a mess and it can backfire. It continued throughout the day and I have left work feeling as if it was very hard day though it wasn't this way externally. Being able to observe a little bit more is difficult because most of the things I see happening in my head are really neurotic. DAY 111 There is a certain unease following me. I did not got me off track but it was just so close to becoming something else, Something bigger. Few times I was struck by a sudden need to get rid of it. In the end I managed to keep observing it for what it is. DAY 112 Morning required some will power. I seem to be needing much less of it than I used to. I think will power is best for situations when sometimes you just have to brute force it. When I was younger it was the main ingredient in achieving anything or trying to change my habits. What I learned (unfortunately, very slowly) is that it cannot be the basis of self-development. If I only use will power I burn out and crash hard. It is day 112. I had few notable steps back but I am moving forward. What many painful experiences led to is that now I do not crash so bad that I can't recover. I was working on some projects today and I do tend to get tense while working. I scratch my head, I bite my lip, often change my sitting posture. After few hours something went off. The pressure on my chest became to heavy for me to continue working. I tried to meditate to calm down but after 10 minutes I gave up and took a nap. While I was lying in bed from that state of desperation and panic I tried my best to accept it the way it is. Shit that was heavy. I saw my ego from a new perspective. It is much bigger than I so previously. It is much stronger and very deceptive. This experienced left me confused and a bit out of balance for the rest of the day. WEEK 16 REVIEW Goals: Morning routine: Exercising +breathing exercises daily - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. (although was not as good on weekend) Meditating for at least 30 mins everyday - Check. Learning for 30 minutes in the morning - Check. Others: Absence of video games- Check. Limited social media time - Check. (although was not as good on weekend) Eating healthy - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Finger cracking - Check. (removing from the list) Smoking used to be in this list. I do not really try anymore. What happened naturally is that during work days I do not smoke until I get back home form work. So usually I have 3 cigarettes or so per day except the weekends. I am fine with that for now although clock is ticking. Thoughts - Finally took care of finger cracking habit!!!!!! That took a while but last 3 weeks have been successful therefore I consider this goal achieved. - What I used to believe about self-development work and how the progress happens was so simplified it was barely touching the surface. It has changed completely since the start of the journal. - One of the not so pleasant phenomenon this week was that every night I had negative dreams. Every. Single. Night. My days were relatively positive so that is not necessarily related to the external reality but more with my subconscious or the shadow. I wonder what next week will bring. - New morning routine. It was not always easy but it is worth the effort. I noticed that yoga has became more of a meditative process for me. Breathing exercises is a perfect routine to do first thing in the morning. So far so good. Much love, TakeCare

WEEK 14 This was a messy period. Some of these notes were written days later than actual events occurred. DAY 92 25 minute mantra meditation. Today I did recovery of some lost posts due to server crash. I read through some older posts in my journal and I can say that I have forgotten so much. I have reached a 1/4 milestone of my journaling commitment. Much has happened. I tried out mantra meditation. It was different from what I expected. After 15 minutes of "oooommmm" it feels different from when you start. I have forgotten to adjust timer for 30 minutes. Oops. I spent 3-4 hours arranging my all time photos dating from 2006. That was a one long memory trip for me. Since 2012 I have started what I call "photo diary". These are photos arranged in chronological order that capture both my simple daily activities and special moments like trips or certain unusual events. I usually capture about 800 moments per year and it all reminded me so much that I have forgotten. Sometimes I think that when I die all this can go to my grandchildren so they can see my life since I was 22 years old and all the stuff a person can go through their life. It also shows how much I struggled with smoking and how many times I quit and started smoking again, all my attempts to take control of my life, my little failures and successes. This should be a good kick in the ass to start doing things that matter long term. It is almost sleep time and I have remembered that I did not exercise today. I went for a 5 km walk today but to be honest that does not fully compensate missing exercise. 1 tiny finger crack. DAY 93 20 minute yoga. 30 minute breathing meditation. I tried out new yoga routine. First I was like "oh, this is nice, I can't do it properly yet, but in time I will learn". It was physically much more demanding than the one I was doing until now. Towards the end I encountered couple poses that are just impossible for me because of both flexibility and muscle strength. Gotta get ready for them side-planks with one leg lifted. I will look for some other routine tomorrow. I feel this one was too big of a leap in difficulty at the moment. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 94 20 minute yoga. 30 minute breathing meditation. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 95 20 minute yoga. 45 minutes of Zazen. Fingers cracked 0 times. Today I learned about zazen. We did 20 minutes of sitting, 5 minutes walking and another 20 minutes of sitting. There was an attempt to replicate the original tradition so the teacher was walking around with a stick and patting us on a shoulder from time to time. Really can't say this helped to concentrate as it is supposed to, actually, it was kind of funny. Also, he walked really silently so I was not sure where he was exactly and the stick would found me unexpectedly. Adjusted my yoga routine a little bit. I have decided not to change it completely but gradually make some changes by including new poses or adjusting old ones. Fingers cracked 0 times. After this day I lost control of what is happening and for the next 7 days I lived a rather low consciousness life. I did not meditate, did not exercise, ate all kinds of food - sometimes fine, sometimes not. I watched tv series, played games a little bit, watched some gaming related streams and smoked. During these days my flatmates have moved out so there also was a lot of stuff to take care off. DAY 96 DAY 97 DAY 98 One important thing that I managed to take care of is finger cracking. Fingers cracked 1 time this week. WEEK 15 DAY 99 - Chaos DAY 100 - Chaos DAY 101 - Chaos DAY 102 - Chaos DAY 103 - Retreat DAY 104 - Retreat DAY 105 - Retreat Shift of routine was extreme. From chilling, watching tv series, streams or playing games and smoking to waking up at 5 am and going to meditate. Some of the stuff we did made me feel uncomfortable because it seemed a bit too weird, too alien for me. Although as the time went by I got used to that. All in all it was an experience which is very difficult to put in words. I met some open-minded and open-hearted (if there is such an expression) people. Some stuff they said sounded a bit too woo-woo for me some stuff was really eye-opening. I still have a lot of mixed feelings. Saturday was the most intense day - 4 sessions of meditation each of them lasted an hour + 30 minute yoga and 30 minute breathing exercises. My knees were wrecked. It was very difficult physically not even talking about all mental and emotional difficulties. However, it was very much worth it. Next week I will adjust journaling format. Not exactly sure how. I think there is no need to write exactly how much time I meditated or how much time was spent doing yoga every day. Nobody cares. This helped me to stay disciplined but focusing on time spent is not what matters. What matters is my own personal experience. What matters is process. One thing that I have brought back from retreat is this: "There is no greater authority than your own personal experience" This resonated strongly with me. REVIEW OF WEEK 14-15 Goal review The usual goal review does not really apply here because the experience is very much split. Half of the time I followed through, half of it I have totally lost it. Some important notes: Finally success in handling finger cracking habit. Removing it from my goal list although I have to keep an eye on it for at least the first week of work, because I did not crack my fingers while I was on holidays. Ate only vegetarian food during retreat which was surprisingly pleasant and did not felt like something was missing at all. Experienced an effect of an intense meditation practice. Thoughts Things are moving forward. A lot of things happened and some of them require time to settle down. New goal Morning routine adjustment: Waking up at 6 am; Lemon water; Breathing exercises; 20 minutes yoga; 30 minutes meditation; Shower; 30 minutes for learning, contemplating or memorizing. Next week I will come back to usual daily journaling focusing more on the experiences that occur. Thank you so much for reading this, WIth Love, TakeCare

Remembered few more things that might be useful. If you meditate in the morning: Exercise, do some stretching. Have a shower. Meditate before breakfast. If you meditate in the evening: Do not meditate straight after work because your mind might be to active or too tired. Do not meditate too late because of obvious reason: sleepiness. Also do it daily and take notes on what helps and interferes with meditation. I can assure that no matter what you do you will have some days that won't feel very good but do it anyway. Think long term! TakeCare

I have meditated for 3 months now and this is what I learned about sitting posture. First I meditated sitting on a chair. I have used the back of a chair for support. This resulted in making me sleepy. Later I started meditating with my back straight and it was much much better. At some point I decided to try out cross-legged meditation sitting on the floor. If you are a beginner you need a pillow for that so your bottom is above the ground 5-10 cm (for my lovely american friends it is 2-4 inches). When I tried this for the first time it was really difficult. I could not put my knees on my legs because I was not flexible enough. Despite of that, I noticed that I was able to be more present in this sitting posture. I kept attempting to meditate cross-legged and few weeks later I had started practicing a little bit of yoga. This helped a lot. I still struggle sometimes, there are days when it does not feel very comfortable but some days it just flows. My meditation sessions are 25 minutes so it is not very long but that is the duration that is perfect for me at the moment. Just yesterday I have meditated sitting on a chair and I was surprised to find out that now it is easier to meditate cross-legged. It took 3 months for me, that is some time, yes. but if you look at self-actualization as a life long quest it is really not that much. If you can do 5 minutes - do 5. Build gradually. When you sit for 5, 10 or 15 minutes remember that it is not possible to fail. It is not a competition. You dedicated this time for concentration, contemplation, observing your thoughts and breathing or whatever your approach is. At those 5 minutes everything else is secondary! There is no need to evaluate how are you doing, is it "good" meditation or a "bad" one. There is no need to be self-critical because you are thinking to much. Whenever you notice that you drift away you focus back on meditation. That is the best thing you can do. In my opinion even 5 minutes of real dedicated meditation can be very useful. I am a beginner myself but everything I wrote here is based on my experience. Hope this helps one way or another. TakeCare

WEEK 13 DAY 85 20 minute morning yoga. 60 minute yoga class. 25 minute breathing meditation. Spent some time reading and watching Ken Wilber. Finally getting a basic understanding about what whole integral theory is about. Also watched new Leo's video. Very sceptical about it. I have done my share of experimentation with certain substances and it can be very insightful and also very delusional. Although all this is relative and depending on the context you are comparing it against conclusions can vary dramatically. Anyway, it is interesting to see where he goes from here. Meditation was tough today. Really really tough. I was not able to concentrate fully. Still very glad I did it. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 86 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Lovely meditation today. I felt deeply thankful for the opportunities I have in my life and all the big and small things that are happening around me. I am experiencing so much daily it is crazy. I have a morning routine which stuck to me nicely. My nutrition has improved significantly. Without even having an intention to lose weight (because I was in a decent shape anyway) I lost 4 kilos in last 2 and half months. I have a job which is not easy but I like it and I see myself growing and becoming a master in what I do. I work on myself consistently and my awareness and emotional balance is evolving. I have a girlfriend with whom I am happy with and our relationship is growing and getting more grounded. I have other people that care about me and I am very grateful for that. I am learning to take life less seriously and enjoy present moment more. I am also becoming less dogmatic and more open minded. There is still so much to learn and discover and that does not mean that there is a lack of something or that there is some sort of underlying deficiency which does not allow me to be happy. It simply means that life can get even more colourful and meaningful. Love you all. Fingers cracked 4 times. Shit. I often notice myself before I crack fingers but sometimes it is too late. Shiet. DAY 87 15 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. I have overslept today for the first time in months. When I woke I just felt terribly and went back to bed for another 10 minutes. Had to cut my morning yoga a bit short because of that. Meditation was smooth today. Fingers cracked 6 times. There is no improvement in this area. Actually at the moment it is a bit worse than few weeks ago. Such a little insignificant habit can become a big problem when you try to get rid of it. DAY 88 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute neti neti meditation. 25 minute contemplation. Meditation class continues. Two more weeks and it is over. First of all, I was introduced to neti neti and that these words basically mean "not this, not this". What a striking similarity to Lithuanian language - "not this: in Lithuanian = "ne tai". The way English speaking people pronounce "neti" sounds almost the same as "ne tai" in Lithuanian pronounciation. I knew my native language has very old roots and is one of the most archaic languages remaining but I did not expect such literal similarities to sanskrit. Today something special happened which I really want to share with you. Second meditation was called "contemplation". There was a question which we had to "activate" by thinking and analyzing it, then we meditated and relaxed and then asked the question once again. This method is supposed to help you get answers from subconscious mind. The question was: what does the real freedom mean? During activation phase I came up with 3 possible answers: Not having any attachments to internal or external environment; Totally giving up control and being pure observer; Dying. I thought that I probably will not get any answer because these are quite good and I had no more ideas at that time. Then I sat, relaxed and after 10-15 minutes I asked the question again: what does the real freedom mean? And after a second the answer came. I am one hundred percent sure that it was not something I thought. I simply did not even have a time to think, I just asked and the answer happened. The answer was simple: freedom = present moment. And then silence. I knew ideas sometimes just appear but I have never ever been this conscious when it actually happened. I was so excited and blown by such a direct experience of the contact with my subconscious mind that I was not able to follow remaining steps of this contemplation-meditation. I want to start practicing this meditation more often. I have shitload of questions to ask. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 89 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Last day at work before holidays. I was so excited in the morning that I forgot to do affirmations and spent time daydreaming about the holidays. It is not that I do not like my job, I simply have never had a holidays which I can spent however I want. All the holidays I had before were dedicated to taking caring of my studies. 3 suddle finger cracks. DAY 90 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Today and tomorrow I will do whatever I feel like I want to do. I will not limit myself in any way and since I am going home I will probably eat some "not very healthy" food. Now I writing in the evening and that is exactly what happened. I had some sugary craziness and I also noticed that at times when I go back to some old habits I do enjoy them less and less. As the result of changed environment and a lazy day meditation was really tough. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 91 10 minute morning exercise. 25 minute breathing meditation. Day 2 of no control. To understand how bad nutrition affects oneself you have to eat healthy for some time and then go back to old habits. It messes with my head big time. What I noticed is that I became less conscious, more passive, not really interested in taking initiative or challenging myself. This of course happened because of the change of environment but nutrition played an important role too. Today was the first time when I actually thought about skipping meditation. It was evening and I had thoughts that "I might be too tired and it will not be a quality meditation anyway. I do not want to do it just to have a plus next to my goal". What helped me to follow through is remembering that I had even more difficult circumstances for meditation and I meditated despite of them. I got my shit together and sat for 25 minutes and all I can say it was so worth it. Things have settled down, I relaxed and realized how tense I was getting. I felt a pressure because of my holidays. Funny, isn't it? Holidays are supposed to be used for recreation and resting but I wanted to make these 2 upcoming weeks to really count. Without noticing I created some subtle tension which was not in my field of awareness. After meditation I felt excited about all the opportunities that are awaiting me. Fingers cracked 2 times. (It was almost accidental and very weak cracks. It was tempting to not inculde them in the counter but since I am doing this for my own good I got to be ruthless) REVIEW OF WEEK 13 Goal review Quitting smoking - Same as last week - failure. Did not take any action this matter. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. (did not play but watched other people play for a while) Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. (with a pre-planned exception on weekend) Exercising daily - Check. Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Finger cracking - Failure. No more porn - Failure. Well, not proud of this. Affirmation habit - Check. Thoughts There are 2 goals that look very shaky: smoking and finger cracking. Once again - GET READY FOR CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT. Can't stress this enough. Every time I go to my old home old patterns reemerge. I think it would be a good idea to sit and meditate/contemplate on what is awaiting. Just believing that things will happen in the right way is naive and I do underestimated it again. I got really good in managing my workdays. I do enjoy them almost every day, there is a clear routine which is strict but not too constraining. What I mean is that there are certain stuff (like exercise, meditation, journaling) that I do everyday and there are periods of time that could be spent however I want. When it comes to weekends and especially weekends when I am not at home I always struggle. Another important note is that I need to get used to new ways to rest and new things to enjoy while resting. When I am at my old home I tend to act the way I used to. I look for satisfaction in my old pleasures. That does not really work well because I get less and less pleasure from food that makes me feel heavy or is very sweet. Also the time I spend watching some light entertainment does not last as long as it used to. I know I can always meditate, read, take a walk, have a meaningful conversation, practice my listening and empathy skills, study things that excite me and so on, but old patterns work in an old way. Next two weeks are HOLIDAYS! Oh there is so much stuff I want do! So here goes goal adjustment. Goal adjustment - Minimal meditation session increased to 30 minutes. - Learn another 20 minute morning yoga routine. - Practice mantra meditation. - Do a value workshop. I have never completely figured my core values. I had some notes, some thoughts but result never looked convincing. - There is also some literature to read and stuff to do that are related to my career. Will not go into detail here. - TIME TO STOP CRACKING FINGERS AMIGO! That is it for this week. I want to leave you with a song. A song which has a profound twist. If you will be patient enough and listen through it till the end it might become a special song for you as it is for me. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next update planned on 2016.10.02

Recovery of week 12 DAY 78 60 minute yoga lesson. 25 minute meditation. Woke up feeling like shit. Physically my head was heavy, eyes did not want to open at all, my lungs were burning inside. That is the way I chose to start this week. While attempting to do affirmations my mind kept clinging to various negative future scenarios and I had hard time focusing. I was grim. Right now I am at work. Still feeling like shit. I want to REALLY remember this feeling, so next time it helps me to avoid this trap. Just found some toothpaste on my watch. Sums up my day pretty well. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 79 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Well it has been a crazy day at work. Patterns of negative thinking were active. Felt exhausted after work. Watched Leo's video "what is wrong with ego". Sat down for meditation and surprise surprise, my girlfriend decided to "try it out". It was interesting and fun to share our experiences. I hope she will join more often and I will do my best not to push her to meditate even though I really wish she would practice meditation daily. One interesting thought I had today is that there is no me and environment, that I am the environment. I find it hard to put it in words but it was a nice insight. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 80 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Well it has been a productive day. I feel like I am back on track after this weekend. There is tension hanging around throughout the day but in general things have stabilized. Even though there is still some basic emotional stuff to take care of and I have not yet been able to find myself at work relaxed for entire day I sometimes find myself thinking that things are getting better and emotions will sort itself out at some point. This thought brings me peace. Fingers cracked 4 times. DAY 81 20 minute morning yoga. 60 minute yoga class. 25 minute breathing meditation. Another productive day. I have really stepped up in clearing my to-do list and solving problems at work. I have also noticed increased awareness which inevitably led me to noticing a shitload of negative thoughts. It is crazy how often my mind focuses on creating some unrealistic negative future scenarios. When I meditate it is significantly more peaceful. I had a lot of thoughts today while meditating but they were not negative, they were mostly neutral. However, during my day I face countless thoughts that tend to slowly accumulate anxiousness. Oh well, this too will pass. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 82 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute do-nothing meditation. Well, guess what, another productive day. In the evening I felt very tired though and did not want to meditate at all but somehow I managed. Tried to switch things up with do-nothing meditation but it just felt that I sat there. I observed my thoughts when they came but the whole process kept making them cease. I am not really sure how to observe without interrupting the thinking process for more than 2 seconds. Fingers cracked 4 times DAY 83 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Today was a rest day for me. Took care of all daily stuff, attended a guided tour at the manor, walked through the city market and had some relaxation at home. I have been working hard this week so I did not have my usual "I should do something important" thoughts. This is a good step forward that signifies about some basic improvement in finding balance between work and rest. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 84 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute breathing meditation. Today was a productive Sunday. I worked couple of hours on job related stuff and 5 hours on my personal project which finally reached a certain check point, giving me an opportunity to focus on some other projects that are about to begin. Really glad about that. Meditation was relatively smooth and I understood that breathing meditation feels more natural to me than do-nothing meditation. I find it hard to observe my thoughts if I first do not focus on breathing. If I do-nothing I tend to drift with my thoughts for a longer periods of time. While I am doing breathing meditation whenever I have thoughts I notice them when I shift my focus back to breathing. Going to stick to what works best at the moment. Although I am really looking forward to doing some mantra meditation couple weeks later when I will have more alone time. Holy holidays. Fingers cracked 7 times. While I worked on my projects there was some tension happening which resulted in an increase in finger cracking. REVIEW OF WEEK 12 Goal review Quitting smoking - Did not put any effort this week. Smoked just like I used to. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Exercising daily - Check. Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. No excessive use of alcohol - Check. Removing this goal. I do not drink in excess and do not want to. There is no need to have a goal which does not challenge me and is included in this list just to make me feel better. Finger cracking - Failure. No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. Critical Observation While I was working on Sunday after about 4-5 hours I noticed tension and the pressure on my chest. The same one that happens at work. This means that this "situation" occurs not because of the office but because of my working process. There might not be any co-workers around and it can still happen. This changes the way I see this problem and is important when choosing the means to figuring it out. One day I will work in harmony. I made steps forward and this observation is another important piece in seeing the whole picture of my emotional landscape. There is also an observation about improving meditation sitting posture. During 4 meditations this week my sitting posture felt really comfortable. 2 times I struggled a bit and one time I had to change my position few times. I will not increase my meditation session duration yet but I can see it happening one week later. This recovery of a deleted post lacks some important info and unfortunately, that is all I can recover. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

Well, it was really disappointing to learn that last two posts have been lost due to server crash. I recovered some material but some stuff is gone for good. From now on I will keep up a backup in my laptop. It is very important for me to keep this journal continuous so after a year I can make a step by step analysis of how things have changed. Recovery of WEEK 11 DAY 71 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. After crazy Sunday morning yoga was more challenging. Somehow I managed. Coffee this morning was not at all as delicious as the image in my head created by anticipation of FINALLY having a hot cup of derrricious coffee. Also it made me thirsty so I had to drink a cup of water just to balance things out. Day at work was relatively chill. During last few hours tension built up. Can't really say why. Forgot about affirmation practice though. Damn. Will get this sorted out tomorrow. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 72 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. Someone finally started working on affirmations. Hooray! I use only one affirmation which is the most true thing I can come up with and weirdly enough the thing that I often forget: "Life is exactly what it is". Meditation was great today! Still plenty of thoughts and a little bit of discomfort in sitting posture (although this one is getting better) also more awareness and peace. I think I know why it happened. I tried to be very productive. After coming back from work I would sit and meditate which led to having a hard time to being present. Today I meditated later, an hour before sleep, and things seemed to be more in a flow. I probably need some time after work for my mind to calm down. I will keep this meditation schedule for this week and see if that is true. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 73 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. The way yoga happened this morning was awesome. I reached a new stage of being able to focus on the present moment. It is still very beginner-like but it is an improvement. Will attempt the same tomorrow. Also, have been crazy productive at work without creating any tension for the first half of the day. Oh, and worked on affirmations again. Did week 5-10 review today. It was very useful to remember some of the stuff that I went through. Meditation had a different taste today. I had a lot of thoughts that my rebounce time from being the thoughts and observing thoughts was better than usual. Also, important notice, I still have plenty of thoughts but they are not negative. These are just some thoughts about stuff. I remember my first attempts to meditate. That felt like someone turned the knobs and toxic waste started pouring down the drain. Things have cleared up significantly. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 74 20 minute yoga in the morning. 60 minute yoga class. 30 minute mantra meditation. 30 minute guided meditation. Today I have attempted mantra meditation for the first time. Really liked it. There is something about sound that I really enjoy. I want to try this at home but I live with flatmates. I guess this will wait until holidays. Fingers cracked 1 times. DAY 75 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. This week passed by quickly. Do not really want to produce any words today. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 76 20 minutes yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. Lost day. I fucked up again. What happened last Sunday happened today. I am journaling on Monday right now so I can foresee the future and tell you that this shit will happen tomorrow again. I played computer games most of the day. I still have mixed associations there so I keep coming back to this addiction of mine. Fingers cracked 0 times. (I guess I was too immersed in RimWorld to crack fingers) DAY 77 20 minute yoga in the morning. 20 minute meditation. Lost day number 2. I smoked in vast excess. Whole day RimWorld. Whole day wasted. Did not even manage to sit 25 minutes, cut meditation 5 minutes short because it was too heavy. Just could not handle it. Fingers cracked 2 times REVIEW OF WEEK 11 Goal review Quitting smoking - Failure on weekend. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Failure on weekend. Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Exercising daily - Check. Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. (one day was 20 minutes though) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. No excessive use of alcohol - Check. (0 alcohol) Finger cracking - Failure. This one is not too important but really tricky when it comes to removing it from my life. No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. Forgot to do affirmations on Monday, but did fine for the rest of the week. Looking back it is difficult for me to understand how did I convince myself that it is no big deal to play a little bit and that there is something that is worth all the sacrifice. This is a pattern that dates long back into my teenage years. Since this is recovery of week 11 I do not remember what else I wrote about, but I do remember posting this video: Thank you for reading, TakeCare

6-10 WEEK SUMMARY WEEK 6 New goals: No porn. Dealing with anxiety and tension in my body. Had moments of flow and total self-confidence. Also had moments of of anger. Managed to keep up with meditation and exercise habit during 3 day trip but struggled with smoking. Goal score = B WEEK 7 New goals: Affirmation habit. Started practicing yoga at work during my lunch break. This had a positive effect on the dynamic of the day. Had insights on emotional labour and reoccuring negative thinking patterns. Noticed that I am judging other people less than I used to. A very memorable and insightful conversation with 7 year old girl. Goal score = B (if there was no smoking it would be an A) WEEK 8 New goals: Extra emphasis on smoking. Mindful eating. Insights about letting go, tendency to focus on the things that could go wrong and reasons behind that. Also realised that I can look quite nervous and tense for other people even though I might think I am feeling fine. Still dealing with anxiety had moments of tiring reslessness. Started attending 7 week meditation class where I tried new ways of meditating and depened my knowledge on this topic. Trying to really feel negative emotions for what they are. Started using new meditation timer so that I can meditate in stages. Had experiences of total shift in physical condition - starting very tense and anxious and feeling totally relaxed after meditation. Goal score = B (same as last week, smoking is the main problem) WEEK 9 New goals: Focus on observing physiology and relieve tensions once they are detected. Started attending yoga class - 1 hour twice a week. Pushed too hard and hurt my back. Started being more careful with yoga practice. Same good old anxiety and physical tension at work. Had few really difficult and stressful days. Had a realization that tension in my body after some time concentrated in the chest area and this is exactly what led me to couple of mild panic attacks some time ago. Observed once again how meditation dissolves tension from my body. Struggled with smoking and affirmation habit. Goal score = C WEEK 10 New goals: No entertainment challenge (no smoking, drinking, no excessive talking, no coffee, no rushing, no excessive multitasking.) Had some crazy cravings for coffee in the beginning of the week which later have disappeared completely. At times felt like I was choking on silence. Observing negative emotions face to face. Noticing slight improvement in my yoga practice. My back is fine again. Unplanned increase in meditation time. It was much more difficult to resist entertainment over the weekend. On Sunday I totally lost control and things got crazy but surprisingly there was almost none self-guilt during or after indulging in all the things that I intended to stay away from. Gained emotional understanding that I do not need and I do not really enjoy social media at all. Goal score = A (for Monday to Saturday) and D (for Sunday) General notice: Since week 7 did not experience any anger at all. Thank you for reading, TakeCare

WEEK 10 DAY 64 20 minute yoga in the morning. 60 minute yoga class. 25 minute breathing meditation. Woke up feeling tired. This is mostly because of how much I smoked yesterday. Later on in the day a headache started. I felt very inspired yesterday and committed to no entertainment challenge for this week. Well, shit. Why did I take away coffee? As the first half of the day was ending I questioned this decision a lot. My mind was looking for reasons to cancel the challenge or at least part of it, at least coffee ban. I even had thoughts where I thought that it might actually be better to live with addictions. "I like my addictions" - yes, I had this thought. I want coffee so bad and at the same time I don't give a fuck that I want it. I will keep this challenge going no matter what. I have thoughts that this challenge might not be very useful for me, that it is only waste of energy. Well, fuck these thoughts, even if they are true. I will draw conclusions at the end of the week. Another thing, normally I do not waste much time on entertainment. I just need a quick facebook check, short article and a short video on youtube. I thought it is no big deal. Now I feel like I am choking on silence. There is a lot of empty space and it is tough to handle it. Last time I had a day without facebook was when there was no way to access the internet. Completely not indulging in entertainment and distractions is challenging especially when I need to do so little to get that little hit of facebook. Just one click. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 65 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25+25 minute breathing meditation. Had a decent sleep tonight but again I am sleepy. Is this because I cut out coffee? The sound of coffee machine at work triggers me big time. I am drinking tea right now and it sucks because it is not coffee. Had moments of clarity and relaxation towards the end of the workday. Later some tension came back. Going to sit now. First 25 minute sit was cross-legged, second sitting on the chair. During first sit I had a little trouble keeping my posture on the second sit I had some trouble staying conscious, felt a bit sleepy from time to time. Feeling relaxed now. Goodnight. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 66 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. 25 minute do-nothing meditation. Yoga felt extraordinary mindful today. It just happened this way I did not force anything presence was simply there. Later on at work I saw tension slowly building up. I lost my motivation at work. I mean, there is still some left but it is much less than it used to be. I am aware that motivation comes in waves and sometimes it is completely normal to wish you did not have to come in. This too shall pass. Almost checked facebook couple of times. Not intentionally though, purely because of habit. Just deleted bookmark from the browser so my mouse won't hover over it unconsciously. Something is happening and sometimes I feel that the best thing I could do is to get out of its way and let it happen. How to make 25 minute meditation feel like it lasts 60 minutes? Try sitting crossed-legged and bring your knees as low as you can. If you are very flexible this won't work but if you are like me pain will make meditation last forever. Breathing meditation - more like a pain meditation. Anyway, was an interesting experience. Later sat on the chair for 25 minutes of do-nothing meditation. I kept loosing my awareness very easily there. Breathing meditation keeps me more focused. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 67 20 minute yoga in the morning. 60 minute yoga class. 25 minute guided self inquiry. 25 minute energy observation meditation. Every morning it comes. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Lately it seems to have smaller impact on my day but it still there. I used to run away from it. Now we face each other everyday. I am still not sure why it comes but I feel it better now. Also, it tends to go away and then come back and go away and back again. Does not stay very long but keeps coming back. Just to clarify, I am talking about that feeling of unease, feeling of anxiety. Meditation class took place today. Attempted self-inquiry for the first time. We were guided through different layers of ourselves followed by the logic that something I observe is not who I am. Later we did what I call energy observation meditation (literal translation from my native language does not sound very good in English). Basically one can focus on anything that happens inside or outside oneself - be it a sound, a thought, a sensation of pressure or temperature and so on. The aim is not to cling to anything for too long and keep observing. Fingers cracked 0 times. (yay !) DAY 68 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. Sweet-ass morning. Things were in flow. Not for very long though. As I started my workday the pressure/tension came back. I worked a lot on my sitting posture today, it kept falling apart. When I try to sit with my back straight and legs bent at +/- 90 degrees I feel like I am doing a version of strong determination sitting. I just cant keep it for more than a minute, I have to straighten my legs or create tension in my shoulders or lay back. It might be a good idea to try to keep myself in the same position for at least 20 minutes or so. Why is it so hard? If I keep working still and do not move the pressure on my chest builds up like crazy. Had quite strong cravings for a smoke today. I noticed this happening every Friday. It is easier to avoid smoking during workdays but Friday brings a change of wind (or wind of change?). Anyway, I clearly knew that I do not really want to do that and craving vanished after some time. Today during meditation I had plenty of thoughts. Some stuff was quite ridiculous and when awareness kicked in I started laughing. My girlfriend was in a room and she started laughing too. I just could not stop for almost a minute. The whole situations was pretty absurd lol. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 69 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. Sat for meditation in the morning. It was emotionally challenging and I had a hard time leaving it as it is. Kept coming back to trying to fix a particular negative emotion or wishing it would fix itself. Also had hard time to sit cross-legged through entire meditation. I noticed that for some reason Saturday or Sunday mornings are always difficult emotionally therefore it is really useful to meditate in the morning so that I can become aware of why it happens. Oh shit, resisting entertainment over the weekend is a completely new dimension. The NEED is strong. Doing my best. Later in the day I sat for another 25 minutes and after that I took a nap for 15 minutes. I just did not know what to do. Sorry to disappoint you all but I have just spent half an hour on entertainment. Fingers cracked 5 times. DAY 70 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation in the evening. My dear sirs and ladies, I have gone completely out of control today. I guess the resistance built up and I just totally lost it. So to summarize what happened: RimWorld, a game which I dedicated this day to - from morning till evening; Smoking - not insane amounts but a bit too much; Sugary sweets - in the beginning I thought I will eat a shitload of sugary shit because me and my girlfriend (since we are not eating any) have accumulated large amounts of sweets at home. I ate some but did not really enjoy it as much as I expected so I stopped without any effort; Did not do any work or self-development work except the fact that I somehow managed to do yoga and meditation. Best thing about all this - minimal amount of self-guilt. This just happened and I had moments of enjoyment and saw how different life looks from the perspective of someone who plays computer games whole day. I have been in that place many times in my earlier years but now it seemed completely different. It was a good learning experience. I pushed myself too hard this week and this is where it got me and that is completely fine. Fingers cracked X amount of times. Might be 0, might be 3 but not more. REVIEW OF WEEK 10 Goal review Quitting smoking - Check (Except Sunday !) Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check (Except Sunday !) Limited social media time - Great success ! Eating healthy - Check. (Except Sunday !) Exercising daily - Check. Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. No excessive use of alcohol - Check. (0 alcohol) Finger cracking - Failure. Not too bad but still a failure. No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Failure. Could be more consistent. Mindful eating - Removing this goal. Everything is slowly becoming more mindful. I learned to eat slower and that is enough for now. NO ENTERTAINMENT CHALLENGE - 6 days of success, 1 day of complete and utter failure. If not Sunday this would be a near perfect week ! Thoughts No entertainment challenge In general this week had more happiness and peace. Still plenty of anxiety and all kinds of negativity, but things are changing. One thing I noticed that after joy/happiness/bliss passes and sadness/anxiety/tension kicks in it does not scare me that much. I am still trying to run away from those emotions but more and more often I face them and accept them fully or partially. It is not easy. This challenge was too much for me. Sunday is a good illustration. What I learned: I do not really need facebook. Not drinking coffee is really hard during first three days and later cravings disappear almost completely. The need for entertainment is extremely deep inside me. I was surprised by how difficult this week was at times. One interesting thing is that I started noticing more stuff and I found entertainment in other places like going home from work and watching people, observing birds, making tea, or listening to some atmospheric music. Pushing too hard for too long might result in total chaos. Woo-woo(-zela) One thing I noticed in meditation class that when sharing our experiences some people go full woowoozela (woo-woo). Funny thing is that those people tend to get along well with each other. What I mean by woowoozela is that some people totally miss the point of meditation and share their experiences of flying around the world and trying to find other people from the group so that they can fly together or some random visions of seeing Jesus or simply saying that their ego is gone (after first attempt of self-inquiry WOW good job lol). They are people who are attracted to some kind of spiritual bling-bling and they honestly remind me of a guy from youtube doing videos about "Ultra spiritual" stuff. And by the way, I am fine with it. What it made me think about is that a certain percentage of people in this forum are definitely big woowoozela fans and I should really be careful not to take some nonsense misinformation seriously. I became much more open-minded since I started looking more on the so called spiritual side of self-development but there is a definitely a limit for how far it can go. As the saying goes "If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out". Goal adjustment I was thinking about increasing meditation duration to 30 minutes per sit but I still have a hard time sitting cross-legged for 25 minutes. Maybe couple weeks later. - Ultra minimal social media time - Focusing on affirmation habit After this week's challenge I realised that I do not really miss it much. This might happen quite naturally though I have to be ready for some medium cravings at times. Afterword 10 weeks have passed. Soon I will do a quick recap of last 5 weeks. I do not get much replies in my journal and quite possibly nobody read through it entirely but if you are following my journey I just want to say that my commitment to this journal keeps growing. I have no doubt that I will follow through. P.s. Having no entertainment for 6 days led to this weeks entry becoming very long. Maybe even too long. Oops. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next update planned on 2016.09.11

WEEK 9 DAY 57 20 minute yoga in the morning. 60 minute yoga lesson. 25 minute breathing meditation. 25 minute sound meditation. I asked for bliss and I had some today. Nothing specific happened, morning was not easy but I did alright and later on there came some beautiful moments. Yoga! Today started yoga practice with a teacher. I will have lessons twice a week and each will last one hour. It felt much different than my casual 20 minutes in the morning. Actually, I pushed a bit too hard and something happened to my lower back. I hope it is nothing serious and I will be fine soon. Meditation was pleasant but full of distractions (both internal and external). Just before I went to sleep I did another sit. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 58 20 minute slow-mo yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. What is slow-mo yoga? Well, it is something you do when you wreck your back by stretching too hard the previous day. My lower back pain makes feel like an old man. Schedule today was full. I attended yet another birthday celebration, did not use any alcohol and chose carefully what to put in my mouth. Later I arrived back home and sat to meditate. I was tired but did relatively ok. In the future if there will be a very busy day coming I will adjust my schedule by meditating in the early morning. Fingers cracked 0 time. DAY 59 20 minute yoga at midday. 25 minute breathing meditation. Not enough sleep, going to work earlier, a lot of stress, feeling heavy pressure on chest. Very challenging day. During meditation back went crazy, had to lay down. Not much else to share. I will be back in shape tomorrow. Fingers cracked 2 time. DAY 60 20 minute yoga in the morning. 60 minute yoga lesson. 25 minute observation meditation. 25 minute guided pshychosynthesis meditation. I am observing neurosis from closer distance. It starts in the very morning. Tension in the body eventually grows into pressure on my chest. Physically exhausting. Sometimes I feel medium cravings for some external stimulation so that I do not have to spend any more time in this state. Resistance probably is what keeps me stuck in there. I told yoga teacher about my back problems. She allowed me to attend though she warned me to be extra careful. All in all, lesson went well. Later on in the evening I attended meditation class (feels somehow wrong to call it this way but can't find a better word in English at the moment). When I came there I was so tense, pressure on chest was going crazy, heart was beating strong and I had hard time feeling that. When we started observation (I believe it is similar to "do nothing" technique) meditation there were 5 minutes for relaxation where we did a "ocean" breathing. It is generally practiced in yoga and creates a little resistance in the throat so you breath louder than usually. What struck me deeply how RELAXED I was only after 5 MINUTES. All the pressure was gone. I was in deep stress and switched to deep relaxation. Jesus fucking Christ (please forgive my excitement) it only took 5 minutes to Take Care of something that was troubling me for the most of the day. If I learn to change my state so drastically whenever I feel like it it will transform my life completely. After today I like my meditation teacher even more. There is a lot to learn/experience. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 61 20 minute yoga in the morning. 30 minute breathing meditation in the bus. Stress. I do not know what has changed exactly but it has been another stressful day. I am detaching myself from the emotion as much as I can but there is a physical expression of stress that it is difficult to distance myself from. Pressure on the chest area sometimes goes full horse crazy. The only time I had for meditation was in the bus. For half an hour I focused on my breathing and also to the sounds the bus made. It was not a very deep meditation but it went better than I expected. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 62 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute sound meditation. I did not do yoga before breakfast as usual because I was not at home. Later in the morning I procrastinated a bit and finally did it which made me really happy. My body was still sleeping until I exercised. It is difficult for me to understand how could I have lived without exercising in the morning. This just has such a positive influence for the day. Meditation was unusually thoughtful (full of thoughts) which in this case is not something I was going for. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 63 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. "You can't think yourself into the right action but you can act yourself into the right thinking" might be paraphrased but helped me few times today. I did meditation and yoga but to sum it up I slacked off this weekend. It will be very obvious in goal review. All the experiences I had this week led to the decision to make next week a challenging one. Fingers cracked 0 times. REVIEW OF WEEK 9 Goal review Quitting smoking - Failure. I did not even try this week. I smoked few times after work and there was a lot of smoking during the weekend. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Failure. Spent 2-3 hours watching Warcraft III tournament stream. Not that much but still 2-3 hours too many. Limited social media time - A bit too much. Eating healthy - Check. (with an exception of 4 candies on Sunday). Exercising daily - Check. (starting to feel more and more comfortable with yoga routine) Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. This goal will be removed from the list. It is something that I do naturally now. No excessive use of alcohol - Check. (0 alcohol) No sugar in coffee - Check. This will be removed from the goal list too. It is something that happens naturally now. Finger cracking - Check. (Only 5 cracks which is still more than 3 so the counter stays on) No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Failure (did not work consistently on that) Mindful eating - More of a failure than success. (inconsistent) Thoughts This week has been full of stress or in one word - stressful. I am having more responsibilities at work and I probably need some time to adjust. Sometimes stress takes over even though there is not much happening. It is all in my head. Got to keep breathing. My back still has not recovered completely but it is getting better. Yoga teacher said one thing that I kind of knew but did not apply - when doing yoga there is no need to have a goal. It is a process, focus on the present. Stretching too hard goes against the essence of it. Amount of contradicting thoughts this week has been unsettling. That is another reason for all the tension and stress. There is a certain amount of contradiction that I can manage but too much is too much. More and more often I feel a need to spend time alone. One interesting thing was noticed. In English word "justice" phonetically sounds like "just is". Therefore, justice is what is and it can not be anything else because it just is. Funny, isn't it? It probably has nothing to do with the origin of the word but nonetheless an interesting coincidence. Checked out Allan Watts this week and that is something that made me think: "The reason why you want to become better is the reason why you are not." I also re-evaluated my position in personal development scale (based on Leo's categorization). First, I classified myself as a newbie though now I see that I am more likely somewhere between a wounded-newbie and a newbie. This is just labels and they do not change what really is but it can shift my perspective on how I should approach certain issues I am dealing with. Goal adjustment — NO ENTERTAINMENT/NO DISTRACTION CHALLENGE FOR THE NEXT WEEK (and maybe longer) This means: No internet funsies - facebook, all kinds of fun stuff and also no excessive reading in this forum. Internet only for work or research purposes. No smoking, drinking or eating crap - which basically are my already existing goals. No excessive talking - more listening, more silence. No coffee - this will be TOUGH. I drink 2-3 cups of coffee everyday. No rushing - this week is going to be sloooow. Doing only ONE THING at a time If I feel an urge to distract myself somehow I can meditate or do yoga. If I can not meditate I can focus on breathing wherever I am. Wish me luck. Or better not, wish me peace. It is more important. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next update planned on 2016.09.04

WEEK 8 DAY 50 20 minute yoga in the morning. 22+25 minute meditation Today is a day off. Despite of that from the very morning I did not feel well. Tried to meditate at midday and I did not manage to sit for entire 25 minutes. Towards the end I realised that I was only waiting for the timer to go off and was not really meditating anymore. There were cravings for sweets and gaming. They kept reoccurring throughout the day. It was tough to resist. Decided to re-watch koyanisqaatsi one more time. After watching cravings came back and for a moment I was seriously considering dedicating this day to some computer game. In the end I managed to foresee the consequences and understand that I do not truly want that. In the evening I meditated again. After sit I thought a lot about letting go. Today most of my commitments were tested multiple times. Mindful eating: Breakfast - totally forgot about it. Lunch - remembered half way through the meal. Dinner - same as lunch. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 51 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. Kept coming back to the idea that it is shortsighted to sacrifice one's authenticity for something that you think you might get from other people by not being who you are. This is an important idea to work on. Today was my girlfriends birthday and we went to a vegetarian restaurant. Food was delicious but something happened in my stomach. Food just stood there for 3 hours. I am going to meditate now but I can not sit cross-legged right now. Lol. Ironically that it is what happens when I finally decide to try some vegetarian food. Not very encouraging. Meditation was very challenging. I felt pressure on my chest, that kind of pressure that used to cause panic attacks for me and my mind kept spinning. Despite of that I kept refocusing on my breathing and had some very pleasant emotions when I understood how difficult it is right now to meditate and how much dedication I am showing when ignoring all the negative circumstances. Mindful eating: Breakfast - started slowly ended fast. Lunch - partly mindful. Dinner - Partly mindful. Fingers cracked 3 times. DAY 52 20 minute yoga in the morning. 20 minute yoga at work. 25+20 minute meditation. During the day thought a lot about "letting go". I experienced moments where my life looked a bit like a movie. I felt negative emotions but I was not as attached to them as usually. That is actually the main thing that I noticing lately - the gap between awareness and emotions is increasing slowly. Same is with the gap between awareness and thinking. Slowly. Very slowly. Meditation was difficult today. At one point I thought that I forgot to start my timer and decided to check it - there were 5 minutes left to go. Few hours later before sleep I decided to do another sit, because I felt tension in my body and pressure in my chest area. Lasted 20 minutes. Felt a bit better but still restless somewhere deep inside. Mindful eating - a little bit of mindfulness with every meal but still eating too fast. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 53 20 minute yoga in the morning. 20 minute yoga at work. 25 minute meditation focused on sound. 25 minute breathing meditation + visualization. What is this craziness with meditation you may ask? Today started my meditation courses that I registered to a while ago. There will be 7 lessons, in each of them there will be 2 different kind of meditation techniques introduced. Teacher seemed legitimate. 18 participants. It was the first time I experienced group meditation. After the first session I opened my eyes and almost laughed. I kind of forgot where I was so there was a moment of surprise when I saw all those people sitting in a circle. I tried staying open minded, some of the things seemed a bit woo woo but I was focusing on what is useful for me at my current stage of life and there was plenty of stuff to learn. First of all, meditation has stages. It is recommended to have an "intro" an "outro" to your meditation. I have already downloaded a timer designed especially for that. Intro is all about relaxing which I often had problems with. I got some tips how to relax and also how to make sure your sitting posture is correct. On top of that teacher demonstrated various possible meditation poses. I decided to stick to the one I was practicing until now which he called "turkish sitting" and some other word I do not remember. I want to sit cross-legged with my knees touching the ground but so far I am unable to do that. All in all, it was a good experience. Looking for the next lessons where I will learn about Zen, Neti Neti, Sufi, Mantra and some other words I have no specific meaning attached to. Mindful eating - same as yesterday. A bit of mindfulness and a bit of fast pace food obliteration. Fingers cracked 4 times. DAY 54 20 minute yoga in the morning. 20 minute meditation. The anxiety. The worry. Overall I can say that it was handled better than usually. I was focusing on accepting the feeling and tried not to resist it though I admit efforts were not entirely consistent. Today I went for lunch with my co-workers. Attempted mindful eating and tried to slow my pace down. Despite the intentions I finished my lunch first. Gosh I am fast eater. In the evening as a birthday celebration of my girlfriend we met with friends and later went canoeing. Ate well (avoided sugar), did not drink any alcohol but as we were canoeing I smoked 2 cigarettes. Came back home very late. Meditated at about 1:30 at night, forgot to use my new timer. I was exhausted and my back hurt. Ended meditation session after 20 minutes because of the lack of energy and concentration. Fingers cracked 2 times. DAY 55 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute breathing meditation. I think I hit a plateau when it comes to smoking. I have no problem during workdays but during weekends I sometimes really want to smoke. There comes a question: do I resist smoking or do I avoid resistance and smoke? My emotional state welcomed smoking. I feel a bit tired and lost. Smoked 6 cigarettes today. This week was supposed to be extra focused on my detachment from smoking habit though I totally forgot that when I was smoking. One thing I should mention I do not buy cigarettes. My girlfriend smokes and that does not make my life easier. I had a period where I quit smoking for 6 months and did not struggle much. Now when I have someone close to me who smokes additional problems arise. Shiet. I used new timer for meditation today. It goes like this: 4 minutes for relaxation, 20 minutes focusing on breathing and 1 minute to feel the body and end the session. Really liked this format although struggled with sitting posture. At one point I had to stretch my legs. I will buy a pillow filled with buckwheat as soon as they restock (currently sold out). In meditation "class" they had pillows like this and sitting was very comfortable. Fingers cracked 0 times. DAY 56 20 minute morning yoga. 25 minute sound meditation. 25+25 minute breathing meditation. Attempted sound meditation. I am so used to focusing on breathing that I need some time to adjust. My mind wandered more than it usually does during breathing meditation. Few hours later I sat and focused on my breath. I have finally managed to relax. Finally! What a relief. It was not a complete relaxation though, there was something that still kept some tension going but mostly I was relaxed. Did not last very long though. Sunday was productive - spent 5 hours concentrated on the project. Smoked 2 cigarettes. Sat for another 25 minute breathing meditation to close the week. Fingers cracked 1 time. REVIEW OF WEEK 8 Goal review Quitting smoking - Failure. 3 days of smoking, 8 cigarettes. This is not much, I used to smoke twice the amount in one day but it does not matter. I might actually stop being so strict about smoking because I still do want to smoke sometimes. I know it is possible to brute-force it but it is not likely to be a long-term solution. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. Limited social media time - Check. (facebook intensified advertising and that sometimes naturally makes me want to stop using it completely) Eating healthy - Check. Exercising daily - Check. (starting to feel more and more comfortable with yoga routine) Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. (although I caught myself sitting like a potatoe couple of times) No excessive use of alcohol - Check. (no alcohol at all) No sugar in coffee - Check. Finger cracking - Check. (not perfect but alright, keeping the counter on until I get less than 3 cracks per week) No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. (not consistent) Mindful eating - Check. (I will give it a "green" because it is the first week but I this needs more mindfulness) Thoughts This week I often felt restless. Not always sure why but there is tension - a lot of it and often. I am more aware that my thinking is mostly negative and I got some insights about why it is the way it is. I grew up in the environment where I was always punished for things done wrong (very often I was not aware that something might be wrong) and I very very rarely got any positive feedback. I was focused on learning the "rules" so that pain can be avoided. The problem was that the "rules" were contradicting with itself. I always looked for logical explanation and focused only on the rational part of the problem. I was emotionally clueless and in my early years it has never came to my attention how significant emotions are. Under different emotional circumstances different "rules" applied. If parents were happy I could relax, if they are tired or conflicting with each other (which I saw a lot of in my childhood) no matter what I did some "rules" might be broken accidentally. Because I was not able to follow the rules and even if I tried I was not able to understand why rules are inconsistent I was ALWAYS focused on what could go wrong. Sometimes something I have done seemed to be completely fine by my standards but I knew that my standards did not matter much. I might be punished one way or another so I had to find the SAFEST way to do things. This is probably the main reason behind my neurosis. I always look for something wrong. Since I have always blamed myself more than the environment and accepted the bigger part of responsibility on my shoulders I became extremely self-critical and judgemental. My model of reality is incredibly distorted. I remembered few situations where people reacted to something I said as if I was very worried. I was surprised by that because I thought I was fine, I was not able to detect the emotion. If I worried less for me it used to seem like I am fine, like I am relaxed. Now that I am working on myself consistently and my soft addictions play smaller and smaller role in my life I am more AWARE of what I am FEELING. Now I just fucking feel like I can not relax ever. Right this moment as I am typing I am feeling some pressure on my chest and my shoulders are slightly tense. I relax my shoulders but minute later the tensions is likely to come back. As Leo said in this week's video "first three years of self-development might feel like you are regressing". Well, it does sometimes. I have sweet moments from time to time but the fact that I am putting more effort than ever and I mostly feel like shit is not an easy one to accept. I kind of want to say something like "god give me strength" lol. I am not religious and have never been religious but I sure could use some bliss or revelations. Goal adjustment — Focus on observing physiology and relieve tensions once they are detected. I have plenty to work on for now. Than you for reading, TakeCare Next update is planned on 2016.08.21

@saiko Thank you, kind sir. Doing my best to make this journal valuable to myself and anyone reading. I believe having an organized structure helps to detect patterns and follow the progress more easily. WEEK 7 DAY 43 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. Kept pushing myself out of comfort zone as often as I noticed myself taking the easier path and not giving 100%. The affirmation that I have used today (and will continue using this week) goes like this: "whatever happens is an asset to my cause". Cause = self-actualization. I kept saying this in English, seemed to resonate better. Today this helped me to change my focus in several situations from the "problem" to how can I learn and grow. I kept saying this in my mind a lot. Today I did a "meditation" before meditation. I stood in front of my mat and decided that I will be more focused than I have ever been before. Then I did few stretches and sat for 25 minutes. And that shit was intense. I experienced a new level of concentration which still is chaotic and very unpredictable. I put a lot of effort and it was worth it. And yes - effort. It seems that meditation is not really a relaxation for me. It is a work and not an easy one. It requires totally different kind of energy. If I sit and relax too much I lose my focus, my awareness dissipates and my monkey mind takes control. I had a short glimpse of how much more I am capable of. Before the sleep without much thinking I sat down and ran through my day from the very morning till the moment I sat down to reflect. I was surprised how many little things were remembered. Whatever happens is an asset to my cause. DAY 44 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. I noticed some finger cracking while preparing for meeting and in the actual meeting (about 4-5 times). It was because of the tension. I experienced some uncomfortable emotions. On my way back home I already knew that I will make this meditation happen big time. I will find the way to concentrate harder than I have ever done before and I have succeeded. 25 minutes felt much longer. I had episodes where I was completely focused for about 4-5 slow breaths. I felt myself transitioning from thinking to breathing more smoothly. Also I adjusted my sitting posture a bit and it is slowly becoming easier to sit 25 minutes cross-legged. Holy shit. I am very happy I have not missed a day of meditation. Today I felt that I am finally moving towards what is the most important for me, my life is getting a more conscious and consistent direction. Now after noticing how excited I am right now the old habit of looking for something bad kicked in and I started feeling some anxiety. And that is fine! As time goes by this will change. This fucking feeling used to paralyze me and scare me to death. I would go for the easiest and quickest pleasure that I could find - a cigarette, games, tv series, food (especially sugar in all its shapes and forms), a fap or something else. This time I will feel it. As long as it has to be felt. As strong as it has to be felt. Whatever happens is an asset to my growth. Evening was spent completing various tasks that were hanging in my to-do list for quite a while. Productive time. Although now I can not relax. Probably because I pushed myself a lot today. I will learn to manage my efforts so they do not get in into the state I am currently experiencing. The source of my efforts and productivity must not be neurotic unless I am willing to deal with the consequences. Now there is tension in my shoulders and feeling of pressure on my chest. Before sleep I relived my day in my head and breathed deeply to relax my body. DAY 45 20 minute yoga in the morning 20 minute yoga at work 25+15 minute meditation My affirmations lack consistency. I do them on in the shower, on my way to work and back but I often get distracted. One step at a time I suppose. It was not easy to meditate today. I struggled with my sitting posture towards the end and also noticed that I am resisting some distant negative emotion and the resistance itself creates a different negative emotion on top of it. It was a short insight which emotionally I did not grasp completely. I usually go to sleep at 11. Yesterday I had to spend some time to calm down so that I can sleep. I think after 10 o'clock I should not work or engage in activities that require a lot of effort. It might be better to spend the last hour relaxing. Also I am very tired this evening. I watched a video game stream today. It was pre-planned, at the time I wrote my goal I knew that I will watch some of this tournament that is happening right now. I actually thought that I will spend an entire evening watching it but after one hour I kind of lost interest. It does seem different now. I did another short meditation before sleep. It did not last long because I was too tired and kept losing my focus. After that I sat for about 5 minutes reliving my day. DAY 46 20 minute yoga in the morning 20 minute yoga at work 25 minute meditation At the time of my lunch break I was already in an anxious state. I was being productive and focused on my tasks. Some of the thinking patterns caused the anxiety to arise, I am not aware which thoughts specifically are connected to this emotion. I did my yoga routine during lunch break and now I feel better. I tried to accept the feeling and no to resist it. I am not very good at this. Almost my entire life I was avoiding emotional work and now working through all the neurotic habits that have developed requires effort and certain level of consciousness. By the way, it was the first time I did yoga routine without a video playing in the background. I have memorized it and it feels much better to just do it. All my attention can be centered to my body. I was waiting for a trolley home and doing affirmations in my mind. Oh the anxiety! You are here again. The amount of negative (mostly worrisome) thoughts I had was amazing. One after another. How did I live until this moment in my life? No matter how fucking cliché it sounds but I was blind. I was so unaware of how I feel or what I think that I do not understand how did I live. HOW? I want to shout right now - HOW the FUCK? I made few steps forward but I am unable to see reality for what it is. Mostly I see my construct on top of it. It still controls me big time. I am becoming more aware of my thinking patterns and areas in life that concern me the most. I am detecting certain repeating thoughts and topics that cause me to experience negative emotions. During meditation I experienced a lot of thinking. Comparing to Monday and Tuesday today I was distracted. I met some old friends this evening. Had a lot of thoughts spinning after. Overload. DAY 47 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. Morning was refreshing. I did not even realize how tense I was before sleep. After an hour mild anxiety and distant sense of worry came back. Urgent problems at work. Had to get shit together and make some phone calls which I was not comfortable with. I did that actively and did not try to delay or avoid the task (which in the end turned out I could have easily skipped) and I am very happy about that. It was a valuable learning experience. After work I was very tired, met with my girlfriend and had 2 cigarettes. She did not offer. I asked. Did not feel bad about it. Neither I feel bad about it now. What is causing some tension is the fact that I did not follow my plan. I should be more specific about how strict my "non-smoking" goal is. Is it I never ever smoke? Or is it ok to smoke occasionally? I have some mixed emotions about all this. DAY 48 20 minute yoga in the morning 25 minute meditation in the morning I do not remember my dream too well but it was something about living in the other city. I woke up feeling emotions that I do not normally feel in my everyday life. I had some insights on how emotionally narrow and underdeveloped emotionally my life is. Soon after a bit of anxiety kicked in. I did my morning yoga went to shower and then did meditation. It was my 3rd or 4th attempt to meditate in the morning and this time I finally had a decent meditation. So if anyone is struggling to meditate in the morning this is the sequence that might work: Yoga (or any other kind of physical activity), Shower, Meditation, Breakfast. The rest of the day I spent in the nature in a company where alcohol was a norm. Once I started drinking very little I noticed how much people push other people to drink. I had to decline multiple offers and saw other people trying to do the same and eventually giving up. One girl ended up puking barely able to keep herself on her knees and hands on the ground. If nobody had helped her she would have fell into her own vomit. There was a fair amount of absurdity throughout entire evening of intoxication. I had some nice moments though (before drinking escalated), some beautiful insights. I talked to an 8 year old girl about the books she have read during summer holidays. There was a level of sincerity and pureness that I might have never experienced before. I am very grateful for that moment. I also noticed that I ALMOST did not judge people. There were many things that I did not like or wish were different but I was aware that it is only my construct of reality. As the result it did not have much effect on the emotional state. I came back really late at night. There is a mess up in my sleeping schedule. Oh, and I smoked quite a lot today. Change of environment is always a challenge when it comes to smoking. In the end I want to emphasize that things are changing. My experience during this day was entirely different from what it used to be in circumstances like this. DAY 49 20 minute yoga in the afternoon. 20 minute guided meditation (from today's video) Woke up late. There are some things happening at the moment that I not going to share right now. What I can say is that they are very challenging emotionally. I will probably write about this later in a couple of weeks or so. I smoked today too. Slightly procrastinated yoga practice. After it was done it felt so good. The yoga routine is going more smoothly and I enjoy it more. Felt refreshed. Just so happened that today Leo shared new video with guided meditation. I decided to try it out. It was very different from what I am doing. I work on my focus by directing all of it to the breathing and here I just had to be and let go of control. After it was over I thought oh well, that was short. It seemed like it was less than 10 minutes. Turns out it was 20 minutes. I am experiencing a feeling of lightness and relaxation. REVIEW OF WEEK 7 Goal review Quitting smoking - Failure. 3 days of smoking. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. (I watched tournament stream for a few hours total, but at the time I set this goal I already knew that I will watch this particular event) Limited social media time - Check. Eating healthy - Check. Exercising daily - Check. (finally can do yoga routine without video playing in the background. Hooray ! Also, goal adjusted from "exercising in the morning" to "exercising daily". I will keep doing it in the morning mostly but sometimes circumstances require to adjust my timings) Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. No excessive use of alcohol - Check. (had to work on this hard this week) No sugar in coffee - Check. Finger cracking - Check. (although there were some cracking. I am bringing back the counter for the next week to make sure it is handled) Glass of lemon water every morning - Check. (with few exceptions during the trip) No more porn - Check. Affirmation habit - Check. (decent start, a lot of room for improvement) Thoughts 49 days have passed. Many times I have tried to change my life but I have never managed to last this long. I used to push really hard for a while (couple of weeks at max) and then I would burn out. Emotionally I just could not handle it. I was not familiar with meditation and I stressed myself way too much. On Monday and Tuesday I did push hard again and I had to deal with increased level of tension and stress. Gotta be careful with sudden increase of pace. I guess slow and steady wins the race after all. More and more I feel the wish to reach out to the people that I have not talk for a long time, to socialize more, to expand the circle of people I know. I feel as if I do not really know them. As if I was unable to comprehend even the basics of who they truly are. What I do not want is to spend more time in the gatherings where everything revolves around intoxication. Smoking. One evening I allow myself to have couple of cigarettes and soon enough it goes out of control again. And again. And again. Seems that there is only one way. Just. Don't. It never ends well unless it ends now. My journal entries do not get shorter. There are so many important things to write down, to share. New goal — Extra emphasis on quitting smoking. — Mindful eating. Oh this one might be tricky. I have a tendency to eat very quickly. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next update is planned on 2016.08.21

On day 35 I did another 25 min session in the evening. Could not get comfortable. Back hurt, leg went numb. Barely managed to sit 25 mins. WEEK 6 DAY 36 20 minute yoga in the morning. 20 minute yoga at work. 25 minute meditation. It is exactly what it is. That’s what I kept saying to myself whenever I notice myself feeling or thinking that something or someone should be somehow different. I saw a minor car accident, and got angry at the driver whose fault it was. It was exactly what it was. Same applies to my reaction. It happened. It was what it was and should not have been any different. It is sometimes hard to comprehend. My mind is not used to working this way. Dealing with anxiety. It was difficult to relax in the evening. DAY 37 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. I was ultra-hyped in the morning. Felt strong and ready to handle whatever happens. After couple of hours fell back to the "usual" worrying and mild anxiety. Having experienced both emotions in such a short period of time was really mind-blowing. There as an important meeting at work and got increasingly nervous while waiting for it. After meeting I was experienced a mix of my "hype" and mild anxiety. There are a lot of bubbles in my emotional soup today. Today I did my meditation at work after everyone left. I did it sitting in a chair and sleepiness problem came back. It was not that significant but still a good reminder that crossed-legged meditation helps to avoid this problem. It was difficult to be conscious. DAY 38 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. Next three days (including today) are holidays (+ weekend). I really did not want to wake up early today. Actually, I did not have to but I know that if I keep +/- the same sleep routine I feel much better. So I mustered my willpower, woke up and did my morning yoga routine. Emotionally it was very difficult. I detached as much as I managed and observed how my emotional state is slowly changing. After about 1 hour after waking up I felt so energized and excited that I could barely contain myself. I made emotionally difficult choice (Leo's one rule to acing life) and it paid off very quickly. Had a hard time on the second half of my meditation because of back pain. I noticed that my awareness is developing and 25 minutes of meditation feels much longer than it used to. Even though it is my day off got couple phone calls and had to take care of some stuff which was getting more complicated as I progressed and finally I got angry. I am still angry now and my head hurts slightly. I am not going to explain in detail what happened and how I am the "victim" in this situation. It is irrelevant. What matters that I got angry and I have to deal with that now. I want to smoke and I want sugar. Badly. Resisted. Was visiting home in the evening. Felt tired in the evening and felt an urge to overeat. In the end I made the right decision and stopped eating when I felt that it is enough. DAY 39 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 meditation after having a beer. My trip has started today. Change of environment brings challenges to creating new habits. I met with some friends and had a beer. I did meditation late at night and beer did not help at all but I was persistent. Managed it somehow, can't say it was very insightful. Regret drinking, did not enjoy it at all. I simply gave up to the influence of the environment. I said to myself something like: "one beer is fine, you should not worry about that". Well, I could have equally (or even more) fun time without drinking. I felt how it drained away my energy and made me sleepy and neurotic. The main issue was smoking. First half of the day I stood strong and resisted temptations, but soon enough I gave up. I did not care at that time. DAY 40 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. It took immense effort to complete my yoga routine. I really mean it - immense. Paddled a canoe for 5 hours. That was a very peaceful time. In the evening I did try to meditate and I made it last 25 minutes but it was terrible. TV was on in the next room, mosquitoes were doing what they do best and on top of that it was last 25 minutes before going to sleep. Low energy, low focus and a lot of distractions. Got my shit together and meditated nonetheless. DAY 41 25 minute meditation. Did a lot of walking in the nature. Visited my relatives and came back home in the evening. Did not practice yoga today but it was a physically active day anyway. Timing for meditation was late again and I was quite tired but it felt good to be at home. I am used to meditation here and it happens more naturally. DAY 42 20 minute yoga in the morning. 25 minute meditation. Today was about taking care of a bunch of small matters and getting ready for the workweek. Meditation really helped me to realign with my goals and direction which I want my life to be going. I want next week to be extreme, I want a radical shift of pace. REVIEW OF WEEK 6 Tips for myself * Always get ready for the change of environment. This is my Achilles' heel. * Use of alcohol is an efficient way to drain energy. Goal review Quitting smoking - Failure. 4 days of smoking. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. Limited social media time - Check. (this was easier during my trip) Eating healthy - Check. (with few exceptions during the trip) Exercising in the morning - Check. (physically active week) Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. (challenging week) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. No excessive use of alcohol - One beer. (goal adjusted to focus on refusing excess use of alcohol) No sugar in coffee - Check. (easy) Finger cracking - Check. I noticed cracking fingers 2 times this week. Still have to keep an eye on it but overall it is not an issue. Glass of lemon water every morning - Check. (with few exceptions during the trip) No more porn - Check. I will not smoke. I failed, I admit that, I learned from it and I am moving forward. Thoughts Lately I have been doing pretty well with resisting temptations. What helped the most is the ability to see further ahead and associate the feelings that I will feel later (in case of overeating – sleepiness, lack of energy, regret, self-judgement) with the action which I am considering to do. It is not only logical understanding (which alone worked for me very rarely) but it is emotional understanding. Meditation really helped to understand my emotions better. However, changing the environment during my 3-day trip kicked me out of that safe place where I know how to resist temptations. Eating was mostly healthy with few exceptions but there was a lot of smoking. During day 3 of the trip I started having regrets. In the end of the week I do not really care because I am sure I will not continue smoking everyday. What happened - happened. I need to get used to the change of routine, environment and to deal with that without looking for comfort in unhealthy habits that I am working on. This week I tried to do affirmations from time to time. Next week this will be my primary focus. Also beer is a waste of energy. Even in small amounts and makes me sleepy. The thing is that if you keep drinking you are fine but once you stop you become sleepy. New goals — Affirmation habit. I will use it whenever I can. I dedicate my shower time and my walk to work and back for affirmations. I am ready. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next updated scheduled on 2016.08.07

1-5 WEEK SUMMARY Goal of this summary is to have a very short version of my progress which will be used in the end of the year to better understand what I have went through. WEEK 1 New goals: Commitment to journaling for 1 year. Quitting smoking and any kind of contact with video games. Limiting time spent in social media. New daily habits: exercising, meditating (not less than 20min). Most effort spent for dealing with smoking. Experienced more anger, irritation and anxiety than usual. Started to notice a lot of neurotic shit. Dealing with back pain. Dealing with procrastination. Goal score = B WEEK 2 New goals: Starting to work on sitting posture. Stuggled with smoking and sitting posture. Easily triggered. Had some difficult emotional experiences. During weekend smoked and ate too much. Felt lost and had terrible meditation experience on Sunday. Failed on practicing anti-smoking visualization. Difficult weekend. Goal score = C WEEK 3 New goals: No more alcohol No more sugar in coffee Wasted some time. Experienced less self-judgement and self-guilt. Felt lost but had experienced insightful meditation sessions. Struggled with change of environment on weekend. Attempted walking meditation. Did not smoke. Goal score = B WEEK 4 New goals: No more excessive finger cracking. Struggled a lot with smoking. Had some insights during meditation. Started to notice power of awareness. Had a half day where I stepped back to my old habits. Goal score = C WEEK 5 New goals: Cross-legged meditation. Extra emphasis on quitting smoking. Meditation duration increased to 25 minutes. Started practicing yoga. Became more aware of how unaware I am. Tried sds (~30mins). Noticed more daily distractions. Fought with procrastination. Had experiences of anxiety as well as gratitude. Did extra exercising and extra meditation sessions. Experiencing tension which is caused solely by negative thinking habits . Did not smoke. Goal score = A

WEEK 5 DAY 29 It was a busy day as I expected. During the lunch break I asked to use the empty room on the second floor for exercise and attempted to do yoga for about 20 minutes. That was a step forward for me because I did not feel comfortable asking for permission to do yoga at work. Exercising itself was splendid. I said "attempted to do yoga" because I was not sure if I am doing it correctly. All my yoga experience is based on one session that I had last week. I liked it nevertheless and I will do it again some time this week. Time flew by until the last hour at work. I started losing my motivation to putting consistent effort. My back hurt. On my way back home I thought about gaming, smoking, sweets and watching some series or something. Well shit, I opened Pandora's box last weekend. I should not expect that it is going to close by itself. An insight: I sometimes get busy just to get busy. Quite often I do like mundane work (like washing clothes or cleaning my drawers) because it is kind of relaxing to me and I even can procrastinate this way. It does not feel that I procrastinate because I actually have to do these things anyway but I tend to do them when I want to avoid dealing with some bigger issues. 25 minute meditation (cross-legged). Well this felt like forever. After probably less than 10 minutes I was unable to keep sitting cross-legged and then an idea came. I took a pillow and put it under my ass so it is slightly higher than my feet. This helped a lot. I was still under a lot of tension but I made it through the remaining time. In the first half I thought that I will probably not do this again until I practice yoga for a while. But in the second half of meditation session I felt something really different. The most noticeable difference was that I was not sleepy as I normally am during meditation. I read through most of the journals in this forum that are still active. In one of them I found an idea (thanks to @Marc Schinkel) which I altered a bit to fit my situation better. For a while I kept coming to an idea about having an anchor, a trigger to help me stay present. Today during meditation whenever I had some thoughts I said "ok, thank you" and cleared my mind. This worked great! It showed me how crazy my monkey mind is. I kept saying "ok thanks" each 1-5 seconds. Few times I said "ok, thank you" and I did not clear my mind but kept thinking some monkey stuff. I thought I was getting better at staying present lol. One thing sure is that I am becoming more aware of how rarely I am aware. I will use this "ok, thank you" phrase in my daily life as well. This will be a good exercise which might help not to get lost in the train of thoughts (also known as monkey train). I decided to try strong determination sitting. Surprisingly I lasted amazing 30 minutes and 50 seconds. I accidentally moved my tongue in the end. The main issue was that I was slowly leaning backwards. I decided that I cannot bent forward and and I can only keep my posture the way it is. For the last 20 minutes i was really not in the comfortable position though I lasted somehow. That was an interesting experience but in my (limited) experience meditation seems to be more useful. I am sure that if I have not worked on my meditation habit I would not be able to SDS for more than 5 minutes. Fingers cracked 6 times. DAY 30 The moment I woke my thoughts started spinning like crazy. Its a midday now and I still can't find peace. Not sure what happened or if something actually happened. I am only sure about the fact that it is. 20 mins of yoga at work. Feeling better now. During lunch I had some interesting ideas that deepened my understanding of what does it take to "find and walk your way". 25 minute meditation (cross-legged). It was not easy to find position that I can sustain for a period of meditation but somehow I managed. My legs were completely numb after meditation and my back muscles hurt a bit. Nonetheless, it was worth it. I do not get sleepy when I meditate cross-legged! This helps tremendously. I was still quite distracted and kept saying "ok, thank you" to my thoughts whenever I noticed that process of thinking is occurring. I noticed how much distractions I still have in my daily life or how little life I have in between my distractions. Since my girlfriend is away this week I do have more "my own" time. I was getting a bit frustrated while dealing with some financial matters and before sleep I decided that there is TOTALLY nothing else I could be doing right now except meditating. So here we go... Another 25 minute meditation (cross-legged). Oh shit this was serious. I feel like I may actually be starting to do self-actualization work because it felt like work. The amount of persistence that is required to continuously shift your focus from monkey mind to being observer is extreme. I noticed that instead quickly saying "ok, thank you" it is better to say it slowly. Slower transition back to presence seems to work better for me. I experienced new perspective on how I am not my thoughts. Fingers cracked 4 times. DAY 31 I was very focused today and at 11 o'clock I was already starting to burn out. I am constantly comparing myself to other people. This is exhausting and worthless. Lately I also started noticing how I behave in public and I have to admit that I am constantly checking out all the ladies around. Constantly. First of all I do have a girlfriend. Secondly, I just look and it is all about their looks. I do not think about having sex with them (well, very rarely) I just look. That is very weird when you think about it. The problem is that almost always all about their prettiness and sexiness. It is all about the surface. If they look pretty I unconsciously imagine that they must be the same inside. I assume generally this is very normal but when I started noticing this more consciously it seems to be completely ridiculous. And creepy. I am completely on the opposite side of the spectrum from seeing women as beings of consciousness. Well, I do see them this way sometimes but I have to put effort and be conscious. 20 minute yoga at work. During lunch I was immersed in creating all sorts of future scenarios which made me feel anxious. When I do that it is terrible. When I do that and I am aware of doing that it becomes even worse. Something funny happened. After meditation I wanted to take some notes. I sat in front of computer and then opened facebook just for couple of minutes aaaaand of course I forgot to take notes. Oh lawd. 25 minute meditation (cross-legged). I am getting a bit tired trying to focus. I just became more aware how easily I lose my focus and it feels like I am going backwards. Although I understand that it is the first and not very pleasant step. I overate a little bit during dinner. Made two sandwiches and in the middle of the second sandwich I kind of had a thought that this is too much for me but I did not pay much attention to that. Now my left side hurts, right where the pancreas is. Shiet. When growing up I was taught that I always have to finish my food. Well I fucking did and that was stupid. Another stupid thing to unlearn. Another 25 minute meditation (cross-legged). I feel a little negative vibration somewhere around my stomach. I am slightly nervous most of the time today (and most days). Fingers cracked 4 times. DAY 32 I woke up 15 minutes earlier than my alarm was set. I immediately felt how there is an emotion shaping up and it settled right there around my stomach as usual. That worry, that anxiousness, they just appear seemingly for no reason, as if it is my natural state. This morning I realised that this feeling that appeared is exactly the same that I had around the time I was 14-18 years old. Difference is that it was much stronger then. I remember waking up in the morning and feeling totally paralyzed, not wanting to wake up or to live at all. I thought I have outgrown this emotion but it seems that it is still there. It has changed a bit, it is slightly softer now, not that significant but it is still there keeping me away from harmony. 20 minutes of yoga in the morning (I have changed my morning exercise routine to yoga) 20 minutes of yoga at work. 25 minute meditation. Was quite distracted, did not put as much effort to staying focused as previous days. 25 minute meditation once again. My meditation slowly became attached with a passive frustration. It is very subtle. I am not satisfied with the level of focus that I have achieved. I allowed myself to think during meditation (well, I guess it is not a meditation but more like a focused thinking session) I realised that I do not give myself enough credit for all the work I do. I have just started this new approach to self development, I am currently in a process of installing multiple habits and so far I am doing great. I tried to look from another perspective and came to conclusion that I really have to thank myself. I am incredibly lucky to even have a chance to pursue the things that I am pursuing. Bless you all. Oh and by the way - fingers cracked 0 times! DAY 33 I noticed that negative emotion that I felt so vividly yesterday was weaker today. It came later and it was not that noticeable. 20 minute of yoga in the morning. 20 minute of yoga at work. I was hyped today. Could not wait to go and do all them stretches. On my way home I was observing how unnatural my behaviour becomes when I am around people. I do really care how other people perceive me. I want to deny that but it is the truth. It is tiring and annoying to have something in the back of my head constantly evaluating, comparing, judging and creating all sorts of messed up visualizations. Well, ok, it is not something - it is me. It is the happening. Maybe I should just stop fighting it and start observing curiously. The thing is I do not even know how to do that, it is ingrained in my mind so deep. This will be a big challenge. Also wanted to smoke after work. Didn't smoke. 25 minute meditation. First I sat down and just thought about stuff for couple of minutes. Than I was like: oh shit, this is the time I dedicate to meditating (my timer was running) and I totally forgot to start doing it. I felt a bit retarded and that also was quite funny. Something clicked today - I felt calmer than usual, my breathing was smooth. I had a vision of an endless soft and almost weightless dark violet curtain endlessly unfolding. That is how my breathing felt. At one point I thought that meditating is the most important thing that I could be doing (being) right now and I felt such a sudden and strong blow of gratitude that my body experienced a wave of goose bumps. I do not think I have ever been this grateful to myself. If you are reading this journal it might seem that it is not that hard for me but I have never been this consistent. Never. I used to try and quit, try and quit then wait a week, a month or even a year and try again and quit again. I just could not handle self-development process emotionally for longer periods of time. Another 25 minute meditation. I noticed what is different today - I transition from thinking to awareness more easily. Noticing that I am thinking does not cause much additional thinking on top. I seem to just transition to the air coming in and out. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 34 Slept well, with pleasant vivid dreams. 20 minutes of yoga. Later I had guests and I was just not there emotionally. I felt so lost, did not really know how to communicate. I had different plans for today so their visit really threw me off balance. Though in the end I had a good time. 25 minute meditation. It was very difficult. Not much else to say. I cleaned my facebook today. I will use it as a tool for finding events, contacting with people but I will not share info about myself. I do not want to spend time creating an illusory image of my life which deludes myself and others from reality. 20 minute meditation. I tried to do 25, but I decided to stop earlier. I felt tired, my eyes hurt, my back hurt, I kept twitching and scratching, barely managed to focus on breathing and it did not feel pleasant. Good night. Fingers cracked 1 time. DAY 35 20 minutes of yoga. I have a project that I was planning to work on after I finish my studies and I procrastinated on it a bit. I did some preparation work, information gathering and planning but I barely did any actual work required. I have started working on it yesterday and today I continued. Today I had feelings of relief and satisfaction because I actually had some results to show. Although later that day anxiety kicked in - that same feeling in the stomach I was talking about previous days. I think it is based on the idea of "doing something wrong" or "not doing something right" and that might be useful in certain situations but it is happening too often and sometimes seemingly for no other reason than it being a habit. A stupid stupid habit. 25 minute meditation. Felt better than yesterday but I was not able to relax completely. After meditating I thought about how much emotional work I still have to do and how can I adjust my daily routine to make it more efficient. I am still to implement affirmations and visualizations at some point. Probably in a few weeks. Fingers cracked 1 time (though it is not the end of the day yet) REVIEW OF WEEK 5 Tips for myself * Cross legged meditation is the way to go. * Appreciation is very important. * Practice reevaluation of everything you do. Goal review Quitting smoking (extra emphasis) - Check. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Check. (experienced some temptations) Limited social media time - Check. (it was limited but at times it felt like I am spending too much time in facebook) Eating healthy - Check. Exercising in the morning - Check. (All 7 days). Meditating for at least 25 mins everyday - Check. (also did extra 5x25 minute sessions. awesome! also from now on most of my meditation s will be cross-legged) Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. (still have to keep putting effort into this) No alcohol - Check. No sugar in coffee - Check. ( I even forgot this was a goal. I will give it another week and if all goes well it will be removed from the list. Finger cracking - Progress! I will keep the counter for the next week and if it goes well I will consider this problem handled. Try to meditate cross-legged. -Check. For some reason I did not add another habit that I have installed a couple weeks ago which is: Glass of lemon water every morning - Check. Really happy with the results achieved this week. I also started practicing yoga which I am going to continue practicing daily. New Goals — No more porn - I do not engage in porn very often but I would prefer if it was completely removed from my list of activities. Thoughts I do many small things that are just not worth doing. This includes stuff on the internet, being overly pedantic at home and various negative thinking habits. I will keep my steady pace and I will keep working on installing or removing new habits. I have one repeatedly occurring emotion that significantly influences my life in a negative way. For now I will attempt to be more aware of it. I will take specific actions when I will what those actions are. I want to make these entries shorter but they seem to get longer. I will try to write only about one or two most important things that happened particular day. It takes a lot of time for me to write and for you to read and some of the stuff is non-essential. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next updated scheduled on 2016.08.07

In the evening of the day 21 I tried walking meditation. Even though I walked in the forest it was too distracting for me. I will try it again some time later. WEEK 4 DAY 22 I thought a lot about an illusory idea that I am trying to find happiness in the future. This concept is flawed in its core. Even though intellectually I understand that happiness is only possible now and not tomorrow or after few years when A, B and C happens, it is difficult to apply this idea in daily life and to actually live it. I think this needs time. Even if it takes many years to become one with this idea it is worth it. I had a walk through the quiet street which I have never noticed before. It was delightful and it inspired me to explore more in the future. Since 4 in the evening I had consistent cravings for a smoke. In the evening I had some shopping to do after which I finally decided to have a cigarette. I enjoyed the first half a bit and hated the second but I smoked till the end and focused on feeling how this affects me. It felt physically bad in the end and I came to the same conclusion as usual - it is not worth it. Sometimes I think that I might be lying to myself when allowing to have a smoke. If I am, then I am doing a great job because I really feel that it is a right choice at that particular moment. No feelings of guilt though. Fingers cracked 31 times. This might seem like a lot but is like four times less than usual. DAY 23 It has been an interesting day. A LOT of small things were happening here and there. Things are changing but it so subtle. I can't put it in words easily. All in all, I enjoyed this day. I walked in the street and smiled all the way to the bus stop (that is something that does not happen often). 20 minute meditation. My mind was wandering everywhere it could. Balancing between sleep and distraction I went through those 20 minutes with joy even though it was not what I would call a "good" meditation. Fingers cracked 13 times. Improvement. Yay. DAY 24 There was a situation in the morning. Me and my girl had a bit of an argument. I did something stupid and she overreacted. That took some time to calm down but in the end it all sorted out more quickly than usual. I noticed that I am still very often trying to make myself more happy and I still often focus on the future. Good thing is that I am more aware of this happening. 20 minute meditation. Nothing special, it was difficult to be present as usual. I had another 20 minute meditation before going to sleep. It was quite similar to previous one - awareness was just not there although after meditating I felt refreshed. Good night. Fingers cracked 15 times. DAY 25 In recent days I discovered and listened to Lisa Cairn at work. She has an interesting perspective to life and talks in a way which I find very suitable to my working regime. She sometimes makes long pauses (10-20s) and I kind of forget that I have a video in the background. After the pause she continues and grabs my attention again. I do enjoy this dynamic although I do not necessarily accept everything she is saying. Today we had a yoga class at work. It was just a test to see how many people are actually interested and we start weekly classes in August 22nd. This was a first time ever for me. I was careful but I also pushed myself pretty hard to do all the stretches and poses. My legs went a bit numb few times. I am excited that we will have a chance to have a yoga class in the middle of the day at work. I think I will adjust my morning exercise routine so that it is more in sync with yoga. I had a cigarette when I came back home. I smoked it alone this time, as previous time I enjoyed the first half of it and during the second half I started feeling the negative physical effect. I understood that when I am feeling happy I do not want to smoke at all. Today I was feeling tired and a bit out of balance. In cases like this there comes an idea (or more like a feeling) that smoking might give me something that otherwise would not happen. It is quite interesting to observe how this happens and how I allow myself to smoke with a vision that this particular action has something that is the most appropriate for this situation. There was no judgement but there was a lesson. 20 minute meditation. First minute I was drifting away with my thoughts. After that I had the most continuous presence than I have ever had before. My mind was drifting but I was quick to detach from my thoughts and enter into observer mode. That was delightful. Fingers cracked 13 times. DAY 26 New challenges at work are becoming more like a normal part of the day. It has been more busy than lately and more challenging too. I am doing fine though I see room for improvement. I had 3 cigarettes today. All of them after work when I and my girlfriend went out. This time I had some remotely judgmental thoughts after. Offer to have another one was denied. I am really tired right now and the question that come mind is: "is this really that important to be talking about?" Well, I am about to go to sleep but first I will have to tell you about today's meditaion 20 minute meditation. I almost stopped after 5 minutes because of the realisation that appeared. I lost my focus on breathing and asked myself the question: "who decides? Do I really make decisions?" And there came and understanding that very often I actually decide immediately and what I call "deciding process" is just me trying to convince myself that my choice is correct. After that I asked: "Does it happen often or is it the only way decisions happen?" At that point I wanted to stop meditating and start journaling about this idea. Do I make decisions? Maybe decisions appear and all I do is create thought structure which goes along with the decision? It does happen often I am quite sure about that but can it happen in any other way? Can I actually decide? Where does it come from? Initially it seems obvious that I can decide and I do that all the time but now it also makes sense that I only observe the decision, that it just appears. This is radical. On that note I want to mention that it seems to me that awareness is something different and it actually has an effect on decision though it does not make decision itself. Double-slit experiment comes to mind. The particle interferes with itself. I shows both signs of a wave and a particle though it cannot be observed as both. I can not connect the dots but is interesting to think about it. Fingers cracked 15 times. DAY 27 Today it came to my attention that I was paying 5€ each month for the subscription to a website membership which I was sure (and still am) I have cancelled. Turns out it has been 2 years. That triggered me today. I was angry for quite a while. Also (as normally tends to happen in cases like these) there was some other minor stuff that left me in the state of light anger, annoyance and dissatisfaction. I attempted to be aware but I kept losing it. At the moment I do not want to spend time creating theories about how to deal with the emotion of anger because it is completely different thing when you are triggered. I am still in after-effect of all those small things that happened in the morning. 20 minute meditation. All the time I felt a sphere shaped tornado inside my stomach which in its essence was nothing else but anger. I do not even understand why would I still be angry? I want to say that I am not angry anymore but there is a negative sort of vibration inside me. I think I am more exposed to negative triggers at the moment. Second half of the day was a flash back to my old habits. I smoked 5 cigarettes, spent almost an hour watching video game streams and watched 'Office' for couple of hours. At that moment I did not realise that it was me trying to avoid negative emotions that I had in the first half of the day. This was a first time (since I have started journaling) when I actually was disconnected from my true values and goals. It was to happen sooner or later. I think I will continue my journey almost scar-free. Fingers cracked 4 times. Surprising. Maybe because it is not a workday or maybe because I was back to my old habits and I avoided emotions that have something to do with my finger cracking. DAY 28 30 minute meditation. Tried to meditate in the morning for the second time, added extra 10 minutes just to see how it feels. It was very difficult today. Kept shifting my sitting position, could not relax my eyes and at one point I almost looked at my timer just to see how much time is left. I seem to have easier time meditating later in the day. Had 5 cigarettes today. Well, that is it. I stepped over the line. Next week I will put extra emphasis on this smoking nonsense. I want to be completely free from the emotional need to smoke. I was walking in a city non stop for 4 hours and got home really tired, took a nap and then for the first time in 4 weeks I mindlessly excessively ate the food which was definitely not the best quality. Shit. Fingers cracked 5 times. REVIEW OF WEEK 4 Thoughts The biggest change that happened since the start of my journal is that I became more aware of my triggers and emotional landscape in general. Therefore, I tend to not spend much time in all sorts of negative emotions. When I notice fear, anger, anxiousness etc. I start to accept it and observe it and what happens then is the most amazing thing - those emotions recede. Do not get me wrong, this is very new for me and I get lost in my thoughts and emotions very often but the most important thing is that things tend to fix themselves when detachment appears! This is so counter-intuitive. As Leo said, awareness alone is curative. I used to be such a man of will. I would force things, suffer and try outlast negative emotions without accepting them for what they are. I used to stress myself so hard that I would go slightly insane sometimes. That’s why this realisation, these experiences are one of the greatest things that have happened to me in my adult life. Also, on Saturday I was lost for half a day. It is just a good reminder that it is very easy to slip back to old habits and old patterns. Also there is another thing about weekends - I tend to put more pressure on myself so I do not waste time and do something meaningful. During workdays this is natural because the schedule is set in advance. Weekends require more decision making on my part and this Saturday I had challenges because of the burst of negative emotions in the morning which influenced the course of the remainder of the day. Sunday was challenging as well. I made few steps back. Tips for myself * Focus on the present. (Nothing new, but has to be reminded) * Plan weekend in advance. Otherwise it tends to be counter-productive. Goal review Quitting smoking - A step back. 15 cigarettes total. Back to square one. Quitting any kind of contact with video games - Almost. (spent about one hour on Saturday watching stream) Limited social media time - Check. Although could have spent even less time on facebook than I did. Eating healthier - A small step back. Failed on two occasions. Exercising in the morning - Check. (All 7 days) Meditating for at least 20 mins everyday - Check. Setting at least one hour per week for review - Check. Healthy sitting posture - Check. Though there is still room for improvement. No alcohol - Check. No sugar in coffee - Check. Finger cracking - Decent start, but there is still work to do. Well this week was challenging. I was very strict with my meditating and exercising as a result I am doing great in these areas. Occasional smoking was fine for a while but now I seem to be smoking more and more. This has to end now. Also next week is going to be extremely busy at work so a lot of my effort will be going that way. New goals — Try to meditate cross-legged. — Extra emphasis on quitting smoking. — +5 minutes to my minimal meditation duration = 25 minutes. I was aiming to make my journal entries shorter to make them easier to read but during the week content accumulates. In the next entry I will do a review of the last 5 weeks because I feel that I do not clearly understand what has happened and what has changed. I will have a post for week 5 and also another post as a summary. Thank you for reading, TakeCare Next updated scheduled on 2016.07.31