Pelin

This book was quite an interesting one for me. It's written in a scholarly manner, yet comprehensible for the average reader. I would recommend it to people who are interested in reading about what drives humans and what makes up character. Some small quotes I found interesting in this book:

June 10th. Today has been a peaceful day. I watched some of Leo's videos, continued reading the four agreements, and I planted a basil plant and pepper. Gardening is another thing that gives me joy, even the smells of the plants are amazing. My 11th day in not playing video games, but today I felt the urge to play, yet I didn't listen to it.

Do you have a spirit animal? How do we find out/choose a spirit animal? How does it help us anyways? At the beginning of this year I changed my job and my trainer who helps me get used to the workplace has come up with a spirit animal for our group: ewe. We are a group of five females. She chose it out of the stories we wrote and the adjectives we came up with. Soon enough it resonated with us. But for myself, I found it difficult to find a spirit animal that resonates with my individuality. There are some websites but I couldn't find one that satisfied me. I also heard that some people connect to their spirit animals during meditation, I wonder how. If you know any books or articles that talk about spirit animals please share with me so I can dig it deeper

I think the more the distractions are, the more difficult it gets. But waiting at a long line-in Turkey they can last hours- or on the bus, train or plane I guess it's more manageable. But I'm only new to this and curious, too. Let's hear from the more experienced folks.

@JevinR working is only way to not earn money, but earn a living. You cannot just wait for other people to give you money or feed you by just being. It's not how the world works. Even if you choose the illegal ways to earn easy money still you have to work. You don't have to work in a workplace though, there are lots of opportunities out there to work freelance. But first, discover your value. What are you good at? What are your skills that can be turned into money? I really appreciate people who run online marketing business but it's not my kind of work, for example. And possibly it's alot more difficult than working at an 8-5 job. Ebay isn't for me either. Too stressful for me. But I love teaching while others cannot believe I can manage a classful of teenagers for hours, it's like sorcery for them. So find your thing first.

I'm translating Leo's video on Karma and therefore have watched it multiple times now. Still one thing I can't get my head around, hope you can help me. So selfless actions are the good actions because they are far away from the ego as much as possible. So helping others and taking care of others could be considered as selfless actions I suppose. In my life I've mostly tried to be of help to others. I ended up being a teacher, and this is something that I like doing. I even feel sometimes I spent too much time helping others. In another video what Leo says (or what I interpret) is that in order to self-actualize, you have to cut loose some of your relationships, especially those with family. Yet I feel my family needs me (although they do harm me/judge me sometimes), so I feel a dilemma here. Sparing more time to myself and communicating with them less, wouldn't that be a selfish action? So to self-actualize do I need to be selfish? But it was a bad action according to Karma? Maybe I am off-track, so please tell me if I am so. (If this topic has been talked about, I couldn't find it so sorry about that.)

June 8th. Ok. Yesterday I felt really bad about feeling bad. I was really angry and I showed passive aggressive behavior, which is worst I think. And I put the blame on someone else for my feelings, which was worse. But after an hour or so I decided to talk. Well it was half talk and half cry, at least I felt peaceful afterwards. I need to learn to control my feelings. Today has been a peaceful day, I baked bread and carrot cake, I cooked and cleaned the house. Doesn't sound interesting, but I discovered I really love baking& cooking stuff. It's been like this since my childhood. I used to wait for my parents to leave home so I can experiment with baking on my own. I am in no ways perfect, the stuff I cook & bake are like 70% edible, but I do consider sometimes, should I pursue this as a career path instead of teaching? But I do not trust myself as an entrepreneur so teaching is fine for the moment. I really love teaching so baking can be my side-job in the future perhaps. And cleaning. Man, my house needed cleaning. Because of changing jobs and adapting to a new job and stuff, I haven't cleaned the house for at least 3 months now. With this week off, my house will appreciate being clean I guess And with all the clutter I can't focus on meditation (which is a weakness I suppose but it is my reality) So even achieving a peaceful day and working towards two of my goals, 4 and 5 was good enough success for today.

June 7th. I had a tiring day today, I went shopping downtown and helped my mother-in-law. She's recovering from an unexpected surgery so I feel happy to be there for her. She introduced me to a bag maker so sews bags that you design, and today I received the bag which I designed and she paid for. I feel good about contributing to slow fashion. It is indeed nice to meet the person who sews your bag. In Four Agreements I'm reading the second agreement, which is "never take anything personally". It is damn hard when your loving husband calls you idiot for leaving the candle burning on the table and let it drop on the table. It took me a minute to clean it, but I still feel angry. I don't know how I can handle it, but I feel hurt and I take it personally somehow.

June 6th. I had a very lousy day today. Could've accomplished more, but I wasn't in the mood. I have this week off work, I wonder what I'll make out of it. 1- Kick the video games addiction: 5 days clean now. 2- Read more books: started "the four agreements" yesterday, I'm on pg. 48 today. 3- Write more: I'm off to continue writing my story as soon as I finish my journal. 4- Live a simpler lifestyle. I've managed to clean and declutter my kitchen countertops with the help of my sister. 5- Have a sleeping and eating pattern that can be applied everyday: I'm happy today was all vegetarian and homemade food for me. Unfortunately tomorrow will not be so. 6- Meditate. Last night I did guided meditation for nearly 40 minutes. I had a headache during the first ten minutes, which I couldn't understand. It was guided meditation, at times it was helpful, but sometimes I found it distracting. This morning I only meditated for 10 minutes with eyes open, and man, it is hard. But probably more helpful than 40 minutes of guided meditation.

@Jess I believe that you should tell her what you felt when you first realized that she told you a white lie. And that you know it helped you get through difficult stuff in your life. If this person means a lot to you, let her explain how she felt when telling you what she told. Maybe it wasn't a lie after all, it was just how she perceived something. Talking to her may be very difficult, but I think it is worth it. It might even make your bond stronger.

@charlie2dogs You may be right. Maybe I have some selfishness in me even when I'm helping others. That may be why I feel like a victim here and there. Or maybe I'm still looking for an external reward or less external suffering when doing a "good" action? This will be selfish and not a good action at all.

I've also told many white lies, so I am no ways innocent here, but I feel telling a white lie for a good purpose/intention doesn't give you intended results at all. At best the person who you told a lie/hid something from understands the lie at a time it does not matter at all, at worst they understand it just when you are telling it and they never trust you again. In any case will you feel that it is the right thing to do, deep inside? I've always felt that the white lies hurt me a lot so I usually end up talking to the person and confess that I've misinformed them. I also feel that it is nobody's call to decide what's best for another person. Everybody deserves to know the truth.

June 5th. Yesterday I was at my in-laws' from 8 am till 11 pm. I basically had no energy left when I got home. In the morning I had an interesting talk with my mother-in-law. She thinks that I'm dwelling into philosophy and I shouldn't. Everyone she knows who thought too much on philosophy lost their minds. ( according to whom?) She thinks I should rather focus on "tasavvuf", which can be translated as sufism/mysticism I guess. Basing the Koran as the ultimate source of knowledge and interpreting life in its light. That's too much for me as there is little questioning in sufism. You have to accept that there is only one truth, when I'm not even ready to even "believe" in something. But actually she made a remarkable point; that there is a distinction between rational thought and wisdom, and I shouldn't dig deep into the former, or else I will lose the latter. Worth thinking about. I spent today baking, cleaning the house and reading. I started reading "The Four Agreements", which really resonated with me. I also watched Leo's video on "always doing the more emotionally challenging thing" and I think the four agreements are the emotionally challenging thing to do. Well I have the intention. I'm really happy that I've started on my self-actualization journey, it is challenging but very rewarding. I think I kinda need to revise/add to my goals at this point: 1- Kick the video games addiction: 4 days clean. Yet I realized I'm spending too much time on Facebook, gotta work on it. 2- Read more books: A book a week is a good idea since I'm not working hard in the summer. 3- Write more: One page a day, let's make it work! 4- Live a simpler lifestyle. Have a neat home by the end of July. 5- Have a sleeping and eating pattern that can be applied everyday: Wake up early. Eat less outside, eat more healthy foods and less meat and grains. Bake the perfect bread and eat it moderately. 6- Meditate. For the first week, at least 10 min. everyday.

Whoa, thanks. That was really an interesting read. I probably need to sleep on it though, and come back a few days later.

Some people say her perspective is animistic, talking about stuff as if they have feelings etc. I loved her style and I found her advice really helpful. The life-changing part for me was that I changed the way I look at my house and I could eliminate the stuff that do not give me joy. I also found folding clothes a very relaxing experience, something like meditation even. Yet you should be really ruthless when decluttering or else you'll end up with exhaustion + lots of stuff that don't belong your home.

June 3rd. Got up at 7:30 and did some job-related work and baked some bread-rolls for breakfast. No TV in the morning helped me get through my paperwork as quickly as possible. Today I started to translate one of Leo's videos, the one on Karma. I personally don't know much about Karma so I thought it is a good way to start thinking about it. Going over his words again and again kinda engraves them into my brain so I loved this translating job. It is quite exhilarating for me at the moment. I only managed to translate 6 minutes, though. No video games today either. Never thought about them. 23:48 now, I've got to go on with this "do nothing" meditation for at least 10 minutes after I finish watching the Karma video. While browsing the forum, I saw people talking about "orange stage" or "yellow stage" and was so curious that I spent a good time researching it. Could've done it tomorrow. If I weren't dependent on others, say, if my husband didn't need to take me to my mother-in-law to take care of her (who is ill and needs me at the moment) early in the morning, I could've organized my time more properly maybe. Anyway, this is my life. I'm grateful to my mother-in-law and I feel it is my duty to take care of her as she's done so many times even when she didn't know me very well. So tomorrow will possibly be full of family obligations and no time for myself.

June 2nd. I woke up at 8:30, couldn't do it earlier.. I "did nothing" for abpıt 10 minutes. I'd chosen my room, and maybe because of all the clutter that surrounded me, I couldn't help but think about the stuff in my room. Maybe I should clean /declutter my bedroom or I should go and do nothing in my balcony. That seems like the most serene place at home. Though it wasn't quite a success, this is my first time. And I didn't have any cravings for games, that is a good start. I guess I should continue this routine for a week and see the results. For one of my other goals, writing, I've come to realize that I've chosen a wrong motto and that may be the reason why I wasn't successful in the first place. Write books that "people" fall in love with? Why don't I start from myself but from others? This is something that I haven't realized for years and it is probably the same reason for my creative block. I firstly need to write a piece that I love, no matter what people think of it. I have a fiction story in mind and I need to sit down and write it and love it as my child. That's the first step.

That's great news. I would love to translate some of your videos to Turkish. Going through them will help me internalize the stuff you're talking about too.

First day of June. Seems like a good day to start my journey of getting to know myself. While yesterday reading books seemed like a good idea to kick my addiction to video games, today watching Leo's video on dealing with addiction left me with new thoughts. Reading a book instead of playing a game would just be avoiding the void again. Instead I will try to let the void in, and enjoy reading books instead of using it as a means to satisfy my urges. What makes me keep playing anyway? As far as I can remember, I started playing video games at the age of ten with Atari. I usually played with cousins and friends, and my mom would put it away during the school semesters. I would pretty much forget about it, and then when summer comes, I would start to play again for endless hours. Maybe because I was a little bit of an introvert, it was one way to ensure nobody's bothering me to go outside and play. Now I can't understand what makes me play these games. Is it the fun, the anticipation of what comes next, or just filling in the void? I went ahead and erased all the games except one, and I will erase it tonight. But again I have done this a number of times. This time I will try to do nothing as Leo suggested, let's see how I will manage that.