Journal

[Pharion]

Here are the habits I'm going to work on every day. 

-20 mins of strong consciousness sitting (meditation without moving at all) 

Not watching internet videos or social media

-go to bed at 9:30 every night. 

If I can keep these goals I'll be very happy about it. Hopefully posting this will keep me accountable and remembering to do this stuff. I'll post how today went, tommorow. 

[Pharion]

Day one.

It was a good day, I kept busy and a couple times I caught myself just before I was about to start a YouTube binge, but I never did. The meditation was relaxing, but I was really tired and I didn't feel present like I should and found my mind drifting here and there nevertheless I put in the minutes, and began the habit which is the most important thing right now. I went to sleep on time, so day I achieved I wanted to do. The last couple nights have been really difficult to sleep, and I think it's my bodies homeostasis trying to beat the new habit out of me (I normally sleep very inconsistently and have no time in the morning to make food) so I'll keep fighting the good fight and put up with the reduced quality of sleep for now, until my body gets used to it. 

[Pharion]

Day two. 

After waking up I noticed that I had a flare up of my eczema (something I get pretty much every winter) and some of the rash was on my face. I felt suddenly very uncomfortable in my own skin and I guess more or less had a panic attack. I didn't want to leave my room, so I told my mom how I was feeling and she made breakfast for me and I stayed home from school. I had a nap after a couple hours of still feeling really agitated, and when I woke up my mood was a lot better. After poking around on this forum for a while I decided to go to school after missing some of my classes. I've been a lot more open with telling people how I feel and being vulnerable which is uncaracteristic of me but I think it's a good change. I again caught myself automatically going to my phone a few times to watch videos, and I just let my fringer scroll the YouTube page until I was said to myself "alright, satisfied?" And closed it without clicking anything. 

I meditated with white noise right before bed because someone was making noise outside, and it was a pretty good session. I bassicly kept bringing my focus back to my breath over and over. My mind would wander into little stories a and slideshows and commentaries, and then I'd refocus on my breath and repeat over and over. It was fascinating too because my inner dialogue kept adapting moment by moment, I would re focus and then it would go "good job, you focused" and then is say to myself "no, that's dialogue too, and so what that, and so is this" It was a rlly intersting demonstration of how sneaky my mind can be, and while I guess you could say it "won" that one, I'm sure my power of awareness and focus will only get stronger if I keep excersising it. I got to bed slightly late, and I woke up an hour later for about an hour, but other than I was surprised and happy to see that I woke up to the alarm, improvement! Kind of. Anyway, still on track. 

[Pharion]

Day three was again rough. Meditation was more of a token gesture than anything, but I've found recently that I actually want the peace and disconnection that good meditation brings, so maybe I'm going to go for more than just 20 mins on some days. Things are hard rn, but I'm going to just stick to these new habits and weather the storm. If I do, things will improve eventually. School is so demoralizing, and I've been skipping out more because I crave more peace and control rather than the busy stressful environment that isnt even productive. I can see myself evolving more into stage green now, I used to almost worship productive and be really hard on myself to almost abuse my body to be as productive as possible. Now, I care less about that. The main thing I want is just tims to be at peace and be able to healthily express my emotions and have bonding and healthy relationships with people. I'm also. being more open about my emotions to people. 

[Pharion]

Day four 

More resistance. Arguing with family my new schedule, but I was prepared for this to happen from Leo's video about homeostasis, so I handled myself well enough. Hopefully when i keep sticking to this, the people around me will accept it as the new normal for me soon enough. The more I actualize, the farther away I feel in development from my group of friends. They are unquestionably a "pulling down" force, although I still have a lot of fun and companionship with them, and it occasionally gives me a space for creative expression (more in the past than now) as they would play a role playing game which i essential made. Im exceedingly grateful to have had that opportunity, it has been one of the richest experiences of my life and an opportunity to design games and see my friends enjoy playing it with me. Anyway, I can tell that the more serious i get about this the more ill have to choose between them and my personal work, and the more different I will become from them. It's one of those tests on the heroes journey as I see it, and I know already that I intend to place my journey as a higher priority. During meditation i slipped from an anxious monkey into a more sedated one, but it still did not leave. Right now I feel that im not really getting into my meditation as thier is alot of turmoil in my life right now, but I am more establishing it as a habit, something I do everyday, and when the dust from this has settled I can work on my monkey mind with more focus. The internet addiction problem has surprisingly not been too hard to deal with, i feel more anxious than usual because im cutting off my "drug of choice" which normally serves to sedate my mind and put me into a zombie like state of "calm" but iv'e been replacing that with music, audiobooks, A.O videos, and this forum which i know sort of miss the point of clearing my head but it's a big step in the right direction atleast. I haven't felt any "cravings" for youtube really, which is good because I know it's not really desirable in the first place and this is just confirming that. Im not really loosing anything of value here. 

[Pharion]

Day five 

Still going strong, although I went to bed late this day. I have my kriya yoga book now and I intend to begin using it soon. 

[Pharion]

Day six and seven. 

I got the Kriya yoga book and read everything up to the second lesson. I plan to begin implementing it to replace or supplement my meditation habit. I was tired on day seven and didn't meditate, but I thought this was okay because I'm in the midst of encoeprating yoga so it is changing anyway. Hopefully that decisions turns out to be okay. I did a couple 40 minute sessions, which were mostly very gruelling but satisfying to get thru, Durinf my mediation so far I'm probably so immersed in thinking or "monkey mind" that I forget what I'm supposed to be doing a good 85% of the time, then another 12% is me actively fighting other limited success to clear my mind and just focus on breathe / present moment. Then 3% is being in an actual state of thoughtlessness, this ussualy only comes in few second bursts before slipping back into thinking, but there were a few times in my more recent sessions where I was able to go maybe 20-30 seconds of "no mind" which was pretty cool, and a good motivation to keep going. I suppose if I keep going the former states will decrease and the latter increase, but right now the muscle that is my mind is still quite weak from years of constant stimulation and media, but I'm building my strength through this practice. I've kept my consistent wake time of 6:30 ever day, and although I was close to going back to sleep on some days and calling it quits, I haven't done that yet. this weekenend I was able to spend a few solid hours writing and finished the second chapter of the novel I'm writing, I'm eager to keep doing that when I have time, and have something to show for my time instead of the normal YouTube binge that I would do most weekends.