My meditation journal

[Thittato]

Today I joined a one hour long yoga-class down at the beach. There is a really cool guy who every year gives a free yoga class every morning throughout the month of July down at the beach here. 60-70 people participated. It felt like my body was really strong and flexible, and actually it felt like all my yoga-goals have been accomplished, and that I have a good foundation in my body for primarily focusing on meditation now and that I'll only do a little bit maintenance yoga every now and then. When I participated in this class last year my body was much weaker, and I had this strong desire to get my body "untied" in this yogic way. So I renounce my goals about reaching those peak-poses that I mentioned earlier, and I'll just focus primarily on meditation as my daily thing, and this felt like a really nice confirmation. The hunger to do a lot of yoga is no longer here, no need to take it much further than just a general sense of all-around good enough strength, flexibility and well-being in my body, but I'll try to do as many of his classes as I can this month. After this class I went home and meditated for 30 min. After today I regard the transition back to meditation as my daily thing for being complete.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

45 min of meditation this morning. Trying to be as thorough as possible in experiencing fully all the different ways that resistance towards my present moment experience is manifesting. Also trying to be really honest about exactly what I’m feeling in any particular moment.

Noticing particularly that I’m still in a chronic existential crisis, and I have to be particularly sharp in just bringing presence to the situation whenever my mind starts to ruminate on something. 

[Thittato]

Ah, some busy days where I down-prioritized my meditation-practice because I went two days to the beach yoga class. That beach yoga is pretty awesome. Still intent on focusing primarily on meditation, but it is pretty cool to go to an actual yoga-class since I only did yoga alone when I had this recent yoga-kick.

[Thittato]

Hmmm, okey, two more days of beach yoga. It is so awesome. I’m having this same ambivalence of yoga VS. meditation still, but I guess there is no need to figure that out right now. Really awesome to go to an actual yoga-class since I only did yoga alone when this yoga-kick started.

I tend to always find something I can be ambivalent about. One of my meditation teachers called this «creating false dichotomies.» But when this tension pops up in me I return to experience how it feels in my body, so I’m approaching this tension from a meditative approach.

I also always tend to obsess about the question «what is going to be my path?»

But my Path in a broad sense is to experience this question (and all questions, obsessions, etc) as body sensations, so whether I physically use either yoga, sitting meditation, or both, to support this awareness-practice, I guess it doesn’t matter so much as long as I’m maintaining some kind of regular practice.

[Thittato]

20 min yoga this morning. Haha, ok I guess this yoga-journey continues. Whenever this dichotomy between yoga and meditation comes up I’m just going to experience how that tension feels in my body. And basically all other tensions I’m going to feel in my body. Today I felt I’m pretty close to not feeling half-baked any longer regarding my spiritual practice. I’m pretty close to having made all this stuff successfully into my lifestyle. In order to feel even more successful around this I’m just going to continue to strengthen my dedication to feel it out whenever emotional pain comes up.

[Thittato]

Ok, yoga-kick continues. Just bought a one month pass that gives me access to all the classes at three studios here in town. Pretty cool that I can just book the classes through my smartphone app. Just got a new smartphone as my previous one had totally fallen a part and I realize there is a new technological world going on that I had fallen out of haha, but yeah, with this booking-system and one month pass, this is totally next level compared to youtube videos hahha.....

[Thittato]

Did a 75 min Iyengar yoga class today, and yesterday I did a 75 min Restorative class inspired by Iyengar principles. Altogether now after I decided yoga continues I've done 5 one hour beach yoga classes, these two Iyengar classes, and one vinyasa flow from youtube together with a friend who is a yoga-teacher. Much easier to do longer classes when I actually go to class, so I feel that the quantity has certainly increased a lot lately, and it is going to increase even more. I will also participate in a 3-day yoga-festival in two weeks. And with the psychiatric patients that I'm working with I've thaught yoga one-on-one to two patients lately (only one short 20 min session for both), and that was a really nice way to spend time with them - the quality of our relationship increased dramatically. Feels like a new direction is getting more clear.

[Thittato]

Feels like living in an ashram again.

75 min restorative yoga class today. This is just getting better and better. Finally something inside of me says a loud YES again! With access to these three studios in my small hometown (approaximately 100.000 inhabitants), and this awesome booking-system through my Iphone, it feels like I’m living in an ashram again. Feels like the only thing I want to do for a long period of time now is just to devote myself entirely to yoga.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

75 min Restorative Yoga class today as well. Most vulnerable class so far. This «manic buzz» I get when I get inspired by something is lots of fun but also a bit too intense. Today it was gone and I was just tired and felt vulnerable. Didn’t feel «on the path towards becoming invincible.» But it was nice. Towards the end of the class I stopped fighting this feeling, and surrendered to my vulnerability, and even though I feel vulnerable still, I feel much more human and down-to-earth than when I’m in this «manic buzz.»

This process of resisting something I find very interesting. It is always like I try to keep whatever I’m resisting at distance, but then when I stop fighting it it feels like I become one with it. I’m no longer split inside. I own the state I’m in. I think the resistance becomes big when there is a huge shift, because it takes some re-adjustment to get used to a new state, especially if it changed from something desireable to something less because then it is hard to let go of what was.

 

 

[Thittato]

90 min Dharma Yoga class today. This is the most intense sequence I’ve experienced so far after this yoga period started. Made me think I’m kind of soft-pedaling this thing a bit. Maybe if I could just find a really intense sequence that could bring my yoga up to the next level, then I could just do that, and then «go on with my life» outside of yoga-practice. My body is really ready to do a lot more advanced stuff. But it is probably good that I’m taking my time building a good foundation. At the very least there is like a very strong urge to get my physical mastery up to the next level. I want to do stuff that looks and feels like art.

[Thittato]

1 hour sitting meditation back home today. Needed some rest from yoga today. Felt like a very powerful sit. Maybe my home is my little yogi-cave where I do my meditation, and then I have these three yoga studios close by where I go and practice with others. Feels like a very good support-system. Lots of gratitude and fire in this sit. It all made more sense in a way. Just got to continue to trust and surrender to my natural inclination to let this practice unfold in the way it is meant to.

[Thittato]

1 hour sitting meditation today as well. Makes a lot more sense to meditate when I also do yoga, and vice versa. Both yoga and meditation makes the body and mind open up in a way that mutually supports each other. 

[Thittato]

75 min restorative yoga class today. It was really really nice. Perhaps what I noticed the most today is that the social awkwardness of going to class is almost gone. I’m only there to relax and go deeper with my practice. It is a perfect situation to just let go.

[Thittato]

15 min meditation during work at night-shift.

My mind was racing a lot this night, and I got identified with all the various problems and scenarios my mind was racing through. As always there was some unacknowledged emotional pain in my body, and once I finally gave that pain some attention my mind calmed down. Funny that I can still let my mind race like that for so long, but the lesson is obviously the same over and over.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

90 min Heated Dharma yoga class. This is by far the most intense class I’ve been to. Never done hot yoga before, but it was really awesome. I totally want to do more of that.

Felt a little unstable after the class, though. But I’ve been working many night-shifts lately, and I woke up after sleeping all day just 30 min before the class even though it was in the evening, so no wonder I was a little confused. Some very strong emotional stuff came up after class, but now it seems to have landed.

I counted the number of classes I’ve done with other people now after I started with beach yoga again this summer, and so far I’ve done 13 classes. It is something about getting used to the social aspect of it. Been doing my meditation and/or yoga alone for so long now, so it takes a little bit getting used to doing it with other people again. All that stuff of comparison, competition, wanting to be best, wanting to be seem by the teacher, fear of not being good enough, and etc that one gets away from when only doing it alone. I think a lot of these things were triggered today, but it is probably a really good situation to just breathe into all these human experiences and learn to relax in the middle of it all.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

30 min sitting meditation today.

Been feeling terrible today. I think I get so inspired with things because they offer an escape from my life which I’m sometimes very dissatisfied with, so then I can think for a little while that yoga offers the solution to everything and I get totally fixated on it. But I’ve seen clearer the energy of fixation, at least, today. It is like I get into a trance where everything else than my fixation is excluded. 

Perhaps much of this journey is just getting used to suffering on a very deep level.

Edited July 31, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

10 min meditation to calm down after night-shift.

Ok, emotional crisis is over and I feel awesome again. Maybe that Heated Dharma yoga triggered some stuff - it probably did.

Looking forward to yoga-festival this weekend.

[Thittato]

20 min meditation to cool down after night-shift. I’m looking so much forward to this yoga-festival that starts today. Now I will have to sleep for 5 hours before waking up to prepare to go there. The festival is at a very nice yoga studio just around the block here where I live. Pretty nice :-)

[Thittato]

3 days at a awesome yoga-festival is over.

It was awesome, but also I encountered a lot of resistance towards the physical, social and emotional process I was in, but now I feel very released.

Did 3 classes on friday, 4 on saturday, and 4 on sunday, plus lots of extra social festival stuff going on in-between.

Basically the whole thing was a little bit too much, especially since I have been working night-shifts for 2 weeks just right before this and I’ve been feeling something compared to being jet-lagged through-out this whole festival, but it was also very very inspiring much of the time and I felt I was going really deeply into many of the yoga sessions.

However I wasn’t prepared for getting into such a strong sense of resistance towards the whole thing at times. It sometimes felt like being in a prison.

But I mean, yoga is painful in many ways, it is really about encountering a lot of the resistance one has in body and mind, and learning to relax with that - to breathe into it - so of course that is going to be challenging sometimes.

Coming back home now, I feel released and refreshed, but I’m also very glad the whole thing is over, and I look forward to return to my daily practice.

I think my theme for the whole weekend was learning to find sort of the sweet-spot in the resistance. When one gets into it, and really surrender into it, there is some really juicy transformation going on, and there is sort of a love for this transformation that makes going into the resistance attractive. Of course that is not how resistance feels most of the time, because most of the time I’m not able to surrender fullt into it, but when I am that is really a juicy sweet-spot, and the memory of that spot is what brings me back to the practice over and over again.

[Thittato]

Festival afterglow

Did a 20 min youtube yogaprogram before I went to work. Then after work I went and did a one hour beach yoga class, and after that class I was so on fire that I went to a 90 min Heated Dharma yoga class. So much resistance was gone and it felt like I was almost flying through these classes. Only thing I have to be careful about now is that I shouldn’t get too manic about this. My energy feels a little too manic and restless, so I’m going to focus on bringing myself down again.