My meditation journal

[Thittato]

Crap. I did 70 min of meditation yesterday, and now I'm dead tired and have only meditated 20 min so far, which means I'm still 45 min behind on my schedule. I thought I was going to do that double-session yesterday, but somehow time just ran away. Or it didn't just ran away. My discipline faced some challenges, just like it did today. But OK, tomorrow I will do that double-session.

[Thittato]

Ah! Finally. Did a double-session this morning of 45 min x 2 of sitting meditation, so now I'm back on track regarding my discipline for this month. I almost regretted having made this commitment of 45 min of meditation per day for one more month, but now this is the day nr. 11 that is completed, so now I feel well into it, and the groove is going strong.

I've met a new woman by the way. We've only been on one date so far. She was here in my city for a vacation, and she came by for a coffee on her way home back to where she lives 6 hours driving from here. This was on tuesday. It was a very nice meeting. We've been keeping steadily in touch since this. Actually she was the first one to write me after we had met telling me it was really nice to meet me and if I was ever nearby I was very welcome to drop by for a coffee, and I get the feeling she is investing in this interaction. I think meditation has helped me a lot in presenting a much more honest, grounded and down-to-earth version of myself this time than what happened with my previous date. To that other woman I was presenting a guy who was in too much process and who was just all over the place and who was lacking any clear direction - exactly what she wrote she wasn't looking for, hahha...

There is a really nice feeling right now that I would really like to have a girlfriend again, and that I'm getting closer to becoming ready for it, but that there is no rush. This woman seems really promising. I like her a lot, and I already have a crush on her. But mostly I'm just glad that so far the interaction seems to be going so much better then that the disaster my last date was. I have this pattern of falling in love waaaay to quickly, and then I can easily become too intense too quickly, combined with another pattern of pulling away from the whole thing because it just feels too stressful, so that creates some kind of confusing ON / OFF thing that is sabotaging a more natural unfolding of whatever potential is there in the interaction. Totally what happened last time. So lets just see how it goes this time :-)

[Thittato]

So glad I did that 1,5 hour long sit this morning, and that I'm ahead with my meditation schedule. I was very worn down this morning as I woke up, partly because my sleep cycle is very interrupted because of working night-shifts (it is really not so good for me), partly because I continue to be over-social these days as people are out enjoying the sun and there is very little corona in my part of the country so people are pretty unconcerned, partly because I've been working with a very demanding patient suffering from a manic psychosis episode (he really sucks all the life-juice out of me), and partly because of this date I was on which is also very demanding for me because I'm mobilizing so much energy to keep up with it and analyze what my next step should be and developing a bond with a woman like that, even though we've only been on one date so far, takes a lot of energy and triggers a lot of both enthusiasm and fear and everything - it is a rollercoaster - and often a type of rollercoaster I'm usually glad to not have in my life - but the longing for having a deep relationship with someone I care very much about is also very strong. So all these things has been taxing my energy quite a lot, but this 1,5 hour sit this morning was really re-charging, and I'm so fortunate to have this source of renewable energy inside of me.

I'm going to chill out with a really nice and chill buddy tonight, just making some food together, and now I'm just going to lie in my bed and relax some more before that is happening.

But basically it feels like this discipline is just exactly what I need to burn all this stress out of my system. I think I'm just clearing up more and more for every week that goes.

[Thittato]

45 min today as well. Feeling vulnerable today, but it was good to feel into it.

[Thittato]

45 min meditation today as well. Pretty difficult to keep this going in the midst of a potential romantic encounter haha..... I called this woman yesterday. She was actually open to me coming to live at her place for a couple of days, but she was also very afraid of that possibilty, so she kind of halfway invited me, but she said she needed to think about it. It is 6 hours driving away from where I live, so it is a bit of a commitment given that we've only met once. Early this morning she sent me a message saying that she would like me to visit, so I had obviously managed to make her feel safe around this, which is pretty cool. Todays meditation was just a lot of processing around the logistics of this. It was hard to keep my focus on making the meditation go deeper.

On the phone yesterday, we spoke for 1,5 hour, for the first part of the conversation it was friendzone I think, but then for the last half of the conversation it changed into man to woman dynamic. Actually I'm pretty impressed by how easy-going I was around actually being open about my attraction to her and making it into light and fun flirting.

[Thittato]

Gosh. I was on a stand-up show tonight. And of course I accidentaly meet my super-hot co-worker there which I had a crush on before we became co-workers. We are just getting super-bestfriends more and more, and I know we both like each other. And after the show we end up just the two of us drinking together until closing-time just really bonding super-much over all the different therapeutic processes going on both inside of ourselves and at our job. At the end when we part we give each other a super-good hug, and she kiss her fingers and point them towards me as we leave. Still, there is just something between us that makes it impossible for me to break the friendzone. I don't know why, but I just keep it safe in that zone, even though we have just such a really awesome chemistry. We're just laughing and talking very deeply at the same time the whole evening. But that woman that I was on a date with - that barrier is not there the same way. I don't know why. But I think she is more dedicated to actually finding a partner. She really really wants to dedicate herself towards a partner. She is fed up with fooling around. She wants to actually live together with someone and dedicate herself to that process. So yeah, there is actually no doubt in my heart that my co-worker is my friend and my Tinder-date is my romantic prospect. I was just currious why that was so, but the answer is pretty obvious. With my Tinder-date, I could really access her emotions. She said she had been touched to tears two times so far in our interaction - not that she started crying, as I understood it, but you know, that feeling when your eyes get wet. She is just so much more accessible with her emotions. Or the chemistry between us makes me able to connect with her feelings on a deeper level. I'm willing to risk getting rejected by her, but that is because she is taking that same risk. We reach out to each other, again and again, but in a tempo that is in a good rythm with each other. She is also very vulnerable. She doesn't have those layers of protection that make me find her un-accessible. I guess I'm just really impressed by her depth, dedication and openness. I took a huge risk yesterday by telling her I liked her, and she responded by inviting me to come visit her, but then she became afraid and had to think about it some more before she could commit to that invitation, but it only took until the morning next day (today) before she could commit to that invitation - I guess the way I responed to her fear coming up made her feel safe. I'm old enough by now to know that women usually feel a lot of doubt in a process like this, and the only thing I can continue to do is to just show up, be open, and not energetically demand anything from them. If they feel that you require something from them they will feel very unsafe and they will close up again, but if you just give them openness and presence, they will continue to open up deeper and deeper according to whatever the potential between us are. And I have to be honest as well, and by being honest that also means that I will have to communicate my attraction when there is an attraction there. And that can easily be communicated in a fun and light-hearted way without any demands or requirements.

[Thittato]

45 min meditation today as well. This was a really nice, pleasant, focused and powerful meditation. I felt very inspired. It feels like meditation gives me a kind of super-power. It helps me crystalize all my positive qualities, and transcend my weaknesses.

[Thittato]

45 min today as well.

[flume]

Hi I just randomly clicked on your journal and wanted to tell you how much I can relate to what you wrote here:

On 14/07/2020 at 2:22 AM, Thittato said:

Still, there is just something between us that makes it impossible for me to break the friendzone. I don't know why, but I just keep it safe in that zone, even though we have just such a really awesome chemistry. We're just laughing and talking very deeply at the same time the whole evening. But that woman that I was on a date with - that barrier is not there the same way. I don't know why.

I've actually had the same experience. There was a man in my life who would have been the perfect match for me... On paper. We got along so well, could talk for hours and the attraction was totally there. A crazy lot of it even. Still there was something missing. It's like there was some kind of barrier that kept everything weirdly impersonal. Like I knew that it wouldn't touch my heart if we were to get closer. I wonder if these people (or us?) just aren't open for a relationship and somehow closed off... Or if it's just a mismatch and with someone else these feelings would totally be there.

Anyways, was good to read that I'm not alone.

Have a lovely day and keep up the good work

[Thittato]

11 hours ago, flume said:

Hi I just randomly clicked on your journal and wanted to tell you how much I can relate to what you wrote here:

I've actually had the same experience. There was a man in my life who would have been the perfect match for me... On paper. We got along so well, could talk for hours and the attraction was totally there. A crazy lot of it even. Still there was something missing. It's like there was some kind of barrier that kept everything weirdly impersonal. Like I knew that it wouldn't touch my heart if we were to get closer. I wonder if these people (or us?) just aren't open for a relationship and somehow closed off... Or if it's just a mismatch and with someone else these feelings would totally be there.

Anyways, was good to read that I'm not alone.

Have a lovely day and keep up the good work

Hello! Thank you for dropping by

I appreciate very much that you could relate with this. Yeah, weirdly impersonal is a very good way to describe it. I find even the personal stuff somehow gets weirdly impersonal in such a situation. It is like one is not relating directly towards each other in a way, or maybe only on an intellectual level, but the body and heart is closed off, even if there is a lot of attraction. I think people can be very good at getting as close as they can possibly get without risking anything - I'm probably like that as well in many situations.

[Thittato]

Today I meditated for 1,5 hour.

This woman that invited me to visit her for a weekend at her place suddenly had a lot of anxiety around this invitation and needed more time to figure out if she was ready for this. I just wrote her that I totally understood and it was probably very normal to feel like this since we've only met once. But then I started to get stressed out around this uncertainty around this situation, and I started to feel very rejected, so it was very nice to dissolve all this stress through meditation. Mediation feels extremly powerful when I'm able to land something like this inside of myself. There will probably be new waves coming since I'm not sure yet what to do. Should I call her and try to influence her and possible make her feel safe? Or should I just give her space and let her figure it out on her own? Or am I not so interested anymore since this woman obviously has some serious anxiety issues? I feel like we have been talking a lot already, and nothing I have said has made her feel more relaxed. I can understand that there are some problems around inviting a man she doesn't know so well into her home for a whole weekend on the other side of the country, but she has also revealed that she has a lot of issues around her own bounderies, and it seems like she has some very serious issues around men. The positive side of this is that she is able to speak very openly and friendly around this. She seems like a genuinly friendly person. She doesn't like close off and becomes hard. She becomes afraid and tells that in an open and friendly way and asks for more time. So that is both some very positive qualities but at the same time she is very overwhelmed about this. I guess ideally I would have liked to meet someone who has this same openness, friendliness and vulnerability, but who was a little bit less sucked into her own anxiety. I'm pretty sure that had I met the right woman, given how much we have already interacted, the right woman would have by now totally felt that this man is safe to be around and he is someone that will respect my boundaries.

But I guess that for now I will just have to keep it open and see what happens. I might get surprised one way or another. It is a nice situation to trigger out all my own insecurities around dating and find a way to relax and soften around them through meditation. If this is not the right woman, perhaps I'm doing the groundwork through the way I deal with this through meditation to become more ready myself for meeting the right one. I guess that is exactly what "exposure therapy" is - inviting trigger situations into ones life and to face them head on with better mental tools for learning to calm down the fear.

[Thittato]

Sat for 30 min more, so altogether 2 hours of meditation today. I did a good session of weight-lifting before this last session, then I went into the shower and had my second cold shower (always warm first) for the day. So nice to do weight-lifting again. I did a session about 10 days ago as well. Hasn’t been much yoga after I commited to 45 min of meditation per day, and I was starting to look a bit strong because of all that yoga I used to do, but probably weight-lifting is a much better way to increase my muscle mass and staying fit at the same time, and also it really boosts my sense of masculinity, so I will look more into it. Maybe it is easier to combine weight-lifting and meditation than yoga and meditation, because there are limits to how much contemplative stuff I can do per day.

[Thittato]

45 min today as well. Really good sit. Feels amazing to sit and explore how my body and posture feels from the inside after the weight-lifting yesterday.

[Thittato]

45 min sit today as well. Nice sit. Been missing my yoga-routine after I re-established this meditation-routine, and somehow I need to get some physical exercise in as well. Now I’m thinking two sessions of weight-lifting per week is a good start in combination with this meditation-routine. That should certainly be manageable. Then I can rather fill in with some yoga every now and then according to my needs.

[Thittato]

45 min sit today as well. My mind got very still. So nice to see a lot of this nervous energy I'm carrying around just dissipate. It is really nice when even the enthuasiasm for the mind getting still is starting to get really chill.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

45 min sit today as well. Very nice groove this session. It almost goes by itself now. Both the routine and the actual process while meditating. It is like installing a new software for how to process my experience of being a human being in a much better way, and on good days it feels like that software has been successfully installed and now I can go on with my life. But of course - it is the bad days that I'm practicing for.

Today has been a really nice day. I've been working night-shifts for three nights this weekend, and I felt a great sense of mastery throughout the whole weekend. When I woke up today I woke up to a really nice message from this woman I'm into who asked me if I wanted to do a video-chat with her one of these days. I was thinking that I wanted to call her soon, but it is so nice when she is ahead of me which I take as a sure sign that I'm not the only one investing in this interaction. She also landed on wanting me to visit her for a weekend soon, so that is pretty awesome and fortunately I made her feel safe and comfortable about this by giving her space to figure it out on her own instead of chasing her. It was so difficult to let go of control in this situation, and I think I would have found a way to sabotage it and push her away if I hadn't had the great support my meditation practice was giving me regarding this. I'm pretty sure this practice makes me into a much more attractive version of myself than I am without it. The woman I was on a date with right before I fully re-activated this meditation project, hahaha, it is like night and day how differently the two of them responded to me. To that first woman I must have seemed like some very ungrounded all over the place kind of guy who was just totally un-attractive. I was also giving her a much loftier presentation of myself - just a lot of mind-based stuff about what kind of guy I would have wanted to be, whereas with this new woman I think I'm much more presenting myself as who I actually am. And that is actually how I view this meditation process - peeling away layers upon layers of mind-made noise so that I can get more into my core and essence. There is something very masculine about that. Just resting as essence. Not needing anything else. I imagine some guy sitting at the camp-fire, gazing very contentedly into the fire, enjoying the mystery of life.

I also went rollerblading with a couple of buddies today. So fun. Accidentally I met my younger brother who is only 17 at the skatepark. He is a pretty awesome skater. Pretty funny that now we have an interest in common. I'm not rollerblading enough to really take it to the next level, but still it is getting more integrated for every session that I do, and there is always a little bit of progress. Maybe I want to intensify the rollerblading a bit for a period now. I have like established a platform of some basic skills, but I feel a bit clumsy still, but perhaps it is starting to be within reach to actually develop some style. It is like with music. Some muscicians can make a lot out of a little, meaning they might not have the most technical skills but they still take the little that they know and put it together into something that becomes a unique style and expression.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

45 min sit today as well. The momentum was very good. I'm going to continue this program for the rest of August as well I could feel today, so altogether this meditation program is going to last for 3 months - June, July and August. I think I'm really starting to feel the benefits of sticking with something for an extended period of time now. Although I have been meditating for almost 20 years, and sometimes in a very disciplined manner, like 5 hours per day for 2 years when I was a buddhist monk, these last years has been a lot of just changing my practice around too much, so I have sort of lost my focus, but I guess it was what I needed for this period in my life as the general flow these last years has been improvisation and creativity, but now this discipline of 45 min per day has been really good. I've have been working myself into some bad habits of always thinking (again!) that that the grass is greener on the other side, so when I'm meditating I'm dreaming of what my life would have been if my practice was primarily devoted to yoga, and the other way around, so now it is time to get to the roots of this type of dynamic by actually sticking with one type of practice for an extended period of time. I'm pretty sure a lot of mind-noise will get the opportunity to calm down this way.

I also did weight-lifting after the meditation, and then I did a warm shower ended with a cold shower. Gosh. I really love weight-lifting. I have two full-body exercises that I like very much: The Man Maker and the Kettlebell Snatch.

[Thittato]

45 min meditation today before going to work, and then 20 min vinyasa flow yoga when I came home. Felt so good doing some yoga again after those 3 weight-lifting session I've had lately. Now my body is totally back to where it was at my peak fitness level a few months ago when my yoga practice was really strong. Feels really good having commited to a 3 month daily meditation practice of 45 min per day - June, July & August. It took quite some effort to get in the groove with this, so my physical exercise has suffered a bit, but now it feels like that inspiration is also back. I don't even have to do it daily. Maybe 2-3 sessions per week is more than enough, especially since I think sitting meditation also gives a lot of physical benefits because it opens up the body and improves the energy flow and reduces the stress-levels. Sitting meditation actually feels like body work in many ways. I'm certainly working on my posture when I'm sitting, and I'm bringing balance to my breath, among many things. I also think that the meditative awareness that I'm cultivating also makes me enjoy physical execise much more - like it is really good to be in my body and to explore how it moves. And meditation really makes it possible to fully enjoy without shame all the different types of energies that physical exercise activates, like the warrior-energy for instance.

[Thittato]

45 min meditation today as well. Good flow.

[Thittato]

45 min today as well. Some strong emotions coming up. I’m surprised I already feel at ease again.