My meditation journal

[Thittato]

30 min today as well. Very glad I settled into a daily practice again. 45 min per day for 3 months was a little too much in the long term, but 30 min as a daily practice seems perfect as for now. 30 min still makes me feel that I'm working seriously on my meditation technique, and it is easier to integrate into a busy life.

[Thittato]

Second solo Ayahuasca journey.

So it was a pretty demanding weekend of working night-shift, and when I woke up this morning with my sleep all messed up as usual I was feeling pretty obsessed again by this woman I was on some dates with this summer that it didn't work out with. We broke all contact 2 months ago, but it still lingers on. All my friends are saying she is too unstable and not ready for a relationship in the state she is in these days, she will probably need a lot of work on herself before she ever gets ready for that. So I was a bit desperate and thought I'll just do the rest of the Ayahuasca I have left searching for some emotional catharsis, so I diveded it into 3 full cups, and took one and went for a short walk with a friend, then I went home and took the second cup and went for 3 hour long forest walk which was pretty wild, and then I returned home and took the third cup and it became even wilder - like full ceremony style. I was almost paralyzed and couldn't decide what to do, so I for the most part I just ended up lying in my bed listening to ayahuasca music being consumed by fractals and geometric patterns - both beautiful and quite a lot of them quite horrifying. It is a little bit irresponsible to do this alone, but somehow I have so much trust in the psychedelic process that I know I'll always be able to land on my two feet again. But it was nice when it wore off, and I'm uncertain if I get so much out of these journeys. The first solo-ceremony I did two weeks ago was really good, but it feels like I always return back to my core issues - which is lack of direction and purpose in life. It was a wild and heavy trip, but here I am again, back to normal. Somehow it feels like I have gotten so old now (I'm 36, soon to be 37) that these psychedelics doesn't really bite on me the same way they used to do when I was younger. It is just like whatever. Desperately trying to squeeze some meaning out of life through some wild chemical induced state. Seems like I have gotten habituated to how wild psychedelics are. Maybe much the same way I have gotten habituated to how wild my job is at a psychiatric emergency hospital. Maybe it is possible to grow out of psychedelics. Like they are just an experience. In Zen they talk about growing out of ones attachment to deep samadhi states. Why go into them when they are just an experience? One of my teachers used to say that he no longer had any interest whatsoever in manipulating his state. He just wanted to let his state be whatever it was. Simply to just let go and be at peace with whatever is happening at any given moment. I feel my life seriously sucks right now, but somehow there is also a sense of peace with that. To just let it suck. I know there is something practically I will have to figure out regarding purpose and direction in life at some point, but right now, as a meditative practice, it is nice to just surrender into suckness.

My choices of today it seems like has been:

1) Try to beg this woman to give me a new chance and try to convince her that it is us that are meant to be, and that the previous failure we had together was just because we were both stressed and insecure and we just need more time and then things will naturally open up between us. Sounds totally lame and totally like loosing oneself in someone else, and sounds totally against everything I've ever read about attraction, and it has never worked before, but I'm hooked. Maybe at least I could need to get her to slam the door in my face one final time for me to realize there is totally nothing to pursue there.

2) Go back to this gestalt-therapist education that I have finished two years of and have two years more to do. Maybe this is my purpose? Seems like I need some serious purpose-shit to jerk me out of this obsession with this woman. Unfortunately they have already started up, and it was too late to join for this years 3rd class, but I could call again and ask if there is one way or another and that I'm desperate to get this done. Or I could wait a year. Or I could pursue this woman instead.

3) Dive even more into my guitar. I just played a little bit as I had a pause in this writing, and it is still one of those things that makes me really happy.

Maybe the most interesting thing that happened during the Ayahuasca was that I met a tree that felt like it had a spirit in it. I'm adding a photo of it. I was really feeling deeply that this was an old soul that was standing there in the middle of the forest. And that he cared for me. But also that he was vulnerable and afraid like all beings are, even though he was also really composed and wise and knew the ways of this world. So he also appreciated me supporting him. There was mutual giving and respect between us. He was kind of like a guardian in the forest. I had to bow to him several times. It just felt like I had a lot of respect for him. I was going for a long walk around a lake, and he was sort of a gate-keeper to this journey around this like I was going around. When I returned the same way I entered I saw him again, and the connection still felt as strong. Before I left him the second time I had to give him a good and long hug. It felt so good hugging him. He was really a good and supportive friend.

Ok, maybe I was getting something out of this journey after all. I just needed to process it a bit, and I will probably still have to process it quite some more. The whole thing was much more bitter and cynical and worn by life and pounded down by suffering than the first solo-trip I did two weeks ago which had much more a sense of innocence and becoming "born-again Ayahuasca enthuasist."

Anyways, I'm glad I don't have any more Ayahuasca left now, so that I won't have to be in a constant process of evaluating when I want to do the next session. Now I'm finished with these two solo-sessions for now. It is a new milestone somehow.

By the way, I had to leave out the picture of my tree friend in the forest, because when I included it it felt like I was exposing him too much and that that was not the right way to show my respect and care for him.

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

30 min meditation today. I've been missing out on my practice for 3 days now.

[Thittato]

Silent retreat for a day

 

1 hour yin yoga yesterday, and today I did a day-retreat a friend of mine was hosting. We were 10 people spending 8 hours together in silence. I was mostly obsessing about this woman. This has been a long week of obsessing over this woman. First heavily on the solo ayahuasca journey I did on tuesday, and then it has lingered on ever since, and reached a new climax on this silent day-retreat. The ayahuasca journey I did on tuesday hasn’t felt as successfull as the first solo ayahuasca journey I did two weeks prior to this one. After the first ayahuasca journey my heart felt really open and I had so much self-love going that it wasn’t possible to lose myself in an obsession like the one I have been in this week.

 

But anyways I tried my best to relate to this obsession in a meditative way during this day-retreat, going into and feeling it fully in my body all the various sensations that this stirs up. I guess that is just what I need to continue to do - let it burn out that way. But I’m seriously starting to wonder if I have to get back in touch with her and figure out if it was wrong of us to break contact. Until I figure out whether I’ll have to do something about this, that is also just something I will have to continue to feel in my body - all the doubt, indecision, trying to move on, getting sucked back in again, fear of getting rejected even once more, fear of only ending up giving her one more ego-boost to no good, fear of getting further sucked into an unhealthy process by re-establishing contact instead of just letting it burn out..... Maybe I should make a list of all these various forces operating in my mind to get a better overview so that I can get some support in bringing it down into how it feels in my body again and again. Getting hooked in this way is so tricky. The mind always finds a way to pull me back into the obsession. Always a new twist to the story in my mind that pulls me back in again.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

A breakthrough of some sort

Finally some release regarding this woman. Holy schmokes. I figured out which trauma has been triggered tonight as I was working night-shift and there was little to do and I could spend most of the night in introspection. So we spent a weekend together at her place in the beginning of August. We met on our first date in the beginning of July as we matched on Tinder, and then we had a huge amount of communication after this meeting on phone, chat and videochat, building up to our second date which was going to be a whole weekend together at her place, 6 hours driving from where I live, in beautiful mountain surroundings. It didn't go so well. But my mind has lived inside of these surroundings ever since. In her house, in the nature she lives in, and in the interactions between us. When I move my fingers around on my guitar I'm reminded of a guitar situation between us, when I go out in nature and see a little creek I'm reminded of the little creek we walked by together, when I play Chess I see the Chess-board she has lying around in her house. Basically EVERYTHING I do is related to the impressions I got from this weekend. And I resist it so badly, at the same time as I'm trying to accept it, but I'm only accepting it in fragmented pieces here and there. But tonight I tried another strategy. I told myself: "Ok, I'm just going to fucking move into these mental scenarios and settle down there and make it into my mental home." And it worked! And then it dawned on me from where this trauma comes! It is related to when I was 12 years old and I was falling out with my mom and had to move to my dad. And my dad kept manipulating me to continue to live with him even though I didn't really want to live with him but I was too proud to go back to my mom, and she was also not very skilled at conflict-resolution, so I lost my sense of a safe and good home in that conflict, and I have never had it since. I've been just moving around a lot, going from one place to the other, and probably this sense of not feeling at home has become chronic - hence why I am so restless always, always searching for my place to belong. So with this woman I was dating. A lot of it felt so right. In our communication before I came to her place it felt like she was the woman in my life, and that I could have easily moved to live with her, and it felt like we were already close to becoming a couple. But she was unstable, and I'm unstable, and she was projecting a lot of her father onto me, and I was projecting a lot of my mother onto her. So basically I was rejected by my mom once again and I was being thrown out from a projected version of my childhood paradise. That is why I'm stuck in these mental scenarios of this beautiful place that she was living in. A beautiful but fragile person living in a beautiful place, and I crave her love, which I only get in small portions here and there, the same way it was with my mom, and I try to fix her, the same way I did with my mom, in order to try to help her into a better condition, which I imagine that if I could get her to that better condition, then love would open up between us. It all makes so much more sense now.

I think this realization will totally help me a lot in learning to own this experience. It took like fucking two insane solo-ceremonies of Ayahuasca during a pandemic, plus a lot of other types of work, to even get to a place where this is just slightly starting to make sense.

Maybe this second solo ceremony wasn't so bad after all. The first one was just dipping my toes in it. And then with the second I was really going heavily into trauma and suffering and terror and shit, and it will probably take a lot of processing to work through this. I might be through the worst, though. It all feels much clearer now. Time will show.

[Thittato]

45 min meditation today. Much more centered meditation today. Feeling like I'm starting to land a little bit more. Holy schmokes how heavy my process has been lately, hahha.... The first ayahuasca ceremony was very smooth and nice, but this second one, that one certainly gave me some more heavy challenges. I think the first one just opened me up a little to become able to acknowledge and experience the deep and intense pain that I had to experience in the second one and in the processing after the second one. But now it seems like a huge chunk of this pain has been released. Maybe I can feel more at home in myself and in my own life now.

[Thittato]

20 min yoga nidra relaxation today, weightlifting, jogging 4 km, and then going to the bathhouse to do sauna. Also a nice walk in nature for one hour. Pretty relaxing day.

[Thittato]

30 min meditation. Good flow.

[Thittato]

30 min today as well. Good flow. Feels like I’m starting to land again after everything.

[Thittato]

30 min today as well. Some resistance today.

[Thittato]

Lots of activity both in my root-chakra and in my heart-chakra, today, by the way. Interesting.

[Thittato]

30 min meditation today as well. Really good to settle back down into my daily life again after this encountar with that woman I was on a few dates with that triggered some mother wounds in me that I choose to deal with through two solo ayahuasca ceremonies. Pretty wild processes, that now seems to have landed. Interesting whenever I go into the psychedelic landscape there is always a strong need to stay away from it for a good period to make sure that I thoroughly process it before any new encounters. Now I’m just looking forward to get more and more time in-between me and my last session. But it was really good to journal so much about it. Feels like that helps me get the most out of it. I think there is more a sense of landing in myself and self-love these days. Just being OK with who I am. Also just a longing and need for simplicity and peace.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

30 min meditation today as well. I'm fascinated by all this process that taking psychedelics triggers. Seems like my cycles in this journal are: Taking psychedelics ---> trigger a lot of process and inspiration ---> ride it out / journal about it ---> return to focus being on my daily life and my daily meditation practice  again ---> new rounds of psychedelics again at some point when I feel that I have been thoroughly grounded in daily life for a long enough period.

[Thittato]

Another really important part of riding out this wave of process and inspiration that a psychedelic trip triggers is to channel that energy into something creative. This time, after that first ayahusca journey I did 15th of september, guitar has been my main creative outlet. It is really nice to have something creative to «grind against.» Always with art and creativity one has to fight with the materials to try to get something beautiful out of them. Often there is just a lot of struggle and the feeling of banging ones head against the wall, but when that feeling of flow arrives, ooooh, it is one of the best feelings. The other things I’ve been channeling my energy into lately is meditation, journaling, yoga, weight-lifting, walks in nature, my job, and reading.

[Thittato]

These are four pieces of guitar-playing that I'm very inspired by these days:

 

It dawned on me here tonight that I only need to engage a little bit with guitar-playing in order to get a much greater appreciation for the skills of these masters. In one sense maybe I'm not only playing to be able to produce music myself, but maybe just engaging a little bit with it is really enhancing my ability to appreciate music in general, and maybe that is the most important part. I think I understood it the same way with Chess. I'm only an amateur player who has only been playing for 2 years, and it is far too late to get anywhere else than just having fun as an amateur player, but when I'm watching some of the master games that have been played being explained by commentators on youtube, wooow, that is such a refined esthetic pleasure, and my small little struggles to improve a little bit in Chess makes those intense pleasures available to me. I guess that is one of the things I consider really really important - remembering to appreciate all the beautiful wonders happening around me all the time. It is so easy to forget about it, but life is so beautiful when I remember. No need to struggle to get anywhere. Just surrender into all the miracles that is already here.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Thittato

[Thittato]

30 min meditation today as well. Feels really good to have this routine going. And now this obsession with that woman is finally really starting to dissolve from my system. Feels like I'm getting my life back again. Damn. Some crazy shit just happens with me when I get a crush on someone. It is like I'm spellbound or struck by lightening. And because of that state which get triggered it is really difficult to get those women I get a crush on. Like I'm just too much into a disempowered and inferior state to be attractive, even if they found me attractive initially, but when I dig myself too deep into the crush, I just never have a good chance. It ends up in a mixed signales / friendzone situation where I'm bouncing back and forth between glimpses of being in an empowered state where they become attracted to me again, but then I fall back into this disempowered state, and the woman becomes very confused about where she stands with me. But I'm not too worried about this. I think the right woman will show up when things are right inside of myself. These women that I have been experiencing this type of unrequted love situations with, I'm usually pretty glad I didn't end up with them when I'm out of the spell again. Seems like we where both in the wrong place to create something good and healthy together. So I'm confident that I will grow out of this type of dynamic. And these episodes - I just consider them exposure therapy where I'm getting my own trauma which is blocking my self-love triggered so that I can deal with it and become more whole. Seems like there has been many layers of this. But the way I feel now, it feels much better than how I felt before I met this woman, so I think something good has been coming out of it. I was into pickup and all that stuff before, which it seems like many of the guys on this forum is, and I've had success with it before when I used to date a lot, among other things I had two relationships with two really cool and beautiful women (but also very damaged ones), but now my whole approach to the opposite sex seems to be much more passive. I guess I feel that I don't need to accumulate any more experience. I already have enough of that. Mostly I just want things to get right inside of myself. And the women I met before. Well, the dynamic I was in with them - it is not what I'm looking for anymore. I need to grow out of that and into something much more healthy, safe and supportive. And maybe, most of all, maybe I just want to be so totally free that I don't care whether I'm attractive or not. I just want to be happy with where I am right now. I'm really fed up with searching for acknowledgement and all that. Because I came from a very inferior position into all of this, for periods I was really hooked on this idea of becoming a womanizer, and for periods I really was, but now it seems like a lot of that insecurity which creates that need is gone. When people brag about how successful they are with women, I'm just like whatever, good for you. Probably a lot of that is blocking ones potential for becoming really whole and landed in oneself. Not denying that my dating-skills has gotten really rusty, though, haha.... But yeah, I don't know. I'm just really fed up with all the endless ways I can create stress for myself. Tonight I was first playing Chess in my Chess-club, then I was hanging out with some meditation-friends home at their place and that was really relaxing, and when I came home I have just been chilling on the sofa with my guitar. Damn, that was so relaxing. It felt so perfect. No need for anything else what-so-ever when I'm experiencing flow with my guitar. Maybe my guitar is my woman these days haha..... Must be a much better position to be coming from at least when you have something that is so valuable to yourself that being alone with it is just totally perfect. That is being attractive to oneself. And that is the most important type of attraction - the one one has towards oneself. There is really a strong yearning in my heart to really become a muscician, whatever that means. I guess to me it only means that I'm integrating my guitar into my life-style, so that it never ends up just standing there collecting dust, but that it is something that I'm nurturing and keeping fresh and feeling inspired about, and that I meet other people to play with and that it just continues to unfold in a natural and relaxed way.

[Thittato]

30 min meditation yesterday, and today as well. Today I was in a skatehall again with my rollerblades. Damn, I was getting into such a flow-state. Finally I'm really starting to get somewhere with skating. It has been a very slow progress since I started up again this spring, but this time I could see a lot of progress. This indoor skatepark is really perfect for making progress. It has all the things. Nice stuff to warm up with before moving on to more serious stuff. I was there with my friends on the senior skate hahaha.. I thought I was going to dial down this skating chapter, but now it seems I'll rather dial it back up again. Looking forward to see how all this rollerblading is translating into my snowboarding when the snowboard season starts. 

[Thittato]

45 min meditation this morning. So damn inspired by rollerblading again hahah. 

[Thittato]

1 hour meditation this morning. Felt really really good and soothing. Life has been so awesome lately these last couple of days, hahha, that I needed a really good chunk of meditation this morning to help me keep my feet on the ground and not get too sucked up into manic energy, and also in order to re-charge. Feels like I managed to balance this manic energy I was in in this buzz, and now I only feel calm, happy, and well-rested.

[Thittato]

So I’ve been playing much more guitar in my job lately. This is my 4th day at work now. Been working friday, saturday, sunday and monday (today), and I’ve been playing guitar for 4 psychiatric patients these days, and they all really liked it. I used to be so shy about playing in my job, but now I’m really starting to let go of that shyness. Just now I’m sitting here with a very chaotic and violent young woman who is a substance abuser, and she has made so much chaos this whole night and was very tired this morning when I went on. We have to keep her in isolation until the doctor will see her and decide what is next for her. Anyways, so this is really boring for her, and even though I’m here with her, offering her to sit and talk with me isn’t the most interesting for her, but when I offered to play guitar for her she became really enthusiastic and stopped talking about trying to break out from here, and it didn’t take long before she fell asleep her on the sofa. My mantras where like singing her lullabies. This guitar can become such a powerful tool in my job. Now she is finally getting some rest, and I can just sit here and chill and get paid for it instead of being in conflict with a violent substance abuser. Probably she would have fallen asleep soon or at some point anyways, because she has been going for 6 nights without sleep. But thanks to singing and guitar-playing I was able to make that transition so much smoother, and probably she finally felt safe and stopped resisting her own tiredness and gave herself over to what her body needed. If I can just continue with this this is like a dream becoming true.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Thittato