Thought immersions; My non-daily journal.

[Nightwise]

Thursday May 21nd, 00:02

Tomorrow (technically today in this timezone hehe) one of my favourite bands will release a documentary that has been 7 years in the making about the evolution of the band and the life of frontman Justin Furstenfeld. The band is called: Blue October

I love this band because Justin has so much depth and sensitivity and passion when he sings. This video of a professionally recorded liveshow they did will show you why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59bIdflrlo&

And this link will show you the page that is associated with the documentary

https://getbackup.tv/catalog

I think it's gonna be really good, so I'd recommend you watching it too  

 

[Nightwise]

Thursday May 21st, 12:52

There appears to be a greater sense of discipline awakening in me.

I have started to for instance do these daily 10 minute meditations and prayer every day, but on top of that I have also been taking walks a lot more often in which I try to be very mindful. I also very intentionally now have started to listen to Blue October albums from start to finish whenever I'm resting (not sleeping) and laying down in bed, and I intend to listen to albums from other artists once I'm done with Blue October. Next one up will probably Linkin Park.

I also find it important to instead of searching out a new video on Youtube, I save old videos that I haven't finished watching yet and continue to watch them instead of impulsively seeking out something to distract myself. I also if I don't have a specific video in mind very intentionally go to my subscription box and watch either the first, second or third video even if I don't specifically feel drawn to watching that video at that moment. It is possible that like the first or second video is just so uninteresting that I skip them, but I do give videos that I don't feel drawn to at that moment or even videos I wouldn't normally feel drawn to a much more fair chance.

I also have a great desire to start actually learning to sing songs from start to finish, and I indeed have recently started to do that. I always felt much resistance against learning songs in their entirety because so much confusion comes up as to how to go about learning up. But I've decided that just getting yourself to do it and improvising a bit along the way is more important than the necessity of having it all figured out right from the getgo. Because I notice that if I try to figure out exactly a very specific step-by-step plan, I always get confused because in practice it happens that circumstances always change. I reckon that it's best to first focus on just doing it and getting experience, and with time and experience I will automatically get a much better idea of what is a suitable way to go about practicing and what is not.

I feel like I've come at that point where I've just procrastinated the need for discipline and organization for too long, and it's time to start acting!

In the past few years I have just very often been bothered by the fact that I found it so difficult to discipline myself, to accomplish certain things, to get shit done and to actually finish things or keep things going.

And now it's time to change that.

If I want to be able to accomplish the things I want to accomplish, I'm going to need discipline, structure, routine, organization, management and research.

The topic of research I find one that seems to be one of the most difficult, I notice. I somehow feel a lot of resistance against researching certain suggestions, whether through own experience or through studies that have been done or even anecdotal evidence. 

If I for instance want to find out if electromagnetic radiation from my phone affects my mood or my sleep, I'm not only going to have to read things about it, but I feel I will also need to research myself by just literally experimenting with it by keeping my phone next to me whilst I sleep one day, and not the other day, and doing that multiple times and then keeping a logbook on how it affects me, and on top of that trying to be as impartial as possible so that certain projections of prejudices do not affect the outcome of the research.

That's difficult for me. On top of that comes the argumentation that you might as well put it away anyway to be sure. But somehow I feel objected and resistance towards the notion of doing something 'just in case'.

I am willing to make changes, but I also acknowledge the fact that I have limitations and that wanting and trying to do too much at once can backfire, as I've experienced many, many times before. The amount of discipline I'm willing to put in as of right now and the changes that are happening do seem to be greater than it has been in years, but at the same time I have experienced many times that overconfidence can be a painful downfall.

I wonder where I'm heading, though. Am I eventually going to the extreme where I put in militant discipline and incredible amounts of willpower to life a very structured, organized and disciplined lifestyle. Or do I end up finding a balance somewhere where I also will allow myself moments to chill and relax and do whatever I feel like.

I am not even against the extreme if I can find myself being really devoted and single-pointed. In other words: If it feels appropriate and I feel strengthened by it. The middle way might perhaps be the goal, but the extremes might just be the path.

I have however experienced before that going to an extreme will have certain consequences which will have to be faced. It will create a kind of struggle. The question is whether that is a price that is worthy to be paid or not. I do feel a certain strength and pride in the idea that I will become a person of militant discipline and strength, but perhaps that is just ego. Even if it's ego though, does that mean it's a bad thing? I also feel like there is some more to it than ego alone.

Going forward, I don't want to be too overexcited and find myself trying so hard that it will backfire, certainly not in the shorter run, but I also want to be wary that I don't use that kind of reasoning as an excuse to be more lazy than is really intelligent.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Nightwise

[Nightwise]

Sunday June 21st, 14:14

It's been a month since I last written a journal entry.

And to be quite frank, last month has been extremely tough on me. I do seem to be recovering right now though, and I seem to be recovering surprisingly fast.

I don't really want to go into it too deeply, but after I had taken the intention one month ago to try extra hard, I hit a certain point where all the stress of my attempts of trying to change just became too much for me, and I couldn't handle it. There was a great amount of fear and on Wednesday the 3rd of June I started to become even slightly psychotic. I in fact at that very moment was convinced I would be put into a madhouse or something like that, and there were a bunch of fears that I had that basically devoured me. Many of those fears had a link with the visions that I saw during some of my psychedelic trips, of which I now realize that they far more likely or actually pretty much certainly had to do with seeing a reflection of my own unconscious fears rather than an objective prophecy; rather, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This became verified by the fact many of the things I was almost convinced of that were going to happen in my paranoia, turned out to not be true. I expected to be in a mental hospital right now. I also expected to experience extreme emotional ups and downs. Of course, emotional ups and downs have been happening to me like every human being, but I got that kind of idea when I had read about one person habitually going from an extremely high vibrational frequency where he was basically enlightened at that moment to an extremely low vibrational frequency where he was suicidal, and I somehow convinced myself that I was going to experience the same way, and in my fearful state I of course had a lot more fear for the downs than I had excitement for the ups.

I also thought about how other people have struggled with mental illnesses for many, many years and even decades, and how they only got out of it after having experienced something like that for decades (or they hadn't even gotten out of it), and then the thought came that "well did they also not just try the best they could?", which then made me think that I would need to experience the same kind of life with the same kind of struggles. I basically needed to convince myself that I had a own free will and that I was able to choose to get out of misery and despair by my own choice, as I used to have a much more deterministic perspective, that everything was written in the starts and that I was a victim of the will of God or the universe.

Somehow, I did manage to recover slightly after that 3rd of June and I tried very hard to get out of it, but there were still a lot of fears, and one week later on Thursday to friday I had another really bad night, and the day following that night I happened to have a conversation with someone who I suppose you can call a spiritual counselor, and we had a good conversation and he really urged me to seek professional help, and so I did. 

I don't really sort of want to magnify my story and give too many details about all of what exactly had happened, but I did seek professional help, but this professional help, as I feared, requires me to be on a waiting list for another month even though I had indicated to my physician that there were suicidal thoughts.

Nevertheless, without coming to rely on this professional help as it's called, I have been making a great amount of improvements since last week on Friday the 12th. Initially I was still very fearful, but every day I have been making noticeable improvements, and I start to come to the point where I'm going from really trying to make myself almost force to go into the positive direction to the point where I'm starting to feel that things are actually going to be alright.

It started that Friday last week with reminding myself of the attitude that I had back in 2017, and that is that 'I will go on no matter what'. This sort of attitude was aided by the realization that I simply did not want to go into the direction of suicide or suicidal struggle, because I realized that suicide was simply not the direction I wanted to go to, that it was not the example I wanted to set with my life, because I wanted to be the person that would overcome his demons and act as a guide towards others. And on top of that there was nothing that guaranteed that it would make anything better for me to begin with, and even moreso on top of that, I realized that if I was going to dwell too much on suicidal thoughts and feelings, there was no guarantee that I was actually going to do that anyway and more likely I would eventually come to another point where I realized that suicide was simply not the direction I wanted to go in

I simply decided that going into the downwards spiral was not something I would want to allow myself to go on anymore, and I decide that whatever would happen or whatever confusions or fears I may have, I was going to try my very best to keep on walking regardless even if I didn't know what direction to walk in.

I also reminded myself that I had nothing to lose if I started to make a lot of changes now. previously, I was very afraid of maybe doing something wrong, but now I realized there is nothing I can really lose by trying a lot of things, even if they do fail.

And since then, the recovery process seems to be going incredibly well. Initially, there were still a lot of fears, but as the days go on, it seems to be getting better each day. Basically I have been finding ways to fill up my days with certain activities and tasks, and doing certain guided meditation or hypnosis sessions, and I have purchased a binder in which I keep different tabs which contain different categories, and in that way I have been basically noting down certain insights, experiences and events that have been happening, to actually note down the answers or the findings to certain questions that I have. That really helps a lot just clarifying certain situations to me. The reason that before I wasn't as objective and scientific about noting down my life experiences in a scientific manner, was because I was afraid that I was going to discover that nothing would really be changing and that it would all be hopeless.

After I realized that I had nothing to lose anyway by doing this, because the way it has been going hasn't been working out anyway so I might as well start being very scientific and objective about everything because there wasn't really any actual danger about discovering that many of my hopeless thoughts would turn out to be true (because I was already basically very identified with those fears anyway). So basically I did start to track what was happening, and I also used guided hypnosis sessions and NLP techniques to turn around negative associations and beliefs into more positive ones or into neutral and objective ones.

Also, I realized that positive thinking isn't really so delusional as it might seem. I always used to have resistance against positive thinking, because I associated it with deluding yourself and being too afraid to face the truth. Now I start to realize that for one, there are positive truths which I and basically everybody can directly recognize for themselves that they are true. That would for instance be something like: "There are moments when these negative thoughts are not true" or "There is always a more neutral or positive way to regard a negative thought or situation" or "every day I am growing and learning" (although I was even skeptical towards that one)

And then you also have positive thoughts that aren't necessarily objectively true, but they are relatively true, meaning they are not meant to be 'the objective die-hard truth', but rather they are used to fulfill a function.

So basically what I mean with that, is that positive thoughts can be used as a self-fulfilling prophecy, in the same way that negative thoughts can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, something I've clearly come to experience in the negative. 

But you can also say to yourself something like 'I am confident and strong' in the mirror every morning, and such an auto-suggestion may become reality by basically making yourself believe it. It may not be objectively true in the beginning when you say that to yourself, you may not particularly feel confident and strong, but the purpose of statements like that or affirmations is not whether they are true or not at that moment, but the purpose is to create a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's why I have started to embrace more positive thinking in my life. Firstly, there are positive truths which you don't even have to convince yourself that it is or could be true in order for them to be true, and then there is affirmations which can be used for the purpose of creating a positive self-fulfilling prophecy

I also have been keeping a video journal every day, in which I talk on average about an hour about things that are currently on my mind at that moment. Initially, I wanted to upload this to youtube every day, but youtube for some reason wouldn't process my video's properly, so instead I have started to upload to Bitchute. I have had a lot of difficulties also trying to compress my video's, but I eventually figured out a way to do that. I also wanted to merge video's together, because I get separate files in one recording session.  The reason I (usually) have multiple video files over one recording session is because the maximum size of one file that is allowed on my camcorder is 3,89GB, which with my current setting is about 48 minutes of recording. The camera doesn't stop recording when that size is reached, but it does create a new separate file.

So I wanted to merge the two files into one, and I thought that I had found a good solution for merging, but in the end the audio seems to not have been synced properly. I could use an online tool to merge video, which I have done with one video, but right now I just have a big desire to just get the video's uploaded, because there has been so much troubles and delays that I can't be bothered anymore trying to get it right and I just want to get it uploaded, whether it comes across amateuristic or not. In the future I will take a look at if I can manage ways to make a video that is of higher quality and merged together properly, but for now I just want to get all the recordings uploaded.

So from now on, the main focus will be keeping this video diary with the intention of doing that every day (which so far has been working out for me), instead of writing on here. I do however intend to leave a link every day to my new video journal every day here. 

My video diary starts out with a more darker tone, especially the first one which is in Dutch (perhaps even good that you can't understand that one, haha), but it gets brighter pretty quick, it's interesting to notice.

Here is my BitChute channel: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/l3uD8V851WL6/

Edited June 21, 2020 by Nightwise

[Nightwise]

From now on, I think I'm just gonna upload the video's that I upload every day. Somehow merging seems to be a problem again, so I'm uploading in parts right now.

Here are the video's from yesterday (21-06). I was silent for a very, very long time as I waited for inspiration to come

https://www.bitchute.com/video/sXJfrazc2Tfx/ 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/InJhgKC1ax1h/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/Shwjf0uDPvTV/

And these are the video's from today. I talked first about the progression of my day and something about sexuality, and in the later half I talked about how every idea about yourself or the world, no matter how real it may seem at one moment, always changes in the end.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/qaDSKH090k1Q/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZTPwi50hBv2R/

Edited June 22, 2020 by Nightwise

[Nightwise]

Wednesday June 24th, 20:22

For once, I feel like writing (about this) instead of speaking into my video journal.

I notice that I have a strong tendency to distrust my own inner wisdom.

I had once some time ago read an article where it was stated that in order to increase the energy in your room, you need to remove all mirror because they would reflect back to you your own negative vibrations.

I have never suspected the mirror to be doing anything negative to me. I have gotten an intuitive sense that for instance a messy and cluttered room can affect the way I feel in that room, but I have not ever suspected that my mirror could be a problem.

And I intuitively still don't feel like my mirror is really doing anything bad to me, but now the paranoia has settled in me, just because I have read that article.

And I notice I'm done with doing something or fearing something just because someone else has said so, or because supposedly according to other people something might help or hurt.

I also today threw away some crystals I felt nothing for but I had them anyway because they 'are supposed to' increase certain vibrations.

And I'm so done with fearing things or being paranoid of doing the wrong things or having the wrong items just because someone out there has some opinion or viewpoint about something being harmful or helpful according to them.

But for whatever reason, I just tend to be way too fearful to trust my own intuition or wisdom, and instead I cling to the thoughts that others have about what should be done or what should be.

Because I know that this person that was talking about 'mirrors reflecting negative vibrations' is simply expressing a perspective. It may work for them, or it may not even work for them any they have just basically copycatted once again something that someone else had said, without having it verified for themselves in their own experience.

I want to connect more with my own intuition, and not be so afraid to trust my own inner wisdom. Luckily, I have instances where I can get a sense for what it feels like to have a perfectly functioning intuition. I feel the desire to clean up my room is one of them. The desire to go out and jog a little bit is another one of them. The desire to eat some specific foods and not others at certain times is yet again another one of those natural intuitions. And I feel for instance that the openness I gave a door saleswoman for a collection of a charity foundation she was doing today, was another one of those intuitions.

And I feel that removing the mirror from my room just because I have read somebody said that it would be a bad thing, is not acting in accordance to my own inner wisdom.

Because I know that in this large universe and billions of people having written perhaps millions of articles, there are other people out there who feel or have written that having a mirror in a room does not matter, or there are bound to be people, there must be people out there also who write very compelling arguments as to why having a mirror in your room would be a good thing.

But I find it very hard to trust myself and my own intuition or own inner wisdom. I used to be more intellectual about what it really meant to act from your intuition and if that was even a good thing, or what 'your inner wisdom' really meant, but some significant shift I have been starting to make is going from 'what should I do' which lead to incredible amounts of confusion, to instead go to 'what do I want to do?', which (at times, not always; especially if I get too heady about it once again) gives answers but does not necessarily give a logical sequence as to why that decision should be made.

Asking 'what do I want to do?' takes into account both logic and feelings, then it puts it through the machine of... my inner wisdom or my intuition or whatever you want to call it, and then an answer comes out, and there isn't really a logical process of ABC involved to come to that answer, but still there is an answer, and I am really glad to notice that the answer does not need to exclude logic or be against logic, but yet is not limited to logic.

But still it can be very challenging at times to trust myself with my own inner wisdom. Might I remove my mirror some time from my room? Perhaps I might, or might not, do that some time as an experiment, but if it is not my answer that not having a mirror in my room improves the energy in my room (or perhaps is at least not worth it at that time from a standpoint of not wanting to be too attached, or wanting to be more disciplined), then I don't want to remove it.

I must admit I'm glad that over the past two weeks I have started to intuitively notice that there is actually quite a bit of merit in becoming more disciplined and having more self-restraint, because without being able to feel the value of that, I would be inclined to believe that life is about being as comfortable as possible, and being able to tap into the perspective of that it's sometimes okay to confront yourself with (potential) discomfort (even if it's just the discomfort of your own mind), it can help to energize me to step out of the perspective of being so paranoid about everything.

But I just don't want to be a soccer ball kicked by random mental impressions that I have gotten along the way. I understand that there is a lot of value to be had at being able to connect more deeply to your own inner wisdom, and perhaps sometimes in order to get closer to that wisdom you will have to risk confronting a bit more negative vibrations. I suppose that's a way I can look at it...

[Nightwise]

Just a quick note, i've decided for now to not actually post here when I have uploaded a video to bitchute every single day. I might do that at some point, but not just yet. You'll have to look up my channel there

https://www.bitchute.com/channel/l3uD8V851WL6/

[Nightwise]

Times are still pretty dark, but some place I may still write something some days is this page here. It's kind of dark though. read at your own risk.

https://justpaste.it/2ejvl

 

[Nightwise]

Saturday July 25th, 23:04

I think I'm past the worst of this dark night of the soul, although I can't say that with full confidence yet.

It's been extremely rough. There have been some times in the last two months where it's just been terror. I really don't want to talk about it too much right now, but just some really dark feelings and thoughts.

Although I can't say this with full confidence either yet, my way out of this seems to be that it's important that I start working towards a life purpose. Hence I have bought the life purpose course in a sort of moment of panic. When I bought the life purpose course I was repeating to myself "I MUST, I MUST", but very quickly I found that this attitude of trying to force myself to do something like this wasn't going to work.

Since then, I don't have the same kind of obsessive attitude about it, but in its place has come an attitude where I'm just like... what gives... I can do it anyway because the alternative of not trying anything and not doing anything isn't going to serve me any better.

I have been having that attitude with a lot of things lately. With many things, I am not sure if it's going to work or if it's going to help me, but do I rather just stay in bed depressed?

Today I had a moment of clarity in which I realised or felt that I had the power within me to actually create a lasting change within myself and really create a good life for myself and consistently spend a lot energy developing structures, routines, disciplines and so forth, whereas before I never felt like I could because 'I don't work that way' or 'everything goes in cycles so it's only inevitable for me to quit it' or whatever clever reasoning I had.

I started to notice that whenever I felt like I couldn't continue with something but then still did it, thinking it was the last time I would still have the energy for it, that then the next day I found I could do it again, and then the next day I could do it again, making me now think that this whole notion of me 'having to eventually quit or take a break from everything I try to do structurally' was perhaps maybe just all in my head, a strong self-fulfilling prophecy.

There's still things I tend to be reluctant towards to accept or at least to let go of. Why do I have to suffer? Why is there suffering in this universe? Is there really more peace and bliss than there is suffering in existence?

Bla Bla Bla...

Useless questions. Getting me nowhere. In a way I'm sort of lucky to be such a deep spiritual non-dualistic thinker because it just makes me feel like the notion of suicide doesn't make any improvement in the best case scenario, and will give you only more trouble in the worst case scenario. I've had suicidal thoughts, but thoughts of what would happen if I did commit suicide made me too afraid to seriously consider doing something like that, although I have fantasized...

I really don't like being here on this earth in this position. I don't like what I'm feeling and thinking, and I don't like what I'm seeing around me on this earth. But it's useless to complain, be negative and be miserable. The only thing I can do, the only thing I am really forced to do, is to start focussing on what my possibilities are, on what can be done and what life can be created for myself, alternated with just being very present in the moment and being in the here in now.

A little bit of hope, a little bit of presence. That's all I can rely on right now. That's all I'm really forced to be concerned with. I can have hope for the future, but I got to realize that the steps taken towards a more fulfilling future are being taken right now, and that really the only power I have to create a situation in which both my inner and outer reality are more... prosperous are being dependent upon the steps I am taking right now.

But at least I'm starting to feel like there is some power within me to create a life that is really fulfulling, that there is some possibility that  can create a life for myself that can be really peaceful and joyful and not be forced to 'suffer my karma' as some kind of victim as I previously believed. I dreaded that idea and it gave me a feeling of deep despair.

[Nightwise]

August 15th, 17:06

I'm doing... a little bit better now I'd say. The heat wave in Europe and the Netherlands of the past ten days or so has been really tough on me. I really can't handle heat well. I tend to get very muggy and tense in my head. It's been quite a struggle, but really, so have been the past couple of months in general. My parents were also gone so I was home alone, and forms of day activities just didn't seem to be coming off the ground, even though I was trying to get them handled.

I notice I'm still quite pessimistic and negative both about the future of myself and the future of humanity. I know this is more an emotional thing than necessarily a rational one. I'm just glad I seem to be coming out of the dark pit and I just hope that I will find that this dark phase has brought me a lot of new meaning into my life. I do notice some things have changed, like I'm willing to adhere a little bit more to structure, I'm more open to trying things and I tend to be more of a go-getter. I also just tend to push myself through my fears and resistances more than I did before, although I'm still careful not to become too obsessive or neurotic about that. I have posted some covers I did online even though I'm ashamed of it. There's also other things that may have changed but these changes I've noticed in moments and aren't a continuous thing, so I don't know if this are things that are going to persist as I would start to feel better.

And I'm much more vigilant about noting and writing down whatsoever has been happening in my experience. This may be the biggest thing, that I'm far more scrutinous in examining myself and my experience, keeping a log, keeping a diary, writing everything down that happens and trying to be very honest in that, even if it may be pretty uncomfortable to face. I'm keeping a 'self-investigation'-map, and two journals, one for what happens during a day, another one to contemplate in and philosophize in.

This self-investigation is something I have been doing even in my darkest times (with the exception of some days or moments) where I have just been really keeping track of whatever has been happening, and also I have been using writing as a means to really think and contemplate, although this was very difficult in moments of deep despair and intense tension.

Being objective and inquisitive about my experience and really intensifying my search for Truth feels right now like one of the, if not the most important thing to be doing. It gives me at least some grip of... objectivity and distance throughout all of this ordeal. It can at least keep me removed from becoming totally identified with my problems to some degree

And honestly, I'm just pretty negative right now. There's a lot of dark scenarios that my mind has basically been attacking me with that still tend to be rather sticky. I don't feel very optimistic or hopeful about the future, but I also now this has probably a lot more to do with my mental-emotional state than a rational approach. I'm just glad things finally seem to be getting better, although I somehow always fear I may be jinxing myself even saying that.

It's also just become really important to me now to focus a lot more on presence. I noticed yesterday when I did my first trial training of badminton, that during the training the depressive feelings I felt at that moment became completely irrelevant and there was only the game, there was only the practice. Then cycling back again home I then notice that once again I go from one world where there is only attention, flow and presence (even if there's still heavy feelings on the background), to a world where there's problems, tensions, things to be solved or things not right, dark future scenarios... But that first world feels so much more... valid and real is some way. In my head I build castles of air but it's all clouds and the present-moment world seems to be so much more... real in some way because in my head I'm only dreaming away, somewhere else but certainly not appreciating the moment and being engaged with life.

 

[Nightwise]

By the way, don't think that I've not been journaling for the past couple of months when I was in a pit of sometimes deep despair. I have been, I just have been writing in a notebook as I haven't had the desire or energy to write here.

Sunday August 16th, 18:32

The worst seems to be over now. I seem to be getting back to having better days now where this deeper fear of not having anything to do is starting to leave me, and I'm getting back to my old self.

But somehow I don't like that. Because I have the wish to go to a newer, more evolved self right now.

I wish I could say that now there's a lot of gratitude that things are getting better again. I wish I could say I feel a lot more compassionate. I wish I could say I can now appreciate the smaller things in life, and that I don't take better moments for granted anymore.

But I don't feel that way...

Instead, I feel bitter, resentful, pessimistic, negative. I also tend to be quite hard and tough on myself

However I feel right now may not represent the way forward per se, but I am honestly a little bit startled by the fact that I feel bitter and pessimistic right now instead of grateful that things seem to be getting better.

but perhaps I should take the way I feel right now not so personal. Really, perhaps it's quite normal to feel pessimistic and resentful after having been through something so dark

Later edit (19:54): 

I do notice however the way suffering motivates. The previous thought or attitude of me being or feeling so pessimistic lead to be feeling depressed. Me feeling depressed suddenly gives me the drive to clean up my room, whereas if I had still felt the same as I did one hour ago, the idea of cleaning up my room would've come from the ego and it would not have had this deeper intrinsic motivation to it that comes from when there's more pressure from pain and suffering.

That is something that I've noticed during the past couple of months. When things got really shitty, then out of nowhere some kind of impulse or strength could arise. I remember laying in bed some weeks ago feeling completely hopeless, desperate and depressed, and then suddenly I was just done feeling sorry for myself, I got out of bed, got to the gym, and just trained there for some bit, because I realized that staying stuck in my self-pity and sorrow just wasn't going to help.

At other times, however, there is a wish or a desire to be doing some things or to be making changes but then the desire isn't centered or intrinsic enough and then the ego tries to do it but there's just not enough energy or intrinsic motivation to make that happen and you hit a wall. I'm starting to recognize the difference between when the ego wants you to change and when there's something deeper that wants to change or do something.

Another later edit (23:00):

This is something I notice time after time again. I had the idea in mind to practice a guitar song today which I hadn't gotten to, and then just watching a video of the life purpose course today (which I intend to do every day), it pushed me over that point where I decide to indeed just go ahead and do it, and what I then find is that there's an initial resistance against pushing myself past that point to just get going with it and also resistance where I have to learn something completely new and search up new ways to do something or figure new things out, but once I just get to that and just do it, I notice it really isn't all that bad and I actually have some fun with it, plus I get a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction about myself, including the fact I have finally practiced the song well enough for me to feel justified to have recorded and and to have put it online, which I will now share a link of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFb9TU88sTk

It's not great, but it's good enough for the place that I am in right now.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Nightwise

[Nightwise]

that kind of reflects how I'm feeling right now.

[Nightwise]

Sunday August 23rd, 21:48

There's some "NO!" within me, fighting the way I feel, even having made me consider suicide. But at the same time I feel this "NO" is something artificial, something that is not true to me.

I feel exactly that right now if I'm just able to drop this "NO!", life right now will be completely fine. I don't necessarily feel bad right now, but there is this resistance, but yet I am aware that this resistance is not truly me, yet it's pervasive, yet at the same time I really just feel like I'm one inch away from being peaceful right now. I wonder where this "NO!" came from. It's not really... authentic.

I actually don't feel like I need to do the opposite, which would be fighting for life or to stay alive. It's not an aggressive Arnold Schwarzenegger "YES!" that's required to come to peace, but more like a simple, easy kind of "yes". It's a "yes" with a playful kind of attitude, a "yes" that does not consider whatever experience happens to be there as undesirable.

It's funny how I realize this, yet I can not as of right now embody that kind of attitude, yet I know I'm literally just one step away.

I'm also becoming more aware of the way I create my reality by my own beliefs, how powerful your own expectation of how something is going to be actually creates your reality. Sometimes I forget that truth, and sometimes it's very clear.

 

[Nightwise]

Sunday August 29th, 15:35

I would say things have been going a bit better previous week, but I must admit I still catch myself now just feeling very much opposed to any negativity in life. That's the feeling that I'm experiencing right now: I just don't want to have to deal with anything negative. But it's coming for a good part out of a place of fear. I want to escape, I want to resist. And this is not helping me to feel calmer.

I was just at a place which is basically a living room for people with psychic vulnerabilities. They were talking about American politics. I could just not latch onto the conversation. It made me feel uncomfortable sitting there. I wasn't really so much interested in the topic to begin with, but I was also fearing it. Going to that location gives me different feelings for the different times I go there. Sometimes it has felt very relieving to go there, partially because I was able to just be able to speak about everything that was going on with me, other times other people were talking about topics I had no interest in being a part of.

But I have noticed in the past that this perceived sense of separation I sometimes think I feel all the time, is not really something that is actually present all the time. There have been several occasions the past months where there were moments when suddenly I did feel connected to other people, where I did have very good conversations with others and where I did really connect well and I didn't feel any distance between me and someone else, or at least barely.

But this dark past few months have just been so overwhelming that now I just feel like a coward, to be honest. I feel, at times, just very afraid and I don't want to experience any negativity, neither inside or outside. I also still feel some trouble with the very fact that there is suffering in life to begin with. It's hard to let go of that, it's hard to let go and just live life, pleasant or unpleasant. It's difficult for me to get back to the same attitude I had before this breakdown, where I just accepted the worse moments and was willing to face my darkness and demons, and just be with it and let it pass and just trust in the fact that it would pass and things would get better, and beyond that that there was some greater sense of meaning to it. Now, I'm afraid of that and I'm reluctant to deal with feeling bad. 

I don't feel very courageous at all anymore. These past few months have really broken down my identity of me being a very brave and capable person. I just feel very weak and incompetent now. Somewhere I also know that this is part of the path, that nothing has gone ultimately wrong, but it's something that's very hard to swallow.

I do start to feel a little bit better, but where do I go from here? It almost feels like I can never get the same amount of satisfaction again from the things I'm going to do in life. This may very well not be true, but it feels that way right now. But I do know for instance someone who has gone through a dark phase with hospitalization somewhat over a year ago who also has had a very dark past before that, who now is very optimistic and has very good energy. I had a talk with her last week, and she made me feel a lot better. It was delightful to know that despite, or maybe because of all the darkness she had gone through, she still was capable of being that kind of person.

One of the things I'm encountering right now is that I tend to want to make everything big, that everything I do needs to serve some bigger purpose, like jogging, going to the gym... all those kinds of things. It's very hard for small things just to stay small things without me having to make it disproportionally big. 

 

 

[Nightwise]

Sunday February 14th, 2021, 20:41

It's been almost 6 months since I last wrote here

Much has changed, so much has changed since I last wrote. For the better, fortunately. 

I don't think I want to go really in-depth into it now, but I'm so glad that things are once again fine now. Last summer was honestly a horrible time. It was like a living hell for some time. My recovery from it however was surprisingly quick. I would say especially during September and October it was the time that I was recovering really quickly. I've began to see a therapist who has helped me a lot, who only now I'm starting to get doubts with whether or not I should continue. That's another story, however. I also started speaking with an... google translate says it's an 'experience expert', but that sounds silly. Basically someone who has personal experience with mental health issues who now acts as a guide for me. I have a really good connection with her which is really helpful.

I also initially started working on a lot of personal goals. What I started doing (which I have now stopped for quite some months now, actually), was to write in a journal every day using what I called the GLAND-method. Originally it was called the GLAD-method, but I added the letter N

The G stands for Gratitude; what am I grateful for today?

The L stands for Learning: What have I learned today?

The A stands for Accomplishment: What have I accomplished today?

The N stands for Noticed: What did I notice or became aware of of something that had changed for the better?

The D stands for Delight: What was a better moment during the day?

 

coupled with using the GLAND-method, I also wrote down every day what happened during that day in general, just to keep a log of it. During early December I think, I started getting tired doing this every day, along with the GLAND method. I longed much more to enter a state of detachment, disengagement and a state where I just wanted to be in a free flow and not having the constrainments of feeling like I had to be doing something every single day. And I feel like I made the right decision there, dropping my discipline and routine there. It served its function, it really helped me to do that for some months, but eventually it had used up its function for me; at least for the time being.

on top of doing all of that, I also kept up with something you could call a 'self-inquiry' map or binder of sorts. Basically it was a map where I wrote down many things that I was doing or noticing or thinking about. I started using this less too, but one of the interesting things I kept track of is basically things that now seems to have changed, that seems to be different than before last summer. I also wrote down things that I noticed that were different than before in a positive sense in order to keep track of the fact that things were indeed changing and/or improving, but there is a list of things that seemed to have changed more or less permanently. At first I was afraid to write them down because I was afraid that they would still happen to change at the last moment, but now I can be pretty certain that indeed these things have changed within me on more or less of a permanent basis. This I found really important to keep track of because during this mental breakdown last summer, I had this strong feeling that what I was experiencing was completely pointless and only made everything worse in my life and not better. To actually objectively log the things that were indeed changing was difficult to do because I was very afraid that I would find out that I would be disappointed and indeed nothing would have changed for the better, but I did take the leap of faith and I am thankful I did, as now I know the many things that this dark phase in my life, for a lack of better words, did change things around on the positive side in my life.

Here I'll list some of these changes that I here translate, in order that I wrote them down in the map, meaning it's chronological. I also at some point started using date stamps

• I am being pushed to look at certain patterns of behavior which I otherwise would not have looked this deeply into because the pressure of suffering then wouldn't have been intense enough. An example is the investigation of what the effects that food could have on me which I otherwise would have felt too much resistance towards to even start such an investigation.
• I have become much more capable of maintaining a certain routine and structure in my life (note: currently this isn't so much more the case anymore, mainly just because I'm not very interested anymore in living my life in this way. However, even the fact that I did really stick to a certain routine, structure and discipline for literally months, is something that I have never ever done before in my life so in itself it's already a huge accomplishment, even if I haven't decided to continue doing it in that way)
• 26-10-20 (26th of October, European date stamps): I am much less interested in philosophy and the tendency to try and mentally resolve certain things I feel conflicted about. I just let it be and I don't really think about it anymore (indeed, still the case)
• 26-10: My resistance towards seeking help such as therapy or becoming involved in certain social circles has for a greater part dissolved (indeed, still the case as of 14-02-21)
• 26-10: Paradoxes and contradictions don't bother me as much anymore, and I am much better able to accept that different perspectives can be helpful at different times (indeed, still applicable)
• 26-10: I have noticed that I much more easily have conversations with people and I have become much more social. I am also more empathetic, a better listener and much more interested in people. I also feel significantly less resistance towards sharing my viewpoints and insights with others (all of this still holds true, though I do feel I am a bit less effortlessly empathetic and interested than I used to be some months ago)
• 26-10: There is much less this feeling that I am a 'special' and 'rare' person. (this is really significant. I used to feel like I was really cut from a different cloth. Whether this is the case or not, it certainly doesn't feel that way anymore. This is a good thing, by the way, a very good thing, because it doesn't make me feel isolated and separate anymore)
• 26-10: There's a much greater willingness to try out new approaches and attitudes towards life (at this moment, this isn't so much the case anymore because I've gotten complacent because I once again feel at rest and peaceful. Complacency not necessarily a bad thing, btw)
• 26-10: The question "who am I?" seems to bear more significance to me now (admittedly, now not so much anymore)
• 26-10: I have much less resistance and self-judgement towards distracting myself (I used to think that using distractions was something unspiritual and bad, now I realize I'm just human and it's okay at times to just use certain distractions if you need them at the moment. This lack of judgement towards distractions I would say still applies, but right now I am simply capable most of the time to surrender so distractions simply aren't necessary or even useful for me at this moment. But I don't judge myself if I have to)
• 08-11: There's a lot less confusion and doubt, and I make choices much more easily (as far as day-today choices is concerned, it's improved a bit, but as far as existential confusion is concerned, it's really improved a lot)
• 14-12: I am far more capable and interested social activities (nothing to add to that. This is absolutely something that is both very true and new)
• 14-12: I notice that I've become more assertive and I express my opinion much more easily (Yup. Although it's still possible that there are moments where I feel a bit more shaky and uncertain, generally this statement is very true)
• 14-12: I find it easier to express emotions such as enthusiasm or anger (yup)
• 14-12: I've become more open and find it easier to express to others my deeper secrets or feelings
• 14-12: I am a much better listener (certainly)
• 14-12: I've become much less insecure with singing (this is very true. I noticed it on the first band repetitions class back in September that I felt far less insecure expressing myself than I used to before last summer)
• 14-12: I respond far more spontaneously (lately I feel like this is a bit less, but I still think this is generally very true)
• 14-12: feeling the need to do 'shadow work' or 'energy work' does not distract me anymore when I am in social situations. (It can be so that I feel a bit cramped up and desiring to withdraw once I go to someone or a social venue, but once I am there I forget all about this resistance and just get into a flow, even though this resistance or cramp or whatever may still linger somewhere on the background, but I'm not focused on it. This definitely used to be different before last summer, where in this situation I really wanted to retreat to a toilet somewhere to do this energy work on myself)
• 14-12: I've become more shameless and more comfortable in regards to my sexuality, and I much more easily make sexual jokes or comments (this used to be something I was far more uncomfortable with)
• 20-12: I am much more capable to let better moments just come as they may without holding onto these moments or starting to think about how I am to maintain it or to get it back (this definitely used to be an issue)
• 22-01-21: The tic I used to have with my eyes has almost completely disappeared (I used to have a tic where I would roll my eyes, which would especially bother me once I would be the center of attention in a social situation. Oh actually, partially because of this, I am also much more comfortable being the center of attention in a social situation)
• 22-01: I've become a lot more comfortable with 1-on-1 conversations and contact (I used to find this really difficult; I found myself much more at ease in groups. 1-on-1 conversations or contact still isn't my strong point, but it definitely has become a lot better than it used to be)

So how am I doing right now. Well... A lot better, that's for sure. Generally, I find myself being unconcerned and at peace. I am really just not preoccupied anymore with thoughts that say that life should be different than it is right now, that's the main thing. I really just don't think about it that much anymore, and I just take life as it comes. Sometimes I still worry a bit about the future; whether it's my personal future or the future of the world at large. But even this kind of worry is fairly uncommon and I am fairly capable of not identifying with this kind of thought and just saying to myself: "oh this is just what the mind does, It worries sometimes", and let it go with that.

I could say more about what my current plans are with my life right now, but honestly, I don't feel much life doing that anymore at this point.

By the way, much of the reason why I haven't written for this long in this journal is because I've switched up to a personal journal in a notebook and I therefore just haven't felt the desire to really write anything here.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Nightwise