Strong Determination Life

[Not me]

Hi!

I'm a 17 years old high school student from Finland. I found personal development through sports when trying to maximize my athletic potential. I started listening to motivational speeches and somehow stumbled upon Leo's spiritual enlightenment video. At that point enlightenment seemed like too much work for me so I forgot the whole thing. Later I watched Leo's meditation video and got really interested in the benefits of meditation. I started doing 20 minutes of meditation every day and at some point ramped that up to one hour.

I trained sports really hard until now a year later I have realized there's more to life than just sports. Even though I like sports I realized I'm only fulfilled when I'm training . I have decided to change that through meditation. A lot of meditation. My goal is to be able to enjoy every moment of my day and be really fulfilled. 

I have really struggled to meditate more than an hour a day for a while now always coming up with excuses or stupid tasks to distract myself. I'm also having difficulties with emotional eating. Emotional eating and stuffing myself even after I'm full is causing me to be very tired afterwards and gain some fat. 

My plan is to do three hours of strong determination sitting every single day. With eating I will try to only eat when I'm hungry and in moderation instead of bingeing.

I will report my daily progress here. Hope you enjoy

[Empty]

I am sure you can do it  

 

[Not me]

Aaaalright. Yesterday went as follows:

I woke up at 7 am, did my morning training (gym) and went to school at 10 pm. I had my first meal of the day at around noon. I ate really slowly, focused on being fully aware and finished eating when I was no more hungry. My school ended at 3pm, after which I walked for an hour, went home and ate my second meal with full awareness and managed to stay in moderation even though I was very hungry.

Then I started to meditate. I sat outdoors on our terrace facing a wall. My first hour was easy: almost no pain or discomfort. After one hour I stood up walked a little and started doing my second sit. This time I also did self-inquiry and was really surprised when I suddenly started laughing hysterically. This had never happened to me before so it was kinda cool. For the rest of the sit I just felt amazing and everything was beautiful.

My third one hour sit didn't go that well. My legs fell asleep after like five minutes and I just couldn't stand it. So I stood up, changed my chair and continued. After 40 minutes I needed to go to the toilet so badly, I wasn't able to sit anymore :D. I came back and sat the last 20 minutes.

 

In conclusion:

Meditation: 2 hours sds + 1 hour meditation in 3 parts

Eating: Went really well, ate moderately with awareness

[Not me]

I think I will challenge myself to do this for 60 days and see what the results will be like.

 

Day 2:

Felt a little sick so din't go to school. Because I had more time between my sits, they were less difficult. I managed to complete three hours successfully. I feel like my legs falling asleep is the biggest problem for me. It makes sitting so much harder and I really have to focus on not quitting.

Today I ate three meals, all very mindfully and in moderation.

 

In conclusion: 

Meditation: 3 hours sds (f*ck yeah)

Eating: Going well 

 

[Not me]

Day 3:

First hour sds was easy, but on the second hour my legs fell asleep completely and I couldn't make it. I was disappointed at myself and I felt angry because of my legs always falling asleep. I decided to eat some ice cream even though I wasn't any hungry. I noticed that this is a bad idea and will lead me to a downwards spiral but I did it anyways. After my ice cream I decided to eat some bread and went completely overboard with it too. After like ten slices of bread I was so full I didn't want to eat anymore. I was aware of the damage I was causing myself but I din't want to stop. I was also too tired to try to stay mindful through my little binge. The funny thing was that I felt great afterwards and there was no feelings of "I shouldn't have done that".

After this I meditatet for 30 minutes.

In the evening I did my last one hour sit.

Before going to sleep I ate one more meal with moderation.

 

In conclusion:

Meditation: 2 hours ads, one hour in two parts

Eating: wasn't very mindful and had a little binge

[Not me]

Day 4:

I din't overeat in any meal but didn't eat very mindfully. I did two hours of strong determination sitting but in the evening I was too tired to do a third sitting. 

 

In conclusion:

Meditation: 2 hours sds

Eating: no mindfulness but didn't eat too much

[Not me]

Day 5:

I did three times one hours ads right after waking up. They all felt really good and my legs didn't fall asleep at all.

After that I ate my first meal which was kinda small. After one hour I felt hungry or maybe I wasn't just used to eating that little so I ate shittons of chicken and potatoes. Probably worth 2000 calories. I noticed that when I eat lots of salty food I can't control my eating and feel the need to eat more and more. I din't eat anything more that day.

 

In conclusion: 

Meditation: 3 hours sds

Eating: went kinda overboard but only ate two meals so it wasn't that bad

[Not me]

As this forum has been crashing, my journal has lost some days and to be honest I really don't remember what I did on those days . So I will be continuing this journal from day 6 which is now today instead of September 11th. My current situation is this: I have been able to reduce my overeating but  those bad habits still keep acting themselves out. I am able to eat completely healthy and moderately all other meals but dinner. I usually eat way too much in the evening which is often caused by me mistaking thirst as hunger. I've been trying to fix this by drinking lots of water and it has helped on some days.

With meditation there has been lots of procrastination and I have managed to mostly get only one hour of strong determination sitting each day. I will now focus on getting three hours each day.

 

So here's my day 6:

Three hours of sds + two times 30 mins shikantaza

I ate my first meal in moderation and on the second meal too much which made me feel uncomfortably full. (I usually have only two or three meals a day)

[Not me]

Day 7:

I have done some nlp techniques such as swish and belief change along with visualizations. Now I have a sense that I am successful at eating healthy and know how to eat in moderation. Did two hours of sds.

 

Conclusion:

Eating: Learning new helpful and motivating mindsets

Meditation: two hours sds 

[Not me]

Day 8:

One hour sds first thing in the morning. I'm feeling sick once again so I just lied on the couch the rest of the day. Didn't eat much either .

 

 

[Not me]

Day 9:

Currently ill af. I meditated on the couch for 1 hour and did 30 mins of self-inquiry. I ate very moderately the whole day but in he evening I felt empty emotionally because of the illness and also because I'm not yet used to having an empty stomach at that time . So I let my old habits take over and ate two plates of food and had a disgusting feeling in my stomach afterwards. However I still feel like my habits are starting to change in a way they have never before. 

Recently I've been thinking about applying for a one year exchange student program to Australia. It would be cool to live in a totally different culture for a while and experience life from a different perspective. If you have some thoughts about being an exchange student ,please share  

 

Conclusion:

Eating: Shifting for the better. Still some room for improvement

Meditation: Lazy-ass meditation on a couch for 90 mins

[dude]

keep up bro! Your inspiring me to step up my meditation game to at least one hour a day.

[Not me]

Day 10:

I have really high temperature so I've been mostly just sleeping. I did however do one hour of do nothing, again on the sofa. 

[Not me]

Day 11:

Same as yesterday. I think one hour is decent amount now that I'm sick but if I feel good I will do more tomorrow.

[Not me]

1 hour ago, dude said:

keep up bro! Your inspiring me to step up my meditation game to at least one hour a day.

Thanks man! I must say I really needed this. It has been difficult doing many hours of meditation daily, especially when it's sds, so I needed some extra motivation. Anyways it is totally worth it and I will get back at it when I healthy again. Hope you will start doing one hour too! The benefits are just great