A Petrified Something - My Personal Self Development Journal.

[Lorcan]

Hello. My name is Lorcan. I am 14 years old.

This will be a journal of my journey throughout self development and the like I have decided to take as it seems that it would be beneficial.

For those struggling to understand the title. Petrified Something is an item in the popular video game series dark souls. In Dark Souls, all the items have descriptions for them, this is the description of the Petrified Something.

Petrified Something - An unidentified petrified object. Pleasant to the touch, despite its looks.
A rare and peculiar thing, to be certain, but one without a known purpose.

I'm not sure myself how the title exactly makes any sense, but it looks like it makes sense. Somehow this Petrified Something description is related to some facet of self development which I am unsure of which one it is.

 

Any how. This is going to be a Journal of my Self-Development journey.

I will begin writing tomorrow as I have nothing much to write about today.

To give you some backstory, I was in a consistent meditation habit , I started to be inconsistent about a 1 and a Half ago and have since stopped 5 days ago.

I will start to meditate again as it seems beneficial, even from my own experiences of it. After I stopped I did not feel as good. (Unless that was some kind of placebo effect or my mind playing tricks). it helped in some way. I think.

 I will start my Journal Tomorrow. Feel free to comment if you have something to say, or some advice to give. encouragement or want to discuss something relating to what I am doing go ahead.

Day 1 of the journal will start tomorrow.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2016 by Lorcan

[Lorcan]

Day 1

I woke up this morning, I had some negative emotions about school. I sat in my bed and they just sorted faded away after a while.

I usually had cold showers, but this particular morning It was quite cold and both my body and mind were resisting me. My mind was resisting me from having a cold shower based on the discomfort from the cold I was already feeling from having go out of bed, the groggy feeling of waking up made me event abstain from having a cold shower even more.

So acknowledging this, I took a warm shower. I felt slightly disappointed in myself for having given into to comfort. So because of this towards the end of my warm shower I turned it all the way to maximum cold. The first time I had to put it back to hot because of the initial shock impulsed me to put it back to warm. I then trying turning the hot water to cold slowly, which was even worse. So I just decided to deal with the discomfort of going straight to cold, so I went straight to cold. I got used to it after 30 seconds from having had cold showers in the past, I then showered for a minute in the cold water before finishing.

In School, there wasn't many people present today in our year group  because they had a two day school trip on Monday and they only just got back from the trip on Tuesday at around 8 o clock. It is probable most of them told there parents that they were too tired or something of the like to show up the next day. So I had free class for most of the day.

I did roughly in the region of 20-25 minutes of meditation today, usually when I meditate I bring my watch, but I find it rather distracting as I have thoughts about looking at my watch and then I have a battle in mind about whether to look at my watch or not.Thoughts like "Come on you have been out here too long". Then I look at my watch and it reads 5 minutes have passed. So I tried not using it today.

What I have noticed when I am not wearing a watch is that this sort of freedom comes about you. Its like when your wearing a watch your always sort of chained to time, scheduled, always keeping track of the time. Time seems to go a bit quicker when you wear one.When I'm not wearing one I feel more timeless, if that makes more sense.

I did 15 minutes of weight exercise , I used 2 , 2 kilo weights. 1 weight for each arm. I punched while holding them and pulled my forearm up to my main arm whilst holding the weights. (I have no knowledge in weight lifting, I am new to it, I just started today)

I did 12 minutes of brisk walking. I was planning to do walking earlier in the day but there was a good lot of midgey flys flying around the circuit of my house so I decided to put it off until later , in which I did 12 minutes of brisk walking as mentioned above at about 7 o clock. To give some backstory, I used to do 20 minutes of relatively fast jogging around the house and have since stopped since school started.I also did do 30 minute walks about 2 days ago but my own homeostasis was enough to stop me. (I will get back int it)

Also I belive homeostasis is why I stopped meditating for 5 days in a row a week. It was hedonism I think, I was sitting on the computer playing a video game with my friend and I glanced over at the clock and it says 7 oclock, so In my mind I decided not to make the effort to meditate and stay in the fun and comfort I was having playing this game with my friend.

I acknowledged this at the time and knew what I was doing was what I should'nt be doing but I did it anyway.

I also have intentions to read today which I will do after I'm writing this, I am currently reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

 

I am new to doing this journal stuff. I see that my layout need improving, if you have any suggestions on how to improve my layout please do.

Or if you anything else to say please do whether it be advice or a general comment please do. I do appreciate it.

 

[ajasatya]

@Lorcan wow... you're so young! your journal is very inspiring.

since you've asked, my recommendation is to use topics to summarize your accomplishments. for instance:

• meditation
• body workout
• healthy meals
• career time investment

so everyone knows what you're aiming for and it's easier to track consistency.

that list i typed out was just an example. you can check mine and others' to inspire you so you can create your own layout.

Edited October 13, 2016 by iago iriarte arhatha

[Lorcan]

11 hours ago, iago iriarte arhatha said:

@Lorcan wow... you're so young! your journal is very inspiring.

since you've asked, my recommendation is to use topics to summarize your accomplishments. for instance:

• meditation
• body workout
• healthy meals
• career time investment

so everyone knows what you're aiming for and it's easier to track consistency.

that list i typed out was just an example. you can check mine and others' to inspire you so you can create your own layout.

Thanks!

Do you mean to list like this?

 

Meditation: Today I did 20 minutes of meditation and blah blah blah blah blah (and so on)

 

Body workout: I went to the gym (etc)

 

Healthy meals: I ate this and that today, I find myself eating too much junk food (etc

 

Career time investment :I did 2 hours of drawing today (etc)

[ajasatya]

yes. something like that. the topics don't have to be exactly those ones. the layout of course is up to you too.

[Lorcan]

Day 2

Morning Routine: This Morning I had a cold shower of at least 3 minutes, I had the similar resistance to having a cold shower as I did the last day but, knowing that If I continued having warm showers for multiple days in the row it would ruin the cold shower habit I had going from the past month.

Its strange how you get used to doing something and yet you still resist it. 

I preped my bag with 50c bags of sweets that I would sell at school for 100c or 1 euro.

 

about 5 bags, business wasn't as good as usual. Previously I had tried walking around the school during my lunch , bag on my back hollering "WINE GUMS, FRUIST PASTILES 1 EURO" and going up to people and saying "Do you wanna buy something" and saying certain things to get people to buy it "This is what homeless people get there kids for christmas" it got a few sales but not really enough. Don't get me wrong I sold me more when I went around the school selling rather just waiting for people to come to me. But I wasn't getting that many more people, So I just decided that if anyone wanted to buy sweets they would just have to come to me.

One thing I regret is that I had people constantly asking me where I Sourced my sweets, and eventually I got tired of people asking and told them I got them in Aldi or Lidl for 50c. Maybe this was one of the reason I wasnt getting many sales.

If anyone has any advice on how I could sell my sweets more efficiently. Should I set up a stall,, advertisements. Perhaps do a bake sale or maybe I need to up my charisma. The older years never seem to buy anything. Although my variety could be better.

 

Meditation: I did 30 minutes, it was very dark outside so I decided to do it inside. I found it more difficult then outside because inside there is less things going on. Outside you have the hustle and rustling of trees, the wind on your face, the grass wavering, tree branches swaying, flying birds and insects. Blue sky, green grass soothing colors very little squares.

Inside, everything is all quite, still. Everything is pretty squareish. No wind on your face, dark and neutral colours. Bland and boring.

I guess I am going to have to learn to enjoy the indoors just as much as the outdoors, after all, its just my ego making outdoors easier to meditate in then indoors. Unless I am wrong... I could be wrong.

 

Exercise: I did 15 minute workout. I am quite a skinny guy, in fact I can just about count my ribcage bones without tensing, when I tense they become more noticeable. I worry that when I am working out that I am actually canibalizing muscle rather then building it because of how skinny I am. I looked up 3 beginners workout mistakes and he mentioned something about how if you are working out too much you will canibalize muscle rather then build it, he mentioned something about if you have some fat on your arms or whatever you can sculpt it into muscle, so looking at my arms, there isnt much fat on my arm to begin with to make muscle out of. Some advice would be nice on this . Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lorcan]

Day 3

Sorry for not posting this yesterday, I forgot about it.

I do not remember in detail what I did yesterday but I will say it in summary.

Morning Routine: Cold Shower, nice and frosty.

Meditation: Did 30 minutes of meditation, it was a good meditation session. I had little disturbances, a few thoughts arised but I let them passed althougth with a few exception in where I went on thinking about the thing that popped into my head.

Exercise: I did 20 minutes of walking with small intervals of jogging. I also did 23 minutes of pushup , weight curls and punching with weights. (2kg and 5kg weights)

I also received a good bit of homework from school, about an hours worth of homework, I hope to have it done by sunday.

 

Sorry for lack of detail I cant remember my thoughts in detail from yesterday.

[Lorcan]

Day 4

Morning Routine: Woke up around 10 this morning, had a cold shower with less resistance then when I was going to school, after all there was no rush.Had I nice cold shower, the knob was on the max cold, the coldness of my cold shower varies as our water comes from a well underground, so if its cold outside, the water is icy. If its warm the water is cold but not really cold.I did a couple of push ups this morning to. I had a bowl of cornflakes, probably the healthiest breakfast availible in my house, we do have porridge but I stopped eating eat because I heard that grains were an anti nutrient and I also heard leo mention to cut grains from your diet so since then I have tried to eat less grains. I am not to sure on this, should I eat cornflakes or porridge? I know cornflakes is made from grains to but I would figure that there is less grain content in cornflakes then in porridge? I am not sure.

Afternoon:I was sitting on the radiator thinking on what I should do. I was thinking about reading a self help book or go to play video games.

I ended up choosing video games despite knowing that reading a self help would be more beneficial, so end up playing video games for the next couple of hours, I have my dinner and suddenly shit its already 4 oclock (or maybe it was 5 oclock) what the fuck am I doing with my day.

Meditation: I did 33 minutes roughly of meditation, I started at around 6:02 and finished at 6:35. My eye were giving me discomfort from staring at a screen for so long, so during my meditation most of the thoughts I had were related to the suffering that my body was going through.

Exercise: I did 20 minutes of cardio, 12 minutes of jogging and 8 minutes walking, I haven't done my strength exercises yet, but I am going to do it today. I find that strength exercises are easier to do then cardio.I often feel in need of water badly after cardio, I need to drink more water.

I had some resistance from my best friend homeostasis today but I pushed through it. It was quite cold out when I was doing my running, my finger felt frosty, kind of like the first stages of frostbite when your skin starts to redden up.

After doing my meditation I found my brain looking for excuse not to do my jogging/walking exercise. I literally looked in the mirror and looked my self in the eye and said something like "No,I am not giving, I am going to do my exercise"

The resistance is annoying, I must go see if leo had done a video on how to deal with resistance of further more to reduce and or get rid of it, because I know at some point its going to get me when I'm feeling weak, mentally or physically.

[Lorcan]

Day 5

Again. I am sorry for being inconsistent. It was late at night by them time I was done everything I need to do (exercise,meditation and homework) so I did not wont to go into the room where my computer is in fear that my parent who was in in the room would tell me off.

(At least thats my excuse, I know that I probably made the excuse to justify me being lazy and not making an effort to write a journal)

 

In summary I did my 30 minutes of meditation, I did 25 minutes of resistance training (weight lifting and push ups) and then 30 minutes of brisk wa;king cardio.

[Lorcan]

Day 6

Roughly the same excuse as day 5 although without the justification that my parent was in the dining room and just flat out me not being bothered to write it.

One of the main reasons for me not doing these journals properly in the past 2 days in my dis-organisation of time management and how there was a bit of an organisation problem with my room(I had a bunch of crap lying around that I was not using and it was just cluttering up the room and the table making doing things more painful then they should be.

[Lorcan]

Day 7

Morning Routine: Warm Shower with 1 minute  cold period at the end. I don't see anything wrong with warm showers as long as you go cold at the end.

Whilst you do not retain the maximum benefits you get from having a full cold-shower , it seems to me that you still receive some. (Increased awareness, immunity to cold) from my experiance. I will still take full cold shower as they give the most benefits.

Meditation: I did 20 minutes today, I was outside and and it was dark, I was about 15 minutes in and I heard some movement on the ground near the tree to my left (which because of the darkness I could not see) I got spooked that I chose to go inside.

I got impatient an decided to cut my meditation short so I only did 20 minutes.

 

Exercise: I tried our a new type of cardio exercise, Sprinting in periods of 30 seconds, and then after each period pausing for a minute. Repeating this 4-6 times. I read in an article that this was the same as doing a 60 minute walk. I am skeptical about this.

What should I do for my cardio? A 30 minute brisk walk, or this new sprinting thing? Preferably the faster the better, is the whole point of doing the sprinting. Hard and fast rather then easy and boring.

 

My dad seems to in some grump over something, I am going to have to cut this short before he comes in and rages at me. I will have a full length journal entry from now and try remain more consistent.

I am also having a resistance problem, its like I am at war with myself at times on whether do certain things.

[Lorcan]

Day 8

I find my self lacking time after only doing exercise, meditation, eating dinner, and homework which in total take roughly 2 and 30 hours to complete.

I get home from school at 4:00 so it should realistically take me till 6:00 or 6:30 to get all those things done, but I find myself working up until 9 and 10 oclock.

I am pretty sure I am not procrastinating so I think it has to do with my schedule, its not strict enough. I have not set specific times to do things.

I will fix this. I am writing this on Thursday and this was supposed to be Wednesdays post.

I will make a strict schedule after I have finished my meditation which I still have not done today.

If anyone has any suggestions , or would like to share what there schedule is , please do, even more so if you are a highschool/secondary school student. (Perhaps even a college student)

Anyways, from what I remember happened on Wednesday.

Morning Routine:  5 minute Cold shower, nice and frosty.

Meditation: 30 minutes.

Exercise: 25 minutes of resistance training, 10 minutes of jogging and another 10 minutes walking

Once I sort out my schedule my posts will be MUCH more in-depth, like the depth I have written in day 1, but more deep.

[Lorcan]

Day 9

Hello again. I am writing this one the same day as I wrote Day 8 again because of how I have had a lack of time due to my schedule.

After I finish writing this, I have to do 30 minutes of mediation and remember something off for a french test.

Morning Routine: I had a warm shower with a bit of cold at the end (about 2 minutes of cold at the end)

I sold off all my sweets at school (for those who do not know, I sell sweets at my school, see day 2). Although a few people owe me money.  Ryan owes me 2 euro, Kyle owes me 1 euro, Brian owes me 1 euro and some kid in my school stole 2 and he definitely wont pay up.

Also Kieran owes me 1 euro. I sell the sweets during class and they say they will pay me during break, and what happens, they do not pay me at break.Really its my fault for my bad business practices.

I also found my self feeling sad today, just a bit kind of lost.In fact when I got home I searched to see what videos leo had done on happiness. (I had already watched one previously) I was watching one of his videos on happiness and then the dinner bell in my house rang and I had dinner, I forgot that I was unhappy. In my mind I sometimes wander of into this blankness, a state of unfullfillment and lostness and silence. I figure its just me perceiving that as being unhappy.

Meditation: I still have to do it, I will do it after I have finished writing this.

Exercise: I did 70 push ups (in 5 push up reps) which I think is more I have ever done in a session. I did 30 minutes of combined bicep curls , push ups and I did some butterfly curls.

SideNote: I had an arm wrestle with my friend at school who only does 20 pull ups/ 20 push ups a day. (In one go) I lost quite badly and am kind of disapointed, I would of fought with all the exercise with my arms I had been doing I would of won.But I guess in all fairness that I have only being doing my Resistance exercises for 10 days and he had been doing his for a month. 

 

I will write more in depth after I sort out my schedule. Good bye. I will continue this Journal tomorrow with Day 10.