Thittato

25 min yin yoga today as well. Melting into the floor. Melting into presence. Melting into devotion.

A good nice cold shower this morning. So happy I'm keeping up this routine. It seems like it has been well-established long time ago. When I'm thinking about how yucky it is to exit the shower directly from a hot shower it feels like this ending with a cold shower routine will stick with me. It is simply much better.

2nd session of 25 min yin yoga today now as I came home from working day-shift. Oh so nice! Such a great flow at work today as well. Yoga is so fun!

Cold shower this morning, and then 25 min of yin yoga. So good how flexible my body starts to feels again, and especially my spine. It's like all parts are more connected and co-operate better. More fluidity in my body.

7th session of kayaking Cold shower today, and then later in the day 2 hours of kayaking. Pretty nice. Feels like I have it down now. I don't need to worry about technique anymore.

And then I did a cold shower as I came home from the 3rd night-shift. I almost went out in the kayak, but I managed to restrict myself as I have one more night-shift to go. Feels like I haven't been showering in a couple of days.... Hmm.... Guess I've been pretty busy. Well. Anyways. I'm really glad that I'm keeping up the cold showering. It seems like it sticks with me. I guess it feels too terrible going out directly from a hot shower, being warm, sweat and foggy in my mind. Much better to feel crisp and clear. We are passed the warmest season here as well, and the water in my shower remained cold enough for me to get the cold shock through-out this warm season as well, so it is pretty cool that I can keep up with this cold exposure the whole year easily available from my home. Maybe I should aim for one whole year. I've been consistent enough so that this year so far counts.

Same 25 min yin yoga program when waking up again before going to a new night-shift. Sooooooo nice. I’m doing 4 night-shifts in a row now. This is the 3rd. So there probably won’t be any kayaking before I’m done, but nice to give my body some rest from it and process everything I have learned so far, and focus on yoga for these days instead.

25 min yin yoga today after having worked night-shift. Gosh. So amazing. Feels like the kayaking has made my upper body a lot stronger, and that is positively influencing some of the yoga postures - especially downward facing dog, the plank, and chaturanga. I'm just so damn grateful for yoga. This time I want to focus on this 25 min yin yoga program together with that 20 min vinyasa flow program that I follow on youtube, for an extended period of time, so that I really achieve the full potential of those two programs. Yoga and kayaking seems like a really good combination. So interesting how they are both two really meditative forms of exercise. My body is yearning for experiencing a deeper flow with both of them.

I did for half a year. It is amazing! Now I don't do the breathing so much, but I still do the cold showers. I started out pretty gradually myself. The way I got hooked on cold water was that there is a place where I go to do sauna where they have a cold bath right next to the sauna, so being able to go into the sauna so quickly after cold immersion made it much easier. Others turn the temperature in the shower down gradually. Listen to your own body and figure out what is the right dose and pace for you. If one is pushing oneself too hard one is easily burned out... :-)

6th session of kayaking Today me and a friend went out in pretty strong winds and lots of waves to paddle. We paddled around the island where our kayak-club has its base. It is a 4 km paddle. This was totally next level. It felt almost like rafting on the sea. Oh my gosh how much I love experiences like these. We were both close to falling over several times, but we managed to keep the balance. It was like really at the brink of my paddling ability, but still within what I felt was reasonably safe most of the time. I’m sure my self-esteem will have dramatically improved regarding paddling under normal conditions now.

5th session of kayaking Visited an island nearby again with another good friend. He is also getting totally hooked on kayaking. This is the future! We drank a beer together and had a really nice and inspiring conversation around life, history, nature, and kayaking ❤️?? My paddling technique is getting better and better. Today it felt like something I have already almost mastered - totally the opposite of what I felt last time, but it is paying off that I’m kicking this off with such a total focus as I’m giving it. It was not as difficult as I thought it was. Flow is already available. Gratitude. Love. Silence. Understanding. Empathy. Forgiveness. And Deep Fulfilling Joy ❤️

25 min yin yoga this morning. So nice. I’m really going to keep at it with the yoga for a while this time before my focus moves into other types of practice.

Started the day with 50 min of kayaking and then I went back home and did 45 min of meditation, before I went to work to do a day-shift. My day at work was pretty awesome as well, as I had new resposibilities I haven't had before but which I mastered really well and many of my co-workers were positively surprised by the flow-state I was in the whole day. In the evening I went rollerblading in the local skatepark with some of my skate-buddies. I was still in a really awesome flow-state. Seems like kayaking has been the missing X-factor in my life this summer that I finally found. Skydiving was supposed to be that, but since that course didn't go as planned, I was sort of left in a vacum having to process the lack of what I had pictured for this summer. But now I finally have something that gives deep value to my life, and that adds deep value to everything else that I do. It seems like women responds much better to me as well. I must have way less of a needy energy that seeks external validation these days because now I have something that gives me so much value and indepence from everything else. When I'm in this high that I'm in right now I usually quickly tend to crash, but I hope that kayaking is something really substantial that I can use to really bake it out. It seems like it gives me much grounding, and not just this fragile easily crashing high that I so quickly go into. In other words - kayaking is the perfect new addition to my yoga and meditation practice - something that really helps to ground my restless and manic energy.

Thanks for mirroring my experience of appreciating my surroundings more lately!! :-D It is totally way more accessible to deeply appreciate them through kayaking. I'm a pretty restless guy, but 10 min into the paddling and the restlessness starts to melt away and I start to tune into nature and get into this inspired calm meditative flow state. The sky and the ocean and everything feels so big and expansive as I'm sitting there in the middle of it as a tiny small vulnerable human being in a tiny little boat, but yet it is so peaceful and nice and safe, and it makes me feel so at home in the universe. I usually don't like being alone, but when I'm in a kayak I totally love it. Perhaps it brings me back to when we were sea-creatures, because you really feel as part of the sea when sitting in a kayak because I feel so immersed in the water, and less like I'm riding on top of the water as I would have felt in a regular boat. Maybe it also brings me back in touch with the feeling of oneness I imagine I must have had as I was lying in my mothers womb totally immersed in nature and being nurtured by nature from all directions. Please let me know how it is for you if you get back into kayaking, and I hope that you do <3 :-D

45 min meditation today. Lots of feelings to feel. Felt more settled again when meditation was finished. So yesterday I booked a new stay at that skydiving school I was visiting end of May / beginning of June. I'm going up there in about 10 days. I've booked 3 tandem-jumps. My plan is to do these jumps, and then re-do the course again next summer, if I'm still into this. I haven't been able to let it go, so I will at least have to go up there and do these 3 tandem-jumps. Interestingly enough my mind is very saturated on the whole topic, so I'm not like binge-watching skydiving on youtube and instagram anymore. But that is really good. It is always very satisfying when my mind becomes saturated on a topic I used to be very obsessed about. So now I will get a chance to see if this is something I really like without all my internal mental noise around it. More like just a random everyday activity without so much existential philosophy around the whole thing.

25 min yin yoga tonight as I came home from 5 hours of paddling with a really good friend. Paddling today was so nice. We paddled around three relatively big islands. On our way home we had a rest on a really nice island where I want to go camping soon. It seems like the perfect place to camp. It is close to town, but at the same time totally immersed in nature from all directions. So now it seems I will take my interest in outdoorism one step further. 3-4 weeks ago I went camping in the wild alone for the first time. And now I will take my tent and put in my kayak and combine kayaking and camping. Here is a picture from that island we had a rest on.

45 min meditation today before going to work night-shift. 4th night of working night-shift, so I needed some deep rest before going, and meditation delivered.

Thank you! Good to exchange some thoughts on cold exposure with you! I always get more inspired when I talk with others who are also into it. It really is a very profound thing! That daily habit of overcoming that resistance is gold ❤️??

20 min vinyasa flow yoga today, and then a cold shower. So nice. Both the yoga and cold shower went really deep today it felt like. Like not doing any of them to just get through, but really feeling into every movement and sensation. Still thinking alot about kayaking. It seems so perfect together with yoga. The yoga powers up the kayaking, and the kayaking powers up the yoga, and they both make each other more meditative, which is what this journal is supposed to be about. Looking forward to really feel into it the next time I go kayaking. The better my paddling technique gets the more I will probably be able to get into the groove.

Only cold shower today. But gosh. I still feel that that kayak-trip I did yesterday was so good for me. It was the perfect mix between exercise, meditation and experiencing nature. With someone who has that restless energy that I have, it seemed like the perfect way to physically bake myself into a meditative state. It is entertaining enough for me to not get bored, but the thrill is far from too high so that I don’t get manic. It seems like a typical kayak-trip would usually last for a couple of hours as well, so you get a decent amount of time to really bake that light but steady exercise into you. And when you get rushed and impatient, well, it doesn’t go so fast, so you have to really work to get somewhere, so you take that restless energy and use it to work to get your kayak to where you want to go but at the same time you are forced to accept that you are only moving slowly towards your goal and it can’t be rushed. Wow. It really was a very profound and grounding meditative experience. There was something really masculine about it as well. Like it brought me deep into my masculine element. Also it is very perfect in combination with yoga. Yoga and kayaking. Could have been a great retreat experience. Travelling to different islands, sleeping in tent, doing yoga and meditation, etc. I haven’t smoked cannabis since sunday, and it will probably be a while before I smoke again because I feel pretty saturated on that part, but I think cannabis and kayaking is also probably a really great experience. Starting with a session of Ganja Yoga, and then to go out kayaking. Well. The possibilities here are endless. But at least, for safety reasons, I will have to get to know kayaking better before I introduce that component to it. Anyways. Lots of gratitude. The cold shower today felt really deep by the way. Here is another picture of my kayak on one of the islands I was visiting and paddling around. There were some tourists there walking around. I think it looks so beautiful lying there on the beach <3 :-D And it was such an awesome feeling entering the island at the beach with a kayak. Felt like I was visiting some mysterious world that I suddenly had access to through this new portal that opened up with this new and exotic vehicle.

So no yoga or meditation since sunday, but I have been keeping it up with my cold showers, and today I finally did yoga again. 10 sun salutations after having been kayaking for 2,5 hours. I did a kayaking course last friday, and today I finally gained access to the kayaks I can borrow for free from the local kayak-club. I went solo because my friends I did the course with are not at all in hurry to get on the water it seems. So I paddled around two relatively big islands. Oh my gosh how nice it was. It is like the perfect combination of exercise and a nature experience in one. Yesterday I was joining a 5 rythm dancing session, and then I went rollerblading afterwards. It seems like I'm just getting more and more physical all the time. And yoga is a perfect foundation for all this physicality. The interesting thing about kayaking is that there is something really boring and slow about it as well, so probably I cannot become manic about it, but instead I just have to approach it as exercise. Anyways, it was really really super-nice. On monday I was climbing as well in the indoors climbing park we have nearby. I really enjoy bouldering. Yeah, lots of fun physical activity these days. It is probably just about having a lifestyle which is about being physically active, which most people should have been, but unfortunately not so many really are. Here is a picture from todays kayaking <3 :-)

Hello Jai! Good to hear from you! :-) I still have resistance towards the cold water, but when I'm doing cold showers I usually do a warm shower first and then end with a cold shower. I think it is worse getting out of the warm shower without cold shower now because then I'm sweaty and tired etc, but with finishing up with a cold shower I'm fresh and fit for fight :-) But yeah, there is always some resistance. Also it helps by spreading it out. Like I'm not just standing there taking it all in over my head and shoulders. I grab the shower-head and move through all my body parts. Almost like a meditation where you work your way through all body parts :-) The worst part for me is between my shoulder-blades. Even though there is still resistance I think I have just gotten addicted because the long-term benefits are so much worth it compared to the short-term discomfort it brings. The worst part of the discomfort is only 10-20 seconds as well. As soon as one has decided to do it one can say the worst part is almost over. But yeah, I don't think we can ever expect it to get really comfortable, but still it is very addictive :-)

Cacao-ceremony, sound-bath, and bhajan. So my own little ganja yoga ceremony early in the day eventually led to me going to a cacao-ceremony later in the day with a group of 20 people out in nature. So nice. I need more of that - community with spiritual people. In cacao-ceremonies we always establish an intention that we ask Mother Cacao for help with. My intention was to use the cacao to deepen my relationship with yoga. Pretty simple, but at the same time straight to the core.

1 hour beach yoga today as well, and then I went home, smoked som hashish and did 25 min of Ganja Yoga, and after the yoga I did a music meditation for 20 min, and then I did some weight-lifting after that. And lots of unstructured time as well in this session where I was just lying in bed for instance going deep into meditative spaces. This whole session lastet for 5 hours. It was pretty awesome smoking hashish after one hour of yoga, and then to do the Ganja Yoga after that. So much rest and spiritual nourishment. And also so nice to ride out the wave of cannabis through channeling that energy into the yoga-energy. Such and interesting mix merging those two energies into one session.

1 hour beach yoga today as well. Holy smokes. So sweet. My body is starting to feel really really strong. This summer is starting to develop into an interesting theme. Especially with the Ganja Yoga that suddenly appeared.