Thittato

8th session of ice-bathing this winter 45 min meditation this morning, and then 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing and an ice-bath down by the beach when I came home from work. An amazing warm shower after this, ended by a solid cold shower. I'm getting to point where I can just shower in cold water again without thinking about it being cold and me feeling like I have to endure it. The ice-bath was amazing. So empowering. Wow.

7th session of ice-bathing this winter 1 hour meditation this morning, and then in the evening after my job 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing before going down to the beach to do an ice-bath. Then returning home and taking a warm shower and ending it with a solid cold shower. Wow so nice. What I'm working on related to this these days is when I go down to the beach, to walk really mindfully, undress mindfully, and enter the water mindfully, and return home mindfully. There is this element of both excitement and resistance that plays into the emotional rollercoaster of ice-bathing, and I want to work on smoothing out both of these elements so that it just becomes a really mindfull and calm experience. Maybe there is a possibility I can move into a much more mature phase of my ice-bathing chapter. This is the 5th or 6th year I'm doing this, so I should have some experience now.

6th session of ice-bathing this winter Wow. So nice and refreshing. I live close to the beach. It is like I have my own little spa here in my home when I can just walk down to the beach, and then come home and do a warm shower and end it with a cold shower again.

5th session of ice-bathing this winter Then a warm shower back home that I ended with a solid cold shower again. Wow. So nice. I've actually trained pretty well for this this winter - both with cold showers, but especially with frequent visits to the nearby spa where they have saunas and a cold bath.

3 solid cold-baths today in the nearby spa together with sauna and warm baths.

4th session of ice-bathing this winter Wow. How extremly nice. It is so magical to go out into the sea late in the evening and experience how still the mind becomes and how deeply connected with nature I feel in that moment. Even though I haven't been ice-bathing so much this winter, I've been keeping up with the cold exposure training with taking cold showers and going to the spa nearby where they have saunas and cold-bath.

45 min meditation today as well. I'd be very currious about what could happen to my meditation now. It really feels like I can just sit with whatever is arising without buying into the mental loop that is trying to get my mind engaged in "survival strategies." Another way to put it - all the tricks the mind is trying to use to convince me something is wrong with the present moment. There is a deep pleasure and satisfiction in just feeling fully into all the different types of suffering - especially when the resistance is seen through. In psychotherapeutic terms this could be seen as a willingness to put down the defenses in order to experience the pain.

45 min meditation today as well. My half-lotus position is opening up again and becoming much softer.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice flow 🙏💫

45 min meditation today as well. I'm going through some pain these days related to my and my girlfriend having just broken up. This time I feel confident that for once in my life I can sit with this pain, instead of running around in a crazy search for something outside of myself to alliviate the pain. Today it was a big relief, with all the emotions and thoughts churning in me related to all of this, that I can just sit down on my cushion and breathe into the pain, instead of letting the mind run around like crazy. Now after the meditation, I'm still in some pain, but it has clearly been alliviated. Yesterday. Oh my gosh. That was really the power of meditation. I was completely liberated from the pain and in such a flow state for the whole day. But I can expect this to come and go in waves.

45 min meditation today as well. Went through a pretty strong and difficult emotional wave, but seemingly it was processed and accepted, the resistance towards it dissolved and I melted into the pain and the pain became beautiful and now I feel very relieved and empowered.

45 min meditation today as well. Nice to experience the mind settling down into ease, acceptance and stillness again. Time to land a lot of the stuff that has been going on the last couple of months.

45 min meditation today. Some disruption to my meditation routine lately, but I'm keeping up with other practices - kettlebells, yoga, ice-bathing, breathing exercises, guitar and mantra-singing.

Some disruption to my meditation routine again. Drifted over into a yoga period. Then I started sitting again on monday. So: Monday: 45 min meditation Tuesday: 45 min meditation Wednesday (today): 45 min meditation. Somehow it is interesting that I allow myself to be more lazy with this meditation project these days. Maybe it is a good thing in this ever on-going fine-tuning of finding the perfect balance between effort and surrender.

Some disruption to my meditation routine, but then I've sat for 45 min friday, saturday and sunday again.

45 min meditation yesterday and 45 min meditation today. Very sweet <3

45 min meditation today. Very nice meditation. Powerful and vitalizing. Deep stillness.

45 min meditation today as well. Gosh. It is so necessary to meditate. I always go through very intense emotional cycles, but meditation seems to clear it out over and over, and renew my vitality. It even seems like the emotional cycles becomes fuel for transformation.

45 min meditation today as well. Nice groove.

45 min meditation yesterday and 45 min today. Very nice.

45 min meditation today as well. Even better concentration than yesterday. That is really nice since I'm a bit squeezed on time and sleep, so I get some solid rest in my meditation these days.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice flow. Lots of peace, silence, but also refreshing and balanced energy.

Zen and the Art of Kayaking Saturday: 45 min meditation Sunday: 45 min meditation So I've been speaking a lot about my explorations of kayaking in this journal, and trying to make it into this theme of "zen and the art of kayaking," which is a theme I really like. I made a goal of doing 10 sessions of kayaking this year, but I'm going to abandon that goal. The season has almost ended and I'm simply not up for it. I'm too busy with working on my more important goals. But anyways, I completed my biggest goal in kayaking this summer, which was to round a big island outside of my city. It is 25 to 30 kilometers to paddle there and around the island and back to the kayak club I'm a member of, and it took me 4 hours and 40 min. I also paddled 11 sessions least season, and I like round numbers, so alltogether these 4 years that I've been paddling I've paddled 70 solid sessions. 2021: 20 sessions 2022: 30 sessions 2023: 11 sessions 2024: 9 sessions In total = 70 sessions So this might be my last year of paddling. I think I feel done with it. I've explored everything I've wanted to explore through it, and I think my focus will go to other things, but these paddling sessions have been a really great framework here in this journal to build my meditation and self-development project around. This year was also really great regarding paddling contributing to physical exercise, because it really kick-started my interest in physical exercise again, and now I've been flowing with kettlebells already for several months. Most likely I will cover my physical exercise needs from now on with something that is very low-profile and quick, so that I can just do it in my home and get it done with and then spend my time and focus on my real goals. So anyways, this kayaking project has been really awesome, and I'm very grateful for having had this experience.

45 min meditation today as well. It felt amazing and powerful.

45 min meditation today as well. Very nice. Feels like I'm getting into a nice groove again with my meditation practice. The process that was leading up to my last ayahuasca ceremony, and the after-process after that lead to a lot of changes in my life so that I can sharpen up my focus around my priorities, and it has required quite some emotional processing, which might now start to get cleared out.