Thittato

Well. She has been in two long-term relationships since we broke up, and I usually don't think much about her, but she is newly singel again, and she has re-connected with my best-friend. Apparantly she wasn't allowed to hang out with him with the guy she recently was in a relationship with because he was jealous at him, so I didn't hear much about her in this period, but now they have started to hang out again and it really triggers something in me. My best-friend has expressed attraction towards her to me a lot of times, so I know that he is keen on her, but he is in a longterm relationship himself, but because they are separated by the pandemic their relationship recently turned into an open relationship, but he is not too keen to act on it because he is madly in love with his girlfriend, but still he enjoys somewhat of a flirty energy or something with my ex. It makes me want to distance myself from my bestfriend. It doesn't feel like our connection is open, pure and something that I trust when suddenly she is re-connected with him again. I really don't like that she enters into my life in this in-direct way again. It feels like my life has moved on long time ago and I would have been fine if she was a stranger to me, but something about this dynamic really triggers me. Not sure what else to say about it. This is just how it feels. Perfect scenario would have been that she was just totally out of my life. So either I have to: 1. Tell my bestfriend that I cannot accept that they hang out with each other. 2. Distance myself from my bestfriend since I don't want to be plugged into these conflicting emotions that I get plugged into through him. 3. Do some emotional processing / purging to clear out whatever is trigged in me because of this. Maybe it could be ok if I grew out of whatever this triggers in me. I used to be into tantra before, and one of my tantra-teachers told me he once had someone have sex with his girlfriend when he was observing just so that he could work on his jealousy. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity to work on my jealousy or whatever it is that is triggered in me?

Sixth session of winther-bathing this season. Yesterday. Also 30 min meditation yesterday. Today: 45 min meditation. Very good flow.

Fifth session of Winter-bathing this season. And 30 min of meditation earlier in the day. Nice. Nice. Nice.

30 min meditation today. Very good flow.

Yes, cold water exposure :-) I live in Norway. Well. It is very refreshing. I love it, and it feels like it gives me a huge boost. I only do when I feel like, though, so its not like I’m following a systematic training regime.

30 min meditation today. Feels like my technique keeps getting better and better.

30 min meditation today as well. Lots of resistance. I didn't want to apply my technique for the first 15 min, I just wanted to sit and surrender into the experience, but everything got a lot smoother when I started to apply the technique.

20 min vinyasa flow yoga this morning, then 30 min meditation, and then 20 min yoga nidra. Pretty sweet program. I love this practice.

Fourth session of winter-bathing this season. Aaaaaah.... So nice <3 It really is like a reboot for my system. All the stress that has accumulated during the day suddenly just dissolves. And today I was even in doubt about whether it was the right decision, thinking I was challenging my winter-bathing stamina too much by doing this too often now that I have just started up again. I was angry and stressed as I walked out into the water, resisting to dip down so that my shoulders also got under water, but as soon as I overcome that resistance and sank down so that only my head was above...... aaaaaaaaah, all stress dissolved and I felt like a hero again.

30 min meditation today as well. Felt really good and valuable. I tend to freak out because I get so obsessed with things. It was chess just a few weeks ago, and now it has been rollerblading for some weeks. That either/or, black and white ON/OFF dynamic regarding this seems to have been softened a lot lately as well. I go so heavily into these things that it stirrs up a lot of doubt in me and I start to think I have to cut them out completely. Seems like this has been softened very much. I'm thinking these days more in line with "It's normal to have interests" and "It is normal to alternate back and forth between various interests." My self-talk is getting more mature, and less sort of self-talk out of some kind of panic-mode.

30 min meditation today as well. I’ve been so extremly inspired by rollerblading and the whole skating-culture lately, listening to podcasts, watching skate-videos etc, finding new rollerbladers on instagram and new styles, and discussing all this with my best friend who is also really high on rollerblades these days, and we are finding old pictures of ourselves when we were rollerblading in our teens and talking about our past a lot and what led to what, etc. It feels fun and healthy, but meditation is a nice way to keep this inspiration balanced, and it brings me back to myself again. I have some resistance towards meditation these days, because it sort of interrupts the flow of inspiration that I’m in and brings me back to the more boring and serious aspects of life, but at the same time it also feels very calming and sobering.

Third session of winter-bathing this season. Been working night-shift for to nights now, and I felt that I needed something to calm me down after this shift before I go to bed. Winter-bathing was perfect. I really baked that manic buzz I came home from work with out of my system by taking a nice cold bath down at the beach.

30 min meditation today. Sobering.

30 min meditation tonight as I’m working night-shift. I’m so inspired by rollerblading, and extreme sport in general, these days. It seems like the perfect extension of ones yoga and meditation practice. It is all about cultivating that flow. I’m watching a lot of skate-videos these days, and I’m listening to a lot of podcasts by people who are into these types of sports. So nice to really immerse myself in this culture. I hope I can keep my awareness going regarding how I translate my yoga and meditation-practice into rollerblading. It also really helps me to balance my obsession with Chess. Been watching so many youtube videos with Chess-content since I got into Chess 2,5 years ago, and I’ve been having ambivalent feelings about getting into Chess because it often makes me feel like just another gamer, but somehow I’m addicted, but I think skating is a much healthier addiction, especially since it is easier to connect it with my yoga and meditation practice.

20 min vinyasa flow in the morning today, and then the same program one more time now in the evening. Soooo good. I was skating in the skatepark yesterday, and it was pretty hard on my body, so I need to do some more yoga now in order to keep up with the skating. But anyways, I've made massive progress with the skating, so having to do the yoga is just an added bonus to the process.

Second session of Winter-bathing this season. Intense session of winter-bathing.... hahha......

First session of Winter-bathing this season. Also, tonight (my sleep is totally mixed up because of working night-shifts), I had my first session of swimming out in the sea this winter. Oh my gosh. That was totally awesome. I'm not going to commit to anything, but just take it spontanously, but I see myself doing some more of these sessions. It is such a high afterwards, and I feel so rebooted. I remember last winter, when I got really turned on to Wim Hoff, how inspired I was, and how much it inspired me when it comes to physical exercise, the mental attitude of toughness, and the pursuit of masculinity.

2 x 30 min meditation today, and 20 min vinyasa flow yoga. Some process coming up. Interesting how only a few days ago I was solidly in what I call the Equanimity state, and I seemed to be totally landed in and at one with myself, but now some more cycles of emotional pain has been coming up. Anyways, it helped a lot doing two sessions of meditation and then some yoga. I feel stronger and more empowered again, although the pain still lingers on.

30 min meditation on friday, no meditation yesterday, and 30 min today. Changing things up a little. For a long time now I've been doing some variation of the "just sitting" technique, where I just go into whatever type of emotional pain or discomfort that is there trying to expose myself as fully to it as I can. But my basic technique is the vipassana noting technique where I say mentally a label for each of the various sensations that comes into focus, like "imaging thought," "boredom," "spaciousness," "scenario spinning thought," "pain," "iching," "tingling," etc. I noticed both on friday and today when I did this that my concentration gets way sharper, and the energy I generate is much stronger, so I will go back to this technique for a while now. When the momentum becomes strong enough with this technique there is a sense that ones whole field of sensations just starts to dissolve into flow, and that one becomes very quick and able to catch a very wide and inclusive field of sensations. As always it is about stretching ones powers of discernment as far as one can, trying to catch more and more of the stuff that usually goes under the radar. For instance today I had some disappointment going on, and it took a while before I was labeling it as such, but when I did, something was released - I took ownership of my disappointment.

30 min meditation today. Very good momentum. Everything feels so awesome and right when the momentum is strong. I still have a lot of negative karma from my upbringing, but it feels like I can burn through everything.

20 min meditation yesterday, and today I sat for 1 hour and 15 minutes. First a session of 30 min, and then later in the day 45 min. I was going through some heavy emotions, and needed some extra time on my cushion to clear things out and regain mental clarity. It was pretty awesome to go rollerblading in the skatepark after the 45 min sit. Like there was some extra spiritual power in my skating. It is so awesome with meditation. Whenever something emotional hurts, it is just to go into the pain and let it burn. Like go into it with a sense of equanimity and wisdom knowing that there is no reason to fear pain. Only resistance creates suffering. Without the resistance there isn't much suffering in pain. But of course it takes a lot of work to surrender into it. That is why one has to surrender into it again and again. And somehow one always forgets as well. One forgets how easy it really it is, and paradoxically this forgetting therefore makes this practice difficult. So that is why a lot of teachers says this practice is a practice of remembering. Maybe one could say that forgetting is the ingrained habit of the wheel of samsara, while remembering is returning back to nirvana / buddha mind / purity of mind.

30 min meditation today as well. Momentum was back again today, and I had a good concentration going. However there was a lot of resistance before I sat down, but immediately when I sat down all resistance was gone.

30 min meditation today as well. Not quite getting back into gear again. Some kind of slipperiness going on. But this is common in the Equanimity-landscape. It is part of the complacency that comes along with Equanimity. The way to progress is to see the suffering in the mildly comfortable slippery complacent mindstate. But that is not so easy when the mind doesn't get "into gear." Although, by doing this after-analyzis, it feels like my mind is sharpening up. Maybe these types of after-reflections helps me to move past the obstacles I face in my meditation after the meditation is done. Something is put into motion during the meditation, and then the mind will continue to work on it through-out the day.

25 min yin yoga today as well before ending the day. So awesome!

30 min meditation today. Not as comfortable as these last days. Something was triggered yesterday. I think I will be able to work through it pretty quickly, though. Also a good opportunity to work on letting go of the attachment to this streak of good meditations that has been going on lately. Life is like this. Sometimes peaceful and quiet. Sometimes agitated.