Thittato

30 min self-composed yoga flow this morning, then 20 min silent-meditation in full-lotus, and then 5 min mantra-singing at the end. So inspiring making up my own yoga-flow. That way I can string together all the poses I’m most inspired by.

30 min meditation today when I woke up. Went into the shower before I meditated. Started with cold shower today, then warm shower and then I ended with cold shower. So extremly glad I continued with this. The cold water is not as cold anymore, and it feels like I’ve faced the winter head-on, especially since I was bathing a lot in the sea in January. But after that bathing in the sea kick was over, I almost gave up on cold exposure, because I was getting so high from it, but then that highness also wears me out, but suddenly I started getting a kick out of just doing cold showers, and now the water is not that cold anymore, and it will only get warmer, so feels like I was riding the wave all the way from beginning to end. Well, it is far from over yet, but at least the peak is descending. For the first 20 min of my meditation I sat in half lotus, which I usually do. And for the last 10 min I sat in full lotus. Full lotus is so awesome when the body feels ready for it, and especially when the mind feels still and powerful. All the yoga makes so much more sense when one can experience how the yoga prepares the body and mind for opening up while meditating in full lotus. It is just so beautiful. Both the physical expression and the inner experience of balance and presence.

Hurra! Looking forward to read this one :-)

Today: First 20 min vinyasa flow yoga program, then 25 min yin yoga program, and then hot shower ended with a cold shower.

Came home from work, and was so on fire with inspiration, so I had to do a second round of yoga and hot and cold showers. It is almost morning now, and I haven't slept at all, but that is perfect because I was working evening-shift tonight, and this night I'm working night-shift, so not going to sleep yet is just like I'm being on night-shift already and that will make my sleep-rythm already adjusted when I wake up late tomorrow. Finally I'm starting to get used to the corona-situation. Or well, it is probably going to get even worse than what it is now, and who knows how I will deal with it then, but I'm starting to adjust to this happening. I think I was in denial to begin with, like "fuck this thing, go away fucking shit thing." I was like getting a double dose of this, because, not only did the whole cultural life and my favorite pub close down and all my social life, but also, our boss suddenly came and told us that our psychiatric hospital was going to handle all the people in the southern part of my country that needed psychiatric hospitalisation and who at the same time were infected with the corona virus. Not that the corona virus is going to be a big part of their mental illness, probably not, but since that thing is so contagious and we're trying to prevent it from spreading, we're going to have to have a place that is specifically focused on helping psychotic people who also need that type of quarantine while they are hospitalised. I think my whole department was in shock when we heard this. But now we have already gotten our first 5 patients, and we are getting into the routines, and actually we are all much more kind towards each other and it feels like a lot of us is getting closer because of this challenge. Already some of our co-workers are in quarantine because they got infected (before we started getting infected patients), and there is just so much more care between us. It feels like I might as well just face this whole thing head-on as a health professional, instead of being quarantined or laid off and then having a lot of spare time and walking around wondering what is going to happen to the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm scared as shit as well, but fortunately I'm spending a lot time together with professionals that has a very practical attitude towards this. So anyways, tonight I was browsing through Netflix to find something to watch, and I stumbled upon the movie Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru. And holy schmokes, that was some really potent shit! I had no idea that man had so much love in him. That film is super-inspiring! But also all that "finding your purpose" stuff also reminds of something very painful in my own life, because I've heard that stuff for such a long time, and in a lot of confusion always belived I was at the wrong place and that my purpose was somewhere else, but now I have really settled down into the fact that at least for now my purpose is to get as good as possible at this job that I'm already having. It might not be forever - but my career plan is to use the skills and personal development that I get from this job as a building block for whatever thing will be my next thing. So that makes it waaaaay easier to apply the inspiration I get from coaches like Tony Robbins. Since I've been like all over the place like sort of chronically for almost my whole life, the benefits of staying in the same job just gets better and better. Been here 2 years now, and it is only just recently that I'm starting to get any sense of comfort, stability and mastery. It might sound extreme to use 2 years to adjust to a job, but this is a pretty extreme job so it certainly takes some time learning to deal with all these challenging and unusual situations, but I'm also really getting a kick out of all the skills I'm getting from learning to deal with such extreme situations - so it feels like it is really worth it. I'm just really going to give my self the luxury of settling down this time. Always before, when I've finally reached that feeling of comfort and a beginning sense of mastery, I've had this strange pattern of moving on exactly when that started to happen. Maybe I was somehow addicted to chaos since that is what I grew up with. So in those regards it probably helps that my job is very chaotic then. So the paradox is getting stability and comfort out of a very chaotic situation. But that is what we train professionaly for. And the cool thing is you can actually train for stuff like that - just like a fire-fighter, police officer, or something along those lines, so actually there are a lot of people who are trained to deal with extreme situations - stability and mastery in the skills necessery to deal with emergency situations.

20 min vinyasa flow yoga program this morning as well, and then hot shower ended with cold shower. Today I just turned the knob down all the day quickly, and it feels much easier now. Also spending enough time under the cold water to get into a relaxed state before I turn it off. I don't time it, but there comes a very specific point where I feel that I've gotten what I wanted out of it where I'm fully relaxed and kind of baked.

20 min vinyasa flow yoga program today as well. I did hot and cold showers as well, but before the yoga instead of after.

20 min vinyasa flow yoga program today, and then a warm shower ended with a cold shower. Seems like I have found something really good now. That 20 min vinyasa flow program is really awesome. I want to continue with that for a bit just to really get it down. Perhaps I could do jogging and vinyasa flow every other day, always ended with a hot shower and then a cold shower. At least approximately every other day, but with some flexibility. Sometimes I will need to bring in some meditation as well - especially when there are vulnerable feelings and experiences that needs to be processed.

Ran 5,3 km today, which took 29 min. I've found a good new route now, that is probably going to be my new primary route moving on from that 4 km route. After the run I took a hot shower and ended with a cold shower. I'm falling in love with cold water therapy all over again. Much more simple to just do it in my own shower. It is the perfect way to end an exercise routine. I turn the knob down gradually, and today I took it as low as I could get it. It is somehow more uncomfortable experiencing the cold water in the shower compared to bathing where my whole body is immersed all at once, so I'm taking this gradually, gradually getting used to the experience.

Yesterday I jogged for 5,6 km which took 29 min. The longest run so far. Felt really awesome. Actually it felt like I could have kept running for at least twice as long. Really love it when my body feels warm and in the groove like that. Perhaps I will experience more of that now that my body has adapted to running? Perhaps I can run much longer than what I actually do. Today I did a 20 min vinyasa flow yoga program. And then when I took a shower afterwards I discovered something that will revolutinize my whole cold water exposure therapy - cold showers! I'm fed up with bathing in the sea, or going to the local bathhouse, like making a big project out of this thing, but if I can just sneak in a little cold showers after my hot shower, then I have made this whole big thing into something that is just totally integrated into my daily life.

20 min jogging and then 25 min yin yoga program. Pretty awesome. Been thinking about phasing out both the jogging and the cold water bathing, and instead just continue to focus on yoga and meditation, but I'll just hold that as an open question for now and just continue with this flow that I'm in.

5 min sauna, cold bath, 5 min sauna, cold bath, and then 10 sun salutations today. Glad I didn't quit cold baths abruptly, but rather went indoors again when I was done with that bathing in the sea at winter period. All these waves of various stuff coming into my life. I'm glad I can ride many of them out smoothly.

Snowboarding today was awesome as well. I just spoke with a friend of mine who is a psychologist. He used to check in on me when I was going through my 3,5 year long therapeutic process. Not only were we nerding on every little bit of the therapeutic process together as friends because we are dharma brothers, but he also quite often almost functioned as a 2nd therapist, helping me out and giving me advice on how to get the most out of the process. When we spoke today he mentioned that I haven't seemed unstable or in an emotional process or some existential crisis in a very long time. I was somehow very heart-warming. Because I couldn't find anyone to go snowboarding with this year, everybody I could think of was somehow busy or we couldn't quite get to it, I just decided to go up to my mother and my step-fathers cabin while they were there and snowboard alone. I was a little bit triggered by getting into this situation - thinking it would be really lame to spend the weekend only myself together with my mom and my step-dad, and also on top of that to snowboard alone. Would have been something else had my two brothers also comed along. But it was so awesome! I had such a good chemistry with them and we had so much fun, and I didn't feel like a looser at all who had to snowboard alone. Quite the opposite it felt totally natural. It just felt like a very empowering thing to do - here I am dedicated to doing this thing, and I'm not doing it purely for recreation, but because I have some plans going where this activity is part of that plan and I need to improve my skills before I can execute my plan. My parents looked me geniunly in my eyes when we parted and said that it had been so nice. I even bonded a lot with my step-dad since I've gotten so interested in sports lately. Well, what was even more awesome was that after the first day in the hills, they had been driving to another park 2 hours away where my little brother who is only 17 was participating in a Big Jump freeski competetion. Half a year ago he was done with junior high, and is now going to high school, and the high scool he is going to is a high school that is specializing in snowboard and freeski. Haha. Pretty awesome. So after they had been there seeing his crazy tricks on the Big Jump, we spent the evening having a few beers together and watching the Norwegian X-Games competition, seeing the best snowboarders and freeski'ers compete against each other. So suddenly my whole familiy is embedded in this type of sport, which is pretty cool since I grew up with this but didn't quite have the self-esteem or understanding of how skills are developed to really get good at it, but still those people made a huge impact on my life. Even my step-dad, who is quite conventional, could totally understand what types of people those people are. He said, with amazement, about the top competitors: "they are artists and freedom-seekers." There is something in common with snowboarders and freeskiers and those sports where doing esthetical looking tricks with artists and meditators and psychedelic adventurers, mixed martial art fighters, pick up artists and etc. Not exactly sure what it is, but there is that huge yearning for realizing ones greatest potential as a human being, and being willing to experiment madly to get there. Anyways, the biggest thing here is, I used to have so many issues with my mom and my step-dad, (and also ESPECIALLY my dad and my step-mom), but now it feels like all that is gone and I can simply just enjoy them as those wonderful human beings that they are. When we parted today I think they felt seen, understood and appreciated for who they are.

45 min meditation this morning. Felt exactly like what I needed.

Snowboarding today was totally awesome. My bigger plan with snowboarding is just to get some simple basic tricks down so that my board is just really totally and utterly programmed into my legs so that at one point I can do a psychedelic microdose while I snowboard and just really get into the spiritual side of it. I realized today when I snowboarded that this is not recreation for me. It is work. Spiritual work. And that makes it even more fun. I have one more day of snowboarding tomorrow before I go home. I could totally see that that little period of longboarding I had this fall had paid off. I totally see why people who are really into this do both skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing. As much board as possible for those guys. My ambitions are not so extreme with snowboarding. I just want to bring some easy creativity into it and make it flow, combined with my psychedelic ambitions with it, so it is more that spiritual meditative experience I seek with it. I’m too old to take it far, but I can still make it into art at a cute basic flowing level. You know, when people see you from the lift and get fascinated by your ride. Like you give them an estetical experience. Here are the tricks I’m working on: - Goofy - Nosepress & Tailpress - Ollie & Nollie - Spinning - Shifty When all that is down I will have an incredible platform for endless creativity in my rides.

15 min meditation this morning, and now I’m going out to snowboard for the whole day first time this winter!!! Woohooo!!!

30 min meditation today. Somehow I'm having a little bit anxiety and melancholy going again. Not sure if the meditation yesterday had it triggered, or something else, but anyways, a little bit of process going on. I've almost felt invincible lately, so it was a bit surprising to feel vulnerable again, but somehow also a bit nice.

Tuesday: 20 min jogging, then sauna and cold bath and then 1 hour of yin yoga. Wednesday: No practice Today: 45 min meditation

Sauna, cold bath, and 10 sun salutations today :-)

20 min jogging today in the snow and rain after having worked night-shift before going to bed. It was a little bit too heavy hehe, but I was eager to get in my fourth jogging-session of the week before the week was over. Altogether I jogged 15,7 km this week, which is a new record after I started jogging. I’m probably starting to push it a little bit too much now, getting attached to the results instead of just enjoying the process, so I will just be more aware of that. Anyways, it is nice to have a new record to measure things up against. Doesn’t mean I have to match that this upcoming week, it is a natural ebb and flow of peaking and then descending again until a new peak starts to build up. My previous record was 11,9 km, which was the first week I jogged from 27th of January til 2nd of February were I started a bit too heavy and didn’t jog for the whole next week until the week after that again where I shortened my round down to 2,5 km and only jogged 7,5 in one week. Now I feel I have build it up more gradually. Interesting the statistical aspect of this hahah, I’m getting hooked on my own jogging statistics haha.... ?

20 min vinyasa flow yoga program today. Damn, all this exercise just feels better and better. It seems like my mood has been very stable lately as well. After I ended 3,5 years in intensive psychotherapy this summer, it seems like my life has just gotten better and better. Maybe it is a very natural cycle that when one has dealt with the majority of ones traumas and starts to feel healed fram that, that the next step from there is just to focus a lot on physical fitness. I guess since I was traumatized for so long I’ve always been like a fragile person, and now, especially with all this exercise, it seems like my stability and robustness is just increasing. It is kind of strange to walk around like a normal person without constantly being bombarded with anxiety, depression and all the different waves and fluctuations that comes from living in a constant existential crisis. So I just feel very motivated to keep on going with this physical exercise focus :-)

On thursday I went to the local bath-house again, and did sauna and cold baths, and 10 sun salutations. Was good to do the cold exposure therapy indoors again next to a sauna. My mind becomes absolutely still when I go from the sauna directly into the cold water. Doesn't happen quite the same way when I do cold exposure outdoors without going from a sauna. Yesterday I jogged for 20 min, and then I did a 25 min yin yoga fusion program. And today I plan on doing a 20 min vinyasa flow yoga program, but I will have to sleep after working night-shift first.

Absolutely! It totally depends, sometimes quickly, sometimes towards the middle of the sit, sometimes towards the end, and sometimes I don't find the groove at all. I strongly recommend Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram. The best meditation manual I've ever found :-)

No practice yesterday, but today I jogged for 20 min again, and then later in the evening I did a 25 min yin yoga fusion program. The jogging today felt really awesome. Probably the best jogging experience so far. It was just right. I felt warm and good and the jogging-flow was stable. I also felt a lot of inspiration from the yoga, especially the quality of surrendering into it. I jog in silence, which is probably really good, because the whole things becomes a very meditative experience. I also think I will just continue with this round of 4 km for a while, not seeking to advance further any time soon because I will rather go for building up stability than to push for advancement. I think getting a stable platform established is much more important. I'm also thinking about the actual route that I jog. I will begin to try to take in more of surroundings. I actually jog next to the sea for half the round, and then for the next half of the round I jog next to the river, and I cross two bridges, so actually the route is quite spectacular and it is just right outside my door, so I will try to take in more of this my next round. I will also try to connect more with my bodily experience of running, and focus more on my running technique.

20 min jogging today. This is my 10th jogging-session for this period. I jogged slower today and it felt much better - like a special treat I gave myself. It is interesting to observe the dynamics between effort and surrender also in jogging. Jogging can certainly have a very strong surrending into it type of quality. It feels really awesome when I have been jogging for 10 min without pushing myself and my body starts to get varm and it feels like I'm just sailing through air without any resistance. Now I will go and do 25 min of yin yoga before I go to bed.