Thittato

So today I had a study-group together with three people from this gestalttherapist-education, and even though I've been whining alot about this education, I'm starting to get a little bit more optimistic about the whole thing. I really went from idealizing the whole thing intensely, to really hating it so badly, but now I'm getting back to a bit of a tempered optimism about it, while still also, of course, there is some remaining negativity about it. I'm probably quitting after this 2nd year is completed even though the education is 4 years, but at least I completed this 2nd year. But I've fallen quite out on the theory-part this year, so yesterday I ordered two books that seems pretty cool: Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy by Joseph Zinker and Body Process: A Gestalt Approach to Working with the Body in Psychotherapy by James I. Kepner The other books on the book-list has been pretty dry, but these two looks really interesting. Didn't meditate today, except for the 5 minutes I was guiding my study-group, and they really liked the meditation I gave them, so that was nice.

Chess-goal reached, going back to working full-time Hurrah! 1000 in rating reached at Chess.com.... Haha...... Chess must have been my full-time job for the past 4 months, and to "celebrate" I'm going to go back to my normal job again. I got burned out around Christmas because it was too much with all those therapeutic processes I was in as part of my therapist-education, but now I feel fine again. I have 30 % of a permanent shift at my job, which I have been working during this period, but normally I tell my job I'm available for working extra, so they can just call me if they need me, and usually that amounts to me working 100 %. So that is what I will go back to now. I've been delaying it for a while because I've saved up some money and I've been getting used to the comfort of only working 30 %, so 18th of March (which is the first monday after the next weekend seminar in my therapy-education) will be the day that I'm fully available again to my job. If I don't set a date like that I'll just continue to indulge in this freedom until I run out of money. Feels cool to celebrate this chess-milestone this way. Something about this whole process has made me more realistic I think. I'm a very daydreaming kind of type. So for now it will be a normal job, and daily meditation practice. Sat for 1 hour this morning. I felt like a very ordinary dude who was satisfied with having a steady meditation practice.

Identifying which parts of my body are affected by difficult feelings (and some more about Chess...) Today I've meditated 30 min in the morning and 30 min in the evening. Been experiencing some kind of grief this whole day. It was interesting how it felt like it was sitting in my eyes, and also it was connected with my chest feeling a bit sunk in. Like there was some weight pressing down my chest. It felt like one big connected area these unpleasant body sensations that were going from my eyes/face to my chest. I was resisting this experience the whole day, but when I could identify which parts of my body this experience was dominating the most then it felt like I had some kind of map or handle on this thing - like it made it therapeutically interesting to deal with these feelings. I've often felt that I've had some unresolved grief pressing behind my eyes, but I haven't felt that it has been connected to my chest this way before, so now it is like I have a larger area to work with when these feelings come back again. Besides that I've reached my highest rating ever in Chess today - 993 points in Blitz-games at Chess.com - which isn't really very high at all - but I started at around 700 in the beginning of November, so an improvement of almost 300 rating points in 4 months is pretty good. My first goal is to reach 1000, and that might only be one match away, or I might fall down again and it might take several months before I return to this point, which is unlikely, but previous experience has shown that chess-progress comes in ebbs and flows. Anyways, it feels like this thing is getting much more integrated, and it feels like a lot of my other interests are returning now. Who knows how much I want to play after I reach my goal? Seems to me it is most obsessive in the beginning when I'm struck by this beginning enthusiasm, but then after that settles down I realize I just have accept my position in the hierarchy and gradually work my way up step by step. Perhaps this will be an integrated interest that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, or perhaps now that I have gotten a foot in the door and have gotten my curiosity satisfied about this game and the sort of people it attracts that now I'm ready to move on to other things again. Perhaps the most important thing for me was to see the progress of refining ones blunders. At first when one begins in chess one makes a lot of really gross blunders, and then the process seems to basically just be about tightening up the game, but the blunders are never removed once and for all - no, they go through a long process of getting finer and finer. So each step up will just bring me up to a level where the blunders are a little bit more refined than they were on the previous level. So no I can literally see this has already happened - and I can see where I'm headed if I continue this process. Probably that was the most satisfying part of this study - understanding and seeing with my own eyes chess progress happening right before me. I always hate when it feels like I stumble around in the dark - but getting a handle on the learning-process - that is something that I really like. So now this is not so mysterious anymore. The biggest parallels between Chess and meditation that I make these days is the process of landing in my meditation practice and with the physical aspects of actually being part of a local chess-club being my parallel to that. Just continuing to show up. I wanted to quit Chess at some point when it felt too obsessive - but instead I managed to ride it out and now I feel that I have landed and accepted my place in the hierarchy - it might only be a temporary endeavor - but at least I managed to stay with the process all the way and overcome my bi-polar tendencies to either become narcissistic or self-loathing about this. I was also getting a lot of tips from more advanced player on how to improve, and now I have sorted that all out and found out which things I like to practice on to improve. Same with meditation - you got to listen to the more experienced yogi's, but then you got to put all together and make it into something that works for you. In Leo's 65 Core Principles of Living the Good Life, I really liked his principle of self-experimentation - basically that we just got to continue to experiment and experiment until we find what works for us. Also I go to this bath-house mentioned before regularly now, and I'm getting better and better at going into the "ice bath." I'm experimenting with sinking myself slowly and in a controlled way into the water. To begin with it was much more a sense of forcing myself into a shocking experience and getting out of it as quickly as possible - but now I try to ease myself both into and out of it. It is somehow a bit of a traumatic experience - probably at least when done in this "panic mode" kind of way - but when done mindfully and with ease then I think it is a really good thing to get used to. So lots of good things going on. And of course journaling about them makes me more grateful and the chaos settles down and makes my experiments much more into something that is part of a larger and more meaningful whole.

45 min meditation this morning, and now 20 min this evening. Still pretty uncomfortable because of this weed I smoked two days in a row. I was at the local chess club today as well, and I played really bad and it feels like weed is really messing up my cognitive abilities. I know it is only temporary, tomorrow I'm probably feeling like normal again, and perhaps I'm exaggerating, or that there is some parallel psychological process that also feeds into this, but as far as I can remember from my previous periods of smoking weed it doesn't really do me any good. I've never been a stoner, but all my friends were, and I probably would have been one too if my experience with weed had been better, but this is the same old story of almost always feeling like crap when I do it. Well, there was a little honey moon period when I first started doing it, where there was a lot of laughter and interesting philosophical thoughts, but that quickly turned into something unpleasant, and often even the first part of the evening was fun, usually it turned into something unpleasant as the high turned into some kind of slow, unpleasant philosophical stupor. So yeah, same old story. I know what this stuff is. This is not my ally, nor has it ever been.

Was out in the forest today making a fire together with some friends. We smoked weed and I got pretty stoned. Smoked weed with another friend yesterday, and I don't smoke much these days, but suddenly I had the opportunity to do it two days in a row. Can't really say that it does me much good. In fact I rather feel pretty miserable when I do it, like very insecure and philosophical in an unpleasant way. So this is the state I've been walking around in this evening, although it is pretty mild and manageable compared to how it used to be when I smoked before. But anyways, in the context of meditation and self-actualization, I will see this weed-smoking as some kind of exposure therapy. Getting some uncomfortable feelings triggered and breathing my way through them. There never seems to be any end to the sort of self-loathing and shame that I am able to feel, but as they say in gestalttherapy: The way out is through. I'm mildly in a panic-mode right now. Perhaps panic is too strong a word, but my mind is racing - searching for something - some kind of solution to this unpleasant state that I'm in. My whole life is viewed through a lens of misery and meaninglessness. This is an exaggeration - it is not only unpleasant - there is something pleasant as well about this state - but it is that whole ambivalence thing - like being stone is some kind of slow motion suffering. Hard to describe. Looking forward to wake up tomorrow again. Didn't meditate today, but it will be the first thing that I do when I wake up tomorrow. Besides this this whole weekend has been nice and social.

Insights in the bath-house Today when I went to the bath-house and swimming hall nearby where I live I started to think about what are the primary or essential skills in some of the things I'm interested in. - In the vipassana meditation that I do it is to penetrate the objects of awareness so that stuckness turns into flow. The way that I "penetrate" the objects is that I start to look for whatever I can find of some vibratory quality to the object. Even the most solid objects of awareness has some vibratory quality to it if I just look closely enough. - In social work it is to make the people that I work with feel seen, heard, understood and validated for who they are. - In Chess it is "pattern recognition" and there is a very structured way to develop this type of pattern recognition and that is probably the quickest way to get good at the game. - In social relationships and in dating it is probably to add value to the interaction, although that can be specified a lot. When I was at this bath-house I also started to notice that my level of consciousness using this place has become much greater. I've found a really good balance between swimming, sauna, using the "ice bath" being inspired by the Wim Hoff method, using underwater high-pressure currents to massage my lower-back, and the different warm-baths. Before I used to boiled myself too long in the sauna, really exaggerating how much time I spent there so I became so tired I didn't see any use of it, but now there was just a new level of refinement and balance to the whole thing, which was really awesome. It just adds to the whole energy of this forum of how to create an awesome life I think. Even something as simple as going to the bathhouse can be done with a lot of skill and refinement when done consciously. I really aspire to bring this level of consciousness into all areas of my life. The whole bath-house experience really has a meditative/contemplative quality to it as well. Feels like just soaking into the experience of presence while being there. It is very re-rejuvenating when done the right way.

Landing Meditated for 1 hour and 15 min today. So more and more lately it feels like I have finally landed in my meditation practice. That is a bit ironic after having meditated pretty intensely for 17-18 years, but this whole time there has been a lot of on and off dynamics, and it has mostly been driven out of desperation, and I have tried out so many different practices and guru's and whatnot. This journaling has really helped with this. It is like I'm just some ordinary dude who has for instance joined a martial arts club, and feels fine about going to this club Mondays and Wednesdays, a little bit of homework in between and a few tournaments each year, and no rush to make progress out of the ordinary, but a trust that by simply showing up again and again things will take its natural course.

Sat for 45 min today. Felt really good. It is an interesting feeling when I feel that I get to the core of my being. When suffering doesn't distract me, but I have momentum going and I go directly into the suffering and it quickly dissolves, and every time that happens I land more and more in "the quiet place."

Really glad how much it helps my meditation to write these notes. As I see it this journal has two main-purposes: 1. Improve my meditation technique. 2. Deal with the challenges that distracts me from keeping up a daily practice.

Sat for 45 min this morning. I was getting the feeling that there has been like a race-car competition between my meditation technique and my obsession with chess these days, and that finally in this meditation the momentum was fully with the meditation technique again. Felt like a "transformator" this meditation - transforming stuckness into flow. I will go and sit for 30 more min just to see what more stuckness I can find and work on.

The Sacred Feminine in Chess Another thing I've been thinking a lot about is how the sacred feminine manifests in chess. When I started drinking ayahuasca 8 years ago, it was as if I started developing a relationship with the Queen (the holy mother of unconditional love, the sacred feminine, etc) the way she took the form through the medicine of ayahuasca and that particular flavor. The way I experience her she is sort of violent and compassionate at the same time. Ayahuasca is a pretty brutal medicine, and it feels like getting churned up by the cosmos in a brutal way, but then coming out of the process in bliss. The way I relate this to chess is ironically how the Queen is the strongest piece in that game. They also have a chess goddess or a chess muse which they call Caïssa, and when people become really hooked on chess they describe it as being possessed by Caïssa. The inner landscape of my mind these days is totally filled up with images from the chessboard and all the pieces, but it all has a bit of the same churning fractal geometric quality that I feel when I'm tripping on ayahuasca (and many other psychedelics for that matter), and especially when I apply my meditation technique to this process that I'm in. When I'm winning I feel great, but when I'm loosing I feel like an idiot. But as one of my chess mentors said - this comes from a wrong perspective. Loosing a game is great, because then you get to analyze what you did wrong so that you can improve. So in the deepest sense of it there is no winning or loosing - there is only going deeper in ones understanding and knowledge of this game - which in many ways is symbolic for the game of life. So by trancending the artificial duality between winning and loosing, one gets to a deeper sense of passion, love and wisdom. But loosing is painful - so it takes some purification to get to a point where one is ok with it. And winning feeds the ego - so even here it takes some purification to not get infatuated with it. So I have totally gotten possessed by Caïssa, and I see many similarities between her spirit and the spirit of Queen Ayahuasca. In the deepest sense, all aspects of life points back to the same love and passion that is the juice at the core of this existence that all mystery schools points back to. And I'm starting to believe that all kinds of passions can actually be seen as mystery schools bringing one back to deepest mysteries of this life, an giving one a greater sense of wisdom and mastery of this paradoxical process called life. It is always back to surrender and giving up control, especially when one starts to feel that one has some mastery going on. Life will find a way to pull the rug out from under ones feet again and again no matter how well one feels that one does. So please, dear Caïssa, teach me how to be humble and kind and always willing to learn and improve.

Structure, hobbies and social life getting more integrated So I've been having two female friends living in another city across the country visiting me this weekend. Not romantic, but still great to have some female companionship. We've been partying hard, and done a lot of creative stuff, and already my apartment is tidy and clean again. Love to have this daily To Do list going. Makes it so easy to get an overview over what I need to do for this day. I also managed to squeeze in a lot of Chess even though I was very social this whole weekend, so I was really glad that I could keep my drive going with Chess and at the same time take care of my responsibilities as a host and a friend. Seems like this Chess thing has already gotten much more integrated. And seems like I just have to accept that I have gotten totally hooked. As long as I manage to keep a good structure in my life, I think it is just healthy to have some hobbies that I have a lot of passion for. The problem is if I start to neglect everything else and starts to only sit in front of my computer all day long to play online, but that should be easy to avoid. I mean, my life would totally suck if that started to happen, which I have already gotten a taste of those few days when that happened. It also probably wouldn't help my Chess-playing much at all, because my self-esteem would totally hit rock-bottom. Now, after having cleaned up my my apartment, and written this journal-entry, I will go and do my meditation for 30 min. It is interesting that most of the day my mind is now in "Chess mode," so I will have to get that balanced with bringing my mind to "presence mode." One of my meditation teachers told me about two different modes we can keep our mind in. Narrative mode and experiential mode. Narrative mode is all the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and where we are going and what we are going to do, etc, while experiential mode is what is needed to get enlightened - that is turning away from all the stories and just experience life as a sensory experience going on in the present moment - and with the stories, just experience for instance how they are felt in the body as a sensory experience. So what makes this pretty interesting is that when I just totally allow my mind to roam around as much as it wants in my fascination with Chess, I can still use my meditation technique to strip that experience down to a sensory experience. It is like instead of being totally identified with the state, I instead make the state into an object that I investigate and dissect with my meditation technique. Basically my meditation technique is vipassana - and that is trying to see my sensory experience as something that is vibrating and in a sense of flow and something that is always changing. So basically how this Chess thing supports my meditation is that when I just totally allow myself to indulge fully in this obsession, then it actually becomes easier to dissect that obsession with my vipassana teqnique into a sense of flow on the sensory experience level. As I've written here before, when sensory experience level starts to vibrate, I experience it as that Qi Energy all over my body starts to flow more. Stuck and frozen experience turns into a sense of flow. So basically I just have to allow my Chess-obsession as fully as possible, and then use it as an object to enhance my meditation practice. And since passion and having something to get a sense of drive going in my life really adds to my energy and inspiration, I think I can use this added sense of inspiration and energy as something I can re-invest back into my meditation practice. It is like making my obsession into an ally instead of an enemy. Pretty cool :-)

Ah, great! Thank you!! :-)

Great feedback! That is a very good summary of the whole thing :-)

Getting to a point of rest after an obsession has run through its cycle Did 10 sun salutations today, and then I meditated for 30 min. This whole Chess-thing doesn't feel like any problem today. Today I was more afraid of finding the whole thing too boring and demanding too much work to get anywhere with it, so pretty much the opposite of feeling obsessed with it. Feeling a little depressed today, somehow, don't know why, but seems like whenever an obsession has run through its course, I feel drained and empty on the other side of it - longing to feel driven and occupied with something again. You could say I've taken on the identity as an aspiring Chess-player for a while now, and now I'm searching in a mild depressed panic for something else to take on as a manic identity again. But this is rather the point where I should just lean back, and not try to search for anything, but just surrender to this state I'm in, and see if I can find some rest here instead. Feels like I'm getting better at identifying these cycles. I'm starting to breath deeper as I'm writing this. Like finally this search that has been going on today for something else than what is here right now can get to a point of rest. Anyways, totally feels like I can accept the level I'm at with Chess, and that I don't need any huge and intense project to get better in a rush, but that it is a nice hobby, among my other hobbies, that I can check in with every now and then without it having to take over my whole life at all. I will meditate for 30 more minutes right now just to marinate myself some more in this feeling of surrender and rest I'm falling into now. Gosh, so good to write about all these things. I totally believe that all these things can get into a balance now. I just need to continue to journal about it and meditate. Also I'm working with these obsessions through the therapy-education that I'm participating in. This therapy-education itself was something I was very obsessed and inspired about, but now I just think it is boring, but probably this is a good place to get to. Perhaps boring is what I fear the most - but that is certainly something to become better friends with. This whole thing feels like coming back home again. These are some of my favorite meditation-instructions. A friend sent them to me some years ago. I think they are from the tibetan mahamudra tradition. Here they are: Let go of what has passed Let go of what may come Let go of what is happening now Don’t try to figure anything out Don’t try to make anything happen Relax, right now, and rest

Even more on Chess 2 So this has been a great morning so far. Started off doing some weight-lifting, and then some yoga, and then I meditated for 1 hour and I could sit in full-lotus for the whole hour. It was actually really comfortable, and when by body was warm and flexible because of the exercise I did just before I sat, then I could land much deeper in this position than I've experienced before. Then after that I went for a walk. And my apartment is still tidy and clean. So nice with getting my structure better. I find I can get much more out of the day when I make a list of the things that I want to do during that day. Also this thing about Chess seems to have landed much more. I will probably continue with this sport. I just need to get i better regulated by my structure, so that I don't obsess about it all day long. Also there has been some ego-crushing around this activity that was pretty shocking. When I get obsessive and manic about something I feel really powerful and strong, and I was able to beat all my friends who are just casual players because they almost haven't invested anything into Chess, so I started to build an identity around this interest, but when I actually came to real life club where people had actually made this into a sport in their life, some of them for a whole life-time, well, then my ego was crushed to the ground when I realized what a total and absolute beginner I am. But that is the healthy part of submitting to a discipline where ones own abilities gets feedback from real life standards, otherwise I could just obsess around in my own mind as much as I wanted to, but this reality checking brings me back to ground again, and that is usually painful in the beginning. It is the same thing with all my other hobbies. With the exception that there is not such a clear standard with them regarding if my performance is well or poor. But I obsess about them the same way, and then eventually I have to just shut the door on them because it gets too obsessive and I feel drained and sick of it. But seems like these other things are getting into balance, and I believe my interest in Chess can also be brought into a healthy balance. And why would I even want to build an ego around being someone who beats my friends in Chess? Isn't it much healthier to be an enthusiastic beginner that is just proud of his enthusiasm for a sport and his willingness to learn and which is also much more humble and knows that it is going to be a learning curve for everyone and it is just a matter of being trained or un-trained? It is the same trap I fall into over and over when I put my self-worth into the skills I'm interested in and forget my intrinsic value as a human being - the same value that we all share. So this was a nice way to expose all these unfortunate bad learning-habits that I have, and just settle into the role as an enthusiastic beginner, and not basing my value (or lack of) on this or on anything else for that matter. When I woke up this morning I was so glad about what I wrote here yesterday, because it was such a relief to get it out. So I think this journaling so far has actually brought much more balance in my life. And my self-development is in many ways showing a lot of results, and there is less mental masturbation. I just want to live a fun and balanced life. It is actually pretty simple. But seemingly it takes a lot of work to become simple :-)

Even more on Chess Meditated for 1 hour today. 30 min in the morning, and 30 min in the evening. This is embarrassing, but I totally didn't manage to stay away from Chess. However, I've been rationalizing it this way: This is the first time, since this interest started up again that I've started to view it as something negative. It started this summer as we started playing it at my job, and then for these lasts 4 months its been really intense where I've been playing online daily, and reading several books about it, and seen a lot of youtube-videos. So ever since this interest started I've only seen it as something positive, but now I'm starting to see that I've gotten really hooked. I'm like a World of Warcraft gamer, just with Chess. And in fact, when I joined that real life Chess club that I've been going to 4 times now in a month, I was really curious about those people, and they were really nice, friendly and interesting, so don't get me wrong about that, but they were also in many ways stereotypical gamers, perhaps just a little bit more high-class. I think people who get hooked on Chess - I think for them it becomes their primary purpose in life. Like you have to get really really hooked in order to become good. A girl I know, who also plays Chess, says that she believes those people in the club is probably dreaming about it also, not just obsessing about it all day long, but also continuing that obsession while sleeping. So instead of going cold turkey about quiting. Well, I was just going to quit for a week, but even that didn't work, but what I'm saying is that I will rather spend some time sorting out my relationship towards this activity before I make up my mind about how I will continue to relate to it. It obviously wasn't just a cool thing that I could immerse myself in day in and day out, and now that I've started to see the shadow-sides of it, I will give it some time to just process this thing. Perhaps my fascination with it will just start to fade by itself. I was getting manic and really energized by it, but I see that to get to any decent level of rating, I will have to work really really hard, and that takes much of the joy out of it. I got a lot of other stuff that I want to devote myself to and not just walk around thinking about a game all day long. Perhaps just the fact that it takes so much work will sort of balance out my interest in it. It is easy to get hooked as a beginner, and become really enthusiastic as one has ones small little successes to start with, but then it started to dawn on me what a full-time pursuit this actually is. So yeah, let me just observe myself regarding this for some time now before I figure out what to do about this.

More on my little winter-adventure with Chess and the things about my inner meditative journey that it helped me to get a better understanding of Meditated for 30 min today. So, today, after working three night-shifts this weeking, I woke up to a clean, tidy and organized apartment with clean clothes hanging on the clotheshorse. I think I can take care of this problem pretty quickly. It is only a matter of doing a little bit everyday. Now I just have to continue keeping it this way, and not fall out of it again. The atmosphere here feels much more inspiring when it is like this. Feels like waking up to a very calm and cozy environment. So then I went to the local Chess-club, and it was fun, but still I'm thinking I will probably give up on Chess. It just takes too much work getting good at it, and why would I spend all that time getting good at something like that? Well, surely it is probably the most fascinating game, in my opinion, that has ever been made. But still it is just a game. Anyways, it was fun getting a glimpse into that culture. As I said I think it has some of the same things about it as martial arts and the meditation culture that I'm so fascinated by. Sort of like the old masters and the myths about them, and to these people it is not just a game, but a way of life. There are answers to anything within this group. Or like any group, they have their way of dealing with whatever comes up. Like frustration for loosing. Well, it is not about winning or loosing, it is about passion for the game, and loosing is only an opportunity to analyze your game and find out what you did wrong so that you can improve. Even the best players probably loose almost 50 % of the time, because they are pitched against players at their level. Seems like most beginners are very discouraged by this, but loosing a lot is just part of the game, and they have some pretty good answers to you, when you bring your frustration to them and ask them what to do. Good answers, like they have in any discipline. So I was getting very fascinated by this whole culture, and I've been obsessing about this for 4 months now. Well, a pretty cool thing to look deeper at this winter, as I love social anthropology, and always have to go check out a new group of people doing their thing. But still, am I going to invest all this time in improving at this? Probably not. I've reached the level now where I can actually see what it takes to go from a casual player to a serious player (serious in the sense of a devoted hobby player), and yeah, probably that is not me. And these kick I go on, when I decide that I'm going to get good at something and then start to really obsess about it, I think it is probably driven by some kind of inferiority complex where I think I have to prove myself. I'm going to look more deeper into Spiral Dynamics as I see that Leo is really into that, and it seems like I'm at this typical Stage Orange of being an independent achiever, but I think I'm longing for a more heartfelt experience of life, and this sort of trying to prove myself stuff that is constantly going on, well, it is a struggle that is probably not necessary. So from a meditative point of view, and self-actualizing point of view, which this journal is about, my whole adventure with Chess this fall and winter (it started building up this summer when I started playing it at my job with my patients and with my colleagues before it really took off these last 4 months), well, this whole adventure was probably good in the sense that it further helped me to expose this struggle of proving myself that goes on in so many different areas of my life. Only difference here was that Chess makes it really obvious, because you can't fool Chess. So with my obsessive type of mind, I think it was pretty healthy to find this system of Chess and put it to work on all the resistance I could find there. So if I leave behind this little adventure, I leave it behind with respect for this game, because it is a noble game. Here is one of the drawings that I made during this Chess-period, as a tribute to Chess. It is sort of like a simple and naivistic Chess-inspired Mandala.

@dimitri & @Gladius Thank you guys! That is really heartwarming! :-D

The Spiritual side of Chess (or whatever….) So I got obsessed with Chess almost 4 months ago, and have been playing it daily on Chess.com, but now I will take one week off just to get some perspective again. I've gotten pretty obsessed so to say, so will be nice with a break. Those Blitz games where one plays really fast are pretty addictive, and in general I'm pretty addicted to the internet, so will be nice with a break now. Been indulging in Chess every day, both games, and instructional videos on youtube and discussion forums, so I think giving my brain one week to think about everything else instead will actually be good for my learning-process. Also I think I will be moving over from Blitz-games, to actual classical Chess where one has much longer time-controls. I'm playing with my neighbor now (over Chess.com) and we have at maximum 7 days to make our move. I met at pretty cool guy through the forums on Chess.com, and he is teaching me how to analyze my games, and write notes for each move that I make. If I could have a routine like this going, without it getting so obsessive, I think that would be fun to keep going with. But I have to admit I'm contemplating giving it up altogether. In many ways it seems like a waste of time compared to all the other things I could have been spending my time on. But it has been a study that I've been doing for 4 months, and also I have connected with the local Chess-club, and tomorrow (not including this in my one week break) I will be going to play with them for the 4th time. Perhaps this whole thing was sort of like the social anthropologist in me that was really curious about this group of people. I think it has much of that same mysticism to it as the meditation culture and martial arts has. There are old and wise masters in these groups that have seen deep into the nature of this game, and for them it is not only a game it seems, but more a way of life. I could have said a lot about this, especially to days ago when I was really manic about Chess and thought it was the greatest ever, but now I rather not think so much about it. So sat for 30 min today, and completed a lot of stuff on my To Do list. Probably the reason for this Chess-pause was triggered yesterday when I was spending the day playing online and not doing anything on my To Do list and when I went to work to work night-shift I felt really crappy, and I figured the reason why I felt crappy was because I had fallen out of the structure that I'm trying to build in my life, and the sense of safety and trust that brings up when I feel successful about it. I need to get much better at spending my time wisely, for instance spending more time in nature, so with these To Do lists and my way of planning my day all this seems much more within reach. So this week without Chess will be dedicated to this work on structure that I have just started.

Making my home into a Zen Temple / Ashram / Chamber of Love and Devotion So regarding that lack of structure I mentioned yesterday, I've done some more improvements today getting my home more organized. I have to admit, and this is really embarrassing, but I think this lack of structure is perhaps the number 1. stickingpoint in my dating-life lately. I was on some dates in the beginning of this new year, but I simply don't feel fresh enough for a sexual relationship right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm clean enough for friends, studies, to be presentable and professional at my job, social life etc, but to have a girl entering my intimate zone, well, I'm simply not fresh enough for that right now. Whenever I go on a date, it is always a hassle making making sure I find some clean clothes, that my bed has fresh bedclothes on it, etc. So this is an area of my life that I will totally have to take care of immediately. Getting the inner structures of my home and personal hygiene fresh and always at its best. I used to have some tantric lovers before, and that was really fun, but this area of my life has really been down-prioritized lately. Fortunately, and this is a really good sign, for the first time ever I managed to keep to plants alive here in my home for almost 6 months. I'm really starting to love these plants. They are a sign of vitality and freshness in my home. So I just want my whole home, and all the inner structures of my life, to have this aspect of vitality and freshness, so whenever visitors comes inside my door they are met with a smell of freshness and vitality. This whole thing is really embarrassing and shameful to write about, but probably that just shows how great the benefits will be when I get this taken care of. I'm already on a good way now, and with the structures around my job and my studies being well-established now, I can easily get this other chaos taken care of. I can see that when I feel fresh and on top of things I feel much more attractive and ready to take a lover into my life again. So yeah, this chaos has probably been my number one stickingpoint in my dating-life lately, but time to get it handled now. Unfortunately I didn't get time to meditate today, because now I will have to go sleep for a little bit before I go and work a night-shift, but this organizing of my home, and writing this embarrassing journal-entry was really important. I'm going to become a fresh meditator, not a sloppy one :-) Yeah, damn, I totally deserve to live in a beautiful and fresh home. I've always intended to make my personal space into a beautiful place. I have my altar with my Buddha and Ganesh on, I have my incence, I have my meditaton cushion and my space where I do my yoga practice, I have my guitar and my drum ready to sing devotional mantras anytime, I have candle lights, etc. No need to make this place into an embarrassing mess that I'm shameful about. Jesus Christ how many dates I've been fucking up because of this. Well, from now on I'm going to become a proud and devoted caretaker of this cute little temple that I have here for myself. It is going to become a reservoir of healing, self-development, devotion, fun studies, and creativity. Gosh, this journaling is so good for me. It really helps me becoming much more honest with myself about my sticking-point. Exactly the tool I was looking for.

Structure Sat for 30 min this morning. Now another issue has become apparent, and that is too weak structure in my life. My apartment is a mess, and I rarely have food in the fridge, etc. And this is creating much more chaos in my life than there has to be. But I have a good tool for this which I have been using before. I wrote a long "To Do" list with all the things I can think about that needs to be done, and each evening I plan my next day trying to move as many of the things on the To Do list over to my plan for the next day, and cross each out as each task has been completed. So I'm going to implement this again because my life desperately needs more structure. Also I'm going to implement the rule that each time I leave my house I'm going to live behind a home that is tidy, and when I go to bed I'm also going to make sure it is tidy before I end the day. Also I'm going to be flexible about this so that it doesn't become an "all or nothing" thing that quickly breaks, but I'm going to practice on this to get it implemented more and more until it finally is established just permanently and naturally.

Respectful ending of a therapist/client relationship that was good for a really long time but that became difficult towards the end Gosh, I thought I was going to be angry and hurt for a long time because of this conflict with my old therapist, but we ended our formal relationship in a respectful way and with a heartfelt hug assisted in a meeting where the head-therapist that founded the school held space for us. I also got help from my new therapist to really squeeze out the remaining resentment I had towards him, and now it feels like already I'm ready to move on and I'm feeling inspired again by this education. In the long run this whole process is going to be very educational, and I also learned some important lessons in standing up for myself as I actually sent in a formal complaint against him and the head-therapist assisting our meeting understood my perspectives very well and my old therapist continued counseling (he is doing the education to advance to a teacher-therapist that can teach new therapists the trade) will most likely be informed by the complaints I've raised against him. So both him and I have learned a lot from this process, and the whole relationship ended in a respectful way were we both expressed our hurt feelings and also our love for each other. I'm feeling inspired thinking about the future again and what possibilities are ahead of me. This last bit of resentment after this meeting we had was probably just an after-process of ending it. Like the tail-end of that process got intensified a little bit before it cools off.

The Guru/Disciple relationship in therapy-education Sat for 45 min today. So I met a therapist approximately 3 years ago, and he inspired me to start this gestalttherapy-education that I'm now 1,5 year into. The classical trap of falling into the Guru/Disciple relationship happened in our therapist/client relationship, and now after some conflict we had to end our relationship and I'm changing to another therapist as part of this education. The education is 4 years in total, but I'm thinking that I will probably only complete this 2nd year and then quit, unless my inspiration comes back again. Got very inspired by meeting this new therapist, and she understood exactly what had happened with the relationship with my previous therapist and understood why I thought he had dealt with this situation very unprofessionally. To his excuse he is a very new therapist. In fact I started going to him while he was still a student. So when I was idealizing him it was probably tempting for him to fall into that idealized role I was putting him in. Anyways, this sort of dynamic has happened with me many times before, so it is interesting to get this stuff happening live right in front of me as part of my therapist-education. If I was going to complete this education in sum total I would have probably learned much more from this situation then if my therapist was perfect all the way through. This is like a very classical unhealthy dynamic that develops in these types of relationships, and now I have a very professional way of understanding it. I was very angry for a long time that my therapist didn't have the tools to get us out of this situation. The only thing he would have needed to say to make me feel safe was to admit a little bit of his vulnerability and step out of his professional role and admit that this was a bit of a challenge to deal with but that he believed we would get safely through this. Instead he disappeared into an inauthentic role, got caught up in pride, and tried to pretend he had more experience than he actually had. Anyways, now that I'm getting some distance to this, and especially now that I'm enthusiastic about my new therapist, I'm much more positive about this whole thing and all the stuff I have learned from it. Perhaps my vocation as a psychotherapist will return, or perhaps not and I'm meant to do something else. Either way it is fine. It all makes for some juicy stories in my spiritual adventure. And now that my new therapist could confirm that my experience and my intuition is actually valid, I feel much more sane again. So I feel landed back in both my job-situation and my study-situation, because my life is sort of configurated around some sort of mutual interplay between what I learn in my job as a social worker and how I gather inspiration from the gestalttherapy group-processes to bring back into my job as a social worker, and that's been my identity at my job that I study this gestalt-stuff. When I have so much social stuff going on both in my job and in my study, it is actually really nice to just spend time alone by myself, meditating, going for walks in the forest, or playing Chess online. I feel that I can allow myself alone time with a clear conscience. Probably that's exactly what I need more of - time alone - and feeling that I'm enough as I am just with myself not needing the constant validation of somebody else. Probably I'm getting much more independent in a healthy way now that I broke free from the addiction I had to my previous therapist. I totally admit that it was an addiction that also was created by my own need. I just don't think he dealt very well with it when I wanted to look closer at our dynamic. He was very good at helping me with external issues. But not very good at the interpersonal dynamic between us when our relationship became the object of my insecurities. But my new therapist has confirmed that it is perfectly ok that I bring up whatever I want to bring up regarding the dynamic in the interplay between the two of us. With my old therapist that always felt like a closed door that I was banging my head against.

Dark Night of the Soul Hmmm...... Meditated for 45 min, and then for 30 min a bit later, today. Woke up with a lot of strong feelings of being totally miserable and a failure in life. Lots of shame, worthlessness, and just pretty much everything that is nasty and bad. Managed to clear out many of these feelings with the 2nd meditation, but seems like this "spot" is where it leads back to again and again, and I think there is some deep purification that is needed to process out all these feelings. Not just one meditation and then everything is fine again. Perhaps the most irritating part about this is that I don't stay there long enough. I get some reward from my meditation and then I feel fine again, but then the misery comes back again and again, so I sort of wish I could just stay in the misery until the purification was done. Just land in it. It is always better when I just accept that my life is miserable right now and probably will be for a period of time until this stuff is processed, then when I get my hopes up that life is fun again and having it crushed over and over. But probably I will just have to have the attitude that there is a lot of mediative work needed right now. This is also probably to wear down the escapism I get into when life feels fine again. Getting fed up with being intoxicated by the fun parts of life, forgetting there is spiritual work to do.