Thittato

Cognitive restructuring So when I was into Gestalt-therapy, we used to look down on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, saying that they ignored the body and the feelings, and perhaps they do, I don't know because I don't know much about it, but I think the focus in gestalt-therapy on releasing emotions stored as trauma in the body can become too one-sided, and one term from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that has really intrigued me lately is Cognitive Restructuring, ie, learning better and more skillful ways to think about various situations. I do think there is usually a lot of feelings that need to be released, but I also think this can become a never-ending loop of releasing upon releasing, and I think one can become pretty fragile by continuously doing this and out of this fragile state I think there can often seem to be much more feelings that need to be released than what is actually the case. I think Cognitive Restructuring can be really great in reducing unnecessary worry and ruminating, and perhaps that is a much better way to build resilience, at least I think both approaches are needed.

Presence and flow in my work-situation Woah! That must have been some of the best three nights of working night-shift I've ever had. And the leader of our crew was so satisfied with my performance. I think journaling really helped me bring my focus over to the meaningful and interesting part of this job, instead of just the challenges. Of course when I've been away for a while I come back with renewed focus and enthusiasm, but I thought that would have rather made me rusty, but instead I had a really great sense of mastery. The months before I got burned out I didn't enjoy my job very much, except for a few cases when I worked with some patients that I had really good chemistry with, but most of the time I was really slacking off and had a guilty conscience because of this. There is also something about when I start to daydream about all the other things I would rather do than being at my job that really takes the quality out of what I'm doing. When I have the right spirit about my job, nothing is more fulfilling. So I will use this journaling also to help increase my level of enjoyment in my work, because that is so related to meditation and presence. Who needs to dream about being somewhere else if they can experience fulfillment right where they are? I think it is really fun and meaningful to help someone going through a crisis. How can I make this person in such a vulnerable situation feel safe and supported? This patient I was working with had a really hard time sleeping, and woke up a lot of times being very anxious, so I had to sit by his bed the whole night and comfort him. I experimented a bit with just sitting on the floor. It seemed like the most casual and relaxed way I could appear in his room, instead of looming over him in a chair above the level of his bed. Also, when he was sleeping, sitting on the floor meant that I had the perfect position for meditating while nothing else was happening, so that was also a really cool way to integrate meditation into my work-situation.

Being a therapist Working night-shift this whole weekend. Felt really good to back at work. I worked only 3 shifts in december because of this burnout, but now I feel ready again to give this job my fullest. Also it feels really good that I dropped out from this psychotherapist education that was just simply too much. I'm having some grief going on as I have to let go of my identity as an aspiring psychotherapist, but to fill that lack I will rather re-invest my identity-building into my job as a social worker. I'm a licensed social-worker, so that should be enough, and really this extra education has created more confusion for me than I think I will have now as of having a more simple and stripped down identity, and still, I can put my pride and my love and my care for other people into doing a good job as a social worker, and all the stuff I learned from this psychotherapist education, I can put into my role as a social worker. I still do a lot of therapy in my job, although not as formally and structured as a psychotherapist would do, but I get really close relationships with people in extremly demanding situations. Tonight, for instance, I had to spend the whole night sitting next to the bed of young guy who is suicidal because of a psychotic depression he is in, trying my best to comfort him. I must have been crazy to not consider myself worthy of the title therapist. My job-title is actually "milieu therapist." But there is soooooo much I can improve on her. Like tonight, but of course being careful with the boundaries, I think I should have sat down on his bed when he sat up on started crying. I should have laid my arm around his shoulder, and told him that he was safe here and that we would take good care of him. Of course I told him these things, but I think in these situations if you do it right and carefully, people actually need physical support along with comforting words. So anyways, now that I'm no longer burned-out and overwhelmed because of way too much therapy-focus in my life, I think I can actually be a much better therapist. Also, I just visited my mom briefly, and she has been a little stressed out lately, and even though she is very inspired by this mindfulness-teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, she has never done much formal meditation and hasn't quite seen the usefulness of it, but today I spoke passionately to her about the usefulness of meditation, and demonstrated a few tricks, and she actually said that that was what she needed to do now. So she is going to start with 10 min per day for a little while and see how things develop. That was also really, really good. To share with her some passion for meditation. I don't need this added gestalt psychotherapist stuff to be a complete person living my purpose. I'm already living my purpose, and buddhist meditation is primarily my path and my deepest purpose, so it is more powerful when I give directly from my deepest purpose, instead of thinking I need 2,5 years of more education of something that isn't really my primary path, before I can start to share. Now I do want to point out, that besides my job as a therapist, I don't want to take on the role of a spiritual teacher in any way what-so-ever, because I still got ALOT of unfinished business to deal with myself, but I think it is OK to share a few tricks with friends and family, as long as it is in the context of stress-reduction.

Being present in my life-situation as it is. So if I'm left with just directionlessness and presence, what are the simple realities of my life here in this physical form? Well, I need money in order to survive, and I have a job that I most of the time enjoy that gives me these money. So why don't I obsess more about my job instead of art, music, chess, snowboarding, meditation, etc? In the light of this way of looking at it, when I start to obsess about all these other things, they just seem like some sort of escapism. Well, not meditation, because the cultivation of presence is something I can still work on while I'm at my job. So my job doesn't stand in the way for my highest purpose. Of course if my highest purpose was to become an artist, then spending all that time at my job would have been a problem, but with my kind of highest purpose I'm pretty privileged because I can work on it under any circumstance, so whatever kind of life circumstances I find myself in, I just have to consider them my monastery for working on my meditation practice. Working as social worker in a psychiatric hospital, it is almost like I'm being some kind of modern "Aghori Yogi," ie, a yogi who dwells in a charnel ground to observe very directly the suffering and disintegration of health that is part of life. So anyways, I feel l need to ground myself more in my work-situation. Daydreaming about being a full-time snowboarder when I'm at the age of 35, it feels like I refuse to grow up. But being enthusiastic about all these types of activities is very good in my job-situation, because sometimes I can use these activities to build relationships with the patients I'm working with, bonding with them over a game of chess, over drawing together, or jamming on the guitar together. So when I consider my enthusiasm for classical hobby-activities in the light of their usefulness in my work-situation, they are certainly a boon. But when I start to daydream about going full-time with these activities, well, then I'm reducing the quality of my meditation-practice, and it probably also reduces the level of satisfaction I get out of my job. Another great thing about my job is that it is a very social job. Sometimes it feels like I'm just paid to show up there and be social. Of course that is a simplification, but there is some truth to it, and I really enjoy to work on getting better at socializing, so that is certainly something that I can obsess more about which will also benefit my performance at my job.

The paradox of directionless direction, the pathless path, etc. So today again, all these kicks I keep on having are gone, and I'm left with emptiness. But a little bit more content emptiness this time. I've meditated for 45 min today so far, and I will do another 45 min session after I'm done writing this. Sometimes I feel utterly directionless in life, but then I land back on my primary direction being the path of meditation, and that is a pretty clear direction. Somehow, though, it is a bit of a vulnerable direction, because its results are primarily internal and difficult to measure. Perhaps that is part of the explanation why I get these pretty intense kicks on for instance snowboard, or art, or whatever. Especially when my mind has been filled up with the energy I get from meditation, then this energy is easily hijacked by some more material pursuit that gives more tangible results. Again, not that there is anything wrong with having hobbies. I guess that is pretty healthy. But it seems like this path that I have chosen, that I have to keep choosing it every day, or you could even say, every moment. Perhaps that's what commitment is. So I'm touching upon a paradox again and again. Somehow I often feel like I'm a person that is utterly directionless in life, but then on the other hand I'm very dedicated to this path, so whenever this feeling of directionlessness pops up I just got to keep remembering to approach that feeling with meditation, ie, to embrace it and wish it welcome. My internal response to my experience of directionlessness is my path.

Microdosing Then the chance to microdose on LSD came around yesterday on New Years Eve. That was pretty awesome. I can only summarize it with saying that that is probably everything that I've been looking for when it comes to psychedelics. Somehow I was very greedy for extreme experiences as a younger psychonaut, but clearly lower doses are much more conducive to what I seek to get out of it. Seems like it is much less demanding to integrate the experience, as it is so close to what daily life is like anways, just with an added subtle psychedelic component. When I was younger I took pride in making this extreme jump from daily life to being blown out in cosmos, and then to smoothly return back to daily life again. But it wasn't so smooth. It always was quite demanding to go in for landing again. But this was a much smoother experience, giving me exactly what I was seeking without the demanding side-effects.

What exactly is flow? So a friend challenged me today to describe more accurately what exactly do I mean by flow? Flow is kind of an abstract term. So we discussed closer what does this actually mean? I started with saying that it is a sense of aliveness. Feeling present here and now in ones own life as it is. It also feels like ones life here as it is is just right and fine the way it is, and that one is moving in a meaningful direction. A sense of purpose. A sense of doing things right. Having enough energy to actually enjoy life, and not just struggling to get by. Some kind of synchronicity with the way things are. When in this state everything feels like nutrition. Even the boring, mundane stuff. There is a sense of renewal in everything. Grandma is not just the old and predictable woman that always says the same things. It is actually possible to invest in the interaction with her. Things are not just politeness and established patterns, but there is aliveness and connection in everything. It comes back to a word that I mentioned earlier. Flourishing. It feels like life is flourishing. And mastery, there is a sense of mastery, even in the process of feeling uncertain about something but with a confident knowing that that is part of the process. One of my meditation teachers used to say that this is the ultimate state that we are seeking in our spiritual quest. Don't know if he is right, but a continued sense of flow certainly seems connected to happiness and meaning. Another Zen teacher which I don't remember the name of used to say that the questions isn't if we are stuck, but where we are stuck. Meaning, as I interpret it, that life is a continuous process of dissolving deeper and deeper levels of stuckness. I've noticed that I love so much to write about my own process that perhaps at some point when I have collected and sorted through my own thoughts enough here, and when I feel that I've reached a sufficient level of "un-stuckness," that perhaps I can make something more out of this.

Meditation as a continuous process of surrender and letting go. Gosh, I'm so inspired by the connection that I see between extreme sports, creativity, psychedelics (microdosing) and meditation. What else is there to say? This is the perfect mix! It seems like the better integrated that my mind becomes, the more connections like this I'm able to make. Instead of my life and interests being fragmented and compartmentalized in all kinds of directions, and it feels like my life is just a bunch of opposing forces pulling in all kinds of contradictory directions, things starts to unite, become integrated, and reach a higher level of complexity. This doesn't necessarily mean that snowboarding will now be my new direction in life, but it seems like his process of integration and seeing connections where I didn't see them before happens more and more in all areas of my life. This just happened with my interest in Chess as well. Suddenly things just started to converge around this interest, and I gained a new level of understanding and skill. And these first journals I had here about creativity as well. My understanding of my own creative process increased tremendously. The problems seems to happen when I try to force this process in a particular direction, instead of just accepting the natural flow of it. So that is why this is now a meditation-journal, and not a music or drawing journal, and why I'm not going to turn it into a snowboarding journal, either. I'm primarily a meditator, so all these tings are integrated back into my meditation practice. Just a few days ago my mind was flooded with images of me as a monastic in all kinds of monastic communities around the globe, and now, the images in my mind are scenarios with me and fun friends on all kinds of snowfilled mountaintops around the globe. I don't see the problem in this as long as I don't identify / latch on too much to these scenarios (which I can easily do). What is the lesson here? I think it is that I shouldn't try to solidify the flow. When I have a good grove on something, I so easily become attached to that particular state and I want to be there permanently but of course life is not like that, so then there is a lot of pain when I become attached to it but is forced to let it go. And this again is the ultimate lesson in meditation - to let go.

Flow states and extreme sports 45 min of meditation this morning. I could see my mind processing thoughts and feelings related to my relationship towards extreme sports. Even though I was a very awkward, goofy, introverted, shy, and afraid person growing up, I was always very much into all kinds of sports, doing my best to keep my head above water, but not having any sense of mastery in learning skills so I didn't know how to systematically improve, but instead just stumbling my way through the different things I tried to learn myself. I was especially into BMX biking, rollerblading, snowboarding, mountain climbing and a little bit of skateboarding, and I had my heros in these sports that I looked up to, especially within snowboarding. There was just something about these guys that I really admired. They looked so chill and cool and it seemed so much like they were just simply enjoying what they were doing. The whole thing came with a lifestyle that just simply looked really fascinating. But I considered myself on the outside of this, and eventually moved on to the spiritual scene where there was a lot of others seekers looking to heal within themselves the same suffering I was also deeply entrenched in. Still, fascination with extreme sports never went away, and now I can much better see the link to spirituality and meditation, and I think it boils down to extreme sports deep connection with flow states. I've read lately that the new trend in extreme sports is micro-dosing on psychedelics, and that makes a lot of sense. Also with a much better understanding of how skills develop now, I'm going to do some more snowboarding this winter, and I'm really looking forward to learn some new simple tricks and get a little bit more a sense of flow and mastery around this. Another thing that is starting to catch on, is that I've been looking more into Leo's teachings. Didn't know much about him before I joined this forum, I only joined because I liked what he wrote about keeping a journal here, but now I'm starting to see that he has a lot of other really cool stuff, so it was probably a meaning behind by I joined here.

Snowboarding as a tool for meditation and flow states Gosh! I've had a really really amazing day today with snowboarding together with some really nice friends. This is totally something I'm going to do more of this winter. We're already planning on doing a new trip combining snowboarding with micro-dosing on magic mushrooms. First time snowboarding in 5 years, and before that it was 10 years since. I turned 35 yesterday, and I used to snowboard a lot in my teens, but stopped after that. Seems like many of my friends, and myself included, has already started telling ourselves that we are starting to get old and that life is kind of over. Pretty sad to start to tell yourself shit like this. Anyways, my snowboarding was better then ever. When I was younger I had so much fear in my body, I was afraid of everything, and didn't have any knowledge of how skills were developed, so I just jumped into stuff with a lot of fear and goofiness, but now I'm much more conscious of how skills develop, especially with this journaling that helps me getting this meta-conceptualization of everything in my life, so now I even want to re-visit my extreme-sport chapter, and give that a solid upgrade. Anyways, it made me realize I'm really fucking glad I'm quitting therapy and this therapist education. I'm just going to have fun and be happy now. This is the kind of stuff that I love to do. And also, I think my whole interest in meditation and selv-development boils down to my interest in flow states. I'm a junkie for flow states, and I think all people who reach a level of actualization experience much more flow states then the average person. So now, the way I see it, even snowboarding becomes a tool for my meditation practice. And also, I don't feel guilty for quitting this therapy education. I'm still going to help people through being a social worker in this psychiatric hospital that I'm working in, and also I'm going to continue to cultivate my meditation, and perhaps at some point I can share my knowledge about meditation with others, but I don't think my vocation in life is as a psychotherapist. And for me to share my gifts with the world it is important that I am as happy as I can possibly be, and meditation is really my deepest purpose, so I'm going to prove to myself that I can really live an awesome, fun and cool life and still be highly dedicated to meditation and spiritual practice, and in that way contribute with love to this world.

Cultivation of new skillful mental, emotional and social habits Another reason why I wanted to start this journal is because I have just ended 3 years of therapy, and even though for the first 2 years I felt I was getting great benefits, I think for the last year it actually made me worse going in this form of therapy. This particular school of therapy has a very one-sided focus on "releasing emotions," and I think this made me addicted to my therapist and seeking this process of releasing emotions over and over, in something that seemed like a never-ending cycle. It also made me problem-focused instead of solution-focused because there was always some problems building up that I would go to my therapist to get released, instead of me rather re-conditioning myself to think more positively about the situation. How to think like a winner is the question? Instead of thinking like someone who has a huge problem and cannot handle life without professional help. So while this therapy was great in terms of releasing emotions, and surely I needed a lot of that, what I need now is more mental / cognitive training in how to think and act in a more solution-focused way and not just being stuck in a never-ending cycle of releasing emotions. Of course I need to continue to release emotions, but that is something that I'm good at and that I know how to do with my meditation-practice. Buddhist meditation has always also had a lot of focus on cultivating new skillful mental and emotional habits, and this part has been quite overlooked by me as I have been "wallowing in my stuff." Another thing I think this therapy was really poor at was that the therapist was always taking my side in the conflicts that happened in my life, and this they did in order to make you feel valued and confirmed for who you are and for your experience, but I think in a more balanced approach you also have to observe your behavior from the outside and being willing to adjust in order to get more flow in social situations. One cannot always just seek validation for ones own perspective, and this is something that adds up to this therapy-addiction, when you have someone there who is always on your side no matter what, it creates a place that to begin with is very safe and comfortable, but eventually it gets too comfortable for growth to continue. Like one thing that I have been getting feedback on is that I have been too intense for my friends lately, so instead of insisting on being who I am, how can I rather perhaps breathe a little bit more, chill down, calibrate better and add more space to our interactions? I have a lot of positive energy in social situations, but how can I better calibrate the use of this energy? I think it is much better to think in this way instead of just insisting on being who I am and seeking validation for my perspective. At one point I was very into dating and pickup and getting inspired from so-called pickup artists and dating coaches, and while they now have a lot of focus on being yourself and being authentic, they also have a lot of focus on how to vibe better / calibrate better in social interactions. That is a focus that I will bring back again. Hmmmm.... This journaling is the perfect tool for continuing this buddhist meditation-training that I started with all those years ago :-)

Boredom Meditated for 45 min this morning. Still a bit tired, but I don't feel burned out. Noticing a bit boredom and anti-climax. Feels like the drama of this is over for this time, I mean the drama of being overwhelmed with suffering and then having to mobilize this "spiritual warrior" attitude. I think part of me enjoys this drama, because my life has been a reflection of those types of cycles for so long. Still it would have been nice to get a more normal life. I think boredom is the key to that. I have to be willing to look deeper into the sensations of boredom. Boredom probably triggers a lot of escapism in me. Pretty amazing though, that when I feel totally burned out, I can do a mini-retreat of meditating 3 hours per day for 3 days and then I feel almost back to normal again. I don't think most people have this effective tool available. But then again, I had to cultivate this amazing tool because I had some pretty huge imbalances to begin with, and these patterns have continued to influence my life to a pretty huge degree. Sometimes I can seem like the wisest and most balanced person ever, only to look like a complete mess the next day. So this is what I want to balance out so that I can live a balanced and meditative life every day :-)

Meditation, social attractiveness and independence I was out dancing yesterday at a club with DJ's and I could really see that my social attractiveness was at its peak and people were flocking around me, which is kind of funny since I've been retreating back home for some weeks now just sleeping, meditating and taking time off from my job, but I think all this meditation that I have been doing have been really contributing to a positive vibe that people was attracted to at this club. I feel when I have my meditation as my top most priority I can really be my most authentic, joyful, positive, genuine, caring, innocent, fun and kind self. I don't have to try to be anything, because simply being myself is enough. With all the other sub-personalities I go into it is like I'm trying to become something. With the meditation I rather just let go of everything and just celebrate life as it is right now instead. As mentioned before I was a buddhist monk for two years, which ended by me going back to normal life in the spring of 2009, almost 10 years ago now. I did a lot of dating and was in two relationships quickly after each other when I got back home, and some dating on and off after that, but it seems like I have this natural pull towards celibacy and monkhood if I don't do something very actively to get involved in dating. Like it dosen't happen by default for me. I have to make an active choice. Anyways, it has been a while since I've been getting laid now, and I've sort of been ashamed by it, and that hasn't exactly helped with my attractiveness, but there was something about realizing just pretty innocently and gently that I've returned back to monk-mode that took this shame away. Like I have this pattern of just seeking towards being in my own space and not getting involved beyond friendship with women. I would really like to be involved with someone eventually, but I think this is really my chance to finally be happy independently of anyone else this time. When I became a monk it was out of fear of women, and when I went into the dating scene quite heavily after that it was out of desperation and not wanting to miss out, but this time I think I can finally be satisfied, relaxed and happy with who I am, so no need to rush anything. All this crazy and desperate stuff we humans do out of fear. Anyways, even though I don't want to become a monk again, I'm really inspired by that period in my life again, like I have a new respect and admiration for that choice, and I think there has been a lot of pretty cool people throughout the ages that have joined monastic orders. I was ordained in the forest tradition from Thailand, and I'm just like really thinking much more positively about this tradition again, seeking inspiration again from all these different teachers that has come out of this tradition. Pretty cool to have meditation as your occupation, which is what a meditation monk is having. Respect for that.

My pain-body So I meditated for 45 more minutes, and this time I could get a very direct sense of my pain-body, as Eckhart Tolle would call it. It feels like a conglomeration of frustrations, bitterness, harshness, judgementalism, sorrow, grief, anger, cynicism and bitterness, that sits in my face, very much in my forehead, and down into my chest, from here it probably spreads out a little bit to my arms and out everywhere, but it is centered around my face and my chest. The whole thing feels kind of dead and life-less. Like some kind of dark, hard, unfriendly and nasty thing. It is not always there, of course, and when it is not there, I feel expansion, love, kindness, joy, etc. But today it is there. I'm going to do one more 45 min session to explore it even further. The meditation I do is vipassana from the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition (a burmese meditation master), and it is basically just about getting a sense of how my whole experience is changing and vibrating all the time. When there is flow and expansion my whole being tends to dissolve into light, strength, energy and vibrations, but today, when my pain-body is more present, my experience feels much harder and contracted, but even still vipassana is about seeing how even this hardness and contractedness still has a vibratory quality to it, even how subtle it might be, it is about tuning into the flowing aspect that even stuckness has.

The dynamics of my mind Been meditating pretty regularly for 17 years now, but still I get very much caught up in identifications and fantasies about what I want to become. Part of the challenge for me is that I'm a bit bipolar, bipolar light you can say, so very often I get high and very inspired as well, and then I forget all about the challenges of life. I even use my meditation as a way to get high. I think it still boils down to commitment. That I haven't been absolutely totally committed to presence. That I still like to escape into my mind and fantasies. Not that this has to be some kind of military discipline either, I think it has to be a very kind and gentle discipline in order for it to work, but still a discipline. I'm just going to write down all my challenges here in my attempt to implement this in my life. For instance today, I've been meditating 45 minutes so far, but now I still feel lonely and a little bit depressed, whereas yesterday, after 3 hours of meditating, I felt like a spiritual warrior again and everything seemed so easy about this. So now I experience disappointment for being at another place which isn't as pleasant as yesterday. For me meditation is going into and embracing and accepting the feelings I'm experiencing. Also embracing the resistance towards what I'm feeling. I'm going to meditate for 45 minutes more here, and then probably I'll have to work with both loneliness, disappointment and resistance towards these feelings. Also there is this really good thing that happens when I can fully acknowledge and own something that I've been resisting. That's when it transforms. I think shame is a big part of this dynamic, because there are so many difficult feelings that is embarrassing and shameful to my self-image to admit that I'm feeling, so I will rather try to hide it from myself than to fully acknowledge it. That's where the "chronic panic and chasing" I have been living in and that I'm still strongly influenced by comes in - chasing around in desperation for external solutions to my internal pain. So yeah, basically I think I have arrived at a point in life where it is really time to just give up. And I mean to give up in a positive sense. To just give up all trying and this and that and to just surrender to my life as it is. I feel all escape strategies have been employed to such a degree now that they fall short on their own ridiculousness.

Mini-retreat So I meditated for 3 hours yesterday, and 2,5 hours so far today. Having like a little mini-retreat here before I go to the christmas party with my family. Already I can feel my energy has really been renewed, and it feels like these worst burnout symptoms I've been experiencing lately are on its way back. Forget what I said yesterday about not being inspired by reading / listening to meditation teachers anymore. Today I'm reading a book from the famous meditation master Ajahn Chah (1918-1992) from Thailand. Here is a picture of him. It always makes me smile when I see this picture :-)

Being VS. becoming Thank you! :-) Great article and perfect to read right now! I feel like I can own this phenomena more now, both by describing it the way I did, and it was a nice understanding to get from that article that this is pretty normal. One of my favorite teachings from one of my meditation teachers is to always ask "what is my filter?" and then to objectify whatever lens one is looking at reality through at that particular moment. Even though I learned this years ago, I still periodically get very much caught up in whatever kind of lens / sub-personality I identify with at that moment, so I just need to continue to work on my commitment to meditation-practice. These days I think I have much "stuckness" in my system, again, that I need to meditate upon in order for it to dissolve into "flow" again. Typically what happens to me through these cycles is that I reach a point of burnout and then I yet again realize there is much suffering in life so I re-affirm my commitments to spiritual practice and meditation, and then, usually pretty quickly but not always, whatever kind of stuckness there was in my system is dissolved and I experience much more flow again, and then one of my much more extroverted sub-personalities tend to "hijack" this energy and use it on outer purposes and spiritual practice doesn't seem that important (although I usually maintain some sort of spiritual practice most of the time but it is different when it is commited from when my focus is constantly extroverted and looking for something outside of myself). Another thing I've been thinking alot about lately is that I don't groove on meditation teachers the same way I used to do, because even though all they say is still as relevant today as it has always been - it is embarrassing to say but I have heard it all before, so that is something I'm missing - finding some youtube teacher or podcast or something to get a kick out of, but perhaps better, these days, is just to write down in my own words how I try to implement these teachings in my own life, and perhaps at some point, when I feel I have gotten a good enough foothold in the territory of presence, then I can articulate my own unique approach to the process of becoming conscious. And that's exactly how it hasn't felt lately - that I have been conscious - it has more felt like I have been in some kind of trance. The trance of becoming. Becoming this or that. It is funny though, so instead of feeding on some kind of mental fantasy about reality, it is so much better when I can just get nutrition out of simple beingness itself. That is so much more aligned.

Today it started out with some initial resistance, but when I actually sat down to do it, it was quite fun, and quickly I was getting the confidence that I would be able to connect with the portrait. I had forgotten all about Betty Edwards perceptual skills, but when I think in her terms, it is much easier to get into it. The focus today was on having a much softer touch with my pen. I also remembered a term one of my art teachers used a lot - simplification. You allow yourself to simplify the shape, since it is only a representation of reality, and not reality itself. I think this is important here in the beginning, to start out with a lot of simplification, and then I can rather add more details and precision later. The interesting thing with the brain, when looking at a naturalistic drawing, is that it does a lot of the interpretation itself. If you only give it some basic shapes that looks like something representing reality, then the brain will accept that as looking like reality, so better to give it something simple that works than something complicated that doesn't work.

I had another journal here that was about creativity, but this one is specifically going to be about drawing from observation, as opposed to drawing from imagination, or improvisation, or by any other means. This is a skill that really triggers me, as I'm very fascinated by this ability, but also it brings up a lot of frustration. From 2012 to 2013 I spent one year in a traditional art school which had this skill as its foundation, and with the help of the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, I was able to finally understand what this skill is about (the teachers weren't really so good at explaining it to me). She dissects the global skill of drawing into five basic component skills, and, which she claims, these are not drawing skills, but perceptual skills: The global skill of drawing: One: the perception of edges Two: the perception of spaces Three: the perception of relationships Four: the perception of lights and shadows Five: the perception of the whole, or gestalt I continued to draw like this for another year after that year at art school was over, but then I stopped, and have only been drawing in a much more improvised way since. Naturalistic drawing has always had very much a feeling of hit-or-miss and dabbling, and my line was still pretty crude and unrefined. However, now that I have started up again, I have a desire to take it to the next level, where I can really see that my line starts to get more refined and artistic and that there is a sense of effortlessness in it. My first goal will be to just draw something from observation for 30 days now, just something every day, if only for 10 minutes, to get back to this habit. I have already started as part of that other journal I had here, and it feels like all my previous skills are gone and that I'm starting from scratch. However I have gotten a sense of warming up a little bit to it again today, so that is very motivating. Perhaps the thing I enjoy the most about this is the feeling I get when it feels like the interaction between me and the thing I'm drawing just "clicks," like I lock in on the shape and I "see" it and there is a clear link between what is going on with my pen and what I see in front of me. Before this feeling it feels very frustrating and just like stumbling around in the dark, but when this feeling kicks in the whole thing is energized. Here are three drawings I did in 2014, and they are my reference point for what I need to get back to. I will also go into how this relates to my meditation practice, and explore the correlation between drawing and meditation. I'm reading a pretty cool book now called "The Zen of Seeing - Seeing/Drawing as meditation" by Frederick Franck.

Getting started again So I've drawn 4 quick portraits so far, about one every day, plus some smaller tasks, like different everyday objects. With the 4th portrait I was getting some energy and inspiration from it again. It was quite a rough start getting into this again. But today I found an old sketch book from when I was doing this more often 4 years ago, and I have to say, the level was much higher back then than I could remember, so that was inspiring. I remember I used to judge myself a lot back then as well, thinking it was far from any good, but actually I had gotten a good foothold into the territory at that point, even though there was no sense of mastery. So today I'm pretty far from where I was, but the portrait from today was the first evidence that I'm not totally lost and that it will be possible to pick up where I left 4 years ago. Now the thing is my line is pretty crude, which is was back then as well, so I hope to get a sense of mastery and effortlessness this time, and to be able to make my line more beautiful and artistic, or at least find my own personal style that looks like something I own, and not just something that I struggle to get down. Kind of strange that I feel so frustrated around this even though I have a lot of experience with meditation, and I meditate upon all these feelings. But I think there is a longing to feel more in flow, and right now these materials are not quite doing what I would like them to do. Anyways, let's just conclude with I'm over the worst warming up to it again phase now, and that I can continue doing this every day with a sense of curiosity and excitement. This is really my chance to take this to the next level, and I think if had gotten a sense of mastery out of this that would have really added to my self-esteem regarding this whole thing. It would have been like a project that is just rusty and run dry and without much juice would have finally found its life-force. The picture I get in my head is of a run-down, broken, fabric, that hasn't been used for years, and then suddenly someone decides to bring it back into action, fix it up, clean it up, bring in new and enthusiastic workers, etc. I think that is how I feel in general these days, like a run-down, broken, fabric, and I'm looking for which ingredients I need to get this system to work properly again. Both naturalistic drawing and meditation seems like key-ingredients. I'm a bit burned out because it was too much both working in a psychiatric hospital and studying to become a gestalttherapist, so gestaltherapy is thrown out, and creativity is moved up in priority again. I cling on to naturalistic drawing in order to give my life meaning and purpose in this period of changing direction, and probably I also need to mediate a lot to counteract this burnout. I have a pretty cool book called "The Zen of Seeing - Seeing/Drawing as meditation" by Frederick Franck, that I'm going to read now. Perhaps I'll start a journal which is more specifically about naturalistic drawing, since the music-part of this seems to have faded. I'll think a little bit about it.

Hello, my name is Thittato, and I'm a social worker, psychedelic explorer and long-time meditator. For a while I've been feeling the need to go deeper with one of my creative interests, and the choice has now fallen on music. Part of this journal will be figuring out where I want to go with it. I started playing the guitar 7-8 years ago inspired by joining my first ayahuasca ceremony and becoming very inspired by the musicians there. Ayahuasca is a very musical psychedelic and the musical traditions that has been established around this brew is really impressive. My first goal when I started to learn the guitar was simply to be able to strum some simple chords while I was singing a mantra-song at the same time. This has developed into quite a lot mantra-songs, and various strumming patterns, fingerpicking patterns, etc, and also I've learned 2 simple classical solos, and now I'm working on my 3. simple classical solo. I also improvise on the guitar, and this is also a skill I can see has developed. Also I improvise with singing while I play, and I have written a few simple songs. Still I haven't quite gotten the foothold in guitar-territory that I wanted. First step to get there will be to master this 3. simple guitar solo flawlessly by memory, and then to really fine-tune and master all these three simple guitar solos by memory so at least I have that as part of my vocabulary. I can see that developing a vocabulary of things committed to memory will be good for me as a musician, so perhaps I make a list. The other goals will become clearer as we go. Also I dabble in: - Singing (already mentioned) - drumming (djembe) - didjeridoo - dancing - jaw harp - keyboard - ukulele

So after having been smashed totally to the ground by naturalistic drawing, I put together this piece this evening that I was actually quite satisfied with. So even though naturalistic drawing doesn't quite translate directly into this, I thing the humbling part of it really gives energy and focus to the process as a whole.

The challenges of naturalistic drawing Okei, so holy crap, I've been sketching today, and been trying to get back into the groove with naturalistic drawing, and pheeeew, that was not easy at all. It is probably like someone who hasn't been to the gym for several years, and is in deep shock the first time when trying to get back to it. So with my "ADHD kind of personality," this has a lot of challenges, especially the emotional component of how much self-loathing it triggers is really bad, but I will see if I can just mediate on these feelings, and continue for some days with sketching and try to warm up to it again. I will only do quick sketches to begin with, and put the bar really low, just to get warm again and not put too much pressure on myself to begin with. I was out in nature, doing a few drawing I felt really really REALLY bad about, that got me into a really nasty state, but on the positive side of it, I noticed to my surprise how intensely beautiful the nature looked afterwards. Like the trees, and the colors, and the shapes, etc, my interest in how things bends and get into all kinds of interesting shapes was really super-increased, and then I remembered that drawing from observation is really something that changes ones states of consciousness, as one gets out of ones head and into ones senses and there is a really increased interest for what is going on in the visual field, to really look deeply at things. So that last part of this experience was very motivating. I also forgot, it seems like most people when doing a naturalistic drawing session, there is a varm-up period first, with quick sketches just to get into it. You don't just go directly for the main drawing. You need to get into groove first. Even noticing now, when looking at peoples profile pictures on facebook, that there is a much more acute interest in the visual details. That is pretty cool. I imagine if you want to capture a really great portrait drawing, there has to be this really great interplay between capturing the visual appearance of the person, but also you have to see the essence / soul of that person, and get that to shine through the visual appearance. It cannot be just a mechanical representation. And that makes it really interesting, because, connecting on a deep level, both with my self, with nature, with people I meet, and with the present moment, that is something I care deeply about. Even though I'm giving up on becoming a gestalttherapist, I've gotten a lot of inspiration from it, especially this one quote from Fritz Pearls, the founder of gestalttherapy: "Loose your mind and come to your senses."

Quitting psychotherapy So I've been in therapy for almost three years now, and studying to become a psychotherapist myself for 1,5 years at the same school that my therapist is a teacher and owner at. I've been in doubt about whether I wanted to continue this education for half a year now, as being a social worker in a psychiatric hospital at the same time as taking part in these really demanding psychotherapeutic group-processes in this education is just simply too much for me and I've been longing for a long time now to have more time and energy to explore my creativity, so finally, a few days ago I decided enough was enough and told the teachers I'm quitting. I also think 3 years in total in therapy is more than enough, and now I simply need to learn to trust myself. To continue in therapy past this point I think would have been really counterproductive causing me more loss than gain. I do meditate on a daily basis, and this will be my therapy from now on, in combination with creative expression. So I'm just really really really relieved that this decision has finally been made, as I started getting close to a burnout here. My life will be much more simple from now on. Sooooo many processes going on this fall..... hahhha........ 2018 was a challenging year, but a lot of good learning. I think 2019 will be pretty cool, and now I'm preparing for what my focus and intention will be for that year :-)

Beginners mind So in order for my art to grow again, I have to return to beginners mind. Its very easy to assume the role of an expert, even though I'm stuck and unfulfilled like hell. I remember when I started out with this almost 10 years ago when I left that buddhist monastery, I was filled with such youthful and vibrant enthusiasm. I get the impression that a lot of my friends are less than impressed with my art, which is a huge understatement, and rather than being in denial about this, I have to be really honest with myself that I'm not at all where I would like to be. Also it is much more charming to have a sense of humor about the fact that a lot of the stuff that I make is a bunch of crap. The whole thing doesn't have to be so serious. At least I keep on trying. Pretending I'm something I'm not only blocks the process. So humbleness and kindness, both to myself, and towards everyone else. My art is growing again, like a tiny little flame in a very windy environment. Got to keep nurturing it with kindness and patience. Also I think part of the reason why I've been so bi-polar about this, is because I'm putting my self-worth into the results. If it looks cool I'm great, and if it is crap that means I'm crap. I should rather learn to look at it like a skilled craftsman who can carefully judge whether it fulfills the level of quality I'm looking for or not, rather than it being some kind of hit-or-miss thing that defines my self-worth. And by understanding more and more about how this process works, it will be easier to trust that I can bring it in the direction that it is meant to go.