Camp Journal

[fopylo]

Please read this in order to understand the context of everything here:

So I've been saying it a few times in this forum, but for whoever didn't get to hear - I'm leaving for a 6 month pre-military camp. This means I'm going to live with a bunch of people, traveling, learning about the country, moving a place every 3 weeks or so and I'm coming home once in 2 weeks.
For you to understand the difference in lifestyle, the last few years I've been living so comfy hardly going to school (because I've finished some of the subjects already) and coming home to be so free to be on my laptop the whole day thinking  about my life. I was living a fantasy, mostly in my head, thinking that one day all that and all the consuming of self-help videos will get me somewhere.

Anyways, I drifted, so I'm leaving in a few hours to Jerusalem and about to start this journey.

I will be using this journal to record the things which are happening in the camp, but mostly my thoughts and feelings to share with others and myself. This is quite a scary shift in lifestyle and I really think I'll need some support.

I'm entering into an unknown territory, circumstances are changing and becoming more difficult to manage. I gotta get on track on my life. For that I have decided to get help from people here and decided that a wise decision would be getting coached, like with @Nahm.

I will try my best to inform you about this whole journey. It came sooner than I expected, and my access to this forum and the internet and self help and whatever will be limited. Finding the freedom to just manage the basics of my life is foundational to having the freedom to direct my life in a great direction.

Anyways, after all I'm just a guy behind a screen typing in some text, and will type text here and there,
but my whole life is fucking changing right now and it's overwhelming a bit.

I hope the best for myself.

[fopylo]

So today I had my first day at camp. I was quite nervous before getting there, and when I got there I took a lift with another 2 girls from the camp and we got to the main bus, where everyone waited for us basically.

I was surprised to see myself getting out of my comfort zone and I was greeting everyone hello. I even literally went seat by seat to say hello and recall the names and have small chats. I felt like quite a Chad. I heard from a girl after we got off that I'm very friendly.

So since we're like 40-50 something kids overall in this camp, we are divided into 2 groups of like 20 something each, which we are going to travel with them for the entire 6 months. Here we are separating ways. The guides tolled us the groups at the beginning and I was very happy with the people I got.

Later in the day we were divided yet again into two communions of like about 10-15 each, which is the most intimate group, but overall we will be mostly with the 20 something combined groups of both communions.

The 5 kids I got to share a room with are very nice and glad I got them. Sensitive, compassionate, I don't feel intimidated by them (maybe 1 of them is less of all of that and usually smokes and shit but overall I believe he is good).

A small problem I've faced today is that down feeling of after being very social for the whole day. In the evening it was becoming hard for me to keep up with the social energy and I didn't feel like pushing myself.

Later we had a talk with the most intimate group, and perhaps there I discovered how to overcome this problem.

At some point we talked about personal things, and also "one-on-one"s with random people, and I got to share my true thoughts and fears with one of my roommates. I told him about how the whole issue of the showers and sleeping and organization and basically how living together made me stress towards the night. He could relate and eventually things ran smoothly here.

I hope things continue this way. I'll be living with them here for the next 4 days and I hope to grow somehow from all of that.

[fopylo]

So this happened (and is still happening).

This kid that is shy and starting to easily make friends while being authentic, and authentically reserved - I'll name him Y.

Today was my birthday and I was overwhelmed with too many "happy birthday"s and it was hard to withstand the level of equanimity required to handle it. They joked a lot. I also became more friendly with Y and with R (which is a nice dude that I sometimes envy because of his strong presence and calmness).

There is a lot that happened, and I might talk about it in more depth tomorrow but maybe not.

I was feeling quite down because I was resisting and wasn't always feeling comfortable when people were jokingly singing happy birthday every time they saw me lol. No but for real I was also feeling kinda down.

The thing is that towards the evening and at nighttime, I suddenly felt like I have more energy and I was more easy going. I don't know how this really happened. I was just genuinely talking with R.

And also at night I gave a show playing my melodica while L (another roommate) was singing and it was nice. I also in general felt quite in the center at that time in general. It made me feel good. But this time it was different in the sense that I questioned whether this is something good. I might have been attached to this ideal image I was talking about and I became more of it, hence I felt good, attached.

@Nahm About his last paragraph, is it a good thing that happened, that I felt good because I was in the center? I might feel worse afterwards. I've also read what you wrote, and I've been practicing getting into my senses and breath when overthinking too much, because ultimately, the reason why I'm overthinking is because I'm trying to solve something, to manage, to feel good, and sensing feels good.

I need to read probably again what you wrote because I was planning replying to you and/or Eph7. Thanks for the support man.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to Tzipori, and I'll meet a friend of mine there in a parallel camp in the evening probably. Until then, I have like 5 hours of sleep so I'm gone.