Day 424 - Disregarding Time

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stay up really late into the night.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to be self-honest about the consequences of staying up till the wee hours of the morning.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can get away with very little sleep, when the reality is that I will sleep longer into the coming day.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delay my daily blog until the end of the day, and then feel bad when I don't or can't finish it by midnight.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to squander the extra time I have each day from sleeping less than the average person.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore when my body is telling me to go to sleep.

-- and the real issue here --

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to watch back-to-back episodes on netflix in total disregard of time, and not see, realize or understand the direct consequences of disregarding time.

--

When and as I see myself accepting and allowing auto-play to so easily propel me into the next episode, I stop, I breathe. I realize that I am making a decision here, and auto-play is not to blame. I commit myself to decide beforehand - how much time I want to spend watching television before I begin.

When and as I see myself staying up late into the night, I stop, I breathe. I remember to check myself, honestly, to consider if what I want to stay up late doing, is worth the trade off of time I'd otherwise have in the morning. I commit myself to considering my hours in the day within equity.

When and as I see myself believing I am special in my ability to stay up late and wake up early, I stop, I breathe. I realize that I'm not special, as many others sleep even less than I do. Within that, I realize that I'm limiting my potential by making myself special through comparison. I commit myself to apply the tool of humility and access the awareness of incredible potential of each hour, of every day.

Until next time...

Day 410 - Processing Procrastination NOW

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can always do it later, and within this, not see, realize and understand my full capacity to accomplish something now.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use excuses that lead me into the belief that there isn't enough time to do something now. I commit myself to applying common sense here, and utilizing self-honesty to determine if I am simply making an excuse or not.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself delay taking full responsibility for myself in the current moment.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to recognize my potential to accomplish something NOW or immediately.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be impatient, and within that, not have enough time NOW, to accomplish something real, something physical, something that takes a length of time to create.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can spend my time better by doing nothing in particular, than if I were to slow down and spend a few moments to complete a creation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that procrastination is just part of who I am and how I do things, and that "I do not really want to change this behavior."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that "procrastination is a skill that I do well and thus benefits me."

I commit myself to slowing down, to consider the real timelines of creation and determine what I can accomplish in this moment that is best for me and all.

I commit myself to realizing the power of the current moment.

I commit myself to STOP postponing that which can be accomplished now.

I commit myself to giving myself the self-honesty required to decide how I can apply myself within my utmost potential in this very moment.

I commit myself to stop running away from responsibility, suppressing it, and pushing it into the future (that never comes). And so within this, I recognize that self-empowerment comes from what I chose to create in the moment that is here, now.

When and as I see that I self-honestly do not have enough time to complete something, I commit myself to deferring the responsibility to a specific time in the future. I commit myself to utilizing a calendar or task list, when necessary, to ensure that I do not suppress my taking responsibility indefinitely.

Why wait when I can do it now?

I just wrote this blog and I only "lost" 35 minutes. Rather. I traded 35 minutes for a new depth of understanding within my decision process of taking immediate action.

WORTH IT!

Thank you.

Day 384 - Mini-Day Scheduling: Resistance Dimension

In my last two posts, Day 383 - Directing Uncertainty & Day 382 - Uncertainty Flavored Resistance, I began to examine my relationship with uncertainty. Although it was more in relation to being halted by a fear of failure in some way, I realized that there is more that must be looked at within it.

Lately, I've been taking a more specific look at how to most efficiently structure my daily responsibilities. There is a methodology that I came across when I was only in the 6th grade that was referred to as the Mini-Day Schedule*. I'm taking a second crack at it now! I found it to be a little over my head when I was younger. So far, I'm finding that again, I'm facing similar resistances to putting this concept to work in my life. What's different this time is having many more explicitly known responsibilities. I can't afford to allow the uncertainty of how this new schedule functions to get in my way from practically applying this supposedly invaluable tool. Here's another dimension of how I've accepted and allowed uncertainty to sway me: procrastination. This is one of the very points that establishing this new Mini-Day schedule will support me to stop. This self-sabotaging game is done here.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand how I've been sabotaging myself through giving into the resistance and delaying my active effort to create an efficient schedule of my daily living participation.

In this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist and delay implementing new/foreign techniques that I do not have a mental certainty of the successful use and outcome thereof.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I will be defined by my mistakes when trying something new.

I commit myself to now face this point and walk each step of creating a mini-day schedule for myself, so that I may establish a foundation from which I can make improvements until I am consistently effective in applying this tool of structuring my responsibilities.

Now, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist holding myself accountable for my use of time. I realize that to record all the physical movements throughout my day to day living requires self-honesty and the grace of accepting that I'm not as perfect as I think I am. (weakness & strength polarity) I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist facing the self-honest truth of what I actually do with my time.

When and as I see that I am trying to protect and defend myself from the honest truth of how I currently spend my time, I stop and I breathe. I realize that it's not something to take personally. Taking it personally is why we get stuck in reactive mode. I realize that many of my decisions are made by the programs in my mind that I've established over time through intricate and specific fears and desires. Within this, I realize that the key is to identify each Decision Maker Program that does not contribute to my ultimate interest, that which is best for all, and shut it down.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing parts of myself when I am faced with the moment of making a decision either as a self-interested program or as a self-honest awareness of all relevant factors. Too often short term interests seem to be too appealing to deny. I do not want to deny myself something apparently 'great'.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget about the bigger picture for a moment of weakness where I allow a mental program to make a decision for me, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the moment of self-dishonesty where I allow myself to delude myself for long enough to allow the program to choose for me.

I commit myself to self-honestly look at my day, record my actions, and begin this process of grouping my actions into fluid physical movements, allowing me to move swiftly through my daily responsibilities.


Thanks reader.
Leave a comment to share any perspectives or questions you may have.


*Credit for the Mini-Day Schedule concept goes to the writings of Mark Hamilton. For a brief overview, you can check out this blog post by D. Trauterman. Credit for the Self-Forgiveness process obviously goes to Desteni and the Desteni I Process.

Disclaimer: No tool can help you unless you are willing to use it properly.

Day 309 - Time Management

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be passive when it comes to time management.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be paranoid about not having enough time to accomplish everything I want to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wish that I had more time.

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to realize the oneness and equality of myself as the only solution to effective time management

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for wasting my time, and in this creating a negative charge on being social.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to procrastinate responsibilities through social justifications so that I can confirm my belief that others are the reason why I have difficulty with time management.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from this moment here, not realizing the capacity of my creative potential in every here-moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disrespect myself and cheat myself out of opportunity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeatedly allow vague justifications that are coupled with a temporary alleviation of the resistance energy-feeling experienced when facing a responsibility/work task.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, in a moment here, forget the net sum of all that I want to do.

In one week, I'll report use changes.

I commit myself to writing out all my goals. I will do this in two forms, one of which had been missing, the other, inconsistent. The missing one is a list of general to-do that is not time/day specific. The inconsistent one is my day-specific task lists. This one is typically too idealized (not practical) or it is empty. On rare occasions it is completed, and it feels good.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel good / bad according to my efficacy levels with regards to completing my daily task list, not realizing how I am removing myself from simplicity of utilizing this tool to practically and effectively manage my time.

I commit myself to continue utilizing this daily task list in a way that effectively assists and supports me to accomplish tasks.

When and as I see myself not using or not completing my daily tasks, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am able to slow down and consider why I am not using this tool effectively. I commit myself to support myself through the effective use of written time management tools.

The stream of to-do that isn't adhered to a specific time will be experimental. The idea is to write down everything to provide a sense of what I could, should, and need to be doing, and as I examine the list, I can place tasks and sub-tasks into my daily planner.

Another point I'd just come to realize the significance of is task to time frame planning. In the past I've only scheduled in written times when I had appointments. I haven't ever blocked of a specific hour for specific self-directed tasks, other than this blog - which typically defaults to the last hour of the day because of reasons/motivations I haven't fully come to terms with.

When and as I see myself wandering aimlessly through time, either via personal delay or social justification, I stop I breathe. I realize that I have the ability to direct myself effectively in the context of all. I commit myself to assisting and supporting myself to see, realize and understand the bigger picture so that I am able to give context to my efforts, and lack thereof. This is to be accomplished in part by writing my objectives. This will expand, evolve and be refined as I practice. Effective time management is a critical key of success.

Support what is best for self and all.

Write, practice, perfect.

Day 301 - For Real Though, Go to Bed

Last night didn't go so well. It's like I directly disobeyed myself from the perspective of my post yesterday. Given, I had a 90 minute evening nap that kind of messed up my tiredness schedule. I'm not going to beat myself up, AND I'm also not going to suppress the whole thing. That's been a favorite coping mechanism of mine when I've failed in making a self-change in some of my earlier JTL posts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress failure.

I didn't get to bed last night until after watching a few episodes of NBC's Revolution, and reading a bit until I  got too sleepy and had to go to bed. This routine of not attempting to sleep until I am sleepy is how I believed myself to be 'good' at falling asleep. The issue isn't really that I can't sleep unless I'm sleepy. The issue is that I misuse my time. In turn, abuse of time results in awkward sleeping patterns.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be able to sleep when I am not tired.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I am flawed because I cannot sleep at will.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse time in such a way that my following day is compromised.

Today, when I woke up I was tired but wanted to have a productive day. I resorted to taking a cognitive enhancer commonly known as adderall. I've experimented with this only a few times before in college. I was always weary of it because I didn't want to become reliant on it. Still now, I see myself fearing inability to deal with and face my own mentally created resistance to focused application of myself in doing work. It's not a simple correction...from the perspective of the resistance that is me. From the perspective that is the life that is me, I don't get tired except by design. There's no reason I can't focus on something, unless I allow myself to sway in the mental tides of attention. Thus,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am susceptible to and a helpless victim of the feeling of lethargy. This is when I feel tired, clouded, distracted, or not having enough energy. I realize that my attention is only defined by an energy fluctuation when I allow it to be. I also realize, that I am not going to get a solid grip on ALL of my mental movements (in the form of backchat or thoughts that create these lethargic feelings) overnight; however, I am able to take on one point at a time. I commit myself to walking through one point of self-change at a time, to completion. This specifically entails I do not slip up where I have made a correction and then suppress it and keep going, no. This means that I do not fall without reconsidering my relationship to each relevant point through the writing process. (Meta Alert) This blog is a great example.

I commit myself to begin walking my day more effectively, instead of delaying everything until the last minute, which really turns into not getting things done. Accomplishment 101: Do work, either now or during a reasonable time frame AS AN AGREEMENT WITH SELF. I commit myself to begin assisting and supporting myself with scheduling agreements that are intimately serious and practical.

Recap of working points:
- Go to bed within a mental state of completion, meaning, to have all my affairs in order and prepared for a lively tomorrow. "Prevention is the best cure," they say. I say they're right, and I'm done waking up with no orientation to the work/tasks of the day.
- Sleep when tired, but do not delay sleep.
- Watch fluctuation of attention, and write out the backchat that empowers the resistance feelings and is used to justify a lack of self-direction.

My sleep character is now in my sights. Remember to write out the thoughts that pertain to some aspect of "I can't (stay focused)." This is all me. I take responsibility. And I'm going to press through resistance until resistance realizes that it can't mess with me anymore.

For now, goodnight.

 pic credit

Day 300 - Correcting Sleep Patterns

For as long as I can remember, I've spent the majority of my nights in a silent fight with myself. The basic idea was to postpone falling asleep as long as I can, to make full use of my time at night. Why was the nighttime special to me? It was time I had to myself.

Primarily in a family setting when this habit formed, I enjoyed social interaction during the day, but when the late evening arrived and everyone is doing their own thing, I would go into learning and work mode. It seemed the best way to use my time, and through this I developed an emphasized value on the late hours of the day. The results: Many late nights due to saving / delaying my work until the night & I utilized these late nights for self growth and understanding. It was opposite of how I perceived my peers and family to be. This inflated my ego superiority through "I am investing my free time into understanding whatever I am curious about." In college, most of my free (night) time to myself disappeared, and I doubled up on social time. This caused me to react and subtly define social time negatively as "social distraction." Now, I am for the most part free of obligated time structure, so I have full responsibility of my schedule. For the first time, I get to observe myself spending time throughout the entire day without anything to blame but me.

What have I found? I haven't made the changes I want to see with any amount of consistency.

What do I want? To spend my day time effectively and start respecting my sleep cycle.

How? Through self-corrected living application of course!

Why? Because fighting sleep usually means unpleasant mornings that can put  my whole day in a slump.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not need to sleep very much and thus can afford to postpone sleeping.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the connection between how/when I fall asleep and how/when I wake up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think "I'll sleep when I die."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am special because I can get by with less sleep than others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am cool and special because I can stay up the latest and rise the earliest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value the nighttime hours more than other daytime hours.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take ownership of and be responsible for how I spend my time in every moment, through blaming others for my daytime social preoccupation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to tell myself that I utilize the night hours best in being the most productive then, when the reality is that I am not always productive in the nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself by maintaining a routine of mental alertness and increased work ethic only at nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reserve only the nighttime for self-introspection and self-growth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it's too difficult to blog during the day because I am not forced to do it just yet. This is a subtle delay justification that I'm not very conscious of, but nonetheless, has a powerful effect. This one point of delay justification has been defining me too heavily and I will not continue to allow it to dictate how I do what when!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not investigate my sleeping habits until now.

--

I commit myself to begin watching when/how I fall asleep and when/how my wake up commences.

When and as I see myself postponing my blog/work until nighttime because "I don't have to do it yet," I stop I breathe. I realize that I am compromising myself, my process, and so the entire process of the human race, in that one single moment of "I don't have to do it yet." I commit myself to assist and support myself to no longer utilize this excuse design of putting off work and abdicating self-responsibility in each and every moment.

When and as I see myself fighting with myself to stay awake longer, I stop I breathe. I realize that sleeping might be whats best for all, for providing myself adequate time to rest will allow me to be fully ready to walk an effective day tomorrow. I commit myself to embodying the realization of continuity between days and respecting the sleep cycle as an equal and one value of time spent. Till here no further do I hide the connection of my tomorrow from my today. No more do I allow myself to distract myself instead of going to bed.

From here forward, I will be mindful of my sleeping habits, and I commit myself to on the fly correction when and as I see myself abusing my nighttime.

picture credit

Day 299 - Doing one thing, Thinking about another

The concept of thinking about 'other' stuff when one is doing something else: it is a quandary. While enjoying the morning sunshine, I was thinking about this concept and amused by my meta-ness. I realized that this type of separation from the moment here is widespread and pervasive. I also made a connection to self-doubt: If I was confident that I can and would do all that I need to do when I'm doing it, I would have no impulse to figure out what to do in advance.

Elaborating with an example: Here I am. Thinking about the near future. Why? I don't trust my future self, I am uncomfortable with uncertainty, I am worried/anxious, and it can be a source of motivation for the initial movement from here.

These are the initial justifications that come up supporting separation. Lacking self-trust, relationship with uncertainty, anxious/worried, and practical motivation. It's interesting to look at it now and see all the different movements, whereas in the past when I've seen myself doing one thing and thinking another, I would just focus on that practical motivation justification and dismiss the investigation with "well I must think about what I'm doing next." I realize now that many of my wandering journeys into thought are brought into motion by deep seated personality dynamics that I've spent little to no time investigating. So if I don't want to be a particular personality that manifests from a subconscious layer, I must give myself the time to map that personality and discover the inner workings of it/me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide the totality of myself behind a single justification and not realize it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to emphasize and stop at the contemplative solution that makes sense and requires no further effort or self-change.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid that I can't give up my daydreaming.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think I need to think about the future because if I do not, then I will do nothing.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself that I can accomplish what is already on my to do list, given that I have allowed myself enough time to do so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I do not trust myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am worried and anxious when I begin thinking about what I will do later on.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the uncertainty I have of myself, my direction in the future, and what that implies: abdication of self-responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to worry.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to know everything now.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to know and control my future now.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failure.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope I will do what I want to do, instead of realizing my responsibility to practically do that I want to do.

When and as I see myself justifying a personality or opinion that I have about myself, I stop I breathe. I realize that I may very well be missing something when I sense myself in fight/argument mode with myself. I commit myself to checking myself to see if I am emotionally invested in a contemplative solution, and if so, breathe and check myself again within self-honesty.

When and as I see myself thinking about what I have to do today from an anxious state of mind, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am here right now, and I will be able to appropriately direct myself within a task when the time comes. I commit myself to spending time with myself here in this moment, to face me in self-honesty.

When and as I see myself worried about my ability to accomplish the tasks of my future, I stop I breathe. I realize that to frantically try to walk all the steps of my future tasks in my head instead of enjoying my breakfast, for example, is a futile waste of energy. I commit myself to breathe myself back to the moment here, and take a practical stance to assess how I will need to structure my day / budget my time.

Each of these components will need to be minded. I commit myself to watching myself keenly when and as I see myself in thought in separation of the moment here. This is going to be an interesting sub-journey, as I've long thought it impossible to stop thinking / worrying about my immediate future. Challenge accepted. Game on. Come at me Mind! Show me what you're made of! :)

picture from here