Day 436 - Breath Prayer: Introduction & Report 1

What is a Breath Prayer?

It's a moment of focused awareness on breathing. Sitting or lying down comfortably, take a minimum of 5 minutes to focus on the body mechanics of breathing: in and out. When and as thoughts creep up, stop them, and return awareness to breathing in and out.

What is the purpose?

To get acquainted with the physical body. This task can prove to be difficult as we are constantly living in our minds, day in and day out. Giving this moment to ourselves helps strengthen our connection to our body, while also giving our body a moment's rest from the mind consciousness system.

Why is it significant?

This practice is helps strengthen our focus and self-directive willpower, in and as the physical. We are so often in our mind, choosing our actions from within a constant barrage of thoughts, that slowing ourselves down, into the pace of the physical, is a sincere challenge, especially at first. Beginning to realign our starting point of consideration into the physical, as our body, is a tremendous gift to self and all. It's a path toward living common sense, for real. Toward considering what is best for self, and all, and then acting on it. A stable body, aligned within physical reality, would not incite war through anger, as anger is a product of mind. Practicing breath prayer for a minimum of 5 minutes a day is an act of showing ourselves and that we do not have to continue accepting and allowing the mind to direct us. Our physical is more powerful in fact. Get to know the power of a single breath, and stop stressing out.

My experience after 3 weeks of practice:

In the beginning, I did find it very challenging to not entertain the thoughts that came up. I would experience some of the thoughts as more important/pressing, so I'd allow myself to get distracted by them. Several times I ended up doing 20+ minute sessions of this exercise because I'd get frustrated and feel like I had to start over (perfectionism).

I did this exercise an average of about 5 days a week thus far. My goal was 5-7 times a week. Remembering to actually do this exercise is a deliberate decision. The more I understand the significance and purpose (I'm sure I've only scratched the surface above) the easier it is to make the choice to slow down and make the time for this exercise. It seems that sparing 5 minutes should be easy, but I'm very used to rushing around in my day/life/mind. Breaking that momentum is as simple as a decision.

I've noticed that the effects of doing this permeate the rest of the day. The pace of my consciousness seems slower, and I think this supporting me to make better decisions all day long. I know that the more I play with this, the more gifts with be unveiled.

Since starting, I have found it becoming easier to focus on the in-breath and the out-breath. When the thoughts arise, I simply move back into directing my breath flow. I am my body. I've also noticed that I can make it harder or easier for myself BY CHOICE. If I'm not willing to commit to the 5 minutes (because I have so many other things going on to think about), then I can almost be sure that I won't make it.

This practice requires focus and dedication, and rewards us in kind. I encourage all to try this. Or if you have already, I dare you to do it for 21 days straight.

...I'll take that dare myself! Thank you very much. Report 2 due on November 26th.

Day 367 - Participating in the Creation of a Shared Reality

As the only person at the new years party that doesn't drink alcohol, I found myself awkwardly putting my fist up into the mix of plastic red cups as one of the random party goers announces a toast. Just before I did so, I was standing back and observing the situation as an outsider. The spirit of togetherness was embedded in that 'cheers' speech, and the guy said to no one in particular, "come on! I know we can all get in on this." That's when I realized he was, in part, talking to me. Getting everyone involved was more important than the fact that I didn't have a drink in my hand.

It was at this moment that I could see the dynamic of a shared reality in contrast to just observing the scene without even a real awareness that you're even in the room yourself! I reflected on it a bit, and the implications of this realization are expansive, and I will do my best to articulate them here to solidify my understanding and embodiment of them, and to share them with you. I will expand on each with context in posts to come as I commence the process of integrating this concept into actions.

The first and coolest aspect of this realization is that regardless of whether or not you choose to participate in the group dynamic or not, one is still creating reality. In the context of the all-inclusive cheers example, my lack of participating would have had a particular effect on the rest of the group. The main point being that we each have a presence when in a room with other people, and when we're here with people in our immediate environment, we're either within a shared reality, or we're in our minds within a temporary alternate reality.

I don't know about you, but throughout my life, I've spent a lot of time in my own little personal reality, observing and judging those around me. This is where it gets extra interesting: In relation to those around me, I formed opinions and judgments about who I am. This 'who I am' is a mental projection reality version of myself that is idealized and likeable and successful in every area of life. BUT AT THE SAME TIME, my physical participation with others hardly ever matched my internal self-concept formed through judgment. In truth, I actually held myself back from shared reality creation because I have long held a dynamic judgment toward myself, a fear that I would be seen in the same negative light that I see in others.

Moral of the story: judgments are really self-limiting judgments projected onto others, AND this design of judgment is one of those individual alternate mind realities that take us away from the shared group reality. So, just one example of how the mind screws us out of having a good time. But see, the mind is not to blame so much as it is self's choice to go with the mind, into a reality that is not here, is not shared with those in our company. With that:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear judgment from others, and within that, suppress myself from fully participating with the shared here-moment, let alone initiate a shared reality. I see, realize and understand this critical moment of being swayed from physical reality up into a mind created reality that primarily includes just myself. I see, realize, and understand how the mind utilizes my identification with the ego-self as a way to justify a prolonged departure into a reality that looks at various dynamics in relation to self as ego only; general examples being fear of judgment, and desire for praise/recognition.

I commit myself to slowly working through each point of self-judgment that the mind uses to keep me invested in alternate realities instead of just walking with common sense from moment to moment. Illustrative personal example from last night: During a drinking game, I observed the only girl left standing in an utter state of inebriation as she continued to attempt getting the ping pong ball in the cup. She was ready to stop and no one would disagree, but the rules of the game and the unspoken need/desire to make it to the end prevented anyone from standing up and saying "enough!" I debated it in my alternate reality creation, playing out the consequences of what would happen if I did assert myself into the situation. The result of this internal debate tends to always favor the mind in terms of protecting the ego, and that's exactly what happened. I eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn't my place to interfere with her choice to play the game. I then projected this conclusion onto the other players of the game, and it seemed to fit their behavior, so I let it go...but did I really let it go? The length of this paragraph shows me that I'm still attached to this moment. There was a lot of mind participation in just this one moment, and I will need to break it down even further.

Side note: This is one reason I resist blogging. A story can open up into another point, and then that point opens up to reveal an interesting dynamic that runs even deeper. So, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist blogging because I fear that I might write too much on a point that's not directly related to the title of the post, and within this also fearing that if I don't continue to write on the tangent point, that I might miss a critically supportive insight. The solution: Breathe.Take your time. Moving fast is how the mind likes to move (feels good, ego). Moving slow is not, but allows for articulating complexity and bringing a concept into a structured understanding that can be integrated into living application.

More on all this to come. Thanks for reading.

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Day 363 - Why did the chicken cross the road?

Some say the motivation was just to get to the other side...and it's funny. It's funny cause it's true. Because, we were expecting something more.

...I just spent a bit of time researching this classic "anti-joke," and I've found some interesting things. Here's the Wikipedia page, if that suits you...Also, here is a segment from an 8 minute video on the subject that interestingly goes into a neurological theory for why one might laugh at an anti-joke.

A realization I just had while looking more into why the chicken crossed the road: I must stay focused to clearly communicate my message, my conclusion, the point I'm trying to make. It's very easy to get off topic when there are so many directions that this could go, but the gift within this is the puzzle of finding the connection to the original point of discussion and articulating it in a way that readily makes sense.

This point of staying focused within the midst of a racing mind is a point that needs to be stabilized if we want to be effective in reality. To flow with the swaying of the mind is easier than disciplining oneself in physical reality context. This is the basis of what makes "ADD" kids less successful than the elite children in the private schools. I'll be using the Chicken to illustrate my concepts here on. You may see yourself as the Chicken.

Now, when Chicken is facing the road in front of him, and his mind is racing about all kinds of things, how is he going to get to the other side? The Chicken may even contemplate the 'how' as well as entertaining several what if's all related to one fear or another. But the question is: Why did the chicken cross the road? So, as the Chicken takes a deep breath and asks himself, Why?, he possess the power to make a choice and follow through. If a car is coming, it's a simple matter of common sense based in physical reality.

So, knowing your 'why' helps to focus. I'm pretty sure that a real life chicken would just operate with a 'why' starting point, and never even create a single thought. No energy is required for the chicken to motivate himself to cross the road.

So why am I crossing this metaphorical road? Let's first define the road. It's hard, difficult, risky, scary, real. On the other side of my road, I will define this as: being aligned with my physical body and all of physical existence through the principle of oneness and equality, unhindered in my expression (thought, word and deed) of what is Best For All in every moment of every breath. In this here 7-year Journey to Life blog, I'm writing about my process of crossing the road. In this process, I must face the road and forgive myself for creating energetic relationships (difficult, risky, scary, etc.) toward the road/process as well as all that constitutes who I have been in my journey before reaching the road. Getting to the other side is going to take some serious, focused introspection. 

If you took the time to check out that video segment I linked to at the beginning of this post, you get a nice visual for how the mind will operate in anticipation to reduce uncertainty. I most definitely am guilty of doing this, and the way I see it in how it breaks down is an ego desire to be right and the polarity fear of not knowing. This one information analysis/projection system of the mind is a major source of anxiety. Add it all up: Desire + Fear + Anxiety = petrified in uncertainty. Welcome to the world of being aware of being mind controlled.

The alternative is to be the Chicken who is so connected to his 'why' of crossing the road, it's clear, it's based in physical reality, that there is no need to think or worry or create projections and anxiety.

With purpose so clear

Focused fully, here

No need for fear

Ass is in gear

Fig. 2 - Ex. Immobilizing thought/desire

Day 362 - What Happened to Daily Writing?!

Slip. Fall.

oops. Now what?

Get back up.


Here, I am standing back up to share my realizations, insights, and process through the mind that's gotten me into this position.

I realize now that I can't walk this physical process in my head. Duh, but why did I think I could? I suppose I forgot the whole physical aspect. My starting point and purpose within writing had become muddled and my foundation of self-support was no longer clear. How? The mind. I took stock in my own thoughts. I casually dismissed writing, as I was "too busy." Right. That's like a level one, primary excuse when giving into resistance energy. As I've now personally seen myself, giving into that resistance energy/feeling produced in the mind is not all it seems to be.

When I move according to the demands of resistance energy, I loose my footing in reality. That's what happened to me, at least in part. My physical foundation from which I am able to direct/lead myself as life into an expression of what's best for all, was a world away. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have trusted that I would manifest my dreams sometime in the future while I repeatedly give my self control over to the mind, instead of realizing my responsibility to direct myself within my mind into physical participation.

Okay, now looking at writing, specifically. Why did I forget about the importance of writing in stabilizing myself  in physical reality? For this answer, I have a poem:

I resisted looking at me
Self-honestly
For what I saw
I didn't want to see.

This is unacceptable, and yet I accepted it within a frame of mind that is my own self-interest. It's awkward that my automated self-interest is to protect me from confronting my fears...as if it was really in my interest to suppress them. That's a reality shattering insight. You get to the point where you see you can't trust your own self-interest, and then what? We write.

You don't "need" support, but you kind of do need it. I could have kept 'running my process' in my mind, and not realize how I was running in circles in my mind, believing myself to be busy, while the physical proof thereof was null. These circles, they are time-loops. A concept I deeply enjoy and have yet to fully grasp. By fully grasp, I mean to understand, to see myself within, to recognize in real time -> stop -> breathe -> move myself in the physical reality.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to underestimate the impact that writing has in physicallizing my inner, and giving me the space-time to see me self-honestly. Within this, I recognize that I am holding myself accountable in the words that I see appear before me by my will. This is self-expression in the physical. This is real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trust my thoughts, my mind, and my inner ability to organize my external living. I have seen the power of organization through writing in simple to-do lists, in spreadsheets, mind maps, business plans, cooperative agreements. This is where power is!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can still just do it all in my mind. A blind and ignorant ego doesn't help create a world that is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand the nature and design of my time-looping participation in the mind. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to justify remaining in the mind through "a need to prepare" before I start living / working toward my aspirations. I'll expand on this in upcoming posts.

I forgive myself for justifying a physical movement, in alignment with other stuff I also have to do, that's initially directed by an internal energy of resistance toward writing or any other primary task that brings up resistance. I've been here before, hence the link. And so I wonder: How many time-loops must I make before I stop and change for real? I must decide this for myself through physical action.

Finally, I UNDERSTAND why the chicken crossed the road...

photo credit: wikipedia

Day 306 - Morning Mind Play

Continuation of:
Day 305 - My Earliest Written Blog Post Yet
Day 304 - Morning Boot Up

Cool. I had a nice opportunity to play with my mind, and what did I find? The morning wasn't kind.

Seriously though, I made some interesting participatory observations. Here's a brief walk through: Alarm goes off, wasn't expecting it, but I adapt. I turn it off during a feeling of heavy wake-up resistance, head straight back to the pillow. Mind reminds me to exercise my breathing application to dissolve the resistance feeling. Slowly, my breathing turns into ego/thought, fail. Recovered 45 minutes later. I realize I can't be laying down in the most comfortable position ever if I want to wake up.

Solution:
One breath   > upright position. Continued breathing until stable. Direct self to begin the day.

Also, reporting on how the rest of my yesterday went after posting my earliest blog ever :
- Got more done.
- Felt like I still needed to be writing during the 10th and 11th hour of the evening
- Bottom line: When I start my day with self-supportive actions, like writing, I continue my day in a relatively more self-supportive way.

So, here I am now, typing up another morning post. It's freeing. It even seems like the day lasts longer. In addition to waking up earlier, I also don't have a looming responsibility that I've put on hold the entire day. The key difference is that instead of wanting to spend my time distracting myself from whatever I am procrastinating, I am free to move on to the next responsibility, effectively accomplishing more in a day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to delay responsibilities and not realize how I'm amplifying my inefficiency by expelling effort within the delay/procrastination suppression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify sleeping in within the domain of my mind while under the influence of morning tiredness energy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fight within myself as the various voices/backchat that are back and forth "do I get up/do I just sleep" not realizing that participating in this inner dialogue IS within the design of the resistance energy that pulls me back to my pillow.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am choosing to place my head back down on the pillow through accepting and allowing that resistance energy to direct me.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize and stand as one and equal with the energies of my mind, taking full responsibility for my actions, instead of blaming my actions on a mind in separation of who I really am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame my mind for my behavior.
--
When and as I see myself delaying a responsibility, I stop I breathe. I realize that if I initiate damage control by trying to hide from my decision to postpone a task, I am being dishonest with myself and creating consequences that I don't want. I commit myself to assist and support myself when operating within a delay, to either face the resistance and do the 'dreaded' task, or engage in other prioritized tasks within an agreement with myself to accomplish the delayed task at a specific time frame.

source

When and as I see myself debating and justifying why I should go back to sleep in the morning, I stop I breathe. I realize that in this state of mind, I am unfit to make a stable decision. I commit myself to sit up and breathe until the resistance energy is not the sole director of my decision. As I consider all that I could be doing with my day and as the resistance is no longer overwhelming, I will allow myself to go back to sleep if that seems needed. For now I am on a probationary period of one month. If this point becomes an issue again, I'll make adjustments.

When and as I see myself blaming my mind for my behavior, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am the mind, that there is no separation, that no one but me alone is responsible for my behavior. I commit myself to assisting and supporting myself to identify each relationship point of blame/separation  between myself and my mind, so that I can and will walk the correction. The solution as standing one and equal with one's own mind, accepting the responsibility of one's own reactions, even though it seems out of our control, it isn't. I commit myself to accepting the responsibility for myself and in so doing, showing others that they can too: Operation Disband Victim Culture.

This isn't over yet. In fact, it's good practice to not think that any of my transcendence points are over because if I do, then I'm probably wrong. The desire to be done is a more potent thought generator than the absolute silence of true transcendence. I commit myself to persist in demystifying the resistance of self-change so that I & WE, equal as one, may walk this self-corrective process more effectively. Thanks.

Day 303 - Second Wind

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can only do so much in a day.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel that I can only do so much in a day.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel drained and unable to direct myself productively.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not make an attempt to stop my reaction of perceived inability.

cc

I commit myself to really stop, and breathe, when I see myself thinking/feeling that I can't go on, that I can't do anymore, that I must rest.

I commit myself to self-honestly assessing myself, in breath, to determine if I really do need to rest - or is my mind just creating this reality in this moment.

Day 249 - Getting Grounded in the Physical

It just occurred to me that I haven't been as physically grounded as I could be. It's a concept that I'm familiar with, but I have not really been applying it. The concept of 'being grounded,' is not grounded. My perceptions are often not lived. My knowledge acquisition is bearing minimal fruit.

This is a very general point, but it's chill because I don't judge myself for writing to generally as I had prior to yesterday. Now, I see that this is foundational work that is completely worth my time until I am abusing the generalized topic platform to avoid going into depth. I'll see this when I am writing the same stuff for the same points (time to go deeper). The main idea: I can walk a general point specifically :)

The goal here is...to basically just get started:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to work within my head space, utilizing my mind to observe and bring perspective for the sake of knowing, not realizing that I'm blocking my physical participation while participating in my own mental world.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand the significance of physical participation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place extensive trust into my mind processing to the point that I felt that my ability to comprehend was really what needed attention. I have always sought understanding for the moments when I might need to apply it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in my imagination for the sake of setting up social situations where I could use knowledge and information to 'win' a conversation. In this I have defined a central driving point to be better than others through knowledge and information that only practically served me to be superior in an imagined, possible situation/conversation/argument.

In this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be motivated to walk with Desteni so that I could realize my ego fulfillment of being 'right.'

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to devalue the physical world because I do not like what I see, and instead retreat to the confines of my mind where I was "all knowing" and protected from the things I didn't want to see in the external and internal. My knowledge and information platform has never been complete, yet I would act as if it was. For that, I forgive myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be present with the external world, finding my internal world to be more comfortable. In this, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize myself as a participant in the external. I had always referenced my internal first, and when I had to exert myself in the world, I was always less comfortable and full of doubt.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see how I feared living in the physical world by creating multiple imagined scenarios where I was confident and strong in my self presentation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my internal world is not reality despite all the evidence that the external provided all these years. I would only ever pay attention to the confirmation of my ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to orient my receptiveness and observations about my outer world participation when it suited my internal worldview..allowing any conflicting information produce a fleeting emotion of disappointment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress each moment of 'failure' in the context of the external world not being in alignment with my internal, imagined self-definition that I created in separation of real world context.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my insecurity comes from this point of not participating in the real world, at least in part. I am simply under practiced within and as real world participation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be timid or lazy about speaking my self-forgiveness aloud, not realizing the power of the spoken word that is ground, here, into the physical.
--
When and as I see myself spending an extended period of time in my head contemplating social scenarios that are my imagined potentials of what reality could be or could have been, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am here in this moment and responsible to direct myself according to what needs my attention in that moment. I commit myself to stop recklessly day dreaming about how things could be, and start using my mind beneficially to place myself in a situation and observe what comes up within me, note the reactions and attachments, speak the self-forgiveness and place myself back into that scenarios and see how I have changed and what still needs to be looked at.

When and as I see myself zoned out while in the company of others, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am a current participant in this shared moment. I commit myself to stop fearing that I am less than others and within that fear go into an internal contemplative reaction instead of participating in ever physical, here moment.

When and as I see myself imagining how I am or will be superior in a social scenario, I stop I breathe. I realize my responsibility to myself to expose who I am and why I am participating in this fictitious mental play out. I commit myself to continue investigating, in depth, my attachment/desire to be better/superior.

When and as I see myself "knowing it all," I stop I breathe. I realize this design as a positive feeling, and commit myself to flag point it. When the feeling arises, I commit myself to stop, breathe and direct the situation from an encompassing perspective, where I am not tailoring my speech in reaction to pride in such a way that I only confirm what I know. Blah. Not chill.

When and as I see myself physically frozen, contemplating my self-doubt/fear/inferiority, I stop I breathe. I realize myself here. I commit myself to supporting myself with my breath to be present with every word that is in my immediate environment (this will require practice, don't get discouraged. Rather immediately return to the present, and make a mental note to replay the scenario later in the day, and see how I could have acted differently according to the point that charges me).

When and as I see myself reluctant to put in the offer to speak my self forgiveness, I stop I breathe. I realize that not every situation will work for me to speak self-forgiveness, and I also realize this can easily be an excuse. I commit myself to giving myself more time to sound self-forgiveness aloud.

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Day 241 - The Path of Least Resistance

The saying goes "electricity takes the path of least resistance." In reality, energy takes all paths and just most of it goes the path of least resistance. Relating this back to how my mind operates, how my thoughts move and ultimately move me: I tend to move in the path of least resistance.

There is an internal experience of "resistance" that I want to pick apart. The experience can be quite difficult to deal with unless I move with it, meaning I allow it to direct me. That is a fall in terms of being self-directive.  Imagine the energy as a wall at a fork in the road, creating resistance to go down one of the paths. The open path is the easy way. It is to procrastinate. It is to distract oneself. From what? What is the path that the wall blocks? It is the responsible thing to do. To determine what the responsible thing to do is a matter of internal integrity, honesty with self.

And this is the crux of it all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to flow with the energy of mind that is resistance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to empower resistance energy through allowing it to direct me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that resistance energy is my own creation and its power over me is my choice.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear facing resistance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that the consequence of allowing resistance to move me is far worse than walking through the momentary discomfort of resistance.

Quoting a friend: "Walking through the resistance - NOT SO EASY, feels like you're walking through 1000 waterfalls rushing within you/infront you that you have to push through"

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing in the face of resistance, not realizing that this fear contributes to empower the resistance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to underestimate resistance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only casually/occasionally push through resistance  and then attribute my 'success' as indefinite.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate my responsibility to make a responsible, self-directed decision, instead of nonchalantly just going with the thoughts that come up in favor of the resistance energy. There are a multitude of excuses that I am aware of that justify this nonchalant, casual acceptance and allowance of resistance energy movements. I commit myself to red flag these excuses/justifications to mark them for asap investigation. This resistance game needs to come to an end, and the only way that's going to happen is if I accumulate responsible decisions.

The movement of energy within is a fascinating topic of study. And if the only thing getting in my way is myself as resistance energy, well, it's time to really take responsibility for my movements. In taking responsibility, I know what I am doing and am able to initially investigate why. From there, I can write/speak the self-forgiveness as an honest expression of myself here. Next step is to write the new law of self, to lay the groundwork of my self-direction, and stick to what works.

But, one step at a time, first step's first.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that resistance will hurt me if I move through it.
--
When and as I see myself in the face of resistance, I stop I breathe. I realize this is an opportunity to see my participation within it. I commit myself to moving through resistance or asap writing about why I caved.

To be continued..

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Day 199 - Exploring Indecisiveness

I have had trouble making decisions for a long time, so I can safely say this is a large point that I can't get out thoroughly in one post. I've spent a lot of time these first < 200 days opening up points, and not really sticking to one and walking it through to completion. I aim to become more specific and focused in the coming days, but for now, I continue to expand on what I've found with my initial investigation of indecision.

First things to mind are a fear of the future / making the wrong choice / making less than the best choice for myself. In this I discovered that I have always been primarily considering what is best for me. Anything that ultimately served my self-interest was how I made decisions.

Couple that with doubt / fear of making the wrong decision, and we have indecisiveness. The way I've framed it is a step backward into uncertainty from the perspective that my choice is already made: that which best serves me as a mind consciousness system organic robot human.

So, when I discovered Desteni just over 3 years ago, I went into existential shock and started to fit in the concept of acting in the interest of what's best for all. Had I not been all into spirituality and reading a book called Oneness by Rasha, I probably would have more readily rejected the Desteni message. Anyway, in this transference process of self-honest, self-investigation, I'm finding a lot of crap that I never wanted to ever take responsibility for. Thanks to me as life, I am here, walking out of my mind through breathing and this writing process.

What I have deduced from this little exploration: Indecision can be used as a flag point for self-interest. Best for all decisions are common sense and could be termed "the responsible thing to do." And indecision and mind chatter is likely me fearing that I can't figure out what is the best choice for me.

Interesting. I just ran this through testing: Sit here and write this post vs. Watch a TV show called Touch with my parents. I find that the internal debate is only in mind as thoughts accompanied by feelings. I would like to go watch television and allow myself to relax and enjoy a nice, easily-consumed story. What is best for all is me facing me. I chose to delay again, and I suffer the same consequence of having to miss out on whatever. There is also a distinguishable flow to writing that happens in contrast of the choppy indecisiveness, but I'm not ready to explore this point yet. <- Doubt that I should have ever written that. Almost deleted. It stays.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to move into a mental chatter about should I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making the 'wrong' decision as defined by what is not best for me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can make a wrong decision. There is only the choice of self-honesty in every moment. Do I try to deceive myself within this, or do I do the common sense option.
--
When and as I see myself trying to mentally figure out what to do, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am either trying to justify self-compromise, or I am choosing to support what is best for me as an equal as life. I commit myself to further investigating indecision in the context of when it arrives, and to breathe some common sense into all my future decisions.

Day 181 - Physical aside vs. Mental jump

Thanks Kitty!  pic from Day 10

When I don't know what to write or how to begin one of these entries, I have realized the effectiveness of just simply beginning to write. This was a particularly cool moment of deciding what to write on today because my cat helped me out. I was just beginning to get into my writing about how it is that I jump from one task to the next in a moment of even the slightest resistance toward the initial task, and my cat that I call "kitty" interrupted me. I talked back to her, "you just creep up to me, cast a single 'meow' and get my attention so easily." I realized that I was just writing about distractions, but this was a different caliber of distraction.

Physically induced aside vs Mental jump. This is what I wrote verbatim in my journal after excitingly thanking her for helping me achieve the insight that inspired today's post :)

A physical distraction is much different than my own mental thinking distractions, yet also very similar in how they both take my attention away from the present task. A physical distraction is more acceptable in my opinion, and when a physical distraction is unwanted, it's easier to say no to. A mental distraction with an energy attached, for instance, the energy of curiosity, is very easy to follow, especially when faced with a more mundane alternative, primary task.

So, the prevalent point I've been working with: "Procrastination," has a new perspective that I intend to utilize to cross-reference when I am having trouble focusing on a task or daily set of tasks.

Adding perspective:
Why do I follow the mentally induced distractions? Appealing, interesting, more interesting, don't want to forget it, fear I won't get around to it, now or never, only productive in pursuing these mental asides while procrastinating a primary task. Ok, some good stuff to work with here.

Why do I allow myself to deviate from primary task? Resistance (could be many reasons; case-by-case exploration here): Unsure, uncertain, fear of wrong, fear of criticism, fear of less than great...[note here, mental haze into vague guessing of what others will think of my writing as I bite skin on middle finger, right hand], too much work, straining. Ok, I have work to do in demystifying* external work. I've placed all sort of pre-conceived notions of experience likelihood onto external work (in separation of myself).

*"demystifying" is a vocab term I learned from Neo-Tech, a $100 book I bought from a mail-flyer when I was in 6th grade, haha. It was a very hard read that I never finished, but I pulled some pretty helpful concepts of how mind/reality operates. I consider it to be one of the first stepping stones of my truth-seeking journey. As I remember it, to demystify was essential to freeing oneself from the mind-controlled way of life where we just follow suit with the rest of the populace. ...It's actually quite like the notion behind self-forgiveness, now that I look at it. Interesting. General mindset toward Neo-Tech from outsiders: "cult," haha.

Back to here. Now in this example of writing about 'demystify' as a distraction or side-track time sink: it was physically induced through writing. I suppose I kept it going via a mental choice, but how else would I write. I am writing from the starting point of free-flow-figure-it-out, so it's chill. It's not an extensive distraction within avoidance of the primary task of writing this post.

...another distraction, physically induced by music, I started a search on YouTube for the original version of Our Day Will Come. As I was watching the video, I realized myself within the distraction, traced it back to how it started, then decided to let it keep playing in the background while I log what just happened. Back to here, I realize that I can always come back to myself to direct myself. I can always trace the source of my distraction in self-honesty. Bring self back to here is THE KEY of keys.

So, all my struggles with procrastination can come down to self remembering self here; just before writing this sentence, I started closing open tabs that I no longer needed. This was a secondary task that was physically induced by sight, after responding to the end of the song and turning on another version of the song. All it takes is that moment of "what am I doing?" "what was I doing?" Self-check.

Now, furthermore and interestingly, I've been checking myself because of the content of my writing. As I continue to develop my relationship to myself within my physical breath, I will have a more stable cross-referencing point of self-honesty. That's the goal anyways.

Regardless of the type of distraction, I realize that I can always stop, breathe, and check why I have allowed my self to move within the deviation. Sometimes, this can feel out of control / overwhelming. Self-forgiveness need be applied here for allowing the energy of overwhelmingness to take control and misguide oneself into helplessness.

Ok, enough for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll continue tomorrow with the self-forgiveness and corrective application statements.

Day 119 - Imagined Futures of Grandeur

Photo from flickr

Today I re-realized a long running pattern of thought-separation. I place myself in imaged futures of grandeur and hardly ever make efforts to manifest them. Having many imagined possible futures for myself without any real commitment, I call being 'overly ambitious'. There is a very positive feeling association when I imagine myself in a possible future where I am a successful, big shot in whatever field I'm think of in that moment; however, within this head play I never take the time to imagine how I will get there or which practical steps to take. This point was briefly opened up on Day 13 - Relationship with Future Self, where I address

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from myself by imagining many future selves and thinking that I could be all or many of them, without taking any responsibility for creating myself in alignment to these visions.

I commit myself to begin practically directing my thoughts to prioritize which steps I'll be taking towards which goals. I realize that I have many goals, and to narrow and focus which ones I actually want to pursue will be a process, and by giving myself the time and patience, I will be able to direct myself more effectively than continually allowing thoughts to just rush around in my head. Choosing which passions to pursue is a seemingly dreadful task.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in the thought/feeling that focusing my life path is dreadful or scary. I realize that my mind makes up this feeling-orientation, and it only stands as an obstacle or procrastination excuse.

I commit myself to living my physical self-direction, to stop the thought storm, and get to work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see, realize, or understand that I am not these future projections of myself, and also underestimate the actual effort of physically walking toward accomplishing these great goals.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am these future projections without having to do any of the work, and so by participating in the imagination in this way, I am removing myself from the realization that I must work to achieve.

I commit myself to stop amplifying the image of myself and my ability in separation from who I am in actuality, here, breathing, doing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself as a dreamer in separation from a doer.

I commit myself to doing my dreams, and stopping the lofty ideals as potential, great accomplishments.

When and as I see myself becoming overwhelmed with the thoughts of life directions and future selves, I stop  I breathe. I realize that to stop separating myself from the million future selves / possible career paths, I must walk within a practical application. My life direction will unfold with me through this process of self-discovery. The more I write, the more clarity I will gain within myself, and I commit myself to the steadfast application of forgiveness of self to quiet the ambition storm.