Day 227 - Sticking to one mission at a time

It is recommended by the Desteni group to walk through one point at a time, which contributed to my fear of opening up my nail biting again. It's interesting how fast that association happens and then becomes a part of my program. So, to release that specific thought association there: I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I shouldn't attempt to really stop biting my nails unless I am more than confident in my ability to complete the process in one solid go. I forgive myself for allowing myself to accept my interpretation as the whole of truth and integrate it into my perspective without a second thought.

OK, off to a bad start, but the goal of this post is to reaffirm a personal awareness of deviation toward a particular task. This largely pertains to the point of delay, procrastination, ADD, etc. The basis of the concept is falling into the resistance energy when faced with work.

For examples: Biting my nails can be an escapism/release from the work that I am facing. Eating a delicious treat is a favorite go to when my mind is racing for a distraction. Another favorite distraction is other productive tasks that are looming in the background. Internet issue of having multiple tabs open, and wanting to cycle through all of them instead of just getting one task done at a time.

It's weird because I feel like multitasking with multiple tabs open on my computer will make me faster, more productive, and yet the opposite occurs. When I sit here with my focus, I am able to complete a single task faster than if I draw it out with other tasks. I believe the feeling of slowness happens with the resistance, so I am slowed down by it during the working, and then through the resistance I multitask and find ways to actually slow me down.

If I could stick to one thing at a time, I would be more effective. Hence the recommendation to walk one point at a time. Popping around to multiple points will take a long time AND prevent me from reaching depth within each single point = less effective.

Even when I misspell a word while typing these posts and the red swiggly line appears underneath, I am much inclined to stop my train of thought and fix the error before continuing.

So, there is a lot of multidimensional play here within my "ADD" issue. I will sort it all out in time, and I already understand that becoming overwhelmed is not the solution. Temporarily mitigating the resistance by altogether stopping my attempts at focusing on one task, gets me no where. Also, there is many different angles one could take on this perspective of taking on just one mission at a time: small scale, large scale, time frame, etc.

I realize that when I sit down to type a post, I can get that post done faster if I do not allow the resistance energy to guide me. Even as I wrote this sentence, a wave of tiredness brought up the thought, "go sit lay down on the couch, just for a little while." And it is precisely this that I need to work through.

This is tough. And I knew it would be. But I haven't actually considered how hard it is to move oneself through persistent resistance. I know that if I keep taking back control of my body within my breath, I can do this. It's not impossible to undo our nature as organic robots that only move with mind frequency. I remember that I can breathe and direct myself. And what's really cool about this flow right now is how I'm noticing all kinds of thoughts come up like how I'm doing a shitty job by not taking a rest, and that others will think I'm a bad writer if I keep writing through the tiredness. It's like my mind will throw anything it's got at me to ensure that I listen to at least one thought so that I am directed and controlled by the mind consciousness system.

So, where from here? I guess I'll stop here, and write early tomorrow to apply some practical self-forgiveness for these control points that lead one to hop around from task to task and believe that they're sick with Attention Deficit Disorder. Thanks

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Day 200 - Getting Deeper

It's time. On Day 40 - Depth and Specificity, I conducted an initial writing of this pattern. Today, I'm going to investigate, and get specific within the general motion of going deep into my patterns/behaviors, into what I have accepted and allowed. Why? Because the mind is specific with how it is created. Specific occurrences and reactions throughout our lives is how we built our belief structure.

A fact I recall learning in college psychology was how when we form a thought/opinion about the way something is or operates, we tend to focus on that which confirms that we were right the first time. It's an ego thing. We don't want to admit we were wrong, so we would rather collect data that supports our initial guess.

Where am I going with this? Through investigating my reactions, I intend to trace the source-origin of the reaction. It's not always immediately clear because I'm so caught up in the dynamic energies of the mind. I find it's rather difficult to stay focused and will me to move through backward through my casual relationships/reactions in the mind because "what's done is done," right? Haha.

So there is definitely a resistance to dig up the past, especially when there is stuff we'd much rather not direct our attention to. Alas, I must go there. We all must go there to understand ourselves today.

Especially in the beginning days of this JTL Blog, I figured that as long as I was writing, I was "okay" or "on track." To an extent, this was correct, but all along I vaguely knew that I'd have to be going deeper into myself to unravel the layers of self-conceptualization. It's time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize what is involved in going deep into myself to discover how I have become me today. This includes: high effort, focus, principle, will, breath, and persistent self-forgiveness, tenacity, and of course, writing. I don't think I could do this all in my head. That'd be like trying to clean my room by picking stuff up and throwing it over my head. haha, I'm funny.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not give myself the time of day to write out my mind as I see it in action. The investigation has begun, but I might only be considering about 2% of my mind on a good day. Committing to write everyday for 7 years seemed like a lot before I started this endeavor, and now, I realize that once a day is just the minimum amount of writing required to start really getting to know myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to dread going deeper into a specific pattern within my personality, finding it to be dull, painstaking, tedious. It's so much more enjoyable to remain skipping along the surface, writing about what patterns in my I recognize. Why do I avoid depth? First to mind: fear of failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I will not produce any results if I try. In this I realize that by not trying, I am most certainly not producing any results. There is a relationship is discouragement here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become discouraged when I do not have success. I forgive myself for allowing myself to have given up pursuing the study of Mathematics because I was no longer the best in the class. Why? -> I only wanted to do what I could easily excel at. 'Excel" defined as relative to others.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to define myself through only pursing that which I was naturally better than others at. Through this I could protect myself from negative judgement. This relative-success character, has predominantly defined the path of my own creation of my personality. This is a new realization as a result of going deeper. For the sake of specificity, I will address this character later.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize this writing process is like a tree, where as I go deeper, the roots split, and split, and split again. So, to stay focused linearly is a challenge but not necessarily. It is about continuing to travel deeper and noting all that comes up along the way, so that discovery happens at the same time as the process of staying focused on the initial direction of inquiry.

Key point: Side tracked vs focused. Focused while noting side-tracks..ah ha! In this, there is impatience & fear of loss.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be so impatient with myself that I feel the need to discover ALL of me as soon as possible. It's an energetic high of discovery. And before I realize it, I'm way off my focus point. Why is the discovery so attractive? I don't want to lose it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing insight. I forgive myself for believing that I won't be able to remember what I had just discovered. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe in "now or never," practically applied within the thought that "I might not have time to get around to my new discovery if I stay on track."

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When and as I see myself delaying my written self-investigation process, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am here for me, and that getting ahead implies a necessary look at my past. I commit myself to slowing down to look backwards.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to define "looking backwards" as negative. Queue it up!

When and as I see myself not giving myself the time of day to write out a through investigation of even a single point, I stop and I breathe. I realize this form of resistance is intertwined with not wanting to go deep and actually face myself as the past casual chain of accepted and allowed behaviors/perceptions. I commit myself to recognizing fear/resistance for what is is as nothing more than my own creation. Through this, I commit myself to forgiving myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate and simultaneously empower self-creations of fear/resistance that do not serve me in my process of taking responsibility for all points of self-creation.

When and as I see myself deviating along a side-track, I stop I breathe. I realize that the most effective way to proceed is by taking note of the secondary point and finishing the primary task. I commit myself to moving through the realization of the task deviation, to place the secondary task on a side list (see example below) and return to a focused persistence within the primary task.

When and as I see a point that is unclear and/or become overwhelmed with the multitude/complexity of self, I stop I breathe. I realize that there is time so long as I give myself to the time to complete one thing at a time. I commit myself to improving my steadfast focus on one point at a time. I commit myself to going deeper and noting the discoveries along the way. I commit myself to breathing when the overwhelmingness energy diminishes my attention,, and from that breath, I continue with the ONE, primary task.

Goal: Build habit of investigating with depth and specificity, actually.

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Opened pathways for future investigation:

• look backwards with negative association
• relative-success character
• difficulty with perseverance
• resistance to this process of noting side-tracks / desire to follow them
• Afraid to fail / perfection character

Day 180 - Attempting to do Too Much at Once

Wow! OK. So, when I drink coffee, especially, I try to do lots of things at once. What ends up happening is a multitude of distractions and side tasks that commence, and I often take much longer to get to what I intended to do from the beginning. This is delay/procrastination, but also an ADD-like symptom of needing to always be doing something. Also, I see avoidance in how I took 3 hours doing side-tasks before I finally got to sit and write about this very design playout. Interesting how every time I face a point in me, it becomes intensified, as if to make it more clear for myself or become discouraged and submissive to it. Ah ha!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become discouraged and submissive when a personality design becomes accentuated and intensified as I begin to examine it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from particular personality designs and places them as greater and more powerful than myself, and so I submit.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize myself as one and equal with each personality design that's amalgamated within me.
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So this is kind of a big, primary design for me. I wrote about it on Day 2! The point of multitasking...I find that it mostly begins because of a lack of patience or willingness to wait even a single moment. If I'm not doing something I need to be doing something. Anxious to be efficient.

In the moment I make a decision to act, sometimes I don't even allow myself the time to commence. I just have another thought and move on that one. I've dealt with this for a long time, so it's no wonder that I'm still struggling with this point. It's pervasive and intrusive...and here I am separating myself from "it" again, apparently.
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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my anxious personality in separation of myself where I perceive it as more than, or in control of, me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take responsibility for myself as this anxious character.
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So, what will it take to stay focused? Ah, yes. There is a notable fear of forgetfulness. It's like I'm consumed by fear that I'll forget the new, secondary task, so mindlessly, I start doing that to get it done or at least started. The problem is that this can happen repeatedly and before I know it, I've not even started the primary intention/task and several hours have past by.

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I get overwhelmed just thinking about trying to get myself habitually on track and focused. It's not been my favored mode of existence, since...(1st memory to mind) doing math in the third grade. I enjoyed the concentration and simplicity and competitiveness to be done with my problem set first. So what's the difference (heheh, like subtraction) between my attention cohesion then and now?

I think that the key component to this equation is perceived simplicity/complexity. Rudimentary math has a clear answer, while this self-purification process seems highly complex. In reality, it may be extensive and quite involved, but the solution is simple: Self-honesty and self-forgiveness. Hmm, why then does self-change seem so hard to do? I could come up with a ton of reasons, but they're all just excuses...fascinating.
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I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to perceive process from the perspective of difficulty instead of breathing and realizing that I MUST walk one point at a time, breath by breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not remember to do the secondary tasks, and that I have not allowed myself to simply write it down and bring my focus back to the primary task.

That is the key. If all I did was commit myself to write down what comes to mind and act only within the direction that I have already set out for myself, I will have overcome this tendency to allow the mind to direct me. This is too extensive for one commitment to be simply stated. I have more to explore before I can seriously commit myself to this application. I do not want to create a bunch of compounding consequence of self-dishonesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not being able to uphold my commitments, and within this I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to make a commitment from an energetic starting point instead of investigating and clearing the relationship(s) to make a stable choice of self-direction that stands throughout all of time.
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When and as I see myself moving from task to task, within and before completing my primary task, I stop I breathe. I realize this is my mind within an avoidance/ADD pattern. I commit myself to recognizing and becoming well acquainted with this dimension of myself. When and as it becomes unbearable, I remember to breathe. I understand what it is to be the self-directive principle. I commit myself to writing where & why I allow secondary tasks to commence with a dismissal of my previous & primary direction.

For the most part, I am still opening up my relationship to "Attention Deficit Disorder" (not that I actually think I have a "disorder" that needs treatment in the form of pills. I have the tools of self-forgiveness and breath to help me focus and permanently change my attitude/attention as my work ethic). Chipping away, one bite at a time, no more running, here I go! :)

Day 165 - Got to get here quick!

I was in a rush to drive somewhere today. Had to get there by 2, it was 1:44 and an estimated 20 minutes away. I did my normal 'rushed' routine to make up the time by driving faster and biting my nails. Having just written about stress last night, I stopped and took a breath. Actually, I found that taking that conscious breath helped to stop my energetically focused nail biting. It's cool that the stress behind my nail biting habit is opened up, because I'm ready to keep at this point and actually clear this pattern of literal self-consumption out of nervousness/anxiousness.

I noticed myself in the car, I stopped, and started speaking self-forgiveness. Much like:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to bite my nails because I am afraid I won't be able to get there on time. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that this habit does not get me there faster. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get involved in the energy of hurriedness/haste, not realizing that I can only go as fast as humanly possible.

It was the realization I am limited by my external environment that calmed me down. It's crazy to think that stressing out will somehow make me faster than what's practically, most efficient. So, I drove fast, but not too fast, nor reckless.

Within all of this I realized that I habitually bite my nails when hurried and stressed. That's not the only dimension, but it sure is a significant one. When I was typing the title of this post, I realized that it's not only trying to get there quick, but also trying to get here quick. In other words, I am generally anxious to get this process over with. (My mind just raced through 3-4 thoughts really fast)

1. I've created a rushed character in separation of myself here

2. I'm generally anxious/rushed to get to point B.

3. Whenever I am learning something, I tend to bite my nails (anxious to integrate knowledge...hmm)

4. the #3 thought, has been extensively participated within...so much so, that I have to write more about it. All day I open up points, what?!

Throughout school, I bite and learn, bite and learn, learn while biting, bite while learning. Why? The first stable thought to mind is that sense of multitasking, where I can get my nails taken care of at the same time that I'm using my mental dimension...herein, I've automated the nail biting process from a starting point of anxiety: "not waiting until I got home to use my nail clippers for a proper self-manicure." This form of anxiety was easily and quickly justified at an early age. It made sense.

Ok, and now I'm opening up too many dimensions and feeling the onset of overwhelmed. *Takes a breath* Begin:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to justify biting my nails because it is time efficient multitasking for when I want to learn.

I've always been driven to learn fast...not sure when that started. I'll come back to this point eventually.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails when I am unable to move faster / fast enough, out of fearing that I will fail in reaching a deadline or destination quickly enough.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to repeatedly give up on myself after I start chewing, and allow myself to continue with the abnormally accentuated desire to chew nail.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from my nail biting character, submit directive control to, and not stand not equal within and as it so that I may take responsibility for effective change. I commit myself to slowly disengage from this habit, locating every relevant memory and flag pointing each self-judgement, until it is done.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move within the energy of haste while driving. I forgive myself that I haven't allowed myself to see the stressful energy expenditure personality that effectively does nothing to get me to my destination faster. I stop I breathe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to yellow lights in frustration for halting my momentum, and in this I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing money as it takes more gas to get up to speed. Relax Dan. All in due time...ah,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to spawn a bunch of what if thoughts while driving, effectively stressing myself out for not being 'there' 'then' when "I could have, if only I had..."

When and as I see myself becoming frustrated on the road, I stop I breathe. I realize that there are only a handful of relevant points to driving: gas, brake, steering, rules, and vectors of external objects. I commit myself to realizing when I am participating in thoughts and energy that do not serve me while driving.

When and as I see myself becoming hurried when I am running a bit late while driving, I stop I breathe. I realize this energy of haste for what it is, I stop it. I commit myself to taking a breath and noting how my mind wanders and which energies I begin to participate in while my thoughts run wild. I commit myself to making a habit of speaking self-forgiveness aloud while in the car where I am not restricted by any external personalities..

When I am alone, I have no motive to maintain face or uphold a particular personality. I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to just be me while in the midst of others. I commit myself to begin slowly getting comfortable saying self-forgiveness out loud in the presence of others, especially when it flows with the conversation / is appropriate within the context of what's here.

When and as I see myself becoming overwhelmed while I open up as many points as I did today, I stop I breathe. I realize that I can stay organized in my side journal and that it is important to stay focused on one point at a time so that I can effectively clear my charges toward it instead of half-ass escaping from the individual responsibility of each dynamic. I realize there are many, many, many, many points I've separated myself from through relating to them. I commit myself to slowing down in my breath, and taking one step at a time.

I commit myself to driving moment to moment, staying here while in the car, and when I don't, to note and explore the point through self-forgiveness.

I commit myself to effective planning for traveling such that I do not put myself in rushed positions, and when I do, make note of it for future prevention.

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