Week 8 Reflections - Day 54

Sunday, June 2, 2013
More on Feeling Tired - Day 47

• In this post I wrote SF and SCS on feeling "tired" and "hot" and how these experiences of myself directed me in unproductivity in my day and also how I judged myself within those experiences. 
• I also opened up/wrote about a feeling overwhelmingness wherein I identify my tasks as "too much" to do and then shut down and don't really do any of it. 
• I committed myself to:
• Take proactive practical steps toward accomplishing tasks when and as I experience myself as overwhelmed (or otherwise resisting)
• Stop judging myself within my choices of how I spend my time and instead to be, see, and do in self-honesty and self-responsibility
• Reflections:
• Simply writing this post now is an example of taking proactive practical steps toward accomplishing tasks I have set for myself. I made a very small to-do list for myself today and am addressing items one-by-one, even through an experience of myself as quite tired. 
• Here however even now I want to go take a quick nap, or attempt to resolve my "tiredness" through consumption of coffee. 
• So here I can remember that last Sunday I took a nap and then noted how even after the nap I still felt hot and tired and sluggish and therefore the nap did not support me to eliminate these experiences of myself. 
• Re-reading this post I was reminded of how at my old job I always had  "good" productive day if I was able to come in and knock a few things off my to-do list right away, even if they were small tasks. This got the momentum going to where I would then almost compete with myself to see how much more I could accomplish that day to try and get as much done as possible -- a pretty important approach when working a job with never-ending orders to complete. 
• Can this approach support me in my daily life? 
• I am also reflecting on something I shared in this post about what a friend shared with me about setting a timer for himself to see how long he actually is applying himself to his tasks so that he can see for himself in the reality of time rather than the perception of his mind how long he has really spent on various tasks. 
• I know that I tend to allot too much time for various tasks and that within this I often believe that I do not have enough time to do anything productive, and therefore do not direct myself to be productive. 
• And here I also recall how yesterday I read about 8 different blogs in only about an hour because I set the time for myself to do so, and if I were to set aside just an hour or even 30 minutes per day to do something like this, I would be productive. But because I am setting up vague expectations/goals for myself without giving myself any direction in how to actually practically achieve those goals, and am instead just expecting them to somehow get done, I am failing. 
• So here I see that it would be prudent to write more on time management and develop strategies for seeing who I am within time management and directing myself within time management. 

Monday, June 3, 2013
Week 7 Reflections - Day 48

Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Mind-Seeing vs Eye-Seeing & Projecting Self-Judgments as Sourced by Others - Day 49

• In this post I wrote about some of the anxiety/paranoia I have experienced at work wherein I realized that by perceiving others as judging me I was actually projecting my own self-judgments onto as sourced by others. 
• I realized that what I see with my physical eyes is different than what I perceive in my mind and that often what I perceive within my mind is mistaken for what my eyes physically see, not realizing that my mind is interpreting the data that my eyes send it. 
• I then wrote SF on the projection of self-judgments and on the content of the self-judgments, forgiving myself for my poor work-ethic at this job and the ways I have justified that to myself. 
• I committed myself to:
• Turn perceived judgments back to myself within ownership, self-honesty, and self-responsibility to see these judgments as mine and then to see myself within these judgments to see how I am not being self-honest in who I am accepting and allowing or creating myself to be. 
• Apply myself and direct myself to be the best me in every moment within self-honesty and self-responsibility for myself for what is best for all, releasing myself from the justifications I have created for having not already done this. 
• Treat all as one as equal as what is best for all in self-honesty and self-responsibility, here in the context of my attitude about/toward my work assignment. 
• Bring myself back to my breath to the physical to attempt to see purely through and as my physical eyes without allowing myself to within and as my mind create images, interpretations, judgments, assumptions, projections, etc. within perception of the physical. 
• Reflections:
• Here I know that within any reaction to any communication from another and/or projection of perception of communication, that reaction is indicative that there is something there that is important to look at and see to see myself in self-honesty. So this will be an ongoing process in the specifics of this work situation and in my life in general. 
• So here I commit myself: When and as I see myself reacting, I stop and I breathe. I look at myself and who I am within that reaction. Why am I reacting? To what specifically am I reacting? What is there to see about myself within this reaction and within the stimuli to my reaction? 
• Also ongoing will be the commitment to myself to see when and as I am creating justifications for my behavior, basically resisting seeing myself in self-honesty through the creation of reasoning or rationalization to where I do not have to look at myself "because" of some "fact" that I have attached myself to. 
• So here I commit myself: When and as I see myself justifying, I stop and I breathe. I look at myself and who I am within this justification. Why am I justifying? What do I not want to see or admit or own or face? What is there to see about myself within this justification and within the stimuli to my justification? 
• I have already faced myself again within not treating all as one as equal within the context of my work assignment. This is not surprising but what is surprising is how ugly I am, how bitter, how judgmental, how elitist, how arrogant, the list could go on and on. So this would probably be beneficial to write more about. Presently when and as I see myself participating within this pattern, I stop and I breathe a lot. Breathe breathe breathe. 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Healthy =/= Thin - Day 50

• In this post I opened up the points of my relationship with food, eating, my body, and body image. 
• I noted how even though for many years I have thought that all of this was a relatively "moot point" in that it was "not something I deal with anymore," this is not true. In fact much of it I have never actually "dealt with" and as such it is all still very much a part of me and who I am in who I have created and accepted and allowed myself to be. 
• I saw that I wasn't sure where to direct myself within all of this because I saw within myself that:
• I don't want to hate my body and I don't want to hate myself for having my body and I don't want to separate myself from my body and I do want to approach this from the starting point of releasing myself from the power that I have given my mind over my relationship within and as my body and as my mind.
• I also don't want to "get fat" and I also do still maintain and want to hold onto the "ideal body" that I have been working toward, because I am "not ready" to release myself of this ideal because I still want it. 
• So here I saw that the first step was to work with my realization that I have used the desire for a "healthy" body as justification for wanting to be thin, when in reality thin and healthy are not synonymous, and that within this striving for a "healthy" body through and as being thin, I am completely ignoring having a "healthy" mind or a "healthy" relationship with myself within and as my body and my mind. 
• I also saw that I often compare myself to other women to their bodies or at least to my perception of their bodies with projected assumptions about how they must feel about their bodies inasmuch as they must be "so happy" because of their bodies, and that also within these comparisons I was not only comparing my perception of their body but also my perception of my own body wherein with either side of the comparison I am not actually SEEING and thus comparing the physical but am merely perceiving and thus merely comparing judgments within and as my mind. 
• I committed myself to:
• Really stop myself when I use "healthy" = "thin" as a justification for abusing my body through my actions (or inactions) or abusing myself through my mind as what I tell myself about my body or myself as who I am within my body. 
• Aligning myself with the starting point of self-support in self-honesty and self-responsibility and within and as the starting point of true and actual health for mind, body, and self as what is best for all. 
• Reflections:
• I see that a potential next step is to examine why "I still want" the "ideal body" image I have created for myself, along with the other points I delineated at the end of this post.
• I saw that yesterday when I ate some very "unhealthy" food I experienced a lot of internal friction and that I wanted to see the calories and then in seeing the calories I saw myself coming up with how I could counter those calories either through exercising or through not eating for the rest of the day. Here I talked to a friend a little about this and basically committed to myself to accept the consumption of this food as what has happened/occurred and to not allow myself to direct myself within a reaction to this consumption but to continue on within the starting point of health for myself as my body and my mind. After that... well it kind of became a non-issue. I did not accept or allow myself to "care" and "stress" about what I had eaten. 

Thursday, June 6, 2013
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Money - Day 51

• In this post I opened up on my relationship with money especially in response to a quote I saw at work which stated that "touching money can reduce physical pain and feelings of social alienation." 
• I noticed that I had been experiencing anxiety about social relationships and that after checking my bank account and seeing that my paycheck had been deposited, I no longer experienced anxiety and just felt relief, freedom, because I had money. 
• So I asked what it was about money that seemingly resolves social anxiety/alienation? However I do not yet have an answer for this beyond notions of security and a sense of invincibility which I experience in relation to money because I have developed poor money management skills
• Within this notion of invincibility I often stress when I do not have much money and then spend somewhat recklessly/carelessly when I do because I see a "big number" and assume that it will take a long time to deplete it. 
• I also noticed how I have justified/excused my poor money management skills through thoughts/beliefs such as "I don't get it" or "no one has ever taught me" or "I had bad examples" and within this I have abdicated/delayed responsibility for myself in relation to money. 
• I committed myself to:
• Learn more about responsible financial planning/management
• Hold myself accountable for my spending and saving
• Set goals for myself in paying off my debt and saving
• Free myself of financial ties/dependence with my family within a matter of years
• Stop making excuses for myself both in my education (in this context education about economics and money management) and in my spending habits. 
• Learn more about the equal money system to understand why it is purported as best for all
• Continue to investigate my relationship with money and how society relates to money and what money really is
•  Reflections:
• I downloaded the mint.com app and have already found it to be very supportive in transparency for myself in my spending and saving and budgeting, and from here I will be able to see my spending habits and see how much money I really have vs how much debt I need to pay off and how much I am able to set aside for savings each month. So here is a start. 

Friday, June 7, 2013
Indecision and Self-Trust - Day 52

• I have been faced once again with a new job transition and so in this post I reflected some on the transition that occurred coming into my current job and how I did not support myself as best I could in that transition and how I will proceed differently within this new transition. I noticed too some of my continued ambivalence/indecision within this new transition and how this pattern continues to interfere with my ability to direct myself within self-honesty within the physical and out of the constructs of my mind. 
• I was able to open up more on my relationship with "decisions":
• I make decisions every moment, every breath, every movement. 
• I have identified some decisions as bigger than others and within this I imagine them as monumental and impossible/impassible 
• I still believe there is a "right" choice or a "wrong" choice
• Within these judgments of right and wrong I have identified a kind of end-point where the "wrong" choice is disastrous misery and the "right" choice is absolute bliss. 
• So here I have seen that making a decision is like the end of "control" because I have not understood that after one decision there are still more decisions. 
• So here I forget that I make decisions in every moment, every breath, every movement, even after one decision there are still always more decisions and thus more ways to direct myself and more opportunities to choose who I will be. 
• What's strange here is that I have identified that decisions are an end of control but my solution to this has been to not make a decision and thus not take control... all based on this perception/idea within fear/resistance to decision making, when in actuality if I would just direct myself to make decisions from a self-honest starting point then I would see how it is precisely through the decisions within directing myself in every moment in every breath that I gain control of myself and who I am. 
• There is no "right" or "wrong" choice but there is only myself and who I am within those choices. So here I have the ability to direct myself within any choice, any circumstance. 
• I had a look at some memories about decision making that might contribute to the patterns/expectations/beliefs I have established in relation to decision making. 
• I saw that I have a fear of making a mistake within decisions and then facing the consequences for those decisions within sole/absolute responsibility of myself within those decisions and consequences.
• But here I saw that I actually have supported myself to trust myself to be able to face myself in self-honesty and self-responsibility and am continuing to support myself in this way and as such I am building/identifying my strengths and stability within myself. 
• So here I saw that I can trust myself, or that I am beginning to see how I can trust myself. 

Saturday, June 8, 2013
Writing Automaton - Day 53

• In this post I noted how I have not felt that my writing over the past week has been as effective, productive, or self-supportive as it could have each day. I noted how I have developed a pattern of splitting the writing process of my posts up over two days and how this seems to be contributing to a sense of "disconnection" from myself in and as my writing. I also noted how writing has become habitual inasmuch as it is not as much of a struggle to actually write each day, but that along with this it has become a somewhat superficial experience where I am not directing myself to really dig into and see myself but instead am just churning out posts simply because I have so much material that I want to churn out. So within this I have felt a little disorganized and backlogged, so now I must identify how I can assist and support myself within my writing to be as self-supportive as I can within my writing. 
• I wrote out some of the topics that I wish to address in greater detail spanning multiple posts. 
• I noted how I have been adhering to rules and guidelines either perceived as external or fully internally created and that within this I have been limiting myself in directing myself in my writing. 
• I noted that I have created a relationship within assumptions and judgments about writing publicly vs privately. 
• I committed myself to:
• Find better ways to organize the points I want to walk and to walk them as equal and one whether publicly or privately
• Investigate how I can support myself through writing privately 
• Investigate my suspicion that it will be too easy to lie to myself if I do not publish as here I do not trust myself and/or this is an excuse/justification
• Maintaining stability within my investigation of public vs private writing so that I do not get caught up in wanting to select only the "best" or "most insightful" writing to publish in an effort to present myself a certain way and receive particularly positive attention
• Seeing, realizing, understanding, and living the fact that what has come before me serves as a suggestion and point of reference and not as absolute truth, that only I can realize and live the most self-honest way to support myself. 
• Reflections:
• To add to the list of topics I wish to investigate in more detail:
• Eating/food/body image
• Relationship with money and money management
• Reactions & justifications in self-honest communication 

Reflecting just on this post: I am not incredibly satisfied here. I think that next week I might try a slightly different approach where rather than skimming each previous post and bulletting out the points therein (which is extremely time consuming without much benefit of actually seeing myself/interacting with what I have written as myself), I will read the previous post in its entirety and write a reflection of that in self-honest self-consideration of the post, its content, the commitments, and who I have been since then, and who I will commit myself to be moving forward. Within this I will also make concision a goal.