Week 12 Reflections - Day 81

Monday, July 1, 2013
Every One has a SELF and this is Frightening - Day 76

The commitments made in this post will be ongoing and will be an interesting way to direct myself toward equality and oneness within directing myself into this "experience" of realizing that we are all one as our selves so that it is no longer just this thing that "happens" that I "snuff out" but is a realization that I actually seek out to understand and then exist within and as. So I am intrigued to see how this goes and what kinds of shifts occur within me as I purposely and intentionally shift my perspective.

I committed myself to:

• Continuing the process of equalizing myself with all as life as one as equal, as what is best for all.
• Continuing to investigate what this means and to live it out daily. 
• Continuing to see myself and to stop myself as my self interest and ego and reactions, to make myself nothing so that this world might be something, to direct myself toward living as life, one and equal to all life, as what is best for all.
• Continuing to look at and really see the problem so that I can understand that I am the problem, we are the problem, and therefore I am and we are the solution (and to continue to not look at the problem is an even bigger problem). 
• Continue to look at myself and see myself, and to see myself and all other selves as life, within which we are one and equal. 

So I add to this that I commit myself to continue to remind myself of this realization in my daily life so that in all of my interactions I can begin to open my eyes and really see all others as self as selves, as one and equal, as life. 

Reflections:

• As I say above, this will be an ongoing process of shifting my perspective, so I will have to check back in with myself periodically through writing and daily within myself to see how I am doing here. It doesn't seem like there's much of any reason not to direct myself to shift my perspective within every interaction. 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013
e-VALUE-ating Others - Day 77

In this post I continued opening up from the previous post about living out equality and oneness within my perceptions of others (or rather, actually seeing others as what they are: life) and interactions with others. It has not been difficult to see within myself that I am constantly judging others and placing others and myself within hierarchies of worth and value, and then proceeding in interactions from the starting point of that hierarchy. So in this post I walked some self forgiveness on that constant evaluation of others wherein I have not allowed myself to see others as one as equal as life, and thus have separated myself and all others from each other from life within and as my mind. I also have noticed that I have always made myself exempt from the kinds of judgments which suggest an individual is "bad" or is somehow making the world "worse" because throughout my life for one reason or another I have identified myself as "good" or at least "not that bad a person" and indeed of doing things that I thought promoted the "greater good" or even promoted "equality," not realizing that in all of this I had never actually equalized myself as one with and as life itself.

I committed myself to:

• Continue to investigate myself and peel away the layers of myself to see myself as who I am within self honesty within oneness and equality. 
• Continuing to see others as myself, not just as a helpful mirror for seeing myself, but actually as myself, as the worth and value and interest I place in myself, so that here I might understand that others are other selves, and within self-hood we are all one, and within oneness we are equal, and we are all life. 
• Continuing to direct myself toward understanding of what oneness and equality is, and what is best for all, and how to actualize these within my daily lived experience as life. 

Reflections:

• This post ties in closely with the post before it and so both will be ongoing processes together. In realizing when I am judging/assessing/evaluating another I can stop myself and also then practice shifting my perspective to the realization of oneness and equality, and go from there. This is all just basic foundational steps in equalizing myself with all as life. 

Thursday, July 4, 2013
Emotional Dissipation Leads to Depletion/Depression - Day 78

In this post I was able to watch myself become depressed and see the how/why of that program, at least in this instance. I had built myself up within a lot of emotional energy in terms of anxiety, stress, anger, and feeling rushed, and then when all of that energy dissipated I found myself feeling quite exhausted/depleted and thus "depressed" where all I really wanted to do was sleep.

So I saw how mainly it was all of the emotional energy which started this process leading to "depression," where within all of this emotional energy I was obviously within and as my mind, ie not present within the physical as my breath in the present moment, and was justifying all of my reactions with beliefs about how some horrible injustices were being done unto me within my environment, all these things "I can't control," thus placing myself in a kind of powerlessness and helplessness. Basically throwing a tantrum and creating a huge storm of energy.

I noticed too that I had established a set "way" that I wanted things to go, and so obviously when things did not go that "way" I became upset and angry and frustrated and impatient.

And all along within all of this obviously the experience itself is "unpleasant" -- it's not really "pleasant" to be angry or stressed out -- and I could sort of see through the chaos that I was the one creating it and therefore I could easily stop it and stop myself, but nonetheless I did not. So when it all finally dissipated I also became somewhat mad at myself for having even allowed all of that to occur, to create and expend all that energy on all of those reactions in such a way that was so obviously not self supportive or self honest or self responsible. But within all of the designs of my mind I was able to justify/excuse myself as the creator of this storm and instead believe that the storm was consuming me.

I then went to bed at an early hour without posting to my blog, so it wasn't really a "successful" encounter with myself as my mind in terms of stopping myself in that moment and directing myself within self honesty and self responsibility. But it was progress nonetheless in terms of seeing myself, reflecting on myself, and also realizing that even if I am going to "give up/give in" right now by going to bed early, I could still at least consider how to direct myself the next day to not allow myself to be consumed by this experience of "depression."

And the next day I was in fact quite productive, and as I continue to investigate myself and hold myself accountable to and as myself within self honesty and self responsibility, I am realizing that it is about directing myself in each moment, and that I do not have to tie myself down to the previous moment (like "oh I am already IN a "state of depression" so here is where I must stay) or the next moment (like within pressuring myself in terms of all that I have determined I must do in the near future and then reacting to that pressure with a kind of paralysis), because that is where fear and desire and regret and resentment all come out to play.


Friday, July 5, 2013
"The Whole World is Against Me!" - Day 79

In this post I wrote about the realization that if I am to believe that "the whole world is against me" I must therefore also believe that "I am against the whole world," and this simple shift in phrasing indicates that I have placed myself in opposition to and separation from the whole world as the physical reality of what is happening in each moment. So rather than seeing how I am in fact doing this and am thereby creating "problems" within my mind as a reaction to the fact that the world obviously does not operate according to my plan or how I want it to operate, I have instead claimed that "the whole world is against me" and then gone to a place of anger and resentment and powerlessness and helplessness.

I committed myself to:

• Look at myself and see how I have placed myself in opposition to/separation from the world through/as my expectations/wants/desires/"needs" and to bring myself back to my breath as the physical with and as reality as equal to and one with all life, as what is best for all. 

Reflections:

• So now I have to watch myself when and as I enter excuse/justification for my anger where I am placing responsibility outside myself, not realizing the ways that I have not aligned myself within and as oneness and equality and how my own lack of self responsibility and self honesty have been the creating factors as starting points in the build up of emotional energy. 

Saturday, July 6, 2013
Understanding My Physical Body - Day 80

In this post I mentioned two points (acne and general nutritional health) that I want to open up on further, both of which converge at the common sense starting point of actually understanding my body and how it works, what it needs, and what is actually physically happening when I do certain things to my body. I realized that I had these sort of "end goals" in mind as ideal outcomes I wished to achieve as superficial or experiential results, without even beginning to consider, let alone understand, my body as a physical substance which requires practical physical support, and that within this I must firstly understand and support myself as and within my body, and then also in order to achieve these superficial/experiential results I must understand my body in terms of how to achieve those results.

I committed myself to: 

• Continuing to educate myself on understanding the actual physicality of my body, what it needs, how it works, what is processes are, and what the physical consequences are when I do things to manipulate my body, or even when I think/believe certain things about my body or myself as my body. 
• Investigating how I can support my body in its physicality as life as the vessel which physically moves me through and as life. 
• Opening up on these points and investigating who I am within them, why I have identified various superficial/experiential results as ideal, and how I can unite myself within and as my body, accept my body as myself, and support my body as myself as one with and equal to all life, as what is best for all. 

Reflections:

• Not much to reflect on as of yet, although I did find a nutrition textbook at the thrift store for $1.50 so that is pretty neat. 

Week 11 Reflections - Day 75

Sunday, June 23, 2013
Walking through Depression - Day 68
The main thing that I came to realize is what a mind possession depression is. While I've been in an experience of "depression" I've literally been so possessed that I'd not even seen this until now, and even then it was only in these brief moments that my awareness flitted outside myself, outside my internal experience of myself, like flooding myself with depression and just overflowing with feeding the depression, a tunnel vision on depression and all that it entails... but in brief moments on this day I would sort of drift out of it and notice/become aware of what was physically around me or what else is actually happening in reality outside of the confines of my mind, and in those moments it sort of clicked and began to make sense that obviously the experience of depression is just a complete absorption of myself within and as my mind as all of these negative thoughts and beliefs.

So by becoming absorbed within my mind in a depressed state I have blinded myself to the fact that I create these thoughts/beliefs and I can direct my mind through what I accept and allow. I have basically accepted/allowed that I am powerless here. And this I think is where the abandonment of myself comes in, because here I basically believe I am helpless and so it is just a matter of giving in and giving up, which means abusing myself through my mind as well as through the lethargy/inaction of my physical body.

The most important realization then that comes with understanding that depression is mind possession is to realize that if I can walk out of my mind, if I can stop these thoughts/beliefs, if I can bring myself back to the physical as my breath -- if I can really actually do this -- then I will no longer be accepting/allowing and thus experiencing depression. Without the thoughts/beliefs/mind energy, there is no depression. At the very least, there is no feeding of the depressive episode to continue.

The other big point that came out of this post was the fact that I have not really ever developed any kind of solid self support for myself when I am experiencing depression. I have managed to end certain old coping mechanisms, such as self injury or medication/substance abuse, but I haven't managed to replace them with actual solutions. That's okay. I'm not mad at myself for that. This is a process -- I am proud of how far I've already come... I stated in this post somewhat defeated that I have "suffered depression" for over 13 years... This is a long time, but it does not mean that it has to continue, and it is all the more reason to treat this process with patience, grace, and steadfastness. And now I have the task of setting out to do what is next in this process. So here I start with commitments to write and to see myself in experiences of depression, so that I can accurately assess the experience as my own creation and can come to understand myself as to why I do this. It will be difficult! I know this. I am okay with this because I know that process is work.

I committed myself to:

• Continue to investigate this pattern within me and continue to realize that this will take time and space to be sorted, so to be supportive of myself in these experiences to assist myself in seeing myself and also in taking care of myself, in learning to show myself unconditional love, and in continuing to fulfill my obligations. 
• Really actually stop and breathe and to stop allowing myself to participate in these thoughts/beliefs/etc. 
• Not allow myself to throw myself a pity party where I feel bad about myself and trash on myself and basically abuse myself through my own mind. 
• Re-reading what I have already learned about myself as "depression." 
• Investigating what depression really is, how it manifests, how it is caused as what I accept and allow. 
• Investigating and identifying how to assist and support myself in an experience of "depression." 
• Walk through depression, out of my mind, step by step, breath by breath. 

Monday, June 24, 2013
Week 10 Reflections - Running a Lap around Depression - Day 69

Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Giving Self Space for Perspective - Day 70

In this post I specified somewhat a form of self support in the midst of reactions/energetic experiences that seemed to not be so easy to write about in the moment. This has a lot to do with framing, though, where I have expected myself to be able to fit the entire picture into the frame, to fit all of the experience into one tidy post. But if I could do that then I would actually be writing the entirety of myself in one single post in one single sitting in one single picture, because everything is interconnected to create who I am.

So what I realized as soon as I first published was that I was actually ignoring my own advice I had recently given to another, which was to realize that all of these points are aspects of who I am as who I have accepted and allowed myself to be, so I don't really need to worry too much about losing track of one point, especially if it is a large, encompassing point, because the points are all interconnected and interrelated to make up the network of lies that is me as what I have accepted and allowed. And seeing one lie is sometimes easier when you discover others, no? Ooh, now I'm like a detective. So anyway, I realized that I will face these points every single day in some form and that therefore the points will be walked and worked through as I walk and work through any point.

The other interesting thing was that this was a prime example of meeting resistance in writing, as described at the beginning of the post as manifesting physically in a shortness of breath and a feeling of discomfort in my stomach, and then, whoosh! After publishing it's like a big huge exhale of all that pressure I had for whatever reason built up. So obviously my relationship to writing is still a little messy, which makes a lot of sense since I am still requiring myself to write every day as a kind of externalized expectation as well as fear that I will lose momentum/fall out of the "habit" if I don't.

I committed myself to:

• When and as I see myself participating within and as an experience of pressure to address a certain topic or a certain pre-determined "quality" of topic (which is the main reason that I will sometimes end up writing multiple posts without publishing), I stop and I breathe. 
• I ask: 
• Who am I within this? 
• Why am I requiring this of myself? 
• What is my starting point? 
• What is the point that is in front of me? Walk this -- it is the next step. 
• Release myself from the pressure that I place on myself in suffocating myself in my process where I create limitations and expectations on what and how I should write and walk points. 
• Writing myself as my experience in that moment or in that day. 
• Walking my process one step at a time, one step after the other, breath by breath, always breathing, and noticing when I feel I cannot breathe, and investigating that. 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Trusting My Abilities - Day 71

In this post I took two examples just from that one day of instances where I had believed myself to be incapable and wanted to find someone else outside myself to accomplish a task for me. In both instances I persevered and ended up accomplishing the tasks for myself, as myself, by myself. It was cool! These were not huge feats by any means but it is interesting how often I will automatically go from a point of "I don't know how" to "I need someone else to do it for me," which can also quickly lead to an experience of powerlessness/helplessness, which, if unchecked, can also lead to an experience of depression as accumulated with other ongoing beliefs/thoughts that I accept and allow.

So here I did these tasks for myself -- self support.
I did them as myself -- self trust.
I did them by myself -- self reliance.
All of these things are like the groundwork foundation for stability.

I committed myself to:

• Assessing tasks to see what the actual steps are that must be taken in order to accomplish the task and then to set forth in taking those steps one by one with whatever preliminary preparation seems appropriate. 
• At least trying, and not giving up on trying again. 
• Releasing myself from these negative beliefs about my abilities in order to free myself to try in self-honesty within and as the physical as what I am actually capable of doing and setting myself to do. 

Thursday, June 27, 2013
Conscious Eating - Day 72

In this post I opened up about conscious eating and my tendency to mindlessly over eat or even binge. I also noticed how mindless I am when eating in general, and how, for example, even with something as simple as chewing -- the first step in digestion -- I have not been aware of myself as how I have set myself up to chew and then swallow through repetition to what is now a pattern/habit. Even in trying to count my chews, I saw that my tongue/jaw move in such a way "naturally" that I begin to swallow food even if I am trying to get to a certain number of counts.

What was interesting too was that I can easily identify that "I enjoy eating," and yet I often do not actually take the time to enjoy it, instead rushing through it without awareness, which fosters increased desire for more food.

I committed myself to:

• Slow down, take smaller bites, chew my food at least 20 times before swallowing, be aware of the movements of my tongue and jaw, and to be aware of my enjoyment of the food in this process. 
• Taking a breath after I swallow, and maybe also a sip of water. 
• Not allowing myself to take another bit while a previous bite is still in my mouth. 
• Focusing on these commitments to see how this influences my compulsive over eating and how an increased awareness of and active steady participation in the physical act of eating can assist and support me in binge behavior. 

Friday, June 28, 2013
Conflict Character - Day 73

In this post I wrote out about my energetic reactions to conflict and what it means to take responsibility for myself in conflict. It was interesting to be able to see myself in this particular conflict as the way it played out made it particularly easy to take some time to stop and breathe as it was happening. It was also interesting to see how the original cause of the conflict, which was my actions, came into play with my justification for my reaction in the conflict itself, and how even though I knew when I acted that what I was doing was reckless, careless, and inconsiderate, I still did not initially want to admit and own this when confronted by my friend.

I also noticed how even after I did apologize and take ownership, I immediately wanted to ditch it again, to relinquish ownership, to ignore it and pretend like it hadn't happened. Make the conflict/confrontation end as quickly as possible so that I can "get over it" and go back to "normal," ie pretending like it never happened and basically not learning anything from the experience. Denial. I realized my justification in my mind here was that I wanted to "nurse my ego back to health," which of course raised a bunch of red flags, because part of my goal here in walking this process is to basically kill my ego. So why would I want to sustain it? This realization assisted me in continuing to face the conflict/confrontation and continuing to take ownership for my actions and responsibility in terms of making it "right" again. Let my ego really have it.

I also noticed that at times I wanted to respond in snarky ways or ways that were otherwise not supportive of finding a resolution in the conflict/confrontation such that I would become offensive and the other person would likely get even more mad. And I would type out these responses and consider sending them, thinking "I can't keep friends anyway," or "this always happens," or "I'm not good at friendships," so that here I was basically resigning myself to the end of this entire friendship over this one silly thing as yet another form of rationale for behaving recklessly/carelessly/inconsiderately as a belief that it's all I'm good at. Yowza. Self sabotage much? "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."

So at this point I realized that my relationship with "conflict" is rather fucked up and I haven't ever really learned either by example or experience how to address/face conflict in an appropriate best-for-all manner. This simply did NOT happen pretty much EVER in my family and it isn't something I've very well managed to teach myself over the years, although it wasn't until seeing myself in this situation and also through my participation with desteni that it was really so clear to me that this is something I can change. I do not have to literally SHAKE in conflict. Someday, after many arduous self reflective steps, I will face conflict in a calm stability, finding solutions that are best for all.

I committed myself to: 

• Stopping and having a look at myself and my starting point and what the potential consequences/outflows of my behavior are, especially when I recognize that what I am doing might be reckless/careless/inconsiderate / not best for all. 
• Are there functional alternative behaviors?
• What am I trying to accomplish, and what might I inadvertently accomplish instead? 
• Facing conflict/confrontation head-on and seeing myself within self honesty and self responsibility as best I can, and then reflecting on how I did and what I can see within myself that is resisting change to and as equality and oneness and what is best for all. 

Saturday, June 29, 2013
"Love and Light" at its Finest: A Day at the Yoga Studio - Day 74

This post was a really interesting thing to observe as watching others and also seeing myself in the situation. It really kind of cut to the core of the whole point of all of this, which is actual support of all as one as equal as life. The experience and realizations have really inspired me and I think will serve as a foundational support for myself in taking self honest responsibility for myself as one with and equal to all others as life, where here what is paramount is to love unconditionally. This is what I strive for, and in the face of this, all that bullshit of depression and ego in conflict and self doubt and everything else... it all just fades away to an obvious answer of oneness and equality as what is best for all being the most important, and thus the starting point for walking all of these other points. It's all tying together nicely for me right now through this experience and the reflections in this post. If it means we are all supported as one as equal as life as what is best for all, then I can be nothing. Nothing else matters.

I committed myself to:

• Remaining present in interactions which "make" me feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or afraid. 
• Compassion for other individuals as myself, as one and equal as life. 
• Open and honest communication for mutual understanding. 
• Supporting others where they are. 
• Living within the present as the here and now, directing myself within the physical time and space of each moment as reality. 
• Accepting others as myself, as one and equal as life. 
• Seeing others as myself, as one and equal as life. 
• Not looking away, not turning my back, not retreating to my mindscape. 
• Seeing myself and stopping myself in the moment of seeing my reactions. 
• Finding real solutions, to the dedication to the belief that a real solution is available (and viable), that I am the solution, we are all each the solution if we allow ourselves to be the solution, to stop being the problem. 

Week 10 Reflections - Running a Lap around Depression - Day 69

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Supporting Myself in an Experience of "Depression" - Day 61

Yesterday I had an almost exact repeat of what occurred the day I wrote this post, except instead of a seemingly debilitating migraine, I was debilitated by my own thoughts/beliefs which were like a tunnel vision of "woe is me" and "this is all I'm good for" and other very unsupportive thoughts/beliefs toward/about myself and my life. I noticed a similar anxiety about sleeping in and I can see that it makes pretty obvious sense to still set an alarm for myself on the weekend at a reasonable time that allows me some of the luxury of sleeping in while still providing the structure of getting up with enough time to be productive.

This weekend again I have had the opportunity to see myself in "sleeping in" and how I want to take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in but also feel anxious about time slipping away, so that early on in the morning I want to keep sleeping but am worried about losing time, and then as I stay in bed, a shift occurs where now I want to stay in bed in order to avoid having to do tasks or obligations. Yesterday morning I woke up around 9:30 to begin my day and immediately met resistance with the thought that "it's already 9:30" and somehow this was identified as "too late" and within this thus "too late to do anything," so that here I basically threw my whole day away in a matter of seconds, believing that I did not have enough time to accomplish the things I needed to accomplish.

But it only took me a few seconds to make this decision -- what then if I could take only a few seconds to decide to actually do something, and then do it? As I have already begun to investigate, most tasks do not take as much time as I perceive/expect them to take, and I can actually accomplish a lot in what seems like a short amount of time. I persisted through this resistance and began my day, but of course I met further resistance in starting this blog versus going back to bed. Having started, I was then in a better position to actually see what is physically to be done rather than resist within and as my mind. So from there, it is to continue to move forward. So here it is pretty clear to me how in a moment I can create and then feed and participate in a "depressed" experience where I basically look around forlornly at what must be done and believe, "I can't do all of that," and then don't do it, where each of these is an individual decision I have made in directing myself as who I am in these moments. 

Reflecting on what I had identified as being "perfectly okay to give myself time and space to rest," I suppose at this point I see this as giving up the fight in order to "take a step back" to try and see more clearly what is going on from a different perspective, a perspective which actually is more comfortable as it is within my pattern, and therefore to stop the energy of the fight and to simply be, and then direct myself from where I am, where within this I have already created this "depressed state" and thus it is where I am, so to see myself from and as where I am rather than propelling myself in energetic judgments toward something that I am not.

 Instead to see where I am and take the steps to get where I want to be, while first seeing and identifying those steps before moving myself. So then here I am the one who is moving myself, rather than my judgments of myself as who/how I should or shouldn't be as my experience. 

Again however I am faced with meeting obligations or simply doing whatever it is I wish to do, where this obligation is something I do not really enjoy but where my presence makes things easier for others -- basically it is participating on a social sports team. In facing this decision of meeting this obligation I have been most tempted to just go back to bed in order to abdicate responsibility for myself in my obligation to communicate my commitment to this game, in my attendance of the game, and also in the other tasks such as this blog which I have set for myself to accomplish today, so that by not being productive now I can have a more legitimate excuse for not fulfilling the obligation of this game later today. And why would I go to this game? Guilt, mainly. So this guilt is probably not only fueling my inner conflict over fulfilling this obligation, but also my experience of "depression" such that I feel guilty and ashamed which is a slipper slope to an experience of hating and being mad at myself and feeling like "I just can't do life" which is obviously a huge snowball effect where in each roll of the snowball I am continually refusing to see myself, so I am avoiding myself as the snowball grows. 

At any rate, what I was able to most identify as a "causal" factor in my most recent experiences of myself as "depressed" was what I later wrote about in who I have been at my job, where I have accepted and allowed extreme dissatisfaction and thus a lot of thoughts/beliefs/judgments/etc. in order to justify that dissatisfaction as being sourced outside myself, so that I made myself basically "helpless" to my experience. I still need to investigate the majority of what I listed at the end of this post for topics that would be important to look at further.

The above was written yesterday morning. The next individual decision I made after having written that was to get back into bed, where I stayed for the majority of the day in an effort to avoid my obligations and avoid myself and avoid life, basically. This is becoming a recurring theme on Sundays. Perhaps because I do not have god in my life. No, but really, it's very clear to me that there is a lot of work to be done here, and that I will have to figure out a way to support myself in working on and walking through depression, as the experience itself completely opposes the effort it will take to see myself in self honesty and self responsibility here. It will have to be a slow and steady grind -- any loftier expectations will be counterproductive. 

Monday, June 17, 2013

Week 9 Reflections - Day 62

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Warning Signs of Depression - Day 63

In this post I began the process of taking responsibility for myself in how I create/generate an experience of "depression" both long-term and short-term. So here I opened up on the fact that there have been extenuating circumstances throughout my life to which I have reacted in a way that has not ultimately been self supportive or self honest, although at the time of my reaction I probably thought I was "coping" in some form. There have also been plenty of instances where I have quite blatantly not supported myself in any way that produced longevity of well-being, as is evidenced by my continued experiences of "depression." So in future posts and/or simply in my own considerations, it will be important to have a look at my own personal history of what I have accepted and allowed within and as myself as my reactions/responses to my environment and experiences.

I also asked some questions here about how I could tell if I was beginning to enter a "depressive episode," which is basically to ask, "what are the warning signs of depression?" What signs in myself can I look for as indicators that, if I continue with this pattern, it will lead to an experience of depression? What is it that I accept and allow in myself on a regular basis that in effect allows depression to creep in? What responsibilities am I abdicating and in what ways am I rejecting or abandoning myself in a lack of consistent and thorough self support? To what events am I reacting/responding in such a way that does not support myself long-term? So these will also be of great import to investigate in uncovering the depression character that I have accepted and allowed within and as myself for the majority of my life, since I was only a child.

I committed myself to:

• Identifying the "warning signs" that I am "starting to feel depressed" and to investigate the events and reactions that have led to these signs. 
• Stop myself at these signs and change course such that I do not accept or allow myself to continue down the path which leads to "depression." 
• Continue to investigate what it means to support myself. 
• Further investigate my self-definition as depressed and how this
• Justifies the experience of myself as "depressed"
• Creates a difficulty for me in seeing myself when I am experiencing "depression," because within this it seems too difficult or even impossible, because within this self-definition I am basically claiming that I am depression or I am depressed and these seem like quite scary immutable characteristics for one to possess. 
• So is it even beneficial/supportive to use this term? 

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Eye/I of the Storm - Day 64

In this post I shared an experience I had had in the midst of a "depressive episode" where I was feeling quite hopeless and helpless and "lost" and out of control, and then I "found" myself when I asked myself, "Where am I?" and then realized that I was already there, here, always. And at this point I felt myself sort of filling up my own body as the physical, and so my attention/awareness was brought back to myself as the physical. And what I am beginning to realize and started to open up about in yesterday's post, is that depression is all mind energy. Obviously, right? So what I am beginning to realize is that it seems as if one of the most efficient and effective ways out of depression is the same way out of my mind, which is to reconnect with my breath as the physical, as one with and equal to all life, remembering for example too how "Depression is a luxury some cannot afford," which contextualizes depression as not this "thing" that "exists" absolutely but as an experience I have created for myself within my life as what I have accepted and allowed within me in reaction to the events and experiences of my life.

So:

• Depression consists of mind energy -- without the thoughts/beliefs, there is no depression 
• The way out of my mind is through and as my breath as the physical, and also this journey to life process I am walking through writing
• Investigations and commitments to oneness and equality are supportive here in realizing my place in the global context, taking my focus off my petty selfish internal experiential problems and refocusing on what is here in the physical and responding instead to that in self honesty and self responsibility. 
• And so here then too is something to actually focus on, so that I am not simply stopping my participation in my mind but am then directing myself to actively engage in taking personal and global responsibility in the physical. 

I committed myself to:

• Really stopping and breathing when I see myself encountering strong negative energetic storms within myself, so that I can come back to myself (as the physical) and realize myself within the calm stability of and as the "I" of the storm, the creator and destroyer of the storm and the creator and destroyer of myself.
• Clearly this commitment is a building block which is still being placed, as is evidenced by my experiences yesterday. 

Thursday, June 20, 2013

I Work Hard, But Not at My Job - Day 65

In this post I finally got to the nitty gritty of who I have accepted and allowed myself to be at my current job, and how this has been a huge area of self-deception because I have deliberately chosen to ignore it in my daily writing and in my daily observations of myself in each moment. I finally began to see the consequences for this behavior as they directly affected me, which could be why I was finally allowing myself to see it in full and to write it out. I believe that the consequences went one step further and in fact contributed to my self-generated experience of depression. I had come to and written out some of these realizations actually two days prior to publishing this post, and I noticed a stark difference in my work performance and level of enjoyment at work once I began actually taking responsibility for myself and not allowing myself to be dissatisfied and to blame others for that dissatisfaction. So here too I saw that this is thematic in the creation of a depressed experience, which is the abdication of responsibility for my own contentment or enjoyment, because within this I am basically giving away my own power.

The main action I took to procure this change? Facing and seeing myself, firstly. But in each moment at work, what actually produced the change? Presence. Breath. Being present in each moment in the physical, responding to the needs and demands of each moment, releasing myself from the "needs" and demands of my mind. So, again: an exit from my mind and entrance into the physical as my breath as what is here as one and equal to all life as what is best for all.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Work Ethic and My Nasty Nature - Day 66

In this post I did self forgiveness and self commitment statements for the previous post.

I committed myself to:

• Really actually stop myself when I see myself so clearly participating in thoughts/backchats/beliefs/reactions/self-interest
• Not just ignoring, denying, justifying, or rationalizing what I see in myself
• Watch myself to see myself to investigate myself to see who I really am when I experience dissatisfaction. How have I created this dissatisfaction? What I am allowing myself to think/believe? 
• Free myself of the structures of my mind, of the rigidity of my mind, of the constraints of my mind. 
• Release myself from and as being the wants and needs and desires and fears of my mind. 
• Stop being controlled by my mind as the system I have installed in my mind. 
• Take practical steps to prepare myself for my new job, which includes keeping an "open mind" where I do not allow myself to create expectations or projections about the job but simply wait and see what it is.
• Creating myself in self-honesty and self-responsibility as equal to and one with all life as what is best for all, as the creator and destroyer of myself as who I accept and allow myself to be. 

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Reacting in Relationships - Day 67

I did a lot of work in this post but there is still much more to be done in the realm of relationships and this particular relationship. One of the conclusions I came to at the end of the post was not even obvious to me as so hugely relevant as I wrote it, but only after re-reading, which is basically that within relationships there are always structures of expectations and that within these expectations and structures, there is absolutely no room for equality and oneness and equanimity -- there will always be expectations, projections, assumptions, wants, needs, desires, fears, blame, etc.

So I had first established for myself a "solution" to adjust and re-align my expectations with what has been presented in the physical. But here this is still a reaction to what is presented, and what is presented is not pure in that I cannot know if the other is being self honest in their presentation, and I cannot know if I am being self honest in my perception of the other. So to realign myself as my expectations within a relationship is only a continuation of a relationship within and as my mind, separate from the other and separate from the physical.

So the actual solution is to completely dissolve relationship structures altogether. Equalization with other requires no structures, no definitions, no rigidity. Oneness requires the ability to see self absolutely, and to see self in the other. This cannot be done within the competitive nature of "relationship" where it is always about self-interest and giving in order to receive.

This will be a process in and of itself.

I have much more "up my sleeve" to write on this as I have continued to gain insights about myself in this relationship and also have previously written on relationships more generally through my DIP Lite assignments. So more to come on this.

Week 9 Reflections - Day 62

Monday, June 10, 2013
Information Retention as Self Identification - Day 55

• In this post I wrote about how I have a pattern of looking for specific strings of words to be definitive of myself or operate as keys to understanding, wherein I cling to exact phrasing, which is often charged with some kind of feeling/emotion energy coinciding with an experience of "insight," rather than understanding, integrating, and thus "retaining" the content of the words themselves as one and equal to myself. That's what I missed in this post -- oneness and equality to and as the words I speak or the words with which I identify or that I find to be insightful and poignant. I keep these words outside myself as something to attain and hoard and "retain," not realizing that "retention" is not really what matters so much as is living as what is best for all within my realizations and understandings. What's interesting here is that in placing these words as separate from myself and thus requiring "retention" in order to keep them near me and accessible, I create and then perpetuate anxiety within myself about "losing" these words and thus "losing" myself as my self-identification through these words. So here I place myself and these words as separate entities and then I create anxiety around the loss of these words, all the while not seeing, realizing, or understanding that I AM THESE WORDS, one and equal, where any realization or "insight" that could be had or experienced or witnessed can be integrated to and as myself as my lived expression of what is best for all. I do not need to hold these words away from myself separate from myself on a pedestal as so much better or smarter than myself, and also as identifications/definitions of myself and as stories/narratives of thoughts/ideas/feelings I have created, but instead simply be here in the physical as my breath as one and equal to life as insight, realization, application, and actualization of what is best for all. 
• I have not had the opportunity yet to test my commitments on how to participate in conversations that I perceive as "insightful" or "important" nor have I yet had then opportunity to test commitments to release myself from anxiety here and to thus participate in the actual integration of words/insights as they are experienced rather than desiring to "save them for later" through the process of "retention" wherein I keep them separate from myself. 

Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Seeing, Realizing and Understanding for, as, and by Self - Day 56

• The other day I had the opportunity to assist and support a friend through an interpersonal "crisis" if you will where she expressed herself as not knowing what she should do and feeling rather emotionally distraught. This conversation unfortunately took place over the phone while I was driving (hah! in relation to another post I wrote this last week) so there was a lot that I had to "juggle" while trying to support her verbally. Nonetheless I was able to see in myself that at first I heard what she was saying and considered it from what I perceived as an unbiased standpoint. Then after a short time and some more information, I realized that a bias was forming within me about what I thought she should do and I also noticed that this has been my biased answer in the past when friends have come to me with similar problems. I saw this in myself and reflecting on it now it would have been prudent to apply self forgiveness right then and there, to stop and breathe to ensure that I did not move forward in any sort of biased "assistance" of my friend, whom I wish to support effectively. Nonetheless I think that I did a "good job" of suggesting that she continue to take responsibility for herself as who she is in this relationship: to continue to "show up" and not allow herself to react to the new behaviors of the other person. I also suggested that she consider the consequences of what she can accept/allow in herself and in this relationship, and within this shared what I have noticed in myself and what I could imagine myself thinking/feeling/doing in her situation, and thus sharing suggestions of what she might see also in herself as her thoughts/feelings/reactions, which she acknowledged then as being accurate to how she was experiencing herself in this relationship and opened up for her the realization that she was compromising herself. So from here I suggested that she spend time writing for herself to get it all sorted out and to take the time to figure it out rather than allow herself to slip into any kind of complacency within the belief that she should just "get over it" and thus compromise herself. I have yet to re-establish in-depth contact with her since then, but she told me she has spent much time being with herself, writing and meditating. 
• So this is very cool! I look forward to more opportunities to see myself in this position of assisting and supporting another, preferably in instances where I am able to direct my focus more absolutely on myself as supporter and thus to support another within self-honesty and self-responsibility without distraction of driving, for example. 

Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Exception to the Rule - Day 57

• I appreciate what I did for myself in reading the sender on the envelope of this ticket notice and realizing what I could expect of myself in reaction to the letter I was about to open. Nonetheless I experienced many thoughts/beliefs/emotions/reactions to this, which is not surprising. However, I believe now that the thoughts/beliefs/emotions/reactions which I created and then perpetuated within myself also contributed to the experience of myself as "depressed" which came to full fruition later on in the week. So clearly I "let it get to me" more than I really realized. 
• Mainly I think where this begins is all of the excuses/justifications where I have thoughts/beliefs about why I should be exempt or exceptional in consequential matters. Allowing myself to think these thoughts fully and then to have emotional reactions where I am basically pouting and whining and being a baby rather than seeing what is in front of me in the physical and dealing with practically within self-responsibility as well as self-honesty. 
• It was beneficial and thus self-supportive that I was able to realize and admit/own that I actually do many things each day which could accrue much larger fines if I were to be "caught" legally. This assisted me in realizing that I actually do not mostly follow the law and therefore there is actually no reason that I should get out of this consequence by good merit. Nor should I get out of it by having a good record, as this is my second ticket of this sort. 
• What persisted, however, was this sense of it being rather hopeless, wherein I wondered how I could possibly be expected to avoid these kinds of monstrous fines for such minuscule errors. 
• However, I noticed myself every time I approached a right turn in my car all week, and I noticed that in fact I seem to generally disregard the law of stopping on red before turning right, where for whatever reason I have not allowed myself to understand that this is my legal obligation as a driver. 
• I also have tried to be more aware of myself while driving, and let me tell you -- it's alarming how much I "zone out" and basically go into "auto-pilot" where I am not really aware of what I am doing and what is going on around me. 
• As a bit of a side-note within the "road rage" topic:
• Just this morning I was running a little late and I was pulling out of the parking lot of my apartment onto a street that is sometimes busy, sometimes not. At this moment it happened to be rather busy in both directions, and another car pulling out of the parking lot to my right took an opportunity of break in the flow of traffic to pull out turning left, the same direction I needed to turn. I became frustrated here. I thought, "that just makes me so mad!" because basically that was "my" opportunity to pull out, but I couldn't because that person who had arrived to the edge of the street after me took the opportunity before me.
• So here I had a thought/belief that this action of this other person MADE me mad, where I was abdicating responsibility for myself in my reactions and the emotions that occur within me. 
• So here I thought, what came before this thought/emotional reaction?
• "I got here first."
• "Don't they know I'm running late?" (and here of course I am the one who made myself late)
• So here I see that there has been an event, and then there have been reactionary thoughts/beliefs established by myself in relation to that event, and subsequent to that there have been further reactions which are more emotionally charged where I would not feel so offended and angry if I did not first think that I deserved something other than what happened, if I did not first think that my needs were more important than this other person's needs, if I was not first thinking of myself in self-importance and self-righteousness. 
• Further efforts taken in improving my awareness/focus/self-application while driving:
• My cell phone has found a home in the middle console glove box. 
• I have increased awareness of myself when/as I see myself entering "road rage" where I have come to understand that I am placing myself in competition with other drivers in a kind of "me v them" stance wherein I am most important and I always right. 
• I have and will continue to apply myself in real-time realizations about my responsibilities in self-honesty as a driver of a large machine at high speeds, regardless of what other drivers do or don't do, where what they do or don't do has no bearing on what I do or don't do. 

Thursday, June 13, 2013
Experiencing Memories as I Breathe - Day 58

• Firstly, the content of this post refers to my relationship with my mother and I see that there are aspects of that relationship which are unresolved within myself. There is a part of me that wants to identify this as needing to be further discussed with my mother for increased clarity between us and an exchange of forgiveness. Perhaps this is true, but there is also a part of me that realizes that a conversation such as the one I have described would not likely end in mutual forgiveness, and instead would likely escalate from both sides. So here I see then that there is more work to be done on my side as and by myself as my responsibility in this relationship in self-honesty and my own self-forgiveness. 
• Since the writing of this post, I have not noticed this specific memory resurfacing for me in deep audible breaths, but I have still noticed a continued projection onto others within wondering if they have noticed my deep breath and if they are making their own assumptions on and then reacting to why I am breathing deeply. 
• So here it would probably be good to look at what I might fear in having others know that I am upset/frustrated/needing to stop and breathe. Do I fear the potential conflict? Yes. Do I fear not pleasing another person? Probably. Do I even fear having another see me as who I am in that moment, as my experience of myself as my breath, being with my breath and thus being fully present and thus being visible? Well I am always visible. Simply within my breath I am seeing myself. Do I project the perception of my breath outward as a way to avoid fully seeing myself within and as my breath, within and as the reason for my breath? 

Friday, June 14, 2013
Memories of Lived Environments - Day 59

• Immediately after this post I was prompted with coming up with a "negative/emotion attachment" memory for my DIP Lite lesson and then had a hard time again "coming up" with an example. So, whatever's going on there. Resisting finishing up my DIP Lite maybe! 
• After this post I was actually all the more aware of "missing" Denver and this also contributed then to the experience of myself as "depressed" culminating in the post I wrote yesterday. 
• I have continued to imagine / "remember" my life in Denver and what it was like, who I got to see, what my apartment was like, what my opportunities were. 
• I have to question my memory because even as I sometimes will express to my mother how much I miss Denver and how I wish I was back there, she will challenge me by saying that she remembers many a phone call while I lived there where I stated how unhappy I was. 
• So here I not only have to question my memory as accurate, but I also have to see how once again I am establishing within myself a "grass is always greener" kind of perspective where I believe that "if only this was different I would finally be happy."
• I realized that every moment spent in regret is another mistake, where even though I have not allowed myself to release myself from this experience of regret, I have continued to gain insight/understanding that regret is pointless and is another way of paralyzing myself within my mind so that I am not able to direct myself in the physical as one and equal with life as what is best for all. 
• After yesterday's post I did have a bit of a "high" experience where I felt more determined to really "work with what I've got" in terms of "making life work" here in Sacramento where I am. 
• But I also suggested to my friend that we should move to Denver, hahaha. 
• So here I see that there is more work to be done in regret and in living in the past in memories, which is all the more important in relation to my new job where I have established a pattern of comparing jobs to my old job in Denver. 
• I am still not clear on the questions I posed at the end of this post. So further investigation here too. 

Saturday, June 15, 2013
Proving Myself Wrong: Going Beyond the Ways I Have Limited Myself - Day 60

• Probably the coolest thing about this adventure was that it was like one of those building blocks of self-trust where within pushing myself to venture out on my bike by myself and facing myself as my fears within this new activity, I was able to see that I was actually capable here and independent and thus able to "feel safe and secure within and as myself." I experienced moments of self-doubt in the form of thoughts about how far away I was from home (with only myself, my bike, my cell phone, and my wallet... what a disaster!), small feelings of panic, or beliefs that I would get lost. I thought about asking confirmation about which route to take on a couple occasions, but mostly for lack of seizing these opportunities at the right time, I ended up relying fully on myself. And I made no mistakes. 
• Also cool about this is to see how I assisted and supported myself in taking the time and space to familiarize myself and stabilize myself not only within myself as my relationship to myself in this activity but also familiarize and stabilize myself in relation to the actual physical relationship with my bike and riding my bike around traffic. Rather than expecting myself to just DO IT and do it right and safely without any practice or needing to first learn, I allowed myself the time and space to learn, to be guided, to face my fear with assistance and support of another and with the room of patience with myself... So it ended up being very effective and I really experienced a very minimal amount of judgment of myself, if any. 

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. 

Week 7 Reflections - Day 48

Monday, May 27, 2013
Internalizing the Criticism of Others - Day 41

• In this post I noticed how, upon making a silly mistake, I projected & internalized imagined or remembered criticism from others such that I judged myself internally as well as externally.
• I realized that within this judgment I was not assisting and supporting myself to learn from my mistakes but instead to just judge myself and feel bad about myself and stop my self in that moment of the mistake and hold myself hostage there in judgment. 
• This topic also opened up the point of immortalizing others where I accept their criticism as true and immutable primarily because I have identified them as superior to me and incapable of making mistakes or of directing themselves outside of what is "right" or what is best for all. 
• So here I realized obviously that within this I am not existing as one as equal as life, nor am I identifying others as one as equal as life. 
• I realized that within this I have a tendency to place trust absolutely outside myself onto another without trusting myself at all. 
• I also realized in this post how the criticism that I receive from others is spoken by and therefore about them and that rather than holding onto and carrying with me the specifics of the criticism or the specifics of my energetic reaction to the criticism, I can instead look at myself within that criticism and look at myself within my reaction to see myself and learn about myself and adjust myself toward what is best for all and directing myself within self-honesty and self-responsibility. 
• I committed myself to:
• Be patient and gracious with myself when I make mistakes and to see these mistakes as opportunities to see myself and learn. 
• Stop myself from reacting to criticism and judgment of another and to let myself trust and guide myself through the moment through my breath in self-honesty and self-responsibility. 
• Continue to investigate and come to understand what it means to live as one as equal as life with all beings, and what it is to trust myself and take responsibility for myself. 
• Hear the words of another objectively and maintain a connection with myself as one as all as equal as life within and as my breath in self-honesty and self-responsibility. 
• Reflections:
• I think it will be important to open up more on the immortalization of others and thus the superiority/inferiority adept/inept complexes. 
• I see that in general through my process with desteni I am more able to trust myself and to not rely on others to tell me who I am except as who I am within and as my relationships to those people. So here in the face of criticism I am able to practice my self-trust and self-support as well as self-honesty and self-responsibility. As in every moment, really. 

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Truman Show - Living Paranoia - Day 42

• In this post I opened up the point of paranoia specifically in relation to how I had identified myself with the movie "The Truman Show" inasmuch that I had experienced paranoia within myself where I would believe and tell myself that every other person had some "secret" about life that they were keeping from me, that every person could tell that I didn't know this secret, and that indeed some people were laughing at me and maliciously withholding this secret from me. 
• So here again I see a real lack of existing in and as myself as one as all as equal as life, once again placing myself as somehow inferior and inept and all others as capable, superior, adept. 
• I also saw how this paranoia is extremely SELF-CENTERED and SELFISH in that it implies that all of existence is created FOR ME in order to deceive me, that all others care enough about me and who I am to laugh at me and judge me constantly, when in reality, people just don't. So am I somehow gaining something from this paranoia in terms of feeling special? It seems as if this paranoia is purely detrimental and exploiting my weaknesses, but is it in fact also somehow bolstering a sense of self as special and important? Certainly the intense need for validation through this paranoia necessitates exclusive attention placed on me by others in order to reaffirm my self-worth and well-being. Might be interesting to explore more. 
• I committed myself to:
• I did not make any commitments in this post. 
• When and as I see myself participating within and as a paranoia that others know something I don't know and that others are keeping it from me and maliciously ridiculing me, I stop and I breathe. I realize that this simply isn't true and is all occurring within and as my imagination in my mind. I realize that this imaginary paranoia is separating me from the physical from life from myself as one as all as equal as life. I commit myself to return to myself through and as my breath, return to the physical, and continue to direct myself within self-honesty and self-responsibility. 
• Reflections:
• What is interesting to me now is to notice how part of all of this was that I feel/felt transparent and like others could see that I was empty, which is like "my secret," and so here now I see that I assumed all others had a secret they were keeping from me while at the same time fearing that others could see and had complete and total access to my secret. So that is an interesting new dimension of this paranoia to investigate. What does this have to do with a sense of privacy, and why? What other questions can I ask in relation to this? 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Feeling Tired as an Excuse from Life - Day 43

• In this post I opened up about feeling "tired" and how I have often used tiredness and then sleep as excuses/justifications from participating in physical existence as living, as obligations, as responsibilities, and as being aware/responsible of myself. 
• I noticed how quickly and seemingly arbitrarily (not pertaining to physical rest or exertion) my experience of myself as "tired" or "awake/alert" could shift and therefore noticed how this experience is energetic and therefore how I create it and maintain/sustain/participate in it. 
• I listed some ways that I could create an experience of being awake/alert for myself as a solution to my experience of myself as tired and also as further investigation of how these experiences are my creation / I participate in them. 
• I committed myself to:
• Direct myself through experiences of resistance to life/living where I excuse myself as being tired or sleeping so that within directing myself I can accomplish tasks and take responsibility for myself. 
• Practice utilizing every moment of my day to the best of my ability within self-support, self-honesty, and self-responsibility. 
• Reflections:
• I of course am still frequently experiencing myself as tired. I downloaded Tired Eyes - Reptilians - Part 196 and have found it interesting and will likely write more on that at some point. 
• I can see how sleep is like another mini-death, like succumbing to fear, or like giving in to resistance, where I can use sleep to basically commit a momentary suicide through abdication of responsibilities and separation of self from awake aware life. 
• It will be important to watch myself in these points to ensure that I do not latch onto experiencing myself as "awake/alert" as ideals because these exist within polarity to experiencing myself as tired and so I cannot have one without the other, so I must investigate how to find a balance and how to direct myself through both. 

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Intent: "I didn't mean to!" - Day 44

• In this post I wrote about a realization I had about using "intent" as an excuse for outcome, wherein I have seen myself excuse/justify my behavior with the statement "I didn't mean it like that," or "that's not what I meant to happen." I noticed that within the knowledge that I direct myself even through and as my personalities/reactions/desires/emotions/thoughts/etc., and therefore the outcome is always on some level in some way intended by me inasmuch as there is either "a part of me" that really does intend that outcome or that I have abdicated responsibility to fully consider potential/probable consequences/outflows to see the outcome for what it is/will be. 
• We use intent/meaning in order to appease ourselves to make ourselves feel better for making a mistake or doing something selfish / out of self-interest/survival. 
• We often move from intent as a starting-point without considering outcome/consequence/self-interest when and as we identify our intent as "good." 
• We separate ourselves from the physical as our outcomes by claiming that our "intent" and thus "who we are inside" is different from "who we are outside." 
• I committed myself to:
• I did not make any commitments in this post.
• When and as I see myself participating within and as my "intent" and especially identifying my intent as "good," I stop and I breathe. I realize that intention is not enough and that my intention is sourced within myself within my personalities/reactions/self-interest and is not necessarily self-honest, self-responsible, and best for all. I commit myself to be self-honest with myself within my intentions, to adjust my intentions toward what is best-for-all, and to consider the consequences/outflow of my intentions as real actual outcomes which will be best-for-all. I commit myself to see myself as who I am in the physical and not who I believe myself to be inside my mind. 
• Reflections:
• Open up more about excuse of intent as reaction to criticism 
• Understand better how to align self-honesty with what is best for all, because at present I see self-honesty as simply seeing/knowing myself/my starting points to where I would say "within self-honesty, I can see that I do not actually care about a best-for-all outcome in this situation" or knowing that I am operating out of self-interest. Presently it seems to me that this is an appropriate application of "self-honesty" where I am being honest with myself in seeing myself honestly. So here there is a separation for me where self-honesty is not inherently what is best for all, but that best-for-all intention comes through a process of self-responsibility and self-commitments. So I need to investigate this further to understand these concepts. 

Friday, May 31, 2013

Participation in Self-Education through Desteni Community - Day 45

• In this post I opened up the point of actually reading blogs by fellow destonian bloggers, wherein I see myself opening up multiple blogs in multiple tabs in my browser to read "later" but then never or rarely actually red them. 
• I saw how by opening multiple tabs at once I was creating for myself an illusion of a very large task rather than assisting myself in breaking it down one-by-one and reading each blog one-by-one. 
• I saw how I often sit around and waste time, basically "waiting" for myself to direct myself, waiting for motivation to magically appear or for tasks to just magically be done, rather than actually directing myself.
• I committed myself to:
• Read at least 3 blogs every day, one of which I specified as a Psychologist's Journey to Life
• Read these blogs one-at-a-time, as I open them. 
• Direct myself within learning from and supporting my desteni community. 
• Reflections:
• I have only had a handful of days to practice these commitments and already have fallen. So I see clearly that I must continue to work on this, although I also see that it is probably a good thing that I have not read blogs while at work like I had been doing on the days when I fulfilled these commitments. Time management in self-direction here! 

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Self as Paranoid Hypochondriac - Day 46

• In this post I was writing about a reaction I saw within myself while reading literature about paranoia and a tendency/pattern I have of identifying "problems" within and as myself through physical and mental health/disorder, and why. 
• Within the diagnostic terminology of "qualification" I saw that I had charged this word within its typical dictionary definition to where I have wanted to "qualify" through satisfaction of diagnostic criteria in order to receive attention, have needs met, or be special. 
• I saw how within reading psychological texts I often identify myself within the words and then apply the whole entirety of the words to and as myself, and within this I look to these texts to know myself and to know how to be myself and also as a form of validation for my experiences of myself. 
• I saw again how I have both created and participated in the sustenance of "mental illness" within and as myself. 
•  I committed myself to:
• Create myself within self-honesty, self-responsibility and self-support as one and equal with all as life in what is best for all.
• Relinquish the power I have given to diagnostic definitions of myself
• Define myself only within and as who I am in each moment in each breath
• Investigating and taking responsibility for all the points I encounter within the ways I have defined myself within and as "mental illness"
• Reflections:
• Refer to list at end of post about relevant future topics.