Yesterday I came home, and I felt that I met my goal. I literally felt better than when I first left home.
Now, this fact was immediately undercut by the fact that I went to bed at 3:40 AM in the morning. I was dealing with a great deal of discomfort, perhaps from being home and the taxi ride where I felt like I couldn’t leave. The taxi driver was trying very hard to preach Christianity to me. I feel perhaps the permission exercise may be helpful here in order to give myself permission to leave, but also to stay and feel trapped.
Today when I woke up I felt completely horrible with lower back soreness, stomach issues, dry eyes and tense shoulders and back. My throat and nose felt acidic and burning and I felt sick.
I did the warmups in order of massage first, then stretching, then range of motion. I feel that I can take the warmup much further, so today, I did mental warmups and vocal warmups.
I wanted to do this mental warmup but it felt exhausting. I feel that I needed more of a meditation but maybe my mind just needs to be warmed up more.
Ever since I left my house and went off to college, it has been increasingly hard to go to bed on time.
It’s killing me. I don’t recover from workouts, my mind is foggy, and my memory mists away. My moods feel erratic and neurotic. Energy during the day is a thing of the past.
And yet I cannot stop.
2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. I keep going to bed late. And sometimes later and later.
I tried so many times to go to be at a reasonable time. I try for a few days, and then I relapse. But we aren’t giving up. We are trying it one more time.
And I didn’t do it alone. My good friend Edgar gave me this kick in the butt:
So what is my gameplan this time? How am I going to succeed when I failed so many times before?
A couple of things:
I will not try to control how much sleep I get
I will not try to control my screen habits
I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
At the same time, I will figure out what needs I am meeting by going to bed late and how to meet those needs earlier in the day
I will commit to this bedtime long enough to form a habit
I made a list of reasons why I love staying up late at night:
Completely alone
Lots of time – no rush
Sense of accomplishment (if I feel I haven’t accomplished anything yet it gives me more time to get things done)
Consume art
Nighttime magical vibes
Dread of the next day
More time to eat and digest
I realized that not sleeping is incredibly compelling to me. It is far more challenging for me to go to sleep on time than most people. So as a result, I need to keep it simple. Bedtime at 11 PM for the next 66 days, no exceptions. The challenge will end on December 12th. I am two days into this challenge already.
What does this mean?
I can eat right before bed
I can watch videos in my bed after 11
I can get back up, stretch if I cannot fall asleep, then go back to bed
I can toss and turn at 11
I can get up at 6 am if I have work that needs to be done but I don’t have the time to finish it
In the meantime, in an attempt to meet all my needs before bed:
I will silence notifications and try to find some alone time every day
I will work to identify a task that is feasible to do and will give me a strong sense of accomplishment every day
I will try to get this done early so that I will have larger open times during the day where I don’t feel rushed
I will pursue more art and magical vibes
I will try to leave gifts for myself the next day so I have positive anticipation(ex: a clean empty sink, plans for something fun)
I will try to eat at 8 pm at the latest so I have time to digest before 11
In terms of how to structure the next 66 days, I have not decided yet, but perhaps I will try to focus on each of the needs and strategies every week.
Some additional strategies/thoughts:
Turning off all the lights
Melatonin gummies
So far, finding a way to feel accomplished/ready for the next day has been a game-changer in wanting to go to sleep. Also, it is easier to go to sleep when bedtime is a hard boundary that is very strict and everything else is quite relaxed (I can still get less sleep and wake up super earlier if I feel I’m not prepared for the next day, I don’t have to go to sleep as long as I’m in bed). Nothing is tempting as a valid excuse/difficult decision anymore.
So tentatively I feel this time will be different. My hope is that after 66 days, I will no longer have to try to go to bed at 11, it will just be automatic, and I will start to cherish my sleep and life in general!
I was struggling really hard on making videos recently and struggling even harder to figure out what I’m doing with my life.
I know this is in large part to the enormous pressure that I put on myself in order to do well and it makes me very angry that my parents brought me up in such a way, a way in which I feel constantly paralyzed with the fear of anything less than perfection.
There are a few things that I found relief with:
MENTALITY 1: The focused mindset
Let everything else fall away but the feeling of what you are aiming at (whether it is to walk, to move, to express) and the sensations within your body. Feel the right time to strike, to act.
MENTALITY 2: The meditative mindset
Let everything fall away, most of all, your identity. Feel the universe around you and wait patiently for something to surface, let all conscious thoughts and solutioning to dissolve like sugar in water. Only sensations remain, and the vastness of space.
MENTALITY 3: The unchained mindset
Give yourself permission to do and think about everything and anything. Accept yourself for everything. Give yourself permission to do anything. Imagine that you’ve already done it and give yourself permission to do it.
In the end of the day, I realized that it’s not about what you do with you life. You can do anything. You can always change your mind. It’s more of a question of what you want to do right now if you can do anything that you want.
I realized that I have made every single video type that I said in the last blog post (Video Poem, How To Video, Challenge Video, Conversation Video) except the How To Video.
I think the reason why, is that I tend to restrict myself with only shooting myself, when in How To Videos I would actually have a lot more fun shooting it with many more elements such as animation, and stop motion.
Going on that theme, I’m going through every video type and breaking down the types of video I’m going to try in each.
Video Poem
Lots of beautiful b-roll (mostly from traveling)
Some b-roll from video personal diary entries
Voice over from a written script
Collage of elements, textures, images, text and footage
How-to Video
Less is more
Animation
Stop motion
B-roll
Talking head (straight on face shot)
Text on screen
Focus on simplicity and directly to the point
Challenge Video
Broll of challenge
Diary entries from during the challenge
Voice overs
Broll for explanations
Focus on the journey and try to convey how it felt for real
I just checked out this video from a channel my dance teacher recommended and it’s literally soo good.
Here are some of the concepts I’m taking from this:
I need to stand up much straighter and play with the levels more, instead of being hunched and looking at the floor.
I need to work on seeing where the movement goes, let the movement keep going, follow where it goes.
Start with the most comfortable posture, then develop from there.
I always am told to imagine the story but its hard for me, because I’m imagining MYSELF
I think what will work for me is imagining the world or space I’m IN (instead of visualizing myself, I visualize an imaginary box I’m in, imaginary walls).
I can also try visualizing the “gesture” of the move (kind of like a drawing gesture).
Nothing to add here. Exercises are AMAZING for musicality:
Today in the King’s council, part men’s group, part coaching session, we talked about setting goals.
I didn’t have an idea of what my goals are but a couple of visions came to mind:
Coaching is a large part of my life. I saw about 3 coaching conversations with clients or potential clients every week.
Youtube challenges being a large source of energy in life. I saw myself dedicating a little time every day to focus on an active challenge. This could be writing about the challenge, doing the challenge or shooting videos and thinking about the final video.
I imagined feeling a lot more confident and in control of my challenges. I saw this as having successfully editing and posted a single challenge to youtube.
I saw myself being outside and having a lot more energy. I would spend different parts of my day in different places.
I saw my work-life come alive again. This meant posting posts on Linkedin every week, and engaging with people at work about my life outside of work.
I need to choose three main ones for the intention of the Kings Council.
I will choose the following goals:
To have a powerful coaching conversation with three more people.
To have one paying client.
To have produced three challenge videos and posted them to youtube.