I was doing some deep journaling in the form of questions and answers, where I would ask all the questions I have, feel deep in my heart what answer is coming to me, and then asking more questions about those answers.
For example, I will ask myself, what do I do about the anxiety with art? The answer that I feel come up intuitively is to create art which then poses the question, what do I do with art? Then I have the answer, use art to create richness in your life.
I was doing this exercise because I realized at this point in my life, I am so confused on what will happen next and what direction I want to go for my coaching, my career, and my relationship that the best way to serve myself is to get some clarity about what I am feeling and what I want. The faster you make decisions, the faster you progress. I felt that having clarity would make it much easier to make faster decisions.
I had quite a few revelations from this exercise I wanted to note down a few of the most important ones:
I will achieve what I want in the field of AI not by working with others and creating a startup but rather by involving others into my creative process. Remember the energy of anything is possible. Solve difficult problems in practical ways and help people dream again. Change the world for the better.
The long distance relationship does not meet the physical needs of closeness. I will need to dance more to keep in touch with the physical. I want to use emails and video chats to keep connected with my girlfriend on a spiritual level.
I’ve lost a bit of my focus with coaching where it has become too much about the client. Coaching is not just about helping people create amazing beautiful art, but also to create a space of my design. Aka a space where connection theory and flow theory rule.
Use your fear of not having enough money to fuel art that creates more wealth than money can buy (not about the value of the art, but the experience about having stories, music, and paintings so beautiful I may as well be rich).
One more note I wanted to make…I had a new idea with coaching a few days ago. I always wanted to create video clips of my coaching in order to show social media, but I was thinking recently, I can create clips that can be used to share something a package that can be used to motivate my clients (clips of songs created during the session, major breakthroughs etc.)
I just made a little discovery about the nature of “should” and regret. What should I do, what should I have done, what is the perfect next move. They are interesting ideas but they can sometimes limit our understanding of the truth.
It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, only how we feel about them now.
That is why everything is about processing feelings and even the permission exercise processes feelings about the future. Nothing matters but now.
It doesn’t even make sense to think about the future and the past because all we can control is the now.
Because nothing matters but the moment, we can process the past, we can process the future, and make our decision from where we are on how to feel the present. We can make decisions from the vantage point of now. We can do things now. We can feel now.
All that Matters is Now
I was scared of the past
Scared of what I might find
I was scared of the future
Scared of what I might do
But the place where I stand right now
With all the things that brought me to this moment
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.
