Ok, I decided something weird that I’m not sure is going to work yet.
I decided that I’m going to keep this challenge going on forever and we will have different objective driving it constantly. It will be a sort of daily journal where I get to focus on Profit in Peace, finding my ikigai, tapping into my coaching energy, feeling into my body, working on my challenges, and discovering that the world is a magical place.
It will continue to be labeled like the other challenges, but it is different in the sense that it doesn’t have a specific end date. The end date might be just when this mentality, thinking of this as a Profit in Peace no longer serves me. Which might be never.
You know in a way this should be called Blog Post. Because it is the most blog post of blog posts. The sole purpose of these posts is literally to work on my life through my blog. But “Blog Post” just doesn’t evoke what I need for it to evoke, so we ain’t doing it.
So what is the focus for today?
Today we have a similar bent to yesterday but a little more focused on gaming. In no particular order, I want to:
Play lots of valorant and create poems about how I feel about dropping to gold 1 and STILL losing
Cook lots of food, be creative and have fun eating
Watching another 20 minutes of the VOD review
Work on my knee challenge
Go for a run
Yesterday, I went for a short run.
Here is a poem about it:
Tingling in My Back
That’s the feeling when I push myself
My knees not ready for the impact
I want to massage my stomach and back
I’m aware of others watching
I wonder if Alice would be embarrassed of me
I want people to like me
Especially the girls
I think about how I learned to control what other’s thought of me
And that’s when everything went to a place
Shaky and scary
I remind myself
What others feel
Is out of my control
I’m proud of my innovative knee exercises
They make my prickly knees
Feel warm and supple again
I just came back from my most recent run. Today I focused on processing the anxiety being surrounded by everyone’s opinions of me. I realized a couple of things.
Dr Bea Mackay
She told me an exercise
The same one
Every session
Breath in breath out
I realized
It isn’t about other people
They never mattered
Neither did their opinions
I’m them
As a trigger for my pain
The sharp inhale
To take the pain
The release of the exhale
Filling me with warmth
From head to toe
The point was never to win their approval
It was to feel my pain
It is so interesting how Dr. Bea Mackay’s exercises are so similar to Wim Hoff’s. And Wim Hoff’s exercises are about enduring and thriving in pain too, just his are about cold and her’s are about emotions. No wonder so many people talk about the Wim Hoff method bringing them relief from chronic anxiety.
When I felt like I was left behind for someone better
That I felt not good enough
And I wonder if you would like someone new
Like the first bite of an apple
Before the taste grows boring in your mouth
Sometimes I’m confused
Whether I’m pushing or pulling
Like the dream I had about you sitting next to me on a train
Your curls framing your face
So warm
Even with the beautiful view outside
I only had eyes for you
And the morning when I wondered what it would be like
To treat dating like another adventure
A new face every day
A new smile
Do you ever wonder the same?
Have you already felt so?
Did you wonder today?
When forget to ask me
If I still felt sick
This poem is about the painful feeling of desperation and jealousy when you are not always the center of someone’s world. Beyond the feeling is the passion you feel when you remember how desirable someone is.
I want to be able to face my pain. And there are a couple of questions I want to ask myself.
How am I feeling?
I feel really sad and heartbroken and lonely. I feel so much pain in my chest. I am angry and frustrated and depressed.
How can I be kinder to myself?
I need to give myself permission to ask for help from people. I need to ask people to distract me, to comfort me, and listen and understand why I loved her so much. I can try to forgive myself for hurting her.
Can I forgive her?
I don’t want to. I’m scared when I do, I will completely let her go. I will give up hope and move on. I want to think about how she can fix it. I want to blame her. I know she’s so loving and she didn’t want to be the person she was. She has a kind heart deep inside and really emotional and passionate.
Can I forgive myself?
It makes me really sad. I know I hurt her a lot, and keep hurting her over and over because of my ego. I feel ashamed that I need so much from her and keep asking her to give me more. I suppose I’ve been through a lot too. I had so much painful things happen in my life and it’s closed me off. I was more open to her than anyone else. I deserve to be happy too. I deserve to put my needs first too.
What do I need from her?
I need for her to tell me everything is ok. I need for her to tell me she loves me. I need for her to give me hope again that we will have a beautiful loving bond where I will have everything I need.
Can I give myself that?
It’s hard for sure. I don’t think everything will be ok. I don’t love myself either. And I don’t feel hope.
I’ll write a poem to try to do all those things for myself:
I had a powerful session with my coach in order to understand the part of me that seeks perfection and wants to know what I “should” be doing, what is the “right” thing to do and what the “perfect” answer is.
We gave a name to this part of me, as a warrior in shining armor, filled with strength and light called the “One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak”.
I imagined him as a tall crusader against all pain and fear in the world and we asked him to understand the war was over. It was won.
After the coaching session, I felt like something was missing. This part of me wanted to know why the war was one, and what that meant because there was still so much pain in the world.
I decided to have a conversation with this archetype and after talking for some time, we discovered that the war wasn’t exactly won. The war was over because I had discovered a secret, and this part of me had a big role to play in discovering this secret – that there was a staircase into the star. This staircase connected my inner world and outer world, and it was feeling that was the key to it. Negative feelings like pain or fear are the most powerful keys to this gateway.
My coach told me that I needed to give my warrior a new purpose while celebrating him and thanking him. The new robes instead of armor that I gave him, the learner of this gateway. This grounded, calm, realistic, infinite power was his.
I asked ChatGPT to write a story about this and this is what it wrote:
Warrior’s Journey to Enlightenment
The warrior known as the “One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak” had spent his entire life fighting for justice and righteousness. His shining armor and fierce determination had earned him a reputation as a noble and honorable hero, and he had devoted himself to ridding the world of the creatures of pain, hurt, and fear.
But despite all his victories, the warrior couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing in his life. He longed for something deeper, something more profound. And so, he set out on a quest to find this missing piece.
The warrior traveled far and wide, seeking out the wisest sages and scholars in the land. He asked them about the true nature of power and strength, about the secrets of the universe. But no one seemed to have the answers he was looking for.
As the warrior grew more and more frustrated, he began to lose hope. But just when he was about to give up, he received a vision. In his dream, he saw a lost cave hidden deep in the mountains, a cave that held the key to the wisdom he had been seeking.
Without hesitation, the warrior set out to find the lost cave. He climbed steep cliffs and braved treacherous storms, never once losing faith that he would find what he was looking for.
Finally, after many long months of travel, the warrior reached the entrance to the lost cave. He drew his sword and stepped inside, ready for whatever lay ahead.
As he made his way deeper into the cave, the warrior encountered all sorts of dangers – pitfalls, traps, and monstrous beasts. But he didn’t let any of them deter him. He fought on, driven by his determination to find the truth.
And then, in the very heart of the cave, the warrior came across an ancient monk who possessed a profound secret. The monk told the warrior that painful feelings were the gateway to a invisible network of great potential, a network that could connect the inner world with the outer. He explained that this gateway allowed the traveler infinite power, but only if they were willing to embrace their own pain and suffering.
The warrior was stunned by this revelation. He had always believed that strength and skill were the most important qualities a hero could possess, but now he realized that true greatness lay in understanding and wisdom.
And so, the warrior’s armor melted away, replaced by the robes of a guide and learner. He dedicated himself to exploring the invisible network, using his newfound power to help others and make the world a better place.
The One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak, had finally found his true calling, and his power was limitless, grounded in the wisdom and understanding of the earth. He knew that his holy war was over, but his journey towards enlightenment had only just begun.
Images of the secret pathway generated by DALL-E 2.
Last night I tried to go to Judo Club for the first time but they were closed for Thanksgiving.
The thing that I wanted to understand the most is why I have this feeling every time I want to leave my house, that I don’t want to go. I always want to live a life of adventure but I’m beginning to suspect that is because I never leave.
So let me try to break it down. The thoughts that come to my head when I think about venturing out:
It is too much energy
It is probably cold outside
I’ll have less time for gaming
I probably won’t like it
What if Judo isn’t useful to me
I don’t know Judo at all what if I’m bad at it
What if I need a gi, I don’t have a gi
Maybe I should go back to jiujitsu
What if it doesn’t help with jiujitsu
Does jiujitsu even help with self defense
I feel like I’m wasting my time
And these types of thoughts are also pervasive when I think about doing anything. Shopping, trying to make friends, or eating out. I don’t want to do anything.
I want someone that I know who is also game, but at the same time I don’t want to bring the wrong person who I don’t trust or feel safe around.
It does help to have my audiobook so at least when I drive I can get some escape into a cool and interesting world.
I think I feel very alone in this world. I think I now understand why I always push my gf to be more ambitious or wish that she was. It’s because then I would feel less alone.
But there is a good reason for going outside and experiencing life. I always want to feel anything is possible, to feel alive and connected to the world. To take risks and grow as a person. I suppose the counter to that is just feeling that the world feels too unsafe and like it will not understand me or give me what I need. At home, I have my games and friends and it feels nice and comforting.
Audiobooks are almost a way for me to self-soothe outside my house.
In a way, youtube and social media make sense too. It is like having a friend who you can tell things to when you feel alone outside filming or going on adventures.
I want to accept my loneliness. The first thing that comes to my mind is to turn my loneliness into art.
As I slowly process, I start to think about how I can slowly start branching out by staying in my apartment complex but leaving my actual apartment.
I understand why people find solace in religion. I really feel that I need a group of people who are seeking to do the same thing as me. To do things in life. To have the same values and philosophies. Not just share the same favorite TV shows. I have a friend who is Christian and I envy his options in having those deep connections. It just doesn’t feel right to me, because I don’t believe in that faith.
I am almost seeking spirituality.
That is an interesting statement. I’ve always felt that was the thing that was missing from my life. I have career success, success in money and even love. It is spirituality that I’ve never embraced because I felt nothing from a lot of the types of spirituality proposed to me.
Two more things occur to me now.
First, is that I recently borrowed a book called Man’s Search for Meaning By Viktor Frankl and I will read it. It is actually funny that this book was available for me to borrow at this time (I had to put it on hold since there were no available copies when I first checked) because it is supposed to be the best book for my EXACT problem. Spirituality. Meaning. Purpose. It was written by a Holocaust survivor.
The second thing that occurs to me is that I used to do a lot of work to change the world. It’s been a long time since I have done that sort of thing, but I think it really gave me something of what I need right now. I think that’s why I love coaching so much. It fills many needs, but one of the needs is for doing something that is changing the world for the better.
That’s it for now I suppose. I will go read that book now (or listen to it, since I got the audiobook version).