Today I fasted and I had mixed results. Fasting seems to create more inflammation as my stomach felt irritated and painful and my body felt hot. The left side of my body felt blocked right where my spleen is. It sort of feels like I have an enlarged spleen. The only thing that sort of helps with this is doing meditation. I’ve been having sweats. My lips are cracking from the dryness.
But I decided not to give up. I am going to address the problems at their root, which is certainly the stomach and the spleen. Digestion issues are not new to me. I started using dance therapy techniques and feeling the discomfort in the spleen as sensual and my body started to move. I started to feel pain inside the spleen area. It feels cold. The pressure relieves a little and I feel a trickle.
I wonder if the stress of the drawing challenge and traveling soon are making my stomach clench. It is certainly possible.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Dance therapy is like magic. I don’t know why I stopped using it. There is this interplay between feeling the feelings and finding comfort. I guess that might be why I left this technique behind. I left it behind to feel pain. To feel without judgement or plan.
I just warmed up with a pistol spike rush then tried to do a little exercise I call – the last bullet.
Immediate benefits:
Warms up hand with all the spraying, next time should use to control spray pattern
Spray warns enemies for harder fights
Need to focus on switching weapons
Need to often wait for them to enter your crosshair
Started to feel the movement-based aiming a little more for some reason
I tried it again today with AMAZING results (no recording though). This really helps you take your time in a nice way. The easiest way to start is to try to “catch” them on your crosshair when you enter. Then you progress to “catching” people on my crosshair.
This is definitely one of the most difficult challenges I’ve undergone in a while.
I’ve tried a couple of things and I feel frustrated.
The Reaching for the Untouchable
The frustration
The reaching in my heart
Is getting to me
Reaching for the untouchable
I wonder if I will ever know
The doubt creeps
I seek to know
And when I rush there
There is still nothing
Frustration in my chest
Like a roar that wants to escape
But is trapped behind bars
I have created multiple messages to my girlfriend in French, multiple times I’ve tried to imitate. I feel like imitation is the key, but I grow tired of seeing no results. I feel tired and frustrated.
I feel angry and unhappy.
I suspect failure is such a hard thing for me to grasp. It is such a tough pill to swallow.
I saw a video with a lot of potential:
It is about learning jiujitsu really fast. But really it is about learning. He talks about many ideas in the video, ideas that I’ve myself considered. Ideas that I think are pretty profound and helpful:
Performance vs. growth
Train in the gym to fail – growth
Compete to win – performance
Form to leave form
Repetition until it is second nature
Turn something thought into something intuitive
Smaller circles
Reduce something from intuition to a conscious idea
Look for different ways to apply it
He mentions some really interesting sounding books:
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
The Will to Keep Winning by Daigo Umehara
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard
Anyway, I feel if I were to embrace my fear of failure, I need to meditate on it, but also come up with a plan.
I first want to come up with the plan to train From to Leave Form…and be repetitive about the most common words in French, say them until they are second nature.
So what are the top most common 10 words in French:
Oui: Yes
Non: No
Merci: Thank you
Je: I
Tu/vous: You
Le/la/les: The
Un, une des: A, an, and some
Le/la/les: It, them
Et: And
Mais: But
Bonjour: A general greeting meaning “hello” or “good morning”
Au revoir: Goodbye
Salut: Hello
Amour: Love
Bonheur: Happiness
Chat: Cat
Chien: Dog
But these words are too basic. What about the top 10 most common phrases?
Bonjour: Means “hello” or “good morning”.
Merci: Means “thank you”.
S’il vous plaît: Means “please”.
Ça va?: Means “how are you?” .
Je ne sais pas: Means “I don’t know”.
Parlez-vous anglais?: Means “Do you speak English?” .
Bienvenue: Means “welcome”.
Madame/Monsieur/Mademoiselle: Means “Mrs.”, “Mr.”, or “Miss”.
Anchante enchante: Means “nice to meet you”.
Sava: Means “how are you”.
C’est simple comme bonjour: Means “it’s simple as hello”.
Et patati et patata: Means “and so on”.
En avoir ras-le-bol: Means “to have had enough”.
Tu m’étonnes: Means “tell me something I don’t know”.
Ok that is a little better, but what about the most common French verbs?
Aller Means “to go” and is also used to describe the near future tense. Avoir Means “to have” and is used to express possession, relationships, physical and mental states, and many other contexts. Être Means “to be” and indicates the action or state of being. Pouvoir Means “can” or “to be able to”. It’s an irregular verb like prendre or faire, belonging to the third group. Savoir Used to indicate knowledge or understanding. It can also be used in many idiomatic expressions, such as “savoir-faire” (know-how). Mettre Means “to put” but can also be used for dropping someone off somewhere, laying the table, taking time to do something, laying a carpet. Prendre Means “to take”, including “to travel” on particular forms of transport. It is also used for having meals. Venir Means “to come”, and it can be easily used to conjugate the recent past or convey the idea that you have just done something recently. Vouloir Often translated as to want and to wish in English, as its main usage is to express desires and wishes.
I want to read more about verbs in French but it is too late and I need to go to bed.
Ok, it has been three days and every single day this week, my peace has been disrupted. Things are blowing up at work yet again and I don’t have the space and time that I need to think and introspect and work on my own things.
A couple of big wins:
As per my sleep challenge, my sleep routine has never been better. I’m sticking to the 11 PM bedtime and go to sleep before 11:30 PM. I enjoy the nighttime winddown with journaling and cupping.
My morning routine remains steadfast and strong. Even though sometimes I only have 30 minutes, or I have to get up at 4 AM, every single morning, I get up and check in with my emotions. I’ve added the breathing, I love you, and left handing brushing routine and it has been going well.
I have a pretty clear boundary where I end work around 5 PM, and I don’t really stray very much from that.
So today’s challenge is not about working to further my coaching practice in any way, to work on reviewing VODs or editing my Instagram page or Instagram videos. It is simply about how to transform the chaos and stress that dominate the middle of my day and transform it into peace.
I have the French challenge coming up, and I want to be able to reliably work on that without being pulled all sorts of directions.
A little of introspection and meditation about it reveals to me that the reason why I’m so stressed is because I’m trying to control things that are out of my control. However, I feel the need to control things because I feel that there are many things threatening my boundaries.
The key maybe to have strong clear boundaries and needs, and to work on communicating them and to let go of controlling everything else.
Boundaries & Needs:
I need my own time, I do not want to work any later than 5 consistently or earlier than 9 consistently.
I need to be treated with respect, for my time and opinions to be valued, my accomplishments and skills recognized.
I want to be honest to myself and others.
I want to work with integrity and empathy.
I want to operate with the idea that anything is possible.
What I would like to do today, is before going into any meeting, remind myself of these boundaries and needs and ask myself, what is out of my control, what is within my control.
So I developed a new exercise in the middle of this week, but didn’t have the time to post about it.
To summarize the exercise which I will call the weighted knee spacer:
Use ankle weights, weighted shoes, or in this case, bands to pull on foot down
Do heel raises with the other foot to elevate the weighted foot
Keep the weighted foot as level as possible
I’m thinking this exercise is really useful in any scenario where I feel the knee is getting caught or stuck, which seems to happen a lot when there is any sort of bending exercises.
What I want to work on next is getting a full bend in my right knee without pain.
So it has been a full month now and I have not stopped this challenge yet or restarted jujitsu, but I think that is ok. I want to keep this challenge going until I can actually achieve the goals set in my original goals.
As a reminder, the goals are:
Lift up my knee and bend it feeling stable, comfortable and strong. Getting there for sure!
Stand for 5 minutes while feeling comfortable. Pretty much achieved this one!
Lay on either side feeling comfortable and relaxed. I don’t lay much on either side, just on my back these days, will have to revisit.
Sit on my heels while feeling comfortable and relaxed. Not even close on this one, probably need a full range of motion bend in my knee to be comfortable first.
Be able to jump feeling stable, comfortable, and strong. Part of the way there on this one! I feel pretty stable.
Able to kick a roundhouse while feeling stable, comfortable and strong. Not there yet but an improvement from before.