This morning I feel damn tired. And I feel stressed.
I know I have to pack my bags for home, check into my flight, and cook all the raw food in the fridge.
I also want to play more Valorant since I never have time for more than 2 or 3 games without interrupting my bedtime. I finally placed an alt account in Silver 1 and I’m loving it, not having to think very hard, just play for the fun of it.
I would also love to work on my French challenge and spend some time with the mimic technique. I was thinking last night about using connection theory to understand what it would take to think in French, instead of just being really good at translating in my head from English to French and the answer that came to me is that I just need to mimic a lot of French speakers, and not just mimic what they say, but how they say it.
Also, for today, right after my morning run, I would like to continue and finish my next section of my VOD review and perhaps plan out some posts for my art coach Instagram.
Just came back from my run and I have to say, I want to be out there more. A walk out in the world is a wonderful way to think through stuff.
A Sacred Thing
The biggest disservice that they did me
Was getting me onto the ideal of controlling
How others feel about me
Because controlling how others feel
Puts ME into a cage as well
The mask of their surface wants
Is forced upon my face
And I would trade my freedom
For their approval any day
I think, as I walk past people
That how someone feels about you
Is a sacred thing
There is no need to change how they feel about us
Just as much as we can seek to understand not control our own feelings
I’ve been feeling that I need to take a bit of a departure from what I normally write in these workposts because I need to write more about my emotions, and let tools like my todolist take over the structured work elements of my day.
Caged
I feel caged in the prison
Of my own ambition
Unable to do anything
But work
Mindless work
Though I know I love work
It gives me purpose
I can’t shake the feeling that
I’m not happy
Some free part of me is no longer free
I’m starting to feel like a major issue with how I’m approaching life right now is balancing between structure and freedom. I created so much structure to assist me in achieving all my goals, but now I have too much structure. I feel the need to relax and indulge myself a bit and I don’t know how to hold onto both. I suspect there are too many challenges that I am splitting my attention between and the fewer the better. I will seek to finish as much work today as possible so as to not split my attention as much.
I think something else I’ve been thinking about is cleaning my apartment and making it something other than just work. Perhaps that would create the spaciousness and happiness I need. Maybe I need to go outside more, not to do anything in particular, just to walk and think about things. In fact, I wonder if I would worry about having a huge number of things to do if I was able to just walk and think about them.
On second thought, I will try one more day with my multitude of goals, I will not try to finish one to free up my attention. Instead, I will try to find a way to work on all of these goals walking, or at the gym hanging, or crawling around my apartment. Maybe I can make art too! Use art to work through any challenge I have. I will also focus on cleaning up my apartment as much as possible.
I had a really rough day today. I woke up at 4:30 AM in order to get to the airport and fly to Houston. Coming back I hit so much traffic, my uber took almost 2 hours and I was late for my flight by 2 minutes. Luckily, there was no one in line for security, I blazed through, ran to the gate and somehow they hadn’t departed yet.
While I was in the car for 2 hours seeing the time tick down and knowing that I was probably going to miss my flight, probably get on the next one, be stuck in the airport for another two hours, and get home at around 10 PM, I tried to make the best of my bad situation. I thought about my Instagram page for coaching, specifically posts and videos.
I had some ideas for the posts, having a dark gray background with a simple serif font. Also, I was thinking about doing some digital painting for my posts.
The videos were a little bit harder.
I stopped making the reminder videos because I felt so stuck and frustrated with them and I wanted to use connection theory to come up with some solutions.
I think there are a bunch of steps in the video-making process: shooting, editing, and final polish. Each has its own challenges and solutions that came to me.
Shooting
This is hard because I felt a lot of anxiety and overthinking about saying the right thing, and coming off as clear and interesting. Using connection theory, I felt that what I needed is to focus less on the words that I am saying and focus more on evoking feelings through my delivery (my voice and my expressions). They say when someone is talking, verbal queues (literally what they are saying) is only 10% of communication and non-verbals (your tone of voice, inflection, facial expressions) account for 90%. I want to really focus next time not on what I say, but how I say it. Also, I want to try spending something feeling into the reminder and shooting broll that evokes it in a non-verbal way. In general, I want to focus on non-verbals more.
Editing
This is hard because there is a lot of overwhelming decisions that I face at this stage. I am conflicted with staying true to what I originally shot vs any new visions on how to convey my thoughts. I feel often that I avoid emotions or lose touch of emotions just looking at the transcript without hearing the delivery and when I hear the delivery I am conflicted on what to cut out or change. I often feel the original work is no longer recognizable afterwards. I feeling into connection theory, I felt that fear dominated my ability to think, feel, and be creative and I’m thinking about using the law of contradictory intentions by “trying” to be unclear, trying to make no sense.
Final Polish
I didn’t think about this too much because it isn’t really a challenge except for maybe logistically (takes a long time). i was thinking about using the syllabus method, or batch a bunch of videos for the weekend to finalize and publish.
A quick silly example of what this might look like:
Reminder: Today’s reminder is to eat chocolate
Shooting: Focus on how to deliver the words. “Chocolate…mmmm. We want to crunch it!” Shoot broll of breaking chocolate. Of inhaling the chocolate smell.
Editing: Try to make it a bad video.
Editing: Try to find a song that doesn’t fit.
Polish: Add it to a queue with instructions on what needs to be done to finish it off.
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).
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 am worrying about a couple of things. First of all, I went to bed at 2AM again. This is becoming a pattern that I need to address ASAP.
Thinking about what I need via connection theory here is what I came up with:
I need to be able to let go of not being productive during the day. It is hard, but I need to be able to say, I accept where I got to today.
I need some way to process that pain and any anxiety from the day. Connection theory is telling me to yell and scream or hyperventilate.
I need to get into bed at the proper time but again, like last time, I can intice myself with being able to use my phone while in bed.
Also, I feel linked to this is my anxiety around work.
My initial thought is to stop “trying” and pushing harder against a problem, rather everytime I hit an issue, write down all of the questions I have, then work out those problems outside my apartment, walking or going to the gym.
Connection theory is telling me drawing might help as well.
Overall, I feel like total shit and I feel the lack of sleep is taking a toll on my digestion. I hope to relax enough to take a nap and get back into working order.