Lee R. @rolee

I have been lost for so long, and it happens so easily. I really only realize it when I am already very much in it, or, maybe out of it is more relevant in this case.

I realize I need to just be more mindful of myself. That really is something that I feel I am lacking at this point in life. So, My challenge for the near future is to progress in maintaining mindfulness throughout the day. Noticing the changes in my mindset when I am not mindful and when I am, when I am on auto pilot, and when I am actually controlling and have some sort of grasp on myself.

The difference between thinking first and then responding to just reacting. Being able to take a moment before responding to anything. I have never actually learned to do this and I'm sure it will be a difficult road, but this is my commitment to myself. To learn how to do that.

I won't just jump into any expectation though, I will build it up, slowly get more and more into this habit. So, today it's just the realization of it, tomorrow its noticing when I am not mindful, maybe the next day is the same, learning and noticing. That goes a long way and gives a lot of useful insights. As the days go by, I will continue to learn and understand my actions, and from there I will start to try and do better. To breath in between. To not react, but to take a moment. To be calmer, not in terms of temperament, but in terms of reactions and responses. To just slow it down, and truly be myself.

Part of this process will be about taking a step back from people, from trying to be close to them. I don't feel like I am in the right place to get close to anyone, not intimate. That includes physically and just emotionally. Opening up to people is beyond what I am capable of right now. Not to mistake it, I can open and get close and intimate, but, doing that just leaves me feeling more lonely than I already am, and it just doesn't feel right at the moment.

So the goal is to take a few steps back. Still be there for them and with them, but to set a boundary with myself, one that I will not cross, but that will grow and expand until the day I am ready to be as open and intimate as I have been, but just from a far better place.

I feel like I keep going back and forth, and I'm not sure I am seeing the progression or the growth. Some would say that even noticing this and realizing this is growth and progression, but I don't feel that, because I have felt this way for quite a while. If anything it proves my point.

I feel like some days I am full of motivation and desire to grow and improve and do things that I know are good for me and help me and that I just want to do, but then at some point I just lose it without even realizing it. What usually happens is I sort of "wake up", that I just "lost" myself again and didn't do the things I wanted to, lost the motivation and desire, wasn't mindful, didn't improve and grow.

It's as if I am constantly waking up. And nothing actually changes, I wake up to the same thoughts, same ideas, same situations.

The point of this is that it feels like I am stuck in a loop, and I have tried taking some what drastic measures to change this, to get out of the loop, but I guess that wasn't the answer either since I am still here. Still waking up, still "falling asleep".

Maybe there is improvement and growth that I just don't see or feel, but it's there. Maybe at some point I will wake up to it and instead of realize that I am saying and thinking the same things every time, that I need to change and improve and growth, maybe I will wake up and realize that I actually have grown, and I have changed, that I am better.

I find it so difficult to get back into a meditation practice once I lose consistency. When I have a good daily schedule that includes meditation in the morning it feels easy to actually get up in the morning and do it, even though I'm not a morning person. The meditation itself also feels "easy", I feel I am actually in it, meditating, focused. Once I lose that though, it gets so hard to get back into it, and even when I do get up and have a meditation session, the actual meditation does not feel like it's an actual meditation, my mind is goin all over the place, completely unmanageable, which makes sense of course, it just makes it all the more difficult to do it again the next day.

I'm not upset about this, I am fully accepting it and aware of it as a challenge that I need to find my way to overcome. Maybe starting again with shorter meditations throughout the day will help build it back up until I can feel better about the meditations in the mornings again, or when I ever I do them, I used to do one in the morning and one in the evening for about 20 minutes each.

I am aware that i will lose my practice every now and then, and that things won't be consistent forever. That I can have a great schedule for a few month, and then it can suddenly get disrupted. And that is ok!

I am sure others experience this too, in their everyday life and not just in regards to meditation. The key for me is to be aware of it, and to not get upset that I am once again losing my practice, schedule, or consistency. It happens, and it will happen, I am accepting it and learning from it, specifically, how to detach from the negative feelings around it, and how to reintroduce the same schedule or a different one if needed.

Maybe I'll write more about it later on, in full, but I have been journaling a lot about something I have been going through, specifically this feeling of things not aligning within me. I came to a theory about an internal conflict within me that has 2 main sides, and a third antagonistic side.

Side A: The side that takes in what is literally said, this side needs either a yes or a no, sometimes, even a maybe is enough of an answer. As long as it's not beating around the bush, straight to the point, direct.

Side B: This side takes in the behavior. This includes, for example, if a person is being distant with you or showing affection. This also includes verbal communication, for example, if the person speaks to you in a certain way that is caring, or not caring.

The conflict arises when Side A and Side B do not match. To take the situation I was in as an example, a partner said that she still had feelings for me, and wanted a future with me, but, all of her actions and her behavior indicated otherwise. This created a conflict between the two sides. The conflict was that I was being told one thing, but, in reality, I was experiencing the complete opposite. And this caused me a lot of stress, which I will get into later if I post more about this. But it created restlessness to the point where I was chasing around for answers and clarity.

The third side, Side C, is the antagonistic side, the one that will always try to cause more chaos and conflict, even if Side A and Side B are in align, if there is an agreement between them. Side C will try to prove them wrong, and to bring up the slightest option for doubt for either side.

Don't ask for something to be more than it can be right now. I heard this quote today and felt how much I relate to this. This for me has been one of my biggest struggles, one of the biggest lessons I have had to learn and am still learning. To not force things into being what I want them to be, when I want them to be.

This goes for anything, really. Especially for relationships and people. Whether you meet someone you are interested in, but they are just not interested in you, or its just not the right timing, sometimes all you can do is let it go and allow it to have its time, allow it to work when its ready. Forcing it, trying to make it more than what it can be right now can result in simply nothing, making it not even work when it could have worked when the time was right.

Its not about waiting, its not about predicting the future, it's just about letting go of trying to force things to happen the way you desire. Trusting in who ever it is you believe in or want to trust in, whether this is a god, the universe, yourself, or just having plain out trust, that things will workout, and that you will be pleased.

It's a big lesson, it's difficult to put into practice, especially when it is in relation to other people or a lover, but the more I do, the more I see that it just works. Letting go, allowing things to happen when they happen, and not forcing anything into existence.

Though I have been doing much better in the past 6 months, I still hold on to things too tightly. And recently was a great example of that in which I won't go too much into detail, but, I held on too tightly to the point where I lost the very thing I was holding on to.

Looking back now, I can clearly see what I was doing, but, of course, while I was doing it I was oblivious. Though, this time was different from the past because I actually was aware that I was doing certain things, where in the past I wouldn't even realize the state I was in. And though I was aware of how I was feeling this time, I was still oblivious to the bigger picture of it, the smaller and bigger impacts of what I was doing, of holding on so tightly.

For the things that I did realize, I just couldn't get myself to let go and to release even a little bit, I didn't know how. And the things around that, what it was causing the other person and me, I just couldn't see.

Now that I am past it, I can see it all and see what it did to me and to them. Of course like anything it's not as simple as that, there were many factors in this, but, I was a major one, and my lack of ability to release the holds even a bit made things worse and worse, very quickly, to the point where I couldn't even tell if what I was doing and thinking was even me, or if it was just part of this terrible attachment that I formed.

My lesson from this of course is to stay on my path, and learn to love loosely, to not hold on too tightly, but also to learn to identify when it is actually happening, to identify what causes it and how to prevent or stop it if it has already begun. This is a lesson that I have yet to learn as I just realized that I still feel powerless in this situation, I don't know yet how to handle it. But that is the ongoing lesson I need to learn.

I was always under the impression that meditation means to stop thinking. That the purpose of meditation is to be able to stop your mind from thinking. Now I know that this is not the case and that this is not the purpose of meditation.

But this is a very common thought. I hear people say quite often that they weren't able to quiet their minds while meditating so they stopped because it's not for them. Or that meditation makes them more upset because they keep thinking and keep trying to stop thinkin which makes them think more, and on and on.

I understand them, because I had the same idea of what meditation means. But meditation is actually pretty far from that.

It's not to stop your thoughts, it's not to fight your mind, it's not to sit in stillness with a blank mind. It's simply to be aware that you are thinking, and to calmly, bring that awareness to the breath, or to what ever your object of focus is, but to not fight to focus on it.

It should not be a battle, a task, or a chore. It should simply be to become aware. From this awareness while meditating, you will slowly become more aware outside of meditation. And this is where life starts to change.

I love the analogy of the flow of water, I think it can be applied to different parts of life.

There are a few things that characterize a flow of water:
1. There is no force, it is just flowing, naturally, without trying to and without forcing the water to flow.
2. There is no pulling or pushing, just as the water comes, it also goes. It's a flow.
3. In a river or creek, there are areas where the flow is rough and chaotic, and there are areas where it is calm and gentle, and yet, it is all part of the same flow.

I think this is a good analogy for life:
We should not try to force things, we should move along with the flow rather than against it. If thoughts and distractions arise, such as anger, hatred, or other negative emotions, or even just unwanted and uncontrollable thoughts, just as in the flow of water where there is no pulling or pushing, there should be no pulling or pushing of the thoughts. Just an allowing of them to fade away just as they came. At times life will be difficult, rough, and chaotic, but there will also be times where its calm, gentle, and relaxing. All of it is part of life and we must all go through this, because it is the flow of life, and going against it will only make things worse. Trying to force things, trying to push thoughts out, and trying to skip around the rough parts will just make life more difficult than it is.