Non-Striving

Ever since I went back to school, it's been a journey of being chase by deadlines, using time for love ones, work and now , even for self. I always set aside time for self as I know it cant be neglected if I want to stay true to my soul. Without that, everything else that comes out will not be my best reflection.

Its not difficult too. I do know what makes me feel Hell Yeah! And I do know it should take aro 2-3 hrs max. But I push it priority down below. Which i really shouldnt have. 

Is it all in my head? I wouldnt be able to make a correct judgement if i want to since every word that is coming out now is from my brain. 

But I do feel it. My soul if I may say. Its not flowing. There is a block.

I do get flow now and then, and its usually when Im not thinking about certain things. Just in the zone, the act of doing something without an expected outcome or even a purpose.

One great example was when I was trying so hard to rush out an essay. I set aside time for it, expected 80-100 words per hour (which is really not much) and nothing good came out.

Its like (for a lack of vocab) constipation, it came out in bits and pieces and it was a torture. Decided to call it a night, went to bed and watcj youtube videos (on the essay topic) feeling dread and hopelessness as I fell asleep. Next morning, I did my standard 3 pages of journal before anything. 

Oh wow. You wouldnt believe it. The 3 pages basically is the structure of my essay. While it was ragged and not supported with references, it flow. The whole essay flowed. All I had to do was write ut out properly and cite it properly. 

The point here is : it flow when I dont push.

I experience once again the art of non-striving. 

Letting go when your brain tells you to hold tighter is counter intuitive. But, when you let go, you open yourself up to receive more, to accept, to flow with the tide.

Unclench your fist, 

Open your palm.

Clear the mist,

Enter calm.

Disappointment

Everyone has let people down in some way others in the past.

People have let us down too, be it consciously or subconsciously.

Does it matter what happens? I reckon not. We move past disappointment as fast as time washes the past away.

But there is a kind of disappointment that doesn't go away as quickly: Disappointment in yourself.

The kind of disappointment where no one said it / hint it / even intended it, but the voice inside your head just doesn't want to let it go.

"I could have done better..."

"I should have held it on..."

"I oughta be the better person..."

Before you know it, it had already spiraled down into serious self-doubt.

"I will never be good enough"

"Who am I kidding? I'm useless"

"They deserve someone better"

When the negativity gets so overwhelming, what happens next?

Too tired of feeling so useless and sad, we escape, hide, run away. 

We become resentful, vindictive, or apathetic.

Disappointment in others as with self is the same, an emotion. Yet, when it's on us, it's so much harsher because we paint our reality.

While emotion is a perception, one can't simply change it just by wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses.

However, there are still few things we can do:

1) Awareness

Be aware of the emotion that you feeling (disappointment/sadness/anger) against yourself is constructive or destructive. 

Some disappointment can make us reflect and strive to achieve better. 

Some disappointment just revels at self-abuse.

Avoid the second type by practicing self-care. Don't let it fester and pull you down the dark abyss.

Cry, scream, talk to someone, write it down. Notice the language as you go along.

2) Accept your emotion

Accept the emotion. Let it come instead of trying to suppress it with logic. An overstretch rubberband will snap one day too. Let it come and just accept the whole of it, the bad and the ugly, with no judgment. Accept that whatever has happened had already happened. 

The past doesn't define you. Your fear of the future doesn't define you unless you realize it (self-fulfilling prophecy). 

You get to define who you want to be, starting from this moment, right here right now.

Who do you want to be?

Start with a thought, an awareness, a breath.

Breath in and take them in each moment by moment in your stride.

With acceptance, love, and grace.

Trauma

 "Trauma is not what happens to you. It is what happens inside of you." 

                                                                                                - Gabor Mate

What hurts is not the pain when someone hits you. How you perceive that action is what truly hurts you.

It can also be what didn't happen to you but should happen. When basic physical/psychological needs are not met. 

Trauma is what happens internally, not externally. 

It's not about the broken bones or the scrapped knees. It's about finding the ability to hope, to trust, to believe in something again, to heal our souls which we think it incomplete.

By knowing its nature, we can seek healing from within instead of trying to fix the external.

We are not what happens to us too. We are who we think we are. 

We are the true creator that defines our own identity.

While we can't undo what has happened in the past, we can change our paradigm and shift our perspective. We can choose not to let what happened to us in the past define our future, define our identity.

Just like the saying: Hurt people hurt people.

It's never personal. Even when someone (or your brain/ego) says it is, you can choose not to accept it.

The same goes for trauma. 

To all the times that you felt like you were all afraid and alone, 

and you can't take the fear and darkness anymore.

You desperately need a change, an escape, or a stop to it in the reality.

Remember that all that has happened is not who we are.

How we define and perceive is more important than what happens to us.

And that is something we can change.

Meaning(less)

What is discipline? 

In a nutshell, showing up consistently especially when the gratification is in the future and the work is perceived to be drudgery.

Simple is hard.

Simple things like sleeping and waking up early, eat healthily, exercise regularly, and giving your full attention in whatever you do.

I have a routine I set for myself.  It takes around 12hrs/week and that takes discipline. My routine of reflective journaling first thing in the morning and yoga requires me to wake up at 6am+ daily. Unknowingly, I have been doing that for half a year, without a lapse. (Maybe I did skip yoga once or twice when I was sick but not journaling). Also my Hell Yeah! self date and creating this blog and IG on a weekly basis. There are many times I want to give up my routine. Especially when I try to find meaning and found none.

But, trying to give everything meaning misses the whole point. The moment I (my ego) gave something a meaning, it takes the joy out of things. Doing all the journaling, yoga, self date and blogging (self-reflection) provide me the space to stand outside of myself and view things as it is. Without self-bias and filters. 

It's very oxymoronic to the point that I find it impossible to explain.

The moment I do manage to explain it will take the truth out of it.

Just like the act of trying to score well in school/life takes the joy out of learning/living.

Not to mention, when my ego jumps in and tries to form an identity around whatever has happened it just destroy the truth. (As mention before, the Truth is Nothing.)

I'm not discipline or smart or good or nice or bubbly or successful or filial or whatever.

I am just as I am. There is nothing to uphold, to maintain, to sustain, to improve.

There is nothing more and nothing less. Things are just as it is.

The act of defining, to give everything meaning is self-destroying.

When you empty yourself of all meaning, life will be as it should be.

Rejection

Have you ever felt physical pain from emotional triggers? 

I felt it, so many times. 

When an ex pushed me away when I was still head over heels for him, I doubled over like someone punched the wind out of me.

When I quarreled with a loved one, I felt that sense of pressure on my chest that won't go away no matter how many deep breaths I took.

When my mom died, my heart was literally aching for weeks.

Experiences get transferred from one form to another: perception > sensation

Just like how people use metaphors to explain cross over sensation

passion burns, floating on cloud nine, blue with sorrow...

What about a sense of peace.

Is this a sensory feeling of....touch? a feeling of your inner body? 

I can't put it in words but I sure can 'sense' it.

So back to rejection. How does someone's "No", be converted as hurt?

Turns out that this feeling of pain is as real as it is metaphorical.

Evidence has shown that the neural pathway for pain and social rejection is the same.

Thus, even though your body didn't experience any physical harm, the brain perceives it as so.

No wonder people will do all sorts of things just to avoid being rejected.

Since the neural pathway is the same, the tolerance for one equates to the tolerance of the other.

(I'm guessing if you can withstand an operation without anesthesia, I'm sure you can survive through any humiliation possible too.)

I feel that my tolerance of pain is much higher than others (based on my own self-assessment with basically my own self), still I 'feel' it. Rejection = pain.

Note: I will use the word pain synonymously as rejection from here onwards.

As any normal (non-masochist) person, I will avoid pain, no matter how small.

With every situation, I will assess if the foreseeable pain is something I can withstand.

Yes, I will take it, brush it off as brainfart, a joke, a mozzie bite.

If no, I will try to hide it by acting differently hoping for acceptance, avoid it as a whole, exit.

Sometimes, acting helps. Be amiable, agreeable, showing extra hospitality and understanding.

Then it became something of a lie that you need to uphold.

Bending over double, allowing yourself to be stepped over until...

it hits a tipping point, the straw that breaks the camels' back. *Boom!* 

That's when your suffering is greater than that perceived fear of rejection. When your suffering (also pain) is greater than that pain caused by being rejected.

Understanding doesn't solve it but allows us to see things from a third-party point of view. Dissect, examine, understand. With the hope that understanding is the first step to mastery, may the understand of self leads to mastery of self.

One tip though: Look at all the successful people who got rejected/ failed tons of times: J. K. Rowling, Walt Disney, Jack Ma, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs.

Being rejected for who you are is definitely better than being accepted as someone you're not. 

When the curtain falls, it's who we see in the mirror that matters the most. 

When the world is flying by...

 It's been more than a year since the pandemic has grounded us. Things moved so slowly initially. Unable to travel/go out, stuck at home. There are days where I don't know which day it was. Everything felt like a drag. 

Things are better now. Adapting to a new norm. Time seems to quicken up its pace once more.

*Blink* one hour has gone *blink* one day has gone *blink* one week has gone *blink* one month has gone.

Life is passing by so so quickly. Why?

Is it how the internet connects us to information so fast that our brain is flooded without a chance for a breather? Is time really moving faster? Is it because we fill our minds with so many things at the same time? Did we truly achieve more by moving so fast?

I went back to school. Studying a topic that I keep finding myself going back to, Psychology. Now I find myself spending every available moment studying. It's only been 1.5months and I am trying really hard to balance family, love, self, work, school, and friends. Gone are the weekends where I can set aside hours to feed my soul. 

Glad that I'm managing the stress quite well. Being conscious the moment I'm stressing over if my best is not gonna make it,  or when I try to compare myself with others, FOMO...etc etc. Nip it at the bud before it can manifest. I want to love everything. Not let stress or pressure kills it. Big picture.

Not gonna give meaning to past struggles, nor gonna sugarcoat the future for motivation. 

The art of non-striving. How does one aim for excellence without striving? 

One thing at a time. Just show up and do your best.

Be it good, be it bad, come what may.

Acceptance of reality, of self, of now,

is bigger than anything in this world.

Memories

 What are memories?

Things we remember in general. Short term, long term. Information of things, places, names, faces, skills, feelings, etc.

How accurate is it?

Not very. tons of variables influence it.

If you have a tumor or damage to the brain, you may forget the past or be unable to make any new ones.

Your mood, experiences, and environment also affect your memories of an event due to individual perceptions. 

I have personally had zero recollection of certain events in my life until someone told me about it or I saw a photograph and decided to make a connection with it. And suddenly, memories I never had are fresh like they just happened yesterday. Did I choose what to believe and what to remember? I believe so (haha this answer is exactly proof). 

In a sense, our brain is so powerful (and malleable) that you can actually put anything you want into it. Of course, there is also priming (ads and commercials), but such tactics don't work unless you already have an emotional connection with it. Just like seeing coke flashing across my subconscious a thousand times is not gonna make me buy coke if I hate it. I would probably unconsciously feel irritated instead). But, with that said, we do associate things unconsciously too. E.g. if you keep seeing happy people drinking coke, you may start to associate coke with happiness. 

Back to memory, it's not real. It just isn't. It is just a bunch of snapshots of your own creativity and perspective. If you change your perception, your feelings towards certain memories will shift and what you choose to remember will eventually change too. 

What then is unchangeable and real? 

This very moment, unadulterated with any perception, Now.

What is real? A look into perception

 “In this treacherous world
Nothing is the truth nor a lie.
Everything depends on the color
Of the crystal through which one sees it”

                - Pedro Calderón de la Barca 

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form"
                - Heart Sutra

"I think, therefore I am"
                - René Descartes 

Above are wisdom-loaded quotes from 15th-century Spanish playwright, Buddhism, and French Philosopher on perception respectively.

And it's not a perception of theirs. With science advancement, this can actually be proven. That what was captured through our senses is interpreted by our brain to form percepts. Percepts vary from one person to another as it is molded by our environment, genetics, culture, both nature, and nurture.

Why do we give subjective meaning to things? We can't we just accept things as sensory inputs with no filters?

Example of perception: 

- When we see a car becoming bigger and bigger, we don't perceive it as the car is enlarging but it is getting closer and closer to us. 

- Why two dots and a curved line when place in a certain position is a smiley face and not just some random scribble.

- How we just know the hand sticking out a window is attached to a body.

- How in a landscape painting, you know that the darker tone shape is supposed to be further away than the lighter tone shape, and both probably depict a mountain. 

Key in optical illusion in Google search and get ready to be bamboozled.

Well, perception does help us survive. 

- How our taste buds and nose detecting food that turns bad

- depth perception so you don't jump off a cliff

- pain on the body that signals that something is wrong, and 

- determining whether that beeping sound you hear is a message or the fire alarm.

Thus perceptions are useful interpretations made by our brains, trying to make sense of all the signals that are incoming, and translate them into something that is logical, explainable, and plausible.

However, translations are just translations. How chemicals in our brains move, how neurons are wired and fired, how our past experiences mean to us all contribute to how we translate, how we perceive. But by no means it's reality. It's just your version of reality. Your brain tells you what you saw, heard, smelled, felt, and tasted. 

So what is real? 

If everything is just perception, then is nothing real?

Exactly. Nothing is real.

Everything has no meaning until we gave it meaning.

While we are unable to overcome perceptions embedded so deeply into our biology, we can still choose to react rather than respond.

Let those perceptions that help us in our daily life, continue to help us.

As for those depreciating, soul-sucking, insufferable and undeserving ones:

- try viewing them without any filter or

- view them with skepticism, from afar, be critical

After all, perceptions are just attached meanings. 

Be aware, let it go. 

Nothing is real.

Hell Yeah!

I first heard of this term from the creator of Be More with Less Courtney Carver. 

If your soul is not saying "Hell Yeah!" about something, then say no. 

Using this to draw boundaries was very helpful. It makes me aware of the times that I'm trying to be nice to get people to like me. (Even if they did in the end, it is a fake me. What's the point).

I truly started practicing it when I did the Artist's Way.

Part of the non-negotiable activity in this 12-weeks journey includes a weekly date with yourself.

This date has to be by your ownself, doing something you want to do but have been saying 'no' due to people's judgment, own judgment, self-talk, etc.

As the over-achiever that I am, I always wanna do things 'right'.

Since I'm gonna date myself, I may as well do a "Hell Yeah!" activity and bring the point home.

So what exactly is Hell Yeah!? Well, I define it as something (can be a movie / an activity) that makes my heart soar and my soul feel free. Free of judgement and restriction. It can't have any purpose too. Once there is a purpose / meaning to it, it gets all bogged down by the Ego trying to 'perfect' it. 

Or trying to kill two stones with one bird, like "since you want to cycle, why don't you cycle to work?" Then the focus on getting there on time kills the journey. Thus the irony is for the purpose to NOT have any purpose. 

Anyway.

One would think that it is easy to know what one wants. Pfft.

After years of conditioning to be 'sociable', 'normal', 'efficient' and 'not stupid', it's hard for me.

First few dates was, well, easy. Just clearing my bucket list.

Then old patterns seep in... things started to be 'pointless' and 'stupid'..

"Are you crazy? Wearing a furry suit and walk around in this weather?"

"Dancing in the public?? Pftt"

"Cycling on the empty street at 4am? Don't you need to sleep?"

"Singing in the rain?? You think you in a broadway show??"

Takes a lot of introspection to be aware that the only person negging me and holding me back is my brain.

Maybe it is trying to protect me, maybe it is trying to justify it's existence as usual, but it restrict the soul nonetheless.

When the soul gets bound up, like a bird in a cage, no amount of sleep and rest and me time is gonna fix it. External stimuli are temporary fixes and Im way pass that.

And it's not like I didnt try to take a short cut. I did. Trying to get a friend along / trying to use the activity as a way to get attention / to get approval. Nope, doesnt work.

End of the day, it is myself I need to get along with, my soul that needs my attention and my approval I need.

Thus, while it is all fun and hell yeah, I do need to seriously carve out time to listen and plan it it ABOVE everything else. 

When Im feeling hell yeah inside, the outside doesnt matter anymore. Although, it is always observed that outer hell yeah will 100% be a side effect of an inner hell yeah. Things fall in place in synchronicity. 

Aint that the sweetest? 

Hell Yeah!

Acceptance

 What connotation do you have toward this word acceptance?

Does it invoke discomfort, passiveness, resignation?

Or does it make you feel at peace, having faith, embracing reality?

Meaning. Everything in life, in general, doesn't have any meaning. 

It's only human beings with their consciousness, give meanings to things, words, stuff, everything.

Without this amazing human brain of ours, there is absolutely no meaning to everything.

No meaning here is not with a negative undertone but just simply nothing. No-thing. Null. Neutral.

Thus whatever meaning you give to the word acceptance is just a personal perception.

Of course, one can logically argue that there is a fixed definition of the word in the dictionary.

But what it means to people, that is an independent experience.

I used to see acceptance as toughening up:

- no point crying over spill milk

- what doesn't kill me makes me stronger

I suppressed a ton of emotions down, buried them deep while trying to toughen up. All these cause a lot of conflict between my heart (soul) and my brain (mind). I struggled forward even when my wounds are not fully healed. When it reaches the tipping point, when I can't find a carpet big enough to hide the elephant in the room, I broke down and spiral into darkness.

Then came resignation. A feeling of total uselessness. Unable to control my life in the slightest. Existentialism crisis. What am I here for? What is the meaning of everything? What is the point? The elephant under the carpet literally came undone and ran amok within me breaking me up from within.

When you hit pit bottom, there is only one direction left. Up. I'm glad that my fall never did cause me any perpetual harm to my mental, emotional and physical health. The desire to be better came back after the elephant calm down. (Being an angry, depressed, crazy elephant all the time is tiring.) Healing can start when havoc was done wreaking.

I practice acceptance again. This time, accepting the elephant for what it is and embracing every part of it. The good the bad and the ugly. I accepted all with neither obligation nor judgement. There is no motive too for personal gain, no rush no pretense. The ironic part is, when the elephant is acknowledged, it usually walks away and disappeared. The struggle between the mind and soul ceased. Peace comes naturally.

Many times I aim to find peace to no avail. The mistake was I see peace as an end goal when it actually isn't a thing to be grasp at all the in first place. Peace is what comes naturally by having no desire. When you stop seeking, you realise that it is within you all along. All you need is acceptance.

The Abramović Method - Meaning of Life through seemingly Mundane Tasks

 How do we silence our minds and enter the peace that is within?

Today I chanced upon an artist, Marina  Abramović. 

She is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist using art to explore the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Recently she collab with Wetransfer on The Abramović Method.

Before I know it, I went into a meditative state just watching her doing her art.

Drinking water, walking slowly, counting rice, staring into the windows of our soul.

Meaningless, mindless things. So what is the purpose?

To be in the present moment.

She was on point when she was explaining the counting rice exercise.

You mix black lentils into white rice. Make a decision of how much rice you will count and whether you will count just the white/black / both.

For the first 5mins, you may be excited and enthusiastic. It's something new that you haven't done before. It's fun. After 15-20mins you start to feel pointless. Frustrated about the drudgery of it and start to feel angry and frustrated. This is the most important moment. You must get past that point and make the decision to stick to your promise to complete the whole exercise. If you give up in frustration now, you will have the same attitude when you face life. Once past, you shall find the tranquility where time stops and moment in the now just unfolds by itself. The destination no longer matters but the here and now.

In a way, counting rice, like many other mundane tasks we do daily, is life itself. What it means to live a full life? What does it mean to have a life? It can't be found through definition nor destination. You have to experience it and its true meaning shall unfold upon you.