“Willfulness must give way to willingness and surrender. Mastery must yield to mystery.”
– Gerald May

Willfulness. It is a state I am currently trying to escape as I type this blog post. I think of willfulness as the opposite of radical acceptance.

Radical acceptance involves embracing every aspect of our current experience – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Once you radically accept a situation, you are free to pursue any course of action. You might try:

• Being content – There are so many times where our frustrations and struggles are unnecessary or ineffective. They are complications we are adding on to our experience. If we can learn to accept ourselves fully, we can cease the struggle and find peace.
• Wise action – When I accept all possible outcomes, that frees me to fully commit to a particular path without fear of disappointment or failure. Since I’ve already accepted these possibilities, if they happen, I can surf through them with grace.
• Skillful change – Radical acceptance does not mean we can’t change; it means we don’t have to do so. If we decide to make a change in our life, we do it with wholesome motives and realistic expectations.

Willfulness is a state of non-acceptance. When I’m in this state, I am unable to do any of the above actions. These actions can ONLY be implemented after acceptance has taken place.
I might appear to be engaged in one of the above strategies, but it is just an act. It is not real. I am living in a delusion.

• Laziness – I might appear to be content and even convince myself that this is what I’m doing. But if I look deeper, I know I am just avoiding. Avoiding what exactly? This is one of the big problems of willfulness. It doesn’t mean avoidance of any particular thing necessarily; it simply means being aversive in general.
• Impulsive action – Sometimes when I am willful I can become very productive. However, there are 2 problems. First, I don’t enjoy my productivity. Second, it won’t last; I will burn out. This is partly due to not enjoying my work and partly due to it being impulsive urge-dominated actions.
• Unskillful rebellion – Willfulness can motivate someone to make extreme changes. Regrettably, the purpose in doing this is not to find greater ease of well-being for ourselves and those around us; it is to live out some addiction or to prove ourselves right. It completely lacks humility and patience.

I have been struggling with willfulness quite a lot lately. Either that, or maybe I am just finally observing myself enough to know when I am being willful. Regardless, it has been the source of a lot of confused suffering on my part.

Here is the latest contingency plan I have developed for dealing with willfulness. I use the acronym ORTHI:

1. Observe the willfulness. Label it. Experience it.
2. Radically accept that at this moment you feel (and may be acting) willful. You cannot fight willfulness with willfulness.
3. Turn your mind toward acceptance and willingness. Remind yourself of the benefits of willingness. Tell yourself you would like to be more accepting.
4. Half-smiling and willing posture. Use these physiological adaptions to help tweak your mental chemistry.
5. If immovable, ask, “What’s the threat?” Why are you resistant to accepting reality as it is? Do you feel that if you did, you would be trapped? Check the facts and challenge assumptions that don’t fit them.

“No amount of human willfulness can overcome God’s determined love.”
– Max Anders

Sometimes if I have completely hit a wall, the only thing I can do is call a family member or friend and tell them what’s up. If they are willing 😉 , I engage them in my decision-making. I am obviously not in a great place to be skillfully using my time and energy, so I outsource the problem.

I choose to believe in the Ocean of Living Love, a phrase I picked up from Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes Jr. However strong my willfulness might be, the ocean is stronger. If I can just find a way to connect with it, I can find freedom.

“Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.”
– Zicheng Hong

May you find peace and purpose in your journey towards true consciousness.

Namaste.

According to Buddhism, the source of emotional suffering is craving. The word ‘addiction’ could be substituted for craving if that is easier to understand. In navigating life, there is an inevitable amount of pain all of us will experience. This pain can manifest in a plethora of forms:

• The pain of a physical injury – This is something of which I have a very recent and direct experience!  🙁
• The pain of chronic physiological discomfort/dysfunction – This is also something I unfortunately have dealt with for over a decade.
• The pain of separation from a loved one – This is not something I have familiarity with, mainly because until very recently I had shut off my emotions to the point where I didn’t really have anyone in my life that I “loved.” (Not something I would recommend!)
• The pain of being invalidated by someone – This is something I feel quite often; sometimes I blame myself for being a snowflake and to just grow a spine already, even though I know this would only mask the problem.
• The pain of disappointment – This is something I am feeling right this moment as I type this post. I often have higher expectations than my time and energy will allow me to complete. I also feel deeply disappointed when I give lovingkindness to someone and they reciprocate with judgment.
• The pain of confusion – I believe everyone experiences this one, and probably on a fairly regular basis. Life is so often perplexing and confounding to our small minds.

Suffering occurs when we experience one or more painful experiences, and choose to crave that life would be other than it is. In Kristen Neff’s book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, she came up with this equation: Suffering = Pain x Resistance. Though obviously a generality, I really like this conceptualization of these terms.

What this equation implies is that suffering can be completely eliminated. This could be accomplished by bringing ‘pain’ down to zero, or by bringing ‘resistance’ down to zero. Of these two solutions, the latter is a very hard but theoretically attainable goal.

One way I have learned to deal with aversive and addictive cravings is through urge surfing. This term is one I first heard referenced in a group therapy session. I used to think that when I had an urge to engage in addictive behavior, or avoid dealing with the world, or immerse myself in negative emotional energies, I had only 2 options.

Option #1: Give in to the urge. Succumb to the addiction. Avoid the situation. Allow self-pity to envelop me. Identify with my sadness.

Option #2: Resist the urge. Do what I feel is “right.” Face the situation. Push away feelings of self-pity. Identify with my courage.

What I learned through the concept of urge surfing, is that there is actually a third option. Option #1 is almost always unskillful and can be destructive. However, sometimes I just can’t seem to muster the energy to choose Option #2. So what exactly is this third option?

Option #3: Observe the urge. Fully allow yourself to experience all the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that you are experiencing. Simply observe them without attachment or judgment. Explore why you are feeling a specific emotion or thinking a specific thought. Give yourself some time and space to do this.

Cravings don’t last forever. They have a life-cycle. As you observe the urge, you will notice the intensity of it peak and then gradually decrease. Many urges will dissipate entirely within an 8-minute time period if we allow them to breathe and complete their life-cycle. Some may last as long as 20-min if they are especially strong.

The practice I use when I choose Option #3 is to set a timer for 8 minutes. During this time I give my full attention to the urge. I verbalize out loud what I am feeling and thinking. I notice when my emotions become stronger or weaker. I fully accept myself and anything I am experiencing physically, mentally, and emotionally.

My experience in using this practice has been truly unbelievable. The concept made sense to me intellectually, but it still freaked me out the first time I tried it. After being with the urge for several minutes, it lessened significantly. Sometimes before the 8-minute timer beeped, it had completely evaporated.

What had just minutes before seemed impossible to deal with suddenly turned into a non-issue. Please, please, please try this out for yourself.

It might change your life.

Namaste.

Tomorrow is the first day of a new month, which for me usually means coming up with and starting a fresh monthly challenge. However, as my readers will know if they follow me at all, my challenge this month didn’t go so well.

In my defense, I did survive a hit-and-run accident, had surgery on my severely avulsed left calf, spent 2 days in the hospital, and sustained deep bruising over most of my body. I also had to get around in a wheelchair for a week until I could manage limping around with a walker and then crutches.

To everyone that has sent cards, visited me at home or in the hospital, or talked with me on the phone during this time, please accept my sincerest gratitude. A big thank you also to my therapist for being incredibly validating, my Toastmasters club for responding encouragingly to my accident speech, and my zoom heartfulness group for giving me a meditation outlet.

The first week after the accident I was generally upbeat and productive, to the degree I could be in my condition. Week 2 was difficult. I believe this was due in large part to the left foot drop that I’m sure had been present since the accident, but that I only started noticing about a week ago. I became very withdrawn and somber which ultimately led me into a personality loop.

After several days, I was able to use the DBT skills of willingness and mindfulness of thoughts along with some of my own contingency plans to release me from my mental prison. I realized afterwards that the cause of a lot of my emotional suffering was due to a formerly unconscious addiction I have to be athletically involved (running, biking, tennis, etc.), which if my foot drop persists might prove to be very difficult.

All that being said, I would like to repeat my challenge from last month. If you missed the post or are a new reader, you can see the specifications here.

To add a little zen to the month, I am going to also include a new small challenge. I will call it the ‘Lovingkindness during Distress’ challenge. Here are the details:

• When in distress, observe it without judgment. The first step to transcending any emotional suffering is to stop giving it energy. We give energy to emotions whenever we identify with them or attempt to push them away. Both of these actions only serve to further strengthen the distressing feelings. If you have incredible willpower and discipline you can push away your emotions for quite some time (sometimes even years) before having any crashes. However, in these cases, when the damage eventually does manifest, it could be catastrophic both for you and those in your orbit.

The alternative to identifying with or pushing away your emotions is to simply observe them. For me, it helps to actually vocalize what I am thinking and feeling, without any attachment or judgment. I’m just relaying the facts of my mental landscape.

• After briefly observing the distress, practice loving-kindness meditation. This can be done silently or out loud, depending on the situation, though I find it to be much more effective when said aloud, even if just in a whisper. To those unfamiliar with loving-kindness meditation, the core of it is traditionally contained in these 4 key phrases:

May I be free from danger. May I have mental happiness. May I have physical happiness. May I have ease of well-being.

Anyone practicing this form of meditation is encouraged to choose phrases that they can readily identify with during their practice. These are the ones I use:

May I be free from danger. May I be liberated. May I make a friend of my body. May lovingkindness manifest throughout my life.

After starting with myself, it is very effective to use the phrases for my family members, acquaintances in my life, or just all people in general. My goal in doing this challenge is to try to wire my brain so that it defaults to mindfulness and/or meditation during all times of stress.

Namaste.

My first YouTube video dropped Thursday night of last week. I had hoped to upload it earlier in the week, but preparing my studio space, getting up the nerve to record it, and post-editing it took much more time than I had anticipated. It serves as an introduction to the focus of the channel. I asked my listeners to think about one central question:

Do holding the beliefs I have give me a net positive amount of empowerment?

To begin answering this question, it is imperative that we first think about the nature of beliefs. I propose that all beliefs have some costs and some benefits attached with believing them. Choose any belief and this will be the case if you think about it.

What are the costs of a belief? I think they fall into two main categories:

1. Constraint costs. Any time I believe something, this necessarily is going to constrain some aspect of myself, be it thoughts, actions, or lifestyle. If (A) you believe jumping off a cliff will be harmful to your health, and (B) you don’t want to cause harm to your health, then (C) you are unlikely or at least less likely to jump off of a cliff. Therefore, these beliefs are constraining your actions. If you didn’t have these beliefs, in some sense you would be freer, even if this freedom was short-lived because you ended up jumping off of a cliff and dying.
2. Maintenance costs. Any time we adopt a new belief, we have to make sure it interacts and plays well with the other beliefs we already hold. In the case it doesn’t, we either have to discard it, discard our former belief, or accept living in a state of contradiction (this is known as cognitive dissonance). If (A) you believe a chair (pick one out for the sake of this example) will hold you up when you sit on it, and (B) you believe said chair will crumble to the floor when you sit on it, then how can you relate to this chair? Either you randomly decide to sit or not sit and hope for the best, are paralyzed in a state of inaction, or just have to never think about or relate with this chair.

For those of you who believe in a God who is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good), here is a possible maintenance cost you may have to deal with.

P1. An omnibenevolent being does not want there to be any evil in the world.

P2. An omnipotent being has the ability to make it so no evil exists in the world.

P3. God is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being.

P4. Evil exists in the world.

C: Therefore, God does not exist.

This is called the problem of evil. The above is my formulation, but you can find many similar ones if you search around online. Unless you want to accept living in a state of cognitive dissonance, you have to show how one of the premises above is false. Attempts to do this are called theodicies, and there are many of them that have been formulated.

With all these potential costs of beliefs, why do we believe things at all? Hopefully, because the benefits of the belief outweigh the costs. What are some benefits of beliefs?

1. Social Benefits. Beliefs can help you interact with others and give you a shared sense of community. This is especially the case with religious and spiritual beliefs, which are often shared with a group or community that validates and supports each other.
2. Self-Concept Benefits. An example of this would be the concept of personal responsibility. For some, it is extremely beneficial for them to own the problems in their life as the first step towards solving, fixing, or correcting them. For others, it is extremely beneficial to radically accept their current situation without attaching responsibility for their problems to themselves or anyone else.
3. Existential Benefits. Belief in an afterlife is a very common belief. There are many different forms this afterlife takes, such as resurrection, reincarnation, or a continuing conscious mind-stream. This belief can give a tremendous amount of perspective and peace, especially when dealing with suffering and uncertainty in life. Other people find rejecting the idea of an afterlife causes them to have a renewed interest and focus on the present, which can be liberating and productive.
4. Navigational Benefits. Beliefs can help us effectively relate with the physical and relational realities of life. The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow (or technically, that the earth will spin so that it faces the sun) at a certain time, helps me plan out when I want to wake up and start the day.

In detailing the various benefits that beliefs can bring, I have neglected to talk about the concept of truth. Many think that truth should be the only factor we consider when deciding whether or not to believe something. Prominent atheist YouTuber Matt Dillahunty is well-known for saying:

“I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible.”

This seems like a noble sentiment to maintain, but this seems to assume that their is a simple metric for defining and determining what is “true” and what is “false.” This is definitely NOT the case. The definition and usage of truth varies from religious to secular contexts, from historical to scientific contexts, and even in different situations by the same person oftentimes.

Also, if your primary concern (as mine is) is empowerment, it is not necessarily the case that (assuming we could know ‘the truth’) believing the truth would be best for us. The adage, Ignorance is bliss, is a pithy recognition of this idea.

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

– Anatole France

Namaste.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
― C.G. Jung

Journaling can definitely be a great way, as Jung puts it, to “make the darkness conscious.” I have learned a tremendous amount about myself, and specifically about my motivation and the factors that most affect it this month. As I have been posting tidbits of my entries all month long, I will invite you to go back and read these posts (Week 1, 2, 3, and 4) if you want to learn about my discoveries and insights.

What will I do with this challenge moving forward? For the most part, I am going to continue following almost all of my challenge specifications. Here is my current plan:

• Keep up daily journaling and vary the focus each month. As with my challenge requirements, I am setting the minimum amount of writing at 3 sentences, though they can be as short as I like. The idea is consistency, not volume. Incidentally, daily journaling has given me a significant increase in my gratitude level. I think being thoughtful about the things that positively or negatively affect my drive and motivation level makes me more viscerally aware of things I am grateful about. I didn’t regularly express this gratitude to myself or to others, but I definitely noticed a generally more appreciative tone in myself.
• Add a brief motivation reflection permanently to my check-in routine in the morning. My morning check-in, which follows my communion run and meditation, consists of thinking upon 3 of my core feelings at that moment, identifying 3 body sensations, nonjudgmentally reflecting on what I have done since my last check-in, and choosing one thing I am struggling with to radically accept. Because my motivation level is such a pivotal part of both my personality and my mental health, it makes sense to dedicate a few minutes each day to reflect on it.
• Continue publishing weekly blog posts. I have enjoyed increasing my published blog posts from once or twice a month to weekly. Of course, doing this by simply taking snippets of my journal entries, polishing them up a little, and posting them on my blog was incredibly fast and easy. It will be more challenging when I am producing fresh content each week, but totally doable for me now. I also anticipate my blog mirroring and complementing my YouTube channel content.

I have not been journaling this past week, but plan on starting up again on Monday. My particular focus this month will be on pain, specifically my chronic back pain, though any pain-related observations I have are of course welcome in my journal, along with general observations about life.

I should be uploading a video to my YouTube channel, Empowered Thought, sometime on Monday, so be on the lookout for that if you like my content and want more, this time in an audiovisual format. The first video will mostly be introducing myself and the channel. Deep dives into personal development psychology, empowering ethical philosophy, and lexicology/lexicography insights will definitely follow in the near future.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
― Thich Nhat Hang

Namaste.

I am incredibly excited and nervous about this month’s challenge. I have wanted to start a YouTube channel for quite some time now, but have always found excuses for not doing so. My familiar enemy of procrastination won out. However, I am turning the tables on him this month!

Below are the parameters of the challenge:

• Spend at least 15 minutes every day (including weekend days) working on videos for the week. I am going to add this fairly high up on my daily hierarchy list. For the first few days, this time will be mostly spent preparing my studio space, where I will record the audio +/- video that will be uploaded to the channel.
• Upload at least one video each week to my YouTube channel. I definitely will shoot for just getting one video completed the first week. However, as the month progresses, if I feel comfortable and am enjoying the process, I could be getting 2 or even 3 videos finished per week. The challenge, though, is one video each week at a minimum.
• Videos can be live-streamed or pre-recorded. If live-streamed, videos must be a minimum of 25 minutes. If pre-recorded, videos must be a minimum of 10 minutes. In some sense, live streaming is “easier” because there is no editing; I just start the mic or camera and charge forward, come what may. Pre-recorded videos take more time to produce, but are a little less scary sense I can preview beforehand what I am uploading for the world to see. Well, maybe not the world, but hopefully at least a handful of people.
• Publish weekly blog posts that correspond to the video I produce each week. I definitely want to continue publishing weekly blog posts as I have done this past month. Again, this should be a fairly easy way to do this, as I would have already been working or uploaded a video on some particular topic, that I can then summarize or promote in my blog posts. Whether or not I continue producing videos and/or start a podcast, I want my blog to remain strong and healthy.

The name of my channel is Empowered Thought. What I am particularly interested in exploring is the fusion of philosophy and empowerment. I am subscribed to several different philosophy channels which I find fascinating though often they can be more on the esoteric side. I am also subbed to several self-help/personal empowerment channels which are motivating and useful but sometimes lacking in deep critical thinking and skepticism.

My channel will be an attempt to bridge these two worlds in a harmonious marriage. Whether I will come close to accomplishing this remains to be seen. It would be a great encouragement to see comments on my videos, so if you decide to watch any of the videos and want to leave a note about anything you saw, I will reserve a special place in my heart for you.

Namaste.

I am posting this before 4 weeks is up because I will be starting a new monthly challenge on Monday. I don’t like my blog posts to be too close together so am finishing this week’s reflections early. Here are selections from my journal this past week:

DAY 22

Right now, I feel grateful to be alive. May I remember this feeling and be able to find it again when the next crisis hits me. The concept of PAT is so important and valuable to me; I think I am finding the right rhythm in my week. All is not well with the world right now, but all is well enough for me at this moment.

DAY 23

I heartily enjoyed playing a violin solo for church this morning with Randa Parker. Performing gives me such energy; I really should try to set up more “performances” even if just for family in the evening. This could be a huge motivation booster for me.

DAY 24

I slept in this morning. I did this yesterday morning as well, but it was by less than an hour and it was a Sunday, so I didn’t think much of it and treated it as a fluke. That was probably my first mistake. This morning was significantly worse. However, I eventually did get up and surprisingly did not feel that much guilt about it, mostly just sorrow over the lost time. This is a welcome change and totally appropriate.

DAY 25

I endured/enjoyed a 45-min heartfulness meditation session this evening via zoom. I try to do one of these per week. I attach my TENS unit before starting and set up a few yoga mats and pillows to create a meditation station. I always find these challenging both mentally and physically, but usually feel calm and centered afterwards. My motivation seems pretty stable.

DAY 26

I know as a mindset this won’t always work, but whenever I can it helps to view my sleep time as sacred and have rituals that communicate as much (such as lighting candles when going to bed and waking up). The importance to my motivation level of getting to bed on time, enjoying restful sleep, and following a predetermined plan in the morning after my alarm goes off CANNOT be overstated.

DAY 27

I had a glorious meditation practice this morning. It was a little bit cooler than it has been, there were some beautiful swirls of clouds in the sky and the sun was just up over the horizon. I think I am becoming better able to appreciate and be grateful for the beautiful things I encounter everyday instead of only fixating on the big picture.

I love compiling insightful and motivational quotes whenever I come across them. I read this one by Winston Churchill the other day and it immediately resonated with me.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.“

Sometimes I feel like I “fail” at every thing I do. This quote reminds me that success is not a destination but a mindset. Timeless wisdom.

Namaste.

I was sick for 3 days this past week which made for an interesting case study on my motivation level. Though I obviously didn’t enjoy the experience, I was able to remain fairly zen despite it. Here are some brief samples from my journal:

DAY 15

I completed a 50-mile bike ride this morning carrying a 30-lb backpack full of clothes, water, and my laptop! It was incredibly exhausting, but I did it! It took somewhere between 5 and 5^1/2 hrs. The rest of the day was interesting.

DAY 16

I noticed a lack of desire to do my 15-minute segments in the afternoon. I believe part of this was due to being more physically tired than usual, part due to my tendonitis pain acting up, and part due to wanting to spend as much time with Benj and Marina as I could.

DAY 17

When I got home just after 11AM, I felt physically sore but not particularly fatigued. This was a big change from Saturday! What this also meant was that I was able to jump right into my priority hierarchy and have a very productive rest of the day at home.

DAY 18

Getting up this morning was a little bit tough, as I still felt pretty sore and also itchy several places on my body. However, my morning routine worked like a charm and I sit here typing this feeling very excited and optimistic about the day.

DAY 19

I woke up sick this morning! Headache, low fever, achy feeling all over. I took some ibuprofen mid-morning, which helped, though I still felt incredibly sluggish. On the bright side, my motivation stayed strong and I didn’t suffer any noticeable loss of productivity. This is huge for me!

DAY 20

Though still sick today, I treated my symptoms more than yesterday and enjoyed a productive and mostly pleasant day. I had a back pain spike after a couple of hours of lessons and piano practice. Normally, I would want to apply my TENS unit, but no one was around to put it on for me. I didn’t panic and instead opted for laying on my acupressure mat, which worked wonders. I am definitely starting to trust my motivation more now, which is both incredibly exciting and anxiety-provoking.

DAY 21

I am writing this as I reestablish equilibrium after a crisis. I was cropping photos and started seeing a lot of pictures that included me. The more I saw, the more I hated what I saw. I hated everything about that representation of my body I was seeing in those pictures – my back, my hair line, my neck, my smile… you name it, I hated it. The more pictures I cropped, the more disgust I felt at what I saw. The action of cropping photos is not something my back likes when in a neutral emotional space; adding intense disgust on top was a recipe for mounting disaster!

Thankfully, I remembered my contingency plans. As I lay down on my acupressure pad with my head still swirling with emotions, I remembered self-compassion. “This is exactly what I need,” I said to myself. I began using mindfulness to create space between myself and my emotions, and then texted a ‘HELP’ bitmoji to one of my brothers and chatted with him for 15 minutes. My motivation is weak right now, but I have restored confidence in myself.

This last journal entry reminded me of my self-compassion pain mantra:

“This is a moment of pain.
Pain is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.”

I try to use this whenever I am dealing with a physically or emotionally painful situation. Just saying the mantra several times can put me in a much better head space to deal with the situation from a wise-mind perspective.

Namaste.

I am posting this a few days late. This is because I biked almost 100 miles round-trip to visit one of my brothers and didn’t bring my Clicky Keyboard, so I passed on doing a lot of typing (regular keyboards make my wrists burn). Here are some snippets from the week.

DAY 8:

The cloud was still there, but there was light coming through. I found I was able to access some skills to navigate and even enjoy learning from the situation. Hopefully, this experience will be a reminder to me that although I cannot directly control my emotional state, I can indirectly alter it by choosing to smile or make other physical adaptations of willingness and acceptance.

DAY 9:

One new event I experienced today was a secular Buddhism zoom call, which was very wholesome and encouraging for the most part. The one small problem is that I experienced a minor ego hit when I shared some thoughts and got crickets for a response. It goes to how incredibly sensitive I am that this would actually somewhat significantly bother me. What I can say in hindsight is that I desperately crave validation from someone outside of myself pretty much all the time with few opportunities of getting it.

DAY 10:

It is a dreary day outside and I definitely can feel the effects now. Dreary days don’t generally start taking a toll on me until around mid-afternoon. To prepare for this, I may want to check weather forecasts for the week in advance and plan some special pick-me-upper for days when it will be gloomy outside.

DAY 11:

I have enjoyed putting some motivation reflection in my morning check-ins. This is also an uplifting time to do this, since my motivation at this point in the day is probably the highest. However, while this may skew my reflections in a more positive way than is the reality, I actually think I am able to reflect quite truthfully when in this state.

DAY 12:

In my motivation check-in time this morning, I reflected on the 3 things that made it difficult to maintain momentum at the end of the day yesterday. I realized these facets are true generally.  First, there is the importance of having regular energy pick-ups. Second, there is the importance of recognizing when it would be imprudent to test my motivation capability. Third, there is the importance of creating a sensorially pleasing environment within which to operate.

DAY 13:

My physical body definitely feels pretty great and I am wondering if the slight drop in starting motivation level is because of the extra work I am putting into my physical exercises which is just making me slightly more generally tired. Honestly, if my pain level is lower and controlled, I think that more than makes up for any slight to moderate drop in motivation.

DAY 14:

Today was difficult. I am not exactly sure why, but my pain just spiked. Was the shirt I put on over my athletic T too tight, did I overdo my hyperextension exercises, did I practice piano too much? I don’t know. It has calmed down a bit after laying on my acupressure pad for 15 minutes. Needless to say, this didn’t help out my motivation which was already flagging due to aggravations with getting my new phone set up.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I will say that I enjoyed and learned a lot about motivation during my extensive biking over the weekend. Stay tuned!

Namaste.

Per my challenge requirements, I am posting some excerpts from my motivation journal the past week. I had intended to elaborate, but the excerpts pretty much speak for themselves. I have greatly enjoyed and benefited from the experience so far.

DAY 1:

I noticed a big drop in motivation level today after I started watching the new Black Widow film. It was great and that was part of the problem. I realize I need to completely swear off of watching an TV, movies, and other videos not on my subscribed YouTube channel list, even (and maybe especially) on weekends.

DAY 2:

I am choosing to not condemn myself; the falling off of a time paradigm was due to my mistaken belief that I could have controlled times of watching videos during Philosophical Appointed Times (PATs) and that this would actually be good for me. Neither of these suppositions is accurate, at least at this time. I blame the faulty programming I had previously inputted, not my current low-motivation state for the relapse.

DAY 3:

I have accepted that chronic physical pain is just a part of my life – something I struggle with, something I gain insight from, but ultimately something I just accept. My confusion stems from how this affects my motivation level. It feels like the more ‘productive’ I become, the more my pain tends to increase until I have an inevitable ‘breakdown’ of sorts.

DAY 4:

I want to enjoy higher motivation levels whenever I experience them while also not dramatically increasing my expectations of performance. In other words, when I experience a higher motivation level, I want to use it to really throw myself completely into whatever plans and activities I have scheduled without allowing new ambitions to raise my expected productivity level.

DAY 5:

I have found in the past that whether I am overwhelmed or overexcited from an event or experience, the result tends to be the same = CRASH! When I get overwhelmed, it is more of a desperation crash, while with overexcitement it is a post-event depression crash, but the ending is the same.

DAY 6:

I find that my motivation level is always highest immediately following my communion run/ meditation/check-in sequence in the morning after my shower. This makes perfect sense, especially if I successfully followed my rise-time protocol. I got up, enjoyed a shower, had some exercise, centered myself, and checked-in with my emotions. However, after this point, it seems to generally be a negatively sloped line in the motivation department.

DAY 7:

My motivation level is definitely affected when I’m around other people, especially when I’m  visiting someone (i.e. hanging out) as opposed to just doing an activity with them. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing: it’s just something I am aware of. I believe the key to harnessing this to boost my motivation without having ‘dead’ feelings after leaving the interaction is integrating aspects of mindfulness into as many aspects of social interactions as I can.

So far so good. I will finish by sharing the lovingkindness meditation I use daily.

May we all be free from danger.                                                                                                        May we all be liberated.                                                                                                                      May we all make friends with our bodies.                                                                                        May lovingkindness manifest throughout all our lives.

Namaste.