2022.01.05 Journal

Reflections:: It’s 6:11 am. I’ve been awake for about 20 minutes or so and feeling sluggish because I ate right before going to bed. I was supposed to have dinner earlier in the night with a friend, but he canceled. Rather than eating when I planned, I ate later – right before bed. And I woke up still full, which will be a distraction in my yoga. At the same time, I’m happy to be experiencing this while I’m journaling, since that means it’s extremely unlikely to happen again. I’m glad that what I ate last second was a couple of salads and some sweet potatoes, but the time was too late. I slept at my office last night because it was below freezing outside and I didn’t feel like going home. I’m going to order a few Neti pots so I have them at home, at the office, and can keep one in my travel bag.

Todo::
* Order a few Neti pots – ordered 3
* At least 30 minutes of the programming tutorial
* Journal about the things that come up as distractions
* Walk home. Don’t sleep at the office again tonight.
* Day One of journaling about Guilt/Blame/Evil

Habits::
* Meditation – Day 667
* Journaling – Day 10
* Yoga – Day 9

I just scheduled one of the work conversations I need to have, and I realize that some of the things that are coming up as distractions have to do with feelings where I’m blaming someone else about something or feeling guilty about something, so I’ve a strong hunch that I’ll be journaling about them today even though I’ve also put them on my todo list.

MeditationPrep::
Motivations: I want to keep my streak up because I see lots of benefits across areas of my life from maintaining a strong regular habit.
Goals: This session, I want to more intentionally give myself positive feedback when I notice my mind was wandering.
Distractions: Having a full stomach. It’s very uncomfortable and gets in the way of my stretching. Realized that the bigger issue than eating right before bed, was eating too much. I could have eaten half as much and still gone to sleep without being hungry, but not woken up uncomfortably full. Other likely distractions will be around what I’m going to journal about today and what I’m going to do work-wise. Found myself thinking about a work situation. I’ll journal about it now, but in my notes app, since this is about work and would violate peoples’ trust if I were to post publicly. 7:48am. I just did a long post about that work situation and sent it off. Feeling better now. And my stomach is less full. Main thing that might distract me now is forgetting my intention, so re-iterating that my goal is to more intentionally give myself positive feedback when I notice my mind wanders.

Reflections:: 8:32am. Just finished meditation and yoga. I successfully remembered to give myself positive feedback for noticing when my mind wandered and that occurred at least three times. Found myself thinking about work, romantic relationships, and where I’d sit to do this journaling – coffee shop vs my place. I’m at my place right now. 8:49am. Just finished shopping for and ordering a few Neti Pots. Time to journal about Guilt/ Blame/ Evil.

I’ve only got 11 minutes before I have a work meeting, but I’m glad I’m diving in. Initial thoughts are that Guilt feels very similar to shame for me. Different flavors of the same thing really. And it’s making me wonder whether and in what ways all emotions are basically the same. Shame is about feeling like there’s something wrong with you. Guilt is about something you did. But from the perspective of my present self, I’ve woken up and inherited the identity created for my by my past self. So associating with the actions of my past self and feeling guilt about them, seems quite similar to defining myself on my genetics or actions I’ve taken and feeling shame or embarrassment. It’s possible that I need to dive deeper into both emotions so I could compare and contrast them. If I cannot explain the differences then I clearly do not understand them. The things I feel guilty about are also similar to things I feel ashamed of. But let me start listing them with the 5 minutes I have left.

  • Not returning my friend’s tuxedo that he left at my house a few years ago. I wish I’d just not agreed to do it in the first place.
  • Not being a better brother to my youngest sister.
  • Not having a better relationship with a number of people who’ve reached out to me.
  • Not being a better person to be in relationships with.
  • Not proactively figuring out my tax situation when I was younger.
  • Being mean to the folks that I was mean to when I was younger. Whether that was people I bullied, people who were mean to me that I perpetuated the cycle by being mean back.
  • People and stores that I stole from when I was younger.
  • Times I was manipulative in school and work.

OK, it’s 9am so I’ve gotta run to this meeting, but I’m noticing that the first few things I listed really are shame things, since they’re about identity not actions. It seems I’ll need to journal more to transition, and perhaps take some time researching and defining guilt/ blame/ and evil. Seems that that I’m having issue with this because I like to take responsibility for things and I really need to lean into saying I’m not responsible and give excuses, which I’ve trained myself not to do.

Had a few minutes between meetings and did a quick google search for “difference between guilt and shame.” What came up is: Guilt is a feeling you get when you did something wrong, or perceived you did something wrong. Shame is a feeling that your whole self is wrong, and it may not be related to a specific behavior or event.

Finding the above very useful. Will definitely be leaning into framing the things I listed above to be more specific in terms of actions. What’s challenging is actively giving myself permission to not take ownership of everything while writing. But perhaps that’s a false dichotomy

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