Ysiad

todo::
* 30 minutes on the programming tutorial
* Day Two of journaling about Apathy/Helplessness/Hopeless

habits::
* Meditation – Day 675
* Journaling – Day 18
* Yoga – Day 17

Reflections:: 8:03am I’ve been awake since approximately 6am. Thought about going back to sleep, then checked emails and dove into GitLab’s culture docs. I did that for about an hour and then it was 7am, so I did yoga. My knee started touching the ground during the hip opening stretches, which felt pretty awesome since I don’t even feel like I’ve gotten more “flexible” just have more body awareness – which is completely shifting my view on what it means to be able to do these asanas. I overate the food that I made, and ate snacks with my roommate last night, which I’m feeling it this AM. I’m wondering if one of the things for me to focus on is just not getting hungry in the first place, since one of the ways I end up overeating is being hungry, and then overcompensating. Meanwhile, even with the awareness that’s leading towards making these adjustments, I continue to move towards my equilibrium weight and shed fat.

In the past 24 hours, I found myself thinking a few times about the insight I had while journaling yesterday. Setting up a framework that helps me identify likely sources of complex emotions is excellent because when I want to tap into one, I can go through that set of options. And then also, I’m opening up the opportunity for deeper growth when something pops up as the source of a strong emotion that doesn’t fall into that framework. And there’s something to learn from the commonalities. All the sources of my strong emotions are around relationships and actions. If I tried to think about other *potential* sources of strong emotions that could theoretically cause emotions, I’d list: material possessions, thoughts, opinions, feelings themselves, financial decisions. I’m having a hard time seeing how any of those categories result in strong feelings as I really reflect.

I’m finding utility in asking myself the question: In what ways am I feeling apathy around these feelings or the change that it would take for me to allow myself to grieve something? For example, with the situation on my old employer, perhaps I need to allow myself to grieve that I made a huge mistake in interacting with those people and I should have stayed at the previous company I was at. Or that I would have been better off taking the other major option I was considering. Or that the version of me that made the kinds of decisions that I made needs to change. And that it’s hard to do that because it means thanking the old version of myself that implemented whatever defense mechanisms I have and saying that as safe and comfortable as it might feel to continue acting in ways that kept me safe in the past, I want more now, and that’s ok. I need to ask myself whether I’m willing to trade the comfort and laziness that comes from making the decisions that lead to making the actions I’ve grown accustomed to taking, and in exchange only know that my life will be different and that’s scary. A part of me feels like as much as I see opportunities for improvement, I’m proud of where I am. What if me taking these risks results in worse relationships with my various loved ones than I already have? What if it results in me being unstable and being so unpredictable to myself that I spin out? What will I do if I fall backwards into more shame and more guilt? It takes courage and trust in a deeper system or power. Or at least that whether or not there is a deeper system or power, that jumping in and finding out is worth it. These sentences harken back to themes of having faith in “God.” Given that what matters is actions and not thoughts, it makes me wonder if some of the major utility from the construct of “God” as a self-improvement tool is that it can get folks to take actions based on faith even before they can truly believe or have faith themselves. Making real change is scary. And I am feeling first-hand how that fear can result in apathy as a state of being after feeling Guilt. Because the outcome one wants after guilt is to forgive oneself and either a) not take similar actions in the future or b) accept that you will take similar actions in the future and that’s ok. In either case you want to c) move on and be present with your current reality and not dwell on the past or worry about the ramifications of your past on your future. Anyways, I need to have faith in this system, and whatever the motivator is that actually works, truly feel the hopelessness that causes apathy to see if it naturally results in grief.