popcorn09

Circadian Disruption

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 15:08:18 GMT

My body clock is completely out of whack. I am wondering how much my rumination and interest in Wimbledon 2022 is responsible for it. I stayed up checking scores or when I didn't consciously stay up, it was still running at the back of my head. Perhaps it is turning into another addiction, the watching and following of the sport.

I have been through these phases in the past where I pick up an interest and it consumes my life so much that I forget to do the basic things like eat, drink, sleep and well cook, shower and so on.

And then eventually I completely pull back, lose track and wonder why I stopped doing that thing I enjoyed. Because the moderation of it slips away from me and then the memory of that slips away too.

I can say that this year's interest in tennis is largely prompted by Nadal and Serena, curiosity about what would happen. Women's tennis in general seems pretty boring and dismal. I guess I am interested in the inspiring stories of human effort to persevere.

As I watch women's final now, it doesn't seem to be going the way I want it to. And then there's my abdominal pain from surgery. Perhaps the tennis has been a distraction from it too, a reason, motivator to get me moving and out of bed even if it is late at night.

Tomorrow, I pre-scheduled to get some breakfast just before 9 am. I wonder if this time it would get delivered, the last two times it didn't. Still I have no other hope of being able to get out of bed early, which I somehow need to get to if I want to have any chance of getting back to work from Monday.

I also feel much happier when I am awake early and am able to eat breakfast, see the sunshine (when Sydney is fortunate enough to have it this year). I hope I can get to a sleep + wake up schedule of a diurnal being again.

PS - Wimbledon women's final has gone away from Jabeur :(
Oh well, there will be a next time!

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Ageing with Kate Winslet

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 13:27:53 GMT

As I near the end of week 4 since having surgery and week 3 of being home alone, I find myself listening to Kate Winslet's longer interviews from different time frames and forums. In expressing herself, I find she is helping me let go of some of my learned hangups about myself. E.g. she talks about how her body has changed through growing older and having three children and how she refuses to do cosmetic surgery or botox and is proud of being able to use her body as it is to portray her character in Ammonite.

After listening to that, I find myself not resenting the lines on my face so much. A voice of doubt comes to me with, oh but she has a husband and three children and who will find me attractive with my ageing qualities on display... and I find myself not listening to this voice, I find myself being drawn to find me within myself, within my body. It's amazing to me how a public personality could do this for me by sharing of themselves. In a way, I feel challenged by not being able to tell them of how they are affecting my life. I feel perplexed about where to take this feeling and so I had the good sense to bring it to my journal. Today I don't feel like sharing this with anyone else in a conversation, it is just me and my diary that are to be privy to this.

In the last 2 months, I have started to grow out my gray roots and stopped dyeing my hair. As I was heading into surgery, it was one of my big worries. A bad hair day makes for a bad mood day for me. Luckily, I was introduced to the gray hair transition community of people on social media and seeing so many pictures, reading so many experiences, I felt it was the right time to do this. I have been roughly out of work meetings for a month and I will likely be working from home for the rest of this month, gives me time to strengthen myself for the looks I may get for the change that has befallen me.

I feel so good about not exposing myself to the chemicals in the dye every few weeks and to one day have been free of this 4-weekly obligation. With the covid situation blowing up again in Australia, I am definitely staying away from a hairdresser for the next foreseeable future. There are all kinds of other viruses going around that I do not want to catch - the flu, RSV and of course coronavirus.

I better put this on my to-do list:
1. Ask my doctor about antiviral therapy for covid at my next appointment
2. Organize vaccination for Booster-X when I am all recovered
3. Organize covid booster vax and all the side treatments to help me get through it

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Tuning into myself

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 01:36:10 GMT

Here in Sydney, some in-person activities have started to resume after two years. E.g. there used to be a monthly meeting in person for the Buddhist community I am a part of that went away during the throes of the pandemic.Since last month, the meeting has resumed.

Before lockdown 2.0, I used to go for group physiotherapy classes to start to rebuild my strength gradually. In June 2021, that stopped again with COVID spiking in Australia due to lack of vaccination and their laidback vaccination strategy and roll-out. Eventually when the physio classes resumed for vaccinated folks, you still needed to wear a mask while exercising. It makes total sense from a pandemic perspective, but not for my huffing and puffing lungs. I stopped seeing that physiotherapist too due to misdiagnoses and poor care that was not trauma-informed.

Over the last 3 weeks, I went to a local physio that offered classes too, did an assessment and went for two classes on Saturdays. After the first class, I felt so wiped out I could not even shower that day. I had extreme post-exertional malaise after the class, exacerbated my inability to think clearly, eat and drink. Yesterday, after the second class, I made it a point to eat straight after and went out so I wasn't going to go in a state of shutdown. The plan was to have an early night and rock up to the Buddhist meeting on Sunday morning, leaving home at 9 am.

I found myself "immobilised" on the couch. I could not even get up to drink water. At about 1 am, I realised that my body was telling me VERY LOUDLY that I did not want to go to the Buddhist meeting. After this, it took me nearly a couple of hours to finally regulate myself and go to sleep. As I leaned in and reflected on my evening, I realised that I knew from the beginning that I wanted to rest and stay home and yet I had an inner "violence" going on where a part of me was not even willing to consider that perhaps I won't go to the meeting to allow myself space. It was as though, going there was a given, and I was forcing myself to adapt around it.

Interesting how the complex trauma plays out in everything. The situation is reminiscent of my early and young life where I was ferried around, shipped off to relatives without being cared for, and later when I was older - whether I had the desire to go or not. My life was defined around my mother's needs, not the other way around.

And now when I go to a cafe in Sydney and see parents being kind, gentle and considerate of their children, it is one part healing and another part heart-breaking. My heart is broken for the little me that went through so much abuse and neglect. That little me, that will never know who she would have been with healthy parenting. Sure, I can reparent myself, be my own loving parent and so on, but the deep grief I feel is very much there for me to hold my little self through.

Much love little one <3

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Me Before You

Sat, 12 Feb 2022 13:23:20 GMT

Disclaimer - I agree with the outraged disabled people and disabled actors in Hollywood who criticised this movie. This is not the view of disabled existence that needs more attention.

I caught the last half of "Me Before You" movie on TV again. I've watched it before and found it incredibly sad. In a way I felt Lou's anger and yet on another hand, it is not for me to judge what someone else wants to do with their life (except it was a story and not real).

Today when I watched it, I had none of the old anger and sadness. I watched it and observed it and was reminded of the general lack of love and loved ones in my life. I felt that Lou was left richer in her experience (not even referring to the $), the kind that changes us through loving and being loved. I have experienced this once in my life, it was more than ten years ago and hasn't been around since.

When the movie ends with Will's letter saying "Love, Will", even though he is no longer there physically, he clearly is there. It drove home for me how there is nobody to sign off a letter with love to me. Nobody whose life changes with my love or whose love changes me. The loneliness of this is beyond any kind of loneliness from being alone, being in isolation and even not being held.

The more I come into myself in this isolation, as I continue to work on my complex trauma, I crave less to do life together with anyone, I crave more and more of my spirit to be touched deeply by another. I hope I am learning how to not look for someone to fill the role of being a significant other, to fill the void. I find myself looking for the one that can stand beside me and step into the light.

Ok, maybe I am lying, I do miss hugs and holding someone special as much as loving them.

I am so grateful that I have this journal to write into. Thank you my lovely.

Here's the music that stuck with me from the movie today.

PS - I've found some audio books by Jojo Moyes and going to try to listen to them to see if they appeal to me. Especially the two sequels after Me Before You. Usually books have better detail and nuance than the movies. I need more reminders of what the sense of being loved feels like as an embodied sensation.

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Becoming

Sat, 12 Feb 2022 13:06:10 GMT

So this is a version of what I wrote to my therapist today, wanted to capture here too.

I've been listening to Michelle Obama's Becoming. She's recorded the audiobook. As I listen to it, (I am on chapter 6 of 24), I can see some clear parallels between her life and mine e.g. a golden child elder sibling, big family, financial constraints, safety issues, lack of opportunity. And yet, I am getting a sense of what kind of an upbringing is possible with those circumstances. It's driving home for me several aspects of my traumatic, abusive, neglectful childhood. I am starting to see that there was not just neglect but actively disregarding my existence in a way that any opportunities that I deserved and had for development and growth were taken away. Again and again I was setup to fail and limited from development.

E.g. she talks about a time when she and her brother are teenagers and her parents give her their bedroom and build a room on the porch for her brother while them occupying the space they had earlier reserved for the children in the living room. I was so moved by how considerate parents can be. She talks about how they treated both of their children like adults answering all questions about life and letting the children making all the decisions.

She talks about how her brother was a star basketball player who could have had a full scholarship but her parents told him to keep his options open and not think about money. They were prioritising his education and he ends up going to Princeton even though he didn't have a full scholarship.

Then she talks about how she went to a special high school that was far away. And for the first time she was not in her brother's carved footsteps. But it was a place for learning and development. How there is a school trip to go to Paris and she decided that her parents obviously cannot afford it so she didn't even ask them. When her parents found out about it from a classmate, they said it was not her job to worry about the funding and she ended up going to Paris with her school-mates. All while her parents had never themselves even travelled to another state for a vacation.

I am flabbergasted. Is this how parents are meant to be?

My parents - I had no room, no space. They built space for the clinic, the nurses, the driver, the grandparents - nothing for me. When I was in year 6, I got admission at a school for gifted children (they liked my sister less but were willing to take us both). My sister put her foot down that she was very happy in her school and was not going to change and then I was also told I can't go to the special school. I was so unhappy and I had even forgotten this but I never quite got over it. I hated my middle school and high school. The special school was very far away and would have meant early starts and a part of me was relieved to not have to go through it but another part of me wanted a chance and an opportunity. I felt that if I went to it and as I wouldn't be able to cope with the commute, I might be able to stay in the boarding school there. But it was not meant for me.

When I had to go to university, I constantly worried about not going to a private university because it would cost so much more money and my parents couldn't afford it. Then they happily paid a huge amount of money for my sister's masters degree. When I went to do a masters, my mother told me how she would pay exactly what they had paid for my sister. There was a difference of only 40,000 rupees (800d dollars) with my total fee being 587K instead of 550K that they had paid for my sister. I paid for it myself.

I feel so much grief and rage. I feel like a curtain has been lifted, yet again. Of how when I look at things I could never learn such as dancing, music, singing, or anything else, parts of me that had no chance to develop, this was not my fault. They did not let me have the opportunity and continuously ridiculed me for my "failings"

How can someone be so cruel? I cannot fathom. It hurts me so much.

Oh and with all this I constantly heard about the sacrifices they had made for us and how I owe it to them, how I must be grateful.

Bullshit.

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End of Despair

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:52:42 GMT

I've had an incredibly rough week and still it continues. For more than 20 years, I've suffered from menstrual problems. From being suicidal during PMS to fainting on the street because of severe pain.
This whole week was another episode in this saga. Extreme fatigue, nausea, feeling anxious, unsafe and then followed by two days of debilitating period pain.

I feel angry that the medical science does not have a practical solution for me. I feel like I am at the edge of despair. It is intolerable to live this way and yet I feel like I have no options. It goes about in circles, trying to heal myself and then getting back to square one.
Nothing seems to have stuck so far.

Obviously the thread that binds all this together is severe complex trauma. I don't know how I will get through this. Every month feels like terror, waiting for the next month.

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Love and Awakening

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 12:00:43 GMT

Earlier this month, I started reading "Love and Awakening" by John Welwood. While I am still only at the beginning of Chapter 2, the book so far does seem to have beautiful and succinct words to describe the connection between relationships, spirituality and our true selves. Chapter 2 begins by describing how trauma disrupts this process of knowing and relating to oneself, and, therefore to another.

My current reading was to end on page 13 and while I underlined so many things, this one stands out to me today. It is quoted from a book by Herman Hesse,

"The old joys had dried up and withered, and his soul had begun the long, hard detour".

My soul can relate to this so much right now. I took the day off from work today because I found myself empty, unable to show up, care about work, have a dialogue and engage. So grateful to my coaches from my professional coaching platform that held the space for me and provided care for me to replenish some of myself.

And now I am here writing this journal entry, all the while fighting with my inner critic who tells me how this is such a pointless journal entry, that i don't even know what I am writing about, how the title doesn't match the content, blah blah blah.

Today I am grateful that I could get the ducks lined up in a row to write, even if it is incoherent and off-topic. This is, after all, my journal and I can write whatever I want. It is not as though I have someone paying me to meet their expectations, far from it.

Back to the book, I am doing a "book club" on it with my close friend Keton. (not their real name). I feel delighted to be able to read and discuss this with someone like him, that is seeking to learn and expand his mind as well. Such a privilege to have this in my life. Hope we can both make progress in finding a route to connect to our true nature, open our heart and bring last love into our lives.

With that, I am off to bed with droopy eyes. Parting reluctantly because this is truly delightful, to be here.

<3 <3 <3 xoxoxoxo

PS - here's the song of the day

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Challenges with writing

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 16:42:47 GMT

It has been a long while since I wrote here. I guess my vacation ended and it has taken me a long while to start to find my marbles and find some sort of rhythm and capacity to do "life". It doesn't help that this website doesn't have a mobile site or mobile app. I often myself in bed wanting to write but far away from my computer that I can't be bothered to open and type on.

Wish there was an easier way.

I think another challenge is that my brain wants me to keep my thoughts and emotions hidden rather than write about them. At first I suspected it was about keeping my feelings private, not wanting to share of my inner journey on a public journal. However, I could avoid doing that but simply making an entry private. Perhaps it is the not wanting to make the effort to process my feelings and witness and acknowledge them, somehow if I write about them then I can no longer deny or suppress them, also can avoid feeling shame for my feelings and quirks, that I initiated as defects.

Now that I've acknowledged that, I need to work out a way to write when I'm in bed because that's really what I want to do. Let's see how I can find a way that doesn't feel incredibly tedious.

PS - notes to self - write about Batman, about my family mountainy a campaign to renew the configuration, crime and punishment TV shows to babe a few

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Whiplash

Mon, 27 Dec 2021 08:23:10 GMT

A friend of mine recommended this movie to me called Whiplash. It is the story of a young drummer who wants to be the greatest and famous. He is at the top music school of the country and is pushed out by an abusive and violent teacher.

After he has been pushed out, a lawyer approaches him and his father. He is asked to testify against the teacher so the teacher can never do this to another student. Another of the students committed suicide because of the abuse.

Andrew's father says to him, "Do you think that I would let him put my son through hell and then just walk away scot free? Don't you know I would never let that happen... that there is nothing in the world more important to me than you? Don't you know that?"

When I heard this, I feel cheated that I never had this kind of love and protection from my father. Rather than making claims and telling me what to do, I never had someone who would stand up for me and show me how to stand up for myself.
I cannot imagine what it would have felt like to have this in my life. Who would I be if I had this growing up?

My father, when I asked him to speak to the cousin who sexually abused me, this father said that now was not the right time, that he would work it out later. What kind of a loser does and says that. This is the father I had.

I guess the movie scene offers me a clue as to what my inner child needs from me as I reparent myself. The challenge is now I don't even know how to identify who deserves what kind of a response, who hurt me enough to warrant this kind of standing up. The past hurts are to intermingled with the current hurts that I cannot tell. I end up being disproportionately angry or a pushover. And so it goes...

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Shadowlands

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 06:39:27 GMT

You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. A few months ago I was re-reading Andre Agassi's autobiography - "Open". I read how when he and Steffi first met they talked about their favourite movie and surprisingly both of their favourite movie was Shadowlands. I added it to my watchlist on the day.

Today I got around to watching it, fortunately I found it on youtube. When I attempted to watch it the last time, it was nowhere to be found.

The movie is the story of a gifted writer who meets another gifted writer and woman. Jack hides in his words and stories, lives a safe existence of predictability. Joy is direct, unabashed and authentic. They meet and become friends. Jack realises his love for Joy only as she is about to die of advanced stage cancer. Still they marry and spend a few years together.

The movie reminds me of the universal nature of grief and love. It was another embodiment of, "You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens." Jack's heart needed to be broken open, it was broken when he realised he is about to lose Joy even before having the courage to find her.

The movie reminded me of when I lost Gullu. The feelings of loss and grief, of desperately wanting to see him again. And then the following year I lost Bauji and even today I keep wanting to meet him again. The grief has not gone anywhere, it has just dulled in its edge and lives as a knife inside of me, almost as a companion of my life and existence as I breathe.

In some ways, it is lucky if grief comes with notice. Mine usually has not. The grief of losing my family, when I left Ghaziabad in 2020, I knew I didn't respect my own life and decided to do whatever I needed to do respect myself. I did not know then this would mean losing my family. I feel like I am choosing grief and inflicting this upon myself. However, what I have seen cannot be unseen. I can never go back to the false love that there was. This is the grief of unmerging and separating and with the anxiety of finding my feet,

Of the time his wife was in the hospital, Jack talks about praying for Joy when a friend or clergyman praises him for praying hard. He says, "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows our of me all the time - waking and sleeping. It does not change God - it changes me."

This is how I feel off late, the deep despair and helpless that seems without a floor or a ceiling leaving me to have no choice but to pray. Only when I pray can I feel an inkling of hope, trust and faith. Hope of not things changing but of my being able to live through them. Hope of living. And yet it does not make it easy to pray, it feels as though I must bleed myself to feed the fire that burns my sorrow and sends it back to life.

Reminds me of, Kahlil Gibran's words in The Prophet -

"Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility"

I was reminded of numerology and how my Saturn cycle now until the age of late 50s is 9. It prompted me to seek Lore for a numerology reading. It's as though there is something I need to hear and learn to be able to live true to what life is calling on me for.

The question is how to not be consumed or disabled by the pain and continue to let it cleanse my life, let it pass through me. I don't yet know how and so I pray.

And I hope that one day I will meet this love like Jack, the truest form of myself like Joy and in this life come to know of it. Until I work on keep finding myself again and again and keep showing up for myself again and again.

PS - I found CS Lewis's book for free on Audible, "A Grief Observed", definitely going to be my next listen.

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Insights from "Healing by Human Design"

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 10:30:45 GMT

Today I stumbled upon a video about food, diet and human design. It was the most comprehensive and well-explained video I have seen so far. I wanted to write notes to myself to refer back to later and perhaps some thoughts on how I might use these insights in my own journey.

There was a lot of explanation about how according to the human design, the energetic channels for food, love, community, belonging and sexuality are the same. So if there is lack of love or a feeling of being unlovable, lack of support, community and a sense of belonging, or if there has been history of sexual abuse (as in my case) or sexual assault or lack of sexual expression and connection - a person may eat to activate and have access to these pathways.

Open Energy Centres

Another interesting thing that stood out to me was, where there is lack of definition in some energy systems and channels, the energetic body can go into protection mode and it does so by accumulating fat because it dulls the sharpness and intensity of whatever the person experiences acutely. So if any of the below energy centres are open, then this can tie into protection mechanisms:

The identity centre (sense of knowing who I am distinctly from others) - if this is open, then the person takes on other people's identities and amplifies it and their own sense of identity is variable
The emotional centre - a person with this one open is an emotional empath who feels and amplifies other people's emotions
The sacral centre - a person with this centre open is amplifying life force energy from around them but they are not designed to carry this energy all the time. Inability to release or process this energy can lead to frying of the circuits a.k.a. the nervous system. True for manifesters, projectors and reflectors. Requires a lot of consistent rest and rejuvenation alone, away from everybody else.
The root centre - is responsible for adrenal energy and leads to pressure. Even with a healthy diet, one can still keep the weight and fat to protect from the pressure the person feels
The spleen centre - if this is open, the person is very sensitive intuitively and sensitive to immune responses of others. They may even be a medical intuitive and be able to sense other people's health issues. If this is open, one can feel everyone else's fear and amplifying it and carrying weight can be a protection from this energy

Other things that are important that affect health and energy

Conditioning - Comes from life experiences i.e. beliefs about oneself that were formed based on life experiences\
Imprinting - a person's family of origin may have different types of human design types. While the person is living with them, they would take on some of their family's energetic patterns and also would have access to the energy of their family. However, when (or if) they go out into the world and start to live their life alone, then they will notice the way they did things no longer works
Generational Energy Patterns - Human design and energy blueprint is inherited from grandparents. So when a person heals themselves and their lives, it starts to heal across generations
Genetics - Your actual DNA and genes
Mistaken motivations - We are designed to give and take energy. If our energy needs are not met in a healthy way over time, we can develop behavior patterns that get our energy needs met inappropriately. E.g. a 2 year old has a need to be empowered but was not given the opportunity to say no to things, they may become aggressive to assert their power or suppress their need for empowerment.

9 Keys of Resilience

Lovability
Empowerment
Courage
Decisiveness
Emotional Wisdom / Emotional Intelligence
Self trust / Inner sense of knowing / intuition / inner wisdom
Leveraging energy - consistent patterns of effort, rest and relaxation
Self-worth and self value
Authenticity and authentic self expression

Another thing that can stand in the way is the lack of belief. A person has to have the conviction, "I believe that I can be healthy and vital."

Integrated Healing At All Levels
For true and permanent healing to happen, healing needs to happen at all levels. Our bodies have the following levels - physical, vital, mental, emotional, supramental and bliss body. The healing needs to be aligned, integrated and accomplished at all up to the bliss body. Here's what each of these levels signify:

Physical - Manifestation, physical reality, doing the right thing for one's body e.g. eating well and movement
Vital - Energetic blueprint, this is qi / prana, what ayurveda and acupuncture work on
Mental + Emotional - Conditioning field of life experiences and the meanings one associated with them and internalised
Supramental - the quantum field of finite possibility, of new meanings, cosmic creativity
Bliss Body - the quantum field of infinite possibilities (also, same as the Mystic Law and Nam-myoho-renge-kyo)

My Personal Takeaways and Next Steps

Listening to this reminded me of the power of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. How chanting in itself can help bring about healing, connection and alignment at all levels. I will soon go and chant, after I finish writing this post.
I am a manifester with diet of "Direct - Light", which means I must eat only during the daylight hours. While I was a bit delayed today, but this is my only new rule for food - eat only when light. This is how I was until the age of 21, when this was ruined by being forced to comply with my tyrannical uncle I was living with, my mother who would not let me live on my own and would not stand up for me and my own lack of development and confidence to just up and leave and live alone. I hadn't yet found my way into my own self. Time to change this again.
It is great for me to keep continuining the work I have been doing on all of these levels with different pracitioners and on my own e.g. Rolfing for the physical, Kinesiology for the Vital, Therapy, Journaling and ACA for the Mental and Emotional, Work and writing for the supramental and practising Nichiren Buddhism for the Bliss Body. I got it covered!

I so loved learning about this today and so enjoyed writing this post for myself to refer back to. So loving being here.
What a wonderful life. <3

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AYWUAS #1 - Roadblocks

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 13:53:06 GMT

The lesson says, "When you discover something that is standing in your way from achieving your goals, you always have a choice. You can either stop and avoid the challenge, or you can find a way to climb that wall. And if you can't climb it, you can do everything in y our power to go around it, dig under it, or maybe even plow right through. (...) You create your future by committing to it and taking that first step into the unknown."

When I ponder on this, lately my desire and motivation to climb walls seems to be different. I am finding that I don't have much interest in scaling walls, rather my journey needs to be more aligned at the moment. Instead of scaling any walls or trying to dig through them, I walk away from the wall and find that there was a garden, a stream, butterflies and rainbows that were calling upon me but I was too busy digging underneath or grappling with a wall that wasn't of my choosing.

So what are the roadblocks on my self-discovery writing journey?

One is definitely the fact that I get called to write late at night but this doesn't align well with a healthy adult lifestyle, my early-starting work day and my rest-needing/craving body. And yet when I write here now, it feels like home and it feels like rest. So perhaps the biggest roadblock was not having a place where I wanted to write.

And that roadblock has been resolved today. I realised that I had been on Livejournal for 8 years. No wonder it felt like the place I was looking for. I am so grateful to this site that brought back that experience and vibe into my life.

Now it doesn't matter whether I write everyday, every week or all the time. But I have a place to go write that feels like home, when I get called to.

So roadblocks that will prevent me from doing this - nothing comes to mind right now. And if I do find a wall, I will just turn around and who knows I might discover yet another glorious green garden instead.

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A Year of Writing to Uncover the Authentic Self (AYWUAS) - Preamble

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 13:31:48 GMT

A few months ago I signed up to a course on The Daily Om called "A Year of Writing to Uncover the Authentic Self". I receive an email lesson every week that includes writing prompts to further me on my writing journey of self-discovery.

Soon after I signed up to this course, lockdown 2.0 happened followed by and intersected by many health challenges - mental, physical, spiritual. Some of them still go on, and yet I am building a sense of self like never before.

Today I found DreamWidth after years and months of lamenting about the loss of livejournal and the grief of not having the safe and familiar space to write to. While LJ still exists, everyone left and it was no longer the hang-out place it used to be.

I feel called to resume my writing and journaling journey here. A good time to start on the course, if there was any.

And so it begins.

PS - By all means, this journal will have more than just my course work. It will have all of my interests in one. Integration.

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