NorwegianDJ's journal of personal growth

[NorwegianDJ]

It seems that since new years, on average, each day has been better than the last.
What a lovely feeling.

But don't get me wrong. I don't think I've had a single day without difficulties.
It's just lovely, because I am witnessing how this path is unfolding me as everything that I am.
I've known the extremeties of my character for a long time. It's such a joy to be around me when I am safe & happy.
It's just that I've always thought that safety & happiness were things I had to accrue and maintain.
There's inherent insecurity and scarcity in that mentality. It falls apart under the changing nature of reality.

1. I am good enough.
2. This moment is good enough.

That's it. That's literally it. It was handed to me on a note on Christmas. Still it took me 5 months to finally put it together.
It's the path of the heart.

The mania, worry, and conflict and confusion fall away in the wake of acceptance.
Whatever happens, "Okay. Here we are." & "I am".

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal"

There are a couple of things that make these two ideas really quite awesome.

• Any self-imposed negativity disappears
• Self-preoccupation, worry, unworthiness, and idealism withers
• Conflict and confusion is lessened. Let it be + Faith.
• It's the crucible for self-love and belief. I feel so much better, knowing that these voices that inhabit my head won't turn on me.

This effect builds on itself.
And out of this knowledge, comes space.
Space is such a wonderful thing to come across. To find that inside of me, there's this eternal calm center. I just have to listen and breathe.

I need to talk about it a little more. It feels like such a breakthrough. And it enables me to access those most beloved parts of myself.
Because they only appear when I am safe and loved. When I've bathed in that fellowship, marinated in it for a while, I am like a wonderful mischevious angel with a heart for everybody.
Finally finding the way to "bring that under my own control" is my highest prayer answered.
We'll see how this goes though. The paradox is that the power is given to him whom does not desire it.

I think of it in terms of motherly and fatherly love.
Where motherly love is unconditional and fatherly love is conditional.
My approach to life has been entirely conditional.
Now I am building a home inside myself.
I have, for a long time, but it has been a hostile and unrestful place.
A home full of love, inner peace, a fit body, and judgment. These cannot be bought.

I want to share some of my research again.
------

This is what we are here to see for ourselves. Both the brilliance and the suffering are here all the time; they interpenetrate each other. For a fully enlightened being, the difference between what is neurosis and what is wisdom is very hard to perceive, because somehow the energy underlying both of them is the same. The basic creative energy of life … bubbles up and courses through all of existence. It can be experienced as open, free, unburdened, full of possibility, energizing. Or this very same energy can be experienced as petty, narrow, stuck, caught…

The basic point of it all is just to learn to be extremely honest and also wholehearted about what exists in your mind — thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, the whole thing that adds up to what we call “me” or “I.”
Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep. No one else can really sort out for you what to accept — what opens up your world — and what to reject — what seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery.
[…]
This is the process of making friends with ourselves and with our world. It involves not just the parts we like, but the whole picture, because it all has a lot to teach us.

Alan Watts
The self-conscious feedback mechanism of the cortex allows us the hallucination that we are two souls in one body — a rational soul and an animal soul, a rider and a horse, a good guy with better instincts and finer feelings and a rascal with rapacious lusts and unruly passions. Hence the marvelously involved hypocrisies of guilt and penitence, and the frightful cruelties of punishment, warfare, and even self-torment in the name of taking the side of the good soul against the evil. The more it sides with itself, the more the good soul reveals its inseparable shadow, and the more it disowns its shadow, the more it becomes it.

An experience of this kind cannot be forced or made to happen by any act of your fictitious “will,” except insofar as repeated efforts to be one-up on the universe may eventually reveal their futility. Don’t try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process — like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one’s ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the reality of the feeling. But when this feeling of separateness is approached and accepted like any other sensation, it evaporates like the mirage that it is.

This is why I am not overly enthusiastic about the various “spiritual exercises” in meditation or yoga which some consider essential for release from the ego. For when practiced in order to “get” some kind of spiritual illumination or awakening, they strengthen the fallacy that the ego can toss itself away by a tug at its own bootstraps.
------
Working rightly, the brain is the highest form of “instinctual wisdom.” Thus it should work like the homing instinct of pigeons and the formation of the fetus in the womb — without verbalizing the process or knowing “how” it does it. The self-conscious brain, like the self-conscious heart, is a disorder, and manifests itself in the acute feeling of separation between “I” and my experience. The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.

There is no permanent, static, and immutable “self” which can grant us any degree of security and certainty for the future — and yet we continue to grasp for precisely that assurance of the future, which remains an abstraction. Our only chance for awakening from this vicious cycle, Watts argues, is bringing full awareness to our present experience — something very different from judging it, evaluating it, or measuring it up against some arbitrary or abstract ideal. He writes:
There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I,” but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid. In other words, the more security I can get, the more I shall want.

To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it.​

 

[NorwegianDJ]

On Time

You would measure time the measurelss and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
*****
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and spaceless?​

-------

It feels as though these months of anguish are coming to a natural conclusion. Not an ending, but a synthesis that forms the foundation for everything that is to come.
In January I spent a lot of time reading books and grieving. Sitting with my emotions and thoughts and letting them wash over me.
February also, but then my emotions started to slowly pull back. February and March transformed the way I viewed myself and the world. Constant philosophical iteration and inquiry. But topped off with a lot of mental anguish and conflict and confusion.

One of my main issues has been that I've been trying to control things. Intenally and externally, for as long as I can remember.
I talked about plateaus a while back.
It feels absolutely right, looking back, that the process took shape like it did.
However, it's weird that it took me over 5 months to realize that all that was required of me was to let go completely. Of everything. Absolutely everything.

Everything in my life has been conditional.
It was only last year that I discovered what unconditional love was.
That mercy opened a little door into my heart.
Now I am finally becoming able to shine my light with compassion.
I really want to describe this phenomenon decently.
It's the process of befriending yourself, everything that you are.
But it's more than that. Let me try.

It's the expectations of your own mind that is creating your own hell.

Complete acceptance means complete surrender.
Surrender of all your models of who you are and how things ought to be.
It means letting go of righteousness in all its forms.

It's about having your awareness free and spacious and not caught in anything.

You start to notice how petty and stuck negative energy is.
And you start to peek at the machinery that underlies the negativity.
And you accept that too.
There is no fighting, just accepting. Seeing everything that is and that you are with complete honesty and wholeheartedness.

It just FEELS SO GOOD.
This lightness and spaciousness that is unfolding within me as I keep accepting and letting things be.

"Give up that there is somewhere better to be and someone better to be.
Whatever occurs is not the beginning, nor the end.
It's just the same kind of human experience that's been happening to everyday people since the beginning of time.
Basic nowness is always there.
Open space is always there."

Express compassion where the spirit meets the bone.
There's probably a lot to be said for having a positive focus.
But if there's anything I've learned, it's that you cannot force things.

Treat yourself like someone you love.
"I am who I've been looking for. And deep in my core I knew it was time to stop looking for more.
Until I could look through all my fear and look into a mirror and see clearly that the man looking back at me was the only one who can make me happy and
I am already enough."

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
​

It may sound weird, but I discovered love within myself at 11pm on the 27th of April. There it was. There it went.
It was pre-empted by a lovely and fulfilling day. I've been with my breath since then. I cannot not be with it even if I tried.

Don't push away the past, don't pull on the future.
It's a journey of extricating yourself from the definitions of yourself.

Absolute acceptance = Perfect Mercy
Mercy is the cradle of the Divine.
Mercy as a uterus. Mercy as the giver of grace.

"Like Moses lifted the snake in the desert,
so shall (menneskesønnen) Man be lifted."

Mercy as the mothers' empathy, who's only wish is to embrace her child.
It is a spontaneous reaction.
Just the sight of her child awakens the wish to hold, embrace, and kiss her child.

The child is everything that you are.
You are also the mother.

That image unlocked something inside me.

Patience is an elemental part of mercy.
Gratitude is an attitude that allow humans to see everything in light of mercy.

While my focus here is essentially on perfect acceptance, there is something to be said for the elements that comprise [self]-love. They all combine in the shape of loving arms that you can forever rest in.
Responsiblity.
Humility.
Compassion.
Patience.
Consciousness / Presence.

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver
​

I took a walk on the 28th.
A question kept entering my mind. I was noticing how, just like now, I am not fully engaged with the moment. It's as if I am rushing to get to the next moment.
I don't know how to describe it, but suddenly I reached an answer.
I am trying to milk the moment for something that will benefit me, either in terms of entertainment now, or some accumulation of knowledge or character.
It may seem trivial, but I came to realize that whatever happens, neither result is better than the other.
If I "evolve", I get to have a more enjoyable experience.
If I experience more suffering, I grow. And that growth leads to more empathy and esteem.
But it just clicked for me and unlocked the present to a new degree. I feel as though I am closer to and more secure in the moment ever since. It's just been two days, so we'll see!

It's a little weird to write a journal and at the same time argue that my character is ficticious.

We judge only what we recognize ourselves as able to judge.
Mercy is a movement from judging to appreciating.

Spring is here.
I've felt it for a long time, but today, spring has sprung.
To me, while there's love and there's the divine, this journey is about living a full life.
I cannot afford not to live life to the fullest.
And it's just absolutely silly and the deepest irony that, as Gandhi said,

"God demands nothing less than [complete] self-surrender as the price for the only freedom worth having."​

 

[NorwegianDJ]

One of these days I woke up and felt like myself again. Honestly, it was disappointing. I was getting quite fond of being obsessed with Love and God and reading and all that jazz.
Now it's fading to the background.
In it's place, there's nothing.
And that's a little uncomfortable.
But it's also a great learning, because now I am making my own choices of what to do with my time.

It was a little unnerving initially, because my breath was so far away again.
It's been a lesson in learning to let it all be, each day.
It's difficult to unlearn our habit of associating our mood & thought with our character.
It's even more difficult to unlearn "having a character", but I don't actively do much about that.

I can go through most of the day ping-ponging between moods, feeling open-hearted and hopeless. I go through some mental gymnastics trying to remember how to maneuver my mental landscape. It's honestly quite taxing when I get stuck. I'm still not quite back to normal. That I can tell. But the whole process feels natural.
There are some key insights that have carried me these past two weeks.

Anything is bearable in the moment. It's only when we add to the moment that it becomes too much to bear.
Let's say I'm in the sauna.
After 30 minutes it starts to become a little unbearable. You're flustered, your head builds up a discomfort, your mind is telling you to quit.
It's the same thing with running.
But if you just let go. If you just breathe. And just focus on that in-breath, and that out-breath. Slow down into what is. The mental constructs, the thought that this pain will persist and get worse. If you manage to shift your focus away from it, you'll find that you're perfectly OK.
And you can lay in that sauna for another 20 minutes. Or you can run an additional 10K. It's not an issue.
It's just one moment at a time.
Hopelessness is the same experience. Hopelessness only occurs when you add the past and the future to the present. You'll find that as you let go of trying to control and plan, that hopelessness fades away. It needs fuel.
This is the sort of strength that cannot be taken away from you. Which is not conditional on a fragile accumulation or structure of external factors.

Another one is that, it's all perfect.
Having faith means believing that your thoughts and emotions are perfect.
For me, the philosophical underpinnings of this statement took a while to build up.
But it's not complicated if you see it.
We all have our past. We have our packaging.
And there's no "I" to do any improving.
You can't change your thoughts or moods.
The "I" does not survive scrutiny. It's a mirage.
But that, too, is perfect.
Your problem is that you're getting in your own way.
There is no objective "I" with its hands on the wheel. It's a mirage. The mirage is just part of the happening.
Don't get in your own way.
All you can do is to just let it all be.

It's not that I understand this from moment to moment, but it's an unfolding.
What it does for me is that it quiets down my mental chatter.
If there is no purpose in thinking about how I can change the present, future & past, to make myself better or feel better, then there's really not much to think about.
And ironically, that's the solution.
The absence of thought leaves spaciousness in its wake.
In that spaciousness you can bloom. What we seek does not reside in our minds.
It's not that I stop doing things or feel how they impact me.
But the very seeking for something that is not here is what makes the moment and myself not good enough.
When the seeking stops and thinking may yield, and when my mind may slow down, all my problems are gone.
Suddenly I am good enough.
I don't know about you, but being good enough is quite powerful.
It sounds simple, but it's the foundation for everything that you do. Whether you have it or not.
Because you cannot beat the mind with the mind.
It will not nourish you.
This, too, shall pass.
Surf the moment or resist it.
It's a choice.


Like a pendulum I move from self-esteem to insecurity.
It's very easy to feel insecure if you really see everything that you have been.
And when you feel repulsive. If you have these thoughts and these feelings and this energy, why then of course you are not good enough.
But I'm finding that there is no arguing with insecurity.
It's there under certain conditions. When those conditions fall away, the insecurity withers.
Welcome it in, see that it is well taken care of.
You'll see that if you can just let it all be, it's really not that bad. You may even find rest here. With everything that you are. Good and bad.
It gets easier.
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.

------
The more pursuasive, the more compelling, the more authorative, the interpretation is, the less credible it is, or should be.

The superego is the sovereign interpreter… [It] tells us what we take to be the truth about ourselves. Self-criticism, that is to say, is an unforbidden pleasure. We seem to relish the way it makes us suffer [and] take it for granted that each day will bring its necessary quotient of self-disappointment. That every day we will fail to be as good as we should be; but without our being given the resources, the language, to wonder who or what is setting the pace; or where these rather punishing standards come from.
...and yet this supposedly authoritative part of ourselves is itself a coward.
-----
Well, one thing that can be done is to find someone we are not too much for…
-----
Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.
…
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.
[…]
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.
-----
I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.
-----
“Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you.”
-----
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.
In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world.”
-----
Stop judging me, evaluating me, categorizing me. I am an enigma and will remain one. If you include me, we can dance together. If not, I will shrink and be crippled and cower in the corner. The strength of my feelings will be undiminished, but if they have no outlet, they might burst out in destructive ways.​

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Your mind will do everything in it's power to keep you from changing. It likes you as you are. It's comfortable with you as you are. Your brain evolved to have you surviving not thriving.

Be wary of that and embrace the uncomfortableness that comes with change and growth, it is a sign you are heading down the right path.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I had 2 more difficult and mentally exhausting days before the pain dissipated.
There really is something to the statement, "It's always darkest before the dawn."

I am learning what it means to plant your own garden and water your own soul.
Your ego is not the only thing that needs nourishment. So does your soul.
Learning what it means to balance being good enough with tuning into that feeling or inner voice that tells me whether I am in alignment or not.

I come from a place where I have large expectations of myself and my surroundings, and that I have to overcome each obstacle in my way, using force or control.
There's also this powerful sense of pride that is being slowly leveled out. Thinking of myself as more important than other people, because I have an understanding of myself and life that enables me to participate to a greater degree.
But my abilities and wisdom have nothing to do with me. I'm not responsible for attaining them. They're just a result of my birth and what has happened to me since then. I am made of little pieces of all the beauty in this world. And all the ugliness. I am nothing but an expression of the universe. Making an identity out of this is akin to basing one's identity on what other people think and feel about you.
It's fragile and has many inconvenient side-effects.
For starters, if I think that my thoughts have worth, then I am totally fascinated by them.
If there's something I know by now, it's that the mind is a lousy master.
It leaves me totally reactive and disconnected from my experience.
Figuring out how to relate to the mind has been and continues to be my biggest challenge.
It's something I must re-learn each day. Some periods it is more difficult than others.
It's helpful to remember some short phrases.

• Don't pull on the past & don't push away the future
• You're good enough
• Everything is perfect
• The moment is good enough
• Nothing matters. There is no one in the other row-boat. There is only you.
• While that is true, everyone else is just as alive as you.
• This, too, shall pass
• Just let it be. Let the energy flow through you undisturbed.
• What other emotions are present?
• Hold space
• It's about focus: surf the moment or swim against the stream.
• anything negative cannot produce anything positive.

I had a transformational experience on the 17th of May.
I've been revisiting the Enneagram lately, partly because I am starting a group here in my town.
It's given me another key that has become clearer over the past 6 months.
What I am doing here, at least the path that I am taking, is a movement from negativity to positivity.
I didn't ever think I'd be the person to promote positive energy, but here we are.
If you dive deep into the subject, you may find that it is so much more than you may be aware of.
I've always tried to control and overcome obstacles. Such has it been with negativity also.
It doesn't work that way. What is resisted only comes back stronger.
It requires observation.
When you're being here in loving awareness, things just change.
But what is that loving awareness?
I've pointed to it several times in my entries. Mercy. Love. Objectivity. And now, positivity.
It's akin to creating a safe and open space.
In that space there can be an unfolding. A telling of secrets. A trusted confidant. And just like in interpersonal relations, this is how healing occurs.
We can only see what is when we don't judge, evaluate, or justify it.
And I've lived in that mode of judging, evaluating, and justifying everything I do for my whole life.

It's ducking exhausting.
It's exhausting because you become aware of it and that creates another loop of the same kind of habitual thought.
And so it goes until you remember some of those phrases.
I'm really looking forward to having less of that in my life.

In the meantime, being your own best friend really helps.
And that is also a process. But when you remember your motivations, it's really fulfilling.
It means to learn what it means to be a friend to others.
It also means to remember yourself. Your true self. That's been a missing piece for me.
I am lucky enough to know who I am when I am safe & loved & full of love.
I can set aside time each day to remember that. It puts everything else in perspective.
I can also point to it when I am having a difficult time. Being both places at once promotes growth. It facilitates objectivity and positivity.
When I observe my mind doing loops and judging and evaluating, I try to allow it to be while I "shine my light" on it. Sometimes it works and it is powerful.

Not holding onto joys and sorrows is another sticking-point that I relate to a hundred times a day.

-----
After some time, you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand and imprisoning a soul;

You learn that love does not mean leaning,
and that company does not equal security,

and you start to learn….
That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises,
and you start to accept defeat with the head up high
and open eyes,
and you learn to build all roads on today,
because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans…
and the future has its own way of falling apart in half.

And you learn that if it’s too much
even the warmth of the sun can burn.

So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you.

And you learn that you can actually bear hardship,
that you are actually strong,
and you are actually worthy,
and you learn and learn…and so every day.

Over time you learn that being with someone
because they offer you a good future,
means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past.

Over time you comprehend that only who is capable
of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you
can bring you all happiness.

Over time you learn that if you are with a person
only to accompany your own solitude,
irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again.

Over time you learn that real friends are few
and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later,
will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.

Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger
continue hurting throughout a lifetime.

Over time you learn that everyone can apologize,
but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls.

Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly
it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same.

Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends,
you cry for those you let go.

Over time you realize that every experience lived,
with each person, is unrepeatable.

Over time you realize that whoever humiliates
or scorns another human being, sooner or later
will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold.

Over time you learn to build your roads on today,
because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist.

Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen
causes the finale to be different from expected.

Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future,
but the moment you were living just that instant.

Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you,
you’ll yearn for those who walked away.

Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness,
say you love, say you miss, say you need,
say you want to be friends, since before
a grave, it will no longer make sense.

But unfortunately, only over time…”

[and you learn and you learn ...
with every goodbye you learn.]

----
You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.
----
Fly me to the moon ...
----
He who binds himself a joy
doth the winged thing destroy
He who kisses it as it flies
wins for himself an eternity sunrise
----
"It can be easy."
Notice when things come easy.
When things flow naturally and are in alignment.
Be thankful.
----
Resisting change --> Sense of possibility
-----
“Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter. When it becomes reliable, we are in a kind of body-heaven.”
----
MYSTERIES, YES

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.​

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I want to try writing on a keyboard for a change.

I've come so far. Progress hasn't been linear.
My mind is a kinder place and the impatience is dissipating.

"The Man in the hot air balloon."

I saw my ex girlfriend with another man last night.
The timing couldn't have been better for me.

On Saturday I rediscovered my capacity for joy.
I saw how forgiveness was something that I had to see through for my own well-being. To forgive myself, my family, my dearest, the world, and God. To do so, because I love myself so much that I want to be joyful. I don't want to hold onto this pain any longer.
I saw how free I would be if I let it all go.
I saw that when you judge someone, the very action of judging makes them guilty.
I saw that when I contemplated death - that I could die tomorrow or in an hour - the fear collapsed.

In that wake, I was able to live exactly how I wanted for a day.
I swam and I swam and I swam. I jumped and I ran and I told my parents I appreciate them.
I walked my slackline, drank water and ate food. I could stay with my joy, because although I still felt righteous in what has been done to me, I was able to let it go. Because retribution and justice is are parts of a future that will never arrive.

Of course such moments come and go. But they nourish and joy begets joy. Love begets love.

A major realization I've had is that I don't have to be the victim.
In my head there is a judge and there is the subject, the victim.
I can identify them both. The judge comes in many shapes and voices. He speaks my worst insecurities. He even seems to speak truth.
The victim just takes it. Defends itself. Has to prove himself. Isn't worthy and isn't good enough, because he is being judged.
I realized that I can take responsibility, because both of these entities live inside of me, they are not me.
I create my own reality. I create my own joy. Love is a choice. Suffering is a choice. It may feel impossible, but that's because we are trapped in our reality and who we think we are.

It is now easier to see what emotions and thoughts I get trapped in. Then it is easier to not get trapped in the impatience and judgement of that entrapment. I am able to smile at fear. Tenderly hold my hurt in my arms. I am slowly nursing myself to life. Sometimes it is so awful. And I just want to marinate in that difficulty. It's difficult to understand what it means to process your emotions. What it means to sit with them - the completely with them - but not caught in them. Sometimes it happens fine, other times I'm trapped. I'm trying to map out what it means to properly process your emotions while still being joyful, loving, compassionate, or smiling. This is quite fresh.

Came in very handy now that I saw my ex with another man.
In my past I would relish in that unforbidden pain.
Sure, I've cried quite a bit. It is painful.
But I don't seek it out. I don't hold onto it too much.
I am capable of seeing joy in those moments. I am somewhat able to find joy within myself afterwards.
At the very least I am not trapped in negativity and scarcity.

I'm moving to Copenhagen next month.
I had an encounter that was poignantly timed and meaningful.
I went to see my grandma. I went to town alone that night.
Before this, I could feel how close I was to myself and the world. Nærvær.
It's not something you can make happen, it's something that happens in the absence of effort.
I haven't felt that in a long time.
I met a girl that night and we went on a walk in the forest and waterfalls.
She turned out to be the 2nd girl I've met that sees the world the way I do.
She's a singer, songwriter. She inspired me.
So I essentially dropped my IT job and I'm moving to Copenhagen to partake in a course that I believe is in alignment with how I view the world.
Things are working out and I found a place to live until December.
It feels good to move in the direction that feels true. But also daunting and terrifying. I have a long way to go.

Here are some highlights from my journal the past month:

It is not your dream that must be released, but your sense of opportunity that must awaken.

Presence is a result of relaxing.

The only thing that brings you down is your own mind.

Gratitude is a portal
Appreciation is a portal

So much suffering comes from trying to fit into a box.

Don't rush your own life.

To look down upon yourself is the worst sin you can commit.

Life is to be lived.
Be wild for two hours a day.

The more I like me, the more I like you
The wound is where the light enters you

A relationship is a place you go to give. To celebrate. It is not serious.

The world (and you) is driven by human emotion

Effort as a contradiction of energies

Watch for all the beauty
Reflecting from you
and sing a love song to your existence
You can never overdo
Praising your own soul
You can never over-pamper your heart

Your fear of deprivation and your desire to entertain yourself prevent you from finding the fulfillment you seek.

As long as you are directly pursuing happiness and satisfaction you will never attain them.
Fulfillment is not the result of getting anything. It is a state of being that arises when we allow the richness of the moment to touch us.

Let go of the conditions I place on my happiness.

When an awakened woman loves you, then every action you take and word you speak that is out of alignment with your heart, matters. It matters not because she has a problem, but because her oracle knows your true potential and will not settle for anything but your deepest nature.

Sometimes a kind word is enough to help someone blossom like a flower.

To get relief, you have to go to the person you love, the one who just hurt you very deeply, and ask for help. Become yourself one hundred percent. Open your mouth and say with all your heart and all your concentration that you suffer and you need help.

Other people's actions are the result of the own pain and not the result of any intention to hurt you.

Deep inside you still expect something better to happen.

When we ourselves can't generate the energy to take care of ourselves, we think we need the energy of someone else. We focus on the need and the lack rather than generating the energy of mindfulness, concentration, and insight that can heal our suffering and help the other person as well.

If you don't reconcile with yourself, happiness with another person is impossible.
Reconciliation means to work it out within yourself so that peace can be restored.

You dance well to the degree that you are able to express your joy

Your idea of happiness may be the very thing that is preventing you from being happy.​

 

[NorwegianDJ]

It feels weird to be back. Particularly so at 1:40am with a heavy head after my first attempt at a solo ketamine therapy session. But I need to start writing here again. There's a magic that happens when I get deep into the writing. When I start writing, it is without soul. But somewhere in the midst of this unraveling put on paper, the magic begins to flow.

Y'all won't believe my story. You would have to live it to believe it. I'll sound like a madman in my writings, but that is something that I accept. My writings are an incomplete retelling of my story and if read by shameful eyes it will be worthy of disdain. It is but a small piece of reality. It is whatever comes through my fingers in the spaces I happen to sit down and write. With that said (again), let's see what unravels. Come sit around the fire. Bring a log. Fan that ember. It is all we're going to be doing for all eternity.

The last entry was from July. That's 5 months ago. These 5 months have been a change of pace from what is written on in the entries above. It all feels very far away now. Yes, in moments, the pain is extremely tender, but I feel far removed from my previous entries. Summer was filled with activity. I in essence quit my job to follow my Heart. This call was strengthened along the way. It's all very silly to those around me, but to me it was just right. And to stay sane, I had to follow it.

I moved on September 4th. There is a part of my story from Norway that needs to be told. As much as I am in a rush to spill the deliciousness that fate has put in my hands as a reward for accepting the call to adventure, I must tell a little story about Mary.

One of these days in July, I was sitting on a bench in town reading a book. The most gorgeous woman walked past me. She didn't belong in this town. She stood out so fabulously. Beauty, fashion, gold, unapologetic. She sat down at a restaurant alone. I decided to ask if I could sit down with her. When she retells the story, she tells me no twice, then I go and sit down anyhow. That was not my experience, but I'll grant her the truth.

A month passes and we become friends. We quickly become very good friends. I would string day after day at her peaceful sea-view apartment. We'd live so slow. I was so at rest when I was there with her. We'd wake up and have tea and breakfast. We'd talk and we'd read our books. Refill our tea, listen to ambient music, read our books, and talk here and there. I ended up moving half of my stuff into her apartment in my process of moving out.

Over time I have learned that I love Mary. I am still learning about love. Every day, but I have also realized that one needs to love in order to learn to know it. That love is - among many things - a decision and a responsibility.

I wonder how she's doing. I can see her smile and her face and her eyes in front of me. Her rare and tender embrace. It's funny how the three closest (women) in my life are all smokers.

I went on a 4-day trip in the wilderness alone. It was lovely. I mean, it was just like any other day, but completely on my own, without a soul in sight, alone and in nature. I suppose it was a time of integration and mastery. Mary hadn't understood how long I'd be gone for, so she'd called around to find out if something had happened to me. I remember reading her text message. The love she had for me. Yet not even a month later, she would tell me to please not be a part of her life anymore.

I drove directly back to her place with my sweat and all of my gear and all of my trash.
That evening I made the decision that it was right to smoke my DMT.
My oldest half-brother had left me some Changa 3 years earlier. I hadn't been brave enough to go all the way until now.
It was night. 11pm. It's a fairly cold summer's night, with a clear sky and a view of the ocean. Mary's got me packed in what had to be at least five blankets. She put on some yoga playlist, but the music turned out to be of another world. Synchronicities start piling up as one encounters these pivotal moments in time. I hit the pipe. White smoke enters my lungs and it isn't stopping. It just keeps going. Flash. Flash. Flash. Reality strips away layer by layer. God begins to commune with me. It is not something that I hear. It is told in communion with my being. "See what I can do." as the last bit of reality in front of me flashes with symbols and colors and textures. It's all Maya. It is all illusion.

I wish I could tell you what I saw. I had all of my questions from the past 6 months answered. I was brought to this room where this anonymous person (and someone else) went to work and presented to me how things worked behind the curtains. I got to live it. Not time-bending, but matter-of-factly. The DMT-elves were so fast and funny. The only thing that remained of me in that space was my consciousness and the thoughts that I decided to have. It was a complete return to what I'd been reading about for so long in these spiritual texts. "You are not who you think you are." It just happens to be true and it is weird. You're just behind it all.
When the trip was starting to lose grip and I was slowly starting to spiral out - the story is still ongoing and I am there with them. I ask, "what do I do with this knowledge? What now?". That's when I had a face again. My hand was God's hand. God held my face with such love and pointed it to the world and said, "you live. ..... ----" I spent ten minutes going from such heartfelt, joyful laughter, to, like a switchboard, going into uncontrollable gulping and crying. Because nothing matters and therefore everything matters so infinitely much. Because we are alive and we will die. Because everything we hold dear is not ours to keep and there is nothing in this world that you can possess. It is all just a fleeting yearning and there is so much hardship ahead. There is so much suffering and forgetting and the storm is coming. But we will live. Passionately. Deadly. You and I. Forever. Our love story. In this fictitious world we create for ourselves. We hugged and we cried and we laughed and we fell asleep.

I moved to Copenhagen on September 4th.
On September 7th I met Amanita, and my life changed. Again.

In fact I'd met her before I left the country. I sent her a superlike on Tinder.
I had just gotten my first bike and I was biking around looking for a place to read a book. I decided to stop at this place called Mina's. I ended up chatting with this guy from Holland. He spilled coffee all over himself and we went for a walk. On this walk we walked past Mindjuice. The coaching company that inspired me to move to Copenhagen.
By this time I had set my Tinder to "Everyone". Long story short, I was meeting this very interesting guy for a friendly date. However, Amanita texts me a tells me she is at Mina's, if I have an hour to spare.
To me, in my context, this was ripe with meaning. So I cancelled my plans and that changed my life.


Amanita is unlike anyone I've ever known. I feel as though I am at the center of the maelstrom of the world. She is also alike to many of those important to me. I was so graced to be able to see her for who she was, and that is because I did the work and I followed my path. I don't know if someone else could've seen what I saw (and see) in this girl. Fate just had it in for us. She is a gust of a woman.

"Now that you are here,
I will never let you go."​

In the first weeks with her, so many of my structures came crumbling down. A dismantling of my fears, phobias, and insecurities. I quickly discovered, that although it turns out - as we all are: Humans - in a very different way, like my ex that brought me here, she is also enlightened. I promise that sentence makes sense.
I am finding a new kind of love. She has so much love to give and she gives it so freely. And it shows in her relationships. Close or distant, she has put in the effort to share an intimate experience with them. Walking around Copenhagen with her, we cannot help but run into 1 or 5 people that will widen their eyes with a smile as they meet her with a hug as they recognize her. She also has the closest friendships I've experienced. Filled with love. With such incredible people. And here I am, surfing into the middle of it all. Placing myself on a pedestal next to her as fictional queen and king of this town. This is the tip of the iceberg. Welcome back to me. Also goodnight to me.

XOXO, Gossip Girl

 

[SW15]

I HATE WET DREAMS. I was actually concious while this was happening. You don't even orgasm. I've heard they're not as bad as MBing tho. Still day.. honestly dont know.. could be anything from 7-14. Been partly abstaining for so long now.

Wet dreams are not bad. It's a sign that NoFap is going well. If you don't watch porn, don't fap, and don't have sex, a wet dream will happen. I have complete orgasms in mine.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I just feel like writing again. In fact, I don't know what to do with myself these days.
I'm hitting a little slump where I can't distract myself with nice things and nice people.
In it I find that I am very much the same person that I've been much of my life.
My internal state and how it ebbs and flows during the day. The pessimism. The entitlement masquerading as resistance to initiative. I'm afraid of myself. I believe my inner monologue. I am reactive and busy with my own stuff.
The problem is that I don't quite know what to do.
It was easier when I was in pain. It was knocking on my door all the time.
Now, whoever's there isn't so easy to see. I'm avoiding facing it. I'm running.
And I can feel how unsatisfactory it is. Nothing I can get my hands on here in my apartment feels satisfying.

From there, there are two things to do.
A. Slow down, give space, meditate. Feel whatever I am feeling and sit with it. Very good option that I should start doing again every day ASAP.

B. Change my environment. Fulfill my needs. Find out how to water this flower. Explore what it means to plant garden and tend to it. Slow down and listen. Give the unknown an opportunity. Get into cooking. Yoga. Working out again. And an idea I should've had before now: a work-hobby-project! Aish, that's a hill. Procure some skin in the game.

In essence, I am both dis-identifying from my needs and fulfilling them at the same time. Learning to be silent and peaceful, while learning to listen and live. It's a tough place to be. To finally start becoming competent at life at the age of 26.

I bought myself some lovely tea that I'm enjoying.

I'm going to therapy here in Copenhagen. It's only been twice. Yet, it's special. We form this space between us. It reminds me of Finland in October, when a woman and I shared a deep and bonding moment during an exercise. No sexual euphemism there.
It's just such been such a weird and powerful time since I moved to Copenhagen.
I essentially ran into the most popular girl in town.
On our first date - 5 days after my arrival - we took mushrooms and went biking in the forest and skinny-dipping under the airport. We took MDMA and watched an incredible queer play, to later go back to her place. We finished our date at midnight leading into Tuesday, 81 hours later. That was a precious time.

I started changing very fast starting that weekend. It was like I was made to be in that place, open up, and be willing to destroy and rebuild my internal structures.

Anyhow, my pen is going other places. I don't know where, but it's not flowing in that direction right now.

I guess, since there is no one coming to rescue me.. since this is how it is. That there is nowhere better or no one better to be. This is the experience I have. I believe that it is my resistance to my experience, my lack of acceptance leading into my reactive state in response to my internal state, and fear of being bored and deprived, that block my energy and cause life to be a little too unbearable.

Yes, I am responsible for my thoughts, my actions, my feelings. There is ownership that must be taken.
At the same time, nothing is ever going to change. Of course all things change, that is their nature, but this is the eternal human experience that I am going to have. Settle. Relax. Stop striving.
At the same time, it is my very desire for things to be better that prevent them from being so. My constant, just-above-the-surface evaluations.
Just breathe. Feel your body. Just because it is inside of me does not mean that it is truth, nor that it is a reflection of me.

Soften (around the pain).
It all comes back to love. How much can you tolerate? Can you tolerate this part of yourself? Can you tolerate it in another person? If we can accept these parts of ourselves, we find that we are larger than them. If we run away from them and feed them and believe them, we are holding them tightly in our fist and refusing to let go. Like that monkey that clenches its hand around the food inside the cage, and traps itself because it refuses to let go.

If we have faith in that under all the fear, we are perfect. It's just a matter of bringing the darkness to the light. Which can only be done in the present moment. If you look back at some episode and judge yourself, those are both abstractions and not real. But it is through acceptance, faith, and courage, that we can fully be in our experience. To be in it, but not caught in it. The middle way(?). Then we are that darkness. And we can shine our light on it.

I don't know the boundaries of this process. I only know what I've experienced. Some of what I write may be things that I have only read, but believe in.

But it is in that moment of the feeling that we discover how we are entangled within ourselves.
We must be willing to change. Only what we are ready to let go of will be released. So that there can be space for something new. For magic.

One way of releasing is to offer it up. To others. To yourself. To God.
Telling another how you feel feels holy. It grounds and it bonds. More on this later.

My process has been to understand.
To see the big picture. To experience how things are connected to each other. To understand why certain outside conditions cause disproportionate or out of place feelings in me. Gaining acceptance that way. Seeing that I am deeply interconnected with the world. That up until this point, I couldn't have done any better. Seeing that this amalgamation of moods and conditioning and perception is myself mixed with the entire world. Seeing that I am looking at this ball of emotionality and judgment, but here I am: outside of it. Judging it. Saying, this isn't good enough for me. This makes me anxious and uneasy and afraid. I want warm, bright lights and comfortable couch-cushions. I need things to be comfortable and pleasant all of the time, please.
Yet, I can choose. I find myself to exist outside of all this drama. (My problem is that I am caught up in it all of the time, so one of the things I must do is to create conditions through which I can remind myself to relax and of the truth). [There's your conclusion.]
Since I exist on the outside of all the noise and all the mess, I get to choose what my reaction to the mess is. Because from here, we increasingly come to understand why that ball is not who we are. We end up here again and again by dis-identifying (not a reflection of our true nature) from it by understanding. And having faith that it is not speaking truth makes it less engaging.

This is where real courage, real faith, and real compassion find themselves upon the altar.
We get to choose how we engage with life. We get to choose what we give from ourselves.
But it requires us to expand our courage, our faith, and compassion towards this ball of shame and anger and injustice and pain inside of us.
And perhaps even more so, to have the courage and total faith that you are beyond the conscious mind. To give yourself the gift of compassion. What you are, behind the mess, is perfect. We don't need to police ourselves. We cannot catch ourselves in the act, because we are also the ones looking. We are just chasing a ghost - a habit, the past.

Alan Watts tells this story of police raiding a house.
As the police enter the 1st floor, the thieves move up to the 2nd floor.
And the 3rd, and so forth. Such it is with our minds. The thieves exist for as long as we believe in them. As long as we believe in them, there will be police looking for them.


I find that there is fair bit of information that I need to lay forward to fill in some holes that should be explained. I'm gonna do that some other time.

Back in my bed, the weight has lifted. This synthesis feels productive and satisfying.
I suppose it feels satisfying because it brings me into a state where I don't look at the time. It's fairly flow-y.
I might try this a little more going forward. Be prepared for writings all over the place, because it only works if I care for what I'm writing about.

It's bittersweet to sign off, but I am getting tired.
Au revoir

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I'm really just writing here because it's my best option at midnight on a Thursday night. It's this, or spending money and taking drugs. I'm saving that for Saturday.

I don't have anything in mind. I love the entries that I write, so I hope this one doesn't blow me streak.
But this free attitude is necessary to produce any kind of meaningful writing.

The question that makes its way to the present at most points in my current existence is,
"what sort of life do I want to live, now?"
A constant question of which direction to pour my energy. To take control of my energy. To grab my reactive state by the balls. To say that "Yes, for the 200th time I see that I am displeased for the simple reason that I am not pleased."
To see that, and to decide, again, that happiness is a choice.
And if I'm not feeling happy, then I can direct my energy towards my needs, rather than using it to languish in the fact that no one is coming to save me from my predicament.

It can feel overwhelming, all the things that may need to be organized and mastered to live a life that makes me happy. Don't get me wrong: it is a present choice. Yet, self-esteem is a belief. It's only realistic to be attuned to where I am currently and to live for the moment, no matter how "right" or "off-base" it may be.
But it is difficult. Yes, the answer is to simply "do the next right thing", to stay present and in that present bodily awareness, feel where I need to move, and then, despite my mind blocking me, saying how effortful it is, to do it anyway. To see, again and again, that my templates - for myself and for the world - are faulty. To see that I can reach for the stars. To accept that I cannot see it most of the time. To have faith that this wonderfully light treading on clouds is always possible. Even when it is so distant. When all I feel is a push towards the next second. Skipping from desire to desire, from need to need. How do people live with themselves?

In short, a regression towards the mean.
The morning routine. Getting out of bed. The morning pages. Setting intentions. Being intentional in habit. Dream journaling? Journaling about what I did today.
The open space. Being mindful about doing what makes you feel good both today and tomorrow. Avoiding what makes you feel worse about yourself. Yes, it is an action we partake in and it is up to us to not talk ourselves down - yet - to recognize what brings us down, and to both avoid it and rise above it.
To more actively take a part in the communities I am uncovering.

I find it so funny, that to cook for myself: to cook dishes I haven't made before. To use foods I am uncomfortable with. In fact, much of the whole process of cooking makes me uncomfortable.
It's funny because, cooking is the one activity where all my needs converge.
It grounds me, slows me down, brings me in touch with a slow and initially disorganized process that must be mastered. It cannot be forced. The feedback is immediate and truthful. It is easy, yet it feels difficult. I have tons of resistance towards each step of the process. Finding & deciding on a recipe, sourcing ingredients, having a back-up plan, checking for equipment in advance, setting aside time and effort. Moving from rigidity to spontaneity. From the known to the unknown. It feels like yoga. It feels like becoming flexible and light. Learning that I have a body that can and should be fairly exhausted and then replenished. Coming to terms with that the world isn't scarce. Moving in the direction of an abundance of choice that doesn't need to be locked down. A knowledge that I can nourish myself. That if the world disappears under my feet, that I can still serve myself.

Food. Body. Service. Community.

There's also this mind of mine. There's employment. There's branding. There's passion. Creativity. Reconciliation.
One step at a time. I am making this promise now:
I will journal on what I do each day - to remember and to be mindful and intentional.
I will make a new meal each day. This is the main purpose of most of my days. (Can be reduced to 3-5 times a week).
Meditate once a day

Not promises, but also intents of varying degree:
Morning pages
Dream journaling in the morning (short)
Going to the gym again, starting tomorrow
Stretching
Finding a yoga studio (I have three very good leads)
Partaking more in one particular community.

I just want to remember that I touched divinity once last weekend.
Not an unusual occurrence for Group Therapy, but nonetheless, I'd like to keep it in mind.
It was when I devoted my thoughts and my love and my attention and energy to Amanita. When I thought, "I will always serve you and be here for you. What is it that you need? What is it that I can do?"
Selflessly, but rooted in a powerful place of grounded self-ownership.
That's when I touched the light.

Until we meet again,
Your resident DJ.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

Hey.
It's so vulnerable each time I begin to write. There is so much to release, but I also show up to the altar with empty hands. There is nothing to do but begin.

What a life. I had Covid. We went to Norway. We celebrated Christmas with my family. It was so nice to have her there. To show my family that I am worthy of love and that my way of being is celebrated. It was nice to have someone to see my roots and to see what I see, and to see what I experience. You ever wonder if you're not enough? Give the simple gift of looking deeply. Of listening tenderly. You don't have to achieve anything, to be worthy of anyone. You've just got to be present.

We broke up on the bus on the way back to Denmark. It was planned and it was in the cards. The day we met was essentially the day she found out that she was moving to Berlin. She is leaving this week.
I could've been a much better boyfriend.
It is so easy to forget your true nature. To forget the love you have for someone. To be caught up in how your needs aren't met or that they are pushing all sorts of buttons and that you'd just wish they'd just do those few things, or just mind to not do those few other things. To forgive and to accept. To overextend myself and do myself and the relationship injustice. To set boundaries and to learn that one can always change. You have that moment of such deep love and devotion, and you build upon that. To steer your own ship and to come together to celebrate.
At the same time, I don't feel bad. In it's own way, the relationship had run its course. That's not exactly what I mean. We just had differences that we were unwilling to reconcile.

A small Lane 8 tribute. A minute and a half.

We returned to ring in the new year. We threw the best party I've ever experienced.
We had a dinnerparty at her apartment, where we invited 10 of her closest and some extras.
We imbibed in a tab of acid, a dose of mdma, I handed out a few mushrooms, and I smoked a little and did some ketamine later in the night. But it wasn't the drugs that did it, it was the collective build-up of energy. The living lights. The playlist I curated. And the synchronicities that aligned. And not to forget the people.

We were on the roof, the fireworks were all going off right next to us on the rooftop. Each little group had a different sort of moment. I decide to go downstairs and feel the party. Amanita and Matti had gone downstairs and had started dancing. I joined and two, three others also joined. I laid down in the center and absorbed energy. I got up and what commenced was the most awesome dance-party I've been a part of, and I've been a part of some awesome dancefloors since I arrived. We had this massive balcony window that served as an open stage-curtain for the entire neighborhood gathered on the street. It was so easy. To flow and to feel good. I told a whole story with my dance.

Tom Ashbrook - Klass (Official Video)

Taken from the EP 'Sensibus', 'Klass' - out now on all platforms https://tomashbrook.fanlink.to/sensibusFollow Tom Ashbrook▶Instagram: https://www.instagram....

youtu.be

I came back upstairs into the bedroom. There were a few people in the bed and I sat behind Miranda and she leaned back onto me. I have had a painful and bothersome neck for over a year now. But, it has also become a gift. I massaged her neck tenderly. I feel my fingers on her neck, her various small tender muscles as I move. I have become so sensitive to my own neck and to other's. I become my fingers. Eric joins and cuddles onto me. I exist in the music and the music is coming through my fingers. I can feel myself letting go and letting go. Having thoughts and returning to my fingers. And we were all in on it. I knew where I was headed, I'm not sure if the others what was coming. It's called ecstatic magic. The energy builds and builds as you let go into your vulnerability and the love you are giving and receiving. And it builds and it keeps building as you let go of yourself. And you lose yourself somewhere in there. Who's hand is that? Is that my leg? I am my fingertips. Everything else is formless. I cannot feel where my boundaries end. Where is my body in the middle of all this? Am I massaging myself? The sounds people would make as I touched them. I poured my love and sorrow into my fingers. They were a channel for my soul. The love that built in that room was so immense. I had one of the most tender kisses of my life. There was also Eric, in my arms. I was just giving him love, to him and only him. It was just us, in the middle of everyone, alone, loving. I only existed where we touched. Some of the most tender love I've ever made. As the party continued, I realized that I've never felt that safe in anybody's arms, that he is a DMT elf, and that he is the most magical creature I've ever met.

Phoria - Current (Live at Abbey Road)

Very excited to share this live Abbey Road session with you all today.. It was such an honour to be surrounded by so many talented professionals in such a ma...

www.youtube.com

Coming back down to the people sitting in the couch, I received a line of ketamine and joined them, laying on the floor by their feet.
And I traveled. I stayed put, but I ventured deeper and deeper into the moment and my being. It felt as though I was handshaking with the universe. I would get closer and closer as layer upon layer stripped away. It was fractal and a cosmic joke. "Do you want water?" My head was lifted and my neck was supporting by four arms as another two poured water into my mouth. Matti played a piano improv. I was laying on the floor and could feel the vibrations. I lived through him and in my mind it was his arms that lifted and poured for me. When we were in bed I could see other beings in his face. An old laughing Chinese man. I understood why Amanita had fallen in love with him when he played her piano last new years.

The Killers - All These Things That I've Done (Official Music Video)

New Album ‘Imploding The Mirage’ Out Now:https://thekillers.lnk.to/ImplodingTheMirageIDFollow The Killers:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekillers/Fac...

www.youtube.com

We sat there at 5am, with the knowledge that would have to clean this all up and then have a two week sprint with her work project. The magic was floating in the air still. Her eyes and her face were all morphing in such a beautiful way. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She went towards bed and I put on The Killers and went to work. What. A. Song. What a vibe.

And the new year hasn't held back either.
It's been very difficult and boring and annoying. But it's also been predictable and grounding and full of closure and new frontiers.
The following week was another amazing party. Similar, but less love and more sensual, full of attractive, sex-positive people. I learned a lot about being forward and owning oneself, boundaries and responsibility. There was a lot of tongue. Before this got too heavy, is where I got a job as a machine learning engineer. I met a founder and now my co-worker there. We exchanged numbers, emails, I came in for an interview, did a little project, and tomorrow is going to be my first day, writing ML code to build an exciting film-production software. Same week that Amanita is moving away. Would you look at that.

I went to celebrate this weekend. We had Amanita's goodbye dinner. Emma, whom I also met at a party, was DJing at a wonderful restaurant and we went there. Later, many of us go to Thomas' place. When Emma and her friends left, Anja invited Thomas and I to a party she was DJing the following night. I had so many chances to convince myself not to go to this party. There was a storm blowing in my direction and I was so so tired. I made my way there and was greeted by a fairly young crowd in a sound-proofed concrete basement. I wasn't vibing and considered leaving. Thomas showed up, we snorted some ketamine and went onto the dancefloor.

We had been talking about Burning Man for parts of the whole day. The DJ playing was actually great and played such a vibe. It was such a joy to be taken on that ride. Then Anja was playing and she kept the vibe going, brought of out of the spiritual and into the highs and lows of house, techno, and disco. I was in the zone on the dancefloor, feeling myself through and through. It's all so easy when I arrive at this place. I made a couple of meaningful connections. The standards of endless compliments and kind looks. And sexy looks. Being hit on by girls and guys. Not being quite sure how to manage the space if I introduce more sexuality beyond a point. I carried that party on my back for a moment, it felt like. But then the whole place was on fire, again. The music would build and explode and there would be ecstacy and relief. I could really become someone in this city. I could really find myself.
I wonder if I'll make it to the Playa this year?

Some time in December I went to the nightclub on my own, after another party. I was standing in line for an hour. I was so close to leaving as it got colder and I wasn't seeing people coming out the club that I'd like to be around. It's a matter of perspective, most often. A girl started talking to me. She was very kind. I was low on money, so she bought my ticket. She told me about this DJ that was playing upstairs. I ended up upstairs and it was incredible. There was this other girl on the dancefloor that danced like me, and we found each other immediately. We bonded and danced together. She bought me drinks. It was incredibly fun, and that was that.

She invited herself over yesterday. She stayed the night and we shared an affectionate and intimate space for a long time.
"If you open a door, that doesn't mean that door has to remain open."
"It also doesn't mean that all the other doors open either."
She's leaving for Poland next week.

I finally bought myself a desk.
I'm really starting to live my life here.
I hope to do my best to remember to live, to choose living over comfort.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I was given these questions in a tarot course I'm enrolled in. I answered them here.

The Emperor:

What is your relation to leadership?
What may leadership look like outside of a culture of dominance?​

Conflicted.
I like to lead. My automatic response, my default mode when interacting with people isn't to assume space. So I often find myself following someone else. But sometimes I don't like the role I end up playing when I don't get to dictate the energy. Or should I rather say, when I end up separating from my self. When I don't listen to myself. When I start to lose my self. I find myself when I write. When I give up and give in to the difficulty. When I slow down and stop running. Right here. Even while still caught in an illusion of conflict, I choose to be here. Or I try to. I try to lead my self into being an ideal person right now or in the future. But since the entity that leads is the same as the one that follows, the very act of imposing leadership over "myself" is a dominant act that only really causes tension and anxiety. The leadership I impose on myself is a fear-based response to the alternative of sliding into the magic of the present moment.

But I like to lead. I don't think I can be a good leader without a good group. Sometimes it is easy to be a good leader. Team-games and quiz-like things. Sometimes I'm a terrible leader and I try to realize when it happens and to voice it.

I think everyone should be able to do what they want. To be encouraged to be free.
A position of oversight and connecting of connections. I think that it should be an organic unfolding of a happening or a structure.
Something that you could see in nature. A web of nodes.
Leadership as the responsibility of the most aware person to boost each other's awareness, translating to presence and ability. A gift that keeps on giving.

The Lovers:

Can you think of a relationship (it doesn’t have to be an intimate one or even with another human), where something you desired, that you did not think existed in yourself, was illuminated for you?​

Love.
I knew it, parts of it. Each progressing day at Electric Forest. How I felt about some of my friends. When that song hit just right. At the peak of a party where everyone is gathered and I was appreciated and reciprocated.
But I thought that love was for me to give and at the same time, denied from me.
I didn't think about love. I didn't know much of love. Now it's a mystery.
Love, as the universal director. With great humor. A place to be held. By a thousand hands. Where the concept of peace is brought to life. To relax and to find myself. To try again. To choose to be with myself, always, as much as I can. To the degree that I let go into this, to that degree I am (in) love.
Love as the burning light that banishes fear. That needs fuel - love. That fuels - love.
Keep falling in love. To assume good. To not assume. To focus. To listen. To Understand.

What parts of yourself do you tend to primarily recognize in others?​

I notice kindness and presence. Consideration and control. The lack of presence and self-hate. Insecurity and shame. Joy and powerful attractors. Magnanimity and loss of self. I also recognize my qualities in their opposite. Being without ambition. Being happy without ambition. Sensitivity.

------

I should write more. Slow down more. Do nothing more. Give up on trying to find out that thing that I really should be doing to find relaxation or relief or peace or happiness or acceptance. And to instead just try to sink into whatever it is I give in to. And to surrender to that. To increase the span between each time I check in with my mental self, where I look for justification for my experience.
I still think that the simple solution is to seek to find that still place where you can find yourself again and again. Where you choose to face the present and everything it holds, not gracefully, but without running away.

My life is graced, but hasn't been so graceful since we last met. Lot of time to myself and my own many young parts of my self. Underdeveloped. Undernourished. Underexposed. What used to soothe, now stings a little. But just barely enough to get me finally moving. A decently small local minima.
I am lonely. But I go dancing. There, I'm still fairly alone, but I am dancing. I think that the pain I experienced and the ketamine dancefloor experienced have opened the floodgates. There's a life-force to my dancing that is so fun to tap into and people notice. I am almost flirting with the idea of pursuing it. I just went to a dance class yesterday and it was incredible.
I am excited about three girls in my life. It's all a bit of a let-down, while it's also an affirming mirror - that these wonderful beings find such pleasure or interest in me.
I am both at ease and self-assuming, while also an object to myself, half man and half cripple. Participating in this illusion of struggle gives me great insecurity about myself, since I want to beat myself to the punch whenever I should reveal myself - reveal that I have inner confusion and self-grandiosity. I don't want others to see the degree that I am lost. For someone to judge my inner landscape. To be abandoned for this. So I give myself anxiety because I am afraid others will spot my anxiety and dysfunctionality. Particularly my dysfunctionality.

I am so lonely. And world-weary. Weary of my own thoughts. I just started meditating again. I've been falling asleep. It's terrifying. To live a life, dead inside. Absolutely unbearable. But I'd like to get lost in people like me. I am lonely. But I look at many other people and how they spend their social time or who they are, and I don't want to be them or have what they have. Yet, I am lonely. Alone. To acquaint myself with loneliness. To find out what it means for me to plant my own garden and water my soul. To fuel that, I go dancing.

Goodnight, dancers.

 

[Chuck Taylor]

You should write a book. Get it published, so you can speak to others about your experiences. To be honest, it'd be a lot more rewarding for you than spending what I can only assume is an inordinate amount of time, crafting these posts on a forum.

You could definitely reach a much bigger audience than you do here.

 

[European-DJ]

Fvck Yeah!!!!

Norwegian, my man, you probably don’t remember me, but I remember that we joined this forum about the same time some 10+ years ago.

How is it going? What are your prioritize these days?Can see that you kept up the journal where I failed.

What words of wisdom do you have to share after 10Y+ on the forum?

Best,
European

 

[NorwegianDJ]

Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai ai. aiiissh.

I am hurting. Not particularly much, to be honest. But I am letting go of a dream.. and it's tender. I just got a little caught up, you know? Made a little world of my own. I don't know. I had this experience. We had a meeting. This confluence of interest, affection, attention, and joyful vibration.

"It's just the festival."

And she is right. As we walk to find a spot by the water, she tells me that she is falling in love with someone she met this week. I only had 10 days to build my castle in the sky, so I didn't come crashing down hard.

It is not your dream that must die, but your sense of opportunity that must re-awaken.​

A potential that never existed. A dream in the truest sense. The death of desire. The mirage of a home, taken away.

In the ruins, there is so much to appreciate.
The steadiness of friendship. Of relating with less pretenses. To be a peer. A human.
I was so ready to just jump into the pool. I added to the hands in play. Ah, you know? What if...
I hug myself. Like a sheltered dog, eyes reflecting innocent wonder.
My feet return to reality. I see the sharp edges that prevent me from melting.
I am vulnerable again.

Detachment.​

In our ecstasy, I got to share the core of what I look for in relationship. This sacred cradle.

"Find someone that puts wind in your sails."

"Set your life on fire.
Seek those who fan your flames."​

I call out to her from the top of the bunker, "Juliette, my Juliette! Come to me!"
We're on an island festival in Copenhagen. It's the fourth day, a Saturday. This tiny bunker on the hill, next to the stage.
I was so happy. I am surrounded.
All the loneliness, the infinite hours going out alone, seeking shelter, seeking harbor. By now, it's summer and I've forgotten how tough it was to get here. My life started tilting in April(?) when I met my Heartbeat in Copenhagen. Steady ground. Kind eyes. Precious, in fact..

In my Ayahuasca ceremony, I saw how my life could bloom. It requires me to be gentle and open. To tread lightly. To re-awaken.

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly, my child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
...
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.”

― Aldous Huxley , Island​

A distrusting Avoidant.
Distrusting the world, trusting myself. Distrusting others and keeping faith to myself.
I am becoming trusting of the world. It's people have me more entangled.

I am remembering my own magic.
I am to seek this magic and to cultivate it.
To open myself back up to the miracle.
The rest will fall into place.
And so it shall.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

You should write a book. Get it published, so you can speak to others about your experiences. To be honest, it'd be a lot more rewarding for you than spending what I can only assume is an inordinate amount of time, crafting these posts on a forum.

You could definitely reach a much bigger audience than you do here.

Coming here to write is a terrifying act.
It always starts off poorly. It has to spill across the page to even be released. Jittery and bold and discontinuous. Immature and indelicate. So it's lovely to write for an audience, it provides me with a perspective to write from and imagined persons to write for.
I like the first draft nature of my journal. It's rough, but it gets written and posted.
There is, however, an element of perfectionism that disturbs the whole process. An attachment to the words, in past and future tense.
It's important that I write. Lest all this be lost on me. Lest I be lost.

Norwegian, my man, you probably don’t remember me, but I remember that we joined this forum about the same time some 10+ years ago.

How is it going? What are your prioritize these days?Can see that you kept up the journal where I failed.

What words of wisdom do you have to share after 10Y+ on the forum?

Best,
European

We are approaching 12 years now, brother.
I would appreciate if you read (some of) the last two, three pages of entries. Then we could have a conversation that I would also find fulfilling. You will find the wisdom there.

I will say, to rid yourself of distractions. To purify your life. To make space for your intuition. And to look into the abyss and the pain and confusion that comes up in this unraveling.
One way or another you will keep returning to this situation.
It is the way, and if you wait, mother nature will simply return to you more sternly.
Find the vital space. The space where something deep inside you is in equanimity. A resting place. A cradle for your becoming.
Keep returning there. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do.
The real work you have to do, is your inner connection.

"Det handler om fokus."

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates the strength of Resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.​

Becoming. Shedding. Choice-points.
I am terrified of stepping into some unknowns.
What if my actions do not fulfill me?
To step away from the empty forms filled with instant dopamine.
Learn to spike dopamine from effort itself.
To risk lowering my baseline inputs. To find myself in patterns and activities that slowly nourish me.
It is the way and it is Now.

To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story.

---

Awareness, will, practice, tolerance of fear and of new experience, they are all necessary if transformation of the individual is to succeed. At a certain point the energy and direction of inner forces have changed to the point where an individual’s sense of identity has changed, too.

---

This willingness to look at the transitory nature of existence [is] not pessimism but absolute realism: life is to be taken at the tilt, you do not have forever, and therefore why wait? Why wait … to become a faithful and intimate companion to that initially formidable stranger you called your self?​

It's coming up on 30 degrees and it's sunny outside today in Copenhagen.
I feel that I should go outside and explore.
I also feel too fragile for that.
I have a need to move and stretch my body.
A need for company and joy and laughter.
But also a need to cry some tears that won't come out.

I was laying in my bed yesterday, thinking of who I could call.
All of the friends I could think of, were either too far away in time or there were things about them or our relation that would be too sharp for me.
I so desperately want a friend like myself.
I just so deeply wish for a loyal friend that listens the way I do. That loves the way I do. That sees and experiences deeply with me.
Someone I can relax with and relaxes with me. Someone with whom we do that for each other.

I am going to be a kindergarten teacher now.
I finished working with AI in May. Three months and now the question has settled to rest.
Play comes so naturally to me.
I want to go home after work, vitalized, not spending my day recovering.
To dig roots.

I decided to dig roots, instead of becoming more airy and vapid and philosophical and theoretical and God-faced.
To attach myself as strongly as I can to as many things as I can in the world. To expand my world.
It's all becoming, right in this instant. My life is taking hold and the flowers are starting to bloom. It's been such a wonderful process, of being completely taken care of by the great mystery.
Why me? And why is it still so hard for me to change, to be open and curious?

I feel so closed up again. Too soon, again.
I had my first Ayahuasca ceremony a month ago. These synchronicities...
It became so much easier to listen to my body.

All you have to do, is to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Before that there was a festival here in Copenhagen that unlatched the lock on my heart. It seemed that the city opened.
Then there was now another festival, on the island.
All the acquaintances I've made, all the party people, the loose relations forged in the late-night hours of truth. Where I have learned to show myself. To allow myself.
They were all there, fragments of all the groups. I got to dance between them all and solidify our connections. I asked for what I needed and I expressed my love and my joy.
And I met a girl, so I let myself believe. No one will ever know just what kind of movie I am living. I so deeply wish that someone could see this, because it is always dismissed. No one dares believe what is happening.

A thing or two to learn about full alignment and a full-body yes.

Then there was The Borderland.
Don't expect me to touch on more than a fragment of this experience. My first burn. The largest regional burn in northern Europe.
Coming home. Coming down from the previous festival. Feeling like an outsider, with my sadness.
A co-created city of desires, built by my brothers and sisters, and non-binary fellows. My family. Myself, reflected.
A magnifying glass on how I am an object to myself. Nothing makes me more shameful and uncomfortable. I find myself being meta most of the time, as a coping mechanism against the pressure of being spontaneous in the moment. A symptom of perfectionism.
To go from being a character in a world of people, to a character in a world of characters. The ego-trip falls apart. Being a rookie.
Speaking the language of boundaries and consent, and my authentic dancing, being my ticket into the warmth (you have to open to door yourself and close it behind you).
My ability to express emotion through my eyes.
When I finally opened myself up and let myself be overwhelmed, The Borderland opened up.
People were so advanced. Such defined sense of selves. They will let you know that you're fcking up. They speak the same, gentle language that I speak. Radical self-reliance, radical inclusion, participation, consent, radical self-expression.
We had mushroom, cacao, and acid ceremonies. The best thing I did all week was techno-yoga at night on Acid Friday. Incredible.
I am coming down, too soon.
I wish I was carried on a high from Ayahuasca, from these festivals. It's happening to many of my friends.
It's happening to me too, but I'm given the message to lean back and trust the turning of the wheel.

I can't end this post without at least trying to mention my lighthouse. My imagined refuge.
It was on a day-cruise, a costume party on the longest day of the year.
On the way back, I found myself outside on the upper deck. In front of me appears this girl, this radiant woman, the gentlest love, beaming out of her eyes. I lost myself and came to the surface. My face showing my devotion, my eyes, mesmerized. A victory march to the beat of the sunset. With a group of girls, she had her hands in prayer as she danced. I unraveled as we smiled back at each other. With physical distance between us, we danced together. Curved mirrors.
There was this beautiful moment when she got snatched up by a guy that felt the entitlement to occupy her.
I was slightly listening in on the conversation as I was dancing. Then came this moment of perfect harmony, as I turn halfway around to her. I say something like a tender, "hey.. We miss you. Come dance?"
My hand offers itself, we share a moment, and she accepts my hand and steps into our little dancefloor.
I bring her back into the warmth. She is seen. I am seen. On some level, we are devoted.
Another fantasy. Another possibility.
Patiently keep on burning.
Waving my white flag of love.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I just got back home from watching Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Phew.

​

Went in expecting the best movie I've ever seen, walked out having watched the best movie I'd ever seen.
Low dose 2-cb. Both come highly recommended.
What a time and place, and for me to watch this movie. Excuse me for feeling like a main character.
I feel like the movie spoke directly to me. It explains how I see the world. It presents the world in the way my oldest brother proclaims it. The family dynamics are just the same. The whole adventure was tackled so masterfully. Every choice resounds in nothingness, in infinite space and infinite possibility. I came out so alive, so charged with love and magic. Receptive to everything and beaming. My two friends went home. I wished for nothing more than someone to find refuge in, to resonate my love and hold hands and walk out, open to the world and its adventures. I saw the deep friendship that I am longing for. It's coming and it's developing, but I miss it and I need it.

I wrote down the names of who I would call a friend in my year in this city. I reached a count of 80 people.
What. Clap on the shoulder. Bravo me.
Lots of good choices among all the rubble in my days spent here. That keeps me going. It's so easy to get sucked down the drain when that ratio starts to turn. When that energy gets heavier, the pull gets even stronger.
I saw the city alive tonight.
Lately it has been easier to open up in a different way.
I don't remember where I have this from, but this notion of "opening up sideways (on the dancefloor)".
To notice those about you. To find flexibility in your stance. To open up sideways, energetically. It feels good and like reclaiming another layer of safety.

I've found myself saying that these days, my happiness is directly correlated to how much I stretch.
I think it's true.
I've been exhausted since The Borderland. Even before. Allowing myself to be exhausted and flighty and ungrounded, I am finally returning. Doing a lot of active recovery.
...
This transcendental moment that we shared two summers ago. The movie brought it front and center for a bit. I cried some healing tears. This moment that emanated across universes. How do you possibly recover from this? Perhaps you don't. You do your best to let it live on in your eyes, in your touch, in the way you interface with the world. You let it penetrate you back into your core as you willingly reorient your being towards your new compass.
...Break my Heart until it opens.

"When love beckons to you, follow him,
...
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden."​

I wrote two full notebooks in that winter of 2021 and I re-discovered the first book now.

"When compulsions, which one could even consider addictions - achieving, helping, succeeding, dreaming, confronting, preserving - are constantly operative, the soul recedes and slowly falls asleep."

"What is mechanical is not free and not truly human."
​

There is such incredible pain in these pages.
3rd of February 2021 I fell apart in front of my parents, and my mom held me. I don't have any memories of my mom ever holding me.

"Without seeing life as something totally new, it becomes meaningless, a boredom, a routine..."

"There are years in me that have not slept..."

"You are a set of infinite forces launched from the big bang, intersecting at this precise moment."

"Enlightenment is a booby prize. It's nothing, forever."

"...If we allow this kind if material to emerge into consciousness to be fully experienced and closely examined, it loses its disturbing power that it can otherwise exert in our lives, and chronic psychological and even physical problems whose origins were previously unknown can be fully healed."

"Integrate the spirituality into your daily life and bring into it the equanimity and the joy and the awe, and the ability to look suffering in the eye, and embrace it without averting your glance."
​

Coming back to earth.
This coming time is about rituals and discipline. It's about making space for remembering my greater perspectives and enacting them. For the sake of all that is, all that can be, and all that may not be.

Henry Miller writes in his chapter called The Enormous Womb,

"...It is our failure to recognize the world as womb which is the cause of our misery, in large part."

"...they have accepted the world as a womb, not a tomb. ... They live in an intense state of awareness. and are yet apparently without fear. It has been said that fear, which plays such a dominant role in our lives, was once a vague, nameless thing, an echo, one might almost say, of the life instinct. It has been said that with the development of civilization this nameless fear gradually crystallized into a fear of death. And that in the highest reaches of civilization this fear of death becomes a fear of life, as exemplified by the behavior of the neurotic."

"The hero is a sort of monster who is immune to pain and suffering: he is on the side of life. The world is for him a place where things are engendered, brought to life. Life reveals itself to him as art, and not as an ordeal. He enjoys life by rearranging it according to his own needs. ... The hero is a man who says to himself - this is where things happen, not somewhere else. He acts as if he were at home in the world. This behavior, of course, brings about a terrific confusion, for as you may have noticed, people are seldom at home, always somewhere else, always "absent." Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement. And the simple reason for it is: FEAR."

"We regard life as a vestibule ... It is living death which is the great nightmare. Living death means the interruption of the current of life, the forestalling of a natural death process. It is a negative ways of recognizing that the world is really nothing but a great womb, the place where everything is brought to life.
​

I skip a little, but I want this passage of particular note:

"All ideas of Paradise involve the conquest of fear. Paradise is always a condition that is earned or won through struggle. The elimination of struggle is the greatest struggle of all - the struggle not to struggle. For struggle, whether erroneously or not, has to do with birth. But there was a time when birth was easy. That time is now as much as then."
​

I leave the rest for another day.
Ciao.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

You should write a book. Get it published, so you can speak to others about your experiences. To be honest, it'd be a lot more rewarding for you than spending what I can only assume is an inordinate amount of time, crafting these posts on a forum.

You could definitely reach a much bigger audience than you do here.

The goal of my writing is to push towards that point in the spectrum where I stop being an object upon myself. [(to(?))]
You know, I edited that sentence 20 times. It took five minutes to write. Is this kind of mental activity normal? How much do I stand out? I feel on the spot. The tension that goes into being on the spot / in the spotlight, when stretched across imagination and into the future, gives life the (a) quality of being unbearable.

I think thoughts and I think thoughts about those thoughts. It's a compartmental train that I assemble and move through in my mind. It's not a visual experience. It's not much of an experience at all. It feels like dissociation. It feels like holding my breath, in such a way that I'm not sure which came first: the watcher or the tension? Which causes which? Does my attitude towards myself cause my experience?

We assume we have it all figured out. How we work. The fundamentals. The stuff you're not questioning, because you've never considered questioning it. Cause and effect. Beginning and end. Who am I? Where do I begin and where do I end? Do I cause myself? This unified conglomerate of authority in my mind, is it a bug? Is it - "me" - causing what I do? Or is it an effect (of the gestalt of the universe)?

Who am I in relation to this voice that I think I am? Can I move beyond it? Because the experience of identifying with it feels off-center. I am an object to myself. (The experiencing self is but a stranger to me). Always on the move: judging, comparing, planning, optimizing: for pleasure & pain, needs & desires. Experiencing the world as something that is a stranger to me. An experience of isolation - of probation.

Henry Miller writes about the world as a womb, and not a tomb:
"It is failure to recognize the world as womb which is the cause of our misery, in large part. We think of the child unborn as living in a state of bliss; we think of death as an escape from life's ills: but life itself we still refuse to regard as bliss and security. And yet, in this world about is not everything being engendered and brought to life? ... that these two states of consciousness mean freedom from pain and struggle, and hence bliss. ... Wherein are their lives different? ... The difference lies in their attitude towards the world, lies in the supreme fact that they have accepted the world as a womb, and not a tomb. For they seem neither to regret what has passed nor to fear what is to come. They live in an intense state of awareness and yet are apparently without fear."
...
"The wisest men are those who speak of illusion: MAYA. Illusion is the antidote to fear. In harness they render life absurdly illogical."
...
"Real death is not a source of terror for the ordinary, intelligent, sensitive being. It is living death which is the great nightmare. Living death means the interruption of the current of life. ... It is the negative way of recognizing that the world is really nothing but a great womb, the place where everything is brought to life. ... All that we really know is becoming. ... The real fear, the real terror, lies in the idea of arrest. It is a living idea of death."
...
"God does not represent life, but fulfillment, which is the only legitimate form of death. ... That only in living a thing out to the full can there be an end. It is a wholly unmoral idea, a thoroughly artistic one."
...
"Nobody has yet found out how to save those who refuse to save themselves."

In transcribing this I noticed that I just transcribed Henry Miller in my last post. So I'm jamming in a manual transition here.

You know, women's problem with men in 2022 is that men are useless.
I look at the women in my life and by and large they make more of an impression on me than the men in my life.
The men in my life have most definitely made and accompanied me to who I am.
And there is the factor that my whole being is attracted to women.
But I feel so underdeveloped.
Parts of me.
We come out of our nuclear families, our towns, countries, and cultures, so inept at appropriately interacting with the world.
And all we know is the lens which has been given to us. Only when it gets too painful do we get jammed up enough in our rush to reconsider the interface of our world. [S l o w . d o w n]

Who is really running the show? This voice in your head, does it have your best interests? What are your best interests? Do you even know? Would it help if you knew? Who am I? What comes first? Who is really running the show?
What does this enigma look like, this unified idea that I masquerade as? Does it look out through my eyes? Is it a filter applied to my vision? We know that this filter can be tempered with. Take a psychedelic, pay attention, lose yourself, and get back to me. What I perceive (What is weighed and gets in past my filter and onto my screen), is only an image of the actual reality. See something for the first time again. Discover what it is like to take off your armored suit. Dive deep into the moment, and perhaps, by grace, forget yourself.

Remember, this is all quite earthy.
Why am I stuck in a pattern that becomes increasingly empty?
Why can't I do what's best for me?
Why is there such inertia? When moving around feels like lugging an object around.

It's like I'm half-committed. One foot out the door. Still checking out the vibes, not sure if I can settle in.
It's another symptom of the same cause (as far as there are causes): the rejection of the moment.
The imposition of my attitudes (this conglomerate) onto my experience.
A trance of unworthiness.
Do we have proof that when all ours needs our met, we will be happy?
For how long will we have our needs met? Will we get bored with the physical and emotional monotony? Will boredom fit into our box of needs?
We live from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
When will I learn? How do I learn?

"How brave one is when one is sure of being loved."​

I am more afraid of desires I won't meet, than fears I could face.
Yet this is not entirely true, is it?
My life is ruled by my desire to be loved and to love (and being given attention and mirrored etc),
yet it seems the the undercurrents of my life are steered by the emotions that I don't want to feel.
My rejection of the unknown. My clinging to the known.
My compulsion to stuff myself full: video games, food, dreams, plans, worries, thoughts, videos, content...
I dare not be hungry. Be bored. Frustrated. Ashamed. Rejected. Undesirable. Out of control. I dare not display my inner chaos. Everything that I sweep under the rug.
Where does it go? It seeps out through the sides and funnels back into and vacuums up your life.

"If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill."​

We can feel the dirt in our hands when we say, "What gets measured, gets managed."
What can I no longer accept in my life? How much space can I afford to give to it? How is it affecting my life? What will my life look like if things don't change?
What do I want in my life? What do I value? In what order do I value? Truly, how do I wish to live?

How can this become a burning question inside of us? How do we align with ourselves? How do we learn to love when no one has shown us how?
Awareness. Can be trained. Your moment-to-moment gestalt experience can change in color and texture and pace.
At the same time, with dirt falling through our hands we say, "What gets measured, gets managed."
We make very real choices and we make equally real commitments to tracking our adherence to our decisions.
We slow down and give space to feel how our values align with what brings us joy.

We aren't here to win.
It is when you're in pain that you remember yourself.
A papercut. A stomach ache. A broken heart. In reality (depending on your attachments): your attitude to your pain determines your preoccupation with it.
Do you constrict around your headache? Focus on it and feed it? Suffering through it, wishing it over? Put energy into mental narratives about your ex partner?
Energy flows where attention goes.
Show me where your attention is and I'll tell you who you are.
It is when you are happy that you forget yourself.
Soften around the pain. Expand. There is more space here. Feelings interpenetrate each other. All the other experiences are still happening. B r e a t h e.

I am learning to breathe.
My life is on the brink of despair and I need to make some very clear choices about how I spend my time, because it is getting too viscerally painful and empty.
I meditated today and it was the best thing I've done for myself all week.

Crude choices:
Create a morning routine that I stick to. For now:
- Meditate 20 minutes+
- Morning walk / commute (10 minutes +)
- Cold shower
- if not working:
-- Breakfast
-- Movement (1hr)
Things I will limit / not do (for the next week):
- 1 game of League a day
- 1 hour of Overwatch a day
- Limit screen time to 3 hours beyond productivity and the allotted two above.
Each night I will look at my following day and write down what I wish to do.
I will also check off from the day that just was.

Easy does it.
XOXO

 

[NorwegianDJ]

It's late night and I am back behind the keyboard.
I sent this text when I came back home two hours ago.
Just a simple and important favor, checking in and helping out.
It's Tuesday and it's the end of her weekend. She hasn't seen the text.
It's so silly, you know? My heart, when my mind returns to the thought, is ripped out of my chest.
She won't love me, not for now. What twists the knife is that she loves and could be loving someone else.
I fall to the ground in the kitchen. I am shedding. This possessiveness. This attachment.
I find compassion for myself. It is like this for a reason. My body, it yearns for her body. When her eyes swell up with light. I adore her.
I am tied to her. What intimacy is there in her wake? She loved me. I didn't love her.
How cruel it is - how rarely love is met with love. The pain of loving unevenly across time.
What hurts the most, is that I am reaping what I sowed. I understand how we got here. It makes complete sense. And it is my doing.

In these times, the world feels so estranged. It feels as if those that won't have me, won't need me. They'll have their cake, while I am shrinking in the dark. Unknown and in despair. There is so much to overcome. How can I possibly keep upright? I want to step away. I want to throw in the towel. This world wasn't designed for me. I am too raw and too dark. Too fcking weird. Too honest. Too desperate. I hold on too tightly. Just break me open already.

"I have some love to spare"​

It's almost a year ago since I uttered those words.
You told me that I taught you how to love.
Now you are taking that love and giving it to him and ignoring me.
And the world keeps turning.

"I am testing the capacity of my heart with the most lovely guide"
You said.
​

That pop song in dance class today goes, "Only know your lover when you let her go..."
And bless lord Jesus Christ and his aszhole for that.
I have repented with such crushing honesty.
I wouldn't want to be without this for a second.
At the same time... I just want you back here with me.
This pain and this loneliness, in it I plant flowers, watered with my tears of you.

There's a letter I wrote for my party three weeks back that you are yet to receive.
There's this little piece in there,

"The thought of never looking into your burning, innocent eyes, of never touching you, or holding you, to be held by you, to be loved by you, is almost unbearable.
But I'm recognizing that it is the same (possibility of) loss that strikes a fire in my Heart."
​

Cheers to the breaker of chains.
Until next time.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I'm still grieving.
My darling, your sweet message brought me back to a moment in time that is still too tender for me to hold without breaking open.
When I told her that I was falling in love with her, and she wrapped her limbs around my body and embraced my soul with her own.
We were in heaven, you and I.
Even now when I close my eyes, our fingers touch the sky.
There is no way to undo what I now know. My forever north star.

In the image of what is no more, of what could've been, I fall in despair.
The feeling, coming from that place in you, that I unwittingly relaxed into.
I didn't know it was happening. I knew nothing back then. Still, it was you and I.
Flying across the sky, like a prayer.
I just didn't know.

I just didn't know.
Each and every action ever taken by me led me there.
In the aftermath, I felt the full impact of that truth of my responsibility.
The balance comes from the unfolding of compassion.
That everything that has happened needed to happen.
That it is pain that is my closest companion. The most reliable teacher.
And I salute - I drink - to my despair.
I am. Shattered. Piecing myself into a new constellation.

I am re-learning to live slowly. It'll come back this winter. The best thing that ever happened to me was losing it all and resting in the ruins.

"Relax into who you are"​

Everything is so difficult.
Thankfully there is always this breathing room. This little bit of space behind it all. I try to find more of myself there.
That's why I'm here now.
I was gonna go to donation-based yoga, but I couldn't. It was too difficult.
But I made it here now.
The days are passing too quickly. There is too little pressure on me.
But it is trending in the right direction, reliably.

I just moved into a new apartment.
This storyline, it's so poignant.
It's over two years now since we came into orbit.
Opening up to you, the places I touched in your absence, they interweave the story that I live today.
I come in and out of communion. Life is increasingly a cosmic play, with such marvelous humor.
I am living on perhaps the most central and hip street and in the most lush and spanking apartment in all of Copenhagen.
There's an invisible red thread connecting it all, open for anyone willing to see.
I am creating a space that serves who I hope to be.
A space that nourishes the unfolding of the enigma that will fall back into love.
And a space that can catch that magic and infuse it into everyone I bring into my home.

You may call me a dreamer, but I am not playing by your rules any more.
There is more to see, if you just put aside all the things that weigh you down.
I am here to stay, no matter how difficult.
My perpetual vow is to never ever abandon myself again.
Self-esteem is the trust we build with ourselves to again and again catch ourselves as we fall.

A reminder to myself, that "comfort murders the passion of the Soul."
It leads nowhere. It is never enough. Your baseline dopamine just increases, but it is the shifts from baseline that bring us to life.
We remain distracted. Less is required to bring us out of equilibrium. Homeostasis is harder to achieve. We become rigid and fearful. Discomfort finds us more easily and it finds us scared. We run faster and faster until we break.
Seek discomfort. Create an internal and external environment that reminds you of who you are, what's important, and what is at stake.

We can bring our fantasy to life. We can touch the sky, together.
Plant your head under your heels. As you set foot on your own head, you step above the stars.
Once you've staved in your lust, let your feet lift you up in the air. Come!
Up in the heavens, in the air, a hundred roads unfold before you.
You'll fly over the sky
every morning
like a prayer.