(no subject)

[sqwook]

Maybe I don't like to rest because since I already have this fear that I'm not good enough, I feel like if I do /less/, then I will never catch up. 

Today felt horrible. Eventually I realized that okay, yes, heartache, but the only person still holding the dagger to my heart is myself.

Calm. Breathe. When the panic and heartache comes, even though it feels like it might become unbearable, just let it come. Pause. Just experience it. Abide it. Relax and feel it and let it be. Without pushing it away. Without judgment or self-blame. And think of the star in the sky, the flowing river.

Oh. This is probably what people mean when they say to be gentle with yourself. Which has always sounded really stupid to me, frankly. And anyway, I feel like I don't deserve gentleness. But, at this moment, I might understand what they mean. "It doesn't help at all to feel guilty about where we find ourselves." Self-blame. Insight is necessary. Self-blame is unhelpful. 

Saturday I think is a day off, which will be good. 

"If you can take the first step adn acknowledge you're hooked - that already is interrupting an ancient habitual response. (...) It's a highly charged moment in which you can escalate the intensity further or you can choose to pause and experience the uncomfortable energy without struggling. (You can) start to make choices that lead to happiness and freedom rather than choices that lead to unnecessary suffering "

"If someone shoots an arrow into my chest, I can let the arrow fester while I scream at my attacker (*or I would add at my own failings), or I can remove the arrow as quickly as possible."

Do not congratulate or condemn yourself, do not view it as a self-improvement project; just relax.

 ‎"...(Buddhist teacher Dzigar Kongtrul) says that for him, when he sees that he has connected with his aspiration even once briefly during the whole day, he feels a sense of rejoicing. He also says that when he recognizes he lost it completely, he rejoices that he has the capacity to see that. This way of viewing ourselves has been very inspiring for me.
He encourages us to ask what it is in us, after all, that sees that we lost it. Isn't it our own wisdom, our own insight, our own natural intelligence? Can we just have the aspiration, then, to identify with the wisdom that acknowledges that we hurt someone's feelings, or that we smoked when we said we wouldn't? Can we have the aspiration to identify more and more with our ability to recognize what we're doing instead of always identifying with our mistakes? This is the spirit of delighting in what we see rather than despairing in what we see. It's the spirit of letting compassionate self-reflection build confidence rather than becoming a cause for depression."
-Pema Chodron

"How can we start exactly where we are, with all our entanglements, and still develop unconditional acceptance of ourselves instead of guilt & depression?

One of the most helpful methods I've found is the practice of compassionate abiding." -- In-breath deep & relaxed, letting the feeling be there without pushing it away. Outbreath - relax and give the feeling space, not sending the discomfort away.