end of the experiment

it's been a busy two weeks and i've had to narrow my focus hugely to just get what i wanted done. writing blog posts has fallen to the wayside. there just has been not enough time. initially i felt a huge pressure to continue writing and got headaches stressing when days passed by and no post got written. but later i felt free to allow myself to not have one more self-chosen activity pressurising me. i began thinking of the deadlines i set just for myself and how they can sometimes feel like a noose and sometimes as necessary discipline to me a person who does not work full time and so has few external deadlines and is danger of getting nothing done without inner ones.

what is the balance between following my inner flow each day and meeting goals that i set? i continue to struggle with that answer. why is there sometimes a need in me to stick to self imposed agendas and structures and at the same time hate these same structures and want to smash them to bits? is it a resistance to just following the day or is it a commitment to a goal?

some times in my life i seem to have found the balance between spontaneity and discipline but this time i moved strongly towards pushing myself to finish two writing projects that i am doing for no other reason than i want to. there is a satisfaction in doing that as well as the question, why am i doing them when they feel so hard? my husband quieted this question raging up in me by simply saying 'because you are meeting some inner need.'

i wonder though if this would be seen by some as one of those things that is a waste of time? even though i have spent about four or more focused hours a day, even on weekends, to complete this task there is nothing to show to the outside world. when i check in i feel happy that i did it.

one project - the bf memory - led me to connect and see events from a time that was turbulent. it connected me to my ability to rise up through intense instability. it showed me both my pull towards death and my life instinct and how that choice is a daily struggle for a person feeling desolate. it made me cry and made me more compassionate. each day it was hard to sink into that memory and at times i procrastinated and developed headaches. memory is a funny thing, what the mind stores in invisible planets in unseen galaxies and offers up when one asks for it is as vast as the universe that our mere senses cannot fathom. the discipline that i pushed myself through to complete it led me to reclaim lost bits of myself. 

the other project - writing notes to revise my fantasy novel scenes - required me using a different set of skills and discipline. world building, creating nuances in character, analysing and putting together the flow of imaginary events. what joy it was to do that. i struggled mostly with the sense that writing to me is process and once i know the end i want to move on to something new. to stay with what is already known, to and see it widen and express it externally was not easy.

today is the end of this self set endeavour. only the time line for the novel is left to sketch. my body and mind have been so engrossed in these tasks that i am finding it hard to pull out. i feel an unnerving feeling of hollowness and separation. a pain, a space that's suddenly emptied. there is fear and excitement about what will rush in to fill it. though i have a wonderful karate retreat and a holiday to look forward to i am finding it hard to change inner tracks and move towards it fully. why i wonder!

in some ways it could be said that the blog post experiment failed. i wrote only about half the days of the month. in another way it was just the way it should be. everyone, and even parts of me, will evaluate it differently. though for the most part i got out of it what i needed. 

day 20

Its another gorgeous, clear day here. Makes me smile and prance. 

Its been a long tiring week which has swept in another imminent change. This week our Sensei told us that he would be leaving Singapore later this year. This heavy news shocked me. This is the third Sensei I will be losing in the five years that I have been in Singapore. But this time it brings with it more change than the previous two times. This time it leaves me and the other black belt in our dojo to continue the iogkf tradition here.

In all the things I have wanted to do in my life, teaching karate was never one of them. I have many friends who would like to have their own dojo's some day but it has never been something I have wanted to take responsibility for. I knew karate would always be a part of my life but it was one of those things that I was content to be an eternal student of. Honestly, I never felt that I would  ever learn enough in this lifetime to make me capable of teaching it some day. There are huge fears to step into this role. So, this change is not only external but a change that I have have to work from within.

Though I am stunned by this change some part of me remains unsurprised. Since I had the first dream that called me to karate in 2003 it has always brought change and deep insight into my life. Even though its unfolded slowly at the edges of everything else I do it has become a way of life. Something that is not just about fitness or self defence but a path of psychological and spiritual growth. With every breath and movement it brings me deeply into the present moment like meditation has never quite done. It also challenges me and forces me to expand the boundaries of what I can do and be. Perhaps it is time to try to impart what I have learnt? But it is hard to embrace this identity - its way outside my comfort zone. 

The word Sensei can be translated as 'one who has gone before.' Implying someone whose teaching comes from the wisdom of experience. There is much that I have learnt from each Sensei I have encountered, both about karate and about the qualities that I would want to embody as a human being. I have been blessed for being called to this deep tradition with an abundance of great teachers that have enriched me. Such a gift needs to be passed along. 

Fortunately this change is still in some distance away and I can allow it to stew in the background. Today I grapple with the realisation that it's only twelve more days before I leave. I have much to get done if I want to leave feeling light and empty to fully enjoy the trip. 

day 17

As I write and remember I am filled with a longing for that time - a time, a feeling, a sensation, a fullness that feels lost to me here in this time and space. The terrible sweet pain of loss sweeps through me. But time has flowed on and to yearn for that time is like feeling my heart squeezed and squeezed till every last drop of blood trickles out.

The colour of that time was a dazzling pulsating purple that slowly turned into a vibrant white. Everything has a season of flowering and of returning to rest. Wintertime. A time of retreat. Stark beauty and naked truth.

And the truth is that I am floundering and separated from my inner self. That is the pain I feel. That is the longing.

Once the journey to the inner self was made through wanting to know the truth of deep suffering. Now the journey is made to know the disconnection from truth that comfort and soft living creates.

Yesterday I boarded a bus and then wandered through empty, windblown streets. The leaves twirled around touching my sandalled feet.  I felt disconnected both from the outside and from myself and I walked with that feeling allowing it just to be. For some reason I noticed the absence of dogs and their long panting tongues. The sun was hot and dry and my head spun with dehydration. I don't know what happened but at one point my feet turned homewards and I knew that it was ok. I had been feeling that I had moved very far from my Source but suddenly I knew it was right next to me separated by just a thin Veil. A Veil so thin that I could catch glimpses of what it hid. I felt comforted. My steps quickened as I neared home and inside I slaked my thirst with cool water that returned me to life.

The Veil is still there but I can glimpse Home through it. I do have a journey to make to learn what I need to do to pull it away, but I know that I am already there too. This duality is strange.

The dusty travels of the spirit and soul are sometimes hard to capture.

day 16

I am confused today. Yesterday I felt I was finally hitting my stride - being able to get my work done and also writing up a storm - but something felt hollow. Normally when I finally find my rhythm I feel joyous and energetic. But I am feeling tired and lacklustre which is puzzling. I have enjoyed delving into those foggy times in my past and discovering all kinds of forgotten gems there. Also yesterday I finally re-read my fantasy novel draft and found it quite exciting and I am now looking forward to working on the revision.

I should be happy.

Yet, today I woke not really looking forward to the day. Nevertheless I decided to plunge into exploring my memories. I am now writing about the time when things began to shift and some kind of coherence began to emerge in my life after about four or five years of turbulence. That was also the most directionless time in my life. I was lost and had no clue what my life purpose was. Instead of scrambling desperately to find my path, as I realise I am doing today, I had decided on a time of 'low doing'. Even though I was living with my family I decded to not speak too much and only eat one meal a day and spend a lot of my day in quiet contemplation. For about three months all I did was  meditate, play music and read a bit. 

As I wrote I connected back to the feeling that it was a time when I felt the divine most strongly in my life. Something bigger than me guided my apparently empty days that were actually so full. I don't know how but suddenly I found the next few months magically charted out for me. I watched shocked as everything I didn't even know I wanted manifested in my life. A lot of people, many of them strangers, told me then that I had a lot of personal power. 

Writing about that time is confusing me as I am so far from it in my mental space right now. I have so much to do and I when I find I am running short of time the first thing that I sacrifice is my meditation and my quiet time. I don't know why I had forgotten that this is what really sustains me through everything. I don't know why I had begun to tell myself, 'first get work done and then meditate.' I don't know why some part of me had even begun to think that it is a waste of time. 

Whew! glad I woke up. Sometimes something seeps in so slowly that you don't even know that the intuitive wise part of you is in a deep slumber. Sometimes you need to be reminded over and over again  and in different ways to wake up.

This morning I wrote about a session I did with a therapist in Portland where I felt my fathers spirit with me. He said to me, 'Don't be afraid to waste your life.' Every time I remember these words I am surprised. 

Don't be afraid to waste my life. I think I am going to contemplate this for the next hour or two and throw my schedule out of the window. 

What do you think is a 'waste of life'? Is it really?

day 15

I am in a sort of dry state where writing is concerned. I had been blank for several days. Staring at the empty screen or page and not being able to write. Or i would force myself to write and be upset with the dribble that emerged. Something changed yesterday and now I am bombarded with scattered strands of intense thought and I get a terrible headache when I try to pull them together and write. Its painful. Its frustrating. I want to slam down my laptop screen and run away. 

Intimacy has been on my mind, specifically emotional intimacy. The sharing of deep feeling, unspeakable thoughts and vulnerability. Sharing your most secret desires and emotions. I need intimacy in my life and sadly it's one thing that's been really hard to find here in Singapore. When emotional intimacy is not possible I find I tend to withdraw into myself, into solitude or intimacy with myself. But I need both.

When I was young I found myself expressing feelings that my mother often told me were best kept to myself. I craved understanding at a very deep level. She felt as a woman in a patriarchal culture I was better off giving up this need. Perhaps she was speaking from her own experience and disappointment for as I grew I could see she was much like me. My father passed on when I was ten and after his leaving I felt very alone. My father I felt lived his life deeply and surrounded himself with music, sport, art and many friendships. He was very different from the other adults in my extended family and was perhaps a role model for my adult self. 

In the absence of relationships that nurtured intimacy I think I buried that need and was very much a loner as a child living in imaginary worlds where at least I could know myself deeply. I created characters in my head that acted out different aspects of myself. As most of us do I sought intimacy in my romantic relationships as I grew but whereas physical intimacy was easy to find emotional intimacy eluded me and I was left feeling an emptiness. I didn't give up though and often found myself in conflict as neither me nor my partner knew how to both genuinely share ourselves or to receive that sharing in an open non-judgmental way. I struggled with trying to express a unformed need that I had but really did not know how to flesh out and describe.

I think the first truly intimate relationships I had were with a therapist and my co-students in a therapy course back in 1995. Though the course ended in disaster I touched then what I was seeking and it made my search easier both on the outside and within the bounds of myself. I also realised how  intimacy with myself was the pre-requisite for intimacy in relationships. As my self-knowing and my ability to talk about what I was feeling expanded I also found very close relationships that endured the demands of this need. Certain environments encourage such knowing and expression. There are safe places to explore this need but I wanted more and I searched for something within me that was a safe container and would allow such expression in any space that I was in. Sometimes people thought me odd but for long I was happy as I followed this need. When many other things were going wrong externally this brought richness and wholeness to my life.

Truly intense emotions are hard to stand, especially those termed as negative. Truly authentic relating in the here and now is even harder. Even those that crave it actually find it hard to stand when they are on the brink of a conflict with another that requires them to really explore themselves in order to resolve the tension in the relationship. It takes strength to stay at this point and plunge in. Most walk away.

I have found only one such relationship through my volunteer work here. In efforts to find more I enrolled in a course on counselling psychology believing that there would me others like me in that space. Unfortunately though I found friends I did not find deep authentic relating of the kind I was looking for. Disillusioned I did not pursue the second year to get my masters but walked away with only a diploma. When counsellors/therapists do not truly know themselves or share themselves with friends and try to work out their conflicted relationships I doubt their ability to form intimate therapeutic bonds that lead to deep therapy. Perhaps I am wrong and perhaps with the many dangers that close therapeutic relationships can lead to this is better or at least enough? From my perspective though this kind of therapy stays close to the surface, close to problem solving and advice and does not touch the roots of where change needs to happen.

I think for a while I numbed my need for authentic relating as I tried to adjust to this environment. For a while I drifted and the boiling frogs dream and the subsequent writing is pulling me back to who I need to be. Not sure where it will take me. This is not what i expected to write. This is not what was pressing on my mind but in some way I see that I have pulled together some of the scattered threads in my mind.