Happy Be-A-Better-Me Journal

Didn't make it to 48 hours. Was 4 hours short. Still happy about that 44 hour fast. Won't complete the 2 day fasting goal this week though.

Completed workout. Tomorrow's workout.

 

LB just has an interesting thought experiment:

"If you grew up entirely alone and didn't even know that other people existed, much less that you could be attracted to other people or that there was something called sex you could do with another person, how would your sexuality manifest itself?"

 

Meh day.

Today's check-in

Daily goals:

No-nos
No PMO ✅
No processed foods ❌
No bread or flour-based products ❌
No sugar ❌

Restrictions
One Meal A Day (OMAD) or fasting ✅
Wake up at 5:30 AM ✅

Daily Self Care
Exercise ✅
Go for a walk ✅
5 minutes exercise bike ✅
1 hour ice vest ✅
At least 30 seconds cold shower ✅
30 minutes of cleaning ❌

Meditation
Concentration meditation ✅
Reflections on repulsiveness meditation ✅
Loving-kindness meditation ✅
Practice mindfulness during the day ✅

Hobbies
30 minutes of Swahili a day ✅
At least 1 hour of crochet a day ✅

1st Week Goals:
1 day meditation retreat ✅
2 days fasting ❌ (didn't quote make it, fasted for 44 hours- 91% complete)

January Goals:
Lose at least 10 pounds
Make Valentine's Day amigurumi for family

1st Quarter Goals:
One 5 day fast
One 2 day meditation retreat

 

LB finished one of its Valentine's Day ami projects. It thinks it turned out well.

 

Completed today's workout. Tomorrow's workout.

 

BTW LB decided to change the name of this journal. It's a play on the line from Shakespeare's Hamlet when Hamlet tells Ophelia: "Get thee to a nunnery!"



A nunk is a non-binary monastic. Portmanteau of the works nun and monk.

 

Yesterday's check-in

Daily goals:

No-nos
No PMO ✅
No processed foods ❌
No bread or flour-based products ❌
No sugar ❌

Restrictions
One Meal A Day (OMAD) or fasting ❌
Wake up at 5:30 AM ✅

Daily Self Care
Exercise ✅
Go for a walk ✅
5 minutes exercise bike ✅
1 hour ice vest ✅
At least 30 seconds cold shower ✅
30 minutes of cleaning ❌

Meditation
Concentration meditation ✅
Reflections on repulsiveness meditation ✅
Loving-kindness meditation ❌
Practice mindfulness during the day ✅

Hobbies
30 minutes of Swahili a day ✅
At least 1 hour of crochet a day ✅

1st Week Goals:
1 day meditation retreat ✅
2 days fasting ❌ (didn't quote make it, fasted for 44 hours- 91% complete)

January Goals:
Lose at least 10 pounds
Make Valentine's Day amigurumi for family

1st Quarter Goals:
One 5 day fast
One 2 day meditation retreat

 

Sorry I don't know Russian so not sure what you said there, but I do recognize the word Привет so I'll say Привет, nice to meet you and thanks for posting in my journal!

 

Completed today's workout. Tomorrow's.

 

Completed today's workout- rest day. Tomorrow's workout.

 

Thanks HelpINeedChange! Sorry I've been gone so long! Back now. Looking forward to posting again. Life has actually been going well since I've been gone. But I'm struggling a lot with my diet!

How have you been?

 

Hi Ūruz! Good to talk to you again. Life has been going well. I'm doing well in all areas of my life except my diet! Wheww... I've been struggling with that ever since the holidays.

Been continuing to make amigurumi. Here's some I made for Valentine's Day.



Also got into playing the shakuhachi again!

Will trying to give a more comprehensive update later, but for now that's some of what I've been up to. It's good to be back! Looking forward to seeing how every one else has been doing.

 

They were a lot of fun to make! Working on Easter bunnies now.

Yeah Japan is a pretty cool place. I'd call myself a Japanophile. I like Japanese food too.

 

Update: diet not going well. I joined a community for people struggling with overeating. Currently going through their module. There program is based on mindful eating. Mindfully ate an oreo cookie yesterday. It was an interesting experience. Parts of the process of eating are a little unpleasant, I never noticed that before.

I've been doing well with my exercise goals. I'm exercising 5x a week. Moved from bodyweight exercises to resistance bands. Also do cardio on a bike.

 

After an extended break, I'm ready to be more regular in my check-ins here again.

I've been reading a book called Integral Recovery. It's been very illuminating and it's highlighted some aspects of recovery for me that I have been neglecting. I love its wholistic approach. It applies the Integral Theory to recovery. I find most of Integral Theory's framework helpful. It gives us a useful lens for looking at various aspects of ourselves, seeing how they relate with each other and co-arise with each other, and discovering how improving one aspect of ourselves affects the rest. It's useful for discovering the deficiencies you might have in one of your areas. The different aspects the theory focuses on are:

1. cognitive awareness
2. emotional intelligence
3. physical health
4. interpersonal relationships
5. relationship with the world (ie job, finances, environment, economy, etc)
6. spirituality

I know that last aspect of spirituality isn't for everyone. It's important to me though. It's actually the aspect of life I'm most developed in right now I think haha.

There is one aspect of the theory I don't like. I find it a bit patronizing and Eurocentric. So I'll be ignoring it here in my journal. It's the developmental stages of beige, purple, red, blue, orange, and green if you're interested. You can read about it in that article I will link below. I don't find it helpful in my self improvement/ recovery journey however. And I feel that what it is describing is the history of Western culture. It leaves out the vastly different development of other cultures (like for example Japan has always been somewhat green because of the influence of Shintoism). It seems to be it's better to describes these stages as worldviews rather than concrete evolutionary stages that every person or culture will- or at least has the potential to- pass through sequentially.

Anyways if you want to learn more, here is a useful article introducing the theory:

https://integralwithoutborders.org/sites/default/files/resources/Intro_Integral_Theory.pdf

And yeah I know this a self-improvement journal, not a recovery journal. But I'm interested in applying the theory to my attempts at self-development and see if I can glean anything useful to identify areas of my life that I need to focus more energy in.

I'll be posting more about this later, going into the different aspects of the theory and how they apply to personal development and measuring my own life against the useful framework they provide. I'll leave that for another day. Today I just wanted to introduce this new approach.

Brief update: Been doing very well in the exercise department lately. And meditation too. Still struggling a lot with diet though. Haven't had much progress with my diet since the holidays. Just got done with today's workout. My muscles are nice and sore.

 

Update: lost 11 pounds last week! Back into a one meal a day eating schedule. All is going well. Glad that I've finally been able to get back into fasting again.