I have been a bit overwhelmed writing my other blog daily
in Finnish. So here's a summary of the past two weeks of my 366-day
Integral Life Practice.
In mid-week of week 2 in got sick. First I thought it was my stomach, then I realized it was all of me. Having had occasional troubles with my stomach all my life (I dread my appendix! Don't ask.) I got to see having dissociated my head from my body and heart big time. All I could do was rest. That marked a minor major shift for me.
You see, doing nothing's a drag if you're an
enneagram seven. Truly. For me, though, it turned out to be a liberating experience. I noticed just to what extent I escape into my head, into constant doing, into ceaseless motion. Having to stop was just what my inner doctor ordered. So I just lied down, finished a couple of books I had started before and enjoyed just
excisting. What a thrill!
It also turned my ILP experiment on its pointy head. I started out with a full-fledged plan: 5xweek excercise, 6xweek meditation, 5xweek translating
a book and studying for my Master's degree + shadow work whenever appropriate. I came to notice just how much I am demanding of myself. It wasn't fun. So I decided to start all over, building my experiment from scratch.
I set just one objective: get up early, at 6 am every morning for a month. That's all. Sure, there's stuff that comes with the territory and has to be done, like my commitments for the translation and the master's. But overall, I made a commitment to try and lessen my inner producer, and give more power to my inner director, so to speak. Loosen up and take it more easy. Starting out by being happy and then adding to that, gradually, excercises from my ILP plan.
Speaking of the devil. My plan is to have a pretty grounded and fairly steady diet of regular strenght & aerobic excercise, daily meditation practice, time commitment, reading, and shadow work by the
end of the experiment. That is, just a tad under a year from now. Pretty different than starting from all of that and trying to desperately hold on to it, keeping it up "no matter what" for a year. Whew! What a relief.