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Furthermore, the whole “look good naked” goal has lead to much sorrow and lamentation. I began a few weeks of intermittent fasting following a ~4 month -750 calorie deficit to the point where I was always sore despite prescription painkillers, Biofreeze, and creatine. I got so low-energy and weak I could no longer Then after I decided I was done with the “extreme dieting” as my doctor called it, the past few nights I ate like a monster to the point of throwing up; I fear I am developing a binge-and-purge habit. I feel so guilty despite being so satisfied while eating junk food, or even just high-calorie homemade bread or something. I just can’t be satisfied with 3-5 lb of broccoli and 1/2 lb chicken breast; I am so tired of sinking so much of my life into cooking and cleaning up after cooking when that’s roughly what I do for 40 hours a week. I am so burnt out, I am tired of counting calories and macros, I want to just not care about diet anymore and eat whatever, but I am scared of getting obese again, I am in L and XL shirts for the first time in my adult life, after half a decade I still cannot hack it at balancing time and money and health and convenience. I hate being trapped by my intense craving for food.
Copied this to my “Bardo Workout” blog, just because.
You know the Abuse Cycle? If not, a gross oversimplification: 1) Oh damn things are getting tense, escalating into threats and shouting… 2) KABOOM! SLAP-PUNCH-KICK 3) “Oh dear god what have I done I am so sorry” or the abuser just calms down and leaves you alone while you just nurse your bruises and sob to yourself for a while, 4) nobody’s feathers are ruffled, everyone’s acting ‘normal’, everything’s going to be okay; GOTO 1)
In my case, my “abuser” is my own mind. Except it’s not always so clear cut: sometimes I just wake up and I’m immediately cheerful-happy-ready-to-face-the-world and others I’m immediately in I-wanna-die mode or suppressing urge to scream and punch walls and many times I simply cannot stop from some external blowing-up… (Sometimes I call this a “manic-down phase” when I’m feeling bad but in a hyper-excited way rather than feeling a doldrum of down-in-the-dumps where all I wanna do is stuff myself with sweets and savories ’til I want to puke and then beyond.)
Yesterday was the former “up-phase” not really manic but more chill (the day prior to that was a “depressive-down phase”): where for once I wasn’t feeling insecure and insular whereas today I just lost it trying to juggle all I wanted to do ASAP and such-n-so. Today was definitely a manic-down phase followed by depressive-down.
Some days I swing wildly between negative and positive, like my brain keeps shuffling between “rape-all-Christians” death metal and cutesy sexy k-pop sometimes several times in a few minutes. Horrifically jarring to go from hate to love and back again and again when all I’m doing is walking from car to front door of grocery store…
Hello again. And thanks again for the kind and helpful words! I hope one day to see if I can put to practice Donna’s book suggestion (among many other books I’ve read/listened-to over the years) without yet another “down-phase” knocking me down. To be like a ‘cracked gong’ unphased by either positive or negative external triggers sounds like a lovely dream. Oh, speaking of day, here’s today’s:
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18-05-31
Hoo boy. Today’s storyline: woke up (first day off), big plans to cook work lunches for the week (but had huge amounts of dirty dishes I didn’t have time to get to throughout the work-week) and do week’s worth of laundry. Laundromat closes 2 hr after awakening. So rush-rush coffee in me, (brewed night before so it only took 5m to heat it up on stove and chug), rush-rush and caffeine equals massive plummet into “down-phase”.
I spent lots of time in between doing chores flipping out and typing many many paragraphs of crazed ramblings (it’s one of the main things I do when in a dark, terrible mood of the ‘manic’ kind) which I won’t copy-paste here so you don’t need to scroll past the emo incoherence.
One subject was literally begging and telling all my FB friends I’d be willing to pay to have people help me clean. Had an answer, gonna talk about it when they’re awake again.
Then finally calmed down by eating breakfast, chatting with said friend, followed by some pointless fun-posting, wondering if I should switch sleep schedule to wake up earlier (but that would leave it very difficult to go to doc visits without cutting into sleep, and my job periodically forces one to stay over 4 hours if we had too many call-offs which are the two major reasons I chose to wake up -> hurry up get ready for work -> have hours before bed rather than the other way around) so I’m not so rush-rush-rush before I’ve had a chance to breathe and chill in the morning which is a huge “down-phase” chain of triggers working against me.
The times it sucks when forced to stay over or having to stay up late to see a doctor (among other minor inconveniences) I’ll just have to bite the bullet. And sleep in those days; I was trying to be super rigid with circadian rhythm thanks to lifelong insomnia but now I’m going to try being more flexible to see if that can be used as a tiny stepping stone towards niramisa sukha.
Anyway, after deciding I’ll wait for tomorrow to batch-cook for the week (so as to avoid cooking every day; not enough time for that, I try to cook everything for work in 1 day then package them ready to grab, bag, and go) I just cooked one dinner, then broke the 3rd by continuing to eat too many more calories than my daily limit (binge-eating when sad [AKA what I tend to do when in a dark, terrible mood of the ‘depressive’ kind especially following a ‘manic’ phase] = bad bad habit, but at least it was only 300 calories of strawberries rather than 3000 calories of pizza/Chinese delivery like I used to) while watching hours of YouTube before my new bedtime. *fingers crossed I don’t spend hours tossing and turning then my alarm blaring at my new ~3hr earlier time after only 3-4 hours of sleep worrying about this, that, and the other.
What’s this have to do with Buddhism? Just to showcase how unstable my mind is, the difficulties I face in just being calm enough to even try to contemplate this and that while I go about living life while burdened with a mind that likes to go berserk over the littlest things and continues to stall and ruin any long-term goal whether it’s to learn a new language or to bodybuild or to begin walking the Eightfold Path (even the mundane one). Maybe next time I’m at the doc’s, I’ll ask to try a new medication in the hopes I find one that works longer than a couple weeks out of the months I’ve been on my current one?
Gotta do SOMETHING, as when The Bad Thoughts/Feelings are bouncing ’round my skull like ten-thousand deafening echoes in a vast cavern, absolutely nothing I try (other than “give up, give in” while I pile on yet another ten-thousand 4th precept violations inside my head which is reason #1 I’m convinced I’m going to Hell) seems to do anything but make everything worse. Like trying to smooth rough waters with a flat iron.
Thank you all! Had a few more near-breakdowns since then (not just because of the old man; that seemed to just leave me open to a bunch of other stuff that, each on their own would be but a mild to moderate annoyance — but all dropped in my lap at the same time, when my willpower fuel had already been exhausted…) but today’s been good and healing overall — dare I say, cooling-down? I wonder if I needed all that to be “broken” before I could proceed, before I could begin thinking of what I could do next. Definitely need to hammer-out some time-management skills so I have fewer little things each day draining energy needed for dedication to the Triple-Gem (like an entire week’s worth of batch-cooking in 3- to 5-hours on Sunday with some chanting or desanas playing from a kitchen stereo). But I’m yammering about myself again, yet another bad habit to take out. Again, thank you all for the kind words! May we all be safe, healthy, happy, and free of suffering!
Thank you for the kind words, and don’t worry I get that, I dunno, I probably beat my own kids in a past life or something. Sorry again; I’m so embarrassed at spewing my guts out like that. Maybe I need to get my medication upped next time I’m at the doc’s. =P Anyway, definitely something I need to work on, for niramisa sukha is never coming my way if I can’t cool my jets. I can say when an episode is happening repeating the fourth precept over and over to myself didn’t help. Maybe that’s a preventative, not a cure? I do know I feel a little better when I take refugee in the morning before letting anything else enter my mind… usually.
…too late to delete. Oh well, cat’s out of the bag. Guess all I can do about the hell thing is follow the five and avoid the ten as much as I can from now on, accept every depression storm is going to take a mile off every inch of progress (like they do with everything else i try to do with my life) in the prayer that I can do as much as I can to atone for my sins in the hopes yo reduce my sentence from billions of years to maybe a few million…
Thank you very much again for your clarification and patience! Certainly has taken a lot off my mind; I hope others learn from our exchanges, especially all my repeatedly falling flat on my face trying to bolt out the door. =)
Speaking of, I had a small chat with a coworker near the end of our shift and I think I did better (posting for pointers and for those with similar “frivolous talk” concerns; maybe we can pool our experiences and learn from each other?):
We hadn’t exchanged many words most the day because we were both tired and busy. I brought that up, she laughed and we exchanged some words, I mentioned I was tired because I unwisely tried to quit caffeine cold-turkey (gee, wonder why I’ve been so bugged out the past few days) and I caught myself thinking “wait, this is getting egocentric…” so in the hopes of added a self-effacing joke about learning from my mistakes which brought out a belly-laugh. Hooray, I spread a little joy! Later on, after she mentioned she always has sugar or something with coffee that she needs good coffee, so I recommended beans from a local shop (and recommended flavors) so hopefully she gets to know the joy of “real” coffee while a local shop gets a little more business.
Lately it seems like I’m on the lookout to say helpful and kind things. Glad to hear that’s not so frivolous!
Reason I ask is, I’ve spent years trying to improve my social skills, one method being forcing myself to be friendly and small talk as social glue/lubricant and making people happy. I’ve trained myself to behave as if “pointless” small talk had thoss points; in my mind it is full of purpose, not frivolous at all. Was I wrong all along? Should I go back to my old ways, back to never talking to anyone, being insular and anti-social? Or is there a middle way that let’s me avoid idle chatter without coming across as a standoffish, quiet jerk?
Two short chats yesterday :
First, I passed a neighbor with his dog. I pet the dog, asked what breed, something something he mentions an accident on the road, I say I hope everyone is okay – – was this frivolous talk?
Second, cashier, she asks how I’m doing, part of 4th I’m trying to be honest instead of robotically “fine” or “okay” and say I’m tired, she mentions she’s used to getting up in the morning, I mention she’s fortunate and it’s healthy to be up early – – was this frivolous talk?
Anxiety’s a form of greed? Hmm, never thought of it that way before. After pondering your post a bit it makes sense: I’m WAY too greedy to cross the finish line barely out of the gate, even moreso before I’ve stepped onto the track! I’ve always been this way, always been the kind to dive right into the deep end head first. You’d think I’d’ve learned that lesson by now after my recent episode of getting so gungho on losing that last bit of flab on my thighs and belly (thanks to attachments to my looks & health, in that order) my doctor practically ordered me to stop intermittent fasting and start strength training. (May my recent experiences serve as a warning for all your endeavors.)
Anyway, I’ve calmed down (sorry for the outburst, again) and considering my lifestyle, situation, quirks, weaknesses and strengths, I’m going to…
1) Follow the 80/20 Rule: 80% of results come from 20% of effort. Since I seem to have more viriya than the rest of my mental faculties put together, I need to be religious about the 80/20 Rule, in all my endeavors.
2) Don’t sweat the small stuff, don’t worry about any holes but the big ones and let the small ones take care of themselves eventually. First big hole I’ll attempt to patch by repeatedly reflecting on my conscious thoughts — take away perpetual stimulus of entertainment and here comes a flood of peleema. I’ll keep close watch on my mental consciousness for all those seemingly sourceless surges of negativity (especially anger) to which I’m very prone.
3) Some of the small stuff I’ll try to avoid worrying about: wrong views about gandhabbas and so on & heat-but-not-fire sense-pleasures. (I’ll go ahead and occasionally enjoy my junk food, video games, anime and such as I have been — only which I’ve bought though, no more piracy!)
4) Dhamma and meditation are medicine, not a diet. In other words: don’t force it as that’ll just distress me more. For example, if I’ve been reading so much it’s making my head spin, STOP and follow the advice in Morrowind: “You should rest and meditate on what you have learned.”
5) Otherwise just stick to avoiding/stopping the Ten Immoral Acts, breaking the Five Precepts as much as I can, and whenever I get a chance do one of the Ten Meritorious Deeds. Have faith that avoiding the Ten and upholding the Five will bring me 80% the way there. And think of it the same way as sticking to a nutrition/meal plan: long-term, as in once I get the ball rolling after a few weeks of effort don’t expect to notice even the slightest change until months have passed.
6) After a while, then I’ll start working on minor bad (but not necessarily immoral) habits since all my major/immoral ones will be mostly covered by avoiding the Ten and upholding the Five.
6) Addendum to #3 and #4: what do I do when I’ve read-read-read to the point of stress and headache? Is it “okay” then to do the music or mindless-Internetting things to relax? Or meditate, even “useless” ones?
7) Since almost everyone are suffering in the lower four realms with little or no chance of escape, that all non-Nibbanic happiness always ultimately leads to suffering, that this fully-automatic Universe seems to be set up that the one and only point of morality is to get out of the rebirth process, among other things, should one take a hostile stance towards The World? Consider existence The Devil and The Enemy?
“When one controls those bad actions and speech, abhijja and vyapada will GRADUALLY REDUCE from one’s mind. When one learns Dhamma and contemplate on them, wrong views will be corrected too. It may take some time. (But most people want to see the results right away, JUST by reading posts at the website. That is unlikely to happen).” “In any case, this ‘basic foundation’ is exactly what the Buddha explained to the young Rahula bhikkhu…”
Ahh, I think I get it now: repeated reflection is the starting point, read and contemplate (during formal meditation sessions?) posts from the website, and calm/niramisa will show itself like a cat must be gently and often repeatedly coaxed? Thank you all so much for your clarifications! I’m going to get plenty of practice reflecting on all those out-of-nowhere inner arguments & flare-ups — and if need be, summon fear of Niraya to help in the banishment process.
Re-reading this sutta after all your admonishments against breath/walking meditation and so forth, repeatedly and constantly reflecting during and around all actions from all forms seems a lot more helpful than as you call “robotically” naming all one’s little movements, emotions, whatever’s external and noticeable… — what I’m gonna call “Mango-Reflecting” or “Mangoing” (because goofy names helps me remember =P ) accomplishes the same job of keeping calm by bringing and keeping oneself to the present moment in alert awareness (no room in your head to let past/future depression/anxiety creep in), WHILE letting one constantly guard not only the sense-doors for its own sake* but to do a guard’s job of letting proceed only the good and useful, slaying the hidden evils that have snuck past…
- Thinking about it, isn’t it useless for a guard to play the name-game with whatever’s going on around him?
“Standing, watching, bored, standing…”
“Here comes a robber. He is walking past me. He is entering the castle. He has entered the castle.”
“Watching, standing…”
“Robber is leaving the castle. He is carrying a large, filled bag. He is walking past me. He is leaving. He is gone.”
“Standing, watching…”
“It is windy yet lukewarm…”Instructions like the following (which I’ve seen/read myriad variants myriad times) now seem incredibly laughable, a complete WASTE OF TIME!!
