journal

I work on my mindfulness and meditation daily. Practice makes perfect, they say. 🙂 I believe when I am persistent and conscientious in my practice, mindfulness will become a regular habit for me. And I’ll transform my “running” habit energies into a peaceful flow of being here and now.

I believe it will help me with my process of accepting myself, too. I can already feel a difference. However, I am not still quite stable. I have low self-esteem. I still suffer from a sense of alienation.

I need to earn more money. I was looking at some job ads and all the requirements – extroverted, communicative, stress-resistent – discourage me and make me feel a little down. Nobody wants to work with an introvert. Nobody.

I am self-employed. I am a private English teacher. (I would like to take this opportunity here to practice my written English. I really should try harder to make fewer mistakes and think about my sentence structures! 🙂 ) I used to teach English in a big multinational company before Covid. I remember how tired and stressed I used to be. I wasn’t able to handle the daily stress, intense interaction with people who were very stressed themselves (I felt like a psychologist, not a tutor) and daily commuting by crowded buses back and forth. It was too much for me. And I ignored myself and my needs.

Paradoxically, the covid era saved me. I started working remotely and I have been in touch with students only through audio calls since then. It is better for me… for a very introverted person. Now, I can see what was draining my energy in personal contact. I couldn’t stand the horrible perfumes people used. They always gave me a headache. I was annoyed by people’s emotions on their faces. They seemed to be so stressed, bored, absent-minded and I had to play a role of a super excited teacher who would motivate everyone. I remember students being very mean to each other. They cast mocking glances at each other, some didn’t want to speak to each other during speaking activities, some gossiped their colleagues… and again I had to play the role of a super excited teacher who would make the mood in the class always great… tiring. And I don’t have to mention how tiring it was to constantly wait somewhere when students canceled the lesson.

I like working remotely, without direct intense contact. It doesn’t tire me that much. But I don’t have enough students now. I hope I will get more students because the prices are getting ridiculously high and I need to earn more money. I convinced myself to contact a language school. They contacted me back that they would love to cooperate with me. But honestly, I am afraid… I am afraid that I will fall into this “rat race” again. I am not sure if I can deal with all these problems I mentioned above again… I don’t want to take a step back into that stressful working life again…

I hope my practice in mindfulness and meditation can help me.

(I’ll continue later, written on Dec 8, 2024 at cz 10:31)

Thank you, Anita, for giving me insight into many important intra- and inter-personal issues in our lives. I’ve really learnt a lot thanks to you and also to Helcat and Roberta. I feel better and more stable now.

journal

I think that now, at this stage of my life, at this moment, I have to heal myself first. I am on a good way… but I feel that I need to learn to accept myself completely… I still have so much to learn and understand… then I can help others.

I might give my brother a hand when he needs, but … I feel that I am not ready to sacrifice my peace of mind to him. I need to get more stable and stronger first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGtHcs5LC6k

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain…

Breathing out, I feel solid…

(Dec 6, 2024, at 16:10)

Hello Anita,

I can see myself… well, my younger myself… in your words a lot. My thoughts about myself used to be… unimportant… flawed … ugly (I remember some comments she made about my appearance which hurt me)… stupid… unlovable… strange…

But I wonder why her words affected me more when my dad’s words were so kind. Why do we listen, hear those bad people more than the good ones in our lives?

Thank you a lot for your insight!

PS: The picture is new and it is our favourite meadow near the woods where we live. 🙂

I am very grateful for Buddhism, for meditation, for mindfulness, for this forum. It’s been almost a month since I wrote my first post here. I feel much better. I feel supported. Thank you a lot!

I am trying to make my mornings slower. I used to be very stressed even though there was no reason to be. I work from home. I have time. But I was really controlled by my energy habit. “Hurry, hurry!”

I spend first few minutes with our cat, doing my hygiene and drinking green tea. She doesn’t like being hugged much but she comes to watch me and when I sit peacefully with the tea she relaxes on my lap. I always try to be very mindful, focus on my body and mind, the taste of the tea and touch of her fur… I sometimes find it very difficult. My mind is like a monkey, jumping quickly from one thought to another. I still work on being more mindful in my daily life.

I like it when I forget myself and something happens to me. I stopped being mindful this morning and I accidently dropped our pets’ bowls with food… I took our dog for a walk, I stopped being mindful and I stumbled over a stone… It is like something calls me: “Hello! Get back. Be here and now.”

It is not easy. It actually requires a lot of mental energy to be mindful. But I like it. I still practice and I feel calmer, better, more stable… than a month ago.

I try to meditate every day 10 minutes. It is what I can do. After 10 minutes I usually feel very sleepy and I sometimes need to take a nap. I am not sure if this is desired. Maybe I should try to meditate at different time during my day. I usually meditate after lunch, in the early afternoon and maybe my body feels tired. I do the breathing meditation. I also try to meditate with some sounds, for example the Tibetan bowls, Buddhist bells, … I feel that I am actually better at meditation than mindfulness.  🙂 Mindfulness in daily life is harder for me. Probably too much distraction.

I play with our dog more. When it is possible, I go outside to play with her (both our cat and dog are outside all year round… they are so fluffy now with their winter coats 🥰) We play together for a few minutes every one or two hours. BUT she seems to be more dependent on me now. She jumps at me when I go home, she holds my arm in her mouth… She cries under the window if I am at home too long. (this is what she always did… but now it is more often.)

She is a German shepherd, the Czech working line. Simply, four-legged police officer… always on patrol, determined to guard and protect. When we go for a walk, no one and nothing is allowed to come near me. She is a sweetheart… but when a stranger or an animal is around and she doesn’t like them, she can turn into a pretty bad dog. And when a dog just dares to bark at me a little, she goes berserk.

Her breeder gave us some tips how to control her but I am quite small and she can easily drag me. Sometimes it is quite dangerous. So, I always take her to the woods and meadows here around our house, because we usually don’t meet anyone or any dogs there. But I would like to take her further from our house… I’ll see if I can try it on my own.

My partner is very busy. He gets up at 4:00 and works from 5:00 to 15:00 in pretty tough environment… sometimes he doesn’t get home untill 17:00 or later… He works in foundry. He is a manager of this foundry. Hard work – heat, unhealthy fumes, problems with managers, problems with workers… at least this foundry is not so dirty as the previous one he used to work in.

I was sad when he told me that his new position, for which he has worked really hard and done a lot of work for the company (by the way without any extra money) for more than two years, was rejected by his top managers in Switzerland. And the worst is the reason… They rejected him because he is Czech… not because he doesn’t have education, skills or practice, but because of his nationality… …. 🙁 … What can I say?

So, now he doesn’t have time to go with us – me and our dog. I hope that it will get better soon. This week he has been pretty tired but he has a holiday next week and I believe we will have more time for each other.

(continue later)
(Dec 5, 2024, 13:34)

Hello Anita,

very interesting points, as always. 🙂

“People who grew up in homes where love and affection were not openly expressed are likely to struggle to show love as adults because people often model the behaviors they observed at home.”

– I always told myself I would never ever follow this path. I knew and know that this is not healthy. I also think that I have always been a very happy and joyful person inside. I was damaged by the school system, bullying and absence of love and understanding as I mentioned in my first thread here on tinybuddha. I think that the crucial thing in my life is that I am really “different”… and it is negative because I feel that I don’t really fit in and I am sometimes a bit confused about myself, as you know. But it is also positive, because thanks to that I haven’t followed these wrong models of behaviour which I could/can see around myself. Maybe I was born with a good instinct which tells me that “No, no, this is not what you want or need… don’t repeat those mistakes.” I’ve always had this good light, voice inside.

It is also important to say that my parents are not abusers. They are a little bit cold, emotionally detached, they cannot speak about painful things, but they never hurt us on purpose. You and Helcat had much harder lives with your cruel parents. And I admire you for your strength and courage to resist them. Your lives were harder than mine. And honestly, with my oversensivity… If I had mothers like yours, my alcohol period would have been much longer, darker and god knows if I would have been able to stop it without professional help. (I used to misuse alcohol from cca 15 to 20 to numb my social phobia… than I drank occasionally but sometimes I fell into self-pity and drank to make myself “happier” or I used it to relax after hard day… now I have been teetotal for cca 2-3 years and I don’t plan to taste alcohol ever again.)

Thank you a lot! Later I’ll report on how I am doing with my promises to my loved ones. (my partner, dog and cat :-))