turbobear

oh em gee it's been a while since i was here. five weeks flew by with no pause on the brakes, going from full-time work to a five day conference to twelve job applications for my hopes to start psychiatry training next year. running low, nearly running dry, bursts of cortisol pushing me over the finish line of each day, edging closer towards the brink of bursting myself. when things are moving so fast and there's not much time to reflect, it's easy for me to default back to an activated amygdala initiating top-down autopilot thinking and the body just acting accordingly. i.e. existence without presence. no time to connect with or process my emotions on an embodied level, no time to say hello. just succumbing to the growing resentment of their presence alone, feeling burdened at the thought of having to deal with anything that appears to threaten my forward flow. not that this frame of mind is unusual for me – dare i say it's become the dominant form of being in contemporary society! it's been something i've been trying to make an active effort to shift over the last year or so, but being back to 100000000times daily instagram checking has programmed my desire to do everything that everyone around me is doing and to be able to do it RIGHT NOW, which then has consequential impacts on my sense of self-defeat. i forget that the whole point of what i am orienting towards is to slow down, so i can go deeper, so i can be more present and aware of what is happening around me instead of getting caught up in tunnel vision focus and demanding results without effort. 

you could say i am in a state of wallowing again, and assume that through this time i have been bathing in headspace of self-hate. but if i ended my journal entry here it would be a deceptive portrayal of how i have been experiencing life. yes i have been wallowing, at times miserable, exasperated, anguishing. but the undercurrent i have been returning to has always been led by hope, keeping me connected with the seeds planted by higher powers. returning to the third space/ middle way/ non-duality thinking has allowed me to cultivate greater strength in trusting the unknown, sitting with uncertainty, and coming back to the power of the present moment. i might mean experiencing a few days of turbulent derailment, but eventually i am able to find my way back to the anchor of trust and hope. and i'm starting to gain experiential understanding that progress or growth isn't about the absence of mistakes entirely. it's about reducing the gap between awareness and change, bridging awareness between past and present. YOU COULD SAY IT WAS INTEGRATION. the reality is that i'm going to keep making the mistakes until they're completely dissolved from my memory, which will only happen when i have managed to shift behaviour on a subconscious level. LIFELONG WORK. 

in other news i'm tired of taking life so seriously. i am growing my hair out which means i'm letting my hair down which means i'm going to have lots of fun!!! i was speaking to a mentor about job interview preparation and he reminded me that it's all just a game. life is a game. life is a game which means it's about having fun. BYEEEEEEE 🤩🤑