turbobear

I'm writing this blog post in response to the vlog post I published an hour ago on my instagram, about getting off instagram – because I realised there was so much more I wanted to say. I shot the vlog in one-take and decided to upload it, even though I didn't expect to at the time of recording. I never really expect to do these things but then I stop caring and do it anyway. My hesitation lay in the fact that I could maybe reflect on the video, edit it, try and expand on some of the ideas I was thinking... but I just didn't think I'd be able to do it in a way that felt natural. I think it would have felt forced or scripted, if I took notes I think I would have looked down at them throughout the video, and then lost my train of thought, or lost my flow. Maybe that's my fear but fear has for too long governed my life to the point of indecision and paralysis, so instead I'm just going to refine my practise through practise. I find I learn so much more about myself and how I can change or improve something when I'm on the other side of publishing it. That's the power of transcribing things down instead of keeping them in your head – whether it's transcribed through journalling, through conversastion with a friend, or through publishing a slightly unhinged thought piece on your substack. LIVE AND LEARN!! LIVE AND THEN YOU CAN LEARN! And maybe for all the capitalists out there, you can relate this to a sense of productivity - the most productive way to learn is to live, instead of thinking about how to live. hahahahaha. But yeah, I also wasn’t even expecting to write a blog post, I’ve been wanting to come back to this platform for ages but didn’t think I had anything to say. Well look who has something to say now.

Q2 went by so fast I can't even tell you. I was so preoccupied with work, conferences, online courses, training applications and other random life shifts. At the end I started feeling like I wasn't keeping up with my own life, which doesn't really make sense because you just are, there's no ifs or buts about it. But the thing is, I really love to process things deeply which is perhaps why I'm so introverted, why I love spending time alone, why I maybe don't branch out of my comfort zone too much. I am a highly unrelatable person when it comes to TV, movies, pop culture, global news, trends etc, basically anything that is fleeting or difficult to integrate in my existing understanding/relationship to life. I used to feel ashamed about this because of the way it hindered my capacity to connect with others in social settings, or engage in chit chat, or the limited capacity I have to spend time with even my closest friends. I swear it's not personal, it's definitely a me thing!! I don't know much about a lot of things, but I do know a lot about my own experiences. Because I study my own experiences, almost to a pathological degree. When people ask me what I do with my spare time I can't tell them much. But the reality is, I spend so much time journalling. It's almost alarming to think how many thousands of pages Google docs once had of my inner most thoughts (don't worry though I've switched to Obsidian now and locally back up haha). But yeah, when I can connect with people on a deeper level they often find our conversations so enriching, fascinating, nourishing. I started telling people that I've started listening not through their words, but through their energy. Often times when I'm deep in conversation, I will close my eyes, something my dear sister recommended to me, because it allows me to listen to what others are communicating on a more embodied level. I find this style of listening is as though our bodies are directly speaking to each other – physically or energetically. And it actually helps me to elicit a closer understanding of what someone might be trying to convey, whether they recognise it or not. And when I respond, I find myself responding to the emotion – the emotion I'm feeling from them, and the emotion I'm feeling within myself. Anyway, I was going to say more but I forgot and am starting to feel tired, and want to try and honour my circadian rhythm – so I'm going to leave it here. The point is that if I spend time away from Instagram I can spend more time processing things, integrating experiences, and then idk maybe creating more. I feel like I've already consumed enough for an entire lifetime! Now it's time to go back within. 

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 🤩🤑

tags: #thirdspace