Oasis of Peace

Day 42

my body’s getting better. Maybe it’s from spending all weekend with my partner and resting a lot more than before.

I did a whole rest day where I did nothing more than “horizontal cardio”. With partner

my body feels lean and toned today. I think it’s in large part because I ate healthy all day and rested more than usual. I’ll try to stick to my 2-3 rest days this week again. Three would be amazing. I love rest now. Probably the first time in my life I’ve done a good job at it aside from undergrad but I wasn’t resting enough then

 

Day 43

your avatar looks like AKI @MindfulWarrior
https://i0.wp.com/www.allhallowsgee...saw-man-english-cast.jpg?resize=800,800&ssl=1

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/c.../smart/width/250/height/250?cb=20181217145836

Workout went well. Got about an hour to do my yoga and lower training today. I’m probably gonna cut the jump rope for now and just walk. That is enough cardio

looking forward to yoga lower . I’m doing squat lunge bicycle crunches in a circuit . Should only take 30m to do about four sets . Circuits save lots of time

yoga flows nice I can do it without an instructor as it’s bikram so I just memorized the series. I wanted to to ashtanga series but it was too taxing with all the push-ups and arm balances. So I just opted for bikram which has no push ups. Yay easy mode

 

Day 44

I got a few minutes before I call my next client.

Wanted to journal for some reason. I think I really enjoy journaling. It's a splendid time of self expression. My partner read my 36 page memoir in a night. That's impressive reading speed. Guess it makes sense since they are a really good student.

I ate a bunch of food just now. I made a turkey scramble with veggies. So great. It just needs more hot spice. I'm gonna hit up Lotte or giant and search for some spicy powder. The premade sauces mostly have sugar in them unfortunately. Just watched a 5 min anime it was the bomb. <3

I just wanna watch so much anime. But I want to make time to read the Dharma too

 

@Mr. Monk yea one or two sounds fine. @MindfulWarrior isnt that the legendary swordsman? Or the aikido guy?
Thank you both for your replies have a good day

Day 44

felt like it was all gonna break yesterday. I simplified my life. Simplification of things helps me the most. Also the number eight keeps coming up in my life.

I’m training eight strikes over and over in Muay Thai. I defined my top eight values. I made eight affirmations to reflect my values. And the Buddha prescribed the Bible eightfold path to relieve suffering

@-@ Maybe I should keep moving forward with these things. The eights are here to help me I hope

honestly eight affirmations is too many to remember on the fly.

if I could edit them.

I am a Buddha / I am awake
I am happy healthy well and at peace
I love and respect everyone like my family with compassion never engaging in argument
I am independent

I felt conflicted about the first one. It’s based on the quote “when I was a Buddhist I made everyone mad but when I practiced being a Buddha everyone was happy.”

So affirming I’m a Buddha is my way of trying to practice being a Buddha. The Buddha didn’t really think of himself as a Buddha did he? He just said “I am not an angel or a god. I am awake.”

maybe I could make it I am awake then? Heh I can try both and see what sticks . If I affirm what Buddha thought about himself maybe I’ll become a Buddha or enlightened. That’s aiming for the prize indirectly. Like how we meditate on our breath even thought the goal is happiness and enlightenment. We aren’t meditating directly on those things we just focus on the breath believing knowing we’ll attain them in this indirect wAy

 

What's important to type here is. The I am a Buddha affirmation worked. I think I'll just do that one and none of the others. It's kind of like the Dogen Zenji quote 'The Buddha isn't in the statue its in you. Your mind is the Buddha." Or the notion that when we fully realize all our buddha nature we'll become a buddha fully enlightened.

Anyways I called mom today that was good. I'm gonna try to get Fridays off permanently hehe. Three day weekends forever. I think I'll take a full week off the week after next. Because I'm onboarding like one or two clients and I don't wanna keep them waiting an extra week.

love yall <3

 

Thanks for your reply and kind words. I really feel that pain. Giving your heart to someone just to have them treat it badly is one of the worst emotional pains that many of us experience early in dating. It's been hard to trust again. But, I've wanted love so much my whole life as it's my second most important value after spirituality. I kept trying and pushing myself to trust again.

I did get better though. It took about eight girlfriends. But, this one I'm with now I made sure that she met my standards BEFORE getting in a relationship with her. It took about six months of dating people before I found her. She's fit, nice and consistent. She's texted me everyday for the five months we've been dating. We don't fight we just calmly workout issues like adults when they arise. Most of the time we just laugh and have sex. Eat good food, watch things together and go on outings. We'll workout, go hiking or see shows together. I'd like to see a museum sometime just for fun. For the most part though we workout, cook a ton of food and watch stuff all day. She's great. hehe. I told her she's the bee's knees. And tbh I really want to marry her someday. Even on her worst days when she's cranky or depressed. I still really love her and want to stay with her. Thankfully she's almost always in a good mood though =]

I'm a mental health therapist. So I'm a professional grade shoulder to cry on and person to rage about the frustrations or injustices of your life to. It's tough for me to come home after a workday and need to be that role for my partner too. When I just did it for 6 hours. -_-zZz. But, I'll do it for her once in a while when she needs it. I think that's a fair expectation of your partner

My last girlfriend it was like every day after work I had to go be her therapist. She would mostly worry about if I was going to leave her or cheat on her. Then she'd just interrogate me and get mad at me to see if she could dig some dirt out of me about if I was going to cheat or not. Thankfully that only lasted a couple months. Felt like a year though hah. Being interrogated for 5 hours a week sucked.

Cora (new gf) is the best. I often wish (buddhist version of prayer) for us to be together and live happily ever after.

hehe thanks for letting me talk about my relationships. I hope you find your best partner if you haven't already.

 

Makes sense to me. <3 reminds me of the idea of inner peace.

 

Day 45

Nice I'm here. hahah. Cora's coming over today. That's a nickname I gave her on here to protect her identity. Not that anyone's going to figure out who she is from just her first name (or even care there are like three people who read this journal that're all nice lol =]

But, just to be on the safe side. It's a good habit to change names and people. I'm still amazed she read my whole memoir . 18k words is no short essay! She expressed empathy for me and wanted to nurture me after reading it. It did have a lot of the dark stuff that's happened in my life. I had a lot of rough times growing up with addiction and just being neglect or verbally abused by my family. Then the same with romantic relationships.

But I kept fighting through life. I wouldn't give up. I kept saying to myself, 'The best revenge is a life well lived.' And, 'All's well that ends well.' I got through it. I'm here now. I'm forging my happy ending one day at a time. It's beautiful, worthwhile and I'm thankful that I didn't ever try to kill myself all those decades that I thought about it.

I'll never give up on the dream life I see in my mind. It glows with a heavenly light. Full of love and joy. I can see the future me and my partner in a nice home waving at me. They look so happy. I want to be there.

I told my mom one day while I was powerlifting in the garage. I felt so down and hopeless. 'My anxieties so bad I don't know if I'll ever move out or leave this dead end job.' I told her. She replied, 'Some day you'll get a good job that pays enough for you to move out. You'll have a lovely partner and a home together. It'll all work out.' That moment in time miraculously planted a seed in me that's been growing ever since. I still wake up thinking about that future.

I'm going after it but it's not going to be exactly what she envisioned. It'll probably be 0-1 children not more than that. Also I may end up stayign in the ranks of nofap indefinitely. Even become a group leader (hey free accountability calls =]


Time to eat something.

I haven't been eating microwavable tv dinner food. It's good , it forces me to cook something healthy all the time and I feel a lot better for it. Also I'm working hard to get better abs right now. I'm planning to pay $20 for patty's abs tutorial. It's not a ton of money. Still it's a luxury I don't normally afford myself to buy tutorials like that. I believe it'll work. If you take a look at her, her abs are seguoi.

Spoiler: Shirtless male YouTube thumbnail

 

Thanks a lot Cirilla ^_^ Are you into light/fiction novels? I'm kinda writing one now maybe you'd be down since your avatar is a witch looking cosplayer. I'm guessing you fixed the spoiler video I posted, thanks for that and I'll be mindful to use spoilers

 

Day 47

Phew!

Spoiler: Non-Ejaculatory sex, Semen Retention

Okay right. So thanks to the help from people on the accountability for All thread I got back in touch with a book I read when I was a wee curious 13 year old in a bookstore called, 'The Multi-Orgasmic Couple (also the multi man version).' It taught me how to have dry orgasms. So I've just been having dry orgasms before I engage in intercourse with my partner and it's helping me a lot to be able to control the full (wet) Orgasm. Yesterday she came over and we had sex for three hours. I had five orgasms, the first four dry and the last one wet.

That was the first time something like that happened in the five months we've been dating. I really felt much mroe control over my O. So today we did it and I was all exhausted from getting my covid booster so I was flailing lol. Then we took a break. She was so comforting and patient with me. She didn't mind just cuddling for ten mintues while I calmed down because I'd gotten too close to O. Then I got a second to warm myself back up and we had sex for like 2 hours (counting foreplay and intercourse).

It was great! I didn't have a full O. It was I think the first time we went a whole day together with out ejaculation. The only struggle was that I had to to work hard to pull myself away from her so she could go home. I just kept thining abotu how I really wanted a moment to chill on my laptop and post here

Plus we're much kinder to each other when we don't spend too much time together all at once. We're introverts and it's good for us to take our space to just relax alone. Honestly I like spending entire days by myself with my phone off and just watching anime, reading, eating and exercising. I got a pull-up bar and dip bars at home and that's enough for me.

Speaking of which, me and Cora worked out today. We did situps together with our ankles hugging each other like I think they did in that youtube video I posted above. I had to push myself to do 20 reps with her she's in good shape! Lol I did 21 in the last set and she did 20. 'You just had to outdo me huh?!' She said teasingly. That was literally all I had though I couldn't do another rep XD I'm sure she could've beaten me if she'd tried. She wasn't going all out. She kept grabbing my stomach after and smiling saying, 'Rock hard! Yeah!' It was a lot of fun and amazingly adorable. <3 her.

My shoulder's so sore from the shot I got Idk if I'll be able to workout tomorrow....I'll probably get something done anyways. I usually am able to workout even if I'm tired, feeling emotionally/physically crappy or what have you.

Listen to the band The XX if you haven't already their albums are good.

I got the best chicken curry at a hospital today while waiting to get vaxxed. It was the best hospital food. Kinda wish I ahd more. I'll just eat more of my chicken and veggies. I got gochujang I'm digging the spice a lot right now.

I did 30 lunges a side in one long set and then a few sets of two reps a side for three sets of assisted pistol squats. I used to bang out a full range of motion pistol squat grabbing the toes no problem when I was in my twenties and do a muscle up without any training for those aside from regular yoga Vinyasa. I think that means 1. Yoga's awesome and makes you strong and 2. I have good natural athleticism.

I can't do a full ROM pistol unassisted now that I'm *ahem* 34 years old. But, that's alright =] I'm gonna make it work again. I'll bust out lifetime record pistols soon I hope. All the other bodyweight legs stuff I can do a lotta reps on now so I want to try for something more challenging. I'm impressed with myself for doing 60 air squats in one set. Ah! I'm looking forward to doing dips and chin ups tomorrow. It's been challenging to get much higher than 10 chinups or 20 dips. But I feel like if I get three good days in a week I'm inching towards higher reps per set.

Ommmm . You know they say chanting Om will solve all problems?

Pretty cool.

I get a little scared with Cora sometimes. -_- I don't think it's her. She's really good to me. It's just, I've been hurt a lot of times before. Girls cheating or leaving or abusing me in relationships. So I get scared sometimes that Cora's going to get upset randomly at something that's not worth getting mad over. That she'll blow up on me and leave like those other girls did. I hope she stays. Forever. May we LHEA

We hung out and I told her about my novel. I came up with new ideas and they were really cool. I like to make sure she enjoys the story. If no one else likes it or reads it but us I'd be happy with that. Of course I'd love if it sold a billion copies too It's my first novel so I'll dream on with that. Probably have to write like 10+ novels and get some coaching before they start getting really good. I'm still happy. I've wanted to write fiction since I was in my early twenties, but never pushed through and did it. I'm happy to be doing it now. I'm a little smaller than when I was doing free weights. But, I'm getting more cut from the calistehnics which is cool. I have way more time now that I only hit the home gym. Time to write, relationship, cook, clean, whatever. Life's better balanced like this for me C:

 

Crap I came down just now off that high of hanging out with your partner all weekend when it's new and you're not living together yet. I always get anxious when she leaves. I could tell her that's how it is for me. That I could use some kind of reassurance after she goes home. She did say she's home safe. I guess that could be enough. Idk what else I'd want.

Yeah I'm probably just stressing about nothing. It's that sort of feeling where I get really close with her then she leaves for home and I feel needy. SR helps that for me. I feel more anxious if I Orgasm during sex. No O sex makes me feel much more able to ride out the anxious attachment when it comes. For the most part I exist in a secure space. It's just when we have more intense closeness that I get scared to lose it. Because I like her a lot and I want to keep her in my life.

I wanna have some fun at my desk, instead of just working here to create memories at my desk besides work, but IDK what to do?

youtube?

 

Day 47

agh can’t wait till noon comes and I can put day 48. Lol

I’m determined to hit 365+ days before I even think about missing ONE SINGLE DAY OF POSTING HERE. Hehe I like being serious about things . It makes me feel alive to know that I care enough about something I’m doing to be brought to brink of tears or to feel great anguish at failure or plateaus

can’t wait to workout aghhhh I’m icing my shoulder right now. If I can get the inflammation to reduce enough from the Covid shot I might be able to train upper today. If not well, maybe I can train lower again. I need Sunday to rest before I get into it again Monday

The patterns continuing. Have a good time with bae, get anxious that she’ll leave me or hurt me. She texts me the next day and is sweet as ever. Then I calm down and feel happy C: Kay .

Friends
woo we watching the Adesanya PPV!!!! Yuhhsssss. I was feeling like crap today because of the booster but I was like NO WAY am I bailing on the PPV to rest. I organized this thing and been lookin forward to it all week. I’d have to be dead or contagious to bail!!!!

murhurhur S2

Winners will be: Adesanya, Chandler and Zhang

Mark my words I’d put $100 on each of those fights . But I won’t make bets. That’s kinda sketchy :/ chandler is the toughest call. The other two are almost for sure going to win. Crap now I wanna make a bet lol

wonder if anyone will take that among my friends. Just don’t do any Om actually betting through sites. Gamblings a bad vice to get into.

woo I’m on fluoxetine and bupropion right now. A smorgasbord of antidepressants XD

life’s stressful So instead of making it less stressful they just invented pills that help us handle more stress

what the frick? Lol. Im working on doing both. Im having two three day weekends in a row then I’m taking a week off work. After that I’ll have a three day weekend every week c: only working 30 hours

I only make 50k as a contractor with no benefits, but I only work four days a week and I’m a resident in counseling

When I’m licensed I’ll get 70k and work only 27 hours a week plus benefits. If I stay.

If I find a better job. I could make 100k with a 27 hour work week. ^-^

just work Monday through Thursday and three day weekend every week with that much money would be amazing

I suppose the way it is, maybe I could stay :/

mayyybeere but we’ll just see what happens when I get that license

Gonna drink my super potion

 

I actually stared at the avatar for a long time trying to figure out if it was real or not and thought it was! Nice graphics. What non-fiction /devleopment books do you read lately? I just finished one on CBT and am listening to Pema Chodron collection on audiobook now. I found the book Attached by Levine to be useful. Chewing through the Dharma and Bruce Lee's book and want to find a good MMA book

@MindfulWarrior I've had depression for most of my life. They say fluoextine can delay orgasm so that might be some extra with SR as well. But I was getting suicidal ideation again a month ago. I've had thoughts of 'not being here anymore' or more serious suicidal ideation starting when I was six. I remember sitting alone with my Nintendo SNES playing Mario night after night as kid. Parents stressed and angry going through a divoce. Sister yelling or crying at them demanding this or that thing. Me alone, with my games or my fantasy novels. Wondering if it'd be better if I could just not exist

The SI would go away sometimes but, it's never been fully in remission forever. When it came back up after I moved out of my mom's. I decided to get back into therapy and the therapist suggested anti-depressants as they worked in the past.

I have a diagnosis of Anxiety and Schizoaffective disorder (depressive mood specifier type if I'm not mistaken). So I should actually be on antipsychotics according to popular medical opinion. I was just suffering from extreme somnolence on those so I got off them as I needed up to 13 hours of sleep a night and was too tired to exercise during the daytime. I was basically a zombie. I heard they're coming out with non-somnlence inducing antipsych's so I might see if those are insured.

 

Day 48

Spoiler: Meds+work

I don't normally talk about this stuff I just deal with it silently so I wanted to hide it in this spoiler.

paliperidone (Invega), was the only one not listing somnolence as a side effect though it does list weight gain. If I gain weight on that med I'm out lol. I work my butt off to get better abs every week and they've been looking good.

I think I could be alright with just the anti-depressants. But, if I could be living a better life and still have abs and no side effects from Invega that'd be better ofc.

We'll see, I'm not in a hurry to try that med out right now. Might be good to have it in the medicine cabinet in case I start to get too disturbed I guess . Work can be stressful for sure and my employer doesn't accommodate me as much as I'd like them to. I often get a 'no' in response from when when I request certain things at the job that are considered normal accommodations in my profession. Things like scheduling my day to end at 5pm (made me do 6pm) or referring clients out (haven't allowed me to do that except one time when I started my job). These are basic normal requests that are standards for the profession to be given to therapists. But, they don't allot them to me which just causes me more stress and that sucks. I don't mind the 6pm thing now. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't mind being unable to refer out. But, I want the option open to do those things if I want to. I don't like being forced to do things that're above and beyond the call of duty. Juliet will be much better about that when I work for her I believe. I think I'll make about the same money or maybe even a little more working for her than if I stay at my current job.

What's important to me is. I'll make enough money and be treated well enough to stay there forever till I retired as far as I can tell. For now I'll do a good job and keep things copasetic. Come March or as soon as I get my triple license and Juliet is ready to onboard me and my clients. I'm going to be putting in my one weeks notice. I can do two weeks notice if they want but of course would prefer to move swiftly. There's good and bad to everything. They've helped me get my hours and paid me a good wage for a resident. They pushed me to grow my comfort zone which, while it wasn't nicely done, it did help me grow. I can tolerate a wider range of clients now, write better progress notes and work till six pm.

Notably I worked on my own to further develop my therapy style and find a way to have just a four day work week while making a good amount of money. I'm ready to leave soon as I can safely and amiably do so. Always want to keep the bridge open for that positive reference. They have been mean to me somtimes. Making fun of me for wanting to change my name. Making unreasonable requests of me as an employee like 'working whenever the client wants to schedule' literally anytime day or night. And laughing at the fact that I wanted remote work and that the previous supervisor lied to me and told me they'd fire me if I didn't work 100% in person sessions while other therapists were allowed to work until 5pm and work 100% remotely. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if other therapists are allowed to refer clients out or discharge ones they feel are a bad fit. They may just be being unfairly unaccommodating to me with the 'no referring out for Zen policy'. I'll see about that next week. Feh.

At any rate it's no more than five months before I'll be ready to move on from here if all goes well. I'll go hit those books it'll help me get out soonest if I can pass this exam in January

That was a lot. I just had an insight last night when I was rowing at Cassidy's. I realized I didn't put up with any girls that weren't on point from the start when I was looking for Cass. If a girl didn't text me daily or be punctual about scheduling. If she wasn't fit nice and consistent. I would just unmatch them and be on my way to the next. Cass texted me a full screen of text everyday, she was in good shape and very nice to me. Her scheduling was a bit messy, but she did make time to plan out dates with me. Sometimes literally waiting till 24 hours before we were supposed to meet to let me know if she was going to be available or not. Which I've seen her do with her friends and plans collapse because everything was so last minute.

She's gotten much better at scheduling since I've kind of pushed her to grow in that area. Now she can plan a whole week in advance. She always tries to make me happy and do whatever to satisfy my relational needs. Which are almost always very reasonable. She offers to help pay for groceries when she eats my food which is good and I'm learning to not be overly chivalrous and accept that money and ask for it when it's fair. She does make more than me after all.

I wish I could write more but my arms get tired. It's because I train a lot. Guess I can take a break

I must study by : about 2pm. Yeah. So let’s get groceries eat and buy a couple hoodies online before that

 

Thanks for your compassions. I have had a good exp on antidepressants. I think a good therapist is key too tho

 

Day 49

One day at a time. Been surprisingly tired from the vaccine . Wish my gf would cook clean and keep my company

but she works and I can care for myself

it’ would be too much stimulation anyways and could slow recovery

would be nice tho. Don’t think she’d come she’s gotta go home and sleep and adulting

I think I’ll order delivery today. Nah I can cook. Hehe. Im off work so I don’t make money today which sucks. But oh well. Gotta deal with it . This is why I try to save money. Trying to save more and more. Never know when you’ll need savings

gonna be a quiet day. Just read and rest. No video.