Tag: feelings

089a – safety and choice

I tell my father that people sometimes cry pretty easily in front of me. He is surprised. There’s space and silence as he processes this so I add that that’s not necessarily a bad thing though, and I almost feel nice that they feel safe around me. (Of course, truthfully, I know this isn’t about me and I’m just an aid or an instrument to what they might have needed, but admittedly, I’m happy when I’m able to offer a non-judgemental space to someone). He laughs and asks how i can feel good about making people cry. I think he is partially joking but I know it’s only partially so. He has never experienced safety in the ways I strive to experience (and hence, also bring to people) on a regular basis. This devastates me and yet I know I can’t spend too much time thinking about this. 

When I was much younger I would sometimes fantasise about people telling me their deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t know if this meant anything and part of me knows that I perhaps had a bit of a saviour complex. But I look up what a saviour complex means and a saviour complex is tied to fixing. I don’t think I ever wanted to solve people’s problems, even in my fantasies (unless they wanted me to, of course). I don’t know where this came from, then. Maybe this part of me just wanted to tell my deepest, darkest secrets to someone and I envisioned being this person for that part. It’s all good now, though. I experienced almost 10/10 safety through therapy and I don’t feel the need to offer safety to people for my own happiness. 

It feels nice to be here. Starting to think about choice a lot more. At 23, I started the journey of disidentification and detachment from my thoughts. At 28, I started the same with feelings. I’m recognising that thoughts and feelings are just that— thoughts and feelings. While it’s true that some of them can mean something and some of them can be worth listening to and following, I keep in mind now that there is always a choice. Choice of belief, choice of how much meaning you want to assign to them, choice of response. I’ve spent enough time with my feelings over the last few months to now for know that I don’t need to spending all my time with my feelings. 

Art is nice, of course. It allows to me pour my thoughts and feelings into something. Something tangible, almost. I suppose in a way, it gives meaning and an end and a home to my thoughts and feelings. It’s safe. Maybe that’s the primary reason I do this, maybe that’s the primary reason I’ve always done this. Of course, if someone miraculously finds value in it, that makes me incredibly happy, but I suppose there is enough value in it for me too. 

I don’t believe in a forever anymore. It sounds pessimistic and unromantic but i feel really great about believing this. To me, it means that I have fully grieved the people I’ve lost. Because if no feeling is final, how can a forever be final? Choice (and hope) is what makes a forever, and choice is hopefully something you can always carry with you. (I pray to god I never have to be out of choice.) xx 

088a – feeling feelings

They say a sign of emotional intelligence is to hold feelings without letting them drive your decisions. But I hope it’s okay that I “decide to” write (and publish) even when I have big feelings because I (like to) think of myself as somewhat emotionally intelligent and I won’t let them tell me otherwise. Granted, I do spend a good amount of time with my feelings lately but I did want to spend a lot of my time on creative work and the one thing I know for sure is that I create best when it’s driven by feelings. Skill has always been a secondary pursuit to me and reception is also not been something I’ve been able to measure but I know that my happiness and joy in creation is highly dependent on following feelings. 

There is a lot I’ve been feeling today and I wrote it all down earlier tonight but I still don’t feel empty. 

There are things I want to say to people who may or may not want to hear them but I am fragile and I don’t know how to gauge well what other people want. What do I want? I want to bare my soul (or whatever) without being made to feel like that’s something I’m not supposed to do. 

Sure, I can make music and I can write poetry and I can make it all a little more “digestible” but what is it about things being as is that makes it “non digestible” for other people? I won’t know. Maybe I’m not supposed to know. 

My mother has become quite a close “friend” of mine over the last few months and I feel so lucky to have her in my life. I lay my head in her lap today and asked her how we as a race (ie humans) can get intimacy so wrong and she looked at me with sympathy which made me feel like she thinks it’s not necessarily a race problem but a me problem. And maybe it really is a me problem and I’m okay to take that feedback because I’ve been doing a lot of the work and I’ve been doing healthy things and maybe it’s okay that there’s still a lot of work to be done and I’m willing to accept that because the other explanation is that I’m severely unlucky and that just does not seem to be true, really, so.. I don’t know. 


I feel like the world always wants me to process things faster than I want to process them and despite repeatedly expressing that I don’t like being rushed people keep rushing me. They want me to move on faster, be happy faster, not grieve as much as I do, not be sad as much as I am, not talk about things as much as I do.. and yet, they don’t know how to set their own boundaries, is what jumps out to me, almost. I guess this means I would really respect people who are able to set their own healthy boundaries. 

I don’t know. Today’s a bit of a bouba day. Although I’m not displeased. Cheers xx 

081b – joyful

Heart is full. Had three consecutive days around people I love and I couldn’t be happier, I think. As I’ve mentioned multiple times before, I was pretty worried about December, productivity, social obligations etc etc, but I think this time I was finally able to show up where I really wanted to, and say no to the things I really didn’t want to do. Feels pretty great to be able to do this. 

Life has become much easier now that I’ve started expressing myself more and more, without thinking too much about it. I think I learnt how to do this most from a couple people I met over the previous year. I don’t know whether I just have a “backlog” of unexpressed feelings and thoughts or whether I genuinely will stay the same over the next few years, but I’m excited to find out. 

I’m also finding a lot of pleasure and joy in bonds that are not necessarily solidified or spoken about in words. That is, where words aren’t the primary form of communication and affection. Of course, quality time and physical affection have always been important to me but I always used to think that bonds are stronger and more real when you can talk about your thoughts and feelings explicitly. But I’m making more space for relations where words are not our strong suit, and yet I know they are valuable relationships and maybe I don’t want to give them up. 

The good thing about expressing in large “quantities” is also that you start to then get a more wholistic opinion of your art and skills. Giving up perfectionism has been one of the best things for me and my art and expression journeys. You start to feel seen over the small things and slowly it all accumulates to give you big positive feelings as well. My belief in the value of “body of work” is getting stronger, basically. And it’s not that you don’t give your whole heart to these little things, it’s just that you’re okay with perhaps 7/10 or 8/10 satisfaction and you complete+share those things anyway. We’re just human, doing human things after all. 

I’ve also opened my heart to dogs and kids again (as silly and obvious as that sounds) and it’s been wonderful. It’s so silly that we have these very easily available sources of joy and sometimes we forget to tap into them as much as we should be. Tldr; it’s never too late to unlock “new” sources of joy. 

I guess the trick after all is to find positive feelings in the easiest and most satisfactory way possible and release negative feelings in the easiest and most satisfactory way possible. I like this framing, I’ll sit with this a while. 

Stay safe and sound xx 

081a – growth recommendations

Haven’t done this in a few days. There’s something about private journaling that’s just not cutting it. Almost like the reverse of what used to happen— that is, journaling used to be better than writing in public because I would feel more free. However since I feel sufficiently free here as well, I feel better when I write here, since it then adds towards goal-completion pursuits. Journaling sometimes feels like “lost progress”. 

I’ve gotten a bit into Myers-Briggs and other personality tests again lately and though I know they can be a bit harmful (esp for people like me), I couldn’t stop myself from indulging in them. I think some of the findings have been interesting and can be potentially helpful too, actually, if I can take some time out to process them properly. 

The INFP thing I’ve been pretty comfortable with, but a friend recommended the Enneagram test to me as well, and that’s been a lot more stimulus than I was expecting. I test to be a type-4 at the moment and everything that’s listed in the “growth recommendations” is stuff that is quite.. intense, for the lack of a better word. 

The top two things that stick out, that also feel tough to implement right away, provided I’d even want to, are: 

  • Don’t pay so much attention to your feelings— this is quite tough since the last few months have been me actually paying a good amount of attention to my feelings. I think the meaning I’d want to assign to this is that feelings are valuable, and I definitely want to validate them, take my time to “feel” them perhaps (through activity and action as much as possible), but maybe I need to have time-caps on this, because spending more time than needed on any of the feelings can be harmful, of course. Maybe I want to cut myself off before it becomes “indulgence”.

  • Avoid putting off things until you are “in the right mood.”— this is also something I’m quite guilty of. I do tend to take a lot of time to do things because I generally believe I don’t do good work if I’m not doing it from a good state of mind. While I thought I had gotten quite better at dealing with these perfectionist tendencies, maybe there’s some more work to be done. I think if I had to be real, I’ve gotten better at this from one end only— for example, I’m now okay with leaving things at “90%”, but maybe I also need to be better at “starting things”— even when I don’t feel like I’m in the best state for them. 

The general theme seems to be that action, activity and discipline would be much better for me than fantasy and indulgence. Of course, this is something I know and I’ve been attempting to get to a point where I can think about implementing this, I haven’t yet. 

I had a couple of interesting conversations with strangers this week and those was also quite impactful, but something my therapist said which really helped me look at it differently was: 

  • What is the meaning you want to assign to it? 

This is important since it made me realise the right words— especially the right questions— can make such a big difference. I was taking everything I was thinking and feeling to be the truth, whereas really, I do have some control over how much importance I want to give to events and stimulus and feelings and thoughts. 

I feel like I have more things to talk about but I’m not sure what exactly. Social calendar is getting a bit pressurising— even though action and activity is nice, and it’s mostly nice to be around people, I don’t know what part of it is pressurising and draining exactly. Maybe it’s just my introversion needs coming into play. But when I do get time to myself I end up spending a lot of time in my head. So I guess the thing to figure out is how to spend time with myself that is still aligned with what I’ve learnt about action and activity. I think physical activity is the main thing I need to incorporate. I’ve been dancing a lot more and that feels pretty great, actually, but perhaps there’s more room for it. 

Alright, I think I have a qualitative plan, I’ll convert this into an action plan next week. 

Cheers xx 

078b – rest and recovery

Fun, beauty and truth. Maybe just incorporating enough of these elements in a sustainable way is what I need to be doing for this chapter of my life. It’s been incredibly difficult over the last two weeks and yet, I know that I’ve faced difficult life situations before and why should this be any different? Or even if it is, it doesn’t mean I can’t face it. 

Writing and music are the two things I can still do while nothing else makes sense, so here I am. 

I’ve started anxiety medication again (the last time I tried them was in 2021) and I don’t know why but my body seems to be resisting them a bit. Obviously I’ll discuss this with therapist and psychiatrist but regardless wanted to note down this feeling. 

My biggest worry with medication has always been whether it can hamper my creativity (since overall toned down feelings could potentially reduce my motivation to “express”), but in the past that wasn’t the case. I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case this time as well. 

When I started the “what do I like to do” question journey, something I would constantly tell myself is that it’s okay to not know. I wonder why I’m not able to tell that to myself when it comes to the gender question also? Gender is going to be such a complex thing, how can I possibly know in a month or two? I need to be open and patient with myself as I address this question. 

Of course, I might need a lot of help, from people who aren’t even in my universe yet, so I need to make actionable tasks for how I can possibly find this help, support and resources that I might need. 

If being alive is the ultimate creative act, maybe it’s okay to take my time as I figure out what I want “me” and “my life” to look like. 

But yes, I do feel some apathy towards my form which I’m obviously not very happy about. 

How to approach open questions sustainably, then, becomes an important question. 

When I had a lot of work stress I asked my manager if I could take a week off. Maybe right now I just need a week off from personal stuff. From everything. Maybe I just want a week off from thoughts and feelings. I suppose that’s okay too. Because survival over truth, at the moment. 

Yes, I think it makes sense to want rest, physical and mental. I’m just going to take it easy till Sunday. Do the bare minimum, and not push myself. Maybe focus on food and rejuvenation. 


Alright looks like we have a plan, onward!

074 – you have to write about the questions too

I don’t think enough writing can be done if your aim is to only write about the answers. I think you have to be open about the questions too, primarily because for someone like me, even the answers are found through writing. Of course, this is one of those times where the questions I’m seeking answers to are a little scarier than the ones that were present in my life over the last couple months. Questions like “Do I like to write as much as I think I do?”, “Can I make 10 original songs?”. Based on everything that’s happened this week, those questions are easy. Even “failure” in that aspect feels so easy to cope with. 

So what questions am I talking about then? 

This week, the questions have been: 

Q: Does the label woman not fit me well anymore? Could I benefit from labels like genderqueer or gender-fluid or nonbinary a little better? 

This one obviously came with a lot of grief. Realising how attached I was to this label was a revelation. Actually, it wasn’t a revelation. I knew I was quite attached to it. Growing up, I was quite often called a “tomboy” and I never actually liked the word. I don’t know why but I didn’t like being made feel “masculine” just because I liked to wear conventionally non-feminine clothes. So, then, feeling feminine and actually liking the label “woman” was a relief. If I liked the label, if I liked feeling feminine in my own ways, then clothes and presentation didn’t have to matter as much. I actually remember feeling quite happy when I got my first period. Despite all the crap it meant (ie monthly bleeding, cramps, PMS, etc etc), it made me feel great – like I finally belonged. 

I don’t know enough about how I feel about this label anymore, but I’m going to take this slow. It’s entirely possible that the label has served me well until now but it just doesn’t anymore. We’ll find out. 

I will be moving (or attempting to move) towards some detachment from it so that I can find out whether I’ve just been “tolerating” the label or whether I actually like it. 

Of course, it’s also worth keeping in mind that I may not want to think in terms of “man” or “woman” anymore. Currently, both words make me feel a bit icky. Which might be understandable because both words currently carry so much more within and around them. What a conventional man or woman looks like, their associated qualities, what society expects from each of these roles, etc etc. 

Why is this scary?— someone had asked me earlier. I think it’s only scary if I start thinking about the sexual identity aspect along with this as well. That is, 

Q: Do I not like my female body anymore? 

This one, I don’t think I want to explore just yet, not by myself. I want to understand how I feel, internally, before I start thinking about my form. After all, I am more than my form. I am more than body. Of course, I’m grateful for my body— it helps me sing, it helps me write, it helps me dance, it helps me paint, it helps me play instruments, it helps me smile, laugh, run, walk, sit, talk, eat, see, sense, etc. So, yes, I’m grateful for my body, and currently, acceptance and gratitude is all I can offer it. 

I wish I could tell you that writing about these questions makes me feel better. But the truth is, it only makes me feel a little better. So— then— there are some other questions that I think can help me cope with the heaviness of these ones, while I live and figure out the answers. 

Q: How do I comfort myself? 

I know I have people who love me, support me, are willing to talk to me about all this and that’s amazing and I’m incredibly grateful. But here’s the thing. Sometimes the hardest moments are just your own. You’re the only one who has to witness them, and you’re the only one who has to remind yourself that everything is passing. Compassion, music, kindness, self-love, I have to vocalise all this to comfort myself. I have to explicitly tell myself that I’m capable of finding my way out of this chaos, that I am capable of supporting all these confused, fearful, anxious parts of me as well. 

Q: How do I find joy and hope when I’m sitting in what feels like rock-bottom? 

Overlapping with the previous one, mostly. Went to a really nice concert last night and that really helped. It has in the past too. 

I remember April 2022, it had been over a month since I’d moved to Amsterdam. The housing market was proving to be super difficult and I was terribly anxious about not being able to find a place in the time-frames that I wanted. I was staying in my third hotel in less than 2 months, and I was about to enter a depression pit. But we had tickets to Peach Pit (one of my all-time favourite bands) and I put in all the effort to just GO. It was kind of the same last night. So I guess community events that are also aligned with my values and interests could be an important way. And of course, affirmations. We’ve made it this far, we can make it farther. 

Q: When do I feel powerful?

I don’t know where this came from exactly and power is not something I seek, but maybe so many feelings of of fragility, insecurity, weakness naturally beg this question. I think mostly, I feel powerful when I’m in awareness. Every time I can remind myself to come into awareness, whether it’s with positive daydreaming or even negative thought-spirals, coming into awareness can be an incredibly powerful and revolutionary act. Yesterday morning, it was after doing a “what am I feeling?” exercise, and turns out I was feeling a lot. So yeah, I think I feel powerful when I can be aware of everything I’m feeling or thinking and not let it consume me. It’s not about control, more about simply not being controlled by anything. 

073 – in repair (rambles)

 I’ve mostly recovered from the anxiety and panik by now. Back to my apartment and got to hang out with friends today evening. Also had therapy earlier in the morning which of course helped. 

I’d been feeling a lot of apathy towards my body over the last 2-3 days (post panik), because obviously it was a little too scary to get int touch with the potentially scary feelings. 

I’ve started relying on playing music almost as much as I used to rely on writing, so that’s a nice place to get to. I really think you make the best art when you need to. When you don’t have a choice except to make art. Obviously, it’s difficult to get to places like that and you don’t always want to be going there, maybe there’s a way to approach this a bit proactively. If I write and play everyday, maybe I won’t have to reach rock bottom at all. I don’t know, let’s see. 

Anyone who’s been following this blog for a while knows that I believe that combating shame around feelings is the most important thing to do when “coping” with said feelings. So I must admit that a large part of my panic was triggered by some gender incongruence— ie stemming from traditionally feminine roles— ie in this case: the thought of wearing dresses. I’ve never really liked wearing dresses that much (except very selectively) and looks like it’s become a non-negotiable for me now. I also don’t like super feminine makeup and I’m not going to force it on myself anymore. (There’s things I like and that’s all I like, period.) 

I’ve also been thinking about why society asks to keep our insecurities to ourselves. This has always been a pretty big question for me and I’ve always voiced this out, regardless of whether I’m going through tough phases or smooth phases. I know that the generic answer is “well because people won’t know how to respond to them and negative feelings can make other people uncomfortable”.. and while yes, there is maybe some appropriateness to keep in mind, I think this advice hurts a lot more than it helps. Some of my deepest connections have formed after sharing troubles. I mean, why ignore one of the only sure things in life? Human existence is painful. Why deny this? I don’t know.  

Also, I read something about how love is won through disciplined surrender.

Maybe people focus on the disciplined part of it too much and not the surrender part of it. Who knows. I guess everyone has their own versions of what this looks like. Which is fine, I guess. 

Anyway. Anxiety threatens to take over again right now so I must continue to write. I get the feeling that something is deeply wrong though I can’t quite put a finger on it. 

Alright, I did some rationalising and took a stoic-thinking-route (which I must keep private to my journals for now) and I’m feeling a little better. Yes, I do acknowledge that maybe I’m not ready to share all my worst fears yet but suffice to say that that they centre around fitting out and the troubles that come with non-conformity.

Feeling like I wanted to go on an art and music journey but I might have to go on a gender exploration journey instead. This somewhat stifled part of me has been throwing tantrums lately. Or I guess everything can happen parallely as well. 

Feeling a great need for breaks and recovery after doing mildly stressful things. Like a lesson with a slightly strict drums instructor. Sitting in a cafe now, trying out blueberry bubble tea for the first time. Let’s see how it ends up being. There’s Peach Pit playing here which makes me incredibly happy actually. Can’t find the right seating. Man, that’s like literally the only problem when it comes to working out of cafes. The right table ergonomics, the right amount of people, the right music, the right weather (I hate loud fans or super cold air conditioners). I know how this sounds, I know I probably sound very picky.. but I guess I am. But going home just doesn’t feel nice enough at the moment. Maybe I’ll just reply to texts etc instead. 

I’m trying to keep caffeine consumption to lower limits to hopefully reduce the anxiety.  

Some loud enthu kids just came and sat very close to where I’m sitting and now I don’t feel like I’ll be able to concentrate. This is what happened last time as well. Maybe I’ll just update my todo lists etc as well. Okay I did this and I feel sufficiently okay but I do need to go home and manage some of my lists again. I wonder if I need more organisations and/or planning wrt the things that I need to get done. Not sure about this. 

During the day I was of course attempting to affirm myself by telling myself “it’s enough”. Ie whatever I’m doing is enough and whatever pace I’m doing things at is also enough. But I guess hearing these kids talk about scheduling, batching, task management has currently triggered me as well. 

I guess part of everything is also realising that if I do want to prioritise creative projects that are highly personal, it is going to be a little lonely. And of course I am pretty decent at working on projects by myself, it’s still hard to feel like you’re doing life alone, in some ways. 

I guess this was a pretty rambly piece. My apologies, dear readers. I’m working on a couple long-form pieces to bring to you as well, hopefully soon. 

069a – passive writing, intentions for the week

I want to sleep before 4am today. Because I really want to wake up before noon tomorrow. Which means writing a word-vomit now, doing some reading and then literally just switching off the lights by 3:45am. Had some friends over today and realised I really care about them. One of them I was meeting after more than 6 months and he’s been going through a bit of tough time. Him getting me upto speed is when I realised how much I really felt for him. 

I’ve been a bit triggered about lacking a romantic relationship over the last couple days so today was a bit of grieving the last person I dated. I thought I was mostly over them but today brought some new (old) inner feelings out, I guess. It’s been over a month since we ended things and I expected this much time to be enough for me to grieve. But maybe I need a few weeks more. 

I’ve decided to purchase an electric and a semi-acoustic guitar soon but the research part of the purchases is not very fun. 

I think I definitely want to complete 2 more songs before the end of this year. That’s doable, I think. 

I haven’t taken a flight in a while. I think I’m missing the feeling. Even though flights and travel give me some anxiety, I think even WITH the anxiety, the overall feeling is nice and interesting. Maybe I’ll go somewhere early December.
I guess I used to think the net feeling in a moment is the “sum” of your positive and negative feelings but I think it’s not really that. It’s not [happiness minus anxiety = less happiness]. It’s just (happiness, anxiety). This is actually quite interesting to me. (#epiphanies)

This word-vomit is slow because I keep getting distracted. I’m really tired today though I don’t know why. I’ve slept enough and I didn’t do much. Maybe it’s just that. I didn’t do anything refreshing.

Do I really not have any thoughts at the moment? How is that possible?

I have many tasks to do this week, most of which I’m not looking forward to. So, then, what am I looking forward to, if not those tasks? How can I make this week a bit nice? There’s an open-mic I could sign up for potentially, but I don’t know what songs I’d want to sing. Okay yes, I think I can do this. It’s a task that’s the right amount of challenging, plus it’ll also be nice to move towards my medium-term goal of doing ten open-mics by the mid of next year. It’s also at this queer/mixer event type thing so it could potentially be nice to meet some new people, and I’ve been meaning to find ways to do that anyway.

I want to get back to 1000-word posts because I think more stuff comes out when you write 1000-word posts as opposed to shorter ones, so yeah– that’s something I’ll probably start doing soon. I’ve also decided I’m not switching to substack until I’ve written 10-long posts/essays that I’m actually satisfied with (where the satisfaction rating is at least a 7/10). Alright, these conclusions feel good. 

062b – grief is not generous

Everything feels a little different now. The news of Matthew Perry’s death is hitting hard. I read the news in the morning and went back to sleep, hoping I’d wake up to a different reality. 

I rarely feel this way about celebrity deaths (Matt Haig states the same sentiment in one of his very fresh posts). In fact he’s already expressed some of the things I’m feeling today / right now so maybe this is repetitive to anyone’s who’s reading this. But it doesn’t matter. 

I rarely feel this way about celebrity deaths but maybe Friends was different. Even when I’d made real, made-to-last friendship bonds, Friends was still precious. Our friendships deepened over long character and episode discussions and many, many rewatches of them. 

In school, I’d relate to Chandler a lot. 

This May, I saw the reunion movie (after a long break from the series) on a flight to Bangalore, which I was on to visit my college friends, after a sufficiently long gap. I told them when I met them how fitting it was that we (well, most of us anyway) were all obsessed with this show during college and now here I was watching the reunion movie almost a decade later since we first became friends.

It’s all a lot. 

I know a lot of people I know are feeling a lot. But I don’t know why that’s not making any of this easier. 

I suppose grief has a way of taking all your attention, all your resources. Grief is not generous, I’m realising. 

There’s also other contexts of the world (or our own personal lives, in many cases) that we cannot ignore. But we must grieve each story, each loss: whether we do it individually or separately is upto the feeler of said feelings.  

Or maybe “big specific deaths” also bring into focus the fragility of life. You get tense about the things you haven’t done, the stories you haven’t told, the people you haven’t spent enough time with, the grudges you haven’t let go of yet, the nice things you haven’t said to the people you want to appreciate, all of that. And yet, will you change? Will you take the courage to do even a little bit of everything you haven’t done? I’m going to do it. I’m going to write love-letters (or e-mails) to all the important people in my life today. Or at least, as many as I can. 

October seems like it’s becoming the season of goodbyes. 

Wake me up when October ends, I think? 

061b – on the long-term goal of healing and being more well-adjusted

Sometimes all you need (or want) is for someone to tell you “It’ll all be okay”. I’ve been feeling pretty shitty since the last couple days, but just now as I reached this conclusion, I do feel better. Like yes, I know from past experience that things do work out and things do feel okay, eventually, even if that “okayness” doesn’t come in the form you might have thought it will. 

Even though I’ve tried to be more action-oriented over the week, I still have this feeling that I’ve been spending way too much time in my head, I don’t know how to describe it exactly. 

Went for a poetry workshop/slam type thing yesterday and I feel like that really ended up overstimulating/overwhelming me. (It was great! And met some really cool people! So) Very fulfilling, but yeah I feel like these kind of events can end up becoming heavy sometimes. Especially if I already had too many feelings going into the thing. 

I think I’m still adjusting and getting comfortable with “Delhi”. I’d started feeling gloomy randomly around 6pm yesterday when I realised it was dark already and that it must be getting kind of cold outside (it’s started to get a bit chilly here). So, yeah, I think the adjustment can be a pain. No, it’s most definitely a pain. 

I think I’m at a decent state with the nicotine addiction now. It’s been a month and although I’ve had a couple slips, they didn’t end up being relapses, and I feel like mentally, I’m still okay with the concept, don’t feel the urges as often, and can mostly remind myself that I would hate to relapse— so, let’s not. 

But because life is still incredibly hard and I feel far away from being a self-adjusted individual, I know I need to seriously start thinking about which addiction to tackle next: ie my unhealthy sleeping habits, “thinking”, or caffeine. Sleep has definitely made life hell over the last couple days so ideally I should focus on this, even if it’s not fully resolved, if I can even make it a little better for the “short-term”, that could be nice. The other motivation to want to do this is that with the onset of actual winters, getting enough sun will not be easy, so needing a good sleep schedule will become extra important.

The lack of a “job” has started to feel a little heavy this week. But I feel like that’s just the resistance showing up, because this week has been mostly feeling a lot more motivated about spending time on creative work. And although I don’t deny that I’d want to find a day-job sometime next year as well, I don’t know why my brain wants me to “urgently” worry about it, when there’s no need to. So yeah, I think that’s the resistance. (“Resistance” as described in “Do The Work”)

Anyway, writing this down was nice and helpful. Hope your weekend starts off better than mine!