Day 152 - Being a Leader

 

This is a continuation of this blog here 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to establish for myself who I am as a leader and what the implications / responsibilities are of becoming a leader in my relationship to self and others.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see the potential of leadership within myself and that I believed it’s not who I am and instead doubted myself and limited myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the idea that a leader has to do everything and to believe that I was the most effective person when it came to farm activities and by that logic I should be the one who does everything, always and so did not ‘empower’ others equally to learn/walk as I did and so put in equal effort into/as what we do together.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that by doing everything all the time I do not give others the opportunity to learn new things like I did, thus not giving them the chance to expand themselves and become more effective by doing as I did

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not assist/support others to become equal to me within the same process I have walked to stand in the position that I was standing so we would actually be able to do more things, more effectively and more efficiently by standing as equals.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that a group of effective people are more effective than one effective person, that by teaching others to become effective at a task - although it would get done slower - eventually there will be two/more effective people and then tasks will get done more effectively.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that since I am the most effective person to get a certain task done faster than others that I should be the one to always do it - within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the idea and belief that because there is so much to do I must be in a rush and finish the tasks faster to get to the other one. Not seeing, realizing and understanding how I burdened myself more and more with ALL the tasks, instead of delegating, directing and dispersing responsibility to all

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that when I am in a hurry and rushing through tasks to get to the other task I am not here in the moment, but in my mind in the future and within this I will tend to make more mistakes by not being here in the moment as well as missing out on the world around me.

I commit myself to give others the opportunity to go through the same learning process that I did to be where I am and to realize that two effective beings are more effective than one, and to within this challenge myself to actually learn from others as well -as they may have input/perspectives that I may not have considered.

I commit myself to realize that a leader has the responsibility to stand, teach, assist and support others to become equal with him/her within the same process he/she have walked to stand in the position that she/she was standing and thus create more leaders

I commit myself to stop doubting myself and realize the potential I have and trust myself to fully realize and apply and become it.

I commit myself to stop the belief that I must do everything and must do it fast and be in a rush just to get everything done, instead I realize the effective way of doing something is do the task one by one, fully committing to my current task - breathing and being here in the physical, patient - and only when it’s done move on to the next so that I am here in everyone and not projecting myself in the future

Day151 - The Idea Of Leadership

 

I have thus far written about my experience of being a leader – or, shall I say, more my idea of leadership. Here I am going to write about what I believed  leadership to be, my idea of leadership and how it determined my behavior, as well as the consequences an Idea of leadership in my mind created in my relationship to my physical body and my life experience in this real world. Essentially, showing how an idea of something, when not cross-referenced in one’s relationship to self, the physical body and this world – can create/manifest consequences for oneself.

As I now look back - my first mistake was not defining leadership and what it actually means, practically. I simply dived right in not being ready or preparing myself for it - I did not direct myself effectively, in terms of actually establishing for myself ‘who am I’ as a leader, and what are the implications / responsibilities of becoming a leader in my relationship to self and others. 

When I got to the farm and started doing tasks, I did not see myself as a leader. It was first only me and LJ and we both worked together. I remember one of our neighbors who helped us out with the basics, like how to operate a tractor slasher(its a machine that attaches to a tractor and cuts grass) and others things we did not yet know how to do. In a conversation he said to me that he knows I will be the one directing things around the farm in terms of tasks and showing people what to do and how to do things. I laughed at first, because I did not see myself doing that. So, he must have noticed something in me that I have not yet recognized/seen/realized for myself.

Sometime Later as more people came to visit and stayed, wanting to help out and participate around the farm to learn new things - I noticed that I was indeed the one people came to for advice, and I was directing tasks. I was not alone in this, because if I got stuck I asked others for assistance like Bernard who basically knew how to do everything, practically. I wanted to be like that - to know what to do. To be able to solve problems in the most sufficient and practical method. This was a challenge for me that I enjoyed, solving problems – but not only solving them, finding/establishing the most easy, efficient, direct and practical way to do them. My mind tended to really complicate situations, lol but when the practical solutions was shown – it was actually SO SIMPLE. So, from that perspective I liked doing these jobs, figuring things out, challenging myself from complexity to simplicity, practicality.

In time, I learned through assistance given and trial and error. I wanted to be the first person to do something new. For example how to lay down a concrete floor. None of us have ever done it before so the first thing was to know the mix - the amount of sand, stone, concrete and water required and how to mix it properly. I wanted to learn it first, because that is what a leader does - to be able to show others how to do something you should be able to do it yourself first so that you know what to do. So, with most things - I did things first to learn and then showed others. 

My idea of being a leader back then was to be able to do everything and show others how to do it. To be able to direct people effectively as well as motivate others. I also believed that I was the most effective person when it came with farm activities and by that logic I should be the one who does everything. That was a mistake, because in that I did not give others the opportunity to learn all new things. I did show them some things that even if they made mistakes it would not be big. Tasks like leveling a block of wet cement to make it smooth and shape it perfect level for a floor I did myself, because I feared if they made mistakes and the concrete dried it can’t be fixed again.  Also since I knew how to do things - because I have done it so many times - I did it faster. Another idea of leadership I had was to get things done fast and since I was the most effective I could get things done fast and did not give others the opportunity even though there was no real rush. I created the rush, the belief that tasks must be done fast to get to the other task. There was always so much to do I wanted to get to everything at once not even giving myself a proper break some days.

So, what as ‘cool’ was the point of getting to know something and showing others, directing others effectively and motivating them and that in that context I was at that stage the most effective person. But, the ‘mistakes’ were in regards to me not showing others how to get to know something, me not showing others how to DIRECT THEMSELVES effectively, me not showing others how to become the most effective person within specific tasks – so, I took it all onto me, and me alone, and did not assist/support others to become equal to me within the same process I have walked to stand in the position that I was standing. And so we would have all, in fact, become more effective in various responsibilities with equalizing our skills/learning from each other.

Eventually I realized that I cannot do everything myself and then delegated and gave others an opportunity to learn, but I should have done that in the beginning.

If I could go back I would give myself one thing - patience. To go tell myself to relax and Slow Down. To realize how I got to be effective - others showed me and I learned by doing a task myself and there was always somebody that could assist me if I got stuck. And then give that opportunity for others. Being a leader does not mean to know how to do everything and to be the best at it FOR ONLY YOU, it’s about acquiring the skills and knowl edge and to equally pass it on, doing one’s best in the process of acquiring skills/knowledge – I mean, ‘giving it your all’, because that’s your self expression, but to also ‘give it your all’ for each one, as oneself, to establish that ‘self leadership’ within self and a particular task. It is to be able to teach what you know and what you have done yourself and thus certain what works and what doesn't. Being a Leader is not to have followers, but to be able to teach others how to become a leader as well.

I later realized that I was not in fact the most effective at doing everything. For example I remember Andrew came for a visit and he was interested in wood work - making tables and cutting slats. Once he got started he was amazing and really good at it – a lot better than I was even though I have done it for a long while. And so I looked who was the most effective where and directed people according to that. 

I had a warped idea of what it means to be a leader and made a lot mistakes on the way. Eventually it became natural to me - people came with questions and I mostly had answers, but as you have read in my previous blogs I was still allowing stress and impatience to direct me. Right now for the last few months, because of my Grave’s Disease I am no longer able to do any physical activities so I had a break, so to speak. And it’s pretty cool, because I can now see what I have done and how I lived and prepare myself to walk anew with the realizations I’ve had in relation to the past.

Day 150 - Listening to my body

 

Listening to my body was a new thing to me, when I was introduced to walking Process.

When I was younger, still in school and got sick - I usually did not let it affect me, especially on holidays. I was once diagnosed with bronchitis and a throat infection when I was on a holiday, but I did not let it slow me down - I still went swimming in the ocean that was ice cold and partying etc. Looking at it now it was probably  a very bad idea, as there are so many variables involved with regards to how quickly it could have actually gotten worse, so I was actually ‘lucky’ that it didn’t with tempting fate in such a way. I should have listened to my body which told me I am sick and need to take it easy.

Another experience I had when I did not listen to my body was on a very hot summer day in the field. We were busy burning branches and weeds in the field and started pretty early. We had a big pile to burn so what I did was taking a few branches at a time and placed them on the fire. I could feel myself getting really warm - the fire itself was very hot and the sun was hot. I would get very thirsty and ask someone to go fetch me some water every now and then - I did not want to leave the others helping, alone with the fire.

I started to get tired from the heat and dehydrated. What I should have done was get one of the guys to stay with the fire while I went back to the house for a break and water, but I was stubborn and did not listen to my body. Since I was the one directing things with the fire i did not want to leave it - even though the other guys there helping me was more than capable to attend the fire. I believed that if I leave the fire something might go wrong and the fire will burn down the fields. So, in my stubbornness – I created this ‘position’ for myself in relation to everyone else, and wanted to hold that position in my Mind. Not wanting to admit that the others would in fact be alright with the fire, because that would mean that it would challenge the idea/position of myself I held in my mind in relation to the responsibility. And so, I did not want to challenge my ‘idea’ of myself and so justified why ‘I had to stay’ and not listen to/tend to my body/myself.

As the day went by I was actually getting a bit dizzy and muscles aching and legs hurting and getting exhausted, but I did not listen to my body and did what I always did - continue what I am doing regardless of what I feel almost a ''mind over matter'' kind of thing. I would say this was one of the first times where I actually pushed myself to the limit - even though it was completely unnecessary for me to do so, since the other guys could have handle it easily. But I was the ''leader'' and believed that if I left it wouldn’t be a good example of being a leader so I believed that I should be strong and continue. So, this is another point that I will open up in my posts, the IDEA I created about ‘leadership’ and what that means and then what it actually in fact mean in considering self and one’s relationship to others. Because in my mind, ‘to lead’ meant to more consider/regard OTHERS more than myself/my relationship to them and so I actually sabotaged myself more than in fact ‘stand as an living example’.

Eventually we were done for day (after putting out the fire by carrying 20 liter watering cans up and down the river). I went to go sit down being satisfied with the day’s accomplishments. Now the body is a wonderful thing - it reveals consequences and not always immediately. In my case it started at night. I was still exhausted, but something was very different. It started with a little head ache, then a little nausea followed by dizziness. Soon after it escalated and I felt as if my head was going to explode - the pain got very bad and so did the nausea. I managed to walk to Sunette and others on the farm and we soon realized I had a bad case of HEATSROKE.

My head was exploding along with my stomach and I was throwing up and not having a very good time. The others helped me out as well as the physical body with the necessary medications/rehydration’s and eventually after a while I started to get better. There I learnt the importance of the physical / my body. That I really should consider my body in what I am doing, but unfortunately i did not fully grasp what that actually meant yet - only that I will never push my body like that. Since that day I could not handle very hot days as well as I did before.  

If I look at it now i completely disregarded my body and what it was telling me and instead I used the Mind to create the idea that all I have to do is believe I can make it and I will. I must just push and fight through what I am feeling and my body will be fine. Within this seeing the mind as superior over the body and the mind as MORE real. This is not so. The reality here was my body telling me to sloooooow doooooown and me believing the mind to be better than the body. And the consequence was a nice case of the heatstrokes.

Day 149 - Feeling Constantly, Gravely Tired

 

When the hyperthyroidism effects started showing – a side-effect thereof was tiredness. At that time,  I was not yet aware of having Hyperthyroidism. However, because I was in this Internal Mind-Battle against my fear of failure/failing and I was pushing and pushing and pushing myself to not fail but remain disciplined, I connected the tiredness my physical body was experiencing, and tiredness in-itself to my internal battle. Because throughout my life, whenever I was tired – I would usually have used it to justify me more giving into the tiredness and not tend to responsibilities/tasks which contributed to me becoming and accepting and allowing my Laziness. And then when I started deciding to discipline myself more – I changed my definition to tiredness in using it to motivate me to push myself more, so every time I would get tired – it would activate me to become more disciplined. However, this time – the tiredness was “real” in terms of it actually being a side-effect of the hyperthyroidism. But, because I within and throughout my life – connected tiredness to mind definitions and polarities, and so never in fact had a relationship with my actual physical body, I THOUGHT in my Mind the tiredness was me not being effective enough in my inner-battle between laziness and discipline. And so here is an interesting point, regarding how much or how little we in fact KNOW our own physical bodies with the extent to which we participate and exist in the MIND.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself when I started feeling tired all the time, to believe that I am doing something wrong based on the mind-relationship I created towards tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe myself as not being effective anymore - because no matter what i did I could not stop the tiredness I was feeling.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the tiredness - because I believed it was something out of my control - that I could do nothing about it - and that it is something more than me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of me being tired all the time and that it is something that I should hide from others, because I accepted and allowed myself to in my mind define/judge tiredness as ‘weak’ so that I could empower my opposite experience as being ‘strong’. So, what I would do is judge tiredness as weak – but that part of me that judged tiredness as weak, was my Ego using tiredness as weakness so that in/as my Ego it could make itself ‘strong’ with not going into tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will judge me, because of me being tired all the time and thus i must act tough as though i am not tired even though i was

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to ask for assistance from anyone, but to instead try get through this all by myself and this struggle unnecessarily just because i feared being judged and losing the self image I had of myself being a strong leader and believed that me being tired all the time is a sign of weakness

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that my internal battle of constantly fighting with myself and all the reactions and backchats eventually placed too much stress on my body, because I did not direct it effectively and so contributed even MORE to what the physical body was going through in terms of the hyperthyroidism that I didn’t realize at that stage was manifesting, because I was too busy in my Mind

I commit myself to stop judging myself when I struggle with something and i commit myself to ask for assistance when I do my best at something and still struggle so that I do not struggle unnecessarily as I see, realize and understand that one cannot walk through life alone, and asking for assistance and support when I know that I have done everything I could and still can’t stand within a point – is not a sign of weakness, but the simple common sense of the fact that I do NOT KNOW everything, and only Ego would believe so and asking for assistance and support would in fact strengthen me and so another, as I would actually then LEARN from others and others would learn from me and so we grow/expand/develop through assisting and supporting ourselves and each other

I commit myself to stop the belief that being tired is a sign of weakness, being ‘tired’ is a physical experience in the sense that – when/as one do not have enough sleep or overwork the body, that is practical-reality physical tiredness, based on actual reality correlations / experiences. And so, I commit myself to assist and support me to always cross-reference reality with the physical body – for example, if/as I have not over an extended period of time overworked the body / slept too little and the tiredness persist and I can find no practical reality relationship that caused the tiredness: to immediately ask / consult a medical practitioner.

I commit myself to stop the fear of others judging me and realize that what i am going through is my process and ultimately is not their judgement that i fear - it is me judging myself.

Day 148 Facing Something New

 

Facing something new - anything that I have not yet done and don't know how to do that brings in an experience of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see new challenges and new points that bring uncertainty as being bad and something to fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when facing uncertainty to go into fear that I would not know what to do and fail

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I would screw up in this task, because I have not done it before and thus don’t know if I am able to do it

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that there is no way that I will know if I will fail with something unless I have given it my all

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as not good enough when facing a new point

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that I have faced new points in the past where I was uncertain and regardless of that I pushed through and moved past it and learned that it was not so bad and learned new things

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that if I see myself as not good enough for this new task at hand and fear that I would fail – I set myself up to fail – where I would create a pattern and face this new task with the starting point of ‘’I am going to fail’’ and then create that failure, instead of facing the task head on and giving it my best

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to give myself a chance when facing a new task – to embrace this new challenge and see it as an opportunity to learn something new about myself and this particular task.

I commit myself to stop seeing new challenges and new points as bad and something to fear, instead I see it as an opportunity to expand myself and learn something new about myself

I commit myself  stop going into fear of failure when facing a new task, instead I breathe and realize that I have faced many new points and uncertainty and regardless of it I pushed through and did it as saw it was not as bad as I made it out to be

I commit myself to stop the belief and idea that if I do not know how to do something it means I cannot and judge myself as not good enough for it. Instead I realize that I did not know how to do many things I do now – and I know now, because I taught myself how and learnt from others and it is like this with many points. Thus when faced with new points I simply do not know how to do it…..yet.

Day 147 - I Have Graves Disease

 

I did the blood test and went to the doctor for my 6 weekly checkup to see how my body is responding to the medicine and my thyroid. The results came in and showed that the hormone levels are stabilizing, but not yet to where we want it. It also confirmed the cause of my hyperthyroidism - Graves Disease.

So we discussed the next step and goals for the future an d what options i have. The options I have are taking RadioactiveIodine pills. The thyroid is the only organ than absorbs iodine so with the pills being radioactive it kills part of the thyroid. The risks here are that it could completely kill my thyroid and  i would have to be on thyroid pills for the rest of my life - not an option i would want to take.

Another option is surgery - removing the poor thing. Taking out the thyroid/part of it. it leaves you with a sexy scar on your neck and may cause your voice to become hoarse and also has the risk of needing thyroid medication for the rest of your life.

The last option and my personal favorite is continue the medication I have that blocks the thyroid. Initially i had to take quite allot of pills, but now I can take allot less. This continues for 6 weeks then i do another blood test to check what my thyroid is doing and from there adjust the medication until we find a balance. Then after a year or two I go off it and see if my body stopped attacking my thyroid.

Graves Disease is an autoimmune disease where the body starts attacking/fighting itself in this case the thyroid. This causes the thyroid to start overproducing and become overactive. As to why the body suddenly decides to see the thyroid as a threat the medical industry does not know - it happens. I was disappointed and a bit 'gatvol' when i heard the news, but i was not surprised. I have always been unlucky - on the farm there actually a name for it '' the curse of the fidelis''. But instead of being sensitive about this ill am sensible. The results I got means I am improving and that I am getting somewhere. I feel allot better physically than I did 6 weeks ago and im not a skeleton anymore. I also got some of my strength back - I carried a 30 kg bag all by myself, although it felt like I was carrying a 50kg cement bag.

So there the update on what is currently happening in my life and the possible future that lays before me. What i find interesting is that we chose to write about me always fighting myself - lol - and today I hear my body is fighting itself, because of Graves disease.

Day 146 - Fear of Dying of Disease

 

When my body first started giving me problems i did not think it was a disease - i thought it was probably something im eating. I come from a line of bad genetics - bad teeth, cancer, asthma to name a few. It was only when i went to go see doctors about my body that i started to worry that the sins of my fathers will be laid upon  me so to speak - that I actually just might have a disease.

When i told the doctors the symptoms they asked me if there is cancer is the family and i would think to myself "" O shit, I might just have it"". It started to dawn on me that I just might die from some horrible disease. Yeay for me.

The doctors named a few sicknesses that it might be and it was some real scary sh it. That a tiny being in your body that kills you - having death inside of you and nothing you can do about it. You never think or believe that it will happen to you until it does - that you might actually die - this was the worse case scenario anyway.

I have experience death and loss a few times in my life, but never that i might die .The realization hit me and it was a different exp erience of myself - death. Where my body stop functioning and ends, returns to the earth. At first I was a bit shocked and feared it - this is something I have not faced on a personal level yet and I am not ready, then I was a bit angry at myself because if I die and thought what about my responsibilities here? What about all the things i still need to do? i wont be able to tend to them. Then I got sad, because I unfortunately know what loss feels like - to loose someone to death and others around me will experience it if I go, It is sad.

I told myself I would fight it and not give up, that I will not allow myself to die, lol. But then I realized that if it is really my time to go then its my time - everybody will die eventually. And that it is nothing to fear - there is no reason to fear death. I got a bit excited - a new experience. It was not a point of giving up - I would do to the best of my ability, but death is not something you fight, otherwise we go down the road of fighting yourself again. (This is different to each persons process, i am writing about my own here).

On Wednesday I have another appointment with my doctor - a checkup to see what my thyroid is doing is if the medication is working effectively. And on Monday i first need to do another blood test to check my thyroid hormone levels. 

Day 145 - Sensitivity to Sensibility

 

I am a sensitive person. Being a sensitive personality and character is what i have accepted myself to be. I am sensitive to pain - small things like scratches and especially pimple squeezing is quite painful for me. You can say i have low pain threshold. Interestingly when it comes to big pains like going fast downhill on a skateboard and loosing balance falling off and rolling and skidding on a tar road getting some serious road rash - I can handle.

I’ have also been sensitive to emotions and  feeling my whole life - I easily got affected. Also with conflict situations, because i was so sensitive towards it I would avoid it because I could not handle it.

This is a accepted behavior that I have made part of my life, but if I am allowing myself to be easily affected my situations and directed by it then I am not the directive principle in my life. I must be able to stand in every and all situations and not be affected or afflicted or directed by it. I must be the directive principle and not be sensitive, but be sensible. Sensitivity to sensibility.

I am not talking about being a ''macho man'' or masculinity. I am talking  Facing any and all points that come my way. Not giving into fear, but facing it head on no matter what. Real Strength is standing no matter what. And that is a difficult concept, because we get easily side tracked. It requires going against your own beliefs and perceptions and idea of yourself. It is so much easier to belief that I lack the power to do this - that I am not strong enough. But i am the one who created that idea of myself in the first place.

Sensitivity to sensibility

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be a sensitive person

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create within myself and participate in the sensitive character.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to so easily be affected by situations and not be able to handle myself well

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid conflict situations, because I  believe myself to be too sensitive to handle it

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the idea and belief that I am a sensitive person and thus be directed by emotions and feelings and situations and thus not able to stand strong

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I lack the power and strength to stand in any and all situations not realizing that i am the one who created this belief despite everything that i have overcome thus far that proves i have the strength

I commit myself to stop being sensitive, instead I go from sensitivity to sensibility

I commit myself to stop the belief that I lack the strength and power to stand no matter what. instead i realize that I had the power all along and the proof is in all the times i did stand and overcame situations I thought never possible.

I commit myself to realize that although there are new challenges that come my way that may seem like it is bigger and tougher and too much  for me to handle - they are not. I stand and breathe through trusting that I am able and have the strength to move past it - this can only make me stronger.

I commit myself to stop being so ''thin skinned'', but instead give myself the skin of a rhino to be able to handle any situation.

i commit myself to when i am in a situation and react to it in a sensitive way. I stop and breath and be sensible - be aware of what I am doing and not allow myself to be directed by feelings emotions or situations, but instead i direct it

My own Personal Fight Club

 

In my previous blogs The main point was me fighting myself all the time - the polarity between being lazy and being disciplined and how I believed the only way to get disciplined from being lazy is to force it and fight myself - this is not the way to do it, there is no need.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see how I created a polarity between being lazy and disciplined - and in that reacted to me being lazy and used that to fuel myself to become disciplined

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize how I used energy to fuel my motivation in order to be disciplined in order to be leaser, instead of it being a natural living expression or who I am

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that change is difficult and must be forced and that the only to do so is with energy as thoughts, backchat and reactions from my mind to change who I am - not realizing that doing so I come from the mind. Doing this I only in my mind - from a lazy/negative energy to  discipline/positive energy and within this not really changing who I am.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that although change is walked through resistance it does mean I need to fight through it/have a internal revolution -  I used force/energy to try and me what I have done is use energy against energy, raging a war against myself, and internal battle and thus making change  difficult for myself by creating more inner conflict

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize and understand how to use physical breath - which is a real physical force that is gentle strong and direct. that it is pointless to fight myself and use energy to fight energy - adding more fire to the fuel and instead  using breath to simply not participate in the energy. By simply continuing in whatever I am doing physically moving myself while breathing and not participate in the mind.

Fighting with Myself - Leadership

 

One of the points that came up was fighting with myself within being in a leadership role. How i was in the beginning a person with no leadership skills and quite lazy to diving right into the role of being a leader and my idea of what i leader is or should be.

Before I came to the farm I was a lazy person. In school I did the least possible and generally stayed away from doing allot of work.

When I first came to the farm I did not know what to expect. We saw that there was quite a bit of work needed to be done and got started on it right away. Now there is me, my whole life trying to avoid any kind of work, now facing it head on. Understand that I looked forward to it, but faced allot of resistance when I started.

The first thing we did on the farm was unpacking everything. There was some heavy lifting involved. I don’t know if any of you ever moved to a new place, but the new farm was quite exciting so unpacking everything and settling in was fun. I did not feel like doing the work, but did it anyway.

At that time there were only 2 able bodied guys. LJ and I. I was the oldest so I took it upon myself, or more I believed I should take it upon myself to take the responsibility of being a ‘’leader’’. I did not have any idea what that means, I just dived right in.

I noticed that people would come to me when needing some advice on a particular task and I felt important within it. I believed it important to be in a leader position.  I defined myself as a leader, and to be a leader Is to have discipline and not be lazy. So I believed that I should fight myself, my laziness to keep it from creeping up on me and hinder my definition of being a leader.

Every time when I am faced with a feeling of resistance - I would fight it. The thoughts that would come up is: can’t give up, can’t give in, must push. I experienced it as a feeling creeping up bringing me down and that I would fight it to stop it

And I fought, hard. Eventually on some of the points it became natural, I changed. Where I no longer needed to fight myself. I was disciplined within myself in tasks. There were still some points I fought myself with.

 

What is interesting is that within all this my experience of myself was like me being hyper all the time, placing myself in hyperdrive in order to do everything believing it was the only way to get things done, but its not. Pushing through resistance does not mean fighting it - because the resistance is me and thus pointless to fight myself. I have been slowing myself down the past few weeks and breathing and stopped the endless fight with myself.