Educ-cationally

The relationship I have with myself is one in which my body, mind and spirit interact with each other. I recognize that I am my body, I do live in it forever, I do know that I have the responsibility to take care of it, and that if I treat it right, my body always is going to be grateful. My mind is moving constantly, besides I still manage to organize it, keep it wide open, to let whatever is harmful out, and welcome new possibilities. My spirit is strong, helps me heal, as if about blood cells we could talk, my spirit will help my body remove whatever that does not belong.

One could think that I should accept the three parts of me, unconditionally. I might ask, do I trust them? Do I believe in them? Well, honestly there is a long way to go and there is still a lot of climbing left.

I need to accept that I cannot achieve my goals if I am constantly working alone. Teaming up, building the community, participating with others. All of it is absolutely necessary.

The same should be with myself. Let me explain, if my body, mind and soul are all capable of changing, becoming better. Also all of them interact, and basically are one itself, acknowledging that one cannot exist without the other. Then, them working together should be a given. It must be a rule. In what way? building them up is not possible if it is done separately. A connection should be made, which is only achievable if one recognizes the other, trusts it and dialogues with it. To finally, be able to move up by bringing them together, no one is left behind.

You could make that relationship with the most dearest people in your life. You do not want to be on the top, with all the richest and know your family is suffering without being able to do something about it. You would not want to visit a friend and feel pity of them. You do not want to leave the love of your life because he does not have the means as you do. If I am on top, I want to bring everybody with me. Build a community, team up because it is not me carrying or me being held. No, it is everyone working together to achieve an objective.

If my siblings fail a test, make mistakes, even whem I am really upset, I will always feel love towards them, not because I have to but because I know they just are worthy of it.

The simple fact of being born a human makes you worthy.

I should treat myself the same way I treat other, I need to consider myself worthy of love.

I used to accept that even though I could not tell if I loved myself, I was living with the fact that I had to still stablish a convivence relationship with my own self. Because I still have to eat for me, learn for me, and basically look at me every single day, so why at least not be livable.

Now I think in a different way, it is not enough to just tolerate myself. Not only I must accept that I think in some way, but I also have to embrace it. I need to be able to love myself no matter what, and bring kindness everywhere I go.

My intention today is: Take all the love I am able to give everyone else, and give it to me as well. Love is actually an inexhaustible resource

These days I have been learning that we are not subjective about ourselves, we cannot be. I mean, how are we supposed to, we cannot even tell how we look, we look down and we see something, we look in the mirror and it is different, and then, and then...

We are actually not subjective about anything that has to do with ourselves. We could not be sure even if we wanted to.

Now, what about the way we see the strengths we have. Do I underestimate it or do I overestimate my abilities?

There is no really a way to tell by myself. They will have to be proven in reality, they cannot be hidden talents, no for myself, no for the people that could consider that ability an object of study.

At first, when I think about the things I am good at, and the times I have failed doing them. Most of the times the best I can do is keep practicing and trying, until I become better.

But there are things I am not so sure that I am good at them.

I keep missing some important point, I keep making a lot of mistakes, I find myself unable of changing my behaviors, I create my own failure circle. I feel that my weaknesses are stronger every time, and it becomes really difficult for me to get back on track.

This relationship with myself keeps hurting my feelings. Me who has to live with myself forever. Me who will never be objective towards myself alone because I am within me. How could I keep hurting my feelings? Why cannot I simply be unconditional towards myself. Even indulge into the good emotions. But the actual good emotions. Feeling free of guilt, feeling free of worries, feeling hope and feeling able to act towards my goals.

So this will be a call on this journey, to accept myself, get to know me and do not isolate.

During the past week I had time to reflect on mindfulness, why do I need or why do aspire to be present fully in any given moment of my life.

It is, specially, because if I do not live my life myself, nobody is going to come and do it.

I only have this moment, of all of the universe´s existence, I got to be in this present moment, it is so valuable that the only way I have to honor that fact is to enjoy and make use of any minute, by sensing it through my body and being present with my mind.

This time I am going to make a relationship between the words intention, awareness and consciousness. This relationship will be mediated by the purpose of becoming a better student and therefore a better practitioner.

I will try to understand the differences of these words by getting their meanings from de dictionary.

First, intention. I took two definitions from the dictionary. First as a concept, it is the product of attention directed to an object of knowledge. And as a resolution, it is a determination to act in a certain way.

Then we have awareness, knowledge and understanding that something is happening or exists.

And finally, consciousness.  Defined by the Merriam Webster as the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself. And going further: the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes

So, I could say that I am aware that I need to be a better student, I know that my study is important, because I will gain knowledge and be able to apply it, because my family needs me to be an example, and also it will be useful for the development of a better world to live in. I understand the fact that many things depend on it and that I am the one who has to do it.

Now, I can say that since I know now that I need to be a good student, and the reasons for it. I am directing my attention to that knowledge. Now I will resolve to do all my practice exercises in the best way possible. Then my intention will be to become a better student.

After that, now that I am aware of this necessity, have the intention to become better. My mentality to become so will be better, since I am not doing this with no purpose or reason. I am instead, on a mission because of it depends many things. I am conscious as a quality because I am at this moment, aware of my intentions, so now I can act on them, my actions directed towards them that will make me act and think purposefully in my way to inject my study with respect, love and autonomy.

If I think about something that made me struggle this week, maybe college can come yo mind. But it is more personal, maybe it is about my clothes hanging around my room, maybe it is about how difficult it is to order my sleep schedule, maybe it is about how I have been taking distance towards my people.

Anyways, I cannot go first thing and tell myself that I am so wrong for failing on my damaging behavior. It is more like habits, once you get them it is difficult for them to go away.

So maybe instead of being so hard I can focus on better things, get up and keep going.

Currently my financial habits have been causing me stress. Not only I depend on it, but other people do as well, so it means that I am required to be responsible toward this activity.

Anyhow I have been feeling really worried, because the hardest part of the year is just starting.

Even though you are struggling, you will need to take action quickly, the best part is that you are completely able to do that. Of course it represents a hard challenge, but it is inside you to overcome it. and you will not be alone on the way.

My intention today is: How do you respond to yourself?

Walking through my senses, the touch I feel, it is always as if my skin was tingling, the tips of my fingers make my brain read it faster but I can also feel it on the rest of my skin. The cold I am feeling right now, from the wind coming lightly from the window.

The taste, coming from the beverage I was drinking, but also the smoke from earlier. I can feel that strong flavor coming from inside.

Smell has always been tricky for me, I do not usually stop and smell, but I do know that the air from the early morning is fresher and is welcomed in my nostrils.

Thankfully I put my lenses on, I have been missing my glasses for a while but there is no doubt that my sight is a lot better with contacts on. I must really enjoy seeing because I could not really wait to be able to do it.

Finally about the sound, I can listen to the water coming out of the sink, clinking of washing dishes and the cars from the street. I can also, definitely hear the sound of my keyboard. From my room I do know I am affected by every sound.

It is easy for my to miss on what I feel. I could not really tell you why is that, have not thought about it much in a while. But I do know that I want to capture more moments of my life, stop missing what I was not living entirely.

My intention today: Let my senses be present.

Over my lifetime I have come to find that a core value I need to pursuit over everything is respect. Towards myself and everyone else.

After that I also realized that without love I could not really expect much from life, love has structured my life into something better than it could be with anything else, I just keep getting weigh off my shoulders.

Finally, I find that life is all about being autonomous, autonomy of thought, choice, action. On being a person that knows that only I can do the things that need to be done by me, I can say that it gives you a sense of freedom that can not compare.

If I, as a human, am destined to be better regardless of what that could mean in each context. Then it means that I will be working towards growing every moment of my life.

In that case, I will have to define my true intentions, be able to open the barrier between me and myself. With the sole purpose of knowing my intentions. But, is knowing enough? Next step is to acknowledge...and even further, work on them actively, being present on every moment, open to any option, taking every step with kindness.

Have you ever asked your classmate if they had finished their work and they tell you that they haven´t started it?

Well I used to think that I was looking to feel better because I was not so bad compared to them. I think there might be another point of view for that situation.

We look for other people experiences because connections are built through lot of shared experiences, it might be fear, happiness, horror, surprise...no matter what, that experience made us to be closer, more relatable, more alike...maybe even equal.

Anyways, imperfection is a shared experience as well, nobody can reach a state in which finally no bad will happen.

List of things I think about myself:

I am intelligent-I am capable-I indulge myself easily-I am an easy drinker-I am disorganized-I need more discipline-I eat a lot-I get easily angry-I only think about myself when I make decisions-I dislike people way too fast-I think too much about other´s opinion-I live up to a lot of other people´s expectations-I am lazy-I give myself too many excuses-I could sleep more, wake up earlier-I am not good-I feel loved by many people-I feel love for many people-I care about my family-I want to be someone you can look up to-I have many great dreams-I have accomplished many dreams-I love being able to know more-I feel like I do not fit many places-I feel left out-I feel sad-I feel guilty-I feel forgetful-I feel judged-I feel like I need to be more. better.

I cannot stress how imperfect I found myself to be.

I can look at any aspect in my life and point that I am not reaching perfection in any of them. But does it really matter? Am I not an imperfect creation of nature? Am I not perfect just the way I am?

Well I do not think there is any critical reason for me to not be just fine, I a in fact, doing extremely well.

I have learned to just let my body be while I take care of it. I am still walking towards my goals but they were never in any way related to reach perfection, which makes me feel just right.

Today, I get to think about my mistakes. They seem to be like something I brought to myself.

If only I did not do this or if I had done that in another way...

Well, none of that really matters, maybe I could have but the circumstances were not right enough for me do do so. Or maybe they were but it just was not in me. Regardless, my mistakes are part of my human experience they will be worth it as long as I learn from them.

Currently I am fighting myself, because when I think about my mistakes, I really can be indulgent towards myself because I do know that mistakes are human and everyone can make them.

But do I honestly believe that? Am I not always looking for the perfect situation, the perfect score? do I honestly believe that I am allowed not only to make mistakes but to do things that are not perfect?

I believe that I need to be better, but not better for myself but better than anyone else. And if when I reflect on it it does not feel like a right goal in life, then probably there must be something wrong with it.

Besides, people who reach perfection on their tasks actually put their hands into it, how am I going to accomplish it if I wont put my efforts and time on it?

Well, I do know I am not always right, and I do know I am not lonely or isolated even if sometimes I feel like it.

Talking to people always help when you are trying to get out of your bubble and find out how reality actually works.

Anyways, I must keep thinking about it because sometimes it is difficult to know how I feel.