ED4AW - Dialogue with Other Versions of Me

Hello! Welcome to my blog. If this is your first time reading this, how it works is this; I pick a topic and I write about it for 7 days. I've been doing this for about 7 years now. I always notice a refreshing change by the end of the week, I do this for me and I'm not sure if people find it interesting or helpful, but I share it on here anyways hoping someone might. 

I have been journalling a while longer than that though. I have gone into the attic and will be reading through my old journals, having a dialogue with previous versions of myself. Every time I think I remember my life clearly, I am floored by an old tweet or an old photograph; I don't remember anything. And yet so much of what is propelling me forward is from that time. 

Each Day for a Week I will be writing letters to previous versions of myself from my journals. What would I like them to know now? What would they say to me if someone asked them to write a letter to the future?

Day 1, 19/01/2026 - Knitting my Life Together

I've opened the journal and some paper has fallen out. A detention letter from when I was 16; I was always late and getting detentions. A mind map I made for codependency. I literally remember how I fell down that rabbit hole; I was like "Why does it feel like I like everyone more than they like me?", I googled this. Google said I lack self-awareness, and somehow this brought me into learning about codependency and enmeshed realities. 

Don't beat yourself up all the time I wrote down, I still do that a lot I'm afraid past-version-of-me. But it has improved, a lot. I have a habit of doing it without noticing, which is not great. Anyways. 

So, onto my actual journal (this mind map fell out of it). 

I was writing about how I got bad grades, and my mum was disappointed. I want to do well in school so I can look after her. I wrote about hanging out with a friend I made J. J is into punk rock music. 

Things I would tell kid me from 2014:

Hey! You actually bumped into J at a party not that long ago and he was really happy to see you.

I still have a lot in common with me from 2014, I don't know if that's a good thing or points to stunted development. 

Despite everything going on you still were trying to be a good kid; you were trying to stay strong on your values; I'd say I'm still reaping the benefits of this. 

You're still friends with the Jewish kid and the Italian kid and you did end up going to music festivals together. 

You did become a corporate mastermind in the end. 

You still struggle with holding yourself accountable but it's improved; impressive that you picked that up as a weakness so early on.

You do not have to worry about being too nice anymore!!!

You still spend too much time online wanting to hear from people because you are thinking about them.

When you're sad you still insist that it's just physical pain but 'mentally you're okay'.

You were such a dating skeptic, but I think that was just your way of making it easier to be alone. 

Now between me and you, the reader.... 

Reading my journal from 2014, I can see that I was an unsupported and extremely isolated child. I was journalling as a way of knitting my life together, knot my knot. Creating some sort of webbing, structure, scaffolding where there was nothing. Maybe that's why it's so easy for me to slip into abstraction and fantasy, because I had no options. I had to make something out of nothing, weave yarn into gold. 

Whenever I do come across something I grip onto it with everything. 

And being left with nothing, and forced to knit life together knot by knot, I'm always desperate for connection. Maybe in this knitting analogy connections help me to understand what the final product might look like, where to add knots. 

Your brother being a bully affected you more than you realise; even though your relationship is better now. You internalised a lot of it.

I'm thinking about how I might need to craft who I'm becoming next. A lot of who I am now is yeah, the work of a child who had nothing. They did their best, they had to. I'm still knitting life together, loop by loop. Maybe it's starting to look like something now, a scarf?

Day 2, 20/01/2026 - You Have Made a Disturbing Amount of Progress

Still reading the journal from when I was 16 but getting to the end of it. I still have so many of the same issues, fear of people leaving me. Now it's not so much my platonic friends, it's more in a romantic context. But you are seeing someone very nice at the moment, which is why this is being written on Day 3 first thing rather than Day 2. You are growing a lot as part of this process. 

I wrote down that I need to face my childhood issues and be honest about the origins of my codependency.

"Boundaries are what differentiate me from other people" - yesssss.

Will I always be in a stage where I look back on myself disappointed? - No, I appreciate you past-version-of-me, you tried your best with the cards you were dealt. I am very proud of you.

I was disappointed at people bailing on my birthday - You've had beautiful birthdays since, including one where you sang and played guitar in public, could you ever have dreamed of this?

Looking back, I want you to take nothing anyone did personally. Not because, "this person's actions do not mean they think less of you" (they might), but because what's the point in engaging in that idea? Where will you end up? I've seen the future of your relationships with those people you were so desperate to make time for you; they end up never being for you. Just a lot of heartache and wasted time. If you visit a store and it's empty I hope you would leave.

I wanted to lose weight; you lost a lot of weight in 2020. There was a global pandemic.

Day 3, 21/01/2026 - Been Writing About the Same Stuff for Years

So it seems I didn't journal at all when I was at uni or I lost those notebooks. After 2015, all of my notebooks start from 2020, when I would have already graduated. 

Wrote abut some books I wanna read; how music works by David Byrne. Blood Sweat and Pixels.

I wrote about how I catastrophise a lot - I have improved so so much with this. 

Maybe I should make it a practice to meet people where there at - something I wrote.

I was always thinking about how I might prevent bad things from happening by being hypervigilant: "yeah it's a prison but at least I can see all four walls".

I also wrote that "everything you are trying to prevent is where the real living happens." Errm okay. I guess this is a note about stepping out of your comfort zone.

I need to heal my relationship with others, not for their approval but to feel safe in the world. 

My problem is that I'm impatient, frustrated over things I can't control I have to accept that things may not happen according to how I want and on my preferred timeline. 

It's not about action or in action, it's about taking action from a place of surrendering everything - clock it.

Theres something innate in me that pushes people away - people made you nervous and people get nervous around nervous people.

No community has claimed me as their own, I feel like I don't exist. It gets so much better for you wow.

People are superficial; this feels like a lazy answer to a lot of my social issues - this is the truth past-version-of me; people don't warm to things they don't immediately recognise. Humans need a box to put things in, and you probably exist in a cardboard tube. This might be superficial but it's human nature

There's some HTML code in my notebook; wouldn't you know that you're studying computer science at the moment? Wow.

Sometimes I think I've explored all the options and maybe the only one left now is to choose to be happy. Like... man. Is this the shift I've been looking for? I've tried for years to be 'realistic', not too optimistic, lest I get let down.

Yes, I'm basically talking down on the fact that I journalled for many years; what I will say is that it improved my writing, it improved the quality to which I narrate my own life. It added language to things that were hurtful and I had no language for. But 5, 10 plus years later I'm still writing about the same issues!!!

Why do I feel the need to prepare for every moment? Why does every moment require that I have done some work in advance, lest it bowl me over? At one point it was definitely important that I did this because I was sensitive, vulnerable, volatile; I needed cushioning. 

But now I can see that writing doesn't necessarily make any of the feelings go away; maybe this is making a case for just choosing to be happy, but there's some hesitancy.

I did some art therapy to understand this better. I think the art was me inside a womb. I'm frozen in time, I don't perceive life in the order it happens. This art pointed to an unmet need to "live life in real time instead of always abstracting, projecting, pretending time isn't real etc."

You've done enough preparation and now it's time to live life from front to back; it's time to take off the parental controls.

I might also feel stuck with certain emotions from when I was younger because I'm always in preparation mode. Something like... you have to allow life to catch you by surprise. I think that's the only way to move out of these feelings. When you spend months, and weeks projecting and planning, your feelings have so many hang ups and dependencies. I do believe that feelings are meant to be 'digested'. 

My issues are my issues, maybe the exercise is to choose to be happy despite them. Because over the years they have not gone anywhere. 

I found this tiny buddha article after googling: can we choose to be happy? Choosing Now to Be Happy: Why the Conditions Are Never Perfect - Tiny Buddha

Key takeaway for me atm is that there will never be the perfect conditions. Maybe I stay in the womb, planning, projecting, prepping but it doesn't feel like the right condition to leave yet. Maybe there is no right condition, maybe every condition is the right condition; to not feel like life needs to be rehearsed, that I need to prepare for impact or potentially being let down. 

Day 4, 22/01/2026 - Considering Never Journalling Again!

I genuinely am still writing about the same issues. Still in pain.

Day 5, 23/02/2026 - Birds eye view

I was talking to my mum, and I asked myself what I would advise her if we swapped places. I said I would encourage her to witness and remember, rather than do and fix. Don't consider things in a 5 second or 5-minute window, but a broader view. Consider what you've been spending years working towards, and goals/ambitions you've set for yourself in the future. Stop taking things in your life for granted, this might require some temporal shifting; think back to you a few years ago, think about how you would feel in the future if you achieved your goals. 

I changed the word to witness from see, to articulate the increase in weight, significance, and presence.

Day 6, 24/01/2026 - Pain Doesn't Mean You Aren't Healing

From my 2024 journal:

"See amazing things for what they are, stop trying to simplify the world. Witness and not see"

I was reading a journal from 2024 about things that are wrong with my life, according to me at the time. Got to page 10, I was like cool. Accidently flipped forward in the journal, I went all the way up to 38!!! If I could only tell past-me, that I'm laughing my head off at this. She probably didn't find it funny at the time. A lot of the things in the list I have made a lot of progress on.

I'm going round and round I'm still writing about the same stuff; I don't think I can erase these issues. Now that I think about it, all these vulnerabilities are only emerging recently because I've started dating someone again. Is dating the thing that invites you to put all your learning to the test? Is it a test? Is it meant to be one?

Maybe I need to start from a different position when journalling. Before I was very much writing to cope better with my circumstances and give myself more internal real estate to work with. Maybe I have graduated from this, maybe I have passed the ultimate test.

Maybe this week is meant to be about releasing and letting go. When you don't have the intel/experience/confidence you hold on to everything. Perhaps it is a type of hoarding. What if I end up needing this?

After many years I know now which thinking patterns pay their way and which kind of lead me nowhere. 

Maybe what I should be repeating is things that help me to see and remember, things that keep me in the posture of seeing and remembering. There's a guy who said being happy is like going to sleep; you can't force yourself to sleep but you can set up the conditions for sleep and model what someone who was about to fall asleep might do. 

I'm thinking about why exactly did writing about the same topics for years and years help me?

TO BE FAIR, it never felt like I was really moving the needle with my writing until I moved to this 7-day journal format. Maybe it is a practice of releasing, shedding, deliberately forgetting.  Maybe it's a way of witnessing what matters and what stands the test of time.

I also did the artists way in 2024:

Letter from me at 80 to me now

There are things right now that feel like they're eclipsing your whole life, but once you get to my age there won't even be the language left to describe these things. There are so many beautiful experiences waiting eagerly to meet you. Time spent worrying about your life now is most likely time wasted. Everything feels like it's in its early stages because it is. You can't rush a fruit ripening, or a baby animal maturing, so don't let your mind reach too far in the future or rush to worst case scenarios. Create, and witness joy magic and wonder in real time. Don't rush. Everything happens exactly as its meant to. The course of life is bigger than us and already plotted out. So, whether or not you fight against life's current, it just is what it is. Treat every moment with the respect it deserves and is entitled to; remind yourself that some don't deserve a lot. Life is a miracle. 

Letter from 8 year old me to me now

Dude. You... I can't even get the words. You have achieved something miraculous. A real miracle. Wonderful. We are truly, finally at peace. We have the luxury of peace, stability and predictability. It's all I ever wanted, everything else is a bonus. We can fully inflate our lungs, we can notice the softness of our skin, we have not just one person but several people who understand us and take genuine interest in us as a person. We can look in the mirror. 

1) Some art therapy to uncover why anger is the feeling specifically. Why I feel so strongly, and with such certainty, that an injustice needs to be corrected. 

So, in my art therapy the central character was wounded with their eyes closed, it was like the wound was almost protecting them from the outside world. It surrounded them. My response to this art is this; healing doesn't promise to never hurt, wincing and experiencing pain is not evidence that you are not healing. I think what helps with healing is stability and consistency, not being so restless. Sticking to the same set of ideas, being a bit more organised. Over time, you begin to heal. Take on the posture of the person you would like to heal into. 

My emotions can actually make me wince in pain. I don't think pain is meant to be a prison rather a utility you acknowledge and then move on from. And remember, you are choosing this so that you can grow. It will require trial and error.

2) imagine for a second that the bad things I think people think about me, they actually do think that. What would change?

If these things are actually true about me, I can't help who I am. I would reinterpret them. Being desperate means I want something badly, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting something badly. Being desperate means I have a higher risk appetite for things I would do to meet my needs. This isn't always a problem, being pathetic isn't always a problem.

It's all about resolving the tension. Conflicting beliefs and ideas cause tension, tension prevents healing. Organise your mind, pick something. Resolve the tension. In the example above, the central idea is acknowledging my choice and agency, putting myself at the front of my life. Not being at the world's or other people's mercy, my worth not being dependent on what people do at their discretion. 

These insecurities are like clouds floating over a central unblemished core, that's how it should be anyways. I think that's how you know your boundaries are intact.

I'm also going to write about the new direction I need to go in. Journalling the way I have over the last few years was at one point, a new direction; prior to this I would journal in a different way, whatever was helpful at the time. So, what would be helpful for me now?

Witness and remember, rather than do and fix - is a good shout, I like it better than ''practicing gratitude'' and ''just being positive''.

Take on the posture of the person you would like to heal into - I like this very much too.

Don't consider things in a 5 second or 5-minute window, but a broader view. Consider what you've been spending years working towards, and goals/ambitions you've set for yourself in the future. 

Maybe it's having pride in the things I do have, that I need to work on. This was so easy when I was a kid, you got a new games console, and it was literally a high that could last weeks. I can still recall what it feels like as an adult, what was different back then? I made a mind map and tried to extract some common themes.

First thing I'll say is that these things don't have a common theme, but I did only focus on one thing at a time. I wasn't flitting around; there was a central focus. Organisation! 

You focus on less things and it's easier for you to take on the posture of a happier person. 

Maybe life is the same as business; focus on one thing or you die. Maybe right now I'm in the middle of an identity crisis because I put my career first but quickly learned that wasn't a good idea. 

I don't know, perhaps I will flit around forever. There are too many options. 

And you know what it's okay to feel confused, it's okay to feel like I don't know what to do with my life or what my future direction is. This is part of the journey. No one said healing wouldn't hurt. 

Day 7, 25/01/2026 - Conclusion

Pain doesn't mean you aren't healing.

Listening to some BB King, music really is medicine. I really am shifting. These people didn't run from their pain they alchemised it in an incredible way, arguably one of the most incredible ways in human history.

Blues music is the perfect model for reaching the end of a dark feeling and not letting it bowl you over, maintaining your dignity. Your sovereignty! Anyways this is not a blog about music...

I had a dream last night, it was restless and uncomfortable. I looked in the mirror and it didn't look like me, I looked grotesque. From that dream I picked up a could of things:

I need to update my self image or something, I need to not have selective vision and see myself how I really am. Witness and remember rather than do and fix.

My main problem is a kind of vision problem or hallucination; this is what is causing tension and disorganisation. I don't trust people. I do not trust that people take me seriously. I feel like I am living a simulated life, people are lying to be because I am not good enough and they don't want to be the one that crushes me... or alternatively they are getting something out of me.

The raw wound that guides both great decisions and terrible ones is a fear of not being recognised, I think.

Sensitive to people not taking me seriously because it also suggests that they thought I was too much of an idiot or too desperate to tell when this was happening.

I'm so sensitive and I constantly push and push and push for people to demonstrate that yes, they are taking me seriously. 

Being able to discern that people are taking me seriously is an unstable concept for me; it's like it isn't tethered to anything. 

I anticipate that people will treat me with contempt because for a long time they did, sometimes they still do but when it's in my face I just find it funny.

I'm thinking about the collective image that I believe other people have of me in their mind:

• It's an unclear image, like trying to recall the face of someone you met once a very long time ago or someone from your childhood. 
• Or this person is disorganised, an idiot, should not be taken seriously. 

I don't know what to do. When I get insecure these are the beliefs I'm battling against. 

People that care about me wonder why I'm so sensitive about this but if only they could understand what was happening to me, all around me, every single day. And I have to carry it with me alone because everyone has moved on or pretends it didn't happen like... it tracks why I'm like this.

Now that I have some more information about this, I did some art therapy to better understand what might help.

Finished!!! That took forever.

I interviewed the art;

Who are you? Love is in different rooms.

Where did you come from? Acknowledging that love is assorted.

What do you need? Acknowledge both connectedness and the separateness. Let people in but maybe draw some boundaries. Not in a constricted way, but in a 'let's not rush to put everything in the same room' way.

What have you come to tell me? People do love you, people do take you seriously. We have to be responsible with how much of our story, past-present-future, we hand over to other people. Also remember there's so much we keep for ourselves; there's so much we can offer ourselves. We have the tenure, the minute details, even non-verbal details. We are best placed to be fully honest with ourselves, fully present with ourselves, and articulate what's what, give ourselves the best.

I even came up with extra questions that were not included in the original video for the technique : Art Therapy Exercise - Exploring Emotional Needs

I drew the art because I didn't feel good about people not taking me seriously, the part of the art that reflects this is the big heart in the centre of the art. A bigger heart makes it easier to funnel things into there that shouldn't be in there.

I also felt conscious about centering things I ought not to, the part of the art which reflects this is the fact that the character in the middle of the art (me) is at an intersection of all the 'rooms' in the art.

According to this art, what I should strive to do going forward is not let everyone so far in.

I am late to the party on this because I had learned to indirectly try to control and influence situations and was not aware of any alternatives to this. 

According to this art, an accurate but maybe disappointing assessment of my situation is you don't let everyone into your most vulnerable rooms without the time or equivalent experience.

These little hearts will never feel as big or close as your own, and everyone is in their own rooms doing their own thing. 

I don't want to write too much more. What now then?

Do I feel constricted by trying to show up the same in every room? Bring everything, into every room. Am I being constricted by how accommodating I'm being?

So, what does this mean now?

Maybe I need to bet on myself more, follow my own voice. It is risky, but it is something I need to do, I had a dream I was on a tram, with an indiscriminate group of people, some from my past, some from my present. My shoe fell off and slipped under the tram, I had to get off the tram and go get it. I think this dream speaks to not holding capacity indiscriminately for members of the public. Following my own tracks. Not being too accommodating. Putting myself first.

What does the person in the art need to know/do? Take yourself out of the situation where everyone is cutting across you and, in a position, to easily receive from you, you need to come up and out of that. 

I think I'll leave it there, whoever got to the end of this congratulations. This was not easy to write, but just because something hurts doesn't mean you aren't healing.

Until next time!!!

ED4AW - Maybe Everything's Fine, idk (Less Escapism)

Hello, welcome back to my blog. Welcome for the first time if this is your first time.

There are a few things I am trying to address with this week's post. Acceptance, gratitude, rejecting grind culture, being present, relinquishing control. 

I've journaled, and art therapied a lot about it. Here is my 'chain of thought' so far:

I am in the soul crushing position of hedging a lot of hope and expectations on something I have no control over. My therapist told me I'm over significant about things and I agree.

Feels like everything is fine, but also everything is completely wrong.

Did some art therapy: the art was called "hyper focus tunnel vision". It came from the need for something that would "make all the pain worth it". The art represents the unmet need of creating a solid base in what is true and current; seeing the value in their real life, being where their feet are.

The art was a long, dark, tunnel with a literal light at the end of it. Light at the end of the tunnel. This piece of art needs to be reminded that life isn't all tunnel, rewarded by the brief moment of excitement you get when you finally reach the end (that also disappears once you realise the chase is over). You can take the scenic route. Both routes end up at the same place (a little further along in life with more info, experience, and age), one having a hyper focus and the other allowing you to enjoy getting distracted, doesn't mean you end up at two different places. 

"With my eyes glued to the prize, I'll miss the scenes of my life."

It seems something has gotten mixed up; the in-between, the journey, is the point. It is not just a tunnel. It is not just a means to an end. The end goal was never the point, it's just where you end up whilst on the route. Trauma might have made us think otherwise, and I suspect that the same mechanism is running on autopilot, but things are different now. 

So, what am I writing about this week? 

"Entertain, for a moment, that your life is working exactly as it should. Nothing to do, nothing to change. What can you achieve with the things in your life once you appreciate them for how amazing they already are?"

I'm not saying you should just sit around and not try and self-actualise, not at all. I think that restlessness that comes with feeling like we aren't where we need to be yet is almost always a result of hyper focusing on something that is out of our control. Whether you hyperfocus on something you can't control or stay present in your own life, you will end up at the same place.

I think the thing I am hyper focusing on is the sense of fairness in my life, or rather unfairness. I believe that things should change so that they become fairer. Each day for a week, I am going to imagine that the current state is the optimal state and take a more scenic route. 

Day 1, 05/01/2026 - Hold Fast and Stop Trying to Escape

Caveat for day 1, I'm saying a lot of things that feel helpful but it's still aspirational and there's still work to be done on them.

So by the end of day 1 I realised the issue is this: having a desperate need to escape. This is quite a lot of progress to make on day 1 to be fair.

It started off with me thinking about this feeling of wanting things to be fair; wanting to desperately escape into a world where things were fair. Where I feel like I'm finally getting the nice things I deserve.

I don't want to sit with the reality or the responsibility of accepting that maybe, this is as fair as it's going to get, and this is as fair as it needs to be. I'd rather project expectations of being uprooted out of my life and into something better onto another person and block the rest of the world out. 

I realised that the work of feeling safe in your own life is an investment of energy, resources, time and money. I don't think it accepts being short changed. I don't think it's very easy.

I think a lot of the time I am actively trying to escape or at least ready to escape. It's remarkable how much the mind can exist outside of reality, it's like a high-functioning mental illusion.

I thought about how the default is, actually, that I am safe and healthy where I am and nothing needs to change. That's not to say nothing ever needs to change and this is where I will be forever; it just means that wherever I go, however I feel, this is where I start. This is my secure base.

And if I am going to step out from that, I need to think about if there's any point. Every time you entertain a thought that all the great things in your life are not enough, it is like you are negotiating with terrorists. 

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

These thought-terrorists try and trick us out of our ability to choose, out of access to our options.

Nothing should make us feel like we need to get up and out of a good spot we already have; whether that thing is good or bad.

I say to my insecurities "I am not moving". And hopefully that is enough. 

Being grounded in reality means confronting the urge to flee. 

Man I think it's crazy how people traumatise kids into feeling this way. Like their body was pushed so far into feeling in danger that it was left with barely any options. An utter emergency.

Who was it that said we take having options for granted? I watch too many YouTube videos and I will never remember who said this.

Day 2, 06/01/2026 - You Only Set Out to Survive, But Conquered a Whole Country (and forgot)

I'm writing about living in reality. I'm thinking about when I will finally get justice. I'm thinking about how I shouldn't let that strong desire for justice trick me out of my access to choice. I project on to people the possibility of my life finally becoming fair. I think that's what I want most in the world. The raw wounded part of me that wants this, I don't know what to tell her in the meantime. I focus and fixate on it, what can I say my brain is doing what it's doing. It's just my own thoughts, they aren't inherently dangerous (I appreciate this is a loaded statement and acknowledge that thoughts can become dangerous), but this is a helpful way of framing things for me, right now. It's just me, my thoughts, things my brain is doing. Surely, I'm not that scary...?

I'm thinking about that projection onto people: "This person could be the chance for my life to finally, be fair." if I reframe it, describe it with more of my internal language, which unmet need is it pointing to?

"The need to feel like someone can be proud of me, that I should be celebrated, honoured, appreciated, for who I know myself to be."

A lot of restlessness around this idea of fairness comes from an urge to make things fair. Maybe a better approach is to notice the already fair things around me? Smaller Scenes of Celebration.

I am skeptical of this approach; sounds like it could fall apart easily. But why? Let me think about this:

Noticing fair things around me. For the longest time I thought this nirvana of fairness could not be where I currently am. It's somewhere I have to 'get to', not realising in the process of getting there I'd reclaimed so much land. I'm using reclaimed here rather than conquered because as much as some areas are new, others are old areas that have taken on a new identity in my pursuit of fairness. 

I wrote down Boundaries and Borders, I was scratching my head like "What did I mean???"  I think I was talking about, not venturing past the territory you've already claimed. Why would you? You have so much space where you are, you worked hard to get out. It's within your domain. It's when you venture into unfamiliar territory that you are more likely to feel stuck and confused. 

You definitely have the option of maintaining the pursuit of into foreign lands, but it is an option like many others. You are no longe desperate for food, no longer desperate for water; the outstanding needs that pushed you to make the journey in the first place. 

Going into foreign lands should be considered 1 option of many (many better ones mind you); don't be so fixated on escaping that you lose sight of the viable options all around you and right in front of you. This is moderation; not putting all your hopes and dreams into one basket, or at least acknowledging that our emotions can make us feel like we only have one basket.

You conquered a country and forgot.

You claimed so much land that you've moved out and past the thing you were desperate for in a multitude of ways. Narrow thinking can make it hard to acknowledge this. 

Day 3, 07/01/2025 - Whilst You Were Conquering New Land You Formed Allies

In my quest for a fairer world, though I may not have reached my final destination, along the way I have recruited people who also share the same vision as me. Who also want me to get what I deserve. 

Sometimes it's so easy for us to feel isolated and alone. 

Day 4, 08/01/2026 - Correcting Your Posture is Not Easy

Why is all there is, not enough? It's a question to consider for sure. 

I love fantasising and escaping. Otherwise why would I do it so much. I love adding layers and illusions to life. But when I do this it makes me thinking that perhaps I don't have the present moment at the right scale. Maybe the present moment is not at the right scale because when you're fixated on a fantasy that isn't real it blocks most of everything else out; only slithers of reality make it in.

And because there's so little of reality making it into your view, it doesn't get a say. You end up getting dragged around by visions of things that aren't actually real; it's a type of restlessness.

It's easier to mature, ripen, grow when you aren't restless and moving around all the time. But that 'sitting in it' really sucks. It's like correcting your posture, and it takes some getting used to for sure. 

When you're fixated on the fantasy, it's like you'll want to leap as soon as it feels like you're getting too far from it, or when you've almost reached it. I don't want anything dragging me around.

These things that make you want to jump are fleeting, they're like ether They aren't real. You know what is real and not fleeting? The scenes of your life. 

Day 5, 09/01/2026 - We Want to Bury the Bad Things That Happened to Us

Accepting that things might be fair enough as they are or will have to be fair enough as they are, feels like being able to withstand the impact of a cannon ball. Being strong, and sturdy, and stoic. I don't want to do that; I want to be able to tell the world how much it let me down. I may not be able to get justice, but I can at least articulate the injustice, I should be allowed that much. Otherwise, it isn't fair.

I have to absorb the shock and stop it from spilling out everywhere. No one showed me how to do that. Doing this requires holding two conflicting ideas together at once and I just don't know how to do that.

I'm reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. It mentions how everything you do is a diary, you're babbling away all the secrets of your life with whatever you do; walk, talk, write, eat. It cannot be hidden. 

Everything you do is a self-portrait.

And this was kind of a relief. It made me feel like I need to stop running from my life, really. When I am escaping into fantasy, I think I'm trying to imagine myself in a version of my life where these feelings do not exist. But your life is a diary. You cannot outrun your life, you cannot conceal your life well enough to live in a version of reality without it, your life. 

Every time you wish things were different you are denying the current version of your world; you want to live a version of life where you don't have to worry about all the things that come along with reality. But you can't turn away your own life and your responses to life. You've got to anticipate all the ways you could feel about anything; "I have been expecting you". This is the best approach, no matter how dark and prickly these feelings might be, how much they trigger our fear that we haven't made enough progress, and we aren't close enough to the life we want. Whatever it looks like, welcome it with open arms; "I have been expecting you". I don't think the feelings are the problem, but rather the interpretation of them. In particular how much this interpretation deviates from or converges towards our ideal version of the world.

And it can also work with getting lost in an idea that is far away and fantastical and not real. It's a fantasy, and slightly out of reach, just beyond your fingertips because there are real feelings of insecurity and undeservedness around that thing you may want. But when we get lost in the dream of it, we are again pretending those feelings aren't real. 

Day 6, 10/01/2026 - You Still Have to Come Home at the End of the Day

My therapist used to mention a secure base, and how I needed to work on fortifying mine basically. After all the fantasising and fixating, things we hope would happen, catastrophising, we still have to return to our normal life.

I've started writing in my physical journal for this because everything is allover the place and I'm wondering what I do next.

This Chuck Palahniuk book is really great. It mentions how things don't mean much in isolation. It's only when we connect the dots, see the relationships between things. It's networks and relationships that make anything worth anything. We can build a web of ideas that is more helpful, less helpful, was helpful at one point but is not helpful anymore. We should aspire to not let anything trick us out of ability to build webs in our favour.

Trick us into oversimplifying and seeing too few nodes. Trick us into skipping important nodes out. 

A network like this is load balancing, not attributing too much weight to something and not enough to other things. It helps us to stay honest, it helps with moderation. 

Seeing things like a web gives me more room to breathe, helps me be kinder and gentler. Things aren't small and significant, they're connected to all the other seemingly small and significant things in my life to make up the greater picture of the scenes of my life. Idk, for some reason this helps me resist the urge to run away from my life. 

It's part of the web; things that have happened, things I would like to happen, feelings that feel empowered, feelings that make me feel ashamed, the urge to want to run away, feeling like I shouldn't have the urge to run. Whateverrrrr

Day 7, 11/01/2026 - Conclusion

Small things matter, instead of wanting to skip steps and change things in big sweeping actions, appreciate where you are. Build a web, node by node. Life was only ever incremental.

At the moment your living life quantum by quantum, and it's in your best interest to have capacity for whatever comes along with these little pieces. 

Like where are you going? Where you are is the best place for you to be.

You can't bury any of it, so you may as well be the position that you're going to take a step back and observe without judgement. Be the cup, the container, instead of identifying with what's insid eit (is this a good analogy?).

Forming an opnion on any pparts of ourselves makes it hard to move forward because we can never make a fully fair judegment on ourselves. Life is fluid, life is a stream, life is always moving. You think you have a static web of ideas but an extra node can always be added. Life never stops moving but you stop moving when you oversimplify it and think "it must be this way". 

People may have formed static opinions of you, but this was never fair. And you ought to have never taken it on for yourself. 

On day 7 I did a bit of art therapy. I was frustrated that I felt like I couldn't move on from shame. The sketch was dark, confined, like a prison. 

I could never be free from judgement it felt like. Even when I was alone, there was self-surveillance. Me taking on what had been done to me by other people.

We have to understand that being in this position is something around trust. The world doesn't trust you'll get it right the next time, you also don't trust you'll get things right. Everything you do feels like it's scrutinised and examined, first by others, then by yourself. 

This piece of art had a desire to feel like it was finally being taken seriously; that there had been enough scrutiny. That a final opinion doesn't need to be formed about everything it does. This piece of art believes in a near future that this scrutiny will finally fulfil its purpose; things are fine as they are and it doesn't need constant course correction. Finally, some space to itself and a break from the judgement. 

I can expand out the web of ideas finally; to things that acknowledge I'm not a lone actor, some things are out of my control, I can't be attributed all the blame for something, maybe that thing isn't even that bad. 

This is the only time I get for my life, my real life. 

What has any of this got to do with not wanting escaping from my life?

You want to escape from what feels like a small life into a bigger fantasy but ideas, like people, don't mean much in isolation. We need to connect the dots, identify the relationships between these concepts.

It is important to acknowledge that our life history may have put us in tunnel vision mode; rather than see these ideas as a load balancing network, moderate, evenly spread, bigger, kinder. Seeing thoughts, feelings, ideas as a evenly spread web means nothing can trick us out of ability to choose, out of our autonomy. 

It also helps us to recognise that our current life is actually enough.

When we focus on the connections between two or three things, and block everything else in our lives out. What helps us to avoid this is trying to avoid forming an opinion on these ideas; someone might call this detachment. If you and your ideas are a cup of water, observing them is like being the cup and gently holding the water. Why should any one idea or thought be more significant than the other? This is not rhetorical; you have an answer to this question. And this answer should also blend into the water. Remember you are just the cup, the container.

Everything you do is a self portrait; I think that's genuinely beautiful.

If you got this far, I hope you are kind to yourself, I hope you build a beautiful web of things in your life that is nourishing and helps you. I hope you can feel more like a container for all your feelings and thoughts and not the stuff inside. 

Cheers!