on Change

My absence is due to an extensive transition period from inner searching to outward action.  I can feel my body's natural rhythm moving back toward the outside world - enough time has been spent contemplating and contriving, it is time to move out, ready-or-not.  

That is exactly it, the mind cannot take complete control and change the body in a short period of time beyond it's flexibility.  The mind and body have to work together.  If the mind tries to exercise it's will too greatly, like a rubber band the body will snap back and all progress will be lost.

I realized over the last few days that I've been bending my body in all the wrong ways -  in ways it is either not ready to bend, or simply does not want to bend.  My mind has all sorts of ideas about what I should become, how I should change, and what a perfect person would do, but that is not who I am.  I have been spending too much time figuring out how to change myself into the perfect person, rather than spending time "coming into myself" so to speak, in other words discovering what makes me tick and unleashing my own power.

Over the last few weeks I have put a lot of pressure on myself, and have been using an unfair measuring stick at every step of the way, smacking my own hand when the numbers aren't good enough.  I have been going about this personal developtment stuff from the wrong angle.

Raising my consciousness and keeping it constantly high is a wonderful thing and definitly the greatest thing I got out of this as it means I can absorb more from life and exert more into the world.  My largest mistake was past this - looking at personal development starting from the micro- level: productivity, self-discipline, goal setting, habits, etc.  These are all great tools for accomplishment, but they were tools with no real substance.  Where did I get these goals from?  How do I measure self-discipline?  What do my habits say about who I am?  What does my productivity tell me about my values?  These are the questions that got me curious about asia in the first place - the deep seated questions that questioned life on a whole,  the ones that accepted who I really am and not what society has dictated.

I am still all up for personal development, but it should be my way on my terms, not just copy pasted from someone else's personal development archives.  I need to start fresh again.  I don't need a purpose, as I don't have a notion of myself.  I need to find myself again.  My body has been giving me signs that I should move on, and I believe what it is really telling me is to quit the bullshit and stop joking yourself: shed what doesn't really matter and pick yourself back up.   Let all that does not matter slide.  

I hope some of this makes sense.  It seems to make sense in my head, but coming out on paper didn't quite have the same affect.  I can feel it, that is enough.