01. MY THREE POSITIVES.
1. Hooray, I'm on vacation.
2. Suddenly, the nagging problem—the cause of my stress for the past month—just disappeared.
3. Daytime walks in the forest, nighttime sleep on the balcony—closer to nature.
02. MY REFLECTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.
For example, when the thirst for knowledge turns into the pain of learning. Or when the desire to move turns into a painful, monotonous physical effort that you force yourself to do, but it no longer brings you joy.
In our yoga course, we covered harmony, or the joy of allowing, or the joy of overcoming oneself.
But what causes this transition from the joy of doing to overcoming oneself?
Here we can recall the associative connections: first you invest, spend, dig a channel, and then, effortlessly, prana flows along this channel. It can be hard to develop a habit, but eventually it will work for you, like a standalone program.
But that's not quite the same. You can remember learning something new and interesting, enjoying it for a while, but then it got boring, becoming a chore, without any pleasure.
Again, if this worked so well, everyone would be educated and physically fit. You set a goal, do it, enjoy it, and then move on to the next achievement. This should be an increasing trend.
In practice, especially with age, fewer and fewer people exercise, enjoy it less, and fall into a sedentary lifestyle. More often than not, we see that after trying, they overdo it, strain or get injured, quit, and never try again. Even athletes who invested heavily in themselves later regressed...
Also, remember the influence of dopamine on us and how it brings joy more in anticipation and quickly fades after achieving a goal—we never feel enough. But you can also recall those situations where you do something for a long time and it brings you pleasure.
I think there's a clear missing variable here; there must be something else, perhaps a matter of willpower? And not just of the result, but also of the process.
For example, many people want a healthy, athletic body, but fewer are willing to work hard for it.
One solution is to gamify the process. Turn it into a game, add rewards for achievements (sometimes just a label, like "diligent student, level 10 in the gold league"), add a competitive component, preferably with other people, but also with yourself, etc.
And you realize it's not particularly realistic, but motivation works if you're engaged.
Maybe this increases the significance of the process? But in a game, significance is clearly less important than something related to real health or knowledge.
Maybe, on the contrary, we shouldn't take it too seriously, but just play for fun? The problem is that when the result is more important than the process of achieving it, it's harder to enjoy the process.
03. MY YOGA INSPIRATION FOR THE WEEK.
Yoga gently gets the ball rolling in the morning.
04. MY GRATITUDE AND PRAISE.
For honesty.
05. I WANT TO PRAISE MYSELF.
I've crawled through a difficult period in my life.
06. PERSONAL YOGA PRACTICE FOR THE WEEK.*
Hatha, Kriya, Mantra, Pranayama - 6 days a week.
07. DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING.*
In focusing on learning.