Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged....

I have almost fully embraced the uncertainty of enjoying the presence of an individual who remains a stranger in all but one sphere of interaction, and perhaps most harrowing: actually conveying this to the person both by word and deed…allowing him to survey with great clarity everything that arises within me when we are in the midst of sharing closeness. It is incredibly liberating to be honest in this way. And one can truly rest in this honesty and allow it to heal, and finding that it cultivates the strength to continue to allow oneself to be seen.

It is quite comical to reflect on my previous patterns of thought and emotion and subsequent behavior. How much mental anguish I had subjected myself to; how much suffering I had constructed under the auspices of analysis.

For now, I feel an underlying sense of equanimity when I ponder our situation, which brings me great happiness. At last, the flow without the ebb.

The Ascent

I have had a breakthrough...in the sense that a cascade of insights has truly motivated real action, not simply generated curious longing.

I have found that I can have a calmer outlook on things and critique and evaluate my stream of thoughts from a neutral and dispassionate perspective, with surprising consistency.

This could be attributed both to conscious mental work and a normalization of what I believe to be monthly fluctuations of hormones that tend to turn into week-long episodes.

I do find that I start to get anxious or more impatient various times throughout the day and I almost let these moments trigger action. Because I had grown so accustomed to being at the whims of these moods and their prodding, I would fail to prevent them from instigating behavior which I wished to avoid completely (when thinking rationally).

It takes willpower, rigorous repetition, coolness, relaxed logic and a bit of distraction in order to stop streams of thought from becoming uncontrollable and taking root in emotions.

It is easy to get hopelessly lost in these flare-ups that occur when mere musings progress into “facts” and attach themselves to explosive and vulnerable emotions.

It appears to be an uphill battle, constantly at war with my own mind.