Re-Aligning

I touched on this briefly yesterday, but this is an issue I need to address. I brought this up with M in the morning, and the issue is that I've been feeling a bit off this entire week. I know exactly what it was too… after my trip home, things just didn't feel right for some reason. The way I explained it to M was that it was as though my inner game "cracked" over the weekend, and as a result, all the pressures of this process started to have affects on me. This affected my interactions with everyone and my overall confidence level.

The unsettling thing is, I knew this was happening when I was in these moments, but I didn't know what to do to overcome it. My entire system was uncertain, so no matter what I did, the uncertainty stayed. I felt this when I went out on Wednesday and yesterday at the party too. Recognizing the problem is the first step to cleaning it up.

Where did it come from? Well, it definitely came from my trip home. Last Friday, I felt on top of the world… over the last few days, I have felt in a very different position. What was it about home? I can't quantify it exactly into words, but it's a combination of dealing with my relationship with my parents, seeing my friends who haven't gone anywhere, and the feeling of "man… think, introspect, reminiensince" that home causes. It was great to be home and to access some of thinking, but the spill-over effects its been having have not been desirable at all.

The fix? Well, I think from just being away from home, I'll gradually begin to re-align with my actual persona (i.e. who I am now, and not who I was then). Anything left over should be fixed by the bootcamp. Nothing like spending 23 hours over 3 days filled in a life-changing environment (with Mr. M, nonetheless). Hopefully by this bootcamp, the crack in my inner game is sealed and I get put back on track.

Something to note though. It's sad to think just being home for a couple days has this kind of effect on me. Which begs the question… home is a comfortable place, but is it really where the heart is? Home gets me to think about the past, and rekindle old memories and feeling and to think of emotions and times long past, but at the same time, the process of reminiscence has a side-effect of causing doubt and a depressing of progression and where life is currently at the moment.

It should be interesting to point out that this only really happened when I was at home home. The first night was spent going to SF and partying in a club… there I felt completely in my element of my expanded-self. Once truly in suburbia home though, hanging out at old bars with old friends and no one else, and having a ton of time to myself with just my family at home, is when a lot of the draw-back effects started to kick in.

If the bullet train is going forward at 100mph, my trip home has temporarily applied the brakes to bring it down to 40mph…

The fixes? Well I can see two. 1.) Don't go home. 2.) Keep progressing till my new-self and inner game is so rock solid that nothing can change it. With regards to #2, most things don't affect my inner game at this point, but home still has a special soft spot. I don't go home often, but it's unavoidable. Maybe during the holidays, surround with happy times, the same draw-back effects won't happen, but that's something only time will tell. (Realistically, the holidays are the only times I'm going to be back home over the next few years anyway).

Awareness is key though. Knowing that home has this kind of draw-back effect on me, and being cognitive of it the next time I go home will help is trying to prevent it. Nonetheless, it's still hard when being in an environment where it's so easy to fall back into old routines carved through a path of 17 years.

Anyway, though I understand it, as you can probably tell through my posting, there might not ever be a complete fix (other than time). Nonetheless, I'm not there often, and I imagine I'll revert back to my normal soon enough. Home will always be home, and home is truly where the heart is… right?