Had an interesting day yesterday..

Yesterday was weird... Really weird.. But also very enlightening.

Been doing some deeeeeeep shadow work.. And.. I'm going try to articulate it to the best of my memory and ability.

Started off with me having a massive change in perspective about life, I found a way to almost fully forgive or come to peace with much of the abuse I've faced.

Wasn't able to get my movie finished and my brother invited me to go watch the UFC fight with him so I decided to go.

I didn't eat barely anything and my brother offered me a cig which I accepted, I shouldn't have and that was possibly my last cig ever.

I don't really even like cigs I just smoke them around other people to try to be on their "wavelength" so to speak, but.. This cig make me sick..

Eventually it got so bad we had to pull over and I puked..

We were going up to Flagstaff and the last time I was there I think was when I was going to visit one of the women who hurt me so bad.. So I had a lot of powerful memories going through my mind.

Instead of blaming her or anyone else.. I was trying to blame myself for everything wrong in the world. I felt like I was tripping on acid or mushrooms or something.. I was fucking.. Out of my body.

My brother put some like chill country music on that was just hitting my soul so hard, the lyrics were just like exactly what I was feeling.. Like.. It made me cry a couple times thinking about all the difficult things I've experienced to get to where I am.

Had to wait like another 45 minutes or so to get to Taco Bell to get a drink and a burrito, was rough.

That helped to eat and drink, but.. Still had to just sit and slowly eat and drink over like 2 hours cause I felt so weak and sick..

He went in to watch the pre fights and then came out and got me before the final couple fights and.. It was weird being there around so many people with all this hateful violent energy.

I used to like UFC and I still sort of do, as a martial artist I vibe with it a lot, however.. The energy was just toxic. I didn't like it. People cheering on people to hurt each other..

It made me really rethink the IFC idea I've been doing even more cause a few people had some intense experiences in our contest, and.. I feel like the contest I created is doing similar and creating this sort of.. "forceful energy".

I can only imagine if our contest keeps growing over time and eventually gets thousands of people or more involved.. Will similar rivalries break out? Will people fight and get angry with each other over the game? Could things some day even escalate more than that...?

It made me try to think of a way we could still play without a winner, but.. I just don't see how that would work very well.. I can't think of any majorly popular sports or games where there's no winner...?

It seems like all the biggest sports in the world have champions.. And I want this contest to be as big as possible, so.. I dunno.. I don't see another path at this point in time and I feel like we gotta go the champion route if we want to reach the heights we can reach.

Oh also.. The end of the fight was pretty crazy if you didn't hear the champion jumped out of the ring and like attacked the other fighters trainer I think? And a huge brawl started that was out of control..

I'm not sure I've ever seen that happen in the UFC before, I remember a few times similar or close but.. This was just like.. Not the kind of energy I appreciate as I've especially been trying to be more peaceful and spiritual in many ways.

I think self defense is important, but this whole out of balance too much ego shit and fighting after the round is over and jumping into the crowd to start a huge brawl.. It just.. Left a bad impression.

However.. I'm reminded of a saying I vibed with a lot.. "The two things that make you strongest in life are someone to protect and someone to fight/compete against".

Perhaps there's no healthy way of escaping this aspect of duality, perhaps we need adversity and competition in order to genuinely grow and be more.

I'm still exploring a lot of these spiritual concepts and dunno what to think, just feeling around trying to figure things out more.

So after we left and on the way home me and my brother got into a pretty heated argument and I'll spare the details for respect of his privacy.

We ended up working through it, though I was sort of surprised at just how much adversity I ended up going through yesterday on the day I remembered such an important philosophical idea.

I kept looking at all of it, as something that made me grow.. Instead of being like.. "Ah fuck I got sick and got into an argument with my brother that day sucked." It was more like.. "That was a pretty amazing day because I went through so much difficulty that it made me grow more and become a better person even if just by a little bit.."

I need to more and more try to look at the bad experiences in life as opportunities to become a better person.

However.. There's one thing I don't think I'll ever be able to do that with.. And that's the passing of Amanda the first woman I fell for.. Because what happened then is not a tool to be used in my opinion. It just is what it is. I don't want to get stronger because of that, I just want to respect her life and love her forever.

In almost all other cases though.. All the hardship I've dealt with.. Other than that one example.. I'm doing my best to stop pitying myself and feeling defeated.

I've been sad for too long, it's time for me to go back in the other direction a bit, even if things suck and are bad, I need to try to find the warrior spirit within myself to happily meet the adversity that is in front of me.

A true warrior I think should try to find a way to enjoy the challenge and the pain and the opportunity to grow, and to not let all the hardship take that away from them.

I guess to end this I'd like to say that.. I dunno what's right, I'm exploring these thoughts and I guess we'll see where they take me. However I am glad that in some ways I've been able to let go of a LOT of the pain I used to have.

And I've already failed since trying this approach, the argument with my brother for example.. I lost my peaceful communication during that and.. I'm definitely not perfect nor do I fully understand this.. But I am trying..

After that argument and getting sick and all those memories and ideas yesterday.. I feel like I confronted a deeper dark shadow side of myself and sort of.. Hugged him. And I will continue to try to show love to him into the future. We'll see how it goes. :)