My failure to follow through on blogging has had some interesting effects. One of these concerns the practice of Shamatha meditation and the application of mindfulness techniques.

In a much earlier time, I practised Shamatha meditation. This is a standard zazen practice as taught by Shunryu Suzuki. The practice involves being seated quietly in lotus position and meditating on the out breath as it disappears into surrounding space.

Outside of the periods of sitting practice, various techniques were employed to encourage mindfulness, the means of maintaining an awareness of how one engages with all aspects of external phenomena. During the past months of May and June, I made a concentrated effort to try and maintain situational awareness in addition to working to regain other skills. This included working diligently to enter an unbroken string of daily posts. In addition to posting, I also undertook on-line course work in an attempt to regain my prior technical skills. I found this attempt at learning extremely frustrating. My ability to learn appears to be considerably reduced from what it once was.

When I stopped this sequence of posts and the associated learning, I quickly entered a very different phase. An entry in my Accident Log describes this change:

Back from a copy run and post office submission.
Note that I am not following my prior routines.
I am preoccupied with the challenge of finding employment.
I am going ahead blindly.
Before this I was engaged in a very conscientious attempt to monitor my behavior and grow my awareness of deficit patterns and identify the means to mitigate those issues.
Now I blindly forge ahead, I forget my routines, drift off to other concerns and then return to the present and realize I am not following my discipline, that I am more or less out there. In driving this is unsafe. In other areas of my life I am moving from a stage in which I was learning to enforce discipline and achieve rehab goals to a sort of blind rush forward. I am not sure this achieves much, or if it is fruitful.

Since I have come to the conclusion that making any further submission to the insurance company is a loosing proposition, I have turned to try and locate employment. The injury gives me one advantage. I can look at my diminished bank balance and my poor economic prospects and I have no sense of anxiety over my predicament. No anxiety at all. I continue to find this to be very strange.

I am also very aware of the fact that in the past I undertook projects and woefully overestimated my capabilities. This resulted in the inevitable crash and burn. I have come to the realization that the recent period of a concentrated focus on posts and on-line learning may have given me a false sense of accomplishment.That I may once again be over estimating my capabilities.

I am making the attempt to map out and plan for a return to work, even if this work is nothing more than cleaning offices (Dr H thinks I may not have the physical strength for this type of work due to post accident atrophy of my left side).

The other critical aspect of my current endeavours is the need to maintain my self confidence. I need to believe in myself and my competence, my ability to perform to an acceptable standard. I feel as if I am walking a tightrope of competing interests. Attempting to be mindful in all that I do, attempting to maintain practical routine, while at the same time preparing to throw myself out of the plane without a single parachute and trusting that I can learn to fly before I meet the up-rushing terrain.

I really have no idea if such a thing is possible. What I do know is that I have no choice. I have already exited the plane. It is now little more than a tiny dot in the distance. And the ground is getting ever so much closer.