The last 13 days I have been fasting and meditating. In between I go running or work out. Some of my fellow retreat participants (who don’t fast or excersize) were impressed by this. My reaction is to say something that I slightly devaluating. “Oh well, it’s just something I like to do”. I wasn’t receiving them. Until yesterday when I suddenly realized “Hey, wait a minute! It is actually amazing how easy I just flick the switch to an extreme regime! And you know what, I can do that at will! I can will anything I want! I do have tremendous willpower!”. With that insight a huge amount of stories I have about myself can go overboard. Beliefs I hold on to like that I’m not good enough, that stuff just won’t work out for me: it’s just not true. I’m showing it to myself and I wasn’t even noticing. I can achieve anything I set my mind to. And all of a sudden I realize that I already came a long way.