Day 67: Guilt, work and duty - part 2

26-27112012

From part 1: "I have just started an improvisation group with some friends and new friends. We had just had our first meeting and it had gone very well, but as I was on my way home I was struck by guilt. “How can you be doing something as useless as this when there's actual work to be done?”

As I started to write more specifically about what I was experiencing, I noticed that what it came down to was my relationship to work, leisure and responsibility, and also how I had viewed my father as a child – I was feeling guilty for doing something “useless”. I will now go through some dimensions of these issues."

• Workaholism
• Eager for responsibilities
• No leisure time for me (what is fun?)
• What am I actually doing (self-honest assessment)
• What is “enough”

-- Eager for responsibilities --

For some reason the word “responsibility” really resonates with me. I am willing to carry responsibility and often volunteer for it. But is it just me trying to compensate for my “smallness” (my perception of myself as “less than” others)?

In the past I have often volunteered to take on responsibilities, because I have been very interested in a many things, wanted to try everything, wanted to do a lot and get things moving and done. This desire to “do it all” as I have been unable to decide on what I want to do the most has resulted in me taking on more responsibilities than I can carry, which has been because I have not assessed my capacity realistically or honestly, and thus I have experienced a burn-out more than once because I have not really looked into what is causing it – I have realized I am perhaps taking on “too much”, but I went through this loop many times before I found my limits – and now I'm starting to figure out how to push my limits further, which is quite fascinating, but man do I need to be careful not to go overboard.

I have always been very curious about life, and during times when I haven't been completely collapsed under my self-abuse, I have been really excited about life and the world and all that there is to do and try and see – the playfulness of human nature has been very present, and thanks to theatre I never completely quit playing, even though it moved from being an overall state of being to something that was only allowed within a limited space – nevertheless I participated in playing, exploring and moving and didn't forget what it is to be in that state.

So I can see how this curiosity and playfulness is a motivator as I take on responsibilities – but there is also the other dimension I need to face, which is the attempt to “be enough” by doing a lot – and also the dimension of “trying to experience it all” by doing everything at once, which is just another energy possession.

Sometimes as I take on responsibilities I do it because I perceive them to make me “more”. There have been situations where I have been asked to do something, and I have interpreted that request to be a statement that says that “I'm apparently good at what this person is asking me to do”, which becomes a point of self-definition and also self-evaluation – I give myself a definition and a value based on the request (feedback) of another. I then gladly take on this responsibility because I see it as an opportunity to “shine” (= show everyone who I am as the self-created definition and value). Thus I get to live out my illusion of being “more” which is based on my definition/evaluation of myself.

Sometimes I take on responsibilities in order to prove my value. This is when I see myself as “less than” others and take on a lot of responsibilities in order to receive the feedback that would give me a chance to define and evaluate myself as “enough”. This is when I compare myself to others and create myself the definition of “less than” and a low value. Then I request for responsibilities in order to prove everyone (myself) I am not my definition and evaluation of myself – and end up living them out as my starting point for action is fear and I manifest that which I fear. Interesting to see how these two points form a pair – a polarity.

So, concerning the “thirst for life” as hoarding experiences to live it all – this is something I don't yet have a clear view on. I'll have to return to it in more specific writing once it's clarified a bit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take on responsibilities from an unclear starting point, not realizing that as I do this I cause more harm than good.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take on an assignment I am asked to do without a second thought because it makes me feel good about myself instead of stopping to assess my capacity, resources and skills concerning the assignment and thus considering whether or not it is best for all that I'm the one to commit to this specific assignment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify taking on assignments I cannot complete with the belief that I wouldn't have been asked to do it if I wasn't able to do it, secretly feeling good about the recognition, not realizing that the one asking me to take on the assignment does not see my entire capacity, and that it is thus my responsibility to assess whether I can actually complete the assignment or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to the feedback of others, meaning the feedback I give myself through others - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hear and interpret the feedback of another to be “praising” and make that into a defining point of “who I am”, and then look for chances to express that which I have defined myself to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign myself a value that is “more” based on my interpretation of the feedback of others and then look for ways to live as “more than” others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my interpretation of the feedback of others, not realizing the process of interpreting happens in the mind and that seen through the mind the reality is no longer real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my illusion of “being more” is “who I am” when in fact I have just been fantasizing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the perceived lack of positive feedback by being afraid that I am no longer “good enough” or “worthy”, thus attempting to do that which I perceive to make me “good enough” or “worthy”, which is to work a lot.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign myself a value based on the amount of work I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret the lack of positive feedback to mean there is something wrong with me or “missing” from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the feedback of others into a stability point without which I feel like I am “incomplete”, thus creating a dependency on the company of others because I believe I “need” the feedback to know who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to achieve the feedback of others by doing a lot of things that have previously got me feedback.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that ultimately I am always my own source of feedback as I decide what I hear in the feedback of another, and that as I am able to give myself feedback with or without others, my dependency on the feedback of others is thus not valid.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build my self-image through my interpretation of others' perception of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take on so many assignments that I have gone sick with exhaustion, as my fear of not getting feedback (not being complete) and my want/need/desire to get feedback (be complete) have accumulated to a breaking-point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop my self-abuse until after time looping several times.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how I manifested that which I feared (not being enough) by taking on so many or such big assignments I couldn't finish them properly.

I commit myself, when and as I am asked to take on an assignment / a task / a responsibility, to stop, breathe and honestly assess my own capacity to commit to it before making a decision.

When and as I notice a movement within me that indicates my willingness to volunteer to take on an assignment / a task / a responsibility, I commit myself to stop, breathe and honestly assess my own capacity to commit to it before bringing forth my suggestion – and when and as I see that my capacity is not enough for the task to be completed, I commit myself to investigate where the willingness actually comes from in order to see if I am moved by a want/need/desire.

I commit myself to consider my life as a whole when considering taking on new responsibilities, as I now see, realize and understand that my capacity is limited and that I need to know how much I can do in long-term.

I commit myself to always consider my physical needs when considering taking on new responsibilities and letting go of old ones.

I commit myself to realize my value is not defined by the things I do, but that my value is actually inherent and one and equal to all.

I commit myself to investigate how I define myself and my value through my actions.

Day 66: “We are doomed.”

25-27112012

I have never really known war due to the place I was born in. It has always been some distant thing decades away and mostly also geographically away, as the major wars of humanity haven't been fought in this corner of the Earth. The last wars in this country were fought almost a hundred years ago, and the people who actually lived any of it are soon deceased.

Thus I have never really learned what it is to live war. Even though I haven't lived in outright prosperity, my life has been a sheltered haven of a somewhat peaceful childhood and endless escapism provided. I have never had to face war. It simply hasn't been within my experience of life.

This changed in September 2001 when the plane crashes on the World Trade Center were widely covered in the media. I was 12 years old then, and I remember coming home from school and finding my mother sitting in front of our TV in the living room, telling me to come see what they were showing – the footage of the towers collapsing. That was a moment that for me was a point of no return: even though the material wasn't the most tragic there is, but it was dramatic, concrete and real – real events – real consequences – no escaping any of it – for the first time I saw pictures of war I understood on some level. I'm wondering how my mother felt as she was watching the news. I could barely conceive any of it, but she had lived during times of war, she had heard of war, she had witnessed the signs of war in her parents' generation – what did she see as the towers collapsed in front of her? I've never asked her. I will now.

As a child I was really interested in history and curious about mankind and where we've come from, how we've become what we are, but the way history was taught at school quickly muffled all interest I had as all it focused on was the details which I could not comprehend without the big picture. Thus my overall knowledge of history has been rather poor. As I've been watching the documentary trilogy Power Principle my view on the history of war has broadened. I now have a better understanding of the situation we are currently living in and how we ended up here, and it is quite grave to realize that war is no longer (and has never been) decades or miles away – it is right here. We are living it. We are amidst the world conquest attempts of one superpower and the opposing threats from other such. I can no longer escape war – I am a part of it.

As I was watching the last minutes of the documentary I went into some state of despair, thinking: “We are doomed.” A state of hopelessness that would easily justify giving up – I'm kinda starting to see how the people who “give up on humanity” come to that conclusion. We do not know how things will end up, and it may just be that the ones working for a better future are doing it “in vain” - meaning that we will never manifest that heaven on Earth we so long for – and it is thus easy to believe it is meaningless to even try. So how do I know if what I'm trying to do here is any good? Should I, too, just lay back and “enjoy the show”?

I can't find any justifications for that kind of a refusal of one's responsibility. Even if it all appears to be “in vain”, how do I know if it really is or not? Even if my actions right now appear as futile, how do I know whether that perception is true or not? The thing is, I don't, and nobody does. None of us really know what's “worth it” and what's not.

It's not the end of the journey my focus should be on, but the journey itself – by allowing myself to think about the future and “how we all will end up” I project myself into the possible future and create scenarios and live as images instead of being HERE and realizing what is actually here at hand and what it is I can actually seize. It is not possible to know what is going to happen, because we are not there yet. Right now we are here. Someday we'll be there, and we'll face it as it comes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to separate myself from war as a phenomenon that is happening here on Earth and affecting every single being and cell of this existence, as I had not learned what it is and didn't care/know to ask.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe war is something distant and apart from me, not realizing war affects everything that there is within this existence because every movement within the existence resonates within every part of this existence, and that thus I cannot be separate from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how I have participated in creating war by standing as the living heritage of all of mankind that has lived before me and thus living as the mind functions that create and sustain war - greed, self-interest, fear, abuse, hate – and all of their well-meaning positive counterparts – not realizing that as I live as them I accept and allow them to exist within this reality as I accept and allow them to exist within the only part of the reality I can control and only I am able to control, thus being the only one who can carry the responsibility of what happens within my internal universe.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I have been surrounded by people who have lived through experiences of war either first-hand or second-hand and that I could have thus asked them about their experiences and expand my understanding of war.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe everything is OK with the world as I have believed my perception of it to describe the entire reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have learned more about war, to refuse the information by going into disbelief, because the thought of having to change my world view from a limited “positive” one into an expanded “negative” one felt overwhelming.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign war a value that is “bad”, therefore making it all the more difficult for myself to accept its existence and my responsibility of it, not realizing that war is neither good nor bad – it simply is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that war is what the human kind at the moment expresses of itself – that war is humanity's self-expression – and that refusing to face war is to separate myself from humanity and to abdicate my responsibility of war as a part of the creator of war.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as the information about war has “sunken in” as I have stopped refusing it, to react to the world not being the place I believed/expected it to be with disappointment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think the world is “unfair” because war exists, not realizing the world simply manifests what we are living as, and that there is thus nothing fair or unfair: there's just who we are and the manifestation thereof.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for someone to blame for the “injustice” there is in the world, getting angry because there wasn't any single subject to blame and punish, or because they were getting away with it and not getting the punishment I saw to be “fair”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the suffering of another can be “paid off” with equal suffering of another, not realizing suffering only creates more and more suffering and that the cycle of revenge will go on for infinity unless we STOP.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel hopeless as I learned that war is complicated and cannot be solved easily, perceiving the task to end war to be “too much” and “impossible”, not realizing I was abdicating my responsibility to do what needs to be done to stop war, and that I was making interpretations based on the little amount of knowledge I had, not actually knowing what needs to be done to stop war.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive war to be something “more” than me, not realizing I am one and equal to war as it is a manifestation of the whole I am an equal part of.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself as “less” than war and thus justify not participating in stopping it, believing I am “unable” to do anything about war.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the first step towards stopping war is stopping my internal war.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel disbelief as I've learned I've got to change myself first in order to change the world, feeling like changing myself is a small and insignificant task – which I've now come to realize is not true at all – wanting to serve “the world” as something “more” than myself and separating myself from the whole by believing my process was “not important”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that changing myself is actually the only thing I can do, and that once I have changed myself the world around me will start to change.

I commit myself to study the history and methods of war in order to understand the process the human kind has gone through and to see what exactly we are now living as and why.

I commit myself to ask my parents about their experiences of war.

I commit myself to focus on my process as I now see, realize and understand it is what needs to be done right now so that I may carry my responsibility of the world as we have created it.

I commit myself to live as patience as I walk my process.

Day 65: Letters from a past self

23 & 25112012

I realized there's not much I remember from the past 9 months. It might be because it's still too close a past to come together and back then I didn't write as much as I do now to structure things out, but it might also be something else - I suspect an energy possession called “love”. As I was cleaning up an old bag I was still using then (I switched a couple of months back) I came across a stack of writings I had done at work on small note pads during a couple of months' period of time. As the paper space was limited the writings aren't that extensive, but they allow me a small peek into my thoughts during last winter and spring.

What I found out was that I was apparently really, really happy. I was going through an experience of “falling in love” no matter how I tried to bring myself to earth – it was unavoidable because of my starting point. I thought I was further down the road than I already was. I was also writing in terms of spiritualization I would no longer use, as I've started to see the falsities they're built upon. It seems that how I perceive my reality has changed quite drastically. Also, some longer writings were written through now obvious personas, meaning that my writings were partly dishonest and not written for myself.

As I was going through this material from not so long ago I went through some melancholy, sadness, and felt an odd disconnection from my reality right here around me. I looked at my apartment, which had just a moment ago felt completely normal, through some odd veil of “things not being the way they used to be”. It was like I was seeing the past as it was and as I was, and looking at my reality and myself now and judging it to be “less meaningful”, “less of value”, “less fulfilling” etc. But then I realized it's a trick and started to breathe again. Kind of a relief, but not in the energetic kind of way – just allowing myself to breathe again instead of trapping myself in the mind was a physical release.

This is really interesting in many ways. The experience of melancholy I shortly went through there is very familiar to me, as I've basically been living as melancholy all of my life. Usually I have simply dwelled in it, spending days and days just regretting things and living in past moments and missing people, not having a moment of stability, spiritualizing the past, present and future and feeling like “there's something missing” from my life. It's been an awful way to live, no wait, it hasn't really even been living. I've been dreaming – I've trapped myself into a nightmare of self-abuse. It was alarming to see a glimpse of it just now, yet I am glad I'm no longer there.

What I also find fascinating are the writings, because they give me a small indicator of where I've been less than a year ago and what the exact change has been. I still find myself going into regret because I feel like I've wasted and ruined so many opportunities over the years because of the mess I have been, but this is where I have to remind myself I couldn't have been anything else than what I was. Things went how they went, I chose to face myself when I did and there is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do about the past, except correcting misunderstandings. What I can do is do what I can right here, right now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into the energetic experience of “falling in love” as completely losing myself to the associated energy and accepting and allowing myself to be possessed and directed by it.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to “fall in love” because it feels nice for a while and it is widely accepted by my surroundings.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek the experience of “falling in love” as escapism and comfort, not realizing I cannot escape my reality and myself no matter how uncomfortable their facing may be.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify “falling in love” with the desire to team up with someone, not realizing a part of the reason I have been seeking a partner has been the fact that I do not want to / do not trust myself to be able to face the world alone.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify “falling in love” with the belief that some forms of human contact [I'll keep on expanding on this one] are exclusive to romantic relationships.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to write from a starting point of fear as I have been trying to portray a character through my writings even if they weren't meant to be published – meaning I have been afraid to face myself through my writings.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my characters to be who I am.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my characters as I have been afraid to be without them even in private writing.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not clarify my starting point even when writing to myself only, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to share writings that have been written from the starting point of self-dishonesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to spiritualize things in my writings and thus use writing as a way to magnify and glorify my experiences and justify it by thinking “writing is art”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “art” as a justification to write dishonestly.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse the tool of writing for purposes of self-interest, deluding myself through writing by creating images with words that magnified and glorified my actual experience, and that I have justified this by thinking “I'm a good writer” (= I am “special” and thus “able to” use words in such a manner). [An interesting point I should expand.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project myself into the past and physically disconnect myself from the reality by not breathing as I do this, and as a result go into energetic experiences of sadness and regret because the past I project myself to appears as “better” than my reality, which is not true but only my perception of the past through glorifying the past in comparison to what is here.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my past and my present, not realizing there is no point in comparing them because the other I can affect and the other I cannot – the comparison might be valid if I could change both, but that is not the case.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe my past to have been “better” than my present, not realizing my perception is filtered through emotion and is thus not a valid reflection and assessment on my past.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose breath by projecting myself into the past and reacting to what I see with emotion, thus going into the mind and giving up my directive principle of myself in the physical to my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trap myself in melancholy by missing people I am not in contact with at the moment and/or perceive myself unable to be in contact with in the future.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there are people I cannot contact even if I wanted to, not realizing this is not valid unless those people are physically dead.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project myself into past situations where I am with someone when in actuality I am not with them in the present, not realizing that as I do this I create a want/need/desire to that which I perceive with my mind to be “missing” from my present as I compare the past and the present.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive my want/need/desire to be “impossible” to fulfill as I believe I cannot contact the person I'm “missing”, and thus react with sadness and regret to the unfulfilled desire.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trap myself in melancholy by glorifying past events and labeling them “special” and thus missing the events and judging my current moment as “less than” the past events.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trap myself in melancholy by regretting my past actions/inactions as I perceive they cannot be changed, not realizing that even though the actual past situations cannot be changed most misunderstandings can be corrected, and thus the harm that the misunderstandings keep on causing can be stopped.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste a lot of time being trapped in melancholy, as I have not realized that I could simply STOP at any given moment and decide to take the first step out of my self-created misery by carrying responsibility for it.

I commit myself to investigate the movements within me as the relationship system that lead to the experience of “falling in love” and further expand them through writing.

I commit myself, when and as I go into the experience of “falling in love” [not likely, but committing myself to it anyway], to stop, breathe and remind myself the experience serves as escapism and nothing more.

I commit myself to show myself in practical moment-to-moment living that I am in fact able to face the world alone, as I now see, realize and understand I would have to face it alone even if I was with someone.

As I now see, realize and understand that writing from within a character, if not intended for whatever purposes, is dishonest and will not assist and support me or anyone reading them in my/their process of living self-honesty, I commit myself to stop writing from within characters even in writings that are not meant to be published.

I commit myself to further investigate the “I'm a good writer” character.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to be self-honest about my starting point when writing by returning myself to breath before I begin to write, by focusing on my breath as I write and by reading through what I wrote within/as breath.

I commit myself to realize the act of comparison is not valid if it has no practical purpose.

As I now see, realize and understand there is nothing I can do to affect or change my past and that the only point of my existence I can affect and change is HERE; I commit myself to focus on my present moment and to support and assist myself with this by stabilizing myself within and as breath; and I commit myself to let go of the past and to support and assist myself with this through self-honest writing.

Days 62-64: Guilt, work and duty - part 1

22-24112012

I have just started an improvisation group with some friends and new friends. We had just had our first meeting and it had gone very well, but as I was on my way home I was struck by guilt. “How can you be doing something as useless as this when there's actual work to be done?”

As I started to write more specifically about what I was experiencing, I noticed that what it came down to was my relationship to work, leisure and responsibility, and also how I had viewed my father as a child – I was feeling guilty for doing something “useless”. I will now go through some dimensions of these issues.

• Workaholism
• Eager for responsibilities
• No leisure time for me (what is fun?)
• What am I actually doing (self-honest assessment)
• What is “enough”

-- Workaholism --

My father is/was a “workaholic”, meaning a person addicted to working. Throughout my life I have witnessed him abuse himself with excess work with the justification that it's a man's “duty” to work and that one simply “has to” work, that there is no way out of this paid slavery. We have been in a lot of debt since the depression of the early 1990's and so he had a reason to work a lot, because he had a family of 6 to provide for – all the more justifications to work oneself to death, especially as he saw our situation to be his fault and tried to make amends by guaranteeing survival for his children. He worked 10-15-hour days and we only saw him late in the evenings and during holidays. I learned that my father was always working and that it was an honorable and a necessary thing, although we missed him a lot.

What I now see is the satisfaction one gets out of pushing oneself to one's limits – enjoying your own suffering because you're fulfilling your self-image as “the one who suffers for greater good”, or even “the one who suffers because he deserves it”. So it's not even perceived to be suffering but self-fulfillment. It's fair, it's just.

With our father there was always also a sense of “being wronged by the world”, as he demonized the officials that he was indebted to, and it felt like we as a family were in a battle of us vs. the world, the world being all the nasty authorities that just wanted to bully us. So the fact that he worked his ass off to “win” in the game with the authorities was cheered on – the more he worked, the more he was “winning”. What none of us realized (except maybe for him) is that the system would never allow him to win. That option was simply never realistically achievable. But we believed there was a way out of misery, and that it was to either work really hard or win at the lottery (be saved), and that working hard was the best and the only thing you could do to beat the “enemies”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is admirable/honorable to abuse oneself with too much work and too little rest because of how I perceived my father as a child, not realizing I was buying into the survival mechanisms the rest of my family - who also saw the self-abuse my father was going through - were utilizing as justifications, excuses, abdicating responsibility and defending oneselves from the fact that another was sacrificing himself because of “duties” he had imagined to belong only to him.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that our parents should earn our living by themselves.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that because my mother had a steady paid job, my father as an entrepreneur had to earn all the extra money by taking on more and more assignments.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that there is nothing the children can do to assist the family financially.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that children need toys and that it is justifiable to spend money on toys even when were on a really tight budget.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that it is justifiable to buy extra luxuries - such as toys, make-up, video games, entertainment technology, fancy clothes – even though we were struggling with every day necessities, because “everybody needs something fun every now and then” - not realizing that this form of “fun” was buying an escape from our misery as material stuff with money and that we were just bullshitting ourselves instead of actually living, and that with the material escapism we actually made our financial situation harder when we were trying to make it seem easier – and that with this escapism justified by “needs” we gave our father more work load and saw ourselves to be free of responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not question my fathers working hours even though I saw he was exhausted, because he showed us children he was alright and I chose to trust him.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is “natural” that my father is always working even though he seemed to dislike it, thus adapting to believe that it is “natural” (= how one should be) to work a lot even though it's unpleasant.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus adopt a belief that it is “natural” to work so much or work so “hard” (pushing oneself to keep on working) that one gets extremely tired.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to glorify working so much / hard that one gets extremely tired because I glorified my father and everything he did.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is my father's duty / responsibility to work a lot.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is a parents duty / responsibility to provide a living for his/her children by working a lot, not realizing how much the way they had to earn their living in this society took away from the actual responsibilities of the parent, which are teaching and supporting the child in his/her process to humanity and life. [Man, am I grateful my mother worked at home.]
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question this belief even though I enjoyed my father's company as he assisted and supported me during those rare moments when he was not working and instead spending time with his children, not realizing we could have had more of his company and may have thus learned a lot more.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not realize why my parents were there and what their actual responsibility was aside from taking care of my basic physical needs when I was unable to myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the amount this society demands parents to work and be away from their children - or to not have their children with them while they work – does not support any child's process of growth.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it doesn't matter if it's the child's actual parents who raise him, but that any committed adults are fit for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is acceptable/admirable to work so much that I get exhausted with the justification that I'm doing it “for the greater good”, not realizing my exhaustion doesn't serve the common good of all in any way and is in fact away from the common good because I am a part of that “big picture” I'm trying to “serve”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I have worked for the common good and made myself suffer, I have actually done no good at all.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see my well-being as a part of the well-being of all as I have seen myself separate from the whole.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the whole by thinking I am a “savior” who will sacrifice herself for the sake of everyone else.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe “everyone else” is an entity separate from me and above me, seeing myself as “less than” others that ought to be sacrificed.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am giving myself worth by sacrificing myself for “everyone else”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to make myself “more” or “equal to” those I perceived to be “more than” me by punishing myself because I am “less”, believing that because I was “less” I deserved the suffering but that the suffering was also the way to become “more” or “enough”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that with my suffering I “make amends” to being “less”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as an ongoing apology as I have made myself suffer for those I had given the authority to and perceived to judge me as “less”, which was the entire world that I perceived separate from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a self-image that is admirable/honorable because I work for “the greater good” and then live as the image instead of seeing what actually needs to be done for that which is best for all.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel satisfaction as I have fulfilled my self-image as a savior, believing I was now “of value”, not realizing I was limiting myself to live as an image as I was satisfied with it and did not want to expand beyond it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though I was satisfied with my self-image I was still dissatisfied with myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I can “fix” that which I am dissatisfied with in myself by creating an ideal image I want to live as and then live as a characterization of that ideal image, never addressing the actual reasons behind that which is “broken” and whether it's actually broken or am I just perceiving it to be broken.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt / create my family's belief that the authorities who my parents were indebted to were asking us for money out of spite.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the authorities were simply doing the job they were assigned to do within this society and that it was nothing personal.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame the authorities we were indebted to for our hardships, not realizing it was the society we had created and were living as that caused our situation and that it was our responsibility to deal with the consequences – even though none of us had realized any of this.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to demonize the authorities we were indebted to and thus separate them from myself as I saw them to be an “enemy” that opposed us.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my family was separate from the rest of the world, like a team of “good guys”, which created a kind of a unity but out of fear and separation, and so it wasn't really unity but holding on to others out of self-interest.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the authorities were people one and equal to us, and that as I demonized and separated them from myself I made them “more than” myself and saw myself as “less than” them because of their executive power which I was “powerless” against – not realizing we were all playing by the rules of the society instead of living as human beings and that none of us questioned any of that.
• And thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my father's excess work by believing he could “win” the “enemy” by working a lot.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the officials who I have been indebted to as intimidating.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the officials who I have been indebted to have been playing their “role” in this system of trying to bring about justice by exchanging money, their “role” being the one who executes justice by taking from those who have “done wrong” and have to “make amends” in the name of “justice”, and that the “role” they are living as is full of fear and that the fear is hidden and compensated by appearing as “harsh”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret this “harshness” as personal anger towards me and thus believe the other is my “enemy” as I don't believe the anger is justified and react to the “harshness” with aggression and thus separate us from each other.
• And thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I can “win” my “enemies” by working and achieving a lot.

As I now see, understand and realize that to work so much that I as a physical being suffer is to compromise and abuse myself, and that the suffering of any is the suffering of all – I commit myself to no longer work so much that I as a physical being suffer.

I commit myself, when and as I notice physical symptoms of tiredness, exhaustion and weariness in myself, to stop, breathe and re-assess what I'm doing in self-honesty.

I commit myself to investigate and let go of the experiences of tiredness I create through my mind in order to be able to tell them apart from actual physical exhaustion.

I commit myself to practice breathing in order to be aware of my physical at all times, during all activities.

--

I'll continue with the rest of the dimensions in the days to come.

Days 60-61: Defining myself through feedback - School grades

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Some things I have been going through recently, such as my last post, brought to surface the point of defining myself through the feedback of others. I came across a memory of my childhood from around the age of 10-11, where I had brought my arts assignments home from school, and I was really proud and excited about them because I thought I had been making some progress and was really starting to enjoy visual arts. I asked my mom and dad to sit down by our kitchen table and tell me what they thought about my assignments. There was maybe a moment where they didn't know how to give me feedback, I'm not sure – I kind of remember my mother telling me they were all nice and didn't know what else to say – and so as I wanted to hear something more concrete the situation ended up with me suggesting they'd give me a grade in the school scale (4 through 10, 4 being the worst and 10 the best). They both gave me a different grade, mom a 9 and dad an 8. As I was always a student getting straight 9's or 10's, getting an 8 was a slight let down for me. I remember not even looking forward to my mother's feedback so much, but that my dad's evaluation weighed much more – maybe because he had been more critical/constructive and I understood the value in it; maybe because I was overall more “on the edge” about my father as I was much less in contact with him than my mother – at some point early on I started to perceive my father as “more” than my mother, and that affected the way I sought his approval.

Anyway, what I realized as I was looking at this memory was that I have been very infused with the grading system in school, believing the limited scale of numbers to be an accurate measure of skill. I have been very dependent on others to tell me whether I'm “doing good” or not, be it a teacher, a parent or a friend. Whomever I have defined as an authority has been a validator of my worth – and now that I look at it, I see that many of my “authorities” have been the people I have liked the most, which are the people I have feared losing the most. And so I have become dependent on others to tell me if I'm “doing alright” - to tell me “who I am”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to my understanding and filtering of the feedback I have received from other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ask/demand others for feedback, not realizing it is not them who “grant” me feedback but myself as I choose what I hear in another's feedback and how I utilize that which I hear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the feedback of others was necessary because I made it into my foundation, validating all of myself – my self-expression – through others instead of being my own “validator”, by this meaning my own support, assistance and center of being and focus.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to know who I am and thus look for myself in others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have adapted into the school system as my daily routine, to believe the system we functioned according to within school to be the system life functions according to – that school was the representative of life, as it in reality ought to be but actually isn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus internalize the mechanisms of the school system as the mechanisms of humanity - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the grading system of numbers representing “good”/”bad”, “strong”/”weak”, “smart”/”dumb”, “skillful”/”not skillful” to be a system that life functions according to.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize numbers are just symbols and that symbols can be agreed to signify anything at all, and that the values assigned to numbers as grades were thus arbitrary and self-created.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the absurdity of the school grades as a system that creates inequality, separation and competition.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the grading system because I was at the winning end of the deal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that as I had an “authority” I had to obey and please in school, I had to have an “authority” to obey and please in life.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the “authority” as a source for acceptance and worth and to not question that because I got the acceptance and worth so easily, not realizing I am my only valid source for self-acceptance and self-worth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to begin to fear the “authorities” in school and in life when I experienced the losing end of the deal as my “authority” was not satisfied.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the feedback of my “authorities” with “appropriate” emotions/feelings – when I got praised I became happy, and when I got criticized I became unhappy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to then begin to fear my negative/uncomfortable reactions and want/need/desire my positive/comfortable reactions instead of questioning the system that did not support and assist me to become stable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to please an authority so much I have compromised myself, and as a result of this self-compromising and losing myself to begin defining myself according to those I compromised myself for as I projected my entire existence through them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to become so overwhelmed with emotions/feelings as energetic experiences that I mistook them to be my “entire existence” or “the purpose of life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to later in life not realize I have lost myself already as a young child, believing my self-image to have been my actual self and not questioning how I became '”who I am”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my friends, teachers, older siblings and parents as my “authorities” because I feared losing them and thus compromised myself to live according to what I perceived them to want me to be.

As I now see, realize and understand that what I have thought others to “want of me” has been nothing but my own perception of myself projected through others – I commit myself to face this point of “wanting to please others” in practice and take note of the movements within me whenever I interact with others in order to uncover and face all the ways I limit myself through this point.

I commit myself to no longer use the school grading system to define my perception of something, as I now see, understand and realize things are multi-dimensional and cannot be described as limited symbols, even if my perception were limited.

I commit myself to show myself the feedback of others is not my foundation nor my definer by, when and as I receive feedback, returning to breath and realizing I am still HERE and always to be found no matter what happens around me.

I commit myself to study the school system to see what needs to be done and then act accordingly to ensure the generations of children that are to come will receive proper direction, assistance and support in their journey to life and humanity.

I commit myself to realize I am my only authority – to believe otherwise is to abdicate my self-responsibility.

Days 58-59: “finally someone worthy of me”

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As I have since 12 years old been often approached and hit on by the kind of men/women who would simply submit to me, and as I made the mistake a couple of times to go into such a relationship, I learned to say no to those kinds of people. I saw that the relationship would lead nowhere as the other one was not prepared to see us as equals, and I had no idea how to address that. I guess I just didn't have the words for what I was experiencing plus my self-expression was really stuck. This is why I started to look for a person who would be “worthy of me” or “enough for me” in contrast to those who made themselves “less than” me (= less than themselves).

As I used the words “worthy” and “enough” what I initially meant was someone equal instead of the people who made themselves inferior, but I did not consider what those words actually mean and thus the negative connotations took over. As the feedback I had received from the submissive people was all about compliments and lifting me up, I learned that I indeed am somehow superior – and thus deserve a mate who's superior as well.

And so, as I looked for someone superior to match my superiority, I passed many opportunities to even consider some people as “qualified” partners. It was kind of a good thing to learn to avoid those who I knew to lead to destruction, but I now see it has been an act of fear, because the issues I saw could have been addressed instead of believing the ones who submit are somehow lesser people and not worthy communicating to. I did not even try to see them as equals as they made themselves unequal. So to clarify: I was courted by people who saw themselves as less than me and wanted to latch onto me (or so I perceived), I realized this kind of a setting does not work, reacted with fear as I did not know how to communicate, and thus created a separation of alfas and betas and only accepted the alfas – although, as I've realized, I was also really afraid of the alfa-type people and never approached them in any way. Lol, have I driven myself into a corner.

It's been an odd situation I've been in. I've seen myself superior to those who surrounded me and wanted something “more”, but when that “more” would have been available I have made myself incredibly small. The only reason I have believed myself to be superior has been the feedback of others, but when that has been removed I have become my insecure “self” again. So what the betas originally saw in me, which probably was something genuine, turned into a persona of confidence instead of being stability.

So what happened with my latest attempt at a relationship/agreement is that when we got to know each other his feedback came across as actually constructive and supportive instead of the usual bullshit, and I was overwhelmed because I had never experienced such before. Thus I misinterpreted him to be that “superior person” I had been looking for, and that I no longer “had to” search for one, but then as my confidence was only a mask it crumbled as I was not supported by someone who'd lift me up – and thus I was no longer superior and saw myself to be “less” than the value I had assigned him. Fascinating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have experienced another to submit to me, to not communicate my experience to another so that I could conclude whether my perception was accurate or not and how the situation could be directed - thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to instead not communicate my experience as I believed I did not know how to and was so afraid of failing I did not even try.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, instead of communicating about my discomfort with these kind of people, deny myself from getting involved with them in order to avoid conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as there has been conflict because of the starting point of inequality, to interpret the conflict as something “bad” that ought to be avoided and refuse to deal with it and instead cease my relations to the person involved.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe conflict is “bad”, meaning something that should not be experienced and would be wise to avoid, not realizing that once the starting point is off conflict is unavoidable, and that before getting into any relations my starting point should be clear to myself, as there are always two people in a relationship and the responsibility belongs to both.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive conflict as a mere nuisance, not realizing the point of conflict is to indicate something is off and is thus a most constructive thing to face as it is a place to learn.

--

[The following concerns mainly a certain guy from junior high school whom I still feel bad about.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the people who approached me to have been submissive simply because by the surrounding social environment they were considered as “betas”, not realizing I have made guesses based on appearances and limited myself according to my guesswork.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my guesswork, not realizing I'm filtering information based on my perception of reality and shaping it into a picture in my mind and believing all this to be the actual reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not approach the “betas” because I was afraid of being ridiculed by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider the perception and opinion of others before making choices regarding my relationships.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the perception and opinion of others is an authority over me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit my participation in relationships because I was afraid of being secluded from others - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to others and limit myself from acting in a way others might perceive unacceptable as I have been afraid to lose them and consequently lose “myself” as the self-image I created through others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt the perception of others and act according to it unquestioned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have adopted the perception of others, to relate myself to the “betas” accordingly – when I saw them to be “ridiculous” I saw myself as something “more” that had the right to judge – and thus live as inequality and separation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistreat others as I have defended myself by becoming abusive as I have been afraid to end up in the losing end of the deal again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistreat others because I used to be bullied and was afraid it would happen again but now had a chance to not be bullied by agreeing with the bullies on who they disliked and bullied instead of me.

[Enough rambling, back on track.]

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe a person has to be “good enough” to be in a relationship with me – indicating that I believed myself to have the right to evaluate and judge others to see if they “amounted” to me – indicating that I saw myself to be “better” than most people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my perception of myself as a “superior” was a defense mechanism, as I was afraid of being put down again – for all of my life I had perceived the world to “put me down” when in fact I was making myself smaller – and would not face others from a starting point of equality as I perceived that to be a vulnerable state.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the cause of my fear is in other people, as I blamed them for not being trustworthy, believing the world harms me instead of realizing I accept and allow myself to be harmed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I perceive myself to be “superior” to others I live as inequality and separation, and justify that by believing I was “special” based on the feedback of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to cling onto the feedback of others as what defines me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself from within my insecurity and fear to see the feedback of others as a source of energy and cling onto it as my savior.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feed my ego with the energy I have received when another gives me positive feedback or a compliment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I receive feedback from others it is a place to learn of myself and the other and the relationship between us, an that this learning has nothing to do with the mind, ego or energy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see all people and all life as one and equal because I have been afraid to see myself as one and equal because I perceived equality to be a state that is “less” than how I saw myself (my self-image of “superiority”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that as I have kept myself way up high in my ivory tower of ego, the tower has been an illusion – I was never actually higher than anyone, as I have always been exactly equal to all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I cannot have relations to people who I perceive to be “less” than me, as I would then be making myself “less” [I'm starting to locate a “royalty persona” - this is how the rulers of human history have perceived themselves to be – I've been living as a fucking Marie Antoinette, if only for a little while].

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to find someone who is “of my kin”, meaning someone who I perceive to be as superior as I perceive myself, not realizing all of this is interpreted through my twisted perception of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize what I actually wanted was someone who would not make himself smaller than me, and that what I originally longed for was the company of an equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to misinterpret my longing of someone equal into wanting someone “as good as me” as I have as a defense mechanism created a perception of myself that was “better than others”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive people as “worthy” and “not worthy”, indicating that I saw others to have the responsibility to come to me and prove their “worth”, myself not having that responsibility at all, as my job was just to be the “superior” one who everyone gathered around.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be active and search for possible partners for myself as I have waited for them to come around and approach me by themselves as I have believed that's what “the others” do – I have believed the world of relationships to be based on one requesting and another one granting.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize my perception of relationships has been illogical and dysfunctioning, always looking for someone else to blame, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my perception of relationships as I have believed what I have learned as a child to be true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive equality as vulnerability.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive other people as pictures of “worthiness” instead of actually facing them and learning who they are.

I commit myself to realize equality and oneness is not a state of “strength” or “weakness”, but a state where polarities like this do not exist.

I commit myself to show myself in practical living that seeing myself as one and equal to all is not a state of vulnerability as I have believed, and I commit myself to support and assist myself to do this by stabilizing myself here in breath as my directive principle.

I commit myself to realize past events are no longer here and that to not forgive myself for them is to hold on to the past, and thus I commit myself to investigate my past and forgive myself for my past in order to let go and live HERE instead of the past.

I commit myself to re-learn communication by investigating the reasons why I stopped communicating and the blocks I created and by moving myself in the physical through my resistance to communicate, as I now see and realize I am in fact a very expressive being and that communication is vital to me.

I commit myself to further investigate and write about how I have experienced the feedback of others in my life.

I commit myself to further investigate and write about the memories related to this point of superiority personality.

I commit myself to further investigate and write about how I have built myself upon others.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to face all beings as one and equal to myself by stabilizing myself to stand within and as myself within and as breath in each and every moment and encounter, and by reminding myself I have my share of responsibility to carry in establishing equality as I can only live as equality to those I see as one and equal to myself.

I commit myself to actually face and get to know people by establishing a real contact with them in the physical, such as eye contact, as I now see and realize I have avoided facing most of the people I have come across because of false guesswork which has been the result of being afraid to face others.

These points obviously need more opening up, so I will get back to them in more specificity.

Day 57: Melancholy and memories

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To live within melancholy is to look at memories with simultaneous fondness and regret. To look at a memory and think “this was a special moment” or “I wish I had done this differently” is to give the memory a “special” value instead of looking at the memory as it actually is: what I recall to have happened. The value memories have is as a tool of self-reflection, but that's about it.

To feed on the (positive or negative) energy a memory triggers in me is to search for more and more energy to power me up instead of finding my “drive” to keep living and moving from myself as my directive principle. To live powered by memories is to live as the mind.

To look back on memories in search of positive energy is to spiritualize them. To look at memories with regret is to believe things are irreparable. With both the purpose is to make life seem more “dramatic” or “meaningful” by assigning some events, people or places a “special” value instead of seeing that everything is just the same. Wherever I go, a place is just a place. Whomever I meet, a person is just a person. Whatever I do, an action is just an action. Not to demean them, but to bring myself back to reality: there is nothing special, everything has the same value – and in fact, to think in terms of “value” is to already create separation. Things simply exist and co-exist.

The thing with melancholy that's really interesting is the conflict between negative and positive, as both are present simultaneously. When I look back on a positive memory I momentarily live within the associated feeling and get a positive rush of energy, but I simultaneously realize the moment is no longer here and feel sad about it, not being comfortable within myself right here and now. When I look at a negative energy I momentarily live within the associated emotion and get a negative rush of energy, but simultaneously I'm glad the situation is in the past and that I don't have to deal with it anymore, and that's when the opportunity to reflect back on oneself and learn from past mistakes is ignored. So I both face myself and refuse to look at myself at the same time and end up accumulating the feelings/emotions and living in a time loop.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look back on memories and assign them a value of a positive or negative speciality: “this was especially comfortable” or “this was especially uncomfortable”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign things a value based on how meaningful I have perceived that thing to be for me personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the value I assign things is actually from myself – that as I allow myself to be affected by something I face I create the change within me, and thus I was the one taking the “valuable” step and not the thing that triggered it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to externalize value onto things, such as people, places, events, actions, thoughts, feelings, emotions and memories.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question why I hold some things valuable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question why I hold some memories valuable by thinking they are “special”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refrain from reflecting on a memory because I have been afraid to face the energetic response it might trigger in me, as I've been afraid to face myself as the reactions memories trigger in me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the uncomfortable experience of facing myself by suppressing memories and never opening them up, not realizing that as I suppress them they're still within me and manifest all the bigger consequences the longer I suppress them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize all of my memories are of the same value, as their value is in what I can learn from myself with their assistance, as they hold information on what I have been living as.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feed on the energetic experience I have gone with as I have projected myself into a memory, believing this energy is to experience life itself, not realizing life is here and not within the mind as traces of my perception of past moments.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize a memory is just a trace of my past perception of reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize my memories are not an objective truth as they have been recorded from my perspective only.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be my own “battery” as hereness, stability and breath, and instead live with the mind as my “battery” fueled with energetic experiences that distance me from myself and the reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to spiritualize memories by assigning them a high value and perceiving them to be “more than”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I spiritualize a memory I make it “more than” myself, as I place my directive power within the memory's energy and give in to it, not carrying my responsibility to direct myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at a memory loaded with a negative value and regret what happens within it, thinking I “should have” done things differently and feeling sad – not realizing that as I regret I believe things are beyond repair, which they rarely are if one moves within and as self-honesty, and as I feel sorry for myself and dwell in the negativeness I make myself blind to that which is actually here and what I could do to redirect that which I see to have gone wrong in the remembered situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at a memory loaded with a positive value and dwell on the positive experience - “this was so nice” - and then feel sad about it because it's no longer here – and then go back to the memory to live the experience again in my mind because it's no longer here as I believe the only way I can re-live the experience is to live within the memory – not realizing that as I justify myself to go back to the memory “because it's no longer here” I refuse to trust that living as hereness, stability and breath would bring me a life that I enjoy, believing that the moment in the memory was “special” and “one of a kind” and that it was “pure luck” I got to experience it in the first place – not realizing that as I believe the moment was “special” I live as fear and cling onto the one moment that I happened to not limit and suppress myself within.

I commit myself, when and as I go into a memory as energy instead of self-reflection, to stop, breathe and remind myself the energetic response is a trace of the past I am re-living or reacting to and that what I'm experiencing as emotions/feelings is actually not here and thus is not real.

I commit myself to investigate my past memories and forgive myself for whatever I find in them in order to discharge the energetic value I have assigned for my memories.

I commit myself to stop assigning things values as I now see and realize everything is of the same value and to believe otherwise is to create and live in an illusion.

I commit myself to question the things I see to be “of value”.

Day 56: Grief as escapism

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I've been going through a kind of a break-up simulation – living through the experience of “the end of a relationship” defined within the relationship game/system/entity even though my situation is actually nothing like that. I've been living in an agreement that has been going downhill for various reasons I'm now processing, and as we decided to call it off the relationship entity I have been living as interpreted the situation to be a “break-up” as that is the closest I get when directed by the already-existing patterns in my mind. As I've now been living within the experience for a few days I'm starting to see the falsities the experience is constructed of.

I already wrote about the hope dimension found within the statement “I hope we'll get back together”. Another I wish to write about is the character I found within sadness: the weak persona. As I've been living with the sensation of sadness in my body – and the associated thought patterns running through my mind – I have changed my behavior accordingly. Yesterday I shared about my situation to a family member, and I noticed that my overall expression during the time we spent together became passive: movements insecure, limp and passive; voice weak and quiet; participation inactive; all of this portraying helplessness, powerlessness and tiredness – accepting and allowing myself to be weak. It's like saying “I'm so small” in a situation where everyone supports that statement, because “of course she's sad, she's going through a break-up”, and thus having a safe spot to live as smallness.

As the weakness as physical symptoms (weakness and meekness) still continued today I started to get irritated with it. I was telling myself to pick myself up and saying “I really dislike this personality, it's not who I am, I wish it would stop”, and that's when I stopped to realize I can't do it this way either, because that disliking will soon turn into self-hate and that would just be self-abuse. Saying “I wish it would stop” is to place the responsibility to direct myself outside of myself, and I did that because I hadn't looked into how to make this experience stop and dissolve the persona.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the “break-up” experience is real, not realizing it is the relationship system within me that responds to my actual situation according to the system's thought patterns.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake the “break-up” experience as emotions, fears and thought patterns to be related to my actual situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my thoughts, emotions, fears and hopes to be “who I am”, not realizing I am not my mind and that all of these experiences are an illusion to distract me from facing that which is actually here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my experience of grief to be real, not realizing it doesn't correlate with what I'm actually going through.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to grieve the loss of something is to believe one had something, when in fact nothing can be owned and thus nothing can actually be lost, and that grief is in fact not valid.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I grieve the loss of something I project myself into the past when I still “had” that something, refusing to face the reality that is here, because I fear facing the reality “without” that which I perceive myself to have lost.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize grief is in fact escapism.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to express myself through sadness/grief and thus live as the weak persona, not realizing I have been validating the emotional experience of sadness by acting according to it.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to validate the sadness I've experienced, not realizing it is just energy and that it is not who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as the weak persona and thus portray weakness, powerlessness, helplessness and tiredness, secretly wanting to “fall” for a moment in an environment that accepts and allows it, as I have believed it is “tiring” to stand within myself as myself as I walk through my situation and that “falling” is ok.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is ok to “fall” within a selected group of people who support that belief, not realizing I am then living as separation as I separate the “safe” environment (a delusion / facade) from the rest of the world.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to excuse “falling” by thinking “I need a break”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive walking my process as tiring.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I give in to the resistance I face as I walk my process I create the experience of tiredness.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe “I need a break” from my process because it is “tiring”, not realizing I'm giving in to the resistance myself and creating the experience of tiredness myself and that I am thus directing my situation towards tiredness myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I direct my experience into tiredness and then state there's nothing I can do about it (“I need a break” = “I give up”), I am abdicating my responsibility over my own creation.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that giving in to the resistance is a solution to my tiredness as I then “get to” have a break, not realizing I create the tiredness in the same moment I believe myself to solve it, and that the acts of giving up and buying into my own delusion are the one and the same.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the tiredness does not exist before I give in to it – that I create the tiredness when and as I give in to it, not realizing it was never there before I gave in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize it's escapism to live as the weak persona, as within/as the persona I abdicate my responsibility to direct myself and move myself from the conditions I am in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within and as the weak persona to limit and suppress my self-expression by adapting my physical movements and voices to the persona.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within and as the weak persona to limit and suppress my self-expression by not sharing my experience in its entirety and choosing my words so that I could avoid uncomfortable questions.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear uncomfortable questions, not realizing I am afraid to face and answer those questions myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to avoid uncomfortable questions by limiting my self-expression as speech.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within the weak persona to portray helplessness, powerlessness and tiredness to the people I'm with as an attempt to gain sympathy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to portray myself as the weak persona in order to get the excuse to fall.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience irritation as I didn't let go of the weak persona.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I “dislike” what I see I'm accepting and allowing myself to be when I simply do not agree with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as impatience as I have expected myself to let go of a personality faster, even though I had not yet properly walked through it, and then react with irritation when my expectation was not fulfilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I resent the personality I live as I stop myself from facing the personality as it is, as through resentment it is impossible to embrace that which I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself as self-hate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the tools to actually letting go of a persona are here in the physical as movement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to move myself out of an experience by thinking it's the experience's responsibility to change itself (“I wish it would stop”) – not realizing that the experience is of the mind and that the mind as my directive principle is not going to stop itself.

I commit myself, when and as I live as the weak persona, to stop, breathe, realize this is not who I am, forgive myself and physically move myself out of the experience.

I commit myself to study the weak persona in order to find out what triggers it.

I commit myself, when and as I go into sadness/grief, to stop, breathe and remind myself these emotions are the mind's illusion and thus they are not who I actually am.

I commit myself to investigate what triggers sadness/grief within me and to write them down for further deconstructing.

I commit myself to stop sadness/grief immediately when and as they occur, as I now see and realize that they will accumulate if I do not.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to walk through my process within and as myself by stabilizing myself here in the physical.