Days 50-51: Equality and relationships, part 1

10-11112012

I started to open up points regarding relationships, past and present, and realized that throughout my relationship history I can see one specific limitation: not seeing myself as one and equal to my partner. I will now for some days write about this point and its different dimensions, and that will require me to walk down a memory lane I have been avoiding for a long time.

Part 1 – Waiting for permission

As a child I learned the rules of the relationship game. The very first rule was that if there's someone I like, they either like me back or don't like me back, and that being liked back was a good thing and not being liked back was bad. Being refused didn't really mean anything because it didn't have consequences – whereas being liked back apparently did. What those consequences were I didn't find out, as that never “happened” to me (I never accepted and allowed that to happen), but as this game was played around me and others got “approved” into relationships I learned that one had to be accepted by another for a relationship to be created.

I have held onto this misconception ever since. I learned and believed that I have no control over creating a relationship; that another had to come to me and approve me. Thus I didn't act upon my interest towards others and waited around for someone to come and approve me, which never happened, and from this I concluded there must be something wrong with me as I perceived “everyone else” to be involved in relationships. In time this grew into bitterness and I blamed the world for not giving me access to relationships because there was something “wrong” with me, believing there to actually be something wrong with me, which is not true (and yes, this is still somehow news to me).

All this reflects into how I have gotten into relationships later in my life. As I have been choosing a partner for myself, I have followed the exact same pattern as I did as a child: have an energetic experience of liking someone; wait around to see if he notices; if not, be disappointed and find a new guy to like; if he does, follow him to see where this goes. As I wrote before I had no idea what relationships were actually about and expected the other to know better and lead me. This is pretty much how all of my relationships have started until I began to notice my passiveness leading nowhere and realized I cannot just wait around for all of my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my perception of how relationships are created as I have learned it as a child and believed it to be true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there to be a separation of me and “the others” (potential mates) and that we had different rules to follow in the relationship game.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my passiveness by believing “the others” are the ones who have to act first according to what I learned the rules of the relationship game to be.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and not consider breaking the rules of the game as I have not known what I would then face and been afraid of the unknown, not trusting myself to handle it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize there is no valid reason for me and “the others” to follow separate rules, as we are all one and same in essence, and that the actual “rules” of equal interaction are the same for everyone.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe “the others” as the people I took interest in to be separate from me, believing our experiences were different in essence.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize it is likely that everyone else was just as scared and confused as I was, and that the only difference between us was that some chose to act upon their experience and some didn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that people either like or dislike each other and that there is no grey area in between.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is not possible to “like” everyone, the word “like” here meaning that one is able to be comfortably in the presence of everyone without experiencing energy as one is stable within oneself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to dislike people because I thought that you have to either like or dislike another, with no other options, because “that's the way it is”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect either a positive (acceptance) or a negative (refusal) response from others, not realizing there doesn't have to be either one as we simply co-exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from exploring relationships as I believed I have to wait around for a permission (acceptance from another).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my curiosity about this new interesting facet of life I wanted to explore but believed I couldn't because I had to wait for permission.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need a permission from the world (other people) to explore life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not question the system of behavior where I need a permission from an authority to do things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to perceive everything “bigger” than me to be an authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive “the others” as the ones who give acceptance to be an authority because they hold that power over me, not realizing the only acceptance I need is my own and that in that I am my only authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to turn bitter as I saw the world to never give me that permission I was waiting around for and accumulate my suppressed curiosity into a desperate desire that turned into frustration as I did not know how to vent it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame the world for not giving me the permission (another's acceptance/initiation) to explore relationships, believing the world to be the cause of my experience of frustration, not realizing I create it all by myself as I limit myself with imaginary boundaries and abdicate my responsibility over my experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the rules of the relationship game are imaginary and that the only rules that apply are those of self-authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there was something wrong with me as I perceived the world to not give me the permission/acceptance I thought to be necessary and perceived everyone else to get.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is my fault that I'm not getting the permission/acceptance I desire – true and false, as the reason did lie within me, but as I did not have the tools to understand how the mind works and saw the world as pictures I started to believe the reason to be that which I saw of myself, which was my appearance and behavior as compared to others (the ones who got what I desired).

I commit myself to stop perceiving myself separate from others and to realize that the responsibility for creating and upholding all relationships lies with all those involved.

I commit myself to carry my responsibility over all the relation-ships I'm involved in as I now see and realize the responsibility lies equally with all those in relation to each other.