01-02112012
I remember being really comfortable
with physical intimacy with my family when I was a young child. I
used to wrestle with my younger brother, cuddle with my sister and
hug my parents all the time. For many years I had the habit of
kissing my parents good night every evening. However, at some point
that changed. I have one memory which may be the earliest
recollection of shame I have: I was probably around 5 years old and I
was on my way to bed in the evening and I had already taken my
glasses off (my eye sight has been really poor from age 3 onwards),
when I went into our living room to kiss my parents good night. They
were sitting there with my older brother and sister. I couldn't
really see without my glasses, and so I just walked up to the person
I thought was my father and gave him a kiss – but as I gathered
from the reaction of the person I had just kissed and from the amused
reactions around me something was not right. I had actually kissed my
older brother who seemed bewildered as I now saw his face as I was up
close. I remember experiencing shame, closing up in horror and
escaping the situation. That may have been a turning point in my
relationship towards physical intimacy, as I haven't yet located a
more prominent memory of a similar kind.
I now realize the shame I experienced
wasn't mine but my brothers which I just instantly adopted. He was
around 16 years old around that time and it's quite obvious why a
teenager would react to someone just unexpectedly kissing them. The
situation was actually somewhat funny now that I look at it, and it
would've been if I hadn't gone with another's reaction – I'm not
blaming myself because I realize a child born into this system pretty
much doesn't have a choice but to go with it; as I adopted the shame
from my brother I validated his experience of shame as well. I
haven't realized my reaction wasn't mine but copying that which was
in front of me and believing my mind to be my actual self, believing
the shame to be mine. As it was most likely a new experience based on
what I remember of the situation I was probably really overwhelmed.
I'm also not blaming my brother in any way whatsoever, because he too
was a child with no tools to process his experience, and I hope my
wording is accurate enough to convey I am simply trying to state the
facts of what happened.
As I grew up and reached puberty I got
really ashamed of my changing body, not wanting to turn into an adult
[a point here that needs to be walked in separate writing] but also
because I was gaining weight, which was happening because I
compensated for the stress caused by bullying by eating. As I grew
more and more ashamed I refrained from physical intimacy because I
did not want to face myself in the physical. This lasted for many
years, starting from around the age of 10 I think, and it led to me
becoming so secluded that I did not experience physical intimacy
until I was around 16 years old and made new friends with whom I
learned to hug [another dimension I need to go through within the
point “relationship rituals”]. I have a memory in which I talked
with a friend about hugging, and I was kind of bragging about not
having hugged anyone in a whole year, like my seclusion was something
that made me “more” in some way; probably more deserving of
sympathy, trying to get another to give me that which I secretly
wished for instead of just asking for it.
So before the age of 16 I went through
my life experiencing little to no physical intimacy at all because I
was so ashamed of myself – I was literally petrified from fear. I
remember myself as this really awkward and literally collapsed
teenager who just wanted to escape and hide her physical being
completely. I could not look at my body, I could not touch my body, I
could not sense my body at all. I had no idea what my body actually
was as I was too afraid to face myself; I did not want to face what I
had accepted and allowed myself to become. I was not living
self-intimacy, and thus intimacy with others was not even possible.
So instead of blaming the world for not giving me intimacy I am now
starting to see how I created those conditions for myself as I was
impossible to be approached.
How does this reflect to what I am now?
There are some points regarding shame I haven't walked, such as shame
related to some particular body parts, and those are points that
occasionally immobilize me. I'm also starting to realize how intimacy
is a really vast (yet simple) thing concerning the mental as well as
the physical as a whole, and I am yet to walk through how I have
limited myself within mental intimacy, meaning revealing and myself
as who I have accepted and allowed myself to become as the mind,
which is a relatively new point to me. I now see and realize the
physical and the mental are interconnected as the mental is that
through which I have perceived and limited my physical during my
entire existence in this reality. So the mental intimacy and physical
intimacy are connected to each other quite extensively.
I will now through self-forgiveness
walk the point of shame as it has limited me from experiencing
physical intimacy.
-- Not good enough --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I am not worthy of physical intimacy
because I am “not good enough” to “deserve” it.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself an image of “good enough” as an ideal, that concerns beauty, personality traits, strength, desirability and success.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe physical intimacy is something that has
to be “deserved”, meaning I have to somehow “push” myself to
receive it, as doing something “more” or “extra”, such as
reaching the imagined goal of “good enough” I had defined for
myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to limit myself from experiencing physical
intimacy as I have perceived myself to not yet be good enough for it
as I have not yet reached the image of being good enough.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to think and believe I can never be good enough to
receive physical intimacy as I have perceived the image of “good
enough” to be higher than I am able to get to.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to want/need/desire to live out an imagined ideal
in order to “get to” experience physical intimacy, not realizing
I limit myself from experiencing physical intimacy by waiting around
for the reality to turn into the image I want/need/desire and through
that escaping myself as the creator of my conditions/experience.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that to create ideals and images by
setting goals is to never actually do that which is required for
change right here and now as one will eventually live out the
according image instead of facing what one has accepted and allowed
oneself to become.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to feel hopelessness as I have perceived my
self-created image and ideal to be “too much” for me to reach.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that all the while I have created
images and ideals I need to be before I can “get to” physical
intimacy, as if it's some kind of a goal post, I have never looked
into what physical intimacy actually is and what is thus required of
a human being to be in order to experience it at all, not to mention
to experience it as life instead of images acted out.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that as I think and believe I am
not good enough I manifest exactly that – one locked into a state
of not facing themselves is not able to face another either.
-- Believing the shame --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe the shame I experience to be real,
valid and justified.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to justify my experience of shame by believing
myself to “deserve” the shame as I have perceived myself to not
be “good enough”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I “deserve” shame, not realizing it
is self-abuse.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I will change into something “good
enough” if I suffer enough, as I have believed the world to be a
fair system that rewards those who suffer enough.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my thoughts as manifestations of shame
to be real, not realizing I am not my thoughts.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my experience of shame to be of me as I
adopted it from my older brother, not realizing I was picking up that
which had already been preprogrammed into me as the generations of
people that have lived before me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a teenager to believe shame to be valid because
everyone else was ashamed as well, not realizing a reality within
which it is valid for everyone to be uncomfortable is not one I would
want to create or live within myself, and within this not realizing I
have already created it by accepting and allowing it to manifest
within and as myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to support and validate the experience of shame of
another by living within and as shame myself as I have believed my
shame to be valid because the other one is ashamed as well – not
realizing if neither one stops we will loop into infinity, and that
if I do not stop my experience of shame it will never end as no one
is ever going to save me from it – I am the one who stops myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be ashamed to talk about shame with anyone, as
I have not realized everyone has experienced it and knows what it
feels like.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to seclude myself from others as I have not shared
my experience of shame, and thus not be able to ever conclude the
fact that shame in fact is not valid.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize shame is about hiding oneself, and
that the act of communicating about shame would already disprove it -
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe
the shame would get “worse” if I shared it with another, not
realizing that regardless of what the other
replies/shares/communicates back, I would have already pushed through
shame within and as the act of communicating about it.
-- Creating shame --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I was ashamed for anyone to see me, not
realizing I was actually ashamed for myself to see me, and that the
shame for everyone else was a consequence of that.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be ashamed of myself as a whole: my body, my
behavior, my personality, my entire being was wrong.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my being as a whole was shame-worthy
because of the feedback I perceived the world to give me about
myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe the judgements of others to be valid as
I have taken them personally instead of looking at why another has
the need to judge.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe everything I face to be a comment on
myself personally, not realizing my perception is filtered through
self-judgement.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that as I have perceived another to
judge me I have already believed my self-judgement, as I have at a
very young age learned shame to be the appropriate response to
certain situations.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to create shame out of the experience of not being
accepted.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe shame is the correct response for not
being accepted / being rejected.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not question my belief that shame is a correct
response to not being accepted, as the act of questioning would
require that I face myself and I was afraid to do that.
-- Projection --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to avoid physical contact and being seen as I have
been ashamed of myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be ashamed and afraid of being touched as
another (myself) would then see me as I am.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be ashamed and afraid of being seen as another
(myself) would then see me as I am.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to project my fears on others, believing I am
afraid of others when in fact I was afraid of myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear others would judge me, not realizing that
all judgement is self-judgement as I accept and allow myself to take
things personally.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear others would abandon me if they saw me for
what I am, as I would have abandoned myself if I could have escaped
my own being.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to want/need/desire to escape my entire being, not
realizing I am responsible for the experience of self-rejection as I
accept and allow myself to see myself as “not good enough”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that I am able to change my
experience as I am the one who creates it as I have believed the
world as judgement to be responsible for my experience.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility over myself as I
have not wanted to face myself and escaped myself by believing the
world to be responsible.
I commit myself when and as I feel
shame to stop, breathe and remind myself that shame too needs to be
communicated, and that the act of communicating about shame in itself
is to let go of it.
I commit myself to realize there is no
external requirement for physical intimacy to be possible/available,
as I now see, realize and understand that to experience physical
intimacy as Life the only requirement is to stand within oneself as
oneself, whatever that is at that moment, and that this internal
quality will reflect on the external.
I commit myself to face and embrace my
entire being no matter what I find in myself, as I now see and
realize that letting go of what I have accepted and allowed myself to
become happens not by rejecting myself but by embracing myself.
I commit myself to realize and remind
myself that shame is never valid.
I commit myself to carry responsibility
of my experience as a whole as I now see and realize I am the creator
of my experience.
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