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

20-21112012

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.