Days 98-99: The Rules - part 3 - rejection

28-29122012

This post is a continuation to:

Days 92-96: The Rules - part 1

Day 97: The Rules - part 2 - confidence

Part 3 - Rule 2: Don't start a conversation with a man (and do not ask him to dance)

[Note: all quotes from the book are loosely translated from my finnish copy.]

This rule is based on the belief that a man will initiate a conversation if he really wants you, and if he doesn't, he's just not into you. I have been a “suffering believer” as I saw this happening to me all the time (both when breaking the rule or obeying the rule) and took that as evidence that this belief is true – that men will aggressively seek out that which they “really want” and if they don't seek me out I am not wanted – that this is the nature of the male gender – but here I have not realized that I am only looking at my perception of the male gender, a generalization, an image in my mind that may or may not have anything to do with reality. As I have never really known any male as they are as human beings behind the male ego, I cannot say that I have any idea what any male actually experiences for example within the dating construct. “Men know what they want. Nobody has to ask them out for lunch.” Isn't this just believing one's perception of men as “confident” to be the entire reality? There's nothing to back up these kinds of claims and definitions.

So it is encouraged to remain passive, because initiating any kind of contact and being overtly eager would just drive the man away, and that's where one would make oneself “subject to abandonment or rejection”. You wouldn't want to get hurt for nothing, would you? “In the end he will start a conversation himself with a girl he really wants, and then he will leave you.” “How else would you ever figure out whether he noticed you first, fell for you, wants you or if he's just being polite?”

About the advice concerning dancing: it refers to not making yourself easily available so that the challenge would remain and so that the man would have a chance to be active/aggressive and initiate, “according to the order of nature”. It's like seeing the man as something primitive and yourself as something civilized giving the primitive being what it craves (challenge/hunting). If a man does not ask you to dance, he's just not interested. If no one asks you to dance the entire evening – do nothing. If there's someone interesting – avoid him. If you want to find someone – run away all the time. This is so bizarre-o I can't believe I fell for this shit. It made sense within a very narrow context, but now I see none of this is based on open and honest communication and thus cannot result in anything real – if a relationship would come about from these circumstances it would be a lie. Plus it's quite the act of self-suppression, limitation and compromise to not express what you actually experience towards others, towards yourself and your life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my shyness (fear), manifested as reluctance to initiate conversations or any other kind of contact, with the belief that men ought to be the ones initiating because only then will I know their interest is genuine, not realizing that this was just a convenient excuse to avoid taking the risk of getting rejected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear getting rejected, not realizing I create the experience of rejection myself as I take the actions/words of another personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe another has authority over me to cause me the experience of rejection, not realizing I myself allow another's words and actions to affect me as I take them personally and do not consider the other's inner experience that results in these words and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the words and actions of others have nothing to do with me personally and that they are always a result of the other's inner experience, and that within interaction with others I need to look at my inner experience as reactions, emotions, feelings and thoughts and my self-expression as words and actions and carry responsibility for them instead of blaming them on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my reluctance to initiate contact (fear of rejection) by believing that the interest of men could only be verified if they came to me first.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the intentions of others can be exposed through open and honest conversation/interaction which I can encourage the other to engage in by communicating openly and self-honestly myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to read “signs” from people to know what they experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always play things “safe” by reading “signs” from the behavior of others thus always having one foot ready on an “emergency exit” so that I wouldn't have to face the uncomfortable emotional experience of “being rejected” through exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and avoid exposing myself as I really am because I felt vulnerable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to face the fact that I create the experience of “being rejected” and instead blame it on others by stating that others “cannot be trusted”, believing my introvertedness to be an act of self-protection from the harm that others might cause me, not realizing that as I have turned inwards and shut myself from others I have instead of minimizing harm actually caused myself more harm by not facing myself and allowing my fears to further integrate into my being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and generalize the male gender to be active, aggressive and initiatory and expect all males to act according to this belief/generalization.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create behavioral patterns around the belief that men will always act according to the belief/generalization I described above.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to be active, aggressive and initiatory myself when necessary because of a belief/generalization that others will do that for me which I did not realize to be based on false assumptions, guesswork and imagination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I know what the male gender is about even though I don't even know what my own gender is about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the mystery of the two genders and thus create a belief through which I generalized the other to be easy to comprehend and thus easy to control.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this belief of the male gender has been an attempt to control that which is unknown and feared, as all beliefs are an attempt to control that which is unknown and feared.

[Here I removed some personal SF that addressed other people by name.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the act of not contacting me into a symbol of disinterest, spiritualizing the act of not contacting me and giving it imagined meanings as I took it personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize there may be incalculable reasons for a specific person to not initiate contact with me at a specific time/moment, and that to interpret it according to my self-image of a “bullied loner” is to believe my guesswork unquestioned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the lack of people contacting me (lack of action) to mean these people who were not there to be doing something onto me (action), not realizing that if there was no action, there simply was no action, and thus there is nothing that was done onto me as nothing was done - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the lack of signs of acceptance to mean I am not accepted - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be dependent on others to accept me instead of realizing all I actually need is self-acceptance, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus blame others for not being there to give me acceptance and then turn the blame onto myself as the belief that “I'm not good enough”.

I commit myself to challenge myself to “take risks” by initiating conversations/contact with people and thus face my fear of rejection and show myself this fear is not valid as I stand within and as myself within and as breath as self-honesty.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to interact through self-honesty by slowing myself down by practicing my breathing.

When and as I experience rejection, I stop, I breathe and I realize the other person is not to blame. I consider the situation from the perspective of the other to show myself things aren't as simple in reality as they are within my mind as guesswork, and that the motives of people are complicated and often secret from even themselves. I then look at my own experience of rejection and investigate its origins as whatever associations my mind drew up as memories, feelings, emotions, images and thoughts and take note of whatever points I locate.

I commit myself to stop believing the signs I read from the behavior of others as I now see, realize and understand these “signs” are nothing but guesses I make in my mind based on my life experience and that as I filter my experience through my mind I never experience what is actually here.

I commit myself to realize that beings of the male gender are in their essence no different from the female as we are all human beings and in that we are all Life.

Day 97: The Rules - part 2 - confidence

27122012

This post is a continuation to:

Days 92-96: The Rules - part 1

Part 2 – Rule 1: Be a creature like no other

This chapter starts out with the phrase: “Feeling unique is a state of mind.” It then goes on to describe an appearance of confidence, stability and calmness that is “a feeling from head to toe” or “an attitude”. In other words, this chapter advises one to create a character of all the qualities one would manifest if actually stable, forcing them onto oneself from the outside even if one doesn't actually feel like it. It is stated that once you do this long enough, you will eventually start believing in it yourself.

The chapter then describes a variety of practical advice, such as going through a positive mantra before going to a party / date, holding a drink in a party to give your hands something to do to not seem restless, constantly moving in a party because “he has got to catch you in movement”, making another dig out all information from you by not revealing information unless asked, ending conversations shortly, “not making it easy” - in other words, being the challenge “men love”.

Now, I see the bullshit here in justified passiveness, wearing masks, utter dishonesty, misunderstandings and keeping up “The Game” by consciously living as a part of “the hunt”. I haven't been all that bad, but I have believed in the rules of the game, I have felt inferior to them yet powerless to change them, and in my powerlessness I have complied and done some of this shit.

During my spiritual days I would sometimes utilize positive mantras to boost myself before entering a nerve-wrecking situation, be it related to dating or not. This “confidence character” is something I have worn to various extents, and usually it has been reliant on something external, such as a piece of clothing or how my hair looks. There was a time when in order to get a specific persons attention I started to ignore him in parties to make him come to me – which he always did, which I used to validate my actions – the fact that my trick worked was proof that it was ok to do it. As my self-confidence has been really shaky and somewhat nonexistent I have tried to bring it in from the outside, which has only made it more difficult to realize what actual “confidence” is – a state of stability that may to others appear as something “more”, when in fact it's “less”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe confidence is something I can add to myself through behavior or physical appearance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive confidence as something external because I had only ever witnessed confidence on the surface of others, as something I saw others manifest, not realizing that what I believed to be confidence was but a collage of external traits and snapshots of others and not the actual internal experience of those people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus believe confidence is something I can add on as clothing, hair, make-up, gestures, words and tones, not realizing I am then living as an image of confidence which is not the same as the internal experience of stability that manifests a state of being I perceive and define to be “confidence”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my level of confidence based on how others behave around me as I have limited my behavior around those that I perceived to be confident.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to “feel confident” and expect others to submit to me (= validate my illusion of high status) as I have submitted to those I have perceived to be confident.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to submit to those I have perceived to be confident, not realizing that I am creating an illusion of status because I see myself as “less than” another as I see in another that which I lack and then react with fear, not realizing that this illusion of status is not real as it exists only in the mind and as social agreements and that I can simply stop my participation in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear stopping my participation in the social agreement of submitting to those of higher status because I have feared I would then face consequences in the form of the other attacking me / exerting their power over me. [I'm not sure where this originates. Might be related to certain family members. I'll have to investigate more.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose what to wear based on how confident I feel in a piece of clothing.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the level of confidence I feel wearing a piece of clothing is determined by what value I assign my appearance while wearing that piece of fabric, which is determined by the beauty ideal I have absorbed from my surroundings and adapted into – not realizing that all clothes present an illusion as I am not the clothes I wear or the shape they form but the body of flesh underneath, and that assigning a value to the appearance of a piece of clothing is to judge a book by its cover.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose to wear a piece of clothing based on appearance at the expense of practicality.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a personality with the feeling I get from a piece of clothing as my starting point. [These are such that I need to go through a piece of clothing at a time.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose how to put my hair based on how confident I feel with my hair a certain way.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to wearing my hair a certain way because of the feeling I get from it, not wanting to change how my hair is at the expense of practicality, as I have feared that if I put my hair in a different way my appearance would be “worse” and my confidence would vanish.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the fear of changing my hair has been a sign that my confidence is not genuine stability but a personality that is distracting me from who I am accepting and allowing myself to be.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape myself into the hair-reliant confidence personalities through which I have defined myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a personality based on the feeling I get from having my hair a certain way. [Note to self: go through the rasta, redhead, short hair, long hair personalities.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose to wear make-up because it has made me feel more confident / secure.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use make-up to cover up the flaws I saw on my face in order to hide and escape who I am, so that I would increase the possibility of others reacting to me in a positive way (which I would reflect back to myself as self-acceptance) instead of a negative way (self-rejection).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive my face to be “flawed” as it did not match the beauty ideal I had absorbed from my surroundings, not realizing that the beauty ideal is not based on the reality as real organic people but on images that are cropped and painted on to create an illusion of perfection, and that my face cannot ever match the ideal as the ideal is not meant to ever be achieved – and that my face is what it is as it reflects who I am, and to see flaws on my face is to live as self-rejection instead of self-acceptance.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am “safe” from judgement within make-up, believing others to judge my “flaws” when in fact I judge myself through my interpretation of the behavior of others, not realizing that as I wear make-up I escape my self-judgement by creating an illusion of “looking good” as I check the mirror to see if I'm “OK”. [The mirror point is of essence here, as it is according to my reflection in the image that I define my self-image and the personality I wear. The feedback of others serves as validation and not as a creating factor.]
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is valid to paint and hide my face as the actual flesh I live within/as because everyone else does it too and it's commonly accepted and glorified in my surroundings, never questioning the act of hiding what I am and asking myself why I really do it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that my confident party personality (as defined by make-up, clothing, hair) is who I am, not realizing that this personality is reliant on a whole bunch of external things and thus cannot be my actual self as who I am is an internal experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within this confident personality (reliant on hair, make-up, clothing, surroundings or other external things) to adopt a certain kind of a physical way of being within a space, this beingness consisting of my relationships to all that are present as seeing myself as above all, in control of all or dominant to all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe this “confidence” to have been fearlessness, when in fact it has simply been the other side of the coin, which could have been easily flipped right back into fear had the right trigger been pushed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to control my environment through becoming “confident” as I perceived “confident” people to control their environment through others submitting, not realizing I am doing all of this because I fear being “made less” by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear people I perceive to be confident because I fear they would exert their power over me to make me submit, not realizing that I am the one who “makes” me submit as I accept and allow myself to be influenced by the stance of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a person I perceive to be confident may appear so for various reasons.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my interpretation of another “being confident” is completely of my creation as I project my own sense of inferiority on others, and that in reality there is no such thing as “confidence”, just stability and unwaveringness which is not “more” as the word “confidence” would imply but “less” as in lack of fear.

I commit myself to choose my clothing primarily based on practicality as I see, realize and understand that clothes are here to support my every day practical living and not to serve as symbols to imaginary statuses and characters.

I commit myself to investigate and write about the hair personalities that have served as a confidence boost.

I commit myself to practice my breathing to stabilize myself here as breath in order to support and assist myself to become my primary point of stability.

I commit myself to utilize self-forgiveness in my practical day-to-day living to show myself I can rely on myself and thus change myself to actually live as that which I have perceived to be “confidence”.

When and as I react to the presence of someone I have defined as “confident” (= a high status), I stop and I return myself to breath. I then investigate the reaction to see its nature and origin, and I realize that this reaction is caused by me and not the other person. I then investigate myself with the other to see what I picked up in the other that I interpreted as “confidence”, and if necessary / possible, I communicate this to the other.

Days 92-96: The Rules - part 1

22-26122012

I've been going through my behavior in romantic relationships, and I noticed that even though I have known “The Rules” of the relationship game to be manipulation and thus abuse and dishonesty, I have lived according to them anyway. “I know I'm living as The Relationship Game, and I know it's fucking sick, but what choice do I have? I'm going to end up alone if I don't.” So my excuse for doing it has been the fear of ending up alone and the belief that not having a partner is a “bad thing”.

So I decided I would go back to a book I once read, despised and nevertheless – utilized. It's called The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. This book was once given to me accompanied with the statement: “Remember: the existence of this book should always stay a secret to men, so do NOT show this to any male! Only share it with other women!” I recognized the inequality and absurd separation within those words and didn't refrain from talking to men about the contents of the book.

However, the contents of the book were such that I, in an emotional turmoil after a major break-up, read from cover to cover. I read about tactics and tricks I had been using and which had been working, and the book explained it's reasoning behind why this happens; and I took this as evidence that these “rules” actually work. What I did not consider was that even though these “rules” work within the social construct of dating, it doesn't mean they have anything to do with the reality, as they are simply a social agreement based on dishonesty that ceases to exist when one stops participating in it.

And so I ended up using these tricks of the trade, most of them unconsciously, because I complied to the relationship construct which I perceived to be “beyond” me, an entity I have no control over, not realizing that it is always I who creates my relationships through my choices and actions even if such an entity exists.

So I will now start going through the rules of the book one by one with self-forgiveness and self-corrective statements to release myself of this entity we have all created and sustained for far too long. I will try to not make this into a book review as my writing is mainly about how I have utilized what I have read and interpreted [a note to self].

Part 1 – Introduction (chapters 1-4)

The introduction chapters lay out the following concepts:

• getting married as an ultimate goal
• finding “the one”
• “men love challenges, so we become the challenge” - the foundation of The Game
• pretending disinterest to “drive the guy crazy” - manipulation
• being the best you can be = enhancing one's looks and behavior to “get the guy”
• compromising oneself to present a “mysterious” personality
• ladylike politeness and friendliness
• The Rules are a secret from men

In the book all of this is justified with the fear of ending up alone. “You don't want to end up alone, do you? You want to get married, right?” The fear is seen to be valid and “ending up alone” a genuine concern, while “finding the one” is overtly glorified to odd extents.

When I first read this book I was an ideal target for all this provocation. I allowed the words of the book to magnify both my fear and desire and also bought into the false hope it presented. Thus all of the tricks it suggested did not only make sense to me but seemed tempting because of the fear/desire. This is why I did not question the tricks – all that mattered was that I could find a way to escape loneliness.

I will now briefly go through some of the points on the list I gathered above to map out where I stand concerning these points.

-- Getting married as the ultimate goal --

As this book was conceived and written in the cultural environment of the USA, marriage is seen as an unquestioned goal, and it is glorified by painting ideal visions of a happy and fulfilling marriage. When I first read this book the concept of marriage seemed very distant to me as it is no longer such a strong cultural feat where I live. What I did relate to, however, was the envisioned ideal of family life and partnership.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to envision a future image of having a family, thus creating an expectation to fulfill the image, not realizing I am binding myself into a behavioral loop which will result either in disappointment or satisfaction (which will in turn become dissatisfaction), not allowing myself to live as breath in each and every moment, creating my experience HERE instead of predetermining it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I create an image of the future in my mind I have already decided how to live all of the upcoming moments in favor of that image to become created, and that I thus do not in fact live in any of those moments as my directive principle is the mind that is trying to bring forth the image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that an image is two-dimensional and never takes into consideration the entire reality, and that this is why focusing on an image will not bring forth the desired outcome as it never considers what needs to be done to get there – and this “there” is not fully realized as what it would be in actual reality as it is only an image that lacks a multitude of real-life dimensions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to buy into the family/partnership ideal that the society around me promoted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire this ideal image of a family life because I was dissatisfied with who I was, wanting to escape and not face who I have accepted and allowed myself to become, believing I could “fix” my misery by getting to the ideal – not realizing that had I managed to get myself a family from this starting point, the issues I have not faced would still be there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the reason for my loneliness was my surroundings instead of seeing and realizing I am the one who creates the experience of loneliness as I am the centre of my being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my surroundings for “making me” lonely as I have misinterpreted the reason for my loneliness to be the fact that there's no one around me, this actually being the consequence of my own behavior, being and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the root cause for my loneliness lies within me as it is my loneliness which no one else is able to experience or in any way access.

-- Finding “the one” --

The book promotes the belief that there is “the one” for everyone – meaning that the purpose of dating is to find a one single person that you can spend the rest of your life in a relationship with, hence the insistence of getting married. This doesn't necessarily include the belief that there is only one person on Earth who's competent for this position, but it simply states that only one person is necessary, and that it is valid to place one person in a “special” position. “The rest of one's life” is also never properly addressed, as it is something “beyond” the dating period – whatever happens after you hook the guy is not considered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there is “someone out there for me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have been lonely, to make myself feel better through hope by thinking there is “someone” in the world who is “right for me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to comfort myself with an imagined picture of the future, not realizing that comforting here is an act of escapism as I refuse to face what's here and instead immerse myself in pictures of happiness, stability and love.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look for solutions to bring out happiness, stability and love as who I am right here and now instead of believing there's a magic fix in the shape of another person who will create these attributes for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to create my life into a livable state of being and instead expect others to fix my life for me.

-- “men love challenges, so we become the challenge” - the foundation of The Game --

The Relationship Game as a social agreement of dating and courting is often described to be “hunting”, and this description pretty accurately follows how this book sees it. The thesis of this book is that “men love challenges” - that if anything comes too easy they will soon be bored and move on to something else, and that only when things get challenging enough does their interest become solid – and so to “not be the easy one” women are advised to “become the challenge” in order to maintain the interest of “the one”.

I can see how and why this may have actually become an issue with some people. The dating culture itself in some cultures may be so fast-food-like that it is easy to miss the people that would actually be a “match”, as you're in a hurry to go through as many people as you can, anxious to find your soulmate, allowing first impression and guesswork to be the judge of who another person is. So I can see this rule above to be a response from the women who believe they are unfairly judged and skipped.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to be “a challenge” as I have not wanted to be “easy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define willingness to communicate and interact openly and honestly to be “easiness” and assign this a negative value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define holding back on communication and interaction to be “a challenge” and assign this a positive value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe being “a challenge” is a good thing to be because I believed this is what others want of me in the context of dating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider what I believed to be the opinion of others before myself considering my self-definition, behavior and actions in the context of dating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not communicate openly about my experience because I have wanted to maintain the “mysterious” “challenge” persona which I believed to be what I needed to be within the context of the dating game in order to “make it”; and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stay within this persona because I felt safe within it as I didn't have to face and expose myself (at least not right away).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I need to live as the “mysterious challenge” persona because I would not “make it” within The Game if I didn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in the “hunt” by becoming “the hunted” by giving as little of myself as possible in order to maintain the interest of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if I communicated openly about all that I experience right from the start of a relationship, there would still be shitloads of dimensions to my experience that would take more than a lifetime to share and that what I am will thus never “run out” - here now seeing the fear that I am not interesting enough and need to withhold “who I am” as my self-image because I fear there's too little of it to keep people interested – here now realizing that I have misunderstood what it is that people find interesting in each other and also the whole concept of “interest” itself, as I have not understood who I am and what a human being is and who we are as social beings.

-- pretending disinterest to “drive the guy crazy” - manipulation --

This is one of the major themes in the book: pretend you're not into him and he will be crazy about you, because that's when you become “the biggest challenge” and the trophy he just “has to” win over. So all kinds of tricks are introduced, from not contacting him in a certain number of days to pretending to be busy when you're actually not. This is for me a major point because I still behave according to this advice. As I once noticed it worked (to a certain extent) it has been difficult to shake off and even locate.

For example, I have recently noticed that I have a tendency of pretending I don't see a person approaching or entering a situation in order to appear “busy” or “lively” or something, busy with other people or the stuff I'm doing to present an image of independence, and to give them a chance to spot me first and approach me. Within this there's also fear of rejection – not wanting to be the one to initiate contact, because “what if he rejects me?”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to appear as an image of independence instead of living here and expressing myself according to my actual experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend I haven't noticed a person I know even though I actually have, because I have wanted to appear a certain way and because I have feared rejection.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify passiveness because I have “known” the other would eventually initiate contact with me despite me ignoring their presence, this “knowledge” as an understanding of how the Relationship Game works as a social agreement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is valid to pretend disinterest towards people I am interested in, not realizing this is in fact manipulation and self-suppression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the extent of the harm I cause myself as I suppress my self-expression as wanting to acknowledge the presence of another person / contact another person / interact with another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I create relationships from this starting point of fear and passiveness, I lay out a foundation for that relationship to be a place for me to express and live as fear and passiveness.

-- being the best you can be = enhancing one's looks and behavior to “get the guy” --

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to change my physical appearance and behavior according to what I perceived others to prefer within the misconception that “being the best I can be” meant that I had to mold myself to fit a certain predetermined ideal, not realizing that this image of “the best that I can be” had in fact nothing to do with who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself believe that I was “less attractive” in terms of what I looked like and how I behaved and that there were others who were “more attractive”, and that in order to compensate for my lack of attractiveness I had to put on more layers of masks, not realizing that the reasons I was left alone (which I misinterpreted to mean I was unattractive) were such that needed to be stripped off – that the issues weighing me down were extra baggage that needed to be let go, and that putting on more masks would not fix the problem and would instead simply make my baggage heavier and increase the work to be done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to be “the best I can be” in every situation where there's a possibility to interact with potential dating partners in order to “never waste a chance” to charm someone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wear make-up, do my hair and choose my clothing from the starting point of desiring to make a good impression by appearing “attractive” (= according to the beauty ideal).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to behave in a pleasant way (= avoiding conflict) to make a good impression by appearing “friendly” (= according to the social agreement of not confronting others).

To be continued.

Days 90-91: The "less than myself" persona - theatre improvisation

20-21122012

This post is a continuation to:

Day 89: The "less than myself" persona - introduction

To go through the situation of the impro practice yesterday. We have had one person dropping out of the group and some that haven't been able to come to practice for a while, and I have noticed this has triggered an insecurity in me. I ask myself: Are we doing a poor job with the group? Am I making improvisation theatre seem uninteresting / frightening? Am I demanding too much of the participants? Are we explaining the methods clearly enough? So what happens is that my starting point for directing the group changes from simply doing what we have set out to do and guiding people to the best of my abilities, into a desire to succeed / a fear of failure, success and failure here measured by the participants' will to participate in the activity. Instead of embracing the people that do come to rehearsal I worry over those who don't show up, because I interpret that to be a sign that I have failed.

So then as I try to direct the group my goal is to make others pleased, or seemingly pleased, or apparently having a good time, not realizing that this is not my purpose of being here – my goal is to teach and learn improv theatre and assemble a group that is committed to training themselves in it. Even though it is an essential part of this goal that people enjoy themselves, that is not the goal itself – and thus if my goal is to make others happy I am acting out of fear.

Another thing I noticed at the rehearsal was that I was unwilling to carry out any role or character properly within the exercises. As I was already insecure and thinking “I wonder what these people think of me”, “I wonder if they think I'm uninteresting”, “I wonder if they think less of me”, it felt very wobbly to even attempt to stand within a theatre role as I wasn't stable within myself to begin with. It was like I was constantly looking for signs of feedback from others so I could define myself within their presence, and then looking for the feedback also as I was within a role – and thus allowing all signs of feedback to affect how I acted and thus acting very poorly, restlessly and aimlessly. My focus was not on the acting work but in defining my self-image within the situation.

So everything that I did, I did for others – and that's where I live as less than what I could be or less than who I actually am. I deliberately make myself less than myself as I place the authority over me outside of me into other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to define me and tell me “who I am” in their presence as I have been unwilling to face myself and thus carry my responsibility to know myself, not realizing that as I get to know who I actually am by facing myself it is possible to re-create myself and thus re-define myself by myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for “clues” and “signs” in the behavioral feedback of others so that I could define myself according to them, “find my place” in the situation by defining “who I am” as seen by “the others”, not realizing that the “clues/signs” I “pick up” are bits and pieces of movement I decide to separate from the flow of another's living expression and which I then magnify and interpret through mind-filters that serve my predetermined self-image – and that these “clues/signs” are thus a distortion of the mind and have nothing to do with reality, such as a photograph taken of a tree and then heavily photoshopped has nothing to do with the actual tree anymore, but becomes a new “piece of art” by the creator – and that these mind-interpretations are thus nothing but completely separate “pieces of art” “inspired” by the reality painted by the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all the “signs/clues” I pick up from the behavior of others are chosen by the mind according to the patterns I have learned in my life so far, and that as my focus is directed by the mind instead of being directed by myself the focus cannot be trusted to be in accordance with the reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to allow my focus to be directed by the mind instead of standing within and as breath within and as myself and being my directive principle myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to “find my place” in situations because I have felt insecure in them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to “find my place” in a situation in order to be able to function and be comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there is no “place” for me in social situations as the only “place” where I can be is within myself - a constant location that will never change during this physical life - and that because of it's consistent and intimate nature it is the most comfortable place to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I stand within and as myself within and as breath there is no situation that can “make me” uncomfortable unless I accept and allow it – my outlines as this physical body as the residing place for myself will stay the same no matter the surroundings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to know “who I am” as defined by self-interpreted feedback of others in order to be able to function in a situation, not realizing that what I perceive to be “functioning” is in fact living according to the social behavioral patterns that I have learned while growing up and agreed to and acted upon for all my life thus far.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am funny.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am skilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am appreciated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not focus on my acting process as my focus is in searching for clues of validation in the behavior of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to validate that my behavior is what I perceive they want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to behave in such a way that gains acceptance/appreciation/admiration as I have feared rejection/abandonment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to tell me I'm accepted, not realizing I there manifest self-separation as I do not see the only thing that actually exists is self-acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have been living as self-separation as I have refused to accept myself, then living as abuse as I have tried to “fix” this separation by asking for others to accept me for me, abdicating my responsibility to carry myself as self-acceptance.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become insecure as the feedback of others isn't what I expect it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become confused as I am not sure what kind of feedback I'm even looking for and then not knowing how to interpret the behavioral “clues” of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to force myself to wear a personality even though I have known I do not want to, then collapsing within the personality as I have given up on carrying it – an odd struggle between the old and the new. [I find this really fascinating.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize this confusion of mind is dissolvable if I return myself to breath where I could see and realize that I'm attempting to act through a persona and that as I see it's not valid I can simply let it go.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the confusion and stay stuck within the mind instead of returning to breath and letting it go.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lock myself into the mind-state of confusion with fear as I was still unsure whether people were enjoying themselves or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I want to know how people have experienced these meetings I can simply ask (duh).

[Here I removed some SF concerning specific people.]

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as less than who I actually am by not standing within myself as my directive principle as I have looked for others to define me for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I make myself less than who I am, others are bound to see just that much of me as that is what I show of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will think less of me as I have believed their thoughts would somehow directly influence me without my acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if others think less of me, it is proof that I am indeed less – not realizing that the thoughts of others are not me and that thoughts can in fact be false – and mostly are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the thoughts of others (which I have no way of directly accessing, viewing and assessing) to create the reality myself included, the opinions and likes and dislikes of others making up the reality I inhabit, not realizing that instead of being in the eyes of others, the reality is right HERE completely unreliant on the mind as thoughts as I breathe and sense the world around me and move as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the absurdity of believing that others define the reality and myself as I have been completely dependent on and addicted to the feedback of others to shape my reality for me.

I commit myself to practice my breathing when in the presence of people as I see that is where I most commonly fall out of breath.

I commit myself to stop believing the “clues” and “signs” my mind picks up from the behavior of others from within the realization that they are only pieces of what I choose to see of another and not the entire reality, and that any claims of the validity of these “clues” and “signs” are of the mind and not actual information gained through communication.

I commit myself to keep my focus on people as a whole instead of holding on to details I pick up from them as we interact.

I commit myself to bring myself to breath whenever I remember and engage in some kind of contact with my sensual reality in order to “ground” myself and bring myself back to reality as I now see and realize that HERE is where the real “comfort zone” exists.

I commit myself when acting to focus on myself instead of focusing on others present. [This I will open up shortly.]

Day 89: The "less than myself" persona - introduction

19122012

I've been taking it quite easy since the latest stress peak, and today has been quite a peaceful and a nice day. Instead of going through my notes to see what point I should write about I decided I'd write when I have time and about whatever surfaces when I get to writing – which today happened to be half an hour before my bed time. As I was walking home from a friend's house just now I started to think about writing and almost went into stress, wondering what I should write about, but then I stopped and told myself to simply have a look at the day I had just spent and see what was going on today.

And so I started to see a very interesting point that had been underlying my entire day, and because my day had been very enjoyable it would've been very easy to miss had I not stopped and allowed myself to slowly chew through my day. I realized that today (such as many other days before) I had constantly been making myself less than who I am. It's a kind of an unwillingness to stand within and as myself – a sloppiness – resisting carrying myself – walking around in a kind of a collapsed state.

I noticed this from thoughts I had had during our improvisation practice. I kept having the feeling that “everyone thinks less of me”, wondering if others saw me as “less interesting than the other people present” - not realizing I of course seem less to others if I make myself appear that way. There I had not admitted to myself that I was making myself less than I am, and thus I projected my own insecurities onto others believing it was created by others.

As I had identified these specific thoughts in a specific situation, my whole day kind of opened up. I had been feeling very odd at work, spacing out all the time, not really contacting with anyone I met. Later as I met a lot of people I was present but not really expressing myself, just keeping my thoughts to myself and refraining from talking.

This is really interesting because I know I do this a lot, but haven't really mapped out any actual situations where I make myself less than I am or refuse to carry myself. Today a factor that has been influencing me has been the fact that I'm menstruating and thus am in a weakened physical state, and I'm wondering whether that lack of physical energy has led to me not having enough “drive” to carry all my personalities through which I express myself. The lack of physical energy contributing to the lack of mind energy leading to me giving up on all attempts to carry a mask (or half-assing these attempts) and ending up slightly confused as a result, not knowing how to express myself without a mask.

I'll look into this more. A fascinating point to open up, as I'm sure there's a shitload of layers here.

Days 87-88: Stressed and sick – sick with stress – stressing myself to death

17-18122012

Yesterday I faced an interesting and reoccurring point of stress. I have been sick for a while – first ten days with an injured leg, then a few days with a flu – and because of that I haven't been exercising for a while. It has been bugging me because I like exercising and fear that I will get out of shape, which I will and already have, but it's no biggie because when I get healthy again and can simply start exercising again – but this hasn't been of much comfort because the fear is so overriding.

So I faced a moment where I compared myself to another concerning exercise, reacted with fear and anxiety, tried to deal with it but half-assed the point and let it slip and continued with my work. I had a long list of tasks for the day and kept working on them and even got most of them done. I had saved three of the biggest tasks for the last and kept on postponing them with other more urgent stuff, such as sending letters and cooking food for myself. When I was finally at a point where I could've started on one of those bigger tasks I was already anxious. I tried starting one but felt uncomfortable. I tried another and faced obstacles that needed to be fixed before I could get on with the actual work, and all the while I was solving the obstacles I was accumulating a pain into my shoulders that I didn't stop to notice. When I was finally done with the obstacles and could've started with the actual task ahead, the pain was so bad I had to collapse on the floor to breathe. I was within a painful stress loop that had accumulated into tension in my shoulders, tension into pain and this resulting into a migraine. I was so stuck with the thought “I have to get these tasks done” that I didn't stop to notice my body was screaming for me to stop. With the anxiety driving me from the start I did not stop until I was physically unable to no longer move. At this point I had already been working for the entire day while still being sick, but I thought that I could use my last three waking hours for work as well, never considering rest to be an option. I had had a small pause in the afternoon and the dinner break – why would I need more?

So after the migraine had been triggered I took painkillers, laid down for half an hour and just told myself to breathe. I faced furious resistance to just lay still: “But I have to do this and this and this.” I told myself that I am sick, I need rest, I don't have to do anything at all, just let it all go and breathe. So I told myself the only thing I'm allowed to do is breathe and then stuck to it – and after half an hour this seemed to do the trick, as I little by little let go of the resistance and allowed myself to relax.

What I found as I looked into the reasons for my anxiety was that I fear that sickness will not be seen as a valid reason to rest / have a break, and that my state of sickness will be diminished. This correlates rather well with the point of glorifying sickness I wrote about earlier. I can trace this back to theatre where we have always been told that “absence is allowed only if you're giving birth”, and that has pretty much been followed by most of us. The stress to finish a play in time is sometimes huge, especially when schedules are tight and rehearsals are useless if even one actor is missing, so I have numerous times been on stage while seriously ill. Shows cannot be cancelled because of money, so often there's an actor performing for an audience while sick, one way or another.

Another example that has convinced me to work even while sick is my father who rarely had a sick leave even when he was actually sick – again, because of money and/or honor. Only when he had a migraine would he stop and rest, because that's when his body simply refused to co-operate anymore. It's different now that he's older and no longer has a family of six to support, but when he was younger he pushed himself to absolute limits, and as a child I watched him with simultaneous worry and admiration. “He's in pain... but he's such a hero! But he's in pain!” Then buying all the crap about the beauty of suffering and glorifying his behavior.

So a key element in all of this seems to be comparison. In theatre one cannot rest because no one else does. All are pressured equally. While I work I work to not lose – to what? - to my “ideal”, to what I perceive others to be and “demand” of me. Projecting my self-image of “less” through others. What happened yesterday was the result of a point of comparison that wasn't dealt with. So it's like I perceive myself to be constantly running to “not lose”, as if there were some other contestants – which there aren't. In reality I'm running with myself – the running track is empty – and what I'm running in is the hamster wheel of never-ending stress.

What I have been refusing to see is that stress is a disorder in itself, as it is by no means a sustainable state of being for the body. I have justified stress as a natural part of working because I have mistaken stress to be a sign of efficiency. I now realize stress is the mind's interference with physical actions which only creates tension, and that real efficiency is to be found in a relaxed state of being, in economic movement as I flow through time/space undisturbed. I see that the human body has it's limits and is quick to show them if I simply stop and listen. Identifying mind-set “limits” is a whole other subject that needs to be considered along with identifying my physical limits. All in all, I cannot continue like this, or I will end up killing myself with stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to unfairly compare my actions committed while I am sick to actions of those who are physically healthy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to bully myself with unfair comparison to push myself towards an ideal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with unrealistic goals concerning what I need to get done during one day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider the state of my physical health when and as I plan my work for the day, and to not be flexible about my plans when it turns out I cannot complete everything I had planned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have been sick, to remember what I have been able to do while healthy and compare the past to the present, causing myself to feel “less than” what I was in the past, not taking into consideration that the past actions I am selectively remembering were all committed when I was physically healthy, and that it is not valid to compare the actions of the healthy to those of the sick.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while sick what I need to consider first and foremost is the state of my physical health, as the sickness itself is a sign that my beingness as a whole is out of balance and needs support to bring itself into stability.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider the goals and images I've created in my mind over the state of my physical health, not realizing that if I ignore my physical for long enough I will die as a result and that all that was in the mind is irrelevant because the mind will not follow me after death but Life will; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize my body is the vessel within and into Life as long as I am within this physical reality, and that it should thus be primarily looked after.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not properly face the fear of getting out of shape and then half-ass the point as I noticed it's there, not realizing that everything that I do not properly face will bear consequences as it accumulates while ignored.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will get out of shape because I would then “lose” to others, this indicating that my starting point for exercising is to “win”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “win” by exercising and becoming “better” than what I have been in the past, wanting to “shake off” my past and be someone new.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I want to “win” others as I exercise, when in reality all I want to “win” is my past self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my past self who used to be out of shape.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the only way the past will ever influence this moment is through my own acceptance and allowance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign my past self (which is actually just an image) a negative value, and assign my present “self” (self-image) a positive value, not realizing that when and as I assign something a value I no longer experience that something as what it is but as portrayed in the mind, and that actually neither my “past self” or “present self” exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there is a “past self” I can become “by accident”, not realizing that even though it is possible to loop back and forth from one extreme to another, I will only manifest similar qualities to that whom I was in the past by accepting and allowing the same patterns to execute themselves again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reason I fear becoming my “past self” again is because I haven't fully faced the reasons why I became that whom I was in the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to have understood the points I have already walked and to be able to stand within and as myself as I face challenges concerning those points while I still go through the dimensions I haven't yet faced.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the anxiety caused by a half-assed point and let it quietly accumulate, ignoring the signs of the anxiety in my body as tension, nausea, exhaustion and pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop the anxiety with the justification that “I had a lot of things to do”, not realizing the extent of the harm I am causing myself by not stopping.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the importance of actually stopping.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the state of my physical to such an extent that I made myself more sick than I already was.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I “have to do these tasks”, not realizing that there is nothing I should compromise myself for.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my thoughts about “getting stuff done”, “doing a good job”, “working hard” etc, not realizing that all of these originate from fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to work because of the fear of not being enough, this manifesting as thoughts such as “I have to get this done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my friends.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my colleagues.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for the people I pass by on the streets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire acceptance and fear not being accepted and act upon this desire/fear in a way that damages me and compromises my well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist rest because I have been anxious to “get stuff done”.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that sickness is not a valid reason to rest because I was told so at theatre by a person I had accepted as an authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question this belief that sickness is not a valid reason to be absent from theatre and believe it is my “duty” to be there even when I am sick in order to finish a play – not realizing that our schedules are driven by the need to survive and ensure we get enough profit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that to finish a play is more important than the well-being of those who create the play, seeing the play as something “more” than the people who create it, not realizing that if one of us were to die because of self-compromise there would be no play.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is “noble” to suffer for art.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the motivation behind finishing a play on time is money, because the whole point with scheduled shows is to promise there will be a show on a specific time and then ensure an audience (money bringers) for that show – not that this is done from the starting point of greed, but from the need to survive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise my health by coming to rehearsal while seriously ill and thus worsening my condition as I was pressured to do so and believed there would be some kind of compensation (karma) for my sacrifice.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake stress to be a sign of efficiency, not realizing that even though stress might narrow down my focus in such a way that allows me to focus on the things I am doing without disturbance, in the long run stress will only eat me away as bits of my very flesh as indicated by the signs of physical exhaustion/pain/tension, and thus isn't real efficiency.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual efficiency is to be found in movement, where all that one comes across while working is faced as they are and dealt with as is needed, like a dance of “rolling with the punches”, accepting the impulses and moving with them – instead of pushing through the “punches” and obstacles with no other purpose than to blindly achieve a “goal”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual efficiency has nothing to do with pushing, forcing or demanding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider efficiency as living within each and every moment, missing no breath in between.

I commit myself, if necessary to map out my plans for a day / week / month of working, to do this in a flexible way, where there is room to shorten and lengthen activities and also reserve time for resting.

I commit myself to look at my planned activities / tasks more realistically by taking into consideration how much time an activity / task will take, where it will be done and what the time for commuting will be, and also what kind of an activity / task it is in terms of possible recovery time.

When and as I get sick, I commit myself to set my physical health at primary importance by canceling activities that can be rearranged, taking a sick leave if necessary, resting enough, nourishing my body enough and getting a healthy dose of oxygen and light exercise.

I commit myself to stabilize myself HERE by practicing breathing in order to grow more aware of my physical body and the state of its health.

I commit myself to stop stress when and as it occurs and investigate its origins, as I now see, realize and understand stress is never valid, excusable or justifiable.

I commit myself to stop my anxiety when and as it occurs and investigate its origins, as I now see, realize and understand that when ignored it will bear consequences which are completely on my responsibility.

I commit myself to investigate the concept of efficiency.