04-05122012
Today I was on my way home from work. I
had to cross a big road, which I do every day, but this time I was
coming from a different direction than usual and started to optimize
in my mind about how I should cross the road to be as effective and
fast as possible. I have a tendency to do this with traffic lights
and pedestrian crossings. So this time I was checking the crossroads
I was at and saw a green light and thought that that would be the
fastest way to cross to road – but I quickly calculated I'd have to
run to make it across the wide road from where I was standing and
thus started to run. I was perhaps one step across the road when I
slipped (it's winter here) and fell on the ground, hurting my other
leg.
So I gathered myself up off the road,
checked myself and noticed I had hurt my left knee, foot and hip.
Some people came to me to be of assistance. After a while I noticed I
could walk and set off to get myself home – and this is where all
the thoughts started to pour in.
I went into all kinds of
over-dramatizing. I got so frightened of hurting myself that I
thought about possible scenarios, what-if's, solutions and troubles I
might face – all speculation, all guesswork, all imagination –
and all the while I did not breathe at all. I noticed this and
realized that if I return myself to breath my walking will be easier
despite the pain, and that all of that noise
in my mind just made everything seem more difficult, more painful and
bigger than it actually was – I didn't break any bones and it
appears I might be alright with just painkillers and rest. So all
this over-dramatizing is just plunging into self-pity - “Woe, look
at my pain, it is so great! Poor me! Helpless me! Cruel world! Oh!”
As I've now been thinking about this
I've realized that physical pain and injury are to me a sort of a
final refuge – that if I am actually physically in pain I cannot be
denied sympathy. So physical pain is to me sort of in a “holy”
position because it cannot be questioned - “I'm in pain! How dare
you question my Great Suffering!” - even though it is quite common
for people to make pain seem bigger in their minds than what it
actually is, and questioning would thus be quite relevant. I remember
that as a child (and even now) I enjoyed being sick not just because
I didn't have to go to school and was allowed to watch cartoons all
day, but also because everyone showed me sympathy, treated me gently
and brought me whatever I needed. So being sick was a state where I
could request for anything and could expect sympathy from others.
I also realized that the first and most
important thing I can do to help my body heal is to allow myself to
breathe, so going into the mind while in pain is not ok because then
I stop breathing, and so going into the mind is actually physically
harming myself by preventing myself from healing. As I'm now sitting
here with a painful leg, I notice that once I return to breath and
move my focus to the leg the pain kind of seems to magnify for a
moment – which is probably why it's so much easier to just not
focus on the physical and distract one's focus onto something else.
The thing is, the more I focus on breathing the more relaxed my body
grows and the more oxygen it inhales as I breathe more deeply when
relaxed, and thus just allowing the pain to be there and accepting it
as a part of what's here actually assists me in the healing process.
-- Falling --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to want/need/desire to cross a road as effectively
as possible because I fear wasting time.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear getting stuck at traffic lights and having
to wait around for a time I perceive to be “extra waiting”, as in
my imagination I could already be on the other side of the road if I
had taken another route – not realizing that while I've created an
image of my surroundings within my imagination, I haven't take into
consideration what's actually here as my surroundings and conditions
in the physical, as I have been within my mind during the imagining
and from within the mind it is not possible to see what is actually
here.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to hope/expect I will cross a road fast and
effectively and to then get disappointed
when I don't cross a road fast and effectively for whatever reason.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive traffic
lights to be a “nuisance” by blaming the traffic lights for
“making me wait” and “holding me back”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive waiting at traffic lights to be
“annoying” and “a waste of time” as I have lived as
impatience due to my fear of wasting time.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when living as impatience, to not realize the
purpose and function of traffic lights, which is to keep people safe,
myself included.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to blame the traffic lights for my frustration as
I have believed them to be the cause of my frustration, not realizing
I am causing it all by myself by creating expectations about the
functioning of the traffic lights, these expectations not taking into
consideration the actual mechanism and purpose of the traffic lights,
and by reacting when these expectations are not fulfilled.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to expect the traffic lights to not keep me
waiting for too long, not realizing that I create myself the
experience of a “long wait” by expecting the light to turn green
at every second and being disappointed at every second they don't
turn green.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that the intervals according to
which the traffic lights turn from green to red and back are always
the same and optimized for each crossroads, and that the experience
of a “long wait” is completely reliant on how I position myself
towards the actual time I have to wait around – what kind of a
relationship I create towards the amount of seconds I need to stand
and wait.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as I arrive at a crossing when the light
turns red, to immediately look for another faster way to cross the
road so that I wouldn't have to wait for the light to turn green.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I look for another
way to cross the road I am escaping the experience of “waiting for
a light to turn green” which I have defined as uncomfortable.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to define waiting for a traffic light to turn
green so I could cross the road to be uncomfortable as it makes me
face my fear of wasting time (fear of failure).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that within these situations where
I get frustrated at traffic I could simply breathe, slow down and
realize I am actually not in a hurry, as the only situation where
hurry would be valid is one where life is in danger.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I go into the mind
to plan my route in an effective way, I do not consider my
surroundings as they actually are but only as an image in my mind and
end up manifesting the consequences of this ignorance.
-- Dramatizing --
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as I fell to the ground, to react with
fear of death by thinking “I'm laying on a road – a car might run
over me” and then act according to the fear by moving myself out of
the road, instead of moving myself out of the road out of necessity
by considering what needs to be done.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as I noticed my leg was hurting, to
react with fear of being disabled by thinking “what if something is
broken”, not realizing that I was then creating images within my
imagination where something in my leg was broken and where by body
was unable to do the things a healthy body would be able to do, not
realizing the fact that these images appear are a sign that I fear
being disabled and that it is a fear I need to investigate, and
instead validating the fear by believing my thoughts to be myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to secretly wish someone would notice what had
happened to me and give me attention and, when that secret wish was
fulfilled, to feel satisfied because I had received “special
attention” which I believed I “deserved” - instead of
supporting myself instead of wishing another would give me support,
and focusing on myself to investigate whether I need actual physical
help or not and then ask for the help if needed.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as I started to walk back home and
noticed I limped a little, to interpret those couple of steps of
testing my leg and limping as a sign of “weakness” that allowed
me to be pitiful and small, and that as a consequence of that thought
and self-definition I accepted and allowed myself to continue limping
because I gave authority to the pain I now magnified in my mind as
“more than” me as I saw myself “inferior” to the pain – all
the while not realizing that I was actually able to walk normally and
that walking normally actually assisted my leg in recovering whereas
limping only slowed the recovery down.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to continue walking as the limping character
because I thought I might then get more sympathy from others.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to think that I might have to go to a hospital and
then feel helpless because I might not be able to walk there and
don't have access to a car - “what if I need to go to a hospital? I
don't have a car and I don't know anyone who does” - there
participating in my thoughts and imagination and creating backchat
that then led into more imagined scenarios - “what if the nurse on
the phone will not understand that I cannot walk and will treat me
with disdain? What if I will be stuck here? What if no one will help
me? A friend of mine has a car – but what if she doesn't have time
to take me, will she reject me if I ask for help” - all of this
further accumulating my helplessness and self-definition of smallness
which justify my self-pity.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that all the while I participated
in the mind as described above, I did not breathe and I was not here,
and therefore I was not standing as my directive principle but
accepted and allowed my mind to direct me and distance me from my
physical being which was the actual one suffering.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to distract myself from the actual physical injury
- which I could take into consideration in every breath and thus
assist the injury to heal - by “transferring”
the pain of the injury into the mind, believing my thoughts of panic
and despair to be the source of pain and that the thoughts need to be
satisfied for my pain to go away, when in fact they're unnecessary
mind-realities that have nothing to do with this physical reality and
the actual physical injury.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to pity myself as I have believed my
self-definition of smallness and helplessness because it gave me an
excuse to not carry responsibility of myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that self-pity is ultimately
reveling in passiveness, as one fully accepts and glorifies one's
state of being and expects others to support and validate it by
giving attention.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive physical pain and injury to be “bigger
than” me as I have perceived myself to be “powerless” to do
anything about physical pain.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to glorify the “higher” position I have
assigned for pain and injury by mistaking the consequences of
pain/injury (sympathy) to be a result of the position I have placed
it in (more than me).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive physical pain as something I cannot
escape and then panic within my mind as I have not wanted to face the
pain, not realizing that even though escaping my physical body and
the physical pain it experiences is not possible, it is possible to
assist the body to recover from the pain by facing the pain and
accepting it as a part of what's here.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe that when I am experiencing physical
pain others should treat me with respect because I am “not like”
them, them being healthy – here separating myself from others by
believing that “sick people” “deserve” to be treated well
whereas “healthy people” ought to be treated normally – not
realizing that as I demand others to treat me well when I am sick or
in pain, I expect them to compromise themselves for my comfort.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust people to express themselves as
supportiveness when I am sick / in pain.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust myself to handle the physical pain /
sickness I am experiencing and instead demand for others to support
me as I haven't trusted them (myself) to support me without demands.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to define “supportiveness” to be
non-confrontational.
I commit myself, when and as I
experience physical pain for whatever reason, to stop, breathe and
realize the primary support I can give to my body to heal from the
pain is to breathe and relax.
I commit myself to slow myself down
through breathing when moving within traffic in order to take my
surroundings into consideration.
I commit myself, when and as I notice
myself going through traffic in a hurry, to stop, breathe and ask
myself whether I'm actually in a hurry or not.
I commit myself to investigate my fear
of being disabled.
I commit myself, when and as I
experience an injury, sickness and/or physical pain, to return myself
to breath in order to listen to my body as it will tell me what needs
to be done.
I commit myself to realize that even
though one experiencing an injury, sickness and/or physical pain is
at a weakened position concerning the state of the physical, one is
still one and equal to all, not “more” or “less” - the needs
of the sick are simply different from the needs of those who are
healthy.
I commit myself to carry responsibility
of myself even if I am experiencing an injury, sickness and/or
physical pain.
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