Day 164: Insecurity

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Today I found myself in a more introverted state of being. At work I had constant trouble with my voice, which is something I have noticed occurring when I'm not fully standing within myself, and which I have tested to vanish with breathing and pushing through the limpness of my overall experience. I did not push through today, though, as I wasn't motivated enough to do so – why, I don't know. Sometimes frustration with myself seems to be the key to making a decision and sticking to it, but today I just didn't care.

So later I recorded some music at home and I noticed my voice wasn't really going today, like it was a bit muffled and out of tune. I shrugged it off and thought that “maybe today just isn't my day” - ignoring the signs my body was kindly giving me.

If I hadn't left the house I would've probably thought nothing more of it, but when I went out and was faced with people I noticed I was somehow really hiding within myself, reeaaally passive and small and quiet and weary. There were specific triggers which I will not go into here, but they were simply enhancing the experience of insecurity I was already within.

So as I was walking home in the evening I was getting tired of the experience and just wanted to move myself out of it, and I thought I would make myself sing. I did some lame humming which was no good because I always do that: in public I avoid singing with my full voice even though in performance it's no biggie. So I pushed through some more and actually let out some real voice – and I instantly got scared as I heard my voice actually echoing in my surroundings, tens of meters away, and stopped singing on the spot. This is where I realized I was afraid to express myself because of the sheer power of my voice – when I sing with full vitality the sound is uncompromised, inescapable, undeniable, absolutely and certainly HERE and an expression of WHO I AM – it's literally as if I am shouting “This is me!” to the entire world. And isn't this what self-expression in all it's forms is actually about?

It is interesting that I find this point in singing, because singing is the one thing I have felt comfortable doing ever since a small child – my mother told me I used to sing as loud as ever in the supermarket before I could even speak yet – and even throughout my most insecure years singing has always remained a refuge to me as a haven of self-expression, as a way to vent out who I am when no other ways remained. So now as I seek my self-expression in all the areas where I've limited it so far I believe singing might work as both an indicator of possible blocks as well as a tool for “breaking the ice” within me.

A funny detail: today I finally found a release from this stupid insecure suppressed feeling when I got home and took my uncomfortable pants off and gave a loud sigh of relief. Lol. Sometimes there's no place like a comfy pair of pants.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not carry myself and thus live as limpness, passiveness, smallness, quietness, seriousness and tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit and suppress my self-expression because I feel insecure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to validate the experience of insecurity by believing that my insecurity is justified, well-founded and real as I see myself as “less than” as compared to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare myself to others and see myself as “less than” others in terms of status or merits and thus live out an expression of being “less than”, in other words, living as insecurity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to appear as “more than” me and thus prepare myself by pre-emptively expressing myself as “less than” to avoid conflict as competition of statuses.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to defend myself by pre-emptively expressing myself as “less than”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the feeling of insecurity into a defining factor in me so that my self-image has been defined by who I am as insecurity, not realizing I am here making insecurity an inseparable part of my self-expression for as long as the self-image remains.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe the feeling of insecurity to be bigger than it actually is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see insecurity as an entity, like a demon clinging onto me and defining my personality, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that insecurity is in fact just loss of breath, because as I return to breath and face myself within and as breath – as the entirety of my existence as the state of my body and processes of my mind – as everything is laid out bare HERE there is nothing that is not secure as everything I face in myself is certain – and thus insecurity/uncertainty vanishes in breath in fact.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that insecurity is prominent in me simply because I have habitualized myself to express myself as insecurity, because when I practice only the habits, patterns and behaviors that support insecurity I become very “skilled” in expressing insecurity and know no other “skills” because this is the only one I have trained – and that thus to define myself according to this one “skill” is to limit myself from ever expanding and learning new “skills” (ways of expressing myself).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to habitualize myself to fall out of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to habitualize myself to not be aware of myself as body, mind and self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to habitualize myself to remain passive as I have not realized that pushing through passiveness into activeness requires an active push from myself – actually doing something with no other motive than moving - and that it thus feels a little uncomfortable at first because I am not used to moving myself but instead am used to being moved by my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there is no magic feeling that would lift me away from passiveness with no effort of my own, expecting this magic something to come and tell me when I can move so that I wouldn't have to go through any effort of my own, not realizing that the only thing that will ever move me is myself because there is no magic, no god, no fairies who'd come and save me from the discomfort of pushing through my own accepted and allowed bullshit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the discomfort of pushing through is a consequence of what I have gotten used to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent pushing through passiveness into activeness because of the discomfort, completely abdicating my responsibility as the creator of the discomfort and blaming it on the action that requires the pushing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore my body as it signals me I am not stable within myself.

I commit myself, when and as I feel insecure, to stop and breathe and with breath assist myself to see and realize that all I am is HERE and that as I face all of it in full self-honesty there is nothing to feel insecure about as everything that is HERE is certain.

I commit myself to realize insecurity is simply loss of breath.

I commit myself to map out the things that trigger insecurity in me.

I commit myself to consistently and diligently practice breathing in order to stabilize myself HERE in full certainty as I see, realize and understand that I become what I practice – thus, if I practice not being in breath I manifest uncertainty, and if I practice being in breath I manifest certainty.