Days 217-219: Childhood poverty – Learned passiveness

27-29042013

lol - maybe 1-2 years old here

I quote my last post:

“My poverty was not extreme poverty from which one can die, but a cultural and societal poverty of being denied the possibility to explore the world. I was alive but in terms of society my movements were restricted.

--

I can see that growing up believing that some things were “out of my reach” has passivated me: I have had little to no regard for how the society functions and how one is able to influence it. I simply believed it to be impossible or at least very difficult and troublesome, and so I became a limp and drowsy child (and an adult) with little interest to do anything at all but things that brought me instant pleasure. I learned helplessness and powerlessness from being “tied down”.”

Today I decided to have a look at this point when I was thinking about another that mingled with this one. I realized that I have been clinging onto people through relationships of dependency to mend for my passiveness. When I have come across people that are active, moving, dynamic, going forward, doing stuff, hard-working and self-directed I have been attracted towards this quality and held onto these people so that I could be motivated to be active myself in their presence. However, I have not been supporting myself to be active and build a foundation of self-induced activeness – I have been relying on the presence of others to “get me going”. It is necessary that I transform myself within these relationships so that they will no longer be abusive (of me and the other) but will instead function as mutual support to all participants.

So I return to looking at my childhood and the passivating effects being somewhat poor had on me. Right now two different perspectives open up: looking at how my siblings have displayed passiveness/activeness, as we shared the same environment as children and this comparison may offer some perspective; and a paradigm of developmental psychology according to which it is important to offer a baby/toddler plenty of experiences of succeeding in “effortful control” (affecting one's environment through one's actions and thus directing one's own experience), because if this success is not experienced the child will stop trying to influence it's environment and become passive.

When I read about effortful control (also referred to as self-regulation and sometimes willpower) I remember being surprised. “Is it possible for a child that young to just give up?” And I realized I had not really considered what the life experience of an infant really is. In a physical space where everything is new – everything from one's own physical body to the entire environment surrounding it – things may get really confusing. So learning how your environment works and realizing ways to affect it's movements is really crucial to a child, and even such a small thing as learning that by smiling to your caretaker he/she will smile back will have a gigantic effect on the child building up a foundation of an active self.

So keeping this in mind it is interesting to look at how being “restricted” or “denied access” affects one's activeness. When I look at my (now adult) siblings I see different survival mechanisms at play. I see giving up, introversion and focusing on a very narrow circle of life; I see aggressive rebellion and a “fuck you world, I didn't want access anyway”; and I see decisive ambition to be successful and thus avoid poverty and “falling” by any means. So where do I fall into in this social grid?

First I think I'm going to have to clarify what I mean by my passiveness. Ever since I was a child I've thought of politics and everything related to the structure and mechanisms of the society as “dull” and “boring”. This was mainly because I didn't understand what they were about and I was reluctant to find out because I perceived them to be things that were “too complicated” for me to understand – I feared failure, simply put. I was able to justify this reluctance by saying “not everyone has to like everything; I have my own interests and politics isn't one of them”. This reluctance then became passiveness as I did nothing – inaction is passiveness, nothing moving is passiveness – the fact that I did not move was the act of passiveness, and the reluctance to face my fear of failure was what led me there. So passiveness itself is not a quality of the mind but a consequence in the physical reality.

My passiveness in terms of society led me to indecisiveness about how to direct my life, what to study, which profession to choose. I did a lot of arts in high school and for years I applied to different art schools, not being sure which form of art was “my thing” yet being certain that I was “destined” to be doing arts. So I lingered in this passive state of being where I spent years not really putting enough effort into any form of art to be accepted into a school, worked within a (mostly) useless trade and spent my free time on entertainment and not much else. Arts as a profession has been an attempt for me to influence the world through inspiring others: serving as a whistle-blower, as someone to “wake up” others, because all are needed to “wake up” if this world is to change – or so I said to justify my position. What I actually wanted was for others to come and change the world for me because I saw myself as disqualified to do it myself.

So as I have been a child and seen the world around me, eager to go and explore it, and then been told not to – even when other kids, my equals and mirrors, were allowed to – it has felt incomprehensive because the boundaries according to which another child could have a toy and I couldn't were invisible to me as they were contextual and cultural agreements that do not actually exist – only their physical consequences do. And so I found ways to adapt to my circumstances: for example, when I was forbidden from buying the clothes I wanted to be able to express myself, I adapted to the limitations of my social class and figured out ways to express myself through clothing that didn't require much money. I would still always long for the things that I had originally wanted, and as I never got a valid reason to why I was the one not getting what everyone else was getting, I created a desire to someday have these expensive clothes (or to even decide for myself what I can buy) and thus assigned them a high value and made them “important” and “worth fighting for”.

The desire to have what others have has been the reason I work. I learned that with money I could upgrade my standard of living, and so I've enjoyed my working years because I have finally been able to afford stuff myself. I have thus been neglecting my wish to work for something that is important to me, that I actually see to have concrete value and substance, because I have been focusing on maintaining my living standard. I have not really realized how much of my time and resources it takes to work even a part-time job, and how much effort it takes to for example study while I also work. So I have not realized that to actually be able to work for something I have a passion and an interest for and which I could create a career in is not going to come without sacrifices: studying is going to take so much time that my living standards are certain to drop.

To bring this together: my working years have been a manifestation of passiveness justified with money. The restrictions of the social class of the family I was born and raised in affected how I perceived myself to be able to influence my surroundings and direct my life. Thus I adapted to moving myself according to the limited amount of resources (intellect, wealth, social relations) I had within the limitations of the “working class persona”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive, because my superiors told me so, that some things in this world were “out of my reach”, “restricted” and “denied”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all concepts of ownership when considering the physical reality are imaginary, as they do not exist in this physical reality even though their consequences do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not trust my “gut feeling” that something was wrong with the fact that I couldn't have what others had when I was not given a valid reason for this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there in fact is no valid reason for financial segregation where others have more “rights” to claim the resources of the physical reality simply because of their level of education, respectability of profession or status of bloodline, because everyone on this planet does not have an equal possibility to attain these “rights” because of the place, family and conditions one was born into; things that one has no choice over.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the level of one's education gives one the “right” to claim more physical resources via money because the refinement of skill makes one's work “more valuable” than the work of an untrained person – not realizing that the amount of time and effort an uneducated worker and an educated worker spend within i.e. one hour of working time is the exact same – it is one hour less in both of their lives – and that this reasoning is thus not valid as the physical resources of an individual's life are used equally by both, not “more” by the educated one.

[Here, I do not mean to disregard the years one has spent educating oneself, which is a big task in itself, but to state that educating oneself should be about wanting to learn for yourself, for the sake of the passion for learning – not so you could get more money in the future with a heightened status. I see this a lot with kids who want to become doctors because of the pay and position, not because they have a passion for medicine – and even those who do it for the passion think of the pay as a justifiable “bonus”.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that some professions have the “right” for more pay because of the “big” responsibility they have to carry – i.e. doctors, managers, politicians, lawyers, police – not realizing that the status of these professions of “high responsibility” has been created so that a few could carry the responsibility that ought to be carried by all, the responsibility to take care of this society and make sure it functions, this then “made ok” by compensating for their “sacrifice” with more money – for example, the direction of the society should not be decided by politicians but by all, the well-being of others and the prevention of illness should be a concern of all, the functions of society should not be a mystery that has to be decoded by lawyers but one that everyone understands – and that to give other professions more “respect” because of the “heavy responsibility” they carry is thus nothing but hypocrisy and abdication of one's responsibility as a participant of the society one lives in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if everyone had equal possibilities to educate themselves and explore the things they have a passion for with no inequality of pay or limitations set by money, we would have a world of motivated action instead of a world of passive compliance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel “tied down” because I was restricted from exploring the world and expressing myself within it, not realizing the reasons we were poor because I was yet unable to comprehend and did not receive an explanation I would have been able to understand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel frustrated whenever I heard the reason “we can't afford it”, feeling like there was a wall between me and whatever it is that I wanted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive myself to be separate from the things we could not afford, visualizing them to be “distant” as if “behind a wall”, thus not realizing that the items (or services) I wanted are of this same physical matter I am built from and that I am in fact one with and equal to them and in terms of the physical reality have as much right to explore them as anyone else, and not realizing the separation is a social agreement based on imagined values which are in fact not real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive that I have “no right” to explore things I had no money for, as if they were “reserved” for those who had money.

[Not to say I should've gone and broken the social agreements by for example stealing something – that would have served no purpose either, unless the reality of things would have been explained to me as a consequence.]

--

A memory of me stealing candy from a store. I was perhaps 6-7 years old and I really wanted candy but my mother would not buy me any. I grabbed a couple of candies from the shelf and ate them really fast in secret. I felt guilty about this for years and finally confessed to my parents crying and ashamed during a much bigger family crisis. I had thought of myself having committed a horrible crime by stealing a couple of candies and my parents thought nothing of it especially compared to the other crisis we were dealing with. This shows how I had adopted the belief that the candy was “restricted” from those with no money and that it was “punishable” if one took it without “the right” (money). I actually feared that police would someday come knocking on our door with shots from a security camera as evidence of my crime.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine this “wall of restriction” to be one that I cannot influence unless I have money and play according to the rules of the society.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel powerless in front of this visualized “wall” that separated me from the resources of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that these walls, boundaries, limitations and restrictions are a natural part of the world and that I cannot influence them, thus complying to the rules of the society without questioning them and manifesting passiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that the only way I can influence my access to the resources of the world is by attaining money.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to place emphasis on getting money so that I could afford the resources of the world and therefore to start working at a young age (9 years old), thinking that working is important and developing a high “work morale”, yet never realizing that my motivation for working was always money and not self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the dogma of my family environment which stated that “it is important to work”, not realizing that this was motivated by fear of survival and was not to encourage us to express ourselves through work.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be overridden by the fear of survival so that during my adult age most of my resources have gone to finding work and working so that I would survive, not realizing that living according to this fear has taken up so much resources that I have made myself unable to explore myself and the world and what I would actually like to do with my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the only resource I had in this game of survival and success were my creativity and artistic skills, because they were (mostly) not dependent on money and were thus accessible to my social class – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus believe that my creativity is my only asset and “trump card” in life and that I should thus strive to use it and make it a profession in which I can “shine” – never stopping to realize that I have not really considered developing any other assets because I have perceived them to be “out of my reach” or “too much trouble” - and that clinging onto arts has been an act of passiveness, a “safe choice”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to cling onto arts as my “only way” of “making it” within the competition to succeed within society and life as I believed and perceived my skills in arts to be the only resource I had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself based on a limited set of skills and assets, thus believing and perceiving myself to be less than I am and to be capable of less than I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to diminish myself by believing myself to be limited to the skills and assets I happen to have at a certain age because the rules of societal conduct - “the rules of life”, the guidelines according to which one can attain a functioning position within the system – dictate that around this age I have to choose a profession and focus my energy on refining myself in this profession.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I was at the age when I “was supposed to” choose a profession I had no idea who I was and what I was capable of and that I thus attempted to define myself according to the little I knew of myself – resulting with a very limited self-definition and “plan for life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to direct myself according to this “plan for life” that I created at a young age based on the little knowledge I had of myself and upon what I believed the society and life to be (a competition).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live according to the self-definition that I was good at arts/creativity and not much else, directing myself towards the things I was “good at” and felt comfortable with and away from the things I was “bad at” and felt uncomfortable with – not realizing that expansion only happens outside our comfort zones and that I was avoiding discomfort because I feared failure, not realizing that expansion and learning often comes with trial and error and that making mistakes is nothing to fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become passive in my life because of the conditions I was born into within which I learned that it is “my place” to “settle” for the assets I had been “given” - not realizing that these assets were not “who I am” but the consequence of how I had lived my life so far.

I commit myself to direct my life from the starting point of expansion and exploration as I now see, realize and understand that the only thing that limits me from reaching out to all of existence and my full potential is my own self-definition; and I commit myself to do this by taking myself to the edge of my comfort zone and beyond. I realize that life is too short to get stuck with and be defined by the things I have found comfortable during the first two decades of my life.

I commit myself to study from the starting point of learning for myself – not because studying will reward me with a place in the university and a possibility for a career, but because I realize that what I learn affects who I am and how I move myself as life. Thus, I also commit myself to always aim to apply what I study and learn to practical reality so that I would not study for the sake of studying but for the sake of living.

I commit myself to build trust in myself as a self-supported and self-directed being, and I commit myself to investigate my fears and doubts about my ability/disability to support and direct myself.

I commit myself to live out the realization that I am not who I have defined myself to be by being here with and within myself in each and every breath and allowing myself to create myself in the moment of breath, thus opening myself up to the windows of opportunities I have passed by before.

I commit myself to practice the principle of taking what I need and unconditionally giving away what I do not by not asking for more pay or other privileges for my work based on experience, education or other status upgrade unless I actually need it to survive.

I commit myself to work from the starting point of carrying full responsibility for the position I am in and the task I am assigned to do, as I see, realize and understand that no matter the type of work I am spending just as much time on it as everyone else does on their work and that it is my responsibility to do my absolute best with the resources I have; unless downright abusive, all work has it's purpose and function in the society.

I commit myself to no longer work for companies, employers and/or forms of business that I find abusive, and I commit myself to rather try to find work that I see to have constructive value, no matter how “basic” a job or “low” a position – and I commit myself to investigate my prejudice towards certain jobs that I resent doing even though I see them to hold constructive value.

I commit myself to direct myself within my life in such a way that will assist in bringing about a world in which there is no poverty, segregation, inequality and scarcity of necessities – where a child would be born with limitations only from the physical reality itself and none of those that are imaginary, arbitrary and not real.

Days 215-216: Childhood poverty, introduction

25-26042013

I played on the sandbox a lot.

I've been studying for my university entrance exams (education sciences), and one of the articles included in the material is about how children perceive, experience and justify economic inequality and how it affects their everyday lives. The article concludes that here in Finland very little, if any, research has been done on this subject, and globally even though the subject has been studied it has been mainly from an adult point of view – for example, by asking children how they perceive economic inequality in terms of professional and educational differences, when the children in fact have no direct contact with this aspect of life; children do not think in terms of professional hierarchy, and if they do, it is through what they have learned by looking at their parents and not by living it themselves.

The subject is very interesting, and it got me thinking about my childhood experiences of financial inequality, scarcity and near-poverty. My family was never as poor as i.e. these families in this documentary, and it may be that in Finland such extreme poverty is not (yet) that common or that it is hidden, which may in turn explain the fact that there aren't much studies of child poverty in Finland. My point is, even though we as a family didn't lose our house (we had to sell off land, though) and never had to starve, as compared to other kids I experienced myself as poor and defined our family as poor.

The financial crisis of the 1990's hit our family pretty hard. We ended up in a lot of debt with two low-paid working adults and four children from age 1 to 13. I was around 3-4 years old at the time and have no recollection of “the better days” when we apparently had a pretty high living standard, so as far as I remember we have always been struggling to survive. We always bought the cheapest food and my mother cooked everything from the start; there was barely money for the most necessary clothes and shoes; we could not afford to buy CD's and so we mostly got illegal copies. I remember there being an argument about my sister wanting/needing a new winter coat and us not being able to afford it. I remember some occasions where my father had got an assignment done and come home proud and relieved with plenty of money. I remember looking at the most expensive and fancy toys at the toy store and my mother always telling me we can't afford them. I remember my mother picking violin as my instrument because I could borrow it from the music school and wouldn't have to spend money to buy my own. I remember the time I got my first legal CD and I remember thinking “wow, this is expensive”. I remember my mother's anxiety as the worried look on her face which surfaced every time I asked to buy new clothes. I remember piles of bills and reminders and the tone with which bills were discussed in our household. I remember my parents being resistant to pay the bills because they never had the money to cover all of them. I remember the disappointments with the debt and how it never seemed to get paid off. I remember asking my mother how much money she makes and her refusing to tell me – I was starting to understand money and income and wanted to know what our situation was – I wanted to participate but got refused. I'm starting to piece together how these experiences have affected my relationship to money, survival, consuming, working and getting paid.

As compared to the poverty of the lowest social class of the westernized world* my situation was bearable, at least for me if not for my parents**. This shows that the experience of poverty for me was partly subjective, as I was never deprived of food or shelter (actual physical needs) but felt “left out” without all the fun things the world was offering but which were “restricted” and “out of my reach”. My poverty was not extreme poverty from which one can die, but a cultural and societal poverty of being denied the possibility to explore the world. I was alive but in terms of society my movements were restricted.

The material I'm studying explained that a child may feel ashamed and guilty for not having the same material things that others do, and that this causes the child to feel “left out”, missing out on the feeling of “belonging somewhere”. I asked myself: if the other children who had all the material stuff were to not judge the poor(er) child for not having materia? What if these other children were to accept the child as he/she is, with no regard to possessions? What if this child still insisted on feeling “left out” even if his/her environment did not “make him/her” feel like it? Then it would mean that the cause of feeling “left out” wouldn't be in group pressure but in the concept of ownership: if there is something that is out of one's reach, “restricted”, one is going to long for it if one has decided it to be “valuable”. So when there is a world with unreasonable boundaries there is always going to something “restricted”, and when the people living within it create desires and emotional bonds to materia there are going to be “valuable” items.

So how does this apply to me, my experience of poverty, my definition of myself as poor? First off, I can see that growing up believing that some things were “out of my reach” has passivate me: I have had little to no regard for how the society functions and how one is able to influence it. I simply believed it to be impossible or at least very difficult and troublesome, and so I became a limp and drowsy child (and an adult) with little interest to do anything at all but things that brought me instant pleasure. I learned helplessness and powerlessness from being “tied down”. I have also felt like an “outsider” because of my lack of material resources and become extremely separated from others, first through grief and jealousy and then through spite.

So, points I'm going to elaborate on:

• Childhood experience of poverty and restriction causing passiveness
• “Not belonging” because of poverty (identifying myself as poor and separating myself from others)
• Relationship to money, survival and working
• Relationship to ownership (blood ties)
• Social relations with friends and foes affected by poverty
• Poverty as an attitude learned from parents (spite towards society)

Cool. I'm going to continue from here.

* I'm not going to compare myself to the lowest social classes of the developing countries – people living in extreme poverty – because that comparison here would not serve any purpose.

** I'm not sure why parents choose to not involve their children in their financial struggles even though this directly influences the entire family. Some even sacrifice their own needs to provide the child with the social resources (toys, clothes, traveling, pocket money etc.) that ensure acceptance from other children so that the child could “make it” in this world – with no consideration to the fact that the child learns to live within a facade and believes that what you own defines your value. An interesting topic in itself, this one.

Day 214: Resting

24042013

from a play; me on the right.

How do I know when I actually need rest and how should I give it to myself?

The answer to the first question is relatively easy: listen to your body and don't be fooled by the mind. Lol. Listening to one's body is done by stopping, breathing and allowing oneself to be fully aware of one's physical experience. For example, last night I didn't really notice myself to be tired and completely ready to go to bed and fall asleep until I stopped myself, told myself to stop working on my tasks and sat myself down with a cup of tea and nothing else to do but to drink the tea. This is when I became aware of the fact that my muscles were sore, and this is where my eyes started closing immediately when I stopped myself from rushing around and stopped my hurry-busy-overload-mode. I realized that the fact that my physical was giving me these signs meant that I was indeed in need of rest, and so I gave myself rest. Had I followed my mind I would have continued working and perhaps collapsed sooner or later – if not during the night, I would have run out of steam today had I not slept enough.

But the second question I proposed is more tricky, because the experience of something being “rest” or “relaxing” or “not demanding” is subjective and also relative as compared to that which one is taking rest from (i.e. work, tasks, responsibilities, burdens, obligations etc.). I just got to thinking about this when I had been studying for a couple of hours, noticed myself to be getting weary and stiff from working and realized that I needed rest – but then I started conflicting with myself as I did not know how to give myself rest. My first thought was to lay down and play video games – but then I thought of yoga because my back was really screaming for it – and then I thought: “but yoga isn't rest” - which I realized to be a value I have assigned yoga: [exercise = work], so [yoga = work] as well. I then went on to do yoga because I saw that it could actually support me to recover and heal from my day of work, which in the long run serves me more than playing video games, which is just sitting still and entertaining myself with mathematical stuff – which does hold value at times, but this wasn't what I needed at this moment.

So I guess there is no “right way” of resting or a perfect pattern to follow, which means one has to make the assessment individually for each situation: what is it that would right now assist me in recovering from this specific kind of fatigue? If the tasks one does vary, so does the “damage” done in the process – and so does the method of recovery. If I had just run a marathon I don't think yoga would be the optimal choice for recovery then, lol.

Right, to re-define the word “rest” for myself.

Dictionary definition: cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself or to recover strength; allow to be inactive in order to regain strength, health or energy. (Source: Oxford dictionary)

My old definition of the word “rest”: to be lazy, unproductive and passive; to not give one's all at every moment; to slack off; to justify inaction with imagined weariness.

My new definition of the word “rest”: to live as one with and equal to one's physical body and to take care of it's needs and requirements by allowing it the appropriate way of recharging and recovering from a preceding activity that has caused the body to become stressed, weary, tired, damaged and/or worn out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my physical body has its inescapable limits, be they permanent or temporary, and that in order to keep myself healthy, stable and fully functioning I have got to live according to these limits as there is no way to “transcend” the physical reality for as long as I live within this body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for giving myself rest as I have felt ashamed for my past where I escaped my reality into sleep and entertainment – a state of almost constant rest – and have wanted to “make up to” the opportunities I wasted during those years of escapism by not resting at all or resting as little as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it is possible to “make up to” the mistakes of my past, not realizing that these mistakes have already been done and that I cannot “work extra hard” within the present moment to live both for my past and my present as all that my physical body allows me to do is within the borders of the present: I can only live a full NOW, not a full yesterday or tomorrow.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign rest a negative energy charge through guilt and shame, not realizing that rest is neither positive nor negative but a requirement of the physical reality – it is what is here – a tool that can be used and/or abused.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that even though the boundaries of one's stamina may be pushed further, there is still a certain limit for how much I am able to do right now and that this limit cannot be crossed – and that this is what makes it impossible to “make up for” my past inaction.

I commit myself to gift myself with rest when and as my physical body indicates it requires it.

I commit myself to find ways to be more sensitive to the needs of my physical body – firstly by building myself a foundation from breathing and moment-to-moment self-awareness.

I commit myself to trust myself to spot the moments when I would be abusing rest to escape my responsibilities as I see, realize and understand that I am capable of noticing when my starting point for resting is not in my physical but in my mind.

I commit myself to realize that fatigue from studying is also physical as it is stress for the brain, and that the fact that the brain is located in the head doesn't mean that this fatigue is some trick of the mind which I have thought to reside in my head – which is starting to look more and more like a fallacy as I'm starting to see, realize and understand that the mind is integrated into the entire body – and that the fatigue caused by studying also requires some form of rest and recovery, whatever that may be.

I commit myself to reserve time for resting in my daily schedule.

Day 213: Social welfare & fear of survival

23042013

I am now continuing with what I started opening up yesterday because the same point has been influencing my experience today.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create resistance to work by stressing about my work, not realizing that I make it more difficult for myself to work when I stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will screw it up”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform and that I will have caused it with my own stupidity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I have caused myself to become dependent on the financial support of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am making a mistake.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others as “stupid”, “dumb”, “irresponsible”, “childish”, “self-centered” and “ignorant”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions and to not assess my doubts from a practical viewpoint.

Clarifying some of the statements above:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform and that I will have caused it with my own stupidity.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of it as “stupidity” when I have misunderstood something and have not realized to figure out the reality of things, perceiving the situation through self-judgement, belittlement and self-hate to exert my fear of survival on myself as self-blame.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that there is no such thing as “stupidity” (“being unable to comprehend”) aside from actual physical disadvantages (such as with people born disabled), and that my actions have thus not been “stupid” but a consequence of the circumstances where I do not understand how the society around me functions and have misunderstood its mechanisms and made decisions based on my misunderstandings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to have “failed”, not realizing that as I now see where I have misunderstood and take action to sort things out there is no “failure” as I carry my responsibility to do what I can to solve the situation when and as I notice things to require solving.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the social welfare system of my country to be such that will allow no one to be left without basic life support and to thus expect it to take care of me no matter how I live my life, being surprised, disappointed and shocked when I found out that there is indeed a possibility to be left without basic life support if certain conditions are not met.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to secretly fear that the social welfare system will not support me as I have perceived it to have denied me support before in situations where I was in need of support, thus creating an expectation based on earlier experiences that the social welfare system doesn't want what's best for me but is unfair in its judgement and demands impossibilities of me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear of the social welfare system based on my previous experiences where I have trusted the system to take care of me and have been “let down” by the system.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid situations where I would have to ask for support from any instance of the social welfare system because I have feared that they will evaluate and judge me and decide that I do not qualify for their support.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when an instance of the social welfare system has followed the rules of the system and denied me access to its resources because I have not been qualified according to this set of rules.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on the social welfare system to recognize value in all life and to thus create plans and make decisions based on this assumption, not realizing that the social welfare system of my country isn't based on unconditional support for all life but on support for those who fit the definition of a “responsible citizen” as defined in the rules of the system.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get angry when I realized the system is not flexible and does not consider each applicant's situation thoroughly, not realizing that the system does not have the resources for this kind of work as the officers are already overworked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame “the system” (nation, social welfare, economy, politics) for my adversities as I have felt myself powerless to affect its rules.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “the world” is hostile towards me out of spite.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that “the world” hates me as it does not allow me to live without me complying to its rules.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist working with what the system is right now because I do not agree with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that even though the system isn't right now the best it could be, it is the system I have to work with and live within now as it will not change in a matter of days, weeks or even months – not within the timespan that is relevant to me at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to co-operate with the system as it is right now because I have seen that the ways I can influence and change it will only have effect years and decades in the future and felt that this is “unfair”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think it is “unfair” that I have to deal with a complicated system, not realizing that the system as it is right now is a consequence of the past generations the descendant of which I am, and that, unfortunate as it is, I am responsible to deal with the consequences of what this society has accepted and allowed as I am a part of this society and a creator of the future society my children will have to deal with (which hopefully will be a better one).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there is nothing personal in the complexities of the system that I need to deal with as I live within it, as the system is the same for everyone – everyone deals with the same bureaucracy, inspections and requirements – or at least everyone who ends up in the financial situation where it is necessary to apply for social welfare.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the system through my frustration, fear, powerlessness, helplessness and spite and judge the system to be malfunctioning, not realizing that even though the flaws I see are real my interpretation of them isn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the social welfare system as “malfunctioning” and thus “rotten” even though it does manage to deliver a lot of people financial support, because I have seen the system's flaws in complexity, understandability, approachability and sometimes also in customer service (which is not only a problem in attitudes but also in resources – these people appear overworked to me).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that there are limits to what this current social welfare system can do because the laws and constitutions it relies on are not based on the value of all life but on the importance of monetary profit.

I commit myself to work with this social welfare system as it is right now as I see, realize and understand that the system will not change for as long as I oppose it and refuse to take part in it.

I commit myself to face the officials that handle my application process as human beings one with and equal to me and to realize that most of them are just doing their job and are doing what they can to earn their living and that what they do is in fact in no way personal.

I commit myself to find out what is possible for me and my situation within the current rules of the system and to do what I can to ensure myself a base foundation for my living expenses.

Also, I commit myself to do this from a practical perspective and to work my way through my emotional reactions as I see, realize and understand that I make it more difficult for myself to work through this if I haze my view with emotions.

I commit myself to keep walking this point until I am clear on it.

Day 212: Too stressed to lay myself down

22042013

Today I faced an odd experience that consisted of intense physical pain, exhaustion, anxiety and possession-like restlessness. I tried to write throughout the experience and it helped me keep a track of what was going on. The experience that had been here all day finally faded when I had taken a two-hour nap and done the following self-forgiveness:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not have a break when my physical indicates I need it with obvious weariness, sleepiness, heaviness, fatigue, pain and tension.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe and thus forget my physical when my physical is sick and instead try and find the reason for my sickness from the mind through reasoning and logic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not gift myself with rest when and as my physical body is sick and indicates it has not yet fully recovered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself enough time for rest when recovering from a physical sickness and instead push myself to work before, during and after the most intense period of sickness, not realizing that by doing this I only prolong the sickness and disable myself from healing effectively and wholly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the fact that I become sick in the first place is a sign of a malfunction in the body, which in this case has come about because of neglecting myself, and that this sickness will continue for as long as it takes for me to sort out this point of self-abuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is to “rest” when I play video games, watch TV series and eat plenty of treats, not realizing that this doesn't actually serve the well-being of my physical but only entertains my mind.

I commit myself to try out how it would affect my recovery if I replaced TV and video games with reading and eating treats with drinking lots of water / herbs and moderately eating healthier stuff, such as vegetable food, fruits, unsweetened yoghurt, oats and rice.

I commit myself to experiment how it would affect my healing process if I shut down all electronic equipment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create resistance to work by stressing about my work, not realizing that I make it more difficult for myself to work when I stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will screw it up”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform and that I will have caused it with my own stupidity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I have caused myself to become dependent on the financial support of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am making a mistake.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others as “stupid”, “dumb”, “irresponsible”, “childish”, “self-centered” and “ignorant”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions and to not assess my doubts from a practical viewpoint.

[These fears I'll continue with in more specificity. Cool that they're beginning to open up.]

I was then able to continue with my studies and I had some fresh air, did a little yoga and now I feel immensely better. The possession has faded and I've returned myself to stability. I now continue with the following SF:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance to take naps even when my body clearly states it to be necessary because I have defined that “naps aren't for me”, thus enforcing a relationship of refusal and separation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that sometimes the body does require more sleep – in this case due to self-imposed stress and fatigue – and that then the rest must be given, even if it's in the middle of my day, or the consequences will be even worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a self-image where I am “more” because I sleep as little as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot” to be “lazy”, “escapist”, “self-centered”, “unambitious” and “limp”, thus creating a resistance through all these negatively charged definitions to not “sleep a lot”, whatever I may define “a lot” to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot / too much” to be when one sleeps more than 6 hours or sleeps during the day, as I have not realized that sleeping more than 6 hours and/or sleeping during the day may sometimes in fact be necessary.

I commit myself to give myself sleep/rest when my body indicates it to be necessary, not trying to multitask during the rest by reading, writing etc. while I lay myself down, but by putting everything I am doing off of my hands and allowing myself to stop and fully exist within the time that I dedicate for resting.

What eventually got me through the painful experience was self-forgiveness followed with physically moving myself out of the jammed situation. I wrote, I got up and I went out, and when I returned I changed my physical position within my apartment, which worked out awesomely. Remembering to breathe was also quite helpful!

Days 210-211: Misunderstandings

20-21042013

As I have now been studying for my entrance exams I have been thinking about different studying techniques, and today I came across I memory from my teen years. When I was in junior high school (age 12-15) I had a friend who did very well in school. She once shared with us some of her methods for studying, which were i.e. reading the most relevant information right before going to bed so that it would have time to “brew” at the “back of her head”; and also keeping her school books next to her bed so that if she happened to wake up in the middle of the night she could read something from the book and then go back to sleep. I remember myself being overwhelmed by this as I could not conceive why anyone would want to study so much – my motivation to study was not that high – and I thought she was “odd” and “crazy” to study at times which I considered to be reserved for resting and when I would rather just read comics or prose. I remember myself and some other girls in the same group voicing this opinion of her being “odd” for doing such things – I did not mean ay harm by it, but was simply expressing my bewilderment.

So I realized how she might have actually interpreted this expression wrong. I realized that as I called her “odd” and “crazy” she might have taken this as a malicious act and experienced herself to have been teased, bullied and/or belittled by me/us. I then realized that some of my experiences of being bullied may have been similar misunderstandings, where I take the self-expression of another personally as it is not directly communicated that “I am now expressing my overwhelmedness”, lol, there are not many children who know how to do that.

As I was writing out the memory I also realized that I am not sure how my self-expression affected the expression and opinion of others. Within that group of friends my expression was quite powerful and unlimited – I had friends whom I could relax with and I was testing out different levels of dominance as my friends were somewhat submissive themselves. So when I expressed my overwhelmedness I remember the group being supportive of what I said – that she was “odd” and “crazy” - but I just now realized that I may have overridden people who were easy to influence with my opinions, causing them to agree with me as I was in an authoritative position because of my dominant expression. Which means that I just now realized what my responsibility was within that situation. This dominance that the group accepted and allowed me to uphold and execute was one of the things that led to the group breaking up later on, as the others started to resent my self-expression and later on excluded me from the group.

So what I'm seeing here is that a lot of my experiences with bullying may have been similar incidents where spite was suppressed and accumulated as I took things personally when they were not meant as such, and that I myself may have caused many similar situations as I have not realized my responsibility to be clear on my communication. This may be occurring even now as I'm becoming more honest and straightforward in my words yet not taking into consideration that my responsibility is to communicate myself as clearly as possible to avoid misunderstandings. Simply voicing my starting point – that I do not mean any harm but am instead communicating from this and this perspective – would be a great start.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take another's self-expression personally as I have misinterpreted their words, tone and gestures to be a direct judgement of who I am, not seeing that it may simply be their self-expression of their experience which I do not fully grasp i.e. because of faults in communication.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take into consideration the effects my self-expression as words, tone and gestures has on others when unclearly communicated and to not realize my responsibility within interaction to do my best to be understood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to tell another being that she is “odd” and “crazy” without specifying that this is my reaction to my world-view clashing with another's which seemed “alien” to me as I had not yet at the time realized and learned to express that this is the process that I went through within that moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility as a participant of interaction by assertively defining another being without specifying that this is by no means a valid assessment of her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse my position within the above-mentioned group of friends by testing out different ways to dominate, control and lead others, not realizing that I was taking advantage of people who expressed their insecurity through submission whereas I expressed my insecurity through dominance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility as an equal participant of interaction by not being clear on my communication by thinking “oh well, I guess they got my point” and letting the unclear moments slip by.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be sensitive about the reactions of others as indicators of possible misunderstandings where I could then correct my expression accordingly to do what I can to avoid possible conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify abdicating my responsibility to correct unclear communication with the belief that people understand each other even without everything being voiced, not realizing that I am using this belief to not voice things that I find uncomfortable communicating to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have noticed another to react which may have indicated a misunderstanding, to react with fear and choose to “skip” clarifying my expression to another by thinking “oh well, I guess he/she got my point” so that I could avoid what I fear, which here is the possibility of conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within my fear of conflict to ignore possible signs of misunderstandings (i.e. in the body language of others) so that I wouldn't have to solve the misunderstanding, because I fear that the process of solving a misunderstanding would lead to conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that attempting to solve a misunderstanding will probably lead to conflict and to thus fear solving misunderstandings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create this belief/perception that attempts to clear things out will become conflicts based on previous situations where I have tried to clear things out and have failed.

• Numerous memories arise concerning this:
  • In elementary school (age 9-10) when all my friends collectively decided to ignore me and no longer be friends with me I tried to solve the situation but no one would engage in discussion with me > I felt abandoned and powerless > my attempt proved futile because no one would respond.
  • When I was around 19 a friend of mine accused me of “idolizing my sister”, which was a perception she appeared to base on who I had been as a child but was no more. I told her this was no longer true and she would not believe me, and I felt that I was unfairly judged > my attempt to solve a misunderstanding proved futile because another would not listen to my words over her belief > I felt judged and misunderstood.
  • Around the age 20 I tried to speak to a group of friends about a communication issue I had noticed within the group. I sent everyone a message where I directly addressed the issue (people talking shit behind each other's backs and not communicating directly to each other) and nobody replied. I was later on excluded from the group and from this I concluded that the habit of talking shit about people behind their backs continued in my case as well. > I realize that in this case I was reactive within the message I sent as I was frustrated and wanted someone to interact with me instead of “fading away” as they always did > I felt like the interaction was a failure because I got no response.

In all of the above-mentioned memories the common nominator for “failure” is [the lack of response], which I now see, realize and understand to not be something I can influence, as each and every person makes their own choices and I cannot make another person engage in a conversation to clear things up if they do not want to. I see that I have felt myself judged in these situations through “silent rejection” and thus started to fear situations like this. I have thus connected [attempting to solve a situation] to [rejection] which I have blamed on myself through feeling judged, which is in fact self-judgement through the eyes of others. I have not seen, realized and understood that the lack of response from others is “out of my hands” - I have done all I could, and if others haven't joined in it is their responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame it on myself when another person does not respond to my attempt to communicate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel unfairly judged when another person chooses to believe their perception of me instead of seeing who I actually am, clinging onto the feeling of unfairness because I have assigned the perception of others the power to define me and thus feel conflicted because I do not want to be defined like I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that if another chooses to believe their perception of something over the actual reality it is their loss and not a choice I can make for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I was not listened to within a conversation, to get frustrated with the other person(s), thinking “why are you such idiots?”, “why won't you listen?”, “hello, I'm right here!”, “what's wrong with you?”, “come ON, just speak to me!” - as I have not seen, realized and understood that the choices of others are theirs to make and that I cannot make another reply, becoming frustrated as I have taken this failure in communication personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to the lack of response from others, assuming others to judge me and talk shit about me behind my back if they do not respond, thus trying even harder to get them to respond as an attempt to stop the judgement and bad-mouthing, and getting frustrated when I fail as I see my attempts to stop the habits of others to not be working.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get desperate when others have ignored my attempt to face them in honesty as I have feared the judgement they appear likely to pass on me as I have taken the risk to speak straightforwardly about what's actually going on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of it as a “risk” to address what's actually going on because I have seen how few ever seize that opportunity and how many choose to ignore it and what the consequences are to me (judgement, loss).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when others choose to ignore a window of opportunity.

Alright, bringing this back to the original topic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear solving misunderstandings in conversation and other communication because I have feared that the response will be rejection or “silent rejection” through shown or covered judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear another's decline to solve a misunderstanding because I fear their perception, opinion and evaluation of me and that the decline indicates that I am seen as “less” than I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give value to another's perception/opinion of me because others have been my only source of acceptance for all of my life so far.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others by believing the perception/opinion others appear to have of me, not standing within and as myself in self-certainty here in the physical where there is no doubt of who I am but only looking at reflections of myself within the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when another ignores the opportunity to solve a misunderstanding and feel disappointed, and based on this create a resistance to even try to solve misunderstandings because I fear the reaction of the other will be negative.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it upon myself when an attempt to solve a misunderstanding fails, not realizing that within interaction there are multiple participants and that each participant carries an equal responsibility over the interaction – not just me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that it is my responsibility to try and solve a misunderstanding when and as I see the possibility that there is a misunderstanding, because I as the one who notices am responsible, and that my best attempt to solve a misunderstanding is to carry my responsibility no matter how the other responds.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that if another will not try to solve the misunderstanding with me but instead ignores, belittles or judges the opportunity, this is their choice which I cannot make for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that it is important to walk through these situations where “nothing appears to change” because they might have an effect on the other's process in ways invisible to me, and also because within them I practice assertiveness, self-honest communication and self-leadership.

I commit myself to do my best within communication to be understood as I see, realize and understand this to be the purpose of all communication, and I commit myself to do this by:

• being clear/self-honest on what I mean with the words I use
• being sensitive to others to see if there is understanding
• when noticing a possible misunderstanding, addressing it and clarifying myself when/if necessary

I commit myself to not let misunderstandings slip by by facing my fear, realizing it is not valid and pushing through by opening my mouth and speaking even if unplanned.

When and as I notice a misunderstanding and think “oh well, maybe they got my point” - I stop, I breathe and I realize I am using this belief that people understand each other without direct communication as a justification to avoid the possible conflict that may come from attempting to solve a misunderstanding. I realize this belief to be bollocks. I realize that if others were to react negatively to my attempt to directly address what's going on, it would be nothing personal towards me but others choosing to ignore a window of opportunity. I then proceed to solve the misunderstanding according to the situation – mainly by asking if there was a misunderstanding or not and clarifying myself when necessary.

I commit myself to keep myself grounded within my physical in self-certainty when communicating with others by stabilizing myself in slow and steady breath, sensing my entire body from head to toe and being aware of my centre of gravity – thus living as a physical expression of self-acceptance.

Days 208-209: Clarifying my starting point for writing

18-19042013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 207: Making process heavier

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that walking the process of releasing myself from the mind is a burden, not realizing that as I use/think/experience the word “burden” I connect my experience of walking the process to undesirability, which creates resistance towards the experience, and that I hereby make it more difficult for myself to walk the process and actually bring into flesh the “burden” that originally only existed within my mind as a perception.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the commitment to write each day is “limiting”, “restraining”, “suffocating” and “binding”, this resistance indicating that my resolution to write is not fully clear.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the clear structure and rhythm of this commitment to write each day is not to limit me but to support me to establish self-discipline.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the commitment to write every day for at least 7 years because I have perceived it to be a “loss of freedom”, yet never asking myself “freedom to do what”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “freedom” I desire within this fear of “loss of freedom” is freedom from responsibility, freedom from understanding, freedom from action – the freedom to accept and allow the world to burn around me as I close my eyes and drown into the fascination of my own mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist my commitment to write every day for at least 7 years as I have not fully embraced my reasons for doing it.

[Here I did private self-forgiveness for my reasons to begin writing my Journey to Life -blog and to accept the challenge of daily writing. My main reason for it was the fact that I had run out of reasons not to: I wanted to write, I wanted structure, I wanted support, I wanted to challenge myself, I needed to start making some sense of the stuff welling up within me. I was not completely clear on my starting point, though, and now I'm sorting it out.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards writing because I have done it partly from the starting point of “trying to be enough”, seeking for acceptance/approval/validation from others by publishing my writings, and thus setting myself a goal/ideal when and as I write [goal = write a good text / good text = one that receives positive feedback from others], thus not writing from the starting point of writing for myself but instead writing through fear which becomes a burden as it accumulates every time I write from this starting point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my writing is most effective and constructive when I write to understand myself and not to be understood by others – in the sense that others would need to give me the experience of “being understood” when I lack this self-acceptance and certainty in myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have written something that seems to “fall in place” (when and as I fully realize and understand what I have written), to automatically think “now others will respect me (for this realization)” as I revel in the elevation I give to myself as a “reward” for “writing well” - thus compensating for my insecurity by assigning myself a status that is “respectable”/”approvable” in the eyes of others instead of just accepting the result of my writing, approving myself and moving on to the next point in my process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my need to receive validation from others, as manifested in my starting point for publishing my writings, is inherently linked to my insecurity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in my process through disdain and weariness. [negative polarity]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in my process through excitement and joy. [positive polarity]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in the process through polarities, seeing it as either “bad” or “good” when in fact it's neither – it is simply what is necessary when considering the reality that we share as All Life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the process to be “good”, “the best”, “my saviour”, “awesome” and “the one and only truth”, not seeing it for what it is: a method among methods, and the one that appears to work the best for me (and many others) right now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the process to be “troublesome”, “tiresome”, “hard”, “difficult”, “too much”, “not for me”, “demanding” and “ruthless” as I have seen myself as “less” than the process, not realizing that I AM the process and thus cannot be “less” or “more” but am in fact one with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the process by glorifying it / demonizing it as I have not seen, realized and understood that I am one with and equal to the process and that therefore it cannot be of a different value than myself or anyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is us, all of us, everyone and everything that lives that is walking their own process of development* more or less aware of it and thus living as the process – and that there is thus no one separate from the process as we are all living the process.

[*Note: the word “development” holds neither a positive nor a negative value to me, so I'm not saying that each being's process would automatically be going “upwards” or towards the best possible outcome – it needs to be directed there – and so it is foolish to think that “eventually all will end well” as if in time everyone will be “enlightened” with no effort at all.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to elevate those who are aware of their process and direct it according to the same principles that I do, not realizing that with this I create more separation and do not take into consideration that it is rare for people to have such living conditions (basic living requirements, stable family environment, education, freedom to move within society) where becoming aware of one's process would be possible, and that I cannot thus deem those who are unaware as “less than” “us” as I cannot know where they stand in their process and why.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have noticed a point activating, to react with the fear of the point “slipping away” where I would lose my chance to face and direct the point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and “solve” a point with the mind as intellect, logic and reasoning, not realizing that this is by no means the same as facing and directing the point, as when I try to “figure out” the point with the mind I separate myself from it and refuse to stand as one with and equal to the point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear not solving a point when it activates as I fear “screwing up” the opportunity that is here because I perceive and believe that if the point “slips away” I might never be able to face it again and then I would live as an incomplete being and would judge myself to be a “failure”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself to be a “failure” when I have not succeeded in facing and directing a point that has activated because I fear the work load ahead of me as I fear one lifetime will not be enough to sort all of my shit out.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal of how one “succeeds” in facing a point and to thus react every time this idea is not reached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe the process ahead of me to be “bigger” than me, here mistaking the duration of something to indicate it is “more” than me (process lasts a lifetime – my subjective experience lasts for one breath at a time), not realizing that the vastness of the process is the vastness of who I am – that I am the process ahead of me – I am the process I walk.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my process as I have not seen, realized or understood that the material I am working with is all that I have accepted and allowed – not what someone else has accepted and allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will not sort myself out because of the vastness of all my bullshit, not realizing that I will get as far as I get within this lifetime and that no amount of stressing, fearing or planning will assist me in getting any further; only moment-to-moment forgiveness and application will accelerate my movement within my process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to deal with the points that activate within and as breath and as physical expression and instead hold onto my mind and try to push myself to “sort out” the points with intellect, logic and reasoning.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need the mind to face and direct the points that activate and to not dare to let the mind go at the face of a challenge as I have been afraid of failure and with this tried to ensure my success.

When and as I am faced with an activating point (pain/energy/sensations/patterns in the physical and/or activity in the mind as thoughts/images/scenes/memories/associations/habits), I stop, I breathe and I realize that an essential thing when facing a point is to return myself to and stabilize myself in breath and to listen to my physical body. I breathe with a slow and steady rhythm and feel the motion of my breath in my body. I move my focus onto my body and take note of whatever sensations I find. I then take note of whatever happened within my mind when and as the point activated. As I keep myself stable in breath I look at what I saw in the physical and in the mind. I will not backchat about what I found in the mind as then I would be participating in it and validating its existence. I will not accept and allow myself to create disdain/rejection towards the physical sensations as then I would be separating myself from my physical existence by not wanting to be one with and equal to it. I will instead keep on breathing and I will embrace and breathe through the physical sensations. I will realize that my mind is not who I am even though it indicates who I am at the moment, and that my thoughts/backchat/etc. should not be taken personally. I then move myself according to my experience within the realization that the process doesn't always move in leaps but small inches at a time and that if I don't appear to be moving at lightning-speed I might still be making progress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that I “have to” walk my process as I have seen realized and understood this to be what is necessary and mistaken this necessity for a demand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign the words “necessity”, “necessary” and “need” a negative charge where I connect these words to “burden”, “have to”, “no choice” and “no freedom”, thus making it harder for me to live according to what is necessary as I perceive it to be limiting and eroding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist adapting to that which is necessary as I have wanted to stick to the old and comfortable instead of living out change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that within necessities I have “no freedom of choice”, not realizing that I may always choose otherwise – the fact that I don't, however, indicates that I have already made my decision and now only refuse to fully stand within the decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions instead of looking directly at the reasons why I do not fully stand within my decisions – with writing for example, doubting the process and tool of writing instead of looking at why I am not getting the most out of writing and why I resist it.

I commit myself to carry on writing my 7 year Journey to Life blog daily if by any practical means possible.

I commit myself to write about what I experience in my daily living and how I apply myself, and to thus write from the starting point of sharing, documenting and structuring my process.

I commit myself to stop myself whenever I stress about writing and to remind myself I will only hinder my writing by stressing about it, and I commit myself to breathe and release myself from the stress before I continue writing, even if I am writing about the experience of stress itself.

I commit myself to reserve at least 1 hour of my day to writing.

I commit myself to trust myself to know what to write about.

I commit myself to embrace the process of writing in all its hardship as I see, realize and understand that the process of writing is all about self-support and building a reliable foundation for myself, which is the greatest “peace of mind” that I have found so far.

I commit myself to rely on myself to work my way through this process no matter how long it takes, as I have already shown myself in a relatively short period of time that I am in fact able to change.

I commit myself to not despair when a point remains unclear despite my efforts to “sort it out” within the realization that eventually all that I have missed will come back to me, be it before death or after.