31032013
I have been going through my insecurity
issues and I have located one of its physical manifestations which is
avoiding eye contact. I do not do this all the time walking around
with my eyes in the ground, no, I look at people quite a lot actually
– but there are certain triggers that “make me” turn my eyes
away or avoid the look of another even if I know another is trying to
reach me through eye contact.
I experimented with this while sitting
in the bus. I usually sit on the benches that face all the other
benches with my back towards the way the bus is driving, so I have a
good shot at making contact with others, plus I like people-watching.
I noticed a following thought pattern while looking at people and
meeting their eyes:
- Why does he/she look at me (like that)?
- Does he/she like me?
- Does he/she not like me?
- Do I look weird?
- Maybe my hair looks nice?
- Maybe they think I look cool.
- Maybe they think I look odd.
And sometimes I go on following a
certain thought and I create further guesses, assumptions, worst-case
scenarios etc. about it, for example with “Do I look weird?” I
start going through all aspects of my visual appearance, assessing
whether it's possible that some of them is off or “wrong” or who
this person would be if they disliked a trait like that, “maybe
he's superficial because he doesn't like my clothes” - and all of
this is absolutely absurd because none of it is true; it's just
guesswork in my mind as the images of people I play with in my mind
are not the equivalent of the actual people who live and breathe in
front of me and whom I do NOT know and thus cannot assess/evaluate in
a well-informed way.
So when the initial question “Why
does he/she look at me (like that)?” appears, I turn my eyes away
and start guessing for reasons and explanations. Even in situations
where I have been the one to look at another first (which actually is
in most of the cases) I react to the other looking back by instantly
believing the look to “mean” something – that it bears a
“meaning” other than that of simply looking at another, which is
to receive visual information about one's surroundings and possibly
to communicate. I mean, when I look at people I do it just to look at
people. I don't do it to provoke reactions, to flirt, to irritate, to
invade, to judge – I look at people just to look at people, to see
who's present and to be open to any and all possibilities. So why do
I fear others to do the exact opposite?
When I asked myself this question I
came across two fears that link to specific memories.
- I fear I will be rejected / I fear I will cause a negative reaction [memory: when I was 15 I looked at a strange teenage boy in the eye and he responded by saying aggressively “what the fuck are you looking at”. I reacted with intense feelings of rejection and shame.]
- I fear my look will be misinterpreted to mean sexual interest [memory: I was around 15-16 when I was shopping for clothes and I happened to look at a teenage boy in the shop. He approached me and tried talking to me, I got frightened and fled.]
I have gone over the first (1) memory
before, but apparently it is still linked to my fear of rejection
somehow. I have realized that the boy in that situation reacted from
whichever state he was in before I looked at him; I remember him
looking like he was distressed and myself feeling sympathy towards
him (this links to The Healer Character). My look was simply a
trigger to his reaction and not the cause of it. I took his reaction
personally and blamed myself for it, thinking “I shouldn't have
done that, I will never do that again”.
The boy in the second (2) memory was an
immigrant kid and I remember this being the first time I was ever in
direct contact with a male of my age who was not Finnish – and I
wasn't much in direct contact with Finnish boys either due to
shyness. I realized there to be some cultural differences at play
because boys who I was used to didn't approach girls in such a
straightforward way. I got freaked out because the concept of
relationships was really distant and alien to me, and so I just
escaped the whole interaction and basically ran away from him.
So I'm looking at a fear of reactions
that are “not wanted”. Why do I not want these reactions from
others? Why do I resent these reactions from others? Why can't I just
take them as they are – as the reactions of others and nothing
personal – but instead find myself powerless in front of them?
--
01042013
Alright, continuing with this. I want
to try a really practical approach this time. So the pattern I repeat
is the following:
- I look at people
- I meet the eyes of another person
- I react with fear
- I turn my eyes away
- I go into guesswork
- I make conclusions, assumptions and guesses of another's motives
- I take action based on my conclusions, assumptions and guesses
- I look back to the other / I keep avoiding the look of another / [other action]
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear that another judges me / thinks less of me
/ attacks me when I look at them because of experiences in my past
where I have created a survival pattern based on single interactions
where the action [I look at another] has been followed with [negative
response] which has led me to [feel rejected].
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear that another will judge me / attack me
based on no other information about me than the fact that I am
looking at him/her.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that others are (most likely) just
as afraid of me as I am of them, and that any form of aggression that
I may face when simply looking at another from a clear starting point
is a sign of the other being afraid and defending themselves through
aggression – and that the negative response of another is thus
nothing personal towards me even though it may serve as feedback if I
choose to utilize it so.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to take the negative responses of others
personally as if what another accepts and allows themselves to live
as was on my responsibility even when my intentions have not been to
provoke another.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to blame myself for the reactions of others and to
look for flaws in myself to explain, excuse and justify the reactions
of others – not realizing that this is to live as fear as I allow
the reactions of others to define me out of the fear of not being
accepted.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when/as another
reacts negatively to me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when there is a
risk that another may have focused their attention on me and might be
forming a negative opinion of me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize how many “maybe's” and “what
if's” I participate in in the above-mentioned situation.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe and perceive looking at another person
to be “risky” because there's a possibility that the other will
form a negative opinion of me and choose their actions according to
their opinion of me and not according to who I really am.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to live as the above-mentioned behavior that I
fear from others by forming opinions of others based on immediate
guesswork and choosing my actions according to these opinions instead
of realizing I know nothing of the other person and that, if
necessary, I will have to find out from the person him/herself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not embrace myself as I look at another person
to engage in eye contact as myself, but instead already perceive
myself to be less than who I am and escape the eye contact as I react
with the fear of revealing myself to myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to walk around not embracing myself, not realizing
that my fear of others is actually caused by my reluctance to stand
within/as myself when faced with the eyes of others as mirrors of me
– that the reluctance to be myself causes me to fear others.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to turn my eyes away from another when and as I
have reacted with fear to meeting another's eyes.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with fear to meeting
the eyes of another, to retreat and escape by turning my eyes away
instead of stopping the fear, breathing and relaxing myself to just
be within the eye contact, realizing that the fear is not valid as
there is no real practical reason to be afraid as there is nothing in
the situation that could actually harm me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear another's look as I have connected this to
rejection and all that follows it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to charge the act of [another looking at me] with
the fear of rejection, assigning [look] as the image where eyes turn
to me with a negative value as I associate [look] with all the
consequences of [negative opinions] (rejection, unfair judgement,
being left outside the group, gossip, loneliness, not having
friends).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that a look is just a look – a
being with eyes taking in visual information in order to interact
with its environment – and that any and all other values assigned
to the act of looking are conceived in the mind and are in fact
imaginary.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that my negative connotation to
having eye contact with others is in fact imaginary as it overrides
the physical reality with meanings that only have value in the
mind-reality.
02042013
When and as I notice myself reacting
with fear to meeting another's eyes and turning my eyes away to
escape the attention of the other – I stop, I breathe and I realize
that the attention of another is not in fact dangerous in any way. I
realize that this is a habit that occurs when I do not embrace myself
nor stand within and as myself when and as I interact with others. I
then stabilize myself in breath, ground myself back into my body as
physical self-awareness and look for the reason of my insecurity –
why do I not embrace myself within this moment? How am I making
myself less than I actually am? Once my starting point is clear I
return to the interaction if possible/necessary.
I commit myself to stop believing in
the assumptions, conclusions and guesses I make about others by
working through my habits, patterns and beliefs according to which I
have organized the reality into my subjective perspective of the
reality so that my experience of the reality would be easier to
comprehend.
I commit myself to stop blaming myself
/ taking the credit for the reactions of others by no longer asking
myself “what's wrong with me” when another reacts negatively / “I
wonder what's good about me” when another reacts positively.
I commit myself to realize it is
useless to worry about the opinions and perceptions others may or may
not have of me as all that matters is who I actually am HERE within
breath and flesh and bone – and that if there is a practical reason
for clarifying whether there is an opinion/perception of me and
whether it is affecting another's actions or not, I may simply
discuss this with the other.
I commit myself to challenge myself to
break this habit by keeping my eyes up on the eye level and in front
of me, not in the ground, in the sky or out the window, in order to
be open and welcoming to the eyes of others.
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